------------- The Longstriders – Bryon Delver

Gwenvael sat in the huge plush chair trying not to fall asleep. Bryon wasn’t helping. He kept running his hands along the lines of her tattoos, sending gentle waves of pleasure through her shoulders and neck. He hit just that right spot and she shuddered like the cold outside had worked its way into the Elven Shrine. She reached up to catch his hand, leading him to lean over to further irritate her by lightly kissing and chewing on her neck. She turned her head to both stop him and kiss him.

He locked her gaze. “That bother ya?”

She smiled. It was an uncharacteristic thing for her. “No. Just not sure you’re up for another round.”

He grinned back. There was a challenge behind his eyes that she could sense even without touching his mind. A loud moan came from the far side of the Shrine. They both grinned.

“Seems your Pouarr friend is still giving my charge what for.”

Bryon snickered, “Yeah, he’s an animal.”

She looked over to the north end of the chamber, seeing little but shadows moving in the dim firelight.

“How did you meet?”

“Johnny an’ me? Well, we go way back. Well, way back fer me. Guess that don’t mean much to a High Elf.”

Bryon stepped around the edge of the chair and sat on the table in front of Gwenvael, his shoulders hunched, his muscles looking as big as hers in the shadowy room.

“I grew up in Woodshome. Guess I knew all my life I’d be trackin’ with the rest of the FreeRangers across the wild. I killed my first Ogre at sixteen. Ran with the Long Knives tribe up north fer a bit. Got into a peck of trouble with a pack of Gnolls up by Mandragor when I was twenty. Woke up in a Pouarr lodge a few days later. A Pouarr maiden had found me an’ drug my sorry butt back behind her Bearwolf. She patched me up. I kinda fell fer her. An’ that’s where the trouble really started. See, that was Johnny’s sister. At the time he didn’t cotton too well to humans makin’ eyes at his baby sister. So he an’ I went a few rounds. Long story short, she got killed, we tracked the Neo-Ogres what done it an’ staked their heads on the borderlands. We been best buds ever since.”

Gwenvael locked her eyes on his again. This Bryon Delver might be little more than a distraction for her just now, a little sweetener to make the down time in Old Calladon a bit more enjoyable, but she was glad she’d met him. And from the looks of things, she’d obviously underestimated his constitution and drive. And with nobody in the Raptors who was any good at tracking, maybe he could teach her a few things.

------------- Credits

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