[For Dyson] love's horse will carry you home

[st_oriedqueen]

As evening fell over the Beara Peninsula, Ireland, Regina dismounted the gorgeous, dapple grey Irish hunter she'd spent the better part of three days riding. She ran the stirrups up on the saddle, loosened the girth, and then lifted the reins over the mare's head.

While she walked the mare, she pulled out her cell-phone. It had been three days since she had spoken to Dyson, although she'd caught sight of his wolf a few times, and she missed him. She sent a quick text to let him know she was back.

At the stables. Need a bath, but then I'm all yours.

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[st_oriedqueen]

Regina's fingers slid through his hair to stroke the nape of his neck. "As long as there's a wolf in my heart, my bed can wait a little while." Her voice had quieted, growing soft and silken. "Did you enjoy having a little more freedom, love?"

[st_arknaked]

"Not freedom really, but some new terrain was welcome." He'd been over most, if not all, of the area at the inn.

[st_oriedqueen]

Quiet, listening and watching, she smiled and took his face in both hands to kiss him softly. Some days she still found having another love a little overwhelming and apparently today was one of them. "I wish freedom was mine to give, but I am enjoying seeing your first home."

[st_arknaked]

Freedom given was one thing, but he was a man who had fought for most things in his life - that would be how he would want it.

"My first home... the terrain is right but it's far different than when I lived here." But time moved didn't it. All of Europe had changed. And the 'new world' looked nothing like it had when he'd arrived.

[st_oriedqueen]

"I wish I could see it how you did," she murmured, voice just loud enough to be heard over the quiet splash of water moving around them.

"It's foolish to wish I'd been with you then, as neither of us would be who we are now if I had." And she was not a fool. "Still, there's so much of you I don't know and wish I did. Tell me something new?"

[st_arknaked]

That and she liked her modern comforts enough he had a hard time envisioning her back before there was plumbing.

"Something new? Like what?"

[st_oriedqueen]

"If I knew, it wouldn't be new." She kissed him again quickly to forestall any actual protest and then shifted to settle between his thighs with her back against his chest, to give her inner thighs a chance to rest before she needed them more pleasurably.

"Mmm, a story about Trick or Hale or even Kenzi." Bo wasn't off-limits or anything, but since Bo was here, Regina preferred to hear about Bo from Bo, to respect her privacy.

[st_arknaked]

Trick. He missed the man, possibly more after spending time here. And Hale, at home Hale wasn't even talking to him but the longer he was away the more Dyson missed his friend.

But it wasn't either of them whose name came out on a sigh, "Kenzie is... physically weak, needs glasses, and might be the bravest person I know. She's human and she mixes herself up with the fae and their shit as she would term it. Even though her chances of coming out on top are slim to none."

Then he chuckled.

"We swapped bodies once. That was.. surreal."

[st_oriedqueen]

While he spoke, Regina quietly admired the steely strength of his forearm beneath her fingertips. She listened for the emotion in his voice, the way he loved these people she didn't know but wished she could. It meant everything to her to hear how he talked about them, because he wasn't emotionally effusive, but he did love her, and this was a window into how he felt.

She hitched up an eyebrow at the punchline, turned her head to look back and up at him. "I admit, I have trouble imagining you without manly assets." That, and he was so relentlessly masculine... surreal was a good word for it. "What was that like?"

[st_arknaked]

"Surreal," he said again with a laugh. "She was fairly excited to have the 'wolf junk'."

The quote was implied in his tone and his fingers stroked the skin of her hip where his hand rested.

"I was less excited about being human. But it did come in handy." As he wouldn't have been able to get out of the Dal and go save the Ash (and Lauren's body) if he hadn't been human.

"She knew, she could tell that something was missing in here," his hand came up to tap her chest over her heart.

[st_oriedqueen]

"I'm fairly excited to have the 'wolf junk'," Regina couldn't resist saying, although owing to the turn of the conversation, she didn't twist around between his thighs again to take it in both hands.

She did bend her head though to catch his fingers with the soft brush of her lips. "When you were in her body, were you able to feel passion?"

[st_arknaked]

"I was mostly focused on the fact that she needs glasses so everything farther than five feet was blurry." But thinking back, he could feel it. He'd felt it for Ciara, that and the fear of losing her when her body had nearly died.

"But I think I could, or maybe I just knew the hole was gone." It felt like that now, he was less aware of the ability to love and feel passion than he was of the realization that the emptiness had been filled.

[st_oriedqueen]

Several times on her ride, Regina had considered attempting to call the Norn out of her hiding to see what she'd want in trade for Dyson's passion. Each time she'd considered doing it, she'd been stopped by the knowledge it would upset him and scare him, two things she didn't want to do.

"You'd have that problem if you switched bodies with me, too," she said lightly, not wanting them to dwell tonight. "The other direction, since I'm farsighted if I'm not using a sight correction spell." He knew about the glasses, since he'd caught her in the more than once, but they'd never discussed the reason. "I wonder if you'd be able to use my magic? Was she able to turn into a wolf?"

[st_arknaked]

"That wasn't the wolf junk she was most interested in," he grinned at the memory, "But Bo's body retained her powers and the guy she swapped with used them, though he had no control over them. So Kenzie probably could have shifted with some effort."

[st_oriedqueen]

Regina swept a brow upward and leaned in to kiss the corner of his jaw. "That shows a shocking lack of imagination on her part. Getting you off would've been the first thing I did in your body." Maybe. Depending on the circumstances. As his girlfriend, it wouldn't have been as much of an invasion, but, "Of course, I'd have made sure you were there to watch, as me, so you could feel how I reacted."

After that, she would've tried out being a wolf. It fascinated her, much as Maleficent shifting into a dragon always had.

[st_arknaked]

"Had she been in there much longer..." she might have "But we were a bit distracted trying to figure out which one of us was a homicidal maniac. Time wasn't on our side."

[st_oriedqueen]

"I imagine that would've put a damper on sexual experimentation, yes," she replied, a light tease to her voice. "What happened in the end?"

Even here in a warm bath (mm, not quite warm enough, by this point, and she quickly reheated it with one of her earliest spells), she found herself as interested in the story as provoking him toward sex. If she wanted to make love, a kiss and the scrape of her teeth against his neck would put them on that page, but what she wanted was to be with him and know him. For all the time they had at the Inn, to have this time alone was a true treat.

[st_arknaked]

"The killer escaped in Lauren's body, and only a human like her could leave to stop her before she started a fae world war, so I went after her... in Kenzie's body. Luckily I didn't have to fight." He'd been able to save Lachlan using his knowledge of the Ash's chamber.

He bent to nuzzle her neck as the water warmed again, grinning against her skin.

"I used my wits." and he used them now as he traced her side with his fingers down to her hip and across her abdomen.

[st_oriedqueen]

His fingers provoked a soft shudder along her spine, resting where they were, and combined with his mouth against he neck. Eyes already darkening with the familiar stirring of desire, she lifted her head to read his face, raised an eyebrow with it to interrogate his intentions.

"Are you applying your wits now to the problem of me talking instead of satisfying other needs that three days apart have generated?" Her lips curved around the words and offered him a lovely little smile. "Or just touching me because you can and distracting me amuses you?"

[st_arknaked]

"I am applying my wits to multitasking between talking and touching," he liked talking to her, however much three days apart might have made him crave her body he craved her company just as much.

[st_oriedqueen]

"Mm. You're a gifted multitasker, love, never let it be said otherwise." Eyes bright and feeling warm and loose with affection, Regina leaned in close and nuzzled her nose and lips against his neck. "Did anything interesting happen while you were wolf-shaped?"

[st_arknaked]

"Nothing of note," he shifted, then and pushed to his feet with her in his arms as the water poured off of them. "Good hunting, lots of wolf things to be done. But nothing more exciting than nature usually is."

He set her on her feet and with one hand he snagged a towel and dried himself with a few quick strokes before wrapping the towel around her and using it to pull her close. Then he bent, laving the drops of water off her skin before capturing the rosebud tip of one breast to suckle.

[st_oriedqueen]

"Someday, I will learn a spell to shapeshift into a wolf so I can run with you," Regina began brightly enough, and she had been giving some attention to it, but getting his passion back was by far the more important magical task, so not as much as she might have otherwise.

His tongue on her skin replaced the brightness with something warmer and smokier, distracting her from magical plans toward a more intimate, more natural magic. Sighing a deep, sexual contentment and rising interest at the pull of his mouth, she lifted her ribcage to offer her breast to him.

"Three nights but it feels like weeks. I blame having a huge handsome beast between my thighs."

[st_arknaked]

"Not quite between your thighs yet," he murmured against her damp skin, stroking hands lower to her hips and dropping to his knees. "Or was that a request?"

[st_oriedqueen]

It was a reference to the horse she'd been riding, but she felt fairly sure he'd just taken the opportunity she presented him with and run with it. She was certainly not going to complain.

Eyes already heavy-lidded, she smiled down at him and stroked her fingers through his hair. "Less of a request, more of a to-do list."