The Solider and the Priestess Ch. 01

It was winter. It was wartime. It was snowing. There may have been other factors that mattered in the, but none so much as these. It was bitterly cold—the kind of cold that left beads of ice frozen to your eyelashes, that cut the tip of your nose like a knife, that left those unfortunate enough to be without shelter frozen to the ground like gruesome sculptures. As cruel fate would have it, the worst of the storm was right along the Ilaria and Zanthar border, where the worst of the fighting was centered.

The snow and fog whirled into a whiteout so thick you couldn't see your boots. Suddenly, there was no war. There were no soldiers, no villagers. There were only people, desperate to survive and desperately lost.

Captain Caspian Levan of Zanthar had been alone when the storm hit— and he was certainly alone now. Still, he wasn't terribly worried; he had been trained for this, had been through worse. He knew what to do: burrow into the snow, hunker down, and hope for the best. There were no other options.

Hands out in front of him and stepping lightly, Caspian felt for trees, for a cliff wall, anything that would strengthen his shelter and his chances of survival. What he felt with his leather-gloved fingertips, however, was no stone or branch. It was slim and soft, and yelped with fear at the sudden contact, tripping over its own boots and landing hard on the snowy earth.

Caspian knelt down and found the creature's shoulders, feeling down to small, ungloved hands and up to a cold, heart-shaped face framed in a furry hood. A woman. Odd that she was so far from the camp—she must have gotten lost in the sudden storm.

"Don't be afraid," he said loudly, trying to make his voice heard over the roaring winds. "I'm Captain Levan. Stay with me; we'll make it through this."

The figure was silent, but took his outstretched hand and let herself be bundled into the crook of his arm. More body heat was always better, he knew. But if he didn't get the girl into shelter within minutes, she'd be dead. She was too petite, too ill dressed for this weather. She'd likely lose fingers already.

Caspian knelt to the ground and dug into the firmest snow-bank, feeling his new ally's firm grip on his shoulder as he dug. To his surprise, she knelt down beside him and started to dig too, her little bare fingers blue against the white snow. Caspian batted her hands away, but the girl was determined; every time he swatted her arms away, she bounced right back and tried to dig. Her efforts were futile—the thickest part of her arms were no larger than Caspian's wrists—but something about her determination was endearing to him. The girl was little, but she was fierce.

When his makeshift igloo was sufficiently large, Caspian pushed the girl into the shelter and then crawled in himself. Once inside, he heaped snow against the opening, shutting out the biting wind and snow. Within seconds, it became eerily still and quiet. Caspian took a candle from his pack—he had a dozen, not to mention a lamp—and lit it, wanting to take stock of the shelter and his newfound accomplice.

The girl was curled into a ball against the makeshift wall, rubbing her pale blue hands together and wincing. Even shivering and frostbitten, she was lovely—a good decade younger than his thirty years, and the kind of pretty that could stop a man in his tracks. Even a man as stoic as Caspian. Her hair was a dark, fiery red, twisted around her head in a crown-like braid. Her skin was milk-white and almost impossibly smooth, tinged with lavender at the tip of her pert nose. Her lips were lush and the teeth that were bared as they chattered were perfect white pearls. It was if the sun had never touched her skin, as if illness had never brushed through her body, as if she had never known work or hardship. Her palms were like silk, her fingertips bruised and bloodied where they had tried to help him dig through the frigid snow and ice. Who was she, this dewdrop creature in the midst of a war? She seemed unlikely in every sense of the word.

"What is your name?" he asked, his voice brusque. Commander-like.

The girl slowly blinked her eyes—clear green, like sea glass. She shook her head slightly, looking so hesitant it verged on fearful. It was then that he realized that the cloak she was wearing was deep green. The color worn not by his countrymen, but by those from Ilaria. She had to be one of them. His enemy.

He could tell by her expression that he had deduced her identity. She raised her delicate hands to him, her palms facing outward. As if to show that she had no weapon.

As if a girl like she could be a danger to a man like him.

"What is your name?" he asked again.

"It's Zara." The girl's voice, though heavy with the lilting accent of his enemies, was whisper-soft and sweet as honey. She wasn't shaking anymore, and he knew that wasn't a good sign. It was well below zero outside, and not much warmer within the igloo. He knew she was likely quite frostbitten, not to mention hypothermic, and that if he tossed her back out in the blizzard she'd be dead within minutes.

Because she was an Ilarian, he knew he had the right to take her life. She was a prisoner of war now, really. He didn't have to save her.

But— a tiny voice in the back of his head sprang to life. More body heat was always better in a storm. If she didn't freeze to death, she'd help keep him warm. He could decide what to do with her afterwards, assuming they survived. As the spoils of war, he could kill her or keep her or sell her as he saw fit. The rules of war were brutal.

"Look," he said. "I'm going to help you, not hurt you. We have a better chance of survival if we stick together through this, do you understand?"

He thought she would be nodding in relief, but instead the girl's large eyes were looking more despondent by the moment. "And after?"

"You're a prisoner. A prisoner of war."

"So you think I belong to you."

"And I'm correct. Are you going to cooperate? Or shall I let you freeze?"

"I'll cooperate." Zara inched towards him. "I'm not sure you can stop the freezing at this point, anyhow." She sobbed a short laugh, the rough sound catching in her chest like gravel against gravel.

"You'll find I'm quite warm," he said, a bit gentler. "I'll go slowly, okay? This is going to hurt a bit." He knelt to the ground and held out his hand. Cautiously, the girl lowered herself to the floor and extended her left foot to him. Her boots were fur-lined, he saw in relief, and likely quite warm. When he pulled off her boot, her pretty foot was pale and cold to the touch, but with no sign of blueness or blackness; her feet would be fine. Her fingertips were the bigger issue.

Caspian pulled off his leather gloves and began to rub her small hands between his large, warm ones. He watched for her wince but she didn't flinch; another bad sign. She should be feeling sharp pricks, a deep ache.

He raised her fists to his mouth, let his warm breath cover her skin. He could feel the smoothness of her wrists against his callused fingertips and again he wondered how such a girl had found herself in the middle of a battleground.

She began to shiver, and he felt the slightest of reliefs when her fingers twitched in pain. She still might not make it. Even wrapped in her thick cloak, she looked so small.

He pulled his only blanket from his pack, pleased that it was so large. "Keep rubbing your hands," he ordered, mildly gratified when she obeyed. "How old are you?" he asked, hoping to take her mind of the pain of her defrosting hands while he quickly scanned his supplies.

"Eighteen," she answered softly. She pulled a small blue velvet bag from under her cloak and offered it to him. "This is everything I have."

Eighteen, he thought. Hardly more a woman than a child. He shook the bag's contents out—a small cloth-bound book, a trio of clear stone points, an apple and a crust of bread, two small amber bottles, a canteen, a bundle of herbs, a small knife with a jeweled handle, and a few hazelnuts. Odd, and not much help, although the knife might come in handy and more food was always a good thing.

Both their cloaks were thick and lined with warm furs, and with those and his blanket, combined with the head from their bodies, the might just make it. He had bread and cheese and dried fruit in his pack, as well as his sword, an extra pair of socks, his canteen, his candles and matches, the lamp, and his canvas tarp. Things could be worse.

He laid the canvas tarp on the ground, then laid the blanket on top. "Get under there, and then hand me your cloak," he ordered.

Zara crawled under the thin blanket and handed out the cloak a moment later. He crouched down, and edged himself under the blanket. Like a shot, Zara was somehow pressed against against the farthest wall of the shelter—although that still left her within his arm's reach.

"What the hell?" He gaped at her reaction. She had her arms stretched out either side of her, curled back against the snow. She had to be absolutely freezing—shoeless and gloveless and now without her cloak. To add to that, the long dress she was wearing looked very thin, almost sheer. Though it fell straight from her shoulders to the ground without a single cinch or stitch to give it shape, there was something pleasing about its simplicity. Through the thin cloth he could see the curve of her hip, the sharp indent of her waist, the sharp points of her nipples pressing softly through the cloth. Her braid had fallen from its crown-like shape, and now fell prettily across her thin shoulder.

In the dim light, and with his mind more focused on the shape of her pretty form than on the garment that covered it, it took him a moment to realize that the dress she was wearing was white. White was a sacred color in Ilaria. Nobody wore it. Nobody but the priestesses.

"I cannot lay by a man," Zara said at that moment, clearly aghast.

And then Caspian knew. She was a priestess. An Ilarian priestess. he couldn't believe it. The priestesses were almost a myth in Zanthar. Women who lived in hidden temple, believed in an unseen god, and allegedly had special healing powers. They were known for their goodness and virtue, living nun-like in their temple and venturing out only to aid the sick, wounded, and unfortunate.

Zara made more sense to him now—her unearthly beauty, her sense of innocence, her lack of anger. Even her location deep in the forest made sense; the priestesses' temple was fabled to be hidden in the woods, far from Ilaria's larger cities. He wondered if it was close to where they were now.

Just in time, he remembered the priestess herself, shivering against the ice hardly clothed. He reached out and grabbed her ankle, jerking her roughly down and under the blankets. She struck out against his chest, her feet kicking, shouting out words that he couldn't catch or didn't understand.

He pinned her thin arms against her sides, forcing her to hold still as the weight of the blanket and two cloaks settled back to the ground, instantly warmer than outside of them. "I understand. You're a priestess. You don't wish me to touch you."

She was nodding frantically. Her small hands gripped on to his, as if her strength would be anything more to him than the briefest of nuisances.

"You forget, priestess, that you're a prisoner-of-war now. That you belong to me, and to the country of Zanthar."

"I belong to myself," Zara said firmly. "And to the Order, and the Goddess."

"And to me." Caspian touched her gold face with the back of his hand. Her skin was so very smooth.

She flinched away. "Not to you, sir."

"Then what use are you, to me? If I cannot use you."

Fear flashed through those leaf-green eyes. "Would you harm me?"

"Do you know nothing of war?"

Zara's face became very still. "I know much of war," she countered sadly. "From the temple, I have been hearing the battle for weeks. I feel the deaths, here." She touched her chest, just below her sharp collarbones. "My High Priestess told me not to come down here so early. We are told to wait until the battle is over to help the wounded. I have never failed to obey her. But I felt the pull of injured and I could not wait. I was only trying to help." A slow tear slid down Zara's cheek, freeing just before it hit her jaw. "And now I have failed her. All my sisters will mourn me now."

Caspian almost felt sorry for her. It was easy to forget, here in the igloo, who he was in the outside world. He had not become a captain in the Zanthar army for nothing. His reputation was widespread and fearsome. He was ruthless, spilling more blood than any of the other soldiers in his unit. Killing the innocents, just to drive his point home. There had been many girls not much older than Zara, and hardly less innocent, that he had not treated so kindly. When he closed his eyes, he could se their terrified eyes, their broken bodies, their shallow graves. It was wartime. He did not show mercy.

And yet, had he? He could have let Zara die in the storm. 'But then I'd be colder too,' he reasoned to himself. 'And it would be a pity to let her die so soon. A waste.'

What a pity that would have been, really. That smooth, smooth skin. Never touched. Those rose-petal lips; was it really possible they'd never been kissed? That her copper hair hand never felt a lover's hands through it? He thought of those svelte, innocent curves hidden under her delicate white dress. A waste indeed.

She was still holding herself several inches from his body, and he admired her resolve, knowing she could likely feel the pull of his warmth. He began unbuttoning his shirt. First aid training was simple enough—the more skin-to-skin contact they had, the warmer they'd be.

He explained this to her, but though she understood the science of it, the idea was still enough to make her shake her head and tremble.

He pulled off his undershirt, loosened his trousers and kicked them off too. Thankfully, for Zara, he left his flannel undergarment on.

He tugged at the long sleeve of her dress, thinking this might seem less commanding than ordering her to strip or tearing the damned thing straight over her head.

Slowly and with downcast eyes, the girl unbuttoned the dress and tugged it reluctantly from her body. Underneath, she was wearing some sort of gauzy, silky slip that left little to the imagination. Her shoulders, arms, and legs were bare, and he could see that every inch of her skin was as smooth and white and perfect as her pretty face. Her collarbones were sharp and delicate, and her shoulder blades jutted from her thin back like an angel's wings. Her pert little breasts strained against the cloth, nipples hard as pebbles, and the fabric so light he could even glimpse the pale pink circles of her nickel-sized areolae through it. Her body was narrow and ethereal, but her hips had a hint of womanly fullness, and he imagined that her little ass would be taut and silky and flawless as the rest of her, although she hadn't turned enough to let him see it.

He could hardly hold back a growl at the fairylike perfection of her sweet silhouette; he wanted to sink his teeth into that milky skin and crush those blossom lips between his. He wanted to tear that cobweb of a slip right off that tight little body, and he couldn't help but wonder what her honeyed voice would sound like if he kissed his way up the inside of her creamy thigh.

He knew he had to be scaring her; even a virgin must feel the pulsing tension he was emanating. It was practically a living, breathing thing at this point, panting and twisting its way through his body.

His hands found their way to her tense waist; she was so tiny that his hands easily encircled her, his fingertips even overlapping slightly. He pulled her closer to him, glad to feel the faint heat of her body pressing against his. He almost sighed at how good her body felt. How long had it been since he had lain with a woman? Four weeks, maybe five. And then it had been a tavern-keeper; ten years his senior, bony, pock-marked, with missing teeth, a shrieking laugh and a voice like broken glass. Never in his life had he touched something as beautiful as his priestess, so golden and tempting and pure.

He could feel her nipples against his stomach through her slip, feel the warmth of her soft breath on his chest. Her bare thighs slipped against his much-larger, much rougher, much more thickly muscled legs, and smooth feet just brushed against his ankles.

Her heart was beating rapidly and he knew she was afraid, but her skin was beginning to soak in his radiating heat, and the tip of her nose was slowly fading from lavender to pearly pink.

"Tell me about yourself, priestess," he suggested when twenty minutes had gone by in uncomfortable silence. He felt much better; their shelter was growing warmer, and the press of her firm curves into his body felt sinfully blissful.

"What about?" Her voice was cautious. He wondered how much of her life as a priestess was a secret. He knew little about their way of life.

"Anything," he allowed. "What do you like?"

She looked almost shy. "I like... plants," she managed at last. "And books. Learning new things. I'm still just a student. Just learning. I very much like to heal."

Her face was so earnest that again Caspian felt a pang of pity towards her, an urge to help her that was completely foreign to him.

"Can you heal yourself?" he asked, doubting of her abilities, but curious.

She shook her head. "Only others. I can heal you, perhaps."

"I'm not injured."

She reached out a soft hand to his bare chest and pressed her palm flat against his warm skin. "Not here..." She ran her hand lightly down his sternum, found the place on the left side of his ribcage that he'd bruised in a brawl a few days ago. "Here?"

He shrugged. "Just a little sore."

"Does it hurt when you breathe?" Her voice was more sure than he'd heard it.

"Only a bit."

"You've cracked this one, here," Zara informed him, gently. "May I?"

Caspian shrugged again. "Do your worst, I suppose."

She over his body, reaching for her little pile of belongings, one hand steadying herself by pressing against his shoulder. The position put her hipbones against his abdomen, her concave stomach pressing over his side. Practically on her hands and knees, her ass was so close it was all he could do not to run a hand over the round curve of her cute bottom. Her slip was so short he could see every inch of her smooth thighs, and if she bent forward just an inch more, he was sure her garment would slip up.

He resisted the temptation, calling himself a saint as Zara settled back into the curve of his body, shivering from her brief contact with the outside air. She was holding one of the small amber bottles from her bag.

She unscrewed the bottle's top and let a single drop of clear liquid fall into her palm. She rubbed her fingertips through the drop, then pressed them against his injured rib.

Later, Caspian wasn't sure quite how to describe his first experience with Ilarian healing. Zara hummed softly, moved her fingertips in slow circles over his skin, chanted melodically in a language he'd never heard before. His skin buzzed, her voice chimed like a bell. He felt a slow warmth start at the crown of his head and drip slowly over his body like melting butter, leaving him feeling like he'd had a full, long, dreamless night of sleep—something he hadn't experienced in years.

When it was over, Zara looked a little tired, but happier than Caspian had yet seen her. "The pain is gone," he said, taking deep gulps of air to test it.

She smiled a little for the briefest of minutes, all closed-lips and secrets. "You believe now."

"You knew that I didn't?"