Lupi 04 - Night Season

hissed out as she stroked slowly up, the tip of her finger stroking over the glans. Lust swirled through him, hotter and so much cleaner than the mist in his dream. “Cynna…”
    â€œShh,” she said. “Go on back to sleep. Don’t mind me.”
    He had to smile. She meant to turn the tables on him, did she? And God knew he wanted to, wanted to sink inside her, ride her hard. But…“I can’t.”
    â€œUm…you sure? Because evidence has come to light…” Another slow stroke, this one ending at his scrotum, where she scratched lightly. “That suggests you can.”
    Cullen closed his eyes. Her touch was sweet, the temptation clear and lovely…but he couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t. He held very still.
    After a moment her hand retreated. “You worried about your heart?”
    â€œYes,” he said, glad for the excuse. “I think it’s healed, but better safe than sorry.”
    Cynna made a low sound, maybe skeptical. But she didn’t push him, and for that, too, he was grateful.
    Cullen lay awake far too long after that, sifting the shades of darkness in the tiny cabin with eyes uninterested in closing and a body disgusted with him for turning her down. Finally sleep began dragging at him once more.
    That’s just what she would have done, he thought as he drifted closer to the other darkness, the one that birthed dreams. If Cynna had known him back then, she’d have shown up, ready to kick ass. She wouldn’t have let him face it alone.
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    H ORSES were not Cynna’s idea of fun. Riding one for hours in a drizzle kept her frownie face glued on. Once the medallion’s trail left the river, though, horses became inevitable. Or so everyone told her.
    â€œMy ass is never going to forgive me,” she muttered, shifting position for the thousandth time.
    Cullen grinned. “Maybe they’ll have some liniment in the village. I’ll be happy to rub it in for you.”
    They were all keeping their mage lights near the ground so the horses could see where they were going. Cullen’s pair of lights hovered near his horse’s knees, and the underlighting made him look like a beautiful devil.
    God only knew what she looked like…and she hoped He’d keep that info to Himself.
    Cullen seemed entirely at home atop a horse, which annoyed her no end. When they bought their mounts at the port where they left the barge, he’d expected to have trouble finding a horse that would accept him, since they mostly didn’t like the scent of lupi. But horses here were used to odd-smelling riders, and his gelding had turned out to be a cheap date. A couple carrots and Cullen was its new best friend.
    Cynna slid him an appraising look. After the way he turned her down last night, she ought to be pissed or hurt or both. Somehow she wasn’t.
    He met her eyes, wearing his bland face. Bland on Cullen looked about as convincing as a peacock pretending to be a sparrow. “Sure your heart’s up to all that rubbing?”
    â€œDid you say something about liniment?” Steve steered his horse closer. “Man, I’d kill for something that took the ache out.”
    If anyone was having more trouble with the horseback bit than Cynna, it was Steve. Not because he’d never ridden. Unlike her, he’d grown up in the country and had tootled around on a horse sometimes as a kid. But that was years ago, and he’d come off the injured list recently. Major injuries, too. Cynna at least had strong legs and a fit body…though curving those legs around a horse’s barrel for hours at a time was teaching her about muscles she’d never known existed.
    â€œBetter save your ammo,” Cullen advised him. “The way things are going, you’ll need it.”
    The two of them fell to talking about the area they were riding through. Cynna’s aching butt to the contrary, they weren’t that far from the river—maybe twenty miles—in low, rolling hills dotted with trees. There was a road, fortunately. Dirt, like most roads here, but traveled enough to be maintained.
    Ahead, though, were mountains. Not terribly high mountains, but they loomed large to Cynna. They were in Ahk territory.
    The trail headed right up into them.
    Bilbo was all in a lather about that. At first he’d said they would wait for more of the guard to arrive. Then he’d decided it would be worse to