The other woman

Terra

Damien kissed me. It should have felt terrible. I should have felt nothing but revulsion but the mate bond didn't let me.

He tasted like home. He tasted addictive. And as his tongue swept into my mouth, I forgot when I had parted my lips for him.

Damien growled abruptly, cutting our kiss short, his lips dipping to my nape like a man on a mission, his every lick, kiss and bite so urgent that I knew he was fighting his instincts to mark me.

I placed my hands on his shoulders fully intending to push him away but all I could do was tug him closer, my body soft and pliant beneath him.

Tell him to stop? That would have required speech and none of the sounds I was capable of making then were intelligible.

It was too much. The rough glide of his palm against my inner thighs, the feeling of his hot breath over my skin, the press of his lips, the nip of his canines.

Damien pulled back and I couldn't read the look in his dark eyes.

"That's what I thought."

My cheeks burned. Despite my initial reluctance, I didn't tell him to stop. Just as he'd predicted. Then his lips were on mine again and I forgot my shame.

My robe was gone in my next breath, my slip of a nightdress bunched around my waist and Damien stood between my legs, his hand on my breast.

I felt myself spiralling out of control, my hands caressing his bare shoulders, trailing down his back then faster than I could blink, Damien caught both of my hands pushing them above my head.

He didn't want me touching him.

It hurt. Oh, Goddess, it hurt.

Maybe if it had just been pain, I could have had enough strength to push him away.

But it was more. It was the feeling of completeness in his arms, the visceral pleasure, the maddening intensifying attraction with each touch from the mate bond.

From his deep, masculine scent that made my mind hazy, his weight on me, his masterful fingers inside me, my body's thoughtless undulation against his, and my reaction to his every minuscule touch.

His hands were everywhere holding me down, gripping my hips to grind me harder against him. He kissed me, nipped my neck and throat, sucked my nipples and took me so hard and fast that all I could do was fall apart in his arms.

I came so hard I saw stars behind my eyes. My moans and whimpers escaped my throat despite my best efforts.

Damien followed seconds after, and with one last punishing thrust and a shudder, he finished inside me.

Then, he pulled away and walked straight into his shower.

Maybe if I had left then, things might have gone differently.

But that was only the beginning of our monthly conjugal visits.

It was always once a month on my 'most fertile days' as dictated by the royal healers and physicians.

I grew to hate those days. Grew to hate the look in Damien's eyes when we were together. But more than that I hated the way my heart raced every time his cold persona faltered for even a second.

It was sick. All of it.

Because after those nights were over, we would slip back into our routine of ignoring each other's existence.

No matter the amount of effort I put into us, Damien never let me in.

It had been a little over a year since my mating ceremony with Damien and today was yet another fertile day.

But as I walked down the hallway towards his room, I felt sick.

Maybe it was because I skipped my meals again but I felt the weariness of a year of pretense wearing down on me.

Each time I left Damien's room after these visits, I died a little more. So much so that I wondered if I had really been saved from my fate as a breeder.

I pushed open Damien's door. And my world stood still and shattered.

Damien was kissing another woman, cradling her with gentleness he had never shown to me.

My heart broke at that moment and I made a sound, I must have, because the duo immediately sprung apart although Damien's hand stayed around the woman's waist.

The woman's blue eyes immediately latched onto me, hatred blazing in their depths and I immediately knew who she was.

She was Miranda. The other woman.

Damien didn't even have the good grace to seem ashamed.

"It's good you are here. We were waiting for you. It's about time we put an end to all this pretence."

I was livid, the cold sort of rage that slowly quietly consumed a person from the inside out. I was hurt, the type of hurt that festered.

"What are you talking about?"

Miranda shuffled closer to Damien, his possessive hold on her evident and it was at that moment I noticed the bump in her black dress.