Her heart seemed to shrivel in her chest.

She could not obey him for she could not move. Her body felt like a limpet against the shore, clinging and desperate. How long had he known she was there? Watching him. Watching them. Her bones felt soft from shame.

When he turned his head she saw for the first time that his eyes were warm, not cold, and it gave her the courage she needed to peel herself away from the rock. He watched her keenly as she moved out of the shadow of the inner cavern and through the water toward him.

'It seems Orrin was correct — you are a spy?' He said. There was a hint of playfulness about his tone. He was enjoying her discomfort.

Fara shook her head. 'I... I was not spying.' He raised an eyebrow and she blushed harder. 'That is to say, it was not my intent to spy.'

'Tell me, princess, did you glean anything of import that you might use against me?'

'Nothing that I did not already know.'

His gaze narrowed. 'Which is?'

She longed to know how he might react to the mention of it, how much his eyes might reveal. Curiosity compelled her on.

'That Vala is very much in love with you,' she said quietly.

He stiffened, a flash of irritation sparking in his eyes. 'Then it is fortunate that she will be cured of the affliction soon enough...'

Vala's resentment. Her distrust. She understood it then. Theodan could not feel the same as she, and Vala knew it.

Of course, you and your beloved prince could not possibly conceive of an existence where you cannot have what and whom your heart desires.

'Say the words burning on your tongue,' He demanded, taking her by surprise.

So many words burned on her tongue. Why do I no longer yearn for your end as I once did? Why does my body know when you are close to it? Why does my blood look for you in each heartbeat?

'You do not return her feelings.' Were the words she chose, her voice tempered, and careful.

'Is that a question?'

'Yes.'

'Then you now believe me to be capable of such a thing?' His eyes glittered. A small smile pulling at the corners of his elegant mouth.

'I believe you capable of almost anything, Leoth.'

He looked at her a long time. The cool blue light shining upward from beneath made it look as though he were made from the moon itself. His high cheekbones kissed with a flush from the heat of the water, his thick dark hair sleek and wet. When his gaze lowered to her lips, his mouth parted slightly and she felt heat rush to her own cheeks, a strange pull of remembrance whispering through her body.

'No,' he said finally. 'Her feelings are not matched by my own.'

'Why not? She is beautiful. Brave. Honourable.' The words were out before she could stop them. She did not know why she thought he would not already know these things, or whether she thought to present them to him here and now would alter his feelings in some way.

Did she want them to?

He looked at her like one might look at a child. 'Do we ask why the lariat tree blooms in the harshest of places? Do we question why the moon dies each night to give way to the sun? We do not. For the answers to such things are of no consequence. They simply are.' He took a deep breath and refocussed his dark gaze on her.  'Now I would ask you something, Fara of Calate and Azura.'

She swallowed, her breath caught in her throat like a fly in a web. 'Very well.'

'You could have seen me condemned this night - condemned by my own kind no less - a vengeance most can only dream of. Instead, you spoke for me. Why?' His eyes shone like onyx held to flame. She longed to give him an answer which made her sound resolute and considered. As though all had been part of some great fixed plan of hers in which he was no more than a minor point. But this was not true.

She had spent the journey back to Teredia considering the very same question. Why had she spoken for him? Aided him. Why had she felt that it was the only thing she could do when faced with the alternative? The reasons she had arrived upon in the chamber were not so clear to her now. The harder she considered them the more they alluded her, meandering like mist on the surface of the water.

'I do not know,' she admitted finally, casting her eyes downward.  'Perhaps I no longer have a taste for vengeance.'

This she knew was untrue, for as she breathed she would ever pray for Zybar's reckoning. Desire for retribution still burned brightly through her body whenever she thought of King Torrik and his cursed line when she called to mind Galyn's other death. But why did she no longer desire the same for Theodan? It was still by his hand that Galyn lay dead.

'Those who are gone from us are gone still...' she muttered, vague.

His next words were so quiet she wondered if he even intended her to hear them. 'I would have spared you his last moments. Had I known who stood before me... I would have spared you it.'

She tensed. He had never spoken to her of Galyn with anything but disdain. He had not once shown remorse for his actions nor any guilt over them. It was not an apology for what he had done, nor did he intend it as such, but it was the first inclination that he would do things differently if he were required to do them again.

'You would have killed him still.'  This was not a question.

He did not flinch from her stare. He nodded once. 'Yes,' he said.

She did not know what to do with his words and so she simply held them there. Tight in her fist

'There is little use in talking of what could have been done, what might have been done,' she said. 'All that remains is what will be done.'

His gaze intensified. 'Then you have my word once more that I will see you safely home to Calate. This I promise you.'

The irony of it. It was almost beautiful. For she knew then that she would likely be far safer here with him on Leoth than she would ever be with Valdr in Calate.

'Azura was my home, Theodan.' she said.

Nothing remained there for her now, but it was the sweet scent of the sea that she longed for. That called to memory the feeling of safety and freedom she had enjoyed for the briefest time. The warm air scented with the sweetness of her flowers and the richness of her spice. The smooth hot stone of the balcony where she could watch the sunrise lift above the sea. A stolen contentment. All the sweeter for it perhaps.

'Then I am sorry for it...' he said. His voice was a lament. Softer than she had ever heard it, the Leothine accent more heightened with the emotion it held.

The heat of the water rose as steam around them. The scented warmth from his body close and loud suddenly. Her body began to thrum quietly, a soft chanting, a strange language she did not entirely understand. As she stared up at him, her mind languid and soft, she considered how he might look sated and drunk with pleasure. Of how his skin might look licked with the sheen of passion. Of how his eyes might look with the glow of joy or happiness.

'How sweetly your blood sings for him...' He said in a tone which was both soft and hard. Filled with both longing and regret. Slowly, he reached out his hand, brushing his fingers lightly over her temple. A feathery touch which sent ripples coursing through her.  She closed her eyes and leaned ever so slightly into his touch. 'If I could wipe his image from your mind I would...' she heard him say.

She opened her eyes, shrinking back from him. 'I do not want you to wipe his image from my mind.' He could do such a thing?

He blinked, returning to himself. 'I meant only the pain, his death.'

The pain is all I have left,' She said, coldly.

He understood. 'Very well. I will not speak of it again.'

It matters not whether you speak of it for I see it every time I look at you.'

Then perhaps you should not look at me?' He suggested, his patience thinning before her eyes.

'I had not known it was an option,' she fired. 'For am I not still collared and bound to you as a pet is to its master?'

'And yet is it not by your word I stand before you? When I could have this night been sent from these shores in exile? It is about time you accepted some measure of responsibility for your own circumstance, female.' He gave her a withering look.

His words hit her with stinging accuracy. An arrow, true and well loosed.

'All that I have done, I have done for my own survival. Something you would not understand.'

'Tell me, if you are so well trained in survival, why since I set eyes on you have you been so intent on inciting my wrath?' He asked, his head cocked like a bird. 'Why have you fought against me at every turn? Why tell me your true name at all? You could not have known what I would do with it, could not have known with any certainty that I would not turn you over to my council or the Zybar.'

It was true. She had not known what he would do with it. Did not know why she had trusted him with her name. It was foolish. Such implicit trust in any other was foolish.

'Could it be that your delicate female heart had begun to soften toward me, princess?' he smirked. His did not have in it the cruel twist that Valdr's had. It had instead an allure, a coaxing quality to it. It almost served to heighten his strange and foreign beauty.

'Never,' she hissed. 

'And yet, I recall well how hot your blood turned when I kissed you.. how sweetly it sang for me then...' He licked his tongue provocatively across his full mouth.  A stab of heat pierced her low skin.

She laughed but it held nothing within it. Empty and glass-like. Surely he would see straight through it. 'You think that I could ever desire you, leoth? What you are? The things you have done? I could never desire one such as you.' The words felt hot and ill-fitting as they burned upon her tongue.

Slowly, his face darkened. As though a great leviathan crawled across the floor of the cave and blocked out the light from below. His face did turn cruel then. Dark and cruel.

'I think I far preferred the meekness of Cassine of Achiea,' he said. 'If only it were her who stood before me now. I am certain I would find her far less reluctant to my charms.  What say you? You knew her better than most.'

She moved to strike him, but he caught her hand with a single easy motion.

'I let you strike me once, Fara - I will not allow it again,' his voice was dark with warning.

'You will never use my sister's name in such a way again. You will swear it.'

'You are still in no position to make demands upon me,' he growled. His desire was pressed hard against her thigh and it pulsed wildly. The space between her legs pulsed too, her heart overworked and beating far beyond its own limit. 'You still wear my name upon your neck and so would do well to remember that my commands hold far more weight than yours do.' He smiled then. A devil carved from the most flawless marble. Eyes of stars. Mouth of sin.

With her blood wild and bold, she took a step closer to him. 'Perhaps. Though it has ever seemed to me, that the male's inability to control even their most primal desire has ensured they're never quite as free from our command as they would like to believe.' She lowered her gaze to where his arousal pressed hard and ready against her. With a hiss, he pulled her tight against his body. She felt his size then, hot and terrifyingly large against her. Naive and deceitful, her body preened with eagerness.

'You are the most infuriating female I have ever known!' He growled.

'Then perhaps you will think more carefully when someone next offers you a trade? I wager Nysa of Therolis would be serving you well this night had you chosen her. For if it is some mindless whore you seek then she was the greatest in all of Azura!'

With an impatient snarl, he pulled her with a single hand out of the water and threw her over his shoulder.

'What are you doing?!' she yelped. 'Put me down! Release me this instant!'

She thought she heard him laugh but it was drowned out by the sound of the blood as it was forced to her head. He seemed to leap out of the water in one single movement and started for the stairwell which led up out of the cave.

'Release me, Leoth!  I demand it!'

'Your demands mean nothing here, princess, I should have thought that obvious by now.'

'Theodan put me down! Release me, now!' she demanded again, only louder.

'I suggest you keep silent unless you would like to wake the entire household. Although at present there is but Mor - who sleeps so sound and deep you would think her dead - and Kalle who tonight sleeps in the forest with the Timberwolves. So on second thoughts, shriek all you like.' He took the steps perhaps three at a time, great purposeful leaps of his large Leothine limbs as if she weighed nothing at all.

'You are a monster,' She hissed quietly.

This time she did hear him laugh.

'Yes, Fara, I am. Whose depravity knows no bounds - as you are about to discover.' A curl of treacherous need clenched at her thighs and stomach, a sinful betrayal of her own body against her.

'You would not dare! I am a Princess of Calate and Azura - you would not dare touch me!'

'Oh, you have little idea of what I would dare to do, Princess of Calate and Azura.'

As they entered his chamber, the hot seed of desire which had settled in her turned quickly to one of cold panic. He would really take her against her will? Oh, do not fool yourself that you even know what your will is, my love. You have never known your own desires. All I do is show them to you... He carried her across the chamber and threw her upon his bed, wet limbs landing in a clumsy heap atop the soft mattress.

'You told me you had never forced a female - you would really force me now?' She asked, breathless with panic even as something else swam inside her, something she could not name, would not name even in the confines of her own mind.

'I would rather have you willingly, Fara, but I will have you.' His eyes were shards of purest white, the dark shadows that often lived in them pushed far back. His skin shone from below, as though he held moonlight within. His body smooth and hairless like polished marble.

As they stared at each other like enemies across a battlefield, she wondered what would happen if she surrendered herself to him. She considered it, then. Pressed the image of his enormous body entering hers into her mind to see if it would revolt against her. It did not. Rather it bloomed and primed, a flower opening to welcome the sun. The Iariat tree as it welcomed the cold and the wind.  Would Azura herself come forth and strike her down? Would Galyn's spirit spring from the under realm to see her punished and branded wanton and disloyal? Would her soul be forever refused entry to the Great Hall of Tallis?

She thought not, but in truth, she did not know.

She realised suddenly that it would be easier if he forced her. It was always easier when this choice was taken from her. When her weak will and weaker body left her no choice. And yet, the thought of it defeated her. For at a point, her mind had settled upon the idea that Theodan had more honour in him than this. This thing reserved for cruel and heartless men. This way - the way of lesser men - was not his way.

'Please....' she managed. A whispered plea. 'Not like this...' Not like him.

He froze. Eyes of pure starlight still fixed on her. His body grew so still that she wondered if he had disappeared inside a vision, his mind catapulted to some other place and time.  Then he blinked, and without any warning, he turned and stalked away from her to the other side of the chamber.

Turning her head, she watched as he selected a thin-bladed black dagger from its holder on the wall and came towards her. The blade glinted like the still surface of a dark lake, the handle carved from a deep fiery gold. So stunned was she by its beauty that she did not immediately react, even when he moved his body onto the bed and knelt above her. When he lowered the blade toward her she froze, her blood turning from fire to ice in an instant.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, he turned the blade and held it out to her.

When she blinked at him, confused, he reached for her hand and thrust the cool metal into it, closing her fingers tight around its hilt. With a hand around her wrist and the other clutching her fist, he pulled so that the point of his blade pushed hard against his chest. She saw his body tremble slightly but his hand was still and sure, his eyes too as they centred on her.

'You think me a monster, Fara? he asked. 'Then draw my blood and stop my heart for I know now that I will not be killed by any other.' He leaned toward her so that she felt and saw the blade cut very lightly into his unblemished flesh. Bright red beaded from pale white. Not black and virulent as she had once believed. The Leothine bled exactly as all others bled. 'You will not get another chance, I promise you. If you wish to be rid of me then do it now.' He squeezed her hand tight before he let go, dropping his arms by his sides in submission. Just as he had done before her in the throne room.

Her mind was empty and so she had to call forth the word from the shadows.

Avenge.

It sounded foreign to her now. A stranger. Invited but not welcome. 

Avenge.

Had he not taken everything from her. Her home. Her love. Her freedom. Why was she unable to do as he bid? Unable to end the powerful terror that was his Warrior's heart. Unwilling to watch him bleed as Galyn had bled.

She knew why. It was the same reason she could not see him condemned before his court. The same reason she sent a silent prayer to The Dark One himself as he lay on the chamber floor:

Weakness.

Weakness of mind. Of heart. Of will. She was now just as she had ever been.

Tears in her eyes, her breathing wild and loud, she lowered the blade from him.

He blinked, disbelieving at first before his eyes bled with what looked like disappointment. He moved off the bed and she turned her eyes to stare out across the ash sea, which pushed and heaved against the horizon. She heard him move across the chamber, open a chest, close it again. When she looked at him again she saw he had dressed in a pair of loose white leg-coverings, and stood now by the fireplace staring sullenly into the flames.  He drank absently from a silver cup, his strong shoulders pulled tense, his fingers gripping and releasing the stone of the fireplace. 

Fara sat up and pulled about her the sheet from her bed, covering her shoulders with it.  Not because she was cold, for both the room and her body burned hotly still, but because her nakedness seemed loud to her now.

'Get out,' came his command a moment later. He did not look at her as he spoke and she could not understand why it hurt her that he did not. Suddenly she longed for it not to be this way between them, not again, this cold stretched out landscape which she did not know how to cross.

She rose quietly from the bed and moved toward the door, but stopped, some invisible force halting her where she stood. He had not moved, not turned to watch that she had obeyed his command, but stood still like rock and stared into the licking orange mouth of the fire.

With soft tentative steps, she walked towards him, taking a seat in one of the high-backed chairs which faced the fire. He did not speak for many moments but she knew he was aware of her sitting there.

'Clearly, you were not whipped as a child,' he said finally. She stiffened, the burn of Valdr's horsewhip slicing across her back. He turned to her, a curtain of thick dark hair hung over his face curled slightly with damp. 'You do not have an obedient bone in your body.'

'You have only now realised this? I thought the Leothine were the quickest beings in the four realms?'

He smiled a little then, the shadows lifting ever so slightly from his eyes before he moved to take the seat across from her.

'I am not myself around you, Fara of Calate, that much is certain.' His voice was leaden with something like guilt or distaste, she could not decide. The fire snapped and sparked in the silence. She watched him drink deeply of his wine, his throat powerful and thick as he swallowed, and her own pulsed with sudden thirst. Her heartbeat had begun to slow and calm but her blood still thundered wildly through her veins. 

'Have you seen it, in a vision?' She asked.

He looked at her. 'Seen what?'

'You and I. Lying together.' She was surprised at how calm her voice sounded. His eyes glowed like hot silver, before dimming again.

'No.'

She nodded, feeling very much as though she had just leapt from a great height and landed safely, unhurt.

'And what of your God's message? Have you seen when or how the four realms will come to be united once more?' It must be many moons from now. She could see no way such a thing would come to pass in this lifetime. War seemed an endless mighty thing to her. Azura would fall. Then Calate. Then what? Unless...

'It does not work as such,' he said.

'How does it work?'

'Like a memory that is not your own. Like a dream not fully remembered - without sequence or form.' He looked at her. 'I have not seen us together, but I have seen you.'

Her heart tripped in her chest. 'What.. have you seen?' Did he know of her sins, black as tar and heavy as steel? Her shame. Her thievery. You cannot hide from it forever, sister, just as you cannot hide from me. Shame and fear spread through her like wildfire.

'Things which have yet to pass. Things which may not,' he said with a shrug, gazing again into the flames. Relief swam in her, like warm milk.

'Do they hurt?'

'Much like looking into the sun hurts the eye.'

'But in the council chamber... you were...' she searched for a word. She saw again his luminous skin turned grey, radiant eyes like the flesh of a dead fish, a half-death which smothered him. 'That is what each vision does to you?'

His gaze turned to her, suspicious. 'You ask too many questions.'

'I do not mean.. to. I only want to understand,' she said.  'I have never known one with such a gift.'

'And I have told you before, it is no such thing,' he said, cold. He turned to look back into the fire. 'Tis a curse I would be done with if I could. It serves no purpose but to weaken and drive mad.'

He thought of his mother, of course. Driven mad by the sight of things she no longer wanted to see.

The heat had begun to circle her, oppressive and gauzy. The silence stretched on and on until it became an unwelcome unwanted guest.

'The war against Calate. You do not wish to fight it?' Her voice was careful and mild. 'In the chamber, you did not sound certain it was the right path.'

'On the morrow, my men return home from a futile and bloody war. I have no desire to lead them directly into another.' He shook his head as he drank his wine. She noticed for the first time that he looked tired.

'And I have no desire to see my people slaughtered, again.'

'Common ground...' he said quietly into his cup.

She took a deep breath and summoned every ounce of courage and strength that she had and fixed it upon him. She was prepared for whatever outcome. 'Then perhaps we might help each other.'

He turned to her slowly, his eyes dangerous. 'Help each other?'

'Yes.'

'And what is it you think I need help with, princess?' His voice was warm now. He licked his tongue over his lower lip, slow and suggestive. Heat rushed to her cheeks. Spread between her thighs. Curled around her stomach.

'Must you always be so uncouth?'

'You could not possibly have expected manners? Of me, a beast of leoth?' He smirked.

She lowered her head to him, a conspirator. 'I am proposing a deal, Theodan.'

His mouth was soft and his eyes vibrant with curiosity and wine. It looked pleasing on him.  'Very well - you have my attention, Fara.'

'I will help you by stopping my brother's armies advancing on Leoth, and you will do something for me in return.'

'I do not fear your brother's armies. They are no match for Leoth: our shores are all but impossible to breach and our soldiers far outmatch any on Ethis - in both strength and skill,' as you well know, said his eyes. 'You would be doing your brother and your people the service - not I.'

'Calate's armies are not like Azura's. They have warships the size of small villages and they fight as though they are unafraid of death. They are greater in number and skill than Azura's forces, and they will be prepared where hers were not. My brother would not wage a war he did not think he had at least a chance of winning.' Valdr was a great many things, but he was no fool.

Theodan watched her carefully, his sharp, quick mind no doubt weighing up the truth of her facts and what tactics he might deploy against them.

'You assume he fights only to avenge your death, of course. What if you return home and he still decides to bring a war to Leoth? For your honour, for your husband's death, for the right to rule Azura in your name.'

Would Valdr seek to expand Calate's borders and rule Azura? Perhaps. Would she help him do it if it meant Zybar were crushed? Certainly.

'My brother was not in favour of my marriage,' she said evenly. 'I assure you he would fight no war to avenge Galyn's death.'

'Your marriage it seems was favoured by no one except the bride and groom. The celebration feast must have been a truly joyous affair...' He said dryly.

'Are you interested in this arrangement or not, Leoth?' she said.

Theodan sighed. 'I return you home to Calate - as I have already sworn to do - and you persuade your brother to put down his weapons. I see no reason not to take the terms.' He gave a half shrug.

She shook her head, frowning. 'Those are not the terms. I would have you do something for me in return.'

His eyes widened, then he laughed. 'I am already doing something for you. I am defying my council and my realm to return you to your home. I am risking exile for you. That is not enough?'

She took a moment to consider her response, her eyes fixed on his. 'You destroyed my home, Theodan,' she said. 'You executed my husband and burned our city to the ground. You surrendered my mother in marriage to a pack of rabid dogs knowing what fate awaited her there. Then you destroyed our temples and enslaved our women, while their men perished and their children watched. Releasing me is not a gift. It is not something I should have to earn from you or show gratitude for. It should be done for honour. For penance.'

He stared at her a long time, wordless, his face somewhere between surprise and awe. Somewhere between guilt and esteem. He drained his cup and stood, moving to refill it.

'Then what is it you would have me do? What are your terms, princess?'

She felt her nerve falter but she held firm. 'I would have you kill the Zybar king. And his male line.'

He turned to her slowly, a small smile hovering at the outer edges of his full mouth.

'Killing one of the blood is against Ethis himself,' he said.

'You killed a crown prince did you not?'

'In battle, yes. Outside of battle, it is a godless sin, Unforgiven in the under realm. You would really see my soul perish for such?' His face suggested that he thought she would very much like to see such a thing.

'Fine. You need not strike the death blow - I will do it. Eagerly,' she said. 'The Gods cannot punish me as harshly as they would you, for I too am of the blood. I only have need of you to get me close enough to him so I can ensure his end.'

'Your taste for vengeance has returned with vigour, I see..'

'Zybar must pay for what they have done. Zybar will pay for what they have done.'

He moved to sit again, his eyes not leaving hers as he did. 'T'was I who killed him, Fara. I know you have not forgotten.' 

Opening her mouth to speak, she floundered, so she closed it again until she found the words she needed.

'Zybar sought to end Azura's line - and would have committed every godless sin required in order to see it done, this is known,' she said. 'Help me do this. I know you despise them as I do.' He did not deny it, his stare boring deep into her as though in pursuit of something.

'Taking the life of another is no easy thing - you were not made for it.'

'You have little idea of how I was made, Theodan.'

A flicker of surprise sparked in his eyes, and when he spoke again his voice was controlled.

'And if I agreed to do this thing, what exactly is it that you offer me? I have told you, I do not fear your brother's army. Zybar's throne you could not convince me to take - the suffocation of kingship does not interest me in the least.' He sipped again at his wine. His mood was no longer playful, but weary and slightly removed.

'Then I have but one thing to offer you,' she said. 'And if you still desire it, then it is yours this night. Willingly.' She hoped he understood her meaning, that he would not make her utter it, but she thought that he might. If only to revel again in her discomfort.

He understood. For his eyes burned brightly for a brief moment.

'Only a moment ago the idea of it disgusted you. You would offer yourself to me now with all the boldness of a practised courtesan?'

'Only a moment ago you sought to force from me that which you promised you would not. That which you swore you would take only if it were given to you willingly.' she said.

A sliver of guilt crossed his face.

'And so now it is truly given?' He neither looked nor sounded convinced.

'If you agree to my terms - yes.' She could do this. Give this small part of herself to him, this part which had long been used and broken, to gain something far greater in return.  Had she not thought to do such a thing once? Seduce him. Avenge those who had been taken from her.

'If you think to swindle me, to find me too noble to collect on such an arrangement, or too honourable to lie with you under such conditions, then princess, I warn you - you will not. For I am neither.'

Compelling, she thought. That he did not see himself as others did, even those who would consider themselves his enemy. For she had seen honour in him. Nobility too.

She stood, letting the sheet drop from her body. 'It is fortunate then that you have forewarned me of the depths of your depravity,' she said. 'I know what you are, Theodan of Teredia. As I know what you are not. Do you accept the terms?'

His eyes accepted first. Then his body: his claws forcing outward from his fingers, his mouth parting to show her sharp white teeth which grew ever slowly downward. Last came a slow heavy stirring between his legs.  A glimmer of fear blared brightly inside her but then flickered out, replaced only by a sharp flutter of need between her thighs and a hard determination forming in her chest. His eyes trained keenly on hers, he set his cup down and rose slowly from his chair.

At full height, he was as formidable as he had always been, frightening and beautiful to behold.  But the way he looked at her now gifted her a power that she had never known, and so she was unafraid.

Enthralled, his eyes half-lidded and glowing with desire, he moved toward her. If she did not know better she would think him under some enchantment just as Galyn had been. When he reached out to touch her she began to tremble, a great powerful surge which rocked up from the tips of her toes to the very peak of her scalp.  A peeling away of every doubt and thought she had ever had. Very gently, he brushed his fingers up across the curve of her breast, up again to her throat, where he skimmed a sharp claw gently across the hollow of her throat. Still, she did not fear it. Or him. Still, she felt nothing but a dormant power come awake and a thirst unlike any she had ever known before it.

He lowered his mouth to hers but did not kiss her. Instead, he brushed his lips lightly across hers, in a soft dance of breath that was sweet from Leoth wine. She closed her eyes and his lips met hers in a hot clash of flesh. She reached out, clutching hard muscle as sensation threatened to overwhelm her.  Warm white settled across her body and filled her mind as their tongues entwined.  She felt herself lifted off the ground, her body as weightless as it had been the first time he'd kissed her, but then she realised it was only that he had lifted her into his arms and carried her now across the chamber. With some difficulty, she pulled her lips from his.

'Do you accept?' She asked, her voice drowned out by the sound of her blood singing a chorus in her ears. 'You must accept the terms first..' He opened his eyes and her breath faltered. A shining moon nestled in a soft velvet sky shone back at her.  He lay her gently upon the bed and moved above her.

'Yes, princess,' he said as he brought his lips to hers once more. 'I accept your terms.'