Shared Between Them

by Korey Mae Johnson

  Shared Between Them

  By

  Korey Mae Johnson

  Copyright © 2013 by Stormy Night Publications and Korey Mae Johnson

  Copyright © 2013 by Stormy Night Publications and Korey Mae Johnson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Stormy Night Publications and Design, LLC.

  www.StormyNightPublications.com

  Johnson, Korey Mae

  Shared Between Them

  Cover Design by Korey Mae Johnson

  Images by Bigstock/Andrushko Galyna and The Killion Group

  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults.

  Chapter One

  Taric looked around at the dark, shrouded forest surrounding him, the terrain shadowy with mossy greens and blues. It was high noon, and the forest still seemed dark and foreboding all around them. He had been forced to dismount his horse because of all the low branches, and the horse repeatedly neighed its distaste for the place, snorting and stomping around Taric’s feet. The creature was unsettled too.

  “You know how people say this forest is haunted?” Taric’s cousin Draevan asked, as he sliced his and his horse’s way through another set of thick cobwebs that hung over the branches like gluey drapery.

  Taric was already rolling his eyes at the comment. Taric’s aunt, Draevan’s mother, had been a seer. He could, and did, believe in some people with supernatural abilities, but he simply wasn’t going to buy into every single myth out there, especially those that pertained to ghosts.

  “I’m just saying,” Draevan said, reading into the doubt Taric was presently radiating about his person, “that it feels like we’re being watched.”

  “You’ve been saying that for three days,” Taric reminded, hacking his sword through overgrowth on the trail. It looked as if no one had walked through this section of the woods for years. The nearest village was about a four-day walk through landscape that was less than hospitable.

  “Because it’s felt like someone’s been watching us since three days ago,” Draevan clarified with a grumble. Draevan raked his hands through his shaggy blonde hair as if he were worried that a spider had landed in it. He frowned and continued, “Where is this giant, anyway? For all the babble we heard about death for any who step into the Blue Forest, we’ve yet to see that goddamned thing, and we’ve taken more than a step or two! I haven’t even seen a footprint.”

  “We’ll find the giant, Draevan,” Taric assured with a laugh in his tone. He was certain that he and Draevan were the only people in the world who would want to cross the giant’s path… And even that was only because his aunt had foretold that they’d be the ones who’d finally defeat it. “Don’t you worry.”

  “I’m not worrying,” Draevan assured tersely. “I’m just saying that the sooner we do this, the sooner we’re done with this.”

  “Very profound,” Taric teased with a grunt.

  “Fuck off. You know what I mean.” He turned around, a grin on his face that foretold clearly that he was about to talk about some tavern wench’s posterior. “So, did you see the ass on Amelia?”

  “Amelia…” Taric hummed thoughtfully.

  “It was that wench at the alehouse four days ago. The one that does that little dance…” He stopped talking to jump over a short ravine. He growled with satisfaction at the memory. “The only thing better than that dance was the one she was doing in the bedroom with me afterwards. The woman could suck a cock like no one’s business too.”

  A giggle suddenly lit through the canopy overhead. They whipped their heads up, instantly stopping in their tracks, but when they looked in the direction of the giggle, which had certainly come from a female, there was nothing there.

  Taric and Draevan exchanged uncanny glances until Draevan waved towards the canopy overhead and said, “See?” as if that proved anything.

  “Was probably the wind,” Taric replied, shrugging his shoulders and walking farther into the forest.

  “Wind, my ass!” Draevan snapped, stomping quickly along to catch up with him. “Just admit that something strange is going on. First, there was that flute playing at all hours of the night—”

  Taric waved his hand as if he could physically brush this days-old argument away. “Well, that was definitely the wind.”

  “Taric, it had a chorus. Wind doesn’t often howl in a structured manner.”

  He was very decided about this, Taric realized, and Draevan wasn’t a man who would change his mind about anything once it was made.

  “Fine, fine,” Taric said, just to let the subject go. “It was ghosts. Now what do you want us to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” Draevan admitted in his low, gruff tone, kicking a shrub in front of his boot. “I just wanted it acknowledged, that’s all. Nothing you can do about ghosts. Not that I know of, anyway. Still leads me to wonder, though, why the hell they’d decide to be annoying.”

  “Well, that’s just not very nice!” a girl’s voice suddenly huffed from the trees overhead. “Besides, how is it that I’m annoying you? You’re in my woods.”

  Taric swore under his breath, the clarity of the voice becoming less and less supernatural-sounding as it came closer. “It’s an elf,” he realized. He had never seen an elf before, but he did know their hidden kingdom couldn’t be too far away. It was rumored to be somewhere beyond the Crystal Mountains, and though they were in that region, they’d never seen anything that made it seem like civilization was near at hand, nor had they ever met a human man who claimed to know how to get there. Elves dealt with dwarves far more than they’d ever dealt with humans.

  “Show yourself!” Draevan snapped firmly, drawling out his sword, though he surly knew it wouldn’t do him any good. As much as elves reportedly loved watching executions, they didn’t murder, and they didn’t fight wars. Instead, they were good at hiding and even better at running away. It was said that elves could become entirely invisible if they wanted to… But they were normally much more silent than this one was being. He could hear footfalls crackle upon dead leaves as the creature walked near.

  “Ask nicely,” the voice reproved teasingly.

  Draevan’s face contorted. It couldn’t be more obvious that he didn’t want to play games.

  “I’m waiting!” the voice chimed. It was hard to tell exactly what direction the voice was coming from. Sometimes it seemed like it was coming from the west, at other times the south…

  “Show yourself now, Elf,” Draevan demanded in a low growl.

  There was a whistle behind them, and they spun to see… a girl sitting up on a tree branch, her face merry, seeming like a child on a swing. But she was no child.

  She was a beautiful elf-maiden like they’d never imagined. He’d heard that all elves had tattoos all over their bodies, even on their eyelids, and piercings throughout their face, ears, and noses. He’d also heard that elves had red smiles because of all the bitter, red fruit they ate which stained their teeth.

  This girl had eyes as large as silver coins, a button nose, and was smiling with a row of straight, white teeth. Her skin was unmarred and pale, and her fingernails looked like they were made of glass. Her long, ivory hair was braided intricately to seemingly accentuate the points on her ear tips, but the bulk of her long braid was draped over her shoulder like a white, shimmery rope. She peered at them with eyes as gold as thick honey.

  “Would it have killed you to ask me nicely? You are guests in my hom
e, after all,” she said, then bit her lip thoughtfully. After a second, she added, “Well, until the giant eats you, that is.”

  Taric put his sword away, feeling quite disarmed even with it out. Draevan looked lost as he regarded the girl, as if he had wanted a fight but got something he could have never anticipated instead. His shoulders were sagging, and his eyebrows were crunched. “Have you been following us this whole time?”

  “No,” the girl made a snorting laugh sound with her nose. She kicked her legs playfully in the air under her branch. “Just for the last three days or so.”

  Draevan hummed and lifted his eyebrows at Taric in an obvious I-told-you-so gesture.

  Taric did his best to ignore him. He hated being wrong. “And why?”

  “Taric, isn’t it?” she said, pointing her finger to him. “And Draevan,” she pointed to his cousin, whose shoulders straightened in response. She grinned, “Well, I followed you for a few days because it’s my home, and therefore, what you do here is my business, savvy? I thought people were well-done with trying to have a go with the giant. It never works out.” She stopped kicking her legs, a serious look finally settling on her face. “And I do mean never, Northlanders. That giant has been out there for nine hundred years. Do you know how many times he’s been killed? Here’s a hint: he’s still around to tell you.”

  Taric couldn’t help but grin at her concern, even if his grin made her look at him like he was nuts. A little wrinkle formed between her dark eyebrows. It was somehow extremely endearing. “You’re a cute little thing,” he observed. He had never wanted to just pick up a girl and squeeze her before, but he was becoming overcome with the desire to do just that.

  Her face pouted for a moment as if he’d just compared her to a forest critter. “And you’re a dumb big thing,” she assured firmly. “If you start heading that way now,” she said, pointing behind them, “you might be able to save your skins. Maybe.” She grimaced as if their prospects weren’t very good. “You know the giant’s cave is only another twenty miles from here, right down that path.” The direction she was pointing bore no path whatsoever. It was even more grown-over than the terrain they were trying to trail-blaze. The undergrowth was only just low enough to walk through.

  Draevan made a sound that Taric had never heard him make before. It was an amused sort of grunt that was almost flirtatious… And Draevan wasn’t a flirtatious man. He was the sort that was perfectly happy to pay for what he wanted and then take it hard. In all his life, Taric had never even seen the man smile at a woman kindly. “Twenty miles is quite far in this,” he reminded skeptically. He smiled boyishly at the little elfling, making Taric think he was acting even stranger, but she didn’t return the grin.

  She shook her head as she differed, “Not when you’re a giant.” She glanced towards the horse’s saddle bags with a glint in her eye.

  Suddenly, Taric had a bad feeling about her. It was odd for him to have them—Draevan normally had a no-fail sense about people. He used to have a nearly uncanny ability to spot traitors or anyone who meant to do him or Taric any ill. Their grandfather used to swear by it.

  He didn’t make an accusation, however, because the elf maiden came right out and said, “Well, I’m not going to argue with you. I suppose humans are cute in the way you tramp all this way, and go through all this trouble, just to get eaten. Besides, I haven’t had a payday in far too long.”

  “She plans to rob us,” Taric rumbled in a secret language, one he and Draevan had been developing since they were small boys on stick horses.

  “Aye,” Draevan agreed, his expression not changing. He continued to look up at her with amusement. “She does. Can’t be a very successful thief, though. She’s wearing a dead man’s boots and a dead man’s coat… She’s a scavenger.”

  Taric was so busy being entranced by her angelic little face that he hadn’t looked at the rest of her body. Draevan was right. The clothes she wore were very old, very dirty, and far too large for her. She probably waited for men to come looking to kill the giant and then plucked as many earthly goods from those warriors as possible as they searched through the woods.

  “There’s that stupid language again!” she grumbled unhappily. “What sort of language is that?” she demanded, looking very annoyed. It was proof enough that she had been keeping them company for at least a while. He and Draevan hadn’t bothered to speak in their secret tongue all day.

  “If you’ve come to steal from us, elfling,” Taric told her, ignoring her question. He straightened, trying to make himself seem even larger, hoping to intimidate her into behaving. “I’d warn you away from that. We know how to teach a lady not to play with fire.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise, but she recovered her reaction until she was looking out at him through slits between her long, black eyelashes. “No, no. You are the ones playing with fire. I consider you both as good as corpses, and you can’t take your wealth with you.”

  Taric gave a singular laugh at being called wealthy. Perhaps in comparison to her they seemed well-to-do, but they were far from considering themselves rich-men. That’s something they hoped to remedy on this adventure—that, and their marriage.

  Long ago, the king of the elves decreed that whoever would slay the giant and bring back a golden shield that the kingdom had lost nearly a millennia ago that the giant now kept on his person, would be given an elf-maiden of the victor’s choice as payment for the service.

  Draevan and Taric found themselves, in that case, between two prophecies told in the North: that the slayer of the Dark Wizard, the scourge of half the world and enemy to the Western Realm, would be killed by the spawn of an elf and a giant-slayer. And Draevan and Taric, when they were boys, were foretold to be the slayers of that giant. In short—the Dark Wizard’s time was drawing near… As long as something wasn’t misunderstood.

  “Don’t you worry about us, pet,” Draevan scolded, though a smirk still hadn’t disappeared from his face. “Just worry about yourself. We don’t take kindly to thieves, but I tell you what: you keep your hands to yourself, and we’ll keep our hands to ourselves.”

  She frowned. “You’re not as fun as I thought you’d be,” she openly pouted like a little girl who couldn’t get anyone to join her for a tea party. She contorted her body and pulled herself up until the feet of her boots perched on the branch she’d been sitting upon. “I come out to warn you, and I get threats and accusations in kind!” She slipped off the branch, stomped behind the dark, ominous oak she had been seated on, and promptly disappeared.

  The men just stood silent and looked at the tree. Eventually, they walked around it, looking up at the climbing branches, but saw no trace of the elf. “Well, she’s still around, I guarantee it,” Draevan grumbled.

  Taric agreed. “And she’ll be back to rob us blind before tomorrow when we meet this giant,” he ascertained. “This is her window of opportunity.”

  Draevan turned and raised an eyebrow. Normally, thieves would make him bunch up his fists and scream swears to the world around them. This time, however, Draevan was rolling his shoulders back with excitement. “Well, let’s get ourselves ready for her visit then, shall we, Cousin?” he asked him mischievously.

  Taric stifled a laugh, realizing instantly what Draevan planned—to set a little trap. Tonight was going to be very interesting, indeed. “Well,” Taric replied. “It’ll surely get us used to the feel of an elf-wife.” He pointed to Draevan then and reminded, “But I was right about there not being ghosts.”

  Draevan smiled with his whole face. “I’ve never been so happy about your being right.”

  * * *

  Finally! The humans were asleep. It was nearly sad, as Kyra watched them drink the afternoon away while laughing and joking with each other, knowing that it was their last night with such joys. They'd surely die tomorrow, fast if they were lucky, very slowly and painfully if they got the giant in too bad of a mood first. She guessed on the latter. There was something hardened about these men that Kyra
couldn't help but recognize. They'd surely succeed in using their weapons on the giant, but that would only piss him off.

  It still bothered her that she couldn’t put her finger on the language they would sometimes speak in. Their accents were known to her: they were from the Northern villages, beyond the Crystal Mountains… But she still didn't understand their tongue, and until now she had been quite confident in thinking that she'd heard all the northern languages before. Apparently, she had been wrong.

  She stifled a sigh, trying to be as silent as possible, but she couldn't help but think of her brothers, three of whom had raised her but were now very dead: one by the giant and the other two by the hangman's noose in the middle of the elven kingdom. Any one of them would have been able to understand the language spoken by these two human men; they had been so smart and clever… before they were hunted down like dogs.

  The human men had unsaddled their horses to give the beasts rest, and unfortunately they were using the saddles as pillows. This was not uncommon, but it always made getting her loot more difficult; most men kept their gold coins in a bag they tied to their saddle. Even worse was when they hid their coin in their boots—like she did. She'd taken the boots off a corpse once, and although they were too big for her, she fell in love with the hollowed-out sole that allowed her to keep her coins, and even a spare weapon or two, safely hidden beneath her feet.

  She bit her lip and slowly approached the men’s camp, where they had hunkered down in knee-high grass, using the carpet of the forest and a couple of bedrolls as a mattress. A small fire burned by their feet, though it wasn’t even nightfall yet. Even with the fire, she realized it would be better to try to make her move now, before it became too dark to see. Humans always had the advantage when it came to total darkness, since elves' eyes weren't as sharp. Elves were much weaker in body, and they probably would have been killed off years ago if they hadn't had some magical ability.