The timing could not have been more auspicious. Bold informed them that the nadaam tournament would be held the following day, and in the meantime, there would be a celebration that night, with Thalia, Gabriel, and Batu as guests of the tribe.
Batu was given a bed in a kinsman’s ger, since it was discovered that, in one of those coincidences that happened with a strange frequency in such a vast country as Mongolia, he was related by marriage to the chieftain’s second cousin. Even beyond a Mongol’s usual endless hospitality, this further endeared Batu to the hearts of the tribe. He was plied with food and drink immediately, pounded with a hundred questions about his family as well as about the English man and woman who accompanied him. Thalia and Gabriel received the honor of sleeping in the chieftain’s ger. But sleep was a long time away. In the meanwhile, there was the feast.
Thalia and Gabriel walked out of Bold’s ger, and the ail was bustling with activity as tents went up all around them.
“Seems like every man within miles wants to try for the ruby,” Gabriel remarked.
Thalia watched as several people walked by, leading camels laden with all the necessary equipment to erect gers. “It’s an honor that many seek. Bold said that people from ails nearby would be arriving all evening.”
Gabriel rubbed his hands together. “Should be a good show.”
She couldn’t help smiling at him. “It appears you’re looking forward to it, Captain.”
He grinned back. “Ma’am, I am, indeed. Nothing like a little old-fashioned competition to get the blood hopping. But,” he added, turning serious, “I don’t like that you have to get involved. Not looking forward to that.”
His protectiveness both annoyed and secretly delighted her. Before she had time to fashion a reply, Oyuun appeared. “We could use another woman’s hands in the preparation of the feast,” the chieftain’s wife said.
Thalia glanced at Gabriel and translated. Batu was off somewhere, sharing gossip, and, with her off to attend to the feast arrangements, Gabriel would be alone amongst people with whom he shared no common language.
“Go on,” he urged her, gently nudging her with his shoulder. “They need you, and it looks like these fellows”—he nodded toward a group of men assembling a very large ger—“could use some help, too.”
“Will you be all right?”
A delicious, rather cocky smile tilted the corner of his mouth. “Warms my heart when you worry about me.”
She longed to throw something heavy at his head, but he was gone before she could grab the nearest cauldron.
“Come, sister,” Oyuun said. “I know that the others want to meet you. Every woman is delighted to meet the English Mongol lady who will compete against men.”
Thalia let Oyuun lead her away toward a sizable group of chattering women, all eager to press her with questions, but not before casting a look over her shoulder to see how Gabriel fared with the men.
He was already in their midst, as comfortable as if he’d been born on the steppes. The men had already laid down the floor and furniture, and, communicating through gestures, were showing Gabriel how to put up the trellis walls. The whole process could usually be done in less than an hour, but this ger was exceptionally big.
“For the feast later,” Oyuun explained.
Nodding with understanding, Thalia followed the chieftain’s wife to the gathering of women, who were busy preparing the mountains of food and drink that would be consumed that night. Cooking wasn’t one of Thalia’s favorite pursuits, and her father had never expected her to fill the traditional female role, but she knew enough about cookery to keep from embarrassing herself. Exchanging greetings with the tribeswomen, Thalia began filling sheep carcasses with hot rocks which would cook the mutton—a favorite festival dish.
“Do you really believe you can beat a man in the nadaam, sister?” asked one of the women.
“I should think that any one of us could shoot a bow as well as, if not better than, our husbands,” Thalia answered.
“Is he your husband?” a younger girl asked, looking over Thalia’s shoulder.
Even though Thalia knew who the girl was talking about, she felt compelled to look behind her. Gabriel and several other men hefted the roof posts for the festival ger. A grin spread across her face as she watched him. Though he spoke no Mongol, he responded readily to the others’ signals, and was absorbed in both the work and the camaraderie. It did not hurt that he was able-bodied, strong, and clever, quickly understanding what needed to be done and accomplishing his tasks with almost no trouble. Once or twice, the nuance of fitting one of the roof poles provided a momentary obstacle, but those difficulties were overcome nearly before they had begun. Despite the language barrier, he laughed with the Mongols and made them laugh in turn. A few of the men slapped his shoulders, the universal sign of male approval.
“He is a kinsman,” Thalia said, turning back to the group. As tolerant as Mongols were, even they would look askance at an unmarried man and woman traveling together.
“So, he is available?” an older woman asked. “I have daughters.”
“And my husband is old,” another tribeswoman added with a wicked grin. Her comment set off a chorus of feminine giggles, like doves rising into the air.
She didn’t know how to answer that. Thalia scanned the faces of the women, and only few of them were paying attention to their cooking tasks. Instead, most of them were staring past her. Unable to help herself, Thalia looked back again, and lost her ability to think rationally.
Along with some other hale young men, Gabriel unrolled the large swaths of wool felt that made up the ger’s walls. Somewhere along the way, he had shed his coat and vest, unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, and rolled up his sleeves. The sight of his tanned forearms and neck, combined with the athletic grace of his body underneath the cotton shirt, transfixed Thalia. He moved with pure masculine beauty, an economy and purpose of action. It was impossible to keep her eyes from him as he threw the felt covering over the top of the ger’s wooden skeleton, his muscles hard and sure beneath the woven lawn of his shirt. Her gaze trailed lower. Without his coat to cover him, she could see the tight firmness of his buttocks, the toned thickness of his thighs, everything moving, working perfectly together. She recalled vividly the feel of his skin, how hard and alive he’d been beneath her hands.
But more than the aesthetic glory of Gabriel, his energy and enthusiasm entranced Thalia. He threw himself into the task, observing with a keen and intelligent eye, carefully following the instructions he was given while also taking chances. If he made a mistake, he corrected it and moved on. There was a real pleasure living in him. Pleasure in trying something new. Pleasure in letting his body and mind align. Here was someone who would never hold himself back, and his joy in life became the joy of those around him, including Thalia.
Catching her watching him, Gabriel gave her a cheerful wave before getting back to work.
“‘Kinsman,’ hm?” Oyuun asked pointedly.
Thalia made herself return to her own tasks, but her hands felt clumsy. “A distant kinsman,” she said.
The chieftain’s wife smiled, knowing, but did not go further. Instead, as everyone cooked, she readily absorbed Thalia into the world of her tribe, filling her in on the latest scandals, who pined for love for whom, which man wasn’t speaking to his brother-in-law because of the loss of several goats. By the time most of the food had been prepared, Thalia felt as though she had known this tribe all her life. Thalia became so engrossed in conversation with the women, she hardly noticed when Oyuun disappeared.
It was only when Oyuun returned and stood next to Thalia that she’d become aware of her absence. “Come with me,” the Mongol woman said.
Thalia followed Oyuun back to the chieftain’s tent, where she found a steaming tub of water waiting. Knowing that water was scarce, Thalia looked at Oyuun with wide eyes. “I couldn’t…” she started to protest, but the woman would not have any part of it.
“You may be an English Mongol,” she said, “but you are still English. And from what my husband tells me, the English love their baths. Come,” she insisted, putting her hands on Thalia’s shoulders and gently pushing her toward the tub, “you have been traveling hard for many days, and we shall have you clean for the feast and your ‘kinsman.’”
A few half-hearted protests later, and Thalia had stripped out of her dusty clothes and sunk into the bath with a pagan moan. Oyuun left the ger, giving Thalia some much-needed privacy. It felt sinfully wonderful to wash the grime from her skin, using a bar of sandalwood soap that probably came from Russian traders. Thalia dunked her head under the water and washed her hair as well, which had made considerable progress toward resembling a diseased marmot. She dunked her head again, rinsing the soap from her hair. When she came up, water streamed into her eyes, and she felt around for the towel that Oyuun had left nearby.
The towel was placed in Thalia’s searching hand. “Thank you, Oyuun,” Thalia said as she wiped at her face.
“You’re…welcome.”
The sound of English in a familiar deep voice had Thalia’s eyes flying open. Gabriel stood beside the tub, staring at her with amber fire. For a moment, all Thalia could do was stare back at him, seeing a slight glaze of perspiration gleaming on his skin, his discarded jacket and vest hanging from his hand. Even though he was at rest, his breathing was shallow, strained, as his gaze moved down to the bath water.
Belatedly, Thalia realized that the cloudy water did almost nothing to hide her naked body from him. She could even ask him to take off his clothes and join her in the small tub. His skin…wet…But this was Oyuun and Bold’s ger, and she couldn’t, not when anyone could wander in at any moment. Understanding it would be best not to start something she would not be able to finish, she crossed her legs and held one arm tight over her breasts, shielding herself.
This seemed to break him out of a spell, and he turned his back to her. He seemed to understand as much as she that this was not the time or place to play with their attraction. “Bold said I might…ah…clean up before the celebration,” he said, hoarse. “I didn’t know…he didn’t tell me you…” He headed toward the door.
“No, please,” Thalia said quickly. He stopped in his tracks but did not turn around. Tension emanated from the wide breadth of his shoulders, his hands curled into fists at his sides. “The water is still warm. We can share. I mean,” she added hastily as he gave a start, “I’m just finished. If you don’t mind somewhat used bath water.”
“No, I don’t mind.” His voice was strained, a rough rasp. “I’m very…dirty.”
“I won’t be a moment.” Thalia stood, sloshing water, and hastily wrapped herself in the towel with shaking hands. It wasn’t the first time she’d been almost completely naked near Gabriel, but she was by no means accustomed to the experience. If anything, her attraction to him had grown even more potent in the ensuing days, and she was bodily fighting with herself to keep from walking over to him and pressing her nude body against the broad muscles of his back. Frantically, she looked for her discarded clothing, but could not find it. Oyuun must have taken the clothes to be cleaned. For the first time, Thalia cursed Mongol hospitality.
Knowing that she could not very well walk outside in nothing but a towel, Thalia pulled a del and trousers from the clothes chest, then threw them on. It wasn’t a particularly good fit, since Thalia was considerably taller than Oyuun, but for now it would do.
“All done,” Thalia said, trying to make herself sound bright and unaffected. “You can turn around now.”
Gabriel did so, slowly. He looked everywhere but at her. With his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, she could see the tight column of his neck, the movement there as he swallowed. Then he did glance over at her, and inhaled sharply as his eyes narrowed. He looked positively dangerous. His jaw hardened, and he thrust the bundle of his jacket and vest in front of him. Thalia wondered what the matter could be, since she was dressed, but looked down and saw that, in her haste, she had not dried herself completely, and the clothing clung to her body in a way that revealed every curve, more suggestive than complete nakedness. Oh, hell.
“Thalia,” Gabriel growled.
“Yes?” she squeaked.
“Get out.”
Grabbing her boots, Thalia ran from the ger, even though every part of her demanded she stay.
Life on the steppes was never easy—dry, short summers; long, harrowing winters with their threat of zud, the killing frost—so every celebration was enjoyed to its fullest. For this tribe, the feast before the ruby’s nadaam was also the farewell to warmth. Autumn would turn quickly to winter, the green pastures disappear under cold white blankets for months while the blue sky froze overhead and the sun shone with icy crystalline light.
There was enough heat inside the celebratory ger to fuel the nomads for another winter. The special large tent Gabriel had helped set up just for the feast, despite its size, was crammed full of celebrating herdsmen and women. The air was thick with laughter and music, the smoke of pipes, scents of roasted mutton, and the wafting aromas of the continual supply of potent arkhi to drink, which turned cheeks red and shy men into heroes. Several hundred people had stuffed themselves inside the huge tent. It was raucous, noisy, and crowded, the furthest thing from a genteel cotillion or sedate afternoon tea.
Home, Thalia thought to herself as she stepped inside the tent. This was her home. She could not imagine herself anywhere else. As she moved through the throng, weaving deftly between warm bodies, exchanging cheerful greetings, she felt an overwhelming sense of love and tenderness toward the nomads, people who accepted her far more readily than her own supposed countrymen. She had to help protect the Mongols, protect this world, this place, especially from the Heirs. They would turn Mongolia into another corner of England—pie shops on every corner, English-language newspapers reporting on the latest British triumph, frock coats and bustles instead of dels—and destroy everything unique and wonderful about it in the process.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Oyuun asked as she came to stand beside Thalia.
“Not at all,” Thalia answered. With a rueful laugh, Thalia realized that she had been so absorbed in thoughts of defeating the Heirs, she had not even considered the possibility of losing in the nadaam.
“I will tell you a secret,” Oyuun said, cupping her hand over her mouth. When Thalia leaned closer to hear better, Oyuun whispered, “I hope you win.”
“Why?”
“Because no one thinks that a woman can best a man. I know that Gabriel guai will compete with you,” she said to Thalia’s objections, “but the fact that you dare to enter when no other woman has ever done so before—that, to me, is wonderful.”
“Perhaps next year, you should try,” Thalia suggested, but Oyuun laughed.
“You think I haven’t enough to worry about, between my children, my husband, and the well-being of this tribe? I should add the ruby to my burden, too? No”—she chuckled—“I leave such tasks to the young and free. Although,” she added with glittering eyes, “perhaps you are not free.”
Thalia knew immediately that Oyuun was speaking of Gabriel, and her face flushed. There was no point denying it. The wild creature of her soul had finally yielded to the calloused hand of one man.
The chieftain’s wife smiled wickedly, looking toward the entrance to the tent. “And here is your handsome Englishman, and I am glad to know that you are not related, especially given the way he looks at you.” Before Thalia could offer up a rejoinder, Oyuun had disappeared into the crowd, acting as hostess for the enormous party.
Thalia watched from the other side of the tent as Gabriel entered. Her heart leapt like an unbroken horse to see him, even after merely an hour apart. He’d shaved, and his face was starkly handsome in the glow of the lanterns, sculptural and piercing. His hair, now a dark gold with damp from his bath, was brushed back from his forehead, so that nothing hid him from view. And he’d managed to find some clean clothing, only slightly rumpled from being stowed in his pack. She didn’t doubt that, in his uniform, he would have been a sight to tempt any woman to profligacy. As it was, even with him in his travel-creased jacket, vest, and shirt, Thalia was willing to give him whatever he wanted. He looked around, as if trying to find someone. She almost waved to him, but then held back. She wanted to see him on his own in the realm of the herdsmen.
As soon as Gabriel came into the tent, he was greeted boisterously by several men. Some of them, already deep into their third or fourth bowl of arkhi and in good spirits with the universe, threw their arms around Gabriel in a hearty, manly embrace. Gabriel didn’t stiffen or pull away. He seemed startled at first, but then returned the gesture at once, smiling and laughing. Thalia let go the breath she hadn’t known she held.
Gabriel was quickly commandeered by some of the tribe’s younger men, and escorted through the tent. The men with him beamed with borrowed glory. Whatever trepidation both Englishman and Mongols had toward one another was long gone, lost beneath the joined experience of setting up a ger. A liberal quantity of arkhi didn’t hurt the cause of fellowship, nor the fact that, on the morrow, Gabriel would be competing in the nadaam not only as a foreigner, but as the partner of a woman. Thalia saw that, with great good humor, the tribe had decided to informally adopt him. A bowl of arkhi was put into his hand. Someone put a velvet-trimmed, pointed Mongol hat on him, and he didn’t take it off.
But he continued to look around. For her. Had any woman wanted to be found more than Thalia did at that moment? Yet she wanted to prolong the game a little longer, and ducked behind some women when his gaze moved in her direction. When she felt that he’d moved on, she peered around the women to watch him some more.
Gabriel was talking animatedly to some herdsmen, and they laughed rowdily together, the kind of uninhibited laughter men reserved for each other. Batu stood next to Gabriel, translating, though by the looks of things—everyone’s arms slung around each other’s shoulders—a translator wasn’t really necessary.
She felt the strange twin sensations of joy and jealousy. Joy to see Gabriel so light of heart, after days of focus and skirting danger. Jealousy to share him even with these good people, after all this time when he had been hers alone. Seeing him across the smoky interior of the ger, his tall, lean body loose with relaxation, his face truly glorious as he smiled and laughed, she was dizzy with longing. There wasn’t a man she wanted more. Not even what she had felt for Sergei could match this hard hunger, this need. She barely recognized herself beneath its bright radiance. Always before her mind had held dominance, but now her body and heart had taken control.
As if sensing the hot pulse of her desire, Gabriel suddenly looked right at her. Sharp, golden, unavoidable. His smile faded and was replaced by something much more intent. A soldier again. No, not a soldier—a man. He murmured something to Batu without breaking eye contact with Thalia, then moved swift and straight toward her on the other side of the tent. He was an amber arrow headed for her, and she the target that could not, did not want to, move. The crowds swirled in a tide around him. She waited.
He stopped a foot away from Thalia, then raked her up and down with his gaze, saying nothing. It became difficult to catch her breath as she stared back.
“You’ve changed,” he finally rumbled.
“Not particularly,” she answered, “I’m the same Thalia you’ve always known.”
A small smile appeared in the corner of his mouth. “Same biting tongue. But the feathers are different.” He gently touched the strands of pearls and coral that draped from her silver headdress and curved in a low, graceful swath from temple to temple. The headdress itself was a band that encircled her head like a diadem, studded with more pearls and coral. She had taken the unruly mass of her dark hair and braided it into a single, heavy plait that reached the middle of her back, bound at the end with a silver clasp. Gabriel’s eyes moved lower, taking in the fine emerald silk del she now wore, covered with intricate embroidery, and the golden sash around her waist. Unlike the del she wore every day, this one was longer, lightweight, cut to show a woman’s figure. The flare in Gabriel’s eyes showed her that he liked what he saw of hers.
“Oyuun,” Thalia explained. Realizing that something had changed between them, she suddenly felt awkward and shy, a young girl only recently admitted to the company of men. “Actually, her sister-in-law, who’s closer to my size.”
“I’ll have to thank them both later.” He lightly traced the embroidery running along her collar, his fingers brushing against her neck. Liquid heat gathered between Thalia’s legs.
To keep herself from dragging him against her and demanding his kisses right in the middle of the crowded feast, she tried some distracting pleasantries. She looked up at the Mongol hat he wore. “Seems the tribe has taken you as one of their own.”
He pulled his hand away to touch the hat, as if he’d forgotten it was there. “More like a mascot,” he said wryly.
“No, it’s respect. It’s a rare foreigner who falls in so easily. You work hard. And tomorrow, you compete in the nadaam.”
“With a woman as my partner.”
She grew tense, guarded. “We agreed—”
“If there was another way, I’d do it,” he said at once and without apology. “But there isn’t, and if anybody can trounce these blokes, it’s me. And you. Besides,” he added with a disarming grin, “I’d wager they’d all want to be on a team, if their partners could be as pretty as you.”
His compliment turned her cheeks crimson. “Flatterer,” she chided playfully.
Gabriel scowled. “I don’t know flattery from a tiger’s arse.”
“Well…thank you.” Her attention snagged on the activity of the feast. “The singing is about to begin,” she said.
A small space had cleared from the middle of the tent, and several men with morin khuur, the horse-head fiddle found everywhere in Mongolia, seated themselves on the floor while the crowd quieted. Smiling, laughing, a few men and women were pushed in front of the musicians as their friends and relatives playfully demanded songs.
“This won’t make me fall into some kind of magic trance, will it?” Gabriel whispered in Thalia’s ear as he stood behind her.
“No magic,” she whispered back. “Music only.”
Bows were drawn across the fiddles resting between the musicians’ knees, and at once the tent was filled with the keening, plaintive sound of the open steppes. Then a woman began to sing an urtïn duu, a long song. An old favorite, one that Thalia had heard many times before, but it never ceased to touch her deeply.
“She sounds so sad,” Gabriel whispered. “Is it a love song?”
“She’s joyfully calling praise upon the lush green fields that sustain her people,” Thalia translated.
“Doesn’t sound so joyful to me.”
“There’s always a hint of melancholy in Mongolian music, no matter what happy event or thing it describes.”
“Like life,” he murmured.
Thalia turned her face to one side, so that she was breaths away from Gabriel’s mouth. As she contemplated his lips, she understood that every day brought more uncertainty. “Just like life.”
In groups and alone, the people of the tribe sang, and Thalia realized that she had lied to Gabriel. There was a kind of magic in this music, binding the multitudes within the tent together through sound and collective experience. Even if one couldn’t understand the words, the power of human voice and instruments worked their enchantment, drawing deeply upon the place within oneself that had no language, no shape, but simply was. She’d heard both European music and Mongolian music, and each meant something important to her, but in different ways. One spoke to her mind, the other, her soul.
“Do you like it?” she asked Gabriel quietly.
He frowned, considering. “I can’t say just yet. But I’d rather listen to this than the damned bagpipe corps.”
“Faint praise.” But at least it wasn’t outright condemnation.
After two brothers finished singing about the heavenly blessing of horses, Oyuun, who had been standing close to the musicians, called out to Thalia. “Sister, please honor us with a song,” she cried, a mischievous glimmer in her eyes. Everyone in the tent turned to look at Thalia, who felt fairly certain she would immolate herself from embarrassment.
Thalia felt Gabriel tense, and he moved quickly to stand in front of her, shielding her. “It’s fine,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. “She just wants me to sing.”
“Do you want to?” He seemed ready to defend her against anyone and anything, which broke her heart just a little.
“I’d rather listen to bagpipes. But it would be unspeakably rude if I said no.” She stepped around him, but not before giving him a small smile of reassurance.
She edged through the crowd until she was standing in front of the musicians, careful to keep from looking up and seeing the hundreds of faces staring back at her—including Gabriel’s. Everyone in Mongolia sang. Herdsmen on horseback tending their flocks would sing to keep themselves company on the lonely steppes. Babies and children were coaxed to sleep with lullabies, camels and horses serenaded to persuade them to nurse their young. People sang with their families, friends, to their animals—a way to fill the vast skies with sound. Even Thalia would sing, and thought it as natural as the earth, but always in small groups or by herself. Feeling the presence of many eyes upon her now, she was beset by a new and painful modesty.
“What shall I sing for your pleasure?” she asked Oyuun as she stared at the tops of her boots.
“Something for every blushing young maiden and brave young man, I think,” Oyuun answered, and Thalia could hear laughter in her voice. “A love song.”
Without meaning to, Thalia’s glance shot up to catch Gabriel’s across the tent, then quickly returned to a thorough contemplation of the floor. At least Gabriel spoke no Mongolian, so he would have no idea what was being said just then. But he had to see the meaning in her eyes.
She felt dizzy—not with fear about singing in front of strangers, not from the heat of the tent—but with understanding. It had happened to her. When she had least anticipated it. She’d thought that the process would be slow and gradual, taking months, years, but it had happened in a span of weeks, and it had grown from a sapling to a forest, thick and lush. And now she stood in the midst of it, the unknown land. Love, at last.
Her pulse raced. Despite the revelation of her feelings for Gabriel, she wasn’t quite prepared to announce them to several hundred people. “How about a song to welcome autumn?” she suggested as an alternative.
“A love song,” shouted a man.
“Yes, a love song,” a woman cried. “Tell our men how it should be done!”
Soon, the whole tent was filled with demands for a song of love. Thalia wished that she could, perhaps, ride naked through a field of brambles while simultaneously chewing on carrion, but since that pleasant option was not available, she had no choice but to yield.
“I cannot deny the request of my generous hosts,” Thalia finally said, and the crowd fell silent in anticipation.
Knowing she couldn’t sing to her boots, Thalia raised her head and closed her eyes. All the better to block out the undivided attention she was receiving. Taking a deep breath, she started to sing, then her voice caught, and she stopped. After clearing her throat, she began again. It was an old, old song that everyone in the tribe had heard a hundred times already, about a courageous horseman who rode through the heavy snows of winter to reach a beautiful maiden on the other side of the mountains. Thalia’s voice was at first thin and reedy, but after a verse, she gained courage and strength, and let the words come out without hindrance. She opened her eyes and looked directly at Gabriel as she sang.
It was a well-known song, but often sung because no one could grow tired of hearing about the power and perseverance of love over obstacles. Thalia thought of her own heart, that battered, proud animal, darting over the steppes, and the fierce creature of Gabriel’s heart, and how strange and yet right that they should meet. But there was doubt, too. Brought about by dangerous enemies. The ambiguity of an unknown future. Since he could not understand the lyrics she sung now, she let them speak for her. Her longing. Her fear. Her need for him that she could not deny.
As she sang, she watched him. His jaw was tight, his nostrils flared slightly, and his chest rose and fell with quickening breaths. And his eyes. Burned her. He was carnal, predatory, impossibly desirable and yet desiring her. His eyes made promises, dark promises, that she longed to fulfill. Even standing in front of all these people, she felt a slick dampness gathering between her legs, and her breasts felt full, sensitive beneath the silk of her del. It would have been embarrassing, if she hadn’t been so thoroughly aroused and focused on Gabriel alone.
When the tent filled with loud applause, Thalia realized that she had finished the song. Glancing around, Thalia saw Oyuun beaming at her and Bold nodding his approval. Batu frowned, knowing not only the meaning of the song’s lyrics, but how she had sung them and to whom. He wanted to protect her, but there was no shielding her now. Thalia had made her choice. She looked for Gabriel. But he was gone.
She moved out of the circle and into the crowd. Behind her, three girls were challenging each other to a contest balancing full bowls of arkhi on their hands, heads, and feet, while the other guests rowdily urged them on. After searching for him in the tent and finding no sign of Gabriel, Thalia quietly slipped outside. The crisp, cool air pleasantly stung after the oppressive heat inside. Because of the brightness of the ger, it took some moments for her eyes to adjust to the black night.
Peering into the darkness, she searched for Gabriel nearby. No sign of him. A thread of panic unwound inside her. Had something happened to him? The Heirs? Or maybe she was just being unreasonably afraid. He could have gone off to take care of his bodily functions. Even now, a few men ambled past her and into the ger, adjusting their trousers, ready to launch into another round of drinking.
Yet after she waited a few minutes, allowing plenty of time for tending to any and all bodily needs, there was still no Gabriel. Her internal debate lasted only a moment before she went to find him. She quickly checked to make sure her hunting knife was still tucked inside her sash.
At the chieftain’s ger, Thalia found only Bold’s elderly grandmother watching the small children as they played. The woman hadn’t seen Gabriel but urged Thalia to rejoin the feast.
“You won’t find a husband out here with the old people and babies,” she chuckled.
Thalia thanked her for the advice and left. Instead of heeding the grandmother’s recommendation, Thalia ducked her head into other gers, but they were either empty or contained only the elderly or very young. No one had seen Gabriel. From one of the gers, she borrowed an oil lantern.
She stalked through the ail, searching, the lantern held aloft. She told herself not to be alarmed—he was a soldier and more than capable of taking care of himself—but a man didn’t simply vanish from a crowded tent without explanation. The Heirs could have used any number of Sources or spells to spirit him away. For the first time, Thalia wished that the Blades had more flexibility in their moral code. She would like nothing better than to summon some vicious demon to track the Heirs down and rip their miserable carcasses apart. On second thought, if anything were to happen to Gabriel, Thalia would greedily break the Heirs’ bones with her own hands.
Her breath came in frantic puffs that misted the cold air as she started to sprint. The pearls and coral beads hanging from her headdress swayed and clicked with a frenzied rhythm that matched her heartbeat. Yellow light swung back and forth as the lantern danced in her hand, turning the still night into a dreamlike tableau. She didn’t know where she was running, only that she had to find Gabriel.
In the corner of her eye, she caught the faint gleam of blond hair. Thalia skidded to a halt as she saw Gabriel sitting on a large rock, watching a herd of horses nosing at the ground and huddling together in the evening chill. Relief hit her so hard she nearly cast up the roast mutton eaten earlier. She waited for her breathing to calm, feeling the sweat cold upon her back, even though she wanted to run to Gabriel and throw her arms around him, confirming that he was real and safe.
The light from the lantern suddenly felt too bright, too intrusive, so she adjusted the wick to dim it to a faint glow before walking toward him. She knew he heard her coming by the slight stiffening of his shoulders as she approached. Perhaps he’d come out to find some solitude. She didn’t want to disturb him, but, after the absolute terror she’d felt just moments earlier, it would be impossible for her simply to turn around and leave him alone. Not without saying something, or at least being near him. Selfish of her, maybe, but she needed reassurance just then, even if it cost Gabriel a few seconds of privacy.
Coming to stand next to him, Thalia glanced over at Gabriel. A trace of panic unwound inside her. Had she gone too far with her song? Was it possible she had misconstrued his feelings for her, and he’d needed to put welcome distance between them? He did not look at her, but continued to watch the horses leading their peaceful lives under the starry blanket of night. Something, some wave of energy, barely contained, radiated out from him. The dim illumination from the lantern turned him into a creature of dusky gold and shadow, slightly menacing. Now her heart beat strongly again, but not quite from fear. She set the lantern on the ground.
“Is my singing so dreadful?” she asked with a lightness she didn’t feel.
She didn’t even see him move. One moment, he was sitting silently, and the next, he stood before her and—oh, God.
He was kissing her. But not so much a gentle caress of mouth to mouth as it was a devouring. He pulled her tightly against him, his hands large and firm, one on the back of her neck, the other on her hip as she was pinned against the taut span of his body. There would be no retreat for her. She felt captured, pinned, but in the most exquisite way. The intensity of his kiss would have frightened her, if she had not matched it with her own unfettered desire. She needed him with a desperation that could destroy fields, level cities.
He tasted warm, wonderful, his mouth both velvety and relentless. She wanted to crawl inside him. Against the curve of her belly she could feel the hard length of him pressing into her. Instinct had her rocking her hips against his, and their combined groans were swallowed each by the other. The sensation seemed to shred whatever scrap of restraint he’d held. His hands were now everywhere: palming the swell of her behind, stroking the sides of her ribs, cupping her breasts through the silk of her del. His fingers played across her already tight and sensitive nipples. She leaned into the lightning-hot pleasure, lost to everything but him. Before tonight, before the stolen time in the shelter of the cave, it had been so long. So long since any man had touched her like this. But not like this. Something that approximated it, but all other touch was a candle and this was the sun. She would burn to oblivion.
Touching him was as necessary as life. Thalia quickly re-learned, as her hands roamed over his body, that there wasn’t a part of Gabriel that was not solid with muscle. His shoulders, back, thighs, buttocks. Stomach. Ridged, sculpted, but sensitive to her fingers as they splayed across his abdomen. He twitched beneath her hand. And when her hand moved lower, caressing his rigid thickness through the fabric of his trousers, the breath was drawn from her mouth as he sucked his own breath in. Thalia reveled in this evidence of his desire, growing powerful, more feminine than she had ever felt before.
They were on the ground before she was aware of moving. He pulled her on top of him as he stretched out in the dust. She pulled off the headdress in one impatient move, heedless of pins ripping from her hair, and let the ornament fall to the ground. Thalia’s legs opened. She straddled him. Moved against him, their hips meeting and pulling back, and, even with fabric separating them, he fit perfectly, rubbed her exactly as she craved. Something bright and strong began to build inside her. She reached toward it the only way she knew how. He growled as she pressed even closer. At her waist, his fingers shook as they tried to untie the fastening of her trousers.
Then his hand stopped. He panted with the effort.
“Why…?” she murmured, deeply swathed in the spell of desire.
“Not in the dust,” he growled. “Not you.”
She would have been touched by his concern if she hadn’t been so damned close to tearing his clothes off. “Maybe we could find an empty ger.”
“And have someone come in to get an eyeful.” He shook his head.
He was still hard and alive beneath her. She blazed with desire, needing him with a desperation that was painful. Words of love formed on her lips, but she couldn’t let herself speak them. Not yet. For now, there were needs that had to be satisfied. “Gabriel, please. I don’t want to wait for you anymore.”
With sinuous speed, he rolled to his feet, pulling her up with him. He reached down and turned the lantern off completely, and for a moment, Thalia was in utter darkness. But her eyes adjusted quickly, enough to see him backing toward the large rock on which he’d been sitting earlier. It was tall enough so that he could sit with his legs comfortably stretched out in front of him, and he sat down now. He tugged on her hands, drawing her forward, so that her legs straddled his as she stood in front of him. She understood.
Thalia wrapped her arms around his shoulders, bringing her and Gabriel together for another deep, greedy kiss. Her hips cradled his so that when the length of his erection slid up and down, he pressed perfectly against her sex. His fingers resumed untying the drawstring of her trousers. Thalia managed to collect herself enough to move away. Frantically, she pulled off her boots, then her trousers, and in seconds, she was naked beneath her del. Cool night air was a sweet sting as it touched her most hidden places; the earth was rough under her bare feet.
She stepped close again, and both she and Gabriel fumbled to unbutton his pants. A hiss escaped his lips as he sprang free from his constricting clothing, and then he groaned as she took him, bare, in her hand. He was thick and large. Could she take him? She had to.
“I wish,” she whispered as her hand glided up and down his shaft, “that it wasn’t so dark. I want to see you.” A tiny bead of moisture escaped from the very tip of his penis, and she used it to ease her progress.
“Sweetheart,” he gritted, “I wouldn’t last…ah, that’s it…two seconds if I could see your pretty hand on my cock.”
“No more waiting,” she gasped. “I want you inside me.”
Smiling against her mouth, he said, “Thank God I know when to obey orders.” He placed his broad hands on her hips. Then, with a strength that left her breathless, he lifted her up easily and held her above him. She braced her feet on the cool surface of the rock, one on each side of his hips, as she held tight to his shoulders.
“Tell me your full name,” he rumbled.
“What?”
“Do it.”
“Fine. Thalia Katherine—ah!”
He brought her down so that he plunged up into her with one deep thrust. After almost a lifetime spent on horseback, there was no tearing, yet she felt an intense internal stretching that made her eyes sting. “You said to tell you my full name,” she gasped as she learned the new experience of having a man, Gabriel, deep within her. It hurt more than she expected.
“I’m…impatient,” he growled against her neck. Then he kissed her. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I had to distract you. Does it hurt too much?” He started to pull away, but she held him fast.
“Stay, stay inside me,” she said in labored puffs. For a few moments, neither of them moved, Gabriel gripping her securely as he kept his legs anchored to the ground. They were both breathing heavily, even though they remained still. She could feel him shaking with effort, holding himself back. Thalia experimented by moving her hips up and down. He slid almost completely out, then all the way back in again. Discomfort faded and pleasure began to take its place, faster than she would have anticipated. “Oh!”
Something like a laugh thundered deep in his chest. His hips rose up as he surged into her, and he guided her, with his hands, as she found a rhythm. “Better?”
“Yes…much…oh, God…” Thalia tried to keep her voice down, knowing that, even though the nadaam feast was a noisy affair, someone in a nearby ger might hear her moans and investigate the sound. But it was almost impossible to stay silent as she rode him. Again and again. She wrapped her legs around his waist, needing to be as close to him as possible. Clenching him, feeling his girth, an extraordinary, blinding pleasure began to build.
“That’s it, Thalia,” he gritted, bucking. “Come for me.”
He thrust again, and it began to roll over her, starting deep inside her and spreading out in growing surges, bigger and bigger, until it hit her fully, a crashing torrent of rapture that she threw herself into with a recklessness she never knew she possessed. Her jaw ached from holding in her scream. Just moments after she was lost to the flood, he stiffened beneath her with an agony of bliss.
He held her close as she collapsed against him. And though a heavy quilt of drowsiness threatened to drag her into sleep, Thalia kept her eyes open. She wanted to see the stars.