DarkFyre Ch. 09

"What do you mean?"

Silmaria held up a hand in a gesture of helplessness. "For the past few weeks he's shut himself away. I've wanted to see him, to speak with him about...something he told me. But he's left orders not to be disturbed and locked himself away in his room, or in the study. He attends official business with Selm and makes sure the guard are doing their business properly, and that's it."

"Strange," Tomas muttered. "Do you think maybe his injuries are effecting him worse than he's letting on?"

"How so?" Silmaria asked, confused.

"I mean," Tomas explained, "He's a Lord, a Knight, a leader of men, and a bloody fine warrior besides. A man like that has his pride. And he'd not want to acknowledge hurt and pain and injury to others. He wouldn't want to let others see him as weak."

"Men," Silmaria rolled her eyes. "You're right, I could see something like that happening. He didn't want me to even treat his wounds to begin with. But...I don't know. I feel something deeper at work. Something's got him awful preoccupied."

"I'm sure he has much to worry about," Tomas nodded.

"Undoubtedly," Silmaria agreed. She yawned, then arched her back and reached over her head in a cat-like stretch.

Tomas eyed her for a moment, then gave a wry smirk. "Well, I think I'll be fine here. I'm sure old Lirena will be back in a few hours. You've seen to me, so there's no worry, I won't be killing over in my sleep. You can run along now."

Silmaria's brows rose slightly. "I'm perfectly happy to stay here and keep you company for awhile. Unless you don't want me here?"

Tomas shook his head. A pinched, bitter expression passed over his face. Silmaria had seen it before, when he came out of his fever and realized the extent of his injuries and scarring. Then he flashed his self-depreciating smile. "Nothing like that, I just figured you had better things to be doing than playing nursemaid to an ugly old guard."

The Gnari woman stared at him frankly for a moment. The man was neither ugly nor old, really, even with the scarring. Oh, it would deter the shallow lasses not worth their salt, but anyone with sense would be able to see the worth and character of the man beneath the scar.

"Nothing at all in the world I'd rather be doing right now, actually," she said with a nod, and a slowly spreading smile. "What can I do to make you more comfortable, at least?"

Tomas rubbed the short golden stubble on his chin, looking a touch perplexed. "I'm fine, really. I'm mostly healed past hurting now, and what little pain I have Lirena keeps at bay with her tonics and medicines. I'm about as comfortable as a bedridden guard can be in an infirmary. I don't think you can do much more for me."

"I could suck your cock," Silmaria offer nonchalantly.

If Tomas had the strength to spring up out of his bed, she had a good feeling he would have done just that. As it was, the guardsman looked at her incredulously with his mouth agape.

Silmaria gave him a cat-ate-the-canary smile. She leaned closer, bending forward and meeting his eyes in such a way that let the front of her dress scoop forward to offer a tantalizing and quite purposeful look at her deep, plentiful cleavage. "Don't look so surprised, Tomas. I know I have a reputation around the house, and I'm sure it's even more well known in the barracks. I don't mind. Especially since it happens to be true."

"I'm almost twice your age," Tomas protested, though his eyes were quite plainly feasting upon the view she so boldly offered.

"You exaggerate," she countered with a grin. "You haven't even started going gray yet. And even if you had, I've happily fucked men twice my age, more than a few times. It doesn't matter."

Tomas swallowed heavily. She was effecting him, she knew. She reached a hand out, and laid her palm just below his chest. The guard's expression shifted, then, and he gave her a look of suspicious apprehension. "I don't want pity. I don't need it."

Silmaria's face softened, then she let her hand slide lower, under the sheets of his bed, and her slender, skilled fingers wrapped around the length of him and began to caress and stroke languidly. Tomas tensed, his eyes flickering, and he couldn't help but immediately respond to her intimate touch.

"This isn't about pity, Tomas, or even sympathy. My reputation is well deserved. I like sex. And I'm not shy about it. I don't want to pleasure you because I pity you. I want to pleasure you because I would enjoy it. And, even more important, because you deserve it. You are a good, decent, brave man. The sort of man who risks his life to protect his people and his House and his holdings. A man like that is rare, and should receive whatever comfort he can have, carnal or otherwise. I'm more than happy to give it, if you'll let me."

"This is...I don't know," Tomas said, but his protests were weak and fading fast.

"This is what?" Silmaria said with a smile, running her hand up and down the length of Tomas's shaft, caressing and stroking before her thumb brushed along the sensitive, swollen head, where she found droplets of his precum. She swirled the precum around the crown of his cock, then raised her thumb up to her mouth to suck the sweet stickiness off. Her smile was inviting and mischievous. "Good, I hope?"

"Gods yes," Tomas breathed, and then smiled nervously at her as he began to relax at last. "Sorry. I'm just not usually one to...er..."

"Go whoring?" Silmaria suggested, then laughed at his panicked reaction. "I know, Tomas. Like I said, you're a good man. And that's why I want to do this."

Without another word, Silmaria scooted her stool closer to the side of Tomas's bed, and tugged his sheet back enough to expose his cock. The Gnari leaned in, cradling his cock, which was pleasantly impressive, and dipped her head down to the guardsman's lap.

Tomas let out a soft groan as Silmaria ran her talented pink tongue along his dick in a long, wet drag from his base to his head, bathing his length in saliva. She swirled her tongue along his bulbous head, tasting the precum she'd smeared all over his glans. Her tongue flipped across the crown of his cockhead, that flared, sensitive rim, and then along the underside of it where head met shaft. Then she kissed her way to the tip of Tomas's cock, before she slid her full, plump lips down around his cock, enveloping him inch after inch into the wet, supple heat of her hungry mouth.

Silmaria mewled softly with pleasure as her mouth filled with the taste of his swollen meat. He was clean and tasting of sex and male. It was delicious. She took him deeper, much to Tomas's shuddering enjoyment, her tongue slipping and swirling along his thick shaft all the way.

She loved every moment; she wasn't in the grip of her Stirring, but Silmaria had always enjoyed the taste and smell and feel of a man filling her mouth and throat, and even without the stirring ravaging her body and driving her out of her mind and senses, Silmaria was a highly sexual creature and reveled in it. Now, she was simply enjoying the mutual pleasure of servicing a man who deserved some kindness and warmth.

Tomas shuddered, his cock throbbing with pleasure as Silmaria bobbed her head up and down his length, her thick, dark hair spilling in a curtain of curls framing her exotic face. She stared up at him, her slitted eyes green and alive with mischief and satisfaction as she took the man's cock deeper with each bobbing downstroke.

Soon, Silmaria had the guard's thick cock buried down her throat, and the tight muscles there milked and gripped his shaft. She gagged softly as she buried her nose in his pubic hair, the full length of his meat stuffed down her throat and weighing heavy and warm along her flicking tongue. She looked into the man's eyes, slurping wetly, and finally drew back. She sucked in a deep lungful of air through her nose, refusing to release that warm, hard cock from her wetly sucking mouth.

Silmaria put full effort into pleasuring him, giving Tomas an enthusiastic, sloppy blowjob, sucking and slurping, her lips supple and silken as they glided along Tomas's slick shaft. Her saliva spilled in glistening little ropes from the corners of her mouth, running down her chin and his cock as she stuffed his meat into her throat over and again. The guard's hands rose to slide into her hair, not pushing her head down or showing much force, but giving her encouragement and letting her feel his pleasure through his hands.

With a purr, Silmaria buried his cock down her contracting, gripping throat, her moaning and purring vibrating around his shaft to drive his pleasure even higher as her saliva spilled wet and warm to cover his aching balls.

"Sil, I'm going to cum, I'm gonna," Tomas groaned out his warning, panting.

The Gnari girl slipped his cock from the hot confines of his throat, but only enough to keep his head in her mouth, under the deliciously tormenting circle and swirl of her tongue. She stared up into his eyes as she gripped his swelling shaft, running her fingers up and down the saliva coated length of his dick as she waited to get her reward.

Tomas's hips lifted weakly from the bed and he gasped as he came. His seed released in a wet rush, thick ropes of sticky cum spurting thick and warm to coat her tongue and splatter all over the inside of her mouth. He came again, and again, and Silmaria happily swallowed him down, her tongue swirling and lapping at his cock and tasting his creamy release. She slurped on his seed, swallowing, letting the warmth coat her throat and experiencing the full pleasure of his orgasm, the taste, the heat, the thick coating in her belly. She stared up at him through it all, basking in the pleasure of service and a job wonderfully done.

When at last his orgasm was at an end, Tomas sagged back into his bed, breathing heavily. He looked supremely spent, and his smile was one of satisfied exhaustion.

"You're an angel," he stated.

Silmaria allowed herself to giggle. She wiped the corners of her mouth, then covered him back up with his sheet and an extra blanket. "No, I'm a whore, remember?"

"Same thing, this time," Tomas said sleepily. He pulled the blankets in closer and shut his eyes, relaxed and content. "Thank you."

"You deserved it," Silmaria smiled, and meant it.

She placed a kindly, innocent little kiss to the top of his head, not caring that her lips brushed his scar.

Tomas was snoring softly before she could even quietly leave the room.

***

House IronWing was settling down for the night's rest. The servants were making their way to their pallets, ready for sleep after a long day's work. The sun had set long ago and the moon was up, full and round and heavy in the night sky, its radiant silver light comingling with the stars sprinkled about the heavens like so many brilliant gems. The night was cold, but not oppressively so. It was a good night for sleep.

But sleep eluded Silmaria. She tried sitting on her pallet for a time, waiting to get tired. After a day's labor, sleep was rarely a problem for her, but tonight she just could not seem to be still. Her thoughts raced each other in her head, yet she couldn't really seem to pin any of them down to concrete notions. They were flitting, fickle things, her thoughts tonight.

Finally, Silmaria rose and slipped into her warmest dress. She tossed on her cloak, the simple wool one that had been given to all the servants about a month ago to ensure everyone stayed warm and well as winter's grip hardened on the land. Bundled thusly, the Gnari girl slipped out of her chambers, made her way on silent feet along the Manor halls, and out one of the back doors into the cold of the night.

Most people would have thought her foolish, walking out into the winter night. The freshly fallen snow crunched softly under her slippered feet. But she was able to keep warmer than most, thanks to her pelt, and she'd never much minded the cold.

The Gnari woman wandered through the gardens at the back of the Manor, stepping around the rows of sleeping flowers buried under snow that would bloom with color and vibrancy when winter fled. The evergreens reached far overhead, their boughs sheltering and broad, letting the occasional dusting of snow slip down from their branches to tickle her face. She drew in a deep breath, the cold shocking her lungs as she let the smell of pine and fresh snow and clean, crisp air soak into her.

On the far side of the snowed in garden, in a small clearing ringed by ancient pines whose boughs reached longingly toward one another, sat two grave stones marking the resting place of the Lord and Lady Edwin IronWing. Lord Edwin had chosen to break tradition and not be entombed with his forefathers in the House IronWing burial hall set in the stones beneath IronWing Manor. Lady IronWing couldn't stomach the thought of being buried in that dark, cold place, Master Edwin had told Silmaria, and requested to be buried someplace under the sun and stars, where there was beauty and green things that grew. Master Edwin had chosen to be buried beside his wife instead of with his fathers.

Silmaria couldn't say for sure what drew her here tonight. Perhaps she was lonely. Perhaps she just needed to feel close to Master Edwin and his House and his study just was not offering her that solace anymore.

Perhaps she was coming to finally make her peace with the man, the father, and the lover she'd loved so dearly.

Whatever the case, she wasn't alone.

He was crouched down in the snow, his back turned to her, one big hand resting on Master Edwin's gravestone, but there was no mistaking the broad, strong shape of Lord Rael. He didn't speak; whatever thoughts or words he had for his father were kept silent and between the two of them. The Gnari girl could read the depth of feeling in the man in that moment just from the set of his body. Feeling suddenly like an outsider watching something deeply personal, Silmaria turned to go.

"I would give much for his guidance right now," Rael said, almost whistfully.

Silmaria turned to face her Lord once more. Rael stared at his father's resting place still, not acknowledging her, and almost she could believe he'd just spoken aloud and not to her at all. But she knew. He rose slowly to his feet and simply stood there, staring down at his parents, quiet and somber.

Steeling herself, Silmaria stepped up to his side, and stood with him. For a time, they shared a silent vigil together. Finally Master Edwin was no longer an unbridgeable divide stretching between them. They stood together at last, with the man before them, loved and respected by them both.

Lord Rael reached out and took her small hand into his large one, his fingers wrapping around hers, full of warmth and strength. Silmaria didn't even question it; in that moment, it seemed the most natural thing in the world, as if it would have been strange if he hadn't done so.

That was the first time Silmaria had felt truly connected to someone, sharing something so deep and heartfelt with another, in what seemed like a very long time. They needed no words, no explanation to one another. Lord Rael felt it, too, she was sure of it, sure of it in her bones. It was simple, and it was clean.

It was good.

"I'm lost, Silmaria," he said after what seemed a lifetime, and far too soon.

The serving girl looked up at him at last, craning her head back to stare up into his face, the moonlight showing him perfectly clear to her acute night-eyes. She was surprised to see his handsome visage transformed by exhaustion, his face haggard and worn. There were dark circles under his eyes. His face had a pinched, worried look, his cheeks seeming sharp angled and severe. His beard was grown shaggy and thick and obviously hadn't been groomed in a few days, and he looked as if he hadn't eaten a proper meal in as long.

"My Lord, what's wrong? You look horrible."

"I need answers, Silmaria. Answers to a very important question. A life changing question. I must find answers, or I'm lost. I don't know if I can find them anymore. I've looked so hard, and just when I thought I'd come upon something, it vanished in smoke. I'm tired. So tired."

Silmaria's face twisted with worry. She'd never seen him this way; always before, Lord Rael had seemed unshakably steady and sure. An endless fount of strength and valiancy. She sensed a desperate exhaustion in him now, and it was unsettling. She twined her fingers more firmly around his and squeezed his big hand.

"What do you need answers to?"

Rael was quiet for several moments, and she wondered if he'd even heard her. "It doesn't matter," he said at last. "I've searched every tome and book and scrap of lore and knowledge I safely can. All other sources are full of risk and danger."

"So be dangerous," Silmaria suggested.

That brought his attention around. He stared down at her, his brows furrowed thoughtfully. "Be dangerous?"

"Be dangerous," Silmaria repeated, looking up at him, and shrugged. "You said you have to find these answers. That you're lost without them. The only answers left will be dangerous and risky. But you've never struck me as a man to fear danger, my Lord."

He stared at her for a time longer, then turned his eyes back to the gravestones. "Perhaps not."

Silmaria stood there beside him, letting him mull that over. She let her eyes slip over his face, severe and somber. She couldn't imagine the weight he bore on those broad shoulders. Almost, she'd thought before, he bore it without feeling. But now she saw the truth of how heavy it weighed on him.

The realization only made her respect him more.

She knew then, that her animosity had fully died. She had finally separated the pain and lost she'd held onto for so long from him, and could fully admit that he was a good Lord, a good man, and a good son.

"My Lord. I want you to know, I was wrong. I..."

Her words fell off unsaid as she noted a strange flicker of light dancing along Lord Rael's face. An orange glow was cast along his tall, powerful form and the countryside surrounding them, glittering on the powdery snow. It was cast from behind them.

Silmaria turned. Rael looked down at her, seeing the Gnari girl's face frozen in an expression of disbelief, those big emerald feline eyes wide with horror. Finally he noted the intensifying orange light casting its flickering, glowing light around them, and he turned.

He went as still and as captivated as she.

"No," he whispered with disbelief.

IronWing Manor, the seat of power to the Nobles of House IronWing, home to them both, had stood unchanged for more than three hundred years.

And now it was burning to the ground.

***

I do so love me some cliffhangers.

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