Chapter 1213: Conqueror of Seas(4)
Splintered oars and the rib-shards of broken hulls bobbed in the wake of the Roaring Axe. He had seen to the sorting of the survivors with but a word to his captain: the high-born were bundled away as gilded hostages to be bled for ransom or to be used as hostages to bring the noble families of the sand to their knee, while the rest were chained for the slave markets, their backs destined for the whip and the sun.
It was a victory, however bothersome, and by nightfall, men would be screaming his name into the bottoms of ale-horns. His brother Cain , who had been in part responsible for the whole plan, would likely receive no thanks for the brilliance of it. It had been Cain’s vision to let the fractured armada limp back to their ancestral ports, giving the local lords just enough hope to spark a civil war where it mattered.It pained Blake a bit to see his brother be treated so unthankfully, especilaly since in the past he had been part of the unthankful batch.
Still, it was a victory and the sea was theirs now.
The southern fleet was too busy choking on the dust of the inland wars raised by the horse lords to challenge them, and that was a soup Blake had no intention of stirring....for now.In time perhaps after he got his crown he would sail south too.
He let his weight sink into the silk-draped softness of the Sultan’s own bed. This was the life. Waking in the chambers of kings, gazing out at a city of marble and gold that was now his personal playground, with a world ahead of him ripe for the raiding.
He thought of the Isles, cold, wind-scratched rocks where the only thing to eat was grey mutton, mealy potatoes, and fish that tasted of despair. He reached for a bowl beside the bed and plucked a date, the fruit dark and wrinkled as a prune but bursting with honeyed flesh. Elio had no such sweetness.
The heavy, cloying scent of jasmine incense drifted through the room as a hand, soft and deliberate, traced the scarred landscape of his chest.
She rested her chin atop his ribs, her hazel eyes drifting to his with a look that was both predatory and adoring. She was a lovely thing to behold, but her mind was the real treasure, she had been the compass that guided his fleet into the very throat of her old home.
Some would call her betrayer, Blake preferred her as the leading maiden.
"May I be blessed with one too?" she asked, her smile entirely indifferent to the thousands of ghosts she had helped him create. Those full lips, designed for kissing or wrapping tightly around his mounting heat, curved in a bratty challenge. She had grown bolder since she’d started dealing with that old crone of a witch, but Blake found he liked the fire in her.
He pushed a date between her lips. She didn’t just take the fruit; she drew his finger deep into the heat of her mouth, her tongue circling his nail with a slow, rhythmic suction.
The thought of a Lordess’s lips around his cock made him harden instantly, the dull throb echoing back at the beginning of his loins. He could let their brood rule over whatever dusty province she called home, but for now, he just wanted the pleasure of the conqueror.
"How would you like to become the Matron of your House?" he asked her.
She didn’t answer with words. Instead, she took his hand and guided it down the silk of her belly to the only answer that mattered. Had he not known better, he’d have thought the blood spilled on the deck today had warmed her own.
He had taken her twice before the battle, one afterward, and while his body urged him for a fourth, his duty and his stomach, had other ideas.
"As lovely as you are, I cannot," he said, even as she shifted to straddle him lovingly. "There is a feast waiting. A poor triumph it would be without the guest of honor."
He was admiral of the fleet in all but name, he had to be present especially now.
"Can the King of the Sea not bless me with one more thing?" she whispered with a purr.
"Later," he grunted, though his hand lingered on the curve of her hip. "Cain is waiting. My brother has many talents, but making friend of drunk warrior is not one."
Last time he left him alone to his own affair , he had found him courting death and nearly receiving its gift.
Risking his life for a slave’s family.
He was far too soft on the matters of the heart....
Still, he had grown to rely on Cain’s mind, even if the man was a shadow of the warrior he should have been.
No matter how audacious the plans Cain crafted, he was a broken man in the eyes of the Confederation. The Islesmen might follow his plans, but they would never give him the respect they gave a man who could swing an axe. At best, they refrained from sneering to his face, and mostly that was Blake’s work.
He had found people were getting too chummy where they should have not be.
"Can’t your big brother stand without his litt—"
Blake didn’t let her finish as he twisted his fingers into a thick lock of her hair and jerked her head back, pulling her face inches from his own, close enough she could bite that sun-kissed nose off her pretty face.
The scent of her, expensive oils mixed with the musk of their earlier exertion, filled his head. She didn’t flinch; she simply smiled, that bratty, dangerous curve of her lips mocking him.
"I like your nose well enough, Valiis, and those lips even more," He said as she sniffed a lock of her hair"But be careful. I’ll bite them both off if you speak of my brother like that again."
Her smile remained, though she mockingly mimicked a needle and thread sewing her lips shut with one hand, while the other wandered lower, a final invitation. She thought he was joking. The Free-Men of the Isles were known for many things, but a sense of humor regarding their kin wasn’t among them.
Especially know that he had come to rely on him as much as he cared.
He had no time to prove it to her. He rolled out of the silk heap, his boots thudding onto the cool marble floor. He began to dress, the leather and steel sliding over his skin with a familiar, comforting weight. His leg throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache where the Lord of Damas had found a gap, but the pain was manageable.
The "blessings" of this land’s gods, whatever dark pacts the crone had made, seemed to knit meat and bone faster than the salty air of Elio ever could.
As he buckled his belt, a sour taste touched his tongue. He found himself dreading the feast. Once, the raucous, violent virtues of the Islesmen had been his own pride; now, they felt like vices. It was the burden of the crown he was trying to forge, he realised. He wanted to rule, and their stubborn attachment to their "free" way of life, which usually meant getting drunk enough to stab their own shadows and denouncing any man that wished to put a limit on them, was a clear obstacle in his path.
He had to play this smartly...
Besides, he had to move. His men were likely deep in the cups by now, and Cain had been far too insistent on bringing that new slave girl to the banquet.The Foam take him for that.
Could he not delegate her on the bed for where he would come back drunk beyond his mind?
What was her name? Lia? Lona? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was a rare beauty, and she was currently a lone doe in a sea of wolves drunk on battle-lust and cheap wine.
At the last victory feast, Blake had been forced to bury his axe in the skulls of two of his own veterans before the rest understood that the "royal" prizes were off-limits. If he was lucky tonight, he’d only have to kill one.
He stepped out of the bedchamber, his heavy footsteps echoing through the sprawling corridors of the Sun Palace. The halls were eerie in their silence, deserted of the servants who were now frantically scuttling through the lower levels to satisfy the appetites of a thousand hungry pirates.It was humbling to know that generations of sultans walked above these red carpet, now instead stained red with wine drunk by people that the Azanians regarded little better than rats.
Sea rats.
He reached the Great Stair, the very spot where, months ago, he had carved through the Sultan’s sworn guard in a mess of gold-leafed armor and spilled guts. Now, the marble was scrubbed clean, but the memory of the iron smell lingered. As he descended, the roar of the feast began to rise, a tidal wave of sound that shook the very foundations of the palace. It was a symphony of breaking glass, laughter, and the rhythmic pounding of fists on oak and flesh.
Were they having a orgy in his fucking house?
He sighed, no matter for that, he knew how his people were.But still they were his people and the pebbles he would build the road with.
And now the Red Angel was coming down to join his brood, after all this night was especially important for him , there were after all opponents to take care before he could make his run for the crown. And if he were lucky he could bring some of them to his side.
It would not be easy work, that was for sure , but still when did his life ever got easy?
