He’d had enough. Since Gabriel had saved the life of their comrade, the brigands had treated him like a lost brother, urging food and arkhi on him with abandon. Thalia and the steppe tribesmen weren’t neglected, and given more than their share, but it was Gabriel who held pride of place around the campfire. His Mongol wasn’t strong enough to keep up with the endless male bluster that comprised most fireside talk. Still, it satisfied the bandits’ needs, so they could laugh and cuff each other like friendly bears.
But this had been going on for hours. Meanwhile, the night was growing darker and a quiet Thalia sat close, her legs touching his. In the glow of the firelight, the dusky desert behind her, she shined with beauty like an elemental fairy. Time in the Gobi sun had gilded her skin, and strands of copper and chestnut glimmered in her dark hair. He swayed precariously close to losing his wits if he didn’t have some time alone with her.
Yet, no matter how jovial the bandits were, Gabriel hadn’t any certainty that their allegiance would not change as quickly as the wind changed directions. Getting up from the fire with Thalia in tow might rile Altan and his men, something that they needed to avoid. So, like a boy stuck in a classroom, agonizing after a girl in the front row, Gabriel sat and ached. He tried to turn his thoughts to the mission.
“Tell me what you know about the monastery where we are heading,” he said to Altan. “You have heard of it?”
The bandit chief mulled, tugging on his beard. “Yes, but it has always been too far away for our interests.”
“So, it still stands?” asked Thalia.
Altan nodded. That was a relief. “It is called the Monastery of the Mountain. An isolated place. Only a few pilgrims go there.”
“It must be rather empty,” Thalia remarked.
“I do not think so,” Altan said. “Some of my brother bandits tell me that several dozen monks live at the monastery, those that want to be far from the world.”
Gabriel mulled over this, considering what it meant for their future battle site. It was hard, though, to concentrate on anything besides the hunger for Thalia that pulsed through him.
“Are the arkhi and mutton not to your liking?” Altan demanded during a lull.
Gabriel immediately drained the skin he’d been given. The potent alcohol left a trail of heat in his throat. “Both are good. Damned better than the weak stuff served to me by the Maharajah of Kalam.”
Altan nodded with approval, glad to have bested a maharajah in something so important.
“Our Englishman has another hunger,” chortled another bandit, flicking his eyes toward Thalia.
Gabriel fought the urge to leap up and grab the leering bastard by his throat. Thalia seemed more sanguine, saying nothing but smiling a little. Her smile, Gabriel noticed, showed a hint of strain in the corners.
“Do you know, I was born in the Gobi and have never left it, not once,” Altan said suddenly.
“It is a beautiful place.” Gabriel thought it best to be as complimentary as possible, even though he had no idea why the bandit chief thought to mention this not particularly interesting fact about his upbringing.
“A beautiful bitch,” Altan agreed. “One moment, she will flay you with her claws, and the next, she welcomes you into her soft cunt.”
The crude language didn’t bother Thalia in the slightest. She didn’t stiffen or act insulted. Gabriel could have told the brigands that she wasn’t a woman who shocked easily, something he liked beyond measure.
“For example,” Altan continued, “just today, that sandstorm wanted to rip us apart and would have killed stupid Dorj here if you had not come to his aid. And yet,” the chief went on, “not but a few hundred yards south of here is a small oasis, a little sheltered spot hidden amongst the rocks.”
This sounded rather promising. “Why are we not camped there?”
“It is not large enough to hold more than two people.”
“Sheltered,” Gabriel mused aloud.
“Private.” Altan did not smile, but it was clear in his voice. “And safe.”
He’d suffer the consequences, if there were any. But that was doubtful. Altan was giving Gabriel a gift. He wasn’t so thick-skulled to refuse a present. Gabriel took Thalia’s hand and rose to his feet. The revolver still hung from his belt, and he had a knife, as well. If anything happened, he would be prepared.
Looking up, Thalia saw the intent in Gabriel’s eyes, and stood. Her own eyes glittered, fire-warmed emeralds, as her grip tightened in his.
“Good night,” Gabriel said to Altan.
The chief nodded and drew on his pipe, keeping silent.
As Thalia and Gabriel left the group, knowing laughs and some coarse words trailed behind them, but neither he nor she paid attention. Gabriel collected the kettle, the ruby, and a blanket from the packs while Thalia waited, then, claiming her hand again, he strode off with her into the dusk.
They didn’t speak as they walked. Already, breath came fierce and fast in his chest. In the darkness, he could not see Thalia’s face, but heard her shallow breathing, felt heat suffuse her hand. Jesus, he wasn’t even sure they could make it as far as the oasis.
Nimble as mountain sheep, they leapt over the rocks, sometimes stopping to help one another traverse a particularly uneven bit, seldom letting go of one another unless absolutely necessary. The going was slower than Gabriel would’ve wanted, his anticipation already priming him like a pistol. Better to tread carefully than risk a twisted ankle. If only he had the power of flight, just to speed them on their way. At least his eyesight was well adjusted to the darkness, so that everything became shades of gray and purple, including Thalia, a shapely form keeping pace alongside him.
“Oh, thank Tenger,” she breathed. “I thought we’d never get here.”
The rocks encircled a pool, no bigger than a ger, with grasses and a few saxaul trees rustling softly in the breeze as they gathered close to the water. The banks surrounding the pool were narrow and pebbled. Overhead, the dark blue bowl of the sky reached infinity, evening stars coming out like coy birds. Altan was right. There was only enough room for two people. The rocks that surrounded the oasis couldn’t be traversed by a camel or horse. Anyone approaching would be heard. Utter privacy, for once. Merciful bloody heavens.
Gabriel leapt down from the rocks into the enclosure. He set down the blanket, kettle, and ruby, then turned, placing his hands on Thalia’s waist. He swung her down to join him. Once her boots touched the ground, he didn’t release her. She twined her arms over his shoulders, pulling herself against him, and the moment their bodies touched, desire exploded.
They took each other’s mouths, open, withholding nothing. It really was a taking, no use trying to make it sound pretty or delicate. Two people prodigiously hungry for each other. He stroked her mouth, its warm, willing sweetness, and she touched her tongue to his without restraint. He felt the slim strength of her waist and lower back. Just there, that small dip of her spine. He wanted to lick it. Gabriel pressed her close, and she made a sound that had only one meaning: more.
Stepping back, Gabriel pulled at his clothing. Everything came off. Thalia, clever and avid, did the same. All the while, they stared at each other, at their bodies being revealed, garment by garment. Soon, a pile of their combined clothes formed on the bank of the pond. She was a tall woman, but her clothing looked so delicate and feminine beside his own, and something as ordinary as her sock became ethereal and tender when draped over his rough leather boot.
When they were both completely naked, Thalia started toward him, but he shook his head and began backing toward the pond with his hands outstretched.
“Am I so bedraggled that you won’t touch me unless I bathe?” she asked, wry.
“I want to clean you.” His voice was barely more than a growl. “Everywhere.”
With deliberate steps, Thalia followed him into the pond, her hair dark and loose over her bare shoulders, brushing over the pink tips of her breasts. The water touched his ankles, and it was cool, almost bracing, but she kept coming toward him, so that when the water reached his calves, then higher up his thighs, he barely felt it. It was only her he knew.
They were both in the pond now, the water reaching their bellies. It was a measure of how much he wanted her that his cock did not flag or shrink in the chilly water, but stood upright, reaching for her. Thalia tried to take hold of him, but he edged away.
“I’ll see to you first,” he said.
Cupping his hands, he filled them with water, then poured it onto her shoulder. She gave a small shriek and laughed. “Ah, that’s cold!” She hit the water with a palm, splashing him.
So much for tender, worshipful ministrations. He should have known Thalia wouldn’t submit like some untouchable temple priestess. She was a witch taking a lover to invoke lusty magic, far too earthy for distant worship.
Gabriel splashed her back, dragging his fist through the water. Thalia stared at him, then pushed both hands across the surface of the pond, soaking his chest. In moments, they chased each other around the pond, dashing water back and forth. They laughed and taunted like children. Soon, neither noticed the temperature of the water. Gabriel hadn’t played like this since he was a lad swimming in the quarry pool. It was bloody marvelous.
Both of them sopping, Gabriel lunged. Thalia yelped as he snared her legs. They both toppled completely into the water, submerging briefly. When they came back to the surface, they twined and sported like otters, swimming in the shallow pond in a tangle of wet limbs. When Thalia tried to grab him to duck his head underwater, he seized her wrists and hauled her against him. Then he kissed her.
Hot, so hot, her mouth. For long minutes, they kissed as water swirled around them. Thalia kissed as though there was nothing else on earth that gave her more pleasure, and only he could give it to her. He stroked her sleek body, she caressed him, pressing the wet flesh of her breasts into his chest, her nipples taut points brushing against him, erasing thought. When she wrapped her legs around his waist, the heat of her sex cupping his rigid, pounding erection, he groaned.
Gabriel scooped her up and strode from the pond, water churning around him. He set her down just long enough to unfold the blanket. She didn’t wait to be invited. Thalia lay herself down and held her arms out to him. But he had plans.
He knelt between her legs, his hands spreading her thighs. She raised herself up on her elbows to look at him with wide, aroused eyes. “Been wanting to do this since I saw you wearing only a blanket and a blush,” he rumbled. And before she could say anything, he lowered his head.
“Gabriel,” she cried as his tongue touched her. “God!”
The pond hadn’t washed away her desire. She was slick and full and tasted of sweet midnight. Gabriel traced the shape of her lips, delved deeper, pushing his tongue inside her, then out, swirling over the firm bud of her clit. He held her down as she thrashed against him, barely able to keep screams from uncoiling deep in her throat. Her legs draped over his shoulders, her heels pressing into his back as she arched up from the blanket. He reached up and rubbed the tips of her breast, and she gasped, thrusting her chest high. He could come from this alone.
“Stop, stop,” she mewled.
He immediately stilled, looking up with her juices glistening on his mouth and chin. “What is it, love?”
“I want to try,” she panted. “I want you in my mouth.” His cock jumped. Thalia lifted herself up and began crawling to him. She pushed him down onto the blanket. He went willingly.
Thalia knelt between his legs as he had hers. She stared at his impatient cock, licking her lips. “Tell me what to do,” she breathed.
“Take it,” he rasped, “take it in your hand. That’s right…oh, Jesus. Now, run your hand up and down. You can go harder than that. Yes.” He tried, without much success, to keep his head up so he could watch her. She looked so incredible, his cock in her hand, her eyes glazed but sharp with lust. It didn’t take her long at all to find the right pressure, the right rhythm.
“When can I take you in my mouth?”
“Now…now would be good. Start with your tongue. The head. That’s the most sensitive.” He groaned as her tongue flicked out to twirl around his penis, lapping at the fluid that leaked from the tip. Up and down she licked him, as if he was barley candy, while her hand stroked him. “Bloody Christ. Holy God.”
“I want you in my mouth,” she said between tonguings around him.
“Yes, in.”
She went slowly, adjusting to the feel of his cock in her mouth, first the head and then, when she grew more bold, further. When he felt himself engulfed in the heat of her, her tongue wrapped against his shaft, Gabriel’s hips bucked. “Fucking hell!”
He felt her smile around him. “Such language.”
“I can’t—ah, sweet Jesus—stop.” He gritted his teeth as she sucked, pulling at him, giving him an incredible pleasure he’d never experienced. Gabriel propped himself on his elbows, needing to see her, desperate for the sight of her lips wrapped around him. He swore again as he saw her thighs rubbing against each other while she sucked his cock. She wanted touching there.
“I’ll do that,” he growled.
Thalia lifted her head, dazed, but understood readily when Gabriel pulled her up and turned her around. He lay on his back and she straddled him, her thighs on either side of his head. She faced his legs. With shaking hands, he gripped her thighs and lowered her closer to his mouth. At the feel of his tongue against her folds, Thalia gasped, then sank down, taking his penis back into her mouth.
God, he was so close. So close. He tried to concentrate, licking, suckling, drawing on her clit, her pussy so unfathomably wet, so beyond delicious. He’d never heard a sound so wonderful as Thalia screaming her climax around his cock. But he wasn’t satisfied. Not until she screamed again, and again, panting around him. When the last tremor subsided, Gabriel flipped her onto her back, placed himself between her legs, and plunged into her with one, fierce thrust. She bowed up from the blanket, moaning.
He showed no mercy, not to her nor to himself, as he fucked her with hard, deep strokes. Thalia writhed and clawed, wrapping her legs around his waist, unable to form words except long trills of sound. Gabriel pounded into her, giving her everything. “So good,” he rumbled. “Goddamn it.”
Wrapping one arm around her waist, the other hand braced against the ground, raised up on his knees, Gabriel held Thalia tight and let his body speak what he never could articulate with enough satisfaction. Inside her. Forever. That’s all he wanted. That’s where he belonged.
Thalia screamed once more, clenching around him. Then his climax hit him, so hard he almost lost consciousness. Anyone within miles could hear him, but he didn’t bloody care. He cared for only one thing, one person, and she was beneath him, singing out her own pleasure.
“Thalia,” he gasped. “I love you. I love you so goddamn much.”
He kept himself from collapsing on top of her, but only barely. She sighed when they rolled onto their sides, facing each other, with him still inside of her.
The sun had long since set, but she glowed, as brilliant as her soul. She trailed her fingers through his damp hair. “Gabriel, my warrior,” she murmured. “I never knew I could love anyone the way I love you.”
“And how is that?” he asked, languorous but exhilarated by their declarations.
She pressed kisses against his jaw and snuggled close. “Without fear.”
But as they drifted in a dream bliss, Gabriel could not say the same. He loved her. She loved him. And that scared the hell out of him.
Neither Thalia nor Gabriel were quite ready to return to the encampment, so they wrapped themselves in the blanket, body pressed to body, warm and alive in the shelter of the rocks. Full night had fallen. She wasn’t sure how long they had been at the oasis—time seemed to lose its weight. Minutes, or years. It didn’t matter to her.
“Why did you join the army?” she asked. He was snug against her back, cupped, with his arms around her waist, his wonderful rough hands stroking the curve of her belly. Thalia felt such peace, such rightness, being with him this way.
She felt his breath in her hair as he spoke. “Not much choice in Brumby. Work in the mines, or don’t work at all. I was lucky to go to school most days instead of working in the pit, like other children.”
“I don’t know much about coal mining,” Thalia admitted. “Sounds…dark.”
“And dangerous, and filthy. There were floods, collapses, explosions. The chokedamp and afterdamp that could kill if you breathed it.” His voice sounded flat, as if he was used to such horror. “So I enlisted after my da died. He was my last family.”
Thalia shuddered to think of Gabriel, who radiated light and life, shut down into sunless mines where every moment was peril. She knew that in the army he faced danger nearly every day, but there was something so relentless and futile about clawing fuel from the depths of the earth, where the enemy wasn’t another country’s soldiers, but the work itself.
Whatever darkness took him, she wanted to chase it back. “You must have liked the army, to stay for so long.”
“Well enough. Fine days and bad, like anything. Sometimes, I do miss it. I didn’t like killing, but I liked being on missions, having a purpose. And the day-to-day life could be good. I remember,” he said, growing a bit more relaxed, “think it was in Nagpur, and the rains had come. Months and months of it. Hard to imagine in a place like this.”
“I like being wet with you.”
Gabriel’s eyes glittered with hunger. “This won’t be the last time, sweetheart.”
Her body, much as she wanted him again, was spent. She tried to turn the conversation back. “So, the rains in India?”
He understood her tiredness. “Months of this, constant rain, and we were ready to lose our taffy. One day, me and Lieutenant Carlyle start thinking of everything we’re going to do once the rain stops. Things outside. Paint a picture. Write a letter. Tune a piano.”
“Do you know how to tune a piano?”
“I’d learn, just so I could do it outside.”
He puzzled her, after all this time, but in a way that delighted her. “So, did you learn?”
“No. But this went on a while, Carlyle and me trying to top each other with our after-the-monsoon plans, until somebody, Reynolds, I think, told us to either get off our arses and do something, or shut our gobs. So we went out and played football. After a bit, some more men came out and joined us. Sepoys, too.”
“In the rain?”
“In the rain. The pitch was muddy.”
“Who won?”
“My team. Made Carlyle polish my boots every evening for a month.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“With his pillowcase.”
Thalia heard herself actually giggle, for the first time in years. “I hope you got them good and grimy.”
“Always walked through the stables before coming back to my quarters.”
Now she shook with laughter, and Gabriel joined her. It felt so good, to share this with him. When he’d first come into her father’s ger in Urga, Thalia never would have suspected he could be this light, this playful, yet the more she learned about him, the more she felt right in giving him her love. She felt light, too, having at last spoken of her feelings to him. And he loved her. Loved her. Such a blessing.
“I can’t believe I can get a laugh out of you, talking about muddy football and horseshit,” Gabriel chuckled.
“Doesn’t speak very highly of me,” Thalia said wryly. She felt herself turned so that she faced Gabriel, and, even in the dark of night, his eyes burned golden and serious.
“I’m a bloody lucky bugger,” he said with a guttural rasp. “A rough soldier who’s known little of softness or niceness. Never thought I’d find a woman I could talk to without making a complete ass of myself. But you don’t expect me to have dainty manners, and you even like being with me, just as I am.” He sounded genuinely surprised, and he was not a man to devalue himself.
“Just as you are,” she repeated solemnly, then kissed him, her hands on the archangel sculpture of his cheekbones. “I never thought I would find the same, either.”
“Any man would be daft not to want you.”
Her laugh was low and rueful. “Wanting and loving are very different. I know that men can want quite easily.”
Gabriel muttered something about Russian bastards that needed castrating.
“Yes, him,” Thalia said, rather appallingly pleased with his desire for vengeance on her behalf, “but most others, too.”
“Your father is so honest with you?”
“Oh, no. He never wanted to remarry after my mother died, and he had plenty of opportunity. And when it came time to discuss…family matters…” She grimaced. “I think he was more embarrassed than I. But most of my friends are male, and they’ve been good enough to be candid about themselves. And their appetites. Which almost never include things beyond the most basic and physical. Whenever I see Bennett—”
“Who?” Gabriel demanded.
Thalia kissed him again. “Bless you for your jealousy. But I’ve known Bennett Day since I was fourteen. He’s a Blade. He could have very easily been recruited to the Heirs. Extraordinary with maps and codes, and from a good family, too. And, to my father’s unending disappointment, but vicarious thrill, the worst libertine. By ‘worst,’ I mean successful and unrepentant. God, the stories Bennett tells over pipes late into the night. My father always sends me to bed so my delicate ears aren’t harmed, but I listen outside.”
“Burgess should keep you locked up whenever that Day is around,” Gabriel grumbled.
“To Bennett, I’m more of a younger sister than potential seduction,” she said. “And, though I admit to a small childish infatuation with him when I was around sixteen, I’ve not once been tempted, nor has he tried. He’s perfectly happy moving from one conquest to another. I wish I could say that, underneath it all, he’s desperately lonely, but that isn’t the case.”
Gabriel rolled onto his back, pulling Thalia with him so she lay partially atop him. He ran his hands up and down her back, and she shivered with pleasure at his touch. “Not every man is like this Day bloke.”
“Thank God for that. Or we would be faced with a population explosion.” She let her hands drift over the healthy brawn of his chest, feeling the dusting of hair, the puckered flesh of scars. The body of a man who’d lived with energy and purpose, and would continue to do so. At least, as long as circumstances kept him alive. It was horrible that, possibly within a day, the Heirs would do everything in their power to crush out Gabriel’s life, and hers. Horrible for so many reasons.
“Thalia,” Gabriel said, “I’m not the sort of man who’s ever had to think of anybody but himself.”
“You’re not selfish, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Maybe not. But what I mean is”—he turned his head to look at her—“what I mean is, I don’t mind the battle that’s ahead, but the thought of your being hurt or worse—”
“That’s not going to happen,” she said immediately.
He shook his head. “Years of combat taught me. I can fight and fight, but that might not be enough.” His voice rusted and caught, but he cleared his throat. “Now that I’ve found you, it scares me witless to think of anything happening. To you. I’m not used to being…afraid.”
A sudden realization came to her. “So this is love,” she said quietly. “The daily prospect of joy or disaster.”
For a long time, neither of them spoke as they considered this, touching each other with gentle caresses. Then touch warmed, grew heated. Her tired body revived itself. Gabriel’s hands moved from her back to cup the curves of her bottom while her hands also moved down, from his chest to lower, where she wrapped her fingers around his stiffening erection. He stroked her breast and between her legs, and soon they were both gasping. Wordlessly, Thalia mounted him, thrusting him deep inside of her, wanting to take him as far into her as she could, as if there was a place, protected by the intimate bond of their joining, where they could take shelter and know with conviction that they would share tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and all the days that followed.
There was no certainty to be found, but as their bodies and hearts moved together, pleasure overtaking them both, Thalia hoped that even this small moment of rapture caught the dispassionate gaze of the world’s magic, and that, somehow, there might be just enough enchantment to keep her and Gabriel safe.