“Fuck me!” Warrik whispered, awestruck. “Isn’t that beautiful? Wouldn’t you like to have that on your dick right about now? Wrapped around your cock like a wet flame?” Dye stifled a groan as he dragged his wrist over his ties. “Told you we’d know,” Warrik reminded his friend.
Dye tried to swallow through a dry throat as he watched Martigay’s eyes open at the end of a shudder. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes huge on his as she dragged her bottom lip through her teeth and averted her eyes. Dye’s eyebrows came together. “She’s embarrassed,” he told himself quietly. “We’ve embarrassed the girl.”
Warrik shrugged. “She’ll get over it.”
Concerned, Dye watched as Martigay spurred her horse ahead of them.
“What’s she up to?” Warrik asked with suspicion.
“She’s just trying to get away,” Dye told him, troubled.
Drawing her mount to a sudden halt just ahead of them, the woman swung from the pony’s back to stand beside the beast. Bending over double, ostensibly to inspect the beast’s fetlock—she presented the perfect heart of her bottom for their profound appreciation.
“The little minx!” Warrik roared with laughter. “Embarrassed, my ass,” he chortled as the two men kicked their mounts into a trot to catch up to her.
As they approached, she continued her charade, running her hand up the pony’s cannon, testing its leg between fetlock and knee. She straightened and turned as the men came alongside her. The little tease had loosened the ties at her chest and both men could see right down into her fabulous cleavage.
“Everything all right, Captain Martigay?” Dye choked out bravely, forcing himself to drag his eyes out of her cleavage and lift them to her face.
“Just checking my mount, sir,” she answered. “His gait seemed a little…unsettling. And a woman has to be cautious when she’s only her horse to rely on.” She glanced down at the horse’s leg then back up. “But I’m satisfied…now.” Swinging back into the saddle, she raced back to join the ranks while Dye fought the urge to follow her with his eyes.
“That little chit’s asking for it,” Warrik pointed out, his eyes lit with amusement as well as admiration. “Why don’t you give it to her?”
“I can’t,” Dye told him with stoic determination. “Though Mithra knows I’d like too. And that’s not the worst of it,” he rasped. “I’m as hard as a rock. I’m going to be fucking blue in about an hour.”
Warrik shook his head. “No, that’s not the worst of it,” he said with a grin. “The worst of it is—you owe me five gold.”
Chapter Twelve
Dye’s eyes scanned the message quickly before he grabbed up a quill and scrawled a response then stood to call for a messenger. Ducking outside the inn, he came face to face with Martigay. He blinked—a startled, uneasy moment. Stepping around her, he thrust the message into Donal’s hand. “Get this to Greegor, now,” he spat out the short, terse order. Turning back to his tent, his eyes connected with hers again for a brief instant. He broke the connection as he brushed back through the inn’s door.
She followed him in and he shook his head as he heard her steps on the wooden floor, behind him. Shields firmly in place, he turned to face her.
“What in Hadi’s name was that about?” she rasped in a low snarl.
With his eyes, he dared her to push him.
“That message was mine! I was next in line for the next outgoing message. What in Hadi’s name is Donal doing carrying my message!”
Dye stared at her silently, jaw grinding, an eruption brewing in the wild volcanic blue of his eyes. “The message was…important,” he grated out. “Vital.”
For an instant she looked stunned, angry, hurt. “What! I’m not good enough to carry an important message? I’m not fast enough? There isn’t a horse in your army faster than Scarface. There isn’t a rider in your army who can outdistance me!”
“The assignment was dangerous!” he exploded.
She took a step toward him. “I should be carrying that message. I was next in line. Why the—!”
His hands shot toward her as he clamped her upper arms and lifted her body until her face was level with his. “You want to know why?” he snarled. “This is why!” He jerked her forward and his lips connected with hers for a brief instant as he slammed her into the nearest wall and, grabbing her hand, forced it beneath his ties. “And that!”
Still reeling from the intense shock of his lips, given and almost immediately withdrawn, Martigay stammered when she felt his hand locking hers around the steel-hard length of his shaft. “Wha…what are you doing?”
“Don’t you know? Keep thinking, Captain Martigay. It will come to you.”
“Nothing’s coming,” she grunted defensively, struggling in his iron grasp.
“Nay?” Releasing his hold on her, he thrust his hand into her leggings. With his body pinning hers to the wall, she felt a thick finger part her labia with an expert flick. “How about now? Need another hint, Martigay? Then let me spell it out for you. I want to fuck you before you die.”
Martigay quit struggling as she stared into the blue eyes that burned inches from her own. “Before I die?”
“Before you die—carrying a message to Greegor, the message warning him of the Saharat force amassing in the south and marching north to divide our forces, the message which may or may not reach him in time—especially when there’s more than an odds-on chance that you’d be killed by enemy riders on your way there!”
“Saharat!” she stuttered, “In the south? Where did they come from?”
“Where do Saharat usually come from? From the desert!”
“They’re not all in Amdahl?”
“Apparently not!”
“But—” Martigay stared at his face. “You…you can’t do that! You can’t show me favoritism. I’ll lose face—respect. The men will snicker behind my back and hate me for it.”
“I can do whatever I choose, soldier. I’m the Commander of this Army as well as the fucking king!”
Martigay swallowed as she stared into Dye’s hard, amazonite gaze. “Well, get on with it, then. Let’s see what a king can do.”
Her invitation set him back for an instant. But only an instant. “Well, that’s a reversal of position, Captain Martigay.”
“Are you asking me to turn around?”
Despite the passion firing his limbs and accumulating in a stark rush for his dick, Dye couldn’t stop the smile that crept over his mouth. He knew his eyes crinkled at the edges as he choked out the next sentence. “I’m asking why the sudden change of heart—about my favoritism.”
Martigay shook her head. “I haven’t changed my mind, sir—I still don’t want special treatment.”
“Thanks,” he grunted harshly. “So you’re assuming sex with me would be something less than special.”
“No! No! Not at all, sir. I just consider this a slight detour…from my principles.”
“Isn’t that convenient,” he pointed out in a rasp.
“Yes, sir,” she admitted. “But, if you’re going to get wet, you might as well go swimming.”
“Are you wet, Captain Martigay?” he whispered against her ear. “Are you as wet as you were on your horse, yesterday?”
“See for yourself,” she breathed in an inviting whisper of sound.
His finger slipped through her folds toward her vagina, and she blinked several times before his finger came to a halt at her opening. Her free hand smoothed over his hard forearm and slipped down to cover his hand as she rubbed his palm against her mons. “Dive in, sir.”
“Don’t tempt me, Martigay,” he warned her with a frayed voice, “or you’ll find my cock wedged so deep in your cunt you’ll be tasting saltwater at the back of your throat.”
Her only answer was a low, breathless moan which fired his limbs and thickened the long, steely length of his dick. Her small, female sounds of longing drove him to masculine need nothing short of brutal as he was almost overcome with the urge to thrust
and fill and complete himself inside this woman.
The barrier of his ties loosened as she fumbled at his strings, then his cock was pushing through the opening she’d breeched. Her small hand wrapped around his cock again and he gasped. He had half a mind to forge up into her—there and then—but held back, wary of the cool challenge in her smoke-blue eyes, the steel composure with which she maintained a dignity at odds with the short, excited breaths that dampened her parted lips. Instead, he dipped his middle finger into her well and pulled the wet finger all the way through her folds to the top of her cleft. And dipped again. At the same time, she pumped at the loose skin covering the bow of his erection.
He kept his eyes on hers, watching them intently while her eyes remained focused on his. He continued to play in and out of her opening, up and through her folds, circling her clitoris then back down again to her vagina.
Her face remained expressionless as she continued to manhandle his dick with a brutal grip. Gritting his teeth, determined to win this contest of reserve, Dye waited for some kind of sign—thought her folds thickened, softened, but wasn’t certain, kept playing his finger through her sex as it became increasingly difficult to concentrate with that tight little grip on his shaft urging an excited reaction out of his cock. Finally, he returned to her opening to find it running hot and wet, spilling over his fingers.
Pausing there to catch at the sweet running moisture with three fingers, he explored her slit, pushing her labia open and rubbing her clit with his flattened palm while his fingers deepened their intrusion into her cunt.
Confident that she was on the edge of orgasm and a wild, thrashing victory was at hand, his chest tightened in anticipation and his breath came in rough bursts as he rushed her forward, his eyes on hers, determined to witness the instant when she lost control, committed to remaining hard in her grip through her last internal shudder. Certain her defeat was within his grasp, he watched her face carefully as he shot two fingers deep inside her cunt at the same time that he gave her a small, vicious smile of triumph.
For an instant, her eyes lost their focus, half-closed, then blinked open to stare at him helplessly. In that instant, a storm of passion swirled in her smoke-blue eyes. And in that instant, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything. Wanted her—helplessly female, defeated by lust, shafted on his cock and staring into his eyes as he fucked her—a slave to his cock.
But before he could get inside her, she lost it. Completely lost it. Her hand tightened around his shaft and her head went back as her body convulsed in shuddering jerks and her vagina clamped to hug his fingers as her release slid into his palm.
“Fuck,” his voice scratched out of a dry throat as his cock thickened and stretched until he thought he would burst out of his skin. With gritted teeth he fought to ignore the hand that clamped and jerked uncontrollably on his dick as he continued the smooth motion of his fingers in and out of her cunt, continued to serve her need uninterrupted, the surface of his palm sliding inside the slick space between her spread labia.
Eventually, she opened her eyes to gaze at him. His hand was still inside her spread pussy while he savored the wet heat in his palm, holding her with a strong, still grip as her sex continued to close on his fingers in recurring tremors of aftershock. Her wide eyes on his were sleepy with satisfaction—and he fought to get inside her.
Overcharged and ready to spill at the least provocation, he tore at her ties and yanked at the top of her leggings, dragging them down over her hips. His cock rubbed into her wet cleft as his hips moved instinctively. Flexing his knees, he drove upward, missing the mark, grinding up through the clinging line of her sex that hugged his cock head in a sweet, carnal kiss and accelerated him toward orgasm. With her wet kiss sucking at his sensitive cock head, he exploded, spilling into the dewy hair of her mound, pulling her lower body close and tight as his shaft jerked between their bodies and spat his ejaculate to coat their groins and seal their bodies together—naked cock to warm, felted pussy. Her groan was in his ear as she tried, too late, to climb onto his dick.
“You missed the mark,” she murmured with a whimper of disappointment.
Nestling his face into the sheltering waves of her hair, he moaned a wet breath in answer, feeling empty and incomplete. “You’re driving me mad,” he told her.
“You need to get this out of your system,” she told him between breaths. “You can’t let your…interest in me interfere with my duties as a soldier. If you want to lay me before you have to expose me to danger, then I suggest you get on with it, sir, so that I can get on with my career.”
“I can’t do that,” he said, realizing how close he’d come to violating his principles. “I can’t do either,” he confessed, “lay you or expose you to danger. Though Mithra knows I’d like to. Lay you,” he clarified with a whisper, “and perhaps even expose you,” he added, gruffly. “But not to danger.”
With his hands on her waist, he eased her to the floor and took a step back, shaking his head at the same time.
“But you’re right,” he muttered after a long pause. His eyes were on the ground as he shook his head. “I’ve a war to win, an army to command, twelve thousand lives for which I’m responsible. I can’t— You’re right,” he said looking back up at her. “I’m moving you out of the messengers.”
“Sir!”
“You’ll be joining my personal guard.”
“But…the Royal Guard is Thrallish.”
“You’ll be a welcome addition. The guard could use some color and you’re the right height.”
“But…your guard has a captain.”
He nodded again. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to settle for sergeant.” Turning from her, he rummaged on his desk before he found a red ribbon. Turning back to face her, he held the ribbon toward her.
Without realizing it, she shuffled a few steps backward. “Sergeant!”
“You’ll look good in red,” he told her, his face grim but determined. “Look on the bright side, Martigay. No one will be able to accuse you of favoritism.”
Staring at the red ribbon, she shook her head as she backed up another step, unable to understand how he could do this to her—again. After…after she’d proven herself in her role as Captain of his Messengers and despite the rough, incomplete intimacy they’d shared several times now. Despite the warm, promising kiss beneath the tree just the other evening. The kiss cut short by the untimely bolt of lightning.
Her eyes burned with an aching pressure and she knew they’d soon fill. Sucking in her cheeks, she blinked at the ribbon then turned for the door.
“I’ve not dismissed you, Martigay.”
Ignoring this, she continued pushing toward the door. She wouldn’t let the bastard see her cry.
“Martigay! You go out that door and you go out it a pawyn.”
Without hesitation, she drew her short steel from her belt and cut the ribboned braid close to her scalp. Her back was stiff as she flung the plaited twist of hair to the floor.
“Shit!” Dye cursed in the empty room. “Shit!” For several instants he stared at the long, dark braid on the floor—Martigay’s shining hair twisted together with a single ribbon of blue—before he made his way across the room to pick it up.
Chapter Thirteen
He should be pleased, Dye reasoned.
He should be pleased.
Donal’s message had reached Greegor in time for his lieutenant to race his troops east, joining Dye ahead of the Saharat advance. Upon Greegor’s arrival, Dye had consolidated his lines, pulling his army together to camp in a wide band on the east bank of the Neelae River, firmly wedged between the Saharat advance and the forces occupying the city. After establishing the new base, he had sent a force of two thousand north to take the mines, thereby cutting off the main source of income that supported the Saharat trespassers inside the city—the cash they’d need to pay for the imported food and supplies Amdahl was largely dependant upon.
The mines had been taken without a fig
ht, the small caretaking force of Saharat pelting off to the west before his advance. His men were currently searching those hills and woods in an effort to clear them of any loose bands that might hang around long enough to cause trouble.
The Saharat force approaching from the south and numbering about five thousand would have been more than enough to wipe out Greegor’s unit, but shouldn’t present much of a threat when they caught up to Dye’s main force—if they were foolish enough to attack without a supporting force from Amdahl. The real danger lay in the prospect of the southern force being joined by the Saharat army in the city, leaving the safety of their walls to attack him at the same time. In this case, though the armies would be fairly evenly matched, Dye’s army would be caught between the two forces and the Saharat would have a definite advantage that wouldn’t be easily surmounted.
Still, all in all, he should be pleased.
He had Martigay close to him at all times, where he could be certain of her safety. And the thought that she was safe should have been a warming one. It might have been, had she not been so cold and distant. In the past several days, Martigay hadn’t once looked at him, hadn’t once smiled in his presence, hadn’t once breathed any other words to him other than “Yes, sir”.
She’d been angry with him before, but never like this. Never with such accompanying glacial frigidity. Her anger in the past, in fact, had resulted in more than one heated encounter between the two of them as their strange raw attraction to one another—as overpowering as a drug—kept driving them toward each other.
Dye twitched his head in irritation, surprised by how much he actually missed the confrontations, surprised that he would rather be fighting with the little temptress than to have nothing—this odd, unsettling nothing—between them. He might have thought her demotion to sergeant had sucked the life out of the proud little sprite, for all the warmth she evidenced in his presence. He might have thought that was the case, except for her behavior when she was off duty.
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