Soon, the whole tent was filled with demands for a song of love. Thalia wished that she could, perhaps, ride naked through a field of brambles while simultaneously chewing on carrion, but since that pleasant option was not available, she had no choice but to yield.
“I cannot deny the request of my generous hosts,” Thalia finally said, and the crowd fell silent in anticipation.
Knowing she couldn’t sing to her boots, Thalia raised her head and closed her eyes. All the better to block out the undivided attention she was receiving. Taking a deep breath, she started to sing, then her voice caught, and she stopped. After clearing her throat, she began again. It was an old, old song that everyone in the tribe had heard a hundred times already, about a courageous horseman who rode through the heavy snows of winter to reach a beautiful maiden on the other side of the mountains. Thalia’s voice was at first thin and reedy, but after a verse, she gained courage and strength, and let the words come out without hindrance. She opened her eyes and looked directly at Gabriel as she sang.
It was a well-known song, but often sung because no one could grow tired of hearing about the power and perseverance of love over obstacles. Thalia thought of her own heart, that battered, proud animal, darting over the steppes, and the fierce creature of Gabriel’s heart, and how strange and yet right that they should meet. But there was doubt, too. Brought about by dangerous enemies. The ambiguity of an unknown future. Since he could not understand the lyrics she sung now, she let them speak for her. Her longing. Her fear. Her need for him that she could not deny.
As she sang, she watched him. His jaw was tight, his nostrils flared slightly, and his chest rose and fell with quickening breaths. And his eyes. Burned her. He was carnal, predatory, impossibly desirable and yet desiring her. His eyes made promises, dark promises, that she longed to fulfill. Even standing in front of all these people, she felt a slick dampness gathering between her legs, and her breasts felt full, sensitive beneath the silk of her del. It would have been embarrassing, if she hadn’t been so thoroughly aroused and focused on Gabriel alone.
When the tent filled with loud applause, Thalia realized that she had finished the song. Glancing around, Thalia saw Oyuun beaming at her and Bold nodding his approval. Batu frowned, knowing not only the meaning of the song’s lyrics, but how she had sung them and to whom. He wanted to protect her, but there was no shielding her now. Thalia had made her choice. She looked for Gabriel. But he was gone.
She moved out of the circle and into the crowd. Behind her, three girls were challenging each other to a contest balancing full bowls of arkhi on their hands, heads, and feet, while the other guests rowdily urged them on. After searching for him in the tent and finding no sign of Gabriel, Thalia quietly slipped outside. The crisp, cool air pleasantly stung after the oppressive heat inside. Because of the brightness of the ger, it took some moments for her eyes to adjust to the black night.
Peering into the darkness, she searched for Gabriel nearby. No sign of him. A thread of panic unwound inside her. Had something happened to him? The Heirs? Or maybe she was just being unreasonably afraid. He could have gone off to take care of his bodily functions. Even now, a few men ambled past her and into the ger, adjusting their trousers, ready to launch into another round of drinking.
Yet after she waited a few minutes, allowing plenty of time for tending to any and all bodily needs, there was still no Gabriel. Her internal debate lasted only a moment before she went to find him. She quickly checked to make sure her hunting knife was still tucked inside her sash.
At the chieftain’s ger, Thalia found only Bold’s elderly grandmother watching the small children as they played. The woman hadn’t seen Gabriel but urged Thalia to rejoin the feast.
“You won’t find a husband out here with the old people and babies,” she chuckled.
Thalia thanked her for the advice and left. Instead of heeding the grandmother’s recommendation, Thalia ducked her head into other gers, but they were either empty or contained only the elderly or very young. No one had seen Gabriel. From one of the gers, she borrowed an oil lantern.
She stalked through the ail, searching, the lantern held aloft. She told herself not to be alarmed—he was a soldier and more than capable of taking care of himself—but a man didn’t simply vanish from a crowded tent without explanation. The Heirs could have used any number of Sources or spells to spirit him away. For the first time, Thalia wished that the Blades had more flexibility in their moral code. She would like nothing better than to summon some vicious demon to track the Heirs down and rip their miserable carcasses apart. On second thought, if anything were to happen to Gabriel, Thalia would greedily break the Heirs’ bones with her own hands.
Her breath came in frantic puffs that misted the cold air as she started to sprint. The pearls and coral beads hanging from her headdress swayed and clicked with a frenzied rhythm that matched her heartbeat. Yellow light swung back and forth as the lantern danced in her hand, turning the still night into a dreamlike tableau. She didn’t know where she was running, only that she had to find Gabriel.
In the corner of her eye, she caught the faint gleam of blond hair. Thalia skidded to a halt as she saw Gabriel sitting on a large rock, watching a herd of horses nosing at the ground and huddling together in the evening chill. Relief hit her so hard she nearly cast up the roast mutton eaten earlier. She waited for her breathing to calm, feeling the sweat cold upon her back, even though she wanted to run to Gabriel and throw her arms around him, confirming that he was real and safe.
The light from the lantern suddenly felt too bright, too intrusive, so she adjusted the wick to dim it to a faint glow before walking toward him. She knew he heard her coming by the slight stiffening of his shoulders as she approached. Perhaps he’d come out to find some solitude. She didn’t want to disturb him, but, after the absolute terror she’d felt just moments earlier, it would be impossible for her simply to turn around and leave him alone. Not without saying something, or at least being near him. Selfish of her, maybe, but she needed reassurance just then, even if it cost Gabriel a few seconds of privacy.
Coming to stand next to him, Thalia glanced over at Gabriel. A trace of panic unwound inside her. Had she gone too far with her song? Was it possible she had misconstrued his feelings for her, and he’d needed to put welcome distance between them? He did not look at her, but continued to watch the horses leading their peaceful lives under the starry blanket of night. Something, some wave of energy, barely contained, radiated out from him. The dim illumination from the lantern turned him into a creature of dusky gold and shadow, slightly menacing. Now her heart beat strongly again, but not quite from fear. She set the lantern on the ground.
“Is my singing so dreadful?” she asked with a lightness she didn’t feel.
She didn’t even see him move. One moment, he was sitting silently, and the next, he stood before her and—oh, God.
He was kissing her. But not so much a gentle caress of mouth to mouth as it was a devouring. He pulled her tightly against him, his hands large and firm, one on the back of her neck, the other on her hip as she was pinned against the taut span of his body. There would be no retreat for her. She felt captured, pinned, but in the most exquisite way. The intensity of his kiss would have frightened her, if she had not matched it with her own unfettered desire. She needed him with a desperation that could destroy fields, level cities.
He tasted warm, wonderful, his mouth both velvety and relentless. She wanted to crawl inside him. Against the curve of her belly she could feel the hard length of him pressing into her. Instinct had her rocking her hips against his, and their combined groans were swallowed each by the other. The sensation seemed to shred whatever scrap of restraint he’d held. His hands were now everywhere: palming the swell of her behind, stroking the sides of her ribs, cupping her breasts through the silk of her del. His fingers played across her already tight and sensitive nipples. She leaned into the lightning-hot pleasure, lost to everything but him. Before tonight, before the stolen time in the shelter of the cave, it had been so long. So long since any man had touched her like this. But not like this. Something that approximated it, but all other touch was a candle and this was the sun. She would burn to oblivion.
Touching him was as necessary as life. Thalia quickly re-learned, as her hands roamed over his body, that there wasn’t a part of Gabriel that was not solid with muscle. His shoulders, back, thighs, buttocks. Stomach. Ridged, sculpted, but sensitive to her fingers as they splayed across his abdomen. He twitched beneath her hand. And when her hand moved lower, caressing his rigid thickness through the fabric of his trousers, the breath was drawn from her mouth as he sucked his own breath in. Thalia reveled in this evidence of his desire, growing powerful, more feminine than she had ever felt before.
They were on the ground before she was aware of moving. He pulled her on top of him as he stretched out in the dust. She pulled off the headdress in one impatient move, heedless of pins ripping from her hair, and let the ornament fall to the ground. Thalia’s legs opened. She straddled him. Moved against him, their hips meeting and pulling back, and, even with fabric separating them, he fit perfectly, rubbed her exactly as she craved. Something bright and strong began to build inside her. She reached toward it the only way she knew how. He growled as she pressed even closer. At her waist, his fingers shook as they tried to untie the fastening of her trousers.
Then his hand stopped. He panted with the effort.
“Why…?” she murmured, deeply swathed in the spell of desire.
“Not in the dust,” he growled. “Not you.”
She would have been touched by his concern if she hadn’t been so damned close to tearing his clothes off. “Maybe we could find an empty ger.”
“And have someone come in to get an eyeful.” He shook his head.
He was still hard and alive beneath her. She blazed with desire, needing him with a desperation that was painful. Words of love formed on her lips, but she couldn’t let herself speak them. Not yet. For now, there were needs that had to be satisfied. “Gabriel, please. I don’t want to wait for you anymore.”
With sinuous speed, he rolled to his feet, pulling her up with him. He reached down and turned the lantern off completely, and for a moment, Thalia was in utter darkness. But her eyes adjusted quickly, enough to see him backing toward the large rock on which he’d been sitting earlier. It was tall enough so that he could sit with his legs comfortably stretched out in front of him, and he sat down now. He tugged on her hands, drawing her forward, so that her legs straddled his as she stood in front of him. She understood.
Thalia wrapped her arms around his shoulders, bringing her and Gabriel together for another deep, greedy kiss. Her hips cradled his so that when the length of his erection slid up and down, he pressed perfectly against her sex. His fingers resumed untying the drawstring of her trousers. Thalia managed to collect herself enough to move away. Frantically, she pulled off her boots, then her trousers, and in seconds, she was naked beneath her del. Cool night air was a sweet sting as it touched her most hidden places; the earth was rough under her bare feet.
She stepped close again, and both she and Gabriel fumbled to unbutton his pants. A hiss escaped his lips as he sprang free from his constricting clothing, and then he groaned as she took him, bare, in her hand. He was thick and large. Could she take him? She had to.
“I wish,” she whispered as her hand glided up and down his shaft, “that it wasn’t so dark. I want to see you.” A tiny bead of moisture escaped from the very tip of his penis, and she used it to ease her progress.
“Sweetheart,” he gritted, “I wouldn’t last…ah, that’s it…two seconds if I could see your pretty hand on my cock.”
“No more waiting,” she gasped. “I want you inside me.”
Smiling against her mouth, he said, “Thank God I know when to obey orders.” He placed his broad hands on her hips. Then, with a strength that left her breathless, he lifted her up easily and held her above him. She braced her feet on the cool surface of the rock, one on each side of his hips, as she held tight to his shoulders.
“Tell me your full name,” he rumbled.
“What?”
“Do it.”
“Fine. Thalia Katherine—ah!”
He brought her down so that he plunged up into her with one deep thrust. After almost a lifetime spent on horseback, there was no tearing, yet she felt an intense internal stretching that made her eyes sting. “You said to tell you my full name,” she gasped as she learned the new experience of having a man, Gabriel, deep within her. It hurt more than she expected.
“I’m…impatient,” he growled against her neck. Then he kissed her. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I had to distract you. Does it hurt too much?” He started to pull away, but she held him fast.
“Stay, stay inside me,” she said in labored puffs. For a few moments, neither of them moved, Gabriel gripping her securely as he kept his legs anchored to the ground. They were both breathing heavily, even though they remained still. She could feel him shaking with effort, holding himself back. Thalia experimented by moving her hips up and down. He slid almost completely out, then all the way back in again. Discomfort faded and pleasure began to take its place, faster than she would have anticipated. “Oh!”
Something like a laugh thundered deep in his chest. His hips rose up as he surged into her, and he guided her, with his hands, as she found a rhythm. “Better?”