Grayling: Nocturnal Creatures Book 3 Read online

  Yet she welcomed the thrall’s withdrawal, because her hunger became her own; her desire to rub her face across his cock, wet with her hunger, became hers alone; the craving of her own blood as he let it drip from his lips to his slightly flushed erection, that was hers as well. She stretched her tongue out to try and taste, but he loomed, straight and proud and predatory above her, and did not allow her to take him in again, though his cock strained to meet her tongue.

  “I can see you resist the thrall now that you know what it is. It pleases me as much to watch your struggle as to watch you give in. Shall I satisfy you? Shall I let you taste of your blood, though you cannot imagine how it will taste when you have changed? Shall I see your lips as stained with blood as they will be with my come when I am finished with you?”

  “You will do what you wish. Make your choice, Cyric,” she hissed at him.

  He released the last of the thrall, only to grab her by the hair to keep her head back. But he did not restrain her hands, whether by accident or design, and she crept them over his thighs to twist over the shaft, where the blood dripped like wax. It mingled with the saliva, slickening her way until there was nothing to make her flesh catch against his.

  He bared his teeth in his own hiss, this one more animal, with a metallic tone that matched his voice. Though it did not awaken the wild inside her like his call, she moaned with a shudder, because the tendrils of her desire tightened as though bound. It was not his thrall that snared her, yet not straightforward desire. There was no word for what he sent through her, though the side effect of her keened lust seemed far more straightforward.

  Perhaps he did nothing at all. Perhaps the sensation was her own, this edge of a razor, this sting of a needle, this tear of hair from her scalp and skin peeling from her scant flesh. She struggled against his fist in her hair, caring little that a few ripped from her so that she could bring her mouth against the head, darting her tongue out to beckon his orgasm.

  Her gripping hands must have been painful even to him, wringing without mercy. Yet when she met his gaze again in a furious dare, he nearly stood from the throne as he thrust into her mouth, no longer using his fist to hold her back but to shove her forward.

  The sudden motion smeared blood over her face. She raised herself up to twist her mouth over the head, her tongue beckoning him now more closely, then pushed down and pinned him to the throne again, her fist tight around the shaft and stroking him in a blur until he shouted, bucking against her.

  He released her hair to grab the arms of the throne instead. His hips jerked off of the seat as his come joined her blood down her throat. He spoke through gritted teeth in a language she did not know, but it was clear from his tone and the flex of muscle over his throat how profane it must have been.

  His orgasm proved too much for her to swallow all at once, because he did not hold himself back or draw away. His seed spilled from the sides of her mouth, down her chin, to drip like her blood onto the base of his cock. She pulled off of him but continued to stroke with the same punishing grip, panting and shaking her head as her orgasm—her own, not his—made a pulsing fist between her legs. Semen struck her chin and her cheek before he jerked his hips for the final time and fell back into the throne with a prolonged groan like the cracking of the earth.

  “My beautiful queen,” he breathed, resting his head against the carved wood for a moment as though he had to catch his breath. He slowly loosened his grip from the throne, his muscles from their tight need, his jaw from its clench, and he lowered his head again.

  Admiration warmed his regard as he took in the sight of her and as she took in the sight of him. Red suited him as well as he thought it suited her. It made his skin look like snow, his lips as though brushed with one of his crimson-centered roses.

  “You make me desire abandon, Asha. It is not something I often choose to embrace.”

  “Do you desire more?” She stroked up the shaft to squeeze the last thin wells of seed from him. His cock was magnificent, still hard, pale, arched and thick with a monster’s pride, despite finishing with such scant control. Her face and hand were both filthy with his markings, but he had been marked as thoroughly as she.

  She stood from where she had knelt. He pinned her with his knees when she made to retreat.

  “I always desire more, but this shall suffice. When next I see you, I will have changed once more, but I will not be so unrecognizable this time.” He passed his fingers over his face. “Even without a mirror, I can discern the metamorphosis is almost complete. One more sleep, and I shall return to you.”

  “Shall I await you?” She held her dirty hands at her sides with her palms up almost as though readying to beg.

  “Yes. Prepare yourself, little Ashling. Bring out the knives, if you must.” With the pads of his fingers, he gathered the blood congealing over his mouth to lick it away like icing.

  She could not curtsy without the use of her hands. She spread them to the side instead in an ironic bow. If her expression cast haughtier than she wished when she glanced at the captain, it met disdain of his own, though his stance and clasped hands were not nearly enough to hide his reaction to the king’s and queen’s performance.

  Asha turned on her heel and strode the length of the red carpet. The few wolves in the chamber were either occupied well in hand or with another wolf. Even Callina had her arm around a black-haired woman with fox-red streaks through the front half of her hair. Her other hand was buried underneath the front of the woman’s leather trousers as the woman bit Callina’s shoulder.

  Though Asha’s braid was askew and strings of semen and thin blood had smeared over her face and hands, the wolves paused in their distraction, in an odd sort of attention to their passing queen.

  She had to take a moment in her mind if not in her stride, because using her mouth on a man’s cock would never had been worth of dignity or respect in another world, another life. From a beggar to a queen, from a shunned, unwanted woman to a concubine for beasts—yet the queen and the concubine were one and the same, the first untainted by the other.

  When she stepped outside the audience chamber, she turned around again, facing the king.

  And more importantly, facing the captain, who no longer tried to look away. With the competing tastes of life in her mouth, she also tasted their mutual distaste, as false as vinegar in place of wine.

  5

  The king arrived at her bedroom door late into the night, and he came alone.

  Asha checked the corridor and the tapestry that concealed the secret passageway, seeking signs that the captain followed in some capacity, as the king had subtly suggested. No one but servants waited in the hall, and no draft or breath disturbed the tapestry.

  “He is not here.” The king stepped into the room, then closed the door behind him. “Yet,” he added quietly.

  “You did not crave me a mere day after my blood flowed into you.”

  “Of course I did. But I also sought to see and sense his reaction rather than accept a varied account.”

  “And what did you see and sense, my lord?”

  The king took her hand and pulled her against him. She was dressed for the night, although such distinctions were useless among wolves who walked about at all hours and a king who could only walk out in the open air as soon as the sun passed beyond the mountain’s horizon. She enjoyed the lighter cotton of her nightgowns now that her fever rose with more regularity. The thinner fabric also allowed her to feel the length of the king’s body as though she were without the gown. The layer seemed almost flirtatious, useless as it was against monsters and men if they decided it was in their way.

  “You made every effort to distract me.” He angled his head to beckon her into a kiss, then denied her with a smile.

  He smiled more now that he appeared human, which made her wonder again whether he was more self-conscious of his monstrous form than he claimed—or perhaps his monstrous physiognomy was less suited to a smile. His skin appeared much more lifelik
e than her own now. His lips even had color, as opposed to hers, and his pure black hair had taken on vibrancy she envied. He could hold her wrist without his claws pressing into her skin. The black claws had almost entirely receded, their tips angled against his fingers. When he flexed his fingers, though, the claws extended. They prickled against her cheeks where he stroked her.

  “I cannot be blamed if you allow yourself to be so distracted.” She rested her chin against his chest as he leaned back against the door. “Do you need to repeat the experiment for further observation?”

  “I think I have gathered enough information from all your admirable efforts to color his blue eye green, my dear. He desires you so much that the scent of it billows from him like smoke from a forest fire. I can almost see and hear every filthy scenario in which he imagines you when you hint at what you are capable of. Then jealousy sours the desire, that I might have you while he cannot.”

  “If he cannot, it is because he will not let himself,” Asha said. “I never denied him.”

  “We shall see what drives his strange self-denial when he arrives. The servants have been instructed to herd him here if he decides to skulk and play the voyeur. I caught his scent quite strongly through all the passageways that would have had a view of you, my love. I believe he watched you far more than you might have known, and that he bit back his release in anger far more than you can guess. Blood and seed that he could not entirely clean limn the corners. How the servants must have suffered while I was away.” He buried his nose in her loose hair and breathed her in. “Did you ever think that one day you would drive men and monsters mad?”

  “I cannot pretend that I understand your madness or whether it is contagious. I only understand my own.” She stepped away from the door, away from him, though with reluctance. Her belly literally ached to leave him, but the frigid air at the open balcony window cooled the fever.

  The white was bleeding back into the red petals of her winter roses, but they were still as fresh and beautiful as when each had been given to her.

  “Allow me. Save your blood.” He extended a black claw and brought it to the bone at his wrist.

  She had never seen him bleed. He had told her that she would need a fine blade to harm him, and strength behind the edge. His claw sufficed for both.

  She had not anticipated what the sight of his split skin would do to her, nor the image of his thicker, darker blood seeping languidly from the wound to drip into the vase for the roses to feed upon.

  Her jaw creaked from how she held herself back from opening her mouth wide and taking his wrist between her lips. This was different than bloodlust borne on fury, the willingness for violence she had already shown. That blood had been a taste of victory. His, however, called to her as much as it called to the roses, whose petals opened in response to the first drink of his blood.

  He had bitten her, filled her with the thrall of his bite, and that thrall told her that she wanted his blood in return. Whether from losing all her blood or taking his in, she wanted to die for him either way.

  When he caught sight of her white-knuckled fingers on the table, he passed his hand over the open wrist. Hidden from her sight, the wound closed and the blood disappeared. He did not even tempt her by taking it into his own mouth, where she would have wanted to kiss him in order to taste it.

  All she had to do to drink his blood was ask—it was her decision, her will that would determine when she would turn. But despite the fact that every fiber of her body and being wanted nothing more, she kept her teeth clenched shut. Everyone else in the castle had denied themselves their desires, even when those desires had screamed for release. She could bite her tongue, because asking for what she desired from his veins would mean she would soon be cast out of the castle like all the other wives.

  “Good girl.” The king inhaled with a hiss when she bit her tongue a touch too hard, but he too had the sense to keep the table between them.

  Then he raised his head to better hear something beyond her closed door. “That took less time than I thought. I hope he did not give my servants too much resistance. I could not request aid from my warriors, who would have suffered more conflict in obeying me. Are you prepared, Ashling?”

  She nodded, turning away from him and the bedroom door as the king opened it before the servants outside could alert him to the presence of a visitor.

  “Why, my dear friend, there was never any need to skulk. I would not have had my servants bring you here if you had been less circumspect. Why would you believe you needed to hide from me?”

  “I was traversing the passageways. I neither skulked nor hid.”

  “Do my servants have a different definition of such states?”

  “I do not know why you would tell your servants to bring me to you like a common criminal for any reason,” the captain replied, cagier than usual. “Have I offended, Your Majesty? Do I not serve as well as I once did? Is my pack inadequate for your needs?”

  “Far from it, friend. Do come in. Unless you would prefer to continue this discussion where servants and sundry may hear insubordination and believe it something I welcome from anyone in my castle hold.” The king remained the gentleman, his invitation as warm and welcoming as the captain was belligerent and cold.

  Asha reached the trunk at the end of her bed, where she had left her belt. She sat on the lid and crossed her ankles, raising her eyes only once the door had closed.

  The king returned to the table with the winter roses. He caressed the thorns with his extended claws. “As I am sure you have discovered by now, there is no alternative entrance to the queen’s room, and the walls and door are thick for her privacy as well as the privacy of those before her. Unless you intend to come in through her hearth or from her balcony, there is no way to watch over her but to knock upon her door and ask.”

  “What are you—?” the captain began.

  “Silence.” The king did not raise his voice, nor did he slice the thorns in his irritation. He remained gentle, patient, despite the metallic edge of his command. “Do not insult me, Rafe, by claiming you do not know of what I speak. When I told you to keep watch over her, it was not a command to have an eye on her every minute that she permitted your gaze outside the boundaries of her bedroom. It is a wonder you allowed her even this time of solitude and did not climb along the castle walls as she did in order to peer through her balcony window. I suppose my wolf must sleep. The inability to drink in the sight of her would be an excellent excuse to abandon your watch.”

  “Now you insult me.” The captain kept his clenched fists at his side, and his interlocked teeth pushed at his closed mouth in partial change. His face was a storm, his furrowed brow the thunderheads and his eyes the lightning. He looked like he had been running, his gray-streaked mane tousled and his dusky skin flushed and dry, but his body had lost none of the tension a run should have released. The sight of him quivered, a taut, strummed string just short of snapping.

  Her stomach twisted, her breathing shallow, but she could not look away now that she had laid her eyes upon him. To see him and her king—both carrying the same coiled, predatory tension—was almost too much tension to tolerate.

  “Do I? Because I lie or because you are transparent as glass to me? For a man whose scent has been all over my wife, you protest too vociferously. You take from no one’s hand, Rafe, yet you ate from hers. Mere admiration, my captain? And your kiss merely a product of the waxing moon and no other outlet? Is it I who lie, or do you lie to me?” He finally looked up to meet the captain’s steely gaze. “Perhaps I am being unkind. Perhaps you lie to yourself. If you truly believe yourself unaffected by my wife, why so angry with me now?”

  “Because you accuse me falsely, my lord.”

  “You were angry before I accused you.”

  “You had servants accost me.”

  “Rafe.”

  “I want nothing to do with your whore.”

  The captain stumbled to the side, his hand clapping to the corner of
his mouth as he fell to his knee. The king stood over him, though a moment before the table had been between them.

  “There is no need to bring such ugliness into a fight between us. Insult her again when you do not believe the words you speak, you will receive more than a blow to your cruel mouth.” The king did not help the captain to his feet, but he did not cuff him again to keep him down.

  To his credit, the captain appeared aptly chastened.

  “Asha, please come to me.” The king held out his elegant hand without looking away from the captain.

  Asha did not hurry, though impatience quickened her heart. If someone of the three of them did not do something to break the tension in the room, she thought she might burst. A headache held her skull in a vise.

  When she placed her hand in her husband’s, he brought her toward him, her back to his chest. He slid his palms over her hips, stretching the fabric of her nightgown against her body. She wore nothing under the gown, so it concealed nothing, not the shadows between her legs or the darker flesh of her tightened nipples. Every time she breathed, her body became clearer from behind the thin cotton.

  The captain could protest all he liked. He lied through his wolf’s teeth, because he kept trying not to stare upon her and continued to fail.

  “You would have denied your other wolves this if you could have done so without them questioning your motives. Knowing that Callina and Lysan have her and you still must bite your own arm when you come must be torture.”

  “If that tortures you, watching Lysan at full moon must have been like death,” Asha said. “I died watching you, captain. A sweet death, but a death nonetheless. Lysan brought me back to life, and a woman never forgets the man that does. Nor does she forget the man who killed her.”

  “Do you forget her so easily?” The king nuzzled her temple and brought his hands up her to her breasts. Staring straight at the captain, he closed his thumbs and forefingers over the nubs of flesh protruding against the thin cotton, calling attention to how tight and hard they had become, and tightening and hardening them further by greater and greater force.