Beneath the Thirteen Moons

by Kathryne Kennedy

  Korl nodded and stepped where she did, concentrating so hard that when she stopped he bumped into the back of her, his apology fading away as he looked up in wonder around him.

  They stood under a bubble of coral, the lacy stuff creating a ceiling of shimmering light, surrounding them in a cocoon of translucent crystal. In the middle lay a pool of clear water, curls of vapor rising from it to dance with the shafts of colored light from above. Around the pool grew several types of almost colorless flowers, as if they knew they couldn’t compete with the rainbow that the crystal radiated, and instead grew within the beams of it and mirrored it back.

  Mahri turned and watched the brilliant points of light shimmer through Korl’s hair and dance along his golden skin. She memorized the way he looked standing in her secret place, so that she could remember every detail of him whenever she came back here. Alone. Her sigh broke his trance with the magical place and when he turned to her he frowned.

  “Why do you look so sad? This is the most wondrous place I’ve ever seen!”

  “Better than your palace?”

  He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, even that feather-light touch making Mahri tremble. “Why’s it so important to you, water-rat, that the place you grew up in should be better than mine?”

  She withdrew from his touch. “Because you think you’re better than me.”

  “I’m a Royal,” he proclaimed, as if that answered everything. He threw back his head, his chin up in that oh-so-familiarly arrogant manner.

  Mahri reddened with anger, flung her satchel on the ground and reached for the ties of her vest. He’d always think he was better than her, with his learning and wealth. But she knew of a way to shake him out of that superior self-confidence.

  She felt so angry and sick at his arrogance that she didn’t hesitate. Didn’t stop to think of the consequences. Mahri would bring him to his knees.

  She untied the top of her laces where they tightened across her breasts. The strained ties whipped free, releasing the mounds of annoying flesh that always got in her way if she didn’t keep them bound. For the first time in her life she felt grateful for them as Korl’s mouth dropped open in wonder. “Wha… what do you think you’re doing?”

  Mahri slowly unlaced the vest down to her navel. It’d been so dark in that xynth flower, with only the glow of the pollen to light each other, that they hadn’t truly seen each other’s bodies. Or so she hoped. “The pool is freshwater and I could use a bath.”

  Korl swallowed hard, his handsome face white with shock. He turned his back on her, then spun right back around. She watched that magnificent chest heave and his leggings tighten and tried not to giggle. She was sure that proper ladies of the court never behaved this way.

  Her vest hung open in front, the edges of it barely covering the tips of her breasts, and he watched as if mesmerized while she let the laces fall from her fingers to the ground. Mahri reached behind for the laces of her leggings, fumbling at them while Korl gaped, for her movements had bared her chest fully, jutted her breasts upward.

  The open air on her nipples tightened them to hard points and Mahri heard him suck air like a beached fish and she smiled. Her leggings sagged. She pulled the laces from behind her back and held them before his face, and again, slowly let them fall from her fingers while he watched them flutter to the ground as if in slow-motion.

  “Mahri,” he choked.

  “What?”

  “Don’t… you have to stop.”

  Her brows rose in feigned innocence. “What’s the big deal? It’s not as if you haven’t seen me naked before.” She wiggled her hips out of the snar-scale with slow, undulating motions.

  “You’re baiting me and you know it.”

  Mahri frowned. So he knew she was purposefully using her body to… to what? What did she think to accomplish? She only had to breathe and he wanted her, what she did now almost… It was too much.

  Good, she thought, he’d know how it feels.

  The leggings puddled around her feet and she gracefully stepped out of them. With a gentle shrug the loose vest joined them on the ground. Mahri reached behind and pulled the braid of her hair in front, began to unwind it with slow, fluid movements. Korl’s eyes started to burn and she hastily looked away. This time she’d stay in control and she couldn’t if she continued to look into his soul.

  Mahri raked her fingers through her now loose hair and as usual it billowed around her with a mind of its own. She reached down to her satchel, felt the long strands of red slide slowly over her bottom until her smooth rounds lay bare and she purposely bent further over.

  Korl groaned while she fumbled for a bit of soap root.

  She ignored him while she went to the edge of the pool and stuck a toe into the water, aware of the way the muscles tightened in her calves and upper thighs. The water felt warm, as it usually did here, whether from the sun or some undersea source of heat she couldn’t be sure. With a grin of anticipated pleasure Mahri dove in, her hands sweeping the hair from her face when she surfaced.

  She blinked and looked to Korl. He stood frozen on the shore, his hands fisted at his sides, the muscles bulging in his arms and shoulders. Mahri walked toward him, using the water to again reveal her body, the contrast of the warm pool and the cool air making her skin shiver with tiny goose bumps.

  She felt a ripple lap the very tips of her breasts and she had to pause for a moment to quench the fire that feeling kindled between her legs. It’s his fault, she thought, that my skin becomes so sensitive beneath his gaze. If she wasn’t careful she’d be caught up in her own seduction and Mahri tried not to ignore that warning.

  Don’t look in his eyes, she cautioned herself as she walked toward him. You’ve lost a bit of your control and lay vulnerable to him overpowering you.

  The brilliant sparks of light from the coral reflected in the water drops on her skin as she bent down to retrieve the floating soap root, the pool now only up to her ankles. She lathered it up in her hands and started at her calves, rubbing the foam across her skin with seductive, caressing movements, moving up her thighs, curving her hands to the inside of them but not daring to touch that part of her that could shatter her control. Her fingers played across her breasts, then she lifted them up with her palms, rubbing over her nipples when they fell back down.

  She glanced up at Korl beneath her lashes. He still stood like a statue but she was close enough now that she could see the muscle that clenched in his square jaw, the sweat that trickled from his forehead. The enormous bulge beneath his leggings.

  Mahri could feel his transfixed gaze on the reddish triangle of hair between her legs as she likewise stared at that bulge of his flesh, and couldn’t stop the moan that ripped from the back of her throat. Their eyes met and Mahri shuddered at what she saw. His arrogance had been replaced by something far stronger.

  Korl fell to his knees.

  Mahri did likewise. Only by gritting her teeth did she manage to get back to her feet, wade into deeper water, and dive into the middle of the pond, trying to wash away her sudden shame. She’d played with this man and it wasn’t fair of her, for she knew she couldn’t finish what she’d started. Terror filled her at even the thought of the way she’d be consumed if he possessed her now. Yet at the same time a fire burned inside of her; Mahri ached and throbbed and cursed herself for she knew there’d be no relief.

  She surfaced just as Korl started toward her, his face turning rigid as he read the look on her face.

  He knows, groaned Mahri inwardly, that I started this with no intention of finishing it. She’d never seen him look so furious, and belatedly vowed never to be the cause of such anger again.

  He strode right into the water, the muscles of his legs playing beneath the wet leggings, and came straight for her, his face intense, his jaw rigid. It took every ounce of courage that she possessed not to turn tail and swim for her life.

  He expressed no surprise at the warmth of the water, it seemed as if his entir
e being concentrated on her and nothing else. When he stood close enough to her for Mahri to smell the musky scent of him, he released her from his gaze and let those pale-green eyes travel over her breasts, caressing them as surely as the water did as it lapped over and under them.

  Don’t let him touch me, prayed Mahri.

  Korl reached out, his trembling hand poised just above her right breast, so close that she could almost feel the heat of it. “I vowed,” he whispered, “never to violate you, in any way, ever again.” His hand dropped and Mahri trembled. “But you started this and you’ll finish it.”

  She blinked at the hardness in his voice, the deep, alluring threat of it. He leaned closer, his breath caressing her face, strands of his golden hair falling across his brow and the sculpted plane of his cheeks. Mahri could smell his heat.

  “Kiss me,” he commanded.

  It never occurred to her to refuse. His mouth felt hot against her own and she impaled him with her tongue until she felt him shiver. But he didn’t hold her, even when she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled at his fine hair with fingers that trembled from the strength of her passion. Mahri flung her head back and saw that he stood with arms straight at his sides, the muscles in his shoulders and chest rigid with strain.

  “Don’t stop,” he growled.

  She had no intention of stopping, at least not yet. Whatever code of conduct he felt compelled to follow didn’t extend to her. She might’ve seduced him, but she’d seduced herself as well. For some reason his resolve not to reach out to her made her feel safer, as if she controlled what could be given. Or taken. Need overrode fear, without the drugging influence of a xynth flower, and she wondered if that had been his intention.

  Mahri flung herself at him with an abandon she’d fantasized about, trying to make him touch her, run his hands across her breasts, rake his fingers through her hair, anything that would quench the longing she felt. But the stubborn man stood firm. When she swept his mouth with her tongue in an invitation to do the same to her, he refused, until she sucked it into her own mouth and released and sucked until she near screamed with the want of his own strength behind it.

  Korl growled and groaned but refused to touch her. Mahri’s body soared with passion and she touched him everywhere.

  Almost.

  Her hands explored the hard muscles of his chest, her fingers played with the fine golden hair that ran down the middle of it, fluttered across the ridges of his stomach until she heard him suck in his breath. She reached behind his back and pulled herself against him, felt all that warm, golden skin against her breasts and went mad, rubbing them back and forth until her nipples shot flames of desire down between her legs.

  Mahri’s want of him became unbearable.

  She pulled back and looked at him, saw the anger still etched in the lines of his face and wished she’d never put it there, for he’d proven to be an exceptionally stubborn man. Mahri opened her mouth to apologize to him—the game she’d played was unforgivable. He hadn’t deserved it no matter what the provocation. But before she could say a word, he spoke.

  “Touch me.”

  Again, a command. And she knew exactly where he wanted her to touch him, so that his words made her tremble and pant as she buried her face in his neck; against that pale, oh-most-softest of skin that she licked between breaths, like an animal in heat.

  Mahri laid her palm flat against his chest. “I want you,” she whispered into his ear.

  Korl pulled back his head and stared at her.

  “If I thought you really meant that,” he growled, not bothering to finish his sentence, looking at her as if he probed her very soul. “But you don’t love me yet, you can’t. And I won’t settle for anything less.”

  She moved her hand down, across his navel, to the top of his leggings. Oh, she wanted him all right, just not the same way he wanted her and what was wrong with that?

  “I still want to touch you,” she whispered. When he said nothing she impaled his ear with her tongue, ran it down his neck and across his chest, played with his own nipples until they hardened under the assault. With one hand she pulled the waistband of his leggings open and then ever so slowly, she slid her other hand down inside.

  Korl gritted his teeth. Mahri flung her head back, all of her senses focused on that one hand, interpreting the prickly feel of hair; the hot, smooth, throbbing warmth of him.

  By-the-thirteen-moons he felt absolutely enormous.

  “Touch me,” she demanded, with the same authority that he’d used when giving her that order. She wondered if he’d follow the bidding of a lowly water-rat or just chastise her for daring to speak to a Royal that way.

  Korl blinked in astonished wonder, then a slow lazy grin spread across that handsome face and made her heart jump with excitement.

  “I’ll take what I can get,” he muttered, and his hand moved between her legs, replaced the warmth of the water with the fire of his fingers. Mahri realized then that Korl had been right in one thing, for even though they’d already made love it obviously could never be enough, for she burned for his touch even hotter than before, had aroused herself to a new fever by the mere thought of him watching her, so that it wouldn’t take much to drive her over the edge. He stroked her once, twice, and Mahri screamed, the cry of ecstasy rebounding through the bubble of lace that surrounded them.

  Through her haze she felt him tense, then shudder with his own pulsing release.

  They stood for a long time just holding each other, trying to make the world return right side up.

  Mahri sighed. She’d never felt anything like that before in her life; such overwhelming, all-consuming pleasure. Yet, she still felt empty and her loins ached with it, her heart throbbed with the pain of it. She tried to squelch the fire still inside of her, a smoldering that could ignite if she let it. If he continued to touch her.

  Korl absentmindedly stroked her cheek with his strong hand, slid it down to lay alongside her neck. His eyes sparkled with his own private pleasure, erasing the last vestiges of any anger he’d felt toward her.

  “Uh, water-rat,” he mused, “if it was that good just touching each other, it could be even better when—”

  “Aya,” snapped Mahri. “It might.” And she shuddered to remember through that haze of pollen the glory of having him inside of her and the thought that it could even be better without that scent-induced haze.

  Fear fluttered like a wild thing in her belly. She’d vowed never to let it happen again, to break both bonds that held them together, in every way. But he’d made her forget herself, lose all control, with just the strength of his presence and the touch of his hand.

  Mahri tried to wriggle out of his arms. Korl let out a loud sigh of his own before he let her go. She felt an irrational surge of gratitude that he let her escape from the lure of his skin and when she spoke she gentled her voice.

  “I need to get you home. I can’t imagine why I dragged you all over the swamps when you so desperately need to get back.” There, she made it sound as if this were all her fault.

  “Can’t you?” He raised golden eyebrows and shook the hair away from his face.

  Mahri groaned inside and wished he’d stop doing that. How a man could take such a simple gesture and turn it into the most provocative movement she’d ever seen—the way he exposed that soft neck, the arrogant tilt of his head, the incredibly masculine allure of it— still astonished her. She started to throb again.

  She raced out of the water and pulled a drying cloth from her satchel and wrapped it around her body. Korl continued to stare at her in complete silence, the water lapping at his chest and making it glisten like a fisjewel. A rare diamond one.

  For all that they’d just been intimate, and just moments ago she’d invited his stare, Mahri felt suddenly shy and refused to even try to get dressed. She picked up her discarded clothing, slung the satchel over her shoulder and began to back out of the coral bubble, stumbling and cursing like some kind of idiot. She’d never fel
t so much confusion before! Did she want him or not? Did she lust for him, fear, or hate him? How could it be all three? Look what the man did to her!

  “You can run but you can’t hide,” said Korl.

  Mahri glanced up. He stood at the edge of the water, his leggings plastered to him like a second skin, outlining every curve beneath them. She dropped her clothes as the hand that had held him began to throb from the memory of it.

  “What?” asked Mahri.

  “I always get what I want.”

  “Huh?” she asked again, fishing around for her things and totally unable to take her gaze off that part of him. Aya, she knew exactly what he felt like, but could it possibly look that huge… er… beautiful? Powerful? Satisfying?

  By-the-moons what had happened to her? She’d gone from a frigid widow to a promiscuous wanton in the presence of this man. Would she ever be the same again?

  Korl reached behind his back for the laces of his own leggings. “And I will have you.”

  What he’d been saying penetrated Mahri’s brain. That egotistical, spoiled little brat. How dare he stand there in nothing but his skin and tell her that he’d have her whether she liked it or not?

  “In nothing but his skin,” she muttered as her eyes widened. His leggings now lay around his ankles and his renewed desire for her stood proudly before her gaze.

  He’s magnificent, thought Mahri, just as stunning as I imagined he’d be, only better. The hazy outline of him glowing from pollen couldn’t compare with the filtered sunlight shining on his bare skin. The ghostly memory of him that night faded to be replaced by the startling clarity of the vision before her.

  She found herself walking forward, transfixed by the sight of him.

  His face froze with that arrogant mask, yet he held out his hand to her and his voice pleaded his demand. “Come to me, Mahri Zin.”

  She stopped.

  As if he’d willed it a shaft of sunshine blazed through the crystal above and created a shower of sparkling light that fell on his body to outline every perfect inch of him. The beam lit his hair with flecks of gold and danced along his skin like a lover’s caress, revealing the fullness of his lower lip, the tilt of his nose and the strength of his jaw. It outlined the muscles along his shoulders, chest, and legs. Tiny points glowed on each strand of hair that lay on his arms and legs, that traced a path down his chest to surround and illuminate that part of him that beckoned the strongest.