Then he lay down beside her and held her, just held her, pressing skin to skin, touching her hair, her breasts, and whispering to her – English words like "soft" and "beautiful." Words in other languages – French, Spanish, what might be Russian. Words in tongues she'd never heard or heard of.
Her name sounded the same in all of them.
Her hands acquainted themselves with him, too – sandpaper skin on his cheeks, where his beard was growing. Softer skin on his flanks and bottom, coarse hair on thighs tight with muscle. The fascinating flex of muscles in his back and shoulders as he stroked her.
Need pooled in her belly. When his lips closed over her nipple, the liquid tugging turned her as hasty as a kid waking up on Christmas morning. "Now," she said, and, "Oh, yes," as he played with her. "Oh, lovely. Yes. But now, Nathan." She wrapped her hand around him, hard and twitching, and he trembled.
But he wasn't finished. He told her so, and he found more places to touch, turning her on her side, lifting her leg, exploring her until she trembled and clutched him and panted. Before panting turned to cursing – barely before – steady, imperturbable Nathan suddenly shook all over. He flipped her onto her back and centered himself over her and drove home.
With his second stroke, she exploded. On the third, he did, too.
Eons later they lay in the crumpled dark with breaths and legs tangled together, the one still quick, the other limp. Kai found enough wind to say, "I always thought that was an old wives' tale. And I didn't do it myself, either."
"What?" He stroked her hair.
"I've gone blind."
He choked on a laugh. "No, but the mage light... you were right, but so was I. Normally keeping it going is automatic, but I was distracted for a few moments there at the end. Extremely distracted."
The light bounced back into being, but muted now, no more than a candle glow hovering over his shoulder. She could see him smiling at her, and that was good. He'd invented a truly lovely smile this time.
But she'd already known he was happy. His colors were so bright. She smiled back, loving him.
"Sleep." He touched her cheek and sat up.
"Wait. Where are you going?"
"Nowhere." He reached for his pants. "But I need to stay alert, and I won't if I lie beside you."
"I'm not..." But a yawn caught her, making a lie of what she'd been about to say, so she finished wryly,"... not going to argue, I guess. But you'll need to sleep, too."
"I like sleep, but I can do without it, especially on a hunt. One sleepless night is easy enough for me."
There was some shifting necessary so she could zip the sleeping bag up around her. Somehow she hadn't noticed the chill earlier, but she did now. He strapped that sheath with its lethal contents back on his calf and pulled on slacks and shirt, but didn't seem bothered by the cold. Then he settled beside her and took her hand.
The mage light winked out. "Do you mind?" he asked softly. "It's best if I let my eyes accustom themselves to the moonlight."
What moonlight? The air might have turned to ink, it was so black. But she was too exhausted to care, and she had Nathan's hand. Or maybe he had hers, and she pondered that and what difference, if any, it made as sleep drew her down, down, its raven feathers brushing her mind into stillness.
Chapter 12
"Kai." Nathan touched her shoulder, frowning. He'd brought the mage light up again, hoping the cessation of dark would calm her. It hadn't. "Kai, it's all right. Wake up."
She stopped making the distressed noises. Her eyes opened. "What..."
"You were dreaming, I think." She'd whimpered, turning her head from side to side, then stilled. But her hand clasped his so tightly, and she'd kept making those small, unhappy sounds. "A bad dream."
"It was... I've had it before. The crying one." She blinked fuzzily. "So lonely. At first I thought it was you, but this time I knew... she just wanted to be held, so I – What? What is it?"
He'd sprung to his feet. The plucking inside him announced the breach of his wards a second before the beast crashed through the window.
Glass smashed, flying everywhere. The chameleon landed on the floor between the window and him – and he stood between it and Kai. It was eight feet long counting the lashing tail, its shaggy fur like mottled smoke. Feline, with an oddly shaped muzzle, tufted ears, and the oversize pads of a mountain or arctic cat. And it needed only a split second to orient itself before launching all eight muscular feet at him.
Kai screamed. He heard that, but his entire being was focused on his prey. He couldn't move and expose Kai to those claws, so he locked himself to the earth and met the attack.
Claws raked his forearm, ripping flesh from bone, spattering blood. He rocked back only an inch as he smashed his other fist inside the gaping mouth, aiming for the roof of it, where bone was thin and could be driven into the brain.
But the beast was fast. It flung itself back, howling – and bunched its hindquarters, readying for another attack.
"No!" Kai cried. "No, don't – don't – stop!"
The beast shook its head. And looked at her.
That second's inattention was all Nathan needed. He had his knife in his hand as he leaped onto the beast's back, seizing the great head so he could draw the blade across its –
"Don't kill her! She can't help it, and she's so lonely, so confused – don't kill her, please. Please."
He froze, panting. His arm shook with the need to finish.
But the chameleon wasn't moving, either. It wasn't moving.
"See?" Her voice wobbled, but she came toward them. The idiot woman started toward him and his prey. "She won't hurt me. She won't – won't even save herself, because I told her n-not to hurt you."
The beast's muscles tensed. A fine trembling ran through the great body.
Slowly, slowly, Nathan eased the knife away from its throat, but he held his position otherwise, crouched over the chameleon, his wounded arm strobing pain with each heartbeat. "If you stay back, I won't cut her throat. But stay back."
She stopped. "You're bleeding. Your arm. I need to... no, it's stopping already, isn't it? You said you didn't like to bleed in a fight, but... Nathan, she couldn't help it. She's so alone, and she was dying."
There were tears on Kai's face, shiny in the small glow of the mage light. Nathan stared at her, stricken. "What have you done?"
"I don't know, exactly. Only I touched her somehow, or she touched me... I've dreamt of her before, but tonight was different. I – I reached her. I feel her now. She came to me because she couldn't be alone anymore, and I... I told her, in my sleep. I said she didn't have to, so she came to me."
Pity twisted through him. He knew what it was to be cut off from all you knew. So alone... "She'll kill again, Kai. As you said, she can't help it. There isn't enough magic to sustain her here."
Kai took another step. "There's more magic in some places, close to the big nodes."
"Not enough." Eventually there might be, but not yet.
Kai was only four feet away now. She held out her hand, and the head Nathan had pinned struggled. "Let her smell me," Kai said. "She won't hurt me. She won't."
Nathan knew that every being had to decide his or her own course. He'd earned that knowledge one painful step at a time when he'd been stranded and had to learn how to make his own choices, all of them. But he felt sick, physically sick, as he slowly released the chameleon's head.
It – she – stretched her head out, sniffed the hand held out to her. And beneath him Nathan felt a vibration start.
She was purring. The beast was purring for Kai.
"Can you send her back?" Kai whispered. "Back where she belongs?"