Beneath the Thirteen Moons

by Kathryne Kennedy

  She was powerless against such magic as this.

  Mahri took a step forward, her breath coming in little pants and the oddest flutter in her breast. Her hand reached for his and her feet hurried to close the gap between them. She felt him then, inside her head, asking to be let in, not just wanting her body but the rest of her as well.

  He warned me, she thought. The Bond allowed a joining that he’d never be able to achieve with anyone else; the melding of mind, body, and Power. Either she gave him all or none, and she wanted him so badly that she fell over the precipice and risked her soul. She pulled zabba from the satchel before letting it drop off her shoulder, then quickly chewed the root.

  Mahri fought to swallow against the bitter taste while the Power sang through her veins. An errant breeze stirred her hair and the strands stroked her back, tickled across her flat belly, made her skin prickle with shivers. Her vision twisted for a moment, the Sight in full force, then faded to normal.

  Korl’s face lit with anticipation, the sparkling beam of light he stood in seeming to whirl with his desire.

  Her toes felt the warmth of water and Mahri realized what a short distance separated them now. His hand still reached for her but he no longer stood with legs splayed, chin thrust upward. His stance now reminded her of a treecat; tense, coiled and ready to spring.

  Mahri shook her head. Two steps forward and she’d be able to touch his hand. The Power sang for release and she shared it with Korl, smiling when he shook back his hair and groaned with the feel of it.

  When he snapped his head forward that glitter of pale hair fell over his brow, brushed against the hollows of his cheeks. He looked hopefully at her and she laughed, a reckless kind of thing that made her feel wild with abandon.

  Let me in, he said in her mind, and the Power made her aware of the wall that Jaja had thrown around her thoughts and she Saw the blackness of it and cracked it like an egg.

  Thoughts rushed in, but not Korl’s, he held back as if now that his path lay open he wasn’t sure how to proceed. But the others, the tiny insects and animals and even Jaja’s faint hungry thoughts of prey overwhelmed her. Mahri struggled to control the sheer weight of all those clamoring needs when she recognized a chant that sounded all too familiar.

  We’re not here, don’t see us, look elsewhere…

  “No,” gasped Mahri, staggering back from Korl, her eyes searching the pool. She rebuilt that wall of blackness around her mind, sighed with relief when it held firm, heard his answering exhale of disappointment when he felt that barrier again.

  He reached for her. “Don’t be afraid, water-rat. I won’t hurt you.”

  He’d misunderstood and she ignored him. Where were they? Had they been watching them all along, even when she and Korl… Mahri blushed. What right had they to invade her life?

  “I know you’re here!” Her voice rang against the crystal walls. “Show yourselves.”

  Korl lunged and grabbed her arm in a bruising grip. “What is it? Who are you talking to?”

  “The natives, of course. Who else has been following us and trying to manipulate us?”

  “Aaah,” he breathed, his face clearing and taking on the look of someone who must humor the mad whims of another. “The natives who schemed to arrange our Bond? The ones that made me fall in love with you?”

  “Aya,” snapped Mahri. “And they were quite successful, weren’t they? Their plan goes along just as they wished, doesn’t it? Well, I for one will not be used. By you, by them, by anyone!”

  “Mahri,” said Korl, his voice gentle with sadness.

  She backed away from him, spinning, looking for the natives. She’d heard them in her head, they had to be here. How did they do it? What were they capable of? And then she admitted her most inner fear, that what she felt when Korl looked at her, that his “love” for her that sprang so quickly in him, that none of it was real. That the natives could manipulate feelings as well as dreams and circumstances.

  What Mahri had tried to do before and failed, she now did without thinking. With almost physical savagery she pulled the Power from Korl and used every ounce of it to See.

  They ringed the farthest half of the pool. Hundreds of them! Standing with hands clasped and parodies of smiles revealing their fanged teeth. All of them watching the naked couple that stood at the edge of the pool.

  Korl staggered from the abrupt drain of Power and let go of her arm. Mahri’s skin crawled and she ran to grab her clothes to cover her nakedness, picking up the satchel and holding it like a shield in front of her.

  “Mahri?” Korl’s voice came out as a low growl. The man looked as if he’d been spun in circles and then let go. “What happened?”

  She took a deep breath. “I know you don’t believe me, but we’re being watched by the natives right now. I can See them, even if you can’t. And they’re using me to get to you, that’s all I can figure, and I won’t be a pawn for anyone! You understand?”

  Korl struggled into his damp leggings. “No.”

  Mahri refused to look at him. Instead she watched all those smiling natives. “All right, this love you feel for me, don’t you question the suddenness of it, the rightness of it? Isn’t it odd that a prince could let himself fall in love with a water-rat—a smuggler, the lowest of the low?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call you the lowest…”

  Mahri almost screamed with frustration.

  “Royals don’t ‘tumble,’ remember that? Since when did it no longer bother you?” She calmed her voice by sheer willpower, tried to make him feel the force of her next words. “You should be more frightened than I am. It’s your kingdom that they’re after.”

  Korl frowned and straightened, flipping back his hair.

  Mahri moaned. He’ll never stop doing that, she realized. It’s as natural to him as breathing and just as natural for me to react to it. She turned her back on him.

  “We’re taking you home, now,” she flung over her shoulder. “And that’ll be an end to it!”

  “Will it?” he mused.

  Mahri pretended not to hear as she broke into a run.

  Chapter 13

  THEY DIDN’T SPEAK MUCH AS THEY CLIMBED OUT OF the waterfall cove, both of them so clean that their skin looked puckered. They struggled out of the old roots, in places having to carry her boat in order to reach familiar waters. Although lighter than it looked, her bulky craft still made them both pant with the exertion of hauling it.

  Jaja skittered up vines, hopped between their feet, and threw both of them glances of extreme puzzlement. When they shoved the boat into the channel and collapsed inside with muscles aching, the monk-fish sat between their prone bodies looking back and forth, as if wondering what had happened between them.

  Mahri realized that she’d been purposely communicating with Jaja for some time. That she took for granted that her pet could not only understand her emotions, but her words as well, even with that wall of black around her mind. Were all other monk-fish as intelligent as her own? Could it be that her overdose and new pathways allowed her to communicate more fully with Jaja? And most importantly, were monk-fish tools of the natives? She shrugged and winced from a cramped muscle.

  It was your friends, she thought at him. They have their own agenda and I won’t play along, do you hear? I won’t be their pawn.

  Jaja shook his head.

  Tell them what they want’s impossible. She nodded at the prince. Him and I… can never be. Never.

  Jaja stuck out his chin, held his palm out at her and nodded his head up and down. Mahri bit her lip. He might be agreeing with her but she had a suspicious feeling that his gestures were an attempt to humor her. She could almost hear him saying: Sure, sure. It’ll never happen.

  But she didn’t dare crack that black wall around her thoughts to find out what he really might be telling her. They would just have to continue this one-way communication. At least until she thought she could face the barrage of thought that had flooded her mind before the barrier
.

  “Sometimes I think you’re Bonded with that monk-fish,” drawled Korl as he raised himself to one elbow beside her.

  That handsome face loomed over her and Mahri stiffened. “Better him than you. It’s time to put back on your blindfold.”

  “Not yet.” He grimaced down at her, his face lowering close to her own. “You’ve a nasty streak, woman.”

  His lower lip pouted and Mahri licked her own, unaware that she did so. Then his face changed, a slight quirk of his mouth that made him look like very young. “You know, I’ve never had a woman run away from my nude body before.” His voice teased with a huskiness that made her swallow.

  Mahri felt the boat sway beneath her as they caught the current and knew that she’d best get up and pole him back to the city as quickly as she could. Instead she lay trapped beneath his gaze, those eyes looking through her, into her soul.

  Stop it, she told herself. He’s doing it to you again and you’re such a weakling that you can’t fight it. Just imagine how many other women he’s charmed like this, using those lips, that voice…

  Mahri caressed the handle of her bone staff that lay at her hip. “And just how many women have you been naked with?”

  Korl threw back his head and laughed.

  She tried not to imagine another woman’s hands on that golden skin, another’s mouth giving him the same pleasure that she had. It made her stomach turn.

  “Well?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He looks too smug, she thought. “Of course not! I was only curious, that’s all.”

  Mahri relaxed the grip she had on her staff. Although they looked the same age, she’d somehow felt older than him, more experienced. Sometimes he acted as if he’d never been kissed before, never been stroked or held or even seduced. It just surprised her that he might’ve been with lots of other women. That’s all.

  “You complain too much.”

  “Huh?”

  He smiled and lowered his face a breath away from hers, his muscular arms trapping her beneath him as he leaned over her body. “I am going to kiss the corner of your mouth.”

  “No.”

  “You’ve just parted your lips and they’re trembling.”

  “So?” Mahri felt the soft warmth of his mouth at the corner of her own and resisted the impulse to turn toward those strong lips.

  “Now I’m going to lick your ear.”

  Mahri screamed inside but all that came out of her throat was a moan. “No.”

  Korl’s deep voice vibrated with humor. “You’ve turned your head to the side, arched your neck so that I can reach you easier.”

  “I did not.”

  She felt wet heat slide along the outer edge of her ear, clenched her fists when he suckled the lobe. He could make her go hot anytime, anywhere. He had too much control over her body, played her like a harp. When she’d first met him—what now seemed a lifetime ago—she’d thought that the only way to get over her attraction to him was by familiarity. Just keep looking and she’d get over it.

  That hadn’t worked, thought Mahri as the wet heat slid down the side of her neck, traced a path to the shallow dip at her throat. The only way I can save myself is to get as far away from him as possible. To never look at him again.

  “No,” she moaned when she heard him take a breath to tell her what he intended to do next.

  “You complain too—” Korl broke off and growled. “Jaja, go away.”

  The rest of the world flooded back to Mahri’s senses. Her pet whispered a screech, as if too terrified to make his lungs work fully. A rumble of sound overrode the normal hoots and clicks and squawks of the sea forest. Korl’s hair flew into her face from the repeated slaps of Jaja’s webbed fingers against the back of Korl’s head. With a final chirrup her pet dove beneath the collapsed narwhal tent.

  Mahri froze, placed her hand across his mouth when he tried to speak again. “Shh.”

  They stared at each other. Korl’s face looked puzzled, then alarmed. The rumble grew louder, shivered in Mahri’s chest as surely as it must be doing in his own.

  “Move,” she whispered. “Slowly, just your head.”

  Korl tilted away and unblocked her view. Her boat traveled beneath the gnarled branches of purplish-brown sea trees and she swore quietly. When had they reached this grove? One of these days her attraction for him, this ability he had to make her totally absorbed with him, would get them both killed. She just hoped it wouldn’t be today.

  “What is it?” he whispered, wisely not turning around to look.

  The noise had increased in volume, a roar that rose and fell with the rhythm of breathing, interspersed with loud coughs and purring rumbles.

  Mahri twisted her lips. “Treecats,” she hissed. “As you value your life, don’t move again, no matter what.”

  Through their territory lay the quickest way to the City and she’d planned to use enough zabba to put the cats asleep while she poled past. Her hand twitched toward her pouch and a roar of sound shook the air. She froze. It was too late. He’d made her forget about the danger until they were in the thick of it.

  They drifted beneath a large branch, the bark gouged everywhere with parallel lines, and Korl looked up. Mahri fought the urge to jump as a huge cat looked back down on them with sleepy interest; long, red tongue frozen in the act of licking a paw. Silver eyes with pupils slit sideways narrowed, triangular furscale-tipped ears popped up and a long, golden-scaled mane shook lazily back and forth. The cat’s head followed them from one side of the branch to the other as they drifted beneath, switched its tail that hung over the side, the scaled tip of it near brushing Korl’s nose.

  Sunlight shone down through a sudden clearing in the canopy overhead.

  “That’s not a treecat,” whispered Korl, “it’s a whale cat, the father of all cats. The biggest son-of-a—”

  “Shush,” snapped Mahri. “There’s more.”

  His mouth shaped the question “more?” and he looked up again in absolute horror. If Mahri hadn’t been so scared herself she might have laughed at the expression on his face.

  At least half a dozen of the animals lounged within the trees around them, the combined sound of their satisfied purrs shivering the leaves of catclaw vines and the delicate petals of sky flowers. Mahri was grateful for the sound, for it meant that the cats were content— which meant that they’d just gorged themselves—and that meant that she and Korl might float through their territory with their skins in one piece.

  They reached another low-lying branch and this time two cubs playfully fought along its length. They would have been cute but for their size, and the length of their fangs, and the wicked gleam of their razor-sharp claws. Intent on their game they paid no attention to the boat that drifted toward them, but the mama cat did. She kept her feral gaze on the craft as it neared her kits and although she continued not to move Mahri could tell the cat tensed, ready to spring at the first sign of threat to her babies.

  The larger kit pounced in mock play and tumbled over the side of the branch. He should’ve just dropped into the water, the loser of round one, but the bow of her craft had just drifted beneath him, and the other kit had the larger one’s tail in his jaws, pulling and worrying it in a new game of tug-of-war. So the cat held on, his fore paws clawing for a hold, his powerful hind legs occasionally finding purchase on the deck to lunge back up at the branch, making the boat lurch and bob.

  Mama cat had risen to her feet, scrutinizing the two humans. Mahri knew if they so much as blinked, she would pounce.

  The boat drifted forward, bringing nearer the kicking legs and slashing claws of the kit. Mahri lay frozen on her back, Korl still half over her body, his gaze locked on hers. He knew what would happen if he moved, that Mahri would be disemboweled from the slashing claws of the cat, that the mother of the kit would attack if he even raised his arm to protect himself.

  She inwardly cursed. With root in her system she could’ve tweaked the kit’s muscles to give him the stren
gth to climb back up the stupid branch. Those claws could slash open the soft skin of Korl’s neck and—she needed zabba!

  But he read the intent on her face and leaned over to pin her arm and pouch against her side with a frown of command.

  Mahri heard the mama cat growl at even that slight movement.

  Korl’s eyes burned into hers when the kit flailed at his shoulder and used it in a last desperate attempt to push himself back onto the branch. Mahri heard flesh rip, felt wet warmth splash across her stomach and still the man didn’t move, just stared at her until she thought he could see right through to her heart and its violent constriction in response to his own pain. Crimson dripped from two parallel lines along his cheek and jaw, a final, glancing blow from those claws—and he hadn’t even winced.

  Mahri hadn’t known the definition of true bravery until she’d watched this man stand firm, unable to fight back, while his skin was flayed apart.

  The boat drifted out from under the other side of the branch and Mahri looked up at the kittens with relief, for they’d curled around each other for a quick nap, the mother treecat the only witness to the boat’s departure from their territory.

  “You’re beautiful when you’re terrified,” rasped Korl.

  He continued to stare into her olive-green eyes until the rumble of the cats faded, then his face lit in sudden surprise. “By-the-moons, I hurt like…”

  And his eyes rolled back in his head as he collapsed on top of her.

  The night’s rain pattered on the sides of the tent and although Mahri knew she’d have to bail water soon she hesitated to leave Korl’s side. She shifted in the cramped space, and he woke, the gentle glow of a light globe softening the angular lines of his face.