Forty-Two

 

"And...I think she's full," Rosa said as her nipple popped out of baby Maja's mouth.

While she retied the laces of her gown, Chase carried the sleeping baby over to the cradle she shared with her twin sister, Saskia, for the girls screamed fit to wake the dead if they were parted for long.

"Do you think they'll sleep through the night?" Chase asked doubtfully, smoothing a blanket over the girls.

"My sleeping spells have worked fine so far. They will not wake until sunrise, even if they weren't full to bursting with milk." She lifted her lips for a kiss. "We have all night, the longest night of the year."

"We'll need it. We've scarcely shared a bed, even to sleep, since the girls were born," Chase grumbled as he threw a couple of blankets over his shoulder. He fastened his cloak, then picked up the two jugs of mead from the table. "Which barrel is this?"

"The Midwinter's Night mead, strong and sweet, like you, made the night you first touched my heart," Rosa said, settling her red cloak across her shoulders.

"The night I touched your breast in my sleep, you mean."

"I'd like to think the gods guided your hand," she said lightly, slipping her arm through the handle of a basket of food she'd packed to sustain them through the night. Outside, the trees whispered, as if a high wind whipped through their branches, but the night was still. "Can you still hear them?"

Chase closed the door behind him and squinted up at the trees. "Unfortunately, yes. They've been whispering all day. Your gods of the forest are randier than I am, and that's saying something."

Rosa set off with a skip in her step. "Then perhaps we should hurry to the grove, so I can help you with that."

Chase followed, but Rosa was faster, reaching the unlit bonfire first.

"Oh, it's beautiful," she whispered. Chase had edged the altar in holly and mistletoe, with a row of lit candles on both ends. "I should have thought to bring an offering, too."

Chase touched his torch to the bonfire. "Your gods of the forest were very clear about what they desire from their High Priestess."

"They told you, but not me?"

"You were busy inside with the girls. Too busy to listen to a bunch of randy trees who have taken a distinctly unholy shine to their High Priestess."

A shiver of alarm touched her. "Chase, you should not mock the gods of the forest so. If they struck you down for your insolence, I would be inconsolable. And the girls..."

"Do not fear. I may not worship your gods as devoutly as you do, but we have an understanding. As long as I keep you happy." Chase untied the laces of her gown, then pushed it down, until it puddled on the ground. The two woollen shifts she wore beneath soon followed it. Then he lifted her so she perched on the edge of the altar, well away from the holly and candles, and peeled her hose and boots off her dangling legs.

Rosa pulled the edges of her cloak closed over her nakedness. "What are you doing? We can't do this on the altar!"

"That's not what they say!" Chase raised his arms, waving at the treetops.

Now Rosa could hear their hissed words, and what she did hear made her blush.

Surely the god of fire hadn't dared bend a goddess over her own altar to take her from behind...

"Yes!"

"Please!"

"Drink the nectar of the gods, High Priestess!"

Behind Rosa, the bonfire finally caught, roaring up with a wave of heat that enticed her to loosen her hold on her cloak. She reached for Chase's golden cup, brimful of mead, and drank half of it in one draught, before handing it to Chase to finish.

Then Chase stripped off, until he stood before her in nothing but his white wolf-fur cloak. Only then did he position himself between her thighs, ready.

She lifted her glowing ice-blue eyes to meet his fiery gaze. "Oh, Sir Knight, what a big sword you have."

"All the better to...gods, it feels so good to be inside you again, my lady!"