[NSFW 18+] Collection #2 | Post 07 - Bathwater (Patreon)

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Disclaimer: this one was a very, very requested request, and inspired by fanart from Stellazzio. Achaicus pov. It's set sometime after returning from Europe, and should be in book 5, but, I'm not 100% sure if I should make it official canon. So for now, it's just for fun, a sort of 'what if' scenario.

The dining hall was filled with the low murmur of conversations that I had no part in and the bustle of movement. My brother wasn’t in attendance. He and his pet were away, seeing to some errand outside of the castle that had left me in charge of Leúchtend. Nathaniel had meant it as a compliment. A show of his trust and faith in me. 

I saw it as a bitter reminder that I wasn’t him, nor was I good enough to be appointed a place in Europe. I emptied what little remained in my wine glass in one swish. This night was alike to many others, filled with expectation and disappointment. Everyone wished for my brother's return. 

Across the table, Feika, my eldest niece, sat beside the Vanir commander Kári. A head taller than her even seated, his expression rested in some neutral bored state, but green-blue eyes tracked my niece with a nervous caution, betraying the attention he was giving her. He readjusted with her every move like a school boy beside his crush, while she paid no mind, reached across the table to place a steak on her plate. 

It wasn’t as if she was ignoring him, rather the telltale shift in her posture set her in such a way that she was angled toward him. The girl holds all the grace of the moon. Many had tried and failed to court her, yet, the savage beside her seemed to be succeeding. I wonder if his charm lay in that he dared not so much as lay a hand on her, let alone stare for too long. His focus fixated entirely on her words, I'd only ever seen one other look at someone with such longing, and that was Eric with my brother. 

I poured myself another glass, perhaps it was a Vanir mating ritual.

Dinnerware clattered around me as others finished their meals, but I stayed put. As the table guests thinned, I caught sight of Karyna. The woman sat with a glass in her hand and spite on her face as she glared over at Fieka and Kári. Her lip pulled into a subtle scowl as she swirled her drink. Noticing me looking at her, she pulled a face, finished her drink and sat back with her arms folded. She apparently disliked watching her brother flirt with my niece. 

*** 

After dinner I stumbled down the hall, wobbling into the wall, I stopped to rest beside a tall potted plant. Perhaps I’d finally had too much to drink, I thought vaguely. I made it to the doorway of my room before another joined me.

“Retreating to your room again?” Karyna asked, leaning against the wall with her arms folded. 

“Trying to,” I muttered. 

“Great. Me too.” She pushed her way past me into my room before I could stop her. 

Karyna stretched upward and unfastened the clips in her hair one by one. It fell in neat waves down her back to the length of her shoulder blades and I watched, mesmerized, as it shimmered like dark chocolate when she shook her head.

“What is it that you want?” I muttered, politely averting my eyes.

She glanced back at me over her shoulder with a faint sneer. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

The glossy sheen of her lips caught the light and I fought for the internal fortitude to resist this Vanir woman with little success. Having Vanir in the castle is a delicate situation to navigate, and this  affair had been ongoing for some weeks. We sought each other for comfort, despite knowing it was a relentless mistake. There’s something broken in her as there is in me, but her warmth is comforting and her scent in my bedsheets isn’t unpleasant. 

“Perhaps I have no use for you tonight,” I countered.

“Just like you have no use for wine?” Karyna responded with feigned concern. Her clothes were falling from her body one item at a time.

I turned away from the alluring curve of her back. “I’m going to bathe, actually.”

Snatching a robe from the dresser I unfastened the thick partitioning curtain and stepped into the bathroom. Leaving her to deal with herself alone. I ran the bath warm and ordered the water to be scented with the fragrance of roses. Unbuttoning my coat, vest and shirt, I slid all three off at once, leaving them in a pile on the floor. 

As I unfastened my belt, I heard the soft swish of the curtains moving. Karyna waited there, her smooth body as elegant and vulgar as roman art. She watched me undress and step into the bath with one hand on her breast, and the other between her thighs, but I ignored it as I sank into the warm water.

“You look good without clothes you know,” she commented.

Nudity was a cultural feature of Vanir, they have no shame. I’d been loathed to let her see me the first time. I’d expected her to run or recoil in horror. She had done neither of those things, only asked if it ‘still worked’, and when I spitefully told her it did, we made love over the desk in my office. It was almost therapeutic. She didn’t comment on my scars, nor did her eyes linger on them.

Regardless, I ignored her comment as I turned to look at her. She had moved fractionally closer, her fingers now were wet with slick to her knuckles, and squelched as she pressed them into herself. It stirred a tight feeling in my lower abdomen and I felt my cheeks heat as I turned away again. I shouldn’t have looked. 

“Got you…” she sighed, giving a soft moan that sent tingles racing down my limbs. Damn this woman.

“You’ll get cold over there,” I muttered.

Karyna needed no further invitation. She joined me in the bath. 

Wet glistened between her thighs, and when she sat, it was directly into my lap with a gentle splash. Her arms settled over my shoulders and her breasts pressed against my chest like plush melons. Fae women didn’t have as much as she did. It was almost excessive, certainly more than I could hold in my hands but that, somehow, made them all the more interesting to touch. 

“I knew you wouldn’t resist for long,” she purred in my ear with all the savagery of a wild woman. 

Her fingers laced into my hair, untangling the braids as she kissed my cheek. I kept my eyes focused across the room to be polite, but wrapped one arm around the small of her back to keep her steady. Her skin was the color of milky coffee against mine and I stopped breathing when I felt her grinding against my thigh. 

“Fine. But this is the last time,” I warned.

Karyna gave a dry chuckle. “Sure it is.”

She rolled her hips forward and I swelled between us. One of her hands slipped downward to encourage me, although I hardly needed it. Her hand wrapped around me to stroke and caress, fingertips tracing over the smooth, pale scars lower down as if it meant nothing. I kissed her throat, and felt the soft squish of her breast in the palm of my hand.

When she was ready, she put me inside her and I lifted her onto me to accommodate. Her breath caught and as the water began to slosh around us, I turned her open mouth to mine. We kissed fiercely, her nails scraped my shoulders and I trust upward into her.

In response she moaned and her thighs tightened around my waist. Her small movements became faster, more frantic, and she began to twitch inside as her breath stifled before all at once relaxing. The heat from between her legs flooded my senses and I shuddered with the release of tension, but nothing filled her.

She sat in my lap, panting, and trembling. Sweat stuck the small strands of her hair to her forehead and she gave an ingratiating smile. “At least I don’t have to worry about getting pregnant,” she taunted, although didn’t move off me.

Karyna’s lips found mine before I could complain and I caressed her face in my hand, letting her dark, shiny hair slip through my fingers. Vanir are unusual creatures, as warm as a furnace and yet somehow, as soft as rose petals. She pulled away from the kiss, pushing my hand away. “Don’t kiss me like that,” her expression scrunched into a sneer.

“It’s how a lady should be kissed,” I argued. I hadn’t kissed her in any special way, the tenderness was what she resented.

“Save it for your Fae ‘ladies’.” She at last detached, leaving me feeling somehow cold as she stepped out of the water. 

“You can wear my robe,” I offered. 

Karyna returned the kindness with a nonchalant shrug. “I have my own clothes.”

She disappeared from the bathroom, and moments later I heard the door to my room open and close. Rarely did she stay the night. Perhaps I should have gone after her, or maybe I should have found it in me to be a better person. This was no way to treat a lady. 

I had tried to pursue her in earnest after the first instance, and she laughed in my face, rejecting true courtship, and leaving me at a loss for what to do. She was the only person not to flee my bedchambers for fear but for lack of want to stay. 

At least she hadn’t tried to ruin my entire family line after discovering my deformities. 

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