Page 73 of Wench

Her grip tightens on his antlers, and the reaction is immediate. His hips slam deeper, harder, a strangled groan torn from his chest as if she’s touched the seat of his soul. The power of it shudders through him into her. Each snap of his hips is so fierce that the bed protests, the roots woven into its frame creaking like old timber in a storm. She tilts her pelvis upward, meeting his rhythm, demanding more. The sound that bursts from his throat when she clenches down is enough to make her own body sing in response. He falters, curses raggedly, and then thrusts twice more before spilling into her with a broken cry.

For a long moment, the world holds nothing but their mingled breaths and the echo of what they’ve wrought together. His body trembles, sweat dripping from his temples to her breastbone, his heart hammering where his chest presses into hers. Marian cups his jaw, thumb stroking the corner of his mouth as though she can soothe the raw edges of what just burned between them. She wraps herself around him and pulls him close, burying her face in his chest, her whole body buzzing.

They stay like that for a long time. Accepting that for now – for this heartbeat – they are just a fae and a human.

Two creatures who have known violence and loneliness and hunger, and now lie curled in the lull between.

Lox presses a kiss to her temple, then her cheek, then the corner of her lips.

‘That was . . .’ she whispers, unable to finish her sentence as all thought seems to slip out of her.

‘Amazing? Earth-shattering?’ he offers with a crooked grin.

The edge of her mouth pulls to the side. ‘I mean, I’ve heard rumours of how the fae are . . .insatiable, but I feel like I could have that morning, noon, and night.’

He chuckles softly and slides out of her with a groan. She whimpers at the loss, at the slick heat of him still inside her. He slides down to rest his forehead against her belly, arms curled around her hips like he’s clinging to the last breath of something sacred. His lips press beside her navel before he finally shifts away. There’s a rustle of movement followed by the splash of water from the basin in the corner. Lox returns with a rag warmed between his hands. He eases her thighs apart, gaze intent and reverent, as though the act of cleaning her is as intimate as the way he just worshipped her with his body.

‘You don’t have—’ she starts.

‘Shh,’ he murmurs, voice husky but tender. ‘Let me tend to what I’ve taken.’

When he’s finished, he leans down and kisses the inside of her knee, lingering there as though reluctant to let go. Then he stands, muscles taut in the low light, and crosses to the small chest carved into the wall of his bough. From within, he retrieves a twist of dried bark bound with silver thread. He kneels beside her again, holding it out with quiet gravity.

‘This is brightbark,’ he says as she takes it. ‘It’s bitter at first bite, but swallowing it will keep the forest from quickening life in you.’ His thumb strokes along her thigh, his gaze steady.

She bites into the bark and winces at the sharp, acrid taste, but she chews until it softens, swallows.

When he finally climbs back onto the cot, he gathers her into his lap, her back pressed to his chest, his antlers haloing them both in the shadows. He tucks the blanket around her shoulders with surprising gentleness, for hands that had just clutched her so hard.

‘Marian,’ he murmurs into her hair, his breath warm against her temple. ‘Did you mean what you said during the Severing?’ His lips brush her ear. ‘About burning the Sheriff’s stores and bringing your father down?’

Her pulse skips. She turns slightly in his lap, enough to see his face. The golden edges of his eyes catch in the faint light, sharp but searching.

‘Every word of it.’ Marian swallows, the taste of bark and wine still bitter on her tongue. She traces the edge of the vine inked over her sternum, the mark still tender, throbbing like a second pulse. ‘I severed obedience tonight,’ she says slowly. ‘Not because I thought it would make me one of you. But because it was the only thing I could carve away and still see myself in whatever pieces were left behind.’

He watches her, listening.

‘My father . . .’ Her voice cracks, emotion thickening inside her throat. She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes, but that only worsens the sting. ‘My father sold me to the Sheriff to settle his debts. He thought my life was only worth what someone was willing to pay for it. The day I ran into Sherwood was to be my wedding day.’

She swallows, forcing herself to continue when all Lox does is hold her tighter, his silence an anchor.

‘I was supposed to smile. To kneel and open my legs for a man who saw me as something he could melt down and reforge to his liking.’ Her chest shudders, rage and grief tangling until her words shake. ‘When I said I severed obedience, I severed every time I bowed my head because I was too afraid to lift it. Every time I swallowed my voice because speaking meant the crack of a fist against my cheek. Every time I told myself I had no choice but toendure.’

Her hand rests over the vine inked into her chest. ‘Truthfully, I don’t know what’s left of me without those bindings. I hate that freeing myself has left me feeling unmoored.’ Her voice drops, hoarse, aching.

Lox shifts, cupping her jaw, thumb sweeping her cheek where tears glimmer. His golden gaze searches hers.

‘Then allow yourself to drift,’ he says quietly. ‘And know that when you choose your anchor, it will be because it’s yours, not because you feared you’d drown without it.’

ChapterTwenty-Two

The trees stand as silent sentinels. The gaps between them reveal a star-studded sky that watches with a stillness that belies the trepidation zipping through Marian’s veins.

She crouches among the roots, her body pressed low on a platform of woven saplings hidden beneath the ribbed skeleton of a lightning-split oak, its bark glossy with old sap.

Below, two of the Sheriff’s carts, sagging low with weighty casks, make their way down the narrow forest road. The supplies are flanked by eight men on foot and two mounted, the horses’ ears flicking at the creeping things their riders pretend not to feel. The creak of the wheels mixes with the tramp of boots and the clank of armoured men too weary to mask their sound.

This is their third raid in a week. Each time, they’ve gotten smarter. The first had been more luck than art: a spooked horse, a cut trace, the wild tumble of crates. Lox managed to cocoon the guards with a wall of vines while the rest of them made off with the cache of weapons. The second raid had been cleaner. They’d scouted the bend by the alder stand for hours, dug a rut where wagons would lurch, and rehearsed the hand signals and bird calls until they were muscle memory. When it came, the strike was a single, braided motion: Will’s thrown blade severed the lead lantern, Lox coaxed the road to ripple, Marian’s arrow snapped a hitching pin, and the wagon’s axle kissed the earth. The Merry Men took their score and melted away before the smoke gilded the canopy.