Heart Legacy

by Robin D. Owens

  If the person had been Draeg’s stepmother, or another FirstFamily Lady, they might have looked him up and down, evaluating his work clothes. D’Yew didn’t do that, but he couldn’t quite read her.

  “I am sure you are correct, D’Yew,” he said.

  Her spine straightened, her expression caught between a haughty Noble mask and the casual openness her face had relaxed into during the ride. She sent him a glance, let out a long breath. “I truly meant that the Residence would make you uncomfortable.” She paused, said stiltedly, “Please call me Lori—Loridana.”

  Their eyes met, her pale green gaze steady.

  So her first words about the Residence had been sincere. She didn’t think the Residence would please him.

  He inclined his head, said gruffly, “Thank you, Loridana.”

  The line of her shoulders sagged a bit; she smiled, and though it didn’t approach a carefree smile, it caused him to smile back. “Tell me about the trips down south, to Gael City and beyond,” she said.

  Taking her conversational lead, he described the trips and in more detail than he’d anticipated. As well as the scenery and the landscape, she wanted to know of the waystations and the road conditions and the weather in all seasons. And this question-and-answer session—or him talking about the trips—lasted all the way back to the stables.

  Since thick gray clouds blocked the sun once more and a bitter wind had picked up, they led the horses into the short eastern block of stables to groom and feed them. This wing held only eight stalls, enough for the six stridebeasts and the two horses. Right now the stridebeasts were happy in their corral. The weather didn’t bother them as much as it did the horses.

  Draeg wondered if Lori would open up the main, and larger, northern stables. He slid his hand down Smyrna’s neck and back as he exited the stall into the stable corridor, and bumped into Loridana . . . He steadied her again with hands around her upper arms. And her body felt so good against his that he just kept on going, moving her against the brick wall of the stables. Yeah, moving in on her.

  Something clattered, brush and curry comb from Loridana’s hands, he thought. He’d already translocated his tools to the tack room.

  Then they stood in the shadows, her body caged by his, soft next to his. Lord and Lady, how well she cradled him! Not much shorter than he, his cock lay against her flat belly. He could feel her breasts on his chest.

  Her head had tilted back and he could see the excited gleam in her eyes but not the color. Despite the open door to the stable’s courtyard, warmth wreathed them, pulsed from them. Heat fired through his blood, for sure. His mind misted with red passion as his groin grew heavier, his cock bigger. Ready for her.

  He blinked to focus on her once more, saw her parted lips, her darker tongue sweep them, leaving gloss, and he was undone. He had to have her mouth under his, his tongue inside it.

  So he kissed her. Her lips were plusher than they looked. She gasped a little and their breath mingled and his tongue probed the dimensions of her mouth; her tongue rubbed along his and they moaned together.

  Immense need coiled through him, tightening every muscle, and his hands dropped from her biceps to brace against the wall on either side of her so he could lean solidly against her. Woman. Curving under him, wrapping her arms around him.

  He lifted her leg, hitching it on his hip so they were center to center. Loridana ground against him with small whimpers, causing sizzling explosions in his brain.

  Woman. And she smelled righter than anything, anyone, the scent digging claws deep into him, setting inside the marrow of his bones, maybe.

  Or her fragrance sinking into the chambers of his heart.

  Her taste coated his mouth as her tongue explored him.

  He snatched one hand from the wall, stuck it under her muscular butt, and angled her . . . just . . . right. Soon, soon, he’d open these damn leathers and take her and make her his and—

  Stop! Young woman. Virgin woman. Stop.

  Stop while he could.

  Lord and Lady, he wanted her, his erection harder than he ever recalled. Hard enough that the ache of need trembled through every nerve, set in every strand of every muscle. But he knew damn well that she hadn’t met any other man.

  She learned fast, for sure, and her tongue twined around his and she sucked it and he thought the top of his head just blew off, sending his mind scattered to the stars. No sense whatever.

  When he had to come up for air, he managed to untangle their bodies, set her leg down. He took a step away from her, broke her hold around his shoulders, and his shaft was damn unhappy about feeling the cool air around them instead of being pressed against her warmth.

  Panting, he sucked in enough breath to say, “We shouldn’t be doing this. You’re too young.”

  Twelve

  That had D’Yew standing tall, drawing around her that FirstFamily GrandLady manner that had been trained into her, cooling her expression . . . but her eyes showed different. Big and sad and older than her years. “I am an adult. I can make my own decisions whether to kiss or not.”

  Her voice did waver with whatever wild emotions coursed through her, and he knew they did, but he also sensed when she slammed those feelings away and locked them down.

  “Fligger.” He tugged on his ear. “Yeah, I bet you’ve told your Family that in just that tone, right?”

  Her brows, as elegantly Noble as the rest of her, arched. “Cursing at me is rude. But you are correct. Since the start of my Second Passage that legally made me an adult, I have continually informed my Family that my status has changed.” She drew in a deep breath and inclined her head. “Like you, they haven’t paid attention to me, either.”

  She inclined her head, but he saw the quiver of her lips indicating hurt feelings. Gritting his teeth, he took her hand and put it against his groin. Hissed out a breath at the great sensation. “I know you’re an adult. All of me.” He took away his hand, but she kept hers on his erection.

  He blew out a breath, held up both palms. “All right, then I’ll be fliggering crude. You’ve never flig—” But he found he couldn’t be that rude. The word wouldn’t come out of his mouth. “You’ve never been with a man.”

  In the weak gray sunlight, he saw a darker tint come to her pale cheeks. Her lips compressed, then she said, “I think the word you are looking for is virgin. Yes, I am a virgin.”

  His shaft throbbed, and this time his shudder of need wasn’t inward. He croaked, “That’s a powerful thing, when a woman moves from woman to a sexual person.”

  Now her nostrils pinched. “Indeed. Then I suppose my Family has been deleterious in not recognizing that power in me and harnessing it.”

  He made a half-choke, half-laugh noise he couldn’t figure out himself, flung a hand out. “I’m the first man you’ve kissed.”

  She tilted her head. Her lips parted and he thought she took a couple of those meditation breaths she’d talked about. “Despite this conversation, I found the action . . . good.”

  That stung his pride, and pure male instinct had him stepping forward. She didn’t back up.

  “Just good?” he growled, then stopped himself from leaning into her space, made a cutting gesture. “Forget it. Don’t need a critique.” A deep breath. “It was great for me and you should’ve figured that straight out.”

  Her gaze went to the front of his trous and he suppressed a smirk.

  “Yeah, sure I think you’re an adult. But you’re still too youn—” He stopped, matching the tilt of her head while he stared into her eyes. “Too inexperienced.”

  “Are there some other men you’d like to introduce me to?” she asked.

  Fury flashed his vision red. “Hell, no!”

  “Good.” She snagged the front of his tunic and pulled him in close, rose a little so their mouths matched, opened hers, and her tongue swept the seam of his lips. He groaned and scented her again and his mind shut off. His arms clamped around her and he took a couple of steps to steady her against
the wall.

  She brought up both legs, encircled him, put her sex close to his, separated only by clothing, and when they moved together, pleasuring themselves and each other, she gasped.

  He. Should. Not. Be. Doing. This. One thought wisping through his mind and gone.

  Lord and Lady, she felt good, better than any woman . . . he couldn’t recall the feel of any other woman and that should give him pause, but his hands cupped under her tight butt, and he ravished her mouth, like he’d ravish her. Soon.

  * * *

  The kiss thrilled Lori. She panted, breathed with Draeg, took his breath into her, his tongue into her mouth, ached to take his body into her. Yes, a little scary. But if she shoved aside thought, let her body rule, go wild—what a notion!—she could ignore the fear-of-the-unknown part.

  A yowl came, outside from a bench near the stables and inside her mind. Your noxious twin cuzes come! he added.

  Nooo! No interruptions!

  Lori! Lisssten! Baccat hissed.

  Her Fam would continue talking to her. Her core throbbed, pulsed. She wanted sex.

  Loridana! Another yowling demand, louder, more insistent.

  She pulled her head away from Draeg’s lips nibbling at her mouth, sucking on her bottom lip. Puffed out a breath and answered her Fam. But the twins never come here! she shot back.

  They are not pleased at walking from the Residence.

  The twins in a bad mood, tracking her down, coming to a place on the estate they disdained.

  Fear jolted her cold and sane. What would they do to her if they caught her with Draeg? What would they do to him? Their teasing held a mean edge, and she felt so totally vulnerable this moment.

  She must draw on her emotional armor.

  Draeg’s subvocal groan vibrated between them. He drew back, too, stared at her. Frowned, then swallowed. “Good thing you have some control.”

  She simply stared at him.

  “What is it?”

  “My cuzes come.”

  “That’s what Baccat’s whining about?” But now he sucked in air instead of her skin, shook his head, then took her by her biceps and lifted her away from him. So hot! Blood rushed under her skin. Blinking, she saw his gritted teeth. His chest heaved as if he’d exercised vigorously, and glancing lower . . . his sex looked thick and hard . . . and huge.

  Her own sex clenched.

  “Loridana Itha!” warbled her cuz Vi.

  “Loridana!” Zus’s voice sounded flat, more demanding.

  She wouldn’t have them coming into her private area. Especially not with Draeg here.

  He moved away, and she flung out a hand. “Let me take care of this.”

  His intense gaze seared her and she couldn’t guess what he might be thinking. But she must put him from her mind and concentrate on her relatives. Such a touchy situation all around.

  Reaching out, she took his hand. “Please.”

  “I’m coming,” she called, amplifying her voice slightly, heading down the hallway to the end of the stalls, through the door to the office at the open end of the block, then out of the office door, the one closest to the Residence.

  Several meters away from the stables, her cuzes walked toward her, careful of each step since no gravel path twined between the main house and here, only a wide, slightly muddy animal trail they ignored in favor of dead grass.

  Both looked sophisticated, elegant, dressed far too elaborately for the stables in fashionably cut silkeen, fancily embroidered. Abruptly reminded of her worn tunic and trous, Lori brushed at them, then clenched her jaw at the revealing gesture.

  At least she didn’t turn back to look at Draeg, whom she heard sweeping the hard-packed gravel courtyard with a push broom—that would attract more attention than her standard lack of confidence.

  Her cuzes—children of Cuspid, who’d been cuz to Loridana’s MotherSire—moved in step with languorous ease, their features more beautiful than her own in their narrow faces. But then their long-dead mother had been a distant Yew cuz working on the estate. So they had Yew blood on both sides of their line. Their hair showed a pale wheat color, when her own tinted more toward yellow-brown. No freckles dotted their faces.

  “What brings you here?” Lori asked, every millimeter of her skin still sensitized. Between her legs she throbbed with needy desire for Draeg, and the air around her felt rough.

  Arm tucked into her brother’s elbow, Vi minced to the pristine square of flagstones outside the stable office door, then stopped a meter from Lori.

  The stridebeasts had crowded to the far edge of their circular enclosure, all observing. The horses kept their heads inside their stalls, but watched.

  Vi wrinkled her nose. “What’s that smell?”

  Zus laughed shortly, lifted his foot, and shook a clump of mud and grass off his polished boot. “I believe it is horse.”

  Vi made a disgusted moue with her mouth. “More animals.” With a whisk of her hand downward to her expensive boots, she set a spell to protect her footwear. Lori thought her cuz drew the energy for the spell from the land. Good thing Lori naturally invested the stable area with a lot of Flair—and she used enough here that ambient Flair remained in earth and air.

  “More pets,” Zus said at nearly the same time. “Our little cuz remains childish and predictable.”

  Lori didn’t react, her body straight but not stiff. She was shorter by some centimeters than both her cuzes, but Cuspid’s children were eighteen months older than she.

  “We thought you should reconsider signing that document Cuspid and Folia presented to you at breakfast,” Zus said.

  Lori shook her head slowly. “We have dealt with—” She saw Draeg come a little closer, so she changed the word finances to “that area of my responsibilities this month.” And since they were so interested in the papyrus, the Allocation of Funds to Allies, they must be the ones in charge of dispersing the gilt. Money always interested the twins.

  Vi actually hopped back when the horses thinned the top of the doors with a hint of psi power and stuck their heads out to look at her and Zus.

  She sniffed, jutted her chin up. “Well, I suppose the horses don’t look as common as stridebeasts.” Her narrowed lips curled up at the corners. “But they were bred from excellent Earthan stock that our ancestors brought from our home planet and are therefore superior.”

  As always, Lori’s face had frozen into the mask she wore for her relatives, and she didn’t think they could get past that to read her emotions even if they wished.

  Reading her cuzes was easy. They rarely hid their reactions, saw no reason to.

  Her ears caught a tuneless hum from Zus, and she whipped her head around to see his sly smile as he glanced at the stridebeasts, then the horses.

  “Ah. Look at that. Eight animals. When you are only allowed to have six.” His smile broadened. “I think we must bring that up to the Residence and our father.”

  “Oh.” Lori tried to infuse the sound with cheer, though she’d felt the blood drain from her face. “I was sure that you all took that into consideration when you purchased Rag—the horses for me. Didn’t you?”

  “We weren’t part—” Vi began, her voice only to be overridden by Zus’s.

  “Of course. But it is a decision that should be revisited, I believe.” He gave Lori a charming smile that curved his lips but didn’t reflect in his cold green eyes, the same shade as her own. Like a frost-covered spring leaf that had emerged too early. He scanned the shabby courtyard, the unused west and north stable blocks. Then he swung on his heel to look out over the land, much more wild in this area than the groomed grassyards around the Residence and the centuries-old tidiness and efficiency of the farm in the north of the estate. The farm he and Vi “supervised” for their Family income.

  “Yes, our lands look a little—shaggy—around here, and you obviously haven’t restored the stables to the shape they should be in if you want a true breeding program.”

  “Tsk, tsk.” Vi clicked her tongue, then n
odded. “Yes, we should speak to Cuspid and the Residence about culling two of your stridebeasts.”

  Lori couldn’t, simply couldn’t, glance at her small pack huddled in their corral as far away from the twins as possible. They didn’t know what was going on, of course, but they knew the word stridebeast and sensed her turmoil. She hid her swallow. She wouldn’t put it past Zus to kill two of her animals, not just sell them.

  “Unless—” Zus studied his manicured fingernails.

  “Unless—” Vi took up the notion with relish. “You review that document once more.”

  They didn’t mean review. They meant sign.

  “I hear you.” Lori inclined her head in a slow nod, but she thought she could finesse this situation herself. The Residence didn’t like modifying its plans. “Perhaps you are right. I should look at the papyrus again.”

  “We are always right,” Zus said. He returned her nod, but as one of superior status.

  Draeg grunted, stood with broom straight. Something about his body indicated fighting tension.

  The twins turned toward him.

  “May I introduce—” Lori began.

  “No. Not at all.” Vi sniffed.

  Baccat hopped down from a bench on the far side of the stables, trotted over, and stropped Draeg’s ankles, purring so it echoed.

  “Commoners,” Vi said.

  Zus laughed, then turned his back on them all. “We have accomplished our purpose. Let’s go do something interesting.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “We will see you within a quarter septhour, won’t we, cuz?” Zus looked over his shoulder. He’d kept his smile and it remained hard.

  Lori nodded.

  Vi lifted her brows, meaning Lori had to answer with words.

  “Yes. I’ll be back at the Residence within a quarter septhour.”

  Without another word, they teleported away. Lori waited until she sensed they’d returned to the house before glancing at Draeg, who studied her with a serious expression.