Shared Between Them (19 page)

When she tried to fall to her knees and cover himself, that’s when he bent over and tucked her against his hip, letting her feet kick up from the ground.

His words hissed over her wails and her ridiculous cries for Taric to intercede. “You will always tell—us—where—you’re—going—and you will never—EVER— go out on your own! — Do—you—understand—me?”

She clawed her fingers desperately into his trousers and his flank, trying to get him to let go of her.

SWACK! “Do you understand, Kyra?” he asked again.

She had to take a deep breath to cry out, “Yeees!” in a desperate wail.

He gave her ten more swipes without words, and the fire in her bottom felt like it had spread everywhere. She was sobbing like a baby before she was pulled off of his hip. He discarded the make-shift implement on the ground and let her go, spinning her up into another embrace.

She heard him sniffle.

Draevan?
Sniffling
? After he’d punished
her
? “I love you, I love you, I love you…” He whispered into her hair. “Don’t scare me like that, okay? You’re the most important thing in my life. And not just because of the prophecy. You’re my goddess! I would die a million times over rather than let anything happen to you! Don’t leave us. Don’t ever leave us. If we lost you, we wouldn’t know where to start looking!”

Prophecy
? What prophecy? She had no idea what he could have been talking about. She wanted to ask, but she was dying to apologize. She didn’t mean to scare Draevan this badly! Badly enough to make this big brute admit that he loved her—which he hadn’t done before. She’d suspected it, she wanted to hear it, but the way he’d gushed it out was heartbreaking rather than heart
warming
.

Still, all that was coming out was tears and sobs. Her bottom throbbed and itched—she didn’t even want to reach behind and rub it, afraid to irritate the skin even more.

Taric gently pull Kyra out of Draevan’s arms and kissed her face. “We’re not joking, Kyra,” he said in stern, firm words. “You need to be safe. You can’t go out on your own. Ever. Never ever. Do you hear?”

She nodded and sniffed, and he brought her into a soothing hug, shushing her in a lulling coo. “Let’s bring her back to camp. Grab her clothes and those birds, will you?” he told Draevan, reaching down to sweep his arm under the back of her knees so that she fell into his arms. “You, missy, have a lot of explaining to do, you know. I’m also going to teach you to write, and I will not be nice about it. But for the gods’ sakes, it would be nice to at least wake up to something that told us you were just out somewhere being naughty and breaking rules, not run away and not hurt somewhere in the middle of a forest I’d like to avoid for the rest of my life!”

Somehow, even through Taric’s harsh words, the ‘I love you’, was just as clear as Draevan’s whispers. She hugged her arms around him, feeling soothed for a moment even though his arm stretched uncomfortably across one of her angrier welts.

Suddenly she jumped, startled that she forgot about the guards even for a moment, and said, “There were royal guards in the forest down there where I was!”

Taric stopped walking, and Draevan, who was walking next to him, froze and exchanged a dangerous expression with him.

Draevan looked down at her. “Did they see you?”

She nodded. “When I was hunting. I got away, but they can’t be far behind.”

Draevan took the sword out of his satchel and looked around. “They’ll be invisible, won’t they?” he asked dryly, even as he was looking for them. “Did they hurt you?”

“They ripped up my trousers a little, but I’m not hurt,” she told them. “They’re easy to fool, but they’re not entirely stupid. They’ll be able to track us, and if they came all the way out here, it means they’re not stopping.”

“Alright, here,” Taric gently set her down on the ground. She pulled her tunic down her front, and Draevan passed over her trousers and her belt. She hissed a breath when she put them on—the linen felt like sandpaper. “We need to get back to camp in a hurry, honey,” Taric said. He pulled out his sword, but his free hand found hers and grasped onto her tightly. “I’m sick of this shit,” he seethed to Draevan. “Damn cowards with their bows, their stealth, and their stupid invisibility—how are we supposed to find them to kill them?”

Draevan growled, but after a moment he snorted. “We’ll have to let them find
us
.”

* * *

“Draevan,” Taric sighed, dropping the tools he’d used to make up his booby-traps on the ground. “Are you eating the
bait
?”

“No,” Draevan said, trying not to chew on the pheasant for a moment. It was hard to not to notice that the pheasant was missing a whole leg. After another second he growled, “I’m hungry!”

Taric rolled his eyes. “Eat the jerky.”

Draevan set his jaw and gave him a crude gesture. “Eat
me
.”

They were trying to produce smoke with a scent that would travel around the area where they knew the guards were already looking for them. Right now it was mostly burning, as was the plan—they needed the air sweet and smoky.

“My poor, starving husband.” Kyra came along Taric’s side, leaned down to where Draevan sat next to the fire, and kissed him. Afterwards, she smacked her lips, and then frowned at him. “Draevan, you taste like whiskey.”

“I’ve watered it down enough, darling,” he whispered to her. “I’m preparing the props here.” Louder, he hooted, “I’m a man—I can have a drink when I want!” He gave a saucy nod of his head and a smirk. He reached out and tried to hook his arm around her waist to pull her onto his lap.

She stepped back from him. “No.”

“Come sit,” Draevan told her more plainly, patting his lap invitingly.

“I’m not sitting ever
again
!” she pouted, rubbing the bottoms of his old trousers she was still wearing and had journeyed in all the way to the Hidden Springs that day. According to her, it was the safest place to be to spring a trap on men who didn’t want to be caught. The spring was part of a strange step, fed by a tall waterfall on the north of them and a leading to a long drop-off to the south. The west was blocked by the deep, still spring, and on the east was the only way for the elves to get in or out of their nook. Better yet, it was so overgrown with ivy and other foliage that a long-shot arrow wouldn’t have a chance to make it to them.

Best of all, even Kyra’s footprints were showing up in the loose soil under their feet. Even if they went invisible, they might still be able to see their attacker’s location.

“I was only being
nice
by finding you food. I was going to be back before you woke up.”

“Do us and yourself a favor,” Taric said, “and don’t do anything else
nice
for us. The true nice is waking up with you between us and
safe
, rather than waking up to a nightmare.”

Taric had been lecturing her off-and-on for the better part of the day as they put booby traps together, so now she was looking at him with exasperation.

“Go take a dip while we pretend to get drunk. The hot water will feel warm against the welts,” he advised, smiling kindly at her.

She pouted and closed her arms across her chest. “No. I’ll just stand here. Besides, you don’t want anyone else to see me naked, do you? They could be ambling up around us any minute!”

Taric shrugged. “They wouldn’t live to tell about it,” he replied.

She shook her head, stubborn, and stood there miserably. She was tired, and her hands drifted back to move across her well-spanked thighs.

Taric grumbled, grabbed some salve from his saddle bag, and went to sit down, pointing at his thigh.

She walked obediently to him but didn’t seem to know what he had planned. “Pull down your trousers and bend over my lap,” he said, and when her face distorted with dismay, he added, “Let’s see what you made us do to you.”

“That’s not exactly how
I’d
put it,” she sulked, but she carefully crawled over his lap.

He pulled her trousers the rest of the way down to her ankles. He whistled appreciatively, “Cousin—look at these.”

Draevan leaned over to look. “I know,” he agreed, running a finger over one of her welts, leaving her cringing. “I’m an artist.”

Taric smirked, running the salve against one of her puffy welts. None had broken the skin, but they were still angry, swollen, and red. Prettily, he hadn’t crisscrossed any of them, even if her position during the punishment had been less than ideal. There was a half-inch between each one on her bottom. “Well, Grandfather always did say you’d be good at
something
.”

“Don’t lather on that too thick,” Draevan told him, pointing to the salve. “I don’t want cause-and-consequence to get lost on this little huntress of ours.”

“Just enough so she can ride a horse tomorrow without us getting smothered by her whining,” Taric assured with a laugh.

“It’s not like I whine often!” she whined.

Taric and Draevan smirked mischievously at each other.

“Whatever you say, wife,” Draevan chuckled, then gave her a slap on her less-welted flank and got up to steal another drip of burnt meat off of the pheasant carcass.

Her fingers clenched against Taric’s pants, “Ooowe!” she whined. “I have the meanest husbands in the universe…”

Taric chuckled to himself and carefully put his fingers into the salve and ran it along her welts. At first, she whined about how cold it was, and then she hissed at the pain when he paid attention to some of the most swollen of the welts. There was fewer on her thighs, and even less on her calves, but she squirmed and twitched as he put the soothing potion on her.

He was uncomfortably erect at the moment, and because of the way her squirms were becoming seductive wiggles, he knew that she knew it too. He smiled and cupped her sex with his hand. She emitted a cute, innocent little gasp, but she was wet.

“Is my little slut wanting something?” he rumbled coquettishly at her.

She moaned slightly, not answering, so he flicked her clit with his finger. He knew he had absolutely no time to salve up her welts, let alone to bed her right now. But he loved teasing her and getting her sexually frustrated, mostly because her pout was so cute and sexy.

“Tell me how much you want my cock, baby,” he demanded quietly.

“Please, Sir… Fill me?” she replied, something that she had been taught to say—they were still working on getting her to talk filth in their ears.

Still, Taric had a sadistic side. He liked to tease her mercilessly. “Nope.” Taric gave her a pat on the thigh and helped her up. “Now go feed and blanket the horses.”

There was that pretty, gold-eyed pout that he’d grown to love. She pulled her trousers back on in a huff.

“If you’re a good girl,” he told her, “maybe we can have fun later. If not, I know another entrance that hasn’t gotten any attention for a while.”

She blushed and narrowed her eyes at him, knowing he was talking about her bottom. “There’s something wrong with you, Taric,” she declared.

Draevan laughed heartily, only to get interrupted by a ‘ching-ching’ sound of a small bell, announcing that the band of elves were close-by and that they were more than likely being watched.

It was show-time. If it worked on their wife, it would work on these higher-born elves too. They only had to act drunk.

Kyra had to play the part of the nervous-and-nagging wife who was constantly yammering about the dangers out in the woods, that they were being hunted by the king’s men, that they should believe her… everything was said and done loudly, deliberately, trying to lull the spies into a false sense of security.

She played her part quite well, although she was sweating with nervousness. The drunker they acted, the more alone she acted. For a time, he wondered if she thought they were really truly drunk, possibly because Draevan helped himself to the most severely burnt part of the pheasant roasting on the fire.

Taric pretended to fall asleep first, resting upon a hidden shield. Draevan sat up, molesting Kyra openly as she whined and cried at his clumsy, handsy movements. He didn’t last much longer.

After Kyra felt between them and snuggled up in the blankets, Taric and Draevan were more on high-alert than ever. They were made to wait—the guard only came in when the fire had burned down to embers, and they were invisible when they came in, their boots smacking the mud near the camp as they trudged through it, nowhere near as stealthy as Kyra could be.

Taric kissed the back of her neck. He hated this, truly. Draevan’s idea was sound; he couldn’t fear the king’s guard on top of his future son’s enemies as well. He had to do away with them and end it. But Kyra was helpless in a battle; she wasn’t strong at all, and she weighed nothing—or seemed to; she was so elvish.

He would have to move fast. He squeezed Kyra’s hand, just enough so that the approaching band wouldn’t notice.

Taric heard a sword being unsheathed—one that did not belong to himself or to Draevan.

Draevan was the first to move, impatient for battle. He swung his body up, swinging with a sword he had hidden under a blanket. A gurgle came from the empty air of the night, and then an elven body became visible as it fell to the ground.

Taric struck out and hit another blade, and then he pushed Kyra back, out of the bedroll, and she pulled the shield up with her and ran behind the horses as if she was sure they’d protect her.

Though they had been the ones to defeat the giant, this battle was far stranger. They were fighting with footprints in the mud, using moonlight to see by. They had to fight by intuition, by listening, by imagining what might be running through the other’s head. There were four of the elves left now, and they were fighting for their lives.

Draevan was quickly covering the way out, blocking them in the small sandbar.

That made the guards panic; he could hear their breaths speed up and their mumbling become desperate. They fought like small children, despite their astounding advantage, and in a dark moment of carnage and noise, swinging their swords, Draevan and Taric ended them like they were sheep at the slaughter.