Crusader

Chapter 68

“That was awkward,” Aisling said as he slipped past her, not bothering to conceal his motions. The sun was creeping lower in the sky, now afternoon, and the wind was steady out of the north, not intermittent as it had been. “Are you sure letting him loose is the best of ideas? What if he follows you?”

“You know we’re going, right?” He watched her, taking long steps over a sleeping body to stand beside her. She nodded, and he realized he was standing closer to her now than he had ever before in camp. “He’ll be of use to them. Let him have his chance to redeem himself.”

“And if he doesn’t?” She played with her hair as he watched, twisting it around her finger, the white blending with the dark blue, a bright contrast, as though both were painted, so different from his own skin and hair. “If he tracks you, and kills you?”

“That’s why I’m taking you with me,” Cyrus said with an easy smile that he felt not at all. He was getting better at it, he realized with only a slight discomfort. “This way, you’ll be there to watch my back. If you’re not too busy with my front, that is …” He leaned toward her, let his armor rest against her, and then took a long, slow kiss, right there in front of the entire camp.

She pulled away from him leisurely, opening her eyes slowly after the kiss. “You realize you just did that in front of …”

“Everyone, yes,” Cyrus said and kissed her again. “I don’t care who knows, who sees. I’ve seen some of them do it as well, the soldiers. They crawl into their bedrolls together at night and everyone pretends to give them the illusion of privacy, like a silent law we all follow. Well, I want it too, to stop hiding, to stop worrying about it, to have you when I want you instead of always worrying I’ll be found out.” His hand slipped around her hip and pulled her waist close to him. “I don’t want to hide anymore. I just want to have you whenever I want.”

She watched him cannily, with a slight smile. “That might prove awkward in the midst of a battle.”

“Try to pretend you wouldn’t find it incredibly arousing.”

She took a moment of slow inhale to pretend as though she were thinking about it. “Perhaps. But as we are not presently in a battle, there’s no need to consider it. If you want to have me as a soldier has his lover, you need only lay out a bedroll and crawl in it with me and let the rest take its course. There’s no danger but the idea that others will see their General having an immensely good time.”

He let himself smile again, fake but with a foundation in the grim reality that he wanted to unburden himself, to claim that relief she gave him. “Well, there is another danger,” he said, as he slid a hand around her waist to lead her off to where his pack lay, near his saddle, across the camp, “… after all, you do tend to bite when you’re overly excited …”

She slapped him in mock offense as he led her away, and they put down the bedroll on the ground and climbed into it. Everyone saw, but no one watched, and they remained beneath it until they were both well and truly sated.