I heard Val say, “This one’s dead too,” indicating the first man that I had punched in the heart.
Chapter 13 - That Settles It
A small crowd had gathered now. The men of the village said that they had seen what had happened for the most part and that they would take care of the bodies for me. They thanked me for saving the village once again, and the girls and I rushed to Brenda and Alice to see how they were.
But Dawn stayed where she was. And as I watched, she burst into tears. The other five of us all rushed to her now. Dawn was sobbing, seemingly wracked with pain, starting to sink to her knees. I reached her first and lifted her into my arms.
Dawn cried and said, “They hurt me. And they hurt Brenda and Alice. Are they OK? Is Brenda OK? Did they torture her? What if they come back and try to hurt her again? They hurt me so much. And they wanted to rape me to death. What if they come back? What if they hurt Alice or Harmony? Or me? I won’t let them. I’ll kill them. I’ll hunt them down and kill them so that Brenda will be safe. Brenda, I’ll protect you. They hurt me so much. I was already dead. And now they’re back and want to hurt Brenda. Dear Brenda. We have to protect her. And she’s a widow and she needs us and we have to take care of her because they hurt her.”
I whispered, “No, it’s OK. They can’t hurt anybody and Brenda is going to be fine.”
Dawn screamed in my arms, saying, “We have to protect her. And love her. And Alice. And don’t let them be hurt. They can’t be. Please! Ronin, you have to make them safe and they have to have a husband or they can be hurt by those men. They hurt me. Make them stop. Don’t let them…”
At that moment, Val reached out and pressed her hand against Dawn’s neck and did something to her face and forehead, and Dawn relaxed in my arms and passed out.
Val said, “It’s the trauma. It finally caught up to her. She ignored what had happened to her because she had work to do. When the last of her tormentors died, she faced her feelings and the fear that she didn’t admit to herself all the time that they tormented her.”
I held Dawn in my arms and said, “I had wondered if her emotional injuries would be even worse than her physical ones.”
Dawn whispered in her sleep, “Brenda. Help Brenda. Help…”
Val touched her again and she seemed to fall into a deeper sleep.
Val said, “Take her to the house. I will do what I can for her.”
We hurried to the house and Harmony told me to take her up to Harmony’s bedroom and lay her on the bed. Val said that she would go up in just a minute, but that I should come back as soon as Dawn was comfortable.
I rushed up the stairs and laid Dawn on the single bed in Harmony’s old room and then hurried back downstairs again.
As I entered the front room, the other women were huddled around talking earnestly.
Brenda was saying, “There can’t be any question now. About our status. It’s settled isn’t it?”
Harmony said “You heard it from his own lips. And Dawn said it too.”
Val said, “I know. Everyone be calm. Yes, there’s no question. There never was. Only timing. Alice? Are you feeling the same way?”
Alice said, “Of course I am. I was before. And I understand timing, but even last night, I knew. And now, it can’t be any other way. Not after this.”
Val noticed me and smiled and said, “Oh Ronin, there you are. We were just talking about what to do next. I need to take care of Dawn if I can, but then we can have our evening meeting. Ladies, I will talk to him.”
Brenda said, “Valeera, will you let me? I want to be the one, if you will let me. I am older and I know it better, and I have a very personal interest in making sure that he understands.”
Val look slightly thoughtful, but said, “That sounds like a good idea. I’ll go see to Dawn. I think that she is going to be fine. If not, she will stay home from now on and we will care for her here. But I think that she’ll be fine. She is very strong.”
Then, to me, she said, “Ronin, listen to Brenda. We have talked it over, and there is only one way to go now. She will explain it. Trust us.”
With that, Val stepped close and kissed me and then went to see about Dawn.
Alice came to me and said, “I will go and clean up. Harmony, will you come with me? We will use a different bathroom, not the big one. Ronin, you saved me today. Again. Can I kiss you?”
I didn’t have time to answer her before she had leaned in and kissed me on the lips. Then she and Harmony left, but Harmony turned and winked and grinned at me as she went.
That left Brenda and I alone.
I looked to see what Brenda would do now. She looked at me very seriously.
She said, “My Lord, I need your help. And I have things to tell you. Will you let me talk and will you say that you won’t ask questions yet? Will you let me explain everything in full before we question anything? Please?”
I started to ask why, but I caught myself and just nodded.
She said, “Thank you. Come with me. I need your help.”
She led me up the stairs to the sitting room and ushered me inside. She shut the door behind. Brenda took a comfortable chair and placed it in the center of the room, and then stood in front of me.
She said, “Now, I need you first to check me for injuries. As you do, I will tell you several things about our customs and what I am feeling, and what I hope will happen. You heard how we are all in agreement and how Val would have told you this herself if I hadn’t asked to be the one. Now, look me over. My arms, my head, my neck, and my face and see if I am injured or bruised. Tell me what you find.”
I stepped close to the woman and looked at her face first.
I said, “You have a bruise here on your jaw.”
She said, “One of them struck me with the back of his hand.”
I could feel my anger start to burn at that. I forced myself to stay calm. It wasn’t time to express anger. Brenda would see my tenderness toward her, not my fierceness at the injustice that had been done to her.
I touched her face and tilted it upward and said softly, “You have a scratch here on your neck. From the knife. Brenda, I’m so sorry for what happened. I should have been here.”
She said, “There is no way that you could have known. And, I’m better than you can imagine. Or I will be very soon. Please, tell me what you find, but nothing more.”
I sighed and examined the back of her neck, and then her arms and hands. Her dress had short sleeves.
I said, “You have bruises here, on both arms, and here on your wrist.”
She said, “They grabbed me very hard and shook me. The wrist is where they dragged me out of your house into the street.”
I was done looking her over, and as I stood there waiting, Brenda looked into my eyes and pulled the shoulders of her dress down and let it fall to her waist.
She stared at me, looking for a deep emotional connection and said, “And now my chest, stomach, and back. Please. What do you see?”
What I wanted to say was that I saw a very beautiful mature woman. And she was. I saw for the first time, that Brenda was lovely. She wasn’t as young looking as the girls, and she carried just a little more meat on her bones, but she was beautiful. I wanted to ask why she was undressing, and to tell her that it wasn’t necessary, but she had made me promise to trust her and do as she asked. Shouldn’t it be Valeera looking over her wounds and not me? But she wanted me to do it, so I did. And as I resolved to do what she asked, I found that I was going to enjoy it on some level, at least.
I said, “Brenda, how old are you?”
She said, “I’m thirty eight. I was married at twenty-six and had my first child the next year. Alice is the same age as me. She was married to our husband four years before I was, when she was twenty-two. She was very young, but they were very happy from the beginning.”
I started my examination of Brenda’s back.
I said, “You have a bruise here, on your shoulder. And on the middle of your
back.”
She said, “One of then hit me with his fist from behind, and then again on the shoulder. How is my chest?” and she turned to face me.
I hesitated for a moment and she said, “Go on. Say what you want to. And a compliment is never unwelcome.”
I said, “Brenda, you are a very beautiful woman. Very beautiful.”
Brenda’s breasts were incredible. Large, and somehow very soft looking. The shape of them was more voluptuous somehow than the younger girls. She was very enticing. I wanted to touch them. Or to sleep with them. I had never seen anything so physically comforting in my life. I knew that it was the situation, and the intensity of having just rescued her that was making both of us feel this way, but she was beautiful.
She said, “Do you think so? I want you to think so. It’s important to me that you can think so. And what injuries do I have? Touch me if you need to.”
I examined Brenda’s front and said, “Brenda, you have a large bruise on this breast. What happened?”
She said. “One of them grabbed me and squeezed me very hard. It was excruciating.”
I felt enraged again by that. That Brenda would be touched at all by someone who didn’t do it with love and respect was inconceivable. Seeing the bruise, I would have been tempted to kill the man that had done it, as quickly as if he had threatened her life. I was glad that he was dead. And I was sad that he wasn’t alive so that I could avenge her for this separately, now that I knew about it.
I said, “And you have a bruise here on your abdomen.”
She said, “One of them shoved me against the edge of a table, and the corner hit me there.”
Now, she put her hands to her hips and pulled the dress down over them and let it fall all the way to her feet and she stepped out of it.
She said, “Now, examine my legs and my hips and my buttocks.”
I looked at her timidly and said, “And, are compliments still welcome?”
She smiled for the first time and said, “They are indeed.”
I said, “Brenda, again, you are very beautiful.”
She said, “Look closely. Don’t be shy. Am I at all injured or bruised? You will want to kneel so that you can see better. And so that you can examine my feet as well.”
Since she was facing me, I knelt to examine her thighs and pelvis first. She had told me not to be shy, so I tried not to. I was finding her to be very attractive, and I gave in to my desires to look at her as a woman, not just as an injured person. Just a little bit. She could certainly be both at the same time, couldn’t she?
I said, “Brenda, You have a bruise here, on your hip bone.”
She said, “Again, I was pushed against a piece of furniture as the men threw both Alice and I about while they threatened us.”
When I had looked over Brenda’s thighs and calves, not finding anything else to report, I sat back on my knees and she lifted a foot and placed it on my leg for me to look it over. And then she gave me the other one.
As I held her foot, she suddenly said, “Ronin” and I looked up instinctively. She was standing very close to me, and with her foot in my hands, her legs were parted slightly, and as I glanced upward, I couldn’t help but have my gaze captured by the sight of Brenda’s lovely vulva. She had a little more hair below her belly, but it was sparse and very pretty.
She said, “Am I OK?”
I looked up to her face and cleared my throat nervously, and said that she was and that I didn’t find any more bruises. I set her foot down and she took my hands and helped me to my feet. As I stood, she kept my face, and then my chest just inches from her now naked body. If I hadn’t pulled back, my head would have collided with her beasts where they stood out at least six inches or more from her chest.
Brenda continued to hold my hands for a moment and then said, “My Lord, I have no shyness in front of you. You have examined me and I enjoyed all of it. I felt nothing but love and care and protection from you. And I can tell that me calling you Lord is uncomfortable for you, but that’s what you are to me. There is no shame in me feeling this way about you. And to that end, listen to me explain the custom. Remember, no questions yet.”
Brenda had me sit in the chair and she pulled up a second one and sat in it facing me, our knees nearly touching. She didn’t put on her dress, and as she sat opposite me, she was very casual about what I might see, both on her chest, and between her legs.
She said, “Ronin, you heard us talking just now, and also this morning. About what our status was going to be. Yes, we discussed being your housekeepers, but there is more to it than that. We had thought that we would wait a few days before we talked about this, but after what happened in the street, we need to settle it now. It’s settled for us, but it needs to be settled for you. Remember, you agreed to let me talk and ask no questions.”
I nodded and she continued, “The custom is that when a hero rescues a damsel, she becomes his servant. You know that. But you have made it clear that you wouldn’t compel any woman to do anything that she didn’t want. I’m glad. You rescued our village, and in a way, any woman here could claim that she had a reason to serve you and even to hope to become your mate. My husband and Alice’s was killed by the kobolds, and we were without a way to support ourselves. And we will come back to that. Today, we were single women, and bandits took us and would have raped us and killed us. The same one who tortured Dawn. And you rescued us. And we have a right for that reason to pledge ourselves to you as servants. We are alive because of you. Once because you saved the village from Delilah and the kobolds, and a second time because of the men today, and a third time because you have given us a way to be provided for. And I know that you wouldn’t hold us to any obligation for any of it. But, we are triply indebted to you and owe you our lives.”
She looked at me and I held to my promise and didn’t speak.
She said, “But, here is what I have to explain. You heard us mention it this morning. Wait. Ronin, do you love me? Think hard and answer truthfully.”
Because she said it this way, I did give it some thought before I answered.
I said, “Brenda, when we were in the street, and they threatened you, I knew that I would do anything for you. I said to them that you were my women. I won’t ask you what you thought of that because I have promised to answer your questions and not ask my own yet. Yes, I do love you. And Alice. And I don’t understand exactly how or what that means to us.”
And then I said, “Wait, don’t say anything for a moment.”
I half closed my eyes and looked at her, looking for elveness. And I found it. Faint, but visible. I wondered if I could see Alice, even through the walls, and found that I could. She was farther away, and that did seem to make a difference, but she was there. And she was elven as well. And then I gasped and looked for the ribbons, and they were there too. And almost as strongly as with the three younger girls. These women had formed a connection and a bond with me.
When I opened my eyes, Brenda said, “I don’t know what you were doing, but I felt it. Strange. But as to our custom, it’s called ‘the widow-wife’. You heard us mention it. And you didn’t know what it meant. This is what it means. When a woman becomes a widow, especially if she has children, a good man may ‘rescue her’. Even a younger man might do this for a widow who is not so much older than he is. She is a widow, and she becomes his widow-wife. The widow-wife is like a wife in many respects, but different in some. The man provides for her, and her children. Sometimes she moves into his house, and sometimes she maintains a separate house with her children. She becomes like a wife and takes care of his house and cooks and cleans and serves him from then on as a commitment of love. And, in exchange for his provision and love, and in exchange for her love and care for him, they also take care of each other’s sexual needs. The widow-wife knows what sex is and probably wants a man to love her, and she has no hesitation about pleasing him whenever and however he wants her. Her status is like a wife, but not exactly. A man may have both wives a
nd widow-wives.”
She paused and let what she was saying sink in for a minute and then went on, saying, “Now, the custom for a damsel is that the girl is obligated, even if you don’t obligate her. The custom for a widow-wife is that if a man loves her and provides for her, rescuing her from a lonely life, he is obligated to her, to treat her like a wife and to let her give herself to him for love as often as he wants it. Do you understand all of that? Ronin, we belong to you. For many reasons. Yesterday we were your housekeepers. But we had hopes for more. Because we loved you. And now, after what happened in the street…”
Brenda stood up at that point and turned her back to me and kneeling on the chair and spreading her legs, she looked over her shoulder and said, “Do you understand?”
It was hard not to understand right now. She was presenting me with her sex. She was asking me to fulfill my obligation; to accept her as a widow-wife. And to give her the love that she wanted and needed. I stood up and got behind Brenda and put my hands gently on her hips. Yes, I would do it. There were so many reasons that I had to. They did belong to me. I wanted them to belong to me. I had rescued them in several ways, and a little while ago, when I had faced those men, I knew it. I loved them and I knew that I would always be their protector and provider. I would never let anyone harm them. And now that I had verified that they were already connected to me in their hearts, I wanted it more than ever. I could see that they wanted me to love them. And I did. Both Brenda and Alice. Of course I did.
And of course, right now, I could see Brenda’s very lovely round rump, asking me to press myself into her pretty peach as it peaked out between her thighs. I wanted that. In some way this was different than anything that I had done with the girls so far. Yes, I had made love to them in essentially this position a few times, but never like this somehow. It was as if Brenda was made to be loved this way. From behind. As if her ass were built to be held and loved exactly like this. I pictured her, always ready, always welcoming me, all over the house, bent over, accepting me every time I knocked at her doors. I wanted her. I hadn’t even touched her yet, except for my hands on her feet a few minutes ago, and now my hands were on her waist, but I knew that a hot wet bath waited for me between her thighs and I wanted it. And she didn’t want or need me to say a word now. She wanted and needed me to accept her gift, now and forever. And I would.
The Edge of Harmony: The Guardian Maidens Book 2 Page 12
