Mallow’s sword lay within reach. His hair was damp, a few strands plastered to his forehead. The soot on his face aged him, but the light in his eyes glimmered the same as the first night she’d met him: bright, wary, steady, too alive with hope.
“You’re bleeding,” he said softly.
She glanced down. Her palms were streaked red where she’d clawed into them by the river. “It’s nothing.”
“Let me see.”
He reached across the small space between them, and she let him take her hand. His thumb traced the dirt from her knuckles. The contact sent a jolt of recognition through her, the familiarity of his touch. He was careful, always, as if afraid of what she might do if he wasn’t.
He brought a pouch from his belt and opened it; she recognized his little herbalism kit. He found a strip of fabric and some brown concoction in a vial, and began to clean the scrape. It stung a little, but she didn’t flinch.
When he was finished, she looked up at him to find his gaze already there, fixed.
“How bad was it?” he asked.
“I felt them die.” She glanced aside. “Every one. I felt the river take them. I felt Morgan’s joy.”
“I think it’s more sickness than joy.”
“Maybe.” She looked away. “I’m still feeling them go. I’ve never met anyone so hungry in all my life.”
Silence gathered between them. Mallow put away his healing materials, but he reached for his hand once more. His thumb slid down, tracing the line of her wrist where her pulse rippled. “He’s still in you, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me in, too.”
She turned her hand over, catching his fingers between her own. Her hand stung, but the sensation brought her back to the room, away from Morgan. Mallow’s calluses were rough against her skin. For the first time all day she felt something other than the constant echo of Morgan’s hunger, but she still felt filthy with it all the same.
“I’m unclean,” she murmured.
“So am I.”
“He’ll feel this.”
“Then let him.”
He moved closer. The smell of him, the sweat and sword oil and chlorophyll cut through the smoke. “You’ve been trying to hold the whole world in your hands. Let it go, Lain. Just for tonight.”
He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, fingers lingering at the edge of her jaw. “You’re shaking,” he said.
“I don’t know if it’s me or him.”
“Then I’ll remind you which is which.”
He leaned in, as if in offering.
She reached for him.
The moment her palms met his chest the bond inside her shuddered, flaring hot with resistance. For a heartbeat she felt Morgan’s shadow, the echo of his will tightening like a snare. But Mallow’s voice cut through it.
“Look at me,” he said.
She did. And for an instant, the fever in her mind dulled.
“You’re here,” he said. “You’re right here with me.”
The air in the chapel came to life, every flicker of light bending toward them. Lain’s hand lifted, uncertain, tracing the edge of his face, the roughness of his stubble, the warmth of his skin.
“I don’t know how to be gentle anymore,” she said.
He caught her wrist, kissed the heel of her hand. “Then don’t be.”
For the first time since she’d laid eyes upon the river at her return, she let herself move toward the living. She leaned forward, her hand rising to cup his jaw. Mallow’s eyes flicked to her mouth then back again, seeking permission. His forehead brushed hers, tentative, a whisper of contact. At the final gasp of her Heat, his skin against her own lit through her like a spark dropped in dry grass.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
The bond tightened in protest. A pulse of acid, possessive and sour, flicked across her nerves. She gasped at the intrusion.
Mallow felt it, the reaction taking shape as his hand clenched reflexively against her waist. But he didn’t back away. Instead he swept a thumb once under her eye, steadying her as if steadying himself.
“Stay with me,” he murmured. “Just here. Just now.”
She nodded. The bond receded a fraction, enough for her lungs to fill, enough for the candlelit chapel to sharpen around the edges. She tilted her head a little, her antlers brushing the stone wall behind her as she leaned in. The warmth of Mallow’s breath ghosted her lips.
He froze for a heartbeat, holding utterly still, giving her every chance to pull away.
Lain closed the last inch between them, and kissed him.
It was soft at first, shockingly soft, like the brush of silk. Her fingers curled into the fabric at his shoulders. His breath broke against her mouth in a helpless sound, and suddenly she was in the inn where she’d first kissed him, standing at the bottom of the stairs, her fist clenched in his jacket, his shock and surprise and willful joy at that moment of connection.
And just like that moment he brought his hand to the scales at her throat, then coiled his fingers in the curls at the nape of her neck, running his thumb up to her velvety ear as if it were the first time. The kiss deepened, and they both seemed to fight down the desire to rush forward, because this was inevitable, the way rivers run downhill, the way the sky must open once the clouds have spent their waters.
Her heart thudded. His hand slid from the back of her neck to meet the top of her shoulder, his cool fingers caressing the scales there, grasping at muscle that had been too tight for too long.
The bond flared again. She siphoned her defiance off toward Morgan, pushing him back and back until the sense of him receded like a storm behind a mountain.
For the first time since she’d drank Morgan’s blood, it wasn’t Morgan’s pulse she felt in her mouth, in her chest, in the trembling low in her stomach.
It was her own.
And then, as if arriving on horseback from another ridge, there emerged the silhouette of Mallow, the weary but hopeful rider, and they spotted one another at once and moved to close the distance between them. The bond they’d shared was gone. She knew that, still feeling the grief of his absence, and although he’d been gone for mere days it was a space that should not have been filled at all this cycle, once it was lost. The fullness of it – the place Morgan resided – was worse than that hollow feeling of Mallow’s absence.
But Mallow was here anyway, to hold her, to remind her that even a creature like her could discover redemption in the coiled mass of sin that made her human.
And while it was sin that made her human undeniably, it was pleasure and hope and the unbearable weight of love that made her Kelthi.
Mallow broke the kiss only to breathe. He stayed close, his mouth brushing hers as he whispered, voice raw.
“Lhainara… if this is wrong, stop me.”
She didn’t.
She pulled him back in.
In the light of the fire, with no bedding or blankets but the budle of curtains, Mallow undressed her. Her Kelthi blood ran warmer than his, and when undressing made him shiver she passed his shirt back to him and smiled as he tugged it on again. She wrapped her wooly legs around him – “Only to keep you warm, you poor human sellsword –” and they laughed as he turned her to her back. He pressed his fingers into her beetle-black scales.
“Do you hate them?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. Your scales could be any color and I’d still find them lovely.”
As if to prove it he kissed her, up and down her throat, then at the scales that lined the back of her arms, stroking the soft fur that ran in a narrow band from just north of her belly button down to her center, spreading in a soft V across her hips and down her thighs. In every touch she felt something familiar, wanted. There was no ceremony in this but that which they built together, the meaning of it resonating only in their shared love.
He slid his fingers between her legs and pressed just so, enough to make her arch her back and moan, enough that her tail lashed the curtains and then coiled tightly around his arm as he carried on. That flare of white heat filled her vision as he kissed her mouth. He cooed against her as he stroked and played.
“Oh, I know what moves you, my little saint, my lovely Kelthi. It’s this, isn’t it? You’re so warm, is this all for me? Let me feel you, my Lain. Let me please you. Yes. Just so.”
When she couldn’t bear it anymore, she tugged him wordlessly upon her, and he complied with her wanting, knowing what it was, knowing he wanted just the same.
He pressed firmly against her belly so he could meet her eye, and examine her horns, the curls at her temple, the shape of her ears.
“Saint’s sake, Little Hooves. Have you always been this beautiful or have I just been foolish before now?”
“You’re a fool now, too,” she said. “Just a different kind.”
His laughter quaked against her, belly to belly. He brought both hands to her face, to cup her sweetly as he kissed, his tongue exploring, as if to slow her down, to remind her to stay here. Then he eased back, and parted her so slowly, until he found the place inside her where he belonged. And as he entered her this time, and kissed her throat, her chin, biting on the softness of her ear, he told her she was beautiful.
Their hips rolled together, soft, a wave lapping sweetly at a dock, undulating just so. While he couldn’t feel it exactly the way he had when they were bonded, Mallow could still sense her Tuning as she touched him, and he remembered how to move, remembered what flexing pressure it took to elevate her pleasure, and for a time she could only moan and pant against his face as he cooed in her ear that she was doing so well, so well for him.
“How could I forget, Little Hooves? You like this, don’t you? Yes, you do. You do. Just there, isn’t it? Just there.”
Her face grew hot, the warmth at her middle expanding. He took her wrist and held it above her head, and with the other he caressed her antler, stroked the bone of it, and it seemed he knew, he knew just enough to sense when to keep steady upon her, when to hold fast to the rhythm of her wanting. When her brow rose and her head rolled back against the ground and the gasp of her climax escaped her, he nodded fervently, her Tuning drawing on his own pleasure until it was hers. She called out his name. Mallow.
Once he’d brought her to her peak, his thrusting changed shape, losing its steadiness in exchange for a rush of his own growing need. He buried his teeth in her shoulder to steady himself as he groaned and released inside her. She coiled her fingers in the hair behind his head, and held him fast as he panted, the sweat of his brow streaking her cheek.
This was all she wanted. This, this.
He lay heavy and warm atop her for a few breaths more, his chest rising and falling. When he finally eased to one side, it was only far enough that she could roll with him, tangled together, her leg still hooked over his hip, his hand spread wide at the small of her back as if he didn’t quite trust the world not to steal her if he let go.