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After an endless few days of fighting and resting and travel and more fighting, Halsin lays on his bedroll, half-in half-out of his tent as is his preference, and seethes.
It should be his hair she’s braiding.
Get a hold of yourself, you mess of a man. He rubs roughly at his eyes. Amisar and Shadowheart are simply friends. I don’t even think she—enjoys women in that way. And yet he still burns red hot at the memory of earlier that evening around the campfire: Amisar’s small deft hands flying down Shadowheart’s dark locks in neat, even patterns. Those same hands that yesterday swung her glaive straight through the waist of an Absolute cultist without even a flinch.
It’s him those hands should be on. It should be her warm body in his arms right now and not only these fistfuls of blanket. Her small muscled form tucked beneath him on the bedroll and gasping prettily as his cock plunges into her again and again. And his paws—
He shakes his head. No! Ahh—Oakfather, lend me your strength. The wolf is still too fresh in my mind. I am envious of a woman I have earned no claim for.
He can still taste the heavy scent of her in the back of his throat, from when he transformed into a wolf in the day’s fight. She smelled of blood. Of sweat. Of want.
She smelled in heat.
He thinks the only thing that stopped him from tackling her to the ground to mount her right then, was the more pressing danger at hand, threatening them both.
Why else save her from danger? Why else transform with the last drop of his reserves to stand over her prone form, teeth bared? Why else, if not to keep her alive for better and more beautiful things? Why else snap at even Karlach’s hands that reached down to feed Amisar the dregs of a healing potion?
“Oy!” She shouted. “Don’t try that shit with me!” She smacked him on the snout hard enough to startle him, before her voice went gentle again. “I’m helping her, you idiot. Look.”
Amisar roused with a whimpering moan, so fragile here in this borderland of death compared to her usual fighting form. She was a woman of extremes, that much was evident. Blinking her eyes open and seeing a wolf standing over her, she yelped, before glancing around at Karlach, and seeming to understand.
“Halsin?” She asked, voice hoarse.
He yipped once, before sniffing her over. Still very hurt. But alive. Still alive.
Still mine.
Ah. So that’s what this is, Halsin thinks to himself in his lonely tent under the stars. The wolf has chosen her.
He’s never before felt such an urge to transform. Wildshape is a tool. A gift from the Oakfather to better protect and celebrate his sacred nature. Not a compulsion.
And yet.
And yet he burns with the desire to wildshape into the wolf again and go to Amisar’s side. Is she still well? Do bad dreams plague her tonight like they have in the past? Is it too bold to think his warm wolven form next to her might chase away such dreams? He wants his senses flooded again with the scent of her. He wants to swim in it, not only take a cursory dip as he did after the fight, with all their companions watching. The wolf wants.
What does her hair smell like, under the keen nose of the wolf? Will she still smell of heat? Here in his Elven form, glaring up at the moon, cock hardening, Halsin wonders if he only imagined it. Perhaps it was the wolf’s own desires projecting onto her. He shouldn’t assume. Humans may not even have such cycles.
It’s at this inauspicious—or perhaps extremely lucky—moment that Amisar passes behind his tent, within a meter of him. He stays stock still, watching her sandalled feet tiptoe by. He hears her whisper out, “Reggie? ... Reggie?”
The young owlbear. She’s calling for him. At this time of night? Is something wrong?
But his concern is barreled over by a waft of her passing scent reaching him.
There it is again. A blazing tingle of want and readiness that scorches the back of his throat. He’s not imagining it. It would take only seconds for him to transform and leap over to her and—no.
But now he’s standing and slipping out of his tent alcove, though still as only himself, in Elven form. I’m just going to help. Just see what’s wrong, then back to bed. Do not make your problem her problem.
“Amisar,” he says softly. He enjoys the chance to speak her name.
She startles, face instantly apologetic. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I was trying to be quiet and not wake anyone.”
“I wasn’t asleep.” Oakfather help me, her hair is so lovely in the moonlight. “What’s wrong?”
She opens her mouth to reply just as Astarion sighs in his sleep in his nearby tent. Amisar bites her lip and grabs Halsin’s wrist. Tingles race up his arm from her simple touch. Moon and stars, I am a man possessed. “Come on,” she whispers quickly. “Last time I accidentally woke him up it was nearly a bloodbath.” She starts towards the woods, meaning to pull him along.
He could resist the pull, he knows, as easily as he could resist a mouse tugging on his pinky finger. And yet he also knows that he would as soon resist her as the sun would rise in the west. He follows.
Her small hand is warm on his arm as they step into the dark trees. Her grip suddenly gets tighter and her steps less sure. Ah. Right. Halsin remembers her lack of darkvision. I should be leading us now, my little blind burrower.
He must be mad, with how close he comes to speaking the words aloud, endearment and all.
Amisar stumbles over a tree root, and Halsin takes hold of her hand in both of his to stop her. The touch makes her turn back and look at him. He wants to keep pulling her closer, until she’s in his arms and his mouth is on hers. Strip off her clothes until she’s laid bare underneath him, pliant and naked and his—
“Halsin?” She says tentatively, looking up at him with half-blind eyes.
Control yourself! He lets go of her hand and steps back half a pace. “I think we’re far enough now to speak.” Yes...or to do other things without being overheard.... No one else deserves to hear the sweet sounds I might drag out of her. Hells, man.... Focus! “You were looking for Reggie? Likely he’s hunting, it’s prime hours for it.”
“Yes, I know. But—he didn’t come say goodnight to me earlier.”
For a moment Halsin has to review his memory and make sure that they are indeed speaking of the young owlbear and not some new companion they’ve picked up. If there’s another man around that she’s speaking to, I must meet him to make sure he—stop that. That’s the wolf talking. “He didn’t...say goodnight to you?”
Amisar squirms endearingly. “It’s a routine we have. When I’m going to bed, he comes over, and I give him some scritches before he goes out to hunt.”
Well, that is unfairly adorable. Halsin feels, unexpectedly, his heart stirring in tandem with his cock. (He has been ignoring the growing heat of the latter, in close proximity now to the object of its desire.) He is not a cold man. He has had affection for all the partners he has taken into his bed and bower. But few have made his stomach drop like a stooping falcon. Few have so thoroughly consumed his mind to the point of chasing off sleep. As she has.
“I just have a bad feeling about it,” Amisar goes on, looking away into the trees.
Halsin, with great effort, pushes down his affections and distractions, to Listen to the forest around them. He opens his senses: smell and hearing and deeper ones, too, to absorb all that Nature has to say.
He has to turn away from Amisar to focus. When he is open and watchful like this, trying to notice anything other than her is like trying to spot a candle flame next to a great ceremonial bonfire. Amisar dances with color, like when herbs and elixirs are thrown into the flames, making playful splashes of green or ominous blasts of white.
He wants to throw himself upon that pyre.
Later. If that pyre is willing. I must not—I must not make mistakes with her. Halsin doesn’t carry that line of logic onward. Doesn’t ask why no mistakes. Besides. There are more important matters at hand. And once Reggie is found, then she will be comforted. Then she may be more...amenable to my terrible ideas. Ah—! You selfish brute. She must be taken care of above all. On that merit alone, not to further your own desires.
“I don’t sense anything amiss,” he says. “But if your instincts are telling you otherwise, I trust you.”
Amisar curls her lip. “You don’t need to condescend to me, you know.”
Halsin frowns. Oakfather, open my eyes! What did I say to insult her? “I am being completely honest. I may know Nature, but you have honed skills of your own. You may be hearing a song that I am deaf to.”
Amisar stares at him for a long moment. “That’s—thank you. As rare as it is for me to say...I hope I’m wrong. I hope he just scented a particularly delicious rabbit and skittered off.”
This metaphor stirs the wolf in Halsin’s chest once more. You are the most delicious thing for miles around, my little fighter. And I will not let anyone else get you in their jaws.
“Right or wrong, I will help you. You shouldn’t be out here alone.” He can hear the deeper tones of the wolf seeping into his words, coloring them with command and reassurance. “Especially when you can barely see.” He allows himself a brush of his fingertips across her brow. The brief contact feels as powerful as lightning.
Amisar purses her lips and reaches into her side pouch to pull out an Elixir and drink it in one gulp.
“Ha. There,” she says playfully, before her eyes go briefly cross-eyed, and she blinks rapidly. “Oh. Oh, this is strange. Everything is gray.”
Halsin chuckles. Humans. “Yes. It is light that gives things color. It’s a bit like everything is moonlit, is it not?”
“Yes,” she answers immediately, and he realizes she is looking right at him as she speaks. His stomach flutters, realizing he lost an advantage he had grown accustomed to. He will need to work even harder to school his expressions.
“Oh!” Amisar says suddenly. “You could wildshape. Into an owlbear? To help find Reggie? Or...hmmm, which has the best sense of smell...the wolf maybe?”
Yes!
“No.” His answer snaps out more harshly than he intends, and the hurt that flashes across Amisar’s face feels like a brand burning into his chest. You cruel idiot. “Forgive me.” He places his hand over his heart, contrite even as his pulse is pounding at the idea of being the wolf once more. Alone out here. In the moonlight. With her. With her smelling so delectably of heat. “Forgive me,” he repeats. “I didn’t mean to speak so sharply.”
“If that was offensive to suggest, I’m very sorry,” she says softly. Only because his eyes have seen much before in this grayscale of darkvision does he notice the blush blooming in her cheeks. And as with a flower blooming, he wants to lean down and breathe it in. Oh, my lovely nightflower...what would you say if you knew how fiercely I desire you? How fiercely the wolf in me desires to know you, to take you, to taste your sweet nectar.... I fear I will see that hurt cross your face again at the mere suggestion, and that I could not bear.
“It is not offensive,” he assures her, and thankfully her posture softens in relief. “And it is a bright idea. But let us simply try as ourselves first.”
They walk deeper onward in friendly silence. Here on the borders of the Shadow-cursed lands, so much is familiar, and yet Halsin often feels something strange lurking in the corner of his eye, but turns to see nothing immediately alarming. He finds it hard to articulate what exactly is amiss about the trees and their canopy of branches, about the undergrowth and its carpet of leaves. And that difficulty frightens him most of all.
“I think I see him!” Amisar says in delight, and races around some brambles to a clearing. Reggie is indeed there, nibbling on the fresh remains of a mole. He looks up as Amisar nears and hoots happily.
Several things happen at once.
The wind shifts, carrying to Halsin an undeniable scent of wolf. In the brush across from Amisar, two pairs of golden eyes flash. She spots them, too, and cries out “Reggie!” reaching for her belt knife.
NO!
Halsin is running forward before he comprehends it, leaping and bursting into the wolven form that has been howling inside his chest all night. He lands in front of the unfamiliar wolves and, with the pent-up frustration of the past few days, snarls with all his teeth.
The wolves snap their jaws back, hungry and defiant. Reggie is screeching behind him. Amisar is clinking bottles together in that bottomless pouch of hers. Halsin stands his ground, claws digging into the earth for purchase. Stay away from my pack, you filthy interlopers!
Suddenly Amisar’s voice rings out, echoing brightly in his head as he hears her with dual instincts. She’s taken a Potion of Speak with Animals.
“Come to me, come here, Reggie, it’s alright! That wolf is friendly, it’s Halsin!”
His name in her voice, coated with the Potion’s magic, makes both his Elven heart and his wolf heart beat quicker in tandem. The language of animals, as he well knows, is both simpler and yet richer than any spoken tongue. In his name, he hears the simple human identification of himself. He hears her trust in the way she reassures Reggie.
But he also hears his name in the way of animals. In the way of her relation and attitudes towards him, as animals must name each other. He hears loyalty. Admiration and fondness and—Silvanus’ name be praised, I WASN’T imagining it—carnal desire for him.
This knowledge fuels him even more, panting amid his snarls. They MUST go, by death or their own paws, with their tails between their legs! They will not touch my mate. Should not even be SMELLING her, lousy, mangy, worm-addled trespassers!
He lunges, biting into the foreleg of the larger wolf. Blood rushes across his tongue as the creature barks. Yes. Pain. Cower to me, stranger. You will not leave a fight with me alive. You will never smell my mate again. You will never smell anything again if you don’t turn tail now.
The smaller wolf crouches low, still growling but now backing away. As Halsin rears back for another strike, the first wolf follows its fellow, and both of them disappear into the dark.
He turns and barks once at Reggie. Back home with you, little one. The owlbear folds his ears back but dashes into the trees, making a beeline towards camp.
Amisar half steps after him before looking back down at Halsin. “Will he—are there more of them out there?”
Halsin yips. He can smell that the wolves have left his land. They were only a wandering pair.
“Does that mean yes or no? Or that there’s one more? Fucking hell, what am I doing....”
The wolf trots over to Amisar and looks up at her. It means all is well, nightflower, was I not clear?
Amisar swigs down another Potion and makes a face. “My mouth is going to have an awful taste from all of these.”
I disagree. I’m sure your lips, your tongue, your throat, would all still be delicious, my little mate.
It is only from Amisar’s sudden wide-eyed freeze that Halsin realizes she has just taken a Potion of Mind Reading and heard every word and urge of that.
Fuck.
He should change back. He should get onto his knees and beg for her forgiveness.
But before he can make a move, she murmurs, without any anger in her voice, “Is that why you’ve been so strange tonight?”
His tail lashes back and forth in embarrassed fury. I have NOT been strange.
Amisar raises an eyebrow, and Halsin shows her a playful flash of teeth. I cannot help what the scent of you in heat does to my thoughts.
There’s that blush again, and a small shaky inhale that Halsin wants to bottle and drink down again and again. “I don’t—humans don’t have that.”
They don’t? He pads forward, beginning to circle her, looking for injuries and inhaling deep of her intoxicating scent. All creatures have cycles in which their desires wax and wane. Such is the way of nature. He sniffs at her well-muscled thighs, which are still trembling from the adrenaline of the dangerous encounter. Sniffs at her hand as she sheathes her knife. It smells of sweat and determination. Beneath these banal things, the scent of her heat still pulses. Richer and thicker here next to her. It pounds over him in waves, to the rhythm of her heartbeat.
When his flank drags over her hip as he passes by, Amisar shakes and gasps out, “Halsin.”
He stills. Have I hurt you? Frightened you? What is it you need, nightflower?
Amisar’s gleaming eyes fix onto his, devoid of fear or hurt. “You,” she answers, her human voice a soft growl.
Madness. She must be mad, to want him like this. At least, this is what the last dregs of Halsin’s Elven mind are trying to tell him. The wolf, meanwhile, is elated. His mate is willing and wanting. She is safe, and she is here. They are alone.
He wants to drag her off in his teeth to a dark quiet den and ravage her and then lick her clean of sweat and spend. He wants to learn for himself what all the secret places of her body taste like: the backs of her knees, the scoop of her collarbone, the underside of her breasts. He wants to hear with these sharp wolven ears the way her breath will hitch when his red cock breaches her tight wet cunt.
Amisar sinks to her knees before him.
Ah. Right. You can hear me.
“Yes,” she says faintly, eyes fixed on him. She raises a hesitant hand and strokes down the fur of his neck. Her touch is like a flash of lightning across a dark humid sky. He lets out a long growling purr. He wants. He must not hurt her. He must not make mistakes.
But he wants.
Amisar continues to pet her hand down his broad back. Her hand trembles but her voice is steady. “You called me your mate earlier. Let me be that for you.”
You don’t know what you ask.
Amisar gets a flinty look in her eye, and Halsin feels suddenly like dry tinder. “I would imagine that I am asking to get on my hands and knees right now for you to mount me.”
In a flashing pounce, he takes her down onto her back. The breath huffs out of her, but he smells only excitement and lust from where his snout is pressed into her neck, no fear or trepidation. Her chest heaves, and her pretty mouth pants, small whimpers rattling her throat.
Sometimes I swear you are part beast yourself, nightflower.
“What does that word mean?”
Halsin opens wide his mind for her, letting out images of the blue-white flowers of the forests in his childhood, that only bloomed under the full moon. His fascination with how they nearly glowed in the dark. The sensations of awe at their rarity and beauty.
“Oh,” she says, eyes wide. “You—you think I’m beautiful?”
Halsin crouches low over her like a victorious hunter with its prey. He can feel the instincts of the wolf starting to eclipse more and more of his mind. Certain urges that whisper soft to the man now roar to the wolf, and it feels like the most natural thing to give in. Blind, foolish mate. You are the most beautiful thing to walk this earth. Bright and wild and brave. You eclipse the moon, the stars. It is you I shall raise my voice and howl for.
He leans down and grasps the waistband of her pants in his teeth. “Wait!” she says. “I’ve already had enough clothes torn from battle this journey. Let me.”
Halsin steps back only as much as he must to let her sit up and undress. She does so in a hurried rush, unveiling skin the color of ocean sand, of fresh oak split open by a great branch-felling storm.
And then she’s turning over onto her knees and elbows, lifting up her lovely ass towards him. Something of the man left inside his wild body longs for hands to spread the cheeks of her ass apart, to knead warm muscle in his palms and smother his mouth in her cunt that is glistening with slick.
But there will be other nights for that man. Tonight, the wolf steps forward hungrily.
Amisar quivers as he steps over her, framing her body between his legs. It’s not weakness that makes her tremble, but rather, anticipation. He can see the muscles of her shoulders bulging and her core tightening. The wolf looks upon her in admiration. I have such a strong mate....
She moans at that, thunking her forehead against the earth. “Bloody hells. Take me already, oh please.”
His self-control hangs by a fraying thread. He should push her entire throbbing cock into her now. He’s been waiting days for this. And she smells so maddeningly ready.
Trembling, he lines up his cock against her entrance and whines, tongue lolling, at the feeling of her dampness wetting his steaming hot cockhead. You’re so slick for me, little mate. Moon Above.... So ready to be bred, aren’t you?
The man within him panics for a brief moment—they haven’t discussed—she hasn’t said if—
Beneath him Amisar twitches, clenching every muscle. “Yes. Yes!” He smells excited desire wafting off of every inch of her skin.
The last of his doubts evaporate. Needy little thing.... You WILL tell me if I hurt you. He growls low. She must listen.
“Yes, Halsin, I will, I will,” Amisar babbles, arching her back deeper.
Good.
He mounts her, sliding his cock into her cunt in one smooth plunge, and snarls. Yes. This is right. This is good. His mate. Here. Where she belongs. Open and warm and wet with her heat.
“Fuck,” Amisar gasps. “Oh gods yes.”
He feels her tighten around him, a divine grip around his cock, as he starts to thrust. He digs his paws into the earth over her shoulders, holding her in place. She must not leave. She belongs here. He will take her. He will take care of her.
“Yes, Halsin,” Amisar pants, her words stuttering in rhythm to his thrusts. “Take me. I n-needed you. I needed you so b-badly.”
He has to pause, breath heaving, muscles shaking, to resist the instinct to bite into her shoulder for purchase, and flatten her to the ground and chase his release as fast as possible, her pleasure or pain be damned—
A growl rips out of his throat as Amisar pushes back on his cock in his stillness, taking him deeper into her slicked cunt. Eager mate!
Patience can rule him another night. He thrusts again, again, again, reveling in the sound of her resulting whimpers. My beautiful heat-mad bitch.
“Annhh!” Amisar groans as his cock bottoms out inside her, and he whines in tandem. “It’s—oh, oh, oh—it’s not heat, you boulder-brained dolt, it’s you. I’ve wanted you—yes, yes—since the day I met you.”
Even lost in the wild woods of lust as he is, he cannot help but admire Amisar’s sheer audacity in this moment: pinned down by a snarling beast, ravaged and spread open—and she’s insulting his intelligence. Halsin licks greedily at her neck, feasting on the taste of her, even more potent than her scent. Two days past. It started then. Your heat.
“It was the wolf,” she shrieks, fingers clinging desperately to handfuls of earth and grass. “You transformed. You saved me. Like this. And I—I—!”
He can smell anxiety and self-consciousness starting to seep into her scent, bitter in his nose. Unacceptable. He nuzzles his snout into her hair, trying to soothe her. No matter, little mate. Call it what you wish. You needed me, and I have you now. Forget the past. Feel me.
Relief and fresh lust flood her scent, and Halsin, too, follows his own orders. Forgets his stubborn longing, forgets his ugly jealousy. Forgets camp and the others and the Absolute, and, for the first time in decades, forgets the Shadowcurse, too. All is only his mate, held safe between his paws and his cock. She is all he has ever wanted, and now he has her.
Amisar is moaning something. Some repeated sound let out with every thrust of his cock into her. His ears prick up through the fog of pleasure enough to hear her.
“Halsin.... Oh, Halsin, Halsin, Halsin....”
Molten blood surges through every muscle of his strong furred form. His name, his name, on her tongue: ablaze with lust, adorned with vines of pleasure, shimmering with bliss. He will never hear his name from her mouth the same again. She knows him now. His mate knows him, and he, her.
He is getting close to his release. Pressure and pleasure are building in his cock, swelling and—oh. Oh. He’s—
Fucking hells! It’s—I’m going to knot you.
“What?” Amisar gasps out.
He’s fast losing his words, so instead he projects an image-sensation again: Amisar spread open and kept pinned onto his cock by the bulbous swelling at the base. Her filled with his fresh hot seed and moaning. Him licking the back of her neck as they wait and breathe, locked together.
“Oh please,” she wails. “Oh please, yes, do that. Knot me, Halsin, yes!”
Dizzying victorious lust races through him as his knot swells and swells. He pounds harder into her sweet warmth. His thoughts dissolve from words into pure feeling. Yes. I’ll mark you as mine so no others dare touch you. You’ll smell of me. Keep you safe. My mate. Amisar. You. You. Us.
Amisar moans, an open-mouthed, wild and wanting sound, and Halsin snarls and falls over the edge, spilling into her. He bottoms out, cock throbbing and spurting, as his paws pin her onto him. And then he can let go, because his knot is buried inside her, plugging up her cunt full of his seed. She’s whimpering now on every breath—but still he doesn’t smell the faintest whiff of pain.
Slowly his breathing and his mind quiet enough to form something close to comprehensible thoughts. There you go. Stay right there, my mate.
“How...long?” She asks.
It takes him a moment to find the words. He sends first a sensation of so-many breaths and heartbeats, the stars moving thus across the sky. Minutes. A few minutes at least. If—
She interrupts him, voice thick with lust. “Can I—can I touch myself with you like this?”
He bares his teeth, trembling. Yes. Whatever my mate wants, she shall have.
“I want to come around your—” He feels her body shiver as her fingers reach down to stroke her clit. “Your knot in me.” She rocks back again, shifting the hot, hard swell of him inside her. The soft skin of her ass grinds against his furred belly. He never wants to leave this moment, never wants to leave her body.
My delicious, precious mate.... He inhales the scent of her sweat-damp hair, letting the warmth of it roar through him. As his word-sensations of praise ring in his mind for her to hear, she groans, rocking back harder. Ah. You enjoy...you enjoy what I think of you. Even like this? My words are being taken over by the wolf....
“Yes,” Amisar says forcefully, her fingers making lovely slick sounds. “Yes, don’t stop.”
How can he deny her? He can already feel the dizzying clenches of her cunt around his sensitive cock, and it sends him spiraling into unrestrained want once more. My sweet, precious bitch. I didn’t think you could get any tighter.... My eager, needy mate. Yes, take your pleasure from me. Let me hear you howl.
It is no wolf’s howl when she comes, but it is still the most beautiful sound his lupine ears have ever heard. His name on her lips rises in pitch, stretches out into a long keening moan, as her hand plucks out a wet messy rhythm against her clit. She bucks against him frantically, squeezing his knot in her tight heavenly warmth again and again.
Amisar slumps onto her elbows, breathing hard. Halsin licks gently over her shoulders. When most of her spasms have settled, she whispers, voice hoarse: “Change back.”
In an instant, he is an Elf once more. Both of them shudder as the transformation places him kneeling over her with his half-hard cock still inside her. Gently he slips free, with a low grunt of pleasure. He feels the spend of his wolven form dribbling out after his cock. Hells.... I really did fill her.
“Are you alright?” he asks breathlessly, a seed of worry sprouting in his chest. She still hasn’t moved.
“Yes,” comes her emphatic answer, though still her face is leaned down against her arms. “Oh yes, I just wanted—you. You-you.”
He didn’t think his heart could glow any brighter in his chest, and yet it does. Gently he scoops her up in his arms. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. He lays back, arranging her onto his chest, stroking her damp back, peacefully admiring the muscles of her shoulders under his hand. Those earlier times alone on his bedroll, longing for this, seem surreal now.
“You aren’t hurting?” He asks softly. His senses are dimmed now, back in an Elven body, but he doesn’t think he detects any discomfort in her. She lies sprawled across his chest, limp and warm, breathing deep but even. That skirmish this morning tapped me more than I would like, but I have enough left for mild healing. Or I could take one of the Elixirs of Arcane Cultivation....
“No,” she murmurs, interrupting his catastrophizing. “Good. Tired.”
He kisses the top of her head. Wolf senses or no, she smells incredible. “It is pleasing to know I can also strip you of your ability to form coherent sentences. Speaking of which—is that Potion of yours still working?”
She shakes her head, face shifting against his chest, which devolves into nuzzling his skin where his shirt ties are hanging open. “It snapped—when I finished I think.”
“Then I guess it is my responsibility once more to speak my mind.”
“If you want.”
He trails one finger up the ridge of her spine. “I must admit...this was not how I intended to bed you for the first time.”
“Oh?” He can feel her smile against his chest. “You did intend to bed me though?”
“Yes. And please don’t misunderstand me. It was wonderful.” He remembers again the sound of his name wailed at the peak of her pleasure, and heat stirs in his gut once more. “Thoughts of it will keep me company at night for a long while I’m sure. ... What I mean to say is—with lovers in the past, it took a lot of built-up trust for them to desire me in Wildshaped form.”
Amisar lifts her tousled head to look up at him. Her face is flushed as magenta as a sunset, her eyes heavy-lidded.
“I do trust you. You must know that.”
He is struck speechless. He feels as if he’s suddenly tumbling off a cliff, with no wings to sprout to catch him. “I...I do now that you’ve said it.”
Amisar sighs and lays her head back down on his chest, her fingers tracing aimless patterns on his bicep. “For a 350-year-old First Druid, you can be remarkably obtuse sometimes, Halsin.”
He stares up at the canopy of branches, unsure how to respond. His stomach feels full of butterflies, though the wolf in his chest is content for the first time in days.
Finally he simply says, “I am honored you trust me.”
Amisar doesn’t answer. It’s then that he notices her fingers trailing along his arm have stilled. She breathes soft and slow, and a gentle sweet scent drifts off her. She’s fallen asleep.
Oakfather.... Halsin begs to the forest around him, to the roots beneath him, to the evening clouds above him. Your creation of this woman is a boon to me. Help my time on this road of regrets soon be finished. I want.... Give me the chance to approach her as a man, unburdened. ... And not only as a wild thing of desire.
The wind drifts softly through the moonlit leaves. Soon they should return to camp. Soon they must return to all the difficulties that await them. Halsin gently presses his nose into Amisar’s hair once more, breathing deep. Not yet.