Chapter 17: Room Above the Common Hall
The Stag & Ember swelled with the roar of patrons trying to drown out the night. Word of the shifting beast roads had infected Hartsgate by mid-afternoon, changing the atmosphere of the tavern into a pressure cooker. Men leaned over their trenchers, downing tankards of dark ale in grim preparation for the Guild's morning assignments, aware the spiked bounties came with climbing casualty reports. Callis sat at a cramped table in the back corner, tracing the grain of the wood next to an untouched mug of watered ale while observing the shifting tides of the room.
Mara had banished his boiled cuirass to the upper rooms after complaining about the lingering smell of beast-fat, leaving Callis in his linen tunic with only the iron boar-sword propped against his chair. He tracked the chaotic movement near the taps, keeping his focus fixed on Derren Vell.
Derren darted behind the counter, wiping his brow with a stained rag as his temper fractured under the volume of incoming demands. The man preferred the reliable, predictable flow of copper from exhausted merchants settling in for the evening, a far cry from managing a taproom overflowing with terrified mercenaries nursing their paranoia. The tension snapped when a towering patron in scarred plate slammed an empty pitcher onto the counter, bellowing a demand for a fresh keg.
Derren yelled a foul insult regarding the man's mother, prompting the patron to shove the bar hard enough to make the timber frame groan. Half the patrons fell silent, their fingers drifting toward belt-knives and table legs.
Mara materialized between the armored man and the counter before a single blade could clear its leather sheath. She brought down a fresh, overflowing pitcher of dark ale to send foam splashing over the rim and onto the wood.
"The next man who threatens my bar drinks in the mud," Mara promised, her voice dropping into a low register that carried through the quieted room.
The patron studied her broad shoulders and the steady challenge in her dark eyes before grunting his acceptance, grabbing the handle of the pitcher, and returning to his seat. Derren muttered a string of bitter curses under his breath and retreated to the cellar to tap another barrel, abandoning Mara to handle the agitated taproom by herself.
A hot spike of fury flared in Callis's chest, prompting him to rise from his corner seat. He left the boar-sword where it stood. Carrying steel up the stairs or drawing attention across the floor would only invite eyes he couldn't afford right now. He navigated the narrow spaces between the crowded tables and headed straight for the bar. He stepped behind the counter without uttering a word, grabbing a stack of greasy wooden trenchers piled near the wash-basin and scraping the food scraps into the slop bucket.
Mara paused with a smaller keg resting against her hip, observing his sudden intrusion.
Callis kept his focus locked on the task, moving with deliberate efficiency despite the dull ache throbbing through his arms from swinging his machete all week. The fresh linen bandage wrapped around his forearm pulled taut against his skin with every scrape of the wooden spoon, yet he refused to remain seated while she bore the logistical weight of a panicked tavern alone.
Mara watched his clean hands clearing the grease and grime, taking in the fading yellow bruises coloring his jawline and the rigid set of his mouth. He looked like a man deciding to stake a claim in her space, deliberately stepping into the line of fire. The atmosphere between them shifted, taking on a dense, magnetic quality distinct from the exhausted collision they had shared previously in the kitchen.
Mara set the keg down onto the floorboards and closed the distance, reaching past him to grab a linen rag from the counter. As she moved, the radiant warmth of her hip pressed against the side of his thigh, causing Callis to freeze with the wooden spoon halting mid-scrape against the trencher.
"Derren will stay hiding in the cellar for at least twenty minutes," Mara murmured, pitching her voice just beneath the ambient roar of the taproom. "He prefers counting inventory to facing a crowd on the edge of a riot."
Callis turned his head, finding her face mere inches away. The scent of rosemary intertwined with the damp, heated musk of her skin, drowning out the sour odor of spilled ale.
"Go upstairs to Room Four," Mara ordered softly, her dark eyes locking onto his with possessive intensity. "Leave the door unlatched."
His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs, vibrating deep in his chest cavity. "I'll be waiting," Callis rasped, setting the trencher aside.
He slipped out from behind the counter and navigated toward the narrow staircase at the rear of the common hall, fighting the urge to sprint. Every creak of the wooden floorboards beneath his boots echoed like a warning bell in his own ears, making the ascent feel prolonged.
Reaching Room Four, he pushed the wooden door open and stepped into the frigid interior, intentionally leaving the panel cracked by a fraction of an inch. He left the oil lantern unlit to prevent the glow from bleeding into the hallway, plunging the room into shadow. Callis paced the cramped strip of floor between the lumpy straw mattress and the cracked ceramic washbasin, trying to burn off the adrenaline. The freezing air rolling through the warped window shutters did nothing to cool the rushing heat in his veins. His body responded to the danger and proximity, heavy and straining painfully against the coarse wool of his trousers. Engaging in this rendezvous guaranteed violence if Derren caught them, turning the waiting period into a torturous exercise in anticipating disaster.
Callis paced in the dark for ten minutes, his mind fabricating scenarios of a taproom brawl or an early cellar return keeping her trapped downstairs, until the wooden door suddenly clicked shut. The iron bolt slid home with a soft snap.
Callis spun around to find Mara leaning flush against the heavy timber panels, her chest heaving as she caught her breath. A sliver of moonlight bled through the warped window shutters, tracing the sweeping curves of her hips. She had discarded her hairpins on the way up, allowing the dark cascade of her hair to fall loosely over her shoulders. Foregoing any form of gentle greeting, Mara crossed the cramped room in three long strides, seizing the front fabric of his tunic and shoving him backward.
Callis’s knees struck the wooden edge of the narrow bed frame, sending him tumbling onto the crackling straw mattress.
Mara descended on him, straddling his chest as her wool skirts pooled around his hips. She grabbed his face between her flour-dusted palms and crushed her mouth against his. The kiss carried a desperate urgency, devoid of the tentative exploration they had shared before. She poured the terror of the shifting Green March, the suffocating tension of the crowded tavern, and the miserable reality of her marriage straight into the pressure of her lips.
Callis matched her aggression, his hands flying to her waist to grip the curve of her hips. He opened his mouth, meeting her sliding tongue and tasting the sharp bite of dark ale mingling with the heat of her saliva.
"I needed this," Mara gasped, tearing her mouth away to press her face into his neck. She bit down on the skin covering his collarbone, applying enough pressure to guarantee a bruise, using the physical pain to anchor herself. "Gods, Callis. The whole town smells like a graveyard today. Make me feel alive."
Callis groaned his agreement, his voice cracking into a primal rasp. He reached for the leather laces securing her wool bodice, his fingers ripping the complicated knots free and hauling the thick fabric wide open. She wore nothing beneath the outer garment, allowing the heat of her bare skin to radiate into the freezing air. He pushed himself up onto his elbows to bury his face into her cleavage, pulling her breast into his mouth to suck with desperate rhythm.
Mara clamped her hand over her own mouth to stifle a sharp shriek, her other hand flying to the back of his head to pull him closer. The timber floorboards beneath them vibrated with the noise of the tavern, a constant reminder of the danger lurking just down the stairs. She reached down into the narrow space between their bodies, bypassing the top buttons of his tunic to attack the fastenings of his trousers. She shoved the coarse wool and his linen smallclothes down past his hips, freeing him into the frigid room.
Mara wrapped her hand around him and squeezed.
Callis’s hips bucked off the mattress involuntarily, a jolt of pleasure rocketing up his spine at the sensation of her skin sliding against his. She stroked him with a fast, demanding pace. Callis bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood, fighting the urge to vocalize. He reached blindly to grip the splintering wooden frame of the bedstead, bracing his weight to prevent the unstable furniture from creaking against the stone wall.
Mara shuffled her weight backward, hiking her skirts up to her waist to expose her bare thighs. She positioned herself over him, grabbing his hips to ensure alignment.
Callis held his breath as she dropped her weight down onto him in a single motion. She sank down, taking him in, her heat gripping him tight enough to momentarily blind his senses.
Mara threw her head back, her teeth grinding together to trap a long, shuddering moan in her throat as she seated herself. They remained locked together in the freezing dark for several still seconds, listening to the jagged rhythm of their overlapping breaths and the muffled shouting filtering up from the taproom. Mara began to ride him, establishing a rhythm that prioritized depth over speed to keep the bedframe silent. She pulled her pelvis upward, then dropped her weight backward to take him in over and over again.
Callis kept his grip locked on the wooden bedposts, his muscles trembling with the effort of absorbing the kinetic impact to spare the squeaking joints of the furniture. He thrust his hips upward to meet her descent, driving up just as she came down. Driven by a primal surge to take control of the rhythm, Callis grabbed her hips in both hands, grunted with physical effort, and rolled their joined bodies over.
Mara gasped into his shoulder as her back hit the lumpy straw mattress, her bunched skirts riding high around her waist.
Callis settled himself between her knees, leaning his weight forward to pin her against the bedding. He could see the terror of the shifting world swimming in her dark eyes, mirroring the panic coursing through his own veins. This frantic coupling offered the only available method to prove they were still breathing.
"Tonight," Callis rasped, dropping his voice to a bare whisper against her ear as he drove his hips forward. "Just tonight, be mine."
Mara nodded frantically, burying her face into the crook of his neck to muffle her sounds against his skin.
He set a steady, heavy pace from above. He reached down with his right hand, finding the slick heat between them to press his thumb down, rubbing in time with every deep thrust.
Mara hit her breaking point, clamping down around him with crushing pressure. She bit down hard on his shoulder, her jaw locking as a muffled, desperate scream vibrated against his flesh. Her thighs locked around his ribs as her body spasmed, pulling at him with irresistible force.
The sensation snapped the final thread of Callis's control. He let out a harsh breath, his body arching rigidly as he emptied himself into her heat, his vision going white with the intensity of the release.
Callis collapsed forward, his muscles drained of adrenaline as his sweat-slicked chest landed flush against hers. They lay motionless in the dark, glued together by sweat and friction, waiting for their heart rates to decelerate. Through the gaps in the floorboards, the muted roar of The Stag & Ember persisted as shattered glassware and shouting filtered upward, a stark reminder of the lethal frontier waiting outside.
Callis wrapped his arms tightly around Mara’s bare back, clinging to her as the freezing draft slowly crept back into his bones.
Mara pressed a soft, exhausted kiss directly against his racing pulse point before slowly pushing herself up from the mattress. Shivering in the cold, she pulled the thick wool of her dress closed and began quickly securing the leather ties.
"Derren will be coming up from the cellar soon," Mara whispered, her voice barely carrying across the cramped space as she grabbed a coarse rag from the washbasin to clean herself.
"Let him," Callis replied, his voice raw and ragged as he reached out to catch her wrist. "Stay."
Mara paused, looking down at his bruised jaw, his flushed chest, and the desperate grip locking around her arm. Her hand hovered near his face for one dangerous second before she withdrew it. She gently pried her wrist free from his fingers.
"I have a tavern to run, Callis," she said softly. "And you have an Elderforest waking up outside your window."
Stepping over to the heavy timber door, she slid the iron bolt back with a metallic scrape that echoed loudly in the dark, slipping out into the hallway without a backward glance.
Callis lay alone on the lumpy straw mattress, tracing the warped grain of the wooden ceiling as he listened to the faint creak of her footsteps descending the narrow stairs. For the first time, survival did not feel like glory. It felt like a place at a table he was terrified to lose.