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Fuck.
“You’re going into a rut,” Finnen says.
“Aren’t we all?” I mutter. “Well, except for you, of course, unflappable Reverend Brother Finn.”
“Fuck you.”
“I may, some other day, if you ask nicely.”
“What the fuck,” Finn hisses, “is wrong with you? That woman—”
The door clicks and opens, throwing Ariadne forward. Turning, I catch her in my arms and the fire returns, darkening my thoughts. Through the haze of lust, over my mate’s head, I see that woman—as Finnen said—entering the room, carrying a lit oil lamp, her eyes narrowing at me.
“Your bath is being brought up,” she says, putting the lamp down on the floor and frowning at us disapprovingly, “and dinner is here.” She claps her hands, and two servant boys enter the room, carrying big trays laden with steaming bowls of stew, chunks of brown bread and cups of ale. “Put them on a bed, boys. You, girl, come on in.”
A slight girl enters then, half-hidden behind a load of clothing, and totters to the center of the room. “Where, mistress?”
“Good gods, on the bed that has no trays on it, girl! Use your head.”
The girl obediently drops the load on the other bed and steps back, eyes big and frightened in a small mousey face.
I slide my arms more firmly around Ariadne. Her face is buried against my chest, her tumble of dark wild hair all I see of her, but I feel her body against mine, every point of contact burning through me.
Dammit, I want everyone out so I can fuck my mate. Is that too much to ask? Anger rolls through me. I want to shove everyone out of my way and then rip her clothes to have her naked underneath me, put my mouth and hands everywhere before I sink into her.
“I’m being overly kind to you all,” the inn-keeper is saying, her glower moving from one of us to the next. “If I hear any improper noises or find you wandering outside this room, you’ll get the boot, do you hear me?”
“Yes, madam,” Finnen says, ever the proper gentleman.
Kiaran only growls softly.
“Good.” She claps her hands again and her toy soldiers march out, leaving the trays and clothes on the beds. “The tub is coming up. Don’t spill water everywhere and make a mess.” She tsks, glances at me again. “You’re lucky you remind me of my son.”
“Yeah,” Finnen says, head cocked to the side, blind eyes thoughtful, “you are lucky, aren’t you, soldier? Why don’t you thank the nice lady? Thank the lady, Taj!”
It’s a slap to my face, to my chest—a command, an order, and my body twangs like a chord. “Thank you,” I say. “I…”
“Yes, good, fine.” The inn-keeper turns around in a whirl of shawls and skirts and heads out the door. “My fault for letting a bunch of wild people into my inn, military or not. Just don’t break anything or you’ll pay good coin for it, got me?”
I watch her go, cold and hot warring in my body, my mind here but also back in the barracks on the plain, waiting for a command to set order to my life, to make me feel good. To make me feel I’m doing the right thing.
A pleasurable tingle is running up and down my spine, and if I wasn’t hard already, I’d probably get hard now, just from this.
What the fuck, right?
What the fuck is wrong with me?
The tub arrives, carried into our room by two red-faced, wheezing men. It’s made of wood and it’s much bigger than I expected. In the army, we made do with dips in freezing rivers and streams and the occasional shower with a holed bucket set up on something high like a tree branch. I’d only heard of bath tubs, though I have a vague, washed-out memory of one at home as a child. If I didn’t dream that.
Hard to tell sometimes what is a real memory and what a fancy of the mind.
Two women follow with buckets filled with hot water, which they empty inside, and they go and come back another six or seven times until the tub is half full.
The air is filling up fast with warm steam and the smell of the hard green soap the women leave on a stool by the side, along with a bath sheet.
“Oh.” Even Ariadne is distracted by all this ceremony, and she pulls away from me to stare at the tub. “Wow. That inn-keeper really likes you.”
I’m still standing stock still, thinking about my reaction to Finnen’s command.
