by Blake, Laila
“That is because humans won’t employ them in their armies, or their castles.” Owain answered with a hint of a smile. “Blaidyn women are strong and independent. They can be as good fighters as the men, but there is no work for them and so most of them find a calling in a crafts or in motherhood. Not all camps or packs depend on humans, some live remote enough to completely self-sufficient. We dislike trading, or money … gold.”
He shrugged when he said the last word, as though this would explain something and Moira remembered what he had said about gold jewelry. She watched him again and finally stretched herself and got to her feet. He was easily over a foot taller than she was but the difference was less pronounced when she stood a few steps away.
“You must think me very … different,” she finally uttered with the same hint of proud defiance that had stopped her from using words like ‘weak’, or ‘pathetic’ instead. But she was neither independent, nor could she fight, nor did she make her own decisions.
“I have worked for humans for many years, milady … but I must admit, I have never been much around their nobles, especially not their noble women.” The formal address was back and Moira looked at her naked and dirty feet with a shrug.
“I don’t want to marry him.”
The sentence hung in the air for a long moment. It had come almost without any conscious thought. One moment, she had looked at him, tried to see herself as he would see her and the next moment she’d heard herself confessing. She could feel her face heat again. Owain’s eyes never left hers, but his expression changed slightly, slowly. It rearranged itself until, by a tiny shift in lighting or shadow, he didn’t look so distant anymore. He took a step forward, bowed his head closer.
“Then don’t,” he murmured. Moira could feel her heart beat hard and fast in her chest. It seemed so easy, so perfectly easy when he said it.
“Just … that?” she asked, tiny-voiced.
“Just that. Just don’t … ” Another step closer. Moira now had to lean her head back to look up at him. He had never stood this close before. She could still feel the wolf around. Almost as though Owain was behind a pane of glass upon which the wolf’s image was a mere reflection. They were both there, superimposed, and with a tiny shift in her eyes she could see one or the other, or could blend them together into one blurry man-beast in front of her. It was curious and strange and she had never experienced anything so strongly. The wolf wasn’t there. And yet, he was, somehow.
“Why?”
“Because … ” he didn’t finish. Instead, he lifted his hand and with a tenderness she could never have expected from its size and strength, he ran his fingers along the line of her jaw, pale and almost translucent in the moonlight.
“Be … because?” she asked again, croaking a little. He filled her entire vision, blocking the stars and the moon, and the rest of the castle. There was a heat coming off his body that didn’t feel human and when she inhaled, she was sure that she smelled the same earthy and silvery note she had smelled in the wolf. Not human, not animal. Something else entirely.
“Because he is utterly unworthy of you … ”
There it was again, the heat in her face. This time, it came with a tremor that ran from the back of her neck down her spine and to her hands and feet and down into the pit of her stomach. Nothing could have prepared her for that sudden rush of sensations, the swell in her chest that made her feel like she was floating just above the ground. His eyes were deep brown, she noticed, with tiny silvery flecks around the bottomless dark of his extended pupil. They were beautiful. Had she ever thought that about a man’s eyes before?
They stood there, suspended in time, their eyes locked. Moira couldn’t think of a single thing to say. But then, breaking the silence, her lips made the softest little plopping sound when she released her bottom one from her teeth.
A fraction of a second later, his mouth was on hers. It was warm and so, so soft and Moira couldn’t for the life of her, figure out where she was or whether she was still standing.
Chapter Ten
Owain pulled away first. He was aware that his hands were on Moira’s shoulders — Moira in his head, even if it didn’t sound quite right, where she should have been young Lady Rochmond. Her body had leaned so close that he found himself cursing his breastplate for denying him the touch of her dress and her chest. But he couldn’t remember how he’d got there. His lips were burning for more and he hadn’t yet managed the inhuman effort of actually physically stepping away.
But how in the world could he have kissed her?
Owain was not an impulsive man, not anymore. He had spent years growing into a person he could be proud of. A thoughtful man, deliberate, he thought, not the kind of man who would try to ruin his life for the feeling of a pink pair of lips on his, however plush and dewy and beautiful they were. He tried to shake that thought, his eyes locked on those twin petals, redder than usual, trembling and wholly alive. He hardly dared raising his gaze to hers, but he knew he couldn’t avoid it forever.
Everything — his body, his mind, the present — it all felt clouded and disjointed; like a mural on a wall with too many compartments that didn’t make sense together. He could look at the individual ones; her lips, puffy and red and moving slightly; her chest which rose and fell harder than usual, exhaling loud breaths; his own hands, still clasping her shoulder, unable to let go; the wolf, happy and wanting, pulling Owain closer with the need to smell and lick and taste every inch of her body and face.
He could see her wild hair in the wind, the way it made her look like herself and not like the doll her parents paraded in front of her suitor; could see her flushed cheeks and feel the ache in his groin. But there were other parts to the picture; the golden necklace on the battlements, the castle itself, Lord Rochmond’s warning to never enter her chambers, Sir Fairester’s hand on her wrist and the way his rage had risen like a sudden flame, had made him want to tear that hand off in one swift motion and stuff it in his gloating face.
The last parts were the ones he was trying to avoid the hardest, the ones that seemed to make everything dizzy and impossible to consider as a whole; Moira in a wedding gown, her hand in Sir Fairester’s; himself in shackles, whipped, maybe dead; his room in her father’s castle, the small bag of belongings that represented every single thing he owned in his world; no family, no pack, no riches, no home. And yet, right next to it and jarring and in sharp relief, was Moira again, soft and small and stubborn and when he looked up just those few last inches, her eyes were open wide. They brimmed with tears. He could swear in that moment they shone green, like a fine gemstone polished to the perfect cut that seemed to catch the light and trap it within.
There was light inside her eyes, even in the darkness of the night, utterly open, afraid, aroused and perfectly in the moment. And then he could smell it, too, the intoxicating scent of her; the sudden heat of blood pumped into her face and neck, nerves, sweat, tears — and sweetest of all, the dewy note that rose from between her legs and through the thin cotton dress.
He still couldn’t make sense of the entire picture but for the moment, none of that mattered. Her part, the Moira part with her eyes and her scent and the way each breath she exhaled seemed to ask a question, beg for a relief only he knew how to give her; all of it filled his entire vision. He had stepped too close; only the one compartment mattered anymore. So much so, that Owain even tried to ignore and shut out his wolf. He wanted that moment all for himself without the beast thrashing in his chest trying to get out and jump her himself. The wolf had known before him, he was almost painfully aware of this; but now, that he was, he wanted to feel every second, every inch, every drop he could get and he didn’t want to share.
“I kissed you,” he stated quietly. He kept the uncertainty and the future and everything else out of his voice. In that moment, just one stolen moment at the drafty top of the battlements, he wa
nted it to be them alone. One moment to understand what they had just done.
“You did,” she whispered back. Her lips were still so shiny, just like her eyes and he took a hard, aching breath as his fingers reached into her hair. It was wild and had been blown about all night. His fingers snagged almost immediately and his groin ached at the way her head moved back into the direction of the gentle tug. It exposed her long neck, the muscles and veins, the milky, almost translucent skin.
“I want to do it again.” The truth, simple, nothing more.
She blushed. The coppery smell of blood grew stronger just under the skin of her cheeks and it made her freckles stand out even more. He had to smile. “May I kiss you, Moira?”
There was the sound of her heart, a frightened and excited pitter-patter as though she’d been running but better, more heated. She nodded finally and a smile washed over his face before he bent down over her and kissed the corner of her lips, then the other side, her upper lip and then her lower one. Her taste made him a little breathless; the wolf inside of him was excited and brimming for more — her taste, her scent. His hand tightened in her hair, pulling her face right in the perfect angle before he crushed his lips onto hers, teasing, begging, demanding her to meet his intensity.
Moira had never been kissed before. The truth was, that she had never desired to feel anyone that close. Now, though, she couldn’t even remember why in the world she would ever have felt that way. Owain’s lips were warm — like the rest of his body, he ran hotter than humans — and they made her own tingle. But not just her lips, or even just her face. Somehow, by some mysterious force, some touch of magic, she could feel it deep in her stomach and between her legs. There was a powerful tingle and a pulling ache that made her push her body closer against his breastplate as her lips opened like a little flower to his caresses.
Their tongues met for a fraction of a second, two warm tips, meeting in the dark, shooting fireworks and symphonies down her spine and all the way into her toes.
She gasped when he pulled away. How was this possible? It was sorcery, witchcraft; it was unnatural, it had to be. There was no other explanation why, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she wanted another person closer, so much closer instead of as far away as possible.
“You … ” she whispered and her eyes filled with tears she didn’t dare to shed.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked and the silvery heat in his eyes melted away for a concerned, gentler expression. But Moira shook her head. He hadn’t. Of course not.
“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
Again, she shook her head, but the deep sensation of worry gave way to a flutter when he smiled and his hand moved back to her face. He ran his fingers over her cheek-bones, letting his eyes roam, then down to her lips, full and just a little swollen until he reached her nose in an almost playful gesture.
“Your freckles are like constellations,” he murmured and his fingertip started to trace cryptic runes on her cheek, over her temple and to her forehead, always from freckle to freckle.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.” It wasn’t a question; it sounded nothing like one. Moira wasn’t used to being ordered anything, much less by anyone in her father’s employ. But his voice went low and it made her chest burn with a desire for something she couldn’t quite place. The very idea to deny him sounded outlandish and insane; nothing in the world could have convinced her in that moment to deny him anything he asked.
And yet when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. What was she thinking? She genuinely didn’t know. Her mind was a vast expanse of snowy landscape, nothing in sight but fog, clouding the distant view.
“I don’t … know.”
A smile crossed his eyes even though his lips hardly changed and she could feel his hand cupping the entire side of her face easily. She leaned against it as her eyes fluttered shut.
“That’s all right. But you’re not afraid?”
This was easier to answer and Moira quickly shook her head. It wasn’t really true; she was afraid, terribly afraid that he’d step back and then he’d grow stiff and distant again and she was horrified of seeing Deagan in the morning and having to pretend she liked him at all. She was afraid of her feelings and afraid of what would happen if someone caught them. But she wasn’t afraid of Owain.
“I know I should apologize for this, and let you go … ”
“No,” she exhaled before he could continue. Her voice sounded hoarse as though she hadn’t used it for a long time.
“No?”
“No … don’t apologize.” And don’t let go, but she wasn’t quite sure that was something a woman was allowed to say. Moira had spent her life trying to carve out little spaces of freedom, of air to breathe but this particular area had never been the focus of her interest. Associated as it was with touch and proximity, the dazzling mysteries of the opposite sex had never seemed like freedom to her, like something worth exploring.
But here she stood, knowing that she was doing something wrong and it felt good. She could feel his warm breath on her face and for once, the sound did not make her skin scrawl. It made her want to lean in closer. Made her want to know everything about him, from his childhood to his favorite song, his greatest loss and the dream he’d had the night before.
“Anyone can see us here,” Owain finally said and he pushed himself off. Even from the outside, it looked like it had taken an effort to do so. And he heaved a sigh as he regarded her pale face in the moonlight, hair waving around in the breeze. “My lady … ”
“No.” The interruption was quick and quiet and she shook her head. “Moira.”
“Moira,” he repeated, another sigh crackling his chest. He took another step backward. He looked around and Moira followed his gaze.
The towers had rooms and the battlements over the drawbridge upon which they stood weren’t nearly as high as other parts of the Keep. She didn’t see light burning in any of the rooms but there were torches spluttering flames on the battlements, bathing them in enough light to be seen from almost anywhere. She frowned and looked down at the gray stone, wrapping her arms around her body. It felt so cold now without his warmth pressed up against it.
He opened his mouth but then hesitated. Finally he gestured her to follow him back into the archway toward the staircase. It was dark there, and she could hardly make out his face, even when he came close again. His tall body blocked out the light from the torches, hid her from view completely.
“I don’t want to make this harder for you, Moira. I don’t know what came over me today. You are beautiful, and good. But you should tell me to leave you alone.” He looked down between them and finally picked up his hands again, smoothing her fly-away hair around her head, cupping her face completely and holding her, warming her. There was sadness in his eyes.
“I know … ” she exhaled. She closed her eyes then, trying to relish the last moments of his hands on her, imagining the way his lips had felt on hers. She was basking in the way his smell and his presence were more calming than anything she knew, so much so, that even now she wasn’t afraid; sad, and aching, but not afraid. “I don’t want to put you in danger,” she added after a long moment and then pressed her lips together.
“We could blame the moon and the beauty of the night,” he answered. “And by morning we will look upon each other and you will wear a gown and your hair will be smoothed and shiny and in braids. You will wear his necklace and you won’t be the same. And I will have polished my shoes and built up a wall around my face and I won’t be the same.” His thumbs were brushing over her cheekbones, his voice quiet and stifled against the pain in his chest. “And tonight will seem like a dream, something out of a different world in which the you and I of tomorrow will have no place.”
He stilled and Moira inhaled a breath that caught against the back of her throat in a pitif
ul sound. The Moira of tomorrow, she knew her well.
“But in the here and the now, I am still the me of today and so are you.” Moira inhaled deeply. It made her more aware of the heat in her cheeks when she breathed against it. She didn’t feel brave but she wanted to be, as brave as she could be, as brave as she prided herself on.
“I want you to say it,” he replied. His voice just then shot another shiver through her body, focusing in her lower core in a way that made her want to utter a small whimper. How just the timbre and low vibration of sound could do this to her was a mystery. One hand remained on her face but he slid the other one down her side to linger on the curve of her hip, where he found a good grasp. “I need you to say it, Moira. The you of today, what do you need to feel like the you of today?”
“You … ” It wasn’t enough; she knew that. Of course she needed him but her tongue sneaked out to moisten her lips and she cleared her throat. “This,” she whispered and brought her middle and index finger to her lips, and then lightly all the way up to his. She could feel them shifting into a deep smile under her fingertips. Then he kissed them, and she brushed her thumb over the stubble on his chin.
“What a strange and beautiful creature you are … ” he exhaled, shaking his head. When Moira’s face started to fall, he quickly brought his knuckles under her chin and made her look up.
“Strange is good,” he whispered, “in a world full of humans I don’t understand; believe me, strange is wonderful.”
“Everybody always says I’m strange,” she whispered, letting her hand sink to his chest. It rested on his breastplate, her fingertips hooked into the neckline. He was so warm, she could feel the heat of his body even through the hardened leather.
“There is only one way to see other people, Moira; through the filter of our own experiences, beliefs, expectations. What they see, isn’t you. It’s their fears, their experiences, their prejudice.”
“And what do you see?” she asked, a pained smile tugging at the corners of her lips and he had to smile, too.
