Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

Yet that only begged more questions. How was it, for instance, that Hildolfr would have known I was still alive? How would he have known I would escape the Nightlands and come through Soot? Unless my geography was off, Soot was quite a ways south from Klexus. This elfin region of towering trees and wild forests was where we met Branwen and Grimalkin, and where we entered the Nightlands together. Hildolfr would have had to return there to collect his boarded horse.

Therefore, it seemed to me that in order to arrive at Soot and commission this set of armor for me, he would have had to make a specific detour for it. There were faster highways between Klexus and Skythorn: I confirmed it in a map in the registrar’s office on my way back to the inn. It seemed to me almost that Hildolfr had known by some occult means that I would arrive where and when I arrived, yet I could not account for this. To the best of my knowledge the ranger had no such magic. Certainly nothing like Gungdrygia and her thieving of my time.

Another mystery! Ah, Gundrygia. Just the thought of that name made my blood burn with desire. Yet this unfulfilled lust was very nearly welcome. Otherwise, my mind was too at odds with itself: too bogged down with its countless unanswered questions. Hildolfr, Gundrygia, the hateful hivemind of the spirit-thieves…and, of course, the most pressing and disturbing matter. The old man through the portal, whose face resembled mine.

How tired I was! My body was drained by the journey, my mind was drained by questions; yet still I could not rest. First I took to the town bathhouses, quiet that early in the day. Then I made south, to the Dardrie Ranch. The family was very kind when it came to the matter of loaning out their horses to a total stranger, although the deposit was quite a sum and practically emptied the leather pouch at my hip.

No matter. The most important tasks seen to, I returned to the inn, ate an early lunch in the corner of the tavern, then climbed the stairs to rest my aching body.

This also proved somewhat challenging at the outset. I had a decision to make—Indra and Odile, or Branwen and Valeria? I paused by the first door. By the density of Odile’s snores, it would have been as fatal to wake her as to wake any dragon taking a well-earned, post-rampage rest.

In the other room, then. I eased softly into where Branwen and Valeria slept, or pretended to amid a whirl of thoughts as strange as mine.

The women slept in a fashion that was the polar opposite of how Indra and Odile always seemed to intertwine when at rest. Their backs to one another, Valeria and Branwen each slept on her own edge of the mattress. I did not take this as a general sign of mistrust in one another so much as an unfamiliarity, but I have to admit I thought it something of a shame I didn’t walk into the room to find them already embraced in sleep as lovers. A man can dream that things should run so smoothly, anyway!

Just inside the room, I undressed and found as I did that Branwen, facing the door, peered sleepily at me. “Did you get our horses?”

“Yes, Branwen,” I whispered, coming into the bed and forcing her to wiggle nearer Valeria. Thanks to the small mattress, their bodies pressed together and the dark elf stirred in her hefty sleep. “I got our horses.”

“’Zah,” she murmured, her eyes closing. That smooth elfin brow of hers furrowed, though, as I slid an arm around her and she got a whiff of my skin. “You’re clean!”

“Never would I have expected you to find that objectionable, Branwen.”

“Where did you get clean! Of course it’s objectionable, I’m blind with jealousy.”

“Well…lucky for you, I like a dirty girl.”

Valeria’s laugh revealed her to be awake. She rolled over to see us, telling Branwen, “You’d ought to tell him to sleep on the floor, Branwen. It’s the only way for a man to learn when his impudence is getting him into trouble. I’ve been close to making him do it once or twice, myself.”

Pouting in a way that was maddeningly sexy even in my physically exhausted state, Branwen said to Valeria, “I can’t. In fact, it’s just the opposite…I promised him I’d respect his leadership, and yours.”

My fingers ran through the high elf’s golden hair and trailed down her neck while she shivered. “She’s lucky she wasn’t made a slave in El’ryh, or a servant to the misshapen.”

“Yes, very lucky.” Valeria was fast in these games of seduction and slid her arm around Branwen’s waist, the elf gasping to be touched by the nude dark elf. “A high elf in particular would prove quite valuable for all number of purposes…and you might even come to enjoy those purposes of your own volition, after a time of servitude.”

Moaning, glancing over to feel me against her back and rear, Branwen bit her lip and rolled her soft blue eyes toward Valeria. The dark elf’s hand shifted lower beneath the blanket, caressing down her pale sister’s stomach and along a slowly moving thigh.

“This all feels so embarrassing,” the high elf whimpered, gasping as Valeria’s exploring hand softly delivered more deliberate pleasure. Red-faced, Branwen moaned, her eyes darting sometimes shyly my direction.

“Nothing is embarrassing about ecstasy,” said Valeria, watching her face, then glancing at me as I leaned down to kiss Branwen’s throat and sweeten the tones of her gasps. “Pleasure is a sacred experience from Roserpine. Our birthright, and part of why we are on Urde instead of floating about in the Wyrd beyond space and time with other non-corporeal entities. Have you ever made love with a woman, Branwen?”

Her cheeks and lips and throat rosier than ever I’d seen on her, Branwen shook her head. With the briefest glance at me, Valeria drew