Conquering the Queen (6 page)

“That’s my good lass,” he said, and the comment wrung a sob from his captive as Xander found himself repeating the words he’d so often used when she’d submitted to him before their separation.

For the briefest moment, he was seized by the desire to undo the bonds, to draw her into his arms. But he could not show mercy. Not yet. He looked down, realizing her tears were as much from shame as sadness. The tiny welts on the insides of her thighs were slick with arousal.

Xander stepped back, pressing the tip of the crop against the top of her slit, pushing up until the pressure exposed her clit. It had already emerged from its fleshy hood, the pink pearl glistening with her need.

“Who does this belong to?” he asked, pushing against the crop.

“Leave me,” she said, refusing to answer the question.

He asked it again. When she did not answer, he dropped to his knees, roughly grabbing her sore thighs and pushing them apart. Xander buried his face between them, lapping upwards through her slit until he reached the throbbing little nub, which he flicked with the tip of his tongue.

He could feel her body tightening, could feel her orgasm building. He caught the little nub, suckling gently. She was the bow and he the archer, but just before he released her to fly, he stopped, leaving her hanging on the edge of release.

She screamed out her frustration, stomped her feet, cursed him through tears of humiliation and want. Xander raised himself until he was towering over her.

“I will not reward disobedience,” he said. He dropped his hand down, gently inserting a finger into her pussy. Avin reactively thrust toward him before she could stop herself, but Xander did not grant her the further penetration her body craved. She was whimpering now, and writhing on his fingertip in frustration.

“Who does this belong to?” He wriggled the very tip of that finger, teasing her with the promise of more. He grazed her protruding clit with his thumb—the brush sending a shudder through a body already hanging on the edge. When he looked into her dilated eyes, he could see passion sapping her resolve to resist. “Who?” he said again.

The word escaped with a sob. “You…”

It should have been enough. And would have been under the circumstances.

“Answer me properly!” The command was stern. She flinched, and her body filled with tension that held for a moment before she softened in defeat.

“You… my… my king.” She squeezed her eyes shut tight as she answered, squeezed the finger that rewarded her obedience even tighter as Xander thrust it deeper inside her. She soaked the invading digit, so he inserted another, filling her. She was thrusting against his hand, crying out. He had to place his other hand on the wall and lean into it, controlling his desire to spend as she finally took her release on his hand. At the final moment, he pressed the pad of his thumb against her clitoris. She clenched his fingers harder than he could have ever imagined, and it was now the king who felt the punishing need she’d experienced.

I could bury myself within her
, he thought.
I am her king, and she is my slave. There is nothing she could do to stop me.

But Xander knew if he did, he’d hate himself far more than she had ever hated him. He would not rape the woman he loved. When she gave herself to him, it would be in full obedience, and from something deeper than just desire alone.

He withdrew his fingers slowly. She was nearly limp in the manacles, the muscles of her white arms straining. Wrapping a strong arm around her waist, Xander supported Avin tenderly while he undid first one and then the other. She took a step, then went limp. He caught her easily and carried her to the bed. There was a washbasin to the side. He found a cloth, soaked it in the cool water, and dabbed it on the welts.

She was looking at him, her face expressionless. He looked away.

“Will you keep me as a plaything afterwards?” Xander turned back at the sound of her voice. “After you’ve marched me out on your coronation day, after the people of Windbourne have had a chance to mock your chained pet?”

Xander ignored the bait. “How quickly you go back to repairing the wall between us, Avin. And how foolishly, when you know I will just tear it down again.”

“It’s just an outer wall that guards my body,” she said. “The inner wall is higher. And it guards a frozen heart.”

He concentrated on her lips as she spoke. The lower one trembled. He wanted to cover those lips with his mouth, silence the words.

“I waited for you, you know,” she said.

“What?” he asked.

She looked at him. “I was sure you’d return for me. So sure. Even after my father locked me in this very room the night he ordered the attack. I beat on that door until my hands were bruised, begging for him to let me get word to you—word that I had nothing to do with what happened.”

Xander shook his head, not wanting to believe.

“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I screamed and I begged, but he’d ordered me locked away until you and your men were defeated. And when he let me out and I collapsed at his feet to ask him why—
why
—he would separate me from my love, do you know what he said?”

Xander listened, unable to reply, or even shake his head amid the wave of sickness he felt at her words.

“He said it no longer mattered, that you were not my love. That you hated me. And when he died a few days later, what else could I do but to assume the throne? I had to protect my people. And I could not if I let myself feel anything. For what is more vulnerable, more helpless, than a woman who loves? What bigger fool exists in this world to mock?”

When Xander had laid her on the bed, he’d felt in command. Now, in the hard light of her revelation, he felt smaller than he’d ever felt in his life.

“I did not know,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s hard to know things when you refuse to ask about them. Instead, you just believed my father’s lies that I betrayed you, just as my people believed yours when you told them that I brought the winter.”

“I had nothing to do with the lie told to your people,” Xander said. “That was Cynric’s doing. And my father’s. I knew nothing of it until you told me.”

“It hardly matters now,” she said. “When power is the objective, even those closest to you are mere casualties. My father taught me that.”

“Avin…”

“Your father taught you well, too,” she said, interrupting him. “He’s taught you to walk to the throne on a road paved by lies, and to earn the allegiance of your new subjects by publicly debasing their queen for a wrong she could not have committed.” She shook her head. “Lord Reginald destroyed the good in you as surely as my father destroyed the good in me. But only one of us wears a crown around her neck.”

Even the physical victory he’d enjoyed over Avin felt hollow in light of her painful assessment.

“What have I done?” Suddenly the idea of breaking her felt repugnant to him, and he reached down, gathering her into his arms. She was stiff, and he inwardly mourned the wall of hurt he now realized he’d helped construct.

“Forgive me,” he said.

She felt hot tears soaking his shirt as she began to sob. “Forgive you? What king asks forgiveness of a slave?”

“Avin…” He gently pushed her away. “I have wronged you. Terribly.”

“Yes,” she said sadly. “But we both know it cannot be reversed. Not now. To do so will only throw Windbourne back in turmoil.” She wiped away tears with the back of her hand and looked toward the window. “I can no longer love these people after what they did, but I can acknowledge that they have suffered enough. The long winter was not their fault, but neither was the lie that made them angry. And now simple people have been promised a humbled queen, and you must deliver.”

He sighed. “It is too much to ask,” he said.

“Then don’t.” Avin gave him the smallest and saddest of smiles.

“You are the king,” she said. “So train me.” The tears came then, and she softened in his arms. “Save me, Xander, lest I never feel again.”

“I am sorry,” he said into her hair. “I am sorry I didn’t come. I am sorry I was not the one to kill your father for the hurt he caused you. I am sorry that I caused you even more. I should have known better. I should have never believed the worst.” He put his forehead against hers. “Let me make it better, my love.”

He put his hand down between her legs. She was wet. He laid her down, covering her body with his own. He fastened his mouth to hers, kissing her demandingly. She resisted at first, as if by reaction, but broke to his resistance, her slim arms winding around his neck.

He leaned back, roughly pulling her legs apart. She cried out as his buried his face between them, as the stubble of his face made contact with the welts left by the crop. Xander turned his head, kissing each one, and then attached his mouth to her pussy. She screamed her passion, even as she struggled.

Xander knew her rebellion now for what it was—a cry to feel his control. She had been a queen, but as his slave was now coming against the demanding mouth of her master, her hips bucking, her hands in his hair, her cries of passion filling the room.

He was reluctant to tear his mouth away from her intoxicating core, but Xander could think of nothing now but being inside of her, of dominating her as only he could. His cock was so stiff he had trouble freeing it from the confines of his breeches. He felt like a green lad in his eagerness to sink inside of her. Beneath him, she lay panting, her eyes glittering with passionate fire as she watched him free his lance.

Xander was large, and he knew she’d not been with a man since they’d parted. A voice told him to go slowly, but he did not heed it and she cried out anew at the force of his entry. She was so hot, so tight. She cried out a second time and wrapped her long white legs around him. She clawed his back through his tunic.

Xander thrust into her, consumed now by a furious need to possess her completely.

“You’re mine,” he said, his voice deep and desperate. “You belong to the king and he will never, ever let you go. Do you understand?”

She was looking into his eyes, could see his need. And the woman who had been sobbing only moment earlier now looked wild and wise and knowing. There was power in her surrender; they both knew it.

“Say it!” he said, fucking her so hard he had to take hold to keep her from slamming into the headboard. “Say it!”

“I’m yours! I am the property of the king!” She came as she said it, the slick, hot walls of her pussy drawing on his cock, coaxing the seed in explosive bursts. She hugged him to her with arms and legs, holding him there until he’d spent completely.

Chapter Nine

The following morning dawned with a golden glow of sun shining through the window of Avin’s room. As she stirred, the sweet tenderness between her legs reminded her of the training that had ended with Xander’s learning the truth about the betrayal that had separated them, and her learning that he had never really stopped loving her.

But with that realization came a new pain—one neither of them had spoken of. She was a deposed and despised queen of a land he now ruled. They could never be together, not even if their love had been rekindled.

True to his word, Xander sent a new maid—a motherly matron called Sal—to be housed in the small but comfortable chamber next to Avin’s. There were also gifts to help the former queen pass her time—books, embroidery fabric and thread, a lute, and bowls of fruits and cakes.

But despite the improvements to her confinement, Avin found it hard to relax. Before he’d left her chamber, Xander had told Avin that the barons of Windbourne would be attending a feast that evening ahead of the coronation. They expected to see the queen leashed and at his feet, but Xander told Avin that while she would attend collared, she would be seated at his side.

This sparked mixed feelings for Avin. She knew why it had to be done. The coronation was approaching. Her show of humility would satisfy a people reliant on symbolism. Her time in the tower had helped her work through some of her anger, to reflect. The people of Windbourne were simple adherents to a simple religion, and a simple way of life. She’d come to an untimely rule after generations of kings. Although Windbourne had no laws of primogeniture forbidding women from ascending to the throne, no one in living Windbourne history could remember a female doing so. With her father’s death, Avin had become the first female monarch, and her failure reinforced their superstitions. It was easier for them to believe she’d brought the winter, and now they wanted to see her power tamed. She would go through the motions, for the sake of peace, for the sake of Xander.

He sent a gown for her, and even her new maid seemed surprised.

“This is hardly a frock fit for a slave,” Sal mumbled.

Avin bit her tongue. Although a servant, the Ravenscroft-born Sal seemed to disapprove of the gown as an indulgence for a prisoner of the crown. But Xander had told Avin that this woman was dutiful, and the griping was short-lived. When Avin was dressed, the image staring back at her was the image of royalty save for the placement of the crown around her neck. The gown was a pale green shot through with golden threads. The scooped neck accentuated the collar, but also the swell of her perfect breasts. The maid was right; this was a dress meant for royalty.

When Xander came to take her to the dining hall, she was still filled with dread, however. Even if she looked every inch a queen, she was still a slave. Humbling herself in the privacy of her own chamber to the man she loved was one thing. Humbling herself in the presence of his spiteful father was another.

Xander seemed to recognize this, for he knew Avin had never cared for Lord Reginald. And he knew that his father still hated her. Before they left the room, he sought to reassure her.

“Focus on me,” he said. “I am king, not my father. It will be easier if you do.”

“Easy?” she said. “It would be easier were I not wearing my crown as a collar. I so wish it to be removed.”

He hugged her to him, a quiet moment of affection that felt as soothing as their passion did raw.