Ashes (The Divided Kingdom)

by Sophie H. Morgan

  “Like I give two fucks.”

  About to retort, he stopped himself, inhaling half of the room’s air in one deep breath.

  Sounds drifted from outside the rooms he’d taken her to, the Maze’s inhabitants stirring with the night. Unless they weren’t in the Maze at all.

  No. The shifter was too canny. He’d be close, but not in the Hoods’ own territory.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere.” He interrupted her musing, clearly striving for a reasonable tone. A flash of irritation burrowed into the words. Ana almost grinned; it was that familiar. “All I want is some answers about Liberty.”

  “She’s going to cut you into fish bait,” Ana said with relish.

  “She can try.”

  “How did you get this cocky?”

  “Pet, it’s not cockiness.”

  Her chains jerked as she shot forward, straining. “I’m nobody’s pet.”

  “Not even the vampire’s?” His eyes glimmered like pitch.

  “We have an understanding.” Trick lets me do what I want and I don’t nut him.

  A slight growl, low and quiet, but definitely there, rolled from Cade’s throat.

  Ana blinked, surprised. “What’s it to you?” She shifted her feet along the covers.

  Cade kept eye contact with her as he leaned in close, nose to nose. Black flickered as his breath puffed over her lips. It smelled faintly of the gum he’d been chewing earlier, fresh and clean. So like the man she’d loved, back when.

  A smile played over his lips, a knowing one. “You were mine, once.”

  When his thumb brushed her cheekbone, dipping down to rub her bottom lip, it was all she could do not to purr. For whatever reasons, this man could get beneath her barriers. He could make her lose control.

  But he made her remember the past, something that threatened the foundation of the life she’d built for herself.

  The door swinging into darkness. Cold, oozing puddles that cling stickily to bare feet. A young voice, wavering as she called out for her parents. Her locket a dull gold, mottled with red where it lay.

  With effort, Ana jerked her chin away from his touch. “Get your hands off me, Cade.” With a thin smile, she added, “Only the vampire has those rights.”

  That flash of anger. For some reason, the man in front still viewed her as partly his—the jackal, maybe, claiming her. Except jackals were solitary animals.

  A growl rumbled through his chest. Keeping eye contact, he stood. When he leaned forward, she flinched, unable to help herself. Whether she was afraid of being touched or tortured, she didn’t know.

  His arms flexed with muscle as he worked at something about her head. Something clunked, and the chains fell away from her with a heavy jangle. They lay on the bedspread, innocent and coiled like a false snake.

  Grasping she was free, Ana slid from the bed. “Son of a bitch,” she spat, putting out a hand to help steady her. “Iron?”

  She lunged at him, confused when her body refused to cooperate. Her biker boots hit the floor as she landed, tottering, two feet away from her intended target.

  Focusing inward, she registered how cold her embers were. They barely glittered, a few halfhearted sparks at her prompting. A breath hissed from her.

  Phoenixes radiated at around one hundred and twenty degrees; she’d wager she was operating on about human temperature. The lack of heat in the room and lack of food and water equaled her core running on empty. Even as she thought it, the sparks began to disintegrate, sucking inward to preserve the embers at her core.

  Determined, she fought through the weakness, charging Cade.

  He allowed himself to be thrust backward. “You’re too cold,” he commented. “Hungry. You can’t hurt me.”

  “You wanna bet?”

  Her knee jerked upward, narrowly blocked by Cade’s hand.

  “Don’t even try it.” He pushed her away, making her stagger from weak knees. “You’ll be on your back quicker than an eager whore. Then again,” he continued, the jackal’s obvious pleasure at the verbal sparring spinning through his wicked smile, “maybe you’d enjoy that.”

  With a vengeful shriek, Ana went for him. She jabbed with her fists, using her elbows when that didn’t work. He avoided all her blows, laughing with a gut-deep amusement.

  When she used her scissor-kick, she saw her mistake too late as he caught her legs and flipped her to the dirty gray carpet. He was on top of her before she could curse, lazy amusement swirling like phoenix smoke.

  His arms caged her as an old dimple flashed. “What did I say?”

  His weight suddenly pressed down on her abdomen slashes. A wince tugged at her face before she could stop it, a hiss pouring from between her teeth.

  His face changed immediately. “Fires above, Alana, you should have said something.”

  “I thought you’d hurt me if it was necessary.” She shoved him off her. He let her, a hunter tracking her as she stumbled away. She dropped into the chair he’d claimed earlier, unwilling to admit her jelly limbs. “You’re all mouth.”

  A slow smile spread over his face while his eyes altered to a dark velvet. Damn. She’d always been a sucker for the shadow-drenched eyes.

  He stalked nearer, the jackal’s satisfied rumble curling out of his mouth as strong hands came down over hers on the chair’s arms.

  She couldn’t dislodge him. Curses spilled from her as panic, not for her life but for something more prized, surged up her throat. “Don’t you come near me, Cade Lorin.”

  “All mouth?” he repeated, his voice that dark drawl he’d once whispered her name with. “I’ll show you all mouth.”

  His lips slanted over hers.

  He sucked all the breath out of her, into him, seizing control. Pushing her, like he’d always done. His hands tightened where they held her, bruising.

  She couldn’t seem to care.

  Although she wrestled against his appeal, his hands, his damnable delicious taste, Ana surrendered to his questing tongue and his roaming, arrogant mouth.

  She returned his kiss, helpless to do otherwise, matching his insistence as he demanded and invited together. A shiver echoed from her heart. She curled her claws into the chair’s material, heard the rip as she tore it.

  Straining upward, Ana couldn’t get enough of his sinfully experienced lips as they moved over her mouth. Their tongues met and entwined, battled and surrendered, each driving the other to the brink of madness.

  With a low growl that poured into her like the most expensive of honey, Cade’s hands shot to her shoulders to yank her up. She was halfway out of the chair, breasts aching for his hands, before her injuries caused the first flinch.

  He stilled.

  Unfinished desire continued to flow thickly through her, making her crazed for his mouth.

  “Ana…” he whispered. His nickname for her.

  The past snatched her into its sticky fingers.

  His eyes watching her as she, terrified of rejection, drew away. Desire stretching tight over the face she adored, the stern lips softening, shaping her name as he pulled her up for a second kiss.

  Ana jerked back to herself. What in the holy fires was she doing?

  He wanted to kill Liberty. If she wasn’t careful, even with their history, he’d return to his original—and true—supposition: that the social rebel was right in front of his nose.

  She dropped into the chair, withdrawing from his touch with dawning horror. She was a fucking idiot.

  Cade slowly stood, fists by his sides. His eyes were veiled. “I’ll get an aid box for your injuries. Then we’ll talk.”

  Her mouth was dry, barren. Still, she forced words through the rust. “I have nothing to say.”

  He turned his back on her and walked out of the room.

  Cade made sure she wasn’t about to follow him, pressing
flat against the wall. Sweat bloomed under his shirt as he tried to quell the vicious burning that cramped his stomach and fired his cock to an upright position.

  Damn, but the woman knew how to kiss.

  He ground his teeth together, using his fists as he tried to scrub the images away. As if he could rub out the memory of her straining upward for his mouth. Her breasts had been so close, the nipples hard for hands that would have curved perfectly around the globes.

  Cade growled, a rumble of thunder in the silent rooms. Hell, this wasn’t good. It was well enough to say he was going to seduce the woman, but it was another thing entirely for him to be seduced.

  With a low groan, Cade lowered his fists. All he had to do was walk out. He hadn’t notified the Treaty about the possible rebellion, as it hadn’t been a definite until a couple of days ago. Hadn’t updated them about Edward’s favor. Added to that, a part of him, a part buried beneath the hard-faced man, didn’t want to name Alana as an accomplice. So there’d be only Edward to tell he was leaving.

  And several missing kids would remain lost in the darkness.

  He couldn’t do it. Justice was burned into his bones the day he’d failed to protect his two brothers from their power-mad father. It was justice that had driven him ever since.

  The Treaty had approached him not long before Alana’s eighteenth birthday, signing him on to investigate her parents. Suspicious lump sums had been appearing in their bank accounts, not tallying with any of their legitimate financial interests.

  He still remembered snapping at the stony-faced officials sent to hire him on, snarling at the idea of accepting money to betray the couple who’d given him a purpose, a reason to go on after the battle that had torn his family apart.

  They’d found him outside a milliner’s shop in the town nearest Castle Ignis, leaning on the yellowed brick of the building, waiting for Alana to finish with her friend.

  There’d been two, one human, one valkry, both dressed in impeccable three-piece black suits. The mark of the Treaty, a rising sun, had been shown when Cade had demanded proof. It was a mark that all “official” officials bore; Cade, being a shadowy “unofficial”, claimed no such marks on his wrist.

  Despite the offense that burned like acid in his gut, Cade had insisted he be the one to prove them wrong, that Alana’s parents were as straitlaced as their court suggested. Not for the money, but for the pride. Though he hadn’t been one of the family, he’d adored one who was. He’d never have betrayed her. Even when he’d had several sleepless nights, bathed in sweat that froze the length of his back, when he’d discovered the Treaty had been telling the truth—as far as the money went.

  Then Alana’s engagement to Edward had been announced, and everything had gone tits up after that.

  Even though he’d refused to dig deeper out of respect for the deceased phoenix royals, the Treaty had been impressed with the information he’d gathered in the short time he’d been investigating. He’d been offered the chance to become one of their Blades, a shadow within the shadows. An undercover agent for justice.

  Shade had been born from years of careful research and planning, each of the supposed killings that built his fearsome reputation a staged affair with the criminals imprisoned for trial on the Treaty’s prison island of Moritian. He’d been the key to capturing many criminals and terrorists through the years. Not that it made up for the deaths of Cade’s brothers, or the assassination of Alana’s parents. Those failures would forever be branded upon his soul, his weight to carry.

  His ears twitched as he heard Alana moving around the room, no doubt rummaging for a weapon. He’d left none, but she was a resourceful woman. Clearly. He imagined not many royals could carve lives for themselves in a brutal place like Edan’s Maze.

  He pushed off the wall and headed for his pack, keeping a wary ear on the unchained phoenix searching the other room. Unzipping his pack, he laid hands on the kit, hesitating over the bow he’d stashed within. He smoothed his thumb over the royal crest.

  He had one thing to say to those who believed Alana had anything to do with her parents’ murder: fuck off. She’d been desperate for their affection and respect; she’d have sooner killed herself than them. He knew the Houses wanted to believe the royal heir had orchestrated the murder—because they had sensed, even then, that Alana would not be a puppet for them to control. Alana was individual in phoenix high society, not only for her compassion, but for her lack of hunger for absolute power.

  The only evidence the phoenix Sentinels had of Alana’s involvement was her heirloom locket, snapped and dumped in a puddle of cooling blood. Not enough.

  The nearest he’d seen to true rebellion from Alana had been when she’d gone to her parents’ suite after the banquet and argued their decision to ally her with a human. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the raised voices pitched in argument, the piercing dart of Alana’s pain as she’d begged. The loss of control that had set the royal couple’s bed into spinning, dancing flame. If Alana had wanted to kill them, at such an untried age when emotions were king, her fire would have surrounded her parents and not their bed.

  Cade ignored the taunting bow, grabbing a napkin-wrapped lump out of the pack along with the kit, and tugged the zipper closed. He tossed the kit around in his hands, bracing himself as he walked back into the room.

  She turned from the window, not even trying to hide the fact that she’d been attempting escape. Her chin rose in a move spookily similar to when she’d first laid eyes on him, a mere ten years old.

  “I don’t want this one,” she’d insisted, stamping her foot. “He smells.”

  Like wet dog, probably, but Cade had been recovering from both the physical battle with his father and the emotional blows of his brothers’ deaths.

  Damaged, he’d sneered at the tiny phoenix. “Screw it, then. I don’t care if she lives or dies.”

  “You can’t speak to me like that.” Her eyes had flamed. “I am the princess.”

  “All I see’s a little brat that needs spanking.”

  The carpet had caught fire with her surprise, and as the guards had gone to strike him for speaking so to her, Alana had raised her hand, cocking her head. “You’re funny,” she’d said, abrupt, and surprising the hell out of him. “I think I’ll keep you.”

  Alana had been his from the moment she’d accepted him, faults and all. And when he had his answers, he was shoving her into her rightful place as ruler of the High Lands—if he had to gag and chain her to do it.

  Chapter Nine

  “Where’s the pain?”

  “I’m looking at him.”

  Ana’s flippancy seemed to roll off him as Cade smiled, dropping the kit he carried onto the bed. In his other hand, he unwrapped a napkin to reveal a fruit bun.

  Memory thrashed her with a heavy hand as Ana inhaled the scent, returning to the past when she’d sneaked him them from the castle’s kitchens. The sweet, sticky treat had been one of his favorites.

  She eyed the bun as her stomach rumbled. “New torture?”

  “Hmm? Oh, this.” He tossed it in the air and caught it, flashing a smile at her. It was a dangerous one. “You want it?”

  She fantasized about ripping it out of his hand. “No.”

  “Ana…” He chided her with another slow smile.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Not in that voice, not after that kiss.

  Pain rammed down her throat, making it burn as she held back a torrent of whys. Why had he pushed her away ten years ago? Why had he told her he’d retire when she was married? Why had he become a merc, a criminal?

  “All right,” he said, affable. He lifted the bun to his mouth and took a bite. White teeth chewed the treat as he smacked his lips together. “Delicious.”

  “Bastard.” She chafed her arms to generate some heat.

  “Ah ah, Alana. Play nice. I’ll g
ive you the rest of the bun.”

  Food or violence. Food or violence.

  Hmm.

  “Give me the fucking bun,” she demanded, determined to keep the barriers she’d placed between them. He hated it whenever she swore; therefore, she’d swear all the damned time.

  “Gutter mouth.” He tossed the bun to her.

  The currants were sweet against her tongue as she devoured the treat. Sugar dissolved into her bloodstream, fanning the embers of her flames. Now if she could get warm, she might actually be strong enough to take him on.

  “Can’t you turn up the heat?” she complained. She moved away from the window, feeling chilly fingers reach through the thin pane of glass. “It’s freezing.”

  “All the better to keep you docile, my dear.”

  She debated sticking her tongue out at him.

  She wasn’t sure what to make of him. Every time she had him pegged, he changed. First the rogue who kissed her. Then her past love, lecturing her on what should have been. Now the rogue had returned.

  He was devastating.

  But no matter how charming, she had to remember that Cade was first and foremost a merc now, an assassin paid to do his client’s bidding. Edward’s bidding. He wanted Liberty; Ana was the key. To more than he realized.

  Wondering what he was about, she licked the last sticky bits of icing from her fingers. “I’ll treat the slashes myself,” she told him, referring back to his earlier question.

  His eyes were intent on her fingers as she licked them, the heat almost drowning in its intensity. Then he blinked and it was gone.

  “Stubborn. Can’t you accept any help?”

  She arched her eyebrows as she pulled the kit toward her. Flipping it open, she surveyed the varied objects inside, not commenting on why he’d need antidotes to half the poisons ever identified. “We don’t know each other anymore, Cade. Oops, sorry. Shade, wasn’t it?”

  “I know you’re still stubborn as an ass.” He ignored her slur. “That you still crave heat and would commit murder for sweets. That your lips are still soft and your taste as delicious.”