A Savage Debt (The Beholden Duet #1) - Zoey Ellis Page 0,40
spine. Her mind returned to their kiss, desire rising for another one, and suddenly she had something to ask. “Do you have a wife?”
“No.”
“Did you have a wife?”
Maddoc’s glanced down at her with a strange look. “No.”
“So you just have whores that you have sex with?”
Maddoc propped himself up on his elbow as he watched her. For the first time, there was a smile in his dark eyes. “You are concerned about whom I fuck.”
“No,” Ana shot back at him. “I’m just trying to determine how many diseases I’ve probably caught from you.”
His beard twitched. “If I fuck animals, you have already caught a multitude of fatal illnesses. There’s no point in trying to figure that out now.”
Ana scowled as Maddoc lay back down with a chuckle, pulling her to his hard chest. “What do you really want to know, Analisa?”
She thought for a moment. “Did you send those men to attack Father?”
“No.”
She glanced up at him. “How did you know about the attack, then?”
“We were watching them. They weren’t familiar to Allandis and I wanted to know what they were doing here.”
Ana swallowed slowly. For Maddoc to be watching them, he would have to have men all over Allandis. That was almost unbelievable considering how big the kingdom was. “Why did you save Father?”
“I explained that in court.”
She pursed her lips thinking back to the court hearing. “He could have killed you as soon as you arrived here, before knowing anything about the debt. Why did you risk it?”
“If Orick killed me as soon as I arrived, he wouldn’t be able to revel in the glory he would get from declaring me a criminal in front of his precious court. Killing me quietly is not his style—I knew it wouldn’t happen.”
Ana suddenly realized that Maddoc called her father by his name. Never “His Majesty,” or even “the king.” He hated her father that much? She shook her head slowly at the animosity between the two men. Even if Maddoc hated her father, any man with that much power outside of the royal assembly could do so much good, and yet Maddoc chose not to. “Why are you doing this?” she asked quietly. “Why are you so willing to destroy my life specifically? I know you don’t care about the hurt you cause across the kingdom, I know you don’t care about the towns you sacked, and I know you don’t care about the royals. But why me—specifically?”
“Your life will not be destroyed.”
“You know it will,” she snapped, annoyed he was still treating her like an idiot. “You don’t care because you don’t value it, like you don’t value anything. You think I’m a fool and an idiot who doesn’t—”
Maddoc leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers in a rough, hard kiss. Instantly, the anger that was building turned into a fierce, savage hunger. Maddoc kissed her like he fucked her—deep, volatile, and dominating, yet there were moments that were so sweetly tender, it left Ana breathless. He played with her nipples until she was moaning into his mouth, begging for release. Within moments, Maddoc had her on his cock, riding him while he pulled her head back and sucked her neck, her ear, her breasts, anywhere he could reach, before returning his tongue to her mouth.
Their mating had a different mood to it now. It was still frantic and raw and carnal, but now there was a stormy, irresistible feel to it that hadn’t been there before… and Ana was powerless against it.
When Ana woke again, she was pinned under Maddoc’s arm and leg. She lay still, quieting her thoughts, and trying to figure out what she was supposed to do now. She clearly failed in her attempt to withhold her emotions, although she succeeded in withholding her purr. But in the end, she had done something far worse—and now everything between them felt different. She didn’t like it.
Even though Mother had advised her to withhold things that made her vulnerable, the purpose was to try to control him with it, to try to get information out of him. But she just couldn’t see how.
She sighed and slowly crept out of bed. Heading over to the table, she drank her fill of the water, eying the plates of food. He’d left the food untouched this time, too concerned with fucking her when he first arrived, but that didn’t mean he still didn’t bring whatever he used last time. Ana padded over to the pile of his clothes, and