by Plum Pascal
“Kassidy,” I begin, voice still more growl than anything else. “I can’t be... my beast is... I don’t want to hurt you.”
A coy little smile plays at the corner of her full, kissable lips. “I’m a big girl, Nash. I’ll handle it. It won’t be something I can’t recover from.”
She’s not lying. I can hear the honesty behind her words, she believes I won’t hurt her. It’s a confidence I wish I shared. But it does spark something inside me, something my father beat out of me over the course of years.
The desire to change. The desire to be better. To be the sort of man—the sort of warrior—Kassidy deserves to protect her.
I reach for her, pulling her into my arms. She’s so small and dainty, still, even with all that ready muscle. If it weren’t for her powers, I’d be confident I could snap her in two. She lets out a startled gasp when I shove a hand into her thick blonde mane and angle her head for another hot, possessive kiss. I almost smile. Her enticing scent swirls around me, carrying the musk of her arousal. She smells so fucking good.
Her hands come to rest timidly on my waist, gasping again when I pull her lower lip between my teeth. She moans when I palm one breast and then the other, kneading her nipples to painful attention. Her hips buck into mine, one of her calves hooking around the back of my leg, as she grinds herself into my front. I can feel how wet she is already.
I pull myself free of the kiss, give her earlobe a hard nip, and then growl the command into her ear: “I want you on the bed.”
She hesitates, but I sense her hesitation is more nerves than anything else. But she does what I ask, backing to the edge of the thin mattress before draping herself onto it.
She watches me as I strip off my shirt, and then the trousers. Her swallow is audible when my cock springs free; she’s obviously wondering if she can take my length or maybe my girth. I approach cautiously, trying not to scare her further. She doesn’t back away or tell me to stop, which I take as a good sign. I stop just short of her and then climb over her, slipping a hand between us.
Her lithe body is warm and welcome against mine. She bites her lip enticingly when I press two fingers into her entrance. For my part, it’s all I can do not to groan. She feels so damn tight. Just the daydream of feeling that pussy clenching around me is enough to bring me almost to the brink.
And then I feel the shield of her skin that points to the fact that she’s never had a man before. “This is going to sting a bit,” I whisper down at her.
She looks up at me and nods and I suddenly feel a swell of pride that I will be the first of us. It’s my responsibility to ensure that she enjoys this, that it won’t be something she’ll hate. It’s unfortunate I’m as large as I am but I’ll do my best to ensure she enjoys it.
Her hips buck up toward my hand and a moan flies from her mouth. Leisurely, I pump my fingers into her. The wetter she gets, the less likely I am to hurt her. My thumb finds the bud at the apex of her sex and I lavish it with attention in short, shivering strokes.
“Oh, fuck...” Kassidy’s words are almost lost in a gasp.
A slow moan rolls from her a few seconds later. Her hips won’t stop undulating, meeting the thrusts of my fingers stroke for stroke as she chases an elusive climax. She buries her hands in my hair, short nails still pleasant as she rakes them over my scalp. A flash of pure, molten want shoots right to my cock. The pleasure dances on the edge of pain. I need to be inside her.
Her back bows, her lovely tits bouncing as she comes. The pleasure on her face transforms her from lovely to transcendent.
“Kassidy,” I breathe.
She reaches for me when the shivers subside, dainty hand closing around my cock. The sound of relief her touch brings me makes her smile.
“Make love to me, Nash,” she murmurs.
Hard to argue with that.
I brace my hand beside her head as she guides me toward her entrance, the head of my cock sliding inside. It’s a struggle to push in gently, taking her inch by inch while giving her time to adjust.
“Are you ready?” I ask, when I feel the wall of flesh blocking me.
She nods and I push forward as she winces slightly. I start rubbing her clit as I push in and out of her and the whimper turns into a moan. She opens her eyes and looks at me in wonder.
“That was the pain?”
I nod. “That was the pain.”
I lavish kisses on her throat, waiting for her to signal me. I haven’t been with a maid in years. Not since doing so earned me my father’s wrath.
I was sixteen, led around by my cock as if the damn thing had a mind of its own. I hadn’t known the girl was being groomed to be my father’s second wife, to be married to him as soon as she turned eighteen. I hadn’t known, and neither had she. Her parents hadn’t told her. All I knew was that I wanted her, and she wanted me.
After that, Father kept me in bear form for so long, my human mind took months to return, even when I could finally shift back. I haven’t fucked many women since then—certainly no virgins.
Kassidy rolls her hips experimentally, moaning when the motion drags the underside of my cock along a particularly sensitive spot. She snakes her arms around my neck, pulling herself flush against me with the peaks of her breasts rubbing my chest in a thoroughly pleasant way. I thrust into her, setting a slow pace. She deserves more than a fuck. I’ve never made love before. Not really, even my first time. But I’ll damn well try, for her sake.
I’m expecting her to lie there and sort of take it, the way my first virgin did. She doesn’t. She moves her hips in that rolling motion, meeting me stroke for stroke. And all the while she moans loudly, nails digging into my back when I push too deep.
She stares at me, those gem eyes boring into me with... wonder on her face. It’s almost too intimate, more so even than the way our bodies are linked. She’s looking at me like... a woman in love. And that just can’t be right. Not yet, at least. She doesn’t keep her eyes open too long. They close on the next thrust, her head rolling back as she moans my name, nails tearing furrows into my back.
The only warning I get is the soft flutter of her walls and then she’s coming hard, back arching from the force of her climax. Her hair is messier than ever before, her eyes glazed over with pleasure, her mouth open in a perfectly lush ‘O’—and then I’m there, as well. My hips buck, thrusting one last time before my vision flashes white and pleasure riots through my body.
It’s an effort not to sag, boneless, on top of her. I’m abruptly exhausted after the fight and the fuck, and I’d happily sleep the rest of the day with her in my arms. I roll, collapsing at her side instead, sure she won’t appreciate two hundred pounds and change of sweaty shifter on top of her after the coital bliss wears off. She’s still shivering as the aftershocks roll through her.
It’s not until I’ve settled myself that I realize the door is open and we have an audience. Sorren leans indolently against the doorframe, staring at the pair of us.
“Quite a show,” he says with an unrepentant smirk. “Can’t wait until it’s my turn.”
I yank a pillow from the pile at the head of the bed and lob it at him. He deflects it with a light laugh and it lands harmlessly at his feet.
“Fuck off, Sorren,” I say.
“Leith told me to inform you he has the stone and we’ll be ready to leave by sundown. Think you can recover by then, little dove?”
He leers at Kassidy and aims a very rude gesture in my direction.
“Get lost,” I say. “Tell Leith we’ll be down after I’ve had a bath and some rest. Tell him to get each of you a room and let’s all get some sleep.”
Sorren shrugs and pushes off from the door, sauntering back the way he came without even closing the door. With a growl, I untuck the covers and curl them around her, covering her nudity. It takes me a minute to get dressed. Enough to give Sorren a decent head start. It’s not enough to let him outrun me, and I’m going to kick his ass for watching without her approval. The fucking barbari
an.
“Nash?” Kassidy’s voice is soft, but it nevertheless makes me turn.
“Yes?”
She smiles wearily at me, eyes already sliding to half-mast. She’s going to pass out in seconds.
“I knew you wouldn’t hurt me. Thank you.”
“For the sex or the fact that it didn’t hurt?”
“Yes,” she says with a light chuckle.
I don’t have time to ask her more, because her breathing abruptly evens out and she lets out that light whistling exhale she does when she’s asleep.
FOURTEEN
Sorren
I trace the bags beneath my eyelids with a curious smile. The sensation is an odd one, almost forgotten. It’s been years since weariness has plagued me in any way, shape, or form. Nothing but my traps have occupied my thoughts for any significant length of time. I eat, sleep, breathe, and generally operate like, well... clockwork. Nothing has scuppered my routine quite so thoroughly as this little dove.
I’ve spent the last two nights thinking about what it must be like to be inside her. She’s impressive. Strong enough that I could spend the fullness of my depravity on her. She shouldn’t have been able to find pleasure in the rutting Nash gave her. He thinks he’s gentle with her, but his bear knows no such thing. Any other human would have screamed not from pleasure, but from the agony of his force. He took her hard and she loved every second of it, the tenacious little dove.
My cock swells just thinking about watching them, imagining her pale form splayed out beneath him, those legs wrapped around his waist, meeting his strokes as he fucked her into the thin mattress. I want that. Want her. Want to be the one that turns all that ivory skin pink, scores marks into her back even as she tears at mine with her nails.
She turns her head and gives me a slow grin. It rolls across her lips in an almost teasing manner as she spots me rubbing the unusual bags beneath my eyes.
“Couldn’t sleep, huh? Too excited?”
I incline my head to her, allowing her the easy answer. Telling her I’m incapable of the sort of anticipatory glee she’s expecting won’t endear me to her. It won’t get me any closer to the sort of intimacy that Nash has achieved—the intimacy that Leith so dearly wishes from her, as well. Happiness, in any of its forms, is a summery emotion that can’t exist in the boreal reaches of my half-heart.
She does evoke a new emotion. Not happiness, exactly. Something more tepid, but still incredible. It’s hope. Or, no... perhaps just the desire to hope. I’ve desired little but pain and vengeance for years. Until she came into my life, I’d written my heart off as a necessary loss, committing the time I had left to building tools my cousins could use to avenge me.
But now? Perhaps there’s a chance I can do it myself. If my heart can be thrust back into my chest and forced to beat, I’ll be myself once more. A man worthy to stand by her. A man capable of doing good again. I don’t care if my cousins commit themselves to the war or not, I can’t turn my back on it any longer. Wherever Kassidy goes, I will follow, and damn the consequences. I’ll have my heart ripped out a thousand times if only I can make some sort of difference.
Kassidy accepts this with easy acquiescence, but Leith and Nash don’t. They both eye me suspiciously as they pass me on the trail, as if I’m somehow going to leap off my horse and abscond with the little dove at any second. She’s tucked securely in front of Leith on his horse, and she seems quite happy there. I’ve no desire to unseat her. If Leith wants to contend with the aching balls he’ll have later because of it, then he can. I’m saving my energies for the time they can truly be put to use.
We’re approaching the end of the tunnel of Grimm, and the fortress just beyond it where Discordia is rumored to have built her defenses into the side of the rocky wall. The darkness presses in on all sides, threatening to consume the winding path we tread. I imagine the encroaching rock walls would make a human claustrophobic. I’m more attuned to the small eccentricities indulged by humans, since being rendered one by a technicality. Shifting will destroy this false heart in my chest, and so my bear is dormant. I’ll be just as hobbled by a trip through this dour place as our dear little dove. It’s an offensive indignity to twist an ankle on a jutting rim of stone or the like. There are times I hate being trapped like this.
The cave of Grimm is old and deeply magical. Even in my human form, I can sense it. Magic raises goosebumps along my arms, the dark, swirling eddies of power causing dread to pool in my stomach. I don’t like the energy here.
A glance to either side of me reveals that Nash and Leith feel the ominous pall of magic, too. It’s worse for them. Their beasts are awake and in tune with the world around them. Nash hunches his shoulders slightly forward, as if an unseen force leans heavily against his spine. This place will be the hardest on Nash, who has thin control in the best of circumstances.
“It feels worse than normal,” Kassidy’s voice breaks the silence, saying out loud what the rest of us have been thinking but unwilling to admit. Maybe, like me, the rest were hoping it’s just our imaginations running wild.
“There’s extra magic in the air,” she continues, seemingly talking to herself. “Dark stuff. I mean, coming through Grimm is never sunshine and fucking marigolds but this is... different.”
“An early warning system, maybe?” Leith murmurs. “Stay away, or else?”
“Maybe,” Kassidy says with a nod. “But I guess we’ll have to ignore it. I wish I had another siphoning stone. It could take some of the psychic pressure off.”
“I should take point,” I say after a moment. “Without my bear and much magic to speak of, I’m ideal to fend off any attacks.”
Leith and Nash exchange another glance, clearly reluctant. I’m practically a mundane human in this state, and though I’m the family shame, we are still cousins. It might have been touching, if I possessed the capacity to feel something so trite. But I don’t, so I continue, ruthlessly pragmatic.
“We need Kassidy,” I continue. By now, we are all using her true name. That, in and of itself, is a subject which amuses me to no end. Such a little recalcitrant she is to give us a false name. The little thief is full of surprises. “I’ll go first, Leith will keep Kassidy in the middle, and Nash can bring up the rear.”
I can tell they want to argue with me, but in the end, no one speaks out against the plan. Both of them care too much for our little dove to risk her, and they know I’m right. She’s our best hope of getting my heart back. I need that heart if I’m to understand that level of care. And I want it, I want it more than I can remember wanting anything for a very long time.
I move my mount to the front of the line, with Leith and Kassidy trailing close behind while Nash’s resentment fairly boils in the air around him. I can’t force myself to care about their insipid emotions at present. Maybe I’ll feel differently soon. The faint flickering desire to hope stirs in my chest again.
Something crashes around a bend in the cave from yards away, and from the sound of the approach, I judge it to be only a pair of individuals. Perhaps three, though it’s difficult to tell when the sound splinters and refracts in the hollowed cave. They’re making no effort to disguise themselves, creating enough noise that even the hard of hearing would sit up and pay attention.
By the time the figures stagger onto our path, all of us have drawn weapons. Leith has his short sword; Nash, his throwing knives; and Kassidy wields the short bow she favors. The strangers are surprised for perhaps a few seconds before they begin to charge us. But we’re ready. I swing my leg over the side of my mount and impact the earth, pulling the stiletto knife from its sheath at my belt before I sprint to meet them.
I’m right, there were three—all of them male, as burly and covered in hair as dwarves. I might have believed that’s what they were, if they weren’t so tall. Six feet, at least. But they’re still a head shorter than I am, and I use that height to my advantage. My superior reach gives me a few extra seconds, and I use them.
The sharp, tap
ered knife enters the first man’s neck, sinking in deep. I smile, cold satisfaction spreading through my body as I carve a bloody crescent through the meaty column like it’s a ripe melon. The slash begins to spurt scarlet onto my front. The man’s eyes fly open, but his expression doesn’t otherwise change. He lets out a gurgling exhale and drops like a stone, head impacting the dirt with a dull thunk.
The next man lurches toward me, undeterred by the death of his fellow. He meets a similar fate, though his ungainly lunge puts his face closest to me. I drive the knife through his orbital socket, squelching the eyeball on the way through. With a smirk, I swirl my blade and reduce the slimy gray matter beyond into slurry. His body bucks weakly, and when I release him, he goes down as well.
I expect the third to run. I want him to run. It’s not half as satisfying to chase down prey in human form, but there’s still a certain thrill to it. It even feels earned when I can take the prey to the ground in this form. But the imbecile doesn’t learn. He lumbers toward me, arms outstretched and groping the empty air like some flesh-eating revenant.
Leith shouts something at me, but too late for it to be heard. My blade slides through the third man’s enormous belly and his insides slither out, pooling on the ground like a mass of gray snakes. A putrid odor fills the air as his waste spills from one of his severed intestines.
I sense the presence at my back and recognize the bristling energy as Leith’s. The fury of his beast is an acrid bite that saturates his scent. When I turn to him, he’s a mere foot away, his face a rictus of rage and disgust.
His fist comes out of nowhere, impacting the side of my face with enough force to send me sprawling sideways. It’s an effort to stay on my feet, but I manage, catching myself on the trunk of a tree. I whirl to face him, human throat protesting as a growl rips from me. Humans aren’t meant to make such sounds, and it burns weakly every time I try.
Tightening my grip on my blade, I size him up. His bear is stronger than mine, even if I could shift. There is something to the idea that blood is important. My diluted blood means that I’m weaker than Leith or Nash. But, unencumbered by emotion, I am more dangerous. I could go for his throat, sink the dagger in and end him. His love for me will impede him long enough to allow for that.
