A Debt of Shattered Hope

29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

“ M mmm, she should be clear, Captain,” purred Brittle Spear as it felt like bubble wrap popped within me.

I shuddered at the sensation, not having to endure it for very long before The Raven picked me up off him and set me down to stuff me into my cloak. He was fast about the buttons, much faster than when he had first put it on.

“Do bring her back, Captain. She is the most intoxicating creature I have met in a long time. Next time, though, I would have her voice as well. Perhaps she can pick the face I wear for her to ride.”

I gagged, unwilling to look up at him or even see what lay below his shoulders. The Raven didn’t seem too interested in forcing me to endure his company any longer than I had to and was hurriedly stuffing my hair under the cloak and taking the lead up, his discarded breastplate loosely hanging over his neck unbuckled at the sides. “As soon as we are out of the palace proper, I will take the bridle off.”

I counted every step, rehearsing the absolute flaying I intended to give him the moment the bridle came away. I was going to strip him to the bone and feast on his wounds for what he had done to me.

It didn’t matter that I had chosen it. It didn’t matter that I had enjoyed every second right up until the moment Brittle Spear revealed himself for who and what he actually was. It didn’t matter that, had he not, I would have fallen into their arms a sated, placated, gooey kitten ready to take a nap in their laps.

What mattered was that he had tricked me. He had pulled me in there, knowing full well what he intended on happening and hadn’t told me. It burned that he hadn’t trusted me to make my own choice, even though I had given him no reason nor cause to trust me in anything other than being sassy of mouth and foolish of deed.

I wanted to be mad at him, and I was determined to do just that. It didn’t matter that his hold on the leash was so soft that even a twitch of resistance would pull it free from his hand. It didn’t matter that, any time anyone got within a foot of me, The Raven would all but bark at them, hastening our journey through the palace. What I wanted to focus on instead was the insistent ache in my empty pussy, the throbbing need that centered on my lonely clit, and the way my stomach twisted with sick delight over the feeling of Brittle Spear’s cum dripping down my legs as we made our way through throngs of Fae.

I didn’t want to enjoy the fact that I was freshly fucked, dripping cum, and being walked on a leash, and not a single person in this crowd knew who I was. All they knew was that whoever was at the other end of the leash was being bulldog guarded by The Raven in a way they had never seen before. Several of them remarked on how he looked inches from a murder spree.

I didn’t want to enjoy any of it. It was too much of a deviation from what I knew of myself. I didn’t want to let go of the woman I had known that had never truly thought about sex, let alone reveled in the debauched carnality of being used as a fuck doll while the man she pined for watched on . . . No, had arranged it. I didn’t want to acknowledge that I was sorting through a Rolodex of excuses and picking out the perfect way to blame The Raven for the fact that I wasn’t mad that he had shared me. In truth, I was mad that he had interrupted. That he had robbed us of languishing in that bed until all three of us were drowned in each other’s pleasure and crusted over with the mingling of our sweat and sticky with passion.

That thought sent an unwelcome thrill through me, and I wedged my tongue under the leather bit and crushed it as hard as I could. I was not allowed to enjoy this, any of it. I didn’t want to examine it. I could simply blame it on something Rictus had done. Maybe it was something in the food. Something in the air. Something, anything, other than some little piece of me being unlocked and beating its chest mercilessly in delight at the freedom of it.

“Did you hear me?” The Raven asked, gently pushing back my cloak hood.

We were alone in a stone corridor that was terminated with a single stained glass window I hadn’t noticed before when we came up from the Maw nor when I was taken down to it. All was silent, not even the echoed conversation of others filtered into this place. It was a small stone-enclosed pocket of solitude. It felt safe, or was that the slow, tender way The Raven was rubbing my arms through the cloak as if I might be too cold for his tastes?

I gave him a small head tilt and watched him.

“I asked if I could take the bridle off?”

The low rumble of his deep voice was back, the edges I had been hearing polished out and turned back to a mirror surface of calm restraint.

I nodded, and he began working at the straps while I busied myself recalling why I was angry with him. All I could remember was the concern floating above the evergreen of his eyes as he waited for me to answer.

The buckles came free, and he didn’t remove the leather bit immediately. Instead, he supported my jaw and slowly eased it out, ensuring that he neither chipped my teeth nor strained my already aching jaw any more than necessary.

When it was finally free, he hooked it on his belt and began massaging the sore muscles with circular strokes of his thumbs. “I know you’ve got some heat for me, and we can talk, but first, let me make sure your jaw is in prime condition. I would hate to have you slice me to pieces and hurt yourself.”

I hated that it felt good, each press and rub of his leather-clad fingers easing the ache out, and I couldn’t help the eye roll of pleasure.

“Fuck, I thought you looked good with the gag in, drooling like the messy girl you are but this? I could get used to seeing this,” he purred in a voice that made my cunt clench with need, reminding me he had disrupted what would otherwise have been an amazing orgasm.

“Stop that!” I hissed, trying to slap his hands away.

Stubbornly, though, his grip never let up.

“No,” he said, simply tipping my head up with the simple press of his finger so I was hit with the full brunt of those stunning eyes.

I fell headlong into the rose bushes of his eyes, letting the thorns and canes scrape away all thoughts. I swayed on my feet, caught in his stare, wanting to be held, needing to be held. He accommodated, a sweep of one arm bringing me flush with his body. The rock-hard pressure at the front of his leathers told me with no uncertainty that The Raven and I were in step on more things than one.

“Why.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a plea I didn’t know I could whisper.

I didn’t even know why I wanted to know. I thought the word, and it was there on my lips, where I wished his were instead.

The arm at the narrowing of my back tensed, crushing me against his massive bulk. I liked that he wasn’t a rigid block of muscle. There was a small pad of fat to the powerful, hard-won muscles beneath his clothing. I liked that, where I had once been bony and narrow, I was now full and plush. I liked the way our two bodies felt against each other. He felt like my keystone, slipping into place and holding up the bridge of the two different selves I was fighting against.

“You’ll need to be more specific, little bug.”

His words were a soft breath, not a whisper, but something so much more intimate. The supple texture of his gloves massaging my jaw muscles never stopped. He was doing it idly, not even thinking as his eyes searched mine.

I wondered what he was looking for. Was it the same thing I was looking for in his? Did he know what it was? I didn’t.

“Brittle Spear.”

A simple roll of his shoulder was given. “You’re only allowed to come for me. I controlled that first one. I let you have that one. You don’t get to come for any other Fae but me. That’s mine and mine alone. ”

Was that what I had asked? Was it what I had wanted to know?

I didn’t want to know that. I didn’t want to feel the clenching lurch of my heart as the branches of his words sank in and speared me with a foreign sensation that was a soup of too many conflicting and alien emotions for me to track each one. “But you’ll let some stranger fuck me? Without even asking me? Or telling me! And letting him trick me?”

I tried to push him away, tried to shove him off me, but he walked me back to the wall behind me, gripping and hiking the cloak over his knee that wedged between my thighs and, with lightning precision, was grinding my sensitive clit against his thigh. “Oh yes, little bug. Every day and twice more if I had the choice. I would let you take your pleasure from any Fae you wanted, whenever and however you liked it, as long as I got to be there.”

His gloved fingers slid between his knee and me, sliding into the mess left by Brittle Spear. His fingers were a slow tease, letting the texture of the leather taunt my clit, only to bury them within me as deep as he could get them while he hiked me further up the wall. “Watching you take your pleasure, riding a cock and being worshipped like the goddess you are is as close as I can get right now. But even when I can finally claim what’s mine, I’ll still love sitting back and watching that. Because this?” He slid his fingers from me, eliciting a whimpering plea for him to return.

His gloves were coated, glistening with the mixed cream of my unsated, still hungry pussy and Brittle Spear’s cum. He let me watch it catch the light as he turned his wrist, watching it slowly drip before ravenously shoving them into his mouth. His eyes slid shut, savoring every single second.

I watched, too stunned and turned on by his enjoyment to interrupt him.

“That will be my favorite thing until I can shove my face between your thighs and force you to come for hours on my tongue.”

The emerald fire in his eyes, a near madness level of lust, unbridled and unhindered by any sense of civility incinerated me leaving only whispers of ashes in its wake .

“And why can’t you?”

I wished I could reach out and lick the slight sheen from his lips before kissing him until one or both of us passed out from lack of oxygen. Instead, I settled for grinding my slick pussy against his intruding leg.

He groaned and took hold of my hips, grinding me down faster and harder on him, until the both of us were panting with need. My hands were locked behind shackles, behind my cloak, but they weren’t completely useless. Awkwardly, I fumbled for him, stroking him through the infuriating layers between us. My wrists ached from the strain of it, but he helped. He couldn’t help himself but let his hips pull back and slowly stroke himself against my hands.

“Fuck, Sóna.” My name was a sacred hymnal on his lips, resting there in supplication to the bliss as we drew down ancient magic around us. His fingers bit into my hips as he rocked me and tried to hang on for dear life himself. “Gods be good. More. Fuck, Sóna, more—please, gods don’t stop.”

“Why can’t you touch me?” I whispered, thick and husky and invitation for him to give in to the spell we were weaving around each other.

“I’m beginning to forget my reasons.” He scratched out between thrusts. “But you can’t make that choice until you are no longer property of the Ard Rí, little bug. Fuck, as much as I would kill every creature just to feel your fingers on me right now, that remains true.”

“But my orgasms belong to you?”

“For the rest of time. Your pleasure is mine. And mine, yours.”

“How does that work exactly? If I’m his property? Doesn’t he own that as well, then?” The razor of my tongue had come back, as sharp as ever. When he looked up, I could see the wound reflecting in his eyes as he saw the fire in mine.

“He could never own that. Never,” he growled, forcing me flat against the wall, one hand coming up to encircle my throat. His edge had come up to meet mine. That dagger in the weeds of his tone once more glinting in the sunlight of his rage. The other hand never stopped grinding me against him, driving pleasure through me with each slick slide of me against the texture of his leather riding pants. “Your flesh might belong to him, but you belong to me . . . Say it.”

I leaned into his glove around my throat, pressing harder as I stared him down. “No.”

A feral grin captured his handsome features and twisted them into something that bordered on nightmare. It was like the face of the devil, angelic and demonic all at the same time. His thumb stroked the hammering throb of my jugular vein. “You will. Maybe not today, but you will.”

“I will never,” I hissed out of pure spite and knew it to be a lie the moment that hand fell away from my throat and retook its place on my hip, grinding me hard down against his firm thigh.

I was a buoy staring down the hurricane building outside of the wake of my harbor. I bit into my lip and tried to force back the moaning purr of delight at the friction and slip against him.

“You’re a beautiful little liar, Sóna Mac Raith,” he whispered against the tip of my ear. “I know your secrets I know what makes you detonate. I know what makes you cry. I know what makes your heart race. Do you think I’ve forgotten the way your hungry pussy strangled my fingers every time I sliced into you?”

Shivers raced up and down my spine, chasing each other as the swell within me grew. I was teetering on the edge. The typhoon was coming for me, and I was anchored to the spot, waiting, and he knew it. The fucking bastard.

He bit down on my ear at the exact moment he shoved four fingers into me. Pain burst behind my eyelids, and his thumb pressed into my clit.

I was overwhelmed. Battered on every side. Sensation ravaged me. It swallowed every nerve edging and left nothing in its wake but a smooth, polished dance floor for pain and ecstasy to waltz across as he growled his own delight into my ear.

An ocean of stars, with a hundred dawning suns glowing white and gold, blew into evacuated space where thought used to live. I swam within the cosmos as my body quivered and clenched against his fingers, milking them for every drop of pleasure they afforded .

“Fucking hell, little bug.” His teeth unclenched from my flesh and left it electrified from the slightest glancing touch.

I needed him back, needed that connection. My breath seemed to stop the moment it went away.

Soft, plaintive whimpers fell like rose petals from my lips as he slowly extracted his fingers, making a point to look me dead in the eye as he licked every one clean. “I do so love the way you push me, little bug.”

I was weak-kneed, shock waves of pleasure lacing with the softest edge of agony pulsed through me chasing every heartbeat. Without the wall of his flesh and the wall of stone behind me, I would have blown away in the wind and let it carry me and my pleasure away into those stars and their golden sun.

I smiled, unable to articulate any sort of thought as he swept me up into his arms. I buried my head into the comforting woodsy scent of him, breathing it in and cherishing every lung full of his essence. I didn’t even notice that we went down into the darkness again. Didn’t notice the long descent that spiraled stone staircase lined with guttering torches. I didn’t notice the way every time my lips came close to his bare skin he seemed to have to adjust me.

I did notice when we evened out and the warm torch fire puddled on the mold covered damp stone. “Don’t leave me in the dark again . . . please.”

The torchlight robbed me of the ancient woods of his gaze, but he watched me for a moment before nodding. “As you wish, little bug.”

He turned away from the Maw, and we descended farther into the darkness, the torches growing sparser until we, once again, leveled out into a stale smelling tunnel cut into the bedrock. Down in this area, there were no torches to eat up the thin air. Rows of pale ghostly blue light hung from the ceiling like strings of starlight casting eerie shadows as we moved through the tunnel. Rotten, moldering wooden doors remained silent witnesses as we passed them. None looked like they had been opened in a hundred or more years .

Cavernous black tunnels spiderwebbed off into the darkness from the light of our single tunnel. Small gusts of air came rolling through each one as we passed like the rock itself were breathing.

The last door was unlike the others. This one was delicately worked with a metal wrought scene of a stag pierced by the rays of a dawning sun. It was breathtaking craftsmanship cast as an overlay on what looked like the polished and well-oiled walnut burl of a heavy door. The shimmering ghost lights above us made the stag look like it was breathing, suffering through the spears of light that sliced into its iron flesh.

The Raven watched it for a moment and drew in a steadying breath before he reached out, took hold of the great curling root of an alder tree fashioned into the handle, and yanked it. The sound of bacon sizzling filled the otherwise hauntingly silent space before the scent of burning rotten flesh hit my nose.

“Holy Jesus. What the fuck is that smell?” I was clawing at my face before I realized that, despite all my attempts, I could neither free my hands nor get to my face, so I was just smooshing the cloak into my nose, trying to chase the offending scent from it.

“As ever, little bug, your manners are impeccable,” he grumbled, stepping into the darkness of the space behind the door. He took ten long-legged, counted steps forward, turned went three paces, and set me down.

I expected to be set upon rock or stone or some other horrible cold and uncomfortable thing, but instead, I was set down into the soft cloud of fabric. His footfalls were muffled by something, and I called out into the blackness, “Wait! Don’t leave me!”

“You asked not to be left in the darkness, little bug.” The velvet of his rich bass came from a distance, and I turned to it, hungry not to be left alone in the dark and the dank in an unknown place again. “And I won’t.”

Crackling, like the crunch of an old water bottle bending to the power of a fist, filled the chamber before a warm light chased away the silence, cold, and darkness. Light swirled around the room in a gutter carved into the stone near the ceiling radiating down off the painted stone ceiling to illuminate a lavish, masculine room.

“What . . . ?”

My eyes darted over every surface, trying to make sense of where I was and what was around me.

It seemed incongruous to what one would expect at the end of a creepy stone tunnel in what I was pretty sure was a dungeon. This room alone was more lavish than the entirety of the Ard Rí’s apartments. The bed I sat on was not as ornate, but it was carved walnut, just like the door, oiled to a high sheen and nearly glittering in the warmth of the strange light. The coverlet was a rich silken velvet of deepest dark green. There was a hand-woven carpet on the stone floors. Two armoires covered one wall. A cherrywood desk and matching chair on another. An arming stand in one corner. Artwork adorned every wall. Small items of lavish wealth but practicality were scattered on surfaces.

“Did you think I disappeared into the ether when I wasn’t attending to you?” He folded himself into the desk chair.

I couldn’t help but notice that neatly displayed on a shelf carved into the stone right above the desk were twenty pairs of black leather gloves. Nor could I ignore the two glass-like roses that were hung upside down from the shelf, their petal edges curling into a papery snow blue. I followed the line of the pillow that seemed to be most used and noticed that the shelf was perfectly center to where one would be sat if they were in the bed. Cute.

“Well, no, but . . .”

“So, I had to go somewhere, right?” He cut me a rogue’s grin as he gingerly peeled off the gloves and set them on the desk. The palm, fingers and thumb of the hand he had used to open the door were blackened, rotting and oozing with a dark ichor that did not look healthy at all.

“Raven!” I screamed and made to leap from the bed.

“Calm, little bug. It is but an iron bite. The Ard Rí has a sense of humor.” The top of a small pot was flipped open, and he fumbled to fish some of the ointment out .

“Here . . . let me hel—”

“Sit your pretty little ass on that bed, Cricket. If you put a foot on that carpet, I will string you up in the Maw and leave you for a week.”

The razor sliced through his calm.

I recoiled. “I just wanted to help.”

“I’m aware of what you wanted to do. And I tell you sit. If you wish to help, keep talking. Keep my mind from this bite.”

He was wincing through each word as he applied the salve.

“Where are we?”

“My private chambers.”

“Why are your chambers in what I can only assume is the palace dungeon?”

“Because at one time, I was this dungeon’s most esteemed resident.”

“You were imprisoned here?”

“Yes, the iron on the door was originally placed there as the bars of my prison. When the Ard Rí, in all his twisted magnanimousness decided I had been punished enough, I was granted this room as my living quarters.”

“He gave you all this?” I asked, letting my eyes dart around the room again taking in every sumptuous detail that I could.

“No,” he hissed and began wrapping his hand in linen. “When he gave me these quarters, it was bare stone and an iron gate for a door. Over the years, I have brought things in, rescued other things from being destroyed, crafted things. Carved the lights into the ceiling. I had nothing, and he still thinks I have nothing down here. And I would let him believe that.”

I let things trickle in as he spoke, noting the details of each piece. Nothing seemed to match, seemed too old, or seemed in a state of disrepair. Yet the cohesion of the pieces was still complete. It all fit together in a way that was wholly unexplainable yet right at the same time. His room reflected him in more ways than he could have realized, all the roughness of the warrior and the smooth polish of the courtier .

“Why did you trick me into fucking Ard Tiarna Brittle Spear? Or was that even really the Fómhar Prince?” I wriggled around on the bed, trying to get comfortable while he tended to his hand.

The movement snapped his gaze to me, and his eyes narrowed before they found my face again. “If you are not yet satisfied, my lady, I can pull on another pair of gloves and see to it.” The seductive curl of his lips made my heart thump against my throat, but he carried on as if it were no serious threat. “It was, in fact, Ard Tiarna Brittle Spear. He was cursed during the war. What you saw, while an illusion, was, in fact, his natural born appearance. He can change it at will, but that was his natural mien before the curse. He did, however, lie to you. He is not the Bandrui’s twin brother. A distant cousin, yes, but not her twin. Her twin was slain in the war.”

He sighed as if the greatest weight pressed down on him and crushed him beneath its mass. “Many died in the war. And she would not tell you herself for she is too gracious to admit it but Brittle Spear wearing a close enough approximation to her brother’s face is a balm on an open and festering wound that will never heal. He has most likely spoken to her—that much was most likely true. I told you once, all Fae are liars. He is no different.”

“You’re avoiding my question,” I snapped as he tucked the tail of the bandage into the palm of his hand and began wrapping his fingers.

“So, I am.” He inhaled slowly and then exhaled just as slowly. “It has become clear to me that you were in fact not responsible nor connected to the attempted assassination—though before you sleep this evening, you will tell me the full story of what you witnessed—that does not exonerate you. That means the only way the palace allows you to walk free from the Maw is if another is implicated in the assassination attempt. No Fae would allow any human to roam free with the suspicion of being able to humble an Ard Rí in his own chambers. The fact you still live vexes many as it is. They would have you slain before the court, and all the humans to set an example to ensure that none get the idea that this could be accomplished. None of them want the humans to believe that they could fell even the lowest of us, let alone the Ard Rí master of the greatest stable magic horde known to the land.”

He spoke while his hand wound the bandage, the circles of linen mimicking the circle of his logic.

“And so I sought out Ard Tiarna Brittle Spear, a Fae that was known to be fomenting unrest among some of his nobles. It might have merely been wine-soaked gambling hall rattling, but my guards have heard numerous times of his antics. I tempted him with the flesh of the one human no other Fae can touch.” His eyes lifted and caught mine. The spires of evergreen looked like spikes of jagged emerald shards as I watched him explain the ruthlessness. “I knew that he was a whore monger, a slut in the worst sort of way. A slut that had no ethics nor morals. I whispered in his ear about how the only way to part your thighs was to act the chivalrous courtier and treat you as a precious princess, one above depravity and debauchery . . . even while you rode his cock and showed him exactly why you drive the Ard Rí to madness in his desire for you. And he agreed, foolish as it was, to oath-swear a boon for me to call upon. He thought that he would dissuade me from collecting upon it by adding the stipulation that I collect it from his own lips with a kiss.”

“He thought you were celibate?”

The irritation stoking within me simmered slow and hot.

“He knew better. Rumors about me are one of the court’s favorite pastimes. I am the beast under the bed of every Fae. But this rumor is so pervasive that he must have convinced himself of it, too.”

“Is he your former lover?” I narrowed my eyes, not allowing the slight barb of jealousy to play across my face.

“No, but he does know my former companion.”

This was the first time he looked up from the winding of his bandage as if to see if I would ask further.

I didn’t care who he used to fuck.

“Is that what you did to me? Played the soft chivalrous courtier to part my thighs and make me act the whore for you? ”

He snorted a laugh and leaned back, watching me. “That’s what you take away from that? Not curious who my former companion is? Or how Brittle Spear would know of them?”

“I frankly don’t give two shits who you used to fucking plow. If they had such poor taste, that’s their problem.”

“Not even curious what the boon was?” He clucked condemnation in the back of his throat and set the pot of salve and bandages aside. The blade of his mood unsheathed itself and brandished the edge once more. “If you must know, little bug, no. I have and always will be exactly who I am when I am with you. I had tried to keep my more . . . unsavory habits from you to begin with. I wanted you to see me as less of a beast than the rest of the court did. I wanted you to see me as I truly am, not just the Hammer of the Dawn. You had been through so much already I did not wish to slice more from you.”

“I didn’t ask for your pity.”

“And yet I gave it nonetheless!” He rose, his temper getting the best of him, stalking me down in long-legged strides until his face was but inches from me. “And I would do it, and all the rest again. Over and over again. And when you see Brittle Spear’s head perched atop the Ard Rí’s throne, give it a kiss for me, Sóna.”

“Wh-What did you do?”

“I said I’d let you fuck any Fae you wanted. I didn’t say I’d let them live to tell the tale. And Brittle Spear will not be the first.” A demon took up residence in the feral curl of his bloodthirsty smile. “The boon was for him to be in a specific place at a specific time. He is bound by magic now to appear there. And when he arrives, he will be caught with a specific and very rare spider venom that only a choice few from his fetid court would have access to. The very same venom that you witnessed in action. A few others will attest to seeing him skulking around the orchards where the brood mothers can be found.”

“You . . . framed him?”

“Gold filigree and hung on the wall,” he hissed and pushed away from the bed.

“Because he fucked me? ”

“No, Sóna! Gods be damned, no! Because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and found with a blade in your hand!” He was pacing, his boots chewing up the carpet.

“And . . . that’s it? You’ll just frame a man you’ve known for who knows how long, because some human girl you can’t even fuck was in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

There was a callousness to it I respected and a bur to the blade that made it too jagged, too imprecise. And that bur bothered me.

“You’re not just some girl!” He bellowed and then swallowed whatever he was about to say before settling into that dangerous, quiet knife I knew he was. “You don’t get to show up like this and judge me for my actions. Not now. Not after all this time.”

“What?”

Madness was itching at the edges of his words, and I couldn’t follow him anymore.

Just as quickly as the parchment of his mind unraveled, it snapped back into the roll, and I was shut out as he stiffened and fell back into the smooth courtier I had first met.

“I will send someone with your dinner. I have duties to perform before the day is done.”

The door to his cell, now mine, slammed behind him. “Hey! My hands!”

He was gone, once again leaving me to sit with the mess left in his wake. To sit and chew on everything I had known and everything he had revealed.