Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure Read Online Free PDF

chuckled at that, and started walking again. “It is a wonder They tolerate you at all.”
    “Well, the Gods surely help those who help themselves,” I said with mock defensiveness.
    He took a long deep breath. “I also have prayed that I will face my father with dignity, no matter how he behaves.”
    “I am sure you will.” And I was. I had great faith that the mask which he had so often worn while about others would slip easily into place when he was confronted by such a foe. It saddened me in part, in that we had worked so hard this last year toward his being in harmony with all parts of his being, but I thought it far more important he face his father from a position of perceived strength; and that mask, that tight control he could maintain on his madness for short periods of time, granted him a knight’s armor in facing what he must.
    “How does your Horse feel on the matter… this morning?” I asked.
    “Does it wish to fight him or flee him?”
    Gaston shook his head. “It wishes for his respect and… love. I know you cannot understand…”
    I stopped and pulled him to face me. “Non, non, it is not that I cannot; it is just that I have not reached that turn of the road as of yet. I will understand, just give me time.”
    His eyes were as grey-green as the sea in the hazy morning light, and seemingly as old. “I hate your father, too,” he said softly, so that I had to strain to hear him above the surf.
    “I will try to meet yours with a lack of prejudice,” I said solemnly.
    He smiled and nodded. “You honor me.”
    “Non, I love you, and we will endure and conquer, and come home again.”
    “Amen,” he breathed.
    With the grins of foxes, we ran up the winding path to our house.
    Though the sun was fully in the sky and no longer hovering about the horizon, we still found ourselves alone. Gaston seemed relieved by this; and when I asked him of it, thinking he merely did not wish to confront their lingering gazes of concern, he fingered one of the marks he had made upon my chest. Feeling the fool that I had forgotten a thing so obvious, I went and found a tunic to don. Between that and my breeches, I hoped all he had done was now safely hidden. When I returned to him, I turned about and asked him to inspect me.
    “The one upon your neck is quite visible,” he sighed. This was followed by a feral and lusty grin such that it drew my mouth to quirk in mirror of it.
    “What?” I asked huskily, and closed the distance between us.
    “You are mine and you are beautiful,” he whispered. He drew my hand to his turgid member.
    “That much?” I teased as I stroked him. “Then let us…”
    He pushed my hand and then me away playfully. “Non, I wish to ache with it.”
    I understood: there were times when the aching anticipation, billowed upon sound faith that it could always be sated, was better than the release. I let him be with only a swat of feigned annoyance.
    As we prepared our morning repast of eggs mixed with minced boucan, I mused on how much I loved to see him as he was this morning: unmasked and mercurial of mood. Some would say it was his madness, but I no longer could define madness as I once would have. I saw the rigid mask he had worn when first we met as a larger symptom of his madness than the openness of soul he was imbued with now.
    Aye, his Horse’s honesty of emotion was a danger when he became riled, and he had difficulty controlling it still, but I felt he fared far better at the matter of control when he was not constantly reining the animal in.
    Then, it felt compelled to bolt beneath him when it became troubled. It was far more tractable now that he let it have its head most days.
    And thus, his wish to be masked and under such control about his father concerned me: that was precisely the time when his Horse should have been allowed to choose its own path through the thorny thicket of emotion the whole scenario presented. I hoped the matter of their supposed reconciliation