Beneath the Thirteen Moons (12 page)

“I want you like I’ve never wanted anything before.” He licked the water dripping off her ear. “My obsession. I’m hiding nothing from you now.”

His hand slid from her hair to her upper back, arching her body so that his tongue could slide down her neck and he could drink the rain that cascaded between her breasts before traveling back up that same path.

“Since the moment I saw you,” he whispered again, and Mahri’s heart pounded, thudded in her ears until she could hear nothing else. She wrapped shaking arms around his neck and held on, her knees too weak to hold her, the feeling that his words aroused and the ardor he radiated shuddering through her until all she could feel was him.

He devoured her mouth again, panting as he sucked at her lips, curling his tongue around her own. The cool rain mingled with the heat of their own wetness and Mahri absorbed it all, fear of his overwhelming desire
still tangled in her belly, but holding on to that part of her that was separate from him.

His hands traveled down her back, slid beneath her snar-scale leggings, and cupped her bottom, pulling her lower half against his hardness. He moaned into her mouth and Mahri went limp, the heat of his hands branding her, making her burn, consuming her in that fire. He held her with a strength that made her stomach flutter anew, and she was dimly aware that while he cupped her roundness with one hand the other had escaped the confines of her leggings and traveled across the tautness of her belly. Korl shifted, flattened his hand beneath her navel, the tips of his fingers poised atop the waistband of the front of her leggings.

Mahri had to turn her head sideways to look at him, for he’d trapped her between his arms, his pelvis at her hip. Moonlight reflected off the pale whiteness of his hair, created shadows along those sculpted cheekbones, danced along his rigid jaw and across the fan of his lashes. His eyes should’ve been shadowed but they burned with an inner light, glazed with a passion that went beyond mere sexual desire. Obsession, thought Mahri.

“It’s too much,” she whispered.

His fingers slid down, as if he couldn’t stop them, but his gaze stayed locked with her own, trying, at least, to seek her permission. Mahri felt his palm burn between her hipbones and she just wanted to thrust upward, to feel his fingers possess her and stop the agony that caused her to whimper his name. “Korl. No, I’m… losing myself in you. You take too much.”

“You are mine.” He ground it out through clenched teeth.

Mahri shook her head in denial but feared that right now, if he wanted to—for she couldn’t, wouldn’t stop him—if he touched her there, with this desire that he’d overwhelmed her with, she would be his. Worse, that she’d be so tangled up in him she’d be forgotten and lost in his own needs and desires. She had to stop this—now.

“Do you drug all the girls you want to sleep with?”

“I normally don’t have to.”

Mahri clenched her fists. “Well, you don’t have a xynth flower with you this time to use my body to overwhelm my mind.”

His sigh of frustration fanned her temple with warmth and when his mouth nuzzled her there it set off a chain reaction of tiny shivers that made the hair on the back of her neck itch.

When he spoke his words were muffled against her skin. “When we Bonded you Saw into my mind, Mahri. You know what I feel for you.”

“You think you love me.”

“I know it.”

With those words the terror that Mahri had managed to hold at bay unleashed inside of her with a fury that numbed her. She could no longer feel the heat of his hands, the warmth of his lips. Fear of being made the fool, of losing what little pride and dignity the world had managed to leave her with helped her to see clearly. She knew in that moment that he’d only needed her, which was a selfish emotion, whereas love was the total opposite.

Poor Korl—did he even know the difference? He’d saved her life more than once, had followed her into the madness of overdose and thought himself in lust with her because he could use her. Like a tool.

Mahri glared at him. “Ach! You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

His face, by-the-moons she’d never forget the look on his face as he lay open and vulnerable before her and she rejected him. She felt his withdrawal like a tangible thing, heard him close himself off with the finality of a door slamming shut. Mahri’s heart squeezed painfully as she realized that he might never offer her the gift of his true self again. But she felt it as such a small regret in an ocean of fear.

Carefully, he removed his hands from her body and stepped back, letting her go. Mahri swayed. She burned with more emotions than she could name, throbbed in places that might never be eased again. A sudden deluge of rain washed the sweat off her body and the tears from her face. In disbelief, she noticed that the river gurgled and the forest sang its leaf-song as if everything were normal with the world.

The rain had slowed to a sprinkle when Korl spoke again. “You must believe me now,” he sighed, while he ran shaking fingers through his sodden hair.

“Aya. I believe that you want me, even though I’m not of Royal blood.”

He looked at her with astonishment. “And that I’d never betray you? You realize that now, don’t you?”

“What has one got to do with the other?” A stray lock of white-gold hair crept back over his brow and she longed to smooth it back, and ach, how even that scared her now. He confused need with love, would he cause her to do the same with lust? This was truly the most formidable man she’d ever met.

“How can you think that I’d ever do anything to
hurt you after, after I…” The passion that had softened his face began to change to a very controlled fury. He grabbed her shoulders and Mahri trembled like a leaf in the wind. With calculated ease his arms snaked around her waist, rubbed slickly against her lower back, forcing her closer by small degrees. “We’re Bonded water-rat. Once that happened, you didn’t have a choice anymore.”

“What choice?” Mahri raised her hands against his chest and tried to push him away. He couldn’t be budged and she gave up the futile attempt, amazed that even now her willful hands smoothed over the hardness of his muscles, feeling the water turn his skin into warm silk.

“The one whether to trust me or not.” His hands stilled and she felt his body go rigid. “I’ve tried everything else,” he whispered. “Forgive me.” And then she felt his mind plunge inside of her.

He invaded the pathways of her Power before she had a chance to defend herself, drawing on all that shivered through her, sucking her dry from one breath to the next. Mahri watched in horror while his eyes changed, slow sparks of her stolen Power making them flicker with green fire. Her legs buckled and only the strength of his arms held her up, and she thought—for just a moment—that he’d drain her until she died.

Then he fed the Power back to her by slow degrees, letting her know he was in total control of the act, of her life. Mahri breathed and let the strength flow back into her limbs, pushed him away and felt him allow it.

“You… you…” With a wealth of dockside slurs to choose from, she still couldn’t think of one nasty enough to describe him.

He raked his fingers through his hair, his gaze unable to meet hers. “I can do that at any time. But so can you.”

Sparks of renewed Power flew from her own eyes.

“I wouldn’t advise it though.” Korl fell to his knees. “It would be what rape would feel like.”

His shoulders slumped forward and his head hung down, that pale mass of hair falling wetly to cover his face. “The Bond of Power we share has no room for distrust, it passes beyond the scope of any ceremony that lifemate’s may perform, beyond any legal binding a king can perform, beyond any physical act of joining. Do you understand that, now?”

Although Mahri burned with the rage that his violation had created in her, she felt a sudden kernel of sorrow for him and quickly smothered it. He’d made her face something that she didn’t want to see. “Was that necessary?”

“You knew it already but still failed to acknowledge it. Did I have another choice?”

Mahri stood with hands on hips, her mouth open in shock. She felt as if he’d thrown her into a whirlpool and waited until she was good and dizzy before he yanked her out. “By-the-moons! You’ll go to great lengths to get your own way, won’t you?”

She spun, unwound the rope from the dock, flicked her wrist and poled away from the village. Jaja emerged from wherever he’d been hiding and patted Korl on the shoulder. But the man still slumped over, refusing to lift his head.

The rhythm of the current beneath the deck made Mahri feel almost normal again. She’d had enough. Somehow she’d have to get free of him and break the
connection of their Bond that felt like a noose tightening around her neck. She took a deep, steadying breath. Right now she could think of only one way to be safe from him and that meant she’d have to get him as far away from herself as she could.

“I learn my lessons well. You go home, Great One, and you’ll stay out of my life and pathways forever, do you understand?”

T
HE SUN’S RAYS PENETRATED THROUGH THE CANOPY
and laid warm fingers across Mahri’s cheeks. The rain had continued throughout the night and although her new cloak of birdshark feathers had protected her from most of the deluge, her hair felt like a wet blanket and she welcomed the sunshine to dry it. She imagined steam rose from her head just like it swirled above the channel they traveled through.

Korl had shared the poling so she’d slept more than if she’d been traveling alone, but he didn’t know the waterways like she did so she didn’t trust him at the helm for long stretches. Still, having a companion—even an unwelcome one—made the journey easier.

Channels gorged by the rain let them ride higher than usual, and as Mahri ducked beneath yet another branch Korl emerged from the narwhal tent, stretching tendons and snapping muscles from the cramped quarters. Jaja chirruped a welcome but she ignored the man, trying not to look at him yet sensing his presence with every other part of her being. Hating him and wanting him at the same time made her incredibly frustrated.

“Where are we?” he asked, voice gruff and laced with something she couldn’t quite name. Perhaps humiliation— if a prince could even succumb to such a foreign emotion.

“Even if there were a name for this channel I wouldn’t tell it to you.” Mahri rummaged inside the tent
and pulled forth a strip of thick, pliable octopi skin. “As a matter of fact, you’ll be wearing this in the daytime, just in case.”

She tried to tie the blindfold around his head, but that pale hair of his, like some kind of silken trap, kept tangling in her fingers until she swore with annoyance.

Korl looked at her, making her hands tremble, her chest ache. “Do you really think,” he demanded, “that I’ll remember all these twists and turns through this swamp?”

Mahri shrugged. “I’m not taking any chances.”

“I suppose I deserve that,” he muttered, snatching the skin from her and wrapping it around his head himself. He sat where he’d stood, in the middle of the boat, head erect and shoulders squared, his back so stiff and straight that Mahri smothered a smile before she realized he couldn’t see it.

Or could he? With practiced skill she swung her bone staff straight for his face, stopped a mere fingers-breadth from his nose. He hadn’t moved, although he raised his brow at the sound the staff had made as it whistled in the air.

“Just testing,” she murmured, flicking her wrist and inserting the pole back in the water.

Mahri sighed with relief. She could protect the village at least that much, for if he remembered any particular group of trees or had a good sense of the direction they traveled, he could remember the way to their swamps, or at least have a basis to begin. He’d had no root and she’d know if he tried to steal her own so he wouldn’t be able to use the Power to track them.

Mahri gripped her staff until her knuckles whitened. He’d invaded her mind once before, they’d joined in that
way too, however briefly. Perhaps the Bond allowed him to not only tap into her pathways of Power but also her thoughts as well. So that it wouldn’t matter what he saw, he could just read her memories for the way to the village!

Yet, she’d know if he got into her head, wouldn’t she?

Jaja must’ve felt her panic, for he hopped onto her shoulder and poked one tiny finger at her temple. Of course, remembered Mahri, he’d set that mind-barrier up for her. Now that he drew it to her attention she became fully aware of it. A black wall set around her thoughts, sealing her off from any tampering. And although Jaja had let Korl in her mind when they’d Bonded, they’d had her consent. She felt sure that Korl couldn’t do it against her will, especially on his own.

Satisfied, Jaja bounded from her shoulder and settled himself in Korl’s lap. The Royal felt for the silken mound, began to scratch a few favorite places until the monk-fish purred. Mahri kept glancing at those strong fingers, the way they gently stroked her pet with a hypnotic rhythm, and she couldn’t stop from remembering her own skin beneath them. She gave a guilty start when Korl spoke.

“You don’t trust anyone, do you?” he asked, his jaw thrust out and that veil of superiority settled securely over his features.

“Not particularly.”

“Ha!”

“Ha, what?”

Mahri waited, but he wouldn’t answer her.

Jaja clapped his webbed hands for her attention, then pointed at the shell of fishing gear, wiggling his
eyebrows up and down in appeal. The channel they drifted through did have an abundance of tasty spotted trasks and if she didn’t pole they could drift with the current and throw out a few lines.

Jaja wiggled his eyebrows faster, his upper lip even lifting with the movement. Mahri laughed and nodded, saw Korl flinch at the sound.

“Jaja wants fresh fish for dinner,” she explained, finding it easier to look at him when he wasn’t looking back at her. “I’m going to anchor a while. You can remove the blindfold while we hunt for worms.”

Korl folded his arms across his chest and made no attempt to remove the strip of skin from around his head. Mahri shrugged at his stubbornness and then happily rooted through dead leaf muck, her and Jaja crooning with delight whenever they discovered one of the blue worms. She glanced back at Korl occasionally—the swamp was no place to be blindfolded—and once sprinted back to the boat when a vine-snake decided to investigate such a warm unmoving snack.

“Something wrong?” he asked, his head cocked to the side, listening to her grunts and the smacks of her pole.

Mahri flung the snake that hung from the tip of her staff into the water. “Er, not really.”

When they’d collected enough worms, they baited the bone hooks and threw out the lines and Mahri watched her pet dance from string to string, waiting anxiously for a tug. A breeze kicked up and carried the salty tang of the ocean through the forest, made the leaves sway and sound like the roar of waves.

Mahri knew this stretch of water like the back of her hand. It presented little danger and therefore a great deal
of boredom. She sat with her back to the bow and smiled with a private glee. She could sit and stare at Korl all day long and he’d never know it. Better yet, she wouldn’t be trapped by his eyes, made to feel things she didn’t want to.

Mahri could just enjoy the flesh.

Wouldn’t that be nice, she mused, studying the way the muscles in his chest moved as he breathed. Just to join with him again on a physical level without the complications of his “love” for her or the constraints of their Bond, or the fear of an involvement that could lead to the loss of her self and the pain of separation. There was something to be said for the gifts of the xynth flower.

The sun made his hair glow with shimmers of gold, highlighted the planes of his face and shadowed the curve of his lips. Fine, golden hair traced a path down the middle of his chest and disappeared beneath the top of his snar-scale leggings. When she took him home, would she pine away for the sight of him? Would she try to discover ways to get a glimpse of that golden hair, that sculpted face? The thought filled her with self-contempt, that she’d let anyone have that much control over her. Yet, she feared that more than anything, that she’d ache to touch him but wouldn’t be able to. Like Brez.

Mahri shivered and rubbed her arms. What to do? She wanted to be with him with every fiber of her being, knowing that they had no future, that in the next few days she’d never see him again. Thank-the-moons she didn’t love him, at least she wouldn’t go through that kind of agony again.

But she had to admit, her body did ache for him. Would it be better to ignore it, or give her flesh the satisfaction of his touch? Which would cause her the least
pain? Yet, why should it? She had to keep reminding herself that she didn’t love him, there were no risks here. Nothing could ever take away her freedom again.

Mahri stared at the blindfold and sighed.

“Getting an eyeful?” asked Korl.

She started, felt her face flush with warmth. How had he known that she was looking at him?

“I can feel your eyes on me,” he replied, as if she’d asked the question aloud. “Like invisible flames…” Goosebumps rose on his flesh and he rubbed his arms. “Stop it, woman.”

Mahri cocked her head and grinned. “Not a chance.”

He frowned. “So what were you thinking?”

“When?”

“When you were undressing me with your eyes.”

“How do you know… by-the-moons you’re conceited.” Mahri stood so abruptly she rocked the boat. “If you must know, I was thinking of the best way to gut the fish Jaja’s caught.”

She turned her back on the arrogant man and snapped at Jaja to let go of the line. That fish wouldn’t go anywhere, the line lay secured to the boat, but her pet seemed determined to haul the trask in himself. He’d heave it up, the fish would yank, and overboard Jaja flew, to crawl up and do it again.

With a snort of disgust Mahri flung the fish on the deck and whacked it with her staff. She pulled her knife from her belt and began to gut the thing, her annoyance at Korl causing her to make a fine mess of it.

That evening they anchored and she hauled her fire shell to the tree shore—like any water-rat reluctant to have a flame on her boat—and they ate tender, grilled trask.

“Fit for a king,” announced Korl, his smile lighting up the night. When the sky darkened and Mahri had removed the blindfold, he’d blinked at her like a man starved for the light of the sun. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her since, and when they went back to the boat she immediately crawled into the privacy of the tent. She wouldn’t admit to the goose bumps that his own stare kept raising on her skin.

The next morning the sun had barely trickled through the canopy when Mahri demanded that he put back on the blindfold. She sighed with relief when it lay firmly in place and her spirits rose as she poled through the narrow channel. Moss hung in great sweeps of lavender-blue from every limb, like scarves of fine silk adorning the massive sea trees. She poled around and through the maze of them, reluctant to tear the beautiful stuff.

She glanced at Korl. The palace couldn’t compare to her own home and it was high time she proved it to him. With a grunt of determination, Mahri channel-hopped, taking them in a new direction. The tidal draw of the planet’s thirteen moons made the direction of each channel of running water different, so that even parallel waterways could move in opposite directions. But even then they could change and only experienced water-rats could hope to predict their ways.

Toward dusk she stopped poling, rolling her shoulders to remove the soreness. A bit of root to augment her strength and See into the water and she’d made it just in time. Mahri stepped behind Korl, who sat with his back to stern and his sightless face held up to the wind. She untied the strip of octopi skin.

He blinked. “It isn’t dark yet.”

“Aya. Keep your eyes closed for just a bit.”

He obeyed as she hunkered down beside him and when she brushed against him she could swear she felt each individual hair on his arm tickle her skin.

“What’s going…” he started to ask, then his voice rose to be heard. “By-the-thirteen-moons, what’s that racket?”

Mahri smiled at his use of her favorite oath. They’d spent too much time together. “Open your eyes.”

He did. And they continued to open wider, and wider. She snickered at his expression, but not unkindly. She knew what he felt.

The channel widened before them into a small cove, with nothing but sky for a ceiling, allowing the birds that roosted here unhindered access. Parrots, parakeets, shakaans; every type of bird that possessed brilliant-colored plumage seemed to settle here. Feathers of color that boggled the imagination—ruby red, deep purple, screaming yellow, bright orange—graced thousands of wings and tails and crowns. Flocks of birds flew from tree to tree, swooped down to circle just above the water, huddling in groups among the branches until it seemed that the entire world was one huge, moving kaleidoscope of color.

And sound. Birds shrieked and squawked and cawed. Mahri covered her ears and stared, saw Korl do the same. Their boat drifted through the cove, feathers floating down to cover the deck with a blanket of clashing hue. The birds preened and displayed their plumage, fully aware of the watching intruders, yet secure in the force of their own numbers. A few curious groups swooped down to inspect the boat, a wave of blues and pinks and scarlets, and caused Jaja to make his own dive into the tent.

As the boat left the cove the sky darkened to full night, yet Mahri and Korl continued to stare blindly forward, their minds full of color, ears still ringing from the clamor.

His arm had snaked around her waist, Mahri wasn’t sure when, nor how she’d managed to wind up half in his lap. When she tensed to move, his hold tightened with implied stubbornness so she snuggled closer and just let herself feel him.

His hand played with the curls of her hair. “Why’d you take me there?”

She slapped his hand. “Stop it. I… I’m not sure.”

He continued to play with her hair. And waited.

“Oh, all right. Maybe to prove to you that my world’s just as good as yours. Better even.” Mahri could feel him grinning. Arrogant man.

“Why would you care what your enemy thinks? That’s what I am, right? Your enemy. Someone you can’t trust. Yet you show me all of your secret places, Mahri Zin. Why is that?”

She turned her face to his and watched the moonlight play in his hair.

“You’ll always be my enemy,” she whispered. “Not that it seems to matter.”

And this time when her hand crept forward to brush the hair away from his forehead she didn’t stop herself. Felt the softness of the strands against the back of her hand, the silky slide of it between her fingers. Curled her palm around the back of his neck and brought his lips to hers, smooth warmth that hardened into demanding, wet hunger.

He allowed her to lead, and when she pulled away he allowed that too. “Tomorrow, there’s another secret
place I want to show you. Does the Great One wish to see it?”

Korl smiled at her sarcasm. Actually smiled. “The man who loves the woman would like nothing more. But the prince who loves the Wilding…”