Exile's Valor

But then his hands were moving lower, caressingly, clever fingers making her skin tingle, and when his hands reached her breasts, she gasped at the sensations he awoke in her body, and with that now-familiar feeling of melting, lay back into the softness of the mattress.

As one hand slipped still lower, his mouth took over where his hands had been, evoking still more intoxicating thrills of pleasure, and she moaned softly under his caresses. By this time, she was nearly mindless, all of her attention bound up in the sensations that he was creating in her body, feeling herself on fire with pleasure and desire and an urgency driving her towards that peak she now not only knew existed, but which had become so very necessary to her life.

So that, when he finally took her, she was all animal, crying out as she raced toward the goal, nothing else mattering in all the world but their bodies moving together to that moment when she exploded in pleasure, convulsed and paralyzed at the same time, a cry escaping from her that she could not have stopped and didn’t want to.

And before she had fallen from that pinnacle of sensation, he had come to his own shuddering climax, so that they fell together, tangled in sweat-gleaming limbs, into dreamy, euphoric lassitude, and then, when he had pulled the covers over them both, sleep.

18

Karath was eating and talking at the same time, and it always amazed Selenay that he managed to eat as much as he did and still look trim and fit. At the moment, he was eating his way through the plate of breakfast pastries like a fire going through dry timber. Selenay was just as happy to let him have all of them to himself; a little dry toast and some tea was all that she could bear to stomach at the moment, and her stomach was not altogether pleased about that. And alas, this was no mere illness, which she could expect to recover from in a day or so. Oh, no.

She had, somewhat to her dismay, discovered that eternal truth that most women learn, soon or late. The pleasures of the bedroom, undertaken without precautions, end in babies. Three days of discovering that she could not rise in the morning without recourse to a basin had told her that much.

Of course, in her case, the pleasures of the bedroom were supposed to end in babies, and in fact, were required to end in babies. As many as possible, in fact—but at least the typical “heir and a spare,” so that there were two chances of being Chosen. That was, after all, what her Council had been nattering about for months—why they’d wanted so desperately to find her a husband in the first place. When she let them know—well, they’d be thrilled. At least, right up until the moment that it occurred to them that there was some risk in childbearing. Not that she was worried; she was in the best of health and positively surrounded by Healers. She’d been in a lot more danger of injury watching a Hurlee game.

I just didn’t think it would happen so quickly, she thought mournfully, and told her stomach sternly to behave itself while Karath went on with his meal and his one-sided conversation, utterly oblivious to her discomfort. Of course, the Healers would have things that could help in this case—but that would mean going to the Healers, and then they would know she was pregnant, and then everyone would know she was pregnant, and that would open up an entirely new set of things for the Council to natter at her about—

Yet another worry. Why was it that she always seemed to add concerns, and never seemed to actually get rid of any?

Karath’s chattering, usually about things that interested her only vaguely, like hawking and the recent exploits of his friends, tended to pass through her head at the best of times like an express coach, without stopping to unload any information. This morning, as preoccupied as she was with keeping her scant breakfast down, she almost missed what he was saying entirely. Except that one word caught her distracted attention, forcing her to bring her mind back to the breakfast table, and she blinked and finally looked at him.

“Forgive me—I was woolgathering for a moment,” she said apologetically. “What was it you just said?”

He pouted a little. He pouted, as he did everything, beautifully. It was distinctly unfair. If she’d been able to pout that prettily, she would never have to fight her Council.

“Sometimes I wonder if you ever hear anything I say in the morning,” he complained. “You always seem distracted at breakfast. I said, I think I’d like to have that handsome black stallion that just came into the Royal Stables as our wedding gift from Lord Ashkevron for my coronation mount.”

Coronation mount? Hadn’t he been paying attention at all?

“I thought that was what you said,” she replied, choosing her words with great care. “You can certainly have the stallion all to yourself since I have no use for him, but Karath, I thought it had been explained that there won’t be a coronation for you. You can’t be crowned King of Valdemar.”

“Why not?” he asked, pouting even more, though his eyes were getting stormy. “Don’t you Valdemarans crown your Kings in a public ceremony?”

“We do.” She felt a cold nausea that had nothing to do with pregnancy as she realized that they were about to have their first fight. Good gods—she knew all this had been explained to him! It had been in the marriage contract! Hadn’t he even read it? “But you can’t be King.”