Edge of Power Page 8

  “Fuck it,” he muttered.

  Wulf fisted his hand in the material of the cloak and hauled her toward him. And he stopped messing around. Her mouth was driving him fucking crazy and he wanted a taste. So he took it.

  He slammed his mouth down on hers.

  And everything exploded.

  Fuck me.

  He thrust his way into her mouth, hot and wild, and he didn’t bother holding himself back. He didn’t even try. She tasted sweeter than she looked, and it lit him up. He took her over, openmouthed and greedy.

  It wasn’t enough.

  He pulled her even closer to him, bending her back over his arm so he could move between her lush, long legs again and press himself tight and hot against that needy little cunt of hers. It only made that fire in him blaze higher. His bastard of a cock ached, he wanted her so badly, and the rest of him was pulled taut and needy like he was heading toward battle.

  While all she did was shudder. And surrender. She melted against him, from her mouth to those distracting tits to the molten hot cradle of her pussy.

  It still wasn’t enough.

  Her cloak fell open and he could feel her skin again pressed against his, those hard brown nipples twin points against his chest. He ate at her, lips and tongue and teeth, raw and dirty. She made a soft little noise in the back of her throat and he liked it. He wanted more.

  More.

  In some distant part of his brain it occurred to him that an untouched compliant girl like this had probably never kissed anyone before, but he didn’t give a fuck. Her taste was in his mouth, her luscious little body was beneath his hands, and all he could think about was getting inside her. Her mouth. That juicy little cunt. He wasn’t picky.

  And she didn’t know what she was asking for, so he showed her. He angled his head and hauled her closer to him, stormed her like a castle wall, and showed her.

  He didn’t know that he could call it a kiss, the carnal way he took her mouth. Teaching her. Tutoring her. Making her his. His.

  And the notion, suddenly, that no one else had ever taken her like this—no one had ever been this close to her, or tasted her, or had their hands all over her hot little body, drove him even wilder.

  He pulled his mouth away from hers, leaving only the scantest inch between their lips. Her breath was coming fast and hard, almost like a sob, but her hands were dug into his chest as if she wanted to drag him back for more.

  “Kiss me back,” he gritted out.

  Her lips were trembling, vulnerable and soft. Her eyes were dazed.

  He was already a king. She made him feel like a god.

  “I don’t know how,” she whispered.

  And there was no reason Wulf should like this shit. He’d never been about virgins. He couldn’t remember a time when sex hadn’t been a part of his life, because the before and after of his first fuck hadn’t come with all the drama mainlanders attached to it. Raiders weren’t precious about sex. They liked to fuck. Whenever, wherever, with whoever. They didn’t make any excuses for it. They didn’t build whole institutions around it. No churches, no winter marriages, no bullshit. They just fucked.

  This wasn’t fucking. This wasn’t even close. Wulf couldn’t remember the last time he’d stood around kissing. He preferred to eat pussy until a woman screamed, then fuck her until she cried. That was his idea of a regular, kind of boring fuck. Kissing didn’t enter into it.

  But no one had ever tasted like Kathlyn. And Wulf was so hard he almost thought he was in danger of embarrassing himself.

  “Do what I do,” he ordered her.

  Her hands snuck up to his neck and he felt her dig her fingernails into his skin. Little pricks, like claws, that roared through him like fire. And this time when he claimed her mouth again, she met him.

  Inexpert and unsure, but he liked the rawness of it. The intoxicating sweetness. And she learned.

  He took his time. He tamped down on that fierce thing spinning around inside of him, making him want to slam his way into that tight cunt of hers and take her against the wall, and he taught her how to kiss instead. He taught her slow, and he taught her hard. He showed her how to tease and then he took it deep. Dirty as fuck, then sweet. Wet. Sloppy. Intense. And the more she kissed him back, the more excited she got. She pressed herself against him, restless and a little wild, as if she didn’t know where or why she ached. She made needy little noises in the back of her throat and he thought it might kill him.

  And the fact he was teaching her how to want him—how to crave him—was maybe the hottest fucking thing he’d ever felt in his life.

  Because it turned out, his princess was greedy as hell. Their mouths slid together. Their tongues tangled. And still he did nothing but kiss her, over and over, until he was as wild and raw as she was.

  It was only when he found his hands on that stretchy thing that barely covered her pussy that he thought he might dream about for the rest of his life that Wulf got a grip on himself.

  You have to stop now, he growled at himself. Before you can’t.

  And that was chilling. He loved sex, sure. But it was something he did. A lot. It had never, ever, been something he couldn’t control.

  He straightened. He set her away from him, with far more gentleness than he felt inside him. And that was worse, because he could see exactly what he’d done to her. Kathlyn’s mouth was shiny and a little swollen from his. Her eyes were big and wide and slicked with heat. He could even smell how much she wanted him, all that cream and lust. His cock was standing straight up, begging for a little love.

  “You have to go,” he bit out. “Don’t make me tell you again, princess.”

  “But—”

  He tried to rein in his impatience. And failed. “You think I don’t know better than to take a gift like the one you’re offering me when I don’t even know what it’s worth?”

  Kathlyn only watched him for a moment, still breathing too heavy and her eyes too dark. And still too damned hot. She didn’t speak.

  “What makes you in such a hurry?” he asked when that dragged on awhile. “You’ve been a virgin a long time. Why end that streak now? Here? With a stranger who’s the stuff of children’s stories and nightmares?” She opened her mouth. “And don’t lie to me.”

  Her gaze searched his, armored again. “Why not a stranger? A nightmare? At least that would be different.”

  “You’re not the novelty-fuck type, sweetheart. Try again.”

  Kathlyn looked away for a moment, and he didn’t order her gaze back to his. He waited until she did it of her own volition, and felt fucking benevolent as hell.

  “I don’t think that my father should get every last thing he wants,” she said quietly. “Not everything.”

  Wulf only watched her. And waited.

  “He killed my mother.” It wasn’t a burst of emotion. It was matter-of-fact. That told Wulf that it hadn’t happened recently. “He’s always been very clear that he’ll kill me, too, if I ever cross him. Or disappoint him. Or make him mad. I told you, threats are how he communicates.”

  “So this is a kamikaze fuck?” he asked lazily. “I’ll pass. Martyrs don’t really do it for me.”

  Kathlyn ran her hands over her face. “There’s no way to please him. So far it’s been easy because there’s no one else involved. But eventually he’ll accept a bid and someone will take my virginity. Then I’ll have a few winter marriages. And a permanent one. And there are so many more ways to embarrass him when I’m not under his control.” She shrugged again. “I decided that I might as well do something he can’t forgive now, while I can still choose it. No matter what he does.”

  “What will he do?” Wulf asked, and he had no idea why he sounded like that. Dark and grim.

  Kathlyn smiled, and this time, it was much too resigned.

  “He’ll kill me,” she said simply.

  Wulf’s jaw ached, and he had to order himself to unclench it.

  “I’m good, baby,” he told her, lazy and low, as if he was
half bored of this conversation. “But I’m not sure I’m suicide by cock good.”

  His princess regarded him as if she knew better.

  “He wouldn’t kill me now. Not when that would mean losing out on all those bids. My virginity, each winter marriage, my permanent place. He’d make me go through all of that, and then he’d kill me, because he can.” She shrugged. “Because, really, that’s what he’s wanted all along. If he’d had another daughter he would have rid himself of me years ago.”

  Wulf didn’t understand the urge that moved in him then. To touch her. To comfort her. What the fuck? Was he a camp girl or a king?

  But he didn’t have to answer that then, which was probably a good thing, because that was when he heard it.

  Heavy feet in the hall outside. Coming straight toward his door. Wulf shifted to high alert in an instant. He moved fast, taking her by the arm and starting toward the bedroom.

  “Wait,” she said in rush. “Is this how . . . ? I mean, I want to lose my virginity but I don’t—”

  “Someone’s coming, princess,” Wulf told her, nothing but blades and death in his voice. And a need to protect her he had no intention of analyzing with an impending threat coming at them. “You need to hide.”

  5.

  Kathlyn had no idea what she was doing. She hardly understood what was happening as Wulf propelled her across the stone floor, so swiftly she thought that if she hadn’t moved her feet in automatic obedience he’d have dragged her behind him.

  But that was a stray thought, there a moment and then gone, because there was still too much sensation storming through her body, changing her. Claiming her. Making her feel as if her bones, her flesh, belonged to someone else entirely—someone she didn’t know. Making her feel stretched thin, somewhere between giddy and terrified, and she couldn’t seem to decide which was which.

  There was no part of her that felt untouched in any way—no part of her that felt like hers anymore. From the mouth Wulf had taken with such astonishing, breathtaking thoroughness to the soles of her feet that ached a little after the way she’d ground them into the floor beneath her while he’d held her and kissed her and ruined her. Completely.

  She knew that her whole life had altered course tonight, but that was the trouble. She’d planned on that, insofar as she’d planned at all. Altering her life was why she’d snuck into these rooms in the first place. What she hadn’t planned on was Wulf. And there was that defiant, probably suicidal part of her that couldn’t help but delight in both him and the things he’d done to her, no matter what happened next.

  The truth was, Kathlyn had expected Wulf would throw her down and take care of things, eliminating her virginity as a factor. She would have a week to keep it a secret, and then her attendants would discover the truth when they next checked to see if she was intact, as they did every single week of her life without fail. Kathlyn had no doubt that they’d turn her into her father the moment they discovered she’d been breached.

  And that would be that.

  “Princess,” Wulf said then, that roughened voice of his an unmistakable command, in case she’d forgotten who he was. “Pay attention.”

  His big tough hand was wrapped tight around her upper arm as he directed her through the doorway and into the bedchamber, betraying his dizzying strength with a certain matter-of-factness that made her feel shuddery all over again. The truth was in the way he’d reacted to a sound out in the hallway only he had heard. How he’d changed in an instant. The truths she’d seen stamped on his face then, merciless and ready that quickly, told her more about him than anything he’d said. And the way he’d steered her across the room, ruthless and certain.

  “No one can see me here,” she managed to say, with lips he’d made his. Words felt new in a mouth that tasted of him. Different. Charged with an electricity she couldn’t entirely understand, but that felt like a shower of sparks all through her body.

  It was as if the raider king was inside of her now, storming through her veins, lighting up all those things within her she’d never felt before and making them . . . more. More intense. More pointed, more full. That knotted weight deep in her belly. The slick wild honey between her legs.

  “I didn’t think so.” Wulf didn’t look at her. He thrust her further into the bedchamber, such as it was, a starkly oppressive affair, too much like a cell for Kathlyn’s peace of mind. But what bothered her more was that he’d let go of her. “That’s why you need to hide.” His blue gaze slammed into her then, taking her breath like a blast of icy wind. “Whatever happens, don’t make noise. Don’t call attention to yourself. No matter what you hear.”

  “Do you think they’re going to hurt you?” she asked, too quick and too soft, betraying too many things at once. Fear and hope and longing and . . . something else she shied away from identifying.

  Wulf’s eyes glittered, and she was sure he knew what it was anyway, whether she identified it or not. “They can try.”

  And to her eternal shame, Kathlyn did nothing but let this lethal man turn his back to her and walk out of the room, straight on toward his fate as if he was looking forward to it.

  Kathlyn stood there for a moment, her vision cloudy with all that emotion she wanted so badly to turn off again. Or hide, anyway. She wiped at her face just as she heard the door open in the other room. She was out of time.

  She heard the unmistakable sound of the palace guards. Brash male voices and stamping, booted feet.

  And then, cutting through the familiar noise of the overconfident guards, Kathlyn heard Wulf. He was using that overtly lazy voice of his again, as if encouraging her father’s men to believe that he was idiotic enough to so drastically misunderstand his circumstances. That easily overpowered or that profoundly foolish.

  Kathlyn understood then, with a jolt that sizzled all the way through her, that his over-relaxed, deliberate laziness was one of his foremost weapons.

  And then the fact that she was standing stock-still in the middle of this cell of a room, as if she wanted the guards to walk in and see her, gripped her. Hard. This time when Kathlyn looked around it was to see if there was anyplace to hide. She knew that the door in the corner must lead to a rudimentary toilet room, but she’d seen some of those before in different parts of the palace. There was nothing in them but a bucket. No place to hide if someone came in.

  There was nothing for it. She had to go under the bed and hope that because it was such an obvious place to hide, no one would actually look there.

  She moved quickly then, once she was no longer paralyzed with all those competing sensations. She threw herself on the hard stone floor, wiggled beneath the low side of the frame, and then she rolled as far beneath the bed as she could get, pulling her cloak behind her. Once she was in the center and up against the wall, she pulled herself into a ball on the achingly cold stones.

  Not for the first time tonight, Kathlyn deeply regretted the fact that she’d chosen to wear such an outrageous outfit. It might have gotten her into exactly the sort of trouble she’d wanted to find herself in with Wulf, but it was pretty much the last thing that anyone would want to be wearing while camped out on a freezing-cold stone floor in winter, waiting to be discovered and hauled before a cruel and bloodthirsty king to receive her inevitable death sentence.

  But she couldn’t let herself think about that, because she was afraid that if she did, she’d start sobbing.

  Kathlyn curled herself into a tighter ball. She tried to maneuver the cloak beneath her, to keep her bare skin from touching the frigid stone, but she was too afraid of making an inadvertent noise to give it more than a few hard tugs with little effect.

  Be still, she commanded herself. No matter how cold it is. Death will be a whole lot colder.

  She slowed her breath, fighting to keep it soundless.

  There was talking in the other room, though she couldn’t quite make out the words through the thick walls. It sounded like less a conversation than a list of orders, issued in a smug, ha
teful sort of voice. She heard Wulf laugh, loud and long, as if he’d never been so entertained in all his life. And she knew that he must have been faking it. Of course he was. There was no way that anyone could be that happy in the presence of the palace guards, surely.

  Kathlyn heard the unmistakable sounds of a scuffle. A thud and a grunt. More sounds of impact and struggle, brutal and harsh. Then the door slammed, and all was quiet.

  Wherever they were taking him, Kathlyn knew, repressing a sympathetic shudder, it was unlikely to be pleasant.

  The silence dragged on, but Kathlyn didn’t dare move. She curled tighter into her protective ball, and then she began to count in her head. One hundred. Two hundred. When she reached five hundred, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she thought it might crack a rib, she very, very carefully unwound herself and crept out from under the iron bed frame. Inch by inch, careful to make no noise. Just in case.

  Once she was free of the heavy bed, she rose to her feet. Very slowly. Because she was still being careful in case a guard had been left behind and was even now sitting quietly on the sofa in the other room—and because her whole body ached. All the places Wulf had touched her seemed to glow. But the cold stone had done its work. The chill had leaked into her flesh, then burrowed down into her bones as if it owned her. As if this latest dark, wet winter was nothing more than one more minion desperate to do her father’s bidding.

  Her bare feet were so cold now they felt numb, but at least they were silent on the cold stones as she crept to the doorway, feeling as rigid as one of the elders who tottered out of their quarters for the feasts. She poked her head around the side of the open door, holding her breath as she did. But there was no one lying in wait. The room was empty.

  More than that, it was just a room, and far larger than she’d thought it was. She blinked, wondering what had changed—and then she got it. Her stomach flipped over. She hadn’t realized how Wulf had filled this place with that ferocity of his and all that unmistakable power he wore so easily. So carelessly. Without him, it was just a bare little chamber hacked out of the stone with a looming fire and a bath behind a screen.