A Heart of Blood and Ashes

by Milla Vane

  “Will he wake?” wondered Cadus, frowning.

  Maddek gave answer by chopping off Bazir’s head.

  CHAPTER 28

  MADDEK

  Cadus’s fastest horses they rode to the docks, with an escort to show them the shortest route. Dawn lightened the eastern sky. Over the western horizon, the full moon blushed pink.

  No hired bargeship did they have now. Drahm’s prince had offered Yvenne his protection, and as they’d waited for Bazir’s attack, he’d first attempted to persuade Maddek to remain in the city. When that failed, Cadus had insisted on the honor of continuing his protection as they sailed north. His own ship he’d offered for their use—an offer Maddek gladly took. For they truly were in a race, and the prince’s vessel would cross the water more swiftly.

  The change had been made during the night. Instead of a wide bargeship, this ship more resembled a swan, with a great sail furled against the curved mast of the neck. Carrying a jute sack, Maddek strode up the gangway. Ardyl and Banek waited, and the deck was busy with crew—but no Yvenne.

  “Where is she?”

  “The royal quarters,” Ardyl said, pointing to the tail of the boat. “She left to prepare for your arrival after seeing her brother felled.”

  In surprise, Maddek glanced to the shore. The nest he could see, a pale shell nestled amid the terraced gardens, but he had not thought her sight able to pierce the dark.

  Yet it had not been dark, he realized. The full moon had shone into the bedchamber, as if Vela herself had allowed Yvenne to witness her brother’s death.

  “The horses?”

  “Aboard.”

  “Then tell the captain to set sail.” Striding the length of the deck, he looked to the western horizon again. Never had the moon seemed to sink so quickly. Not much time would he have to prepare Yvenne for a fucking—and now Vela’s gift of cockmonger’s oil seemed not such an insult, but necessary to ease his entry if Maddek had no time to use his mouth and fingers. His cock only needed to breach her cunt before the moon set. Then he would keep his promises to her.

  His clawed fingers left crimson marks on the palewood door he slid open, ducking his head as he entered. If not for the low ceiling and creaking of the ship, he might have been in the prince’s palace again. No doors or walls divided the space. Silk screens gave privacy to the bed and the bath. The rear of the chamber lay open to a private deck—and beyond that, the sea.

  Only a small distance separated the moon and the water.

  A steep flight of stairs descended to the recessed floor of the chamber. Skipping the steps, Maddek leapt down and could stand properly without hitting his head. The jute sack dripped blood onto polished wooden planks as he crossed to the bed.

  Yet it was from behind the bath screen that Yvenne emerged—long curling locks unbound, and clad only in a robe. No linens wrapped her limbs. Her cheeks were flushed, her hardened nipples pebbled beneath silk, her soft bottom lip trapped between her teeth as she watched his approach.

  He reached into the sack. Fingers tangled in matted hair, he set her brother’s head upon a table. “It is done.”

  “I saw,” she said huskily, and held out her hand as if to lead him to bed.

  He swept her up into his arms instead, carrying her behind the screen. More steep steps led up to the wide dais supporting the bed. He lifted her onto the platform, where she stood taller than he, his face on level with her breasts. “Where is Vela’s potion?”

  “In my satchel.” She caught hold of the spaulders armoring his shoulders before he could go in search of it. “But my sheath needs no oiling.”

  Because she had come here to prepare herself as soon as she’d seen her brother fall. Maddek assumed that meant to bathe and to undress. Now he drew her fingers into his mouth, gave himself a taste of the sweetness that lingered at their tips.

  Her breath shuddered, a sound of hot desire—and soft humor. “Our bed truly will look like a battlefield as you come to me wearing blood and claws and sword.” With the two fingers on her right hand, she swiped through the gore painting his chest, and her smile diminished to a sad curve. “Though I must pose no real threat, for you do not shield your heart against me.”

  What use would such armor serve? Already she had reached in and taken hold of it. “Only a fool would underestimate you, Yvenne,” he told her gruffly.

  Maddek had been a fool once.

  The slightest smile returned, as if she believed he spoke platitudes. “You used a shield against my brother.”

  “The corpse?” His claws skimmed up the outsides of her thighs, bloodied silver over slippery silk. Her scent reached him, faint coconut and stronger anise, as if she’d applied that Syssian perfume to her throat and breasts before his arrival. “My true shield was your warning to avoid his poisoned blades. Else I might think as he wanted me to, and believe that you betrayed and killed your mother.”

  She became utterly still. “What do you believe, instead?”

  “That you had painful reason,” he said gently, hands curving over her hips. A reason that her brother had wrapped in other lies, perhaps. That a demon had possessed her mother’s weakened body—or she’d been maddened, as Bazir claimed Ran Ashev had been, and Yvenne killed her mother in defense of her own life. “And no other choice.”

  Never had her walls erected so swiftly, so visibly. She neither moved nor spoke, yet he could see and hear the barrier she put up between them, in the hardening of her moonstone eyes and the deep slowing of her breaths. A poisonous ache filled his chest. These walls he’d battered down and now they stood again, as if he’d never touched her. As if she’d never invited him in.

  Then she yanked on his beard and hissed, “I told you not to believe what he said.”

  Not even in bed yet, and already the battle was here, with a pointed blade piercing his heart. “You also said he would frame lies with truth, to better persuade me to his view. That view I saw for the lie it was.”

  “Yet your view is still that I killed her?”

  “Of everything he said about you, only that held a ring of truth.” And was confirmed by her reactions. First in the throwing of her knife and now because she did not deny it. Every time he’d suggested she had a part in his own mother’s death, Yvenne immediately denied it. Always she’d denied it. Here she only yanked at his beard for listening to Bazir. Hoarsely he asked, “Did you kill her during a failed escape?”

  For an endless moment, she stared down at him from walls so high he could not read her face. Then she drew a breath that was agony.

  As if suffering. Not at her father’s hands, but at his.

  Sudden dread closed his throat. His fingers tightened on her hips, but she pulled out of his grip, stepping back with a cold smile curving her lips.

  “I think you like that view. It fits so neatly with the one you already have of me.” Her chin lifted. “Very well. Let us frame it that way. I did kill my mother during a failed escape.”

  She would not have. He knew she would not have.

  Yet Maddek also did not believe she was lying. In a raw voice, he said, “I cannot believe—”

  “Anything I say. Yes, I know. Because I am the foul, treacherous vessel for your vengeance. And you’d best hurry and make use of me. If you do not fuck my sheath full of your seed now, you will have no opportunity again.” Turning her back to him, she bent over the side of the bed and braced her elbows. “You need not even look at my scheming face while you mount me.”

  By Temra’s fist. Sheer frustration gritted his teeth. It should not be like this, without resolution between them. With her walls still so high.

  Yet little time they had. The moon’s chin rested on the horizon. So he would breach her quickly, then slow until they no longer battled but were allies again.

  The low ceiling above the bed would give him no proper room to stand on the dais, so it was on his knees th
at Maddek settled in behind her small, rounded ass. Her anger with him must have burned away even her shyness. When he swept aside the skirt of her robe, baring her bottom and legs to his gaze for the first time, barely a tremble moved through her breaths.

  The only shaking was Maddek’s. Need so hot and urgent that he did not trust the steadiness of his clawed fingers against her most delicate skin. With his mouth he tested her readiness, a long deep lick through her glistening cleft that sent Yvenne swaying forward on a gasping moan that she quickly muffled against the bed. Hot and slick his tongue found her, and when he suckled on her clit, her shaking began to match his.

  With more time, he’d have made her come in this way first. Instead he slowly rose from kneeling into a crouch, leaving a hungry trail of openmouthed, biting kisses up over the curve of her ass. The silks tucked into his belt shredded beneath his claws, freeing the steel length of his cock. Anticipation surged down his shaft like the stroke of a tight fist. He reached the edge of her robe and his tongue slicked over the dimple at the base of her spine.

  Yvenne flinched, the barest tensing of her muscles.

  Maddek frowned down at what had caused that reaction—a faint welt he’d felt beneath his tongue. But it wasn’t a welt. A scar slashed across her upper left buttock, not unlike the stripes from the bowstring on her forearm, though thicker. Newly healed, but apparently still sensitive.

  “What is this?” Carefully, not touching the scar and mindful of his claws, he traced the skin alongside the stripe with the pad of his thumb.

  “The punishment from my father for sending a message to your parents. One you’d likely approve.” Each word was bitter and hot, punctuated by her heaving breaths. “Or perhaps you think I deserved worse. Both of you decided to strip me of skin for it, but you’d have flayed me and tossed me over the Syssian wall. My father only used a whip.”

  Punishment. A mild one from Zhalen, compared to her knee and her fingers. Yet even this single stripe was more than she’d deserved. Any punishment was more than she’d deserved. And Maddek recalled saying what vengeance he’d planned for her—but more than his words, her reply.

  If you intend to kill me, I only beg that you do it quickly. My life has been a torment. I pray my death will not be.

  Too many punishments she’d known. Too much pain. So she’d chosen a husband who would see to her pleasure.

  She’d chosen him. A man who’d threatened to flay her. And now a man who would give his life to protect her from any more suffering.

  Yet he could not protect her from all hurt. And some he would inflict upon her.

  Throat raw, Maddek bent over her tense form, guiding his cock to her virgin cunt. “Forgive this pain,” he said hoarsely. “It will be but once. Then I will keep my promises to you.”

  “The promise you made to rip out my lying tongue?” She panted the question, and her back arched as she did, hips tilting up as if to invite him in.

  Her walls, crumbling.

  “To fuck you long and hard and deep. To make you come over and over again.” Voice harsh, he lowered his mouth to her ear, and glided the broad head of his erection through her sultry cleft, up and down, teasing her entrance with each pass. “Do you want me to fuck you, Yvenne?”

  “I do,” she breathed, a whisper of sheer need.

  So Maddek would, but not easily. She was so very wet, dripping with her honey, but her sheath was small and unsoftened by his fingers and tongue. Bent over her slender form with one hand braced beside her shoulder, he pushed against her entrance and only shoved her entire body forward, unbalancing her on the bed.

  The moon barely peeked above the horizon.

  Rearing back, boots planted beside the bed and as upright as he could stand, Maddek grabbed hold of Yvenne’s hips to anchor her in place for the brute force of a thrust that half buried his cock in hot, tight cunt. The blinding ecstasy of being inside his bride cleared in an instant when a strangled gasp tore from her lips. Then she went utterly silent, pressing her forehead to the bed.

  “Only this time.” Chest heaving, Maddek tried to soothe her, sweeping his palms up and down her trembling flanks. “We will wait until you no longer hurt.”

  Without a word she nodded, the gesture a tumble of upended curls that hid her face from him. Her fingers twisted in the bed coverings, fisting the white linen as if to hold herself in place instead of fleeing from the pain of his possession.

  Those twisting fingers dug into his heart. “Is it too much? You are breached, but it was roughly done. We can continue later.”

  She shook her head, and her shuddering exhalation eased the piercing worry in his chest. That breath said it was no longer a sharp pain, but one that was fading.

  Around his cock, her heated sheath softened and tightened, softened and tightened, her honeyed walls accepting and then resisting his thick penetration. Her body’s inner struggle was exquisite pleasure that Maddek bore with gritted teeth. Every instinct roared for him to stroke into her with his full length, hard and deep, and to feel the scorching clasp of her cunt clamp ever tighter around his shaft as he made her come.

  His heart thundered with the need to finish this battle in the sweetest way, with Yvenne yielding and surrendering to him. And in that surrender, Maddek would know that he’d protected her, and he’d truly had her, and he would not lose her.

  But he waited. The moon vanished into the sea. The ship creaked, faint shouts from the sailors joining the cawing of seabirds, and the swaying of the floor deepened as the sails caught the faint breeze.

  Yvenne’s breath became as soft as that wind. No longer did her fingers twist, though she had not yet lifted her head. Her back was not so stiff, her slender torso wrapped in thin silk. Such a pretty ass she had, a narrow flare from her waist into small, rounded buttocks. As his splayed fingers anchored her hips in a firm grip, the tips of his claws lightly dimpled skin softer and finer than the silks she wore. His gaze followed the sweet shadowed valley dividing her cheeks, then lower, to where his heavy shaft speared between her delicate folds.

  He was only partially inside her sheath, yet her cunt had a stranglehold on his cock. Had a stranglehold on him. Inside her, he throbbed and ached, her slightest movements tugging and pulling at his turgid flesh.

  With a long indrawn breath Yvenne raised her head, her back arching. “Deeper now.”

  Command or plea, Maddek knew not. But he would have obeyed, would have given what his bride needed but for the way she rocked back onto him, as if in bold intention of claiming his cock. But for the way the voluptuous grip of her cunt both welcomed and resisted him, so that her claim became like hot suction on the length of his arousal. But for the way she moaned deep in her throat, and when it emerged from her lips that sound of pleasure was his name.

  A storm of sensation his bride became, lightning that struck the base of his spine and forked to the root of his erection, then surged along his shaft. His seed boiled up in uncontrollable pulses, spilling into her sheath while Maddek grunted through clenched teeth and fought a war that had already seen his defeat. In denial he tried to stroke deeper, but the honeyed channel that had barely yielded to his stiffened cock utterly resisted his softening flesh.

  Moaning again as he thrust futilely against her, Yvenne rolled her hips back. “You need not be so easy with me, warrior. If you are to plant your seed, you must plow deep. And I am eager for more.”

  So eager. Her cunt was drenched in her need, greedily clutching the heavy thickness still within her.

  “More I will give you,” he told her. Wearing sharp claws, Maddek could not stroke her clit, but his mouth was all he needed. “Lie upon the bed. I will feast upon your sweetness until I rise again.”

  On her elbows, she looked back over her shoulder, disbelief clear upon her face. “You already spilled your seed?”

  “I did not intend to. But it matters not.”

  Still
she stared at him. “Because you already eased your need upon me?”

  “Never will my need for you be eased. So with my mouth I will see to your pleasure until—”

  “I will see to my own.” Abruptly she pulled forward. His cock slipped from her sheath, his spent member glistening with blood and honey and seed. Flicking the skirt of her robe back into place, Yvenne covered her soft bottom and crawled up onto the bed. “I should have purchased the cockmonger’s shaft.”

  Shame scorched Maddek’s face. “When I stiffen again, I will keep my promises to you.”

  In the center of the bed, she sat and regarded him—her walls high again, with no sign of the arousal that had overcome her defenses, no indication of the need that had invited him in. Yet they were walls more brittle than he’d ever seen, as if built not of moonstone but of shattered glass, glittering in her eyes like tears.

  Usually her walls concealed her emotions, yet these did not. So much devastation Maddek saw, and he struggled against the need to reach for her with a comforting hand, knowing she would reject his attempt. His gut churned, sick and heavy with shame and dread. She would not take a husband who did not see to her pleasure. Yet at this moment she clearly did not want him to touch her.

  “It has been a long night of battles, Yvenne.” And Maddek could not fight his bride or her blade of a tongue now. “Let us take our rest, and then—”

  “Battles!” She gave a laugh like nothing he’d ever heard from her, high and wild, and with such pain in it—the sound an animal caught in a trap might make, if it laughed and screamed at once. Or the sound a queen who did not cry might make, for as she laughed tears spilled from her eyes.

  “Yvenne?” he asked hoarsely. “Are you crying?”

  “No,” she said, still laughing but wiping her cheeks. “Though if ever a queen had a reason to cry where someone might see, this would be it. For there is no greater pain than losing one’s children.”

  Her children? Tension gripped the back of his neck. “What do you speak of?”