by Amanda Milo
“Shh, I won’t,” he promises, raining kisses along my face. “I won’t.” But his steel is furrowing between my nether lips, bumping and sliding along all sorts of places—one of them an aching place that very badly wants to welcome him in.
“You are so naughty,” I hiss at him, bucking my hips up. This feels so different skin-to-skin, no layers of garments impeding us.
Gareth’s large hand claps against my hip, big fingers squeezing, freezing me from repeating the motion.
Gazing up at Gareth’s flared nostrils—he really is starting to look like his stallion—and gritted teeth, I whisper, “Sorry. Got carried away.”
“Let me drive this pony,” Gareth orders hoarsely. “After all, I’ve handled this sword all my life. You’re liable to stab yourself.”
My hands slide to his arms, and I stare up at him, pressing my lips so that I look unimpressed. “Really?”
Three little laugh lines form at the corner of each of his eyes as he gives me a lop-sided, proud smile. Then he draws his hips back. He hisses as he punches harmlessly along my slit again, and it’s a moment before Gareth manages a shaky nod in answer to my question. “That’s right.”
“If I wasn’t so fond of you,” I tell him, idly tracing my fingers up the side of his neck, behind his ear—making his eyes roll back and his body shudder like always; I love it—“that comment would have me flouncing away from you right now.”
“You’re not flouncing anywhere,” Gareth growls, and he shifts so that his hands are no longer braced on the hay on either side of my head, and instead, he burrows them under my back, dropping down on me, squeezing our chests and stomachs together, “because you stay beside me. We belong together, Ella.”
My heart is so easy for him. It flops beneath him like a besotted puppy, wanting all the belly rubs.
Well... maybe I want to be rubbed a mite lower than the belly, I think with a grin.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Gareth asks, jaw still clenched. He begins to pump himself faster, arching his back, the area between us slicker, growing hotter, and giving me blessed friction and bumping that strange part between my legs so that I’m biting my lip to stifle my moans.
“I’m thinking of ways to tease you,” I admit, trying not to keen in his ear.
“Ell, you already do that just by being.” He closes his teeth over my throat.
“NO!” I yelp, hands flying to his thick hair.
Gareth draws back, growling in frustration. “When we’re wed, I’m going to bite you black and blue—I won’t care who sees. I’ll want them all to see.”
Our ruler, the king, Gareth’s father—does not believe in keeping a whipping boy or two for his sons. His children are royalty, but he tans their arses just as if they were any other misbehaving brats. A thing we learned last year, when Gareth kissed my neck so excitedly, he left a mark. I had checked my reflection later with the gleaming surface of a serving spoon—but I’d swear it wasn’t that big. Gareth couldn’t say the same for his father’s belt.
The memory is driven out of my head when Gareth’s cock draws back until it slides against that aching part of me, before he drives his hips forward—and pokes me.
“OUCH!” I screech, instinctively shoving at his stupid shoulders. “Owww—”
A jet of fire punches my insides, making me quiver in a strange rush of pleasure even though I’m still in pain. That hurt.
“Shite, sorry—!” Gareth’s movements are so jerky he tumbles backwards right off the haystack. His arse hits the stone floor of the barn with a painful-sounding thud.
Serves him right! I squeeze my eyes shut against tears and my knees snap together. “Oh no, oh, oh, oww,” I whimper, my hand shoved between my legs.
“Ella,” Gareth breathes, coming up quickly, his hands taking careful hold of my upper arms. “Did I…”
Swallowing past the lump clogging my throat, I suck in a breath, lift my hand from where I’m stinging as if a giant—giant!—mud dauber sunk his huge stinger between my legs, and look down.
There’s blood on my fingers.
“You currish horn-beast!” I think I might say. Or sob.
It’s one thing for a man to tumble a lass in a barn; he’s instantly a hero. The lass though, if she was a maid—well, she is no more; and a loose woman brings shame to her family, always.
Our families have been trying to prevent that. They’ve been working very hard to prevent the royal heir from becoming a ‘hero’ too soon, and my parents evidently want me to remain a maid for a while longer.
Wanted.
I definitely sob now.
“Shh, it’s all right, Ella,” Gareth says, voice thick as his arms come around me. Without seeming to notice my fists beating against his person, he smooshes my face into his hard, hot chest. He’s sweaty, with bits of hay stuck to his skin, so they scrape my cheek and stick to me too. “This was going to happen. They’ll just have to accept it now rather than later.”
“But the sheet!” I choke out.
Tradition still holds in our kingdom that following the nuptials is the official bedding ceremony—where everyone who is everyone will carry the wedded pair to their beds, laughing and jeering and being drunkenly merry. They’ll call out stupid advice through the door during the consumation, and at dawn, the stained bedsheets are hung out the window for all the world to see; proof the bride was chaste up until the bloody deflowering.
But brides who’ve already been deflowered…
Christ save me.
How could innocent (I glance up to the rafters, listening for the crack of damning lightning)—
All right, all right; how could mostly-innocent teasing become such a disaster?!
Gareth’s hands move to my face, his fingers so long he’s also cradling the back of my head. “Chastity fraud is easy.” His brows are pinched together, his eyes dark now and so intent on catching mine. “I’ll kill a chicken.”
“Where will you stow a chicken on our wedding night?” I sputter, my nose dripping.
Gareth’s gaze is soft as he thumbs the embarrassing stuff away, and wipes it on the thigh of his breeches. “I did this. I’ll figure it out, Ella.”
I shove his shoulder, angry all of a sudden. “Yes you did do this. You don’t even look very sorry!”
Gareth’s arms drop to wrap behind my back so that I can’t pull away from him. His nose nudges mine until I meet his eyes. “Truth be told, I’m not.” He rests his forehead contentedly against mine.
My jaw drops.
Gareth’s wise enough not to put his lips close to my teeth, not even for the kiss I know he wants. Not while I’m this upset. His eyes lower between us. “Does it still hurt?” He winces, and he finds my hand, the one I touched between my legs with, the blood already drying to a stain on my fingers.
“Yes,” I croak, feeling as if I’m about to cry harder just for thinking about it. “It really hurts.”
Now Gareth does look sorry. “Aww, my Ella. For that I am sorry, love.”
I sniff, part of me stupidly gratified. The rest of me is not budging though. “Well I hope it felt really, really good for you, because we’re never having sex again. That was awful.”
Gareth somehow manages to look proud and regretful at the same time. “That was only the tip.”
I stare at him, horror making my eyes go wide. “You’re jesting.”
He shakes his head. “‘Fraid not, love. Although,” he sucks his teeth. “I’m fairly certain it’s supposed to last longer,” he says deprecatingly.
“If it had lasted any longer, I’d be dead.” Perhaps I’m being melodramatic, but the angry, speared area between my legs wholeheartedly (or is that wholecuntedly?) agrees.
Gareth draws me closer into his arms, wrapping himself around me. There’s a lot of him, and my whole person is trained to feel adored and happy whenever the lout handles me like this, so it’s not long before I’m melting into him, soaking up his strength even though it was his overmuscled body that caused
my pain.
Gareth uses the meantime to plan, apparently. “I see only one way to prevent unrightful punishment for you, and embarrassment for your family,” he announces.
Just having the words put out so plainly is enough to have me at a loss for air.
Gareth’s heavy palm rubs my back, stroking a diamond-pattern until I calm down.
When I can speak, I ask, “What’s your plan?” My voice shakes.
His arms tighten around me, and he kisses the top of my head. “Our plan, love.” He sets his chin on top of my head. “We’ll elope. Tonight.”
CHAPTER 2
Every belonging I deem sacred and in need of keepsaking is crammed into a rucksack. When I can barely lift it—let alone imagine trudging it all the way to the meeting place where Gareth is waiting for me, and will surely laugh at the ridiculous picture I’ll make under this burden—I swallow back a growl and dump half of it back onto my bed, unable to look at what I’m leaving behind because all of it was important to me.
You don’t quite know quite how much and who is important to you until you face the fact it could be the last time you lay eyes on it. On them. I spent most of the evening being weepy to the point I was certain I’d be found out simply because I was acting so out of character—I hugged everyone no less than twice, feigning a permanent-sort of squint to disguise the fact that tears were constantly pricking at my eyes.
When questioned about my strange behaviors, I claimed I was suffering from an onset of menses madness.
Evidently, everyone everywhere is willing to accept this as explanation enough for an eighteen-year-old lass like myself to change moods at the speed water rushes past in a brook.
I creep down to the basement, half expecting Stepmother to still be down here, concocting her latest creation. Yes—she’s a baroness who bakes; it’s outrageous, isn’t it?
But my stepmother wasn’t born into nobility; my father plucked the young widow Tremaine from the local tavern. (She wasn’t some trull working there. The magistrate gave Stepmother the license to operate the tavern because he favors no-nonsense women with good heads on their shoulders rather than men who might tend to run into their cups more than their customers—a thing which the magistrate has had to deal with too much over the years.) My father says one taste of her blueberry tart, and he had to have her.
It’s a sweet story, made sweeter by the way they gaze at each other when he tells it. My stepsisters and I like to pretend to retch and heave—but no one can deny how lovely a tale it is.
And my stepmother still bakes him blueberry tarts.
Presently though, she must be abed, and this is quite a relief. She’s also left out what smells like pumpkin tarts, which nearly makes me cry because she makes them often, knowing everything with pumpkin is my very favorite. For nostalgia’s sake and because they’re wrapped so nicely in wax papers, I snitch two, and move for the door.
Then I turn back and snitch two more. Gareth is a pig.
But when I open the door, the sight that greets me is not an empty, hilly outcropping—I mean, yes, of course the surroundings are the same.
It’s the guest who’s a shock.
There’s a wolf at our door.
I back up swiftly, in such a complete state of shock I barely squeak for my parents. “WO—!”
No! comes a stern voice in my mind. Hush, child: I won’t hurt you.
It’s very definitely not the natural innervoice that lives in us all. The voice with which I’m very well acquainted. Most days, my inner-self is both pious and snide, nattering critically over my shoulder as I go about making a mess of my life, mostly. Today I did hear it warning me not to let Gareth and I get too excited. Then of course, after he speared past my maidenhead, my innervoice told me what a foolish twat I was. My innervoice was right but my innervoice can also be a bitch. There are times I wish I could gag it and leave it in a further corner of my mind.
But for all that the voice is worldly, sanctimonious, and peevish, in absolutely no area in the whole arena of my imagination would it claim that an animal such as the wolf wouldn’t harm me. Wolves are dangerous. Wolves are killers. Wolves are hunted down for necessity and for sport.
My eyes are glued to the wild animal.
It’s stately; more graceful and longer-limbed than I expected. Sure, I’ve seen glimpses of them in storybook woodcuttings, but in life they are bigger-framed all over than I expected, and there’s a sharp intelligence in the animal’s eyes I can’t mistake.
Gaze not wavering from mine, the wolf’s nose bobs. Yes. I’m talking to you.
The wolf sounds decidedly amused.
And almost… familiar, somehow. I mean, I can’t possibly know a wolf I’ve never met and all, but I know this voice.
I feel my brow furrow. “It’s too much to hope that this day has all been a dream.”
“Ella?” My father’s voice, from the vicinity of the stairs. “I thought I heard you shout—oh my!”
“It’s a talking wolf, Father,” I say faintly, turning only my mouth in his direction because I can’t take my eyes off the wolf. My voice is creaky and too high-pitched. “Help.”
The wolf chuffs and tosses its head. Stop being such a scaredy-pup. Then the wolf turns on my father.
I stiffen—but my father doesn’t so much as pause his approach. In fact, his reaction is downright unexpected. He bows to the wolf.
When he straightens, Stepmother appears at the head of the stairs—and gasps. Without a word, she whips around and races right back out.
My father, seeing my attention moved to the spot behind him, turns and calls, “It’s fine, dearest,” before he faces off with the wolf once more.
Instead of hollering, or I don’t know—dashing for the fireplace poker, something, anything—my father raises his brows, and addresses the animal. “It’s time, I take it.”
“A-are you speaking to it?” I sputter.
My father’s eyes nick in my direction. But then he looks back at the wolf in our midst. “It’s too soon, isn’t it? Then again,” he says with a sad-sounding chuckle—to the wolf, “I’m sure I’d say that no matter when this takes place.”
“What is going on?” I manage, aghast. “This is all very strange!”
From the way the wolf’s nose lifts in the air, and its ears flick as it stares straight-on at my father, and from the way he stares right back, his expression undergoing several startling changes, I’m certain he too can hear the creature mind-speak.
I no more than have this thought when my father turns a shrewd look on me. “What are you carrying there?”
My half-emptied but still heavy elopement rucksack is still hitched on one of my surprise-frozen shoulders. I give my father the incredulous face his question deserves. There’s a wolf—a talking wolf—in our midst, and still, I cannot escape the nightmare of admitting what has happened today? The world is so unfair.
“Ella…” my father starts, his face coloring slightly. It’s almost as if he’s embarrassed.
This is a terrifying thought, because my father will make a conclusion—probably the correct one—about why Gareth and I chose to run off and elope rather than experience the prestige that surrounds a royal marriage. “You and… did Gareth—”
Before he can finish the question that’s already making me cringe, my stepmother shouts, “William! Out of the way!”
My father spins, and—seeing my stepmother on the landing above him, his eyes widen. Without hesitation, he throws himself in front of the wolf, raising his hands at my stepmother, shouting, “NO!”
I hear the wwwwrt! of a flying arrow at almost the same instant the crossbow’s bolt passes through my father’s chest, and sinks into the wolf behind him.
“Father!” I scream.
My stepmother shrieks and the crossbow she’d been leveling at the wolf clatters to the floor. Her feet thud on the stairs as she flies down, and she lands hard on her knees, reaching for my father’s face. “William!”
Under him
, the wolf whines. The violent shock of what’s just occured makes my own knees buckle.
You… comes a trembling voice in my head. You inherited… it. Don’t… fear. Take… care. Go to him. He’ll know what to… do, by… now.
Blood, so much blood is pooled under the wolf. The beast’s blood. My father’s.
My eyes fill with tears, and my rucksack spills to the ground behind me, my fingers too numb to hold it any longer.
My stepmother is weeping, body thrown over the still form of a man she made so happy.
She killed him.
She killed him.
The life-altering realization seems to strike my stepmother at the same instant. Eyes red, face a mask of agonized horror, my stepmother raises her head. She’s trembling all over. “It was an accident…”
We both look at the wolf.
It’s just an animal, you might say. Good riddance, you might say. Indeed, wolves are such a bane elsewhere in the world that, in any other place, save for my father being killed by accident, this would be seen as a fine thing. My stepmother would be pardoned for the murder of her husband without much inquiry. She was trying to shoot a wolf, after all.
But in this kingdom, all wolves belong to the king.
If you set out a trap for a bear, and you catch a wolf—you die. The king enforces his law with a shocking ferocity. In all my life, I’ve only heard of one wolf ever being killed during his reign, and that was when I was a young child.
I meet my stepmother’s eyes, both of us sharing the knowledge that these two killings have damned her for eternity. If it’s discovered that she shot her husband, she’ll have to explain why and how that came to happen, and it better be a good explanation—sans the wolf—or she’ll swing for murder. If it’s found out that she’s killed one of the king’s favorite quarry—
And the wolf is the king’s favorite. To hear a wolf’s howl is to hear his pack of hounds, one follows so closely to the other. He runs them to ground often, and always with thrill. He’s merciless on the wild things he keeps in his woods.
Rumors say the last wolf-killer to steal the king’s hunt was set on fire, and his remains were fed to the king’s behemoth wolfhounds.
