Shocked—and pushed off balance by the unexpected blow, gentle though it was—Oria staggered in the water. Lonen caught her, of course, strong hands bracketing her waist and holding her head easily above water. His face had gone stern and remote, his jaw tight, eyes flinty.
All determined Destrye warrior now.
But for a moment, when she’d grasped his cock, he’d reacted to her as he once had—expression lighting with lust, his member moving in her hand in heated welcome. At least that part of him still wanted her. She might be hideously underweight, her lips cracking painfully if she moved her mouth too quickly, but at least she was clean. Of course, she probably resembled a Trom, all scaled skin over bones. Still, she couldn’t be that revolting if his body reacted to her.
Trying one more time, she moved into the embrace he didn’t offer, sleeking her naked body against his and gasping at the startling sensation of skin on skin. He echoed the sound, hands flexing on her waist, heart drumming under her ear as she wrapped her arms around him. This. This was what she’d missed all her life. She wanted to burrow into him, take him inside her and wrap herself all around his masculine strength and vitality.
“Lonen.” She breathed his name instead of the plea. Tipping back her head, she found him staring at her, a contorted expression on his face. His emotions simmered behind that cursed lake image, a turbulent mix of desire and alarm, all encased in resolute steel. If she could, she would’ve plundered his thoughts for clues. Why wouldn’t he take her as he’d said he longed to?
“Kiss me,” she coaxed. Okay, begged, but she had no pride anymore.
As if he struggled against a fierce wind, he slowly lowered his mouth to hers, pausing before reaching her. He hesitated so long that she opened up some of the portals, just a hair more, but enough poured in through that slim breach that his roiling emotions slammed through her. Too much to sort, except that dread and regret rode the crest.
She struggled to slam the lid back on, just as he pulled back again, eyes fastened still to her mouth. “Your lips are cracked,” he said, and released his hold on her.
Bereft of the stunning contact, she lifted a hand to her mouth. Scaled, cracked lips, indeed—and a tang of blood where a split reopened with her prodding. Lonen watched her, his face stony again. “Am I that revolting?” she whispered through her fingers, and his expression softened.
“No, love. You are beyond beautiful. But you’re so fragile I think I could crush you with one hand. I am not making love to you. Not tonight. No matter how much I might want to.”
Might want to. Not did want to. “I don’t want to be a virgin anymore.” The words came out pitiful and pleading, but there it was.
“You’re not, remember? Our wedding night.”
“That was an… implement. Not you. I want you inside me. I want to at least taste that pleasure before I die.”
That did it. His jaw firmed and he looked past her, remote as granite. “Then you’re in luck because you’re not going to die anytime soon—and certainly not at my hands. Now, walk or be carried?”
“I’ll walk.” Apparently she did have pride left. She began wading through the water toward the campfire on the shore, helping herself along by pulling her arms through the water, the robes she held swishing with them, creating drag. The round stones rose smooth against her feet, but also made her footing difficult. She staggered here and there, slipping. And as she made it to the shallows, losing the support of the water, her legs trembled, threatening to give way as they had before.
Lonen put his arms around her waist, but she pushed him away. “Don’t. I can do it.”
“Pride again, Oria?” His voice came grimly mocking from behind her. “I thought we were past this.”
That had been before he rejected her. Rationally, she knew he was right, but she’d hoped that passion would override such considerations. Perhaps if she knew more about seducing a man…
“Come to the fire and rest, Oria. You’re tired and need to eat.” Chuffta’s mind-voice sounded unusually gentle and solicitous. He should be chiding her, which meant he thought she couldn’t take it. She stood in the waist-deep water, trembling with fatigue. It seemed that no matter how far she came, she always faced this point of being too delicate to even be alive. She trembled with vicious anger at herself for being so pitifully weak.
“Oria.” Lonen put a hand on her shoulder, stroking her arm. “Let me help you.”
“Fine. Carry me.” She sounded dull to herself. He picked her up as if she weighed nothing, which she probably did, even after drinking all that water, and had her to the fire in several quick strides that put all her floundering to shame. Setting her on his furred cloak, he took her wet silks, and handed her something else. One of his shirts, quite worse for wear.
“Dry yourself with that, then wrap up in the cloak so you don’t get cold.” Naked buttocks flexing, he moved to the ring of trees nearby, hanging her clothes and his from the branches.
She wanted to ask him how he could stand her when she couldn’t stand herself—but obviously he couldn’t. Numbly, she did as he told her, using the shirt to dry her skin, then wringing out her hair and mopping at it. She combed her fingers through it, spreading it to the warm fire. The heat and light relaxed her weeping muscles.
Chuffta slid another log onto the fire, quite proficient at it. Satisfied, he picked his way over to her, sliding up her arm and snaking his tail around her waist, his scaled body warm and soft against her skin.
“You’re doing amazingly well,” he said in her mind, with great gentleness. “I know it’s hard feeling weak and powerless, but only hours ago you couldn’t sit up by yourself. Pay attention to how far you’ve progressed, rather than how far you have to go.”
“I thought I was supposed to put my attention on the result I want,” she replied aloud, too tired to try to form the thoughts that would let her to speak to him mind-to-mind.
“What’s that?” Lonen asked, returning to the fire with knife in hand, his cock no longer erect. He poked at something in the shadows, grunted, then began wedging a couple of forked branches into the sand on either side of the fire. As if nothing had occurred between them. Okay, she could do that, too. Politely pretend.
“I was talking to Chuffta. It’s a teaching of the temple. That we’re supposed to focus our intentions on the results we want so the magic goes that direction. Probably nonsense.”
He looked thoughtful. “Makes sense, actually. Arill teaches something similar—be hopeful for what you want. Don’t dwell on what you dread.”
Like all that dread she’d sensed in him. She nearly called him on his own dwelling, but what did it matter? She stroked Chuffta’s breast where he had a hard time scratching and he purred in her mind. Lonen picked up something furry and limp, with long ears. Her stomach rolled in piteous empathy.
“What is that—is it dead?”
“I’m not sure what it is—a rodent something, but dead, yes.”
“Are you going to bury it?
He slanted her a look she couldn’t read. “No. I’m going to skin it and cook it over the fire so we can eat it.”
Not a joke. “I’m not eating another living being.”
“Then you’re in luck with this also because it’s not living—it’s dead.”
“You know what I mean. Bárans don’t eat flesh. I never have. It’s unclean and wrong.”
Lonen’s expression became all too easy to interpret. “Oria. You are going to eat this if I have to sit on you and force each bite down your throat.”
“I’ll just throw it up again!”
“Then I’ll make you eat that, too,” he retorted, voice and face implacable.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Test me and find out.” He picked up the poor animal and carried it into the shadows. At least she wouldn’t have to witness this “skinning.”
“I caught it for you.” Chuffta sounded apologetic. “And for Lonen, too, because he’s so hungry that he didn’t think he had the strength to hunt. I looked for fruit, but didn’t see any. And there are no grains or things like that. I’m not sure if the leaves here make good salad.”
“It’s all right.” She stroked the arch of his wing, more to assuage the stab of guilt than to please her Familiar. Lonen always seemed so strong. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be hungry and tired, too. “How did you know how Lonen felt?”
“He talked to me,” Lonen said out of the darkness. Not so far away. “In my head.”
“He did?” She looked at Chuffta who returned her surprised stare, green eyes wide and mind radiating innocence. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.” Lonen returned to the fire, setting a stick spitted with several small bodies over the brackets. “Chuffta, man—I left the guts in a pile over there for you if you want them.”
“Tell him thank you for me.”
“Tell him yourself.” But Chuffta had already gone for his gory feast. “He says to say thank you.”
It shouldn’t bother her that her Familiar had talked mind-to-mind with Lonen. Even though he’d only ever done so with her before. She’d always known he could hear the thoughts of others than her—though, true, she’d thought it was only other magic bearers—but she’d somehow gotten the idea that they shared a special bond that allowed him to talk only to her.
Lonen glanced at her through the hair falling over his eyes. He hadn’t tied it back again. Hopefully he hadn’t lost his favorite leather tie. An irrelevant concern, given all they faced. She didn’t know why she thought of it. “I didn’t tell you when it happened because I wasn’t sure how you’d take it. I didn’t want to upset you.”
“And now you don’t care if you upset me?” She said it lightly, but looked into the fire instead of at him, pulling her hair over the other shoulder and angling to dry it, too.
He didn’t reply immediately, adjusting the roasting of the dead animals. The smell made her think of the funeral pyres after the Destrye army left, as the bodies that had been pulped by the Trom and not burned by their dragons had been dealt with. He’d no doubt follow through on his threat to force her to eat, but she didn’t understand how anyone could stomach it.
“I think,” he finally said, slowly as if he were thinking as he spoke, “that as much as we sometimes miscommunicate, it’s still better to speak honestly with each other than withhold information.”
She snapped her gaze up to find him watching her intently. “I’m not withholding information.”
“Aren’t you?” He held her gaze. “You hadn’t told me your mother explained how to manage the wild magic.”
“We haven’t exactly had time for conversation.”
He nodded thoughtfully. Turned the spit. Juices dripped into the fire, making it hiss, and she had to look away. “Fair enough. Then explain to me what’s going on with you. The portals of magic and so forth.”
“I’m too tired.” Indeed, she was inexpressively weary.
“It will keep you awake until it’s time to eat. Then you can sleep all you like.”
Her gorge rose at the thought of eating that meat. If her stomach hadn’t been hollow as a dried gourd, she might have emptied it.
“Oria.” He sighed and raked his hands through his hair. “If I’m going to keep you alive long enough to get you to Dru, I need to know how to help you.”
Of course. The man never forgot his mission. Get her back to Dru to stop the Trom from their depredations and save his people. She couldn’t blame him for caring about that above all things. Even when he’d been her enemy she’d found that attractive in him, his devotion to leading wisely, standing up to his responsibilities. Once she’d felt the same way. Only days ago, when sgath filled her with magic, making her feel powerful even when she hadn’t known how to channel it. Maybe what she experienced now was how ordinary magicless people felt all the time. What a grim existence that would be. And yet Lonen seemed filled with vitality, even having struggled with the same privations as she.
“Remember that we promised to be partners?” He asked, more quietly. “We’re married, which means we need to trust each other. When you won’t talk to me, it makes me think that you don’t trust me.”
Annoying, when he didn’t trust her, either. At least, not enough to believe that she wanted him to touch her. She nearly said that, but the look in his eyes, softer gray now with earnest feeling, changed her mind. They were exhausted and starving. Maybe people didn’t always get along so well under these circumstances. She certainly wasn’t holding up so well to the challenge. And what would it hurt to confide in him? The temple had banished her from its ranks. She owed their secrets no allegiance. She did owe Lonen, much as she hated admitting how dependent she was on him. But he’d confided in her, hadn’t he? Telling her about that dream of riding naked into battle, a hint of embarrassment shadowing the words, though he’d kept his tone light and joking.
“I don’t understand it myself,” she told him, acutely aware she was telling him something she’d never spoken of to anyone but her Familiar. “It’s kind of funny. When I was younger, all those years in my tower—well, even right up until you and the Destrye arrived—I thought that if I could just master hwil, everything would fall into place. If only I could quiet my mind, learn to meditate properly, then I wouldn’t be such a mess. I could go out in public for as long as I wanted to, without having to run back to my tower before whatever event I attended was even over. If I could master hwil, I’d get my mask, I’d manage my sgath and be a priestess, and…”
“And everything would be perfect,” he finished for her, when she didn’t, eyes glinting with shared understanding.
“Well, not perfect, maybe.” Because that sounded even more naïve than she’d been. Though she’d had a vision of herself in her robes and mask, perfectly self-possessed, strong, and unassailable. Naïve, indeed. “But much better than I had been.”
He gave a lopsided smile, shaking his head absently at something. “It is funny, how the goal always seems to move. I once thought that when I got big and strong enough to fight the golems, then they wouldn’t scare me so cursed much. Then I thought if only we could win the war, everything would go back to normal. Then it was, if only we could build the aqueducts before winter, grow enough crops, bring in enough water, then next summer we’d be fine.”
He glanced at her again, pushing back his hair from his eyes. “We know what became of that hope.”
The Trom had burned the crops and their clever aqueducts. “And now your goal is to get me to Dru alive.”
He studied her a moment. “It’s a good interim goal, anyway. Shorter term than that is figuring out how to get you to eat this meat so you won’t waste away on me.”
“I’ll eat it,” she said, though her stomach revolted. Maybe if she closed her eyes. She owed him that much. She’d made vows to help him save the Destrye and she wouldn’t be foresworn again. “Thank you for cooking it for me. It was ungracious of me to say otherwise.”
Lonen smiled at her, warmth in it. “I think we can cut you extra rope given the circumstances. I’m sure I’d be far more than ungracious, were I in your tree.”
She had no reply to that, so she waited, steeling herself for the unpleasantness ahead. Lonen pulled some of the meat off the spit and put it on a utensil he’d pulled from the saddle bags, working intently with his knife. Coming around the fire, he sat beside her on the cloak, and handed her what turned out to be a plate, but made of metal instead of glass. “Here’s a flask with water to wash it down with if you need to,” he said. “I cooked it really well and pulled it into slivers so you don’t have to chew it much. You can pretend it’s those grubs you like to eat.”
“Grubs?” She kept her eyes firmly on his face, so as not to look what in her lap. He didn’t seem to be joking. “I don’t eat grubs.”
“Those white, wormy looking things you ate for our big meal before the council meeting, when you went in and kicked ass, forcing them to agree to make you queen.”
She nearly laughed at how he kept trying to build up her ego. She must seem pitiful indeed if he felt he needed to put so much effort into it. “Is that how it happened?”
“That’s how I remember it.” He reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, trailing a finger down her cheek. “You were spectacular. Still are.”
She swallowed against the tightness in her throat, surprised at how much she’d needed to hear that. Pitiful, yes. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He nodded at the plate. “Eat your grubs.”
“It was grain.”
“This is just like grain. Just a little more processed down the line.”
“What a way to think of it. I will never understand you and your barbarian ways.”
“Back at you, sorceress. Eat.”
“I can’t while you’re watching me.”
“Tough. Do it anyway. If you stall any longer, I will make good on my threat. At least sitting on you will be fun for me.”
“You’re such a bully,” she muttered, but at the resolute glint in his eyes, she pinched up some of the meat, held her breath and shoved it in her mouth. It kind of felt like grain to her fingers, but tasted… ugh. Like blood and char. She didn’t have to chew much—he was true to his word on that—so she swallowed as hastily as possible.
He raised a thick brow in question. “First bite down.”
“And I didn’t even puke on you.”
He laughed and ran a hand down her hair. “You’ll do, sorceress. Are you cold—do you want the cloak on you?”
“No—the fire is really warm. Trying to cover me up?”
“If only.” He got up and went to the other side of the fire again, unspitting another little carcass. “If you’ve got enough so far, I’m eating this one.”
“Please do.” He did look far too gaunt. More so than ever, and he’d arrived back in Bára skinner than he’d been on his first visit. Despite his muscled chest and shoulders, and the ridged lines of his abdomen, his hip bones stood out sharply and she could see his lower ribs. Of course, his leanness only served to define the lines of his muscles and sinews, tempting her to run her fingers along them, to explore him as she hadn’t been able to before. “Have all you like,” she said with fervor, quickly swallowing another pinch of the meat. If she didn’t look at the cooking bodies—or inhale the smell too deeply—she could kind of forget what it was.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook.” Lonen leveled a stern look at her. “You’ll get more for breakfast.”
Relieved that he apparently wouldn’t make her eat more than he’d already given her, she ate what she had as fast as possible. It did fill her stomach, the warmth of the food welcome.
“You were telling me about the magic and how you thought things would fall into place once you had your mask,” he reminded her.
“And you never forget a question once you’ve asked it.”
He grinned, eyes sparkling. “See? You do understand me and my barbarian ways.”
She huffed out an exasperated sigh, which only broadened his grin. At least talking let her not think about the animal she ate. And what its name to itself might have been. Finer sentiment apparently flew out the open window when it came to survival. “I thought that once I had my mask I’d understand all the temple lessons. That everything would make sense and I would know what I was doing all the time.”
Lonen grunted a laugh. “Good luck with that. I’m still waiting to know what I’m doing.”
“You too? Some king and queen we make.”
“If only our subjects could see us now.”
He surprised the laugh out of her. Somehow he managed to do that—make her laugh at the most absurd moments, even at her lowest, like this night. She shook her head ruefully, the silken slide of her drying hair an unusual sensation on her bare skin. Lonen stared at her a moment, rapt, before yanking his gaze away. Maybe he did still find her attractive. Another irrelevant thing to be wondering about, though these things seemed to be looming large in her heart and mind.
“Sometimes we focus on the small things because the big ones are too much to contemplate all at once,” Chuffta said as he landed by the fire, looking sleek and satisfied. “And the rodent things didn’t have names. I asked and they didn’t answer.”
She nearly choked on her mouthful, Lonen giving her a quizzical look. “Chuffta,” she said by way of explanation. “Trying to make me feel better. Anyway, to answer your question, I have no idea how this works. We left the city and the wild magic hit me hard, just like the last time. Mother told me to remember sgath comes from Sgatha and to make it wane like her crescent until it went dark to the new moon. So I did.”
“And promptly passed out,” Lonen noted in a wry tone.
“Well, I think that would have happened anyway. Then, when I woke up later, all that feeling of magic coming in was gone.”
“But you were weak. Could barely move.”
As if she needed reminding of how he’d had to help her. Perhaps being up close and personal with her more unattractive body functions had served to repel him. She couldn’t blame him there. “I had thought that was because of the backlash of the wild magic. That’s how it affected me the last time. But now I think some of it is because I began to starve, being away from Bára’s magic.”
He nodded. “That’s what you said. Like a flower without water, you wilted. You’re better now, though. And getting stronger all the time.”
“The food helped.” She set the plate aside, surprised to find it empty. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure to feed my wife.”
“Me and Buttercup. You take good care of us.”
He winced. “Don’t tell anyone that name, okay? It’s beneath a warhorse’s dignity. And don’t dodge the subject. It’s more than the food.”
“Yes, but I don’t know what. It’s like there’s a coherent kind of magic here that I can absorb. But my portals are still closed because I can’t read your thoughts, much, and I don’t overload when you touch me. Which is why we should have sex while we’re here, because we might not have another opportunity.”
“Now who won’t drop the topic she’s interested in pursuing? I’m not doing it, Oria, so let it go.”
“You were the one to go on about it, how much you wanted me and that you’d find a way,” she snapped, full of ire again. And the sting of humiliation that he’d rejected the offer yet again.
“And we will. When you’re healthy again.”
“What if I’m never healthy again, Lonen—have you thought of that? What if this is the best I’ll ever be? We could leave this oasis and I’ll begin to starve again.”
He set his jaw stubbornly. “I refuse to believe that. However, if that should happen and we can’t find a way to reverse it, then I’ll bring you back here to get strong. Then you can believe I’ll make love to you until you can’t see straight. Something to look forward to.”
She didn’t return his crooked grin. “I know this is your thing, your way of looking at life, to be all idealistic and proclaim we’ll ‘climb that tree when we come to it,’ but have you considered, really thought about the fact that maybe I’m no longer the sorceress I was? Even if I can manage to live, my relationship with magic might have forever changed.” Her voice caught on that, but she refused to shed any more tears of self-pity. “Not only might I be useless in helping you fight the Trom, it’s entirely likely I could become a stone around your neck. The forever sickly wife who is nothing but a burden. You should think long and hard on this, Destrye—and before you decide to expend the effort to drag me across the rest of the desert.”
He stared into the fire, then at her through the screen of his dark lashes. “Is that what the sex thing is about? You’re wanting to give me something in exchange for taking care of you.”
“It seems only fair.” She sounded bitter. Better than pitiful, though. “I don’t have anything else to offer.”
“I would be severely pissed about that,” he said in a conversational tone, wrapping up the meat and stowing it. “Except I’m too tired. And neither of us is in any state to be rational. Still, I’m going to point out that I married you with every intention of keeping my vows. That’s what marriage is about: being partners and helping each other when we need it. I want to make love to you, yes, but not as some sort of equivalent exchange of favors, so you can get that out of your head. You might not think better of me than that, but I do.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” She’d made a miserable mess of it. She couldn’t seem to do anything right. “I… want you, too. I wanted to touch you while I’m able to.”
“We can do that, Oria.” He finished his tasks, scrubbing his hands clean in the sand. “Chuffta, you’ll mind the fire? Not too hot. Keep it low, just like this.”
Her Familiar spread his wings and imitated a bow, happily setting a proprietary talon on the topmost log on the ready pile of wood. Lonen came around the fire to her. “Lie down, love—let’s get some sleep. Things will look brighter in the morning.”
It felt good to do so. To give up the effort of sitting upright and stretch out on the warm fur. Lonen lay down behind her, drawing her back up against his bare chest, hot from the fire and his inherent vitality, and cupped his body around hers. “Lift your head,” murmured.
She did and he moved her hair, smoothing it over her shoulder and moving his arm under her head. His biceps made a surprisingly good pillow, the hairless skin of his underarm soft against her cheek. He drew the fur around them and she melted into the comfort of it all. Sleep—real sleep—not the dragging weight of unconsciousness suffused her mind.
“I might have been an idealist once.” Lonen’s voice came softly, dreamy and reflective. She might have thought he spoke only to himself, but he kissed her hair, his other hand resting on her belly, softly caressing her with quiet fingers. “But I lost it along the way. I only found it again when I saw you, Oria. My world had become a bleak, sterile place that housed only cruelty and desperation. You brought magic into my life. That’s everything.”
In that interstitial place between waking and dreaming, his words meant everything to her, too.