Chapter Briar
Briar
FIRELIGHT FLICKERED IN MY BEDROOM WHEN I ENTERED, THE nights surprisingly chilly in the balmy tropical atmosphere. When the door fully opened, I screamed.
A body lay in a heap at the foot of my bed. Shining silver eyes stared lifelessly up at the ceiling. That perfectly carved cold face, the royal garb . . . Evres.
Maez appeared from the shadowed corner of my room. “Do you like my present?”
She asked it like a cat bringing me a dead mouse, so utterly pleased with herself.
I gaped at the body on my bed. “You killed him?”
“No,” she sang, and my eyes narrowed to the rise and fall of his chest. “He is under the very same sleeping curse that you were once subject to. Although I’d imagine you looked much more of a beauty,” she said, roughly grabbing Evres’s cheeks and shaking them back and forth. “And less of a dead fish.”
“What are you going to do with him?” I breathed, unable to hide the horror in my words.
“I’m not going to do anything with him,” Maez said, producing a dagger from her cloak and flipping it to offer me the hilt, just as she had the day she first rescued me. “You are.”
I took a step back, banging into the now-closed door that Maez must’ve magically shut.
“I can’t,” I said firmly, shaking my head.
“You said you wanted to prove you could handle this darkness, handle me.”
“I know, but—”
“Enough! I’m not talking to the Princess right now,” Maez cut in. “I’m talking to you, Briar. I don’t care what you were taught to be. What is it you want to do to him?”
Drawn in by the undertow of her empowering words, I found my true voice. Not the sweet affected one I’d been taught, the real one pulled up from below the surface. “I once vowed to myself that I’d be the one to kill him.”
“Good. He was going to torture you,” Maez pushed, gesturing at Evres with the dagger.
“He was going to breed you and break you in body and spirit until you were nothing but a shell of the vibrant person you once were.” Her voice was laced with a promise of violence.
Static filled the air as if it angered her magic, too, as if every ounce of her being wanted to exact revenge.
“He was going to do much worse than kill you swiftly. But these powerful men have never known a power like mine.” She took a step forward and placed the glinting black hilt of the dagger in my hand. “A power like yours.”
I gripped the warmed hilt, taking a step forward even as I said one last time, “I can’t do this.”
“You can,” Maez urged, leaning into me until her mouth was only a hair’s breadth from my own. “You can be every forge and fire, Briar. You can be vengeance.”
When she stepped away again, I stared at Evres, knowing that if the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t hesitate. His only sorrow from slicing a blade across my throat would be that he’d bleed me out in minutes instead of decades. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to take another step.
Anger mounted at my own inaction. How long would it take me to fully grant myself this permission? How long would I be untangling my truth from the facade? Would I forever be leashed to the person I was told I should be?
“Is it because he is asleep?” Maez asked with a cock of her head. “Because if you could hear all the sick things twisting through his mind, you wouldn’t hesitate.” When I didn’t move, she sighed and snapped her fingers. “Fine.”
Evres shot up, gasping. His hand went to his throat, and he searched the room.
“Maez,” I warned as Evres started to realize what was happening. His cold eyes landed on me, a sneer on his lips as he said, “You.” He looked like he wanted to kill me, like he wanted to drag me back to Damrienn and strangle the life out of me.
I gripped the dagger tighter. “Maez,” I pleaded again.
“You can do this,” she said. “You are stronger than you know.”
“I . . .”
My whole life I’d done the right thing, done exactly as I was told, and look where it got me.
Maybe it was time I stopped looking to others to save me.
Maybe the right thing wasn’t patience and calm and kindness.
The right thing. I was beginning to wonder if that concept was one of the many lies taught to women to keep us chained.
My soul sang with the realization: maybe the right thing to do was bring this bastard to a violent and bloody end.
As if hearing my inner thoughts, Maez stepped to my side and dropped her mouth to my ear. “Come on, Briar; show me your thorns.”
When Evres shot forward, hands out like he wanted to strangle me, I ducked under his arms and kicked out the back of his leg.
It was a move I’d watched Calla perfect over hundreds and hundreds of hours while I practiced the waltz and the dainty way to sip tea.
Bitterness roiled in me that I’d once been so thoroughly declawed.
Not anymore. Sweet Moon, it felt good when my fist collided with the side of Evres’s head.
Even the pain of my knuckles lit me up inside.
“You bitch!” Evres shouted as if shocked by the audacity I had to defend myself. He scrambled to his feet, launching to attack me again.
Maez could’ve easily stepped in, but she didn’t. This was my kill and we both knew it.
I’d once coached myself to remain calm around Evres, to not provoke him. Calm no longer existed in me, only bright, burning fire.
No more hiding behind my title, and Calla, and Maez. I will fight my own battles.
Evres grabbed a fistful of my dress and yanked me toward him. “You’re nothing but a pretty little whore, Briar Marriel,” he hissed. “You’re no solider. You don’t even know how to use that dagger.”
His other hand fisted in my hair yanking it to the point of pain. My eyes watered as I held his hateful stare.
“Maybe I don’t,” I rasped, tightening my grip on the dagger. “Will you help me practice?”
I drove the blade up into his chest with all my might, the blade so sharp it slid into his belly like slicing through warm butter.
Evres gasped and staggered backward, his eyes bugged as he held a hand to his bleeding gut.
A glorious, dark satisfaction zipped through me at the shock on his face.
I shot forward, not giving him another second to contemplate what I’d done before I stabbed him again.
And again.
And again.
Chest, shoulder, arm, cheek. I tore him apart with my blade, the blood driving me to a frenzy, spurred on by the look of utter disbelief in his eyes as if even as I ended him, he couldn’t quite believe I had the courage to plunge a knife into him.
I smiled wickedly. Yes, me. The pretty, little whore. I am your executioner.
I grabbed him by his bloody cheeks, prying open his limp mouth.
With my blade I delved beyond his teeth and cut out his tongue, the one he had once forced into my mouth.
Blood sprayed as I threw the wet piece of flesh across the room, and it hit the wall with a sickening splat. Never would it touch me again.
Evres’s eyes rolled back, his body limp, but I didn’t stop. I screamed, releasing my fury on him, punishing him for everything I was put through, for everything he wanted to do to me, for every way I was made to feel lesser than, weak, meek, pathetic.
It wasn’t until Maez’s powerful arms hauled me off him that I dropped the blade.
I tried to struggle against her, but she whirled me and pinned me to the wall, her mouth instantly finding mine.
Her burning kiss was so all-encompassing that everything else flew to the back of my mind.
She kissed me like my blood-splattered lips alone sustained her.
She consumed me, her body pushing into mine, her mouth working over me until all my rage had simmered into lust.
When she pulled away, her eyes were filled with pride as she said, “I knew you were hiding under there, my vicious Briar. My mate.”
Heat bloomed in my belly at her claiming words.
She clicked her fingers and Evres and all the blood coating the floor disappeared, though I remained slick with gore.
“What have you done with him?”
She grinned. “Sent him back to Nero with a little note from us.” She winked. “Nero is losing heirs faster than he can name them.”
Maez turned toward the door.
“What now?” I asked and she paused, her hand hovering above the handle.
“Now you bathe and then you sleep,” she said but neither did she move.
“And if I don’t want to sleep?”
“Oh, I like this new you,” she crooned, stalking back toward me. “Or should I say, the real you?” She studied me. “I could make you feel so, so good, Princess,” she promised, but then her eyes darkened. “But this isn’t what you want.”
“What I want is for people to stop telling me what I want,” I snapped, finding my voice again. Each time I did it, it became easier. I hadn’t come this far for her to push me away again. I wouldn’t let her.
I grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled her lips to mine. She moved instantly, her mouth crashing into me as she hoisted me up, grabbing my ass as I wrapped my legs around her lean waist.
She tasted of copper and rust, Evres’s hot blood still dripping from my hair and clothes as I clung to her. Maez carried me backward, dropping me onto the mattress, uncaring as we soaked the sheets crimson. Swiftly she stripped me until I was bare before her.
“I told you before, mate. You look good in nothing but the blood of your enemies.” My chest heaved as her hungry eyes took me in. “Gods, I missed this body.” She studied every inch of me as she unbuttoned her shirt, letting it fall open.
I feasted on the sight of her smooth muscled skin as she slid her trousers down and stepped out of them.
“I need you,” I panted, and a smile tugged the corners of her lips.
She prowled forward, crawling up my body, lighting up my skin with every inch she touched.
She kissed me fiercely, pressing me down into the mattress.
Her touch was so different, her mouth more demanding than she’d ever been before, but I relished it.
My desire overriding everything else. I needed to be fucked, needed her mouth and tongue and hands, needed her naked and dripping for me so badly I might implode.
My hands dove into her hair and raked down her back, touching her rougher than I ever had before. She let out a little groan of pleasure as she nipped at my lips. I rocked my hips into hers angling myself to rub my clit against the rock-hard muscle of her thigh.
She moved lower, angling herself so her own wet pussy met mine, rocking in rhythm to my own feverish tempo.
This heady union made me moan, chasing my pleasure against her slick sex.
Maez broke our kiss to drop her mouth to my hardened nipple.
She sucked the peak into her mouth, swirling her tongue around it twice before testing it with her teeth—hard.
I cried out, pain and pleasure mixing in equal measure as her hand dove beneath me to grab my ass and rock me harder against her. I let her take control, moving me in just the way she wanted, her hips jerking against me as her lust drove her wild.
“More,” I moaned and Maez moved, rolling and pulling me on top of her, the hand gripping my ass dropped to my core and she pushed two fingers inside of me, hooking them and massaging my inner walls.
With a cry of pleasure, I pushed back against those fingers as they thrust in and out, taking me faster. My hand slipped between us, and I found her throbbing clit. I circled it with my fingers as she fucked me with her own.
“Harder,” she groaned, and I pushed down on her swollen nub harder than she’d ever liked it before. “Yes,” she panted, grinding against my hand. “Yes. Fuck, Briar.”
Her fingers worked me faster and I gasped, struggling to catch my breath as the pleasure crested in me like a violent wave.
Her other hand rolled my nipple in her fingers as she lifted her head from the mattress and claimed my mouth.
At the brush of her tongue, the tug of my nipple, the thrusting of her fingers, I exploded.
My orgasm took me by surprise, roaring through me so wickedly that I saw stars. Maez followed after me as I circled her clit, bring her to climax right along with me. Our sweat-slick bodies slid against each other as we moaned in unison—the sweetest harmony.
When we finished, I rolled off her and lay tucked into her side. She didn’t reach for me. Didn’t brush a loving hand down my arm. Didn’t kiss the top of my head. Didn’t tell me I was beautiful or incredible or that she loved me.
The come down from that euphoric high was brutal.
I could embrace Maez’s strength and violence, but I still needed her softness, too.
She unspooled me, revealing more of my true self to her, but something still held me back—the hope that we could reverse time, the inability to let go of what we once had in order to form something new.
One hand still gripped on to the past. I knew I’d need to release it and free-fall into this unknown to ever truly have all of her again.
A sudden bout of tears welled in my eyes, a knot forming in my throat. I didn’t want to let that hope go. Not at all.
Maez looked down at me with a frown. “Delightful,” she muttered. “Go to sleep, little puppy,” she snapped and shoved off the bed. “You’re not ready to play with this kind of power.” She stalked out the door without even opening it, disappearing in an emerald haze.
I curled onto my side, hugging the pillow into me and sobbed. I knew then for certain—Wolf or no—I was never getting the old Maez back.