Page 20 of Ashwood (Wallflowers and Demons #1)

She cries out in pain, but it’s too late. I drive her down as I thicken, and her cunt grips like a noose.

She throws her head back as her thighs squeeze. She clenches around me, drawing seed and liquid from stone. Warmth gushes around me and I smell her as she releases upon my veins.

I am lost inside her.

A ravenous fiend.

The beast forgets who she is.

He only wants to take.

“Taste my seed, whore. I will fuck you into oblivion…”

I thrust harder, driving into her as I bring her down upon me. Smooth skin rubs against mine, her nectar rolling down my thighs until I cannot bear it.

I do not feel it when it emerges. I only know I want her spread beneath me, wide for me to plunder.

Fuck. Her.

I explode with raging heat and liquid until her womanhood contains it. It spills down her legs, more than what is humanly possible.

The beast does not care.

“Mine,” it growls as she collapses against my chest.

And between the broken seats, nestled above the floorboards on soft blankets and pillows, the demon retreats, satiated, I drift, naked, into a void.

DORIAN

The blankets beneath me are still warm with her heat. I lie on the carriage floor, half-covered in wool, limbs sore, with her perfume clinging to my skin. The dull ache of pleasure in my thighs knows the absence of her.

I open my eyes.

The shift she wore, is now crumpled over the seat cushion, but her body is not here. I reach across the bedding, where the air sits warm. I say her name, but I know she is gone.

“Katherine?”

I sit upright too quickly, twist onto my knees and reach for my trousers, nearby. Without time for decency, I yank them and struggle with the buttons.

Then the door bursts open.

The cold hits first. Fog, dense and low to the ground, spills into the carriage. And then the men—Isaac, Williams, Everly, all shadowed, inside the unnatural chill.

“Your Grace,” Isaac says. “The women—”

“They’re gone,” interrupts Williams. “They’re bloody well gone.”

“What? But the Duchess—”

Their eyes snake around me and to the pile of rumpled blankets. Then to my bare chest and the single shift. The crumpled pink Daphne is scattered crushed in a corner, nestled beside the cushion.

I lean in for inspection.

The petals have turned.

Once pale and sweet, they’re now grey at the edges. The wood beneath them is stained dark.

“What is that smell?” Everly whispers. He covers his nose. “It’s so sweet I want to wretch.”

I crouch to examine the stain and use a quill to nudge the soft petals. They disintegrate beneath my touch.

Poison.

I think back to Katherine and her fever skin, how boldly she touched me, and how she rode me like a woman possessed.

The epiphany comes.

They all wore the flowers.

Katherine. Nora. The cook.

Only the women.

My knees hit the blankets with a thud as I try to stand. “Where was she last seen?”

Gabriel steps into view, arms folded. His face is pale, strained. “She brought you your supper. Then retired. That was hours ago.”

I move to exit the carriage but Gabriel blocks my path.

“You knew something was wrong about the forest and the road. About Lord Sainsbury.”

“This is not the time,” I warn .

“It’s precisely the time,” he steps closer and glares into my eyes. Flames dance within. “The men are frightened. You need to speak plainly. What is out here?”

I say nothing.

It’s too easy to imagine his eyes lingering upon her body…on her mouth, swollen with lust. Which is mine and not his.

Gabriel studies me, then retreats.

I exit the carriage half-dressed. To our left, there is naught but a soundless void. To the right, an owl hoots.

Annoyed, I shove past him.

“The time for hysterics has expired, Lord Gabriel.”

He scowls at my words

Outside the carriage, where William rekindles the fire with giant logs, I kneel to the ground and open a satchel. The men gather instinctively.

“What have you there, Your Grace,” William asks.

I unroll a length of stained canvas over my lap, and from within it, produce a bundle of gleaming black cord. Another. And another. Ten in all, neatly bound, each wound coil slick with resin.

Williams tilts his head. “That’s… thread?”

“No,” I reply, already measuring a length across my thigh. “It’s survival.”

Gabriel folds his arms, watching closely. “That looks like something my sister uses to bind a corset.”

“You could hang a man with it.” I extend a loop toward him. “Try it.”

Gabriel hesitates, then yanks—once, twice. The cord does not stretch or bend. Then, I draw a slender knife from inside my coat and strike down against the cord.

The blade glances off with a metallic hiss.

“Braided silk. Resin-hardened. Horsehair core. It will hold your weight, or your pack, or a madman flailing in bloodlust.”

I tie one end through the brass ring sewn at my hip. “You will be paired. You do not separate. You stay tethered.”

The butler steps forward, accepting his bunch. The valet begins threading his own. Isaac takes his with a slow hand and glances at the trees.

“It has already been hours. They may have already succumbed to the frigid night.”

I toss a bundle to Williams, who fumbles and nearly drops it.

“We cannot think like doomed men. This rope will not snap,” I continue. “It will not burn. And if something drags you off the path, it will drag your partner, too.”

“That isn’t comforting,” Everly mutters.

“No,” I agree. “But it is necessary.”

From a second pouch, I withdraw something else: five blades with edges that sparkle in the fire’s light .

Because they are not steel. Not entirely.

Each blade is rimmed in diamond. A fine, wicked edge honed for a single purpose.

I hold one up. “This is the only thing that will cut the cord.”

Gabriel narrows his eyes. “Surely not.”

These men trust me, but they simply do not understand. I must show them. I stretch a length of cord taut between two carriage spokes. Then, with a swift motion, I slice. The cord parts with a whisper, the two ends curling.

The men flinch.

“Christ,” whispers Williams. “That’s enough to flay a man.”

I sheath the blades, then lay them on the open cloth between us.

“There’s only, five?” William points out. They all glance at one another.

“And six of us,” Mr. Everly finishes.

Silence.

Gabriel says what they are all thinking. “Someone doesn’t get one.”

I nod. “I do not.”

Isaac frowns. “But if something takes you—”

“You all know it will require more than silk to hold me.”

They do not protest. I am a liability. A risk. A thing that can become something else and finish them all. I blink the thoughts aside.

“If the rope tightens, you must cut. If your partner is no longer your partner, you must cut.” I secure the rope around myself. “If you are all gone, I shall follow the rope and return to the carriages.”

At the image of their demise, the men's visibility blanch.

One by one, I deliver each weapon and the men take it.

Isaac the Driver. Peter the footman. Mr. Everly, the Butler.

Williams, my Valet. And lastly, Gabriel, I will never forget his role: the leader of the Bow Street Runners.

Once the forest is no more and our alliance ends, he will hunt me.

“If we lose the rope,” I say, “we lose each other. The blades are sturdy. They will not shatter under force. Use them if you must.”

Their hands close around the blades, as each peers into the dark trees ahead. The wind howls, made ferocious by an impending storm.

Gabriel speaks without turning.

“And if we lose each other?”

I shrug at the notion. “Don’t let that come to pass.”

KATHERINE

It is cold. I wake, to find myself standing with grass beneath my naked feet. Confused and wet, I shiver and wrap my arms around my shoulders. The realisation comes fast.

How…

I don’t remember walking.

I look around and my teeth chatter inside a skin of gooseflesh.

‘Tis so frightfully cold.

Yet there is no wind. No sound.

The forest around me is thick with silence.

And then a breath, not mine, exhales in the dark.