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

23. Avina

23

AVINA

November 3rd, Year 100, 9th Era

Somewhere in the Salt Province

H ave I ascended to the Golden Citadel?

Heat permeates from the firm figure, holding her body as if it might slip away at any moment.

Her eyes open hesitantly, revealing herself inside a tent. Under her side, she feels the softness of a fur pelt covering the frozen ground. A cot is set at her back, while discarded weapons and armor and a pile of saddlebags clutter the space.

Her curtain of lashes rises to meet a pair of growingly familiar, piercing blue eyes.

Sigvid’s orbs soften as she stirs before hardening to their typical coolness. Facing him does little to ease the turbulence in her chest. If anything, she feels her body solidify as if she had become a diamond.

Outside the tent, the campfire’s smolder radiates a faint light in the darkness of the canvas enveloping them. Through the flickering glow, Avina gawks at the defined strokes of his tattoos along the sides of his head—a howling wolf and a stairstep of lines .

Old and new wounds scar his body. Her father would say his precious skin is marred, but Avina would disagree. A danger lurks behind his gaze like a storm on the sea. Her heart flutters in fear and arousal at the battle-hardened warrior.

“I am not going to harm you, Avina. At least, not yet.” His rough voice brushes against her cheek.

Gently, she presses her quivering fingertips to the unsettling tick marks drawn unevenly down his head, neck, and arm. His eyes remain focused on hers as she traces each stroke. “The men you have killed?”

If he were going to kill me, he would have done so already. Right?

They lay so close she can feel his hot breath tickle her lips. His masculine musk is intoxicating.

“Are they a reminder to you or a warning to others?”

The hand on her lower back tangles along the tips of her long curls.

“Both. It is a mark of my responsibility to my people and myself.”

“Why did you not ascend to the Salt Kingship?” She isn’t sure why she’s whispering or asking him any of these questions. Not when she needs to fight him with all of her energy. Yet, the intimate way he clutches her naked body cultivates a sense of security, as if she is more than his captive.

Does he not mind that I am bigger than the slender women of the Ridge and Timber? His touch is more accepting than Rendel’s. Perhaps his words in the Sapphire Palace were honest.

He licks his cracked lips. “Father had a different task.” Hardly concealed is a bitterness to his words.

“Task?”

For the first time since she has known Sigvid, silence answers her. Instead of offering a response, he fixates on her wild mane while his fingers curl a strand. The gentle act should reassure her of his actions. Instead, she trembles in his hold as if he will devour her at any moment.

“I must protect the Salt Sacred Stone.” His voice is barely a whisper.

“Then why not appoint Thrain? You were the heir.” Why does she feel such vigorous defense of him? He kidnapped her, after all!

“The truth is much more complicated.” He explores her features as if assigning her lines and imperfections to memory. “You need to rest.”

She splays her fingers along his chest, where intricate runes and knot tattoos paint his exposed skin. A nautilus shell sits over his heart, and a raven dives over his left bicep.

He smirks. “Your first instinct after nearly freezing to death is to seek retribution for my lot in life?”

Avina mimics his upturned lips with her own. Why would she not want to comfort someone wronged in his birthright? Mostly, she has yet to decide if her response in his presence is terror or lust.

“Sigvid?” She croaks out, her brain ultimately working around her current physical position. “Why am I naked? Why are you naked?” Her hard nipples rub against his inked, muscled chest, arousing the warmth between her legs. His firm cock snakes against her thigh, evoking a blush across her cheeks.

“The fastest way I could revive you is with my body heat.” He grunts.

A faint laugh escapes her before she can wrangle the damn reaction. “You saved my life?”

“Do not get used to it.”

Her lithe fingers roam over his rigid abdomen until settling over the base of his stiff member.

“Sigvid, um-”

“Yes?” He raises a brow.

Her hand releases her pressure. “I guess I should thank you, as this is not the first time you’ve saved my life.”

His eyebrows knit together. “When was the first?”

A knot forms in her throat as she recalls his inadvertent actions during the war. The life she can live now because of the death of her husband. She blinks and then looks away, exposing her feelings whether she intends to. “Rendel.”

“I know of one incident he inflicted on you,” he remarks quietly while his rough hands continue stroking her back.

“How could you possibly know what he did to me?”

He wipes away a tear with his thumb before she gets a chance.

“In the Arena, I met one of Rendel’s bodyguards. He explained how they would hold you down…” Sigvid’s voice lowers to a threatening growl, “to allow the king to do what he pleased. I felled one in a match and the other during training. They deserved their fates.” A smug grin cr eeps across his lips while he dazes off at a nondescript point over her shoulder.

Something dawns on her as she recalls his battle with Face, shuddering at the memories of Rendel.

“When you fought Face,” she steadies her breathing. “The men in my Arena box said you both fought over a woman, that she was a shared lover. Who was she? Is she the reason you are perpetually unhappy?”

He barks a laugh. “It was about you, not a shared lover. You, Avina.” All his attention is on her, forcing her to shift and avert her eyes to the dry skin of her hands.

“Why defend me? When we finally met, I knew I faced two fates at your grasp. You would slice off my head, or,” she licks her lips, “we would fall into a passionate embrace.” Ever so slowly, she lifts her head.“I don’t know what to make of you rescuing me.”

“Why must there be any hidden meaning in my actions?”

She coughs a chuckle. “Because I cannot decide if you wish to cause me pain or pleasure.”

He grips her by the throat and slams her up and onto the cot. This time, she notices his sneer and the faint flutter of his eyelids when she whimpers from his roughness.

“Know this, Avina, I will always give you both—the pleasure and the pain—because that is the beast I am.”

He squeezes her cheeks in his hand, pushing her pink lips out. His gaze rakes up and down her body, as his eyes stake claim over her thick curves, “It is long overdue for me to taste that sweet pussy of yours.”

She swallows but does not utter a word.

No one has ever done that to her. Oh, but she fantasizes about those raw sensations, especially with Sigvid. The feeling of his firm tongue lapping at her lips like a dying man ignites her with a heat that sears her skin.

He rolls away and returns with his black leather belt, pausing to no doubt watch the flickering of fear and arousal materialize on her expression.

Using the leather, he binds her wrists together before securing her to the cot’s frame. She struggles in vain through his restraint, but he still forces her knees apart, revealing her flushed womanhood.

Meeting her timid stare, he lowers himself between her legs. Her head drops back onto the coarse material of the cot. She yelps when his lips wrap around her bundle of nerves before his tongue dives into her lips, and he laps and groans in her wetness as if he is worshiping her body–as if she is a temple of reverence for the esteemed warrior.

The sensation of his braided beard rubbing against her sensitive skin deepens the passion he elicits from his tongue. His growls vibrate her sensitivity and tug a moan from her heaving chest. Back and forth, they trade noises of pleasure, which only enhance the sensations bursting at her apex.

Why have I gone so long without this in my life?

His machinations pivot to focus on her sweet spot. He sucks and pulls until she is writhing with an aching need. She cries out as her budding orgasm continues its ascent to what will assuredly be an explosion of bliss.

At the rapid rise and fall of her chest, he slaps his hand against the peak of her breasts. He takes one of her buds between his thumb and forefinger and alternates between pinching and softly rolling it until she wails.

He licks at her clit, exacerbating the distress wrecked on her nipple. She squirms against the bindings, not because she wishes to escape, but because feeling helpless to the Salt Prince enhances the tingles he wrecks over her tender body. When his tongue finally dives inside her hole, she moans an otherworldly sound as he forces her body to submit to his.

“Oh, my Goddess!” She groans, her hips gyrating against his tongue.

He pulls away to slip two fingers inside her wetness, pressing against the soft flesh of her walls.

“There are no gods here, Avina. When you can no longer control yourself,” he strokes her pleasure spot inside with his fingers, turning her into a mess of haggard breaths, “when you succumb to my mouth, my hands, or my cock, my fucking name should be the only one that crosses your lips.”

“Sigvid, please!”

“Cum for me, Avina.” He growls around her clit while his fingers slide in and out with a harsh swiftness that teeters her on the brink of oblivion .

She screams as her walls contract around his fingers. She bucks against the cot, her eyes rolling back into her head as her hips chase his tongue.

His name seeps into her blood like the only word she knows. The pleasure and pain mingle together, heightening her orgasm to another plane of existence where there is only him and her and this mind-altering phenomenon.

A primal growl reverberates against his chest when she finishes. He kneels over top of her, stroking his member, which is in a far different class than Rendel’s.

“I have to have you.” He flips Avina onto her stomach and mounts her as she cries out in assent.

He slips in between her legs until he embeds himself in her wet warmth. “Fuck.” he grabs a handful of her curls and pumps into her pussy. “Good. Fucking. Girl.” He grunts.

He pulls back until only the head of his cock dips inside. “Remember what I said. I will always give you both.”

She whimpers in anticipation. She is eager to savor more in only the way he can ravage her.

He strokes the curvature of her back before he grips her waist and slams into her so intensely that the entire cot shutters across the wet ground of his tent. His primal noises beckon goosebumps over her back while he wrecks her core.

If the Sigvid who venerated her womanhood with his tongue gave her the most powerful release of her life, this one loathed Avina as his adversary. Every thrust, every grunt, every pull of her curls is pure unadulterated hate.

He slows his momentum but stays sheathed in her. She can hear him rummaging, and the sound of his axe blade scraping against the side of the cot makes her squirm.

“There’s nothing quite like watching you struggle in my grasp.” His left hand cradles her neck while the cold steel tickles her shoulders. “I cannot allow you to run away again. You leave me no other choice. I must mark you.”

“Mark me?” Her lips quiver. He cannot possibly mean what she thinks he does .

“I will ensure everyone knows who you belong to.” Hips continue their chaotic rhythm as he still takes her from behind. The pressure of his rigid form keeps her pinned under his chest. He clutches her bound wrists in his merciless grasp and poises the tip of his axe over her left forearm.

Oh Goddess, no!

She screams as the sharpened tip tears against her skin until a jagged, three-stroked ‘S’ bleeds over his hand.

“Don’t you fucking dare, you Beast!” Adrenaline pulsates through her veins, and her breathing catches in her throat.

He does not respond to her panic and continues to slice an ‘I’ and then a ‘G’ into her flesh.

Tears of pain drip onto her arm, swirling with the bloody artwork he is gouging into her skin. Despite his erratic pounding, she grinds her teeth to keep from cumming on his cock.

How can this feel pleasurable?

“I hate you! You Goddess damned psycho!” The words are savage even if her fleshy walls massaging his cock are stoked by his axe, like dry kindling to a blazing inferno.

Sigvid slides the blade along her jaw, tilting her chin upward. “Watch your perfect fucking mouth.”

He resumes his delicate carving of the ‘V’ in his name. “Your Goddess cannot stop me. There is no use invoking her name.” The second ‘I’ is brief, leaving her breathless, and finally, the ‘D’ she takes with a heightened composure as if body mutilation is a common act she subjects herself to.

When he finishes, she twists her head to watch in horror as he licks her blood clean off the blade. He savors her blood with a primal grunt.

At last, he drops the weapon to the ground. She feels her heart restart, only for him to resume his assault on her wetness, causing the cot to recommence sliding across the ground.

“Why did you do this?” She cries no longer from the pain as the wounds are numb.

Only her fury remains at not only enjoying his sick carving session but that he forced her into heightened arousal so powerful that she needed to stop the climax of several orgasms. Never in her life has she twisted her mind to halt her sexual relief.

But she will be damned if she gave him the satisfaction of knowing she enjoyed it.

“You tried to run from me. Attempted to die to get away.” He bites her neck, his tone eerily calm, considering what he did moments ago. “I cannot allow this, little Queen, and if you manage to escape my grasp, everyone must know you belong to me.”

“I will never belong to you. You’re a heartless Beast.” She spits.

“You misunderstand.” His lips press against her temple. “I will repeat this process until my name scars your flawless skin. And until you cannot escape my mark on your life. No other man, woman, or god awaits you. I will never let you go.”

He brushes her sweaty hair aside. His lips brush the shell of her ear. “And I have been called worse than a heartless Beast.”

His hand tickles between her legs.

“No.” She whimpers, knowing if he touches her there, she will come undone. His fingertips massage the bundle of nerves of her swollen cunt. She grinds her teeth, urging her body to resist.

“I am impressed you managed to edge that tight pussy while I signed my name in your flesh, little one. For that, I will permit you to cum.” He licks her cheek.

“B-But I don’t want to. Not for you.” She sobs.

“You have no choice. You will cum for me. You will scream my name again. Do you know why, you fucking beautiful slut?”

“W-why?” Her bottom lip quivers.

His fingers smash down on her clit, and she screams. Her walls collapse in the most explosive orgasm of her life. Convulsions take her entire body, and she seems to float in an out-of-body experience. Her lips utter his name in a jumbled mess of Sigvids.

“Such a good slut responding to your master. Fuck, Avina, you make a perfect whore.”

She collapses onto the cot, barely coherent, while he unties and dresses her in a fresh oversized tunic and trousers closer to her size.

In her hazy daze, she is vaguely aware of him cleaning her wound and wrapping it in fresh cloth. Finally, he walks her into the moonless night.

“Sit on the log, there, by the fire.” He commands.

“Queen Avina,” Grim bows to her while she settles, adjusting the cloak around her shoulders.

Sigvid takes a bowl and spoons and then heaps helpings of stew from the cauldron suspended over the smoldering embers.

“Here,” a large wooden bowl, warm with soup, settles in her hands. “I need you to eat more than your fill. The winters in Salt are more brutal than me.”

Sigvid’s domineering form towers over her with his arms crossed. Only after her second bite does she truly dig in.

This stew is the best meal I have ever tasted.

Her meal is interrupted when Sigvid grabs Grim by the shoulder and jerks him away. She shifts seats and continues to shovel spoonfuls while she listens.

“... she possesses the ability of invisibility.”

“What?” Grim yells.

Sigvid shushes him in time for Avina to spill a spoonful of broth down her front.

“How could she have received anything when the Salt Province destroyed the Ridge stone?” Grim’s whisper is incredulous.

Sigvid shakes his head. “No, it is very much alive. She is Ridge-born and can receive the stone’s gifts regardless of location.”

“I thought their powers are wisdom-based?” Grim looks over at her as she makes a point to slurp her soup loudly, avoiding their stares.

She must look undignified.

“They are. I once thought her powers were extinct. I still have my theories, but do not let her out of your sight or allow her to remove her clothes. I need to meet with my Inner Circle. Please watch her until I return.”

“Of course.” Grim nods.

Sigvid sweeps past the fire.

At first, Avina wonders if he will leave her without another word until he lingers by her log. He appears utterly unmoved by anything that has transpired.

“Do not mistake my relief for your life as tolerance of your actions in trying to die. You will taste the lick of my belt when we reach my home in Toftlund.”

“Why not now?” She tilts her head so her curls cascade over her shoulder.

“I am overdue for a reunion with my Inner Circle-”

“Inner Circle?” Is that like her Council?

“They are those I trust explicitly for their judgment, even if it differs from mine. But that is not the point, Avina! If you decide on another romp through the forest, know this,” he leans down, his breath raising goosebumps along her neck. “I will carve my name into every crevice of your body until you cannot move without feeling the effects of my blade on that delicate skin. Do I make myself fucking clear?”

“Crystal.” She whispers.