"Daley,.Brian.-.Coramonde.1.-.Doomfarers.Of.Coramonde" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daley Brian)

groaned as realistically as he could.

"Coming, my love," Duskwind called from the next room. "You
drank overmuch, perhaps? I'll ease your sufferings; we'll see what
steam and massage can do to help it".

So saying, she opened the door and walked into the bedroom. She
must have been preparing to bathe when the guardsmen had
knocked, he reflected in the brief moment in which she stood with
her back to him, puzzled by his absence. She was naked, her
honey-streaked hair unbound and the big knuckle-shield rings
missing from her slim hands.

He pounced on her from behind, snatching her wrists from her
sides and drawing them together at the small

Of Deaths, Of Departure 15

of her back. She gasped in surprise but couldn't turn around, as he
confined her hands with two deft loops of a headband.

"Springbuck, is that you? Stop it! This is no time for drunken
games, you idiot!" There was a strange, sharp note in her voice
that he'd never heard there before. She squirmed and struggled in
his grip and he couldn't have answered her if he'd wanted,
because he held the remaining two headbands in clenched teeth.

Tightening the second loop, he whirled her around, tripped her and
lowered her to the thick carpet on her stomach, straddling her.

Alarmed now, she shrilled, "You mustn't do this! Listen to meЧ" \

He'd used the second headband as a gag. The third he fastened
around her vigorously kicking legs, fettering her at the ankles.
Lifting her as carefully as he could manage under the
circumstances, he carried the wildly protesting Duskwind to the
bed. Even then he found himself marveling at the warmth of her
smooth, brown-gold skin and the fragrance of her, as he threw her
across the covers. As a precaution to her thrashing efforts to free
herself, he added extra bindings and, out of modesty, pulled the
covers over her, leaving only her' head and graceful feet exposed.

He bent to peer into her gray eyes. "I'm sorry," he told his lover,
"but I'm leaving and I've decided that there's no place for a
highborn and gentle Lady on the journey I mean to make." At this
her eyes went wide and she began to shake her head violently,
attempting to speak through the gag.

He nodded sadly. "Yes, I must go and I cannot take you, though
life will be desolate without you." This last was rather an