Frost to Dust by Myra Danvers

12

Adull, thumping ache throbbed in my temples as sunlight warmed my eyelids. Insulting in its intensity.

I squinted against the offense, pressing my face deeper into the pillow and exhaled.

Horrible breath bounced back in my face.

Teeth coated in a fuzzy layer, I swallowed and tasted something foul. Groaning, too hot, I tried to roll and was caught up by the handcuffs binding my wrists. By a weight draped over my hip. My ribs.

Asher.

Wrapped all around me, he slept. Oblivious, his left hand cupping my breast, his front aligned with my back, he was hard.

Achinglyso.

Twitching where he was pressed against the curve of my bottom, I could feel a drop of wetness both slimy and sticky pooled against my skin.

And before I could choke it down, I whimpered. Hypersensitive, sopping wet from a sleepless night of torment, my eyes burned with exhaustion. And my stomach—roiling and empty—snarled. Twisting around nothing, screaming to be filled only half as loud as the need to feel that thick length spearing into me—

Teeth clenched, I tried to reach for my shield and found a wall of elite energy instead.

Banked and sleepy… a veritable buffet of dark flames ripe for the picking.

Salivating, I pressed into him. Back flexing, I pulled at his essence. Just a sip… a single… harmless taste to dispel my appetite before I begged him for something to eat…

I rolled my neck, face pressed into the pillow to drown my sigh as I reached for the burn and found it sweet.

An ambrosia that grew all the sweeter with every passing second, until I couldn’t stop.

Drinking in a single, unending gulp that bypassed the empty pit in my stomach, I gorged myself on all things Asher.

He sucked in a stuttering breath.

Stretched.

Groaned.

Squeezing that handful of fat and flesh, he rolled my nipple, then wormed his free hand between us to take himself in hand. Nudging my thighs apart, he sent his length sliding through sodden lips. Lubricated by an easy glide, he thrust through my folds with a lazy roll of his hips. The tip of his cock teasing my clit when it sluiced through sodden heat, and peaked through to the other side.

Fists clenched, I tried to tip my pelvis down. To catch the head of his cock where I ached the most and take him inside.

Mumbled words vibrated against my nape. “Slept well?”

I lurched away from the sound of his voice. The smug cruelty that lapped at my shoulder and flickered through my chest.

“Mmm, don’t stop on my account,” he drawled. Following my retreat with one hand heavy on my hip. His prick still lodged between my thighs, I could feel his heartbeat throbbing at my core.

I didn’t think.

Couldn’t.

I reacted.

Hurling a barb, I launched an attack. Clumsy and faltering, I wormed my way deeper. Ravenous, hurting and depleted, I tried to feast on my elite. Tried to leave him drained and weak.

Helpless.

Just as he’d left me.

And so I felt it when he came fully awake. When he went still at my back, letting me take my fill. Above all… curious to see where this might lead.

I felt it all.

Every flickering emotion. Each and every one of his aches and pains.

Everything.

Groaning, he rolled, spread my thighs and draped my left knee over his hip, settling above me. Looming on the edge of action, he chose instead watch me with pupils blown wide as they might go. Hot and thick, but restrained, inky eyes fixed not to my nipples, but to my face. Sober now, I felt it when his curiosity became full-blown interest.

Wrists pressing into the cold bite of steel, I hiccuped. Straining against my restraints, I grew sloppy and unfocused as I neared the limit of what I could take.

“My turn,” he whispered, and showed me what an elite really was.

Pushing, he sent a bolt of energy through my skin.

The elite to my priestess, he fed me. Expelling massive quantities of pure, dark magic with a control that put my paltry attempt to shame.

Everywhere he touched, electrified. Ribs, nipples, stomach, he held himself aloft and let one hand wander. Caressing, his fingertips left corruption in their wake.

“I know you can feel it,” he murmured, and nudged at my entrance. Blunt and heavy, his tip sent lightning racing through my blood. Made me arch and mewl, shame heating my skin in such a way that I couldn’t help but succumb to it. “I know you can feel what you do to me. But let’s see,” he whispered, and flashed a devious grin, “what my sexy little vixen needs, hmm?”

I shook my head, but that was all I could muster before he turned the tide. Before he unleashed the opposite end of the spectrum and hit me with a wave of my own making.

Priestess magic.

What he held no rights to, but wielded as if he’d been trained by the Head Priestess herself.

Racing through my blood, he tasted and took. Feeding. Muscles trembling as he held himself in check, restrained, he showed me what control really was.

And then he struck my shield.

“Ah,” he breathed, forehead dipping to bump against mine. “So this is what Sasha’s been teaching you, hmm?”

“N-no,” I whispered, eyes drifting shut on the denial I knew he could feel before it even crossed my lips.

He slipped one hand beneath my lower back, spread his fingers against the base of my spine, then pulled my hips into him. Grinding against the flood of wet heat, he tormented me with a surge of male arousal—both inside and out. The underside of his thick cock slid against my clit, throbbing where he was poised to claim. And when I tried to twist away, he sent heated blood to swell tissue already weeping for release.

“No?” he whispered, and pressed a kiss to my collarbone. “Come now, Mila. You can do better than that. Fight me, pet. Show me the brave warrior priestess whose greedy little pussy woke me up with such a ferocious need.”

“That’s not”—I shivered—“that’s not what happened.”

He laughed. “Ah, yes. I forgot. This is all me, isn’t it? All my fault.”

Straining, my stomach grew taut. Concave, hollow as I curled around myself—toward him.

“I’ll admit, it’s quite something,” he mused, assaulting me with a bolt of pure, unfiltered lust. Prodding at the shield as if it were nothing to do so. To split himself in two and leave me in ruins. “Ingenious, really. But what’s it for?”

I blinked. Trembling, my skin slick with arousal and sweat. Asher held me in thrall and filled me with a sense of overwhelming compliance. “It’s a shield,” I whispered, caught in the bottomless pools of inky black. Ensnared somewhere too deep to name, my lips loosened.

Forcing my neck to bend, he pressed a kiss to the hollow at the base of my throat. “Mmhmm.”

“For protection. To”—I panted, licking at the points of my teeth and wet parched lips—“to keep me separate from… from the hunger. The thirst for… more.”

Teeth dragged along the tight lines bunched and corded down the length of my throat. “The empath.”

“Yesss,” I hissed, squirming against his heat. “I’m not… not a priestess. ‘M nothing. Nothing. Can’t win with no power. No talent… no…” I gasped, and tried to pull my wrists free from the handcuffs. “No skills. Daddy wouldn’t—he said—he said the temple was for commoners who had no options. No connections. That I would be wasted in a life of worship… But now”—I hiccuped around a sob—“I’m a tool of war. To be passed around. Fought over. Used. A-and not even the shield can save me,” I rasped, shaking somewhere deep inside, where a crack had become a canyon.

For the space of several long breaths, the captain merely continued to run his lips along my flesh. Leaving me to tremble beneath him. Overcome by a torrent of emotions I hadn’t known were there.

Grief I would never have voiced had he not mucked about inside my head… cracked open my heart.

A soft knock at the door shattered the moment, and in one fluid motion, he unlocked my handcuffs, rolled, and stepped into a rumpled pair of pants. “Come in,” he called, not bothering to find himself a shirt.

Reeling, I stayed where I’d been abandoned. Spread and exposed. The sheets tangled about my nudity serving only to paint a picture of what had transpired here.

It was Alicia.

It was always Alicia.

“Breakfast!” she chirped, hands laden with a tray of food piled high. Her cheeks over-bright as she arranged her delivery on the captain’s desk without glancing in my direction. “Is there anything else you need, sir?”

“We’re headed to the bathhouse today,” the captain returned, hopping to adjust his pant—where he was swollen enough to take extra care with the zipper. “See that one of the private baths is prepared?”

She inclined her head, said, “Of course,” and left without another word. Rushing off to please her master in a swirl of skirts and lingering perfume.

Plucking a folded square from the top of the pile, the captain’s eyes flicked over a note. His brow drawn and bunched by the time he said down, he scowled at the fruit as if it had personally offended him.

But through a thunderous scowl, he said, “Hungry?” and tucked into the platter.

I swallowed, struggling to force myself upright for the feeling of being too full. Bloated not in body, but in spirit. Elite energy sloshing around in my head.

“Come,” he drawled, and flicked a serviette open. “Eat. It would seem Sasha went to a lot of trouble to feed you something other than my energy.” With a sneer, he crumpled the note and tossed it aside.

Dizzy, I staggered from the bed in a show of naked, jiggling skin. Drawing the captain’s attention away from his meal as I reached for the bed sheets once more. Padding over on the balls of my feet, I inhaled the scent of bacon, sausage, and an assortment of fried things that churned my stomach.

Without a word, he set two fingers to the edge of the tray and spun it, offering me a selection of fried mashed potatoes. A pile of fruit and vegetables of every type and color I hadn’t seen even before the war.

My stomach rumbled in loud anticipation, and despite everything… I blushed.

Grinning, he brought a forkful to his lips. “Bashful, hmm?”

I rolled my eyes. Sinking into the chair opposite, one hand clutching at bunched fabric, I dug in to the first palatable meal I’d had on Caledonian soil. Seized by a sudden ravenous hunger, I ate with reckless abandon. Hardly bothering to take the time to chew before swallowing and moving on to the next mouthful.

It wasn’t long before my side of the tray was picked clean—barring the wall of things left behind that had been touching charred flesh and the rinds of my feast.

I hiccuped, unable to recall a time in which I’d been so full. So… utterly sated.

And yet aching for something more…

“Fucksakes, Mila,” the captain said, already finished. A large portion of his meal left untouched. “That was impressive.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Was it?”

“I’ve never seen a woman eat with such—” He paused to stroke at the stubble on his chin, then said, “Enthusiasm. Where could you have possibly hidden all that food? You’re such a little thing.”

“Yes, well.” I cleared my throat. “These things are bound to happen. Especially when your all-powerful master forgets to feed you for days on end.”

It was his turn to blush, and he inclined his head. Affording a point where it was due. “If you’re finished,” he said after a beat, and moved to stand. “I’m nursing a cankerous hangover, and”—he grimaced—“I can smell myself. It’s time for a bath.”