Page 19 of Ashwood (Wallflowers and Demons #1)

SILENT THINGS

KATHERINE

A t midday, just before we near the forest edge, the carriages are pulled aside to water the horses. Our convoy is tight. There are four carriages in all — ours, the staff’s, the supply wagon, and a smaller trailing cart packed with cargo and roped goods.

Nora and Mrs. Grange, the cook, and I accompany one another to pick budding Daphne’s off the side of the road. The rest of the men exit to stretch their legs and water the horses. I watch them from a short distance away.

“You searched for Lord Sainsbury?” Gabriel asks. He stands against a tree, glaring at the forest ahead.

“Of course,” Dorian answers. His fingers run along a map with trails of black ink.

“And found nothing.”

“Nothing.”

Gabriel folds his arms. “Unusual how ten men can simply vanish.”

Not missing the bite in his words, I tuck the flower behind my ear and approach them. Dorian continues as I near.

“The search party left at dawn. Five miners. Armed. I told them not to go deep, only observe the area behind the stream. They never returned.”

Mrs. Grange, the cook, appears beside me. “It’s travelled to Halfway Manor,” she says. “That is a rapid spread, Your Grace.”

William stands from his position on a broken log. “And you want us to go through there? Travel? Through that forest? We’ll perish. We should turn back. Take a ship through Wexmoore.”

“The seas are dangerous and rocky there,” Everly snaps. “That’s why we don’t go.”

Williams raises both arms, shouting, his eyes wide. “Tis better than this! I knew I should’ve become a sailor.”

I raise a hand and Williams catches himself. He huffs before sitting back down, muttering intelligibly under his breath. I peer at Dorian. “You knew, didn’t you? That something happened to them.”

Dorian nods once. “The last time someone disappeared on this road, we found their carriage. No horses, driver…no blood.“

“And what of the men who were with Lord Sainsbury?” Gabriel presses.

“I can’t be certain,” Dorian extends his hand and escorts me back to the carriage.

“If he transformed into a demon,” I ask, “then, where did the others go?”

“I cannot be certain of that, either, but I suspect nothing good. If the prince hears even a whisper of this, he won’t come to dance. He’ll come with soldiers. He’ll hang us both and burn this island to the ground.”

I gently pat his hand. “Then we’d best not let him hear it.”

Dorian shakes his head and pulls himself into the carriage. It jolts as we begin to move.

“We will certainly give our best.”

We enter the cursed forest, and the interior darkness swallows us, a carriage at a time.

The trees are impossibly tall, thick-limbs that hang and jut like bones.

The deeper we go, the quieter the world becomes.

To our right, we hear rustling, song birds — normal forest life. But to the left, there is nothing.

Not a cricket.

“It is not too late to withdraw,” Williams yells from outside. “There are boats already docked at Ashwood Pier.”

Dorian shakes his head at me. “There isn’t. We must assess this cursed forest. How can we slay a demon if we aren’t first exposed to its tricks?”

He wraps the wood with his knuckles.

“Go forward.”

My husband is fearless, it seems.

Pink flowers meander into the forest. We travel deeper until there are no more.

The afternoon wears on and soon, night comes.

Dorian orders the carriages to be parked in a tight ring.

He oversees every detail. Cords are wound between the trees like a spider’s webbing.

Dorian hangs a bell off the end. “If anything moves, we shall know before the worms.”

A temporary bed is made inside the carriage on either seat: one for Dorian and one for me. We lay across from

each other, illuminated by a single oil lantern hanging from above.

We are alone for a short time and then a knock appears at the carriage door.

Nora has arrived with a tray of cold cheese, breads, cured meats, two bowls of hot stew, and cups of steaming tea.

Through the open door, I glimpse the others.

None were prepared to sleep outside. Most camp inside their carriages.

The driver and the valet, they huddle beneath thick wool in front of a burning fire shielded by panels and watched by men who no do not laugh. Their mouths move quickly in a whispered conversation, entrusted with the duty of surveillance.

I am grateful for their bravery.

Nora pulls down the middle tray and rests the food between us, so that we may share our meal. Strangely, inside this forest, where men do not escape, I feel safer with Dorian beside me. His monstrosity is no secret.

But as I drink my tea, nibble on salty crumbly cheese that melts on my tongue, and rip giant chunks of bread, a delightful warmth spreads through me. I chew cured meats and sip warm soup, loosening more with each bite.

This evening is strangely…nice.

I wonder if I am going insane or if I am learning to enjoy the company of my husband.

At the thought, I smile suddenly. And when I look up, he is staring. Then I remember, Dorian is more unholy than what is inside this forest.

DORIAN

Exhaustion seeps into the marrow. Tired, I let my guard down. My head falls back onto a soft pillow, eyes half-closed as I drift. My sleep is dreamless, blackened eternity, until there is sound, and the sharp draw of a feminine breath. My body goes still.

It knows her before my mind does.

The beast.

My heartbeat slows… then beats faster.

Katherine.

I open my eyes.

No longer seated, she is on the floor, with her knees pressed to the cushions between my legs, and moonlight catching the hollow of her bronze throat. Her shift clings to her skin audaciously.

The temping vixen.

She does not tremble.

Her fingers ghost the wool across my lap until it crumples.

I didn’t stop her.

My mouth shapes her name, but I cannot tell her to stop, for that would be a lie. Not with the way her cheek brushes the inside of my thigh. Nor the way heat pools in my gut and through my cock that has since gone rigid.

I press my lips together, wondering if I am somehow in a dream.

“I’m not afraid of what you are,” she whispers. “Not anymore.”

Her breath pants through the fabric and against the swell of my cock. “I want to know what it feels like when you lose all sense…how beastly you are…when you are inside…me.”

She nudges the breeches down with both hands and a growl escapes. “Katherine,” I breathe quickly, “are you well?”

She pulls the blanket away, and with a hand wrapped around me, withdraws my cock. Her kiss at the base makes my teeth grit. It is soft and yearning for me. Her lips trail higher. She doesn’t take me in her mouth, only hovers above it with her warmth rolling down its length.

I jerk inside her hands as blood pulsates through the engorged length.

“Does it hurt when you change?”

My mouth goes dry. I nod.

“Good,” she whispers and my balls squeeze.

Her lips touch the head. Her mouth is hot, wet. She samples… she teases in delicious circles across the tip.

I groan her name, aloud. “Katherine…”

My hand threads into her hair as she wraps her lips around the tip of me and suckles. I remember that she is the Duchess, not a courtesan from Madame Belle’s.

A tongue flicks against my tip.

God’s balls, her mouth is heaven.

She must end this, but I do not want to stop. I want to release inside her and let her taste me. The growl that comes this time, isn’t human.

“Princess…”

She hears it and stops.

Desperation arrives as warmth leaves my cock and frigid air strokes me instead.

“Wait for me, damnable harlot…wait….”

She hovers from above, her corset open to her exposed belly, naked against the yellowing lanterns, breasts heavy, nipples hard.

There is no fight in me.

I want her.

My lips splay over the base of her throat as I grip her hair tightly and draw her close to me. She becomes flush against my skin with her legs pressed against mine. Rising forward, my lips devour a hard pebble. I suckle hard, biting until she winces.

“Your Grace…”

The way she calls me...

It does beastly things to me.

Dastardly, wretched things.

“ If you want me to ravish you, know you are tempting death.”

And still, even as the words depart my lips, my fingers slip beneath her skirts. I find that heated mound, sopping wet with heat and desire.

“Do not stop,” she whispers.

Inside the cabin, her juices squelch, damning us both. A finger glides over damp skin, gathering feminine nectar as I slide a finger in and out of her. She drops for me, her buttocks writhing against my cock until all I smell is her. I gasp as my ribcage snaps.

“Defiant whore.”

Part of me takes turns, wanting all of her at once. I fight to contain the desire to bite her flesh.

I spread her apart with both hands, with all fingers inadvertently dipping inside her.

She comes.

Across my back, she rakes her nails over me, drawing blood that quickly disintegrates. Another bone cracks beneath the skin of my shoulder, and I wince in pain.

But Katherine whispers.

“Good boy.”

I am undone..

“Heathen fucking wench.”

She mounts me with her brave cunt, and swallows my prick in one greedy drop. She stretches around me, and with nails digging into my chest, pushes down, and fills herself with a single shove.

She clenches tight and I hiss.

“Christ.”

“Your Grace, I want you inside me…fill me….”

And just like that, I break.

She rides me.

She doesn’t stop.

My cock thrusts up into her, thickening, reshaping her from within. She moans into my mouth as the rhythm deepens. Her walls flutter and seize.

“Good boy.”

Another bone cracks and the bench heaves beneath my growing weight.

My fingers enlarge until black claws extend and Katherine is perched within my lap, with both legs wrapped around me.

I slide inside of her, slapping against the rotund mounds of her buttocks. I want to go further, deeper. Through her hair, my grip tightens around her throat.

She gasps but I cannot hear her.

She’s mine.

Not his.

Mine.