Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (74 page)

“How are we?” I whispered, as I eased my way out of the bed.

He did not answer as I availed myself of the chamber pot. The room was too bright for me to focus on him with my rum-fogged eyes.

Squinting, I stumbled to the window and closed the shutters. I turned to him in the dimmer light and found him watching me with dangerous eyes, made even darker by his battle mask being smudged all about them.

Fear did not grip me as it once would have; instead, a wave of concern and melancholy washed over me. I withstood it and did not let it tug me under.

I went to sit beside him on the bed. He did not turn his head to follow me there.

“Though the Devil is punishing me for the damn rum, I am not blind,” I said.

He handed me a water skin. I drank most of it.

“Do you feel as I do?” I asked.

“The Horse is angry,” he whispered.

“Ah, I assumed as much. Is it angry at me?”

“Oui,” he hissed.

I struggled to remember all that had occurred. I finally understood the thoughts that had drowned unheard in the maelstrom of rum. I should not have taken him.

I sighed. “We were, well, I was quite intoxicated, and you… I offered, but you suggested the other and seemed to enjoy it.”

“I know what occurred!” he snapped.

“I am sorry,” I said. “I meant you no…”

“I know,” he growled.

I did not look at him. I drank more water, draining the skin. It did little to ease my head. I availed myself of the chamber pot yet again and then emptied that rum-curdled vileness out the window to the curses of those below; thankfully, they did not sound as if I had actually struck any of them. I could not tell, though: it was too damn bright for me to see. I closed the shutters again and returned to the bed to sit at the head, well away from him.

“What would you have of me?” I asked. “I would rather you speak your mind, or fling things at me, or even that we fight, rather than wonder at your thoughts or feel your anger so piercingly.”

“Do not be so nonchalant,” he said stiffly. “You truly do not wish to hear my thoughts.”

I sighed. “Well then, I will tell you mine. I am a fool for drinking so when you were not yourself, and… becoming childlike as you do in the aftermath of battle. You must be... you must feel, well, you are…

vulnerable at such times. I did not intend to take advantage of that.

But… I drink at such times because I see the blood and I know that some of it is on my hands, and I cannot… forgive myself, with ease, without the blessing of strong drink.”

“I know,” he said sadly.

I looked to him. He was still staring at the closed shutters.

“I am holding the Horse very still,” he whispered, as if he might startle it, as if it were a thing standing in the room between us.

“I see that,” I said quietly. “What can I do to calm it?”

“It seeks retribution,” he whispered.

“For my trespass upon your person last night?” I asked with unease.

He was barely audible. “For being chained to the cart.”

“I am held as fast as it is, as you are, as… my Horse is,” I breathed.

“It… I know. The anger is still there,” he sighed.

“How can we… drain it… away: the anger?” I asked.

He sobbed raggedly and leaned forward, clutching his belly.

In the shadowed room, behind my aching eyes, I felt strangely that this time I was not witnessing his madness so much as I was standing in it with him. That the madness was the room, and the Horse stood there with us, and we were all shrouded in darkness and it was difficult to think, but think we must.

“My love is true,” I said softly. “It will never stray or waver.”

“I know,” he breathed. “But I feel it owns me, and I do not own it. It is horrible.”

“Love?”

“Non!” he snapped.

“Your thoughts? The Horse?”

“Both,” he sighed.

I thought of his horrible thoughts, the ones he had been so afraid to admit to, the ones I thought we had overcome by his being able to take me. Melancholy and not fear lapped at me once again. I felt its insistent tug. My head pounded.

He finally turned to regard me with beseeching eyes.

He had been in me before when my head hurt as it did now, and I was not afraid of him such that he would need to harm me in the doing of it.

I crawled into the center of the bed to lie on my belly and look back at him. “I am yours, my love. In all ways. Do as you wish, or… as you need.”

He inhaled sharp and long, and his eyes hardened, so it was as if he had inhaled the Horse from where it stood in the room.

Fear finally blossomed in my belly. I vowed not to let it spread. I looked away from him and willed my body to relax. Instead of calming me, I only succeeded in rousing my Horse. It stood fractious and ready to run.

I felt Gaston leave the bed and then heard him rummage in our bags. When he returned, he quickly knelt behind me on the bed.

“Give me your wrists,” he said.

His voice was actually warm and calm, but the substance of his request left me frozen with fear. Yet, when he took up one of my wrists, I let him move my arm readily enough, even when I felt the loop of leather tighten around it. Somehow, I brought my other arm down and behind me. He bound it to the first. Nor did I fight him when he pushed the leather-wrapped stick he used for surgery between my teeth and tied it into place.

I closed my eyes and lay still as he caressed me with gentle hands.

I let him roll me up onto my side a little and bring my leg up to support me. I only started and made noise when he slipped a hand beneath me to grasp my rousing member. I was not startled by his touch, but by the realization that my Horse had the bit in its teeth on the matter and I was on the rise.

“Are you in pain?” he whispered in my ear.

I shook my head.

“Are you afraid?” he whispered seductively.

I nodded.

“Ashamed?” he added.

I nodded with more vigor.

“Your Horse wants this,” he said, as he continued to cajole my member into its full glory.

I nodded slowly.

“Why are we so ashamed of what our Horses want?” His voice was as gentle as his fingers. “It is like a poison in us, oui?”

I nodded.

I was fully aroused now. To my dismay, his hand left. My Horse was delighted about where it went next, though, as he began to work upon my opening with oil.

“The pus of the old wounds,” he murmured. “Anger, shame, guilt, fear, they are all pustules upon our souls.”

I did not bother to nod; I concentrated on opening for him and was relieved when it came easily.

“You are correct,” he whispered. “We must lance them.”

I could hear the trace of humor in his voice as he slid into position, the head of his member against my hole.

I nodded, and he filled me. I bit on the stick with a groan of pleasure. My aching head and bound wrists seemed very far away.

There was only the familiar sensation of him. I surrendered to it wholeheartedly.

After many a satisfying stroke, he pushed all the way in and leaned down to whisper, “I know you want this… Only from me.”

At the sound of the hated words, I expected to recoil; but I felt nothing except him.

I nodded, and pushed back against him as best I was able. I was pleased to hear his little exhalation of triumph.

His oiled hand snaked beneath me to take my member again, and he returned to riding me such that he forced the head of my cock into the tight circle of his fingers with every thrust.

I came, and the pleasure filled me until my aching head exploded with pain, like a pistol overloaded with powder and plugged at the barrel. Tears filled my eyes as he finished a moment later. I was only vaguely aware of him releasing my bonds and pulling the stick from my mouth. Once free, I curled into a ball, my arms wrapped around my head.

“Will?” he queried with concern.

“My head hurts,” I breathed, even that effort causing more pain.

His hands were on me again, prying my arms away. I struggled.

“Do not,” I gasped. “Light hurts. The rum… Headache. When… I came… it made my… head… explode.”

He swore vividly and was off the bed again. A moment later there was a spoon at my lips. I accepted the bitter liquid. Then he curled protectively about me, blocking out the light and sound except for his beating heart. I found peace in that as the laudanum took the pain away.

As I drifted off, I wondered if the sole reason for my existence was amusing the Gods, or Gaston.

I woke to flickering lamplight falling on Gaston’s naked thigh. I could hear a light wind, and the shutters banged restlessly. There was a great deal of revelry somewhere in the streets beyond. My head no longer ached, though I still felt the effect of the drug and thus knew I was not fully myself. I rolled about enough to look up, and found Gaston sitting at the headboard by my shoulder. At my movement, he looked down with shadowed eyes I could not read, but his touch upon my brow was soft and reassuring.

“How are you?” he asked.

His voice was thick with tears. I slowly battled the drug to try and discover what he might be crying about. All I could recall was the piercing headache.

“It was not your fault,” I murmured, and stroked his hand. “I have never experienced such a pain before, but then I have seldom woken with my head aching of rum in the company of another who would give me such pleasure.”

“It will not happen again,” he said firmly.

“I think not,” I nodded. “Because I must not drink so, and… well, it would be best if you were not about me when I have. But no matter…”

I sought to touch him, and thus reassure him, but as I moved I discovered the cold hard bracelet of the manacles around his left wrist.

The chain led, not to me, but to the iron bars of the headboard.

“Where is the key?” I asked.

He pointed at the foot of the bed. “On the bedpost.”

I turned until I spied it hanging from the leather thong on which Striker had worn it.

I started to push myself to sitting, and then thought better of it as a wave of dizziness clutched at me. I rolled onto my back again, but positioned myself so I could better see his face. His eyes were sad, but he appeared calm.

“How are we?” I asked with a smile.

He snorted and looked away, but his lips moved to smile in return.

“I wished for death,” he whispered, and the words took the smile from both our lips.

His gaze met mine again, this time it was earnest and beseeching.

“I knew I could not leave you… behind, so I planned to kill you first.

I could not. I sat here with the pistol at your head for a long time. I thought of… how much you loved me, that you would make such a request, and… I could not. So I am chained here in this life, with you.”

He shook his head quickly. “Non, that did not sound as it should. I…

will not betray you by leaving you alone, and I cannot take you with me, so I will remain, because I love you.”

Fresh tears filled his eyes. I wiped them away with my fingertip.

None of the words tumbling through my thoughts seemed appropriate in the wake of his. And truly, I did not wish to contemplate what he had said, or rather the images his words conjured. Thankfully, his gaze told me I need not say anything. I caressed his cheek and he closed his eyes with relief and kissed my palm.

“So why are you chained to the bed and not to me?” I asked at last.

“I felt such reason might be fleeting, and… I find comfort in it, and I did not wish to bind you again in any fashion.” He grimaced at the last, and guilt swiftly flowed over his face.

I struggled again to remember the rest of what had occurred, and found the memory less disconcerting than the knowledge he had sat about for minutes or hours with a pistol to my head.

“Is that what made you wish for death? What you did this morning?”

I asked.

“Oui,” he said without regarding me. “I know you will forgive me, but I could not forgive myself… it was…”

“I would not be opposed to it occurring again,” I interjected.

He tensed and looked down at me. “What?”

“Your binding me, I would not be opposed to it happening again.”

“Why?” He was truly bewildered.

I snorted with amusement. “Come, now, you have delighted in wringing pleasure from me even before you discovered your own. You often pin me in one way or another and take what you will and…” I sobered. “You were correct this morning; my Horse does want it. And you were also correct in that I do want you to take me… by force even, after a fashion, but only you. If another were ever to treat me in that manner I would kill them or die trying, but from you… It is surrender, and… I find peace in that. And that is a thing I must wrestle with…

because, oui, I do find shame in it still, and I wonder a great many things, and not merely about why Shane still lives or… all of that.”

He had closed his eyes as if my words pained him, or perhaps his thoughts.

“I cannot trust myself,” he whispered.

“You cannot kill me,” I offered.

“Non, my thoughts. My thoughts. I do not know what is sane. I think that what I want, what the Horse wants, is wrong and then…” His gaze came to me.

Once again I was gripped by the feeling that I stood with him in his madness. I did not feel fear, or even a sense of losing my standing in the world we knew or thought we knew. This was the world we knew. I had merely perceived it incorrectly.

“Do not use me as a standard to judge yourself,” I said softly. “I am no paragon of sanity. I am… mad, too, in my way.”

He shook his head and slowly smiled. “Then however will we know what is truth?”

I felt he perceived it as improperly as I had.

“We are truth,” I said. “We might not cast the shadows others wish to see upon the cavern wall, but we are the true things in the light.

We only need to look to one another. And, truly, that is all we can rely upon. After all, we are the only two centaurs we know.”

Thoughts sparked and caught behind his eyes, and then he smiled with such brightness it was as if the dawn had broken in his head.