The Werewolf Order (Erotica)

She clenches her jaw tight, a lump stuck in her throat. A man is dead, her life is turned upside down and her country lies in limbo while she is held hostage in a foreign land. She shakes her head no as her only response. She is still unsure of the man that the Queen entrusted her life to and she assures herself that is why she feels so strange.

“What’s the matter beautiful, cat got your tongue?” She can see him trying to smile at her. She wants to look at him, to chastise him for being so informal when there are so many lives on the line but she keeps her eyes down and doesn’t feed into his attempts. Her heart pounds in her ears.

When he is rejected another response, he waits a few moments before trying to engage her in conversation again, “So, Mora, where are you from?”

“Not from around here, Sir,” is all she can think to say; she can barely hear herself above the pounding in her chest.

“Well, obviously,” Rickan mutters before he gives up.

The town is larger than the one she lives in but it seems smaller because the buildings are so close together. It doesn’t have a grand square, just a dusty road that winds through it and continues on. While all of the buildings are made from wood, they lack the proper care that Dervens take pride in. Instead of being rich in color and texture, they appear to be poorly maintained, dried out and slightly warped.

Though it is around lunch time there are no people walking along the boardwalks but she knows they are all inside because Mora can almost feel the curious eyes of the townspeople on her. They trot about half way through town before Rickan draws their horses to a halt in front of one of the nicer looking, two story buildings. It stands tall above every other shops with a narrow alley on the side that must lead to a stable in back. While there are no windows on the first story and none on the second towards the front, Mora can see a few on the upper back half along with a wide balcony that looks over the other stores and to the castle. A cracked, wooden sign designates it as a Tavern, but it is far larger than any tavern Mora has seen.

Knowing they are home, the horses remain still in front of the building. Rickan dismounts before handing both sets of reins to a young stable boy; he is maybe around twelve and resembles the other Sceaduians that she has met: pale, green eyes and darker blonde hair. The boy looks at Mora with intrigue; when she makes eye contact with him, she isn’t sure if the look on his face is shock at her foreign features or if he doesn’t see women much in general. He holds on to the horse’s bridle, petting it on the nose while he waits for her to get off so he can tend to them.

Mora can see her knuckles are white under her grip on the saddle. She slowly swings her bad leg over the rump of the animal. Not thinking straight, she realizes that she dismounted on the wrong side and is now forced to put weight on her injury to free her good leg. When she does, she buries her face into the saddle blanket to stifle her moan of pain. Her leg throbs and she remains there, head buried into the side of the animal, calming herself with the familiar smells of horse and hay.

“What’s wrong with her?” she hears the stable boy ask Rickan curiously.

“She was bitten by a borderwolf,” he responds, his voice flat like before.

“What? And she is still alive?” astonishment rings in the young voice.

“Well it appears so, Jacob, doesn’t it?”

She feels a hand on her shoulder, the pounding in her leg now competing with the pounding of her heart. Rickan’s firm grip gently pulls her away from the animal. She takes a deep breath, steadying herself as he turns her to face him.

“Can you walk?” he asks plainly, unlocking her chains from the horse.

Keeping her eyes down, she nods a yes to his boots. With teeth clenched together she takes a graceful step forward, past Rickan to the tavern; the pain doesn’t crack the harden facade of her face but even so Rickan must have seen her favor the leg.

“Nonsense,” he calls her out.

When she feels an arm pressed against her lower back she instinctively jerks away. The sudden movement sends pain shooting up her thigh and she almost falls forward trying to catch herself. Behind her, Rickan pauses as he waits for her to hold still. When she is done, he replaces his arm on her back and she restrains herself from shying away. With ease, he sweeps her up, his other arm behind her knees. Holding her against him, she can’t help but notice that his chest is firm yet forgiving, unlike King Irron’s.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I just don’t have all day to waste for you to get upstairs,” he says roughly, but jokingly. Rickan’s strong arms carry her through the threshold like a man would carry his wife; not like how Eric carried her like a sack of food. Only once before has a man held her close with such regard; when she was nine, Laren and her were practicing with staffs. He caught her off guard and landed a hard blow to her ankle; fearing it was broken, he refused to let her walk to the doctor but carried her in his arms like Rickan carries her now.

Mora counts thirty three steps to the narrow balcony above the tavern below. She doesn’t see much of anything since she keeps her eyes on the chains around her wrists. Rickan carries her with ease as if she weighs as much as a feather. Feeling awkward about being held by a strange man, she is tempted to look up at his face, which is only a few inches away, but she doesn’t. His large stride quickly takes them to the far end of the balcony where Rickan opens a set of doors leading into a grand bedroom. His bedroom, Mora guesses.

She tenses nervously when he sets her down on a chair. Her heart continues to pound and she wonders for the first time if Eric didn’t suck all of the poison out and she is dying. Over the back of the chair she sits in is some clothing; behind Rickan she can see a large stone fireplace that consumes most of the wall, with a crackling fire in its mouth. In front of it is a beautiful, high backed copper tub full of steaming water. Mora has never seen so much metal used for one large, frivolous object outside of King Irron’s caravan. With the tub fully exposed to the rest of the room, she can feel her cheeks begin to glow when she realizes he means for her to take a bath. She should feel angry at being treated so-even if she were a common woman, she wagers her chastity would still have value.

Rickan’s hand grazes hers when he reaches down to unlock the chains on her wrists. He casually tosses them behind her; they land with a soft thunk that makes Mora think that there is a couch back there. She leaves her hands folded in her lap and has to swallow hard to get the lump out of her throat. His hand floats towards her face but before he touches her, it drops and his boots disappear from her sight.

A loud dragging sound makes her turn her head; all she can see is a large folding screen now in between them, separating her and the tub from the rest of the room. He stands on the other side, speaking quietly, “I am guessing that after your adventure last night, you wouldn’t mind a bath.” She can hear him take a deep breath when he pauses, as if trying to reassure himself as much as her, “I won’t look and I won’t come onto your side of the screen until you are finished… unless you need help… because of your injuries,” he quickly adds.

Mora looks at her hands; they are dirty and covered with dry blood. She wonders how much of it is her own and how much of it is Dell’s. Below her hands, her dress is filthy and has a dark, dried patch from her wound-she knows that is all her blood. As she stands to get undressed, she decides that Master Rickan isn’t entirely awful. She shouldn’t punish him for her mistakes and the Queen’s wicked plan; after all, Rickan doesn’t know who she is or why she is enslaved.

“Thank you, Master Rickan, for your thoughtfulness,” she responds quietly as she undresses.

Somehow without great difficulty she eases herself over and into the tub. The hot water envelopes her, washing away the soreness and disaster from yesterday. Submerged up to her neck, it drains the pain from her leg. With the dirt washed away from her body she can see the garish bite the animal left on her. Several ragged puncture wounds in a cluster adorn her upper calf, to the outside of her knee. While some look like a dog bite, she wonders if the other smooth cuts are from Eric. The skin surrounding it is bright red and swollen. She carefully washes it with soap, biting her lip so she doesn’t scream out. It takes some scrubbing but when it is finally clean, she relaxes her leg down into the water and washes her long, tangled hair. Soon the smell of campfire, roasted pheasant, blood, sweat and anger is replaced by lemongrass soap.

Even though the warm water feels wonderful and the heat that has seeped into her muscles makes her tired, she reluctantly drags herself out of the tub. The cool air prickles her skin; she finds a towel and hastily dries off. She walks to the chair that the clothes are draped over, looking around to make sure no one is watching.

Expecting to find a plain dress, she is surprised with a pair of pants, a ruffled shirt, a sleeveless shirt and some other contraption she isn’t sure about. Sliding the pants over her legs she notes the fabric they are made from is soft against her skin, unlike the rough wool of Derven sheep. They fit well but they are significantly tighter than she is used to, leaving nothing to the imagination. They don’t extend the full length of her legs either, but stop mid calf. With the towel wrapped around her top, she looks down upon her legs; the pants are black and are even slimmer than the pants she wears at the Festival. From her waist, her hips curve back into her knees. Looking curiously at her feet, she realizes that they are pale in comparison to her face, as are her arms, since they rarely see sunlight.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

Discarding the towel, she pulls the tighter, sleeveless shirt on. As it resembles her pants in fit, she is thankful for the looser ruffled shirt until she pulls it over herself. When she looks down, Mora is unnerved a bit to see the tops of her breasts showing. Never before has she felt so naked in clothing.

Mora hears the floor boards creak. She glances over her shoulder to see the figure of Rickan standing behind her. Wondering how long he had been standing there, her heart begins to race in her chest and her skin flushes with embarrassment. She feels so vulnerable; she is injured, almost helpless, in the presence of a strange man who is not her betrothed and now she is clad in clothing that shows everything she has hidden all her life. She faces forward, dropping her gaze to the floor. Her right hand clutches the front of her shirt together at the neck to hide her skin.