Fuck. Why am I going there?

Aster pulls me from my dark recall, when she says, “After I convinced the Endigo boy that I was just like him⁠—”

Clever girl… “How did you do that?”

“I told him that I would survive The Cradle… with him,” she confirms, and I don’t like where this is heading. My muscles tense, and my spine steels in agonising preparation. “I kissed him, and let him touch me and⁠—"

“You what?”

“The leader said my tongue can’t be trusted anymore, and he started to cut it with a knife, but then, I don’t know…” Her eyelids bat, heavy. “His hand slipped. We both fell. I hit my head. I cannot feel my body right now, my king. Am I dreaming? I feel strange. Can I touch you again so that I know you’re real? Can you touch me again so that I know I am?”

The gas…

Shock, too.

I stare at her, hard. “You're not afraid of me.”

“Yes, but not for my life.”

“Why?” I ask, thinking about the men I have just killed, their blood still drying on my leather armour and their pleas for mercy still echoing in the dark chamber of my soul. “I could strangle you with one hand.”

“You have no reason to.”

I measure her up, noting the scarlet hue rising beneath her cheeks. I make her blush. “Perhaps I'd enjoy seeing your life leave your eyes, little creature.”

Matching me, she looks through me. I stiffen as her gaze pokes around inside my mind. I fucking hate it. “I don't think you're really like that. Deep down.”

“And how would you know what I'm like?”

“I felt it.” A bead of sweat forms on her brow, but it’s not from nerves. “When you held my hand, you didn't want to hurt me then. Or did you?”

No, I didn’t want to hurt her.

She is right.

“You may touch me,” I say smoothly. “But don't get misguided thoughts about me and kindness. We do not exist together. You’re the property of The Cradle— my property. Your body, your womb, is what matters to me.”

“I understand, my king.”

“More reversing gas, Sire?” the gunner asks, passing the mask back to me.

As she sways with the movement of the tank, I pull her to my lap. I cradle her entire body to my chest. Her little legs dangle over my thighs and her head nests in the crook of my arm on a pillow of her onyx hair.

She is flawless, pure—life.

And I am bloody, bruised—death.

“You’re hurt, my king.” She reaches up and presses her hand above my heart where my armour weeps with blood and a bullet hides deep in my flesh. “You’re bleeding.”

My chest tightens.

I hold the mask over her mouth and nose. My hand covers most of her face, so I part my fingers and watch her eyes flicker as she inhales.

A cruel smile moves across my face. “You let him kiss you, little creature?” Her eyes widen, but she nods into the mask. “And touch you?” I don’t know what those words make me feel, but it burns a path in my muscles. “Where?”

Her eyes close on the answer.

“Show me with your hands, which parts of my property were played with,” I order. “Do it now.”

I gaze down as her arm lifts, her finger touching just below her ribcage, a supple spot. I track her finger as it moves upward, over her expressed ribs to the crease between her breasts. She cups a small, pert mound in her hand, her eyes never leaving mine, and squeezes it. I hiss.

I want to trace each place he touched. Follow her finger. Want to lick it. Want to mark it. Heat expands in my veins. Needing to ease some tension, I crack my neck to the side, then to the other.

So… This is the Silk Girl’s prowess. A potent balance of innocence and interest; that boy didn’t stand a chance to refuse her. This creature in my arms was conditioned from a babe to be what a man wants, as, what is the point of having a breeding vessel who cannot keep a man hard. She wouldn’t even know how subtle the messages in her teachings are or how they consume a man’s mind.

Like now…

With her slow movements.

Touching herself for me.

Slow. Behaved. Sweet.

But unknowingly seductive.

“He touched you there?” I growl, fighting against the pulsing need in my cock. I flex my hard-on against her underside but wish I could squeeze it inside her. Fuck, she’d be tight. Too tight, we’d both be in agony. “Did you like it?”

Slowly, her brows draw in and she shakes her head, trying to shake the mask away. I lower it, revealing her plump red lips. Red lips… too red. Blood has rushed to them…

Her eyes roll backward.

Fuck.

“Aster,” I shake her lightly.

Not now. I look her over again, place the back of my hand on her forehead. Her skin radiates heat; she is burning up. Her perspiration is slick against my knuckles. Clammy. She’s fucked. I part her lips to open her mouth and look at her tongue… Then it dawns on me. Bacteria.

Tetanus.

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Part ThreeTo be a Silk Girl

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Chapter One

Aster

Silk Girl Vows:

Adore. Pleasure. Provide.

“What temperature do you want your shower?” Someone with an elegant accent asks from across the large room. I lift my wrist to see the smooth surface, skin grafted to the place my tattoo used to be—healing.

How can that be?

I must be dreaming…

I was only just in the tank with my king…

Or was I?

Why would I be alone with him in the first place? Confusion rolls through me. Maybe I’m still in that dank space—the Endigos are eating me slowly, and I have checked out like the live meat. Pieces of me being licked and chewed…

I blink at the new skin; I don’t feel real. I have to be asleep. Fur Girls dream more than Silk Girls.

We aren’t at peace.

Sitting on the edge of a giant bed, I swing my legs to and fro as though I were on an enormous cliff face. The carpeted floor is hundreds of miles from my toes, like a descent to the depths of The Cradle. Into The Crust I dive…

“I'm sorry,” I say to the space below my feet, “What did you say?

“Oh!” She sounds excited. “You’re coherent. The fever has let you go. That is wonderful. I have some questions for you. You can pick the temperature of your shower in The Estate. How would you like it?”

I wiggle my toes. I am dreaming. What an odd one this is. Everyone knows we have it hot. “We usually have it⁠—"

“Scolding, I know,” the kind voice says. “That is what all the Silk Girls say. But what do you want? Now that you have a choice of what you want?”

“Scolding,” I repeat plainly. Not an answer or agreement, just a word that works and she used. Easy to pull out of my mind.

“Excellent choice,” she praises, and I smile, proud. “And your sheet? You can choose the colour of your main sheet, but the rest of your bedding will be purple.”

“Um.” The complementary opposite of purple is yellow—we learn that when we arrange flowers. So I say, “Yellow is the best colour to match purple.”

“Gold then?”

Why is this bed so high? “Sure.”

“What flowers do you want? I'll bring you Silk Wisteria, but you can pick another species?”

“Flowers,” I say, smiling. We are all little flowers growing through the crust of The Cradle. Suddenly, as the f sound makes my tongue flap, I remember I’m wounded. I stick it out and look down, trying to see the cut but my tongue isn’t long enough.

“Don’t do that,” she says, poking my tongue back inside my mouth. “Tongues heal fast. It is mostly fine. It is a muscle after all. It’s your temperature that has been bothersome the past three days.”