Vassal by Sterling D'Este (ebook reader computer TXT) 📕

cold stream, bemoaning the state of her lakes. The crops had been so terrible her followers had flocked to her temples with offerings.

History would remember that time as the Great Famine.

Her golden eyes flickered to Tristan.

“There is no one left to dance with. The wind is dancing by herself,” Enyo murmured, her voice flat.

Tristan raised an eyebrow. That was… dramatic. Had she really been that embarrassed about Pwll?

A small noise behind him caused Tristan to look around for a moment. Delyth had stepped out of her tent, hair braided back unusually neat in sweeping strands that began at her temples. The rogue smiled.

He did so love a captive audience.

“There are still those that remember the old dances,” Tristan said, turning back to Enyo. He held out a hand in casual invitation, his grin just as crooked as always.

❂

He couldn’t be more than… thirty years old. It was difficult to tell with humans, but Enyo couldn’t see how he’d know anything old. Anything glorious and dangerous and pure. Anything worthwhile.

Of course, in the darkness, she had always wanted to come back. But Enyo hadn’t thought about what she’d come back to.

This world. Her precious world. So tame. So domesticated. Groomed.

Her hands balled into fists, and the storm outside redoubled it’s efforts, wailing.

What had they done to her Illygad, these lazy, selfish humans?

Something deep within the mountain shuddered.

“Suit yourself,” he said, closing his outstretched palm. “I’ll dance with the wind instead.”

Tristan turned his eyes back to the storm for a moment, contemplating her vicious fervor. When he moved again, it was without warning. He was simply still one moment and sliding into the opening motions of an ancient dance praising the mountains the next.

The movements cut the growl building in her throat off midway, as she watched the footwork and frenzied dancing. She could almost hear the drums and the fiddles and the panting voices, the slap of bodies against one another…

The wind raged on, but whatever was moaning in the mountain faded.

As his feet beat out the drum’s parts, Enyo turned fully, eyes slanted with displeasure despite her fingers tapping at her sides. She remembered these dances. They were partner dances…

⚄

Something old and wild stirred beneath Tristan’s skin. He was as dangerous as the blizzard howling just outside, as soft as a newborn babe. Everything that lay before him was a playground to stomp across.

Real joy replaced his customary arrogance, though just for a moment.

As the slap of his footwork brought him back around to Enyo, Tristan smirked at her. “Well, are you going to let me do this alone? It’s not a dance meant for one.”

The Goddess frowned, but…

She slipped her arm about his waist, spinning with him one direction, pausing, entwining arms about each other’s waist and back, spinning the opposite direction.

They spun and twirled and stomped around the fire until meeting in the center again. Enyo braced one hand against Tristan’s chest while the other cupped the back of his neck. She arched and tilted her chin back back back until Tristan’s arm about her hips was the only thing keeping her from falling. He hauled her up again, and she returned the favor as he arched back, a struggle to keep him upright in this useless tiny body, but…

She spun in his grip and back around the fire they flew.

This time when they met in the middle, Enyo shoved Tristan, then he shoved her, a mock battle of sorts. Push and pull, drag and yank. She ‘slapped’ him, and he ‘stabbed’ her with an invisible spear.

Back around the fire to meet again.

The dance was the dichotomy of anger and love, lust and vengeance. Each meeting escalated the scene they played out until Enyo knelt at Tristan’s feet, perhaps bleeding of a terrible wound.

Until she was in his arms, clearly in the throes of some passion.

The only sounds that could be heard were that of their breaths and their stomping feet and their bodies.

But watching alone, it was easy to tell the music must have been vivid and demanding and faster and faster and faster, pushing towards some sort of climax. Some sort of finale. Their bodies said as much.

Tawny hair flew in the firelight, bronzed skin and tattooed flesh speckled with shadows, rippling with feline grace.

The pair looked utterly attuned, knowing each and every step—two sides of the same glorious, awful, terrible, wonderful coin.

༄

Delyth was an intruder, watching Tristan and Enyo dance. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. The previous night, she had begun to learn every slope of Alphonse’s body intimately, but now she moved in ways new and hardly imaginable, her beautiful hair spinning out behind her with every graceful turn.

“Fucking Gods,” she breathed.

The priestess had only ever practiced temple dances, but she wished she knew this one. It was full of the same wild abandon she felt while flying. The sort of freedom she wanted to share with Alphonse. Only, it wasn’t her hands on the healer. It was Tristan. And Enyo, in her mind.

Fucking Tristan. She hated every touch in his dance with the Goddess.

Should she even be jealous?

It wasn’t Alphonse that had joined him.

Beside her, Etienne seemed to shake himself, turning away from the pair. “I’ve never seen Alphonse move like that,” he said, and Delyth decided she didn’t give a damn if she shouldn’t be jealous.

She was going to tie Etienne and Tristan together and push them off the first cliff she found if they ever got out of the damned cave.

❂

Her chest was rising and falling, her hair streaming liquid sunlight over her throat and shoulders, clinging to her skin, a honeyed golden color in the small campfire. Perspiration lingered on her brow, and for once, this mortal body wasn’t cold.

Though it shivered in his grip.

Enyo was smiling as she ran her hands through Tristan’s hair, feeling the mold of his skull and neck.

A strong body.

A warrior’s body.

When their eyes met, Enyo felt time slow and stutter to a stop.  Familiarity blossomed in her core, and she leaned forward, nose