Page 91 of Wings of Frost and Fury
We walk for perhaps half an hour before we reach a crossroads. There’s a tall post with three narrow pieces of wood tacked to it, each one sun-bleached and salt-crusted thanks to the coastal weather. The name of the town to the north-east is illegible, and the sign pointing the way we came simply says “cliffs,” but the one pointing west says, “Murtha’s Hob.”
“Sounds like a wayside inn,” I say cheerfully. “How fortunate that I brought coins to pay for lodging. Andsomeonethought we wouldn’t need money.” I poke Ashvelon’s chest, peeved when he doesn’t give me the faintest flicker of a smile.
He doesn’t speak as he trudges along the lane beside me, between dark fields of whispering grass. The forest is a black blur some distance away, alive with the chirping and sawing of night insects. After I stumble twice in the darkness, Ashvelon grabs my arm and pulls it close to his side.
“Can you see in the dark, even in human form?” I ask him.
“Well enough. Better than you can.”
“You’re in such a lovely frame of mind, really. Can’t you try to—”
“Try to what?” he grits out. “Try to forget that I spent the day clawing through the bones of my dead clan members? Try to forget that one of my princes is being held captive by a treacherous king, while the other has a malevolent storm inside him? Try to forget that our clan is teetering on the edge of extinction, and that the next terrible event could push us over the cliff?”
“Yes,” I say flatly. “I want you to forget all that.”
He stops short and spins me around to face him. “You ask too much.”
“Do I, pet?” My tone sharpens. “Do you think I don’t feel the weight of those worries? Do you think I’ve forgotten how you came to my cottage and invaded my life, intending to kidnap me and force me to do your princes’ bidding? Do you think it wasnothingfor me to be threatened by dragons and nearly killed, first by my own spell, and then by the fucking Mordvorren? Do you think I wanted to dig through dragon bones today—which, I might add, were interspersed with the rotting corpses of humansyouhelped to kill? I saw more than a few victims of frost-fire.”
“That was war,” he seethes. “It’s different, it’s—”
“And the girl you dropped into the sea? Was that different, too?”
His grip tightens on my arms before he shoves me back a step and strides rapidly away down the road.
I go after him, trying to match his stride but tripping and cursing instead. I manage a few more steps before my toe catches on a ridge of crusted dirt and I fall headlong.
Ashvelon whirls around, marches back, and drags me to my feet, his face a breath from mine. “Fuck you for mentioning the girl, Thelise. You know how deeply that wrecked me, how much I—”
“Youlikedher. If you’d kept a better grip, maybe she would be sharing your nest instead of a troublesome sorceress. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“No,” he snarls. “You don’t want to know what I’m thinking.”
He’s panting, his whole body tense, heat rolling off his skin. I’m bathed in that heat, intoxicated and maddened by it.
“Show me what you’re thinking, then,” I hiss. “Do it. Unless you’re just a mild little pet, a soft puppy who can’t even—”
He takes me by the throat, and I choke on a gasp. I’m flat on my stomach on the road before I can take another breath. His hands fumble with my skirts, bunching them, shoving them clumsily up my legs, around my waist. He wants them out of his way.
Cool night air skates across the backs of my thighs. Ashvelon yanks angrily at my flimsy underwear, then rips through it. I inhale sharply at the painful tug of the material against my flesh as he does. He drags the remnants off me. My cheek is pressed to the dirt, but I see the scraps off cloth flutter into the roadside grass.
Ashvelon takes an angry handful of my rear, desire flooding through the roughness of his grasp. He jams one finger into my slit, snarling with vicious delight when he finds it wet. Histhumbs pull me open wider, and then his fingers drag through my slickness.
Abruptly his hands leave me. I raise my head and look back to see him kneeling between my legs, silhouetted against the dark sky, opening his pants and then pushing them down around his thighs.
For an instant, he hesitates, perhaps thinking I want him to stop. But I don’t.
“Yes,” I breathe, excited by the wild energy I’m feeling from him. “Fucking show me.”
He makes a rough sound in his throat, shoves me harder against the dirt, and drapes his body heavily on top of mine. His fingers pry at my pussy, locating my opening, and then I feel him wedge the hot, blunt head of his cock into my slit. With a feral grunt, he shoves himself all the way inside, his weight pinning me down, one arm pressed across my shoulder blades.
His hips surge as he thrusts mercilessly, grunting again and again. Shrill gasps burst from my throat with every jolt of his cock into my cunt.
I’ve never been fucked senseless on a dirt road at night. It’s uncomfortable, utterly primal, and more wickedly exciting than I would have imagined. I’m so wet I can hear the liquid squish of Ashvelon fucking me, the wet slap of our bodies as he drives himself closer to climax.
He’s lasting so much longer this time, probably because he’s angry and there’s so much on his mind. This is what he needs, what I need. Proof that no matter what happens to us, this connection between usexists, as the most real and raw and necessary thing in both our lives.
Ashvelon switches the position of his arm across my back, dragging my hair to the side so he can snarl in my ear. “I’m coming inside your cunt. Do you feel it? Feel how deep I am in this beautiful body? Do you understand that you are mine? Youare shaped like me now. No one else will ever fit inside you like I do.”
