But right now, they were great. They felt strange on my body but they oddly fit perfectly, the colors were to-die-for and they were not that blasted nightgown (which I also, by the by, took the opportunity with the lavender soap to clean in the river).
For once in nearly three days I was content.
We’d come back, Tor had disappeared, I’d finished my sweeping, arranged the grass and hides and although I was starved, my body was tired, I was clean and I had on a killer outfit.
This would work for me for now. This was lemons and I was making some freaking tasty lemonade, let me tell you.
The hide was swept back at the opening but Noctorno didn’t enter. He stood there holding the skins back and scowling at me.
“Yo,” I greeted him with a smile.
He kept scowling at me.
Then he grunted, “Come.”
I blinked before asking, “What?”
“We’re going to dinner.”
I blinked again and, get this, I felt my heart get light.
“What?” I breathed.
“I need a pulse and you need food. Come.”
“A pulse?”
“The feel of the land, a sense of what’s happening out there… the pulse. Now, come.”
I shot to my feet, still smiling and agreed with an, “Okay.”
He glowered at me as I walked (with only a slight limp, I had on my killer slippers but that didn’t mean my feet weren’t still raw) toward him.
The minute the pelts fell into place behind us, he swept me up in his arms and I let out a surprised girlie shriek before my arm automatically circled his shoulders.
“What on –?”
“Gods, Cora, just be quiet,” he muttered on a sigh.
“Okey dokey,” I muttered back.
If he wanted to carry me, so be it. I mean, the cave wasn’t that big so he didn’t have to carry me far.
And anyway, I was feeling good. I was clean, had on actual clothes and he was going to feed me without me having to kiss him (or alternate activities) to get it.
I was not going to argue.
He set me on Salem, swung into the saddle behind me, rounded me with an arm and dug his heels into the steed.
Salem bolted out of the cave.
The sun was setting and it was close to dark as we cantered down the mountain.
“Is this safe?” I asked.
“We’ll soon find out,” was Tor’s not very reassuring response.
That shut me up.
But only for awhile.
“This outfit kicks ass,” I informed him and his arm tightened around my midriff in a weird way, like the movement was spontaneous and he didn’t mean to do it.
Then he asked, “Pardon?”
“This outfit,” I pointed to myself and twisted my neck to look back at him, “kicks freaking ass. I love it. It’s awesome.”
He looked down at my face as one of his thighs moved almost imperceptibly under my legs and Salem slowed.
“You like it?”
“No, Tor, I love it. The colors are beautiful and the shoes are totally fab…you…las.”
“Gods,” he whispered, his eyes moving over my face, “you like it.”
“Okay, you can say I like it when I told you I love it. That’s cool. Whatever,” I replied and turned to face front again. “And thanks for the bath. That river is cold as Siberia but it feels nice being clean.”
He made no response to this except his arm got tighter again, this time it felt like he meant to do it and it go so tight I slid the half an inch back so the side of my behind was snug in his crotch (because I was riding sidesaddle) and my back was tight to his front.
With no response from Tor, I kept blabbing as I watched the lush forest trees and beautiful stone of the mountain slide by. “And I’m so glad to get out of that cave for dinner. I know you need to take the pulse but I’m glad you’re taking me with you. That’s very cool of you. Thanks.”
Still no response but I felt his fingers open up at my side so they spanned my ribs then they flexed in.
“God!” I breathed, looking around. “This place is magnificent. Totally out of a movie. The colors are so… I don’t know… colorful. The trees seem to have ten times as many leaves. The stone seems like it’s almost glossy. It’s bizarre but so stinking cool. I wish I had a camera and I could take pictures. No one at home would believe this.”
Finally, he spoke. “Camera?”
I twisted to look at him again and nodded. “Yep, it’s this gadget that’s really small but it takes pictures. Do you have paintings here? Portraits? Landscapes?”
“Of course,” he grunted, staring down at me.
“Well, a camera takes a portrait or a landscape by touching a button, you load it on your computer, print it out and voila!” I threw out a hand. “You have your picture.”
“That’s mad,” he muttered.
I grinned up at him. “I know but it’s true.”
“So my world is more colorful than your world?” he asked and my light heart lightened more.
Was I finally convincing him?
I nodded fervently. “Yes, totally. It’s hard to explain but the birds are more vibrant. The flowers more dazzling. The river is cleaner than any river I’ve ever seen.” I tilted my head to the side. “There’s a lot of pollution in my world.”
“Pollution?”
“People litter, big corporations dump waste. It’s not good.”
“Love, I don’t know what the bloody hell you’re talking about.”
I looked into his sky blue eyes and realized I was glad he didn’t.
Then I said, “Well, I guess my world has a curse of sorts too but all of man caused it by getting rid of their rubbish, and we create a lot of rubbish and some of it is unnatural, in the rivers, the oceans, burying it under the fields.”
“Why would they do that?”
I shrugged and turned forward. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “Because we’re stupid, short-sighted and greedy.” I looked at the darkening landscape that was still verdant in comparison with my world even with the falling night. “I wonder,” I went on in a whisper, “if my world looked like your world before we destroyed it.”
“Maybe it did,” he remarked.
“That would suck,” I muttered.
“Suck?” he asked.
“It would be bad.”
Silence then, “Yes, love, it would.”
I fell silent and Salem cantered down the mountain, found a road and took it. Tor’s leg moved under mine again and Salem speeded up to a gentle canter. At the same time I felt Tor’s thumb start moving, up and down, stroking me at my side.
That felt nice.
Oh man.
“Tor?”
“Yes, Cora.”
The trees rushed by, Salem took us around a curve and the road started to follow the river. The new moon shown on its translucent waters, my breath caught in my throat and I forgot what I was going to say.
“Cora?”
“What?”
“You called me, my love.”
“Oh, right,” I whispered and rested against him. “I forgot what I was going to say.”
He rested his jaw against the side of my head.
“It’ll come to you,” he murmured.
“Okay,” I replied on a whisper and relaxed completely against him.
His thumb stopped stroking but all his fingers tightened into the flesh at my side.
I sighed and gazed at the view.
Chapter Eight
Princess
“Holy crap! Look at that!” I cried and pointed straight ahead at the vision that lay before me.
A village at the base of the river. A quaint, adorable village with thatched roof, timbered buildings that hugged the riverside and crawled partially up the mountain, their windows lit warmly and, I leaned forward and peered ahead, an abundance of colorful lanterns hanging from the roof ends. There were short piers jutting into the river with small, charming wood boats attached to the piers that also sported lanterns.