Chapter 27
Raye ended up out in Kalfr’s large, beautiful garden, wandering its well-tended paths, brushing her shaky fingers against its surprising range of plants. Herbs, flowers, legumes, vegetables, some in varieties she’d never seen before.
But she could barely see them, let alone appreciate them, between the burning behind her eyes, and the miserable chaos streaming through her thoughts.
She’d sucked Kalfr under a table. Kalfr had wanted to punish her, and humiliate her. He’d wanted to watch her gag and choke, while he took his true pleasure with Gaelfr.
It hadn’t been at all like the Kalfr she remembered, the one who’d been easy and laughing and affectionate, a warm teasing wonder in bed.
But then again, none of this was like the Kalfr she remembered, was it?
And how much of that was because she’d cast him out, and separated him from his own son, for all that time?
And then Kalfr had sworn that vow to help his kin, and had ended up bedding that horrible Sybil, making an enemy of her, and wait — had he even said what Sybil meant to do, once she’d tracked his scent?
No, because he and Gaelfr had decided to punish Raye instead, to make her kneel and choke for them.
Raye groaned aloud, and dodged behind a large cranberry bush, wiping her sleeve at her stinging eyes.
She should have known better. She couldn’t trust them.
She knew that, and how had she managed to entirely forget that?
Whatever had possessed her to make that vow to Kalfr, and then to promise Gaelfr she would keep it?
She was supposed to be doing this for Svein…
She finally let out a shaky breath, and went to step back around the bush — when she crashed into something tall and solid and painfully familiar. And even before she glanced up, she could smell him, close and rich and enragingly sweet.
Gaelfr.
“What the hell,” she said, through gritted teeth, as she staggered to catch her balance again. “What do you want now?”
Gaelfr’s hands settled against Raye’s shoulders, steadying her, and she wrenched backwards, out of his grip. Glaring up at his infuriating face, with his lips still swollen, and a smudge of red on his chin.
But clearly he’d caught her looking, because he wiped at his mouth with his arm, and raised both hands toward her, palms out. “I only wished to be sure you are well,” he replied. “And to ask” — his head tilted — “if you might wish for any tending.”
Any tending. From him? Like… that? But yes, Raye knew that glint in his eyes, and she barked a harsh, scraping laugh, not unlike a growl. “You cannot truly think,” she choked, “I would want tending from you! After that!”
Gaelfr’s head tilted further, his mouth thinning. “I only wished to ask,” he said stiffly. “To offer it, if it might bring you peace.”
“Peace?” Raye echoed, far too shrill, but she couldn’t find a way to bite it back. “You think you can bring me peace? After you” — she flailed her hands toward him — “you and Kalfr just used me, and punished me! You wanted to make me small and ashamed, to see me choke, to make me suffer —”
Gaelfr’s brow furrowed, and in a swift movement, he caught both Raye’s wrists in his strong hands.
“Ach, what is this?” he demanded. “Why should I wish for any of this? I have sworn to guard you, and tend you, and help you. And you swore this vow to Kalfr, and told me you yet longed for him. So ach, I granted you his perfect prick, and fed your hungry belly full of his good fresh seed! I thought you wished for this!”
Raye sputtered back at him, her mouth opening and closing, while Gaelfr’s hands tightened on her wrists, his eyes stubborn and intent on hers.
“And I knew Kalfr wished for this also, after he came in upon us last eve,” he continued, “so ach, I wished to grant him just the same as you granted me last eve! To show him he is yet part of this with us, together, as we agreed!”
Part of this with us, together. And the way he’d said it, the heat and the ease of it, was enough to swallow Raye’s rising retort, and set her eyes searching his face. While his grip slowly softened on her wrists, and his hands eased up her arms in something too close to a caress.
“And I thought,” he added, lower, “you agreed to overcome your jealousy, and would not begrudge me tending my own ástvinur. Most of all when it was clear he was lost in grief and pain, and needed this from me. From us.”
Us again. Raye shook herself, and yanked one of her arms away from Gaelfr’s caressing hand, so she could jab her finger into his chest. “Don’t you try to waylay me, Gaelfr,” she hissed.
“Even if that was your motive, that was still… different, back there. That was wrong. That was never what Kalfr was like before, and don’t pretend you don’t know it! ”
Gaelfr’s mouth twisted, and his eyes flicked away from Raye, toward the bush behind her shoulder. “Ach, mayhap it was different,” he said thinly. “But it was not… wrong. Kalfr is not wrong. Just as you were not wrong, for wanting this from him.”
What? Raye opened her mouth to protest, but Gaelfr shot her a narrow, warning look.
“I could scent you, woman,” he snapped. “You longed for him. You craved his prick in your throat, and his seed in your belly. I ken you are only hurt that he did not smile and kiss you and fuss over you, as he would have done before!”
Raye couldn’t deny her flinch, or the sudden surge of inexplicable hurt. She hadn’t wanted that from Kalfr, or had she, and gods curse Gaelfr for throwing it in her face. She couldn’t trust him, couldn’t trust either of them.
Gaelfr was watching her too closely, his hand spasming against her wrist, and then he eased closer, and slipped both his hands around her back. As if in a silent apology, an embrace, and Raye didn’t care, she didn’t…
“But ach, you are not wrong in this,” he admitted, with a sigh.
“Kalfr was not the same, in this. But can you not see why this would be? After you banished him, after I left him, and most of all, after what this hateful woman did to him? You heard what he spoke to us, did you not? How she pushed him to take her, to grant his body and his seed to her, whilst she reeked of hate and fury toward him? Whilst she plotted with this foul lord for not only Kalfr’s own death, but for the death of all his kin, also? His clan? His home?”
Raye grimaced, frowning down at Gaelfr’s shoulder, at the tension of his muscles beneath his skin.
“This was… a violation,” he continued, flatter.
“This was cruel, and unjust, and profane — most of all for an orc who cares for others as Kalfr does. He ought never to have done this. He ought never to have felt compelled to touch this woman, and forever grant her his scent, against what he knew to be both their truth, and thus defile them both. I ken not whether” — his voice went even harder — “I most wish to murder this woman, or the thoughtless fools in the mountain who urged him to this. Who did not see how this might break him.”
Raye couldn’t answer, while Gaelfr’s shoulders rose and fell, his breath exhaling in a low, resigned groan.
“But you can see this, can you not?” he asked, and when Raye glanced at him, he was searching her face.
“You can see how Kalfr might not trust either of us, just now? You can see how he might need to learn again what this means, and how this feels, when a woman’s scent matches her words and her acts?
You can see how he might wish to draw up his power again, and wield it over you?
Or even to test you, and learn whether you will strike back against him?
To learn whether you will keep this vow you have made to him? ”
Raye couldn’t hide her wince now, the memory of how she perhaps had struck back at Kalfr, by jumping up like that, and leaving. And what would Kalfr have done in turn, if she hadn’t done that? Would it have been… better, after? Would she have started to gain his trust again?
“You should have at least told me,” she belatedly snapped at Gaelfr, though there was little heat in it. “That you were using me, to make a point to him.”
Gaelfr sighed and rolled his eyes, but his stiff shoulders sagged, too.
“I did not know this, before we began it,” he snapped back.
“And I yet thought we were in agreement upon this. I thought you would wish to comfort him, and seek to prove yourself to him. I thought you yet meant this vow you made.”
It flipped uncomfortably in Raye’s gut, because yes, of course she still meant it. She still needed them, needed Gaelfr to stay. Even if she still didn’t trust them, even if she was just doing it for Svein.
“You’re right,” Raye said, thin. “I do still want to prove myself to him, and keep the vow, any way I can. I just…”
She couldn’t say it, couldn’t find a way through it, and she quivered all over at the feel of Gaelfr’s warm hand settling against her jaw, tilting her face up toward him. Just like he’d done with Kalfr, so easy and possessive, as though he had every right.
“You only needed tending, also,” he murmured, his eyes flickering on hers, his mouth quirking. “And if you had not jumped up and run off thus, like the stubborn, greedy, jealous woman you are, next I would have…”
His hand drew her closer, tilted her face up further… and Raye was caught, ensnared, breathless, as he lowered his head, and…
Kissed her.
It was warm and soft at first, a gentle brush of lips, but then harder, deeper. Gaelfr’s long tongue slipping between Raye’s lips, tasting her, as he betrayed a husky groan, and his kiss deepened, his strong arms curling around her back, drawing her in closer. Wanting this. Wanting her.
And though Raye should have pushed him away, she clutched back at him.
Tasting him in return, breathing in his hot succulent scent, shivering into the strength of his solid body, the hardness swelling in his trousers.
And there was a sudden wild urge to drag him down to the garden path, to spread her legs, to welcome him deep between…
Until Gaelfr stiffened. Yanked backwards. And whirled around away from her, while a sharp, sickening hurt surged through Raye’s chest. No, he didn’t want her, she couldn’t trust him, and…
“Get behind me, woman,” he hissed. “Now!”