Mad, Bad & Dangerous

Either way, neither of them said much as they flew south and passed through the Bridge to Euskara. The dragon had to be left behind, and all that awaited them in Euskara was a series of rickety-looking wooden coaches, manned by kelfs giving Bael shifty looks. The cold wind howled ’round them and Kett shivered as she tried to get a price for the trip south.

“Okay, this is impossible,” she said after the third polite refusal. “None of these kelfs’ll even make eye contact with you, and we’ve got to go way too far south to make it by boat.” Maybe she should have chosen the villa in Qarat. At least that way she could have checked out the Nihon caves on her way home.

Bael nodded sympathetically then added as if it wasn’t much of an idea, “Or we could fly.”

“Yeah, but I ain’t got wings,” said Kett, and for the moment at least that was true.

Bael was scratching his chin. “You’re right,” he said. “You know, it’s a shame you don’t know anyone with, say, a gryphon.”

“They ain’t got ’em here,” Kett said. “Crappy Realm, I hate this place.”

“Really?” Bael asked. “So what’s that then?”

Something made a clacking noise behind her and Kett froze. The extra animal senses she’d regained with her fluidity told her there was a large creature behind her where there’d been none a second ago.

She turned-and there was a full-sized gryphon standing there, pawing the ground. It nodded its eagle head at her.

She looked back to Bael, who winked, and felt a smile break out.

“All right, you’ve made your point,” she said, and he laughed and swung his arm around her waist to kiss her. “But we can’t go by gryphon, it’d raise too many eyebrows.”

“Dragon then.”

“Ain’t got them here either.”

“Well, what do you want to fly on?” Hooves stamped the ground behind Kett, and she turned to see a winged horse there, tall and black and beautiful. “I saw one of these in a zoo once.”

“Where?”

“I don’t bloody know, you want me to search my pockets for the ticket? Just get on.”

Kett did, expecting Bael to join her, but he stood by Var, closed his eyes and touched the horse’s neck.

The two of them shimmered, which was not altogether unpleasant with the horse between her thighs, and then Bael disappeared.

She felt him as part of the horse. It was eerie.

“Right then, Baelvar,” she said. “Off we go.”

The wingspan of the flying horse was more than ten feet. Up high in the air it was freezing cold, especially as they went over the mountains, and Kett crouched close against Var’s neck, shivering, trying to absorb the heat of his body. He was rarely cold, she realized, even in human form, always a few degrees warmer than everyone else.

Well, maybe that was because he was just so damn hot.

He came down to land on a snowy peak, and separated into human and beast once again.

“Why’ve we stopped?” Kett asked, still on Var’s back. Bael, she noticed, by some Nasc trick, was still clothed in the things he’d been wearing before.

“Because you’re freezing,” Bael said. He indicated the rucksack Kett wore. “Put more clothes on.”

“I’m fine,” she lied, her face so cold she almost couldn’t speak.

“No, you’re not.” He came closer, rubbed her arms with his hands. Kett was wearing the leather jacket she’d left Elvyrn in, a scarf tied around her neck.

“Did you bring your fur parka?” Bael asked, and Kett nodded. She was too cold to unsling the pack and get it out, but Bael did it for her, his movements surprisingly gentle as he wrapped it around her and fastened it up as if he was dressing a child.

“Better?”

She nodded, her teeth chattering, and Bael took her hands in his. “You need more than fingerless gloves,” he said.

“They do me all right at home.”

“But you’re not at home, darling, you’re on top of a fucking mountain.” He dug in the kitbag slung around Var’s neck and brought out a pair of mittens.

“Sexy,” Kett said.

“You know what else is sexy?” Bael asked, putting them on her hands. “Frostbite.”

“Hah.”

He grinned and kissed her cold nose. “When we get down from here I’ll warm you up properly,” he promised, heat in his eyes, and if Kett hadn’t been afraid of frostbitten nipples she’d have suggested a quick shag there and then.

They touched down in the foothills of northern Sisilia as it was turning dark, and Var folded away his wings to become a normal horse for Kett to ride into town. She found an inn, cheekily sent him to the stables for a rubdown and ordered hot water to be sent to her room. Her leg was aching, protesting the extreme cold and stiffness from sitting too long in one position.

Bael found her twenty minutes later, massaging life back into her leg as she sat in the tub by the fire.

There was straw in his hair.

“I fly you across the Realm,” he complained, “and this is the thanks I get.”

Kett looked him up and down. He was rumpled, tired and dirty, and in the low light he looked sexy as hell.

“The thanks you get,” she said, “are here in this tub.”

This time Bael looked her over. He smiled slowly. “You bet they are,” he said, taking off his coat and kicking off his shoes. Kett watched him undress at the speed of sound, licking her lips, grateful the hot water had warmed up the parts of her that had been too cold to feel anything.

“These thanks, how many of them are there?”

“Multiple,” Kett said, eyeing his bare chest.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

“Yes, I thought you might.”

Clothes thrown all over the room, Bael stepped into the tub, which wasn’t particularly big, and sloshed water all over the floor.

“Hey!” Kett protested, and he pulled her against him.

“Gonna be a lot more of that spilled by the time I’ve had my multiples,” Bael said, nuzzling her neck.

“Can men have multiples?” Kett asked, because in all her vast experience she’d never known it to be true.

“I don’t know. Want to find out?”

He kissed her, shifting her more comfortably in his arms, and Kett moved her legs to straddle him, wincing slightly as her right thigh twinged.

“Your leg okay?” asked Bael.

“Five by five,” Kett lied. “Just need to get some movement back into it.”

“Ah.” He grinned. “I can help with that.”

“I thought you’d say that.”

The small tub was restrictive and discomfort soon outweighed arousal for Kett. She leaned back, frustrated, and said, “Okay, we need more space.”

“Sure,” Bael said, starting to move.

“But first, you need to get cleaner.”

He didn’t argue, but let her soap his arms and chest. Then his stomach. Then, teasing him, Kett smoothed her hands down his thighs, stroking and caressing all the way down to his feet.

“You have nice feet,” she told him.

“Thank you,” he said, voice slightly strained.

“And calves.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And thighs. I really like your thighs.”

Bael just nodded, because she was stroking back up said body parts as she spoke, moving closer and closer to his groin. Under the soapy water she couldn’t really see where her hands were going, so she had to feel her