Текст книги "Queen of rot and pain"

Автор книги: Liv Zander

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Chapter 4

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Ada

Paralyzed, I stood on the bridge, eyes hesitantly drifting from the white patches of bone to the dais, and up from there. Enosh oversaw the chamber from his throne, chilling the Pale Court with the aura of his cold presence.

The phantom beat of my heart pounded in my ears, triggering the impulse to run. More powerful was the instinct to go to him—an innate compulsion rooted in my core, which pushed me toward him, no matter how my mind screamed its warning.

Come to your master.

His command echoed within me, quickening my steps as I crossed the bridge, even as my fingertips curled into my palm. Would he ask me to my knees and plunder my mouth? Turn me around and fuck my arse until I tore, then pull out and spread his seed on my face? On the wounds beneath my navel? I dreaded that he would do all those things and worse...

Dreaded more that he would do none.

Ascending the dais was nothing but a blur of gutting trepidation and unbearable longing, of knowingly walking into trouble and embracing it for the sake of his body heat.

“That is close enough, little one.” He regarded the way I came to a painful halt from the apathy of his silver eyes, set into a cruel scowl I recognized all too well. Dreaded it! “Kneel before your god.”

I sunk to my knees willingly before he would make me, finding a shred of dignity even in this semblance of a choice. “You’re still furious with me.”

A grin hushed across his mouth, only to die at the cutting twitch of his upper lip. His black strands hung damp from his head, telling me he’d bathed. His white shirt was tied across his brawny chest, but it didn’t hide the flaming red cuts which still wept from behind the bindings. Heavens, he hadn’t only scrubbed the stench from his skin, had he?

He’d peeled it off.

“No, little one.” His calm voice didn’t detract from its dark undertone, gravelly and unsettling. “Such a fickle emotion, fury. It rushes into existence, only to drift away a moment later. Disappointment, however, echoes caution for eternity. Orlaigh, leave me with my wife.”

I watched her disappear into a corridor, then looked back at my harsh husband, his face restored to all its irresistible beauty. Oh, he could deny his anger all he wanted, but I saw it… the seething rage that drew fine lines across his stoic mask, the simmering fury that thawed its sharp edges.

If only I could rip it off as he had his skin.

Bypass the cruel, arrogant god and go straight for the man beneath. The one who’d come to trust me, willing to put his caution aside, along with this toxic bitterness between us.

I needed him. Desperately.

And I knew he needed me, too!

I let my eyes plead for leniency, for the faith he’d once placed in me. “I would have returned to you.”

“And so you have, delivered by death.” Leaning over, he placed his elbows onto his thighs, letting his hands steeple between his knees. “Crawl to me.”

Every proud fiber of my being bristled. “You’re punishing me for something I didn’t—”

“Crawl!”

My hand reached forward on its own accord, a sight that let humiliation flood my insides. Inch by squirming inch, black feathers caught on the porous bone as I climbed the dais like his pet, and the humiliation ebbed away. Reshaped into an excited tingle beneath my skin as I crawled toward the only source of warmth in this place, no matter its icy core that was my husband’s stony heart.

When my face came into reach, he clasped my chin hard enough it pulled my bottom lip from my teeth, but the remaining distance between us ached me the most. He smelled… different. Wrong. Dark. As bitter and biting as his mood.

His gray stare sunk to my lips, but it never quite reached there as he quickly called it back to meet mine. “Mmm, look how your hair has lost its luster, your skin its softness as it succumbs to decay.”

Ba-boom-boom.

A sudden beat startled me where it drummed in my ears, amplified by a rush of blood that burned beneath my skin.

My heart?

Another followed, letting the veins on the back of my hand fade along with the churning in my stomach. Had he removed the rot from me?

I took a needless breath, only to release it into a whimpered, “Thank you.”

“Thank me?” A scoff. “I have done it for my sake, not yours. Whyever would I subjugate myself to your stench?”

Anger needled itself between my ribs, and my brain urged me to ignore it. Nothing good ever came of rebelling against his godly whims when he was like this.

“You don’t exactly smell like freshly-plucked flowers, either,” I snarled, which put the hint of a tremble on his chin.

“Courtesy of my faithless wife.”

“You’re full of contempt and insult.”

His eyes dropped to my mouth again, staring at it for a minute or ten before he rasped, “Says the woman full of deceit, with lips that whisper the filthiest of lies.”

I lifted my face to his, letting the warmth emanating from his mouth seep into mine. “For something that appalls you so, your eyes give it a great deal of attention.”

He blinked and shifted back.

Just as quickly, his features hardened further—if such a thing were even possible. Curse this mess, he was colder than ever before. With a push against my chin, he shoved me back by a freezing inch that sent a carpet of goosebumps across my skin.

“Mmm, my wife is so cold, suffering the never-ending embrace of death,” he crooned as he regarded the bumps on my arms with a positively mean smirk. “Ought I to warm her?”

Worn down by days of biting coldness, my dignity collapsed into a mewl without consent. “Please! Oh, please… I’m begging you, make the cold go away.”

“At long last, my wife has learned how to beg, and it only took a knife to teach her. Tell me, little one, do you deserve my touch? The warmth of my embrace?” When I said nothing for long moments, knowing there was no answer that wouldn’t paint me either needy or pathetic—possibly both—he chuckled. “Now, now… how could I abandon my cherished wife the way she has done with me?” One hand went to the ties on his black breeches, opening them as he shoved the leather down. The other stroked along the contoured outline of his shaft, reached inside, and took out his jutting cock. “You may warm your hands on this.”

Heat funneled into my belly in equal measures of rage and rapture. I should have told the hateful bastard to go fuck himself. Instead, I eagerly wrapped my hand around his thick length, moaning at the feel of his glorious heat against my knuckles.

He hissed, and the muscles in his powerful thighs flexed and contracted before his mouth pulled into a lopsided grin. “Mmm, you weren’t usually this enthusiastic.”

“I wasn’t usually this dead, either.”

A muscle jumped in his jaws. “It appears as though not even death could cure you of your insolence.”

I lifted my chin, offering at least a smidge of defiance while my hand worked his length. “It tried. It failed.”

“Indeed—mmm…” Strings of groans tumbled from his lips as I jerked the tight clasp of my palm down his swollen length. “Yes, stroke me. Harder, little one. Much harder. Your hand is oh-so cold.”

Scooting closer where I kneeled between his legs at the foot of his throne, I lubricated my palm on the dark pink weeping slit on his crown. Tightening my hold, I let my fingers run up and down the flare with quick pulsations, soaking up the warmth it left around my tips.

Curses, this shouldn’t have excited me so. Warmth pooled right between my legs at the familiar shape of his cock, the weight of his flesh as the heavy thing fought gravity. Oh, how deliciously warm he was!

When Enosh bucked into my fist, I ran my hand down along his shaft. His cock stiffened fully in my hold, and I sensed the rapid rush of his heated blood in a large vein that disappeared into his root. Once at the base, I fondled his sac, tracing the tawny seam at its center, which caused his breath to hitch.

Mine, too.

I brought my other hand up and enclosed his cockhead with it, gathering more of the translucent seed he wept in copious amounts. Once lubricated, I pumped his length with both hands, working the engorged flesh with hard jerks until it smacked and squelched.

“Ah, little one, how I have pondered your punishment.” Enosh sunk deeper into his throne. “What to do with my faithless wife? Put your sharp tongue on my balls.”

When he spread his legs as wide as the gathered breeches below his knees allowed, I sunk my face to his heavy sac. I set my tongue against the underside of one testicle and lifted it, sensing the weight and the velvety skin which encased it. His masculine groans vibrated in the air when I sucked it into my mouth, only to release it and do the same to the other.

He ground into my face, snickering how I moaned at the swath of warmth from his sac pressed against my nose. “If memory serves, then your mouth can do better than that...”

“You’re terrible.”

I gripped his smooth, glistening crown, squeezing its flare until it wanted to pop out of the tight grip of my palm. But I didn’t let it, milking his cockhead until Enosh’s buttocks tightened. His hips lifted toward me, and I placed the hard tip of my tongue at the base of his cock. In one, slow, languid motion, I ran it up along his length the way he liked, letting my hums join his ragged breaths.

When I wrapped my lips around the head, he fisted my hair, the touch rough and demanding. It sent a wonderful tingle into my scalp. His hand followed my rhythm for one bob of my head, two, three. At the fourth, he pushed down until his cock hit the back of my throat.

“Deeper!” His command fought for dominance against my pitiful gagging sounds as his other hand came to my face, only for his fingers to squeeze my nostrils shut. “Open for me, little– Ah, ah, ah, I said nothing about pulling back! Did you not claim that you would have returned to me? To this? You will open for me. You will show me just how glad you are to have this cock in your mouth once again.” Panic seeped into my stomach until I gasped for air, widening my throat far enough for his length to force itself past the urge to retch. Only then did he release his clasp on my nostrils. “Such an interesting observation among your kind. Corpses, that is. You need no air, but I have yet to meet one with his soul bound who can suppress the innate reflex.”

I wanted to tell him to go to hell, but it sounded more like, “Gh-mmh-cr-uh…”

“Ah, little one, I ought to drape you over my lap and spank the rot off your ass for what I am certain was an insult, but ah… how nice your voice vibrated around my cock.” A guttural groan, followed by a shivering thrust of his hips. “Mmm, yes, take me deep. Swallow all of me, and I might feed you my hot seed. Would you like that? For my spent to scorch along your throat and land warm in your belly?”

A tingle ignited around my clit as I nodded, working his length deep into my throat until my chin sunk into his tightening sac. My hands rested on his hips, soaking up his warmth. His breathing came faster, harder—as did his thrusts as he bucked into my mouth, his grip on my hair so ungiving it burned.

Burned so good!

Another tight grunt, then he gave a final thrust as he pushed my head down, keeping me locked between the aching pressure in my throat and the quick pulsations of his hips. A first shot of seed splashed hot against my throat, blistering around my esophagus before it seared down my trachea. Then another, and then a third.

A shiver wracked my entire body as his spent warmed my insides, but large parts of my body remained cold and frigid. It wasn’t nearly enough, and I grabbled at Enosh’s upper body as I pulled my mouth from his still-jerking cock, lips parting to beg him to fuck me. Devil be damned, I would take a spanking if only he put his hands on me.

“Enosh, I’m so cold,” I whimpered. “Please, touch me.”

“Mmm, begging so nicely.” Tugging on his breeches, he put himself away and leaned forward once more, bringing his mouth teasingly close to mine. “No.”

He rose and stepped away toward the dais.

My insides convulsed when the warmth of his seed faded away, right along with his body heat as he descended, leaving me behind without even a pat on my head.

I pushed myself up to stand and hurried to the edge of the dais. “Where are you… Why are you leaving?”

He didn’t bother turning around. “Because I am done with you.”

He was done with me…

My throat bobbed with a scream and my knees shook underneath me. This was not the man I’d married. This wasn’t even the god who’d first held me captive.

This was worse.

So much worse.

A crueler version intent on punishing me for something I didn’t do.

Red-hot rage pounded along every single one of my ribs, giving me the semblance of a heartbeat. “You’re a fucking bastard!”

He halted. “Careful now, little one. While I may be a bastard, I am also a god… and I advise you not to push me.”

I shifted my balance onto the balls of my feet. One more word of insult, and he would retaliate—his arrogance seldomly left him another choice.

Yet it was his arrogance I was after, and how it sometimes crumbled when his anger was too great. How much of it did it take to blow off his mask? To get to the man beneath?

Taking a steadying breath, I lifted my chin. “I have yet to meet a man who doesn’t think himself a god. Just because you happen to be one doesn’t make you any less of a bastard, and a poor husband along with it.”

“A poor husband?” He swung around, stomped up the dais with a promising twitch on his upper lip, and promptly gripped my throat before he let his snarl cut along my temple. “Even as they threw bladders filled with oil at me, then shot burning arrows to set me aflame, I fought them to ensure your escape to the Pale Court.”

“And you failed, because that brainless horse of yours didn’t get me anywhere near the Pale Court before I fell off,” I snapped as I leaned into his bruising hold on my throat, pressing against his chest until my nipples hardened at his closeness. “You’re not the only one who suffered, Enosh. I died!”

“And I did not!”

A flinch wrecked through me at his roar, and how bone crack-crack-crackled beneath our feet. Should that reassure me? Scare me? Which one?

“I’m sorry for how much they hurt you.” Regretted even more how it had turned him bitter, as though resolved to make me hurt the way they’d done with him. “I thought of you every day.”

“Had you?” His heavy breath broke against my earlobe, but it quickly changed into the caress of his lips. They hovered along my cheekbone toward my mouth, merely stroking the tips on the fine peachy hair covering my skin. “That amasses to many days indeed, my annoyingly beautiful wife with poisoned lips that tempt me for a taste.”

My core fluttered at the premise of his kiss. He wanted it as much as I did; I sensed it in how he shifted toward me, back, then toward me again—torn between his desire for affection and the fear of betrayal.

When his lips parted at the corner of my mouth, letting his heated breath fan my need for this kiss into a scorching flame, I arched my neck. I clenched my eyes shut and rose onto my toes. Higher. Higher yet.

Coldness.

I opened my eyes.

A frigid veil settled onto my heart as I stared at his polished chin. He held it high, his lips so entirely out of reach, yet it didn’t hide the smirk on his mouth. Neither his air of self-satisfaction over how he’d played with me like a cat with a bird after breaking one of its wings.

“Just how much did my dead wife want that kiss, hmm?” Staring down at me, he thumbed my bottom lip. “A pity... I have no appetite for your lies.”

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Chapter 5

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Enosh

My little one stared up at me with a flicker of rage, but it quickly drowned in the blue depth of her glistening eyes. “Sometimes you make it so damn difficult not to hate you.”

A vise of pain wrapped around my ribs, but I would not let my posture betray it, giving her surface to stab where I ought to be numb… but was not.

How unexpected.

Irritating.

Utterly absurd.

What was her hate but a fitful remnant of her mortality? Was she not dead? Terribly cold, yes, but oh-so wonderfully chained to me, her god and master? Never again would she want to escape us.

At least in this, I had succeeded.

“Quite so.” My thumb itched to trace the shell of her ear, to comb the knots from her hair, but I banned the urge to the memories of how this woman had cost me insurmountable suffering. “After all, it was not love that brought you back to me, was it?”

My words turned to ash on my tongue. Bitter, bitter ash. It clogged my sinus cavities, choking me along with the stench of my own skin, driving me mad with the urge to peel it off in layers.

No, whatever affection I’d thought she had for me had been a farce, likely inspired by nothing else but my wife’s ambition to see me return to my duty. So enthralled had I been by this woman and her painful honesty, I’d vowed to open the Pale Court the day she loved me.

A foolish act borne out of this annoying need to make her wholly mine—flesh and bone, soul and heart. Something that seemed to come so easily to mortal men like Joah, perhaps even this… Elric, where my divinity somehow left me lacking.

A tremble hushed across Ada’s pale bottom lip. “How could it be when you treat me like this? You viciously fucked my mouth!”

“Ah, but that is not nearly the heart of why this… encounter angered you so, is it? Little one, you would have let me fuck your mouth until your neck snapped in half in exchange for a single touch of my hand upon your head.”

And I’d wanted to touch her.

Wanted it still.

Succumbing to this damnable need, I pinned a strand of her blotchy hair behind her ear. Bloat in her stomach, atrophy gnawing on her muscles, corrosion curdling her blood… My cold wife was rotting away this very moment and, somehow, I wanted her still.

Had not been able to let her go.

How could something this false continue to rouse tender feelings within me? I needed to rid myself of them. Strangle whatever affection I’d foolishly allowed to blossom in my—

Pain stabbed my temples.

My court faded away.

Time stalled and stumbled.

Searing heat flared across by body, sending a nauseating whiff of ash into my nostrils. Through the fog of looming delirium, I clenched my eyes shut, but it only amplified the echo coming from the black cleft that was my sanity. Elric… Oh, where is my beloved Elric?

I blinked the fogginess from my mind, only to stare straight at my wife, the source of my agony. She could not love me…?

Then hate it shall be.

“My poor wife, left even without a word of praise over how deep she took me.” I let my fingertips stroke over the black feathers of her dress, reminding myself of the wounds she carried beneath and why. “Not a single caress of my finger around the shell of her ear. Not even a mumbled, mmm, my love, your skilled mouth feels so good.”

All things I had offered her freely and generously, doting on her for hours, giving her my undivided attention, and never leaving her unsatisfied. Gentle touches. Words of praise. Fine gifts. Not once had she found any appreciation for it.

And I would never offer it again.

Would never elevate her above the others of her wicked kind ever again. What was she other than flesh and bone for me to rule, to use as I wished, no matter how depraved?

“I don’t even recognize you anymore.” Her eyes glistened with what had to be the last of her tears. “Everything I told you was what I thought true.”

My muscles tensed.

And I’d wanted to believe it.

Here she stood, my wedded wife, her ribs too pronounced from too little food and with a new scar slashed across her cheek. Not to mention the fact that she was quite dead…

Hardship was written across her battered body and could not be ignored. The fall off the horse was plausible, along with the story of her dying father—for she had mentioned it before—or the lack of coin.

Not so much her joy.

The one I could never inspire.

“For centuries, I’ve ridden the mortals’ lands, sensing their many hardships and their heavy limbs, even without such dire circumstances as yours,” I said. “Oh, little one, I’ve been rather tempted to rein in my rage, my disbelief, and this biting jealousy over the mortal whose name echoed in your thoughts.”

Until she’d mentioned the child.

Remnants of fury flared in my veins, heating my blood to such a degree that her corpse body mindlessly shifted its balance toward me. It only angered me more, this longing for my warmth she couldn’t suppress, making it no more sincere than anything that had come before.

However…

It was my due, nonetheless.

And I would make use of it until the coldness would be nothing more to her but a thing to accept. Yes, my little one would learn what it felt like to want something so desperately… only to be denied.

She clenched her eyes shut for a moment, not letting her tears escape, precious as they were. “There was no other man.”

Liar.

Liar!

My muscles tensed beneath my skin and my mind fogged once more. I’d been chewed up by the lying teeth of a woman before, for I had understood so little of the power they could wield over any man, be it mortal or god.

And still it was not the bodily betrayal that angered me so. Flesh and bone held no memory, no devotion. The mind, however, did—breeding a disconnect in a place where my power had no say to make it otherwise. Why had she resisted me so? Had I not tried to please her?

“Hear me, Adelaide, you could have whored yourself toward the Pale Court in your difficulty, and I would not have judged. Never that.” I shoved my fingers beneath the weight of her hair, gripping it tightly to justify touching it in the first place. “Make no mistake, I would have killed every man who touched what is mine. I would have forgiven you, if only it meant you’d stood by your vow and this candor of yours I’d come to appreciate so greatly. It is the dishonesty I cannot forgive, the fact that another inspired what I cannot, and how you tried to hide it behind the most hideous lie.”

“If you think I had nothing else to do but smile at other men with that slashed cheek of mine,” she pushed through clenched teeth, “then you’re mad.”

My eyes slipped to her lips.

Perhaps I was.

Why else would I want to kiss her? To take her into my arms, this woman I had come to care for so deeply—perhaps more than I wanted to admit to myself.

“Who would not go mad during a fortnight in the lick of never-ending flames?” I yanked her closer to me—torturing her, torturing me, agonizing us both. “I bleed like you. I hurt like you. The only difference being that I cannot die. Truly, little one, it has done the state of my mind no favors.”

Her chest expanded with another futile inhale, the dark veins of her oxygen-deprived blood still prominent above her collarbone. “Clearly, because you sound insane.”

“Yes, little one, utterly deranged.” So much so, I pulled on her hair until her head tipped back, bringing my mouth near hers. Oh, how I wanted to lose myself in her kiss and the false comfort it promised. “For nearly a fortnight, all that kept my mind from shattering anew was the thought of how you waited for me. A fortnight, little one. A fortnight, and not even a fucking furlong closer to the Pale Court, but overly joyous over something you are not telling me!”

Defiant little thing she was, Ada ripped away from my touch, punishing us both. “I was happy about the baby!”

Righteous fury flooded my veins until my skin bristled. “Oh, yes, the baby. The baby!”

My shout resonated in the chamber, right along with the sudden groans of a corpse in my throne as though I had asked his opinion. Lord Tarnem’s muffled grunts pounded behind my temples right along with the echo of my wife’s cruel lie, and delirium loomed over my thoughts once again.

I was unwell.

Not enough recovered.

“Quiet!” I shouted.

Ada’s eyes flicked between the silenced throne and me, but ultimately settled on me with a blaze of new anger. “Just because it turns out that I wasn’t pregnant after all, doesn’t mean that I hadn’t thought myself—”

My hand rose alongside the violent beat of my heart, tempting me to seal her deceit behind yet another patch of leather. One she would certainly cut open again, for my wife was dead but no more obedient for it. My motion alone stopped her words. Unfortunately, it didn’t call back the pain they’d already unleashed in my chest.

“Two centuries of mourning the death of my unborn daughter...” The agony of her loss aching fresh and fierce like a stab to the heart. “Of all the lies to veil your betrayal, perhaps even your faithlessness, you chose this one? This one? When you knew how much I’d wanted to die—”

I stopped myself.

No, I would not allow her to drive another knife into my ribcage. Would certainly not let her see how she just had.

I stifled my ragged breathing.

Smoothed the tension off my face.

“You shall answer this question.” Leaning into her, I let my exhale tingle along the side of her neck, tormenting her with longing, punishing her with the premise of my warmth. “You say you would have returned... So tell me, little one, have you been this convinced the entire time?” Another exhale, and she turned her head, slowly shifting toward me. “Did you ever wonder what it might be like if you escaped? Did you ever… doubt your vow to return?”

A flinch. A slow blink. And then…

…silence.

Cold. Dead. Silence.

Aside from how she gulped—likely swallowing whatever tale she’d considered serving me for the fraction of a moment. A courtesy I could certainly appreciate, but it made her no less a liar.

Liar!

Prickling heat seared beneath my skin until her bones brittled at my command and the dais crackled beneath us. I wanted to grab her neck and drag her into a deep grave—bury her beneath dirt and let her rot—as that was how much I hated her for making me… hurt, ache, long.

Feel.

Hated myself even more because I could not do it. And I could not do it. And I could not fucking do it.

My chest constricted.

What was wrong with me? What had this woman done to me? Why could I not bring myself to be nearly as cruel to her as she deserved? As I ought to! Was I not above the fickle emotions of mankind? Was I not a god, and she a mere dead mortal?

All strength left me.

Her internal deterioration stopped.

No, I could not do it.

Didn’t dare ponder on the name for the reason.

“Look at you, your lips so pale.” So bloodless, not even my thumb left an imprint behind as I pressed down on her bottom lip. “Who did this to you, hmm? Who dared to hurt my wife? You saw them? Know the names of those who caused this, yes?”

She nodded. “Three of them.”

“Good. Now, make another mention of a child, and I will shovel you a grave.” I turned away toward the bridge to the Nocten Gate. “Orlaigh!”

“Enosh…” Ada called behind me and when I looked back at her, she asked, “Do you know anything of my father? I… My memories of the attack are blurry at best, but I know he was there. Got injured trying to protect me. Is he alive? Will you at least tell me this?”

“The moment I found you, I hurried to the Court Between Thoughts to have your soul bound.” I shrugged and continued down the dais. “I cannot say what became of your father.”

“Did you kill people there?”

Not yet. “Everything in due time.”

I once more delivered her flesh from a new onset of decay, safe for a small speck that resisted my power—paid for with a wave of weakness that clawed at my mind. Oh yes, what a poor husband I was…

“Always chasing me old bones,” Orlaigh muttered as she hurried toward the Nocten Bridge where I stood and waited.

I removed the rot from her body down to the expanding brittleness in her bones at the cost of a sway in my torso and a blur in my vision that expanded rapidly. Rest. I needed more rest.

“Prepare yourself to head to the nearest town in the Nocten lands within the next days,” I said. “You shall find out which god these people pray to while I will ride beyond the Œten Gate. I need to assess the lands, for I have allowed the world to fall away from my rule for far too long.”

“Yes, Master.” She dipped her head. “Just dinnae send me out through the Æfen Gate, or they’ll string me up by a tree. Ach, I bet me howlin’ arse the Pale Court is surrounded by priests and soldiers.”

“So I shall hope.”

After all, I required an army.

A large one.

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