“Keep an eye out for any sudden movement. Shit, if he as much as holds his pecker crooked when he steps outside to take a piss, I want you to call in the others.”

  Oriel mumbled a Roger that! or perhaps a Got it!

  In any case, I couldn’t make it out because Lael’s hut went black. Shivers crept across my skin. Just one more kill and I was even with the chieftain. One more soul added to my number.

  I gave Oriel a quick no-time-to-waste nod and stepped down the rocky overlook. A skinny path led around the steamy village, bringing me to the hut unnoticed. This is way too easy…

  The hide curtain pushed to the side like silk. My nose caught a whiff of rubbed-in ammonia and crusts of piss. The smell of old age when no family was around to care.

  I expected Elder Lael in his bed, his lungs rattling away on his final breaths. Instead, he sat on an old, gnarled armchair, the cloud-filtered light of the night barely touching his saggy skin.

  Weary and dull, a sparkle reflected from his eyes, playing peek-a-boo each time he blinked a lazy blink.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said in a monotone voice as if nothing troubling could happen in the next few moments of his life. “When you didn’t come, I figured it must be because of the candle. Now the light’s out, and you’re here to murder me.”

  Adrenaline slow-pumped through my body. Worming its way through my veins. From my heart into my legs and fists. Not the one that prepared you to fight, but the one that tensed your joints and told you to flee. But there was no danger for me here, except for how his death would chip away on my soul.

  “Sometimes,” I said and walked over, planting my ass on the brick windowsill across from him. “Sometimes, the old needs to make room for the new to keep going.”

  He gave a tired laugh. “Is that what he told you?”

  “It’s what I know. It’s what happened when I became chieftain, and now we have safety for our women, peace, and a better future ahead of us.” I glanced over my shoulders, but the only movement I could detect came from the occasional snowflake drifting through the air outside the window. “Xavier wants the same for his Clan.”

  “If you believe that’s what he wants, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

  It wasn’t so much the words that iced my veins, but the certainty and benevolence in his voice. As if he had spoken in a well-meant warning, instead of a taunt. I didn’t trust Xavier, but that didn’t mean I’d go back on a deal.

  I looked straight at him. “I am just here to stick to my end of the bargain, old man. Your life in return for my wife.”

  “And the life of Elder Sigurd?”

  “Yeah,” my head sank along with my heart. “His was part of it. But I hope you’ll cooperate better than he did.”

  I pushed myself up and pulled my knife from the holster, the dull moonlight reflecting from the sharp edge. “I can cut your throat deep and fast. Your blood pressure will drop instantly, making you so dizzy you won’t even know what’s going on. There’s gonna be some pain from your nerves when I sever them, but only for a second.”

  His head lifted, and his eyes locked with mine, sending another pump of the wrong adrenaline into my body. “Or?”

  “I can break your neck,” I said, squatting down so he wouldn’t have to look up. “I’ll do it fast, and with such force, it’ll be fatal. It will sever your spinal cord, and your brain won’t feel the way the rest of your body struggles to stay alive. It’s up to you.”

  He shifted his gaze away from me and onto the tree stump next to him, which must have served as a little table. His pupils seemed to track the age lines, spiraling around and around as if there was no end to it.

  “What did Elder Sigurd choose?” he asked.

  “He took the third option and ran.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest and closed my eyes for a moment. “Everything after that was neither pretty nor fast and most definitely not painless.”

  Elder Lael pushed back into the musty cushion of his chair and gave a huff. “You are a fool, Rowan, chieftain of the Woodlands.”

  I shrugged off his words. They all said shit like that in their final moments. They call you weak. They call you stupid and a fool. But you’re the one who survived for another day, and their own weakness and foolishness put them into their graves.

  “How come?” I asked and let myself sink onto the warm dirt floor, giving the man a shot at some end-of-life glory.

  “They will never accept your wife back as one of them after what she has done,” he said, his head held stoic and high. “And once they have proof the girl isn’t your child, they will come for her. She is an abomination. She is everything the Clans are not. Your wife is a whore and a traitor, and they will come for you all. They’ll come for the girl. The mother. And then they will come for your title.”

  A familiar tick pulsed through my fingers and pounded against the knife handle — pretty hard to ignore after what he had just said. Not sure what made his words the worst choice of them all: that they sounded like a threat to my family, or that they were utterly and undeniably true.

  “There’s no proof,” I said. “Only rumors.”

  The sparkle in his eyes brightened, and he gave me a hard smirk. “There is proof.”

  My chest tightened. “What proof?”

  He didn’t answer me, and his smirk sucked in deeper into his cheeks. A booming laugh came from deep within his lungs, letting another set of shivers climb up my spine.

  I pushed myself up and grabbed him by his throat, turning his laugh into a dying gargle. “What proof?”

  Even after I let go of him and he took in a sharp breath, he said nothing but did everything to pull his mouth back into a foreboding grin.

  I pushed my hand down on his shoulder and leaned over, my forehead almost bumping his. “Who knows?”

  “I know.”

  “Well, that’s too bad,” I said, watching how the grin turned into a cramp, starting at his mouth and spreading across his face. “Nobody will harm my family. Not you. Not anybody else.”

  He looked down at himself and where my knife handle protruded from his belly, fanning his hands by his sides as if it might safe him.

  Blood oozed from the wound in beats matching his suffocating heart. He sucked in sharp breaths, but only for a few more seconds. Then I stepped behind him, wrapped one arm around his neck and placed the other between the back of his neck and shoulder.

  One hard pull-and-twist later, his body jerked until it slipped off the chair and onto the floor, the thirsty dirt soaking up the red puddle.

  After his body pissed and shit itself, I pulled my knife out of his corpse. The blade wiped near-clean on his dark robe, and I left his hut without giving it another glance.

  Cling. The sound of his death chipping away on my conscience — but not nearly as much as it should have. Each kill left a piece of me behind, making me feel an ounce less human.

  I stomped through the village and back to Oriel, who showed me the way to our hut without as much as a whisper leaving our lips. A girl waited on the inside, the scheme of her body unmoving.

  When we stepped inside, Xavier sat at the wooden table across from Darya, his eyes immediately tracking across my body for traces of blood. But I wasn’t a fucking rookie, and there were none, so he gave me a nod that said nothing at all unless you knew what went down that night.

  “Where were you?” Darya asked, jumped up from the bench and hurried over to me. She opened her arms wide, but I stepped back.

  “I’m all sweaty and nasty,” I said. “Let me wash up first.”

  Her arms dropped heavily by her side, and she stared right at me. Or perhaps even through me, her eyes so aware of the truth, it slowed my heart to a near-stop.

  Sure, we all wanted to protect our women. But none of us wanted them to know just how we did it. Problem was, she had seen me like this before, the both of us awfully aware of how my foot jittered against the floor, or how I kept on swallowing whatever nausea pushed up from my guts.

  She pointed at a mildew-covered plywood door. “There’s a hot spring out back Xavier said we can use.”

  “A compliment of our hospitality,” Xavier added. “We have a few of those across the village, and guests get to enjoy their own one.”

  “Where is Rose?” I asked, my eyes darting through the hut. It didn’t look much fancier than the one I had just come from, but it sure as hell smelled better. The warm scent of rabbit stew and root vegetables they must have served Darya still hung in the air, the humidity doing a great job at rubbing it deep into the pores of this home.

  “I played with her for quite some time which got her all worked up,” Darya said, folding her hands against her stomach. “She’s sleeping right over there in our bedroom. The other is for Oriel.” She pointed at two other doors across from each other.

  “Well.” Xavier clapped his hands, pushed himself up from the bench, and walked over to me. He lifted his hand for a pat on my back but skipped when I shifted away from him. “I’ll leave you guys to it. We can discuss the rest tomorrow. I’ll have the women bring you breakfast, then I can show you around our trapping grounds.”

  The moment Xavier disappeared through the embroidered curtain, I unzipped my jacket and flung it onto the floor. My sweater followed shortly after. By the time I darted for my pants, Oriel had turned on his heels.

  “Alright, I’m out,” he said, then pointed at one of the bedroom doors. “That one mine?”

  “The one to the left,” Darya said, her eyes following the inked swirls on my bare chest.

  I marched straight through the mildew-covered door, my dangling cock being the first one to inform me just how fucking cold it was.

  “You won’t like it,” Darya said and sat on the slippery flagstone floor. “It’s very, very hot.”

  The hole in the ground, tiled in dark slate, reminded me a lot of what cooking instructions used to call a rolling boil. I plunged my bare ass down and my legs into the water, ignoring how my feet ached and my skin burned.

  I took a deep breath, held my head underwater, and rubbed my hands across my body and through my hair.

  By the time I came back up, Darya held out her hand with a soap bar in it. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “No.”

  I grabbed for the bar, but she clasped her fingers shut around it and pulled away. “Please tell me you didn’t do it because of me.”

  Her tense jawline and protruding collarbone clarified that the truth wasn’t an option. After all the hate she received from her Clan, I included, keeping my mouth shut would finally show some kindness.

  “Just politics…”

  She mustered my face for a moment, her eyes searching for signs of a lie among the fine wrinkles around my eyes.

  “Climb onto that step over there,” she said and rose.

  I did as she commanded, catapulting my body out of the water with its surface barely reaching above my ankles.

  She took the soap bar and lathered me down, rubbing the foam deep into my skin. Her cold hands touched my steaming skin, sending electric shocks across my body. When she reached my cock and took him in her slippery hand, I couldn’t help but let out a deep, guttural moan.

  “I think you’re ready,” she said, letting go of me and slipping the wet bar from one hand to the other.

  I looked down at myself and gave a nod. “There’s no hiding that.”

  I quickly lowered myself back into the water, washed the soap off my body, and climbed out of the hot spring. Without warning, I scooped her up bridal-style and marched back toward the hut.

  She gave a muffled screech against my chest, letting the bar slip out of her hands and onto the cold stone. “You’re getting me all wet.”

  “Fuck yeah,” I said and stepped back inside. “At least that’s the plan.”

  Hard and ready, I marched over to the table and placed her on the rough surface. Blood pumped through my body in quick bursts, fueled by the adrenaline of taking a life and keeping my family protected.

  She wrapped her hands around my neck. “Oriel will —”

  “I don’t give a shit about Oriel.” I planted a hungry kiss on her mouth, nibbling and pulling her lower lip. “Or anybody else for that matter. I don’t care about anybody else but you. And Rose.”

  With her dressed soaked in some spots, her body went still between my hands except for the occasional cold shiver. Her eyes widened and narrowed, staring at me as if she contemplated if I really meant it.

  I meant it and bunched up the layers of her skirt against her stomach. All three of them.

  Fuck the rumors.

  Fuck the truth.

  Fuck being a chieftain.

  All I ever wanted now had her legs wrapped around my waist, pushing her panty to the side in a glistening, wet invitation. I wanted her, and I wanted her for the rest of my existence — together with that beautiful girl she brought into my life.

  She kicked her heel against my lower back, drawing the head of my cock closer to her entrance.

  I shook my head, a devilish smile tugging on the corner of my mouth. “Uh-uh.”

  Then I grabbed her panty and pulled it down, fumbling it off her toes. I went down on my knees and dived between her thighs, spreading them apart with my broad shoulders. My tongue lashed straight for her clit. A jerk quivered through her legs. A moan followed, so deep of surprise and anticipation at the same time.

  I licked between her lips and sent the tip of my tongue inside of her, sucking myself drunk on her juice. Blood shot into my cock, making him jerk. I wrapped my hand around him and pumped into my fist. Only three times but hard and unrelenting. I kneaded my cockhead between my fingers, lathered in pre-cum and throbbing in the air.

  I pushed myself up and rubbed my cock across her pussy, towering over her body with two wet fingers resting on her lips. Her innocent eyes darted to them. Appetite and lust replaced innocence, and she took my fingers into her mouth. She sucked my pre-cum right off them. Twirling her tongue around them. Sending shivers down my spine and another pump of blood into my veins.

  Her wet folds hugged my shaft, driving me to the border of control and fucking losing it all. I took a deep breath, pulled out, and lowered myself back onto my knees, working those two fingers deep inside her pussy.

  “Rowan…,” she moaned my name and nothing more as if it entailed everything that needed to be said.

  I fucked her with my fingers, my tongue never stopping the tapping and licking across her clit. All the while, I stroked myself running my fists along my shaft, using whatever cum dribbled out for lubrication.

  The more her clit pulsated and trembled, the harder I stroked myself. She rammed her feet onto my shoulders and curled her toes into my skin, her pubic bone lifting and thrusting against my mouth. Her hands dived into my hair and tugged on a fistful, curbed moans stuttering from deep within her ribcage.

  Once her trembling body turned satisfied and limp, I got up and stepped closer to the table. I pumped into my hand, my fingers wrapped tightly around him. Each time they slid across the ridge of my cock, he stretched, and my balls tightened.

  She pushed herself closer to me, and her hands reached for my nuts, juggling, and caressing them between her fingers.

  The way she stared at my cockhole made him swell, sending quick and hurried pulsations through him. She arched her back and rubbed her hand across her breasts, showing me exactly where she wanted it.

  I held my cock a bit higher and threw my head back, rubbing my hand up and down. Everything turned dark. My ass clenched and a long, husky moan escaped from my lips, my cock throbbing against my fingers and spurting my cum all over her body.

  When I opened my eyes again, she stared at me, something hopeful waiting behind those beautiful, green iris. I knew exactly what it was, and for the first time in a long while, nothing held me back. Not even the old, worn out pain.

  I wrapped her in my arms and took her deep into my heaving chest. “I love you so much. Always did and always will. And I love you even more for that child you gave us.” I gazed down into her eyes, filled with tears and a deep sense of relief and mutual forgiveness. “Nothing will ever get between us again.”

  At that moment, a death-weight lifted off my shoulders, as if the past had finally moved on to where it belonged. Behind us.

  Foolish, foolish me. Nothing ever comes that simple. Especially not for a chieftain.

  Twenty-One

  Rowan

  “You’re kidding, right?” I asked Max, the clear-blue plastic liner of the examination table in the lab sticking to my sweaty ass. That thing he hovered in front of my face wasn’t a tiny needle. No, it was a big ass rod, and there was no way in hell he’d poke that into my ballsack.

  “This is how it’s being done in the Districts,” he said in a smart-ass tone, waving the syringe around as if stabbing a guy’s nuts wasn’t a big deal. “I’ll rub some of this numbing gel onto —”

  “You’re not gonna touch my balls, Max.” I dug my hand into the collar of his sweater and pulled him down. “If you as much as look into the direction of my package, I’ll strangle you to death with that stethoscope dangling around your neck. This is wrong. Just wrong. And I don’t give a shit about how things are being done in the Districts.”

  He patiently waited until I let him go from my clasp and took a step away from me. The lights above us shone weak, flickering like Morse-code every couple of seconds. A telltale of solar panels waiting to be cleared from the snow which had fallen on our way home.

  “For the record,” he said, “I don’t want to touch your balls. But the fact is, if you want to find out what’s going on down there, I’ll have to examine your marbles along with little Rowan.”

  “Little… what?”

  He flicked his eyes to the white rag draped over my manhood. “We might also have to do a prostate exam, but we should rule out other things —”

  “Now you wanna shove your fingers up my ass?” I jumped off the table, pressed the rag against my cock, and turned my ass toward the wall. “If I would have known my sister wants to marry someone whose job it is to rummage through a man’s butthole, I sure as hell would have said no.”

 

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