herdfolk and their beasts from her sight, and muffled the steady tread of their passage. The soft soughing of the eternal wind was broken by the earthen barriers, letting the warmth of the sun settle and stay. Tillu swayed, feeling almost sleepy. Here, in this hollow of earth, the sky retreated to its proper distant blue, instead of pressing down on her as it did on the great flatness of the tundra. The world became smaller, cozier, and safer. She sank down to the earth and leaned her back against a mossy boulder that jutted from the verdant floor of the hollow. She watched silently as Heckram moved among the rajd, unfastening lead ropes. The animals quickly stepped away from him, to nuzzle and snuffle through the grasses and bushes. She heard the rip of their teeth and their grinding jaws as a peaceful sound.
'We could rest here, for awhile,' Heckram said. The closeness of the earth swallowed his words. She nodded. A small wariness grew in her as he came closer. Well, he had brought her son back to her, hadn't he? She supposed she owed him something. And she was not reluctant, she admitted to herself. She realized she would welcome the closeness, the touching. Unless. The pit of her belly felt hard and cold. She tried not to imagine his suffocating weight atop her, her body pinned helpless beneath his. He probably won't be rough, she told herself. But ... her teeth clenched as he lowered himself to the ground beside her. And lay back.
'I know I slept last night, but I don't feel like I did.' His eyes closed as he spoke. 'We can catch up with the others this afternoon. They swing wide of these ravines and hummocks, but there's a way through. Long time ago, when I was a boy, I found it.' The edges of his words were softening. He spoke without opening his eyes. 'They'll never even miss us.' He breathed out, long, and settled his shoulders into the cushioning earth. He stretched his body in the sun. Tillu sat an arm's length away, looking down on his lax face. He turned toward her, his eyes opening a crack. 'This is the beginning, you know. The Cataclysm starts here.' Then his eyes closed and his breathing became deep and even. She shook off the unreasonable shiver of dread that his words had caused and lay back on the earth. She closed her eyes, but the bright light through her eyelids still made her eyes water. She rolled onto her side, cradling her head on her arms, facing Heckram. The warmth and fragrance of the earth blanketed her. His brow was smooth in sleep, his beard more rust than his hair. His sleep roused an elusive feeling in her. She bit her lip, examining it. It was ... annoyance.
She had to smile at herself. So it was a just debt she must pay? She had wanted him to reach for her, wanted him to have planned this interlude alone with her. Instead he had planned a nap. Her separation from Kerlew had weakened her. Something in her cried out for warmth and touch, demanded that someone want and need her. She realized she had been counting on him to voice a desire; she had been reluctant to be the one that reached out. But the warmth of the sun on her body and her new aloneness unfastened the reserves of her soul. She needed someone to want her touch. She needed warmth to ease the ache in her heart, like a poultice soothing a twisted joint. But she would let him sleep. For awhile.
He swam into consciousness like a swimmer rising to the top of a warm, deep pool.
Her body was warm against his side, and after a moment he realized that her breath against the side of his neck had wakened him. She lay on her side atop his outflung arm, and her eyes were wide and close to his. He crooked his arm, pulling her closer, and found her easing her body atop his. Her desire warmed him, but he hesitated.
Slowly, he told himself. Slowly. He forced himself to lie still, staring up into her face.
'Tillu?' he asked, but her fingers softly stopped his words. She shook her head at him, and took a short, quick breath, like a diver facing cold, deep water. Close as she was, vulnerable as she was making herself to him, there was still a feral quality to her eyes.
Like a wary vixen, he thought. He lifted one hand to the angle of her jaw, half-expecting that she would turn and snap at him. But she did not. Instead she leaned into his touch, letting her eyelids droop down over her watchful gaze.
But even half-lidded, there was something unreadable in those eyes. A reservation.
She wanted to be where she was, just as she had that day in her tent. Yet he was certain that if he made the wrong move now, she would flash out of his reach and be gone. It made the simple act of mating a complicated game with rules he didn't know. He would move with care, letting her make the decisions.
He put his arms around her and was still, feeling her weight atop him as a near unbearable pleasure. She rubbed her face against his, her mouth trailing across his beard to his lips. He opened his mouth to hers, felt her hesitation before her tongue darted briefly between his lips. He smiled around her kiss and ran his hands gently over her back. In response she pressed fiercely against him and her breath was suddenly hot against his mouth. Emboldened, he pulled her suddenly tight against him, kissed her deeply.
And felt her go suddenly still in his arms.
He released her immediately, and she rolled away from him, and sat up. Heckram stared into eyes that were full of both desire and fear. 'Tillu?' he began, but 'I'm sorry,'
she said, and turned swiftly aside from him.
His mind scrabbled for reasons, could find none. The mother of Kerlew could not be a frightened maiden. And there was a fierceness to her reluctance, as if it angered her, not toward him, but toward herself. He did not understand it, but a sudden fierceness rose in him to match it. He wanted to be close to this woman, and he would be.
Tillu heard him stand. She could not look at him, could not find any words to explain. She wanted him as she had never wanted a man, for she wanted Heckram as himself. Yet his size terrified her, and when his arms closed around her every savage memory had risen, screaming. The raiders that had taken her from her village had been hard men and cold. They had laughed when she had screamed, standing in circles around the captured women, watching, waiting a turn. So long ago. But they were still there, watching and waiting, always, hiding in the shadow of every man who touched her, waiting to hurt and shame her. She put her forehead on her knees and rocked in miserable wanting that she was afraid to satisfy.
'Tillu.' His voice was soft with want. She shook her head, refusing to look up.
'Tillu. Come here.' It was neither a request nor a command. She could not name what she heard in his voice, but it echoed something that spoke within her. She could not deny it. She lifted her head and looked at him.
The mosses were green and the sky was blue, and between them Heckram stood. He was naked, his bundled clothing kicked aside. She stared at him as if she had never seen a naked man before. Nor had she, Tillu thought. Quick couplings in a darkened tent or in the shadows away from a fire had not shown her a man this way, nor had men stripped for healing, writhing in their pain. Nothing in her life had prepared her for a man who stood naked and unashamed in the bright sunlight. His face and arms were bronzed, but his chest and thighs were pale where the sun seldom touched them. He was thinner than she had expected and more muscular, his chest deeper, his legs long and straight. His manhood ... she pulled her eyes away from that jutting accusation, and made the mistake of meeting his eyes.
His gaze was as naked as his flesh. He wanted her, and yet he stood, waiting for her to come to him. She knew in that moment that she could turn aside and walk away from him without fear. He would let her, would let her carry this tale back to the campfires of the arrotak, let her giggle with Kari over this. This tall strong man had made himself vulnerable to her. Vulnerable and naked as she had once been. It broke her heart and her eyes stung. How could he put himself at such risk? Could he believe in her that much?
She walked to him slowly, her heart thundering more loudly with every step. He was too tall, too male. The sun made planes of light on his muscled arms, delineated his flat belly, glinted on the hair of his chest. Too much of him. Too male, too strong.
Unthinkable to go on, impossible to stop. Smell of male musk, warmth of his bared body crossing the small space between them. 'I'm here,' she said softly.
She was content to let her hands rest on the smooth warm skin of his sides as his big fingers worked the laces of her tunic. He stripped her clothing away, letting the sunlight touch her skin as warmly as his frank stare. Then he knelt slowly, and the soft rasp of his beard against her breasts was more than she could bear. An animal sound pushed out of her as she pressed suddenly against him. She guided his big hand between her legs, demanding his touch. Together they sank onto the soft mosses. The pressures of his body atop and within her were sweet and strong. In her demanding, Tillu forgot to be wary, and when the tide of passion rose to engulf her she clung to Heckram and pulled him under with her.
The second time he awoke, the afternoon sun was losing its warmth. He came fully awake in an instant,
