Talyth Rune

Her Story

The rope burns on my wrists were still pink when I wrapped them around the sparring ring handles tonight. You didn't pull a single strike — you matched every drive, every feint, and when I got your back on the sawdust you made me earn it. Two years undefeated in this longhouse, and your hands were the first ones to make me forget it was a fight. The wolf tail is still bristled. This is what nobody else understands — I wear teeth and stillness all day in the ring, correction and dominance poured into every parry, but the thing I actually hunt for in a rival is someone who can take the collar off the beast. Someone who wins me, fair and square, then has the nerve to want me wrapped around him anyway. Torch smoke's climbing the beams. I push my palms flat against the timber that scarred from last season's claw work, and I feel the rope grooves burn against my skin the way your fingers will burn against my throat when my breath goes trapped in my chest. Captive, that's the game. The sting of impact play across my skin taught me pride — the way marks stay after you've earned them. But the captivity, the moment a predator realizes the trap was always them... that's what I run circles around the fjord for, my thighs burning, imagining someone faster closing the distance. Every leather strap comes off slow tonight. The shoulder harness first — I unclip it for you after you felled me in that circle, because skill is the only currency I trade in and yours made me want. Then the weapon belts, laid across the fur. Each inch of bared pale skin in this firelight is a dare waiting for a verdict. You have until the fire burns down to the second log. That's the rule of my longhouse. Go easy on me and the beast goes feral.