Page 95 of Born for Silk
“I understand, Sire.”
“Good. You can leave.”
And so can I. If she is no longer ovulating, I can accompany the CR Guard to the Black Matter Mines, show them my support for their Meaningful Purpose, and gift them some House Girls. I glare at the sleazy creatures ahead of me. Obviously, they are no use to me anymore.
“Paisley,” Kong calls from his station behind me. “You look exhausted.”
“I haven't slept well,” she says from a small distance away, and I turn my head to stare at her for the first time this night. Dark bitten-moons cup her hollow eyes.
“Perhaps she should take a break now, Sire,” Kong offers. “She's not needed around at all hours to monitor the Silk Girl. Now is the right time.”
I shut it down. “She is needed at all hours.”
With a polite bow, she walks away, and I prepare myself for Kong’s imminent insight.
“Everyone needs sleep.”
And there it is.
“She can sleep when she is dead.”
He sighs roughly, and I feel it’s significance even as he stands behind my throne. "You care for that girl. I never thought I'd see the day."
Deliberately obtuse, I ask, “The Watcher?”
He chuckles. “Aster.”
“It's unbearable,” I grit out, still willing the House Girls, dancing and playful before me, to wake up my cock. They don’t. “And I want her, all the time, right now. I want to be around her. She keeps fucking curling into me, and I want to throw her from the bed, but I pull her closer instead. I want to freeze time and hold her. It's like a fucking curse. She is just a Silk Girl, and I am a fucking fool.”
“She curls into you? Seeks safety in you. What I would give for...” He clears his throat, and I save him from my warnings about dreaming of my fragile sister. She is no man’s. That is her vow. And he knows better.
I consider the moment I fought my father, the night I killed him, when I tore his head from his shoulders.
Did he let me?
It was that or kill me.
I will never know.
He was huge, far bigger than me at the time, but I did it fuelled with rage. Perhaps that was my strength. The emotion he lacked powered me. "Did my father ever have this kind of affection for anyone, for a girl?"
"No. No, he didn't.”
“Of course he didn’t.” He was no one’s fool, not soft, nor kind, nor gentle. “He was a king.”
“It's not that he couldn't or even wouldn't. Simply, the right someone never crossed his path, boy. Pity, really. Everyone should feel it once.”
"She's going to have our heirs. That is all,” I confirm, forcing apathy along the length of that statement. That is all. That is all she desires, all she is. To adore, pleasure, provide, fuck right off. Fine.
"In the dark. In secret,” he baits me, trying to decipher how far I am willing to go for her.
To the end…
But she doesn’t want that.
He wants to know how many rules I will break. All of them… He wants me to. And yet, like him, the woman of my affections belongs to The Trade.
“Will you let her go?” he asks.