“But I still have to undergo this cleansing?”
He nodded. “It would be most unpleasant if you didn’t.”
“It was most unpleasant the last time I was here.”
For a long time, he said nothing, just stared into the fire.
“I heard that you are already married.”
His smile might have been a ghost. “Yes, to two women in Snapping Turtle Clan. Pine Drop and Night Rain.”
“So, I am a third wife?”
He steepled his fingers, brow lining. “This will be difficult. Among my people, a man goes to live with his wife, in her territory.”
“Among mine, too. So, what is my territory? This little heap of mud in the middle of a lake?”
“For the next six days it is.” He seemed oblivious to her anger. “After that I will build you a house in Owl Clan territory. I know just the spot. You will appreciate it, my brother’s bones were burned there.”
Owl Clan territory? Good, things were beginning to look up. It would place her in the middle of the enemy, in a position where one day she could drive the terrible dagger of revenge into their hearts.
“I will work the rest out with my other wives.” He mused, seeing it all in his souls. “Which will be interesting in its own right.”
“They will not resent me? Try to make me miserable for taking you away from them for part of the time?”
Amusement, like faint and distant lightning, flickered in his face. “I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Like you, they were not particularly pleased to marry me—especially after my mother’s souls began to loosen. I imagine that the nights I spend with you will relieve them. Perhaps, after you come to discover your situation, you may be just as grateful for them.”
She took a deep breath against the tightening she felt in her chest. Tonight she should be bedding her enemy, taking the first step on the long passage to final revenge on Owl Clan. Instead, she was here, removed from Sun Town by their silly fears of spiritual infection, talking to this unusual boy. The top of his head only came to her chin. Unlike Mist Finger or the others of her suitors, he was mostly thin bones. Hardly the ideal of the young warrior-hunter that had filled her fantasies.
Wait until he’s asleep, steal a canoe, and head south.
“And do what?” she asked aloud, eyes fixed on the fire. He seemed not to hear as she imagined her uncle’s face, saw the expression of disappointment in his eyes. It had been bad enough during the months that she healed in the Panther’s Bones, living amidst Mist Finger’s, Right Talon’s, Cooter’s, Spider Fire’s, and Slit Nose’s families. What made her think that after this second failure, it would be any easier?
Armed with the stony beating of her heart, she stood. He was watching her as she stepped around the fire and reached her hand out to him. When he took it, a curious tingle ran through her. His eyes seemed to grow as she pulled him to his feet. For a long moment she looked down into his fascinating eyes, seeing the growing desire.
She held his hand as she walked to the small shelter, ducked inside, and loosened the knots that held her kirtle. The fabric slipped smoothly over her hips to settle beside the moss-covered bed.
He had frozen, mouth parted, his eyes fixed on her body where the fire cast its feeble light. The vein in his neck was pulsing, his chest rising and falling. When she untied the knot that held his breechcloth, it fell away to reveal him, taut and ready.
Her own heartbeat had begun to pound, a warm sensation spinning itself inside her hips. She lay back on the bedding, watching him with a building anticipation. The faint firelight played across his thin body as he lowered himself, his skin sliding warmly across hers.
Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around him and felt the life burning brightly within him. Her breasts tightened as his chest met hers. She was leading him to her, thrilled as his penis slid inside her.
She was thinking about how she was going to kill him when the liquid waves of ecstasy burst through her pelvis. She gasped, taken completely by surprise. Nothing in the naive experimentation of youth had prepared her for the likes of this.
Moments later, he, too, shivered and tensed, a strained sound choking in his throat. Then his arms cupped her shoulders and he buried his face in her hair.
Atop the thick thatch of the Women’s House, the rain sounded like a continuous whisper rather than a drumming. The runoff beat a staccato as it spattered into pools of water that in turn dribbled off to the sides of the Mother Mound. The building was large, filled with baskets and pots that contained the ceremonial items provided by each clan for its women. Each moon, when a woman’s cycle came full, she came here, to attend to herself through the menstrual period.