The Wildest Woods

by S. K Munt

  ‘Please God, don’t,’ I whispered. ‘I’m shooting up another inch with every flattering word you say.’

  ‘In height?’ Erika asked softly. ‘Or length?’

  ‘Do I look taller to you?’

  ‘No.’ Erika giggled, and I picked her up in time with the others and spun her, feeling like my feet had left the floor as well. When I put her back down again, she twisted to put her back with me as the other ladies did with their own partners, and I gnashed my teeth together to feel her rump pressing against my hips and groin. ‘Yikes! It’s getting a bit warm in here so... subject change time! You have a female 2IC…?’

  My abdomen tightened defensively now. ‘I do… what of it?’

  ‘That’s… unusual.’

  ‘If you saw Saul-Yin in action, you’d know otherwise.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Erika looped under my arm, facing me again and when I nodded, she shrugged. ‘Good to hear that a woman can rise above the rank of nurse within your army’s service, even if she cannot rise above her brand. She’s awfully pretty though. That must be distracting…for the other men. Especially seeing as how she’s been branded for promiscuity.’

  I scowled at her. ‘If you’ve got something to say-’

  ‘I’m jealous,’ she said quickly, panting from the effort of talking while dancing so quickly. ‘Seems like every time you waltz through my life, you have another woman that is very important to you on a pedestal elsewhere. I’m also rather jealous of her brand and the freedom that must come with it. How liberating it must be to know that you can never belong to anyone but yourself, while being free to make connections with whomever you want, within reason.’

  Her confession was as thrilling as it was rankling. ‘Saul-Yin’s liberated all right, but not only is it illegal for me to touch her- it’s just not something that I’m inclined to do. Sometimes, when my charge gets the better of me I think about it, and she’s made it clear that she thinks about it all the time, but at the end of the day, she’s just a friend that happens to be pretty.’

  ‘Pretty… and frisky?’

  ‘That’s an understatement. Let’s just say she earned that brand fair and square and sometimes I suspect that she even did it on purpose.’ Erika laughed, and I felt a little more at ease. I didn’t know why I was telling her this, but it was too late to stop now so I rambled on, wondering what was in those shots. ‘Maybe other men would cross a line for the chance to get what they could from her, and I know that a third of our division has-’ Erika giggled and that made me grin. ‘But I have too much at stake so I don’t.’ I pulled back. ‘And as far as pedestals go, how can you take exception to the relationships that I’ve made with women in the name of obligation, when you’ve been similarly bound to another man both times that we’ve met too? First a prince, then a pirate.’

  The girl thought it over, then shrugged. ‘Touché. I didn’t choose to be bound to anyone though; they chose me, and I’ve been obligated to comply.’

  I held her closer as we twirled in a box formation, sweating with the effort that it took for me to keep focused on the conversations and the movements of the other dancers. ‘Well for what’s it’s worth, if given the choice, I’d choose to put you on a pedestal- as would Saul-Yin.’

  Erika blinked. ‘She’s gay?’

  ‘She swims both ways… but you’re undeniably the most attractive looking creature that has ever walked the face of this earth so fuck yes, she’d choose you. Who wouldn’t?’

  The Companion laughed, blushing. ‘Well that’s flattering on both counts, but Saul-Yin isn’t my type. Were I gay I don’t doubt that she would be, but I like men. I think…’ I didn’t know what she meant by that, but she bent and hitched her skirt then for the hop-kick part of the routine, and I ceased to think once I’d gotten a good look at the legs that she’d been cruelly hiding under her petticoats. She was wearing little ballet flats instead of heels, and although her long legs were bare and golden and not covered by pantyhose, she had a pale blue garter adorning her left thigh, and the sight of it caused me to shoot up and out another inch. It was a bit crooked, and although I bent with the intention of snagging it and jerking it up a little on reflex when she lifted her leg and kicked it high, the feel of the heat radiating off that perfect leg overwhelmed me and I straightened up quickly, heart racing and balls aching as she snapped her leg down and twirled in my arms again, oblivious to the fact that I’d just come close to cumming in my bloody pants.

  ‘You move well!’ she gasped, looking bright and exhilarated, and for the first time, I noticed that her pupils were very dilated. Was that the effect that I had on her, or the joint she’d smoked?

  ‘I’m a fast learner.’ The time to spin her to the next gentleman was fast approaching, but I couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go so I coiled her in, spun her out- and then spun thrice as fast beside her so that by the time she’d prepared herself to be caught, the lights had flashed green and then blue, and I was already waiting to do the catching. I stopped her before she could rotate all the way around, taking her in my arms once more and grinning behind the safety of my mask as the people that had seen the manoeuvre whistled and clapped in appreciation. Erika’s mouth dropped open while I nodded to those cheering me on in humble acknowledgement for the dance move that I had just completely pulled out of my ass. Thank God for my lessons in Eden! Turns out that fast dancing was just slow dancing- only faster. Besides, keeping balance while whirling like that was very easy when you had a beauty like Erika to track with your eyes for the sake of spotting.

  ‘How did you…?’ she glanced behind her to the man that was clapping along with everyone else, but I whirled us around in three long circles, skimming the edge of the crowd and waltzing her right out the door until we were on the terrace and panting. The humid night smelled sweet, perfumed by a nearby night garden and an abundance of orange blossom, and the girl in my arms was flushed with what I hoped was exhilaration. ‘That was breaking the rules!’

  ‘But not any laws, and that’s what matters, yes?’ I slowly spiralled Erika out from under my arm and then lifted our joined hands over another potted topiary, but I did not let her hand go after, using it to tug her to the edge of the terrace again which was gratefully deserted up this end. ‘And you told me that I’d earned a dance or two, so how could I bear to let another man cut in now?’

  ‘This is not dancing, Guardian Barachiel.’

  ‘Yes it is.’ I pulled her into me again, closed my arms around her and gently began to sway. ‘I just want to slow it down a little so we can talk more.’

  Erika appraised me sceptically through her mask, and I knew that she was feeling self-conscious and shutting down now that I had her alone again. ‘I’m no fool Kohén, and I can feel your increased length against my hip right now- talking is the last thing on your mind.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I assured her, still swaying. ‘I want to talk to you- more than you could possibly know.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About you.’ I lifted my fingers and gently pushed her mask up onto the top of her head. ‘I want to know everything there is to know about you and your kingdom.’

  ‘That’s not a fair topic,’ she pointed out, but her tone was softer now, less challenging. ‘You can’t ask a lady to participate in an exchange of anecdotes when you have barely any to offer in return.’

  ‘Hey, I have stories to tell that have nothing to do with the missing years. I had a childhood once, you know, and I remember a bit of it.’ I glanced up over her shoulders out at the girls that were dancing around the maypole on the palace lawn, knowing that I’d seen that before too, a long time ago. ‘I’ve made two more years worth of memories since my amnesia developed too, and I think I’ve experienced more things in the last two years than most people get to in a lifetime, so I have anecdotes, all right, and not all of them involve me being persecuted for my crimes or end in tears.’

  She winced. ‘So you try to see the glass half full, then?’r />
  I nodded. ‘I do. It would be easy to dwell on the injustices of life- the ones I’ve brought upon others and the ones that I have suffered from in compensation, but I know that God wants me to rise above my despair. If I squint my eyes and take my awkward encounters with people that hate me out of the equation, I can see that my life has been full and exciting and full of wonder, travel and discovery since the night Larkin left me for dead- so why should I let what happened before then define my entire existence when I have the chance to make a new past every day?’

  ‘Tomorrow is another day… a powerful sentiment, and one I have learned to appreciate.’ Erika ran her hands up my arms. ‘Well, you have my interest and my attention, and I do love stories... so tell me one of yours, Prince Kohén.’ Her sapphire eyes were shining as she squeezed my biceps. ‘And please, start with the most exciting one!’

  My heart fluttered at the look in her eyes as my dick twitched in response to the way she’d called me by that infernal name. ‘How can I share the most exciting memory I have, when I am still only halfway through making it?’ She slitted her eyes at me in warning, but I laughed. ‘Seriously, I had to wrestle a wolf off my friend this week so I can regale you with that encounter, but that doesn’t change the fact that nothing’s ever got my blood going more than when I first laid eyes on you.’

  ‘That you know of,’ Erika whispered, but I shook my head, smiling gently. God, her mouth was just inches from mine, and if I leaned in…

  ‘No, I’m certain I’m right,’ I traced the outline of her eye mask that had been slightly imprinted into her make-up. A true artist had applied the rouge and powder, but the skin beneath it was every bit as flawless as the fake coverage was, and when I tracked a path down her neck, I realised that her clavicle was the exact right shape for my lips to press into. Imagining doing that made my mouth go dry and then very, very wet. ‘If my heart pounded any faster than this, I’d drop dead.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ the girl breathed, robbing me of my breath when she slid her hands back up my arms again, giving me a wicked smile. ‘I might try and over-excite you just to extricate myself from this hold you have on me.’

  ‘My dance hold?’ I asked, but she shook her head.

  ‘No.’ She bit her lip and I wanted to do it too. ‘The one that’s making me wish we were more alone than we are…’

  I moaned softly. ‘Don’t,’ I whispered to her, running one of my hands down from the nape of her neck to the back of her dress, giving in to the temptation to caress the carved muscles on her back, which had been drawing my eye all night long. The last girl I’d seen with a back like that had been an Artisan dancer that was so skinny that she’d looked liable to snap- but Erika wasn’t like that at all. Her hips and bust were full and womanly, but the rest of her was lean and perfect, making me wonder what she did to stay in shape. ‘If you’re not going to take my money please, don’t take my breath. I’m trying to get to know you before he whisks you off to bed, sweet girl...not to treat you like a thing, like he does, or to black out from desire before I’ve had the chance to hear one of your stories too.’

  But Erika pulled back, frowning. ‘Captain Kingslater doesn’t treat me like a thing, Kohén, he treats me like I’m precious.’

  I bowed my head in reluctant resignation. ‘Well good. He’d be a fool to be rough with you-’

  ‘No I don’t mean he’s gentle with me- I mean he won’t be whisking me back to bed later because we don’t share a bed; period.’

  I could scarcely believe my ears but my God, I wanted to!

  43.

  Château Aztaroth, Raphael

  Kohén Barachiel

  It took me a minute to get my head around the notion that Erika wasn’t joking, and in that minute, I flapped my jaw at her like a fish out of water. ‘Do you mean to tell me that you don’t…? What? Ever?’

  ‘Never.’ Erika pulled out of my arms and moved to the thick stone railing again, smoothing her skirts. ‘I’ve had exactly one lover in my lifetime, Kohén, and it’s not Cairo Kingslater. I enjoyed making love while I was obligated to because my prince knew how to make a woman respond, even a reluctant one, but when those brutes tried to…’ she closed her eyes and shuddered delicately. ‘It changed things, and I’ve been too scared to go to bed with a man since, despite how desperately I crave a man’s touch sometimes. Cairo would like it very much if I gave into his seduction and he makes no secret of it- and we are close…and getting closer every day...’ she looked at me quickly before turning her face back to the dancers. ‘But we’re not lovers, Kohén, not yet. Not while I’m a Companion that cannot bring herself to have sex, but a girl infatuated that cannot have children with the man that loves her…’

  I couldn’t believe it. He’d never taken her to bed? How long had it been since she’d last been touched? Or kissed? ‘I’m so sorry!’ I burst out, feeling like a heel. ‘I never would have offered you money if I’d known you weren’t already taking it for-’

  ‘I believe you and don’t worry, you’re not the first person to be confused by my situation.’ Erika was watching the girls dance with envy in her sapphire eyes, so I supposed like in Calliel, it was a dance that only single, fertile girls were allowed to partake in. ‘But unusual or not, that’s how it is. Cairo takes care of me because he’s trying to talk me into becoming promised to him… but I’m hesitant to bind my life to his in that way because I’m unable to give him children, and because he’s unable to stay at my side for more than a few months in a row anyway. For now he’s convinced that all we’ll ever need is right here between us, but I know that will change, so I resist falling into his arms for his sake as much as I do for my own.’

  I swallowed down a lump of guilt that had become lodged in my throat at the mention of her infertility. Not just because I knew it was my family’s fault, but because her infertility was what made her a perfect match for me and what had drawn me to her side. Had she been a regular girl, I wouldn’t have dreamed of bringing up the subject of sex with her or grabbing her the way I had, and would have initiated a courtship instead- one that could be expected to last for years without sex being raised as a topic of conversation at all.

  It had always felt incredibly limiting to me from my end and for the noble girls that I was expected to court, but now I saw how limiting it was for the Companions too, and I hated my family just that little bit more for having made the rules that this girl was forced to live by. Why was Companionship a lifetime sentence? Shouldn’t they be released at a certain age, moved to Rachiel with the other singles and permitted to find love too? This girl had been born to be worshipped! ‘You can’t just sail off with him?’ I asked, for lack of anything else to say. ‘I’m sure he’d love that.’

  ‘No, I really can’t and he wouldn’t let me anyway. The life of a sailor is rough, and dirty and dangerous- that man won’t let me go out in the rain without an umbrella for fear that I’ll catch sick and die, so I don’t imagine he’d handle having me at his side during a squall well.’

  ‘Oh. No, I can’t imagine I’d be all right with that either. Then again, if you were mine… I can’t imagine that I’d be able to sail away from you either.’

  Erika looked at me sideways. ‘Flatterer,’ and I shrugged. It wasn’t a line, but she wasn’t going to believe that. She sighed. ‘Maybe I will want to marry him one day because he’s certainly earned my devotion, but I cannot do it here or in his colony until rules in Calliel change, and the Companion caste is abolished, you know? So there’s nothing to do but wait- for him to retire, for my feelings to grow more certain, for laws to be amended...’ I must have looked confused, because she gestured to her brand with her folded fan. ‘Getting married while bearing this brand will mark me as an outlaw in my homeland and apparently in the eyes of God, and I won’t stand for that, especially not now that foreigners like yourself have started charging north, investigating us to make sure that we are not breaking your rules.’ She met my eyes and for a moment, it looked like they we
re as black as onyx. ‘I care for Cairo, but I won’t be branded a second time, certainly not for being an outlaw, and I won’t jeopardise my chances of getting into Heaven either. It doesn’t matter where I live or what rules I am governed by: this brand has marked me, and God sees everything, even if I can manage to hide it from other human spies.’ She sniffled. ‘I do not agree with the laws set by the Barachiel throne, but God wanted us to live by their judgement and trust in it and so, I must.’

  I was moved by how devout she was, but still baffled by her relationship with Kingslater. ‘So he pays you for what? Your company?’

  ‘It’s all very complicated and I don’t feel much like discussing it in detail with you now, Kohén, but let’s just say that Cairo makes sure that I never want for anything and as a thank you, I don’t accept gifts, coin or advances from other men. He has not forbidden me from doing so because men are not allowed to order women around here, but he’s discouraged every man in Raphael from pursuing me and until I tell him that I’m in love with someone else, or declare that I am ready to resume working as a Companion, he will continue to guard me like I’m his own.’ She rubbed her arms, still gazing out at the dancers that were winding their ribbons around the pole, and my nose wrinkled up when I scented a strange smoke. I glanced to my right and saw that a bunch of people were passing around a cigarette, including Emm and Sam, and raised an eyebrow. Was there anyone in this kingdom that wasn’t high? Or that worried about their fertility?

  ‘I know he’s come off as bossy and hostile and controlling this day, but you have to understand that he’s never felt threatened by anyone else before because I’ve shown no interest in anyone else before, so he doesn’t know how to deal with his jealousy. I wish he didn’t know about the crush I developed on you all those years ago, but when I told him that, I never thought I’d see you again, you know? But here you are- more beautiful than before, swearing that you’re trying to atone for your sins and seemingly incapable of taking your eyes off me, so he’s worried that the torch I carried for you once will flare to life again… as am I.’ She looked down. ‘And I think it goes without saying that the last thing any man wants to do on his birthday is watch the woman that he loves swooning over another man.’