"Esther M. Friesner - Puss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

my storeroom and give you the means to match or master me at Change. Will you?"
I pretended detachment. "Try."
"Wings," he announced, and ducked behind an ill-hung tapestry. He emerged still
man-form, but with the broad, black wings of a bat springing from between the
chains lashing his back. A smile showed the sweet, sharp teeth he'd borrowed to
complete the shape, white fangs between which a snake's tongue darted wickedly.
But oh, the greater magic of his eyes.
His eyes were blood afire, the lure of Change's ancient, eternal promise. I could
not see that and be still and still be what I am. I stood and came toward him, as a
bird must stumble near and nearer to the viper's yellow eye. His wings oared the air,
folded themselves around me. I felt their leathery skin embrace my nakedness,
wrapping me in lightless, inescapable captivity. And I did not desire the light; I
desired only the dark, and the blood, and him.
His forked tongue licked a painful line of yearning along the taut line of my jaw,
then traced a cool, teasing arabesque over my throat. The heat of his breath seared
away the dew his pretty tongue left behind, and the power of its hard, dry flame
offered up every part of me for the burning.
"Do you give it willingly?" he whispered. "Do you give it willingly, the blood?"
I could not speak. I could only nod my head and let it droop to one side like a
dying flower. I heard him chuckle, and felt the stab of fangs in my own flesh, the
short, strong suction, and the ecstacy that lifted me past any I had ever known; then
the release as he let me go. I heard my voice cry out, begging him not to leave me
yet, to come back, to take more, more, all that I had in fee for that unholy
consummation. My fingers clawed his wings, only to feel them melt away into smoke
and laughter.
"You see?" Through blurred eyes I looked up to see him back to his unaltered
man-form, mocking me. I lay crumpled at his feet, hands clinging to his boots, face
pressed against his thigh so hard that the chains branded my cheek.
I gathered my wits and let go my hold. Some quality of my former shape
remained to let me regain my feet with a feline grace and sureness I did not really
feel. I made an effort to brush the dust from my skin the way a cat uses washing to
ignore the world. "I admit I am impressed," I said, subduing my voice so it should
not quaver. "OnlyтАФ" I forced a yawn "тАФonly it is such a shame thatтАж"
"That what?" Suddenly he lost mastery of the joke.
"Oh, nothing. Silly. It was flawless, your last shape, I think; a sophisticated
exercise. I found it pleasant, playing your mortal victim's part. Did I do it well? You
can be proud enough of it withoutтАФ"
"What is a shame?" He roared well even out of lion's form.
"That so small a Change takes so much blood to manage," I answered. "There,
that's all."
He grabbed my wrist and dragged me under the tapestry. The stair concealed
there led, as I suspected, to the storeroom he had mentioned. The chamber had eight
sides and was windowless. I thought we must be in the turret that the princess could
see from her quarters, and wondered whether she was gazing this way even now,
before the royal coaches departed to bring my lord the Marquis of Carrabas home.
Beeswax candles tried to sweeten the air. A thick oak board set on trestles was
the only piece of furniture. The woman on the table was whiter than the shell of my
old master's wife. A serviceable kitchen knife with a blade curved like the dying
moon lay on her breast, below the slit in her throat. Whimperings and hoarse prayers
in many voices came from the curtained alcoves all around us. Behind one dusty