The Monster's Lover Page 6

  Twenty steps took me to the fringe of Ironwood. I shivered, pulling my arms around my thin dress. I’d never dared to go into the Ironwood at night. No one traveled through the Ironwood at night. Even my brothers and father, when they cut their purple oaks, lit fires and kept a watch all night.

  It was madness to enter the Ironwood in the dark.

  I closed my eyes and saw his beautiful body, my demon lover, broken and bleeding from the fangs of the Fenris-wolf. Swallowing hard, I stepped under the trees.

  The forest was strange in the pale glimmer of moonlight, drained of color and filled with unfamiliar noises. Distance was hard to judge. By the time I reached the banks of the Lucky, I felt I’d been walking for hours. But, when I stumbled upon the boulder where Fenris and I’d made love that morning, I couldn’t believe I’d already traveled so far.

  The water was filled with moonlight, sparkling and chattering. Nightbirds called to one another above my head, their voices loud and shrill. Soft, dark shapes swirled in the air, dipping to the surface of the water, then sweeping high above my head. It was strangely beautiful, like I’d trespassed into another world to watch something meant for other eyes.

  “Hello?” I whispered.

  My voice bounced strangely off the rocks, the water, the trees. The whisper that returned to me was a distance echo, like it had been wrapped in thick linen and dropped down a well.

  “Demon?” I said, raising my voice. “Are you here?”

  The birds fell silent. Even the dark, swooping shapes above the water vanished. I felt the hairs along the back of my neck prickle, and I turned, staring into the darkness. Stars, I should have brought my father’s broadsword. Or at least a knife.

  “F-Fenris?” I whispered.

  My mouth had gone horribly dry. I had trouble even forming the ridiculous name my demon lover had adopted. Too late, I realized what cursed luck it must be to whisper the name of the monster Fenris-wolf in the darkness of the Ironwood.

  “Sol?”

  I jumped and spun. My demon emerged from behind the deep shadows of the boulder, naked as always, the shine of the moonlight making him pale and even more unearthly than usual.

  “Oh, stars!” I fell against him, running my hands along his chest as if seeking reassurance that he was whole and unharmed.

  “You missed me?” he asked.

  I turned to see the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He looked like he was begging for a kiss; I was only too happy to oblige. I sank into him, twining my fingers in his hair as our tongues embraced.

  I had missed him, damn it. It had only been an afternoon, and I’d missed him terribly. He dropped his hands to my thighs, pulling at the fabric of my dress.

  “Wait,” I gasped.

  His smile crumpled into a frown. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to warn you. My brothers, they saw—”

  I hesitated. Here, with my lover’s strong arms wrapped around my waist and the heat of his erection pressing into my stomach, Jael’s fears suddenly seemed insignificant.

  “Tracks,” I whispered. “Monster’s tracks. Demon, there are dangers in the Ironwood—”

  His chest shook against mine. A moment later, his laughter poured over the Lucky, filling the spaces between the trees.

  “Oh, Sol! Did you walk the Ironwood at night to warn me of its dangers?”

  I flushed. Coming from his mouth, my actions seemed ridiculous. Stupid, even.

  “I was scared.” My voice sounded small against the darkness. “I kept thinking of you hurt, or—” I choked. I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  He kissed me, and my fear vanished, sublimated by the slowly spreading burn of arousal. When we pulled apart, he met my gaze with an oddly serious expression.

  “I believe you’re the first person to ever express concern for my safety,” he said. His voice was so low, it was almost swallowed by the hiss and chatter of water over stones.

  I laughed at the absurdity of that statement. Any woman who saw his handsome face and beautiful body would fall in love with him. There had to be dozens of maidens in the fringes of the Ironwood who fretted over his safety. My heart twisted painfully, and I pulled back to stare at the muscles of his chest in an attempt to banish the nightmare image of his beautiful body lying broken and bloody among the leaves of the forest floor. He touched my chin, tilting my head until our eyes met. His blue eyes shone in the moonlight like an animal’s.

  “I’m not a demon,” he said.

  I sighed. It seemed pointless to argue this now.

  “Do you live here? In the Ironwood?” I asked. I couldn’t quite keep the tremble from my voice.

  “Of course.”

  “Then you have to be careful! Please! It’s dangerous!”

  His soft lips curved into a smile. “Are you saying I shouldn’t run into the Ironwood at night? Alone?”

  I felt blood rush to my cheeks. “Just...be careful.”

  “Beautiful Sol. There’s nothing in the Ironwood that could harm Fenris.”

  I snorted. “Well, there’s the actual Fenris, for one. The monster wolf. And there are bears, even if they aren’t were-bears, they’re dangerous. And the Light-elves come hunting here, they don’t much care what they catch—”

  His hips started moving against mine in a very distracting way, and my breath caught in my throat. When he bent to put his lips along the curve of my throat, my litany of monsters evaporated like the morning fog.

  “Sol,” he hissed against my skin. “I promise you, I will tread the wild paths of the Ironwood with the utmost care.”

  A moan slipped from my lips. His touch sent sparks skidding across my skin, and the rough fabric of my dress suddenly felt too hot, too confining. I ached for the press of his muscles against mine, the heat of our bodies combined.

  “Fenris,” I whispered. “I did miss you.”

  His lips were on mine before I could say more. He wrapped his hands around my thighs, shoving my dress up to my waist. Even that was too much fabric, too great a barrier between our bodies. I pulled away from the heat of his arms long enough to yank the threadbare dress over my head and toss it into the darkness.

  He was on me as soon as the dress vanished, the hard muscles of his chest pressed against my breasts until my shoulders met the cold grit of the massive boulder embedded in the riverbank. His breath spread against my neck, flooding my body with heat, slicking my thighs, making me burn.

  “I missed you,” he growled against my neck. “It wasn’t enough. It’s never enough.”

  I opened my mouth to say yes, it’s never enough, but his lips dropped to my chest, and I could only gasp as his tongue ran over the hard jut of my nipple. His soft mouth engulfed my breast and I gasped, digging my shoulders into the rock, arching my back, granting him access to everything, all of me.

  He fell to his knees, pulling my leg over his shoulder. Overhead, the brilliant stars spun through the trees as his mouth set my body aflame. My demon devoured me, his tongue entering me over and over, his lips and teeth caressing the hard nub at the apex of my sex until the dancing stars, the hard rock under my naked back, the trees of the Ironwood, all whirled and burned and fell away to nothingness. He devoured me until I lost myself, drowning in the waves of his ecstasy. I dug my fingers into his hair and screamed his name, as if I were daring the monsters of the forest to show themselves.

  His body shifted beneath me, and I struggled to focus. My climax had left me trembling, with my vision blurred and my skin so sensitive it almost burned. The demon’s arms wrapped around my waist, then my shoulders, and he guided me to the soft, cool moss along the Lucky’s bank. He ran his lips over me, laying a trail of kisses along my collarbone and up the side of my neck. My body sang with pleasure; his touch was like a flame licking my skin, burning away everything but joy. It was almost too much to take. I moaned and writhed below him.

  “Oh, my Sol!” He spread my legs as he covered my body with his.

  He entered me, pressin
g my hips into the moss, and suddenly his caresses went from too much to not nearly enough. My body cried out for him, demanding to be filled.

  “More,” I panted. “More, damn it!”

  His lips twisted into a smile. The moonlight painted his handsome face in pale shades of gray.

  “Anything you desire,” he said in a rasp as rough as the granite boulder.

  His hips moved against mine in a slow circle. He dropped his hand and pressed his fingers against my sex, caressing the spot he first discovered. My words faded into animal gasps, and I rocked back, closing my eyes. I hadn’t realized I could die more than once in a night, that I could fall apart, be pulled back together, and then fall apart again. I dissolved under those slender hips, screaming his name, grabbing at his hair and shoulders, tearing the moss beneath my toes. When his cries finally joined mine and his stiff cock pulsed deep inside me, I was no longer certain where his body ended and my own began.

  “SOL?”

  I sighed, shifting sleepily in my demon’s arms. It felt so good to lie against the warmth of his body, with his rich, forest scent wrapping me like a blanket. His hair tickled the back of my neck as he leaned over me.

  My eyes opened, and I turned to smile at him. His bright eyes shone brighter than the sky.

  “My beautiful Sol. Morning approaches. Will you be missed?”

  A jolt shot through my chest, and I forced myself to sit up. Yes, the sky was unmistakably lighter now, with only a handful of scattered stars twinkling across the indigo of early morning.

  “Shit!” I scrambled to my knees, scanning the moss for my clothes.

  The pale fabric of my dress had been gracefully draped across the boulder. Blood rushed to my cheeks as I realized my demon must have picked it up and hung it over the rock to keep it from getting wet with dew. I imagined him moving away from my sleeping body to care for my clothes, and a new, entirely uncomfortable thought flared in the depths of my mind.

  King Nøkkyn.

  I should tell him, I realized as my empty stomach shifted uneasily. I should tell him my body does not belong to me, that less than two months remain before I’m dragged to the castle’s harems.

  Fenris stood and picked up my dress, shaking it once. He smiled shyly as he handed it to me. A great wave of shame and loneliness swept through me, more powerful than the currents of the Körmt river. I hoped it was dark enough to hide the tears welling behind my eyelids.

  “Shall I walk you home?” he asked. “I’ve heard the Ironwood can be dangerous.”

  I tried to smile at his little joke. “Please.”

  The morning birds were already calling to each other high in the pines of the Ironwood when I finally stepped across the lintel of our house, careful not to disturb the sleeping bodies sprawled across the floor. Ma stirred in her sleep as I pulled the wooden door closed but, thank the stars, Jael was silent. Egren had twisted in his sleep, so his bare little toes almost touched the cold hearth. I pulled the fur over him again and settled beside him quietly as I could manage. When I wrapped my arms around my cold, aching chest, I realized I could still smell my demon lover Fenris on my hands and hair. I closed my eyes, pretending his arms still encircled me, and let myself drift into an uneasy sleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “But what do you eat?” I insisted.

  Fenris and I lay stretched out on the moss along the Lucky, my clothes draped over the now familiar boulder, and the pitiful results of my half-hearted attempt to collect mushrooms sitting neglected in the shade of a massive pine. His sweat still covered my body, and his seed streaked my thighs.

  Jael had tried to stop me this morning. Chopping the purple oak Jael and Egan had pulled out of the Ironwood, and then harvesting and packing the winter potatoes, had kept us all busy for nearly a week. I hadn’t seen Fenris during that time, and I’d missed him with a fierce desperation that defied all logic. This morning, when the first golden streaks of dawn stretched across the pale sky, I grabbed a harvesting basket and leapt out the door, but Jael stepped in front of me, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he’d said.

  My heart rattled in my chest as I lifted the basket and tried to smile innocently. “To collect mushrooms. I saw some golden orbs last week.”

  Jael shook his head. “Sol, it’s too dangerous. You need to stay where we can see you.”

  My gut knotted as my breath caught in my throat. Where he could see me? Stars, no! My days of freedom were slipping through my fingers like water, and I wanted to spend the last of them with my legs wrapped around my demon lover, trying to memorize the way his skin felt against mine, the rasp of his breath against my ear, the sweet ecstasy of his body. I couldn’t stay here, in the cage of this cottage. Not while Fenris waited in the shadows of the Ironwood.

  I opened my mouth to beg, or to cry, but Ma spoke for me.

  “Jael,” she said from behind us, “let her go.”

  Jael’s shoulders slumped as he looked past me into the darkness of the house. “But, Ma—”

  “Just let her go,” she said. “Sol has little enough time to enjoy her solitude.”

  I turned to smile at Ma, trying to ignore the worry lines creased across her forehead. My chest twisted with guilt as I sprinted into the darkness of the Ironwood, but it was nothing compared to the aching need surging through the rest of my body. I burned for Fenris. When held against that raging fire, the guilt and shame I felt at my deception melted into a dull, uncomfortable throb, like a week-old bruise. Easy enough to ignore.

  Fenris smiled at me as the Lucky sang behind him. “What do you mean, what do I eat?”

  “If you live alone in the Ironwood, then what in the Nine Realms do you eat?”

  My fingers made a lazy circle in his auburn curls. I’d been thinking about him constantly. Could he possibly survive on squirrels and mushrooms in the forest?

  “There’s plenty to eat in the Ironwood,” he said. “Why? Is my Sol hungry?”

  I shook my head, but my stomach pinched painfully at the word hungry. It was going to be a long winter for my mother and brothers. I tried not to make it worse by eating their potatoes.

  “I just wonder how you survive out here by yourself.”

  He sighed, rolling onto his back. “Mostly deer, if you must know. And bread.”

  I laughed before I could stop myself. “Bread? In the middle of the Ironwood? What, you’re a baker?”

  His pale, sparkling eyes met mine. “I don’t bake it myself.”

  “So you go into the village, naked as the day you were born, and buy a few loaves of bread every month?”

  His grin widened. “Of course not. But you won’t believe me if I tell you.”

  “I don’t believe most of the things you tell me.”

  He shrugged, but the light in his eyes dimmed, and I regretted my words. Even if they were true.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “I have a friend who brings me bread and mead every full moon.”

  My heart gave a kick at that. Another woman, I was sure of it. And why not? Wasn’t I promised to King Nøkkyn, a little detail I’d somehow not yet managed to share with him? Why shouldn’t he have multiple lovers?

  “It’s not like that,” he said, softly.

  I turned away, disturbed he’d been able to read me so easily.

  “Týr,” he said. “A great warrior of the Æsir. He’s my friend. My very good friend. He brings me bread and mead from Asgard.”

  I snorted. “That’s ridiculous. The Æsir never come to the Ironwood.”

  Fenris’s hands traced the curve of my back, dropping to the swell of my hips. I still didn’t turn around. Why would he tell me something impossible? Why not admit a woman brought him food?

  “Týr comes every month,” he said. His voice was low and rough. My skin prickled with heat as his lips moved along my neck. “I’ll prove it to you.”

  I closed my eyes and let him kiss me. What did it matter if he told outrageous
stories to match his ridiculous name? In another month I’d be gone to the cold, dark towers of Nøkkyn’s fortress, and this beautiful, impossible demon who called himself Fenris would be nothing but a memory. I willed the tears away and rolled onto my back.

  His eyes widened at the sight of my breasts, as they always did, and I wondered that it should give me so much pleasure to watch him admire my body.

  “More,” I said. “I want more.”

  Still smiling, he gave me what I wanted.

  IT WAS ANOTHER TWO days before I could slip into the Ironwood again. Jael and Egen were busy preparing to return to their purple oak to harvest as much as they could before the snows came, and it took all of us to cook and pack for them. The clouds hung heavy as dawn broke that morning, full of rain and almost dragging along the tops of the Ironwood’s trees.

  “We won’t be leaving today,” Jael said, with a sigh.

  My heart leapt. “You won’t be needing me, then,” I said, trying to keep the edge of excitement out of my voice.

  Ma smiled at me. “Yes, Sol, you can run off to the woods.”

  Jael frowned. “What in the Nine Realms do you do in there, anyway?”

  “Nothing!” I said, far too quickly to be convincing.

  “Jael. Let her be,” Ma said. “You loved the woods too, as a child.”

  Jael snorted. “Sol’s hardly a child. I’d think she’d be a bit more help around here than leaving for the entire day and coming back with a half dozen shriveled little mushrooms.”

  I bit my lip as the familiar sting of guilt and shame chased each other through my gut. “I haven’t seen anything dangerous in the woods,” I said, quite honestly. “Not even a bear track, I swear it on the stars.”

  “But I have,” Jael said in a cold, low voice.

  Ma leaned across the table and rested her hand on Jael’s arm. “Let her go. Sol is doing quite enough for the family.”