House of Beating Wings (The Kingdom of Crows, #1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

fling a smile Silvius’s way because there’s nothing more disarming than a smile. Males aren’t sure what to do with a smile but have plenty of ideas what to do with a blush.

Nonna says I’m a dreamer, but if I don’t dream, then what am I left with? A mother who gave her body to an unworthy man, and a grandmother who gave her heart to a punitive one? Reality is too heartbreaking.

Oh, this man. I move my grandfather’s name to the top of the list of men I will remove from power once I become queen.

“No, but I prefer to be the only Lucin familiar with the shape of your body and the fragrance of your”—he lowers his nose to the delicate skin behind my earlobe—“cunt.” I break out in goosebumps. Never would I have imagined my body reacting to that skeevy word with anything other than distaste, and yet, from Dante’s lips, it sounds downright sensual.

As he pumps his hips, whispering how wondrously tight I feel, sweat breaks out along my hairline. In all of Mamma’s books, the heroines experience such pleasure during the act that, without fail, it brings them to orgasm. I’m starting to think these anonymous publications were written by men, because I’m closer to weeping than I am to climaxing.