The General's Daughter (Snow and Ash #1)

by Heather Knight

  “He’s rebuilding, Talon. He’s supporting a ton of people!”

  “Good for him. Glad he’s taking such good care of his people.”

  He means me, of course. My throat thickens, and all the fight leaves me as I struggle to keep from crying.

  Talon starts gathering downed branches and setting them up against a V in the cluster of boulders.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making you a palace.” His voice is sarcastic. “I’m not here to wait on you, you know. You could help.”

  “Sorry. Jeez. I don’t know how to build a…whatever that is.”

  He presses his lips together and points out some pines. “Grab a bunch of those boughs. We’ll use them to line the floor, keep us up off the snow.”

  Insulted by his constant reminders of my useless, offensive life, I stalk off. Some of the trees are still alive. It’s hard to believe after all these years that something still lives out here. I feel absolutely horrible breaking off branches from these heroic giants.

  By the third trip, I’ve lined the bottom of Talon’s “house” a good six inches deep. Talon has made a grid-like lean-to against the boulders, and he stuffs the remainder of the pine boughs into the openings. Then he pushes snow up against it.

  The wind picks up, snot freezes to my face, and my stomach has forgotten how to be hungry.

  We go inside.

  Talon clears a spot and builds a tiny fire, closes our “door” with the last pine bough, and hangs his coat over it to seal out the wind.

  “Take off your clothes,” he says.

  “What?” What?

  “Strip.”

  I gape at him. “It’s cold out there.”

  “It’s warm in here. I want to fuck.”

  What. An. Asshole.

  “You’re not— Do you really think—” But I’m turned on as hell.

  He unbuttons his shirt and lays it over the pine needles, does the same thing with his undershirt. His chest is naked and beautiful, even in the limited light. He’s like a prehistoric caveman warrior. When he unbuckles his pants, I get nervous that he means it.

  He does. “But why? You’re mad at me.”

  As an answer, he unzips my coat, tugs it off, and dumps it over the pine needles.

  I hold my hands out to stop him when he reaches for the button-up shirt, but he pulls both hands around to my back and holds them there. He clutches me against his hard-on and kisses me. He uses his tongue to seduce my mouth, and the masterful way he handles me, it’s like being conquered by a Viking. That place between my legs grows thick, readying me for my mate, and I can’t help myself. I grind my clit against his dick. When he peels off my shirt, I don’t protest, but when he pulls off the undershirt, my breasts chill in the cold air. My nipples go almost painfully hard, and I find my willpower.

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I avert my eyes. “Can’t we just hold each other? You know, keep each other warm?”

  He grips my chin and forces me to look at him. “No.”

  “But—”

  He seizes my hand and forces it to his crotch. “You’ve got work to do.”

  I can’t help it. He’s big, and he’s thick, and at the thought of stroking him my crotch floods with juices.

  He grabs me by the belt and makes swift work of the buckle. Without it my pants fall to my hips. He pushes them down, and when he sinks two fingers into my pussy, I blush. I’m soaked.

  He steps back with a smirk. “On your hands and knees.”

  I’m breathing heavily. I sink onto my knees and put both hands on the floor. This is so humiliating.

  I hear his pants unzip and the sound of material scraping against skin. He covers me. Without any preparation at all, he shoves his dick inside me. I cry out as he pushes all the way in until his balls slap against my backside. My cunt ripples and squeezes at this brutal intrusion.

  Talon pushes my head down, and my nose is buried in his undershirt. I can smell his salty, sweaty maleness combined with the scent of my juices. God, my breasts beg for attention, but he ignores them. He withdraws himself all the way to the tip, then plunges in again. A series of fast, shallow pumps follow, and the friction this puts on my clit—Jesus. I close my eyes at the feel of it. My cunt tries to suck him even deeper, and I arch back against him.

  He grabs my sides and begins working his hips. The material of his pants scrapes against the backs of my thighs, and his balls slap against my crotch, and oh Lord, I want—I want him to touch me. My breasts sway and slap with each thrust, and despite the degrading way he’s taking me, I can’t stop my hips from bucking back against him. The fact that he’s using me as nothing more than a fuck hole only makes me feel hotter, wetter, and if he doesn’t touch me soon, I’m going to scream.

  “Talon.” I need you.

  Talon grunts with each thrust until they come so hard and so fast my face scrapes against the pine needles that poke through his shirt. Finally, he lets out a loud groan and his penis pulses inside me. He comes in warm, strong jets, flooding my cunt with his seed. He works his cock until it’s empty.

  He pulls out of me and gets to his feet, and I’m left facedown on the floor of the hut with a pulsating clit, throbbing breasts, and a hungry pussy.

  It’s only when I hear him zip his pants back up that I realize he’s not even going to try to get me off. He pokes around the floor of our shelter, completely ignoring me, and I roll over onto my side. He picks up my discarded pants, roles them up in a ball, and settles them under his head.

  He eyes me one last time. “Better get some sleep.”

  I wake up twice that night, once to find him fucking my cunt, and the next time he’s sliding his dick back and forth between my breasts. He comes all over my face and chest, then rolls over and goes back to sleep.

  “Get up.”

  Why is he being such a dick? Talon yanks his undershirt over his head. I sit up, wincing at the tenderness between my legs. My chest is sticky with his cum, and I don’t know how to get rid of it other than to rub snow over myself until I’m slick and cold.

  He watches as I pull on my pants, then the rest of my clothes. His eyes are hungry, and I think, Please. No. Not again. How could he possibly want it again?

  He’s making me nervous with that silence of his.

  “Any idea how long we slept?” I feel like an idiot. I doubt he’s slept much at all. Me either, for that matter, what with that libido of his.

  He shrugs. “Getting light out. Let’s get moving.”

  I tighten my belt one more time and pray that it doesn’t come loose. I look up and find him studying me with an oddly sad expression on his face.

  I do not understand.

  He kicks down the shelter and buries the debris. There’s a ton of ice on top of the snow, so it takes him a bit to break it up and then make it look natural again. I’d help him if I could, but I have no idea how.

  He spots me watching him, and he purses his lips. He gives the pile one last kick. “Let’s go.”

  I nod and stuff my hands in my pockets.

  He turns away from me and starts out. Unlike yesterday, there is no hand-holding. Last night he held my entire body. Maybe holding my hand was his idea of foreplay.

  Determined not to show him how insulted I feel—and truthfully, how hurt—I follow behind him. The crunch of our footsteps is the only sound until the wind begins to pick up. It slices through the tender skin of my cheeks, and I try to keep my hair tucked down into my coat as a sort of shield. It doesn’t do much.

  I have no idea how he knows where to go, but he seems to. We trudge onward, hour after hour, and my hands are so cold I’m afraid they’ll develop frostbite. I work my arms out of the sleeves and into the chest portion of the coat, then stuff my hands in my pits. Gross.

  But effective.

  Why is he so angry? He wasn’t this way back at the trailer. He never pretended to like me, but this is new.

  I swallow, trying to think of a way to make it better. “I know I
’m a burden to you.”

  He half laughs. “You don’t know jack.”

  “What I’m saying is, if you want to go back to your”—I hesitate, not knowing what to call it—“unit, you know, that’s fine.”

  He eyes me like I’ve said something seriously stupid. Like he can’t even find words.

  “My dad just tried to kill me, Talon. He’s not going to care if your leader does it for him, so there’s no point in killing me now. Right?”

  He ducks his chin. “Wrong.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I thought you said you were smart with politics.”

  He’s got me. “Apparently not this kind.”

  He shakes his head. “There’s a point in leaving your head for your dad. It tells everyone their precious general is so inept he can’t even keep his own daughter safe. It tells your dad that we aren’t done with him and we aren’t afraid to play hard ball. It tells them all that no matter what General B.’s tried to do, Balenchuk lost this one, and he’ll lose again.”

  My lungs flatten. It’s true, all of it. “Psyops.”

  He squints. “What did you call it?”

  “They called it psychological operations before the Ash. They do all kinds of twisted stuff to break you down and damage you.” There wasn’t much to do in that house by myself all day, and I’d read all of Dad’s books on military strategy. Not that he knew.

  His face goes hard. I can almost hear his teeth grind. Did I say something wrong?

  “So where are we—have you thought about—”

  He pulls his hat down over his eyes. “We’re headed south into the Smoky Mountains.”

  “Well, that narrows things down.” How many millions of square miles would that cover?

  “We’ll end up near Hartford.”

  “Oh.” Still no idea, but I don’t want to piss him off.

  We trudge onward, hour after hour, until we come to a river. Or a creek. To me they’re pretty much the same thing. Talon uses a rock to smash a hole through the ice, then cups his hands and takes a long drink. I do the same. The water tastes terrible, like its laced with something hideous, but I’m so thirsty I drink anyway.

  We continue onward, staying near the bank and following it, I assume, southward. Talon is so quiet. His face is dark, closed, but occasionally I catch this look of despair, and it makes my gut wrench. Does he think we’re going to die? Or is he sad that his buddies got killed?

  Finally the silence is too much even for me. “Aren’t you worried about being a deserter?”

  “What do you think?” he snarls.

  I’ve got nothing.

  His expression pinches. “You don’t get it. Of course you don’t. You grew up rich. You’re still rich. Princess Ilsa. Back home everyone knew who my dad was, what he did. They knew we were trash. Unless I got a scholarship and left for college, I wasn’t going anywhere.”

  Yeah, things did tend to work that way. I don’t say anything, not wanting to lead him to things I’d rather not remember.

  “Back home, all I had waiting for me was a meth lab and a string of prison sentences.” He says it almost like I’m not even there. “Here? Now? I’m going places. I’m not shit. General Barry respects me, Ilsa. I’m a first lieutenant. Three goddamn years and I’m an officer. A guy like me never would have gone this far in the old life.”

  The anguish in his voice says everything. God help me, but I don’t like it that he’s suffering.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck! If I’d never seen you again, life would have been great. Now I’m back to being some nameless piece of shit.”

  “Why do you keep helping me when it’s ruining your life?” It’s not like I’m some great prize. He’s not going to get thanks from anyone for this.

  He sighs. “It’s not like I have a choice. They blew up the trailer.”

  “Yeah, but you could have left me somewhere. Or killed me.”

  “I told you I don’t want to kill you. I want to watch you suffer. Or did you miss that part? I own you, and that means I’m responsible for you.”

  “Thanks, but seriously, Talon, I’m not worth the—”

  “I swore I’d take care of you, goddamn it!”

  My eyes go blurry, and I hold my eyes open until the moisture dries.

  He stalks ahead of me as though he’d like to put as much space between us as he can. I know the feeling. I wait a couple beats and then follow. I step down, and there’s something hard and slick under the snow. My foot goes out from under me and I yelp, and the next thing I know I’m tumbling down the steep embankment toward the creek.

  “Talon!”

  My head smacks against something hard. Now I’m dazed. I land ass first on the ice, and something gives. There’s a loud crack, and then another. The block flips, and I go under.

  Immediately I suck in a mouthful of water. I can’t help it. My lungs burn and my body convulses as it tries to expel the liquid, but all that does is cause me to pull in more water.

  Frigid knives stab me from all angles, and the weight of my clothes pulls me under. I flail, trying to find something, anything to grab on to, but there’s nothing.

  I’m drowning. I know it. My chest feels like it’s going to explode, my skin feels like it’s being flash frozen, and even my hair is on fire. I’m beyond panicked; I’m dying.

  Talon dumps me onto the shore face-first and begins pounding my back. At first I just gag, but then I lung-puke buckets of water. And then more. Even when no more water comes up, I can’t stop coughing. And shaking. Shaking like I’ve never shook before.

  “Come on, Ilsa! Come on!”

  More pressure-pounding, and this time I throw up.

  I’m so cold. My fingers are numb, and my limbs are getting there too. As soon as I can take in enough breath, I start crying.

  “Oh my God! Ilsa!”

  “I thought I was going to die,” I sob.

  He flips me over, and it’s not the horror that gets me. Talon’s eyes are watery, and he looks about as frightened as I feel. I reach for him.

  He doesn’t disappoint. Pulling me to his chest, he buries his face in my neck, rocks me like I’m a baby, and mutters, “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

  “I’m so cold.” I can hardly get the words out. “I need a cat.”

  “What?”

  I have no idea. I’m just not right. I’m still crying, or sort of crying. I’m shivering so hard I think I’ll break my spine.

  Talon tries to toss me over his shoulder, like he did that other time, but he keeps sliding back down the embankment. I can’t figure out why he doesn’t just find a set of stairs. And why am I lying here?

  I try to get up, but my arms and legs are so heavy. It feels like I’m in one of those dreams where you try to run but you just don’t go anywhere. I get as far as onto my hands and knees, but then I sit down again. I’m so tired. It’s hot out here, and I want to take off my coat.

  But I’m too tired.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The smell of a wood fire always soothes me. Even back before the Ash. My feet are deliciously warm, and I’m cocooned by a large furnace of a body pressed so close to mine that not a piece of me is neglected. Talon’s arms are wrapped around me, my head is tucked under his chin, and one of his legs covers mine.

  And what the hell is that smell? Wet dog?

  He stirs, causing the wool blanket to scratch against my skin. I’m allergic to wool, but I can’t decide what’s worse—wet-dog-stinky wool or freezing to death.

  I don’t want to move. My hair is still wet, my eyes are burning, and my throat is scratchy. Probably from my near-death experience, but still. Staying where it’s warm is the only thing I want. I skim the room, and I discover that Talon has used a half-broken card table to hang my clothes to dry. If they’re anything like my hair, it’ll be a while.

  “Ilsa.”

  He pulls me tighter. He’s spread his coat under me, protecting my backside from the dirty carpet, and I think
I’m wearing his socks.

  “Talon?” My throat burns, and I sound like someone tried to saw off my vocal cords.

  “You’re awake.” The relief in his voice fills me with wonder.

  I tilt my head to look at him, and he adjusts his body so that he’s half beside me, half over me. Except for the socks I’m wearing, I’m as naked as he is.

  He smooths the hair back from my face, and my heart breaks a little at the combination of rage and tenderness written in the creases of his skin, the burn of his gaze. “It’s okay,” he says firmly. “You’re going to be all right.”

  I think back to those moments in the water, at that point where I thought all hope was gone. “How did you get me out?”

  “I grabbed hold of your hair,” he admits. “It was all I could get.”

  No wonder my scalp feels tender.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says, and there is so much guilt and self-loathing in his voice that my throat thickens.

  I swallow, then suck in a breath as my eyes tear up. I touch his chest. “Thank you,” I whisper.

  All the fear and despair of the last two days that I’ve been pushing down explodes from my gut, and I start wailing like a freakin’ dog. Talon holds me, presses my face to his chest, and lets me get it out. He’s so warm. He’s not ignoring me, or casting sarcastic comments, or looking at me like I’m a knife in his side. He’s holding me. He’s comforting me.

  I can’t go on like this. Distrusting him, second-guessing his every move. Hasn’t he proven time and again that he’s the only one left in the world I can depend on? The only one who will come through for me?

  Even though he despises everything I stand for, he’s all I’ve got. He’ll never love me. But I also know that if I give myself to him, let him lead me, take care of me—and yes, use me—it’s the only way I’ll survive. It’s the only way I’ll ever be happy.

  My breath slows. I’m done with crying. I want it all to go away, and the only thing I can think of to end this is to thank him. To show him I am grateful.

  To please him, as he deserves.