She drew in her breath at the very notion. Thoughts like that were surely what had kept women in a position of subservience for all these eons.
Sleep, she commanded herself. Sleep, and wake up your old self again!
* * * * *
Mid-morning found Dane walking through a vast green field behind the fort, talking with Kaelen, whom he’d summoned. The pretty girl, with whom he’d shared some pleasure on a few previous occasions, was one of his most trusted and respected servants.
“You did an admirable job of readying Maven yesterday,” he said.
She beamed up at him, clearly pleased with his praise. “I enjoyed the assignment, and forgive me for being bold, but I think Maven took a liking to me.”
He flashed a slight grin down at her before looking back ahead. “And the kissing lesson? I trust that went well, given that she seems to have caught on quite admirably now.”
Kaelen nodded. “Yes, she was an apt pupil.”
“I wish for you to be her personal maid, Kaelen.”
Kaelen gasped and peered up at him, clearly honored by being given such a position. “It will be my pleasure to serve her in every way, Dane.”
He smiled kindly on her. “I’m glad to hear that. And I wish you to start now, this very minute. She stormed from our chamber this morning in nothing but a bedcover and I haven’t seen her since.”
“Stormed?” Clearly, Kaelen could not understand how a woman in Maven’s position could be unhappy. If only Maven were so agreeable.
“She’s a rebellious creature. The activities in our bed entertained her well, but she refuses to be civil to me when we’re not fucking.”
Kaelen’s expression of surprise was appreciated. How in Ares’ name had he ended up with such a complicated woman for a wife?
“Go find her and help her dress. Try to put her at ease.” Then he quirked a small, self-indulgent smile in her direction. “And perhaps mention to her that I’m not such a fiend.”
Kaelen returned the grin. “Certainly, master,” she said, then turned to walk back through the field toward the fort.
Dane, however, walked on, glad to be alone now, trying to clear his head. His little bride had worn him out, physically and—to some degree—mentally, too. She was a handful, that was without doubt.
So it would not be a love match. Despite whatever kind words Kaelen might say about him, he already knew Maven too well to think mere words could sway her.
But as he’d told her, it seemed they connected in the bedroom amicably enough—more than just amicably—so that would have to do. His cock perked to life in his pants even now, just remembering the fire they’d shared. And, as he’d vowed to himself before marrying her, now that he saw how well they fit together in sex, he had no plans to take any other woman to his bed from this point forward.
Although, strangely, that came as more of a compulsion than a decision.
Hell if he knew why, but he wanted to make the girl happy. What had a week ago been primarily about rising to a position of even greater power someday had—without his quite knowing when—started being about something else as well.
Likely he’d just been wishing for the sort of marriage his parents had shared. They’d died young, but they’d lived a happy life together up until the time of the attack. Dane supposed he’d harbored the notion somewhere in the back of his head that perhaps someday he, too, would experience the sort of bond he’d seen between them, the genuine affection for one another he’d witnessed in their eyes.
A foolish expectation, though. And an impossible one, now that he’d seen exactly how headstrong his young wife was.
Well, she might hate him, but he knew her decree of having no more sex with him would not stand. Hate aside, her body burned for his just as his sizzled for hers. They may share nothing else a normal husband and wife would, but she couldn’t hide her desire. Her pussy had been drenched for him by the time he’d stroked his fingers through it this morning. He let a small smile take him, knowing she would be unable to keep her word when it came to fucking him.
Just then, he caught sight of a rider heading his way. Squinting, he saw the black leather garb that identified the man as a soldier in his army. He walked in the direction of the approaching horse until they met.
The young man’s eyes looked frantic. “Master, Kells summons your presence immediately.”
“What’s wrong?”
“There are reports of a threat against the border some miles distance from here.”
A threat against the border, eh? Every now and then such a concern reached him, but it had been a while. Damn Virgs—they never seemed to give up. Fortunately, as long as such threats were taken care of efficiently, they seldom became real problems.
He glanced back toward the fortress and the stables behind, which housed his personal and very valuable mounts. “I must commandeer your horse, soldier, as my own are too far away.”
The young man nodded obediently and dismounted with speed, passing the reins to Dane.
* * * * *
“Maven? Are you asleep?”
The feminine voice wafted vaguely into her slumber. “Hmm?”
“Maven? It’s me, Kaelen.”
The voice grew nearer, until she felt a hand on her hip, squeezing slightly, warmly, through her gown.
“Maven, your husband sent me to check on you, to see that you’re all right.”
Her husband. She opened her eyes, remembering…everything.
Rolling to her back, she found Kaelen sitting on the bed beside her, today wearing a short leather dress of pale brown which hugged her shape, accentuating what Maven knew to be lovely breasts. Again, she was struck by the other girl’s beauty. “Kaelen,” she said with a gentle smile.
The dark-haired girl returned the grin, peering down at her. “I’ve just learned I am to be your personal maid, Maven. I hope that pleases you as much as it pleases me.”
“Indeed,” she said, sitting up slightly, her mood brightening. “I’d like nothing better. In fact, I believe it is the first news to lift my spirits since I arrived here.”
Kaelen rose and moved to a table where a wooden tray now sat. “I’ve brought you some breakfast breads and some fried pork.”
After the workout she’d had last night and this morning, she was famished. “Good, I’m starving.”
Kaelen brought the tray to the bed, then went about the room straightening things, all the while looking very merry. After Maven finished eating, Kaelen drew back the covers and took her hand, helping her out of bed.
Lifting the blue silk gown over Maven’s head, Kaelen then gave her a sponge bath and helped her dress in a fitted fur vest with hook fasteners up the front, and a short brown leather skirt.
“Now I shall brush your hair,” Kaelen announced, motioning for Maven to sit down at a dressing table, complete with a lovely viewing glass, its jagged pieces fitted within an equally expensive metal frame. Dear Ares, how many viewing glasses did Dane own? Sometimes the man’s wealth astonished her.
“At least,” she murmured, “I shall not want for material things.”
“Hmm?” Kaelen asked, taking up a thickly bristled brush and beginning to draw it down through Maven’s locks.
Maven shook her head shortly. “Nothing, I was just…” She sighed. “I was thinking that even though I’m trapped in a marriage I don’t want, I shall at least not have to worry about having plenty of possessions.” Ironic, she thought. A possession having possessions.
Behind her in the crackled viewing glass, Kaelen gave her head a thoughtful tilt. “You don’t wish to be married to Dane?”
Again, Maven shook her head, more vehemently this time. “Surely everyone here knows it was an arranged marriage.”
“Yes, but…” Kaelen looked truly astonished.
“But what?”
“Well, every woman I know, including myself, would do practically anything to have Dane even notice them, let alone to have the honor of being his wife.”
/> Maven raised her eyebrows. “Really?” Then she remembered, everyone here liked to think of him as their master, too. They were clearly all warped.
In the viewing glass, she saw a light blush climb the maid’s cheeks. “Surely you don’t deny that he’s beyond handsome and most desirable? Not to mention that his cock is a marvelous sight to behold.”
She wished she could deny all that. “No. But it takes more than those things to make a happy marriage.” It was then that she looked at herself in the glass and, for the first time since waking, remembered the black choker still around her neck. Odd, as tight as it had been last night, she no longer even felt it. Yet even so… “Can you untie the choker, please? I no longer wish to wear it.”
Kaelen looked troubled by the request—clearly she knew the piece had been her marriage gift from Dane. Still, she carefully swept Maven’s loose hair over one shoulder and reached down to the cord that held it together in back.
A moment later, however, she announced, “I can’t get it off. It’s knotted very tightly.”
Maven swallowed. “There’s no way to remove it?”
“Not unless it is cut with a blade. But that would ruin it.”
Maven let out a sigh. It was one thing to defy the man, but another to ruin an expensive gift on the morning after their wedding. Not out of respect for him, but out of reverence and…well, fear, she said, “Very well then.” But the cursed thing made her feel all the more trapped.
* * * * *
By the time Dane returned from his meeting with Kells, he was exhausted. Indeed, a rogue band of Virgs had attempted to cross the border through a densely treed valley that was among the more difficult spots to guard. Kells’ men had turned them back quickly, but any breach was important enough to sound the alarms and alert Dane.
Damn, but thinking about the Virgs turned him brittle, cold. It dug deep down into his chest, into the place where sorrow for the loss of his parents still lingered, where memories of the horrors of that night still rose fresh and new from time to time. Historically, the Caralonians were a war-making people, but Dane couldn’t help thinking the Virgs put them to shame in terms of desiring war, prodding battle. And when he thought of all they’d taken from him on that night some fifteen years ago, it deepened an anger he hadn’t known could run any deeper.
It was the dinner hour when he stormed into the fort in a foul mood. Some of his comrades had already begun eating at the long table erected each night in the great hall—others, he knew, would be close on his heels, coming in from what had turned into a veritable council of his top men with Kells.
He glanced to the right of his seat, at the head of the table, expecting to see Maven there, but that chair sat empty as well. So much for her wanting to be seated next to him just as her mother was to her father—even if the dinner table had not been the venue she’d been referring to.
“Where in Ares’ name is my wife?” he bit off through clenched teeth.
The happy chatter at the table ceased as they all turned to look.
Finally, Kaelen rose and rushed over to him, appearing worried by his tone. Well, they’d all do well to worry—he was in no humor for unhappy news.
“She refused to come to dinner, Dane.”
He let out a long, slow sigh, trying to keep his temper from completely erupting. “Dare I ask why?”
Kaelen swallowed nervously and spoke in a low tone. “She said she didn’t wish to share the same table with you. She asked for dinner in her room.”
“Is she there now?”
“As far as I know.”
“And when you say ‘her room’, I trust you mean the room she slept in before last night?”
The dark-haired maid nodded.
Without another word, Dane turned and stalked from the hall and down the long central corridor of the fort toward the chamber where he would find his wife. He pushed through the door with the flat of his hand and stepped inside in time to see her flinch. She sat at a table near the window, a large tray of food before her. And she looked more worthy of being ravished than ever before.
As he crossed the room, she pushed hurriedly to her feet, her eyes wide with what he hoped to Ares was fear, for if she kept defying him—especially in front of all those who followed him—she would soon have reason for that fear. He stepped so close to her that his chest brushed the soft fur of her vest. “I’m told you don’t wish to share a meal with me, wife,” he said sharply.
She let out a sigh, then met his gaze, letting defiance take the place of fear in her eyes. “That’s correct.”
“And that’s unfortunate—for you,” he said. “Because you will eat with me, whether or not you choose to do so. I’ve tolerated your childish behavior up to this point, thinking you’d come around once we were wed, but since you haven’t, my lenience ends now.”
With that, he stepped swiftly around her and sat down in her chair, pulling her onto his lap, one arm wrenched tight around her slender waist, trapping her arms at her sides.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped, struggling slightly against his grip. “Let me go!”
“I’m sharing a meal with you, bride.” He clamped his free hand over her thighs and turned her so that she faced him more, then met her eyes. “You may fight if you want us both to end up wearing our food, or you may be a good little girl and let us both be fed. The choice is yours.”
He waited for her answer, but she stayed silent. And also still, which was a step in the right direction, despite the venom in her gaze.
“Very well then,” he said. “We shall eat.”
With that, he picked up a slice of thick fruit bread and took a bite. As he chewed and swallowed, he thrust the same piece toward Maven’s delectable, pouting mouth. “Eat!” he commanded.
He sensed her weighing her options, aware of the fire still burning in him, until she reluctantly took a bite of the dark, sweet bread in his hand.
“Good girl,” he said, his voice low. She cast him a sideways glare that, despite his anger at the moment, made him grin.
“Next, let’s try some meat.” He picked up a leg of chicken, taking a hearty bite before holding it to her mouth.
With only a slight hesitation this time, Maven bit some meat off the bone.
“Very good,” he said again.
This time she only rolled her eyes.
He couldn’t help laughing a bit, not only at his resistant little bride, but also because, suddenly, he was enjoying this, enjoying her. Even as churlish as she chose to be, he was having a much better time with his lovely, angry wife perched on his lap than if he’d stayed in the great hall to eat with the rest of the fort’s inhabitants.
After giving them both a drink of water from her goblet, he fed them both some more chicken, another bite of bread, and then said, “Would you like some fruit?”
Maven nodded, seeming considerably subdued now.
Kaelen had laden the tray with a variety of fruits, including a banana, already peeled. He reached for it, asking Maven in a wicked tone, “Were bananas used in your Orientation?”
She gave her head an innocent shake. “No.”
He smiled. “I’ve heard they’re often used to teach girls the art of taking a cock in their mouths.”
As a thin veil of crimson climbed her cheeks, he held it to her lips. “Let’s try it now, shall we? Let’s see how much you can take, my lovely little bride.”
She balked slightly in his grasp. “Why should I do such a thing?”
“So you’ll have some practice before you try taking me in your mouth.”
“I won’t do that,” she said, but even as the words left her, he felt the heat suddenly seem to ooze from her pores onto him as a rush of desire filled her eyes.
Rather than insist that she would, he decided to take a different tack. “Well then, seems the least you can do is let me watch you try with the banana.”
Without awaiting her answer, he pushed it closer to her sweet berry lips, nudging them a
part. She let her mouth open slightly, giving him a shy glance as he pushed the banana inward.
“Relax now,” he cooed as he eased the phallic fruit deeper, deeper. Her face reddened further, but she didn’t flinch or squirm or take the easy way out by biting the banana off—she let him slide it deep into her mouth until he felt it touch the back of her throat. Unable to help being impressed, he smiled. “That’s very good, wife. I can’t wait until you swallow me this well.”
Her eyes changed, the ire returning as he slowly extracted the banana. “I told you I won’t be doing that.”
He only grinned, then slid the moist tip of the fruit back and forth across her lower lip. “Eat, Maven,” he prodded in a low tone.
Still looking defiant, she nipped off the end of the fruit, and he chuckled, bringing it to his own mouth for a bite before returning it to his bride.
When they’d finished the banana, he said, “More fruit? Perhaps an apple?” He still held her arms trapped against her, yet he’d loosened his grip enough that she could likely struggle free if she tried now. But she didn’t. He began to wonder how wet her pussy was beneath her skirt and if she’d noticed the column now bulging from the front of his pants against her hip.
“Do you feel my shaft against you, wife?” he asked, reaching for the apple.
She glanced down between them, looking sheepish but aroused. “How could I not? It’s huge.”
He chuckled. “Do you like the way it feels against you?”
“No,” she insisted as he took a crunching bite from the ripe red fruit.
He laughed once more. “Funny—seemed you couldn’t get enough of my cock last night, and this morning, too.”
She blushed even pinker at the reminder of how excited she’d been, and the memory of her double orgasm just this morning did its part to harden him further as he lifted the apple to her mouth. “Take a bite, wife,” he whispered.
Casting him a quick glance, she leaned slightly forward to sink her teeth into the crisp fruit. A spray of juice shot downward onto her chest. “Oooh!” she squealed, even with her mouth full.
Dane’s desire increased at the sight of the wetness now shimmering on the curve of her breast. Leaning in, he licked the juice from the hollow of her throat, then lowered his tongue into her cleavage, licking a path across one upper swell.
Rituals of Passion (Brides of Caralon, Book One) Page 15
