The Woman on the Lae

"Gerald has disowned his new mate,"

Leda hadn't expected Brandon to follow her into her kitchen. She stiffened when she thought about his eyes on her secret stove, but this new information seemed to occupy him well enough. He didn't say a word.

"Did you hear me, Leda?"

"Yes," she said, focusing on getting together what she needed for a stew. "Bad luck for her."

"It's not bad luck is it?" he said, coming up behind her, touching the small of her back. "It's him."

"I don't know what you mean by that." Leda put down he knife and turned to face him. He had all but closed the distance between them.

"He can't breed, can he?"

He touched her hair. She trembled as she looked into his steely blue eyes. Brandon had touched her before, taking her hand while she walked over unsteady ground, feeling her bruised shoulder days after she had fallen off a horse, but this felt different. He said nothing as Leda arched her brow, searching for some kind of explanation. He didn't say anything, only moved his hands from her hair to her cheek, brushing his calloused thumb over the line of her cheeks.

Leda coughed.

"All men can breed. Only women can be barren," She looked into his eyes again with a feigned innocence. "Isn't that the law?"

"The law is wrong about him, and you," Brandon touched her neck then, training the line down to her chest, where he moved it under her shawl and touched her mark. "You were never broken, were you?"

"Of course I was," Leda's heart pounded as his fingers moved over her neck and chest. His touch was dangerous, of course, but it was also intoxicating. His rough skin brushed against hers with a surprising softness. Why did he touch her so nicely? He wasn't like that.

"You never belonged in a whorehouse, that's why you didn't go. You took your trial, your beatings, and you let them give you a new mark. You didn't say anything. Then you escaped, found a trade, made an independent life for yourself," his fingers traced her ear. "With some help, of course."

"Why did you help me?"

"Honestly?" Brandon took a moment to consider the question seriously. "Because you were already here, I suppose. You were raising food and trading with Cliffhouse, and even though your being a woman offended me on some level, I'd rather use something than destroy it for no reason," he looked into her eyes and smiled. Why had Leda never noticed he had lovely teeth? "Then I stopped being offended and I began to enjoy you as a person."

Softly, he ran a finger over her lips.

"Brandon," Leda barely whispered the word. She was sure she meant to tell him to stop, but his name came out alone and disappeared into the air between them. But his eyes met hers again, and her breath stopped. She looked away and tried to step back, but he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. His body was broad and hard. The sudden feeling of having her protector pull her in his arms and hold her left her feeling weak. She gave into the embrace, and so Brandon took her head into his hands and kissed her deeply.

Leda allowed herself to be kissed. Brandon's lips were strong and insistent, but also warm, coaxing pleasure out of her in a way she didn't really understand. She gasped as his lips gently pried hers open and his tongue entered her. She shivered as he stroked it against her own and gently sucked on her lips. Even if Leda had tried to resist she wouldn't be able, as he kissed her he pulled her closer to him, weaving her body around his as they were trying to disappear inside of each other. She abandoned herself for a moment, running her hands over his broad shoulders as he kissed her, fingering the taught muscles of his neck, touching the place were his brown curls ran into the collar of his shirt. She had been right about Brandon, right to think that he wanted something from her besides grain for the years he had supported her. But she had been wrong about herself. She gave herself to him more willingly than she had ever imagined.

Suddenly, she could feel him tugging her hair, tipping her head back so the kiss broke off and she was forced to look up at him.

"I want to get children on you, Leda," he whispered, breathing heavily.

"I can't have children," she said, she always said it. Otherwise Gerald had a right to kill her.

"That's not true. You're fertile and healthy. Gerald has been letting his women take the punishment."

"That's what women do here, isn't it?" Leda tried to escape his arms, but couldn't. The struggle made her even more angry. "The only difference between me and every other woman that's been put aside is that I was lucky enough to escape."

Leda pushed against him again. Brandon let go of her. His face was still flushed, his breeches strained, but he held his hands up as if to show that he wouldn't be forcing himself on her again. Leda pushed her hair away from her face, straightened her shawl and went to the stove again. The stew needed stirring, and she needed to hide her own face - which was pink with a mix of desire and fury.

"How did you escape?" Brandon asked suddenly. "I've always wondered."

"It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I'm alive and built something."

"I know it. That's why I want to get sons on you," Brandon watched her as she threw another log on the stove. "You're strong."

He watched as she shook of the lingering feelings of their embrace and moved to the stove to check on the thick soup that she was heating for him and his men. "I've protected you for three years, while you built up this place, don't you want to leave it to your children?"

Leda looked at him quickly. "You've been in the highlands."

"A few times," he swallowed. "Have you ever been to a town? Men and women and their children build and shares lives with them. They don't just get children to replace themselves on the front there."

"Because all the danger is here."

Brandon opened his mouth to speak, but Leda waved him away. "I know, you're about to say you'll protect me."

"You and our children,"

"How can you do that when you're away killing people?" Leda breathed deeply. "And besides, you already have a mate, and children."

"I don't love Katherine, and I've never met her children."

"That doesn't matter." Leda spooned the stew into three bowls.

"You're not the only one who reads, Leda." Brandon took her hand in his gently. She didn't flinch or take it away. "I know that some of the things we've told ourselves since the wars aren't true. I know that we used to have a more complicated view of men and women. I'd read that women have more to offer this world than wide birthing hips and large breasts. I just never really understood until I met you."

"You cannot disown Katherine. She's done no wrong to you." Leda sighed and showed him the tray. "Take those to the barn."

"I'm not going to disown her, and I won't send you to Cliffhouse. You'll be my secret." he kissed the inside of her palm then, and Leda tried to ignore the currents that flowed through her body every time she felt his lips against her skin. "You can stay here and I'll come to you at night. Every night I can."

"You can't lay with two fertile women. There are laws—"

"I don't care about the law," He kissed her hand again. This time he saw her breath quicken and smiled. "That's why a disowned woman is here, running a shop, instead of doing her duty in a whorehouse at the front. I've already broken the laws for you once, why shouldn't I do it again?"

"Because I don't want you,"

"I think you do want me." He pulled her closer again and cupped her face in his hands. "I know I've always wanted you. You're strong, you're smart, you know how to survive. Whenever I go out on patrol I think about what you're doing here, how your animals are thriving, what you've read, what you're traded for and I wonder when I'm going to see you again. I've always wanted you. And now that I know Gerald is a liar, I'm asking you to be mine."

Leda didn't say anything for a moment, so Brandon kissed her again. A shorter kiss, but no less passionate than before.

"I promise I won't be like him, Leda," he said. "I won't hurt you, and when I lay with you, you'll enjoy it."

"How can you promise that?"

He smiled and moved his mouth to her ear ."Because I won't put my cock inside you until you are slick and wet and begging for it."

Leda could hear her heartbeat pounding. She tried to say something. Something reasonable.

"Where will your children from me live if we are breaking the law?"

"Here, with you," he said. "We can raise them together. They'll be our children."

Leda laughed then, relieved almost to be free from his spell. Men don't raise their children. The girls live with their mothers behind the walls of the communes. Boys go into the army when they're old enough to carry water. A man who says he'll raise his children is appealing to women' sentimentality. He's telling her a fairytale, where she is the only women in the world who can go back in time.

Leda put the bowls on a tray and handed it to him.

"Your men must be hungry, you should go to the barn,"

"Why do you doubt me? You're a working woman, aren't you? I gave you that," he took the tray. "I can give you more."

"I was working before I met you, Brandon," she said. "Please go."