Six
Anatol finally fell asleep sometime during the
night despite the fact he had Evangeline naked in his arms. In the
morning he woke up before she did and sat on the edge of the bed
watching her sleep. The morning light eased through the window,
bright as it reflected off the deep, fresh snow that had fallen all
night long. They were very lucky they’d managed to find shelter.
She’d tucked the blankets up tight under her chin, concealing the
rest of her body. He’d had an eyeful of her bare breasts the night
before when she’d sat up, groggy from sleep, and the feel of her
soft, bare skin all night had tormented him.
He was no virgin. Anatol had been with plenty of
women, though he was sure his number of sexual conquests couldn’t
touch Evangeline’s. That was because he needed to care about the
women he bedded. He’d learned that early, after a series of empty
affairs in the palace had left him ravenous for more sex—something
to fill the hole that his life there seemed to produce in him. That
was when he’d begun to sneak out at night, sometimes during the
day, leading a dangerous double life that could have gotten him
killed.
Whereas Evangeline had learned to reject
relationships and emotions, Anatol had embraced them. That had been
his survival mechanism. It was also how he understood the harder
path Evangeline had taken.
She shifted and sighed, turning over. He wanted to
ease the blankets down and stroke her body until she responded,
until she woke panting for him, slick between her thighs and
needing him to fuck her. He wanted to touch her breasts, explore
every hill and valley of her nipples. He wanted to go lower, pet
her pretty cunt and suck on her clit until she screamed his
name.
His hands clenched. He could do it. He knew he
could seduce her, make her enjoy sex for the first time in her
life.
But it was too soon.
He wanted Evangeline, but he wanted the whole of
her—he wanted her to care for him before he took her, though there
was a dark part of his mind that whispered maybe the way to her
heart was through her body. Through sex, pleasure. Maybe if he gave
her enough orgasms, he could touch her heart. He was certain she’d
never climaxed during sex before. He wanted to be the one to make
her do it for the first time.
He pushed up from the bed and stalked to the
window. The street was silent and still, save for a few tracks from
the intrepid or the desperate.
The rustling of blankets drew his attention.
Evangeline rose and, shivering, made her way across the room to see
if her clothes were dry. He knew they were still damp because he’d
checked them already.
He let his gaze drop from her narrow shoulders to
her small waist to the flare of her heart-shaped rear. She was
lithe, like a dancer, slender as a reed. Her breasts were topped
with luscious red nipples he could suck on for hours. Her long
blond hair brushed the small of her back and the same color of
light hair covered her mound. The area around her tattoo and jewel
were still red. He scowled, examining them from afar. He didn’t
like the looks of that at all.
“I know what you want, Anatol,” she said without
turning around. She sounded bored. “I can feel you watching me.”
She turned and spread her arms. “So take me, I don’t care.”
I don’t care.
He wanted her to care.
“I was looking at your jewel and tattoo,” he
grumbled. Partly. “It’s cold. Get back into bed.” His voice
came out gravelly in frustration.
She retreated under the covers, nibbling on the
rest of the bread from the night before. “You should come back to
bed, too. I promise I won’t bite.”
Yes, but he might. And he might do a whole
lot more than just bite her. He might give in to the strong urge he
had to fuck her so well and so hard that he would emblazon himself
on her body and in her mind so that forevermore she would remember
him.
“I’m coming back to bed just as soon as I make a
disinfectant for your lower back.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I took a little salt from a cookshop the other day
in case it looked like your jewel needed to be cleaned.”
He sought the small paper-wrapped amount of salt,
found a suitable container in the items they’d gathered from the
street, and headed into the bathroom. When he came back he had the
best disinfectant he could manage under the circumstances.
“Turn over.” Grabbing a scrap of material, he
walked to the bed and sat down on the mattress to examine the skin
around the jewel. It was red and infected-looking. “This is going
to hurt a little.”
She sighed and turned her face toward him. “Go
ahead.”
He dribbled the salt water onto her jewel, using
the scrap to catch the dribbles before they hit the mattress. She
jerked and her breath hissed out of her. “Stay still.” He poured
the rest over the jewel slowly, using it all up. Then he put the
container and material aside and blew gently over the wound to dry
the water.
He straightened and pulled the blankets over her.
“That’s the best I can do right now. We’ll do it again tomorrow if
it looks like it needs it.”
“Thank you.” She settled down on her side and
looked up at him.
His gaze searched her lovely face—her pretty eyes
that seemed to be weighing him every time they lighted on him, the
curve of her full mouth, the slant of her cheekbones, the fall of
her hair that his fingers itched to stroke.
She smiled as if she knew what he was thinking.
Maybe his expression gave him away. “I offered you my body and I
know you want me. Why not take me? We’re stuck here all day with
nothing to do.”
“And you think that’s an excuse to have sex? It’s
just something to kill time?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
He ground his teeth together. Clearly, although she
could now feel, not all of the old Evangeline had washed
away.
Sighing, she flopped onto her back. “Tell me about
yourself, Anatol, why are you so odd?”
“Odd?”
“You’ve never been like the others at Belai. You’ve
always held yourself apart, disappearing at strange times, not
attending many of the social functions.”
“I think one could make the argument you never
attended any of the social functions, Evangeline. Not
really. Your emotions have been absent, leaving you an empty shell.
An automaton.”
She stared up at him. “Don’t be cruel.”
“I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I’m just trying to
make you see the truth.”
She looked away. “Well, don’t. Anyway, no one cared
where my emotions were.”
“If you say so.” He’d always cared.
“They cared if I would sleep with them or not, or
whether I could do something that would move them upward in our
social circles. No one ever cared about me.”
That was true, though he’d cared for her. Likely
he’d been the only one.
She made a sound of frustration. “You changed the
subject. Tell me why you’re odd.”
“Odd.” He gave a small, cold-sounding chuckle. “I
was often absent because I escaped Belai whenever I could. At
least, the building itself. I practiced swordplay with the Imperial
Guard—”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
She shook her head. “Never mind.”
“I practiced swordplay with them, helped them
train.”
“So that’s how you fought those three men in the
alley.”
He nodded. “Like I said, I trained with the guard
when they’d let me. They were usually eager for sparring partners.
I also tended horses in the stable and walked the city streets
whenever I could. Borrowed books from the depository and read them
in the park.”
She propped herself up on an elbow and the blanket
fell down, exposing her breasts with their tight red nipples. He
looked away. “Why?” She sounded mystified.
“I wanted more from life than what being J’Edaeii
offered me. I was searching for that more.”
“Did you ever find it?”
He looked down at her. “Yes, but I found it back
where I started. Unfortunately, by the time I found her, she was
already too damaged to see me clearly.”
“Who?”
“You.” He couldn’t believe he’d said it out loud,
yet there it was.
“Me?” She laughed and looked away from him. “You’re
insane. Are you saying you’ve been . . . what? . . . admiring me
from a distance for years? That’s completely—”
He had her pinned beneath him in a heartbeat, his
gaze boring into hers. Her breath caught as she stared up at him
with surprise and fear on her face. “True. It’s true,
Evangeline.”
Her words and breath seemed to leave her.
He rolled away from her, sitting on the edge of the
bed. Damn it, it was too soon for admissions like that. What was he
thinking? He’d scare her away.
“Anatol?”
He said nothing.
“Anatol, you’re playing with me. Why?”
“I’m not playing.” To his own ears, he sounded
miserable. That’s because he was.
She laid a small, warm hand on his shoulder, her
touch making him stiffen. “I don’t know what to say.”
Yes, he didn’t either. That wasn’t something he’d
never intended to say to her. Now he was afraid to open his mouth
lest something even worse came out.
She slid out from the blankets and came around to
face him. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t
what she did. Pushing his hands to the side, she straddled him, her
cunt coming flush against his cock with only the thin material of
his underwear separating them. His cock noticed the heat of her sex
so close, the press of her breasts against him, and went to hard,
almost painful attention.
“What are you doing?” He gritted his teeth. If she
continued this, he would pin her to the bed, part her thighs, and
thrust his cock root-deep inside her. It was too soon for
that.
“I don’t know,” she answered in a whisper, her
voice trembling.
He looked up at her and saw her eyes were
glistening. Not in the twenty years he’d known her had he ever seen
her cry. Not when she’d slipped and fallen down the stairs at the
age of ten and broken her arm. Not when she’d failed her quarterly
magick test in front of everyone at the age of fourteen. He’d
thought she wasn’t capable of it.
Lifting her slightly, he rolled her onto the
mattress and came down over her. Dipping his head to hers, he
slowly rubbed his lips across her mouth. She shuddered beneath him
and his cock pulsed in response.
Shivers that had nothing to do with the cold made
goose bumps rise on her arms and legs. Anatol pressed his lips to
hers and rubbed slowly, deliberately, like she was a luscious treat
he was savoring. Her body responded to his kiss in a way it never
had before, her nipples going hard and the area between her thighs
becoming warm and aching in a pleasurable way. Her breathing coming
faster, she gripped his shoulders and pressed her mouth more firmly
to his, wanting more of the sensation.
He gave it to her, sliding his mouth more firmly
over hers and forcing his tongue between her lips. It brushed up
against hers with a jolt of eroticism that registered in parts of
her body much farther south.
Hiking his knee up between her thighs, she rubbed
against him like a cat wanting to be petted. For the first time in
her sexual life, she wanted more from a man. She wanted to
be touched, kissed, to be given pleasure and to give it in return.
To experience a sexual climax.
Oh, she knew what orgasms were. She’d even achieved
a couple stuttering and unfulfilling ones in the black of night
with her sheets in a twist, her hand plunged between her thighs and
her eyes squeezed shut. She’d wanted to know what they were and
she’d been less than impressed.
But now, with her emotions running through her body
as hard and as hot as her blood, she wondered if there could be
more than what she’d forced her body to experience those few times.
She wondered if maybe Anatol was the man to show her.
He nipped her bottom lip and slid his tongue back
into her mouth. Experimentally, she explored his shoulders and
upper arms, enjoying the flex and bulge of the build of a man who
used his muscles on a regular basis. Ropy strength coiled in his
body in a way that made her feel deliciously vulnerable and
feminine. It wasn’t often that she was with a man who had a body
like Anatol’s. Mostly they’d been Belai born and raised, pampered
from birth, with soft limbs and even softer hands.
One of Anatol’s rough hands, calloused from
swordplay, no doubt, covered her breast. She arched against him,
pushing her hardened nipple into his palm. He shuddered against her
and nipped her lip again, as he worked her nipple with his thumb
and forefinger until she moaned deep in her throat.
“I want you, Anatol,” she breathed. “Please, don’t
stop.”
“How many men have you been with?” he murmured
against her lips.
She breathed out sharply, trying to form the
ability to answer his question. “I don’t know. Too many to
count.”
“Women?”
“Yes, I’ve been with women, too. Many.”
He eased his hand between her thighs and found her
clit. Stroking it back and forth with just the right pressure, he
growled into her ear. “I’m going to make you forget them
all.”
Her breath caught in her throat as he pushed first
one broad finger deep into her and then a second. Thrusting in and
out, he rocked her back and forth on the bed. Pleasure rose up in
her, a drowning rhythm that kept time with his hand.
“Does it feel good?” he murmured.
“Yes,” she breathed.
He thumbed her clit, working his fingers a little
harder and faster. “Do you want my cock inside you?”
“Yes.” Her fingers found the bedclothes and fisted,
holding on against the onslaught of sensation.
He shifted downward and covered her clit with his
mouth, sucking it into his mouth and tonguing it as he thrust his
fingers in and out of her in a rhythm that made her moan. The
pleasure that had been welling up in her body crested, overflowed,
crashed down in a wave over her. She cried out, her toes curling,
her finger gripping the blankets and the muscles of her sex milking
his pistoning fingers. It went on and on. She couldn’t think; she
could only feel the sensation of her climax sapping all the worry
and tension from her body. Her brain stopped and her body ruled. It
was glorious and overwhelming.
“Anatol,” she breathed when it finally ebbed.
He remained between her thighs, licking her all
over. His fingers explored every fold of her, petted her sensitive
clit until she shivered and shuddered. “You are beautiful,” he
breathed against her inner thigh. “When you come ...” he trailed
off, his voice shaking.
“Come up here. Take me if you think so. I want
you.”
He only shook his head and laved her slit, pushing
his tongue deep inside her. The sight of his dark head between her
pale thighs ignited something deep inside her again. He caressed
her climax-sensitive clit with the pad of his finger and her back
arched as she moaned. She was shameless in her desire for more,
like a sponge long dried up and now thrown into the ocean. Again he
pushed her into orgasm. When it was spent, all she could do was lay
limp and exhausted on the bed.
He came down beside her and she rolled to her side,
facing away from him. Inexplicable emotion welled in her, tears
pricking her eyes until they hurt. She wouldn’t let them fall.
She’d never cried in her whole life that she could remember. It had
always been a point of pride for her. She made a dry sobbing sound,
pushing the tears away. They wouldn’t go away. Damn it, they
wouldn’t go away.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She couldn’t
name the feelings she had now and didn’t know where they came from.
They just assaulted her and she had no way to control them or beat
them into submission. “I hate this. I hate it.”
“Just let it go, Evangeline. Cry. Scream. Do what
you need to do with the emotion you have bottled up inside you. Go
ahead. It’s all right.”
The tears came like a flood, breaking down the last
of the walls she’d built up over so many years, washing away the
bitterness and sadness that had forced her to build them in the
first place. Her body shook as she sobbed in Anatol’s arms, letting
it all go.
Anatol didn’t say anything. He was only a warm
presence at her back, holding her tight as she cried, until all her
tears were spent and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Evangeline picked her way down the icy street with
a basket of three-day-old bread clutched in one freezing hand. At
least it wasn’t four-day-old bread. If it was soaked in a little
water, it would be edible.
The wind whipped at her thin cloak and kissed her
skin mercilessly. Hunger had become a constant companion. She
dreamed of rivers of beef stew navigated by boats made from loaves
of fresh, warm, flaky bread. No amount of this old stuff, which was
all they could afford, ever seemed to fill her.
She remembered all those meals she used to pass up
at Belai, afraid she’d ruin her dancer’s figure. She couldn’t
believe she’d ever refused food—she never would again. In fact, she
would never take anything for granted again—not food, not a warm
bed or a cozy, soft coat. Certainly not safety.
It was amazing how a few weeks of hardship made one
see so much clearer. All the petty, stupid things she used to care
about—the proper dress to wear to a party, whom to sit next to at
dinner for the greatest social advantage—all of it was crushed to
dust. It had all disappeared during that first week when she’d seen
heads roll, worried for her own head, and all her walls had come
tumbling down.
She no longer lusted for spacious, cold apartments
in Belai. Now all she wanted was a warm room, a full belly, and
someone she trusted to share it with. That sounded like a fine life
to her now, whereas a month ago she would have considered it
squalor.
Was Anatol that person she could trust? Should they
aspire to a cozy, warm rented apartment in a poor part of town?
Rent cheap enough that they could afford firewood and fresh bread?
Food in their cupboards? Warm water from the taps?
Sounded like heaven to her.
Trudging past a narrow alley, she heard a low
sobbing. Stopping, she went back, straining to hear the soft sound.
It was coming from a ways down, near a pile of rubbish at the back
of a cookshop’s rear door.
Normally she would have lingered a moment, waiting
to make sure it was safe to step into the concealed area. The
alleys of the city of Milzyr were no longer anything anyone could
call safe. However she had her magick and her magick could feel the
despair coming from the sobbing individual—genuine grief and
hopelessness. This was no trap.
So she secured her grip on her bread basket and
stepped into snow that went as high as her calf. Wincing from the
cold, she made her way to the huddled shape. It was small, and the
sobbing childish.
Kneeling down, she set her basket on the snow. “Are
you all right?” she asked the dirty bundle of fabric.
The material shifted and a small, feminine face
came into view. The girl was perhaps seven or eight. “My parents
are dead. I don’t know what to do or where to go.” Her eyes were
hollow and haunted. Her speech was educated. A nobleman’s daughter,
perhaps. Many of them had been orphaned as a result of the
beheadings. The rabble was happy to kill off the parents, but they
didn’t know what to do with the offspring. Oftentimes they were
turned out into the streets to find their own way.
Evangeline sighed, glancing away and licking her
lips. Sweet Joshui, what could she do for this child? She and
Anatol couldn’t even take care of themselves. The girl gazed
longingly at the bread basket. Well, at least she could offer that
much.
Evangeline held the basket out to her. “Go
ahead.”
The girl snatched up a piece of bread and tried to
stuff the whole thing in her mouth, but it was very hard, of
course, and she ended up having to suck on the end of it, then gnaw
on it when it was soft enough to bite.
Evangeline let her eat for a while, though her feet
were growing numb in the snow. “How many nights have you spent on
your own?”
“I don’t know. Many. I can’t remember now.” The
girl spoke between bites. “My parents were taken by some of the
rioters. I hid under the bed when they came. Once the men were
gone, I snuck out.”
“That was smart. The men probably went back to
ransack your house. They would have found you there.” And there was
no telling what would have happened to the child then. Not all the
young girls were fortunate enough to simply be turned out as
penniless orphans into the street. Not when ransacking men found
them. Females always seemed to have to endure the most
violence.
Of course, there was no telling what would happen
to her now, either. Nothing good, if she stayed out here on the
streets. She couldn’t leave her. Evangeline could only think of one
place to take the girl, though it was hardly ideal.
She stood. “Come with me. I know a place where you
can get warm and have a meal that’s much better than that old
bread.”
The girl stared up at her with dark mistrust in her
eyes. Ah, they learned so quickly. That was good—it was a credit to
the child. In this brave new world mistrust would serve her
well.
Evangeline smiled and tasted the air for an emotion
that wasn’t suspicion. “What’s your name?”
The child blinked. “Marta.”
Evangeline found a thread of calm from a patron of
a local cookshop and traded a little bit of it for the girl’s
mistrust. The patron would be confused for a moment, but he would
live. It was important the girl trust her enough to come with her.
The manipulation was for her own good. “Marta, I promise I won’t
hurt you. You’re lost and I know what it is to be lost. I only want
to help.” She stretched her hand out.
Marta hesitated a moment, then, clutching the bread
in one hand, she took Evangeline’s hand and stood. “I trust
you.”
“Good. Now come with me. It’s a long walk to where
we need to go.”