The Beast of Salt (Saga of the Gods #1)

14. Avina

14

AVINA

Two Winters Ago

Year 98, 9th Era

Scarwood Citadel, Timber Province

A vina loudly yawns, creaking into the high-backed chair of her oak desk. A goblet of red wine sits drained beside a half-empty Timber Province Silver Standard bottle.

Her wine of choice.

She scratches down her face, wishing she could uncover seidr to rid Scarwood of these petty problems. Rendel and his father, King Urien, perpetuated so many issues over the last several decades.

“Your Royal Highness.”

Avina lifts her tired eyes to see Rendel’s butler. An older, refined man named Grayson, whom Rendel inherited from his father when he took the throne nearly a decade ago.

“Yes, Grayson?”

“His Highness requests your presence in his bed chambers, Your Majesty. Immediately.”

A sob escapes her lips, and she clamps a hand down over her mouth.

Not tonight. Goddess, not tonight.

Over the last year, her existence has been reduced to cleaning up after Rendel’s messes and the occasional summoning to fulfill her wifely duty—a duty that, after each incident, left her reeling with sickness.

The day has been exhausting, and the thought of ending it in Rendel’s bed already leaves her feeling debilitated.

“Grayson.” She leans forward with her hands flat on the smooth surface of her desk. “I cannot be with him tonight. Please-”

Grayson’s eyes do not hold a shred of emotion. “Ma’am, King Rendel has requested your presence.”

“Please, Grayson, I cannot-” her breath hitches, “not tonight.”

Or any.

Silence. A usual solace to Avina that now ridicules her with the unspoken promise of impending horror.

“Your Highness, I fear that if you do not join him, I will have no other option than to force you.”

Before following Grayson, she drains the remainder of her wine straight from the bottle and stomps off behind.

At Rendel’s door, she tugs her robe tighter around her nightgown-clad body. Glaring at Grayson, who is now standing at attention against the wall, she shoves the door open, the wood banging against the stone wall.

“Can we make this fast? I am exhausted-”

She stops dead in her tracks when she sees him reclining against the headboard of his canopy bed. A young redhead whom Avina recognizes as her new lady-in-waiting has her mouth wrapped around his cock. Amorous slurping noises fill the high vaulted space.

Avina enjoyed her little chat with the new girl over tea yesterday afternoon.

At least she didn’t slurp the tea like this.

Rendel suddenly grabs the girl’s red locks and thrusts himself into her mouth several times before she rolls away, licking her engorged lips.

“Ah, Avina.” His tone suggests her appearance has signaled the start of a formal meeting she was not privy to until now. “It has almost been a year since our wedding, and you have yet to give me an heir. I spoke to a Healer who recommended that we work on your abilities in the bed chamber.”

My abilities?

Avina stumbles into the velvet seat of an armchair. When she first laid eyes on Rendel, she considered him the weakest man she had ever seen with his tiny nose and pristinely manicured nails.

Then, there were his foolish actions in the war with the Salt Province. Legends state their tenacious leader resembles the Briny God in the flesh with his muscular build, long, thick hair bound in a braid, dense beard, and piercing blue eyes.

Sometimes, she conjures the rumored image of Prince Sigvid Thordsson standing before her, rescuing her from this torment with Rendel.

“I apologize, my lord, but I misheard you. I believe you suggested my sexual abilities are lacking?” She should have run when Grayson summoned her.

Ran and never looked back.

The redhead shrugs off the bed and into a satin, cream-colored robe. Rendel, on the other hand, does not stuff his genitals back into his undergarments.

“Avina, your tone is a tad impertinent. I am only trying to help you.” He stands from his bed wearing only a thick purple dressing gown over matching underclothes with his genitals falling out grotesquely.

“Why do I need your help? You spill your seed within me on a near-constant basis.”

What a disgusting human being.

Had she a hundred wishes, every one of them would be to turn Rendel into a gross insect that she can squash under her heel.

Rendel gestures to the lady-in-waiting, who slinks to him, sliding her thin arms around his chest. From across the room, Avina could practically hear the young woman purring.

He whispers something into her ear and slaps her behind. She stalks out the door, but not before glancing at Avina as if she is the scum of the earth.

“I have suffered you this long. You are disgusting. It is like bedding a cow. Let me be clear, Avina.”

She has grown so accustomed to his jabs at her appearance that it no longer rattles her to the point of yearning to slice her wrists.

He strides toward a cabinet and withdraws a glass decanter full of Steinlund whiskey. As he pours a glass, he speaks as if this is nothing more than a Council meeting.

“You have one more year left to provide me a male heir.”

Avina scoffs. “Or what? You shall breed with the staff?”

Leaving me alone to run the kingdom as it should.

“Or I will kill you.” Serious eyes meet her as he raises the glass to his lips. “Just as I killed the others when their time lapsed. You are nothing special.”

Avina gapes like a fish out of water. So, he did killed his past wives. How would he kill her?

She should write to her father and demand sanctuary in the Ridge. Or broker a deal with that Salt Prince for safety in their region.

“What is your plan with me tonight, Rendel?”

He thunks his glass down upon a short table. “You brazen bitch! You refer to me as Your Highness or My Lord, even privately. Now, ask again.”

Avina’s fists are shaking with fury she did not know she possessed.

I could use my ability and slip out.

“Do not even think of using your pathetic excuse for an ability to escape your duties with me. Eventually, you’ll need to reappear, and my men will be ready for you. Now, repeat yourself.”

“What is your plan with me tonight, Your Highness?” She says through her teeth.

“Was that so hard, piggy?” He finishes the contents of his glass. “You have yet to be ready for me when I call upon you. That ends tonight.”

The door to his chambers opens again, and the redhead returns with a tan-skinned woman equally as appealing by Timber and Ridge palace standards. Their natural beauty is a knife to the gut for Avina who would never achieve their lithe grace.

Following them are two of Rendel’s younger, handsome guards dressed in tunics and trousers instead of armor.

Tonight, she found every person in this bedroom to be a foul-looking leech.

“Avina, you will watch as these women accept both my pleasure and seed.” He returns to his gigantic bed, flanked by the naked women.

Avina shakes her head, backing away. “This is sick. I may not have experience, but I know you do not arouse me.”

Only one man has stoked her inner fire with a passion that has left her pining ever since. The stolen moment in her father’s study with her mystery Salt warrior would linger in her veins forever.

Even if he held no interest in her beyond her womanhood.

“You are not leaving, Avina. And if you do, these men will snap your neck and make it look like an accident.”

She spins around as the guards grip her shoulders, dragging her to the bed. Each man pins one of her arms behind her back and takes a rough fistful of her hair. Their hands jerk her head backward, forcing her to shriek until she focuses on her husband and the two women coiled around him.

The sun-kissed woman begins by sucking his cock while the redhead kisses him with a passion Avina would never know for Rendel.

When she relinquishes his lips, she moves to his cock where both women lick his shaft earnestly. Their tongues tangled together with breathy giggles.

“Do you see their excitement? I do not need to instruct them as if they are children. They are focused solely on my needs, which arouse them more than any touch I could gift them.”

Perhaps if he were a different man, she would find the idea of submitting at his feet exhilarating.

But never for Rendel.

He is a cruel, uncaring monster who seeks a refined appearance more than anything good or pure.

He sticks two fingers in each woman’s core, eliciting moans from them. “Bring her to me.” He orders the guards.

They drag her to the side of the bed where Rendel awaits with two sticky fingers from between the sun-kissed lady’s legs.

“Suck them. I want you to know what a wet pussy should taste like.”

The men shove her forward so her husband can shove his fingers coated in another woman's wetness down her throat. Humiliated tears fall across her flushed cheeks as she chokes.

“Suck, Avina!” He orders.

Despite her deep repulsion at him and his games, she closes her eyes to avoid witnessing the sight. Her mouth closes on his fingers, and she sucks them in.

Deep in her chest, she feels her heart constrict. Young Princess Avina had been a bright-eyed girl who only sought love and affection to release herself from the shadows that drug her under. As Queen, she finds solace in the same darkness that once haunted her steps. As her husband forces her to suck another woman’s arousal off his fingers, she wonders what fate will befall this evil man?

And if she can help destiny along.

Goddess of Wisdom, I beg you to save me from the Abyss of Rendel. Have I not yet earned a King who will love me unconditionally?

“Good, Avina.” His praise churns her stomach, and she is almost sure she will vomit.

“Again.”

The guards drag her across the plush rug to his other hand, where two more fingers await her mouth.

She steadies her breathing as he unceremoniously shoves his fingers into her mouth.

Moans from the women draw her attention from Rendel.

The women are focused only on each other. Their lips meet with an excitement Avina has only experienced with her Salt warrior.

While their hands explore each other’s supple breasts and flawless skin, Avina snorts at the irony despite herself. Under any other circumstance, she would eagerly join the women. But this?

Never this.

At least he has not triggered my gag reflex.

As if on cue, the stress of the situation got the better of the Queen. His fingers brushed the base of her tongue, and she heaves violently.

Red wine and bile erupt from her mouth onto his arm, the bed, and the squealing naked ladies.

The guards yank her back as Rendel rages, tossing stained pillows and blankets to the floor as all three scramble to dress themselves. After dismissing the ladies-in-waiting, Rendel stomps to Avina and backhands her so hard she sees stars.

“Take her to the dungeons. Perhaps after a few weeks of starvation, she will appear more pleasing to the eye.”

Queen Avina kicks and screams as they drag her to a dirty, dank cell with no windows to the outside world.

Her tormentors force her into a corner on the grimy floor. They do not chain her to the wall, and there is no cot or bedroll for comfort.