by Jean Johnson
“I still can’t help but feel sorry for her. Particularly after watching her scream when Jumaj . . .” Tava shuddered.
Taking the polished marble from her hand, Kodan set it on the flat top of the angled desk. Tugging her to her feet, he enfolded her in his arms. “You need to forget for a few hours. Now that Tailtip is back, we will have a Grieving Day tomorrow. You can grieve over what happened because of her tomorrow, or even what happened to her, if you like. The day after that will be a day for laundering and packing our belongings, and the day after that, we will depart for the City.
“The nice thing about living in the Shifting City is that the leader of the Family won’t be quite so heavily in demand for every least little thing. Somewhat in demand,” Kodan allowed wryly. “But everyone will be so busy with helping bring in the last of the harvests, then settling in and meeting with their old neighbors, catching up on the various news and returning livestock to the various Families and Clans, you and I will be quite bored. Or we would be, if I couldn’t think of several things we could do to fill all the hours and days where we’ll be blissfully ignored.”
Lifting her head from his shoulder, Tava glanced at the waiting bed. “Like . . . ?”
“Like read new books?” Kodan teased her, giving his wife a little squeeze. “Or at least they’ll be new to you. I have almost fifty of them back in my winter quarters, packed with bay leaves and rune-stitched ribbons to keep away mildew and insects. I think—”
A knock on the geome door interrupted them. Groaning, Kodan dropped his forehead against hers. Tava giggled and squeezed him in sympathy.
Whoever it was on the other side spoke up, projecting his voice through the wooden panel. “Lord Kodan? Tailtip Warband wishes to distribute its tithe, now that they’ve finished putting up the warband geome and have unpacked their own homes. They also wanted to meet the new Princess of Family Tiger.”
“Say the word,” Kodan muttered, “and I will tell them all to go away. Even we deserve some privacy as newlyweds.”
“We’ll have time later,” Tava reminded him. “Later this afternoon, if nothing else. You can order Deian to handle anything the Family requires. But I really should meet with the last warband. These are the kind of people I’ve always wanted to care about, and I need to show them that I care. That I am one of you, now that I’m free to be with you. Besides, if we don’t show up together, the bachelor ones might not realize we’re married and pester me with courtship attempts—I can see now why you cautioned me not to say a word about my abilities.”
“. . . Lord Kodan?”
He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it and shook his head. “No . . . I’ll give my time and effort to this Family, but I’ll also keep some of it for you.” Raising his voice, Kodan called out, “Tell Tailtip we’ll meet with them in an hour!”
Tava muffled a giggle behind a quickly raised hand.
“In an hour?” the man repeated through the door. “But they’re bringing the tithe up to the ageome now for distribution!”
“I said an hour!” Kodan called back. “We are newly wed, you know!”
“I say it, too!” Tava added boldly, glad whoever it was couldn’t see how hard she was blushing. “Come back in an hour!”
“Ah. Um . . . yes, Your Highness, Lord Kodan. Of course. In an hour . . . or two.”
Both of them choked on their laughter. It was hard to hear the man moving away from the geome door because of their mirth, but it didn’t really matter. Tava grinned at Kodan, who grinned back. Then he kissed her. It was an awkward thing, half smile-bared teeth and half laughter-stuttered breath, but it was fun all the same.
Tava nipped her way to Kodan’s ear. If they had an hour—or two, but probably just an hour—she knew of the perfect way to get her mind off the thoughts that had been troubling her. For once, it didn’t involve a book, though it did involve burying herself between the covers. Unfortunately, just as she started exploring the sensitivities of his earlobe, Kodan twitched and squirmed free. Spinning her around, he wrapped his arms around her from behind and began tugging on the fastenings of her chamsa.
“No, you don’t, wife,” he growled. “It is my duty to arouse you first. You will have the chance to make me mindless with lust after I have done the same to you.”
“So I wasn’t imagining things last night,” Tava said, leaning back into his embrace as he first bared her breasts, then covered them with his warm, gently kneading palms, sliding his fingers beneath the bone-and-cord network of beads the Family carvers had given her. She sighed happily, enjoying his touch. “Or rather, this morning. You do like having your ears licked.”
“Very much. Too much.” Nudging aside her hair, Kodan nipped her neck gently with his lips and teeth. The sensations he stirred aroused her. Tava arched her spine, pressing her backside into his loins and her breasts into his fingers. She trusted his dominance because she trusted him. It was a heady addition to her desire, knowing he would ensure she enjoyed their interactions.
“Show me, Kodan,” she murmured, lifting her hands behind her head to caress his hair. “Show me everything.”
“We only have an hour,” he pointed out dryly, before nipping at her nape again. “But I’ll try to show you a little more, at least.”
She groaned and pressed into him again. Her eagerness gave him an idea. It was a daring one, since he still wasn’t completely certain how comfortable she was about living among shapeshifters. It was also an arousing one, at least for him. With luck . . . it will be for her, too.
“. . . Tava, do you trust me?” Kodan asked, stilling the touch of his lips and his hands.
Tipping her head, she smiled up at him. “Completely.”
Her answer was humbling. Resolving to never break such a gift, Kodan swallowed and cleared his throat. “Then strip off your clothing . . . and shift yourself into a stripe-cat.”
Tava’s eyes widened. She didn’t know what to make of his request, save that she did trust him. Blinking, she pulled free and found the clasps holding the carved pectoral on her shoulders. “Alright.”
Kodan brushed aside her fingers, unfastening it with the familiarity of practice. His own, made from gold and carved gemstones, was dispensed with as well, both abandoned in a tangle on the seat of her chair. They parted long enough to remove the rest of their clothes. Then his wife, trusting him implicitly, dropped gracefully to all fours, her beautiful naked skin turning into a thick, soft pelt.
Shaping her words carefully in spite of her muzzle, as she had learned to do long ago in order to communicate with her father, Tava asked, “. . . Now vhat do ve do?”
Lowering himself to his knees at her side, Kodan gently raked his fingers through her fur. “Now you learn why Shifterai princesses are prized above all other females . . . because you can become any female you want. And as any man in Family Tiger can tell you, being a cat can be a very pleasurable thing.”
With that said, Kodan raked his fingernails through her fur, scratching around her ears and her chin, fluffing and combing her fur all the way to her tail. The feelings were pleasurable enough, but it wasn’t until he deliberately kneaded the muscles at the base of her tail that Tava realized just how pleasurable being a cat could be. She dug her claws into the felt floor and bowed her spine, pushing her haunches greedily up into his touch. A rumble escaped her throat, the closest a tiger could come to a purr.
Hearing it, Kodan chuckled. “You like that, do you?”
“Mmmm, yessss. More!” she demanded, kneading her claws. Until she realized they were now stuck in the felt rugs covering the ground. Dismayed, Tava shifted quickly back to her human form and stared at the holes she had made. “Gods . . . if I hadn’t realized . . . I wanted to knead you like the floor!”
“Shh,” Kodan soothed her, stroking her back like he had stroked her fur, though his extra little massage was bestowed on her buttocks, not the base of her spine. “I was about to shift shape and join you. Then your claws wouldn’t have bothered me, because
of my own thick fur. The way cats mate is perhaps a little rougher and quicker than humans . . . but I’m told by a reliable source that it can be quite pleasurable between two shifters.”
“By a reliable source?” Tava asked, distracted.
“There are a couple of widowed princesses from the many in Family Lion who have chosen to take up the roll of earth-priestesses for a few years. Deian was lucky enough to be granted time with one last winter. He said it was . . . quite stimulating. Very erotic, in fact. And quite an honor. Princesses who choose the path of the earth-priestess are rare and are often more selective in whom they decide to comfort than the average earth-priestess.”
“Well, you now have me for all such comforts,” Tava asserted, pushing aside her small twinge of jealousy at the thought of him visiting someone else.
He smiled at her. “Yes, I do . . . Shift, and make love with me.”
“You first,” she coaxed.
Nodding, he altered himself into a tiger. Rather than joining him, Tava boldly ruffled his fur, then massaged his ears. He rumbled and kneaded the felt carpeting the geome and stuck his rump in the air when she raked her way down to the base of his tail. Golden brown eyes studied her, then a furry foreleg swept out, knocking her gently to the ground. Lowering his head to her stomach, Kodan nuzzled her naked flesh with his fuzzy face until she giggled and clutched at his fur.
Smelling her, hearing her, feeling her, and thus unable to resist, he licked her. Just the tip of his tongue, but he rasped her flesh all the same. Tava gasped, and Kodan pulled back, eyeing her warily.
“That was . . . um . . . a bit rough,” she offered, hoping her honesty wasn’t going to offend him. She had to say it, though; his tongue had felt like sandstone on the underside of her breast.
He twitched his tail. “Svitch to fur like me, and hyu vill not mind it zo much.”
Hesitating only a moment, Tava rolled over and shifted her shape once she was on hands and knees. Kodan immediately began grooming her fur, starting with the shorter hairs behind her ears. That felt really, really good. So good, she started kneading the carpeting again. By the time he licked his way down to her tail, her haunches were in the air and she was rumbling at the pure sensuality of being groomed by her mate. Carnal instinct filled her, and she twitched her tail to the side in feline invitation. But rather than the strength and power of a male tiger mounting her, she felt her mate shifting his shape back to his human form.
“. . . Kodan?” she asked, shifting back as well.
“If I start this as a tiger, it will be over far too soon. It’s in their nature to be quick,” he told her, crawling half over her. He pressed kisses to her spine and nudged his erection against her damp flesh. “We may have only an hour . . . but it is an hour.”
Kissing his way down to her rump, he lapped at the seam between her nether-cheeks. Tava quickly lowered her head to her wrists, sealing her mouth with the back of one fist to stifle her moans. It felt so good, she spread her knees, inviting more of the same. He obliged her for a while, before kissing his way back up the length of her spine.
Just as he pressed himself into her, a knock at the door startled both of them.
“Lord Kodan?”
For a moment, embarrassment warred with irritation. The irritation won. Raising her head from her arms, Tava yelled at whoever it was. “Go away!”
“But I need to talk to—”
“—Go. Away!” she asserted. “He’s mine.”
“But I—”
Pleased by her claim and yet irritated by the untimely interruption, Kodan gave in to both of those feelings. The shifting of his shape made his wife gasp, but it also gave him the chance to literally roar out his displeasure. From the yelp on the other side of the door and the sound of whoever it was scurrying away, his point had gotten across. About to shift shape again and apologize to Tava, Kodan stilled as she moaned.
She couldn’t help it. Her Mornai upbringing hadn’t even covered something this exotic, and her Shifterai instruction had been little more than Soukut saying, If your husband wishes to add shapeshifting to your lovemaking, you do have the right to say no at any point, but if you say yes, you might be pleasantly surprised. But that’s something best left to be negotiated between the two of you. The feel of all that soft, warm fur was unbelievably sensual, but it was the thickness filling her that made the surreal experience erotic.
His comment about claws and fur made her shift her shape, too. Kodan grunted, then rumbled in the stripe-cat equivalent of a purr as she fluffed herself out beneath him. She felt his breath whuffling along her nape, then the tugging of his tongue grooming her fur. A moment later, his teeth nipped at her nape, holding her in place as he thrust.
It was quick, but it was also excitingly different. Both roared out as their striped bodies strained. Tired from so many rapid shifts, Kodan was the first one to change. He slumped over her soft-furred back until she shifted, returning to her naked, natural state. Sliding to the side, Kodan braced himself on one elbow and used his other hand to stroke her light brown hair back from her face.
“. . . Are you all right?” he finally asked as she just blinked and stared at the lattice walls of his portable home.
Tava blinked again. A smile curved her lips. A blush heated her cheeks, too, but she definitely smiled. Shifting her gaze to his face, she swayed close enough to rub her nose against his. Then licked it. Kodan spluttered and she mrraowrrled, pushing him over as if she was still some sort of cat. Within heartbeats, he found himself sprawled on his back next to her chair, panting and squirming as she attacked his ear with all the fervor of a cat licking the flavor off of a fish. It didn’t help when she straddled his stomach, pinning him further to the ground.
Thankfully, she took mercy on him. Switching to his mouth, Tava kissed him with equal fervor, nipping at his lips and suckling his tongue. Re-aroused, Kodan pulled her down a little farther on his chest and positioned her over his lap. It didn’t take much more effort than that to position himself, nor did he have to do anything else; his wife sank down onto him with more of the same enthusiasm, and there was nothing short of a grass fire that would make him stop her from having her way. Whoever had come to the door of their geome would just have to wait a little longer before either the Lord of Tiger or his bride would be ready again for visitors.
Indeed, with the first edge of their hunger sated, it was at least a full hour later before the two lovers felt ready to rise and dress. Gently kissing the nape he had licked and bitten, Kodan finished fastening the clasps of her temporary pectoral in place. Switching his attention to her hands, he kissed the fingers holding her hair up out of his way.
Turning in his arms, Tava stroked his dark locks back from his face. She smiled shyly at first, then smugly, and bit her lip. “I, um, suggest . . .”
“Yes?” Kodan prompted her.
“That next time . . . we fly somewhere far away, far from where anyone could possibly hear us. Because we now have to go out and meet with the Tailtip warriors . . . and I just know they were listening to the two of us yowling away. I’m not sure I can bear it if they stare at us,” she muttered.
Laughing, Kodan hugged her close. Kissing her cheek, he said, “You shouldn’t be embarrassed, Tava. Rather, you should be flattered.
I know I will be, because they’ll all be muttering what a lucky man I am, and envying me for my good fortune. Of course, they’ll also get it wrong in doing so.”
“Oh?” Tava asked, pulling back a little. “How so?”
“They’ll be envying me because they’ll be thinking I had the good fortune to marry the most talented, beautiful princess in the kingdom. But the truth is,” Kodan confessed, resting his forehead against hers, “I had the good sense to win the hand of a woman as smart and kind as she is beautiful. If not more so.”
“You mean you had the wit to blackmail me into following you home, where you promptly stole my heart,” she teased.
“That, too,” he agreed. “But I didn�
�t steal your heart. I merely exchanged it for mine.” Catching one of her hands, he brought it to his lips for a kiss. “Come. Our people are waiting for us.”
Blushing yet feeling smug at the same time, Tava let him lead her outside.
Her face flushed harder as they entered the back of the ageome through the normal-sized door, for they were met by more than the twenty or so warband men she expected. At least twenty more were there as well, including several members of both Councils and Kodan’s parents. There was also a pile of fabrics fit to rival the stash liberated from the bandits, carved chests filled with semiprecious stones, and bags of what smelled like fresh-dried Corredai tea.
Stepping close and turning slightly, Siinar held out his hand toward her, introducing her to the returned warriors.
“This is Atava Ell Var, formerly of the Morna Valley, and now Princess of Family Tiger. She is an apprentice to my son Akodan, Lord of Family Tiger, and my new daughter-in-law. Your Highness, these are Warlord Mata and his men of the Tailtip Warband.”
The middle-aged man eyed Tava. “Please forgive my skepticism, but . . . we’ve already heard about Rahala’s deception. It is said your own abilities were proven true, but . . .”
“You wish me to fetch the Truth Stone?” Tava asked, guessing what he wanted.
“I’ll take the Council of Shifters’ word,” the warlord corrected quickly. “I’m certain they questioned you thoroughly in light of what happened. I just want to see it.”
“We haven’t had a princess in the Family for too many years, and to hear that you’re actually from the Valley lands . . . It’s kind of hard to believe without seeing it for ourselves,” one of the men behind Mata said apologetically. “We hope you understand.”
Some of the others nodded, echoing the sentiment.
“I think I do understand,” Tava reassured them. Turning to her husband, she asked, “Akodan, would you hold out your hand?”
