When she put it that way, it almost sounded reasonable, but the way she’d spoken was not reasonable. It was imperious. Almost worth of a queen.
Torn between thrashing her for her insolence, and, well, thrashing her for her insolence, Archon moved toward her, prepared to turn her over his thigh and whip her ass with his palm and any other implement which came to hand. There was a brush with a very long handle which held intriguing possibility. She’d used it to scrub her back. He’d use it for something else entirely.
The closer he got, the smaller she seemed, and the larger the marks of her imprisonment loomed. Dark circles around her wrists and ankles, not to mention under her eyes made her look pitiful.
Archon tipped her head up, his massive hand gentle under her chin. “Watch your attitude,” he murmured gently. “I don’t want to hurt you this soon.”
“I need a towel,” she replied.
So much attitude in such a little package. He would be whipping it out of her for months and probably years to come.
“When we return to my ship, I’ll have Anna attend to you,” he told her. “In the meantime, I suppose I will be Anna. Get out of the bath and stand on the mat. Wait for me.”
Chapter 20
Iris waited, a light shiver passing over her body as the water started to evaporate from all the most tender parts of her. She knew she was pushing the king, but she had her reasons. She wanted to know why he had come back, what he really wanted with her. She wanted him to hurt her, so that she could prove to herself that he didn’t really care.
It would be beyond dangerous to fall in love with a creature like Archon. He might have been a king, but he was also a vicious, manipulative, rough creature. The last time she saw him, she was leaking his seed as she ran away from him after having made her a public spectacle.
That scene was so incongruous with the one she faced now, the king coming for her with a towel. He started to use it softly, showing an admirable understanding of the soft and tender parts of her body. This was an entirely different king. She looked at his face, wondering if it was actually someone different. But it was him. From the scales around his eyes, to those bright blue eyes which seared into her, he was unmistakably him.
“I can feel the questions inside you,” Archon said, running the towel gently over her skin, patting her breasts lightly. “Ask them.”
“I don’t have any questions for you,” she lied. “I loathe you.”
He looked at her calmly. “Let’s eat.”
The king put on a feast the likes of which Iris had dreamed about every day while incarcerated. There was bird and boar matched with ground roots all boiled and mashed up with the milk of goats. Iris ate a lot of it very quickly.
“Careful,” he cautioned. “Don’t make yourself sick.”
“You make me sick,” she countered with little concern, and even less gratitude.
Archon let out one of those low, dragon-ey growls which served as a warning that she was getting near his last nerve. Iris did not care. Her pain and her suffering could all be traced back to this king. If he hurt her more, it would simply be more of the same. If he wanted to prove that he was truly fond of her, then he could do that without her help.
“I came back for you,” Archon reminded her.
“You came back for your own selfish reasons.”
“Those two things are not mutually exclusive.”
She was full. Full of food, and more than over his bullshit. Whatever Archon had come back for, it wasn't her. At least, she couldn't believe it was. Not yet. He had a lot of making up to do. And he could start by giving her some answers.
“Where are they? My family, I mean.”
“New York city, 2020. On a planet called Earth.”
“Excuse me fucking what?”
“I didn’t just move them in space. I moved them in time.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means a king capable of commanding a flying metal dragon is capable of more than you have seen, or might imagine.”
Iris was curious. She still loathed Archon, but she had always been a creature of intellect and exploration.
“Show me.”
“You make commands as if you were the one who had the power. You just came out of a dungeon, and that did nothing to cow your arrogance, did it?”
“I can be in a dungeon, or in a castle, it doesn't change who I am. You’re the one who needs a crown to feel special.”
He gave her another one of those glowering looks, the ones which excited her all the way to her core. She realized that she had missed annoying him. It was a pleasure to see his scaled brows draw down over those blue eyes, and know that she was making an impact on him. She didn’t need a castle to feel special, but having the king hanging on her every word, that made her feel incredibly powerful.
“I will show you under one condition.”
“And what is that?”
“You will make an effort to be respectful enough that I don’t feel the need to whip you every two seconds. It is tempting to clear this table of its plates and cutlery, put you across it and make a meal of you.”
“Why don’t you.”
“Because you just came out of a dungeon and I’m still feeling somewhat guilty about that - though you are eroding that sense of guilt faster than is good for you.”
She smiled to herself behind a cup of tea.
“Maybe I’ll have a nap first, and then you can show me all the wonders of your kingly abilities.”
Chapter 21
And so it was done as Iris decreed. Archon was not certain that he was doing anybody any favors by giving into the whims of his human, but there was no doubt that the balance of terrible things in their relationship was very much tilted against his favor.
He wanted her to like him. Archon had never cared if anybody liked him before, and he really did not like the way it made him behave. He had to think about her wishes and needs and then provide for them. It was a lot of work.
At least she was asleep now, clad in a silken gown and lying on the finest of sheets. She looked almost angelic, certainly far more innocent than she really was. He found her ruddy hair very appealing, copper tones over brown. It was as if sun was trying to burst out of her hair, but remained hidden behind that rich, earthy color.
Archon sat back in the chair beside the bed and tried to think if he had ever felt this way before. He had of course mated females before, none so roughly or punitively as he had fucked this scrap of humanity. He had been crueler to her than any other female, and yet he also had far softer feelings for her than anybody in existence.
One of her eyes flicked open. She was suddenly awake, that dark eye glaring at him with a sort of elemental annoyance. It was amazing how quickly she was transformed by the simple act of opening one eye. The angel was gone, replaced by the devil.
“Were you watching me sleep?”
“Keeping an eye on you to make sure you didn’t escape,” Archon replied. She couldn’t know how attached he had gotten to her. She already had far too much power as far as he was concerned - and she had almost none at all.
She sat up and frowned at him. “You could have tied me up if you were worried about that.”