Chapter XXVI #2
In the dramatic shadows of the fire, Rivani shone like an angel, the golden light ablaze at her back, her statuesque build silhouetted against the firelight.
Her front resolved as she approached him, her long braid draped over the front of her shoulder.
She positioned herself over him, straddling him, and gently settled herself atop his hips.
She let her hands go back to exploring his chest, smoothing down the fur and tracing the lines of his scars with the tips of her fingers.
She bent down and kissed a scar that crossed above his nipple.
“Let me know if you feel at all uncomfortable, Baró. I will not be offended.”
He shivered under the brush of her lips.
“I am uncomfortable, but,” when she moved away, he grasped her shoulder, “not in a bad way.” He almost told her of his nighttime encounters, that he had not been a willing participant in any act like this since he was a man.
But he remained silent, refusing to have his time with Rivani tainted.
He retrieved the end of her braid from his chest. “May I undo your hair?”
She pressed her hands back to his chest and bent to kiss his mouth. “Please.”
He used his claws to pick at the ribbon that held the end of her braid and then began sliding his claw through the plait to loosen her hair, letting it free in a long wavy cascade.
“If I do nothing with it, my hair curls like yours,” Rivani explained, “at least how yours used to, but I keep it braided so that it does not become a hopeless tangle.”
“I think your hair is beautiful,” he assured her, “tangled, braided, loose.” He caught his lip with his teeth.
Their compromising positions far exceeded in scandalousness such an expression of appreciation, but he still expected his advances to be spurned.
He took a deep breath, trying to fight past the lump in his throat.
He floundered like a green youth who had never courted a woman, let alone coupled with one.
“I think everything about you is beautiful.”
Rivani paused for a moment to take in his declaration. Then she buried her face in his shoulder and shook with uproarious laughter.
“Oh, Baró, thank you,” she said through her outburst, “but I am so plain and square, no one else has ever thought me so!”
Then that, at least to his mind, made them equally matched in bias. If he thought her beautiful and she assured him that she was not, what of her telling him that he was? More people would agree with him than with her.
“Does that matter so much?” He asked. “You think me beautiful and though I see it not, I accept that you see it. I think you are beautiful, and though you tell me that no one else would agree, can you not accept that such is what I see? My eyes have lost so much of their vision, but as of yet, I have not been deprived of knowing when a beautiful woman is in my company.”
“I am sure that you have known many,” Rivani teased. “That you would put me in any category with such amuses me beyond words.” She kissed the underside of his chin and dotted little kisses along his jaw. “Could you imagine what your family would say if they knew who you took to your bed now?”
“Technically we’re not in bed,” he corrected. “And my family instructed me on whom to seduce.”
That caused Rivani to draw back and tilt her head.
“Really? A young handsome prince only bedding those he must? That doesn’t sound right.”
He ran his claws through her hair.
“There’s a difference between privilege and freedom. For someone with so much status, I had no power. I lived at the pleasure of the crown.”
For all that he had forgotten, he remembered the day a guard shot his childhood dog in front of him because he had questioned a request from the king. The things and people he cared about came to harm when he disobeyed.
“I said that I was given the fortress,” he sighed. “The complete truth is, it was given to me so that I could live here, not as a home but as a prison, long before I met any Rivan sorceresses. My wife was just an excuse.”
“Oh, Baró.” Rivani stroked his cheek and then furrowed her brows. “Did you not say that you led your brother’s armies?”
“No. I was raised with the intention to lead them. I participated in campaigns, but I did not command. My mother came from the South and so everyone assumed I favored her in looks as I aged. But when I showed undeniable signs of Rivan parentage, I was sent here as a prisoner of state.”
“Were you a great warrior?”
His mouth twisted wryly. “I looked marvelous adorned in fine raiment atop a horse, but no, I was groomed for strategy,” until that strategic mind threatened Luca. “I told you, I was a military engineer, useful only if you needed something fixed or erected.”
Rivani stroked his chest and traced the pathways of his scars.
“Ah, so my Varnasian prince and Rivan god was sent to the provinces because of the political implications of his existence.”
“And the threat I posed to my dynastic line.”
“Your life has been exalted and damned all because of your potential. That’s almost cruel.
” Rivani stared at his chest, her mind far beyond it.
“Arturo de Vacca is lauded as a hero cut down before his time in the Rivan campfire stories, but in the rest of history, you’re probably only known as ‘the younger brother of King Luca.’”
“There’s likely not even a portrait of me in the capital or hidden away in a cellar or attic. I’m an embarrassment eagerly erased from the record.”
“I always knew you were Someone.” She shook herself from her thoughts. “And you are. The Fir’Darl. And soon to be my powerful, beautiful lover. No matter what your past, what we have now is precious.” She slid her hands up his body and settled herself atop him, nuzzling her face against his neck.
“So,” she continued, teasing, “if you were a military engineer, would it be fair to say that you are capable of impressive erections?”
“That was dreadful.”
Rivani laughed and kissed him. Then bit his collarbone.
“You have told me that you are mine, Baró. I hope you know, I am yours too.”
His breath caught in his throat. He shuddered when she moved her body down towards his thighs to better appreciate him and she stroked the fur of his abdomen down to the nest of curls.
She kissed his navel and his lower back arched beneath her.
When she positioned herself to take him in, their mutual whimpers and moans only served to enhance the urgency of their circumstances.
“I want to make you happy.” Rivani made eye contact with him as she set their pace.
“You make me happy.” He reached up and wove the tips of his claws through her hair, cradling her cheek in the process.
When she smiled at him and put her hand over his, his body engaged elsewhere, he forgot who and what he was.
He forgot to see fur and claws. He forgot to be ashamed.
Nothing in the world existed except her.
Except them. Except their shared desire.
And for one brief glorious moment, with their bodies joined and her eyes full of affection, he felt himself as she declared him: beautiful.