CHAPTER NINE
Power is a fragile thing.
It can break you, if you let it and if you aren't strong enough to hold it off.
It can curse you, if you give it enough energy, if you don't fight.
It can ruin, people and romances and minds. It can break.
When he rises to power, when the sun is up like the country's flags and his name is shouted across the land, he's strong.
He isn't fragile, and he doesn't flinch for a moment. He takes ownership of his father's throne. He wears his crown the way he's supposed to, meant to.
He changes. But instead of going back to who he was before her, before he willingly let her infiltrate his system, he decides that being cold is now the only way forward.
Strong men aren't weak. Strong man don't let their wives, who are only there to lie on their backs and carry heirs and satisfy their egos, infiltrate them.
He changes, and she doesn't like it.
It's only on the sixth day of his reign that she's had enough, fed up with his way of speaking to her and the staff, with the way he treats her like a rag doll and throws her around to his own enjoyment.
She's not his possession, though she is, and she won't be treated as such.
"My Lady, did you receive the gift from Lord Hunt?"
April nods, keeping her eyes focused on her husband across the yard. He has one hand behind his back, the other placed on a blonde woman's arm. She'll be damned if she lets him get away with it.
"Yes." She smiles falsely, turns to face the young girl beside her, pouring water out of and into a glass, "Thank you." She stops her smaller hand, pries it away to pick up her water.
"My pleasure."
Ah, yes. Pleasure. The sin of all evils. If she didn't enjoy it so much, she'd withhold giving him any pleasure. She'd refuse, fight him, deny his advances.
He could do with a little bit of the cold shoulder himself. Being crowned a King shouldn't give him unlimited satisfaction.
And it's not as though he would hurt her. She's his wife, the mother of his growing child of a couple of months. She is his, and he surely wouldn't hurt one of his own belongings.
Her gaze shifts from the light table back to her husband then, watching as his hand rubs motions up and down the blonde's arm, burning holes through his skull when he smiles, the way he never seems to at her anymore.
She isn't a jealous woman at heart, but then again, she'd never had anything to be jealous of, anything worth fighting over. She won't fight the girl, she won't lay a hand on her.
She will just remind everyone of her claim, stick a knife through his heart and keep dragging it until he only sees her.
Their marriage wasn't only to serve him up a wife, a future queen on a platter. She doesn't see it that way. It's a two-way street. She will be his dutiful, providing, loving spouse, but only if he does the same. Her mother taught her better than to think otherwise.
He hasn't slept with anybody else beside her yet, not since their marriage, at least. He's never smelt of another woman's perfume, or a whore's indiscretions. He'd always been hers, and smelt of her intoxicating scent, and been her own little indiscretion.
As a girl, she'd been reminded that once married, her husband may sleep around, may slip out of her bed and into that of another on occasion.
As a young woman, she'd been told that it would hurt; the touching and the feeling and the way he'd penetrate her, ruin her.
As her present self, she refuses to let him take her with nothing in return.
He is hers, and if she needs to remind him of that then she will.
It's much later when she decides to confront him.
They sit through supper the way they usually do, with her being silent and his eyes never leaving the table.
They change and bathe the way they usually do, she in her corner and he in his.
It's when she's alone, already wrapped up in bed with blankets around her and pillows beneath her head that she snaps, refuses to break as he touches her.
April keeps her eyes closed and she wraps her fingers tightly around the edge of her cushion. It's white but it turns golden beneath the sweat of her grasp, but she won't let it go.
She doesn't budge when she feels him slip into bed beside her, when she feels his strong arm snake around her to pull her into his front.
She's not his safety blanket, his comforter, his cough sirup. She's his wife, his other half, and she deserves more respect than he's been giving her lately.
Jackson's hand covers her expanding bump, his long fingertips digging into her skin, thumb tracing harsh circles against the material of her nightgown.
She feels him shuffle closer, trace a hand from her waist to her thigh, grip her muscle in his hand as he tries to turn her over.
She stiffens, frowns behind closed eyes, tries her best to keep a straight face.
It becomes increasingly harder to do when he continues to pull, push. He's rougher than he was, than the way he once held her.
His touch is heavier, grosser, and she wonders if his mother suffered this same fate upon her husband's coronation.
His green eyes squint, his lips dry and tight as he moves his free hand to the shoulder resting on her pillow, trying to bring her toward him.
The hand on her thigh slips higher when she finally concedes, turns onto her side with open eyes to face him. "What's wrong?" He asks quietly, but it's not soft, and it's not as caring as it once had been. He's changed.
The redhead doesn't reply, only stares up at him blankly, doesn't flinch when his hands shifts to slide beneath her gown. She clenches her teeth, stopping herself from lifting her gaze off of his.
She swats his hand away when he continues to ride higher, ignoring her request and lightly bruising her flesh. He goes to kiss her, presses his lips against her own forcefully, keeps his eyes locked on hers. She doesn't kiss back, she can't. She refuses.
She smacks, taps, lifts small fists to hit his chest until he backs away, until he removes that hand from her body and his grip on her side loosens in the slightest.
"What?" His voice is rougher than usual, eyes sharper with more heat and intensity than she's used to seeing. He's always passionate, but this is different.
"Stop."
She licks her lips, grits her teeth, nostrils flared as she grabs his hand still on her leg, crushes his knuckles in her palm.
She's strong, probably a lot more than he gives her credit for.
"Stop?" Jackson raises a brow, eyes her carefully, face dangerously lose to her own. He could damage her, touch her the way she's always been afraid of being touched, force his domination and ruin her soul. He could.
Her muddy hazel eyes flicker from his face to his hand in her grasp quickly, and she shifts her legs. She lifts a knee up at his side, drags him down on top of her until she turns, flips them over so he lies beneath her.
"You want to play that game?"
She nods, perks a brow confidently. She's changed since being there, since being with him, since being married. She's bolder, stronger, wiser.
"I'm not playing anything." She informs him, tugs a pillow out from under his head and holds it up in front of her.
His gaze drops to the white cotton then, watching as she pulls the case away from the cushion.
April lets the thick cushion fall down beside the bed before she rips into the pillow case, pulls down long trims of material. She makes three of them, two thin and one thicker.
She leans forward to forcefully grab his hand that lingered near her lap and she pulls it up to rest by the head of the bed.
Reaching for a strand of cotton, she wraps the white cloth around his wrist before she ties it into a knot against the bed frame. And she does the same with the other one.
He is hers, the same way she is his. He belongs to her.
She pulls on the make-shift restraints around his wrists then, fixing the case around him tightly enough to rub off on his skin.
April feels him shift up into her, her behind meeting his lap as he thrusts away, as though she'll let him out of her hold.
"What is this?" His green eyes turn a shade darker, glowing like emerald's on a necklace and she smirks in retaliation to his discomfort.
"This is me," His wife begins, running her hands up his chest slowly to drag the material of his shirt up before she tugs on the collar, rips it down the middle and pulls away from him.
He can't just use her as he pleases without ever expecting her to do the same.
She lowers herself down onto his lap, thighs straddling his body, knees rubbing against his hips.
He isn't sure how he let her do this. How he could let a woman take the reigns for a moment of his fragility and dominate him.
Jackson glances down beside him, trashes around uncomfortably when she begins to slowly untie the knot of his pants, fingers slipping down the material covering his privacy.
His eyes catch sight of the third piece of cotton in her lap then, and he frowns in curiosity when she picks it up and holds it up proudly.
"What are you-"
"Shh." Her face is blank, rid of any emotion and he's not sure what to feel when she brings it closer to his face, cups his jaw with one hand while scrunching the cloth up with the one.
She holds his face perfectly, thumb against his cheek and fingers curled around his jawline, and she shoves the white material past his teeth, closes his mouth to make sure he bites down on it.
Whenever she takes control, it's never like this. She never surrenders him powerless, useless, unable to do anything but give in to her and her demands. She never forces him, though he's truly coming to enjoy this now.
She's come a long way from being the quiet and almost timid woman he married.
April swallows a deep breath, closes her eyes for a split second to gather her thoughts. He wouldn't have hurt her, she's sure of it, but she'll never let a man lay his hands on her if she doesn't want to, no matter who he is or what may come of it.
She comes out of her trance then, mind cleared ad she moves to pull his pants down his legs, setting his erection free and leaving the material clumped around his calves. Her once trembling hands find the bottom of her nightgown, pulling it up to her waist and sliding it aside.
She nods at him in reassurance, no assure that she won't hurt him the way he doesn't want to be hurt. It's not pain, or unwanted. It's new, and them.
Dropping her hands back down to his chest, she lets her fingertips trace his coloured skin, feels her body fall and slowly lower herself down onto his length.
She breathes out, mouth slightly open, a soft moan escaping past her lips when he thrusts upwards, stares up at her through his tired gaze.
Right now, he's powerless. He's not a king, a ruler, and he certainly holds no title over here.
He can't touch her, not with the hands, not the way he always does when his skin makes her own erupt in hot shivers.
He can't talk, can't groan the way he does when she usually rides him, when he finds his release, when the joy of touching her, loving her brings out his words. There are no "I love you's", no "Please's."
He's powerless against her, she is in control for a change, and he's as opposed to the idea as he perhaps should be.
Her skin covers in goosebumps, all of her muscles contracting and aching as she rocks back and forth against him, with him.
She licks her lips, bites the lower one when he hits a perfect spot, "That feels good." She reaches down to grasp the bottom of her gown, pulling it over her head to drop it down carelessly beside them.
April continues to ride him, scratching her fingernails up and down his chest, leaving her mark when she deems fit. She wants him to know who she is, who he belongs to, that he girl he married isn't the woman she is today.
"You like that?" She leans down to grab his forearms tightly in her hands, her bare chest rubbing motions against his collarbone, a wild expression covering her face when he growls, clearly annoyed at his unavailability to touch her.
She grips the sides of his face after that, letting her thumbs dance across his cheekbones until they reach the corners of his mouth.
She smirks, hiding her innocent mind, leans her forehead against his. She cries out gently when she feels herself nearing completion, when the fire between her legs is too hot and he's almost burning holes through her already heated crevices.
This is about her, not him.
Right now, she's a queen. And that's all that matters.