Page 39 of Odette's Vow

“You are right. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to get home to my wife.”

My eyes roamed over her face before landing on her lips, as the words I had been so desperate to hear fell from my own mouth first.

“But that is not to say I do not care for you, too. I cannot think, Odette, I cannot breathe around you. Not without smelling the scent of you, those herbs you crush into the oil. No matter how hard I try to wrack my brain, I cannot remember what my wife smells like. All I can think of is YOU. It infuriates me. Morning, noon, and night – you hound me. You were right, I probably wouldn’t have had Thersites beaten if I could think straight. If this blood roaring in my ears would stop. If I could think calmly, if I could come back to this tent and ignore you, ignore that gods damn scent?—”

“You could send me away,” she offered.

“And have another man know you?” I chuckled, the sound dark, even to my own ears.

“You don’t know me.”

A pause, heavy with expectation – as if this moment would be the one to change the very course of our fates.

“I would like to, Odette.”

I looked at her expectantly and when she nodded, my hands cupped the backs of her thighs. As I lifted her, her legs hooked around me. I snaked one arm around her waist and carried her back towards my pallet, our eyes never leaving the other’s. Her eyes were dark, pupils dilated, her breath coming in ragged gasps, as was my own. Her body trembled against mine, and then we were meeting in a desperate kiss, once again.

She tasted of salt and fire.

I stumbled towards the pallet, my movements frantic and uncoordinated, but even as I lifted her onto the bed, her legs did not fall from my waist. My hands moved with a mind of their own, pushing up her chiton to reveal the smooth skin beneath. The friction of the fabric was coarse, matching the roughness of my movements. It caused tiny goosebumps to break out all over her skin. Her back arched and she bucked against me, pressing the length of her body against mine, demanding more friction, again and again. Over and over.

I complied until she made a needy little sound and I could take it no longer. I pulled away, to strip myself of my tunic, so my bare chest could press against her. I bunched her chiton around her thighs, and watched as my cock pressed against her entrance before sliding all the way home.

Home.

I kept one hand on the curve of her hip, the other landing in the palm of hers above her head in a holy palmers’ kiss as I moved over her, in her, through her. She met each thrust with a roll of her hips until I, too, moaned at the pleasure that uncoiled with her every movement, her walls clasped around me. There was no greater pleasure on this earth than where we were right now, even if it was just frantic desperation coupled with such heat in my body that I was certain she would burn me from the inside out.

We were no longer Odysseus and Odette, but just two bodies, moving against each other in a rhythm that needed no words. Words were useless to describe this feeling, this overwhelming sense that everything I was about to become was on the brink of falling apart.

Odette clawed at my back, desperate for some sort of release. Instead, I sat back, looking down at her, spreading her legs wider. My mouth watered at the sight, as if she weresome feast gifted by the gods, so I slowed my movements – savouring.

She stilled, and I could practically feel her thinking, so I gave her a short, sharp thrust in warning. I did not want to go back to the roles we had to play in this war. Not yet.

Let the dream last a little longer … please.

Then I thrusted, again and again, until we were both panting and I couldn’t tell if it was in pleasure or pain, until the groan ripped through me and I was spilling my seed over her belly.

I woke with a start, my body slick with sweat, cum across my own torso, my breath shallow and unsteady. The tent was dark, the only sound the distant murmurs of the camp.

It was a dream. I knew it was a dream, but it felt so real. Every touch, every kiss, every thrust. But, Odette wasn’t there in the tent with me – only the lingering ache of the dream as the vivid reminder of everything I now craved.

I buckledthe last strap of my armour. I had finally been discharged from the medical tent with its uniquely clinical smell. I feared the combined scent of herbs and salves, leathers and linens, and the infection-burning fire would never truly leave me.

So here I was, back in my tent, with all the luxuries a man could have in war.

Tonight I would seek out the Palladium, as requested by Calchas. The sacred statue of Athena we supposedly needed to secure our victory.

I secured my xiphos?1 to my belt and then wrapped an old hooded cloak over both that and my armour. The only way to getinto Troy under the cover of darkness was if I disguised myself as a beggar. A lot rested on tonight. Without Achilles, without these relics, the war would drag on and on, the cost unimaginable. I had to succeed, for the sake of every man who had endured this endless nightmare.

Of course, it wasn’t only the men who had been suffering, I reminded myself as I watched Odette angrily storm about the tent, tidying what need not be tidied. Her movements betrayed her silence, but all I could think of was the way her hair brushed her shoulders, the way her hips swayed as she moved, the way she huffed every time she completed a task unsatisfactorily.

“Will you not wish me well before I go?”

She turned to me, a flash of anger in her eyes. “To what end? Hector and Paris may be gone, but the Trojans still have reinforcements coming, and city walls that will never fall. How can you ask your men to keep fighting for a cause that might as well be a dead horse, while you do something based on the words of a soothsayer whose prophecies have yet to come true?!”

I took three large strides towards her. “Is this about what I asked of you when I was injured? Do you really despise me so much that you still hope the Trojans defeat us? Would you see me harmed again, is that it?”

“I spent twelve weeks, day and night, in that horror of a tent with you. And now you would waste that work once again.”

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