by R. Lee Smith
Kodjunn looked deep into her eyes, his own dark and flat with grim truth. “There are things you do not need to know about him.”
“He’s my mate.”
“Yes. Precisely.”
Olivia struggled into a more upright sitting position, feeling a strong flutter of fear like a sparrow set loose in her stomach. “What did Vorgullum advise?” she asked. “Tell me now, if you are my friend.”
Kodjunn was silent so long that she didn’t think he meant to answer, would only sit and stare until she changed the subject, as Vorgullum had done himself in those days before he trusted her with his name. But then, uncomfortably, he said, “Since he knows I have not been with her, he suggests she be thrown from the aerie.”
Olivia froze down to her bones. “That’s cold-blooded murder!”
“What do you think she would have brought back on us if she had managed to make her way out of the mountain? Or on you, now that you carry our child?” But he broke his gaze from hers and slumped in bitter defeat. “For now, he allows this to be a choice and I choose not to. I will chain her, I will gag her. I will not kill her.” He stared at his hands, breathing hard. “Not yet.”
“Kodjunn…”
He stood to go, wincing a little at what he saw on her face. “Olivia, my friend, you have a world of…of lights and hives and metal cars. This is my world, and blood is the reality of my world.” He dropped his arms to his sides and looked at her unhappily. “And I’m doing the best I can.”
“I know.” The hell of it was, she did. She sank back into the bedding and curled up around her pain and confusion.
He hesitated as if he wanted to say more, but when she didn’t move he simply left her, and presently Murgull returned.
“There is a shadow on that one,” the old gulla observed, looking back over her shoulder grimly. “Did you tell him?”
“Hell, no. If he knew Cheyenne used that potion on me, he’d tell Vorgullum no matter how many amazing visions I had. I don’t know what Vorgullum would do to him, but I sure know what he’d do to Cheyenne.”
“Nothing but what she deserves.” Murgull knelt to bandage Olivia’s feet again. “What would you have me do, little sister?” she asked bluntly. “Shall I go to Cheyenne-bitch and hobble her leg?”
For a moment, Olivia couldn’t quite comprehend what Murgull was saying. Cheyenne was already hobbled, at least for a while. Then she had an intense vision of Murgull seizing Cheyenne’s ankle and driving a spike through it, and realized that was much closer to Murgull’s offer than a chain.
“No,” she said at last. “I’m evil enough to be tempted, but what good would that do?”
“No good,” grunted Murgull. “But it would be strangely satisfying, I think.”
“Look,” Olivia said quietly, and pulled the high collar of her robe down far enough to show the purple bruises in the shape of Cheyenne’s hand. “Who has more reason to hate her, you or me?”
“So?” Murgull compressed her lips tightly and waited.
“Give her something for the pain in her leg,” Olivia ordered. “And when you are close, so that Kodjunn does not hear, tell her that I told you everything. Tell her it’s a small walk from you to Vorgullum. Tell her that she promised this would be the end of it, no matter what. She promised. And if she doesn’t keep that promise, Vorgullum will know everything. She may be able to get me, she may even be able to get you—”
Murgull raised an eyebrow and snorted, but did not interrupt.
“—but she can never get us both,” Olivia finished.
“Then you mean to forgive her.”
Olivia turned her hands up, indicating the gullan pit in which she lay, the welcome-mate paints on the walls, the whole of the mountain around her. “I’ve forgiven worse, I think.”
Murgull made a disgusted sound, then a more pensive one. She rubbed at the loose, scarred skin of her neck. “So be it,” she said, and gathered her things. “Yours is a strange vengeance, little sister. I only hope it is enough.”
She hobbled from the room.
Olivia lay in the pit, greeted two more well-wishers and had a leisurely breakfast before Murgull returned.
“A strange vengeance,” she said again, grinning. “But a potent one. You should have seen the beast’s face. All white like ashes, then purple like a bruise, and then grey like Murgull’s eye. Little voice, like a mouse, she says, ‘She wouldn’t say anything.’ Her eyes say differently, and Murgull just leans back and laughs at her, Murgull’s mean and cryptic laugh.” Murgull gave an example of her witchy cackle and leered at Olivia.
“Well, I hope it keeps her quiet, anyway,” Olivia said heavily.
“She is being very quiet when Murgull leaves her,” Murgull agreed. “And now, little sister, let us chat of birth and sparking women. I intend to be here long enough to see my Somurg draw a breath, but after that, I think, I will be ready for a new pit to sleep inside. You must be ready to help your naked frog-sisters when their time comes to spawn.”
“I will be, Murgull.”
The old crone sat and folded her good wing close. “Nine moons come and go in mother’s time,” she began. “Three moons for the life to take root. Three moons for the soul to be spun. Three moons for the child to form and know its mother. This life you bear is very fragile yet, for your little white body cares nothing for it. It sees only an unfamiliar thing invading it. It will try and kill the thing. So we are careful now. We do not let Olivia Urgarna get sick. She stays here and mends her feet, and lets the life root.”
Olivia Urgarna.
Olivia the Good Mother.
God help her get through this without throttling someone.
“No more thumperjuice,” Murgull announced. “No more climbing the Deep Drop and no hot baths! And when your feet are well, no more lying about in bed like wood grub. Murgull will teach you ways to work your body, to make it easier to expand. There are muscles that need strengthening, and muscles that need relaxing. And most important of all these things: Lie with no one but your mate! Kodjunn,” she muttered, rubbing at her scars. “Kodjunn could not be helped, but with luck, his spark will be weak.”
“His spark?”
“Mm. Until the soul is spun and the child begins to form, all you carry is the seeming of life, eh? The look and feel of it.” Murgull have her a stern stare. “A man’s spark can enter that life through his spitting prick and overwhelm any other. You want this child to be Vorgullum’s, eh? Then you couple with him many times, many times, to snuff out the spark of sigruum, and lie with no other.”
Olivia blinked. “Oookay.”
“And last of all, no more stress for Olivia!”
“Now that,” Olivia said smiling, “is good advice.”
Murgull nodded once, grunting, and then reached into one of her many pouches and drew out a plastic pop bottle filled with a brackish, brown liquid. “For your pain,” she said. “And to help your healing. One swallow only, eh?”
Olivia uncapped it for a sniff, then took a tentative sip of the pungent brew. It scoured her throat almost as much as it had stung her sinuses, but she thought parts of it were familiar. “Yellow stoneroot?” she guessed. “And sunberry bark.”
Murgull’s head cocked expectantly.
“And…white sickle?”
Murgull’s good eye narrowed a moment before her hand came swooping out to slap against her ear, but it wasn’t as hard a slap as she was apt to give. “White sickle for a sparking women?” she spat. “Urga’s tears!”
“Right, Urga’s tears. That would have been my next guess.”
“Also bloodbalm and mooneye, eh? You will have to study harder when you are healed. It will make you sleep soon,” she added, taking back the bottle and setting it beside the pit, within Olivia’s easy reach. “But sleep is good. I will see to it that you have no more visitors.”
“Thank you.”
Murgull grunted again and stumped out. Olivia heard her talking to someone in the private passage, and then the voices re
ceded and she was alone.
She rolled onto her side, rested her hand on her flat stomach and soon felt the medicine take gentle effect, first on her aching feet and then on her mind. She must have fallen asleep, although she dreamed she was still awake; she must have been asleep because it seemed to her that the fire snapping in the hearth was changing, that there was a man, or something like a man, rising out of it. She must have been asleep because the only way a man could fit in that fireplace would be if he were two feet tall, but the man stood up anyway, stood up and came walking towards her until he stood at the foot of the pit. His arms folded across his burning chest. He looked at her, she looked at him, and her eyelids grew heavy, and the next thing she knew, the fire was ash, a lantern was lit, and Vorgullum was easing into the pit beside her. He nipped her shoulder when he saw her stirring and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“I hoped you would be awake,” he said. “I have a present for you.”
“Everyone has a present for me,” she mumbled sleepily. “I’m more popular than the Beatles.”
He didn’t bother to puzzle out her meaning, only reached back for his belt pouch and handed it to her.
“Oh, how lovely,” she cooed. “A new belt pouch. I’ll treasure it always.”
“Look inside, you little demon,” he said, tugging at a lock of her hair.
She reached inside and her fingers brushed something cool and metal. She pulled it out, curious in spite of herself, and beheld a wristwatch. Not just any wristwatch, either. She’d actually seen this one before.
It had been the in the window display of Friedlund’s Jewelry, and Olivia had seen it every time she’d walked from her office to the coffee shop at the end of the block. The band was a delicate loop of sixteen-carat gold. The face was also gold with diamonds set up at the cardinal points, chic and trendy and stunning and several thousand dollars.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”
“I looked all over for one to replace yours, since you say it is broken,” he explained. “This was the only one I could find. I think it’s very pretty.”
“It is,” she agreed, removing her old watch and gingerly slipping the new one on. She admired it on her wrist, and then looked at him in amazement. “Is that all you took?”
“That was all you wanted, wasn’t it?” He eyed her curiously, evidently finding that a puzzling question.
“I hope you got out of there quickly.”
“I did,” he assured her. “We gullan know all about alarms. I hid beside the glass, and then broke it, grabbed your present, and flew away. I was far, far over the town when I heard the machines wailing and saw the lights.”
“My brave mate,” she murmured, cuddling up to him.
“I wanted to make you happy,” he said, nuzzling her throat.
She thought of him telling Kodjunn to throw Cheyenne from the aerie, and couldn’t quite reconcile that thought with the warm reality of the gentle hands now stroking through her hair. “I am happy,” she said. She even believed it, although the thought of motherhood did not come without its own little thrill of apprehension, but she supposed though would have happened whether or not she’d been impregnated by a giant, horned bat-creature.
“I could make you happier still,” he murmured, nuzzling at her neck.
“Do you think so?”
“I’m certain of it.” He kissed her, his strange mouth pressing on hers with his own unique blend of ignorance and desire. It was the sort of kiss that might seem chaste—just lips on lips—but for the demanding power behind it. He thrummed once, tickling her open with its vibrations, withdrew to give her chin a playful bite, and crushed his mouth on hers again. As his tongue worked its way into her mouth, his hand slipped beneath her covers, beneath the hem of her heavy gullan robe. He rubbed his palm over her thigh in the same slow circling movement as his tongue inside her mouth, and then pushed his hand up, coarse fabric bunching around his wrist, to cup the soft mound of her sex.
Olivia smiled into the kiss, twining her hands around his neck to pull him to her. He’d been content to do nothing but hold her when he’d carried her home the previous night, but he was not embracing her now with fatherly affection. Oh, she supposed it wouldn’t take more than a few words to stop him, but it was difficult to find those words when he kissed her. And anyway, according to Murgull, she needed all of his sparks she could get.
So she lay back, responding to his caresses and savoring them as much as she could in spite of the pain throbbing in her feet. She must have found a good measure of success because when his fingers parted her, pierced her, she could hear the wet sounds of her body’s desire even over his mating hums. She felt him smile as he tested her slickness, and then his tongue stabbed with conquering force into her mouth even as his finger thrust up inside her.
Her feet still hurt, but this hurt even better. Olivia groaned, her hips bucking up at him whenever he struck that sweet place inside her. He drew back at once to watch her, grinning his savage gullan grin as he pumped his hand at her, relishing every writhing gasp and shameless moan. The heady smack of his leathery palm against her pussy, slapping exquisitely at her clit, seemed to take even the beating of her heart and turn it to his rhythm. When she groped at him, he restrained her; when she begged for him, he overpowered her pleading voice with thrumms. She came on his hand, her fingers knotted in the soft pelt of his triumphant arm, shouting dizzily into his fierce smile.
“My Olivia,” he growled, and threw the covers back, replacing its small weight with his own. “My Olivia!” He pierced her, sinking his shaft deeply inside her even before the last shudders of her climax had fully receded, driving her at once back to the crests of pleasure. He reared over her, forcing her to lie flat where all her raptures must be displayed for his enjoyment, and claimed her body with his slow, determined strokes. “My Olivia!”
She could only groan wordless affirmation, holding him as best she could while he held her at arm’s length and closing her eyes to better feel every searing sensation: the dull prick of his claws at her shoulders, the soft scour of his pelt at her belly, the bellows-hard wind of his breath blowing down at her, and over all, the relentless, burning conquest of his cock. She climaxed again, wrapping her legs around his hips and cinching them tight, trying to trap him deep inside her as she rode out her frenzied waves of pleasure.
Now he groaned, arching hugely as her body seized on him, and came at once, pouring heat into her throbbing womb. One last gasp, a shudder, and then he sank down to press his brow to hers. “My Olivia,” he breathed. “My mate.”
She smiled wearily, reaching down his back to rub between his wings. Her feet hurt.
He bumped her brow again, rolled back to turn off the lantern, then moved beside her in the pit, wrapping her solicitously in the sleeping bag he had thrown aside before spooning up against her. His arm came around her waist. His wing half-opened and draped her. He closed his eyes and soon was sleeping.
Olivia listened to his soft, half-snoring breaths and rubbed restlessly at the unfamiliar weight of her brand new wristwatch. At last, she found Murgull’s medicine in the dark and took another small swallow. She looked at the fireplace. It stayed dark. She curled on her side under Vorgullum’s arm and outstretched wing and eventually slept.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHADOWS
1
The first thing Olivia did when she was healed enough to walk was go in search of Victoria. By this time, Horumn had put her foot down refused to admit any of the humans in the women’s tunnels, proclaiming that it was difficult enough to keep the tribe fed and cared for, and she could not be expected to do it while breast-feeding the humans. Instead, it had become habit for those humans who still wanted to be useful to gather in the commons and learn what they could from one of the female gullan slippery enough to escape Horumn’s clutches. This was usually Crugunn. Participation in these training sessions was not exactly mandatory, and Olivia had already noticed that there wer
e certain women who joined in—Amy, Tina, Tobi, and Sarah J. were always there—and certain women who did not—Mojo Woman, who rarely even showed up, Sarah B., who never did unless her mate bodily pulled her into the commons and left her, and Victoria, who seemed to join the training groups solely to make a point out of storming out of them. The other women might or might not show up, and Olivia supposed she really couldn’t blame them for avoiding the primitive chores if that was their choice; they all had mates to take care of them, and in the case of those like Beth or Liz, it wasn’t so much that they were lazy as much as embarrassed over not being able to do anything.
Olivia got lucky on her first day out and walking. There were three loose circles of humans and gullan in the commons, and nearly everyone was there. In the largest group, Rumm and Thurga patiently instructed humans in the art of tanning hides for leather. In another, Crugunn, along with Ellen, Amy, and Anita, sewed human clothes and loincloths with catgut and bone needles. In the last, Carla and Karen had joined three other unfamiliar gullan females for a snack and some gossip. Close to the hearth, Victoria sat rigidly reading a magazine. And in the furthest corner, Doru appeared to be teaching ‘his’ Tobi how to tell the right end of the spear from the wrong end.
Curious, Olivia limped unobtrusively closer to him, and heard his rolling, deep voice say, “—a head taller than the length of your body, wingless…but of course, you already come wingless, so that should be easy to remember. I doubt you will ever be pressed to fashion your own spear, but if you do, make sure the length of the tang is equal to half the length of the head.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tobi interrupted, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. “When do I throw it?”
“I haven’t dropped that particular stone on Vorgullum’s foot yet. First, learn to hold it. Maybe by the time you master that, I’ll have grown some guts.”
“No problem.” Tobi giggled. “I can be pretty good with this spear.”
Olivia saw Tobi’s hand dart out, and had a pretty good idea of what she did with it because Doru hissed and jumped back as if burned. He started to say something, caught sight of Olivia, and shifted around Tobi, stretching out his wings to cover his human from view. She heard him mutter, “Now try it, and see what you get.”