Harlot.

The word still echoed.

Would he employ me as such? If he looked like a man, did he have a man’s needs?

My chest tightened at the premise.

John had once threatened to sell me to the whorehouse—as was his right as a husband when a wife proved barren. I’d slapped him in the face. He’d slapped me back harder, twice, but he’d never threatened it again. I’d avoided this fate then, and I wouldn’t accept it now.

Not without a fight.

I scratched a nail over the material of the tub, pearls of water running down the digit, collecting in the notch forming there. Not stone. Who built all this if his throne room had been such an empty—

“She woke.” The King’s voice snapped my spine straight, amplified with each slow thud of a boot as he approached. “Leave us.”

Behind me, Orlaigh turned unnaturally still, even for a corpse. “But—”

“Now.”

The weight of the woman’s hand on my shoulder turned heavier, colder, and in no way comforting. Worse was how it disappeared as she rose and walked off. “As me Master commands…”

Even after her footfalls faded behind doors long shut, the King didn’t move, didn’t speak—and neither did I. My heart did the talking for me, each beat sending a vibration whispering over the surface of the otherwise still water.

His long exhale cooled the surrounding air further, but his sharp command froze the blood in my veins. “Stand.”

Breathing as shallow as I could to hide my fear, I rose to the deafening drips of water. Arm hugging my breasts tighter, I lowered my other hand to cover my crotch.

“I never meant to set foot into your ki-ingdom.” My chattering teeth bit down on the words. “But thank you for mending my f-fl-lesh.”

His silence was nothing but an extension of his disdain as the warmth of his body crept against my spine. If he resented us mortals so much, then why keep me? Everyone heard the stories of how lunatics tied virgins to the trees in the Blighted Fields to appease him. Most died strapped to the trunk. Why not ignore me? Send me back? Heavens, why not kill me?

“My court is so… cold.” Gentle fingers brushed wet hair over my shoulder before they trailed down my back, making me arch away. “Shh… never evade my touch, mortal, or deny me your warmth.”

His touch made heat creep underneath my skin, planting itself in the marrow of my bones, warming me from the inside. “What do you want with me?”

“You tell me. What could I want with the soft skin of a woman, her flesh warm and yielding?”

I shook my head.

“No?” His faint chuckle tingled down along my shoulder blade. “I’m tempted to tell you just how I will use this body, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start with a simpler question. What’s your name, little mortal?”

Mortal.

Was he… undying?

I swallowed hard. “Ada.”

“Ada…” His voice emerged as little more than a whisper, almost like a caress to my name. “Your flesh is not untouched. That either makes you a whore or a woman with a husband.”

A flare of heat let my chin rise. “My husband died two summers ago.”

“Without ever giving you a child?”

A sudden emptiness hit my core. How could he know these things? “Life never blessed me with children.”

Punishment for my failings as a woman.

No, not a woman.

An unwoman.

The King’s command scraped over the nape of my neck. “Turn around and climb out.”

Everything in me tensed.

I hadn’t shown my body to any man but John, and only for the first two years of our marriage. “It’s not decent.”

His fingers wrapped around my throat from behind and his lips moved against my temple as he rasped, “There is no part of you I have not yet seen, sensed, or stirred. Whenever you consider disobeying me, know that I can make you. And nothing, nothing, bores me more than to make you.”

I braced myself to face him. Life had stripped most of my pride. Nobody would take the bit that was left, not even him.

I turned…

…and regretted it.

The King radiated hard-edged beauty that made me gasp, his tall physique sculpted into one of virility and strength. Dark lashes crowned gray eyes, something dark flickering in them as they slithered over where I hid my breasts. His roaming gaze left a trail of pebbled skin down my belly, lower, until he lifted his hand—

I sucked in a sharp breath.

His fingers settled on mine, luring my hand from my crotch, holding it up in support as I climbed out. “Who sent you?”

My throat tightened. “Nobody sent me.”

“Do you think me a fool?”

I thought him a rude bastard. “My foot tangled in the mule’s harness, and the beast dragged me from Hemdale. I swear by Helfa the Allfather—”

He gripped my hair, yanking my face so close to his that I could taste the bite of drink that clung to his breath. “Who?”

“Helfa…” I whispered through trembling lips. “The god we pray to.”

“Mortals and their stories.” Liquor mingled with the scent of ash and snow as he peeled back his lips enough to bare white teeth. “You betray the god you were given and burn him at the stake, then you conjure up one of your own? If you need to swear, mortal, swear it on me. Swear it by your skin, your sweat, your scars.”

I nodded as much as his grip allowed, my scalp searing. “I swear it on all that.”

“Mortals swear a great many things, but few prove true.” He released his grip on my hair, only to let his fingers comb down along a strand. “Who do you think stands before you, little mortal?”

My chest curled when his thumb trailed along the swell of my breast. “The King of Flesh and Bone.”

A loud chuckle burst from his lungs. “Ah… am I a king now? Prove it.”

My eyes flicked up to him. “I don’t under—”

“Bow before your king, my little mortal. How about a curtsy? Did the mortal kings banish them from their courts, or am I undeserving of such etiquette?”

My veins heated under the scrutiny of his stare as I curtsied for the first time in my life. Naked.

“How lackluster, even for a whore,” he said, letting anger needle my skin. “How poor the state of your lands must be if you first run out of ale, then young virgins to lure me.”

The sensible part of me urged to stay quiet.

Though my pride silenced it when I slapped his hand away. “I am no whore!”

“Kneel!” His shout softened my knees until they caved and hit the hard ground, not moving an inch, no matter how I pulled, shifted, fought. Why couldn’t I move? “Shh, don’t struggle against my command. There… calm your heart.”

My muscles turned sluggish, as if disabled by some sort of magic, head lolling about as I strained my gaze to meet his. “Let me go.”

“And have you tell the rest of your kind how you entered my kingdom?”

“My father’s sick… maybe dying.”

“Of course he is. As are all mortals.” His cruel laugh matched the hard look in his eyes as he squatted to where I kneeled like a slave. “For example, I could still carry you outside and snap your neck, but, ah… what a waste of a fine servant it would be. So young and beautiful, tormenting me with need for your warmth.”

I frowned.

“Oh, you didn’t know? Do not remember how I touched you like this…” He palmed my cheek, his lips taking on a lopsided smirk when I tried to pull away but… couldn’t. “Every part of you, my little one, will serve me for eternity, starting with those lush lips. They will wrap around my length while I thrust against the back of your throat. And once you know the taste of my seed by heart, I will make every other orifice mine to play with. To fill and stretch until you quiver with need, begging me to allow you release.”

Against the weakness of my muscles, I straightened. “You can do all those things to me, but you’ll never hear me beg.”

“No?” There was a terrible twitch of his upper lip before his eyes slipped between my legs. “Your hand, mortal. Already touching yourself, your flesh heated by all the promises of how I will use you.” When my eyes dropped to where I quickly pulled my hand from my folds, shame gnawed at my core. Worse was how he chuckled, letting his thumb pad over my lower lip in play. “You will beg. And if you’re a good little mortal, I shall spend my seed with your flesh clenching around me. Now, now, don’t cry, Ada. You need yet more time to recover, for my hunger for your warmth is too great.”