Chapter 25 #2
His voice broke into something not quite a laugh, his hands twisting tighter together, and somehow, Raye’s own hand snaked out across the table. Brushing against Kalfr’s hard knuckles, light and skittering, before snapping away again.
Kalfr’s hand spasmed at the touch, his eyes darting up toward Raye’s, holding under long black lashes.
Not condemning her, not hating her, at least not in this moment, so Raye gulped in a breath and slid her hand back toward him, catching on his knuckles, feeling the warmth and strength beneath his skin.
And he didn’t pull away either, though his eyes dropped toward their hands, his swallow bobbing in his throat.
“It was not… good,” he continued. “Not from the very start. I have spent much time with my brothers’ human mates these past summers, so I thought I knew what to expect… but Sybil was not like any of them. She was not like any human I have ever met.”
Gaelfr paused his pacing, listening, his gaze fixed to where Raye’s hand was still curled over Kalfr’s on the table.
But when Raye reflexively drew her hand away again, Gaelfr met her eyes, and gave a purposeful jerk of his head.
Ordering her to keep touching Kalfr, surely — so Raye again drew up her courage, and settled her hand back against Kalfr’s, spreading her fingers wider against his.
And he didn’t even twitch this time, and his shoulders settled a little, too.
“Really?” she asked, quiet. “I mean, surely this Sybil couldn’t have been worse than me?”
She tried to make it light, like a joke, but Gaelfr’s words were still too close, too painful. I should never have dreamt he could find worse than you. And even now, Raye could almost feel Gaelfr’s recognition of the words, maybe even his wholehearted agreement.
But Kalfr’s mouth spasmed, and he jerked a sharp shrug. “With you, at least I could follow how you felt, and what you feared, and what you wished for,” he said, toward their hands. “I may not have liked this, or agreed with this, but I understood this. Understood you. But with her…”
Raye leaned forward toward him, her heartbeat skipping, her eyes searching his face. And her hand had begun stroking his, just a little, smoothing against those hard knuckles, the quivering tension of his fingers beneath.
“With Sybil, her words never matched her scent,” he continued.
“She would preen and smile and speak sweetly to me, and reek of bitterness and rage. She would speak what I knew to be falsehoods, and reek of truth and sadness. She would touch me and beg for me, and reek of jealousy and hatred. I was not with her long, mayhap a week, but it felt…”
He grimaced, shook his head. “It felt as though I was… attacking her,” he rasped.
“As though I was forcing her to my bed, even though she begged and prodded and pushed me upon this. She would not leave me be, she would not cease touching me and clinging to me, and whenever I sought to turn aside, she would sulk and weep and tell me dark tales of all the men who had wronged her, and beg for my love. And only then would she scent of truth, when she was weeping in my arms, and then I would seek to soothe and comfort her, and…”
His hands spasmed beneath Raye’s, his mouth contorting.
“And then she would tear at my clothes, and beg for my son, and reek of longing and rage and murder. As if she truly wished to have my son, but only so she could wield him against me, and destroy me. Even after she had gained what she had come for, and killed me, and all my kin.”
And now it was Raye cursing under her breath, because damn it, that would have been yet another perfect, horrible strike against Kalfr, wouldn’t it? A woman seeking to have his son, so she could hurt him. Destroy him, even after his own death.
“But I sought not to cast judgement upon her,” Kalfr added, faster now, “for I was seeking to deceive her in turn, ach? But then” — he exhaled a harsh breath — “one of our kin who did not know of the scheme came upon us, and believed her to be my true mate, and spoke to her of… you. Of my former weaver mate, and my son.”
Raye winced, while across the room Gaelfr stilled, and strode back toward them with jerky steps. “And what did this Sybil do?” he demanded, though he softened the words with a gentle grip against Kalfr’s stiff shoulder. “She was angry?”
Kalfr huffed a sound that might have been a laugh, or a groan.
“She smiled, and petted me, and behaved as though she had always known of you,” he replied.
“But I could taste her shock, and her pain, and the jealous bitter rancour of her rage. For it seems” — his shoulders sagged beneath Gaelfr’s grip — “I had somehow earned her trust and her longing, amidst all this. And then… I betrayed her. I hurt her. And thus, I gained a lifelong enemy, not only for me, but… for you. For Svein.”
For them. For Svein. Raye’s hand tightened on Kalfr’s knuckles, her eyes snapping up to Gaelfr. To where he had both hands on Kalfr’s shoulders now, caressing him, even as his jaw spasmed, and his eyes flashed with blazing fury.
“And then?” he asked. “Tell us, ástin mín.”
Kalfr sighed, his shoulders rising and falling under Gaelfr’s hands.
“Our kin finally found another way to stop the attack, without launching us into yet more war,” he said wearily.
“And once the farce was done, and Sybil learnt she would not have the pleasure of watching me die a slow death upon her poison, she swore she would yet wreak vengeance upon me. She swore she would destroy me. She swore she would track my scent, and then she went and —”
His chest heaved, and he snatched his hands away from Raye’s, and covered his face. As if he was about to weep, and Raye couldn’t stand to see him weep, not again. Not now, not after all this, she wanted him to be at peace, at pleasure…
Her panicked eyes darted up to Gaelfr’s, and he looked just as unsettled as she felt.
His hands tightened against Kalfr’s heaving shoulders, his mouth thin and bitter and furious.
And his own shoulders rose and fell as his eyes flicked down to Kalfr, and back up to Raye.
Holding her gaze with something like consideration, or like… a challenge.
“My ástvinur needs tending, woman,” he said, curt and decisive. “So you will now kneel before him, and cover this foul woman’s scent with your own.”