The Dawn of the End (The Rising Book 3)

by Kristen Ashley

  “Well this man,” her arm about his waist gave him a squeeze, “now has someone to meet those needs. And I have no doubt it was consensual with the way she looks at you and at me. But you are prince and she is maid, so consent could be blurry. Therefore, we’ll just sort that out as best we can at this juncture, shall we?”

  “Simple solutions,” he remarked.

  She tipped her head to the side and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Mm,” he hummed then moved to her side and reached to open the door. “We shall visit with Domitia. Then, we have a blue velvet sofa to christen.”

  He heard her laughter ring in the tower as he guided her into it.

  Cassius did not know if laughter had ever rung in that tower.

  Bright beats back the dark, she was not wrong.

  Transformed.

  99

  The Quarrel

  King Mars

  Bedchamber of the King, Catrame Palace, Fire City

  FIRENZE

  Mars took his mouth from between his queen’s legs, grinning as he heard the disgruntled noise she made.

  He then surged over her and rolled to his back, his hands at her hips bringing her over him.

  His Silence wasted no time sitting up, straddling him, claiming his cock and impaling herself on it.

  Mars was still grinning when her head, that had fallen back in taking him, righted, and she looked down at him.

  “Arrogant,” she murmured

  He then saw the mercury shift in her eyes and should have known what she’d get up to when he did.

  But she was moving atop him, slowly undulating her hips, gliding him out, taking him back, as her hands went to her body, both sliding over her hips to her breasts where she cupped them coyly, her rosy nipples peeking through her fingers.

  Her gaze on him was hooded, a small smile was playing at her lips, the movement of her hips, her hands meant more to entice, to tease, than to give.

  And she was enticing.

  “My queen is a minx,” he murmured, sliding his hands up the tops of her thighs.

  “I was very close with your mouth to me,” she murmured back, shifting her hips forward a bit on an upward stroke, the head of his cock dragging hard inside her as she glided back down.

  What she gave him was so fantastic, he grunted and bucked.

  The smile continued to play at her lips as she drifted one hand down her belly to between her legs.

  Her head again fell back.

  The sight of her thus, Mars clamped onto her hips and took over.

  Her head again righted.

  “Mars,” she warned.

  “Do not act as if this was not what you wanted,” he grunted, slamming her into his shaft.

  Her lips parted, and he lost her gaze when her head again dropped back. She then found his rhythm at her hips and rode him, her hand at her breast tracing up her neck, over her jaw, back into her hair, while the finger of her other hand continued to work between her legs.

  As such, she was fully, gloriously exposed to him, riding his cock.

  Gods.

  “Hurry,” he growled.

  “Mars,” she gasped, urging them both to go faster, something Mars gave her.

  “Hurry,” he clipped.

  She arched back, pushing her bouncing breasts forward, moaning deeply and gripping both his wrists with her hands.

  He reared under her for as long as he could hold his own orgasm back.

  This being until she fell forward, planting her hands in his chest on a whimper as her pussy clenched around him in her climax.

  Only then did he let go, yanking her hips down, filling her, his vision blanking as he shot his seed inside his queen.

  He felt her collapse fully atop him, but he was grunting through his final bursts, enjoying them immensely and not simply because he now felt the silk of his wife’s hair all over his chest, shoulders and tangling in his beard along with the sleek clutch of her sex, the smell of her, and the feel of her wee body resting against his.

  When he was done, he wrapped his arms around her and murmured, “It’s good to be home.”

  He dipped his chin down when he felt her lift her head up.

  And thus, he watched Silence settle her own chin on her hands piled under it at his chest as she looked into his eyes.

  “Did you miss it, my darling?” she asked.

  “The sun is back on my skin,” he muttered, sliding his hands up her spine. “But now it’s better than it has ever been with my wife on my cock.”

  She grinned a grin that was half sultry, half Silence, before she moved her hands and tipped her head in order to kiss the skin of his chest.

  He gazed down at her shining ebony hair, marveling at what wonders were at work that the fates had deemed him fit to grant him this beauty.

  He was thinking this as his queen lifted her head and blindsided him.

  “We must talk of my father.”

  “Silence, you rest on my cock.”

  “It has been some time since—”

  She ceased speaking on an outcry as he pulled her from his shaft and tossed her to her back on the silks beside them before turning himself to cover her down one side.

  “You do not bring him to our bed,” he ordered on a growl, and her face screwed up in a manner he found adorable, which was inconvenient, as it should be aggravating.

  “I bring him to our bed because I have asked repeatedly, and you do not—”

  “Has it occurred to you that I do not because it would upset you?”

  “Has it occurred to you that you not doing it is upsetting me more?”

  He growled, for it had not.

  “Mars—” she began.

  “I will say first that you do not find your way to getting your way by playing my cock,” he told her.

  “And I will say first that it is most exasperating when you do not allow me to finish what I intend to say,” she retorted.

  Another growl came from him.

  His wee queen gazed up at him narrowly and continued speaking.

  “And I will get my way however I decide to go about getting my way.”

  He was not going to be cornered into demanding his wife not fuck him blind in order to get what she wanted, because in all truth, he quite liked when his Silence fucked him blind.

  Thus, he said nothing.

  “And I will say second,” she went on, “that it was not me who woke you by playing with your cock, but a scenario quite different, my king.”

  She was correct about that, thus Mars remained quiet.

  She studied him through his silence, and he watched her shift to using another tool she possessed to get whatever she desired from him.

  She cupped his jaw in both her hands and said softly, “Mars, I would know about my father, and I would hope you’d understand that I need to know.”

  He did understand this.

  And because he did, he drew in a breath through his nostrils before he rolled to his back.

  He was staring at the canopy of their bed for naught but a second before he felt her soft breasts pressed to his chest and saw her beautiful face hovering over his.

  “My love, now I’m becoming frightened,” she whispered, peering closely at him.

  She appeared just that.

  Fuck.

  He had left it too long.

  But how did one tell one’s beloved wife that her father was not her father, he’d whored her mother out in order to gain an heir, and the man had never loved her?

  Mars moved his hand to trail a finger down her cheek, murmuring, “Perhaps you should put on a dressing gown and we can go to the other room.”

  Mars then saw she had not been frightened.

  For now, she was definitely frightened.

  “Oh, my goodness, Mars, what did he say to you?”

  He took her head in both his hands, brought it closer, and held her eyes.

  “The man you knew as your father is unable to make a child,” he said quietly.

/>   Her eyebrows twitched in bewilderment.

  “But that’s—” she began.

  Cautiously, he went on, “Your real father is a Zee with silver eyes.”

  He watched another set of silver eyes grow wide.

  “And part of why I had not told you this is because I have ordered men to find this man and bring him to me so I could meet him and see if he is worthy of introducing to you,” he finished.

  “My father is not my…?” Her voice trailed off.

  Even if his wife did not finish the question, Mars answered, “No.”

  “My mother…had an affair?”

  Fuck.

  “Not exactly,” he muttered.

  Her voice was becoming shrill and her head was fighting his hold when she asked, “How ‘not exactly’ if I am not of my father and this is known?”

  “Silence,” he whispered, but said no more.

  It took her a moment before she whipped away.

  He knifed up and caught her in his arms before she could scurry out of bed.

  “Piccolina,” he murmured.

  “He sent her…he-he forced her…” She did not finish that either, and this he knew would be one of the few times of their lives together that he would wish she was not nearly as clever as she was. “Oh my gods,” she breathed and focused on him. “I am not Countess of the Arbor.”

  “No,” he agreed firmly. “You are Queen of Firenze.”

  She grasped onto his neck in a tight hold. “Mars, this is disastrous.”

  “I cannot imagine how,” he replied.

  “I am…I am a…” And yet again she could not finish.

  “You are royal blood. Your mother is Wilmer’s sister. And your father is a Zee. A nomad. His people are like our tribes. They have no use for nobility except when forced to do so. But if the tribes ever learn, which they will not, they will be glad of the fact that you are of people like them.”

  Her gaze moved over his face a moment before she accused, “You’re inventing things to make me feel better.”

  He was.

  The tribes wouldn’t care either way for they had no use for nobility except when forced to do so.

  “Not at all,” he lied.

  Something else occurred to her, he saw it before she voiced it.

  “My mother was there when this was discussed.”

  He sighed, pulled her closer, and as gently as he could, said, “She was, amore. And I will assure you I told her we would give her a home should she wish hers no longer to be with him. She chose him. This is not an arrangement I understand. Then again, in order to give him what he desired, an heir, she made her choice long ago, something else I do not understand. The only thing I can take from this is that I am glad she did for you are here, you are my wife, my queen, and if she did not, I would not have you. All else fades for me. They have no meaning to me, except that I am glad they made this arrangement so I could have you.”

  “How could you make something so awful sound so wonderful?” she asked, her voice husky, and he knew her emotion was high.

  He did not answer her question.

  He made an assertion.

  “And for you, it explains why he has not been the father he should have been all these years, no?”

  “I suppose,” she mumbled.

  “Silence,” he called when he noted her eyes going vague.

  Her attention came back to him.

  “It is how it needed to be so we could have what it gave us. Think naught of it but that,” he urged.

  “You are able to make something so awful sound wonderful because you are wonderful,” she whispered.

  Of course, her doing this meant he was forced to kiss her.

  This he did, for quite some time.

  He was pressed to her, when he relented.

  “What does my queen do today?” he asked softly.

  When she answered, her voice was breathy, which he liked.

  It was what she said he did not like.

  “I thought I would practice with my dagger, and if Kyril has time, I can continue to try to take him to his back, something I have not yet been able to do.”

  This had been her bent since leaving Birchlire. When they were not astride horses, she worked with her dagger or attempted to fell Kyril, Basil, and once in a sneak attack (that was unsuccessful, though it did lead to something pleasurable), him.

  “You do know, my beautiful Silence, you will never need these skills.”

  “One cannot be too prepared.”

  Mars sighed again.

  Silence regarded him.

  Then she changed the subject. “Is that invitation open-ended?”

  He was perplexed.

  “What invitation, my love?”

  “For my mother, should she ever desire to leave him.”

  He felt his face soften, and he bent to touch his lips to hers before he lifted away and answered, “Yes. If she comes to us, and you wish her here, she will be welcome here.”

  “I think he loves her, in his way,” she said.

  Mars did not, for that was not the way of any love he knew.

  He thought Johan Mattson of the Arbor was selfish and manipulative and very likely showed his wife love to control her.

  But this was not his concern, and as it was not, but more, if he gave them to her, his thoughts on the matter would not make his wife happy, he did not share them.

  “I think it is not yours to worry about anymore, piccolina.”

  “Do you think that you’ll…erm, find this Zee?” she asked.

  “I think if you wish to meet him, I will have every corner of Triton searched until he is found.”

  This was when Mars watched her face soften before she lifted her head off the pillows to kiss him.

  Sadly, they had been away from their home for some time, only arriving at the palace the evening before.

  There was much to do and spending the day abed with his wife was not it.

  Thus, he had no choice but to stop kissing her.

  But he did it giving something to her.

  “I would wish to pierce your navel, and soon,” he murmured. “We shall plan for that with a ceremony between ourselves.”

  “I would like that, my love,” she said in a tone that underlined her words. “And yours?”

  His piercing at her navel was indication she was naught but his in body as well as in her heart and mind. The piercing he had promised her at his cock would mean the same.

  He shook his head. “I would need to heal, which would mean I would need to not make love to you and I’d wish a few days in our home, in our bed, before I am forced to abstain from that.”

  “Agreed,” she stated immediately.

  Mars exploded with laughter.

  He felt her body shake beneath him with her giggles as he did so.

  Unfortunately, when they were done, this interlude needed to be the same.

  Thus, he kissed the giggles still at her lips, and then he pulled them both from the bed.

  She went to her dressing room.

  He went to his.

  And Mars decided to tear down the wall between these two chambers.

  But that would be for another day.

  This day needed to be for something else.

  “They’re unbreakable,” Lorenz said, standing at his side in the musty, torchlit chamber below the earth in the necropolis.

  “Hmm,” Mars hummed, staring at the prone men chained to the stone floor before him.

  “News of the loss of Mercy has traveled wide, Mars,” Lorenz carried on. “We have heard word of three Go’Doan temples in our realm that have been overrun. Looted. One burned.”

  Mars kept his gaze steady on one of the men restrained on the floor, seeing a twitch in his cheek as he heard Lorenz’s words.

  “The priests are scattered,” Lorenz continued. “We know not where. Rumor has it they are using tithes and trading relics to pay tribesmen for safe passage back to the Dome City.”

  Mars raised
his brows but did not shift his gaze. “You tell me this because you wish me to secure their temples?”

  “I do not care about their temples. I tell you this because it might be Rising priests who are escaping our borders.”

  “Hmm,” Mars hummed again.

  “If we were to question them, I feel certain we’ll get useful information from the Go’Ella,” Lorenz went on.

  Another twitch from the prisoner on the floor.

  “Gather them,” Mars ordered.

  The eyes of the man on the floor closed.

  “Pardon?” Lorenz asked.

  “Gather them for interrogation. All of them.”

  “The Go’Ella?” Lorenz inquired.

  “Yes.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. If you can, find the ones that belonged to these men.” He swept an arm out to indicate the men on the floor, but he turned his attention to his captain. “Talk to your friend. If he knows, discover who they are, names, descriptions, and seek them. In the meantime, bring the ones that are currently serving priests in Fire City.”

  “The Go’Doan will not like this,” Lorenz warned.

  “They worship on my soil at my consent, but this gives them no rights. They are not Firenz. If they give you trouble, they have a choice. They either forfeit their Go’Ella for questioning, or they leave this land under guard, and they take nothing with them but the amount of coin that it would take to feed them and their mounts on their journey. No negotiation. One, or the other. See to it, my brother.”

  Lorenz nodded and moved away.

  Mars stood for a moment in contemplation of the prisoner of note.

  He then walked to him where he rested, not terribly comfortably, chest down, legs bent, with a post behind knees that were spread wide, that post tied to his knees and his wrists, meaning his cheek rested against the stone. He could not move for his neck was collared, and it was there he was chained to the floor.

  Basil had shared this was a favored position for him when he played in the Heden District.

  Mars could see that, but he had no taste for it.

  He would like his Silence in somewhat this same position, but without the posts and chains.

  “What will your Go’Ella share with us when we find them, priest?” he asked quietly.