“So life at court blindsided you?”
She considered the question with the cant of her head. “Blindsided implies a quick awareness that things have gone horribly wrong. Everyone at Cold Mountain was brutally honest, keeping true to the belief that lying is a sin. At court, everyone carefully wove lies out of truths and wore them as masks. It was years before I saw enough of the true Earth Son to know I had made mistake in offering to him. If I had left him, I would have destroyed what little credibility he had at court.”
“So you stayed.”
“It was a mistake,” she whispered. “We could tolerate him being a pompous ass at court, but he had been cowardly on the field of battle, had undermined the defense of Elfhome for his own personal gain, and nearly plunged us into a bigoted genocide of a useful ally.” By “we” she meant all five sekasha of Earth Son’s Hand. “I was his First. It was my duty to put him down.”
“I’m sorry.”
She reached out and caught him by the front of his shirt and pulled him to her and kissed him hard. She smelled of leather and anise. She kissed him like she was drowning and he was air.
“From the moment I struck him down, it’s been like I suddenly went invisible. No one will look at me. I–I know they don’t think I was wrong — they would have killed me right there if they did — but they’re scared of what will happen to us, and they don’t want to look like they’re afraid — so — so. .”
“I see you,” Oilcan murmured. “You’re right here with me, and you’re beautiful.”
She tugged at his clothing, kissing him hard and desperate. Inhaling him.
Where was this going? He’d never been with a female elf, but if she were human, it would certainly seem as if they were careening toward sex. She was a sekasha, a deadly holy warrior; surely they weren’t about to go at it like rabbits.
Then her hands were on his bare skin, just as needy as her kisses, suggesting that he was wrong to dismiss the possibility of sex.
She had grown up in a monastery. Maybe she wasn’t used to drinking. Maybe she was drunk and he was taking advantage of her.
She pushed him up against the wall and pinned him there. Yeah, sure, who was taking advantage of whom? The angle of their bodies made it clear that she was inches taller than him.
“Naekanain?” Which was the politest way he could think of to say “What the hell?”
She pulled back, hurt on her face.
“Are you sure—” He fumbled for something safe to say. “Is this really a good place for this?” Whatever this was. “Maybe my bedroom?”
“Your bedroom.” Her husky voice was full of need and promise.
He led the way through his condo, emotions in a tumbling freefall. He wanted her — had always wanted her — had wanted to hear her raspy voice make needful sounds since the first time she spoke. The sane, reasoning part of him was nearly lost under the want, but it was there, whispering ice-cold points of logic. He had an apartment full of kids. She was a sekasha; she could kill him if he pissed her off, and things like this tended to end messily for him.
Then they were in his bedroom with the door safely shut, and the reasoning part of him went silent as Thorne pushed him onto his bed. Somewhere between the balcony and his bedroom, she had shimmied out of her wyvern-scale armor. Underneath she wore a pale camisole that was taut over surprisingly full breasts, considering how lean she looked in armor. As she peeled off her leather pants, he realized he better work at getting naked, too. He kicked off his tennis shoes, stripped off his shirt, and undid his pants. She caught hold of his jeans and pulled them off him. His boxers followed. She moaned softly as she saw how ready he was for her. He reached for her, and, graceful as a dancer, she moved onto the bed, kissed him, and lowered herself onto him. They hummed delight into each other’s mouths as they fit together as if they were made for each other. Each movement of her hips was sweetness and fire.
Afterward they lay, still joined, sharing the same breath. Her braid had come undone at some point, her hair flowing wantonly down across her face and shoulders. She smiled and traced his grin with her fingertips. Slowly the whisper of logic started up in him again, murmuring how this wasn’t sane, but she felt too right in his arms to listen.
10: PANTY RAID
No one was happy about the unopened oni mystery box being at the enclave. To make everyone happier, Tinker allowed herself to be bullied into a bath. She still reeked of the pens. It made her skin crawl thinking of the fleas, ticks, or whatever else she might have picked up wading through the filth. After everything she’d seen today, she could use a deep cleansing of the body and a couple of stiff drinks. She hated, though, to take the time.
“An hour will not change anything now.” Stormsong scrubbed Tinker’s back for her after checking her hair for bugs. Tinker still wasn’t comfortable with the elf mixed-gender communal bathing stuff, but there was no way she could feel totally clean without help. At least with Stormsong, there was no weird “I’m cheating on my husband” vibe that being washed by Pony would have triggered.
“If we’d gotten to the station just minutes later this morning — ow!”
Stormsong had smacked her lightly on the top of her head. “Don’t drive yourself crazy with ‘might have beens.’ We were there in time to save cousin.”
“But—”
“But nothing. We were there in time.” Stormsong wrapped her arms around Tinker and kissed her on the temple. “And an hour will not change anything now. You need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.”
Tinker leaned back against Stormsong and made herself trust in her Beholden’s instincts. Stormsong had an annoying way of being right all the time. Now, if she could only ignore the feeling that Stormsong was right because they were days too late already.
Tinker suspected that Windwolf’s household staff had burned her dress. There was no sign of it. She was really starting to hate the way her clothes vanished behind her back. All her human clothes had gotten left behind when the Wyverns all but kidnapped her to Aum Renau. The missing dress had the sleeves removed, the skirt shortened, and pockets added. It was the second or third modified gown that she’d trashed to the point that the staff had made it disappear. They’d laid out two new unaltered dresses as possible replacements. Tinker really loathed trying to work in the long flowing gowns of fairy silk, especially in the nearly hundred-degree heat.
It was time to beg, borrow, or steal some better clothes.
All the sekasha had shuffled bedrooms the last few weeks as she picked out the rest of her Hand. As Tinker’s Second, Stormsong was now just two doors down. Tinker wasn’t sure exactly what the whole etiquette was for entering a sekasha’s bedroom. Everyone seemed to pop in and out of her and Windwolf’s bedroom unannounced. The warriors, though, were always armed; they even bathed with their ejae within reach. It seemed unwise to walk into Stormsong’s room unannounced.
“Come in, domi,” Stormsong called as Tinker raised her hand to knock.
“You’re scary sometimes,” Tinker grumbled as she entered.
“I know the sound of your footsteps.” Stormsong was still only dressed in her tattoos. For Tinker’s sake, she pulled on black silk boy shorts. “We learn everyone’s so we can tell who is moving around.”