by Jean Johnson
Yes, he’s definitely nicer to smell than Saber.
Wolfer winced as Alys sniffed deeply yet again; somehow, he didn’t think she was sniffing the meal that Trevan had prepared. She was seated on an extra chair settled at the dining table between his and Morganen’s.
The dining table had been placed in one of the salons above the kitchen in the north wing, moved there to clear the donjon hall and make it into an impromptu audience chamber to impress the Mandarites. The same foreign bastards who had ended up stealing Dominor from them. No one had moved it back down into the great hall. Nor would they likely bother in the future; the room chosen had once been a small dining hall and comfortably fit the large, eight-sided table with a bit of room to spare.
Since clearing out his twin’s old room had taken up the whole morning until just before lunch, he had only had enough time to wipe himself down hastily with a damp cloth in his room. Not enough time to bathe away the smell of his sweat, or even to change his clothes. She inhaled deeply again. Wolfer hoped it was the scent of the seafood salad and herb-buttered bread they were having that she seemed to be enjoying. Trevan had cooked shrimp until it was tender-pink, then chilled it with a spell and mixed it with some kind of savory-sweet sauce over a bed of greens, carrot slivers, slices of boiled egg, and cheese.
Another sniff made him self-conscious. He could still smell his exertions. She probably couldn’t smell Saber’s lingering sweat, since his twin sat on Wolfer’s other side from her, but she was right at Wolfer’s elbow. Wolfer was afraid to raise that elbow more than a bare inch or two, in case the smell should cause her to pass out. He really hoped all that sniffing was for the food. It didn’t help him that most of the time whenever she closed her mouth around her fork, she closed her eyes and slowly opened them, mmming under her breath as she savored each morsel of food.
When did she turn so . . . so sensual? he asked himself, watching her chew out of the corner of his eye. Watched her fingers grasp her mug of spell-chilled water, ignoring the handle in favor of picking it up directly by its side. It was as if the cup represented the way she sometimes grasped life directly, a contrast to the daintily graceful way she wielded her fork and the corresponding way she usually let her gentleness show through in timidity.
Every contrast about her is still fascinating to me . . . but now it’s more, somehow. She is more, he admitted to himself, absently taking another bite of his bread. More curves, more curls . . . more woman than the girl I last knew.
He would have mourned the loss of his old childhood playmate a bit more, Wolfer instinctively knew, if the woman sitting beside him hadn’t developed new qualities to fascinate him in their place. Koranen was busy telling the others something funny that had happened to him while picking the fresh fruit that now sat on the table, available for anyone who wanted more to eat than just the summer salad their brother had made. Wolfer didn’t hear a word of the punch line, for a pair of gray eyes slanted up toward him. He watched Alys as she lifted a slice of fruit to her lips—the very same type she had eaten while riding on his back that morning.
This time, he saw the perfect pucker of her lips enclosing the juicy wedge of tangy-sweet citrus. He could almost hear the moans of pleasure she had made the last time. He wanted to bend his head down, take the other half of that wedge in his own teeth, and mate his mouth to hers, to share fruit and kiss in a sensual expression of hunger. He wanted to taste the juice on her lips, her tongue, then lick the sticky liquid from her fingertips.
When she firmed her lips a little and bit through the fruit—so gently, so sweetly—his breath escaped through parted lips. Dragging his attention back to his food, Wolfer drank from his mug of beer, his current choice of drink, though there was water, juice, and ale also available. The spell-chilled carafes sat on a sideboard his sister-in-law had unearthed from somewhere and had a couple of his brothers drag in, making the former sitting room into a real dining chamber. Women and their furniture, he thought, distracting himself from the more dangerous thought, Women and their mouths . . .
“So, will you need us to put furniture into the room after the meal is over?” Saber asked his wife.
“Nope. Alys and I can haul in one of the wooden benches I saw outside.”
Wolfer thought about the size of the wooden benches outside and their weathered splinters, and winced. “I’ll bring it in, after it’s been sanded.”
“That would be very nice of you,” the woman at his right murmured demurely. “It would have been a struggle for us to move ourselves.”
His muscles swelled slightly under her praise of him for being strong and thoughtful and manly. Wolfer promised himself he would attend to the bench right away. She inhaled again, her head still slightly turned in his direction.
As soon as he bathed.
“If you’re only going to put a single bench in there, why did we clear out the room?” his twin was arguing with his wife. “I thought you were just changing furniture, for some bizarre female reasoning.”
“None of your business—and that kind of flattery won’t get you anywhere. Evanor, do you know if there is any thick wool or cotton batting to be had?” Kelly asked the light blond man across the table from her. “Not as thick as an under-mattress, but not thinner than two fingers in width when compressed—even if it has to be layered.”
“Not that I’m aware of, not unless you want to use actual quilts. Why do you need it?”
“How about felt?” she asked, avoiding the question neatly.
“We have plenty of that,” he agreed. “It’s in the east wing attic, near the Y-split, in one of the servants’ chambers. It’s left over from a previous occupant but it’s still in fairly good shape, for felt. A bit nibbled on by bugs and things, but only in smallish holes here and there.”
“Excellent. I’ll take a look at it right after lunch, then.”
“What do you need it for?” Saber demanded, wary of his wife’s evasiveness.
His wife patted his thigh, seated next to him on the same kind of double-seated bench Alys remembered her parents sharing their meals on. The kind her uncle had sat on alone, and occasionally allowed one of his favored serving wenches to sit on with him, if she was serving him his food particularly well.
“It’s women-stuff. Now that there’s another woman in the hall, I intend to teach her a few otherworldly things that you don’t need to know about.”
“Perhaps I can change your mind?” the eldest of them murmured, eyeing his wife speculatively.
As the other woman smiled smugly, Alys wondered who would win the contest of wills between the two of them. Kelly was a lot more forward and assertive than she was, that was certain.
Alys inhaled deeply yet again. Cari had said that some men smelled a little better than others, but the helpful wench hadn’t said anything about some men smelling simply fantastic—as delicious as a dessert served straight to her senses, skipping right over the main meal. If a dessert could be male, wolfish, and spicy-musky-earthy, that was. It was pure Wolfer. The scent of a mate.
She simply couldn’t inhale enough of his smell.
SIX
No, no, place your foot a little more like this—do you feel the difference in your stance?” Kelly asked, getting down on the felt matting, quick-stitched together into large strips of “quilts” five layers deep.
Alys let the other woman slide her foot into position, then tested it. “Yes . . . yes, I think I do. And then I . . . do this, right?”
As Kelly quickly got out of the way, Alys swept her arms in front of her: punch, sweep, punch-punch-sweep, swivel, and kick. Dropping down into a similar stance from the one she had started with, she eyed her instructor.
“Did I do it right?”
“More or less. Your wrists are bending up slightly—the back of your hand needs to be level with your forearm. And your blocks are still a little high. And you need to pull your toes up and thrust with your heel on your kicks, so you don’t stub or break anything . . . but you’re a
lot better than when we started,” Kelly added frankly. “These are the little things you correct once you start getting the feel of the overall moves. Now, practice that combination again.”
Alys did it again. Then again. And again. She did it slowly. She did it a little faster. She did it very fast at her instructor’s sharp order—and flubbed it, throwing off her balance with a too-fast sweep of her arms that, when she tried to snap the kick, toppled her onto her backside. Five layers of felt saved her from a bad bruising, at least. But not from a light bruising; it was only a few moth-eaten layers of felt underneath her rump, after all.
“Ow.”
Biting her lip on a grin, Kelly crossed over and helped Alys up. “Well, I think your backside just thoroughly trounced the floor. We’ll work at this slowly for a few weeks and increase your speed only gradually, I think. Perfect the form, first; speed will come in its own time.”
“This . . . kung fu . . .” Alys dusted off her backside, then blotted her forehead with her forearm. It had taken them most of the afternoon to find and piece the felt together for matting in simple anchor-stitches every hand-length or so. Even close to sunset, it was still warm, though. “Why am I learning it, again?”
“So that the next time you encounter anyone like your uncle, you can make him eat dirt. Here, take your stance again, and I’ll show you,” she added, backing off a step and dropping into a stance of her own. “Now, go through the move.”
She blocked Alys’ punch, threw one of her own that Alys, startled, managed to block, parried the two Alys gave back, attacked and got blocked again—and oofed, staggering back as Alys’ foot connected solidly, following the pattern combination the younger woman had just learned. Alys dropped her foot, her hands going to her mouth. “Oh! Kelly—I’m so sorry!”
Kelly, rubbing her stomach, one hand braced on her knee, grinned up at the other woman. She straightened and pointed at Alys, catching her breath. “Whoo—don’t you dare apologize! You did exactly what you were supposed to do! Good job!”
Alys blinked. “You’re not mad at me?”
“I’m pleased with you,” Kelly corrected firmly, smiling. “Of course, I did deliberately let you in through my guard, especially at the slow speed we were going, but the move, at full speed, looks like this—” A sudden whirl of arms, a spinning twist and kick of Kelly’s body, and Alys saw exactly how powerfully that bare heel could strike when properly applied.
She stared at the freckled woman, amazed. “By Kata, you could probably kill someone doing that!”
“Only if you somehow managed to break their neck, by kicking up this high.” Kelly demonstrated, tipping over a little more sideways with the side kick they were using, thrusting her heel at head height before dropping it back down. “Or by somehow crushing a vital organ in the abdomen, but that’s not very likely at the strength level you and I can use. At Wolfer’s or Saber’s strength, maybe; you and I are in this more for disabling an enemy, not for killing one. Mind you, there are other things we could do to take out an enemy, and not just take him down. But you don’t yet know enough about kung fu to try. Basics first. Bloodbath later.”
“I . . . I’m not sure if I can do that,” Alys murmured, shocked at the other woman’s matter-of-fact approach to such things. The only person she wished she was brave enough to kill was her Uncle Broger . . . but he had bragged more than once of certain spells set to backlash on anyone who dared to try. Her fingers touched the diamond-shaped star embedded in her skin, rubbing it through the front of her blouse. Not even that piece of carefully enchanted metal could save her from such a thing.
“It’s a weapon no one can take from you,” Kelly pointed out reasonably, not privy to Alys’ internal turmoil and doubt. “And the next time you encounter your uncle and he tries to do something you don’t like—gods of this world forbid you should ever actually have to—you can do this to him.” She swept her arms out, slashing, whirling, and dropped to her knees with a hard-fisted punch at a height that would devastate any man, right at the apex of their thighs. Bouncing back up to her feet as she yanked her arm back, Kelly relaxed her stance and grinned at Alys. “See?”
Alys thought about doing that to her uncle. For a moment, anger swelled up in her, and she thought she would do it when she saw Broger again, or maybe Donnock, since he was physically closer to the island. But it didn’t last long within her. Both of her uncles were more powerful mages than she was, and the thought of what they would do to her if she attacked them filled her with nerve-racking dread. “I . . . I don’t know if I can do that.”
“I see we’ve still got to work on your self-confidence, young lady,” Kelly stated. “Now, let’s go over that first pattern again. Don’t think of it as fighting,” she added as Alys hesitated. “Think of it as exercising, for now.” When that didn’t move the maiden, Kelly smiled slowly, slyly. “Or think of it as a way to attack Wolfer.”
“A-attack Wolfer?” Alys stammered. “I couldn’t—I wouldn’t ever—I mean . . .”
“Oh, yeah,” the other woman agreed, wriggling her eyebrows, her fingers flexing like claws. “Attack him, fling him to the floor, pin him down, rip off his clothes, and have your very wicked way with him!”
Alys’ eyes widened. Then she giggled. A shocked giggle, but still a giggle.
Aha, Kelly thought, eyeing the other woman. This is how I can motivate her.
Poor Wolfer—not!
Morganen ducked the vicious swipe of Wolfer’s sword. He scrambled back, tried meeting the next swing of his brother’s blunt practice blade, and almost lost his own.
“By Jinga! What’s gotten into you?” he demanded, ducking around one of the practice pells in the weapon salle. It was cooler to practice in than outside in the northern courtyard where the brothers usually battled when the weather was good and the temperature was not overly hot or cold. He winced as Wolfer slashed at him in earnest, though the other man’s blade got intercepted by the nicked wooden arm of the pell, as Morganen ducked behind it again. Yet one more gouge-mark had just been carved into the poor thing; it would have to be replaced soon. “I thought you asked me to spar with you because you wanted to practice with me, not kill me!”
Those golden eyes narrowed. Wolfer stalked around the pell. His youngest brother stayed on the far side of it from him. “Since when have you been best friends with her?”
The youngest brother straightened, blinking his aquamarine eyes. “Is that what this is about? The way we greeted each other?”
“Yes,” Wolfer snarled, lunging around the pell as his brother stood still. Morganen defended himself, but he lost ground to his more massive, muscular, second-eldest brother.
Morganen couldn’t admit that he’d kept in scrying contact with her—not yet; it was too soon for Wolfer to know the truths he himself had known all along. But there was something he could admit, more or less. “Wolfer, I was her magic teacher! Remember?”
Wolfer eased up his attack a little, and Morganen got in a solid blow to his brother’s shoulder-guard, making it clang as the practice blade met the protective curve of metal. He narrowed his golden eyes. “When did you give her lessons?”
“We used to talk by mirror—I am the best mage in the family,” his youngest brother added pointedly, as his brother switched sword hands and tucked his “injured” arm behind his back, honoring the blow. “Even back then, she knew that. And it doesn’t take—ow, dammit!” Morganen snatched his gauntleted hand away, as he backed up quickly to put a little space between them, switching sword hands himself and hiding his hard-rapped knuckles behind his back. “It doesn’t take even an idiot that long to see that she had to escape by magical means and was probably grateful I taught her enough to know how to escape! You know what a stingy bastard Broger of Devries is. He probably didn’t pay for any formal mage schooling for her, let alone any private tutoring beyond a few tricks here and there to make her more useful to him.”
“You may be right,” Wolfer allowed, flicking his head to get the
wisp of brown hair escaping its headband out of his face. He attacked his brother again, hard. “But you will not hug her so closely again!”
“Hey, I’m not the one who’s in love with her!” the mage shot back, defending himself as best he could verbally and physically, though mostly physically, since that was taking most of his attention as his brother swung his longsword.
A beat later, Morganen’s aquamarine eyes widened, and Wolfer’s golden ones narrowed. No fool, Morganen yelped and fled, dashing out of the salle, his long, light brown hair streaming behind him. The Wolf gave chase, as was his nature.
They raced up through the eastern wing, raced through the broad great hall, and kept going into the west wing. Someone stepped out of the archway to one of the stairwells just as they passed, making Morganen curse and swerve, barely avoiding the two women emerging from the doorway. Wolfer wasn’t so lucky. He skidded to a stop, but his momentum was too great. As his sister-in-law gasped and threw herself quickly toward the far wall, getting clear of his unstoppable charge, Wolfer skidded into Alys, armor and all. The only good thing was that he quickly lifted his sword high, moving it out of the way to keep from harming her. The bad thing was that they thoroughly collided.
She oofed! and grabbed onto him as the impact spun them around. Tumbling, Wolfer smacked his helmless head on the stone-paved floor, even as his armor clanged and his childhood friend thumped on top of him with another little grunt. They stayed like that for a stunned moment, then she recovered first, much more rapidly than him.
“Oh! Wolfer!” Alarmed, Alys’ first thought was for his safety. Her bruises from his armor were nothing compared to his, surely. Alys squirmed, found herself straddling him, and gingerly touched the armor covering his chest and his shoulders, then reached for the unprotected back of his head. “Are you injured? Please tell me you aren’t hurt!”
