For answer Ufalla kissed her hard on the mouth and moved her hand between Jestia's legs. Jestia bit her on the lip then muttered that she was sorry. Ufalla just kept kissing her, not put off in the slightest. She wanted to please Jestia. She figured this was a one-time thing and that being the case she was going to enjoy every minute of it, take her time and do it right.
* * *
Jestia had no idea how long they'd made love, she only knew it was dark now and that it wasn't supposed to be like this. Not with her clinging to Ufalla begging for just a few more minutes and Ufalla insisting they needed to get up and get dressed before someone noticed they were missing.
Jestia wrapped herself more tightly around Ufalla and for the moment Ufalla having given up the argument was just holding her and stroking her head and . . . Well what did it mean that she'd been with dozens of men and that while she had found them amusing and somewhat pleasurable that it had never been anything approaching this? Her whole body was still humming and she just couldn't get close enough to Ufalla no matter what she did.
She wasn't supposed to be feeling anything except maybe satisfaction at a job well done. She just couldn't change the dream, and that being the case she'd just wanted to give her dearest friend the one thing Ufalla wanted most in the world,
her
. She had been willing to give herself to her friend. It was supposed to be the ultimate sacrifice, not the most amazing sex she'd ever had in her life.
"Jestia, seriously, if we don't show up soon someone, maybe the whole camp, is going to come looking for us, do you want them to find us like this?"
"I seriously don't care, Ufalla. I just . . . I need to be with you right now."
"Jestia . . . Not that I'm complaining, but what the hell has gotten into you?"
"I just need you. Can't I just hold you, can't you just hold me?"
"I am holding you. I want you to hold me. I'd happily lie here naked with you 'til we both died of cold or hunger," Ufalla said. "But they aren't going to let us do that because sooner probably than later someone's going to notice we're missing and come looking for us."
"You're right," Jestia said grudgingly. "Kiss me again." She did and then Jestia really didn't want to let go.
"Jestia," Ufalla said with a laugh.
"Oh I know." She grudgingly untangled herself from Ufalla and they started to dress. They gathered their things and headed back for camp.
She took hold of Ufalla's arm, making it harder for Ufalla to carry the pile of stuff she had in her arms, but Ufalla didn't complain. She just looked down at her and asked, "Jestia . . . are we, are you and I . . . are we going to make love again sometime?"
"Sometime?" Jestia laughed, resting her head on Ufalla's shoulder. "I'd knock you into the dirt right now with everyone watching and we'd do it again right now if I didn't think every Jethrikian in the camp would die from the shock."
Jestia didn't want these words to keep spilling out of her mouth; she just didn't seem to be able to stop herself.
"Come on, let's put this stuff away and go get something to eat. I'm starving," Ufalla said.
Jestia nodded willingly following her.
* * *
When the last pair came in and all had been accounted for, none had found a thing. Which meant they'd be doing the exact same thing the next day.
Kasiria watched Jestia and Ufalla walking towards them and saw they were holding hands. She whispered in Jabone's ear, "It looks like Jestia and Ufalla have made up."
He looked, smiled and said, "Good."
"I do hope Jestia's not going to say anything more about . . . Well you know."
He laughed at her, no doubt because although she had been more than willing to do it she wasn't willing to even talk about it. The two girls grabbed bowls of stew and hunks of bread and sat down across from them on a chunk of log someone had brought up for that purpose. Kasiria smiled, once again you couldn't see light between them they were sitting so close.
Eric came over to join them and Kasiria watched with interest as Jestia gave her a look that would curdle milk, and thought maybe she really did have more in common with Jestia than she wanted to admit.
"Where were you two?" Jabone asked curiously.
"Coupling," Jestia said, and once again glared at Eric. Ufalla actually choked on whatever food she had in her mouth, and her brother quickly popped her on the back laughing no doubt at the startled look on her face.
"Jestia, you aren't queer," Jabone said with confusion.
"Well apparently I am now," Jestia said, an angry tone to her voice as she flipped her hand around in the air flamboyantly. She looked at Ufalla who was now as red as the flames in the fire. "What is wrong with you?"
"Nothing," Ufalla said, and then she was just smiling stupidly at the smaller woman.
"I swear, Ufalla, you are acting more like you're of the Jethrik than the Kartik every day," she said. "Kasiria and Jabone have coupled and you don't see them acting all silly about it."
Kasiria looked quickly around and was glad to see that the only people in hearing for any of this was their unit—and Eric—who wasn't likely to say anything not while they were all keeping her secret. Kasiria could have strangled Jestia who seemed to throw out as part of casual conversation things that should only be talked about in private if at all.
"You look rather smug, sister," Jabone said to Ufalla.
"As do you," Ufalla said. Jabone just smiled broadly and nodded.
"Could we talk about something else?" Kasiria asled.
"As if they aren't going to talk about it at length the first time they're alone. They tell each other everything, you have to know that," Jestia said. Then she added impatiently to Ufalla, "Aren't you done eating yet?"
"What's your big hurry?"
"While they're all out here the tent is empty," Jestia said with meaning, and the bigger woman drank her stew swallowing the chunks whole, jumped up put a hand down to help Jestia up and then it was Jestia who was dragging Ufalla across the camp. All Kasiria could think was that she wished she had thought of the empty tent first.
Eric was just chuckling under her breath. "What?" Kasiria demanded, and the woman shrugged and said nothing, but that didn't stop Tarius.
"So you two," he slammed his palms together in a suggestive way, and Kasiria's jaw dropped and her face turned as red as Ufalla's had been. Jabone just laughed and shrugged. Tarius stuck his lower lip out and said with a pout, "And I'm to be the odd man out."
Eric laughed, "No, I'm the
odd
man out."
Tarius laughed and shook his head in agreement then said, "Well I have to say, you two no big surprise, but those two." He shook his head and added with a laugh. "Hestia's going to crap herself when she finds out."
Jabone glared at Tarius who seemed to go over what he'd said and you could tell from the expression on his face at what point he realized what he'd said that was wrong. Then he quickly explained—no doubt for she and Eric's benefit—"It's a Kartik saying, sort of like saying something is so completely off that the Queen will be upset."
No, I know exactly what you meant. Just what you said if Queen Hestia knew her daughter was coupling with your sister she'd have a screaming fit. And what of Tarius the Black? What would she think of my union with her son?
Tarius told a short story in which her father was once again the villain and she cringed. When he had finished the tale, she said to him. "Tarius, is there not one Kartik story that mentions our king in which he isn't either a blind idiot or an out and out villain?"
Tarius seemed to look around at the group that had gathered to hear him tell tales. "There is just one," he said, "but only Tarius the Black ever tells it and it is said that when she does so to this day Jena and Harris walk away so that they don't have to hear it. It is Tarius's nature to forgive—except of course for the Amalites," he spat, "but not Jena's and certainly it isn't Harris's. I have a good story without him in it at all, though."
He cleared his throat and then started, "I tell the story of the end of Jabone the Breaker, the Kartik Waster, father to Tarius the Black. Now Jabone was a great slayer of Amalites," Jabone and Tarius spit, "for they had killed the whole of his pack. They killed his first mate and left Tarius for dead, her throat cut. In fact Tarius had been stacked on a stack of bodies that were to be burned and in a Katabull rage Jabone had gone after the Amalites."
There was more spitting and now she noticed a couple of the Jethriks had joined them, no doubt thinking of the village in burnt ruin at their backs.
"Jabone followed them to the sea and killed them to the last man, and then thinking there was nothing for him in the Kartik he sailed for the Jethrik where he joined the Sword Masters academy and went to war and slew Amalites," even more spitting this time, "in numbers like no other man. But this is unfortunately not the story of his life but of his death. Now it was after he'd gone back to the Kartik and found his daughter yet living and after he had trained her in every manner of warfare and weapons that he came once again to the Jethrik just to make sure the country was free of the Amalite," more spitting, "menace. Tarius was young and she'd gone into the woods to hunt and as soon as the Amalites," all right all the spitting was getting annoying, "saw that he was alone with his mate they swooped down upon him a great multitude of them. He was slower in his old age and they took him and his mate down. Tarius had felt that something was wrong but even as she got there they were pulling a sword from her foster mother and her father was already dead. Tarius fell on the beasts in a Katabull rage and she slew them she thought to the last man, but when she went back to tend her father's body and to grieve she looked and looked but she didn't find Jabone's sword. It is said that Tarius as she engaged each Amalite," really annoying all that the spitting, "she killed looked to see if he was carrying her father's sword. Though she killed even more Amalites," it seemed to her like every man in the troop was spiting now, "than her father ever did she has never found Jabone's sword."
The men all clapped and so did Kasiria. Beside her Jabone just rolled his eyes. "What?" she asked him.
He looked some surprised but said too quickly, "Well she couldn't have seen could she, with their hands on the hilt of the swords and killing as fast as she did? It's just a pretty bardic twist, I doubt seriously she wasted any time at all looking for his sword past the day he died."
They're stories to me, to these men, and we appreciate that he makes them pretty, but to Jabone . . . He's talking about his mother, his grandfather. It couldn't always be comfortable for him. No more comfortable than it is for me to hear story after story of the brutality of my father and how much pain his actions have caused.
And then to Kasiria's dismay Tarius launched into a telling of a story about Jena's wrath against her own father in which yet again her father was the real villain.
* * *
Jestia clung to Ufalla. It had been exactly the same. No, worse than that, it had been even better and now she wanted to be even closer to Ufalla. In fact she was laying on top of Ufalla under a blanket just looking at her and thinking how much more beautiful she was than she had ever realized.
Ufalla stroked a hand down Jestia's hair and over her back and when her hand touched and cupped her buttocks Jestia shivered. She quit looking at Ufalla and put her head down on her chest listening to her heart and pushing her face against her hard.
Ufalla laughed. "What are you doing?"
"I can't get close enough," Jestia said, a sad tone in her voice.
"If you get any closer your head will pop out my back."
Jestia relaxed and rolled off Ufalla to lie beside her. Ufalla rolled on her side and held her, Jestia felt warm and wonderful and safe and she started to go to sleep.
"Jestia, we can't sleep like this. What if the Amalites fall on us in the dead of night?"
Jestia nodded and reluctantly got dressed even as Ufalla did. When she looked up Ufalla was just watching her with a stupid smile on her face.
"What?" she asked, smiling back what she was sure was her own stupid smile.
"I think I like watching you dress almost as much as I like watching you undress."
They lay down, Jestia doused the witch light, and soon they were both asleep. Her dream was sweet, peaceful and then the other one came brighter and if possible more brutal. She woke with a sob and found Ufalla holding her.
Oh no! What have I done? I've made it worse.
But she thought carefully. The dream was exactly the same as it had been.
But now I care even more about her, so it feels worse. Gods! What am I going to do?
As if knowing her terror Ufalla pulled her closer, which just made her cry.
The morning saw the whole of the troop preparing to head out with less enthusiasm than they had the day before. No one had found anything yesterday and they were all sure today would be no different. They were doing this because it seemed the only thing they could do but none of them actually thought it would do any good.
Derek marched over to Kasiria and she turned to look up at him turning away from where she'd been cinching her horse's saddle in place. "Captain?"
"Sergeant. Listen I have decided to pair Jestia and Ufalla together today and put Eric with Tarius."
Kasiria didn't have to ask why as Jestia and Ufalla rode past her then and Jestia just smiled down at her.
That little witch will do anything to get what she wants. Sort of makes me wonder what she hopes to gain from bedding Ufalla.
Still it was what Kasiria had wanted in the first place, so she just said, "Thank you." Derek walked away and she finished cinching her horse's girth.
* * *
They hadn't gone too far when Jestia said, "I'm tired. Let's stop for a minute and rest."
"I doubt you're tired already, Jestia," Ufalla said, a hint of laughter to her voice.
"So what? We aren't going to find anything anyway."