The Time Weaver

'Rez.'

I hesitated. 'Am I sanf?'

'No,' he said instantly. 'Never believe it.'

I sighed in relief. The wine tasted much sweeter after that.

 He knew what would come next. She'd told him, after all, all that time ago, and then reminded him again before she'd left. And although Sandu had never yet had reason to doubt Rez on any of her so-called predictions —or more plainly, her tellings of what was to be—he found himself slightly flummoxed at this one.

It wasn't Rez with him now, but Honor. All the fine and resplendent months he'd spent with Rez simply did not exist for this young woman, and would not for a while to come. Yet she had Rez's face, and Rez's voice, and those blue-bruised eyes that never changed, that had belonged to both Rez and Honor, even scrawny little river- soaked Honor, all the while.

So he knew it was she. He knew her scent and her flavor and the way her lashes would drift closed as he kissed her. How her hands would feel upon him. The shape of her palms, the tension of her fingers and nails. The pretty noises she would make.

Prince Alexandru looked away from Honor Carlisle. He poured himself another glass of wine and gazed up at the shining white moon, which also never changed.

I thought it was that the air was thinner up here, way up in these unsullied mountains of Eastern Europe. It must be why the moon seemed so extraordinarily bright, why it was becoming increasingly more difficult for me to taste the meal or fill my lungs with any measure of satisfaction.

I thought the supper well prepared. I thought the wine refreshing.

I thought.

But the truth was, I ate and drank because I couldn't force my mind to consider what else there was to do here in this isolated place, with the blanket and grasses and the languid night—and because Sandu was doing the same.

He ate with care from his selection of dishes, one or two bites of each, leaving most of it untouched. He tried a few grains of my paella and made a face, which wrung a laugh from me.

'It's the saffron,' I said, holding a spoonful of rice up to my nose, inhaling with appreciation. 'Another acquired taste.'

'An English dish?'

'No. Not at all.'

In fact, glancing around the blanket, I realized that nothing there was English fare. It had been so long since I'd had a true English meal, I barely recalled what they had been like. I barely recalled what I had been like, a young English maiden in my corsets and frilled lace caps. She was a child from another life.

'Crumpets,' I said.

'Excuse me?'

'I liked crumpets. I remember that. Toasted crumpets with jam and melted butter to fill all the little holes. We've not found them in Spain. I haven't had crumpets since I was a girl.'

'There are crumpets back at Zaharen Yce,' said Alexandru seriously.

'Truly?'

'The chef prepares them just for you.'

The unfolding thing in my chest opened wider, a trapped dragon waking, stretching under his gaze. He flicked a stray lock of hair from his cheek with a frown. 'I'm sorry. I should have brought some.' 'No,' I said, and moved to place my hand over his. 'This was perfect.' A soft, soft silence descended between us.

I realized I had changed something then. With that one impulsive, straightforward touch, I had changed entirely the energy flowing from me to him, and him to me. And all at once, everything made sense. I knew exactly why I had come.

And so did he.

Alexandru's hand turned under mine. His fingers spread, interlocking with my own. I stared down at this, our simple union, and noticed for the first time that his hands were darker too, also of the sun. My own were as pale as the moon.

He brought our joined fingers up to his lips, his breath a bare wisp across my knuckles, the lingering caress of his kiss.

Desire bloomed inside me, luscious as honey. The air grew hot, the thin drift of silk I wore grew abrasive against my flesh, and when Sandu slanted his gaze back up to mine from over our hands I leaned into him, just as I had done mere hours or maybe years before, only this time he was no statue in response. He leaned down to me and took my mouth with his.

He tasted of the sweet light wine and, more faintly, of the pepper of his stew, but instead of being pungent now it was utterly delicious, flavored with him. His hair draped my face and his, heavy strands that clung to my cheeks and neck and collarbone.

I thought It's the same, and, no, it's not, but it hardly mattered, because whatever else it was, this kiss lit through me like the white blazing moonlight, and I was aflame.

His hands came up to my shoulders. I felt him through the fine weave of the shirt, and he was being so gentle, so careful, even as I was gasping and his lips traced a path from the corner of mine to my jaw, beneath my ear. I felt his mouth open and his teeth press lightly against the artery in my throat; he pushed me back like that to lie flat against the ground, Alpha even here.

I surrendered. Grass on one side of me, the combed woolen blanket on the other. My hair was pinned beneath us, and his still fell across my face, slipped between the high open collar of the shirt in a sensation caught between a tickle and something much more gratifying.

He lay above me. He was half on me, half off, his weight on his elbow. His leg skimmed possessively over both of mine, leather and muscle, the pressure of his arousal along my thigh, and then his knee went between mine. My legs slid open, and he made a sound like a growl in his throat.

His hand found the curve of my hip, rode it upward, crumpling the shirt. The grass felt tender and the wool felt coarse against my newly bared skin, but best of all was his palm, his clever fingers, exploring the curves and valleys of my body, stroking the underside of my breasts. Finding a nipple, tugging at it, pinching, until my back made an arch and I had to turn my flushed face away from his.

His mouth replaced his fingers. He suckled me there through the silk, his teeth and tongue far more torturous than his fingers. I felt the fire of his sucking, the white moon fire, lance my body all the way down to the new yielding wetness between my legs.

My mother must have done this, my father. Lia and Zane, certainly. But no one had ever explained to me what it would be like, this coupling between male and female. I had only guessed and daydreamed, fueled by romantic ballads and books, and the way Zane stared at his wife, as if no one else in the world could be real.

This was real. This was Sandu rising up to strip off his shirt and cravat. Returning to me, his hand moving downward as his mouth made that fire, his fingers tracing the flat of my belly, combing through the patch of curls beneath, a place no man had ever touched, that even I had hardly touched, but he found the bright hot center of me and stroked me there, and I could not stop the cry that rose from my chest.

His head lifted. He watched me with his silver beast eyes, his hand moving up and down and up again, his fingers like demons, demolishing all the astonished words I might have used to protest—sparking the demon in me, aching for him. Opening my legs wider and twining my fingers in his hair.

No, not a demon. The dragon in me.

'Touch me,' he rasped. He lowered his lips to mine, not a kiss, a nip, a bite, pulling back just enough to form his words. 'Touch me, Rez. You know how.'

I didn't, though. Maybe she did, this creature I was to become, but all I knew was that his pelvis was moving against me in a rhythm that throbbed in my veins. The thing inside me, the new and awakening beast, whispered,there; he wants you there, and shifted the back of my hand to the taut pressure at his breeches, exploring the outline of him through the supple doeskin. The way he stilled and then