Chapter 15: The Unthinkable Question
The afternoon sun had begun its slow crawl toward the treetops, casting long, distorted shadows from the blackthorns like grasping fingers across the garden path. Brynna leaned back on her elbows in the patch of thyme she’d been half-heartedly weeding, the earthy scent mixing with the metallic tang of impending rain in the still air. Lirien was a few feet away, carefully transplanting young lavender shoots, his slender fingers working the soil with a focused gentleness.She watched him. Watched the way his pale hair stuck to his damp neck, the shift of new muscle under the skin of his back as he reached for the watering jug. A peculiar, restless feeling curled in her gut—a byproduct of the previous night’s vulnerability, maybe. That deep, trusting surrender he’d offered had left a mark on her, and marks, in her experience, were weaknesses to be prodded.Understood.Controlled.
“Hey, Mossflower,” she said, her voice a low rasp that cut through the hum of distant bees.
He looked over, a smudge of dirt on his cheek. “Hmm?”
She kept her gaze level, her expression one of casual, almost clinical curiosity.“Got a question for you. A hypothetical.”
He wiped his hands on his breeches, a faint smile playing on his lips.“Alright. Hypothesize away, Ser.”
She paused, letting the silence stretch, letting the weight of the question gather in the space between them. “If you were forced to choose,” she began, her tone measured and serious, “between someone fucking me, or someone fucking you… which would you pick?”
The smile vanished from his face like a snuffed candle.He blinked, his large eyes widening slightly. He looked down at his hands, then over at her—at the solid, scarred bulk of her, the warrior who had carved a life from violence. Then his gaze flickered to his own form, slight and elfin, looking no more formidable than a sapling in a storm.
The consideration was palpable.The cicadas filled the silence. Finally, he met her eyes, his voice quiet but clear, stripped of all its usual playful lilt. “I’d let them fuck me.Because I can take it.” He swallowed, the bob of his throat stark. “And I couldn’t bear to watch anyone hurt you.”
The answer hung there, raw and heartbreakingly noble. It clenched around Brynna’s heart like an iron fist.Then she scoffed. A single, derisive puff of air.She laughed, a sharp, unkind sound. “That,” she said, pushing herself up to sit fully, “is the answer you give to sound heroic. The gallant little elf, sacrificing himself for his big, strong protector.” She shook her head, a cynical smile twisting her lips. “I know the truth, Lirien.”
He stared at her, confusion and a flicker of hurt in his silver-blue eyes. “What truth?”
“The truth is,” Brynna said, her voice dropping to a predatory purr, “if some big, strong brute actually got his hands on you, if he lifted you up like you weighed nothing, pinned you against a wall…” She let the image hang, searing. “You wouldn’t resist.Not really.A little squirm for show, maybe.But you’d go quiet. You’d take it.You might even like it.”
Lirien’s face transformed. A brilliant, scorching flush exploded from his neck, swept up over his cheekbones, painted his ears crimson.He looked utterly incinerated. “I— that’s not— Brynna, I would never—!” The words tripped over each other, a stammering, breathless cascade.“How can you say that? After everything, how can you think I’d… I’d enjoy…?”
As he floundered, his hands fluttering in helpless negation, Brynna’s gaze dipped pointedly downward, to the front of his loose linen breeches.She raised one eyebrow, her cynical smile deepening. Her voice was a flat, undeniable observation, devoid of mockery, simply stating a fact. “Your body seems to think it’s an interesting idea.”
Lirien froze.His own eyes shot down. The evidence was unmistakable, a clear tenting of the fabric. The bright red of his face deepened into a shade of mortified purple. He made a small, choked sound and crossed his hands desperately over his lap, as if he could hide the blatant, involuntary betrayal.He couldn’t speak. He just stood there, exposed, his heroic confession dismantled and laying in the dirt between them, next to the undeniable, humiliating truth of his own arousal.
Brynna watched him, the fierce, protective love in her chest now tangled with a dark, complex thread of power and a brutal, unforgiving understanding.He was hers, in every conflicted, honest, and shameful way. The silence stretched, thick with the scent of crushed thyme and the echo of her devastating laughter.
The silence stretched, thick with the scent of crushed thyme and the echo of her devastating laughter. She watched him, unmoving, as he pressed his palms against his eyes as if to block out the world. His chest hitched with a shallow, panicked breath.“You’re horrible,” he whispered, the sound raw and cracked.
“I’m honest.” She leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees. Her voice softened, losing its edge but gaining a hypnotic, painting quality.“Think about it. A man who doesn’t care for your feelings. All brute force and grunting intent.” She saw him flinch, but he didn’t remove his hands. “He’d toss you onto a bed.Not our bed. Some tavern cot that smells of stale ale and other people’s sweat.”
Lirien shook his head, a tight, frantic motion, but he didn’t speak. His knuckles were white where they pressed into his forehead.
“He wouldn’t kiss you,” Brynna continued, her words a quiet, relentless brush painting the scene. “He wouldn’t look you in the eye. He’d just yank those breeches down around your ankles, pinning your hips with one heavy hand.” She tilted her head, clinically observing the tremor that ran through him.“You’d be so scared.Little rabbit heart pounding. But your body… your body’s already said yes, hasn’t it?”
“Stop,” he begged, but it was a weak, breathless sound.His hands finally fell into his lap, fingers twisting together. He couldn’t look at her.
“I can see it,” she murmured, her gaze dropping pointedly again.The linen was strained, a dark, damp patch blooming unmistakably at the tip. It wasn’t just arousal; it was a physical confession, a slick betrayal of everything his voice denied.“There it is.Proof. You’re leaking just thinking about it.”
He glanced down, following her look, and a mortified groan escaped him. He fumbled, trying to adjust himself through the fabric, only making the evidence more apparent.His stammer returned, fractured and helpless. “It’s not— it doesn’t mean— I don’t want that, Brynna, I swear, I only want you, I—!”
“I know,” she said, and her voice was suddenly, strangely gentle. The cruelty had evaporated, leaving behind a stark, unsettling tenderness.“That’s the worst part, little elf. Your body knows it could take that.Could survive it. Maybe even twist some shameful, private pleasure from it.” She stood up, brushing the dirt from her hands. “And that makes you feel like a traitor to yourself.”
He was crying now, silent tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. He stared at the dark, damp spot on his clothes, his whole frame trembling with shame and a confusing, volcanic arousal. The afternoon light caught the silver in his hair and the wetness on his chin, casting him in a tragic, beautiful light.Brynna walked over and knelt before him in the dirt. She didn’t touch him. She just waited until his shattered, silver-blue eyes finally rose to meet hers. “The man in the story isn’t real,” she said, her words quiet but absolute. “But the you who is scared, and hard, and honest enough to show it? That’s the only thing in this garden that matters to me.”
She reached out then, not toward his face, but with a single, calloused finger. She touched the damp patch on his breeches, a feather-light press against the heated evidence. Lirien gasped, a sharp, shuddering intake of air, his hips jerking minutely into the contact. He was utterly still, caught between recoiling and arching into her hand.
Brynna held his gaze, her own expression unreadable.“See?” she whispered.“You can take anything. Even this.”
Her finger remained there, a brand through the damp linen. She could feel the rigid heat of him, the fine tremor in his thighs. His breath came in ragged, wet hitches against the quiet hum of the garden.She withdrew her hand slowly, watching his face collapse with a confusing mix of shame and longing.
Then she stood, brushing the dirt from her knees.Her expression shifted, the strange tenderness dissolving back into her more familiar, wry smirk.She needed to break this. To put air back into the room.“You know,” she said, her tone lightening into something dangerously casual, “with a reaction like that, I could make a fortune off you.”
Lirien blinked up at her, tear-tracks gleaming.His brow furrowed. “What?”
“An idea.” She gestured vaguely toward the unseen road beyond the blackthorns.“We ride to the next town. Find a tavern.The Rusty Buckle, maybe. Place always stinks of sour ale and old piss.” She leaned against the garden post, crossing her arms. “I’d stand you on the bar.Peel that shirt right off you. Let all those lonely miners and drifters get a good, long look.”
He stared, utterly baffled, his previous distress now warring with sheer confusion.
“I’d auction you off,” she continued, her voice taking on a mock-businesslike cadence.“By the hour.‘Here he is, gentlemen! Our very own sweet little elf.Does whatever you tell him. Doesn’t fight back.’” She pushed off the post and took a single, slow step toward him.“Could charge a silver for the first one. Maybe two coppers each for a turn after that.The line would stretch out the door.”
Lirien’s mouth opened, then closed.A reluctant, disbelieving smile touched his lips. “You’re terrible.”
“Practical,” she corrected. She took another step.Now she was within arm’s reach.“Think of the coin, Mossflower.We could fix the roof. Buy a proper steel kettle.” Her hand shot out, not to his face, but behind him.Her strong, dirt-caked fingers grabbed the full curve of his ass through his breeches, squeezing hard enough to make him yelp and stumble forward into her. “And you,” she purred, pulling him flush against her, “you’d be the most popular little whore in the Vale.Bent over a different barrel in the back alley every hour. Wouldn’t even have to think.Just take it.”
He was pressed against her, his earlier arousal now a firm, undeniable press against her thigh. His face was a masterpiece of conflict—horrified, amused, and something darker, hotter, flickering deep in his silver-blue eyes.His hands came up to rest on her shoulders, not pushing away.Holding on. “You wouldn’t,” he breathed, but it sounded like a question.Brynna leaned down, her lips brushing the shell of his ear. Her voice was a low, rough promise.“No,” she agreed quietly, the joke evaporating, leaving only the raw truth of her grip on him.“I wouldn’t.” She gave him one last, firm squeeze before releasing him, leaving the ghost of her handprint on him. “Because you’re mine. And I don’t share.”
He swayed on his feet, off-balance from the sudden absence of her hold. The sun broke through a gap in the clouds, illuminating the garden in a sudden, startling gold. It caught the lingering tears on his lashes, the flush on his neck, the dark, knowing look in her eyes.They stood there, separated by an inch of charged air, the crude fantasy hanging between them like a shattered lens, revealing a simpler, more terrifying truth beneath.