Rahani pouted. “You have been absent from me for most of a year! What if each month was only a day to me? You have left me clamoring with desire! I cannot be assuaged in only a few encounters! Come back to bed!”
“I shall, most surely.” Ohaern gazed down at the world, smiling. “But I must see the ending of what I have begun.”
“Wherefore?” she asked. “You know what must be happening—the alliance of nomads and northerners have asked Culaehra to rule them all, the whole of the western world! You know he has been forced to accept, in order to forestall fighting and feuds! And most surely you know that he has married Kitishane, as Yocote has married Lua!”
“They are being wedded together, both couples in one ceremony,” Ohaern told her.
“Even now, at this moment?” Rahani rolled up to her knees, then rose and came up behind him, gazing down over his shoulder.
They saw Yusev standing before the two couples, chanting and pantomiming the tying of a knot; they saw Culaehra kiss Kitishane as if he would never stop, and Yocote kiss Lua with more restraint but as much intensity. “I shall bless their union,” she breathed in his ear. “They shall have each two girls and two boys, and none shall die till they are old.”
“I thank you, my love. Forgive my abstraction, but I have put something of my heart into those four, even as a smith must always do with work he comes to love.” But Ohaern felt her breasts against his back and could not prevent the desire that rose within him. He turned, bearing her back to the bed, and it was an even question as to which of them bore the other down.
Finally, Ohaern lifted his head and said, almost in apology, “You understand that it is not Culaehra whom I count as the hero I forged.”
“Of course not,” she replied. “It is all four of them together. But come and kiss me, Ohaern, or my lips will grow rough with waiting.”
And what man could wish such misfortune on a goddess?
Table of Contents
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 23
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30