Honor Within

Honor Within a Bonded fantasy Mima (c) 2008

Honor Within a Bonded fantasy Mima Published 2008 ISBN 978-1-59578-494-0 Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2008, Mima. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. Manufactured in the United States of America Liquid Silver Books http://LSbooks.com Email: [email protected] Editor Deanna Pryce Cover Artist April Martinez This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Dedication Dedicated to Tucker, for twenty years of sad, hysterical, and sexy boy stories.

Chapter One The night was soft. It was one of those perfect summer evenings where the insects sang with happiness and the stars danced for them. She loved the coziness of lounging in the meadow with the grass tall around her. The sky was a sparkling, velvet swath like a royal’s cape, close enough to kiss. Now what had made her think of kisses. “Evening, Nomi.” The quiet male voice was part of the night, part of the Wild. A smile curved her lips. Ah. Maybe that’s why. Him. The quiet warrior who came to her in the shadows. Her only friend. “Evening, Burke,” she murmured back. A tall shape broke from the darkness at the foot of the trees and moved into the field. He hovered nearby, a shaggy head, broad shoulders. She could tell by his silhouette that he wore a simple leather vest like hers, his bare arms sleekly muscled. He settled into the grass. A sigh came from him, contented, relaxing. They lay side by side, a frill of stalks between them. A cricket chirped near her feet and was still. He didn’t speak. He rarely did. She liked to think they didn’t need to. But mostly, he was an exotic, mysterious stranger she’d met one night a few weeks ago. She’d woken to him sitting by her side, clasping one folded knee, studying her with cocked head. She’d smiled at him, and he’d smiled back. Since then, when she found the energy to venture off the Farm and into the Wild, he found her. Precious few of her Guild ventured beyond the magelights, huddled inside the tightest security the Beasts could provide. Despite the generations of humans who had existed at the Farm, they were still creatures who craved City walls. Nomi had discovered there were rings of security, and she wasn’t foolish enough to venture past the farthest. But she did like the feeling of being at the edge, more alone, almost alone. So when the day’s end was particularly beautiful, or the fieldwork hadn’t been quite as backbreaking, or her Guild had been especially vicious and cold, she’d go exploring where she shouldn’t. She’d been doing it since she was six. Despite all her thirty-six years of wandering through the Beast warriors’ invisible guard, none had approached her. Until this summer, when Burke started to shadow her. She was proud of herself for figuring out when he was there by the change in water’s energy, of the feel of the woods. She hadn’t thought she was that powerful in her magecraft, not that she could always sense him. Later, she’d spoken to him, calling boldly into the night. She’d told him she wanted to meet her watcher. He hadn’t answered that night. But a few nights later, he’d been there, by her side, when she woke. Looking up at the stars, Nomi couldn’t stop smiling at his presence beside her. Tonight was a celebration. Finally, she had a new house, new freedom, and even a new man, of a sort. “Nice night.” She didn’t mind his silence. It always felt warm and interested. She’d never been a talker herself. Not much occasion to do it, when no one wanted to be near you. But she didn’t mind sharing her thoughts with him. It was natural, so easy, to share her observations with Burke. “On dark moon nights like this, it takes me a long time to move through the woods.”

“You know the paths well.” “I do.” “It would be easier to wait until you had more moon to see by.” “Sometimes I feel like if I have to stay one more second in that village, I’ll lose my mind. My skin gets tight, and I can’t breathe. If I can’t get away, I start to feel small, and angry. Sometimes you just can’t stay, you know?” One of his tremors ran through him. She was used to them. The tight, subtle ripples were more felt than seen. “I know. I know exactly what you mean.” He sounded tired. He fell silent, but she felt his intensity sharpen. “Nomi…” She grinned. Ah-ha. He was working himself up to a rare question. She waited. “You are not bound to that man anymore.” It wasn’t a question, but it was. He was asking about Drave. Nomi’s breath caught at the implication. Burke knew about her life on the Farm. “Are you spying on me?” Silence. A tremor. “Yes.” Something curled in her belly, low, deep, triggered by the depth of his low voice. It felt uncomfortably like attraction. No. Not Burke. She ruthlessly suppressed it, as she always did on the rare times his attentive male presence got to her. He was safe, and a friend, and would stay that way. She had ached for sex for years, taking care of herself, and could continue on like that if she had to. Besides, he was a Beast. The Beasts were a race of mage-warriors who lived in the Wilderness. They were honorable to the bone, the reputation of their race seeming to rest on the behavior of every single one of them. They stuck to the paid women like glue, and ignored everyone else. There were rumors of how violent they were during sex, and how the whores had to fuck their animal forms, too. Nomi didn’t like rumors. They were often cruel for the sake of a thrilling story, regardless of the fact the subject was a real person. But she knew Burke was out of her league. Out of her Guild, out of her race, and at all costs, out of her dreams. For even though there were human women from the Cities who went to live with them, she knew that Beasts lived in close groups called Clans. The thought of having to live underground, in an even closer, tighter group of people than what she’d seen in a City left her in a panicked sweat. She never got any sexual overtone from Burke at all. But it was definitely odd he was interested in her, the Guild misfit. And now he was asking about her ex-husband, surely as a concerned friend. “You’re angry.” His voice was sorrowful. “No. Surprised.” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask why he was here, lying next to her. She didn’t. “Yes, Burke. I am now finally, officially divorced.” “You’re glad, but angry.” Her breath caught. By Mother Earth, he was so intuitive. But then, intuition was something most watermages had in common. “Yes, I am both glad and angry.” How could a marriage last when it was based on nothing but status? Her parents had wanted to get to the City. For that, they needed a child to take their place as a producing pair for the farm. Nomi had even gone so far out of character as to cry, pleading. I need to be solitary, Mother. People make me ache. Have I ever been one to follow friends, to seek others out? Please, don’t make me marry.

How ironic that it was Drave who now muttered about being placed in the City. He needed a child to marry off in order to earn that as a cushy Guild retirement. His baby clock was ticking. Ten years of his grunting, and occasionally a thrill of pleasure, and no babes. Without a child, divorced, she was like to remain on the Farm even as she aged. Nomi smiled. What else could she do to ensure she’d never get carted off to the stinking, noisy, crowded streets of power grubbing City Guilds? Still, now she was divorced, a rare concession from the Temple, only achieved through Drave’s status in the Guild. They’d moved her into a tiny little hut yesterday. It would fade in time, but right now the disapproval and delighted horror was rife. Both upheavals in her life were due to people who saw her as a gate preventing their escape from the Farm. People who should have cared about her. That little black-haired girl could have Drave. Nomi had no emotion left for the man who had never been more than the best scenario in a bad situation. No, she was delighted to be free of him. “I am very happy to have my own home. They even let me have one at the farthest edge of the village. I have a lovely view of the woods, just a few bodylengths from my window. I’m angry at my Guild when I shouldn’t be. They’ve never understood me. I’m not like them, and people turn on those who are different.” Again, the tremor ran through him, a shimmer in the grass. “Are you cold?” Despite the warm night, lying in the dew could sometimes chill her, especially if it sank into her leathers. “No.” “You shiver sometimes.” A horrible thought occurred to her. She rolled onto her side, looking at his strong profile through the veil of grass. His forehead, his nose, his full lips, strong chin. As always, he was a mere shadow in the starlight. “Burke. Are you ill?” His head turned toward her, and she lost all detail as his face became a black oval. “Am I sick?” She waited, her heart in her throat. He was thinking. Trust me. Tell me. But she didn’t say it. He sat up abruptly, and ran his hands through his shoulder-length hair. “Everything you say tonight is a body blow.” He choked on a short, bitter laugh. “Do I tell you? Am I coward? Yes, Nomi, I am. I am very ill. I’m infected. With a cat.” He rolled to his feet in one powerful lunge. Nomi sat up, craning her neck up at the dark tower of him. “And as with any illness, it’s wrong that I’m near you. It isn’t safe. It isn’t … right. I know this. So why can’t I leave you alone?” Nomi’s heart beat hard in her throat. This wasn’t about a sickness of the body. “I’ve never felt unsafe with you.” “Have you ever had a dream, Nomi? A dream so pure and good it fills you with purpose, drives everything you do?” He was silent, and she realized he actually wanted an answer. She considered the question carefully. “I … I have. But—it’s not—I know it will only ever be a dream, so it’s more like an ache, than a strength.” He staggered back, as if she had driven a knife in his gut, clutching his arms around him. “Yes. Yes. That is what it’s become. Impossible. Gone. I’m lost, Nomi. I’m trying, but you’re the only thing that makes sense. So I keep coming back, when I know it’s not right.”

She pushed herself to her feet, noticing all the summer music had stopped. The whole world held its breath with her. “I’ve thought that, too, that our visits aren’t quite right. But Burke, you’re the only thing that makes sense to me, also. Being out here, in the Wild, with you.” In a blink, he was in front of her, his hands wrapped tight around her upper arms. “Don’t say that! By the Six! You can’t know what you’re saying!” He stumbled away, staring at his spread hands in horror. He whispered something she didn’t catch. “You didn’t hurt me, Burke.” His head turned toward her, but his face was too shadowed for her to read his expression. “I put my hands on you in anger.” The words were still whispered, but she caught them this time, the horror and disbelief. Nomi frowned. She stayed very still. “Burke, you are the first friend I’ve ever had. I’ve only known you a month, but I trust you. Please, talk to me.” Moving with Beast speed, he was gone. A faint gap in the moving grass tassels was all that he left. That and the warmth burning her arms from where he’d touched her for the first time. An animal cried out in the night. Hoof beats, probably a deerish, pattered past in a panic on the far side of the meadow. She sighed, shakily. It had been a long time since she’d faced someone’s raw emotions. Her contact with others was limited to caring for the livestock and the crops. Before the conversations necessary for the divorce, she hadn’t spoken to Drave for over a year, despite sharing the same house with him. She took a step, to follow Burke. No. Somehow he felt ashamed for coming up to her. He worried about hurting her, which she knew to her bones to be an irrational fear. He would never. But he was already gone. Looking down, she saw that she stood where Burke’s body had flattened the meadow. Impulsively, she lay down in his imprint. Odd, the stars looked different from his view. Fitting, though. She’d often tried, since meeting him, to consider what it was like to have a wild animal living inside you. A cat. He’d said it with such disdain. Loathing, even. But she could see it, now that she knew which Beast was his. The way he’d stalked her. The way he watched her, silent, thinking his own deep thoughts. The gorgeous, controlled, sleek way he moved. Lifting one hand, she closed one eye and used the stars to draw out her childhood fantasy. A pure, good dream. There was the tiny hut in a tall forest, there was the stream nearby. A garden by the side, and a shed for a few sheep. She thought of not talking to a soul for days, of doing for herself. Now that she was an adult, she knew how much work it would be. And she was just as firm in her belief that she’d be happier. People were mean, and those who weren’t were usually selfish. No one wanted to help a little girl who was different. She wanted to be alone. She liked it. And that was just absolutely not normal. No one had ever understood. The ones who thought she needed help were the ones who’d caused the most pain, trying to force her to be like the others, and force the others to like her. Eventually, they learned to let her go into the forest. Let her go alone. She needed to be free. She couldn’t concentrate like the others. She listened to Water. She flattened her hand and swirled it over the sky until it was nothing but a palette of

shimmering black once more. She’d been seeing the same variation on this image her whole life. She could picture it so clearly it almost seemed like a vision sometimes. Some of the vision was coming true, sort of. She now had her own little hut. How had the odd little girl who wandered from her lessons, wandered from her chores, ended up being the discarded wife of the corn manager? Who had she become? As a human woman, she couldn’t be any more solitary than a misfit member of the Farm Guild, yet her spirit craved something wilder than the clusters of homes around the fenced, orderly fields. What was wrong with her? Rising to her feet, she began the careful, dark walk home. A more interesting question was what was wrong with Burke. Mostly, she’d been focused on what he saw in her, that he bothered spending time with her. She’d asked him once what he did. He’d told her he was a watermage trained in irrigation and offense. She’d grown still, shocked. She’d never in her life even imagined using her craft as a tool of violence. It had been a sobering indication of how different their worlds were. Reaching to steady herself on a tree, her fingers encountered some moss. She paused to stroke the soft mound of it gently. Somehow, for some reason, he was drawn to her. Maybe he’d been one of the Beast guards her Farm Guild contracted, and had grown curious at seeing a human woman wander the woods at night. Maybe he’d been wandering the woods alone, too, and it had been fate. She didn’t think she’d charmed him with her scintillating beauty and wit. Moving on, she brushed a cobweb from her shoulder. Nomi knew she was straw plain and stone sturdy. Her hands were tough, her skin was tan, and her brown eyes had sun lines. She often had a host of cuts, scratches, and bug bites, and her light brown hair was never out of its basic braid at her nape. In the beginning, Drave had told her she had great tits, and he’d loved how taut and flat her belly was, how strong her legs. Her belly had been much tighter and flatter than his, that’s for sure. She shivered, banishing the memory of his mushiness. She had enjoyed her occasional furtive lover when she was younger, but had preferred her own efforts to joining Drave in recent years. Burke had not one tiny smidgen of mushiness. He was all sculpted muscle, flowing lines. His hair was longer than most of the Guild men kept theirs. On the nights where the moon had been strong, she’d been able to tell it was a dark color of some sort, and that his eyes were light. She imagined him in shades of silver and black when she let herself think of him as she hoed, or mucked, or dug. He listened to her, and seemed to … value her. She loved how he felt so calm. Up until tonight's outburst, of course. Now she thought he was simply restrained. And when she had hit a sore spot, he'd been wild with pain inside. His hands on her hadn't frightened her. The rage wasn’t directed at her. His touch had spoken of desperation. He said he was infected with a cat… Plucking a fat-headed grass stalk, she chomped on it, watching the fluffy seed head bob and dip as she twirled it in her teeth. Could Beasts choose which animal they called? She thought they were born that way. Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe the animal chose the man. It was only recently that humans had learned more about the race that had for centuries acted as the keepers of humanity’s honor. If not for their guard duty and dedication to wiping out darkmages, no doubt the Kingdom of Seven Cities would be a poorer, darker, more violent place. They were universally respected, and universally feared. And that combination could inspire anger in people.

The leaves crunched under her feet, and a faint, warm wind rustled the branches above her. This rise had thirsty earth so Nomi gently called some water with a thought and a pulse of will. Tonight it was like summoning a frisky kitten. Rise, shimmy, burble. The earth dampened beneath her. She walked on. Nomi remembered how her grandfather would always spit after a Trux left the village upon collecting some portion of the Farm’s payment. And how her grandmother would cower inside baking on those days. She snorted. Fools. As if Beasts didn’t earn their payment, keeping the Farm safe from wild creatures, mage creatures, and wild men. As if the warriors would harm an innocent woman, or steal her away for their beastly lust. The rumors still said they did kidnap women, and worse, that the royal family negotiated to pay them with women, forcing the City Guilds to send a portion of their females as payment. Pish. Nomi would never believe the warriors who guarded her people so respectfully would also see them as payment. If Guild women went to live in the Beast Clans, it was because strong, powerful, handsome warriors made better husbands than fat, greedy merchants. Poor Burke. He was in such turmoil. Even a bit afraid. Nomi clearly mattered more to him than she’d thought. And now that he was gone, she realized he mattered to her, too. Her wild man, unafraid of the forest at night, and not expecting her to be either. She’d been able to talk to him, without worrying about any judgment whatsoever. The magelights that ringed the fence between Farm and forest reached into the woods, ruining the peace of the night. Stopping before she came into the light, she crouched for her bedtime prayers. Nomi reached out her hands and placed them flat, spread on the ground. She pressed hard, curling her fingertips into the soft earth. Water greeted her eagerly, with its constant whisper. Burble, spatter, seep. Sending her prayer deep into the ground, she concentrated. Earthmother, thank you for this glorious night, this peaceful place. Your daughter is thinking of her friend this eve. Burke needs steadying strength. He needs help. Send him some of yours, and send him back to me. “Be well, Burke. Someone cares about you.” Relaxing her arms, Nomi stood and moved toward her new little house. **** Burke watched Nomi from a low tree limb. Hunkered against the trunk, he only blinked when his eyes burned. Last night, he touched her. Her skin was cool, her arms firm with muscle, but tiny, thin. Later, in his silent cave, he laid his hands against his face and smelled her. It had quieted the constant, steady, ripping frenzy of the cat. He’d been able to sleep a few hours, such a gift. She was lashing a railing to a fence post, repairing it. Her shoulders rolled as she twined the rope around and around the joint. Her hair was dark with sweat at the edges. Her throat gleamed with it. He licked his lips. He’d grabbed her before he knew what he’d done. To say he couldn’t believe it would be a falsehood. He knew all too well that he was capable of going insane. He’d grabbed a woman he had no right to touch, with heat, with desperation. In the dimming light of day, he could see she had no bruises. His chest ached just thinking about the possibility. Or maybe it ached at what he was here to do. It was no use pretending anymore. Tonight, he would leave her. He must. The leaves of the branches that hid him rained down as his grip ripped at the fragile stems. Now she was legally free among her own people, without even the pretense of a

husband like before. That one social construct had been a leash of sorts. He could tell himself she was taken, even though she smelled of herself. He had watched her enter the large house each night, the house of another man. But now she came smiling out of an insultingly small hut. Alone. She wasn’t just a friendly woman to distract him from his fear. He hadn’t merely found a kindred watermage to pass the evenings with. Nomi was his mate. And as such, he was a danger to her. Even more a danger than a lone alpha usually was. The Mountaincat inside him was driven into a frenzy every time they saw her, every time they left her. His hate of the creature was solid enough to keep it contained, but it was so draining. Day after tedious day, night after lonely night, he had no Clan, no friends, no family, no touch, no purpose but to keep his little plot of land clear and safe. And keep the cat contained. Always, the rampant fury, the wildness twisting inside him. Every second of every minute. The thought of existing like this for the next sixty years infuriated him. Tormented him. Sucked every drop of hope from his veins as he stared at the being who was his salvation. With a graceful lunge of her body, she braced her arms on the new railing and twisted, sitting on it. She bounced a few times, testing it. She fell still, shrinking into herself. Burke’s eyes jumped to the path. A man walked by with a cluster of hoes gathered on one shoulder. He never looked at her, never said a word in passing. Nomi sat still on the fence until he was a few bodylengths away, then jumped down, gathering her extra twine and tools. Burke lost sight of her as she wove into the cornfield, hurrying, hiding. The cat screamed and slashed, making his ribs throb. His thighs ached with the will he exerted to not follow her. He went to the field where they lay last night, dodging a Wolf on patrol. The flattened area still smelled faintly of her. He moved to the waterfall, climbed the rocks to the top. Leaning low, he took a drink of the cool, swift water. Then he sat on the ledge, legs dangling, staring at the pile of boulders below. He sat there until the night sky was black. The cloud covering thickened the air but gave no relief. Eventually, he heard her footsteps. Tonight, he did not have to hunt her. He’d guessed right, that the humidity would drive her here. Her tread was slow, and sometimes paused. She respected the forest. Despite her comfort with it, she was never overconfident in it. He was so amazed and proud at her lack of human fear. She paused when she entered the clearing by the river. “Evening, Burke.” The cat stilled, quivering. His shoulders burned as they relaxed. He took his first easy breath of the day. “Evening, Nomi.” “I wish you hadn’t left last night.” He stayed silent. He had nothing to say. She didn’t know how dangerous he was. How even his own people distrusted him. “I’m glad you’re here now, though.” His heart flipped in his chest. Having spent many hours watching her in the daytime, he knew she didn’t speak much with the others in her Guild. Yet with him, she was generous, open and easy. She moved along the path downhill, winding through the trees gracefully. “Hot today. Storm won’t break, though. It will pass us.” “Yes.” He suspected she was a stronger watermage than he. And with his Truxet

blood, that was saying something. He bet that if she had to, she’d have been able to survive the Council tests and earn a place as a Council watermage. She wouldn’t have been banished, failing as he had. He watched her unwind her laces from the leather vest. She pulled it off and dropped it next to the rocks at the river’s edge. The sigh of relief she gave went right to his gut. The cat roared, shaking his bones inside him. Sitting on a rock, she worked on her boots. Her smell mingled with that of the forest, the waterfall saturating the air, the storm. He drew it in as deeply as he could, and held it, memorized it. “Are you coming in?” Her voice was low, her face bent over her feet, but he heard her clearly. Just as he saw with perfect clarity the line of her spine, the sweep of her ribs, the subtle flare of her hips. He stood and began to strip.

Chapter Two By the time she picked her way over the rocks, he launched himself off the lip of shale, curled into a tight ball, and landed with a sting of refreshing cool in a splash. He heard her shriek even underwater. When he broke the surface, the rumble of the waterfall was loud, and her outstretched body gleamed like a precious carving above him. “Aiyeeee!” She landed right beside him, sending an impressive wall of water in all directions. She coughed, spluttering, when she righted herself, treading water. He stroked closer, instantly. “Catch your breath?” She nodded, blinking, laughing. “You got me, but I got you worse.” His blood sang. Her eyes looked his way blindly. He knew she couldn’t see him much at all, and knew she didn’t know just how clearly he saw her. But her happy acceptance of him settled the cat, for a blissful moment. Then she dove in a glimpse of a taut ass, and Mountaincat heaved hard in his brain, claws aching inside his fingertips. A hard hand closed around his ankle. He was genuinely shocked at her strength when she jerked him under. He rolled and grabbed, but she slipped away. He surfaced, breathing hard. Not from his sudden dunking, but from the will it took not to follow. If she realized what she dared by teasing him into chasing her… He couldn’t. He simply couldn’t risk chasing her, wrestling with her, no matter how innocently. It wouldn’t be innocent on his end. He circled, but didn’t see her. Moving to the side so he could stand and focus, he swept the water with his cat-enhanced eyes. He circled again, but still she didn’t surface. He inhaled, and only scented her clothes to the side. “Nomi!” Her giggle was almost hidden by the waterfall. He jerked toward the gap behind the falls. In three strokes, he’d joined her in the tiny cave. It was cooler than the humid air of the summer night behind the curtain of water. “That wasn’t nice. You could have gotten a cramp. I was worried.” “Sorry.” Her voice was patently unapologetic. He opened his mouth, but his thought left his head when she boosted herself up onto the shale shelf. Her breasts bobbed, heavy and full. The nipples were puckered tightly, darker than her chest. Her belly rippled as she lifted her arms and pushed her hair back, squeezing the braid. “I adore it back here. It’s so … secret.” She tipped her head back, exposing her throat. The submissive pose sent cat hurtling against his ribs. His dick rose, steady and constant, until it was rigid, the cool water on the sensitive flesh agonizing. He closed his eyes, blotting out her decadent image. With one arm hooked on the ledge near her leg, he let himself drift in the water as he focused on keeping his hands to himself. The shale was sharp, but slippery. He ground his wrist into the loose chips on the edge, welcoming the focusing bite. “Can I tell you something, Burke?” “I like listening to you share your ideas, Nomi.” He kept his eyes closed. “I know. I sense that, and it’s … nice.” He waited while she sat quietly for several moments.

Her voice barely whispered over the sound of the falling water. “I pray here, sometimes.” He opened his eyes and looked up at her. She faced away from him, off to the side of the cave, one arm outstretched and brushing some ferns that clung to the crannies at the edge of the cliff. Her face in near profile was solid, steady. Her stubborn chin, her tiny nose, her delicate ear. “This is a good place to focus.” “Do you pray?” He turned so his shoulders cut into the edge of the shelf, hung his elbows up on the edge. Facing out, he could stare at the sheeting water and not at her. “I don’t believe in your sacred couple, Nomi. I believe humans have put their own construct over the Six. But I do believe the Six power the entire world. They underlie it, and they move through it. It’s easy to think of each of them as alive, with a personality.” “You believe each of the magic elements is their own god?” “Not a god. A force. Each is necessary and interwoven with the others. We are the Six, but the Six are more than us.” He saw her lean forward out of the corner of his eye. She touched the waterfall and the force of the water splattered lightly over both of them. Her arms were darker than her torso. Her hand was calloused, the nails short and broken. Those hands starred in vivid, forbidden yearnings. “But you must have spiritmages. If you have no Temple, then how do they serve? What rules do they follow?” “My people have laws that seem harsh to many humans, but to us they are more just than what we see in your Cities. And they are all based on honor. First, there is the foundation, our family. Then there is our Clan. Beyond that is our people, all of the eleven Clans, ruled by our Council. Loosely, there is the bonds of our craft, which element we call. We are Trux. We need our pride, to believe in honoring the group, to help us master our beastspirits.” “It must be lonely. To believe in only yourself and your own control, without the Couple to guide you.” Her words echoed through him. He trembled with the force of her perception. Clenching his fists, he pressed back into the sharp ledge. “We’re not alone. Our Alpha guides us, and through him, the Clan.” Except for me. Except for failures like me. “I believe in Earthmother and Skyfather.” She seemed to hold her breath. “I believe you are a beautiful spirit. Your faith is part of that.” She settled. “I have faith … but…” She squirmed, kicking in the water. He waited, breathing through Mountaincat’s internal growls. “I don’t feel Them there, in the Temple. When we gather to worship, I only feel trapped, and angry. It’s out here, in the Wild, that I feel Them. And here, in this space … once I actually felt like I almost talked to Earthmother.” Her voice was so quiet, only a Trux with cat ears could have heard her. He couldn’t resist her distress. He turned, looking up at her, gripping the ledge for support. “Faith is a personal journey, Nomi. No amount of tradition can force that to change.” She looked down at him. He met her eyes, those eyes he’d never seen closely in the light of day. In the shadows, they were black, soft.

“Burke, don’t leave.” He jerked. Her perception again. He trembled, fingertips biting into the rock until his nails scraped. “You’re worried you’re not safe to be near, but Burke, you’re the safest person I’ve ever met. Me, the woman that is myself, is safe with you.” He jerked his eyes from hers before he lunged for her. Wrapping her in his arms, pulling her down onto his dick. No, he would not. “I can feel it. You’re just at the edge, and any minute now you’re going to turn and leave, like you did last night. For good. Don’t.” Her hand shifted on the edge of the shale so close to his. “Please.” He closed his eyes. “Nomi, I am…” He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell her. Part of the joy of coming to her was the fact she didn’t know his shame. Didn’t understand how wrong he was as a Trux. “Do you remember how you said you couldn’t stay? Sometimes you just couldn’t stand it anymore?” “But you don’t feel like that with me. You relax, with me.” “I’m… I’m…” “You have no idea what it has meant to me, to know I have a friend. All of this mess with Drave and the divorce, it’s awful. No matter what you have to do, Burke, I want you to know I’ll always remember this summer. I’ve never really understood the draw of friendship, before I met you. I’m so glad you came out of the shadows.” He remembered the first time she became aware of him following her, and how she had no fear scent. He remembered her low, throaty voice calling him in the night, to come to her. He remembered the night he found her sleeping against a yew tree, and how he’d had to hold onto himself to keep from snatching her up and taking her away to his cave. And she’d opened those dark eyes … and smiled. I have to go. I can’t touch you again. I’m not strong enough to be here. “I’m glad I met you, too.” He hesitated, the goodbye stuck in his throat as the presence of the cat swelled in his head. “Let’s jump off the cliff above!” Nomi launched herself through the waterfall, laughing. He stared at the wall of water. This was the third time they’d gone swimming together. It was the second time they’d jumped off the rocks above. This was the first time she’d pulled him underwater. He knew he should go. But he wanted more. **** Nomi stood by the oak, shaking. It was a large oak, and it shimmered green with massive magecraft, just like City walls. She’d never gone so far before. She’d never dared on her angriest nights. The tree was only two bodylengths from her. She had no idea what would happen if she walked through that seething barrier. Was it only to keep things out? Or was it to keep willful, wandering women in? She was exhausted, aching from the long day and long walk. She was thirsty, and she stank. She wanted to sleep, but couldn’t. Tonight was the third night she’d come out. And the third night he wasn’t there. She’d been nervous the first night, earlier in the week. She’d been sad the second. But tonight, after two days of yearning—be there, Burke, be there—she was furious. Swallowing down her scream of rage, Nomi concentrated on keeping her anger

contained. The pressure of water gathering under her feet was immense. She wanted to yank it free from the earth and send it into the air as a geyser of discontent. He’d been gone a week. Days and days … no one to talk to, to share with. He wasn’t hers. She couldn’t order him. But she’d asked. And he’d turned away. It was wrong. She sent her senses wide through the forest, pushing the water to test the earth for her. Nothing. No watchers at all. No Burke, hanging back in the shadows. He was gone. She’d set out after waiting two hours with the intent to go find him, sure he was just watching out of sight. Nomi laughed bitterly, the hoarse rasp sounding dangerous in the still, quiet forest. Four hours later, she’d hit this oak. The wilderness was more vast than she’d ever tested. Standing before this oak, she didn’t know what angered her more— Burke, or this spell halting her progress. The desire to keep walking burned in her aching feet. She’d tripped and fallen in the shadowed night many times. She had scratches on her arms and face, had even skinned her arm badly when she’d walked into a tree. Her heart hammered with the need to find Burke. It also pounded with excitement and possibility. The new stream, the forgotten apple grove, there was so much more to find. Nomi wanted to keep going, exploring the land and the end of her strength. One step closer to Burke’s home, one step farther from the Farm. But Burke was not here. Burke was afraid. Burke needed help, and he’d turned from the only person who seemed to notice. She wanted to smack him. Then she wanted to hug him. She wanted to take his hand and take him… Nomi sank onto her haunches, folding one leg beneath her. Bowing her head to rest it on her knee, she rocked. She’d been so hurt. So angry. So worried. It was all mixed up. But she saw clearly now, this whole walk was selfish. She didn’t want to find Burke and care for him like a wounded chick. She wanted him to escape with her, into the Wild. **** Panting, Burke crashed into a fern-covered rise. Moaning, gritting his teeth, he rolled, one arm wrapped tightly around his torso, another gouging his thigh through his leathers. The Mountaincat in him raged and screamed and fought, as if for its very life. Eyes screwed shut, hair dripping with sweat, Burke gagged and choked, fighting even to breathe as it tried to take command of his body. I am Burke, born to Wolves. I am a Trux warrior. I have honor. I have family. I— “You’re the Trux I’ve been smelling these past weeks. What the fuck are you doing here?” Burke’s eyes opened, stinging with the sweat of his long run. Shit! Aravon stood above him on the rise, arms folded. The Watercoaster Clan was known to be playful and easygoing. Those traits seemed to have missed Aravon. He was whip slender, all muscle and bone. But even though Burke had at least six heads in weight on him, he wouldn’t want to tangle with the powerful skymage. Burke tried to unlock his jaws. He only managed to swallow. “You have absolutely no reason to be here. Look at you. Clearly you’re fucked up. You’ve got your supplies for this quarter. Why aren’t you in your territory?” Burke’s stomach lurched. The Mountaincat wanted to rip his brother Trux’s throat out. The violent urges were completely unwarranted. The man knew Aravon was in the right. The Mountaincat only saw challenge. Burke shook his head.

“By the Six, answer me or I’ll haul you before your Alpha myself. Lone cat, you are wandering in an area you have no duty in, no need, and no business.” Burke rolled onto his side. Bracing his hand in the soft, dark earth, he struggled to sit up. The Mountaincat screamed for their mate. She’d been sitting on a rock, peeling sweetbark. He had watched her hand peeling, the long sweeps of it, and cat dreamed of her petting them. And then he’d seen her tip her head, listening to things he couldn’t hear, and knew he had to go. Never before in the weeks of watching her had he such a time physically moving his body. It was like his brain had disconnected, needing all its resources to fight the cat. It had been only two weeks of separation, and already, he was dangerously starved for her. “You either speak to me now or—have you gone rogue? Is there a Trux in there or are you just a lost beast, already dead?” Aravon’s voice was tight and low. Burke wretched into the ferns, a thin trickle of stinking water. There wasn’t anything else. Gasping after he spat, he hissed, “I am no rogue.” Aravon only grunted. He moved down the rise to stand at Burke’s feet. His arms were no longer crossed, but he balanced on the balls of his feet, ready. “Why do you keep coming here?” A paid woman. I forgot a bag of corn. I wanted to trade for dried jerky. The lies swept through Burke’s brain. “I have free passage. There are no restrictions on my travel.” His voice was weak, out of breath from the desperate run away from Nomi, from the internal fight he still waged. “Fuck you, lone alpha. You’re such a waste of elements. Too weak for your Clan, too lazy for Council. All that power and you just wander around uselessly. I should report you for hunting in these woods. Why are you puking in the ferns?” Burke pushed to his feet in a miraculous display of will. He stood, one leg braced against the fern hill, and stared Aravon down, lifting his chin. “The way I hear it, you didn’t make Council warrior either, boy. Trying to play with the alphas didn’t work, and now you’re taking it out on me.” Aravon’s chin jutted up along with Burke’s. He crossed his arms again, eyes narrowing. “You’re that Wolf-changeling. I didn’t recognize you with that long hair. And the ferns. Answer the question. What are you doing here?” Burke stared at him. He had to give the man something or he would enjoy turning him in. “The waterfall.” “Pardon?” “I’m a watermage. The waterfall here is very peaceful.” “That’s where the female goes.” Burke’s knee buckled with the force of the Mountaincat’s mental lunge toward Aravon. His gorge circled in his stomach. For a dizzying moment, Burke felt fur under his skin, bristling. Aravon continued. “Are you hunting her?” “No.” And there it was. The lie hung on the air. “There’s other waterfalls. I suggest you go find them. There’s a woman here who wanders the inner perimeter. I don’t want the likes of you running into her in the night.” Burke concentrated on staying on his feet and understanding Aravon’s words. “I’ll look into them.” Had the man not smelled the lie? “You’re a wreck, lone alpha. Pathetic and sick. Get to your territory, and stay away

from the humans on my watch.” He stirred a stiff wind at Burke, making Burke’s lip lift in a snarl. The man took a half step closer. “Don’t show aggression toward me, by Ash.” Burke slowly, stiffly, turned from the guard and walked toward the sifting stone that would take him to the northern forests of his territory and his lonely cave. He had no idea how he managed, but he made it to the stone on numb legs. Aravon followed him the whole way. He stood in the shadows and watched as Burke grabbed the sifting spell and left the Farm. Deep inside, the Mountaincat howled, maaaaaate! **** She loved her little hut. The rain dripped off the thatched roof, pattering into a shallow gulley along the outer walls. It was just like all the other neat, plain, mud brick houses except for its miniscule size and the two clusters of knee-high sunflowers growing on either side of the weathered plank door. Golden magelight flickered faintly from the one small window. Nomi sat in the window, her arm propped on the sill, one hand playing with the roof spill. Her fingers cupped and flicked the draining water. Nude, her loose hair fell in waves over her shoulders and chest. It was silky, and cut the chill from the rainy night. The interior was stark, the most barren home in the village. There was a small table, and a chair against the far wall. Then a bed, tiny and narrow, with the mageheat at its foot. There was a broom in the corner. A few clothes hung on pegs. The plank door had once been stained blue, long ago, and the thin summer blanket on the bed was the same color. And that was all. Nomi listened to the shushing of rain on the thatch above her. The hut was solid, plain, and practical. It suited her. If only it was by itself, deep in the woods. Today, Drave had announced they were pregnant, him and his new wife. And all eyes had turned on her with glee. She’d tried to hide in the tack room, but everyone seemed to come looking for tools. “Oh, Nomi, this must be so hard. She’s such a bit of a thing. I’ll bet she has a difficult birth, that one. That’s what he gets for marrying a child.” “Nomi, don’t worry, some fine young man will still be interested in you. You’re one of the best watermages in the Farm.” “So, Nomi, are you and Drave still on good terms? I’m not sure, if you haven’t seen him lately, since you live out there all by yourself, that you’ve heard his big news.” “I can’t imagine him announcing it so grand. Why, you’d think a babe had never been born here before. And it’s been what, a month since they wed? She’s probably a day late with her passing.” She’d kept her eyes down, her gut churning, her rage building, and refused to speak. By mid-afternoon, she’d known if she didn’t get out of the village that night, she’d run stark raving mad through the main street. And then the skies had opened, as if Skyfather were rebuking her. Challenging her. Cursing her. Not that she would have found the solace she was used to. She missed Burke. For the first time in her life, Nomi knew what it was to be … lonely. The pine hollow’s scent reminded her of climbing up into the bows with him that windy night, and the waterfall reminded her of her shrieking laughter as they’d leaped into the pool. Behind the curtain

of water, she’d told him how she felt closer to the Sacred Couple there than ever in the Temple, a blasphemy she’d never shared. He’d told her about his own faith, and it had been fascinating to hear such strange ideas. The meadow now felt exposed to her, and the grasses were drying in the summer heat, coarse and abrasive. The rock scramble overlooking the single road out of the Farm to the Royal City was her new favorite perch. She sat with her back to the road and looked out over the undulating sea of green. Somewhere, Burke was out there. It would do no good to seek him out. He’d be with so many others, his own kind. He might even be with women who craved community things like gossip, recipes, handicrafts, and talking about children. Nomi wanted to be up there now, on the rocky outcrop, nude, arms lifted to the wild storm. She wanted to be there in the dark and the wet, and scream, and scream. As if Skyfather muttered at her, thunder rumbled sullenly overhead. Watching the water glitter in her low magelight, the damp evening still too warm for mageheat, she danced her fingers through the roof’s spillage. She wanted to be out there, but it wasn’t safe. Even she wasn’t so bold as to stagger around in a black storm. So she sat here brooding, moody and restless. Between one heartbeat and the next, she felt him. Burke was out there. Finally. It had been weeks. Her fingers never stopped dancing in the falling water, and her gaze never shifted from her short nails, that she could never quite clear of their edge of dirt. Her heart beat like Short Night drums, and her toes wiggled in anticipation. Should she invite him in? Would he run again? Back to his Clan, back to the paid women, back to training how to use water as a weapon? He had no business being her friend. Especially when he disappeared for a month. Without making a conscious decision, Nomi reached out her hands, cupped them, and gathered the steady rain into the bowl of her flesh. Then she bent her arms, and splashed back on her chest. It ran down her hair, dribbled in chill lines down her belly. Smiling, she leaned out over the wooden sill and did it again. This time, her hair soaked up some of the water, and darkened. A third time, and her hair stuck to the slopes of her breasts. What was she doing? Nearly panting with excitement, rage, and daring, she stood from her small chair, tossed her damp hair over her shoulders, and splashed the next handful directly onto her bared breasts. Oh! The water stung and slid over her skin. She cradled the shocked globes, lifting their weight in her hands. She pressed them tightly and kneaded herself deeply, letting her head fall to the side. Burke was watching her. She'd have to give him something worth watching. She stretched forward, feeling her breasts hang and pull on her body, and splashed herself again. Huffing a laugh, she stared down at her nipples, which always seemed to stab up toward her face like flowers to the sun. They were darker than her skin, a light brown. The skin at the tip was pebbled thickly. She never cared for a light touch. She liked to be pressed and pulled and twisted. So she did. Letting her head roll back so her damp hair brushed her ass, she worked her wet nipples, gathering the pleasure in her swelling breasts, the focus on her body thickening her blood. She slid one hand up her chest, gliding over her throat, up along her face so her hand curled through her hair and behind her head, elbow pointing high, her breast lifting. She sent the other hand down over her stomach, through her soft curls, just

nudging into her slit. She gasped at the thicker wetness there, more slippery, hot. A image came to her of what her arched, displayed body must look like as viewed from the woods, with a curtain of water shimmering in front of her, and golden light glowing behind her. Her clit pulsed with need. She opened her eyes and stared into the dripping bushes, lowering her hand, cupping her breast, squeezing the nipple with her thumb and forefinger, sending her other fingers swirling around her clit. He'd come to her from the Wild, in the night, and no one had ever felt been so right by her side. Over a few handfuls of hours, she'd trusted him, settled with him, and taken more comfort than she'd ever known. Working her breasts with deeply kneading fingers, she bit her lip. There was no shame in standing so boldly. She had no doubt he'd find pleasure in watching. She hoped he got hard. She hoped he ached. He had all the freedom, while she was trapped here. Let him taste the edge of her frustration, as he'd shared his that night weeks ago. “You can wait out there in the dark, or you can come in and watch me finish. I started this and I’m going to end it, but then I’d love to talk to you.” She turned and went to the bed, every step making her breath catch as she felt her lower lips rub, her breasts hang heavily. Lying down on the covers, she spread her legs, drew up her knees, and put both hands to work. Her clit throbbed and pulsed. Cream oozed from her body toward her ass. “Ohhhhhh…” It had been too long since she’d done this. Months and months. She’d thought of doing it once, shortly after watching Burke’s silhouette swim with her in the waterfall the first time, but her thoughts had been too much of him, and it had felt wrong. He was her new friend, polite and quiet. She hadn't wanted to masturbate with his image in her mind, creating a fantasy that could never be. Screw that. Tonight she wouldn't imagine him watching her, she would take his gaze and add it to her own heat. Her stomach was taut as she rolled her shoulders up to dig her hands deeper, sending her fingers inside the clutch of her body. Eventually, she set up a rocking motion, her ass clenched, her breasts lifted and aching between her straining arms. Her feet moved restlessly on the bed as she sought out the sensations she wanted. In a scramble, she came up onto her knees, thighs spread wide. Because her bed was so narrow, she turned sideways on it so her feet wouldn’t fall off the edge. At least, that sounded like a plausible reason for why she turned herself toward the window. Blearily, her fingers swirling, plucking, delving, curling, she opened her eyes. And saw him standing against the house, one shoulder and half his face faintly visible in the weak magelight. His fingers gripped the windowsill tightly. With a soft cry, she thrust several fingers into her hole, spreading it, making it burn. Her other hand worked her clit in desperation, flattened fingers rubbing hard. Nomi stared at the faint gleam that was Burke’s eye, tucked her hips forward, and her entire core tightened in one long clenching vice. “Ahhhhhh…” Her body poised in that striving moment. She swayed as the pleasure bit through her. Burke, watching her. Then, “Ahhh.” Her hands fell to brace on her trembling thighs, her head dropping forward, her hair tumbling in a mess over her chest. Gasping for breath, she smelled herself. And her heart kicked at the realization, Burke had just seen it all. Her clit pulsed again at the thought, and she jerked her legs together

so she could writhe on them. With a twist, she let herself fall back on the bed, one arm going up overhead, the other on her quivering stomach. She raised her hand up to her mouth and proceeded to lick her cream off each finger. When she got to the third, she paused, looked over at the window. He hadn’t moved. By the Earthmother, that had been the most beautiful, freeing sexual experience of her life. “Evening, Burke.” Her voice surprised her. It sounded sexy, almost a low purr. She smiled. “Thanks for sharing that.” The tremor passed over him. “Evening, Nomi. Thank you.” She shouldn’t say it, but she couldn’t help it. “Did you like it?” “You were … a dream.” She laughed. Oh boy. She was giddy, too relaxed for having finished such a bold display. “Are you coming in?” He was quiet for so long she started to doze. “I—I need you to get dressed first.” She rolled onto her side, head propped in her hand. Her breasts shifted. She tweaked a nipple through her hair. His fingers seemed to curl into the wood. Abruptly, the gentle patter of water on the roof seemed to scold her. Shame curdled her belly. She wasn’t offering herself, so she should stop teasing. “Sure, I can do that.” Nomi went to her pegs and picked off her summer sleep shirt, a loose, sleeveless bag of thin, lavender fabric which fell to her knees. When she turned around, she jumped a bit. He was inside, standing by the window. “Nomi.” Earthmother, he seemed to fill up the whole hut. His shoulders blocked the window, his head brushed the eaves. He dripped all over, his hair slicked back to his head. For the first time, Nomi had a clear view of Burke. By Skyfather's fury … he was young! Much younger than she. “How have you been, Burke?” She watched him tip his head, his eyes slitting as he scented the hut. “I’ve been better.” “I’m glad you came back. I missed you.” Hungrily, she studied all the details she’d missed with their nighttime visits. The angular planes of his face, the stubble on his jaw. His eyes looked bruised, with thick dark circles beneath them. She took in the fact he had sideburns, and his vest was entirely plain, where all the Beasts she'd ever seen wore ones embossed with animals. His leathers were old, scarred, and supple, revealing the lines of powerful, bulging muscle in his thighs. His waist was trim. His hands were in fists at his side. He looked at her, and for the first time, she realized his eyes really were the silver of her moonlit imagination. They were a lovely, light gray, and when he turned his head just so, seemed to flash metallic. “You missed me.” Doubt and surprise colored his words. I thought about you every day. You’ve ruined all my favorite places. I was worried about you. I’ve never had a friend before. How much can I ask? “Yes, I did.” “I wanted to make sure you were doing all right, now you are on your own.” She gathered her hair over her shoulder and finger combed it. “Burke, I’ve been alone all my life. I like it this way.” His eyes tracked her fingers. “Why do you say that? You weren’t alone. Your family

and husband were with you. The Farm Guild is much closer than many Guilds in the Cities.” “My parents and Drave never knew me. They never cared to even try. All the people in the Guild, they cluster and hover.” She began to braid her hair. “They want me to be like them, and I’ve never been. I can’t be. Water is always whispering to me. Don’t you hear her?” “Hard not to hear her on a night like this.” The pattering on the thatch above them comforted her now, made her sleepy instead of restless. “You don’t hear her? Under our feet. Moving along the rock, moving in the trees, gathering in the sky.” “I’ve felt Water when I meditate. Do you hear Water like that all the time?” “Yes. Always.” “How do you focus?” Nomi laughed, moving over to her table. She gathered up a leather strip, and tied off her braid. “I don’t. I go walking in the woods at night. I leave the fields to follow her call, and suddenly find myself standing, head cocked, in a part of the Farm that needs more water, or less.” His gaze dropped to her feet. She curled her toes. Noticed he had leather boots gone black with water, which closed tightly all the way up to his knee. “And when people talk at me, I often lose track of what they say. I prefer to listen to Water than their meaningless babble. Water is everything I hear.” “You masturbate with the water of a summer storm.” Swallowing, Nomi sat in the chair by the table. “I don’t have any food or drink here to offer you. Won’t you sit down?” He sat, although the simple wooden chair was too small for him. It was so very heart-pounding to see him there, next to her bed, in her hut. Her thighs were slick with her recent cream. He watched her. She watched his boots, with occasional glances at his face. That was not the face of a boy. He was handsome, closed, and hard-looking. His lips had looked softer and fuller in the woods. Here they were a slash on his face. “You want to tell me how you’ve been better? What’s troubling you?” He blinked at her, slow and lazy. “I’m still struggling with the fact I put my hands on you. I’m drawn to you, Nomi, but I shouldn’t be here.” “I never feared you, even in your distress. Burke … I think you’re here because I can help you. I want to help you.” Burke’s silver eyes met hers. He shook his head. “I don’t—“ “If you say you don’t deserve any help, so help me, I’ll rip your hair out.” They stared at each other, until she grinned. His shoulders eased. “Tell me, Burke. How is it you found me in the night? What’s kept you from sleeping? Why don’t you trust yourself?” She was distracted when a drop of water curled from behind his ear and trickled down his corded neck. “Is it your cat?” If she’d thought his face was closed before, she now saw him batten the shutters. His hands clenched on his knees. His gaze swept the hut, and returned to pin her. But a few awkward breaths later he said, “I was supposed to be a Wolf.” Oh. That would be a rather large disappointment. What could she say? His words, about a pure dream, came back to her. She watched him, her hands clasping in her lap. She wasn’t good at sympathy.

“My family has been Wolves since our keepers first recorded the Clan lineage. My father is a red wolf. My best friend and litter-mate is a red wolf. All the younglings I trained with are wolves. And when my hand first Changed, it was a cat’s paw.” She stayed quiet. She nodded, which was as close as she could get to a response. Her throat swelled. Memories assaulted her, of standing in Drave’s big house, with him giving her a tour of the large, cold rooms, while she still carried her bundle of clothes. She knew what it was like to leave the only home you’d known. And hers hadn’t even been warm. She just knew, somehow, his parents were probably loving. “Of course, that made it even worse.” She looked up at him again. He stared at his knees, gripping them tightly. It very much looked like he was trying to pin himself in place. “Because a cat is the opposite of a wolf?” He blinked, looked confused. Shook his head. “No, because I had a partial Change. I am an alpha. Truxet who have this ability can blend just parts of their three forms, at will.” “Well, that sounds like a powerful ability. Why did it make it worse for you?” He stared at his hands on his knees. When he finally looked up at her, his eyes were utterly bleak. How had he described it before? Lost. Yes. He looked lost. Her thighs jumped with the intent to go to him, but she didn’t. “Because in every clanhome there can be only two alphas. The Clan Alpha, our leader, and his Shield. So you see, Nomi, I went from the Wolves, who live in packs on the wide plains, to the Mountaincats, who live in caves with their own territorial needs. Yet I knew even as I arrived that I couldn’t stay.” He looked toward her bed. She saw his eyes drift down as he inhaled. She wondered if he could still smell her. Keeping her voice quiet, Nomi said, “Tell me, Burke. Tell me what happened.”

Chapter Three Sitting rigid in the chair, his silver eyes went distant. “I barely knew them. They’d known each other always, and I was different. I was Mountaincat, but one raised by Wolves. And then I had to leave my new, barely known Clan, leave my Alpha, and go to the Council’s watermages. “I tried to train with them, bond with them. I wanted to be a useful member of my people. I wanted to be a full warrior, respected in my honor. How did you put it? ‘Sometimes you just can’t stay.’ That was me. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t control my rage. I couldn’t stop … hating.” “The cat? Isn’t it part of you? Inside you?” “Yes. The cat is inside me. Where it will stay. And I do hate it. I always will. So I am at war with myself. Because it wants out.” He tilted his head back and breathed deeply, this time as if mastering control. She watched the tremor ease over him, a beautiful wave of his muscles from shoulder to wrist. “It always wants out. Too fucking bad. I’m in control of this body. I hated all of it. The pitying stares from warriors in Clans. The whispers from the other watermages. The silence from my new Clan, from my old Clan. I tried. I tried all different tricks to stay in the watermage lair, to become a Council warrior.” His head bowed. “I couldn’t do it.” He looked at her, his water darkened hair tumbling over his brow. It did nothing to hide the blind pain in his eyes. His pain drove her to her feet. “I couldn’t do it, Nomi. I had to go.” “Burke…” She stepped toward him. “It’s not so bad, being alone. Hasn’t it gotten better? My anger always falls away when I go off alone, when I can listen to water and just be.” He shook his head. “It’s almost worse. I’ve never been alone in my life. Even on an overnight hunt, there would be a pack of us together. And now when I go back, for supplies, for duties, to visit … they all doubt my honor. As they should. I crave both my Clans. I remember what it is to sleep with that kind of strength around me. And now there is no one.” He hadn’t responded to her move toward him. She sat on the bed, her knees a handspan from his. “That's not fair of them. You are the same man you've always been, you just live in a different place. If you don’t like being alone, why don’t you go back?” “Ah, Nomi. You’re so sweet. An alpha warrior has two paths, Council or Lone. Once you’ve failed at Council, it’s done. Unless I want to challenge for Clan Alpha or Shield, I’m alone, for the rest of my life. I’ll never do that. A Clan changeling like me wouldn’t be a good leader for a Clan.” “So, you’re lonely?” His lips twisted. He turned his hand over and looked at it blindly. “Lonely. Yes. I miss my Wolf pack, and my Alpha. But that’s not it. I go through whole days where I just exist. I patrol. I hunt. I sleep. I train. But then I’ll finally sleep a bit, but the nightmares… When I wake up, I shake." He held a hand out in front of himself. They both stared at it. It was strong, tan, with a light dusting of dark hair. The fingers were elegant and long. Nomi reached out but he

pulled it back to his knee. "I shake, and I can’t stop for hours. I hate, so much. I hate it, that it came to me. I hate myself, for being what it wanted. I wonder what I could have done to bring the Wolf to me, where I failed. I hate that it came so strong in me, that I can’t be in my new Clan without wanting to rip my Shield’s face off and bathe in his blood.” One of Burke’s tremors passed down Nomi’s arms. “Life is often not fair, not even for the strongest. You know this from being a hunter, living in the Wild.” “It’s not injustice that makes me sick. I deserve this. Somehow, the way I view the world made Wolf flee my bloodlines and let the cat in. Nothing is wrong with being a Mountaincat. Their warriors are strong and capable, a mighty force. But I barely know them. The cat is so strong within me, I have no place with them. And the memory of my dream, to run with the Wolf pack, shoulder to shoulder with my father, it is an ache in me. “I’m never going to be the man I hoped to be. I’m some pale, distant shadow. It’s the vision of me as a failure that made me hate and doubt and fail at claiming a place in the Council’s ranks. It was my own inability to let the past go, let my new reality thrive. I hate. It’s like you said. I’m ill with it. It’s best I’m by myself in the Wild now.” Nomi stared past him at the veil of rain. It seemed to be lessening. “So, when you followed me, and watched me, and spied on me in the Farm … when you came to me and listened to me and shared with me and became my friend … you said I was the only thing that made sense. I understood your thought, completely.” Burke breathed deeply. “What are you saying, Nomi?” “I’m not sure… I’m just following the stream here. You’re alone, and you don’t like it. You’re angry, and so am I, but I like being alone… We found each other, and we— what? Soothe? Comfort? Each other?” Burke’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Nomi…” “You watched me fuck myself, Burke. You caught fireflies for me. You listened to me talk about my favorite Short Night, the one time in my life I thought I could be happy in my Guild. Then you listened to me talk about how they all turned on me when I found little lost Jo, afraid of how clearly I can hear water. You need help. I prayed for you, and the Earthmother sent you back, but maybe she sent you to me in the first place.” She looked at him curiously. “You said you’re not married.” A tremor eased over him, so hard this time he swayed with it. “No. And I have no children.” Nomi chewed on her lip, wondering. “Why did you follow me, Burke? What made you come up to me that first night, when I was sleeping?” He abruptly stood. She jumped up as well. “Oh no. Don’t you run this time.” "A human woman laying in the woods at night … you could have needed help." "Stop it." "Nomi, I just shared my shame with you. How can you even bare to look at me?" "What? You mean you're the only one allowed to hate your life?" "It's more than that. I hate myself. And Truxet, we're not like humans. You say what a comfort it is to get away from your Guild. But for a Trux, being away from our Clan weakens us. Clan is everything, Nomi. Water occupies all your thoughts? Well family is what occupies mine. We need our family, our Alpha, our children. It's what binds us to

our human form, our laws. Without it, the Wild calls our Beasts. Our Beasts forget honor. If they have no family, no Clan, they are nothing but another wild predator on the prowl. A rogue." Nomi's mind spun with worry. The tightness in Burke's voice told her he still restrained himself, but the wildness was just there, just underneath. He feared it so much. "You still haven't answered my question. Here's me, a woman with no home, no family. I desperately want to get out. Here's you, a man of honor—no matter what you say I don't believe otherwise—a man hurt, and confused, desperately in need of belonging. How did you find me? Why did you stay?" He stepped up to her, and an identical tremor ran through both of them. Nomi felt it—the comfort of his nearness, the settling of her agitated thoughts. "The better question is why do I keep coming back? I'm weak. So fucking weak, and damaged, and wrong for you." "Maybe what you see as weak is the heart of a man who's had to go through more than any other. The man who still fights, when it would be easier to quit." Once again, she could see she'd shocked him. "Being stubborn when my back is to the wall isn't courage. It's spite. I'll never quit, Stormdancer. I’ll never go rogue, giving this cat freedom. I promised my father, and I'll promise you." His hand was by her face, and as she processed that, she felt the light, warm touch drift along her cheek. Her skin sizzled. "By Stone and Ash, Nomi. I'm not going to be able to stay away. I'm not strong enough." "Good. I want you beside me. In the fields, in the trees, in the water." As she took a breath, her brain added, in my bed. Her slick thighs mocked her. "I keep trying to explain—you shouldn't. I have no business even looking at you." Nomi grinned. "I made it your business tonight." He didn't smile back, as he would have the first few nights they'd visited. His face seemed to lower, grow more dangerous. His eyes glinted. "You were generous." "I was pissed. Don't stay away so long again. You're my first friend, and you need one, too. I want to explore this." He tipped his head, closed his eyes as if he were forcibly ripping his attention from her. "There's a problem, Nomi. A problem with a Trux being your friend. And in my case, it's a bigger problem than usual." Nomi waited, so close to him she could smell his wet leather, see the tips of his hair beginning to curl as it dried. His eyes opened, focused on her lips. "We're two bound in one. I want to be your friend. But cat wants to fuck you. I can't stay. One, it's not safe. This constant battle wears me down. He's alpha, so I can't afford the extra distraction. If I lose focus for even a moment, he'll grab control and yank it from me. Who knows what he's capable of at this point. Two, sacrifice is part of war. I'm at war here, Nomi. And giving in to something he wants just because I want it too isn't acceptable." Nomi shook her head. Her heart surged inside her. "Oh, Burke. No. Not the lame excuses. Be my friend." He stared down from his greater height. "I'm a Lone alpha. I failed Wolf, failed the Council. I live alone, on my own territory far from the Clans where I can’t possibly hurt anyone. I don't get friends. I knew that when I watched you. I knew that when I walked

up next to you when you slept. I knew that when I stayed after you smiled at me. I'm shit, Nomi. Forget me." Turning, he went to the window, reached through and pulled himself up by the windowsill. Tucking his knees high in a casual display of athleticism, he twisted and put his feet through the window, arching his body so that he dropped outside her hut in a lithe rush of controlled muscle. "Burke!" She went forward, heart pounding. He was already gone into the bushes. His absence iced her spine. Wrapping her arms around herself, she heard Skyfather rumble his displeasure above. Burke hadn't run again. No, this was much worse. He'd left. Without looking back. Realizing her fingers were cramping, she looked down, surprised to see how tightly she gripped the windowsill. To one side of her hands, there were four fresh grooves scored in the wood, from when Burke had stood watching her. His cat wanted to fuck her? She shivered. She wouldn't listen to the rumors. Looking into the pattering rain, she reached out a shaking hand and cupped the icy drops in her palm. He hadn't said good-bye. He'd be back. She hadn't understood, before, how similar they were. They were all the other had. It didn't matter that it was so new, so tender. He'd be back, because she needed him. She believed that, absolutely. He was her friend. **** Burke watched the women walk in a pack, laughing and calling to each other as they walked past where Nomi sat on her knees, carding wool with steel combs. One of them caught sight of her and nudged another. They fell silent, whispering as they veered away. Nomi never seemed to notice. Her head tilted, and she rocked faintly, as her hands steadily worked the wool. No doubt she listened to water. He envied her ability to block people out, and not even care. Look, there he is. The Mountaincat-Wolf. He quit the Council’s tests. He’s going Lone. Hunkered in the shadows, Burke watched Nomi’s strong form as she sat in the shade of a tree. She didn’t mind their whispers. She was strong in her solitude. He remembered the horror of realization as it became clear to him he was now one of the Lone alphas he’d always sneered at with his friends. He let himself be fitted with the spell that tracked which sifting stones he used. So if he went rogue, they’d know his last location. If they had thought it through, they would realize it wasn’t necessary. He was the safest lone alpha to ever exist. A man who had lost everything to his beast wouldn’t give in to the beast’s distraction with the Wild. This cat was never going to taste freedom. His mother had cried. His father had stared at him with burning eyes and clenched jaw. He tried to explain. “Mother, you can visit me when I get settled. Help me decorate my new den. I’m not disappearing. It’s just a relocation.” “Oh, Burke. So far north. You’re almost up by the Snowcats!” She sniffed, her beautiful brown eyes reddening. “Yes. You’re relocating again. And so far.” His father’s tone was hard. He could hardly look at him, but he made himself. He lifted his head. Silver eyes met gold, a mismatched pair. Burke held his father’s accusing golden stare as his mother pulled from his arms and went to get a hankie. “Barely a month with the Council’s watermages, Burke? Did you even try? A man

with the skills to match his warrior trials in less than a year surely could have done better at Council training.” Burke stared at the man he missed ever day. “I swear to you, I will not fail you a third time. You don’t have to fear that for me.” His father’s eyes narrowed. He stayed quiet. “What!” His mother slipped an arm around his father’s waist as she dabbed at her eyes. “What is this? You didn’t fail, Burke! It wasn’t the right place for you. I just wish you were closer.” “Mother, do you think I don’t know how the parents of lone alphas are looked at? That I don’t know the whispers that will follow you for my shame?” “Burke! I will always be proud you are my son.” She looked so fierce. His heart wasn’t going to take this. It was so hard to listen to her. He didn’t deserve it. “It’s time I left. I have a few more supplies to gather.” She cried all over him, told him to expect a visit in a month, and then his father said, “I’ll walk you out.” His gut twisted. They walked through the grass toward the sifting stone. Neither loped, neither spoke. When the last rise came into sight, his father stopped. Burke did too, even though he didn’t want to. They just stood in the whispering grass. It was a blustery day, the sun playing with the clouds under the huge bowl of the sky. “I wanted you to be a Council watermage. I wanted that for you, at least.” “I know, Father.” As if he didn’t want it, too. Like he’d wanted to be able to stay with Proteus and his Domina, Cro, and learn his new Clan. Like he’d wanted to run as a pack, a red Wolf, alongside his father and grandfather. “If you feel it winning … if you feel like you’re on the edge, you come to me. Promise.” “I promise.” His father studied him, facing folding into a brood. “You swore too easily.” “Father, I am at war with the cat inside me. I have lost my family, my Clan, and my status to it, but it is not going to take this last battle. It shall not have my honor.” The shock rippling across his father’s face told him he’d said too much. “By the Six, Burke. No.” Burke looked off into the distance, toward the great bend in the river where all the Trux gathered for Autumnal every year. Last year had been bizarre. He’d been with the Mountaincats. He remembered one of the better moments, dancing with the Clan Domina, the mate of Proteus. Several times, he’d wandered into the Wolves’ purple tents by mistake, out of habit. He hadn’t stayed. He didn’t deserve to. Wolf hadn’t chosen him. He’d been the only one of his age not to be chosen. His friend Cris had badgered him to let Mountaincat out. He’d refused. Cris had become a beautiful gray Wolf. “Burke.” His father’s voice was rougher now. He sighed, dragging his gaze from the memories this land was full of. Playing here as a child, training here as a youngling. No matter that Mountaincats liked high places. The Den of the Wolves would always be home to him. “Father, don’t. Don’t lecture me as I step out to live a life of isolation. Others will doubt me for the rest of my life, but I can’t bear it if you do. I’m telling you this just so

you know. I won’t be taken to any “edge” of sanity. My honor is held by my will. The cat is done. I won’t ever go rogue, because it won’t ever get the fucking chance.” His father had never looked so stricken. “Burke, on that path lays madness. That is not the way. Please, talk to Bry.” Bry was a black Wolf, a close childhood friend, and a spiritmage. “Maybe someday.” Burke tried to mean it so it wouldn’t smell like a lie. “I really need to go. One of the Hawks is taking me to walk the boundaries I’ll have. I have to get a few things before I meet him.” “No.” His father had gripped his elbow with steely cold fingers. “Burke, this isn’t the right path. Your beast is your other half. You cannot cage it.” His stomach churned. “Dad, quite frankly, you haven’t walked this path. You really can’t be a guide in this.” He’d never in his life rebuffed his father’s advice. His father shook his elbow. “You’re going to end up dead!” Burke stepped back and twisted his body, ripping his arm from his father’s hold. “If I do, it will be in battle, with my honor intact.” “It won’t be honorable if you could have lived by shifting!” “My life isn’t worth that cat taking form.” The cold sneer couldn’t hide the tremor in his voice. He shook with suppressed rage. “You are a Mountaincat warrior! You are a Trux! Your people need your strength as part of our defense—“ Need? His people needed only to banish him, the freak who fit nowhere. He wouldn’t be a risk to anyone but himself. Abruptly, everything went still inside him. He was very calm. “Good-bye, Dad. I’ve got to go.” “Burke! So help me, don’t you suicide in battle!” He hated himself for putting that high pitch to his father’s voice. He stopped and faced him from the top of the rise. “Dad. Calm down. I’ll be fine.” He held his father’s gaze for a moment, trying to share the icy control that had descended. His father took one step forward. “I love you, Burke.” His stomach heaved. Oh, Water. He had to get out of here. Rain, Mist, Snow, and Ice. He choked on bitter bile as he managed to say, “I love you, too.” The memory of that gut-twisting day a year ago was still fresh. A year living without a Clan. A year with only brief visits for supplies and “training” that was really just Proteus, the Mountaincat Clan Alpha, checking on Burke’s sanity. A year of not sleeping, because to lay down alone ate at his soul while dreams of being in a cat’s body ate at his gut. Burke watched Nomi stand, the wool dropping from her fingers. The comb dangled limply. She turned, and wandered toward the well. It was only a short distance. He didn’t have to shift to keep her in his line of sight. He tensed. He’d become used to the walking trances she fell into, but was still gripped with worry for her. She stood by the well, swaying. After about fifteen minutes, a man came up. He saw her, shouted at her. Burke watched Nomi jump, and stare at the man in surprise. He waved his arms angrily, and Burke gathered his legs beneath him, gaze rigid on the dead man who would show the first hint of violence. But Nomi snapped at him and wandered back to the shade and her wool baskets, and Burke, quivering, sank back into the weeds. He hadn’t talked to her in two weeks. Of course, he hadn’t talked to anyone in two

weeks, but she was the only one who mattered. Last time he’d managed to go longer before he stalked her. He knew he would break and go to her again, it was just a matter of time. Still, he fought the need. The longer he held out, the more he stayed away, the safer she was. He’d managed to keep utterly to his territory for a week. But this past week he’d been shadowing her during the day. He could patrol his land in the night. It’s not like he slept. Her passionate words haunted him with her faith and friendship. Her body writhing on the bed. Her warm brown eyes flashing anger and concern. Every time it rained, he swore he could smell her rich cream. What a liar he was. Even without shifting into his fur, the cat managed to strip away his honor. How dare he tell her it was only cat who wanted to fuck her. He had to keep her innocent, but he couldn’t stay away. He doubted he could drive her away. She was too firm in her friendship, and seeing her life, he didn’t have the will to deny what they had built. No, soon, he’d go to her. He would try to be more controlled, more supportive, and just listen to her thoughts as he had before. She needed to keep her clothes on, and he would keep his hands to himself. Tonight, he’d follow her in the forest. He’d stay well back, only gaining her scent on the breeze. But knowing she wandered alone made the cat insane. He knew she was safe in the area patrolled by his brother Truxet, but cat only knew she was alone in the night. He was so tired. So tired of the cat. So tired without Nomi. **** Nomi’s back hurt like a bitch. She’d been bent over harvesting vegetables for hours. Her feet were soaked, chafing in her boots from the shitty nonstop rain of the past two days. She had a splinter right in the fold of her palm that stung every time she flexed her hand. Calluses protected, but when a splinter got into the toughened skin, they were impossible to get out. It was twilight, but you couldn’t tell from the low storm clouds. Damn. A crappy night to follow a crappy day. It didn’t matter. Tonight, she would hunt. She hadn’t been out of the village in a week. The mist of the evening was the lightest it had been, and she was going, despite her exhaustion. If she didn’t get into the trees, she would punch the next person that whispered as they passed her. The little black-haired girl had fucked around. The baby wasn’t Drave’s. The priests had denied him another divorce. He would make that poor girl’s life miserable. And what any of it had to do with her, she didn’t understand, but the Guild seemed to think there was a connection. They hovered nearby, murmuring about Drave’s marriage incessantly. There was a huge mossy tree that had fallen across the ravine two years ago. She liked to walk across it barefoot, feeling the squish and the soft while the water scolded across the rocks down below. Tonight, she didn’t take the time to unlace her boots, and wasn’t stupid enough to try the dangerous bridge in her state. She picked her way down the slope, over the boulders, knowing which ones tipped and which were steady, and patiently pushed back up the far side. Nomi stopped, considering the forest. She tipped her head, inhaled slow and deep. The pine scent was magnified with the rain. The calm was absolute, the stream a quiet shush. The mist didn’t make it down under the late summer canopy, but the patter of dripping leaves fell sporadically. Her heart slowed. Her shoulders eased. She had imagined hunting Burke like this on a soft, hot night, where power rode the air and made

everyone restless. This would have to do. She needed him. Running her hands over her wet hair, she checked her clothes. The leather pants and boots were old and broken in, but the vest was new. It was cinched tight on the sides, pushing up her breasts and creating her waist. She’d bathed with vanilla soap. Play it soft, she told herself. First, it’s about him. Greet him, figure out how he’s done. Only if it feels right, only then. She rolled her neck, willing her back to loosen. She took another steadying breath, got her bearings. She’d made only two strides when a low male voice floated in the night. “Evening, Nomi.” She stopped, turning. “Evening, Burke.” Long moments of silence. Then, with the slightest rustle, her gaze whipped to a massive shadow separating from a trunk not two armlengths from her. She breathed out shakily. By the River, she’d forgotten he was huge. His hair was slicked back from the day’s rain. She hadn’t thought he’d come to her so quickly. They stared at each other. Her eyes burned from trying to see him more clearly. She thought he could probably see her with perfect clarity. She’d rehearsed what to say a thousand times. More. She had several permutations of quips and kind encouragements. They all left her head utterly. “You came.” “You came.” They didn’t speak at precisely the same time, but the overlay of their voices made a lovely harmony. She smiled, huffing out her breath. “Oh, Burke. I’m so glad to see you.” And she was. The rain’s voice changed from sullen to joyous with her mood. None of the day’s frustrations weighed her down anymore. Burke was here. He’d cared enough to return. The weeks he’d disappeared weren’t important. He’d come back. “How are you?” In the fading light, she could see the dark slashes under his eyes. He was motionless. “I just keep on.” His tone was so low it vibrated inside her. Sorrow and fear and hope twined through her. Her lips parted. “That’s all anyone does, Burke. Living on the Farm has taught me that. Life is a cycle. It’s a pattern, a grind. You just keep on. The crops change, the weather changes, and all we can do is keep on.” They stood there, and her brain spun. He was right there. He’d come. How did she talk to him? How dare she ask personal questions about how rough it had gotten? How could she ask this hurt man to take her away? She was just a woman who cared about a near stranger. A woman who wanted more from life, and saw him as the key. His shoulders shifted, and he moved toward her with so much grace he seemed to float. He stopped a handspan from her, and heat flowed from him, so comforting. She rooted her feet to Earthmother to keep from falling onto him. His arms were massive with rounded muscle, as big as her thighs. His throat was a study in lines of sinew, and his jaw wide and square. She tipped her head back to see his face in the last of the dim light. He was just an intangible step away from being handsome. His brows were heavy, his nose wide, and his lips soft and full. He had amazing cheekbones, and canted eyes that shimmered, almost glowing. He looked primal, like no Guild man she’d ever seen. He looked like someone who had been born to live in the Wild, as part of it. Her lips parted on a sigh. “Ohhh. Burke.” He stared intently at her, his gaze moving over her face. Heat from his eyes blazed

down to her half-exposed chest. To her shock, her nipples thrust beneath the leather. Wow, it had been awhile since a look had done that to her. His gaze moved back up to her face. He inhaled. He parted those amazing lips and huffed several puffs of air through his mouth. His tongue touched his lips, leaving a gleam at the center seam. “You smell good.” She smiled. It was forced, and tremulous. Her stomach churned. “And you’re just as beautiful in the starlight as I remember.” Her smile grew more relaxed as she chuckled and shook her head at the goofy poetic thought. “You look tired. Good, though. Really good.” Lickable. The thought kept the smile on her face. Calm the hormones down, she thought. Make this about him before you go getting excited. The thought of him struggling made the smile fade. She was selfish for her lustful thoughts. His eyes were steady on hers, shadowed. “I’d love to know what you do when you go away.” “I survive.” “There should be more to life. You deserve more.” “No one deserves anything, Nomi.” So matter-of-fact. No bitterness at all. Her throat swelled. What was it about this man that connected to her? She felt so strongly for his pain. “You’ve had a hard road. You’ve overcome it.” “Why do you say I overcame it?” “You’re here.” He tipped his head. “I’m fucked up. Yet here I stand, testing my control by breathing you, talking with you. I fought hard, but it all played out exactly like before. I’m a breath away from going rogue, because all I exist for is forbidden.” He looked at her lips, and that fascinating tongue peeked out and moistened his own again. His voice lowered down to a rumble that shook up her churning stomach. “I think the thought of standing before you, to be able to stand tall and tell you I hadn’t lost my honor, that’s what keeps me sane. I can stay away and disappear, or I can remain Burke, but I have to see you, eventually.” “I’m proud of you.” She watched his face, already closed and watchful, freeze even more. He closed his eyes. His nose flared. He was so warm, and the night cool enough that the difference of him brought the hairs on her arms standing up. She crossed her arms to hold herself, chafing her upper arms. His eyes flashed open and riveted on her breasts, plumped even higher by her position. Now it was her turn to freeze. There was nothing frozen about his face now. His eyes narrowed, the tips of his teeth gleaming from lips stretched wide in a snarl. His body swayed toward her and lust poured off him. “Oh!” She was so surprised. He devoured her with his eyes as they seared across her breasts, her shoulders, to her hands, her neck. “Don’t run, Nomi.” His voice was tight, passionate.

Chapter Four Run? Why would she do that? She slid one hand free and put it in the middle of his chest. “I won’t. Burke, I want you, too.” He snarled, the sound of a pure predator ripping through the night. After his deep, quiet words, the animal’s shout shocked her. She creamed in her pants as the eerie cry died off with a growl. She brought her other hand forward, and set it next to the first. She slid her hands out until they covered the rise of strong pectorals. “Stop it. You have no idea what you’re doing. Stop.” A shudder ran through him. He closed his eyes again. She ignored his fear as overprotective. “I thought I was returning your interest. Encouraging your passion. Inviting your touch.” She slid one hand up at the same time the other slid down. The upper hand curved over the width of his shoulder, slid to cup the back of his neck, her fingers electrified by the soft hairs at his nape. The other went down to the edge of his vest, delved under the leather, and flattened against the rock hard ridges of his abdomen. “After all, if I only get to see you once a month, I have to get all the comfort I can out of you.” Her fingertips ignited. Aside from playing in the water and the occasional steadying hand, she’d never touched him like this. His skin was hot, hard, and silky. It was so good to be close to a male body again, to feel like a woman. That it was Burke, her fragile, trusted friend, made the heat burn brighter, deep in her belly. She curled her fingers, gently scoring the back of his nape, scraping into wiry hair beneath his belly button. Heat flared through her body, answering his. Her breasts seemed to swell, aching in their tight binding. She tugged at the hairs behind his head, turned her lower hand and sent her fingers as far as they could reach inside the tight waist of his pants. Her palm burned at the feel of his soft belly hair that lead her touch downward. She was afraid to look away from his face, from his twitching nose, and how he lifted his upper lip as if he were holding back another snarl. She stepped into him and pressed herself tight to his hips. Rigid, he remained still, fists clenched by his thighs. The hard lump of him was trapped sideways in his pants against her hip. She slid her hand around him to his lower back. He was so huge he filled her arms, made her chunky body feel dainty against him. Her clit ached now, wet and needy. He was so warm. She rubbed her chest into his ribs, thrilling her nipples, sending streaks of pleasure down her spine. Yes, she would have him in her body, gladly, if she could convince him. His lips peeled completely away from his teeth. “Nomi. Oh, Steam and Dust, don’t. Please, don’t.” The pain in his voice now overrode the fear she’d discounted before. She froze. Laid her head into a perfect hollow in his shoulder. Sighed. And stepped away, pulling her reluctant fingers from his skin. She looked up at him again. “I never want to hurt you. Challenge you, discover you, but not hurt you.” He pivoted, giving her his back. His wide, massive back. Her hand reached for him before she knew it, but she managed to pull back at the last moment. She couldn’t drive him away. “I like touching you, Burke, but you’re right. Now probably isn’t the best time. I want to talk to you, learn what’s happened. I have something I want to ask you,

too.” She watched him for a few moments. He hunched. His voice was bitter, his words sneering. “How can you want me? A lone alpha clinging to sanity? I’m a coward, a failure, desperate and afraid.” For a moment, his words took her breath. His worldview was so odd. She was angry his people had taught him to think that way, and he found his way out of their trap. “Yeah, I want you, Burke. The strong man I have a connection to. A man who lives outside the safe little cage I’m trapped in, who knows what it’s like to keep on when there’s no one to stand with you. You’ll never be afraid of me, never try to remake me or force me into a mask. You’ll take me as I am. We’ll see each other clearly, and we’ll share.” He shuddered again, panting, fists clenched. “Nomi.” That one word lanced through her chest and wrapped around her heart. All her dreams of this man, all her daring plans and lust, crumbled. She had to soothe his need, meet the reality before her. This was the person she’d connected to before, and their connection was still there. It was wild and pure and absolutely perfect. Their time apart had only crystallized her understanding. She wanted him to the depths of her soul. He was hers. Somehow, she knew that. So she told him so. “You’re mine.” He was suddenly around her, wrapped tight. His arms were so strong, his stance steady. His face was buried in her braid and she squirmed to free her arms enough to return his hold. They stood tightly entwined. It was amazing to be held, by him. Her heart pounded as hard as his did beneath her ear. And she was happy. So happy. Burke was there, in her arms, warm and alive. Eventually, he pulled away, and drew her down with him. His hands were gentle but persistent as he settled himself at the base of a tree, cradling her in his lap so she sat sideways to him. One hand engulfed her hip, the other wrapped around one thigh, as if afraid she’d run. A tremor raced through him. The thick hard ridge of him was against her thigh like a branding iron. When he didn’t say anything, she got antsy. Time was quickly wasting. She had to finalize things tonight, before dawn, when no doubt he’d be full of regret and run again. All right. Deal with his objections. Work those roots loose. “You live in the Wild?” “I do. I have my own territory, far to the northwest of here.” “Burke, you know how I said there’s more to life than survival?” “Yes.” “I want more, too. I want off the Farm. I want to go into the Wild. With you.” His hands tightened on her. “You—You don’t know what you’re asking.” “Well, I thought I’d ask you for a year’s contract, as a paid woman.” He shuddered. “But now I think I should screw it and be adopted. By you. That’s how it goes right? I ask to be adopted, and then they’ll line some men up, and I’ll pick you.” He growled. “No.” The rumble of him while she was in her arms vibrated her whole body with little pleasure bursts. She lay her head on his shoulder, relaxing into his hold. He felt so right, when it had been months since she’d been touched by anyone. “Burke, I’ve thought about this a long time. I’m sure all the stories they tell are lies. And I know, absolutely, that

you’re the man I want.” “Stop it. You can’t say things like that.” “I think you should be getting the notion that I’m not stopping. I’m asking for what I want. You.” “You’re like a deluge. You just hammer at me like a storm.” “And you light up my life like lightning. You’re like this sudden burst of power and possibility.” “I’m just fucked up, Nomi. You have to listen to me. You can’t offer yourself like this. You’re going to end up—“ He cut himself off. Possible words hung in the air. “What? Dead? I don’t believe that for one minute. You’d never hurt me.” His voice was a low purr. “Oh, woman. You have no idea what I could do.” “Pish. I’m strong enough to take all the desire you have and give it right back. I’ve been aching to claim a wild passion like this all my life.” He chuckled, but it was mocking. “Passion? Try possession. If I start with you, I’ll lose it.” “Sounds fun,” she teased. “I’d like to lose it with you.” He shook her gently, bobbling her with his thighs. She could hear the frustration in his voice. “You’re too trusting. Naïve little fool. I’m a lone alpha, woman. I’m scum. I’m a failure, and I’ll never take you down with me.” “See, that’s the cool thing about your people’s system. It isn’t up to you, it’s up to me. I’ll get a priest, and I’ll get some choices matched up, and I’ll pick you. Simple.” “Not if I don’t show up.” She gasped. Twisting, she grabbed his face in her hands. The feel of the hard planes of his face mixed with a scruff of rough stubble on his jaw sent a surge rippling through her. “You wouldn’t!” “I’m not going to let you be exiled with me. I’d never take you out there, alone.” He bit the words down at her, his eyes fierce. “Hear me clearly, Burke. I want to be out there, with you. We wouldn’t be alone when we’re together. I’m sick of living around people and their lies and politics and posturing and selfish betrayals. You are what I want.” She writhed and struggled, rising to face him, straddling him, her fists digging into his collarbone. “And if I ever hear you call yourself a failure again, I’ll bite you! You’re sitting right here. They all drove you out for being different, the Wolves and the Mountaincats and the watermages, and you’re still here. They failed you, Burke. They failed you and it pisses me off!” The wonder on his face broke her heart, closed her throat, and made tears well. He didn’t see it, the amazing accomplishment he’d achieved. He’d survived, without betraying the principles that held him to his people. His people had all pushed him away, but he hadn’t turned his back on them. “You’re so beautiful and rare. You make me see hope where all I saw was night. Like a storm, you clear it all away, and leave me … clean.” She tucked her head under his chin, buried her nose in his throat, and swallowed. Tears burned but she wouldn’t let them fall. He was so wounded. He needed her so much, and he was being so stubborn. “Ah, my Stormdancer, sweet Nomi, soft woman. I cannot believe I’m holding you.

This is wrong. Your words are dangerous.” She clung to his shoulders, pressed tight to him. “They’re not words. They’re dreams.” He rocked her, wrapping his arms gently around her. “Dreams die, Nomi, just like everything else.” He stroked her back with long, warm sweeps of his hands. She sighed. “Let me tell you why it’s no good, Nomi.” She sighed again. “I live in a cliff. In a cave. Life is really barren. I’ve made my own furniture and I hunt for my food. I travel my perimeter every day. It takes me five hours if there are no battles.” He swallowed, his hands massaging her hips. She didn’t know if he was aware of the deep, sensual motions. “Outside of Autumnal, if I talk to a single other Mountaincat all year, it’s because I’m picking up supplies. It’s an isolated life, Nomi. Utterly. Everyone’s stiff around me, expecting me to snap at any moment. They watch me constantly. Some even growl if I pass by their children. No one sits with me in the dining tents, and only the watermages will train with me.” Nomi heard the rain patter around them, felt the water swelling under the ground. Falling, rising, seeping. She let the flow soothe her anger. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. I’m here now, Burke. I’m ready, and I’m going with you.” A rumble vibrated against her nipples. “Ah, sweet! Do that again.” She writhed, shivering on him. She pressed herself close. “What?” He seemed so shocked. “That sexy little grumble.” He growled firmer this time, his hands sliding up to her ribs. “Ahh!” She scrabbled at his shoulders, crushing her breasts tight against his heat. He lifted her away from him, setting her firmly off his lap to the side. Her gaze fell to the massive erection clearly outlined behind the worn, supple leather. “Nomi. It’s no life for a friend to share, let alone a bonded mate.” She tore her gaze off the fascination of him and glared at him. “It’s your life, and I’ll share it gladly. I’ll get a little garden going, and I’ll make rugs to add to your furniture. We’ll play games in the winter evenings, and—“ her breath caught to think of it, “We’ll fuck whenever, wherever we want. You’ll teach me more about the animals. I want to learn how to hunt. We’ll design new traps together, to keep us safe. I’ll wait for you when you’re gone, if I can’t go with you. And I’ll be fine by myself. I like being alone. I love to wander and just be part of it all, the real Earth, not some man-beaten, strangled Farm. I’ll—“ His lips covered hers like rain. He pressed his mouth to hers, and the touch of him on such sensitive skin made her cry out. He angled his mouth more firmly against hers, and his lips pushed hers open. He dragged them across hers, gasping. “Stormdancer. By the Six, you’ve got to stop.” She kissed him, rising up on her knees to reach his mouth, cradling his face in her hands. He went utterly still beneath her. She sent her thumbs along the line of his cheeks, her fingers toyed with his ears, her lips were desperate to hold his mouth open long

enough—there. Her tongue was in, and stroked his, and the flavor of this man burst into her, drenched her. Her thighs trembled. She moaned. She traced the curve of his teeth, tested their edge, dragged her mouth back and forth, nipping at his lips. The kiss swelled, her tongue lapping along his lower lip, her teeth dragging along his darting tongue, her lips raw and swelling, sharing the ache with her clit. Her hands sank into his hair, scalded by the heat of his scalp. His fingers bit hard, his thumbs digging into her hipbones. Their tongues danced, twined and strived. Hers lured his into her mouth and she closed her lips and suckled him. “Ahgghh!” With a choked scream he wrenched her away. She was airborne, on her back in the moist loam. She struggled onto her elbows. “Burke!” Nothing was left but the sounds of a frantic run through the woods. She was on her feet and after him in a heartbeat. She kept her forearms up in front of her face, peering at the ground just ahead of her as she raced after him. Branches scored her arms and face. Dips and stones and roots made her stumble time and again. She had to stop and listen. Hearing the fading sounds of him thrashing, she adjusted her angle and started again, screaming in frustration, “Burke! Stop!” Chest heaving for breath, she staggered against a tree, straining to listen. Silence. The breeze in the trees. A nearby rustle of water. He had run. Again. She dropped her head against the tree, hard, then punched it for good measure, pain streaking up her arm. She rolled against it and sagged down to crouch at its base. Crap. Shit. Skyfather’s toes, she’d lost him. For now, she told herself. Just for now. Out loud, she declared, “You’re mine, Burke.” **** He remembered she’d smelled of leather and dew, grass and wind, with skin that held the memory of sun. Her scent had burst on his tongue like the rarest of fruits, like the purest water. The cat had screamed, but he’d stayed very still at her side. That was the first time he’d gone to her, as she lay in the piles of short needles in the soft ground at the base of a yew. The memory of approaching her the first time blurred with their kiss. The heat, the need, the joy, and the pain. He’d never gone so long without sleeping. What was it now? Five days? Six? Rocking, he sat on one of the several outcroppings around his cave. Balconies, his mother had called them, the one time she’d visited. He’d told his father never again. Seeing his parents here had just reminded him of all he’d lost. His eyes rolled in his head with exhaustion. He shook himself hard, struggling to focus on the treetops. This far north, already some of the maples in the boggy areas were turning a flaming red. The rock was hard under his ass, cold. Nomi had said she’d make rugs. The cat paced and lunged and paced. He rocked, his hands aching in their leather bindings. He’d wrapped his fingers together in the manner of a workout bout. The thin leather strips cut into him, a good reminder to keep their man shape. He had to sleep. He had to. He was simply too tired to patrol again without at least a few hours. His gut burned. The cat slashed. Wretched curse. I’m stronger than it. But he wasn’t. Soon, he’d lose the battle with his eyelids. When he was this tired, the cat pushed hard. A moment’s inattention and he could slip, let the golden fur out. The cat screamed

and bit deep inside. He choked, moaned. Rocking, he slammed his fists into the ledge repeatedly until his already bleeding knuckles split. The throbbing made him focus. The blood made the cat twist and thrash. What if he let himself fall asleep here, at the edge of a 200 body length drop? Coward. He was a liar, a coward, weak. It was there, in the back of his brain, that when he let himself sleep, after he recovered, he’d find a measure of control enough to convince himself he could return to her. Endangering a good woman. Nomi. Strong, pure, true. Stormdancer. The cat flopped to its side, as exhausted as he, panting. He didn’t have the strength to stand, so he began to crawl back to his bedspace. He’d only gone a few paces before he had to stop, pulling the bindings on his fingers taut as he made a fist brutal enough to squeeze blood from his knuckles. The cat had moved into his form, expanding inside him, during the crawl. Grinding his teeth, he used the rock wall to pull himself to his feet. Sliding along it, he managed to stagger upright through the hall to his room. He fell onto his pile of furs, the room spinning. He strained to set his own trap, to protect his room while he was unconscious. The cat turned, shrinking, settling, as he poured out the very last of his energy. And then the darkness ripped him down into sleep. Running. They were running, free, finally. Paws strong, they chased the deerish, dodging, legs stretching, between the trees. Head low and still, they let it go. It was not Mountaincat’s nature to run down prey. No. Let Sandcat do that work. It was just that the deerish had run, and for a moment, it had been fun. Cat stretched his body high, claws setting deep in a tree. They leaned their weight into the scratch, scoring the bark. Delighted, they bound down to the stream, where they lay in the shade and washed their paws with long, lapping licks. They rolled on their back, tail waving, and then decided to go up to their roost. Their body stretched and bunched, compact one moment before springing wide to jump up the mountain. Higher and higher, peeing here, sniffing there, they went to the top of their territory. Flopping down, paws at the edge, they surveyed the land they held safe. Raising their head, Cat smelled the breeze, and knew all that moved below. His tongue ached for blood, and his gut rumbled for warm meat. He turned his head. The hunger would have to wait. Their woman was there, over there, far. They had to go to her, take her to Alpha, claim her. Then they would eat. Then they would run, and play. But his man didn’t trust him. Didn’t like him, or want him. He didn’t understand. He offered his man all of his strength, a good measure, enough to keep a mate safe, and the man didn’t want it. Mates were above pride. Mates were above Clan, and family. Mates deserved everything. Cat jumped to their feet. He roared a wild scream out into the heights. A scream of fury and pain. Then they picked their way down the mountain by a new path. They would go get their mate now. He would not stop until she was here, safe. All would be well. Time and land blurred and then there was a meadow. They lounged in a large tree, their legs hanging down, the branch firm along their belly. Their woman sat below. Her hair was loose, shimmering like honey, as they’d seen it that one night. Cat loved her. Cat needed her. She was perfect for them. The corpux stopped at the edge of the forest. Cat froze, everything riveted on the enemy. Their woman was in danger! Leap! Attack! But man walked out of the other side of the meadow, and stopped. The enemy sees our mate! The man ignored Cat. Cat shook,

but couldn’t move. His claws extended, sharp and deadly, but man did not call them. The corpux crept closer, it’s poisonous jaws gleaming in the sun. The woman didn’t see. She didn’t run, and the man wouldn’t let Cat fight. In torment, Cat tipped his head and screamed into the night. He raged, he hated, he feared. Man was not to be trusted. Man was weak in his fear and pride. Their woman would die. Burke woke up and rolled. He struggled to breathe, and then to swallow with his parched throat. Clutching his arms around him, his body spasmed, again and again. It wasn’t like the tremors that ran through him when he struggled with the cat. It was terrifying, because this wasn’t cat at all. It was him. His body flopped and convulsed despite his best attempt to hold his muscles rigid. He ached as if he’d been beaten. His hands throbbed viciously, fingers swollen in their leather bindings. Teeth chattering, he pulled more moisture into his mouth. It made him nauseous and he cursed, willing his stomach not to heave with the force of his body’s shaking. It took a long time before he stilled enough to unclasp his arms. Tremors still ran through him. Cat sat up and slashed inside him, seemingly strengthened from the sleep. He moaned. Using his teeth, he undid the laces and freed his hands. He used a bit of bodycraft to heal his fingers, but they still ached. It took three tries to stand. He let down his defensive barrier and moved back to the ledge. It was deep night. He’d slept an amazingly long time. At least six hours. He’d go check his timekeeper in a bit to make sure he hadn’t slept an entire day. The patrol waited. And suddenly his cramping stomach was from hunger instead of sickness. Cat screamed. He gritted his teeth. Always. It never fucking let up. Except when they were with Nomi. It lunged, making his ribs ache. Never. You’re never getting out, cat. I’ll die first. Burke turned and stiffly made his way toward the stairs down. Remember your duties. Hold to your honor. Keep on. Later, if he could finish patrolling without cat pricking his fingertips with his claws, he would let himself go find Nomi on the Farm. He’d watch her. Just watch. No kissing. Cat exploded inside him, knocking him to his knees. Burke gritted his teeth and shoved the cat deep. War was hard. **** Nomi paced in her little hut, sleepless. Tomorrow was a rest day and she was determined to use it to settle into a plan for Burke. Days later, she’d gone over the stunning force of kissing Burke a hundred times. Touching her lips, she retraced the pattern of their conversation. How she’d ignored all his attempts at retreat. How she’d lost herself in passion twice, like she’d never had before in her entire life. His taste in her mouth, her swollen lips, the heat of the forest’s lashes on her body, her throbbing clit, they all called her to lay down and finish herself, but she ignored her desire. She focused on Burke, and what she’d done to her chance to claim him. Reviewing what she knew about his concerns, she ticked them off on her fingers. He didn’t believe she would fit in his life. He didn’t trust his passion. He didn’t think he was worthy of her. He wanted her, but he was afraid of himself. She also knew she sucked as a hunter. She’d been a farmer all her life. All right. This wasn’t going to be a quick chase, but a long growing season. Give her a task and she’d get it done. She’d organize, she’d work, and she’d solve problems. Her

calluses proved it. So, this wasn’t going to be a straight furrow in soft soil. There were some rocks. There were some roots. There was a lot of fucking betrayal these Trux had to answer for. Focus on the goal: harvest. How did most people marry? They lusted, they liked, and then their parents ironed it out. The lust was what sent him away. He didn’t trust it. He didn’t trust her ability to take it, or himself. Why? What exactly was it about being a lone alpha that he thought was a danger to her? She would weed that particular plant. She’d carefully pull back the earth, wrap her hands around the root, and rip it right out. The like was there. She’d done well to pull back from the passion the first time. He’d settled. He’d held tight to her. He’d used the word “hope.” That was what she should focus on. She needed to stop making generalizations about his life, and connect to him deeper. She had to bind him. Not force, entwine. Beans and peas, on the same trellis. He’d been most afraid, before, of being alone. He wanted to belong. So did she. Everyone did, it was at the heart of why people stayed together when most were such shits. What was the word he’d used with such yearning the first time? Together. He wanted to be together. She had to convince him she belonged to him, and they would be a together. She’d anchor him, be his earth. Parents finalized a marriage. She started to dismiss them as pertinent in the case of claiming Burke, but stopped. Where were his parents in his life? Hers were happily out of the picture, ensconced in Royal City, as per her hideous marriage. His Alpha. The Alpha of Mountaincat. The Clan in general. They doubted him. They isolated him. They’d fucked him up with self-hatred and doubt. He needed the approval of the Clan. He needed to know they trusted him with her. The idea she’d had of turning herself in for adoption was out. He would make good on his promise to stay away from the choosing, she knew it. Somehow, she’d find a way to claim him outside of the choosing, but it had to be sanctioned by his Alpha, at the least. She had no idea how to get access to such a person. Her head whirled with frustration and resolve. It was dawn when she took a towel and went to her waterfall. She stripped, and climbed down the rocks into the pool at the base of the falls. The cascade wasn’t very big, but even late in the driest summers the water kept flowing. Today, the flow was very strong, the spray soft on her face, the thunder filling her ears. The basin was deep, up over her head, to match the four bodylengths of the falls. She shivered her way into the water, and dove for some sand. She scrubbed herself. Immersing herself in the flowing water rejuvenated her. Her priorities were firm in her mind. Burke needed help. She wanted out. They’d found each other. Something was there. How would she make meaning out of this amazing, unique relationship? She wouldn’t be overwhelmed like she was last time. She needed a plan. She wished she could go up and wrestle him into listening to her, working on it with her instead of focusing on keeping them apart. Nomi floated into the deepest part of the pool, letting the force of the waterfall on her legs drive her under. No, she couldn’t pin Burke with force. She needed to work with what she knew. She knew water, and she knew farming. Basically, she was persistent, patient. She’d planted a seed but it had nowhere to grow. She’d work on the rocks first. The rocks were the obvious: he hadn’t even imagined her in his life. He needed to see that not only could she do it, but she wanted to. The burrowing roots would take longer. She needed more information about this cat who had driven the wolf from him. The cat

he obviously feared. As the morning heated up, she walked to the yew forest, and sat. For hours she enjoyed the warmth, the breeze, the birds, and small scampering tree-roos. The sun was still a high, fiery inferno gilding the woods when she knew he was there. It was good she was sitting. She was so relieved her legs shook, one sliding down to lay straight. “Good day, Burke.” He was vibrant with color in the afternoon light. His hair caught the dappled sun, held by a rich earth brown. His eyes were a darker gray in the day, fringed with long black lashes that seemed to make them more dangerous, not softer. His skin was tan, about the same shade as hers, the color of wet sand. He still hadn’t shaved, and the stubble painted his face with a fascinating flowing line. His lips were amazing, a dark fleshy pink. He was bigger in the daylight, if possible. She saw scars on his arms, a few at his throat. His leathers were the same as before, a golden brown that matched his skin. “Good day, Nomi.” He sat near her feet, facing her, his legs stretched out alongside hers. She couldn’t not smile at him. His proximity took her breath away. She could touch him, if he let her. He didn’t smile back. His face was so solemn. “I’m so ashamed of myself.” Her smile faded. “You left.” “I am a coward. It is the heart of why they do not trust me.” “You think forcing yourself to live where you’re unhappy makes you brave?” She snorted. “Well, I’m a coward, too, then. I’m tired of living here. I’d love to exile myself, too, but the only place for me is the City, which is worse.” He frowned at her. “Thanks for not making me come get you,” she teased, flicking a handful of needles at him. He stared at them where they lay all over one thigh. He looked back up at her. Oh, those tilted, gray eyes. “You are really not afraid of me.” “I’m not.” He opened his mouth and she held up an imperious hand. “Don’t say it.” He frowned at her. “Say what?” She lowered her voice to mock his, “You should be.” He blinked at her. “Burke, everything was all emotional before. It was all mixed up and sudden.” She plucked at a sewn tear in her knee. “Let’s just catch up, tonight. Tonight, I want to find out why exactly your people make you live alone. And I’ll tell you about what’s happened to me.” “I already know about you, but I’d love to hear it from your perspective.” “Excuse me?” He looked down at his fingers, making idle tracks in the soft earth. The yews grew so dense there wasn’t much sunlight, and little underbrush. Motes danced in the rays of light breaking through. He looked up at her. His face closed, but his eyes … yearned. “I want to know about your ex-husband.” “Drave.” “I know how it ended. But I want to know how it started, and why it ended.” “For telling you about Drave, I want to know about the watermages. How you ended

up leaving them.” He nodded once, curt. She held out her hand, palm up. “Let’s go up into the rock lookout.” He looked at her thick, calloused fingers. Trust me. His hand swallowed hers. It was warm and strong and dry and manly, something she hadn’t touched in so very long. She bent her knees and planted her feet, grinning at him. He did the same, holding his other hand out to her as well. She took it, and his tightened on hers, stopping short of pain. Both of them pulled with their arms and pushed with their legs, standing by using each other for leverage. It was a child’s game of trust. They rose smoothly together, perfectly, on the first try. Standing next to him, Nomi saw the hint of red in his hair, and again noticed beneath the bruised eyes, he was shockingly young. “I don’t want to let go of your hands.” He watched her, but didn’t respond. She squeezed his before letting her own pull free. “Race ya.” She tore off through the yews, slipping on the needles. “Nomi, you shouldn’t run from me.” Poor Burke. He sounded a bit frantic. Her answer was a laugh. She sped on, and knew when he finally started to pursue. But he didn’t really. He veered away, running parallel to her, sometimes a little ahead. When she had a clear tread, she’d glance over and see his large shadow, his legs stretching easily. He was beautiful in the forest, part of it, a master of it. Finally, near the bottom of the trail up to the lookout, she stopped, hands braced on her knees, panting. He came out of nowhere, wrapping her in skin, leather, and heat. He slammed back into a tree trunk, jarring her teeth in her skull even though he was the one who took the hit. “What—“ A growl trickled from his throat, and she stilled.

Chapter Five He was so huge around her. She felt safe, sheltered. Letting her weight go lax, she sank into him, panting in time with him. Tremors shook over his skin again and again, but he buried his face in her hair and held her. She wanted to lick the dancing pulse just inches from her mouth, but she controlled herself. Eventually, he reached out and touched an angry red streak on her cheek, where a branch had lashed her. His knuckles brushed it gently, and the heat of body magecraft flowed into her. He was healing her. It burned, a bit, but the heat tingled her lips, ran down her neck to settle in her breasts. “Nomi, you’ve built me into an honorable friend. Are you sure you want to hear the truth.” She snorted, leaning her face into his touch. “I don’t expect you to be perfect.” “You still don’t understand.” “You’ll tell me, soon.” His knuckles sank down to her jaw, and down her throat before falling away. “Do you have any more cuts like that?” She had one that was worse, on her forearm. She showed it to him. He cradled her wrist in his hand, laid his other over the torn skin. “It’s so great you have bodycraft, too. I have a bit of earthcraft, but that’s it.” “We train in all six of the elements. I have a bit of all of them, typical of an alpha.” The heat from his hand rose to her breasts again. They burned, swelling in her vest. “Burke, that feels so good.” “Thank you for trusting me. For sharing it with me, and waiting while I gained control.” His hand lifted and there was only a faint pink line. His thumb stroked over the thin skin of her wrist and her fingers spasmed, curling reflexively. She let him hold her wrist, staring up into his brooding face. She wanted to grab him and kiss him. She let her breath out on a sigh. Patience. Tend the rocks, then the weeds. He turned his hand and slid it down, his fingers wrapping around hers. The touch of their hands together caught her breath. Her hand, in Burke’s. “Nomi, you mustn’t run from me. It’s not safe.” She sighed. “Shall we go up?” Her fingers curled tight around his. He stepped off up the faint trail, and she followed, lifting her knees high. Too soon, he let her hand go as they stood on the pile of rocks that poked over the trees. She was panting again, sweaty in her leathers. He looked worried. The breeze was hot but wonderful. The sun was sliding down, now, moving lower. The treetops swayed, leaves ruffling below them. “Wow. I love it up here, but hardly ever get to come. I don’t like to climb in the dark, so I have to either escape early or go slow on a nice full moon.” “You like heights.” She grinned, remembering climbing trees with him. “I do.” He frowned. “Let’s sit. I’ll tell you about Drave.”

He frowned even harder. A tremor ran down his arms. The rocks were too uneven and misshapen to sit side by side. She settled on one, and he took one slightly above her on her right. “What do you want to know?” she asked. “Everything.” She bit her lip on a laugh. It was a nervous laugh. She felt the same way about him, so she wouldn’t tease. “My parents approached him. I cried. I begged not to marry him. My father insisted. My grandparents’ health was failing, and he wanted to move with them to the City.” “I’d talked with him a few times. He was twenty years older than me.” She looked up at him, his hair ruffling in the wind. “How old are you?” “Twenty-two.” He stared at her with storm cloud eyes. Licking her lips, Nomi nodded. Sweet Skyfather, fourteen years younger than her. She was as bad as Drave. “I’m a lot older than you.” “Not old enough to matter.” Looking back over the hypnotically waving sea of trees, Nomi continued. “I was twenty-six. We were married in the spring. I moved into his house the same day. All I had was a few changes of clothes. He was never very kind, but he was never horrible. He respected my power, and told me he’d give me the season to get used to him. “I took care of the laundry and the dinner, he cooked breakfast and cleaned the house. He’s a powerful member of the Guild, in charge of the corn fields. He’s an earthmage, a good one. We’d talk a bit in the evenings, Guild business, small talk. I went from dread and anger to acceptance. He didn’t expect me to love him. He didn’t chatter at me, so I didn’t have to be nervous about drifting off in the conversation. My family moved to the City within the month. “It was about this same time of year, September, when I told him he could come to my bed. I thought I was ready, cause I’d played with a few boys here and there. I like sex. It feels good.” Nomi broke off to look up at Burke when she heard the growl. He turned his head away from her. “It’s all right.” She watched how his fist was white-knuckled on his knee. She reached up and covered it with her hand. “You don’t want me to talk about sex.” He turned his wrist and gripped her hand. “Keep going.” He kept his head turned away. “Sex with Drave was good the first couple of years. I was surprised. Of course, that was nothing like how powerful it was to kiss you. Kissing you was amazing. Sex with Drave was never—” “Nomi. Please.” She relented, but she also took back her hand. “Well, there’s not much else to tell. The seasons cycled, we never sparked. He came to me less and less and I didn’t care. I wandered at night and he’d yell, and I’d ignore him. We tried to have a baby and it didn’t work. I was never at ease in his house or by his side. He gained weight, got angry. “We stopped talking, I took care of my own sexual needs, and he asked for a divorce last winter. He’s already remarried, with a baby on the way.” The baby wouldn’t count as his, but it would count as hers, and he’d have to raise it. She almost pitied them. People sucked.

“You didn’t tell me everything. Like how horrible they are to you. Like how they point and whisper.” Nomi shook her head. Reaching up, she untied a leather strip and uncoiled her long braid. “Burke, that’s not from my marriage. That’s because I get distracted listening to water. People have done that all my life. Your turn.” He stayed quiet. She turned herself so she faced him, sitting at his feet and looking up. His face was hard, closed, eyes squinting in the bright light and breeze. “Burke. Tell me.” “After the cat came, I spent a year with the Clan. I had to pass my warrior trials. I did so quickly and easily. The Mountaincat Clan is very large, and their Lair is in the largest clanhome in Vladaya.” “That’s the name of your people’s territory?” “Yes. You call it the Wild. Our clanhome is in an ancient mountain fortress, shared by the Council, the Bears, and the Hawks. People are always coming and going. I’d only been there twice before, as a Wolf youngling. I had to learn a lot. My Alpha is wonderful. His power is steady and comforting. He is like a father and a spiritmage, a friend and a brother. To be near Proteus is to be calm, strong.” Nomi couldn’t believe the longing in Burke’s low voice. “But you said you had to leave, because you have the same kind of power he has.” Burke shook his head, hair fluttering. “I don’t have close to the kind of power he has. We are both alpha class warriors, but he is right, and so unbelievably strong. His Shield hated me. We growled and sniped and even sparred once. It was just about to turn ugly when the Domina came in and stopped us. Cro is kind, and she is her own power to be reckoned with.” Nomi kept her voice even. “You sound like you love her.” “She is Proteus’ mate, and also our Clan Domina. She is as right and strong as he. All Mountaincats feel this.” He wasn’t looking at her, but Nomi nodded anyway. “It wasn’t long after that sparring match with the Shield that I told Proteus I had to go to the watermages. He agreed.” “He didn’t even ask you to stay?” “He knew I unsettled the other warriors. I’d stayed months past my trials. It was only out of sympathy from being a changeling he let me linger so long. I moved out of the Lair and down into the watermage caves. The leader is currently Kromog, a Bear. He hated me on sight as well.” “That’s not fair.” Burke shrugged, a casual flow of muscle. “But it is. I think it’s very fair to doubt those different from you. I’m a changeling. Whispers followed me everywhere. Unlike you, I wasn’t used to them, couldn’t block them out. I wasn’t friendly, either. I began training. My concentration was shit. My stamina was shit. I also had problems sleeping. We all have private little sleeping rooms. There were Wolves there, one I’d known growing up. They invited me to sleep with them. I … Oh, Nomi.” He fell silent, and Nomi covered his hand, still fisted, again. She squeezed. “I wanted to sleep with them. But it made me shake. The cat was so restless. They tried to talk to me. I moved to the side, where I wouldn’t disturb them. They slept, but I couldn’t, even though I wanted to so badly. I hadn’t slept alone before in my life before I

came to River Mountain. Their offer was a chance to go back to what I had, what I wanted, needed. I couldn’t. “Sleep has always meant pack. Always, brothers together. I’d run. I’d run until I collapsed, and I still wouldn’t sleep. I’d crawl back to my room, and hearing them all up and down the hall, so close, but apart… It made it worse. Eventually, I couldn’t even sleep in the caves at all. I’d go to the beach down at the underground lake. Laying on that sand by the black water was torture. All those people above me, and I had no one.” “You were lonely,” Nomi murmured. The ache of that newly discovered emotion was fresh, now that he’d taught it to her. He nodded. “Then Kromog told me to stop. He told me if I was in River Mountain, I slept where he could watch me, in the watermage caves. I wasn’t a Council warrior yet. I didn’t have control. He didn’t trust me. So I started to sleep out in the orchards. Then winter came. “Every lesson took everything I had. I passed them, slowly. More slowly than anyone else. I’d visit Proteus. I’d go back to the Den, to see my father. Then came the day Kromog wanted me to practice some basic watercraft in my Beast form.” Oh no. Here it was. Now that he was explaining it, his personal war against his cat almost made sense to her. “It was never a conscious decision, until then. I hadn’t Changed since before I left the Mountaincat Lair. I hadn’t had need of it, and of course didn’t do it for pleasure. I’d done it for my trials, and to run with Proteus. But ever since, I’d avoided it. I said no. I told him it was one of the final tests, and I’d cross that test when it was time, and to give me lessons in other areas instead. “He said it wasn’t for me to decide my own training needs. He kept at me for a week. The other watermages began to avoid me in the lounge, to find excuses when I asked to spar or practice. Then Kromog went to Proteus. Proteus called me up and he said, ‘Change’.” Burke’s voice was harsh, low and choking on emotion. Nomi’s throat burned for him in sympathy. The trees swayed below them and the breeze ruffled past her, but it didn’t please her now. She maintained her tight grip on his clenched fist. His next words stopped her heart. “And I looked at my Alpha, whom I love, and I said, ‘Never again.’” Nomi felt the tremor run through him. His voice had never softened, falling steady and hard. His eyes held to the distance, but he wasn’t really seeing the view. She sat with him in silence, grieving . They’d driven him to such depths of self-doubt, but he chose his own response. “And that’s how, about a year ago, I broke my parents’ heart and was named Lone by the Council and my Alpha. I was given territory. A Hawk earthmage helped me set up my own little cave. And now I have nothing but a Lone alpha’s charter: Hold the land clear of darkmagic, ensure nothing dangerous moves toward the clanhomes. Patrol, and keep hold of your beastspirit. Until you die. Alone.” At that moment, the sun hovering over the horizon switched from golden white light to golden red. “I don’t understand, Burke. Why do you consider yourself more dangerous alone?” His hair lit with a deeper fire, and his eyes, pinning her with their pain, glinted silver. “Without the laws which bind warriors to their honor, with no one to work for and

protect, we lose hope. Without hope, why would a man continue to live with honor? Without hope, our beastspirits become feral, even if the warrior retains human form. They seek only their own needs: Territory, a mate, young of their own. When an alpha breaks and goes rogue, then happens upon a woman, any woman, he’ll recall his human form, but not his Trux honor. She is stolen, and raped until she dies. It’s better if he just disappears into his fur, roaming deep into the uncharted land, forgetting his skin forever, mating with animals. At least fading into a beast, while forbidden and disgusting, harms no one. Eventually the Clan would notice, and call a hunt to kill it.” Burke held her eyes. Nomi stopped breathing. He stared her down, but she held on, even though her heart tumbled. A tremor passed through her, this time. “No, Burke. You wouldn’t go rogue, wouldn’t do that to me.” She hated that he’d put the word rape between them. “I’ve already imagined it, Nomi, taking you away. You wanted the truth. There it is. I function on the memory of honor. I fight to keep my beastspirit contained. Because I know the second I let it out, I am doomed. For the honor of the Mountaincats, for Proteus and Cro, for my parents and the few good men who still dare to call me friend, I cage this damn cat. “And now I’ve found you. Stupidly, selfishly, I’ve dared to become your friend. I run like a coward every time emotion hits at me, because with you, I’m weakest. With you, I’m so weak, it’s all I can do not to break my honor as a man, let alone a rogue. I have to fight even harder now. I have to keep the cat from manifesting because I know if it were to escape, then it would go for you. And that would be bad, Nomi. Very bad. Bad enough that I could not survive, would not want to. I would welcome the warriors who’d come to hunt me down with a bared throat.” The world turned red around them. Deep pink and orange and topaz. The breeze was milder now, and she could feel the air cooling, the heat rising from the forest. “Being my friend isn’t stupid. It’s wonderful. I’m so much stronger for having met you. And it’s ridiculous to imagine taking me away is some sort of dishonorable fantasy, when I’ve been asking you to do just that.” “I keep telling you—” “Oh, stuff a boot in your mouth. Honestly, Burke, do you think I imagine a life of luxury when I ask to go with you? That I would want such a life? I know exactly what I’m asking for. To be alone, in the Wild, with you. We’ll need our wits and all our strength, but having each other would make it easier. If I understand correctly, you’re afraid when we start to have sex, you’ll rape me. I hate to break it to you, but that makes no sense.” “My stamina is well beyond what you can comprehend, Nomi. I could kill you easily.” “So you could. Without sex, thank you very much. With just a flick of your hand, I suspect. But I’m not afraid of you. I trust you. Burke, that’s all it takes. I give you my trust, and with your honor, you’ll rise to meet it. You won’t hurt me, just like you didn’t hurt me when we kissed a few days ago, or when you grabbed me just today.” Burke stood, a dark column of fury against the spectacular sunset. His voice growled. “With what honor? It takes all my willpower to exist now, with distance between us. If you were in my territory, how am I supposed to find the strength to live with honor? How?”

“Do you want to live with honor?” He reared back from her question. “Yes!” “Then that’s how you’ll find the strength. Your will. If you want to be honorable, then you will be.” His face twisted in a sneer. “Yeah,” he scoffed. “Sure. I’ll just tell the cat that we’re honorable, and to shut the fuck up. That’ll work.” Nomi rose, stiffly, to face him. Her head tipped back to hold his flashing eyes. “You won’t have to tell him to shut up. Just like he quiets when you’re near me, he’ll quiet when I live with you, as your mate.” Burke collapsed onto his ass. His head was now level with hers. “I swear to the Sacred Couple, don’t you dare tell me I don’t know what I’m doing.” His lips were thin slashes on his face, his jaw tight. But the hand that rose to touch the side of her face was feather light. “It’s madness. Living with me, even as—” he swallowed, “my mate, it wouldn’t change my status. My status is directly tied to my mental state. I’ll always be a Lone alpha, Nomi.” She reached up and grabbed his hand. It was big and hard. Brushing a kiss over his palm, and she held it to her face. “That’s Stormdancer to you. I’m gonna rain down on you until you bow. I’m sick at heart living here. You’re killing yourself living there. We can help each other. Please, Burke, just think about it.” She lowered their hands, twined her fingers into his. Now he’ll run. “Come here, Stormdancer.” He tugged, helping her balance as she stepped up toward his rock. “There’s no room, Burke.” “Here.” He plucked her right off her awkward balance, and settled her in his lap. His heat was welcome. “We could have fallen!” “Hush. Watch the sunset with me.” Nomi let her head rest against his shoulder. She watched the colors shift and flow, giving thanks to Skyfather. Far below her, she felt the hum of water. She gave thanks to Earthmother for their lovely perch. Feeling her heart beat in time with Burke’s, Nomi thought, The seed is planted. The rocks are worked loose. The bigger weeds are wilting. She was overjoyed. She’d inspired him enough to stay, and more, hold her. The last purple faded as the stars came washing down. Burke whispered, “Evening, Nomi.” “Evening, Burke.” And then, “My heart is full of hope.” “Mine, too. Mine, too. But hope is fragile, Nomi. We’ll see.” **** The night after the sunset, when he’d walked her home, her hand in his, he went back. He was proud of himself for staying away during the day, but it had cost him in energy to battle the cat. Again, she was at the yews. He’d been terrified of what kind of damage his Stormdancer would bring, but she didn’t mention any of the more terrifying words from the night before, like “mate,” “hope,” or “together.” They wandered the trees, the main topic of conversation on whether plates and forks were necessary when bowls and knives did just fine. The words weren’t important. He kept his hands to himself, he kept the cat inside, and he took every scent, smile, and

breath she shared, easy in his presence. When she wanted to go home, she reached out to him. The cat sat, settled, as he closed his fingers around hers. They learned the ways their hands clasped easily, the touches that each favored. Such contact was never an innocent comfort. The heat and form of her tingled up his arm and into his aching, rigid dick. When she stood on the edge of the brush near her tiny house, he brushed his thumb over the back of her hand. Loosening their grip, both stared at their hands as they slowly drifted apart, the skin tough but smooth, textured with calluses and creases. The pulse from his fingertips as they left the touch of her was as if he had peeled an extension of himself away. Inside, the cat had used teeth. He watched her all day the next day, then went to her in the night. Seeing her three days in a row made his palms sweat. This time she was in the yews, perched among their drooping branches. Again she wore that new vest that plumped her already magnificent breasts. She had a handful of long dried grasses, and strung the tiny cones into a charming necklace. They talked of the birds migrating, and the harvest. It was all so achingly like before, yet so different because it wasn’t the same. They were at ease with each other, but nothing could take away the memory of him staying away, of her asking him not to go, of her wanting him to stay. And when she was tired and wanted to walk home, she reached for his hand. She touched him, folding her small hand into his. Holding it carefully, he maneuvered with her through the still, dark forest, subtly avoiding the patrol lines, steadying her, savoring her scent and warmth. It was during the following day he had a visitor. Unfortunately, it was near dawn, when he still shook from the few hours of sleep he’d finally given in to. Damn his dreams of fur. Ghutar called from the stairs. “Lone Mountaincat! Come see me!” Cursing, Burke had gone to the main entrance to his miniature lair, dropping his protective spells. The powerful, larger man stood framed in the door. Eyeing Burke’s shivering form, he wrinkled his nose. “What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?” “No. I just woke up.” Apparently his pride in standing upright was misplaced. “What brings you, Shield.” Ghutar brushed past him. Burke thanked his lucky star he’d bathed the night before, or the man would smell Nomi. Holding her hand was becoming an addictive custom. He followed the man back into the main lounge, only stumbling on his still shaking legs once. His jaw was firmly locked against the compulsive chattering of his teeth. “We’ve had a report. Guards at the Farm say you’ve been hanging around, despite being warned. Your scent is crossing a woman’s who wanders the trees there.” The powerful alpha turned brilliant blue eyes on him. Using the silent hand signals all Truxet warriors knew, he said, Danger. Liar. “Are you bothering her?” Burke wanted to cross his arms to still the shuddering, but knew it would make him look defensive. He wanted to throw the man out of his territory. He wanted to be able to stand proud and scoff at the man’s doubt on his honor. He’d lied so much lately, would one more still hold? No. “She’s a friend.” Ghutar was visibly shocked. “You stupid fuck. You’re about to break, and you’re hanging around a human woman?” “Not often.” Not enough.

“Is she a paid woman?” The thought of Nomi laying with other Trux made the room spin. Cat, leaping continuously since Ghutar had entered their lair, tried to crawl up his throat. Burke had to breathe through the pain before he could answer. “No. Our relationship is platonic.” Kissing her. Watching her hands fold between her legs, her muscled body writhing on her bed. Her full breasts gleaming with water behind the falls. “Relationship.” Ghutar stalked out of the room, found his bedroom. Burke followed him, standing in the doorway pathetically as Ghutar bent and sniffed his pile of sleeping furs. Sadly, there was nothing for the Shield to smell. He hadn’t even masturbated in weeks. Rising, Ghutar grunted. “You don’t get to have relationships, lone alpha. You get to hold to your territory and your mind. If you try to split your attention from those basic tasks, you’ll lose your soul.” The Shield stomped over into Burke’s space with a heavy, threatening tread. “I can’t wait to hunt your rogue ass. Wolf-freak. You’re a bomb waiting to happen with your crazy caging of your cat. I can’t believe you’re still torturing him like that, you sick fuck. But I certainly don’t want to hunt you after you’ve gutted some innocent woman you’ve raped.” Burke’s stomach heaved. Ghutar’s lean, ugly face leaned into Burke’s. “Stay away from her. By direct order of your Alpha.” He knocked into Burke with his shoulder as he strode back into the hallway. Pausing at the bend, he turned back. “You should come back to River Mountain. See a spiritmage. Use a paid woman. By the Six, Burke, you’ve lasted a long time in torment I can’t even imagine. Come back, free your cat. Proteus will help you. If you can at least make peace with your Mountaincat, maybe you have a chance. Your existence is a shame to our Clan. Try not to shame us any more.” The man left, taking with him all hope. Burke threw his head back and roared, and roared, and roared, until his throat burned. He fell to his knees, crawled back to his furs. Falling to his side, he shoved his fist against his teeth, holding the screams of rage and loss inside. **** Nomi leaned in her door and watched the Truxet warriors wind their way past her. This was the third and final group. On the autumnal equinox, they were gathering their payment for the security of the Farm. It was a significant cut of their herds. The Beasts could grow their own plants, but didn’t much care for husbandry. The meat was butchered here, and taken in large crates. Somewhere, she knew, they had a magestone that let them travel long distances. The one Burke had used three nights after the sunset, when he’d gone, disappeared again, this time without any warning at all. This time was different. She could feel it. He’d been fine the last time he left. Tired but calm, the gleam of hope still in his eyes. He had held her hand, and there were no tremors. But it had been a week, and no Burke. He’d been gone for longer, but she knew, somehow, this was different. He wasn’t coming back, unless she did something. Watching carefully, she studied the men in this last group. There, that one. He

looked the most relaxed. He had a wolf on his vest. His skin seemed to suck all the light away, it was so black. Parts of him shone a warmer brown, but mostly he was pitch dark. As they headed out in their line, she followed. When they were well away from the fields, she called out. “Sir Wolf. Excuse me, can I ask you something?” She was proud of her bold, low voice. Until all the men stopped and turned. “Me?” asked the man closest to her, with some sort of long furry thing on his vest. “You.” She pointed to the black Wolf. The men looked at each other. Irritated, Nomi snapped, “What? Is it against your precious laws to even talk to me?” The black Wolf stepped toward her, his heavy crate making his arms bulge. “Yes?” “Ummm, can we walk over here?” She motioned away from the group. “You guys don’t have to stay.” She said to the staring men. “Lady, what did you want to say?” He stood resolutely. Nomi swallowed. All right. This wasn’t worth a power struggle. She needed to spit it out. “I—I have a friend. He’s a lone alpha.” She looked sharply at the line of men when several took a step in her direction. “He’s not going to come around here anymore.” Horrified, Nomi heard the emotion in her voice. She cleared her throat, and swallowed. “I’d like you to give him a message.” “He’s not of my Clan.” You bastard. Fury burned away all sadness. She met his dark eyes with challenge. “No, I realize that. But if you could, please just tell him I said good-bye. And that there is always hope. Tell him I said so, please. It might help.” The man remained still, staring at her. His hair was thick and close cropped. “Or is that against your law, to help an old friend in need?” Disdainful sarcasm flowed. “No,” one of the men in line said. At the same time, the black man said, “It’s not against the law. But wounded animals are the most dangerous.” She stepped toward him. “They’re the ones who most need hope.” “That lone warrior is dangerously unstable. Lady, stay away from him.” This tidbit came from another warrior in line, with a bear on his vest. “And when was the last time you sat and talked with him, to have such a false opinion?” She glared at the Bear. “Hush.” By turning his head slightly, she knew the Wolf shushed the Bear and not her. He lifted his face back to face her. “I’ll consider carrying your message. Hope is the very foundation of our lives. Not one of us wouldn’t appreciate such words from a friend.” He held her eyes, and Nomi shifted. “But Lady, don’t look for him. You are forbidden.” Nomi nodded, her heart beating to hear confirmation of her fears. They’d found out. Was he punished? Was he tied up, beaten, humiliated, for daring to be her friend? “Thank you for carrying my message.” You better tell him. Please. The threat and the pleading stuck in her throat. He nodded once, an oddly formal gesture. “Be well. Look to your other friends, now.”

He turned and with a jerk of his head, the others fell back and moved away again. One of the men, one with a Groundbear on his vest, wore a leather skirt. He threw her a look over his shoulder. She fought the urge to stick out her tongue. When they were all gone, she went to the waterfall, even though she was supposed to be helping to bring in the beans. The day was cool and cloudy, but she stripped and slipped into the water. She stroked to the falls, trickling thinly now, and dove beneath the spatter. There she opened her mouth and screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

Chapter Six Burke stood in the middle of his territory. Sixty-four days. The harvest would be over. Maybe so far south, down near the Royal City, the apples would still be coming down. Every day, he tried to decide what chore she could be doing. Today he decided she’d be hanging corn to dry. At first he’d tried not to think of her, but found the cat calmed a bit to remember her, to remember the days they’d hid and watched her going about her life. He still fought the cat all day, every day. He still had horrible nightmares of the cat owning his body. Sometimes, he still screamed in rage. But here, in the exact middle of his territory, he had decided the land was good for a farm. He’d begun to clear the brush at first, without really thinking about it. Then he’d decided he’d grow a crop next year, as a way to remember her. To think about what she was doing, be connected, somehow, to the rhythm of her life. Wiping his hand across his dirty, sweaty brow, he straightened, stretching his back. Then, as cat lunged and paced and clawed, he set to swinging the axe. Next winter, this wood could be used for real fires, something to keep his mind occupied better than steady, mindless mageheat. “Mountaincat! Friend ho!” The booming voice rolled across the land, silencing the birds. The cat leaped hard, but Burke set his jaw and merely put his axe down. “This way, Iskar.” By the time Iskar loped into view, a hulking black shadow, Burke had steadied his breathing and had as firm a hold on cat as he was ever capable of. He moved to meet the man, clasping arms with him. Touching another sent a shocking zing up his arm. He hadn’t spoken to a soul since he’d picked up his supplies at River Mountain on the equinox. That visit had been painful. He’d let Proteus stare in his eyes as he confirmed his promise to stay away from Nomi, declined the offer to run in their fur together, gathered up a few crates, and left within an hour. Iskar breathed lightly. Burke remembered his manners. “There’s a stream down this way, would like a drink?” The man shook his head. It surprised Burke when he looked the man in the eyes. He remembered him as much bigger. “I’m fine.” He looked beyond Burke to the felled trees and piles of split wood. “You building something?” “Actually, yeah, I’m going to build a little wood shed, then pile the extra wood under it.” The men stood, staring at the logs. The silence spun out into awkwardness. The Wolves were the largest Clan of all, so big Burke didn’t even know everyone personally. Iskar was black wolf, the largest pack, but Burke knew him because he’d been one of the youngling trainers. The warrior could throw a knife and hit an apple seed at thirty paces. Burke had only ever managed twelve with a target so small. Finally, the older man said, “I met your friend.”

Burke’s heart stopped. Immediately, he knew. “She said to say goodbye.” The damn cat’s claws tried to erupt, but he held them back. Iskar turned and looked at him. His brows came together. “It’s true. You’re actually caging your cat.” “Where. Did. You meet her?” The words stumbled over themselves as Burke struggled to breathe. “We were picking up the Farm’s tithe. I thought about not giving you the message for a long time. If it would be better for you to not even know.” The man searched his face, but Burke couldn’t focus on him. It was all he could do to remain standing. “Your mother’s lost weight. It will be good for her to see you at Autumnal.” Burke closed his eyes. Crap. “When is it?” Iskar moved restlessly. Crap. He shouldn’t have asked that question. “Time blurs out here, alone.” A long, soft sigh came from the warrior. Burke could feel the cloying pity wrap around him. It was enough to shrivel his balls. “Autumnal starts today. All the Clans have begun to shuttle in their supplies.” Today. Crap. Memories of the Wolves watching and helping as visitors poured into their territory for a month’s celebration swirled in his mind’s eye. The shouting, the laughter, the bright tents so close. “Right.” Burke tried to sound like his world hadn’t just splintered. Nomi had said good-bye. Wait. Back at the equinox? That was barely a week after Ghutar’s cheery visit. “How did she seem?” Iskar moved away. “She seemed feisty, actually. Stopped the whole group, bold as brass. Tried to summon me. Stated her business in front of all them, took on a Bear when he criticized her.” Burke clapped his jaws shut on the growl which threatened to escape. Cat did somersaults of torment. Iskar paused on the top of a rise. Over his shoulder he shared, “There was another part of her message. She said not to lose hope. You can’t think you’re expendable, Burke. Our people need every warrior. Even though you’ve little chance of a bonded mate now, her message is good. Hope you’ll be useful. Hope keeping this territory will matter. Go pack for the Autumnal now and rejoin your Clan. I’ll look for you.” He waved after his inspiring little speech and accelerated into a Wolf’s steady lope. Soon even the sound of his passage had faded, as he made his way back to the sifting stone a morning’s walk away. In a daze, Burke turned and fetched his axe. He walked to his cliff, up the four flights, dropped the axe in the hall. He went out to the rear stairs and up to the top of the mesa. He stood at the very edge, staring down. Not five bodylengths down was a ledge with three dead pines, one whose trunk had toppled, the other two whose trunks were missing, baring lower skeletal limbs around the broken central spike of jagged wood. He was fascinated by the ledge, half a body wide, full of brittle, sheared stakes. Even for a person with cat reflexes, it would be impossible to safely land on such a dense shelf. He stared at, standing just over the very edge, with his toes curling in his boots over the vast space below.

Nomi had said good-bye, but she had also said to have hope. She’d known he wasn’t coming back. Had some Trux gone to her, told her she was safe from the slavering lone alpha? Had she been hurt? Did she know it was by his Alpha’s decree, and not his choice? He snorted, tipping his head back. Looking at the sky this way, from this point, reminded him of standing on the vast plains of the Den. It didn’t matter if she knew why he was gone. She was safe now. Her warm weight in his lap, his arms loose around her. Her hands on his arm were calloused and hard, her breasts against his chest soft. Her hair had been damp, and smelled of pine. Nomi, Stormdancer, mate. Cat keened and lunged inside. He swayed. Losing his balance here would be death, but he did not step back. Nomi, Stormdancer, mate. Her chin raised, breasts pebbled and damp, her voice calling hard, You can wait out there in the dark, or you can come in and watch me finish. Cat crouched, howled, claws sinking deep. The pine tree ledge looked close enough to touch. He could just lean forward. Laughing, she spun in a field, snatching up burrs and throwing them at him. The tiny spikes bounced off his arms and cheek. He had laughed. For the first time since the Cat had come to him, he had laughed and meant it. Cat exploded inside him, its musky scent riding the air. Burke let himself rock out over the lip of stone, even as he curled his fists and forced the fur back down. Sometimes you just can’t stay, you know? Her voice soft in the night, softer than the grass beneath his head. The crickets were busy, and the stars had seemed close. Her concern touched him, drew out the pain. He shared the wrongness with her. I’m infected with a cat. As Burke stood swaying on the edge of the cliff, the Mountaincat curled up into a ball. Flicking its tail over its nose, only the quivering tip belied its tension. Burke opened his eyes. The sky was blue, with a few wispy clouds high above. Many of the trees were already bare, only a few russet browns and golds still scattered about. He breathed out, slow and long, his breath misting white. The cat was quiet, still, terrified. And that was how it finally broke his will. **** Walking back from dinner, Nomi nibbled on the warm apple tart. The cinnamonsugar glaze was her favorite, and away from Guild eyes, she licked it. Humming, she went inside between the dried, bent heads of her sunflowers. The door swung shut behind her but she didn’t stop to latch it. She stood frozen with her apple tart held to her gaping mouth. Licking her lips after a moment, she whispered, “Evening, Burke.” He was in the corner, crouched on one folded leg, arms wrapped around his knee, it was much the position she’d first seen him in. She swallowed. He did not raise his lovely silver eyes to hers. He did not answer her. Easing to the side, Nomi laid the tart on the table, and wiped her sticky fingers on her pants. She sat in the chair, slowly, carefully. Now the bed was between them, but she could still see him clearly. “I missed you, Burke.” The words were so inadequate to the loneliness and sorrow without him. She drank in his face, thinner now. The horrible dark bruises under his eyes hurt her heart, testament

to his continuing issues with sleep. He was so still, but she knew he was not asleep. He was totally focused on her. She forced herself to relax back in her chair. Letting the silence spin out, she waited. Something was wrong, and he’d come to her. Her heart pounded, torn between concern and joy. “You trust me.” Holding her breath, she said, “Yes.” “If you go with me, I could kill you.” “You wouldn’t.” Time seemed to slow. She could feel every heartbeat, feel her lungs expand. Her lashes brushed together as she blinked. “You won’t, Burke.” “You want me.” On a sigh, “Yes.” He stared blankly at the ground, motionless. The minutes blended while she waited. “You trust me.” “I trust you. Yes. I want you, Burke. I want to be with you. I ache without you.” Slowly, his face tipped up toward her. When she saw the shining green of magecraft in them, she clamped her lips closed against a cry. Something was very wrong. Her heart hammered violently in terror for him. “Be strong, Burke. Use my strength. Be who you want, not who they want you to be. Be proud.” Aching, Nomi stood, although she didn’t know why. She stood, staring at the crouched man who had haunted her dreams, both awake and asleep. He stood as well, rising like a puppet, effortlessly, eerily. When he walked out the door with jerky, halting movements, she followed him. He moved into the brush, ignoring her faint trail. With an amazing economy, he wove through the forest with the barest shifting of his body and head, his hands fisted at his sides. After an hour, her breath came hard. After two, she scrambled to keep up. After three, she had a stitch in her side. After four, he stopped. With a spell and a pulse of craft, he threw green mist at a gap between two white pines, then moved swiftly through. She dashed after him, feeling the sizzle of the trap she’d seen months ago on the oak. She was in the Wild now, beyond Trux guards. Her heart pounded with exertion and excitement, but she still didn’t know if he knew she followed him. Was he bringing her with him on purpose? It was only a short little rock. She would never have known it for a magical treasure. Knee-high and covered in moss. He put one hand down on it, then held his other hand out to her. She looked into his glowing green eyes, and put hers into it. The world dipped, tossed, and gently heaved her. Tightening her fingers on Burke’s, she swallowed, seeing an entirely different forest around them. She shook her head at the abrupt rearrangement of water’s voice. Burble, tumble, flo—seep, twist, slink. The patterns were all different, all new. They weren’t anywhere close to the Farm anymore. Her thighs burned, and her heart leaped. Burke now touched a long lump of brown rock, wide and smooth. He dropped her hand like it burned. Stepped away from her. “Nomi…” She tried to smile at him. “Evening, Burke.” He turned away. “This will end one of three ways. With my death, with both of us dead, or with us as mates, living a life of isolation and severe simplicity.” Her spine slithered with chills. Plus, it was much colder here than before. “I choose the happy ending. It sounds wonderful.” “You don’t get to choose one without risking the other two. I can take you back. A

dozen steps, and you’ll be back inside the Farm’s perimeter.” “I have a one in three chance of dying, but your odds are greater. Do you want me to go?” He growled, blurred, and was behind her, his breath warm against her bare nape. She turned her face up to his. “I trust you, Burke. I’m so glad you came back.” A tremor worked down his body. She still breathed hard from their trek and the sifting of space. His scent carried to her clearly, calming her. He was salt, leather, and wild. It had been so long. “You smell good.” Without seeing his hand move, she felt the brush of his fingertips across her lips. “Don’t say such things.” He moved off into the woods, the light darker here as well. She followed him, relieved at his slower pace. Still, by the time they came to rough stairs hewn into a towering cliff, she held her side against the deep cramp there. Looking up, she groaned. She couldn’t see where the steps ended, but saw enough to know it was a long trek. He turned and scooped his arms under her back and knees. She squeaked when he shifted her to the side, and went up the stairs a bit sideways so her head avoided the cliff. There was no railing. She clung to his neck, afraid to ask to be put down. Feeling his body shift so strongly under hers parched her already dry throat. His arms were strong and his grip steady. Not meeting her eyes, he kept his gaze on the steps ahead, his tread steady and never pausing. They came to an arch at the top of the stairs. He stopped, and magelights lit along the hall in small sconces, tiny glowing balls of gold. A bend in the arched hall prevented her from seeing the end. “Is this your home? When you called it a cave, I pictured something much worse. This is cozy, Burke.” A deep, full body tremor passed through him. At one point, she thought a growl rumbled in his chest where it pressed against her shoulder. His hands bit into her ribs and thigh. With jerking motions, he let her slide down his body, which poured heat. Their sweaty leathers stuck together, grinding her ass across his hips as he set her down. She turned, and leaned against him, confident in his ability to brace her. Another violent shiver passed over him, then one hand crept around her upper chest, pulling her ever so gently back against him. His heart pounded into her back. She reached up and clutched his forearm with both of hers. They stood there pressed together, staring into the hall, for long moments. “I’m so afraid, Nomi. I’m so afraid.” His voice in her ear was harsh. She nodded. “Trust me, Burke. We’re strong. We can do this.” “Do something for me. Do it this first night, and then we’ll talk tomorrow. Don’t argue with me.” He was big and solid at her back. She leaned against him. “All right.” “Tie me up.” A wild nervous giggle almost escaped but she swallowed it back at the last minute. Objections and questions piled into her throat but she nodded. “All r-right.” He took his arm from around her and twined his fingers with hers. Following him down the hall felt like a promise. Nomi’s heart flipped. She was off the Farm, with Burke. They stood in a room that seemed too big after her little hut. There were piles along the walls, a trunk, a table and four chairs, all roughly made. In the corner was a

counter and cabinets, like a kitchen. He went to one of the piles, found a sack, rummaged, and pulled out some rope. Taking her hand, still avoiding her eyes, he led her into another hall. She saw a bathroom in one small room, and another room piled with various supply crates, then a room with a rounded ceiling. This one had a compact table, with a truly spectacular carved chair, covered in snarling wolves. A bed piled with glossy furs took up most of the room. He sat in the chair and put his hands behind his back. “Now.” Nomi stood, feeling the rough ropes in her hands. “You’re scared you’ll rape me, aren’t you?” He closed his eyes. “Please.” You silly man. As he’d asked, she wouldn’t argue tonight. But she wouldn’t do this again. He was very upset he’d taken her. After so many aching, lonely nights, he’d heard her heart whispering on the water and come for her. Tomorrow night she’d prove he was safe. She sat at his feet and tied first one ankle to the chair leg, and then the other. She tightened the ropes and used good knots. She finished his second leg when his fingers brushed along the curve of one ear. She glanced up, her breath catching. His eyes were silver again. “I dare much, Nomi. Where I see weakness, you see strength. You are amazing.” “I couldn’t force you to come for me. I’m so proud you were courageous enough to do it.” He put his hands behind the chair back. She moved around behind him and tied his clasped hands together. “Elbows, too,” he said quietly. “You’re a silly man.” “Please, Nomi.” She did, although she didn’t tighten the rope as much as she could have. Walking around in front of him she looked at the strange, wild bed. It reminded her of a child’s sandbox, only full of the most amazing pelts. Turning, she surveyed his broad shoulders and powerful thighs. “What if you have to go to the bathroom?” He sighed. “Time for bed, Nomi.” Looking at the bed, several wild images of sleeping nude against the furs popped into her head. Followed by images of Burke’s nude form next to hers. Followed by the memory of his arms strong around her. She looked at him. She was really here, with him. He’d come for her. “I’m gonna take a look around.” “No.” She turned fully toward him and crossed her arms. Raising one brow, she cocked her hip and taunted, “And who is currently tied up and helpless?” “It’s too dangerous. Stay here.” His silver eyes glittered. “I’m not going to leave the cave.” Nomi turned and walked out. To his credit, he didn’t yell. She explored the main room, which definitely needed a woman’s touch. The storage room was a disaster of disorganized mess, but she was pleased the bathroom looked clean. The waste chair and sink were stone instead of clay, which was different. She found a set of stairs that went

up and followed them to a lookout. The stairs went up even higher, but she didn’t want to leave Burke defenseless. The view was lovely, reminding her of the outcropping near the road on the Farm. Nomi studied the rolling land before her, chafing her bare arms against the chill. Soon she’d know that land. She’d know every stream and pool. This was her land, now, with Burke. She wouldn’t go back. No more people. She was free. Night had fallen, and it was cold in her sleeveless vest. The stars seemed close. She fixed tea in his kitchen, washed up in his bathroom, and took him a cup. She held it to his lips and was surprised when he drank it. The mageheat glowed softly, making the room comfortable, but there was an autumn nip in the air. Taking a pelt from the pile she put it around his shoulders. “I don’t need this.” She laid another across his lap. “Your boots look damp. Do you want me to take them off, get you some dry socks?” “No.” She waved a hand at the hall. “You have no doors. How safe are we?” “I failed to patrol today, so I cannot be positive my territory is still completely safe. I will set a defensive spell around the bedroom and the stairs when you go to bed. I promise with this spell, we will have plenty of time to free me should we need to.” “What if I have to go to the bathroom?” “I’ll drop the spell.” “I hate to wake you up.” “I won’t sleep, Nomi.” She went to a trunk on the side, and rummaged until she found a pair of thick socks. Undressing, she laid her clothes on the trunk. Baring herself before Burke was natural, comfortable. A memory came to her of sitting with him behind the waterfall, at ease in her skin. She wanted him to see her, to know all her secret places. Pulling the socks on her chilled feet, she asked, “So what kinds of things would try to get us out here?” “Wild men live in packs, roaming around the City fringes. I’m a three day run west of Fourth City, so there is a chance of danger from them. Wild creatures, some with magecraft, some with poison, come and go. I’ve got a Fuzzy problem near the northern border, up on the mesa.” Nomi shuddered. A Fuzzy was a pocket of wild magic that burned any living thing it touched. The blurred patches of air drifted seemingly at random around the Wild, driving people inside City walls. She’d only seen one once at the Farm. The Beasts, the Truxet, had come and dispersed it, but not after it had killed several chickens and half a field of lettuce. “You clear them by yourself? Don’t you ever need help with all these creatures?” “I’m a Trux warrior. I do fine. But—“ he shuddered, swallowed. “Don’t go out without me, Nomi. Don’t.” “All right. I know I have a lot to learn.” He nodded, his hair tumbling across his forehead over one eye. She stepped to him and smoothed it back before she thought of it. “You need a haircut.” His eyes caught her as easily as his hands could have. “Go to bed, Nomi.” Standing nude in the room, wearing only his socks, it occurred to her the man was tied up. He sat there, all muscled and powerful and helpless. She licked her lips. “By the Six woman, I went mad today and took you against my Alpha’s orders. If

you have any care for me, don’t.” Ashamed, hurt, Nomi stepped away. She was under the covers, trying to get the lumps just right, when he said quietly, “I am amazed you are able to look at me like that.” Pushing what must surely be a Fiagon’s pelt away from her face, she asked, “Like what?” “Like I’m … desirable.” She snorted. “Delicious, delectable, and luscious!” “This has only begun. I’m going to get worse before I get better.” “Do we have a plan? Are there going to be hordes of Truxet upon us tomorrow when the Guild reports me missing?” “No. Autumnal has started. We have options and a bit of time. Tomorrow we’ll talk.” “I’m cozy. You’re contained. Why wait?” “Because I’m still coming back from the place where I decided to throw my honor away.” “Huh. The honor that asked me to tie it up for safety?” “The dishonor that has you lying in my bed.” Nomi sighed. Her seed of possibility had sprouted. She still had weeding to do, despite her joy at how it had grown in rocky soil. Farmers needed patience. Amazingly, she slept. His mouth was warm, his tongue strong against hers. Their hands tugged and pulled. Breath gasping, hands grabbing, she rolled in the power of her man. Burke, you’re mine. He moved inside her, a growing weight and heat and pressure. Breathing was harder, hands moved more frantically. Her breasts ached. The pressure grew in her belly. Nomi, I’d rather die for tasting you than never have tasted you at all. Her eyes opened to faint light. She didn’t know where she was, and someone was in the room. An echo of Burke’s smell made the dream feel real, and her breasts throbbed. Then she remembered. Burke in her hut, the taste of cinnamon in her mouth. A long walk through a darkening forest. A stone hallway lit by magelight, strong heat against her back. Letting out a shaky breath, she buried her face in his smell, and swirled her hips against the soft furs. She had to pee, but she had to come first. Rolling, she looked over at the still, stiff man watching her. With just one magelight lit, she could only see half his face. His breathing was as ragged as hers. Her dream had seemed so real. She wished it was. Crawling out of the furs, she dragged one with her over to his feet. Sitting on the edge, she wrapped the bulk around her and leaned against his leg. Putting one arm up on his fur-draped knee, she lay her head in the cradle she made. His thigh was rock solid beneath her. Now she was with him, now he would be part of this. She closed her eyes, and sent her fingers down between her legs. Working softly, steadily, she circled, breath hitching, heart hammering. Her skin was soft, slick and warm. The valley on either side of her clit sent shivers down her spine. When she finally eased up to the tiny point at the tip of her, it sent such a jolt through her body her leg jumped of its own accord. She flicked over the sensitive spot again. Her leg bounced and her belly tightened. Ass clenched, leaning hard into Burke’s massive thigh, she set to thrumming the sensitive dimple there.

Pushing her finger back and forth, she turned her hand just slightly and scored the edge of her nail across herself. Her breath caught. Licking her lips, Nomi circled her tip again, smoothing her silky cream around and around in her valley. Massaging the central core of flesh in a gentle, milking pinch, Nomi clenched her teeth as the tension drew tight. Working herself, harder, faster, the grip tightening into a grind, her fingers closed over the tip of herself and held. Finally, a soft moan eased from her as the pleasure spread, softening her shoulders. Closing her eyes, she drifted again, sleeping. Enough time passed for her to feel stiff when she woke. She stretched, gathered the fur around her, and used Burke’s knee to assist her to her feet. Licking her lips, she walked to the door, trusting the green veil would fall, and it did. She peed, washed, and came back. He sat rigid, shoulders so wide and tense. Moving into the room, she felt the veil shimmer up behind her. She stood in front of him, watching tremors race down his body continuously. They stared, brown eyes to silver. “Tomorrow—” “Don’t.” The word ripped harshly from his throat, nearly a hiss. “Why do you shake like that?” “The cat wants out.” It seemed so simple. “You’re never going to let it out.” “No.” “Once, in the summer, you said you’d never give it what it wanted, and it wanted me. Something about sacrifice in war.” “I stayed true to that. But then I broke its spirit, and it began to die. It had no hope. It has no freedom, and it didn’t have you. So I decided to live. And living meant getting you.” Her lips parted in horror. “Burke.” Anger suddenly exploded inside her. “I’m the lesser evil than letting yourself grow fur?” “You’re a dream, Nomi. A future, a life, a mystery.” She bared her teeth at him. “And now the kitty is back, trying to get out.” “Yes.” She spun back to the bed. Settling in, she sniped, “Did you like my little show?” “It calmed me, and the cat, too. It was a beautiful gift of trust.” She lay with her arms folded, until her pout faded away. “Burke?” she heard the quaver in her voice. “Yes.” “I heard a rumor. About beasts.” “What was it?” Nomi swallowed, closed her eyes, and breathed, “Do Truxet fuck women in animal form?” “No.” So simple. Her eyes flew open. “That rumor probably started based on our mating ceremony.” She bit her lip. “And how does it work?” “We bond with our mates in a shifted form, but it’s not our beastspirit’s.” “Oh.” Her voice was very small. “What form is it?” “The battleform is a blending, a balance. My body is bigger and stronger, and I have aspects of the cat like teeth and claws.” His voice went quiet and low as well. “That is

why I’m tied up, Nomi. I’m not afraid of raping you in my human form, like a rogue. I’m afraid of losing control and shifting into battleform, desperate to rush into mating. And in such a dangerous form, without my Alpha, I could kill you. Rational thought leaves, and there is only instinct.” “Oh,” she breathed. Thoughts of finding his Alpha and forcing the ceremony on him scattered. She had a ways to go. This was going to be hard. “This is going to be hard,” he sighed. A smile burst across her face. Turning on her side to face him, she met his eyes. “I’m not afraid.” He didn’t voice his fear this time, but it hung between them in the air. She kept her smile in place. “Night, Burke. It’s good to be here.” “Night, Nomi. It’s good to see you here.” Her smile stayed naturally as she drifted to sleep. **** In the morning, she woke slowly, warm and pleased. The furs were soft on her skin, and the air on her face cool enough to feel cozy inside them. She stretched, and looked to Burke. His gaze was steady on her. White lines of pain bracketed his mouth. Tremors shook his body. Every muscle in his neck was etched starkly. His furs had fallen off in the night. She sat up abruptly. “Oh, Burke.” They stared at each other. “You have to go. I was insane. I was weak. I failed you. You can’t stay.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “I couldn’t possibly find your sifting stone again, even if I knew how to work it.” She knelt, letting the furs fall from around her. Her breasts pebbled for him. He closed his eyes. Relentlessly, she continued. “I’m not going back. I’m done with Guild life. How can I help you?” He shook his head. His hair was damp with sweat. “Burke, I’m not leaving. Here, let me untie you and I’ll make breakfast.” “No!” His chin dropped to his chest and growls poured out of him. Nomi stood and went to him. He tipped the chair with his toes in an effort to move away. She set her hands on his knees, holding it to the floor. “No. No. No.” Another woman might have been alarmed by his dark, vicious snarls. He smelled delicious, even more earthy than last night. She felt guilty for the thought. A sheen of moisture covered his neck and arms. “Burke.” “No. Go.” “Burke. Tell me what’s going on.” “You. Danger.” He shook his head, moaning. She heard grinding teeth. Then, in the faintest whisper, “Rape.” “Oh, by Earthmother’s fat ass, I am so done with that.” Nomi stood up, crossing her arms and glaring down at him. “What we have here is a bad case of lust, and fear, and denial. So let’s clear the air, shall we?”

Leaning down, Nomi began to undo the laces down the middle of his vest. “No.” “Yes.” She’d undone most of it when he again said, “No. Please.” Yanking the hair at the back of his neck, she jerked his head up. “Look me in the eyes, and tell me you don’t want me.” “I don’t—don’t want, don’t want to hurt you.” “Well, then. It’s a good thing you’re all tied up. Don’t tell me no again.”

Chapter Seven Nomi finished pulling the laces free of his vest, and pushed the sides open. His knees were spread enough she could kneel on the furs between them, her breasts resting on his warm thighs. Leaning forward, Nomi gently kissed his torso, reveling in the slabs of tense muscle there. “It’s been so long. So long since I saw you, talked with you, touched you. I never knew the grief of loss before. I don’t ever want to know it again.” His chest was covered with a fine layer of soft hair on his upper chest, which narrowed to a denser line down his belly. She nibbled the hairs, nuzzled his nipples, and in general, took her time exploring. “Oh, Burke. Someday you won’t be tied up. You’ll be able to hold me without fear, soon.” She slid her arms around his tight waist, squeezing between him and the straight back of the chair, and stroked his spine as she traced the sweep of each rib with her tongue. He was still shaking. “I’m so fucking weak. You shouldn’t risk being so near.” “You can’t go on like this. Maybe sex will calm you.” He jerked at that. She soothed his shock by suckling his tiny nipple, pebbled against her tongue. Her hands went to work on his waistband. For every lace pulled free, she kissed him. Finding the layers of muscle was easy when he was so rigid. When his pants were undone, she pulled back. His hair here was the same dark brown as the thin trickle on his chest, but this denser patch had ruby highlights. Nomi triggered the room’s three magelights to go full with a pulse of her will. Burke hissed. Lowering her face to his groin, she buried her nose in the soft hair and inhaled. Burke lifting his body out her window. Burke laying his hand over the gash in her arm, his healing energy tingling her body. Burke’s head bending down to her as she kissed him in the forest. She had to bend him to get him out of his pants, but he made no noise beyond the small panting sounds he’d been driven to since she started. His cock was huge. It was pale, with veins standing out starkly. The head was darker, the flared rim of him impossibly wide. She traced one vein down his side with a gentle finger. Petting his hair away from his base, she made sure it wasn’t caught in his leathers. His cock jumped and twitched, and she smiled to see how demanding it was. At least one part of him was honest about its needs. Licking her lips, Nomi wrapped one hand around the base of him. Heat. Softness. It had been so long since she’d held a man, really studied him, and enjoyed it so much. His abs bunched and seized. Raising her other hand, she wrapped it around him as well, stacking it above her other hand, just under his crown. Her fingers couldn’t quite meet. Squeezing, she tested the steel of him. His steady pants choked, stopped, continued. Rotating her hands in opposite directions, she twisted the skin gently, moving down, and then up. The hole at the top of his penis opened, and a slow seeping wash of gleaming moisture trickled out. “Oh, Burke.” The flat of her tongue drew hard across the top of him. Once. Twice. She licked her

lips again, and then kissed the top of him. In tiny bobbing slurps, she pushed more and more of him into her mouth with a slight rocking motion of her body. Aware of her hands gripping him too tightly, she took one away, sinking her fingers into his thick thigh. By the time she’d stretched her jaw to engulf his crown, the room spun at the thrill of him. His smell, his softness, his taste. Burke. She had Burke, her friend in the night, in her mouth, in the morning, in the Wild. With a desperate moan, she swallowed around his tip. Moving her hand off his base to his other thigh, she thrust her head forward, wedging his head deep in her mouth, past her teeth. Swallowing again, she tilted her head and shoved him into her throat. He shouted above her. She moaned, her breasts throbbing, her belly aching. Coming back off of him, she attacked him with her lips and tongue. Nipping, mouthing, lapping, swirling, she went down his sides, found the very root of him, then went back up with similar dedication and tested his tip. He thrust as best he could, small motions of his clenching ass. Kissing and sucking, Nomi became drunk on the intimacy of tasting Burke. Looking up at him, she wasn’t surprised to see his eyes gone green again. His shoulders were twisting, rolling, trying to be free of the ropes. He was so powerful, so magical. He was hers. Sitting back on her heels, the shift drove a wash of cream from her cunt. Grabbing her breasts, she lifted them, pinching her nipples. Her gaze drifted down his corded neck, his heaving chest, his clenching belly, and rested on his rampant, soaked penis. Leaning forward, she wrapped her breasts around the column of him, simply because she could. He poked out of her soft grip, and she licked the cream escaping him again, loving the heat of him. “Do I feel soft?” He only made a small sound in his throat. “I can feel softer.” It was easy to push off him, throw one leg around his hip, set her hands on his shoulders, and wedge his tip in her center. Throwing her other leg around to straddle him sent half of him into her heat. Both of them cried out, harsh explosions of pleasure-pain. His head thrown back, teeth gritted, Burke choked something, but she couldn’t understand it. Thighs shaking with need, Nomi tightened her stomach and forced her body down onto Burke’s lap. She sank her nails into his shoulders, and buried her face in his neck. Inside. Burke’s body was inside her, a pressure and a thrill. His cock was huge, settling beneath her ribs, and clamping on him made her breath sob. Rocking forward, her clit rubbed against his rock-hard belly, was scoured by his dense hair. The wave rose up out of nowhere. It drove her up, and she desperately strove against him to keep up with it. Writhing on him, Nomi clutched him with thighs and cunt and hands, her breasts seared with the brand of his chest. Wailing, she came. Both of them shaking in the force of the torrent, she clung to him. When it finally faded, he tucked his hips and shoved one tiny bit deeper into her body. She came again, her forehead rolling on his shoulder, awash in the power. Long moments later, trembling, gasping still, she sat up. Biting her lip at the sensation of even such a tiny movement from inside, she pulled back and looked at him. His face was turned away from hers, the corner of his eye crinkled with the force of his squeezed lids. Planting her feet on the floor, Nomi tried to rise up. She couldn’t get high enough to stroke the way she wanted to. Swinging one leg and then the other away from him, she

lifted her body. As his tip cleared her grip, the force of his taut erection pulled his cock into his stomach with a wet slap. He was coated in gleaming cream. The smell rolled through the room, making her lick her lips. Nomi stood on locked legs before him, her knees trembling, her cunt still seeking something to hold, her clit throbbing. It was as if she stood on a raft, the ground was so unsteady beneath her. But she was not afraid of falling. Leaning over so her lips were against his ear, she breathed, “I’m going to fuck you now, Burke. You’re mine.” His head whipped toward her cat-fast, teeth snapping on air as she pulled away just in time. She laughed. Her wild man. Since she had his attention again, she raised her arms and undid the tie on her braid. It fell in a slithering honey-dark trail over one shoulder. She took the tip of the braid and dusted her nipples, then canted her back so her breasts hung free and bent enough to dust the tip of his penis. He thrust his hips at her. Grinning, she stood back, and with smooth pulls of her fingers, she undid the weave, until her hair hung in a shimmering wave to her belly. Free of it’s binding, it was streaked with gold. Turning her back to him, she used both hands to settle the flow of it down her spine. She liked how it tickled her ass when she arched her back. Her thighs were soaked. Walking backward, she lowered herself to sit in Burke’s lap. Reaching between her legs, she grabbed the base of him tightly, and pulled him forward. Her cunt swallowed him less easily in this position, the last few inches requiring her to arch and twist to pack him in. Finally, her ass was tucked into the fold of his waist, her thighs cradled by his, her hands braced on his knees. “Oh, Skyfather. Burke, yes. You’re mine.” She squeezed with all of her strength, and he moaned behind her. And then she rocked, lifting up and away, spiraling her hips back down. Sometimes she’d bounce on his tip, forcing the crown of him to catch on her opening. Sometimes she’d only rise and fall an inch, grinding him deep. Over and over, she lifted with her arms and thighs, and learned all the ways her cunt would open to Burke. Moans and growls filled the room, along with the wet sucking sounds she delighted in finding and working with. Her legs were shaking when her joy turned to desperate need. No longer playing, she used all her strength to drive back and down on him, seating her ass to his lap every time. Sealing his tip to her spine every time. Strangling his length with her inner grip every time. Finally, her arms gave out and she folded over, breasts throbbing, throat burning from her sawing breath. The new angle tightened her around him even more and she came, rocking side to side. Her skin swelled and split with energy. Her blood rolled and sang in her body. Just before her mind sank, he went rigid, still, and quiet. “Nomi.” The word pulsed through her clit like a touch, his will calling hers. She came again, lashing back into his sheltering strength, screaming. His high, wild roar echoed behind hers, deeper, rougher, inhuman. All the tiny hairs on her damp spine lifted. Yes. When she finally had the strength to lift herself away, she fell in a heap between his feet on the fur. Taking a moment to gather her muscles together, she crawled behind him, and undid the ropes at his elbows. “Call your bodycraft. You’ll need to heal your muscles and restore your circulation.” Her voice was throaty, low and sexy.

She worked on his wrists next, tutting at the ripped skin there. When he merely let his arms hang behind the chair, she kissed the swollen joints gently. She moved to his front and undid his ankles. By the time she finished the last, he carefully moved his arms awkwardly to his lap. His mouth thinned with concentration, and the puffy, torn flesh on the side of his lower lip caught her attention. He must have bit his lip. She reached and wiped a trickle of blood from his chin. He jerked his head away. “Don’t go near my mouth.” Sighing, she sank down on her heels. She watched his wrists until the skin filled in and pinked, healed. The swelling in his fingers faded. Then her attention turned to his lovely long penis, hanging in an arc from his pants. It wasn’t as limp as it should be, still thick at the base. A drop of white clung to the tip. She licked her lips, thirsty at the sight. Burke chuckled weakly. “Enough, Stormdancer.” She looked up at him. “Is it? How are you?” He searched her face. “I don’t know. Drowned and reborn.” His voice was low, too, but even sexier than hers. “It’s been a long time for me. Over a year.” “Yeah. Me, too.” This surprised her. He was young. But then again, he was an outcast, like her. “Let’s not go another year, all right? His lips twitched, but he sighed. “Nomi … that was so dangerous.” “My knots held.” “Only because I focused on ripping up my wrists. If I had let myself go to battleform, who knows what could have happened.” “You’re strong.” He shook his head, sighed. She didn’t like feeling like a child who didn’t understand. “We did it, Burke. We fucked, and it was wonderful. Do you think you can believe in yourself, just a little bit now?” He swallowed. “I’m really shocked I didn’t go over.” “You’re a very powerful man. You would never hurt me.” He didn’t respond, merely grimacing as he flexed his hands into fists. “I’m going to wash up, start breakfast.” She stood. Her knees trembled, but held. Until he looked up with those bruised silver eyes. One leg buckled and his hands flashed out and caught her waist, pulling her into the vee of his legs, where she braced. “You came with me. You left your people and your home.” She nodded. He seemed to be having a hard time with understanding her presence. “You want to stay. You want to…” Finishing for him, Nomi said gently, “I will be your wife, Burke. Your mate. Your friend.” One of his huge hands came up to her face. He touched her lips, her jaw, brushed her earlobe. Sliding his hand behind her neck, he pulled her down, and kissed her. His lips pressed against hers, and his tongue touched the seam. She opened, but he merely angled his head, pressing their lips anew. Her hands braced on his shoulders, kneading in delight. Pulling back, he lapped at her upper lip, mouthed her lower one. Pressed a simple kiss to the corner of her mouth. Their foreheads rested together, his breath hot on her face as the smell of sex filled her head. “You are too generous, and too uninformed. Let me show you what this life is like.

Let me hold to my honor now you are here, and we will see if I can convince myself that what I have done is not brutality.” “After everything, you still want to torture yourself.” “I want to prove myself.” “You are an honorable warrior.” “If I do not believe that, it is not true.” “Don’t deny us based on others’ expectations, Burke. I want to be here with you. I came freely and gladly.” He nodded, his nose rubbing against hers. He pressed a soft kiss to her mouth that made her heart four times bigger. “Last night almost killed you. How much of this proof will you require before you let us move on?” “I don’t know. Another night at least.” Nomi pulled away, taking his hand as it fell from her nape. “Do I get to fuck you all tied up again? Because I think I could be more inspired.” Eyes darkening to slate, Burke’s body lunged, a tremor making his pecs dance. “Let me think about it. The cat will put up a fight before I could let you tie me up again.” Disappointment tightened her chest. “You didn’t like it.” Standing, Burke rose above her. He wrapped her in a hug that loosened her knees. “I liked it. The cat liked it. But being bound is against our nature. It is a severe punishment, one full of humiliation, for my people.” “Did you feel humiliated?” Nomi was appalled. She’d teased him, working his body for her own pleasure. His hand rested on her head, soothed down her loose hair. “Not with you. Never with you.” She relaxed, nestling into him. They stood wrapped tightly, her hands clasped around his waist. **** After washing, and eating, they walked his patrol. Walking through his territory with her confused him. He kept reaching to touch her, and she kept letting him. Every brush of his knuckles along her shoulder made her smile, which stopped his breath. This wasn’t a dream. The cat laid still inside him, watching, tense. He took her to his emerging field, and she shocked him by offering to help chop wood. He refused, and they got into an argument about just what her role would be as his “wife.” She made it clear she expected to be a full partner, and even though intellectually he wanted that too, he balked at having to watch her swing an axe for hours. Somehow, imagining her weeding and building an irrigation system was easier. When he explained this, she called him a “pig patty.” Then she said he was wrong and he needed to let her chop wood that very day. So they walked back to the cave, had a heavier meal, and wandered back to chop wood. It was so bizarre to chop wood with her. She was there, his Nomi. Once in awhile, she’d speak. She mentioned a bug, talked about a knot in a particular log, asked him what his favorite color was. Mostly, they worked side by side, steady and efficient. Oddly, it was as satisfying as watching his dick disappear between the globes of her ass this morning. Only different, of course. Very different. The cat paced a bit, watching her

breasts shift in her vest, but mostly it was much, much more in control with her in their territory than it had ever been before. And that was when she drifted away. Over his weeks of watching Nomi, he was used to the trances she fell into. He wasn’t too worried when she straightened and started to wander, her head cocked to the ground. “Nomi? Do you hear water?” She didn’t respond. He followed her, bounding forward to gently take the axe from her hand. She let him. He followed her back to the cave. She went up the stairs, past his bedroom which smelled deliciously like sex, and up the back stairs to the mesa top. Here, they were on a plateau that continued far west out of his territory. A day’s run away were the Snowcats’ territory. The White Mountains went on for considerable distance north and west. When Nomi cleared the steps, Burke’s heart seized. How aware was she in these fugues? Would she go over the edge of the cliff? But she turned west, and kept walking. When she came near the land he had the most trouble with, he reached out and caught her arm. She tried to pull from him, but he took her into his arms and sat with her. “Nomi, shhh. Come on now. Stop. Tell me with words what you hear. We can’t go any further with you so unaware.” His gut twisted at the way he had to restrain her, as she kept twisting and pulling and leaning to climb away from him. So he grabbed her face and kissed her. His dick, which had been rising and falling all day, flooded with blood, aching in his pants. He pressed her mouth open and claimed it, eating at her tongue. She kissed him back, and the cat sat up and lunged for her throat. Pulling away, he closed his eyes and locked his jaw shut against the desire to close his teeth deep. “Burke?” “Yes.” “I wandered?” “Yes. This is a dangerous area, so I stopped you. We’re up on the mesa.” He stroked her arms, thinking she needed warmer clothes than the leather vest he was used to on her. It was such a joy to hold her, warm and soft against him. “What did you hear, Nomi? Was something calling you?” When she turned her eyes to him, they were bleak. “Oh, yes. Don’t you taste it? It’s coating everything over there.” She waved her hand weakly in the direction she’d been moving, wrinkling her nose. Burke lifted his nose, and smelled. Cat roared and turned. “Corpux nearby. I’ll have to rout them out. Fresh scorching. A fuzzy passed through recently, could still be live.” “No. In the ground. In the water.” Nomi whispered, shrinking into him. Tightening his arms around her, he scented again. He smelled wild creatures, but nothing seeping from underground. He studied the visible terrain through the trees. The curled branches, the stunted undergrowth, the lack of birds. Dread filled his heart. “What do you sense, Nomi?” “Darkness.” The one word exploded between them. As if his life was not enough of a nightmare. As if Nomi wasn’t about to break him with her sexuality. As if he wasn’t going to lose his mind over this illegal, forbidden claiming. The revelation changed everything. He lay

his cheek against her hair. She clung to him, but he clung to her for a very different reason. He’d been on the verge of hoping. Between holding to his human skin last night and Nomi’s gift of her body, he’d begun to believe it might be possible. But not now. Now, he would never bring his mate into territory tainted with dark magecraft, death magic. “Burke, we have to find it. We have to stop it.” His heart seized in horror. Cat flowed into position, trying to wrench his body away. He focused on breathing, and keeping it inside. “We can clean the water, Burke, and save the land. I know we can. All we have to do is track it to its source.” The growl rolled out of his throat, deadly, furious. “I can tell it’s not here. This land is only now suffering the spreading trickle. Somewhere up flow, there’s a taint. I know how to purify water. I often held that duty at the Farm. I’m really good at it.” Surging to his feet, he pulled her back toward the cliffs. “Where are you going?” He kept his teeth locked, the cat’s claws inside, and his pace steady. She dug in her heels, twisting her arm. “Stop. Why are you upset?” He spun on his heel, shoving his face into hers. Cat wanted to drag her to the ground and mount her into submission. “You will not go near such a taint. I can’t believe you even suggested it. One crazy person per couple.” He twisted and began towing her again, and when she pulled, he simply circled her into his arms, picked her up and opened his stride. “Burke! First of all, that was funny. Second of all, we just had this conversation with the wood pile. Partners.” He ground his teeth. He wasn’t going to have to worry about biting her after all. He wasn’t going to have any teeth left. She laid one small, tough hand against his clenched jaw. “If you don’t stop walking, I’m going to do something drastic.” He stopped. Cat kept lunging, wanting her underneath him, spread and speared. “Look at me.” “Can’t.” Seeing challenge in her eyes when he was trying to keep the cat contained was not healthy. “You can. You won’t hurt me.” She pulled herself in and kissed his neck. He glanced at her, intending to shift his gaze immediately. But the warmth in her brown eyes stopped him, held him. Her fingers soothed his spine at his nape. His hard dick throbbed. “I admit we need to make a plan. If we do actually run into a darkmage, even sense one nearby, I’ll leave. I’m no warrior. I’m not stupidly brave. But water is being poisoned, and I can stop it. And if you say you cannot tolerate me being a watermage, with all the entailing responsibility, we have worse problems than your personal war.” Breathing as if he’d run for a day, Burke looked up into the sky. Clear blue, hard blue with the coming frosts. To their right a tree whispered in a shower of gold. “Do your people really hate being bound, Burke? You took me, and I came, to be your friend, to be free. Am I free with you Burke? Or is this just another Farm?” “If anything happened to you, I would die.”

Her stroking hands came around his neck, to curl in the hollow of his throat. “I just want to help you cleanse the water. I won’t be in any danger.” “You’d be near the taint. It would make you sick.” “Hardly. I’m very healthy. And if it did, not for long. We can end this. We must. Burke, for you to send me back then go do this yourself is not acceptable.” He swallowed. “I can track it faster for you. We could be at the source tomorrow or the next day. We’re powerful, even more so together. We were made to do this.” His heart sank, and the cat pounced on it. “It’s late. Tonight, we plan. I have to get through the night. We have to decide how to approach my Alpha. We’ll talk about tracking dark-tainted water.” Simple. No problem. He could do this. The cat scratched down every single one of his ribs. Moving off again, Burke carried his mate in his arms, focusing on the hope her weight brought. Carrying her into his cave, they sat at the table in the main lounge. The words fell casually from his lips. “You agree to be my mate.” “Absolutely. I’m ready.” “We’ll need to bond before my Alpha. It’s his witness and acceptance that seals the compact for the cat inside me.” Her hands, capable and efficient, ripped into the slightly stale bread he’d baked a few days ago. “How will you get to him?” “Now is the month of Autumnal, the great gathering of all eleven Clans. I’m late. If I call for him, he’ll come to investigate me.” She sipped tea from a cup he’d made with his hands last winter. “How convenient their distrust of you will finally work in our favor.” Burke knew human women often had difficulty with the ritual for claiming a mate. Yet his Nomi calmly accepted it. “As soon as he comes to us, I’ll take you. Don’t look me in the eyes, and don’t get near my mouth if you can help it. A direct gaze is an aggressive trigger, and I’ll be fighting the urge to bite you.” “Can I bite back?” Cat leapt and thrashed. He scented how her body smelled of him from their day together, and breathed through the cat’s brutal gymnastics. “By claiming you without a mage triad in a ritual room, I risk agitating the cat to the point of mindlessness. I will be in battleform. Nothing but my Alpha’s acceptance will bring me back. There will be consequences for me, for the dishonor of taking you without a choosing, without a ritual.” “They’ll see you didn’t force me. They’ll know this is what I wanted, what I would have chosen. Making you wait when you’ve already been so tormented is just cruel.” “I’m breaking the law, Nomi, bringing you here. By my Alpha’s command, I was never to see you again. Claiming you without permission is wrong, but I’ve gone too far.” His voice lowered until it was a rumble. “I’m keeping you.” The amazing words filled his cave, and made it a lair. She was his. She trusted him. Last night, she’d claimed him. Nomi looked him in the eyes and said simply, “Your Alpha was wrong. He has no right to judge who can be friends. He doesn’t trust people who think differently than he does, and so he tries to contain you and force you to be something you’re not. I know all about that, Burke. I’m done with it. It’s sickening his decision kept us apart for two

months, and you had to feel as if you were betraying him to do what we both needed. Whatever punishment they grant you, I will share.” Burke stood and went to the balcony at the end of the hall. When he had cat firmly in his grip, he limped back in to find she’d cooked dinner. The stew was simple and more delicious because she made it. They ate, and the sight of her small mouth chewing, licking, swallowing, made him hard again. While they washed up the dishes together, he brought up the tainted water. His hands were busy. He’d be more likely to keep from ripping her pants off. “You sensed the taint all the way from the lower valley.” “Mmmm, no. Mostly water wants to pass a message. I have to trace the messages back and back until I understand.” He was stunned. He’d never heard of anything like this. The Council’s watermages would be fascinated. Kromog wasn’t going to get near her. It also eased a gnawing ache inside him that he hadn’t sensed the taint himself, one of his primary duties in holding an isolated territory between clanhomes. “Tell me about how aware you are of danger in your wandering states.” “I’ve never hurt myself, but I’m absolutely unaware. When I come out of water’s voice, I have no memory of where I’ve been, or when I left.” He stared at her, his heart thudding. “There is a massive cliff on my territory, Nomi, and it is just the most obvious danger. Being alert is a necessity in the Wild.” She winked at him. He stared at her. Winked! “Someone once saw me walk across an uneven fallen tree only a handspan wide while in a trance. Water has never guided me wrong. We’ll do some experiments if you like. You can follow me and see what I do at the edge of the cliff. I won’t be tied to you like a shadow, Burke.” He breathed through the desire to throw her on the ground and drive into her heat. “Yes, we can do some tests. There are spells. But staying close to me is always going to be my preference.” She shrugged, her jaw lovely as she tipped her cup up and drank. His mouth watered. “I want to meditate on it tonight. Get a sense of how dark, and how big, this dark taint is.” “All right.” He glanced at her, her tidy braid, her sleek arms. Her breasts with their golden skin above the scooped neck of the vest. “You’re not going to join me?” She smiled at him. “Thank you for offering.” The way her dark eyes glowed when she was happy took his breath. He hadn’t seen enough of that look, this close, in the light. He was privileged to have moved out of the night with her. “No, I’ll stay here. Believe it or not, I’m tired.” She went with him to the balcony, and as darkness fell, she leaned against one wall and said, “Are we going to have sex again tonight?” Cat shredded his gut. “Why do you call it that?” “What should I call it?” He had no answer. Looking at her profile, stubborn and strong, he said, “You are my mate.” The cat screamed. He caught his breath. After the trauma of taking her away and watching over her last night, he would need sleep soon. She turned to him, face serious. “I am.”

“If I can find a way to fuck you safely tonight, I will.” She nodded, matter of fact. “Sounds good.” Her voice was low, throaty. Cat leaped, sinking claws into his chest. By the Six, he hated its need of her. “Evening, Burke. I’m turning in.” Nomi went past him, and he smelled her body, her lust. Curling his hand into the lip of stone at the edge of the cliff, he stayed where he was. He waited as he heard her in the bathroom, heard her leathers rustling in his bedroom, heard her settle in his bed. Closing his eyes, he pictured his feet sunk deep and steady in a raging, icy river. He would not go to her. With numb feet, he forced himself to move up the stairs. Bringing the veil of a protective trap over both entrances, he sealed her in.

Chapter Eight Stopping where he’d pulled her down, he sank to his knees and closed his eyes. He hadn’t meditated in months. It was an exercise in futility with the cat. This time, the thought of Nomi endangered by the taint of perverted craft gave him the strength to bottle cat deeper than usual. He steadied his breathing, expanded his senses, and sought water. All he sensed was bitterness, something that could occur naturally in fouled springs. And it was new, barely a season old. Letting the focus go, he rose and continued on. Moving deeper west, he had to neutralize a fuzzy. Shivering when the chaotic energy was forced to scatter, he thought, as he always did, rogue. The dangerous, drifting auras made him angry. Finding a clear patch of earth to settle in, leaves crunched beneath his knees. He sank into meditation. Nomi. Sleeping in his bed. Nomi, at his side, mate. Pack. Family. Wrenching his thoughts away from the burgeoning, terrifying hope, he sought the water. Deep, trickling, still the darkness was faint. Moving northwest, then well southwest, he fanned across the land beyond the lines of his territory, meditating, seeking. It was late, hours later, when he went back to Nomi. The good news was that the taint was coming from well beyond his territory. The bad news was that it was coming from deep in the mountains slightly south of his position. It would be a trek to sort out which underground flows to follow, narrowing the path in terrain where one jog of the earth could send a flow zipping in a different direction. Or maybe, with water talking to Nomi, it would be simple. If he was going to honor her request and let her walk into tainted land. If she believed in him, he had to believe in her. He didn’t know of any Trux who would let a mate face perverted craft at his side. It was further proof he was weak, and dangerous with it. But then he remembered her eyes looking at him so steadily as she relaxed in his arms. She wanted to go. She was a powerful mage. He was so proud of her. When he reached his lair, he sat at the bottom of the stairs. He held his hand out in front of him, memorizing the human shape of it. His dick had hardened in the last hour knowing, despite his best efforts to trick it, who waited for him. Was this the hand of a man with honor? He tightened his fingers into a fist. Was this going to remain a human hand, firmly under his control? He was tired to his very bones. Control. Control. Control. Spreading his fingers again, he stared at them until his eyes burned, willing them to hold steady despite cat’s pacing and slashing. They did. Hands. The hands he could control. He would. He would give into the need, but he would hold to his honor. Standing, he went to Nomi. The scent he’d first tasted while walking past the Farm to gather his supplies at the solstice had stopped him in his tracks. It always would. She’d loosened her hair. Burke took off his clothes, and the cat began to fight. She stretched, humming sleepily. One small, strong hand seemed to reach for him, sliding from the furs before relaxing. No. If she touched him, he would go mad. The slightest movement away from him might push him over. The warm smell of her rose up, mingled with his scent left in the furs. His dick ached. He wanted her so badly. Her body against his would be a benediction. It would be hope.

Control the cat. He picked up last night’s tormenting ropes, and the cat drained him at the thought of using them. He took Nomi’s slack hands and quickly tied them, then rested them over her head and tied the rope off to the headboard, holding them there. The cat attacked him. Burke swallowed through nausea, breathed through the blinding pain, and tied her ankles. She had enough give to move, but not to shift away. She arched lazily, and blinked her eyes open. He doused the magelights, but she relit them. Tugging her arms, she licked her lips. “A variation,” she murmured huskily. He pulled the fur off her body. Curves, golden skin on her shoulders, neck and arms, paler skin down her torso. Her body was tightly muscled, but not slender. “Nomi. My Nomi. You have a strong body to match your strong spirit.” He hovered his hand over her belly, looking at the bounty he’d dreamed of. Her skin had tormented him, forbidden. Her breasts immediately erupted in goose flesh, nipples stabbing tall, thickening. “Finally. Yes.” Her voice was low, eager. “I remember watching you from the window.” His hand coasted up the heat of her without contact, hovering at the fragile skin pulled taut between her large breasts. “Do you like watching?” “No. I like touching.” He reached out and pressed her breast with his hand, curling his fingers into her softness. The image and the sensation combined to explode through his body. His dick leaked. “Your breasts are gorgeous.” “So are you. Touch me some more.” Her tone pleaded, but the phrase was an order, and the cat went insane. The world narrowed down to his hand, steady, human, her nipple stabbing his palm. Taking his hand away made his shoulder ache. Swallowing, there wasn’t enough moisture in his throat to speak. His gaze drifted to her nipple, brown and tight. The slope of her breast, the gathering weight of it bulging on one side. Saliva burst into his mouth. “You want this. For me to take you.” It wasn’t a question but she understood. Her body writhed restlessly, not pulling on the ropes, but presented by them. “I want you to fuck me, deep and freely. I’ve been waiting for this for months. Test yourself. Do whatever little proof of will you require for us to move forward together, before I combust with want of your beautiful body.” He picked up a soft fabric shirt of his, and loosely draped it over her head. “Burke?” “Don’t talk.” Crap, his voice was low, and scratchy. No doubt his eyes had bled green. He was losing it. “All right.” That was talking but he didn’t rebuke her because her tone was so softly submissive it made him shudder. He wanted to touch her again, lick her nipples as she’d done to him. He wanted to touch her ribs and belly, and swallow her like she’d done to him. He wanted her to feel as desired, to watch her shatter in pleasure again. He wasn’t going to be able to do it. His hands were shaking. Kneeling at her side, he watched her pebbled breasts rock with her quick breaths. Folding over, he ground his face into the scent of her. Her scent in his sleeping furs. She’s mine. She’s here. She’s safe. His chant did not quiet the cat. Swelling and lunging and

twisting, it destroyed him. For the first time outside of cursing it, Burke addressed the beastspirit directly. The beastspirit who had driven him from his father, from his Clan, from the small peace of fellowship with other watermages. How will I ever be able to claim her as our bonded mate when I cannot trust you? If I let you out as far as the battleform, will you leap for your fur, endangering her? He spoke to it. She is ours, if only I can believe you will hold her safety above your freedom. The Mountaincat replied, You can believe that of me, but I cannot say the same of you. Moaning, Burke rocked with the cat’s renewed fury. It hated he had tied Nomi. It hated they were not inside her. It wanted her blood in its throat, to own her. “Burke?” Nomi’s low call was accompanied by a twisting of her body. The smell of her cream rose from her, drowning him. “Stormdancer.” Maaaaate, the cat screamed. “We can do slow and gentle later, when you’re better. Just fuck me, Burke. Please.” He was between her legs and shoved deep, surviving the heat from her body, before he realized he moved. Inside. He was inside his woman. Placing his hands to the side of her upraised arms, he stroked his hips, and almost passed out from her silky soft grip. “Harder.” Her demand came softly. The pleasure blurred. All he knew was his dick, churning, striving, needing to go deeper, to claim her body. He stared at his hands, breath sobbing, and willed them to stay human as the cat’s paw expanded down his arms. “Nomi.” His hips slapped wetly, harder, heavier, as the paw filled his hand. His toes ached, and his ass, and his shoulders burned. Her firm breasts pillowed his chest, and he could feel his hair chafing them. A prick of blood appeared at the end of his index finger. The claw was formed, riding just beneath his nail. She heaved under him, moaning and panting. His body screamed to hold the two forms, but he would not let the human nail go. His spine ached, and he knew he was a heartbeat from growing a tail. Nomi bucked underneath him, bowing taut. She keened, her head thrashing at the edge of his vision, her honeyed hair escaping the shirt and brushing his hand. Her cunt seized on his dick, locking him deep. Yes. He drove his knees into the furs and ground his hips tight to her heat. She wailed, shaking. Yes. His throbbing, constricted cock swelled, and as the needle tip of a claw peaked from his fingertip, he came. Staring at his hand, he bit through his lip, and marked his woman with his burning cum. She fell under him, relaxing back against the bed. His eyes shifted to her shoulder, smooth creamy gold, and saliva burst in his mouth. No. Cat’s desires would not mark her. He gasped for breath, ugly wracking sounds, but he managed to move his eyes back to his own hand. In thirty heartbeats, he’d forced the claw inside. In another forty, he’d stopped the burning in his tailbone. In a minute, he’d forced the paw back up his arm, imagining the cat trapped inside the cage of his own ribs once more. Euphoria filled him as it raged. Nomi was his. Only his. “Get this off my face,” Nomi said grumpily. “I want to see you.” He tore it off. His hands were shaking badly as he gently smoothed her hair from her temples. “You’re all right.” She grinned, wriggling under his weight. “I’m well fucked by my man. Of course, I’m all right.”

His throat closed tight with emotion. Untying her wrists, he moaned to feel her hands on his shoulders, kneading and sweeping. He would release her ankles later. Delaying the moment he’d have to pull from her wet, molten core, he rested his cheek on her shoulder. He could feel her heart like it beat in the other side of his own chest. Burke closed his eyes, his heart full of hope. **** The trees were ones she’d never seen before. She’d never seen that rock, or that stream. It was spookier than she’d thought it would be, but exhilarating, too. The sky was again a brilliant blue, the bare branches of most trees dramatic silhouettes when she looked up. She had his shirt on over her vest, and was glad of it. Shush, burble, babble, slide, drip, trickle. “Turn a little more to your right.” He nodded. Glancing at the wide shoulders and tight, round ass ahead of her, she sighed happily. He’d done it. It hadn’t had much finesse, but she hadn’t minded in the least. They’d had sex, initiated and finished by him, and he was not some ravening horror. The relaxation he’d had after his hour of sleep on her seemed to be fading now, as she watched him pause, jaw clenched, and scent the air. That was sexy. He could smell things she couldn’t. He rolled his head on his shoulders, flexed his fists. She licked her lips. He was kind. He was wild. He was all hers. She loved the return of the companionship of silence they’d had before the fear and heat between them had erupted. Smiling, she watched him set a burn mark into a tree. He said it was to leave a trail for others to follow in case the worst happened, and they needed to find them. She’d been too cowardly to ask him to voice what his vision of “the worst” was. No, she had no desire to face a darkmage. She just wanted to clean up his or her mess. Rush, stream, gush, push. Panting a bit from the uphill climb of the last hour or so, Nomi called a halt. “I need a breather, and an apple. We have to go up that cliff.” Burke glanced to her and she pointed. Through the trees to their left, another sharp, bald cliff rose, similar to the one in Burke’s territory. “I asked you before. You said you were all right.” He twisted his shoulders to shrug the small pack off. Frowning, his voice seemed to accuse her of a terrible lie. “And I was all right when you asked. Just like I was fine the last twenty times you asked. Now I want a rest.” He sighed as if she was unreasonable and opened the pack. She was going to have to work on him believing what she said. He had so much self-doubt, but he had to believe in her. A hard path had been laid before her man. He’d survived it, even as he added his own struggles. She was proud of him, even as she was saddened by the scope of his needs. She hoped she was strong enough. “Do you feel well? I smell the taint here.” Opening her mouth to say she was fine, she hesitated. Her last thoughts registered, the doubt, the criticism. “My thoughts are growing darker.” “Yes. Here, focus on this, and let’s keep moving. I’ll slow down.” The apple was delicious, sweet and juicy. She sucked it, as they’d finished their water flasks hours ago and she didn’t dare drink anything here. Halfway up the cliff, her thighs and lungs burned. He wasn’t waiting for her. It was easier for him, with his longer

legs and stronger body. She sat, dropping her head in her hands. He didn’t even care. “Nomi, what is it?” He was angry. A sob rose in her throat. “Fuck. Oh, Stormdancer.” There was a rustling, and a cascade of stones past her on the steep incline. A wedge of apple was pressed to her lips. She turned her face away sharply. He grabbed her jaw and forced it in. The flavor burst in her mouth, clearing the dark, smothering emotions away. “Look at me.” His eyes were so silver, she could see herself, drab and dumpy and old. “Truxet are hunters of the darkmages for this very reason. I am more resistant than you, Nomi. You’re suffering, but you might not be concentrating. I’m about to turn us around. Focus, Lady. How close to a spring source are we? If we could even purify one watershed point, it would help. I’ll get others to finish the hunt. But you wanted this. You wanted to clear water, and you can do it.” She blinked, seeing the blue sky reflected in his beautiful eyes. She reached for the rest of the apple, shoved it in her mouth. Falling, cascade, tumble, dance, swell. “It’s not far past the edge of this cliff. I’m not sure if it’s an infected spring or the source.” “I want you to take the pack, and get on my back.” He led her to a boulder, and she jumped onto his back. It was hard to hold her legs around his trim waist, and she was afraid her gripping arms around his throat were choking him. His hands caught her knees and held her to him. “Hold on.” He moved so fast, a scramble of legs, powerful muscles bunching and coiling. Gasping, Nomi tightened her grip and closed her eyes. He breathed harshly, fell once on loose ground, and fairly bounded forward with a press of his shoulders. In perhaps five minutes, he knelt on all fours at the top of the cliff. He spat into the scrubby grass there. “Quickly, Nomi, bite into the apple. Hold the bite in your mouth as long as you can.” Anger boiled in her gut as she scrambled off his back. The apple’s tartness flooded her nose. She turned the anger to the madman who had killed here, working a darkcraft. “You found the source. Do we turn back?” Burke’s face was tight, lethal. She didn’t want to let him down. Maybe she could use this anger. “No, let’s stop this.” “I’m going to start cleansing it. If you can, join me.” Burke sprinted in a blur of golden tan over to the small pool. He fell to his knees and set widespread hands against the shore. Nomi’s gorge rose. Nothing grew around them. The barren earth was cracked. Even the air seemed disgusting, searing her lungs. She fought it as she staggered after him, but had to fall and vomit her poor apples. Forcing herself not to gag on a fresh bite, she toyed the skin with her teeth as she got up again and kept moving toward Burke. Her Burke. Her man that let her wander the woods. Her man that let her leap off waterfalls. Her man that watched her masturbate and never made her feel awkward. He let her chop wood. He let her fuck him all tied up. He let her come to this corrupted place, to rescue water with him. Her stomach lurched when she fell to her knees beside him, but she gritted her teeth. The thought of putting her bare hands near the contaminated water made her heart pound.

She lowered them, shaking, and couldn’t do it. Sidling over to Burke, her man, her warrior, she laid her hands down on top of his. Churning, rushing, seething, pulled. She gasped. “Steady, Nomi. Tell me if you have to leave.” By the Sacred Couple, she didn’t know where he found the courage, the control, to pour his craft against the spell driving this pool. “There was a death spell. This isn’t a natural spring. The water was forced up, a long time ago. But the spell is breaking down. That’s why the water is tainted. The spell is escaping it’s intent, to make this spring.” “Darkmages never seem to get it. Their magic doesn’t fucking work.” Choking on a laugh at his dry, conversational tone, she bit her lip. She felt steadier now that she touched him, but her skin still crawled at how close her hands were to the water. Yes, dark magecraft was often unpredictable. But darkmages didn’t worry much about that when the raw power of their spells obliterated most other’s attempts to match and confine them. Her hubris at thinking she could cleanse such a site mocked her. She couldn’t even breathe, before she’d touched Burke. Never again would she insist on being a heroine in a matter she had absolutely no experience in. She wanted to leave. She wanted to pick Burke up the way he’d done to her yesterday, and carry him back to bed. The water in the center of the small pool swirled. Fear stabbed Nomi in the chest. Earthmother. She’d assumed a false pool, only four bodylengths across, wouldn’t have life in it. “Burke, something is in there.” “Yes. An eel, I believe.” No ordinary eel. No simple minded, natural predator. Something twisted by the dark, possibly even created by it. Nomi looked down. Was the water moving closer to Burke’s fingertips? She almost snatched her hands away, but managed to stop herself with only a twitch. “Don’t fear the eel, Stormdancer. It is a creature of water. We own it.” Shocked, Nomi considered another sudden eddy with wide eyes. She swallowed the last bits of apple in her mouth, and closed her eyes. Twisting, writhing, aching, swirling. Nomi poured the language of water into her heart. She gathered her energy, swirled it and set it revolving. She called up her magescape, the waterfall at the Farm. Power and peace roared into her. Just like cleansing the Farm’s well every spring. Just like pushing water back below the rock after a storm. She formed the cleansing spell, and spilled it, not into the voice of water, but into Burke. He hissed, jerked. She kept her eyes closed. Abruptly, the putrid stench of decay and death filled the air. She formed the spell for driving water back, and sent it into Burke. He didn’t move this time, and so she swore she heard the ripple of disturbed water not a handspan in front of them. Her eyes flashed open as a long dark shape as wide as her thigh eased away from the shallows. The pool was definitely farther from their fingers now. Relief eased her aching knees. “That was good, Nomi. Rest.” Burke’s voice was steady, like he did this every day. For all she knew, maybe he did, defending a piece of wilderness alone. Setting her teeth, she focused on gathering up more power, a truly impressive ball of

it. She formed the driving back spell again, and this time, offered it to Burke. He recognized it and coiled around it, adding his own power. It quadrupled, staggering her breath, and then he released it. Shush, slide, swirl, sink. Her breath caught at the wonder of it. They had stopped the pulling. When she opened her eyes, the diameter had shrunk by a full half a bodylength. Burke did not ask her to rest again. They continued, following a pattern of cleansing and retreating. The eel once splashed at the center, but she kept her jaw locked against a scream, and continued to share spells with Burke. Once she even caught a glimpse of his magescape, a wide but powerful river snaking through a sea of long grass. Such a beautiful glimpse into the most secret heart of her man surprised her in the tense, dangerous situation. She bit her lip, so glad he’d found her, and fed him another spell. It was exhilarating to know they were rescuing water, together. When her shoulders were burning, her spine screaming, and her legs numb, she opened her eyes again. A small pit, with stairs down into it and a cave opposite them, had been revealed. In the mouth of the cave, a lump of stone sat in the center, like a seat of some sort. Muck, weeds, and putrid water sloshed wildly around the stone. The eel flailed, flinging the still tainted water everywhere. It occurred to her they needed an earthmage to finish the job. The eel heaved itself high, and landed halfway up the stairs. Nomi gasped. “Burke!” He growled, low and forbidding. She felt another spell pass out of him, without her help, and the eel twisted, lunging even higher, now at the top of the stairs, rolling, gleaming jaws gaping. It had rows of needle-fine teeth, and beady black eyes. “It’s trying to get to us, Burke!” “Just one more…” His voice showed the strain she hadn’t thought he’d felt. A pulse of power went deep. Her gaze drawn by movement in the pit, Nomi glanced to see the mud settle as the last of the water sank unnaturally quickly. And then she reared back, falling to her ass as the eel came like a lightning strike toward her. Like a nightmare, she had time to think, only this was real. She drew in her breath, saw the teeth and threw her arms up in front of her face. Nomi screamed as a matched set of white knives carved the body away, flinging the head beyond her in a wash of blood. Her gaze darted up, way up, to Burke. Had he been poisoned? Had the darkness overcome him? It was a different Burke standing over her. He was thicker in the chest, arms and shoulders immense with muscle. His neck was wide and short and there were … big, pointy teeth. His hands and forearms were sprinkled with a short golden brown fur, and claws like curving sabers, longer than her hand, hung from each finger. He flexed his hand at her horrified gaze, and they clacked together. Then, in a natural sheathing slide, they disappeared. “Burke?” Her voice was a faint squeak. She dragged her gaze up again, to eyes that were … gold. Pure, polished gold, with a feline, slit pupil. “Oh! Burke.” He was in some sort of half form. His cat eyes were gorgeous. “We willll noooottt hrrrrrrttt.” “No. No, of course not.” Shakily, Nomi pushed herself up on her elbows. Her heart beat like it was trying to run away. The eel’s body flopped on the ground too close for comfort. Her voice came little girl high and thin. “You were so fast. Thank the Sacred Couple.”

“Weeee go.” Swallowing she sat up, gasping to see the trail of blood across her thighs. It had all happened so fast. But her man had been faster. “Yes, we’ve done enough here. Let’s go home.” “No.” He said something so garbled by his cat mouth that she couldn’t make it out. Then, “Alllphhhaah.” Alpha? Now? They reeked of darkmagic. Sex was the last thing on her mind. She swallowed. “All right. But wash first.” She almost laughed when he wrinkled his flattened kitty nose and said, “Yesssss.” Any desire to do so left when he reached down and plucked her off the ground like she was a kitten. He strode away, following the edge of the cliff. To her shock, she saw it was now twilight. The sun had already gone down. How much could he understand in this form? “Be careful of the cliff in the dark,” she warned. He glanced at her, and she swore she saw a gleam of humor. His legs opened up, and he began to jog. She tightened her grip on his neck, and tried to hold her body stiff for him. When his speed became pulse-pounding she kept her breathing steady. This was Burke. He wanted her. He was safe. **** Cat muttered in his head. It was mostly a running patter of getting clean, getting Nomi clean, fucking Nomi, and finding Alpha so they could claim her. Burke agreed with all those thoughts, so he was mostly able to ignore the terrible strength of the voice. But every once in a while, there was jubilant and expansive joy, to be out. The terror this struck in Burke’s heart caused his stride to break every time he felt it. A warrior couldn’t hold battleform forever. When it was time to slide one way or another, who would win? They were balanced on a cusp right now, one solid command from fur or skin. When they came to a lovely cascading stream, a tributary that would eventually join with the middle river of Vladaya, he almost purred. He’d remembered correctly from his one foray of exploration around his territory. He slowed, jumped into the stream, smiled inside at Nomi’s shriek, and waded downstream, looking for a deeper pool. The stream came around a narrow curve where the water was up to his waist, and there below them was two bodylength drop into a wide pool. The cascade was loud in the narrow shale canyon around them. Burke pushed forward through the sluice and jumped. He landed on his feet, Nomi tight in his arms, up to his neck in a deep pool. Nomi laughed. Cat twined happily. Reluctantly, finally, he let her legs go. Keeping one hand around her wrist, he searched along the side for some sand. “You are amazing. I can’t believe you carried me all that way down off the cliff. Oh, this water feels incredible. It’s clean.” It took more than water and sand to rid her of the last traces of darkcraft. He cleansed her with a spell, and then himself, and then the stream they were in. His clothes were mostly tattered from his shift. It didn’t take much to rip the rest off. He was left in his boots. Then he tried to take hers off. Eventually, she helped. He left the leathers in a heap at the side of the stream. “Do you still want to go find your Alpha? We could go back to your cave, and rest.”

Picking her back up was incredible. She was so small, but sturdy and strong. Her smell was now all hers, free of the stench of their fight. Her skin gleamed, each drop of water on her skin like a jewel in the moonlight. He wished her hair was free, but it was more practical this way. He cleared the stream’s ravine, assessed his bearings, and ran toward the closest sifting stone. Later, he realized running with a stiff dick and no pants wasn’t going to work. He found a meadow, the dry grasses stiff, and knelt in it. He stood her in front of him and waited until she gained her balance. Rolling onto his back, he lifted her over him. She laughed, and said something, but he could only hear his heartbeat, and the cat. He gently tugged and she knelt over him, and he set himself between her legs. Control your strength. Control. In this form, he had to be so careful. He nudged with his hips, and groaned at the kiss of her heat. He tugged on her, and her startled gasp ripped in the night. He realized between his new size and her lack of cream, he could go no further without hurting her. His size wasn’t leaving, so there had to be cream. Pulling her up so she straddled his belly, he drew her down until her breasts hung over his face. No teeth. Control. He lapped over her breast. “Ah! Your tongue is rough.” She squirmed, braced above him. With one hand curved over her hip, the other scooped up a breast, and held it so he could taste her. Each lick across her cool skin left little explosions down his spine. Avoiding her nipple, he lashed her whole breast, and then switched to the other. When both breasts were stroked pink with his claim, he put both hands around to her ass and sank his fingers into her soft muscle there. Pulling her down a bit, he let just the aching tip of him settle between her lower lips and rocked her back and forth, her woman’s fur coarse against him. Finally, she arched her back and caught his tip. She spread her thighs and took him in. “Ohhh. Burke! You’re so much bigger.” She was wet now, but the clasp of her was so tight it squeezed him out. He clenched his hands, aware of cat keeping his claws pulled well in. With tiny little rocking motions, she sank down a bit more. “T-t-too thick. Oh, oh, Earthmother.” Nomi’s voice was low, thick. The lust in it curled inside him. Reaching farther down with his arms, his fingertips met in the crease between her ass cheeks. Walking them down the soft skin, he came to where his body speared into hers. Gently he stroked the stretched skin there. Control. With a pulse of bodycraft, he healed her, took the faint pain. A guttural moan slid from her as she sank another inch onto him. It became clear to him she wasn’t going to be able to take him all. This form wasn’t meant for a human woman. She was still his. She would always be his. Ours, the cat screamed. One of his hands slid up to her ass. With dark satisfaction, one finger pushed into her hole. Mine. His other hand slid up over a round cheek to settle wide over her lower spine. With a tuck of his abs and a pull on that hand, he brought his tip up flush to her cervix. She screamed, shaking against him, her breasts a burning heat, her face burying in his neck. Wiggling his finger a bit deeper into her ass, he thought, soon. Dragging his hand up her spine, he cupped the back of her neck. Control. He lay under his woman in the scratchy field. He didn’t mind keeping her skin from the harsh land. It only made her softness over him that much more amazing. In this position he wouldn’t be able to rub

her clit against him, because she couldn’t come down flush to his body. Concerned, he growled, wanting to thrust, but knowing he could hurt her. Nomi struggled against his hold on her nape. Planting her hands on his chest, she sat, shifting her heat and softness around his aching dick. He palmed one breast, trying to be gentle. “Burke.” He didn’t want to meet her eyes. It would make the cat insane. “This is so incredible, Burke. Fucking you here, in the wild, when you’re wild. I feel so free. Thank you.” Lowering, she brushed soft lips along his jaw. And then she licked a fang. Ripping his head away from her to the side, he moaned to keep his body still beneath her. Control. His woman began to move. Her sliding was a dance of serpentine grace. She rolled and washed over him in a surging cycle which drained his strength, drained his fear. Twisting and rippling around him, her cheek was in one palm and her ass burning around his fingertip. Cream dripped down the inches of him left exposed below her tormenting inner muscles. When it seeped over his balls, he growled. She rode him until she cried out, one hand falling between her legs. He could feel the brush of her fingers as she worked herself. He could feel her breath seize beneath his grip on her breast. And then she fell onto him, shuddering, sobbing, as her vagina massaged him with scalding heat. Her body’s weight crushed his dick. He purred as his finger eased deeper into her ass. She choked, moaning, and he wrapped his arm around her as the tremors of another orgasm made her dance on his body. After she settled, he lifted her from him. Cat howled. Moving off into the woods, he continued his journey with his precious burden. His dick was still hard, and running still hurt. Cat ached to be inside her, but now he knew it was a desire that would only keep him from his ultimate goal. Ignoring the slap of branches, he determined to find his Alpha. He would claim his mate. He had survived without her. He had controlled himself with her. It was time. By the time they got to the sifting stone, his breath came heavily. Setting her on her feet, he pushed her over with a hand at her hip and between her shoulders. “Burke! What?” With her hair bound up, the trail of her spine beckoned. He leaned over and set his tongue in the dimple at the top of her ass. “Ohhh.” One hand tested inside her fur, and found her soaking with warm cream. He fell to his knees, pulled her cheeks apart, and drove his face against her softness. His mouth opened to seal against her hole, and he drank, his tongue stretching, savoring. “Ah!” She twisted and jerked, as if she were going to climb over the rock he’d draped her over. Growling, he sent his damp finger back into her ass, shoving straight to the base. Cat purred. Nomi made an animal sound that called to Cat, and suddenly his inner purr was real, rumbling his throat and chest. Nomi shrieked, her legs trembling, and he wedged one shoulder under a thigh to brace her. It was then he set to work. Pulling the cream from her cunt, he lapped at her, stroking his roughened cat tongue over her smooth inner lips, and finally, scouring her clit. “Yes!”

Nomi’s cry urged him on and he sucked at her hole, grazing her flesh, buried his face against her soft hairs and rolled in happiness, purring. When she came, she clamped her thighs around him, grinding down on his gaping mouth, and then her knees gave out. He slipped from her ass and caught her, pinning her up against the rock, and with his next breath he smelled the blood. With his second, he tasted it in his mouth. Standing, staggering away from her, he roared. The Mountaincat’s fury was terrible as Burke forced it away from the blood. He watched a dark trickle ease down one of Nomi’s thighs. The cat thirsted. It wanted more. Teeth deep, woman claimed. “What? Burke?” Nomi rolled against the rock, bracing back on it. Her breasts and belly arched toward him. Her cream on his face saturated the night air all around him. Burke stood rigid, feeling the fur creep up his forearms, spreading. He closed his eyes. “Burke?” “Bloooood.” He tried to tell her to get away. He wanted to turn, but couldn’t. “Oh? Oh. Yeah, I think I nicked myself on one of your fangs when I came. I’m fine. Look, it’s already stopping.” He opened his eyes. She sat on the rock, thighs spread wide, peering at her folds. She smeared a hand across the thin trickle, trying to wipe it away. Cat battered at him again, and again. With a staggering step, he fell to his knees in front of her and buried his face. He lapped into her, swirled his tongue. There. There was the tiny catch in her flesh. He stroked it, slow and firm, calling healing. The cat surged again, desperately wanting more. No. Control. Reaching out, he set his hands against the stone between Nomi’s legs. He pushed the flat of his tongue against her clit. And as he slowly, steadily drew it up across her, he sifted, taking both of them to the Wolf Den. Nomi teetered as the stone changed under her rump, but he caught her knees, and finished his lick with a savoring flick of the very tip of his tongue. She folded over him, clasping his shoulders and covering his head with her soft breasts. He panted in the luscious, scented cave of her body. “Burke, that was beautiful.” A low chuckle came out of the night. “Take her over to the fires at the paid women’s tents. By Hail’s hard stones, I haven’t seen anyone actually land in mid-fuck before.” Burke was up and in the man’s face with one twist, his claws out, hands spread. The other man froze, his eyes hardening with battle readiness. “Burke, don’t hurt the man. Can I get some clothes?”

Chapter Nine A tremor washed over his body. Her heat came up behind him, and she laid a hand in the middle of his back. “Claws in, mate. Stick to the plan.” She whispered, and her low voice blended with the rustling grass in the night breeze. The smell of home rolled over him. He threw back his head to give the howl of homecoming. But it was the Cat’s high scream that echoed into the dark. His quick rage at the man’s disregard of Nomi was a clear sign. He was deeper in the cat than he’d let himself believe. “What’s going on here, warrior?” The other man wore an Owl marked into his leather jerkin. He never took his eyes off Burke. “Allphhhaaa.” “Ummm, my name is Nomi, and this is Burke, and we’re looking for his Alpha, the Mountaincat. We’d like—“ “Burke. The lone Mountaincat, the changeling.” His golden eyes cut toward Nomi. “Are you all right?” With a swift tilt of his body, Burke pushed Nomi behind him, blocking the Owl’s view of her. “Miiiiinnee.” “Lady, I repeat, are you harmed?” “No, I’m fine.” “Can you move away from him?” “I don’t want to. I seem to have lost my clothes. Can you get me some?” “Don’t worry about that.” The guard soothed her calmly. “That’s all right, if you’re not harmed. This man is very dangerous. I’m going to—“ Burke screamed in the man’s face, clacking his claws. Nomi’s hand eased around one hip, pulling him back at the last second by reminding him of his purpose. “You know, he’s really kind of tired and upset. You’re right. Clothes aren’t important. Can you direct us to his Alpha?” Moving those deadly, hard eyes back to Burke, the golden-haired man said, “You are listed as do not pass. Have you gone rogue, or are you going to control yourself?” If Burke could have laughed at the moment, he would have. He would have fallen to his knees and laughed until he cried. This was all the control he had left. There wasn’t any more. Claim Nomi, her mind and body, before his Alpha. That’s all there was. “Please, sir. We’ve come so far. It’s been a hard three nights. The Mountaincat Alpha will make it all right. I’m fine, completely safe with Burke. He would never hurt me. He’s no rogue, but he’s not in great shape. If we can’t pass, can you get the Alpha? We need help.” Burke tried to imagine his feet sunk into the earth. He would not move from this spot. He would not attack a brother Trux. The man was not a danger to Nomi. He understood this, but Cat didn’t. The other man was a rival. Pulling a small stone from his jerkin, the Owl lifted it from its leather tie around his neck and blew. A high, pure pitch trailed off. Burke braced himself for round two. Within a minute, another man hurried into view. Sure enough, Owls had this watch. This man was slightly bigger. “Rylan?”

“Alto, meet Burke, the lone alpha we have a do not pass on. And behind him is Nomi, apparently a friend. You need to get the Mountaincat here. Right now we’re in a stand off. Anything else is going to end rough, and she won’t leave his side.” “Got it.” There was a shimmer of green, and Nomi gasped, her hand gripping his hip as she peeked around him. The Owl flew off into the night, silent and lost to the dark in a moment. “Oh! He—he was a bird.” “Yes, Lady. An Owl.” Burke growled. He didn’t like the other warrior talking to Nomi. He didn’t like him thinking about her. “It really would be safer if you could put some space between you.” Peeling his lips away from his fangs, Burke hissed, ending in a rumbling growl. Winding one arm behind him to pull Nomi to his side, his claws flowed away when he wrapped an arm around her waist. She was tight against him, and he was able to breathe. “Umm, how long do you think it will be? Is he far?” “Tonight was the Alpha’s Council. The Autumnal isn’t far, but if they went for a run together after, it could be hard to track him.” “Oh.” Burke growled at the man. Nomi took a deep breath. Her breast brushed his side. Turning to look down at her tucked against him, he purred, pulling her against his front. His hand cupped her firm rump, fingers squeezing, the tips playing in the dark valley. Nomi buried her face in his chest, stiff and tense. He sent his hand deeper into her moist, fragile skin. Gentle. One finger rested on the opening of her, her body stretched and sealed against his. Now she was in his arms, his touch in her most secret place. Now he could breathe, despite the other warrior’s presence. “Burke.” Nomi shifted against him, a rebuke in her voice. “There’s a man right here.” Cat screamed, and Burke growled. “How long has he had you, Nomi?” “What do you mean? How long have we been lovers?” “How long has it been since he took you from your home?” “He didn’t take me. I went with him freely, three nights ago.” “Three nights? You’ve survived him in this state so long?” “We were doing fine until the eel attacked me at the darkmage-tainted spring.” In a blur, Burke had her down on her knees, his body covering her back as he shook from the force of keeping his fur from passing his elbows. His claws sank into the earth, kicking up the sharp scent of fresh soil. Nomi gasped and he probed her with his dick, notching the tip in the hood of her clit. She moaned. Burke lapped her shoulder. She was safe beneath him. She was his. A fireball lit up the night. It was a perfect sphere of contained, seething lava. The warrior, only dimly seen by cat-sight before, stood tall and powerful not a bodylength to the side. From the size and density of the fireball, Burke realized he stared at another alpha. His gaze narrowed to the details of the man’s jerkin. The owl clutched flames in its talons. He wore a leather skirt. Great. A Council firemage. “Get off her, lone alpha. If you have any shred of honor left. You will not rape her in

front of me.” Both of the men jumped in shock at the powerful roar that left Nomi. “AAAAAGH! No, you get off! Get away from us. You know nothing of what we’ve shared and survived. How dare you accuse him of such a thing. I’m tired of nobody believing I know what I want! I’m fine.” Turning her head toward the man, she bared her teeth. “I. Said. Get. Away. Burke and I need a moment of privacy. Please.” The last word was practically a growl. Cat was delighted. Burke lapped her shoulder again, following the line of her up to her neck. He’d brought her here to claim her, but now she’d claimed him, bold and fierce. “I cannot in good conscience leave you alone with him.” “I want to fuck my man. So, go away.” And that was when a geyser of water surged out of the earth at the man’s feet and doused him head to foot. The ball flickered, shrank to a pea, then exploded back to the size of a head again. It had been an impressive, showy spell, but a mere drenching of natural water wasn’t going to be enough to douse an alpha’s fireball. The man wiped his face with a chuckle. “Well done, Lady. My apologies for putting your safety before your pride and lust. A compromise then, I’m turning my back, and at the first hint of distress, I’m stopping him.” Now it was Burke’s turn to snarl at the man. Already, the water faded off his skin, his leathers steaming faintly as he dried himself. The man gave him a sharp look and turned his back. Nomi shoved her ass back at him, grabbing the tip of him into her body. Cat loved this position. Burke licked her spine. Nomi shook under him, but remained silent, none of her usual delightful gasps or moans escaping. With a sigh, he set his belly along her back and shoved into her clutch. She was still tight, but it was getting easier. He rocked in again until she’d taken half his length and he was stopped by her body. He rubbed his cheek against her, and purred. The Owl shifted, and Burke stiffened. Nomi dropped onto her forearms, and arched her back. Shifting her ass from side to side, she pushed back at him. Burke withdrew, and slid in with more force than he’d planned. Her body jerked under him, but she remained silent. He drew out, sliding away with only the softest of wet sounds. Then she surprised him by ramming herself back on him with considerable force. He grunted. Soon it became a pattern. He’d withdraw, she’d surge back, controlling the force of his penetration. The heat of her around him wound in his belly. His balls ached from the long run and the longer erection. Control. The first time she came, dropping her face into the grass, scrabbling with her hands, he thought of coming himself. His claws had disappeared somewhere in their steady strokes, and now he reached under her soft belly and sought her clit. Giving her tiny, tiny pets, he kept her body tight and shaking. When he finally clasped the tiny nub of skin, he twisted it. He watched her head thrash below him. Breaths short and hard, she tried to be quiet. Sitting back on his knees, he pulled her hips back with him. Just resting in this position, he stared at her spread ass. He could see how she was stretched around him, her cream coating the few inches that remained outside her. He knelt in the night, and stared at the tiny dark hole of her ass, gaping just slightly from his fingering, and her body’s wide spread over his lap. How had it come to this? How had he ended up fucking this beautiful, unique woman under another warrior’s guard? He sat waiting to lie his many transgressions

before his Alpha, and still hoped to be granted claim on her. She was speared on his battleform’s cock, having been hauled through three different forests, corrupted with vile darkmagic, and still had it in her to relax with a soft sigh, squirming against his intrusion. He set one hand over her tailbone, and coated three fingers with her cream, rolling them softly through her folds around his cock. Taking one finger, he drove it deep in her ass. He gave her a minute to catch her breath, and then pumped it. She trembled. He did it again. This could be the last time he’d ever be able to touch her. He pulled out, set two fingers tight together, and twisted them in. Her outstretched hands fisted in the grass. He thrust his hand, ramming it hard against her ass. Her vagina clutched at him, rippling, squeezing the tip of him. He worked into her, landing deep, and scissored his fingers against the soft flesh gripping him. She rocked, pushing back on him with her arms. Burke lowered his face and lapped over the curve of her spine. Hard, rasping, dry licks that painted stripes onto her creamy skin. Control. Pulling his hand back, he folded three fingers into a wedge, and slowly, steadily pushed. When just the tips were in, he paused, petting her spine as far as he could reach in slow strokes. Her biting grip relaxed, and he drove in. He stared at his hand pulling her ass nearly wide enough for his cock, and purred. The Owl shifted. Burke lifted his lip to snarl at the distraction, but then he heard it, too. Something moved fast through the grass, the two-beat rhythm that of a cat at full run. Cat leaped in joy with the first hint of Alpha’s musk. It had been so long. Burke closed his eyes, full of dread and relief. He’d done it. He’d survived this far. When Nomi heard the Mountaincat coming, she tried to move away and sit up. Burke spread his hand over one of her hips and kept her right where she was. It was the perfect position, as far as he was concerned. Mountaincat burst into the sifting stone’s clearing and quickly stalked in an agitated circle around Burke and Nomi. He sniffed near her face and she curled in toward Burke. Burke purred, and purred, stroking her back, trying to tell her it was all right. Alpha reached out and swatted the back of Burke’s head hard enough to make him fold over Nomi, stars spinning in his sight. Nomi cried out and cowered smaller below him. Still, Burke purred, trying to tell her it was all right. He deserved anything Alpha wanted to do to him. Besides, he hadn’t even used his claws. Behind him came a crackle of energy as Alpha shifted into human form. “Leave us.” Proteus’ command was firm. Burke lifted his lip, showing fang as the warrior glanced at him folded over Nomi. Then the man shifted and flew away. He was alone in the night with Nomi and his Alpha. Burke purred. Alpha sighed. “What the fuck is going on Burke? You don’t smell rogue, but this situation is insane.” “Nooottt rrrrogggue.” “He’s not a rogue.” Nomi’s voice was muffled under him. He sat up, sweeping her spine with a wide hand. Her cunt rippled around his dick and her ass squeezed his fingers. “You are the woman he was forbidden to see.” “I am his mate. I’ve left the Farm for good. I’m going to live with Burke.” “Have you had a souldance to confirm you’re actually mates?” Burke pulled his shoulders back. He hadn’t done anything the way he should have,

but he was sure Nomi was his. “I thought not. My sweet Fire. Look at you, fucking her like this. We give paid women more respect. How long have you been at her? Does she need healing?” “I said, I’m fine.” Alpha seemed a bit taken aback by her defense of him. He moved around to the side of them, a powerful study in shadows. Burke met his eyes, and Alpha settled the Cat, so that it went, purring, into a quiet corner. Burke felt the flow and pulse of his human body settle back around him. It was a bit like shrinking. The safety of having the battleform laid to rest was a relief. “Now, no more insanity. What is going on?” Burke took his fingers out of Nomi. Then he lifted his cock from her silken cunt. Setting the tip against her ass, he looked up into his Alpha’s eyes and pressed down on her hips. “I claim Nomi as my mate.” This was all him. Cat was blessedly, finally silent. He had no excuse now. He had hold of her hips, and pressed his sopping, aching dick steadily, relentlessly into her scalding ass. She moaned, shivering beneath his grip. “Oh, yes. So good, Burke.” Her whisper shook as much as her body. Clenching his ass and tightening his stomach, he shoved a final bit deeper. With a twist and a push of his power, he grabbed Nomi’s power. He knew this path from when they’d built it together on the edge of the tainted spring. He followed her stream into her magescape, grabbing the heart of her energy while pouring what he had left into her. Their watercraft flowed together in a seamless river of power, exchanging pieces of themselves. Triumph flowed through him. They didn’t need the trappings of ritual his people used. Nomi trusted him enough to enter the mirror state with him, unaided. Burke suddenly stood on Nomi’s side of sensation. For an instant, he was folded over, joy and lust and wild determination mixing with blinding flashes of pleasure that traveled from his ass to his lungs. A warm, strong weight was at his back, he couldn’t breathe, and the pleasure wound, higher, tighter, clamping low in his middle. His world tossed like wild white water, brilliant, overwhelming, and then he was back in his own body, his dick squeezed, his voice screaming out triumph and pride. Nomi’s groaning wail matched his, her head tossing as she accepted his cum jetting deep inside her. In the most primal of ways, she was his. Willingly, she’d opened her most secret self to him. She submitted before his Alpha. Nothing was left but for his Alpha to accept them. Burke showed Mountaincat everything, baring their mental and physical connection, presenting it as both validation and gift. “I see the insanity continues.” Alpha’s voice rumbled warningly. “Get off her. Now.” The command washed over him in an icy torrent of shame. Alpha hadn’t seen the beauty, the miracle, of their mating. “Please.” Burke pulled from her body, unable to do anything but obey. “Begging does not become a Mountaincat. We earn our rewards.” When Burke’s dick cleared her tight grip, he added, “Now get over here and kneel.” The cat howled when he took his hand from Nomi’s back. He gently shuffled out from under her thighs, and began to turn toward his Alpha on his knees. Her body lunged in front of him, her muscles delineated, her posture aggressive. “How dare you. As if he hasn’t earned a drop a happiness a thousand times over.”

Nomi’s small hands curled into claws. “You smug bastard. You are not making him grovel. Talk to him. Listen with a heart, and not a rule book. Hear what he’s lived with.” Scrambling, she stood boldly beside him, her hands resting on his head, stroking his hair. “I love him.” Breath seizing, Burke closed his eyes. “And nothing you do can stop that. This is about survival. All he needs to live is just one drop of hope. You sucked everything else out of him. Let him have me.” Proteus’ voice was cold. “I am certainly not to blame for him refusing the very heart of himself. He rots in fear of the very soul who makes him strong. This man is tainted, Lady.” The cat’s growl rumbled Burke’s chest. He stilled it instantly, before it could be voiced. Even with cat’s fury at their constant war, it too objected to Burke being considered evil. Nomi’s hands tightened in his hair. She stepped forward, chin high. “I have tasted taint and he isn’t even close. Today, I watched him brave the most disgusting fouled spring, willingly. He’s been rejected by everyone, and he still sacrifices himself to guard you. That you could stand here in front of me and say the man I love is tainted makes me want to vomit. “He loves you. He needs you. Why you’re entitled to such devotion in the face of such cruelty, I don’t understand.” That heartbreaking despair in her voice, for him. It took his breath to see her face down his Alpha, hear her rage in his defense. “But he fought himself for months by your command. He fought himself until he almost died. Only when it became a matter of survival did he come for me. And I gladly followed him. He’s not afraid for himself. He’s afraid of failing one more time. Everything he’s done, he’s done as a sacrifice to keep from going rogue. And what support does he get? Distrust at every turn.” “Nomi.” He took her hand in his. On his knees, he looked up at her face, frowning and ferocious. “Stormdancer, quiet, now. Your defense of me is … beautiful. Your honor is strong. I would not have you fight my battle.” He held her eyes, and saw her blink quickly. His heart squeezed. “Shhh. Step back. Let the moment move on.” She squeezed his hand, grabbed his head, and kissed him. Her mouth slanted across his. He selfishly opened and drank from her power and passion, her hope and trust. He held her eyes when she pulled back, nodding to her, and she stepped away. He turned to face his Alpha, whose arms were folded, a brooding look on his face as he studied Burke. Thoughtfully, he rubbed his chin, then jerked his head in a summons. Burke shuffled forward through the bent grasses until he knelt at his Alpha’s feet. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. The position exposed his throat, but his shoulders were relaxed, his breath steady. No more running from his decision to take Nomi. No more avoiding who he truly was. Either the man would grant him a mating with Nomi, and punish him for his transgressions, or he would rip out his throat as a wild rogue who had dared too much and broken too many laws, bringing shame and uncertainty to the Clan. It was Proteus’s decision to weigh, for the good of all. ****

It was like being buried alive. Where Burke’s cave felt cozy, a perch on the edge of a cliff, River Mountain was a vast honeycombed rock that oozed the ghosts of thousands of people, for thousands of years. It was mostly empty when the Mountaincat Alpha had taken her through it, up stairs and in and out of halls until he deposited her in a room the size of her hut. Nomi sat on the plain bed, stunned, hearing nothing of his words, uncaring when he left her. The robe he’d given her did nothing against the chill radiating from her bones. She sat there still, with no hint of fresh air reaching her. Just the dusty still scent of being deep, deep inside the earth. As soon as she’d landed here, water had sung to her of its bustling duty, bound with powerful spells to flow to bath chambers throughout. By following it down, she’d felt better at the huge underground lake and river below her. Now she realized that in this place, even water was buried, contained, boxed. How had Burke survived living here for even a year? It occurred to Nomi to stand, get up, leave. She could go down and find the river. She could follow it, be swept away from this place, these hard people. But hope called to her. Hope. It had been her message to Burke, and her lifeline when the loneliness in the weeks without him had sucked her energy away. And now, despite their intimate sharing, that man had humiliated him, ripped her away, separated them. She would wait. Wait to be judged. It wasn’t fair. They’d come together, in such sure, pure sex, and Burke’s Alpha hadn’t seen their love at all, already blinded by his own prejudice. Her beautiful, brave man humbled himself before a cold, uncaring leader who didn’t deserve the title. To have the man’s cold voice ordering Burke away from her mere seconds after sharing the ironstrong heart of him was a sacrilege. She replayed the scene in her mind, a tangle of joy, disbelief, fear, and confusion. She stood in the middle of a vast space. There was nothing but trampled grass and one small stone in the shadow of starlight. Burke knelt patiently at the bastard’s feet. With a creeping, bone-freezing horror, she watched the leader’s body shimmer and ripple, expanding. He loomed over Burke, immense and lethal. Fangs the length of her hand gleamed as the creature bent over Burke’s upturned throat. A scream formed in her chest, but her throat had sealed shut. The fangs sank into Burke’s skin and she stopped breathing. No, not now, not at the beginning like this. But then he rose up again, only bright red indentations marring Burke’s neck. Her breath whistled as water had trembled vengefully beneath her feet, seething as she realized her love was still whole. Burke lowered his chin back down until it touched his chest. “Mountaincat.” The man, shrinking into human form, crouched on his haunches, wrists resting on immense thighs. “Burke, you will face penalties. But your woman’s fierce words have convinced me to give you a chance. I will recognize her as your mate, if she is found to meet the requirements of our laws. And of course, if you can prove your control.” Nomi’s breath sucked in with a noisy, strangled gasp. Her heart hammering, light burst in her vision as she trembled on the edge of joy. The shadowy man rose, and walked to where she stood, arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Still on his knees, Burke pivoted to watch as the man went to the small rock. Fiercely, she wanted him to stand up. The Mountaincat held out a hand to her. She abruptly remembered she was nude. Burke sat back on his heels while every muscle in his body jumped into stark relief.

His face tightened, jaw clenching, eyes squinting. Afraid of what he might do, she went to the Alpha. The other alpha. It would do her well to remember her man was an alpha, too. The other one was just better at playing social games. She stepped to the huge man’s side, but didn’t uncross her arms to take his offered hand. Sighing he said, “Wait here, Burke. Ghutar will come for you. I’m not going to take your woman into Autumnal nude and reeking of sex, almost-but-not-quite-mated. I’ll take her to the women’s caves at River Mountain, and send Cro to her while she’s tested.” Wonderful. Nomi could hardly wait to meet this perfect woman Burke had spoken of with such admiration. “It’s my hope that by dawn, we’ll have this straightened out.” Burke’s voice rumbled low over the grass. “As much as I want nothing more than to have Nomi declared my Bonded, I must tell you where we’ve just come from. Sir, I found a new sifting stone. It was hidden beneath a spelled spring. The darkcraft that powered the spell had failed, and the land for many leagues around needs cleansing. I don’t think it’s been used at all. It had an animated guardian, an eel.” Nomi pinched the faint bit of skin at the edge of her armpit, her arms wrapped firmly around herself. Always with the honor. She’d prefer to be done with this drama, and now they’d all go tearing off back to that sickening place. The Mountaincat’s voice was dangerous rumble. “You were with your woman? She is well?” “Yes, Alpha.” “I’ll gather a team. Wait here for Ghutar.” “Yes, Alpha.” Nomi focused on the shine of Burke’s moonlight eyes. She stepped toward him, her stomach twisting in fear. Finally, he rose to his feet, taking one jerking step toward her in return. No sooner had she reached for him than a shockingly hot, calloused hand closed around her forearm, and water’s faint burble and hush had ripped, changed, as he’d disappeared before her eyes and they were suddenly enclosed in a gray rock room. That man had sifted her away from Burke. He’d taken her away. Now she sat in this bed, in this tomb, cold and still. The shadow of Burke’s strong arms carrying her, jostling her through the woods, brought gooseflesh to her arms. The faint burn of Burke stretching her ass, stroking deep, draped gooseflesh over her belly. The lingering swelling from his face buried wet and tight between her legs sent gooseflesh down her legs. It had all built into a trembling, desperate fuck beneath the curt gaze of that man. Now she was here, alone. And he was left behind, alone. They were almost together. So close. So far. She heard the woman chattering from a mile away. Closer and closer the light, pattering feet came, with a constant excited monologue. Bursting through the curtain hanging over the door came the most bizarre looking woman Nomi had ever seen. And behind her stood a woman with Burke’s cheekbones, Burke’s brows, and Burke’s chin. Nomi shot to her feet, the delicate, ridiculously silky robe whispering around her. The deeply brown skinned, green eyed, orange haired woman swept her arms in wide dramatic arms. “Welcome, sister, to Vladaya, home of the Truxet!” She held herself suspended on tiptoe a moment, her arms swept wide, and then she rushed forward, reaching for Nomi’s hand. Nomi shrank back, her arms folding tightly against the

woman’s expectations. She didn’t seem insulted, fluttering around Nomi like a slight butterfly. “We were ever so surprised when we learned Burke had found you! This is just amazing, stupendous, singularly rare news. A lone alpha’s life is hard, but will be so much richer for your pairing.” It was hard not to keep staring at Burke’s mother. She had red-eyes, and kept dabbing her nose with a handkerchief. “I am Cro, Domina of the Mountaincats. This is Kethu, a red Wolf. She is a spiritmage, and as you may have guessed, Burke’s mother.” The older woman was slender and elegant. Even the tense, rigid way she held herself reminded Nomi of him. The silence stretched out and the woman Cro finally stopped hopping around. She asked, “And you are…?” “Nomi.” “Ah.” Burke’s mother stepped into the room. “Nomi, I understand you would like to bond with my son. This is all highly—“ “No. He’s mine.” At Nomi’s interruption and simple statement, the two women looked at each other. Her desire to leave the room and visit the river grew stronger. “Well, it seems probable he will be yours according to our laws, too. Do you want that for him? Or do you want to live as the hunted enemies of our people?” Cro’s voice had cooled considerably, hardened with authority. Nomi looked at the smaller woman with greater respect. “I’ll cooperate.” Cro nodded. “A simple body scan, and a not-as-simple souldance. That’s all it takes on your side. Then we’ll get you a bath, and some food.” “And then?” Cro tipped her head. Her eyes stayed flinty hard. “And then you should pray for Burke.” **** “I don’t fucking believe this.” It wasn’t the first time Ghutar had said that sentence. He’d appeared at the field before Burke had gotten over the shock of seeing Nomi disappear with his Alpha. At his sudden arrival, the soothed, tense waiting the cat had sunk into with his Alpha’s presence utterly came undone. Following Ghutar through the halls of River Mountain to the Mountaincat’s lair near the inner peak had been exercise in concentration. He took one foot and put it in front of the other, while the damn cat did nothing but hurl itself against skull. She was here. Just a few floors down, in the women’s caves. Would Proteus really require her to go through an entire formal souldance? Would he require a choosing ceremony as well? Burke trembled. He knew, knew, his honor wouldn’t survive such a trial. He couldn’t stand in line with other, worthier, healthier men and watch Nomi look them in the eyes. Having arrived in the Mountaincat Lair, Ghutar walked across the practice mats of the training room silently, his dense, scarred, compact body flexing efficiently. “You’re one dumb fuck, Wolf. A real fucked-up, arrogant piece of a shit. I had

money down that we’d be hunting your rogue ass before the snows fell.” He pulled his leather jerkin off and laid it to the side. Burke had no clothes to remove. “When you didn’t show at Autumnal, I was thrilled. I thought, ‘Day-am! That boy finally is willing to die.’” Chuckling at his own wit, Ghutar toed off his shoes and swung his arms in long, powerful stretches. “I have to admit though. I never expected you to have the balls to go for her. Proteus had told you not to. I knew it would end up breaking you, but I honestly thought you had enough sense to stay away from the woman.” Burke curled his hands into fists. He told himself the derision with which Ghutar spat the words “the woman” was for him, not her. “Hear you sifted her while you were sucking her off. Classy. Way to show you’re in control.” The bigger man snorted. “But of course, you were too far gone by then. I bet by the time Proteus got to you, you were up her ass, right out there in front of anyone. Just a wild little doggy with a dick to scratch.” Burke curled his toes to remain in place. Tossing a look at Burke as he shucked his pants, Ghutar rolled his eyes. “By scalding Steam, you were, weren’t you. By the Six, I’m going to enjoy this.” Ghutar faced Burke from across the cavernous room. Shaking his arms out by his hips, he morphed his cat’s claws into his hands, and just his cat fangs into his mouth. His shoulders and thighs bulked with muscle, while his frame stayed human. “Here’s the rules, you lone alpha scum. I think Proteus has lost his mind for even considering sealing this bonding. You’re a breath from going rogue, and I can’t fucking believe a piece of shit loner like you gets a woman over all the other worthy warriors, just because you stole her before she had a brightmoon choosing ceremony. Stole her despite direct orders not to. Stole her at the exact time when you knew you could get away with it, you sneaky fuck.” Ghutar’s knees bent in anticipation, so Burke bent his as well. He kept his eyes on Ghutar’s claws. “The Mountaincat is out exploring the mysterious taint you say you found. If that’s a trap and he gets wounded, I’ll eat your heart. Until he gets back, I’m supposed to ‘observe your control’ as you’re kept apart from the woman. The woman who will no doubt be well-fucked by whatever lucky waiting warrior gets her after I gut you and rip your lungs out through the back of your ribs.” Ghutar moved in a gliding, predatory cross step. Burke moved the opposite direction, staying the furthest distance away. “I don’t see you waiting very well, Burkey. I’m not observing very good control.” The eagerness in Ghutar’s growling voice thrummed the tension in Burke’s gut. “In fact, I’m detecting some outright hostility, Burkey-wolf. And that’s just not allowed.” With a Mountaincat’s roar, Ghutar blurred across the mat toward Burke. Burke crouched. His heart stopped. This wasn’t training. This wasn’t official punishment. He could run, or he could fight. But the long months of isolation as a lone alpha had cemented some dominant piece into place. He was no longer capable of running. He was going to fight his Clan’s Shield, an Alpha who should have his submission and trust. He had to last until Proteus’ return. If he died before Proteus

stopped this, then Nomi would be given to another. She’d never forgive him. Ghutar’s narrow eyes and flexing body seemed poised for one still moment as the decision washed through Burke. He hadn’t survived the last three days to lose now. With exquisite control, he slid his mental restraints off Mountaincat. Dodging one strike and blocking the other with a sweep of his forearm, Burke dove under the leaping warrior and rolled. By the time he spun to his feet to meet Ghutar’s next charge, he was in battleform, and Cat was loud in his head. He thinks us unworthy of our mate? Cat stretched inside Burke, leaving horror and bile churning in his stomach. Ghutar went in low this time, but Burke leapt, kicking out at him. The warrior was so quick he only caught him a glancing blow off the top of one shoulder. For Nomi. Only ever for Nomi. Burke snarled at the Cat and spun from a grappling snag as Ghutar rolled past. I think not. I think this is for you and your pride. Cat taunted as he swiped his claws across Ghutar’s abs. They dodged another double strike. It occurred to Burke this fight would be easier if he wasn’t fighting an opponent and one internal semi-partner and full time-adversary. Stepping into Ghutar’s reach, he turned his brain off and engaged. The blows were too fast to think about. There was only reaction, instinct, and will. The pain lanced in ripping tears, but was of no consequence. Neither was Cat’s deep joy at being out, hunting, spraying the blood of the one who endangered his life with his mate. Blow, slash, block, weave, dodge, undergrip, blow, rip, overstrike, jab, duck, twist. They danced, and they bled, and they snarled. Ghutar went to full battleform, too, and Burke’s blood began to flow more steadily than the Shield’s. At least the man no longer had time or breath for his mockery. The sweat and heavy beat of his heart both made the fighting trickier and slower. Cat became stronger, wanting to use fang, wanting to drink of the thickest heart’s blood. Burke concentrated. If he went into his fur, not only was this battle lost, but any chance at a life with Nomi was lost, too. Eventually they settled into a low circling exchange of flurry and retreat. Circle. Strike. Fall back. Burke only had eyes for those deadly claws. It was important to remember that every blow Ghutar landed needed to be rolled into. If Burke rolled away from it, the hooked claws did more damage as they ripped away. He had so little breath he was light-headed. Cat crowded in further, golden fur erupting on his shoulders and chest. Burke spat as they circled, disgusted with the sensation. Flurry. Pain! Retreat. He’d taken a bad strike to his shoulder. One arm couldn’t lift to defend now, hanging limply, a glowing, draining, burst of agony. That’s when Ghutar went to his beastspirit. Waist-high, with a lashing tail, he was two hundred pounds of pure hunter. Remember your skin, he told himself. Remember Nomi’s skin. Remember laying on her in our bed, skin against skin. Cat screamed in rage. It surged and battered at his control and Burke’s battleform swelled even more. Ghutar leapt for him, massive paws spread, claws shorter now but striking multiple hits with vicious speed. Me! Me! Me! Cat roared through Burke’s throat, impotent. Burke focused, spun, and jabbed deep into the cat’s flank, ripping a gob of muscle away in a spray of flesh. Ghutar fell, and couldn’t stand up, the one back leg crumpling under it again and again as he dragged his upper body around to keep Burke at his front.

Kill! The Cat wanted Ghutar’s throat. Out! It demanded. “No.” The blood under his feet was warm and thick. The wounded, bleeding Mountaincat before him crouched, snarling, swiping with extended paws to keep Burke away. Chest heaving, lungs burning, stumbling back, Burke rose, straightened. “No.” Cat rolled and roared and tossed Burke’s body from side to side in its fury. The enemy was weak. It wanted death. It wanted freedom. Burke fell to his knees, struggling to focus on Ghutar’s shuddering form. The Mountaincat flowed back into a human body with a misty green glow. Burke’s good hand, such as it was, slapped onto the mat as his spine bowed with the force of the cat trying to burst through. His claws caught on the straw reeds, embedding there. My body. My life. Ghutar screamed in fury. He was a red, shaking mess just two bodylengths from Burke. Burke gritted his teeth, feeling how a few of them were loose, and that bit of extra pain in his mostly human mouth helped push the cat back. Nomi. Stormdancer, launching herself off the top of the waterfall in a summer rain. He would never run in his fur, never take the chance that the cat would take that life from him. Never. By the time Burke sat back on his aching knees, he had spots in his vision. Cat still beat at him from the inside, but that battle was familiar ground. The tipping point had passed. With cold, assessing eyes, he let his gaze linger on the myriad wounds covering Ghutar. Some were healing from the double shift to battleform and beastspirit and back, but they were still fearsome, even so. Satisfaction and lingering bloodlust sent him to his feet. Since most of Ghutar’s right thigh was in scattered, bloody chunks across the mats, all he could do was crouch, shaking on one knee, the other leg stretched behind him. “Ghutar.” Burke growled, the Mountaincat’s wail very much present. The man’s sullen eyes rolled up to meet his. “Don’t name me Wolf again.”

Chapter Ten Burke limped over to the wall, backwards, keeping the warrior in his sight. “Proteus will rip you apart for this.” Ghutar wheezed as Burke backed away. “He can try.” Ghutar bellowed with infuriated violence, and actually succeeded in rising up on his one, half-good knee. “You piece of shit! You won’t touch him!” Burke shook his head. A mistake because it made the room weave and he stumbled. “I didn’t mean it as a threat. I have no desire to harm my Alpha. None.” He tripped again as he came off the edge of the padded, anchored mats, to the small stone earth walkway that surrounded them. Groaning as he forced cat’s fangs to shift back to human canines, he stretched his neck. “I had no desire to attack you for that matter.” “I don’t fucking believe this.” Ghutar spat. His body trembled with fatigue. Burke fought the wildly inappropriate urge to laugh. “You keep saying that. Welcome to my life.” Picking up a towel, folded there in a stack, he wiped the blood from his eyes. He took up another one and limped toward Ghutar. Who growled at him. “You’re going to bleed out. Take these.” He could hardly stand, but he’d have to find the strength to go for a bodymage. Cat wailed, and Burke won another inch of skin back as he stuffed him deeper into his psyche. He continued to walk backwards toward the wall. He needed the wall, or he’d have to sit down, a weaker position than he wanted. Ghutar resentfully subsided onto his side again, hissing as he made a sloppy bandage from the towels. They were a light brown, but quickly darkened to red. Ghutar moaned. Collapsing onto his side, his eyes rolled as they tried to focus on Burke. “If I die, you will become Shield.” “Why do you think I gave you the towels? Hold them on there tighter. I just need a few more minutes to pull myself together before I can get help.” Finally, the cool wall hit Burke’s back. He sank against it gratefully, picking up a towel for himself and pressing it against his shoulder. The agony let cat seep back into his arms, but he fought the beastspirit down. “Why didn’t you kill me?” The question came on a gritted breath from Ghutar. “I don’t want your death. I have enough punishment waiting for me, and my mate will suffer with me for my dishonor and selfish actions.” “But you had me down. You could have taken me so easily.” Burke repeated. “I don’t want your death. All I want is my mate. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. And you don’t have to tell me I don’t deserve her. But that’s a fight I lost. It was the dishonor of taking her for myself, or death. I chose life.” He locked his knees and settled in to wait, continuing the internal battle that never once got any easier. After several minutes, he forced his claws to recede. The ground around him showed a circle of blood. “Burke.” Ghutar’s voice was faint. “I think I can go for help now. Hold on.” Burke stood from the wall, willing his knees to hold him. “Burke.”

“Yeah.” He tottered toward the door. Cat went into insane tumbling at not having Ghutar in their sight anymore. “You are an honorable warrior. I will…” The man panted, his head lolling on the ground. “tell him…” Burke stared at the Shield lying in a huge puddle of blood. Heard the strong heart stutter, pause, beat, and go silent. He turned and ran, cursing the size of River Mountain, cursing the Autumnal, cursing how long he’d had to fight the cat to regain control. In the end, it was his war with the cat that was going to destroy his chance with Nomi, not the other warrior’s attack. The fitting irony of it didn’t amuse him. He ran. **** Nomi followed Cro up and up and up. To think she’d been cowed by the size of this place on her travels from sifting stone to women’s caves. Traveling from women’s caves up to the Lair was infinitely more distressing. She was so far from the murmur of water. A pair of warriors jogged past them on the steps. “—can’t believe he almost died like that,” the darker man said. “Those wounds are immense. His healing will not be quick,” the lighter man replied. He nodded his head at them. “Domina.” “Cro, love of my Clan, how nice to see you!” The darker man smiled. Nomi ignored that, stepping over toward them. “Who! Who is wounded?” “Well, our Shield got into it with that lone changeling alpha who was here for such a short time—“ “Nomi! Wait!” Cro called after her. Nomi didn’t wait. She surged up the steps two by two, only to be pulled to a halt at the top of the huge flight. Her gaze skittered wildly, seeking direction. She looked back down at Cro, who quickly trotted up. “Which way!” “Just a moment! If Burke attacked Ghutar—“ “Which way!” Nomi shrieked at the woman who had been kind to her in the shivering aftermath of the awful souldance. “We’re here. Straight through the cat doorway.” Nomi whirled and saw the intricately carved doorway covered in lean feline shapes. She dashed in. A crowd of men gathered around one doorway at the end of a curving hallway. Her heart stopped when she saw that several had arms stained with blood clear up their elbows. “No.” But it came out a breath, not the scream in her head. An image of her beautiful Burke waiting docilely on his knees while gleaming fangs sank into his throat filled her mind. What had they done to him now? Hadn’t he learned yet that these people didn’t care about him at all? They couldn’t be trusted. She shoved through them and stopped in the room, very similar to the one she’d waited in below. On the bed was a hulking man with a cloth laid over one thigh. A man and a woman leaned over him, in the way of healers. Proteus sat in a chair by the man’s shoulder, holding his hand, his face thunderous. “Oh! No! What happened?” Cro shoved her to the side, and then she was in the room, fluttering from the healers to Proteus to the wounded man, kissing his forehead frantically. Nomi whirled in place and pinned the nearest warrior with her most evil glare.

“Where. Is. Burke?” The man calmly replied, “Next door.” Nomi ducked under his raised arm that still held the curtain open and rushed inside the next room. Burke sat on the edge of the bed. He too was nude, and covered in a web of fine scratches, angry puckered healing slashes, and spectacularly colored bruises. But his face in the bright light looked so young, and his muscles were stark and sleek. His eyes gleamed. His chin lifted and a lovely small smile crept over his face. “Mate,” he said simply, like she’d come back from the washroom. With a cry, Nomi hurtled into him, locking her arms around his neck. His strong arms were tight around her ribs as he picked her up and whirled her. She choked on a laugh as her feet flew through the air. His skin against hers settled her, healed her, thrilled her. He put her down, keeping her flush to his body. He was warm and big, safe. Hers. “Mine,” she whispered into his heart. Burke grabbed her face and kissed her. His mouth sealed to hers and commanded her, filling her with joy. Lapping at her tongue, he nibbled at her lips, slanted for a new angle, and kissed her deeply again. It was beautiful. She tried to pull back, and he kissed her so hard her head spun. Finally she was able to break away enough to speak, but it took a second to remember what she wanted to say. “You’re all right!” He pressed kisses to her cheeks, her jaw, up the bridge of her nose, across her eyebrows. “I am now. Waiting for Cro to bring you to me was not easy.” “Burke, is it real? Is it done? Are we married?” “Nomi…” She spoke to deny the regret in his voice. Her words tripped over each other as she fought to keep the happy tears from becoming tears of rage. “I met Cro. She said I’m fertile, which is some sort of requirement. I met your mother, she’s a lovely woman, Burke. She said you and I are a match. She said that there’s no sense in going to a choosing ceremony, because we’ve already blended pieces of our soulair together, without the aide of a spiritmage. Your Alpha wanted you to wait. You waited. Are we done?” His hands settled on her waist, his thumbs stroking her skin where the shirt they’d given her parted above the long skirt. “There was an… incident.” A snort sounded from the door. “That is dangerously close to a lie, Burke. Don’t lie to your mate, it’s not good for bed play.” They both froze at the huge brown presence of the man looming inside the curtain, Cro curved into his arm like a colorful doll. Proteus nodded his head. “Ghutar stands for you. My Domina shares she is in support as well. There will be punishments before the Clan and before the Council. But now, I am… content to announce that Mountaincat has witnessed your mating, and acknowledges your Bond.” The large man pinned his deep brown eyes on Nomi. “You are always welcome in our Clan, should you need a safe haven.” It was all she could do not sneer at him, as he stood there and practically announced his expectation that Burke would become a danger to her. She had no respect for this man whatsoever. “Thank you, Alpha. My thanks. Our thanks.” Burke’s voice was low and hoarse, passionate and grateful.

Nomi bit her tongue. Hard. Shifting her gaze to Cro, she could feel her jaw soften a bit. The woman had been nothing but patient and practical in the hours Nomi had been away from Burke. If she was one of the leaders of the Clan, then all was not dreary here. The Alpha spoke. “I was horrified at the existence and state of that sifting stone. This will be something to study, and something to heal, for months to come. We’ve known darkmages are well hidden in the Cities for a generation now, almost as if they were protected. Hawks are missing, and darkcraft is suspected. If this stone leads to a break in the greater hunt, my people owe you both a great debt. I understand you’re the one who found this taint, Nomi. You’re the one who insisted on braving it and cleansing it. That is an amazing accomplishment for a human woman, untrained in battlecraft.” She huffed, closing her eyes and resting her head on Burke’s chest. “Burke is the one who walked us through that cleansing. His strength alone is what carried us. I caught it before he did, but it was spreading, and he would have sensed it soon.” “Time is always of the essence in darkcraft. Because of you, we have less land to cleanse.” “So we get to go home, right?” The man frowned. “Autumnal is our time of gathering the Clan in. Finally, we can set aside our duties to the royal family and most of our maintenance obligations, and our alphas can join us as well. It would be good if Burke was present, and even better for you, to learn our culture and experience the bonds that make a Clan the basis of our success.” Nomi wanted to barf. Her feet went cold at the thought of being surrounded with strangers, judged and watched and muttered over. And by the tightening of Burke’s hands as they slid around her back and drew her in tighter, she guessed it wasn’t on top of his to-do list either. “Nomi has spoken to only one other Trux in all her life. And that was in passing. It would be overwhelming for us both. Sir, I ask pardon from this Autumnal. We would prefer to spend our week of rest in my own territory.” Cro turned into the tanned man with tan brown hair and eyes and hugged him. He bent down over her and rubbed his cheek against the top of her head. It looked more like a cat’s marking of a possession than real affection to Nomi’s bitter eyes. “All right. You are excused for all but the last three days of Autumnal. I want you both there as part of our final celebration. I’ll introduce you, settle any gossip directly and stop night whispers.” Relief turned Nomi’s knees to jelly. She leaned into Burke. “Thank you, Proteus.” The man lifted his head and stared hard at Burke. “Thank you, Burke.” Something passed between them, some understanding, some shifting of debt. Burke’s fingers petted the groove of her spine with tiny secret curls beneath her shirt, pebbling her breasts where they were mashed against him. “But next year, you will be there for the entire month.” “Yes, sir.” The Alpha turned and ushered Cro before him. She wiggled her fingers back at Nomi and disappeared before Nomi could respond. The curtain rippled and was still, although there were still men’s voices in the hall. Burke’s hands swept over her hips and settled, spread, over her ass.

“Now, mate. Now it is done.” She pressed a kiss into the hollow at the base of his throat. “Oh. After our dramatic arrival among your people, it all seems very simple.” Gently, less desperately, he pressed a kiss to each eyelid. “Yes, mate. I promise you, when we’re alone and this excitement has settled, when I’ve paid my debts and we’ve escaped Autumnal, I will make a ritual with you. Something beautiful and sacred, with your Sacred Couple and all the elements. We’ll share words, and I’ll love you, at the edge of the waterfall, all the way until dawn. I won’t have to fear losing control, and I’ll make it up to you. I’ll show you how precious you are. I’ll shower you with passion until you’re drunk with it.” Nomi blinked up at him, gazing into his bruised, mirrored eyes. “That sounds… really nice,” she said inanely, brain-frozen by his powerful words. He held her ass with strong, clenching fingers digging deep into her muscle. His firm, fierce kiss to her lips was a promise. It was all the ritual she needed. He licked his lips, lingering as if savoring her taste. His eyes grinned at her, the corners crinkling. “It does. You shared a souldance with my mother? Are you well?” Nomi shuddered. The souldance was an invasive and deeply terrifying ritual. “I am now. She’s a lovely woman, very strong, who loves you very much.” To distract him, not ready to share the experience, she winked at him. “Almost as much as me.” “Only strong women have the courage to love me.” His words pinched her heart, but then, miraculously, he grinned, laughing at himself. Tipping back her head, she laughed out loud, a burst of delight and relief and thanks. Curling her toes in the cool stone, she spread her hands on Burke’s strong back and held him tightly. No tremors ran through his body. Now it was her turn to grab his head and command a kiss. She nipped at his lips, stroked his human teeth, and claimed all of his mouth. They kissed, drinking deep of each other. When she finally emerged, his dick rubbed at her belly, hot and hard. “Evening, Burke.” She smiled at him, nipping his jaw. His voice rumbled against her breasts. “Evening, Nomi. Actually, it’s almost dawn.” “Yes, I do believe it is.” She smiled, liking the symbolism. He pressed his groin into her belly. “I need to touch you more. We need privacy.” His mouth ate at hers as her lips interrupted him. He didn’t seem angry about it. “I have an idea. Will you trust me?” “Always.” Burke towed her out of the room into a wide hallway. They swiftly drifted around the suddenly silent stares of the gathered bloody men. A few flights of stairs later, he took her down a wide curving hall. As they came around the last turn in the spiral, a sandy beach emerged. Nomi gaped at her glimpse of a massive expanse of black water in an underground cave, but then he pulled her into a room that roiled with smoke. No, not smoke. Steam. Walking out onto a flat bridge, he set down the towels he’d grabbed at the door and sat on a bench to take off his boots. She toed off the slippers she’d been given. “Welcome to River Mountain, the heart of Vladaya. The Mountaincat Lair is based here, as are all the Council’s elemental mages. This is one of the places I’d come for solace, when I couldn’t last in the watermage caves anymore. I want to prove I can do slow and gentle, Nomi. But not now. Now, I need to celebrate. Take a big breath.” No sooner had her skirt cleared her foot than she was airborne, tossed into the

nearest round pool. She splashed to the surface, found that it was shoulder deep. “It’s warm!” Burke jumped in next to her, laughing. Soaping up his hands, he grabbed hers, and began to wash her. “I can wash myself, Burke.” “I like to. Let me take care of you, just a bit. Finally, with the cat quiet, I can focus.” His lips looked soft and lush, relaxed, with a faint, happy curl to the corners. “All right.” But she took the soap from the side and filled her own hands with suds. Reaching for his chest, she drifted lather across his hard, smooth muscles. “Why is your cat suddenly quiet? Because of your Alpha’s permission?” “Yes. A gift like you will keep him mostly content, for awhile, I hope.” Her hands gentled over the worst bruising in one shoulder. “What happened, Burke? This looks like it’s healing nicely. Give yourself another pass.” Under her critical eye, the bruising faded from black and purple to green and lavender from his bodycraft. He shuddered. “My Alpha’s Shield and I came to an understanding.” Freezing, her gaze jumped to his. “Your Alpha came to us in his beast form. That golden-furred beast, with the huge feet and long tail … that’s what your cat looks like?” Burke leaned in and grazed one side of her jaw with his teeth. “Yes.” Swooping to the other side, he nibbled her gently. “No more about him, now. You’re … ours. The cat is quiet, at least for now. I feel free.” His lips touched hers as his hands trailed up, up, up over her shoulders. His hands circled her neck, soothing the soap into the hollows behind her ears. She thrilled to his huge hands touching her there. She felt tiny and safe. Her hands went lower, cleaning his hips. He thrust toward her, his soft tip grazing her belly. They both re-lathered their hands, and sent them beneath the water. Their touch was gentle on each other’s private places. He was so long and straight. Burke’s liquid silver eyes held hers in the low magelights. The warm bath bubbled around them, tendrils of steam like a curtain of privacy. The seething water was incredible, sensitizing her entire body. “No one will come in?” “Everyone’s at Autumnal. I’ll hear anyone if they come.” His fingers were huge as they cleaned her, probing her softly, swirling around her ass with soapy glides. She tightened her gripping hands, stroking him from base to tip with steady pulls. Swirling one hand deep into his pubic hair, her other hand reached lower to carefully cup his balls. He froze his own ministrations, sighing. “Burke? Can I ask you something?” “Yes.” He soaped himself up in a frenzy, and then efficiently soaped her back, even skimming her breasts without any extra movements. She rolled his balls in her hand and traced the crease of one thigh. “When you changed into that—battleform?” “Yes.” “When the eel went for me… You didn’t change back in all that time to the sifting stone. You fucked me several times, and it never once was too scary or out of control. That was the form you were worried about, when I tied you up.” “I was on the very edge. It was terrifying.” He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her words. Now he rinsed himself in a similar economic fashion.

“So, you’re done with that now? No more talk of raping me?” He froze. Staring at her, he gathered her impossibly gently, pulling her close. She slid her hands from his groin to his waist, feeling a lump in her throat at the look on his face. “No more of that talk, Nomi. Ever. No matter how angry you make me, or how afraid I get. I will never doubt myself like that again. I could never hurt you like that. I know that now.” She nodded. “I’m so glad Burke.” “Yes.” With a kick of his legs, he knocked her off her feet and swirled her lower into the water. Kissing her, their mouths opened to the other. He swirled her around and then rose up and set her on the edge of the bath. The stone was warm under her butt. “Skyfather! You’re so strong. You’re always picking me up and swinging me around.” “What can I say? You’re the best toy I’ve ever had.” He winked at her and she laughed, loving the playful side of him she’d seen so rarely. Until he pushed her thighs open, tossing them over his shoulders. Time stopped as she watched Burke kiss her cunt. He licked with a human-soft tongue, and nipped with human-blunt teeth. And he sucked with human precision. She was so entranced by the view of him, his fingers pulling on her thighs, his furrowed brow and stretched mouth, that the pleasure he created built at a distance from her perception then burst on her in a sudden rainstorm. “Burke!” His eyes rolled up to meet hers as his mouth pressed deep in her folds. It was the look of a hunter, steady and relentless. His tongue, teeth, and lips worked together in perfect motion. Her next orgasm whipped her with pleasure, her back arching as her breath seized. Hard fingers grabbed her out thrust nipples and pinched hard, pulling, and his tongue fluttered at the sensitized flesh of her clit. She took one gasping breath and he twisted her nipples, flattening his tongue hard against her. The pleasure that had been wavering carried her up an even higher crest, and crashed in a glorious wash that took all the strength from her muscles. She fell back, catching herself on her elbows, breath stopping as he lapped at her in a flicker of too-sharp pleasure. “That guard saw me fuck you.” Burke’s voice was low and tight. “No shame, Nomi. Have no shame over that confrontation I dragged you into.” “No, Burke,” she still gasped, her thighs trembling from their three orgasm climb. “He told you your cries of passion would count against me. And you were silent. Just like you were silent when Proteus took you. You were still silent just now, when you shared your cream with me. No more. By the black Deep, I want to hear you, Nomi. I always want to hear your voice calling me in the night.” He surged out of the water and sat on the side. Dragging the towel over, he sat her up, wrapped her in it, and took her in his arms. “I’m going to fuck you hard and fast, because I earned you. You’re my dream, but it’s your flesh I’m needing now, Stormdancer.” Nomi put her arms around his neck. “Hard and fast sounds like a dream to me. I’ve had enough of talking, enough of searching through my head. All I need to understand is that you’re with me. We survived apart until now, but from here, we’re together.”

“Bonded…” he whispered. His eyes closed, paused, and when his lids flew open, his gaze was molten. Standing like her weight was nothing, he moved through the steamy hall swiftly, coming out in the huge lake’s cavern. Ominous-looking rock formations dripped from the ceiling. It was eerily silent, but water’s voice thrummed powerfully. Pool, twine, flow. He took her over to a hollow in the side of the cliff, where the rock wall met the deep sand, and put her on her feet. “Yes. Here, where I used to lay sleepless, despairing.” Nomi licked her lips, ignoring her towel as it fell away. Drifting her fingers over his nipple, she said, “Every time we’re together feels like a shock, some sudden, amazing surprise.” Nuzzling her ear, he flicked into her canal, and traced the edge of her lobe. “I know, Stormdancer. Neither one of us is used to being happy. We’ll have to learn together.” He kissed her below her ear, nipping at the sinew on her neck. “Now, Nomi. I want to hear your passion. I want you to keep sharing your thoughts, like you did in the summer nights. We’re safe. We’re mated. Set yourself free.” A groan tore from her throat as both of his hands lifted her breasts and crushed them. It felt amazing. “That makes me feel swollen, heavy. I like thinking that my breasts overflow your hands.” He growled, kissing down her throat, his fingers milking her nipples. “Oh, yeah. That reminds me.” Falling to her knees, she surprised him into dropping her breasts. They bobbed and pulled against her torso. “You smell so good down here. Man, and salt.” She licked up his cock and nipped the edge of his tip. He hissed. “I know it won’t happen now, because we’re having a quick fuck and all, but someday soon I’m going to drink you down, all the thick cream you can give me.” She wrapped one hand around his base and folded his balls into her other hand. Pulling him down, she stretched her mouth as wide as she could to stuff him in. She squeezed his balls gently, moaning to feel the burst of flavor against her tongue. After only a few hard swallows, he surprised her by falling to his knees, her teeth catching on him as he was pulled free from her suction. She stared at him, dazed by the possibilities. His chest heaved, the deep wedge of it brushing against her. He stared at her like she was everything. “I want it all, Burke. I want you in my mouth and my ass and my cunt. I want you from behind and to ride over you, too. I even want you in your battleform again, with that fucking massive cock of yours.” He grabbed his cock, stroked it once and squeezed his base brutally. It swelled, and wept. “Nomi. Tell me how to take you now. Anything.” She tipped her head. Frowned. “Anything? If I asked, you’d let your battleform out?” Burke closed his eyes. His body went still except for his pumping hand. His shoulders were etched with lines of sinew, his neck rigid, jaw clenched. His lids lifted and his gaze was hard, full of steady, burning will. His free hand curled into a fist on his thigh. “We have an uneasy peace. For you, we work together. For you, I will share that much of my body.” He knelt before her, his hand fisting around his cock, holding her eyes. The magelights were distant, throwing only the faintest of light in their sandy corner. “Don’t fear me, Burke. I will never ask you to give yourself to the cat. If you ever

find a reason to shift fully into a Mountaincat, it will be your own decision.” His relaxation was subtle, and slow. His lips parted, his shoulders fell just a fraction. His lungs expanded, and both hands lifted, stroking his cock in hard hand-over-hand pulls. “Thank you.” His voice was a quiet sigh, low and thick. “You’ve got to tell me what you want soon, mate. Or I’m going to come all over you.” Nodding, Nomi said, “I want you the first way I had you. Face to face, sitting on you to force you deep in my body, with my clit mashed against you.” She laughed to see how fast Burke fell to his ass on the blanket in the sand. Flinging herself into his arms, she let him grab her and lift her over his lap. A quick probe, and her body’s weight pushed him deep. Nomi crushed herself against him, gasping and moaning, her low voice echoing off the rock walls and rolling out over the water. It was so satisfying to take him fully, even though she missed the burning width of his other form. She tried to drive herself lower, but he held her waist. “Burke, stop holding back. I want it hard and deep and wild. I need you, please.” “You don’t need me quite yet, but you will.” His hands glided up her shoulders to hook over her from behind. With a jerk and low, hoarse groan, he thrust up into her as he pulled her down. Because he told her to, because she could, because it felt so incredibly satisfying to have him buried inside her, Nomi tipped back her head screamed. “Yes.” His voice was low and pleased. “Again.” He rocked her back and forward, thrusting up and grinding his abs into her clit. She moaned, long and guttural. After his kisses in the hot baths, she was so sensitive. “I feel raw from before. You’re so strong.” He stopped. “Good raw?” “Oh, very good.” He leaned back on the blanket. Propped up on his elbows, his shoulders looked massive. “Ride me, Nomi. Take your pleasure as my mate. Let me hear you.” “Yes.” She planted her hands on the slope of his chest. Rising on her thighs, she pulled up on him, reveling in the drag of his thick cock head inside her channel. She dropped down, spiraling her hips, and ground herself against his pelvis. “Oh, that’s so good. I’m so full. Is it good for you, Burke?” “Yes. Do it faster so I can watch your breasts bounce.” Laughing, she granted his wish, gasping as the quick movement detonated inside her. “I won’t be able to last long.” “Look at me. Let me see.” His voice was so gritty it was almost a growl. Meeting his gaze was easy. She had nothing to hide from Burke. Rising and falling on him took on the rhythm of surging waves. She wasn’t riding Burke, she was riding freedom, the kind that came from total acceptance and trust. Hissing and groaning, she fucked her man steadily, watching his jaw bunch and clench as he glanced from their joined hips to her breasts to her eyes. “Burke.” Her voice was hoarse, her throat dry and rasping from the crushing pleasure she sought. “I’m right here, Nomi.” “Don’t come with me. Please. I want to come for you. And then I want everything you’ve got. I want to feel you on my body even after we’re done.”

His lip lifted on one side, a show of teeth. “Yes.” Such a simple word. So freeing. She curled her fingers deep in the slabs of muscle on his chest, staring at him. She rode him hard, grinding faster and faster. The heat at her core built, her cream gleamed across his abs. “I’m squeezing you so t-tight inside. I w-want to hold still at the same time I want to slide on you. You’re thick and long and h-hhhot.” The thought of his body so deep inside hers was as amazing as seeing the new confidence in his steady eyes. “Oh! Burke! Oh! Oh! It’s coming. It’s—Hard! Yes! Yes!” She threw herself down on him with all her strength, again and again, her body losing control until her thighs splayed that much wider, the towel cool and rough under her knees, and he filled her utterly. She thrashed on him, her muscles both tight and weak. He merely lay below her, watching her come apart, hips thrusting gently in time with her contractions. “Aaahhh!” The pleasure was white light as she collapsed against him, but he was there, sitting with a rush of strength, grabbing her shoulders as he lifted into her, grinding her down, extending the pleasure. She screamed, fighting in his arms. “Yessss.” He growled his satisfaction at her torture, relentless. Gasping for breath, Nomi was spun and laid out on the cloth. The sand was hard and lumpy under her. He rolled his hips and was already driving into her before her last orgasm had faded. She cried out, pushing at him. The pleasure was too much. He grabbed her hands and kissed each of her wrists. Pushing them into one hand, he crushed them into the sand above her head. She wailed as he stroked deep again, slamming into the cradle of her thighs with stunning strength. Reaching down, he grabbed her leg from around his hip and caught her under the knee with his elbow. He pulled it high, laying all his weight on her breasts, driving the breath from her. She moaned as he used his powerful legs to stab deeper. “Nomi.” She blinked at him, surprised to feel her lashes were damp. “I love you.” She stopped breathing, and he pounded her with slapping drives that rocked her whole body. Soon, he dropped her knee and her hands, bracing himself on his forearms, pushing his thighs wide so he could power into her at a new angle. Wet sucking sounds came from her cunt. She gasped, her lungs burning. He threw one thigh over hers, driving himself in at an angle, catching the side of her clit with every drilling press. The pressure wound inside her, tighter, and deeper. A strangled groan built in her throat, and then he settled back between her thighs and went wild. Teeth bared and neck taut, he rammed himself into her, grunts of satisfaction and determination echoing each tight meeting of their hips. Slap, grunt. Slap, grunt. His eyes swirled green. Slap, grunt. Faster and faster. Nomi sucked in breath to scream. When she came, her body went so tight she lifted him off the ground. She bucked and fought to get closer, and still he hammered into her. With a twist of his hips, he crushed her clit, and she screamed again, this one stuttering on disbelief. Her thighs shuddered along his, her hands slapping down onto his shoulders to pull him tight. With a lunge and a scoop, he knelt back on his heels and she was over his lap once more. He shoved and pulled her down as he had before, only now, in the midst of an orgasm, the

weight of her body driving his cock into the very core of her shattered her. She shook and flailed in his tight grip as the orgasm threatened to drown her. She took one wailing breath, and opened her mouth, but he was there. Sealing her mouth to his, he breathed for her, his tongue stroking hers possessively. Soft. Strong. Hot. Pulling back he grabbed her head and hissed, “Now. Together.” Nomi hung slack in the grip of her man as he lifted her high so that he rested at her entrance. With slitted eyes he lowered her half an inch. His arms held rock steady as she slid another half inch, and the flared crown of him popped into her grip. “Ahhhh!” The orgasm stunned her by reappearing, curling her toes. He lowered her another half inch and she scrabbled at his arms, his biceps like iron. Again a slight drop, and the fat head of him pushed into tight flesh inside of her. Finding the strength to get her legs under her, she fought him to gain a whole inch in the next breath, pushing with her thighs. He growled. The vibration against her nipples brought her orgasm exploding again, another moan tore from her throat as he extended the shock of pleasure by lowering her a bit more. She would not survive his incremental torture after the session they’d just shared. “Please.” “Yes. Now you need.” At least there was strain in his voice. To her horror, he lifted her off him. She cried out sharply. Struggling to come back to him, she fought his attempt to put her back on the blanket. He leaned in and nipped the slope of her breast hard enough to leave a bright red mark. The moment the pain shocked her still, he had her on her stomach, breasts aching on the hard pillows of sand beneath them. But then he was inside her, the tip of him sliding easily. But on her belly, he couldn’t go very deep. Her body shook with need. The pleasure ruled her now. She needed more. She needed him inside. An ache exploded as her cunt clamped with nothing to hold. “Burke, please.” “I’ve got you.” He pushed up, holding her hips, and then he was deep. She was on her knees, her shoulders collapsed against the sand, her ass tipped high. A gutteral snarl ripped from her at his penetration. In this position, he reached new depths. He stroked her as hard as he had before, wild, uneven thrusts. Her moans and cries steadily filled the cavern. She clawed at the sand, clenching inside, shaking from the gathering heat. “Here, love.” His hot breath washed over the back of her neck, and then his hand flattened over her clit, pressing it deep into her body. “AHHHH!” The scream was so loud it ricocheted in her brain before everything went black. Time stopped. When it started again, she panted, his hips still rubbing against her ass. The scratch of sand stuck in sweaty creases on her body, and possibly in her mouth. Moaning, she still held Burke long and hard and deep inside her. He hadn’t come. “What happened,” she gasped over her galloping heart, “to a quick fuck?” “This is a quick fuck. I’m out of time. I have to come.” Nomi growled. “You have to come before you kill me.” “I’ve heard that it’s impossible to die of happiness.” She didn’t have enough breath to do more than chuckle. Then Burke drew out of her, sending crazy waves sloshing through her body. “Ohhhh.” “Take a breath, Stormdancer.”

She did, and then he pushed into her ass. “Breathe out.” She did, and he never stopped, driving in, holding her cheeks wide, stretching her until she burned and cried out. He stopped, the soft skin of his hips against her ass. “Good raw or bad?” She breathed, trembling, and considered. “Good. Thank the Sacred Couple you found me, Burke. I didn’t know such pleasure existed.” “Oh. Fuck. Nomi.” His arms clenched around her, desperate, yet gentle. His body shook with a tremor. His hips convulsed against her. “Ah! Dancer, yes, Water, yes.” From nothing but the strength of the man shaking against her and the passion of his words, Nomi came one last time, a soft wave of joy. Her ass burned around the hard intrusion of him, and it felt so delicious. If she could have, she would have glowed. “Yes, love. Yes.” She urged him on. He groaned softly, kissing her spine. They were both panting, entwined and spent on the blanket. He held her, stroking her arm, kissing the back of her hand, brushing sand from her thigh. “I think we need a dunk in those hot baths.” Her ass was on fire, but she didn’t want him to leave. He chuckled. “I need a moment before I can stand. I came so hard I went blind.” But soon he eased from her body, both of them moaning. Burke climbed to his feet, a tower of muscle. He reached for her. “I swear, if you try to pick me up, I will stuff sand in your mouth. I’m going to forget how to walk if you don’t stop.” “All right.” He stepped back, a twinkle in his eye as he folded his arms. She narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t say you couldn’t help me up.” She didn’t think she had the strength to rise on her own. He reached out a wide, tough hand. She put her own up to meet it. He pulled her up and kissed her, his lips soft. “Time to go, Nomi.” Tears abruptly gathered in her throat, but she swallowed them down with happiness, nodding. “Home.” Back in the hot pools, she enjoyed washing him again, just as he seemed to become entranced while washing her. After drying off, she found she enjoyed the comfort of the loose shirt and skirt. She was sad to watch all of Burke’s golden skin disappear into his leathers. They made their way up the stairs. “That stone we found is fairly close to our land, Burke. Do you expect a battle? Will they find a darkmage’s secret lair?” “No, I really don’t expect we will. That isn’t a stone anyone has used in ages. Whatever he wanted to hide, it’s been awhile. We’ve mapped the sifting stones for millennia. The great magic that worked them was from our earliest time. Some were direct, like the stones we have here in River Mountain that only ever go from one stone to another. Others have been linked, so that from any clanhome you have a choice of going to another.” “Like your stone. You could go anywhere with it.” They came out of the wide curving stairway into the ground level of River Mountain. “But you have to know about the destination you want to get to. Most Truxet wouldn’t be able to sift to my territory simply because they have no idea my stone exists.

We don’t memorize every single stone, just the ones we need. But there’s no way I wouldn’t have been told of another stone so close to mine. There’s only a half day’s run between them. There shouldn’t even be two stones that close together. It makes me think the spring’s stone has been hidden for a long, long time.” “So, if they don’t know where to imagine a destination, how will they work the sifting spell?” “Good question.” Burke directed her into a narrower hallway. She’d seen that carved stone of something that looked like weasels playing before. “Like Proteus said, the stone will be researched and studied for a long while.” She snorted as they moved into the sifting room. “We’ll have to get ready for visitors. If our stone is one of the closest, they’ll be passing through our territory all the time. Maybe we could have some sort of warning spell put on the sifting stone.” After a hushed moment of dizziness, the awful enclosing rock was gone. They were standing in the forest again, under a sparkling cool starlit sky. A tint of pale purple and peach through the delicate tracery of branches oriented her to the east. She shook her head sharply as water’s song rearranged in her head. Burke inhaled deeply, rocked his head with strong stretching pulls of his neck that made Nomi’s stomach flip in appreciation. She saw his shoulders, already relaxed, ease just that tiny bit more. His arm had been around her waist, but now he stepped into her, linking his hands behind her. “Say that again.” “Huh?” She couldn’t remember speaking recently. Her head was full of his strength and her belonging to it. “That bit about this being ‘our’ territory.” Nomi grinned, resting her weight back against his hold. “Welcome home, husband. How was your day? Mine was pretty crowded. I’m feeling up for some slow loving. Can you provide that for me?” “Home? You really can think of this place as the shelter of your spirit?” She heard the frown in his words. “My body does remember yours,” she whispered. “How you filled me, how I trusted you, how we used each other hard and fast and free. My heart remembers our hope when this seemed so impossible. My head remembers our friendship. My nose remembers the smell of our room in the cliff. All of that together is home, Burke.” He pulled her into his chest and twisted, laying her back in the cradle of his arms. His lips touched hers, both soft and strong. She hung from his shoulders, opening her mouth as his jaw demanded. They kissed long and deep, and her belly pulsed to remember him buried inside. When he finally ended the kiss, he gently nuzzled her nose. A bird began to sing, full throated with joy. She smiled, and he smiled back, his lips curving against hers. “Welcome home, mate. Welcome home.”

Epilogue She found him at the end of the hall, leaning with one arm braced high in the overlook. He was nude, and she admired the strips of muscle in his back and down his thighs, the tight, high curve of his ass. Putting her lustful thoughts away, Nomi laid her hand in the middle of his back. Drifting down the valley of his spine, she snuggled into him, her heart easing as his arm came instantly around her. “Nightmare?” she asked quietly. He nodded. “The Cat?” He nodded. Cro, the mate of the Clan’s Alpha, had told Nomi that their mating should act as an anchor for Burke. He wouldn’t have to fear going rogue. It was entirely possible he’d now be able to pass the Council’s mage training easily. He’d never asked to go back. Nomi knew it was partly because of her, and her horror of what River Mountain was like at all other times besides Autumnal—teeming with hordes of people. But partly, it was because Burke was still at war with Mountaincat. She’d find him sitting in his great-grandfather’s wolf chair, face closed while his fingers smoothed over the snarling wolf heads. Or he’d ask to go home to visit his parents, and then be distracted and distant for days. Often on the new moon, when the forest was at its darkest, he would have horrible nightmares. The small sounds of her stoic warrior in distress terrified her as much as the uncontrollable convulsions he suffered after he woke. It hovered on the tip of her tongue, to ask him to change, for her. Just to end it, and prove that he would return to himself fully. But it wasn’t her war. So they stood on their lower balcony, watching the sky bleed pale, dusty blue before dawn. She simply waited for the day he’d stop hating that part of himself, knowing that the day might never come. He loved her. He protected and honored and served her. There was no complaint she could make, although she sometimes had the itching yearning to feel what short, dense Mountaincat fur felt like. They’d tried to remake her in the image of a Farm daughter, when water called her to wander away. She would not do the same to her man. There was no requirement that said you had to be furry in order to be a good person. “It will be hot today. I won’t patrol until dusk.” His hoarse, tired words were an apology, an offering to continue on as they worked around his pain. “Want to go to the waterfall?” Her hand drifted down over the curve of his very fine rump, testing the muscle and the fine, downy hairs there. He rubbed his cheek over her hair, his morning bristles catching on the strands. “Sounds good, mate.” They’d made the waterfall together last winter, as well as the dam that created the small pond at its base. It had been big magic, and some hard labor. Burke’s parents, grandparents, and two wolf friends had helped. Now a torrent cascaded out of the cliff one third of the height up, pouring in a thundering rush of white into the deep pit below. The roar of it was clear from where they stood. He took her hand, threading their fingers together. “You’re here.”

“I am. Gladly.” Even after a year, he still seemed to want the words as confirmation. Rolling so that his back was against the wall, he gathered her into his arms. Brushing soft kisses over her brows and temple, he said, “Nomi, my one pure, good dream.” She laid her head against his strong chest, and his heartbeat filled her. “I’m here, Burke, and I’m staying.” Water whispered to her from deep in the cliff. Rush, crush, hurry, burst! Falling, joy, free. Nomi smiled, kissing the very center of Burke. She knew just how water felt. Free. The End About the Author: Mima is a dreamer in upstate New York. When people query her on what she’s reading, she answers proudly and simply, “A really sexy romance.” She firmly believes women know the difference between fantasy and reality, and need both. No matter how sweet the kids, husband, mother, cats, house(work), and job are. Mima is at [email protected] and www.mimawithin.com

Meet LSB Authors At The House Of Sin Lsbooks.NET We invite you to visit Liquid Silver Books LSbooks.com for other exciting erotic romances. 2007: Terran Realm Urban fantasy world: TerranRealm.com Featured Series: The Zodiac Series: 12 books, 24 stories and authors Two hot stories for each sign, 12 signs The Coven of the Wolf by Rae Morgan Benevolent lusty witches keep evil forces at bay Fallen: by Tiffany Aaron Fallen angels in hot flight to redeem their wings The Max Series by JB Skully Meet Max, her not-absent dead husband, sexy detective Witt, his mother… And many, many more!