Running at full speed with Marie in his arms and the wolf at his side, Gabriel continued clenching his teeth, nothing to do with the weight of his maid or that the more he pushed himself, the more difficult it was for him to breathe.
And her silence was suddenly eating away at him.
He knew that maybe she was still in shock from... whatever had just happened.
Because when that thing was about to reach her, just under the light of the moon, a luminescent energy began to come out of her. That left the entire panorama paralyzed. Before his eyes, her silhouette rose and the creature began to scream in pain with its skin peeling off in bloody flames. Idiotized, he could see how it retreated...
Only to notice a taller figure next to her. Some kind of... shadow?
All the alarms went off in his head and he didn't wait for the glow in her to disappear before lashing out at the already weakened creature, with the wolf tearing apart what was left of it. He had called the girl by her name, but she did not respond and when he decided to do something with that entity... it disappeared.
As it manifested itself, it fell apart as if it had never been there. Only then did the light do the same and he rushed to hold the girl in his arms before she collapsed to the ground.
Seriously, what the hell just happened?
He could think about that later, he had to get her to safety as soon as possible, before...
Both he and the wolf stopped dead, making her gasp, while the wolf growled at something in the shadows.
One, two, three... seven of those things emerged, soaked in blood, with their jaws practically hanging open.
Damn, could they handle everyone without leaving Marie vulnerable?
Besides...
"Gabriel," she whispered in his ear, distressed.
Fleeing went against all of his instincts, but in this terrain they would be surrounded and they would be lost soon, any recklessness would cost them dearly.
Come on, think... think!
Ponvi's snort caught her attention and he could see her making signs to him that he recognized immediately.
"Do you want me to follow you, boy?" he mumbled.
"Don't you say he knows the forest?" she exhaled.
As the animal insisted, he had no choice but to agree.
"Come on boy."
They took a step back... two...
"Run!"
It didn't take a moment for them to be pursued. He heard them scrape their claws against the dirt and brush behind them, and even glide. That might have worried him if it weren't for the fact that the path the wolf was taking them on was so thick that they could barely move forward, much less large beings like those.
"Well thought out, boy," he snorted sarcastically.
"Gabriel, that's..."
"Aye..."
The ruined building loomed in the distance, the one that had been the home of Marie and her sisters, that the brothers had guarded for so long... He had to assume that with the chaos in the main building, they had decided that the priority tonight was not there. What had once been a splendid site for the education of maidens now seemed like a huge pile of rubble that nature was beginning to reclaim.
"Ponvi... why...?" she began to ask.
"Because he is smarter than all of us" he responded with a hint of pride "that is more than certain."
He led them to a place where they could not even stand. He could hear the creatures clawing in an attempt to reach them, but they felt further and further away.
"Perfect" Gabriel smiled maliciously "the weeds will entertain them for a while."
"Ouch" the girl's body trembled in her arms and her two protectors turned to see her immediately.
A quick glance was enough to see her already torn dress, her hair disheveled, with leaves and twigs caught in it, but it was the reddened grooves in her skin that made him cringe. The wolf gasped, as if he realized the same thing.
"I-I'm fine," she said quickly, covering herself, "don't stop for me, please."
"Marie... I'm sorry... I'll be more careful..."
"Don't say that!" She demanded "the important thing now is to survive, isn't it?! Come on, we must lose those things!"
She couldn't help but smile at her in an affected way:
"Yes, Milady."
"Geez, Gabriel, how can you joke at a time like this?!"
Her pout and sudden outburst were so charming that he had to lean in to place a quick kiss on her lips. Kiss that left her completely blank:
"Let's get out of here, Milady," he pushed himself forward, this time, covering her better with his armor, which had been protecting him from the beginning.
"Gosh..." she continued complaining against the arch of his neck, he could almost imagine the blush tormenting her face "you are so reckless..."
"And I... I'm glad that you continue to be yourself, my dear Marie."
Thus they had passed from the clearing of the night to an even darker chamber.
"They're still out there, but I doubt they'll make it here."
When Gabriel approached, Marie was still cowering against the cold rock of the narrow, ramshackle passage. The wolf cub had curled up on her and she had immediately hugged him. Her fur was so warm that she couldn't help but cling to it.
"Thank you, Ponvi."
The moan he returned must have been a "you're welcome" and she preferred to stay thinking that.
As the silence dragged on, she looked up, only to be met with the half smile of Gabriel, who crossed her arms over his chest, as if he were waiting for something.
She blushed and rubbed her cheek against his soft white fur in an attempt to hide it.
"I'm sorry..."
"Why do you apologize?" he snorted sarcastically.
"I..."
She couldn't finish, because the truth was she wasn't sure what to say and why she suddenly felt uncomfortable. Realizing this, he snorted and proceeded to sit next to the pair:
"Does it hurt?"
"What...?" And she saw what a mess she was "Oh! Honestly... not much... not really... just..."
"Come on, you know you don't have to be ashamed. Just show me and we will apply the plant that you pointed out to us along the way to avoid accidents."
"But..."
He took a fleeting glance at her shrinking body and after a sneaky composure, his expression turned neutral:
"I'm not going to see or touch where I shouldn't."
She knew it would be like this. But what if she was the one who wanted him to touch her...
She shook that thought away with a mental slap and began to stand up without disturbing the wolf that was sheltering her.
Still with that sober expression, Gabriel approached to examine her. The longer he looked at her, the more she could feel her blush warming her face, and her heart beating like the madman it was. She just hoped that the prayers she was raising to the Lord were enough for him not to notice... Although knowing him, she knew they were in vain.
"They are not serious," he declared, "but some are bleeding."
She took out of her pocket the plant they had collected from the undergrowth, one that she had immediately recognized, as it was the one she provided to him for his wounds. He looked at them alternately and asked:
"So...?" He cleared his throat "How do you prefer to do it?"
That dispassionate tone of his, which was intended not to make her feel uncomfortable, was making her even more nervous.
"I... Could you please do it?"
There was a moment when he was definitely affected by her words, but he responded without a complaint:
"Sure."
She looked away from him as he began to remove his gloves. The reason for her decision was definitely not because she wanted him to touch her, with his hands huge and calloused and warm and soft and...
"I'm going to..." he cleared her throat, perhaps it was becoming his new nervous tic "I'm going to need to remove the fabric, your dress is torn and all."
She nodded slightly but kept her face hidden. Soon she could feel his masculine fingers carefully removing the sleeves from her shoulders. The sudden ardor of her at some points made her elated.
"Sorry," he stopped.
"It's okay" her voice was suddenly hoarse "just do it, please."
She could feel him breathing deeply, so close to her neck that shivers ran up and down her spine. But it was only when his palms began to rub the cold sole that she couldn't contain her shudder.
"Too rough" He stopped again, but his tone had changed.
"No" she tried her best to relax, in vain.
"I will be gentle."
Another promise kept, as he slid over the bruises on her arms and the low of her back. She couldn't stop shaking, but not from the cold. Her bare skin against his hands was killing her, avoiding any uncomfortable places, which was becoming some kind of torture, far from a blessing. She didn't know when she had started panting until she heard against her ear:
"Any other place you want me to touch?"
She didn't have time to hold back her exhale. In fact, there were maybe a couple of secret places where, maybe...
"I think... my legs. They burn a little."
She wasn't lying, but what had come out of her lips definitely couldn't match her voice.
Those masculine lips came so close to her cheek that she thought he was going to kiss her.
And she saw herself wanting it.
"Your skirt is quite torn, are you sure?"
Oh Sweet Lord, forgive me.
"Yes, I'm sure."
Masculine hands stayed a while longer in the hollow of her hips above the fabric, while a quick kiss was placed on her neck.
She remained hugging herself, waiting for him to settle in front of her and ask the wolf for some space. She was aware of the animal reluctantly agreeing and curling up to the side. She was going to miss his fur, but her body had already been warmed in every possible way.
Her skirt was in tatters, just as he had said, and the grooves were exposed dramatically on her legs. She watched him retreat with anguish on his face.
"Do not apologize anymore," she whispered, "I'm here thanks to you, so... I want you to be the one to do it."
Oh wow, she had actually said that out loud. She was beginning to be quite sure that some creature really had occupied her body, and was acting like she would never do in her right mind.
"You are so brave" that statement brought her out of her cringing.
"You are still saying something like that? I've cried, I've frozen, I've shrunk, all I've done is cause you to deviate from your mission, and you even had to run and hide because of me... What part of that is being brave?"
No more tears, please, no more.
"So beautiful..." he continued, as if he hadn't heard her.
He removed the disastrous, mud-covered slippers from her and discarded them.
"Gabriel, why...?"
His palms with ointment began to slide down her calves, down the back of her legs, and up in a decadent manner. That made her squirm, and the word for that feeling parked in her mind.
Pleasure.
"I have asked myself so much... if I will be able to love you as a man one day - I had reached her thighs and her gasps were the echo of hers" my body burns with the mere thought.
Her lips landed just a couple of feet above her knee, where she had a particularly bad bruise, before she moved the medicine over it. The pain mixed with her sweetness overwhelmed her until she was breathless.
"G-Gabriel..."
"Is the will of our God really so important to our desires? Is it necessary to show my worth to friends and strangers, when the only opinion that matters is yours? What is a status, what is a surname? When right now..." his hands were getting too dangerously close to the inside of her thighs "we could unite with only the Lord as a witness and no one could dare to doubt your chastity."
The feminine back had arched and her nails had dug into the red shoulder pads of his armor. Would that being that had dominated her body be able to stop him?
"Marie" at the mention of her name, she found his face darkened by that strange expression "at this moment, you are the only one who can give me orders. To me, none of them mean anything... but you... you are the one who decides."
Suddenly, he had loomed over her like an enormous predator, his large, calloused palms carefully supporting her jaw, and his thumb lazily rubbing her cheek.
"Are you going to... let me love you?"
Oh, Lord, forgive these unfortunate lost souls and forgive us all who want them to fall into sin. Amen.