18
WHEN AERHRIL LEFT the barn, her palm still sticky with the remnants of Dathor’s release on her flesh, the memory of his fingers against her sex like some kind of promise that had been written into her core, she was not yet sure of him.
She had thought she would be.
She wondered if she would have been if she had convinced him to put his cock into her, if they had been truly joined, but she was happy enough not to have the worry of his getting her with child, so she did not think she would ever attempt to convince him to do such things to her, not unless things were different.
She did not know, then, how she could be sure of him.
She supposed that what Flaihir spoke of, the kind of love that made men desperate, it was not love that went both ways, because part of the sweetness of love was its risk, was its sense of being uncertain about the other person.
Not all of it, of course, for there was something different about surety, different about knowing someone would be loyal to you, come what may.
That sort of love, though, the sure kind, it could never be desperate, she did not think.
Desperation and risk went together. They were a pair.
She was desperate for Dathor and always had been, and it was partly because she could not quite ever be sure of him.
Even in the beginning, he had scoffed at the idea of their even being friends.
When he came back, he had acknowledged that they found each other attractive, but he had not seemed to think they could ever truly care for each other.
He had always held her off, frightened of truly loving her, she thought.
He did not trust her.
Therefore, she could never trust him.
And so, she sort of lied to him. Not entirely, she supposed, because she was willing to wait for him if he showed any sign of making himself worthy of her. But until that time, she would be foolish not to put her plan into motion with Flaihir.
Of course, she could not have his input, but perhaps she could simply observe him.
What had she done to catch his eye in the beginning, she wondered? Had she been kind to him first?
No, she realized. He had protected her from Celedin, and she had no notion why he’d done that.
One day, she asked him. They were finding ways to meet each other at night.
Sometimes—though this could not be too often, perhaps once every two weeks or so—he could leave a ladder that she could climb up and spend time with him in the stables.
Sometimes, they risked sneaking him up the stairs in the keep.
Sometimes it was the barn. Sometimes they walked off to find a little cavern under a rocky ledge, out behind the Peak.
She would bring blankets. He would build a fire.
But soon it would be too cold for such things.
“Why?” he said. “What kind of person would I be if I let a little blond slip of a thing like you be tormented by him?”
“So, it was just out of the goodness of your heart?” she said. “It didn’t have anything to do with me?”
“I suppose not.”
“There wasn’t anything you liked about me?” she said.
“You were a pretty little girl,” he said with a shrug. “But I had long ago learned that pretty little elf children tended to be cruel to me. You had those light-colored curls, I supposed. Maybe I thought that might make you different enough.”
No, she realized, that was not it. Well, perhaps being pretty did not hurt matters when it came to men.
The reason he’d protected her, though, was because of shared cruelty.
People had been cruel to him, and now someone was being cruel to her.
He knew what cruelty felt like, and he wished to protect her from it.
This was somewhat similar to what Flaihir had said about being necessary, she supposed. It was being useful. He knew he could be useful to her to save her from Celedin. He knew what Celedin’s torment was.
They had already been brought together by Celedin’s mistreatment of them, then.
She did not think that something like that could be done with an elf lord.
But then, they received an invitation to a dance at Thelendal Chapel, which had been sitting empty for some time.
Someone was renting it, apparently, an elf named Elrion.
He was not a lord. He did not even have a wardenship.
He had made a great deal of money, however, in trade, trading silks and spices from the dragons in the east, she understood.
And this was the part that changed everything when she heard it.
He had been a ward in the Vale. He was from a family here in the Silvarenna, but he had spent his whole childhood living amongst the Valaedor.
They would have that in common, she thought, both being wards.
He would also have had to chafe against tradition to make his fortune.
He would understand her struggles. It would be easy to convince him that the two of them were allied against the rest of the world, that they alone understood each other.
She shared these thoughts with Flaihir, who said that she had expanded upon the lessons given her to such a degree that it was astounding. “You may have quite a talent for this,” said Flaihir.
And so, they began to prepare for the dance.
Celedin would be coming, of course, and she would owe him one dance, the opening dance.
But luckily for her, it was considered rude for people who knew each other very well, people who were already engaged, to dance only with each other all night.
Since she and Celedin were already so close, they would be expected to dance with others.
She would have every opportunity to secure a dance with Elrion nae Nilriane.
Of the dance, she said little to Dathor.
They met at least one night a week, sometimes more.
They met and they pleasured each other by the light of candles, sometimes stifling their noises of pleasure if they were in the stable, careful not to wake Nardion below.
Sometimes, they were noisy in their sighs, outside in their cavern out of earshot, the fire burning warm enough that they did not feel the chill without their clothes.
He had entirely undressed her, had traced every outline and curve of her body with this thick, powerful fingers.
He had palmed her between her thighs, rubbing the heel of his hand against the sensitive center of her while he suckled her nipples.
He had lain her on her back and put his lips to her there, though she had protested it must be awful, that he would taste the liquid that seemed to gather there, and he had said that if he could bear it, she could swallow him, and she had almost told him to forget the entire idea but then she had felt one swipe of his tongue and she had decided she would swallow anything, even his thick and foul release.
And he did make her do it, made her suck his cock and begged her, his voice low and strained, to take it even deeper down her throat, to please try, that he was sure she could manage it, that he liked it the way it felt when she gagged, that she could certainly bear it for just a little longer, could she not, because it felt so very good to him.
He had a soul as black as night, she often had to remind herself. He was selfish and horrid.
But he excited her, and she did not mind swallowing him in the end. She did not mind any of the discomforts of their coupling, because they were balanced by pleasure so intense it seemed to made the facade of reality stutter.
Then the day of the dance came and Celedin nearly ruined everything.
He did not wish to go. He raged in the sitting room about how they had no reason to go to such stupid activities, that it was all frippery with idiots, and that their time would be better spent here, away from all of that.
Aerhril knew that Celedin was not well liked by the women at these sorts of dances, and that he was going to be humiliated when many of them made excuses not to dance with him, and he was going to be sitting out on the sidelines, seething and alone, watching her dance with other men.
She appealed to the steward that she must go. “You said that you wanted me to know how to be a proper stewardess, and I must mingle with others and go to social engagements, if so.”
The steward said that this engagement was with some upstart elf who had made his money from trade, and he did not see that it was so very important, in the end.
Luckily, Flaihir came to the rescue, promising Celedin that if he could not find any dance partners, she would stand up with him.
Celedin blustered that this was not why he did not wish to go.
And then, ten minutes later, sulkily, he announced that he knew that his intended would be disappointed if he did not take her to the dance, and so they would all go, after all.
As they climbed into the carriage, she saw Dathor at the window of the stables, looking down on her in her finery, her hair braided in a complicated crown around her brow, gloves on her hands, a brooch at her neck.
She had not told him about this dance tonight, only said that she could not meet him that night when he had proposed it as a night they would see each other.
He did not look pleased.
Well, she would deal with all of that later.
He had done nothing to try to better himself, of course.
He had not made some way for them to leave the Peak and be together as equals.
He had simply settled into finding different positions to coax her into swallowing his cock.
Can we try it with you on your knees? Can we try it on the bed with you above me?
Can we try it on the bed with me above you?