“I have been dwelling more upon this,” Rathgarr continued, even quieter. “And should you truly wish to do this teaching work whilst we stay, I should not stop you. Not so long as you shall yet keep working for me, ach? It is only natural that you should want to gain as much gold as you can, for your journey across the sea.”
Oh. Right. Of course. And this was him attempting to be generous, to help her, his claws nudging her scalp as he kept braiding, kept shuddering heat and pleasure up her spine.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll… think about it.”
Rathgarr didn’t reply, just kept working at her second braid, now sliding on more beads, one after the other. Until finally, it too was finished, and he was carefully draping the second braid over her shoulder.
It was identical to the first, studded with those same glinting gold beads, and Geva fingered at them without thinking. Feeling the smoothness of them, their gentle heavy weights, the way they felt steady and soothing and so verythere, with even the slightest tilt of her head.
“Thank you,” she said again, and she meant it. “They’re lovely.”
Rathgarr gave a pleased-sounding grunt behind her, and a satisfied pat to her shoulder. “Ach, I ken,” he said smugly. “Now get into bed, and I shall further warm you, ach?”
Geva again couldn’t seem to argue, not even when Rathgarr had doused the lamp and yanked her close under the fur, curling his naked body snugly behind hers. Even entwining his legs with hers, so that she truly did feel enveloped in smooth silken warmth, in soft, cozy safety.
“Good, poppet?” he murmured, tugging her a little closer — but then he slightly stilled, and gave a little cough against her neat new braids. “Or — ach. Should you rather I call you Geva?”
Right. So he’d remembered that from earlier, then. And suddenly, this all felt far too tenuous, too dangerous, his body entwined with hers, his ring on her finger, his braids and gold beads in her hair, his scent all over her,insideher. And she should have been alarmed, appalled, but he couldn’t take it away from her, not now, not yet…
“N-no, poppet is fine,” she stammered, too quickly. “And the rest. As long as they’re only for — me.”
She winced as she said it, painfully biting her lip — even as behind her, Rathgarr’s big warm body seemed to soften, curling even closer. “Ach, then, poppet,” he purred, with a brief, proprietary squeeze against her bare breast. And then his hand just stayed there, curled gently around its heavy weight, as though it belonged there. Just like his braids, his ring, his…
“So did you know that Efterar hasmagic?” Geva asked, too loudly, in a desperate attempt to block the rest of that thought. “And that he can change thingsinsideyou, without even touching you?”
The words had the desired effect of stiffening Rathgarr behind her, his warm, tempting softness gone wary and rigid again. “Ach, I had wondered this,” he said, after a moment. “It is an old Ash-Kai gift, borne by all the great healers of ages past. Kesst shall have a long, healthy life, I ken.”
He sounded truly pleased by this, though perhaps a little wistful, too. And while Geva could have brought up the blatant lack of warning on this crucial point of orcs havingmagic, she couldn’t seem to find the will, or the words.
“Kesst bears a great gift also,” Rathgarr continued, still with that quiet wistfulness in his voice. “With his tales. I spoke to you of this before, ach?”
Now it was Geva’s turn to stiffen, because wait, yes, he had.This was his gift,he’d told her.Great, sprawling tales, so real they came to life behind my eyes.
“When you spoke of Kesst, before this,” Rathgarr continued, his voice almost inaudible against Geva’s hair, “was this truth? That he wishes to see me, come morning?”
Geva gave a slow, careful exhale, her eyes blinking into the darkness. “Yes,” she replied. “But… he made it very, very clear that he wants the truth from you, Rathgarr. All of it.Publicly. Why you left, why you didn’t contact him, why you didn’t come back for all those years.”
She could hear Rathgarr’s hard swallow, could feel his body gone even more rigid behind her. “I — cannot,” he began. “Poppet, I —”
But suddenly all the overwhelming chaos of the day was swarming, collapsing, pooling in on this single, infuriating point. “No, actually, Rathgarr, you can,” Geva snapped back. “Kesst deserves it. And good gods, after all this time,youdeserve it, too. And if you don’t tell him, I damn well will!”
Rathgarr’s body betrayed a palpable spasm behind her, his breath stilled in his chest, his claws prodding into her skin. “What,” he hissed, his voice heavy with menace, “shall you tell him.”
Geva dragged in a long, fortifying gulp of air, and then huffed it out. And let herself think about it, really think about it, about everything she’d seen, everything Rathgarr had said and hinted at. Even everything from today, how Rathgarr had made it very clear that Kesst had beenGrimarr’sresponsibility. That promises had been made. Promises that hadn’t been kept.
“Well, I’ll start by telling him it wasn’t your choice,” Geva began, quiet but sure. “I’ll tell him you didn’t want to leave, and you didn’t want to stay away all that time, either.”
Rathgarr still wasn’t moving behind her, or even breathing, but Geva was feeling her way through this, more and more certain with every breath. “You had to stay hidden,” she continued. “You couldn’t send messages. You couldn’t even” — a memory flared, from how he’d described that last inn they’d stayed at — “use your name. Gods, you didn’t even want to tellmeyour name, when we first met. Did you?”
There was still no sound or movement from behind her, but Geva kept grasping for it, finding it, speaking it into truth. “And you couldn’t talk about Kesst, either,” she breathed. “Even when Killik came to see you, multiple times, and you obviously had plenty of opportunities to ask how Kesst was doing — you didn’t. You didn’t know how he’d been treated while you were gone. You didn’t know he’d taken a mate. You didn’t know his mate was a healer. Gods, you didn’t even know his mate hadmagic, until this very moment!”
The words seemed to slice between them, sharp enough that Rathgarr’s body flinched, his breaths now far too audible against her hair. But Geva wasn’t stopping now, couldn’t stop now, because…
“It wasn’t your choice,” she said firmly. “Someone made you leave, Rathgarr. So the question is just who, and how, andwhy.”
Rathgarr flinched again behind her, his breaths still so close, so harsh. And Geva’s breaths suddenly felt short too, her thoughts whirling, tumbling, turning over and over again.
“You thought it was Grimarr,” she said, faster now. “But I think you’re wrong. I don’t think he knew. I think he meant it, when he said he wouldn’t have hurt Kesst on purpose — which means he wouldn’t hurtyou, either. And sure, maybe he still could have paid you to go away, but he said he wanted to use his gold for good, remember?”
