The roof of the underground room was shored up with thick beams, and a stone wall pushed the dirt back at about hip height. The rest was just dirt, hard packed and braced with more roughhewn beams. There was a bed, a crudely made thing with straw sticking out at all angles below the dubious looking bedding. Aurelia watched Raf for a moment, as he settled the last candle. She turned and lifted a corner of the fur coverlet, dropping it to see a puff of dust. “Are you angry with me?”
“Angry?” When he turned to face her, he looked a man defeated. “I have no cause to be angry with you, my lady.”
“Why are we here?” she asked, gesturing with one arm to the absurd space they stood in. “We walked for two days. Surely we are no more than an hour’s ride from the castle.”
“A day’s walk, at least,” he countered. “Just because my father is looking for you doesn’t mean Jeoffrey, Clement, and Margaret aren’t looking for you, as well. Or would you rather be left to them?”
“I will be left to them the moment we arrive! You’ve already warned me of the dangers of your father’s castle. Is that why you don’t wish to take me there?” she demanded.
“Do you so wish to go, that another night away is unbearable to you?” he countered, and she almost slapped him, her hand moving almost before she could think to stop it. His expression softened in defeat. “You know why I don’t want to take you to my brother, Aurelia.”
“I do.” The words, once out, took with them the terrible knot of confusion and panic that had fluttered and grown in her breast since she’d first seen him standing in her father’s hall. “Then do not. I beg you, do not take me there.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I trust Henry more than I trust my own blood. I sent him back to the castle, this is true. But I sent him to tell my father that there was no sign of us on the road. He will come back before dawn, with horses and money, and a few things we will need.
“Where will we go?” she asked breathlessly, hardly able to hear herself over the pounding of her own heart.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, a smile touching the corners of his mouth. “There are free wolves in York. They may take us in if I agree to take up arms against my father.”
The thought drove fear into her heart. “And if they do not? If they shun you as a cripple, as your father does?”
“Then we will find somewhere else.” He reached out to stroke her cheek, and a shudder went through her at the intensity of feeling the simple touch raised. Mistaking it for despair, he added, “They will always hunt us. That, I cannot help. But you’ll die in my father’s house, from one wolf or another.”
She took a breath. Her hands trembled and she clasped them together beneath her cloak. “Then what is next?”
He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, pressing her fingertips against his lips. “You know,” he said, an echo of the words he’d spoken before, when he’d been unable to say what he truly wished to.
And in response, again, she replied, “I do.”
He kissed her, one arm around her back to support her, and a good thing, too, for she did swoon under his mouth. The taste of spice and ale on his mouth and the sweep of his tongue against hers weakened her knees. She clutched at his shoulders, and he broke apart from her long enough to say, “The bed.”
He advanced on her with kisses and she, giggling, backed away until the low bed hit her ankles and she sat down on the thin straw. He caught her up with one arm and pulled her atop him as he lay down, and she stared into his face, her hair falling around both of them. He scooped some of it back with his thumb to smooth it behind her ear. “Do you still believe what you said this morning?”
She thought back, to when she had told him. That she chose this path, that she trusted him. It was as true now as then. More so, now, for she was no longer trusting him to simply keep her from danger. She trusted him not to put her very heart in peril.
Smiling, she leaned down and brushed her lips across his. “I choose you.”
He leaned up, a hand in her hair to tug her down, crushing their mouths together. Her head reeled. This was another kind of danger, one she had no fear of losing herself in. He moved her to his side, his hands working at the laces of her tattered kirtle.
His hand cupped the base of her skull, brushing over some delightful spot. She gasped and arched her neck, forcing his fingers over that place once more. His fingertips slid through her hair, stroking her scalp with the softest of touches, and she squirmed, her breath caught on a mewling sigh.
His mouth left hers to wander over her cheek, then her jaw, to just beneath her ear, his wicked lips seeking out every bit of flesh he could reach. When his mouth closed over her earlobe, she arched up, unable to stand anymore. Her hands splayed against his chest, her only safe ground in the ocean of fierce sensation drowning her. His hand in her hair, skimming circles over that tremor-inducing place he’d found, brought a high, tight sound from her throat, surprising her. Between her thighs, she throbbed, her most private flesh grown slippery and hot.
She knew, as any maid old enough to bleed knew, how the act was accomplished, but never had she been told that it would be so exhilarating or frightening. Precious inches from losing control completely, she clung to him.
His hands slipped into her open kirtle, running over her spine through her chemise, up and then down, to cup her buttocks through the thin muslin. He pulled her hips forward, and she sat astride him as he worked her dress and chemise up. She raised her arms to help him pull the garments over her head, but reached to cover herself when she was suddenly very naked before him.
A low laugh rumbled in his chest. “I’ve seen you before, you know.”
“That was different.” She couldn’t help her blush, seeing the way his gaze roved over her, as though he were starving for her. Her skin peppered with gooseflesh in the cool room, and he smoothed it away, warming her with his touch on her shoulders, her arms, her waist. She caught his hands in hers, brought them to her breasts. Her nipples hardened beneath his palms as he cupped her flesh.
He sat half up, and she leaned to kiss him again as his hands molded her flesh. Fire swept through her, an arching flame that plunged through her body from his lips, then up again, low in her belly. It left in its wake a need that burned. Her hands delved beneath his doublet, seeking out his skin, and he leaned back, his touching leaving her body for only a moment as he divested himself of the garment.
She rose to her knees and swung her leg off him, sitting beside him on the bed expectantly. “Well?”
With a half-smile, he reached for the laces of his braies. She noticed the tremor in his hands, and that he did not work so quickly as he had at the laces of her kirtle. She brushed his hands aside and unlaced him herself, darting her hand inside the parted cloth, against the coarse gold hair that lead in a line from his navel and disappeared beneath the fabric. His cock leapt at her palm, and she could not help the flush that suffused her face even as she closed her hand around him.
It was a terribly strange thing to her, to hold him in her hand and hear him groan, feel his heart beating under her palm. She’d never touched a man this way before, and it seemed unfair that in her inexperience she wielded so much obvious power over him. Her own pulse throbbed between her legs, and she stroked him, restlessly pressing her thighs together to ease some of the ache there.
He lifted his hips, at the same time gently capturing her wrist and pulling her hand free. He pushed his braies down, and then, in a shock of realization, she knew why he’d hesitated disrobing before. His iron leg, fastened with tight straps to his thigh, was the only thing he wore on that side. On the other, a single leg of hose covered him, and he rolled that off and tossed it aside before reaching to unbuckle the false leg. The woolen bandage that wrapped his stump anchored with a length across his chest and over his opposite shoulder.
His mouth was grim as she watched him unlatch the first buckle, sliding the strap through the metal to free it. “Have you changed your mind?”<
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She shook her head, but no words came to her. It would not be fair to lie to him, not in this moment, when so much intimacy had already passed between them. To fear his infirmity would be an insult, but she could not help but recoil at the sight of the stump, reddened from the cup of the iron leg, knotted with scarred flesh. He raised up to discard the bandage, and fell back heavily.
When he rolled the iron to the floor, she looked up to find him watching her. He searched for disgust in her expression, and likely he found it. But she could not have him believe her repulsed by him. What was a leg, when compared to the rest of him, as perfect as any man she could have imagined? Words would not do, so she leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of his thigh, near his hip. She did not touch the raw, ruined end of that mangled leg, but she kissed him, and those kisses moved from his thigh to the slight ridges of his stomach, to his chest like stone and the hard bunches of muscle beneath the skin of his arms. She slid her body over his, reveling in the meshing of their skin, the tickle of crisp hair against her breasts.
Raf threaded his fingers in her hair again, pulling to tilt her face toward him. She met his gaze, full of self-loathing and expectation of rejection, and watched it melt into one of wonder. He kissed her, all of the tenderness gone out of him, making way for a brutal passion that she did not resist.
Rolling her to his side, his mouth found her neck, her throat, and she writhed against him, gasping for breath beneath his lips and tongue. His arm around her back held her, though she needed no restraint to keep her at his side. His lips traveled lower, to her breasts, where he sucked one nipple into his mouth. She did arch away from him then, but his grip did not release, and her gasps grew to cries, the fire in her burning harder, heat thrumming through her veins as his tongue swirled over the hard nub.
She hooked her leg over his waist, grinding her hips against his thigh, and he groaned, slipping a hand between them to venture between her legs. When his fingers touched the slick flesh there, another guttural noise sounded from his throat, and she laid back, her legs falling open. He leaned over her, kissing her shoulder, her breast as one rough finger slipped through her cleft. His fingertip brushed the very center of the desire that had been building in her, and she cried out, bucking her hips as he rubbed over and over it. The sensation tightened her muscles, dug her toes into the straw mattress beneath her as she lifted her hips higher.
“Wait,” he whispered, his voice ragged. He pulled her astride him again, and she moaned in despair at the loss of his touch. The tip of his cock touched her, and she rose up on her knees in surprise. He coaxed her down with whispered words, helped her to position herself above him. The head of him brushed her, and she shivered at the ghost of the feeling his finger had roused.
Still, at the very precipice of this intimate mystery, she felt fear. She whimpered as he pushed up, though her body opened to accept him eagerly. Gently, he pulled her down, tearing the barrier of chastity in a moment of pain that clouded her desire. The moment passed, though the pain lingered, and she opened her tightly closed eyes to find him looking up at her, worry in his expression.
“It was nothing,” she managed, choking on a gasp as she slipped farther down, taking him inside of her completely.
“Nothing?” He gave a weary laugh. “That does much for my confidence.”
She wanted to laugh with him, but her body, aflame for so long she feared she might burn up entirely, dictated that she move. She rocked her hips, sobbing aloud at the delicious tug that answered deep within her.
“Perhaps more substantial than nothing?” he asked, and though he tried to sound light and teasing, the tremor in his voice betrayed him. He struggled, just as she did, beneath the relentless battering of need, of desire restrained, and she moved again, thrilling at his wordless exclamation that resulted.
At first, he showed her the way, guiding her with his hands as he flexed into her. She fell into a rhythm, rising and falling, but as he played over her with his thumb she could no longer sustain it. The sensation built within her, rising higher and higher. Her body grew rigid, urging her on as he gripped her hips, almost painfully. Her fingers claws that sank into his chest, she gave over to the crashing tide with a scream of surprise, all the strength sapped from her in a single, shocking burst. She lay against his chest, sobbing, nearly senseless, as he pushed deeper inside. With a strangled groan, he stiffened, and he throbbed within her, the pulse wrenching another moan from her.
Sweat rolled down her temple as she laid her cheek against his chest, and he lifted an arm to drop it weakly on her back. Beneath her ear, his heart pounded.
“Aurelia?” he asked softly.
“Hmmm?” she managed, slowly opening and closing her fingers over his skin.
“Are you well?”
“Well” was not a word to describe how she felt. She wished she did not have to move, at least for a day. The feel of his bare skin made her drunk, the weight of his arm over her back made her drowsy. For the first time in days, she felt as though she could truly rest, for she trusted that he would guard her as though she were a precious object.
She sniffed at the sudden, overwhelming surge of tears that came to her eyes. Misunderstanding, he wrapped his arms around her, uttering a despondent, “No. No, no.”
“I am well,” she assured him, patting his chest. “Truly, I am amazed.”
He relaxed somewhat, his arms drawing back a bit. “I feared you were unhappy. I should have taken more care–”
“More care?” She sat up, laughter rising to her throat, chasing the tears from her eyes. She wiped her face with her palms. “How could you have taken more care?”
He looked embarrassed. “I couldn’t say. It’s been too long.”
Her heart fell at that. Of course he’d been with women before. Men lay with women freely, it seemed, even if the church warned against it.
He reached up, sinking his fingers into her hair again and pulling her down to brush her mouth with his. “You are the last,” he whispered.
And with nothing more than a few pretty words, she forgave him. The depth of her feeling toward him amazed her, and yet seemed so terribly shallow when she considered all that lay ahead of them. If she was so moved now, what would it be like in a month, a year? When she, God willing, held their children in her arms? How could someone survive such a love?
Chapter Six
“Tell me, please. What happened to your leg?”
The question caught Raf and spun him from his pleasant drowsiness. They’d been lying together in the silent cellar room, she tucked beside, resting her cheek against her chest, he watching as her two feet tangled with his one where they stuck out from the end of the coverlet.
He did not want to tell her the story. Better she never think of such things. But it was a hard life among wolves, and it seemed unthinkable to let her go blindly into such a life.
She looked up at him, her chin resting on her hand against his chest. “It wasn’t a boar hunt, was it?”
He exhaled slowly, willing the memories to stay far behind him. “What do you know of my kind?”
“The free wolves?” she asked with a slight frown.
“Free, chained. Wolf-men, as a whole. What do you know of us?” This would be easier, to let her ignorance of their ways guide him.
“I saw Margaret Lackey and Clement…I saw them become wolves.” A shadow passed over her eyes. “Am I to believe you can do that, as well?”
“I can. All of us, who were born wolves, can change our forms at will.” Unbidden, the memories of that terrible, long ago night surfaced. “But it is not just our bodies that change. Our minds…something comes over us. It can make us dangerous in our wolf form. It can make us go mad.”
She looked back to their feet, stroking his ankle with her toes. “So it is the curse that people say it is.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never lived a human life.” He would, though. If he was not accepted by the free wolves of York, he would live a human li
fe at Aurelia’s side. If she merely asked him, he would. “You are right. I wasn’t hunting boars the night I lost my leg.”
He did not speak for a long moment, and she did not prompt him, seeming content to wiggle her toes over his and kiss his chest. His cock stirred at her touch. He would have her again, if she were willing. But the dark, insistent memories her question had unleashed would not be set aside for mere passion. Once loosed, they would not again be contained until they had run their course with him.
With trembling breath, he continued. “We were hunting a poacher. We waited for him along his usual hunting trail, and when I caught his scent, I pursued. I stepped into one of his snares.”
His hand shook as he wiped his perspiring forehead. “As I said, my mind was different in wolf form. I panicked. I…”
She reached up to lay her palm against his cheek, her face full of concern. Not pity, not discomfort at his tale. It seemed she grieved his mistake with him.
It gave him strength to continue. “By the time they found me, I was a man again, and my leg chewed down to the bone by a wolf’s teeth.”
“You did what any trapped creature must,” she soothed.
“I didn’t think when it happened, to shift back. I was in the mind of my wolf, and I did not think…” He swallowed. “Father’s surgeon tried to heal me, with poultices and maggots. But the flesh putrefied, and five days later, they took it.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head sadly. “Was it terrible?”
“It was.” Though it had been two years, he felt the pain as keenly as the moment the saw had torn his flesh. “They tried to dull my wits with some concoction of wine and herbs. It only made me more afraid. It seems foolish to admit that I was. But I did fear.”
“It’s not foolish,” she admonished him gently. “Any man would fear that kind of pain.”
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