by Wyatt, Dani
Midnight-black hair hung to her hips in cascading waves. And fuck, those hips. All I could think of was grabbing them, holding hard and slamming inside her, watching the swell of her tits bounce as I drove into her, claiming every inch, inside and out.
She came barely to my chest and I could have scooped her off the ground with little effort and taken her away with me. Oh, how I wanted to take her away with me.
Green eyes unlike anything I’d seen before seemed to gaze right into my soul and tell me for the first time in as far back as I could remember, there was more to life than pain.
There was care and comfort and love and need. And I needed her. I needed her to submit herself to me.
I needed her sweet cunt on the tip of my tongue. Then, when she was moaning, sloppy and soaked, I’d have her riding my cock like having me inside her was her very life’s purpose.
My reaction to her stunned even me. I’d lived long enough to have known women, to have seen them around the encampments or in towns we passed through. I’d seen them selling their wares and never paid them any mind.
While my brothers in arms got their dicks wet in any pussy that was available, I never saw the attraction to lust without anything more. What could I get from that sort of encounter that I couldn’t provide with my own hand? Nothing, so it’s been my hand for years now and I never felt I was missing much.
But she wasn’t just any woman. There was something about her. Something that let me know I’d never jerk off again as long as I lived. A drop of cum that wasn’t in her or on her in some way was a drop wasted.
I wanted her to be mine. And I needed to be inside her.
I would have taken her right there, in the middle of the town square, not despite the onlookers but because of them. I would have shown them all that she belonged to me, that she was claimed by me. I would have bent her over the well and rutted into her from behind so that her screams left no uncertainty: she was claimed.
But the fear in Annie’s voice was right—I had no place forcing myself on a girl like that. She was way too goddamned pure for a brute like me.
She was young, too. Far too young for me. Forty-two years multiplied a hundredfold by war and fury.
I was old enough to be her father, and she was young enough to find someone with higher prospects than an old warrior. But all that meant nothing. I didn’t care. I wouldn’t watch her find some other man, I’d woo her and I’d win her and there wasn’t a goddamned thing she or I could do to stop it.
I knew that all my best-laid plans meant nothing now. My intentions when I returned from war had been simple: settle down, have a quiet life. No more. No less. I hadn’t considered love, I just wanted simple. I wanted to be done fighting.
Plant a fucking garden and worry about the tomatoes rotting instead of which knife wound would be my last.
But all those simple, vague plans that had consoled me when I rejoined civilian life were now chaff on the wind.
Up ahead, the old, whitewashed cottage where I was headed came into view. The vines along the east corner were thicker than my last visit, nearly covering one window, and a crack in the foundation was getting wider.
I made mental notes of what I’d need to fix in the next few days. Still, blossoms of pink and purple showed their tenacity, lining the aging stones where the structure met the rock soil, and it made me think how something so delicate and beautiful can co-exist with something so hard and inhospitable.
I wondered if it might be the same for me and the emerald eyed goddess. Could we co-exist? Could we thrive? My ugliness alongside her unnatural beauty?
I needed to find out all about her. Fuck, I didn’t even know her name. Where she lived. Who I would need to threaten, beg or kill to have her beside me.
Surely she was taken. Spoken for…or pledged to someone already.
All I knew was, whatever it took, I’d ruin kingdoms to have her. Because she was my world now.
I called out to Angelica as I dismounted and untacked, giving my horse a bucket of grain, two small bricks of hay and a drink of water, and then headed toward the cottage.
“Angelica! Where are ye, lady?”
She and I had a long history. I’d known her since we were both brushing up on adulthood, and she was like a sister to me. People assumed thing of course, but I gave them no credence.
She, older than me by two years, had already been through a lot before we met, and my lack of a common sort of man’s interest in the pursuit of my base needs had folks whispering that I preferred the company of men, or that she had me under her spell.
Neither one was true, but she didn’t care what they said and nor did I. Angelica had been a good friend to me and vice versa, and I wouldn’t have done anything to change that.
I’d protected her from over-zealous customers in her early brothel-running days, and even wiped the floor with some of them. I didn’t like what had happened to bring her into that life, but I understood why she stayed. The girls were better off with her as their madam than they’d ever been with piece of shit that used to own both them and their place of business. In any case, the world went red when I saw customers mistreating her or the other girls. In my opinion, men who disrespected women deserved all the pain in the world no matter what the woman’s profession.
And over the years I’d dished out plenty in their defense. In return, Angelica had always given me a place to stay, a warm meal, trusted friendship and good advice.
As I approached the house, I was proud to see the life she’d made for herself. After she’d secured an education for the girls who worked for her, found them alternative employment and, in more than one case, good marriages to men that would treat them right, she’d retired from that life and started as a healer, the one skill her no-good family had given her before they sold her to the brothel keeper on their way through our small town.
Of course, some suspected it was Angelica herself that had murdered the man who owned her, but suspicions were all they had. She was too clever, and the law too lazy, for anything to ever come of it, but she once showed me the spot where she’d put the body into the loch. According to Angelica, he’d still been wearing a look of surprise when he sank under the water, never to resurface.
No more than he deserved. Abusers like that get what’s coming to them in the end.
As I walked up the front path, admiring the lush garden she’d managed to cultivate, full of medicinal herbs and plants, the door squeaked open and there she was. Before I knew it, she was in my arms, squealing and laying a big kiss on my cheek.
“You’re back!” She grinned. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, my dear friend.”
I embraced her and tried to smile back, but my heart wasn’t in it. “I’m back,” I agreed, simply, my mind still preoccupied with the raven-haired beauty that had my dick hard and my heart about to erupt from my chest.
Angelica slid out of my arms, back to her feet, and looked up at me. Her crow’s feet were deeper than the last time I’d seen her just like the crack in the cottage foundation, and there was even more wisdom and kindness in her eyes than I remembered.
“The years are always good to you,” I told her, my smile tight as I tried to keep my errant dick under control.
She giggled a little and slipped her arm into mine. “As they are to you.” She lifted her shoulder and her eyebrow in unison as I worked my belt so the sheath of my sword covered the evidence of my heated thoughts over the temptress near the well.
“I need a place to stay while I get my feet under me. I’ll pay my room and board—no arguments. You’ve always had a place for me before, I do hope nothing has changed.”
Her eyes sparkled in the morning light and she smiled up at me. “Come in, Bors. You should know by now, your money has no value here.” Her words warm me as she tugged me through the front door of the cottage and pointed to a chair at the table.
I sat as Angelica poured me a mug of ale and sliced into a fresh loaf of crusty bread. “So, what brings you back?
”
I watched her from my seat at the table, wondering if the answer was still the same as it had been when I woke this morning. I downed the ale and she poured me another while I thought about my response.
“Buy some grazing land, breed and raise horses to build up a livery stable,” I said finally, slathering butter onto a thick slice of bread. After all, I’d need a livelihood to take care of my own. Perhaps more than I’d planned on. “It won’t be easy, but I’ve got some money laid by and can call in some favors if I need them.”
Angelica nodded as she sat down across from me.
“You’ve always had a knack with animals. Horses especially.” She swept breadcrumbs off the old pine table into her hand, tossing them into a wooden bowl by the sink, ready to be thrown for the wild birds later. “And something tells me your fighting days are done. You’ve got the look of a broken man.”
“Broken?” I said around a mouthful of bread, shaking my head.
Angelica shrugged and pursed her lips. “You know what I mean. You look tired, Bors.” She reached over and gave my forearm a squeeze. “In all our years, even when I’ve seen you bruised and bleeding, I’ve never seen this look in your eyes.”
“Aye, working for the clan has lost its lustre. I’ve earned something better. A piece of land to call my own. Some animals. A—” I caught myself before I could utter the word. Wife.
Angelica turned and stared, but I fell silent.
“Something’s changed in you.” Her eye narrowed on mine, staring hard at me for a long moment before she tipped her head to the side and pointed a finger toward me. “You’re keeping something from me.” She stood from the table, then drew a breath through her nose. “Well, horses and animals are all well and good, but they won’t keep you company at night. They won’t see you through the long winter. They won’t fill your house with joy. Plenty of women would be willing. You’re not terribly ugly, after all. In some lights you could almost pass for human,” she said with a wink.
I hesitated. Angelica knew me better than anyone. She smirked as she leaned back against the sideboard and I sighed.
“I want to ask you about someone I saw today in Weschail.”
Angelica feigned nonchalance. “Oh, yes? Someone?”
“A girl.”
She nodded. “Go on.”
How would I even begin to describe her? How the fuck was it even possible to reduce these impulses, these urges, into ordinary words?
“Hair like the loch at mid-night. Eyes like emeralds. Skin like fresh cream. Cherry wine-stained lips so full they…” I trailed off, realizing I was about to slip into a description of things Angelica would most certainly understand, but need not be said.
“Sara,” Angelica said, laughing lightly. “She’s is more than pretty. And good from what I know. I approve.”
It was a beautiful name and it suited her well. “Sara,” I repeated.
Angelica nodded. “Lives out by the old forge with her family. She’s like an angel among them, if you ask me. She’s far too good for their sort. They treat her like a charwoman, a servant. Never heard them say a good word about her. They don’t treat her right.”
I clenched my beer mug in my hand, so hard I damn near crushed it. The idea of her hurting was fucking unacceptable.
“Do they hurt her?”
She shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me. But more than anything, they don’t value her. And that’s its own terrible pain. Take it from me.”
My desire to protect Sara was an animal urge, a simple instinct—a stallion guarding his mare when she went into heat. I wondered, if I left right now, whether I could catch her on the road and steal her away.
I stood, my seat scraping back along the floor, heat rising to my face. My horse was too tired, I’d have to go on foot.
“Bors Macdonald, sit back down. I know what you’re thinking but you’ll scare the poor thing to death in this mood.”
I growled, leaning my fists on the table, trying to regain my composure. She was right, I told myself. Angelica was right. I had to rein myself in.
“Is it impossible?” I demanded. “A girl like that and a man like me? Tell me it’s fucking impossible. I know it, I just need to hear it.”
She huffed as she put her hands on my shoulders and forced me back down into my seat. “You might have a knack for animals, Bors. But I have a knack for people. You might be just what that girl needs. A man who’ll treat her the way a woman ought to be treated. Take her away from a joyless existence.”
I felt my heart and cock ache at the same damned time. I couldn’t tell if she was speaking sense or the whole idea was insanity.
“I’ve seen too much of the evil in this world. I’d break her. I’d ruin her,” I said, not entirely sure that was a bad thing.
Angelica poured me another mug of ale. Without breaking my gaze, she said, “Storms come on sunny days. Night follows day. The light needs the dark.” She smiled, her cheeks full, eyes wise. “That’s the way of the world. All things need their counterpoint.”
I considered her words as I drew my ale from the mug in gulps that would have drowned a normal man. I’d demanded she tell me my thoughts were wrong. Instead, she’d approved. She’d stoked the fire that burned within me. Angelica was right. She knew people. Sara was mine already and my body shook with the sense of possession and need inside me.
As I considered my next move, there was a noise from outside. A sharp sound, followed by a yelp, and Angelica turned to me as I rose again to my feet, my fighting instinct impossible to quell as I stomped out the door.
Right at that moment, I was in more of a fighting mood than in as long as I could remember. But, what I wanted to fight for was different than anything before.
I wanted to fight for her.
For Sara.
Sara
I peeked through the window of the whitewashed cottage and my worst fears were confirmed.
He was in Angelica’s house—the woman who ran Weschail’s house of sin, as it were.
Or at least she used to. Long before I was old enough to know such places existed.
I knew her reputation, and while I didn’t judge her like some of the townspeople—my parents included—the sight of her serving him food and beer, touching his arm…
Oh no, no, no.
I felt the clutch of my heart in my chest as my eyes burned. I knew enough about the ways of men and women together. I had seen animals breed on the farm. I’d seen men driven crazy by lust. There could only be one reason he was at her house: to relieve his animal instincts. Either with her or another girl, younger, able, willing…I felt a mixture of disgust and jealousy, all tangled up together.
I knew I shouldn’t be spying on him, but I couldn’t help myself. I carefully placed my market basket at my feet, not taking my eyes off Bors for a second.
Once, when I was a child, there had been a lunar eclipse and I found I couldn’t look away. For hours I stayed awake, until my eyes stung, watching and waiting, studying every curve of the moon, memorizing the stars. I felt the same pull now as I looked at Bors.
He sat in the chair with his long legs spread wide, like he was too big and burly for ordinary furnishings. His scarred arms were immense, rippling and straining against the fabric of his shirt; the once-white cloth pushed up to his elbows. His boots were enormous, the leather battered and worn. The veins in his forearms seemed to throb. My eyes fell on his neck and throat, his Adam’s apple and the dark stubble along his jaw.
His dark hair was long enough to tuck behind his ears, yet not to cover the collar of his shirt. Its waves called for my fingers and I dreamed of running my hands through the shiny silk, telling him my secrets as he kissed my neck, making me shiver.
Looking at him ignited the same feeling between my legs as I felt in the town square. Even now, seeing him with her, I wanted him.
And I wanted to hurt her.
As my breathing quickened and my cheeks grew warm, I felt another rush of wetness trickle f
rom my sex and I resisted the intense desire to touch myself.
Suddenly, I felt a hard, stinging smack on my bottom and yelped, hands going to my lips as I whirled around. Before I could make sense of what was happening, I was in the wiry arms of a vaguely familiar man.
He had the unfocused, moist eyes of a drunkard and he smelled like spoiled beer and unclean hair. I pulled my face away and planted my arms on his chest to push him off me. But he was too strong and too drunk to notice.
“If you’re thinking of working as one of her girls, lass, you’ll need a reference,” he growled. “I’d like to take the first plunge in your pool.” He sniffed hard, lecherous lust in his eyes as he peeled his lips back from brown, rotting teeth. “You are pure, I can smell it on you.”
A wave of nausea came up from my stomach into my mouth, as much from the smell as from the idea of him thinking, even for one moment, about my pool.
Still, with one arm wrapped around me, he started digging in his pockets. I heard coins jingle and he chortled. “Won’t be able to raise my member for a while yet. But I’ll give you five farthings in advance and pay the rest once the deal is done. Maybe, have your Mistress inside tie you to the bed and hold you for me until I’m ready…surely a few farthings more will entice her to give me my way.”
He was vile. I was revolted by his presence, by his assumptions. I might have hated Angelica at that moment, but if this was what she had to put up with I couldn’t help but feel sympathy too. I was less afraid of him than I was furious at the sound of his words, the touch of his fingers.
His molten entitlement to another person’s very being.
He was much bigger than me, but I knew from my experience of my father that drink made men slow and sloppy.
Drawing back my hand, I slapped him across his greasy face, drawing a roar of anger.
“You will not touch me that way.” I screamed. “Let me go or…” I pressed my hands to his shoulders, daring to finish as his face bloomed with a red welt and I saw anger flash in his eyes.
