A pair of thrusts and he found his own pleasure after her, his utterances a drawn-out moan ending on a prayer to unnamed gods.
Afterward they lay entwined, legs and arms entangled, feverish skin cooling in the night air. Gharek’s breaths fanned over her hair, and Siora mapped the planes of his face with her fingers. He matched her affections by gliding his palm down the valley of her waist and over the swell of her hip, making a return journey several times over.
The quiet between them was peaceful, easy, comforting. Gharek finally ended it by saying, “I never imagined this when I retrieved my daughter and her protector from a street mob.” His voice was soft, contemplative, with a hint of disbelief as if he couldn’t quite fathom how the two of them had ended up in this place, in this moment, in this circumstance.
“Do you regret it?” Asking the question made her stomach clench. Waiting for the answer made it knot, but she refused to look away. No matter his answer, she’d never regret this, never regret holding the cat’s-paw in her arms and in her body. In her heart as well. Acknowledging the last, even if he’d never know, nearly took her breath away.
There was no future for her with Gharek beyond the task set for them by General Zaredis, but these moments were hers, to betreasured, held close, and fondly recalled once they parted ways and his memory of her grew cloudy with time and distance.
His hand paused on her hip. “No. I regret many things but not this. Never this.” He kissed her in a way that assured her he meant every word and stood by his statement. They made love a second time, an unhurried, more deliberate exploration of each other’s bodies but no less passionate. Once more Siora beseeched Gharek by name in her mind even as she pressed her mouth to his neck and gasped her pleasure at his touch.
He held her for the remainder of the night, her body tucked into the curve of his despite the wagon’s warmth and the bed’s narrow confines that made it even warmer. He breathed softly, steadily, the cadence of a lullaby to tease her ear; it should have lulled her to sleep but didn’t. Instead she lay awake, torturing herself with fanciful imaginings of an impossible life she’d never know—at least not with this man or in this Empire on the brink of collapse.
No regrets, she reminded herself.
She finally drifted off shortly before dawn, only to be awakened with what felt like moments later by ticklish kisses on her nape.
“Time to go, Siora,” Gharek whispered in her ear. “The world beyond this one commands our hours.”
She heard the disappointment in his voice, and it warmed her to know he felt as she did—reluctant to leave this ramshackle sanctuary where, for a few stolen moments, they could forget the grim and terrifying realities of ghost-eaters, hostage children, inevitable war, and the certain knowledge that Gharek’s reward for succeeding in his endeavors was a death made mercifully swift instead of brutally slow.
Neither lingered in their morning ablutions, though Gharekinterspersed his preparations to leave with quick pauses to kiss her or stroke her back as he passed to saddle Suti while she packed their meager gear. This time when they rode pillion, she relaxed against him, taking the reins while he caressed her through her clothes. They didn’t speak, and Siora savored the moments, the silence, and Gharek’s touch as the sun fully crested the horizon and bathed the landscape in a wash of yellow and orange.
They still had a fair distance to cover, but with Suti bearing two riders, Gharek warned they’d have to go slow so as not to exhaust the gelding. “I worry for Estred, but I’ll not get to her any faster if I kill this nag from running him into the ground and end up having to walk the rest of the way.”
He took advantage of the leisurely pace and her handle on the reins to retrieve the book the master librarian had given him and read aloud some of the spells written there. Siora didn’t worry he might invoke anything. He wasn’t a sorcerer. She changed her mind when he once more recited the necromancer’s spell to raise and trap the dead.
“Why are you reading that foul spell?” Gharek had a pleasant voice when he wasn’t snarling at someone, but the words themselves sent splinters of cold into her skin. “And out loud?”
She felt him shrug against her.
“I commit things better to memory if I say them aloud several times.”
“It wouldn’t matter. You aren’t a necromancer. It won’t work for you.”
Another shrug. “But if I lose the book, I can just write down the spell again and sell it to a newly minted necromancer wanting his own household staff of obedient spirits.”
Siora twisted in the saddle, trying to see his expression. Humor had laced his voice, though she found nothing amusing about the idea. He gazed at her, lips curved in a hint of a smile. “You wouldn’t,” she said.
One of his dark eyebrows arched. “Wouldn’t I?”
She frowned, unwilling to further challenge his question. He was the cat’s-paw. He’d done many things others considered questionable, even heinous. Things he considered just as heinous but necessary. What was one more? She gestured to the book with a lift of her chin. “Maybe you should recite some of the other spells in there. Things like the ward breakers so you can steal the Windcry.”
Gharek scoffed. “I’ll leave that up to Zaredis’s mage. He can contribute something other than swanning about in his robes, trying to look mysterious.”
Be that as it may, she had no interest in listening to him repeat the vile incantation over and over. It was already etched in her mind, playing like the lyrics to a grim dirge. “At least recite the spell in a quieter voice. Half the Empire can hear you right now.”
To her surprise, he acquiesced, closing the book before tucking it back into the satchel tied to the saddle. He contented himself with nuzzling her hair and kissing either side of her neck, a far more pleasant way to spend the time in her opinion.
Those too-brief moments of intimacy ended with the approach of a dozen riders appearing over the ridge of a gentle slope that hid from view what lay on the other side. Siora’s stomach plummeted and didn’t rise, even when she realized the approaching band were part of General Zaredis’s army. A scout must have seen her and Gharek riding across the plain and sent word back to the general.
“An escort,” Gharek said in the driest tones. “How nice.”
“I thought we still had a few hours left before we reached the camp,” she said, watching as the soldiers galloped toward them and praying they were truly just an escort sent by their commander and not some hotheaded bunch of idiots wanting to prove their mettle to each other.
Gharek sat rigid behind her now, no longer pressed to her back with relaxed affection. “I’ll wager the camp has moved closer to Domora.”
He was right. Once those sent to bring them back to the camp verified Gharek’s identity, they said nothing more, even when he questioned them about Estred. Siora stroked his thigh where it rested against hers in reassurance. His daughter was more valuable to Zaredis alive than dead, the one thing that guaranteed the cat’s-paw’s complete cooperation. The general wouldn’t jeopardize that while he relied on Gharek to help him gain the Windcry.