by Nalini Singh
Adjusting her grip on the tusks, she looked back at the demon. Slowly, she began to twist. The demon screamed, its head turning to the side.
A crack split the night. Not the demon’s neck. The tusks. Gritting her teeth, Mala drew back her fist and swung it down hard against the flat blades. Those tusks had rammed through stone, had withstood sharpened steel.
They didn’t survive the hammering of Mala’s fist.
All at once they snapped, the long blades coming away in her grip—and releasing her hold on the demon tusker. Kavik shouted and rushed at her. With a roar of pain, the demon charged. Stumbling back, she desperately swung the long bladed tusks.
The ivory cleaved through its neck even as Kavik slammed into her, yanking her out of the demon’s path. Its charging body tripped over its own head and fell, plowing into the ground. Still moving.
Mala pulled out of Kavik’s arms. With a ringing battle cry, she stalked forward and shoved the blades through the demon’s chest, through its heart.
The body tried to get to its feet. She stared at it, chest heaving.
Suddenly laughing again, Kavik suggested, “The head?”
Shaking hers, she stalked toward the body and slammed her foot against the end of the bladed tusks. The ivory splintered. She ripped one away, a shard as long as a sword, and stabbed it through the demon’s eye.
It fell quiet.
They waited, watching. Still nothing. Mala murmured, “It wasn’t ten thousand warriors.”
Kavik looked to her and she met his eyes, hers wide and disbelieving.
“It wasn’t ten thousand warriors,” she said. “That’s not what she promised me. I assumed it would be. But it was the strength of ten thousand warriors.” She looked at her hands. “The durability, too. Those blades should have cut through my hands.”
“And the weight,” Kavik said. “It couldn’t move you.”
She glanced up. “You moved me. But can I—”
Striding forward, she tried to lift him. Then again, wrapping her arms around his waist and grunting with the effort. When she made a sound of frustration and stepped back, Kavik gripped her waist and lifted her easily, bringing her up to his mouth.
Smiling, Mala slipped her arms around his neck. “She also said ‘when you most need it.’ I apparently don’t need it against you. Or the revenants.”
When she’d been thrown from Shim’s back. Kavik could still see the revenants swarming over her. “No,” he said roughly.
Her hands cupped his jaw. Softly she kissed him, then slid back to the ground. She turned toward Shim. “You’re all right?”
The horse responded with a stamp of his foot. Yes.
“He’s limping,” Kavik said and the stallion pinned his ears back and bared his teeth at him.
Mala stroked the stallion’s neck, soothing him. “Can you call the other horses? We should stay through the night and make certain all of the revenants are dead.”
Through the night. Sudden overwhelming emotion filled Kavik’s chest, and he turned away, staring at the demon’s body. He’d thought this would be the end. But there would be a tonight. A tomorrow.
It hadn’t been the end. At least, not his end.
And what Mala had assumed Vela meant wasn’t what she’d received at all.
His gaze moved to the ivory shard embedded in the demon’s eye. In that temple so many years ago, when he’d sought Vela’s help, he’d asked for the strength to defeat Barin—or the knowledge to do it.
Mala had received strength. And Kavik had been a fool about many things. He would not be a fool about this.
VELA looked fully upon them when Mala rode with Kavik to the citadel gates. Unlike the first time she’d come here, the gates were closed—but Selaq had already told them they would be. With eyes closed, the innkeeper had looked beyond the fortress’s walls and told them the citadel guards waited in the courtyard, two hundred strong.
When Barin had learned the demon was dead, the warlord should have hired ten thousand.
She dismounted. Of heavy blackwood and reinforced with iron, the gates were a formidable barrier, built to withstand battering rams and armies mounted on tamed tuskers and three-toed beasts. But she thought that a demon tusker could have probably broken through it alone. And so could she.
Raising her foot, she slammed her boot into the gates.
The barrier exploded open with a shriek of iron and rain of splinters. Mala strode through with axe and sword in hand and met the stunned, fearful faces of the citadel guard.
“If you know what is good for you,” she shouted, “you will move aside and create a path!”
The guards shifted uneasily, looking to each other. Mala spotted Heddiq mounted on a horse at the opposite end of the courtyard. With a grunt, she whipped around and threw her axe.
The heavy weapon flew end over end, spinning above the heads of two hundred guards and smashing through Heddiq’s face. With a thunk, the blade embedded in the stone wall behind him—with Heddiq’s helm pinned between. His body toppled from his horse.
Two hundred guards moved aside.
There was only silence as Kavik joined her, and together they walked to the keep. Mala opened the doors with another kick.
More dedicated guards waited inside. Kavik met them with his sword, and Mala didn’t need her strength now. She fought beside him until the last guard fell to the floor, and walked with him to the great hall.
Mala didn’t have to smash those doors. A tall, wiry man stood outside them, keys in hand and tears in his eyes. The marshal, she remembered.
She strode into the great hall and called, “I have brought my beast, Lord Barin!”
In his robes of yellow and gold, the warlord stood at the center of the hall. No courtiers sat at the tables now. More guards waited—but Barin held his hand up to them, and his smile was still amused.
“Did you think killing the demon tusker would be the end of me?” He laughed and looked to Kavik. “Come and see. There is still no sword that can harm me.”
Mala glanced at her warrior. When she had first encountered him at Selaq’s inn, just after he’d learned of his taming, Mala had thought she’d never seen such cold hatred and rage directed at her.
She had never seen him look at Barin. Vela had gifted her with the strength of ten thousand warriors, yet if ever Kavik had looked at her like that she would have fled for her life. He was death itself, not silver-fingered Rani come to gently carry a warrior into Temra’s arms, but ragged screaming death, contained within sheer muscle and bleeding from his savage stare.
Yet Barin did not flee. Not as Kavik stalked toward him, his steps fluid and strong, his sword held loosely in his grip. The warlord even spread his arms wide, robes falling open and baring his tattooed chest.
When Kavik set his blade against the side of the man’s neck, Barin looked into his eyes, grinning. He didn’t look down to see the ivory shard in Kavik’s left hand—until blood spilled from his mouth. Then he glanced down to see it embedded in his heart.
Cruel. But Mala thought Barin deserved it.
The warlord looked up, and she thought that now he saw what Kavik was. His end. His death. It was the last he saw. Kavik yanked the shard from his chest and shoved it through his eye.
Barin slid to the floor. Unmoving, Kavik stood over him with head bowed, and when Mala went to him he was staring at the man’s dead body, his chest heaving with harsh, ragged breaths. She touched his arm and he caught her against him, burying his face in her hair.
“It is done,” he said hoarsely. “It is finally done.”
Mala held him tight. Around them, chaos was exploding. Some of the guards shouted with fear, others with joy. Near the entrance to the great hall, the teary-eyed marshal was unfastening the collars of men and women tied by their leashes. Someone spoke a word, and soon it was repeated, louder and louder.
King.
So he was. She drew back and looked up at him. “Your work has only begun, warrior.”
CHAPTER 8
Later that night, her warrior followed her. When she’d left the chaos of the citadel below and climbed the stairs of the northern tower, Mala had known that he would.
She didn’t want to be inside, not this night. Instead she cleared the guards from the northern tower’s battlements and laid out a soft bed atop the stone. When Kavik found her, Mala stood at the parapet wall, looking over the city below. Barin’s fall was still being celebrated and fought over within the citadel and beyond its walls. Yet there was no one who argued with the name they were calling him now. Kavik, the king of Blackmoor.
He was still her beast.
His arms circled her waist from behind, and she leaned back against a chest as strong as these stone walls. “There is still much corruption to root out,” she said and shivered as his warm lips found her neck. “And Stranik’s passage is likely full of revenants.”
“We will root those out, too.” His gentle hand cupped her throat, holding her still as his fingers untied the side of her cuirass. “And I will return with you to your home, which will soon have far more than your strength available when they need it. Change will come to both our lands when others hear of this pass through the mountains. Everyone will be traveling this route—including more warriors. Perhaps even ten thousand of them.”
Bringing trade, riches, and trouble to both sides. Mala looked forward to it all.
But she only needed one warrior.
Unsheathing her knife, she turned in his arms and pressed the tip to the hollow of this throat. “The full moon still shines overhead. Do you intend to have me?”
His hunger lay stark upon his face. “I do.”
With a flick of her wrist, she carved a shallow crescent into his skin. Not a flinch passed through his body, but a question lay in the arch of his dark brow when blood began to slide down his chest.
“The scars upon the back of your neck are not moon blood scars, Kavik. Those cannot be offered by force. Your moon night is here with me.” As his gaze turned fiery, she flipped the knife in her hand, offering it. “Will you mark me?”
“I will.” His voice was guttural as he took the blade.
She tilted her chin back, exposing her throat to him. The sting at her neck was nothing, and yet it was everything. Hope for her future filled these drops of blood—a future with this man, blessed by the goddess who had brought them together.
Taking the knife, she let it clatter to the stone. “Vela has been given the blood that she wants. Now I will have what I want. Down, warrior.”
His grin was instant and fierce. Down he went, taking the long path. He stripped away her armor, and cold air caressed her skin. His lips followed the trickle of her moon blood, then journeyed over the swells of her breasts. Their stiffened peaks ached even before his mouth reached them, and when he had finished his heated assault upon their tips, her nipples throbbed from the suckling and her whole body was aflame. Only then did he continue down, pushing her back against the parapet wall and feasting upon her yielding flesh until she screamed.
Her hands fisted in his thick hair. “Now.”
With a growl, he lifted her against him and carried her to the soft bedding. Laying her upon it, he stepped back and removed his armor. Mala watched him undress with pleasure, stroking between her thighs as the torchlight flickered across his bared chest. His ravenous gaze fell upon her fingers. Grinning, she widened the spread of her legs.
“Do not be easy with me, warrior.”
He was not. With a rough grip, he caught her wrist and brought her fingers to his mouth to suck the wetness from her skin, then pinned her hands over her head. He pushed her legs wider before his weight settled between her thighs.
But he did not fill her. Instead he took his cock in hand and slicked the broad tip through her lush cleft, testing her entrance with gentle pressure. Again and again he did this, sliding up to tease her clitoris with his cockhead before returning to gently nudge her center again. Crying out in frustration, Mala arched beneath him, trying to force him in.
“Now, Kavik!”
“I have waited long, little dragon,” he replied through gritted teeth. “You will wait until I have seen you take all of me. I will not pound into you before I know how much you can bear.”
“I can bear everything you give to me, warrior.”
Abruptly he pressed harder. Mala gasped and stilled as her sensitive flesh stretched to accept his immense crown. Oh, but Temra had been generous to him. So generous.
Kavik paused, rigid above her. “Mala?”
“More.” With a rock of her hips, she urged him deeper. “If you will take me, take me hard.”
Bending his head, he claimed her mouth with his—but though his kiss was hard and deep, the invasion of her sheath was slow. So slow. Mala cried out as he retreated slightly before advancing again. He filled her, and filled her, and even as she wondered whether there would be an end, his loins finally settled heavily against hers.
“Do you see?” Mala panted, looking down between them. Her clitoris was nestled against the dark hair growing at the base of his cock. The delicate gates of her sheath embraced the root of his shaft. They were the only delicate part of her, and even they were strong enough to take him. “I can sheathe you, though your sword is so massive.”
“And you are tighter than a blademaster’s fist.”
Body shaking with strain, his eyes locked on her face, he rocked against her. She cried out, and her thighs came up to grip his hips.
Teeth clenched, he rocked again. “Is this pleasure, Mala?”
“It is.” Slicing through her, deeper and deeper. “The path is never easy.”
He stopped with his cock buried to the hilt. Mala bucked under him in desperate frustration. His gaze hot, Kavik licked his fingertips before sliding his hand between them. She shuddered as he brushed her clitoris—then screamed when he gently tugged with slick fingers. Heat rushed up under her skin. Kavik groaned and tugged again. Mala sobbed his name and her thighs fell away from his hips. Her sheath clenched around his shaft with each soft caress, as if trying to pull him deeper.
“This,” he ground out. “Better?”
So much. She arched beneath him. “Hard, now. Hard.”
He drew back, and his cock was drenched in her need, the heavy shaft glistening. Slowly he thrust into her again, with no resistance, no invasion, just a long sweet stroke that stoked fire through her veins. Helplessly she moaned and tilted her hips to take him deeper.
Withdrawing his fingers from between them, Kavik braced his elbow beside her shoulder. Letting go of her wrists, he fisted his fingers in her hair. Laughing, Mala took hold of his.
“Now,” he said hoarsely.
His cock drove deep. Her scream was cut short by another savage thrust, and she cried out again before setting her teeth against steely muscle. Kavik groaned, grinding hard between her thighs. The brutal pressure against her clitoris burst into stars behind her eyes.
Ruthlessly, he pushed her left knee up to her shoulder and fucked deeper.
Mala couldn’t get enough, couldn’t get close enough. With open-mouthed kisses, she tasted the saltiness of his chest and the bleeding mark on his throat. Her hands dragged down his flexing back. His cock surged into her, each heavy thrust striking harder, winding her body tighter.
“I love you,” she whispered against his skin.
Abruptly he pulled away from her, leaving her empty. His cock stood reddened and thick. His gaze was feral.
Mala licked her lips and reached for him. Kavik trapped her wrists and flipped her onto her stomach. His big hand pinned the back of her neck. He dragged her up to her knees and mounted her like a beast, his rigid length spearing deep.
The bedding muffled her scream. He slammed into her again and orgasm crashed through her, writhing along her spine and jerking her hips even as he pounded harder into her convulsing sheath. She sobbed his name, fingers clenching.
Then he slowed, slowed. Reverent kisses trailed across her
shoulders.
With a blissful sigh, Mala stretched beneath him, widening her knees. So sweet, this fucking. Sweet and tender and slow, and when the shattering pleasure splintered through her again, she needed to know this pleasure was his, too.
“Come into me, warrior,” she urged. “Fill me with a river of your seed.”
A primitive groan sounded behind her. Hard fingers bit into her hips and his cock stroked deeper, faster, before his body abruptly stilled. His shaft throbbed the release of his seed and her sheath clenched around him, stealing her breath with the unexpected ecstasy of it. Moaning, she turned her face against the bed.
His breath a hot shudder against her ear, he withdrew and rolled her over atop him. She went bonelessly, muscles still quivering. The full moon gazed down on them, and she thanked the goddesses for giving her a strong heart and a resilient sheath.
“Ale?” Mala asked when she could catch her breath. When Kavik grunted, she reached for the wineskin she’d put beside the bed. He sat up and drank with her, then pulled her over his lap, her thighs straddling his.
He kissed her, and it warmed her better than any drink. She slipped her arms around his neck. Already his cock stood hard again.
She grinned and tasted his mouth. “Was I worth the wait?”
“Worth waiting forever,” he said gruffly.
“Instead you’ll have me that long,” she said and rose over his straining shaft. “Now we’ll ride together.”
His hands caught her waist, holding her in place. Concern deepened his voice. “Are you raw?”
A little. She didn’t care. Biting her lip, she sank onto him, her head falling back as he filled her.
Groaning, Kavik licked the crescent moon at the base of her throat, then rasped against her stinging skin, “Was I worth the pain?”
“And so much more,” she breathed, taking him deeper. Her beast. Her warrior. Her heart.
Having him was worth everything.