Chapter 15 - Four #2
“Take off your hat and lean back into me. I’ll shield you from the rain.”
I do as he says and find myself as snug and comfortable as one can be while riding. Magnar holds me to him with a firm arm pressed to my collarbones as we ride through the soaked landscape, the greenery verdant against the gray skies.
“So, the wedding night,” I say, sounding calmer than I feel.
“Our knights are going to be in the room,” Magnar says without preamble.
I frown. “In the room, while we… mate?”
“Mate, couple, fuck, make love. Yes.”
I shiver at his choice of words, and a familiar hardness greats my buttocks. Magnar sighs and tugs me into him until I bounce against it with the horse’s every step, and he releases a long, satisfied breath.
“Does this bring you relief?” I ask uncertainly.
“Mmm. Yes. Also makes it worse. As I was saying, they are going to be in the room and witness the consummation of our marriage. It’s a sacred tradition.”
I shiver. The thought of being watched by the knights as he mounts me makes my face heat. I’m not sure whether I hate it or not. My belly flutters with anxious excitement.
“After I fuck you,” Magnar says with a grunt, his voice lowering into a rumbling growl, “you can invite your knights to partake of you, as well.”
“P-partake?” my voice comes out high-hitched as Khay’s toothy smile flashes before my eyes. “It sounds like they might eat me.”
“Certainly,” Magnar says. “If you wish for it, they will lick and taste every part of you until you’re satisfied.
But there is a caveat. It you invite your knights to bed with us, they will be free to fuck you.
All of them. You can’t pick and choose in this regard.
If you want their mouths, you’ll get their cocks, as well. It’s either all or none.”
We ride in silence for a while as I try to make sense of the arousing, horrifying chaos of Magnar’s explanation. He seems to be content bouncing me against his straining… cock… which gives me plenty of time to think.
“Oh, delicious torture,” he grunts when the rain falls heavier, the line of trees blurring into a wall of dark green in the distance. “Do you have any thoughts, darling?”
“So, I don’t have to… take them,” I say cautiously.
“You certainly don’t,” Magnar says off-handedly. “Give them purple balls for all I care. Arvi and Khay deserve to suffer, anyway. And Raduna gets off on you wearing his pants enough to be happy.”
“What’s purple balls?” I ask with a huff. “It sounds made up.”
“It’s when a man desperately pines after a woman who won’t have him,” Magnar says with a deep sigh, pressing me closer again when we slide apart. “There. That’s the spot, darling.”
“Are you… What are you doing, exactly?”
“Getting myself off on your body so I’ll survive this ride,” he says with a grunt. “If you want, I can return the favor. Unlike Arvi, I definitely washed my hands this morning.”
I shake my head, fearing I’m misunderstanding him. “Are you offering to touch my private parts while we ride in the rain?” I ask with horrified fascination as my belly fills with more heat.
“Fuck,” Magnar grunts, urging the horse into a canter. “Stay here. Right here. I’m almost…”
We ride faster and faster, spraying mud, and I bounce against him until he releases a long, heavy breath, then sucks in air with a hitch. We slow just as the rest of the riders catch up, and Magnar pushes my bum away, still shielding me from rain.
“So, the thing that just happened…” I prompt him, though I have my suspicions, especially after what Khay did this morning.
However, my education in this regard was mostly earned from old animal breeding compendia, and no one has ever sat me down and explained how human—or Agnidari—mating works step by step.
I know the mechanics of it: the organ—the cock—is inserted inside the female, and then, it sort of happens.
There is some rhythmic movement involved.
But no one ever said the activity could take place with everyone’s clothes on, or, indeed, without body parts being inserted into one another.
Or on top of a horse.
Magnar heaves a deep breath and clears his throat.
“I spent myself in my trousers. It’s humiliating for a man of my age, but I can’t help it.
Having you so close makes me rabid. Now, what was I…
Ah. Yes, I’m definitely offering to touch you—and give you pleasure—while we ride in the rain.
My skills are rusty, but I used to be good at this.
And if you tell me what kind of touch you like, light or hard, fast or slow, or varied, I’ll have no problem getting you there. ”
“The farmer stimulates the bull’s organ with his hands until the bull spends itself into a ready dish. The bull’s seed is then inserted into the cow one wishes to breed.”
So I see. Magnar’s pants are now full of his seed. As were Khay’s this morning. However, no text described how exactly the bull was touched, and there was no mention of stimulating the cows, so I am a bit lost here.
Unless he means to touch me like Khay did in the bath. If so… I look left and right, noticing how blurry the figures of Khay and Raduna on either side of us are. They have their hoods on, too. Whatever Magnar does, it’s not likely to be noticed.
My belly is still hot and fluttery from everything he said and did. The fact his arousal was caused by me makes me giddy and proud. My insides tighten with pleasure at the very thought.
Something looms in front of my face—Magnar’s right hand with no glove on. His index and middle fingers are held together, and I realize the claws on these are cut, made short and blunt, and even.
“A bit forward of me,” he says, “but after you kissed me, I cut them in the stupid hope that you might allow me to touch you.”
“That’s very thoughtful,” I say, breathing in relief. The idea of his sharp claws anywhere on me is unnerving, but the blunt ones seem safe.
“Please, let me,” Magnar sighs, laying his hand low on my belly. “Pleasure for pleasure, my queen. Isn’t it fair?”
I say nothing, conflicted. On the one hand, yes, I want to be touched again the way Khay touched me in the bath. It was the purest bliss. Then again, I’m supposed to be mourning. And letting the same hand that slayed my father under my skirt doesn’t seem very daughterly.
But the hand belongs to my husband. This is so very complicated.
Then I think of another hand that tried to claw its way under my skirts.
Of harsh, excited breaths panting in my nape.
Of my breast painfully squeezed while I was forced to recite ten rules of command and pretend nothing was happening.
Nothing but a father teaching his daughter, perfectly right and proper.
A man touching his child the way he did will always be wrong. That’s why he had to pretend. That’s why he had to hide it. And that’s also why he had poor Snowdrop whipped when I dared to ask Avinia if a father was supposed to touch his daughter’s breasts, because I thought it was wrong.
I was fifteen.
You should get them to dig him out and have his body dragged by wolves, that vicious, angry part of me says.
And then, you should have Magnar fuck you in front of your father’s head mounted on a spike.
Let him see his prize so defiled. Ha! There’s no defilement in being taken by one’s husband, because it’s right.
It’s proper! Besides, Magnar is ten times the man he was.
There is no pretending, no charades. He says what he wants like a man.
A proper man. Dad was a coward. A slimy, disgusting maggot who doesn’t deserve your tears.
A roar of helpless rage gathers in my throat. I wish my father was alive so I could ask Magnar to kill him again, and draw it out this time. He went too quickly. He should have suffered.
Well, I can’t have that. But I can prove to myself I’m free. My body is free, and there’s no shame in giving it to the man who vowed to cherish and protect it—and asked so sweetly.
“Please, touch me,” I say, my voice hard with resolve. “You are my husband. It’s only right.”