Frost to Dust by Myra Danvers

8

Wrapped in a cocoon of warmth, I slept.

Entranced by swirling, murky blackness that yawned and hummed a drowsy song. A song of sedation and warmth and hypnotic beauty. And behind my ribs, the heat of dark flames licking and pulling. Burning in the pit of my stomach, where I ached to be indulged, my hunger relieved.

It only grew worse. Growling long and low in the silence stuffing my ears, begging for food. For things I couldn’t begin to name.

I rolled to ignore the hunger pains. Writhing in silken sheets, I burrowed deeper, thighs whispering over luxury I hadn’t known in… years. Skin bare and cool despite the heat pulsing through my veins.

Groaning, I curled around myself. Flexed my back and snuggled beneath the soothing weight. Blankets saturated in an intoxicating scent, one I drew deep into my lungs, face pressed into a feathered pillow.

Hands dipping between my thighs, I clasped my palms and squeezed my knees together. Warming my fingers. Seeking comfort in a place where such a thing was rare to the point of absurdity.

Instead, I found the ache of slick flesh.

The urge to press against everything that was hard and cruel. Possessive. Taking things I couldn’t give.

I gasped.

Cold sweat prickling my hairline, my eyes snapped open to stare at nothing. Sightless, until I blinked and sucked a breath between sagging jaws.

I was panting.

Hungry and confused.

Naked.

Starved for a thing I had only been made to taste.

Teeth bared, I kicked free of tangled, cloying sheets and sprang from the bed. A blur of pale, naked skin. Sides heaving with exertion, as if I’d been running through summer’s thick, muggy heat.

Eyes darting about the darkened room, I stood with fists clenched at my sides. Trembling, every muscle taut with tension, trying to take in my surroundings, to find a weapon before I was discovered awake and alone in the captain’s private quarters.

But what I found wasn’t the sinister den of torment I’d thought it to be. Illuminated by early morning sunlight, what had previously been concealed in shadow was nothing more than a richly appointed bedroom. A man’s sparse sense of decoration, void of color that wasn’t the traditional Caledonian black and gold. Furnished without a whisper of clutter.

A space that was far less threatening without the captain in it.

Heading for the en suit bathroom, I relieved myself in private. Grateful for the luxury of amenities after so long living in the wood, yet not daring to flush for fear of drawing attention to myself.

At least, not until I’d dressed. Until I was armed with something more than pointless begging that fell on merciless ears.

Rummaging through the captain’s personal effects, I found military uniforms, clothing that reeked of luxury, but not so much as a stitch even remotely close to my size. Not even the dreadful slave silks he’d dressed me in the last time I’d woken in this room with no idea how I’d come to be here.

“Try the closet,” said a snide voice.

I whirled with fists clenched, feet braced shoulder width apart before I thought to hide my nudity.

Beau.

Sneering around a truly spectacular bruise that matched the imprint of my knuckles, the elderly slave let milky eyes wander over my breasts—cataloguing everything else below them—making sure I could see just how unimpressive I really was. “You’ll be wanting another bath, I’m sure. The master doesn’t tolerate the stench of sour pussy on his whores.”

I smiled, showing teeth before I turned and pulled a sheet off the bed, ignoring the vulgar slur. “What’s it like?” I asked instead, and took my time in dressing. Eyes fixed to her every subtle movement, searching for the weakness I could sense lurking just beyond sight.

One grey brow rose as she stooped to retrieve a rumpled garment. “I beg your pardon?”

“You helped to give him a priestess. A prized resource growing more fleeting with every passing hour.” I shrugged, head cocked as I watched her pick up after her master, one hand twisted in the fabric bunched over my chest. “What’s it like to know you’ll never achieve anything more significant than that? Do you just… wait for death, or is there some other purpose you might fulfill? I can’t imagine there’s much in the way of demand for a retired whore that’s… well.” My eyes flicked down her body, returning her gracious sentiment. “But we are deep inside the Empire of Caledonia, so what could I really know about it?”

She spluttered, face going waxy. “You insolent little girl! I’ve dedicated a lifetime in service to the Rawlings bloodline, and—”

“And all I have to do is breathe,” I said, “and I’m more important than you’ll ever be.” I took a step toward her, sheets trailing along in my wake as I paced closer. Filling my lungs with a delicious aroma I was becoming intimately familiar with.

Righteous fury—the scent so thick in the air I could taste it. Could feel the heat of such indignant angst that I was moved to warm myself in the crackle of dark flames. To feed from the perfume wafting from deep inside her aging body until it became something new.

Fear.

Her face flushed an ugly shade that clashed with her bruised eye socket.

But I spoke before she could strain herself too much, a feral, toothy smile spreading across my lips. “No one’s here to save you this time, Beau. But… would anyone really notice if something… sinister were to happen here today? Would anyone care, or would you be replaced before anyone thought to question your absence?”

“Thank you, Beau,” the captain said, and shattered the spell. Arms crossed, shoulder braced against the doorframe, he watched me through a narrow glare. “You may take the rest of the day for yourself, but please send Alicia, will you? Mila needs an escort.”

She nodded, and without a word, fled. Defeated. The shine of wetness visible on her blotchy cheeks.

The captain pushed off the doorframe. “That was some truly inspired cruelty, pet. Care to pick a fight with a more worthy opponent?”

I retreated with a curled lip. Knees soft, coiled for the coming battle I fully intended to provoke, I clutched the fabric closer to my breasts. “Don’t you have a war to wage on innocent citizens? Oh, that’s right,” I said, refusing to give up my back. “You’re Captain Asher Rawlings. The impotent soldier who can’t fight.”

The crackle of ravenous energy blazed in my core. Demanding to be fed. To feast until there was nothing left.

“Funny girl,” he drawled, advancing on silent feet. “But now that I’m off duty, I’ve all the time in the world to dedicate to trainingmy unruly priestess.” He took another rolling step, insatiable greed crackling in the air between us. “My little empath.”

Muscles tense, I watched him without blinking.

“I’ve got you all to myself,” he drawled, obsidian eyes gleaming in the half-light. Taunting me. “And there’s no one,” he murmured with a smirk, “who’s coming to save you, Mila. Not this time.”

With a sneer, I stepped to the side—and the sheet got tangled between my feet.

The captain didn’t hesitate.

He lunged, catching my shoulders. Strong, blunt fingertips bit deep into the muscle, and dark eyes flicked down. To the hand locked tight around the makeshift knot concealing my nudity—a weakness he meant to exploit.

He grinned. Leering as if he hadn’t already seen everything I had to offer.

I thrashed. “Get off—”

The words died on my tongue, a gasp caught high at the back of my throat.

Power.

It licked through me in a swirl, tasting. Taking. Infecting me with the pulsing, ravenous burn of elite poison that seeped through my blood and marrow, touching everything I was. Tainting and twisting it.

He sucked a breath through parted lips. Head falling back, so he might watch me from beneath a hooded glare and lowered lashes.

“Don’t touch me,” I snarled, trying to writhe free from his grip.

The rumble of deep, mocking laughter spilled over his lips. “But Mila,” he drawled, and sent his energy deeper, feeding the poisonous hunger he’d left behind my ribs, “you want me to touch you.”

It was my turn to laugh. “I can assure you, I’d prefer death,” I spat, flashing pointed teeth. Standing strong before the monster who ruled me without flinching.

Caught in his snare, I was helpless when his fingers abandoned my shoulders. When they traveled up, to cup both sides of my skull, dwarfing me in big palms that cradled when they might have crushed. “You think I can’t feel that?” he whispered, thumbs tipping my head back to expose my throat. “How badly you need it.” He stepped forward, driving me back. “The way you ache to be filled. Stuffed and stretched.” A smirk danced in inky eyes when he stooped to press his lips to my ear. “Because I can. And I know exactly how much you hate yourself for wanting it.”

Outrage made me snarl, “It’s you! I can’t get your filthy, elite poison out of my head!” But when he chuckled, I lunged. Incensed. Aiming to sink my teeth into the vulnerable, exposed flesh of his throat.

The rasp of his beard grated against my skin. “There’s my wildcat,” he hummed, blocking me with humiliating ease before he sent nimble fingers to pluck at the sheets. Jerking them from my grip, he sent the flutter of dark silk tumbling to the floor, making me scramble to hide. Vulnerable, exposed to his every lewd whim. And without giving me a chance to recover or stoop, he spun me. Sent me staggering forward, to land with palms braced on the edge of his mattress.

He was on me before I could take another breath. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” he rasped, pinning me in the way he liked. With his weight at my back and the furious beat of aroused male kicking at the ache between my legs. “Can’t stop imagining what it’ll be like to watch you choke on my cock.”

“Try it,” I snarled, and bucked against his chest. “I’ll bite it off at the root.”

Blunt teeth set against the meat of my shoulder, his breath a tiny, heated explosion of amusement. “I wonder,” he said, ignoring me without bothering to exert his influence, “if you’ll beg for it when I let you breathe.” One hand slipped over my hip, grating over the sensitive skin beneath my bellybutton before he found my mound. Hairless and swollen. He cupped me in the heat of his palm, his fingers pressing a gentle threat against my folds, lingering without seeking more. “I wonder if you’ll drip for me when I come down your throat and make you drink every last drop.”

I whined, head sagging, my shoulder blades growing sharp as I strained to bare his weight and mine. Trembling beneath the onslaught of alien arousal pumping through my veins. “Never,” I said, breathless, the sound fragile and pathetic even to my own ears.

“Oh, I don’t know about never,” he cooed, and spread those fingers. Letting slick heat spill over invasive digits, he stole a breath from the hair at my nape. “It’s so easy for me to infect you, after all,” he said, derisive and cruel, plunging two hooked fingers inside. “A pussy this wet couldn’t possibly be because you want to get fucked raw by an enemy, right? It’s all this elite energy I’m wielding.”

Legs trembling, I tried to drag a breath through the clog in my throat, but managed only a tiny sip. My back twisting beneath his weight. Writhing against the ache of being stretched by thick fingers.

“This is all my fault,” he continued, and pulled back just to make me listen. So I might hear the liquid squelch as his fingers worked, before plunging back inside. Deeper, this time. Curled against a spot that drew the swollen lips of my sex apart on a silent gasp as sweat beaded across my forehead. “This pretty little cunt sings for me, not you. Isn’t that right?”

I shook my head, a soundless denial whispering across my lips.

It was enough to make him laugh. Shoving me face-down into the sheets, his free hand moved to work at his belt, to unleash that length of angry flesh. “Shit,” he rasped after a pause, and I felt his fist pump against my thigh. Felt the blunt kiss of something hot and sticky where it bumped my skin, fist moving in time with his fingers. Making a mess of the slick treachery pouring from my slit.

Calves burning, I squirmed and tried to crawl for freedom. Every ounce of my bravado long gone, to be replaced by stark, raw instinct. “Please.”

“Begging already?” he said, and pulled his fingers free. “I must admit, I’m a touch disappointed. Thought my warrior priestess would be harder to break.” Abandoning his thick length, he tangled his fingers in my hair and held me still. Cheek pressed into the sheets, he showed me the evidence of what he’d done between my thighs, holding glistening fingers up to the dim light. “But this couldn’t possibly be you, could it?”

Tears spilled over my lashes, then. The brine swallowed up by dark fabric, my cheeks hot, I panted for breath.

“Taste it then,” he whispered, and painted my tongue. “Taste what I did to you and tell me how much you don’t want this. I’ll wait.”

Something in my chest shattered at the tangy sweetness, and without pausing to think, I twisted. Lunged for the meat of his wrist, and sank my teeth into the muscle with a desperate sob.

He cursed, and with crushing force, the full bulk of a furious male fell across my back. Pressing every last sip of air from my lungs. “Let go,” he whispered, voice tight with the unmistakable edge of pain.

I shook my head. Rallying free of the seductive lure he’d spun through my brain.

“No?” he asked, and I shook my head again, smiling against his flesh when my teeth sank ever deeper. When the salty tang of blood flooded my mouth and replaced the deepest shame I might imagine with the rush of vengeance. “Fine,” he whispered, and snaked one hand between us, despite the grip I had on his flesh. Lining himself up—pumping once, twice, saturating himself in cream—he pressed rigid arousal into my melting flesh. Poised to take every last piece of me, he called my bluff, and said, “Then play time is over.”

I squealed, releasing him as I tried to claw my way to freedom. “A-Asher,” I cried, trying to bend my knees, to escape the heavy pall fogging my senses before it was too late.

He bucked against me with a fractured groan, the whisper of dark flames surging to life at the sound of his name on my lips. “I’m going to make you gape for me,” he whispered, hips pressing forward. Deeper. “You’ll feel it,” he rasped, one hand sweeping down, to lift my right thigh and leave my bent knee on the mattress. Leaving me wide open as he looked on. “In every step you take for the next week, you’ll feel me drip from this cunt and know who owns you.”

Eyes squeezed shut, I shivered. Clawing at the sheets. “I may be bound to you,” I rasped, breath hitching when he peeled slick lips apart, his thumb pressing the head of his shaft down, so it might pierce through all that was throbbing and untouched. “But I’ll n-never be yours.”

His hand settled on my hip, grip tight enough to bruise all the way through the fat and deep into my muscle.

And then he pressed forward to make his claim, to show me just how wrong I was without bothering to speak a single word. Stretching. Branding me from the inside as he stuffed every slow inch of himself inside me.

“This means n-nothing,” I gasped, hiccuping through the worst of it. The ache that begged to be submitted. Tamed. “O-only that I had the bad l-luck to be found by you first.” Burying my face into the blanket, I shuddered as he broke through the last of my restraint, sliding all the way to my roof. Where he struck something too deep and stole my breath.

“Fucksakes,” he snarled, not unmoved. Shivering at my back, where I couldn’t see. Could only feel the crackle of elite energy when it burned with desperate need. “So fucking tight. So—hnggh—so wet.”

I sucked a shaking breath between my lips and struck a blow meant to wound. “I wish it was the general,” I whispered, my words scarcely more than a breath. My heart in tatters. “I wish General Tilcot had found me first. At least he’d be my equal.”

For a moment, the captain was still. Buried to the hilt, stretching me in ways I’d never thought possible, he filled me to the brim but still had more to give.

And then he surged forward.

Catching my right wrist in an unforgiving grip, he wrenched my arm behind my back. Twisting my forearm until he’d forced my fingers to sit between my shoulder blades, he bucked into me only to withdraw. To shift, slotting his right knee under mine—forcing me to brace on one leg as he pulled back and kept me off balance as he mounted me. He bucked back inside in a single, brutal thrust that dragged a ragged little scream from my lips.

“You want to be treated like a whore?” he snarled, fucking into me with all the fury coursing through his blood. The wounded pride. “Is that it? You want to be fucked like a sleeve? Used by whoever earns a turn?”

Eyes bulging, I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe or fight. I could only lay there, pinned, speared, and helpless, as I took what I had provoked. My blood saturated with him.

My body.

Every erratic beat of my heart wound me tighter, pulling me deeper into the flames until I was burning with it. Aching and hurting for a thing I couldn’t name.

“Do you want to be like Sasha?” he spat, and hooked his forearm beneath my chin. Every heaving, blistering inch of muscle surging against my back, my trapped wrist locked in place by the weight of his chest. “Beaten down. Broken,” he growled, beard rasping against my cheek. “A shell of the woman she was. A walking ghost who’s seen what horror really is.”

“A-Asher,” I gasped, small and weak, and felt him grow impossibly hard. Felt him swell inside me, at the base, where he stretched my opening. “Please—” I clutched at his forearm, needing mercy. Needing relief or torment.

“Fine,” he spat, and picked up a punishing rhythm. Giving exactly what I couldn’t ask for, he sat back. Perched between my thighs, where both hands found purchase on my hips, and he forced me to bend. Forced my pelvis to tip forward, to open for him as he fucked me breathless. “Then beg for my come, slave,” he snarled, riding me toward a crest. Gliding seamlessly in and out, he worked himself into a furious lather. “Tell me exactly what you need.”

I couldn’t.

Couldn’t name it, had no idea how to speak or where to begin.

I could only sob a wordless plea and pray for relief.

With a snarl, he drove into me with one final, punishing thrust. “Take it,” he spat, and pulsed as deep inside as he could get. Sending jet after jet of searing hot seed to splash against the entrance to my womb, twitching as he pumped me full.

“You’re going to come on this dick,” he growled, and slipped one hand over my hip and found the bead of my achingly swollen clit. “I want you to milk my balls dry,” he said, and rolled that bundle of nerves between two fingers. Sending a tendril of smoldering, dark energy straight into my tender, traumatized flesh.

Squealing, I tried to buck him off. Panicked by the flood threatening to drown me. “I-I can’t—”

“You will,” he hissed, sluicing through my folds. Bumping the place deep inside that overwhelmed my every sense. “I can feel it coming,” he whispered, taunting me. “You’re shaking. So fucking tight it makes me want to come all over again.” Picking up speed, he worked my clit. Strumming it at the perfect pace. “I want to feel you come for me, pet. Do it,” he snarled, and wrapped strong fingers around the base of my throat.

My every muscle seized as the wave crashed. As he sent a tsunami of elite energy into my overwrought system and forced a brutal orgasm to wrench through my body.

“Oh, fuck,” he rasped, and I felt him pulse inside me all over again. Caught in the storm of his own making, he rode me though it with ragged breaths and clenching hands. Utterly overwhelmed by the convulsions he’d demanded milk him dry.

Shuddering to a stop, he collapsed across my back.

Heart thudding in time with mine.

Sweat pooling between his chest and my back.

Our fluids mixed.

And then, setting his teeth to my shoulder, he marked me. Pinching the muscle where any might see it and know what it meant.

That I’d been bred from the back.

Fucked raw by my enemy.

“Your cunt is mine,” he said, and kneaded my breast, catching one beaded nipple between forefinger and thumb. Twisting until I moaned, squirming and sliding around his girth. “Mine to mark.” Hips still pumping, he lingered. Taking lewd pleasure in the mess of bitter cream seeping around his base. “Mine to fill. To punish and spoil. All mine.”

A hitching breath stuttered into my lungs, but that was all.

“I should make you lick it clean,” he murmured, beard rasping against my cheek. My ear. A gentle caress before his voice grew hard and he withdrew in a rush that left me reeling, scrambling for an anchor. “But you’re due at the general’s manse. Lucky you.”

My supporting leg turned to water, and I crumpled. Boneless. Nearly sinking to the floor before my hips took the bulk of my weight and I hung from the edge of the mattress. Reddened bottom on full, indecent display. Dripping, throbbing. Unable to really comprehend what he’d said, to decipher the bitter spite lashing against my back.

“Mmm,” he groaned, and slipped two fingers back inside. Playing in the mess, he spread his fingers and pried my passage open.

Made me gape.

A flood of wetness seeped out.

“Now that’s a pretty picture,” he said, smearing himself all over my mound. His thumb pressing against the tight ring of muscle that guarded my ass. Prodding without penetrating.

I hadn’t even the strength to muster a protest.

“Get up,” he said, and, tone shifting to an unmistakable order, he abandoned me with a hard slap on the ass. Fingers leaving me to gush and drip in his absence. “You’re to spend the day training with Sasha.”

I blinked.

Exhaled.

Still twitching around the phantom stretch and wriggle moving behind my pelvic bone.

Something wet splattered against the carpet, and I blushed. Heat searing my cheeks enough to motivate me to move.

Crawling, I lifted myself. Turned, and sat on the edge of the mattress, no doubt leaving a mess on the sheets beneath my nudity. A mess Beau would be around to straighten before night fell. Dizzy as I heard him rummaging through his closet. Unseen, only to return fully dressed, if a little rumpled. Over his left forearm, a length of now familiar black silks, edged in gold.

I swallowed, unable to meet his eye. Both hands gripping the mattress at my hips, I focused instead on remaining upright. On giving him nothing more to hold over me.

Unfolding the silks with a snap of his wrist, he draped the complicated wrap around my shoulders and twisted. A different iteration on what I’d been wearing the day before, he gave me both modesty and left me feeling utterly exposed.

He pulled me to my feet, grinning when I wobbled. When he had to keep me stable until I had both knees locked and I could stand without him. “Come,” he said, and those dark eyes grew tight with tension once more.

I took one step, thighs gliding together with the slippery gush oozing from my bruised and swollen pussy.

A humorless huff of air crossed my lips, and I turned in a swirl of dark silk. Chin held high, I headed straight for the en suit bathroom.

“And where,” he asked, pacing at my side, “do you think you’re going, hmm?”

“To scourge your filth off me.”

Another quick, predatory grin flicked across his lips, and he said, simply, “No,” and steered me toward the exit.

Feet braced, I tried to stop. “Asher—”

“You’re going to the general’s manse,” he said, and his fingers found their grip on the back of my neck. His lips ghosting against my ear. “And you’re going to do it with my come dripping from that tight cunt,” he whispered. “All day long. If you think you can throw yourself at the general in some misguided attempt to escape, you can do it reeking of sour, used pussy.”