47. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Talyn
“How bad is it?” Samhail asked her, his voice surprisingly hoarse.
Talyn scanned his body quickly but didn’t see any wounds. The blood coating his hands, arms, and chest didn’t appear to be his own.
“It’s only a scratch,” she said as her wince belied the statement. It wasn’t too bad considering, but it was more than a scratch.
Samhail lifted Talyn’s hand off her stomach. There were three jagged rips across her shirt, and beneath them Talyn felt the burn of torn flesh.
“Not all of that blood is mine,” she assured him. “Really, it’s not bad.”
Samhail ignored her and scooped her up into his arms as easily as if she were a doll. He turned and headed toward the heart of the camp.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“The pavilion in the center,” he said. “I’m hoping they have medical supplies there.”
“I told you, it’s just a scratch,” she said.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, his voice angry. “And the next time I tell you to stay out of the way, stay out of the way.”
“I wasn’t in the way,” she snapped back.
“You weren’t paying attention, and that thing almost slashed you open. If you’re going to stand there and fantasize about me, make sure you do it where it’s safe.”
Talyn let out an indignant cry. “I wasn’t fantasizing about you!”
“If you say so. Either way, you were somewhere you didn’t need to be. I told you I could handle this.”
“I may not have taken out as many soldiers as you did,” she said with irritation, “but I took out my fair share of them.”
“I can see that,” he said as they passed some of the bodies that bore the evidence of her blades. Samhail’s tone suggested he was impressed.
They reached the large tent in the center of camp, and Samhail slipped inside with Talyn in his arms. The air was warm, and Talyn let herself relax against his body.
He looked around to be sure no one was there, then strode for a large table in the center of the room.
He perched Talyn on the edge of it, then swept the maps and other papers off it before pushing her further onto it.
Without a word, he grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled the garment over her head.
“Hey!” she yelled. “A little warning please before you start pulling my clothes off.”
Talyn tried to swat him away, but Samhail ignored her and pressed her down onto the table with a hand to her shoulder before once again pulling away the arm she’d crossed over her stomach.
“Let me see the wound,” he said, and he leaned down to examine it closely. He let out a breath. “It’s not as bad as I was afraid.”
“I told you,” she grumbled.
“It still needs to be cleaned and dressed,” he said as he looked around the tent again.
Apparently finding what he was looking for, Samhail stalked off toward one corner, and Talyn bit her lip as she watched the muscular swells of his backside flex while he walked. Nemesis take her, she’d never seen an ass like that before.
Samhail grabbed a box of medical supplies off a pile of other boxes, then Talyn was treated to the front view of him coming back. His thigh muscles flexed with every step, and his cock hung long and thick, even without being erect.
She bit her lip. How had she ever resisted him this long?
Samhail seemed oblivious to Talyn’s blatant staring as he set the medical box down next to her on the table and opened it up to look inside.
“Do you see water around anywhere?” he asked, looking up again.
They both scanned the tent.
“There,” Talyn said, pointing to a large canteen sitting on a table.
Samhail strode across the room to retrieve it, also grabbing a cloth, possibly a shirt, that lay over a chair.
He opened the canteen and poured some water over his hands and arms as he walked, then wiped his hands on the shirt.
He repeated this again until his hands were as clean as they could be without a bath.
When he got back to her, Samhail poured some of the water over her stomach to rinse away the blood, then wiped the wound with a clean part of the shirt.
Talyn winced as the water stung the wounds but didn’t say anything.
Samhail pulled some clean cloths and wraps out of the medical box, as well as a bottle of alcohol.
“This will probably hurt,” he said and poured some of the alcohol across the slashes on her stomach without warning.
This time Talyn cried out and sat up as she tried to clutch her hand across her stomach again, but Samhail caught her wrist before she could.
“You need to keep your hands away from the wound or I’m going to tie you down,” he said.
Heat flashed in Talyn’s eyes. “Promises, promises,” she said with a wicked grin. “Now who’s fantasizing?”
Samhail met her eyes with an answering flare that sent desire scorching through her body.
They just stared at each other for a long moment before Samhail let out a slow breath.
He put his hands on either side of the table around her and leaned in close so his lips were near her ear.
Talyn shivered as his breath tickled the wisps of hair at her temple, but she refused to pull back from him.
He wasn’t touching her, but it felt like he was.
Her skin prickled with his nearness, and she struggled to keep her breathing even.
“Are you sure it’s just my fantasy and not yours as well?” he asked huskily. “Are you sure you wouldn’t secretly love it if I tied you to this table, spread your thighs wide, and made you come over and over again on my tongue until you begged me to stop?”
Talyn clamped her mouth shut as quivers of excitement danced through her.
His words struck her like lightning, and she decided it was better not to answer him.
She looked away, and he chuckled softly as he ran his nose up the side of her cheek and puffed a hot breath against her ear.
Talyn couldn’t hold back the full-body shiver that rolled over her, and Samhail hummed approvingly as he pressed a clean cloth to her wound.
“Hold this,” he said softly.
Talyn obeyed, pressing her hand over the cloth to hold it in place, and Samhail pulled back to wind a roll of gauze around her mid-section. He stopped as he caught sight of her arm.
“Why didn’t you tell me your arm was hurt as well?” he asked.
“Because it’s even less of a wound than this is,” she said. “You’ve probably cut yourself worse shaving.”
Samhail growled low in his throat and finished winding the gauze around her waist before he picked up the alcohol again to address her arm. His touch was surprisingly gentle, soft enough that the brush of the callouses on his hands gave her gooseflesh.
Samhail stopped as the bumps rose on her skin. He didn’t move for several seconds as he looked at her arm. He ran a thumb lightly over the bumps, and they peaked even more over her skin.
“Are you cold?” he asked softly.
“No,” she said, and several more seconds slipped by while they looked at each other.
“If either of these get infected,” Samhail said as he went back to attending her arm, “scratches or not, they’ll become a much bigger problem. I’d have thought you of all people would understand that.”
Talyn saw his eyes dart over her upper body, lingering here and there on the various scars that adorned her arms and torso.
She remembered being surprised he had so few scars on his own body, but she understood why now.
He likely did much of his fighting in his gargoyle form, which seemed impervious.
Her eyes fell to the new scars on his side and stomach from the crossbow bolts. She saw only a couple other scars besides those, and she made a mental note to ask him about them at some point.
His scars weren’t the only thing that drew her eyes, though. The wide expanse of his smooth, golden chest held her gaze as she watched his muscles ripple while he worked on her.
Nemesis take her. She couldn’t not touch him.
Talyn raised her hand and placed it on the pectoral muscle over his heart. His body went rigid, and he stopped wrapping gauze around her arm. Both of them seemed to realize at the same time he was standing between her legs where they hung off the table.
“Is something wrong?” he asked as he finished tying off the gauze. His voice was strained.
Talyn didn’t answer but trailed her hand down his chest, making sure to let her finger flick over his nipple.
Samhail’s entire body jerked at the touch, and he let out a low groan.
Her hand continued lower, savoring every bump and dip of the taunt muscles of his stomach as they clenched tightly under her fingers.
“I just realized why you have so few scars,” she said. “Your gargoyle form, it’s…” She searched for the right word.
“Disturbing?” he supplied.
She raised her face to his in surprise and shook her head. “No. It’s magnificent,” she breathed, and Samhail sucked in a breath.
Talyn’s hand continued lower, and his eyes widened as she reached his groin.
Her hand closed around the base of his cock, and he grunted loudly, closing his eyes.
She felt him harden beneath her touch, and he leaned forward to brace his arms on the sides of the table as she stroked her hand slowly up his length.
The skin there was like silk over stone, and a pleasing pressure built between Talyn’s legs as she remembered the feel and taste of him in her mouth.
She heard the sound of cracking wood and glanced down to see Samhail’s hands nearly splintering the sides of the table.
She leaned forward so her face was right next to his.
She heard the raggedness of his breathing and felt the warmth of it on her shoulder.
It brought on a fresh wave of gooseflesh.
She’d wanted him for so long, yet she’d felt like she needed to deny herself the pleasure of touching him. All of a sudden it made no sense, and her hand instinctively closed more tightly around his cock.
“Talyn,” Samhail groaned, his voice a desperate, hoarse whisper. He thrust his hips involuntarily against the table “Gods above, I can’t-”