Then she had him on his back, bestriding him, a wicked smile on her face as she lowered herself down, a teasing hair's breadth at a time.
He arched to meet her, his hands full of her breasts, catching her unawares.
She cried out and arched her back, driving herself down onto him.
Their minds met as their bodies met, and the shared pleasures enhanced their own, as she felt his passion and he experienced every touch of his fingers on her flesh.
She roused him almost to the climax, again and again, building the passion higher and higher, until he thought he would not be able to bear another heartbeat-Then she loosed the jesses, and they soared together.
'Dear-gods,' he whispered, as they lay together in a trembling symmetry of arms and legs.
She giggled. 'The reward of virtue.'
'I think I shall strive to be virtuous,' he mumbled, then exhaustion took him down into sleep before he could hear her reply. If she even made one. Verbally.
When he woke, she had moved away from him to lie in a careless sprawl an arm's length away. He'd expected as much; he'd learned over the past few months that she was a restless sleeper-after more than once finding himself crowded onto a tiny sliver of sleeping pad. The moon was just retreating behind the rock of the waterfall. He slipped into the pool for a moment, to rinse himself off after his exertions, warm up his muscles, and to cross to the other side without rustling the undergrowth. that would surely wake her, as the sound of someone swimming would not.
On the other side of the pool, he used his shirt to dry himself and pulled on the rest of his clothing. He hated to leave her like that.
But she is as curious as two cats, and I am not certain I want to answer all the questions she is likely to have when she wakes.
She ~ ask about the rescue, and she would also want to know about the changechild. And when she found out that Nyara was female am not ready to fend off-fits of jealousy, he thought, wearily. Father's accusation are bad enough. Hers would be worse. And their is no reason for Yet. Not that he hadn't entertained a fantasy or two.
But they are only fantasies and will Y~tn so, he told his conscience firmly. still, they are things I would rather she did not know about. She is not old enough to accept them calmly, for the simple daydreams that they are. Hmmer saffiffing.
Or accept that sometimes the fantasy can be as fulfilling as the reality.
He moved quickly and quietly along the Pahs of the Vale, pausing now and then to take his bearings.
Once outside, he went on alert. Although this was where the scouts had their ekeles, they did not equip them with removable ladders for nothing.
But the night lay over the forest as quietly as a blanket on a sleeping babe.
Only twice did he pause at an unusual sight or sound. The first time, it was a pair of bondbirds, huge, snow- winged owls, chasing each other playfully. He recognized them as K'Tathi and Corwith, and relaxed a little. If they were up, it meant the u2U was under watch. The second time he stopped was to hail his older half brother, Wintermoon, the bondmate of those owls, who knelt beside the trail, dressing out a young buck deer.
Wintermoon, one of two children of Starblade's contracted liaison with a mage of k'treva, had none of either parent's Mage-Talents, and only enough Of mind-magic to enable him to speak with his bondbird. The other child, a girl, had apparently inherited it all, but she was with k'treva and out of Starblade's reach. The Adept had never forgiven his eldest son for his lack of magery, and Wintermoon had responded by putting as much distance between ~ himself and his father as Clan and Vale would permit. He had no wish to leave k'sheyna; he had an amazing number of friends and lovers for so taciturn and elusive an individual-it was simply that he also had no wish to deal with a father who had nothing but scorn for him.
'Good hunting,' Darkwind said with admiration, eyeing the size of the buck's rack. 'Wish I could do that well in the daylight!' He had no fear that Wintermoon had taken anything other than a bachelor; his brother was too wise in the stewardship of the forest to make a stupid mistake in his choice of prey.
Wintermoon laughed; part of his attempt to put distance between himself and Starblade had been to bond exclusively to owls. He had become completely nocturnal, and was one of the night-hunters and night-scouts, and encountered his father perhaps twice in a moon, if that often. 'It becomes easier as time goes on. And K'Tathi there lends me his eyes; that's most of it.~
'How does-' Darkwind began, puzzled.
