Shadows and Light

walking that night, darling Ashk?”
    “Oh, I’ll go out walking that night, but I won’t be wearing a form any other man would want to cuddle.”
    He grinned. “I love the feel of your fur beneath my hands. All thick and soft.”
    She narrowed her eyes. “No. It’s too hot, and I’m shedding something fierce.”

    “Ah, well, then. I’ll give you a good brushing when I get home.”
    “And if you let anything but your eyes roam that night, I’ll pluck you, my fine hawk.”
    He took her hand, pressed it against his cock. “The bird’s already plucked, but quite willing to be petted.
    ”
    Laughing, Ashk pulled him down on top of her.

Chapter Eight
    "I am sorry, but with the baron away and the mistress are not at home, I do not have the authority to offer you shelter.“
    Faced with the butler’s genuine concern, Aiden tried to hide some of the weariness that had plagued him for the past two days. He worked to give the man a smile. “I understand. With the troubles in the villages east of here, it is wise to be ... cautious ... of strangers.” Touching fingertips to temple in a salute, he turned away from the door and started walking back to where Lyrra waited with the horses.
    “Minstrel.”
    I am the Bard, the Lord of Song, Aiden thought bitterly as he turned back toward the butler. Such a civilized gift of magic, being the Bard—and so useless in the face of what he and Lyrra had recently seen.
    The butler took a few steps away from the house, glanced around to see if anyone else was about, then said with quiet intensity, “You are a man with an open mind?”
    “About most things,” Aiden replied. But not where the Inquisitors were concerned. Never where they were concerned. Especially not after— No, he couldn’t think about that. He had to keep his mind focused on the immediate task of finding food and shelter for Lyrra and the horses.
    “I do not believe the baron would object if you used the lanes on the estate instead of going back to the main road since that would lengthen your journey,” the butler said, giving Lyrra a worried look. “Go on past the stables and follow the brook until you reach a stone bridge. Cross the bridge and follow the lane.
    The ladies who live on that land sometimes offer shelter to travelers.”
    Aiden almost asked why he needed an open mind toward anyone willing to offer shelter—and then he understood what the butler was carefully not saying. His heart lifted one moment, then began pounding anxiously the next.
    Please. Great Mother, please don’t let us be too late this time.
    When he mounted his horse, Lyrra made the effort to raise her head and look at him. She was pale from exhaustion, and the dark smudges under her eyes seemed deeper than they’d been even an hour ago.
    “Just a bit farther,” he murmured as he gently urged his horse forward. “Just a bit farther.”
    She didn’t ask where they were going or how much “a bit farther” really was. She just slumped in her saddle and let her mare follow the packhorse Aiden led.
    He didn’t dare let her see how much she worried him. She’d withdrawn from him. Withdrawn from everything. All her energy, all her focus was on staying in the saddle and going forward. Her sleep, like his, had been restless the past two nights, torn by dreams of blood and pain. He wondered if she, too, heard that young voice pleading to be allowed to die. He couldn’t ask because he didn’t want to remind her of anything that might not be preying on her mind.
    As if either of us is going to forget. He wondered if there would be a story or a poem from her that would be a cry of rage and sorrow. And he wondered what wild, grieving song would rise from him one day.
    When he reached the stone bridge, he hesitated.
    “An Old Place?”
    Hearing hope and horror in equal measure in Lyrra’s question, he looked back at her and said carefully, “
    The butler at the manor house said the ladies here sometimes offer shelter to travelers.”
    There was something so terrible about the way she stared at him that he turned away from her.
    The witches at the last Old Place they’d come to had also offered shelter to travelers. That’s what the Small Folk had told him bitterly. If someone asked for shelter, it was given. So there hadn’t been anything strange about four men coming to that house at dusk one day. Four men who looked like dusty, weary travelers.
    The Small Folk hadn’t become uneasy until the second day because it