Scarlet tugged at the bindings. They were comfortable, but there was no give. Not caring that the beautiful fabric was ruined, he answered with a whimper, overwhelmed by the delicious sensation of being dominated. And Brien’s sheer proximity stole his breath.
He was alive to be taken by this man. It was impossible to think straight, but that they were galloping toward a moment of wondrous culmination—and fulfillment—Scarlet was absolutely sure. This…this had to be his true fate. This was the sacrifice of body he truly craved, as he struggled once more to find ample words. “Please, Captain, claim me now.”
Brien did not need asking again. Grabbing Scarlet’s ankles, Brien hitched them up so his knees pressed onto his tautened belly. Seconds later, Scarlet felt something wet and cold smearing at his entrance. He didn’t know what Brien was using as lubricant, something he’d grabbed from Old Brigit’s, maybe—but, ah! The man’s touch made him ache to be filled. Brien teased his finger around Scarlet’s rim, and Scarlet whimpered at the exquisite rush of sensation, even as the intimacy struck a note of regret in his mind.
Only the Green Man had touched him like this before, but it had never felt so incredible. Oh, Mother Goddess, as Brien teased and caressed him, he wished his previous union had never happened. That he had ever been another’s made him feel sad and slightly dirty, yet what penalty might he pay for rejecting Holgaerst so utterly?
No, he would not think of that now; he could not. Brien kneaded gently at his entrance, making Scarlet writhe with pleasure and thirst for their consummate oneness. Could it be wrong that this felt so wonderfully right, or that he desired this pull between them to override every other tie? Agh! But he had to stop thinking. This was too bloody good to spoil.
Brien must have felt him tensing. His captain’s low voice was as exhilarating as his touch, and Scarlet willed it to quell his racing thoughts.
“Don’t resist now. That’s it…nice and easy. You’re mine, remember. You’re mine.”
With his other hand, Brien stroked at Scarlet’s upturned arse and thighs, a tantalizing, gossamer lightness. Scarlet thrashed his head from side to side, gratefully giving way to Brien and to the needs of their bodies.
Then Brien withdrew his touch abruptly, and he leaned over Scarlet, his jaw set as rigid as the tendons of his neck. Scarlet fell still, fear and thrill gripping him in equal measure—then he realized Brien was busy fiddling with the remaining half of the muslin. He pressed the knotted cloth to Scarlet’s lips.
“Lift your head,” he growled; Scarlet obeyed. And the next moment, Scarlet lay there, bound and gagged with his legs hitched up, helpless and absolutely where he wanted to be. His mind and body screamed out in rapture as Brien returned to his task.
Brien circled and caressed Scarlet’s tight, puckered entrance once more, smearing up his cleft with the sour-smelling lubricant. Then, as firm as he was solicitous, Brien slipped a finger inside, and Scarlet quaked with euphoria. Nothing had ever felt as all-consuming as this, being stretched and penetrated for the first time by the one he truly desired.
“That’s it,” mumbled Brien. “Enjoy, and open for me.”
A second and third digit joined the first, easing and stretching him. Scarlet squirmed his hips, his back arching and his muscles clenching and loosening as he craved so much more. He cracked his head back against the dirt, panting wantonly, and then Brien withdrew his hand.
Scarlet, through ill-focused vision, became solely aware of Brien’s cock bobbing ahead of him, impressively hard and long, the head bulbous. The anticipation was nearly killing him. Brien slicked himself, and then at last he was there, nudging at Scarlet’s ring of muscle. Trepidation rekindling in tandem with his ever-burgeoning desire, he summoned up his faltering strength.
He bucked his hips again, willing on the impalement, and Brien gently eased himself forward. Scarlet felt his body give, stretching suddenly. He bit down, tearing through a layer of the scrunched fabric, his pleasure shot through with red-hot pain. Brien was inside him.
Was it possible to feel this stretched, this filled? With the Green Man, through design or enchantment, it had never felt like this, the shaft inside of him never so virile, pulsing and alive, nor imbuing him with such a sense of oneness. Flaming spasms rushed through him every time either of them as much as twitched. Scarlet stared up at Brien’s weather-tanned face. The captain’s lips parted, his forehead inscribed with the furrowed lines of concentration, yet the tender gleam in his eyes made Scarlet feel wanted. This union was so much more than the carnal couplings he had known before. It was something completely new.
And then Brien began to move. His motions were slight, and as his cock coaxed Scarlet’s tight orifice farther apart, he realized Brien still wasn’t all the way inside. Little by little, the penetration intensified until Brien was sheathed inside him to the hilt, and Scarlet thought he might rip at the seams if he took any more. Inhaling through the muslin of the gag, he relished the feel of his captain’s throbbing length. Mother Goddess, he wanted all of him; any consequence was more than worth it. This was his captain, his master. Sooner or later, they would both need much more.
The only warning he received was a feral growl, and then Brien fucked him, hard and brutal. His cock plowed into him, the weight of his body crushing Scarlet down into the mud—but the earth could not consume him, not with his captain claiming his body and soul as his own. And then Brien brushed that sweetest, most intimate part of him, and such bliss shattered through him that Scarlet could barely breathe. His eyes welled with moisture.
Sweat glistened and trickled over Brien’s bronzed flesh, shimmering in perpetual motion. And Brien’s adoring eyes reiterated the claiming. Again and again, harder and deeper, he drove into Scarlet at an ever-accelerating pace, pummeling him toward his limit. The friction against Scarlet’s cock was almost agony, crushing, chafing, and teasing all at once. Then Brien’s fist found him, pumping his shaft in tandem with his thrusts and the honeyed strokes against Scarlet’s prostate. Scarlet’s balls tightened, every facet of his being now governed completely by his captain; his faculties splintered and his ecstasy took flight.
It was enough…too much. But Brien showed no sign of relenting, fucking him so hard his whole body felt ablaze. The pain almost outweighed the pleasure, pushing him toward the very brink…
Scarlet’s orgasm broke through him in a torrent of rapture. His muscles clenched around the huge member inside of him, the sensation against his prostate akin to a featherlight brush of bliss amid a furnace of wondrous torment.
His captain roared out toward the skies. Scarlet’s seed splattered into Brien’s palm just as Brien gave three final, violent thrusts. Hot liquid flooded into Scarlet’s insides.
His frail body had disintegrated, his wits shredded to oblivion. And then Brien crumpled down on top of him, his weight heavy and comforting, his body soaked with perspiration, and his softening cock still buried deep in Scarlet’s arse.
They lay there panting for a short while. After extracting himself, Brien untied Scarlet’s wrists, removed the gag, and pulled him into his arms. He dropped a kiss on the top of Scarlet’s untidy hair, then lifted one of Scarlet’s freed wrists and gently kissed the tip of each of his drooping fingers. If he’d had the energy, Scarlet would have writhed once more in absolute happiness.
Brien murmured something, but Scarlet was too exhausted and sated to know or care what he said. His tenderness and his careful touch made Scarlet feel treasured in a fashion he had never before imagined, and he wanted to float, weightless, on this cloud of paradise forever. He snuggled tighter into Brien’s body and let sleep lull him away, clinging to that gut feeling that everything that had just happened had been absolutely right.
Brien was no traitor. Brien was a protector of the forest—he simply had to understand that now. And Scarlet was bound to Brien more tightly than he had ever been bound before.
* * *
A shaft of gray light filtered through the tiny window onto the grim
y floor of the cabin, to which Brien had carried Scarlet, fast asleep. Wrapped in a dirty patchwork quilt, the boy was still nestled against him, his golden hair tickling the nape of Brien’s neck. Relaxed in slumber, his elfin features harbored an innocence that made him look younger than usual, even more ethereally pretty.
But still Scarlet was bathed in the dour light of morning, and Brien urged himself not to think about last night or about those silent promises. Scarlet had been drunk. They both had been. And they had both enjoyed themselves.
He stared at him for a moment; then with a great effort, he looked away, shifting his mind onto money and property, onto the thrill of the gambling table, and to the New World that might still be found in the heart of this forest. He untangled himself as swiftly as possible, taking care not to wake the woodsman, and then went outside and dressed. Returning to the opened door, he could not prevent himself from peeping back inside, just one more time.
Scarlet had rolled onto his back, his arms flung above his head, his chest heaving with soft snores. He stared at the woodsman’s tiny, brown nipples. Fucking Scarlet had been incredible, Brien told himself. Yes, there had been moments when, carried away with his lust, he’d truly believed there were other forces at work between them. But he was not a fool.
And neither was Scarlet. What would he truly sacrifice to have him smile and dance again…?
Brien steeled himself. He’d get over it after a couple of days, and so would the woodsman. Nevertheless, as Melmoth Brien turned away and quietly closed the door, the tug in his heart almost felled him.
Chapter Fifteen
Scarlet woke up shivering. Before he’d even opened his eyes, he knew what had happened. Brien was gone.
He felt like a clot. His heart did not exactly bleed like an open wound—partially because he was too nauseated for any of that. His head throbbed like a wild boar had spent the night rolling on it. Scarlet pressed his palms to his eyes and cursed himself. But he would be damned if he was going to simply curl up and die.
So after a few minutes of miserable contemplation, Scarlet began rummaging through Brigit’s jars to see if he could find anything to soothe his head. Despite the spiders’ webs and the mouse droppings around them, many of the contents were still in usable condition, although he could not locate the dried chamomile he needed. He was on the verge of giving up when some dark grooves in the dust reminded him of one of the previous night’s revelations.
Had somebody or something been tampering with the herbs as well as the book? Yes, he could see where Brien had snatched the lubricant from, a concoction of olive oil and slippery bark extract—but that was not the only jar that had been disturbed, and Brien could hardly have had much time to fiddle around. He looked to where, yesterday, he’d noticed a jar had been shifted, and picked it up, squinting at the label. It was one he could read only too well.
Heamlac.
Scarlet’s stomach lurched. In her twilight years, Old Brigit had used heamlac to sooth the pains in her muscles and joints. In her wisdom, she had also reveled in educating Scarlet all about its more notorious applications. Administered in the right dose, heamlac acted as a deadly poison: the one that, in the bloodthirsty history of the Greenwood, was used on the victims of sacrifice. Scarlet turned and held the jar to the light. It was empty.
He placed it back down quickly, raised his acorn charm to his lips, and kissed it. His hands shook uncontrollably.
Minutes later, Scarlet had spread the best remaining contents of the shelves out in front of him across the floor, and he briefly toyed with the idea of a love potion. He even checked the back of the Aeboda to see which ingredients he needed to gather from the forest. But when he sat down to look at the book, he hissed at the smarting pain in his backside, and his innards somersaulted with fury. Melmoth Brien had claimed him and then left him. “A love potion? What in the name of the Goddess am I thinking?”
Scarlet hurled the book across the floor, wishing he’d bloody poisoned the traitor.
And then it struck him. With Brien not there to try and escape from, he hadn’t a notion what to do next, let alone how to fight his certain fate. And that hurt nearly as much as being deserted.
* * *
The morning was wearing on by the time Brien reached Arden, creeping in over the earthworks. The coos of the wood pigeons berated him, the squirrels screeching angrily in the treetops. He felt like a felon—no, less than that, like a louse.
What would you sacrifice to have him smile and dance again…?
A dozen times, he’d nearly turned on his heels and scuttled back to that grimy hovel. Now he simply wanted to find somewhere to sleep, then to clear his head and think rationally again. But even his fatigue was pushed aside when, upon drawing close to the open fire, he saw that Arya was speaking with another man.
The newcomer was sitting on a rock, hunched forward over a bowl of steaming broth. Brien stared, startled. Yes, he recognized that shabby brown coat and that mane of brick red hair. It was one of his old army comrades—one of the few he still had the right to call “friend.”
“George Shanks! What the devil?”
“Melmoth Brien! About bloody time!”
Brien hastened over, glancing questioningly between the newcomer and Arya, who folded her arms and regarded him evenly.
“You’re a rich man, Melmoth,” she said.
“What?”
Realization dawned. It was George who had suggested he make that wager on the Guinea Stakes at Newmarket. Hell, it was George, a mad, keen equestrian, who’d ridden up to place Brien’s stake for him. Yet his existence outside of the forest had faded so far into the recesses of his consciousness that finding George Shanks in Arden was like seeing a creature from one’s dreams in waking life.
George looked nearly as shocked at the sight of Brien. But then, Brien realized, he must appear a frightful mess with his clothes askance, dirt ingrained in his nails, and his stubble nearly blossomed into a full beard. George swallowed a ladleful of soup and found his tongue again.
“The wager paid off, Brien. Yorkshire Duchess came in on ridiculous odds and raked you in over a thousand guineas. I’ve been wandering about in this confounded forest for well over a day, trying to pass the bloody slip on to you. And if that’s not the sign of good friendship, I don’t know what is.”
He held out a piece of paper, which Brien took and unfolded. It all seemed so unreal that he could not force his eyes to focus on the words in any way. He handed it back, unread, with a distant smile. “I’ll see you well rewarded, George, I promise. But I can’t come back to London. Not quite yet. I have unfinished business.”
“Yes,” confirmed Arya. “He has. May I speak to you, Brien? Alone?” She took him by the arm and steered him away to her cabin.
“Is it about Scarlet?” asked Brien.
Arya looked up from where she poured out some nettle beer for them to share. “Did you find him?”
“No,” he lied; he coughed to clear the lump in his throat. “So it’s about Jemima?”
Arya passed him a tankard of the beer. “It is, indeed. Jemima passed through this way in the early hours. She did not wake me but left a message with some of the girls—for you. She wants to talk with you tomorrow. She’ll be at Carseald Hall.”
“Oh.”
So he was a rich man, who might be about to get his hands on the deeds and thus become even richer. And he felt more wretched than he had ever been in his life.
“Oh?” Arya met Brien’s glower with a sharp look of her own. “Melmoth, where is Scarlet?”
* * *
Scarlet pulled on his trousers, struggling to retie the broken strings, and stepped outside. Clouds mottled the sky, the ground wet with dew. There came a loud caw, a rustle, and a crow flapped its way between the treetops.
He breathed deeply of the restless air. Something very powerful was stirring—and he sensed a strong, magical presence nearby. Had he come back?
“Brien,” he murmured. His voice sounded
weak and thin, and he hated himself for it.
“Scarlet!” Jemima appeared from behind the elm. She rushed up to him, bracing her hands on his shoulders before he’d had a chance to gather his wits. “I’m too late, aren’t I?”
Scarlet twisted his body so she fell away, and he met her gaze angrily. The last thing he needed was Jemima’s condescension.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have done more to protect you from him.”
“I’m not a child. I make my own decisions. If they’re the wrong ones, that’s my poor luck.”
“I did not mean to belittle you. I’m sorry.”
Jemima was as immaculately groomed as the feathers in her quiver were snow-white. Her hair was glossy and loose, as if it had been freshly brushed, and her eyes glowed in a vivacious shade of green.
Just like her brother’s. Scarlet willed his anger to simmer, tempted to damn Jemima’s status in the Greenwood and simply tell her he didn’t give a flying fuck what she thought and to leave him be.
“You must not blame yourself, though,” she continued. “Making the right decision is impossible when there are forces at work so much more powerful than our own. Even I…I think I’ve been wrong about many things lately.”
The fresh air was sharpening his senses and lessening his initial irritation, prompting him to regard Jemima with an increased interest. Her usual aura of serenity had slightly diminished—and was this majestic being admitting to a mistake? That alone was enough to keep him listening.
“I was wrong about Niogaerst, Scarlet. The fouler spirits are more powerful than I dared dream. I hate to say it, but the days of blood and sacrifice may be back upon us. I still don’t know if I was right or wrong about my brother, but…”
Scarlet afforded a rueful laugh. “I think you were bloody right about that one, actually. Not that there’s much I can do about it now.”
“You mean that you are now bound to him?”
Scarlet scraped his fingers back through his lank-feeling hair; confessing might afford him scant relief, but talking even to Jemima was beginning to feel like a comfort. “It was my own fault,” he said, sighing. “But that’s only half of the problem. Just his being here seems to have set the spirits baying for my blood.”
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