Chapter 281: Recovery Claim (1)

Kane shoved the limp weight off himself and tried to stand.

The first attempt failed. The second got him to one knee. The third, swaying, bleeding freely from thigh, ribs, chest, and face, put him on his feet in the center of the dark stone circle.

He stayed there, breathing in wet, shallow pulls, Controlled Rage still humming at a dangerous edge, and looked up at the high seat.

Grathak was smiling, wide, unhinged, and thoroughly entertained.

The overseer’s voice carried across the sudden quiet.

"Second Measure complete. The outsider remains standing. Final wave submitted."

Kane spat a mouthful of blood onto the stone, forced the Rage back down to zero, and immediately felt every injury flood back in full.

His left leg nearly buckled. He locked it through pure refusal and remained upright while attendants finally rushed the floor with cloths, elixirs, and stretchers for the fallen.

On the terraces the recalculation was no longer reluctant.

It was open. Even some of the pure-blood warriors watched him now with the flat, professional respect reserved for something that simply would not break when it was supposed to.

Marisa reached the edge of the circle as Kane took his first limping step toward the exit.

Her eyes moved over the blood still running from the thigh, the long cut along his ribs, the way his breathing stayed carefully shallow. For once the political mask was thin.

Kane met her gaze and gave a red-stained, tired curve of the mouth.

"Still standing."

Marisa’s voice was low and tight.

"Barely. And he is pleased. That means the Third Measure will be worse."

Kane limped the last stretch of corridor with blood still seeping through the fresh bandages.

The attendants had cleaned and bound the worst of it, thigh stitched and wrapped, the long cut along his ribs closed with elixir and tight cloth, facial cuts sealed, but every step still pulled at the more serious damage.

Controlled Rage was gone. Only stubbornness and the system’s slow background repair kept him upright.

Marisa walked beside him in silence until they reached the door of his chamber.

She opened it, guided him inside, and closed it firmly behind them.

The moment the latch clicked, Kane turned.

He caught her by the waist, pulled her hard against him, and kissed her with none of the measured testing of the road.

This was raw, open-mouthed, tasting of blood and leftover adrenaline.

Marisa answered it at once, hands fisting in his shirt. Kane walked her backward until her shoulders hit the stone wall, never breaking the kiss, and only then pulled back enough to speak against her mouth.

"Clothes off. Now."

Marisa’s eyes were already dark.

She dragged the formal wrap down her shoulders and let it fall. Her breasts spilled free, nipples tight in the cooler air of the chamber.

Kane spun her before she could fully step out of the rest, shoved the remaining fabric up over her hips, and bent her forward with a firm hand between her shoulder blades.

She braced both palms against the wall. Kane freed himself, dragged the head of his cock through the slickness already gathering between her thighs, and pushed in to the hilt in one hard thrust.

Ah!Hah!Agh!

Marisa’s breath left her in a sharp, bitten-off sound.

Kane set a brutal rhythm from the first stroke, deep, punishing, hips slamming against the soft curve of her ass hard enough to drive her higher onto her toes.

Pla-plap...Plap-plap...

One hand locked on her hip; the other slid up, fingers closing lightly around the front of her throat, not crushing, just holding, feeling every swallow and every restrained moan.

Blood from his reopened thigh wound began to trickle down his leg again.

He ignored it.

"Quiet," he growled against her ear, still thrusting. "Palace has ears."

Marisa nodded once, forehead pressed to the stone, and locked the sounds down to tight, controlled exhales.

Her cunt was already clenching around him in greedy waves.

Kane fucked her harder, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the chamber, his bleeding thigh painting dark streaks against the back of her leg.

"Eeh!"

The angle let him go deep enough that each thrust forced a small, involuntary sound past her control.

"You came here to check injuries," he said, voice rough. "This is how you check."

Marisa’s fingers curled against the wall.

"You’re still bleeding, you idiot—"

Kane’s hand on her throat tightened a fraction. He drove in harder, grinding against the deepest point inside her until her knees threatened to buckle.

"Then heal me properly."

He pulled out without warning, spun her again, and backed toward the bed, dragging her with him.

Kane sat heavily, ribs screaming protest, and pulled her onto his lap. Marisa needed no further instruction. She straddled him, reached down, guided him back to her entrance, and sank onto his cock in one smooth, greedy drop.

The new angle punched a broken sound out of her that she barely swallowed in time.

She rode him hard.

No elegant rolling or careful political restraint.

Marisa braced her hands on his shoulders, careful of the worst bruises, and fucked herself down onto him with short, powerful strokes that made her breasts bounce and slap against his chest.

Kane’s hands locked on her ass and helped every drop, pulling her down to meet his upward thrusts.

Blood from his various cuts smeared between them.

The filthy sound of her cunt taking him over and over filled the quiet room.

"Look at you," Kane muttered, watching her face. "Emperor’s sister, bouncing on a bleeding barbarian’s cock like you need it to breathe."

Marisa’s eyes flashed.

She answered by grinding down harder, circling her hips at the bottom of every stroke so the head of his cock rubbed ruthlessly against the spot that made her thighs shake.

Her breath came in short, controlled bursts through her nose. A thin sheen of sweat already slicked the valley between her breasts.

Kane sat up farther, ignoring the sharp pull across his damaged ribs, and took one full breast into his mouth.

He sucked hard, teeth grazing the nipple, while Marisa kept riding him with increasing urgency. Her cunt fluttered and clenched in rising waves. He felt the exact moment she started to tip over.

"Don’t you dare stop," she whispered, almost angry. "I’m—A-ah... h-hah... n-nn..."

She came with a long, shaking, nearly silent moan that she buried against the top of his head, body locking tight around him.

Kane kept thrusting up through it, forcing her through the pulses until she was trembling and oversensitive.

Only then did he wrap both arms around her and turn them, putting her on her back without ever leaving the tight heat of her body.