My lips fell open. “That is disgusting!”

  “I am aware.” He flashed me a warning glare. “It will be difficult for them when our daughters begin to mature. Nature screams that you must do one thing, your conscience telling you another. I will confess there was a night I came into your room as you slept, prepared to take you away. You had just come of age, and I felt I waited long enough. You lay on your side, that stolen pink rock in your palm. You must have been looking at it before you closed your eyes. Seeing you that way, vulnerable, I remembered that little girl who snatched it off my shelf. And I couldn’t bring myself to touch you.”

  What was I to say to that? What was I to do but sit back and listen?

  “To the other males, I may make it appear that denying your song was easy, but it was agonizing. I do not imagine many would be able to wait a year, let alone ten. My ability to withstand suffering—perhaps that is why Miranda would see me as her king.” Looking up from his work to stare me dead in the eyes, he said, “Eyes will be on you.”

  Maeve was the born leader, not me. “I am not their queen.”

  “Yet still they ask you to pave the way for them.”

  From Thayer’s announcement that night, he—another general—would not wait longer than the few days to graduation. “The men… if they won’t practice patience like you did, our daughters will be in danger.”

  There was no teasing, no suggestive male noises. Nothing but ruthless determination. “The academy is more necessary than you might wish. Females who have begun to mature must be put somewhere others cannot reach them. All mothers must hand over their daughters or face the consequences of what could take place.”

  I could not imagine it, already feeling the loss of a child I could hardly conceive of. One I swore to myself I would never put in such an awful situation. “Humans may not see our children as people, and to them, separating a human-born hybrid from the birthmother may be nothing, but five years old is too young.”

  He did not agree or disagree, only extoled the virtues of his precious academy. “There is a full curriculum on par with what the humans are taught. There is safety and food. And the library is well stocked. I’ve seen to it myself.”

  He was being unreasonable, and I did not know how to make him understand. “Yes. And there are also hangings, and beatings, and armed guards watching you urinate. It might be called an academy, but its anything but.”

  Peeling another food thing I didn’t recognize, he cut off a corner and offered me a taste.

  Jarred by the sudden zip of sourness on my lips, I gave a shiver from head to toe yet found it delicious.

  “Notice, you already eat from my hand, instinctively trusting your king. Set your fears aside and quiet your mind. It is distracting you from the fact that your gut knows your mate will take care of everything. You are safe.”

  There was a hook in that bait. “If I get pregnant⁠—”

  “When you get pregnant.” Direct, he held my eyes.

  “—you’re asking me to⁠—”

  Stuffing another slice of sour fruit in my mouth, he silenced me. “I know what I am asking. Eat, take your frustrations out on my cock, and then you will sleep. Tomorrow, your new responsibilities begin.”

  After I was fed, I had ridden him within an inch of my life, tormenting his writhing snake with a slow, sinking onslaught and whispered demands. I had done so as if I might stretch the final night of my freedom from the academy, keeping him groaning from the sucking slit between my legs.

  My tricks were allowed for only so long.

  I might have been on top, but his powerful hands and thrusting hips were more than capable of taking what they wanted when it was clear I would not invite a knot until morning light.

  I was fucked, hard, bracing against his chest and unable to do more than arch my back and take it. Then I was punished. Knotted and left leaning back against his bent knees for support, I watched as he took his thumbs and spread my slit until vivid purple stretched by a huge knot was on display. Braced and grinning, Cyderial’s long, demonic tongue slathered the mess of slick through sensitive folds until I realized there was no escaping.

  Never again would I torture him without knowing the price.

  Bearing down as hard as I might, I still could not unseat his cock.

  Trapped, he made me come until I was sobbing apologies.

  Only to suffer an endless knot and be licked for hours more.

  As he did it, he whispered from the shadows clever threats and dark promises.

  Things he claimed he would give me if only I might kneel to my king.

  13

  The cut and color of my uniform was no longer that of a recruit. Drab-gray had been replaced with stark-black. A male silhouette replaced by one that had room for breasts and flared hips. The image I presented was one of a woman, and a soldier, and a traitor to my kind.

  Every recruit would see this and fear what I might do to them. I, who knew many of their secrets, who was aware of contraband and misdeeds.

  They would be right to hate me. After all, I was now affiliated with the male most responsible for their suffering.

  What was coming would be unpleasant.

  Loneliness. There had not been much time to consider how alienated I would be within the academy, not with all the distractions of an aggressively sexual new mate who loved to touch me morning, noon, and night. But now I had a job to do, an assignment that would keep us apart while I educated children on how to slaughter vorec without accidentally cutting off their limbs.

  The bun at my nape was tight, regulation.

  The frown on my lips standard.

  “You look so sad.” The comment wasn’t for me. Cyderial was staring at my reflection, full of thoughts of his own. “I hate that your stomach is flat.”

  Oddly, I agreed.

  There was something very natural and female about being filled by your mate, even if it disfigured the body I knew. You walked differently, relaxed at every opportunity. Shoulders rounded softly, everything loose. And then there was a palpable plug inside you as the body absorbed fluids and nutrients, a titillating comfort and promise you were not alone.

  The distended, swollen belly that had so frightened me days ago was now… well, it was welcome.

  As Miranda had said, “You figure it out.”

  I suppose I had.

  Cutting my sad glance from my refection, I met his eyes, too forlorn to care about shyness. Somewhat angry with him for doing this to me, somewhat depressed, I muttered, “I like it better when I feel you inside me. This feels wrong, now that I know what I’m supposed to be.”

  For a brief moment, I thought he might actually rip my clothing off and knot me right there on the bathroom counter. He swallowed, the fire in his eyes changing from blaze to dangerous smolder. “When your duties are complete, come to me, and I will give you everything you need.”

  “At the academy?” In his office, where everything had gone sideways? Suddenly, I didn’t want the comfort of a plug, nor the drumming of an excited mate. I didn’t want to think about it at all.

  Cold sweat gathering at my temples, I pushed away from the counter so we might leave.

  Cyderial looked every bit the general, his unblinking stare calculating my every last tic as he caught me by the door. “Not just at the academy, Lorieyn. But in my office. I am going to fuck you in my office.”

  I froze, stomach roiling. “No, thank you, sir.”

  With a warning growl, he edged closer to threaten at my ear, “You do not address me as sir. You are my mate; you will call me by my name.”

  “No, thank you, Cyderial.” Voice steely, I snarled right back at him, “I do not want you to touch me in that place.”

  “I see.” Narrowing his eyes and hiding his look behind that blond fall of hair, he began to calculate.

  Coming up with a plan that would work against me later, make me bend to his will. But at least he knew the truth of my feelings.

  I hated the academy.

  I did not want to be fucked in his office.

  I was allowed to feel that way on both topics, and he’d have to use his tricks to infringe upon my resolve.

  And he would.

  I would be angry. And then he would make me forget. Eventually, I would forgive him, because there wasn’t room for anything else in my current state of overwhelm.

  And he would upset my boundaries, again and again, until he molded me into whatever he expected I should be.

  Or until I killed him.

  That last bleak thought stole my breath.

  “What?” His demanding question came quick, whatever he observed on my face unsettling him.

  Desperate to change the subject, I put my fingers to my temples, closed my eyes, and rubbed little circles where it hurt. “I have some things at the dormitory I would like to recover. Will I be permitted to do that?”

  “Yes, I will escort you when the females are away.”

  Trying to be playful, hoping to distract from the dangerous, winding path we both were testing, I smirked. “Trying to discover all my hiding places?”

  “No.” Softening fractionally, he cocked his head, reaching out to run the back of his fingers down my arm. “I want to be with you, because I love you.”

  It should not have warmed me when he said such things, but I was growing accustomed to his declarations. And maybe it was the addiction, but the intimacy of his touch soothed in ways I didn’t understand.

  With a shy smile, I teased, “You just want your pink rock back. Sorry, sir, but you can’t have it.”

  The sound of his laughter—I enjoyed it.

  I may have even enjoyed the sharp slap he sent to my rear in retaliation for my sass.

  We left his fine home, me somber, him his natural, unfeeling, child-killing self.

  Side by side, quiet in the car as his driver carried me to an ugly future, I tried not to think about it.

  At least the descent to the academy was beautiful, my view of sky quickly replaced by an undulating wall of perfect fog. With only the filters holding so much angry vapor back, it crashed against an invisible wall, churned upward, dancing.

  And I was fully in love with it.

  Staring longingly out the window, I could not wait to land, to have the door open so wet air could rush in. Suck it deep into my lungs and savor.

  To feel the specks of mist hit my face and roll them around on my tongue.

  My illicit craving had drawn my mate’s attention. I knew he watched me, that he guessed at my thoughts, but I didn’t care.

  “You’ll just never understand.” I gave him that, addressing the chasm between us before he might say something I’d hate. “You can’t change the fact that I was born for the fog. No point in being jealous.” My fingertips went to the window, touching the glass as if I touched the distant wall of mist. “I loved it first.”

  Before Cyderial might say something to match the threatening look in his eyes, his driver opened the door. Just as I knew it would, a wave of moist air rushed in to coat us in perfection.

  Shivering with delight, I even purred to suck the dampness deep into my lungs.

  “Come, you troublesome thing.” Cyderial handed me out of the car, his grip on my hand a bit too tight. “It’s time to go inside now.”

  “No walk?” The farmland wasn’t far, and considering the cool weather and extra humidity of the day, I was sure the ground would be nice and spongy.

  But I was not going to be allowed to go there, my duties now indoors. Training the itty-bitties on how to handle a sword so they might die for humans who loathed them.

  “No walk.” Cageyness in his voice, suspicion in his every glance, the reply was abrupt. Cyderial didn’t like me being anywhere near the thing I wanted most. He didn’t like that there was no hiding my pleasure at being in my element.

  He hated that I hesitated.

  And I wondered if he imagined I might consider making a run for it. If he was calculating how quickly he might catch me, how badly I might be hurt in a scuffle should I resist.

  I had calculated these things too.

  The odds were not in my favor.

  One last perfect breath, and I straightened my jacket with my free hand, then walked toward an unfamiliar entrance to the academy at his side.

  The building itself was as ugly as ever, rusted and dinged-up by time. An actual remnant of the original ships that brought humanity to Planet Risa. Hybrids had been allocated the oldest materials for our use, and perhaps that should have bothered me, but I liked the rough edges.

  I liked the sturdiness.

  Even if I hated life inside the academy, the building was living history.

  “Stand here.” No nonsense, Cyderial pointed to a position before the biometric scanner, where I was measured by the computer and granted access as an instructor.

  The door hissed open, and in we went, the light fog that tried to follow us in forced out by the building’s whirring filters.

  And it was done. I once again belonged to the academy—a slave to the man who tortured me within these walls.

  Yet it felt so familiar I couldn’t even hate it as I should.

  The faculty tour was dispassionate, as he must have known I had been in most of the restricted rooms—with or without permission—over the years.

  Until we reached his office, where he took me by the wrist and dragged me over the threshold when I inadvertently dug in my heels.

  Because that pretty room was deadly.

  It was dangerous.

  And I had been hurt in there.

  The door closed, it locked, my unhappy self completely trapped once again.

  The shreds of my black dress had been removed, everything glittering, pristine, and polished.

  As if my life had not been ruined in that space only a handful of days prior.

  Drawing me inside, Cyderial said, “You will meet with Maeve shortly, so if there is something to be said, now is the time to address it.”

  If he thought I was in the mood for conversation, he was out of his mind.

  Over there was where he first kissed me. That was the cabinet with the reflective glass front, where I had seen my new slit open under Cyderial’s touch. And right there, on the floor, was where he put his cock inside me as I begged him to stop.

  His hand came to my shoulder, and I just about leapt out of my skin.

  I may have even whimpered—a tiny, embarrassing sound.

  Making his thrums, his deep, pulsing calls, he snatched me to him, warmed me with his body, folding me into him. “Lorieyn, maybe we should begin your day in the training room. Maeve can wait. Would you like to come at me with a sword?”

  A very sharp one? Yes. But making him bleed would not change any of this. I had work to do. “No, thank you. I will meet with Maeve.”

  “I will have her collected.” Just as I had been bodily collected and urged deeper into my personal nightmare. “Sit, relax. Or steal any rocks you want.”

  My voice was hardly above a whisper when he sat me on his white death-couch. “I don’t think a rock is going to make me feel better right now.”

  Arranging my limbs like I was some little doll, he fluffed pillows for behind my back, laid a soft blanket over my knees.

  All the while, I could not control my tongue. “This is where you sat me the night Private Cullen was hanged.” I pointed to the front of his desk. “And that is where I stood when you denied my graduation and stole the fog.” My eyes went to the most terrible part of the room. “And over there, you raped me.”

  Catching my face, distorting my cheeks as he turned my attention back to him, he kneeled at my feet, somber, but said nothing as he drank me in.

  Weaponized silence that flayed me bit by bit.

  Cut to the bone, I felt so wrong in my skin. And I knew… I knew… he wouldn’t change anything about his choices in the past.

  Where I saw tragedy, he saw triumph.

  That was why he kept his silence.

  And I wept for it, sobbing with only my tormentor to lean on.

  The number of times I cried on this man since waking up in his bed the first time shamed me. That I could find comfort with him degraded me. That I was even capable of crying with such fervor confused me.

  Recruits do not cry.

  No, pain was to be buried deep, deep, deep down.

  But I wasn’t a recruit anymore, was I? I was an instructor now. Mated to a demon I clung to as I purged.

  I bawled until my stomach hurt, until I was out of tears and thirsty.

  A strange sensation I had almost forgotten. A parched throat didn’t belong to mated females, because a flood of male ejaculate should have been plugged inside me. And this made me angry with him on a very different, very strange level.

  Holding me as I broke apart, Cyderial gave me all the time in the world. My breath a shivering wreck, I drank down his scent. Nose at his throat, arms wrapped around his neck, I called him horrible names.

  Let him witness the damage he’d done.

  I hated him. I was fond of him. Addicted to him. And I needed him.

  Cyderial had done monstrous things, no question. But he could be so gentle. And forceful.

  The man could make me do anything he wanted.

  And I suspected he knew I liked being compelled when I was scared. Maybe my brain was broken from academy life. Maybe there was no better way he could have claimed me than by taking me by the throat and dragging me into a bond.

  Maybe I deserved him.

  A strange thought that quieted my brain, slowed my hiccupping breaths, and lulled me as he rocked me in his arms.

  When my voice returned and I was somewhat stable, I muttered, “Did you know recruits call this the death couch? No one who has sat on it lived to tell the tale.”

  With a dark chuckle, he rubbed warm circles into my back. “You’ve sat on it.”

  Voice hardly more than a whisper, I answered, “And I told no one.”