Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy #2)

Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy #2) Page 199

“Thank you,” I replied awkwardly. I was not accustomed to compliments from women. She approached me until she was standing less than an arm’s length away. She was almost my height. When she lifted her chin to look me in the eyes, it was almost as if she were inviting me to kiss her. I noticed now that she had dressed her hair. She had bound it back from her eyes with a bark-cloth strip. Wooden beads secured several tiny thin braids that hung down just in front of her ears. She smelled wonderful. When she licked her lips, I noticed that her tongue was both dark and pink, as mottled as the rest of her. She smiled wider, and I knew she was enjoying my awareness of her, and my physical reaction to that awareness.

“I hope you enjoyed all of it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She shook her braids back from her face. “The basket of food I left for you. I hoped you would be in your shelter, but you were not, so I left it for you to find. I hope that you ate it all with great pleasure.”

“That I did.”

“Good.” She lifted her arms and stretched like a cat. Her eyes never left my face.

My mouth went dry. I cleared my throat and then said, “Your father, Kilikurra, is helping me to find trees I can use to build a fence around the cemetery, so that our dead may rest in peace.”

“Is he?” She glanced around, and when her gaze came back to her face, her smile was secretive. “But he seems to be gone now. And you know there are no trees here that can be cut. So. Shall we occupy our time another way?”

While my attention had been focused on her, Kilikurra had vanished. I now wondered if everything he had said and done had been a ploy to lure me to his daughter. But why would any father conduct a stranger to his waiting daughter and then abandon her to him?

I tried to awaken a sense of wariness in myself, but all I could recall was how brazenly she had touched me on our first meeting. She reached a hand toward me now and fingered the fabric of my shirt. “These garments look uncomfortable. And ridiculous.”

I stepped back from her. “They protect me…my skin. From scratches, and cold, and insect bites. Among my people, they are required. For courtesy.”

She puffed her cheeks briefly, the Speck gesture for denial. “I am your people. I do not require them. How do these work?” She had stepped up as she spoke and seized the front of my shirt. The first button went flying. Her eyes followed its flight and she laughed delightedly. “They jump like frogs!” she exclaimed. Before I could react, a sharp tug had sent a second and third to join the first.

With every fiber of my being, I longed to tumble her immediately on the mossy forest floor. What held me back was not morality or modesty, or even a reluctance to couple with a Speck. Rather, it was simple shame at showing my body to her. This was different from seeking out a whore. A prostitute took money and had small right to quibble about her customer’s appearance. The last thing I wanted to do was to have this young creature see me naked, and react with either horror or laughter.

And so I stepped back from her, catching at the flapping front of my shirt. “Stop!” I bade her. “This is unseemly. I scarcely know you.” My embarrassment put a starch in my words that I did not intend.

I needn’t have worried about offending her. She laughed merrily at my reluctance and advanced on me, unabashed. “You will scarcely come to know me by fleeing from me! Why do you hesitate? Is the mossy floor of the forest not soft enough for you?” She cocked her head as she looked into my eyes. Her hands were on my chest again. “Or do you find me undesirable?”

“Oh, never that,” I assured her, but one questing hand had already assured herself of just how desirable I did find her. I could scarcely get my breath. “But your father…will he not…object?”

She puffed her cheeks at me. “My father has gone about his business. Why should he care what I do? Am I not grown, and a woman? He will be pleased if his daughter should have a Great One at her hearth; all my wide family will take a share of this honor.” My belt buckle gave way to her fingers. The buttons on my trousers were more stoutly sewn than my shirt buttons. One by tantalizing one she undid them. I scarcely heard what she said anymore. “But mind you that my sisters and cousins take no more from you than the honor of your presence. In all else, you will be mine. Oh. Yes. You are ready. Here. Give me your hand. Touch me.”

I did. Her nipples were erect. She deliberately brushed them against me. I wanted to howl in frustration. My great bulging belly was a barrier between us. I pulled her close against me, but found the longed-for contact denied. Shame coursed through me, strong enough that I tried to pull away from her. She let me go, but then caught my hand and pulled me down on the moss beside her. “Sit,” she bade me. “Let me free you from all this.”