Claimed by My Best Friend

“Let me get this straight.” Zaden folds his arms, leveling me with such a burning look, I feel like I might just burst into flames from embarrassment on the spot. “You want me to take your virginity.”

“Shhh!” I lunge forward, clasping my hand over his mouth. “My maidenhood, Zaden. And not so loud!”

He laughs through my hand, and it strikes me how much stronger he’s become through the years as he grabs my wrist, pulling it away easily.

“Why? Afraid the trees will hear you?”

We’re standing in front of his cabin all alone in the middle of the day, a chilly autumn breeze shivering the leaves on all the trees and stirring his dark, sweat-curled hair, his white, half-buttoned shirt and rolled sleeves a testament to the wood he was just chopping.

It’s been six months since he returned from war.

And eight long years before that, eight years where I thought I may never see my best friend again.

Now we’re both twenty, and I’m in desperate need of his help.

“Please,” I whisper, glancing back at the empty forest. “You never know who could be listening.”

He drops my wrist, the light fading from his eyes as he folds his arms. The ax still sits in the stump where he’s left it only a few feet away, and I don’t miss the way his gaze darts to it. Nor do I miss the sword at his hip, nor the ridges of scars rising under the rolled right sleeve of his shirt.

“Who’s after you?” he asks, leveling me with an appraising look. “Whatever they want, you don’t need to fear them here.”

My heart skips a beat.

He’s stronger now, larger than I remember, and maybe there’s a chance he could take on the baron on his own.

No—

I wouldn’t ask that of him.

Instead, I only need one thing.

“I must lose my virginity before sundown, or the baron will come to claim me as his concubine.”

Zaden stares. Darkness flames behind his eyes, and his hand moves to the sword at his waist. “And so you came to me.”

I reach for his hand, but stop halfway. “Yes! Because I trust you.”

A beat of silence passes between us.

“Come inside,” he says quickly, glancing back at the trees with darkness still hardening his features. Like maybe now he really does think the trees might hear.

He grabs the ax before opening the door.

I gulp, feeling somehow as if I’m crossing an even greater threshold as I step into the dark of his cabin, even though I’ve already come all the way here. Suddenly, this feels real.

The air inside is cool and slightly damp, perfumed by hanging bundles of herbs along one wall, the scent of earth from the floor, and the ash of this morning’s fire, the embers still burning red in the hearth.

Zaden sets to work immediately, barring the door, then pulling closed the shutters on the two windows, locking their latches in place.

Suddenly, the cabin is very dark, and feels ever-so-small.

I’ve been here before. Back when we were children, I discovered Zaden living here with his grandfather in the woods, hidden deep in my family’s land. The first time I came across it, I couldn’t believe anyone lived in such a small and squalid place. Practically a hut.

But I soon discovered his grandfather’s rustic cabin was far more pleasant than my family’s sprawling manor where I was treated as little more than a living doll.

The cabin is so dark, I can barely see Zaden now. I take a step back, bumping into the rustic wooden table that’s been there as long as I can remember, roughly carved from logs his grandfather surely felled himself.

“Be careful,” Zaden warns, his voice low as he catches my back with one hand at the small of my spine, and just the touch of his palm through my dress sends sparks tingling down to my toes.

“I’m alright,” I insist, expecting him to pull away.

“You don’t seem alright.” Instead, he turns me around to face him, though I can scarcely see his eyes in the dark. “You’re shaking.”

“I am not.” But I am, I realize with embarrassment. My hands tremble even as I clasp them together. “It’s just the air is so cold. How do you not catch a chill in such a place?”

Zaden laughs, and the sound echoes around the small room. “Chill? It’s positively stifling.”

Maybe he’s right, because the heat of his hand radiates through me with every slight movement where he’s still holding the small of my back.

“I’m just a mercenary, a soldier. I have no title to my name. Are you sure this is what you want, Serena?”

“You’re my friend, Zaden. And the baron won’t have me if I’ve lost my—if I’m not a virgin.”

“So tell him you’re not one, and be done with it.”

“You know it’s not so simple.”

“How will he know?”

“They have ways,” I say, though I’m not so sure I want to find out what they are. “I’m sure of it.”

Zaden exhales hard, leaning down so we’re at the same level. “Serena. You should know I’d never turn you down. But you don’t have to do this. I’ll lie for you.”

“Then lie with me.”

He blinks in surprise, a smirk lifting one side of his mouth in the low light. “Bold. I like it.” Touching the side of my jaw with two fingers. “You’re making it hard to resist.”

“Then don’t.”

He laughs again, softer this time, and his gaze flicks down to the front of my thin, white dress. “You’re dangerous, Serena. Dangerous, you know that?”

“You’re the one who went to war.”

“And yet you could kill me with a single glance.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He doesn’t answer. Just pulls away, my back feeling suddenly cold without his hand against it.

Metal clinks, and I realize it’s the sound of his belt as he pulls it from its loops and sets his scabbard down upon the table.

My heart races. I’ve never liked a sound so much.

He turns around, and I can barely make out the shape of his back, his side, the scars that chase up his skin as he shucks off his shirt against the gray-dark light seeping between the cracks in the shutters and beneath the door.

“What are you waiting for?” He asks when he turns toward me again, and there’s music in his voice. I’m sure his eyes are filled with that familiar sparkle, the one that always glimmered when he teased me as kids.

And I didn’t realize just how much I’d missed that.

“Whatever do you mean?” I cross my arms over my chest, feeling the cool air prickle across my breasts beneath the thin fabric. “Shouldn’t the man undress his…his—” Whatever do I call myself?

“His what?” Zaden asks, clearly enjoying this far too much.

Bride, love, conquest, there’s no fitting word for what we are. We’re just two old friends in a shack of a cabin hidden deep in the woods.

I wrap my arms closer around my chest, turning away.

“Hey! Just because it’s not special to you doesn’t mean it isn’t special to me.”

“Serena.” He pauses, leaning closer. Taking my jaw in one strong hand, forcing me to look at him. “What makes you think it’s not special to me?”

“I—” I don’t have a good answer for that. “Because you’re a man?”

He snorts. “I think I should be insulted.”

“You’re a mercenary! You fought in wars!”

“With swords, not my dick.”

I choke, heat flaming in my face. “I know that! It’s just—I know what goes on between battles.”

If he was insulted before, now his green eyes sparkle even in the low light of the closed-up cabin, like this is the most amusing thing he’s ever heard.

“Do you think we men can’t keep our hands off each other, is that it?”

“No! I meant, I meant—” Oh dear lord, why is this so hard to say? “I meant only that I’ve heard ladies of the night frequent the camps to attend to the soldiers’ needs.”

The light fades from Zaden’s eyes. “And you think so little of me?”

“N-no! It’s just, I thought—I didn’t want to assume—”

“So you assumed something worse?” I can’t tell if he’s truly mad this time, or if he’s teasing me. I think it might be the latter. I hope I’m right, because the last thing I came here to do is insult him.

How did everything go so wrong?

“Serena.” He pulls away, pacing to lean against the cabin wall where he watches me with serious eyes. “I’d never take advantage of someone like that.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He sighs, scrubbing one hand across his face, and it strikes me that there’s deep shadows under his eyes that weren’t there when we were younger. He’s got the dark haunt of a man who’s seen the world for all its evils. “The women who came to camp did it because they were desperate. There was nothing shameful about them. The only shameful ones were the men who took advantage of their circumstances. Who called them dirty whores and treated them like filth, only to serve their own selfish needs. So don’t compare me to those men. They’re hardly men at all.”

All I can do is nod. Tears prickle my eyes. I might as well be one of those women. I will be, if I can’t get Zaden to help me.

“I’m sorry.” I wipe my eyes on the back of my hand. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

His expression softens, and he pushes off the wall, crossing the room. Only, instead of coming to me, he reaches for a half-burned candle, shaped roughly of wax upon a tin holder.

The scent of sulphur briefly stings my nose, followed by a sizzle as he lights it.

Handing me a handkerchief, he watches me dab my eyes. “I’m not good with words. I’m not smart. I’m only good with a blade and with my fists. I can’t promise you riches or a fancy house or noble titles, but—” he pauses, taking the handkerchief from my hands and gently dabbing the corners of my eyes for me. “You’re beautiful, you know that, right? Any man would be glad to have you.”

My face warms under his words and gaze. “You tease me.”

“You should trust me more, you know. I just want you to know this is special to me, too.”

My heart thunders. He doesn’t sound like he’s joking.

On the rough wooden dining table beside us, the candle sputters, then steadies itself.

I swallow hard.

Even in the low light of the room with only a candle and the shutters drawn, it’s plain to see how handsome he is.

Any woman would be a fool not to have him.

Perhaps that’s why my heart is racing right now, my palms sweaty. Why the man who was the boy I’d climbed countless trees with, the boy I was forbidden to play with but snuck out with anyway—perhaps that’s why I’ve fallen for him so.

Indeed, I have fallen hard.

There’s no denying it.

Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t resist coming here today, when I could have simply run away.

With Zaden, I feel strangely safe, yet more thrilled than I ever have at any other time in my life. My skin sings, aching for his touch.

How I want him to kiss me when he takes two steps closer, leaning down.

“Would you like to know a secret?” He asks, tilting my jaw up to meet him.

All I can do is give the barest nod.

“Would you believe me if I told you I’d been in love with you since we were children?”

My heart freezes.

Is this a joke? A cruel joke? There’s no way a man like him would feel the same as me, and certainly no way he would be so bold as to simply say it.

I don’t want to be a punchline, so I shake my head.

Zaden laughs. “Fine, then. Don’t believe me. But if I’m going to do this for you, then you have to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

His eyes flash, and his smirk catches in the candlelight.

“That’s a very dangerous word, you know.”