Nine Hot Therians and Their Only One Queen novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Shadow Reads Her

Ruvan the spymaster shows her the Blight map and takes her on his library table; then Bracken's men drag in her friend Wren.

Kaelen's sword was out before the panther finished standing.

"Ruvan," he said, flat. "You were in the rafters the whole time."

"Only for the last part," said Ruvan Sable. "I was in the wall for the first."

Linnea yanked the sheet higher.

"Please tell me you heard nothing."

"I heard everything," said Ruvan, perfectly polite. "You have lovely lungs, Majesty."

Kaelen growled low in his throat.

"Put it away, wolf," said Ruvan. "I'm not here to fight over her."

"I'm here because Bracken has dismissed her servants since the Stone lit."

Linnea's head came up.

"All of them?"

"Every cook and maid in the east wing."

"The treasury is sealed on his order."

"Your first night as queen, and you have a bedchamber and a locked purse."

She swore, a ferryman's word, and both men looked at her.

"Don't tell me you've never heard it," she said.

"Kaelen, put guards on the kitchens."

"Anyone Bracken sent away is hired again, by me, at the old wage."

"The Chancellor will say you have no authority."

"Then he can say it to my face, in front of the cooks."

Kaelen gave a short nod, and something in his jaw eased.

"Yes, Majesty."

He pulled his shirt on, and his eyes lingered on her for a second too long, and then he was gone.

Ruvan stayed.

"Your captain is half in love with you already," he said.

"And you?"

"I am a spy," said Ruvan. "I watch. It is a very different thing."

"You didn't answer."

He smiled slowly, and it was a very good smile.

"Get dressed, Majesty. I have something to show you."

The study next to her chamber was dusty and bare, and he lit one lamp.

He unrolled a long map across the oak table.

It showed Hearthmark in brown ink, with a ragged white line scribbled along its northern edge.

"The Whiteblight," Ruvan said. "That was the border at sunset. This is it now."

He pointed to a second line, drawn in red a thumb's width behind the first.

"You did that. Kaelen did that, with you."

Linnea stared at it.

"One thumb's width."

"Eight more, and the whole of it is gone."

She traced the red line with her fingertip.

For the first time since the soldiers came to her ferry, the thing in her chest was not fear.

It was something closer to pride.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Because you ought to see what you're doing. Not what you're being told."

His green eyes held hers.

"Bracken will tell you that you were pushed into a room with nine beasts, and that you are the victim."

"You are not."

"You are the only person in the kingdom holding a line, and I wanted you to see it."

Her throat tightened.

Nobody had ever said anything so kind to her without wanting something.

She looked up at him, and he was close, closer than she had noticed.

He smelled of cold air and clean ink.

"What do you want, Ruvan?" she asked.

"What I want," he said quietly, "is to be allowed to touch you."

"I have watched you since the soldiers fetched you from your ferry."

"I watched you hold the Stone, and tear up that writ, and I have wanted you ever since."

"I'm twenty-four," she said, stupidly.

"And I am twenty-eight. Is that a problem?"

"No." She laughed, shaky. "I want you to touch me. Please."

He took her chin in two fingers and kissed her.

It was slow and deliberate.

His tongue slid against hers and she moaned into his mouth, and he made a low pleased sound.

"Sit," he said.

He lifted her onto the edge of the oak table and pushed the map aside.

The red ink line was right beside her hip.

He unlaced her dress with one hand while kissing the side of her neck.

He drew the bodice down until her breasts were bare in the lamplight.

"Beautiful," he said, quietly. "I knew you would be."

He took one nipple in his mouth, and she gasped, and her fingers dug into his black hair.

He sucked and teased it until she was squirming, then moved to the other.

His hand slid up her thigh.

"Open for me."

She spread her legs.

He found her already wet, slick with the last of Kaelen and her own heat, and he made that low sound again.

"Hm. He didn't finish the job, did he?"

"Don't," she panted.

"I'm not insulting him. I'm admiring you."

Two of his fingers pushed into her pussy, slow and sure, curling toward the front.

She cried out.

"There," he said softly. "That's the one."

He worked her with those fingers and his thumb on her clit, steady and unhurried, watching her face the entire time.

"You like being watched," Ruvan said. "Don't you?"

She did.

She had not known it until that moment.

"Yes," she gasped.

"Say it properly."

"I like you watching me."

He watched her mouth open and her eyes squeeze shut as she came apart on his hand.

When she cried out, he caught the sound in a kiss.

Then he unfastened his trousers, and his cock was long and slim and flushed dark.

He pulled her to the table's edge and sank into her in one smooth slide.

They both groaned.

"Look at me," he said.

She looked.

He fucked her slowly, hips rolling, never looking away, one hand cradling her jaw.

She hooked her legs around him and tried to pull him faster, and he only smiled.

"Patience."

"I hate you," she said, laughing and desperate.

"You don't. You want me to go harder."

"Yes. Please."

He gave her what she asked for.

He drove into her, the heavy table scraping on the stone, the map crumpling under her hands.

She felt the climax gather low and wild, and she held on to his shoulders, saying his name.

"Together," he said, and ground into her.

She came with a sob, and he came inside her with a shudder, burying a groan in her throat.

The gold light flared again, white and quiet.

On the crumpled map, the red line beside her hip had crept another thumb's width.

"Two," whispered Ruvan, laying his forehead against hers.

Linnea was catching her breath when a fist hammered on the study door.

"Majesty!" It was Kaelen, and his voice had changed.

"The Chancellor's men have your friend Wren, and they're dragging her to the Hall."

"They say she tried to poison you."

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