34. Aurelia
Chapter 34
“Love, no, you are not going to walk like some tramp.” Hadriel very gently marshalled me toward the front of the horse procession.
“What does walking have to do with tramps?” I asked in confusion.
“I have no fucking idea but it’s the only thing that came to mind and your confusion makes you pliant. Now, here.” He pointed at Weston’s horse. “You’ll go with him so that he can mother you.”
“I don’t need mothering. I need to walk, because getting up on a horse and riding is going to hurt like a motherfucker.”
“I see what you did there, with the word play.” Hadriel winked, and then pointed at his eye. “See what I did there? I winked, like you are constantly doing to me because one of your fucking eyes is swelled shut and it’s giving me heart palpitations. Get on the bloody horse so that I don’t start crying. I cannot handle the sort of pain you’re in.”
“Aurelia.” Weston stalked up to me like the predator he was. He’d been busy tending to his pack. He’d had to give out the last of their phoenix elixir, but no one died. For that, I was eternally grateful. I hadn’t forgotten what Tanix had said, even though it hadn’t been what he’d meant. “You’re riding with me.”
“All due respect, Alpha—and this isn’t a ploy to get you to have anger sex because that would hurt too much right now—but no. Thank you, but I physically can’t. It’ll hurt too much to get up there and it’ll be hell to stay. Please, be nice to me for once, and let me walk.”
His gaze roamed my face, his expression crumpling into anger and pain as he took in my swollen eye, my cracked lips, the bruises on my cheek. He lifted his hand and made to trail a finger across my wounds as though he might absorb my pain into himself, but instead let his hand hover, probably afraid to hurt me further. The angry expression melted to regret and frustration, and I knew he hated that he’d allowed Alexander through. That he hadn’t been fast enough in performing his duty to keep me from harm.
“It’ll be okay if I just walk,” I said softly, swallowing down a lump in my throat.
I wanted to tell him that he had done his duty and protected me. That he had saved me. I’d already done that, though, many times over. First when he saw the damage Alexander had done and froze in enraged agony, and again every time he approached me thereafter. He never accepted my gratitude, though. To him, he'd failed. Nothing I said would dissuade him from his self-loathing.
He glanced at his horse, his lips tightening. “Fine. We’ll walk,” he snapped.
“No, no. I will walk. You will ride like the alpha you are?—“
“Gods finger me,” Hadriel said, exasperated. “Aurelia, love, shut the fuck up and let him walk with you. Can’t you see the stress you’re causing us all? Go! Walk! I’ll walk. We’ll all fucking walk if we can just get underway and get there. The faster we get to our own lands, the better. We can’t have those fuckers trying again. They might get it right next time.”
In the end I relented because I didn’t really have a choice. Weston and I walked. He led his horse, while the rest of the pack continued on as normal. The day was long and my body started to ache, but by the late afternoon I could see high walls and busy foot traffic leading to the city. We got closer still and I reached out for Weston’s hand, never having seen so many people nor a city as big. It sprawled in all directions farther than the eye could see. A thriving commerce area existed outside the walls, leading down a gentle slope to the glittering seas beyond. The whole scene was like an ant hill after a boot had trampled it, the dwindling light doing nothing to thin out the crowds.
“Holy crap,” I said softly as Weston stopped and looked back.
“Nova, take the supplies straight to the docks. Get a boat to run you out to the ship and make sure everything is set for us to leave at dawn. Tanix, Sixten, find an inn that will hold those of us staying in the city. I don’t care if we have to double or triple up in rooms, I want us all together. Dante, figure out the guard situation and make good with them. I want to be deep in this town’s pocket so that they protect our interests.”
“What does that mean, in the town’s pocket?” I asked as Weston waited for Tanix and Sixten to ride ahead before walking again.
“It means we’re going to bribe them to watch our backs. A lot of rich merchants do it, and that’s what we’re pretending to be. We have the false paperwork to prove it.” He paused. “You’re going to need to go back with Hadriel for now. Keep your head down. Stay in line. If you see something that makes you nervous, say something, okay?”
I nodded and did as he said, relieved when Hadriel got down off his horse to walk with me.
“Won’t Alexander just bribe the guards too?” I asked as we walked, splitting up near the city gates.
Hardly anyone looked my way. Most took note of the horses or the people sitting on top of them and almost never looked at those walking or with the carts. When they did happen to notice me, though, their eyes widened.
“Here, love.” Hadriel switched places with me, taking my hand and wrapping my fingers around the lead of his horse. “Don’t worry about Jenkins. He only bites when you’re being pushy with him. Treat him with respect and he’ll ignore you.”
“I really wish you hadn’t reminded me that he bites,” I mumbled, barely daring to side-eye the great war horse.
“This city is not partial to Granny’s product.” He removed the tie from my hair and spread my locks down the sides of my face. “I just love those streaks of white. It really works for you, my darling.”
“Yes, trauma does seem to work for me.”
“Well now you just made it sad.” He draped some of my hair over my swollen eye. “Granny’s product created a real mess here. They cracked down on it and forced it back into the shadow markets. Anyone caught with it faces steep fines or jail time. It annoyed the alpha when we arrived because it was hard for us to find any leads telling us where we might start the search for...well, you, I guess. Now, I think he’s probably thanking his lucky fucking arse. If we can just lay low and get the fuck out of here tomorrow, we should be okay.”
“Famous last words.”
“No shit, right? Here we go, we’re entering the city. Can you smile? No, that looks painful. Don’t do that. Keep your head down. We’re already healing and you still look fresh from a fight. It’ll stand out.”
I couldn’t keep my head down, though. I couldn’t stop myself from looking around in amazement at the buildings—some of them three stories tall—and the stone facing, the wide streets filled with people, the smells and the sounds—the sounds! It was crazy, there was noise everywhere. In one moment my senses would be assaulted by someone shouting above the cacophony while the delicious scent of freshly baked bread flirted with my nose. In the next, it smelled like someone had used the bathroom at my feet. Horse poop dotted the roads and people in stands or stalls yelled out at us when we passed, trying to sell their wares.
After navigating twists and turns and through a square that was four times as big as the one from my village—despite not being the main one—we came to a sprawling inn with a few levels and large stables that must’ve twisted around back. The horses were passed off and Hadriel stepped in to give some specific instructions. That done, we headed through the large inn door with a little arch and beautiful wrought metal sign.
“The Laughing Pig,” I read, following behind Hadriel.
Tanix was speaking to a woman behind a short and well-used counter. I had no idea how they’d found an inn so fast; they hadn’t been that far in front of us.
Weston stepped closer to me and his fingers wrapped around my upper arm to keep me put. He bent a little, whispering as he looked past me.
“I’m going to have food sent up to our room. We’ll lay low for the evening. Do you need anything?”
I knew he was probably keeping a low profile about talking to me because he didn’t want to draw attention to me, but my stomach clenched in unease anyway. We were almost back to his home where his life would resume as normal. I would no longer be his sole responsibility.
I wasn’t sure if I was ready to say goodbye.
I cleared my throat and asked in a small voice, “Is it okay if I have a bath?”
He stepped away again and whispered something to Tanix before leaning against the edge of the counter, for all the world looking important and unimpressed. Hadriel peered through a doorway on the left, his fingers tapping against his leg in impatience.
Keys were handed out and Weston began walking away without looking back.
“Here we go, step lively.” Hadriel directed me forward in the middle of the procession. “The sooner we get situated, the sooner I can grab an ale and get all the newest gossip. Inns here are famous for their worldly secrets.”
Weston was nowhere to be found on the second floor. Tanix was waiting at the top of the stairs, directing people. When I came up, he pulled me to the side.
“Wait here for a moment.”
When everyone else had their room assignments, he took me down to the end of the hall. The door had a shiny metal “B” on it, and he wasted no time turning the handle and directing me in.
“You’ll have your bath now. The alpha will be in momentarily.”
With that he closed me in. I heard the thunk of his boots on the worn wooden floor as he walked away.
The room had various chairs and benches with little hooks and stands for clothes. On the right at the back a purple curtain separated this room from whatever lay beyond.
“Just give me a moment, dearie,” came a woman’s voice from the other side of the curtain, and I heard water splashing into a basin. “When we have important customers we do it the old-fashioned way. It infuses the scent of flower petals better.”
That sounded nice.
“Just go ahead and get out of your clothes and come in when you’re ready,” she called.
I stepped behind a little screen and slowly shrugged out of my clothes, the twisting and turning needed to undress far from ideal for ribs in the state mine were in. I heard the door opening and felt a little draft. I froze, knowing it was Weston but not wanting to call attention to myself just in case it wasn’t.
His footsteps stalled in order to close the door. A metallic click said he’d engaged the lock before he moved to the middle of the room. It occurred to me that, somewhere along the way, I’d memorized his gait. I knew it was him from how he moved.
“Almost done,” I whispered.
“Do you need help?” he asked softly, confidently.
His voice sent a flurry of butterflies through my middle but the way he said it made my stomach flip with unease. Just like in the mornings after one of our hate-filled trysts, reality slowly seeped in.
This was the first city I’d ever been in. The establishment was large and luxurious and even the robe hanging next to me, used by and meant for strangers, was as fine as I’d ever seen.
Meanwhile, this was nothing to him—I could tell. This was a standard affair. He’d worked for kings and queens. He had buckets of gold. He’d passed himself off as a rich merchant, garnering respect with just his presence, but in reality he was so much more.
It was easy to forget the enormous disparity in our social statuses when traveling, but now, here, in a real establishment and under a real roof...
I swallowed thickly, trying to push that thought away. It didn’t really matter. Our futures lay in different directions, I’d always known that. I might as well soak up the good life before the dragons got ahold of me.
“No, I’m okay. I can bathe on my own, if you want,” I murmured, tucking a bit of hair behind my ear.
“I’m not going to bite, Little Wolf,” he replied, humor evident in his tone. “Not until you’re better, at any rate.”
I grabbed the robe, almost sheer and reaching down to nearly my shins. It wrapped around me nearly double, meant for someone much larger. Taller and curvier, like the women he probably dated—women with large manes of white hair and sparkly teeth or something, I didn’t know. I had no idea what a fine lady looked like. They probably wore layers of fine jewels that jingled when they walked around, enveloped in fragrant perfume and, like, sashes or…sun flares or something.
I moved around the screen sheepishly, holding my robe tight as though it might develop a mind of its own and flee from my body.
He was also clothed in a robe, the bottom reaching down to his ankles and the sleeves rolled up so the arms fit. The middle wasn’t too big, and he filled out the shoulders, but it was clear his robe was meant for someone taller.
“I thought maybe I was just a shrimp.” I grinned, rustling the bottom of the robe.
He looked down at his own. “These are clearly meant for a larger creature.” He glanced over his shoulder at the curtain. His lips curled just slightly, unwilling to say anything more when we might be overheard. I couldn’t imagine what secrets he might need to divulge about robes.
“Shall we?” He gestured me forward.
“Oh.” I hesitantly headed for the curtain, peeling it back to reveal a large room with six tubs within. The woman on hand was filling the second of two, the rest left empty.
She glanced up as we came in. Upon seeing me, her large smile faltered.
“Oh honey...” Her brown eyes swept to Weston, scanning his face for a moment, before coming back to me.
“Trouble on the road,” Weston said without preamble.
“Of course.” She clucked her tongue, gesturing us over. “It’s getting so rough out there! Every day I hear about fine merchants like yourselves nearly overcome with thieves. We don’t get nearly the number of people through here that we used to, no we do not. Too much crime! Well, no matter. You made it. Here, let me help you. Oh my word?—“
The woman’s eyes rounded when she saw the rest of my body, the angry red and blue that was already surfacing on my ribs and the various other bruises from Alexander that I didn’t remember getting.
“It’s fine.” I waved her away, bracing myself to get into the tub. The twisting would hurt, which was fine, but I didn’t want to slip and crack the other side.
“Here.” Weston held out his hand.
“Thanks,” I murmured, going slow but finally sinking in.
I groaned, the heat of the water, just on the edge of being too hot, felt glorious and the floral fragrance of the petals was a nice touch.
“This looks very fresh.” She scanned my legs as she picked up the bar of soap. “This didn’t happen just now in the city, did it? We have a lot of guards. They’ve been very good about squashing trouble?—“
“It was this morning. The ache hasn’t reached its zenith quite yet,” I said without thinking, laying back and closing my eyes. “But this bath will go a long way to relax my muscles. It won’t heal the bones—those take forever—but at least it’ll help the soreness.”
“Why can’t you heal bones?” she asked.
“Without magic, the larger stuff takes forever. It’s fine. I’ve been through it before.”
It took me a moment to notice the silence. When I opened my eyes, she had frozen, her hands having been drawn back and her eyes scared. She looked at my skin like I had an incurable, spreadable disease.
I’d been through this before, too.
Before I could open my mouth to do damage control, Weston’s command ripped through the room.
“Get out. I’ll see to her.”
She flinched, nearly falling back in her haste to get away—from me or from him, it was impossible to say. She made her apologies and practically slammed the door to a back room. Silence filtered in the wake.
“Sorry,” I said, wincing as I sat forward to see if I could reach the soap she’d dropped. “That’s been my answer all my life. I didn’t have to hide it in my village. I forgot myself.”
“Don’t ever apologize for other people’s small-mindedness,” he growled, crossing to the other side of my bath and reaching down for the dropped items. He knelt by my tub, his robe open down the front. “I had intended to wash myself. It’ll be more fun to wash you.”
“I can wash myself.”
“And deny me the pleasure?” His eyes were soft as he rubbed the bar of soap against the sponge.
“Except I can’t return the favor.”
“Maybe not right now, but I promise to let you return the favor in the future, and I expect you to be sitting on me when you do.”
My face heated and I lay back, staring into his beautiful eyes, so clear and open. “You’re going to use a sponge?”
He hesitated with the sponge in front of my chest, just above the water line. His gaze flickered back and forth between the sponge and my chest.
“You’re not going to use your bare hands?” I prompted wickedly.
“Oh.” He stared down at it, letting it lower to the water a little, then pausing. “Umm. Honestly, I can’t tell if you’re joking. I’ve never done this before. With a woman, I mean. I’ve obviously washed myself, but I doubt I care as much about hygiene as you probably do. I’m not dirty or anything—it’s not that. It’s just that I have definitely used bare hands on myself, but I’m not sure if women think that’s gross? I don’t pee in the shower, just to be clear on that. I don’t do that. Almost never, at least. I’m just?—”
“My dear Alpha,” I said, trying not to laugh because that would hurt. “I do believe you are babbling.”
His face nearly turned the shade of his favorite color. His shrug was adorable and seeing this very human side of him was so incredibly endearing.
“I’ve just never taken care of anyone like this before,” he said, carefully sweeping my hair back from my face. “I want to, I just don’t know how. It seemed pretty cut and dried until you brought bare hands into the mix.”
“You can use your bare hands,” I murmured, removing the sponge from his hand and pulling his palm to my breast. “Slowly. Across every inch of my skin.”
He cupped my breast before rolling his thumb across my nipple. Pleasure rippled through me. “I think I can handle that.”
He washed me thoroughly, going over my wounds delicately and needing direction on how to handle my face. Thankfully he didn’t just dunk me. My back was painful regardless of whether I leaned back or sat up straight, but when he was done there, he massaged down my legs and then rubbed my feet. Finally, he traced up my thighs, leaning over me to capture my lips with his as his fingers rubbed down my sex and then circled my clit.
“Will an orgasm hurt you?” he asked, his voice thick.
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
His finger kept circling, the touch light, teasing. “I’m going to get myself off while I pleasure you. If it starts to hurt let me know and I’ll stop, okay? Well...” His smile was unapologetic. “I’ll stop for you. Then I’ll move to my bath and finish myself off while you watch.”
Something about that option sounded so hot for reasons I couldn’t explain.
“I want to watch you,” I said, running my fingers up his forearm. “It’ll be better if I’m in control, anyway. Go get in your bath and soap yourself up. I want to watch you stroke that thick cock.”
He paused for a moment, and then his hand slid down my sex one last time before he leaned forward to kiss me. Against my lips he murmured, “I can’t wait to fuck you again.”
“You’ll need to pull out my animal so we can do it sooner.”
“Just as soon as we are on the ship. I’m counting on it.”
He stood slowly, his robe open, his big cock standing proud. He fisted the base before stroking his hand along the shaft and back, his eyes connected to mine before I broke eye contact to look down and watch. He did it again, fingers gliding over that smooth skin, stretching it up and then back as he lightly squeezed.
His movements were slow and graceful as he made his way to his bath and stepped in, his body a masterpiece, every muscle working in perfect harmony.
“I’m going to get comfortable.” He leaned his head back against the copper, his eyes closed. “I’m going to imagine you stepping in with me, one knee against each of my hips, spreading your toned thighs for me to slide between.” His arm started to pump slowly. “You kiss along my neck as you slide that perfect little pussy against my shaft.” He breathed out slowly and I watched his arm move, unable to see the end of it but not needing to. His chest tightened, his pecs popping as his other hand grabbed the edge of the tub. “I can almost feel your pussy taking my cock. I slide in so deep and baby, you feel so fucking good.”
His arm moved faster, his elbow bouncing. He groaned softly and I reached between my thighs, massaging.
“You feel the swell and you resist a little, fighting back, forcing me to dominate you. Gods, I fucking love when you do that.”
I loved it, too. I loved when he used his power and strength to hold me tightly as he thrust into me with wild abandon. He gave in to his desires when I pushed him to that edge, allowed himself to lose control. It felt raw and primal, natural in a way nothing else did.
I watched his body start to thrust slowly and massaged myself faster, feeling pleasure uncoil within me. The ache of my wounds existed on the periphery of my awareness, so I focused harder on him and watched that arm bounce, knowing his hand was pumping that glorious cock.
He worked faster. His bicep was a hard rock of muscle.
“Yes, baby,” I mewed, working myself. “Fuck yourself. Get yourself off for me.”
He groaned without looking over and I loved that. I loved watching him facilitate his own pleasure and chase his orgasm.
The bath water sloshed. His hand on the side gripped. I worked myself faster, feeling like I was right over there with him, bouncing on top of him, taking that big cock.
“Yes, baby,” I said, on the edge.
His head angled back a bit more, his hand stroked quickly, nearly there.
“Come with me,” he said, and I did, the orgasm crashing over me and drawing out a long moan, matching his.
He jerked, me still watching, and then shuddered, his arm finally stopping. His sigh was long and relaxed and he finally opened his eyes, his head dropping over to look at me. His smile was sleepy and serene.
“That was nice,” he said, and I laughed.
“Ouch, no, don’t make me laugh.”
“What do you say we soak for a bit until the water gets chilly. I’ll soap up and rinse, and we’ll go eat some dinner and go to bed.”
“Sounds good. I’m exhausted. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“I know. Every time my wolf roused, you were watching the emberflies.”
“They’re relaxing.”
“They’re . . . curious.”
“You have showers in the castle?”
“Yes. There are showers here, as well, but you wanted a bath. They are newer in the castle, though. The castle inhabitants were trapped without any of the modern amenities for a long time. They’ve since updated everything. It’s pretty plush. I miss baths, though. I stopped taking them in the interest of time. This is fantastic.”
“Do they really have six people take baths at one time?”
“Shifters don’t tend to be bashful about that sort of thing.” He looked over at me again. “You’ll see.”