“What have you done?” he asked when he came in.
Tigra stopped rubbing up against him and looked up contritely. “Lonely,” the beast communicated to him, psionically. “Sorak gone. Left Tigra alone.”
“I thought we had an understanding,” he said. “You were supposed to behave yourself. Look what you’ve done.”
“Tigra sorry.”
Sorak sighed. “Well, I suppose I shall have to pay for all this.”
“Tigra hungry.”
“Very well. Let’s go down to the kitchen and see if we can find you some raw meat.”
“lyric hungry, too,” said Lyric, mimicking the cat. “Find lyric some raw meat?”
“Stop that,” Sorak said.
“Lyric has a point, though,” Eyron said. “The rest of us have all been very cooperative with you through all this, but city life does not exactly suit us, nor does your diet of kankfood.”
“Eyron is right,” Kivara added. “It has been a long time since we have enjoyed a fresh kill.”
“You know that I do not meat,” said Sorak.
“That is your choice,” said Eyron, “or rather, your rationalization. You may try to deny your elf and halfling needs because of how the villichi raised you, but the rest of us have never accepted their ways. The Ranger holds his peace, but he has not hunted since we came to this city, and he does not feel comfortable here. Screech also hungers for the taste of flesh, as do we all”
“What of the Guardian?” asked Sorak. “Does she feel the same?”
“I am less bothered by your choice not to eat flesh than are the others,” said the Guardian, “but it is not wise to disregard their wishes and their needs. They have always kept their agreements with you and refrained from coming out without your knowledge or consent.”
“And in return I give them access to all that I know, feel, and experience,” said Sorak, “and I allow them time to come out whenever possible.”
“But lately, you have allowed them to come out less and less,” the Guardian replied. “That’s right,” Kivara said. “I have not been out in a long time. lam tired of being kept under. You have not been fair.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Sorak. “We must all live together and strive for balance. Perhaps I have been too selfish. Very well, then. Since Kivara has complained the most, let her come out and share a meal with the others. As for me, you know that eating meat offends me, so I shall duck under and go to sleep. It has been a long day and an even longer night, and I am weary.”
He opened the door and Tigra trotted out into the hall, but it was Kivara who stepped from the room, not Sorak. As Sorak ducked under and went to sleep, Kivara came out and moved quickly down the hall after Tigra, toward the stairs leading to the first floor and the kitchen.
Outwardly, nothing about the elfling had changed, but a keen observer who was familiar with Sorak would have noticed a slightly different, lighter gait, almost catlike, with a playful bounce in his step and a somewhat more self-conscious carriage. The expression on his face, too, had undergone a change. Whereas, under most circumstances, Sorak’s expression was a rather neutral one—if anything, one of brooding and contemplation—now Kivara gave his features a more animated cast. A slight, crafty smile played about the lips, and the eyes seemed to dance with mischief.
In the kitchen, she found some game birds hanging in the smoke room and tossed them out on the floor for Tigra. The tigone greedily began to gobble them. Without wasting any time on such niceties as table settings, Kivara grabbed a large hunk of raw z’tal meat and tore into it. It was not the same as a fresh kill, and the thrill of the hunt was absent. The heady rush of warm blood spurting down her throat was missing, too, but the pleasure of eating raw, still-bloody flesh, only recently butchered, was undiminished. Both Kivara and the tigone made sounds of satisfaction deep in their throats as they gobbled their food.
“Decided to have a late night snack?” asked Krysta.
Kivara looked up to see the half-elf standing in the kitchen doorway, wearing a long, sheer, gossamer-thin nightgown.
“I thought you did not eat flesh,” she said with a mocking smile. “Something about a... spiritual vow, was it?”
“I was hungry,” said Kivara, unable to think of a better explanation for the discrepancy between her halfling appetites and Sorak’s asceticism.
“So I see,” said Krysta in a low voice. She was coming closer. She moistened her lips. “I told you once vows can be broken... especially when one is hungry—”
She reached up and touched Kivara’s cheek gently, running her fingertips down along her jawline to her lips.
“Kivara, make her stop,” the Guardian said, and the Watcher echoed her distress with a surge of alarm.
“There is blood on your mouth,” said Krysta.
Kivara raised her hand to wipe it off, but Krysta caught it in hers and said, “No, don’t. Let me...”
And she brought her face closer....
“Kivara!”
... So close that Kivara could feel her warm breath....
“Kivara, what are you doing? Stop it!”
... And gently, Krysta’s tongue flicked out and licked the blood from her lips.
“Kivara! No!”
The Watcher fled, abandoning her post in her panic and ducking deep under, where the Guardian could no longer sense her presence. Alarmed, the Guardian shouted and pressed at Kivara from within, but Kivara was out now, and she had been under for a long time. The unwillingness to relinquish control and the fascination of the new sensations she was experiencing were combining to create resistance. At the same time, that resistance—a child’s rebellion against an overbearing parent—and what Krysta was doing with her mouth were tremendously exciting. It was a new sensual experience, and Kivara was unable to let go of it.
Krysta was pressing her body up against her now, and the warmth of the touch flowed through Kivara. She could feel Krysta’s smooth, sinewy flesh beneath the sheerness of the nightgown, and it was soft and pleasant to the touch. Krysta’s flesh responded as Kivara touched her, and she felt it tremble. Krysta’s tongue was probing between her lips now, and Kivara, interested to see where this would lead, opened her mouth to it.
She struggled to block out the Guardian’s protests as Krysta’s fingers twined themselves in her hair and evinced a wonderful, tingling sensation. Their tongues met, and Kivara followed Krysta’s lead, learning quickly with a hunger for experience that only the truly innocent could know. Krysta’s hands were on her chest now, fingernails scratching lightly, caressing, moving lower....
Sorak was jerked out of his slumber by a jolt from the Guardian. His first, disoriented perception was that they were all in danger, for he felt the Guardian’s tremendous agitation and alarm, and then suddenly he realized what was happening. Angrily, he yanked
Kivara back under and rose to the fore...
“No! No, not yet! It isn’t fair!” Kivara protested, but Sorak ignored her as he suddenly found his arms full of passionate, half-elf female, hungrily devouring his lips and lashing her tongue against his. He felt her left hand reaching down his leg, while the fingers of her right hand fumbled at his breeches...
“No,” he said, quietly but firmly, and pushed her away.