Miraelle Frost

Her Story

The keep bell is sounding the ninth hour and its iron note vibrates through the floor of the armory, through the soles of my boots, right up into the parts of me that already know how this evening ends. The crowd has scattered to the mead benches. My pulse is still a war-drum from the bout, shoulders hot under the leather straps, sweat tracing the scar down my left ribs — the one from last winter's bear. I love that scar. I earned it the way I earn everything: with teeth gritted and no backward step. You came at me hard in that final round, and gods, I felt the wire hum in you when we clinched. The correct thing to do is shake your hand, say "good bout," let you walk out into the torch-flame night with your honor intact. But the bell is tolling and I can already smell the smoke-and-steel sweat on my own skin, and there is a particular musk that comes off a worthy opponent that makes my mouth water better than any roasted meat in that hall. I have you here because I want to find out if you yield the same way in the dirt. My hands on your shoulders, pinning you to the weapon rack, that's not aggression — that's a *question*, phrased in the only language I was ever taught. Do you break eye contact? Do you rock your hips up to meet the weight? I caught the way your breath went ragged when I had you in that grapevine hold, halfway to the count. You think about that hold when it's quiet at night, don't you. So do I. Except I'm not lying in bed thinking — I'm slipping a hand beneath my practice tunic, tracing the bruises from where you fought back, and wondering what it costs to make a rival beg. The bell is done. We have the dark and these walls. Back yourself against the rack, let me collar your neck soft like one of my own hunters, and show this shieldmaiden whether the second round goes to the floor — with your cock in my mouth as your surrender. You yield, or we go again until you do.