With a firm grip on her hand, the knight led the sorceress through the black woods. His heart thundered in his chest, blood singing in his veins after the frenzy of battle. The woman stumbled as he tugged her along. She tripped on a root and stumbled into his back.
"Are you alright, my lady?"
"I told you, I am not a lady." Her teeth chattered together.
The knight looked down into her small, flushed face and brushed a tangled golden curl back from her cheeks. Her dark brown eyes danced behind a sheen of tears. Her fingers still twitched with the spell that had saved them both from certain death.
"I know what you are. I saw what you did," the knight said. "You saved both our lives back there. That's two good reasons why I should not kill you where you stand, witch."
"I am not a witch," she said. "And I am not a lady. Let go of me now, or I will ruin you."
The knight glared into her face. For decades, their countries had warred against one another. Magic and steel clashed again and again across their borders. She didn't wear the scarlet sash of the evil mages, but only a powerful conjurer could summon a bear's spirit into empty flesh.
"Do your worst," he said.
He held the sorceress by her shaking shoulders and glared into the smoldering eyes. The knight braced himself for a spell -- a bolt of lighting or at least a cold gust of wind blown from a gesture of her quivering fingers.
He was not prepared at all when her arms wound around her neck and her mouth crushed against his.
The knight froze. He'd never once laid a hand on a woman, let alone his lips. All his childhood spent in prayer and fasting to make himself a warrior did not prepare him for the sweetness of it. Her mouth opened, and he felt himself melt into the heat of it, his hands flattening across her back.
"Run now, handsome knight," she whispered. "Don't blame me if you don't. I've been alone in these woods for so long... If you stay with me now, I will put you on your knees."
Her fingers wormed through the laces at his throat. His sweaty armor slid down his shoulders as she worked it loose. The knight tugged at the bearskin around her shoulders that had shredded a man to bits only moments ago. He caught her scent beneath the burnt-sugar smell clinging to the fur -- jasmine and musk.
"Lady," he gasped. His cock hardened, and his blood grew warmer still.
"I told you not to call me that." She sucked his lip in between her small, sharp teeth. Her hands went underneath his shirt now to caress his skin. Her palm brushed over the hair on his belly and traveled upward, flattening against a hardening nipple.