Ascension Saga: 8. Grace Goodwin
given up on that. Then I’d been held in warmth and comfort. Now, the comfort was lacking. It seemed I was at the whims of my latest personal warden. Clearly, she didn’t like me and wanted me as miserable as possible. All of them had been pawns to this master. They were all dead. This female, she too, was a pawn. I had to wonder if she would be dead within a few days as well. She had a purpose… now.
Finally. Finally, I would know who was behind everything. Who’d masterminded so much evil. Why I was still being held. What he truly wanted.
“Time for what?” This female elder, this pawn, was bat-shit crazy. The old Earth term jumped to mind, and I applied it happily. The fervor in her gaze was alarming. There was no logic there, no analysis or contemplation. Pure devotion. Obedience. She was like a trained dog. To him. My impatience to know the truth made me antsy.
“When he arrives, he will use you as bait. You will be the one to help him kill your daughters.”
I frowned. I hadn’t been kidnapped so my daughters could die. No, this master had gotten more than he bargained for. A queen with three daughters.
“That’s not possible,” I told her. “I know what he wants. He wants the royal jewels so he can take the throne.” I stood, despite the fact that my knees were shaky. If nothing else, I needed to keep moving to stay warm. I hadn’t slept more than a few minutes in days. It was too damn cold. “But it won’t matter. The truth will come out. The people will reject him. Jewels or not.”
“You are a fool.” Her cackling laughter made the hair on the back of my neck raise in alarm. “He doesn’t need the jewels. He never needed the jewels. What would he need with such worthless relics?”
I thought of the way Wyse had wanted them so desperately. So it hadn’t been for their master, but for himself.
“He needs me alive,” I countered.
Her laughter died off to a smirk that I wanted to punch right off her face. But the knowing grins on the faces of her two young attendants alarmed me more. They were not of her caliber, too young and stupid to feign such contempt. “For now. But not for long. And once your daughters are dead, everything will be exactly as he requires.”
“Requires for what?”
“To finally kill you and assume the throne. Try to stay alive until then. We wouldn’t want you to die prematurely, now would we?” She nodded at the guard next to her and he tossed a blanket at my feet. “Tonight you’ll be warm, but you won’t eat.”
Fine. Fucking fine. I refused to answer her, protest, or rise to the bait. So, this master thought he was going to use me to lure my daughters into the open. Away from their protectors, into a trap. To murder them?
Was it his plan to starve me into giving him what he wanted or was this female just a stone-cold bitch?
Apparently, he believed the best bait to catch a royal princess would be me.
Over my dead body.
I knew enough now. It was time to stop sitting here and letting these people fuck around. No one was coming for me. I’d waited patiently for the hopes of rescue, but the queen’s guard either didn’t know where I was or couldn’t find me.
My daughters had settled in, Trinity and Faith had taken mates, but they had not been able to find me either. It seemed when they’d moved me about, from one prison to another, they’d been careful. Smarter than I’d thought.
Enough.
I had to rely solely on myself now. As my girls would say, I was so fucking tired of this shit. It was time to get the hell out of here.
1
Destiny, Planet Alera, The Royal Palace
“Harder.”
With my ankles over Nix’s shoulders, he was bottoming out in me with every deep thrust. The raw sound of flesh slapping flesh filled the room, mixed with our ragged breathing and a growl from Nix every once in a while. My pussy should have been sore. Hell, it should have been broken by now.
We were two days into our little staycation at the palace and my Ardor hadn’t been soothed. Our bodies were sweaty, we were covered in cum, because while Nix had put it all deep inside my pussy every time he came, I’d barely let him out of me and it had all slipped free. My thighs, my belly, his belly, his balls, his thighs. The sheets. It was everywhere.
I lost track of how many times we’d come. Nix’s balls should have shriveled up and fallen off by now. But no. He was still hard, still pounding me with an insatiability that matched my own. Thank God. Because I wanted more.
His hands gripped my ankles and pushed forward—I’d never doubt a yoga workout ever again—and he did as I requested. Took me harder. He leaned over me, bending me into a pretzel; the new angle had the base of his cock rubbing my clit, pushing me to the brink.
“It’s not working,” I sobbed, my head thrashing on the sheets.
Nix’s jaw clenched and his eyes met mine. “It’s working, mate. You should be unconscious by now from all the orgasms.”
Tears slid out of the corners of my eyes. “That’s just it. I’m not. I need more. How can I need more?”
A wicked grin spread across his handsome face. “Because you’re mine. We belong together. Your pussy is mine. It knows me. Needs me.”
“Yes, but this much?” I asked.
He pulled back, stilled. I whimpered. What the fuck? He couldn’t stop.
“If you are thinking and talking in coherent sentences, then I am not doing it right.”
He gripped both my ankles in one hand and turned, rolling me unceremoniously onto my stomach. Carefully, he lowered my legs so my toes touched the floor. One hand tucked under my hips and banded about my waist as his foot kicked my own wide. Then wider.
I felt the wide crown of his cock at my entrance and he slid in again.
My eyes fell closed and I groaned at the new position, at the way his cock stroked over new places. My fingers curled into the bedding and held on as he took me even harder.
“You. Are. My. Mate.” Each word was punctuated by a deep thrust, fucking me in cadence. “You. Need. Orgasms. And. I. Will. Give. Them. To. You.”
My clit rubbed against the mattress and I came, the hard pounding exactly what I needed.
I cried out his name, sobbed through the pleasure, the feel of him swelling and coming, filling me again with his seed. But that was nothing to the ravenous hunger I had for his skin, his heat. His energy. My body pulled at his, that was the only way I could describe it. I drained his heat, absorbed it into my skin. Sucked it up like a sponge.
Somehow, he knew, leaning over me, pressing every inch of his chest to my back, his hips to my ass, his thighs to mine. Contact. Skin. Heat. It was better than any drug I’d ever experimented with on Earth. Better than a hot bath, a massage and hot sex rolled into one. Combined with the orgasm, and his seed, and the megawatt of energy my body was absorbing on the inside—from his cock—I was blissing out.
At once, it was like a drug fix. The clawing need to fuck eased.
I began to count, silently, in my mind. I made it to thirty before the need came back to life inside me, clawing and twisting its way through my cells like a fever. Or a curse. I wanted him again. Needed more. More. More. Jesus.
“Fuck.” I moaned the word into the bedding, hoping he wouldn’t hear me. This damn Aleran Ardor was a relentless bitch. I didn’t know how Nix was still walking, let alone feeding my body energy along with his seed. He must be some kind of Superman.