He heaved for another breath, while Kalfr grasped his shoulder, stroking up and down. As if reassuring him, encouraging him, despite everything Gaelfr had just confessed, despite Kalfr’s own anger and accusations from only moments before. But it was helping, sagging Gaelfr’s shoulders, steadying his breath.
“So I — told you what I thought would most help,” he whispered to Raye. “What I… most wished to be true.”
What he’d most wished to be true. Raye’s thoughts had begun to feel sluggish, muddled, and it took a moment to digest that, to dredge up an answer. “But you,” she began, “you didn’t actuallywantthat with me, Gaelfr. You didn’t” — she groped for words, for purchase — “you didn’t even want to touch me. Youstilldon’t want to touch me!”
And yes, that had to be true, he’d refused to fuck her all this time. And he’d also called her stubborn, and greedy, and selfish.I should never have dreamt he could find worse than you…
But Gaelfr’s tired eyes gazed blankly back toward her, and he barked a sound not unlike a laugh. “You cannot —believethat, woman,” he choked. “Even when I first came to you, I could not stay away from you. Could not keep my hands from you. Ach, it was not even a fulldaybefore I drank your lifeblood, and touched inside you, and emptied my loins for you.”
Raye’s breath stilled, while the vision of Gaelfr’s first night at her cottage blared behind her eyes. Gaelfr biting her neck, Gaelfr settling down onto the bed behind her, Gaelfr murmuring praises as he’d worked his fingers inside her, Gaelfr’s bodygleaming in the firelight as he’d poured himself out into her washbasin…
“But,” Raye gasped, desperate now. “You said — you said I was jealous, and stubborn, and greedy! And you didn’t think Kalfr could ever find worse than me!”
Her voice grated painfully through the air, and before her, Kalfr let out a low hiss, his eyes narrowing on Gaelfr’s face. But Gaelfr only kept gazing dully back at her, shaking his head. “I was… wrong, to speak thus to you,” he replied, wooden. “And I was speaking false to you, also. For any worthy Bautul womanshouldbe stubborn and greedy and jealous thus, and guard her kin with such fierceness, ach? I was only… jealous, also. Angry.Foolish.”
What? No. That couldn’t be true. Gaelfr couldn’t mean all that. And he couldn’t have actuallylikedall those things about her… could he?
“I only — did not trust you, woman,” he continued, quieter. “And thus, I sought to keep my distance. To not betray the depth of my longing toward you.”
It was still taking Raye far too long to absorb all this, her thoughts twisting and churning. Gaelfr had really longed for her? He’d wanted her that much? Enough to lie to her about being her mate, all that time?
“But you really just wanted —Kalfr,” she finally countered, and yes, that was true, wasn’t it? “You only liked Kalfr’s — his scent on me. Remember? You told me that! Multiple times!”
Gaelfr let out another strangled almost-laugh, and jerked a shrug. “Ach, I liked Kalfr’s scent upon you,” he replied, hoarse. “Ilovedthat. And I loved your soft, pretty form, and your wild Bautul hair, and your plump teats, and your hot, sweet womb. I longed to fill you, to plough you wide open upon me, to make youmine.”
Raye stared at him, shaking her head, incredulous — Gaelfr couldn’t really have thought that, all this time?! He loved how she’d looked, even back then? He loved her hair, her breasts, her womb? He wanted to fill her? To plough her? To make herhis?
But as if to demonstrate his point, Gaelfr’s hand snapped out toward her, cupping just there between her legs, curving possessive and close. “And youweremine,” he breathed. “You know you were. You yet” — he lurched closer, gripped tighter — “you yetare.”
You yet are.And as Raye gaped back at him, her swirling, shouting thoughts couldn’t find a single counter, a single protest. Because yes, she’d always given this to him. She’d always wanted this from him. Wanted his command, his ownership, his ridiculous assumptions and demands. And what did that say about her, why had she been so willing to accept it, why was she still accepting it, in this moment?
But she was, she was, and Gaelfr knew it. Shoving his fingers a little further between her legs, pushing against the fabric of her dress — and when Raye betrayed a harsh gasp, a ferocious satisfaction flared in his eyes. “See?” he breathed. “Mine.”
Raye should have denied it, but instead, another shaky gasp escaped her mouth. Flaring that satisfaction closer in Gaelfr’s strangely frenzied eyes, and when his other hand began yanking at her dress, tearing it off, she didn’t argue that, either. Only stood there against the door, breathing hard, allowing him to bare her for him, to do whatever he pleased.
“Mine,” he breathed again, once he’d hurled the dress aside. “All of this ismine.”
Raye still didn’t try to argue it, just trembling against the door as Gaelfr’s fingers began slipping inside her, and his other hand rose to give her damnably peaked nipple a firm, familiar pinch. “Like these pretty teats,” he murmured, with anotherpinch, a flick of his claw. “Look at how full and fat I have made them. How they jiggle and dance for me.”
His hand now gave her breast a light, casual slap, indeed making it jiggle and bounce, and his other hand slipped out from between her legs, and rose up to join in on the other side, too. Slapping, bouncing, and then caressing, kneading, squeezing, making the soft flesh bulge out between his fingers. Handling her with shameless, brazen ownership, biting his lip as he watched.
“And you only wait,sæta,” Gaelfr breathed. “Until you swell with myástvinur’s seed. Until you grow even fatter upon the best Bautul seed in all the realm, and reek even stronger of his scent. I will scarce be able to fit these sweet teats in my hands, and when I squeeze them, they will leak for me,spurtfor me —”
His voice broke into a groan, his eyes fluttering, and he gave her breast another greedy, hopeful squeeze, while his other hand slid down to Raye’s belly, gave its softness an approving squeeze, too. “You shall swell so full for me,” he rasped. “So full of myástvinur, so ripe with his goodness, you shall near burst with his beauty and cleverness and strength. And how you shall look, how you shall scent, how you shall taste. How you shall feel when I fuck you and feed you, and you squeeze and squirm and squeal upon my prick.Ach.”
It was appalling, it was, but Raye couldn’t deny her own sharp, jagged moan, or the way her groin was frantically pulsing, streaking a drop of wetness down her thigh. As if shouting back toward him, inviting him back in, begging for him — and his growing, dangerous smile surged up even more craving, more unthinkable desperate need. And Gaelfr saw that need, answered it, his hand caressing back over that slippery curve of her, his fingers sliding so easy up inside.
“She shall be just like the goddess,” he breathed. “Our own goddess, raised and tended and opened by my hand. Bloomingso bright for us, granting us such great beauty, and pleasure, andlife. Ach,ástin mín?”
Right.Kalfr. Raye twitched all over, twisted to stare at him, because he was still standing here watching all this, and fuck, what must he think of them? Of Raye so willingly offering herself for Gaelfr’s handling, for his audacious claims? Wanting this, with him? Agreeing to this?
But instead of the censure or distaste Raye had fully expected to see on Kalfr’s face, he looked — softer. Warmer. And his eyes flickered with something like comprehension as he leaned closer into Gaelfr’s side, and bent his head into his throat. Taking a deep, swelling inhale, and pressing a brief, biting kiss to his sweaty skin.
“Ach,ástin mín,” he murmured. “Andthisis why you wished to grant her my seed.”
It wasn’t a question, more an explanation, an acceptance. As if — Kalfr understood this. He understood how much this had meant to Gaelfr. How perhaps, in the face of his own failures, Gaelfr had found his power in this — in feeding and fattening Raye for them, healing her and helping her, and giving her Kalfr’s son. In being the cause of that new life, the creator of it, the powerful hand of the goddess upon them.
And also… it was just what Gaelfr had told them, wasn’t it?It soothes me, he’d said,to offer you my good care and pleasure and healing, after I failed in this, for so long.
