Chapter 1: Prologue: Filthy First Taste Behind Closed Doors
The heavy oak door of the upstairs room at the Rusty Tankard slammed shut, and the iron bolt slid home with a final, echoing thunk. The sound hadn’t even finished reverberating in the small, smoke-stained space before Exxon moved.
Eliana’s back hit the faded velvet hangings of the sagging bed, the musty smell of old ale and older lust filling her nostrils. There was no preamble, no whispered sweet nothings. His mouth crashed down on hers, a claim, not a kiss. It was all teeth and desperate tongue, and she gave it back just as hard, her fingers tangling in the silken black rope of his braid, yanking his head down to hers.
He broke the kiss, his devastating gold eyes molten in the dim lamplight. “Too many clothes,” he growled, his voice rough.
Her leather jerkin was unlaced and flung aside before she could blink. His own tunic followed. The sight of his chest, crisscrossed with old, pale scars over taut muscle, made her breath catch. Her hands went to the buckle of her sword belt, but his were faster. He spun her around, shoved her face-first into the lumpy mattress, and a second later she heard the sharp rip of tearing leather.
Cool air hit the backs of her thighs. He’d torn her pants open from waist to seam.
“You bastard, those were expensive!” she gasped into the pillow, but the protest was half-hearted, drowned out by the pounding of her own blood.
“I’ll buy you a hundred pairs,” he muttered, his hands spreading her apart. Then his mouth was on her.
Not a gentle exploration, but a ravenous devouring. His tongue speared into her, and Eliana’s body bowed off the bed, a ragged cry tearing from her throat. It was too much, too direct, after weeks of this tense, simmering dance across tavern tables and campfires. He licked her like a man dying of thirst, his tongue fucking her in firm, relentless strokes, then swirling around her clit with a precision that shattered thought.
“Exxon… fuck…” Her words were muffled by the pillow. She was already dripping, had been since he’d challenged that mercenary to a knife-throwing contest for her amusement hours ago. The scent of her own arousal, mingled with the room’s stale musk, was overwhelming. He drank her down, one hand splayed on the small of her back, pinning her, the other reaching up to fist in her chestnut hair.
She came hard and fast, with a violence that surprised her. It wasn’t a gentle crest but a sudden fracture. Her screams were swallowed by the goose-down as her cunt clenched around nothing, spasming against his relentless tongue. He didn’t stop, didn’t let her ride it out, just kept lapping at her, gentling slightly as she trembled, drawing out the aftershocks until she was a whimpering mess.
Before the last tremor had left her thighs, he flipped her onto her back. He was already naked, his cock thick and rigid, curving up towards his stomach. She stared, her green eyes wide. He was beautiful in a feral, dangerous way.
He reached for her, but Eliana moved faster. All that training, that honed fighter’s reflex, ignited. She hooked her leg around his, twisted, and used his own momentum to roll him onto his back. She straddled his hips in one fluid motion, her torn leathers still tangled around her knees.
“My turn,” she breathed, her voice husky.
He didn’t fight it. A ghost of a smile touched his lips, but his eyes were still burning. He watched her, his hands coming to rest on her hips, his thumbs digging into the sharp bone there.
She reached between them, took his length in hand. He was hot, the skin like velvet over steel. She positioned him, notched his head against her opening. She was still slick from his mouth, from her own climax, but he was substantial. She sank down slowly, letting herself stretch, a low moan escaping her as he filled her completely.
For a second, they were still.Connected. Breathing the same thick air. She saw something raw and unguarded flicker in his gold eyes—not just lust, but a kind of agonized recognition.
Then it was gone, buried under need.
She began to move. Rising until just the tip of him remained inside her, then slamming back down, taking him deep. The bedframe protested with a rhythmic groan, matching her tempo. She set a punishing pace, riding him with the same fierce determination she brought to a duel. Her breasts bounced with each impact, her hair sticking to the sweat on her neck and shoulders.
“Is this what you wanted?” she taunted, though her voice shook with the force of her movements. “The Duke’s wild daughter, riding you like a common whore?”
His hands tightened on her hips, guiding her, forcing her down harder, faster. “Shut up and move,” he gritted out, his composure cracking.
She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his scarred chest, changing the angle. The new position drove him even deeper, brushing a spot inside her that made stars burst behind her eyelids. Her rhythm faltered, becoming ragged, more desperate.
He sensed it. In one brutal motion, he sat up, wrapping one arm around her waist to keep her impaled on him, and flipped them again, putting her beneath him without ever slipping out. The maneuver was pure, controlled power.
“Now I take what’s mine,” he whispered against her ear, and began to fuck her in earnest.
This was different. This was not her controlled ride, but an untamed storm. He drove into her with long, deep strokes that shook the bed and made her cry out with each penetration. The headboard slammed against the plaster wall with a sound like distant drumbeats. She wrapped her legs high around his waist, locking her ankles, meeting him thrust for thrust, her heels digging into the small of his back.
The filthy, wet sound of their coupling filled the room. She could smell them—sweat, sex, the faint leather of her ruined clothes. He bent his head, his braid falling over his shoulder to brush her cheek, and took a nipple into his hot mouth, sucking hard, biting down just to the edge of pain.
It tipped her over. Her second climax ripped through her, a deeper, more convulsive wave than the first. Her cunt clamped around him, milking his length, and she shouted his name to the water-stained ceiling, her back arching.
Feeling her clench around him broke his control. With a guttural roar that was almost pained, he buried himself to the hilt and pulsed inside her, his release hot and endless. He collapsed on top of her, his weight crushing yet solid, his breath a harsh gust in her ear.
They lay like that for a long time, slick skin glued together, the only sound their slowing breaths and the distant cacophony from the tavern below.
Finally, he rolled off, but pulled her with him, tucking her back against his chest. The room was cooler now. Dawn’s first grey light was creeping through the single dirty window, staining the tangled sheets and their sweating bodies in a pale, sickly hue.
Eliana stared at the lightening patch of wall. His arm was heavy across her stomach, his cock still soft against her thigh. The frenetic energy was spent, leaving a hollow, trembling space.
“You’ll be gone by full light,” she said, not a question.
His silence was answer enough. It always was.
He shifted behind her, his lips brushing her shoulder. A kiss, or just a movement? “The eastern pass won’t cross itself.”
“And your secrets won’t keep themselves,” she replied, the sharpness in her tone blunted by exhaustion.
Another silence, thicker this time. She felt the hidden weight in him then, the burden he carried. It was in the tension of his arm, the way his breathing had changed. For a few hours, they had beaten it back into the shadows. Now it was returning, claiming him.
The room was fully light when she felt him carefully extricate himself from the bed. She didn’t turn. She listened to the soft sounds of him dressing—the rustle of fabric, the click of a belt buckle, the soft shush of his braid being pulled over his shoulder.
The door opened. A draft of cooler, cleaner hallway air swept in, carrying the smell of boiled oats from the kitchen below.
He paused. She knew he was looking at her.
“Eliana.”
She didn’t respond.
The door closed, softer this time. The bolt did not slide.
She lay in the wreckage of the bed, in the scent of their sweat and sex, listening until the sound of his boots on the stairs faded into nothing. The tavern, and the world, waited outside. Her sword lay beside her discarded jerkin. Duty and excitement. They were all she had left.
Pushing herself up, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. The torn leather of her pants gaped open. A hundred new pairs, he’d said. She snorted, a short, humorless sound. He was already a ghost.
She reached for her clothes. The day was beginning.