Chapter Fifty-Seven. What Has Started, Finishes.
Fifty-Seven
What Has Started, Finishes.
“Sorrel. Open up.”
Before I can respond, Thale opens the door. “Worry not, mercenary. My business here is done so I’m leaving.”
He glances back at me with that smile. “Isn’t that right.”
I ignore him. I’m too busy cataloguing Merc from the floor up. Is there blood on him? If Thale knows the cook’s death is his doing, will there be trouble? The big man certainly seems like the type to take a pound of flesh out of anybody for even the smallest offenses.
Which making him look for a new cook could well be among.
When I reach Merc’s eyes, they’re not on me. And he’s looking like he’s ready to use that knife with the long hilt on Thale.
“Don’t look so aggressive, friend,” the other man says to him. “Nothing happened here. I do rounds and check the rooms when the storms last this long.” He points to our lantern without turning away. “You are almost out of oil. That is the extent of things. Do not let your head spin away.”
Neither man moves, and the standoff attracts attention. Down by the stairs, the drunks have noticed and they’re pulling together, like an audience for a fight.
When Merc stays silent, Thale’s voice drops even lower, to the point where I can’t hear what he says. Then he steps around Merc, their shoulders knocking as if he intends the contact.
In the aftermath, Merc watches him go.
I brace myself for the door to be slammed, but he closes it quietly.
As he turns to face me, I blurt, “What happened—”
“That man did not come up here for the oil. He wouldn’t do a woman’s job. What was he doing in here—”
“We are almost out of—”
“Don’t lie to me.” Merc looms over me. “And before you tell me it’s none of my business, I killed a man for you tonight. So you can bloody well be honest with me.”
“The cook is dead,” I breathe.
“Yes.”
Rubbing my aching eyes, I shake my head. “I tried to find her in the kitchen. I don’t know if we aren’t too late—”
“What was he doing in here.”
I drop my arms and lock eyes with him. “I asked Thale for help. For the maid. I asked him to protect her after you’re gone and I’m … wherever I am.”
I can’t stay in the lodging house permanently, after all. Not until I can figure out how to melt down Mare’s gold.
Merc’s black and white gaze goes to the bed. “And what exactly did you give him in return.”
“Nothing.”
“You expect me to believe a man like him would provide anything to anybody for free?” He looks back at me, his stare raking down the front of my blouse. “You’re lying. And do you have to bed every man you’re around?”
I glance down. The buttons are all undone, my chemise showing. From when I’d intended to fix the buttons.
Merc steps in to me. “You know what, I think I will collect. After everything I’ve done for you, especially tonight, I want what we agreed to in the beginning.”
His hands go around my waist, and between one blink and the next, I think back to being in Thale’s lair, with that man touching me. I felt nothing then. But when it’s Merc, now? My body comes alive, heat rushing to my breasts and in between my legs.
With a jerk, Merc pulls me against him, his arousal obvious.
“Will you deny me after you had him,” he growls. “You’re still in charge.”
Leaning back in his arms, I turn my hands into fists as I grip his leather lapels. I do some jerking of my own, roughly bringing his mouth to mine.
Though I have battled death for what feels like centuries, tonight it seems to be prowling around, looking for a way into me, and I feel the futility of any mortal contest against the grave.
I’m also tired of worrying over so many strangers, the ones here, the ones back in my village … even though they’re all I’ve ever had.
And then there’s the parting with this man right here.
There’s nothing gentle in the kiss. Merc’s lips rake over my own as he backs me up not to the bed, but the wall next to it.
The waistband of my skirt is yanked at, my hips tugging this way and that, the hard length of him pressing into me even through the stiff felt—which promptly drops down to my feet after he undoes it.
Merc lifts me up with one arm and kicks the skirt away. I don’t care where the thing goes, especially as his hands come between us. He’s working at the ties on his britches—and then he’s wrenching the top part of them down his thighs.
His mouth is still on mine as he paddles up my underskirts. I feel a cool draft on my legs, but there’s no dwelling on that. He cups the back of me, lifts me up, and for the first time, there is a blunt probing at the core of me.
I brace myself for the pain, squeezing my eyes shut. But I will not stop this.
I want him. I want to know what this is—
Merc drives into me with a thrust, his arousal penetrating me in one hot branding. My eyes flip open and I see through the shroud of his black hair the window seat where he sits. The lantern is glowing, the journal open where he left it, the shutters whistling from the rain.
All of that disappears as the pleasure flows through me.
I look up to the ceiling. There are no sparks that fall, no stars twinkling to their own little deaths at the floorboards.
But I feel like I did when that happened, whole and complete as I soar.
In between my legs, Merc is pumping into me, to the point where our mouths break contact, and all I can do is hold on.
I wrap my arms around his big shoulders, drop my head into the raven waves that fall all around, and squeeze my eyes shut.
The wall behind me is hard, his body is hard … he is hard, inside of me.
I become nothing but energy, nothing but what he’s calling from me. He’s unleashed, wild and alive, as if he’s killing me as he did the cook, his breath coming out in explosions, his hips pumping faster, the strokes shorter and shorter.
A growling sound vibrates into my ear.
And then I don’t hear anything at all.
I’m flying free of my body on a rushing wave that turns my blood into sunshine as Merc pushes into me one last time and stays here, his sex kicking deep within me.
Forcing my lids open, I look to the ceiling again.
I’m breathing heavily. So is he.
The rain seems loud as our panting.
When he withdraws and puts me on my feet, I feel the cold again, even as something hot comes out of me. His seed, on the inside of my thighs. From where he left it inside.
Merc never stumbles. He does now.
He trips over one of his own boots as he yanks up his britches, and he turns away as if to spare me.
“Considering what we just did,” I say roughly, “it’s a little late to worry about modesty—”
“We’re settled up now.” He pivots back around, but not toward me. Toward the door. “I got you here. You gave me what I wanted. What was started between us … is finished.”
Merc goes to the table and picks up his pack.
He doesn’t look at me as he leaves.
The door closes as quietly as a last breath.
The pain is indescribable, a horrible counter to everything I just felt when we were joined, and if I weren’t already leaning against the wall, I’m certain I would collapse. This is not how it’s supposed to end. This is not …
Across the way, I stare at the bolt.
I go to the door and try to calm my breathing. Before I open it, I tap the latch for luck—
He’s not waiting for me.
Leaning out, I look down the hall. Merc is nowhere to be found, and the next thing I know, I’m all the way to the head of the stairs. I expect to see his shoulders and that broadsword descending to the lower level. All I get is a pair of drunks bumping their way up the steps.
“He left.”
I turn to the female voice. Through an open door, I see the blond. Bethle, I think her name was.
“Yes,” I hear myself say. “I know.”
“It’s better this way.” Her eyes drift down me, lingering on my underskirts. “Once Thale gets involved, if you have any regard for your husband, it’s best he moves along.”
Crossing my arms over my heart, I turn away and walk back down to my room. This time, as I close myself in, I throw the bolt even though I’m no longer worried about my safety here. Thale’s authority, like Merc’s, precedes me among the patrons and anyone else who might seek to harm me.
And my own reputation precedes me with Thale.
As I glance around the room, the whole of Anathos seems barren, and I can’t believe it all happened so fast. The sex. Merc’s leaving.
My return to solitude in a dangerous place.
That’s my final thought as the oil in the lamp runs out and everything goes dark.