Page 91 of The Truth of Our Past: Unframed Art MM Romance

“You’re all right? You’re really all right?”

Ophele asked between kisses as Remin carried her across the room, pushing back against his chest to verify the lack of blood.

She had been imagining all manner of horrors ever since nightfall.

“I will prove it.”

Remin sat her on the bed and bent to give her a kiss so deep and searing that it burned every thought from her mind.

Distantly, she was aware that he was disrobing, breaking the kiss just long enough to pull his shirt over his head.

“I didn’t…see,”

she said against his lips, and gasped as he tore her chemise from hem to neck. “Remin!”

“I want you,”

he breathed, dragging her back onto the mattress with a sinuous roll of his big body.

His skin was like ice, his hair plastered to his head from the rain outside, but his tongue was warm when he bent his head to lick up her belly.

Ophele shuddered.

“You’re so cold,”

she said, pulling him to her, urging him above her.

“We have to get you warm…”

It was hot inside her.

She couldn’t tear her eyes from his as he pressed urgently against her, already hard, his hips rolling up to slide himself back and forth against the slim saddle between her legs, coaxing slippery desire from her.

Once, twice, and a third time, a teasing preparation, and she was looking straight into his black gaze when he pushed, caught, and slid inside her .

“I’m home,”

he said hoarsely, and his mouth covered hers.

He was home.

Ophele wrapped her arms around him, wrapped her legs around him, and held him to her.

It was all so familiar, his scent, the way he moved, she even knew the feel of him under her fingers, the roll of his muscles and the flat gouges and slices of scar tissue that patterned his body.

She knew him in the dark, she would have known him anywhere, even from just the sound of his deep voice as he gasped his pleasure.

With every sense, she drew him in and felt as if her world was whole again.

“Ahhh…haaa…”

he panted and bent his head, crushing her mouth under his.

“You’re taking me… so deep…”

“I missed you.”

There were tears on her cheeks.

She shook them away impatiently, her voice quavering between octaves as his hips smacked into hers.

“Ohhhhh, harder, harder!”

This was a feast after a long famine, and Remin devoured her.

She felt his teeth, she felt his tongue, she felt the hungry grip of his hands as they rocked together, feeding something worse than hunger.

The rolling motion of his body was like a kiss between their skins.

Further he drove into her, straining into her depths, his long thighs stroking ceaselessly against hers.

His breath was hot now.

It burned her throat as he panted, faster and faster, pounding her cries of pleasure from her until at last he filled her with that rushing white heat that made her mind haze, and her body sing with completion.

And then they lay together in a tangle of limbs, and Ophele laid her head on his chest to hear the deep, regular thumping of his heart.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,”

she said, almost purring as his big hand slid lazily up and down her naked back.

Remin’s caresses made her feel as contented as a cat.

In the afterglow, she examined his body and found it whole, except for a massive purple bruise on his left forearm.

Appalled, she lifted it and turned it over to find a matching bruise on the other side.

If it hurt him, he gave no sign. “Oh, Remin. Was it…very bad?”

“It wasn’t easy.”

He nuzzled the top of her head and gently withdrew his arm.

“I will tell you about it tomorrow, wife.

Did you keep yourself well?”

“I missed you,”

she said again.

“So much.

But…did you find it? ”

“We found something,”

he said, with careful emphasis.

“Exactly where you said we would, little owl.

I had sketches made, and we’ll discuss it tomorrow.

And there was something… else out there.”

Ordinarily, this would have been as good as torture, dangling these tantalizing tidbits for her brain to pick at.

But Ophele decided she could wait, just this once.

Rolling onto her stomach, she propped her chin on his chest to better admire him, tracing the familiar angles of his face.

Even by lamplight, she could see the paler skin where his beard had been, the high blades of his cheekbones reddened by ice and wind and cold.

“You shaved,”

she realized. “When?”

“Mmm. I did,”

he said, rubbing his palm over his jaw, looking a little embarrassed.

“I stopped by the baths on the way back.”

“What? Why?”

“Six weeks without a bath,”

he said bluntly.

“I know how everyone else smelled, I didn’t want to come home to you like that.”

“But…when did you get home? I thought you weren’t coming,”

she said, trying and failing to keep her voice steady.

If she was being fair, she knew she would have felt the same, but the thought that he had been in Tresingale all night while she had been listening so anxiously for him made her chin wobble treacherously.

“Less than an hour ago,”

he said reassuringly.

“I’m sorry, little owl.

Juste wanted to send a messenger, but I thought I’d surprise you.

Next time I’ll let him.”

She nodded, burying her face in his chest.

It wasn’t just the hour’s delay.

Suddenly everything she needed to say to him bubbled up all at once and it took everything she had to keep it from bursting forth in an avalanche, all the fear and misery she had hidden for so long.

But not yet.

He had only just come home. It could not be too much to ask, to have a little happiness first.

“I guess I would do the same,”

she said, when she had swallowed it all down, and lifted her head to try to smile.

“I love you. So much.”

“I love you.”

His kiss was rough with apology.

“Now tell me what you’ve been up to, while I was away.”

“Sir Ortaire came back,”

she said, which was surely the most important of Tresingale’s recent events.

“Did they tell you? He brought back seventy-six people from Meinhem. ”

“Yes, Juste told me about it in the baths.

We brought back two from Nandre.”

His expression darkened.

“A boy and a girl.

Everyone else is dead.

But we will speak of that tomorrow.

What else?”

“Magne…Magne arrived,”

she said, shaken.

Davi had said over two hundred people had lived in Nandre.

All of them were dead? “He has been repairing your clothing.

Duke Ereguil says he’s touched.”

“Touched?”

“Simple, I guess?”

Ophele was not entirely sure of the definition of this condition.

“But he is very good, you’ll see tomorrow.

You have to be nice to him.”

“Hmm.”

Remin rumbled noncommittally.

“Duchess Ereguil said there’s a purpose for everyone under the stars, and his is to care very much about your clothing,”

she said, and won a smile.

“I suppose someone should,”

he conceded, and listened as she told him about her study of the problem at the docks, the progress of Jacot’s lessons, the vast quantities of harvesting, pickling, and preserving underway, and how much help Sir Auber’s family had been, settling the refugees.

There, at least, Ophele felt proud that everyone had done their absolute best.

“What about Leonin and Davi?”

he asked.

“Have you made a decision?”

“Yes, but I can’t tell you until we’re all together, they made me promise,”

she said, at peace with the agreement.

It had all been much friendlier once they had agreed among themselves what House Andelin’s hallows were meant to be.

“Oh, and Master Didion and I finished choosing the décor for the upstairs, and your dressing room.

We were talking about mine, and he said you told him six times that you didn’t care.”

“That is true.

What did you pick?”

“Pink carnations,”

she replied, and burst into giggles as he tickled her vengefully.

“I have to tell you about Lady Houvrin’s parlor, don’t let me forget.

Master Didion showed me a design for your room that was all leather chairs and forest green and these huge cabinets on the front and back wall, for your jewelry and belts and that shoulder harness you like to wear.

The leather one.

So everything can be put away and tidy. And you need more jewelry, everyone says so. ”

“Who’s everyone?”

“Magne, Adelan, Leonin, Master Didion, and Lady Verr,”

she said, ticking them off on her fingers.

Magne had been so shocked at the lack that Ophele had undertaken a quiet survey.

“Lady Verr said that most gentlemen wear a different chain every day, and a tall man can carry off even a very heavy one.”

“I’m sure she did,”

he said, looking displeased.

Ophele had to admit he was a little unreasonable on the subject of Lady Verr.

“What is your opinion?”

“Well…you said I should wear what I like,”

she said.

“I am sure you would look splendid, but your onyx chain is so heavy, it can’t be comfortable.”

“Perhaps Tiffen will have ideas,”

Remin mused.

“The chains are like your fine gowns, wife, cumbersome if I want to actually do anything.

Though, if you want to know the truth…”

His black eyes gleamed, and the fingers that had been gently stroking over her back moved over the meaningful curve of her backside.

“I prefer you like this,”

he murmured, bending so that his lips tickled her ear.

“All the way home, like a vision, I kept seeing my wife’s breasts.”

It was amazing how just the look in his eyes could make it hard to speak.

“I kept looking for you,”

she breathed, insinuating her body against his and letting her fingers drift down the ridges of his abdomen.

“When I woke up, I was reaching for you.”

“I’m here now.”

His breath caught as she began to stroke him.

It was so thrilling to see him respond to her, fierce creature that he was.

“I see,”

she whispered, and bent her head to bite his stomach and watch him twitch.

He was already swelling, heating and hardening against her palm.

“You can squeeze a little harder,”

he said, sounding breathless.

“And stroke—oh, stars, wife, yes—”

It was intoxicating.

Her breath came faster, and she felt an echoing throb between her thighs as she caressed him, long strokes, squeezing him to make his thigh muscles twitch.

He had been showing her how to please him and it had been embarrassing at first, but she loved seeing this look on his face, when he lost himself in pleasure .

“You’re going to…finish me,”

he groaned, thrusting into her hand.

She could feel the deep, heavy pulse of him against her palm.

“Do you want me to?”

she asked, thrilled and frightened at the idea, and curious what it would look like.

His body was so strange and wonderful.

“Not tonight.”

When he rolled over her, it was with a fluid ripple of muscle, his wide shoulders casting her into shadow.

And it was just as exciting to give herself up to him, to completely inhabit his every touch, every kiss, every caress.

“Remin…”

she pleaded, her hips arching toward him. “Please…”

They moaned together when he slid back inside her, and the sound of their voices rising together was arousing all by itself.

Stars, how his voice made her shiver, the huffing sound he made when he was excited, his deep groan as her body tightened on him, tugging him deeper inside her.

And those perfect moments when their bodies came together in flawless rhythm, when it seemed that they were breathing together.

Again.

And again, when he rolled her over and took her from behind, hot and urgent, sinking his teeth into the back of her neck.

He filled her again and again and she loved it when he did, and loved it when he turned her over to kiss her flat belly afterward, as if blessing the night’s work.

“Is there any sign yet?”

he asked, trailing a line of tender kisses to her navel.

“No,”

she admitted reluctantly.

Honestly, she had no idea what these signs might be, but nothing seemed any different.

Nothing in her reading explained how it happened, or what to look for, and she could only assume that Remin was doing whatever he was supposed to do to make a baby.

Ought she already know this? Remin seemed to think so.

“Mmm.”

He stretched out beside her and kissed her.

“There is time.

We’re safe in the valley.

Don’t worry yourself.”

“I want it, too,”

she said, reddening.

It was true, though she was also still trying to get herself used to the idea that it would really happen, that sooner or later she would carry and bear a little son or daughter.

It was the carrying and bearing that unnerved her.

Her own body was an even greater mystery to her than his.

But the thought of having a Victorin or Sidonie at the end of it, little black-haired babies just like their father, made her indescribably happy .

“When the stars grant it.”

His deep voice rumbled with contentment.

“I just want to see them…”

He hardly ever fell asleep first.

But in a few minutes his breathing was deep and even, and he must have been so tired, after so many cold, dangerous, sleepless nights.

Gently, Ophele touched his cheek, admiring his exotically tilted eyes.

He looked younger when he was asleep.

Though it was warm and comfortable in his arms, she slipped out of bed to build up a fire.

It had been very cold at night lately, cold enough that she had awakened a few times, shivering under the blankets.

How wonderful to have the option of a fire.

There had been many cold nights at Aldeburke, but back then, there was nothing to be done but curl up smaller.

Scooping up his wet clothes, she hung them over a chair to dry and then padded to their dressing rooms to fetch fresh clothes for him for the morning, and a new chemise for herself.

He could not get into the habit of tearing her clothes off her, she would never be able to explain it to Emi and Peri.

The thought made her smile.

Pausing in the door of the bedroom, she looked at him, lying on his side like a small mountain range in their vast bed.

His black hair was sticking up in tufts.

Thank the stars, he was home.

* * *

“Don’t glare at him,”

Ophele whispered as they parted the next morning, each to their own dressing rooms.

Her face was still pink from Remin’s vigorous morning salutations.

“He’s been working very hard on your wardrobe.”

Many things had changed while Remin was away.

“Your Grace,”

said the small, gray valet, whose presence underscored the necessity of getting Ophele a proper morning robe.

He bowed without meeting Remin’s eyes.

“Welcome home.

I am Magne.”

“Her Grace tells me you’ve been improving my closet,”

Remin replied, turning the heavy key to his dressing room.

Ophele had explained that even Magne had not been allowed into his dressing room without her supervision, a restriction that Remin heartily approved.

“When did you arrive? ”

“Two weeks ago, Your Grace.

Oh—I will show you,”

the smaller man added, moving in a scuttling half-bow toward the closet.

“I have been working.”

“I see that.”

Remin paused in the door of the closet, his eyes going over the neatly hung clothing, grouped by type and by color.

He hadn’t known he had so much clothing.

“All this is mine?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Magne busied himself in the racks, flipping rapidly through the articles to produce a blue brocade jerkin and freshly laundered linen shirt.

“Lady Verr, she said today Her Grace will wear blue.

Today is important.

Breeches?”

“Well, if it’s an important day,”

Remin said dryly, watching as Magne produced charcoal breeches and black hosen, both impeccable.

Had Duchess Ereguil sent another shipment? The armload of clothes all smelled pleasantly of soap, and he shifted back into the dressing room to change, eyeing his new valet.

There was not a nobleman in the Empire that did not have at least one.

And the tidy closet filled with clean clothing was certainly agreeable.

But Remin did not like dressing with another person in the room.

At all.

Magne did tie the laces of his jerkin far more neatly than his own impatient knots, but it made him deeply uncomfortable to let strangers near him. His face hardened into deep, forbidding lines as Magne arranged his doublet, watching the old man’s hands for the least suspicious movement.

“There, there it is nice, Your Grace.”

Magne backpedaled speedily, waving his hands.

“I will get your boots.”

“Thank you,”

Remin made himself say, sitting down in the only chair.

He wasn’t sure he could get used to this.

“No jewelry?”

Magne extended a pair of high boots with both hands.

It was half question, half complaint.

“I do not care for jewelry.”

“No jewelry…”

Magne’s lips pursed, and his watery blue eyes wandered toward the door.

“Buttons can be nice.

Gold, silver, jeweled.”

“Ask Her Grace,”

Remin replied, straightening.

If he had his way, all his buttons would have been made of wood and could have been replenished by a trip out of doors.

“I prefer to dress plainly unless I have a reason to do otherwise.

Keep my things clean and repaired, and I will be content.

Anything else, you may consult my wife. ”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

There was no mistaking the relief in the old man’s face.

After producing a cloak Remin was positive he had never seen before in his life, Magne departed at a half-crouch, backward through the dressing room door.

Today, there was a reason to dress formally.

He only had to wait a few minutes before Ophele appeared in the hall, dressed in a blue gown to match him, modest and scholarly with her hair piled on top of her head and ribbons about her neck, waist, and sleeves.

To him, it accentuated rather than obscured her lack of actual jewelry, and Remin frowned.

She ought to have jewelry, even if he did not care for it; he was wealthy enough that she could wear a different jewel on every finger, if she liked.

“You look well, wife,”

he said, accepting the cloak from Lady Verr and settling it over Ophele’s shoulders.

There was not much to be done about jewels now, with winter close upon them, and he could only hope that the tailor would arrive with some small store for her gowns.

Come spring, he would send someone to see if there were any jewels in the world to match her eyes.

By now, most of his men would be on their way to the council room at the barracks to discuss what they had discovered.

It was a meeting of some significance, and he was attending not just in his capacity as the commander of the Andelin, but as its lord.

Ophele had earned the right to be present, but as soon as he started thinking about what she was actually going to hear, he felt a pang of misgiving.

“I don’t know if you should come,”

he said, pausing on the front steps of the house.

“I’m not sure I want you to hear this.

It will not be a pleasant tale.”

“I know.

I saw the people from Meinhem when they came in,”

she replied, looking up at him with solemn eyes.

“I know what happened to them.”

“It will be something else to hear Ortaire tell it directly.

And Nandre was worse.”

“I know,”

she said again.

Her mouth set in a stubborn line.

“Remin, I don’t think you should protect me from this.”

Her voice was gentle but firm, and he hated it.

He couldn’t even articulate why this bothered him.

He wanted nothing more than to build a garden around her and wall her up inside it, beyond the reach of any ugly or evil thing.

He didn’t want her to know about devils, starvation, violence, and death.

And he didn’t want her to hear how he had failed to protect his people.

But she already knew that.

He had told himself he would not treat her like a child.

Remin swung up onto Lancer’s back and held out a hand to her.

“All right,”

he said grimly.

“But if it’s too much, nudge me, and I’ll call for a break.

I don’t want you having nightmares.”

“Do you ever have them?”

she asked, glancing up at him.

“Sometimes,”

he said shortly, and lapsed into silence.

As they walked into the round, echoing council room, the sight of his men gathering at the long table and sitting in chairs along the walls only underscored the faces that were missing.

Rollon, and the twelve good men who had gone with him to Nandre.

The twelve who had died in the old forest and on the Spur.

Seventeen dead on the road to Meinhem.

Huber and his fifty, who might arrive tomorrow, or never be seen again.

Remin took his place at the head of the table, with Ophele at his side.

“Could I have something to write with?”

she whispered, eying the crowd nervously.

She was used to the knights of the Brede, but there were a great many more Knights of the Andelin, as well as the commanders of the Third Company.

“There will be secretaries transcribing,”

he said, waving one of them over.

“So don’t worry about writing down every word.

Paper, quill, and ink for Her Grace.”

Once everyone had assembled, there were a few formalities to be endured before they could get to business, and Remin rose from his chair to offer his respects to the living and the dead.

“We have been told that those who went to Nandre are lost,”

he said bluntly.

“Sir Rollon and the men that went with him knew that it would be dangerous.

They volunteered to go because they believed they could save the people of Nandre.

Sir Rollon himself protected the last of them, a boy and a girl that we have brought back to Tresingale. ”

The words came out clear and dispassionate, but Remin tasted bile.

He could not imagine telling this news to Huber, when Rollon had been very nearly his son.

But now was not the time to contemplate it, and he shoved it down hard, deep, all his grief and guilt and anger, locked them in a dark place for later.

His jaw tightened as he spoke of the other dead, twelve men he had known for many years, who had made this sacrifice with their eyes wide open.

“Tonight, we will lift our cups to them,”

he finished.

“In a few days, Brother Oleare will offer his prayers for their journey among the stars.

Their names will be carved into the foundation of our Temple.”

There was a moment of heavy silence, where they might offer their own prayers, if they liked.

Remin did not.

There was a time and a place to dwell on those who had died at his command, and this was not it.

“But we are here now, and we have work to do,”

he went on briskly.

“Of my own journey, I will tell you this: we found something.

Its value is not yet determined.

We will come to that in time. Ortaire.”

Remin took his seat as Ortaire rose, a very thin young man with spiky auburn hair and green eyes.

There was a healing gash on the right side of his face.

“We lost seventeen.”

Ortaire began with the fact that was uppermost in his mind.

“All of them on the journey out.

The palisades worked well, for the most part.

A wolf demon got in one night.

There was a rise a little way from the camp, and I didn’t think it would be able to make the jump.”

He was young.

Nineteen years old, and only a knight for a year.

It did not occur to Remin that he himself was only twenty-four; to him, Ortaire was still barely more than a boy, and it was strange and unsettling to see him standing so straight and coolly describing what had happened when a wolf demon leaped over the north palisade, bringing down a three-foot section of the wall.

A wolf demon inside the close quarters of a palisade was the worst possible scenario.

“It killed a half-dozen men before we took it down,”

he went on.

“Two men died closing the palisade, some stranglers dragged them off.

The stranglers were bad, Your Grace.

Even once we were deep enough in the woods for tree camps, they were coming up from every side, all at once.

The gorgets saved all of us at least once, but we lost quite a few men from falls. Or being thrown. ”

His mouth twisted with impotent fury.

“They started doing that when they couldn’t strangle us,”

he said tightly.

“Dragging people over the barricades and letting them drop.”

Ophele’s quill scratched busily, noting these details.

It was more evidence of the cruel cunning of stranglers.

“The last people in Meinhem were living in the granary when we got there.

It looked like some of them tried to build another stone structure, but either something broke into it or it got them before they could finish it.

There were more dead in shallow caves up and down the riverbank; the devils dug them out.

Wolf demons, from the claw marks.”

Later, Remin would have to send someone to interview the survivors of Meinhem.

He needed to know what they had tried, what had worked, and what had failed.

He could imagine how it had been all too well: desperate days spent frantically trying to build something that would survive the night, food supplies dwindling, until the survivors were too starved to defend themselves.

Starvation was a terrible way to die.

He listened as Ortaire described what they had found, and it was both a comfort and punishment to know that all of the two hundred and twenty-six dead had been found and burned, to send them to the stars.

No one could have known how much worse this year would be.

The valley had been coping with the devils for four years, and the folk of Meinhem had managed as well as anyone else, until now.

There had been no sign to warn them that the devils would be coming like a storm.

Remin couldn’t have known.

There was nothing he could have done to save them.

But he had been to Meinhem.

He had gone to them and accepted their oaths of loyalty and swore his own oath to protect them.

He had given them his word.

His people had suffered and starved, they had died in pain and terror, and nothing would ever make that right.

“…a dozen or so on the way back,”

Ortaire was saying.

“It was much quieter, but slow, since most of them were on foot.

All of Meinhem’s beasts were devoured.

It helped, having Bram meet us with the wagons.”

“You did well,”

said Remin, giving himself a shake and meeting Ortaire’s eyes.

“No one could expect more.

Sometimes there is no good place to camp.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,”

Ortaire said quietly, and took his seat .

“There was not that much trouble with devils for us, on the way to the Spur.”

Remin launched into his own tale.

The success of the tree camps, the dozen or so stranglers that came over the barricades at night, and the crowd of devils on the ground underneath: all alarming, but nothing at all compared to the swarms of midsummer.

“We were near the crossroads to Nandre when we heard a strange sound among the devils.

A growl, but longer and deeper than any other devil noise I’ve heard before.

A sort of…purring,”

he said, picking the word carefully.

“We never saw it, but it came back three or four nights in a row before it started trying to shake us down.

Whatever it was, it was big.”

That was a night he had recalled in his dreams more than once already.

A chill went through him as Remin told the tale, forcing himself to recall every crucial detail.

The glow of the sleeping platforms all around him, like lamps strung on tree branches for a capital evening soiree.

The way the torches had blazed, their lights streaking as the platforms swung wildly.

The screams. The man who had fallen.

“The devil left not long after,”

he finished.

“But the next morning, we found something strange.”

Auber brought out the leather pouch and shook the oily-looking black quills onto the table.

“Those were embedded in a tree about four feet off the ground,”

Remin said, eying them with distrust.

“We had to pull them out with tongs.”

“Spines?”

Juste said, leaning over to examine them.

He did not touch them.

“They look like porcupine quills to me,”

said Auber, poking them apart.

“One of the men touched them.

He got a rash on his hand for a few days, but it went away.

They might not be anything at all.

I’ve heard of spiders that cause rashes, if you handle them. These could be from some animal we haven’t discovered yet.”

“They didn’t burn?”

Ophele flushed as every head in the room swiveled toward her.

She looked at Remin.

“I—I mean, if it was a devil, they would burn.

The quills.

In sunlight, I mean. Did you keep them in the pouch, all this time?”

“Auber,”

Remin said, after a moment.

It had not occurred to them to make this trial .

Auber needed no explanation.

Picking up one of the quills with the tongs, he went to one of the windows and pushed it open, admitting a shaft of sunlight.

It only took a minute before the quill began to smoke, and maybe three minutes total before it began to burn, an evil blue-orange flame that every man in the room recognized.

Beside him, Ophele drew a short, surprised breath.

“It appears we have a new devil,”

said Juste.

“The devil of Nandre,”

Auber agreed.