Page 48 of The Goddesses' Gifts

Lhoris shook his head and clutched my hips. “It’s not physical pain, Oz.” He buried his face against my belly and … rubbed his cheek on it like a cat. “It’s here,” he tried to explain, “but I don’t understand … I don’t know what to do.”

I just blinked at him for a few heartbeats.

No, it couldn’t be, could it?

Lobikno was sure the babe was his. Unless Zelfek wasn’t lying about …

I didn’t dare finish the thought.

CHAPTER 23

LOBIKNO

Oshruli and I watched the sun rise. It was like seeing it again for the first time. Though I was a young adult when I’d been exposed and rationally understood that the other elves came back from their outings unscathed, the conditioning we’d received as small children still left me frightened. But Oshruli had me this time and borrowed my confidence that it wouldn’t harm us.

When the sun was more than a mere sliver on the horizon, the colors started to shift and bold shades of orange and pink spread across the sky, turning the clouds a warm shade of gold. Oshruli took off the shadow glass and blinked through the watering of his eyes to see the true colors. Mouth hanging open, his skinny little body relaxed in my arms. But I don’t think it was just the sun that left him in awe. The surface world was full of color compared to the compound. And movement, and sound … and life. There was just so much to see of it from the top of the promontory.

Tree tops of green and the various colors of autumn washed in the shades of sunrise. A small distant lake that reflected the colors in blinding little twinkles. And the wind that occasionally picked up enough to blow our hair around. He occasionally covered his ear tips, as if trying to sort out the vast amount of life and magic flowing around us. There wasn’t nearly as much of it to detect in the tunnels, so far removed from the surface.

“Careful,” I teased, “if you let your jaw dangle open like that a bird might fly in and shit on your tongue.

He jerked in my arms and shut his mouth. “Eugh.” Then he paused. “What’s a bird?”

I sighed, resigned to the fact that I’d be answering these perfectly reasonable questions for a very long time.

There didn’t seem to be many birds in flight. They must all still be warm in their nests, not quite ready to start their day, lucky bastards. I sniffed the air and started walking. “Let’s see what we can find.”

We made our way down to the little lake. I thought I might have smelled duck wafting from that direction. And there were a few to see, though they were in the hands of some hunters.

It looked as though they’d caught what they needed already, maybe having made their start before dawn. They probably caught the birds where they roosted on the ground. No doubt these men had other work to attend to during daylight hours. I shushed Oshruli while we hid among the shadows of the underbrush. He very much wanted a closer look, but I wouldn’t approach.

While we’d never received a warm welcome, we had also never received a violent one. If I were alone, I might have tried talking to them, just to see their reaction.

“I heard the black elf is slipping,” one of them said, plucking rough handfuls of feathers from the dead duck on his knee.

“Yeah, me too. Guard at the tavern said they’d rousted a few highwaymen last week,” said another. He didn’t bother to pluck his kills. They were draped over his shoulder, webbed feet tied together.

“Eh,” said the third man. “The elf goes off from time to time, don’t he? Probably out chasing cunt.”

“He don’t have to chase it,” the first man said. “The way the women talk it falls in his lap. Hazard of the job or somethin’.”

“Maybe you should go play hero,” the third man teased the first. “Get yourself a wife that’ll pluck the duck for ya.”

The first man grumbled and ripped the last handful of feathers off. “It’s good enough to cook tonight. Lets go, we’re wasting daylight.”

The three men left the lakeside, off to whatever labor they needed daylight for.

I led Oshruli to the lake and picked up some of the green and brown flight feathers the hunters had left behind. Oshruli inspected them and asked question after question. After question. And there weren’t even any ducks.

“We will see a bird before long,” I said after a while. But Oshruli was tired. He rubbed his eyes and was increasingly frustrated by the lack of ducks. He pulled his shoes off and laid face down on the ground.

“It’s too bright now, ahba,” he complained.

I undid the top few buttons of my jacket and tucked him in against my chest. It was a snug enough fit that he didn’t slide down at all.

“You can close your eyes,” I said and started at a brisk pace back to the little hideaway. “Rest.”

It didn’t occur to me that I’d left the two horniest people I knew alone together until I was almost back to camp. They’d had a hard time of things, but could I trust that I wouldn’t be walking in on something I didn’t want to see? Again? Only when I reached to check the bond with Oz did I realize that I’d finally blocked it out. The time with Oshruli had been so distracting that I hadn’t struggled with it. But I poked at it anyway to make sure she was ok and detected a frantic tug.

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