Heart of the Forest (Arwn's Gift Book 1)

by Christina Quinn

  Our gazes locked. Clearly that wine hit me harder than I thought. I shook my head and furrowed my brows a bit.

  “I won’t be your whore, Yorwrath.”

  “I don’t want you to be my whore,” he gnarled, leaning forward before kissing me hard. He folded over me as he forced me back against the table. My thighs parted for him eagerly as he pressed his hips to mine. As we continued to kiss and bite each other ferociously I locked my ankles behind him. “If you were a whore I would have had you already.” He purred against my throat as his kisses trailed down my neck. “On the road as I kept you warm at night.” He bit my throat, and my breath caught as my back arched off the table, and I clawed at the leather of his jerkin. “The first night in your shop.” His hips relaxed against me some, and I knew he was unlacing his trousers. My body throbbed with impatient need. “Trust me, if I thought you a whore, I had plenty of opportunities to have you. Willing or not.”

  “Then say it,” I whispered as his slid his hands up my thighs, hiking up my skirt and exposing my sex to the frigid open air. He hesitated, and it was his turn for his brows to furrow. I kicked at him. “That’s what I thought. Move.”

  “No.”

  “Liar!” I grabbed the cup by my hand and threw it at his head. The thin, cheap wood splintered and our struggle ensued. It was “ours” because we were fighting ourselves as much as each other. I kicked him and was able to use my hips to roll him off the table with me. He landed on his back in the dirt with a wince with me on top of him.

  A moment of concern made me pause, and he took that time to grab my wrists. “Say—” He sat up and kissed me hard, eating away at my words before he flipped me to my back. He pulled back and shook his head, and I slapped him hard enough that my hand left a big, red, angry print across his cheek. A growl rumbled in his throat, and I couldn’t stop myself from squealing with delight as again he eased back from me in another attempt to sheathe himself inside me. I scrambled from him giggling as I ran closer to the ash and burning embers at the foot of the Wicker Man’s skeleton. He tackled me to the ground from behind. “Say it,” I half laughed–half moaned, as he slid one hand between my thighs while the other closed around my waist. “Fine!” I jerked myself to the left as the wind blew the ash and embers about us like snowflakes.

  “You’re learning.” He panted as he grabbed me again. “But you’re still not fast enough, Dy’ne,” he roared, flipping me onto my back. My heart was pounding, and my muscles were growing tired. Honestly, I couldn’t keep up the playful struggle much longer.

  “Just say it.”

  “Why do you want to hear those words so badly?”

  “Because I want to know I’m more than just another piece in your collection. The Vanotta edition with big tits.”

  “You plowing well know you’re more than that,” he gnarred. He seemed a little angry, and I took advantage of it and flipped him again. The ash rose around us like a cloud when his back hit the dirt. I straddled his hips.

  “Just say it,” I whispered as I reached behind myself and slowly lifted up a bit before I sheathed his thick length within my folds with a breathy moan. “Say it,” I whispered again as I shifted my hips.

  “I don’t have to say anything now, Dy’ne. You’re given me exactly what I want.” He groaned as I started to ride him as slow as I possibly could. As I reached up and closed my hand over his throat, our gazes met again.

  “Who said I’d let you finish?” I practically cackled, and he slid his hands up my thighs.

  “Your thighs are shaking. You’re not going to be able to ride me to completion regardless, pretty Dy’ne.” Fuck you for calling my bluff. He stared up at me, watching me writhe astride him with my lips parted and my sex stretched tight around that rigid flesh that speared into me. I continued to use my hand at his throat for leverage, but he didn’t seem to mind—my muscles were already fatigued, and he was far from it. The wind kicked up the embers again, and in the dust all I could see were his eyes, as the heat from the dying fire and our exertions caused our bodies to glisten with sweat that the ash and dust stuck to.

  Regardless of his assertion, his breathing still deepened as I continued my slow, steady undulations. Looking deep into my eyes he continued to trace his hands up and down my thighs. Beside us, the embers of what was left of the Wicker Man started to rise and fall with Yorwrath’s ragged, desperate breaths.

  “Say it,” I hissed as a moan broke from his lips, digging his strong fingers into my thighs.

  “Fuck.”

  “Say it!” I growled. He gasped, and the Wicker Man beside us flared so brightly for a moment that I couldn’t see as my eyes fought to adjust. He flipped me on my back, knelt between my thighs, and pulled me on to his lap by my hair. As my vision came back to me, all I could see was the smirk on those pink lips of his as he forcefully slammed his body into me with one hand still wound in my hair. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. That hurts. There was no pleasure in having your hair pulled in such a forceful manner. But feeling him fill me and stretch me made my toes curl in delight.

  “I love you. Is that what you fucking wanted to hear?” He groaned through gritted teeth as he gave my hair one last hard yank and finished inside me. “I love you. I fucking love you.” He chanted to the wind and the raging fire as he twitched within me. I roared with frustration and punched his shoulders as my body clenched down on him and he laughed. “Happy?” he whispered, as he released my hair and cradled his arms under my bottom.

  “You’re fucking evil.”

  “No, not really. In fact, I’m going to show you just how good I am, Dy’ne,” he chuckled as he stood with me in his arms while he was still sheathed deep within me. He carried me across the square to my shop. That couple who had been in the midst of coupling when we started were staring at us wide-eyed as Yorwrath opened the door to the shop. I watched them stare dumb and frozen through the windows as he locked the door and took me upstairs.

  “I think we scared that poor couple.”

  “You were the one who broke the damn cup over my head.” He snickered as he walked me to my bedroom and threw me onto the feather mattress. He grabbed the candle on the nightstand and pinched the wick, and it sprang to life with a small flame. A small gasp took my throat, and as my gaze and attention were focused elsewhere, he pushed my skirt up and knelt between my thighs. His hot breath on my damp thighs made me quiver. He licked a long slow line between the lips of my sex, ripping my attention from the flame as I gasped and moaned. It was my turn to pull his hair as he worked my sex with his diligent tongue. My feet rested on his shoulders as he reached his hands up and parted the lips of my sex. He sucked his seed from me, making me arch off the bed and contort with every new pass of his tongue across my needy pearl and between my sensitive, delicate inner lips.

  “We’re quite tasty, Dy’ne,” he half grunted.

  “Fuck! Merda! Fottere! Fuck!” I cursed in both common and Vanotti as I yanked handfuls of his hair. My whole body was trembling as he purposefully circled his tongue over my nub as slowly as possible. And then I came, with him chuckling darkly between my thighs…which closed around his head as best as they could as my body bowed off the bed. Then, as my body spasmed and contorted, he lapped at me with such speed that his tongue practically vibrated against me. It made my whole being explode with a sensation that didn’t seem to want to stop. Every time I thought he would let up, he only paused for a handful of moments and started again, making my body jump off the mattress.

  When he finally finished tormenting me, my body was still shuddering. He wiped his mouth off on the hem of my dress and moved to lie beside me.

  “Mm, there’s nothing more satisfying than knowing I can do this to you, Dy’ne.” He purred happily, stroking his hand down the center of my body. I collapsed back against the pillow, and he kissed my neck before pulling me close, as we both panted in the soft, dim candlelight. Our fingers entwined, and I sighed happily in his arms.

  “It would be nice to have someone to bring me
strawberries at midsummer,” I breathed softly, and he twisted to look down at me with a smile on his usually grave lips.

  Chapter Twenty

  Winter 1356

  The room was so hot from the steaming bath that the air fogged the windows. Resting my hands on the copper edge, I stroked my thumbs idly along the warm metal. I could feel those hoofbeats and see that rider heading that massive pack of wolves as I lay in the fragrant water. Pungent floral incense danced smoky patterns to the drafts as I stared blank-faced at the room before me. Everything was on fire, but nothing burned. It was a vision of sorts, like those hoofbeats. It was something that was or would be, but all the same, as I lay in the water, it wasn’t real. Those flames that lapped and licked greedily at the wooden walls weren’t really there; even though I could almost feel the dry heat of it baking my flesh as I soaked.

  A sigh slipped steadily between my supple lips as I surrendered to what I saw. It was nothing, just fire. I never saw the cause of it, but I always saw it burn. I’d done it enough in the last few weeks that I knew that, if I looked out of the window onto the square, instead of the towering immaculately tended evergreens there’d be a shrine and a pyre of the Dawn. But it really wasn’t there, like those hoofbeats I could practically feel thudding the ground weren’t really there either.

  The door opened, and the draft blew out the candles and the incense; with it went that fire that wasn’t actually there. Yorwrath stood in the doorway in his new, close-fitting gambeson. The dark fabric hugged his body close, showing off that lithe, elven tightness. His hair had grown a little long in the front and now looked like Aneurin’s when we first met. Those pointed, almost white ears poked through his dark hair, and for the first time I noticed the tiny silver loop in his right earlobe. He didn’t dress so wild anymore. The well-used armor he wore when he came into town sat in a trunk at the foot of the bed along with that blood-dyed bandanna that had oxidized to brown.

  “Here for your bow?” I asked, glancing at the bow and quiver that leaned in the corner.

  “As always, Dy’ne, your penchant for stating the obvious is plowing astounding.” He snorted, and I rolled my eyes. Smart-ass.

  “Hunting with Grwn?”

  “No, he and Hedda are going to market, and they’re bringing Morwenna over at midday. Remember, Dy’ne?”

  “So why do you need the bow?” I asked as he fastened the quiver to his belt and strapped his bow beside it. He didn’t answer me at first. Instead, he grabbed for his sword and buckled it in also.

  “None of your plowing business, Dy’ne.”

  “Did you just say that you don’t want to fuck me for a month or two? Because I could have sworn, you just said that you don’t want to even see my cunny until you leave at the thaw, Elf.” I smirked at him, and he narrowed his eyes at me, circling closer to the tub. Footsteps on the stairs ended his stalking, and a sigh broke from both of our lips almost simultaneously. He flashed me a smile.

  “Pity for you, Dy’ne. You might have had the upper hand for a change.” He chuckled deviously and righted his belt. “I’m going with Hywel and a few others to hunt stag in the forest. What you Dy’ne call ‘Yule’ is tomorrow, remember?”

  “How could I forget? Caoilfionn made downstairs look like an evergreen and a holly bush exploded,” I grumbled.

  He stepped close to me and leaned down. I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead, he nipped my bottom lip and stood.

  “Mm, you should wear a dress today. I like easy access when I come in from killing something. You haven’t had the pleasure of having an elf whose blood is up yet. I think you might like it, Dy’ne.”

  “I’ll wear what I fucking please, Elf.” I stuck my tongue out at him and stood. Those golden eyes of his swept slowly up over my body, tracing every inch with their molten heat. Smirking I pulled the linen sheet from a nearby chair and wrapped it around myself as I stepped from the tub. He stepped behind me while I pulled my hair over my shoulder. His breath was hot on my neck.

  “I’m going to absolutely ruin that tight sex of yours tonight, Dy’ne.”

  “If I let you.” I tilted my head back and grinned up at him. A deep dark growl rumbled in his throat as he stared down at me and as I stood on my toes to seize his lips. Behind us, Caoilfionn cleared his throat. Yorwrath leaned closer to me and then, at the last minute before our lips touched, he pulled back cackling. “Tonight, Dy’ne. Even if I have to rip those leather trousers off you,” he called on his way out as he slapped his palm against the top of the door frame. Such a sheepfucker. I glared at him as Caoilfionn stood in the kitchen staring at me exasperatedly.

  “Yes, I know. Morwenna will be here any moment,” I groused at Caoilfionn, who only stared with mild amusement at my irritated display as I closed the door.

  After dressing in my trousers, chemise, and bodice, I righted the amethyst at my throat and walked down the stairs with my good boots clacking on the wooden stairs. Morwenna was already there, seated in front of the fire by the cots, reading a book. Hedda and Caoilfionn were talking calmly as they stood over the girl. I noticed that Grwn was absent.

  “I thought you were spending the day with Grwn?” I asked Hedda as Morwenna ran up to me.

  “Valentina! I drew you!” she beamed, holding up a picture. I blinked as I stared at the crude chalk drawing. She drew me with a sword in my hand and a black garland on my head. Beside me in the picture was a black rider twice my size and a red-nosed white dog that dwarfed me.

  “Who’s that?” I pointed to the rider.

  “That’s Gwyn ap Nudd, silly!”

  “And that?” I pointed to the dog.

  “That’s his wolf, Dormarth. They’re protecting you!”

  “Don’t take up all of Miss Valentina’s time with your ramblings, little one. Be as quiet as a mouse and sit in that corner reading your book,” Hedda instructed her daughter, as she tied her cloak tighter around her shoulders. “I won’t be long—maybe an hour or two. Thank you so much.”

  “It’s nothing,” I assured her as she made her way to the door with Caoilfionn.

  “I probably won’t be gone so long,” Caoilfionn offered me a smile and then glanced at the drawing Morwenna held. He faltered for a moment and his brows knit before he pulled the hood of his almost white cloak over his head and ducked into the snow-filled cold with Hedda.

  “So who’s Gwyn ap Nudd?” I asked Morwenna as we walked into the back by the fire. She held her book.

  “He’s the Winter King! When the first snow sticks to the trees, he rides across the lands gathering souls of the dead to take back with him to the Otherworld. See!” She opened her book to a page that showed a menacing figure wrapped in black armor like I had seen in those flashes in my mind. I sat on the floor, and she followed my lead, sitting beside me. She turned the page with her tiny fingers, and there was a drawing of someone in silver armor fighting the black armored figure. “That’s Arwn, he’s the king in the Otherworld.”

  “I thought Gwyn ap Nudd was king?”

  “Only in winter. At midwinter, they fight, and if Arwn wins spring comes early! But if he loses we have a long nasty winter.”

  “Why would you draw him protecting me? He seems rather like the nasty sort.” I stroked her forehead and she furiously flipped through the pages.

  “Because you’re all alone here.” She glanced up at me and grinned as she smoothed the book open. On the page was a drawing of a woman with black hair and eyes that were vivid purple, with an amethyst at her throat, and behind her a long twisting line of women that stopped at the top left corner with a tall male figure standing in front of a tree. “He doesn’t want you to be lonely. I would have drawn Arwn too, but he doesn’t leave Annwn.”

  “Why do you think I’d be lonely? I have Yorwrath and Caoilfionn to keep me company.”

  “Mummy says Yorwrath doesn’t love you because he calls you the bad word. And that he’s going to go back to his H-O-R-E-S and not come back at May Day. I mean Nos Galan Mai… Daddy doesn’t
like it when I use Mummy’s words for holy days.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t say much more. Something about what she said hit a nerve, and I suddenly found myself coiled tight and a bit angry.

  “And you’re the only one of your kind.”

  “There are other Vanotta here.”

  “No, from the Otherworld, see.” She flipped through the book again. “Gallwch chi yn…nodi creadur o'r… An…nwn drwy eu llyg…llygaid sydd yn borffor mewn lliw.” Slipping her fingers under a line opposite a page full of different creatures and people with eyes in various hues of purple, she beamed at me. She seemed so proud that she got all the words out. I stared at her blankly as it was all gibberish to me.

  “I don’t speak the elven tongue.”

  “Oh. It says ‘you can always spot a creature from Annwn by their eyes, which are purple in color.’” I pursed my lips. What a rubbish fairy story. Still I smiled at her, I hadn’t the heart to break it to her that I was no more from the Otherworld than she was. My mother and father both had dark eyes, and my sister had green eyes. But Gwyn ap Nudd bothered me. My having visions of him riding with his massive white hound coupled with the town burning couldn’t be good.

  The door to the shop opened and I nearly jumped out of my skin as Caoilfionn came inside coated in snow, with a satchel over his shoulder and a letter in his pale hand. He caught me staring and tucked it away into his belt.

  Later, after Hedda had collected Morwenna and I finished treating the blacksmith’s apprentice for a nasty burn, Caoilfionn and I were alone. I glared at him from my chair when the door rattled with the boy’s leaving. He poked the Yule log and stood shedding that glamour, which made him look like just another pretty elf.

  “Why do I see Gwyn ap Nudd when I bathe, Caoilfionn?” I called to him as he started for the stairs. He paused and smirked.

  “That’s a good thing. It means the herbs are working.”

  “Oh, he’s not the only thing I’m seeing. I see this place on fire, and I see an altar to the sheepfucking Dawn in the town square.”