by Lila Dubois
Siara, embarrassed about her garments, changed from thinking that she was wearing practically nothing, to the recognition that she was the most poorly dressed woman in the room.
Ah well, at least being poorly dressed was something she was used to.
Anleeh’s arm slipped away from her waist, and Siara looked up. His face had settled into an expression she’d never seen before, his eyes haunted.
Moving slowly through the crowd, which parted to let her pass, was a tall woman, notable for her dark hair. The last of the people parted and Siara got a good look at her. Slender, with long lean lines of muscle clearly defined on her bare arms, the woman wore white and grey furs, sewn into a knee length tunic. The skirt of the tunic was darted with triangles of darker gray fur, and her boots were lined with the same. Her wrists were heavy with bracelets of bead and bone.
Anleeh stepped away from Siara.
“You have returned.” Her voice was low and musical, with an accent Siara could not place.
“Yes.”
“Did your journey bring you joy?” The woman flicked her gaze to Siara.
“Yes, my time in the Great City brought me much joy.”
“Then do not regret it; you owe me nothing.”
Anleeh’s head bowed, his shoulders heaved, and he threw himself at the woman’s feet, wrapping his arms around her thighs and pressing his face against her belly.
Siara was the only one close enough to hear him whisper, “Mama.”
Siara lay in their small sleeping alcove, still wearing every bit of clothing save her boots.
“Siara?” Anleeh whispered. “Are you here?” They’d been separated when a few of the warriors took Anleeh away to see to the cleaning of his wounds.
“Yes.”
Anleeh pushed back the curtain and looked down at her. “You know better than to wear your clothes to bed. Come here.”
Siara wiggled her way out. They had been given one of the sleeping nooks in the Hall, an alcove with storage closets both above and beneath it. The actual sleeping space was just tall enough that Siara could sit up.
Anleeh held aside the curtain as Siara hopped off the bunk.
“Strip.”
“Anleeh,” she hissed, “people might…”
“Obey me.”
Why was he being so harsh? Turning her head away Siara bent to remove the leg wraps and then pulled the bone pin free. Hands clenched at her sides she turned her back to Anleeh so he could undo the lacings. As he tugged Siara did her best to pretend that her ass and sex were not exposed to anyone who might wander through the Hall at this late hour.
When the top dropped to the floor, and Siara was completely naked, she turned to Anleeh, refusing to look up. His hand on her jaw, grip too tight to be comfortable, forced her to meet his eyes.
“I see both fear and anger in your eyes; hold onto your anger,” he warned.
“Having problems with a disobedient woman?” A voice, hard and mocking, intruded into their moment. A shadow moved on her right side, and Siara wondered how long the speaker had been watching.
Anleeh turned, blocking Siara. “No. It has been a hard day for her, nothing more.”
“My woman said she saw her get into bed in her furs.”
“My woman is not used to the cold. That shouldn’t be a problem now that I am here to warm her.”
The man who’d spoken was Anleeh’s height with shoulder length kinky blonde hair. Siara pressed herself against Anleeh’s back and cursed herself. She’d thought she was unobserved when she slipped into the bed.
Curling her fingers into his tunic Siara paid close attention to the conversation, hoping she would find a way to correct some of the damage she’d done.
“It has been a long time, Anleeh.”
“It has, Leik.”
“Things have changed; the power has changed.”
“Watch your words. People could think that you are implying my uncle is not in full power.”
“Do not make threats against me, Outsider. You are no longer of Den. Whatever fighting skill you gained is that of the weak humans of the Great City. Your beast has gone soft; you cannot even control your woman.”
“My woman is no concern of yours.”
“A good hard fuck from a real man would settle her beast; let me know when you’re ready to let a real man have her.”
Siara leaned around Anleeh in time to see the man turning to walk away.
Anleeh needed to prove he had control over her, and Siara was determined to give him the opportunity to see it done. Siara stepped around him, stroking his arm as she did so, hoping her touch conveyed all that she wanted it to.
Siara ran to the man, bare feet silent on the floor. Reaching up she knotted her hands in his hair and jerked him back. The man yelled in surprise and whirled, his hand coming up to knock her away, but Siara let her beast run free, let it take control, and the beast’s reflexes were faster than Siara’s own.
Ducking, Siara brought her knee up, slamming it into the man’s groin. The blow was just as effective as it had been this morning, and when the man dropped to the ground, Siara, heedless of her nakedness, straddled his chest.
“Never,” she growled softly, “insult my man.”
Anleeh, with studied slowness, walked up beside the pair.
“Siara,” he said mildly.
Tossing her head Siara looked at him, “Yes?”
“I thought I told you that you may not attack people.” He’d never given that order, but Siara played along.
“He deserved it. He insulted you.”
“He will not be the first or the last.” Anleeh’s eyes flicked to the side, and that is when Siara became aware of the people who had gathered to watch. “But you disobeyed an order.”
“And I will do it again if he, if anyone, insults you.” She hoped that was the right response, defiant, yet acknowledging his order.
“Then you will take your punishment.”
Siara licked her lower lip, slowly rising, kneeing the man beneath her a second time as she did. Leaving the man to curl on his side, hands now cupping his abused member, Siara stood before Anleeh, a subtle shake of her head sending long tangles of hair down to cover her breasts.
“You know what to do.”
Siara turned to the wall, placing her hands against it and walking her legs backwards. Unlike the first spanking, Anleeh’s hands on her outer thighs urged Siara to keep her legs closed, offering a small amount of protection from the watching eyes.
Anleeh stepped to the side and then brought his hand down in a vicious spank on her presented buttocks. Siara jerked, the noise was so loud that she expected there to be searing pain. A second spank was administered with the same scarily loud ‘slap,’ but the pain was mild by comparison. Whatever Anleeh was doing sounded much worse than it felt.
Siara knew they had an audience; she could feel their gazes on her exposed flesh. She sucked in her stomach to make it smaller and hoped her rear end didn’t look impossibly large as Anleeh spanked her.
It was her fault that they’d had to stage this discipline session, so Siara forced herself to ignore the witnesses, and instead let herself sink into the spanking.
After all the emotional upheaval of the day, the spanking had a strange effect. It felt as if Anleeh were beating the emotions from her body, leaching out the residual fear, frustration, embarrassment and worry. In its place came a strange calm, and arousal.
Siara began pushing her hips into the blows, her sex filling with moisture. Her beast rolled through her, displeased by the spanking, wanting Anleeh to take her hard and fast and long, enough of this pain-laced foreplay.
When one particularly hard blow jiggled her sex, Siara snarled in pleasure, the strange purring-yowl echoing from low in her throat.
Distantly she heard voices rising, as if discussing the sound, but Siara had to concentrate on maintaining her position. Her beast had grown bold after being allowed to attack two men today, and whispered seductively, assuring
Siara that she could take Anleeh, knock him down and hold him there long enough for Siara to sink down onto his cock.
The vision, the desire, was so strong that the denial of it made her light-headed.
The rhythm paused, no more blows fell. She would rather be spanked then enter this void of sensation.
Siara snarled, making her displeasure at the cessation known.
“Get in the bunk, woman.”
Thank the Goddess. Siara pushed off from the wall and then rolled into the bunk, watching from the hidden dark as Anleeh stripped, baring himself before the onlookers. Anleeh climbed in, pulling the drape shut behind him.
“I need to be inside you. Now.” Anleeh jerked her legs apart, crawling up between them, and slid his cock inside of her. With her legs hooked over his back, his chest resting on hers, he thrust into her, fucking her again and again, his thighs slamming against her abused ass.
Siara held him tight, pushing away all thought and emotion, living only for the feel of his cock tunneling into her, the pleasure of his body pinning hers down. When her orgasm came Anleeh fucked her harder and faster before pulling out to spill his seed onto her belly.
Chapter Ten
“Siara?”
“Hmmm?”
“It is an hour before dawn. Now is the only time we will find any privacy.”
“Mmhmm.”
“I know you are sleepy, lover, but I need to know that you are okay.” Anleeh’s voice held something painful, almost desperate. Siara opened her eyes, realized she could not see him in the dark of their little bunk and lifted her hand to cup his face.
“I am fine.”
“The spanking…”
“I knew what would happen. I did it on purpose.”
“I thought so, and it was the perfect thing to do, but I was unsure. I am stunned you were able to so accurately defuse the situation.”
“You have been teaching me about Den since the moment we left; I would have been a fool to not understand what was happening, and what was needed to remedy it.”
“I forget how very clever you are,” a smile slipped into his voice, “as I am so distracted by the lushness of your body.”
“A body many have now seen naked.”
“Don’t sound so forlorn, my lover. You are beautiful.”
“I wonder why you are the only one who ever thought so.” And why you never thought so until we began this journey.
“I will be greatly envied for having such a lush woman; you saw how they reacted to you yesterday.”
“I think they were reacting to the idea of taking something of yours.”
“That is just an extra bit of pleasure for them; you are a prize, especially after last night.”
“What I did was truly right?”
“Yes. It showed that you knew the rules but chose to break them, marking you as a woman of great spirit. You took on a warrior and then accepted your punishment with grace and pleasure. The only way you could be more desirable would be if you were blonde.”
“I have never seen a people who look so alike.”
“I told you that outsiders are rare.”
“But your hair is dark.”
Anleeh shifted away from her. “Yes.”
“As is the hair of that woman … your mother.”
There was a long pause before Anleeh answered again. “Yes.”
“Are you the only ones with different colored hair?”
“Nay, there is one other. The woman I saw trained, the one I spoke of, has dark hair also.”
“Is your mother…”
“I will be with my father and uncle all day; you will have to make your own way.”
So there would be no talk of his mother; it was not really Siara’s business after all. It was good that he reminded her that she was, despite their charade, nothing more than his comrade.
“I was hoping you would be able to walk with me, let me learn the compound.”
“I will not have time for a few days; you will have to be on your own.”
Siara’s heartbeat sped up. This is not how she’d imagined this would go. “Anleeh, I am not so good at speaking to people, especially those I don’t know.” Please, I need your help.
“Perhaps the old Siara was not, but you have changed, as have I. We are not the people who rode out of the Great City: you are both bolder and softer, and I am retuning to what I was.”
“Anleeh, why do you say it that way? What is wrong with who you were?”
He sighed. “I do not know how to explain.”
“Try.”
“Enough of this. I suggest that you head to the public cooking fires if you wish to meet the other women.”
Feeling terribly alone despite Anleeh lying so close that the heat of his body warmed her, Siara lapsed into silence. Neither one of them spoke again until, with a murmured, “Be safe” Anleeh slid from the bunk, leaving Siara to curl up on her side, homesick for the first time since she’d left.
“I want you to teach the Clan the fighting styles you used yesterday.”
Anleeh jerked his attention back to his uncle. He needed to pay more careful attention to the conversation. He’d been distracted all morning. The conversation with Siara had left a sour taste in his mouth.
“I will teach them, but it will come with a price.”
“You were sent here to make us pay homage to the Great City.”
“Not to pay homage. To form an alliance.”
“Den is its own nation. We need no one.”
“The King and Queen will not rule as Throlock did; they want peace and unity among all the lands between the seas.”
“Then they will leave Den be; we need nothing from them.”
“But yet you ask me to teach you of their fighting methods.”
“Bah! Enough of this, we will speak of other things. Bring out more mead!”
Anleeh leaned back in his chair. He’d gotten further in this conversation than he’d thought; it would take time to sway Jahrl. While a fur bedecked serving girl refilled his tankard, Anleeh wondered how Siara was doing.
Siara pressed her back to a tree, shoulders and head slumping in defeat.
She’d been wandering for hours, walking the paths between the many structures which made up the village. She’d walked until she hit the spiked-topped wooden wall, then turned and walked the other way, until again she’d hit the wall. It was an hour walk from one side to the other.
More people than she could count had stopped in their daily activities, women pulling water from a well, men balanced atop roofs, sheaves of thatch on their backs, to watch her walk by. Siara wanted, needed, to stop and talk, but the very thought of going up to these people and starting a conversation was so unnerving that she couldn’t do it.
As the Royal Historian and Scribe, she was an utter failure. When she’d imagined the journey, Siara had pictured herself seated at a long table in a place of honor, Anleeh (who during the journey had discovered he was madly in love with her) seated at her right, assisting her. One by one the people would come to her, speak with her, allowing her to take all their stories and weave them into a pattern that would explain Den and its people. Then, again with Anleeh by her side, Siara would walk among them, observing their daily lives and rituals.
Siara had walked among them, but with none of the grace and confidence she had imagined. The confident woman who’d run the Temple College, renowned for her observant manner and calm, stern face was gone, lost to the nervous young woman who leaned against a tree, hiding from the people she’d been sent to study.
“Lost?”
Siara yelped and turned; standing behind her was a young woman, her face smooth and surrounded by glossy waves of white hair. Her eyes were startlingly blue against the cream of her skin.
“I’m sorry. You startled me, but thank you, no, I am not lost.”
“My name is Anga.”
“Hello Anga. My name is…”
“Siara, I know, I saw you yesterday, in the Hall.�
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She’d seen the spanking? Goddess bless it—
“Uhhhhhhhh.”
“It was really, really beastly the way you felled that warrior.”
Oh Goddess.
“And then, the way Anleeh-Ori protected you, that was beastly!”
Thank the Goddess, she was talking about the first encounter, not the second. The girl, who had at first appeared serene, was now bobbing on her toes, hair bouncing around her head.
“Beastly?”
“Yes!”
“Is that … an expression?”
“What do you mean?”
“How, and when, do you use the word beastly?”
“Oh, I forgot that you barely even speak our language!” Siara bit back the need to point out that Den and The Great City both spoke the same root language. Instead she smiled, encouraging the girl. “Beastly is what you say when, when, um, something is very good, but also maybe a little bit scary, but you get tingly all over.”
Anga demonstrated by shivering and Siara laughed, charmed by her effervescent manner.
“So beastly is an exclamation. It is not used to refer to when a person’s beast, er, rises.”
“Oh, oh! I want you to tell me all about your beast. My sister’s beast came—she just married—but she likes to tease me and just smiles. She never answers my questions.”
“Your beast isn’t always with you?”
“You don’t even know about your beast but you can call her? That is beastly!”
“I would like to learn more.”
“You have to! Come, meet my friends, we’re supposed to be harvesting honey, but mostly we just talk.” The girl grabbed Siara’s hand and started dragging her through the village. “The way it happens is that something has to happen. Then once something happens, there’s your beast!”
Siara, tripping along behind Anga who had both a surprisingly strong grip and long stride, struggled to respond. “What happens?”