"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Ivar is going to fail this test of his own making.
He had been so certain, so sure of the way that she looked up at him from eyes so like Castile’s that this would be an easy feat. She was a girl, like a sister, and safe in her position as well. There have been other young ones, children drawn in by something fascinating, and it was easy enough to send them away. With their toothpick legs and innocent smiles, they held no true appeal for the scaled creature. He has been as naïve as they were to think that Isobell would be as simple.
It should be a simple feat to press a brotherly kiss to her dark forehead, to pull away with a smile and take her the rest of the way to Loess. That has been his intention all along, to prove to himself that she is as safe as Heda, as safe as a child.
But Isobell is not Heda. She is herself, with too-long lashes across her storm-grey eyes, with her lithe figure pressed so firmly to his left side, with her soft coat both moonlight and moondark. She is also not a child, not with the way she says his name, the way her harmless teeth nip at the sensitive scales below his jaw. He is frozen in his uncertainty until she leans below him to heart his pulse, and he can feel the beat of her own heart against his chest. That is enough for him, and the muscles in his chest tighten, his left knee bending in preparation to swing up and over her withers. He will pull her below him, beneath him, take what she has given no other stallion, take more, and give her the same.
He’s grabbed the nap of her neck without thought, canines holding her steady in preparation to throw himself atop her…when the rain begins to fall.
The late summer storm is fierce and sudden, and the tobiano horses are immediately drenched by a wave of falling water. It is a shock, even more when followed by the crash of thunder, and it brings Ivar back to his senses.
The stallion releases his tender grip, and too shocked to think clearly, says to Isobell with a relieved chuckle that sounds more bemused at what is surely her completly unwarranted wantoness: “You might need more supervision than I thought.”
There had been a buzzing in her head that she had not noticed till it was gone. A veil of thin gauze, much like a bride's, had been lifted from the mercury filled eyes as the rain falls nearly in sheets. There was a dull ache between her legs, a wetness that was not rainfall, that she has suddenly become very aware of.
No long is she the child of yesteryear. Isobell takes a deep breath, attempting to slow her quickened pulse, count backward from ten to one. Till nothing is left.
(10...9...8...)
She steals a glance at Ivar with his easy smile and light hearted chuckle.
(7...6...5...)
She can feel a shiver or fright, desire, greed for this painted bastard.
(4...3...2...)
Despite the rain, the saturation of her flawless white and black texture, there is a tingle to where his teeth had taken hold of her skin and the savage way he ruled her flesh (if only for a blinding moment). Isobell has fallen quiet as she deliberates this. The smoldering creature that seemed to lay just below the pretty scales. Isobell, bold and bright, simply returns his chuckle with her own dancing one. The cool rain felt good to wipe away the heat from her skin, the moist place the man had conjured up in her. "Perhaps you are right." She retorts with a cool voice, the words tip toeing off the pink tongue in her mouth. "I'm not sure whom else I trust to be alone with me-" She leaves the comment to hang in the air, curious of how he responses and sensitive to the way his body speaks without words but instead of waiting any longer, "-should we take shelter beneath the pines-"
(1)
"-or would you like to hurry to Loess?" She can hear her mother's steely voice telling her to hush, to be quiet and listen, wait for his response so she may measure this man by his words. Isobell was curious to how he would reply as the rain fell down upon them, Isobell's mane quite plainly stuck to her neck and the length of her tail dragging in the mud and yet there was still a glint in her silver eye as she tilted her head to glance at him from the side.
i'll wait for you inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Looking west, the stallion eyes the thick canopy of clouds. The rain pouring around them is only the beginning, he knows. There is a cool nip to the air, a warning that summer’s hold is not so permanent. Even in Loess, the rain will fall for hours; they will be drenched wherever they go.
Planning has readily cleared his mind of the lusting haze, and he listens with a half-cocked ear as Isobell speaks. He is not looking in her direction, and he nods at her agreement, his attention elsewhere. Ivar shakes away the rain that is dripping into his eyes, and it is only the loaded pause in Isobell’s words that make him hesitate. What had she just said?
He turns back toward her slowly, his brown eyes narrowed. Wantoness he can handle – he has just proven it to himself – but this is something different. The scaled stallion has always been content in his role of incubus; it is instinctual as both kelpie and stallion. He is the beguiler, the enchanter, the seducer. That is his role, and yet there is a glint in Isobell’s silverstorm eyes that he knows only from his own internal reflection.
“Or would you like to hurry to Loess?” she asks taunts, and Ivar moves forward with a guttural sound low in his throat. He had beaten himself before, but he had arranged each of the variables to achieve success. This is not something he had anticipated, the way that Isobell would look with water-slick skin and a beguiling smile of her own.
“There are a great many things I would like, Isobell.” The piebald mutters, his scaled chest pressing against the mare’s left shoulder, driving her toward the sheltering pines without warning. There’s a tree farther out from the rest of the copse, and he traps her between the solid trunk and his own body, hearing the patter of the rain and her heartbeat as a single sound.
Ivar had rebuffed the moniker of gentleman that she’d given him moments earlier, but he is ever so gentle as he slides his scaled muzzle up the right side of her neck. She tastes of rain and saltwater, of things forbidden and all the more desirable for it. He tells himself that she is safe even as he fights the urge to
(take her, take what she is offering.)
His touch remains chaste by explicit definition only, intimate contact without a kiss. Her earlier groan emerges from memory (hadn’t he surely put it from his mind?), accompanied by the breathless way she had said his name. Without logical reason, he wants to hear them again – without help. The only thing her presses into her with his touch is the freedom to act on of her own will.
He had made her want him before, made her ignore the alarm that prey feels when faced with danger. That is where he excels; that is how he hunts. This time he does makes no attempt to quiet the alarm.
Ivar is not certain who is being tested this time, but then…he is no longer sure of anything. Isobell is safe, but this Isobell is not who he had thought. This is not Castile’s bright-eyed little sister, this is a grown mare with lust in her eyes that he knows must match his own expression. It’s been barely a heartbeat since he had finished speaking with her name, and he is leaning heavily with his upper chest against her withers, a paltry imitation of the way he wants to bear down on her.
“And you’re a clever girl,” he continues, his voice a whisper against her ear before he trails his lips down the mottled slope of her neck to where he had gripped her before. He lingers there, the soft indents of his canines still visible and his breath hot against the surely still-tender skin, “so I am sure you know what one of the those things is.”
His taller and heavier body, his scaled mass, his overwhelming scent is pressing her towards the tree line where he makes good on her idle words (she knows she must be careful what she whispers in the rain even with boys who are not stranger). She side steps, allows him to drive her like the animals they are, allows him to dominate her for mere moments as he finally pins her against the tree, bits of wet bark and dirt marking the white patch of her right shoulder.
His words are nearly a rasp but they are meant for her dark ears alone as he is pressing against her with his weight, his muzzle remembering the place he had gripped her so firmly. Her skin responds with a shiver to his touch. Isobell realizes, rather clearly, what he murmurs against her skin.
With a slow pull, her hide raking against the tree bark, she slides away from his grip (like prying a mouse away from a cat). The painted mare with the quicksilver eyes catches her hips between his chest and the tree, pinned once again, she looks over her left shoulder to meet his gaze. "Perhaps it's best we make our way to Loess." Her voice becomes matter-of-factly as she waits for him to be the gentleman and release his grip upon her hips.
Never had Isobell felt her desire balk before but she knows that she does not want to give herself to Ivar...not yet and certainly not here despite the moan he pulled from her lips or the moisture between her legs. And so now, as the pale and dark man holds her, the young princess waits for him to release her, knowing he would.
i'll wait for you inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
She shivers beneath his touch. It is fascinating, and so he grips her again, holding her crest without pressure just to see what she will do next.
It is pull away, which is startling disappointing, but Ivar does not draw back. His mouth remains just above her skin, canines raking furrows in her rain-wet hair. The storm is washing away the salt on her skin and he can taste her all the more clearly. She smells of lilac and leather, like the wings of her father she had not inherited. When she turns back to him, the scaled stallion meets her gaze without expression, even when she suggests they make their way to Loess. At that he raises his brows – this close he can all but taste her readiness – but does not give a verbal reply.
He shrugs, as if to imply hat he is not at all disappointed, and releases the pressure against her hips.
The need to win, even if victory is meaningless, does not subside even when he no longer holds her still. Determined, he presses a single hot kiss to the dip of her hip, then another to the soft skin of her thigh. Her tail would brush here, he knows, pushed aside in an offering that he should not take.
Should not does nothing to quell the lust, pause the crisping of the autumn leaves, or dilute the scent of her readiness. Ivar does though, and with a stifled sigh, he steps back, bringing his brown gaze up to Isobell’s with the soft start of a smile. Not now, not today.
Someday, though. It is a promise he makes to himself as he steps away from the virginal princess. Someday she will give herself to him and he will give something back in return. Perhaps it is best if she finds a sweet boy first, someone who Ivar can enjoy ripping to pieces before he shows Isobell what she has been missing.
He thinks of Loess again, of the rolling hills and the navy-haired Heda who waits there. He is suddenly – strikingly – grateful for the way that things have transpired. He considers himself innocent of wrongdoing, but the image of the queen’s pretty face twisted in jealousy of the princess stirs a different sort of desire in Ivar’s chest. She had been so possessive in Karaugh’s presence; he imagines bringing Isobell to Loess might strike a similar cord. She’ll need him to reassure her of his affection, to kiss away her uncertainty, and at the moment Ivar is rather grateful that if he cannot have this princess, at least he can have a queen.
The picture –the anticipation – returns the cheerfulness to the piebald stallion’s expression, and with not-entirely-playful tug at the start of the silky strands of Isobell’s tail, he turns toward Loess.
“Race you?” He asks with a tilt of his head, sidestepping through the still-falling rain. He doesn’t wait for an answer, though, and instead darts ahead, glancing over his shoulder to see if she is following.
