Yorwrath returned while I was staring at one couple in particular, an elf and a human. They were in a tight embrace as they danced to the music the band played. The elf kept whispering to the human girl, making her blush crimson and from time to time hide her face against his chest. I didn’t notice Yorwrath setting a cup of wine beside me as he sipped his. The sound of the wood hitting wood made me jump and turn my attention back to him. He looked so handsome by the firelight. Those amazing irises of his shone like polished gold as he stared down at me. The red-brown color they originally were was represented in a mere thread that looked like a trail of blood. It remained a reminder of what I had done—that I saved his life, and how I saved his life. I sipped the wine and instantly tasted the floral note of wormwood hidden among the cinnamon and clove.
Fantastic, no wonder Grwn likes it.
Wormwood intensified the effects of alcohol. The rumor among teenagers that it could make you hallucinate was complete rubbish. After a quick sip, I set the cup back down.
“Don’t like it?”
“It has wormwood in it. I wonder how many of these couples are going to be at the door tomorrow asking for fisher’s root tea?” My attention drifted over the couples dancing close. A few of the ones at the tables were making out hard, their kisses audible even over the loud lick of the flames.
“Less than you think.” Yorwrath drained the cup. “Most are here because they want a family, Dy’ne. Even if their men or women only come round once or twice a year to bring them strawberries from the forests.” His gaze traveled over my face, “Are you going to finish that?” He gestured with his chin toward my cup, and I shook my head.
“So they all live double lives?” I asked as Yorwrath started sipping from my cup. I took it from him and nursed it a little, while he drummed his fingers on the table to the sides of my hips.
“Yes, I saw one of my lieutenants arrive this morning. Goatfucker plowing near pissed himself when he watched me leave your shop. This is someone who I know to be just as horrible as I am. Just last spring I watched him torch a guard’s farm with the children locked inside. He has sixteen half-elven children, six-fucking-teen. At first, I thought his home was a plowing orphanage or something, there were so many brats running around.” He shook his head.
“Jealous?” I asked, raising a brow, as he took a large swallow from my wine cup.
“The fuck would I be jealous, Dy’ne?”
“Haven’t you wondered what it would be like to have someone to come home to in the winter?”
My question made him still. The couples around us had disappeared except for one, who had decided the middle of the square was as good a place as any. The couple with the blushing human girl and the elf who had whispered to her all night were making love on a table only a handful of feet from us. Yorwrath finished the wine and set the empty cup down, and his eyes darted around. The innkeeper had left. Linen banners in orange and gold billowed in the wind, drawing my attention to the Wicker Man, who was now a smoldering ember skeleton. The hay had all burned away, leaving only the wooden scaffolding and the charred humanoid shapes in their midst.
A chill settled into the air with the loss of the fire of the Wicker Man. And I pulled the hood of my cloak over the garland as the couple near us continued their horizontal dance and their moans filled the night air. I glanced at Yorwrath.
“Well, Champion, I believe it’s time to head home.”
“Too cold for you, Dy’ne?”
“No, but it’s getting there.”
“You could always let me warm you.”
“No offense to near company, but exhibitionism was never quite my style.”
“I don’t seem to recall you denying Aneurin in a decidedly more public display. Are you really saying that if I slid my hand under that skirt, I wouldn’t find you wet, hot, and oh so willing?” Those words spoken in that dark tone of his made my cheeks hot with blush and my throat parched beyond belief. I swallowed hard and sighed.
“That was different. He was claiming me.” I raised my eyes to his.
“The fire’s there, Dy’ne.” He nodded toward the smoldering Wicker Man.
Our gazes locked.
Clearly that wine hit me harder than I thought.
I shook my head and furrowed my brows a bit.
“I won’t be your whore, Yorwrath.”
“I don’t want you to be my whore,” he gnarled, leaning forward before kissing me hard. He folded over me as he forced me back against the table. My thighs parted for him eagerly as he pressed his hips to mine. As we continued to kiss and bite each other ferociously I locked my ankles behind him. “If you were a whore I would have had you already.” He purred against my throat as his kisses trailed down my neck. “On the road as I kept you warm at night.” He bit my throat, and my breath caught as my back arched off the table, and I clawed at the leather of his jerkin. “The first night in your shop.” His hips relaxed against me some, and I knew he was unlacing his trousers. My body throbbed with impatient need. “Trust me, if I thought you a whore, I had plenty of opportunities to have you. Willing or not.”
“Then say it,” I whispered as his slid his hands up my thighs, hiking up my skirt and exposing my sex to the frigid open air. He hesitated, and it was his turn for his brows to furrow. I kicked at him. “That’s what I thought. Move.”
“No.”
“Liar!” I grabbed the cup by my hand and threw it at his head. The thin, cheap wood splintered and our struggle ensued. It was “ours” because we were fighting ourselves as much as each other. I kicked him and was able to use my hips to roll him off the table with me. He landed on his back in the dirt with a wince with me on top of him.
A moment of concern made me pause, and he took that time to grab my wrists. “Say—” He sat up and kissed me hard, eating away at my words before he flipped me to my back. He pulled back and shook his head, and I slapped him hard enough that my hand left a big, red, angry print across his cheek. A growl rumbled in his throat, and I couldn’t stop myself from squealing with delight as again he eased back from me in another attempt to sheathe himself inside me. I scrambled from him giggling as I ran closer to the ash and burning embers at the foot of the Wicker Man’s skeleton. He tackled me to the ground from behind. “Say it,” I half laughed–half moaned, as he slid one hand between my thighs while the other closed around my waist. “Fine!” I jerked myself to the left as the wind blew the ash and embers about us like snowflakes.
“You’re learning.” He panted as he grabbed me again. “But you’re still not fast enough, Dy’ne,” he roared, flipping me onto my back. My heart was pounding, and my muscles were growing tired. Honestly, I couldn’t keep up the playful struggle much longer.
“Just say it.”
“Why do you want to hear those words so badly?”
“Because I want to know I’m more than just another piece in your collection. The Vanotta edition with big tits.”
“You plowing well know you’re more than that,” he gnarred. He seemed a little angry, and I took advantage of it and flipped him again. The ash rose around us like a cloud when his back hit the dirt. I straddled his hips.
“Just say it,” I whispered as I reached behind myself and slowly lifted up a bit before I sheathed his thick length within my folds with a breathy moan. “Say it,” I whispered again as I shifted my hips.
“I don’t have to say anything now, Dy’ne. You’re given me exactly what I want.” He groaned as I started to ride him as slow as I possibly could. As I reached up and closed my hand over his throat, our gazes met again.
“Who said I’d let you finish?” I practically cackled, and he slid his hands up my thighs.
“Your thighs are shaking. You’re not going to be able to ride me to completion regardless, pretty Dy’ne.”
Fuck you for calling my bluff.
He stared up at me, watching me writhe astride him with my lips parted and my sex stretched tight around that rigid flesh that speared into me. I continued to use my hand at his throat for leverage, but he didn’t seem to mind—my muscles were already fatigued, and he was far from it. The wind kicked up the embers again, and in the dust all I could see were his eyes, as the heat from the dying fire and our exertions caused our bodies to glisten with sweat that the ash and dust stuck to.
Regardless of his assertion, his breathing still deepened as I continued my slow, steady undulations. Looking deep into my eyes he continued to trace his hands up and down my thighs. Beside us, the embers of what was left of the Wicker Man started to rise and fall with Yorwrath’s ragged, desperate breaths.
“Say it,” I hissed as a moan broke from his lips, digging his strong fingers into my thighs.
“Fuck.”
“Say it!” I growled. He gasped, and the Wicker Man beside us flared so brightly for a moment that I couldn’t see as my eyes fought to adjust. He flipped me on my back, knelt between my thighs, and pulled me on to his lap by my hair. As my vision came back to me, all I could see was the smirk on those pink lips of his as he forcefully slammed his body into me with one hand still wound in my hair.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. That hurts.
There was no pleasure in having your hair pulled in such a forceful manner. But feeling him fill me and stretch me made my toes curl in delight.
“I love you. Is that what you fucking wanted to hear?” He groaned through gritted teeth as he gave my hair one last hard yank and finished inside me. “I love you. I fucking love you.” He chanted to the wind and the raging fire as he twitched within me. I roared with frustration and punched his shoulders as my body clenched down on him and he laughed. “Happy?” he whispered, as he released my hair and cradled his arms under my bottom.
“You’re fucking evil.”
“No, not really. In fact, I’m going to show you just how good I am, Dy’ne,” he chuckled as he stood with me in his arms while he was still sheathed deep within me. He carried me across the square to my shop. That couple who had been in the midst of coupling when we started were staring at us wide-eyed as Yorwrath opened the door to the shop. I watched them stare dumb and frozen through the windows as he locked the door and took me upstairs.
“I think we scared that poor couple.”
“You were the one who broke the damn cup over my head.” He snickered as he walked me to my bedroom and threw me onto the feather mattress. He grabbed the candle on the nightstand and pinched the wick, and it sprang to life with a small flame. A small gasp took my throat, and as my gaze and attention were focused elsewhere, he pushed my skirt up and knelt between my thighs. His hot breath on my damp thighs made me quiver. He licked a long slow line between the lips of my sex, ripping my attention from the flame as I gasped and moaned. It was my turn to pull his hair as he worked my sex with his diligent tongue. My feet rested on his shoulders as he reached his hands up and parted the lips of my sex. He sucked his seed from me, making me arch off the bed and contort with every new pass of his tongue across my needy pearl and between my sensitive, delicate inner lips.
“We’re quite tasty, Dy’ne,” he half grunted.
“Fuck!
Merda! Fottere!
Fuck!” I cursed in both common and Vanotti as I yanked handfuls of his hair. My whole body was trembling as he purposefully circled his tongue over my nub as slowly as possible. And then I came, with him chuckling darkly between my thighs…which closed around his head as best as they could as my body bowed off the bed. Then, as my body spasmed and contorted, he lapped at me with such speed that his tongue practically vibrated against me. It made my whole being explode with a sensation that didn’t seem to want to stop. Every time I thought he would let up, he only paused for a handful of moments and started again, making my body jump off the mattress.
When he finally finished tormenting me, my body was still shuddering. He wiped his mouth off on the hem of my dress and moved to lie beside me.
“Mm, there’s nothing more satisfying than knowing I can do this to you, Dy’ne.” He purred happily, stroking his hand down the center of my body. I collapsed back against the pillow, and he kissed my neck before pulling me close, as we both panted in the soft, dim candlelight. Our fingers entwined, and I sighed happily in his arms.
“It would be nice to have someone to bring me strawberries at midsummer,” I breathed softly, and he twisted to look down at me with a smile on his usually grave lips.
Winter 1356
The room was so hot from the steaming bath that the air fogged the windows. Resting my hands on the copper edge, I stroked my thumbs idly along the warm metal. I could feel those hoofbeats and see that rider heading that massive pack of wolves as I lay in the fragrant water. Pungent floral incense danced smoky patterns to the drafts as I stared blank-faced at the room before me. Everything was on fire, but nothing burned. It was a vision of sorts, like those hoofbeats. It was something that was or would be, but all the same, as I lay in the water, it wasn’t real. Those flames that lapped and licked greedily at the wooden walls weren’t really there; even though I could almost feel the dry heat of it baking my flesh as I soaked.
A sigh slipped steadily between my supple lips as I surrendered to what I saw. It was nothing, just fire. I never saw the cause of it, but I always saw it burn. I’d done it enough in the last few weeks that I knew that, if I looked out of the window onto the square, instead of the towering immaculately tended evergreens there’d be a shrine and a pyre of the Dawn. But it really wasn’t there, like those hoofbeats I could practically feel thudding the ground weren’t really there either.
The door opened, and the draft blew out the candles and the incense; with it went that fire that wasn’t actually there. Yorwrath stood in the doorway in his new, close-fitting gambeson. The dark fabric hugged his body close, showing off that lithe, elven tightness. His hair had grown a little long in the front and now looked like Aneurin’s when we first met. Those pointed, almost white ears poked through his dark hair, and for the first time I noticed the tiny silver loop in his right earlobe. He didn’t dress so wild anymore. The well-used armor he wore when he came into town sat in a trunk at the foot of the bed along with that blood-dyed bandanna that had oxidized to brown.