by Alix Labelle
Her own rhythm faltered, hips hitching, and his fingers worked her with quick, firm strokes that matched the rough, eager rocking of their bodies. Fintan growled her name, and she felt him still beneath her, his hand tight around her thigh. Mairead followed him over the edge with a cry.
When the world came back into focus, they were lying tangled together in her blankets, her head against his chest. One of his hands slid down her spine, rubbing circles over her back. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture, sweeter than she had expected.
“Your bed roll,” she said with some feeling, “is too far away.”
His quiet groan said he completely agreed with her.
It was impractical, but Mairead did not make him move, though she did pull rag from her pack to clean them both up. Then she settled back against him, the blankets just enough for the both of them, warm against the nip of the fall air.
Chapter Five
When Mairead woke, she was warm and comfortable, and had no intention at all of pulling herself from bed. Fintan slept still, his chest rising and falling with slow, even breaths beneath her ear. She could hear the beat of his heart, and she let her eyes slip shut again, enjoying the lazy feel of the morning. It was not, after all, as though they had a reason to rush. Though she did not doubt that news of her coming would reach the Wyndwae before she did, very few of the villagers would have made the journey between the southern coast and their own villages or know its length. Had she believed a dragon truly haunted them, she would not take such time, but she did not believe it. There had been no refugees fleeing through the forest. No flame or smoke on the northern horizon.
The sun had risen well into the sky when Fintan stirred and opened his eyes, his fingers sliding into her hair and stroking the long strands back from her face, carding more carefully through the places where it had tangled.
"A blessed morning to you," he said, turning his head to look down at her.
"And to you," she answered, tipping her own head back to meet his gaze. She smiled. "It was a most blessed night."
"I suppose that somewhat depends on what one considers most blessed."
Her eyebrows lifted sharply, and he laughed.
"Not that I do not consider it such. Certainly," he said, hand sliding down to curl around her thigh, thumb stroking the soft skin along the inside. "I much enjoyed it. I just do not think the church would agree."
That pulled laughter from her. It had been an entirely enjoyable night, but she too doubted that the church would consider such activities blessed. She had never much cared for their strictures. Already she travelled well outside them, dressing in men’s trousers and hunting the beasts of the wild with a longbow.
Reluctantly, they rose together from the warmth of the blankets and dressed. There were indeed finger-smudge marks on her hips and thigh, and Mairead looked down at them with a smile, tracing her own fingertips along the slight blunt ache of them before she stirred the fire to waking so they might break their fast while Fintan disappeared into the trees. When he returned, he carried a brace of rabbits with him, and they dressed them together, roasting them over the fire with a few of the dried herbs from Mairead's pack. It was an indulgence to bring such things along, but they were light, and she found that she was much happier with them than without.
When they had eaten, they saddled the horses and rode out. Mairead was a little sore from their rough play the night before, but she did not mind it. Each step forward was a pleasant reminder of their lying together, and by midday she was eager to repeat the experience. When they paused for food, she all but pulled Fintan from his horse, and he came along, laughing and as eager as she.
The trip went on much like that in the week following. In the day they rode leisurely toward the Wyndwae, conversing of this and that, sharing tales between them. Mairead told Fintan of the rumor she had begun, and had been gratified to see him amused, his warm laughter rolling out among the trees. She had told him also of the battle with the manticore, and of the time she had faced the basilisk, when she had come nearer to death than ever she had been before. Far nearer than was comfortable. Of himself, Fintan did not say as much, though he did say that he had always been a wanderer, and told her of lands to the north of Lyndoun, of the wide, rocky plateaus to the east. She listened with keen attention, and thought perhaps it was time to make a journey beyond the edges of her own country, out into the lands beyond.
At night they lay together, their bed rolls pushed close. Some of those nights, they coupled as they had in that first heat of passion, rough and quick, nails and fingers leaving marks on each other's skin. Others were slower, closer. They handled each other gently, and kissed slow and lingering. Fintan’s elegant, long-fingered hands were suited as much for tenderness as for rough handling. He lifted her as though she weighed nothing, laid her out on the blankets and held her as he pleased, lifting her to new heights of ecstasy. It was a trip more pleasant than any she had before taken, and she wondered if perhaps she had been a fool to deny companionship in the years since her father’s passing. Or if it was only Fintan who made it so.
A little more than a week into their journey, they came upon a place she knew, where a spring flowed over rocks in a low waterfall, falling three feet down into a pool at its end. The pool was deep, and in the chill of early fall it still held the warmth of the summer it had collected in the long, sunny months. Even so, it was cool, and Mairead sputtered as she surfaced, but she laughed too. Fintan did not seem affected by its bite. His skin was warm when she wrapped herself around him, legs over his hips and arms around his neck. His hands cupped her buttocks, holding her up.
“You look good like this,” he said, smiling into her eyes.
“I look, I think, like a drowned rat,” Mairead said, laughing, but he only shook his head and kissed her until she stopped insisting on it.
They were deep kisses, hungry. As they went on, Mairead began to writhe in his arms, moving against him. Her nipples were hard against his chest.
“We should perhaps adjourn to warmer places,” she said against his jaw, nipping gently at the lobe of his ear.
“Are you cold?”
She was not, in his arms, but their bed rolls were laid out already, and it seemed a shame to waste them. She told him so, and though he laughed, he made his way out of the pool with her, seemingly not at all fazed by her weight in his arms, and laid her out on the bed rolls where they were set near the fire that had burned itself to low, hot coals. When he moved away from her to lay wood on them, she shivered a little with a sudden chill.
He was back in a moment, stretching out over her, his warmth a guard against the wind. He pulled the blankets up around them, and leaned down to kiss her again, his mouth moving down along her jaw, over her throat. When he reached the curve of her shoulder, he sank his teeth into it, and she bucked beneath him, gasping.
His tongue stroked the place where he had bitten, and he drew back enough to look down at her, concern in his gaze.
“Did I harm you?”
Mairead shook her head. “No,” she said, catching his hand in her own and drawing it down between her thighs so he could feel that she was wet and already wanting him. “No,” she said again. “Not at all.”
His smile was full of teeth, and when he leaned down again he put his teeth into her once more, making her cry out. Those clever fingers did not move back up her body, but stayed where they were to play, tickling over her skin. The bites left purpling marks behind, and a little stinging ache that only made her hungrier for it, for him.
“I need you,” she gasped against his shoulder. “I need you truly.”
The hand that had been teasing her with fingertips against the lips of her sex slid outward, pressing her thigh open wide so he could settle between them, and he did not make her wait. He slid inside in one long thrust. Mairead’s back arched, her fingers catching at his shoulders, leaving the marks of her nails in the same place he had left the marks of his teeth on her. As he slid out, in aga
in, deep and slow, she dragged her nails down his back so that they left red lines behind, and he groaned against her shoulder and bit her again. The thought of the marks made her laugh a little, nothing more than the sound of air passing her lips. He lifted his head to look down at her with something that might have been an attempt at a scolding frown, but there was too much of a smile hiding in the corners of his mouth.
“If you think this amusing, I’m sure I could find a way to make it more interesting for you.”
“If you think you are up to the challenge,” she answered immediately.
He bent so that he could reach her breasts, teeth closing around a nipple, and the arch in her spine pulled deeper, pressed her body up toward him. Her breath caught in her throat as they pressed harder against tender flesh, already peaked and sensitive. The tip of his tongue flicked over the captured nipple and made her whimper. She was not thinking of laughing any longer, or of challenging him, only the way he felt inside her, the way his teeth felt against her skin as he left off to take the other nipple in his mouth. His fingers caught the first between them, rolling and rubbing until she felt as though the slightest touch would undo her.
“You are not laughing now,” he said against her neck, and the words were a satisfied purr.
Though his thrusts were slow, they filled her deep, ended with a grind that rubbed the base of his length against her, made her moan and clutch at him. Her only answer was a sound of pleasure and need.
He took care of her. His hands, by now practiced in the ways of her body, teasing and tugging and playing, his length filling her to her limits. When Mairead opened her eyes, she could see the stars through the leaves of the trees, sliding together in her pleasure-dazed vision until they were only white light against the black. When she fell apart beneath him, it was with his name on her lips.
Chapter Six
Four days out from the border of the Wyndwae, they were riding through a deep patch of woods, the trees towering far above their heads. Around them, ferns grew high as their horse’s knees. Beneath their twisted boughs it was dark already, though above the sun was only just sinking to set, gloom stretching out around them. Mairead's heart misgave her, beating too fast behind her ribs, and she watched the shadows with sharp eyes, seeking the source of her unease. Fintan, she saw, did not seem so on edge. Though he had noted her wariness, he rode perfectly at ease, one hand loose on the reigns.
The beast dropped from the trees above with a shriek like a bird of prey, a blur she could not name until it was nearly on top of her. Mairead ducked its first pass, then swung one leg over the saddle and slipped from her horse's back, rolling as she connected with the forest floor. Her hand was already reaching for the dagger at her hip. It was ill luck that her bow was strapped over Embarr's back, unstrung. It would not serve her quickly enough to stop the griffin, which was sweeping back for another charge. The horses were rearing, their alarmed cries ringing in the air, and her own had already fled well beyond her reach. As the creature turned once more to charge, Mairead readied the dagger in her hand, prepared to throw for the throat.
Fintan, keeping his seat on his horse with easy grace, had backed the great black stallion up, and now pulled the sword from his back, spinning it in a silver arc. His eyes were fixed on the eagle-headed beast, which had perched in a tree far up and watched them with its head tipped to one side, meeting his gaze. It seemed held there, searching for something in Fintan’s face, and Mairead felt her eyebrows draw together. What was it doing there? Had it not already shown it was unafraid to attack? For what reason did it wait now?
"Go," Fintan said, and his voice was a rumble that set the hair on the back of her neck standing up. "I have not given you leave to be here."
The beast shrieked once more, rusty metal against metal, and its great head tipped the other way, but it did not move. It sidled along the branch like a dog told to heel and refusing to bend to its master’s will. Fintan growled, low and long, a noise she had not heard from a human throat in all her years. Her fingers curled closer around the hilt of her dagger. In the next moment, the creature lifted into the air and up beyond the tops of the trees, and she could hear the noise of its wings fading into the distance. Her gaze cut to Fintan, who was sheathing his sword. He looked up to meet her eyes, and even in the dim dark under the canopy, his were the color of honey.
She had thought the almost imperceptible shift from autumn brown to amber was a trick of the firelight, an illusion that made the sharp lines of his face all the more striking as they played together in its glow. Now, seeing it in the dark beneath the trees as night fell, the gleam that seemed to cast its own light in the shadowed murk, she wondered that it had not frightened her before. What did she know of him, after all?
“I believe,” she said, sheathing the dagger at her hip and looking up into his eyes. “That an explanation is due.”
Chapter Seven
“There was," he said, "a dragon in the Wyndwae."
"Was," Mairead echoed, voice flat, still even.
"Yes." He dismounted, leading his horse with him to stand beneath one of the trees. When he bent to tether the stallion, his gaze for a moment left hers.
Mairead caught the reigns of her own mount as Embarr trotted back to her side, nervous still and whickering softly. She tethered him beside the black horse, and began to unbuckle his saddle, to strip him of his tack. "I am waiting," she said quietly.
"What know you," he asked instead of answering, “of dragons?"
What knew she of dragons? Little, in fact. She had never seen one with her own eyes, had never faced one in a fight. Her father, too, had gone all his life without the sight of one. They were creatures of the ancient world, who kept to themselves except when they sought some treasure, hiding in caves among the rocks. White scaled and twenty feet from nose to flank, their tails another ten of whipcord flexible muscle. They were dangerous, and she did not believe there was one in the Wyndwae, except that Fintan had said there had been.
"Very little," she said finally. "I have only heard of them. I thought the villagers saying they had seen one must be mistaken. This far east, there are only the little drakes."
"Most times, that is true."
Over Embarr's back, she could see his face, could see the expression there in the last of the light. It was grave and attentive, though there was nothing in it that seemed to say she should be afraid. Mairead took the brush from her saddlebags, and then began working over her mount's short hair, brushing sweat and dirt from his coat.
"And other times?"
"Other times, perhaps, even dragons seek new sights."
Her gaze flicked from Embarr's coat to Fintan's face. His eyes met hers, but his expression did not change. Mairead tossed the brush she had held back into its bag, and went to kindle the fire. Neither of them spoke as she laid it, as it crackled to life under her hands. Only when the bed rolls were laid out, separated by the flame between them for the first time since the night of their meeting, did Mairead look at him once more. The firelight made strange shadows on his face.
"What am I to believe?"
"That I will not harm you." His answer was immediate. "That I never meant to do so."
"Did you think a lie was not harm?"
"I wished to know who it was that thought to challenge me," he said. "I had not expected you. When I met you, I was drawn to you, to your beauty." He smiled. "To your fire."
It was not an admission, but it was confession enough. If he indeed was the dragon, then it was she who had thought to challenge him, and she took a breath and let it out slowly, uncertain if it was anger or fear that twisted in her stomach. Perhaps it was both.
"Did you think to tell me?"
"I would have, before we reached the Wyndwae."
She began unbraiding her hair with sharp, frustrated motions, raking her fingers through it to loosen the worst of the tangles. She saw his eyes on it, and laughter bubbled unbidden in her throat.
"You are a dragon, then,
so transfixed by gold."
"I admit that it is some of what drew me."
Mairead took off her boots, then settled a little more comfortably in her blankets. Her thoughts were spinning, chasing each other round and round. Questions. Condemnations. She should tell him she did not wish to see his face ever again, then pack up her things and leave. But she did not. She remained there, sitting in the warmth of the fire.
"I did not know dragons could take human shape."
"It is a well-kept secret," he said. "If humans knew, they would not rest. They let themselves be eaten up with fear. They would turn on each other, attempting to hunt us down. We are, after all, monsters."
Mairead drew a breath in sharply.
"Was that meant as accusation?"
Fintan shook his head. "No," he said, and there was honesty in his voice. "I asked you what you sought in the Wyndwae, and you said you wished to know if there was a dragon there. You said you would not hunt one that did no harm."
"No," Mairead said. "I would not."
"Then you are not the human that our kind fear. Dragons are not all the greedy things told of in your stories. Many of us simply wish to live, to be alone in our mountains. Others desire to travel. We are wiser creatures than the basilisk and the manticore. And if we eat your livestock occasionally, do you not do the same?"
"We raised it. Or paid for it."
"And in the cases in which I have taken a sheep, or a cow, I too have paid for it." He smiled across the fire at her. "As I said. We are intelligent creatures. That some of my kind choose to behave as though they are not should not have bearing on all. Certainly there are humans who fail to behave in an intelligent manner."
Unwilling, Mairead was finding herself won over, and she smiled. That much was true. She had seen it herself in every town she rode through, every inn she bought rooms in.
