Page 34 of HeartTorn

The light in the clay pot fireplace burns lower, and the already dense shadows deepen. Suddenly Taar rolls onto his side. My heart flips. He’s going to break the silence between us, I’m sureof it. What will he say? Will he tell me this was a mistake? Or will he—? Painful hope twists my gut. Will he say what I’m longing to hear? That he doesn’t want us to part after all. That he wants to let this inconvenient bond remain intact. I should hate myself for even hoping, but . . . but surely what we just did together must mean something. Mustn’t it?

When he doesn’t speak—when this cursed silence lasts too long, and I can no longer bear it—I whisper, “Warlord?”

“Zylnala.”His voice is a breath of darkness.

“Will you . . . will you . . . ?”

He touches my jaw lightly, one finger trailing. It sends dizzying sparks shooting through my veins. “Will I what?” he asks.

I let out a shuddering breath.

Will you claim me?

Will you keep me?

Will you . . . love me?

His finger slips down my throat, resting a moment against my pulse before descending to trace the curve of my breast. His thumb moves, stroking my nipple. I catch my breath. My center throbs in pace with my suddenly galloping heartbeat.

“Will you do again what you did on our wedding night?” I ask all in a rush, shocked at my own boldness. But I can’t take it back now. I can only stare at the shadow where his face hovers, knowing full well that his fae sight can see every little expression revealed in my eyes. I am bare to him, in more ways than one.

I feel rather than see the sudden flash of his smile. His huge body shifts in the darkness, sliding lower, lower. My skirts are already hiked, and it’s a simple matter for him to part my legs and angle himself between them. Hot breath blasts against my navel. “That depends, little songbird,” he says. His tongue flicks out, licking, teasing. “Will you sing for me again if I do?”

I cannot answer. Words fail me utterly as he kisses the skin just at that delicate transition between abdomen and loins. The longing I feel, the desire, the need, it’s enough to drive me mad. One would think after what he’s done for me already tonight, I would be sated, but no. No, I need this. I needhim.So desperately, so hungrily.

“Please—” I begin.

He grips my buttocks and draws my hips abruptly to his greedy mouth, and all begging words disappear. A little scream erupts from my throat at the fire of his dancing tongue. I grip the fleeces with both hands, my torso writhing even as he keeps my hips locked in place. He shrugs one of my legs up onto his shoulder, adjusting his angle. Multicolored lights explode in my head.

It doesn’t take long. A few swipes of his tongue, and I’m caught in a wave, greater and more tumultuous than before. “Taar!” I cry, my voice reverberating against the hovel walls. “Oh, Taar, Taar!” My heel digs into his back as my body arches, collapses, and arches again, until the pressure bursts, and I’m once more riding that wave out into wild, wondrous places. Only his grip on my hips and the hot pressure of his mouth keep me tethered to this world.

When at last I sink back into the physical realm, he’s still there. Still between my legs. He kisses my throbbing center gently before running a series of kisses up my abdomen. “Do you . . .” I gasp, struggling to find words again as his tongue licks between my breasts. “Do you need to . . . ?”

“What I need,” he says, his lips hot against my skin, “is to hear that song of yours. Again and again. And I will have it,zylnala.”

Then in a low growl, both desperate and dangerous: “Gods help me, I will make you sing all night, and damn whatever dawn may bring.”

18

TAAR

I duck under the low lintel and step into the rain-soaked coolness of a world on the brink of morning.

Elydark stands some yards off, facing the eastern horizon and the shimmer of pink light just beginning to stain the darkness. He’s aware of me—I can tell by the set of his ears, the flick of his tail. But he doesn’t turn, doesn’t acknowledge me in any way. Our soul-connection is silent, without the faintest trace of song. But he knows what I did last night. He knows.

I breathe out slowly and turn away from him to look out across the dark landscape. The sound of running water tickles my ear. A stream runs down one side of the hillock, swollen from the storm, and gushes into a rocky pool. The sight of that pool and that cool, fresh water, as yet untainted by the poison of thevardimnar,attracts me. In a matter of moments I’ve stripped my garments and plunged in up to my chest. It’s like ice against my skin, but I don’t care. I submerge, holding my breath for as long as I can. As though somehow this plunge can cleanse the stain of passion from my body and the stain of guilt from my soul.

But when I rise again, my head breaking the surface of the water in a splash of foam, I find myself unchanged. I am still the same man I was in those hours hidden in the dark of the hovel while the storm lashed overhead. The man who gave in. Who succumbed to temptation. Not once, not twice.

Five times did I make her sing. And three of those times, I could not help but sing with her, a crude harmony of lust, longing, and release.

“Shakh,” I hiss and swipe droplets from my face in a swift gesture. Even now heat warms through my loins, heedless of the icy water in which I sit. Every part of my body seems aware of the open doorway of the hovel. Of the dark interior where even now my bride lies naked on a bed of fleece and driedumediblossoms.

“Shakh!”I growl again and lift my arm from the water. Thevelracord is invisible in the predawn gloom, but I feel it nonetheless. It’s like a snake, wrapped from wrist to elbow, tighter than ever. After all these days of careful abstinence, of making certain I do nothing to strengthen the bond, one moment of impulse was all it took to unleash the hunger inside me.

I climb out of the water and sit dripping on the edge of the pool, little caring how the morning wind chills my wet skin. Lifting my gaze, I look to the still-dark western horizon. There lies our destination, only a hard day’s ride before us. Tonight, if all goes well, we will stand before Onor Gantarith and have our bond severed.

Only now the prospect feels like asking to have a limb hewn.

---