Sedition

by Raven Dark

  “I wish we had a lot more time.” My voice shook.

  He grinned, a rare flash of perfect teeth. His palms slipped into the back of my panties, cupping my ass, massaging it and making me squirm into him until I felt every inch of his long, hard cock rubbing against my stomach.

  “Are you sore from riding?”

  “A little, but it doesn’t matter.”

  My thighs and backside throbbed a little when I moved too much, but I had no doubt he’d make me forget the pain in no time.

  “You will have to ride more later. No cowgirl for you.” His eyes teased.

  I giggled.

  “That’s fine, I’ll do all the work. Turn around.”

  I licked my lips. The last time he’d taken me like that… No. I needed to trust him. To believe in him. I turned slowly around so that my back was to him. He ran his hands over my hips, my ass, massaging away the muscle strain. Then he ripped the panties off with one tug.

  I couldn’t help a smile. Another pair of panties ruined. Cherry would be thrilled.

  Hawk stepped back. “Stay there.”

  Across the room I heard him moving around for a moment before he was behind me again, his chest warm against my back. There was a lathering sound, and then his palms, wet and warm with some kind of cream, rubbed my thigh muscles, my backside. Then he pushed my top up above my breasts and rubbed the rest of the cream into my lower back, working the knots out. He finished by rubbing my shoulders until all the tension was gone. The cream had a pleasant medicinal scent, lavender and tea-tree, I thought.

  “Better?” he whispered into my ear.

  “Much. Thank you, Master.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I will use you hard tonight. But you will also use me.” The heat of his breath caressed my neck, his lips trailing along my back. I shivered in pleasure.

  “I missed you, my little kitten.” He spun me around before I could respond. I meant to tell him the same, but his mouth crushed mine. I groaned, opening my mouth wide for him, letting him take his fill. He devoured the kiss, only stopping to jerk my top off, then taking my mouth all over again.

  Without taking his lips off mine, keeping me pinned against him, he turned me around and rushed us across the room. Suddenly, he was tearing my clothes off, and the moment I was naked, he lifted my arms, deftly hooking my wrists into those looped ropes.

  I grinned against his kiss, satisfaction settling over me. I’d been hoping he’d use those on me.

  Hawk lifted his head. I panted up at him, arms spread, my body opened to him. Trusting him. Just as it should be.

  “Open those beautiful legs for me, Kitten,” he rumbled.

  I spread my legs, standing with my feet apart. Totally open and vulnerable to him now.

  “Perfect. So gorgeous.” Two of his fingers slid slowly over my sex, toying with my soaked folds. “Fucking wet. I missed this.”

  Slowly, with deliberate swirling strokes, he teased, gliding his fingers over my clit and around my core until I wriggled and rode his touch. The ropes pulled on my wrists, creating a hint of delicious pain as they bit into my skin.

  His eyes watched my every move, taking it in. Drinking it in like an elixir. At last, his fingers slid into me, a slow, smooth glide, and still his perfect mouth was a tight line, his expression controlled, disciplined.

  Just when I thought I’d come on his fingers, he stilled them. I clenched around him, panting hard.

  “Something you want?”

  I nodded, too needy to get the words out.

  “Tell me.”

  “I…I want you inside me, Master.”

  He withdrew his fingers. Tears leaked out of my eyes.

  Hawk backed up a pace or two and flicked open his belt. He slowly undid his pants, leaving them hanging low on his hips and his magnificent cock jutting free. My mouth watered for a taste of it, for the feel of his hardness filling my mouth, making me suck him to a hungry release.

  Instead of taking me, he stroked himself, running his fist slowly up and down his length while I hung there. Open and wet and wanting.

  “I could never become a sixth level Yantu warrior,” he growled.

  “What?” I didn’t understand the change in topic.

  “Enlightened warriors swear off emotion, but they also take a vow of celibacy. To never be able to fuck you again, never be able to feel your perfection. I’d suffer a thousand nightmares if that’s what it took to have you in my bed every night.”

  His strokes on his cock sped up a little before his hand fisted, the first sign of a strain on that iron control of his. Then he dropped his arm and stalked toward me.

  Taking his time, his hands slid over my bare belly, up over my breasts. The rough calloused heat of his palms turned my nipples to hard points, and I knew he felt them poking into his palms. He bent and sucked each one into his mouth in turn, lapping and pulling hard while his big hands roamed everywhere.

  I dropped my head back, losing myself in the sensations he created until the world and all its horrors faded to nothing, scoured away under his passion. Hawk’s hot mouth worked its way up along the hollow of my throat, his teeth nipping as he went.

  My senses reeled.

  Finally, his hands cupped my ass, and he lifted me easily onto his hips. Yes, yes, yes…

  But he still didn’t take me. Instead, he angled the head of his cock at my entrance, wrapping my legs around his waist without entering me. The head of his cock pressed into me, teasing. Heightening my need to a feverish pitch.

  “I want you to see how safe you are with me,” he murmured.

  “I know I am.”

  His hips shifted forward just enough to tease. I bit my lip around a grin.

  “I could stay like this for hours. I like the feel of needing you, being hard for you.”

  “Please, please don’t, Master.”

  He groaned deep in his throat.

  “Ask me for what you want.”

  “I want you inside me, Master. Please.”

  “Such a good girl.”

  His hands glided over my waist, down to my hips. He pulled me downward onto him, slowly guiding his cock into me. Letting me know he took me on his time, that he gave me what I needed when he was ready.

  The feel of him filling me was pure rapture. I gazed into his amber eyes, never wanting to look away. Never wanting to miss a moment of seeing the need for me there.

  I’d waited so long to be with him again, I nearly came apart then and there. Here in this moment, I felt more connected to him than any physical contact could allow.

  Maker, I loved him. Loved every part of him with every piece of my soul.

  With his hands on my hips, he thrust in and out of me, helping me keep his pace. I clenched around him, loving the stretch. I moaned into the night, tossing my head, the ropes pulling so hard I wondered if they’d snap.

  “Give me your mouth.”

  I whimpered and kissed him frantically, greedy for every hot, wet stroke of his tongue.

  He fucked me slowly for a few strokes, his muscles tight with restraint. Then just when he started to speed up, he stopped and gently let me down to my feet, pulling out of me.

  “Master, what—” I cut off when he removed the ropes off my wrists, then hoisted me up on his hips again, walking me across the room to his bed mat.

  Oh, yes, I liked this.

  Hawk lowered me to the mat, his body covered me, and then he was inside me again, one hard, eager thrust.

  “I could lose myself in you forever, Kitten.” He pumped in and out, taking me at a different angle each time. I whispered his name in the near darkness, my hips bucking up to meet his.

  We kissed long and hard, angling our heads and biting at each other’s lips, teeth scraping. Our bodies moving as one, riding wave after wave of pleasure.

  There was no demon here with me now, no monster, and no ghost of his father to chase away. There was only us. A slave and the master she loved with her whole heart.

  Hawk’s thrus
ts sped up, and then that endless control of his seemed to snap. He sat up and lifted my legs over his shoulder. Eyes never leaving mine, he seized my hips and fucked me wildly, his hips slapping mine. I watched him take me, moaning my pleasure and bucking into him like a woman possessed.

  We came as one, and I tossed my head and mouthed his name. He gave me three sharp thrusts and growled his release.

  My warrior master collapsed on top of me, his cheek next to mine, his hot breath tickling my ear. I wrapped him in my arms and panted hard again.

  “Have I told you how much I missed you, Kitten?” He licked my ear.

  “Yes, but you can say it again.”

  He laughed, a low, rich sound and held me close, rolling with me so that I lay over him, my head on his shoulder. “I was going crazy without you.”

  “Me too, Master.”

  His lips brushed my forehead. “Get some sleep. What little there is of it to have.”

  “I couldn’t sleep right now if my life depended on it. Sleeping would mean missing this time with you.”

  He hummed in his throat while his fingers trailed up and down my back.

  “Setora. My perfect Setora.”

  Our mouths mated, a long slow dance while his legs wrapped around mine.

  “I could keep you here forever, just like this.”

  “Promise?”

  He gave a low chuckle that went all the way to my toes and brushed my forehead with his lips once more. “Sleep, sweet Kitten. Dream sweet dreams.”

  I snuggled into him, and he closed his strong arms tightly around me. I reveled in the feel of finally being with him at last.

  Safety wrapped around me, and I yawned. Whatever I said about not missing a moment with him, my exhausted body apparently didn’t agree. Sleep quickly found me, enclosing me in its tranquil embrace.

  Whatever happened tomorrow, we would face it together.

  I strolled through a garden, the grass like silk under my feet. I walked over to a bench and sat down, the stone cooling my backside through the soft, white dress that fell in layers to my feet. The place looked and felt so familiar, down to the cool breeze that made me shiver as it caressed my bare arms, but when I tried to recall when or how I’d seen it, the memory slipped away like fog through my fingers.

  Why was I here? Where had I seen this place before? The answer danced tantalizingly close, yet out of reach.

  A pink rose petal alighted on my arm, tickling my skin in its descent.

  I picked up the petal and stared at it, the familiarity mixing with a sudden sense of dread. Foreboding raised goose bumps on my skin, and I looked around as panic began to take root.

  Someone’s gaze pressed into my back, making my shoulder blades itch, but when I turned, I didn’t see anyone. I shuddered.

  This was supposed to be my safe place; how had someone infiltrated it? For that matter, how did they know this place belonged to me?

  I rose from the bench, or was about to, but a familiar voice made me turn to look in front of me.

  “‘The woman in the red dress turned to him,’” Steel read. “‘So you think that just because you apologized, I’ll just fall into your arms, and we’ll live happily ever after?’”

  Steel sat on the grass in front of me, his big legs crossed, head down, the book in his hands. He read without stumbling, as if he’d always done it. I’d never heard him read so smoothly.

  “‘Before she could finish what she’d been about to say, Raf hauled her to him and claimed her mouth.’” He didn’t seem bothered by the romance in the words, either, unlike when we’d read together in his tent.

  Part of me wanted to sit there and listen to him for hours, letting his deep voice wash over me. I had nothing to fear when Steel was with me. But I couldn’t stay here anymore. This wasn’t the Grotto. We needed to leave.

  Someone’s gaze still pressed into my back.

  “Steel.”

  “‘Raf broke the kiss and dropped to one knee.’” He continued on without pausing or looking at me. As if he hadn’t even heard me.

  Apprehension tugged at me. Something wasn’t right.

  “‘He pulled out a black box and opened it. A ring sparkled. ‘Will you marry me, Sasha?’”

  I stood and went over to him, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Steel,” I repeated, hating the tremor in my voice.

  He still didn’t look up. “‘Her face flushed. ‘Is this how our marriage is going to be?’”

  Why was he behaving as if I wasn’t even there? That thought sent an ice cold shiver up my spine. I bent and took the book from him. His hands dropped, but he didn’t look at me.

  I glanced at the open pages of the book.

  “What in the Maker’s perfect name…” I stared at the pages. Instead of the words to the old story I’d read many times, letters I’d never seen before filled the pages, only the letters looked more like symbols, jagged lines and dots, formations that looked foreign to me. Like another language.

  I glanced at Steel. How could he have been reading that? My heart sped up. I closed the book and looked at the cover.

  Instead of the familiar aging cover that should have been there, a single precious diamond glittering on white, a black sky with a burning sun stared up at me. The title on the cover was embossed in the same gold filigree, but the letters were wrong. They were the same strange symbols I’d seen inside the book.

  My throat dry, I shook Steel’s shoulder. “Steel. Come on, we have to go.”

  At last, he raised his head. His mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out. His expression looked exactly as it usually did, laid back, his blue eyes sparkling.

  Except for the blood trickling from his nose, a single drop. Which he didn’t seem to notice. I squatted down in front of him and reached for his face. “Steel—”

  He put his head down. I followed his gaze. The book…it was in his hand again. I glanced at my hands, taking them from his face. Hadn’t I been holding the book a moment ago?

  “‘Besides,’” he read on, ““Marriage is illegal. Do you want me to die?’”

  The words were wrong. That wasn’t how the story went, and he was still reading that strange language as if it was ours.

  Before I could say anything, a drop of blood fell from his nose onto the pristine white pages, but he didn’t seem to notice. I stared at the spot of blood, watching it slowly disappear, as if soaking into the pages themselves.

  Fear, real, bone deep fear clawed at me. I took his face in my hands. “Steel. Look at me.”

  I nearly screamed. I jerked my hands back; for a moment, his skin had been a horrible yellow, but then his face was suddenly covered in blood. His eyes blazed with betrayal.

  “Do you want me to die?”

  I shook my head, but the words wouldn’t come.

  The world flashed, and the perfect garden erupted in flames and smoke that I couldn’t feel or smell at all. The burning sun scorched down.

  I looked back at Steel. His lips were moving, but again, no sound came out. I blinked, and his face changed. The face before me was featureless, the way one looked when a stocking covered it. Except for a mouth, which moved without sound.

  I scrambled backwards, or I tried to. Steel’s hand—or whosever hand this was—snaked out and seized my throat. The faceless figure was on his feet, pulling me up with him, strong fingers squeezing until my head felt light.

  A scream tried to escape my throat, but only a raspy gurgle came out. I clawed at the hand on my throat, but it didn’t give, only continued to squeeze.

  “Setora. Setora, come back to me. Come back.” Someone’s voice, distant and unrecognizable, called to me. I scratched at my attacker’s face and chest.

  The fingers tightened.

  “Home,” the faceless figure said. “Come home to me.”

  “Setora, wake up!”

  Someone was screaming, and my nails were digging, scraping at my attacker.

  I jerked awake, that scream filling my ears, my throat painf
ully tight, as if a noose was around my neck.

  My eyes popped open.

  Hawk’s face was above mine, his large hands shaking my shoulders. Concern filled his amber gaze.

  Panting and slick with sweat, I sat up slowly. “Hawk?”

  He was kneeling on the bed in front of me, and fear pounded in my veins, fear that it wasn’t him—that at any moment, his face would turn into that horrible, featureless visage.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Kitten.” He brushed my damp hair from my face. His amber eyes were a warm, reassuring light in the darkness of the tree hollow.

  I looked around. The tree. His candles burned. The garden, and that terrible burning sky, was gone. Relief swept over me. Tears stung my eyes.

  “It was just a dream. Look at me, Kitten.” His hands heated my face, his voice chasing away the dream’s images that lingered like haunting specters.

  I met his eyes, and a sob escaped. He drew me into him, enveloping me in his arms, his heat. I clutched at him, shaking violently. His palm stroked my hair, his deep, soft voice in my ear.

  “Shh. It was only a nightmare. I’m here, Kitten. I’m here.”

  “You were calling me, and I wanted to run to you, but he was choking me, and I couldn’t get away…”

  Tears splashed my cheeks.

  Hawk rocked me gently. “It’s all right. He’s gone now. He can’t hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  “There was a book, but it was all wrong. Steel was there, and…and…there was this horrible sky, like fire. And then he was choking me, and he had no face…”

  Hawk held me for a long time until I calmed down and the dream faded to a place where it no longer tore me up inside. I wanted to stay right here with Hawk like this and let the world fade away.

  Slowly, he drew back and cupped my face in his hands, stroking my cheeks. “Steel was in the dream? He was choking you?” His brow crinkled. “Steel would never hurt you, Kitten. You know that, don’t you? I shouldn’t have told you about my father. I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “No, the dream didn’t have anything to do with that.” It had been too real. Too real to have anything to do with our conversation. I looked at him, really looked at him for the first time, and my eyes widened. “Hawk.”