Untold Tales (9 page)

A solid wall of snow blocked his path. Oenghus was trapped. Howling filled his ears, making his prison unbearable. The screams were feral and pleading and all consuming. It came from his Oathbound, his very first. She was ripe with child—their child who could not find its way out. She was dying, and with snow all around there was nothing he could do. Her cries pushed at the walls of their cabin and beat at his ears. There was no help, nowhere to go. He was as trapped and helpless as she; alone, watching his Oathbound and child die.

Consciousness saved him this time. Oenghus Saevaldr sat bolt upright in the night. He threw off the covers and leapt to his feet, ready to fight. There he stood, panting like a caged lion. However, he was alone.

A warm hearth mingled with the moonlight, a silver stream that slipped through the narrow window. There was no danger, no other there save the howling of a dream and the memory of a helpless twenty-year-old fool who had never done anything useful but bash heads. Still, over nine hundred years later, he felt like that fool again—trapped and helpless, unable to aid those he loved.

That did not set well with Oenghus. He snatched his belt from a pile of belongings and uncorked his grog, taking a long swig. The Brimgrog burned away his memories, centered him in the now, and filled his veins with fire. A growl rumbled from deep inside his chest and he drove his fist into the mantel, cracking the stone.

His hand hurt, but he welcomed the simplicity of pain. The heart was never so straightforward.

“I didn’t gift you with a bottomless supply of Brimgrog so you could guzzle it like a drunkard.”

Oenghus spun, muscles tensing for battle a moment before his mind recognized the voice. The Sylph—Yasine as he alone called her—stood in the center of moonlight. Green eyes roved appreciatively over his body; muscle and power draped in firelight and shadow. He could feel her need, her desire, amplified by his own.

Yasine moved like water, flowing across the floor to stand within reach. “Swear to me,” she said.

Her voice made him hard, her presence filled him, and he seized her. The Sylph went willingly. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her lips met his with equal hunger. It had been so long. The lovers trembled, aching, fumbling in their desperation. Coarse, strong hands tugged her robe free, and flung it to the far side of the room. He slid his hands down her back, relishing her curves, her warmth, and the press of her body against his. He gripped her backside and lifted. Strong thighs wrapped around his waist.

Frantic moments passed as Oenghus found the bed. The realm tilted. And the Sylph spread her thighs, welcoming what she could not control—the only man she had ever loved. He was everything opposite; hard and coarse and impatient.

Oenghus gripped her flank and filled her with unyielding power. His growl mingled with her gasp, and she nipped his ear with her teeth. She was all softness and heat and he sank into her with a shuddering sigh, and for a moment, they simply lay intertwined. Oenghus raised himself on his elbows, sparing her his weight, pulling back to meet her eyes. She smiled, relishing the heat of him, the thickness pulsing inside until she could stand it no longer.

“Swear to me,” she breathed, clenching her muscles around his shaft. Oenghus grunted, and thrust, rendering her speechless. He tasted her neck and she arched her back. When his lips locked over a hard nipple, she gasped, and pushed, rolling him to the side so she came out on top. Precisely where she liked to be. A primal chorus of moans entered the room as the united lovers reacquainted themselves, until they moved as one, in a timeless rhythm.

It did not last long.

He could feel her muscles tensing, the slight trembling that turned into a quaking, until her body stiffened and her lips parted with a cry. He grabbed her neck, and brought her lips to his, silencing her ecstasy. She moaned into his mouth. She was utter bliss and happiness and the violence of her release drove him over the precipice. His shaft throbbed and he groaned as she met his hips with her own.

Through the hazy aftermath, he watched her shapely, swaying form, riding him until she had had her fill twice over. When her desire stilled, she slipped off and slid to the side, as limp and satiated as her lover.

They lay for a long time, half intertwined, her head over his heart, her fingers idly drifting through the hair on his chest as she traced the muscles of his body, learning his lines anew.

Oenghus ran one hand over the thigh draped across his own, and with the other, brushed Yasine’s back, letting his touch drift downwards to rest on her backside.

“I thought you couldn’t use your power?” he murmured in the quiet. His breath stirred her hair and he inhaled her scent, the calm after the storm.

“I see your mind is working again.” He felt her lips curve.

“Not for very long.” To emphasize his words, he gripped a handful of sumptuous flesh and rolled onto his side, taking her with him. Her head dropped to his bicep and she stared into his eyes. Green met blue; like the sea and the land watching each other, breathing the same air.

“Moonlight,” she said softly, brushing the unruly hair from his eyes. “There is always power in the moon’s light. I can step from one pool to the next.”

“Like a teleportation rune,” he surmised.

“Something like that, yes.” There was a knowing glint in her eyes. “Trees too.”

“I’ve seen the Scarecrow do that.”

“Once upon a time, in another age, you could do the same with stone.”

A flash of pain stabbed his temple and he winced.

“I’m sorry, my love,” she soothed, brushing the spot as if the pain were her own, which it was—what one felt, the other sensed. “I won’t mention such things.”

“I’ll not be coddled,” he growled.

“You let Morigan tend to you,” she retorted.

“She healed me.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you jealous? She and I haven’t been Oathbound for near a century.”

“Yet her bed is not unfamiliar to you.” Yasine toyed with one of the braids in his beard. He opened his mouth, but fell silent at a twinkle in her eye “Why would I be jealous of a woman who has taken three Oaths with you? A woman who has born your children? How can I feel anything but gratitude towards Morigan, who loves and cares for you when I cannot?”

For Oenghus, who had spent the majority of this life in ignorance, the long separation was not as keen, but he could feel the ache in the Sylph’s heart.

“I like Morigan,” she smiled. “I always have. She is one of my favored in this realm and one of the few who has put up with you. Not an easy feat.”

“It’s my cock.”

She laughed, a musical, wonderful sound that bridged the years. Oenghus let himself remember the last time he had heard her laugh, and his heart ached. As he had that day, in another Age, of another name, he never wanted to let her go—never wanted to leave their bed. With mist in his eyes, he cupped her face, tracing the curve of her ears, and she nuzzled her forehead against his beard. His chest shuddered with control.

“You know I can’t stay in this realm long,” she breathed, lips brushing his skin, her tears mingling with his. “As you said, every day is a risk.”

“Then why risk yourself at all?”

“I’ve told you.”

“A child—yes, and nothing else.”

“Do you remember the first time you spoke to me?”

For her, he spoke the words of another; the dead god whose spirit resided in his flesh. “
I am the lightning, I am the crag and the rocks and the raging storms. I am the sea and its roar.
”

When his voice grew gruff with pain, she finished for him, “
I am passion and fire, and everything you cannot control.
” Her fingers brushed through his hair, soothing the pain in his heart. “Your spirit is worn, my love. Although formidable, you are but a shadow of what you once were. And yet, still, after all these Ages, from one life to the next, I cannot tame you.”

Oenghus untangled himself from her embrace, and sat up. “But you come and you tell me not to act—to stand aside. You ask the impossible,” he snarled.

He felt her rise. A gentle hand touched his back, as light as a feather’s brush on his recent injuries. “I do not ask it for myself, Oenghus. I ask it for our child. I have made many mistakes. The more I try to interfere, the more I fight the Void, the worse it becomes. You were not here for the Shattering—for our daughter’s death.” He cocked his head, as if the tilt would dislodge a memory. But the veil remained. “Your spirit was greatly damaged after your fight with Karbonek. I feared you would not return, and you did not, for many,
many
long years.” Though he did not turn, he could hear the tears in her eyes, feel them falling down her cheeks as if they were his own.

“Karbonek,” he tasted the name, but no memory came. It was frustrating.

“Yes,” she whispered. “The Void is powerful, it devours all Life. But Life cannot fight what consumes—so I must trust to what I cannot control. I must stand back and hope.”

He looked at her then, where she sat cross-legged on their bed—exposed, vulnerable, and full of fear.

“Does the Scarecrow have anything to do with this?”

“By the Light—no,” she breathed, closing her eyes. “Even if he were whole, I am sure he would disapprove and attempt to stop me. You must not tell him the child is mine.”

Oenghus tugged on a braid. That, at least, gave him satisfaction. Currently he had a bone to pick with the ol’ bastard. “So this isn’t some bloody prophecy?”

“It is a thought—a last desperate hope.”

“So you can’t control me?” he growled, and moved towards her on all fours. Yasine fell back, settling herself on the mattress between his arms and legs. “What is stopping me from knocking you over the head and carrying you away as I once did?”

She sighed. “To where? Nuthaan? And spend my pregnancy in a freezing cabin—hunted by the Blessed Order and Void, living in fear that our daughter might fall into Wedamen hands? Absolutely not, Oenghus,” she said firmly with a shake of her head. “If I’m going to carry your child, then let me do it in warm luxury.”

“What of the Emperor?”

“Many children are born prematurely,” she lifted a shoulder.

“You’ll be his—as a nymph.”

“You are not the only man I have shared my bed with,” she reminded. “If the Emperor thinks she is his child, then she will be protected. Aside from Iilenshar, Kiln and Kambe are the most powerful kingdoms in this realm. Kiln will crush her, and I’ll not have a child of mine fall into the Guardians’ hands again. That leaves Kambe.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t either, but I had hoped you would enjoy keeping me company for nine months.”

His eyes flickered to her stomach, all softness and curves, not the slim figure of a slip of a girl, but that of a woman—ripe and sumptuous. His body hardened, striving to reach her. “Do you have what you need already?”

Yasine stroked his shaft, fingers curling around its girth, gently tugging him to her. “I don’t know. Everything from here on out is chance. You don’t have to, my love,” she purred. “I won’t force myself on you.”

Oenghus snorted, and lay to the side, cupping her breast, teasing her nipple to life as he kissed the curve of her neck. Her legs parted and his fingers touched the moist triangle of fine hair, moving towards heat.

“Swear to me,” she gasped.

“Never,” he growled in her ear.

IN
THE
DAYS
that followed, a flurry of messengers and Whispers came and went. Kambe’s army marched from the pass, into the valley that was no longer dead, and made camp at the foot of the castle. Horses were brought, a female guard was organized, and with the usual efficiency of Kambe, the long line of war weary solders marched home.

Yasine did not visit him again. She was guarded day and night, kept hidden beneath a veil and placed in the midst of her honor guard. Much to his relief, Morigan stayed at her side. Inquisitor Ashe could not find any reason to dismiss the kindly healer who calmed the nymph. If not for Morigan’s vigilance, Oenghus thought he would go mad.

Days became weeks, and their journey quickened when mountain passes gave way to the spacious stone roads of Kambe. A carriage was provided for Yasine, and fresh horses for her guard. Oenghus rode alongside as their company met with new soldiers from the Emperor’s elite. The escort broke off from the main force and rode towards Whitemount. Emperor Soataen Jaal III eagerly awaited his nymph.