by Mima
He flexed his grip carefully around her spirit body. “Do you honestly doubt I can force you? I will in a second to get this foul mark off you. All I have to do is kill you.”
Her eyes locked onto his, confused.
He didn’t let his gaze waver. “I squeeze until you pass out. And hold it a bit longer. When the spell slides away, I’ll grab it. Then I breathe life back into your lungs, heal your windpipe with some bodycraft, and I’ll have gotten my way. You’ll fear me forever, but if that is what I need to do to protect you, that is what I will do.” He meant every measured word.
“You bully bastard.” She was so weak her words slurred, her weight slack against him, but still her determination rang pure. “I have a right to my own decisions, my own challenges. I’m your partner and I’m on this journey with you. I want to share the weight.”
His thumb stroked her pulse, stronger now. “Share the weight? Share? You’ve done nothing but shore up every decision I’ve made. You’ve been our solid foundation all along, every moment. From the first time I fucked your sleeping body and you wrapped your hands over my shoulders, to the way you walked in behind me to face Thad and his team. You didn’t cry. You didn’t beg. You didn’t argue.”
“Well, not much.” She smiled faintly, eyes becoming glassy with weakness.
“You carry all of our weight, Moriko. All of us. You take my anger at the end of each day and wrap it in sex and joy and acceptance. You take the marks of shame on my face and make them a symbol of belonging.” He rubbed the strong wrist that bore his mark in real life. “And the f-fortress…” Finding himself stuttering, he stopped, ground his teeth. Thad was dead. Satisfaction glowed so bright it shadowed everything he’d done to get it, but that didn’t mean those actions were gone. “You understand, even when there is simply no forgiving.
“I know exactly how strong you are, wife. I know exactly what you’re capable of. And you know what I can do, too.” His palm slid up her belly, between her breasts, and flattened against her throat. “Give it to me.” The words fell stone hard.
And fuck. Whether it was his convincing words or his intimidation, she did. She pushed the pain into him, and he took it, wrenching the spell firmly away.
He saw at once it wasn’t going to work. Thad had set this spell and just like the dome had blinked out, this wasn’t powered anymore either. It was just a last poisonous, echoing trap. It was like trying to hold onto a rope of splintered glass. Slippery and damaging at every breath.
“Ohhhh.” Moriko sighed with relief. “Donte, I’m such a coward. Thank you.”
We need a darkmage. Fast. Donte ordered Bear, who was just coming up on the Wall.
Moriko eased into sleep cradled against him. He stared at her horizon and watched it shimmer back into form as the fog faded.
We have to get into the City first. Bear juggled Moriko’s unconscious body up over his shoulder. He picked up the rope with a huff of irritation.
Leon’s head popped over the top of the Wall. “Lord Donte! We saw the smoke and were preparing to come. Is Moriko alive?”
Bear nodded. “We need a darkmage.”
Leon frowned. “The truxet captured several today. We’re holding them now in our prison.” He looked back over the Wall. “Get the harness over here.”
Several more heads popped over the edge. A woven rope basket-seat dropped down. Bear climbed in with Moriko. The men began to shout in unison and the rope jerked taut, raising them one small iota. Within a few moments, they were rising in small bursts. It was painstaking, but since Donte and Bear weren’t sure they’d had the strength to do it at all, it seemed a gift.
The pain scrambled inside him.
At the top of the Wall, Moriko moaned with the force of the old protective spell. Yet at the same time, Donte watched through Bear’s eyes as some of the poisoned hurts on their body faded, driven clean by the powerful protection.
Then came decision time. He could leave Moriko with the Captain of the Queen’s excellent fighting team, a man he’d fought with, a human, and race to the prison where he could find a way to force a new slave spell to replace the one eating his jungle. It’s what he had implied he’d do.
Or he could just let this last spell go. Take her with him, slower, and get her to the healers, and wait to be healed himself, then take her to her room and fuck her into and out of consciousness, and let his time being hurt go. Moriko would not leave him. He was alive. She was alive. He would spend the rest of his miserable life focused on pleasing her. What more could a man ask for?
That life of ease wasn’t what his mate wanted. And he wasn’t sure he knew how to live at peace. She wanted a killer. It might be nice if he could be a fucking pretty boy, a skinlicker at her service. But really… it wouldn’t work. If she could handle her husband forcing her into darkmage slavery, she could handle anything. If he could handle escaping the Fortress, he could handle clearing some Cities.
He walked up to Leon and stared at him. “Listen to me, human.” The man met his gaze and held it.
“Will you give your life for hers?”
His heart hammered. Bear? Do you smell him?
Bear answered. He smells true, as before.
The man nodded grimly. “I will guard the Chatelaine for you with my life. Fergmar is at the prison. He’ll help you, too.”
Bear held Moriko away from them. Something quaked inside of Donte to see the powerful older warrior take her. She was small and defenseless. Bear hovered.
Donte wrenched himself around, tugging. The faster we go, the faster we can return. This spell is taking us, Bear.
Bear growled and spun away. He snatched up a rope and rappelled over the side to soldiers’ gasps and cries. His gloves were shit from the poison, knives, and transformations. His hands ripped. When he was below the halfway point, he let go and jumped. The shock pounded through him, but he rolled and ran down the neat white path. The fog of the failing slave spell had taken away the entire top of their magescape canopy.
When he got to the prison, he went right to Fergmar.
“You’re a welcome sight, Lord Donte. We were surprised right and left by them without your ability. It’s been a hard day.”
Bear grunted. “I need a darkmage.”
The man gestured, leading him into narrow stone halls. “The truxet asked us to keep a dozen. They want them for questioning. A few of them killed each other and one killed himself. We’re trying to bring in some more, but I won’t have my men down if it’s too dangerous. A lot of them are knocked out because they fight if they’re awake. We have bodymages keeping them down.”
His nerves were screaming, every instinct urging him to let go of the slave spell inside him. Bear paused in front of a cell with a very young man in it. He was crying, drawn up in a ball in the corner.
“This one.”
Fergmar shrugged. “You want to kill him? He’s about the weakest, newest one we’ve found.”
“Let me in.”
Donte smiled inside. We don’t want to kill him. We want to use him.
Fergmar swung the slatted iron door open. Bear stepped in.
What had barely been a man scrambled to his feet, only to plaster himself that much tighter to the corner. “St-stay away fr-from me.”
Bear summoned their claws with a showy twist of their wrists.
The boy squeaked, eyes giant. He couldn’t be more than twenty, with peach fuzz on his chin. But he’d been old enough to hurt someone and gain from it. Donte could feel the pulse of darkcraft sitting inside him like a vulture. The recognition came from the agonizing, shredding spell his mate wanted.
“You’re going to claim and steady this slave spell in me. Now.”
The boy swallowed with an audible gulp. “Wh-wha—”
“Now.”
He squeaked. “You want me to control you? I don’t think that’s going to work.”
Bear and Donte pulled their lips wide in identical twisted smiles. “No. I don’t suppose it will.”
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nbsp; Chapter Twenty-Eight
Night Ten
Moriko opened her eyes to a sky full of gorgeous sunset orange. The air was soft and balmy, the bed beneath her firm and crisp. She was clean, wrapped in a soft sheet. Stretching, she cataloged herself. Sore. Stiff. She probed her face, her throat, held her arm up to study. Healed.
Turning her head sharply, she met Bear-Donte’s riveted gaze. He smelled of soap and crisp healing agent, citrus tart. She rested, floating along on a surge of pride. How thrilling to have a hero for a husband. But how much more satisfying to have one alive and by her side. “Do you still hold the slave spell?”
He nodded. “I hold one. Thad’s had to be replaced.”
She nodded in return, grim with the now personal knowledge of what he would live with until this was done. Her eyes followed the flowing curtains and she breathed the salt air gratefully. Her lids drooped.
When she woke again, Bear-Donte stood over her, unwrapping the healing sheet. The edges fluttered free. He froze, eyes on her nipple rings. Sexual heat furled open in her belly, stretching, eager to take the beloved beastspirit wearing her husband’s body. She arched her back with a sleepy smile.
Bear fell onto the bed, pushing her legs apart to lay between them. His mouth engulfed one breast and she shivered, pressing closer. His hands shoved beneath her, covering nearly all of her back.
“Bear?”
He grunted, tongue lashing one nipple.
“Where is Donte?”
He sucked at the tip and her whole torso arched farther, grinding against his face. His teeth grabbed the ring. It was her turn to grunt.
He pulled back. “Won’t come out.”
Diving forward onto the other breast, he lapped wide, flat strokes up it, roughly pushing the weight high before starting low again.
Moriko feathered her fingers into his hair. It was soft, freshly washed and unstyled. “Is he hurt? Is the slave spell very bad?”
Bear snorted. He grabbed the swell of her breast with his teeth and sucked until it pinched. Moriko gasped, nails pricking his scalp. He relented, settling into softer pulls with less seal.
“Barely feel it. It’s like we’ve got a gnat inside. A compass gnat. Found a weak one to tie ourselves to.”
Her brows furrowed. She didn’t quite believe that. A slave spell was still darkcraft and something inside Donte-Bear would forever repel darkcraft. His ingrained honor, she guessed, or his essential natural spirit.
“Tell him I need to be sure he’s with us. I want to talk to him.”
Bear kissed up and down her breastbone, nuzzling between her breasts. “He can hear you.” Bear paused. His face got a pained look as if he had indigestion. “He’s just scared.” This time he huffed.
She felt his belly flex down between her legs. “Is he hurting you inside?” Moriko was outraged. She grabbed up Bear’s sweet face and stared deep into his gaze. “You stop that, Donte. Come out here and talk to me.”
Bear darted forward and kissed her. He was fierce and dominant. It was long moments before she thought of Donte again. Bear’s lips were hard and smooth, his mouth warm and alive with the taste of mint. Her hands were all over his neck and shoulders, while his molded her spine.
When he slid down her throat to her breasts again, pulling the rings with his fingers so that her womb seemed like a child’s toy bobbing in his wake, she cleared her throat. “Will you help me convince Donte we have a beautiful future?”
Bear grunted. “We like to kill them. It’s right. You’ll fuck us every night. Ours to hold, our own Clan. Life is so good we can hardly breathe.”
It was such a sweet speech from simple Bear tears pricked her eyes. “Yes, Bear. You will kill for me and the Queen and the people, and when you come home I will fuck you very hard, every night.” She might not have the stress of a Chatelaine, but she’d have plenty of other stress to ease. Families to sort out, alliances to prove, grief and guilt to witness.
He hummed happily, kissing and nipping down to her belly. He slurped at her tummy, exploring her belly button.
“Do you like honey?”
He nodded, hands flexing deeply on her soft hips. Looking down at his scarred shoulders, at the remains of burns, cuts, and horrors poorly healed, she knew she’d spend the rest of her life finding ways to please this special being. Her own, dear, violent beastspirit.
“If you get on the bed and stretch out your arms and legs, I’ll let you lick honey off my clit until I come.”
“Yes.” Bear immediately rolled them, putting himself on the bottom.
She dashed to her dresser and fetched four scarves. They were all silk, very strong, but he could break them if he wanted. Or burn them. But he laid there watching her with slitted, happy eyes as she tied him at wrist and ankle.
She kept her promise first. She squirted some honey on her fingers and rubbed it into her folds. Then she mounted his face and licked her own fingers clean while he growled and worried his face deep against her. She rocked, her feet tucked under his shoulders, her body rising and falling steadily harder and faster until her thighs glowed, her belly flexed, her shoulders bowed, and she came on a high moan. Bear’s bass moan harmonized.
She caught her breath, then dismounted his face and knelt at his side. She and Bear smiled at each other, his a faint curl to one side of his glistening mouth, hers wide and peaceful. “Donte?”
Bear’s gaze went distant. Then he shook his head. “Stupid man. Thinks too much.”
It was Donte’s over-thinking that had taken down the leader of the darkmages. She wished she could have seen his moment of triumph. At the same time she was glad she hadn’t. It was surely horrible. Someday she’d find out how it ended, but she wouldn’t bring that thing here, to their bed.
The stars sparkled against the velvet sky in a lovely display, but she wanted more, so she lit two low magelights at the head and foot of the bed. They stood on beautiful antique pedestals carved with waves. She slid to the floor and picked up the honey. Leaning over to kiss Bear, she whispered, “I’m not going to stop until Donte faces me. I’m mean, creative, and determined.”
Bear’s eyes sparkled. “Sounds good.”
She picked up the honey pot, lifted the little wooden ladle, and began to paint Bear’s marvelous body. Down the underside of his forearms, into the hollow of his deltoids, across his underarms and zigzagging over his chest, as if she would lace up his ribs. Down his thighs, knees, shins, over his arches and up along his toes. And of course, around and around his lifted erection. When he was decorated, she tossed pillows on the floor to kneel on and went to work.
Her tongue sizzled after the first hour. But she couldn’t stop. It created a sort of trance at times, while at others she was aware of every lick, flicking her tongue in various experimental ways in particularly sensitive spots.
Bear hummed, groaned, moaned, and hissed. He huffed, sighed, bucked, and stretched. He murmured, snarled, growled, and whimpered.
She alternated sides, tied her hair back, and ate him until his skin was raw and smooth. He came when she was working her way back up his first thigh, but she didn’t stop. He was hard again as she avoided his flexing cock and began the long trip down his other leg. She finished that leg and then the opposite arm, and the only thing left was his groin.
She picked up the honey pot and drizzled the glowing, natural sugar over his face. Lips swollen, throat sore, she straddled his belly, rubbing her soaked thighs against the firm muscles while she paddled gently across his cheek and forehead. Coming down around his jaw, she traced every bit of his tattoo with the tip of her tongue. Rocking across his solid stomach, her whole body lax with pleasure, she paused as she came up his other cheek.
“When I finish this pattern,” she whispered hoarsely, “you will be mine, and you will be bound to my call.”
Bear tossed his face but she sent her fingers deep into his mussed hair and he stilled, trembling while her tongue darted in and out of every point. When her tongue finished its journey
to his already damp temple, she pressed a firm, fervent kiss there.
His body gave a great jerk, muscles snapping taut.
She sat up. Donte stared balefully out of his battered face. He blinked up at her, lashes damp, eyes glittering. He swallowed.
She nodded at him, slow and solemn. “You will live with me. I will take care of you.”
He strained, but she leaned forward and wrapped her hands around his wrists, pressing him into the bed.
“No. You will not fight. You’re mine.”
He held tight beneath her, their faces only a breath apart. She held his gaze steadily, unafraid of the pain there, understanding of the anger. His lashes swept down.
She pressed a kiss to each eyelid, feather soft. Sitting up, her grip planted on his shoulders, she ground against his wide, rock-hard belly until she came. The golden ring was a hard, hot nub of perfect pressure. It was a burst of satiation and gave her the energy to turn around and sip the tip of his erection.
Waiting until he finished steadily cursing, she said, “Never use Bear to hide from me again.”
Sucking the honey off his erection was one of the greatest pleasures of her life. She cleaned him thoroughly.
Reversing again, flinging a leg over his hips, she sheathed him easily and with perfect relief. She rode him with a contraction and expansion of her body, writhing her aching chest along his muscles. Her hands swept him convulsively and she struggled to stuff him farther down.
Her man waited for her to come again on a ragged rip of a cry. Then he punched his hips up into her slack, splayed thighs over and over until he came himself with a long low groan.
Afterwards, she slept on him. When she woke, hips aching slightly from the steep spread of his huge body, she dismounted and cleaned them both. Dousing the light at their heads, she untied first his feet and then his wrists.
He remained in position. She cuddled into his side, one thigh tossed across his mighty leg in ownership. Eventually, he gathered her up, pressing her close.
“I never imagined a future.” He spoke heavily. “I didn’t think I’d live. And if I did, I’d give Bear all the freedom he deserved. I didn’t really want anything more than—”