5

The knock is steady and firm.

The door shudders with the two raps of his knuckles on the wood just as the flame in the lantern flashes blue.

Break of the Quiet.

He's right on time.

Standing by the door, my insides are rinsing. Feels like Knife has his long, spidery fingers buried in my guts, and he wrings them out like he does to the garments he washes.

My fingers tremble as I reach for the doorknob. I pause, flex them out, then loosen a long, steadying breath.

He'll hear it on the other side of the rotted wood.

He'll smell the unease, the nerves raging through me.

Still, I wrap my clammy hand around the cold bite of the metal and turn. I open the door with my retreat.

I had this whole first moment planned out in my mind. Nerves had me ruminating over and over, and I even went as far as to practice sultry looks in the mirror. Seduction is something of a skill, one I possess, but it's watered down with me, like my blood.

So I'm not exactly at my most confident as I stand in the doorway and—

All my thoughts vanish at the sight of him.

The hard muscle of his forearm is braced against the doorframe. From behind fallen strands of inky hair, his piercing eyes smoulder in the shadows.

I didn't expect this, how casual he is, how quiet and observant. Maybe I expected him to tower over me, as tall and intimidating as ever, or even vicious or distant, to spit at my feet or snarl at me.

He seems more weary than anything, with a touch of interest gleaming in those eyes, an elegant exhaustion draped over him, even in the way he dresses.

That black woollen sweater he wears...

For over a week now, he's been without his leathers. He doesn't practice on the battle blocks anymore, but rather stays with other dark ones up on the hill watching those who do still practice, observing.

So he dresses more for comfort and warmth now.

And that black sweater is a contradiction that thickens my throat and silences me the moment my gaze rests on it.

The woollen material pulls tight over his muscles. It looks almost stretched over the strength of his shoulders, and then seems to spill its dark dye onto his tattooed hand.

Yet, it has an indifference about it. Something casual in the small patches of pulled wool here and there, a little hole just under the neckline to show his honeyed complexion stained black in some spots—and the almost razored look of the elbow.

The sweater is costly but weathered.

Such a small thing to notice about someone, but on a lesser male it would be disarming. That sweater alone would tell me everything I needed to know about him. On Daxeel, it's different—he wears it with an indifference to his wealth, a laziness in his status, and a disregard of his ego when it comes to his sheer strength.

Hand clutched onto the edge of the door, I lean my head to the side and my free hand toys with the tie of my robe, the only thing keeping this flimsy satin thing shut on what I wear beneath—or what I don't wear.

The gesture is nerves, and his eyes land on the tick for a moment before he looks back up at me.

Those cobalt eyes hit me like lead. An intensity in them that wasn't there a second ago.

Neither of us speak. But he moves first.

As though the movement is slowed for my benefit, he pushes his weight onto one leg, and with it, he draws away from the doorframe.

Now he towers over me.

I crane my neck to look up at him, then with each step he takes into my bedchamber, I take one back until I lose my grip on the door.

Without breaking our locked stare, he reaches out a hand to the side—and he hits the door. It slams shut behind him.

A nervous breath whispers from my peach-painted lips. Maybe I dabbed some rouge on my cheeks, too.

Yet every thread of my flimsy plan comes undone as I stand before him, feeling as small as a mouse. He'll hear it in my heartbeat, the skips and thumps in my chest,

All he does is look down at me, his long lashes casting shadows over the natural clench of his jawline, and it's enough.

I retreat.

My bare feet flatten on the floorboards as I backstep across the bedchamber. Daxeel follows, his movements slow and lazy, but his watchful stare hooked onto me.

I only stop when my spine connects with the edge of the desk. It bites into my bones with the promise of bruises if I push back any further.

Daxeel stops, too. Then, finally, he tugs his attention away.

I loosen a breath, like an iron snake was coiled around my insides, and it suddenly evaporated.

He moves for the corner of the canopy bed. I watch the slinking of his muscles beneath the sweater as he crosses his arms over his chest, then leans back against the postered wood frame.

My tongue darts out over my lips. "I signed as her second."

Head tipped forward, his eyes still gleam from behind shadows. He blinks, a slow and patient gesture. He says nothing, because I speak what he already knows.

I just can't seem to find all those words I practiced earlier now that he's here, watching me like a predator watches prey beg for its life.

For whatever reason I can't fathom, he helps me out. The weariness still clings to him as he asks, "Why did you?"

I frown. "She needed one to enter. From within the family, the bloodline. It could only be me—"

"I know why it could only be you," he cuts me off, his barbed, accented voice lashing at me like a razored whip. But it's the following words that really make me feel small, how he enunciates them, and I feel like a child being scolded, "What I asked was why you signed."

The darkness of the glower he runs over me, it reeks of disdain, and I know he judges me for signing my name.

Moronic, silly halfling.

"I… I didn't think. Not for a moment did I believe this would happen. I… I didn't let myself wonder what would become of me if anything happened to Pan," and with no frown to pass his face, no tilt of the head, I know he follows my nervous ramblings. "Everyone thinks their older sibling is indestructible, right? Everyone thinks their father will protect them."

The last thing I ever thought was that Pandora wasn't drinking the potion and Ronan wasn't eating the seed when she was about to enter the Sacrament. And the seed, the potion—those are absolute. No risk of pregnancy with those. It turns off fertility, extinguishes it like a candle flame in a hard gust of wind, so why, why did this happen?

The thought of it riles me up so much that I want nothing more than to claw my careless sister to shreds with my own fucking hands. I hate her for it, that she risked my life for her ambitions that she fast abandoned. I'm a sacrifice.

I will die.

I will pay the price for her faults if Daxeel doesn't help me.

No answer comes from him, not even in his body language, in his still-stony expression.

From this angle, the dim light of the bedchamber flickers over the tattoo that branches up the side of his neck. It glistens so deeply that it looks freshly done.

I smile, small and pained, but his unyielding stare gives me little hope. "I need help. I need your help."

It's not shame that flushes my cheeks or whispers my voice; it's defeat, premature, but obvious under his unflinching gaze.

I hang my head in his silence. My toes flex and curl and shift with my nerves. My hands find each other at my front, they wring together with each passing moment in this weighted quiet.

"You…" I start to break the silence. Looking up at him, I find his gaze wandering the length of my freshly lotioned legs, but he's quick to fling it back up to me, and he's now the one to wear a slight blush, one that creeps over his cheekbones.

"You know how to help me, don't you?" I press. Spurred on by his lustful gaze, a bud of hope I didn't have just moments ago.

"Yes." The word is barbed in a growl. "The question—" he pauses and pushes from the bedframe collum. He reaches down for the bottle of honeywine fallen on the rug. He's got it in his grip, uncorked, in a flash. "—is why would I help you, vicious one?"

In one step back, he finds his place at the bed again, and I wonder if he feels safer in this distance he's keeping between us, or if secretly he's hoping I join him over there, crawl onto the bed for him.

But other than the gentle rouge of his cheeks, he looks utterly unmoved by me, unaffected. And he rests his shoulder on the oak post of the bedframe. He leans his weight against it, boots crossed, and face like stone. He drinks my honeywine and I know he isn't fond of the sugary taste, so he does it to rile me. But I'm fast distracted by something more than wine bottles.

His movements trigger something in me. I catch his scent—it carries the stronger tone of almond soap. Recently bathed.

I'm quick to figure it out. He washed up after training and changed into fresh clothes. Not for me. He did it for the whore in the harem.

Can't stop the sudden twitch or my upper lip, ready to snarl, but I battle it back—and slip on a glower instead.

His hair is always tousled and messy, and with that fresh ink, he has something about him, an effortless look, a casual ruggedness.

I fool myself at times. I think of the Daxeel under the willow trees. I forget in the halls of the garrison that he's dark male, tall and strong, utterly vicious, a born warrior with a black heart—and a brutal animalism lurking beneath his honeyed-marble skin.

And even as we watch each other in this patient Quiet, I see the ghosts of bloodshed that stir darkness in his eyes, the gleam of ink that lashes up the side of his neck from beneath the wool of his sweater, and it reminds me of how much time has passed.

I was young when we met, nineteen, just at maturity, but he was older. He's older still, a half-century at least. And I feel very much the silly newly mature female he amused with shiny baubles.

That is who I was and who I am now.

Spoilt, he once called me.

You want to be the only one… the darling, he once said. A side-stepped way of calling me what everyone else does. A brat.

He wasn't wrong. It's a part of me. But only one layer, and I have so many. It cuts me deep—the realization, the understanding that spears into my gut like a knife. He only ever saw me that way, he didn't see the rest of me.

But he should see it now.

I use another side of me, one just as sincere, as I lean back against the side of the desk.

Gazes locked, my fingers thread through the knot of my tied robe.

I tug.

‘The question is why would I help you, vicious one?'

That string holding the robe together yanks out of its loosely fastened tie, and it falls open.

Motionless, his eyes are what betray him—they gleam through the dark, cauldrons of deep blue poisons. He stiffens but doesn't move.

The satin of the robe slips down my shoulders. I don't help it slide off my body. It just does, slow and intentional—and he watches as my body is bared under the smoky light of the candles and lanterns. For the most flattering light, I made sure to shove most of the jarred glowworms and fireflies in the wardrobe. I only kept enough out for a dim dusting of dusky light.

His gaze hangs on the one thing that shields my breasts and core from him. The only thing I wear as the satin robe crumples to the floor.

His gaze sears through the blue lace lingerie moulded to my shape. A colour so deep, it matches his eyes.

On the edge of the desk, I lift myself up until I'm perched, then lean my weight back on my flattened palms. My bare feet dangle above the satin robe discarded on the floor.

But he only seems to notice me.

Like he hasn't seen my body on the imposter so many times before, he drinks me in like a wild male who has never seen a female in his life.

His eyes wander and linger for what feels like an eternity. Over the shine of my lotioned legs, the indent of my clavicle, the faint definition of my arms, the pinch of my waist, the width of my hips; even my feet that I let relax to keep a lazy but seductive posture.

For a moment, he lifts his eyes to mine. And the stir of his anger flickers over the blue like shadows.

It's a brief moment, cut short by the sudden shift in his attention when he lands his gaze on my breasts, pushed up into round, full shapes by the bodice.

I'm pinned by the intensity of his look as he inspects me. Those black flecks of anger flicker in his eyes each time he's obstructed by the one-piece lingerie that shields his view of my body.

Daxeel doesn't hide how blatantly he takes me in, drinking me in from head to toe, over and over.

But he might as well throw a dagger across the room and into my heart when he growls out the words, "You threatened the whore."

It takes every ounce of strength within me to battle the flare of my nostrils, the ache of my hands needing to ball into fists.

Don't you dare think about her.

Think about me. Only me, only ever think of me.

Against the rage storming through my chest, I plaster on a dark smile. "Or did I merely warn her?"

I removed an obstacle I faced, but I removed the crutch he needed. The clench of his jaw as he throws his gaze back to mine is enough to tell me how pissed he is at that little move I made on our chessboard.

But I have a plan, and so I'm undeterred now that I see the lust in him, in his eyes, in the tightened crotch of his trousers.

One leg dangles, but I lift the other and press my heel onto the table's edge. My smile keeps as I spread my thighs just a little—but enough.

Then I use what I learned from the whore.

‘Whisper his name like a prayer…'

His eyes are hooked on my core—covered by the mesh and lace and embroidering of the lingerie, but I know he sees beyond it.

"Daxeel," I whisper the name, speak it like a plea, breathe it like I have so many times in the past as he brought me to climax on his fingers, on his mouth, on the underside of his cock.

Something feral runs through him.

It growls up his chest, rippling the soft wool of his sweater. His eyes darken as he staggers that one, single step for me—then steels himself, arms tense at his sides, hands fisted. But not before the bottle drops from his grip and honeywine spills onto the rug with loud sloshes.

He lifts his darkened eyes to mine—and I shrink back just a little at the ferocity in them.

A desperate need husks his voice, "I will agree that you are not to participate in the Sacrament. In return, this Quiet I will have your body," his full lips twist with a snarl, "and I'll start with your mouth."

Daxeel has every intention of demeaning me with those words. Me, a female from the light lands where (if I was fullblood) I would be worshiped as superior. He reminds me of my place in his world, to his kind—and reminds me of a time we spoke of such things on a blanket he laid out for me so that the grass wouldn't hit out at me or tickle my nose too much.

But he doesn't expect my reaction.

That much I know when his chest expands with a deep inhale as he drinks in my scent. The rise of my arousal.

I slip off the desk and take slow, lazy steps towards the bed. "I accept."

Scrambling to keep onto his ropes of control, he cuts me short. "On your knees."

Looking up at him from beneath my lashes, I drop to one knee. Then the other. Back to the wardrobe, I sit my bottom on the floor between folded legs.

I am at your mercy.

Fear should be rattling through me. But it's the thrill of it that has me in a dizzy.

He smells it in the air.

I feel it dampening the lace at my core.

And as he pushes forward, and I look up at him, at his height, his strength, I utter a breath.

As feral as the vicious hunger in his eyes, his voice is rough, "Touch yourself."

I obey.

I lift my hand and, with a smile, wiggle my fingers. Then—gazes connected—I let my hand drop to my thigh with a slap.

The shudder of his breath has a growl to it. But he is unmoving. Just some steps in front of me, his head bowed and eyes burning into mine, he waits.

Dancing my fingertips along my thigh, I spread my legs just a bit wider, then graze the dampness of the lace.

A near-silent breath hisses from him.

I almost doubt I heard it at all, since he's a bronzed statue in my room, one with hands fisted and muscles so tense they push against the wool of his sweater.

Understanding flickers through me.

It's me. Not an imitation. It's really me, kneeling for him, fingertips pressed against the lace that hides my damp slit—

It's really me he can smell.

I find power in it.

I play it well.

I keep the lace in place, I don't pull it aside and reveal so much too soon. I slip my finger around it and—

My lips part around a stifled gasp.

Daxeel's dimples carve into his cheeks. A guttural sound rumbles through him.

My gaze doesn't falter from his as I dip my fingers into my heat.

Pleasure has my raspy tone wrapped tight, "Every time I do this…"

His throat bobs.

"I only think of one male…"

Deep dimples carve into his cheeks, darkened beneath the shadows of the Quiet that cling to him.

"His touch, his kiss…"

His head tilts to the side, his gaze scraping all over me, dragging over the flush of my face, the breaths from my parted lips, the strap of the bodice that slips over my shoulder—but always landing back down at my core.

"Dax," I practically whine his name with need.

I beg him like he wants me to, needs me to.

My lashes flutter shut, but not before I see that violent shudder rattle him, the strongest yet, and it's the one that spurs him to movement.

Slowly, he advances on me.

I don't doubt for a second that he fights himself, not because he doesn't want this, but rather he's battling the urge to take me harshly. Like he's stuck in old habits, wants to keep me unafraid.

A moan escapes me as I slide my fingers out from my wet heat, then drag them over my aching clit.

From beneath hooded eyes, I watch as he reaches back his inked hand for the scruff of his sweater. He pulls it off swiftly, then—as he moves for me, his steps predatory—lets it fall to the floor.

It lands on top of my discarded robe.

Fingertips move expertly, around and around the ache of my bud, because if I put too much pressure on it now, I'll find my end too soon, and I need to keep him desperate for me, need him to feel the call of my arousal for him.

It's a call he follows.

His paced steps bring him to tower over me, and I have to lean my head back to look up his honeyed, muscled chest, licked with tattoos, to the smoulder of his eyes.

He reaches for his combat trousers.

Practiced fingers undo the strings of his trousers in a heartbeat, then his hard cock falls from its restraints.

It hits my cheekbone as it lands.

I hiss at the thud of it on my face.

His eyes are dark and aimed down at me. Drunk with a dangerous need to consume and devour me.

His inked hand comes around the base of his thick shaft. He could easily wrap another hand around the end. I almost let myself blanch.

But I don't draw back from the challenge.

Not even as he guides it aside slightly, then releases. It hits my face again. A small smear of his early seed paints my cheek.

My mouth twists with a silent snarl I aim up at him. But the only growl to come is from deep in his chest, fuelled by lust and warning.

My lips part around words, grazing the edge of his cock, "Does this come with rules and warnings?" I speak of our first intimate moment beneath the willows.

In answer, he grabs his shaft and drags its tip along my cheekbone. He's silent as he aligns it, pushes the head of his cock against my parted lips.

My teeth block it from entering and I just glower up at him.

"It doesn't," he says, and the roughness of his voice isn't lost on me. "I no longer care to keep from frightening you."

Now that's a lie.

Even now, I watch the candlelight flicker warm hues over his honeyed chest, and it's as clear to me as the cock in my face. How his muscles are bolted to his bones, how he fights to restrain himself.

"Now," he drawls something husky that shudders up his chest, "open your fucking mouth."

The bargain bolts through me.

And my mouth parts against the added pressure against my teeth. The salt of his early arousal smears my upper lip as he slowly pushes his way in.

All it takes is the warmth of my mouth around his cock, the slick touch of my tongue gliding along the underside—that's all it takes for him to shatter.

Whatever scraps of patience he's been holding onto, they have drained through his fingers like a fistful of sand. An urgent need courses through him, and with it, he's shoving into me.

His hand fists into my hair at the back of my head, gripped tight, and with a step forward, he thrusts firm enough to guide me against the wardrobe.

I frown against him, feeling his length glide down my throat, but I only realize the reason for his move when, above me, his other hand smacks down on the wood door of the wardrobe—and he grunts something desperate.

He needs something to lean on, and I fight the smile aching to form around his cock. Without that wardrobe to lean on, to pierce his nails into, to shove my back against, then I suspect he might fall to his knees for me.

It spurs me on, it soaks me endlessly.

But I forget my own pleasure and help him chase his.

I need him to want me more than air, than food, than sleep—than anything he survives on.

Damp from all my gathered arousal, I lift my hand to the base of his shaft—where his hand is still fisted, as though he controls how much he's choking me with.

Leaning my head back against the wardrobe, I blink up at him, snaring a naivety into my gaze. His lashes lower over gleaming eyes, his own personal glowjars in the shadows, and the battle he wages against his nearing climax is in the glisten of his brow, the twist of his mouth, the tension bolting his muscles to his chest.

Still, I guide his fingers away from his cock, then let my own slide over the smooth skin—and feeling the wetness from my cunt slicking over his cock draws out a guttural moan from his chest.

A moan.

That's my cue.

Firming my grip, I tilt my chin up and yank him closer.

He follows with a hard jolt that smacks my spine against the wardrobe. His cock plunges down my throat, and that moan of his weakens, like it's whispering out of him now.

You're mine, Daxeel. I've got you now.

Back against the wardrobe, his hand fisted in my hair, I'm pinned as he thrusts into me. He never fully draws out of my mouth, and there's always enough of him down my throat that I force my breaths to ease through my nose—but even then, I'm gasping around his thick shaft as he fucks my mouth.

I have no control over how much he forces into me, no control over his harsh juts. Just how he wants it. Him, dominating me.

Towering over me, the cerulean of his eyes gleams in the shadows of the bedchamber. Those inky strands of hair fall into his face, the tips brushing his brow—but my gaze flickers most of all to the tension in his mouth, like he's fighting back a snarl of desperation.

Above me, his hand shoves, hard, against the wardrobe—and his nails shred into the door the same moment that a throaty sound catches in his chest, and so I know he's close.

Daxeel has been close since he first plunged into me, he only fights it off to save face. This is a battle he will lose.

The unforgiving force of his thrusts as he fucks my mouth chokes my throat, it's enough to press the back of my head against the wardrobe with a sprouting ache.

But I keep one hand wrapped around his shaft, the other grabbing at his chest, as though I need more of him, as though I can fist my fingers around a chunk of his flesh and drag him deeper into me.

And then he fucking does it.

Thinks I didn't hear him. Thinks I didn't hear the breathy moan that escaped him, the weakened sound that was all too similar to my name.

‘Nari…'

A mere breath—but one that sounded so close to my name.

My response is instant.

My hand falls away from his shaft. His thrust plunges deeper into me; a savage sound ripples through him.

I tighten my throat around him, flatten my tongue against the undershaft—and I suck. I suck like I'm enjoying a nectarquill and guzzling coffee at the same time.

See how long you can fight it off now.

Less than second.

That one suck from my mouth down to my tightening throat, and he's thrown over the edge.

Daxeel doesn't finish with just a cry. The excruciation of his pleasure hits him so hard that he's struck with a shout that goes on and on into a strained groan that just… keeps going.

I devour the sound, the fucking music of it all, a melody for me and me alone.

Sing for me.

With the shocks that jolt his strained body, he shoves deeper into me, trapping me between the wardrobe and his cock that pulsates all the way down my throat.

I roll and flick my tongue along the underside of his shaft, feeling it shiver at my touch.

I swallow everything he pumps into me. There would be no way to not swallow it, not with his cock literally pinning me in place.

So when he suddenly tugs out of me with a hoarse grunt, and that final trickle of seed wets my lips and my face before he drops to his knees, I suck in the deepest breath my lungs have ever fought for.

I slump.

Fingertips pressed against the floor, supporting me, I heave my breaths until the ache in my lungs starts to soothe.

In front of me, Daxeel has his head bowed, but from behind dark tendrils of inky hair, he lifts his dangerous gaze to mine.

If his eyes are oceans, then I would like to drown in him.

His snarl is glazed by the need still simmering in his eyes, a weary one that keeps him on his knees in front of me. But it curls his mouth into something hateful as he spits the words out at me like an accusation, "Where the fuck did you learn that?"

Mutely, I blink at him. His seed paints my lips, glitters on my cheeks, it coats my throat, and all I can taste is his salt.

But that is a question I didn't expect.

It's one I sure as hell don't want to answer.

I could lie. But something tells me Daxeel will be the one to figure out that little talent of mine as quickly as I loved him.

So I don't.

Instead, I smile and feel his gaze land on his seed glistening on my skin. "Did you not like it?" Leaning closer to him, I flatten my hands on the floor between our knees, and I move in like I'm about to crawl. "I liked it."

Danger flashes in his eyes. It twitches at his upper lip, and I watch his inner battle rage on within him. Through those harsh breaths that wrack him still, like he's run across the lands and now stops for a much-needed rest, he just stares at me, long and hard.

Then I win, because he loses the fight to interrogate me any further and just says, "Get on the fucking bed, Nari."