Free By the Mountain Bound by Elizabeth Bear Page A

of leadership, Wolf. There is another to take my place now. Let me come with thee.”
    Temptation. I taste it on a tongue numb from the liquor he is taking out of my hands. Could he roam here, with the pack, with me?
    No.
    “Thou art what thou wert made for, Strifbjorn.”
    “If I were not . . . what I am.” He stops, drinks, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. I retrieve the skin and copy him. Liquor sharpness stings my sinuses, thickening my sense of smell.
    “If I didn’t need to maintain face. We wouldn’t have to hide this. In the face of thee, I do not care for my fame.”
    I drop the wineskin into my lap. He glides sideways andslips his fingers and then the palms of his hands up the sides of my neck, outlining the edges of my ears. His hands are callused and rough from the hilt of his sword. He tilts my head aside and bends down, bear fur tickling the back of my neck. I shiver at his breath, moreso as his mouth slides down the side of my throat to the high collar of my shirt.
    “It’s thee I want,” he whispers.
    Thou wouldst tire of my world quickly, my love.
    He ignores me, pulling my shirt collar open, letting me feel his teeth lightly just below the circumference of the ribbon around my neck, right where my shoulder begins. The wolf in me shivers from the submission implied by accepting the caress. Something else exults. I turn away, press my cheek into his shoulder, baring my throat to him.
    “Yes?” he murmurs against my skin, his mouth cool and gentling. I nod, unwilling to break the moment with speech, breath catching in my throat. His hand grazes my neck. He unfastens my cloak and lets it slither between us. Then he’s standing, a hand on my shoulder to steady me, leaning down to nuzzle my ear while he fumbles his bearskin loose with the other hand. It falls.
    Among tangled roots, bare branches spread high, the earth almost frozen, I recall a hollow beneath another Tree entirely.
    The Warrior
    S trifbjorn kissed Mingan, and at first his mouth was stubbornly tight. But he knew how to coax until it softened—Strifbjorn made a sharp noise and stroked Mingan’s hair—andhe relented and kissed back. He nibbled Strifbjorn’s mouth open and probed with his tongue, cupped his cheeks in knobby hands and pushed thick, broken nails into his hair. His own was but crudely plaited, three uneven strands and not the four or five Strifbjorn used to take up the length when he did it for him. He found the end and worried the bit of rawhide from it, wishing he could pick the knot in his collar apart as easily.
    “Do you have a comb?” Mingan asked.
    Words against Strifbjorn’s mouth. He inhaled them and licked his lips, the air chill after his heat. The creases at the corners of his eyes folded together, eyelashes meshing at the corners of his squint.
    Strifbjorn pulled a wooden comb from his pouch and gave it to him. He ran a ragged thumbnail along the teeth and cocked his head at the sound. Mingan made Strifbjorn kneel on the bearskin, back against his knees. Laid alongside, Alvitr was unhooked from his belt; Mingan ran his hand along Strifbjorn’s queue. The leather tie was swollen. He unknotted it with his teeth. Then, with deft motions, he broke the plait, smoothed kinked sections over Strifbjorn’s shoulders and began to comb each one bottom to top with short strokes. He held the comb in his left hand and supported Strifbjorn’s head with his right, and Strifbjorn eased at his touch, feeling as if breath filled his lungs completely for the first time in days.
    Even when Strifbjorn’s hair fell smooth, rippled from the queue over his shoulders and down to the small of his back, Mingan ran the comb through it again and again, like a mortal lover combing out the lice that never troubled einherjar.
    No, it wasn’t fair.
    Strifbjorn reached up and took the comb from Mingan’shand. Mingan parted the mane over Strifbjorn’s nape and pressed lips and teeth to his spine. Strifbjorn shuddered.