Sons of Destiny Prequel Series 003 - The Shifter (26 page)

Her choice of words, coupled with the stroking of her fingers along his buttock and upper thigh, made him blush. He twitched when she carefully parted a few of the tufts, trying to see the skin beneath. "Careful, or you'll find another temptation to avoid."

"What? Oh." Reluctantly, Solyn removed her hand. She couldn't help asking in curiosity, "Are feathers the only thing you do?"

"We also do scales and fur. Most everyone does fur, but feathers are warm and shed water more easily." The loss of her touch made him offer, "Would you like to see?"

Fascinated, she nodded. "Please?"

The feathers retracted. Within three or four heartbeats, they had shrunk down and altered themselves into matte blue-black scales, cupping his backside. Kenyen turned with the shift, hiding the front of his body. She was a Healer's apprentice and had literally seen him naked before, albeit in the shape of her captured friend, but he had shaped a reptilian pouch up front. The lack of obvious genitals would no doubt disturb her, so he presented his backside instead.

Again, she hesitated, then touched him, fingers gliding lightly over his rump. Solyn raised her brows, enjoying the feel. The surface was cool, slick but dry, and subtly textured. Much like any garden-variety snake, in fact, though there were no reassuring vertical stripes on his darkened hide. Curious, Solyn asked, "Can you take on a snake or lizard shape?"

"I can form a Plains viper... and yes, I can re-create the venom as well," he added, glancing at her over his shoulder. Solyn lifted her head at that. Kenyen nodded. "It wasn't easy, but I was determined to learn."

"How would someone learn something like that?" she asked, frowning.

"By being bitten. Repeatedly. My older brother helped me," he added as her eyes widened. "He's a
multerai
, a shifter who can make more than ten pure shapes. They can sort of
push
their power into a fellow Shifterai, lending us energy. He helped me survive the venom by pushing it out of my system, taking a little bit longer each time while my body was learning the feel of it. It both builds up an immunity and gives a shifter time to figure out how to re-create it within themselves."

"That must have been rather painful," Solyn muttered. "We have a couple kinds of mildly poisonous snakes around here, but the very name of 'viper' suggests something quite deadly. You were that willing to risk your life?"

He rubbed his chin and chuckled. "I wouldn't say it was a case of risking my life so much as it was my brother and I risking our mother's wrath. I wanted to do it to prove I was ready for inclusion in the warbands. Every young man has the right to join them for at least one season. I'm rather good at bargaining, and figured if nothing else, I could be one of the more trade-inclined members if it turned out I couldn't handle much of the fighting. Though we all fight when there is need."

Aware her hand was still caressing his rump, Solyn blushed and pulled it away. "And can you fight?"

"Almost as well as my brother, though I don't quite have his battle stamina, since I only have half the shapes," Kenyen admitted. Raking his hands through his damp locks, he sighed, staring at the far wall. "I love my brother, but I like being
away
from him. Like a plant finally allowed to grow in the sun, instead of his shade."

"At least you're allowed to be away," Solyn muttered. He twisted to look at her and she gave him a wry half smile. "Until I can run away and learn to be a mage, I'll only be a semi-lousy Healer's apprentice, hardly much better than an herbalist."

Kenyen smirked and tipped his head in teasing invitation. "Maybe we should run away together?"

She laughed at that. "Oh, don't tempt me." Patting his backside—his very nice, shapely backside, she ordered, "Shift me some fur, shapechanger. Make it something pretty!"

Grinning back, he played a trick on her, one he had played on his Shifterai teachers ages ago. The sinuous scales simulating his skin shifted and reshaped, sprouting fur. But not just any fur. Bright,
sky-blue
fur. With lilac-purple tiger stripes. Her shriek of surprise, followed by palm-muffled laughter, was worth it. Laughing as well, he twisted around, showing her all sides as he proudly displayed the silly sight.

Extending her hand to touch his hip and feel the unnatural-hued fur for herself, Solyn froze when her fingers instead brushed across his groin. He stilled as well. That left her fingertips half buried in the thick, plush fur providing a modesty screen.

For a moment, she didn't know what to do. Just as she made up her mind, he drew in a breath. Kenyen choked on it a moment later when she gently petted his nether-pelt.

"It's very soft," she murmured, stroking her fingers through the long guard hairs. She knew what she was touching; being a Healer's apprentice had given her a thorough education in not only anatomy but its proper, healthy function. She couldn't quite bring herself to look at him—not with her face so red—but she asked, "Are your natural nether-hairs this soft?"

He choked again, coughed, cleared his throat, and attempted to speak. "I, uh... you..." Kenyen twitched his hips away, turning his back on her to hide the inevitable reaction to her touch. He lost control of the color of his fur with the move, letting his modesty pelt return to its most familiar color, the same dark brown as his hair. "You
shouldn't
do that. I'm, ah...
trying
to be respectful, here."

"I appreciate it," Solyn murmured, returning her hand to his rump. She squeezed lightly, making him jump. Smirking, she met his startled gaze over his shoulder. "But right now, you and I are about as close to truly alone as we're probably going to get, and will be alone for quite some time. This storm will take several hours to weaken... and I, for one, find
you
attractive enough to take advantage of this opportunity. Um... if you don't
mind
the thought of...?"

"I'm torn." The words escaped him. Once they were out, he couldn't take them back. Shrugging, Kenyen admitted the truth. "I honestly care about you. I think you're funny, and smart, and charming... and I'd consider courting you if we weren't stuck in this situation. And
that
has me torn. When a man of the Plains courts a mate, he treats her properly. Respectfully. He makes sure they are compatible mentally and emotionally. Physical needs are for the earth-priestesses to handle, until a man is wed."

"But what about all the times you're not near one of these... earth-priestesses?" Solyn asked. "Like when you're away from the Plains, doing warband things? For that matter, you did mention something about earth-priestesses, but I'm still not completely sure how they came to be, or what they do. Um, in full."

The conversation had deflated some of his interest. Turning back to her, Kenyen gave her the truth. "It's simple. Earth-priestesses are widows who... well, no, actually it isn't, because you don't know the underlying parts. Let me back up," he corrected himself, looking around for a seat. The stools they had used before were in the next alcove, so he brought them over, speaking as he moved. "It's a long explanation, and we might as well be comfortable for it."

Setting the stools down, he gestured for her to take one and settled on the other. Solyn, absorbing that, sank slowly onto the wooden surface. "Alright. Tell me about them."

"The background part first. When a young girl physically matures, we celebrate her status as a maiden," Kenyen began. "She then moves from her parents'
geome
to the maiden's
geome
, where she spends the next several years learning how to manage all the womanly things she needs to know. How to keep her tent-home clean, how to cook and manage finances, how to honor Father Sky and Mother Earth; they finish their education with the hearth-priests and -priestesses in things like writing and numbers... and the earth-priestesses teach her how to find pleasure in her own body and what to do when they finally join with a man."

"So... earth-priestesses
are
priestesses. How do they become one?" she asked.

"When a maiden is married, she becomes a wife and moves into her husband's
geome
," he told her. "If she becomes a widow, or should she divorce him—which is rare but does happen—she goes back into the maiden's
geome
for a full year, so that she can grieve, recover, and get her heart and mind set straight. At the end of that time, if she so chooses, she can enter the priesthood as an earth-priestess, where her duties are twofold.

"First, she is to train the young men as well as the new maidens in all the ways of women and men. And second, she is to make herself available to the unmarried men of her Family so that—no, no, no!" Kenyen quickly corrected, the moment her eyes widened. He had already encountered this same look of disbelieving confusion on the faces of other outlanders in years past. "Remember, on the Plains, a Family is a
group
of many extended kin-families, not all of whom are related to each other... much like the Nespah Valley is a group of many holdings filled with several extended kin-families as well as laborers from other regions, but not everyone is related to each other. Your valley is similar to our Family, except our Families travel, and your valley is defined by a single location, not by its inhabitants."

Solyn nodded hesitantly, somewhat relieved though still puzzled. "Alright. Go on..."

"Family Tiger, the one I come from, has over eight hundred people, and of actual parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and first cousins... I probably am only related to about sixty or seventy people at most, almost all of them in the South Paw. There are eight segments in our Family, with names like South Paw, Tailtip, and so forth," he reassured her. "If I were a widow and chose to become an earth-priestess after my full year in the maiden's
geome
, I would not serve any of the men in the South Paw segment of Family Tiger, because of the lineages involved.

"I probably would serve in Tailtip, which has no close or immediate relationship to my bloodline.
Or
I could ask to serve in another Family within Clan Cat, such as Family Lion... or even cross-serve in another Clan entirely.
Now
do you get it?" he asked.

She nodded more firmly this time. "It would be like me going to... to Tallat Valley, which is a couple days' ride from here. I'm not related to anyone there."

"Exactly. Or to Mespak instead of Nespah," he agreed, pleased she had grasped the analogy. "Since we all meet in the wintertime at Shifting City, there are plenty of opportunities for earth-priestesses to be swapped around between Clans and Families. Or for maidens to meet and court with men. If they're from a different Clan or Family, the woman usually goes to the man's Family. The only exception being princesses, women who are born with the ability to shift their shape. They're rare, so usually a Family prefers to keep their female shifters," Kenyen finished.

"I see." She mulled that over for a few moments, then shook her head. "Back to the original topic. When you're not on the Plains, and you have... needs... what do you do?" She blushed on the word
needs
.

Kenyen blushed as well. He rubbed at the back of his neck. "We find the local equivalent of an earth-priestess, if there is one... and we treat her with the same respect. Except earth-priestesses on the Plains are supported as a member of the priesthood, which means they receive a stipend from the Family as a whole each turning of Brother Moon, whereas outlander variants, um, expect their payment to be a bit more direct. If it's not that sort, but the woman is willing, mature, and understands it is merely a dalliance... well, we treat her the same way. With the respect we would approach an earth-priestess."

"I see." Again, she paused to consider that. "So... basically... what's tearing you apart is the urge to treat me like a
maiden
of the Plains, instead of a willing, mature, understanding outlander equivalent of an earth-priestess?"

His blush deepened. He gave her a sheepish smile. "Yeah. That's pretty much it. I
like
you, and part of me wants to court you properly. It's being held back by the circumstances we're caught up in, but there it is."

How sweet,
Solyn thought, warmed by his interest in her. She was also cooled by the reminder that their situation
was
awkward.
However... I think there might be a way around that...

"I have a question," she said. "What happens if an earth-priestess doesn't want to be an earth-priestess anymore? Say, they've served as one for three or four years, and want a break, or maybe even wants a chance to be courted like a regular woman. Is that allowed? Or must they be an earth-priestess forevermore?"

"Well, of course it's allowed!" Kenyen scoffed. "It's her time, her effort, her body. Only she can make that choice, and she has the right to change her mind at any time. Or change it back again. A number of women who do sign up to be an earth-priestess often drop out within the first year, for a variety of reasons. That's why there's a year of training involved, of supervision under the assistance of a more experienced priestess, and of course lessons from the rest of the priesthood to absorb, since it's often easier for a man to confess his troubles and seek counsel when he's been physically relaxed.