Kneel Before The Dragon Queen novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Man at the Door

On her wedding night Kerensa and Torin consummate the marriage with Hadrian listening outside, and at dawn he leaves her old guardsman's whistle on the sill.

The guest chamber had one bed, one fire, and a door thin enough to hear a man breathe through.

Hadrian took his post outside it without a word.

I heard his boots stop, and I heard the guard bolt the latch from the other side.

Torin set his cloak on a chair and looked at the bed.

"Say the word and I'll take the floor," he said. "We make noise, he hears noise, he swears to it."

"He'll know."

"He's a man. He'll hear what he's told to hear."

"He knows me," I said.

I had not meant to say it.

Torin's eyes sharpened, but he did not ask.

I crossed the room and stood in front of him, close enough to feel the heat coming off his body.

He was taller than I had noticed, and broader, and he smelled of woodsmoke and snow.

I had not been touched in five years.

I had not wanted to be.

I wanted it now, with a hunger that frightened me.

I knew some of it was spite, and some of it was only that he was warm.

"I'm not asking you to take the floor," I said.

"Lark."

"Not asking you to swear a lie, either."

I put my hand flat on his chest and felt his heart slam against it.

"Then what are you asking?" he said, and his voice had dropped.

"Kiss me, Warden."

He did.

It was not gentle, and I did not want gentle.

His mouth came down hard on mine, and his hand slid into my braid and pulled it loose, and I gasped against his lips.

He tasted of wine and cold air.

I pulled at the clasp of his shirt, and he stripped it off over his head and dropped it on the floor.

His chest was scarred like a battlefield, old white lines across the ribs and one long pink one at the hip.

I traced it with my thumb, and he hissed.

"You're burning up," he said against my throat.

"It's the fire."

"It's you."

He peeled my grey dress off my shoulders and down.

The cold air hit my skin, and then his mouth did, hot on my collarbone and the swell of my breast.

I arched into him.

He took my nipple between his teeth, and I cried out before I could stop myself.

Outside, a boot scraped.

I did not care.

I wanted Hadrian to hear every sound.

I wanted him to know exactly what he had thrown away.

Torin lifted me and carried me to the bed, and the ropes creaked when he laid me down.

He knelt between my knees and looked at me, and I saw the wanting on his face plain as day.

"You're beautiful," he said roughly.

"Then stop looking."

He laughed, low, and pushed my skirts up past my hips.

His hands spread my thighs and his mouth found me, and I nearly came off the bed.

He licked slow, deep strokes over my clit, and he held my hips down when I bucked.

"Torin," I said. "Torin, please."

"Louder."

I heard what he meant.

"Torin!" I cried.

He growled and sucked hard, and two thick fingers pushed into my pussy and curled, and the world went white at the edges.

I came with a shout that rang off the stone.

He didn't stop.

He worked me through it, tongue and fingers, until I was shaking and begging, and then he rose and kicked off his boots and breeches.

His cock stood thick and flushed against his stomach.

I reached for it, and he caught my wrist.

"Not yet," he said. "I want to feel you around me."

He lined himself up and pushed inside me in one slow stroke, and I felt every inch.

I gripped his shoulders and my nails dug in.

"Look at me," he said.

I looked.

His brown eyes were dark and fierce, and I saw that he had no idea who I was and wanted me anyway.

"You feel like fire," he said.

He began to move.

He fucked me hard and steady, the bed knocking against the wall and my legs wrapped high on his back.

Every thrust ground against the place that made me cry out.

I met him stroke for stroke.

I was not a queen or a healer, only a woman with her husband inside her.

"Say it," he rasped. "Say my name."

"Torin."

"Again."

"Torin, I'm going to..."

"Come for me."

I broke apart a second time, clenching around him, and he groaned and buried his face in my neck.

His rhythm stuttered.

He thrust deep once, twice, and came with my name in his mouth, and the name he used was Lark.

It stung more than I expected.

We lay tangled and breathing as the fire burned low.

On the other side of the door, the boots did not move.

After a while they walked away.

At dawn, when the bells rang and the guard unbolted the latch, a small thing lay on the sill outside.

It was a brass whistle on a leather cord, worn smooth.

I had given it to a young guard captain on the night he swore to be mine.

It was the only thing in the world that could have told me he was sorry.

Or that he knew exactly who I was.

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