The Time Weaver

you know that.'

'So are you,' I said.

'Do you require a change of clothing?'

'No. You've already seen me wearing less.'

He looked away from me, around the room.

'Is there an access to the roof?'

'Through the bell tower.'

'Very well.'

He turned around and left without me. I wondered that he knew where to go until I realized that he probably always knew, in a general way, where the highest entry of any building would be. Anyone Gifted with flight or smoke would have ducked through countless bell towers, figured their way around every sort of architectural quirk to get to and from attics and roofs. And sure enough, he led the way without hesitation to the small timbered door that opened to the tower without pausing once, not even to see if I followed.

He knew that I would. He would hear my heartbeat, if nothing else.

I heard his

The door had a rusted bolt but was otherwise unlocked; there was no real reason to secure it. The only other dragon in the country was Lia, and if she wanted to come in, she'd probably have the good manners to knock at the main doors first.

I felt the gathering attention of the Roma downstairs. I heard the fiddle begin to taper into silence.

Sandu's hand was an elegant shape against the wood. He released the bolt and pulled at the latch, and the tower door cracked open without a squeak.

Chapter Eleven

Thin, gray residue of saltpeter from the fireshow sifted down around us like the rain that would not come. I actually enjoyed the scent of it, even though it smarted my throat. The festival was officially over and the fireworks had ended hours past. A few bonfires still burned on the beaches, and pockets of people still staggered along the streets, but most of the city was now abed. Sea winds spun about us, stirring the litter below and that fine, lingering saltpeter above. I caught my blowing hair with one hand and scrubbed the other across my eyes, clearing them to the dark and the shadow that was Sandu right in front of me.

The bell had been removed from the tower, who knew when. We had space to stand and face each other, near enough that this time I knew I wasn't imagining his aromatic heat. The odd thing was he seemed no longer fragrant with night but with day, with blue skies and hot sunny fields that enveloped me in sweetness, welcome as the summer dawn.

'I've never done this before,' I whispered.

No one could hear us, I was sure, but it seemed appropriate to whisper anyway. 'Neither have I,' responded the prince, also in a whisper. 'Well, not like this, in any case.'

'Like this?'

'For pleasure.'

'Oh.' I felt that heat between us mount; it might have been my blush.

'In emergencies, of course, we ... my people, we double up, we fly how we must. And there are courting couples. It's not forbidden for them to explore how best they ... fit together.'

'Oh,' I said again.

He looked away from me. 'But I never have,' he finished, more brisk.

I found his hand in the dusk. 'I'm glad, then,' I said. 'First time for both of us. Don't drop me, please.' 'No. I won't.'

His eyes glanced back to mine. The winds lifted the fall of his hair, blew it behind him and then forward again, so that the ends tickled my cheeks.

I inhaled once more. In that moment I breathed both saltpeter and him, and together they were delicious.

He was gazing at my lips. His heart rate had increased; his eyes were half-lidded and pooling into dragon silver, shining beneath his lashes.

I was ready. I knew I was. I leaned into him, so very slight, an unspoken permission with my fingers around his and his scent drowning me in sunlight.

Nothing else happened. Alexandru was a statue.

I leaned farther, so close now my exhalation brushed his chin, the column of his neck, and his lashes drifted closed. Yet his brow wrinkled into a frown; he looked like he was in pain, and it was so painful for me to see that, to think,Oh, he hurts, that I leaned the rest of the way in and up and touched my lips to his.

I'd thought about this moment over and over as the years had passed. I'd thought about it practically from my very first memory of him, when I finally realized where I'd gone on my first Weave, who he'd been. I'd imagined him hard and cold and I'd imagined him warm and tender, as a jet-black dragon and as an ivory-pale man but I'd never,never dreamed his mouth would be so—soft. So lovely and soft and firm, better than satin, or the salty caress of the living sea.

I'd written married to myself and imagined that too, but nothing had prepared me for this. For Alexandru's awakening, his sudden shift in stance that brought our chests together, his free hand rising to cup the back of my neck through the mass of my damp hair, the fingers joined to mine now a tight grip that hurt. I wasn't kissing him any longer. He was kissing me, bending me back in his ferocity, and it was as if all the air had been sucked from my lungs. I could not breathe from rapture.

I felt his tongue, my bound hand released as he pulled me closer by the waist, and through the cotton of my nightrail he was solidly male, a fine shirt and those velvet breeches and his heartbeat racing, just like mine.

I brought my own hands up to frame his face. The planes of his cheeks, the scrape of whiskers just emerging from his last shave. I'd never touched a man's face before. I'd never known skin that could be both coarse and smooth together, provocative. I thought, dizzily I never knew that there were so many things I've never known.

Sandu pulled back, releasing a breath almost like an explosion. His fingers curved into me hard again; when he opened his eyes they were fully incandescent, bright as stars.

'Climb out to me,' he said roughly, and Turned to smoke. I was left holding empty air. All his fine clothing collapsed into a pile.

I shivered with the unexpected lack of warmth, then swung about, trying to discover where he'd gone. There—there on my right, a blur of roiling vapor above the roof, gossamer gray that expanded and thickened into shape. The smoke curled away to reveal the animal left behind, a creature so very black that all I saw of him was the dull glisten of the streetlamps off his scales, and the faint, angled outline of metallic silver that defined his wings and talons.

And those eyes, brilliant, slanting back to find mine.

I hitched up my gown and clambered over the rim of the tower railing, my feet cautious upon the tiles, my toes digging in. He awaited me, massive and beautiful, poised with a delicate balance right at the edge. As I inched nearer he held out a wing to me, just as he had so long ago in that glacial river. This time, though, I grabbed it, grateful for the support. I finished the rest of the way to him with quick, careful steps, the boned curve of silver-and-ebony arching to surround me like a cloak.

I did what I had seen all those other girls do. I took up the folds of my nightrail once more, used my other hand to twine my fingers though the ruff of his mane, and hefted myself atop him.

If I'd thought him heated as a man, he was ten times warmer as a beast. His scales cut hard as diamonds against the bare flesh of my inner thighs. Prince Alexandru held absolutely still as I shimmied into place, scooting forward until I could hook both legs above the joints of his wings, my calves gripping his ribs just under.

He turned his head and looked back at me, a long, assessing look. I adjusted my gown once more and then gave him a grin—I couldn't help it. I was here and he was here and I thought I could already taste the storm