The Merchant Witch

  By K.L. Noone

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2024 K.L. Noone

  ISBN 9781685507169

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review. This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  For everyone who loves Em and Aric, and who’s asked for more.

  * * * *

  The Merchant Witch

  By K.L. Noone

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 1

  “Lady Caris is a magician,” Emrys said, contentedly draped atop Aric in the aftermath of enthusiastic flexible pleasure, in their too-small tent. Desultory rain dripped onto oiled canvas, overhead; their second night in the Silfren Holt forest was quiet and green and persistently damp. “I can’t tell whether she knows.”

  Aric considered what he and Em had just been doing, versus their present employer’s possible magic, and said, “Were you worried about her eavesdropping, or thinking about her while seducing me?” It was mostly a joke, especially the second part.

  It made Em laugh, feather-light and satisfied. “Neither. I was thinking about magic. And me. And then I remembered I needed to tell you.”

  “Magic, and you.” Aric ran a hand through Em’s hair—short, ruffled, it brushed like friendly ink along his skin—and considered how to ask the question on the tip of his tongue. He hadn’t worked it out well enough, three days in. He’d noticed enough to notice, because he knew Em pretty well by now. But Emrys hadn’t brought it up either, and that might’ve been a message too.

  He said, instead, “Are you warm enough?” and stuck a hand out for a fold of wool. The tent was nicely outfitted—Lady Caris had money, and paid her hired guards well, which was in part why Aric and Em were here—but designed for portability. Aric had had to figure out an angle that let his feet and his head stay dry, with some negotiation. Fortunately Em was tiny, not to mention magical.

  “For now.” Emrys sat up, kitten-flexible, and handled brief clean-up, with a cloth and what Aric suspected was some equally magical assistance. The warmth brushed between his thighs, cleansing, comforting in a way that had less to do with Em’s cock recently inside him and more to do with the ease of the care, the simplicity of it: Em loving him, matter-of-factly, the way they fit.

  He propped himself up on an elbow, shook his head to get a long blond braid out of the way. Watched Emrys: smooth tanned skin, cool winter-grey eyes, the compact slim muscles of someone who knew how to throw a knife or bandage a wound or banish ghosts from a haunted mountain pass. A few scattered scars caught light from the small contained oil-lamp: a kelpie-bite, a line from bespelled iron, a slice across one finger.

  Not many scars, because only iron or enchantment or Em’s own doing would leave them, across half-fairy skin. But some. More, over the last two years and six months, riding at Aric’s side.

  The light slid across one of the oldest, thin and long and white along Em’s forearm, when he turned back to Aric. Being kind, the flicker of gold fell away without lingering. Em paused to throw Aric a smile, glorious as moonlight.

  Emrys at the moment had opted for a very definitively male body, still petite because Em couldn’t do much about the height and weight, but with noticeable shifts to jawline, hips, that extremely luscious cock. He came back over and tucked himself into blankets at Aric’s side, quiet, radiating satisfaction.

  Aric thought that was satisfaction. Certainly about what they’d just been up to—his body hummed pleasantly with aftermath, and he knew Em had enjoyed that. But that was, in a tangled complicated way, sort of the problem.

  He went back to playing with the fluffy spikes of Em’s hair. Emrys all but purred. Aric said, “Did you want to tell me, then? About our employer?” and meant, did you want to tell me about you? How you’re feeling? I know you said you’d be fine, and I think you are, or at least you’re not NOT fine; but you did the shapeshift the second you came in and you fucked me breathless and you haven’t said a word about it…

  “Mmm. She either knows and is extremely good at covering up her own power, or she doesn’t know and she’s got excellent natural shields.” Em yawned. “I love your hand doing that. My personal vote would be the former.”

  “Because you’re cynical about wealthy cloth merchants, about other magicians, or about humans in general?”

  “All of the above. People like having advantages, and of course it would be. But then I have to wonder, why hire us? If she wants the magic to stay secret, that’s an incredibly stupid decision.”

  Emrys on occasion wasn’t subtle; Aric let out a huff, entertained. “Do you not like her?” Lady Caris Ayling could’ve had her pick of bodyguards and hired mercenaries for her travel south, given her wealth and rewards for good service; in fact, Aric reflected, she had.

  She’d wanted the Storm-Wielder and the Shadow. The best, she’d said. She would pay for that. Aric and Em had needed money and had been planning to head south in any case. He’d agreed, after some discussion with Emrys.

  “I do, actually. As much as we can like someone who insists on an entirely female company of guards, and banished you and Pedr to be outriders.” Em lifted an eyebrow, lazily amused, to add, “She explained to us yet again, while you were out being good scouts this morning, that women are more reliable and less prone to emotional outbursts.”

  “Clearly Lady Caris never met Ruby the Nine-Fingered and that giant battle-axe.”

  “Sometimes I wonder about your life before you met me.” Slim fingers wandered over Aric’s skin, hand absently trailing lines, muscles, scars, blond fuzz.

  “She never threw the giant battle-axe at me,” Aric observed, “I knew better than to beat her at cards,” and kissed the top of Em’s head. Em’s ear, at least the one he could see, had altered as well: more pointed, sharper, less human. More relaxed. “I love you, you know.”

  “I know. I love you, of course.” The fingers tapped a quick rhythm over Aric’s ribs. “I’m handling it okay.”

  “I’m not asking whether you’re sure. I’m just…here. If you want to tell me.”

  “I might be asking it of myself.” Em made a face. “I didn’t realize it’d feel so…restrictive.” He wriggled closer to Aric again, nestled into muscles and thick blankets. The lamp dimmed: not magic, only designed to be brief. “This feels so much better. That wasn’t too rough, was it? Me, you, us?”

  “No. I love you doing what you want with me, you know that.” He hugged Em tighter. “I’m not opposed to walking out on a contract. If it’s hurting you. We can find something else.”

  “We need the money, and I can live with it. It’s not hurting me, it’s just…” Em flicked a hand through the air, put it back on Aric’s chest. “Like turning off a…a piece of me. Not for good, not completely—I know I could move between aspects if I truly couldn’t stand it any longer—and I know I agreed, when she told us up front that she wanted me in strictly human female form, it’s not as if it was a surprise, in the contract…”

  “But you hate it.”

  “Hate is too strong a word, but also yes.” Em hid his face in Aric’s shoulder for a moment, and muttered, “It’s prickly.”

  “I wanted to ask how you were doing, yesterday.” Em had been in a taut-bowstring mood. Apologizing for it, but tense. “Should I have asked?”

  “No, just…” Em made a grumbling sound, a fairy-kitten aware of electricity under his fur and cranky about it. “Maybe you should’ve asked. I don’t know. I like that shape too, it’s not as if I don’t, it’s just…”

  “Knowing you signed a contract to stay in it, when you’re on duty. And you can’t be you. All of you.” Aric touched the elf-point of that ear, did not ask Em to look up, only held him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve made you do this.”

  “As if you could,” Emrys said, moving to look at him. Both ears were pointed now, like that delicate chin, like the edge of something less earth-bound in Em’s cheekbones, smile, glinting eyes. “As much as I adore you. No, I agreed, too. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem. I can be whatever I feel like on my own time, it’s one job, and I’ve got you, and you know me, you see me, and it’s not really a problem, it’s only…”

  “Prickly.”

  “Yes.”

  “The offer’s open,” Aric said, after a m
oment, “if you do want to just stand up in Starlight’s saddle and be exactly whatever you need, on the spot, with fireworks, and we can just leave Caris and her cloth wagons in the forest…”

  Em began laughing, delighted; kissed his shoulder, and said, “Oh, Aric. My hero. Thank you.”

  “It’ll be three more days to Sudgarth.”

  “Only three,” Em murmured, and kissed him again. “We’ll manage.”

  They would; Aric nodded. He held Em closer, as the light went out; he managed to not kick the side of the tent while adjusting position. They needed the rest, since they’d be up at dawn.

  The rain pattered, loosened, wandered away. The forest made hushed forest-sounds: night-swoops, leaf-rustles, drips from branches. Emrys had gone to sleep, a practical dark punctuation-note of fairy-magic and honed muscles tucked up against Aric’s warmth.

  Three more days. Not forever. And Em would tell him if the discomfort became unbearable; Aric trusted that.

  He wished he could go back in time and talk them both out of accepting this job. But even Em’s magic couldn’t do that.

  On top of that—and despite his own offer, which was genuine—he didn’t like the idea of breaking a contract. It would matter, as a sword-for-hire. Maybe not as much for him and Emrys as for some others—he’d built a solid reputation, one which’d only grown with Em at his side, and they could stand on that—but potential employers would consider strength, skill, and whether or not he’d once left a client stranded in a wet forest.

  Even more, his family wouldn’t’ve approved. They’d been traders, clever but honest; his parents and grandmother, not to mention all the ancestors, would rise from stones to shout at him if he went back on his word to someone paying good money.

  He saluted his family mentally, half-ironically, at that recognition; and rested his face in Em’s fluffy hair, in the dark.

  The unanswered question lingered like the drip of left-behind rainwater from boughs. Em had said it, and Aric pulled the words out and turned them over again, searching.

  Why hire them in particular? Why hire the pair of them, notoriously including the famous or infamous Shadow, a good magician or a witch or something entirely other depending on the story, if Lady Caris did not want anyone—say, a half-fairy pint-sized knife-expert—to sense concealed magic?

  What did she want from them, if it wasn’t simple?

  Aric didn’t know. And he didn’t like not knowing. Jobs with secrets never ended well.

  He’d ask Em for more detail tomorrow evening. Emrys would be paying attention now, he knew.

  For now, this moment, there was nothing more he could do; following Em’s prudent example, Aric settled in and told himself to get some sleep, fairy-hair tickling his face, the murmur of the night a familiar refrain.

  Chapter 2

  Aric did not have much time to talk to Em the following day. Lady Caris wanted to start early, and therefore everyone got up at first light, professional and efficient: breaking down the camp, checking wagons and horses, preparing to leave the clearing. The morning held sharp outlines like icicles, washed by the night’s rain into glittering emerald and blue and bronze. Hot tea helped.

  He caught Em’s hand when they were nearly ready, and tugged his other half in for a kiss. Emrys had put back on the more human features, along with petite curves, breasts, hips; she still looked like herself, because she always did. She had on worn dark riding leathers and at least six knives, and her hair was short and practical rather than jeweled or beribboned, and her eyes were the cool joyous grey of thunderclouds, not flat but alive and crackling, when they met Aric’s.

  The kiss was deep and sweet and tea-flavored; Em put both arms around his neck, stretching up to reach. Aric’s body wanted to stay pressed up against hers, carrying the imprint forever.

  One of Em’s fellow guards, tall and solid as a carved hunter-goddess, shouted over, “We’re getting paid to guard the caravan, not fuck each other behind the wagons!” She was grinning, though.

  Em slid out of Aric’s arms to yell back, “Don’t worry, Rev, someday someone’ll explain kissing to you!” and caught Aric’s hand and squeezed it and let go. “I’ll see you later.”

  Aric watched her cross the clearing, Starlight following like a flawlessly trained puppy in a filly’s shape; watched her pause by the side of a cloth wagon to talk to Revna and Asni, who’d appeared to join them: a lean brown spear of a woman who turned to wave at Aric, exaggerated flirtation that was only a joke; everyone knew he was Em’s, and that was that. Emrys, shorter than both of them, tipped her head back, said something friendly, made them laugh. A slant of sunlight limned her face.

  Aric rested a hand on his own mare’s neck. Ginger whickered softly, a reassurance.

  Of course Em fit in. Of course Em would smile and play caravan guard and be exactly what Aric had asked her to be. The Shadow did that: unobtrusive if Aric was arguing with a village council over payment, coolly competent when faced with fen-gasts or hauntings, magical if magic became necessary.

  He said to Ginger, aching with it, “We shouldn’t’ve done this one.” Ginger shook her mane in reply.

  The wagons stirred. Lady Caris leaned out of her own, a glimpse of golden honey and scarlet-silk elegance over a core of profits and steel and power. She gave instructions, low. The riders, the guards, the world, moved in response.

  Em swung up onto Starlight’s back, motion economical as ever; she glanced over at Aric after, while moving into neat formation at the side of their employer’s personal conveyance. He lifted a hand in reply.

  Pedr—cheerfully married to Ethlyn, who was presently watching the back of the caravan; and like Aric instructed to be a scout, an outrider, for this job—came over to say, “Down as far as the Haver Falls bridge, today, then?” The melodies of the southern bays and waterlands laced his question; Aric had overheard him humming, singing, while checking paths and holloways for danger. His voice was generally considered nice; Aric, after three days, had contemplated throwing an apple at the man’s head and lecturing him about noise and good reconnaissance practices.

  He said, “Sure,” and swung into Ginger’s saddle, making him taller than Pedr. “At least we’ll be out of the forest.” They had not seen any bandits, lurking wolf’s-heads, or serpentine jaculi; he was, at the moment, less worried about javelin-snakes and more about very human greed.

  He knew how much the wealth of wools, linens, dyed purples and gold braid and patterned tiretaine, would be worth in Sudgarth. Lady Caris could’ve bought and sold his family’s long-gone small caravan at least three times over, Aric had estimated, judging fabrics and wagons and prices.

  Emrys, a half-fairy shapeshifter raised by nuns, had said, “So actual human people will pay actual money for that hideous crimson with the green stripe?” Aric had opened his mouth to explain dyes and expense and production, had sighed internally, and had opted for, “Yep.”

  Emrys, he thought, would be beautiful in crimson. Indigo. Dark shimmering gold, flattering that ink-swoop hair, those big grey eyes. Not that Em wasn’t also beautiful in flexible practical leathers and casual linen shirts and secret hold-out knives.

  But maybe Em would like more, someday. Like a home, a place to land, the kind of house with a bathing-chamber, like Aric’s brother’s new house down in the equally new central city. They’d talked about it, once or twice; not now, not yet, but an idea. A future, perhaps.

  But that was a fuzzily defined outline, a problem for later. At the moment they had a trail to scout, and an employer who might be a secret magician, not to mention a few other lurking concerns, like Em’s father, who’d been suspiciously quiet lately, not that Em had done much magic for him to track…particularly now, not even shifting aspects much, and that was also a concern, because Emrys had admitted to feeling uncomfortable…

  Three days. Em had said that would be fine.

  Aric sighed, and got on with his job for today; he rode out into the sharp-edged sunlight, watching for peril.

  Chapter 3

  The peril did not appear. The day remained serene. No claws, fangs, or flying spears. The forest dripped and plopped and splashed water, rain growing bored and wandering off. Aric dutifully kept an eye out for bandits, angry will-o-the-wisps, or fallen-tree hazards.