Temptress Unbound Read Free Page A

where my father, Brenn, waited along with apprentice blacksmiths and several men to handle the sails, and where Maerlin had set up a private shelter for us to call the storm. Or, more accurately, to increase the storm. We’d waited for the signs of approaching bad weather, knowing that it would be far easier to whip the winds of an existing storm up to the power of a hurricane than to start from nothing on a calm day. And right now, a brisk breeze was setting the tree branches swaying, and dark, swiftly moving clouds spoke of our approaching weather.
    â€œYou think Maerlin cold-hearted, so why wouldn’t it make sense to you that he approaches sex the same way?” I asked.
    â€œHe’s male. When he thinks of having you naked under him, neither heart nor head has anything to do with how he’s making his choices. And he knows Arthur cares for you. How could he do this to his own brother?”
    â€œHe’s doing this for his brother,” I said.
    â€œDon’t you hear how crazy that sounds? I almost think you’re doing this because you’d secretly rather be with Maerlin than Arthur.”
    â€œ Now who sounds crazy?”
    â€œMaybe you don’t want either of them.”
    â€œYou think I still want Clovis,” I said.
    â€œHe’s who you’ve tried hardest to reach out to with your mental powers, isn’t he?”
    â€œI thought he’d be easier, since he was my first, and we were together so long.” Since my aborted training on Mona, I’d been trying to learn on my own how to reach out with my mind, across distance, to men I’d slept with. Their seed had become part of me, as happened with all Phanne women, and it formed a psychic tie I should be able to follow back to each man. I’d managed it once, with the young man I’d deflowered on Mona, but had yet to achieve more than a flickering of contact with anyone else. And the flickers might have been more my imagination than true contact.
    â€œWouldn’t it be easier with me ?” Terix glared at me with hurt in the line of his mouth.
    I drew in a breath of surprise, my lips parting. I hadn’t imagined that he would think my lack of trying on him a slight. Once, long ago, we had lain together; once, I had even drunk his blood. There was no one I knew better, or who knew me so well in return, and so it should have been easiest of all to recognize his essence inside me. I leaned over and laid my hand on his arm. “Terix, I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t invade your innermost privacy like that.”
    He moved his arm until he could grasp my hand in his own, his expression softening to sheepishness. “I didn’t want you to, when first you told me about it. Who would? I have thoughts so darkly twisted, I can barely stand to see them myself.” He squeezed my hand and let go.
    â€œWhat changed your mind?”
    â€œI realized that I’m not such a very special person, so different from anyone else. If I —cheerful, horny Terix—have such a wild herd of runaway wants and hates and pettiness inside me, then so does everyone else. Probably more so. I am, after all, a more likable fellow than your average man.”
    I laughed. “The Summer Maiden certainly thought so.”
    â€œBut alas, she was happier to stay a maiden than to become a fruitful earth mother.”
    â€œLucky for you, in the long run.”
    â€œBut not the short.”
    We rode in silence for a short while, Bone galumphing through remnants of snow, seeming to take a child’s joy in the crisp strangeness of it under his paws.
    â€œSo will you try to see inside my mind?” Terix said.
    â€œWhat, now? Why?”
    â€œI want to know what it feels like, to have someone else in here with me. No one ever gets to feel that; we’re all stuck alone in our own heads. If there’s anyone I’d want in here with me, it’d be you.”
    â€œYou