Raye and Kalfr chuckled as they watched too, Raye still tucked into Kalfr’s side, his arm curled around her. Though she could still perhaps scent something upon him, and when she met his eyes, she found him looking thoughtful, and a little wistful, too. “But mayhap Fengr spoke truth in this, ach?” he murmured toward her. “If Gael had stayed, or if I had sent for him, as I should have… he should have fixed all this, long ago.”
Raye’s gaze slid back to where Skirvir had leapt into the sparring match with Gaelfr and Egil too, their limbs flailing in the moonlight, their shouts and grunts echoing through the garden’s greenery. “But maybe then,” she said, “you wouldn’t have found your own way forward, either. Maybe you wouldn’t have helped your clan, or built thebyrgis, or made sure our sons would be safe.”
Kalfr didn’t reply, but he squeezed her tighter, his relief tangible in the air. And for a few moments, they just sat there together, and watched the sparring-match in close, companionable accord. Laughing together when Skirvir somehow got a pinecone stuck up his nose, and then cheering for Gaelfr when he came out of the match muddy but victorious, raising his arms, grinning gleefully over toward them.
“I’m so glad Gael came back, though,” Raye murmured. “Aren’t you? He’s been — so good to us. Such a gift from the goddess.”
She was surprised by how much she meant it, how the gratefulness caught in her throat. Not only had Gaelfr gone and sacrificed himself for them, exiling himself for all those summers, but the moment he’d come back, he’d begun caring for them. Supporting them. Seeking to bring them together again.He’d fought to ignore his own doubts, all his own regrets and longings, so he could focus on theirs instead. So he could help them, and heal them, and guide them back to who they ought to be.
And Gaelfr had succeeded, hadn’t he? He’d pulled Kalfr out of his grief and despair, and brought him back to himself — and he’d done it for Raye, too. He’d swept her out of her loneliness and poverty and grief, and guided her back to her weaving, to her mate, to pleasure. To their family.
Beside her, Kalfr nodded, letting out a shaky exhale. “Ach, Gael has always been the goddess’ greatest gift to me,” he replied, soft. “Even when I doubted him most, and sought to push him away from me, he has always been the fiercest, most faithfulástvinurI could have dreamt of. I shall” — he took another breath, as if bracing himself — “I shall never stop loving him, you ken. Shall never stop longing for his guarding and his care. Wishing him to fight for me, to hunger for me, to defeat me, to kneel for me. To make himselfmine, in every way there is to do this.”
His voice had hardened into something heated, possessive, almost vicious — but when Raye glanced up at his eyes, they were careful, searching down toward her. As if… he was being honest with her. Trusting her with his truth, even if it made him vulnerable, or gave up his power, or drew up his fear. Fear of Raye reacting again, perhaps, rejecting him, throwing him out of her life forever.
But instead, she smiled, inhaling the rich deepening scent of his hunger in the air, and thought back to the first day Gaelfr had shown up to her cottage. To when he’d said,Kalfr is my ástvinur, woman, and thus he is mine, in every way there is to make this.
“You know, Gael told me something very similar about you, the first day he came back,” she said. “There really is something about these Bautul bonds, don’t you think?”
She could feel Kalfr’s surprise, could almost scent the pleasure in his astonishment, and it pulled her smile higher, drew in her breath deep. “Because I’m right there with you, it seems,” she murmured. “I never imagined I could ever feel this way about him. About the ghastly menace who showed up andbityou in my front garden, while I was trying to enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep.”
But her voice was light, teasing, and beside her, Kalfr chuckled too, and pressed a fervent kiss to her hair. And for an instant, as Raye’s eyes slid up to the sky, to the watching eye of the gleaming goddess above them, it felt almost unreal, like she’d become someone else, in another entire life. A life she could have never imagined, sitting here united with Kalfr like this, joking about their past like this, and easily talking about the depths of their shared affection for Gaelfr. Who was now spinning in a circle, loudly calling for further sparring challengers — a decidedly fruitless effort, given that all the band’s orcs were either burying their faces in their mugs, or sneaking off in pairs into the nearby shrubbery.
“Will you prove it, then?” Kalfr murmured, and when Raye blinked up at him, his eyes were glinting on hers, his head tilting meaningfully toward Gaelfr. “What you feel for myástvinur? Show me?”
Show me.It shivered all the way to Raye’s bones, fluttering her eyes, because this — this was more honesty, wasn’t it? More trust. And beyond that, it was another challenge, too. Another command. And Kalfr was just throwing it out between them, baring it raw in all its truth, without apology or shame. He wanted that power now, wanted that assurance, that control — and he wanted it with her.
And Raye wanted to give that to him. Maybe even needed the flare of her own power that came with it in return. This was her own gift, her own offering, her own choice. Her own trust.
So she smiled at him, leaned up to kiss his cheek, before she led him over to where Gaelfr was still muddy, and sweaty, and frowning around at the disappointing lack of sparring partners. And Raye didn’t hesitate as she eased up close to him, settled both hands to his chest, and gave him her best, most hopeful smile. She was proving it. Showing it, for all of them.
“Another well-deserved victory, Gael,” she told him, the sincerity low and silken in her voice. “And now, to celebrate” — she drew up her hope, her truth, her trust — “I want you to take me on this altar, and make me your mate.”
72
It took all Raye’s courage to keep standing there, smiling up at Gaelfr, while her audacious request shimmered out into the garden around them.
Take me on this altar, and make me your mate.
Gaelfr froze to utter stillness before her, gaping down at her with stunned, unblinking eyes, and Raye kept fighting for courage, for all the ways she knew he wanted this, too. The way he’d fucked her that morning, the letter he’d written her, the sword she still had hanging at her side. The way he’d said,I wished to be your mate, woman. I have always wished for this.
“Please, Gael?” she murmured, spreading her fingers against his muddy chest, feeling the furious thrum of his heartbeat. “I would be — so honoured, to be your mate. So blessed.”
Her eyes flicked up to the sky, to the watching silvery eye of their goddess, and Gaelfr glanced up, too, and betrayed a deep, full-body shudder. Enough that Kalfr huffed a laugh and circled his arm around Gaelfr’s back, inhaling at his neck. “Ach, the scent of you, Gael,” he murmured. “Now come. You should not wish to disappoint my brave, lovely mate, should you?”
Gaelfr reflexively shook his head, though he otherwise didn’t move, his eyes still wide and shocked on Raye’s face. And with another amused chuckle, Kalfr nudged him toward the altar, and drew Raye along beside them, too.
Gaelfr’s dazed eyes slightly sharpened as Kalfr turned him to face Raye beside the altar, and then began unfastening Gaelfr’s trousers, his fingers moving with deft, familiar ease. While Raye’s hands settled against Gaelfr’s chest again, smoothing over the mud and familiar scars, and the faint streaks of ash and blood from earlier that day, too, proof of his fealty that hadn’t quite washed away.
“W-woman,” Gaelfr finally stammered. “You — wish for this. From me.”
He sounded uncertain, incredulous, and it flooded Raye with relief, with a surge of bright, dangerous affection. “Yes, Gael,” she murmured, and her hand slid downwards, toward where Kalfr had released his hard, heavy cock from his trousers, ready and waiting for her touch. “I want this, from you.”
His shaft spasmed in her hand, already spurting its wetness against her wrist, and she was only half-aware of Kalfr slipping around behind her, and undressing her, too. Drawing off her belt and her sword, and then slipping off her dress and chemise, too, until she was fully bared together with Gaelfr beneath the cool watching moonlight. A state that Raye would have once found unsettling, or alarming, but instead it drew up more hunger, more bravery, especially when Kalfr’s warm hand caressed up her bare side, his mouth kissing softly at her throat.
“I’ve wanted to be your mate for a long time, Gael,” Raye continued, holding his eyes, stroking his ever-swelling hardness in her fingers. “I didn’t even try fighting it, all this time, did I?”
Kalfr laughed indulgently against her neck, and his body shifted closer behind her, so he could run one hand down her front, and join her in stroking Gaelfr’s shaft with the other. Theirhands now curving together as they pumped him, milking him out for them, spattering a splash of his warm sweetness across Raye’s belly.
