Chained to the Devil’s Daughter (Mating the Elements #1)

6

Searra

T aking a moment to ground and decompress after queening was key to maintaining my sanity. That typically looked like humming a song, naming all the shades of red in sight, scrubbing whatever fabric was in reach, or swallowing a handful of razors, basic stuff like that. It certainly did not include having a colossal demon wedged between my thighs tugging on my braids.

With a surprised hiccup, I loosened my posture to let him closer. “This will take some getting used to,” I admitted, skating my fingertips over every bump and ridge of his chest, noting the rough texture. “I don’t hug or even touch people often.” No need to elaborate. Ash’ren knew the rules. No touchy-touchy, only suitor hands allowed. “Everything I do is scrutinized.”

“I vow to touch you and scrutinize you as often as you please.”

I snorted, earning me a smirk and a prompt chomp on the tip of my nose. “Ow!”

My hand flew to my nose, and he laughed, the strained sound tugging my heartstrings the same way he tugged the tiny braids framing either side of my face.

The ease of the moment rendered me silent. Black swirled around his pupils. My lungs heaved for breath, and the next inhale tasted of clove, ash, and years lost.

I broke the silence first, my voice a rasp. “I’ll show you to your room.”

Two guards fell in line behind us in the hallway. Between smiling at the servants, who glanced warily between their familiar princess and the dirty escapee, I tried not to notice Ash’ren’s clenched fists. His stare was trained ahead, and his jaw set tight. I imagined how easy it would be to reach out and take his hand in mine, to walk the way we used to under the watchful night sky.

Hallways later, we crossed the threshold into the living quarters. I dismissed the sentinels. A young guard whose name I made a mental note to learn looked eager to tell me why sending them away was a bad idea, but Smok’in bowed and grabbed his cohort by the wrist.

“This is looking familiar,” Ash’ren murmured.

He’d ventured closer without our escorts, close enough his shoulder grazed mine. I gave it a bump. “You recognize it? I thought you’d have to see the broken window.”

“It’s only a little missing paint, and on the wood, not the glass.”

“I wonder how it became so.”

“No need to wonder.” He snaked an arm around my waist and hauled me to him, his breath hot on my neck. “It was me.”

I faked a gasp. “You, in the palace? On what authority?”

“A princess needed fucking. How could I deny her royal cunt?”

A sound came from behind, and I jumped from his arm. Ash instinctively followed my lead. Belatedly I recognized it as the clanging of a pipe.

We hastily made our way in silence from there. We passed my yellow door—another quiet rebellion I waged as a girl—and stopped at the next one, a long wall down.

“Here we are.”

“If I take a bath, will you stay?” he asked as I swung open the door.

“Of course.”

The guest suite was as cozy as could be found in Hell. With an open floor plan the size of my bed chambers, it wasn’t the largest guest apartment in the palace, but it was the only one that shared a wall with mine. By the way he scowled at the furniture in his path to the washroom, I’d chosen poorly.

“It’s. . .” He thumped the mattress with his fist. “Very soft.”

“Is that a pro?” No response. I touched my choker and followed him deeper into the suite, watching the flex of his muscles as he discarded his trousers in the middle of the room. Flames take me! His ass was still the finest in the four territories. “Or a con?”

The tub was already full and only required his magic to heat it. Large enough to fit us both twice, it didn’t have the ledge that encircled the one in my chambers, so I leaned against the doorway.

Head to toe, his body was lacerated with marks of varying sizes and shapes. My gut ached with how much he’d endured. My insides rose to a vigorous boil at the same time as his water. If only I’d convinced my father to match me with a Kindran suitor earlier. Perhaps I would’ve saved him sooner.

Masculine moans of pleasure derailed me from the corner of Self-Loathing Street and Regret Boulevard. I approached his deliciously wet, naked body, snatching a bottle of shampoo from a shelf.

“It’s only temporary.” Still, he wouldn’t look at me, so I rushed on. “At week’s end, my year with Filly will be over. Some nobles would discredit me for sharing a room with someone other than my suitor.”

Oh, flickity-flames. Sizzling droplets scalded my skin as his attention snapped to me.

“You share your bed with them?”

“Ab-so-flaming-lutely not, Ash.” Wide-eyed, I squirted a hefty amount of shampoo into his hair and lathered desperately. “There’s a suite off the side.”

“The golden door.”

“Yes.”

When we were kids, we’d thought the opulent golden door mysterious, as though it held possibilities for more play and discovery. As we grew, it faded into the background. I learned what it was the night my father revealed his plan to fill it with suitors. The same night I escalated our nightly explorations, knowing there was only one person I trusted with my virginity.

Without another word, Ash’ren scrubbed his body. A body I unabashedly ogled while allowing the information to set in. For years, we’d fucked and fought one wall away from the suitor of the year.

“So?” I prompted after an unbearable amount of silence. Ash’ren stood, and I fetched him a towel, trying and failing not to salivate at the ribbed thickness bobbing at his waist.

“So, a body resides in your closet.” He accepted the towel, dabbed at his calves and thighs, then settled it over his shoulders, grinning lecherously at my inability to wrench my stare from his dick. Half-soft and hanging down his thigh, it was glorious. “The same as before.”

“Yes.”

“And if I plan to sneak in any way?”

“Then I would say, we better still be good at being quiet.”

“We?” He brushed my nose with his. “You were never good at it.”

“We were never caught, were we?”

“Only because I knew when you needed your pretty, whiny mouth stuffed with cock. Among other things.”

“You can’t take all the credit,” I huffed a quiet laugh, studying the curve of his smile. “Sometimes I told you that I needed a mouthful.”

“Yes, princess, you were very vocal.” He dragged my waist to his, the air between us steamy. “Which is exactly the topic at hand.”

I yelped as he hoisted me with ease, carrying me across the room to the mattress. He sat on the long side, my knees settling to either side of his hips. It was a rather soft mattress, fluffy like it was full of imported goose feathers.

“Do you remember this?” His hands roved my back, our hips dancing. He tangled a hand in my hair and clamped onto my neck, all but drinking me down like a starving vampire. “All of our best conversations.”

I laughed, my body taking the sound as an encouragement to tango with his even further, sinking until the flimsy towel did nothing to hide his growing bulge. “I remember. It’s a wonder we ever completed a conversation.”

“Why’s that?” He grinned with that wicked mouth, and all it took was a twitch of my hips to make him groan. “You’re right.”

“As always.” Pleased, I pressed my breasts against his damp chest and ghosted a breath below his ear.

He groaned and fell back, eyes closed, his fingers digging into my love handles. “It’s no wonder we fucked like we were ready for a litter.”

I scoffed a laugh. “Rings, thank the flames that never happened.”

He growled and opened one eye to peer up at me. “In due time, our pups will fill these halls.” A blush raced hot up my neck and he chuckled. “Sometimes I forget how sweet you are.”

“Sweet?” I scoffed and swept a disdainful hand toward the vanity drawer that hid an array of toys. “Tell that to all our little friends.”

“Woman, I’ve not escaped the tower only to die by orgasm.”

I laughed and collapsed onto him, managing to still my hips but not to refrain from squeezing his bicep. His hands massaged into my scalp and I released an animalistic moan.

“I’m glad my pain is so humorous, but please, be still unless you wish to relieve me.” He’d meant it as a joke, but one palm flattened on my lower back.

I froze. Suddenly, the weight of reality was great enough to snap each vertebra of my spine. Here I was, pretending everything had returned to my brain’s standard for normal, simply because Ashr’en was home. Not once had I truly considered the impact this would have on him. Not to mention the way he may feel when he gets to know the real me.

I tried to lift my head, but he placed pressure on my scalp.

“Not yet.” His tone was soft. Like the infuriating demon somehow felt my reticence. “Please.”

I breathed deeply, opting to draw circles along his rough-hewn pec. After a long pause, I whispered, “I wish. . .”

He kissed the top of my head. “I know.”

I eased out of his grasp. He sat up with me, his hands grazing up and down my thighs. “Temporary. Only for a few weeks, when I can officially make you mine.”

He shrugged. “I can handle that.”

“There’s one more thing I’d ask.”

“Anything.”

“I’m not who I was,” I breathed, biting the tip of his nose when he started to protest. “I’m not afraid you won’t love me, but. . . I think a slow and steady pace would ease my worries.”

“I agree.”

“I—wait, pardon?”

“Readjusting to society will be a journey. I don’t want to use you as a crutch.” A shadow flickered through his blackened features. “So long as you don’t regret what happened earlier.”

“I’ll never regret a single moment with you inside me.” Though my words were true, my behavior the last night we shared flickered through my memory. “I’m s—”

He silenced me with a bruising kiss, the kind of kiss that banished any other though, let alone the ability to form words.

Chest heaving, his voice allowed no argument when he said, “Never. Never finish that sentence.”

He waited until I nodded assent to wrap his arms around me and fall back to the bed. We allowed time to tick past that way, him drowsing in and out as I traced his conduit lines.

“You have black flames now,” I mused when he woke from another mini-nap, his hand absently stroking my side from knee to breast.

“Hmm?” His movements became intentional, fingertips grazing my waist, hand whispering over the fabric under my bust. “Yes. A product of the implant, I assume. It seems to let me control the heat as well. Sometimes.”

“That sounds incredibly useful.” I shivered when his thumb explored the spot where my nipple lay under too much fabric.

“You have new friends.” He observed. “Some in brothels, apparently.”

I tittered at the secret knowledge that Elodie had shared with me. As a popular breeder in the skin districts of Ring Six and the most compassionate person I’d ever met, she was the only person who knew of my and Ash’ren’s adventurous love life. The only person who’d seen my tears for what they truly were.

Ash’ren put a stop to my inside joke with a graze of his thumb over my sex. I hissed in a breath and bucked. The towel scooted down an inch, giving my clit a luxurious thrum of friction.

“Elodie was in Fyre last I checked, a plaything no longer. Safe, hopefully.”

“Another of yours, then.” The low rumble of his chuckle vibrated my breasts where they pressed against him. “Dear Firefly, ever the savior of lost ones.”

“You weren’t lost, and I’ve kept you around.”

“I wasn’t lost because you found me.”

“Technically you found me and then just never left me alone—ahh,” I writhed as his left leg lifted onto the mattress, driving his length against my core. The towel was split wide open and his precum left a trail against my navel.