Chapter 3: A Morning of Revelations
Sleep was a thin, fitful blanket. Katie surfaced from it often, each time finding Calcharo in the same position, a motionless silhouette against the dying fire. The third time she woke, a bruised pink dawn was bleeding through the mist, and he was stirring the embers with a stick. The damp air smelled of cold ash and petrichor.
“Your city clothes are fucked,” he said without looking up. His voice was gravelly with disuse. “You can’t approach the Court of Sighs smelling of moor-blood and looking like something the bogs coughed up. It’s disrespectful. Also, you’ll be mocked.”
Katie pushed herself up, her stiff muscles protesting. Her bandaged arm throbbed a dull, persistent reminder. She looked down at her torn jacket, her mud-caked jeans. “I’m open to suggestions. You have a spare ball gown in that pack?”
“There’s a trading post. A miserable little hive about an hour’s trek from here. We can get you something less… martyred.”
The trading post was a few ragged tents and a leaning wooden shack perched on a less-soggy hillock. It stank of cured leather, strange spices, and unwashed bodies. Eyes followed them—human and otherwise—from shadowed corners. Calcharo’s hand never left the pommel of his sword.
The clothier’s tent was overflowing with bolts of fabric and hung garments. A wizened woman with iron-gray hair and fingers stained blue eyed Katie with clinical detachment. “Outlander,” she stated, not asked.
“She needs something that won’t get us turned away at the Shivering Gate,” Calcharo said, his tone oddly formal.
The woman gestured to a rack. “Choose. Silver buys wool. Gold buys silk. Stories buy nothing.”
Katie sorted through heavy tunics and practical trousers, her graphic designer’s eye critiquing the dismal color palette. Calcharo lingered near the entrance, a wall of tense silver. She held up a sensible, high-collared dress in a dark green. “This.”
The old woman snorted. “You dress for a funeral. He,” she jerked a chin at Calcharo, “does not look at funeral clothes.”
Katie blinked, turning. Calcharo had gone perfectly still. The woman rummaged and produced another dress, thrusting it at Katie. It was a deep midnight blue, soft as a sigh. It was also, unmistakably, cut for a different purpose. The neckline plunged alarmingly, and the material was treacherously thin.
“This is ridiculous,” Katie said, her cheeks heating. “I’ll take the green.”
“The green is for clerks and corpse-washers.” The woman’s gaze shifted to Calcharo. “You. Knight. Does the blue offend your vow?”
Calcharo shifted his weight. The armor creaked. “It’s… fine. It’s adequate. If she likes it.”
His discomfort was a palpable thing. It charged the cramped space. The cocky façade was gone, replaced by a flustered, almost boyish uncertainty. He wasn’t looking at the dress. He was looking anywhere but.
“I don’t like it,” Katie said, but something defiant in her stirred. She saw the effect it had on him. The power of it was sudden and electric. “But I’ll try it on.”
Behind a moth-eaten screen, she shucked her ruined clothes. The blue silk slid over her skin like cold water. It clung to every curve, the neckline falling to a dangerous point just above her navel. She felt wildly exposed. She stepped out.
Calcharo’s helmet snapped toward her. He said nothing. The silence stretched, thick and humming. The old woman smiled a thin, knowing smile.
“It’s stupid,” Katie said, crossing her arms over her chest, then uncrossing them, feeling the silk strain. “I can’t wear this. I’ll freeze.”
“You’ll wear it,” Calcharo said, his voice low and rough. He fumbled for his coin purse, tossed a gold piece to the woman without breaking his stare. “We’re leaving.”
The trek back into the wilds was conducted in a charged quiet. The dress whispered against her legs with every step. She was acutely aware of the cool air on her decolletage, of the way his helmet would turn, just slightly, in her periphery. The dynamic had shifted. The puzzle he’d spoken of now had a dangerous, glittering piece.
They made camp early in a shallow cave, the sky threatening a downpour. The first drops began as a patter, then became a roaring deluge, sealing them in a world of stone and sound. He built a fire. The light danced over the blue silk, painting shadows in the hollow of her throat.
“You’re staring,” she said, her own voice unfamiliar to her.
“I paid for it. I’m admiring the investment.” The joke was weak, automatic. He was leaning against the cave wall, but his posture was rigid.
“It’s just a dress.”
“It is a fucking provocation, Katie.” The words burst from him, stripped raw. He pushed off the wall, a towering silhouette. “It is a deliberate, malicious gift from a crone who saw right through me. And you put it on. You walk in it. You know what it does.”
She stood, facing him. The fire crackled between them. “What does it do, Calcharo?”
He closed the distance in two long strides. His gauntleted hands came up, but didn’t touch her. They hovered at the sides of her face, the metal trembling. “It makes me want to ruin it,” he breathed, the sound metallic and hungry through the helmet. “It makes me want to tear it off you and see what’s underneath. Is that what you wanted to know?”
Her heart was a frantic bird. “Yes.”
One gauntlet cupped her jaw, the metal surprisingly warm. The other went to the lacing at the side of the dress. He didn’t tear. With a sharp, precise tug, the silk cord snapped. The dress loosened, sliding down one shoulder. His thumb stroked the bared skin there, a shocking contrast of hard and soft.
“Tell me to stop,” he muttered, his helmet dipping close. She could hear his breath now, fast and harsh behind the iron.
“No.”
The sound he made was halfway between a groan and a curse. The gauntlet left her face to join the other, gripping the neckline of the dress. With a harsh, rending pull, he split the silk open down to her waist. The cool cave air hit her skin, and then his mouth was on her through the helmet, a hard, cold press over her breast. She cried out, arching into the impossible sensation.
He pushed her back against the cave wall, the stone cold and rough. His hands were everywhere, shedding their gauntlets with impatient clatters. His bare hands were calloused, swordsman’s hands, mapping her waist, her ribs, her hips with a greedy urgency. He found her nipple, pinching and rolling it until she gasped.
“Fuck, you’re real,” he growled against her skin, his mouth finding her throat, biting down just shy of pain. “All this time, you were just… here. Flesh and nerve and this goddamn stubbornness.”
His knee pushed her legs apart. His hand shoved the ruined silk of her skirt up around her hips. His fingers slid through her wetness, and he hissed. “Already? For me? For this?” He hooked two fingers inside her, curling them, and stars exploded behind her eyes.
“Don’t talk,” she managed, fumbling for the buckles of his armored faulds. “Just… don’t fucking talk.”
He laughed, a dark, delighted sound, and helped her, pieces of silver plate falling away. His erection strained against his linen breeches, thick and urgent. He freed himself, guiding her hand to his hot, hard length. She squeezed, and he shuddered violently.
“Now,” he demanded, voice frayed. “I need to be inside you. Right now.”
He lifted her, her back against the wall, her legs wrapping around his waist. There was no gentle prelude. He positioned himself and drove into her with a single, deep, punishing thrust. She screamed, a raw sound swallowed by the storm, her nails scrabbling against the engraved raven on his chestplate.
“Gods, you’re tight,” he choked out, his hips beginning a relentless rhythm. Each thrust was a claim, jolting her against the stone. The helmet rested in the crook of her neck, his breath scorching her skin. She could feel every inch of him, a hard, possessive invasion that stretched her perfectly, brutally.
She came first, a sharp, shocking crest that broke over her without warning, her inner muscles clamping around him. He roared, a muffled, metallic sound, and his pace became frantic, losing all rhythm. He fucked her through her climax, his own release hitting him like a seizure. He stiffened, burying himself to the hilt, and she felt the hot, pulsing flood of him deep inside.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the rain and their ragged breathing. He sagged against her, still sheathed within her, his weight pinning her to the wall. Slowly, he lowered her until her feet touched the ground. He stayed close, his forehead resting against hers, the cold, unyielding metal of his helmet pressing her skin.
The silence stretched, filled now with the aftermath. The fire popped. The dress was destroyed, pooled around her ankles like a blue shadow. His armor was half-disassembled. The clever, wary distance between them was gone, obliterated.
He finally pulled back, his hand coming up to trace the bite mark on her throat. “Well,” he said, his voice wrecked and quiet. “That was inadvisable.”
She let out a shaky, breathless laugh. “Yeah.”
He stepped away, turning to tend the fire, giving her a moment of privacy. As she found her own clothes to dress, she saw his hands were unsteady. The invincible knight was gone. What remained was a man, trembling by a fire, utterly undone.
“We reach the capital tomorrow,” he said, not looking at her.
“I know.”
“Things will be… different there.”
She pulled her old, torn shirt over her head, the fabric smelling of moor and smoke and now, of him. “I’m counting on it.”