“You are beautiful,” he said.
“Ah…I…well.”
“You are beautiful, and if you deny it, you are insulting my good taste and I will be terribly offended.”
She looked skeptical about this, but he took her hands in his and kissed each fingertip, which had the advantage of freeing up her breasts.
They were, indeed, excellent. He slid his hands up under them and growled appreciatively at their weight and softness and the way the nipples hardened under his thumbs.
“Sarkis, I…ah…” She cleared her throat, looking down at his hands. “You’ll have to tell me if there’s something I’m supposed to be doing.”
It was such a Halla thing to say. It woke an unexpected rush of tenderness in him, and he was not used to tenderness. He suddenly was half-afraid himself that he’d startle her or leave her feeling shamed. He sat down on the bed and drew her back against him, lips against her neck. “Enjoy this. Tell me if you don’t. That’s all you need to do.”
And she had. More than he’d expected, honestly.
Admittedly, he hadn’t been braced for all the questions, but that was his own damn fault. He really should have seen it coming.
Three tries to lose her virginity. Great god’s balls. It made him want to beat his head against the headboard even now. The more he learned about Halla’s previous marriage, the more he wanted to set the entire south to the torch and start over from the ground up.
As he did not currently have that option, he had made love to Halla instead, which was more satisfying than setting a countryside ablaze and substantially less messy.
Finally, he thought. He felt as if he had waited years to be able to slide his hands over her rounded hips and down between her thighs, to finally touch her in all the ways he’d imagined doing.
“Ah! Sarkis—!” She pushed back against him, gasping, and he thought that she seemed as much astonished as aroused. But not alarmed. That was the important thing. He held her close, murmuring endearments against her neck, and when she stopped trembling in his arms, he started over again.
She had fallen asleep almost immediately after they had finally finished. Well, there was no surprise there. Sarkis might no longer be a young man, but he prided himself that he had learned a few things that made up for it.
Her passion had not surprised him. He had suspected for a long time that his respectable widow needed only a little coaxing in that direction. She had given herself entirely into his hands and her response…As hot as fire, as sweet as sinning, as his countrymen would say.
He had been braced for tears if they happened. Halla was not a weeping sort, but southerners mixed shame with their sex like they were making a particularly foul brew. If lust had fallen over the edge into fear or shame, he would have been ready to stamp down his own desires and soothe whatever hurts he’d caused.
Delightfully, it had not been necessary.
In the morning…well, he’d face that when it arrived.
Perhaps they’d be able to sort out something to allay her fears about conception. He would like very much to slide inside her and feel her moving with him, let them both find their pleasure together. He suspected she’d surprise him there, too.
What had surprised him more, honestly, was his own response. When she’d bucked under his hands and cried out his name, he had felt something stronger and more unexpected than lust.
He had said things to her in his own language that she would have found astonishing if she understood, and foremost among them was, You’re mine.
Which was ridiculous, of course. If anything, he belonged to her, as long as she chose to keep him, and when she tired of him, she could pass the sword on to anyone she chose.
This did not stop him from a wild desire to claim her as his own, so that the rest of the world knew to step back and keep their hands to themselves.
Which I have neither the right nor her permission to do. And would be foolish to want in any event. I am a weapon; she is the wielder. She will hand me over to another someday.
Or she will die and I will not.
Still.
He had only just stopped himself from covering her shoulders in love bites. She might have enjoyed them at the time, but she’d have had a lot to say about it once she caught sight of herself in the polished steel mirror.
He had refrained. He wasn’t a youngster, so insecure that he had to mark his territory on his lover’s flesh.
What in the great god’s earth has come over me?
He had thought that slaking his lust would be enough. He had not expected it to make things worse.
I know better than to get too attached to any wielder. I’ll outlive them all by a thousand years. He had learned that lesson early on. All their battles and wars and causes, no matter how noble, could not stop them from aging and dying while Sarkis lived on in immortal steel.
Halla sighed in her sleep. Sarkis stretched his arm out over her, pulling her close, and she burrowed against him and mumbled something he couldn’t make out. It might have been his name.
The thought warmed him more than he wanted to admit.
Oh, this is foolishness. Even if it was your name, it was probably leading to a question about feet or owls or something else. Can’t you just be glad that you’ve got a solid armful of widow in your bed? Take your pleasure and give her hers and leave it at that.
He did not want to leave it at that.
Even if you were in the Weeping Lands and could take her before a priest of your own god, you would have neither land nor wealth nor even a name to offer her. You do not even have a horse that she could ride to the wedding. Assuming she’d have you, which she likely wouldn’t. Marriage brought her nothing but grief.
Marriage to you would bring her nothing but more of the same. You are a dead man in live steel. You cannot even promise to grow old with her.
You haven’t even told her the truth about the sword.
Some of the pleasure he felt ebbed away. He had always meant to tell her before…before anything like this. But she had kissed him and then he had been so determined to unravel her fears and then…
‘Then’ nothing. Then you were as randy as a buck goat.
He couldn’t even blame that on being out of the sword too long. They had sheathed it a dozen times on the road, as part of Zale’s tests, and it hadn’t made a damn bit of difference.
He certainly couldn’t blame the sword for the fact that he was lying here thinking of marriage, which was complete foolishness. How could any woman live with an immortal? He would stay exactly as he was and she would fade and fail and pass away. Surely she could not help but hate him, in her old age.
The thought nagged at him that Halla wouldn’t. That Halla might even be grateful to know that she would no longer be the last one standing, that someone else would pick up the pieces at the end.
Great god’s teeth. Did I always get this morbid after sex, or is this new?
Maybe you should just stop thinking, he told himself. He leaned his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes and tried to believe that this moment, at least, would not end for a very long time.
Chapter 46
Halla woke in bed, feeling very warm.
That was the first thing she noticed.
Sarkis was curled around her, his chest against her back. One of his knees was between hers, and his hand rested on her breast.
That was the second thing she noticed.
She wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.
That was the third thing she noticed.
She hadn’t slept naked since she was a child. Respectable people didn’t. She had a strong urge to pull the sheet up over herself to hide, which was ridiculous. Sarkis had seen every part of her last night.
More than seen. A lot more.
Good heavens.
To think that the first time she’d seen him without gauntlets, she’d thought his hands looked hard and unkind. He’d touched her in ways she’d heard about, but certainly
never experienced. For someone who was constantly complaining about the decadent south, it was pretty clear that the north had its own share of decadence.
Unless men and women have been doing this sort of thing around here for years and no one bothered to tell me. Which I suppose is also possible. Even likely.
Gods knew her late husband wouldn’t have taught her that sort of thing. Poor man. He’d have been…well, not appalled, perhaps. Baffled, maybe. “He put his mouth where? Why would you do that?”
She blushed even remembering. It had definitely been…err…indecent. Yes. That was the correct word. Most of what Sarkis had done had probably qualified as indecent.
Certainly her response had been nothing close to respectable. Respectable women did not claw at the sheets and make noises like that.
Sarkis himself was undoubtedly not a decent or respectable person.
But quite splendid nonetheless.
“Good morning,” he said against her hair.
She jumped and squeaked.
“I have been wanting to do this since…mmm. The second day I knew you, I think,” he said, caressing her breast.
“You hid it well.”
“You were a respectable widow. And trusting and very kind. Throwing you down and ravishing you on the spot did not seem courteous.”
She rolled over on her back, pulling the sheets up to her chin. Sarkis’s hands were still touching her under the sheet, but she felt less exposed.
“I thought you wanted to strangle me.”
“Well, there was some of that too. So many questions! How big is a dragon? Could I fight my way past a half-dozen old women armed with embroidery hooks?”
“It was mutual!”
“What, the embroidery hooks?”
“The desire to strangle you!”
He chuckled. His chest was against her arm and she felt the vibration all the way through her bones. “I’m sure it was.”
“The way you were always manhandling me into ditches…”
“I fear I manhandled you worse last night,” he murmured, kissing the point of her shoulder.
Halla opened her mouth to say something and blushed again.
Oh, this is ridiculous. I’ve been wed, bedded, and widowed for the past decade gone. Why am I blushing now?
Sarkis stroked a fingertip over her cheek. “It’s all right,” he said. “There’s no shame.”
“I’m not ashamed,” she said, even as her blush deepened. “I’m—I’m embarrassed.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed either.”
“And now I’m embarrassed that I’m embarrassed. You’re being kind.”
“We could go back to arguing if you’d feel better.”
“I might!” she snapped.
He grinned. “Well, to be honest, I’m impressed I managed to make love to you at all without you stopping me to demand to know if I’d done it before, if I knew what I was doing, and how exactly it worked.”
“You’ve obviously done it before,” she said, and was horrified to hear that she sounded aggrieved.
“That is true,” he admitted.
She folded her arms across her chest, trying not to feel a tiny bit hurt.
“Mind you, it has been a few centuries.”
She lifted one of her hands and swatted at his face.
“The youngest of those other women is…oh, about three hundred years old now, I’d say. I don’t think you need to worry.”
“You are a wretch.”
“Yes,” he said, seizing her hand and kissing the palm. “An unrepentant one. I’m sorry if we went too fast last night. I should have thought it through. That’s my shame, not yours.”
“No, no! That’s not it—I mean, you were lovely—”
He fell on his back with a groan. “Lovely,” he said. “There’s a death knell. Clearly I should swear to celibacy and join one of your decadent southern religions. Is there one that involves stabbing things?”
“The Dreaming God, but only demons.”
“I can stab demons. Demons are very stabbable.”
“They aren’t sworn to celibacy, though. The paladins are rather notoriously…err…not.” She thought back to a number of armored men in white cloaks who had passed through Archenhold a few years back…and the number of inexplicable births that had followed nine months later.
“The Dervish was like that,” said Sarkis. “You couldn’t take him to taverns. He’d have handsome young men who had met him five minutes ago dueling for his honor.”
“Good heavens.”
“It was exhausting when you only wanted a quiet drink.” He captured her hand again and rubbed his thumb over her fingertips. “Well, I shall simply have to find another of your religions to take me, I suppose.”
“Leaving your great god already?”
“The great god, I fear, has no use for a man who cannot please a woman. Or a man, as he prefers.”
She had to prop herself up on her elbows for that. “That’s…actually a tenet of your faith? Really?”
“Of course,” he said, as if it was obvious.
“Really.”
“Failure to make the marriage bed glad is valid grounds for divorce in the Weeping Lands.”
“I don’t understand why there’s so much weeping, then.”
He gazed skyward. “Well, we also murder each other a great deal.”
“Why?”
“A question that you would not ask if you had ever seen the Weeping Lands.”
“I’m glad I haven’t then!”
He shrugged. “It has its moments.”
She shook her head, chuckling. “I no longer have any idea if you’re making this up or not.”
“Never. Do you feel better now?”
“Yes,” she said grudgingly.
He kissed her forehead.
After a minute she said, “You probably don’t need to leave the great god’s service just yet.”
“So you were at least a little pleased, then?”
“I was…um. Very much so. As I’m sure you know!”
“I suspected. Also hoped.”
“I am embarrassed,” she said, determined to have it all out, “because you are obviously so much better at this than I am. And I don’t know how to do…well, any of that. All my experience was not moving for two minutes every few weeks.”
Sarkis winced.
“It’s true.”
“There are two things,” he said finally.
“Oh?”
“The first is that this is a skill like any other, and you are certainly not too old to learn, if that is what would please you.”
“And the other thing?”
He slid his hand down under the sheet and set his lips against her neck. “And the other is that your countrymen have clearly failed you in this matter, and on behalf of the great god and men everywhere, please allow me to make it up to you.”
Chapter 47
It took some time to dress afterwards. The tendency to look at each other and smile foolishly slowed things down. Eventually, though, Sarkis’s stomach growled like a bear and they both went down to breakfast.
“I have spent too long out of the sword,” he said. “I am starving.”
“Well, hopefully my dreadful aunt left some food in the house. If not, we’ll go rummage something up.”
There was not a great deal, in truth—mostly bread and cheese and the remains of last night’s dinner. Zale was already awake, making notes on their ledger. The priest looked up at the pair, a smile tugging at their lips, and Sarkis suspected that they were quite aware of what had happened the night before.
Well, Halla had not been entirely silent. Probably he hadn’t been, either. Or perhaps it was the single love-bite he hadn’t quite been able to resist leaving on the side of her neck, or that they sat too closely together to be anything but recent lovers.
He regretted nothing.
No, that wasn’t true. He regretted that he had not done it sooner. Why had he wasted
so much time?
Because you wanted her to have a choice. Because you needed to tell her what the sword says.
The bread in his mouth was suddenly as heavy and tasteless as clay.
The sword.
She still didn’t know.
Halla looked over at him, her water-gray eyes alight, and suddenly Sarkis could not take another moment of deception.
I have to tell her. I have to tell her now, before there’s any more between us. If I don’t, if she finds out—when she finds out—it might poison everything. I have to tell her now, before it goes any farther.
He was afraid that if he didn’t tell her now, he would soon do something utterly mad. Fall to his knees and beg her to marry him, perhaps. He had nothing to offer, less than nothing, but that mad part of his mind was crying out that she was his, that they belonged together…
He stood abruptly, catching her hand. “Is the scholar here yet?”
“Nolan?” Zale looked up. “Yes, I believe so. He and Bartholomew came over this morning. Nolan is in the front room, I think?”
“What’s wrong?” asked Halla, climbing to her feet.
If he had been able to explain, he would have done it weeks earlier. He led her through the house until they came to Nolan, in the front room, who was writing in a book.
The scholar looked up from his work and shut the book. “Yes? Can I help you?”
“Can you read ancient tongues?” asked Sarkis.
Nolan blinked at him. “Depends on the ancient tongue, I suppose. There’s a great many of them. I know a few. Why do you ask?”
Sarkis took the blade off Halla’s shoulders, and drew it all the way out. The words on it were etched in his memory as deeply as they were etched in steel, but he could not trust himself to read them aloud.
Coward.
Yes. I will see her face as I recite the words and I will break and I will not tell her all the truth. I know it.
Even in this, I will fail.
“Read these,” he said gruffly, tossing the blade down on the table in front of him.
Nolan blinked at him, then at the sword. “This is…oh, hmm, I do know this one. It’s an archaic form, but…let me see.” He licked his lips, taking the hilt in his hand and tilting it so that the light caught on the blade.
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