Chapter 58
Raye was giving up.
And even as the thought crunched and churned in her gut, suddenly it felt like the only option left.
She’d worked so hard, fought so hard, desperately tried to do everything right — and it still hadn’t worked.
Nothing had worked. Nothing had ever atoned for her sins, or earned their love.
I should never have dreamt he could find worse than you.
But now — how would she survive this, without them? What would she do next? She should have been more careful, she should never have allowed them to bring her loom and her livelihood here. She should have been thinking about Svein, only about Svein, she should have never trusted them, never…
She fumbled for the door latch, fought to yank it open — but it didn’t open. Didn’t budge. And when Raye blinked at it through her swimming eyes, she found — an arm. Gaelfr’s thick, rigid bare arm, holding the door shut, blocking her path.
Raye twitched, and followed the arm up to Gaelfr’s shoulder, his face. And though he still looked haggard and pale, there was now a familiar tightness on his jaw, a stubborn glint in his eyes.
“No,” he ground out. “Please, woman. I —”
His throat convulsed, and his eyes darted sideways. Holding, glimmering, as if silently pleading, with — oh. Kalfr. Who had come over to lean against the door too, his mouth set, his eyes unreadable.
“Speak this, Gael,” he said, though his voice was softer than before. “The truth.”
Gaelfr’s chest expanded and hollowed, his big body quaking. As if he was about to face a pitched battle, as if he had to fight for every word, every breath.
“I — I wished to be your mate, woman,” he finally gritted out. “I have always wished for this. From my first breath of your scent upon my ástvinur.”
What? Raye stared at Gaelfr, unblinking, while his mouth contorted, and he hauled in another ragged breath. “Do you not — do you not recall?” he croaked. “The reason Kalfr and I first fought that night, at your home? How I… I wished for this?”
Oh. Yes. It was forever burned into Raye’s memory, and it rose far too easily, unfurling behind her eyes. How Kalfr and Gaelfr had argued in the moonlight, and Gaelfr had claimed that Kalfr was his, and therefore Raye would be, too. And then — what had Kalfr said?
If she does not wish you to be part of this with us, then you shall not be.
Raye blinked, while those words repeated again, and again. You shall not be. You shall not be.
And when Gaelfr had kept arguing it that night, kept pressing his claim on Kalfr… Raye had just assumed he’d been right. It had never occurred to her that maybe — maybe Kalfr had been right, all along.
And that meant — Gaelfr really hadn’t been her mate, all this time. He hadn’t. He’d lied to her, too.
The misery felt like a blade, stabbing straight into Raye’s belly, but she couldn’t look away from Gaelfr’s drawn, ashen face. Waiting, her heart skipping, as he took another shaky, broken breath.
“But I knew you did not wish for me, woman,” he rasped. “You never wished for me. But when I came to you, and found you so weak, and in such danger, I feared for you. Feared you would push me away, when you needed help most. So I —”
He heaved for another breath, while Kalfr grasped his shoulder, stroking up and down.
As if reassuring him, encouraging him, despite everything Gaelfr had just confessed, despite Kalfr’s own anger and accusations from only moments before.
But it was helping, sagging Gaelfr’s shoulders, steadying his breath.
“So I — told you what I thought would most help,” he whispered to Raye. “What I… most wished to be true.”
What he’d most wished to be true. Raye’s thoughts had begun to feel sluggish, muddled, and it took a moment to digest that, to dredge up an answer.
“But you,” she began, “you didn’t actually want that with me, Gaelfr.
You didn’t” — she groped for words, for purchase — “you didn’t even want to touch me. You still don’t want to touch me!”
And yes, that had to be true, he’d refused to fuck her all this time. And he’d also called her stubborn, and greedy, and selfish. I should never have dreamt he could find worse than you…
But Gaelfr’s tired eyes gazed blankly back toward her, and he barked a sound not unlike a laugh.
“You cannot — believe that, woman,” he choked.
“Even when I first came to you, I could not stay away from you. Could not keep my hands from you. Ach, it was not even a full day before I drank your lifeblood, and touched inside you, and emptied my loins for you.”
Raye’s breath stilled, while the vision of Gaelfr’s first night at her cottage blared behind her eyes.
Gaelfr biting her neck, Gaelfr settling down onto the bed behind her, Gaelfr murmuring praises as he’d worked his fingers inside her, Gaelfr’s body gleaming in the firelight as he’d poured himself out into her washbasin…
“But,” Raye gasped, desperate now. “You said — you said I was jealous, and stubborn, and greedy! And you didn’t think Kalfr could ever find worse than me!”
Her voice grated painfully through the air, and before her, Kalfr let out a low hiss, his eyes narrowing on Gaelfr’s face.
But Gaelfr only kept gazing dully back at her, shaking his head.
“I was… wrong, to speak thus to you,” he replied, wooden.
“And I was speaking false to you, also. For any worthy Bautul woman should be stubborn and greedy and jealous thus, and guard her kin with such fierceness, ach? I was only… jealous, also. Angry. Foolish.”
What? No. That couldn’t be true. Gaelfr couldn’t mean all that. And he couldn’t have actually liked all those things about her… could he?
“I only — did not trust you, woman,” he continued, quieter. “And thus, I sought to keep my distance. To not betray the depth of my longing toward you.”
It was still taking Raye far too long to absorb all this, her thoughts twisting and churning. Gaelfr had really longed for her? He’d wanted her that much? Enough to lie to her about being her mate, all that time?
“But you really just wanted — Kalfr,” she finally countered, and yes, that was true, wasn’t it? “You only liked Kalfr’s — his scent on me. Remember? You told me that! Multiple times!”
Gaelfr let out another strangled almost-laugh, and jerked a shrug.
“Ach, I liked Kalfr’s scent upon you,” he replied, hoarse.
“I loved that. And I loved your soft, pretty form, and your wild Bautul hair, and your plump teats, and your hot, sweet womb. I longed to fill you, to plough you wide open upon me, to make you mine.”
Raye stared at him, shaking her head, incredulous — Gaelfr couldn’t really have thought that, all this time?! He loved how she’d looked, even back then? He loved her hair, her breasts, her womb? He wanted to fill her? To plough her? To make her his?
But as if to demonstrate his point, Gaelfr’s hand snapped out toward her, cupping just there between her legs, curving possessive and close. “And you were mine,” he breathed. “You know you were. You yet” — he lurched closer, gripped tighter — “you yet are.”
You yet are. And as Raye gaped back at him, her swirling, shouting thoughts couldn’t find a single counter, a single protest. Because yes, she’d always given this to him.
She’d always wanted this from him. Wanted his command, his ownership, his ridiculous assumptions and demands.
And what did that say about her, why had she been so willing to accept it, why was she still accepting it, in this moment?
But she was, she was, and Gaelfr knew it. Shoving his fingers a little further between her legs, pushing against the fabric of her dress — and when Raye betrayed a harsh gasp, a ferocious satisfaction flared in his eyes. “See?” he breathed. “Mine.”
Raye should have denied it, but instead, another shaky gasp escaped her mouth.
Flaring that satisfaction closer in Gaelfr’s strangely frenzied eyes, and when his other hand began yanking at her dress, tearing it off, she didn’t argue that, either.
Only stood there against the door, breathing hard, allowing him to bare her for him, to do whatever he pleased.
“Mine,” he breathed again, once he’d hurled the dress aside. “All of this is mine.”
Raye still didn’t try to argue it, just trembling against the door as Gaelfr’s fingers began slipping inside her, and his other hand rose to give her damnably peaked nipple a firm, familiar pinch.
“Like these pretty teats,” he murmured, with another pinch, a flick of his claw.
“Look at how full and fat I have made them. How they jiggle and dance for me.”
His hand now gave her breast a light, casual slap, indeed making it jiggle and bounce, and his other hand slipped out from between her legs, and rose up to join in on the other side, too.
Slapping, bouncing, and then caressing, kneading, squeezing, making the soft flesh bulge out between his fingers.
Handling her with shameless, brazen ownership, biting his lip as he watched.
“And you only wait, saeta,” Gaelfr breathed.
“Until you swell with my ástvinur’s seed.
Until you grow even fatter upon the best Bautul seed in all the realm, and reek even stronger of his scent.
I will scarce be able to fit these sweet teats in my hands, and when I squeeze them, they will leak for me, spurt for me —”
His voice broke into a groan, his eyes fluttering, and he gave her breast another greedy, hopeful squeeze, while his other hand slid down to Raye’s belly, gave its softness an approving squeeze, too.
“You shall swell so full for me,” he rasped.
“So full of my ástvinur, so ripe with his goodness, you shall near burst with his beauty and cleverness and strength. And how you shall look, how you shall scent, how you shall taste. How you shall feel when I fuck you and feed you, and you squeeze and squirm and squeal upon my prick. Ach.”