blood burn

Dante Milburn

Laziel’s frenzied screaming outside my throne room made the elders shift uncomfortably.

My lips curved into a faint grin when the twat threatened hail and thunder, cursing me for ignoring him until his shouts faded back into the uneasy silence.

I could always count on him to make a scene. It was one of the reasons I fancied the hell out of Laziel. 

Crazy Laz, Laz the fancy fiend…Laz the freak.

Whether at the court or on the battlefield, Laziel was the hothead out of the rest of us. 

The quiet maverick with twisted fantasies and darkness hidden so deep I was sure even Ronan couldn't dig it out of him.

“So…where were we?” I breezed, and Kefas’ already hardened face deepened into a resentful scowl.

Any more of that and he would rupture the already tight wrinkles spreading across his forehead. 

The man wasn't getting any younger y’know?

“Edward Finch is missing, Milburn. Is that not enough to snap you out of whatever bullsjit fantasy of power you are holding onto?” Kefas snapped, his tone almost hedging on mutinous.

Rage flashed in my eyes and my lips thinned to a firm line.

It was harder to control my wolf when I had neither Caius nor Ronan beside me.

Laziel was a different matter altogether. The brown-haired shifter would have tried to take Kefas’ tongue out for alluding that my power was useless.

“Our soldiers are working on finding the doctor, word is he entered The Darkness and hasn't been seen since—”

“The same way they're working in finding Princess Triel’s killers in between orgies and drinking sessions?” Elder Gallagher cut in, his red-rimmed eyes holding my glare evenly.

He was lucid tonight. That was a first. 

The hinchedback elder was usually listless unless we were being attacked…what changed?

Suddenly, the energy around the table shifted and I felt the threads of control I wielded slipping.

“Do you have a better solution…Gallagher? I’d love to hear your wild fancies—” I hissed through clenched teeth, my polite mask dropping to reveal fangs.

“I say we march into that commander’s pack and raze it to the ground before he has a chance to strike back, because you know he damned well will,” Gallaher gurgled, striking one long claw on the red X marked out in the map before us.

The hairs on the back of my neck stiffened and I rose slowly to my feet. 

“You mean to tell me you want us to risk hundreds…no…thousands of soldiers marching through The Darkness, into enemy lines, and risk making enemies with all of the west’s allies as well?”

My incredulous tone only seemed to reinforce the hunched elder’s delusion because he nodded eagerly, eyes bright with bloodlust when he leaned into the round table.

“The best way to be feared is to war, Your Highness. When his little allies see they can't mess with us, everyone will think twice about confrontations.” He rattled and a burst of murmurs spread across the string of elders.

“I agree. Strike now, recoup later. Its the only way to fix this mess you bloody well got us in.” Kefas surged, briefly raising a hand.

“Anyone else against the Alpha, just so we’re clear? Does anyone else think they're a better fit for the crown?” 

My question made some of the wolves straighten, but just as I had thought, only two hands remained up, falling back into the fold when they realized I had the numbers.

“Good. Then we will wait until we have proof and then we march to the west with their head to continue our treaty.”

“And the maid? Mabel was it? One of the witnesses? You don't think its a bit fucking suspicious she’s dead? Maybe your reject bride was trying to shut her up?”

“From the dark dungeons, Kefas? Come on now, even you have better faith in our guards than that—” 

“Amara Eldwood is a beautiful woman, Your Highness. And beautiful women are dangerous. There’s a reason she was thrown out of that band of vicious wolves. I wouldn't underestimate her if I were you.” He said coldly, his pitch-black eyes darkening even more as he rose to his full seven feet, bowing low.

“Excuse me.” 

Adrenalin made blood roar in my ears as I watched him leave the circle. Something that had never been done before.

“Aren't you going to stop him, Your Highness? You let him walk away now and tomorrow...who knows who else might want to take a walk—” Elder Gallagher piped with a hint of mockery that was impossible to miss.

I leveled him with a look that made his lips flatten to a grim line. 

“This meeting is dismissed. We will reconvene when I have news,” I deadpanned pushing away from the table to storm down the long red carpet and hearing the freak of chairs as the other elders rose to bow in unison.

Kefas was becoming a problem, and he wasn't the only one.

I had won tonight, but Gallagher was right. Other nights, when I couldn't depend on emotional manipulation to turn the tides?

That was anybody’s game.

#

“The courtesan is here, Highness. I’m letting her in,” The murmur of a guard outside my chambers made me lean back in my chair before the doors to my chambers creaked open and a tall ebony princess stepped in.

Her eyes were lined with a kohl even darker than Laziel’s and I grunted when she bowed, pleased by her beauty.

“Strip. I want to see you.”

Her lips curved into a grin before she slithered out of the thin gold robe she’d been wearing and I swallowed deeply.

“Good.”

Beautiful. Laziel had done a good job of matchmaking royal whores yet again.

My knuckles tightened on the wooden arm of my chair as she twirled the red lace panties she’d been wearing in one finger before chucking it at me.

My claws snapped up lightning fast to catch the soft lace, and I growled when the strong, musky scent of her arousal wafted up to my nose.

“You know my conditions.” 

My voice was more animalistic than human now as my erection strained and ached in my pants, tenting its linen.

“Yes, Your Highness…I would be honored,” she breathed, her excitement showing in the way her brown nipples hardened in the chilly air of the room when I stretched to my full height.

I closed the distance between us before the words had fully left her lips, cupping the full mounds of her ass in my hands and hefting her tight to my body.

“Mmnghh,” 

Her moan tickled my neck as I kicked off my pants, letting the engorged length of my cock slap greedily into her pussy.

“Fuck, you’re so hard, Your Highness…it’ll be a squeeze,” the princess groaned, and I caught the drool that had gathered at the corners of her lips as she wrapped her ankles tightly around the V of my hips.

Our bodies twisted and undulated, and I groaned when she scraped her nipples over my chest, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

My wolf buzzed with longing when I pinned the woman against the wall, groaning with pleasure when her claws slashed across my back.

 “Fuck…you’re a fucking waterpark down there…I turn you on that much?” I growled, nibbling her earlobe between my teeth and digging my claws into her sides when her pussy twitched, milking my cock like a fleshlight.

“I—I’m coming, Alpha…ooufff—” she crowed, her eyes rolling back into her head while her mouth lolled open and she froze, spasming around my cock and forcing my breathless release to shoot free.

The beautiful thing about fucking a woman who wasn't a halfling was that you weren't scared to break her.

The dark-skinned princess watched me avidly from the thick red folds of my duvet, sucking a large purple grape between her teeth.

I resisted the urge to tell her her teeth had stained red from her lipstick…or whatever was left of it on the swollen flesh her mouth had become.

Hickeys dotted my neck and arms, and I settled for enjoying the buzz of testosterone pouring through my veins.

 Nicotine swirled in my lungs when I took another drag of the cigar burning between my lips, relishing the fig it settled on my squirming thoughts before the bell tolled again.

We had been fucking on and off for hours now, and for some weird reason, I wasn't turning away from the woman in irritation.

“Who is Mara?” 

Her heavily accented voice made me choke on the smoke and I gritted my teeth, trying to keep the shock from showing on my face.

“What?”

“You called me Mara when we were fucking. I didn't know His Royal Highness had kinks like that. Is she an old lover then?” 

Why the fuck would I call her that?

What was wrong with me? 

My jaw tightened until I thought I would grind my teeth to powder.

“You can talk to me about anything, Your Highness…you pay my people so much gold, Tis the least I could do—” 

she chattered excitedly, getting the twinkle in her eyes that all the other women got right before I kicked them out of my chambers.

And just like that, the illusion of peace I'd been nursing shattered.

“Get out.”

My deadpan growl was filled with so much tension that she froze, dropping the bunch of grapes back into the glass bowl by the bedside and hurrying to her feet.

“No…please, Alpha, was it something I say?” 

Her broken accent had been cute before, but now it was getting on my nerves.

Fucking Mara. Even with my cock deep inside another woman I still couldn't get her out of my head!

“Leave, princess. Don't make me throw you out, your work here is finished.” My tone was blaisé at best when I rose, my clipped footsteps pausing at the glass distillery before I plucked a bottle of whiskey up.

The vial the doctor handed me was supposed to last for a month at worst, but it was already halfway down three nights in.

“No! No, I won’t be like those other women, Highness. I refuse it. I want to fix this…fix you, let me help—” She choked, the tears in her voice making me soften a bit before I turned to face her.

She wanted to fix me, huh?

Leila had also said that to me. Before she went behind my back to sleep with my enemy and stole my gold.

“You cannot fix me, Vashti. Its best you leave. Send my regards to your people, they have Infinity’s help if they ever need it.” I finished in a resigned tone, but the venom had gone out of my voice.

My breath hitched when she padded over to wrap her arms around me, her breasts squishing into my back.

“I’m sorry…let me try, please,”

Her tongue flicked out to lick my ear and I exhaled a sigh, falling back on my haunches while her hands slithered over my chest, squeezing what she could of my hard abs.

She was breathing hard, sinking to her knees and making a groan rumble in my throat when she fisted my hardness in both hands, coating the mushroom head with her spit.

“I take care of you anytime, Your Highness,” She cawed, grinning when the veins running beneath the hard tan flesh bulged and arousal tingled through my body once more.

Her movements were slower now, and I fisted the hair at the nape of her neck, pinning her head down and watching her eyes bulge animatedly.

Fuck.

What would Mara’s lips feel like with my cock stretching the soft flesh?

I stumbled back into the chair, tugging the woman along with me by her nipples as her grin widened savagely.

The noise of a scuffle outside the huge double doors of my chambers made the woman pause, her wide green eyes finding mine with fear.

All the women I fucked these days somehow always had green eyes…and yet, none of them were the right shade.

None of them had the spark of defiance and innocence that filled Mara’s moss-green ones.