Chapter Fifteen Simran #4
“I would have your apology, knight,” she said, and her voice left her low and velvet in a way her voice had never been before.
The tale brought the words to her lips; the tale moved her like a puppet on strings.
Under her skirt, her legs were shaking. But she placed her fingertip under Vina’s chin, and Vina did not shoot her with an arrow nor reach for the fae silver-sword at her hip.
Instead she watched Simran with eyes blown wide, more black than brown.
“You could have shot me. Can’t you see I’m not prey? ”
A shadow rippled across Vina’s face. Her expression changed as the tale caught her in its web. Amusement curled her mouth. Curiosity—and want—lit her eyes. She looked down at Simran with the confidence of someone born to a charmed life, someone who had never wanted without getting.
“A creature like you should not be out in the woods when a hunt is on,” said Vina. “You shouldn’t be surprised to be mistaken for a fox or a hare. You should apologize to me, sweet maiden—you are the one who should not be wandering the woods, leading innocent hunters astray.”
“Leading you astray, am I? The pile of insults grows and grows,” Simran declared, her mouth shaping words of its own accord, her lips curving into a smile that wasn’t her own.
There was amusement in her face, and anger in her heart, and a fire in her belly, and all of these things were her own and not her own.
“Is it an insult to mark your strangeness?” The knight quirked an eyebrow.
“You appear from the mist of the woods, unbidden. You look at me without fear. And you demand apologies. I think, sweet lady, that you are not a simple maiden gone far from the safe woodland path, nor even a poacher’s daughter trespassing on the land of her betters. ”
“Shall I weep for you, sir knight?” the witch asked, tossing back her hair. “Cower? Simper? Would that put your fears at ease?”
“I would not have you weep from fear,” said the knight, low and brazen. Bold, indeed. “And I do not think you would have me fear you either, lady witch.”
She laughed. “You think me a witch?”
“I know it,” the knight said. “Lesser knights would slay you now for the crime of your nature. But I have never killed any monster for its nature alone.”
“Nature, nature,” she echoed. “And what is my witchly nature?”
“To hunger,” the knight said, gaze flicking to her mouth, then—slowly—back to her eyes. “To trick. To take from the world, no matter how Queen and Isle may deny you.”
She could bed the knight here, she thought. It would be a feast—all those strong limbs, that fine neck, the strength whip-corded through that body, set upon the purpose of her pleasure. Oh yes.
The distant sound of yelling and hounds. (There were no hounds, Simran thought, and yet there had been, and so in this hallowed moment where an incarnate tale breathed deep into its lungs, there were.)
The witch felt a tingling in her belly—a kenning. Sometimes the future touched her. It was the kind of curse often lashed down upon witches who played foolishly with mirrors; and oh, the witch had meddled more foolishly than most.
“One day you will be sent to my abode,” said the witch, sharing the sweet curse of her knowledge, and her desire.
“Your foolish Queen will ask you to hunt me down. Know this: Everything I will do, I will do to draw you to me. I do it so you will lay your heart willingly in my hands. Bare your throat to me, my darling.” She ran a fingertip along the line of the knight’s throat.
The soft skin flushed deeply under her touch.
“I can collar you now, if you like. A circlet of gold, perhaps. Or the marks of my teeth. Perhaps I’ll let you decide. ”
It was like the pavane. A slow, steady dance, written so long ago that the steps could only be followed, unchanging. The knight tipped her head back, baring the sinews of her throat in relief. But she was not mastered.
“Why place a collar on me, when I will follow you gladly? The Queen will not need to send me. I will offer myself to the quest. What knight would not follow a beautiful maiden across the breadth of the Isle?”
The knight grasped the witch by the waist; drew her closer.
For all the strength of her hands, the touch that followed was feather-light, and all fire—a thumb to the witch’s bared clavicles and the swell of her breasts at her shirt.
The knight’s fingertips, circling the shape of a breast, a tender promise of sword-calloused fingers on flesh, of more.
The knight’s head tipped forward as the witch gave a ragged, soundless breath, baring her own throat.
“Is this penitence enough, lady witch?” The knight’s voice was husky in her ear. “Shall I go to my knees before you and show you due worship?”
“Worship my lips, first,” Simran whispered. Maybe it was her voice, her want. Maybe it was the tale. She did not know. But she knew it was her belly that was somersaulting; her skin that was electric. The knight’s—Vina’s—hands moved to her hair, tracing tingling fire into her skull.
Vina drew her face up and kissed her—and all was flame.