8. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Samhail
Samhail barely made it back to his quarters in time after leaving the great room.
He summoned a towel from the bathing chamber, fumbled to get his pants open, and yanked them down his hips before thumping heavily into one of the armchairs in his room.
It only took two strokes of his hand before he exploded into the towel, gritting his teeth to hold back the roar that threatened to erupt along with his seed.
He pleasured himself twice more before his lust subsided enough to keep him from getting hard all over again.
The first time, he let himself imagine Cyra’s mouth slipping over him as she knelt there before him on the floor.
He remembered all too well from their two previous times together what it felt like to have her lips wrapped around him as her tongue ran up his length.
He remembered the soft moans she made as her head bobbed over his groin, and her whimpers when she tried to press him deeper into her mouth.
The next two times, he envisioned climbing between her legs and thrusting into the slick warmth of her sheath.
He started out gently – he always needed to be gentle with the women he bedded – but by the last time, not even his fantasy could contain his lust, and he imagined driving wildly into Cyra as she cried out with pleasure beneath him.
He avoided Bressen and Cyra the rest of that day. He skipped lunch and didn’t come down for dinner. Instead, he raided the kitchen after dark, nearly scaring the cook half to death when the man came to investigate the banging cabinets and clinking plates.
He also couldn’t sleep that night. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw Cyra’s face hovering above his cock, ready to take him into her mouth, and he got hard all over again.
He knew he still desired Cyra. She felt so good around his cock, and he loved the soft moans she made when he thrust into her.
Both times he’d had her, he wanted her again almost immediately.
But he’d known from the first time he saw her together with Bressen that there was something far stronger than lust between them, and he wouldn’t come between that.
Something had been different with Cyra this time, though. It was her, but…not her, and he tried to pinpoint exactly what was off as he lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
Her scent was different for one. Cyra usually smelled of jasmine and almond, but what he’d smelled this time was citrusy, like the lemon verbena that infused the air in the summer near his childhood home, and it stirred a longing in him.
He thought he’d smelled that scent somewhere else recently, but he couldn’t place where.
He’d have to ask Cyra, eventually, if she’d changed the soap she used to bathe.
Her scent was only the most obvious difference, though. Something had felt different about Cyra as well, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. There was something…missing?
Then there was the way she’d touched him.
Cyra could be bold behind closed doors on occasion, but she’d never been an aggressive woman, especially out in the open.
The Cyra who ran her hands down his chest, sat on his lap, then rubbed her ass against his cock simply wasn’t the Cyra he was used to.
Cyra wasn’t a seductress, but that’s exactly what she’d been doing today. Seducing him.
That was the biggest problem.
The confident, sensuous Cyra who’d approached him today in the great room had stirred his blood in a way she never had before.
It was almost as if she’d been someone different, and the urge to throw her down on that table, rip off her clothes, and fuck her until she screamed his name had haunted him all day.
He normally controlled his lust well enough, but it had taken all his strength to push her away when she’d dropped to her knees and pulled out his cock.
He didn’t understand why she’d done it. Cyra loved Bressen with all her heart, and Samhail had a hard time believing she’d jeopardize her relationship with her husband just to suck his cock.
Even if she’d changed her mind about their last time being the last, she knew they couldn’t do anything without Bressen there.
She was the wife of his oldest friend, and that wasn’t a line he’d cross.
It made him angry the more he thought about it.
It had taken him weeks to quell the desire he felt for Cyra, but he’d done it.
Yet it had taken barely more than a brush of her hand against his neck to reignite that wanting.
It was cruel of her to make him want her again, and he felt betrayed by her teasing.
Regardless, he’d let things go way too far. He shouldn’t have kissed her back, but he loved the way she’d taken charge. She usually let him dominate her when they kissed, but she’d plunged her tongue into his mouth like she owned it, owned him, and he’d surrendered fully.
Samhail
Samhail avoided Bressen and Cyra the following day as well.
Cyra went to the vineyard again in the morning, so it saved him from having to cancel their training, but he did cancel his sparring session that afternoon with Bressen.
He took his meals either before Bressen and Cyra arrived in the dining room or after they were done.
On the third day, he met them leaving the dining room just as he was coming in.
His eyes met Cyra’s as they passed each other, but she didn’t seem the least bit phased by what had happened in the great room.
He expected to see her grin at him or look ashamed or at least blush, but he saw nothing in her expression to suggest she was thinking about what she’d done… about what they’d done.
“Samhail, I have some business to take care of this morning while Cyra is at the vineyard,” Bressen said, drawing his attention, “but I need to speak with you after lunch.”
Bressen looked serious, and Samhail cursed inwardly. Had Cyra finally told him what happened? Would Bressen beat the shit out of him for it? Throw him in the dungeon? Attack his mind until he was nothing but a drooling pile of flesh?
“Of course,” he said and thanked the gods his voice sounded steady.
Samhail tried to eat after Cyra and Bressen left, but his gut roiled with the uncertainty of his upcoming meeting with Bressen. He couldn’t avoid what had happened any longer. He needed to confront Cyra.
He should’ve told Bressen about what happened already, but he’d wanted to ask Cyra first why she’d done it. He needed to do that now. He needed to know what he was walking into with Bressen this afternoon.
After forcing down some breakfast, Samhail went outside, let his wings unfurl behind him, and launched into the sky toward Cyra’s vineyard.
He’d gone with Bressen and Cyra once to look at the place when they were still negotiating with the owner, and he remembered generally where it was.
It wasn’t far by flying, and twenty minutes later, he started his descent toward the rows of vines that striped the land in neat rows.
He was almost to the vineyard’s manor house when something slammed into him from above and made him drop several feet in the air.
Pain shot down his back and through his wings as something pulled at the joint where they connected, and he roared as he reached behind him to grab whatever it was.
His hand found a head of short hair over his shoulder, and he gripped just enough to yank it forward.
A pained grunt sounded above him, but the weight on his back and the pressure on his wings didn’t ease.
Without being able to beat his wings, Samhail was dropping in the sky, the open wings catching just enough air to barely slow his fall. He gave a second hard yank on the hair in his hand, and something kicked off his lower back to separate itself from him.
Free of whoever or whatever had been on top of him, Samhail beat his wings furiously to slow his descent.
He managed to get just enough loft at the last minute to keep from crashing into the ground, but he landed hard and stumbled forward to trip onto the grass.
He was up a second later with his swords drawn, scanning the skies.
He swung around just in time to see something large barrel toward him before it hit him.
The blow knocked both the swords from his hands as well as the breath from his lungs.
Hands free, Samhail grabbed at the body on top of him and rolled with it, forcing it beneath him. He raised a huge fist, ready to bring it down into his attacker’s face, but he pulled up short when he saw who was grinning up at him.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Samhail asked in shock as he stared down at his younger brother, Surgeon.
The other gargoyle chuckled. “You’ve lost your edge, brother,” Surgeon said to him. “We never would have been able to get the drop on you like this so easily years ago.”
Samhail growled and sunk his fist into Surgeon’s stomach instead of his face. Surgeon grunted and coughed hard, but Samhail felt better to have expended some anger. Then something clicked in his head.
“Wait, did you say ‘we?’” Samhail asked, but he knew the answer even before something else slammed into him from his blindside.
The force knocked him off Surgeon and sent him tumbling over the ground. He came to rest on his back with his wings pinned under him, and he was about to rise when the blade of one of his own swords appeared at his neck.
A tall, well-muscled woman with long white hair like his own stood above him. Her eyes were the same deep brown as their father’s, as opposed to the midnight blue ones he’d gotten from their mother.
“He’s definitely getting old and slow,” his sister Serise drawled from above him. “We could’ve killed you twice over by now, Samhail.”
Samhail glared up at the woman standing with her great, leathery wings outstretched behind her.
“Do you want to cry mercy, brother?” Serise cooed at him.