by Sarah Hawke
***
“I guess it’s no wonder we didn’t see any sign of them in the north,” Lieutenant Vander said, his arms folded across his chest as he peered out the tent flap and into the forest. “They regrouped and swung south so they could attack our camp directly. I can’t believe it. They must have really been desperate.”
“It almost worked,” I told him. I did my best to keep the frustration out of my voice—not at him, but at myself. Aluriel and I never should have wandered so far from the camp. Everyone knew it; Vander and his men were simply too polite—or too scared—to say anything. I had barely made eye contact with him this whole time, which he had probably interpreted as wounded pride sprinkled with a touch of embarrassment. He had no way of knowing the real reason.
Namely, that all I could see when I looked at him was the man who had spent the previous evening draining his cock all over my best friend’s eager, smiling face.
“Well, they can’t have many able-bodied warriors left at this point,” he said after a moment. “I’ll keep my men here for a few days just in case, but I doubt they’ll test us again.”
“If they do, I have full confidence you can handle it.” I meant ever word. As much as I hated to admit it, Vander had just saved our lives. It was almost enough for me to forget all the scandalous things I’d watched him say and do to my best friend last night.
Almost.
“Thank you, General,” he replied, smiling. His eyes slowly drifted over to Aluriel in the corner. “Are you certain you don’t want me to send a runner back to town? I could have them fetch one of the temple healers and—”
“She’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I’ll take her back myself shortly. If any of your men find anything else, I trust you to handle it.”
He nodded crisply. “Of course, General.”
I waited until he’d been gone for almost a full minute before I returned to Aluriel’s side. She had taken off most of her bandages; my magic combined with the healing salves had already returned some of her strength.
“One day he makes a huge mistake, the next day he is a hero,” Aluriel said with a wry smirk. “I guess that’s one way to get back in your commander’s good graces.”
“Mm,” I murmured, sitting down on the cot opposite her and crossing my legs.
Aluriel snorted. “Please don’t tell me you’re still annoyed about last night. We almost got killed!”
I sighed and glanced behind me to make sure none of the other rangers were within earshot. “I can’t just let something like this go.”
“Are you serious?” she asked, leaning up. “Honey, we just—”
“I saw you with Vander last night.”
Her expression froze. “What?”
“I saw the way you acted. I saw the way you begged.” I swallowed and shook my head. “I didn’t want to believe it at first, but…”
The silence swelled between us, and for a moment I wondered if she might leap up and try to sprint away in embarrassment, her wounds be damned. I should have known better. Her lips curled into a smile, and she actually threw back her head and laughed.
“Shalassa’s sparkling tits,” she said, snickering. “You followed me home and snuck into my house?”
“No,” I protested. “Well…yes, sort of.”
She laughed even harder, and I felt my cheeks flush in anger.
“I wanted to give you your ring back before your date,” I explained, “but when I showed up I saw Vander sneaking into your house. I thought he might be trying to get back at you for the way you disciplined him.”
“Oh, gods, this is too perfect.” Aluriel clasped her hand over her mouth. “You were trying to protect me.”
“I was, right up until I saw…” I clenched my jaw and grit my teeth. “You’re not even embarrassed, are you?”
Aluriel snorted. “Embarrassed? About what? I had a great time.”
“Unbelievable,” I breathed. “You were acting like a ten-copper harlot!”
“For one, any harlot who got him off as many times as I did would have cost a lot more than ten coppers,” Aluriel countered. “For two, it wasn’t an act. That was one of the best nights I’ve had in months.”
I turned away and struggled not to be sick. I should have known she would respond like this; it wasn’t nearly as out-of-character for her as I wanted to believe. Aluriel didn’t seem to have any shame as far as sex was concerned. She had fewer inhibitions than the priestesses of the love goddess.
“The real question is how long you hid there watching us,” Aluriel said after a moment. “I bet you stayed for a while, didn’t you? And I bet your quim was absolutely soaked by the time you left.”
I whirled around and shot her a withering glare. “You slept with a soldier under your command!”
“We didn’t sleep, trust me. Though I’m sure you stuck around long enough to notice that, too.”
“This isn’t a joke!”
“Honey, you need to relax,”Aluriel said, touching my arm. “It was just sex. Dirty, filthy, amazing sex.”
I twisted out of her grip and grabbed onto her wrist. “You know the rules. You know why they exist. Do you really expect Vander to follow your orders after…after…?”
“After he fucked me? I’m the one who sent him out on patrol today, remember? He didn’t question my orders for a heartbeat. He knows who’s in charge.”
“He doesn’t respect you!” I growled.
“Says who? You?” Aluriel snorted and leaned back on her palms. “Honey, just because a man calls you a cunt and shoves his cock up your ass doesn’t mean he stops respecting you. It’s a game—it’s fun. Besides, he knows the rules. If he ever steps out of line while we’re on duty, I’ll whip him into shape. Trust me.”
“I can’t trust you now—that’s the whole bloody point.” I released my grip on her arm and stood. “Can you imagine how Highlord Kastrius would react if he found out his knights were acting like this?”
“His knights are some of the biggest sluts in Highwind!” Aluriel said. “They’ll happily fuck anyone who can spread their legs and say ‘praise Escar,’ believe me.”
“I’m sure you know that first-hand.”
Aluriel shrugged. “Yeah, I do. Am I supposed to be embarrassed about that, too?”
“I’m starting to think it’s impossible for you to be embarrassed by anything.”
She stared at me for a long moment, her green eyes narrowing in thought. “You’re not actually upset, are you? You’re just jealous.”
“Jealous?” I growled. “About you acting like a whore?”
“About the fact I’m actually willing to allow myself to have fun once in a while,” Aluriel said. “That’s the real reason you sat there watching us, isn’t it?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said through clenched teeth. “I am the Ranger-General of Highwind. I’m responsible for protecting tens of thousands of people!”
“And you’re damn good at it,” she said, gesturing to the pyre of dead gnolls. “You’re also lonely. What you need is a nice, strapping young human man to hold you down, tie you up, and fuck this frustration right out of you.”
I almost slapped her. A surge of indignant rage flooded through my veins, and I forced myself to turn and pace away to try and cool off. Striking her wouldn’t have made me feel better anyway, considering the one I was really angry with was myself.
Because deep down, I knew she was right.
You wanted to join them so badly last night. You wanted Vander to hold you down and tell you how worthless you were. You wanted him to slap you and spit on you while he used your body like a toy. You wanted to feel his cock pounding your quim. You wanted to feel his fresh, searing seed roll over your tongue and down your throat….
“I’m going to leave the city for a few days and scout the Peaks myself,” I said eventually, my voice hoarse. “You’re in command until I return.”
“What?” Aluriel gasped. “You can’t leave the city on your
own. It’s too dangerous! If I come with we can—”
“You should get some rest and recover from your wounds.”
She blinked and leaned up. “But I’m fine! The healing magic will—”
“Even healing magic isn’t instantaneous,” I said. “Take a few days to recuperate. We’ll speak after I get back.”
I stormed out of the tent before she could protest any further. A single crisp whistle summoned Whisper from the trough, and I vaulted into the saddle and rode for Highwind. I had full confidence in her ability to lead the Duskwatch while I was gone, but even if I didn’t I still needed to get away. It was the only way I would ever find peace.
Sighing and curling my fingers around the reins, I started planning my foray into the west.
Chapter Three: Epiphany
The Shattered Peaks were a seemingly endless sprawl of sloping hills and rocky crags that eventually transformed into an impassable, sky-touching wall of stone. Dozens of orc clans lived in the mountains, though they warred with each other so frequently they rarely had time to organize and attack Highwind or any of the surrounding villages. When they did, the city’s primary defenders—the Duskwatch Rangers and the Knights of the Silver Fist—had always rallied together to crush the invaders.
That had been the ongoing cycle for the past hundred years or so, but things had changed since I had taken over the Duskwatch. I didn’t believe in “reactive warfare,” as the knights often called it, which was precisely why I had dedicated so many of my people to patrolling the mountains and actively sabotaging the orc clans before they could rally around a new leader. We didn’t have the numbers to actually storm through the endless caverns and wipe them out, but as long as we could keep them fighting each other we didn’t need to. None of the clans had been able to muster more than a token force over the past few years.
Despite my successes, however, my aggressive strategies remained controversial among the Highwind elite. The people of the city may have loved me, but the Knights of the Silver Fist did not. And they enjoyed showing their displeasure at every available opportunity.
Which is precisely why they had dispatched someone to find me the instant I had left the city on patrol.
I sighed and glanced down the rocky hill behind me as a lone knight and his horse maneuvered up the makeshift trail towards my camp. I was only two days into my scouting excursion at this point, and I was hoping to press on for at least another three before I looped back around and returned to Highwind. I was only marginally less frustrated now than when I’d left the city behind. All the hours alone with the wind and the trees and the rocks hadn’t been nearly as soothing as I’d hoped. Whenever I allowed my mind to wander, it always drifted back to Aluriel and Vander and all the things I’d seen in her cellar…
“General!” the knight called out. “General Starwind!”
I blinked out of my reverie and slung my bow over my back. I should have tried to hide the moment I’d spotted his mount on the horizon. Diplomacy was the absolutely last thing I’d wanted on this mission. I would have rather charged head-on into an army of a thousand orcs than play politics with a bunch of petty man-children who called themselves knights. Their naïve worldview was bad enough without thinking about all the depravities Aluriel assured me they were into.
Unfortunately, as Ranger-General I couldn’t afford to ignore politics completely, and after another minute of silence I shuffled down the hill.
“General Starwind,” the man said, removing his helmet and nodding. “Knight-Captain Julian Cassel, at your service.”
“Captain,” I replied, eyeing him up and down. I disliked most of the knights I’d met on principle, but the fact that so many of them were objectively handsome was perhaps the most annoying thing of all. Cassel was somewhere in his mid-20s with dark blonde hair, a rugged line of stubble on his chin, and a powerful physique that made my sinewy arms look like twigs by comparison.
“Highlord Kastrius wanted me to remind you of the Council’s recent decision to avoid sending more patrols into the mountains,” Cassel said. “The other councilors are concerned that you may antagonize the various clan-leaders and give them a reason to unite against us.”
“A reason to unite?” I growled. “They’re bloody orcs! They already want to kill us and—”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Cassel said, smiling and raising his gauntlet. “I’m just the messenger. Personally, I think you and your boys have done an amazing job out here. The Peaks are safer now than they’ve been in decades.”
I paused, my brow reflexively furrowing in confusion. I’d been bracing myself for a fight; I hadn’t expected him to agree with me.
“To be perfectly honest, the Highlord is just annoyed that you are stealing all our potential glory,” Cassel went on. “Sir Dravis put down a few orcs in the lower hills last month, but otherwise you’re not leaving much for the rest of us. Folks are getting bored.”
“Better bored than dead,” I murmured.
“Absolutely. Like I said, I think it’s great. The others are too young or too dumb to have figured that out just yet, but they will eventually.”
I smiled back at him. Like most of his fellow knights, he projected an aura of earnestness that I found refreshing. When combined with his natural good looks, he would have been a hard man to argue with even if I had disagreed with him.
“Well, uh, I’m glad to hear it,” I managed eventually.
“I wanted to deliver his message myself because I thought it was important for you to know how many of us agree with you,” Cassel said. “The Duskwatch has improved tenfold since you took over.”
I felt a rush of heat in my cheeks. I had never been good at receiving compliments, especially unexpected ones.
“Sorry, I’m blubbering,” he apologized. “Escar’s mercy, I probably sound like I’m trying to lick your boots.”
“It’s all right,” I assured him. “I appreciate the sentiment.”
Cassel’s grin widened. “Hearing about your exploits almost makes me want to turn in my shield and become a ranger.”
“You’d also have to ditch the armor and the prayers to Escar.”
“That’s all right. The metal starts to chaff after a while anyway, and honestly I’m not a particularly religious man.”
I laughed. The sound was strange to my ears, but it made his youthful face light up in response.
“Anyway, I’m sorry for wasting your time,” he said. “I’m just glad I caught up to you before you vanished into the mountains.”
“Don’t worry about,” I said. “I’ll be sure to let the Highlord know you delivered his message at the next Council meeting.”
“As long as you don’t share my other commentary with him. Otherwise I’ll probably be on your doorstep begging to join the Duskwatch the next day.”
I smirked. “Don’t encourage me.”
He smiled back. His brown eyes surreptitiously drank in my slender elven frame, and they lingered on my breastplate and midriff just long enough for me to sense his arousal. But then an instant later he squinted away from the burning sunset on the horizon and let out a deep breath. “I, uh…I should get moving if I want to reach Riverbend before midnight. I’m supposed to train the garrison there for the next few weeks.”
“You’re welcome to stay and eat with me if you like,” I said, surprised at how quickly the offer had rolled off my tongue. “The stew is on the fire right now.”
“I can smell it,” Cassel said, licking at his lips. “But I really should get going. Thank you again, General. It really is an honor to finally meet you.”
He offered me a quick salute before he pivoted around and eased his way down the hill to his horse. My smile faded a moment later. I couldn’t explain why, exactly, but seeing him leave felt like a punch to the stomach. It didn’t make any sense—I hadn’t even known he existed until a few minutes ago. He was quite literally a stranger. But for some reason, I really wanted him to stay and chat for a while…
/> It’s not that complicated. You’re lonely—lonely and randy.
I grimaced at the thought. Gods, I couldn’t have really been that desperate, could I? Aluriel probably would have been down on all fours ten minutes after meeting him, but I wasn’t that kind of woman.
But you want to be. That’s the whole problem, isn’t it? You want to call him back, you want to flirt, you want to have him bend you over a rock and take you from behind…
I growled under my breath and stormed back to the campfire. I almost wished I had brought some of my rangers along after all, though it wasn’t as if they would have been interested in chatting. I could practically guarantee that none of them would have tried to strike up a conversation with me. It wasn’t that didn’t like me—they simply didn’t know me. I intentionally kept them all at arm’s length.
In other words, they are treating you like their commander, not their friend. You’re getting exactly what you wanted—congratulations.
The thought burned in my mind all through dinner and well into the night. It was still there when I finally curled up in my tent; it was still there when I slid a pair of fingers into my quim and failed to bring myself to a climax.
It was still there four days later when I returned to Highwind and stumbled into Aluriel’s house to beg for her for help.
***
“If I weren’t such a great friend, I’d probably hold a grudge over this kind of thing,” Aluriel teased as she snuggled into my lap. “Do you have any idea how much paperwork I had to do while you were away? Or how many times I had to tell the Council that I had no way to contact you?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just…I just had to get away for a few days. I know I dumped the burden on you.”
“Well, thankfully your right-hand woman is perfectly capable of handling anything,” she replied with a smirk.
I ran my hand up the silky smooth skin of her thigh and beneath her skirt. I was seriously tempted to slide a finger into her quim and fondle her right there, but I settled for a long, sweet kiss. I should have known she wouldn’t hold a grudge. She didn’t have a petty bone in her body.