Looking down on her face, he followed her gaze to the ground, where her paint lay stiff and lifeless, the pony that had carried her back to him, that had made her life possible—so that she was standing here now, warm and alive within the circle of his arms.
Faced with a situation he couldn’t right, Dye battled an unfamiliar sense of helplessness as he gazed down at the little stallion. What could a man do? What could a king do? What could he do to show Martigay he shared at least some of her loss and her sorrow? He owed the horse a debt of gratitude.
At a complete loss, Dye shook his head in regret…and a glint of gold caught at the corner of his eye, saving him at the last possible instant. Immediately, his hand went into his hair as he loosened one of his three gold ribbons and pulled it free, then dropped to one knee beside the pony as he braided the bit of color into the little stallion’s dark, stiff mane. Here, at least, was something she could understand.
As he finished, she knelt beside him and slipped her hand into his as she ran her other hand over the pony’s coat a final time.
“Thank you,” she whispered and he squeezed her hand in answer. Cutting a quick glance at her face, he let out a breath of relief to find a trace of peace in her troubled features.
The drumming sound of hooves approached, muffled in the hard grass, slowing to a canter as Pall swung out of the saddle and moved to crouch beside the crumpled beast on the ground. Eyes filled with sympathy, his gaze swung to the girl. Pulling Martigay up to stand beside him, Dye gave Pall a grim nod and then gave Martigay a gentle, separating push. As Pall stood to take her, Dye maneuvered her into his waiting arms. For an instant his eyes closed in fierce regret then he turned and moved away, ordering his final units south as Warrik’s Khals splashed across the river and joined his column.
Pall lifted her chin with the side of his finger. Her quiet gaze followed the king’s back. “Come on,” he murmured, encouragingly. “When this is all done with, we’ll get drunk. Then I’ll let you shag me.”
* * * * *
After joining his army in the south, Dye set about arranging his lines of attack. Escorted by Palleden, Martigay joined him not too long afterward. Her dark hair was a harsh, bruised contrast against her pale face—a face almost as white as those of his Thrallish guard.
For the next several hours, Dye was too busy to pay her any attention other than that which would assure she’d remain out of the line of fire during the upcoming battle. Where he would normally have joined his second line of cavalry, he held back and watched the conflict unfold from a distance. There was no dishonor in his action. Most leaders would hold themselves in reserve and direct a battle from a distant vantage point. Not him—not normally. But most leaders.
The two bands of Saharat had almost converged on the deserted camp before they discovered their error of judgment. In the battle that ensued, there were a few anxious moments. The armies were fairly evenly matched in numbers, but in the end, no army was equal to the elite forces of Greater Thrall—supported with superior weaponry and a mounted cavalry to put the world to shame, not to mention a never-interrupted supply line stretching from Amdahl to the coast. Dye smiled grimly. It paid to have the wealth of the civilized world at your fingertips.
The enemy gave ground in the third hour of battle and crumpled into a disorganized retreat in the fourth. The Army of Thrall followed and chased the remnant army all the way back to the city.
In the days that followed, Dye’s time was fully occupied. He didn’t have a spare minute. There were wounded men to be considered, funeral pyres to build and fire, as well as “gains” to be distributed. Despite the small number of losses on his side, a few of his units had to be combined and one lieutenant, along with three captains, had to be replaced. Fortunately, there were several candidates for promotion as many of his younger men had distinguished themselves in battle. Palleden was one of the men who moved up in rank.
It was a few days before he could return his attention to Martigay.
She’d left him and his army. That was the primary consideration. He had to assume she wasn’t currently with him by choice, but merely a piece of battle flotsam washed ahead of the enemy’s advance. This theory was supported by the fact that she hadn’t searched him out privately, day or evening.
Mentally, he counted off his errors. First, he’d assigned her to the mine and subjected her to her worst nightmare—there wasn’t anywhere on earth darker than the inside of a mine. Then he’d taken her without her permission—without her knowledge, for that matter. And after that, he’d tied her to a post and forced her.
Not a very good record, on his part. Small wonder she’d run from him.
Dye sighed. He had to further assume she might leave again whenever the opportunity would allow. She no longer had a mount—if she wanted to leave at this point, she’d be forced to go on foot. It was unlikely that she’d try to travel north to the Middle Sea on foot—it was too far. So long as she didn’t have her own mount, she’d have to stay with his army.
He was tempted to leave it at that.
But this whole situation was complicated by the fact that he felt responsible for her mount’s death. And not just any mount. The fastest horse in his army and equal to Hoyden’s fiery line of infamous blacks. If she hadn’t been running from him, her little paint wouldn’t have died.
In fact, the only lingering cause he had for hope—that she wouldn’t mount up and ride the moment she got a horse—was in that instant when she’d reached for his hand, after the pony’s death. Dye leaned back in his chair and stared at the canvas ceiling of his tent. “Ah, fuck,” he finally told the ceiling.
Chapter Nineteen
Uneasily, Dye stood beside Martigay while one of his men walked the palomino over. He’d picked out the handsomest of his four mounts and outfitted the mare in the best harness he could find amongst his men. He’d paid the soldier eight gold. It was nice work, simple and elegant. Eyebrows drawn together, he flicked a glance sideways to find her staring at the handsomely tooled saddle. Uncertainly, his eyes returned to the ruddy leather harness with its scrolling silverwork.
“I’m sorry,” he said brusquely. “But you must have a mount. It was the best I could come up with.” He stopped a moment, shaking his head, not daring to look at her. “I know I can’t replace your little paint and I’m not trying to, Captain Martigay. But…consider the horse yours. It’s…a gift.”
Slanting another glance toward her, he gritted his teeth to see tears furrowing a path down her face. His fists bunched at his sides as he fought the urge to take her, hold her, drag her back to his tent and give her something to think about other than her sorrow. Breathing a curse, he turned abruptly and stalked toward his tent as he pulled both hands through the hair at his temples. Once inside, he caught the edge of his table, tossed it a good six feet and then stood glaring at the mess he’d created.
The next thing he felt were small female hands on his flanks, pressed tight against his hips and dragging downward. He shook his head as he raised his eyes to the gods. “Don’t do that, Martigay. Unless you’re offering more. Unless you’re offering everything.” Her hands stilled and his eyes closed an instant in prayer. And an instant later that prayer was answered when she dragged her hands back up his thighs.
He turned to her. “Ah, Martigay,” he said. His voice was hoarse. Reaching for her, he got her face in his hands, where it belonged. Where it had always belonged. It twisted his heart to see the smudges of sorrow beneath her red-rimmed eyes. Bending his face to hers, he ran his lips across her cheeks, just below her eyelashes, where runnels of grief marked her pale face.
She leaned into him and he knew she wanted him to take her. All of her—and more than just her body—her troubled heart, her troubled soul, along with all of her difficulties and concerns. It crushed his heart to think what her surrender meant. He ached to think her sprightly soul so badly bruised, her bright, defiant spirit so beaten and crushed that she would offer it up for his taking. And would let him take her
without whimper or complaint or, even more troubling, without some sly remark—so long as he would take her pain at the same time.
And because of that, because of what he knew he’d be taking, he had to ask her permission as well as her pardon before he went any further. He tipped her chin upward and made her look at him.
“I won’t take you at a moment of weakness, Martigay. I won’t fuck this up again. I shouldn’t have done what I did to you before—in your tent after I brought you back from the mine, or here again tied to this post.”
He had to hold his breath to hear her. Her response was faint but her gaze was steady as she brought her eyes to his. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want you to do,” she told him.
When he lifted her, she melted against him acceptingly. Accepting him and everything that would follow, should he choose to lavish his love on her with reverential devotion, or should he choose to take her like a bitch in heat. She was his at this moment, completely given for his taking.
He spread her out on his cot and opened her clothing, laying her jerkin and chemise open to reveal the fabulous swell of her breasts, slowly unfastening her leggings and sliding them down her legs along with her silk shorts and soft leather boots. He moved smoothly, his actions carefully predictable. As he pulled his jerkin over his head, he let his eyes travel from her ankles, up the curves of her legs to linger on the dark red curls resting between her closed thighs before they followed her curves to her waist, across her belly, over her breasts and up to her face.
Her breathing was even. Her wide eyes were fixed on his, softened to a warm blue fog, filled with trust…and the vulnerability that comes with trust. He held her gaze as he untied the laces at his groin and let the stiff bow of his erection push its way out. His heart was warmed when her gaze transferred from his face down to his crotch, and he let the leggings drop to his feet as he undid the linen strap holding the blade against his inner thigh. Smiling down on her, he watched the pink tip of her tongue flick out to moisten her full lower lip and then the pearly sheen of her teeth dragging at the plump flesh caught in her bite.
It was a simple action, but seductive in its innocence. Like an impatient stallion champing at the reins, his dick jerked in response. And like an impatient stallion, he was ready for a quick mount and a hard ride. He was ready to give in to savagery and passion.
Yet, he was more than an animal. He was a man. A man with the strength to temper that passion. And he chose to take her like a man, with all of a man’s simple strength possessing her body. He let her give herself into his keeping and he took her, knowing that was what she needed—the chance to give and be taken. The need to escape from herself and all the wrenching misery in her heart. The need to put herself into a man’s hard, capable hands and leave herself there without thought or conflict.
Following her onto the bed with a knee nudging between her legs, he opened her and, with the weight of his long body over hers—warming and sheltering hers—he entered her in slow, gentle inches, working his way through the now familiar clenching spasms of her pussy, letting her body adapt to his presence, taking from her everything her body offered up, but only as she offered it. With his weight on his forearms, and his body against hers, he built her desire slowly with his whispering breath in her ear, followed by the drag of his lips along her jawline where he found and barely touched her lips. Slowly, he moved inside her with a steady rhythm she could depend on as her body arched slightly to bring her lips up to meet his, hovering just within touching distance.
Her breath was a warm caress on his lips, her mouth parted like the petals of an opening rose. It was difficult not to crush those lips beneath his bruising mouth, difficult not to crush her soft body with the hard, laboring thrusts his body screamed for. Sweat dampened the hair falling on his forehead as he kept up the steady pace of give and take between her legs, his gaze locked on hers as he watched the blue smoke in her eyes swirl and grow distant, unfocused. Her breathing was a soft, erratic rush, jagged against his lips, filled with small, helpless sounds.
He groaned at that whispered fray of sound.
More than anything, he wanted to pull her legs up beside his body and put his cock up against her last defense. It took every ounce of restraint and a good deal more sweat to deny himself the taking and wait for her giving. In the meantime, he dutifully delivered one quiet thrust after another while her cunt softened and grew wet around his dick, bathing his thick shaft with a woman’s sweet, wet heat.
There was a change in her body underneath him, a yielding, a widening of her legs as her body started to give beneath his. A thrill of savage male excitement got between his legs as he forced his way further into the deepening opening, giving her more, knowing she was ready to take it, ready to take all that he could give, as hard as he could deliver at the back of her aching vagina. As his cock found a place at the back of her grasping sheath, the skin of his lower abdomen plowed against all the wet, soft flesh of her open sex, a rough massage of her parted lips and the clit sheltering just inside.
He heard his own rough breath, bellowing out of his lungs as he took her small, humid breaths against his lips and her knees traveled up beside his legs to his flanks then dropped flat on the bed to allow his complete penetration. Her cunt shuddered as it held his dick in a delicious grip and he continued to hammer into her as his hand slipped beneath her thigh, testing her, looking for her consent before he took both her legs over his biceps, and spread her, then rose on her.
Mithra. He loved this. Loved this fuck. Loved the tight fit of this woman’s cunt wrapped around his cock, sucking at his cock head, taking his shaft in her dark, hot hold, dragging his dick toward arrival in the sweetest fuck he’d ever known.
In one still moment, he felt an exquisite tightening along his length as she started coming and he stiffened, paralyzed in an orgasmic trance of profound proportions as he joined her in climax, his dick seated at the back of her cunt, exploding against her cervix, his release pumping through his cock as he jettisoned in a blast of stunning release and all the while her body writhed and twisted on the hard, mean stake of his cock—completely taken.
His voice was hoarse by the time he finished inside her, his throat raw from the words that scraped up the strangled column of his throat to explode from his lips. Shaking his head, he watched her through the damp red strands hanging in his eyes as he growled out a final harsh animal sound of feral satisfaction—unsure of what he’d been shouting there at the end, but fairly certain he’d used the word love.
Used it several times.
Afterward, they lay together and shared low, hushed words as he watched his hand smooth over the silken contours of her body. It was almost the first time they’d talked and he had thought it would be difficult—to keep up a conversation with a woman.
But she’d talked about familiar subjects he was comfortable with. She had a number of questions about the war and his plans to take Amdahl. In fact, her interest was so keen, he might have thought she was a spy if he hadn’t known otherwise.
At this intruding thought, he shifted uneasily before he swept the idea from his mind. She was a soldier, he told himself, and her interest sprang from that fact. If she was a spy, he’d kill her…after he killed himself. Either that, or he’d claim her as “spoils-of-war” and make her his slave for the rest of his life—which he would probably then spend…a slave to her pleasure.
They talked about his recent offer of amnesty to the remaining Saharat inside the city walls, and the disappointing fact that the Saharat had refused the offer. She shook her head at this, surprised the small remaining force would stubbornly refuse to surrender peacefully and settle for their lives. He explained to her that a man who wasn’t likely to keep his own promises would be just as unlikely to trust another man’s.
At that, she’d nodded.
He fell asleep with her body wrapped around his and woke to an empty cot. But she’d warned him that she’d ride upon waking. He’d have accompanied her, if
it weren’t for the guard required to trail him.
Stretching out his long, naked length, Dye rubbed absently at his morning erection and thought of Martigay.
Chapter Twenty
She was tired, she realized—dead-tired. She felt beaten, like something washed ashore after a violent storm, washed up to roll on the beach until trampled by a passing army of Clydesdales—very recently shod with iron. She felt as though she could sleep for a week, wanted to sleep for a week—her eyes turned toward the king’s tent—so long as she could sleep in the king’s arms.
Slipping from her mount, Martigay found a Thrall immediately at her side, yanking at her saddle, lifting it away from the palomino—one of the king’s Royal Guard, ordered to assist her.
“Thank you,” she told him with a wan smile and turned wearily toward Dye’s tent, wondering how soon he’d be available to wrap her up in his arms.
She missed him. Missed her little pony.
As her eyes rested on the king’s pavilion tent, a word wandered to the forefront of her mind, surprising her. Nothing to get excited about, she reminded herself. Men would use that word—or any other word—in return for satisfaction. Most like, it didn’t mean anything. Most like, he’d not even remember it. She sighed. But man—she allowed herself a small, wan smile of satisfaction—that word sounded good on Dye’s lips.
A black mare caught her eye and she winced for Dye’s sake. It was Bruthinia’s mount. Poor Dye, she thought, as she slowed to a halt before his tent.
And that was the last sympathetic thought she had for him—because, through the tent’s opening, she could just see a set of very shapely, very naked legs straddling his lap.
* * * * *
“I’m not giving you up without a fight.”
Dye nodded at the naked Vandal princess, pressed up against his chest. “And you’ve a good argument there,” he told her, wryly, casting his eyes down at her brown nipples while trying to maintain his sense of humor in the midst of a very awkward situation.
Dye's Kingdom: Wanting It Forever Page 15