Ash (Fire & Blood Book 2)

by Alexa B. James

  “I know you’re awake,” he said, making my heart sink.

  “Half-awake,” my voice broke on the words. “Are you fantasizing about killing me?”

  “No. I don’t have the same fantasies you do. It’s midnight. For the next twenty-four hours, you’re finally mine, mind, body, and soul.”

  I gripped onto a black silk pillow as my stomach churned. I wasn’t even sure if the feeling inside me was born from revulsion anymore. I wasn’t sure about anything except for the fact that Ravage terrified me to the core of my being. After leaving Ravage’s study last night, I’d returned directly to his room and muffled my sobs in a pillow until sleep finally swept me under. The flames crackling in the fireplace to one side of the room hadn’t even burned through a log. Light flickered around the familiar space. It was a mirror image to my rooms, with delicate woodwork webbing up to the high arched ceiling.

  Ravage leaned so close his sweet and metallic scent overwhelmed my senses. “Are you still angry with me about bringing your lovers back here?”

  I didn’t need to feel his fingers hovering over my neck to know that it was a very dangerous question. Shivers rippled across my skin, and I knew I had to answer carefully, relying on that sense that told me what people wanted to hear. I lived and died by that sense every day this year. “Why did you clear the tunnels to Seattle? I thought you'd agreed that we could just leave my past behind us.”

  “Your past was continuously trying to break back in here to take you from me.”

  What Ravage wasn't mentioning was the fact that according to our deal, I was free to leave at 12 AM tomorrow morning. Ruin, Ash, and Death’s arrival here today of all days was part of one of Ravage’s plans to keep me forever under his power, I just didn't know what Ravage’s plot was yet.

  “They would have moved on after we were married, if you let them,” I said.

  “Sometimes I forget how very naive you are about the possessiveness of vampire lovers, Kori. If a vampire truly loves a human, they would rather see that human die than ever move on,” Ravage said as his hand closed the distance, resting on my neck, but not squeezing. “If they feel a fraction of what I feel for you, they’ll never give up. I knew that my feelings would change toward you after a year of you being here, but I didn't know to what extent.”

  I swallowed hard and attempted to keep my breathing as even as possible as panic surged through me. Breathe in, breathe out, Kori. Maintain your composure. “What part of me do you like the best, Ravage,” I managed, “My fuzzy legs or messy hair?”

  I had spent a year deep in research about how to kill Ravage, studying his past, his battle strategies, and his weaknesses. I stopped shaving, doing my hair, or wearing anything remotely flattering. I had hoped to make myself less attractive, but Ravage had only seemed more infatuated by the day. Instead, he'd spent hours watching me study or teaching me how to kill him—showing me methods that I could do with my available strength and without extensive training. He’d sit beside me while I read his personal journals and studied his favorite books. Whenever I had questions, no matter how invasive, he answered them without hesitation.

  “It doesn’t matter to me if your legs are fuzzy or your hair is messy,” Ravage said as his hand slid behind my neck. “But today, consort, you're mine, and I’m going to pick how you groom and what you’re going to wear.” I could hear the absolute command in his words. If I didn't follow his every word today, I wouldn't be fulfilling our deal, and my freedom tomorrow would be at risk. Vampire law stated that I needed to fulfill my bargain with the king, or I still owed him four years of my life. If I escaped Ravage before I fulfilled the terms of my sentence, the Queen of Seattle would have to return me or risk war.

  “Am I dressing up because you have a special night planned for us, or am I dressing up because you're taunting the three former Kings of Portland?” I asked as I nuzzled my head further into my pillow in an attempt to get a little distance from his fingers.

  His hand traveled lower, moving over my shoulder and down my arm, just ghosting over me. A shiver skittered down my spine, making my arms and legs tremble.

  “I love your mind, Kori,” he said. “It scares me as nothing else does, and I hope you'll never grow more devious than you already are. If you do, I think you might actually succeed in killing me.”

  Love. It was definitely not a word that I would apply to the mingled revulsion and fascination I felt for the vampire king lying next to me. Ravage had told me that he loved my mind almost immediately after I got here. It had felt unsettling then and was no less uncomfortable now. Sometimes I felt as if he was dissecting me alive, picking the parts of me he liked and attempting to remove the rest.

  “You scare me all the time,” I said, before I could think better of it.

  “I know. I plan to remedy that before midnight. But first, the deathmatch between your lover and myself will be in my throne room. You're welcome to watch from above.”

  I rolled over on Ravage’s hand until I could look up at the King of Nightendale. “Call it off, Ravage.”

  His green eyes examined mine, searching for answers within their depths. “Who are you afraid of losing, him or me?”

  Every question Ravage asked me this morning felt more dangerous than the last. Ravage wouldn't trust that I was concerned for him. He would survive this-- he wouldn’t have entered into it otherwise.

  “I’m afraid for myself,” I said, and my voice thankfully broke on the words. “I’m afraid of how you'll treat me if I stay with you. You’ve already started killing my former lovers, and what's next? Will you kill nobles who look at me for too long? Will I never be able to have another friendship? Will you be jealous of my siblings? Where will it end?”

  His fingers squeezed around the back of my neck. “If you fear me so much, why did you agree to marry me, Kori?”

  I had agreed to marry Ravage because I knew he would never let me go. If I agreed to marry him, it would motivate him to maintain the illusion that I was here by choice. I might have even gained enough of his trust to get hold of the key to my own prison. But I couldn't say any of that out loud.

  I shouldn't even be thinking it.

  I wrapped my fingers around Ravage’s wrist, pressing on his taut tendons until he loosened his grip. “I have to be with you to kill you, don't I? And, if we're married when I kill you, your kingdom will be mine.”

  The smile that lit in his eyes and the smirk that twisted his full lips told me that he absolutely loved my answer.

  “I cannot live without my heart, Kori,” he said, sounding tender. He tapped his breastbone. “If you cut it out of my chest and drop it in a vat of melted silver, after four days and nights, my heart would die and not be able to regenerate, and I could never be revived. Does that satisfy you?”

  “So, we’re starting your twenty-four hours with me at your mercy with a boring old dry-bite?” I held my wrist before his mouth and attempted to keep my expression placid as my heart climbed up into my throat. My body shook, expecting the nearly unbearable pain while at the same time, my core slicked with liquid heat, and the sensation of my panties touching my clit almost felt too much.

  “It is how I want to start this, but as it’s my day to choose, Kori, I want to bite your neck.”

  My breath caught as my core clenched. “That sounds painful,” I said on a gasp. “Agonizing.”

  “It doesn't have to be a dry bite,” he said.

  Yes, it did. I made a deal with him for one night where I was completely in his power, body, mind, and soul, but I knew that consenting to more than what he asked for would give him greater power over me. In the end, that was all that we had left standing between us, my power over sex and his determination to choose the right moment to strike.

  The second part of that... the piece I wanted to lock away in a box in a dark corner of my mind and never look at again, was that a portion of me now craved the pain as much as the pleasure. The pain was the punishment I took for the pleasure I experienced with
my greatest enemy. The pain reminded me that he was my enemy when sometimes, my mind wanted to forget.

  I lifted my head to show him my neck. “I’ll take it dry, Sir.”

  Ravage’s body folded around mine, his front pressing against my back. It was more contact than we had all year, and surprisingly affectionate, like he was spooning me to go to sleep. My whole body started to shake as his fangs traced over my neck, and a whimper escaped my mouth.

  Ravage's cock grew where his front pressed under my butt, and I could feel the head of his cock through his boxers and my sweatpants, just at my center.

  “I want you to get used to the feeling of my cock between your legs,” he said onto my neck. “Very soon, you won’t be able to focus on anything else.”

  Damn it. My clit pulsed with pleasure, as if his words melted the material between us.

  I bit my lip. “Today is your one day to do what you want to me. Don’t get used to--”

  Ravage's fangs struck, and pain exploded through my neck. Hot, liquid agony slid through my skin.

  I screamed, the sound coming out ragged as a sudden, excruciating orgasm ripped through my body, more pain than pleasure. Waves of euphoria followed, and the whole world floated away as a tide of sensation swept me from consciousness. I came back to the world with an explosion of pleasure in my core and the sensation of Ravage sucking on my neck.

  The material between his hard cock and my pussy was soaked with my wetness.

  Ravage's mouth slid away, only to move up to my ear. “Convince me not to kill all three of your lovers today, Kori.”

  Even in the thrall of my pleasure, I knew it was a trick. If I slid down my pants and climbed on his dick, Ravage would know how desperate I was to keep Ash, Ruin, and Death alive. I'd been Ravage's consort for a year now, his lover and no one else's, if you could call what we did together the acts of lovers. If the first time I was tempted to give into having sex with him was in protection of my former lovers, Ravage would kill all three of them before the end of the day.

  I rolled out of his arms and onto the bed, gasping for air as I did. “I'm sure you have enough of my scent on you to convince them we had sex. Wasn't that the point, anyway?”

  It had been the reason I had been all too ready to oblige him pressing his cock against me. Anything I could do to convince Death to withdraw his challenge, I would do.

  Ravage released me and climbed off the bed. As I expected, he pulled on a pair of jeans without changing his boxers, ensuring that he smelled so strongly of me that all three of the vampires would smell my scent from across the palace.

  Ravage stared down at me, and I could guess what he was seeing. I had gained weight this year, eating better than I ever had and spending most of my time reading or wandering aimlessly. I'd stopped grooming and expected my looks to fade without constant upkeep, but I liked my reflection now more than ever before. Still, I was lying here disheveled and ungroomed with a wet spot in the crotch of my sweatpants.

  “I love you,” Ravage said, making ice run through my veins. There was nothing that I hated more than when he told me he loved me. It was a lie, even if Ravage believed it. He didn't love me, he loved himself, and he saw himself in me, in my thoughts and my mind. Ravage loved the idea that I was his counterpart, the piece that completed him.

  The only problem was I came with an impure past he wanted to scrub away as if it never existed. Ravage’s so-called love was the reason he hadn't killed me yet, and it was also the reason he would eventually end my life. It was inevitable. One of us would murder the other, and he was so confident that it would be me that died that he was happy to teach me how to kill him in excruciating detail.

  “I hate you,” I whispered back, as I always did.

  The words made him smile. “There’s little difference.”

  From his expression every time I said the words, I wasn't sure that Ravage saw any difference between hate and love. He would probably be satisfied with me hating him for eternity, so long as he could incite my passion.

  He tugged on a loose tunic and pulled his hair out of the collar. At the door to the hallway, Ravage turned back, and his green eyes studied my face intently. “You’ll be wearing your high boots and the blue lace dress.”

  “Should I wear anything under it?” I wasn't opposed to public nudity. When I was a courtesan, I often left a party nude even if I hadn't arrived that way. But I doubted that Ravage wanted me to stand naked in front of my former lovers, so I was shocked when he answered.

  “No.”

  “What are you planning, Ravage?” I asked, before I could help myself.

  He grinned and walked out of the room without saying another word, leaving me shaking in terror.

  Chapter Five

  Ruin

  Look around here, Ruin. It's different than the dome.

  Kori’s words ran repeatedly through my mind as I walked the circumference of the city. Ash and Death stood to either side of me, glowering at the ground. They hadn’t wanted to come on my tour of the city, but neither of them trusted our host. So we stayed together.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find, but Kori’s message couldn’t be clearer, Ruin,” Ash said, darkly. “She’s fucking happy here, and why shouldn’t she be?”

  I didn’t respond because there wasn’t any point. Ash was incredibly smart on some subjects. If you wanted someone to analyze the urban planning of a city to figure out the best distribution of resources, he was your guy. Other things, like looking for the deeper meaning in a weighty glance, flew straight over his head. Death hadn't said a word since the soldiers showed us to rooms last night, insisting we each take our own.

  I'd woken up to Kori's bloodcurdling scream in the middle of the night and had attempted to make it out of my room only to have soldiers bar my way. I'd halted anyway, just standing there in the hallway. Down the hall, Ash and Death stood before their own set of guards. None of us made a move, and it was clear why. The sweet honey scent of Kori's arousal perfumed the hallway.

  The scream had sounded like pain--excruciating pain, but whatever transpired had quickly become pleasure. We all stood there, looking down the long hall, waiting for some indication that we should fight through the guards. There was the creak of a door opening, and then Kori's moans echoed down the hall. Two doors down, Ash had turned on his heel and slammed the door closed behind him, but Death and I stayed, both of us likely listening for some indication that Kori was unwilling. But she did nothing but cry out in the throes of passion.

  It didn't mean that what he was doing to her was right, but Kori was free tomorrow, and instead of leaving, she was going to marry Ravage. She knew that he had stolen her memories and that he played a role in both revolutions of Portland, and she was still going to marry him. I couldn't convince her that she wasn't consenting if she'd decided that she was.

  Still, it all felt wrong, and I could have sworn that Kori was passing me some kind of message, a message she expected me to be able to figure out.

  Vampire patrols passed us for the fourth time in the past hour as we climbed down and up the damp staircases that led between glowing bridges.

  One difference between Nightendale and the domes was how damn small this city was. Back before volcanoes erupted throughout North and South America, this kingdom would barely be considered a town. Between the two giant domes of the Northwest, Portland had seemed puny when compared to Seattle, but it could have easily fit ten Nightendale’s within its metal containment wall.

  We climbed our way to the center of town, which was more a line of warrior taverns, group living quarters, and a couple craftsman shops. There were warrior training grounds and several gardens in the distance, but the town lacked the usual market stalls that clogged up every street in Seattle. There were no religious buildings, no farms, and no factories. The whole kingdom probably had a population of several hundred, if that, and most of them were warriors. So far as I could tell, there were only warriors and a half dozen nobles an
d their courtesans.

  Vampire warriors were everywhere. If they weren't patrolling, they were crowding the bars or sitting in rows behind something that I was pretty sure was a television. The crowd belly laughed in sync at something that happened on the large, flat screen. Warriors even cleaned the streets, though there wasn't much to clean.

  The thought felt right somehow--like it was the track Kori wanted me to be thinking on.

  Ash glared over his shoulder. “I say we leave.”

  Death gestured to the nearest bridge. “I really don't see any reason for either of you to stay.”

  “You have to be fucking kidding me, Death.”

  I clapped Death and Ash on the shoulder. “Now, whatever either of you do, don't get involved. I'm breaking the ice. Count how many humans come out.”

  Ash's eyes narrowed on me. “Don't you fucking...”

  I was already in motion. I wheeled around, grabbing the nearest warrior, a large man with a shaved head and tattoos arching up his neck, and I punched him in the jaw.

  It had been a while since I'd hit anyone, and the reverberation traveled up my arm.

  “The fuck?” The vampire said, bearing his fangs as blood dripped from his mouth. He was big, even for a warrior, probably had a hundred pounds on me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Just needed to fucking let off a little steam, and you were the biggest fucker I had seen around.”

  His gaze flicked over my shoulder to Death, and his eyelids narrowed.

  Death leaned his body into the nearest storefront. Ash stood beside him, arms crossed and looking bored with the entire confrontation.

  I swung for the vampire again, he dodged, and I clipped him on the shoulder. The monolith of a man looked back to me and strolled out into the middle of the street. “You three are visiting all the way from Seattle, the least we could do is help you let off a little steam.”