Chapter 56
We unpack and rebuild the camp. There will be no progress today. We are not fit to journey, not fit to fight.
Besides, there are tasks to do. The body needs to be prepared for death, the way the Sannings deem it right to meet the Gods.
Thessa directs us quietly. We need to cleanse Stide’s body, lay out her weapons by her side, and offer her back to the earth from which she came.
We all do our part. The wolves and Kyor dig the final resting place, Ruben, Benny, and Loch collect the rocks to mark the land, and I seek out flowers, gathering wild thyme and rosemary that Thessa will place on the body once she and Caz have cleaned it from the stains of mortal life.
By the time all is done and the body is safe beneath the ground, no one has the strength or inclination to ride. Today, we are mired in grief, and it paralyses us all.
And so Ruben relights the fire, and we gather around it in silence. There is nothing that can be said.
I haven’t even known Stide for a full moon, and that can’t be enough to say I knew her.
Yet I knew enough of the woman that she was.
She risked her life with me, for me, not once, but countless times.
She put the happiness of the one she loved far above her own, and every time it mattered, she was there.
And now she is gone.
The pain is a sharp stab in my sternum, and without warning, the fire becomes too hot. I rise to my feet, trying to shake away the clawing that grips my insides. I don’t want this. Don’t want to be stifled, sweating the way Stide was even as her body shook with cold.
And so I turn and walk away.
I walk until the firelight dims behind me, until the crackle of the flames is lost to the calls of the nightbirds and the susurration of the wind. I need to walk. To move. To do something.
It comes as no surprise when I sense him behind me, and the moment I stop, he does too.
‘You don’t have to hover,’ I say tiredly. ‘I wasn’t running.’ Not really.
‘I know.’
When I turn to face him, he looks older in the darkness, the firelight not reaching us here. Not weaker, but worn. As though something has finally cracked beneath the armour.
‘I don’t know how to do this,’ he says quietly. ‘How to grieve properly.’
‘There’s no handbook on it, Kyor,’ I say, though I suspect Caz would prove me wrong in short order. If there were such a text, she would find it. ‘You just need to let yourself feel. Acknowledge the pain.’
He shakes his head. ‘I am sick of pain, Thorn. Here’—he gestures to his injured shoulder—‘and here.’ He points to his heart. He looks at me desperately. ‘I don’t know how to fix us, Rose. Properly. For good. I don’t know how to promise you a future when neither of us knows what that entails.’
‘Then don’t make promises,’ I say simply. ‘Just speak to me, Kyor. And for the Mother’s sake, tell the truth.’
He flinches but nods. ‘I was raised to believe that withholding information was not a lie,’ he offers. ‘It was a necessary omission. Silence is a strategy. Protection. I was taught that love is proved through endurance, through tests. Honesty never factored into love.’
‘And do you still believe that?’
‘No.’ His answer is immediate. ‘No, I don’t. But unlearning the habits of a lifetime is hard.’ A sad laugh breaks free. ‘Harder than I expected.’ He takes a step towards me. ‘There are still things I cannot tell you. You know that. But I wish I didn’t have to keep any secrets from you.’
In that, at least, I can see his desperate honesty. There is no deflection in his gaze. No charm. No bullshit.
‘Do you trust me with this truth?’ I ask, knowing there’s only one answer he can give that will give us a future. ‘Would you trust me with it if you could?’
‘I trust you with my life,’ he replies instantly. ‘I trust you with Elska’s life. I trust you more than any other human alive.’ He pauses, a muscle feathering in his jaw. He’s evading my answer, and he knows it. ‘There is more than our happiness at stake here, Thorn. Believe me. Please.’
I do, and as much as the pain of his avoidance stings, I try to bite it down. He’s not the only one who’s holding secrets, who has skeletons in his closet. Every time we grow close again, it deepens the ache of my own hypocrisy.
I still haven’t told him of William’s existence, of the reason this trip cannot be slowed.
So what does that say about our relationship?
That our trust is frayed, tethered, and so it can only stretch so far. Is that even trust at all?
How can I trust someone who is bound by a vow to keep something from me? How can he trust a woman whose deepest joy – her own brother – she cannot risk sharing with him?
Yet despite it all, I need him.
We stand in silence, the night pressing in as close as the secrets we cling to our chests.
And I … I have to try. ‘There are things about me, Kyor. About who I am …’ My voice cracks as I shake my head. My lips try to move but no sound comes out. There is no vow on me, yet I cannot make myself speak of it.
I look at him in hopelessness, and he sighs.
He scrubs a hand over his face. ‘Maybe talking isn’t what we should be doing,’ he suggests.
Every rational instinct I possess tells me this is a mistake. That grief and exhaustion are poor foundations for anything, but I’m tired of pretending restraint is the same as strength.
I have strength. I’m simply done using it to hold myself still.
And so I close the gap between us.
‘Thorn …’
‘No promises,’ I whisper. ‘No conversations about the future. Just the here and now.’
Still, he waits, as though afraid I will change my mind, and so I reach for him, clutching the fabric at his chest and expelling my breath as if this touch is the first freedom I have ever felt.
His hands come up to frame my face – reverent, almost hesitant as he searches my expression one last time.
‘It’s not the wolves this time.’ A smile quirks his lips.
‘No,’ I agree. ‘It’s not.’
These bad choices are all ours. And I’m going to fucking own them.
‘Tell me to stop,’ he murmurs a hair’s breadth from my lips.
The taste of his breath in the air is almost too much to stand. ‘Don’t you fucking dare.’
The crash of his lips against mine steals the air from my lungs.
There is nothing gentle here, only desperation and urgency in their rawest form, and the need to wrap my arms around him and pull him closer nearly overwhelms me. He pulls at the fabric of my top and traces a line of kisses across my collarbone.
‘This won’t fix things,’ he warns between the gasps that cause me to tilt my head back to the sky.
‘I know,’ I reply. ‘But I’m tired. I’m so tired of fighting this.’
‘I surrendered long ago,’ he murmurs.
We’re far from the fire, trading warmth for privacy, but I would suffer the frozen lakes again rather than stop this.
Between the kisses, we pull one another out of our clothes, his thick fingers fumbling with my buttons as the garments fall to the ground in a makeshift bed.
There is no time to luxuriate in the brush of fingers against skin and scars as the cold brings its own fury – a desperation that matches the urgency burning inside us.
Without hesitation, I drop to the ground, pulling him down on top of me, but while his hand cradles the back of my neck, holding me close for kisses, mine reaches down to the fabric of his trousers.
My palm lingers there on the surface for barely a moment before sliding inside.
A new throbbing pulses in me at the touch of his cock, and I try to steady myself as I wrap my fingers around his girth.
I barely even squeeze before his eyes roll backward.
‘Gods, Thorn,’ he gasps as his hips roll into the rhythm of my movement, his pace increasing, seemingly involuntarily.
‘Oh Gods help me.’ With each thrust, he slides his cock faster and faster in my hand while a crescendo of heat rises within me.
How can we be so close to tipping over the edge when we have barely even placed a hand on one another?
I don’t know, nor do I care. All that matters right now is this.
Us. Our bodies. Our flesh. Our pleasure.
He shifts his hand downwards, sending a skittering of sparks along my spine, and my back arches upwards in response as I try to conceal my groan in a clenched fist. But there are no concealments between us in this moment, and Kyor makes no attempt to quiet my rising pleasure.
Instead, he splays my shirt open, and before I can draw breath his mouth is hot on my breast.
Yet more moans rise shamelessly from my throat as I desperately work to free his length from his trousers. I need more now. I need it all.
As I fight my shallowing breaths for some semblance of control, he pulls my trousers and knickers down to my knees; just enough to give him access. The cold bites across my fevered skin, but within a heartbeat his hands are there, pouring heat into every part of me.
With his cock now free too, I return to it, wrapping my hands around its hardness.
Soft as velvet, yet unyielding underneath.
Just the touch is enough to cause wetness to swell inside me.
A stifled gasp catches in Kyor’s throat, a quiet sound that sends a tremor through me – a tremor met by the thickness of his fingers as they push inside me.
‘Gods!’ The sound is a rasp as my body clenches, craving it all. Craving so much more.
His fingers work gently inside me, but I don’t want gentle. Not now.
‘Harder!’ I urge, and he obeys, pumping his fingers in and out of me with an urgency that makes me groan low in my throat.
Fingers still thrusting rhythmically into me, his mouth returns to my jaw and my throat, his kisses no longer reverent but hungry, lingering and open-mouthed.
I tilt my head back, breath stuttering as sensation blooms, my body responding without restraint.
Yet as I clench my eyes against the rising pleasure, he pulls his cock out of my grasp, removing his fingers from my hot wetness and lining his cock up with my entrance instead.
His eyes lock on mine. ‘Are you sure?’ he asks.
‘Gods, yes!’ The words leave my mouth with unfettered desperation, which only increases at the sight of the satisfaction that glimmers in his eyes. Such beautiful fucking eyes. At this moment, they’re enough to make me forget everything else.
For one excruciating moment, he stays there on the edge of everything we need. And then, in one fluid stroke, he pushes his length into me.
‘Gods help me!’ I can’t hide the gasp this time, and my fingers claw at his skin. It may have only been a few days since Galreck, but somehow, in that time, I have forgotten how thick he is. How utterly he stretches me. I moan at the rush of sensation, the sound low and deep.
‘Too much?’ he questions as he starts to pull out of me.
But I’m not having it. My hips thrust against him, pressing him deeper still and giving him all the answers he needs.
My breath is seized within me as he keeps his motions torturously slow, rocking in and out inch by inch, letting me adjust to his size, but I don’t want to be coddled now. I want to hurt tomorrow.
‘Not too much,’ I pant. ‘More. Fuck me so I’ll feel it tomorrow.’
‘Oh, Gods. You’re so fucking tight, love,’ he groans. ‘So wet. So tight. Such a good girl for me, Rose. Aren’t you such a good girl?’
My mind goes deliciously blank. ‘Yes,’ I manage. ‘Please.’
‘Please what?’ he teases.
‘More. Faster. Harder.’
‘Your wish is my command.’ This time he pulls back fully and thrusts into me deeply. I cry out, skin slapping against skin as he fills me completely. ‘Oh Gods!’
‘You’re perfect,’ he groans, ‘so fucking perfect for me, Thorn. Take it all now, sweetheart.’
Each delicious inch fills my contours as if he were made for me, and the world narrows to slick warmth and delicious friction, to the way we fit together. I raise my hips to meet him, thrust for thrust and heat for heat, as my body grows slick with sweat.
‘You will always be my distraction,’ he groans as his fingers toy with my clit. Sparks ripple over the sensitive skin, bringing me perilously close to the edge.
‘I’m almost there,’ I pant. ‘So close.’
‘Not yet, Thorn.’ He snatches his fingers away. ‘Not until I say you can.’
The frustration burns within me. The need to unravel. And whatever modicum of restraint he’s showing, I know it’s only moments away from fraying too as he murmurs my name low and rough, as though it is being pulled from him against his will.
‘Please!’ I don’t care that I’m begging – don’t even care how quiet or loud my voice is – and it’s with fervent relief that his fingers return to my skin. With them comes a new pace, more urgent and fervent than ever before. I can feel it building within him, too – that need to release.
‘Now! Come for me, now, Thorn. Let me hear you scream.’
Even if I wanted to disobey him, I couldn’t.
His magic sparks on my clit, sending me tumbling over the edge as he too falls past the point of any restraint.
My muscles clench and spasm, and the pleasure that surges through me is bolstered by the groan that tears from his throat and vibrates through every part of me.
He clasps my body to his, the heat and urgency of the moment refusing to subside as one tremor after another rolls through us both, pushing us as close together as is physically possible.
Thunder cracks above us and lightning strikes illuminate the sky.
Finally the quakes abate, and the sky above us steadies, though my legs are still trembling and my breathing is ragged as he sinks down beside me and pulls me into his arms.
Warmth on warmth. Secrets on secrets.