A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

saw her pupils were gaping holes of shadow. He wondered whether she’d been drinking but there was no wine on her breath. He considered snatching the knife but she must have seen the intent in his eyes because her hand dropped and the razor-edge with it to a place on his body infinitely more delicate. He sucked a sharp breath.

‘Are you an animal, Northman?’ she sighed. What was he supposed to say to that with six inches of steel tickling his balls? ‘A wild beast. . .? But I think I know how to tame you.’ He peered down at his elfin tormentor. She was wrapped in a bolt of silk which shimmered in the dim light, clinging to the tight curves of her body. Despite the absurdity of his situation, a pulse of excitement raced through him, seeing the hard buds of her nipples under the flimsy silk. She was good at this, damn her, there was no mistaking that.

‘I know why you’re here,’ he said.

‘Do you?’

‘You’re Arbasdos’s whore.’

The blade rose half an inch; Erlan recoiled against the wall. ‘I’m no one’s whore,’ she corrected him.

‘Woman, then.’ Probably better to mind his manners under the circumstances.

Her sneer softened to a smile. ‘Like no other.’

‘Until tonight.’ The smile fell. ‘He no longer needs you, does he? Surplus to requirements.’ He took strange satisfaction seeing her bright eyes darken with anger.

‘Bah! Let him find what pleasure he can in the bed of that – that child. She will not keep him for long. Until then. . . I shall tend to his animals.’

She leaned closer, but instead of the brush of her lips or her fingertips, he felt the knife-point circle around him. This was madness with the deadly steel there, yet he felt the nearness of her and the blood flooding to his loins. She didn’t look down. Didn’t need to. She knew exactly where the knife ended and he began. Even so, he pressed back against the wall. The chain clanked.

‘The guard,’ he whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse.

She clicked her tongue. ‘Coward.’ Her tiny nostrils flared with disdain. ‘Anyway, Marcellos will not disturb us.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because I drugged him. He won’t wake till morning. And then they’ll whip him for it.’ Her white teeth flashed beneath him. ‘There are no others in these cells. Only you.’ Another infuriating giggle. ‘They make spears long in the northlands, hmm?’ She was toying with him. But he no longer cared. He felt a thirst long dormant in him reawakening.

‘Here.’ She reached up and popped something into his mouth. A small wad of leaves. It tasted bitter. ‘Swallow.’ He demurred; the blade insisted. ‘Swallow,’ she purred. He swallowed.

She smiled at this, and then her expression changed, her amusement replaced with a flash of shameless desire. She pressed her body against his. The blade was gone. Instead her hand cupped him, he tasted her lips, her tongue darting in his mouth.

The chain rattled as he took hold of her. Her body felt thrillingly warm and smooth under the silk. His fingers followed the curve of her buttocks up her spine to her perfumed neck, down her arms to her hand and over the dagger haft in it. With a jerk, he spun her round, his fist clamped over her tiny knuckles. Her body went taut with the sudden violence between them.

‘He told you I was dangerous, did he?’ Erlan hissed in her ear. ‘Did he tell you how easily I will kill what belongs to him?’

‘Mmmm,’ she moaned, then tipped back her head, exposing the full length of her dusky throat to the blade’s edge, moving against it as if it were a lover’s lips. Perfume rose from her mane of hair, intoxicating. He felt her tongue-tip trace along his jaw, probing among the bloody bristles where her dagger had broken his skin. She moaned again. He tried to focus but whatever substance he had swallowed was clouding his head. One slice of the blade and she would fall. She wouldn’t even cry out. The door lay open. The guard drugged. . .

Except now her buttocks ground against him, soft but insistent, her hand reached down between them, freeing him from under his tunic. The dagger dropped to the floor with a thud. His hand slipped around her breast, pinching the swollen buds of flesh between his knuckles under the silk as she hitched her robe over her hips.

She sank back onto him with a gasp, her fingers reaching up to pull at his hair, dragging his mouth down onto hers. He tasted his own blood on her tongue. It went through him like wildfire, burning his throat with a white heat as darkness flooded his mind. . .

Later, much later, they lay sated on the shelf where he slept, beads of sweat growing cold on their skin. The air was warm and musky. His head throbbed gently but his mind was calm, as the intensity of what had happened ebbed slowly from his limbs.

She stirred beside him. ‘My ágrios,’ she purred. ‘Tamed, I think.’

‘Sweet revenge on Arbasdos, I suppose.’

‘Revenge? Hah! Revenge is for fools like you. And him. No. This is only a little game I like to play. One I never lose,’ she added slyly.

‘I can well believe it.’

‘Still, it was sweet enough.’ She smiled and cupped his cheek. ‘But now I go.’

‘Will you come again?’

She leaned forward and planted a lingering kiss on his lips, as if sealing the memory of them on hers. ‘You know I cannot.’ She picked up the knife from the floor. ‘Hold still.’ Before he knew what she was doing, she had pulled his wrists into her lap and set to work on his manacles. A few moments later the hinges popped and fell with a clunk to the floor. He looked at her, astonished.

She shrugged prettily. ‘A trick I learned in the east. Or did you think I only knew the tricks of a whore?’

There was no good answer to that question so