A Runaway Noble in a Town of Lonely Wives

Two days marching Hartsgate’s perimeter road in a dead man’s boiled hide taught Callis the shape of his own skeleton through friction.

The cuirass Yselle had sold him offered undeniable protection against stray claws, but the rigid material had been cured and shaped for a broader, shorter frame. He had spent forty-eight hours trudging through the muddy outskirts, dragging the boar-sword along his hip while trying to mimic the rolling, energy-saving gait of the veteran perimeter guards. By the end of his second contracted shift, the leather had begun to eat him alive.

The armor pinched at the top of his left shoulder joint, and the stiff collar sawed a burning line across his collarbone with every step. Whenever he twisted his torso to survey the distant tree line, the rigid hide ground against his skin like a coarse iron file. He endured the discomfort until the sun began to dip below the horizon, convincing himself that a seasoned frontier fighter would ignore the pain and wait for the soft flesh to callous. Common sense ultimately won out over his stubborn pride, aided by a sharp sting suggesting he was bleeding freely into his linen undershirt. He altered his route, abandoning the perimeter road to walk back into the Ash Forge.

The heat of the industrial district hit him long before he reached the correct alley, thick and stifling enough to draw a fresh layer of sweat from his exhausted body. He navigated the soot-stained streets, his boots crunching over discarded iron slag, until he found the cracked anvil hanging by a chain above Yselle’s wooden door. Pushing his weight against the timber, he stepped into a workspace dominated by the roar of the back forge. The fire spat orange sparks into the hazy air, illuminating Yselle Harrow as she stood squarely in front of her steel anvil.

She swung a hammer against a glowing crescent of steel. To combat the oppressive temperature, she had abandoned her soot-stained tunic, wearing her split leather apron over canvas trousers and a sweat-dampened linen binding pulled across her chest. Callis paused in the doorway, caught less by beauty than by function: shoulders, hammer, heat, and the brutal certainty of a woman who knew exactly what every part of her body was for.

Bringing the hammer down a final time, she picked up the steel crescent with long iron tongs and plunged the hot metal into a wooden barrel of quenching oil. A hiss of grey smoke plumed toward the ceiling rafters, bringing with it the acrid scent of scorched grease. "If you stand there staring at me any longer, Vale, I am going to start charging you a spectator admission fee," she said without turning around.

Callis blinked, shaking his head to clear his wandering focus. "I apologize for the intrusion. I did not mean to interrupt your work."

"You didn't interrupt anything." Yselle tossed the tongs onto the cluttered workbench and turned to face him. She grabbed an oil-stained rag from the table and wiped the sweat from her face, her pale eyes locking onto his position. She took in his stiff posture, the pained wince tightening his jawline, and the careful way he held his left arm away from his body. An unsympathetic smirk crossed her face.

"The collarbone is biting," Yselle guessed.

"And the left shoulder joint," Callis admitted, letting out an exhausted breath. "It feels like the boiled hide is attempting to saw my torso in half."

"Take the armor off."

Stepping into the shop, Callis let the door shut behind him to block the noise of the alley. He unbuckled the leather side-straps, his stiff fingers fumbling with the rigid hardware, and awkwardly pulled the cuirass over his head. He dropped the piece onto the nearest wooden stool. Beneath the hide, his linen undershirt clung to his skin with cold sweat, dotted with crimson spots of fresh blood blooming near the collar line.

"The linen shirt comes off too," Yselle said. "I cannot assess the structural damage through that fabric."

Callis stripped the ruined shirt from his body, tossing it beside the armor. The dark bruising inflicted by the Mud-Borrower had faded into a yellow-green smear across his ribs, but the fresh damage from the armor remained stark. A raw, chafed line of missing skin cut across his collarbone, weeping clear fluid and trace amounts of blood.

Yselle crossed the room like the floor belonged to her. She reached out, pressing both thumbs firmly onto his bare shoulders. Her grip felt like an industrial clamp, her fingers stained with black grease and iron dust. Callis flinched, his shoulders automatically pulling inward as he instinctively tried to make his body a smaller target to avoid the pressure.

"Stop doing that," Yselle snapped. She dug her fingers in deeper, forcing his posture to uncurl and straighten against his will. "Stop trying to shrink your presence. You have the height and the breadth to carry the weight, so stand like you own the space. If you hunch inward, the stiff leather rides upward and cuts into your neck. Stand up straight."

Fighting the sting, Callis forced his spine into a rigid line. He pushed his shoulders back and expanded his chest to meet her requirements.

"Better," Yselle murmured. She remained planted mere inches from his bare chest, tall enough that her mouth rested level with his jawline. Slowly, she ran her grease-stained thumb over the raw line chafed into his collarbone. Callis released a sharp hiss of pain through his clenched teeth, his body going rigid from the sudden friction.

"The leather bites you because you move like a pampered gentleman," Yselle said softly. Her thumb continued its slow, dragging path across his collarbone, contrasting sharply with her critical assessment. "You walk from the hips, trying to keep your upper chest still to avoid wrinkling a nonexistent coat. That doesn't work inside boiled hide. To wear armor, you must swing your shoulders when you walk and take up actual space in the world."

"I am trying to adapt to the requirements," Callis managed to say through his locked jaw.

"I am well aware." Yselle’s pale eyes flicked upward to meet his gaze. "Watching you struggle is the best part of my day."

She dropped her hands from his shoulders, allowing Callis to exhale a long breath. Turning her back, she grabbed a curved skinning knife and a block of wax from the messy workbench. "Put the armor back on," she ordered.

Callis picked up the cuirass and dropped the leather over his head. The stiff hide bit into his raw collarbone anew. Yselle stepped back into his personal space before he could even adjust the fit. "Hold your arms straight up."

He raised his arms. Instead of stepping around him to fasten the side straps, Yselle leaned her body into him. She pressed her chest—bound only by the sweat-dampened linen wrap—against his armored side, reaching her arms around his torso to grip the back buckles. The sudden, overwhelming proximity locked Callis’s joints in place.

The muscular heat of her body radiated against his ribs. Through the stiff boiled leather, the suppressed swell of her breasts brushed his side as she secured the rear hardware. The air between them carried the industrial scent of the forge mixed with hot sweat and a sharp metallic tang. Callis focused his vision on the far wall, attempting to maintain a shred of polite composure.

Yselle felt his muscular structure lock up against her. Hearing the shallow hitch in his breathing, she let out a low laugh against his shoulder. "You hold your breath like a terrified virgin visiting a brothel, Vale," she mocked, pulling the leather strap tight with a sharp yank.

"I am trying to remain still for the fitting," Callis countered, his voice strained.

"You are a terrible liar." She stepped around to his front, maintaining her proximity until the steel-reinforced toes of her work boots bumped against his footwear. Reaching upward with the curved knife, she wedged the dull backside of the iron blade between the stiff collar and his raw skin. She began to scrape away the excess wax causing the friction. To accomplish the task, she had to look downward at his chest, her concentration narrowing on the damaged hide.

Callis looked down at the focused line of her strong jaw. A single drop of sweat rolled slowly down her neck, disappearing into the tight linen binding pulled across her chest.

His body betrayed him before his conscience found language. A rushing heat flooded his groin, and within seconds he was painfully hard, his arousal pressing tight against the rough wool of his trousers.

Finishing the scraping, Yselle lowered the knife. Her observant eyes dropped deliberately to his waistline, lingering on the ridge straining against the front of his tailored trousers. Callis’s face burned. He tried to take a half-step backward to reclaim a fraction of his shattered composure.

"Excuse me," Callis choked out, mortified by his lack of control. "I really should—"

He should have stepped back. He even opened his mouth to formulate a brittle apology.

Nothing came out.

Yselle saw the failure for what it was. She grabbed the leather strap running down the center of his cuirass and shoved him backward. Callis stumbled, the soles of his boots scraping over the floorboards until his shoulders hit the wooden support pillar in the middle of the shop. Before he could regain his balance, Yselle stepped between his legs. The remaining breath left his lungs in a rush.

Crowding him against the pillar, she pressed her hips forward to pin him in place. Her muscular thigh, covered in soot-stained canvas, rested unapologetically against his aching erection. He could have told her to stop. The word was there, clean and available. What terrified him was that he did not want to use it.

"Does wearing tight leather always provoke this reaction from you, Vale?" Yselle asked, her voice dropping into a mocking lilt.

Callis's aristocratic instincts demanded he apologize and demand space to restore propriety. The reality of the woman pinning him to the wooden post burned those thoughts to ash, leaving him focused entirely on the friction of canvas against wool. "Yselle," he rasped, his voice cracking on the syllables.

"Keep your hands at your sides," she commanded. It was an order issued by a woman who knew precisely how much leverage she held in the room.

Callis obeyed, flattening his bare palms against the splintered wood of the pillar. He kept his arms perfectly still. Yselle’s pale eyes darkened. She liked watching the rules lose. Shifting her weight against him, she slowly ground her thigh upward against his aching length.

Callis let out a broken sound, his head falling backward against the wooden pillar with a dull thud. The friction was rough and dry—stained canvas against tailored wool, blunt enough to feel almost punitive—but the pressure pinned him right to the edge of endurance.

"You try so hard to act like a proper gentleman," Yselle whispered, leaning inward until her mouth rested mere inches from his ear. "You use formal words and apologize for existing. But look at what you are doing right now."

She ground her thigh against his arousal again, harder this time. Callis’s hips jerked forward involuntarily, chasing the friction to grind into the muscle of her leg. He couldn't stop the physiological response. His body had no interest in his upbringing.

"You aren't a polite gentleman down here," Yselle mocked softly, her hot breath washing over his jawline. "Down here in the forge, you are just another desperate boy fresh from the mud of the March."

"Please," Callis choked out. He didn't know what action he was asking her to perform. He only knew his composure would snap if she didn't either step back or give him more friction.

Instead, Yselle reached downward between their bodies. Her grease-stained hand covered the straining bulge in his trousers. Without unfastening the horn buttons, she squeezed him hard, applying pressure through the wool fabric.

Callis let out a raw groan. His body arched away from the wooden pillar, straining against the stiff boiled leather of the cuirass. She slowly stroked the length of him through the coarse fabric, executing a single, agonizing pull from the base to the tip. Callis’s vision blurred. The intense heat of the forge and the unapologetic force of her presence had wound him so tight that a few dry strokes through wool pushed him to the edge of his control. Ripping his hands away from the wooden pillar, he reached for her waist, consumed by the need to pull her closer and drag her down to the floorboards.

Yselle caught his wrists before he made contact. Her forge-built strength eclipsed his own. Her grip felt like an iron vise locking around his bones as she slammed his wrists backward against the wooden pillar, pinning his arms in place. "I instructed you to keep your hands to yourself," she growled.

Callis stared at her, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with need. He was at her mercy, pinned to the post and aching. Yselle studied the raw hunger on his face, feeling the frantic pulse of his arousal against her thigh. A slow, cruel smile curved her lips, brimming with quiet satisfaction.

Then, she took a step backward.

The loss of contact was sudden enough that Callis slumped against the wooden pillar to avoid falling. Yselle released his wrists and turned her back on his wrecked state, walking over to the cluttered workbench to wipe the grease from her hands with a dirty rag.

"The fit of the armor is fine now," Yselle announced. Her voice carried a brisk professionalism, completely divorced from what had just happened. "The collarbone edge is shaved down. The boiled leather just needs time to break you in. Stop walking like an arrogant lord, and the hide will stop biting into your neck."

Callis stood motionless, rooted to the spot by his own humiliating arousal. He was breathing hard enough that his bruised ribs ached with the effort. Glancing down, he saw the rigid ridge still straining against the front of his trousers, throbbing with a dull ache that demanded relief. He looked across the room at Yselle. She wasn't bothering to look at him, her attention focused on inspecting a brass buckle for defects. She had left him standing there with his pulse in his throat and nothing useful left of his dignity.

"You are..." Callis started to speak, his voice a hoarse rasp. He lacked the vocabulary to describe her.

"Busy?" Yselle offered, tossing the defective buckle into a wooden bin. "Yes, I am. I have three baldrics to finish before midnight."

She turned her head, looking over her shoulder at his paralyzed form. Her pale eyes flicked downward to his crotch, evaluating his lingering state, before traveling slowly back upward to meet his flushed face.

"Come back to the shop tomorrow night," Yselle instructed, her tone returning to casual business. "For the final oiling of the leather."

Finding his footing, Callis pushed himself away from the wooden pillar. His legs felt like stagnant water beneath him. Foregoing any attempt at a polite goodbye or an aristocratic bow, he gathered his ruined linen shirt. He turned and walked out of the Ash Forge, stepping into the freezing, soot-filled alleyway. The chill air hit his flushed face, doing nothing to alleviate the dull ache still throbbing between his thighs.

He was in agony. Worse, some treacherous part of him already knew he would walk through her door again tomorrow night.

The thought should have made Mara feel farther away. It did not.

That frightened him most of all.