Gisela's breast, a jewel meant for adornment, pressed against his hard, unwavering chest. Then came the undeniable, fleshy weight, thick against her thigh. She jolted, a flicker of protest, but he held her fast, his grip a sovereign claim. A pervasive heat enveloped her, sweat beading on her skin as her breath hitched, ragged and starved.
"Hen... Henry," she breathed, her voice a silken tremor.
He remained unyielding, a dark monarch in his own right.
"Your... your... it... your..." The words dissolved, a cascade of confusion and a dawning, forbidden awareness.
"Penis?" The single word was a slow, deliberate offering, heavy with a dark promise. She could only shiver, unable to articulate the burgeoning fear and fascination.
She said nothing. The crude, casual way he had named that part of himself—as if discussing a tool—made her flinch against him, a minute spasm of revulsion she could not suppress.
"Other women," he murmured, his breath a dark caress against the shell of her ear, "would beg for the privilege I withhold from you. They understand the purpose of a queen. The entire court whispers of your failure. The blame rests on you alone, for being... incapable of providing an heir." A low, humorless sound vibrated through his chest into hers. "The irony is almost poetic, is it not?"
A stillness settled over her, deeper than fear. When she spoke, her voice was a thread of steel in the dark, quiet and unnervingly firm.
"Perhaps it is all proceeding perfectly, my love," she whispered back, the endearment a drop of poison. "You will get your divorce. I know the thought brings you joy. You will be free to wed your brazen mistress—the one with no respect for a crown, or a queen. The one you could not keep from touching, even in the shadow of my own balcony." She paused, letting the image of his public betrayal hang between them. "Let us just pray, for your sake, that her blood is as royal as her appetite. The court may forgive a barren queen. It will not forgive a king who stains the lineage with a common whore."
"Oh, is that what you believe?"
In one brutal motion, Henry shoved her from his chest. Her wounded back struck the mattress, and a raw, guttural cry was torn from her—a sound of pure, animal agony. Her eyes screwed shut against the pain as his weight came down over her, pinning her shattered body beneath him.
"Hen—Henry—" His name fractured into a sob as tears spilled from beneath her clenched eyelids.
"This," he hissed, his face inches from hers, his voice a lethal whisper, "is precisely why you are unfit to bear my heir. You lack the fundamental resilience. I fear your very frame would splinter under the demands of carrying my blood." He held her there, a specimen beneath his scrutiny, before pushing himself up and back, withdrawing his weight to loom over her from his knees. The sudden absence of pressure was its own kind of shock. "To speak of surviving the birth is a fantasy. You are a vessel of glass, little one. I require one of iron."
A weak, defiant breath escaped her. "You… cannot judge the strength of the spine by the softness of the skin."
In the tense silence that followed, her tear-glazed eyes held his. Then, slowly, with a deliberation that was itself an act of rebellion, she spread her legs.
The movement was not one of submission, but of a chilling, stark challenge. It filled the space his retreat had created.
"Test me," she whispered, her voice a blade of smoke in the dark. "If you have the courage to see what this 'vessel of glass' can truly hold. Try. And you may find yourself… desperately wanting more."
"Beautiful. I do love this game," he purred, a cruel, languid smile stretching his lips, the kind that promised an exquisite unraveling.
He leaned closer, noting the instinctual closing of her eyes. It stirred a dark, proprietary amusement within him. "Is this," his voice, a silken erosion, "how you intend to bear my heir?" The words dripped with slow venom, each syllable a claim, as he watched her lids flutter open, her gaze snagging on his with an intensity that was both defiance and surrender.
She spread herself further, an unapologetic offering that felt less like a welcome and more like a potent lure into something unknown. He offered a sharp, almost predatory smile. "You mistake invitation for understanding, child. You do not comprehend the abyss you court." His hand, long and unnaturally steady, found her hair – a startling, impossible hue of molten orange, like captured flame. He didn't merely touch it; he *claimed* it, his fingers caressing its silken length before sinking into her scalp with a possessive pressure that sent a tremor through her. Her amber eyes, wide and reflecting a nascent, exquisite terror, were his immediate domain. Then, his thumb brushed the plush fullness of her lips, an exploration bordering on veneration, yet utterly devoid of warmth.
A sudden, discordant chill snaked through him. He recognized the raw, untamed beauty – a jewel of the wild, a stark contrast to the polished artifice he usually encountered. Yet, a profound, unsettling aversion bloomed in his gut, a repulsion as visceral as a betrayal. Was it her unblemished purity? The sheer, unearned offering? He dismissed the intrusive thought, his hand gliding lower, its weight settling upon the delicate swell of her breast. His thumb rolled her nipple, eliciting a sharp, involuntary flinch. He met her gaze, a silent, absolute command passing between them before his fingers continued their descent, tracing the elegant curve of her abdomen. She was trembling, a fragile, exquisite prize caught in the gravity of his sheer presence.
Then his fingers hovered, not merely as a prelude, but with a chilling, deliberate authority over her most intimate flesh. Each potential touch sent a tremor through her, and a soft moan escaped her lips – a sound of pure, unbidden yielding she did not want. But he held that moment suspended, the anticipation itself a measured torment, before one of his fingers, thick and inherently unyielding, slid into her opening.
"Henry," she moaned, her head arching back, her chest rising, an instinctive, almost regal offering that gave him deeper purchase. His finger moved within her, a slow, deliberate exploration of her submission, his eyes locked on hers, watching her lips part as if in a silent, involuntary plea.
"I wager… you will wish me to stop," he murmured, the words a dark promise from a sovereign hand, as another finger slid in, augmenting the invasive pressure. She was already so wet, the slickness a testament to her body's involuntary capitulation, dripping onto the bloodied linen.
"Ahhh," she clutched the mattress beneath her, the rough texture a grounding sensation against the overwhelming tide of sensation. She felt him moving within her, the wet, slick sound a rhythm that somehow amplified her own burgeoning, unwanted need.