Grayling: Nocturnal Creatures Book 3 Read online

  Asha whimpered, eyelids fluttering, but she did not want to shut her eyes, not when the captain’s gaze had gone from desire to hunger.

  “Why do you do this?” The captain’s voice rasped from a suddenly dry mouth.

  “I could ask the very same question, boy. You showed no interest when you denied my wives in the past. A man wonders, though, once something more than interest has been shown. When a man’s cock grows hard and undeniable at the sight of another’s wife—a vicious mercenary such as you, who will take what he needs when it is available—why do you continue to deny yourself? I have forbidden no one from her. There is nothing to hold you back.”

  Asha reached behind her to grasp the king’s thighs. His ministrations had reached the point of pain, which shot through her and pulsed between her tightly pressed legs. They parted, then pressed together again, wet at the juncture as though she could not discern the difference between pleasure and pain. Her old world had offered her nothing but pleasureless pain. If pain could bring pleasure in her new world, she would be a fool to resist its sweeter path.

  “Why do you look at this, knowing you can have her, but refusing yourself?” The king pulled her up onto her toes with his hold on her nipples. “How can you watch me with such yearning, watch her yearn for you, and stay where you stand? How can your mouth water when she bleeds, but you still deny yourself the taste?”

  Asha gave a startled cry when the king closed his teeth over the bite he had already given her, pushing the longest pairs inside at the same time he twisted her nipples hard enough to make her scream on its own. With his teeth within her, her cry climbed and climbed. He contained her writhing within the cage of his arms and his body, but he did not keep her still, nor was he. He undulated against her, his erection unmistakable against her back, his relish in causing her breasts pain evident in his persistence.

  He jerked his teeth from her, spilling a shallow spurt of blood over her pale skin and white nightgown. His gasps were off-rhythm with hers, loud in her ears, and as entrancing to her as his hips bucking when she had his cock in her mouth, though he claimed pure, absolute control. When he licked his teeth, he permitted her blood to continue to drip from his lips.

  “Interesting,” he said through broken breath. “I believed you envious that my teeth could sink into her when yours cannot. I thought you merely craved her flesh. But you watch my teeth before and after it drips with her blood. Is that why you hate my wives so, that they receive a gift I have not given you?”

  “I do not hate your wives,” the captain said. “I never hated your wives. I disliked, tolerated, or dismissed them, but I never hated them. They are here and gone too quickly to develop hatred, much less loyalty, and I have no desire to miss them when they vanish from this kingdom. Neither I nor my brethren have encountered your wives beyond the boundaries of this kingdom. There has been no need to foster affection when it is so easily disappointed. I do not hate them. And I do not hate Asha.” He took a breath, and through gritted teeth added, “Though circumstances ensured that I would see more of her than I do most queens.”

  “Simply see?” the king asked. The tingling of his healing closed the bite at her shoulder, and he brought her harder against him, still not letting up on his painful attention to her nipples.

  “You have never left for such a long time. My wolves and I were forced into idleness, with nothing else to do but notice your new wife.”

  “So if I had taken a sabbatical from my duties for a month for every wife, you would have grown fond of all the rest? What of my teeth, wolf? What do they have to do with my wives?”

  The captain swallowed.

  “Oh, my dear boy. Of all the things I have permitted you, all the things we have done… You needed only ask.” The king rubbed his lips along the length of Asha’s jaw in surprisingly bestial affection.

  “It would not satisfy you,” the captain said, almost too softly for Asha to hear.

  Asha slumped against the king when he released her nipples. They swelled against the places he had pinched, making them hurt more in his fingers’ absence. Without thought, she brought her hands up to stroke them, rub them, massage the ache into something more tolerable. The captain’s gaze shifted from the king’s teeth to where she stroked herself, and where blood had soaked through over her right breast.

  “No. Animal blood does not satisfy,” the king said.

  “But he can still drink it,” Asha said.

  “And to satisfy you would bring satisfaction to me. How long have you wanted my teeth inside you?”

  The captain bared his own teeth, anger emerging once more through his obvious embarrassment.

  “Rafe.” The king fanned his fingers as he had when his claws were prohibitive. The gleaming black, like obsidian glass, stroked the captain’s prominent cheekbone, as inhuman as the king’s when he was more monster than man.

  The captain twisted away from the king’s touch as though the claws had been edged in silver. “It is enough that a wolf pack as powerful as ours is bound to your service, that your wish is my command. The second I claimed power, I was overwhelmed with the desire to fall to my knees, bare myself, make myself prey when to become alpha is to accept the mantle of predator over all others. You confuse and bewitch me, my lord. Do I resent you for such enchantment? As much as any alpha before me. Why do you think I fight so hard to keep others from taking my place? Not for my life but theirs. I am yours even more than your wives, and it is more shame than any other wolf can ever comprehend.”

  “I do not demand much, command you so little,” the king said. “I know what it means to be controlled, to pull against chains that bind. I understand that a wolf is best when he is free, but that he cannot be completely free in my employ. It is why I send you to the kingdoms beyond rather than keep you always at my side, so that your collar might seem lighter.”

  “It is never lighter!” The captain paced across the stone, because to pace the carpet was to come too close to Asha and the king. “Even when I break in new recruits, even with ten men or women in my bed, I cannot lose the image of you. Damn it, Cyric, do you think I ever wanted this relentless, helpless devotion? Then you bring her, bind me to her with your command. She should never have caught me, but I was as helpless to notice her as I am to feel your touch on my skin even when I am hundreds of miles from your kingdom. Your command rings through my ears, through my veins, singing when I run, because I run for you.”

  “I did not command you to want her.” The king combed his lengthened claws over Asha’s scalp, making her eyes close in spite of herself. “Just to make sure she stayed safe. That was my only binding order, Rafe. The rest happened on its own. If the desire you feel for me, for my bite, are mere side effects of your natural binding to me, rest assured that your desire for her is untouched by my influence over you.”

  “I cannot have her any more than I should have you,” the captain shouted, pointing at Asha as though he wanted to stab her with his own claws. “A wolf must serve the master, the monster that you are calling to the monster in me. We were made for your service, unpleasant though such innate desires are. When I fall to my knees for you, when you take me into your arms, I am submitting to the master. It is a terrible submission for the alpha. However, she is different. She is my queen. I am expected to be subservient to a woman with a higher status in my master’s court. But I am alpha and must dominate her to have her. So you see my dilemma, Cyric, the dilemma you created when you made me unable to dismiss one of your wives.”

  The king spat at the captain’s feet. “Do not put the blame of your turmoil onto me, Rafe. Alphas before you have availed themselves of my wives, taking the role with the woman that each wished, as though they were wolves of equal status. Nothing stops you but your pride. If you see dominating her as somehow a diminishing of her position as queen, you fail to recognize what domination and power are, and if you view submitting to her as betraying your leadership, perhaps you are not worthy of your place as alpha. You, most
of all, should know how much power someone has in submission and how much power is given away in domination. You disappoint me, wolf. You do not deserve my teeth.”

  “Do you want me to take her as I take my recruits?” Once again, the captain gestured to her as though he would rather gut her, spoke as though she were not there or could not hear. “Take her as a predator takes prey, without any of the elegance of your predation? Take her as a wolf takes a wolf, in a way that a human body cannot withstand?”

  “I think you underestimate her capacity to take any cruelty you dole in your violent mating rituals, as she has taken mine. She has welcomed claws and teeth and sweet torture at the hands of your other wolves. They are not alpha, but they were also not gentle. Fragrant bruises, scratches, and bites speak otherwise.”

  Asha put her clasped hands behind her back and stepped forward, the king’s nudge between her shoulder blades subtle but insistent. She edged in a circle, keeping her gaze upon him, not turning her back. “I think it is time we stopped dancing around what we want, captain.”

  He whipped his head around to catch the sight of her when she circled behind him. The muscles of his bare torso rippled with each movement, so ready was he to attack as a predator would, as the prominent bulge in his leather trousers seemed to beg him to.

  “You think you understand what you ask for. You think you have seen it, that you have sampled a wolf or two and that is all you need in order to comprehend what I would do. You have no idea.” He grabbed her upper arm hard enough to bruise.

  She unclasped her hands and swung her left. Her right arm would have had more power behind it, but that was the arm he held.

  Blades thrust between her fingers, forming makeshift claws that sliced through his chest. Asha did not intend to do terrible harm, as she would to one of the elders if they dared stretch out an unwelcome hand. She only wished to do damage enough.

  The captain abruptly released her. It was good that she could surprise him. She would have expected him to catch the scent of steel, even if he could not guess the craftsmanship of the contraptions the king had given her after their night in his bed.

  “You fucked your recruit as you wanted me,” she said. “You kiss me as though you wish to consume me like a creature from a midnight tale. You nearly come with my kill upon your lips. Damn you, captain, fight me. Fight me, fuck me, take me just as you wish, and let me do the same.”

  She swiped at him again. New scratches, a little deeper, crisscrossed with the first set. He stumbled back, staring at the slashes with utter disbelief. But when he raised his head again, the burning beneath his brows nearly made her knees buckle.

  “Viperous snake,” he hissed through teeth that had grown nearly too big for a man’s face. His muzzle threatened to grow, but the king sent a snap of magic like the end of a whip at his mouth, almost the same place where the king had struck the blow with his own hand.

  “You cannot present her to me like this and expect me to do everything exactly as she dreamed it,” the captain growled in the king’s direction, running a hand over the cut made by the invisible whip. “There are consequences to taking on a wolf—that is the reality.”

  “Oh, you may call her whatever you wish. I am sure she has heard worse from lesser men.” The king crossed his legs as he leaned against the winter rose table. “If you bite her, however, it cannot be with the full wolf’s teeth. The set you wear as an upright man will do enough damage. I will not have her turned. Her transformation is mine, not yours.”

  Asha brought her makeshift claws to the captain’s back. She ran them down the flexing muscles as he looked over his shoulder at her. The metal left red lines of blood welling under the skin, but she did not make him bleed this time.

  “In the marketplace square, I could keep knives for protection. Nothing too deadly—meant to dissuade rather than kill. When I did not have my knives, if a cobblestone was loose, I would use it to strengthen my hand. If no cobblestone would give, I would grab loose slivers of stone and hold them between my fingers to strike.” She licked along the flat of one of the blades to catch the spray of blood that had colored the steel with its red. “These are better.”

  “They cannot compare to these.” The captain uncurled his fists and extended his claws to their full length. They were not the king’s long black blades, but they could still inflict as much fatal damage as the contraptions she held. “And neither can you, little girl. How do you think this will end?”

  “You know how I need it to end. I am not faster than you. I have no spells to spin. If you do not want this as much as I think you do, as much as I see you might”—she lowered her gaze deliberately to where his cock strained against leather—“you can leave. We lured you here, but I will not keep you within these walls. It is your will we seek now. What will you, sir?”

  The captain whirled around, swinging his hand to clap over her cheek as he had with Callina.

  Asha collapsed, vision blooming with shadows. Her bones struck the stone floor to call forth their own bruises.

  “I told you that you did not know what you asked of me.” The captain stood over her as her vision returned. “You are not suited for me.”

  Asha raised her bare foot to stroke up his leg to the place where his cock was clearly outlined. Her skirt slid down her leg. “You are suited enough.”

  He batted her foot away, but the skirt stayed bunched at her thigh, and he gazed upon the length of flesh, his teeth gleaming with saliva. “How foolish you are, little girl, to crave death as you do. Do you simply wish it from another’s hand to lay the blame away from your own heart? Your blood lost to the king. A tragic fall from the balcony because a cruel captain would not allow you near uncontrolled wolves in heat. Standing against arrogant men and murderers. Seeking to mate with an alpha as though you were a wolf yourself. But you are not a wolf, Your Majesty. You are far from a wolf, your limbs delicate, your skin tearable as paper, your bones breakable. When you bleed, your body is slow to heal. You are not made to fight against a warrior.”

  “I was never made to fight, but I survived against all those stronger than I who hid their weakness behind physical strength.” Asha pushed herself up, then climbed to her feet, scurrying out of the captain’s way before he could slam his boot onto one of her bladed hands. “Even if you kill me tonight, I shall take pieces of you with me, captain. I am not chained like the recruits. You will have to catch me.”

  Her heart beat hard against her chest, as prey before a predator, when he crouched, his spine protruding and the blades of his shoulders and collarbone becoming more prominent. He shook his head, tossing his mane and clinking his talismans, fighting to keep his teeth from transforming like the rest of him. Both his good blue eye and his scarred white eye glowed like the full moon through an icicle.

  She was momentarily captivated, enthralled of her own volition. It hurt for her to blink where he had hit her; the flesh swelled but did not split.

  “You have nowhere to run.” The captain’s voice roughened and deepened to that of the beast he kept inside him. The rippling movements of his lengthened limbs menaced. It was terrible enough to be chased, but to be stalked instead… It meant the beast did not feel the need to chase.

  They faced each other, moving in slow circles over the wide expanse of unused space between the bed and the door. The room had always seemed empty, spare, too large for its simple function. It would not surprise her if this sort of activity had been intended to fill it, or perhaps implements such as the scaffolding that the king had asked temporarily into his bedroom.

  “Exhaustion will fell you long before it brings me down,” the captain said. “I can walk for weeks, run for seven days straight, before I must succumb to sleep. But your king has drunk from you, and it is late. Yield.”

  “You do not want me to yield too easily. Is that not what boils your blood—the fight, the struggle, the resistance, submission earned that reminds you of your power? I have no intention to yield, captain. If you want me to k
neel, you shall have to put me down.”

  In the blink of an eye, he leaped, flying through the air. She scrambled back and low to swipe at his abdomen with her right blades, striking up near his chest with the left so that he had to protect his vulnerable belly and neck. He kicked out, the heel of his boot striking her shoulder.

  The snap was audible to her own ears; shock radiated out from the broken bones in a quake.

  Asha shouted like an animal in pain. She flinched when the king appeared behind her, but he gripped her injured shoulder. Asha arched, the pain becoming bright white light in her mind.

  The captain stepped back, panting. The anger passed from his expression to give way not to concern but a kind of confusion, as though he had forgotten what he had just said about how easily he could break her.

  In a few seconds, however, the pieces of bone that the captain had created resumed their original positions and lost their fire, though her shoulder still ached. So the king would protect life and bone, and she could take the risks she had been hesitant to attempt. The king withdrew as soon as the shoulder had healed, a kiss to her temple the only other imprint of his presence before he disappeared from sight and touch.

  Already, the slashes she had made on the captain’s chest had closed. But he bared his teeth when the king released her. He understood that though it did not even the odds, it offset some of her natural limitations.

  She brought her makeshift claws to her upper arms, where she had white scars from her own nails. She ran the tips over the marks, then pressed in with a soft cry at the far more welcome pain.

  The captain yawned in anxiety, his jaw stretching beyond a man’s, and finishing in a yowl that barked into a howl that shivered through her the way the broken bones had, and just as shattering. She fought against her own impulse to howl in response or dig the blades deeper. Bloodlust flecked his gaze scarlet, but she did not want to cut herself too deeply, the king’s magic notwithstanding.