Elfhome

31: JEWEL TEAR ON STONE

Successful bookies did not gamble. They always set odds that benefited them and let other people take the risks. Tommy was no exception. Thus, he didn’t want to bet his life on the odds spread out before him. In the clearing below him were twelve oni warriors entrusted with dragging Jewel Tear through the wilderness to wherever Kajo’s new whelping pen lay. The warriors were the smart kind that needed face paint to make an impression on their more animalistic subordinates. They were so heavily armed it was a wonder that they could move; he had spotted everything from rocket launchers down to grenades hanging like unripe apples of pure evil. The sprawling encampment was miles behind them, but there could be patrols within earshot. Tommy had one pistol with a silencer, eight clips of ammo, his limited ability to cloud minds, and his eight-year-old cousin.

No, he didn’t like the odds.

He was starting to wish he’d brought Bingo instead of Spot.

As Tommy mulled over his problem, the oni started to fuss with their prisoner. He couldn’t tell what they were doing to her, but the female, who had silently taken their rough treatment, started to scream in terror. Spot cowered, pressing close to Tommy, and looked pleadingly up at him. Obviously the boy expected him to do something. Oh, hell. He really wished he’d brought Bingo.

“Stay.” Tommy checked his pistol. “If something happens to me, go home.”

He worked his way down to the clearing, trying to remain calm. The silencer made his pistol wildly inaccurate, but he had no hope of keeping his true position secret without it. He would need ice coolness to pull this off. His oni father could have clouded the mind of all the warriors, walked through the clearing unseen, and killed them at leisure. But he didn’t have his father’s ability to mask a moving object from multiple beings. And his father wouldn’t be moved by the whimpers of a child.

“This is so stupid,” Tommy whispered to himself. He reached out with his ability and grabbed hold of the oni’s minds. It was like trying to hold a dozen large marbles in his hands, shifting around, nearly spilling out of control. Just trees. He fed the image into their thoughts, erasing himself from the landscape. Nothing else.

Jewel Tear’s hands were bundled up with leather to keep her from casting spells. While Tommy had shifted positions, the oni stripped off the covering and now were tying Jewel Tear’s arms straight out, hands splayed, so they could amputate her fingers. A domana without fingers could do no magic, and she would be forever harmless. Apparently Kajo hadn’t trusted the lesser bloods that infiltrated Ginger Wine’s enclave to carefully maim the elf without killing her. Considering the carnage that the oni left behind, it’d been wise of Kajo. This new set of guards, though, could do the job right.

Fighting to stay focused, Tommy stood still and aimed at the oni holding the elf. He missed the first shot, making the oni flinch aside as the bullet whined past his ear. The second bullet caught the warrior behind the ear, and he went down. The other oni holding Jewel Tear had been focused on the elf and had missed any sign of the first shot. He looked over at his fallen leader with surprise and took the third bullet in the throat.

The oni started to react to Tommy’s attack, but they couldn’t tell where he was. Jewel Tear scrambled to her feet and bolted into the woods. Tommy locked down on a curse, which would have given away his position. He didn’t need her finding more trouble. He had enough here in the clearing. At least she served as a distraction. The oni were reacting as if they thought she must be running to their attacker. Three charged after her. He managed to kill two, but the third vanished into the trees.

“There’s just one.” The leader identified himself. He’d taken cover on the wrong side of a tree, shielding himself against attackers in the direction that Jewel Tear had run.

Tommy crouched down as they scanned the wrong direction, and took careful aim.

“I don’t see any—” The second-in-command glanced to the leader as Tommy’s bullet sprayed blood and brains against the tree trunk. “Behind us!”

Tommy froze in place, trying to not even breathe, as the warriors whipped around, leveling guns in his direction. None were pointed directly at him.

Empty clearing. He held on as tight as he could to their minds. Six was easier than twelve, but they were still slick and unwieldy in his hold. Nothing to see.

“Where is he?” the nearest growled to the second-in-command.

They were clumped too close together. There were six tight around him, and he only had four bullets left. They’d cut him to ribbons before he could change his clip.

Carefully, he fed them the image of someone darting through the trees, running from them.

“There!” one bayed and leapt after the phantom image. A second and third were quick on his heels.

“Idiots!” the second-in-command shouted. “There’s no—”

Tommy shot him. The first bullet hit the male in the left shoulder. The oni roared with pain, lifting up his machine gun and firing blindly. The others aimed in Tommy’s general direction and fired.

Dust, lots of billowing dust, something staggering to the right as bullets slammed into it.

Tommy gritted his teeth, staying still as the bullets tore up the ground beside him, spraying him with dirt and bits of stones. He emptied his clip into the second-in-command, dropping him. After that, he could only wait until the other two warriors reached the end of their clips, hoping they didn’t hit him.

As he hoped, they both emptied their guns at the same time. For one moment, they lost their focus as they changed their clips. He ejected the clip from his pistol, slammed a fresh clip home, and gave them a new image.

Dust billows, revealing and hiding a body laying on the ground. Elf long hair, wyvern armor, sekasha tattoos.

After the thunder of guns, the silence rang loud in his ears.

Slowly the warriors moved closer to look at the phantom body.

“Can they do that?” the one asked. “Be invisible?”

The other was shaking his head like a wet dog. “Isn’t right. Isn’t right,” the male growled.

“Can they or can’t they?” the first asked.

The second worked his nose, sniffing. “Not the right scent,” the male growled. “I smell that damn cat.”

Shit. How good was the warrior’s nose? Would he be able to track Tommy?

The three that had charged into the woods, though, were returning. He reached for their minds and made them see two elves standing over the fallen oni. Their response was satisfyingly violent. In a matter of minutes, only one warrior was left alive.

And one warrior he could completely blindside easily.

From the woods came Spot’s cry of anger. Tommy’s heart leapt in his chest, followed hard by rage. He had told the boy to stay put! He dashed toward the sound, rejecting the spent clip and inserting a new one.

The lone oni warrior had caught the elf female by her long dark hair, but as he had struggled to subdue her, Spot had jumped the oni from behind. Tommy couldn’t shoot in fear of hitting his cousin. The oni reached over his shoulder and grabbed the boy. Spot bit down hard on the oni’s hand. Roaring with pain and anger, the oni flung the boy down onto the ground, stomped down on Spot, and pulled his gutting knife. Pinned, the boy was at least out of the line of fire. Tommy took aim and shot.

The oni went down, and both Spot and Jewel went for the knife. The elf was closer and snatched it up awkwardly with her tied hands.

“Don’t hurt him!” Tommy roared in Elvish, leveling the gun at her. “Hurt him and I’ll gut you myself!”

Jewel backed away from the boy, bound arms bent at the elbow to hold the knife ready to strike. Luckily her hands were still tied too tightly to let her cast magic.

Spot scrambled up and dashed to Tommy, wrapping his arms around him and burying his head into Tommy’s side. The boy was shaking hard.

“Are you okay?” Tommy asked him in Mandarin. The boy only whimpered. “Damn it, are you hurt or not?”

Spot shook his head. Tommy sighed out relief and patted the boy on the back. Reassured, he focused back on Jewel Tear. The greater blood oni bred for brute force, not caring that the lesser bloods looked like monsters. In the case of the oni warriors, it might even be a benefit. The elves went for looks; there was no such thing as an ugly elf. Jewel Tear was radiant even when muddy, bruised, and battered. Her rich sable-colored hair fell to her knees. Her eyes were a stunning amber brown with thick long lashes and dark elegant eyebrows. Her skin was a warm caramel color. The oni had torn rends into her green silk gown, and, through the tears, Tommy could see tantalizing glimpses of her body.

That she was bound and yet armed and ready to fight only made her more erotic to him. They eyed each other over the oni gutting blade.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He indicated with his pistol that she should drop the knife. “But I will if I have to.”

“You will have to kill me. I will not submit.”

He reach out with his ability and projected an image of him standing before her, gun leveled, thinking out the problem. Keeping that firm in her mind, he holstered his gun, stepped forward, jerked the knife out of her hand, and shoved her to the ground. She landed with a cry of dismay. He stepped back out of her range and let go of her mind.

“What — what did you do?” she cried as she struggled to free her fingers.

“I told you, I don’t want to hurt you.” Tommy handed the gutting knife to Spot. It had been a mistake not arming the boy so he could defend himself. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to rescue you.”

Her eyes narrowed in study of them. She in took in Tommy’s catlike ears and Spot’s doglike features. “You’re Wolf Who Rule’s half-oni?”

“We don’t belong to the viceroy.”

“But you’re saving me? For him?”

“True Flame thinks I had something to do with your kidnapping.”

She grasped it instantly. “Because the oni used the kitsune’s illusions? And you have that mind trick of yours.”

“Yes.” Tommy hauled her to her feet. “Come on. I’m taking you back to Pittsburgh.”

She gave a laugh that ended with a sob. “Back? Back to what? The ruined shambles of my life?”

Tommy laughed and put a hand to her slender neck. “I could kill you and end all your suffering.”

She gasped in surprise and gazed at him with doe-eyed amazement.

“Well?” He ran his thumb down her windpipe, feeling her pulse flutter like a moth under his palm. God, he found holding the life of a little, naïve female in the palm of his hand such a turn-on. It made him want to tear off what remained of her clothes and take her, but he controlled the urge. That was his father’s way — to force himself on unwilling females.

Her eyes flicked to Spot, reminding Tommy that the boy watched. “Your son?”

“My mother’s sister’s son, but he’s my responsibility. I’m head of our household.”

She looked back to Tommy and studied him.

“What do you want?” He knew what he wanted.

“I want to live.” Amazingly, the pupils of her eyes dilated in anticipation, and she leaned toward him, seeking his mouth with hers.

It was all the invitation he needed.

It was a crazy-making fuck. She was on him like a sack of mud: clinging, demanding, and impossible to scrape off. His body responded too fast, leaving his brain struggling to catch up.

After Tommy collapsed on her, panting, Spot nudged him. His cousin looked north, his ears twitching. Tommy had forgotten about the possibility of other oni. The rest of the oni force couldn’t be close, or Spot would be more anxious. Still, it would be best to get moving.

Tommy leaned back onto his knees. Jewel Tear lay in the green moss, her sable hair a dark halo around her. Her silk dress was in tatters, showing alluring flashes of her tawny skin through the shredded fabric.

She gazed up at him with a lazy, satiated look. She lifted her leg and ran her foot up his bare thigh and hooked it around his hip and tugged slightly on him. “Untie me.”

He took out his knife and cut her free, careful not to cut her fingers as he sliced away the bindings. She sat up, feline graceful.

“What’s your name?” she said.

“Tommy.”

She echoed it, running her hand up to play with the hair at the back of his neck. “What does it mean?”

“It’s a human name. It doesn’t mean anything.” He fought the urge to nuzzle the full breasts that nearly spilled out of her tattered dress. Forget not having time for it. Now that he’d taken the edge off his desire, his basic mistrust of people was kicking in. Why was this highborn elf acting like a cat in heat?

Danger had a way of doing that to some people. Was she one? Or was it more than that?

“We need to get going.” He forced himself to stand up, breaking her hold on him, and pulled on his clothes. “I killed twelve warriors. Were there more?”

That rattled her, as if she, too, had forgotten the oni in the heat of the moment. She scrambled to her feet and brought her freed left hand to her mouth. Tommy flinched as she cast a spell. The last domana he’d seen casting spells had been Windwolf as the male set oni on fire like giant candles.

Nothing seemed to happen, but Jewel’s eyes went wide.

“What is it?” Tommy was fairly sure he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“We need to move.” She stripped a food pack off one of the dead oni and then headed straight east in a fast walk.

He grabbed a second pack and followed even though he could hear nothing. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Away from the oni.” Jewel Tear dug through the bag and found an apple that she ate hungrily. “Big camp back there.” She waved the apple toward the camp that Spot had searched for her. “And another there, there, and there.” The apple traveled in a circle. “And the whelping pens that they were taking me to.”

She shuddered and flung the apple away with a curse.

He was surprised that she knew where the oni were taking her. “You speak oni?”

“Forest Moss has insisted on teaching it to me. Hours of tramping all over that damn city with him using it as an excuse to say vile, disgusting things to me.”

“Oni doesn’t have nice words.”

“I’m of that opinion now.” She walked faster. “Since, in the last two days, there were only a smattering of words that I didn’t understand.”

Her guards must have realized that she understood them and used that to terrorize her. They probably delighted in explaining what would happen to her at the whelping pens.

Tommy realized that Spot was trotting to keep up with them. The boy wouldn’t be able to keep that pace. He caught Jewel Tear’s arm. She screamed, dropped the food bag and whipped her hand toward her mouth. He caught her wrist before she could cast a spell.

“We’ll wear ourselves out at this speed,” he growled.

“There’s a platoon behind us! They’ll find their dead, and they’ll come after us at a run.”

Tommy swore but kept hold of her, keeping her helpless. “Can you fight like Wolf Who Rules? Prince True Flame? Set things on fire?”

“I can fight.” She tugged carefully, testing his hold, trying to free herself. He was careful not to hurt her. They both knew a broken arm would make her helpless. Her wriggling ended with her pressed against him, head tilted so she could glare up at him, lips nearly brushing his. “I can’t set things on fire. That’s Fire Clan esva.”

He breathed in her rich scent and resisted the urge to kiss her. “They’ll scout and see that there’s only the three of us. They probably won’t send for reinforcements. Let’s lure them farther away from the rest and deal with them. Most of the oni haven’t fought a domana — and lived. They don’t know how dangerous you are.”

She gave a wicked laugh that promised hurt in the oni’s future.

He cautiously released her and backed away.

She rubbed her wrist where he had held her helpless. “Don’t ever grab my arms again.”

The earlier sex had only whetted Tommy’s taste for Jewel Tear. When he was sixteen, he and his cousins had stolen a canister of nitric oxide and spent a blur of days falling into sweet oblivion. Afterward, he felt he could easily kill to gain another canister, and the feeling had made him both scared and angry. Frightened because he already had one master: the oni. He didn’t need one that he willingly served. Angry because he had given himself the weakness.

Now he was feeling the same lingering want, tainted again with fear and anger. He’d never wanted a female like this before — but then he’d never had a female this fine. He avoided humans. Even if the woman was drunk and he had her pinned facedown in the bed — the fear of discovery always ruined his pleasure. That cold niggling feeling reached down in him and awoke long-buried memories of his own rape. It kept him from the very lush University of Pittsburgh students with their painted-on leggings and tight shirts. The half-oni girls were safe but never as fine. Not that it really was their fault: they didn’t get enough to eat and sometimes had literal dogs for fathers.

No, his experiences weren’t with females this beautiful, rounded, soft, and wonderfully scented. Even her mouth tasted of some sweetness he couldn’t name. In the quick hard fuck, there hadn’t been time to wallow in it all. The oni army was breathing down his neck, and yet he was wondering what it be like to bare her chest and suckle to his heart’s content.

It scared him that he couldn’t keep his mind off her. On Elfhome, more than a dozen nasty plants liked to lure in prey and then pin them helpless to be eaten alive. The plants were all sweet-smelling, beautiful things. Did this elf female have him already pinned? Had she used some kind of magic to ensnare him so tightly? Having time to think about it, he couldn’t come up with any sane reason she would spread her legs so willingly for him otherwise.

But if she didn’t use magic, then his weakness was all his fault.

Spot couldn’t keep up. They were moving too fast. They needed to keep ahead of the platoon until they could find a place to trap the oni. They needed a gorge or cliff to take out the entire platoon at once. If even one escaped, they would have the entire oni force chasing them.

It was becoming apparent that Tommy had to either carry his cousin or leave him behind. Tommy couldn’t afford to wear himself out; not with the rest of the family depending on him getting the damn elf bitch back to Pittsburgh. They were a hundred miles deep in a forest filled with oni, wargs, and man-eating plants. It would be kinder to kill the boy than to leave him — but Tommy couldn’t bring himself to do it. He put it off even as the boy fell farther and farther behind. As Tommy hit the top of a tall ridge, he realized Spot was totally out of sight. Sighing, he stopped on the pretense of studying the lay of the land.

As if their situation wasn’t bad enough, the valley beyond was broad and glittered with standing water half hidden behind dying trees. He growled at the sight, shaking his head.

“What is it?” Jewel’s breasts glistened with sweat and strained her dress with every deep panting breath.

Tommy turned away from the distraction her chest presented. “We’re boxed in. Black willows prefer marshes.” He spotted one of the massive trees stalking through the wetland and pointed it out to her. “My illusions don’t work on creatures like them.”

He glanced back the way they had come. From their perch on the ridge, he could now see the oni following them. A full platoon of thirty warriors was cresting the last hill and pouring down it at a fast trot.

Spot scrambled up the final bit to the top of the ridge, gasping for breath between whimpers of distress.

“It’s okay,” Tommy said despite the sick feeling roiling in his stomach. He couldn’t delay his decision any longer. He couldn’t keep both Jewel Tear and Spot safe, and for the sake of the rest of the family, the female had to be the one he saved. He scratched Spot behind each floppy ear. One quick twist and he could break the boy’s neck cleanly.

Spot looked up at him, trusting him completely.

Jewel put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “I can use the marsh to kill the oni.”

Could he trust her? For Spot’s sake, did he really have a choice?

“Let’s go then.” He hefted Spot onto his back.

It went against everything Tommy had ever felt or believed to trust Jewel Tear, but still he followed her into the swamp. She cast spell after spell as they pushed through the underbrush. He could hear the calls of the oni as they hit the top of the ridge and spotted them.

“They’ve seen us,” he warned.

She gestured, and he felt the change of air pressure as her shield encircled them. “Good! Let them chase us!”

He laughed at the savage tone of her voice. The ground underfoot was firm despite looking water-soaked. Somehow she was building them a path and, most likely, destroying it behind them. A bullet hit a tree in front of them and ricocheted with a whine. Jewel ignored it, shouldering her way through the underbrush to keep her hands free to cast spells.

He felt the ground shake and heard the crashing of something huge moving in front of them. “It’s a black willow.”

“I know.” Jewel turned toward the tree.

“What are you doing?” He paused only to be shoved from behind by her shield. He suspected if he didn’t keep moving she might be able to drag him along behind her with it.

“I’m going to use the tree against them.” Jewel Tear crashed through a stand of tall cattails, and suddenly they were face-to-face with a black willow. It was a huge, ancient thing, nearly two hundred feet tall, with a massive trunk completely blocking their way. One of the root-feet tore itself up out of the soil, stretched out and slammed its way back into the soft earth. The ground shook and the tree lurched closer. The whip-like branches snaked out and snared a rabbit darting through the cattails a dozen yards to their right. With a rustle like wind through leaves, more branches reached down and wrapped around the animal, cocooning it in green wicker even as it lifted the squirming, helpless animal upward. A muffled scream came from inside the wriggling ball. Blood was dripping from between the tightly woven branches even as it stuffed the rabbit into a huge maw where the trunk forked.

Spot yipped in fear and Tommy bit down on a curse.

“Come on.” Jewel stepped calmly over one of the splayed feet of the willow.

“Crazy elf bitch,” Tommy growled lowly. He had no choice but to follow.

“They hunt by vibration of the ground,” Jewel said. “I’m masking our footsteps. It’s blind to us.”

She led them several hundred feet deeper into the marsh. “Hold very still.” She cast another spell, a second, and then a third. “This way.”

From behind them there was suddenly screaming and rapid gunfire. They plunged through chokeberries, pussy willows, and nettles. There was an unnatural bridge of land through a pond filled with fairy lilies gleaming in the gathering dusk, and they stopped within sight of another towering black willow.

“Shh, don’t move,” Jewel whispered.

Tommy hadn’t planned on it, not even if someone set fire to his feet.

There was the deep cough of a flamethrower, and dusk lit up with the sudden flare. He glanced back to see the distant tree lift up the oni with the flamethrower. It cocooned the warrior even as its massive crown caught fire. The crushing branches ruptured the weapon’s fuel tank, and the entire bundle became a bright sun. The black willow seemed unable to unwrap its branches from the oni and waved the flaming ball even as it tried to back quickly away from its own limbs.

“That tree is toast,” Tommy whispered.

“I’m sending in this one,” Jewel whispered and cast a spell.

The black willow in front of them shifted as if she had prodded it hard. The world shook as it stomped toward them, and then, with branches trailing over Jewel’s shield, it walked past them. Spot whimpered, burying his face into Tommy’s hair.

“Hush,” Tommy breathed. “You’re not hurt. Be brave.”

Jewel stood still, casting spell after spell, watching the black willow as it forged its way toward the burning tree.

“How did you do that?” Tommy asked.

“They like soft earth, but they instinctively move away from land that’s too unstable. They can’t right themselves if they topple over.”

“You can’t let any of the oni out of this swamp alive.”

“Don’t worry. They’re all mine now.”

An hour later, they reached the far side of the marsh. Jewel Tear had set a total of four black willows onto the oni. By the second one, the oni were no longer giving chase but trying only to escape the marsh alive. Jewel Tear continually cast spells to keep the platoon trapped in the thick mud while herding the black willows into their midst. The gunshots and screaming decreased slowly until the swamp went silent. All that marked the oni was the burning tree and three well-fed black willows.

“You got them all?” Tommy wanted to be sure.

“Trust me.” Jewel Tear had no idea how impossible that was. “I got them all.”

The food bags held very little in terms of fruit and bread. Tommy didn’t want to trust the smoked meat that the oni had been carrying; it could be anything from pork to human. He built a small fire and then went out to set snares for rabbits.

By the time he returned to their hidden camp, Jewel Tear had worked her female magic on Spot. The boy was asleep, sprawled halfway across Jewel Tear’s lap as she picked nettles out of Spot’s dark fur.

“His fur is so soft,” Jewel murmured as she ran her hand over the boy’s head. She found another little black seed caught in his fur and plucked it out.

“It’s soft because he’s young.” Tommy lit his last cigarette, dragged the smoke deep into his lungs, and wished he had a whiskey to chase it. It had been a shit day. “It will shed out to coarser fur when he gets older.”

“I’ve never seen a child before.”

Tommy thought she meant “oni child” and started to bristle. Why did the elves insist that they were always “oni” and not “human?” They were equally half of each.

Jewel Tear, though, took no notice of his soft growl. “He’s so small. I don’t remember being so little, but I suppose I was.”

It was then he realized she meant “child” in general, but that didn’t seem possible. Elves weren’t adult until they were over a hundred years old. “You’ve never seen a child before?”

“They’re like mythical things. Oh, I’ve met a few older doubles at Summer Court, but you can’t really count them. They’re all but adults by that time. They’re not tiny like this.”

The elves’ terror of the oni’s proliferation suddenly made a great deal more sense. Tommy couldn’t put a number to the infants he’d fed, diapered, held as they died from beatings their own fathers gave them, and quietly disposed of. He was only twenty-four. To live to be more than a hundred and never have seen a child?

“Can he talk?” Jewel petted the sleeping boy like he was a puppy. “Or isn’t he old enough yet? When do children start to talk? My mother was horrified that all I did for months after I was born was laugh and cry — she thought there was something wrong with me.”

“Yes, he can talk. He’s just shy. He’s never met anyone outside our family.”

“Because of how he looks.”

“Yes.”

Jewel took Spot’s very small and human hand in hers and studied it closely. “His mother was human? Your mother’s sister?”

“Yes.”

Carefully she shifted the boy off her lap and gave his furry head one last pet. “What of his father?”

He took another drag on his cigarette and breathed out the truth. “I killed him.”

He’d never told anyone. He might have been Lord Tomtom’s bastard son, but the warriors his father had brought from Onihida were all considered royalty compared to the half-bloods born in Pittsburgh. His father would have executed Tommy if he’d found out. It had always been too dangerous to tell anyone. Tommy wasn’t even sure why he told her.

She nodded, neither shocked nor dismayed.

Tommy found himself explaining. “The oni used my mother and aunts as whores. It was safest just to suffer. But Spot’s father was more animal than most oni. He hurt my aunt badly. I had to do something.”

She watched Spot sleeping for a minute before murmuring, “It was good of you to hate the father but love the child.”

He laughed at the use of the word “love.” He cared for his family and valued them, but only the weak used words like “love” and “cherish.”

Any intelligent reply he had in his head vanished when she plucked at her dress bodice to cool herself. It left him with just hard want. For a moment or two, she didn’t notice his focus. Then she realized where his gaze was riveted. She stilled. And then, hooking her fingers into her bodice, she slid it down, freeing her right breast.

His hand cupped it before he even realized he had moved. It was perfection of a breast, filling his palm without overflowing, softer than silk, the nipple red and beautiful as a flower. He caressed it lightly with the pad of his thumb, and her gasp made it feel like a cord had been threaded down through his body, wrapped tight around the base of his dick, and yanked tight.

He managed to stop himself inches from kissing her. She had her head tilted up, lips parted, ready for him. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

She blushed and tried to look away.

“Answer me!”

Anger flared in her eyes. “I’m fertile. I know what they did to the kitsune. They promised me the same when they got me to the whelping pens.”

“So you’re using me to get yourself pregnant?”

“It’s not as if you haven’t enjoyed the process,” she snarled. “And yes, if I can fill my womb with your child, there won’t be room for them to get some monster on me, no matter what they mate me with.”

Her eyes blazed at him, full of fury and determination. He had the sudden image of her knocking him down and straddling him to get what she wanted. The thought took him to his knees. She tangled her fingers tightly in his hair and pulled him to her breast. It tasted as perfect as it looked. It was even better as he watched her anger melt to pure wanton pleasure.

He had heard once that the original lords of the elves had bred the domana to be the perfect whores. He could readily believe it as he stripped her bare. Everything from the unbelievable softness of her skin to how she contracted around him as he nibbled on her ears — it was as if she’d been created to bring pleasure. He would never again have a female so perfect in every way. He wallowed in her perfection.

Yes, he was going to enjoy filling her womb. He’d worry about the consequences later.