Chapter 20
Hannalinde
She had been shocked. Of course she had been.
The object, as he called it, was not the shocking part, although it elicited a strange mix of excitement and dread when she looked at it.
No, her shock was the knowledge that every gargoyle she’d assumed was asleep during the day, stonelike on a rooftop or the parapets of the tower, was actually fully aware. The safety she’d assumed that daylight granted her was just an illusion.
Her hunter, her tormenter…he might watch her every day as she went about her business in the city. He might track her movements, learn her friends. See the shape of her body changing as his child grew inside her.
She shuddered with revulsion. She could not venture out again now that she knew.
However, the awareness of Rikard’s consciousness was actually quite pleasing.
Rather than making her feel exposed to have him observe her in her private spaces and habits, it made her feel safer.
Not only was he watching—watching closely, if he was to be believed—it was quite harmless to flirt with him when he could not reach for her, when she knew it would not provoke him to pounce on her or touch her in return.
She was…emboldened. Now, when she passed him on his roost, she let her fingers brush his. When she dressed, she made sure it was in view of his frozen form. Now, when she touched herself to relieve these unfamiliar aches, her whispered words were for his ears, too.
When he woke in the evenings, he did not mention it. He merely greeted her with a kiss on her forehead and called her beautiful. Inquired what the keepers had brought on the evening tray. Ate with her and talked and joked. He did not ask for anything, as he had promised.
However, bold as this might make her, she had not quite worked up the courage to use his gift.
The basket sat beside her sewing chair, tempting her.
She wondered how its firm length and carved texture would feel against her more sensitive places.
She feared the feeling of it entering her.
Would it be like the other times? Would it make her feel pinned and pained, the way she had on those terrifying, lonely nights when her hunter found her?
But somehow, some part of her knew it wouldn’t. It couldn’t, not if it came from her husband. The thought of using it at her own pace, with her own hands, made her yearn to try it.
Rikard would like to see it, she was sure. And she did not mind him seeing it. But she did mind him seeing her fall apart and cry when he was helpless to comfort her, and she suspected she would, especially the first time. She needed his arms to hold her together.
There was only one solution, then. He would have to be awake when she tried the first time.
When Rikard returned home in the small hours, Carlijn, drunk and dizzy on Lucan’s attention, had gone to bed, but the keepers had not yet delivered the morning tray. The lamp burned low, casting its amber pool across the table, just enough light that Hannalinde could stitch.
He stood beside her, watching her work for several minutes before he spoke. “It’s early. I did not think you would be awake yet.”
She turned her head to smile up at him. “Did you hope to watch me sleep?”
He nodded gravely. “And wake. Why did you wait up for me?”
She considered the coy answer and the honest one, and decided that coyness did not suit her. “Because I was thinking of your gift. Of using it. It made me restless, and I wished to quell that restlessness as soon as you returned.”
He exhaled in a gust, apparently surprised by her frankness. “I see. Are you ready?”
She rose and put away her sewing things in the nesting chamber while she thought of her answer. When she had it, she stood before him. “I believe I am, but I cannot promise how it will feel. What my body wants and what my mind can endure may be two different things.”
“I understand very well what you mean. Perhaps better than most.” Rikard unbuckled his wing straps so their remains could hang loose. “Bodies heal or they don’t. They have pain or they don’t. The mind is not so straightforward, is it? One day it’s strong, another weak.”
“The heart, too,” she murmured, putting her hand over her own, where it was thundering. “Today mine feels very strong, though. Stronger because you are with me. So let us test it.”
“Ah, wife.” Rikard pulled her into his side and kissed the top of her head. “You would be amazed at the resilience of even the most shattered heart.”
He had to know. His had been in pieces. If his could repair, then so could hers.
She fetched the basket and joined him in the nest, sitting cross-legged with it in her lap. Slowly, she drew back the linen.
The carved phallus gleamed in the humble wicker container. In the lamplight, the polished bone looked like gold. She ran her fingertip along its ridged length and felt her core clench.
“It’s surprisingly warm,” she remarked, taking it out. Rikard’s breath hissed out as he watched her wrap two hands around it, caressing the smooth carving. “What would you like me to do with it?”
He shook his head. “Whatever you do with it, or don’t, is your choice, as it is when I am in daysleep.”
The warmth in his voice was the same warmth that had been there during his mead-soaked confession. But tonight he wasn’t drinking. Tonight, the warmth was all his, not a honeyed dream.
“But I want to please you, too,” she protested. That was why he’d hired harlots before they married. Perhaps he still did. He could not perform, but he liked to watch them perform.
“You do.” His voice dropped, not in volume but in register. “You please me the most when you are simply yourself. Wanting. Feeling. That is when you are the most beautiful to me.”
The flush had reached her hairline. Even her ears were hot.
“If I say stop,” she said, hugging the phallus to her chest, “you stop watching.”
“I’ll close my eyes immediately.”
“If I say something embarrassing, you won’t repeat it.”
“I never would.”
“If I cry afterward, you won’t ask why.”
He nodded slowly and opened his arms to her. “I’ll know why.”
“I’m going to feel ridiculous,” she said, leaning into him as they both tipped into the furs.
“You’re going to feel whatever you feel.” His voice was low and unhurried as he stroked her arm. “And I’m going to be here.”
She drew an unsteady breath. Unlacing her bodice, she loosened the fabric until it slipped off one shoulder. The air touched the gnarled scar of her mating bite and cooled the flush that splotched her chest and neck.
His lips grazed her shoulder, and the delicate thrum of his purr started. The sound was warm and tactile, vibrating through her like a plucked string, and it settled into the low places in her body where the heat was already gathering.
She pulled the front of her shift lower to expose her breasts, which were fuller than they’d been before the pregnancy, the nipples darker and taut. Rikard’s purr stuttered and resumed at a deeper pitch.
“You are extraordinary,” he said, not touching her except where she leaned against him. “So brave.”
She would have denied it if the compliment came from anyone else, but the way he said it destroyed her doubt.
Leaving the phallus in the furs, she gathered the hem of her shift, bunching it past the swell of her belly, until she was bare from the ribs down. Her thighs closed reflexively, not from modesty or shame, but an instinct to protect herself, like a hand covering a wound.
She closed her eyes. Breathed and counted behind her dark lids. One. Two. Three.
“I’m here,” Rikard said in her ear. “Nothing happens that you don’t choose.”
When she felt brave enough, she let her knees fall apart and opened her eyes.
The air touched her private places, and she shivered, but the shiver melted away under his gaze. She could feel Rikard’s attention like sunlight, warming the surface. His purr wrapped around her like an embrace as she brought the bone phallus between her legs.
She held it against her inner thigh like a lover would, letting her ardor increase.
The smooth surface was nothing like a hand or a body.
It was neutral, carrying no history except Rikard’s thoughtfulness.
She ran it slowly along the crease of her thigh, letting the sensation register without the painful edge of memory.
“How does it feel?” Rikard asked, his breath stirring her hairline and tickling her ear.
“Warm and smooth, like silk.” She used it to trace the outer edge of her sex, and her breath caught. “I feel your purr through it.”
The sound scraped to a halt. “Does that bother you?”
“No. It makes me feel... held. Even though you’re not touching me, you are.”
The purr swelled anew. She closed her eyes, letting the sound wash over her.
With her eyes shut, the world contracted to sensation: the velvet texture of the pelts beneath her, the cool air on her exposed skin, the warm bone in her hand, and the steady, vibration of her husband’s happiness, who wouldn’t touch her but was present in every other way a body could be present.
She eased the tip of the phallus against her entrance.
The stretch was modest, and she was slick enough that the bone glided with minimal resistance.
It didn’t hurt at all. She pressed it deeper, an inch, then two, and the fullness was startling.
A sensation she’d forgotten could exist without pain.
A sound escaped her, soft and involuntary, and Rikard shifted behind her restlessly.
When she glanced back at him, his gray eyes were fixed on her face, not the phallus. Not her bare breasts or exposed belly, but her face, as though her expression were the most important part of what was happening.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered, afraid of the answer.
“I was thinking that you’re blooming like the roses in your window box. The ones you salvaged from Lamont House. It is beautiful to witness.”