Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Lashing out, I raked my claws across his face. Yet I’d missed his eye, marking little more than four torn red lines from eyebrow to ear.
It suited him, the blood and the diabolic smile that followed. Lips swollen from use, Cyderial pressed his mouth to my temple, breathing, “You would have let any male guide you through this?” A cruel laugh. “Trusted them when you were vulnerable and in pain? My foolish, beautiful girl. How would you have possibly been able to defend yourself against the unworthy?”
Another unbearable wave of torment left me doubled over. The sensation of a searing-hot poker scrambling my insides, leaving me to pant, “Wh-What are you doing to me?”
This was worse than death.
“Come.” Tender in his handling, he drew my stumbling, pain-wracked body from the wall and maneuvered me toward a mirrored cabinet. “Let me show you.”
When the pair of us were before the reflection, he brought my back flush to his thrumming chest. By breasts bared, my dress shredded and hanging on in tatters at my hips, I heaved for breath, wishing to fall to the floor and curl up in my misery.
But he held me to him. He made me look.
And then the velvet drumming continued, a pulsing reply ushered from my chest as it vibrated through my bones. And horrible pain grew into sheer misery.
He intended to make me watch as his music tore me in half.
My internal organs chose that moment to rip themselves apart, grinding against each other under the heat of the palm he pressed to my stomach, where he kneaded the flesh.
I screamed, driven to my tiptoes. Spine bent from pure agony, I began to pant like a wild beast and beg for death. “Please… stop.”
Nuzzling at my ear, he murmured, “Don’t fight it. Let yourself open for me.”
For him?
No. No. No!
It couldn’t be him!
Sobbing, I opened my eyes, hoping I might find something, anything that would show me this was just a terrible dream.
But the sight before me….
The mirrored face of one of his finer curio cabinets held the reflection of a dangerous man holding a smaller, exposed female in an unyielding embrace.
Low, glowing red light danced off my exposed skin, my precious dress torn to my waist so his hands might stroke the naked flesh of my stomach.
Breasts, swollen and heavy, moved with my erratic breath. Tears ran down cheeks flushed with shame and panic.
But him? General Cyderial possessed a look of utter demonic delight in that terrifying reflection.
The exact opposite of my clear distress in every way.
We were lurid in the mirror, the male fingertips dancing over my throat unsafe yet somehow beautiful.
Slowly, inch by inch, he grabbed handfuls of my tattered skirt, hiking the material higher, compelling me to watch as my thighs were exposed.
I couldn’t stop him, not with the pain I knew. I could hardly stand, yet I struggled nonetheless.
The purr of his voice warned me to obey. “Look.”
I watched him reach under my raised skirt, roughly grabbing the swollen scaled flesh between my legs.
There was one final moment of blinding misery.
Just one.
Followed by a gushing wave of instant relief.
Swooning in his arms, I would have fallen had Cyderial not supported my weight. While he had me docile and breathless, he forced me to watch in that mirror. Showed me his touch was succor, that his palm soothed, all the while kneading softness where there was none.
My head fell back against his shoulder. Exhausted from battle, a drug-like lull growing inside me, I had no ability to prevent him from doing as he willed.
A single lingering kiss was placed on my damp forehead.
To our reflection, he asked, “Do you see?”
The tips of his fingers began to gently spread flesh that had previously been solid. My iridescent scales had split down the middle, flashes of vibrant purple tinged with a little bit of blood opening with his touch. New flesh, soft flesh, laced with a dripping cream that seeped out of some unknown crevice.
Showing me I was now soft and malleable, he dipped a careful fingertip between that freshly torn slit of flesh, running his touch up the length.
Dear God!
My leg involuntarily jumped. Knee bent, I kicked at air, gasping for breath.
Nothing in life could possibly have prepared me for such sensation. This new feeling eclipsed—devoured—all else.
Not rushing my education, the tip of his finger traced every external alteration, the interior of each soft fold, so I might learn where I was most sensitive. When he stroked the slit in its fullness, my hips chased his touch for more.
And there was more—a freshly opened, tight channel he burrowed his middle fingers into until I melted.
Wrapped in sweet scent, the pulsating vibration from his chest coaxing me to relax, I could not remember why I had been afraid. I could hardly remember my name.
Female sounds came from parted lips, my body liquid as it ground against a strong male hand.