“Yes.”
Fir Brush vented a frustrated sound and shook her head. “If this gets out, they’ll hurt you, Brother!”
“I was chosen!”
She closed her eyes, expression pained. “Maybe I don’t want you chosen. Maybe I want you here, alive, hunting and working for us. I still plan to be married, to have children, and continue our line. When I do, I’m going to need you. You’re all I have left, Ripple.”
“If anyone will marry you,” Slipped Bark whispered. She levered another nut meat free of its shell and dropped it into the bowl.
“She’ll be married,” Ripple said stiffly.
“Will I?” Fir Brush straightened, tossing her head back so her hair bobbed. “Do you think anyone is going to have much to do with me if the Red Shirts come here some night, pull you out, and crack your skull open?”
Before he could speak, she added, “Assuming they don’t drag Slipped Bark and me out as your accomplices and murder us, too!”
He closed his eyes and sighed in defeat. “It’s not going to work that way.”
Fir Brush gave him a piercing look. “Brother, if we’d been with Mother and Uncle that night, instead of sleeping at Cousin’s, do you think we’d still be alive?”
He shook his head. The Blessed Sun’s wrath was terrible. His warriors didn’t just kill the miscreant, but as many members of the man’s family as could be found. That, or the truly unlucky ones were hauled off into slavery as punishment for their transgressions.
“I’ll bet you don’t even remember how you got your name,” Slipped Bark added.
Oh, he remembered all right. Fir Brush surely saw that reflected in the set of his mouth. She only nodded, as if to say the subject was closed.
Except it wasn’t. He needed but close his eyes—and there she was, her pupils like midnight, staring right through to the meeting of his souls. He could see her milky cape swirling around her shoulders as it floated with her long hair. His heart beat with the cadence of her Dancing feet, the turquoise-studded moccasins flashing. Her crimson tongue flicked and twisted like an irritated buffalo’s tail while sharp teeth gleamed in her dangerous mouth.
Her words whistled between his souls like a lonely winter wind: “ … If you endure.”
“She chose me,” he said stubbornly.
“Gods!” Fir Brush cried in despair. “Don’t do this to me!”
Eight
Wrapped Wrist had known the woman called Blue Gentian for most of his life. That she was ten summers older than he had never mattered. Nor did it matter that she was married to a Whisper Clan man named Willow Pole. He was a minor Trader, traveling twice a moon down the river to either Flowing Waters Town or Northern Town where he exchanged vegetable dyes, squirrel hides, high-mountain plants, wooden racks, or other goods for luxury items from farther away.
As a result, Gentian often found herself alone for days at a time. Which was good news for Wrapped Wrist, because Gentian liked him—especially when her husband was away.
From Wrapped Wrist’s perspective, Gentian was perfect. She cared for her husband well enough, would never leave him in fact, but she also liked coupling. She had made quite a study of it and had a great many things to teach a sturdy young man like him.
Despite the fact that Gentian had borne three children, her body remained firm. Her thick black hair swayed and shone in the light when she walked. She was an attractive woman, but some men thought her breasts too large. Narrow of waist, broad of hip, she had long slender legs that, at the moment, were clamped tightly around Wrapped Wrist’s buttocks.
“Shhh! Don’t move,” she whispered as she clasped her arms around his shoulders. “Bless me, yes.” She tilted her head back. Faint starlight illuminated the point of her chin, the angle of her cheekbones. Her eyes were like dark pools, the curl of her hair across the buffalohide a swirl of jet.
His body stiffened as she tightened her sheath around his hard penis and began to roll her hips. She lifted, straining. He pressed against the hard arch of her pubis, rotating his hips ever so slightly, and heard her explosive gasp.
She undulated against him, strangling her cries of ecstasy as waves of delight rolled through her. The tingle that had been building at the root of his penis exploded. She matched her movements to his, her sheath milking each pulse of his release.
When it was over they were both panting, gasping cool air into their overheated bodies. He heard mosquitoes whining and ignored them.
“You’re going to wear me out,” she finally said.
He placed his lips against her ear. “Give me a couple of breaths and we’ll do it again.”