Chapter 5 Elena Heart – POV

I should have. The thought flickered and died as his free hand found the slit in my gown, the one I'd chosen precisely because it offered freedom of movement. Freedom to run, I'd told myself.

Not freedom for this, his fingers sliding beneath silk and underskirt, rough skin catching on delicate fabric, deliberate and unhurried as though he had every right.

"The king watches," I breathed, though I couldn't see past Dark's shoulder, couldn't know if it was true. Why did I let this man touch me anyway?

Why?

I don't know. I was enchanted by his dark blue eyes.

"Let him." His breath burned against my ear, smoke and cedar and something else, something that made my knees weaken.

"Let him see what you look like when someone finally takes what you've been offering all night."

I opened my mouth to deny it, to protest, but his fingers found me then, slick and swollen and aching in a way I hadn't allowed myself to acknowledge. The sound that came from me was raw, embarrassing, cut short by my own teeth sinking into my lip.

"Wet," Dark murmured, approval thick in his voice. "Desperate. I wondered if you'd taste as hungry as you look."

Shock was an understatement, I felt…embarrased, angry and curious at the same time.

His finger circled my clit with maddening precision, not enough pressure, never enough, while his other hand pinned my wrist above my head against the stone.

I wanted to protest but couldn't, this was my first time someone touching me in my very private, “Ummmm,” why the hell was I moaning?

The mask gleamed in the moonlight, black enamel and twisted silver, framing the cruel shape of his mouth as he spoke filth against my throat.

"Imagine it," he whispered, and his finger pressed harder, making my hips jerk helplessly against his palm.

"His eyes on you while I fuck you against this pillar, moaning for someone’s cock. Would he come closer, do you think? Or would he watch you break from the shadows?”

The image burned behind my closed eyelids, those unseen eyes, Dark's mask, my own complete unraveling. His fingers plunged inside me, two of them, curling to find the spot that made my spine arch, my free hand clutching at his shoulder, his coat, anything to anchor myself as the pleasure built sharp and overwhelming.

"Please..." the word escaped before I could stop it, broken and begging.

"Please what?" His thumb pressed against my clit, ruthless, driving me toward the edge with terrifying speed.

"Please make you come? Please stop? Or please fuck you properly, the way your cunt is clutching my fingers, desperate to be filled?"

I couldn't answer. The pressure peaked, my body tensing, trembling on the precipice, and then his fingers withdrew, leaving me empty, aching, my release hanging just out of reach.

I was supposed to slap him, maybe with the hidden dagger, but I just looked at him with a sound of protest tore from my throat. “What the—”

Dark silenced it with his mouth, the kiss hard and tasting of smoke and my own arousal, his hand still gripping my wrist, his body holding me pinned as I squirmed against him, mindless with need.

When he pulled back, his eyes were darker than the night sky, something almost wild in their depths.

"Not yet," he said, and his free hand adjusted the front of his trousers where his own arousal strained against the fabric. "Not until you understand what you're asking for."

A sound interrupted us then, not from the ballroom, but from the shadows beyond the balcony's edge. A footstep, deliberate and unmistakable, followed by the faint rustle of heavy fabric.

Dark's head turned toward the sound, his body shifting to block me more completely from view. But I had already seen it, the glint of gold in the darkness, the shape of a crown catching the moonlight before vanishing back into shadow.

Was it the king?

Had he been watching? And it seemed, he was done merely observing.

Dark's grip on my wrist tightened, not painful but absolute, as he leaned close to whisper against my ear.

"He's coming for you," he murmured, and something in his voice, anticipation, warning, hunger, made my breath catch. "Choose now, little heart. His crown or my mask. You cannot keep both."

I couldn't answer. I don't want to answer because the moment I opened my mouth, Dark's fingers drove into me again, relentlessly, finding some hidden rhythm that made my knees threaten to give way entirely.

“What are you doing—”

His palm ground against my pubic bone with each thrust, the pressure deliberate, calculated to destroy what remained of my composure.

"That's it," he murmured against my ear, his breath hot and smelling of something spiced and dangerous. "Let him hear you. Let him know exactly what you sound like when someone finally claims what's been offered."

I didn't know who he meant at first, my mind had narrowed to the slick friction of his fingers, the stretch and fill of being penetrated so thoroughly.

Then I heard it: the deliberate scrape of a heel against stone, the whisper of heavy fabric being adjusted. In the shadows beyond the balcony's edge, something glinted, gold catching moonlight.

The crown.

My body seized, muscles clamping down on Dark's fingers involuntarily. He felt it, chuckling dark against my throat.

"He likes to watch," Dark whispered, the words carrying some hidden weight I couldn't decipher.

"Did you know that about your precious king? How he prefers the shadows to the throne? How he sends others to do his claiming while he observes?"

I opened my mouth to deny it, to insist I didn't care, that this wasn't what I'd planned, that I was supposed to be seducing the king, not being fingered senseless by someone against a pillar while he watched from the darkness.

What came out was a moan, broken and desperate, as Dark curled his fingers inside me and found some spot that made white spark at the edges of my vision.

"Please..." The word escaped before I could cage it, raw and pleading in a way that made my face burn with shame. I was a warrior. An assassin. I'd killed men with less effort than it took to draw my next breath.

I wasn't supposed to be this—this trembling, dripping, begging thing pinned against stone by a stranger's will.

Yet when Dark's thumb finally, finally settled against my clit and began to circle with the same ruthless precision he'd used everywhere else, I couldn't remember why any of that mattered.

"You're thinking too loud," Dark murmured, his free hand releasing my wrist only to tangle in my hair, pulling my head back to expose my throat to the moonlight.

"I can hear your mind warring with your cunt. One insists you're a good little soldier following orders. The other"—he thrust his fingers deeper, making me cry out…" the other knows exactly what you are. What you've always been beneath all that training."