I'm a northern lady.

Northern lady.

She doesn’t call herself “wild”, or alludes to the life of a gypsy. No, she is of the north, that harsh place of ice and glaciers, and Reginald knows there is a herd there. The Basin. It is a key that quells the easy, tempting option of just eating the poor soul.

A child in the Basin is appealing.

He knows his eldest children shall reside in the Edge when they are old enough—their paternity secret, their identity safe so that tiny bodies may nurture themselves into cold-hearted, useful maturity (Enyo knows her duty). Merlin was borne by a countryman, and so she shall be reared by the blazing hot winds and sand of his homeland—it is just as well, for he feels Merlin will be one that needs to be watched.

To have another pair of eyes and tiny feet in yet another corner of the map incites his curiosity so much more, his sense of pride and a growing force of driving purpose. His actions leap before his schemes, and he must catch up. There is an opportunity in those sable, boney hips.

As for that, well. One of them would kill me should I ask, and the rest are all unworthy maggots.

Does she speak of the stallion Öde?

Reginald remembers how the child (the man) had stalked those icy halls in their youth—he wonders if the brute had decided to stay there after all. He wonders what it means for the red-eared lord to have found this woman distasteful, while Reginald stands here himself considering whether to take him to bed. He wonders which sort of ramifications he might have in the future, to plant his seed in the fields of an ally? Should he be told? Should Reginald keep the secret safe against his breast, like he does for all others?

His thoughts are cut short.

Are you game or what? I don't have all day.

He could’ve eaten her, just for that smug comment. It takes all of him, every iota of his focus, his self-control, to keep the ease in his features, to stop his ears from pinning themselves against the bulk of his neck. This beggar finds herself a chooser--and where it not for the virtue of her homeland, the possibilities of a foal borne by a forgettable, replaceable womb. He decides for now—it is worth it.

And if she proves herself detestable, and the child worthless—why, it would bring him that much more pleasure to tear her apart, to shred the child before her very eyes. He would revel in teaching that lesson.

“Of course I understand,” he breathes to her—and it is his smokiest voice, his most tantalizing purr that he uses, so that he may set the immediate mood, “If you would…?” He does not wait for her to invite him forward—he approaches the sweat-soaked mare, and he takes.




He is never a gentle creature—he has never tried to be—although he cannot stop himself from his roughness, his meanness after her petty words, and he hopes she is sore and broken somewhere.  



[So sorry about the wait! I wanted to line up this post/ stats posting with Kansas' application with Bathsheba!

”Watch for Circe.”