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“A year will do for an official announcement. It would depend on the mood of the public.”
Assuming they won this conflict.
She hesitated. While she had freedom there was hope and so she answered him quietly, matching his calmness. “I will agree but with reservations.”
“Reservations?” His lips twitched. “Seal this agreement. Show you can obey me. I may not wish public declarations yet, but I do need to see your honesty acted out.”
“How?” Blinking, she waited, hoping this was not outrageous. She was royalty, so surely he would be reasonable.
“You are unmated, untouched by a male. If I decide you are suitable, you would need training before you can take me.”
Take? Her heart skipped beats. Fuck. Fuck. All those curse words she shouldn’t say. Her eyes felt as if they’d pop. She’d not agreed to mating.
She’d never thought a man, let alone a mauleon, would ever want to touch her. The idea dangled before her like a lure from the legendary angler fish that had inhabited the oceans of Earth.
Drake would probably eat her.
“You implied that—”
“My decision. Obey. Show me. Come.” He extended his arm, opened his hand.
Holding hands again. Okay. This was permissible. She drifted closer, shuffling the last of the distance, torn by how wrong this would be to many people.
Agreeing to a mauleon consort was awful enough, even if he never intimately touched her body.
Their hands met and he squeezed down, gripping firmly enough that she knew it was up to him when, or if, she were freed.
“There.” Her voice was husky, her breathing growing ever more erratic and difficult, while he of the large golden eyes seemed to grow more serene. “Enough?”
That stare had reached her soul and latched on. His next words were soft and said from far away.
“No. As consort I have the right to your body. Choose. Kneel before me and accept your first lesson in true obedience to your mate. Mark, if you kneel, I will no longer ask, for you will be mine to do with as I please.”
Those hard eyes dwelled on her, waited.
Calli swallowed. A princess kneeling before a mauleon? Intolerable. Impossible.
He released her wrist, and she remained where she was, rocking. He was not a man to go back on his word, she saw that.
This choice would inevitably be the first step in a downward spiral.
“I know how arrogant your family are.” Again, he spoke quietly.
“I’m not arrogant.” Her teeth clamped together.
“Of course you are. You think the Dywins deserve to rule. You believe in this dynasty of yours. It is based on falsehoods, though you may be the best of your family since your father. You will submit to me. You know the alternative, Princess Calliope. You are here begging from me because you have no power, no inkling as to how to rescue yourself. I will rescue you, but this is my price. Choose.”
All those statements strung together riled her. They also flattened her. She wanted to flatten him. Yet there was truth. She had nowhere else to turn.
He wanted her to kneel, and she had little doubt he wanted other things. To embarrass her beyond her comprehension.
“This is not unknown. Your history will tell you of other rulers on your planet who kneeled.”
Another truth was that within the tight confines of the armored suit, she was having trouble breathing. Drake fascinated her like no man ever had.
Correction, no male.
Oh, but he was a man too, in the best sense of that word. She let her gaze travel down him, stickily, for every second her eyes would see something of him that pulled her to a stop. The stubble on his jaw, the twisted muscles of his neck, the way his chest moved, even the buttons on his shirt seemed... horribly, wonderfully lickable.
