32. Twenty-Nine

I plunged my head into a bucket of cold water and held it there. Underwater, the constant thrumming of drums was muffled, the electric current in the air bearable.

They'd given me a fur garment to wear around my waist. Coyote fur, maybe. I could have asked, but my voice was still such a foreign, scratchy thing. I had thanked the witch and the empress quietly, screamed, and that was it. No more words. Months of forced silence had taught me the value of words.

When I came up from the water, the world was an assault on my senses. Drums pounded, a second heartbeat in my chest next to the first. The rocky ground trembled with the rhythm of hundreds of dancing feet. Cloying, hot air licked water droplets from my cheeks. The eclipse was in full effect, the sun nothing but a thin coronet against the silver moon.

Water slid down my spine, pooling in the small of my back. The weight of eyes settled between my shoulders. I didn't need to turn around to know they were bruise blue.

My fingers tightened on the edges of the wooden barrel until my knuckles ached. "What," I said, my voice thin and scratchy, "do you want?"

"I recall asking you the same question not so very long ago."

I turned around, still gripping the barrel as if I needed it to hold me up. Ruith waited at the entrance to the small, rocky alcove that'd become my reprieve from the Spine Tribe's celebration of the eclipse. Beyond, bodies were wrapped together in an orgiastic offering to their gods of sun and moon. If I turned my head, I would see human and animal shapes meld together as one in a wild dance as old as time itself. The air was heavy, electric charged, full of life magic, sex magic, blood magic.

Ruith stood tall, sure as ever. Probably waiting for me to fall to my knees. There was a part of me that wanted to.

I resisted it with everything I had. "I didn't have a voice then."

Ruith's eyes dropped from my face. I was acutely aware of water droplets sliding down my chest.

"And now that you do?" he asked.

I shifted my posture, leaning back to catch the firelight coming from the oil lamp hanging nearby. "I want the same thing I've wanted for weeks."

"If you say you want me, I won't believe you."

I felt myself smile, though I wasn't the least bit amused or happy. "No?"

I pushed away from the barrel, coming to stand before him. He was taller than me, my nose even with his chin, but I felt taller. Whether it was the magic, or the absence of the collar, or the eclipse itself, I felt like I was ten feet tall.

We circled each other like two fighters sizing each other up, like lovers in a dance, like two falling stars caught in an infernal embrace.

"Should I kneel? Ask how I should serve you? Would that make your cock hard for me?"

His eyes narrowed. "You didn't want me before."

"I didn't know you were a king, and you didn't know I had a voice."

Ruith rolled his eyes in disbelief. "You are not that sort of man. Fucking for status is beneath you."

"You have no idea what's been beneath me, or how far I'll go to get what I want."

"And I'm supposed to believe that's me?" he scoffed. "After I beat you? Let you be stripped and abused?"

I closed the distance, leaving only a sliver of hot air between us. "I don't give a fuck what you believe, and you don't give a fuck if I want you. I am still your slave. Order me to my knees. Order me to suck your cock and I'll have no choice but to do it or be punished."

Ruith's eyes narrowed. "There is a part of you that believes punishment is its own reward."

He wasn't wrong. Pain, humiliation, degradation… I didn't enjoy those things, but I couldn't deny that I didn't hate what came after. The swift vengeance. The regret. The attention.

His hand shot out and closed around my neck, strangling a gasp out of me. I waited for him to choke off the air, but his palm just rested hot and heavy over my throat. His thumb stroked gently over one of the many scabs dotting my neck, places where the pins and needles of the collar had bitten into me. "You've been toying with me, making me want you."

"I have made myself indispensable to you," I whispered, my voice raw. "I know your secrets now. I know everything about you, Ruith. You need me."

"A man can discard what he needs and find a substitute. You're not irreplaceable."

"It is much more difficult to discard what you want than what you need."

His pupils were wide, his nostrils flaring. I had won this battle, even if the war was still raging in his head. He was going to give in. His body had given in five minutes ago when he was still standing in the archway, watching me clean the blood from my face. It was his clever mind that was so resistant. Always calculating and scheming. Always so in control.

Not anymore.

Now he was mine.

His fingers flexed around my throat. "You think yourself so clever. You're not. Your plan has a glaring weakness."

"Does it? Tell me."

"Say I do fuck you. I expect I'll be bored quickly and move on."

"You won't," I promised.

"I've had high-born men before. They all fuck the same. That's all you are to me. Just another man."

I searched his face. "Who are you trying to convince? Me or you?"

"I'm a fucking king. I could have anyone I want." He was breathless, panting as he made himself say it.

"But you'll never have me. Not unless I let you. Even if you take me by force, you'll be unsatisfied." I put a hand on his chest. Beneath my fingers, his heart pounded like the drums in the courtyard: wild and strong. "Because you don't just want to fuck me. You want me to submit. You crave it. I've given you a taste of a drug you didn't know existed, and now you want more."

His other hand closed in my hair, yanking my head back. "You are the most defiant slave I have ever owned."

My jaw flexed even as my eyes watered. "I may be your slave, but you will never own me."

"We'll see," he said and roughly pulled my body against his.

Ruith's mouth closed over mine. It wasn't a kiss. I'd shared hundreds of kisses with dozens of men, and not one of them had ever been so vicious, so demanding. This was a war waged with tongue and teeth.

We clashed violently, coming together so hard that it made my jaw ache. He tried to pry my lips apart with his tongue, squeezing my jaw. I bit his invading tongue and held it prisoner, sucking it between my teeth. His hand slid down my back, seizing a handful of my ass, and I raked my nails over his shoulders. He slid his knee forward, pushing my legs apart. I clutched at him and threw myself into his arms, letting him bear the whole weight of me. Ruith pushed me away. My back slammed into the rough stone wall, pain reverberating up my spine, but he was on top of me in a second. Ruith swallowed my grunt of pain, taking advantage of the momentary weakness. His tongue plundered my mouth, unrestrained. He thought he had the upper hand, not realizing I had let him have every inch of his advance.

Leather clad hips thrust against me, the outline of his hard cock pressing against mine. Ruith pushed my chin back with the heel of his palm, dropping his lips to my neck while we rutted against each other through our clothes. I cried out as he closed his lips over one of the tender wounds from the collar. Fingers forced their way between my teeth, gagging the sounds. I bit down briefly, then sucked, sliding my tongue teasingly over each fingertip.

Ruith pulled us away from the wall with a growl and we went to the ground with me landing on my back. There was a loud crash, the sound of ceramic being smashed apart as we knocked over the oil lamp. Oil spilled out, catching fire in a semi-circle around us while we wrestled for position. I wasn't trying to throw him off me so much as to give him the fight he craved. I resisted, but only just enough to make him sweat, to make him ache for it. My ankles stayed crossed, closed tightly around his lower back. That didn't make it easy for him to wrench the fur free of my body, but he was strong and resourceful. When he couldn't get it, he ripped the fur in half with his bare hands to get to me. I kicked and clawed. My fingers caught on the lacing of his pants, and I yanked. He growled and let me go long enough to pull them down to his thighs, exposing his body to the night.

I cursed as he managed to get both my hands together and pin them over my head. In the same breath, his fingers pawed at the oil left in the broken lamp and went probing between my legs. I squeezed tight, denying him what he wanted.

Teeth on my neck, breath in my ear, his heart pounding against mine through inconsequential layers of skin and bone. "Open for me. Let me have you."

"Admit you need me," I retaliated.

He went utterly still, the fire flashing in his eyes. His throat bobbed. "I need you."

The words came out so softly, the way a lover would say them. So convincing. I almost wanted to believe him.

"How do you need me?" My voice was so hoarse, my throat sore from the effort of speaking so much after such a long silence. "As a master needs a slave? As a king needs a servant?"

It wasn't a fair question. I knew this was nothing, that we were nothing. This sex was just the culmination of weeks of silent war, an outlet for the thousand words I could never say, and that he would never hear. It wasn't right to ask him to lie.

He kissed me then, too tenderly, too gently. "Like the moon needs the sun."

My throat was suddenly even tighter than before. I turned my face away and licked the taste of him from my lips. "Fuck me like it then."

I thought when it finally happened, it would be like the kiss, like our first meeting. It should have been rough and spiteful, selfish. That would have been easier. I could have lived with that.

Instead, when he breached my body with a single finger, it was so painstakingly gentle that I hated him even more for it. I chewed my lip and turned my face away, wishing I had rolled onto my belly to let him mount me like we were dogs. This lover"s embrace was too much. The heat of his breath on my neck, the slow slide of his mouth over the damp muscle of my chest… It was unbearable. Too close to something real.

His lips closed over the tender flesh of my nipple and my back arched against my will, seeking more. I tried to shut it down, to tell myself I didn't want this, but that, too, was a lie. I did. Just as he craved my submission, there was a part of me that sought to give it, even if uneasily.

I let my teeth clamp down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. "Fuck me."

"That is what I'm trying to do."

I opened my eyes, glaring in the low light. "With something other than your fingers. Or do you not know how to do it?"

"I know how to do it."

"Really? Because I'm starting to believe you don't."

He growled. Strong hands found my hips, scooped me up like I was nothing, flipped me over. "And I'm starting to believe I liked you better with the collar on."

I let out a breath, let my head fall forward into the cool dirt, let my hips cant upwards and knees fall apart. This was easier. It was better if we didn't have to look at one another, the way a slave was supposed to be taken.

I need you like the moon needs the sun.

What did that even mean? The moon was bright enough on its own, powerful enough to overcome the sun on days like today during the eclipse. What use did the moon have for the sun? To reflect his light? To follow? To chase?

I pushed the words away. They were easy words, spoken in a moment of passion to get what he wanted. Nothing more.

And then there were lips on my back, a tongue sliding down my spine, warm hands on my shoulders, on my hips, pushing me apart. I'd seen the way elves fucked their slaves, and it wasn't with such reverent touches. It wasn't like this.

I let my head rest on fists. "Well?"

Fingers closed in my hair. "You really are an insolent bastard."

Before I could make a retort, he was pressing into my body like he belonged there. All the air went out of my lungs, as if I needed to expel it to make room for him. But it wasn't just me that breathed out. The whole world seemed to exhale, the drums, the dancing, the flickering of the fire all halting in place as we came together. Even the moon paused in its trek, briefly blocking out the sun.

I opened my mouth, and though I had regained my voice, no sound came out. There was no right sound for this moment, nothing but the soft exaltation of breath, the feel of silken skin sliding into the place it was always meant to be.

He sank into me in one glorious movement of body into body, our collision finally complete. I thought then I might be able to breathe again until warm lips pressed to the nape of my neck.

"Don't," I whispered, almost a whine. "Don't kiss me like that."

"Then how should I kiss you?"

"You shouldn't. At all."

Ruith's arm wrapped around my shoulders, and I was pulled tight against him, my back against his front. He forced me to turn my head. "I'm your king. I'll kiss you how I please." And there were those lips again, taking what they wanted without apology.

I wanted us to fuck like animals: violent, fast, and painful. I wanted it to hurt enough that I'd remember we were enemies, and this was not the culmination of some deep emotional connection. It was a contest of dominance, of power and strength.

That wasn't how he did it. He fucked me with long, deep rolls of his hips into me, like he had all the patience in the world for it, like we were old lovers. Like he knew me.

Like he owned me.

One hand wrapped around my throat and the other curled around my waist, guiding the pace. I tried to rock back against him to speed him along, but he simply adjusted the angle and drive of his body so I couldn't. I hated that I loved the way he fucked me. Hated that those long, deep thrusts were slowly taking me apart, hated that I found his name on my lips so soon after getting my voice back.

"Ruith." I spoke his name, not his title, giving him no more power over me than I had over him. If he cared or noticed, he didn't show it. "More."

Teeth nipped at my bottom lip. "Will you ever be satisfied?"

"Never," I said, but it wasn't true. This was satisfying, familiar, comforting even. I was a thousand miles away from home, but even here, men fucked and there was a comfort in that familiarity, even if the reasoning was something less comforting. The pleasure was the same, perhaps greater because it meant something more than an empty fuck to pass the time.

The rhythm quickened, urgency building.

I closed a fist around my cock, moving it in time with the way he drove into me. "Give it to me," I demanded.

He replied, breathless, "Take it."

I fought it, even though I wanted it. Had never wanted anything as badly as I wanted… Not just pleasure. It was control. That was what this was about, after all. He had to come first. I had to win, even at this game.

I stilled my hand, my body throbbing with need for a climax that I denied myself while he drove readily towards his. If he knew, then he didn't care. He let me roll my body back to meet him, let himself get lost in the pleasure I was ready to force from him. He cursed in his native tongue, his pace growing more and more determined, enough that I didn't know if I'd be able to hold back.

"Ruith," I breathed, "I can't…I don't want to…"

"Liar," came his snarling voice, and his hand closed around my cock, giving firm, kneading strokes.

Twisting, I tried to pull free, but it was too late. I was already spilling in his fist, angry curses pried from my lips, his name among them. I tried to find some solace in the stuttering movements of his hips and the way he choked out my name against my ear, but I was too caught in my own release to care that he was coming too.

When, at last, he stilled, breaths harsh and hot against my sweat damp skin, I immediately pulled away. New heat touched my cheeks at the wet spill down my thighs. I tried not to notice how much I liked it as I fought to cover myself with the torn coyote skin.

"Elindir." He was still breathless.

I spared him a glance over my shoulder. He looked so beautifully wrecked. It sent a small pang of guilt rippling through my chest. I pushed it down.

He stared at the ground and ran his fingers through his hair. "Back at the camp, I lied to you. I…You are…That was…" He blew out a slow breath before he managed, "…satisfactory."

I said nothing. I had no more words to spare for him.