Page 15 of Stardust Child

“All right. When you’ve thought about it, we can talk again.” He kissed her. “But you’re still getting a guard.”

“Remin,” she said, exasperated.

“There are too many new people in the valley now,” he said sternly. “There are guards with me at all times. I just make them stay out of sight. Either you have a guard, or I’ll get rid of all of mine.”

He was wearing his stubborn face. Ophele’s mouth worked soundlessly. She could not think of a single objection.

“All right?” he asked, bending to bump his forehead against hers. His eyes were crinkling at the corners. He knew he had won.

“All right,” she conceded, amazed that she could be smiling already, that he could so quickly turn her sorrow into joy.

“Good.” His lips tickled hers. “Now help me get my armor off.”

The questions were still whirling at the back of her mind even as they undressed each other and he moved over her on their squeaky bed, always eager, always hungry. He, the devourer; she, the devoured. His were the hands that held, while she was held. He was ever the invader, and she yielded herself to him with pleasure. It was the natural order of things, wasn’t it?

Even when he was inside her, Ophele was stepping outside of herself to look at him, so strong, so fearless, so powerful, always in command. The boulders of his biceps flexed on either side of her as they panted their pleasure together, and she stroked her cheek against his arm to admire his strength, thrilled by it, and so envious.

No one disobeyed him. No one would ever think of challenging him. Of all the varieties of wolf in the Andelin Valley, Remin was the deadliest of them all.

“Ophele,” he said hoarsely, his deep voice a rumbling, panting growl, his huge body levering hard and fast into her. He was so immense, his arms so strong, it was easy to believe that he could make a wide and beautiful place where nothing bad could touch her. She loved how protective he was. How he bared his teeth at the merest hint of danger. No one had protected her since her mother had died. She had never had a safe place. She didn’t want him to stop doing that. It seemed an ungrateful and foolish thing to ask, especially when she loved how he made her feel so much.

But she wanted to be more like him, all the same.

“Remin…” Her voice quavered. Her body trembled, taut, held by him, surrounded by him, filled by him and straining to contain him. Deep inside she felt him pulsing, and the hot bursts as he emptied himself into her, thrusting hard against that place that made her fly apart.

Burying her face against his chest to muffle her cries, Ophele sank her small teeth into him, and left her marks in his skin.

Chapter 2 – A Song of Shepherds

There were a variety of guard traditions in the Empire, both sacred and practical.

The guardsmen of the Imperial family had both. The Guard of Ange, consecrated knights who competed for the honor to live and die for their charges. Among the Great Houses of Argence, there were lineages of guardsmen nearly as long and distinguished as the Houses they served; who ever heard of a Melun aristocrat venturing forth without their attendant Eparde swordsmen? In Segoile, no nobleman left his townhouse without at least two, even if he had to drag them out of a tavern and stuff them into livery before they had a chance to sober up.

Remin’s original House had had its tradition, too. For seven centuries they had been patrons of the Macheis, a warrior family who had trained their sons and daughters as guardsmen with almost religious devotion. There had been many distinguished warriors in that line, a long and honorable history, and they wandered into Remin’s mind just long enough for him to flatly reject them. They had already failed when it mattered most.

He needed better shepherds for his lamb.

Long after Ophele was asleep, Remin lay awake, thinking. War had taught him the hard way never to repeat his mistakes, and she made himquestion himself. It did worry him that she was so innocent. They would eat her alive in Segoile. In fashionable society, even maidens making their debut affected world-weary cynicism, a jaded air that Remin found both laughable and repellant. As if they knew the first thing about suffering. He didn’t want her to be like that.

Shouldn’t there be room in the world for lambs? The things he had seen in the capital had shocked him. Through all the years of war, it had been some comfort to him to imagine that cultured, elegant world far away, a place beyond his hot, ugly hell. Yet when he went to the capital, all those cultured, elegant people had wanted nothing more than to gobble up every dreadful detail, as if filth was the only thing that could rouse them from the dreadfulboredomof their clean, safe world.

Ophele was the peace he had dreamed of, without even knowing it. It soothed something deep in him to watch her look at the world with her clear, clean eyes. He would go through that hell all over again, if only he could watch her enjoy the peace afterward.

The world needed lambs to make the work of wolves worthwhile.

“You’ll be at the storehouse this afternoon,” he told her as they walked to the stables the next morning, turning his head to take a long look toward the distant mountains, where there was still no sign of snow. While she was in the offices above the storehouse, he would be searching among his wolves for someone to guard her while he was gone. “We’ll have a talk with Edemir first.”

Her eyes flicked up to his, widening.

“Both of us?” she asked nervously.

“Yes. I’m not angry that he sent someone to fetch me yesterday. If someone tries to walk off with you, I want to know. Immediately.”

“But he wasn’t,” she objected. “Once that man knew who I was, he stopped and apologized.”

“And if Jacot hadn’t shown up?” Sometimes it was very, very difficult to manage his temper. Remin pushed open the stable doors with a little more force than necessary.

“As soon as I knew what he wanted, I would have said no,” Ophele said stubbornly. “He didn’t seem bad, even if he did want a…” She paused and looked around before she whispered the forbidden word. “…prostitute.”

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