Courting Kel (9 page)

One way or another he intended to have Kel naked in his
arms.

With another of her assessing looks, she nodded. Apparently,
bathing with him was a lesser danger than freezing. Or, he thought with a wry
smile, she found warm water more appealing than warm bodies. He’d changed her
mind about that.

Whistling, he summoned Peg.

* * * * *

By the time Peg deposited them at his lodge, Aren’s shaft
was hard as stone and aching for the warmth of Kel’s cunt. With the wind so
uncertain, Peg had had a difficult time and the ride had been bumpy. He’d had
Kel’s ass shifting against his crotch the entire flight. Not that he’d minded
overmuch. Still, it would be more pleasant were he certain of a hot welcome
between Kel’s thighs.

Where they landed near his lodge the snow had turned to
rain, so incessant a downpour even their clothing was soaked. Kel insisted they
tend to Peg’s comfort before their own. So they reached the lodge, shivering in
their now storm-drenched clothing, hungry and exhausted.

Kel shed her pack then began to return the foodstuffs to
their proper places. Catching her hand, Aren dragged her to the hot spring and
tossed her in. She came up sputtering and cursing and splashing water at him as
he joined her.

“So you do know how to play,” he said, seizing her hands and
wrestling her to spoon against his chest. She fought, but when she saw the
lighted candles she subsided.

“How beautiful. How do they stay like that?”

“Fairies,” he told her, flinging their sopping blankets
aside.

Snorting, she scoffed, “At home we call it swamp gas. Unwary
invaders are lured by the lights and fall into kniqudac.” His frown made her
add, “Swamp stuff that looks like sand but sucks the unwary to their deaths.
Most we rescue.” She sighed. “Some, sadly, we cannot.”

“Why
sadly
? I thought Amazonian women have only one
purpose for captured men. That you all fight or fuck them.” The whorls in her
ear fascinated him and he traced them with his tongue.

Shivering, pressing closer, she said, “You have the right of
it. But any loss of life saddens us. It’s not so much the death of one man, but
the loss of the children he might have given us.”

“I’ll never understand your people.”

“Or I yours.”

The silence between them made Aren aware of other sounds.
The lessening anger of the storm. Rain pitter-patting on the canopy of trees
towering above the hot spring. The sound of Kel’s soft sobs.

“Sweetheart.” Turning her to face him, he cupped her
tear-streaked face. “You’re homesick.”

Crying harder, she nodded but wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“What else, Flame? Don’t lie. I can see in your eyes that
something else troubles you. If you tell me, I might ease your sadness.”

“With mating?” She shoved him away. “They’ll be no mating,
Aren. My menses began today.”

He felt as if she had ripped out his guts. Just reached her
hand inside his belly and jerked them out to dangle bloodless yet writhing in
her delicate hands. Until this moment he hadn’t realized how much he wanted to
make a child with her. Now he would have to send her home. He’d no excuse to
keep her except…she’d promised Storr she’d stay nine months. Aren knew she’d
promised the term of her possible pregnancy and had meant only that. He
suspected she thought he’d send her home now they knew there’d be no baby. But
if she thought her menses had freed her, she would have to think again. Her
tears told him she too regretted the loss of their child—even though he’d not
given her one. Yet.

He had more than eight months left to court her. If he
failed to return her to his bed by then… He’d take her to Amazonia and stay
there until he convinced her and Basalia that Kel was his life mate. And he was
hers.

When Storr ordered Aren to marry—announced he’d already
chosen his bride—Aren had done his duty and deflowered Kel. He’d resigned
himself to keep her—and himself—in a loveless marriage. He hadn’t planned on
wanting her, even though he knew fucking was perhaps the most pleasurable
aspect of marriage. Now after only a couple of weeks with Kel in his life, he
wanted her to stay with him.

“I…I suppose you want to go back to Storr City as soon as
the storm passes,” she murmured. “I’m certain the princesses will welcome you.”

“No reason to hurry. Besides, as a married man, I’m no
longer eligible to fuck another.”

Whirling in the thigh-high water, she planted her fists on
her hips. “The need for that farce ended today. We are not married!”

Aren decided her menses caused the wild swings in her moods
and tempered his need to shout. “By Ondrican law we are. Moreover, you promised
you’d stay for nine months—”

“The need to stay also ended this morning!”

“Or are an Amazonian’s promises as worthless as swamp gas?”

Her eyes black, she swung at his belly and connected.
Grimacing, she shook her hand. “Fool!”

“Both of us,” he countered, rubbing his stomach. “I’m hungry
and intend to eat. You’ll join me—if for no other reason than to keep up your
strength. If you’re too weak to run you can’t escape.”
Not that I’d let you.

Ignoring his proffered hand, she waded out of the hot
spring. Scooping up both blankets, she strode toward the lodge. Her rigid back
and squared shoulders proclaimed her royally pissed.

Chuckling, he followed.

* * * * *

When Aren joined her in the cook room some twenty minutes
later Kel’s breath caught. If she had ever seen a more handsome man she
couldn’t name him or even where she might have encountered him.

In the candlelight, Aren’s hair gleamed blue-black, nearly
matching the color of his long robe. It fell in soft folds from his wide
shoulders to his strangely elegant bare feet. Looking down at her sarong—the
fabric he had given her the night she arrived on Ondrican—Kel felt…frumpy.

“Smells good,” he greeted as he lifted tops off dishes and
inhaled deeply.

“Drew must have snuck in here while we changed clothes.”

“More likely Laurette’s father. I’m surprised there’s any
food left.
Play
takes energy. You must be starving.”

“I’m a warrior,” she began then bit her tongue. Even she had
tired of reminding him that Amazonian warriors knew how to wait.

“Shall I serve?” Aren’s voice hinted at amusement but he
looked as solemn as a footman at a royal banquet. Not that she had ever
attended a royal banquet or seen any footmen. Only read about them when still a
child, along with more prevalent stories about monsters and invaders.

“Tak,” she said, watching him heap aromatic morsels on their
plates. “Do all Ondrican men cook?”

“Most do, yes. Just our way of sharing work. We shop for
foodstuffs and cook while our women tend to—”

“Your children?”

“Or attend their businesses. Storr City houses many trades.
Jewelers, weavers, cobblers and such. In the country men and women labor
together to raise livestock and crops. Others teach our future scientists and
agronomers. Still others teach other skills and trades as well.”

“How bucolic,” Kel said tactlessly. “I’m—”

“You needn’t apologize. Ondrican customs must seem strange
to you.”

“Very strange.”

“When you aren’t patrolling, how do you pass the time?”

Grateful he had forgiven her earlier outburst she said,
“Hunting. Weeding crops. Reading sometimes—when time permits.”
Which isn’t
often enough.

“I keep a small library,” he told her. Somewhat reluctantly,
it seemed to her.

“Where?” She pounced on the promise of books to fill her
remaining time on Ondrican. If she couldn’t convince Aren to send her home. If
she couldn’t escape.

“A few here. Perhaps we can read together after we eat.”

“I would enjoy that.” She’d rather they mated but his
world’s ridiculous laws forbade her yielding—especially since she intended to
leave him as soon as she could.

“Come on,” he said, taking both their plates. Without so
much as a
by your leave
, he strode away.

“Arrogant, high-handed…” Her stomach growling, she followed.
Spying Aren ensconced on a wide divan, she scowled. “You also keep a plethora
of two-people furniture.”

“We call
these
courting couches.” Patting the plump
couch cushions, he winked. “I promise I’ll not try to seduce you, Flame.
Sharing a bit of body heat is all I’m offering. Nothing else.” Tempting her
closer, he held up a plate of sweetmeats he seemed to conjure from thin air.
“After you’ve eaten all your dinner.”

Their dinner plates hovered above the floating table that
had apparently followed them from the cook room. “Neat trick. How’d you do it?”

“Our geneticists believe it is a mutation of some kind. At
any rate, it appeared about the time the first brides came to Ondrican. Even as
toddlers, their children could move any object they could see. From then on
almost every Ondrican can do it.” Her stomach growled. Looking like he wanted
to laugh, he added, “Now the sooner you sit, the sooner we eat. The sooner—”

“We eat, the quicker the sweets are available. A bribe like
Basalia used when I was a child.” Just thinking about children moving things
without touching them made her shudder.

“And the books. Think of it as sweets and treats.”

Laughing, she plopped down beside him. A napkin floated into
her lap and the table—both plates resting safely on it—followed.

“Delicious. What is all this?”

“Food. Right now I don’t care what I’m eating.”

When they finished, Aren floated the table and dishes off to
the cook room. A few seconds later, Kel heard water running.

“And that’s an even neater trick.” Some Ondricans can also
control unseen objects.

“It can’t be transported, so don’t add it to your list of
things to trade for.” Flicking his fingers, he summoned several books.

Just reading the titles made Kel blush. “Have you anything
less—”

“Seductive?” he suggested, waggling his eyebrows.

“Lurid,” she corrected, squelching a laugh.

“Hmmm. I think I have a copy of Ondrican history somewhere.”

The history in Aren’s possession began with the first
Storr’s building the Princesses’ Palace and mating—Kel’s term—with them. All
forty of them and often more than one at a time. Storr I left out the
princesses’ rebellion and their choosing multiple mates for themselves.

“Good for them!” Kel cheered when Aren reminded her of the
rest of the story. “And shame on him for lying.”

“Does Amazonia have records of its history?”

She thought she could see the path Aren intended to lead her
down. “Oral histories. And yes, I’m sure the stories change depending on who
tells them.” She laughed. “A lot of them deal with matings and many of those
are about your father.”

Aren cleared his throat. “I would prefer not hearing those
although…neither Storr nor Tage will say how they got to Amazonia.”

“Or why they went?”

“That too,” Aren said easily enough, but Kel could feel the
tension flowing from his body into hers where their sides touched. When he
circled her waist and snuggled her closer she wanted to object. But it felt so
right somehow to sit so close she could hear him breathe and feel the steady
rhythm of this heart against her cheek. She shouldn’t tempt herself this way—not
when she intended to leave him. But what harm was there in sharing body heat?
In taking comfort in feeling safe?

“What’s that noise?” she asked, snuggling into his warmth.

“Music. Would you like it louder?”

“Please. Just a little. Where are the musicians and why
haven’t I seen them?”

“Haven’t you technology on your homeworld?”

“Some. Enough to light and cool our homes. Are you saying
the musicians aren’t here? That they are playing elsewhere and the music is
somehow routed to you here?”

“I’ll show you later. For now, let’s just listen.”

Listening involved touching. His foot tapped against hers.
His fingers glided up and down her arm. His tongue clicked at her ear until,
giggling, she eased away.

“Tickles.”

He turned her back, gently pressing her head to his
shoulder.

“You smell good,” she murmured.

“You too.”

“The music is very soothing.”

He grunted and snapped his fingers. The tune changed to a
faster tempo.

Kel pulled back. “Why did you change it?”

“It was a lullaby.”

He looked so sad she wanted to comfort him. Steeling her
heart, she considered calling him sentimental or a fool. Instead, she stroked
the frown from his brow.

“I didn’t realize how much…” She swallowed the lump in her
throat and willed back tears. “You’ll make babies, Aren. Just not—” He kissed
her, his tenderness and sorrow making it impossible to hold back tears. “I…did
nothing to earn…your kindness,” she murmured, swiping at tears and encountering
Aren’s thumbs on her cheeks.

“Sssh. For now let’s just listen to the music.” Pressing her
head to his chest, he simply held her.

Kel’s last thought was
If only
…

* * * * *

The next morning Kel awoke in a strange room. Sunlight
streamed through the open window where a songbird sang to her from the sill.
I’m
late
, she thought then remembered nothing awaited her. No patrols. No
hunts. No weeds.

There’s Aren.

The thought of him propelled her out of bed—another piece of
furniture made for two. Since the pillow beside her own held no impression of
Aren’s head and the sheets held no scent but her own, she guessed she’d slept
alone. Realizing she missed waking up with his arms around her, she went in
search of some place to relieve herself.

The sound of running water drew her to an adjacent room.
Aren stood under a waterfall emerging from the wall. A knee-high chamber pot
was located to one side with a basin next to it. Modesty be damned, she had to
pee.