Ulfvaldr grabbed me by the hair and pulled me down on hard as he thrust in. His breathing was growing hotter and heavier on my chest. He released my nipple and let out a howl.
I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and rocked forward into him. I could feel Ulfvaldr growing ever harder inside me. He leaned in and took my chin in his hand. He guided my lips down toward his.
He thrust upwards and put his hand to my cock. My cries were lost in his lips. My body seized. I clung to him like a man clings to a tree in a gale. My insides hugged his cock. My eyes rolled back in my head, and my seed spilled onto his hand and between us.
He plunged into me and cried out. His fangs grazed my lower lip. He pulled me toward him, like he was trying to meld my body with his. Ulfvaldr plunged deep into my hole and rocked. His hot seed shot up into me. I felt it there, almost burning, in my belly.
“Aaah,” I moaned.
“Varghoss,” he whispered into my ear.
We fell onto the bed, and he did not remove himself from me. He only looked into my eyes and stroked my face with the back of his hand.
Book 2
~ Crown ~
Chapter 1
Varghoss
I opened my eyes, and the first thought was that I had better send that witch in the outer village her cask of mead before she cursed me. The second thought was that I had to vomit, badly.
I tumbled out of the bed Ulfvaldr and I had shared since we retook the castle. I ran for the bath chamber and knelt over a ceramic basin. I heaved into it. My belly was empty from sleep, but it made no difference. My face was covered in cold sweat, and my stomach roiled with wave after wave of nausea.
I heard Ulfvaldr get up and come to the door.
“I’m ill, stay away,” I said.
He turned pale. Then, his eyes ran over my undressed body and his cheeks turned red.
“I’m getting...someone,” he grabbed a fur from the bed, not caring that it was not clothing.
He wrapped it around his hips and ran from the room. I returned to my basin.
~
Just as the nausea was subsiding, Ulfvaldr returned, followed by a midwife.
“Where is the healer?”
“I do not think you are ill, Varghoss,” he said.
“Ha - then I am vomiting because I am well,” I said and sat on our bed, “I hope you do not catch it.”
The midwife gave Ulfvaldr a wary eye as she approached me. She looked into my eye, felt my neck and underarms, turned over my wrists. At last, she felt my stomach.
She gasped and backed away.
Ulfvaldr put a hand to his mouth.
“It cannot be,” she said.
“I did not think it was possible with a human,” Ulfvaldr said.
“What is it?” I asked. His tone was so strange.
“Your majesty,” the midwife said, “you’re pregnant.”
She bowed and made for the door. When she left, I rounded on Varghoss.
“Explain.”
He held up his hands, a smile creeping onto his face, “I did not think this could happen or I would have told you.”
“Does it happen? Could it happen to you if I, I-” I waved my hand at him.
“It could, although I have never lain beneath a man, nor do I intend to,” he brushed the tips of his fingers across my abdomen, “you noticed we have no women in the wolf tribe, and that is because there are none. We breed amongst ourselves. I had always thought only a member of the Wolf Tribe could become pregnant by another,” his eyes widened, “and you are descended from the Wolf Kings of ancient times.”
“You think that my line has Wolf Tribe in it?”
“Enough to become pregnant, Varghoss,” he said, “Perhaps more.”
I strode to my door and told the guard outside to call a servant. I picked my clothes up, dressed and was splashing water on my face when the servant arrived.
“Ready my horse, and pack it with two casks of my best mead,” the servant nodded.
“A horse for me, as well,” Ulfvaldr called after him.
“You don’t know how to ride a horse,” I said.
“I can learn, and I think your people find it frightening when I run along beside you. Where are we going?”
“I was going to see that old witch Mavi who told me to kill my stepfather.”
“Sounds like a hell of a woman. You have to wonder if she’s told anyone lately to kill you.”
“I’ll have to ask her,” I said.
Ulfvaldr clasped his fur cloak over his right shoulder and followed me.
Outside, it was truly winter. In the last month, the villagers had cared little who was king so long as they got their harvest inside. When I halved the taxes in honor of my new reign, there was a celebratory feast at the last full moon in all three villages, but it was only for one night, and after that, the busy work of our short harvest season resumed.
Now, the world lay quiet. Smoke curled up from the tops of houses. More snow had fallen in the night, and only the footprints of a fox disturbed the blanket of white.
The stable boy came up, holding two horses. Ulfvaldr watched me mount and swing into the saddle. He clumsily repeated my movements, and looked pleased to find himself on top of the animal. He was not holding the reigns, and I had to show him the commands for the horse. When he had it, we rode out.
We were quiet for a time. The snow fell in flurries. A chill went up my spine when I spotted wolf tracks on the edge of the wood. I pushed it down with a smile. It was just Ulfvaldr’s men. One advantage to having them around, other predators stayed away. We had never begun a winter season with no signs of wolves bothering the sheep. Despite the strangeness, and the few conflicts that had erupted, I was confident that this would work. I patted Setnar, glad the gelding was not bothered by Ulfvaldr’s wolf smell. It was probably all over me.
We arrived at the gates of Orrholm. The same man who I had met on the night of my capture took our horses. I looked at Ulfvaldr, then, truly looked at him. This man had captured me in the night, bound me with ropes and intended to hold me as a negotiating piece for his king. If - could it be called seduction - if we had not been drawn to each other, what would have been the outcome? Would I be dead, aboard a slave ship still, in my stepfather’s dungeon? When we had emptied the dungeons, and forgiven all prisoners, it was a difficult decision to justify, but an easy one to make. The men were starving, filthy. If you were going to kill a man, you should do it outright. It seemed a cowardly thing to just lock him away.
The gatekeeper offered to brush off our horses. He gave me a warm smile and threw Ulfvaldr a wary look. Ulfvaldr had brushed out his beard and rebraided it daily since living in the castle. He took pains to dress as we did, to eat with us, to speak like us, but his strangeness clung to him like the smell of smoke to hair.
The wolves had assisted me, and I had made it clear that they were part of this kingdom now. Ulfvaldr noticed me staring at him. His golden eyes, like sun through clouds, bored into my soul. I looked away and put a hand to my stomach. If what they said was true, if I was indeed pregnant, then this child would unite our kingdoms for good, for better or for worse.
He took my arm in his and placed a strong hand on mine, “Where is this old woman?” He asked, “I am curious to know her divining power.”
“Help me with these casks,” I said and picked up one of the small barrels. He grunted and picked his up.
It was bearing mead that I entered the old woman’s hut. Inside, it was warm. I heard Ulfvaldr yelp.
I followed his gaze. She sat, barely distinguishable beneath a pile of fur blankets, with three mead horns in front of her, facing the door.
“Expecting us, grandmother?” I bowed.
I set the cask down near a barrel of onions. Ulfvaldr only gaped at her. It took me taking the cask from him and setting it near the cups to wake him from his stupor.
To my surprise, he bowed and knelt in front of her. It seems the wolves considered magic something fright
ful. I sat next to him.
“No mead for you,” she said, pulling a steaming kettle out from the fire behind her.
Ulfvaldr’s eyes widened at her hand, which gripped the iron handle bare. She poured a cup of steaming milk into the center cup, and filled half of the horn cup nearest her.
“Mead for us, if you don’t mind, wolf king.”
Ulfvaldr nodded, looking at her hands. He tapped the cask and poured mead into the remainder of her cup. I noticed he filled his cup to the brim.
“Grandmother, why have you given me milk?”
“Either you do not know you are with child, or you do not know that mead harms an unborn babe. You cannot have it just before nursing, either, but right after nursing the babe for the night, and putting him down, should be fine.
“Him?” Ulfvaldr’s face lit up.
Warmth tickled my cheeks at seeing him look so...happy.
“Yes, the child is a boy, and, as I see it, the heir of two kingdoms. Great happenings are afoot.”
“Grandmother,” I held up my cup, “I toast to your health.”
“And I toast to my wisdom. You have almost everything, now.”
We drank, and I asked, “and what more need I?”
“The loyalty of your people, and the ability to defend them. Knowledge of your father,” she turned to Ulfvaldr, raising a bushy white eyebrow, “I am surprised that you have never thought to rescue your brethren, Ulfvaldr.”
His smile faded, “There is no hope in that.”
“This winter will be long, my kings, and in one month’s time, you will have a son to contend with.”
The surprise on my face must have been obvious. Ulfvaldr grimaced and extended a hand to my arm.
“Wolves do not take as long as humans.”
I put a hand to my belly and breathed in deeply.
“Will the child grow at a normal pace?”
“We are children for as long as you are. That is the same. Be glad, before winter is half done, we shall have a child.”
It might have been the warmth of the milk, but the way he said ‘we’ and the way he seemed happy to have a child on the way, made me long to get Ulfvaldr somewhere alone.
“Grandmother, what you tell me is that I have an issue with loyalty.”
“People do not like change, my king, and they always need an enemy. Lucky for you, you shall have one.”
“Who?”
“There are limits to my power, my king, else I would make my limbs young and my aches disappear. Instead, I must content myself with what everyone has at their disposal, milk, mead, and mine own eyes. Have you milk, Varghoss, and have you mead, Ulfvaldr, and let us sit for a time, and then, when you return, keep open your eyes.”
When I tasted my milk, I might have been mistaken, but I could swear I felt a stirring inside of me.
Chapter 2
Ulfvaldr
I should have known from his scent, from the change, but everything had been so new, the castle, the people, women, children, animals everywhere, that it was lost in the melee of scents that came with living on the castle grounds. He had left me to my thoughts, and they were many, while he met with his advisors. My men were due to meet me on the morrow, to report back on the goings on in the forest and on the fringes. They enjoyed the good hunting to be had in the wood, and Varghoss said the villagers would be grateful that no other wolves would dare venture near.
I was not so sure. I poured myself a cup of mead and sat by the fire. The wolves had, at first, thought it beneath them to live in the castle quarters provided them. Walls, not caves? They had whined. That was, until snow fell and the fires stoked by servants in their hearths had made the rooms dry and warm. They became lap dogs, then.
The cost of winning the war would be the hardness that had helped us fight, and I had to push something down in myself to know that that was alright. It was a symptom of prosperity, that my wolves would dull their edge. I was to be a father, the father of a future king of two kingdoms, and I lived in a castle, and my lover was a human, or mostly. He had never transformed, and that told me that he was only wolf enough to bear my child.
But, oh, that news.
I never thought I would have a child. I put my hands on the sill of the window, and pushed open the shutter to look out at the snowing night. The moon was half full and it reflected off the falling snow.
“Will I rescue my brethren? Old witch, you can’t know everything. Those wolves have to be long dead. I never knew them, only my father…”
I let out a long breath and drank my mead. That, too, was a benefit of the castle life. Most everyone kept bees, and honey was plentiful, and most became mead. This was good, rich land.
The door opened. I felt a smile creep across my features before I knew what I was doing. It was Varghoss and he was alone. I set down my cup and crossed the room in a heartbeat. I swept him up in my arms and dove into the bed with him.
He let out a laugh. I listened to its music as I kissed down his neck, to his collarbone. I pulled away his cloak and shirt.
“Ulfvaldr,” my name on his lips was everything I wanted to hear.
Lust coursed through my veins. His scent filled my nostrils. The smell of his pregnancy made blood rush to my groin. I ground my hips into his and heard a soft moan escape him. I tore away his shirt, then the rest of his clothes and mine and kissed, lower, and lower, stopping at his swollen belly.
I kissed it and let my hands trail down to his hips. I rubbed his thighs and watched as he hardened. I took him into my mouth and let the sound of his moans guide me. He threaded his fingers through my hair. I pulled him deeper into my throat. He threw back his head and cried out. It was this. I could stay lost here, in making Varghoss lose his mind with pleasure. I stroked my own cock, feeling my desire burning, the wolf in me filling my brain with the animal desire to fuck.
I reached for the oil I kept stashed in different places around our rooms. This bottle was under the bed. I moaned into Varghoss cock as I rubbed my own up and down with oil. I pulled on the head and let out a groan.
I needed him, and now. I pulled Varghoss to the edge of the bed, careful of his belly and stood. I lifted him. He always seemed awed by my strength. It was a pleasure I would never admit to - surprising him by picking him up, carrying him, holding him in the air while we fucked.
I spread him and entered him. I slid in with a sigh. He was still loose from this morning. He moaned and swirled his hips. The feeling made my knees weak. I grabbed him by the thighs and stilled him.
His smile told me he knew that I was hanging on for all I was worth. He rolled his head back and extended his arms above his head. I trailed a hand down his belly to his chest and toyed with his nipple. He bit his lip. His lips were beautiful. His eyes were a perfect, shining blue, and his face was only the kind of face a king could have, like one of the kings of legend, of long ago, perfect and not of this world.
I pulled out and plunged into him. His flesh gave way to mine. I rocked in and out of Varghoss. With each thrust he became more undone. He moaned and pulled at his face.
When I reached down to touch his cock and clasped my hand around it, he cried out.
“Ulfvaldr!”
I stroked him three times and angled upward, to the spot that made him mine. He shuddered under my hands and came. His seed shot onto his stomach.
The sight inflamed me. I grabbed his hips and thrust into him. My world became the need building between my legs. The pressure built. I could see only him, only the place where we connected. I panted and screamed out a howl that shook the shutters on the window. I plunged deep into Varghoss and filled him with my seed. His high-pitched moan told me he felt it.
I crawled up to lie next to him. I petted his hair and closed my eyes, just for a moment.
Chapter 3
Varghoss
The child was born at night, during the full moon. The snow fell gently outside. Ulfvaldr held my hand through the ordeal, and when the child finally emerged, his hair w
as a shock of white blond and his eyes the color of ice, a true winter babe. I held him, and found that when he suckled, it filled me with a fierce protectiveness. Nothing would harm this child, for as long as I lived, I swore it.
He slept, now, in a cradle at the foot of our bed. Ulfvaldr had left to hunt, insisting that the babe needed a fur from his father. My limbs were weak, but my heart was full. My eyes were full of sleep.
“As good a birth as any, considering the circumstances,” the midwife had said of it, the circumstances being my maleness.
Something disturbed my thoughts. A sound. I sat up and looked at the babe, sleeping soundly on his belly. No, it was not him. I began to pull the furs from me bed around me. There was a knock at my door.
“Your majesty!”
It was Thannen, the slave who had fought with me, and who now commanded the three war ships and six fishing vessels he had overseen the building of. We called it our navy.
“Let him enter!” I called to my guards.
Thannen opened the door enough to slip inside and closed it at his back. His face was grim.
“Tell me it is that you have caught a monster of a fish.”
“The fishing was good, well, until a day ago. Great blocks of ice forced us to keep to harbor. And now, a ship approaches, unlike any I have ever seen.”
“What makes it so?”
Soreness seeped through my insides. I rubbed my eyes and pointed to a chair. “Please sit. I am sorry I have nothing to offer you.”
“The hours is late,” he sat in the wooden chair, “the ship is a day away, but the mast extends so high it looks like it could brush the top of this castle. My king, it is a very large ship indeed, and its course is clear, it heads straight for us.”
“We have had little contact with seafaring peoples,” I rubbed the back of my neck and looked to my child, “we need to meet that ship before it reaches our harbor. Tell them to sound the horn for Ulfvaldr.”
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