Rapture by L.V. Lane

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Winter

IMPOSSIBLE THOUGH IT seems, I sleep better than I have in years, nestled upon the lap of a man and warrior who hates me. And why wouldn’t he? None of what he does is done because he wants to. This is not his cause, I realize bitterly. The binding goes beyond merely stopping him from taking my blood. It robs him of all decisions and the opportunity to be equal.

Why do I only understand this now?

His chest is warm and hair roughened under my cheek. My throat is sore where the metal burns, but the strip of rough blanket Jacob carefully wound around my throat has taken the edge off the pain. We have moved during the night. Jacob lies upon his back, and I am sprawled on top of him, the blanket over me. As I fidget, his hands tighten around my waist, sending my tummy tumbling and pussy clenching. My thighs ache where they have stretched around his firm abs, but it’s a nice kind of ache.

He stretches, big hands shifting to my ass. Here he grips and squeezes as he thrusts his hips up. The tip of his hard cock presses against the slick entrance to my pussy, separated only by his coarse pants.

“Jacob!” It comes out a little whiney. I wish the clothing were not in the way.

He jerks his hands away as though scalded. Surging to his feet, he sends me tumbling to the wagon floor.

“Uf!”

“Sorry, mistress,” he says, helping me to my feet.

I bat him away, trying to get a grip on my raging libido. It is dark enough that I can barely see, yet my eyes are glued to the hard length tenting his pants. I swallow. It sounds unnaturally loud against the backdrop of the still camp.

“Do not keep looking at it unless you are going to put me out of my misery,” he says gruffly before swiping a hand down his face. “The dream I was having was assuredly more pleasant than reality.”

My lips tremble. Was he thinking about that hussy Betsy, even as he put his hand on me?

As if by cue, orcs begin emerging from tents.

The bald overseer who punished Jacob comes to let us out so we can go. I am not used to walking barefoot. It is unpleasant, and I know that soon, my feet will be sore.

Once we complete our business, another overseer, this one toothless, arrives, separating me from my warrior.

A moment ago, I hated myself and this burgeoning attraction I feel toward Jacob when clearly it is not returned. Now, I cannot bear the thought of being separated from him and the safety he represents.

Jacob growls. After a few heavy blows with the club, he stops. A tic thumps in his jaw. I know he could escape if he put his mind to it. I know he could wrest that club from the overseer and kill the man without breaking a sweat. Yet he doesn’t, because it would put me in danger.

Our eyes meet before he is pushed one way while I am taken in the other.

I have clung to the safety of the binding because it holds the warrior to my command. Now, I would give anything for Jacob to stay because it was what he wanted to do. He rescued Betsy, I remind myself enviously as I am led through the awakening camp. No one made him, and further, he was beaten for doing it. He knew he would be beaten for doing it, and he did it anyway.

Betsy, who smiles sweetly up at him with hero worship in her eyes.

Betsy, whom he rutted and pleasured in the hall, while I stared like a fool.

I have a mission, one that has gone awry in the most profound and dangerous of ways, yet I am wasting energy on my emotional reawakening.

I am dragged from my foolish thoughts by my leering escort. He makes my skin crawl and can’t keep his eyes off me… nor his hands that clasp my arm too tightly within his sweaty fist. It’s a relief when he comes to a halt outside a weathered tarp tent that appears unremarkable, despite the presence of two guards. The toothless overseer nods his head at the tent.

The rightmost guard turns to open the flap.

“Mama!”

A squeal greets my entrance, and a tiny body launches itself at me, clinging with surprisingly strong hands like she might be snatched away.

My chest contracts for this fairy child who has been delivered into this hell.

I don’t know what to do or say. Should I correct her? Explain that I am not her mother? I feel compelled to do so, for it will undoubtedly lead to greater pain for her in the long run. Yet I am reluctant.

“Melody, we have covered this many times. The fairy is not your mother,” the tall overseer says. “She is a slave of our master, nothing more. Through his grace, she may act as a companion to you.”

I study the willowy man with steel-gray hair and a sharp beaky nose. Eyes, pale and rheumy in a wrinkled face, take my measure. I do not like him, I decide.

The tent is plainly furnished with two pallet beds, a couple of travel bags between them, and a single lamp providing illumination against the weak dawn light.

With Melody’s head buried against my stomach, I gently stroke through her red-gold hair. It feels softer than spun sink and glistens in the lantern light. It has been many years since I was in the presence of a child.

There was a time when I hoped for one of my own, but fears and years got in the way. I guess her age to be five, or a little younger. She seems tiny and impossibly fragile to my untutored eye.

Lifting her head, she gazes up at me with the most arresting silver eyes. “I know that,” she says, sounding older than I first thought. “But I want to pretend.”

The overseer’s face softens in a way that makes him appear even older.

Surely the old gods and new gods alike must weep to see a child so starved of emotional nourishment that she would cling to a stranger.

The tent flap opens, and a young slave woman enters, carrying a tray. Dark hair and eyes, she wears a dress similar to mine, with a collar around her throat. “Here you go, miss,” she says with a smile.

Melody clasps my hand at this interruption, beaming at the young tray bearing slave.

It is the same oat mash Jacob and I were given last night, only it has berries and is accompanied by a glass of milk.

“Mama needs breakfast too,” Melody announces in her sweet, high voice.

The slave sends a furtive glance toward me before turning to the overseer.

He nods, taking the tray from the slave. It is only then that I notice the collar around his throat. It is subtle and ornate compared to the harsh metal that I wear. He is still a slave, just a higher slave.

“Eat your breakfast, Melody,” he says, addressing the child. She pulls me with her as she takes a seat, cross-legged, on the pallet bed. The overseer presents her with the tray.

To me, he says, “The camp will remain here for the coming few days.”

He does not elaborate further. I am a slave and a lower one than him. That he offers me this much is a gift.

The slave girl returns with my breakfast, and I eat it in silence. Afterward, I read a story to Melody in the shade of a nearby tree. The child is sweet. Being with her is no hardship. Were it not for the collar and the rough dress, I would not even think myself a slave.

I sigh.

I want Jacob to dream about me.

I want him to rut me, to take my mind off this looming disaster.

“One day soon, I will be forced to take up arms and fight people who were once my neighbors,”Jacob said. “I will do it because the binding is in place, and I can no more let you die than I can stop my lungs from taking the next breath.”

I don’t know how to bridge the gap I have created between us.

I don’t know how to be a woman and vulnerable before him.

I have forgotten what it is to be a fairy.

I have forgotten how to live.

Pride.

I have had it, lost it, and now cling to it like a protective cloak.

It does not serve me well. It serves no one well, truth be told.

I want to hate Jacob for stirring the surface of the millpond where I have languished for so long.

I want to hate this sweet child who has reminded me that there is more to life than the shadows where I have lurked for so long.

But as I look down upon her sweet, innocent face, I find that I cannot.