Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

T he prince and his new bride may have been under the impression that the entire city could think of nothing better to do than celebrate their loveless union, but I knew things about his precious Wrathbane which the prince in his pretty palace could never hope to understand.

It had taken long enough to navigate, first the vibrant and heavily decorated centre of the city, then the affluent merchants' quarters, and even the start of the roughs where those with the least lived crammed together. Once I had made it into the depths of the squalor - which all cities of this size held on their perimeters - I had found the truth of the peoples' hearts.

No one here gave a fuck which prince was marrying which pompous bitch in a castle built of stone that was cleaner than the clothes they wore on their backs. Of course they accepted the two days of revelry happily enough – though the ale in this part of the city was piss water compared to the wine supped at the stuffy wedding.

But I was good with piss water. And I was good with the house of sin I'd been loitering in for the last day and a half too.

I'd stolen a cloak which had fallen from the body of a Skyforger soldier getting his cock and balls sucked by a pair of rather flexible looking Fae and had hidden my face within the shadows of its hood not long after arriving.

So far, I had managed to keep it that way despite my own waning sobriety and the furiously rebellious part of me which kept whispering ideas of debauchery into my ears every time I heard a cry of pleasure or felt a stab of desire from the swarm of bodies surrounding me.

Far from the assumptions of those aristocratic ass wipes at the palace, a house of sin was not solely a place for fucking. Nope. It was a den of euphoria which could be claimed in many forms. So far the piss water ale had taken up most of my time, but I had sat among a cluster of Minotaurs while they smoked pipes filled with fogweed until the fumes made me laugh so much I was sick.

There was potentially some vomit on my boots now but that was the least of my concerns.

I was studying the blood which coated my split knuckles, trying to remember how many assholes I'd knocked out when I'd thrown myself into the fighting pit at the back of the house of sin, but I kept losing count at six because it rhymed with dicks. That shit was funny.

I snorted, drawing the attention of the Minotaur who slumped at the table beside mine, realising I'd returned to the fogweed corner.

"'S'cuse me," I grunted, patting him on the horn and making him moo in annoyance. But fuck him. Fuck his horns and fuck his little cow balls. "Come try your luck if you think you can manble it," I challenged but my voice was a lot sloppier than usual, my normal growl more of a grunt and, to be fair, he was shitfaced, so he didn't seem to have a clue what I was talking about anyway.

I flipped him off and stumbled away, almost tripping over my own feet as I set my gaze on the exit where the fresh air danced a merry tune and whispered my name.

It was cold as a penguin's asshole outside, snow clinging to my boots and threatening to make me slip with each step.

I took hold of the wall in my bloody fingers, letting it pull me along hand over hand until I was in the relative darkness of an alleyway outside the house of sin.

Someone was getting laid inside, the wall vibrating with repetitive thumps which ricocheted through my body as I leaned against it. The moans sounded kinda faked to me so I reached out with my gifts and tugged on the desire I found there.

"Ahh!" a man yelled.

"What is it?" a woman cried in reply.

"Oh please, Venus no, no!" he gasped, the thumping stopping as a small part of my brain realised I was boosting his desire to take a shit instead of his lust.

I scrunched my face up, trying to stop what I was doing but the horrified cries from both Fae within the room told me it was too late to undo it and the woman started screaming about him shitting on her leg.

I thought it best to make my escape and stumbled a little further down the alley, letting my hood fall back at last as I lifted my face to the stars and glared up at them through the narrow crack between buildings.

"What the fuck did I ever do to you?" I hissed. "Wasn't it enough to give me weak blood? Didn't I suffer through the waifhouses? Didn't I prove myself at every fucking challenge? You, Libra, you fucking ballsack, you know this shit doesn't balance out. I've paid my dues. I've fucking paid…"

I looked down at my feet as something wet hit them, relived to find that I was just spilling ale over my boots from my forgotten tankard rather than pissing myself. Ah yes, what a marvellous victory – my bladder was still mine to command.

"So it is possible for you to look like shit," a deep voice drawled and I whirled around, dagger out, world spinning, ground aiming for my face and – I cursed like a cat in a water barrel as my own dagger sliced into my fucking leg and the ground made connection with my cheek.

Strong arms banded around my waist and though I tried to swing my dagger, I found it gone as the world flipped upside down and I was slung over the shoulder of an asshole with leathery wings which immediately slapped me in the face.

I kicked, spat, cursed and maybe even vomited a little, but Cayde ignored me entirely as he hauled me away from the house of sin, his fingers digging in to the backs of my thighs and his wing mostly obscuring my view of the world.

I wasn't sure how long he carried me for – there was definitely a spell of darkness and I was still deciding between there having been a tunnel or whether I'd simply closed my eyes – but eventually he dropped me.

Water closed over my head and I screamed, the last of my oxygen swirling away in a haze of bubbles before he fisted my pink hair and heaved me up to gasp down more.

I blinked freezing water out of my eyes, grasping the edge of the wooden water butt he'd hurled me into and opening and closing my mouth like a fish tossed to shore as the ice which had cracked when he tossed me through it bobbed around my waist.

"I knew you'd need me eventually," Cayde said, inspecting me like I was a piece of dirt on his boot. "I just never suspected you'd lose your shit quite so spectacularly over that pretentious asshole. We probably could have gotten to this point sooner if I'd just realised how deluded you were being and had enlightened you before now. Of course, I didn't expect the great Sky Witch to be quite so…gullible."

"What?" I hissed between chattering teeth, swiping my pink hair out of my eyes and sobering up far faster than I'd have liked.

"Here," Cayde grunted, offering me a brightener, the green pill imbued with magic that could heal away the effects of inebriation in minutes. All members of the army were required to carry them so that we could sober up instantly in the case of a surprise attack. I had a fuzzy recollection of tossing mine to a Dolphin shifter who had been swimming in a tank in the underground chambers of the house of sin around six tankards in to my first evening here.

"Who's attacking?" I asked, glaring at the pill.

"No one. But we've got about ten hours until we need to reboard Rackmere in the morning and despite how much I'd enjoy watching you humiliate yourself in front of all the other neophytes, I don't think it would be the best look for the Skyforgers as a whole, and that doesn't serve my purpose. Besides, I've decided I'm done with you hating me so I'm ready to make you fall for me instead."

I scoffed, ignoring the offered pill and heaving myself out of the water butt with some difficulty.

I pitched myself over the edge headfirst, the dirty cobbles rushing for my face and only Cayde's fist tightening in my belt saved me from another kiss with the ground.

He twisted me around, dumping me on my back where the frozen cobbles and half a snow drift made my wet clothes feel even colder against my skin.

I fought to escape him but he straddled me, his wings blocking out the sight of the sky above, while he gripped my face in his hand and forced my mouth open.

I struggled but my head was spinning and the best I managed was to bite down on his thumb as he forced the pill between my lips. Cayde swore, snatching his hand away then clamping it down over my mouth before I could spit the pill back out.

I glared at him as it dissolved on my tongue, not bothering to fight anymore as the rush of magic spun through my flesh, burning away the toxins I'd ingested and forcing my mind to snap into sharper focus than I was ready for.

It all came rushing in on me without the foggy filter of inebriation to drown its severe edges, every hour spent licking my wounds in that filthy house of sin where Fae fucked and gambled and took pleasure in all forms of depravity. I'd gone there seeking my own escape but all I'd really done was languish in self-pity.

"Do you plan on sitting on top of me for the duration of the evening?" I growled.

"Ah, there she is, the ill-tempered witch the world knows so well." He got to his feet, offering me a hand to haul me up, but I ignored him, gaining my feet and looking around for my lost dagger.

Cayde twisted it through his fingers casually and I used a whip of air to snatch it from his grasp then turned and stalked away from him.

"You plan to board Rackmere soaked to the skin and stinking of vomit and ale?" he questioned lightly.

"No," I snapped, stalking away from him towards the end of the alley, but his footsteps soon hounded my own.

"So you're returning to your apartment in the palace?" he asked.

"No," I grunted because I wasn't going anywhere near that place for as long as I could avoid it.

"I have a room in the city."

I kept walking.

"You're really that stubborn?" Cayde demanded, still following me like a damn shadow.

"I can buy myself a room and clean clothes. I don't need you. Don't need anyone. Never have, never will."

"Need and want don't have to be the same thing."

"Why would I want you?" I asked scathingly, making it to the end of the alley and pausing because I had no idea where the fuck I was. Everything looked the same in this part of the city and everything was constantly changing too. Badly built buildings collapsed and were re-built, streets blocked by travelling merchants for weeks at a time then freed up again without notice. I wasn't here nearly enough to recognise the grubby street I found myself standing in especially since my last visit had been in the summer when there was no snow heaped in corners, changing the landscape once again.

Cayde laughed beneath his breath but I ignored him, aiming my palms at the ground before hurling myself skyward to get my bearings.

The city opened up around me as the frigid air nipped at my wet flesh and I looked out over the sparkling lights which spread away in all directions. My jaw ticked as I realised my wandering had taken me far to the east of the city – the opposite side to Rackmere's dock. I could fly but I'd likely freeze to death before I made it there and my magic had a hollowness to it which reminded me that I'd been using far more of it than I'd been replenishing.

I threw myself through the sky for a few hundred feet, shivers jarring my body as the arctic wind assaulted me before I headed back down to land in a street which was bigger and bit more brightly lit than those surrounding it.

I gazed around in satisfaction as I found myself in a bustling marketplace, the evening crowd mostly looking for food, drinks and entertainment, but I knew I'd be able to get everything else I needed here too.

I pushed my way between the packed bodies, the scent of cooking wafting up around me and the density of the crowd at least helping me feel a little warmer as the wind was blocked.

I found a vendor selling clothes and pointed to a simple black dress, made from thick wool and designed to combat the low temperatures. He started trying to haggle with me but I gave him a hard look and he quickly dropped the bullshit, agreeing to ten karmas. But as I reached for my coin purse, I found only a wooden button filling my pocket.

I stilled, hunting my other pockets and coming up empty. I remembered that button. There had been a woman with snakes for hair, she'd been telling me it was lucky and I'd been grinning because her snakes looked like they were dancing and I was off my fucking head. Had I bought the button? Or had she robbed me while I was blind drunk and distracted?

I cursed, tossing the button to the dirt and leaning over the wooden counter to snarl at the vendor in demand.

"Do you recognise me?" I asked him.

His shrewd gaze assessed me but he shook his head.

"I'm the Sky Witch," I said, irritated at his lack of realisation, waiting for the penny to drop but he simply snorted.

"The Sky Witch is said to be the most beautiful woman in all of Wrathbane, Stormfell and beyond – one look at her can ensnare the hearts of a thousand men. One taste of her cherry lips can cause those hearts to stop beating from the poison in her veins and yet any who took such a taste would die with a smile on their lips. I assume you're that girl from Madam Hulie's who she is touting about the place for fifty karmas a ride. I'll admit you have a somewhat symmetrical face but she should have paid more for that pink mop of a wig. Go try your con on someone less gullible."

He tried to shoo me away and I slammed my fist down on the counter furiously, reaching for his desires with my gifts and finding nothing but greed for money which I couldn't provide.

"I need that dress," I snarled but three more assholes appeared from the depths of the shop and the garment in question was whipped away as if it had never existed at all.

"No money, no gown. Don't make me call the royal guard."

I was tempted to let him call them, to have the guard confirm my identity and force him to comply, but if that happened then the story of me being found in this part of the city, soaked to the bone and reeking of shame would spread. I refused to let Dragor find out about this. And gutting the stall owner and his family wasn't exactly inconspicuous either.

"Here." Cayde knocked me aside, tossing ten fat, gold karmas to the merchant without so much as explaining how he'd found me again.

I bit my tongue on the protest I wanted to make as the dress was wrapped and handed to him because I needed to get out of these freezing clothes and accepting his help was beginning to look like my only simple way of doing so.

The merchant was all smiles again as he waved us away and I only cursed once as Cayde took my hand and began dragging me through the crush of bodies.

"You're coming to my room," he told me and I was shivering too hard to even care anymore.

"How did you find me?" I asked, my fingers tingling from the heat of his hand wrapped around them, that small point of warmth like a lifeline to my frozen bones.

"I know how to move in the shadows and how to get the answers I need. You might have been trying to hide yourself away but a face like yours draws attention even from under a hood. And Fae such as the ones living here have loose tongues in the face of gold."

"I meant why ," I replied because none of that was news to me – I'd utilised the same tactic plenty of times when looking for a target both in this land and the others. Money spoke and betrayal paid well.

"Dalia and Moraine were looking first. I simply decided to join the hunt – the wedding was a dull affair anyway," Cayde said, tugging me down the widening street and leading the way to an inn which stood on the corner, the large, grey building rising over four floors, its windows looking down on us.

"I'd have preferred them to find me."

"No shit."

He still hadn't answered my questions but my teeth were now chattering so badly that I couldn't summon the energy required to ask again.

We headed inside, passing a portly man whose narrowed eyes watched us from the door all the way to the stairs without comment.

The entrance hall was dimly lit with one lantern flickering morosely by the foot of the deep brown stairs which ascended into further darkness. A threadbare carpet in a pattern of red and blue covered the foyer and climbed the stairs too. The deep blue walls were coated in ugly oil paintings which seemed to be in a competition for the dullest subject matter; one of a tree stump, the next of an empty bowl, though I had to think the one of a lone napkin took the title.

Cayde said nothing, tugging me up the stairs behind him, my numb toes stubbing against more than one of the wooden steps as we climbed all the way to the fourth floor then headed to the room right at the end of the corridor.

He released me as we stepped inside, the door snapping shut behind us, the room only lit by the dying embers of the fire. A single bed took up almost all of the space though a patch of floor remained clear in front of the hearth, and an uncomfortable stool perched next to a wonky table beneath the window.

"Well, this is about as interesting as your personality," I drawled as I began to fight the straps of my leathers undone, the water and my frozen fingers making it harder than usual.

"And you're about as grateful as I expected you to be," Cayde replied in turn, throwing several logs on the fire and coaxing it back to life.

"I didn't ask you to come rescue me. I wasn't a damsel in distress. I was just a bitch on a path to destruction – which I would have thought suited you fine."

My jacket finally opened and I yanked it off, tossing it by my feet and beginning the battle with my belt next.

Cayde finished with the fire and kicked his boots off, dropping onto the bed and making himself comfortable with his fingers laced behind his head as he watched me struggling against my clothes.

"There's only one bed," I grunted.

"You didn't expect me to shell out for a second room, did you? Don't worry – you're small enough to fit there on the floor." He jerked his chin towards the wooden boards in front of the fire and I bit my tongue on a retort to that. I planned on kicking him out of the bed if there was only one but that could wait until I wasn't dripping all over the damn floor.

"You didn't have to dump me in that water barrel," I grumbled, shoving my pants down and forcing my boots off with them. I was left in my wet undergarments which were likely transparent anyway thanks to the water so I pulled them off too.

"I disagree," Cayde's eyes moved down my naked body slowly. "There's a washroom if you want privacy," he added, jerking his chin towards a door I hadn't noticed in the shadows beside the fire.

"Your timing with that information was spectacular," I deadpanned, turning my ass to him and stalking into the tiny room.

There was a bedpan on a stool which looked more precarious than the one by the window in the main room and a bowl of cold water next to a bar of waxy soap with about three square inches to turn around in.

I exhaled irritably then set to work scrubbing myself clean in the cold water, using the soap to remove the vomit from my hair and the blood from beneath my fingernails before dumping the cold water over my head to rinse it all off. A puddle formed on the floor, rolling towards the rear wall and I considered the lack of drain for a moment before grabbing the scratchy rag which appeared to be meant as a towel and quickly drying myself off.

The dress remained in the bedroom with Cayde so I was forced to return to him still as naked as the dawn.

My leathers and undergarments were gone along with the man in question, but my new dress was waiting on the bed.

I pulled it over my head, the material instantly proving itself too long for me while the neckline hung wide and low too. I caught a glimpse of myself in the windowpane, the reflection making me snort a laugh. If only Dragor could see me now, he'd truly know what he was missing.

I dropped down in front of the fire and tugged my knees up to my chest, letting the heat of the flames roll over me.

There were only so many ways I could internally berate myself for getting into this mess but I couldn't help but go over and over them, wondering how I might free myself from the promises I'd made.

The door sounded behind me and Cayde came to sit on the dusty floor beside me, a tray in his hands with two steaming bowls of vegetable soup and a pair of bread rolls. He placed them down between us and took a small jar of ointment from the tray.

"Let me see your leg," he said.

"It's fine." I made to grab my soup, but he took hold of my ankle and yanked so suddenly that I was knocked onto my back by the motion.

Cayde shoved the overlong material of my dress up to find the wound on my thigh from where I'd cut myself with my own damn dagger and I kicked him squarely in the jaw.

"Back off," I snapped, claiming a spoon as I made it upright again and pointed it at him in a threat.

"Seriously?" he asked, dark hair falling into his eyes as he massaged his jaw where I'd kicked him. "A spoon?"

"I could kill you with it in sixteen different ways without pausing for breath and you know it."

"Or you could just eat your fucking soup and act a little less deranged for once. Honestly, you've got more walls up than a Minotaur has in their labyrinth – it's exhausting."

"What do you want from me?" I asked, ignoring his assessment of my prickly nature because a pampered asshole like him could never even begin to understand what it was like to come up through the waifhouses, fighting every day to prove yourself while knowing deep down that nothing would ever be enough. I didn't fit in and I never would.

"Eat, let me tend to your leg, and I'll tell you."

"I'll tend to my own damn leg."

"Well I'm not spoon-feeding you."

By the stars, I hated him.

I glowered at him while hiking my dress up to reveal the slowly bleeding wound I'd managed to give myself on my upper thigh. It wasn't all that deep but my daggers were sharp as sin and the skin had taken a slice even through the protection of my leathers. I smeared the ointment over the wound, ignoring the sting of it as the yellowish substance clung to the injury, blood and all, stopping the persistent bleeding.

"Happy?" I asked, tossing the ointment aside.

"Not really, but at least you've stopped staining the upholstery."

I snorted a laugh then blinked at myself, cutting the sound of amusement short and looking into the fire resolutely.

Cayde picked up my bowl of soup and shoved it at me in clear demand.

"You're like some clucking old nurse maid," I chastised, taking the soup and starting on it. It was flavoursome and hearty, nothing like the finery they enjoyed in the palace, but I preferred simple, nutritional fare like this anyway.

"I know you hate me because of our rivalry," Cayde began, earning a grunt of agreement from me. "And honestly, I hate you too, though not for all the reasons you cling to. I couldn't give a fuck if your birth was the product of a rooster from Pyros sticking its cock into a rat from Avanis and you hatched from an egg as a result wearing a crown of ice. You put too much weight on that shit. You think it's all everyone sees when they look at you."

"Bullshit," I replied. "I've worked damn hard to make certain that the last thing people see when they look at me is my weak blood."

"You want them to see the cruelty, the carnage, the bloodshed, the face – and yeah, sweetheart, I've noticed the face and the body and every fucking inch of you so don't go glaring at me like you weren't perfectly aware of it. You wear what you are like a shield and you trap the hearts of Fae in your grasp like they're toys to place in a glass jar and shake whenever the mood strikes you."

"I have no interest in capturing hearts," I sneered.

Cayde placed his own bowl of soup aside and leaned in closer to me, his eyes full of dark secrets which I was growing all too curious to unravel. "Liar, liar," he breathed.

"Are you claiming I've stolen yours?" I asked, not flinching from this game, turning my head so that the distance between us fell away and the depths of his honey brown eyes were all I could see.

"You don't even know how perfect you are," he replied, the words striking against that bruised and shattered lump in my chest which Prince Dragor had so swiftly crushed. "But the more I watch you, the more I see it. You are precisely what I've been looking for, Vesper."

My name on his lips coiled around me, tying me in knots and making my pulse race for all the wrong reasons.

He was looking at me like he was looking at me . And I wasn't certain if I had ever been seen so plainly in all of my life.

"Get to the point, Cayde," I said, though my words held less bite than they should have.

"The point…" he breathed a laugh, reaching out to brush a lock of my pale pink hair back over my shoulder. "The point is that I have come to realise your weakness, Vesper…"

That name. That fucking name which I had as close to discarded as possible. The one they had given me in the waifhouse for no reason beyond it being the next name on the list the Reapers had given the homes for the stray children who were born to the wrong nation and torn from their mothers' arms so that they could be raised among their own kind. Its meaning had always seemed like an odd twist of fate to me – the evening star or evening prayer, Venus at sunset – the name of the planet most associated with love offered out to me like a joke because if there was one thing I had never been, it was loved.

"I have no weaknesses," I countered because this was war even if it was of the kind I hadn't fought before. He was hunting for my blind spot, searching to take me down, and I couldn't allow him to discover it.

Cayde smiled, moving so close that I could taste him on the air, that there was nothing at all beyond him and me and I was the fucking fool flying too close to the sun.

"He doesn't deserve your pain, Vesper. He certainly doesn't deserve your loyalty," those rough words were spoken so close that they brushed across my lips, the offer there for me to take, the wall Dragor had forced me to construct crumbling with every moment when I refused to back away.

"I would never betray my kingdom," I growled, though it was more of a purr.

I didn't dare reach out to taste his desire, didn't know what I would do if I found it wasn't what I thought it was. Or worse, if it was exactly as I suspected.

"I'm not asking you to betray your loyalty to Stormfell," Cayde said, his hand cupping my cheek, fingers whispering into my hair. "I'm just asking if you're his property? I want to know if I'm crossing a line you don't want crossed – or if it's one Prince Dragor scrawled around you regardless of your own desires. Because I'm willing to defy that command if the award is your heart, Vesper. I think that would be a prize well worth claiming for my own."

My breath stalled in my lungs, my hurt, my devotion, everything I'd done to prove myself worthy all coming to this. Dragor wanted me just as I had secretly wished he would for far longer than I would have liked to admit. But he only wanted to own me like every other powerful bastard I had ever known. Why had I thought him better than that? Why had I held him to some standard above that of the rest of the aristocrats I despised so much? He wasn't better than them in that regard. He was just as ruthlessly cold and power-hungry as all the rest.

But as I looked into Cayde's tempestuous gaze, I found a hunger there which was for something far greater than the petty power of men. He wanted me, just as I was, broken edges and shattered pieces included. I didn't know why and truthfully, I didn't care either. Because I needed to be wanted more than I cared to admit to myself and if the cost of that want was treason, then perhaps the taste of him would be my death sentence. But I was okay with that.

I leaned forward and took Cayde's mouth captive with my own, the molten heat of him invigorating against my still chilled flesh.

Any control he'd been clinging to slipped at the press of my lips to his and he groaned hungrily, his hands shifting to my waist as he dragged me onto his lap.

"Say it," he growled against my lips. "Tell me it's me, Vesper. Spill your pretty heart and tell me that I'm the one you want bringing you to ruin. I want to hear you say it, I want you to remember the words whenever you think of this and know that your destruction was entirely what you desired."

My pulse thundered at the thought of doing as he was commanding, of crossing this line wholly and completely and breaking my word to my prince. But if there was one thing I knew about warfare, it was that no rules applied to the victorious. If I didn't want to allow Dragor to claim victory over me then I needed to launch my own battle. I needed to claim my own conquest and I didn't care if there was a cost to doing so because he'd struck at me first and I was nothing if not a creature built for war.

"Make me a traitor, Cayde," I demanded, my fingers clasping the nape of his neck, tangling in the strands of dark hair there, nails raking against his skin. "You're the damnation I choose for myself and if the stars will see me ruined for it then make sure it's fucking worth it."

Cayde smiled against my mouth, lunging forward and sinking his tongue between my lips as my back collided with the wooden floor. He knotted his fingers through mine, pinning my hand to the floor above my head and driving his weight down on top of me as he kissed me so deeply that my every inhale was his exhale, his sighs my moans.

The thick ridge of his cock ground against my clit though his battle leathers and the rough wool of my ill-fitting dress and I moaned louder, my spine arching against the hard floor, my gifts spilling free of my skin and lacing the room in sin.

His lust stoked the wild tempest of my power, the first tendrils of it sinking beneath my flesh before a rush of magic started to spill from his body into mine. Cayde's desires were a heady concoction, almost making me drunk again with the sensation of his flesh against mine only intensifying everything I felt from him.

Flashes of each and every way he wanted to fuck me flickered through my mind, his imagination only sparking my own desire as I caught a glimpse of each position, each fantasy. He was hungry for more than me, seeking power and recognition, bloodshed and honour – a beast so like myself that I couldn't believe I hadn't realised how potent a cocktail the two of us might be together. We were one and the same, our wants as in line as our lust and as a vision of me riding him hit me with a powerful wave of longing, I shoved him back, rolling us so that he was beneath me instead, bringing that fantasy to life.

Cayde pushed up onto his elbows as I tugged the ugly dress from my body, a groan of utter masculine need rolling up the back of his throat as I ran my hands over my breasts, toying with my nipples.

His hands gripped my ass, squeezing hard, rocking me so that my clit ground down over his cock, the rough leather of his pants a brutal, punishing pleasure.

"I should have known you'd be like this," he panted, rocking me over him again while I tugged at the straps of his leathers, wanting to reveal his body.

"Like what?" I panted, yanking the buckles apart and finally bearing the hard planes of his chest for my exploration.

"You need it, don't you? This…us…" his words trailed off as I shoved his pants down, my hand wrapping around the length of his cock and pumping it slowly.

Cayde watched me as I began to work him, my fingers twisting over the head of his cock while I rolled my tongue up the length of my other thumb then smeared the saliva over him next.

His muscles bunched as he looked at me, his wants growing feral, every soft intention turning to rough abandon and I gasped in delight when he finally cracked and lunged for me.

Cayde's mouth collided with mine once more, his hands tightening in their grip on my ass as he shoved to his feet, lifting me easily in his powerful arms.

My spine hit the wall beside the mantlepiece, his hips pinning me there as I kissed him deeper, his cock driving between my thighs and yet still not filling me.

"Fuck me," I commanded as he shrugged his leathers off with a roll of his shoulders and the sound of his pants falling to his ankles followed.

"I will, sweetheart. In every way I can think of."

His desire spiked with those words, the brutal demand for power merging with the carnal need for my body to bow to his.

A low growl rolled through him, his hands rough as they moved over my body, exploring every curve, his lust building to a level of desperation which had my breaths heaving in my chest.

I broke our kiss, looking at him, my hand skimming the sharp line of his jaw as I took in the savagery of him, so different to the superiority of the prince, so much better suited to the ragged truth of my soul.

He jerked his gaze from mine, looking over his shoulder to the bed and hauling me to it. He dropped me onto the thin mattress, looking down at me while kicking the last of his clothes off, revealing a body cut with hard muscle, decorated with the scars of a warrior.

I leaned back, my hands moving over my flesh seductively, toying with the heaviness of my breasts, tugging at my nipples and drawing a soft moan from my own lips.

He watched me as I slid a hand down my navel and between my thighs, but his restraint cracked before I could make any real show for him.

Cayde moved over my legs, his hungry gaze drinking in every curve of my flesh before he took hold of my hips and flipped me over.

With a sharp yank he tugged my knees higher, parting my thighs and lifting my ass. I fisted the sheets, need devouring me until Cayde drove his cock straight into my soaking cunt.

I cried out as he took hold of my hips, burying himself to the hilt and groaning in raw delight.

"By the love of Taurus, you're so fucking tight," he hissed through his teeth.

"Don't be soft with me now, Cayde," I growled, the delay making my heart riot in my chest, my need for release consuming me.

This was it. I had broken my vow to my prince. Committed treason against him for all intents and purposes. And yet the only thing I felt with Cayde's cock deep inside me was the overriding sense of freedom that came with claiming some part of my fate for my own.

His desires were like a flood of need consuming me, his want for me somehow enrapturing his want for all else, every deep and dark desire of his heart colliding and becoming one. I was the key to everything he wanted and the truth of that unravelled an aching, secret piece of me which I had never before dared to expose.

Cayde drew back slowly, the slide of his cock making me groan with need as I arched my spine further, knotting my fingers deeper within his sheets.

His thrust back into me stole my breath but this time he didn't pause, gripping my ass tightly, as he fucked me hard and rough, driving in and out with furious pumps of his hips which made me curse and cry out.

Sex was a rush which always consumed me, the truth of what I was relishing in the slap of flesh against flesh, the fullness of my cunt, the rasp of my skin against the sheets. My gifts stoked the pleasure in both of us, making it consume every piece of our bodies, each drive of our hips calling out to the promise of euphoria.

He was rough and furious in his claiming of me and I was just as feral and ferocious in my own right, the two of us this writhing, pounding collision of need.

I cursed as my body rushed closer to the edge and he fucked me harder, hissing commands for me to give in, to come for him and take all he had to give. My cry of release was buried into the sheets and Cayde swore loudly as my pussy tightened around him, forcing him to come too.

He slammed into me one final time, coming inside me, his fingers biting into my hips so brutally that I knew he was leaving bruises behind.

His weight fell over me and we collapsed, panting onto the sheets, still tangled in each other.

"You…that…," he rasped, finding the energy to roll onto his back beside me and I turned my head to look at him through knotted strands of pink.

"I know," I replied, not even pretending I wasn't smug as shit about it. "Welcome to your ruin," I taunted, and he breathed a ragged laugh.

"If that is what destruction tastes like, I'll gladly become a glutton for your poison."

I smiled to myself, letting my eyes fall closed with thoughts of Cayde running circles in my mind, the regret or guilt never surfacing because that hadn't felt like treason to me. It had felt like claiming my own destiny and I refused to be sorry for it. Maybe that meant I was damned, but as I let sleep have me, I had to admit that damnation didn't feel so very bad.