ties.'
Lenardo sighed. 'It will be a long time before my people get over Drakonius. Still, I don't think Julia misses her mother very much. She couldn't communicate with her the way she does with me. I can't really explain to a nonReader. What seems odd is that I feel the same closeness with Adepts-and look at Julia and Wulfston.'
'People with extraordinary powers,' said Aradia. 'We have a great deal in common.'
She continued to hold his hand with one of hers. Lenardo waited, somehow unable to initiate further conversation when he was so aware of her touch. He had never seen her like this, apparently open and vulnerable. In a sense, she was on vacation. She had no responsibilities here; she was his guest. Everything was up to Lenardo.
Not really believing that he was going to try his plot, Lenardo remained waiting, suspended. Maybe they could just talk, come to a better understanding if Aradia were relaxed…
Aradia uncurled the fingers of Lenardo's hand, staring at the palm. 'You have such nice hands. Why don't you ever touch people?'
'I touch people-'
'To heal. To lift Julia up onto Wulfston's horse. But you never really touch.'
'Readers don't.'
'I'm not a Reader,' she said, placing her palm over his, her fingers tickling the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrist. 'Julia thinks you don't care about her because you don't hug or kiss her.'
'Julia can Read directly how I feel about her… but you can't,' he said, his heart pounding in terror at his boldness.
He hadn't expected the opportunity, and surely it would never come again. Take one step and see what happens, he told himself firmly. He closed his hand around hers, and when she didn't pull away, he leaned forward and kissed her.
His position was awkward. He could not remain kissing her long, just a touching of lips that brought no answering response from her except a pang of startlement. Before his muscles went into spasm, he sank back into his chair, waiting for Aradia's reaction.
She blushed but gripped his hand more tightly. She had once told him that she could make good use of energy created by frustrated desire. Probably she thought that she could kiss him safely enough, let herself become aroused, and then stop short. If she did, he had lost nothing except his composure. But if he could Read her feelings well enough to tip the balanceHe got up, drawing Aradia to her feet. She made no resistance when he took her into his arms but held him, her head against his shoulder. Her quickened breathing and faint trembling told him that she was excited, and he Read her heart beating as rapidly as his own. Only once before in his life had Lenardo held a woman thus, and for the first time he blessed that innkeeper's daughter, only wishing that they had not been caught quite so soon.
Despite the close contact, he felt no unpleasant overburdening of emotion. It was more pleasant than holding Julia, something highly charged with expectancy communicating from Aradia's body to his. A faint, clean smell rose from her, the sweet aroma of her hair. During the days of ceremonial appearances, she had worn it in intricate arrangements of braids and curls. Now she had pulled it into a simple coil at the nape of her neck; it looked as if all that held it were three gold combs set with amethysts. Experimentally, he pulled out the combs, and her pale blond hair tumbled free.
At that, she lifted her face up, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss her again. This time it was more successful-they seemed to fit together. As he pressed his lips to hers, her mouth yielded, softening invitingly, and a charge of pure desire struck through him. Pleasure blurred the edges of his fear. It became harder to think, easier to act.
He felt a strange yearning to get closer to her. He could Read her hesitant desire but could not reach her mind. As if physical closeness could compensate, he held her tighter, his hands seeking over her body but encountering only the fabric of her gown where he sought to feel flesh on flesh.
Finally he found the tiny hooks fastening her gown, fumbling as he fought a wish to tear the fabric. That violent notion brought him back to reality long enough to complete the task while he made a decision. It's up to Aradia now. I want her, and I'll take her if she'll let me. He didn't pause to question when his duty to stop Aradia from trying to rule the world had become his personal desire. His touch-starved body merely acted, feeling Aradia pliant, willing, shyHe couldn't remember getting out of his own clothing, but he was naked and was trying to find Aradia beneath layers of filmy undergarments, until he finally stripped away the last one and she stood pale and shimmering before him, veiled now only with the soft aura of her hair.
He couldn't even pause to look at her but lifted her and knelt to lay her in the bed. In his hasty and inexperienced passion, when he kissed her aggressively, their teeth met in a painful jolt. But her soft outcry only inflamed him. She was his now, helpless beneath him. He was annoyed momentarily when her hair got in his mouth, shifting his weight when her sense of suffocation reached him, but at the core he took her on a rush of power such as he had never known before.
Emotion peaked. With a cry of triumph at the burst of total pleasure, Lenardo dropped panting, sweating, onto Aradia's breast, burnt out and unbelievably satisfied. The last thing he felt was her hands pushing at him until he slid off her, feeling somehow that he ought to investigate why her feelings seemed so distant from his, but he was too content, too tired.
Blackness claimed him.
Lenardo woke to the thob of a headache. It was dark, almost midnight. Instead of the pale square of his window, there was milky grayness all around him, the night color of Aradia's white pavilion. Memory flooded back. His first instinct was to run, but it hurt incredibly when he moved his head, and there was AradiaDespite the pain, he Read her. She was curled up with her back to him, now wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked loose robe and clutching the covers about herself protectively, as if she feared attack. From the state of her body, he could Read that she had wept long and hard before falling into exhausted sleep.
Lenardo was filled with utter self-loathing. He deserved however much his head ached and was surprised that he could Read at all. Now he knew why Master Clement had beaten him so that time. Was the beast loosed this afternoon locked within every man, or had his teachers recognized a particular danger in him and tried to restrain it with special strictness? If he had never left the Academy, he might never have known- Now I can never go, back.
What was he to do? First things first: take himself out of Aradia's way. She wouldn't want to face him when she woke. Why am I still alive? he wondered. Can I have damaged her powers that much? He would certainly have wanted to kill anyone who had so brutally used him.
The headache was interfering with his thinking. He got to his knees, swaying, and sought his clothes. He Read them, finally, neatly hung on one of the chairs, his sandals under it. Aradia's attempts to restore order made his heart ache.
As he struggled to his feet, the world tilted and the pain in his head redoubled. Fighting to suppress a moan, he winced in agony when the candles burst into flame.
'Lenardo.'
Helplessly, he turned to face Aradia. 'Don't leave,' she whispered.
'How can you-' he began, but the effort of talking set the room spinning, and he staggered, putting both bands to his head as the jar of regaining his balance sent another lance through his skull.
'You're in pain,' Aradia gasped, and was at his side, one cool hand on his forehead. The pain dissolved; the world oriented itself, and he stared in astonishment into her anxious eyes.
'How can you stand to touch me?' he asked.
She looked away, suddenly shy. 'I wanted it, too,' she said. 'I didn't know it would be like that.'
She seemed so forlorn that he wanted to comfort her, started to reach for her, and pulled back-but she turned into his arms, clinging to him.
'I'm sorry,' he murmured helplessly. 'I didn't mean to hurt you.' Not that way. 'I'll never do it again.'
At the disgust in his tone, she backed off. 'Am I repellent to you now?'
He closed his eyes, trying to Read some sense in her attitude, but all he got was a haze of shame, anxiety, and self-recrimination.
'Aradia-' If he could only touch her mind, assure her that his loathing was toward himself. But he could not. So he held out his hands, not reaching for her, just available. 'Whatever you want.'
