Post 9

The rest of the night passed in a blur of dancing and small talk. When they finally left the gathering early the next morning, he was exhausted. Rayna looked pleased as she sat across from him in the carriage they shared with Eithna and Jared. “You did well, Ari! Better than even I anticipated. Everyone was whispering about the mysterious young man who was so aloof all night. The ladies of course were threatening to swoon in front of you to try to get some sort of reaction out of you.”

He paled a little at the thought. “I am completely thankful that didn’t happen.”

She laughed a throaty laugh. “As am I. I’m sure your honor would have dictated that you catch whoever the lucky lady was, and I would have had to step in and keep you from carrying her off.”

Ari was quietly thoughtful while Eithna and Rayna shared stories of happenings throughout the night, and then he cleared his throat. Eithna, Jared, and Rayna instantly fell quiet, turning their full attention on him. “Thank you, all three of you, for helping me through this. There is no way in the seven hells I would have been able to negotiate that mess on my own. I hope I did your tutoring justice tonight.”

Eithna leaned forward from her seat beside Rayna and placed a gentle hand on his knee. “You did fine, Arius. I know it was probably hard for you, but you really did do marvelously.”

He spent the rest of the ride in silence, staring out at the dark through the little carriage window. They finally clattered through the front gates of Lord Wensellas’ manor, and Jared helped both ladies from the carriage before Arius stepped out. They went their separate ways from there, and he sought his room almost desperately. He stripped of the fine clothes without waiting for a valet, dropping into bed with relief. But his mind was spinning, and he knew sleep was a long ways off. Maybe he should have asked Eithna for one of her teas.

He gave up on sleep then, pulling on a pair of soft trousers and pacing from one end of his bedchamber to the other and back again. Thoughts tumbled through his head, and he seemed unable to get a firm grasp on any of them. His skin felt itchy again, like a thousand ants were crawling beneath it.

He had finally decided to go wake Eithna for a brew when there was a soft knock from outside his bedchamber. He stalked across the sitting room and cracked the door open, and then opened it completely at the sight that met his eyes. He’d tried to forget their encounter in his suite earlier, certain that she was no longer interested. Maybe he had been wrong. Then again, maybe she just wanted to talk to him.

Rayna was bundled in a heavy floor-length cloak, her gloveless hands clasping it tightly at her neck and waist. Her hair was down, flowing around her shoulders in waves from her earlier braids. She looked sober and even a little hesitant, for the first time since he had met her. What was going through her head? “May I come in?”

Arius motioned for her to enter, and closed the door quietly behind. She hesitated, and then stretched past him to click the lock into place. He raised one blond brow but didn’t speak. He wasn’t certain, but he thought maybe he had caught a glimpse of bare skin when she had released the cloak to reach for the lock.

Rayna stepped back and unclasped the cloak, letting it fall to a puddle at her feet. She wore nothing, not a single stitch, and her glorious curves were revealed for his hungry eye to wander across. She waited with an unsure gleam in her doe brown eyes to see how he would react. With a groan of surrender, he stepped forward and wrapped her in his long arms, pulling her close and leaning down to claim her lips with his.

The contact of her soft breasts against his hard chest tore a soft sigh from Rayna, and she reached her own arms up to wrap them around his neck and tug him even closer. His hands slid across her back before he pulled away. She moaned softly, then gasped when he swung her up into his arms and carried her across the room and then across the bedchamber as well. He laid her gently on his bed, sitting beside her, leaning over her to kiss her again. She opened her lips to him, and he growled softly as his tongue delved into her mouth. This was what he wanted. She was who he wanted. Surely there was nothing wrong with this. Fears overcame him, and he broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against hers, eye squeezed shut. She reached up to cup his cheek, tenderness welling within her as she saw the agony that flitted across his face. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve never… I haven’t-.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve never…” How to tell her?

Her own eyes widened when she realized what he was trying to choke out, and she had to bite back a laugh. “Never? Oh you poor boy… Well don’t worry about that, I’m still your tutor after all.” She leaned up to nibble little kisses across his jaw, breaking down his self control.

“What if you-. What if you get pregnant?”

“Oh Ari, you sweet, charming boy. When I was a child, I was sick. I can never have children, so quit fretting. Now come, let’s resume the lessons.” She tugged him up closer to her, and he resisted only a moment before joining her in the bed.

It was candlemarks later that Rayna woke slowly, stretching languorously with a cat-like smile curving her slightly swollen lips. Her hand sought out her lover, only to find an empty spot beside her. She opened her eyes and sat up, peering around the dim room, then slid from the bed, wincing at the various aches throughout her body. Her pupil had been an eager student, and they had stayed awake together as the rest of the morning had crept up on them. Finally they had slept a little, and then he’d woken her again to start all over. They hadn’t left the bed for more than a few moments all throughout the remainder of the day, and now it was surely getting late into the evening. Even their meals had been delivered to his suite.

She reached out to turn up the lantern on the bedside table and looked around. Arius’ robe was thrown over a chair nearby, and she slipped it on, padding barefoot across the room to open the door into the sitting room. Arius was there standing before the lit fireplace, hands folded in the small of his back, clad only in a soft pair of trousers. He seemed to be lost in the flickering flames.

Rayna glided across the room on quiet feet, but he heard her nonetheless. He turned his head to the side, and she saw the small smile that curled his lips as she reached him. She placed a hand on his bare back, a questioning look in her eyes.

“I’m fine, just thinking.”

“About what?” She leaned into him, closing her eyes in relief when he turned and wrapped his arms around her. “Having regrets?”

She felt his chuckle rumble against her ear where it was pressed against his chest. “Not at all. Just… I constantly question if I am doing the right thing for Ragged Valley. I just don’t-. I guess I just wish that the world could leave us alone. We aren’t hurting anyone; we are simply living our lives.”

“If the world was full of Lord Wensellas’ you could do that. But it isn’t. Do you miss it much?” She craned her neck to look up at him, and blinked at the tenderness that filled that soft gray eye.

“Ragged Valley? Sometimes; but sometimes it feels like it’s outgrown me. Like it’s stretched its wings and now they’ve dried and it’s ready to fly away from me.”

“Like a butterfly?” Sometimes he said poetic things like that, and showed a whole new facet of himself.

He shrugged, turning his gaze back to the fire. “There’s a place for you there, you know. If you ever wanted one, or needed one.”

“In Ragged Valley?” He seemed to be a step ahead of her right now, and she was struggling to catch up.

He nodded with a contemplative look on his face. “We’ve always welcomed anyone with a kind heart, and those with skills of some sort are welcomed the most gratefully. We have a teacher of sorts, but he’s not nobility, he doesn’t know as much as you do. You’d have our young men begging at your feet to teach them manners.”

She laughed a little, but concern still beat at her. “You sound as if you know the place inside and out.”

Arius nodded again. “Oh, I do.”

“Come back to bed, sweet boy.” She leaned up to press kisses to his jaw line; she knew now from experience that it made him weak. He only nodded and let her lead him back to the bedchamber.

The second time she woke, he was wrapped around her, sleeping soundly. She reached up to brush his hair away from his face, admiring his handsome face relaxed in slumber. She didn’t want to move, she wanted to stay here forever, folded into his strong arms. His room didn’t have any windows, so it would be easy to imagine they really were locked away from the world. Without the lamp burning steadily beside the bed, they would be shrouded in complete darkness. But life moved on outside this room, and they would have to face reality at some point. Surely their second morning was already creeping up on them. Rayna sighed and cuddled as close as she could, and his arms tightened reflexively around her. She closed her eyes and decided a few more candlemarks wouldn’t hurt.

Something damp against her cheek woke her next, and she sat up, pushing her long hair away from her face. She touched her face and then looked dumbly at the blood on her fingers. Frantically, she turned to Arius, to find an apparently open wound on his chest seeping blood. He slept on, but his face was twisted in a strange grimace. What had happened? What had she slept through? She grabbed his robe from where it been discarded across the foot of the bed and wiped the blood away, and stared in shock at the round scar. There was no wound, only the scar. As she watched, blood welled up from the perfectly round mark and began to trickle down his side. She wiped it away again, heedless of the damage to the robe, and then tried to shake Arius awake.

He resisted her attempts to wake him, and she grew more and more frantic. Finally she slapped his face lightly, calling his name. She was nearly sobbing when his eye opened at last, cloudy and confused. He looked at her blankly for a long moment, and she threw herself across his chest, blood and all, whispering his name softly. “Ari, Ari, Ari, what is wrong?”

Arius mentally shook off the dream and reached for Rayna. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I thought-. I didn’t think the dream would happen, with you here.” Flashes of gray… dark cloaks…

“What are you talking about? What dream?” She was shivering, watching as the blood seeping from the mark on his chest stopped dribbling.

“I just- have these dreams sometimes. The scar bleeds and I go a little… crazy I guess. Eithna has been making teas for me to help stave the dreams away.” Strange symbols seemed etched into the backs of his eyelids, swirls and a crescent moon…

“What are they about?” She wiped the last of the blood away and looked up at his concerned face, eyes wide.

“I can’t remember. Not ever. If I could-. If I could, maybe…” He shook his head and licked suddenly dry lips. “I just don’t know. I’m sorry I scared you.” Crowds kneeling to him… The thought slipped away as fast it came.

She leaned her head against his chest again, not wanting to meet his stare, not wanting him to see how frightened she had been. It was her responsibility to be the strong one, to guide and teach, not to be a silly scared ninny. “It’s all right, it’s over.”

Rayna felt Arius nod, but she also felt how tense he was. She sat up, wiped her hands clean on the soiled robe, and then threw it to the floor. She turned to him, intent on distracting them both beyond all worry and fear. She succeeded, at least for a few candlemarks.