by Jessi Gage
Her horse had wandered to a wee creek, barely a trickle in the grass. She went to him and petted his neck while he drank. “Not too much, lad. Let’s walk you some before you sate that thirst.” She gathered his reins and walked him along the creek to cool him. Riggs didn’t follow. Good. She needed time to steel herself for what she kent she must do. Only a coward would put it off any longer.
Dusk kissed the plain with cold gray light as she led her horse back to Riggs.
He was removing his mount’s tack. “We’ll camp here,” he told her.
Surrounded by low hills, they were relatively well hidden, and there was water. ’Twas a good place to rest. As good a place as any to dash a man’s hopes.
“I canna have bairns,” she made herself say.
He froze in unbuckling the girth. His gaze bored into hers. They stood facing each other, watching each other breathe.
“My legs werena the only things broken in my fall. I havena had my courses since. I canna be who ye need me to be.”
His eyes widened as he began to understand her.
She looked at her boots, unable to watch his admiration turn to disappointment. “I’m broken. All the way through, I’m broken.” The truth chopped through her pride like the blade of an axe. It left her in pieces. She turned her back on him and limped away, hoping for privacy, because tears were about to fall.
He gave her what she needed by not following.
She found a pair of boulders and crouched between them, shaking. In the distance, she heard him tending to her horse. A little while later he spoke nearby. “I’m going hunting.” His voice was gruff and quiet. “Unless you need me to stay.”
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Go. I’m fine. Go.”
He went.
She wanted to shrivel into a ball and die. Riggs had thought he’d been in possession of a great treasure. Now he understood he’d gone to all this trouble for nothing.
* * * *
Riggs crouched at the top of a hill and gazed in the direction of their camp. Cold wind stirred his hair and the long grass around him. The moon hid behind a thick blanket of clouds, but he could feel exactly where it was. Its fullness called to his soul. There would be rain soon.
Anya knew it. Below, she was getting ready, pounding stakes into the ground with a rhythmic tink-tink-tink, using the trackers’ supplies to make a tent for them to lie under.
He watched her wield a good-sized rock as a hammer. Her legs were crippled, but her arms were strong. He’d never been near enough to any female other than his mother to study their mannerisms, but men talked. Females liked the men to do everything for them, and the men dashed about to do it all. Not Anya. She liked to work. She wanted to be useful.
“I canna have bairns... All the way through, I’m broken.”
He should be hunting. He’d never felt less like it. He sniffed the air, halfheartedly searching for a scent to pursue, but the salty scent of Anya’s silent tears lingered in his nostrils.
Could he be mistaken about who she was? Was it a coincidence she resembled King Magnus’s portrait? Did Danu have another delicate, chestnut-haired beauty up her sleeve?
The scent of plains hare tickled his nose. He didn’t get up to follow it.
Anya began collecting bracken for firewood, cloaked against the cold, limping, piling her arms as full as she possibly could before delivering each load to their campsite. There were no large trees to provide fallen limbs, only bushes and dry, scrubby growth. Hands on her hips, she frowned at the pile she’d accumulated. It wouldn’t burn long enough to cook that hare he smelled, let alone the feast he wished he could prepare her this night and every other. She eyed his axe, picked it up, tested its weight. When she took it to a shrub and began hacking awkwardly at the base, he felt himself smile.
The female King Magnus had dreamt about was supposed to have a paw print on her cheek. Anya’s scars were jagged lines that could have been claw marks, but it had been rock to carve them into her, not a wolf. The female in the portrait wore a gemstone, a gift from the goddess, in a chain around her neck. Anya’s stone was in her pocket, and had been given to her by a man, not a goddess.
He’d never seen the portrait with his own eyes, only heard about it from Vorish and that barkeep in Figcroft, then later in a report from the palace. King Magnus had described it so the entire nation would be watching for the savior Danu had promised them. One detail appeared in the report that he hadn’t heard at the pub. The female King Magnus had dreamt about had been holding a baby, and on the baby’s head was a crown.
The scent of the hare vanished on the wind. He plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between finger and thumb.
Anya couldn’t have children. What could be more certain than that? She could not be the one King Magnus had dreamt about. She was not the savior Danu had promised.
He should feel sorrow. His people were still without hope.
He felt only hunger. For her. His arms ached to hold her. His body yearned to mate with her. His heart craved her devotion. He wanted to earn it every day for the rest of his life.
She didn’t seem broken to him. She seemed whole and perfect. Perfectly lovely. Completely desirable.
Having given up on the trunk of the shrub, she chopped the thinner side branches, holding the axe far too close to the head to do any good. He purred with pleasure at her refusal to give up the lost cause.
She was everything beautiful and alive. She was the only thing worth living for. And there was nothing now to stop him from having her. It would not be disloyal. He would not face imprisonment. There was no penalty for mating outside of contract with a female past her time of breeding, as long as she consented.
Anya could not have children. That didn’t matter to him. He loved her. He would have her. Tonight. Every night. Until the end of days.
He stood and strode down to his lady.
She heard him before she saw him. Her shoulders jumped. She spun around, her eyes wide with surprise.
He plucked the axe from her hands and tossed it away. Then he took her in his arms and covered her mouth with his.
Chapter 17
One second, Anya had been cursing under her breath at the surprising difficulty of chopping apart a bush with an axe—weren’t the bloody things meant for cutting wood? The next, she heard stirring in the grass behind her, and her heart lunged into her throat. She’d thought it might be a wild animal or a villager sneaking up on her to take her away from Riggs again. When she’d whirled around to find Riggs bearing down on her, his eyes glittering in the night, she’d opened her mouth to ask why he wasn’t hunting. But the question never made it out.
He’d ripped the axe from her grasp and sealed his lips over hers, effectively obliterating her ability to speak or think. Until she remembered she’d just taken away his hope. He shouldn’t be showing her affection. He should hate her, or at least be disappointed in her.
Tension made her shoulders creep up around her ears and her hands fist in his shirt. She pushed at him, affecting no change in his posture whatsoever. She wrenched her mouth away. “What the bloody hell are you doing? Why are you wearing clothes?”
He buried his face in her neck and kissed her there, making her shiver all over. “Do you prefer me naked, lady?”
Aye, she did. A lass would have to be blind not to prefer Riggs naked, but she wasn’t about to admit it. She’d admitted enough tonight. “Och, you ken what I mean. You should be finding our dinner.”
“Later.” He picked her up and carried her to where she’d made a shelter from the trackers’ bedrolls. “Unless you’re hungry.” He ducked underneath and laid her down. With his lips, he nipped her neck and shoulder. His big hands worked the fastening of her trews. “Are you hungry, Anya?” His voice was a low rumble. He wasn’t talking about food.
Her head spun. What was happening? He was acting like a man intent on tupping when until this moment, he’d often been affectionate with her but never outright insistent.
; Realization hit her like a kick from a mule. He’d resisted tupping her out of respect for his king. But now he kent she wasn’t a fit gift for his king. Now he thought to use her as a whore was meant to be used.
So be it. She wanted this. And he had earned it. He’d fought for her, nearly died for her. What better price could a crippled whore ask for than such valiant protection? Let him have this. She was good at this. Good for this, even if she was good for naught else.
He worked her shirt out of her trews, the fabric lightly scratching. His palm was even rougher than the linen when he slid it up to cup one breast. Och, his touch there. ’Twas so much more than skin deep. It melted all the way through to her heart.
Doona let your heart feel this, lass. Enjoy it, but doona enjoy it overmuch or you’ll regret it when he leaves you in Chroina.
He lifted her shirt and nuzzled her. The heat from his bruised cheek seared her skin. His beard scraped with delicious friction. Aye, this was what she’d been craving—tender intimacy with her wolf-man.
Och, there she went thinking of him as hers again, feeling as if he were hers. Foolish lass.
But how could she not feel when his affection poured over her like a flood? When he was who he was? Her friend, her rescuer, hers.
She couldn’t lie to herself. Her heart was in this. Completely. It had been since the moment she’d first laid eyes on him. She’d merely been afraid to admit it because the thought of his rejection had been too much to bear.
A groan rumbled from his throat. “So soft,” he said. “So beautiful.”
He wasn’t rejecting her now. He wanted her. But for how long? Tonight only? For the first time in her life, it mattered if the man’s wanting of her left off with the curing of his cock-stand.
She curled her fingers in his hair and yanked him up. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to mate with you.” He parted her legs and settled between them.
A flutter of excitement spread from her stomach outward, but it wasn’t enough. “Why? Because I’m good for nothing else? You’ll take me here, tonight, and then what? We continue on to Chroina as if it never happened? You’ll leave me there and return to your cabin.”
He stilled. “Is that what you think? That I want you for one night, maybe two, then I’ll leave you alone in a city where you know no one.”
“That’s precisely what you were planning to do an hour ago.” An extremely practical plan, considering the state of his people. If she could be of use to his king, she would have gone willingly. For Riggs.
The sound of his breathing filled her ears. He cupped her head in both his hands, supporting himself on his elbows. “Anya. Sweet Anya.” He sighed. “I will still take you to Chroina, because you won’t be safe anywhere else.”
She closed her eyes. ’Twas no more than she’d expected. But an inconvenient disappointment squeezed her heart.
His thumb stroked her ear. “But I won’t leave you. Not ever.”
She blinked. Searched for his eyes in the darkness. There they were, dark and near and earnest. Surely she’d misheard. “What did you say?”
“I won’t leave you. I’ll stay with you in Chroina. If you’ll have me.”
“For how long?”
“Always.”
“But your cabin, your tanning.” He’d leave it all behind? For her?
“I’ll enlist as a soldier. I’ll provide for you. Not as well as a king, but well enough. You’ll want for nothing.”
She scoffed. She cared naught about possessions. She cared about his happiness. “But ’tis where you lived with your da. ’Tis your home. Your land.”
“You’re my home.”
Saints above. He stole her breath with his conviction.
“But there are laws. You told me exclusive pairs were forbidden.”
“That only goes for women still having their seasons. Most of the women left are old. Many of them have taken a permanent lover, some more than one. When a woman’s seasons are ended, she is free to choose her own men. Your time has passed. You are free to choose. Choose me. Pledge yourself to me. You have my pledge already.”
His pledge? “You’re speaking of pledgemates.” Like in the story he’d told her about Aine and Gregor. It had seemed to her a wolf-man’s version of marriage.
He nuzzled her cheek. “Yes.”
He wanted her for his wife. He wanted much more than a tup. He wanted her. Her heart pounded. “But I canna give you bairns.” What man of sound mind took a wife he kent was barren?
“If you could, I would be obligated to give you to my king. Since you can’t, I can have you. By the moon, I want you so badly. Say yes. Say it.”
A wee tremor went through his hands. He was nervous. He thought she might say no.
She’d be a bloody fool to say no.
All her life her highest goal was to be wanted. She’d set her aim high, seeking the affections of her laird, and when he’d refused her, she’d seduced the Keith’s war chieftain. If a powerful man wanted her, it would mean she was truly lovable. The love of a powerful man would be enough to erase the ache of her mother’s leaving. Or so she’d hoped. Unfortunately, no amount of male affection seemed to fill that defect in her heart.
Riggs was not a laird or a war chieftain. He possessed no wealth or position. But he possessed her heart. And it seemed she possessed his. The enormity of the love between them eclipsed her mother’s leaving until she barely felt the sting anymore.
Regardless of what she’d coveted in the past, the love of this humble tracker was everything she’d ever truly wanted. Dare she believe she could have him?
So many times she’d risked her pride and been cut down. But she’d never truly risked her heart. If she agreed to what Riggs suggested, it would give him more power over her than she’d allowed any other man. Could she trust him not to abuse that power?
The night was still. The air smelled heavy. The moon was hidden, but she felt it overhead more acutely than she’d ever felt it before, a lofty weight tugging at her chest.
“Say it,” he urged.
He was Riggs. Her brave, strong, loyal wolf-man. He’d more than earned her trust.
She put her hands on his face. “If you want me—and I think you’re daft for wanting me—then you shall have me. Take me.”
His breath rushed out, as if he’d been holding it. His lips parted. He lowered them to hers.
His body was strung tight, but his kiss was soft. He nipped and moved his head in a gentle rocking motion, like he was making love to her mouth. She was the first woman he’d ever kissed, and he kissed better than any man who had done it before him. He kissed her with passion and honesty. He kissed as if her mouth was a gift, not something to which he was entitled.
Rain started to fall, pattering softly on the wool stretched over them.
Riggs’s scent of forest and dusty dog blended with the fresh bite of wind-tossed field grass. His presence above her overwhelmed her in the best possible way.
He pushed her shirt up and over her head. Holding her arms like that, still tangled in the sleeves, he looked her up and down. ’Twas too dark to make out his expression, but she felt his gaze like a brush of lips along her chilled stomach, her breasts, her collarbones, her neck and face, back down to her breasts.
“Mine,” he said, his voice even deeper than usual.
Aye. His.
The need to be one with him was a heavy, undeniable presence. Never before had emptiness felt like substance.
With one arm, he held himself above her. With the other, he shoved down his trews.
Aye!
Urgency made his movements jerky, but when he stripped her trews down her legs, he took great care. Patiently, he unlaced the boot on her right foot and eased it off, followed by the canvas she’d grown accustomed to, thereby freeing her good leg. Leaving her partially clothed, he pressed her painful leg, dangling trews and all, around his nude hip. The heel of her boot rested on his arse.
Och,
aye. Aye. Now.
He paused.
With a tilt of her hips, she invited him to proceed. She’d never been more ready for a man.
He waited. What for?
“I pledge myself to you, Lady Anya,” he said, and he stretched her in a single, slow glide that made her gasp.
He was large. And it had been so long for her. But her body eased his way. No oils needed for her wolf-man. She welcomed the mild sting and the bone deep pleasure that accompanied it.
When he was completely seated, he held himself still. “Feels so good,” he murmured over her ear.
“Aye. It does.” Even better was the ring of promise in his voice when he’d pledged himself to her. Holding him tight to her, she said, “I pledge myself to you, Riggs. Did I say it right?”
He made a noise between an amused hum and a moan. “Perfect,” he said with a nip to her earlobe. Then he began to move.
Her wolf-man was not a gentle lover. Nor a quiet one. She couldn’t have been more pleased. While he claimed her with his powerful body, he remained mindful of her. With one arm, he cradled her left leg, ensuring her comfort as he saw to her pleasure and his.
She held him possessively as they rocked together. The night air kissed her exposed skin with a shock of cold, but inside, she was molten hot. She was a forge, and her fire burned for one man, her man.
Riggs’s breathing sped. He put his open mouth over hers as if for a kiss, but he was too far gone to complete the act. He moaned into her mouth as his stomach rippled against hers, and he found his completion.
She answered with her own moans as the pressure inside her burst, undeniable, quenching. Her fingers became talons in his flesh. Fire licked her body, and the burning was so very good, better than she’d ever known.
He cupped her head in his hand, forcing her nose to his neck. His scent drove her pleasure even higher. When it should have ended, her body continued to burn with delight.
Hundreds of times she had reached that carnal peak with a man. She was one of the lucky ones who could find her completion with almost any partner. It had made her valuable as a whore, and it had made working at the bawdyhouse bearable. But this went beyond all her experience. If ordinary coupling brought forth a pleasurable peak, this, with Riggs, was a blissful plateau that stretched on and on.