Chapter 5 doesn’t begin with a blank page, like some other authors would throw in to be cute about a character blacking, or in this case, whiting out, thankfully. Merry comes to resting her head in Mistral’s lap and he says the always sexy “I want you hurt, not broken” because every girl totally dreams of a man, not five minutes before, being pissed that she didn’t explicitly say no, and then saying they want to hurt them. WTF made me think I liked Mistral before this book?

The entire previously dead garden is now bursting with life. Somehow, during the time when Merry was out cold, some of the men started frolicing around in the gardens and climbing the trees. It seems as if the vegetation was trying to steal their life-forces or something. She sees Frost and Nicca kneeling on the ground, and Galen laying on the ground, convulsing from some sort of power. She’s unsure if it’s pain or pleasure. No time to worry about that, though, because Mistral forces her attention onto him, which somewhat frightens Merry.

He made sure that the only thing I could see was his face. “My turn,” he said, and the look in his eyes was enough to make me frightened. Not in fear of Mistral, but fear of what was happening. Something powerful – and what would be the price? One thing I had learned early was that all power comes with a price.

“Mistral,” I said, but he was already moving down my body. The wind was back, a thin, seeking wind that touched my body like invisible fingers. The dead leaves rustled, and the vines seemed to sigh in the growing wind.

I raised up enough to look down my body at Mistral. I called his name again. He looked up at the sound of his name, but there was nothing in his face that really heard me. This was his one chance in a thousand years to have a woman. When we left the gardens, his opportunity would be gone.

But… they just? Had sex? In the previous book? Did I not understand that? They totally fucked in the last book, right?

Anyway, Merry is confused by what is happening in the room and even though Mistral is all ready to essentially take Merry no matter what, Abeloec goes into his backstory a bit. He’s come back into his previously lost powers. He used to use his powers to select the queens of Ireland, and now his power is back, so he’s looking forward to his new duties.

Mistral chooses that exact moment to plunge himself deep inside of Merry, and then just freeze. The wind starts growing, and Merry can see a storm off in the distance, growing in power. Then the chapter ends with Merry seeing lightning flash in Mistral’s eyes.

So, are we just forgetting the last book even happened? We already knew about Mistral’s power to essentially physically embody lightning. None of this is surprising to us, the readers.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 begins with Mistral finally withdrawing from Merry’s body, and Merry realizes he has tears in his eyes. Merry wants to ask him about it, but realizes it’s probably not wise to do that while they’re surrounded by her other men. Instead, she thinks it’s meant a lot that he would cry after sex with her. Then Abeloec pats him on the shoulder and says “It’s been too long” and, please, it’s been like 1 maybe 2 days at most since Mistral fucked her last, but we’re conveniently forgetting that ever happened, I guess.

They keep bringing up that this is Mistral’s first/last time with Merry and I seriously cannot even believe this. I know LKH has some continuity errors, but TOTALLY FORGETTING YOU HAD SEX WITH A CHARACTER is a little too big to just “whoopsy daisy” forget.

So they sent some ground rules for how much pain Mistral is allowed to cause Merry during their upcoming session, and it doesn’t even matter because as Mistral is being a perfect gentleman and sticking to the rules, Merry keeps begging him to go harder. She also thinks that even though they laid down these rules for fucking, if Mistral broke them she wouldn’t have the heart to stop it anyway because of how much he needs this.

Ugh.

And then:

He bit me deeper this time, bit me until I felt his teeth almost meet in my skin. I cried out and said, “Enough, enough.”

He lifted his face as if to stop completely. I smiled at him. “I didn’t say stop, I just meant that was hard enough.”

Okay, so new rule, when Merry says “Enough” what she actually means is “Don’t go past this”. Got it.

I felt his mouth laid on the mound between my legs, resting on the tight, curling hair. I couldn’t see, but I knew what he was doing. He bit me, and I yelled, “Enough.”
I used one hand to push my hair out of the way, so I could look down my body and see him. He gave one quick flick of his tongue between my legs. That one small touch sped my pulse and opened my mouth in a silent O.

“You know what I want to do,” he said. He spoke with his hands around my thighs, fingers digging in just a little, his face just above my groin, so close that his breath touched me there.

I nodded, because I didn’t trust my voice. On the one hand, I didn’t want him to hurt me; on the other, I did want him to come just to that edge of truly hurting me. I liked thta edge. I liked it a lot.

I finally found my voice, and it almost didn’t sound like me, so breathy, so eager. “Go slow, and when I say enough, you stop.”

But… wait…

Also, you did get that he is biting her clitoris, yes? He’s chomping down on that little nugget like it’s the last in the 20-pack. He keeps biting, and Merry keeps begging for it to be harder, harder, and eventually she orgasms and screams out “Stop, stop!” during the orgasm and he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t actually stop biting her until after her throes of orgasm.

An actual conversation I was having with Sarah while writing this review.

So, even though Merry set up pretty clear boundaries about what Mistral could and could not do during sex, when told to stop, he fucking doesn’t? Hi, that’s rape.

So now Mistral is all sad that Merry might be too sore to fuck, but Merry’s like nope! Just turn me around, I’m good from both ends! Except, not anal, because as far as I know, no one in the LKH verse has ever done anal. Anyway, Merry says she’ll be fine if he fucks her from behind, since he won’t “rub” against the part she bruised. I know how anatomy works, Merry, and uh… yeah, it’s gonna hurt.

Merry starts begging him to just fuck her already, but he’s super into control and won’t let it happen. Merry actually tries to slam herself down on his dick but he’s all “nuh uh” and stops her. So they’re just sitting there, with just the tip of Mistral inside her, and this storm is brewing all around the evil gardens, and Merry realizes he’s not just the god of storms, but an actual physical embodiment of a storm come to life. Finally, he plunges himself inside her and she starts writhing around.

Finally, Merry starts actually showing that she’s capable of more than just lying on the bed motionless while a guy fucks her, and MISTRAL MAKES HER HOLD PERFECTLY STILL. He doesn’t want her to move at all, because he wants to control the entire fuck session. Then they yet again make reference of how long he’s had to wait for sex, and how long it’s been since anyone reacted to him like this and GOD DAMMIT IT WAS ONE BOOK AGO. ONE BOOK. YOU FORGOT AN ENTIRE SEX SCENE OVER THE COURSE OF ONE BOOK. THIS SHOULD NEVER BE A CONTINUITY ISSUE.

Okay, now. If you have any issues with rape descriptions, please don’t read the next chunk of quote, because it’s, uh, it’s pretty disturbing.

He asked again, “How much do you like pain?” But as he spoke, the lightning flashed, the glow filling his mouth and pouring out with his words.

I said the only thing I could think of: “Finish.”
He smiled, and his lips held an edge of that glow. “Finish; just finish?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Will you enjoy it?”

“I don’t know.”

His smile widened, and his eyes flashed, and that line of light sparkled down his body. I ws blind for a moment in the brilliance of it. He began to draw himself out of me. “So be it,” he said in that deep, rolling voice. Thunder echoed him along the roof, and for a moment it seemed as if the very walls thrummed with him.

He shoved himself inside me as fast and hard as he could, and he was too long. I screamed, and it wasn’t all pleasure. I tried not to, but I began to writhe, not closer, but farther away, crawling away from that hard, sharp pain.

He grabbed my hair, tight. Held me in place while he pounded himself into me.

I screamed, and this time, it held words. “Finish, Goddess, please finish. Go, just go.”

Jesus christ.

Then they have to switch positions because Mistral is taking far too long to come and Merry is all sore and can’t handle any position, it seems. Finally they decide on some shit where Mistral cannot touch Merry at all except with his dick inside her, and Merry has to do one forever-long ab crunch to hold herself up to him. Apparently this works, because shortly after Merry tells him she’s about to come, and he’s all “not yet, not yet!” and what is it with the heavily reliance on the characters orgasming at the same time? Why is it always necessary in any sex scene?

So, they both finally orgasm and the room once again bursts with a white light, only this time Merry stays conscious through it. Mistral collapses on top of her, and she realizes she’s not sore at this moment, her orgasm endorphins are apparently blocking the pain receptors. Merry then realizes that the storm hadn’t stopped with Mistral’s orgasm, but it had dulled to a nice soft spring rain. And the chapter ends with Mistral breaking down into sobs while burying his face in Merry’s chest.