Battles of Salt and Sighs (Rise of the Death Fae Book 1)

by Val Saintcrowe

  He held onto her hips. He moved with her.

  They undulated.

  His thumb found her where the lips of her sex parted, and he began to make circles there.

  She let out a little cry.

  He groaned.

  And then she did find a pace. She liked the way it felt, his finger on her there, and his cock deep inside her. If she moved against him like this, she could make the tip of him stroke her in a deep place, a pleasurable place, a perfect place.

  I’m only pretending to like this, she thought, shutting her eyes, knowing she was lying.

  This was good. This was overwhelmingly wondrous, and she was riding some edge of bliss here, pushing herself towards a summit, a peak high in the clouds, and she was in control of it, using his body for her pleasure.

  She had shut her eyes at some point, and she had surrendered to it.

  They moved together. Their bodies made contact, and they were surrounded by the scent of their co-mingled sweat and the sound of their groans and sighs. She was lost to it all.

  The peak seemed to evade her for some time. She would seem to be climbing there, seem to be ready to break through, and then it would move higher off, out of her reach.

  She pushed his hand out of the way, frustrated, and began to rub herself.

  He made a noise of approval at this, and his hands went to her nipples again.

  That sent her soaring. She threw back her head and went over the top, pleasure gushing through her in waves. She moaned out strangled noises of pleasure, and he waited until she was panting and quiet before he flipped them over.

  Now, pressed under him, their bare chests close, his heart beating against her own skin, he kissed her as he pushed himself in and out of her. She tangled her fingers in his long hair, shot through with strange sensations, feeling close to him, feeling an odd, strong feeling almost like… like the chanting on the high holy days during the petition for the favor of Fortune. How could it feel like that? Oh, she wanted him closer. She never wanted him out of her. When he was inside her body, she felt complete in a way that she’d never felt before.

  They kissed and kissed until he stopped moving and pierced her deeply, and she felt him spend inside her again.

  A dull feeling of alarm sounded somewhere in the back of her mind, but she pushed it aside, because everything felt too good to think about that right now.

  They were still kissing. They were kissing like they couldn’t stop, like they needed the other’s mouth to exist. She never wanted him to let go of her, and she maybe said that, out loud, because he said, “I won’t let you go. I won’t,” in a strained, affected voice, and she wrapped her thighs around him and tried to pull him even further into her.

  Eventually, the kissing got slower, sweeter, softer, until he buried his face against the crook of her shoulder and let out ragged, noisy breaths.

  She tangled her legs around his legs. She clutched his back.

  They lay there, breathing together, until they both slept.

  ONIVIA WOKE UP under the heft of Larent’s body, and she liked it. She could smell him, and she didn’t know when she’d come to associate his scent with safety and protection, but somehow it had happened, and she was engulfed in it.

  This isn’t good, she thought.

  She tried to wriggle out from beneath him and mostly succeeded, except for the fact that she woke him.

  He stirred and rolled over, off of her, but he curved a hand around her and pulled her against him. He rained sleepy kisses over her shoulder, and she felt blooming feelings of sweetness low in her belly at that.

  She rolled over to touch his face and his bare shoulders.

  Soon, they were kissing.

  And then his hands were smoothing over her, exploring her, rousing her, and she was swooning against him somehow, pleased and preening, and she let him have her again.

  Or she took him again?

  It was mutual. Slow. Sweet. Achingly good.

  It followed the same pattern as the night before. He pulled her up to be atop him and she acquiesced easily and rode him until she came and then he moved them and thrust into her as she cradled him with her hips until he finished.

  Then they lay kissing again, and she felt drunk on it, drunk on his body, drunk on the pleasure he gave her, and she didn’t know what to do with herself.

  It’s just because it feels good. It’s physical sensation.

  She could not care about this man, because it was not strictly possible. They were not equal, and she was not in a position to choose anything. He had violated her, and she…

  Why did it feel like this?

  It shouldn’t feel like this.

  He eased himself off of her, kissing her neck and shoulder.

  “I’m going to be late to the kitchens.”

  “You’re not going,” he said in a loose voice. “If anyone says anything, you say I needed you this morning.”

  She liked being needed by him. Fortune deliver me, what is happening to me?

  “Could we just have breakfast here?” he muttered.

  “You’d have to send me to fetch it,” she said. “I’m your ancilla, after all.”

  “Don’t,” he said, tightening his grip on her. “You’re not going anywhere, for one thing, and never call yourself that when we are in my bed.”

  She swallowed. “But—”

  “Don’t.” He lifted his face now, opening his eyes enough to look at her. “Let’s not do that, please? Just for a little longer?”

  She nodded.

  But the spell between them was broken, and they both knew it.

  He sat up in bed, yawning, rubbing his neck. He was entirely bare, and she gaped at his nakedness, at the casual way he was on display for her. This was intimacy, and she sucked in a sharp breath at it, because it sent ripples of sensation through her. He looked down at her. “You’re quite fetching without clothes lying on my pillow, you know.”

  She smiled at him. She couldn’t help it.

  “Well,” he said, “if that was an attempt to get under my skin and manipulate me, you can be fairly assured it’s worked. If you have some favor to ask of me, do it now, while I’m still basking in the afterglow.”

  “No,” she protested. “That wasn’t why I…”

  “You don’t have to be like that about it,” he said. “I don’t think you faked those climaxes, anyway, or if you did, you have a remarkably clever cunny, able to twitch on command like that.”

  “I didn’t fake—”

  “No,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean this is real.” He stood up and reached down to fish her dress off the floor. He tossed it to her and went over to the washbasin, where he began rubbing a wet cloth over his body.

  Abruptly, the door opened.

  Not the door to Larent’s bedchamber, because that was already open. She had opened it when she came through the door to him the night before. But the door to his quarters, which opened from the sitting room. The doors lined up with each other, and Larent was standing naked in view of both of them.

  Startled, he attempted to cover himself with the rag he was using.

  The door to the sitting room slammed closed.

  “Akiel,” said Larent, tossing the rag, turning to expose himself. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

  Akiel stalked into the bedchamber.

  Onivia backed away, clutching her dress, huddling against the headboard of Larent’s bed, pulling sheets as well, trying to cover herself.

  “Your girl is late in the kitchens,” said Akiel.

  “So she is. She’s busy servicing me.” Larent walked in front of Akiel, completely naked, and yanked open his wardrobe. Inside, there were three uniforms hanging in addition to the suit that Larent had worn to the dinner with Akiel.

  “Well, that’s unacceptable. All the girls have to pull their weight here. You can’t monopolize her time to the detriment of the rest of the cohort.”

  Larent was stepping into his trousers. “What in the na
me of the ancestors are you talking about?”

  “You’re going to give her to me.”

  Larent’s hands faltered. He stood there, trousers unbuttoned, exposing his soft cock, simply gaping at Akiel.

  Akiel squared his shoulders and started for Onivia.

  Larent blocked him, hand on the other man’s chest, other hand holding up his trousers. “Like fuck I am.”

  Akiel looked down at the place where Larent’s hand was on his chest. “Take your hand off me, centurion.”

  “She’s mine,” said Larent. “And I would hate to see you ruin a perfectly good wet cunny, for that matter. The last girl you had preferred to swallow a bullet to your cock, so… no.”

  Onivia’s heart was pounding. This was bad.

  It was bad to be feeling tender things for Larent, but this was even worse. She was terrified of Akiel. She knew that Larent was never going to surrender her to Akiel. She knew—somehow she was certain—that Larent would fight for her, but what would that mean happened to Larent, who might lose his place in the cohort because of it?

  Larent buttoned his trousers.

  Akiel seethed. “You stupid half-blood. You think you’re so superior because your father was human—”

  “I don’t think I’m superior because of that. I’m superior because I win all your battles,” said Larent.

  “You do not.”

  Larent shrugged. “Ask anyone.”

  “Just give me that girl.”

  “No.”

  “You’re soft on her.”

  “Khenan married his,” said Larent.

  “You’re not Khenan.”

  “No, Khenan was full-blooded,” said Larent. “Funny how he seemed to be much less bothered by holding a gun or sword, though. Did you notice that? You know what I think, Akiel? You know, deep down, that you’re a useless relic. And so you act like an arsehole just to make yourself feel an eensy bit better about your own inferiority.”

  “Out,” said Akiel.

  “Out?”

  “Out of the villa,” said Akiel. “I strip you of your centuria and your rank. You can serve as a militus grunt and make your own way with the rest of them.”

  Larent squared his shoulders.

  “Or,” said Akiel, “you could just give me the girl.”

  Larent shook his head. “Mine.”

  “Then you two can freeze in the courtyard.”

  “All right,” said Larent. “As soon as the snow clears, I’ll take all three hundred of my men, because I can assure you they don’t care whether or not you think I’m their centurion and they will follow me regardless, and we’ll go to the Croith and tell him everything about the way you run your cohort. I’m sure he’ll want me assigned somewhere useful, not shoved in as a militus grunt.”

  “Oh, you’re going to tattle to your one-handed dominus,” sneered Akiel. “Just hand over the girl.”

  “You really want to make it about a girl?” said Larent.

  Akiel shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind fucking her. But you’re right, that’s not what it’s about. I despise you.”

  “The girl’s an excuse.”

  Akiel sneered at him. “Out of these chambers. Out of this villa. I don’t want to see your face, Larent.” He turned and stalked out of the room, slamming the door in his wake.

  Larent clenched both of his hands into fists. Then he snatched a shirt out of his wardrobe and shut it with a clatter.

  Onivia made herself small against the headboard.

  “Hope you can handle the cold, domina.”

  “We’re really going to the courtyard?”

  “You can stay here if you want,” he said. “Just march yourself after Akiel if that’s what you’d rather.”

  “You know it’s not,” she breathed.

  He glanced at her. “I’m not doing this for you.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “This is about him,” he said. “This is about everything he’s made me do. This is about the way he looks at me. This is about how he’s never appreciated anything I’ve ever done. It’s about that.”

  “Right,” she said. “Of course.”

  Larent muttered oaths to the fae ancestors under his breath. He opened the wardrobe and slammed it again.

  Onivia was going to need warmer stockings. She knew that Marta had some. Would she be able to see her before they left the villa?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  MAGDALIA SHOULD HAVE known, all those years ago, that it was inevitable that someone would find out that she was sneaking out to do magic with Duranth. She wasn’t particularly good at being stealthy, and besides, she was entitled to do as she liked.

  She was the Favored daughter of the dominus, after all.

  She had done a number of stupid things before being caught as well, and these things likely contributed to everything that happened after being caught.

  The most stupid thing of all was that she had interrupted Duranth’s being whipped, in tears. She had clung to her father and sobbed and begged for him to stop. She had been out of her mind, and it’d had the opposite of her intended affect. Her father had Duranth whipped all the harder, and he’d slapped her across the face in front of all of the gathered fae, and then Onivia had taken her aside for a long chat about the proper amount of affection one might have for a slave.

  She had been angry with Duranth, too, because he had promised her that he would stop causing trouble, but he hadn’t. He kept holding gatherings for slaves, and not just drum circles, but, well, she didn’t know what to call them. There would be a fire, but there would be no music or chanting. Instead, Duranth would stand in front of all of the fae, who would sit around the fire in a circle sometimes five deep, because fae from other villae would come to listen to him.

  He would speak in a low and musical voice about the natural rights of all people, and he would sound like those horrid seditious tracts that the rebels passed around in the capital, and Magdalia kept coming back to listen for no reason she could fathom.

  Afterward, she would tell him he must stop, that he had to stop, that her father would find out and that she would not be able to save him from punishment, and he would tell her that there was only one thing more important to him than her, and that was the Cause.

  He said it like that, as if “cause” was capitalized.

  This frightened her badly, but she could change his mind.

  Anyway, of course her father had found out, and of course that was why Duranth had been whipped, though Duranth had given a long speech beforehand begging for the dominus’s mercy, in a properly respectful tone, head bowed. He had taken a page from Magdalia’s book and flattered the man, saying he was enlightened and far too powerful to be threatened by a few fae gathering to speak to each other. “Grant us the ability to fellowship around the fire, dominus,” Duranth had said. “We will serve you all the better for your kindness. I beg you, see fit to grant us this small boon in your benevolence.”

  But the speech had only further enraged her father, because Duranth was too good at making arguments, and it only served to further highlight Duranth’s natural wiles as an evil death fae, and it also implicated her father in the process, because her father had educated Duranth as a child, and had therefore already fallen under Duranth’s wicked sway.

  Her father, then, had to prove that he was no longer swayed by Duranth.

  The beating was incredibly vicious.

  She had been frightened Duranth would die.

  As Duranth lay in a bloody heap, barely breathing, her father had come over and kicked the fae in the stomach. “Next time you cause trouble for me, I’ll cut off one of your limbs, you worthless ingrate,” he’d growled.

  After, she had healed Duranth, and she had healed the bruise on her face from her father striking her, which was all she could do. She had not been able to save him from the agony of the whipping in the first place.

  Duranth had been duller than she’d ever seen him, lying on his stomach on his thin bed mat, blo
od in his hair. He’d thanked her for healing him. He told her never to interfere again, told her that it had hurt him worse to see her father strike her than all the lashes.

  She knew that was a lie.

  “Please,” she said to him, then, “please promise you’ll stop this.”

  He had only shaken his head.

  They had continued to meet, to practice magic, and time had passed.

  But then, one day, she was discovered.

  It wasn’t a fae who gave her up, though many of them knew what she did. She supposed that they stayed quiet at the behest of Duranth. She didn’t pay any mind to how they deferred to him, but she should have. She should have realized that his magic was terrifying and that it meant calamity.

  She was stupid, that was all.

  And blind.

  She had never been particularly intelligent when it came to him.

  Anyway, it was Onivia who discovered it, because one evening, she came looking for Magdalia and could not find her anywhere, and her sister caused a ruckus having everyone look for her. Her father was brought in on it, and he threatened the fae with all manner of macabre punishments until one of them was so frightened that they blurted it all out—that Magdalia left every night to go into the woods with Duranth.

  She and Duranth were actually heading back from their magic practice when they saw the torches through the woods. Duranth had been lifting her over a tangle of undergrowth, and his hands were on her hips, but the minute he heard her father’s angry shouts, he let go of her.

  Magdalia rushed forward, intercepting her father, who was leading the charge, striding through the underbrush, screaming her name at the top of his lungs.

  “Papa, you’re such a good papa to be so worried about me, but I’m fine,” she said in a sickly sweet voice, trying to soothe him.

  Her father pushed past her and went straight for Duranth. “You had your hands on my daughter. I always knew you were filth, but this is the last straw.”

  “No, it’s not like that,” Magdalia said. “Of course he would never touch me. It’s only that I needed his assistance to get through the underbrush.”

  Her father had a dagger in his hand and he somehow had it under Duranth’s chin, its blade flashing in the torchlight. “Now, now, no magical tricks, boy, or I’ll slit your throat.”