"Janet Morris - Silistra 3 - Wind from the Abyss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)He stared at me a time in silence through those molten, disquieting eyes. I
felt my palms slick under his indolent, possessive scrutiny. "Take that off," he ordered. "I would see how childbearing left you." I flushed/but I untied the s'kim and dropped it. "Turn," he said. Shaking with rage, I did so, kicking my abandoned garment from my path. When I came again to face him, I put my hands on my hips. "Well?" I demanded, shaking my hair over one breast. "Do not stand like that!" he snapped. My hands went to my sides. "Come here." "Khys!" I objected. My head exploded with pain. I sank to my knees, my hands clapped over my ears. But they could not keep out that roaring, Then another pain, and my head was twisted back by the hair. By it, he pulled me up against him. "How dare you withhold sustenance from my son?" he demanded. I thought my neck would snap. His other hand held my wrists against the small of my back. "How dare you come to me in such arrogance?" He shook my head savagely, his words hissing a fine spray upon my cheek. "You have disobeyed my expressed wishes. You will not do so again. When I am finished with you, you will not be so presumptuous." Lifting me into the air, he threw me against the wall above the couch. I struck it with my back and shoulder with such force that the breath was driven from my lungs. He stood, spread-legged, looming over me. I did not move. I lay very still, as I had fallen, that I might not further enrage him. My mouth was foul with fear. My mind cried and whimpered. I raised 12 Janet E. Morris 13 my face to him, pleading. His thick-lashed eyes, half-closed, were unreadable. "Khys, please," I begged him, hoarse. "I could do no different. It is a monster, a beast. Please, I tried. It drove me mad. It tried to kill me. Punish it, not me." His nostrils flared. He shook his head, his mouth twisted in disgust. "Sit on your heels," he commanded. I did so, my whole body sheened with sweat, my knees pressing into the couch silks. My arms clasped about me, I shivered in spasms. I hardly knew him, the dharen. Never before had he raised a hand to me. "You had not given me cause," he said. Still did he breathe heavily, still was his body taut with rage. I ran my hands through my hair, tearing it from my eyes, trying desperately to stop thinking. But I could not. I was hypnotized by him, poised menacing above me. I felt as I had with the hulionтАФ trapped, defenseless, vulnerable. "I am frightened," I whispered, my eyes downcast. "That shows you are not totally mad," he said. Hearing the amusement in his voice, I raised my head. I recalled his face as it had been when I had lain near death with his child in my belly, his concern, his compassion. I saw, now, no trace of such emotions. |
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