His gaze met mine, and he smiled.
I wasn’t sure who moved first, if he came toward me or if I was drawn to him like a moth to a candle, but when he released my wrist I was in his arms with my wet dress pressed between my breasts and the hard muscles of his bare chest. I was half surprised the heat of our bodies didn’t release a cloud of steam from the fabric.
I tilted my head. I wanted him to kiss me. I needed that kiss, needed it the way the trees need sunlight and rainwater.
He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I felt the hard jut of his manhood against my stomach. I’d never been told the exact mechanics of what it was men and women did together in the darkness of their sleeping furs, but on some level my body understood what it wanted. My thighs slicked with heat and moisture; my hips tilted toward him, seeking him, needing him.
He buried his face in my hair, his breath hot against my neck as he ran his hands over my waist and up my back.
“Smells good,” he muttered. “Oh, you smell good.”
He pulled back, then dropped to his knees. I gasped, missing the heat of his chest against mine. The sudden absence felt like pain.
I looked down at his pale eyes. He raised a trembling hand to my chest, and his fingers curled around my wet, crushed dress.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He peeled it from my chest and stomach and tossed it to the ground. The demon stared at me as if he’d never seen a woman before, as if he could devour me with his eyes. Shivers chased flashes of heat across my skin, and my body cried out for him, although I could not have voiced exactly what it was I wanted. Energy surged from my core, and the space between my legs ached in a way it had never ached before.
He brushed his fingers along the backs of my thighs, and I moaned. He leaned even closer, breathing deeply, bringing his face to the curls between my legs.
“Your scent,” he said in a voice that was almost a sigh. “I’ve smelled you in the forest, and I’ve searched and searched for you.”
When his lips brushed the skin my thigh, the sensation was so intense it almost hurt. I panted, whimpering like a trapped animal. His tongue touched me, tracing the wet split of my sex, and my vision drowned in a red haze. I fell against his strong arms, his thick chest. He lowered me to the grass as my mind whirled and spun, trying to make sense of what was happening.
He crouched above me, grinning. Slowly, the demon bent to kiss the soft skin on the inside of my thigh. His head vanished between my legs; he moaned into my sex as his tongue slipped inside me.
Oh, by the Nine Realms. He was eating me. The demon was eating me alive.
I’d never heard of such a thing, never known it was possible. It seemed wrong somehow, wild and bizarre, like a secret the demon brought with him from Múspell. My hips rippled under his strange kiss, moving of their own volition. He had taken over my body, making it blaze and dance; he’d erased my control.
“Don’t,” I gasped. “Don’t stop.”
I reached for his head, lacing my fingers in his thick hair. It felt so damned good, this demon’s kiss between my legs. Stars, nothing had ever felt so good—
His tongue found something different, something I hadn’t even known existed, and pleasure as intense as lightning seared me from the inside. I screamed as my body exploded beneath him, my back arching to jam my hips against his lips, my hands writhing in his thick hair. He pulled back, and I closed my legs, forcing him against me.
The demon’s tongue pressed the spot again, and again. The world dissolved in heat and ecstasy. My last coherent thought was that I must be dying, the demon had somehow killed me with his lips between my legs, and then every thought I’d ever had was washed away.
THE MONSTER’S LOVER: CHAPTER FOUR
High above me, the rich green treetops undulated slowly in the thick evening light. I blinked. Perhaps, I wasn’t dead after all. But oh, I felt so strange! Like I’d been burned away and then rebuilt. I was just now surfacing, floating on still waters. Fingers brushed my cheek. I turned to follow them. The demon’s pale eyes watched me below a furrowed brow.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I hurt you?”
For the second time, I couldn’t stop my laugh. It rang through the gloaming like bells, dancing across the Lucky River and entering the darkness of the Ironwood.
“Oh, by the Realms!” I gasped. “No. No, you didn’t hurt me.”
“I’ve never heard anyone make noises like that.”
I laughed again. “Well, it didn’t hurt.”
His soft lips turned downward, deepening his frown, and once again I couldn’t resist him. I grabbed his neck and pulled his lips to mine. He froze, then softened as we came together. The demon kissed me slowly, as though he were exploring an unfamiliar room for the first time, in the dark. His kisses were salty and rich, like sweat and earth.
We lay together for a long time, our tongues embracing. He was beside me at first, then he moved on top of me. The thick length of his manhood pulsed between my slick thighs. The slow heat he inspired filled my body again, beginning between my legs and growing to engulf all of me, flowing from his lips and tongue and fingers. Our hips began to move, surging together, and I felt the blunt, hot tip of his manhood against the wet heat of my sex. I moaned something incoherent, voicing a hunger beyond words, and opened my legs beneath him.
His arms stiffened, and he broke our kiss. Slowly, he raised his body above mine. The air that rushed between us felt icy after the heat of our embrace.
“Do you want more?” he asked.
I pulled breath over my lips. Time seemed to have frozen, and suddenly I was strangely aware of everything around me; the slow tickle of grass behind my ear, the ripple of wind bending the high, bright branches above us, the susurrus of his breath above me. My body glowed with pleasure from our kisses, and the aching fire he’d just ignited still roared inside me. I wanted him to touch me, to run his hands over my breasts, to plunge them between my legs.
No, not just his hands. The hard length of his cock pressed between my legs as if it were trying to force its own way forward. And the space between my thighs throbbed in response, aching and empty. I wanted him, damn the Realms. I wanted that heat, that power, that strength. I wanted to feel him inside me, to finally know what it was the high-born town girls whispered and giggled about at dances.
Yes. I wanted more.
I opened my mouth, but a cold uncertainty rose in the back of my throat and choked my words. My body wasn’t mine to give. Nøkkyn’s sharp features rose in my memories, dousing the fire this demon’s touch had just kindled inside me.
I was goods. Property.
The demon watched me, his brow furrowed. His body no longer moved against mine; now he’d frozen above me, our legs intertwined, the air between us still hot with our frantic, panting breath. Above him, leaves swirled in the fading light.
I turned away from his sharp, pale eyes. Dark tree trunks lined the banks of the Lucky River, crowding out the light. For a moment, they made me think of a cage. Something hard and painful rose inside my chest.
Da once told me kings and queens of old captured birds from the Ironwood and forced them into golden cages to make the echoing halls of their palaces echo with the songs of the wilderness. I’d cried when I thought of those birds, so far from home, surrounded by cold, gleaming bars instead of living tree boughs, and Da laughed at my foolish tears. He told me the imprisoned birds had food and warmth, that they had traded their songs for shelter. Still, for years, the thought of birds in elegant, gilded cages made my chest tighten.
I remembered Nøkkyn’s cruel smile, the sour tang of his sweat in my nostrils as he pulled my hair back, and a dark fury rose inside me.
I wasn’t his yet.
I didn’t want King Nøkkyn, or his thrice-damned fortress. Curse his golden cage, his food and warmth! I wanted this demon to touch me again, to make my body sing and cry. I wanted to give myself over, here, now, to burn what was left of my freedom in the fires of his to
uch.
Let me choose my own lover! Let me sing my song of pleasure beneath the trees of the Ironwood while I still could! If going to Múspell as a demon’s consort was the price of that choice, well, the fiery realms could not possibly be worse than King Nøkkyn’s harem. The fiery realms would contain those pale eyes, those soft lips and gentle kisses, the pulsing heat of his sex above mine.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His eyes widened as I spread my thighs and wrapped my legs around his waist.
“Take me,” I said. My breath caught in my throat before I could add to Múspell.
Sinking my fingers into his hair, I pulled his lips back to mine. He kissed me again, long and slow and deep, until we were trading breaths. Then he shifted above me; the hard head of his cock pulsed between my legs. His breath hitched, and he hesitated.
“Yes!” I cried.
He bit his lip and pressed closer. I arched my back to meet him, giving him what King Nøkkyn had claimed, giving it to him without a moment’s hesitation.
There was pain, of course. Ma had warned me there would be pain, and blood, when I surrendered my maidenhead. But after the pain was a sense of being filled, of being whole. And beyond that was a blinding rush of pleasure so intense I cried out, telling him yes, more, give me more!
He moved inside me slowly and carefully. Stars, he felt so good! I laughed and cried at the same time, crossing my ankles over his back as though I’d fall apart without him. He groaned as he lowered his face to my neck, where his breath sent shivers skating across my bare skin.
Our hips began to move together without thought or volition, carried away by the tides our bodies created. His back slicked with sweat, and his breath turned into gasping cries. He sank his fingers into my hair, curving his body above mine as his thrusts grew deeper and less rhythmic. When his back stiffened above me and he cried like an animal, I realized I’d given him the same obliterating ecstasy he had shown me.
I laughed.
In his arms, as the light faded beneath the waving limbs of the trees, I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks. When I finally caught my breath and turned to smile at him, I found he was watching me closely with a frown etched across his handsome features.
“You laugh quite often,” he said.
I grinned at his somber tone. “And you frown a lot.”
His frown deepened. “I do not.”
“You’re frowning right now!”
He moved the hand that had been cupping my breast and ran it across his face. Then he turned back to me with the hint of a smile playing across his lips.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not unhappy.”
His lips curved hesitantly, as if they were trying to remember how to smile. By the Realms, he was handsome. He had to be a demon; none of the boys in the village looked this good when they smiled. I sighed and shifted on the grass, pressing my body closer to his.
“So, are you of Múspell?” I asked. If only I could remember the stories. Did I have to ask three times or guess his name to bind him?
He laughed. His voice was low and thick, as though he were unused to laughing. “Demons again? Why would you say that?”
“You’re so beautiful.” The words slipped from my lips before I could stop them.
He turned away, but not before I saw his smile widen.
“Can you at least tell me your name?” I pleaded.
He shifted on the grass, turning to rest on his elbows. I missed the warmth of his body against mine; already the night air felt colder.
“I did tell you my name.”
“Oh. Right.” I smiled at the absurdity of his claim. “Well, if you’re the Fenris-wolf, then I’m Queen Hel, mighty and terrible ruler of Niflhel.”
He laughed again, a little easier this time. “You look nothing like my sister.”
Of course. I’d forgotten Queen Hel and the Fenris-wolf were siblings, both the children of Loki the Lie-smith and Angrboða, Duchess of the Black Isle, She-who-brings-sorrow.
“Well, if you are the monster wolf of the Ironwood, I suppose you can run down King Nøkkyn and rip his head off?”
There was still enough light for me to see him arch his eyebrow. “So you’re beautiful and bloodthirsty? What is King Nøkkyn to you that you want him dead?”
I opened my mouth. Suddenly, I remembered the sting of mud in my eyes and the grit of it spread over my tongue. The way Bryn’s eyes glinted in the sun just before he called me whore.
And now I’d just spread my legs for a stranger in the woods.
Perhaps I really was a whore.
“Nothing,” I muttered. I rolled away from him and pushed myself to my feet.
“Do you have a place where you need to be?” he asked.
His eyes burned in the gloaming. My mind spun; my skin was too hot and too cold all at the same time. Did this mean he wasn’t going to drag me to Múspell and claim me for his own? I tore my eyes away from his, half afraid of what I’d say if I kept staring at his beautiful face.
“I need to get home,” I said. My lips felt numb.
My dress was wet and cold when I plucked it off the grass, but my mind burned, and I was almost thankful for the press of the cool fabric against my skin. I pulled it over my head, wincing slightly at a new ache deep inside my abdomen. The enormity of what I’d just done loomed before me, as vast and cold and unforgiving as the Körmt river.
The demon watched me, his face upturned. “I can walk with you.”
The swirling darkness inside me abated somewhat as I met his gaze. How could he do that, I marveled. How could he bring me peace with just a glance? Had I truly been bewitched?
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
“It’s night.” His frown returned, chasing away his earlier, tentative smile. “Aren’t you afraid to walk alone?”
A delicate shiver danced along my spine. “No.”
He stood and ran his fingers over the back of his neck. “I see. Well, would you perhaps be more unafraid if I were to join you?”
I tried not to smile and failed. “Perhaps.”
“Then I’ll join you.” His teeth flashed in the fading light as he grinned at me.
I glanced at the pale muscles of his naked body. “Don’t you want to get dressed first?”
“Dressed? Whatever for?”
He took my arm, and I laughed again. He had to be a demon, or a madman. Possibly both. But when he pulled me to his side and smiled, his clothing and his name, what we’d just done and what may come of it, all ceased to matter.
THE MONSTER’S LOVER: CHAPTER FIVE
“Are there people in Ironwood?” I asked Ma as casually as I could manage.
She’d been unusually gentle with me in the five days since I had stumbled home in the dark, without flour or eggs, my dress still wet from the Lucky and my head reeling from the demon’s kisses. She fed me turnip and potato soup, with thick slices of the bread she’d made with the last of our flour, and she didn’t even ask me what had happened in town.
Ma’s eyes went a bit misty over the yarn she was spooling. “There used to be more people. Before Lvardsen went to war in Agoria, and Etna passed on.”
I shook my head. “No, not people like us. I mean, are there people living in the Ironwood?”
The corners of her mouth crinkled. “Worried about your brothers, are you?”
A hot flush of shame raced through my body. Yes, I should be worried about my brothers. I should not be thinking constantly about what’s between my legs, and how a demon in the forest made me feel like I was going to die of pleasure.
“There’s no one who lives in the Ironwood,” Ma said, “and I would know. I used to go with your father, remember? We’d go for weeks in the Ironwood, and we never found another soul.” She bent to bite off a thread. “So, no fears. There’s no one to harm your brothers.”
I shook my head, trying to bring my focus back to the pile of clothing in my lap. Today, Ma was spooling yarn for hats, and I was mending tattered r
ags, trying to make jackets for my brothers in the bright sun of late summer. But my mind had wandered, and my stitches went wild. If she noticed, Ma said nothing.
I’d thought of nothing but him for the past five days.
The chatter of the Lucky past our far potato fields reminded me of his laugh. The thin streak of pale sky at daybreak was the same shade as his eyes. Once, when Ma and I were harvesting button mushrooms along the dark fringe of Ironwood, I swore I could even smell him. I’d been bent toward the earth, my fingers brushing aside the loose pine duff of the forest floor, when the hairs along my neck prickled almost as though a hand had caressed my skin. But when I turned to stare at the darkness beneath the pines, I’d seen nothing but the play of light and shadows across the smattering of ferns behind me. I almost called his name, but Ma cried for me, and I’d come back to reality.
And, oh, how my body ached for his touch! In the dark, silent hours of the night, I waited until I was certain Ma was asleep, and then I brought my hands between my legs, trying to touch myself the way he had touched me. The pleasure I stole during those furtive, panting moments was sharp and intense, but still just a distant echo of the ecstasy his body gave me. Almost always, after the crest of pleasure, tears slid past my closed eyelids in the dark, chasing my bliss.
“You’re sure?” I pushed. “What about...demons?”
Ma finally sighed and put down her yarn. “Sol, demons are a child’s fear. This is the real world, not some story from Bard Sturlinsen. You know demons do not leave Múspell.”
I turned to the ground, feeling my cheeks burn. As though she’d be able to sense my guilt just by meeting my eyes.
“If you’d like to speak about what happened in town—” Ma began.
“No.” I stood, folding the rags in my chair to cover my trembling hands. “I’ll go tend to the potatoes.”
The Complete Fenris Series Page 7
