Chapter 1 – A Tale of Wolves #10
“I know you’re not.” His thumb stroked the line of her jaw, turning her eyes up toward him.
“But you’re my wife, and a lady. I don’t think there’s any shame in being innocent.
I like it about you. I like how you see things.
I don’t want you to know about…ugly things.
Once you do, you can’t not know them. Like when I told you there are prostitutes in the valley. What was the first thing you thought?”
“If you ever were with one,” she said dully. The thought of Remin with another woman made her feel sick. This whole conversation made her feel sick and confused .
“And now that you know you could have been raped,” he continued, his tone jarringly gentle against the brutality of his words, “what will you think if another stranger approaches you?”
“I know,” she said miserably.
“I don’t want you to be afraid.” He drew her against his side, his strong arm wrapped around her. “I know what it’s like. If you’re not careful, soon your fear is all you can think about. I don’t want that for you.”
“You’re not afraid of anything,” she said, moved by the tenderness in his voice. He was the bravest man in the world. Everything else feared him.
“I don’t want you to have to think about things like that,” he said softly.
His lips pressed against her forehead. “What’s all this for, if I can’t protect you?
I want you to feel safe. I want you to be happy from the moment you wake up until you fall asleep.
Nothing but happy. Nothing bad will ever touch you. ”
He said it with such love that her eyes filled. No one had ever loved her like this. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her. But though she didn’t know why yet, she thought somehow it was wrong.
“But I want you to be happy too,” she said, turning her face into his caressing fingers. “You shouldn’t be stuck with all the bad things. That’s what we swore,” she remembered, recalling the oaths spoken on their wedding day. “All our joys and sorrows. And, Remin…I hate not knowing things.”
“Some things no one should know.” The fact that she couldn’t entirely understand what she saw in his face seemed like a case in point, but…
did she really want to hear some of the tales Remin Grimjaw could tell?
Ophele touched his cheek, consoling, and his black eyes lifted to hers.
“They were always eager to hear about it, in Segoile. As if knowing about filth makes you wise.”
“That’s not…what I want to know,” she said hesitantly, and bit her lip. “I need to think. I don’t know…what I think yet. Please.”
“All right. When you’ve thought about it, we can talk again.” He kissed her. “But you’re still getting a guard.”
“Remin,” she said, exasperated.
“There are too many new people in the valley now,” he said sternly. “There are guards with me at all times. I just make them stay out of sight. Either you have a guard, or I’ll get rid of all of mine. ”
He was wearing his stubborn face. Ophele’s mouth worked soundlessly. She could not think of a single objection.
“All right?” he asked, bending to bump his forehead against hers. His eyes were crinkling at the corners. He knew he had won.
“All right,” she conceded, amazed that she could be smiling already, that he could so quickly turn her sorrow into joy.
“Good.” His lips tickled hers. “Now help me get my armor off.”
The questions were still whirling at the back of her mind even as they undressed each other and he moved over her on their squeaky bed, always eager, always hungry.
He, the devourer; she, the devoured. His were the hands that held, while she was held.
He was ever the invader, and she yielded herself to him with pleasure.
It was the natural order of things, wasn’t it?
Even when he was inside her, Ophele was stepping outside of herself to look at him, so strong, so fearless, so powerful, always in command.
The boulders of his biceps flexed on either side of her as they panted their pleasure together, and she stroked her cheek against his arm to admire his strength, thrilled by it, and so envious.
No one disobeyed him. No one would ever think of challenging him. Of all the varieties of wolf in the Andelin Valley, Remin was the deadliest of them all.
“Ophele,” he said hoarsely, his deep voice a rumbling, panting growl, his huge body levering hard and fast into her.
He was so immense, his arms so strong, it was easy to believe that he could make a wide and beautiful place where nothing bad could touch her.
She loved how protective he was. How he bared his teeth at the merest hint of danger.
No one had protected her since her mother had died.
She had never had a safe place. She didn’t want him to stop doing that.
It seemed an ungrateful and foolish thing to ask, especially when she loved how he made her feel so much.
But she wanted to be more like him, all the same.
“Remin…” Her voice quavered. Her body trembled, taut, held by him, surrounded by him, filled by him and straining to contain him. Deep inside she felt him pulsing, and the hot bursts as he emptied himself into her, thrusting hard against that place that made her fly apart.
Burying her face against his chest to muffle her cries, Ophele sank her small teeth into him, and left her marks in his skin.