Page 104 of Daughter Of The Ninth Line
At his words, I did as I was told, the perfect little marionette. Up and back down, until I reached the flesh of his fist, and up again.
The sensation. The pleasure. It was mind-wiping. I could think of nothing but the pleasure that was making my skin prickle, making electricity race through my veins. I chased that feeling like I was chasing down my prey.
More, more, more…
Sweat was trickling down my body, until the sensation changed from the hard fist of Vox’s hand to the wiry curls of Hayle’s groin. I was seated all the way, with Hayle buried so deep, I’d swear he was in my womb.
He was sweating, like he’d run ten miles under the blinding heat. “Fuck, Avie,fuck.I love you so much,” he groaned, his hands on my hips, lifting me up and down the long length of his cock. “Look how good you take me.”
It was too much. I came on a wave of pleasure that made lights dance behind my eyelids. I screamed my release, as my orgasm pulsed through me. Vox came all over my back, and I felt the warm slide of it over my ass cheeks. Hayle jerked inside me as he came, his hands clenching my hips tight enough that I’d probably have finger-shaped bruises tomorrow.
Finally, I collapsed against his chest, suddenly noticing the gouges in his pecs. I kissed the one closest to my face. “Sorry.”
He shook his head. “There isn’t a single thing you should be sorry for right now. That was fucking perfect.” He looked over my shoulder, then shifted more to the right so we were closer to the wall. I felt Vox collapse onto the bed beside us. He ran his shirt over my back, cleaning up his mess.
“Hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” Vox murmured, kissing my shoulder, seemingly uncaring that he was pressed shoulder to hip, naked, with someone who’d once been his enemy.
Smirking, Hayle lifted his chin. “Thanks for the assist. I’ll be sure to return the favor.”
My eyes were sliding closed when I heard Vox’s chuckle, his fingers ghosting over my spine. “I’m counting on it.”
chapter sixty-three
Hayle
It had beenthree days before we’d emerged from Avalon’s dorm rooms. Three days of sweat-soaked skin, of sharing, of pleasure and release. It had been the best three days of my life, and judging by the gooey smile on Vox Vylan’s face, the best three days of his life too.
We’d done our best to ensure that Avalon was boneless with pleasure, or asleep because we’d wrung orgasm after orgasm from her body. But even now, weeks later, she was still smiling like she’d discovered the secret to life.
Fuck, I love her.It had slipped out the first time we’d had sex, but I’d told her over and over again since then. I never wanted her to doubt my feelings, not even for a moment. I knew it would be hard for her to say it back, but I could wait. She had trauma that she needed to work through, and I’d be here for her every step of the way.
The other great thing about our self-inflicted banishment into Avalon’s dorm of ill repute was that no one had seen Vox arrive; most had thought him still in Fortaare. It had been a blissful escape from duty for the both of us, and by the end of the third day, Vox had seemed so much lighter that he was almost hard to recognize.
Shay had known he was down there, of course—as had Lucio—but she’d kept the news to herself. No one wanted Vox’s happiness more than Shay. Well, except for Avalon and me now.
Which made the fact that this three-way relationship we had was on a countdown clock, endlessly ticking toward its expiration. I fucking hated it.
I didn’t want Vox to return to Fortaare, to that fucking psychopath who’d brutalized him for his own weaknesses. To live a miserable life. There had to be a way to extract him from that life, I knew, but two weeks later, I was no closer to a solution.
Whenever I thought of the Baron of the First Line, I felt a rage so incandescent, it threatened to set me on fire. Not only had he fucked up his own son so casually, but a shipment of food, sailing from the stores of my home in Hamor to the capital of the Eleventh Barony, Tenby, had sunk in the middle of the Alutian sea last week. Tons of grain and dried fruit and meat were now at the bottom of the sea, due to “unseasonable” gale-force winds.
Vox had warned me that his father would try and sabotage the boats. I’d tried to warn my father too, in a way that didn’t incriminate Vox as the source of information, and while my father had taken it seriously, there wasn’t much any of us could have done in the face of that power.
Hell, we couldn’t even pin it on the First Line. It could have been storm magic from the Fourth Line. The ambiguity meant no one could point fingers, so the Baron of the First Line got away with it, again.
We could send more grain, the other half of the shipment. But it wouldn’t be enough to last the Eleventh and Twelfth Lines through the rest of the drought season. It was half of what they’d need, and it might keep them from dying, but it wouldn’t keep them from starving.
I attacked a little harder, and the instructor in front of me grunted. “Easy there, Taeme. I like my head attached to my body,” the older man muttered. He was another former soldier from the Dawn Army. A lot of the former soldiers would train with the First and Third Line conscripts. It kept their own training up, and they could call it “teaching.”
I’d learned the arts of war at the feet of my father and his most trusted seconds; there wasn’t much about fighting that this place could teach me.
“Sorry, Beury. Got caught up in the movements.” I gave the man an affable grin. “Good to keep you on your toes anyway. Don’t want you getting slow in your old age.”
“Old?” Beury rumbled indignantly at my teasing. Honestly, he was probably no more than forty-five, but an assignment at Boellium had probably made him a little more fat and happy than his former comrades still in the Dawn Army. “I’ll show you old, kid.” He raised his sword and shifted his stance.
“If I could have a moment with Heir Taeme before you attack, Instructor Beury?” a soft, yet firm voice asked.
We both dropped our swords as we watched Librarian Enora pick her way across the sand of the training ring. It was weird to see the Librarian out of the library, let alone outside in the training ring.
