The Pillars Of The World

But
    . . . Was that enough?
    Of course it was. What more could she want or expect from a man who had come into her life so suddenly and would be gone again in a few days’ time?
    But what was she supposed to do for those few days?
    Looking over her shoulder at the stew simmering on the stove, she winced.
    What was she going to feed him after tonight? There was barely enough stew left for the evening meal, and nothing for tomorrow. She could just walk across the meadow and wait for him in the woods. If he took his pleasure there, he wouldn’t expect hospitality as well, would he? Wouldn’t he simply enjoy himself for an hour and then be on his way?
    He might. He could. The stories her mother and grandmother had spun by the fire while they also spun the wool had been a pleasant way for a child to absorb the lessons about dealing with the Fair Ones, but they hadn’t told stories about the more . . . earthy . . . subjects. If they had lived, would they have sat by the fire last winter and told her tales that would have helped her now? Perhaps.
    The truth was she couldn’t open the door and walk across the meadow. She couldn’t offer to lift her skirt for him while he pulled her to the ground. That felt too much like her experience with Royce.
    “You can’t change the turn of the seasons,” she said quietly. “You can’t lay the bounty of the harvest on the table while you’re still planting the seeds from which that bounty will grow. Offer what you can, and let that be enough.”
    Turning away from the door, she stirred the stew, wondering if she should put it on the back of the stove just to warm. When she turned to look out the door again, she saw him, a black horse silently galloping over the meadow.
    He slowed to a trot, turned away from the cottage in the direction of the cow shed.
    Ari stayed by the door and waited.
    A few moments later, Lucian came around the side of the cottage, his hair tousled, his modestly ruffled shirt open to the waist.
    “You came back,” Ari said. “Come in and be welcome.”
    He reached over the half door, captured her face in his hands, and kissed her long and slow and deep.
    When he finally raised his head, he said, “Yes, I came back.”

    Propped on one elbow, Lucian watched Ari sleep.
    She hadn’t been as delighted with her gift as he’d expected her to be. She’d stumbled over her thanks and seemed a bit ... embarrassed ... to be thanking him at all. His disappointment in her response had a familiar taste. Wasn’t that why he had found it so easy to abstain for so long?
    Perhaps she’d expected a traditional gift after all. He had one with him, a small jade pendant that was appropriate for a first or second gifting. He would put it on the dressing table before he left in the morning. She didn’t have enough artifice to tie up her thanks in pretty lies, and he didn’t need a woman’s tepid pleasure in a gift spoiling his pleasure of the bed.
    Even there . . . Oh, she’d been warm enough, eager enough, desperate enough for the mating by the time he’d decided to mount her. He hadn’t been as kind as he should have been to a woman who had so little experience, but it had annoyed him that she had wanted to fuss with the pot on the stove instead of going straight to bed with him. If it had burned, what difference did it make? There was more. But no. She’d fussed long enough to have him simmering with another kind of heat, and he’d let a bit of his temper burn itself out in the bed along with his lust. Not enough to hurt her, but enough that she wouldn’t dismiss him so casually again.
    I shouldn’t have brought anger to the bed . He pushed the thought away, along with the shimmer of guilt the thought produced. He had no reason to feel guilty. She had given herself to him for this measure of days, hadn’t she? She was human; he was the Lightbringer. She should be honored to have him in her bed.
    She woke, stirred, looked at him with eyes that were a little fearful. “Are you hungry?” she asked hesitantly.
    Her fear scraped at him, added chains to the guilt. But not enough to outweigh the heat in his loins.
    He mounted her, sank into her, kissed her in a way that would build the warmth to a slow burn and extinguish the fear. “Yes, I’m hungry.”
     

 

     
     

Chapter Twelve

 

     
     

     
    Adolfo stared at Harro, his nephew Konrad’s Assistant Inquisitor. The Master Inquisitor’s brown eyes revealed nothing, but there was a storm of rage