A rustling from the pathway caused her to look up. She thought it was wind at first, but the brush was shaking more violently, rocked by movement heading toward her. Jordan half-expected to see Axel burst out and take her in the grasslands, though he continually told her it was dangerous to do so.
“Just run. If you hear anything – animal or man – you must run, little rabbit, all the way back to my home,” he told her.
Now, she prepared to sprint, but morbid curiosity bound her feet to the ground. Jordan had never seen the wolves or wildcats said to dwell in the forest. Perhaps Nature was giving her the opportunity to satisfy her wonder.
The blur that shot from the thick weeds and tangled branches gave her no time to react. A large grayish shadow flew out and fell upon her, knocking her to the ground. She had a brief glimpse of the basket flying in mid-air and tumbling back down many feet away, spilling the ripe red fruit she had plucked.
It was a man, and not Axel. The gaunt, long bearded figure tore at her dress, snarling like a beast the entire time.
“No! No! Get off! I'm mated to someone else,” she screamed. Her hand was roughly twisted aside as she tried to cover her breasts.
The man's bare skin pressed to hers, as if he wore no clothing beneath the big musky animal hide draped across his back. Jordan tried to kick her legs and beat his back, but he was too large for her.
She shuddered and wept, fearful that his hardness was pressing into her soft belly several times, but it was only his knee. Just when she expected to lay back and consign herself to fate, another blur tore across her shredded dress, hurling the figure to the earth.
The sounds of men roaring and hitting the ground with their strong muscles reached her ears before she could sit up. When she finally drew herself upward, covering her naked breasts, she saw Axel rolling as he wrestled with the other man.
They tore at each other like ravenous vermin, but her mate was larger. The fight worried her, regardless of Axel's advantage in size. The lean stranger had a vicious energy, and he pounded Axel's back with spirit possessed blows.
For a time, his flurry of punches confused his opponent, but Axel regained his footing as he roughly pushed the man beneath him. With his great bulk rising, he put his fists together and slammed them into his enemy's forehead. Axel resembled a stricken cave bear, groaning and hurling his great hands down, each rock hard blow slowly drilling its way into the man's brain.
Jordan covered her ears. Even during vivid nightmares, she had never heard such terrible noises as the ones coming from the stranger's mouth – far more animal than human.
There was a final jousting of limbs before Axel reared off, watching as the stranger scampered away, holding his head. Unsteadily, he ran as quickly as he could toward the trees. Axel rose and chased him, angrily shoving him into the brush.
The extra pressure caused him to run faster, making the wind dance with broken twig snaps. When it was over, Axel approached her, a slight limp in his right leg.
“Did he hurt you?” He asked, panting.
“No...it was so sudden. Oh, look at those cuts! We need to get –“
“Back to the hollow. Now,” he ordered. Axel walked with less than perfect balance, but he retained enough strength and sense to grasp her thin wrist.
Before she could protest, they were making their way back along the debris obscured paths. Jordan squeezed her hand in his, short bursts of pressure that seemed to help him balance. Axel groaned unknowingly, stopping when they were halfway through their journey to bind his knee with a strip torn from the leg of his pants.
“Who was he?” She thought it might help lessen the pain to speak.
“Another man, just like me.”
“No! You're not like him...he was so violent, disgusting. I would never mate with such a man!” The very idea caused bile to rise in her throat, an aftermath of the fear that reminded her how close she had come with him.
“He wouldn't have given you much choice. Every man seeks a woman in his own way, sometimes in ways I don't approve of. These woods affect everyone differently, little rabbit, and that goes for men and women alike.” Despite his injuries, the same stony eyes stared down at her, as timeless and strong as the boulders along the Great Lake's shore.
“I'm glad I ran into you. I would rather die than surrender my womb to an animal like that.” Her face clouded.
Axel chuckled, feeling better as they neared the entrance to the hollow. “I would have been disappointed too. Giving up a beauty as great as yourself to such a filthy cur would fire my rage. What you saw me to do him was nothing.” He didn't say it, but he wondered how many wonderful females had slipped by him over nearly two decades of breeding.
Very few, he thought, eying Jordan's trim body. Even in his wounded state, her breasts excited him. No, old boy, you don't find women like this every season...not even every ten.
When they reached his hollow, it was her turn to pull him inside. A sprained ankle made it difficult to find the dyed skin over the entrance. Jordan's hand reached through the opening and guided him in.
Axel collapsed on the bed, his hefty weight making the mattress creak in its wooden frame. The familiar sound brought a flush to her face, and horny prickles reverberated deep within her flesh.
Jordan shook her head. She went to the corner, where a large sac filled with food and water waited. Within minutes, a canteen was in her hand, along with several ripe pears.
She passed the sustenance to Axel and he dove in at once, grinding the fruit's soft flesh into pulp and guzzling water. Even while he ate, he looked like a titan, one of Nature's mythic creations, said to exist when the world was still young. When he had finished his second gallon of water, he reared up and tried to stand.
“No, lay back. Please, Axel. You need your rest,” she said, lightly petting his well rounded bicep.
He stared at her with hunger lining his face. “I think I need a different kind of medicine.”
He can't be serious! He's bruised, scraped, and scratched...a few of his bones might be cracked, and he still wants to mate?
Jordan's mind panicked, caught between volleys of humor and concern. She smiled after a minute. There was another item in the large sac, a small vial of infused oil she had brought along from the village. It was meant to promote healing, and every woman who went into the woods had one, if only as a precaution.
“Where are you going?” Axel demanded.
“Nowhere but onto this bed,” she said, waiting until he flashed her his broad grin. “Easy, sir. Doesn't a good mate tend to her male's needs? And I mean all of his needs?”
She held out her palm and squeezed a small dollop of yellowish liquid into her hands. Fragrant pine needles filled the room, allegedly the scent of the everlasting tree, a rare species from beyond the Great Lake that never died of old age.
“Please take off your clothes, Axel. Let me do this for you...”
He complied, watching her uncertainly. Though his body was grazed with reddish imperfections, his frame remained immaculate. She sucked in her breath and held it as her hands began to caress his chest, rubbing the oil in.
Each time she came to a cut or scrape, Axel held his own breath, exhaling hard enough to rustle the mattress as he processed his pain. Jordan massaged him slowly, curling wide circles around his manly breasts, down to the pack of hills that ran along his torso.
Mid-way through the massage, he turned over, and allowed her to rub the piney ointment all across his back. She marveled at every ridge of his spine, flanked by large muscles that ran out toward his arms, his legs, his beefy buttocks. Her palms felt hot, and the heat spread by humid increments, pooling around her sex.
“Turn over again,” she whispered.
Axel's eyes were fixed to ceiling as she started on the fronts of his legs, pushing deep into his knotted muscles. He winced when she came to the sprained ankle, but held in his protests, allowing her to work it slowly. After a time, it started to feel better.
Meanwh
ile, his erection sprouted, like a second face staring toward the sky. Jordan bit her lip when she noticed, scarcely able to control the urge to reach out and –
“Ahhhh,” he groaned, closing his eyes as her warm, slippery hands wrapped around it. “There, little rabbit, there.”
Satisfying parts like this for anything but procreation was scorned. That didn't stop her, nor did it prevent him from resisting. Jordan's little hands rolled him between her fingers, gliding up and down, stopping at the base to worship his wrinkled balls.
She leaned down and brought his tip between her lips, as she had dreamed about doing earlier. Axel's muscles pulsed as she brushed him with pleasure, her lips strumming his entire length.
“It's so good,” he murmured, reaching out to hold her wrist. “But we can't let an opportunity like this go to waste, can we?”
You've already started it. Better finish the job, she thought. Jordan worked fast to unbind her dress before she rolled it over her head.
With her naked skin freed to the cool air again, she straddled him. It took a little effort to stay off his most sensitive spots, but eventually she found her place.
In the quiet of mid-evening, they rocked in the mattress. Jordan enjoyed the control, being able to have him as fast or as slow as she wanted, straining and smiling as his enormous girth continued stretching her from the inside out. Her little ass rippled as she dove into him faster.
Axel clenched his jaw, fighting through the discomfort at the base of his spine as pleasure flooded him with its fuzzy heat. His fingers reached to her butt and tightened, holding her in place as he started to rock harder, rubbing her body from side to side, until it slaved over his tree trunk hardness.
A little faster, a little faster...Jordan's eyes fluttered shut. Shrill murmurs boiled from her mouth, setting the air alight. Axel grunted and jabbed upward, giving her longer, harder strokes. He felt her wetness beginning to spasm on his rod.
“That's it. Go on, little rabbit, scream with everything you have as I empty my seed inside you.” His words were orders her body couldn't resist.
Her orgasm tightened and broke into distinct waves, each time crashing down upon her in a toe curling tsunami, the last impulse he needed to let go himself. Axel's guttural cries threatened to drown her out as he felt his testes pucker, spraying his hot white seed toward her womb. His erection bulged and released, hurling jet after jet of milky semen into her void.
When their sex ended, she rolled off him and collapsed. Her head found its way to his shoulder and he lightly stroked her hair.
“When do you think it will take?” He asked. Women, he knew, always discovered their pregnancy before he did. He was convinced there was an instinct that kicked in long before the more obvious signs.
Jordan looked up, her eyes aglow with whorls of excitement. “It already has, Axel. I can feel my womb burning with magic.”
Heartbreak or Exile
Pregnancy hit her with full force nearly six weeks later. Jordan spent her days feeling nauseous and exhausted, confined to the hollow under his kindly orders.
Axel only ventured as far as necessary for food in the wintery environment. His wounds were healed, but the sting of her touch after his battle with the rival hunter remained. The female had become a beautiful ghost, equally frightening and alluring.
“You mustn't let her grow too deep in your life,” he muttered. “By next autumn, she'll have to return to the village, babe in hand only if it's a daughter.”
He froze. His voice must have attracted the attention of the dark shape on the horse, just a few yards from where he was gathering wood. The mottled gray steed snorted, blowing its breath like a dragon in the cold.
Axel could feel its master's eyes, though he couldn't see the face concealed in the dark cloak around the figure's head. He tipped his head respectfully.
The figure stared a moment longer and then slapped its reigns, taking off through the thicket of trees. Axel waited until the beating of hooves departed, an unnatural sound in winter like rain drops. When it had gone, he gathered up the rest of the firewood and ran back to the hollow, as fast as his aching knees would carry him.
Jordan was just shaking herself from sleep when he burst in. The alarm on his face raised her own alertness, a clang near her heart that led her to sit up. A little too fast – her head spun, a byproduct of her body trying to grow accustomed to the baby.
“What's wrong?”
“Just an ordinary inspection,” he said, dropping the wood near the iron stove.
She looked at him with confused wrinkles, unable to understand. He sat down next to her on the bed and fattened his body with a heavy sigh.
“The Council's Riders. They come every season to keep tabs on hunters, looking for females with men out in the open. They enforce what Nature can't police,” he said.
Jordan blinked, her eyes wide. She had never seen him looking so rattled before.
“What do you think they're going to do?”
“Nothing...unless we violate our deepest commandments and commit the Sin of Care. As long as you head back after the baby is born, the Riders will have no reason to come prowling around here.” His words came painfully, as if they were drawn out under torture.
“But...we'll never see each other again. Axel, what if I want more children? I don't want to be bred by another man.” She curled her soft arms around him, admiring his hard, flat pressed chest.
“I know...”
That night, they ate a sullen dinner. The winter beans and vinegary leaves from a snow vine tasted like ash, despite being well seasoned.
The reality of parting ways was more than eight months off, but it felt dangerously close. After just a few weeks, the hollow had become Jordan's home, and Axel transformed himself into a man she never wanted to depart from.
“Has anyone ever gotten around the Riders? It doesn't seem too difficult to hide in these woods, and they only come once a season, don't they?” Hope rang in her voice.
“They'll catch up to you eventually. I've heard about men who tried to live with their women for more than one year. Eventually, everyone has to go outside, often with a child in tow. There's no way you would be able to hide your son or daughter here. No way.”
I forgot about that. I think I'm going to have a son...and what then? He'll disappear into the Council's hands, just like Axel, never to be seen again.
No mother in the village had ever known her son. The very notion seemed silly, but somehow, it brought tears to Jordan's eyes.
“Isn't there anywhere we can go? How far does the Council reach? I've never seen more than little fishing boats on the Great Lake, and what's over the horizon?”
Her questions turned his spine cold. He wanted to laugh at her absurd request.
“I've never heard of anyone who has gotten away from this land. And no one who has gone beyond the Great Lake and returned. The Riders patrol the shoreline, but I doubt they wrap all the way around to the hills...getting there is the problem, let alone surviving the unknown.” Axel hadn't been outside the woods since he reached manhood, and crossing into the high peaks over the horizon seemed unfathomable.
“I want to try,” Jordan said. Her face hardened, enough to repress the polite rejection building in the back of Axel's mind.
He sat for a long moment, looking at the remnants of food at the bottom of his bowl. “Okay. This is high risk, especially on the cold waters at this time of year. Winter's depths will come in just a few weeks. We have to leave soon.”
Before she could say anything, he stood. Axel marched over to his sac and opened the cabinet, flinging practically everything he owned into the bag in a matter of minutes.
Breeding Call: Virgin Initiations (BDSM Erotic Romance) (Bred in Underfalls) Page 3
