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

could take up the child. He stood in the doorway between common room and
bedchamber, eyes red from too little sleep and too much weeping. The only weapon
in the house was an old, rusty dagger of his father's, but he had found it.
Don't you know me? I was a fool to ask. In my new shape, lawless, a Change
made boldly by a blood-drop softly stolen from her corpseтАФOh, bitter!тАФhow
could he hope to know me?
He held a rushlight high in the hand that did not clasp the dagger. Who are you,
girl? he repeated. The blade lowered slowly. What are you doing here, at this hour,
with neither cloak nor dress to clothe your nakedness? And why do you hover near
my child?
I have come for his welfare, I said, creeping subtly nearer to the sleeping babe
once more. I laid my hand on the cradle's lovingly carved wooden canopy. I have
come to bring him blessing.
He did not cross himself. Not once since that night when he sought us in the wild
place did I ever see him make the pale god's sign. I know you, then. His voice shook
like a candleflame. You are one of the Old Folk, spirit. Say, by whatever honors
your word, if your blessing be blessing true. For he had heard the old tales, and
knew how the Old Folk delight in a double-deal, and for the precious sake of his
son's life he was afraid.
Dread not, I told him. I am not one of the Folk you fear. They were infant
shades when my people held this earth. We we the first begotten children of the old
sea whose salt still seasons every living creature's blood, the children of Change,
shapeshifters, the shapetide's masters. And O, my master, you do know me.
He stared. Well he might stare! For I was dark and sleek and beautiful and I wore
the shadows with more gallant grace than a princess in all her satins. Because the
blood I had stolen was cold, so cold, the Change was incompleteтАФa dusky down
clung like velvet to my body, and as I crouched by the cradle I could hear the
whisper of my tail flicking back and forth across the floorboards.
I could hear too how his tongue scraped over dry lips as he looked at me. He
threw the rushlight in among the banked embers and they flared. The dagger fell to
the floor at his feet and he folded to his knees beside me as if he would pray.
Wild prayer, sweet prayer, prayer to serve a power older and darker than the pale
god's teachings! Hands knotted in my hair, lips ardent at my throat, at the glowing
mounds of my breasts, a ferocious, half-starved suckling made me shudder to the
roots of my wombs. The flagstone floor pressed hard against my back until I could
bear the chill of it no more and threw him down in my place so that I might spring on
top of him as if he were my meatтАФa mock hunt, a feigned kill, a true feasting. White
claws still curved from my fingertips, and I used them to slash away his flimsy
muslin shirt. My mouth burned against his chest, the small and dainty bud of a nipple
teasing thrills of anticipated joy from my rough tongue. I let one fang graze over it
slowly, drawing out the moment, the full exaltation of our senses. He moaned in pain
that was no pain when my small, sharp, cunning teeth nipped his flesh the instant
before the fangs sank deep and the bright blood spilled into my mouth.
Coupled so, I needed no other coupling, but he did, and his need was my master.
He wrestled me to the floor again and burned his way inside me while the last
shimmering red drops fell in a sweet rain over my cheeks, my eyes. My whole body
shook with the force of his thrusts, my tail curled up to lace his legs, and my claws
raked him without breaking the skin, my little jest. Then he shuddered, gasped his
name for me, and fell away.
A bad fall that! An evil fall! For as he rolled from me, blind chance let his arm loll