Hew ground his teeth.He should never have let her go.Never have let her out of his sight.
Until now, Carenza had been able to conceal the strongest of her feelings.Aside from a few slipped confidences to Merraid, she’d bottled up her sorrow, her frustration, her heartbreak, her despair.And labeled them as sickness.
But now, in the arms of the one at the root of all those emotions, she collapsed into a puddle of raw emotion.All the heartsickness she’d hidden spilled out in its purest form as Hew held her.She no longer felt alone.She felt heard.Seen.Understood.
She didn’t know exactly when the change happened.But in one moment she was raining tears upon his throat.And in the next she was lapping them up with tender kisses.The fists she’d clenched so desperately in his plaid found their way around his neck.Her hitching sobs became gasps of awe and need and urgency.
And then he began to respond.
With a low growl like a hungering wolf, he feasted on her again and again, savaging the tender flesh of her throat.His hands clasped and squeezed and caressed her, brushing aside linen to graze her bare skin.He tumbled her onto her back and fumbled beneath her leine, slipping his fingers up her thigh, closer and closer to where she wanted him most.
She couldn’t wait.If she waited, she’d start thinking.If she started thinking, she’d hesitate.If she hesitated, she’d begin to regret.And she wanted to regret nothing.
So she took the reins.She scrabbled at his clothes in such a wild frenzy, he had no choice but to tear them off.She buried her face in his delicious flesh, kissing his chest, bathing his stomach, nuzzling lower.
He groaned and rolled her beneath him.Then, with a whisper of “I’ll love you fore’er, Carenza,” he sank deep inside her, sheathing his hungry cock and filling her thirsting womb.
It felt like coming home.Like he belonged inside her.Like this was right.
When they moved together, it was natural and perfect.
And when they gathered speed, it was with the grace and power of a falcon, its wings beating faster and faster, thrumming against the forces of nature to defy the pull of the earth and fly high into the heavens.
They dove together as well.He grunted, and she gasped out a shrill cry of need before they dropped from the sky, shivering and circling and settling into a downy nest of release.
Their breath mingled and swirled as they clung to each other in the dark.
Carenza was afraid to speak.She wanted to preserve this moment just as it was.A moment where she would forever be with the man she loved.Where they had just experienced sublime happiness.Where it was their precious child growing inside her.Where the future was bright.
But Hew ruined that in four words.
“Come away with me.”
Those four words brought the truth crashing down on her.
What they’d just done was not a divine act of love.It was practically adultery.
She withdrew from him, and it felt as if a chill wind instantly rushed in to separate them.A wind composed of remorse and disgrace, of horror and shame.
“I cannot,” she said.
“We can leave tonight.This moment.”
He made it sound so tempting.So simple.
But she knew it wasn’t.
“I can’t.”
“Do you love him?”he asked.
“Gellir?”
“Aye.”
“Nay,” she admitted.“But he’s a good man.I shall be content enough.”
“God’s eyes,” he bit out.“You deserve happiness, Carenza.Do you not know that?You deserve a man you love with all your heart.Who loves you with every ounce of his being.Who will live for you.Fight for you.Die for you.”
