"Morris, Janet - Silistra 03 - Wind from the Abyss UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

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 hulionЧ 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.
He stripped off his breech. I saw very still, watching the play of muscles across his back.
"Once," he said softly, straightening up, "you asked me to teach you your femaleness. I thought you too weak, then. I did what needed done, and nothing more. Doubtless your failure to function as a woman lies partly upon me, I am going to attempt to remedy the situation before it kills you."
But when he came toward me, I could not do it.
I could not sit and let him vent his anger upon me. I fled, as far as he allowed. When he chose, I found myself imprisoned within my own body, and it, of its own accord, returning to him. He stood calmly by the couch and took my flesh from my control. I could not speak. I found myself at his feet, my head pressed to the mat.
He let me try those bonds, for a while, let me dance upon the brink of madness. When he took his will from my limbs, I did not move.
He flipped me casually onto my back, crouching down, menacing. His large head came close to mine.
"Lie still, and do as you are told. Only that, no more." And I did so, until I forgot, in my need, his instruction. The taste of blood in my mouth, the flat of his hand against my searching lips, reminded me. I laid my head back against his thigh as my body leaped to him, pleading, I heard my voice repeating things he had bade me say, without understanding. And later, when his teeth and tongue were upon me, did I beg for his use. And I did for him what I had not known a man would ask of a woman, whimpering. And he, raised on stiff arms above me, laughed. As he thrust into me, I sobbed his name, my love for him, my need. And then his weight came down and I could but cling to him as he rocked me. When I thought my bones would shatter, he grunted, shivered, and lay still.
He stayed with me, holding his weight upon one arm, stroking my hair back from my forehead.
"I needed you so much when I had the child within," I whispered.
"I know," he said. "I have a world to run." His , eyes narrowed. I felt him, I thought, in my mind. : "Do you know how lonely it is for me, locked *p?"
"I can do nothing else with you." He rolled away,
14
Janet E. Morris
onto his side. "But I will be here. My works are progressing nicely. I need not be elsewhere.
"I want you to understand something," he continued, taking me into his arms. "I have what I wanted from you." His voice was gentle. His hands wandered my hips. "I must see a radical change in your behavior to justify the trouble of you. Carth tells me it is doubtful that you would survive another pregnancy."
"I do not take your meaning," I said numbly. "There are more than two thousand forereaders at the Lake of Horns, many extremely attractive, all skilled and cooperative. I cannot, for reasons I will not explain, put you in common holding." I roiled away from him. "Did the child please you?" I asked. "Yes."
"But I do not." My voice shook. I had been breeding stock to him. I was no ^longer useful as such.
"No," he said. "You do not." "I did the best I could," I flared. "I am ignorant of couch skills."
He laughed, touching my lips with his finger. "It was a start," he admitted. "If you live, you might learn to serve a man properly. You misunderstand me, or I give you more understanding of life here than you have." He sat up, and pulled me by the hair into his lap.
"I had not intended to breed you again. If I do decide to do so, you may not survive it. I am not in need of a contentious, undisciplined female. Either you will become otherwise, or I will have to breed you to justify your existence."
"Have to?" I asked. My terror of pregnancy and that of death balanced even.
"You are coming up for assessment. I must follow my own rules, if I expect others to obey them." I shivered, buried my head in his lap. I thought
WIND FROM THE ABYSS
15
of what I had read; I could not help it. I waited for the pain of his displeasure. It did not come. His hand went around my throat, lifted my head. He bent and pressed his lips to mine. I felt him move against my thigh. My hand sought him, and he allowed it. He bent his bite to my nipples, erect and waiting.
Something, within me, turned and rustled in that couching, and halfway through it, when I choked and gagged on him, it woke itself to my aid. I shifted position, arched my neck slightly, and my discomfort disappeared. Easily, sure, I worked upon him, my lips against the very root of him, my nose in his golden hairs. And he shuddered and his hands came upon the back of my neck, and I let him slide forward, that I might get the taste of him. As he pulsed in my mouth, I ran my tongue, fast, hard, up and down the underside of him. And the dharen moaned and twisted, his hands convulsive upon me.
When he cursed, softly, laughing, I sat up to see him. My strangeness still upon me, I noted his fine-chiseled lips, swollen with his heat. Then I bent again, licking, nipping, and took from him that last aftertaste.
By criteria I had not known before, I read his body's response, my cheek against his hard belly, that I might feel his excitement, judge it by the wane.
"Tell me again, dharen, what you might do to ane, if I cannot sufficiently please you." And I heard my voice, deeper and more upon breath, and it seemed to me that it was a stranger's voice, with an accent I could not place.
He grunted, sat slowly. He cuffed me lightly, pushed my head from his lap, crossing his legs under him. I regarded him, discerningly, and found him not wanting. ' "Insolent saiisa," he growled, grinning.
16
Janet E. Morris
And I knew the word's meaning, though it is man-slang, and Carth never spoke crudely. The word means coin girl, of the cheapest variety and questionable skill.
"I wish I were even that, rather than living my life in that chamber," I said, the mood gone, and with it that odd confidence and comfort.
"You may have the both of them, yours and mine, for a while." His eyes probed mine. "Is that one of those things a woman instinctively knows?" he asked, and I knew what he meant, but I had no answer. I smoothed the rumpled couch silks.
"Perhaps I read it," I said. I wanted to crawl into his lap, curl into a ball, and sleep. More than I had wanted the child out of me, even, I wanted his approval. I recalled those nights, alone, I had cried myself to sleep over him, He stared at me, his head slightly cocked. I remembered my humiliation, that he would not even deign to use me, that he cared not even enough to check on the growth of his child in my belly.
I laid my hand upon his forearm, upon the copper, silky hairs there. His skin, a reddish gold, was shades lighter than mine, and the glow upon it was more pronounced.
"Khys," I whispered, "keep me with you, please. I will be whatever you want. Just give me time." I did not look at him. Tears I had, thought long spent came and drowned me. "I love you," I blurted, miserable, not understanding.