The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

“You’re not the one who lives here,” said Zelen. “Much obliged to you for stepping in, Altien. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You were thinking with guilt, exhaustion, and the aforementioned shock,” Altien replied more gently, “and you’re both too close to the matter to see clearly. Just try to remember that while I’m gone, I beg you.”

“I suppose,” said Zelen, “that now I shouldn’t say that I can go to the temple myself and save you the errand.”

“And yet you have said it. I’ll choose to ignore it and trust that neither of you will have set yourselves on fire until I return,” said Altien. “Remember that I would mourn deeply if you managed to harm yourself, please.”

“Oh,” said Zelen. Unable to find anything to say, he sat still, got a pat on the shoulder from a furred hand, and let Altien depart.

* * *

“He’s very fond of you,” said Branwyn, relaxing back onto the bed.

She wasn’t sure how the waterman regarded her, though she thought they’d reached a tentative understanding over the last two days, but she was glad he’d intervened. Neither she nor Zelen needed to be running into a fight then.

“I know,” he said, “I just…didn’t know, if that doesn’t sound too idiotic.”

“No.” Branwyn put an arm around his shoulders again. “Some ties are assumed when you work closely enough with another person. Neither of you feel the need to speak of it until you realize the other might not always be there.”

Zelen’s eyes were on a level with hers, and light had begun to come back into them. “The situation’s one you know, hmm?”

“It’s happened a few times. Teachers, comrades-in-arms.” Branwyn hesitated.

Hell, girl, there’s a war on, said Yathana.

“And you,” she finished.

She caught a flash of joy on Zelen’s face, not banishing the shock but lightening it until it was only a shadow, and her own heart lifted in response. Then he wrapped his arms around her and brought his lips to hers, seeking urgently what she gladly gave.

Just as Branwyn leaned in, her mouth opening at the touch of Zelen’s tongue, he pulled back, panting. “You can tell me to stop. I won’t take it amiss… You still have a place here if I’ve misinterpreted—”

“No,” said Branwyn and took him by the shoulders, guiding him back toward her. “You have it exactly right.”

And now I’ll take my leave for a bit.

* * *

Desire was an avalanche this time, abrupt and completely overwhelming.

What intellect Zelen had left recognized the response in part—the body’s way of celebrating survival and releasing tension—but that wasn’t all of it with Branwyn. Kissing her, slipping his hands under her borrowed shirt to fondle her breasts, hearing her breath quicken, he could completely let go. There were occasions for wit and seduction, but this wasn’t one, and it didn’t need to be.

She was as eager as he was, and as ready to be lost in the moment. When Zelen brushed his fingers over her stiff nipples, Branwyn made a sound between a gasp and a growl low in her throat. Her own hands moved quickly, deftly busy with his belt buckle, then the buttons of his trousers. At the pressure of her fingers on his erection, Zelen gasped, thrusting up into her touch, and when she freed his cock, closing her palm around the rigid heat of it, he groaned her name, desperate and broken.

“Yes,” she said, breathless, and started to swing a leg over his lap.

“No.” Zelen was amazed that he’d said it—that he caught her hips and actually postponed their union. He was aching, lust pulsing through every vein, but stronger than that were duty and caring. “Your leg,” he explained.

“Damn my leg.”

“Branwyn,” he managed again, despite her hand stroking up his shaft, then over the head, in a way that made him choke on the second syllable. “Let me…” He nudged at her shoulders, not quite pushing, only offering suggestion and guidance. “This way. If—”

“Ah. Yes.”

Branwyn stretched herself backwards to the bed and pulled Zelen down with her. Her soft breasts nudged up against him, even through the layers of their clothing, her neck curved beneath his mouth, and his erection slid against the junction of her thighs, rubbing against smooth skin and silky hair.

Zelen was sure he spoke then, but what he said didn’t pass anywhere near his brain. It might not have been words. When he slid a hand between them and found her wet and ready, he was sure words didn’t enter into his reaction at all.

Branwyn wrapped her legs around his hips as Zelen guided himself in, and the first thrust made his vision go white around the edges. The heat of her was overwhelming—the hunger—and beyond all else unexpected, the feeling again of solid ground, of sense in a world that made none. He raised his head and looked down, rearing above her.

In all his life, surrounded by art and making an amateur effort at some himself, he’d seen nothing as lovely as Branwyn was at that instant. Her gold hair made a corona around her flushed face and her eyes were wide, showing more black than blue.

Her gaze went straight through Zelen. Every inch of his body flared into almost-unbearable sensation. At the same time he had the feeling that he could let go, that a fall with Branwyn would only be a dive, or even flight.

That was when she started moving, rocking her hips up and back with short, quick motions that spoke of desperate need. Her thighs were tight around Zelen’s, and he could feel her nails digging into his back even through his shirt and doublet. If he hadn’t been clothed, he’d have borne her marks for days. The notion of that aroused him even more.

Against all those things, he couldn’t have controlled himself on his best day, and this was far from that. There was no question of holding back. He was surging to meet her immediately, burying himself in