Chapter 8

Moaning, she whips her head to the side, dashing a burst of black hair across the equally inky sheets, exposing the side of her petite face—her skin so pale it’s almost translucent. Eyes closed, her pretty pink lips spill sharp moans, filling the poky room that’s dense with the smell of sex, sweat, and spirits.

Her gossamer shift is bunched around her waist, the globes of her thick ass spread in my kneading hands, her cunt so silky smooth my balls tighten with every deep thrust.

“You like that, pretty girl?” I grind between tight breaths. “You like the way I fuck you?”

“Yes …” The word rips free with a keening wail, and she wriggles—pulling at the binds keeping her wrists bound behind her back. A string of sweet, garbled pleas tumble out of her painted lips. “Please untie me. I want to come.”

When I don’t oblige, she arches her spine a little more, rolling back to meet every brutal thrust, making her ass slam against my thighs.

I groan, wet my thumb, and dance it around the taut, pink, puckered ring that’s so beautifully exposed. She hisses, and the mewl she makes when I fill her with the thick digit spears straight to my cock.

Her pussy clamps down around me—a fluttered warning that makes me snarl.

“Ah ah—” I pull out and slap her flushed entrance. “Not yet.”

She whimpers, rocking back, spreading herself so much more—red, swollen, and glistening.

A gaping invitation.

I fist my cock as the door shoves open, rusted hinges creaking. A broad-shouldered man draped in black fills the entry.

The woman squeals, and I still. Hear him sniff. Sense his stare grating across the cooped and craggy surrounds.

Inviting himself in, he shuts the door and leans against the wall near the bedside table that’s sporting a small stack of silver coins and a blazing candelabra—the only source of light in this two-bit room.

He knocks back his hood and stark, silver eyes attack me.

“High M-Mas—”

Kicking my hips forward, I snip the woman’s words as I punch my iron length back into her warm, silky depths, groaning with every sunken inch.

Her high-pitched gasp is a mix of delirium and mortification, and she tries to edge across the rumpled sheets.

She doesn’t get far—tugged back so her ass is nice and snug against my thighs. I set my hand between her shoulder blades and push her deep into the straw-stuffed mattress, watching her cheeks flare as red as her ravaged pussy. “No need to get up and bow, beautiful. You’re already on your knees.”

Rhordyn crosses his arms, stare unwavering, even as the woman watches him with a hungry, wide-eyed wonder that seems to ignite her wet, fluttering cunt.

She likes being watched.

Guess we’ll give him a show. Payback for stalking in here without a single fucking knock.

I smirk, pull back, and shove deep.

Hold his crucifying stare.

“I thought I cut you off.” His deep voice batters the sultry atmosphere.

My thoughts sway to the buffet bench pushed against the wall behind me; to the bottle of whiskey that’s almost empty, unlike the empty tumbler beside it.

I don’t bother to look guilty as I say, “Stole a silver candlestick on my way out the back door. Fetched a pretty price.”

“And you couldn’t think of anything else to spend it on but whiskey and whores?”

I shrug, glancing down, seeing my sweat-slicked abs tense with every brutal shove. “I’m not particularly creative,” I hiss through clenched teeth.

“Certainly not when you don’t try.”

“On the contrary. I think I’m trying.” I lean forward, lips brushing the shell of the woman’s ear as I murmur, “Wouldn’t you say?”

She releases a strangled moan.

With a low chuff that tastes like whiskey and bad decisions, I fist the sheer, black fabric of her shift, pulling her up until she’s flush against me, bared for Rhordyn with smudged rouge and smoky eyes that are heavy hooded, brazenly suggestive. She holds his gaze even as he holds mine with a detached apathy that only spurs me on.

I pinch the frilly neckline, pulling it down, spilling her full breasts that bounce every time I thrust into her. With a coarse moan, she tips her head back into the crook of my neck as I knead the heavy mounds until her nipples are pebbled.

I’m not much of a tit man, but perhaps Rhordyn is. Perhaps he likes seeing her bound and fucked and hopeless—though I doubt it.

Perhaps that sort of depravity is only preserved for my particular brand of fucked up.

I trail my hand between her legs, using my fingers to spread her further as I shove my cock deep . I don’t so much as graze her clit for a few hard thrusts, swirling my middle digit around her slick, pouty nub before her body locks up. Cunt tightening like a clenched fist, she releases a melody of short, high-pitched wails every time I hammer into her.

It’s those sounds that knock me over my own edge and send a vicious, ravenous zap straight down the length of me.

I pull out, push her onto the mattress, and pump my release all over her bare, flushed ass, painting it in ropes of white.

I’m still coming down as the shame hits like a punch to the gut. That deep, disgusted sort that always makes me want to hurl.

Every fucking time.

I snatch my pants off the chipped bedpost and step into them, whipping them up and fastening the buttons before I roll the woman—can’t remember her name, though I doubt I bothered to ask—onto her side.

She’s smiling at me, her dreamy stare betraying only small slits of her sea-green eyes. I unbind her wrists, toss the length of rope on the bed, then dash the hair out of my face and spin toward the buffet lining the back wall.

“Your coin is on the nightstand,” I mutter, uncorking the bottle with a brutal pop.

Shuffling sounds ensue—her gathering herself and slipping off the bed. The soft pad of her bare feet against the rough, wooden floorboards before the tink of coins being slid off the nightstand.

More shuffling, then, “High Master.”

Her voice is more demure now that I’m not balls deep inside her, perhaps because she’s come down from her own high and is now painfully aware of our audience. I don’t doubt she’s curtseying, though it seems a bit odd after he just watched her come all over my cock.

More hurried footsteps, then the door snicks shut.

Silence.

The sort that grates against your bones and makes your heart race.

I fill my glass with a glug of whiskey that empties the bottle, then toss it back with a sharp hiss as it bites a blazing trail down my throat.

I slam the glass back on the buffet. “What do you want, Rhordyn?”

“You don’t want to wash your hands before we chat?”

My smile is wolfish. “She was pretty clean, actually.”

He releases a low grunt. “I need you to come home.”

Wearing a tight frown, I turn a little, passing him a sideways glance.

“Castle Noir,” he clarifies, stare unwavering.

“Hard pass. You know I hate that fucking place.”

Gripping the empty bottle by the neck, I stride toward the door, grab the brass handle, and pull it open. I step out into the dingy hallway that’s lit like the rooms in this shithole—with only a few candelabras bolted to the walls, each with short, stumpy candles spilling long tears of wax over the edge of the drip pans.

I’m three steps down the runner that smells too damp not to be a health risk before Rhordyn’s voice batters me from behind.

“I have a ward. A child no older than three. The only survivor of a Vruk attack that took her entire family.”

The words bolt me in place. Bolt my heart to the back of its cage.

Ahead, one of the doors creaks open, and a woman pops her head out, eyes widening as she takes in the presence that’s now an electric force at my back.

Her face blanches, and she shuts the door so fast I can already picture the look on Rhordyn’s face before I even turn.

Deadly.

Destructive.

Like something is rooting beneath the surface of his skin, keening for release. His eyes are polished obsidian, stare stuck to the woman’s door like he’s trying to see through the grain.

I regret leaving the room without my dagger strapped to my calf.

I lift my hands. “I don’t know what’s happening, Rhor, but the people here are good.”

“Get back in the room,” he barks, and I do, corralled by him as he slams the door shut behind us. Then he’s searching the free-standing wardrobe, punching through my sparse belongings before he stalks toward the back wall and yanks the window wide, filling the space with an icy blow that ruffles the frayed curtains.

I toss the empty bottle on the bed and reach for my top, fumbling with the buttons, stare stuck to the back of his head. “How did a child survive a Vruk attack?”

He doesn’t answer, head poked out the window as he scans the street below that’s lit by tree-tall lanterns, bathing this village in an illuminated safety net.

“Rhor.”

He slams the window closed, but continues searching through the frosted panes. “She’s Aeshlian. Aravyn’s child. She’s … got a black mark on her shoulder that doesn’t look natural.”

Light will bloom from sky and soil,

Skin tarnished by the brand of death …

My knees buckle, hand whipping out to grip the bed post that feels too brittle as all the blood drains from my face.

Rhordyn spins, spearing me with a stare that roots through my insides. He must see the turmoil I’m grappling with silently—the need for acknowledgement. Because it can’t be true.

It can’t.

His grim silence, his terse nod—they flay me down the middle.

I shuffle back a step and fall onto the bed, half sitting. “How did you stumble upon the frayed thread that unraveled my entire species?”

“Fate.”

The single word coupled with the look in his eyes is bone crushing, like deep rendered agony that’s trying to break past the silver bars of his composure.

My heart sinks.

“You mean—”

“Yes.”

A beat passes before he clears his throat, moving toward the upholstered chair in the corner of the room that’s smudged with an abstract collection of stains. He unbuckles the sheath around his chest, resting his sword against the wall before he sits heavily—like a man who’s got the weight of the world lumped upon his shoulders.

“None of this is her fault.” He’s looking at the floor when he says it, though that somehow makes the hit land harder.

“I know.” The acknowledgment is shoved past the pit in my throat that won’t fuck off. A swell of hurt sown from a thousand lost lives.

Some I knew. Loved. Didn’t get near enough time with.

An entire species already struggling to claw itself back from the brink of extinction decimated by the blow of Maars’s chisel when he carved those words to stone. When he singled us out as the bearer of a single shadow seed that would call upon the end of the world.

He’s to blame.

The Gods are to blame.

I stand and cast my gaze out the window toward the flaming street lights, threading my fingers together behind my head. I draw a breath, hold it in my cheeks, and blow it out. “Who else knows?”

“About the mark?”

“Yes.”

“Mersi. That’s it.”

I drop my hands and look at him. “The cook?”

His head is still hung between his shoulders, gaze punched at the floor. “Correct. She’s caring for the child.”

“Then why do you need me?”

“I don’t.” He spears me with a stare. “She does.”

I frown. “I don’t understand. You just said—”

“According to Mersi, the girl’s not well. She refuses to step into the sun, even though I have her housed in the northern tower that gets the most of it. She hides. She won’t leave the castle walls or even touch the grass.” He pauses. “She’s slowly destroying herself.”

The words are all sharp edges honed enough to hack me open.

I release a shuddered breath as realization hits. “You want me to—”

“Lend her your light, yes. I refuse to be involved. At all. But you can be the family she lost and coax her back into the sun. Give her a chance at life. “

I look down at my feet and choke on the swell of self-disgust. That feeling that I am not worthy enough for anyone but my feasting demons. “I have very little to give, Rhordyn. You know that.”

All too well.

He doesn’t answer, but his silence roars.

I clear my throat, glance around the room. “Look at this,” I say, dashing my hand at the bed. Myself. “Look at me.”

“I am.”

I sigh deep, pace … stop. Peer out the window again, then squeeze my eyes shut. Finally, I nod—small and slow and so fucking self-serving it makes me sick. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

A beat of silence, as if he were expecting a different answer. “There will be rules. She won’t be exposed to any of this shit,” he says, gesturing around the space.

“Got it.”

“Good.” He shoves to his feet, snatches his sword, and straps the sheath across his chest. “Gather your stuff. I’ll wait for you downstairs.” Then he’s stalking toward the door in a flutter of hardy black.

“What sort of life am I giving her, Rhordyn?” He pauses with his hand wrapped around the doorknob, swallowing it whole. “You and I both know where this ends.”

The air stiffens so much it’s hard to pull breath. When he looks at me over his shoulder, there’s war in his eyes.

Cold, bloody, brutal war.

“Every year, every hour, every breath … it’s something.”

He jerks the door open and stalks out, slamming it shut behind him.