Girl in the Bearskin (Once Upon a Harem Book 6)

by C. L. Stone

  I smirked. “Loyalty isn’t a bad thing.”

  He pressed his fingertips to his brow. “Don’t torture me. You can’t keep collecting men like you would trinkets.”

  We were in the room alone. I’d barely left the entryway, just stepping into the room enough to be able to close the door. I kept my voice soft, as I felt everyone could hear us. There was no telling who might be on the other side of the walls, listening. The room had a grand bed and opulent furnishings and I felt I tried to stay as small as possible to not touch anything.

  Shaytan spoke in normal tones. “It’s a fine bed. You should get some sleep.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I hissed at him. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I minded to keep off the rug as well. Instead, I slept in a corner of the room, after moving one of the low tables that was holding up a vase. It left me with mostly the bare wooden floor.

  It’d be very obvious I didn’t sleep in the bed, but I hoped the servants would understand I didn’t wish to make more work for them. At any rate, we’d be gone in the morning.

  Before I actually could sleep, there was a knock at the door.

  Shaytan was sitting in one of the chairs, idle, but he spoke to me as I got up. “It’s just Wilhelm,” he said with a sour face. “Tell him to go away, won’t you?”

  “Tell him yourself.”

  He casted an annoyed look at me.

  I went to the door, opening it and looking out.

  Wilhelm stood in the hallway. He looked beyond me and then at my face. “Are you alone?”

  “No,” I said.

  He seemed to know what I meant but still, he nudged at me. “Let me in. For a minute?”

  I backed up and he stood with me by the door. His hair was combed back and his body was washed clean. He’d shaven as well. He wore fresh clothing, dark garbs similar to what the other servants had worn in the house. It was like he was making up to the servants and our hosts for my horrible appearance by being doubly clean.

  He looked over the room and then back at me. “I need to know what we’re doing here. I thought we were looking for Thorne. Why are we now about to head south? And in a carriage?”

  I explained to him about the old man’s problems and how I had resigned myself to help. I left out the part about Thorne and how disinclined I was to continue pursuit.

  He put a palm to his forehead. “I know you’ve a good heart, but this seems like a lot. Couldn’t we just pay them some money and be on our way? Maybe he won’t make the same mistake again?”

  “I’d like to see what’s going on,” I said. “I want to stop these people before they do the same to someone else. We can’t just leave it alone.”

  Wilhelm scratched at his chin. “Then perhaps we need to think better of your appearance. And we need to do so before we leave.” He snapped his fingers. “Would you wear a cloak and mask?”

  “I’d thought to do so before,” I said. “I don’t think I can get away with it. In broad daylight, it may not help at all.”

  “Even if it might only be at night... If you’re going to be doing business with people, you’ll need all the help you can get. I can do some things, of course.” He looked down at his body, at the thin breeches in particular. “I think we both need a new wardrobe before we get there. To look the part.”

  “Is that why you came up here?” I asked. “To talk about clothes?”

  He lowered his hands and looked at my face. “It wasn’t the only thing I was thinking of.”

  “Then what do you want?” I didn’t mean to be edgy with him, but it had been a long day and I felt stretched thin.

  Yet he didn’t speak. He inched closer, stopped, and continued to look at me with an intensity I wasn’t expecting.

  He closed the space between us, and kissed me once, briefly, on the lips.

  I stilled. It’d been months since I’d kissed him. I’d almost forgotten about it. And since then, I’d separated myself from him.

  This was a shocking reminder.

  My heart hadn’t forgotten him at all. It surged at his kiss. I responded to it.

  My breath was heavy when he broke the kiss.

  He spoke to me. “I needed to know…I mean…I need to know if you intend to marry one of those brothers.”

  “I don’t think I should marry anyone,” I said. “Look at me, Wilhelm.”

  He shook his head, closing his lips tightly, looking away. “You are not the dirt on your face.”

  It angered me that he looked down. I reached for him, taking his chin. I tugged him toward me, forcing him to look at me.

  I gazed into those dark eyes. In a way, it was forcing myself as well. I wanted to see him recoil.

  He didn’t. He looked at my face, and then at my eyes, locking in.

  His eyes lowered to my lips again.

  “You wouldn’t dare marry this,” I said.

  He didn’t blink, and he didn’t tug himself away. He remained near me, continuing to look at my lips and then slowly crawled his eyes back up to meet my gaze.

  “I will,” he said. “If you’ll let me.”

  My heart became as big and as wild as the bear I’d killed that got me into this mess. So fierce and ferocious, that again I found myself afraid of it.

  I snorted and released him, turning away on my heels.

  Only to be met with Shaytan facing me, looking dead at my face as well. He stopped me short.

  It was Wilhelm behind me who spoke. “Adelina. I’d declare my love for you in front of anyone who would ask. I’d prove it to you, if I only knew how. I know you sought out Thorne. I know you keep yourself close to your demon. You like him. I can tell from how you defend him.”

  Shaytan’s mouth picked up in a grin. “You defended me?”

  Wilhelm continued. “You might get involved with these people, and even get romantic with one of the sons. However, I’d give up my other eye just to stay with you.”

  “Oh,” Shaytan said looking beyond me, over my shoulder, to for once look at Wilhelm. “Tempting.”

  I smacked Shaytan with a palm, connecting with a soft thud at his chest. “Stop it.” I turned to Wilhelm.

  He seemed confused by what I just did but then refocused as I was looking at him.

  It was too much for me, with the two of them together. I put a hand over my heart, the weight of it heavy, part of it still broken by Thorne and confused by the increase of attention. “Were you worried you’d lose me? Is that why you’re here?”

  Wilhelm nodded slowly. “You pulled away from me these last few weeks. And tonight…it was like I got you back, despite the problems. You spoke to me again. Please don’t stop talking to me. And don’t leave me behind…”

  I was moved by his desire. I reached out to him, with long fingernails and a dirty palm.

  He put his face into my hand, nuzzling into my touch.

  Maybe…maybe I could love him, too. And Shaytan. The empty and broken well that Thorne had left was as big as my body, and I wondered if perhaps the two of them could replace it.

  “You have a problem,” Shaytan said behind me. It was always like he read my thoughts. “I want to stay with you, but…Wilhelm’s curse is strong. I can’t stay around you if you’re with him.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I kept my touch on Wilhelm while I looked over my shoulder at him. I wanted to know why.

  “The demon he’d interacted with repels my kind from him. I can withstand it for a little while. I won’t be able to do it forever.”

  “How do we fix this?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Shaytan said.

  “What do you mean?” Wilhelm asked.

  I didn’t want to explain what Shaytan had said.

  Instead, I urged Wilhelm to the door. “For tonight, I need you to sleep elsewhere. Go back. We’ll have a long journey in the morning.”

  Seeming inspired and energized, he righted himself and went to the door. “Then I have tonight to fi
nd something to help you along. I’ll be ready. I may need coins to do it.”

  I gave him two handfuls. He left, and I stood by the door, listening to his footsteps fade.

  Shaytan remained where he’d been, and I watched him visibly shudder once Wilhelm was a good distance. “Even now, I sense his heart. The force of it hurts my essence. It’s everything I can do not to just walk off any time he’s here.”

  “That’s why you’ve stayed away when he’s near?”

  “I know you like him,” he said, and frowned, putting a palm over his chest, where a human heart would be. “Adelina, you’re too much woman for one man, and perhaps even too much for this one demon to take on alone.”

  He came closer swiftly, startling me to retreat. My back was pressed against the door, and he hovered over me.

  He lowered his face to mine, until our noses touched. When he whispered, his lips traced mine.

  “I want to make another deal with you.”

  “I don’t want one that makes us wait another seven years for something.”

  “No,” he said. He backed up his head an inch so he could look at me. “This time, I want to ask you to change course. After we settle this thing with the thieves, I want to find a way to lift the damn curse on Wilhelm.”

  “He doesn’t think himself cursed.”

  “He is to me,” Shaytan said. “I can watch over us all, but I’m weaker around him. We need to find the demon who did the swap, and maybe see if he’ll trade it back. At least enough that my essence isn’t eaten away every time I’m around him.”

  More deals with more demons. However, it wasn’t a terrible idea. “And you won’t…eat his soul?”

  Shaytan laughed and shook his head. “Not unless he wants me to.”

  I considered this. “What do I get for helping you with it?”

  “This.” He reached out to me, touching my body over my chest.

  It was a shock to my system, but one I’d never forget. My entire core tightened all at once in a huge force of power.

  And then suddenly, released in a wave of pleasure more powerful than anything I’d ever known. Strong. Vibrating. It rattled my bones. It was spring, with crisp air, clean and beautiful. My skin was alive with every hair up and tingling. I was weightless.

  My very soul was illuminated with contentment.

  He released me within a mere second, and I realized the times he’d touched me before, he’d only ever teased me. This was leagues beyond even those moments. Slowly, my senses came back. The weight of the bearskin. The dirt on my body. It was all too heavy for me after being free of it for a second.

  “What was that?” I breathed.

  His lips curled up. “Do you like it? I designed that one for you.”

  “You design it?”

  “It’s complicated. But if you like it, I’ll give you as much as you’d like. Whenever you’d like.”

  “I think you’d do that for me anyway,” I said, picking my head back up, gazing at his face. “I’ve a better deal.”

  Delight filled him until his coal eyes lit up and the firefly glow brightened the entire room. “What’s this? A counter offer? You didn’t do that before.”

  “Didn’t know I could,” I said.

  “What do you want?”

  I reached out to him, touching him on the shoulder. “I want to do that to people. I want what you can do.”

  He tilted his head, his eyes widening. “You…want this?”

  I don’t know what drove me, but I pushed slightly at him until he only backed up a step. I leaned up, kissed him deeply. Motivated by the feelings inside me that he’d placed there, and I’d wanted.

  He was right. Beyond human lust, there was another level. It was an entirely different plane than I’d realized existed. The experience of a spring swim in a single moment and the radiating pleasure of my soul.

  But I didn’t know how to do that. How did you put the sensation of spiderwebs across skin? Or have someone feel spring in the middle of winter? If I could instill such luxurious feelings in other people…

  I pulled back on my kiss when I realized it wasn’t enough anymore. In a way, it didn’t feel the same. Not when I now knew there was more.

  He had his eyes closed when I backed off, his lips still puckered. He remained there a moment and then whispered. “You want to do it to me…”

  “I don’t know how.” I’d never thought I’d desire something like this. Perhaps in my own way, I was leveraging something I was sure to be able to please him and Wilhelm. A sensation no other human could give on her own. I’d killed men. I’d healed a few. But now, I wanted something else.

  I was this hideous. This horrible to look at, to be around.

  But the least I could do would be to give them feelings they couldn’t get from anyone else.

  He opened his eyes. The black of his pupils had broadened to take over the entirety. And it appeared to be leaking into the crevices, almost as if black tears were along the edges. “It’ll take time for me to be able to do this for you. To give you this power you want.”

  “So it can be done?”

  “Yes.”

  I picked up his hand and kissed at his palm. “Will it take seven years?”

  He chortled and picked up the hand I’d kissed and pressed it to my dirty cheek. “Not that long. So we have a deal? You’ll get Wilhelm’s curse lifted and I’ll give you this.”

  I hesitated. “How many deals can I make with you?”

  “For most things, you only need to ask me,” he said. “For more powerful things, like this…let’s just say I don’t have to. I just like it. There’s no limit to what we could do together.”

  I turned my cheek into his palm, the same way Wilhelm did to me. “Then I agree to our bargain. I don’t know how, but I’ll do it.”

  His firefly light glowed again, brighter still, until the whole room seemed ignited.

  When it finished, I exhaled slowly. “It’s too bad we have to wait to try out the power,” I said.

  “You have to wait.” He flickered his fingers at me. “I can do it whenever I’d like. And that was just a taste of what I can do with you.”

  My lips parted and my body quivered at the thought.

  That night, he slept on the floor beside me, his palm against my heart.

  I slept in cool water and warmth, the sensation pulsating from him until the morning.

  Swift Travels to the South

  At dawn, Shaytan woke me. He’d stopped flooding me with sensations hours ago to let me sleep. I’d slept deeply, and comfortably for the first time in years.

  “Klaus the puppy is coming to talk to you,” he said as he shook me gently.

  I wasn’t sure how he always knew, but just as I was standing up, there was a knock at the door. Shaytan sat up, leaning into the corner where we’d slept on the floor.

  I answered the door, peering out.

  Klaus looked in on me, his eyes darting to the hood of the bearskin and then at my face. Reality settled in, and I remembered my dingy body, something Shaytan had me forgetting overnight. “I know I must have woken you, but I think we should go. I’ve made the arrangements. It should be better if we leave now before Father wakes up.”

  That was probably a good idea. I didn’t want him wishing to tag along once we’d settled on just us. “Right. I’ll need to fetch Wilhelm.”

  “Already done,” he said. “We just need to get into the coach.”

  “He’s very efficient,” Shaytan said, rising off the floor. “Could you get him to bring you a roast duck? I don’t really want one. I just want to see him scramble.”

  I mentally told him where he could put his duck. It was too early for his jokes.

  Shaytan only chuckled.

  We followed Klaus through dark hallways, until we reached Wilhelm standing by a rear door to the house.

  Shaytan sucked in a breath, holding it. Now that I realized it physically hurt him, I worried about going into a carriage for four days cooped up wi
th Wilhelm.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Shaytan said, again reading my thoughts without me needing to say anything. “I’ll sit with the driver.”

  Wilhelm greeted me. I did the same. I was concerned and needed to talk to him about his curse. I couldn’t do it without asking him and getting him to agree.

  He held out for me a dark cloak made of a gauzy material. Then he presented me with a plain silver mask.

  “This is only to get you from place to place without people gawking,” he said. “If this is okay?”

  I glanced once at Shaytan. It felt it was breaking the deal, hiding what I was behind this. But I wasn’t taking off the cloak. And I wasn’t washing.

  Shaytan shrugged. “Wear what you want,” he said.

  If it wouldn’t scare the horses or people, I didn’t have a problem wearing a mask and second cloak.

  I put them both on, as if to practice, leaving the house and entering the carriage. The cool air met the mask, chilling my face, but for the first time in a while, I became unconcerned about how people looked at me. A mask was better.

  I couldn’t wear it all the time. Wilhelm was right. Just for in-between places to go.

  Within an hour, we were loaded together into a coach that would have easily fit four big men on the inside.

  The coach practically flew out of the city and was on its way south. I watched at the window as the countryside changed from bare farm fields, to grassy hills, to trees. I thought after we broke from the city the rocking of the carriage would even out a bit. It did, but not as much as I’d hoped.

  The coach only paused every few hours, otherwise, we kept a brisk pace, even into the night, switching drivers every twelve hours when we reached a new town.

  When in town, Wilhelm fetched water for me while I remained cooped up in the carriage. Occasionally, I stretched just outside the carriage, but I didn’t dare take the mask off when I did.

  He brought me water the first night, while the driver and Klaus were in the inn. The horses had been put up, and would possibly be traded out in the morning. I had opted to sleep in the carriage. I kept a fur on the seat to sleep on, something that could be washed later.

  Wilhelm sat in the carriage with me as I drank water from a cup. “Won’t you be cold out here? There’s no fire nearby to help warm this space.”