Chapter 8

Aric was sitting the table mentally going over preparations for dinner. It was his week to cook. While Brianna was coming along with her cooking, he was still far better he thought with a smile. But she was getting better, and she was better at cleaning and laundry so he had no complaints. He was glad they took turns switching on and off each week.

Even though he tried to stop it, his mind kept drifting back over the last few seasons.

After Brianna and Aric were settled in they traveled a few placed as newlyweds. They even did some bounty hunting work for kicks. They didn't need the money, but it let them continue to practice their skills. Brianna didn't fully understand how wealthy Aric was till they pooled their money. Wow! They could actually buy a medium sized kingdom if they wanted too!

Brianna wanted to go quickly back to the guild and let them know she was now married and not on active duty any more. It appears that once you are in, you are a member for life. At first that bothered Aric, but then he realized having a network of friends could always come in handy one day.

At first when they arrived, the sisters all wanted to meet the man who captured Brianna's heart. And while when they first saw him most wanted to bed him immediately, none of the sisters acted like they thought he could be skillful with any real weapon with his size. At least, not against any of the sisters in the guild.

And while some still wanted to drag him to the nearest bed, the rest thought it wasn't enough that Brianna thought he was good enough for her. She was the best weapons master in their guild. So Aric found himself challenged to various sparing matches with the thought of embarrassing him by having him lose repeatedly to women.

He did quite well against various ones of them in the arena, and while sparing with them he thought this was walk in the garden compared to what his wife normally put him through. He always thought that she really didn't fully understand restraint.

And it was going well until one disgruntled sister threw a spell his way from the stands to distract him during a match.

She was tired of seeing a man best various sisters because some of them were Champion blades. It wouldn't have killed him, but it would have stung a little.

Without considering the ramifications Aric canceled the spell mid flight and put up a flame wall behind him to prevent any further assaults.

Of course all the magic detections devices suddenly went off all over the platform where he was at when he did that, and the match was called.

But he had to explain that he wasn't using magic during the various battles or they would have noticed it earlier, rather than when he did it very obviously.

That launched another round of the sisters capable of magic challenging him.

But as he again fought with them, managing to still not break a sweat during the spell exchanges, it suddenly it dawned on one sister and then it spread through out the stands. They started chanting "He's the Battlemage" "He's the Battlemage".

Again the matches were called and the guild master called for them to come and speak with her.

Brianna and Aric had to admit he was the once famous Battlemage. The guild master said the guild would keep his secret, and that she was secretly happy that someone extraordinary had been the one to make Brianna happy.

They both blushed at that compliment.

Then there were all the new families that his extended families were having.

The four ladies at the tavern had all found some men they became interested in, and later they married them all. With Aric removed from mix they lowered their standards and found some great men all around them. Brianna and he went to many other weddings held at the Hidden Keep.

The only stickler was about a season later after Madelyn was remarried, her ex-husband returned to the city and kept trying for weeks to re-claim her from her new husband.

Of course it was after he was abandoned by the woman he left Madelyn for.

And one night he decided he had enough of taking it slow and headed out to take Madelyn by force to be with him.

But it was his bad luck that he ran into Brianna that night first, instead of Aric, on his way to the Hidden Keep.

His plan apparently was to finally drag Madelyn out of the tavern, force her to leave with him and then make her leave her new husband for him. He was tired of all of her refusals to leave her new husband.

Aric chuckled as he thought back to that event.

If the ex had run into Aric first, they may have just had a long talk that just ended with Aric possibly doing a trick of bending a horseshoe around his wrist to wear as a bracelet.

But it seems that he ran afoul Brianna first, where he claimed that he managed to trip and fall a few dozen times, all on his own mind you, onto the ground.

And that all the various witnesses who turned up later telling a different story were all wrong, and that Brianna was only trying to help him get back up since he fell. And those repeated falls somehow caused two black eyes, a busted lip, a broken nose, and a dislocated shoulder.

At least that's the story he's sticking with.

It was apparent that he was use to his size intimidating any woman he came across. Funny thing was no witnesses remember smelling any alcohol on him either, so he was at a loss to explain how a perfectly sober man kept falling down so many times to injure himself so badly.

He left the city later the next day after getting some healing.

After that night Brianna became closer with all the ladies.

One might have thought they were long lost sisters as close as they became.

The upshot was now Brianna had some close friends to visit with. The down side was they taught Brianna the complete art of flirting, seduction, and how to handle her husband.

Brianna took to seduction like a duck to water and suddenly Aric found himself in trouble.

But thankfully she rarely used it, but it was unsettling that she was now aware of her true power over her husband.

Aric always knew that he could handle being handled by Brianna because of the few times she did it, she would feel so guilty about doing it to him, instead of just talking to him, that he got some fantastic guilt sex out of every time, so it was win\win for him.

Madelyn and her new husband are really enjoying their life much better now. He's is really good with her kids, and they even have a new baby themselves.

Well, he thought, all of the four ladies have a child or two now.

It was during that time that Brianna and he had their daughter.

Since Brianna really didn't have name she really wanted, she was fine with them naming her Rayne after Aric's mother, but they gave her Brianna's maiden name as a middle name.