Dye's Kingdom: Wanting It Forever Read online

  With his eyebrows gathering together, he shook his head at her, his wet hair flaying his face. “Not this easily,” he rasped in a low, mean whisper. “You don’t come this easily, Martigay.” Groaning, he got to his knees, picked her up at the hips and turned her. For an instant, he knelt behind her, hesitating on the frayed edge of control.

  Then, in one swift motion, he lifted her ass to his cock and mounted her.

  She cried out, her guttering voice full of stunned wonder. Falling over her, his weight on his long arms outside hers, he took her like a savage, ravaging animal, his teeth in the hair at her nape, yanking her head up and back. A rough squall of rain gusted to hit the tent in a spattering splash of harsh sound as his sweat ran from his brow to mingle with the tears he left in her hair. Like a mad, rutting stallion, he fucked her for the last time with pure male violence while she took it—all of it—like a ready, new filly, backing her ass into his groin the whole time, receiving every wicked lunge with whispered sobs of growing distress and increasing passion, pushing him to the point of madness.

  “Martigay!” He choked on her name as he started to come in blinding surges that exploded through his shaft in several blistering eruptions as his body grappled with the pure racking pleasure surging through his sex. Stunned into a paralysis of gut-wrenching release, he knelt behind her as his orgasm played out and her body twisted on his, his cock brutally abused inside the sweet, hot clamp of her tight little cunt. Giving her a final hard thrust, he pulled his cock, watching the last of his silver spurt out onto the smooth skin of her rounded ass.

  “Mithra, help me,” he rasped with a broken voice of finality, watching her bottom writhe and jump between his splayed hands, as she bucked into her arrival like a wild, unbroken mare. Swallowing hard, he watched her as she came, orgasming without the thick, fulfilling presence of his cock to break on. When she was done, he flipped her over onto her back, wrenched her legs apart and ate at her tender, post-coital sex, swallowing down their mixed flavors. Spreading the lips of her sex, he ran his flattened tongue up through her slot, none too gently, until she orgasmed into his mouth. And screamed.

  And screamed.

  And screamed. Screamed that she loved him. Screamed so loudly that his whole army must know of it, except for the storm that raged around them.

  He spent the rest of the night making her repeat those words, torn from the frayed column of her throat and through her ragged lips. And as the pupils of his eyes began to shrink with dawn’s gray light, he was sucking on her perfect round tits, licking their reddened, ravaged nipples into hard points of exhaustion. His hand was in her pussy, stroking through her raw, swollen folds, coaxing one more orgasm out of her. And when she was close, when she was very close and running into his hands, he stopped to put his clothes back on. Watching her twist on the mat for him, he pulled his ties over the ruddy, used flesh of his cock.

  Her eyes opened on his, wild with this final need and her lips parted as she begged for it. Her body was marked everywhere with the rough evidence of his love. Her nipples burned red where his teeth had scraped at her passion, her waist chapped where he’d gripped her in hard hands and clamped her against the ground as he’d worked his tongue over her clit. Her hips were deep pink, her bottom rosy where she’d been gloriously used, and used, and used again.

  Her sex-tarnished skin was coated with the smell of him, the markedly male scent of his damp, straining body, as well as lavish amounts of his saliva and the sticky issue of his spewing cock. She wore the fragile film of his dried seed on her belly, a crisp, transparent second skin that clung to her own smooth flesh. Between her legs, she was filled with his silver ejaculate where he’d force-fed her cunt with cock until the throat of her vagina had choked on him and she’d throttled his dick into cock-strangling release.

  He regarded her with savage satisfaction, certain that another man couldn’t lie with her anytime soon without witnessing his mark on her.

  “Dye,” she murmured, clearly asking for more. Clearly asking for this last gift of release. Her mouth pouted up at him, not through impish design but as a result of his own rough use, her lips bruised like lush, ripe fruit—swollen and dark where he’d crushed them under his teeth.

  She looked so prettily used as her lips parted for his name—and he choked back the groan that fought to voice itself.

  Mithra!

  Could a man love a woman any more than this?

  He refused to stoop to her though he wanted that final, longing, lingering kiss. Wanted to walk away with that last sweet taste of her on his lips. Wanted to watch her body tremble through that final orgasm.

  He’d offered her everything for the rest of her life and she’d turned it down.

  She could just want it for the rest of her life, he thought savagely. He figured that was what he would pretty much be doing—wanting it forever. She’d rejected him and it had cut deeply. He wanted her to feel at least something of his own raging pain. Kneeling above her at the tent opening, he smiled down on her. He forced himself to smile. “Fuck you, Martigay,” he said.

  And with that, the King of Thrall ducked out of the tent into the cold, dismal dawn of his wedding day.

  * * * * *

  Gossip was rife that morning. For in the revealing light of a colorless dawn, more than one set of eyes had witnessed the sight of the king inside Martigay’s tent, naked but for the blade strapped to his thigh, sprawled between the legs of his slender little soldier—on the morning of his wedding day.

  The men of Thrall were more than a little proud, boasting that their new king had exceeded the “eight-minute rule”…at least five times in the hours between midnight and dawn. And, though only a handful of men could have witnessed the event, almost everyone had some story he was ready to swear to.

  But in the various stories, the tent walls were always shaking and the harsh sounds from within implied as much pain as pleasure as the king went after the girl time and again. Other than that, it was mostly king on his knees, his hips thrusting, unmindful of how many men saw…and uncaring of how many princesses learned of it.

  And later that morning, he made Captain Martigay a lieutenant. He tied the gold ribbon into her hair himself, though his fingers trembled as he did so. She deserved the promotion. She’d gotten the gates down, allowing him to retake the city in an almost bloodless victory.

  So now Lieutenant Martigay wore a gold ribbon in her hair. Dye pushed out a maudlin sigh. And if that was what the ambitious little chit had aspired to when she’d bedded the king, then she’d won. But Dye didn’t care that she’d won. All he cared about was the fact that he’d lost. He’d lost the sweetest fuck he’d ever known…and the only woman he’d ever loved.

  And if it troubled her that her promotion came about directly as a result of her Raithan abilities…then he hoped it troubled her a great deal.

  Standing outside the doors to the great hall in the Palace at Amdahl, the king shook his head. Now that the time had come, he didn’t think he could look at her—Martigay. Didn’t think he could look into her smiling face, knowing that smile would be her way of telling him she couldn’t care less whom he spent the rest of his life with.

  The rest of his miserable life.

  His back was stiff as he pulled up his shields to protect his emotions and stepped through the door into the long hall. The princess waited for him and he joined her, taking her hand to lead her forward for the ceremony over which his sister would preside.

  A figure stepped out of the crowd to stand in front of the royal couple.

  It was Martigay.

  She stood before them in her simple riding doeskins.

  Dye’s senses reeled. She still smelled of sex. Sex with him! And she was smiling, damn her. Dye took a stunned step backward as she fished inside her jerkin for something.

  “Hang on,” she said. “I’ve got it here, someplace.” Then a folded piece of parchment was in her hand. She shook it out and held it up. “I’m calling in your forfeit, princess.
”

  Somewhere in the crowd, laughter boomed out to echo in the high ceiling of the hall. From the corner of his eye, Dye saw Warrik’s blond head moving above the crowd, making his way toward them. Dye didn’t look at the Vandal princess, speechless beside him.

  Then not so speechless. “What are you after, you common little gutter slut?”

  Martigay smiled into the woman’s twisted face. “I’m calling in your forfeit,” she repeated. “And I’ll have your wedding in payment.”

  The princess gasped and that’s all she had time for, because Martigay stepped through the woman and came out on the other side wearing Bruthinia’s red wedding gown. In her fist were her riding clothes which left the princess…stark naked.

  “The king has honored his wedding contract,” she announced to Bruthinia. “You have no cause for complaint against him or his country. If you have any complaint, it’s a personal one—against me.”

  Fishing through the clothes in her hand, Martigay produced a second piece of creased parchment before the stunned princess could recover. “Warrik,” she called. But he was already beside her. She grinned up at the giant blond. “I’m calling in your forfeit as well.” She pointed at the naked woman. “Be a dear and take out the trash.”

  Grinning, Warrik moved to comply, but before he had a chance, Pall stepped between the big Khal and the Vandal princess. “Permit me, My Lord,” he told Warrik. With a grunt he hefted the yellow-haired vixen onto his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want you to get your hands dirty,” he explained. The screaming princess went over Pall’s shoulder, down the aisle, and through the door as Martigay turned to grin at Dye. Spreading her hands out, palms turned upward, she laughed. “You were right,” she exclaimed, “I do look good in red.” Slowly, the grin on her face withered and died as Martigay took in the king’s expression.

  “Go to Hadi’s, Martigay,” he said, as he turned and walked away from her.

  After a brief shocked interval, wherein Martigay stared at Dye’s receding back, she followed him from the hall and down the wide corridor to his room. His boots echoed in the tiled corridor while her soft slippers whispered against the cold stone floor. Silent Thralls were spaced along the walls at regular intervals, their faces impassive, their eyes following Martigay’s red skirts. When she reached the door to his room, it slammed in her face with such violence it would have broken her nose if she hadn’t been a Raith.

  Dematerializing, Martigay stepped through the door and found Dye with his back turned and arms crossed as he stared out of the open window.

  “Just let yourself in,” he muttered with a voice like steel. “It’s not like I can stop you.”

  “You’re angry,” she stated carefully.

  His head tipped back as though searching the heavens for patience. “What did you expect, Martigay? Did you think I’d be pleased to learn you’d deceived me, once again?”

  “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’m sorry I had to deceive you. But it seemed like the only solution. You asked me to wed you, and I wanted to. But you were already betrothed with a royal contract to honor. I had to deceive everyone in order to keep your honor—as well as your honesty—intact.”

  He answered with a quiet snort, followed by a long silence.

  “When I first met you,” he said, “I thought you were the boldest, most daring creature I’d ever met.”

  Slowly, he turned, and she saw his face. She was expecting anger. Fierce, dangerous, violent anger. She was ready for anger. She could handle anger. What she saw, instead, made her legs turn to water. She saw a man disappointed, wounded. Cheated and lied to, she saw a proud decisive man uncertain and confused for perhaps the first time in his life. Yet, despite this confusion, she saw a strong man, determined and resolved. Determined enough to walk away from wrong, if he had to. Though it might kill him.

  “Most like, that was the reason for my initial attraction…to you,” he continued. “But one can only be considered brave when they are in fact risking something. Their life, for instance. And now I realize that you risked nothing. You’re virtually invulnerable, Martigay. You can’t be harmed. You can’t be stopped. You can’t be touched. I can’t stop you. You’ve pointed that out before. But, if I can’t stop you, Martigay, I can’t hold you either.

  “You’re…without substance, Martigay. And in more than just the physical sense. You take nothing seriously. You are never what you appear. You’re a deception in every conceivable manner. You’re nothing more than a clever trick at best, and a practical joke at worst.

  “Aren’t you?” he challenged.

  But she kept her silence.

  “And I’m in love with a lie! Tell me, Martigay. How can I wed a woman I can’t hold, I can’t trust and I can’t believe in?”

  Her chin came up as she met this question with her own. “If I had agreed to wed you, what would you have done?”

  “I’d have wed you.”

  “You’d have broken your contract with the Vandals and it would have meant war.” She continued without stopping. “And if I had told you of my intention to usurp the Vandal’s wedding, what would you have done?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You would have been a party to deception. Even if the Vandals didn’t think so, you would always think so. I know how much that would bother a man like you. The way it turned out, you’re an honest victim of deception. And your honesty is more important to you than mine is to me,” she pointed out.

  “As for risk. What I did, I did to save your country from war. And what I risked was something I value far more than anything else, my life included. I risked losing you, Dye. I risked losing you, here. Like this.”

  At this point she had to stop to clear her throat. “Don’t leave me,” she finally tacked on the end, though she choked on the words and tears were now running down her cheeks. “My life without you would be…darkness,” she said, finally settling on the worst thing she could think of.

  Dye shook his head as he walked toward her. Folding her in his arms, he put his lips in the hair at her temple. “Mithra, Martigay. I have no intention of leaving you. But there’s something I must be certain of before we leave this room. Before I wed you. I’ll have no more lies. No more secrets. Can you promise me that?”

  Lifting her head, she nodded quickly, several times.

  “Then answer the next question honestly, Martigay. Do you love me?”

  With a strangled sob, she buried her head in his chest as she nodded again.

  Roughly, he pulled her face away from his chest and held her head in his hands. “Say it,” he demanded.

  “I love you, Dye.”

  A long desperately searing kiss followed. The sort of kiss that left them both pantingly breathless, pawing at each other with greedy desperation, pulling at clothing and pressing into one another.

  Dye broke away in sudden realization, grasping Martigay by the upper arms and prying her away from his body. “Damn,” he said, staring into her eyes. “Now I have to get wed with a hard-on.”

  Epilogue

  Martigay’s husband watched her face carefully, sighing as he took in her melancholy smile. Leaning against the fence, one foot resting on the bottom rung, he turned his eyes to the young colt frisking in the meadow. “Do you miss your pony?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded. “Not as much as I used to.”

  “I love you, Martigay.”

  She turned warm eyes on her husband. “I love you too,” she told him.

  He returned his attention to the black and white colt. “He looks like his father.”

  “And his mother. How did you convince Bruthinia to give him up?”

  “Pall had a hand in it,” he explained. “Apparently, your friend is good for the princess.”

  “Too good,” Martigay put in.

  He laughed. “Rumor has it she’s changed. I imagine Pall had a hand it that as well. Perhaps even both hands.” He blew out a smug, philosophical sigh. “Behind every pleasant woman is a man who knows how to
keep a woman content.”

  “Brand,” she said thoughtfully.

  “What?”

  “Brand would make the perfect match for Bruthinia.”

  “I thought you liked Brand!”

  Martigay reacted with surprise. “What? That conceited, smug, self-absorbed— You…you didn’t actually believe I was ever interested in him did you?”

  “Not for an instant,” he lied.

  Martigay whistled—two short bursts and one long. She and her husband watched as the colt’s head came up and its ears sharpened. Beyond the colt, to the north, clouds dipped to touch a darkly shimmering ocean.

  “Do you regret wedding a farmer?” he asked her. A bit of ocean breeze tugged at her dark blue tresses and he reached out to return the unruly strands behind her ear.

  “Do you regret giving up your throne?”

  Dye smiled at his wife. “Not in the least. What did you think of the new kings?”

  “It’s too bad they missed the wedding.”

  Dye shrugged. “They got there in time for the drinking. In my family, that’s considered perfect timing. So—what did you think of my cousins?” he persisted.

  “I love a man with a sense of humor,” she answered.

  “And?”

  “They’re two of the finest-looking men I’ve ever seen.”

  “And?”

  “And?” she queried innocently.

  “They’re joined at the hip, Martigay! Did you not notice?”

  Martigay nodded. “Siamese twins. Bet they’re deadly in bed,” she taunted him.

  Dye grunted disconsolately at this expression of his wife’s interest. “Do you regret giving up your commission?” he asked, to change the subject.

  Martigay shrugged.

  “It’s a shame. You looked good in gold…but you looked better in red.”

  “That wedding dress fit me perfectly!”

  “That wedding dress barely survived the day! It was so tight, it was coming apart at the seams—and that was before we even made the bedroom.”

  “You shouldn’t have encouraged it.” With an impish smile, she shrugged. “I’d not have been satisfied with lieutenant.”