Frost to Dust by Myra Danvers
1
Adense fog swirled between my ears. Echoing with a distant call to wake, yet mocking my every effort to obey. In my wrists and throat, a lingering ache gnawing at my sinew. Pressing burning kisses to the hurt.
And through it all, white-hot flames lit the dark. Calling me back.
Demandingmy return.
When at last I was able to peel my lids apart, it was to find I was curled around myself on a couch, fully dressed. Clad in a black knee-length wrap. Knotted behind my neck, my back left bare all the way to the top of my bottom. Exposed to the chill of a darkened room.
How I had come to be this way, I could not recall.
Blinking, groggy and disoriented, I brushed at the hair sticking to my sweaty brow.
A flash of gold caught my attention.
Manacles.
On my skin.
Horror bled through my veins with the return of memory, and with a cry, I clawed at the warm gold only to recoil in pain.
They were deep. The seam between gold and flesh utterly indiscernible, as if melted into my skin. Buried into the meat in such a way that I knew they might never be removed.
“Nooo,” I moaned, voice trembling, gaze transfixed to what I couldn’t change. There would be no chafing, no getting snagged on clothing, and no itching beneath the gold.
A smooth, cultured chuckle skated across my nape, making me whirl where I sat, fists raised.
“They’re quite permanent,” the captain said, dark eyes two gleaming pricks of light that watched from across a darkened room. Cruel amusement etched into every line of his face.
I gasped.
Naked from the waist up, hair still damp from the bathhouse—tousled and unruly—his lower half was encased in dark slacks. Muscle rippled as he fidgeted with a length of fabric, watching me without so much as a blink.
“Where am I?” I asked through dry lips.
“We are in the master bedroom of the house I occupy, in what used to be Elora,” he replied, closing the distance between us with a slow, relentless roll of his hips.
Heat flared across my cheeks. “Don’t touch me,” I hissed, and pressed my back to the couch.
He hummed through a smirk. “Ah, but I own you, Mila. It is my right to do whatever I damn well please with my property.”
“You don’t own me,” I snapped, baring teeth. Braced for the invasion of my personal space. Straining not to see the shape of long fingers, to remember the press and slide—
“Mmm,” he purred, stepping too close. Enough that his heat touched my collarbones. “And that sounds like a challenge.”
“It shouldn’t,” I hissed, and hopped onto the back of the couch. Crouched at eye level, knuckles white—until he straightened, towering above me.
“Such a saucy mouth,” he crooned, grinning now. “I can think of plenty of things to keep those pretty lips of yours busy.”
In response, I merely showed him my teeth. A silent dare for him to put something delicate in my mouth.
He lunged for my arm with a bark of cold laughter, but I was ready.
Throwing my weight in the opposite direction, I made a beeline for the door.
“Oh, Mila?” he sang, and in an instant, my every muscle seized stiff and solid against my will.
A fine tremor rippled through my body, but no matter how hard I tried to struggle—to fight or flee—I was frozen.
In my wrists and throat, a burning tingle that tasted of dark flames. Ravenous, burning frost that buried pointed teeth deep into my marrow and supped on my life force. Gulped down great, heaving swallows of my energy before I had a chance to do more than sense it going to support another.
Stolen.
Warm fingers skated down the length of my exposed spine. Bumping over the ridges—a shiver the only movement I was allowed.
His voice was a soft, cultured hum of debauchery and threat when he asked, “Would you like to learn why your cuffs are called ‘Tritan chains’ when there are no chains in sight?”
With my back to the captain, I hadn’t a choice but to stand utterly still. Held perfectly immobile, he left me trembling in the center of his bedroom, my body no longer mine to control. Jaw locked tight, for his question was rhetorical.
“Look at your wrists for me, darling.”
My head bowed and my gaze dropped, and though I tried with all my might to deny the command, I couldn’t help but look.
Glowing.
Bright light burning without heat, the cuffs encircling my wrist were blazing with a brilliance that made my eyes water. But it wasn’t the complete inability to move, nor the threat of what the captain might do with this absolute control.
It was my skin.
Standing rigid beneath the surface, tracing a handspan away from the manacles, my veins were illuminated with the pulse of molten gold.
Asher, infecting my very blood with his tainted, Caledonian influence.
He stepped around me, strolling into my line of vision. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked, and dragged the back of his knuckles down my cheek. And then, with a ravenous smirk, he lifted his wrist to show off the matching cuff fused to his skin. A golden circlet glowing with my energy. “They allow me to control you,” he murmured. “I can stop you from running with nothing more than a thought.” One finger on my chest, he pushed me back. “I can have you drop to your knees and worship my cock like a seasoned whore,” he continued, herding me toward the couch against my will. “And I can make you like it, though”—he smirked—“that comes from experience, not the chains.”
Panic bubbled up between my ribs, and as if he wanted to hear the desperation in my voice, he released my jaw enough to allow me to say, “Please don’t,” in scarcely more than a whisper. Shamed into begging.
Into being allowed to beg.
A laugh bubbled up from deep inside his chest, and he said, “Sit,” through that vile smirk that only widened when I obeyed without a moment’s hesitation. “Believe me, pet,” he drawled, and slid one hand up, around the curve of my hip and beneath the cushion—under the scraps of black silk—to cup the sensitive meat of my bottom. “You’ll beg. And it will be beautiful.”
Head falling back, I spat, “I won’t beg to be raped,” through pointed teeth. Letting him feel every bit of my hatred. My helpless wrath.
He watched as my thighs fell apart at the slightest, coaxing touch, then settled between them. One knee pressing against my core, he stooped. Pressed his lips to my neck, teeth rasping over throbbing, delicate flesh. “Do you think the pleasure slaves throw themselves at my feet because I abuse them?” he whispered against my ear, and sent ice shivering through my blood. “Because I force them?”
But in spite of myself, I sneered. Goaded into bickering, despite the way my heart hammered behind my ribs. “You’re right. A good whipping really is the best way to a woman’s heart.”
A wicked grin flicked against the corner of my jaw. “Your heart holds no interest to me, slave,” he murmured, and set his knee to rock against the place where I ached. “And I already have what I need from you.”
“I’ll die before I service you or your men,” I snarled, trapped beneath him. Unable to so much as lift a finger against his influence. Helpless to the whims of cruelty or mercy. Tormented by the wicked lust flickering in those inky, Caledonian eyes.
Amusement lapped at my senses. Foreign and dark and obliterating my indignant fury, he possessed me. Completely. Filled me with elite energy and left me gasping and disoriented. “You belong to me now, Mila. And I don’t share.”
Tears flooded my lash line, but I clung to the only thing I had left. Snark. “Says the man with a harem of public sex slaves.”
“Purchased for the men I command.”
“That’s the very definition of sharing!”
He laughed before pressing his lips to mine. Stealing my breath, my voice. Every last drop of my sense.
“What I mean to say is that I shall not be sharing you.” His influence faded away before I could muster a response, leaving me free to squirm. To fight with more than words and wit. “Come,” he said, and pushed off the couch, retreating into an ensuite bathroom without a backward glance. “We’ll be late for supper.”
I scrubbed at my arms, my throat and wrists, trying to shake the feeling of Captain Asher Rawlings crawling through my blood and sinew. Learning everything that I was from the inside out. And, voice shaking, I said, “I’m not hungry,” through a curled lip.
“And I wasn’t asking.”
He reappeared, wearing a black suit that hugged his muscular frame. Glittering with the stars and pins that denoted his rank within the Caledonian army. For a moment, he simply took me in. Dark eyes narrowed, flicking over my clenched fists, my spread, braced feet. And then, “Don’t spoil my good mood with a fight you can’t win, Mila. I can promise you won’t like the consequences.”
I laughed, despite the tears fogging my vision. “What more can you do to me? You can’t kill me—I’m the source of your newfound power. Probably the very last free priestess, which means you’ll never have another chance like this,” I said, gaining confidence with every spoken word. Enough that I dared stalk toward him in my temper. “I can heal any damage you do to my body because I no longer have anything to hide. So go ahead. You can’t hurt me, elite.”
For the space of several breaths, there was nothing. Only the quiet sounds of a one-sided power struggle.
And then, “That you think so is oddly… refreshing. The opinion of a sheltered, naive little girl, of course, but refreshing nevertheless. And tempting as it might be to teach you the errors in your thinking, I’m due at General Tilcot’s manse at the top of the hour.” He paused then, fidgeting with a golden button at his wrist, shaking his head as if amused by my passion. “Let me offer you some advice, given that I’m in something of a celebratory mood. Go out of your way to behave yourself in the company of these men. Under no circumstances are you to draw attention to yourself, do you understand me?”
I laughed, sneering. “Will my bad behavior reflect poorly on you?” I cooed, lightheaded with the rush of being near such a villain. The deadly push and pull I wasn’t sure I’d survive. Wasn’t sure I could muster the effort to care, given all I’d lost.
One large, rough hand settled on the back of my neck, and I was made to still as he caught my gaze in the bottomless, inky swirl of dark eyes. He said, “Yes,” in such a way that saw my snide retort whither on my tongue. Held rapt and attentive. “Owning a priestess is a privilege. One that can be taken away without impacting my status as an asset to the empire.”
It was my turn to grin, and I let him see the savage point of my teeth. “So I can be rid of you, then? I can break this infernal bond and—”
“You mistake me,” he said, and closed what little distance there was between us. Chest to chest, looming above me in a way that made me feel tiny. Fragile and insignificant. “I don’t need to be in possession of my priestess to be an asset to the empire. That is, to use your power to kill rebel scum.” He cupped the back of my neck and let a rough thumb skate over my cheek, beneath my eye before his fingers tangled in the fine hairs at my nape. “They can hide any embarrassing assets away in the capital. Locked away in a cell, where no one will ever think to wonder after your health. Where it doesn’t matter that you’re bound to me, or that I have no intention of sharing that sweet little pussy with a garrison of my men.” His fingers grew tight with warning. “There are things you’ve never thought to be terrified of, Mila. Horrible things that would see you begging to take my cock. To please me in any way your pretty little head can dream up, for nothing at all, except the promise that you’ll remain in my care. So yes, Mila. Your bad behavior will reflect poorly on me, but you will pay the higher price.” He released me, then. Took a quick breath and stepped back, raking one hand through thick, dark hair. “But there’s only one way to break this bond.”
“A-and what’s”—I cleared my throat—”What’s that?”
He shrugged, dark eyes glittering and heavy with warning. “You’ll have to die.”