I Became the Final Boss's Nameless Fiancée and I Have One Season to Stop Him novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Window
To keep the envoy from breaking the treaty, Rina and the prince must look like a sealed couple; with a spy at the garden window, the act stops being an act, and the black ring over his heart burns her palm.
The king's envoy was a round man in a plum coat with a gold ring on every finger.
He stood in the great hall at noon, and his smile slid off his face when Rina walked in alive.
She came down the stairs on Kaldrith's arm in a borrowed grey dress, and she kept her hand flat on his sleeve.
"The Lady is much recovered," the envoy said.
He said it the way a man says it when he has bet on a horse and the horse has lived.
"The Lady is mine," said Kaldrith.
The envoy's eyes went to Rina's hand on that black sleeve, and then to the steward, and then to the windows.
"His Majesty will be glad to hear it. I will lodge in the keep, of course, to carry word to the capital."
"Of course," said Kaldrith.
That night a lantern showed in the garden under the east window.
It was one lantern, held low, behind a hedge.
Rina stood at the bedroom window in her white nightgown and counted the shapes of the men around it.
"Two," she said. "One with a spyglass."
"Three," said Kaldrith. "One on the wall."
He had not come near her since the door closed.
He stood by the cold hearth with his hands behind him, huge and still in the lamplight, his eyes on the floor.
"You may lock your own door," he said. "The key is on the table. I will sleep in the hall and they may believe whatever they believe."
"Is that what you want?"
His jaw tightened.
"It is not a question of what I want."
"It's the only question I'm asking." She crossed the room until she was standing in front of him. "Do you want me?"
The ember glow under his throat flared, orange, and went dark.
"Yes."
It was rough and low and quick.
"Good," Rina said. "So do I."
She took his hand and put it on her waist.
His claws pressed through the thin cotton, so lightly that she felt only warmth.
"They can see us from the window," she whispered. "Come into the light."
She backed him to the high chair by the window, put her palms on his chest, and pushed.
He sat.
Even sitting down, he was nearly her height.
Rina climbed into his lap, one knee on either side of his thighs, the nightgown riding up around her hips.
He made a sound in his throat.
"You're shaking," she said.
"Yes."
"Kiss me, then."
He looked at her mouth for a long, helpless moment.
Then he cupped the back of her head in one huge hand, tilted her face up, and kissed her.
It was clumsy for two seconds.
Then it wasn't.
His mouth was hot and he tasted of smoke and cloves, and he kissed like a man who had read about it in books for thirty years.
His fangs scraped her lower lip and she sucked it into her mouth.
He groaned.
His other hand slid down her back and gripped her hip, and he pulled her flat against him.
She felt him through his trousers, thick and hard and heavy against the inside of her thigh.
She ground down on it.
"Rina."
It was the first time he had said her name.
She had given it to him at breakfast, shyly, thinking it would sound strange in his mouth.
It did not sound strange.
It sounded like something he had been saving.
"Again," she said.
"Rina."
His hand moved up her bare thigh and stopped at the edge of her underthings.
"They're watching," she breathed. "Let them see."
"I do not care what they see."
His voice had dropped, dark and rough.
"I want to know if you're wet."
Heat shot down her spine.
"Find out."
His thumb pressed against her through the cotton, and she gasped.
She was soaked.
He felt it and went completely still, a small shudder going through the whole huge body.
"You are," he said. He sounded stunned. "For me."
"For you."
He pushed the cotton aside with one knuckle and drew his fingers along her, slowly, from her entrance to her clit.
She tipped her forehead against his temple, against the hard curve of the horn.
Her breath came in short pulls.
"There," she said, when his thumb found the swollen place. "Right there. Slower."
He slowed down at once.
He pressed in tight little circles, watching her face, learning her.
"Like this?"
"Yes."
"And this?"
He slid one thick finger inside her, then two, and she bit her own lip to keep from crying out.
He was so careful.
His claws were drawn back against his palm, and she could feel the effort in it.
"More," she begged. "Please, Kaldrith. Harder."
He curled his fingers up and in, stroking the spot he had found with an almost scientific attention, while his thumb worked her clit in those slow circles.
Her thighs began to tremble.
"That's it," he murmured against her ear. "Look at me. I want to see you."
She looked.
His eyes were glowing amber, the pupils narrow, locked on hers.
Nobody had ever looked at her like that.
Not as Rina, not as the girl in the bed.
"I'm going to-"
"Yes."
"Kaldrith, I'm-"
"Come for me."
She came with a cry she smothered in his neck, her whole body clenching around his fingers, the pleasure rolling up her spine in long hot waves.
He held her through all of it.
He kept his hand moving, gentle, until the last shudder passed, and then he drew out and held the wet fingers a little away from her.
Rina lifted her head.
His face was open and wondering.
"I've never," he said. "Nobody has ever let me."
"Let you what?"
"Touch them on purpose."
She kissed him, slow and deep, her fingers in his silver hair.
His hips pushed up against her, helpless, and she smiled against his mouth.
"My turn," she whispered.
She slid her hand down his chest, under the torn coat.
Her palm came to rest on the ring of black marks over his breastbone.
It burned.
Not like fire, but like a hot iron pressed against her skin, a sudden hard pain, and she yanked her hand back with a hiss.
Kaldrith caught her wrist.
His face had gone white.
"Don't," he said.
"What is that?"
"Don't touch it."
She looked at her palm.
A faint red mark lay across it, the same size as the ring.
When she looked up, the lantern in the garden had gone out.
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