Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

Rhio set aside his weapons, sat on the bed and slung a heavy arm around her shoulders. “I told him I found the body of the slave called Dancer in the Queen’s quarters.” At her strangled gasp, he hugged her into his side, kissed her hair. “Steady, there. Dancer’s dead; Amae lives. Right?”

Gulping, she nodded.

The deep voice went on. “Dancer was poisoned by prettydeath in the massage oil

intended for use on the Queen. Given that a slave is of no importance, we disposed of the body immediately, as a courtesy. Naturally, Her Majesty has informed the

Ambassador-Pasha of this shocking and unfortunate turn of events.” A short pause.

“Sethril understood.”

“Oh.”

Rhio stripped and slid into bed beside her, warm and solid.

“Rhio, do you think . . . ? I mean, right now, this very minute, they’re—Oh, gods.”

He rose on one elbow to lean over her, his face very stern. “Apart from the matter of your death, I told no untruth. It’s in their hands now, Amae, not yours. They committed the crimes. This is the gods’ justice.”

Hot chills danced up and down her spine, lightly as a breeze across the desert sand. “I feel the spirits of my Ancestors, watching.” She’d always known hers would be a brutal, bloody death, made bearable only by the accomplishment of her vengeance. She’d never realized justice would be so different, much colder, more impersonal—infinitely more shocking.

“I don’t want to think about it.” Amae ran her hands over his shoulders. “Make me forget, Rhio. Please?”

They came together slowly, quietly, learning tastes and textures. Amae luxuriated in the leisurely exploration, all that toned and muscled flesh at her disposal. Slithering down his body, she licked and nuzzled, conscious she was showing off, but wanting so badly to make it good for him, the best he’d ever have. In the process, she discovered fascinating things about Captain Rhiomard. His nipples were sensitive, drawing up into small hard peaks under her avid tongue. He was ticklish around the ribs, but he wouldn’t admit it, no matter what she tried. Kisses across the belly, hot breath in the notch between hip and thigh—all these increased his arousal, thickening that beautiful cock.

Amae lavished it with kisses, loving the smoothness of the domed head with its weeping slit like a little mouth. Heated velvet against her eager lips. She trailed kitten licks down to the base, dragged the flat of her tongue back up. Rhio lay tense beneath her, his hands fisted in the bedclothes.

No more teasing. Amae drew him into the warm wet cavern of her mouth, loving the tremors he wasn’t able to suppress. He was so hot, so musky. Alive. She set up a strong suction, lashing the sweet spot under the head on every pass, stroking his balls with her fingertips.

Rhio grasped her shoulder. “Close,” he grunted. “Fuck, if you don’t want—”

Smiling to herself, Amae drew a breath and relaxed her throat. On the next suck, she swallowed him to the root.

Rhio’s hips rose, his shaft swelling against the roof of her mouth, pulsing with intimations of the spasms to come. When he hauled her away to spurt on his belly, she discovered to her surprise she was disappointed. She’d wanted to do that for him as well.

He stared up at the ceiling, his chest heaving. “Godsdammit, woman, you’re going to kill me.”

Delighted, she chuckled deep in her throat.

“Back in a minute.” He padded off to the bath chamber, satisfaction in every line of him.

On his return, he drew her into his arms and proceeded to kiss her into a drugged stupor.

Once she was suitably boneless, he compounded the crime by teasing her breasts with his mouth while he danced his fingers up and down her vulva, soothing and stroking over the slick folds, never quite providing the pressure she craved.

She was reduced to pulling his hair and swearing, which made him chuckle. Mercifully, he slid his thumb inside her, while he bracketed her tingling clitoris between two fingers.

The gentle pincer movement drove her insane. Coupled with the divine suckling

sensation on her nipple, it coalesced into a starburst of a climax, white lights flashing behind her eyes and ending with a long sweet shudder of completion.

By the Ancestors, it was good!

Amae yawned, curling into his body, hooking one slender leg over his muscled calf.

She was sinking toward sleep, her body still humming, when a remarkable thought

occurred to her. This must be what happiness was, this bone-deep content.

How extraordinary.

Nine

The screams began in the early hours before dawn. Not a man’s voice, but a woman’s.

Then a babble of voices, running feet.

Rhio stamped into his boots, buckled his sword belt. “Stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Half an hour later, he appeared at the door, his expression unreadable. “The Shar are avenged.” His jaw clenched. “Do you want to see the bodies?”

“Yes.” Amae tugged at her hair. “No. ’Cestors’ bones, just tell me.”

“A slave girl found them when she went to light the fire in the Ambassador’s sitting room. The place was a shambles, every stick of furniture broken. Giral must have thrashed around for hours. I could only find one scratch, on his forearm. Sethril was in the corner, in a pool of blood. I counted more than a dozen wounds, but in the end, he slashed his own wrists.”

Amae choked on the sour bile rising in her throat. “He escaped the diabloman.”

He touched her hair. “Do you feel better now?”

“No. It’s strange, I thought I would. Neither of them deserved a warrior’s death, but it’s still . . . horrible.”

Rhio searched her face. The hard line of his mouth relaxed. “Pack up everything you need. And don’t forget this.” He tossed her the chain-mail corset. “We’re riding out this afternoon, as soon as I’ve cleaned up this mess and briefed Yachi.”

“Riding out? Where?”

His eyes twinkled. “I’m taking a small troop out to the Cressy Plains. Her Majesty has a mission for me there.”

A few hours later, Captain Rhiomard signed the last of his orders, leaving