Page 23 of Tusk Love

There is a wilderness in me.

It was a scattered thought, pieced together amidst the haze of desire. Then Oskar’s hips thrust up, his clothed erection nudging the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs, and she could no longer think at all. He was rumbling curses into her neck, and the flames were roaring through her. She was burning up, she was going to burst, surrounded by him…

In truth, when the howling started, Guinevere initially believed that the sounds were coming from her. That she was singing the loss of lifelong inhibitions to the mad, mad moons.

Chapter Sixteen

Oskar

The howls were a long way off, but they echoed through the swamp, popping Oskar’s bubble ofsoftandsweetandhiked-up skirtandGuinevere.

He drew back, wrenching his mouth from the pulse point in her throat, and it immediately felt like a mistake. First of all, because he hadn’twantedto, and secondly—

Secondly, because looking at her, in the dim light of orcish vision, made every muscle in his body want to reach for her again.

Guinevere was a mess, pupils blown wide with arousal, lips wet and swollen from his kisses, nipples hard beneath her dress. The sight of those little peaks made Oskar’s hands itch to be on them again.

It was the howling that restored his sanity. A low and predatory chorus that curled through the endless miles of bog along with the shadows of the deep, humid night, unsettling the horses. The source could not be determined, but everything that lurked within Labendawas some degree of harmful. The open swamp was certainly no place to be letting one’s guard down.

No place to be fondling one’s traveling companion.

“I have to return to my post.” He uttered the words as though he were trying to convince himself. “You have to get off my lap.”

Guinevere nodded mutely and complied. Her squirming rubbed her against his erection one last time, eliciting a frustrated, hitched moan that spilled from her kiss-stung lips like an obscene prayer. Oskar gritted his teeth so ferociously that he was mildly surprised he didn’t crack his molars.

She scooted away from him and he stood up, and he felt the loss of her like a punch to the gut.

Last time I ever try to console a crying woman,he grumbled to himself as he walked back to his lookout point to resume a forgotten duty. Yet there was an ache in his heart that called that particular piece of bluster out for what it was.

They could barely meet eachother’s eyes the next morning. Fortunately, there was too much to do to get embroiled in a difficult conversation about Things That Should Not Have Happened Last Night. They traveled on foot, carefully guiding the horses over the marshy ground with its myriad obstacles of large roots, quicksand, and fly-flecked animal carcasses. The mosquitoes descended upon them with a vengeance, clouds of black specks that buzzed in their ears and all over their exposed skin.

Guinevere managed to hold her peace far longer than Oskar thought she would. At the two-hour mark, she slapped at her nose. “Oh, this is utterly beastly!”

He fought back a snort. She turned to him, an unhappy expression on that ethereal, copper-skinned face. There was a tiny welt on the tip of her pert nose, the latest addition to her collection.

“How come they’re not bitingyou?” she demanded.

“They’re trying.” But his skin was much tougher than hers. He surveyed the bumps all over her delicate face and the backs of her lovely hands, and he contemplated how long it would take to murder every mosquito in the swamp. “We’ll get you some salve at Berleben.”

“If we ever find it.” She grimaced. “I apologize. I’m not being a very good adventurer, am I? You shall hear no more complaints from me henceforth—whathave I stepped on?”

“Best not to think about it,” Oskar quipped as the pungent odor of newly disturbed fecal matter permeated the air. At least she was breaking in her new boots.

As it turned out, though,hewasn’t being a particularly competent adventurer, either. He was so distracted by her that he forgot a cardinal rule of traveling through the wilderness: when there was fresh shit, the one who shat wasn’t far away.

The troll reared up from out of the murk. It was colossal. Bulbous. Its hair hung in mossy strings, and its body was a mass of pustules.

It had crashed through the undergrowth right in front of them, roaring, baring razor-sharp fangs, ready to attack. The horses screamed, and Guinevere screamed, and Oskar’s hand was flying to his sword hilt before he remembered thathe didn’t have a single damn sword left—

Then Guinevere’s scream tapered off into a series of violent coughs. And she started…spitting.

The troll froze. The horses froze. Oskar froze.

“I swallowed a mosquito!” Guinevere wailed, on the verge of tears. “Several mosquitoes! First the bandits and losing the wagon and the oxen, then nearly getting caught up in a gang fight, then the mercenaries, then the excrement, and now—nowyou!” Drawing herself up to her full height, looking every inch a vengeful, bedraggled queen, she pointed a shaking finger at the stunned troll. “You and the mosquitoes! By the six approved gods, I have had it! This truly is the last straw. My feet hurt, and my mouth tastes like bugs, and—actually, now that I think about it,I forgot to pack a hairbrush!”

Apparently, her right foot didn’t hurt too much to prevent her from stomping it, sending up a spray of swamp water. The troll wasused to its victims running away or fighting back…It wasnotused to a pint-sized lady from the Dwendalian capital throwing a tantrum with all the righteous ire of the upper class. It blinked its dull red eyes, clearly struggling to make sense of this unfathomable new situation.

Oskar loosed an arrow at its throat.