Ascension to the Lost Throne novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Cottage Door
Marina comes to the outcast cottage and they come together in anger; shapes gather at the fence.
The outcast cottage stood at the valley's east edge, a stone mile-marker house nobody had slept in for years.
Jude lit the stove with his back to the door.
He had walked the two miles in silence, and his wife had walked behind him with her canvas bag.
She had not caught up.
She had not said a word.
The hall had given them a bag of flour, a blanket, and the key.
Jude put the war blade on the table and sat down on the single chair.
He stared at the stove door and listened to the wood catch.
The latch lifted behind him at dusk.
Marina came in with her coat soaked through at the shoulders and stood on the threshold.
"You let go of my hand," he said without turning.
"I did."
"In front of him."
"Yes."
"Say why."
"Because Tobin had the gate keys in his other fist," Marina said.
"If I walked out beside you, he would have locked us out of the valley road with riders at both ends."
"He wanted you angry and trapped."
"I made him think I was his, for a minute, so he would open it."
Jude turned the chair.
She stood very straight with her wet hair coming loose.
She was thirty-one years old, a nurse with steady hands, and in four years of marriage he had never once seen her afraid.
Her mouth shook now.
"You could have said so," he said.
"Not with him looking."
"Not with the whole yard looking."
He stood.
The cottage was one room, and it took him two steps to reach her.
He took her chin in his scarred hand and tilted her face up.
"I stood in that hall and lost eight votes," he said.
"I lost the only home I had."
"And the worst of it was your hand going."
"I know," she whispered.
"Then show me where it belongs."
Marina pulled the pins from her hair and let it fall.
Then she took hold of his coat with both fists and dragged his mouth down to hers.
She tasted of rain and of the tea she drank on her break.
He kissed her, hard and without any manners.
She made a low sound against his lips, and her hands went under his coat to his ribs.
He got her out of the wet coat and let it drop.
He pulled her blouse open at the front so fast a button hit the stove.
She laughed, breathless, and then she stopped laughing because he had his mouth on her throat.
"Jude," she said.
"Yes."
"Take the rest of it off me."
He lifted her by the backs of her thighs and set her on the edge of the table, next to the sword.
He pushed her skirt to her waist and found her already wet through her underwear.
"You've been thinking about this since the gate," he said against her ear.
"I've been thinking about it since you put the ring down," she said.
"You looked like you could break the whole room."
He dragged her underwear down her legs and dropped it on the floor.
She opened her knees for him without being told.
He went down on his knees on the stone and put his mouth on her pussy.
He licked her slow and flat from the bottom to her clit.
Marina cried out and grabbed a handful of his hair.
"Don't stop."
He did not.
He circled her clit with his tongue and sucked at it until her thighs began to shake against his shoulders.
He pushed two fingers into her and curled them, and she bucked.
"Jude, I'm going to."
"Then do it."
She came with a broken noise, her heels hammering the table leg.
He kept his mouth on her through every pulse of it.
Only when she went limp did he stand and wipe his mouth on the back of his hand.
Her eyes were glassy and bright.
She reached for his belt.
"Now you," she said.
She had his cock out in her hand before he could answer.
She stroked him from root to tip, and he let his head fall back and swore at the ceiling.
Then she pulled him between her knees and wrapped her legs around his hips.
"Inside me," she said.
"Now."
He pushed into her slowly, an inch at a time, and watched her face.
She was tight and hot, and she gripped him.
When he was all the way in she dug her nails into his back.
"Move."
He moved.
He fucked her hard and steadily, with his hands under her ass, pulling her onto him on every stroke.
The table creaked.
The sword slid an inch across the wood and she did not notice.
"Harder," she said.
"Jude, harder."
He gave it to her.
The sound of their skin filled the little room.
She kissed his mouth, his jaw, the scar on his collarbone.
Then she bit his shoulder and came again around his cock with her whole body locked.
That undid him.
He drove into her twice more, deep, and came with a groan, spilling inside her while she held on.
They stayed there with her forehead on his chest and the stove ticking.
"I love you," she said into his coat.
"Whatever happens, I want you to remember I said that."
He frowned and kissed her hair.
"Nothing is going to happen," he said.
Outside, every dog in the valley began to bark at once.
Jude lifted his head.
Through the cottage window, in the last grey light, dark shapes were climbing the fence.
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