The Lost Reavers Read online

  A clear and strong sensation of hope startled Hugh. He took a ragged breath. “That would be… most welcome.”

  “We’re just beginning our adventures together,” said Zarja, giving him a lopsided grin. “Hold onto that hope, Hugh. Because this I swear: I’m on your side. And I’ll do everything in my considerable power to bring our group together, to tighten our bonds, so that we may all help you fulfill your destiny, whatever that may be.”

  “You sound like a Fate Maker,” he said, mouth dry.

  “Hardly. Those stuffy advocates of predestination don’t understand the first thing about true, dynamic fate.” She rose up onto her tiptoes so she could slip her hand around the nape of his neck and raise her lips to his own. “But I mean what I say, Hugh. I am all yours. You may not even appreciate yet what that means. But in time, you will.”

  And she kissed him, her lips as soft as berries, her tongue tasting of vanilla, her scent engulfing him, making his heart race, so that he went to wrap his arms around her, pull her voluptuous body against his own.

  But she slipped free with a husky laugh. “There will always be time for that. But for now, you need to find Morwyn.”

  “Yes,” he growled, fighting down his desire. By Fortuna’s perfectly globular tits he wanted nothing so much as to bend the lisica over the railing counter and plow her from behind, spread her perfect ass cheeks to -

  “Yes,” he said again, asserting his self-discipline. A deep breath of the cool air. “Wish me luck.”

  “Luck,” said Zarja, curling a lock of hair behind a fox ear.

  “And Zarja?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Why Sir Hugh, you’re most welcome.” And she gave him a perfect curtsey, deep and effortlessly executed. Her flirtatious grin was all that undid the effect.

  Hugh laughed, tapped his hip and found his sword missing. Stepped inside, picked up his scabbard, belted it to his waist, and then gave the lisica a nod as he stepped back out into the night air.

  Now. Where to find Morwyn?

  He made his way down the trail to the bridge that passed over the Mandroga falls. And there she was. Standing in the bridge’s center, gazing down at the swirling chaos. Shoulders hunched, elbows on the railing.

  Hugh paused. What approach was best? He’d no idea, so simply strode onto the broad bridge, the sound of his approach masked until the last moment.

  Morwyn tensed. “Leave me be.”

  “No,” said Hugh, leaning on the railing beside her and gazing down the Mandroga’s dark, serpentine length.

  “The Fate Maker take you,” hissed Morwyn, jerking away and dropping her hand to her blade. “I want to be alone!”

  Hugh looked back at the river. “You’re good at demanding the truth from others. Almost as if you feel you deserve to know. But sharing your own? Not so good.”

  “You don’t think I have my reasons?”

  “I’m sure you do. But we’re past that. I’ve told you my darkest secret. Fuck, Zarja risked being lynched by revealing herself to you. And still you won’t talk?”

  Morwyn looked away.

  “I know how it feels. I’ve been there since the Goat’s Wood. Alone. Terrified. Hating yourself, but unable to do the right thing, which most often feels like cutting your own throat. Tonight’s the first time in what feels like forever that I don’t feel completely alone.”

  Morwyn sneered. “I’m not terrified.”

  “Sure you are. You’re just really damn good at hiding it, even from yourself.” Hugh rolled over on his elbow to face her. “I’ve been wondering why you’ve been pushing me to fight you again. Why it’s driving you crazy that I beat you so handily that first time. And now I get it. Because you can justify your existence to yourself if you’re the best. That empowers you. Makes you feel in control. But slip to second place? Maybe that pain no longer feels quite so bearable. Maybe it’s harder to keep that fear and horror at bay.”

  Her eyes teared up even as she snarled at him. “Shut up!”

  “What’s going on with the Hanged God, Morwyn? What does he want with you?”

  Her whole body shuddered and she took a half-step back. “Damn that lisica,” she whispered.

  Hugh pushed off the railing. “He want you, Morwyn? He calling you in some way?”

  “Shut up,” she growled, lowering herself into a combat crouch.

  He stepped before her, hands on his hips, taking no pleasure in her pain. “It gets better if you talk, Morwyn. Believe me. I just found out.”

  With a shaking hand she drew her blade. Its rasp was barely audible over the rush of the river below. “You’d never understand.”

  Hugh made no move to draw his own. “Try me.”

  “Nobody can understand,” she whispered. “Last chance, Hugh. Turn around and walk away.”

  “I won’t leave you,” he said, and a maelstrom of emotion came roaring up from within his core. The fascination and crush he’d had on her when he was young. The respect and awe he’d always felt for her skills. The admiration he’d developed since setting forth on this trip - and compassion, something new, that he’d felt since glimpsing her pain. “I won’t leave you, Morwyn. You can’t frighten me away.”

  “Damn you!” She leaped at him, blade scything in a diagonal, but rage or terror made her sloppy, so that he saw the blow coming from a mile away. A simple matter to sway aside.

  “I won’t leave you,” he said again, putting fire into his words. “You hear me? You’re not alone.”

  “Everyone’s alone,” snarled Morwyn, pivoting and slashing at him again, forcing him to leap back. “Everyone’s alone. All you have is your own strength and the moment that fails you -”

  She came at him, discipline and practice asserting itself. Her speed was blistering. He was forced to dance back, pushed to his very limits to avoid her frontal assault, and in a matter of seconds had retreated nearly to the bank.

  A final slash and she stopped, breathing heavily, shoulders rising and falling. “Lies. Anytime anyone says they care. Lies. Anytime someone says they want to help. Use or be used. Kill or be killed. And anyone who says otherwise is a damned fool.”

  “Then I guess that’s me,” said Hugh. He began unbuttoning his tunic. For a moment he’d been on the verge of calling for help from the Reavers, to defeat her like he’d done that first time, but no.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed, bewildered. “Stop that.”

  He undid the last button and opened his shirt so that the river’s cool breeze wafted over his muscled torso. Spread his arms and began to advance. “Cut me down, Morwyn. I won’t defend myself.”

  She hesitated and backed away from him. “Draw your damn blade, Hugh! Stop this idiocy!”

  “No. I won’t defend myself. I won’t attack you. Cut me down if you want. But I’m not going to run. I’m not going to leave you.”

  She backed away some more. “What by the Ashen Gardens do you want from me?!”

  Arms still spread, he advanced. “To show you I fucking care, Morwyn. I always have. Even when you nearly killed me that day in the bailey. But now more than ever. Because I’m no longer a love-sick youth. I’m a man. A man who’s killed, who’s betrayed, who’s seen the dark depths of the world and survived.”

  She retreated a few more steps then fell into her combat crouch once more. “Shut up!”

  “Cut me down,” he said, voice confident, strong. “Go on.”

  Morwyn raised her blade so that its point was aimed at his heart. “Damn you, Hugh! Stop this!”

  “No,” he whispered.

  She sprung at him, a wounded cry tearing itself free from her very depths and brought her sword down to hew him from shoulder to hip.

  But it was a ragged, faltering blow, and he caught her wrist, stopping her inches from killing him.

  Morwyn sank into him, brow against his chest, blade still raised, and began to sob, the sound near silent, her whole body shaking. Began to sag, as if losing all the stren
gth in her legs, so that for a second Hugh found himself supporting her weight by her sword arm before he slid his arm around her slender waist and pulled her to him.

  Cheek against his chest, she simply stood there, powerful sobs wracking her even as she fought to stifle them. He held her close so that she wouldn’t fall. Didn’t breathe a word. Released her wrist to embrace her more fully.

  Her blade dropped from her limp fingers to bounce on the planks as she drew her arms in, body shivering.

  “Why?” she whispered, voice near broken. “Why are you doing this?”

  Hugh didn’t answer straight away. Frowned as he stared over her head into the night. “I… I wish there’d been someone there for me when I was broken. Someone who wouldn’t have let me push them away. Who’d have reached a hand down into the dark to pull me up.”

  Morwyn drew back, cheeks wet with her tears, but her gaze had hardened. “That what this is? Pity?”

  “No,” he said, disarming her with his smile. “Oh no. I’ve cared about you for as long as I can remember. And traveling north with you now - seeing the woman you are, have become. It’s not just pity, Morwyn. Far from it.”

  They held each other’s gaze, the waters rushing below, and the air grew turgid with tension. She blinked, surprised, and something subtle shifted in the way she held herself, the tension changing, a softening as he became supremely aware of how the length of her was pressed against him.

  Her lips parted, her chest rising as she inhaled, the hardness melting in her eyes, something else stealing into its place.

  Hugh leaned down and kissed her.

  She didn’t respond, not at first, simply stood there, hands on his hips, and then she kissed him back, hard, hands moving up under his shirt to pull him to her. Lips hungry on his, body writhing against him, moaning as she slid her tongue over his own.

  The excitement, the fire that had been running in his veins as she’d attacked him suddenly shifted, and he wanted nothing more than to be with her, inside her. Still kissing furiously, they staggered over to the railing. Morwyn turned at the last moment to thrust him against the wooden beam - hard - and then stepped back to gaze upon him.

  “Your body is ridiculous,” she said, tracing the contours of his muscles. Leaned in to lick his nipple, then thrust a hand down inside his pants, callused palm closing around his straining cock.

  It was more than Hugh could bear. All delicacy, all finesse, was utterly gone. “Take your fucking clothes off,” he rasped.

  She laughed under her breath, a husky sound as she unbuckled her belt hurriedly and shimmied her tight leather pants down over the swell of her hips. A moment later she was stepping out of them, long pale legs gleaming in the dark, the scent of her arousal so strong Hugh dropped to one knee, hooked her thigh over his shoulder, spun her around to shove her against the railing and buried his face in her pussy as he pulled her panties aside.

  Fortuna wept she tasted good, her snatch tight, his tongue slipping between her lips and as deep into her as he could thrust it. Her hands were in his head, her hips bucking forward as she gasped, so that he grasped her by both taut buttocks so as to simply keep her in place as he licked her from the bottom to her clit.

  “Fuck,” she hissed, grasping fistfuls of his hair and rubbing his face hard into her pussy. “Lick me. Like that. Fuck!”

  Her juices were all over his chin, and he simple couldn’t wait any longer. Rose up, near overwhelmed by his own vitality, his need, the strength and demand of his body. She yanked his pants down, pulled his cock free, and then slid him into her, leaning back on the railing as she pushed down, taking him, all of him, into her incredibly tight pussy.

  He grunted as he sank into the hilt, then lifted her up so that she sat on the railing and began to pound her. Morwyn leaned back over the waterfalls, one hand around the nape of his neck, the other on the railing, eyes wide, smile mocking. Her whole body shook as he slammed into her, the railing creaking and swaying under the abuse.

  Hugh reached out with his free hand to cup the side of her face, and she took his thumb into her mouth, bit it and laughed when he jerked his hand out.

  “When you going to start fucking me?” she gasped. “That all you got?”

  Hugh growled deep in his chest, dug his fingers into the flesh of her hips and really let go, pistoning in and out of her pussy. It was so damn fucking tight he couldn’t take it; with a roar he came explosively deep inside her, grinding his hips against her own as she ejaculated again and again.

  “That it?” Her eyes widened in shocked dismay. “You already fucking done?”

  Hugh leaned back, still luxuriating in her depths. Grinned wolfishly. “Oh no. I haven’t even started.”

  And began to thrust into her, slowly now, methodical, inexorable, undulating his hips so that the head of his cock rubbed against the top of her canal as he slid in.

  “Oh,” she moaned, eyes growing heavy lidded. “There. That’s not the worst I’ve ever had.”

  “You’ve never fucked anything but your sword,” he laughed, working her hard but slow.

  Morwyn narrowed her eyes, chest rising and falling as she swayed atop the railing. “How the fuck would you know?”

  Hugh’s grin widened. “Up until me, I bet your sword’s the only thing you’ve found that was hard enough.”

  She laughed, half-mocking, half delighted, then leaned in, lips to his ear. “I won’t deny it. My dagger handle fits inside me just right. I’m still waiting for you to feel better.”

  It was Hugh’s turn to half laugh, half growl. He wrapped his fingers around her neck, pushing her chin up with his thumb even as he continued to work her. “Look me in the eyes and say that.”

  Some dark, fey energy was burning in the depths of her eyes. She stared right at him, one eyebrow raised, body bouncing each time he thrust into her, not caring about the hand at her throat. “You’re not bad, Hugh. You keep fucking that fox girl long enough, maybe you’ll amount to something.”

  His half laugh turned to all growl as he squeezed his hand about her throat.

  Her smile grew wicked. “Come on, big boy.” Her voice was a wheeze. “I told you to fuck me.”

  And she slapped him. Hard.

  Some beast within Hugh slipped its leash. He moved his hand to her shoulder, but she slapped his hand away and moved it back to his neck.

  Fine with him. He squeezed, grasp cruel, other hand grasping her hip, and let loose, hammering into her so hard he lifted her off the railing each time.

  She gasped, head flung back, one hand on his wrist. “Harder,” she gasped, and for a moment he thought she meant their fucking. “Squeeze me harder.”

  Her neck?

  A moment of shock, confusion, but before he could respond, react, the railing broke, snapping under Morwyn.

  There was suddenly no resistance behind her. His last thrust pounded her through the shattering wood and they both spilled out into the void, her cry rising in shock.

  Hugh pulled her in close, turning his body so that he fell first, and after a second lurching free fall they crashed into the raging waters of the waterfall, down into the pool beyond the falls, the world exploding into bubbles and freezing cold as they crashed deep into the water.

  He swam strongly for the surface, holding her to him, and their heads broke the raging surface with twin gasps, and to his surprise he realized she was laughing, gasping from the cold, and he couldn’t help it, he began laughing too even as he swam to the closest rock that was right beneath the falls.

  “Don’t fucking stop,” she shouted over the crash of the fall water. “Or I’ll fucking freeze!”

  Her hand found his cock and slid it back inside her, both of them submerged up to the hips, water cascading down behind her shoulders, the cold so piercing Hugh felt numb with shock.

  But in the faint moonlight he could feel Morwyn’s gaze on him, the mocking sneer. “Don’t tell me you’re going soft, Lord Hugh!” She laughed again, shivering violently, hands moving to
link behind his neck. “Am I going to have to go find my dagger?”

  That irrepressible vitality was a raging bonfire within his chest and loins. The strength and stamina that forced him to carry rocks and logs for miles on end, to swim for endless miles, to push himself to his very limit each and every day came burning to the fore, and suddenly the cold, the swirling, turbulent waters, were as nothing.

  Hugh grinned at her. “Don’t drown. I’m gonna need you tomorrow.”

  And began fucking her again, the rock slippery, the spray making it hard to keep his eyes open, her body lithe and muscular, her waist slender and perfectly toned as he held onto her, her legs scissoring around him with crushing strength as she grasped his shoulders.

  Harder. Faster. The world a continuous roar around him.

  Hugh lost track of everything. The world reduced to her tight pussy, her writhing body. At some point she screamed, back arching as she pressed against him. He came shortly after.

  Kept going.

  She came again. Two more times. He lost track. In her frenzied orgasm she scratched the fuck out of him, leaving trails of fire down his chest, down his back, bit into his neck.

  The pain only fueled him further.

  “Enough!” Morwyn pushed him away. “I can’t feel my fucking legs. Enough!”

  Hugh blinked, leaned back, lost his footing and fell back into the pool. The water no longer felt cold. Just deliciously invigorating. Down he sank, and then up to float on his back, body feeling terribly alive, his every nerve singing, the cold soothing his feverish need. He stared up into the night sky.

  It was so damn beautiful. A smear of stars like crushed pearl paste. The moon itself having risen completely at some point, silvering Erro and the banks. The waters around him shimmering like beaten tin.

  Movement at the bank. Morwyn climbing out onto the rocks. Standing. Unbuttoning and unlacing. Shucking what remained of her sodden armor so that she was a pale, naked figure. A moment as she stood poised on the rock, and then she dove into the broad pool, a perfect knifing into the waters. Hugh remained floated on his back. He wanted to see her naked before him. To admire her perfection. Felt his cock stir, and then hands were on him, and heat enveloped his cock as Morwyn took him into her mouth.