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unwoman was the worst—and the truest. What else would you call a woman incapable of giving her husband a son? A child was a blessing from Helfa. I’d never even managed a daughter. Clearly, I was cursed.
The King of Flesh and Bone.
Five winters ago, I’d sworn an oath inside the Tarwood Chapel, promising John the obedience of a woman, the fruitfulness of a mother, and the dutifulness of a wife. Three promises given. Two promises broken. The third, I’d keep.
The damn mule had dragged me to the Blighted Fields, but I couldn’t pass the Æfen Gate into the Graying Tower. No human could enter—
“Your heart will beat for eternity, and no age shall befall your warm body while in my service, little mortal.” The King’s dark whisper hushed against my sweat-pearled temple. “Welcome to the Pale Court.”
“My court is so… cold.” Gentle fingers brushed wet hair over my shoulder before they trailed down my back, making me arch away. “Shh… never evade my touch, mortal, or deny me your warmth.”
“Every part of you, my little one, will serve me for eternity, starting with those lush lips. They will wrap around my length while I thrust against the back of your throat. And once you know the taste of my seed by heart, I will make every other orifice mine to play with. To fill and stretch until you quiver with need, begging me to allow you release.”
I’d rather be a fool than his whore.
“Let’s see how long it’ll take you this time to kneel before your king.”
“I am the heat between your legs, the throbbing in your cunt, the moan in your throat, the tremble in your bones, and the ache inside your belly, hungering to make me sate it.”
Theres’s no place, my little one, where you could hide from me. Not forever.”
How long since I’d last touched a woman? Nearly two centuries.
for a god formed to perfection, her imperfections fascinated me the most.
“I’ve sometimes been quiet. Now and then, obedient. I’ve certainly never been both at the same time.”
“You want to see the sky, little one? Then paint it onto the ceiling, for you’ll never see it again.”
“Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. Never my whore, forever my woman.”
“Love is a painful curse,” he said. “Now I only lust, slaking it in the tight holes of my little treasure.”
What if he was right? What if I’d been so starved of the strong set of a man’s arms that I’d taken refuge in the embrace of the devil?
“Do I not stroke and pet and dote on you for hours, little one? Tease this little bud until it peeks from its hood, hard and needy? Like this. Mmm, yes. Slow. Gentle. That’s how my woman loves it.”
“Mmm, my little one got herself all wet again, making such a needy mess between her legs that I shall tend to. Let me have a taste of my woman’s cunt.”
Something fractured inside me with my next inhale—perhaps my sanity, though likelier, my self-respect.
“Because I do know the sorrow and agony of losing a child.”
“You’re about to wed the King of Flesh and Bone. Correct me if I am mistaken, but that, my little one, makes you a queen.”
“I shall cherish you for eternity and give you all of what I have. Except for my heart, for we both know I have none to give.”
“Worse than a god in rage is a god in love.”
A most perfect mate. My woman, my wife. My queen?
“Ah, I am gaining the sense that my wife will not stop pestering me.” “A husband’s lot until he dies.” She shrugged, chewing down a self-satisfied grin. “Or in your case, for eternity.”
“You are only the second living woman I have touched, yet you are second to none.”
Come near my wife, and I shall call upon every bone in the ground until the earth shakes and the land cracks once more, raising an army that will raze kingdoms, continents, the entire world… killing everything that breathes.”
“My little wife, your husband is a formidable dancer, unmatched by any mortal man. When gods dance, time itself stands still, so it may watch us in our grace.” I couldn’t help but grin up at him. “Oh, gods and the stories they tell.” A spark came to his eyes, followed by his telltale smirk of mischief. “I shall prove it.”
“You, my little one, were made for me.”
“Child or no, you are precious beyond all, and you have my devotion for eternity.”
“My mortal wife shall sit on a throne of the dead, motifs of trees and birds and meadows carved into its bone. Is that what you wish?”
During our lovemaking, my husband had accidentally made the dead crawl from the ground. My temporary surrender had blown his mask off, right along with his control. Perhaps he was no less trapped than I, exposing a heart he claimed he no longer had.
He’d vowed no mortal shall find rest at the Pale Court, and none did. He’d promised to make every one of my orifices his to play with, and he had. He’d threatened his cock up my arse if I wasn’t agreeable, and he’d done that, too. All perfect examples of his truthfulness, but even without saying them out loud, I sounded like a madwoman, even to myself. As much as those things proved his sincerity, all it did was make him an honest devil—one who likely burned at the stake at this very moment.
He scoffed. “You think yourself so superior, yet you’ve failed to escape the soldier’s ambush.” To save my wife.
“It’s no sickness.” It was worse. For days, I’d woken nauseous, unable to keep much down, lest I nibbled on stale bread. It got better as the day grew older. Combine that with the fact that I was late on my bleeding, and you didn’t need to be a midwife to figure out just from what condition I might suffer.
All this time, children had been at rest across the realm, all over a vow of ‘til death do us part to my husband undying.
“This woman has wed the devil, the King of Flesh and Bone.” Groans of disgust resonated through the crowd, but it turned into the roar of chaos when he added, “It is believed that she carries the devil’s spawn in her belly. Find her, good people of Elderfalls. Find her or this woman will cast the world into eternal darkness.”
“How extraordinary,” Eilam’s voice wafted around me. “There is more life in you than in any before. More than I need to sate this hunger existence has cursed me with.”
