Chapter 6: The South Gate at Dawn
The mist was a living thing, coiling around her ankles like a silvery serpent as she picked her way across the courtyard. The world was colorless, drained to shades of grey and gloom. The south gate was not a grand entrance but a forgotten fissure in the keep’s skeleton, its portcullis teeth forever frozen in a rusted snarl. Jen’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs, each beat echoing the sound of his seed dripping down her thigh in the dark corridor. She’d washed, but the ghost of that feeling remained.
He was there. A solidified piece of the gloom, leaning against the dank stone of the gatehouse with his arms crossed. The first wan light of a sun that seemed reluctant to rise caught the edges of his broad shoulders and the hilt of the longsword at his hip. He didn’t look at her as she approached. His gaze was fixed on the winding road that disappeared into the swallowing mist.
She stopped a few feet away, the silence broken only by the mournful drip of water from a cracked gargoyle and the distant caw of a rook. “You’re late,” he said, his voice flat, as if commenting on the weather.
“I’m here.” Her own voice sounded foreign, too loud in the hush.
Finally, he turned his head. His eyes were shadowed, unreadable. He gave a single, sharp jerk of his chin toward the road. “That way. Move quietly. The bogs don’t care if you’re from another world.”
A dismissal. A command. The cold finality of it ignited a spark in her chest. She squared her shoulders and took a step past him, toward the opening where the mist swirled thickest.
His hand shot out. Not to stop her, but to seize her. Fingers like iron bands closed around her upper arm, yanking her off her path. She stumbled, her protest dying as he spun her into the deep shadow of the gatehouse arch, away from the greying light. Her back hit the cold, wet stone, and his body pinned her there. The smell of him—leather, cold metal, and the faint, clean sweat from his walk—filled her senses.
He didn’t speak. He looked at her mouth, his breathing suddenly audible, a rough sawing in the quiet. Then he was on her. His lips crashed against hers with none of the shyness she knew lurked beneath his roughness. This was pure consumption. It was hard and desperate, his tongue forcing its way past her lips, claiming the dark, wet heat of her mouth. It tasted of mint and a deeper, darker bitterness.
One of his hands fisted in the wool of her dress at her shoulder. He didn’t bother with laces. He wrenched the fabric down with a brutal tug. The tough material strained, the stitching at her shoulder giving way with a soft rip. Cool, damp air hit her exposed skin, followed instantly by the scorching heat of his palm. He groped her breast, his calluses dragging over her soft flesh, his thumb and forefinger finding her nipple and pinching, rolling it to a hard, aching peak. A sharp gasp escaped her, swallowed by his relentless mouth.
He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. His eyes dropped to her breast, exposed and pebbled in the cold. Something raw and feral moved in his gaze. Without a word, he sank to his knees on the wet cobblestones.
He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her leggings and her smallclothes, yanking them down to her ankles in one harsh motion. The chill of the mist kissed her bare skin, raising gooseflesh. He pushed her thighs apart with his shoulders, his big hands gripping the backs of her legs. He didn’t tease. He didn’t explore. He buried his face between her legs with a hungry, animal noise.
His tongue was a hot, demanding stripe against her core. He licked into her, deep and searching, then focused on the swollen bud at her apex, sucking it into his mouth. The contrast was brutal—the rough stone at her back, the chill air on her skin, and the devastating, wet heat of his mouth working her. A broken sound tore from her throat. Her hands flew to his head, her fingers tangling in his long, unbound hair, not to push him away, but to hold him there, to anchor herself against the onslaught.
“Cedric,” she moaned, the word fragmenting.
He responded by sliding two thick fingers into her cunt, curling them upwards as his tongue circled her clit. The double sensation, the filthy, wet sounds echoing in the stone archway, unraveled her. Her hips jerked against his face. The pleasure coiled, tight and fierce, low in her belly. It wasn’t gentle. It was a conquest. And as his fingers thrust and his mouth sucked, she surrendered to it, her back arching off the wall, a raw, strangled cry ripped from her lungs as she came, spasming around his fingers.
He didn’t let her finish. He rose, fluid and swift, his face glistening. He unbuckled his trousers, freeing his cock, already fully hard and jutting. His eyes held hers, a challenge and a confession in one tormented look.
He hooked one of her legs over his forearm, lifting her, opening her wider. The stone scraped against her bare back. He positioned himself and pushed into her with a single, powerful thrust that stole the air from her lungs. She was still clenching from her climax, impossibly tight, and he filled her with a stretch that bordered on pain.
“Fuck,” he grunted, his forehead dropping to her shoulder.
Then he began to move. This wasn’t the frantic pounding of the corridor. This was deeper, more deliberate. Each withdrawal was slow, agonizing, each thrust a deep, grinding possession that hit the very core of her. He fucked her with a focused intensity, his hips driving against hers, the sound of their joining a wet, rhythmic slap in the misty dawn. His arm under her leg held her firmly, his other hand braced against the wall by her head, his knuckles white.
She clung to him, her arms around his neck, her face buried in the hollow where his neck met his shoulder. She could taste salt on his skin. His breath was hot and ragged in her ear.
“Is this… what you want?” he ground out between thrusts, the question vibrating through his chest. “This… fucking… in the mud and the mist?”
She turned her head, her lips against his ear. “I want you to look at me,” she breathed, the words coming between gasps. “Look at me when you do it.”
He froze for a fraction of a second, buried deep inside her. Then he pulled his head back, his eyes locking onto hers. The raw agony she saw there made her flinch. It was as if he were being torn apart. He started moving again, his gaze never leaving hers. The intimacy of it was more brutal than any shadowed encounter. He was here, with her, in this moment, and the truth of it was carving him open.
In the distance, a lone horn sounded, mournful and clear. The dawn patrol on the eastern wall.
The sound seemed to break something in him. His rhythm fractured. His thrusts became harder, faster, losing their deliberate control. A low groan built in his chest, tearing free as a ragged, broken thing. He drove into her one final, shuddering time, his body locking, his head thrown back. She felt the hot, pulsing rush of his release deep inside her, a flood that seemed to drain the last of his strength.
He slumped against her, his weight pressing her into the stone, his breath heaving. He stayed there, inside her, for a long moment. The horn sounded again, closer this time.
Slowly, he let her leg down. He withdrew from her body, the sudden emptiness a visceral shock in the cold air. He turned away as he fastened his trousers, his movements stiff. He did not look at her as she hastily pulled up her leggings and tried to adjust her torn dress.
When he finally faced her, his expression was a mask of stone again. The moment of naked connection was gone, sealed over.
“The road follows the ridge for two miles before it dips into the Blackwater Mire,” he said, his voice hollow. “Stay on the stone. If your foot sinks, you’re already dead.”
He began to walk away, back towards the keep.
“Where are you going?” The question left her lips before she could stop it.
He paused but didn’t turn. “My duty is here.”
“And what am I supposed to do out there?” she asked, gesturing to the swallowing mist.
“Survive,” he said, the word final. Then he was gone, swallowed by the grey courtyard.
Jen stood alone under the rusty portcullis, his warmth fading from her skin, the evidence of him leaking between her thighs. She looked at the mist-shrouded road, then back at the keep, a dark silhouette against the lightening sky.
She took a step. Not onto the road, but back into the courtyard, following the path he had taken. Her feet, in their soft leather boots, made no sound on the wet stones. She had nowhere else to go. And he, whether he admitted it or not, had just made her a promise with his body that his words would never utter. She intended to collect.