Текст книги "Queen of rot and pain"
Автор книги: Liv Zander
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
Chapter 6
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Ada
Seven tens and two.
Seven tens and three.
I stared up at the ceiling above the spring, how the dim glimmers of light melted with shadows in constant ripples and distortions. All my life, I’d considered being burned at the stake as one of the hardest deaths.
Until I’d drowned myself.
Nine tens and three.
Nine tens and four.
My back rested against the rocky bottom of the spring. When another rush of gloriously hot water lifted me ever so slightly, I inhaled, weighting down my lungs with more water. Who needed air when the second warmest place at the Pale Court turned out to be at the bottom of this spring?
One hundred.
One.
Two.
Three…
I closed my eyes against the sting of salt and listened to the deep hum of the water as suspicion flooded my mind. Thrice Lord Tarnem had grunted and groaned in my presence, each time with an urgency as though his life depended on it—an odd thing indeed, for a corpse.
What would he tell me?
My fist hardened around the smooth fang in my palm—the one I’d once torn off my dress in an attempt to cut open Lord Tarnem’s mouth. I’d dropped it when Orlaigh had walked in on me, and it had gone ignored since, having sat so close to the throne where no beasts dared to roam for rest.
Whatever the man knew had the old woman fear that she might end up right next to him. But what did it have to do with me?
Perhaps nothing.
Most likely nothing, but I was at a loss with my husband and death turned out to be a rather dull affair. No sleeping. No eating. Enosh kept his distance, which was as much a blessing as it was a curse. All day, I did nothing but rot... and drown.
Nine tens.
Nine tens and one.
Tiny bubbles of air tingled where they latched to my skin as I sat up. Orlaigh had left for the lands beyond the Nocten Gate seven counts ago, and Enosh had ridden out the Œten Gate long before that.
Time to have a chat with a lord.
I climbed out of the spring, and the first swells of water drooled from my mouth. The salt bit the back of my throat, but only until I rose and folded my upper body over, letting more of it pour from my nostrils.
My brain caught fire and my eyes welled. When I gasped for air, a gurgling flutter teased my lungs until a barrage of violent coughs squeezed out most of the remaining water.
I haphazardly dried myself with a fur, then shucked on my chemise and turned toward the throne chamber. No need to bother with a shoulder pelt. Coldness was my constant companion—the faster I got used to it, the better I could resist Enosh’s divine gravity.
The chatter of my teeth echoed from the brittle bone as I crossed the bridge. Tremors ransacked my body and my chest convulsed, letting lone droplets of salty water run from my nostrils only to collect on my chin. Drowning was not elegant.
I hurried up the dais…
…and hit a wall of warmth.
“Who walks about my court?”
My muscles strung tight at the haughty lilt in Enosh’s tone. Ugh, my husband was home.
He slouched on his throne in battle armor, his black leather cuirass intricately tooled with flames roaring around bodies on spikes. Could he be any more dramatic? With his leg draped over one armrest, he looked positively bored.
Never a good omen.
“Mmm, my dead wife, here you stand, drowned, once again challenging everything that had been true to me for so long. For eons, not a single corpse ever ignored the innate reflex to breathe… until you.” He lowered his leg and let his heavy boot come down with a thud, then straightened his spine. “Oh, look how you shiver, your hair still wet, your skin damp.”
“Concerned that I might catch a cold?” I clasped the fang tighter, hoping he would not sense it and ask questions. “Why are you here? I thought you rode out.”
“Your husband has returned early… joy, oh joy.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice as he spread his arms out wide, as though presenting himself as a gift he knew I wanted to return. “So grateful were the mortals beyond the gate when I emerged, they fell to their feet, prayed, and brought me a virgin. A young… warm… virgin.” Whatever he saw in my eyes—a spark of green rage, most likely—put another smirk on his mouth. “But alas, I have a cold wife at home to return to.”
I didn’t like how my hackles rose or what this might say about the feelings I’d developed for him before my death—not to mention my mental state. “I’m humbled.”
“Not nearly enough. We shall rectify that.” A pat on his thigh. “Come, little one. Sit on your husband’s warm, warm lap so he may cure you of the cold.”
A shudder raked me over. “I’d rather drown myself some more.”
His lips twitched. “On my word, I shall be on my best behavior.”
My toes curled because his promise smelled decisively like shit. “If I wanted to listen to such dung, I’d head to the nearest tavern and drown myself in its latrine instead.”
“Sometimes it seems as though death has emboldened you even further.”
“Because I have nothing left to lose.”
“You would be surprised...” His jaws clenched and the depressions beneath his cheekbones filled with shadows. “Whatever have I done to earn your suspicion? Do you not trust my word?”
The fact that I trusted it was half the problem. “You coaxed me into the empty hope for your kiss, allowed me to press myself against you, and deliberately teased my mouth to search for yours… only to reject me.”
And he would do it again.
I was dead, not stupid.
He would hit me right where it hurt the most, dangling the bait of his warmth in front of me, snaring me with those lips which had once whispered the sweetest compliments. The perfect trap, innocently perched on the throne, carrying the disguise of patience with each slow pat-pat-pat against leather-clad thighs.
“Come now.” His command let my balance shift toward him. “Enough with your impressive display of obstinance while your bones ache to obey their master.”
Obey, they did.
Curse those bones, my legs carried me straight to him, but he would never command such obedience from my soul, and in extension, my mouth and whatever came out of it. At least for as long as he would allow me to keep it…
Enosh clasped my waist and pulled me onto his lap, chuckling at the way I moaned at the sudden heat beneath my buttocks. “Ah, my love, pout all you want, but the fact remains that not even the spring warms you better than I do.”
“True.” I let myself go limp against his chest, letting the fang disappear in a cranny between bone. “But the company is much better down there.”
“My wife is irritable again.” He pushed the cotton of my chemise down, exposing one breast to the chill. “Such insolence ought to be punished.”
Lowering his head to my nipple, he let his warm breath blow around the bud in a circle. His tongue followed, lapping it into a hard pebble before he suckled it between his hot lips.
I moaned in delight and arched my back, feeding him more. “Why are you so cruel?”
“I promised punishment.” Which he quickly initiated by letting his hand slip beneath my chemise, rearranging me on his lap until his finger gained access to circle my darkest hole. “Am I not a man of my word? Have my threats ever been idle?”
I gasped as the pad of his finger drummed against the puckered skin. “No.”
“No.” He dipped inside, only for his finger to retreat and continue to vibrate against the softening ring of muscle, making me seek it out with shifts of my hips. “Mmm, little one, I told you that you would learn to love this. And so, you have. What a pity that your enjoyment renders this quite useless as a punishment. Unless…”
Leaning deeper into his throne, he let his other hand reach around and grip my chin. He shifted me until the back of my head rested on his left shoulder. He hooked my legs over his, spreading me wide.
His exhale broke against the side of my temple, where the corner of his lips rested. “Who is Elric?”
Remembering his threat of what he would do if I ever mentioned the truth again, I only said, “Nobody.”
“That’s right, little one. Nobody. Because no mortal man could possibly touch you the way I do, knowing every fiber of your form by heart.” His other hand rearranged itself, a finger in each fold that framed my cunt, and a third that drummed my arse. “Your heart no longer beats, yet I can hear it in my memory, its crooked cadence. Listen...” A startling rhythm pounded to life inside my chest, sending a skin-prickling rush of blood through my veins. “Ba-boom-boom. Ba-boom-boom. Oh, how I loved listening to it while you slept.”
He brought his fingers closer together, pinning my clit between them. Then he rubbed them up and down, pulling the throbbing nub and its little hood along with it. At each downward motion, his finger dipped into my arse, sending little sparks into my heating flesh.
“You cannot imagine how much effort it takes me to give you this much sensation,” he crooned into my ear as he quickened his motions, rubbing me toward completion. “See, my love, your body no longer lubricates on its own. You can feel, yes, but your nerves are corroding more with each of your useless breaths, dulling your sensitivity. Yet here I am, pulling you against the warmth of my chest, rubbing your cunt toward your acme of pleasure. And what do you say to me for this, hmm?” When I only moaned and bucked against his touch, he pinched my clit harder, drummed his finger faster against my needy hole. “The correct answer would be, thank you, Master.”
The roots of my teeth ached with how I pressed them together as I pushed the words through their gaps. “Thank you, Master.”
“We shall practice this some more.” His hot breath clung to the fine wisps along my temple as his other hand kneaded my breast. “So close, I can sense how your muscles tremor. Does your master make you feel good?”
I hissed a dozen curses, called him twice as many things, but it all ended in a guttural, “Yes…”
His finger pushed deeper inside me, filling the tight channel with warm pressure as his knuckles shifted around my clit. “And because I make you feel so good, you say…?”
I rocked my pelvis to follow the rhythm of his touch, chasing my release. Oh, so close! “Thank you, Master.”
“Better, but not good enough to deserve any pleasure.” His hands disappeared, leaving nothing on my cunt or my breast but a frigid pain that ripped a small cry from me. “Yes, this shall make the perfect punishment. Dare touch yourself, and I shall relieve you of your hands.”
Frustration mixed with fury.
Curse this devil and his games!
I kept my face as straight as possible, not letting a single mewl or sigh voice my dismay. “Perfect, yes, but rather predictable. Or do you think I expected, for even a second, that you would bring me to completion? You’re toying with me. Don’t think for a moment that I don’t know it.”
“Once again, I seem to find myself in a predicament where my wife and her punishment is concerned. How dreadfully complicated this mortal custom proves itself to be… marriage.” In one quick move, Enosh swooped me off his lap, only to lay me over it like a girl who’d ruined her new ribbons. His hand shoved the cotton of my chemise up to gather around my middle before his fingers dug into the flesh of my buttocks. “How about this? One strike of my hand for each day I spent being cut up, burned, and spread wide in places we ought not to mention. Yes?”
A shiver of uncertainty trickled across my body, leaving pebbled skin in its wake for my husband to snicker at. I’d been whipped, beaten, and paddled many times in my life, yet his suggestion caught me off guard.
As did the reaction of my body.
Draped over the god’s lap, I found myself rocking against his thigh in search of friction, more fervently whenever he circled his warm hand over my buttocks. He didn’t seem inclined to interfere with how I rubbed myself on him, and I had no interest in stopping, chasing any sensation to replace the dullness of death.
The humiliation would burn something fierce if he spanked me, but not nearly as hot as the impact of his palm on my chilled skin. My nipples hardened at the thought of his hand slapping my arse, setting the skin ablaze for days to come. If he did it right.
I dug my fingers into the leather of his breeches, braving myself for his first strike. “Do it.”
“Do not command me, little one. You might be my wife, but you are not my equal. Try again.”
I swallowed past a knot of pride the size of my fist, nearly choking on it. “Please spank me, Master.”
“If you so wish.”
Tendrils of nervous anticipation weaved through me. My muscles tightened, turning me stiff as I braced for his first strike and the uncertainty of how much strength it would hold. How many times was I due? Would he allow me a few moments between each to let me gather my composure? What if he—
I gasped.
Not at the first strike, but how his fingers glided from my buttocks to between my legs. Enosh circled my entrance with one finger, spreading my wet lust around the needy flesh before he dipped inside with two. Each sensual thrust pushed me against his thigh, teasing a new throb into my clit and sparks of pleasure into my womb. Oh, I wanted more!
“I take no pleasure in hurting you…” a beat of considering silence, “…too much.”
His fingers pulled out of me at lightning speed, only for his palm to come down on my buttocks like thunder. Pain crackled through my skin, through my muscles, and into my bones. It wrenched a squeal from my throat, which came out as nothing but a puff of air that parted my trembling lips. By the time its remnants tumbled from my tongue, they shaped into a long moan as the pain faded into wicked, blissful heat.
“Perhaps I have never acquired the taste of it... until now.” Enosh’s breathing altered as he slipped his hand between my legs once more, letting his fingers fuck my drenched cunt. “And even this arouses you.”
I wiggled, not in an attempt to escape my punishment, but to dole out one of my own with how my ribs shifted over his swelling length. “No more than you.”
“As impudent in death as she was in life.”
Slap.
His next strike disabled my lungs, turning my splutter of curses into a tangled mess of dying whimpers and groans. Even without air, the scorching pain, the intense pleasure of it, made me feel warm and brutally alive.
A caress along my cunt followed, if to tease my clit or simply to wet his fingers and worsen the impact of his punishment, I couldn’t say. Didn’t care, either. I only moaned at how his fingers hooked and curled with each thrust, letting me clench around them. I was so close again.
So damn close.
Slap.
“Did you think I would let you come?” he tsked. “No, little one. I might tease you for years, torture you like this for decades.”
He continued his pattern of brutal, shuddering swats interwoven with teasing, pleasure-inducing fondling on my cunt until my mind surrendered to the sensation of all-engulfing heat. Heat of pain. Heat of anger. Heat of pleasure.
Just… heat.
Enosh lured me toward release more times than I could count through the haze of rapture, only to abandon me on its biting ledge. Between my sore bottom, my aching muscles, and my flayed pride, my convulsing womb enraged me the most—how it tethered at the edge of harrowing bliss without bursting into release.
At Enosh’s next swing, the heat seared straight through my muscles, crumbling all tension, making me hang slack from his lap. Tears blurred my vision, not from pain but from the distressing need and disappointed want.
His next swing never landed.
“I counted seven. Not nearly enough, though I daresay you are sufficiently warm now.”
Hands on my waist, he lifted me and sat me on the infuriated flesh of my bottom. With one hand, he stroked my tousled hair back, while the other trailed a finger along the underside of my eye, from the outer corner to the inner one, collecting a tear which he presented to me on the pad of his finger.
“This, little one, is your very last tear. There are no more left in you.” His ungiving stare held mine as he licked it off, then swallowed it with a moan. “Mmm, what a gift you gave me.”
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Chapter 7
OceanofPDF.com
Ada
Hot anger spiked between my ribs.
Stripped of my pride and my last tear, I blinked Enosh’s face into focus, from the smug arch of his left brow to the non-smile framing his lips. Devil be damned, did his facial muscles ever tire of faking cruel detachment?
I was sick of seeing it and my palm itched with the urge to slap it right off. Where I had understood the source of Enosh’s anger before, now I could no longer bring myself to care. My own anger was growing thicker with every nasty encounter, every attempt at prying that damn mask off, which left me with only emotional cuts and bruises.
I’d tried to explain, to apologize, to reason… had even tried to unleash his carefully camouflaged rage. Nothing worked. Just what did it take to lure the King of Flesh and Bone out of his skin?
Might as well try that slap.
The moment my arm lifted by a mere inch, Enosh’s eyes flicked to the limb in question before they pinned my gaze down like nails. “I advise you to reconsider.”
My spine snapped straight at the sharp undertone that roughened his voice. “You spanked me!”
“How could I deny my wife? Please spank me, Master… Oh, how she pleaded. And so, I gave in, cherishing my wife as I ought to.” His arm came around my middle, shifting me on his lap until I hissed. “Ah, how nicely your bottom throbs in lieu of a pulse. I daresay the imprint of my hand on your ass makes for a lovely mark. Now, if you wish for another spanking, you only need to say so.” For the fraction of a second, his smugness contorted around the edges, letting his pretense slip beneath the snarl on his upper lip. “Strike me, and you can be certain I will retaliate, for I have never raised my hand at you in anger, nor whipped you or beaten you for any of your many transgressions.”
My arm sunk right along with my shoulders, because half of it was true. Enosh had never caused me physical pain—at least, not the kind that came without pleasure. Except for when he’d twisted my legs, and even then, he’d quickly dulled the pain away.
Still, I couldn’t ignore how his eyes returned to ungiving coldness, positively unfazed and remarkably severe to any unknowing stranger… but not to me. I saw how his thick inky shadows of lashes betrayed a potential crack for me to squeeze through and reach the gentle core of his heart.
It was there, I knew.
It had to be.
I straightened on his lap and let a strand of his raven hair run through the clasp of my fingers. “Aside from your excursion beyond the Œten Gate, I haven’t witnessed you leave to spread rot.”
His face turned impossibly stiffer as his gaze followed the motion of my finger, watching how I trailed my nail over the tooled motifs on his cuirass. “What?”
“For the children,” I clarified. “Wasn’t that our agreement? I return to you no matter what, and you rot the children?”
A scoff, then he harshly gripped my wrist and removed my touch as I figured he would. “Our agreement is null and void, for you did not return.”
Now I dared a scoff, along with how I once again ran my nail along the furrows in the black leather that spun across his chest. “I’m here, am I not?”
“Delivered by death.”
“If that’s not the ultimate definition of returning no matter what, then I wouldn’t know what is.” Continuing upward along his high-cut collar, I let my fingertips trail over his hardening jawline. “Besides, you never clarified the specifics. All I know is that I’m here, and you’re not out there.”
His brow arched higher as though to say, your obstinance knows no bounds.
In truth, I couldn’t bring myself to care about my old goal of getting Enosh to resume his duty. What did I care about the likes of Rose, who’d gotten me killed? The priests who’d chased me? What had anyone at Hemdale ever done for me, aside from casting their harsh judgment?
Enosh dug his fingers into my cheeks, turning my face away for his teeth to lay siege on the still artery on the side of my neck, where he nipped me. “The gall you have, my little wife, expecting that I would spread rot to the sons and daughters of those who have wronged me.”
“They have wronged me, too.” I leaned into his rough touch and tilted my head, inviting his teeth to torture me while I cupped his face. “Yet here I am.”
“Here you are.”
Another harsh nibble here, a sensuous lap of his tongue there. I’d once called Enosh unpredictable in his godly whims, but that was before I’d spotted his pattern of divine punishment.
My suggestion angered him, and his arrogance left him no choice but to hide it behind the excruciating ecstasy of his hot lips against my skin. He would work me into another frenzy, soaking his bruised ego in my unanswered puddle of want.
And I would let him.
Rejection burned twice as much when the blood was heated—one of the three things I knew could make the god’s rage grow too large to be contained by a mask. And if one wouldn’t do… well, then I had to try for all three at once.
And pray I wouldn’t end up woven into the throne.
Faking a moan was easy enough as he let his slow, deliberate exhale fan along the length of my jaw. Dear god, only the devil himself could make me writhe on his lap and ignore the pain of bruised seatbones in search of the rock-hard bulge hidden beneath his breeches.
I let my thumb trail over the arch of his brow. “Stand by your promise and spread rot.”
As haughty as ever, he slapped my hand off his face with a tsk, all while gently playing with the curls between my legs, letting tingles spread around my labia. “I have half a mind to rot that tongue of yours instead.”
I stopped my writhing, willed my throat to suppress all sounds of pleasure. “Am I free to go, then?”
His fingers stilled around my cunt for as long as it took him to push a boisterous laugh from his lungs. “What makes you think that I will let you leave?”
“Since our agreement is null and void, I’m under no obligation to remain with you for eternity.”
He clung to the smile the laugh had left on his lips and stroked two fingers inside me, his palm rubbing against my clit at each thrust. “You are still my wife.”
“A poor one by your standards, just as you’re a terrible husband by mine.” Curses, the way he shoved me around until his hard length pressed against my arse wasn’t helping my focus, but I wouldn’t give in so easily. “Might as well divorce.”
That earned me the crushing clasp of his hands on my waist as he turned me to straddle him. He yanked me by my hair until my face nearly collided with his, bringing my mouth just close enough to his, as though luck was on my side for once. Yes, this would play out as planned. Maybe.
Enosh’s breathing quickened against the shell of my ear where his lips circled in non-kisses. “Oh, naive little mortal. Wherever would your brittle legs carry you if not back to the Pale Court? Back to your husband, your god, your master?”
My gaze wandered to Lord Tarnem, whose eyes rested on me, but he would have to wait. “Is Yarin not also my master?”
For a moment, I could have sworn I heard Yarin’s chuckle somewhere in the back of my mind… until Enosh’s hiss pulled my attention back to him.
“Scheming to escape me again so soon?” He clasped my chin and brought my lips to his, leaving no more but a hot sliver of quaking breath between them. “A fortnight in freedom and my little one believes herself something other than mine? I would have chased you to the edges of the world.”
“No need to chase me,” I whispered against his lips, following them, shifting my head in pursuit of them whenever Enosh evaded the impact. “I would have returned.”
“Liar.” His breath teased my mouth to chase his seducing lips. “You told me you considered freedom. That you had… doubts.”
“Yes, I had doubts.” I rocked my hips, rubbing myself against the length of his cock as I moved on to the second thing that never failed to impact him—honesty. “Who was the man in the forest? Was he real or only in my imagination so I could justify the things he made me… feel?” At that last word, the tremble of his lips shuddered the air, and his fingers loosened their clasp on my cheeks. “I doubted you would ever return to your duty after the attack, cursing my dying father to wander for eternity. So what was the point in coming home and leaving him behind to suffer alone?”
I shifted back and let his hand fall off my face, fighting the invisible pull toward him so I may inspect the chinks on his face. A small wrinkle between his brows. A slight gap between his parted lips. A gaze that slipped to my lips, strained to meet my eyes, then slipped again.
“I doubted all those things.” With another rock of my hips, I leaned over once more, and brushed my lips against the corner of his mouth, delivering the final blow—affection. “But then they found the corpse of a rotting boy, and I realized that I wanted to return to you. Not for a deal, or a vow, or some ceremony, but of my own choosing. Because the man I was returning to was worth it.”
Aching for this kiss, I pressed my chest against the groaning leather of his armor, shivering at the mercy of desire. My lips hunted for his, encouraged by how his stuttered breaths gave me guidance. Heavens, Enosh’s entire body quivered against mine.
Kiss me!
Our mouths connected.
My lips scalded, not from the heat of his kiss but how they dragged over the sharp emerging stubble along Enosh’s jawline as he turned his head away, sanding my anticipation back down to anger.
“So ambitious,” he growled and shifted his head back, staring at me with a positively smackable grin. “Did you believe me foolish enough to fall for your deceit so easily? To allow those lying lips anywhere near mine?”
“No.” I flexed the fingers on my right hand. “I figured it might take a push, ill-tempered and arrogant as you are.”
I lifted my palm.
I thrust it at his face.
With a hiss, Enosh gripped my wrist, bringing my futile assault to a predictable halt nowhere near his cheek. “You dare try to strike—”
I slammed my mouth to his.
Pure, violent heat melted my lips, letting them shape so perfectly around Enosh’s. It was all-consuming, the feverish passion that softened our bodies against each other, burning me to the coldest, innermost part of my core.
Enosh’s lips first stiffened, then trembled. Then they parted on a groan, inviting me deeper into this kiss. Releasing my wrist, he brought his arms around me, holding me in place against the upward thrust of his hips. But instead of letting his breeches vanish, he busied his hands on me, letting them stroke, caress, and palm wherever they reached while holding me tightly. So tightly.
I let my fingers map the familiar arch of his brows, the sharpness of his cheekbones, the way his jaws shifted with our breathless kiss, only to trail down his cuirass. And what if I took his heavy cock out and mounted him? Would he let me?
Agonized by his skillful fingers and deprived of any release, I made quick work of untying his breeches. My plan hadn’t included to fuck him, but what would it hurt to show him my want?
I shoved his breeches down, released his fully erect length, gathered my chemise, and sent my cunt searching. When his crown nudged at my entrance, I slid down, impaling myself on him.
I moaned.
“Ada…” Enosh groaned.
My skin pebbled at the guttural sound around my name, and a second time when his hard flesh filled me with pressure and warmth. Heavens, I’d forgotten how thick and how impossibly long he was.
I rubbed against him, spreading my legs as wide as the throne would allow to take him deeper. God, he felt so good, pushing me down on him, shifting his hips so perfectly in rhythm with mine.
“Ada,” he groaned once more, with his hands tightly pressed against my body. “I ought not to—”
I pressed my mouth to his, clawing at his cuirass in search of the strong chest on which I’d slept many times. Oh, I’d missed this so much. I had missed him so much, and I didn’t want to consider why.
Little moans and whimpers tumbled from my mouth as I fucked him harder, faster. Tingles swarmed my clit each time the needy nub pressed against the base of his cock.
“I’m so close,” I whispered against his lips before they melded against his in another fiery kiss. “Mmm, Master, please make me feel good.”
Enosh stilled so fully, so absolutely, it rendered my blood into chilled slush. “Stop.”
“What?” My hips only slowed their rhythm, and my lips suckled his unmoving bottom lip, trying to rekindle what little warmth remained. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Exactly. Now get off me before I make you.”
My stomach convulsed.
My hips stilled.
I slowly shifted back and lifted my eyes to his, expecting a grin, a smirk, an arched brow… anything that would indicate he’d once more toyed with me.
But what I found instead was worse.
So much worse…
Enosh stared into the nothingness of the Pale Court, the focus of his eyes as detached as his mind seemed to be. And then it happened. Something I’d thought impossible with this virile, lusty god.
He softened inside me.
“So ambitious indeed.” His voice was as void of anger as it was of arrogance, and I didn’t know what to do with that at all. “Even in death, my wife won’t stop pestering me, feeding me the sweetest kisses and words to achieve her goal. If only death had not betrayed deception.”
My core hollowed. “No. Enosh, I—”
“Nobody ought to accuse me of breaking my vows.” Rising, he slipped me off him and tucked himself away. “However, I shall choose the manner in which I fulfill my oath to you, for when I ride beyond the Æfen Gate, it will not be to spread rot… but death.”
I clasped my arms around myself at the sudden draft whistling from beyond the Æfen bridge. Groans and shuffling resonated in the tunnel and the nipping stench of rot filled the throne room. What was happening?
When my eyes caught on a figure emerging from the shadows across the bridge, I stopped breathing, filtering out the reek of death, but not its grizzly sight.
Oh, my god…
Dozens, no, hundreds of children entered the Pale Court, from boys near fighting-age who dragged their smashed limbs toward us to pox-speckled toddlers who scooted across the bridge. A young girl, half her head amiss, carried an infant in the cradle of her arms, stripped down to bone and sinew.
