Chapter XXVI
XXVI.
Rivani had never seen him without his trousers beyond the sick room.
Even at the pond, she averted her gaze to preserve his modesty.
And those few days while he convalesced in his quarters, submitting to cleanings and wound dressings, had not been intriguing in any sexual capacity.
Most of those wounds of his had come from multiple unwanted sexual encounters and even if the practicality of tending had not squelched the desire, the knowledge of his ordeals had made desire impossible at the time.
She had imagined, of course. Before he started changing, he must have been all beauty and cold rationality.
She had imagined him coming into his new body, debilitated and despairing, ashamed as he still was, though doubtless he had not been as adept at hiding it then.
She had imagined a less altered version of him stuffed into the finery of his wardrobe adhering to the pageantry of humanity and parading himself as a suitor before Beauty, knowing he would never win her affection.
She had imagined this moment when his desires matched hers and they could show their appreciation for each other with the joining of their bodies. She need imagine no more.
Rivani swallowed with some difficulty, overcome with some mixture of emotions that included awe and admiration, but held more tenderness now than any of her first times when his physique and presence stunned her.
The fire he restored cast dancing light around the room, teasing the contours of his body with suggestive highlights and shadows.
She could tell by the way he held his shoulders that he kept himself braced for something.
For her rejection. Or for his not being able to go through with it.
If he worried over her opinion of him, then he need not.
Her Baró was every inch a god. And if the stories of the Fir’Darl painted him as a monster who embodied all that was ugly in the world, it was only because, in his form, he bore the cruelty of the world, not the cruelty of his own being.
Perhaps he had done things to earn punishment, but there were far more evil beings out there who wore a human shape.
His burnished, bronze fur shone. He may no longer have the long black curling hair of the Rivani, but the black curls of his fur on his head, neck, and shoulders undulated with the same silken sheen as his hair.
The horns, unchanged from when she had first beheld him, glowed like a radiant halo with the firelight reflecting off them.
His face had changed, the brows heavier and the snout larger with the bud of the new horn, but his eyes still held all the depth and mystery of her first intentional examination.
His body had not changed in that it spoke of hard labor and lean but regular rations, but his shoulders looked even larger due to the change that had occurred to his spine that filled out his neck and made the blanket of curls even more expansive.
The network of scars on his torso shone in the firelight, looking like lighting with the small movements and adjustments of his body.
A small portion of his lower abdomen remained furless, the fur looking like patina against the bronze of his skin.
He bore the same dark curls below, a majestic trail from his navel expanding downward, providing background for the respectable-sized furless creature that dwelt between his legs.
The legs, also covered in fur, bore well-defined muscles as he continued to exercise them by standing upright on the precariously thin ankles of his hooves.
Rivani made no move towards him, not yet. She enjoyed the sight of him bathed in firelight.
She burned for him.
He waited, nude and vulnerable and growing more unsure as the moments swept by without Rivani saying anything. His tail flicked behind him in anxious impatience. At last, he cast his eyes away.
“Are you reconsidering? I cannot fault you. Faced with such a prospect, I still half-expect you to run screaming from me.” He sighed heavily and bowed his head.
“You do not have to do this if you think it some matter of honor because you made a claim,” he added.
“If the reality is uglier than your fantasy — and I cannot see how it cannot be — then you are under no obligation.”
“Oh, if only you knew what I thought.” She took another appraising look at him.
“You are beautiful, my Baró, in a way you will never understand. The Magic, in Its attempt to make you monstrous, only made you mythic and ethereal, majestic in a way no mortal creature could be. I find that I am attracted to you more with each passing moment.”
“Even with my birthing hips?”
“Especially with your birthing hips.”
He expelled a long-held breath and met her gaze to determine the veracity of her words.
He struggled with the belief that anyone could want him.
After all, his nighttime visitations over the last centuries consisted of being told that he should be grateful for those since that was all he could ever expect.
But there were no lies in Rivani. The warmth of love flooded back into him with the abatement of his fears and he bit his tongue to keep from putting words to it.
It mattered little if they coupled or not.
He longed to make Rivani happy with his body, with his devotion, with his worship, with anything of him she would have.
Rivani crossed over to him, pulling her top off as she made her way. Her palms melded against his chest. She stroked the fur and twined her fingers in the curls at his chest.
“You set the pace, Baró,” she told him. “If something frightens you or makes you hesitate or if you find that it is not pleasant to you, you must tell me. We will stop or resume something that you enjoyed.” She stood up on the tips of her toes and kissed the underside of his chin.
“If I touch you in a way that you do not like, you must tell me that too.”
He shivered under her touch, so different than what he had known. He hesitantly laid his hands on her shoulders, waiting for her to request that he not touch her. That request never came.
“My hands are rough. I am sorry.”
Her sigh became a purr. “Long have I been desiring to feel them do more than just hold me at night, although that too is a pleasure I will not forgo.”
He had almost forgotten what to do with a woman.
The Magic, even when he submitted and serviced, did not respond like a woman who wanted him.
It responded coldly, like he was a plaything performing a routine obligation.
The display of affection resurfaced old memories of women he had seduced and of women who had seduced him, people he had forgotten until a pleasant touch or whispered breath against his skin revived them.
He slid his hands down her arms and then moved them over her back, running the tips of his claws down her shoulder blades which rewarded him with shivers and cooing.
His body was strange even to him, but if it could produce pleasure and delight for Rivani, then it was a good body no matter how strange.
She pressed her body close against him, murmuring in contentment and pleasure.
In his arms she felt like a girl, although compared to most women, she would have been tall.
He thought of a few other choice descriptors that may have been apt and would have been considered complimentary in his circles when he was part of the world, but he wasn’t so certain they would be received as well now.
While slender, it was the leanness of work without consistent and sufficient nourishment, although she had filled out a little in the time that she had been at the fortress.
She had always had muscle but had grown according to her proportions.
He might, in hunting terms, have called her this side of gamey, although he never would have told her that either.
His hands slid down her back as he stepped away from her and lowered himself to his knees so that he was at a more accessible height.
He wanted kisses the like of which she had bestowed upon him not so long ago, hands over his face and body with the passion she claimed, the gentle affection that had been so long denied him.
He reached back out to put his arms around her once more and guide her closer to him, pressing her belly against his chest. She slid her skirt down over her hips and let it puddle around her ankles, then carded her hands through his curled fur.
“Can you lie down, Baró?” She leaned down to kiss his mouth.
He paused and studied the pallet he had made up for them. “Not on my back, not since it changed. I could prop up though.” He caught his teeth in his lip while he mentally configured the layout he would need.
Rivani stalled him with another kiss. “My beautiful Baró,” she murmured against his mouth before she released him.
He gathered enough of their furs and blankets to make it similar to the nest Rivani had originally created for herself, and with so much material, he constructed a prop against the chaise to accommodate the curvature of his back.
It would not be ideal for sleeping, but it would suit their current purposes.
With Rivani’s encouragement, he lay back on the fur and blanket prop and braced himself for whatever came.
His heart raced and he cursed himself for a fool, knowing there was no reason to fear Rivani or anything that they had implied doing for each other.