It was a lure to bring her out from behind her walls—a lure that would give him as much pleasure as it did her. But although temptation shone through her gaze, she shook her head. “You have shown me how to ease my own.”
“Not with your fingers. With my mouth upon your cunt.” No mistaking the emotion that flared through her eyes now. Pure hunger he saw, as fiery as his own. “Beneath our furs, I would taste your lips and every span of your skin until honey dripped between your thighs. Then I would feast upon the sweetness of you far into the night.”
Her breath stopped and she squeezed her eyes shut. With that moonstone gaze shielded, he could better see her face. The flush upon her cheeks. The moistness of her lips.
He could see the effort it took her to pull away from him.
“On my moon night,” she whispered, her face averted, her body tense. “I will be better prepared for you then.”
Prepared to meet the lust that raged through him? Maddek did not think she could be. With a soft laugh, he let her go.
“Then take your sleep while you can,” he told her. “You will need it.”
CHAPTER 19
YVENNE
The stars still shone brightly overhead when Yvenne opened her eyes, uncertain what had awakened her until she heard it again. A soft snort, as the horses sometimes made, but this was near her head and accompanied by shuffling and grunting.
Maddek’s low voice came from just as nearby, but at her other side. “It is only a louth.”
Rooting in the soil with the short tusks alongside its beak. An odd-looking creature it was, the size of a boar but with its squat body low to the ground, four legs splayed like a newt’s, and with smooth, reptilian skin.
She turned away from the louth to study Maddek, who sat beside her bed. It was closer to morning than she’d thought; the stars above were bright but they faded to the east. Almost dawn, yet he still seemed to be on watch. At the center of the camp, the fire burned low, flames glinting off the knife he used. So different he looked by firelight, the soft glow making his features seem more harsh, all hardened planes and angles with deep and dark shadows. Yet still so handsome to her eyes.
For a long breath she watched him, trying to fathom what he was doing—and trying not to recall how many times she’d silently eased her need in these furs the previous night, her mind filled with his roughened voice telling her that he would feast upon her cunt. Then falling asleep lonely, wishing she’d invited him into their bed.
Even now she longed to invite him in, to know the pleasure he promised. But pleasure was not all she longed for, and the soft pain beneath her breast reminded her that she was supposed to be disentangling her emotions.
But there was no purpose served by lingering in the furs. She would only wish for what she could not have. Still, there were others sleeping, so her voice was a soft whisper as she sat up and asked, “What is that you are scraping?”
“A stave for a bow.” His reply was as quiet as hers.
Fascinated, she watched him. His mother had once made a similar stave with wood painstakingly carved from the frame of Yvenne’s bed, yet Ran Ashev had possessed no blade to do it with. Only a bone comb sharpened against the tower walls.
Maddek finished with the knife and collected a twisted length of cord. Bending the bow, he quickly strung it. He examined the weapon, then tested it by drawing the string.
Finally he nodded, as if satisfied. “It is too green but will serve to strengthen your arm.”
Confusion filled her. “My arm?”
A soft grunt was his answer and he held the weapon out to her.
Yvenne took it, her heart pounding sickly. In her left hand, she gripped the bow. With the fingers remaining on her right hand, she plucked the string, loving the memory of wielding this weapon. But she could no longer.
“I can barely draw the string.” She showed him how difficult it was. “And I cannot do it at all while also trying to notch an arrow.”
Maddek watched her struggle with the bowstring before meeting her eyes with a dark, even gaze. “Use your other hand.”
“But that is not—” What your mother taught me. Yvenne bit off those unintended words before they could be spoken.
He must have known but she saw no anger in his expression. Only patience. “You are not the first to lose fingers—or even a full hand. And most warriors have one arm stronger than the other. But a warrior-queen should learn to use both equally well. So you will.”
A warrior-queen. She’d believed Maddek meant it as a joke. Yet now he gave her a bow and claimed she would use it.
Throat suddenly thick and aching, she grasped the stave in her right hand. It was awkward, for she could not firmly grip the wood with only two frail fingers and a thumb, and the bow wobbled in her grip when she tried to draw the string. Her left hand and arm were untrained and weak.
Yet Maddek had given her this to strengthen them. So that she might one day wield a bow and arrow again.
A queen did not cry when there was someone to see. Yet never had Yvenne struggled so hard against tears. Her chest was achingly full and her vision blurred when Maddek came nearer, adjusting her fingers around the bow.
“By wrapping leather here, I can make a grip that will conform to your remaining fingers and give you a stable hold,” he said quietly, reinforcing her grip now by curling his fingers over hers. “Try to draw.”
She did and could barely pull the string.
Maddek grunted. Despite her poor showing, that response sounded to her like approval—or perhaps barely was better than he expected. “Build your strength by pulling on the string as you ride. In time, you’ll need a vambrace to protect your forearm, but you are not drawing hard enough to bother with it now. Best to tie your sleeves out of the way, though—and you must practice.”
“I will,” she vowed, her voice a thick rasp. She felt Maddek’s gaze upon her but could not look at him.
His big hand tightened over hers. “Do you sense the same threat you did last eve?”
Yvenne shook her head.
Maddek seemed unsurprised by that answer. “I will finish the grip while you break your fast and make ready to ride,” he said gruffly.
Silently she nodded, then moved in haste away from him, her heart painfully swollen within her chest. She was supposed to be disentangling her emotions, separating lust from love. She was supposed to let all her hope wither.
Her would-be husband did not make it easy.
CHAPTER 20
YVENNE
Also not easy was drawing a bow while riding a horse. Yvenne didn’t rely on the reins for balance, yet they seemed to offer some small measure of control over her mount, so letting go of the reins sent Yvenne’s heart to racing. Then pulling on the bowstring shifted her weight in the saddle, making her instinctively grip more tightly with her legs, and she had not yet broken the habit. Every moment she expected the animal to bolt forward, sending her tumbling over the mare’s rump.