Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Briar sneered and stepped closer. This time, Seraphina stood her ground, her hands going behind her back, fingers wrapping around the hilts of her daggers.
The gesture wasn’t lost on Briar, who crowded her and spat on the ground.
Seraphina felt the spit hit the toe of her boot.
She pulled out her daggers and held them crossed in front of her heaving chest.
“Back off,” she scowled at Briar. “Don’t make me do this.”
“Make you do what? I’ve always beat your ass in sparing.”
“This wouldn’t be sparing.”
“So, you’re saying you were letting me win?”
Seraphina clenched her jaw. She wasn’t saying anything. She had never let Briar win, had always given her all in their training. She hoped today was the day she outperformed her master. She also hoped said master would have a last-minute change of heart.
“You’re choosing a monster over me?”
“No, Briar. I’m choosing me over you.”
Briar pulled out her own daggers, one from her belt, the other from her boot.
“So be it. What I didn’t tell you is that the Mother Superior tasked me with bringing the relic back, with or without you.”
She lunged first, her blade aimed at Seraphina’s ribs. Seraphina twisted away and brought her own dagger up to deflect the second strike that came fast behind it. Metal scraped metal, and Briar pressed forward, forcing Seraphina back three steps.
“Give up now,” Briar growled. “You can’t win this.”
Seraphina shoved hard with both blades crossed. Briar stumbled but recovered quickly. They circled each other. Briar feinted left before slashing right.
“Predictable,” Seraphina said, and ducked under the strike.
She drove her shoulder into Briar’s stomach. The air rushed out of Briar’s lungs, and Seraphina spun away before the counterstrike could land. She felt the blade whistle past her ear.
“Lucky,” Briar spat, and came at her again, faster.
One blade, then the other, high and low, a pattern Seraphina knew by heart. She gave ground and let her friend think she had the advantage.
“That all you got?” Briar sneered.
Seraphina waited. When Briar overextended on a downward slash, she sidestepped and dragged her dagger across her forearm. Blood welled up through the torn sleeve.
Briar hissed and switched her grip.
“You bitch.”
“You taught me that move,” Seraphina said.
She didn’t give her time to breathe. She pressed forward with a combination Briar had drilled into her for months, strikes that used to leave her arms aching. Briar blocked the first two but the third caught her across the thigh.
“Fuck,” she gasped.
Seraphina kicked her wounded leg out from under her. Briar went down on one knee and tried to rise but Seraphina was already there. She kicked one dagger out of her hand and slashed down across her shoulder. Briar cried out and dropped the second blade.
“Stay down,” Seraphina said.
She kicked the second dagger away and stood over her friend, both blades at her throat, chest heaving.
Briar pressed a hand to her shoulder where blood seeped between her fingers, then slumped and fell on her side, bleeding into the dirt.
“You’ve gotten better,” she said, and there was surprise in her voice, maybe even an edge of pride.
“No, I haven’t practiced,” Seraphina said bitterly. “I just got more determined.”
“Because of him?”
Seraphina pursed her lips, thinking better of revealing her feelings to someone who was supposed to be her friend but wasn’t behaving accordingly anymore.
“He’s not who you think he is,” Briar tried one last time, weakly. She was sobbing with pain, and Seraphina was certain there were tears mixing with the blood. “Sera, he looks like... like he was sewn in hell... from the bodies of sinners.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She left Briar where she was lying, calculating that she was bleeding too heavily to try and attack her again. She bent down where she saw the shadows of Briar’s daggers, picked them up and threw them in the lake.
“Fuck you,” Briar wailed.
“Unchristian words from someone who lives at a convent.”
“I’m not a nun, and in these dark times, God will forgive a foul mouth.”
“Keep telling yourself what you need to hear.” Seraphina stomped over to Briar and kicked her in the shin, though not hard.
“Leave me and Rune alone. Go back to Saint Vivia’s and tell the Mother Superior you lost my track.
Better yet, tell her I threw myself in the Danube and the relic is lost along with my body.
Given my past attempts, that’s an easy story to believe. ”
Briar gave a laugh that turned into a groan. “Isn’t it enough that I have a foul mouth? You also want me to lie?”
“I want you to let this go. Let me go.”
Briar shook her head, but Seraphina was done with the conversation.
She’d spoken her mind, proven that she was ready to defend her choices, if need be, and there was no reason for her to linger.
Rune was waiting for her. She’d been gone too long, and she imagined him paralyzed with fear that she wouldn’t return.
Seraphina turned on her heel and started toward the forest.
“You’re following a devil,” Briar yelled after her.
“Maybe I am the devil,” she shot back.
She picked up the pace until she was sprinting, her brain working twice as hard to catch up with the blurry shadows of the trees and bushes the relic showed her to keep her from tripping and breaking something.
The closer she got to the inn, the more nervous she felt.
Briar wasn’t going to give up that easily.
She’d drag herself somewhere, lick her wounds, and buy herself new blades.
She’d take a few days to recover, but then she’d be on Seraphina’s and Rune’s tracks once more, which meant that their comfortable time at the White Horse was over.
They’d stalled long enough, and it was time to get back on the mission and find a way to cross into enemy territory.
They didn’t have to leave tonight, but tomorrow. ..
She flung herself through the door and felt eyes on her, startled at her sudden appearance, but she cared about a single pair of eyes – blue, intense, filled with hurt at her having left him.
She’d imagined countless times what Rune’s eyes looked like.
All she knew was that when they bore into her, she felt them like licking flames on her skin.
He stood up when she stopped at their table, and she took his hand, interlaced their fingers, and pulled him toward the stairs, to their room.
“You were gone for hours,” he said in a trembling voice.
Seraphina didn’t know about that. Maybe she’d been gone for an hour or more, but not “hours” like he put it.
“Come here.”
Once the door was locked behind them, she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled him down next to her. She faced him, both hands reaching for him, cupped as if she wanted to place them on his cheeks. As he always did, he quickly grabbed her wrists and stopped her.
“No, no more of that,” she said, breathless from her run, but also from how fast her heart was beating for him. “Let me touch you, Rune. Let me know you.”
“No, Seraphina... Don’t make me.”
“I won’t, if you truly don’t want to. But I know, all right? I know about the stitches, and I don’t care. Tell me you don’t want this... Tell me you don’t want to feel my touch on your skin, your body, and I will let it go. I won’t ask again.”
“I...” His fingers tightened around her wrists. “Of course I want to feel your touch, but I... It wouldn’t be right, because you say you know about the stitches, but that’s only a small part of it, barely what’s on the surface. Skin-deep, flesh-deep... if you knew...” He shook his head.
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t.”
He sobbed, and she felt horrible for pushing him.
Her hands went limp, and he gently redirected them atop his knees.
Through the fabric of his wool pants, she couldn’t feel much, only a hint of a raised suture.
She pushed her palms higher on his thighs, waiting for him to protest. When he didn’t, she leaned over and moved higher, until her thumbs rested near his hip joints.
“All right, but will you let me touch you through your clothes? You made me feel good a few nights ago. I want to make you feel good too.”
He was silent for a long minute, and Seraphina felt him tremble under her warm palms. Inside him, his insecurities battled with his need for intimacy. They kept calling him creature. Briar had called him “that thing”. None of them saw the truth of him, that he was a human being with human longings.
“It would be unfair to you,” he murmured.
“No...” She palmed him through the thick fabric and felt him grow under her grip.
“It’s what I want. It will make me feel good too.
.. To know that I can make you feel good.
” She rubbed him up to the tip, then back down to the base, where she found his round sack and squeezed tentatively. “Only if you want it...”
“I do.” He let out a shuddering breath, his cock hardening and twitching, letting her know what she was doing to him. “If you’re certain...”
“I am.”
She scooted closer to him on the bed, using both her hands to feel and rub the length of his erection.
He leaned back, bracing himself on his hands as he let her explore him.
The fact that it was through his pants was bothersome and frustrating.
Seraphina licked her lips and wondered if he’d let her do more if she phrased it right.
“Do that again,” he whispered.
She inclined her head. “What?”
“Your lips... Lick your lips again.”
She smiled. His eyes were trained on her face, of course. Her tongue darted out, and she made a show of licking her lips slowly, wetting them, leaving them glistening for him to look at.
“I could do that...” she started, gripping his cock more firmly.
“If you let me, I could lick you here.” She swiped her thumb over the engorged head, and he bucked his hips.
She felt the dampness that was starting to form there.
“Your body may be covered in stitches, but this part of you shouldn’t be, right? ”
“Seraphina...” It was a plea and a warning.
She pressed her thumb against his slit, and she could swear she felt him gush.
“There’s one,” he said, voice low and careful. “It runs along... the underside...”
Her mouth hung open in shock. “How? Rune, what happened to you? Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll find out. Somehow. I’ve thought about it, and I’d like to know, I think. But I’m not sure where to start looking. Because I don’t know... what I’m actually looking for.”
“I will help you.” She pressed herself closer to him, her fingers inching toward the first button of his pants.
“No one says we can’t do two things at the same time.
We can seek revenge and answers. And when you find out, whatever it is, I won’t care then, like I don’t care now.
Nothing will make me change my opinion of you. My feelings for you...”
“Seraphina...” Now it was a plea and nothing else. Pure, raw, hinging on a prayer. “You can... Please...” He gasped when she undid the first button. “Only if you want...”
She fell to her knees on the floor and positioned herself between his legs. She shrugged off her cloak and pulled her dress over her head, suddenly feeling hot with so many layers on.
“I want to taste you.”
It was a promise to him, to her, to Briar, and to everyone who’d called him and would call him a creature and a thing. A promise that she would always choose him.