Page 64 of Thief of Roses
“Y woldest not deygn to tell thee thine own mynd.”
Archaic in speech and out of the world for three centuries, her Baró far surpassed any man she had ever known in high-mindedness and progressive thought.Though the centuries had been painful and lonely, they had given him the opportunity for significant introspection.How many others would have taken his long years and concentrated on self-improvement?She admired him all the more for it.
She grew serious.
“Will you be okay?You have a history of not being treated kindly during such activities.I never want you to feel that this is a chore or a punishment.I only want you when you want me.We will take it at the pace you set.”She let his other hand go and ran her fingers through the curled fur around his head.“If you are unhappy, I will be also.”
“I have no fear of being with you.Not now anyway.We will see what happens when the time comes,” he answered.“You are kindness itself, Rivani.If I could not find both passion and peace with you in coupling, I could never find it in another.”
The sentiment warmed her, melted her, made her want him all the more.Passion and peace.That was it, somehow phrased succinctly by her Baró in a language that was still new to him.He was both her passion and her peace, the one who stirred her blood and the one who provided stability and security.She kissed the top of his head.
“The ribs will need to cook for several hours.Would you...”She hesitated but refused to be a coward.“That is, might you be agreeable to a little exploration of each other?”
The unusual hunger in Baró eyes, the possessiveness of his grasp on her, and the darkened complexion caused by his delighted embarrassment answered her.She kissed him again.
“Go, then, Baró, and make our bed, for I do not want to waste a moment.”
XXVI.
Rivani had never seenhim without his trousers beyond the sick room.Even at the pond, she averted her gaze to preserve his modesty.And those few days while he convalesced in his quarters, submitting to cleanings and wound dressings, had not been intriguing in any sexual capacity.Most of those wounds of his had come from multiple unwanted sexual encounters and even if the practicality of tending had not squelched the desire, the knowledge of his ordeals had made desire impossible at the time.She had imagined, of course.Before he started changing, he must have been all beauty and cold rationality.She had imagined him coming into his new body, debilitated and despairing, ashamed as he still was, though doubtless he had not been as adept at hiding it then.She had imagined a less altered version of him stuffed into the finery of his wardrobe adhering to the pageantry of humanity and parading himself as a suitor before Beauty, knowing he would never win her affection.She had imagined this moment when his desires matched hers and they could show their appreciation for each other with the joining of their bodies.She need imagine no more.
Rivani swallowed with some difficulty, overcome with some mixture of emotions that included awe and admiration, but held more tenderness now than any of her first times when his physique and presence stunned her.The fire he restored cast dancing light around the room, teasing the contours of his body with suggestive highlights and shadows.She could tell by the way he held his shoulders that he kept himself braced for something.For her rejection.Or for his not being able to go through with it.If he worried over her opinion of him, then he need not.Her Baró was every inch a god.And if the stories of the Fir’Darl painted him as a monster who embodied all that was ugly in the world, it was only because, in his form, he bore the cruelty of the world, not the cruelty of his own being.Perhaps he had done things to earn punishment, but there were far more evil beings out there who wore a human shape.
His burnished, bronze fur shone.He may no longer have the long black curling hair of the Rivani, but the black curls of his fur on his head, neck, and shoulders undulated with the same silken sheen as his hair.The horns, unchanged from when she had first beheld him, glowed like a radiant halo with the firelight reflecting off them.His face had changed, the brows heavier and the snout larger with the bud of the new horn, but his eyes still held all the depth and mystery of her first intentional examination.His body had not changed in that it spoke of hard labor and lean but regular rations, but his shoulders looked even larger due to the change that had occurred to his spine that filled out his neck and made the blanket of curls even more expansive.The network of scars on his torso shone in the firelight, looking like lighting with the small movements and adjustments of his body.A small portion of his lower abdomen remained furless, the fur looking like patina against the bronze of his skin.He bore the same dark curls below, a majestic trail from his navel expanding downward, providing background for the respectable-sized furless creature that dwelt between his legs.The legs, also covered in fur, bore well-defined muscles as he continued to exercise them by standing upright on the precariously thin ankles of his hooves.
Rivani made no move towards him, not yet.She enjoyed the sight of him bathed in firelight.
She burned for him.
He waited, nude andvulnerable and growing more unsure as the moments swept by without Rivani saying anything.His tail flicked behind him in anxious impatience.At last, he cast his eyes away.
“Are you reconsidering?I cannot fault you.Faced with such a prospect, I still half-expect you to run screaming from me.”He sighed heavily and bowed his head.“You do not have to do this if you think it some matter of honor because you made a claim,” he added.“If the reality is uglier than your fantasy — and I cannot see how it cannot be — then you are under no obligation.”
“Oh, if only you knew what I thought.”She took another appraising look at him.“You are beautiful, my Baró, in a way you will never understand.The Magic, in Its attempt to make you monstrous, only made you mythic and ethereal, majestic in a way no mortal creature could be.I find that I am attracted to you more with each passing moment.”
“Even with my birthing hips?”
