by Mima
Picking the man up he slammed him into the wall hard enough to knock his head. The man kicked and struggled, pushing at Donte’s arms, but he held him off the ground. “What do you want?”
“Nothing! I’m a guard, newly promised to my Queen this morning. My Lord, you cannot just attack people this way—”
Donte shook him, walked him over to the opposite wall, slammed him into it, then carried him back and slammed him two more times. The guy struggled harder, crying out, cursing. “You seem to be under the mistaken understanding that I have any control over my behavior at all when you were following my mate.”
Three guards and a marten had gathered to watch.
Orange Suit turned to them. “Stop him! I’ve done nothing!”
Donte put his mouth to the man’s neck and bit. He screamed, punching at Donte’s face with much more skill than he’d showed so far. Donte ignored the blooms of pain, rolling the man’s taste in his mouth. Nothing. Donte threw him to the floor, where he bounded up in a muscular display, then pretended to cower.
“Lock him up.”
The man was honestly shocked. “What? No! You can’t do that. I’m an innocent.”
“You followed Moriko and you lied. You tried to run and you’re pulling your strength. You’re fucking suspicious and your choice is to die right now or get locked up while they investigate you.”
Fire crackled to life in the man’s eyes.
Donte smiled and lit his eyes in return. “I like fire.”
The man jerked back. “Trux freak! They said you were a spiritmage.”
“I am. And a firemage. And an earthmage.” Lunging in close with trux speed, he took the man by the throat and whispered so softly the marten wouldn’t hear. “And I’m also a darkmage’s pet. Yet you think you can play me.”
The man lit a fireball on his hand but Donte merely clamped his free one over it, seizing the fire for himself. The man shouted in pain.
“Stop this.” The marten stepped forward with the lightning quickness of his kind.
Donte dropped him. Waited.
The human didn’t even last a minute. His face filled with hate as he glared through narrow eyes.
Donte encouraged the man to break. “Go ahead. I’ve got you anyway.” It wasn’t in him to smirk. He said it straight and he meant it. This wasn’t a game and he’d followed Moriko. This human wasn’t getting out of this without damage so he might as well reveal his hand.
“You filthy animal.” The venom dripping from his words contained literal heat. He was losing control of his fire.
“You got it. Here I am.”
“Stealing our women. Patronizing, judgmental, arrogant. And now you think you’ll fuck a princess.”
Ah. So this wasn’t about his true enemies. The tired bitter complaints of human men. Donte relaxed his guard, rising to his full height.
The marten, a warrior with a shaggy head of brown hair, watched him intently. “You don’t care that he insults your mate?” Both of them ignored the blond as he continued to spew familiar grievances.
Donte stared the marten down, face blank. He could almost hear the disrespect, but since he smelled more of surprised curiosity, Donte answered. “His words can’t harm her. I’m more about actions.” It was a Bear answer.
And then the human withdrew a stiletto so slender and short it was a mere glint of metal. “She wouldn’t have felt a thing when I saved her from –”
Donte moved. He broke the two forearm bones completely, crushed his trachea, and gutted him.
The human stared at him, stunned by the onslaught of pain. He tipped backwards against the wall and slid sideways. The knife made a delicate tink tink-tink against the pale bricks.
“Take him to your holding cells. I’ll follow. I want to see where they are.”
The marten looked at the human, considering the spill of intestines. “I’m not your maid.”
“If I touch him again I’ll kill him.”
The marten met his gaze. His own was a very similar dark brown, but Donte saw such a different soul looking out. This man was so much a part of a clan. He had friends, he had a place. He was probably going to make a stink about taking out an enemy without permission. Instead, he surprised again.
“All right.”
Warily, he watched the marten drag the unconscious man behind him by the boot like a dead corpux, but he didn’t say anything more.
The holding cells turned out to be a long walk, far from the Royal suites. After he’d been processed into the care of incredulous bodymages, Donte asked the human guard there for the maps he wanted. He tucked them inside his vest.
“I think you should see something.” The marten still lurked to the side.
“My mate waits.” He sniffed in the man’s direction. “You smell funny.”
The man rolled his eyes, a surprising gesture of good humor. Donte took him in more carefully. He was big even for a trux, muscled, no longer young, about his age. He smelled mated … but not. He smelled like recent sex, but the woman’s scent was mixed with a man’s. No, this warrior was not typical.
“What is it?” Donte stayed still, assessing.
“The Queen’s idea of decorating. It’s right over here on top of the wall.”
He’d seen the Queen’s style. Fussy and pristine. But he nodded at the brown-haired man and followed him. He took him up a guard tower, the two of them bounding from landing to landing. At the top, he was just a few bodylengths above the walkway of the wide wall separating the Royal compound from the City. Guards stood at surprisingly close ranks along it. In the wide street before the gate a crowd of people milled.
“The gates are still sealed?”
“Yes. There was quite a crowd here last night when news made its way out that you were killing darkmages.”
Then Donte noticed it. The wall was topped with a stepped edge. Centered upon every higher section of stone sat a head. “Fuck.” It was like the fortress all over again, body parts everywhere.
“These people have never seen anything like it. The rumors are that you’re a darkmage in control and the Queen is dead.”
“She ordered this?”
“So they say.”
“If the gates are closed, how is news being passed?”
He waved his arm at a section of wall farther from the main gate. There a cluster of guards leaned down from a low section of wall, clearly calling to people below. Donte sighed. This would stir things up. He didn’t want to have to fight through a sea of humans in order to kill the darkmages. He pivoted to face the marten.
The man studied him back, scowling.
“You smell almost mated, but with a man.”
The scowl disappeared. He grinned happily. “Thanks.”
The man was definitely not an average clan warrior. Aside from whispers about the lizzeed, Donte had never heard of any of the trux sharing sex. “What do I smell like?”
The guard shrugged. “Tainted. Bonded. Angry.”
Donte rubbed at his chest, his heart squeezing down beneath a mountain of pain. Did he dare ask the man if he smelled Bear? “I am mated.” And he stank of darkcraft by choice, for vengeance would be his.
The cocky grin faded from marten’s hewn face. “Yeah. You’re mated, by your own choice and a Queen’s greed. Just a short while ago I watched my Alpha rip out the throat of a rogue who attacked people I love. Don’t bring up the woman you’ve used. Just get out there,” he jerked his chin at the muttering crowd, “and kill darkmages. Only darkmages, not anyone you feel like. Make sure you get it right.”
Donte grunted. “The human didn’t die.”
“If he had, you wouldn’t be standing here now. We’re watching you.”
Eh, how special. He turned, leaping down the stairs, and then jogged back to Moriko’s party.
Chapter Nineteen
In the baths, she floated, completely drained of energy. Not since the days of her suspicion after Signy had she stayed up all night. She’d become old, favored slee
p. Donte had returned to her whole and thoughtful. They bathed each other again and she wrapped in a robe while he insisted on wearing his clothes.
“They’ll have to be cleaned sometime, you know.”
He grunted. “True. I’ll need more sets.”
Thankfully, they’d only passed a few people on the way to her room. She didn’t miss their avid eyes and the way they stiffened, drawing back. But she couldn’t find the will to care. They resented her position. They didn’t trust her. They should have, but then again, cousin Fwan-hi shouldn’t have thrown himself on the ground in hysteria before Donte, begging for his life. Clearly, he’d been involved in something.
In her room, she shed her robe while Donte checked every possible hiding place, even going so far as to look beneath the balcony and above it. Watching his powerful body climb the banister, drop to look below it, then climb back up with incredible strength turned her on. Everything about him turned her on, from the way he scanned the great hall, to the way he chewed his meat, vicious and decisively.
Stretching out on the bed, she yawned. “Leave the doors open.”
He did, undressing before her. She propped herself on one elbow, admiring the revelation.
“What was that scent you and the Priestess wore?”
She grinned. “An aphrodisiac worn by couples on their marriage and anniversaries. Did you like it?”
“Yes.”
He stood against the bright late afternoon light pouring in the open floor-to-ceiling doors. The day had remained breezy and her long sheer curtains floated. The touch of wind against her reminded of the insanely dangerous sex they’d shared on the tower. And yet, she’d never been afraid. Not once. Thrilled and orgasmic, but not scared.
He cupped himself, studying his soft flesh. “I can take this out now. Before I thought I might need it as a disguise, but I’ve stated my position.”
She sat up, sliding her heavy legs forward. “Can they feel the deaths?”
“I know they can sense the stronger acolytes, but the new, weaker ones, I’m unsure of.”
Kneeling before him, she pushed his hands away and studied him. He smelled clean with the soap she preferred, but still she took in the musk of man from his groin. Petting his thighs, working his balls gently in her grasp, she asked, “When you look at it, do you remember what they did to you?”
He shrugged. “If I focus on it. My whole body is a memory. Even if every scar on me disappeared right now, my muscles and bones and skin would remember. But mostly, no, I don’t think about the torture. I focus on the goal.”
To kill. Today, she’d seen him kill, again and again. The Queen’s Own had come for her in the middle of the morning and taken her to watch. Sitting with the Queen in the balcony, she’d seen him rush forward. The person had barely had time to cry out, let alone struggle.
No, not a person. Someone who had subjected themselves to pain so they could reap power from giving it themselves. Someone who cut and raped and bled others while they laughed in a dark garden. Someone so blind and selfish they were no longer human.
He’d done it without expression, with none of Bear’s wild glee. But he’d still pulsed with fulfillment. He’d let the body slide from his grasp, staring into the distance, and there had been pleasure in the slight way his shoulder would relax. Like every darkmage taken was one less burden riding him.
Her family had gagged to witness the justice. Their whispers flew around her like sandpaper, grinding on her. Tears had gathered, but it wasn’t for the lost, the dead. They’d made a shell of him, ground him raw and tossed him away to the surf. Her man was a killer, efficient and ruthless. It wasn’t that she wanted him to be burdened by the life he took and she certainly didn’t want him to crave it. But in between those two extremes came the intent, relentless executions.
It was a very fine line to walk, between shadow and pride, hate and justice. He was much closer to the darkness than she wanted. Staring up at his scar-swathed form, how could she not love his brutality? So many would tell her he was violent, fractured, wrong. Donte was strong. It was beautiful.
“I’m sure it would hurt you to remove it.”
He shook his head once. “It’s best to take it out, so I can stop worrying whether or not it will hurt you.”
She licked her lips and took the tip of him in her mouth. He was large, filling her cavern. The metal clicked on her teeth, rubbing at the roof of her mouth. His hand set on her head and she sucked him deep, but the bar interfered with taking him down her throat. She hummed in disappointment, withdrawing to lick at his rim.
“Let me take it off, Moriko.”
Staying on her knees, she watched him back away, the tattoos on his wrists flexing as he pushed the flesh to one side, gripping the exposed end of the silver bar. With a flash of light and a wrench of his huge arm, he snapped the end off. It bounced across the carpet to land near her knee.
“Don’t touch that. It’s hot.”
She frowned. “Did you burn yourself?”
He drew the bar out of himself in silence. “Hardly hurt at all.”
He walked over and picked up her blue stool, carried it back and put it down next to her. “Up here.”
She knelt on it. She wouldn’t have to strain up on her knees, pulling him down to her mouth. His hands captured hers, held her steady.
“Oh, Donte…” She wrapped her lips around his cockhead and slid him right down into her throat. He was thicker than usual and she paused, adjusting, before she drew up and began to work him over.
He stayed still and quiet, his hands motionless as she bobbed and slid, licking, sucking, nibbling. Again and again she fluttered her tongue along him, scraped with her teeth, stuffed him down her throat. Moaning, loving the solid heat of him, she swallowed until her jaw began to ache. Aware he wouldn’t allow himself to come this way, she lifted up, shivering as her aching nipples were exposed to the breeze.
“Get on the bed, sugar puff.”
She slid off the stool and tottered to her bed, pulling down the covers and tossing them away. Melting with languid expectation, she stared at him as she stretched out.
“Spread your legs.”
She slid them right to the outer edges of her wide bed, belly fluttering. He walked up and took some of the half dozen pillows she had there. Sliding his hand into the small of her back, he lifted her into a deep back bend, then fit the pillows beneath her. Her weight settled back down, her spread labia lewdly displayed. Her fingers drifted along the curves of her breasts.
He took one of her hands and stretched it out and to the side, tying it to the corner of her bed with her dress.
“Oh…” A pulse of lust hit her so hard she could barely breathe. Her free hand pinched her nipple, then reached for the corner, waiting. He rubbed his thumb over her wrist, then bent and kissed it, licking across it. Realizing he kissed her tattoo, she planted her feet and lifted her hips, fucking the air because she had to. His mouth was so warm and soft. Her wrist sizzled, pleasure spiraling up her arm. Eventually, when they were both panting, he tied that wrist to the corner as well.
He centered the pillows more firmly under her ass and then he used his pants to tie one ankle to the other corner. She was less sure about this. She liked being able to pump. She’d let one lover tie her down completely before and hadn’t enjoyed it. But with Donte, she was willing to try. To trust. He tied her other foot with his vest.
“You’ll ruin the leather.”
“I’m ruining more than that.”
She frowned over the words, but when he walked on his knees up from the foot of the bed, she forgot them. He was mighty and she was helpless. “Oh yes, fuck me.”
“Yeah.” He fit his newly pure erection between her legs and pushed in.
Her moan was long, low, an expression of pure satisfaction. He stroked into her again, stopped again. He jabbed two short times and withdrew.
Before she could ask, his face was between her legs. And she sighed. His tongue drifted along the out
side of her, where the tender skin began. He blew over her and she shuddered. Then he twirled the tip around her clit and lapped along the open fold of her thigh.
Knowing she was in for sweet agony, she relaxed, arms twitching against their bonds. He licked at her core, writhing his tongue up her channel.
“Yes, Donte,” she murmured.
So it began. Letting her head fall to the side, she watched the sun set while he ate at her, sometimes wildly, edging into pain that struck at her breasts, clenched her ass. Mostly his kisses were incredibly gentle, barely disturbing her skin, with a soft tenderness he’d never shown her before. His teeth could caress as delicately as his tongue, only different, and his lips stroked with another pressure. Her clit throbbed, swelled, but no matter what kind of instruction she suggested, he never did as she asked, at least not immediately.
It had been a long, long time before she’d gone this long in sex without coming. “I see how it is with you. You like to make it last, to stretch it out.”
He hummed, rolling his jaw in her sopping valley. And still wouldn’t speed up. When the colors had almost faded from a stunning orange sunset, he slid his tongue into her ass for the first time. The soft burn of penetration took her breath, interrupting her constant encouragement. She rarely took lovers there.
He left the bed in a flash and she blinked to see him at the banister, arms braced out to the sides, while he stood against the lavender sky, shoulders heaving, head hanging.
She waited. The need scratched, her heart hungered, her breasts shouted out their demands for touch, but she clenched her jaw and waited. He turned and came back to the bed. Standing at the foot, she looked at him framed by her belly and the two bedposts. He took hold of each bedpost, standing with arms spread, erection lifted and swollen to impressive girth. The tattoo jaws around his face highlighted his cheeks, his eyes, his grim mouth. His hair stood wild. He swallowed, flexing the thorns around his neck.
She waited.
He crawled onto the bed, lined his erection up with her channel, and fed it into her. Slowly. By increments, as if it were her first time and her vagina wasn’t sucking, rippling in desperation to take him in. When he reached resistance in her body, he stopped.
