The brush resumed motion, and a smile briefly touched Moiraine's lips. "You sometimes forget, Perrin, that you are a good-looking young man. Some girls admire a pair of shoulders."
Once, in reaction to such a statement, Perrin may have done nothing more than grunt and shuffle his feet in embarrassment. Once, Perrin would have been absolutely flabbergasted at seeing Moiraine Damodred, high-and-mighty Aes Sedai, shepherd and caretaker of the wayward refugees of Emond's Field, standing with a wide open, pale blue robe, unconcerned that she was nearly completely exposed to his golden eyes. Unconcerned... coquettish... continuing... Perrin would have reacted very distinctly; once. Once, before he'd discovered that he was a Wolfbrother, and that the savage instincts common to all, but forced into quiescence by civility, were an unignorable howl in him. Once.
Now? Now Perrin felt as if he was on a mountain overlooking two paths he could choose to take; one that led down to a city, to a civilization... and the other, that wound into a dark forest, where something called to him with a howl...
Perrin stood still, his hackles rising as he took in the picture before him. The Aes Sedai woman was much older than him, true, but looked like a girl perhaps in her mid-twenties. What's more, she was undeniably beautiful, with her lustrous dark hair and large, knowing dark eyes. Her body on full display now revealed a heady combination of lithe petiteness, a fit frame, and a bosom that, while not oversized, looked more than generous in relation to her short stature.
In a rush, he was flooded with the weight of recent memories of butting heads with this woman who was now vulnerable and unprepared and trying desperately to regain control. Memories of her keeping secrets and expecting him to heel... of her fitting him for a leash. The weeks of frustration, of weariness at having to fight against her over and over, boiled up until, at this crossroad, he chose a path.
The young man's mouth split into a feral grin as he drank in the lines of this one, meeting her unspoken challenge for dominance, judging her fit for his needs, and he took two bold steps into her chosen den, closing the space between them.
"I ask you if that girl, Zarine, is a darkfriend, and your answer is to tell me how attractive you think I am while you present yourself to me?" Ignoring the indignant furrowing of her brow, Perrin kept stalking forward, closer and closer. Without any seeming awareness on her part, Moiraine actually took a hesitant step back, her nostrils flaring as she took increasingly deeper breaths, breathing the Wolfbrother's musk more fully into herself. When her eyes widened as a glimmering of understanding about what was happening to her began to dawn, his wide grin became more of a silent snarl, showing even more teeth. His voice grew rough. "Tell me why that is."
"I don't... I don't know what you... what you're think--" Moiraine's denial was ended by a choking gasp as Perrin, with a growl, abruptly closed the distance between them, trapping her against his muscular frame with his meaty blacksmith hands around her thin waist.
Moiriane didn't push. Didn't fight. She merely pressed her nose against his chest and filled her lungs once again. "You aren't afraid of me." She shuddered. "You know what I can do to you, and..."
"I'm not shadowspawn." Perrin squeezed her trim middle tighter. "And you know your life isn't in danger." He ran his fingers through her long, freshly-washed hair and took in her scent the same way she took in his. "The opposite. You're about to get what you always wanted."
"...yes." The word was so low, only his ears could catch it. It was enough though, and Perrin's hand went to her cleft as a sign of his claim. More than enough, judging from the dew on his palm and the haggared breath on his neck.
Why did I ever fight this? Noam was right, this is what it is to live!
Perrin was nearly lost to himself by that point, as his soon-to-be-bitch's scent swirled in his head.
She's never had a man. I'll be the first--
The fierce hammering at the room's door snapped both of them back to reality, and Moiraine lurched away from Perrin violently. "Lan! I didn't mask..." She looked at the blacksmith with moist eyes. "He felt
everything.
"
Perrin snarled at the door, but didn't move. If there was anyone who'd be able to take what was now his from him... "Here." He pointed next to himself while locking his yellow eyes on his quarry. "Now." Surprised that he was surprised, he still managed to keep his features stern when Moiraine jumped forward, adhering herself to his side.
"I'm trying to force him away, but my head can't make it work." She looked at him with accusation and need together. "You have to do something." The heat coming from her made his own head swim.
Hopper
,
help me.
What he did next was nothing but instinct, but that didn't matter; it worked. The world around the pair... shifted, falling away in a blur, replaced by a thick fog. Moiraine clung to him, and he put an arm around her protectively. "What did you do?" Her words and tone were scolding, but her scent told him that she was ready to accept the answer, whatever it was.
"You should know. It's the wolf dream." As if to punctuate his point, Hopper chose that moment to appear before them, the huge wolf watching them both. Perrin couldn't have said how he could tell, but he knew that his friend was eyeing the Aes Sedai, and himself, approvingly. Proudly.
"
Tel'aran'rhiod
." Moiraine breathed out the strange word, then craned her neck to peer up at him. "You take a woman to the most interesting places, young ma--"
"Quiet." Perrin growled, then moved his hand off the thin robe still clinging to her shoulder and clamped it firmly on her haunch. She yelped in the cutest little way and shoved her nose into the cleft between his arm and chest, docile once more. "We're not done."