.

vow. As if we were formed of one flesh and cleaved apart in some primal severing.

      Soon I feel it. The release. It hovers before me, tantalizingly close.

      He taps my clit with a clever finger, pulling back the hood and stroking the delicate bundle of nerves with all the pressure of a butterfly’s wing.

      I lean up and suck his neck, licking his flesh and reveling in the tangy taste. He grunts and flutters against me again and it’s enough. It’s more than enough.

      “Damien,” I moan again, unabashedly as I come as fast as an arrow shot from a quiver. “Oh God, Damien.”

      But even as I’m lost in this need, a new hunger builds inside me, wicked and insatiable. He has feasted on me countless times. It’s my turn for a taste.

      “What are you doing?” he asks as I slide down between his powerful thighs, nuzzling his steel-like erection, breathing in his hot musk.

      I look up and smile at his darkly dangerous gaze. “I am going to devour you.”

      Then parting my lips, I do just that. My cheeks tighten, sucking him in deeper, tasting the salty skin, the burst of precum.

      He pushes his hands deep into my hair, wrapping the thick strands around his fingers. I slide my tongue along his thick veins, working him gently down my throat.

      I’m in many ways an innocent, and yet I know on a primal level how to do this, how to please this enigmatic man. I grip his hips and lock my gaze on this.

      He seems enraged. And yet I sense it’s simply a look of ultimate concentration. He’s even harder now, but I’m not stopping until every inch is mine.

      “You’re killing me, Princess.” He thrusts between my greedy lips, fucking my hungry mouth. “How am I ever going to survive you?”

      I squirm as my pussy reacts to the base need in his voice and double down on the movements. I’m artless but determined. I want to bring this powerful man to his knees with pleasure.

      His balls are heavy beneath my chin and I reach out and stroke the underside.

      That’s enough. He goes rigid a moment before his movements grow more ragged as he spills his climax down my throat and I keep going until he’s milked dry.

      He closes his eyes. “When we were together before? Was it that good?”

      “Better, my prince.” I whisper into his ear, biting the lobe. “Even better.”

       CHAPTER NINE

      Damien

      I COLLAPSE NEXT to her, and we lie for a long while in silence—nothing but the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves. Juliet nestles her head in the crook of my shoulder, and for right now, in our hidden place, I feel like I might know what happiness feels like.

      “It’s beautiful,” she finally says.

      “What is?”

      She traces lazy circles on my chest, this woman who should despise me yet somehow still wants me.

      “Edenvale,” she says.

      I chuckle. “You’ve barely been beyond the palace walls.”

      She pushes me playfully. “I know. But it’s just—different. There is a freedom here that permeates the very molecules in the air.” She props herself up on one arm and looks at me. How could I forget those brown eyes? Her beautiful skin with those cheeks flushed with the afterglow of whatever the hell we just did? “I know I sound ridiculous,” she continues. “But Nightgardin is different—for royalty and for commoners.”

      I think about Juliet’s speculation that it is her own royal guard responsible for what was done to me. But then why bring me to Edenvale? Why drop me outside the hospital when they could have left me for dead, and no one would have been the wiser? I would have been another headline. Another mess for my family to clean up. If it was Nightgardin who did this to me, they must have some other motive for which I am some pawn.

      “Do you really believe it was your people who almost killed me?”

      Her breathing hitches. “I will never forgive myself if it is.”

      I skim my fingers along the line of her hair, and she turns to kiss my palm.

      “Why?” I ask. “Why after all that has happened do you still want me like this?”

      She kisses the scar above my eye, then the one on the side of my face. She brushes her lips gingerly over the bridge of my broken nose.

      “Because I know you’re still in there,” she says. “I know the man I spent a magical three days with will find his way back to me.”

      “What man is that, Juliet?”

      She smiles softly. “A man whose first instinct was to take care of me the moment you saw me. A man who let me choose and put me first.” Her lips sweep across the line of my jaw. “A man who said he’d come for me when my own guards tore me away from you. And I have to believe that if you could have, you would have.”

      Something in me sinks. “Even before what happened to me, I never recognized myself as the guy you remember. What if he’s gone for good? What if I can’t ever be who you thought I was? You claim we were intimate like I’ve only ever been with one other person, but we both know how that ended. I am not some knight in shining armor that can save you from the evils that lurk in this world.” Her expression falls, and I know I should stop. She feels something for a version of me that doesn’t exist. “Juliet—I am the evil that lurks in this world. You were a fool to believe I could be anything other than what my true nature is.”

      I roll her off of me, pull up my jeans and stand. “We should return to the horses.”

      She pulls a small handkerchief from her pocket and walks to the riverbank to clean herself up. Then she rights her own clothing, transforming into a perfect princess at lightning speed.

      “When will you stop punishing yourself, Damien?”

      I blow out a long breath. “I‘m pretty sure my life in purgatory is permanent.”

      I turn to leave the clearing, but she grabs my wrist with a strength and ferocity I cannot ignore.

      “You do like a challenge, Damien Lorentz, Prince of Edenvale and future King of Nightgardin, do you not?”

      I bark out a laugh. “I married my enemy’s future queen as both our guards readied to take one or both of us down. I’d call that more of a death wish, would you not?”

      “Answer me, husband. Do you or do you not love a good challenge?”

      Her dark eyes burn with a fierceness that tells me she will make a most excellent queen—if her head isn’t mounted right next to mine.

      “Yes,” I relent. She knows that part of me well enough, at least.

      She tugs at each side of my leather jacket. “I challenge you to let me show you that your heart is good and true, that you deserve more than you give yourself credit for.”

      I raise a brow. “And what’s my end of the bargain?”

      She shrugs. “Just believe that this child is yours and swear to protect it with your life. I’ll prove to you and your family that my intentions for coming here are none other than to do the same. Because I know your restraint also comes from a lack of trust.”

      I wrap a hand around each of her wrists. “Don’t take it personally, Princess. I don’t trust anyone.”

      She rolls her eyes. “Do we have a deal, Your Highness?” Then she yanks her hands free and snakes them under my open jacket and around my waist. “Because I know exactly how we should seal it.”

      She is relentless, and I want nothing