Текст книги "Queen of rot and pain"

Автор книги: Liv Zander

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter 16

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Ada

Rendered speechless, I gaped at the atrium stretched out before me. Four slender columns formed the corners of the square, each adorned with grooved shafts. Flowers decorated the top of each, shaping outward like heavy leaves after rain.

At the center sat another pavilion, right beside what resembled a willow. Its bony-white branches wept down, carrying elongated foliage in shades of brown ranging from fawn, over to copper, to ebony. But it wasn’t what took my breath away.

No, it was the birds.

My eyes lifted to the red-cheeked robins that flapped their wings, soaring toward the blue ceiling before they dove downward. Their cuck-cuck-cucks drifted on the gentle current as the birds settled on the branches of the willow or the translucent pavilion roof.

I crossed a patch of pale grass—its blades shaped from the sheerest skin—while what had to be beetle hulls formed colorful flowers here and there. “You brought the outside to the Pale Court.”

“So you may see your birds and trees—as you requested all that time ago—no matter how death shackles your bone to my kingdom.” He stepped up behind me, letting his palms brush along my arm before he pointed up, bringing my attention to the ceiling once more. “Behold, your sky. The children painted it for you before they shaped the leaves of the willow. Do you like it?”

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” I ran my finger over the criss-crossed ridges of the tree’s white bark beside us. “You truly want that forgiveness, don’t you?”

“Among other things… he rasped against the back of my ear, letting his warm hand settle on my throat, pulling me back slightly against his whisper. “You shall answer me this question, little one. Have you ever found any inklings of affection for me? Before I wrecked it all?”

I tilted my head back and let it settle against his shoulder, relishing the controlled possessiveness of how his thumb stroked the side of my throat. He’d once told me that love knew no precaution, turning us into fools for liars and monsters.

I was no liar.

Was Enosh a monster?

At his worst, he could be. And perhaps falling for such a man was wicked and corrupted—but so were the mortals out there. I’d suffered their cruelties, their judgment, their violence. The world was full of monsters.

But this one was mine.

“Yes, I was growing feelings for you.” For this god whose love hurt as much as it healed. “Of all the bastards, devils, and monsters in this world, you are the one I chose.”

An exhale stuttered over his quivering lips as the leaves on the willow trembled and wept toward us. “My goal to gain your heart remains unchanged, Ada.”

When his lips brushed along my cheek, my mouth turned toward them. “Kiss me. Don’t you dare turn away.”

His hand slipped from throat to chin, holding it in his ungiving grip as he slanted his mouth over mine. Our lips collided into a ferocious kiss, letting our breaths mingle and our moans meld.

Ash and snow flooded my senses. My tongue curled into the familiar taste of my husband’s mouth. My palm reached into the soft strands of his raven hair I had tousled a thousand times.

Breathless, Enosh pulled back, staring down at me from wide eyes. “The scent of ash might be burnt into my skin, but you are forever branded into my heart. Precious and forever treasured, this I vow. I love you. I want nothing more than for you to love me back. That, and…” his hand slipped over my collarbone, down between my breasts, and settled against my belly, “this child.”

Confused, I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

“You once asked me how far I would go to see you returned.” The lap of his tongue at the nape of my neck sent an unexpected quiver into my thighs. “Little one, I will set the world ablaze and stand smiling at the center of its flames.” His other finger drew lazy circles around the side of my neck, numbing my mind with its warm caress. “I will kill, burn, and cut everyone who dared to bring heartache to my wife. I will do all this and worse to avenge what mortals did to you and me. And I will not stop until the lands are safe once more, and Eilam gifts you the breath of life, giving our child the mother it needs to grow.”

His threats against the world faded under the rapid flutter in my core, as though I sensed the robins’ wingbeats between my ribs. They swirled up a surge of deep longing until my breath fled, leaving enough room in my chest to fill with an overpowering wash of hope.

Was it truly possible…?

Dropping my hands to my belly, I placed them atop Enosh’s. “My baby.”

“Yes, Ada. Our baby.” Pressed against my back like this, his heat seeped into my muscles as his fingers stroked along my bodice, letting it part and expose my breasts to the air. “What a wonderful mother you will be, growing it beneath the beautiful cadence of your kind heart.”

I wasn’t sure if I cared much about the kindness it held, as long as it would beat in my chest once more—a lullaby for my son or daughter. “Your brother was very eager to take my life. He won’t give it back so easily, will he?”

His hand slid beneath my hair, gathering it up before he lifted it to rest over my shoulder while he kissed the other. “Not without some… pressure.”

Which was probably where the burning and cutting came in. “Pressure?”

“Your life comes at the cost of others and has to be paid swiftly and with no mercy,” he murmured between kisses behind my ear, letting my body grow heavy and slack. “There must be bloodshed, Ada… not only to restore your life and save our child, but to reestablish my divine rule across all lands.”

That… made sense. So why did it ache my belly? My mind trailed to the lands beyond the Soltren Gate, empty and abandoned.

With or without my life, Enosh would kill those responsible for his torture and my death, anyway—something I’d known for a while and couldn’t possibly hold against him. He needed to destroy the temples, the priests who worshipped there, and the soldiers who protected them.

That, or we would never have peace.

That, or I would not have my baby.

I gave a curt nod. “I understand.”

“Good girl,” he breathed into a kiss against my temple, letting my chest bloom at this praise he’d denied me for weeks. “You are so good, Ada. So honest and true, beautiful and kind. Annoyingly stubborn, driving me insane with her hardheadedness. I promised you a child, did I not?”

“You did.”

“And am I true to my promises?”

“Yes.”

“As I shall be true to this one.” His finger slid beneath the fur, drawing circles around my nipple. “You will have this child, Ada, and I shall hold the both of you in my arms very soon.”

Oh, all my body tingled.

I looked back at his handsome face, his gray eyes full of longing, a mirror of the hope I carried in my chest. Enosh was so easy to hate, but in moments like this, he was even easier to love.

Maybe I did?

A love born as a flutter in one’s chest, lying dormant in the cold clasp of death, only to sprout in this flood of truth, guilt, and hope between us. So all-consuming it left cuts and bruises and, once unleashed, would whirl into a storm that left nothing behind but justice.

I closed my eyes and tilted my head, allowing him to suckle the sensitive skin along my neck. Warm hands brushed over my shoulders, fingertips stroked the dips above my collarbone. Then, with one languid move, Enosh brushed my dress down, letting the pelt pool by my feet.

“Turn around for me,” he whispered as his fingers tugged my waist. “Spread your legs. Do not make me repeat myself, for I shall not allow you to leave me wanting again.”

When I did, I found him kneeling between blades of pale grass. His lips trailed along the vines of scars on my belly, kissing away the pain, the sorrow, the grief.

“Once your belly grows big with my child, I shall place a hundred kisses on it each day anew.” His hand slipped between my legs, caressing my lower lips, massaging as he kissed along my hip. “Would you like that?”

I dug my fingers into his raven strands, loving their softness, yet how they refused to part easily. “A thousand.”

“Two thousand kisses.” With one quick move, he unbalanced me, only to catch me in his arms and lower me onto the soft carpet of silken grass. “Things will be different between us from here forward. Allow me to love you like only a god can. The rest will fall into place.”

My back arched when he slanted his mouth over my cunt. He dragged the flat of his tongue over my entrance, suckled my folds into his mouth, letting his guttural noises vibrate against my clit.

Something tingled my arms.

And my legs, feet, waist.

Everything.

I lifted my head, watching how Enosh made a meal of my cunt as the silken grass stretched and moved. It caressed my entire body, like thousands of worshipping feather strokes, leaving not an inch of my skin ignored.

My mind descended into utter bliss, overwhelmed by this flood of sensation. Mercy god, the sky spun as I gave into the heat between my legs, the throbbing in my veins, and the ache in my belly only the King of Flesh and Bone could sate.

“I love you,” Enosh said between suckles on my lower lips. “Missed you so terribly.”

A shudder raked over my skin, hardening my nipples, sending sparks of heat into my belly. I spread my legs wide, inviting his wicked mouth to bring me back to life as I writhed and moaned.

“I missed you, too.”

Had missed his attention, his total devotion, the way he touched me like no other ever had. How could one not love such a man who was so devout to me and our child?

His mouth stunned my mind as his tongue lured my clit from its little hood, sucking, circling, pinching it gently beneath the clasp of his lips. When his fingers entered me, thrusting knuckles into my center, they tossed me into the throes of scalding pleasure. Dipping and curling, torrential waves of heat flared around my cunt, pushing me into a harrowing release that robbed me of my voice.

I all but whimpered through it, drowning beneath the liquid wash of heat coursing through my veins. My hips bucked against his chuckle, my senses so heightened, each lazy lap of his tongue that followed scorched me down to the satisfied hum in my chest.

Enosh kissed his way over the curls between my legs, along every single rib, then positioned his hips between my thighs as his clothes faded into dust. “I daresay you are warm now.”

I palmed his cheek, letting my thumb run over the scrape of his stubble along his chin. “Feverish.”

“This is the most alive I can make you feel…” He set the throbbing tip of his cock at my slick entrance. “Letting your nerve-endings tingle as I push inside you…” Rhythmic pulsations let me stretch around his sizable girth, each inch of progress accompanied by a sensuous kiss to my mouth. “Sharing my heat with you, skin against skin…” He framed my head with his arms, staying closer to me than he ever had as he thrust deeper, rolled his hips up and back, then thrust again. “Making your cunt weep around my cock. And this…”

Ba-boom-boom.

Ba-boom-boom.

Ba-boom-boom.

The beat of my heart shuddered in my ears, a sound that startled me as it sent tingles through my limbs and into my core. “That feels nice.”

“It takes me a great deal of focus to sustain it.” His forehead lowered against mine as we stared at each other, letting our moans resonate the sliver of quivering air between us each time he drove into me. “Each beat of your heart is nothing but me thinking of you. Never again shall you go without it.”

Enosh rocked in and out of me at a sensual pace, heating my inner walls with measured strokes. His hands closed around my wrist, slowly bringing them upward where the white grass slung around my arms, gently restraining me.

“Do you feel me? I am a thousand caresses upon your skin.” More spread into my hair, sending one blissful shiver after another from my scalp down across my body. “Never again will I deny you my touch. I am all yours, Ada. Forever.”

He fed me his kisses, assurances of his love, and each masculine groan that tumbled from his lips.

And I feasted on it, clasping his back, sensing the familiar shift of his muscles against my palms. My legs clasped around his waist as the grass lengthened with my motion, allowing me to pull him deeper into me. Back arching, I met him beat for beat, aching for completion with unrestrained need.

“I love you.” His hand fisted in my hair, angling my head until the side of my neck lay exposed where he licked and kissed, only to growl his pleasure against my earlobe. “The ground shall tremble beneath my army of corpses, letting the depravity of mortals crumble by my queen’s feet. However many wicked lives it takes, I shall sacrifice them all to have yours restored. I shall destroy this world wrought with corruption, building a better one for you and our baby.”

Our baby.

My nails clawed at his back as my insides convulsed with an intensity that set my core aflame. The beat of my heart quickened, drumming so loudly inside my head that it overwhelmed all thoughts of caution, all lessons of morality, and even my scream as I peaked.

Enosh’s throaty groans mixed into it. He gave a final thrust, pinning me between the weight of his body and the tickle of grass along my blessedly warm skin. Shudders wracked his body, but he remained otherwise still, his cock twitching and throbbing inside me.

When our breathing calmed, he nuzzled my temple. “We shall stay like this for a few days while I tend to you. Then, we shall provoke my brother to come into his form, and demand he gives you the breath of life.”

I reached up, stroking black strands from his face. “Do you think he might agree, then?”

“If I can convince him of my determination and resolve, he might.” Whatever he saw on my face had him hushing me as he cupped my face. “Let me deal with my brother. All I need of you is to trust me and to be hopeful. Can you be hopeful for me, hmm?”

“I can be anything you need me to be.”

If only it would return my baby.

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Chapter 17

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Enosh

I was a man of my word.

A god out for revenge.

And yet, here I lay, on a bed swaying a foot above the ground from the willow in my wife’s garden, letting time pass us by.

For days, I’d put my grudge aside for the sake of enjoying my woman’s touch. How she drew letters beneath my shoulder blade. Tugged on the ends of my hair. Traced the sway of my ribs.

When her movements slowed, I let a groan muffle into the furs. “Do not stop.”

I sensed her cheeks bunch where her face rested inches from mine. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Had I been sleeping, your heart would have stopped.” Instead, I had found bliss in days of conversation and nearness, while eventually drifting into comfortable silence and quiet rest. “Your touch is… hypnotizing.”

Ada increased the pressure, letting her nails gently scratch down each side of my spine until the fine hairs on the small of my back lifted. “Not cold?”

“Cold is all I have ever known, my love.” I slowly blinked my eyes open, stretching my legs and inhaling deeply before I cupped her cheek. “You will be warm again soon. Until then, I shall be the beat of your heart, the throb of your pulse, the rush of your blood, and the salt in your tears.”

A gentle smile curved her lips, pink again from the constant supply of warmed blood borrowed from others I sent through her veins. “When will we leave?”

“As soon as we have made ourselves look presentable.” I rubbed my other hand over my cheek, smooth shaven since we’d bathed together the night before. “Black mink, white fox, or brown sable. Choose.”

“Black mink.”

“Excellent choice. But first…”

When I rolled her onto her back and climbed between her legs, she gave a pitiful shove at my shoulders. “You just had me.”

“Mmm, yes, in the most curious way.”

Oh, my brother called me a bore, but had he ever loved a woman at the bottom of a spring, encapsulated in heat while he happily drowned? How strangely wonderful it had felt, filling Ada with my seed as my lungs filled with water, unable to die but succumbing to the panic of its premise, nonetheless.

“Are you denying me?” Clasping her wrists, I brought them over her head, letting the ropes of hair that suspended our bed gently bind her. “Tell me, little one, what happens if you do not allow me to touch you, hmm?”

Ornery thing she was, she pressed her foot against my chest and wiggled her toes. “I’m sore, almost as though you refuse to ease it.”

“Because this is how I prefer you, feeling me between your legs long after we coupled.” Shoving her leg aside, I lowered my head to kiss our child, as I had promised I would. “You are counting, yes?”

My kisses over her belly ripped the most adorable little giggles from her as she writhed beneath me. “I can’t count that high.”

“I shall teach you, but for now, it serves us well since the sun has long risen beyond that gate.”

And yet I kissed her scars a dozen times more, letting my senses reach into her belly. I could not feel my child, so I touched it the only way I could. Focused on the tiny void, I caressed around it, letting it know I was there, never again to fail as its father.

Lips benumbed, I rose, then reached out and lifted Ada from the bed just as I removed the bonds and dressed my wife for the occasion. “Keeping you warm will pose a challenge, for the lands are sleeping beyond a layer of snow and the winds are biting.”

“Which explains the sheer weight of this.”

She glanced down at the dress forming around her, with long trumpet sleeves, a high collar with bone buttons in the shape of small robins, and a heavy cape that rested on her shoulders. Fur-lined gloves of black leather formed around her hands, and matching boots completed my creation.

I let a black leather outfit form around me, with inlets of the same mink, the inside lined. “Is it to your liking?”

She slipped off my arm and spun, letting the train fan out until the fine hairs of the pelts bristled. “Beautiful, like everything you create.”

“It is still unfinished.”

She startled when I let her strands weave themselves into a nest of golden braids, bringing a look of sheer wonder to her face. Oh, how little she’d seen of the powers bestowed upon me. Raven feathers fanned out at the back of her head, giving her a black halo for a crown.

Reaching her gloved fingers up, she let them tap it as realization widened her eyes. “Feathers.”

“Behold, the Queen of Rot and Pain.” I let black beetle shells compress into a crown upon my head—almost shaped like thick antlers—along with swirls which I imagined coming together by my forehead. “What say you?”

“Behold, the King of Flesh and Bone.” She rose onto her toes, running her assessing stare over my crown as she brushed strands of my hair back over my shoulder. “Out to break hearts.”

Among other organs. “Now we are ready to ask the world to bend its knee.”

A tug on my senses.

Had she just flinched?

Unable to find any traces of it in her muscles, I disregarded it as no more but an odd tremor and opened the gates of my kingdom. The ground shook, letting the beads of bone and nail above our heads clank together.

Ada reached for my arm. “What was that?”

I intertwined my leather-clad fingers with hers and guided her toward the stairs for the throne room. “Allow me to show you.”

I led her downstairs, into the familiar reek of death and decay barely dulled, for I had not bothered to do so.

Orlaigh slouched on the dais—as she had for days—her face puckered and grayish-green, painting her as the traitor she was. Her betrayal should not have come as such a surprise. She was mortal, after all, wicked and dishonest.

“Orlaigh.” I stared down at my gloves, tugging on one finger where they refused to sit right. “I have wasted two centuries trapped in the past, and I shall give it my mind no longer. Let us keep this brief. Will you climb into my throne, or shall I make you?”

The old woman slowly shook her head in acceptance of my judgment and struggled herself onto her legs. “Nay, Master. Ye dinnae have to make me. Aye, I’ll go.”

And yet she gave my wife an apologetic look, preying on my little one’s goodness.

With success.

A small cluster of tension around Ada’s shoulders. A set of muscles that contracted along her arms. A toe that curled slightly in her boot. My little one’s flesh and bone betrayed the kind of unease that sharpened the edge I thought I had already crossed…

… only to find myself still balancing.

Ah, my love had told me she could be anything I needed her to be. I needed her to be cold, detached, and out for revenge—needed her to be all those things she’d accused me of. If only for a little while…

What if she could never be that?

A shadow fell over my chest.

Here I stood, a god shaped to perfection, powerful in so many ways, yet it bought me no reprieve from gravity and how it made me sway on this line with a deep crater to each side. One held the loss of my wife’s warmth and child. The other, the loss of my cold wife’s love.

Where would I rather fall?

The answer came easily.

I would rather embrace the cold body of the woman who loved me than desperately clasp to the warm body of the woman who grew our child in a core of chilling hate.

But alas, I was a god.

Gods ought to be above choices.

There was always my brother and his whispers—a last resort should I fail at making my little one embrace the sad truth about mortals’ corruption.

Until then, I would balance.

“I sense the tension in your muscles, unaware of how deep Orlaigh’s betrayal might have reached.” I cupped the back of Ada’s head, pulled her in for a kiss, then placed my lips by her ear. “Have you ever asked yourself why we’ve been overwhelmed by such a large force in the forest? Curious, do you not agree? As though they had only waited for us to emerge that day?”

Her stomach clenched as her gaze dropped to my chest, and she ran a finger over the soft pelt of her sleeve. Thinking. Judging. Trying to find excuses for mortal’s wickedness.

Her blue eyes sought out mine. “Pa told me how High Priest Dekalon had every town and village form a militia. You might be mistaken.”

Yes, I might be, but that made Orlaigh no less a traitor. At least now, the old woman could serve a greater role in restoring my wife, helping me to stand by my word for I had promised Ada a child.

A traitor would make me no oathbreaker.

“Has she not left the Pale Court many times?” I asked, letting my fingers stroke over Ada’s belly. “Knew her way around the markets and taverns?”

A rush of blood warmed Ada’s veins—courtesy of my command—then her gaze shot to Orlaigh. “You informed people of our plan to ride out? And cost me my baby?”

Orlaigh shook her head so rapidly, it matched the tremble in her voice as she whimpered, “Nay, lass. Never.”

“Perhaps you have… perhaps you have not.” I rested my hand on the small of Ada’s back, where I tugged her into motion before her anger could ebb away. “Such is the plight of the liar, never to be believed again. Go ahead. Feed your body to my throne.”

Ada braced against my urging. “No.”

No?

A muscle twitched in my jaw, and my lips parted as though eager to call upon the God of Whispers. If my little one could not watch the woman who betrayed her get her due punishment, then how could she possibly sit back and watch the slaughter of—

“I want to see how the throne swallows her.” Ada’s words cut through my thoughts and worries alike. “She knew I had signs of pregnancy. Oh, I’ll never forget that look she gave me that day.”

My heart stumbled over one beat, then another, only to quicken into a faster pace that set my arteries awash with relief. Perhaps this blade I balanced was still there, yes, but welded thicker than first assumed.

“And has Orlaigh not asked me to remove the rot from her before we left?” I circled her belly, reminding her of what this woman may or may not have cost us. “As though she knew we might not return for a while.”

“Yes.” The word fell from Ada’s lips, a mere mumble before her voice took on the gust of an encroaching storm. “Three times she betrayed me. Threatened me with the throne. Now, I want to see her in it.”

“And what my wife wants, my wife shall get.” I whispered a kiss against Ada’s temple before I said, “Orlaigh, you heard my queen…”

Trembling like leaves in the autumn breeze, the old woman stepped around the throne. She poked her head through the opening I shaped in the backrest, right between Lord Tarnem and Commander Mertok. It was getting rather crowded.

The bone closed but a second later, swelling around Orlaigh’s neck like white quicksand as she gasped. “Aaah… Ghrrr—”

The bone strangled her scream into a choking gargle while my throne reshaped. It swallowed her limbs beneath waves of thickening bonedust, weaving them into the backrest to the symphony of cracking femurs and joints that dislodged with several pop-pop-pops.

Ah, how satisfying.

The gruesome sight robbed Ada of breath, filling her empty ribcage with… something. Something I couldn’t quite name, but it had her spine straighten and her shoulders square.

“Do you wish me to stretch her limbs, hmm?” I dove my face into the crook of Ada’s neck, taking in the scent of salt and minerals from how I’d washed her hair in the spring last night. “Shall we needle her organs with bone, letting it spread through her like those roots of mortal’s corruption? All you have to do is say it.”

A swallow visibly ran down her throat, but she shook her head. “No, this is… this is punishment enough.”

Perhaps another time.

I led her along the hallway toward the Æfen bridge as Orlaigh’s whimpers faded behind us. “It is time for us to confront my brother. After that, we will ride for the village where I found you. From there, to the high temple.”

When the hallway opened to the bridge, her legs froze. “Where did they come from?”

With a slow wave of my hand, I beckoned her gaze to pass over the corpses that lined the bridge, each armed with swords, pikes, and daggers of bone. “From the piles beyond the gates, sworn to defend us.”

“I thought no mortal other than the children would ever enter your court again.”

So much surprise in her voice over something she’d begged of me for an entire month, as though she’d all but forgotten her former goals.

Perhaps she had.

“Even gods make mistakes.” Why hold on to a vow given over the death of a woman who had betrayed me three times over, and deprive my wife and our child of the protection they deserved? “From what I sense, the Æfen Gate is blocked by a significant force of soldiers. How kind of High Priest Dekalon to supply me with an army and deliver it to my doorstep. Still, never again will I allow harm to come to you.”

She turned to lift a brow at me. “Enosh, I can’t die.”

“But you can suffer, and you had enough of that.” I let a dapple-gray horse shape in front of us, lifted her onto its back like I had done a dozen times before, then swung up behind her. “Suffering the pain of flesh is my duty; protecting you from it is my vow.”

I willed our horse into a walk toward the gate, calling upon the dead to follow. Groans and stomps resonated in the Pale Court, and the bridge shook beneath the thunder of two hundred fleshbare heels marching toward the Æfen Gate.

“Do your master’s bidding!” My shout joined the beat of hooves in my requiem of ruin, carrying it up the incline before it scattered into the wintery winds. “Seven men you shall bring me, alive and bound. Kill the others. Kill them all!”

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