Page 67 of The Midnight King
I have never seen anything so beautiful as Killian’s slender body braced over mine, glowing pale in the gloom, every toned muscle standing out as he fucks me with all the violence of his deepest nature. There’s a savagery in his movements, a feral need mingling with the all-consuming love in his eyes. Evenwhen he isn’t in the King’s form, the wolf is still there. It was always him.
His eyes are violet torches and his purple hair falls loose over his forehead as he drives deeper into me. He fills me up so perfectly, fits the space inside me just right, and I’m full, I’m healed, I’m safeandfree, and I let go, moaning and panting and saying his name in a shrill, breathless voice I’ve never heard myself use before.
“Killian,” I gasp. “I’m going to come again. Harder, please, harder… I’m coming, I’m co—”
I scream when the orgasm hits. I claw his back, and he kisses me with a snarl of primal pleasure. Then he shoves in hard, his body convulsing slightly as he releases deep inside me. A long, ragged groan emerges from his throat, and then he kisses me once more, tenderly.
That kiss fractures the last tiny shards of doubt in my soul. I go limp beneath him, my nerveless arms still flung around his neck. All my defenses are gone, and I am his entirely.
“I trust you,” I whisper.
He meets my eyes, a startled delight in his gaze. “You do?”
I nod, giving him a tearful smile.
He relaxes against me with a relieved moan. “I love you more than I can say.”
I whisper it back to him, and then we lie there awhile without speaking. But we both know that the bliss cannot last… not yet.
“We have bodies to deal with and annulments to achieve,” I murmur at last.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Killian responds. “I believe I have a rather clever plan to resolve all our problems at once.”
“When, exactly, did you concoct this plan?”
“Not while I was sheathed in your darling little cunt, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He gives my pussy a playful smack with his hand. “God-stars, I could stay in bed with you fordays.” He squishes my breast with his fingers, then kisses the soft flesh. “Look at you. You’re a dream.”
“And you’re not totally detestable.”
“Not totally detestable?” He grins. “Such high praise. I can die happy now.”
He moves his hand between my legs again, his fingers rippling through my folds and swirling over my clit. I go still, prey to the tantalizing sensation.
Killian brushes his mouth against my cheek, his tone tinged with amusement. “You’re becoming so sweetly wet for me again. I think you’d come a third time if I kept doing this. Unfortunately, my lovely Sin, we are out of time. Your husband will wake soon, and I cannot be naked in bed with you when he does.”
“I hate it when you’re right,” I grumble, rolling away from him. “Fine. Tell me your plan while I put my nightgown back on.”
When he’s finished explaining, I have to admit that his scheme is rather brilliant. And it unfolds as smoothly as we could have hoped.
First, he places my sleeping husband in bed beside me, while I pretend to be soundly asleep as well. Within the hour we are both roused by guards and servants, who inform us that my stepmother was caught in the King’s suite, bending over his corpse. The King’s bodyguards chased her to the top floor of the East Wing, where she leaped from a high window, presumably to her death. But no one has been able to locate her body.
The woman they chased was Killian, glamoured to look like Gilda. When he leaped from the top floor window, he simply passed through a portal of his own making and vanished from the guards’ sight.
The ruse frames Gilda as a potential reason for the King’s death, while leaving open the question of her mysterious comings and goings. The guards outside the Prince’s chambersaw my stepmother enter, yet they did not see her leave, while both Brantley and I swear we have no memory of her being there at all. To make matters more confusing for everyone, the King’s bodyguards can’t explain how Gilda slipped past them and entered the King’s chamber. Those mysterious, along with the use of magic at my wedding, give rise to whispered suspicions that my stepmother was a witch.
Disguised as various servants, guards, and palace officials, Killian is able to control both the investigation and the flow of information. He stirs up rumors among the palace staff, and those rumors soon catch like wildfire among the nobility of the royal city and the people of the surrounding region. All the mamas whose daughters were overlooked by the Prince are eager to have a reason for their disappointment. They begin to mutter among themselves that Gilda must have cast a love spell on the Prince to make him besotted with me, and that my marriage is nothing but a magically contrived trap for His Royal Highness.
Only Killian and I know the truth. And thanks to years of concealing my true emotions from my step-family, I’m able to fake all the feelings people would expect to see from me in such a scenario—confusion, shock, hurt, and anxiety. Beneath it all, I feel guilty for putting Brantley through this ordeal, yet I’m also eager for the day when I’m free to leave his side… a day which arrives quickly, thanks to Killian’s skillful manipulation of people both inside and outside the palace.
True to his noble nature, the Prince does not accuse me of foul play with magic or blame me for my stepmother’s treachery. But when I ask for the annulment, he agrees that it would be best for both of us. We approach the Bishop of Fate with our request just two days after our wedding, and the Bishop grants the annulment. After we sign the papers, I return the former Queen’s ring to her son. “It will look good on Winston’s hand,” I whisper to him, and he blushes.
As part of the dissolution of our marriage, my stepsisters are expelled from their new quarters at the palace. The servants pack up their belongings, and Brantley orders a carriage for them.
Neither of my stepsisters seem to truly grasp the fact that their mother is gone. They seem to believe that she will turn up again to domineer and direct them. And of course, rather than going gracefully back to Eisling House, Vashli sulks, while Amisa wails, “I don’t want to leave! Please don’t make us go, Your Highness. The thought of Mother having some sort of dark magic—it’s absurd, it’s not true! Oh Cinders, you ruineverything!”
They’re used to blaming me for everything that displeases them. In this case, I suppose the blame is warranted, and I take a secret satisfaction in that.
The palace guards have difficulty persuading my stepsisters to proceed to the carriage, but eventually their curses and protests fade as they exit the front hall of the palace.