Paladin's Strength

by T. Kingfisher

  “What?” She blinked at him, then at her hand, then she actually blushed. Istvhan watched, charmed. “No! I mean…yes. But not until after I’ve slept for about twenty hours.”

  “Oh good,” he said. And then he found the strength to lean over and kiss her, and even if there was no energy left for passion, there was enough of a spark to warm him all the way down to sleep.

  Clara woke with the gratifying sensation of having slept at least half the day away. Her tongue felt like flannel and her muscles like wet clay, but by god, she had slept.

  She was coming back from using the privy when the door to the galley opened and Istvhan appeared, carrying a board covered in cheese, bread, and sardines. “I don’t know if you’re as hungry as I am, but I figured that it was a safe bet.”

  “Bless you,” said Clara, her stomach growling. “You are a prince among men.”

  “There’s tea on the hearth.”

  Clara gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “What time is it?”

  “Middle of the night, I think. So I suppose this isn’t quite breakfast. I haven’t been up for very long either. Food was just my first thought.”

  For the next few minutes, the only sounds were of two people devouring heroic quantities of food. Clara had changed too many times in the last twenty-four hours and her body demanded payment.

  When the roar of hunger had been muted, she slumped back against the wall, holding a third cup of tea. “I am going to be half sardine by weight by the time we’re done in Morstone.”

  “At least it’s not beach plums.”

  “There’s that.”

  They sat in companionable silence, digesting. Maude made an indignant croak somewhere in the woodpile, probably annoyed by the activity at this late hour. Clara turned her head, grimaced, and rubbed at her neck. The crick in it from sleeping on the coach had not gone away. Instead it appeared to be set in concrete. “Getting old is the worst,” she said. “When I was young, I could fall down a hillside, shake myself off, and be none the worse for wear. Now I sleep wrong and I’m hunched up for a week.”

  “I know,” said Istvhan, with the passion of someone who had his own collection of trick joints and hostile muscle groups. He scooted to the edge of the bed-platform and gestured to her. “Here. Sit and I’ll rub it for you.”

  Clara, no longer being of an age when she could fall down the aforementioned hillsides, was also old enough to know that when handsome men offered to rub your neck, there was only one way the evening was going to end.

  Last chance. Last chance to step back with your heart even slightly intact.

  She looked at Istvhan, sitting in the warm glow of the hearth, his upturned hands on his knees. His arms were bare and his shirt gaped open at the throat, far enough to reveal the long flat planes of muscle. The line where his shoulder muscle dipped into his bicep made her want to howl like a dog.

  You know it’s too late for you. It’s been too late for a long time.

  She rose, not trusting herself to speak, and knelt in front of him. He set his thumbs on either side of her spine and began to massage the muscles there, sliding farther down until the tension in her neck was gone and had been replaced with a rather more urgent tension a good deal lower.

  He leaned forward and kissed the back of her neck, and she closed her eyes.

  “Tell me what you are thinking, Domina,” he said against her hair. “Tell me, so I don’t guess wrong.”

  I’m thinking I’m in love with you, you absurdly decent man. I have fallen in love and it’s worse than it ever was before, because you know what I am. You could be my lover and my partner and we could be so good together, and when you finally walk away, it will destroy me.

  She said none of these things. If she did, she might force the loss to happen right now. He was decent, and he wouldn’t lead her on just to bed her. If I’m going to lose him, I damn well better get a night of pleasure first. Several, if possible. Half a dozen.

  So instead she stood up and faced him and let her robe fall down from her shoulders to her elbows, and said “I think that I want you very badly.”

  Those dark eyes went wide. He rose to his feet as well. “Domina,” he said, as if the word were an obscenity or a prayer. “Yes.”

  She was beautiful. She was beautiful and strong and she was in his arms and Istvhan was fairly certain that his cock was hard enough to pound tent pegs. Pace yourself, he thought, you aren’t as young as you used to be. His cock ignored him.

  He took both her hands in his, kissed each knuckle, and breathed on the tender skin of her wrists. She shivered and he tugged her backwards, towards the bench, until he could sit down on the edge. She was still wearing the bodice under her robe. They’d fallen down so quickly the night before that she hadn’t undressed completely. He unlaced one side and ran his fingers across the crossed red lines the lacings had left on her skin.

  “Clara,” he said, drawing the words out. “You are magnificent.” He leaned in and kissed each red line, feeling the softness of her skin against his lips. He would probably have marks as well by the time this was done. At least, if they did it right.

  He wanted to bury his face in her breasts and make love to her right on the spot, but if he did that, it really would be over in a few minutes. She deserved better. Hell, he’d waited so long for this, he deserved better, too. So he denied himself, slid the fabric free without touching her skin, and instead lifted his hands to her hair. “May I?”

  “Yes.”

  She sat between his knees, on the edge of the bench, while he unbraided her hair and slid his fingers through it. It smelled of…well, of pine tar soap, honestly. His probably did too. He set his lips against the nape of her neck, feeling her skin against the roughness of his cheek. “Damnation. I should have shaved.”

  “I’ll forgive you this once.” She slid her hands up and down his thighs, which was the only part of him she could easily reach. Istvhan was just congratulating himself on their positioning when she managed to slide her arm between them and began attempting to unlace his breeches behind her back.

  “This is very difficult when I can’t see the ties,” she muttered.

  “Yes, but you certainly have my attention, Domina.”

  “What, only now?”

  “You have had my attention for weeks. Since you walked into my tent with nothing but a sword.”

  She turned in his arms and kissed him, hot and hungry, passionate enough to make him think that he’d had her attention for just as long. He kissed her until he thought he might drown, while she figured out the ties and began to loosen them. Oh, Saint’s teeth, this won’t last long if she keeps that up…

  He came up for air and caught her hands. “Much more of that and I will disappoint us both.”

  “I doubt that highly.”

  “Your faith is touching, but now that I have you, I would much rather take my time and do this right.” He ran his lips down the line of her neck, across her collarbone, and then lower, down to the place between her breasts he’d touched once before.

  She stiffened as he reached it, her breath catching. “Easy,” he whispered against her skin. “Easy, Domina. I’ve got you.”

  A shudder went through her. Istvhan prided himself on making women quiver, but this was the wrong kind. He looked up and caught a flicker in her eyes of the wrong emotion entirely.

  He lifted his head. She had gone suddenly, alarmingly still. “Domina? What’s wrong?”

  She turned her face away from him, and when he reached up and ran his thumb across her lower lip, it trembled.

  “You’re frightened,” he said. The words sounded completely mad when he said them aloud. She was here, in his bed, of her own choice. She’d kissed him in the inn hallway with none of the hesitancy of inexperience. And yet he had trained himself to recognize that look and it struck him like a splash of cold water.

  She did not deny it.

  Frightened? Now? But what happened? What’s different?

  And then he knew.<
br />
  “I know your secret,” he said. “That’s the difference, isn’t it? I know what you are.”

  She pulled away and rose. Istvhan let her go. He suddenly did not know what to do with his hands, so he draped them over his knees and watched the firelight run across the edges of her skin.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I’m not. I’d rather know.” But knowing means I’ve gotten too close, doesn’t it? It means that I could really hurt you.

  …it means someone did really hurt you, doesn’t it?

  Istvhan had a sudden desire to find this hypothetical man, pick him up by the throat, and have a long conversation.

  Clara pulled her robe up over her shoulders and knelt on the hearth, poking the fire up. It didn’t particularly need it, but Istvhan recognized a distraction when he saw one. “It’s not so easy,” she said, not looking at him. “Plenty of men say they want a woman who’s an animal in bed, but in practice, not so much.”

  “Plenty of men are idiots.”

  “Ah?” She turned her head. The light reflected just slightly wrong from her eyes, a flash of green instead of red. “And you will not fear that if you make me angry, I will turn into a bear and tear you limb from limb?”

  “I’ve made you angry on several occasions already, as I recall. In fact, I stabbed you once.”

  Her laugh was stifled but genuine. Istvhan had never in his life thought that he would bless his past self for stabbing a nun, but apparently the world had gotten very strange when he wasn’t looking. “So you did,” she said. “I’m not sure it counts, though.”

  “Please don’t make me stab you again to prove that I find you desirable.”

  Her shoulders shook, but not with fear this time. “Oh St. Ursa, no, no. No more stabbing.”

  “Thank the gods. I don’t mind a good argument as foreplay, but not when live steel is involved.” He got off the bed and came to sit beside her at the hearth.

  She narrowed her eyes, studying him thoughtfully. “No, no, I see what it is. You see a hurt you think you can heal. It’s like paladin catnip, isn’t it?”

  That blow was so precise that Istvhan was surprised he wasn’t bleeding, but he had no intention of letting her know that. “Believe me, if I could fix more of the world’s hurts by making passionate love to a beautiful woman, I’d be a very happy man.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Clara…” He let the word trail off his tongue like a caress, and saw her soften, just a little. “Clara, do you truly think you need to be hurt for me to want you? I grant you, I am what I am, and we do tend towards heroes and martyrs, but I try very hard to avoid being either. And honestly, I don’t know that anyone really wants to bed martyrs.” Which is half the reason that the Bishop sent you on your way, isn’t it? She said she had no desire to become a duty.

  Oh. Huh. He’d been a little hurt by that, in truth. Not a great deal, just a sliver that had pricked at him more than it ought to. Until he spoke the words out loud, he hadn’t realized how right the Bishop had been. The hurt smoothed itself away and left a vague sense of foolishness in its wake.

  Perhaps that realization lent him some kind of strength. He reached out and stroked his thumb across Clara’s cheekbone, and she did not pull away.

  “I would prefer you not be a martyr in bed,” she admitted.

  “What about a hero, then?”

  She rolled her eyes, but she also leaned her cheek against his hand. “You do think well of yourself.”

  “Give me a chance, Domina,” he said, pulling her close. He would take exasperation over fear any day of the week.

  She sat in the circle of his arms, bolt upright. Not quite relaxing. Not yet. He trailed his lips along her jaw and down her throat, feeling the quiver, trying to soothe it. It would be all right. He would drive out fear with passion if he had to. He plucked at the opening to her robes. He could still remember the softness of her breasts from that night in the cave, and he desperately wanted to see if his memory was accurate.

  She shifted just a little. He felt her soften against him. He slid his hands under the fabric, reaching. There. Yes. The weight and the curve against his fingers. Saint’s balls, his memory had failed him completely, this was so much better.

  The door slammed open. Clara and Istvhan leapt apart as if they’d been caught doing something indecent, which they had, but not nearly as indecent as Istvhan had been hoping. Clara snatched at the throat of her robes, pulling them closed.

  Ethan stood in the doorway with his arms full of dripping jars. If he even noticed the state of their clothes, it wasn’t obvious. “You’ve got to help me,” he gasped. “There’s men coming to raid the safehouse. We have to save the newts!”

  Thirty-Eight

  Well, this is my own damn fault, thought Clara grimly. If I had just thrown myself on his cock like a sensible woman, this would be an amusing anecdote that happened afterwards. But no, I had to get cold feet halfway through, like a shrinking virgin afraid he won’t respect me in the morning, and so we had barely started when suddenly, newts.

  If only he hadn’t been so damned careful about it. So tender. So very much himself. Her illusion of losing herself in mindless lust had been completely shattered. She hadn’t been able to forget for an instant that this was Istvhan and she was hopelessly in love with him. Every touch felt like an assault on her defenses.

  She gazed across the dark alley. Like most of Morstone, it was built of wood, and it turned and twisted with very little concern for straight lines or lighting. She could only just make out Istvhan as a bulky shadow to her left.

  Ethan had not been sure who was going to raid the safehouse, other than men employed by the Sealords. He wasn’t even sure which Sealord was behind it, or why. Clara was glumly certain that she and Istvhan were the cause, but all she could do was shove down the guilt and carry jars. And watch for enemies. There were no apparent enemies in the ally, which seemed like a damn shame because she was frustrated and half-aroused and would have welcomed a chance to punch someone deserving in the head.

  “Well,” she said. “Here we are.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Frustrated and covered in newts.”

  A gusty sigh came from the shadow. “I try to be a considerate lover, Domina,” said Istvhan, in the tones of a man confessing to a great crime. “I work very hard at it. I would give you pleasure a dozen times over before I took mine. It is a matter of craftsmanship.”

  “Mm-hmm,” said Clara, shifting the extremely heavy sack over her shoulder. Dozens of jars full of water clinked and sloshed, probably to the dismay of the amphibians contained within. Despite the lids, moisture was leaking out and spreading down her back.

  “But I am starting to think that the gods are trying to keep us apart.” He peered around the corner of the alley, looking for the wagon that Ethan had sworn was coming to take the newts to safety.

  “I’ve been getting that impression,” Clara said.

  “If we aren’t being attacked, we’re rescuing wayward amphibians.”

  “We couldn’t very well leave them.”

  “No, we couldn’t. But I’ll be honest, Domina—at this point, I would take you up against this wall, right here, if it wasn’t for the newts, and craftsmanship be damned.”

  She began laughing. She couldn’t help it. “And if it wasn’t for the newts, I’d let you do it. This is getting absurd.”

  “I want you very, very badly, Domina.” His eyes were deep and dark and the heat in them was enough to make her forget that her back was soggy with newt-water.

  “My dear Captain, the feeling is mutual.”

  His breath quickened. “Do you suppose if we put down the jars, we could…”

  Ethan burst out of the door. “I found her! She’d gotten behind the barrels!” He waved a wet burlap sack at Istvhan and Clara. “I’m so relieved!”

  Clara let the thought go reluctantly. “Is that the last one?”

  “Yes. We’ve got all the j
ars. If some of the Sealords’ thugs decide to smash things up, nobody will get hurt.”

  “What about the fish?” asked Clara.

  Ethan looked at her blankly. “What?”

  She realized that this might end with her and Istvhan lugging a massive ceramic fishbowl between them, but pressed on anyway. “Will they hurt the fish?”

  “No, they’re ornamental carp,” said Ethan, as if that explained everything.

  She looked at Istvhan, who looked as puzzled as she felt. “Are the carp not particularly valuable?”

  “What? No, but they’re…” Ethan looked back and forth between them. “You don’t hurt a carp,” he said, as if telling a small child not to touch a hot stove.

  “You don’t?”

  “No! The River Giant would rise up from the river bed and avenge the insult!” He paused, eyes going round. “Do you not have carp in your lands?”

  “We do,” admitted Istvhan, “but the gods do not seem particularly concerned with them.”

  “How bizarre. They’re the oracular fish. If one bites one of your fingers off, it’s good luck. It means the River Giant has tasted your blood and taken your sacrifice, and you will be safe on the waters of the river for the rest of your life.”

  “What does it mean if you get two fingers bitten off?” murmured Clara under her breath, as Ethan went to the mouth of the alley to look for the wagon.

  “Stop sticking your hand in the water,” said Istvhan, just as quietly.

  The wagon arrived, fortunately, before they had to explain to Ethan why they were giggling.

  It was a long ride in the wagon, covered in burlap sacks, and Istvhan soon lost track of the twists and turns. He had a suspicion that they did not actually end up very far from where they started, but they took such a roundabout path that he couldn’t be certain. Which is fine. The less I know, the less I can give up under torture, if it comes to that.

  He really, really hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  When they finally stopped, they were in a little lane, blocked off on both ends by doorways. Ethan dug his way free of the sacks and handed down jars of newts to Istvhan and Clara, while their host waited in the doorway with a lamp held high.