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.Threaded by a circlet set with amethysts, her hair spilled like spun glass over bareshoulders.A delicate scent hung on the air about her person.Unbalanced by hernearness, Emien ran an appreciative glance over the ripe cleft of her breasts.Tathagres saw, and a thin smile of amusement touched her lips.She traced theline of Emien's collarbone with a teasing fingernail."Why did you leave thefestivities? It's very unlike you.Weren't there to be fireworks?"The query seemed casual.But Emien felt the power behind her words; she couldforce the truth from him if she chose.Seizing what advantage he could, he feignednonchalance, and told her of his experience in the deserted rose garden."Mysister Taen came to me in a vision.She may have survived the foundering ofCrow.If so, Anskiere sent her to the Isle of the Vaere, for she appeared to me as awoman grown." He paused.Tathagres' touch against his skin made him ache.Although his body quivered with desire, he resisted fiercely, aware she used herbeauty as a tool against him."Taen's childhood was stolen from her.I would seethe Stormwarden suffer for that."Tathagres dropped her hand, frowning.Emien stepped back until his calvespressed against the solid wood of the bed frame.With barely concealed defiance,he resumed unfastening his shirt.Tathagres continued to regard him.She toyedwith the bracelets on her wrists, elegant features preoccupied by an expression hecould not interpret."Your sister urged you to forswear your oath of service," Tathagres said at last.She seemed almost wistful."Is this why you choose to attempt Anskiere's deathby yourself?"Emien disguised a shiver by shrugging the shirt from his shoulders.He tossed thegarment onto the bed."Do you care?""Yes." Tathagres closed the distance between them.With her arms relaxed at hersides, she bent her head and laid it against the corded muscle of his chest."Itdoes matter." Her breath tickled his skin."Did you not guess? We are fated towork together."aaTTnnssFFffooDDrrPPmmYYeeYYrrBB22.BBAAClick here to buyClick here to buywwmmwwoowwcc.AAYYBBYYBBr rHer presence burned him, released emotions like the raging spring tides.Emienmanaged a harsh laugh."In all things, lady?" He caught her slim wrists, liftedthem with the powerful grip of a sailor."Remember, I've seen you kill.Why didyou come?"Tathagres did not resist, though her soft skin reddened under his fingers.Shetilted her head, her lips within inches of his mouth."It is destined."Her voice held a queer note of sorrow.Jarred by the inconsistency, Emien staredat her.For a second Tathagres' control wavered.In one unguarded instant, theboy perceived she was bound to some purpose whose origin could not be guessed;she offered herself against her inner will.The urge to take her becameoverpowering.Lust beat like storm surf through Emien's veins.Unlike thesentries murdered on Cliffhaven's shores, he saw he could claim her withimpunity.He loosed his hold, turned her slim hands palm upward in his own.She shiftedher weight.A lace-clad hip brushed his thigh.Emien quivered in response,released her entirely.Tathagres slipped her hands around his waist.One thinlycovered breast traced a line of fire across his chest as she leaned up and kissedhim.For a moment, Emien resisted her pliant touch.Then, with vindictiveresentment, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pinned her againsthim.Passion unfolded like the rush of water over rapids.Plunged beyond restraint byphysical need, Emien sank to the bed, bearing Tathagres with him; clothingrumpled beneath their combined weight.The boy tugged at the fastenings of hergown.White lace parted, baring her eager flesh beneath his fingers.He buried hisface in her warmth, all reason forgotten.His body trembled as, with skilled andexquisite simplicity, she freed the points of his hose.Emien locked his fingers inher hair.Lost to all caution, he failed to note the bright edge of triumph in hersmile as she parted her legs and accepted him.Their union was consummated swiftly.Flung headlong over a stormy crest ofemotion, Emien subsided, spent.He lay back on the crumpled coverlet, his pulsebeating languidly in his veins.For a very long interval he did not care to move.Tathagres lay still against him, one arm flung possessively across his chest.Emien regarded her, and saw that she slept.Candlelight softened her, lending hercurves the grace of a masterpiece painted on velvet.The boy lifted a silvery lock ofhair off her cheek, revealing the unearthly perfection of her features.For all his awe, a thread of calculation wove through the wonder left by his firstexperience with a woman.She believed she had used him.Abandoned in sleep with her limbs relaxedagainst him, she seemed vulnerable as any normal woman; the parted line of herlips emphasized her girlish fragility in a manner Emien found disturbing.Therewas nothing extraordinary about her.Try as he might, he could not equate thelady at his side with the witch who had raised the whirlwind on Cliffhaven orargued with royalty in the council chamber.The thought occurred to him that thepowers she employed might be borrowed intact from the demons.Emien traced the gold band at her throat with light fingers.A thrill of excitementcoursed through his body.The plan conceived on the heels of Taen's visitsuddenly seemed ridiculous and inferior; his ambitions abruptly expanded.NowaaTTnnssFFffooDDrrPPmmYYeeYYrrBB22.BBAAClick here to buyClick here to buywwmmwwoowwcc.AAYYBBYYBBr rhe would bide his time.When the opportunity was ripest, he promised himself hewould gain Tathagres' powers for his own.Then would Anskiere of Elrinfaer havegreat cause to fear him.Storm waves hammered Callinde's stout timbers and the wind shrieked throughher stays with relentless fury.The steering oar dragged at Jaric's shoulders withthe strength of a maddened horse.His palms had blistered cruelly.After five daysat sea, the ache of stiffened muscles made every hour at the helm a trial oftorment.His clothing clung, drenched, to his frame, chafing his skin with eachmovement.Yet such discomforts paled beside the driving weight of the geas.Jaricsailed with every fiber of his being strained on the thin edge of delirium.Callinde's compass plunged and rocked in its casing, scrolled needle wheeling asshe yawed over the wave crests.Jaric ignored it.He needed no instrument toguide him.Anskiere's summons consumed his awareness and the direction of itscall twisted every fiber of his being into alignment.Callinde tossed on herheading.The spanker was sheeted too snugly; that the boat handled at all was atribute to the skill of her designer.Yet Jaric had no energy to marvel upon hervirtues.He felt far too wretched to bother adjusting lines.Weariness sapped hisvitality; each passing hour, his hold upon the geas deteriorated.With one footbraced against the starboard thwart, he battled to keep his sanity through anunending nightmare of cloudy darkness.The gale howled steadily on a broad reach; sped by its violence, Callinde madeswift passage.Barely six days out of Mearren Ard, the beacon of Cliffhaven arosethrough the gloom above the bow.Jaric scarcely noticed.He steered, blinded byhallucination; at times he saw the stormfalcon's tawny and black form hurtlingabove his head, talons outstretched for landing, and the bluish halo about itsspread wings backed by a dazzling spike of light.The vision often lasted hours ata stretch.Disoriented and exhausted, Jaric hoped he could muster the presenceof mind to bring the boat in safely.The shore toward which the geas directed himwas fast drawing nigh [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]