36
AND JUST LIKE that, they were on their way home.
The elves put them on a train in the middle of the city, and Aerhril was not sure how she felt about how quickly it was all over.
Dathor spent the first hour grousing about how Gathren had tricked him, how he’d been sent back here, away from everything exciting, and how it was all going to happen without them.
He paced back and forth in their compartment, unable to stop moving.
Aerhril was reeling. She could hardly believe they were on a train, headed north. She had no real desire to be in the middle of a battle between the orcs and elves, she supposed, but it did feel as if that was where things were happening, and they were going away from the action.
In the second hour of the journey, Dathor stopped pacing and sat down next to her. They were traveling in their own private train compartment, paid for by Marthlis, and this was as much to conceal the fact an orc was on the train as it was for anything else.
Dathor sighed, seemingly deflated. “I don’t know what I was thinking, actually. Why did I think I could fight to fix the entire world? All I’ve ever cared about is you. And Foxglove Peak.”
“Our home,” she murmured.
“Yes,” he said, “even though neither of us was ever supposed to own it. We will own it. And that means driving the orc army out.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, how could we do that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The villagers, the elves who live there, would they not rise up against the orcs?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But not for your sake.”
“For yours, then.”
“No, not for mine, either,” she said. “I am a foreigner. I am Valaedor. Have you forgotten this?”
He sighed.
“Well,” she said, “there is someone whose sake they might rise up for. At least because they think he is the true steward of the place.”
“What are you talking about?” he said.
“It’s Celedin,” she said. “He’s not actually dead.”
Dathor leaped to his feet again. “You have got to be joking.”
She shook her head. “But you’re not allowed to kill him. I mean, not again.”
He sat back down again next to her. “Not allowed to kill him? This is the point of everything, to kill him.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “And that is precisely why you must not do it.” She supposed she’d realized it when she had that outburst, when he’d said that he had offered up not only her to his orc cause, but all the women in all the keeps that got attacked.
He’d had them all violated and not for the orc cause.
For Celedin.
All to get back at Celedin.
She wanted to strangle him, truly.
“More than kissing with him, you said,” he muttered, his voice lethal.
“Oh, no,” she said, glaring at him, disgusted. “I never enjoyed whatever he forced on me, just as I did not enjoy what you forced on me.”
“That was not the same thing.”
“No, it was worse when you did it, worse because it wasn’t even about me. You didn’t do that because you wanted me. You did that to get back at him. To hurt him.”
“You know all the things he did to me, however,” growled Dathor.
“Well, I’m not saying you have to be his friend or something,” she said.
“I would think, however, that using him to take back Foxglove Peak and then throwing him out and telling him to fend for himself should be good enough. You do not have to kill him. Besides, his voice is all raspy anyway. I think you’ve hurt him enough. ”
“Hurt him enough?” He let out a disbelieving laugh. “This is the man who brought back men from the tavern and paid them to hold me down while he carved into my arm. You remember that?”
She nodded, unable to look at him.
“This is the man who kicked a ladder out from beneath me in the barn and laughed when I fell? This is the man who used to say I was nothing but a lowly creature, an abomination, a freak—half beast, half man? This is the man—”
“I am not defending him,” she cut in.
He huffed.
“Shall we make a handy list of your sins, Dathor?”
He glared at her. “It’s not the same. I was abused, badly treated, and I was barely surviving—”
“You know what his father was like,” she said. “He says that when you were boys, you had a mother who loved you, and he never did. He says he was cruel to you because he was jealous. Because all he wanted was someone to love him. And you must see it, Dathor, that no one ever has.”
“Doesn’t deserve love,” said Dathor.
“Well, neither do you,” she said. “Neither do I. Ask Nathre if she thinks I should have a happy ending.”
He was quiet.
She sighed heavily.
“No,” he said. “No, that’s too far. I can’t forgive Celedin.”
THEY RODE THE train through the night, and they were dropped off at the station closest to Foxglove Peak in the early part of the morning, before the dawn.
Dathor knew that no one would be there to greet them, of course, and they had little in the way of money, even if they had wanted to procure a horse, not that anyone was awake and willing to rent a horse out.
They walked, instead, walked the four miles back to Foxglove Peak.
They went around the gates, going over the small stone wall that surrounded the property. They entered through the entrance on the west side, which was where he’d brought the orc army in. He warranted no one but people who lived here even knew that entrance existed.
They climbed the stairs to the steward’s chambers, but Lashrud was in there, because of course he was. They went to her chambers instead.
They were empty.
She was exhausted, sweaty from the walk, and she resisted when he began kissing her as they lay down together.
But he knew her body well. It took time to awaken it, but he knew how to do it.
And she did not resist his gentle ministrations, teasing her nipples first until she was sighing, and then putting his mouth to her until she was gasping, and then kissing his way down her body to taste her between her thighs.
He made her come against his tongue, and she panted out his name, called him husband, and he told her to be a very good elf wife and take his cock, and she shivered into him, sighing out her agreement.
She felt like sinking into pure perfect bliss.
He held her hips in place as he worked himself in her. “You want my seed, do you not?”
“Mmm,” she sighed. “Shall I beg for it, husband?”
Because this was a game between them, and they had whispered words like this back and forth many nights after watching the orgies in Bilkwood.
And perhaps, also, they’d whispered other things back and forth, too.
Maybe it had aroused her to think of being fucked on his lap in front of others, maybe she had admitted she liked him saying it to her, though she had assured him she didn’t wish to ever do it, and he said that she was for his eyes alone, that he would kill anyone who looked at her, and all of it had been, well, pretend.
But now, he wasn’t pretending, and he wasn’t going to stop. “I mean it,” he whispered in the darkness. “I mean it this time.”
She only sighed. “Please, spill it in me, spill all of your orc seed right inside me, husband.”
“You want me to get you with child?” he said. “You want to carry my child?”
“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, yes, yes, so very much, Dathor.”
And he rode the edge of his pleasure, because it was half not pleasure, half some kind of wild anxiety, and it took time, lots of silent moments as he frantically moved himself in and out of her, almost, almost, almost—
And then it happened, and he was emptying himself into her, finding the height of pleasure here, right in the depths of her tight heat, and he didn’t know if anything had ever felt so good.
She touched his face. “You did it.”
He shuddered against her. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” she whispered. “Is it because we’re home?”
“Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, because we’re home.”
They both fell asleep, then, but he didn’t sleep long.
He woke later, the light of the day spilling in through the windows, and he climbed out of the bed with her, got dressed, and went to where she’d told him that Celedin was hiding.
She said that she thought he might have left the spot. She had wanted to help him, to get word to Elrion, all manner of things, but none of them had come to pass.
So, Dathor wasn’t sure he would find him there, in his old room, but he did.
Celedin was sitting on the bed, a stack of dirty bowls on the floor, reading a book. His neck was knit back together but there was an awful scar there.
He got to his feet when he saw Dathor. His eyes were full of fear.
That was gratifying, Dathor thought. He liked Celedin to be afraid of him. “She says I’m not to kill you,” he said.
Celedin’s voice was a harsh whisper. “As if that would stop you.”
“I won’t,” said Dathor. “I suppose I already killed you once.”
Celedin regarded him, but he made no other reaction to this.
Dathor was not sure what to say next to the man. “I suppose I could be sorry about it, about trying to kill you, but…”
“But you’re not,” finished Celedin. “Because you have always hated me, and I have always hated you, and that is the way of things between us.”
Dathor shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded. “I aim to have it for myself, the Peak. I suppose you should know that. I doubt that you’ll wish to let me have it—”
“I’d rather die,” said Celedin.
“As it happens,” said Dathor, “it’s more convenient for me to have you alive right now.”
Celedin raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“You do want to deliver our home from these orcs occupying it, I suppose?” said Dathor.
“You want to do that?”
“The orc army and I have had a bit of a parting of ways,” said Dathor. “They’ll probably think I’ve deserted or betrayed them or something dramatic like that. It’s possible that word will not have reached them yet, but it will soon. So, we do not have a lot of time.”
“You have some sort of plan?”
“I was thinking of the trick that we used to play when we were boys,” said Dathor. “The one where we would tell everyone that the herd of cows in the east field had broken down the fence?”
Celedin furrowed his brow. “Tell the orc army that something they were tending to has broken?”
“Or tell them there is an attack coming,” said Dathor. “I was thinking we steer them to Campion Cliffs.”
Celedin nodded in understanding. “They’ll get down there but they’ll have a devil of a time getting back up.”
“And they won’t be able to see until they’re down there,” said Dathor.
“You could have done this on your own,” said Celedin. “You don’t need me for this.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But with you as my hostage, they’ll believe the elves are coming to attack more readily, I think.
” He paused. “And I was hoping you’d go into the village and convince the men who are good archers to camp out on the turret and the towers to put arrows in anyone who advances on the keep. ”
Celedin laughed, a raspy sound. “Now, I see how it goes. And after this, after I bring people to defend my home, you think you’ll take it from me?”
“We’ll get to that part later, I suppose,” said Dathor. “It’s my home, too.”
Celedin sighed.
“You don’t really have a choice,” said Dathor. “You know I can turn you out now, and you could never stop me on your own. You always had to use your coin to bribe others to hold me down.” He spit out the words.
Celedin bowed his head. His voice was that awful ghost of a voice. “I will apologize. It was beneath me. I am ashamed of the way I treated you.”
Dathor didn’t know how to react to that. It actually made him unsteady on his feet. He backed away. He clenched his hands into fists.
Celedin raised his gaze to the other man’s.
Dathor swallowed. His voice came out strained. “I could kill you again, and we both know it. So, you will do as I say.”
“All right,” said Celedin. “As you say, I have no choice.”
They simply stared at each other for long, long moments.
Then, Dathor drew in a noisy breath and stepped forward again. “All right,” he said. “Here is what we will do.” And he began to explain.