Disabled Dragon King's Substitute Bride: Dawn Phoenix Awakening novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Wedding Night
Torvald means to frighten her, but Maelis pulls him in and the night turns hot, until she sees a scar on his legs shaped like a burned feather.
The king's chamber was a round room cut into the mountain, with a bed big enough for four.
A fire burned in a stone hearth. The walls were bare black rock, warm to the touch.
The servants stripped the wedding dress off her and left her in a thin linen shift.
They did not speak, and they did not look at her, and they closed the door on their way out.
Maelis stood barefoot on the warm floor and refused to wrap her arms around herself.
She was twenty years old, and she had never been alone in a room with a man.
She told herself that was fine.
The door opened, and Torvald rolled in.
He had taken off his coat.
His shirt was open at the throat, and she could see the heavy muscle of his chest rising and falling.
He closed the door with one hand and turned the chair to face her.
He was thirty-one, eleven years older than she was.
"Come here," he said.
She crossed the room.
She stopped an arm's length away, because her knees had stopped working.
His eyes moved over her slowly, from the loose hair to the thin shift and down to her bare feet.
"You walked three hundred steps with a bleeding blister," he said. "Sit on the bed."
She sat.
He rolled up beside it and took her foot in his hand.
The linen of her stocking had dried to the cut. He peeled it back carefully, and his thumb pressed the arch of her foot.
Heat ran up her calf. She sucked in a breath.
"Does it hurt?"
"No," she said. It was true, and it embarrassed her.
"Good." He set her foot down. "Because I do not intend to be gentle with the rest."
Her pulse jumped in her throat.
"I am a Hartwen," said Maelis. "I know what I owe."
She swallowed. "That is not why I am still standing here. I want you. I wanted you on the stair. Tell me what to do."
He laughed, once, low and dark.
"Is that so." He caught her chin and tilted her face up. "Take off the shift."
Her hands shook on the hem.
She pulled the linen over her head and let it fall.
The firelight touched her bare skin, and she watched his face change.
The cold control went out of it. What came in was hunger, plain and blunt.
"Closer."
She slid off the bed and stood between his knees.
His hands closed on her hips, and he drew her down onto his lap.
His arms were so strong she felt it in her ribs.
She braced her palms on his shoulders, and her fingers found the thick muscle there.
He kissed her.
It was not a polite kiss.
He took her mouth, hard and slow, and her cold hands went hot against his neck.
She heard a sound come out of herself that she did not recognize.
His mouth moved down her throat.
"You are cold," he murmured against her pulse. "Everywhere. Why is that?"
"I don't know." She dug her fingers into his hair. "Warm me."
He growled, and the sound shook through her chest.
He lifted her and set her on the bed in one smooth motion, then dragged himself up beside her with his arms.
The strength in his shoulders and back was almost frightening to watch.
He pinned her wrists above her head with one hand.
With the other he opened his trousers.
She looked. She could not stop herself.
He was thick and hard and heavy in his own fist, and her mouth went dry.
"Look at me," he said.
She dragged her eyes up.
"I cannot stand over you," said Torvald. "So you will come to me. Climb on."
Her heart slammed.
She knelt over his hips and felt the heat of him against the inside of her thighs.
His hands gripped her waist.
"Take me inside you, Maelis. Slowly."
She reached down, shaking, and guided the head of his cock against herself.
She was already wet, and it startled her.
She sank down an inch.
The stretch burned, sharp and bright, and she gasped.
He held her still with both hands and did not let her rush.
"Breathe," he said roughly. "There. Another."
She took another inch, and another.
When she was seated fully on him, her forehead dropped against his, and they were both shaking.
"Move," he said.
She rolled her hips.
The first slide was clumsy. The second was not.
His grip on her waist tightened, guiding her rhythm, and the friction lit something deep in her belly.
"Harder," she heard herself beg.
"Say it again."
"Harder, please, Torvald."
He bucked up into her.
The pleasure hit her in a wave, hot and heavy, and she cried out and clutched his shoulders.
He fucked up into her again and again, one hand sliding between them to find her clit.
His thumb pressed in tight circles, exactly where she needed it.
"Come for me," he ordered. "Now."
She broke apart around him with a sob.
He followed her with a groan against her throat, his whole body locking under hers, and heat poured into her.
For a long moment neither of them moved.
Her cheek lay on his shoulder.
His heart pounded under her ear, and his arm held her to him, and he did not let go.
When the room stopped spinning, she shifted to climb off.
The blanket slid from his legs.
In the firelight she saw them clearly for the first time, the thin, scarred legs lying still on the sheets.
A long pale mark ran down his left thigh.
It was shaped exactly like a single feather.
She knew that shape.
She had seen it carved on a bone comb that was still tucked in her hair.
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