I knew now, more than ever, that the situation between us was fucking complicated. Giles Aaron had betrayed me, which meant he had some other plan for the kingdom that didn’t involve me or Patara taking the throne.
That meant we were all in danger, but one thing I knew for certain. There was no way—no fucking way—that I was going to let Iris go. She was mine. And I was going to fucking keep her.
Forever.
I carried her out of the barn and loaded her gently over the back of my horse. The light of dawn was just creeping up over the horizon, but black clouds filled the rest of the sky, and a strong wind had whipped up from the east, chilling and damp. A storm was coming, metaphorical and physical.
I could feel it.
If Giles Aaron thought I’d go down without a fight, he was mistaken. I knew that he’d send more assassins once he found out these ones had failed, but for the time being I had one advantage: he clearly expected me to be dead. Returning to the barn, I surveyed the mess, then set about clearing it up. I carried all the bodies except the largest man out to the stream and buried them in the soft ground there. With any luck, they wouldn’t be discovered for days at least, even if Giles sent men to check his orders had been carried out. That would give me enough time to deal with my enemy. With the last man, and Iris’s father, I made a makeshift pyre from their corpses, covered them with straw, then drove Nellie and her calf out into the pasture. Finally, I set fire to the barn and headed back to my horse.
Lightning lit my way along the road, and thunder shook the stonework as I carried Iris through the dark passages of the castle, to my quarters, and from there into my private dungeon. It was deep beneath the Ruined Tower, and like the rest of that forgotten corner of Ironhaven Castle, it was all fucking mine, to use however the fuck I wanted, whenever the fuck I wanted.
All those nights, thinking about her body, her cunt, her being, all led up to now. To this. At long fucking last, I had her here, where she was always meant to be.
She began to wake as I hoisted her over my shoulder to open the locked and bolted door at the bottom of the staircase from my chamber. We were far enough underground now that nobody would ever see us or find us. No matter how hard she screamed when she came, no matter how hard she cried when I pounded her senseless, nobody could hear a fucking thing. It was my very own vault for my most prized possession.
I had my arm hooked over her ass so I couldn’t see her face, but I felt her twist slightly to try to figure out where she was.
“Randal?” she said groggily.
“I’m here, baby,” I replied, with a firm grab of her ass. Her cunt was right fucking there, so fucking close, but I resisted the urge to slip my fingers inside her as I carried her. I’d waited long enough, I wasn’t about to balk at waiting a few minutes more until everything was how I’d imagined it. To rush this would be a fucking tragedy.
“Where… Where are we? Are we going fishing now?”
“No, sweet Iris, not fishing, but we are somewhere safe,” I told her, slipping the key into the lock. I kicked open the door and carried her across the threshold and through the dungeon. I set her down on a wooden table fitted with black leather restraints on the far side of the room. “Somewhere I can keep you in my sights.”
Chapter 13
Randal
I’d jacked off so many times in there, thinking about Iris. Hundreds of times. The days leading up to now, she’d shown me time after time as I pushed her, questioned her, tested her that she wanted what I wanted and now it was time.
The dungeon below the ruined tower was a work of art. I’d crafted every bolt and chain myself. The thick oak post that ran vertically in the center of the dungeon, was secured to the floor with six-inch iron bolts. A sawhorse was fitted with a black leather saddle, with restraints for arms, legs, and neck. On the walls were chains and irons for holding her in any way I wanted—by the wrists, the ankles, the waist, the neck.
There were all the trappings and implements somehow my dark self believed someday I would need. There were ropes, whips, switches, paddles, every kind of device for pinching her nipples and her pussy lips to hold them open while I ate my fill of her or spanked her open folds with my bare hand—before filling her cunt with my seed.