Page 34 of Wild Flame (Wild Bond #2)

Chapter Thirty-Four

L ady Alora had offered to let us stay another night in her home before beginning our journey back to Taveran, and we had gratefully taken her up on the offer. After having dinner with her and her husband, who I was delighted to find out was as good of company as she, we had left them to Taj. The spymaster could be very charming when he wanted to be.

We sought our guest chambers only after Alora had again looked at Malik’s side and declared it nearly good as new. I couldn’t help thinking how amazing magical herbs and potions were when one was allowed to use them.

Upon returning to our room, Malik graciously allowed me the first bath, and I was feeling selfish enough not to argue. Azrun had flown out the window some time ago and hadn’t yet returned. “Hunting,” Malik had said. Malik had been kind enough to busy himself, cleaning and sharpening his weapons to give me privacy while I bathed.

I still felt somewhat uncomfortable about being completely bare in front of him, even if he had seen me naked before and he was my husband now. Due to everything that had happened recently—his getting called away, our fight, and his near fatal injury—we hadn’t been together since our Marking Ceremony. Everything still felt so new and painfully intimate that I was grateful he had given me some space.

Though, perhaps I didn’t want quite so much space. Gah! I didn’t know what I wanted. Even my own thoughts made me blush.

In an effort to distract myself, my mind turned to thoughts of what I had learned in the mines—what Malik had revealed. I now understood why Malik had felt he had to come himself, considering what had been stolen and the gravity of the secrets involved. It also made sense why his Fangdar took shifts being stationed here at all times. Not only to oversee the mines, but to protect the Moonstone hidden there. I had seen on Kheer’s face how devastated he was about failing in his charge. But Malik had simply put a hand to his shoulder and said, “Don’t be too hard on yourself. We all have to sleep sometime.”

Deciding I had worried about it enough for one day, I stood from the bath. Malik kept his back to me as I stepped out and grabbed a towel, but I knew every part of him was aware of me because of how still he had gone, his hand no longer running the oiled cloth up and down his sword.

Neither of us said anything as I quickly dressed in a nightgown and plaited my hair. The tension in the air was palpable, but I wasn’t sure what to do other than to ignore it as I rang for a servant and bade them empty and refill the bath. Again, we didn’t speak as they did so. When they finally left, I turned my back as Malik was the one who undressed and sank into the steaming water.

I had only listened to a few minutes of water sloshing about before the sounds ceased, and Malik’s teasing order broke the quiet.

“Come scrub my back, wife.”

I spun to face him. He was leaning back against the tub, his dark hair wet and swept back from his face, and his muscular arms resting casually on the sides of the tub. His entire body, from those wide shoulders to that expansive chest, was glistening with water droplets.

He was smirking, and from the taunting look in his eyes, I could tell he didn’t think that I would do it.

Oh, how wrong he was. I would do it just to show him. I held his challenging stare as I strode towards the tub. Stopping beside it, I extended my hand for the soap.

“Very well, husband ,” I stressed the last word, “if you are incapable of doing it yourself.”

His eyes gleamed as he handed it to me.

I dipped a small cloth in the water and began lathering it up with the soap. Malik leaned forward. I set to work, running the cloth over his smooth skin and trying not to notice anything else.

When I was finished, Malik murmured, “Now the front.” I stared at him. “If you please,” he added.

He leaned back again, and I could feel his eyes on me as I slid the cloth along one tattooed shoulder and down over his chest. That heated gaze had my breath faltering and my hand hesitating before it moved lower.

“Careful, love,” his deep voice warned, “or you’ll give me ideas.”

My blush deepened. I was still by no means an expert at this, so I decided to brazen my way through it. “I can see that,” I replied, pointedly glancing below the water.

Warmth sparkled through me at his deep chuckle in response. “This is my constant state whenever I get anywhere near you, siren.”

“Stop teasing me,” I scolded. I refused to meet his eye as I once again lathered the soap with the cloth.

“It’s the truth,” he stated casually. “From the moment I saw you lying there in the garden,” his hand rose from the water to tug on a dangling strand that had escaped my braid, “. . . even before, I wanted you.”

“You can’t say things like that,” I protested, though I wasn’t sure why. His words made my heart skip and the blood in my veins come to life. I plopped the soap in the water so it splashed him.

“Why not?” He smiled, wiping a hand down his face. “Is there something wrong with a king seducing his queen?”

I raised a brow in mock challenge. “Is that what you are doing?” I inquired, not sure where this sudden confidence had come from.

His smirk grew as a mischievous light entered his eyes. “Well, if you can’t tell, then I will just need to work a little harder.”

Without warning, his big body moved, and a hard arm was suddenly hooked around my waist. I cried out, dropping the cloth and the next thing I knew I was being pulled—nightdress and all—into the tub.

I gasped as warm water soaked me. “Malik!” I cried.

But my lovely husband just chuckled and held me tightly to his chest.

I scowled at him. “This is my only nightgown,” I huffed, pulling back.

“Is it?” he mused, but his tone was distracted.

I followed his gaze and saw the white fabric was no impediment to his burning stare, as he could now clearly see the lines of my body through the wet material. His hand lifted, and he stroked a thumb across one hard nipple.

I sucked in air at the sharp bolt of desire that raced through me at the contact. Slowly, leisurely he played with it. Then his hot gaze met mine. Leaning down, he sucked my nipple through the wet cloth into his waiting mouth.

The scorching heat of his tongue was like a brand against my skin, and I arched unconsciously into him as his teeth nipped at the stiff peak, my knees falling to either side of his hips below the water.

“I missed this,” he confessed in a ragged breath, pulling at the neckline of my gown and licking a trail over and between the swells of my breasts. “One taste of you was not enough.” His other hand sank under the water and pulled at the clinging cloth tangled around my lower body, freeing me.

“If I recall,” I swallowed thickly, trying to focus as I responded, “you h-had several . . . uh . . . tastes of me that night.”

He chuckled in that roughly seductive voice. “It wasn’t nearly enough.” His hand slid up my thigh and probed at my center.

I gasped.

“If I had my way, and we hadn’t been interrupted, I would have kept you in our rooms for days until I had thoroughly ravished you.” He licked my throat. “Memorized every inch of you.”

Realms! I wasn’t much for cursing, even in my own head, but this man . . .

His fingers plunged deeper, and I slid my own into his hair, clutching at the nape of his neck. He pulled me down for a kiss as his hand continued working between my legs.

I returned his kiss with all the hunger and need he roused in me, my mind feeling like it was lost in a fevered haze. Every part of me felt hypersensitive. Aware. The cool air was a teasing balm against my skin as I rose slightly in and out of the water. Pulses of liquid heat shivered through me as my core tightened.

Then he suddenly paused and his hands shifted to my hips. “Take a deep breath,” he ordered against my lips.

“Wha—ohh!” My question turned into another gasp as he sank me down onto his length. He was big enough, and this was still new enough that there was more than a slight sting as my body adjusted to the invasion of his. His hands cupping and pinching my breasts and his sinful mouth sucking and kissing me all over, dominating my mouth, soon had me forgetting any discomfort.

Before long he was moving, sloshing water over the sides of the bath and onto the rugs and floor as he pressed up inside me.

“We’re . . . making—hmm—making a mess,” I panted, letting out a choked noise as he hit a particularly delicious spot inside me that had me clenching around his fullness.

“I don’t care,” he murmured as he pulsed upward in a smooth, relentless pace.

I bit back my groan of pleasure, my grip tightening on his shoulders, fighting not to scream in bliss.

“No, you don’t, siren,” he scolded. “I want to hear all the sounds you make.”

I blinked down at him, incredulous. “But they’ll hear—"

“Let them,” he growled. “Let the whole realms damn castle hear how I make you feel.”

A few moments later, as rapture claimed me in its velvet grip, I did.

Sometime later, when the water had cooled and the passion in our blood had dimmed to a dull hum, I lay with my back to Malik. There was considerably less water now after our . . . activities. But neither of us made any effort to get out of the tub.

I shifted against him, slightly uncomfortable as my wet gown rubbed against my skin. Of course, Malik noticed.

“Sit up,” he ordered.

I did as he said and raised my arms as he pulled the sodden nightgown over my head and tossed it on the wet floor.

I was in such a happy and lethargic state that I didn’t even think about the fact that I had just exposed my back to Malik’s gaze until I felt him still behind me.

I froze as well.

Internally, I was fighting the urge to flee the tub and his gaze and put on about fifty layers of clothing, while another part of me sat there in a stiff kind of horror and shame at the fact that he was seeing my scars so openly.

After a few seconds, I couldn’t take it anymore and made to rise from the tub.

“Don’t,” Malik urged gruffly. Then he added more softly, “Please . . . don’t.”

I paused, then after a few weighted seconds, I acquiesced and sank back down. I didn’t turn and look back at him—I couldn’t.

“Do they still hurt?” he asked solemnly. Thankfully, I heard none of the dreaded pity or disgust in his voice.

“Not anymore,” I answered honestly. Even though I had told him about them earlier, it still felt odd to discuss my scars so openly. “The skin can get tight and irritated sometimes, but I have a salve for that.”

“May I?” he asked, his tone infinitely gentle.

I simply nodded with a hard swallow, pulling my legs up into my chest and resting my folded arms on my knees.

Warm fingers traced one of the marks ever so carefully. Then he leaned forward and kissed the spot.

I sucked in a breath at the first touch of his lips to the ravaged flesh. As he continued his quiet ministrations, his warm lips pressing ever so gently against every inch of the scars, I was mortified to find tears stinging my eyes.

“I’m sorry this happened to you, isholet ,” he crooned against my skin. “But you survived. You are here now, and I am glad of it.”

I wiped a stray tear from my eye and sat back. His words brought a mix of too many emotions to the surface. I didn’t know how to feel them all.

Malik shifted me in his hold and didn’t comment further, for which I was grateful. He rested his arms on the lip of the tub on either side of me, and I reached up and began tracing the markings there. My fingers ran over the lines of one in particular on his forearm that resembled a hammer or gavel of some kind. “What is this one for?” I asked.

He said nothing, and I felt his chest rise and fall underneath me as I waited.

When he finally spoke, his voice held an odd mixture of pride and sadness. “I got that one after the first time I defied my father’s orders.”

I knew that Zehvitians only marked their skin with significant moments or things that meant something to them. “I don’t understand,” I finally said.

He sighed. “As I told you before, my father was a complicated man, but I idolized him while growing up. My stepmother was perfectly kind, even though I wasn’t truly her son. She never treated me any differently than Amir. But Amir and I were at odds even when we were young, and we never became as close as I wished. Zara didn’t come along until much later, and so I felt like my father was my only true family for a long time. He was a harsh taskmaster, especially after I bonded with Azrun and began training to be a rider. All I cared about was proving myself to him. Then the war with Baldor started, and it became more and more apparent as the years passed that my father had a cruel streak and could also be underhanded and unaccountably ruthless at times.”

As he spoke, he began playing with my hair, easing it out of the braid as his fingers worked through the strands.

“Eventually, he made me one of his generals, and I fought for my country and my king, as was expected of me. I had to do things in his service . . . follow or pass down orders I didn’t agree with. I told myself it was war and war is complicated.” He paused. “Amir, on the other hand, did anything my father asked without question or conscience. I reigned him in when I could, but . . .

“As the years went on, I tried to convince my father to maneuver a peace with Baldor, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I never learned what my father’s true motives were for starting the conflict. I think it had been going on for so long, and there was so much animosity on both sides, that people had forgotten the true reason as well. But then, a few years ago, he left and refused to tell anyone where he was going. He was gone for a month, and when he returned, he was different. I knew he had something up his sleeve he wasn’t sharing with me.”

“The Moonstone?” I guessed, then groaned. His fingers had finished working through my hair, and now he had begun massaging my scalp. It felt so good, I couldn’t help the sound that had slipped free.

“If you keep making sounds like that, then I’m going to take you all over again,” he growled. “This story be damned.”

“Keep doing that and I might let you,” I sighed.

He chuckled and kissed the back of my neck. The sound stoked the low hum of arousal smoldering just beneath my skin, and I felt him hardening against my lower back. That, combined with the fact that it still felt so intimate to have my hair completely down in front of him, made it difficult to concentrate. But neither of us acted on it, and after a few seconds, he continued.

“To answer your question, yes. I found out my father had been stockpiling Moonstone. The Nine only knew where he had gotten it all from. He never told me. He planned to use the Moonstone against Baldor to neutralize their dragons during key battles. It would have turned the tide of the war and would have been devastating to their forces. Thousands would have died, not to mention scores of riders and their dragons. I couldn’t condone that, especially not using such underhanded methods. Moonstone is usually so rare that it had never been used in such a manner.”

I turned back to face him, and his hands dropped from my hair. “So you stole it?” I guessed.

He nodded curtly. “I organized a raid with my Fangdar and made it look like the Baldorians were behind it. My father was furious, but it was only after he thought they had the Moonstone and could potentially use it on our forces that he agreed to a treaty.” He brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. “It was only after my father died that I had the Moonstone moved and hidden in the mines.”

“That was nicely maneuvered.”

He only shrugged those broad shoulders.

My mind spun. “So the Baldorians have you to thank for ending the war and for protecting them from a potentially catastrophic outcome,” I summarized. “And they have no idea?” I couldn’t help thinking of the meeting with Commander Rakim and how he so obviously despised Malik. He had basically outright accused him of being like his father. If he only knew how wrong he was.

“They don’t need to know,” Malik said. “I could not in good conscience allow such an atrocity to occur. Call it atonement for all the battles I didn’t prevent.”

I stared up at him, taking in the sharp masculine features and dark line of his brows. This man. He kept surprising me, and I wasn’t altogether prepared for the swell of pride and affection that overwhelmed me in that moment. I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him. His hand cupped my jaw as he returned it.

“You have nothing to atone for,” I said when we finally pulled apart. “Nothing.” I contemplated him for a moment. “You should tell Commander Rakim. Perhaps it would alleviate some of the animosity between the two of you,” I said carefully.

His lip quirked. “Noticed that, did you?” When I didn’t respond, he sighed and shrugged again. “Truthfully, I’m not sure it would matter if I did.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Rakim is my half-brother.”

I blinked in shock. That was definitely not what I had been expecting him to say. “What? How?"

Malik began tracing his finger up and down my arm. “My father had a Baldorian mistress he kept in the city after my mother died. Rakim is the result of that union. He and his mother returned to Baldor when he was still quite young. I only learned of his existence much later when I was already leading my father’s armies, and he and I had already faced each other in battle.”

“Do Zara and Amir know?” I asked, still shocked at the revelation.

He shook his head. “I wanted to wait until Zara was older to tell her, and I’m not sure if my father ever told Amir.” His finger stopped moving on my skin. “It hardly matters, though. I would have a friendship with him but . . . Rakim wants nothing to do with me and probably never will.”

I still thought telling Rakim what he had done would make a difference to the rider, but if Malik didn’t want to tell him, it was hardly my place to intervene.