Page 68 of Healer to the Ash King
Something warms and widens inside me, flooding forward, reaching out to him. So much pain, and he keeps it all carefully hidden away. There is no magic with which he can soothe it.
I’m nearly healed now, pain-free again. I can afford to relent a little. “So you put me through that to keep the girls in line. To keep them from killing each other.”
“For that, and for one other reason. You see, if we want to repair your precious reputation, we have to throw them off the scent. They have to think we hate each other.”
“Wedohate each other.”
“Of course we do.” His hand glides up my back. “Would you like tohate meagain tonight?”
My mouth is dry, but other parts of me are definitely not. “Only if you hate me harder.”
The Ash King’s broad hands close over my hips, fingers grazing my bare skin. “But then again, why wait until tonight?” He presses inward between my legs, opening my core to him. The loose pants he wore while training jut out in the front, the covered tip of his cock pressing against my tingling center through the delicate fabric of my underwear.
I want nothing more than to make my clothes and his vanish entirely so he can sink inside me. I’m still angry with him for the “punishment,” but I’m also violently, vibrantly awake, pulsing with a lust stronger than any I’ve ever felt. Perhaps, where he’s concerned, anger and sex are linked.
“Not here,” I manage. “Guards outside—people could walk in—”
His hands slide up to my waist and tighten. He sets his forehead against mine. “I want you. And you want me—I can feel you shaking. I know you’re wet for me.”
I grip his shoulders, closing my eyes. “Tonight.”
“Very well. I’ll see you this afternoon for the art session with the girls, yes?”
“As Your Majesty wishes.”
He tilts his head, bringing his mouth perilously close to mine. For a moment we stay, breathing in each other’s exhaled lust.
Then he leaves. And I’m left trembling and wanting in the dark. Which feels terribly prophetic for the end of all this, when he chooses someone else.
It’s just sex between us, and yet it isn’t. Not for me. For me it’s a constant force tugging me to him against my will, against my better judgment, against what I know of his character.
Except that with him, I always have the sense that there ismoreto know. Deep places to explore, secrets to unfold. Like when Brayda and Rince and I used to climb higher than we were supposed to, along the ridges and slopes of Analoir Doiteain, our home mountain. We found the strangest things, like huge black waterfalls of frozen stone, formed when lava poured over a rock edge and cooled while in motion. We collected speckled granite, pock-marked pumice, glossy obsidian, peppered andesite. So many different types of rock, each with its own coloring and facets. And every rock I found only made me love our mountain more. Perhaps, when it comes to me and the Ash King, secrets could be like those rocks.
If I’m going to sleep with him again tonight—and possibly more times after that—I need to find a way to assuage my guilt, to justify what I feel for him. I must discover more about his past, and I need to do that without pushing too hard and making him recoil from me. He’s skittish and reactive, and more sensitive than he wants people to think.
Once I’m fully healed and dressed, I lunch alone, nibbling salted tomatoes and buttered bread in a quiet nook of the garden, with my feet in the soil. Afterward I wash up and reluctantly make my way to the gallery the King mentioned, where he and the Favored will “enjoy some art.”
The gallery is an airy space, its floors adorned with rectangles of yellow sunshine from a dozen tall windows. On the opposite wall hang paintings, portraits, and sketches of varying sizes—all of them fascinating and enticing to me. Other than the creation of objects from petrified wood, there’s little art in my village.
I’ve never been particularly artistic, and my parents didn’t force it. Nor did they make me learn the art of shaping and polishing the petrified wood, after they realized my affinity lay with outdoor work, with water and leaves and soil.
I can make beautiful things with water, but I admire those who can create lasting pieces with ink or paint. I walk the gallery slowly, toward the seating area where the Favored cluster on couches. Their pastel gowns, jeweled headpieces, and chinking teacups are a far cry from this morning’s sweat and toil.
Halfway along the room, someone has set up three long tables with trays, pots of glue, and bins of small colored pebbles and chips of glass. There’s a chair set close to the central table, and another chair opposite, facing it. More chairs line the outer two tables.
“Cailin.” One of the armored guards stationed along the wall steps forward, blue eyes glinting through his helmet.
“Owin.” I squeeze his outstretched hand, smiling. “It’s good to see you.”
He pulls off his helmet and ruffles his sweaty hair. “Curse this confounded thing. I hate wearing it.”
“I wonder sometimes if you’re really cut out to be a guard.” I reach up and smooth aside a stray lock.
“I wonder that too.” The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles. “But I do like this posting. It means I’m close to the King.”
I lift an eyebrow. “But he whipped you.”
“He went easy on me. And since then he’s been indifferent, which coming from him means we’re best friends.” Another grin. “He even asked me if I knew any portrait artists in the city who could use a wealthy patron. So I did you a favor.”
