Gaelfr blinked at her, and betrayed a grimace, a slow tilt of his head. “He did not… speak to you of this,” he said, more a statement than a question. “Nor seek to do this with you, before?”
Raye shook her head, and Gaelfr let out a heavy breath. “For a Bautul mate to be claimed, and welcomed amongst us,” he explained, “they must be taken upon an altar before the goddess, and before the clan. They must be bared, and opened, and offered — and they must offer a gift of fresh, freely earned Bautul seed in return.”
He waved down toward the altar, toward the still-pooling mess they’d made, and Raye stared at it for an instant, while her heartbeat skipped in her chest. No, Kalfr had never done anything like that with her before. He’d never once mentioned anything about a ritual like that, had he? About offerings, about altars?
And now… he’d done it? Here? Today? When he still hated Raye? And when he believed his goddess wanted tokillhim?
“So what does that mean?” Raye squeaked. “Is it — are Kalfr and I really —togetheragain, because of this?!”
Gaelfr’s mouth pursed, and he glanced upwards again, toward the moon’s faint crescent in the sky. “No, not fully,” he replied. “We ought to have had more Bautul witnesses, and Kalfr ought to have spoken a prayer, and called down the goddess’ blessing upon you. But” — he shrugged — “it is yet… enough. Enough that we would all now see you as his, and we would next expect him to bring you before the clan, and finish this.”
Raye couldn’t stop staring at him, her heartbeat still skipping against her ribs. “So if this is really that important,” she said, wincing, “why… why didn’t he do it, before? Before the rest of all this? Back when we were… happy?”
Gaelfr was still looking at the moon, his shoulders rising and falling. “Mayhap… because of me,” he carefully replied, as though he were weighing every word. “As hisástvinur, I should have been there, for a vow such as this. He needed my seed, and my blessing. And without this, the clan would have questioned his vow, and may not have granted their blessing at all.”
Oh. So did that mean Kalfr wasn’t even fully Raye’s mate, then, in the eyes of his clan? He’d hidden that from her, too? Why hadn’t he tried to tell her this about the altar, at least? Why hadn’t he tried to better explain what Gaelfr was to him, and how that affected everything else?
“Do you think,” Raye began, her voice sounding small, and damnably hurt. “Maybe he just didn’t like me all that much back then, either? Maybe he just… didn’t think it would last?”
Even the thought was astonishingly painful, and she let out a shaky exhale when Gaelfr snorted, and shook his head. “Ach, no,” he said flatly. “Even if the rest of our clan swallowed his fool tales, I could scent him. And I should never have believed you were only a —”
He clamped his mouth shut, but Raye could all too easily finish what he’d been about to say. Kalfr had claimed she was only a fling, perhaps. Only a dalliance. Only something empty, unimportant, meaningless.
The hurt simmered deeper in Raye’s gut, because no matter what Gaelfr said, everything else Kalfr had done since then still supported that conclusion, didn’t it? He’d kept so many secrets from her. He’d hidden the truth about Gaelfr all that time. And now, how he’d been ever since she’d arrived here, how he’d just fucked her and walked away.
But again, Raye hadn’t exactly encouraged his honesty either, had she? And she hadn’t given him chances to explain after that fateful long-ago night, either. She hadn’t read a single letter. She’d threatened to take Svein across the sea.
“Ach, no need to scent thus, or fret over this, woman,” cut in Gaelfr’s gruff voice. “I told you, this is good, what Kalfr just did. This is what he should have done, back when you first met, with me as his witness, and his partner in this. And now” — he squared his shoulders — “as I have said, you shall keep honouring your vow to him, and we shall keep learning of this. We shall keep pushing him upon this. It is clear he needs this. He needsus.”
His voice was flat and decisive, with no room for argument. As if he was barging in again, making decisions and demands, whether anyone else wanted it or not. And Raye didn’t want it, ordid she, and she could only seem to lie there and watch as Gaelfr returned to sucking the reddened fingers of her other hand, one by one. Stroking and circling them with his tongue, lingering on the scraped skin, until it felt smooth and painless again.
Once he finally seemed satisfied, he eased down over Raye’s still-sprawled body, and settled between her knees. They were both raw and rough too, from where she’d been kneeling on the hard stone, and Gaelfr frowned at the sight of them, and bent down, and again began licking. Smoothing his slick tongue over each one with slow, purposeful care, until the stinging had entirely faded.
“Now, any other pain?” he asked once he’d finished, still kneeling between her legs. “Aught else that needs tending?”
His hooded eyes betrayed a telltale glance toward Raye’s still-exposed groin, which — her face heated — was still oozing Kalfr’s slick fluid out onto the altar. And Gaelfr was watching that, did Gaelfrlikethat, and Raye twitched at the dizzying vision of himtendingher there too. Sinking that wondrous long tongue up deep inside, licking her clean of hisástvinur’s fresh seed…
“No, it’s fine,” Raye said, too fast and clipped. “We should go check on Svein soon anyway, right?”
Gaelfr hesitated, and for a breath, something like disappointment flicked across his eyes. But he curtly nodded, and began wiping his cloth between her legs instead. Still far too intimate, and alarmingly tempting, and Raye had to fight the rising urge to reach up and touch him. Perhaps to grip his shoulder, and guide him downwards. Or even to reach for his trousers instead…
But she held herself still, waiting, her heart thumping fast and strange, until Gaelfr drew the cloth away again. And after one more glance up and down her body, he rose to stand beside the altar, and drew her up beside him.
“Any further pain?” he asked, brusque, once Raye had found her footing on her shaky legs. And when she shook her head, he then turned his attention to her clothes, and her hair. First pulling down her shabby dress, smoothing out the wrinkles with firm sweeps of his hands, and next easing around behind her, and tugging out the braid he’d given her that morning. She’d almost entirely forgotten about it, but it was surely a mess by now, and she let out a slow, shaky exhale at the feel of his capable hands carding through her tangles, scraping against her scalp, and then plaiting the braid neatly again.
“Better,sæta?” he finally asked from behind her, and when Raye turned to look at him, he wasn’t quite meeting her eyes. But in his hand, he was holding a flower — a white trillium, likely plucked from a cluster that had been growing beside the altar — and as Raye watched, he gently, carefully, tucked it into her hair, just above her ear. Such a small, inconsequential gesture, but still so strangely overpowering that Raye could scarcely breathe, let alone follow the question he’d asked.Better, sæta?
But then, as she considered it, she found she did feel better. Despite all the mess that had just been, and all the new doubts and questions it had raised, and the danger still hovering over them — she still felt so much better than before. Better than she’d felt in weeks, or months, or even years. She felt relaxed, and calm, and aware, and awake. At… peace.
Maybe it was just the bond again, some biological imperative toward Kalfr that had finally been fulfilled — but surely part of it was this, too. It wasGaelfr. Gaelfr’s… kindness, in this. His commiseration, and his explanations. His…tending.
“Y-yes, actually, I do feel better,” Raye replied, before she’d caught it — and gods curse her, she stepped closer into Gaelfr, and stood on tiptoes to press a soft, chaste kiss to his hard cheek. “Thank you, Gael.”
She didn’t miss Gaelfr’s twitch against her, or how his eyes narrowed as she drew away. And instead of glaring back, as she surely should have done, she found herself smiling at him, slow and genuine and grateful. At… at peace. Because of him.
He blinked back toward her, once, but then swallowed and frowned away toward the trees. Toward where Kalfr had gone. And at that reminder, the doubt quivered in again, fading the smile from Raye’s mouth. Right. Kalfr. Kalfr had still fucked her, and then left. And she still couldn’t trust either of them, and Gaelfr was still only doing this for Kalfr. And she needed to remember that,worse than you…
But then Gaelfr’s eyes slanted back toward her, his hand slipping warm around her waist. “Fret not, woman,” he said firmly. “He has not gone far, and he shall be back soon. We have gained much ground today, and we shall soon gain more. We shall address this. Weshall.”
