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Chapter Seven
The scout was not foolish enough to say anything to Eydie of knowing her when a number of the lieutenants joined the fire in which they all sat round, however that did gain him opportunity to move closer to Eydie who seemed extremely worried by him. He had to tell her that he wasn't going to say anything, especially to the king, but he couldn't with all the lieutenants and men around and he had no way of knowing whether the prince knew of what she was or not.
Looking across at her, he saw her shivering slightly and wondered why she was being left out here in the cold. Cynric sat beside her and it was then that the scout saw it, with their backs to the forest, no one was able to see that the prince had his hand on the Woad girl's lower back. He saw Eydie shift a little closer to him as the men started talking a bit more loudly, vocalizing their thoughts on the weather and the godforsaken island. The scout had been captured due to his status among his village but he had been compliant, he couldn't do much else. His survival was the most important thing to him at the moment above all else.
Princess Eydie though. She was another story. She was valuable to the Saxons, not only due to her knowledge but also her position. What father and king like Merlin would wish for their daughter to be hurt in the way in which these Saxons could was beyond his reasoning but considering what he had just caught eye of, it seemed unlikely that anything would befall her unless of unforeseen circumstances or the king did something to her. He had seen what had happened last night between the king and the young woad girl was enough to convince him that it was a dangerous situation; her being stuck in this camp.
Eydie followed Cynric into the tent and turned around hearing Abrecan tell someone that the prince was in no mood for talking. "I want to talk to the Woad girl." Cynric looked past Eydie as the scout appeared and he asked him what he wanted. "Eydie."
Cynric half chuckled at the man as he pulled his armour off and Eydie took it from him, making him look at her for a moment as he watched her put it down and out of the way. "You can't have her," he told the scout, still not looking at him, who shook his head as he tried to think of a way of explaining what he wished to talk about without saying anything to give away about who Eydie was, in case the prince had yet to discover the news.
"I don't want her in that way, lord, I- I just want to talk to her," he said back.
"So talk to her," he replied. "Whatever you have to say to her you can say in front of me."
"Does he know?" he asked of Eydie, who looked at him from beneath her eyelashes.
"Know? Know what?" she replied.
He sighed heavily. "Who you are? What you are? Who you are promised to?"
Cynric looked from the scout to Eydie in confusion. "Scout, you had better start talking sense before I throw you out."
Eydie put her hand on Cynric's arm and shook her head before looking over at the scout, suddenly understanding what he was referring to. "He knows who I am scout. My position. He knows I am a princess."
The scout nodded but one thing still stuck in his mind. "Does he know who will be out for blood if anything happens to you?" he inquired.
She sighed heavily in reply and shook her head. "He doesn't need to be brought into this, he is not my keeper and I do not wish him to be," she remarked.
Cynric looked at the scout. Keeper? He glanced at Eydie. "I'll speak to you later," Cynric told the scout who quickly nodded and left as he turned round to fully face Eydie who seemed to be deep in thought. "Eydie?" She jumped when he touched her cheek softly.
When Eydie turned away from him, he stepped closer to her, placing his hands on her shoulders gently. "I am promised to one of the warriors from another village. I don't like him in that way. I barely know the man and yet I barely know you-" she started and turned round to face him, her eyes sad, "-and you, who in only two days have shown me more things than I could ever have learned from him. To him, I would have been nothing more than-" She laughed hoarsely, as though she was nearly crying, "-what does it matter now? I'm your prisoner, you could kill me and I do not think he would mind, I think he would be pleased consider..."
Cynric grabbed her by the waist and dragged her closer to him, smiling slightly at her confused look. "You're not my prisoner Eydie. Not anymore. You can leave whenever you see fit and choose too, but know that I won't just sit and let you," he told her. Without giving her chance to reply, he leaned down and kissed her. One arm tightening round her waist as he cradled her head in his other. Cynric felt her arms slid up his chest and round his shoulders as he deepened the kiss, and groaned against her lightly.
It was not easy for him. Their journey here had taken months and he had not seen a woman in that time unless it'd been a whore or some girl from a village his men had raided, but Eydie. She was different. Unlike the other women, he felt something for the girl and he managed to drag his mouth from hers as he reminded himself that he couldn't get attached to her, no matter the fact that he pretty much already was.
Eydie shifted uncomfortably as Cynric stripped off and to save embarrassment on her part, she turned away quickly. She heard him pause and then a chuckle from behind told her that he knew she wasn't looking. "Eydie, being naked isn't that embarrassing. Plenty of men and women are naked round one another all the time," he said. Looking down at the ground, she tried her best not to blush furiously at his words, knowing that he was right.
"But those men and women- they know one another in a different way," she said back softly, stammering to think of the right words to say.
More laughter came at that. "There's no reason to say that we could-" he began to comment, pausing though both his words and what he was doing to glance at her back before resuming what he was doing. "However there are people that bathe in numbers in rivers and such daily. Your people would do that, no?"
She nodded. "They do. But men bathe at different times to women," she answered.
"So you've never seen a man naked before?"
At that she went bright red and felt her face heat up as she said that she had only once. "When I tried to kill you. You were naked."
Silence came from him before she asked him if she was able to turn back around. He said she could. Cynric sat in the tub and Eydie found his back to her. She then saw the scars across his back and arms. Battle wounds. Approaching him, she decided that any talk of why she had originally been caught by him was not to be brought up. Kneeling down, she felt him flinch slightly as she traced a long scar on his right shoulder blade. "How?"
"Roman ambush on our borders when I was about your age. My first battle and Abrecan was not with me. Just a group of my companions from our regiment who were all a little older than me. One moved from my back, which is never something you do in a fight like that, and a Roman got me." He was leaning forward slightly and Eydie moved to the next scar on his back, just below that one, it was jagged.
"And this one?" she asked, moving her index finger over the mutilated flesh.
He tensed slightly, he was a little ticklish she gathered. "It- It came from a whip," he told her. "From my own kin."
"Who?" Saxon families did this to one another?
"My father." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Punishment for being foolish to try and save a woman from the men when I was about twelve. He did it in front of the soldiers, proving that even his own son wouldn't be spared or shown leniency if he did something foolish."
Eydie nodded and moved her fingers further down his back to where the water started and then across to his left side where a thicker more fresher scar was. "And this one?"
He sighed. "Fighting a Gaul warrior. He got away and left me with that pretty reminder as to what they are capable of."
"When did it happen?"
He chuckled. "You ask a lot of questions you do know that right?"
She blushed and pulled her hand away. "I've never seen scars like it before."
He nodded but didn't say anything to her. "Eydie, stand up." She raised an eyebrow at him in questioning when he turned slightly to look at her.
"Excuse me?" she asked.
"Stand up," he repeated. Though confused, she did what he asked and stood up, looking down at him, wondering why he had asked her to. Suddenly, he raised himself up and before she could turn away he pulled her in close to him, the front of her clothing being dampened by the water on him. Swallowing the thick lump that formed in her throat, she kept her eyes fixed on the pendant he was wearing as his hands held her fast by the waist. As she stared into the black orb, she saw a streak of white form in it suddenly and stared at it harder, not realizing Cynric was pulling her shirt up until he raised her arms up. Realizing her lack of clothing, she covered her naked breasts quickly and went scarlet red. She couldn't form words and when he leaned down, she turned her face away from his and could hear him breathe in before he lowered his head to her neck, finding the same place he had the other night and pressing his lips to her skin.
He slowly slid his arms across her lower back, slipping them lower until he was cupping her bottom firmly in his grasp. She whimpered slightly and bite her lip as he did so and Eydie struggled to think of a way to talk herself out of this, but the more bolder he moved, the more Eydie felt herself enjoying his touch. His hands left her rear and slipped to her front, tugging at the laces of her pants. In the next second they pooled to the floor round her feet and Cynric pulled his head back from her neck. She was naked. He was naked. They were pressed against each other firmly and Eydie felt herself turning scarlet like never before.
Cynric slowly slipped back down into the tub and pulled her with him carefully. While the notion of a bath hadn't sounded bad to her, the fact that she was having one pressed up against Cynric was a different matter. It wasn't as uncomfortable as she'd thought it earlier would have been with two people in here however she was nervous and pulled away from Cynric, looking for some route to escape without him seeing her, but there was no way possible. One of his arms curled round her middle and drew her back against his chest. "Relax Eydie. You are like a startled deer caught in a hunter's net," he said to her.
"And there is a difference?" she remarked in questioning, glancing at him over her shoulder.
He chuckled. "Of course there is. For one; you are not a deer, you are a girl and two; I am not a hunter and I want you to be in here with me," he answered. Eydie shut her eyes as one of his hands skimmed her side, traveling up and over the side of her breast, making her draw in a shaky breath just as he cupped both in his hands firmly squeezing and causing Eydie to whimper again, her body reacting to the way he was touching her very quickly. "Eydie?"
"Mmmm," she mewed.
"I want you so much," he told her as his thumbs brushed over her nipples, making her gasp as they grew sensitive with each flick of torture he gave them.
Cynric got up, lifting her with him and Eydie looked at him as he moved to the furs of his bed, laying her down on them. He came down, covering her, his body sliding along hers and sticking slightly as the water dried off them. He kissed her gently and Eydie trembled, unsure of what to do. Her fingers gripped the furs beneath them as his hands drew her legs up and apart and he rested his hips between them. Eydie's eyes shut as his lips moved along her jaw and down across her shoulder. His hips rolled against hers and she mewed slowly as the action made her stomach twist into knots. Her legs tightened round his body as what Cynric did to her made her grow hot and bothered. She had never felt like this before and still she trembled in slight fear.
He raised himself up a little and pushed into her. Eydie gasped and whimpered at the pain, her eyes watering as she grabbed hold of the furs tighter beneath them. With each thrust of his hips, the pain slowly disappeared and was replaced with pleasure like she hadn't experienced before in her life. This was why people enjoyed sharing a bed so much? She leaned her head back, eyes slipping shut as he kissed her now exposed neck causing her to shiver. Her nails dug into his back, making him groan as he moved against her faster and a pressure grew within her. She moaned low in her throat as her back arched up from the furs.
Laying on her side facing Cynric who had his arm wrapped over her torso and one hand lightly stroking her cheek as he watched her all but glow and relax back on the furs, he couldn't help but smile as she kissed his knuckles and drew her closer to him, the furs slipping from their torsos as he did. "Is that why people enjoy sharing a bed so much?" she inquired shyly as her fingers softly caressed his chest.
Cynric had to chuckle at such a question. Only Eydie would ask him something like that and he knew it. "Well I guess, I haven't kept a woman long enough to find that out for myself," he admitted and saw Eydie frown a little. "What?"
"How many other women?" she asked.
That was a question he preferred not to answer. "I'm a lot older than you Eydie. And I haven't been as kind as I am to you since the first woman I took to my bed."
She gathered it would be the only answer she was going to get from him and nodded. "How old are you?" she inquired and he chuckled.
"Full of questions, aren't we little Woad?" he replied, asking a question of his own. Eydie lifted a shoulder, smiling meekly at him. Cynric knew how young she was after his father had questioned her last night. "Well as I said, I'm not young Eydie."
"That does not answer my question," she said boldly and he grinned at her when she leaned up on one elbow and reached for the blanket, trying to keep her breasts covered as he rolled onto his back. Leaning up, he pulled her arm out of the way and took one nipple between his lips, teasing the pert bud with his tongue and grazing his teeth over it lightly. She whimpered, one hand moving up to his head and he grinned as he slowly kissed his way back up to her lips.
"I've seen thirty summers. How is that for an answer, princess?" he said. She looked at him as he laid back down and watched her move in closer to him as he did so, pulling the furs up over them and burying herself against his side. He slid one arm round her and smiled as one of her arms skimmed over his stomach and up his chest. Hang the warning Abrecan had given him, Eydie was his now and nothing was changing that for the time being.
