A King So Cold

by Ella Fields

  I said nothing and gazed down at my hands. It’d taken many washes, but the blood no longer lingered in my cuticles.

  “I find it a relief,” she said after another minute had passed. “That instead of hearing their laughter, their merriment over my suffering in my sleep, I’ll now hear their own pain.”

  “It isn’t enough.”

  She plucked one of my hands, her fingers small and linking with mine between us on the bed. “It still helps.”

  I squeezed her hand, hating that she could never get back that which was stolen. That there would always be a stain upon her heart and soul she could not wipe clean.

  “What will we do now?” I asked.

  Tears were running down her cheeks as she looked over at me, her brows low and her right eye open but still bruised. “I try to move on.”

  “I should like to castrate them again,” I said, my voice hoarse. “And again and again, each time worse than the last.”

  Her eyes widened, her hands rising to my cheeks as she scooted closer. “Audra.” Her thumbs came away wet, and I glared down at them, then at her. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  “Fuck,” I wheezed, my chest rising and falling with a speed too fast to slow.

  I couldn’t breathe as understanding lit her pale brown eyes. She pulled me close, tucking my head to her shoulder. “She would be so proud of you.” Her lips rested upon my forehead, her fingers combing through my hair while my heart capsized, drenching her lemon-scented neck and chest in tears. “So proud.”

  I stirred as I was lifted into the air, Zadicus murmuring, “I have her.”

  Truin tucked something in my pocket, and then I was being carried away from her.

  Out on the street, I let the fact I was awake be known. Not that it was something he didn’t already know. “You have this habit of carrying me places.”

  “Do not complain.”

  “Oh, I’m not.” I yawned, then rubbed my eyes, frowning when I realized they were crusted and puffy. “But you should be.”

  He huffed, and I burrowed my nose into his throat, my arms tightening around his neck. “Why?”

  “Because the walk to the castle is uphill, and I’m not exactly dainty.”

  His chuckle warmed my nose, my eyes fluttering. “You’re perfect, and if I want to carry you uphill, downhill, or all around the city, then I will.”

  “Touchy this evening.”

  “I’ve been waiting for my queen, and I did not like what I heard when I found her.”

  My heart stilled. “How long were you outside her door?”

  “Long enough. Berron kindly suggested I wait.”

  Great, so he’d heard too, then. I sighed. “It was fun while it lasted.”

  “While what lasted?”

  “My reign of being feared.”

  Another chuckle, this one warmer. “You needn’t worry about your friends sharing news of you.”

  “Because I’m so wicked I might dismember them?”

  “No,” he said, gruff. “Because they’re your friends.”

  I absorbed that for a few minutes and then wiggled in his arms when the castle came into view. Reluctantly, he set me down but clasped my hand in his as the guards opened the gates, and we headed inside.

  The halls were quiet, sconces lit and throwing shadows over the tapestry and gray walls.

  “What of Nova?” I finally dared to ask what I couldn’t bring myself to before now.

  Perhaps it was the unexpected outpour I’d unleashed in Truin’s apartment that had me resigned to it. Perhaps I’d decided I didn’t care, and I’d take him for myself regardless.

  “There’s much you don’t know, but I believe you know why I’m here with you.”

  I hummed, climbing the steps to my rooms, my hand still in his. “Raiden filled me in.”

  Zad’s silence was telling—that and the hatred rolling off him.

  “So their crazy plan worked.” The doors to my rooms opened. “But at many costs.”

  “We need to talk about those.”

  “We do indeed.” I locked us inside, removing my hand from his and crossing the room. Tucking it inside my pocket, I pulled out a dried bumble bee and smiled, setting it upon the shelves housing my books.

  I removed my shoes. “I was with him.”

  The lord’s gaze was a furnace, heating every place his eyes touched. “I know.”

  Seated in the middle of the bed, I crossed my legs, nodding. “It didn’t… We didn’t end up…”

  Expelling a pained breath, he kicked off his boots. “I know.”

  I swallowed, the sound audible. “How?”

  He pulled the tie from his hair, freeing it to fall around his sharp cheeks, the hard set of his jaw more pronounced as he joined me on the bed. “You really need to ask me that?” Something in his eyes screamed, a plea-filled fear.

  Such torment. In those eyes, in his words, in the rigid bones of his beautiful face, in the clenched set of his broad shoulders. I’d always thought it just him. The quiet, intense, sullen lord who’d lost his wife and was in search of something to fill that void.

  He did seek something, but perhaps it wasn’t power at all.

  It was me. I’d been tormenting him. Possibly for years, and I hadn’t known, hadn’t truly felt it, until that darkness-filled night, right before Truin screamed.

  I didn’t need to ask him, and we both knew why. Instead, I asked the more important question. “Since when?”

  “The moment you entered maturity.”

  My head snapped up, my eyes bouncing between his. “I was fourteen.”

  “It matters not, it just happens.” He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, his smile rueful. “You think I wanted to? In my mind, I was, and I technically still am, married.” Reaching for the nightstand, he opened it and plucked out the pipe he kept inside. “So I hid it. For years.”

  My head was shaking, as was my heart.

  The cloves.

  Truin had known, or at least suspected. She’d once commented on it in the gardens when the lord had been visiting, presumably to discuss business with my father.

  “Cloves,” she’d said, whimsical. “Such a helpful spice.”

  I’d thought her weird—as I so often had when listening to her nonsensical ramblings—but nothing else.

  He’d squashed the scent of it. It was undetectable to humans, but other males, even mixed males, could smell it should they get close enough to a linked pair.

  My chest filled with fire, burning and yearning, screaming at the implications—the danger. “All these years, you put yourself in this castle, you risked yourself… for me.” When his teeth flashed, his eyes yellow orbs of affection, I snapped. “You fucking fool.” My chest heaved, and I slapped at his, once then twice, then grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, yanking as I growled into his face, “Stupid, moronic, blithering idiot.”

  His smile remained, softened, and I sagged against him, my forehead upon his. “And I want you. I want only you, but you know that means nothing.”

  His hands coasted up my back, one delving into my hair. Skimming my lips with his, he murmured, “It means everything.”

  I shivered, my heart a thrashing caged beast. “I can never be yours.” I sucked in a scalding breath, willing away the sting in my chest and eyes, that ceaseless tugging pit of need I felt whenever he was near. A pit that had deepened over time until I’d realized what it was.

  Something I could not accept.

  “You know I cannot accept it.”

  “You already did. I felt it happen,” he said, grabbing my hand when I tried to crawl away. “While you were gone. Audra, stop.”

  “You stop,” I growled, glaring at him. “To keep this up now is insanity. It will only harm us both as well as the kingdom.”

  “The kingdom?” he said, the words a soft snarl. “We have linked, I with you many years ago. It’s too fucking late. The time for ignoring it is over.”

  “Watch me.”

  He smirked, all predat
or with no mercy in sight. “I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

  My teeth ground together as I sat before him, waiting for him to see how useless this all was. “You are married, as am I.”

  He could say nothing to that, and I huffed out a laugh.

  The glint in his eyes was the only warning I had, and then I was on his lap with my legs around his back and his arms tight around me.

  He cupped my face with one hand, his expression one of utter focus, trained on my mouth, his thumb rubbing my scars. “A marriage on paper cannot erase a bond forged by souls.”

  “It doesn’t erase it, but it complicates everything. And complications like this have dire implications.” My tone was gentle steel, willing him to understand. “We’ll all go down, and I refuse to lose myself, or anyone else, again.”

  “It will not come to that. I would never let it.” His eyes searched mine. “You convince Raiden to break the vow, and I do the same with Nova.”

  “He won’t,” I cried, low and breathless. “He will never, especially if he knows you’re the reason.”

  The sweep of his long lashes captivated, and he groaned when I rocked over him. “I’ve waited years for this, wondering and worrying that it might never happen.”

  You could link with someone, feel that torturous pull toward them, the mind-bending need, but that didn’t always mean they would link with you. Or if they were young, like I was, even figure it out. Swallowed within the iron-infused grip of revenge and heartache, the idea of Zad feeling this fire for me never even crossed my mind, not until some days ago.

  “It won’t happen. It can’t.” I took his chin, leaning in to lay my lips upon his.

  “Such tasty lies,” he said, his teeth taking my lip as his hands lifted my skirts.

  Tilting my head, I kissed him, moaning. With a stinging snap of elastic, he freed me of my undergarments, and I freed him of his pants. “I am not myself when I’m with you, especially not now, and I so desperately need to be me.”

  He shuddered beneath me as I sank down on his length, and I swallowed his curses, my arms tight around his neck.

  Slow and urgent, I rode him with the help of his encouraging arm around my waist. My skirts fanned around us, his hand fisting my hair. His tongue stroked mine with every rise of my hips, fingers rubbing my scalp when my harsh breaths morphed into fluttering moans, and my body began to shake.

  I made to pull away, climaxing so violently I could scarcely breathe, but he held me still, his hips jutting up, eyes alight on mine as his teeth held my bottom lip.

  “You are mine,” he said, hoarse and deep, moving me over him slowly until goose bumps pebbled my skin and I was completely filled with his seed. “Eternally my queen.”

  “Zad,” I started, my voice scratching.

  When he laid me down, I hissed, but he only grinned. Then, thick and hard, he began moving inside me again.

  I could do nothing but stare up at him with mixed feelings of awe and fear. Moving my thigh higher up his back, his grin slipped away. His nostrils flared, eyes gleaming with untouched hunger.

  I trailed my fingers over the bulging muscles of his arms, felt them twitch and quiver, his breath washing over my cheek when his mouth lowered to mine.

  That stirring, unnatural beat inside my chest spread its wings, the sensation tickling every breath I gathered. And when our eyes met, his lips and nose resting upon my own, those wings grew and took flight, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  Breathing hard, I fell, and Zad rumbled, “Yes, fuck.” His hand left my thigh to slide behind my head, his demand abrasive. “Look at me.”

  Trembling beneath him, I did and watched a shaking smile light his entire face.

  Beautiful. In the way he looked, yes, he was unrivaled, but it was in the way he loved that truly ruined. He was the most beautiful creature I’d ever know. I felt tears crest my eyes.

  He kissed me, so heavy in its softness that I feared I’d disintegrate. “Perfect. My perfect storm.”

  Swallowing knives, I grabbed his cheeks, fusing our lips as we rolled and started all over again. Again, I straddled him, and he pushed up on his elbows to hold me, as if he couldn’t bear to not have as much of him touching me as possible.

  Resting my forehead against his, I surrendered to the ever-climbing desperation to take as much of him as I could get—to satiate that which could never be satiated.

  We were attempting to douse something that would burn until our dying breaths, and we’d happily die trying. It couldn’t be tamed. Not now, not ever now that I’d done more than acknowledge what this thirst had been. Now that I’d accepted it, wanted it, and had taken it for myself.

  With a growl, Zad tore my gown from my body, and I pulled at his shirt, my hands feasting as his mouth did the same with my breasts.

  He was right. It was too fucking late.

  Hours later, I dragged myself to the bathing room, my legs quivering like pudding as Zad chuckled behind me, sprawled naked on my bed. Mercifully, he left me alone to wash.

  When I returned, that lazy, feline glint was present in the glowing eyes that tracked each step, traveling up my body. “Your hair always looks so much better after my hands have been in it.”

  I tossed my brush at him, and he almost dropped the pipe he was smoking to catch it and set it upon the bed. He tutted, inspecting the engraved wood of the brush as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  “You’ve little need to smoke it now.”

  Through the dissipating tendrils, he squinted at me. I clenched my thighs, bit my tongue, determined to ignore that burning want I still felt. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

  A brow arched as I slumped to the edge of the bed. “Does that mean you now understand?”

  He eyed where I was seated, and the space I’d left between us. “Oh, I understand just fine.” Another lungful of smoke vacated his lips, clouding his dark expression. “The question is, do you?”

  I half rolled my eyes. “Now is not the time for riddles.”

  “We are no riddle.” He straightened, emptying the pipe. Standing, he circled the bed, his bare feet eating up the cold floor in unhurried strides. “We are certainty mapped out by the stars.”

  I blinked, my lips parting.

  He snatched me around the waist, a large hand climbing my back to hug my nape. “We are linked, and there’s not a lick of anything you or anyone else can do about it.”

  Dreams, distant and fading, passed between his eyes, flooding my mind. What it would be like to give in wholly to these violent feelings and let whatever happened happen…

  The memory of Truin on the balcony seared, setting fire to every thought and erasing them.

  I stepped back. “This kingdom needs Audra, the queen. Not Audra, the easily tricked, besotted fool who wants only to fuck every time she so much as scents you.”

  Zad’s lips twitched.

  “Really? You think it’s funny?” I marched to the doors, throwing one open.

  “Audra,” he warned, sobering.

  He could warn and growl and glare at me all he liked, but it wouldn’t change anything.

  “You need to leave. You need to go home and stay there unless we have business to discuss.”

  With russet brows hovering low over his bright eyes, he prowled closer. “You can’t do that. Now that the connection has been made, you can’t last longer than a few weeks. Less, being that it’s fresh, and you being so young.”

  I sent a look at Ainx, who was stationed at the end of the hall outside my rooms. “You have no idea what I can and can’t do.”

  His smile was sad with glimpses of affection. “I’m very much aware of all that you’re capable of. The entire continent is, but no one more than I.”

  Crumbling while internally screaming, I licked my lips, staring down at the ground while he tugged on his pants and collected his shirt.

  His toes came into view, fingers tipping up my chin. “You can kick me out, but it changes nothing, and you know i
t.”

  Ainx stepped into the room, and without removing his eyes from mine, Zad huffed, his head shaking. I pushed his fingers away, stepping back. “Leave or be escorted out.”

  “I’ve already told you I’m not going anywhere,” he said, finally moving into the doorway.

  Curling my fingers, I swept his boots into the air and out into the hall. “Goodbye, Zad. Enjoy your wife.” I watched as he shrugged Ainx off. “If she’s half as crazy as I am, then I’m sure you will.”

  Then I closed the door.

  Zadicus

  I knocked and banged and threatened to drain the blood of any guard who so much as neared me to no avail.

  I woke on the ice-cold floor, my nostrils flaring at the scent of lavender and crisp wind, as Audra stepped over me and continued down the hall.

  My back spasmed as I launched to my feet and raced after her. Outside the dining room, I caught her delicate wrist.

  She tugged it free and called, “Ainx, have the lord removed from the castle grounds.” When Ainx paused, uncertain, she snapped, “Now.”

  The doors boomed to a close in my face, almost catching the tip of my nose between them.

  “Come on,” Ainx said, remorse lining the words.

  With a sigh, I turned to him. “We will fight if I do not leave, correct?” While my very bones groaned at the idea of going, and my hands curled, readying to strike, I knew it would be futile.

  I might win, but I’d lose in other unspeakable ways.

  Azela rounded the corner, braiding her hair. “Yes.” Her lips were pinched as she tied off her braid, then gestured down the hall.

  I nodded, staring back at the dining room doors. Knowing that this wasn’t what she truly wanted made walking away that much harder to do.

  The streets were bathed in sunlight, but the breeze was iced, the wind gathering speed as we neared the castle gates.

  On black spires, high above our heads, loomed the rotting genitalia of the scum Audra had ended. “Are they all dead now?” I asked, the guards opening the gates.

  Ainx yawned. “The last one died in the early hours of this morning.”