Page 47 of Kept to Kill
‘Aye.’
‘But what happened here?’
His features darkened and his fingers began to descend slowly. But as they brushed against her skin, a laugh bubbled up from her throat that she couldn’t suppress.
He startled, looking puzzled. And then he did it again, watching her closely as she giggled once more, using one of her hands to push at him feebly as she tried to writhe away from the maddeningly tickly sensations.
‘Stop!’ she laughed. ‘Please!’
He ignored her, of course. His fingers became bolder, moving over her stomach and to her sides ruthlessly, and she squealed for mercy. By the time he stopped, she was on the floor, wriggling this way and that as he crouched over her. When she was finally in control of herself again, she found him standing before her, a look on his face that she’d never seen. Lighter, almost as if it might produce a smile of actual enjoyment.
But then it was gone, the moment was over, and his usual menacing countenance settled over him like a shroud. All laughter fled under his perusal and she scrambled back as he grabbed her, hauling her to her feet and pushing her back against the wall, her wrists held fast above her head.
This time there was no slowness to his actions, his hand plunging into her open breeches and then between her thighs. He kicked her legs apart as he had done before, but this time his bare fingers slipped between her folds, feeling her. More than one entered her shallowly and she gave a small cry as he shoved them into her, pulled them out and thrust them in again. She gasped and panted, whimpered, and her hips began to move of their own accord, her body needing more contact than he was giving her.
‘Please,’ she whispered, and this time itwasfor him to continue.
Her legs felt like jelly, small cries exploding from her lips as his strong, calloused fingers fucked her hard. It felt so much better than anything she’d done to herself, even though it hurt, and she would have told him so if she was capable of any words other than those begging him not to stop.
Another finger entered her, stretching her, pushing deep, and his thumb found the other, higher place, circling it fast and then pressing it. She screamed as her body tightened, legs shaking as pleasure enveloped her, cascaded over her, made little lights dance in her vision, and he kept going, his fingers moving and scissoring until he’d wrung every little bit of enjoyment from her.
As she was gradually coming back to herself, he let her go, jumping back as if her curse could still hurt him. She slid down the wall to the ground, her knees not able to support her, and glanced up at him, feeling bashful. She’d never done that with another person before, after all. What happened now? Whatever people usually did after engaging in such a thing, she had a feeling Mal wouldn’t follow the precedent, if that was the right word for it.
She was right. After staring at her in a heap on the floor for a moment, he stepped closer and put his fingers in his mouth, sucking them as he watched her eyes widen in surprise. Heat smoldered in his own for a moment … and then he was simply gone and she was alone in his childhood room. Her gaze fell on the door, noticing the bolt on the outside. Cell.
What had happened to him here? The stories said that no one had survived the fire, but if he had, then … Had he done it? Had he started the inferno that had killed everyone who’d lived here?Yes.She knew it with the same certainty she did of needing air to breathe.
She picked herself up as she followed that train of thought, finding her legs would hold her now, though she felt a bit wobbly. She’d let a madman do those things to her … and she’d liked it.
Shaking her head at her stupid self, she left the room as she tried to sort through the mess in her head. Would Mal come back here again before they journeyed on tomorrow? What had made him torch his home and then flee? How had he ended up joining the Army, becoming a trained killer … liking being a trained killer? Because he did like it. She’d seen it when he’d killed the men on the ship, when he’d thought about hurting her … when he had. But she’d also seen the uncertainty in him. He’d never met anyone who liked it before. But why did she? She didn’t know. She didn’t understand how she could like the things he did.That knife… she shivered. Truth be told, she was disappointed that he hadn’t done it again, she thought as she left the fortress and slowly descended the steps to the bottom of the hill. It was so wrong, but she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed it, mind and body.
What would Quin say if he knew what Mal had done with her tonight? She’d heard him order both Mal and Bastian to stay away from her earlier and she’d assumed that meant she must respond in kind. He was the Commander … and she was a Fourth like Maeve. Did that mean he was her commander now too?
* * *
Mal watchedLily enter the inn just as he’d been watching from the moment she’d left his boyhood room. He didn’t fully comprehend what had just transpired between them, but he had an urge to make sure she was safe. He didn’t understand that either. He had urges to kill all the time, but protect? Help? Never that he could recall.
He glanced up at the towering fortress so close behind him, just able to make out the silhouette of it against the light of the full moon. Dark memories rushed over him, the ones he’d denied purchase in his mind for so long that it was usually very easy to keep them at bay, but not tonight. He remembered the high priest’s face as he’d stabbed him in his own bedchamber with the knife he’d pilfered from the kitchen. Recalled the exact hue of the curtains that he’d lit on fire before he’d turned and calmly left, leaving the casements and the door wide open for the through breeze to feed the flames well. He’d killed the few who weren’t abed though the hour was late so they wouldn’t raise the alarm.
While the place burned, he sat on the roof of this very inn and viewed the carnage he’d caused with a smile on his face, laughing as the towers fell in on each other. Then he had gone, left this place and all its darkness behind him. So why he’d felt the need to go back to lie in his old, rotten bed, he didn’t know. That room hadn’t granted him even a moment of the solace that it had when he was a child. Well, not until she had appeared. He’d been furious that Lily would trespass here at first; trampling all over his past, his secrets, with her naïve looks and annoying … presence.
He was going to give in to his darker impulses and teach her a lesson. He’d already decided to ignore Quin’s order to keep away from her. He would touch her if he liked, when he liked, where he liked. But when he’d noticed all those little scratches and welts left over from what he’d done to her, he’d felt sick to his stomach. Then she’dstrokedhis hand of her own volition, such an innocuous touch – because she’dchosento.
As he’d stood there with his hand around her throat, the wards stopping him from squeezing hard enough to kill her, the need to harm her had been rapidly and largely replaced by a different need altogether. But then he’d shocked himself further by not giving in to those urges either. Instead of shoving her to the floor and fucking her like he’d wanted to,he’dpleasuredherinstead. And now he didn’t know what he wanted from her. He let out a breath. Things used to be simple – kill, eat, sleep, kill – but since Lily, everything seemed much more complicated.
Deciding that enough time had passed since she had entered, he followed, slipping in and up the stairs like a ghost, no one hearing or seeing him unless he wished them to. He opened her door silently and went into her room, shutting it just as quietly as he took in her form on the bed under the coverlet – and another next to her.
Mal frowned.Bastian.There was another thorn in his side that was quickly turning into something else, he thought as his cock began to harden. He wanted both of them, he realized in shock. But that wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t even unusual – not for other Brothers, at any rate. What was disturbing him was that only yesterday he’d still been fantasizing about killing both of them. Now he wanted to climb into bed between them and definitelynotto sleep. How could his desires have changed so drastically in one day?
He sat in the chair by the fire to think. He and Quin were close in many ways, though they’d obviously never shared conversations, but he wondered if perhaps he should get some advice from his Brother. Quin knew what Mal enjoyed, after all. They’d trained together, learned to fight and kill together. And even before they were unit Brothers, Mal had considered him a friend. Now that he thought on it, it was odd that they’d never talked, that Quin had never even heard him speak. Perhaps it was time to change some things, try harder to act as others did – in some ways at least.
Lily made a small sound and he went over to where she lay asleep, drawing his knife on impulse, the whisper of it leaving the sheath only just audible, but, in her sleep, Lily whimpered, and he thought it was in fear until he heard her moan ‘Mal’.
His breath caught. She was dreaming of him? And not a bad dream either; he was doing something she liked.
Bringing the knife close, he sliced off a piece of her hair from the back, underneath, where she wouldn’t notice, before stepping away and melting into the darkness.
The next day, Mal awoke in the bed in the next room, still fully clothed as per usual and thinking about Lily. Quin was next to him in the other small bed, still sleeping. Mal almost woke him – to talk – but luckily came to his senses and left the inn. He always scouted early before they left a place. He liked to know what was coming.
