Embarrassment tried to take hold. She should be ashamed for what she felt. How her body roared and how his touch felt like electricity crawling over her. Every nerve in her body was alive.
It felt incredible.
He felt incredible.
He knew just what to do. Where to touch. He watched her every reaction and seemed to know intuitively what she wanted.
No…what she needed.
And she needed him not to stop. He brought her to the edge—so close to the cliff—and then slowed. At her slight whimper, he chuckled huskily.
“Remember…two words. ‘More’ or ‘stop.’ Those are your choices. What’ll it be?” His words were layered thick with passion. With his own desire. It was like a tow line, dragging her beneath the waves.
“Please—” Her word choked off again. She could barely breathe. The air felt hot and close as she panted for air.
“Please what, little dove? Please, more?” His voice was nearly a purr. She expected him to sound smug—he had proof now that what he said was true. She did want him. She did want this. No matter how wrong and immoral it might be.
No matter how terrible of a person it made her.
But there was no haughty arrogance in his words. Only a dark desire that she felt echoing through him and into her. Calling out to the shadowy parts of her soul she didn’t know she owned. But he drew them to the surface just as deftly as he toyed with her. Never entering—never needing to.
“If you don’t tell me you want more…I’ll have to assume you’re caught in a panic, and desperately want me to stop.” His hand at her core stilled. “I would hate for you to think me a brute.”
He was going to make her say it.
“Damn you…”
“Too late.” He chuckled. “Do you want more?” He tightened his grip on her throat and then relented. “Or do you want me to stop? One word. That’s all it takes.”
“Please…” Her head spun. Why did the feeling of his hand at her throat send a rush of ecstasy through her? It shouldn’t make her feel the way it did. But there was no denying it. It fed something in her that cried out for him.
“Say it, Ember…I am yours to command.”
She couldn’t fight it any longer.
With a whimper, she gasped out the word they were both waiting for. “—more.”
Perfect. She was perfect. Everything about her cried out to him—please, yes, don’t stop. She arched her back, clung to his wrists in desperation. She was on a sinking boat in the ocean and was afraid to drown, not realizing she could breathe underwater.
And he was the sea monster, dragging her down. She would scream, she would fight…and then she’d understand. The other side of her desire wasn’t death—it was freedom.
Then she would be his.
He wanted to rut her. He wanted to fill her. Stretch her. Make her cry out as he took her. The way she quivered when he tightened his hand gave him such wicked thoughts. Oh, the things he wanted to do to her. Do with her.
But one thing at a time.
When she finally surrendered, he almost joined her in release from that alone. If he even could without…y’know. She barely needed any encouragement. She bit her lip to stifle her cry. He stilled his motions as she twitched and writhed in his arms. Only when she went still, her eyes shut, her head now resting on his shoulder of her own accord, did he slip his hand back out from her clothing and release her throat.
He held her to his chest as she struggled to catch her breath.
What would happen next? Would she weep? Cry in shame? He imagined she would be quite angry with herself for having succumbed. It would be understandable and expected.
He had to learn that Ember was not so predictable.
Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke. “If you plan on doing that again…can we please get off the horse first? Cricket used to be a man, you know.”
He had to turn his head away to laugh, so that he didn’t shout in her ear. When he could stop long enough to speak, he nuzzled into her cheek, pressing his porcelain lips to her skin. He would kiss her soon enough. “That was entirely the point. I was getting back at him for ripping out so much of my hair earlier.”
Cricket grunted and shook his head in annoyance.
Rxa snickered. “Besides. Sex is nothing to be ashamed of here in Under, remember that. Pleasure is a gift—something to be shared. I’m betting the horsie is jealous.”
“Are you asking me to thank you?” She shot him an incredulous look.
The grin on his face was almost painful, it was so broad. She couldn’t see it, but he was sure she could hear it. “No, no. You’ll be thanking me in spades soon enough. I promise.”
At her disgruntled groan, he laughed.
14
Maverick was beginning to understand how a world could be overrun with the dead.
They were pervasive. Numerous. And unflinching. Even their supernatural skills and long lifespans did not deter the living souls of Under from needing to rest and recuperate. They could not fight forever. They were not ceaseless.
The drengil very much were just that. Endless.
Many had already died. And now, in the driving snow, Dtu and his people had difficulty smelling or hearing the dead as they approached. They came from all sides, not caring for the woods. Most looked to be from Gioll. But some…some bore marks on their arms or their chests, their soulmarks torn away and their immortality taken along with them.
It was one night after hours of marching that they decided to stop to camp. The mortal refugees were suffering in the cold, as were they all. Only Dtu and his more feral creatures were suited for the foul weather. They did not have tents. They had no shelter.
Ini summoned as much as she could to assist, but she could not outfit an entire band of survivors with proper traveling gear.
Their march north was doomed.
Some would survive the trek to Evie’s castle…but not many.
He was standing with Dtu, Ini, and Kamira underneath the meager shelter of a tree bough. “The town of Jor’nel is just to the southwest, away from the storm.” He scratched his left arm. “It may give us a chance to regroup.”
“The town may be overrun,” Dtu replied.
“I can scout ahead.” Kamira was sitting on a branch above them, her attention turned to the woods. Even in her human form, she donned a tail and was prone to expressing her catlike leanings. Her tail swished irritably beneath her.
He resisted the urge to yank on it.
It wouldn’t be very gentlemanly.
He and Kamira had an odd relationship, and one that he reflected on frequently. As elders of their houses, they were required to work together, but nary had there ever been two houses more opposed in their nature than that of Words and Moons. Feral instinct and contemplative reason often did not pair well. Yet neither were they enemies. Each had their place. Troublesome siblings, perhaps.
“Regardless, we cannot keep on like this.” Ini looked off toward the survivors where they mingled together. Mortals and immortals alike, huddling around fires and under stretched fabric on poles—the best they could do to keep out of the winter storm. “I fear for them.”
“As do we all.” Dtu sighed heavily. “Very well. We go to Jor’nel. Kamira, scout ahead. Take Alvin with you. He is antsy and needs to stretch his legs.”
Kamira snorted. “He’s an ass, is what he is. But very well. It’ll keep him from nipping at the heels of the mortals.” She jumped from the tree and landed gracefully, already in mid-stride.
Maverick shivered. The cold was biting into him. He tugged his heavy coat tighter around him. He could not summon things the way the royals could. He had to rely on Ini’s immense kindness. The Queen of Fate doted on everyone and everything around her.
“Are you well, my sweet?” Case in point, the Queen in Blue floated to him and traced her hand over his exposed forehead. “You feel warm.”
“I am fine. Tired and cold, is all.” He nudged her hand away gen
tly. “I believe I have spent more time outdoors in the past few days than I have in nearly a century.” He smirked. “I am not suited for it.”
Ini chuckled and ran her hand over her hair. “I would say it is good for you, but I think you would argue otherwise.”
“Indeed.” His smirk turned into a smile.
“I will see to the others.”
“Do not exhaust yourself, my lady.” His smile faded. He knew how it drained on the royals to manifest things from thin air. It was a powerful magic, but a dangerous one when overdone. “We will need you when the dead come for us again.”
“Frozen corpses do not need my protection. Better I keep them alive now so that they may live to fight on.” She sighed. “Your warning is heeded. I will take care.”
And with that, she disappeared in a blink. She was one to come and go from conversations without warning. But Maverick was happy for it. He did not know how much longer he could keep his mind from traveling to his new…and rather unique problem.
He did not want her to know what was transpiring. He did not want anyone to know. For one, it would cause a panic. Not to mention that the others would likely turn on him and kill him out of their paranoia.
I am fine.
It will pass.
He scratched his arm and walked away into the shadow of the woods. The snow was still shallow, but he left prints as he found a quiet place to sit on a rock. Shrugging out of his coat, he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt.
There on his arm…was a bite wound.
One that was not healing. It should be healing. That is what we do. And yet…
Peeling away the handkerchief he used as a bandage, he winced. Not only was it not healing…but it was infected. Lines of yellow ran along his veins, sickly and terrible. He would have recommended lopping off his arm if he thought it may help.
But the lines of yellow in his veins had already reached his chest. The poison was already in his veins.
I do not wish to die.
His jaw ticked as he remembered the screams of his wife as she burned alive. He lowered his head, fighting the tears that stung his eyes. During the Rise of the Ancients, she had betrayed them to the King of All to spare his life. It was an act done out of foolish love. He remembered the look on her face as she realized her betrayal had been for naught.
In thanks, they had killed her.
He did not wish to die.
It was not the thought of the void that frightened him. Ceasing to exist entirely was a kinder fate than what he feared might wait for him. It was the thought of an afterlife that he wished to avoid.
If I see her face, I do not know what I will do.
For I have come to hate her.
It was a selfish loathing. It was the emptiness in his heart, the grief he felt, that made him despise his dead wife. And it was a pointless, petty, fruitless emotion. What good was it to feel such ire toward someone who did not even have a grave, or a placard to mark her existence? At least Dtu had a shadowy figure to point at and say, “he did this.”
Tying the handkerchief back to his wound, he began to roll down his sleeve. But he paused as he saw something new on his skin. Furrowing his brow, he turned his arm over to examine it.
Quietly, he swore.
They were his marks. They were the ink he had born since the moment he stepped out of the Pool of the Ancients as the Elder of Words so long ago. The symbols and the shapes were the same.
They should be purple.
And some were…
But like the poison seeping into his veins, some had…changed.
Some were yellow.
Suddenly, he wondered if dying were not, in fact, the kinder fate that waited for him.
Ember was happy that Rxa seemed content to ride on in silence after what had happened between them. After what he had done to her. After what I let him do to me.
There was no small amount of embarrassment that she felt over letting him touch her. Not because what they had done was wrong—there was nothing wrong about what they had shared on a surface level.
It was the simple fact that he was her enemy. He was a demigod who could control the hordes of the dead that she had spent her entire life trying to defeat. But she was pulled to him. There was something about him. There shouldn’t be—he was a monster.
But when he touched her…
She couldn’t explain it. It defied all common sense and reason.
It didn’t change the facts. He was beautiful. Sensual. Wicked and sinful. There was a darkness to him that should revolt her. But she found herself pulled toward the danger that he represented. It triggered a fire in her she found as confusing as she found alluring.
The feeling of his hand on her throat had…she had never felt anything like it before in her life.
“Have you had many lovers?” Rxa’s voice made her jerk, surprised. He had sat behind her silently, an arm slung around her casually, for nearly a half an hour. Which was a record for him.
“Hm? Oh.” She paused. “No. Only one.”
“Really? A beautiful woman like you?” He stroked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I’m a graedari. I’m seen as either a ‘holy protector’ or an outcast. I’m not welcome company to most people.” She shrugged.
“How long has it been for you?”
“Years. Many years.”
He chuckled. “That explains it, then.”
“Explains what?” She shot him a look over her shoulder. “What’re you insinuating?”
“That you, my dear, sweet, wonderful little dove, desperately need to get laid.” His shit-eating grin was audible. “Your first lover. How was he?”
She rolled her eyes at his comment and looked straight ahead down the road. “She. And she was a girl I knew from training. A fellow hunter. She was beautiful—a true wrathful force of the old gods. She was given the name Diamond and was chosen to be a slahundur. I hoped for a while we might be paired together, but Ash was a much better choice.”
“Do you prefer women over men?” He hummed. “I can be either, you know.”
“What?” She twisted to look at him in surprise. “You can be what?”
“I’m—what’s the term? Fluid.” He chuckled. “I was a woman for a thousand years, at least. I prefer this shape, but when the mood strikes me, the mood strikes me.” His amusement faded. “Although I would like to grow back my manhood before I exchange it, if you don’t mind.”
“You can just…change genders?”
“It’s not like I can just snap my fingers, no.” He snickered. “I can’t flick a switch on and off. It’s a slow evolution. Like aging.” He shrugged. “We choose our forms. We royals appear as we wish to be. Do you think I looked like this when I was taken from Earth so many thousands of years ago?”
“Huh. I hadn’t thought about it.” She turned back to the road and shook her head. There was a lot she didn’t know about Under. A lot about the magic that was beyond her, and probably always would be. “I don’t belong here.”
“That’s why I like you so much. You don’t belong here. You’re new. Untarnished by the corruption of this world.” He hugged her to his chest with one arm. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“I think I prefer men. I’ve just never had the opportunity or the specific desire to sleep with one.” She wasn’t ashamed of it. Sexuality in Gioll was much the same as it was in Under, she figured. Although there were far fewer naked women wandering around. She remembered the beautiful Ini and the stunning shifter Kamira. Nudity was a liability in a fight. “And before you ask, no. Ash was my brother. Not my lover.”
“Shame. It must be a lonely life on the road.”
“It was. Especially since he’s been gone.” She frowned. “What about you? I’m sure you’ve had thousands of lovers.”
“I haven’t kept count, to be honest. But the sentiment is accurate. I…was beautiful. I was the shining, glorious one. I could be sweet or cruel. I c
ould take or I could give. I bent my desires to the whims of those who lay with me. And I could be many beings at once—imagine the opportunities that provides.” He snickered. “I was a one-man orgy machine.”
She laughed. “I guess that makes it easy, huh? Nobody feels left out.”
He laughed with her, squeezing her to his chest again for a moment. “You have a wonderful sense of humor when you aren’t terrified for your life.”
“Thanks.”
“Does it trouble you, my…prolific history, shall we say?”
“Why should it?”
“Humans tend to think that sex is something to covet and protect. That pleasure is sinful, and therefore should be minimal and restrictive.” He sighed. “Such a disappointment.”
“I could understand if one partner in a relationship did not wish to share, yet the other one did. But if all parties agree to an arrangement, I see no problem with it.” She fiddled with the strap of her bag that hung at her side. “My comment was more because we aren’t anything that needs protecting. Your history doesn’t factor into anything.”
“Aren’t we?”
“Hum?”
“We are lovers now, are we not?”
“No. We’re not. What happened was a mistake. I’m not ashamed of what we did, but it was still wrong. You’re my enemy.”
He sighed heavily. “Great. I thought we had moved past this. Oh, well…guess I’ll have to work harder to convince you. You do seem to like it rough. Although I suppose I should be gentle with you the first time, since you’ve never known a man.”
“There won’t be a first or second time. Or any time.” She glared aimlessly down the road. When he tugged her to him, she elbowed him in the ribs. Hard.
“Ow.” He whined. “You’re so violent.”
“You deserve it.”
“No, I don’t! Everyone’s so mean to me.”
“Maybe you should stop eating them, then.”
“They’re tasty, though.”
Grave of Words (Fall of Under Book 2) Page 12