87. Rorax
Aloud knock at Rorax’s door made her head snap up from the book she was reading in alarm. She eyed the clock on the wall. It was well past midnight.
She grabbed a knife off the coffee table next to her and padded over to the door. “Who is it?”
“It’s Kiniera’s advisor, ma’am. I have a message from the Ice Emissary asking you to come to her room.” There was a hesitant pause, before the man on the other side of the door got closer and whispered to her through the crack. “It’s about the fourth trial. We finally managed to find out what’s coming next.”
Relief made her heart skip a beat and she whipped open the door. Kiniera’s advisor stood there, his cheeks a little pink as he jumped back out of Rorax’s space. He reached his palm out. “Here, she told me to give this to you.”
Come to my room, now.
K-
Rorax’s mouth pinched tight around the corners. The hasty, shaking scrawl was not the cool, perfectly neat handwriting Kiniera used in all her professional correspondence, or even the personal letters Rorax had received from her in the past.
“I’ll be there in a moment,” Rorax said to the messenger.
Kiniera’s assistant nodded and turned away as she closed the door.
Rorax pulled on her boots. She’d been reading in a white, long sleeve, cotton dress that Hella made for her, and she didn’t bother to change as she pushed out of her room, sliding her hair blades into her braid on the way out.
Rorax didn’t knock as she pushed inside Kiniera’s room.
“Felidra,” Kiniera blurted as soon as the latch closed behind Rorax. “You’ll have to make a four-person team, and you’ll have to steal a chrysalis from a felidra.”
Kiniera looked frazzled, like she had been running her hands through her wispy hair as she paced furiously back and forth.
Rorax blinked at Kiniera, the words bouncing uselessly around in her head. “What in the hell are you talking about, Kiniera?”
“Your fourth trial, Rorax. They want you to steal a chrysalis. From the felidra colonies.”
As the words started to sink in, Rorax’s chest felt tighter and tighter. “A chrysalis. They want me to steal a chrysalis. From a felidra.”
They stood staring at each other in horror for a long moment until a knock on the door interrupted them, and Kiniera brushed past Rorax to open it.
“What’s going on?” Jia asked when Kiniera closed the door again.
Rorax kept staring at the spot where Kiniera had been standing, thoughts swirling so violently in her mind, she was surprised she wasn’t screaming them across the room.
“Ror?”
A four-person team. To steal a felidra chrysalis. One of the most dangerous creatures in the Realms. Without magick.
The walls were pressing in on her.
Rorax had seen a rabid felidra kill a small group of men in seconds before someone in her unit had put it down.She needed to bring four other people in with her. Only four? How was she supposed to pick a group who would essentially be sacrifices to a trial?
“Rorax!” A hand on Rorax’s elbow made her head snap up, but she still felt like she was choking as Jia pulled on her elbow again.
“Ror, are you okay?” she asked as the corners of her mouth pressed down into a frown.
Rorax trapped a hysterical laugh in her throat and nodded.
“Go tell Milla and the Lieutenant,” Kiniera said, pushing her hand through her frazzled hair again. “I need to prepare Isgra and put a team together that consists of . . . the most disposable soldiers we have, since they most likely won’t be coming back.”
Kiniera strode out of her room without waiting for a reply.
“Come on. I’ll go get Milla.” Jia gave Rorax a little shove towards the door. “Go to Ayres’s room and we’ll meet you there.”
Panic started to flood Rorax’s system as she climbed down a flight of stairs and two long hallways. She found herself knocking on Ayres’s door, feeling jittery.
She tapped her foot and looked around the hallway, biting her lip. She was five seconds away from losing her mind and didn’t want her meltdown to happen in the hallway.
When Rorax didn’t hear any movement from behind the door, she knocked again.
Looking over her shoulder to the thankfully still empty hallway, she hissed, “Ayres, open the gods-damned door!” She heard a low curse from within and it finally jerked open.
Rorax hurled herself into his room, tripping over his feet and staggering forward, before hitting her forehead on hard warm flesh.
“Gods, I’m sorry.” She felt the blush bloom across her cheeks and was grateful it was dark in his room.
“Ror?” His voice was sleepy and sexy as he closed the door behind him. His scent of balsam and pine calmed something inside her chest, even as something else in her core quivered.
“I need to talk to you,” she blurted before he could say anything else in that voice. “I know what the next trial is. We’re going into a nest of felidra to steal a chrysalis. It’s a four-person team assault. My sponsor has to provide for my team.”
Red lighting cracked across the room and a small fire erupted in the fireplace, illuminating the space. She yelped, jumping to Ayres. She clenched his massive biceps and stared wide eyed at the fire before looking up at Ayres who was watching her with a crease between his eyebrows. Her face flushed into an even deeper kaleidoscope of reds and pinks as she released him and took two steps away. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Rorax,” Ayres demanded, grabbing her shoulders tightly with his tattooed hands. “Take a deep breath. Calm down.”
She nodded, looking at the carpet and did as she was told, gulping down breaths of air and pushing down her nerves. When she felt like she was back in control, she looked up at him.
Ayres watched her with alert eyes and that perfectly proportioned mouth tight at the corners. “I’ve never seen you this spooked before. What the fuck is going on?”
“The next trial. We’re supposed to infiltrate a colony of felidra and extract a chrysalis.” The words felt like ash in her mouth, but Ayres didn’t so much as blink at the news.
“How many people can be on your team?” Ayres’s voice was steady, so unwaveringly calm that she could feel some of her own panic ease.
“It’s a team of four. Jia was with me when we found out. She’s telling Milla now.”
As if summoned, there was a brisk knock on the door. Rorax sucked in her breath, forcing her panic away. Ayres stepped away from her to answer it, letting an angry Milla and a slightly pale Jia into his room.
Ayres closed the door behind them, and Milla put her fists on her hips and glared up at Ayres. “The felidra? Really?”
Ayres shrugged a shoulder at her. Milla huffed before crossing the room and collapsing into one of the two armchairs by the fireplace.
Ayres pulled on a shirt that had been draped over the end of his bed and turned to Rorax. “Can you recruit anyone for your team? Who do you want?”
“I don’t want anyone,” Rorax blurted before she took a deep breath and turned to Jia. Rorax didn’t even have to open her mouth before Jia nodded.
“I’m your Emissary. I’m on your team whether you want me to be or not,” Milla said to Ror, looking both her and Jia up and down from the armchair by the fire. Then her head slowly turned to Ayres. “I am going to ask Kaiya or Piers to be the fourth.”
Ayres snarled at her,baring his teeth. “Like hell you are.”
Milla leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees to match his pose. “Ayres.”
Ayres glowered at Milla for a long moment before turning his dark charcoal eyes to Rorax. A clear challenge rested there. “It will be me.”
Rorax shared a confused glance with Jia. Why wouldn’t Milla want Ayres on the team? He held the most magick in the castle, besides Kiniera, or so she’d been told.
“Have either of you two ever fought a felidra?” Milla motioned to Jia and Ror with a flick of her fingers, pulling their attention back to her.
They both shook their heads. Felidra, with the bodies of big cats and the wings of butterflies, resided predominantly in the Jagamine mountains between the House of Death and Life. They thrived in the tall mountains there, and in other small pockets around the Realms. There was a small group that lived in the House of Ice’s southern mountains where she had once seen a rabid felidra, but nowhere else in the realm.
“They’re smart. They are fast and come in varying shades of sentience. We might be able to reason with some . . . or bribe some, but the majority will try and kill us on sight once we arrive out of loyalty for the pack. We need to cover our scents the best we can when we get to the hunting ground. We also need to pray that we don’t get placed near the heart of felidra territory. We’re fucked if the king of the felidra catches us,” Milla said.
Ayres sat on the edge of his bed and rested his elbows on his knees, watching Ror. “Do you know anything else about the challenge?”
“We’re supposed to steal a chrysalis. I don’t know when,” Rorax furiously rubbed her finger over her ring. “Or where the task is, or even if you will be in the task with me, or just on the sides yelling at me.”
There was a beat of heavy silence, and a weight of inadequacy settled in Rorax’s chest. It was so heavy she couldn’t breathe. She was dragging some of her only surviving friends into a deadly situation, all of them unprepared and blind, and she wouldn’t be able to protect them with any magick. She took a shuddering breath as Volla’s face flashed into her mind. A roll of nausea built up in her stomach, and her panic started to rise again.
“Kiniera might know more. She didn’t give us much before she left to deal with Isgra,” Jia said.
“Felidra are fast, lethal, and as smart as a whip. This will be dangerous, but not anything we won’t be able to handle.” Milla stood up and stretched her arms above her head. “Come on, girls, let”s get to sleep. We’ll talk to Kiniera in the morning.”
Rorax had Ayres’s door open with trembling fingers a half second later, more than ready to bolt from the room, but Ayres clasped a hand around her wrist and jerked her back against his side. “Go,” he ordered Jia and Milla, jerking his head to motion them out. “I’ll walk Rorax to her room in a moment.”
Jia raised an eyebrow at him and Milla smirked knowingly. “Very well, Lieutenant. Don’t keep her up all night.”
“She could really use some relaxation though, and I’ve heard you”re just the man to do it.” Jia winked at Ayres before he growled softly, and they swiftly left the room.
As soon as his door clicked shut, Ayres turned and pushed Rorax’s shoulders gently against the door, planting his palms on the wood on either side of her head. “Ror. Look at me. Are you okay?”
It felt like a band was strapped across her chest, constricting her breathing as she panted. She couldn’t look up at him. Her throat felt like it was full of cotton. Her ears were buzzing, and all she could think about was Volla.
Volla’s face. All those dead soldiers. All that blood.
“Ror.” Ayres’s voice was low and soft, but it sounded like he was underwater. She shook her head and grabbed little fistfuls of his t-shirt with trembling fingers.
Volla. Sahana. The blood . . .
“Ror, look at me.”
Rorax gritted her teeth as tears threatened the rims of her eyes.
Volla. Darras . . .
He released her, took her hand in his, and tugged her to the bed with him. He sat down and pulled her into his lap, wrapping her legs around his waist so they could sit chest to chest. Rorax pressed her eyes against the muscle on the side of his throat and tightened her legs around his waist, squeezing his torso closer.
Tears started to drip down her cheeks before she could choke them back and she grabbed bigger fistfuls of the soft, white shirt he wore.
Her breaths were still shallow and way too short, her chest still tight and painful.
Her friends. She was leading her friends to their deaths. Again. And she didn’t have the magick to help them.
“Ror,” Ayres said softly.
An image of a dead Jia planted itself on the back of her eyelids, her throat ripped out by the teeth of a lion or a jaguar felidra. She tried to shove it away, but it wouldn’t go.
“Ror, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to be fine,” he said, rocking her back and forth, one arm a tight band around her middle the other rubbing circles into her back.
The fact that he knew Rorax’s tears were not for herself, but for Jia—for all of them—and the fact that she was going to have to put them at risk, warmed her heart.
Ayres might still battle with himself whether he liked her or not, if she was worth it or not, but the fact that he knew her well enough to know she was terrified for the loss of the people closest to her without her having to tell him, touched her somewhere so deep down she didn’t even recognize it. And it cracked her in half, her emotions finally forcing a loud sob from her throat.
“What if Jia dies?” she whispered, wiping the mixture of wet snot and tears on the back of her hand behind his back. “How would I ever face Volla? What if you die? If Milla . . .” Another sob, and then another, and then even more ripped through her and she pressed herself closer to him, wrapping her limbs around him tightly and using his shirt to absorb her tears.
He let her cry in his lap, rocking them back and forth and absentmindedly smoothing her hair with his fingertips.
When her sobs finally stopped wracking her body and only silent tears remained, she whispered, “I can’t let you come, Ayres. Any of you. I’ve already caused so much damage to Death and her people, they can’t lose you, too.”
The hand rubbing her back froze, and Rorax swore a little growl rumbled in the back of his throat.
“Ayres?” She tried to pull back an inch to look at his face, but before she could, he flipped her over. She let out a whoosh of surprised breath as she landed on her back.
Ayres held his weight up with his elbows pressed on either side of her face, holding his dark head so it hovered over hers, the cheekbones in his face softly illuminated by the fire light.
“We are going to be fine, Rorax. I swear to you that I will make sure all four of us come out of this alive. We are going to make sure we make it out of this alive.” The way he said it, his unwavering faith in his ability—in her ability—made something steady inside of her.
He rubbed a tear away from her cheek with his thumb. “But as of this moment, I am done letting you insult me, Little Crow. No more.”
“Insult you?” Rorax’s eyebrows pulled together. “What are you talking about?”
“You really think that a little cat can kill me?” The arrogant bastard narrowed his eyes.
She scrunched her nose and squirmed a bit underneath him. “Felidra are not just big cats. Sharp teeth, venomous, flies, some have spiky tails . . .. All things that could kill you, Lieutenant.”
Ayres hummed and lowered his head until his lips were only inches away from hers. “Good thing my Contestar has a little magick knife to protect me.”
“Little knife?” She rolled her eyes, ignoring how her heartbeat sped at his proximity.
Her body suddenly felt flush as the reality of her current situation hit her. She was in Ayres’s bed. Underneath him. Laying right where he had been sleeping shirtless not twenty minutes ago. After a month of nothing but cordial space between them, her body was elated at the attention. “Maybe I’ll let the felidra take a bite of you. Just a taste. You’ll either die, or it’ll decide we aren’t tasty enough for the trouble. It”s worth a gamble, I think.”
A slow, hungry wolf-like grin spread across his mouth, and it made her clench her thighs together. “What do you think will happen if I take another taste of you, Ror?”
She should say that him tasting her again would never happen. She should say that after what he’d said the last time they were together, she didn’t want anything to do with him. But instead, she smirked back at him and slowly started wrapping her legs around his waist. “I think, Ayres, if you take another taste of me, you’ll finally understand the meaning of the word addiction.”
“Who says you haven’t already taught me the meaning?” he whispered. The words made her feel more wet and needy than she already was, but before she could say anything, he threaded his fingers through the strands of hair at the side of her neck and kissed her.
Gods, kissing him made her feel like she had been struck by lightning. She groaned into his mouth and deepened the kiss, opening up to him. She tugged his shirt up and slipped her fingers under the fabric, feeling the hot skin and taught muscles of his lower abdomen.
He groaned like he was in pain before he broke away from her. “Wait. Fuck. I thought I was supposed to be comforting you.” She wriggled against him, scrunching up her nose and scowling as she watched a muscle in his jaw jump through the dark stubble.
“You were.” Rorax pouted, her voice husky and straining.
“Was I?” He traced her lips with the fingers of his other hand before he brushed the tips of his pointed and middle fingers over her bottom lip and inside her mouth. Still glaring at him, she wrapped her tongue around his fingers and pulled them deeper into her mouth.
Ayres’s dark eyes erupted into silver as he watched them disappear between her lips. He pushed them deeper, down into the smooth, wet walls of her mouth, and she sucked them harder, challenging him with her eyes.
“Fuck,” he growled, his silver eyes glinting in the darkness as he watched her lips stretch.
She scraped her teeth lightly against the bottom of his knuckles, watching as his pupils continued to blow out. Ayres plucked his fingers from her mouth and trailed the wet tips down over her lips and chin before he clasped his hand around her neck.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“You.”
“Say it, Greywood, say exactly what you want, word for word, or I’m walking you back to your room right now.”
She ground her teeth together. “I want you to fuck me. I don’t want to wait until the next influx.” Rorax ground against him, feeling him harden under their clothes.
“The last time we did this you ignored me for days,” Ayres growled.
“Last time you were an asshole.”
He grunted. “I also . . . I was rough with you Rorax. You were going through an influx, and I thought that’s what you needed at the time to get through it.”
“I have never come so hard in my whole life,” she assured him. “Even without an influx, it’s what I want.”
Ayres didn’t say anything.
“If you don’t give me what I want,” Rorax growled, “I’ll go find someone else who might be up to the challenge.”
Ayres laughed darkly, the sound low and throaty, and a little bit angry. “There is no one alive who could fuck you like you need. No one but me.”
He pressed his body in between her legs, keeping his tattooed hand wrapped around her throat so tight she could feel the cool metal of his rings against her skin. Ayres kissed her again, deep and hard. His tongue pushed his way into her mouth. He devoured her like a fucking animal, hard like his anger and hatred were fueling his lust. K??n help her, she fucking loved it.
She tried to push his shoulders back, to roll on top of him, but he gathered her wrists with his other hand and pinned them above her head, out of his way. A small part of her fought it—against the heat rising in her—but she had never had a man overpower her like this before Ayres, and gods she wanted more.
He broke away, nipping the skin down her neck so hard it burned. His hand skated up her side brushing over the side of her breast.
She whimpered and before she could stop herself, she arched her back into him, pressing her breasts into his palm, aching for more, needing more. “Ayres.”
He paused at the junction of her neck and shoulder, his breath ragged against her skin. He rose just high enough to look at her, and fear lodged in her throat.
Ayres”s eyes were bright red.
Her heart started to pound, “I . . .”
“Say. It. Again.”
“Fuck me, Ayres.”
Ayres jerked her up from the bed, stalked over to his desk and set her down flat on her back. He fumbled with something over her head, and when she turned to look, she saw the Black Salt box with Glimr inside it. Ayres picked up her knife, hissing in pain as the metal seared in his palm, and stabbed the knife into the wood of the desk, three feet above her head.
When she heard him fumbling with his belt, she started to struggle with her hips, a weak attempt at escape. He growled a warning as he ripped his belt out of its loops and used it to clamp her hands together at the wrists and securing them to her knife.
When he was done securing her to the table, he used his own knife and split her dress from her neck down to her belly button. He grabbed the fabric and ripped the rest of the way down. His hungry red eyes inspected every inch of her swollen flesh, her breasts heaving with her desperate attempts to breath.
“Fuck,” he growled, testing the weight of her breast in his palm. “You are perfect.” He bent down and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, then he went lower and lower, dipping his tongue into her belly button before lowering down to where she wanted him. He licked over her clit first, making her hips involuntarily buck in his mouth before he slid down and gave her slit a long lick. He stayed there, devouring her and using his fingers to stretch her until he thought she was ready for him.
He pulled his cock from his pants, gave it a rough squeeze, and ran it over her pussy, wetting the length against her slit. Rorax tried to angle her hips, to get more, to feel more, but the instant Ayres felt her grind her hips, he pulled back.
“Ror,” he chastised. “Your orgasms are mine to give you, you don’t get to take them.” Shaking his head like he was disappointed in her, he raised a hand and slapped her pussy.
She yelped, hips jerking off the table. “Ayres!” He did it one more time, and she jerked again. She felt herself dripping down into the fabric beneath her, and he slapped her there one more time . . . She was going to come.
She wriggled her hips in invitation, in a silent plea, but nothing came. Instead, he pulled her hips to the end of the table, stretching her arms out above almost at the verge of pain and pressed himself into her. He did it slowly, inch by inch and with every second she tried to savor him until he was seated all the way inside of her. Gods, he was big. Her eyes watered as the opening of her pussy walls pinched in pain from his size.
Ayres groaned, so loud, right in her ear, his breath tickling the little hairs on her ear and making her weep around his cock even more than she had been. “Fuck, you feel good, Ror.”
He lowered his hand between them and rubbed her clit, as he started to move in and out of her with hard rolls of his hips. Ayres raised his head to look into her eyes and she felt a trill of fear. His eyes were bright red.
The man fucking her ruthlessly into the table held Death Magick in his blood that was close enough to the surface to see. Ayres wanted to fuck her as bad as he wanted to kill her, and something about that made her heart beat faster, made the adrenaline thrum in her veins and made her feel absolutely fucking alive.
He rubbed her slit harder as she leaked out from around him, she could feel herself dripping onto the table below.
Ayres stroked her higher and higher until she knew she was going to tumble into oblivion. His arm snaked under her back, keeping her spine curved off the table so she was forced to keep her body pressed against his.
“I’m . . .” she choked before she started panting out breaths. “I’m gonna come. Ayres.”
“Keep those pretty eyes open, Rorax,” Ayres growled, “I wanna see you come on my cock, I want to see what I’ve earned.”
She forced her eyes from rolling into the back of her head, and kept her eyes connected with him as she came, the walls squeezing and fluttering around his cock as he came inside of her.
“Marras, fucking save me, Rorax.” Ayres panted in her ear. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Rorax breathed back. “That was . . . I feel . . .” K??n save her, she couldn’t even speak. Her mind felt like it was in a cloud, like the strings holding her to her body had been cut and she was about to float away. She had never known such pleasure.
Ayres looked to be in the same state as her, his forehead pressed against hers. He didn’t even look like he had the strength to stand.
He eventually straightened, looking down at Rorax with lazy, lusty eyes. He brushed a thumb over her nipple, causing her to moan softly again, before he pulled out of her. He brought a warm, wet cloth to clean her up. “Come on, I’m hungry.”
Rorax’s hands were still pinned above her. She looked down at her naked body, but it didn’t even have a scrap of her dress left on it.
Ayres seemed to read her mind. He smirked and reached up to untie her wrists, placing her knife back in the Black Salt Box before he turned to his dresser. “I’ll give you a shirt.”
Ayres tossed one of his white long-sleeved linen shirts at her, and she pulled it over her head. It rested mid-thigh and covered all her important bits.
He didn’t bother with one for himself as he grabbed her hand and led her from his room, down into the deserted kitchen with sure, steady strides.
When he opened the door, Ayres immediately turned to her, lifted her up by her hips and sat her down on the nearest countertop.
She looked around the tidy, empty kitchen that was lit by a dying fire. “What are we doing down here?”
“Making up for last time.” Ayres added a log to the fire before he strode to the pantry and opened it. He rifled through something before pulling out an orange sweet roll. He held it out to her. “Here.”
She gently took it from him, careful to make sure none of the citrus flavored frosting fell away.
Ayres rummaged through the cold box, a box that Ice Witches runed to keep food chilled and pulled out a glass jar of milk. “Do you prefer warm milk or cold?”
“Warm,” she whispered, watching as the Lieutenant of Death put a small pot of milk over the fire for her.
When he deemed the temperature hot enough, he pulled it off the fire. “Give me a mug from the cupboard behind you.”
Rorax turned and pulled down a mug large enough for the contents of the pot. He poured the milk and handed her the warm mug. “Eat.”
She nodded and took a bite from the roll in her hand.
He washed and returned the pot as she sat there, watching him as she chewed. When he was done, he returned to her side and tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “Are you feeling better?”
Rorax took a long drink of milk and as she felt it warm her from the inside, she nodded. “Much better.”
“Good.”
Ayres waited until she was done before taking the mug from her hands and setting it to her side. He wedged her knees apart and stood between them, cupping the sides of her face in his hands, forcing her to look up at him.
“Now listen to me, Ror. I won’t let you, Jia, or Milla die up there. Do you remember when I let my power go, that time when we’d gone to fetch Sumavari’s book? I will slaughter the whole colony of felidra to ensure our survival. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Rorax’s eyes burned, and she had to press her lips together to keep a sob trapped in her throat. She reached up and wrapped her hands around his thick wrists, fighting the tears that wanted to spring from her eyes.
His face got imperceptibly closer to hers, his eyes searching like he could see every doubt written right there on her soul. “Do you trust me, Rorax?”
Sitting half-dressed on the kitchen counter with a man who had saved her life numerous times, and would probably do so again, there was only one answer.
“Yes,” she whispered. A tear fell from the corner of her eye, and he wiped it away. “I trust you, Ayres.”
He cupped the back of her head and pulled her head forward, resting it against his shoulder.
“What’s happening right now?” Rorax asked, thinking about the last time they’d been together. I don’t hate you enough not to fuck you.
Ayres sighed into her hair, guessing the direction her thoughts had gone. “I’m sorry. That was cruel.”
“It’s okay.”
“No . . . it’s . . . it’s not okay. You have proven at every possible opportunity that you deserve a chance to redeem yourself. But you won’t get a chance if I don’t give you one. It won’t be easy, and sometimes . . . sometimes I’ll still be angry, Ror, and I think I’m entitled to that . . . but I’m trying.”
“Okay,” Rorax whispered. A chance. That was all she could ask for.