There is no triumph in my gaze because this is not a triumphant moment. I once loved this man, or loved him the best way I knew how. Now that I know what love, the intense fulfilling kind, is supposed to look like, I realize what I had with Silas was survival. Period. I was a pretty face and a curvy body to him, a strong woman to stand at his side when illness weakened him.
Now I am his superior.
I lower myself into the throne. A hard seat that I don’t use often. It symbolizes the worst of us. The brutality, an authoritarian regime that sets one person above all others. This is not how I will take my Sanctuary into the future. Once I’ve established a strong Sanctuary and a governing body worth following, I will submit myself to the will of the people. If they choose me as their leader, then I will serve them. If they choose another, then I will step down and turn over my authority.
I nod to Kingston, who forces Silas to his feet and pushes him forward. All three of us are enacting a ritual created by the Warlord before Silas. Those who commit a crime must bow before the Warlord and accept punishment. Another archaic rule that will eventually change as I establish a fair system of justice.
For now, I am justice and it’s fitting that the old Warlord who was once content to reap the benefits of his Sanctuary without working to better the city for his people now stands trial in the old way.
It also seems fitting to confront my ex-husband, here in the same chamber where we first met. Where he purchased me from the Outsider Talon with the intention of adding me to his harem collection. Now I’m the one in control and he’s at the mercy of my dictates.
“Silas, former Warlord of Santa Fe Sanctuary, has committed the crime of challenging the Warlord. Do you have anything to say for yourself?” I speak loudly, my voice echoing through the chamber.
Silas stares at me as though he’s never seen me before, and I suppose he hasn’t. Not really, not like this. I’ve always had the ability to lead, had even tried my hand at it as I gained authority within the harem. But this is different. As far as I know, I’m the first woman to take a Warlord’s throne.
Though I have brought Silas low in his attempt to retake his former status, to reclaim his wife, he still looks at me with longing. I want to slap him and tell him to dig deep for some pride. He has a wife at home who will serve his every desire, who will stay with him until the end of time. There’s no reason for his presence in my chamber.
“I love you,” he says, a slight whine to his voice that grates up and down my spine. “You loved me too once. Remember?”
I shake my head, but before I can answer, the door to the throne room bangs open and Wolfe strides through. For a few precious seconds, we are the only two people in the room. His gaze locks with mine and the air is sucked out of the room.
He is more beautiful than I ever gave him credit for. The way he walks, his long legs encased in leather, his confident stride. His dark hair is loose, flowing to his shoulders, curly from sweating while working on the wall. His shirt is tucked in but unbuttoned halfway down his chest. A thick leather belt hugs his narrow hips, his gun belt slung low against his thigh. His forearms are encased in leather. His sword is strapped across his back in a leather scabbard.
He climbs the steps and stops in front of me, so close the heady scent of his sweat reaches out to me, sending my pulse racing.
“Expecting trouble?” I ask in a low, husky voice, reaching up to tap the hilt of his sword.
He captures my fingers and brings them to his lips, caressing them before releasing me.
“I heard a Primitive infiltrated my lady’s bedchamber.” He speaks loud enough for Silas to hear.
I shake my head over his choice of words. His use of the word Primitive is meant to tell Silas that, in this moment, he is lower than a human. I’m not pleased, but I’m not surprised. Wolfe will never become a diplomat.
“It was your lady’s bathing chamber,” I correct him, enjoying the wave of heat as his rage amps up another notch.
I don’t want him to fly into a jealous rage, especially since I was never in danger from Silas. But I need my ex-husband to see where my heart and my loyalty lays now.
Not that it matters.
After today, Silas and I won’t see each other again.
It feels like a physical tearing to pull my gaze from Wolfe’s one-eyed snare, but I have a duty to perform and a punishment to hand down.
I move to stand in front of Wolfe.
“Silas, you will be expelled from this Sanctuary for the crime of knowingly trespassing into the Warlord’s chambers. You will be escorted to your home where you may take whatever supplies you require, then you will be escorted to the gates of this city. If you are found within this Sanctuary again, you will be arrested and executed.”
Silas looks shocked by my pronouncement. I can feel Wolfe stir behind me, but he says nothing. No doubt he thinks I’m being too lenient, that I should go with the execution option first.
Silas opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off, turning to Kingston. “Please get him out of here. I don’t want to see him again.”
Kingston nods and drags a protesting Silas away.
“You loved me!” he shouts over his shoulder. “He’s twisted you. You need me to help you find your way again--" His desperate words are cut off as the chamber doors slam shut.
My senses prick as I feel Wolfe’s seething presence at my back. With a deep, calming breath, I turn to look at him. His gaze is fixed on the closed door, his rage toward Silas palpable.
“I don’t want you to kill him,” I say.
Wolfe doesn’t speak, so I cup his cheeks in my hands and wait until he looks at me.
“Don’t kill him.”
“Why?” Wolfe demands. “You don’t have the stomach for it? Because I do.”
“You don’t think I have the stomach to kill him?” I ask incredulously, annoyance making me drop my hands and back away.
“You had him at your mercy,” Wolfe points out.
“Mercy is the correct word,” I say coolly, walking down the steps to the floor of the chamber. “When I was brought here as a slave, I was shown mercy. It seems only fair that I return the favour. There are some who will think my judgment harsh.”
Wolfe snorts. “Hannah is an idiot.”
“Not just her,” I say. “His progress from the Turn has been closely monitored at the hospital. Losing him as a test subject will affect our cure program.”
“I don’t give a shit about the cure.”
I shake my head at him. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Wolfe strides down the steps and stops next to me, closer than he should considering my frame of mind. I’m fed up with men today, in particular husbands and exes.
He tips my chin and stares down at me with his penetrating, single-eyed gaze. “You want to hear something you don’t know?”
“It’s an expression, Wolfe,” I say in annoyance. I try to step away, but he holds me tight.
He ignores me and continues. “I wanted you from the moment I saw you. When Silas was Warlord, I spent my days stalking your every move and my nights fantasizing about taking you from him.”
“We’ve been over this,” I say quietly. “You weren’t ready for me, and I wasn’t ready for you.”
“The biggest mistake of my life.”
My annoyance forgotten, I touch his face, my fingers caressing his satin covered eyepatch, then drifting down his rugged cheek to sift through his soft beard. I run my fingers over his lips, then go on my toes to press a kiss against them.
He doesn’t move, just holds completely still under the press of my lips. “We all made mistakes.”
“If I’d taken you, if I’d usurped the Warlord…”
I’m not used to seeing such anguish from my love and it shatters my heart.
“What would have happened?” I ask, then answer my own question. “You would have given me another man to hate. You were right to leave me in the Tucson Sanctuary. You were right to
force me to find myself.”
His face looks stormy and his grip is so tight he’s cutting off the circulation in my arm. “All those lost years that could have been ours.”
I shake my head. “You’re wrong. Those years weren’t ours. At least not ours together. We couldn’t be who we are now, couldn’t have this love, without those years apart. You forced me to realize who I am and what I’m capable of. You helped me become someone I can admire. Someone who will love you the way you deserve.”
His hold is painful and his expression is stormy. There is a battle behind his eyes. This man has fought his way through life, working his way to the top, doing what he has to do without a single regret. Except for me.
And I won’t ever allow him to regret me.
“Am I wrong?” I whisper, caressing his face again.
“I don’t deserve you. Never have.”
Which is why he didn’t take me from Silas. He didn’t think he deserved me, deserved to be happy.
“Then why are we together?” I push, wanting him to see the truth. That he is worthy of happiness.
“Because you belong to me,” he growls. “Because you make me better than I am.”
Forty-Five
A storm rages between us as emotion and chemistry sizzle through the air. This is us. Wild, primitive, savage.
I sense his intent before he moves and my heart speeds up in anticipation. The look on his face, possessive, angry, fierce, sends my senses spinning. Yet he’s not angry with me. He’s angry with himself. He’s angry over our lost time.
I cling to him as he picks me up and carries me to my throne.
He sets me down and grips the ties holding my leather corset together, snapping them beneath angry fingers, thrusting the fabric open and baring my breasts. He grips the hair at the nape of my neck and pulls me up to my feet.
“I will never let you go,” he growls in my ear, sending shivers coursing through me. “We’re together until death.”
He drags me closer, our lips now so close his breath rushes across me, sending goosebumps standing across my flesh.
“Until death,” I whisper against him.
Tension vibrates through him as he stands still, his breath rushing across my lips, then something inside him snaps. He grips me hard, dragging me up against his body, his lips slamming over mine in a brutal kiss.
His embrace hurts, but his desperation infects me. I kiss him back just as passionately, using my nails to score his skin, to show him we’re alive and we’re together. What came before doesn’t matter. Not Silas, not anyone.
He tears my clothes from my body, stripping seams in his desperation to touch my flesh. I do the same, sliding my hands up his chest, feeling his warmth, the ridges of his scars, his muscles.
He turns me around in his arms, filling his hands with my breasts as he bends me over the throne. I grip the top, my fingers clenching around the carving of a crown as Wolfe unzips his leather pants.
I moan at the sound and thrust my hips back.
This moment is a reaffirmation of our survival, our marriage and our power. Together we rule.
He lifts my leg, setting my foot on the arm of the chair, then reaches under me to cup my throbbing pussy. He uses the rough pads of his fingers to massage my clit, sending a cascade of sensations through me.
I toss my head back and rock into his hand as I come closer and closer to orgasm.
“Fuck me!” I yell, looking over my shoulder at him in heated challenge.
I expect him to take up my challenge and enter my dripping pussy from behind. Instead, he drops to his knees and buries his face against me, licking me from end to end.
“Oh fuck!”
I grip the throne so hard I can feel the imprint of the golden crown against my palms.
Wolfe eats me like his namesake falling upon its prey. He uses his lips, tongue and teeth to drive me higher and higher, slipping his fingers inside and filling me.
I climax with a shout, my knees buckling.
He holds me up, his hands spanning my hips. I feel the wetness of myself smearing across my flesh as he touches me.
Once I’m steady, he continues to ravish me, only this time he tongues my ass. I gasp and lurch forward, hugging myself against the throne. A protest leaps to my lips and then dies just as quickly as nerve-endings I didn’t even know I had ignite and catch fire.
I’m helpless against the onslaught of his skilled tongue.
He uses his fingers to bring my pussy back to life, pinching my clit and thrusting up inside me at the same time as he laps at my ass, pushing his tongue against me and withdrawing until I’m rocking into his face and begging for more.
I growl when he stops, pulling his fingers from my body and standing. My annoyance quickly evaporates when he pushes himself against me and slides home, filling me with his big, beautiful cock.
But once again, I’m left frustrated when he pulls from my body.
“What are you…?”
I feel his wet cock touch my back entrance and let out a yell of protest that gets strangled in my throat as he pushes the tip inside me.
“No, Wolfe!” I shout, lurching forward. “Too much.”
He grips my waist and forces me back, pushing more of himself inside. I gasp at the painful, stretching sensation.
He leans across my back, gripping my hair and forcing my head back. He lays his lips against my ear.
“I’ve waited for this day,” he growls softly. “The day I get to fuck all of you.”
I pant and moan. “You’re too big.”
“I’m not,” he says against the side of my head. “You will take me and you will love it.”
He’s challenging me and I can’t resist.
“Fuck!” I shout, thrusting my hips back as pleasure and pain charges through me.
He pushes himself home, bottoming out in my ass.
I feel stretching, a biting pain, too full… but also something else. A spark of life rippling along the nerve-endings.
He wraps his arms around me, holding my arms against my body. “Feel me.”
I want to scream at him that I can’t not feel him, but I can’t catch my breath enough to yell at him.
He pulls out a few inches, then pushes in again. I gasp and wiggle in his arms, but he refuses to let me go.
“I can’t…”
“You can.”
I grit my teeth.
“Feel me,” he says again, but this time he bites down on my shoulder, marking me with his teeth.
I yelp in surprise.
“I feel you!” I snarl.
He moves inside me, dragging his cock out and then back in. He doesn’t rush, doesn’t fuck me hard, but fills me, forcing me to feel as the heat of his cock slides into my virgin hole. With each thrust the pain recedes, to be replaced by a rush of sensation.
“Take me,” he growls against me, turning his face into my throat and biting hard enough to mark.
“Yes!” I throw my head back, giving him better access.
I feel so full, at the same time as empty. My pussy is dripping with need as orgasmic sensations ripple out from my ass.
“Come for me.”
His sexy growl sends me over the edge.
He reaches down my body and thrusts his fingers up inside my pussy, filling me completely.
I explode into orgasm, screaming loud enough to bring half the palace running. That we’re still alone tells me Wolfe anticipated this moment and told our security staff to keep their distance.
I cling to the throne as he wrings my body of every bit of pleasure, then demands more.
His thrusts grow rougher, speeding up as he fucks my ass, claiming his territory on my throne.
“Again,” he snarls against my ear, “Come for me again.”
My heart feels as though it’s exploding in my chest and I’m completely out of control as my body convulses beneath him.
“I’m coming!” I shout as fluid gushes onto my thighs, his fingers still working fu
riously inside me.
His arm around my waist tightens until the breath is forced from my body, then he shouts his own pleasure as he comes with me, pumping heated semen deep into my ass.
When he finishes, I’m limp against the chair, his damp chest plastered across my back.
He pulls his cock from my ass and straightens. Before I can collapse, he picks me up, turns, and falls back into the throne.
Together, we cuddle naked, not saying a word to each other as the glow of our lovemaking fills us.
Forty-Six
Wolfe
Tracking Silas isn’t difficult. The man was never a warrior, though he had no problem using his warriors as his tools to control his territory. I give him a two-day head start before I go hunting.
I can’t have another man out there who is obsessed with my woman. The moment she expelled him from the city, I knew I would find him and end his miserable life. Like a cat, he keeps coming back from the dead.
Not this time.
If Skye asks, I will tell her the truth, that I killed her ex-husband, ridding us of his presence on this planet. I’d also told her the truth when I said no matter what happens, she belongs to me. Even if she hates me for this, I’m not letting her go.
Killing Silas is my right. It’s my pleasure. I should have done it years ago.
Too bad about the girl.
Hannah left with Silas, horrified over his expulsion. Like the liar he is, I have no doubt he twisted the truth to gain her sympathy. Likely told her he’d gotten caught entering the palace in an attempt to advocate on behalf of the former zombies to the new Warlord.
Hannah followed him out into the desert, determined to stand by her man.
I thought perhaps they would make their way to the mountain community, but they travelled in the opposite direction.
Skye had refused to give Silas a vehicle, but somehow the two had gotten their hands on one. I follow the tire tracks to a nearby ghost town, close enough to Sanctuary that I can see the top of the wall across the horizon.
It’s as I thought. Silas will never let Skye go. Even as a Primitive he hadn’t been able to go far, the expectation that he would one day see her again keeping him in the vicinity.
Skye's Sanctuary (The Sanctuary Series Book 5) Page 26