We Will Hunt Together (10 page)

Helgaer's hands, which had stayed on Camille's shoulder blades, slid down her back tenderly to her waist. Her mouth moved across, giving exactly the same treatment to the other nipple.

Camille's hands crept up to Helgaer's shoulders. She made a frustrated sound when she encountered cloth.

Helgaer quickly pulled off her shirt, but did not untie her pants. She untied Camille's hose instead while Camille's hands slid down to cradle and squeeze Helgaer's breasts.

Helgaer pushed Camille's hose off her hips, then loosed her braies, not reacting as Camille's thumbs began to tease her nipples.

Helgaer gently but firmly pushed Camille onto her back before pulling off hose and braies together.

Helgaer was gentle and light. She did not push Camille's limits, not trying to penetrate her even with the tip of her tongue, but was persistent. Her hands roamed over Camille's thighs, her belly and waist, and over the barely-there softer texture of her breasts. Helgaer's fingertips were more assertive on Camille's nipples. Her tongue did not stop moving, all the while exhibiting a defter and more clever touch than Camille had been expecting.

Camille did not relax easily. She fought her own pleasure unconsciously even while she willed herself to relax and accept this. Eventually, Helgaer's patience and persistence won out.

Camille shouted, grabbing Helgaer's head as her hips bucked several times. She screamed. She pressed Helgaer's face against her, seeking as much pleasure as she could get, then her legs came up and she trapped Helgaer's head between her thighs, squeezing for several long seconds before she suddenly went limp.

Helgaer slid up the bed gently, favouring her side, but now moving easily despite it. She rolled Camille towards her, into a hug. Camille's uppermost arm and leg wrapped around her.

Camille held Helgaer tightly, body jerking a couple of times as she did not quite cry.

"It's like lying with a wolf," Camille said eventually, muffled against Helgaer's shoulder.

Helgaer, grinning, untied her pants. Together, they worked the heavy fur down her legs until she could kick them off. Somehow, without breaking the hug, they managed to pull the woollen blanket over them.

"What can you hunt?"

Helgaer stared at Camille in surprise.

Two days had passed. They were sharing the bed without nervousness or shyness. Helgaer had ventured out into the forest alone, finding her way back to the hut without difficulty. Camille had shot a small boar, an animal with delicious flesh and valuable skin, but so much aggression she had needed two shafts to kill it.

She was repairing arrows now, stripping off damaged feathers and replacing them with pheasant. She had cleaned and cut the feathers while they sat outside the hut in companionable silence enjoying the sunrise. Now she was binding them onto the shafts with sure and nimble fingers while Helgaer stood one side of the clearing sending a constant stream of small stones into the dead centre of a target on the other side.

Camille looked at Helgaer after asking the question, her fingers finishing an arrow without her apparently needing to pay attention.

Helgaer collected her thoughts. "Birds I can kill easily. Foxes or rabbits, if I catch them by surprise. I'm used to trapping squirrels in trees, and in the mountains we have a ground-dwelling squirrel that can be caught with traps set for hares."

"Nothing large."

"I never did get the hang of a bow." Helgaer was still feeling unsettled by Camille's tendency to bluntness.

"Did you ever bind your breasts while shooting?"

Helgaer blinked in surprise. She had to think about that for a second. "No."

Camille put down the arrow she had finished before walking into the hut. She returned with an old quiver of second-rate arrows and one of her older, plainer bows.

Helgaer took a deep breath. "Camille–"

"Try. I will insist until you do."

Helgaer relented. She took the bow but drew just one arrow from the quiver.

Camille said nothing as Helgaer settled the grip in her hand before nocking the arrow.

Helgaer turned towards the target, tried to remember everything she had been taught, took a deep breath, then raised the bow.

She only drew it halfway before she hissed and released, dropped her right hand instantly to her wound. The arrow skidded along the ground without reaching the target, but the line was not bad.

Camille leapt forwards, dropping the quiver.

"I'm alright," Helgaer said quickly. "It pulled sharply, is all."

"Let me check."

"It feels fine."

Camille gave Helgaer a look that Helgaer was learning to recognise.

She walked over to the bench, pulling off the old farmer's shirt.

Camille unwrapped her quickly. The wound was no longer scabbed. Fresh, pink skin was building a wide, thick scar. There was no fresh blood.

"I think I will leave the binding off while you stay here," Camille said slowly. "Your skin needs to breathe. Put it back on if you leave the clearing or do your sword practice."

Helgaer sighed. Even good healing was a sign that she was still carrying a handicap.

Camille heard the sigh. She looked up at Helgaer, her eyes hooded and her hand lingering on Helgaer's skin. "You expect too much of yourself."

"You have told me that before." Helgaer's tone bore a touch of sullenness, but she did not pull away from Camille's hand or put the shirt back on.

"It is still true."

Helgaer's face was unreadable as she stared across the clearing. Camille kept her hand on Helgaer's side, just under the wound.

They were both silent until Camille felt moved to break it. "I am worried your body will fail you in the middle of a fight."

The ghost of a smile appeared on Helgaer's lips. "My body has not failed me so far, if I listen to it."

Camille froze for several heartbeats before jerking her hand back, making Helgaer smile more broadly. "Make sure you are listening with the parts of you that matter, not just the parts that speak loudest," Camille snapped.

Helgaer laughed, the carefree and joyous bark of Vreelander pleasure. She pushed herself upright, walking slowly into the clearing with her shirt hanging casually from her hand.

Camille looked after her speculatively and, she had to admit, appreciatively. There was fat under Helgaer's skin, as her people needed, but it did not hide the hard musculature that wrapped her torso, shoulders and arms. Vreelander men Camille had met had reminded her of bears, they were so stocky and thickly bearded. Helgaer looked like an alpha wolf. Her shoulders were wide, her body tapered to a narrow waist above broad hips, and she moved with the rolling, casually strong gait of an animal. Camille had no doubt at all that uninjured, Helgaer would be able to run all day and then fight to prove her honour.

Camille pressed down an urge to see Helgaer's smooth back without the interruption of her breast binding. The lump of scar tissue marking the exit wound was too vivid to let her forget why she was so worried.

"I should make you promise you will not go hunting men until you can draw a bow without pain," Camille called out, "but I am afraid you will be so proud you will tear yourself open before you make a sound."

Helgaer turned around. Her sense of shame in front of Camille had completely disappeared. She stood tall, straight and open. "I think you understand my people."

Camille stared levelly back. "You were not too proud to accept my help."

Helgaer shrugged. "I was too injured to refuse."

She turned away again, walking over to the dropped quiver while Camille's eyes traitorously dropped back down Helgaer's body, to where the woolen hose hugged her arse.

Camille shook her head. To distract herself, she picked up another arrow in need of new feathers.

"I told you I was not going into rush into any fight I did not think I could win," Helgaer called. She was sorting quickly through the arrows in the quiver, to make sure none of them were damaged. "I can fight like this, but I would prefer to be healed."

Camille looked up sharply. "'Prefer'?"

"I will not refuse fate." Helgaer headed towards the arrow she had fired.

Camille's fingers tightened on the shaft in her hands. She carefully put it down, before she accidentally stabbed herself in the leg with it. "Do you think fate will only give you one chance?"

Helgaer bent to pick up the arrow, every muscle in her arm and torso flowing smoothly. She examined the feathers as she straightened up. "We know that Captain Koda moves around unpredictably. I may only get one chance."

"I can track a deer without seeing it. We can track him and his men."

"Starting with an old rumour?"

"If needs be."

Helgaer dropped the arrow into the quiver. She began walking back to Camille, who felt a little warmer than the sun accounted for. "I will not throw myself into death's arms," Helgaer said. "But I will not keep him waiting, either. I must take my vengeance where I can, if I can. I am Vreelander. I will be shaming Tola if I hang back like a coward. I need you to understand this."

Camille nodded slowly, without taking her eyes off Helgaer's. "I understand. But you and I have very different ideas about when caution is cowardliness and when it is prudence."

Helgaer's face split with a wide smile. "If you can accept our ideas will continue to be different, I will accept your advice to be cautious."

Camille stared at her in disbelief before breaking into helpless laughter, still not used to how quickly Vreelanders could go from anger to delight. "I promise," she said when her laughter had died away, "that when the time comes and fate presents your vengeance, I will be standing at your side, not holding you back."

Helgaer's face turned serious. Camille suddenly remembered how important comrades were, to Vreelanders. "If you will fight with me," Helgaer said, "I will follow you."

"I already told you I would stand with you on this," Camille said, feeling uncomfortable.

"You have. And I had not forgotten. But if you advise me to hold back, I will take your advice seriously. Just do not expect me to abandon my duty."

"I don't think anything could keep a Vreelander from her duty. If I could hold you back, you wouldn't be ready to fight!"

Helgaer grinned again, the brief moment of seriousness passed. "You are stronger than you look, Camille. We should test it."

Camille held up both hands reflexively, laughing. "I am no wrestler! You could beat your brother, and you could beat Tola. There is no way I could beat you, even when you were bleeding and stuck with a crossbow bolt!"

Helgaer kept grinning. She spread her arms. "I'll teach you."

Camille pointed one finger at the ugly lump of scarring. "When that is healed! You can teach me other things until then."

Camille's mouth closed with a snap when she realised what she had said. Helgaer's grin had faded to a faint smile, but not disappeared. She dropped her arms. She took a step towards Camille as Camille tore her gaze away from Helgaer's waist, back up to her eyes.

Helgar took Camille's chin in one hand, tilting her head further up. "Whenever you ask," she said softly, before kissing Camille lightly.

Camille grabbed the centre of Helgaer's breast binding, returning the kiss fiercely.

When they separated, they were both breathing heavily.

"I have one more favour to ask," Camille said as she used Helgaer's binding to pull herself upright. "Sometimes, some days, we lie together without fighting first."

"Fighting lets you know you're alive," Helgaer said as she started pulling Camille's shirt up. "But we can try it your way." She kissed Camille again before pulling Camille's shirt up over her head.

Camille lead Helgaer inside, to the bed. She seemed nervous, a state Helgaer had not seen in her before.

Tola had never been nervous. Nobody in Helgaer's experience had been as slender as Camille. Yet, Camille had never before looked vulnerable. Camille was older than Helgaer if only by a little, much more experienced and much stronger than she looked, but to Helgaer she now seemed fragile.

Light was streaming inside the hut through its small windows and through the door, creating spots of bright light and contrasting deep shade. The bed was divided, so as Camille lay down, her upper body was brightly lit and her legs in darkness.

"You are beautiful," Helgaer said. It was not a term Vreelanders used often. It was not important in a land where ability was more important than appearance and where wives were judged, like husbands, by their arms. It was a word from Ortlin and Danova. For one second, it seemed as though Camille would reject it, but she said nothing.

Kneeling above Camille, Helgaer once more felt massive by comparison. This time, she did not feel ungainly. She knew her strength and her strengths, and she knew Camille. They came from different worlds and were measured by different standards. When Helgaer reached out to run a hand down Camille's body, over one almost flat breast to her hard belly, she felt a body that could never have come from Vreeland, and was happy for it.

Helgaer knew she did not have to be gentle for Camille's body, but she did, right now, need to be gentle for Camille.