The Barbarian's Bride Page 5

  “No,” Aisling said. “We go now.”

  They plunged into the bustling crowd. For the first time in her life, Aisling was surrounded by common people on all sides. It was quite a strange experience, to have none of them paying any attention to her, being more interested in elbowing their way toward carts containing huge slabs of meat than noticing that there was royalty in their midst.

  She was nobody special in that crowd, and it felt quite wonderful. Liberating. Aisling was soon wearing a broad smile and pushing with the rest of them. She watched Mara pinch a man’s bottom to make him move, an action which seemed to work admirably well, though she did not have the nerve to try it herself.

  They did not buy fabric. Instead they bought a bag of boiled sweets and two candied apples and retreated to the hillock behind the market to eat them. Aisling’s smile did not diminish in the least as they sat on damp grass and feasted on their purchases.

  “Rikiar said you were a bad influence, you know,” she said by way of conversation.

  “He’s right,” Mara agreed without the slightest hint of shame. “I have been a bad influence as long as he has known me, and I intend on being a bad influence as long as I am alive.”

  Aisling giggled. “But Berner will surely put a stop to that?”

  “I am promised to Berner,” Mara said. “But I have refused to marry him.”

  Refused to marry? Such a concept was beyond strange. Aisling did not understand it at all. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I have not allowed him to marry me.”

  “And Rikiar allows it? Berner allows it? This refusal?”

  “I am not Rikiar’s property, or Berner’s for that matter,” Mara said. “Yes, Rikiar plies the lash occasionally, but he is not the kind to force a woman into marriage.”

  “But a woman is made for marriage,” Aisling said, parroting that which she had been told by nursemaids and the like for as long as she could remember.

  “A woman is made for many things, marriage being among them,” Mara replied. “A woman may wield a sword, or tailor a dress, or bake bread for the village, or fish the rivers… or she might be an herbalist and offer healing salves. There are many purposes for a woman.”

  “Maybe you are right,” Aisling agreed. “But a princess is made to be married—usually to a prince.”

  “Rikiar is not a prince,” Mara informed her. “I would not expect him to behave like one, if I were you.”

  Aisling supposed Mara was right. So far, Rikiar had not behaved at all like a prince. A prince would have married her on their first night and deflowered her promptly thereafter, not patiently waited for her to gain some sexual fluency. A prince would have cloistered her away in her rooms, certainly not let her out to wander the village with one of her servants.

  “I am glad Rikiar is different,” Aisling said. “He has changed my world.”

  “Already, without so much as bedding you?” Mara nudged Aisling and grinned.

  “He might have bedded me, you do not know.”

  “I do know,” Mara said smugly. “I know everything that goes on. It is common knowledge that Rikiar is yet to have claimed you properly.”

  “Is it now?” Aisling wasn’t sure she liked that at all.

  “There are very few secrets in Ravenblack,” Mara explained. “Especially in Rikiar’s circle. Rikiar does not like secrets, so he does not keep them or make them. He is what he seems to be.”

  Aisling was glad to hear that, though she had sensed it all along. Rikiar did not have much in the way of artful diplomacy about him. A strong man did not need to hide the truth or coat it in velvet and suede. And Rikiar was strong. The strongest man Aisling had ever known.

  “Shall we purchase some fabric now? Have we grown fat enough?”

  Aisling agreed to return to the fray, so they went forth into the market.

  “This is fun,” Mara said, winding her arm about Aisling’s waist. “We can spend as much gold as we like and Rikiar will pay for it.”

  “We only have the pouch of gold he gave us,” Aisling pointed out pragmatically.

  “The merchants will take our word that Rikiar will pay them. And he will,” Mara beamed. “We could buy this entire market if we liked.”

  “I don’t think we could carry it all,” Aisling smiled.

  “There’s a fabric stall,” Mara said. “Ooohh, look at the ones with the gold thread!”

  The fabrics with the gold thread were pretty, but strangely, Aisling found herself most attracted to the weapons stall. Perhaps it was because all the blades were so shiny, or perhaps it was because she’d always been curious about weapons, which she had never been allowed to touch. The most dangerous thing Aisling had ever laid hands upon was a needle. She walked right past all the pretty cloth and instead went to look at the daggers and swords laid out on sable planks of wood. Mara followed after her, regretfully abandoning the cloth in favor of her mistress.

  “Hello, your ladyships,” the friendly vendor said. “What might I interest you in today? Something delicate for your belt?” He picked up a short dagger with a hypnotically gorgeous pearl handle and a sheath carved in two different kinds of wood. It was the most beautiful thing Aisling had ever seen, so pretty it was almost more ornament than knife. He handed it over to Aisling, who cradled it in both hands, running her fingertips over the hilt.

  “It’s pretty,” Mara said. “We’ll take it. Send your note to Chief Rikiar. Oh, and this is Aisling,” Mara introduced her as something of an afterthought. “Aisling, this is Derwent. He is the most talented smith in these lands.”

  “I believe it,” Aisling said, still quite captivated by her new possession. She turned it over and over in her hands a dozen times, admiring the craftsmanship. The sheath was quite stunning, chevrons of alternating color and texture all laid together so closely there was no visible seam between them.

  “We’re not here for daggers,” Mara reminded her. “We’re here to get you some pretty dresses.”

  “I know,” Aisling said, still staring at her treasure. Slowly, she slipped the hilt away from the sheath and the silver glow of the blade slid free. It was gorgeous, about three inches long and so sharp that blood appeared on her fingertip when she accidentally touched the edge. “Ouch,” she said, sticking her fingertip into her mouth and sucking on the little wound.

  “Knives are sharp,” Mara said dryly. “Are you sure you’re going to be safe with that?”

  “I’ll keep it in the sheath,” Aisling promised, loath to think Mara might take it off her.

  “Very well,” Mara said. “Now can we find some fabric?”

  Aisling assented and soon they were choosing between many beautiful skeins of cloth. There were blues and reds and greens and even a purple that Mara insisted on purchasing, but the entire time Aisling was actually thinking about her pretty knife, which was sheathed and safely tucked between her breasts.

  “I think that is enough for one day,” Mara eventually said. “We’ve enough fabric for a dozen dresses.”

  “Hmm? Yes,” Aisling agreed.

  “You want to play with that knife, don’t you?”

  “It’s so pretty,” Aisling said, drawing it out. She cradled the knife while Mara labored under the fabric all the way back to the house. There Aisling retired to her bedchamber and practiced drawing the knife from its sheath and putting it back in again. It was perhaps a pointless way to spend an afternoon, but she did so enjoy owning something with an edge. Something a little bit dangerous. She had never been allowed so much as a sharp quill in the tower lest she mark herself.

  A few times she accidentally added to the first shallow scratch, but she did not mind. A little pain was nothing, and she could use the knife to cut little strips off the bottom of the bed sheet for use as bandages. She did that several times, becoming quite practiced at it.

  “Aisling?”

  Rikiar’s rumbling deep voice announced his presence before he stepped into the room, and most glad for it she was beca
use it gave her time to hide the knife under the pillow. Or so she thought.

  “Tired after a hard day at the market?” He strode in, masculine and strong.

  She looked into his eyes and felt herself swoon. There was no man like Rikiar. She had seen many men that day, but none of them compared to him in even the slightest way. He came toward her, straddled her feminine form and pressed a hot kiss to her lips.

  Aisling melted beneath him, enjoying the way his hard hips pinned her to the bed. There was a thick ridge betwixt them, one she was orally familiar with. The memory served to inflame her loins and stoke her ardor as she was kissed almost insensate.

  “What is this?” The kissing stopped with the question.

  When Aisling opened her eyes, Rikiar was holding her blade. His hand must have slipped beneath the pillows while kissing her and found the weapon. She did not know if it was mere chance or if he had seen her hide it there; either way it did not much matter. He had found it.

  “I bought it at the market, isn’t it pretty?”

  “Pretty?” His cheek dimpled momentarily. “It’s a knife, Aisling.”

  “I know.”

  Rikiar’s brow drew down across his enchanting eyes and his voice dropped in censure. “You weren’t sent to the market to buy knives.”

  “Mara said we could buy whatever we wanted.”

  “That’s true. But I would have thought you would have wanted dresses and jewelry,” Rikiar said, sitting next to her. “Not light weaponry.”

  “I always had plenty of jewels and dresses,” Aisling said. “But I never got to play with knives.”

  “Knives aren’t toys…” Rikiar glanced at her fingers and scowled. “Is that why you are bandaged?”

  “I received a couple of little cuts,” Aisling admitted. “But I bandaged them up nice and neatly.”

  “Aisling. A cut can turn septic and kill you. You must be more careful.”

  “Yes, m’lord,” she agreed, bowing her head.

  “I will take this,” Rikiar said, sliding the pretty knife into his pocket. “Until you have mastered the basics of handling a blade.”

  Aisling knew better than to argue. She was not surprised Rikiar had taken it away from her. It was too much to hope that the barbarian would allow her all the freedoms she desired. She should be content with what he had given her, it was already more than she could have imagined.

  “Are you sulking, my sweet?” Rikiar’s fingers lifted her chin so she was forced to look at him.

  “No,” Aisling said. “I understand.”

  “You are sad. Is it just because I took a pretty thing from you?” He ran his hand down her neck, over her chest and cupped her breast lightly. His touch distracted her from her disappointment and made her arch herself toward him. When his thumb played over her nipple, she moaned and bit her lower lip, suddenly eager to remove her dress and let him have his way with her naked form.

  He kissed her again and she kissed him back, eagerly suckling his tongue until he growled and loosened his cock from his pants, presenting her with his hard member. She knew what he wanted. It was the same thing she wanted, to wrap her lips around his cock and suckle until they both felt better.

  As she knelt before him, his cock deep in her mouth, Rikiar reached over her, slid his hand down her back and cupped her bottom, slapping her lightly. “Naughty princess,” he growled. “Buying knives and hiding them in the pillows.”

  Aisling made an apologetic sound, which turned into a moan when he slid his fingers down into the damp crevice between her thighs and toyed with her feminine flower until she was more gasping around his cock than licking or suckling it. When his fingers began probing her depths she pressed back, willing him in deeper. Unfortunately the barrier of her hymen once more stopped his progress. Her whine earned her a sharp slap to her bottom, thence more caressing, which felt good, but quite failed to satisfy. Somewhere in the midst the teasing caresses, their clothes were removed, or perhaps fell away. Even when she was completely naked and he the same, she craved more. It was not enough to be caressed, or to ply her tongue across his cock. She thought she might go mad with lust if she were denied him any longer.

  Rikiar must have sensed her need, for he took pity on her, withdrew his cock from her lips and pulled her into his arms. He held her close, kissed her thoroughly, then laid her down on her back and pressed his mouth between her thighs. It was very different from the way Mara had licked her. Rikiar’s tongue was hotter, wider, more insistent. He closed his lips about her clit and teased that tight hard bud until Aisling saw bright lights bursting behind her eyelids.

  The orgasm rushed through her body and left her trembling under her mate’s mouth. She panted softly, quite breathless from pleasure. Rikiar was not yet sated; he pressed his thick cock between her thighs and breached the soft supple entrance of her body. He was stopped an inch or so inside, but it was a glorious inch of hot flesh that served to bring Aisling back to full arousal within seconds.

  Rikiar was gritting his teeth with the control it took not to simply plunge himself all the way inside her, but to stay just inside her tight virginal channel. “You feel like hot silk,” he growled, pressing a little harder.

  She silently willed him to do it, to take her. Marriage seemed like a distant concern in that moment, it was nothing compared to the demand of her own physical lust, which clouded her brain and every bit of her being with desire.

  He withdrew slightly and she whimpered with disappointment. It was a short-lived noise that rose to a shriek of pleasure as he pushed back in, past her hymen and through to the depths of her body with one long, slow thrust.

  “Mine,” he growled in her ear, his bare chest pressed against her. He ground his hips, pushing his cock deeper inside her, making the tight walls of her sheath accommodate his girth. She was completely filled, her juices coating his cock as he slowly slid out a little, then back in, moving inside her. The feeling was like none Aisling could ever have imagined. Rikiar was deep inside her, she was his sheath, his vessel. His body stretched hers in a way that felt so good she could not help but cry out and lift her hips so that he went deeper still.

  Slow and hard, Rikiar took her virginity well and truly, making love to her with an expert rolling of his hips that made the flared head of his cock spread her open time and time again, teasing the hard bud of her clit on every stroke out, then pushing inside her until his hard groin met with hers.

  “Is this good, princess?” The question was half growled, half whispered into her ear.

  “Yes,” she gasped as he cupped one of her small, neat breasts and caressed it in time with the slow strokes his lips were making. The sawing of his cock in and out of her body gave her the sensation of riding a wave, every part of it felt wonderful, but no two parts felt the same. The thick girth of his shaft was a fulcrum against which she ground her wanton body, thrusting her hips down, claiming him when his strokes were too slow to satisfy.

  “Do you want it harder, Aisling?” Rikiar’s hand slid up to her throat gently.

  She gasped in response, then cried out as a rough thrust of his hips sank the entire length of his cock deep inside her in one thrust.

  “This is what you needed, the pretty princess needed a cock in her cunt,” Rikiar growled, forcing himself in and out of her sopping wet sheath to slapping wet sounds caused by her own lubrication. His words would have shamed her were they not so perfectly in tune with the thoughts rushing through her head. The barbarian’s cock was exactly what she needed. His body pounding her tender frame, taking his pleasure by sinking his sword relentlessly inside her tight pink sheath.

  He took her a dozen different ways that night, positioning her according to his will. He slid himself inside her from the back, from the front, and on her side. There he lifted her leg and pushed his cock into her cunt from the rear so she had no pressure on her pulsing clit, but for his fingers toying with it.

  Finally Aisling found herself on her back, her slim pale legs up over his ne
ck as he knelt before her and pushed deep inside, deeper than he had been in any other position. He moved more slowly than before, making gentle love to her. His amber eyes were locked on hers, his dark hair hanging about his face, the rough stubble on his cheeks shaping his masculine features into sharper contours that were almost wolf-like.

  Spread naked, wrapped around his hot flesh, Aisling was ecstatic. Another orgasm was building, but this one was much more powerful than any that had preceded it. The joy was swelling in every part of her body, rushing from the roots of her hair to the tips of her fingers, curling around her spine and drawing the breath from her chest. Every part of her was attuned to him; she was a part of him and he a part of her.

  He reached down and tenderly touched her face. “You are mine now, Aisling. Nothing can change that. No man or god will separate what we have joined in flesh when I spill my seed inside you.” He drew his hips back, then thrust in deeply, stroking himself toward a climax that had been building from the moment Aisling’s tender lips had first touched his proud cock.

  She could feel him pulsing inside her, felt his body lock with tension. Then he threw his head back and with a primal cry he came deep inside her cunt, flooding her insides with his seed in long pulsing thrusts that demanded he be as far inside her as his flesh would take him.

  As his heat flooded her loins, Aisling was overcome with orgasm too, her body following his lead as naturally as the moon followed the sun. Her inner walls held his cock, grasped it, demanded every bit of his essence be drained inside her. She wailed in his arms as he collapsed down against her, embracing her tightly while her legs locked around his back and her quim quivered around his flesh.

  “You were… like a goddess,” Rikiar panted as he rolled to the side, keeping one arm about her. He lay flat on his back, panting from the exertion. His rough, ready body was covered in a sheen of sweat, which also beaded Aisling’s breasts and stomach and thighs. His cum was already beginning to seep out of her, strangely hot against tender outer lips. She ached, but the pain did not concern her. It was the very best kind of soreness, that which came with euphoria like she had never felt before.