Blood Moon

Sydney Alexis

XII

A/N:Contains some elements of P/7 (Annika)

The blade weighed more than she was accustomed to as she swung it clumsily toward me. I raised my eyebrow, taunting her slightly.

Her arc was slow and obvious and I finally took pity on her, knocking the sword from her hand. She growled in frustration, her hand flying to the gash on her forehead.

"This isn't a fair test, and you know it. That thing weighs twice what my usual sword does."

"And if you are caught in battle with nothing other than a sword such as this."

"This," she said, kicking the object toward me, "is not a sword. It is a solid piece of wood fashioned to look like a sword."

"It is called a waster and I gave it to you so that you don't ruin yet another one of my blades during one of your tirades," I interjected, trying desperately not to laugh at her.

"I don't give a damn what it's called. If I was caught in battle and it was my own choice of weapon, I would fight with my bare hands."

"And if your opponent carried a sword his arm's stretch would be twice yours because of his blade."

"I'd find a way."

"And you would end up dead," I said, anger filling me. It was at times like this when my ire was raised that I had to fight hard to remain calm. Ye gods the woman was intolerable and emasculating when she wanted to be!

"Damn it, Kathryn, I won't always be there to take care of you."

"I can take care of myself, Thomas. I was doing it years before you ever arrived and I will continue to do it after you leave."

There was a fire in her eyes that was intoxicated and she squared off against me, shoulders squared and tense. She looked more than ready for a fight that would not come from me. Least not on this day.

I grasped her biceps in my hands, drawing her attention to my eyes.

"You're right; you can, but you also have to realize that we are going up against the same men that killed Lanna. She was at the same level of training you are at now...maybe a bit more advanced, and they still gutted her like she was nothing more than an animal. I lost one wife that I loved to them. I won't lose another."

Her stare grew impossibly more icy as she stiffened in my arms.

"That's where you are mistaken. I am Crycus' wife. Not yours."

I reeled back from her as though I had been hit. Her words cut me through to the core and I was having trouble shaking them.

"How could I forget? Lanna gave a damn about people other than herself."

In a flash, she had raised her hand to slap me. My own snatched her wrist mid-movement and I know she felt the fight within me raise as I held it hard in a crushing grip. Her finger tips grew a deeper purple as her voice took on a venomous edge.

"How could you even begin to understand me? To know what it's like to have your father pawn you off in exchange for favors. To know that if you walked away you would bring shame to yourself and your family."

"And my father sending me off to the castle to play page was in no way connected to your experience."

"You could have walked away," she replied, anger lessening.

I tilted my head slightly, knowing without speaking that she knew her own admission blew holes through that suggestion. "You spent years learning to read, write, and be a proper lady, and I learned how to kill, to believe that the king's life is more important than my own. The same man that dressed you in fine gowns and sent you to marry a wealthy man took my whole life from me. Now...who do you think got the raw deal on this one, pet?"

Her eyes softened measurably. "If this is going to launch you into another one of your 'life is tough' speeches I think I'd rather go back to flinging that tree trunk around."

I smiled broadly at her. "Whatever you say, pet."

I found her in the corner of the dining room on her hands and knees, scrubbing the area around the fireplace with methodical swipes of her scrub brush. Her face was covered in sweat and ashes and the shift that she wore was stiff even for the burlap material it was fashioned from.

Stepping cautiously toward her, I crouched down beside her. "Annika, my love? Do you know you will always have my favor?"

Her spine stiffened. The scrubbing stopped and she knelt down in the standard, submissive pose of all servants. I ran my hand down the ridges of her vertebra. One hard push...

"You were my first. My great prize. I stole you from your love and bound you to me, but you've never wanted for anything. Have you?"

"N--no, Crycus," she breathed.

Her voice was hard and raspy from disuse and the sound of it and my own response to it made me ill. Crycus would play these games, but I never would. Apologies were Thomas' way. Not mine.

My hand reached out almost of its own command, tracing the streaks of soot on her face. She reminded me of a story my mother would tell me at night. There was no loving prince in this version though...

For a long, agonizing moment, she stared into my eyes, trying to divine my meaning before she closed them and leaned into my touch.

"Your skin has hardened from your punishment, but has the place you hold for me in your heart done as well?"

"You are my husband, Crycus. I am yours for as long as you wish it."

Eyes ablaze and daring, lips quirked as she recognized the thin threat she placed beneath those words.

"I wish it forever, love. Come," I said, standing. I took her hand and guided her back to my private bath where her trembling began anew--much to my bruised ego I knew was out of fear.

"Am I to clean your private bath, my lord?"

When spoken through the clipped, imprecise tones of a servant, it sounded normal, but, from a lady of station, it sounded ridiculous. Not that I would tell her that. Poor girl was all ready broken enough.

"No, love. Just can't have you coming down to dinner covered in cinders."

"I could simply wash up in the..." She started, hedging toward the locked doors.

"Trying to be rid of my company so soon?" I asked, turning my gaze toward her.

"Of course not, Crycus," she stated calmly, but her body betrayed her as her eyes darted for an escape route.

I approached her slowly, raising my hands to the rough rope that belted her stained shift. Daring eyes cautioned a look into my own then dropped to my lips that were upturned in a smile.

"Do you know what really set me off, love?"

She nodded her head mutely.

"It wasn't just what you said about Kathryn..."

Eyes darted to mine in silent questioning.

"It was the thought of him touching you."

The shift fell, leaving her bare before me. My gaze fell over her form, devouring her. Lips moved of their own accord to the shell of her left ear, nipping the delicate cartilage beneath.

"You. Are. Mine." I whispered against her heated flesh, feeling her shiver against me. I drew back to see her eyes challenging me.

"And if you choose not to touch anyone but Kathryn?"

"Then you find pleasure by yourself or with one of the other wives, but you do not take your need outside of my bed."

I watched her cheeks flush with embarrassment. "Unless of course you wish to join Kathryn and I." The flush spread.

"What's a'matter, pet? You don't want to see if we can get the one god to strike down us all like Gomorrah?"

I laughed brusquely, pleased to see her finally smile. Dropping a kiss on her hand I took a step back from her. "Get cleaned up and come down to dinner."

I turned and left her there feeling lighter than I had in weeks.