Chapter A Soul of Ash and Blood: HAUNTED

Sinking into the hot water of the hip bath, I thought about what I’d do for a shower, but since Atlantian infrastructure was apparently the only thing the Ascended hadn’t been stealing, I’d have to make do.

Except I couldn’t even extend my damn legs.

Cursing under my breath, I grabbed the soap from the nearby stool and got down to scrubbing it through my hair and across my skin. I’d already gotten most of the blood off since I wasn’t in the mood to soak in what remained of the vampry on my flesh.

My thoughts wandered as suds gathered on the surface of the hip-deep water, revisiting Emil’s news about Alastir and my parents. Knowing Emil, he was already well on his way out of the city with Arden. He would do as I asked, delaying the inevitability of Alastir discovering what I’d been up to.

What I would soon do.

With my knees bent, I leaned back and rested my head on the copper rim. My eyes closed, my thoughts veering to the Maiden—not to what I planned to do, but to what had happened only a handful of hours ago. Not the best of decisions since a throb hit my dick, thickening it.

I was getting hard thinking about the Maiden.

“Gods,” I muttered, a rough laugh leaving me as I dragged a hand over my forehead.

A month ago, it never would’ve crossed my mind. It wouldn’t have even been possible, and that had nothing to do with the shapeless white gowns I’d seen her in or the fact that I had no idea what she truly looked like. It was she was. A virginal, untouched Maiden and nothing about seducing or being with an actual maiden was my kind of thing. Not because of her lack of experience. I could give two shits about that. Pleasure could be learned. It was the value placed upon such a thing. The idea that her entire being was tied to her virginity.

prevented me from even looking at her in such a way.

It was she symbolized.

The Ascended.

I’d assumed she was a fully willing participant in the role she played. I should’ve known better than to assume shit because I’d obviously been wrong.

My eyes cracked open into thin slits. It made me wonder what else I could be wrong about when it came to her. Like maybe what she knew about the Ascended. Or what she really thought about how she lived.

I shook my head, not wanting to think about any of that because it led to nowhere good. Just as thinking about how she’d felt beneath me, soft and warm, was leading nowhere good. My dick didn’t agree with that, though. It was all on board with my thoughts and memories, hardening and quickly feeling full and too damn sensitive as the tip jutted from the water.

“Fuck,” I muttered, running my palm over my face as the fingers of my other hand pressed into the copper side of the tub.

My hand dropped from my face and fell beneath the water. Thinking of how instinctually and eagerly she’d responded to my touch, I gripped myself at the base of my erection. The breath I took was too shallow. She’d seemed so shocked by the prospect of asking for anything and receiving it, as if doing so had never occurred to her. Had never been possible. Clearly, it hadn’t because she hadn’t known what to ask for. She hadn’t known how to put into words what her body ached for.

But she’d shivered in anticipation when I unfastened her cloak. In my mind, I could still see the sweet swells of her chest rising sharply and straining against the tight material, revealing the darker skin beneath, the deep, rosy hue of the tips of her breasts clearly visible through the thin fabric of her gown. Never in a thousand years would I have thought the Maiden had such glorious breasts, soft, strong thighs, and a blade-sharp tongue.

The bolt of raw desire returned, pounding through me. Gods, what I would’ve given to get my mouth between those thighs. More than what I’d do for a shower because I bet she tasted as sweet as she smelled.

If we hadn’t been interrupted, I would’ve shown her that if allowed. I groaned, thinking of how I would’ve tasted her, sipped from her—not her blood, but the dampness I knew had been gathering between those lush thighs.

I should be finding another way to slake my need, either through violence or with another—those willing were easy to find in Masadonia. But neither appealed to me as I stroked myself.

Staying with my memories appealed. Those minutes in the chamber where I wasn’t Hawke Flynn. When everything about me wasn’t a lie, and I hadn’t become a phantom of darkness and madness made real. Where I was only living in the moment, not in the past or the future. And good gods, I hadn’t existed in the now—I hadn’t been interested in that in…in fucking .

I’d be out of my mind to want to leave that.

I’d be mad not to recognize the dangers of remaining.

But still my hand tightened, my thoughts needing little effort to return to that chamber and to see myself there. To conjure up the image of her, those berry-hued lips parted, and green eyes bright with desire as my mouth closed over the tip of her breast, the silk a decadent barrier.

My head fell back again as my hand pumped. I swore I could hear her voice—that surprising, cutting mouth of hers that was just as arousing as her soft curves. The way she’d grabbed that bloodstone dagger, yanking the blade free of the mattress. She’d handled it like she knew how, which was another surprise that should be concerning yet had the absolute opposite effect.

That tight, curling sensation came out of nowhere and hit me hard, whirling down my spine. My hips reared, splashing water onto the stone floor. I gritted my teeth as I came, the rush of arousal an intense wave, taking a bit of my breath with it as pleasure rippled through me.

Breathing deeply, I lay there, heart slow to calm. Damn, I hadn’t come that quickly or hard in…

Fuck if I could remember.

Opening my eyes, I stared at the dull white ceiling, body too lax to even attempt getting out of the tub. The release had eased the tension in my muscles, quieting my mind.

It was only temporary, though.

No different than when the warmth of another brought me pleasure. Because my thoughts were already firing up, drifting back to the same shit. This was precisely what happened when I tried to sleep. Why I lay in bed for hours, doing exactly what I was now: staring at the godsdamn ceiling as if it could answer what I couldn’t.

But that didn’t stop me from trying to remember the last time a release hadn’t felt mechanical. Just a thing my body wanted to be done with when the need hit. When was the last time it didn’t feel like anything more than simply getting off? An all-too-brief escape? Was it before I’d so foolishly thought I could end the threat of the Blood Crown all by myself and got taken? Had it been when I was with her—

? My hand fisted in the water against my thigh.

I didn’t want that to be true as I searched my memories. Sex was both nothing and everything to Atlantians and the wolven. Intimately sharing oneself with another was something to be celebrated. The pleasure came from the closeness and not so much the actual release.

But that had become all kinds of fucked up while the Ascended held me, hadn’t it? Taking something that was an expression of mutual lust and sometimes fondness—or even love—and turning it into an act to be dreaded. I wasn’t sure what had been worse about my time in that cold, dank cage. The numerous cuts made along my body as they stole my blood from me, pouring it into vials and chalices and then into mouths. Knowing they were using a part of me to create more Ascended. The while that bitch Queen and the bastard King watched, getting off on my pain. Or was it how the King forced me to watch while he killed, but not before committing every atrocious act one could do to another? He’d let them turn and have at me until one of them finally ended the poor soul’s life. There were the half-Atlantians they found, and the full-blooded ones who’d remained in Solis after the war, those they’d kept in other cages since before I was even born. The things they did to them. The blood I had to drink to stay alive. Or was it the touching? The caresses that started off cruel and then became tender with no warning.

The copper began to dent under my fingertips as the image of the auburn-haired bitch formed in my mind, no matter how much I wanted to forget what she looked like because was her specialty.

Queen Ileana.

The Blood Queen.

She was living proof that beauty was nothing more than an outer façade because she was the worst of them all. Her touch was scraping, sharp nails that carved into my flesh and then turned to almost loving strokes, always seductive, always so very…

.

That was what she enjoyed more than taking my blood: watching my body give in to her demands while I cursed her and struggled against the chains that bound me, throwing every insult I could think of at her. Even after she grew tired of being the one to inflict such damage, and others just like Ileana took her place, I still heard her laughter, soft and tinkling like the windchimes that once hung in the gardens of Evaemon—the ones I’d torn down in a blind rage upon returning home, frightening my mother and leaving my father silent for days.

Five decades of having pieces of who I was broken off, bit by bit. Five decades of surviving on the promise of revenge, of retribution, kept on the verge of bloodlust, always hungry, until the day my brother came for me. I barely recognized him. I barely recognized Shea.

And I no longer knew myself.

Lowering my gaze to my hands, I saw them. I saw what I’d done with them. The first act I’d committed after my wrists were no longer bound. A shudder went through me. I didn’t want to think about what Shea had done—the bargain she’d made with the Ascended.

I didn’t want to think about what I’d done to her.

Lifting my hands, I pressed my fingers against my temples instead of what I had done in the past too many times to count when I was alone and the memories wouldn’t go away. When the thoughts wouldn’t stop coming.

Pleasure wasn’t the only temporary escape.

There was also pain.

And if my skin scarred as easily as a mortal’s, my arms would be a coarse map that led the way to all the times I’d sought to feel something—

—but what those memories dredged up.

Neither the pleasure nor the pain had worked. I knew that, even though the years after my rescue were a blur of doing everything I could to forget by any means necessary.

My fingers slipped from the sides of my head. I stared at them once more, thinking of the unending stretch of waking nightmares. The long nights of drinking. The even longer days of smoking the unripe poppy seeds until I was either drunk or high enough to forget who I was. And the countless nameless and faceless bodies I’d been with in those dark years afterward. Atlantian. Mortal. Women. Men. Those I fucked just to prove to myself that I decided who touched me. Who I touched. That I had control. That I could still find pleasure in the act. But hell, I’d been a mess. It didn’t matter how many times I proved it, how many times I looked at my hands as I did now, a near century later, and didn’t see chains cutting into my flesh.

I’d be in that headspace if not for Kieran and others. If they hadn’t done everything they could to remind me who I was and who—

—I wasn’t. Kieran had done a whole lot of the heavy lifting. Damn if he still didn’t. But they’d woken me up. They’d pulled me out of the darkness and into a new life that held one purpose only.

To free my brother.

And that was who I’d become.

All I’d become.

Not exactly who I was before. I would never be him again, but this was the closest I would ever get.

Now, the nightmares only really found me in sleep, and there been times since then when sex was about the pleasure of sharing myself with another and not about control or proving a godsdamn thing to anyone—not even myself. A few moments where it had been about something deeper. But the other times? There were still many where I couldn’t clearly recall anything about their features. Too many.

There was no feeling of pride accompanying that realization. No smug satisfaction or arrogance. Because, truth be told, I still hadn’t forgotten that darkness. It lingered. Haunted. Just as cold as all those releases.

Just as empty.