Page 83 of Born for Silk
It’s what I wanted.
I’m so confused.
Didn’t I do this right?
My vows: I'll thrill and quiver in being the vessel that brings him peace. I'll massage him inside my heat, clearing his mind and mine to all but Meaningful Purpose.
He is meant to be peaceful. I’m meant to have taken his darkness and frustrations. I failed—my throat tightens with tears. “You don’t want an heir, my king?”
“It’s not that simple.”
Yes, it is.
Still blind, I squint as the dark shadows dance around the room. “It is. Didn’t I bring you peace? Was I not good?”
“Your life may be simple and peaceful,” he states, his voice growing rougher, bearing a dark hatred. “Bat your eyelashes, spread your pretty thighs, and let a lord fuck you bloody, but I’m not so easily conditioned to my so-called-Purpose.”
He makes it sound awful.
His cruel utterance delivers a crushing hit, bursting the cracked dam of my resolve. Overcome, overstimulated, I give in—tears spring from my eyes, a sob wrenches from me.
He curses, prowls up the bed, and pulls the veil from my face, demanding I look at him.
“No!” I try to keep it on, to hide from him.
He doesn’t let me, his fist holding the silk in the curve of my neck. “I’m sorry.” He kisses my eyes as they weep. “Aster. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you ruining this for us?” I sob.
“I’m not a kind man! I warned you.”
“Yes, you warned me. You warned me well.” Glaring up at him through the dim, I see his perfectly virile features through a sheet of tears. “You’re not a kind man! You’re not a man, not human at all!”
I want to hurt him. Like he just hurt me. Though I doubt he cares. He’s probably pleased to be without humanity, without Common romanticisms. Just like Iris is, all my emotions are disorders to their kind.
“Aster.” He kisses me once. “Only for you.”
“Only for me what?”
He drops his forehead to mine, exhaling hard. “Humanity only clings to me for you, little creature. Don’t cry.”
“I was meant to bring you peace,” I admit.
“Peace.” He lifts his head, his dark gaze softening on my face, following the roll of my tears. “Is that what this feeling is?”
I sniffle. “You feel peaceful?”
A small smile wars with his lips. “I feel something… I want to stare at you and your pretty human tears, don’t want to move from this moment, and will kill the man who interrupts this— This still. This… contentment. Is that peace, little creature?”
“Almost,” I answer. “I think you’re fighting it.”
“I was built to fight.”
My chest squeezes for him. “You can stop when you’re with me, my king. You can be gentle because I like it. You can be kind because your words matter to me. They hurt me. I won’t tell anyone what you look like under the thick skin they made you wear in this life.”
“Fuck.” Groaning, he drops to my side, keeping his body close and his hands on me.
I don’t move, my spine flat to the mattress like it advises in my studies. Backside elevated. Breathing even.