by Mima
After Wolf had been subdued, Aidan, Dom’s personal assistant, led Donte back to his cell up on the sixth level, just one level below where his parents—he wrenched his mind away. Aidan walked him the long way, trying to avoid a repeat of the alarm he’d caused on the way down. Since Aidan was a white wolf, he was still riled from his Alpha’s slip, and moved fast, tense and silent.
Donte knew his time with the clans was done. He had to get through to Dom, but he didn’t think his own sunny personality was enough. He and Bear needed Moriko. Specifically, they needed to Bond her and give the Council a reason to hesitate in ripping his throat out before they next saw him. It was even more perfect for him that she was a princess, but on her end it would be a problem. No Royal had ever Bonded with a trux.
The potential block to his plans being on the human side was an extra layer of puzzle that distracted Bear enough to make being stuffed back into the cell easier. Every time they took him out to go to the baths, the urge to run ran through every fiber of muscle. And every time they put him back in, the urge to rip and rend twisted with his dark memories. So today he focused on wondering if Dom had access to the Queen and if he’d pass along Donte’s message.
The chains had barely been attached by Aidan, who left with a murmur about lunch, when the stone door grated again with the scent of a new angry man entering the room. Most of his guards were pissed he still breathed. Nothing new there.
He continued to pace. He’d already gotten into Moriko’s mind. Now the trick was getting her into his. Dom would assume Donte still needed someone’s approval for the Bonding. But he was quite sure he could Bond her on his own. Seeing Alaric today in the council chamber had cemented that. There’d been not a single flare of recognition, let alone happiness, at seeing his old clan Alpha.
The stone cell was only one bodylength wide by two bodylengths long and contained nothing but his new blanket and the little ball Quor had given him. So it didn’t take long for Donte to reach the farthest wall. When he pivoted back toward the door, pain exploded in his jaw first and then his skull as his head rebounded off stone.
It hadn’t been a new guard as he’d thought. The man hit him with a flurry of blows while he was still staggering back from the first good kick. Dazed, he only got a few blocks in.
The man looked familiar…
A particularly powerful hook had him spinning on one foot. Then a flurry of blows landed on his kidney, stealing his breath and weakening his knees. A hand grabbed into Donte’s hair and threw him across the room.
As he sailed past the hissing man, he realized who it was. The last hawk. The warrior who’d escaped with all the slaves. How funny that out of all the slaves he’d tried to organize, it was the skinny green-eyed bit who'd had the gumption and skill to finally do it. He hit the stone hard.
“Get up.”
The foot connected with his head again, this time landing against the side of his face in a roundhouse. His neck seized and that eye went into a swirl of bright light.
“I need to know.”
A knee caught him under the chin and one of his chipped teeth snagged his lip. Thick salty warmth rushed over his tongue. Curse the Six, memories of fighting the wolves exploded in his head. Steaming bowels spilling out across the damp morning grass. He’d sacrificed himself up for torture to aid this man’s escape. By Ash, he wouldn’t kill him now.
“After all, Thad lied so much no one quite knew the truth.” The words came from panting breaths, but each precise like a jagged icicle.
Donte rolled on the floor, his body in agony. Bear roared inside his mind and his claws shot out. Another kick, slicing both lips as they were driven into his teeth. His nose had shattered on the first strike and was making a mess. He spat a big glop away from the coldly enraged hawk.
The man circled him silently. “Get up and answer me.”
Donte pulled himself up to his feet, chains rattling, towering over the more slender warrior.
Tydus. That was his name. His eyes glowed gold in the dim light, just as they had in the darkmages’ fortress, when he’d been a prisoner for a week. A measly week and he seemed to be pretty upset about it.
“Tell me, you sick rogue. Did you eat Erich’s heart or not?”
Donte swayed, blinking hard at the five Tys lined up in a row. Another kick snapped out of nowhere and lashed directly into one of his eyes. His head bounced off the stone wall yet again. Twin blooms of breath-stealing pain hit at the base of his skull and his cracked eye socket. The eye immediately swelled shut. His throat wanted to groan but he kept it in.
Ty reached up and grabbed his throat, fingers gouging into his voicebox. “Rogue.” The word dripped with emotion. Ty’s clenched teeth ground a breath away from Donte’s chin.
He wasn’t a small man, but Donte was huge. Ty didn’t seem to be intimidated, pinning Donte’s larger form to the wall and looking up at him. “Filthy, weak, dishonorable rogue. Darkmage pet. Horror. Trait—“
Donte jammed his claws deep into the arm gripping his throat, skewering it.
Ty screamed, and Donte head-butted him, but missed his nose. Donte forced the man’s arm back, but the warrior resisted, so rips appeared as Donte’s claws began to tear through the man’s forearm.
The man was strong and his fingers began to puncture the skin of Donte’s throat. Blood rushed thick and hot down his chest, but it was thin. No jugular damage yet. Ty’s orange bird-eyes stared hard at Donte’s empty gaze and seemed to grow more furious. Donte knew his eyes held nothing but death in their depth.
Aidan and another warrior were there, hauling Ty away. Even though the two grabbed at their wrists, they couldn’t pry Ty’s fingers from their crushing grip on Donte’s windpipe.
Sucking in a thin breath, ignoring the blood and drool gushing across his lips, he managed to grate out. “Didn’t. Eat.”
He hadn’t eaten that poor ash-souled warrior’s heart. He’d ripped it out of his chest and burned it on the beach and been tortured past death for three days straight for stealing both the death moment and the soul home from them.
Ty’s hands spasmed and let go. The large guard, obviously a lizzeed, staggered back, and with one wrench, tore Ty’s arm up off Donte’s claws. Bear lunged forward after their prey, but Aidan slammed him back with a solid blow to the solar plexus. Already struggling to breathe, Donte now focused on staying conscious.
“You took it. She saw you. You killed him. She heard him tell you ‘no.’ And you killed him.”
The lizzeed forced Ty to the floor with a twist of his wounded arm, and Ty went. The guard leaned over and ripped a strip off of Donte’s new blanket, then used it to tie the hawk’s wound. Donte hadn’t even gotten to sleep on that one yet.
But the time that project took allowed Donte to get his voice back. So the hawk wanted to talk about the other hawk’s death. Erich. Another one Donte hadn’t been able to save. Someone had carried tales of Donte being the one to kill him and Tydus thought it was part of Donte being a rogue. But he was wrong. Suddenly, Donte wanted him to know that.
“I asked him if he’d rather go via the little slave with the stone knife in the hallway. He said no. I asked him if he was ready to die and he nodded.”
All three men in the room stopped and stared at him. Bear rippled inside Donte, and his arms erupted into battleform, bulging with muscle and a thin layer of hair.
“You sick fuck.” Ty trembled, impossibly straining against the lizzeed’s grip.
He’d dislocate his shoulder soon, but Donte didn’t discount the possibility of what damage a man was willing to take when he wanted a piece of someone.
“Did you rape her? I asked her and she wouldn’t tell me.”
“Why do you think I did?” Donte side-stepped the question, feeling sick. There were endless brutal, humiliating, violent things they’d forced on him and forced him to do. He couldn’t even remember if the Hawk’s caretaker slave had ever shared a torture session with him.
“Tydus.” A woman’s vo
ice came from the door.
He didn’t recognize her, either, until she looked at him. It was green-eyes, the slave assigned to care for the hawk, the one that finally succeeded in getting away where so many failed. She looked a lot different, despite the fact she’d only been out of the fortress a few weeks more than Donte. She was less skinny, with clean, shiny gold-blond hair that fit her like a cap. Even her scars were faded and she stood straight, shoulders squared. She swallowed when she saw him and her fear scent exploded in the room.
“He’s chained, Lady,” Aidan hurried to assure her, moving to stand between her and Donte. “But you should go.”
Green Eyes swung her head to the hawk. “Come home with me, mate.”
Shock exploded in Donte. Bear sat back hard. Mate! They were Bonded?
From the floor, Ty glowered at him. Finally, he shrugged, irritated, and the lizzeed tested the air with his reptilian tongue. Apparently, he judged the man calm enough and let him go.
Ty stood carefully. “You make me sick.”
“Understood,” Donte panted. His arms faded back to human, although he held to Bear’s claws. Donte flashed on a memory of when Sverre had chained this one and pricked her neck full of vicious needles. He shook his head to dislodge the image, flinging blood. Their mated scent filtered to him, triggering old, pained memories of the clans.
Frowning, he studied her. There was a lot he’d ignored, to live, but he’d tried to help when he could. “I’m glad you got my message. Well done.”
Ty rushed him, howling, “Don’t even look at her!”
But the two other warriors were there, pushing him back. He strained against them, but it was Green Eyes’ hand on his shoulder that made the hawk stand down. She wrapped her arm around his waist and led his rigid form out, pausing in the hall to look back in at Donte.
“Don’t,” Ty whispered to her.
“You started it,” she retorted. Her fear scent twined with anger. She licked her lips and lifted her pointy little chin toward Donte. “You. Bear.” Her thin torso heaved with the force of her hard breaths.
“Yeah.” His knees were locked and the wall held him up.
“It was you? The words in that pot?”
“Yeah.”
She stared at him and he looked away. Yes, he’d been the one to give her the secret to getting out of the fortress, but it was her and her hawk who had made it happen.
“Come, Sunshine.” Ty led her away, now a protective mate instead of a murderous warrior.
Donte spat another wad of blood on the floor.
Aidan sighed. “One minute. I was gone one fucking minute.” He looked at the lizzeed. “You had to step over to the balcony.”
“You told me to wait for the food in the hall,” he said defensively.
Both men reached for Donte and healing energy rushed through him. Ah, man. Pure life, flowing, growing, dancing. He still hated the Six Elements like they hated him, but he understood they were the right way. Damn, bodycraft was sweet.
Donte slid down the wall, ignoring the scratches on his back. His throat smoothed over first, and then his eye opened up. His jaw and his nose, then his lips and the back of his skull all soothed out of their pounding agony.
“He’ll end up being censured,” the lizzeed said as the energy spun down into Donte’s neck and into his torso.
Donte’s hand flashed out to grab the lizzeed’s shoulder. He pulled him into his face and locked in on the man’s brown gaze. “It never fucking happened so there’s nothing to censure.”
“I don’t lie.” The warrior stared steadily back.
“There’s nothing to lie about. Get me a bucket of fucking water and keep your snaky tongue in your head unless you want me to wrap it around your neck.”
The man’s scaled scalp wrinkled as his face flexed in distaste. He jerked himself out of Donte’s hold, rose and left with a muttered, “We’ll see.”
Aidan finished healing him. Donte washed himself first, then set to work cleaning the floor and walls. The lizzeed had just taken the red water away and dried the stone with a blast of air when one of the endless black wolves pattered in from the hall.
Aidan still stood in the open doorway, so Donte had an amusing view of the trux’s confusion. His nose lifted as he scented the blood. He changed into human form and his forehead creased when he stared around the clean room with a few fading damp patches.
“Report,” Aidan said.
The wolf looked at Donte as if doubting he should hear the information.
“It’s my life,” he said dryly.
The wolf spoke. “Wolf will not be censured for his loss of control, although he must stand behind his Shield during times when the rogue is present again. The discussion into how long we should keep him alive continues.”
Bear laid down and slept. Donte sat on his newly shortened blanket, glad to feel the small lump of his ball was still there. The fight with Tydus had settled him, but stirred memories of the fortress. He really wished he could kill something that deserved it.
Aidan swung the cell door closed. It didn’t prevent him from hearing their conversation.
The black wolf asked, “What’s he done? Why do I smell blood?”
Aidan paused.
Don’t you say it, Donte thought hard at the man.
“The rogue tore his skin up on the wall. He’s healed.”
Nodding with approval at the man’s adroit use of the partial truth, Donte closed his eyes against being sealed into the tiny room once more.
Chapter Seven
Moriko was not particularly surprised to discover hope made her horny. The morning was very productive, her energy level completely at odds with how much her brain focused on Donte’s latest visit. It was so surreal to help judge a new silver polish’s effectiveness while thinking Donte will be my husband. I will be married to a wounded Beast, and we will hold each other. It would so please her to take care of him, to give him solace, to order his world so he could focus on the things he needed to do. So she could help him in his quest to forget his own heroism.
Bear’s beautiful words about healing had melted her, but it was his stark declaration of existence that made her fall in love. You take care of what needs to be done. And just like that, a lonely woman knew she’d found her match. He was ignored now, but she knew quite a bit about pampering and caring for people.
Her stress was so high she could barely get through two meetings in a row without her body screaming for sensation. She sought out three quickies before midday. All of those light pleasures lit up a cascade of memories of Donte’s powerful body, sending her into gasping seconds. Her body would barely cool before some remembrance of his strength, his hand steady as it carved another mark of shame along his jaw for failing to rescue the hawks, sent her desperate to the nearest possible lover.
Her hands restlessly traced the smooth, thin thighs of a lover who’d known only safety, only pampering from her loving family. Shadows covered her man. Shadows of what they’d done to him, what he’d offered himself for, what he’d done to trick them. He was a wreck inside, held together by his bear and his hate. She knew exactly how he felt. Precisely.
He had huge ragged chunks of scars stretching across him like a crazy quilt, but those were the quilts that lasted the longest. Nothing about those dense, mysterious areas bothered her. She was not as damaged, but she was just like him, functioning on her duty and her fear. All of her orgasms were fast, and all of them were about him, the people she was with just a tool.
Lunch was a disaster of two royals having a fit. Lucius was under a lot of strain as the reports of riots among the wildlings outside the Walls were nearly constant. Stephano shouldn’t have picked at him over wearing his slippers to lunch, but Stephano was a stickler for propriety. He was also in charge of complaints against truxet and he’d actually had stones thrown at him just yesterday.
Moriko was close to settling the tempers when Tsay took the opportunity to snipe at her, still angry Moriko had dism
issed his grandson Wu as her assistant. It had been further insult to Wu to be replaced by a non-Royal and his whole family had been leading night-whispers against her ever since. Tsay’s criticism of her undermined the moment enough for the men to turn on each other again. It sadly became physical so Moriko backed away and sent Avis for the guards.
Watching her quarreling, stressed family be manhandled and gawked at in their own day hall sent her blood pressure through the roof. She glared at Tsay as he left and he had the grace to look ashamed.
She needed another session of focusing skin play after the broken crockery was tidied away. The waiter who obliged to stand in the broom closet while she sucked him off had come in seconds. Proud that her technique was excellent, she made note to try a distinctly different variation on fellatio later that day.
Donte deserved pleasure. She’d drown him in it, showering him in acceptance. Walking away with an ache in her belly, Moriko knew that soon she’d give pleasure to someone who really needed it like she did, someone who understood the lure of the stolen moment.
The rest of the day was a steady blur of checking on each of the various chores the compound required. All she knew was that Donte seemed to be already by her side, and it all seemed so much easier. And sexier.
As she oversaw the teardown of the evening’s public dinner, which had been sparsely attended with only eighty-three sitting diners, she managed to flirt for a few minutes with Dimitri. He was a partner she’d been hoping to entice for many months now. He was quick witted and sarcastic, a trait she didn’t usually enjoy because she was too direct. But on him, it was somehow clever. That’s how she was laughing when the horrible news hit. Avis pulled her aside.
“There’s been a riot in the southeast quadrant.” The message from Avis’ tear-choked whisper snapped her out of her annoyance at being drawn from Dimitri.
She looked over her shoulder and waved to him. “Good night. I have work.”
He inclined his head, but she saw his eyes grow distant and displeased. He was too proud, that one. In the Royal life, you took pleasure where you found it, as fast as you could grab it. People who waited for involved feelings would end up like Cousin Saiki. Unless a huge beast burst into their dreams.