“Bym, we are here to cut down goblins for you. All of us,” Hopcyn pointed at himself and everyone else, even the Solis who were lurking around outside and failing miserably at being inconspicuous.
Turning back to the swordsmith, she said, “I’d also like a belt and sheath. This one is too big.”
Hopcyn said, “Probably because you stole it.”
“Who asked you? Anyway, it would have been stupid to escape from Bortag’s jail and run off into goblin-infested woods without a good weapon. I don’t want my hand getting stuck in a goblin mouth again.”
The swordsmith looked from one of them to the other before quietly walking over to a barrel near his furnace and returning with two swords, either of which would perfectly suit her needs. She selected the one with a black blade. It was similar to the one Hopcyn had given to her but not as ornate. After he’d cut a belt down to her size, she was ready to return to the inn.
They had dinner in the common room and then retired to their rooms.
“What’s this?” Bym asked of a box she found amidst her purchases on the bed.
Guto turned from the tub he was filling. “Open it.”
She unlatched the lid and found an hourglass. Sparkling black sand transitioned to grey, shades of blue from dark to light, yellow, orange, and red.
“It’s a day piece, so you can tell what time dinner should be. I thought you might like it.”
She took it from the box, a long gold chain coming along with it, and placed it on her palm so she could admire it.
“You can wear it around your neck. The frame holds it in place. It won’t turn over unless you unlatch it.” He sounded nervous.
Carefully returning it to the box, she went to him and pulled him down to kiss his lips. Then, she tugged his robe over his head.
“Your… your bath is getting cold.”
“It’s a big tub, Guto.”
She stripped and smiled as she stepped into the water, holding her hand out to him. In a blink, his clothes were off. She straddled him in the tub. He moved his calloused hands over her back while she soaped his chest and arms. Leaning close, she pressed her breasts against him and kissed his neck. Sitting upright once more, she popped the soap bubble between them with her finger and smiled seductively before cupping water in her palms and rinsing him off. The head of his cock poked up from the water’s surface begging to be touched.
“Bym, will you do what you did before? Please? The time you were in your bath?” Adventurously, he slid his hands from her back to her chest and began bathing her breasts.
“I have something else in mind.”
“Oh, what?” The innocence in his tone and expression wasn’t feigned. He moved his thumb over her nipple.
She arched her back into his touch and moaned. “If you want to find out, come get under the blankets with me.” She was slick and aching with need. She wanted to feel him inside of her. With her feet to either side of his thighs, she stood and reached for a bath sheet.
Guto covered her cheeks with his palms and covered her mound with his mouth. Bym gasped in shock and clutched at his head as he found her with his tongue. He pushed it between her folds making her moan and grind against his face. She felt something at her ankles. It was the lowering water level. His tongue left her. Standing, he wrapped her in a towel, picked her up, and carried her to bed. Cold sheets chilled her back, but Guto was hot and eager above her. She spread her thighs, encouraging him to make his home there. He lowered his body to hers, watching the movements of her breasts and catching a nipple in his mouth.
“Guto, please.”
Kissing his way up to her neck, he asked, “What do I do?”
Taking his hand, she guided his finger into her achingly wet channel. He pushed it all of the way in and added a second. “Yes, that is where I want this to be,” she whispered as she found him and stroked him.
“Understood,” he said with more eagerness than she’d thought it possible to imbue into a single word. She felt his head pushing past her folds and sighed. His breathing was fast and labored. “Am I hurting you?”
“No, I want all of you. When you feel your balls slam against my ass, pull out to your rim and slam back into me.”
He rammed forward.
Bym gasped. He was huge, bigger than anyone before with whom she’d been intimate. The other guys had felt like two fingers. Guto felt like he’d need to snap her pelvis to make enough room for himself. He filled her so full that she burned in places. Maybe, she should have gotten him to ease himself in. It was too late now. He pulled out and drove forward. Being a warrior who spent most of his time training or in meditative prayer, he had the glutes and abdominals to give some powerful thrusts, and he kept going. It was building inside of her, blossoming into something incredible. She lifted her feet and hooked her ankles together around his hips. Pleasure built within her to the point of pain and then burst. Her back arched from the bed, and she cried out her release as he drove forward and spilled his hot seed within her.
Shaking, he pulled himself from her and laid on his side, drawing her into his arms. They held onto one another while their breathing slowed. Sighing contentedly, she laced their fingers together and fell asleep with a smile on her lips.
Waking up in a soft, cozy bed with her front pressed to a warm, sleepy, sexy man made it the best morning of her life. She snuggled closer and softly laughed as his male member sprang to life, and his arms tightened around her. “Good morning,” she said against his scratchy jaw.
“My love, it is still dark. The sun has not yet risen.”
“If it is still night, does that mean we have time for this?” She trailed her fingers gently from his tip to his balls, but pushed against his shoulders when he tried to put her on her back.
“I thought you wanted….”
“Oh, I do.” She slid a leg over his stomach and positioned him at her entrance. She rode him slowly, taking her time, and all the while they whispered to each other words of love.
Afterwards, they bathed together by the light of the fire. He noticed her eyes had a distance in them. “You’re thinking of him.”
“Guto,” she said with a twinge of fear.
“There is no reason for the worry I hear in your voice. As far as I am concerned, all is perfect. You’ll have to sort things out with him at your own pace. Ignoring feelings won’t banish them. Accept who you are, and love who you love.”
They’d managed to get dressed before Drem let himself inside. “Since it should be morning, breakfast is ready in the common room. Are the two of you coming down?” He inspected the wall and the damage the headboard had done to it.
Bym grinned like a milk-drunk cat. Taking her hourglass necklace from its box, she put its chain over her head, careful of the yellow bow she’d tied around her head, and turned it over until it clicked into place. After belting on her sword, she whistled her way down the stairs.
“Someone’s in a good mood. You’d think the sun would be out, the birds would be flitting from tree to tree, and bunnies would be munching on winter grasses,” the Solis commander said from where he sat at a table with his back to the wall.
Bym said, “I think maybe we should change all of that. Let’s make night our day and day our night.” The look on his face was priceless. She held her sides and laughed.
Guto pointed at a chair, not pulling it out for her but pouring her a cup of strong tea.
“The name is Danior by the way.”
“I didn’t ask,” Bym said with a smile as she lifted her cup to him. Guto filled her plate with eggs and ham. “No bread?”
He shook his head and sat to fill his own plate. After the night and morning they’d shared, both of them were famished.
“Grain supplies diminish this time of year. You can purchase from bakers who set stores aside to last them through winter, but most of us will only serve breads at dinner until the harvest,” Eurig explained from where he sat in a dark corner with Hopcyn and Gethim.
“I guess that makes sense. So, cookies are luxuries?” She met Guto’s eyes and thought about the newspaper he’d shown her when they’d been in the fortress. The grain problems were because of the fluctuations between night and day, and that was because of her.
Hopcyn smiled at her. His heavily-lined eyes made him look rather demented. “Only the best for you, Goddess.”
She smiled back. “They were delicious.” She gave him another small smile, this time filled with disappointment. She was being purposefully manipulative but wanted to see if it would work. “Those pastries yesterday were divine. Weren’t they?” She sighed.
One of the inn’s serving girls wiped her hands on her apron and ran from the room.
Hopcyn grinned. “Your sly ways didn’t work on me, but I’ll bet they worked on the girl, and she comes back with pastries for you.” He turned smug.
“Why didn’t you go and get them? I don’t want to make her life difficult.”
Leaning forward, he asked, “So, it’s okay to make my life difficult. Is it?”
“Yes, I look forward to it. Annoying you is one of my greatest joys.” She stopped him from stealing her ham by poking his hand with her fork. “Did Iago return?”
Drem said, “Yes, a few hours ago.”
“Are the mother and baby okay?”
“Yes, of course, Iago was there. Our healers are the finest.”
The serving girl was shivering when she returned. She’d left with only a shawl for warmth. Bym insisted she join them at their table for breakfast, and Drem showed off by forming a ball of black mist in his hands with which to warm her.
After their tables had been cleared and the serving girls had all left them, Danior, the Solis commander, pinned Drem with his intense, pale-blue gaze. “If you’re done amusing pretty girls with your parlor tricks, we need to talk.”
When Drem was angry, he was terrifying. His left hand rested on the table, and black mist swirled between his fingers. Where the black mist moved, the wood beneath his fingers moved to avoid its touch. Bym stared at the wooden surface in awestruck fear, not comprehending how such a thing could be possible as it warped and shifted. She had never seen him as he was now.
The Sorcerer said, “This is neither the time nor place.”
Guto tugged at her sleeve, trying to get her to leave. Instead, even though she was afraid, she linked her pinky finger together with Drem’s. The rush of power was needles and pins up her arm and into her chest where she could feel the Temporal Locum slithering in upon itself in lazy figure eights. It felt satisfied and heated her from within. No one appeared to notice. Instead, they focused on Danior. Bym looked inside of her shirt. Her chest glowed gold.
“We will speak of it privately,” Drem said.
“Don’t hide things from me if they pertain to me,” she said. “If it’s none of my business, I’ll go and leave the two of you alone so you can kill each other in private.”
Danior’s eyes left Drem and turned to her. His expression was that of a man who’d grown up with a few sarcastic older sisters.
Sausage and Potatoes started barking outside, behavior which was uncharacteristic of them. Bym freed her pinky and followed Gethim from the inn. Solis guards were stationed around the building, but they discreetly followed when Bym left with Gethim, Hopcyn, Guto, and Eurig. They followed the dogs to the town’s gates.
“Bym, go buy something,” Gethim said. He gave her three gold coins and several coppers. She handed it all back. He knew better than to try to persuade her to do as he suggested. He put it in his pouch and drew out his mask.
Each of the Umbra did. Then, they covered their heads with their hoods. They didn’t waste any time arguing with her. Instead, they let her climb the ladders up to the parapets along the top of the wall. Men and boys sat along it at intervals, fletching arrows. As the sun rose higher and she looked out over the wall, she saw hundreds of Umbra and Solis surrounding the village. They were prepared to fight but not each other. A few miles away, from within the mountain, beneath whose shadow the village rested, the goblins screamed and cried for her blood.
Bym took a horrified step back and almost fell, but Guto and Eurig each grabbed for her. “No, no, no, no.” She glanced from one to the other. “Here? They’re coming for me here?” She hurried along the planks, down the ladders, and ran back to the inn. Her cheeks red with cold, she threw open the inn door. The two men turned at her interruption. “They’ve found me? Already? Drem, no.” She shook her head slowly and lifted her hand to her yellow bow, her thoughts on the little girl. Then, she thought of the new mother and her baby. “No, Drem. Not these people.” Knowing he was behind her, she said, “Eurig, help me saddle my horse.”
“It’s safer here. We have Umbra and Solis, and we are in a defensible location,” Drem said. He didn’t sound like he believed his own words.
Bym knelt at his feet and stared up into his eyes, even obscured as they were by kohl. “There are too many of them to count. You know it as do I. They will keep coming. They will keep coming for me. If I can keep the sun shining long enough, we can get away and lead them away from these people.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
She grabbed his hands, only this time he felt the push and pull between them. “We’re wasting daylight. Are you with me?”
He made her wait for his answer. “Through this life and the next one.”
She kept her eyes on his but heard heavy footsteps walking away from them and toward the door. Then, Danior was yelling, “Saddle up!”
Chapter Fifteen
They left the village on a track away from the mountain with forty additional soldiers to their number, half Umbra and half Solis. They rode hard for the first few hours while they had a road on which to travel. Secretly, Bym pricked her finger with her knife every couple of miles to lure the goblin horde away from the innocent civilians. Hundreds of soldiers remained to protect the town and take out as many goblins as they could. Captains and commanders sent ravens and eagles with messages containing plans and updates. Their wide wings would blot out the sunlight when they flew overhead, sending Bym when caught unaware into frantic prayers for the day to remain.
“Can we take a ten-minute break?” she called out. She’d been squirming in her saddle for an hour and couldn’t take it anymore.
Their response was to slow their horses to a walk.
She led her horse away until she could no longer see them. Then, she dismounted and went behind a bush. They had stopped not too far away. When she led her horse to rejoin them, the men went to their knees when she walked by them. “Could you all not do this?” She motioned at them with her hands.
Danior said, “Aurora would say, ‘May the light bring you peace,’ and her people would rise.”
Somewhat helplessly, Bym said, “I’m not Aurora. How do I get them to chill out?”
“Chill out?” Danior asked.
“Yes, relax and act normal.”
Danior silently considered her.
Eurig said, “Bym isn’t from our world. She has some odd turns of phrase.” He helped her up into her saddle. “Think of something unique to say. You don’t have to say, ‘May the light bring you peace.’ Say what feels right to you.”
Nodding to Eurig and herself, she yelled to everyone who was still kneeling, “Come on, people! Get up! Have you forgotten? We’ve got goblins on our asses!”
Hopcyn laughed at all of their expressions.
They’d ridden a few more hours when the sun started to set. “No, no! Please! Stay light. Stay light. Sun during the day keeps the goblins away.” She fumbled with her necklace and saw the sands of the hourglass were accurately depicting the time. “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I will it to stay light out?” Her hysterical question carried to all of the men.
Danior called back, “Your powers must be equalizing. It’s a good thing.”
“Not right now it isn’t! We need to get away. Have you seen how fast goblins run?”
Danior cal
led back, “I have, many times.”
Regardless of Bym’s objections, they made camp in a clearing. Guto and the others refused her help as they had before. Eurig had been placed in charge of the horses since he was still learning how the Umbra set up their camps, so Bym went to help him. He didn’t refuse. Instead, he gave her a brush and showed her how to care for her horse.
“Keep one hand on her and the one with the brush moving, like this.” He didn’t do the cheesy move she’d been hoping for. He didn’t step in close behind her, place his big strong hands over hers, and whisper instructions into her ear. No, he simply demonstrated on Gethim’s horse. She hid her disappointment. After she’d finished brushing her horse, he pointed her over to Drem’s.
She worried about how her intimacy with Guto might have affected him. She didn’t want to hurt him. She hadn’t thought they’d been loud, but everyone knew what they’d done. “How are you doing?” She kept her eyes on the brush she was using.
“What do you mean?” He looked over at her, surer of what he was doing than she was.
“Here with us? Aside from the fight with Hopcyn, are you adjusting?” She quieted, waiting for him to answer.
“I’m more at rest with you than I was without you. Where I am doesn’t matter in comparison. When I left you with the medicine woman, I thought I was doing right by you and tried to ease my mind with it. It didn’t work.” He shifted his eyes away from her.
“No, it didn’t. It hurt me when you left. I needed you. I was so scared and confused.” She tried to keep her voice calm and even. She failed.
His rough hands turned her, and then he was there, holding her against his chest and staring down into her eyes. “I won’t leave you ever again.”
She watched as his lips came closer, only lowering her lids at the last minute. His kiss filled her soul with peace. Then, Drem’s horse started hitting them with its tail. She didn’t know what to do with any of the thoughts which had been filling her head a minute ago. After his kiss, did any of those worries matter?
Gazing down at her, Eurig said, “You’re pretty like this.”
Temporal Locum Page 20
