Alac carried Kailynn into the tent, as two of the bear tribeswomen placed a blanket over the ruined entrance to shut out prying eyes. Alac stiffly and painfully set Kailynn on her feet. She sank to sit on the bed as she tried to make sense of what just happened.
"Am I really me? Or am I truly that monster?"
Alac slid on his uninjured shoulder down the central pole of the tent to sit in front of her. "What happened?"
Kailynn hugged herself tightly. "I was tied down. He was... he was going to..." She choked down a sob. "I-I-I lost it. I remember thinking that I would die before I let him... do that to me."
Alac reached out to touch her knee, but Kailynn winced away. He set his hand on his own leg. "I'm sorry."
"No, its fine. I just.. I can still feel his fingers on me."
Alac's fist whitened as he clenched it. "You don't have to talk about this."
"I want to. I just don't know what to think. I-I think I might have called for help when she came."
"She?"
"The Ash Queen."
"Kailynn, that was just shock."
"What kind of shock gives you the ability to crumble things to ash?"
"So what did she want?"
"Me. Everything. All of it." Kailynn stared off at the sky that was visible through the top of the tent. "You heard what she said."
"Kailynn..."
"Is that who I am??" Kailynn slid to the floor with him, suddenly needing an anchor as her mind churned like a stormy sea. "Am I that Empress deep down? Will I kill like that?"
Alac shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Here is what I know. You have been through terrible terrible things and you still have the ability to love and care for people. That Ash Queen, whomever she is, she doesn't even understand what love is. You are still you. You are still the one I want even though I shouldn't."
Kailynn blinked against the tears that were threatening to streak down her ash-covered face. "You came for me. Am I still the me that you want?"
"Kailynn, I recognize you, I see you in there. I called for you, remember? I knew that wasn't you. I see who I want, and she is sitting in front of me covered in ash, wearing a bear rug and she looks like the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."
Kailynn lunged forward and kissed him. She poured herself into the connection, willing him to meet her. He answered her by parting her lips with his tongue and reaching up with his hand to pull her head in closer to his.
Every part of her wanted him. To feel him holding her, filling her, touching her. He leaned to lay back on the floor of the tent, pulling her down to straddle him. He grunted softly as she adjusted her weight to stay off his injured thigh. She moaned softly as he slid his hands up her abdomen, over her breasts to her shoulders. His touch left trails of fire across her body. Her bearskin fell to leave her completely uncovered except where his hands held her.
She leaned back and held his face in her hands, studying his face. This man had taken arrows for her, walked who knows how far on his wounded leg just to face certain death to attempt to rescue her. Only a man who loved her would have done that.
She was overwhelmed by the desire to feel the connection of his skin against hers. She fumbled with the buckles on his leather jerkin, her intensity increasing as she helped him slip it off over his head. Her hands started pulling his shirt over his head. A little rivulet of blood ran down his shoulder and he quickly wiped it away leaving crimson smear.
Her fingers fumbled with the buttons on his pants.
"Are you sure?" He breathed out as he reached for her hands, stilling their movement.
She let his hands stop hers. "I'm sure. I want to feel you with my body. I want to choose who I give my body to. I want you."
She unbuttoned his pants and scooted down his body, sliding his pants down with her.
"I just want to make sure."
She ran her tongue along the underside of him as it twitched and grew. Alac exhaled deeply, almost a growl as her tongue delicately lifted and dropped him. "Does that seem like I'm sure?"
"Yes. Gods yes..." His breathing became more slow and deep as she smiled slyly up at him from she lay in front of him. "That feels amaz.... oh fuck me!"
The last words burst from his lips as she slid her wet open mouth around him, as he slid over her tongue. She leaned back letting him slide free of her mouth as he watched.
"Kailynnnnnn!!" She plunged him back into her mouth taking half of his length, stopping again when he met the back of her throat. Every sound he made, built a fire that burned deep in her hips. His hands came down to her head, gathering up her hair as she looked up at him, holding him in her mouth. He pulled her hair slightly down and back to slide himself almost out of her mouth, leaving himself only just barely inside her mouth. His sea-foam green eyes searched hers. She nodded at him, wanting him, no, willing him to do it.
Slowly he pushed her head towards his groin. Kailynn moaned softly as he stopped just short of going down her throat. He stood there, holding her hair behind her head with both of his hands, staring down at her. Kailynn burned to feel him further, deeper. Why wasn't he continuing? Kailynn's body washed with desire to hear more of the sounds that he was making. Noises that she was making him make with her body. She wrapped her arms around his hips and pulled him deeper into her mouth and down her throat.
The thickness of him almost instantly made her gag, she heard him take a deep breath and actually growl her name. "Kailynn..."
She loved hearing her name from his lips. She fought her bodily urge to pull him out and instead took him deeper. Her throat muscles constricted around him as she held on to his waist listening to him as he took deep shuddering breaths and moaned her name. He gently pulled at her hair to release himself from her and she unclasped her arms from his hips to let him slide free. She looked back up at him, her breath coming slightly ragged and in small gasps.
Alac reached down and placing his hands under her arms, slid her up his body, laying her chest against his. She instinctively straddled his waist and put her arms around his neck, trying to not put her weight on his injured left shoulder. His hands slid down to where her legs joined her body in the back and lifted her thighs apart. Kailynn's breath hitched for a half second as his fingers explored her inner hips from behind. Alac slowly slid her body down on him until he teased her inner folds as he twitched and pulsated in time with his heartbeat. She arched her back to give him better access and lightly showered bites and nibbles down his neck as he pushed her further and further down onto himself.
Kailynn's eyes widened and she inhaled sharply as she stretched around him as he pressed deeper and deeper inside her until he was fully inside her. Alac adjusted his grip and began to lift her up and down, sliding himself almost all the way out and then back in so deep that she felt like it was in her stomach. She closed her eyes, savoring the sensation of their bodies pressed together as one, while their breathing grew heavier and hearts beat in sync. She could feel his shoulder tiring out. She reached back and grabbed his wrists to still him as she sat up on top of him pressing him even deeper. His shoulder was bleeding again from his exertions.
She paused her rhythm.
"I'm okay," he reassured her as she locked eyes with him. She dropped to all fours over him.
"Is this hurting you?"
"Not as much as it would to stop."
His hands reached up and lightly stroked her breasts as they lightly grazed his chest. She resumed her slow rhythm, sliding herself back and forth along his length. Here he had given her control, unlike the ropes that had restrained her earlier. Her eyes stayed with his.
"I see you Kailynn."
She rose and pressed herself down deeper and faster on him, she clasped his hands in her own as he held her breasts.
"I want you back Alac."
His breathing quickened at the admission of a passion that echoed his. Kailynn could feel his body relax under her as he surrendered fully to her, knowing that he wasn't alone in his desire for something more.
As she felt it melt away from his body, her own body responded by letting go of the fire that had been building inside her. She let it all go, every moment from watching him crumple onto the grass, the ropes, and the ash that had nearly consumed her. It was her voice that cried out to the sky as she climaxed with the man that had helped her find her way back to herself.
They lay together, panting in the afterglow of a love shared, breathing heavily as Kailynn stroked his long hair as it fanned out away from his body. He breathed deeply calming his racing heart as she lay with her head on his chest and him still firmly seated inside her.
Kailynn traced lazy circles on his shoulders. Her hand came away wet with blood. She tapped his chest.
"Stand up."
She gasped slightly as she pulled him out of her, rising stiffly to her knees. She rolled over and got to her feet. Glancing down at her own body she could see little streaks of his blood mixed with the dusting of ash that covered her body. Alac slowly made his way to his feet. Blood ran down his body from the wounds he had earned protecting her.
As his wound in his shoulder came into view, she picked up his shirt from the floor, ripped it into shreds, packed the wound and wrapped it with strips of the cloth. Trailing her bloody fingertips across his bare chest and abs, she stepped behind him as his reluctant hands let her go. She brushed light kisses onto the scars on his back as she bandaged his back where the arrow had penetrated. As she wrapped strips of cloth around his body to secure it, she allowed her hands to brush across his sculpted chest, lightly teasing his dark tanned skin.
Turning him to face her, she looked into his face and saw pain mixed with relief. Relief that she was safe, safe with him again. There was something in her that told her, Alac was the man that she could allow to know her deepest fears, wants, desires and that he would never hurt her with them. Kailynn kissed each of his large biceps, down to his forearms and then the top of each hipbone. Looking up into his eyes, she slowly sank to her knees in front of him and she again packed the wound in his left thigh and wrapped it tightly causing him to wince.
"Did that hurt?"
"A little." His eyes never left hers. "Nothing I can't handle."
Kailynn chuckled softly, "Best lover I've ever had."
Alac returned the laugh and lifted her head to look at him. "Aren't I the only?"
She stood and placed both hands on either side of his face and leaned up to kiss him, "Now and always."