Olivia (89 page)

“This is painful,” Olivia said at last.  “I’m sorry.  Please, stop.”

He sighed.  “Olivia, bad stories are like good sex.  Sometimes, you just have to finish, whether you really want to or not.

“She was new to love and so was I, but before long, we were both drunk with it.  And like drunkards, we were clumsy.  My brother—he wasn’t Vorgullum in those days—learned of the existence of this secret lover.  He was ferociously angry with me, even after I assured him that she couldn’t catch my spark. And then one day, he stopped talking about it.

“Overnight, it seemed, my young lover cooled towards me.  She stopped meeting with me and soon, I saw nothing of her at all.  To say that I was devastated would be saying too little.  So, in desperation, I hunted her like an animal, separated her scent from the others and tracked her to the secret lair she had taken.  No easy task that, but my brother and I both have a keen sense of smell, keener than most.  I waited until mid-night before going in to her, so that no one would see us together.  I was so nervous about what I would do or say that I failed to notice she was not alone.

“My brother was sleeping soundly beside her.  I stood and stared for a very long time, and then I left.  As soon as I could, I confronted him.  We fought.  I demanded to know why he would take the one thing from me that was my own, when he had the whole tribe to choose from.  He told me…ah Olivia, he told me she had sought him out.  He told me she…wished to couple with a whole man.”  He closed his eyes against the memory, and then shook his head briskly.  “We may have the same face, but his is on a better body.”

“The opinion of one woman—” she began.

“It’s not one woman,” he said.  “You remind me that even Chugg doesn’t lack for company, but you’ll forgive me for pointing out that there are far fewer females in this tribe than males. That means, among other things, that the females choose their partners, and they don’t choose me.”  He made that small, hurt laugh again.  “With the exception of your Carla, and that’s no rare privilege.

“But you, Olivia, you are a precious thing.  The first time I saw you, I knew my brother would love you.  And he does, you know, despite what you say about politics.  It isn’t the same sort of love Kurlun has for Amy, but I believe it’s real.  And the first time I spoke to you, I knew I would love you as well.  Damn me.  It’s a hard thing to be right all the time.”

“We all have our burdens,” she said, smiling in the darkness.

“Oh yes, in a way it’s a comfort to be disfigured.  Imagine what life would be like for me if I were handsome as well as clever and wise and possessed of a spear that could thrust through walls.  That is—” he stammered as she burst out laughing.  “No, okay, I guess that’s exactly what that is.”

“Look on the bright side, you’d have all these great new tunnels.”  She wiped her eyes, still grinning.  “I like you.  I don’t see the happy side of Vorgullum often.”

“We see it more than we used to,” he replied.  “Do you know what the hell of it is?”

“What?”

“Because of you, I am beginning to like my brother.”  Sudjummar ran his claws in restless circles over his hard stomach.  “I’ve always blamed him for being different from me.  And I’ve blamed him for years for all the stupid mistakes that children make, and held grudges only fools can carry.  I wish that I were better than that, but there it is.  And now, seeing the man that you are making of him, I realize that we’re both better than that, and I can put it aside a little more each day.  I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when it’s gone.  Take up weaving, I suppose.”

“You think he’s a good person.”

“Don’t you?”  Interested.

“For the most part.”  She rolled onto her back and clasped her hands behind her head.  “Not in the beginning, certainly.  And there are times when I don’t like to think about the things he does, like the thing he’s doing now.  But I can truthfully say that he’s always been very patient.”

Sudjummar was smiling crookedly at her.  “That’s hilarious,” he said when she was through.  “My brother has developed many merits since he grew tall, but I have never thought him patient.  Strong, brave, worthy of devotion and respect, sure, but he has a temper on him that would make she-bear run.” His expression darkened suddenly.  “And I’ll bear the full force of that anger if he returns to find his tribesmen squabbling over you like otters.”

He kept his thoughts to himself for several long minutes, until after she’d begun to doze off.  In a low, considering voice, he said, “I’ll have to see to it that my shadow is full upon you as soon as possible.  It may not be pleasant.  Try not to panic.”

2

Olivia awoke to the sounds of her son giggling shrilly.  She hunted for the source, rubbing focus into her eyes, and saw Sudjummar kneeling before the fire, giving Somurg a sloppy bath in a shallow basin.  Somurg splashed with abandon, occasionally pausing to pound at Sudjummar’s arms and let out another squealing cry of pleasure.

“What are you doing?” Olivia asked, even though it was obvious.

“Well, he’s such a messy eater, I thought this was the easiest way of cleaning him.”  Sudjummar scooped up a palmful of water and rubbed it into Somurg’s downy pelt.

Fully awake, Olivia sat up and stared at him.  “You fed him?  What did you feed him?”

“Pulp,” Sudjummar said cheerfully.  “Babies can eat anything an adult can eat, only it has to be softer.  So I chewed it for him.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up to nurse him?”

“You were sleeping,” he replied, as though that explained everything. 

When they were weaned, the Great Spirit had said.  When they’d had their last swallow of mother’s milk and had to rely upon the world to sustain them, that was when the babies would start to die.

“If it happens again,” she said, working hard to keep her tone neutral and the dread from showing on her face, “wake me up.  I know you gullan have a problem with interrupting the world of dreams or whatever, but I want to wake up to feed my son.  Nothing is more important to me than that.  All right?”

“As you like it.”  Sudjummar lifted Somurg out of the basin and dried him off with a soft towel, then wrapped him snugly in changing rags.  “And since you’re awake now, you need to get ready.  I brought fresh clothing for you.”

Olivia started to get up, got a good look at the clothes he’d indicated, and dropped back into the pit again, staring.  Sudjummar intended for her to wear a rabbit-fur skirt and a Maidenform bra.

Oh, you just never know where she’s going to turn up
, Olivia thought, stunned.  “Um,” she called.  “You aren’t serious about this, are you?”

“I’m very serious.  Please, Olivia.”

“I’m going to freeze!”

An evil chuckle preceded his lascivious reply.  “Then I will take you into the dark and warm you, woman.”

She got up and stepped into the skirt, for which creation all of two rabbits had died and that was being damned generous.  It came with a belt of highly polished metal pieces, ostentatious as hell, but she supposed nothing else would scream his name quite as loudly.  “This is part of your plan, isn’t it?”

“It is but a small part,” he said modestly.  “I, on the other hand, possess a very large part…and a moderate role in the plan as well.”

The bra was nowhere near the right size for her, but she managed to get it on, even if it did squeeze her into the dreaded quadroboob.  He paused to admire her anyway, with what seemed genuine satisfaction.

“Now you come with me,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“We are going,” he said, “to take those clothes right off you.”

He led her out of the forge, down a series of lengthy passages, to the baths.  It was actually crowded this morning, more than she had ever seen before; she wondered if it were due more to Vorgullum’s absence and a general relaxing of the strict schedule he kept them under, or if the gullan were endeavoring to groom themselves in the spirit of the chase. 

Sudjummar slipped into the alcove and returned with two large towels and a blanket.  He spread the blanket out next to the only empty bathtub, and set Somurg down.  “Behave yourself,” he said with mock sternness.

Somurg goggled at him, then stuffed a handful of blanket in his mouth and drooled busily.

Sudjummar turned to Olivia and caressed her shoulders before deftly unhooking her bra and setting it down where it wouldn’t get wet.  He didn’t bother to look around, or gauge the reactions of the others.  He knew exactly what message he was sending, but only Olivia could feel the reactions he provoked.  Still, it was a bath, the least likely place for any gulla to be overcome with lust, and the power’s urgings weren’t as strong as she’d feared.  Olivia was able to almost relax, and when she was naked, he put his arms around her waist and lifted her into the tub.

Only after she was settled did he unfasten his belt-pouch and loincloth.  But before setting them aside, he opened the pouch and removed a comb.  Sliding into the hot water beside her, he gathered in her in very close and began to comb her hair.

Hot water did what only hot water can do when it isn’t readily available from a tap.  She could feel her whole body soaking in the heat, opening to pleasure like the petals of a flower opening to the sun.  She leaned against his chest, closed her eyes, and just let go.

“I like this plan,” she murmured.

He hummed at her, a low mating thrumm, scarcely audible over the sound of gullan speech and splashing.  His hands wrapped through her hair experimentally, smoothing out the tangles and combing it into health with long, measured strokes.  “This is so incredible,” he was saying.  “So long and soft…like nothing I’ve ever seen.  Does it hurt when I do this?”

“No.  Do that.”

He began to play with her hair, separating and plaiting the tresses, only to comb them back out and stroke it out clean and straight.  At last, he was only lifting his claws through the thickest fall, fascinated by the way her hair poured out over his hands.

She turned to face him, shaking her hair gently out of his grip.  “Enough,” she whispered. “You’ll have me melting over you like wax.”

“There’s an interesting image.”  His eyes gleamed. 

And it must have been, because that flare of heat and power coiled deep inside her, much more insistently than it had before.  She leaned forward at once, pulling out of his grip in an effort to control it.

Sudjummar apparently took the quick motion as a sign that she was done with her bath.  He jumped from the water, shook himself off, then reached down and lifted her out to stand beside him.  Again, he refused to allow her to dry herself, but ran a towel thoroughly over her body.

The power was growing hotter.

Sudjummar was dressing her, still in full view of the other males.  He dried and combed through her hair a final time, then released it with reluctance and collected Somurg.  Making certain that every male in the baths could see him with Olivia at his side and her son in his arms, he led her from the room.

“That went well,” he said cheerfully.

I’m going to rip his loincloth off with my teeth
, she thought, and couldn’t keep from visualizing just exactly that.  She felt like her innards were boiling.  She was shaking from the effort of keeping her power contained.  In a moment, a very short moment, she was going to lose that battle.

“Sudjummar,” she managed to say.

He glanced at her, executed a flawless double-take, and stopped dead in the tunnel.  “What’s wrong?” he demanded.  “I can get Tina.” 

He opened his mouth, presumably to bellow for a healer, and Olivia grabbed a handful of fur and yanked his mouth down against hers.  He had never been kissed before, obviously, but she didn’t let him break away.  She kissed him until she was sure he wouldn’t ask questions, and then she caught his hand and pulled him away from the lit tunnel, down a narrow winding passage, to the welcoming blackness of an empty room.

Sudjummar released her just long enough to unsling the pack from her shoulder and set Somurg on it.  Then he was groping after her in the dark, but she could see him just fine; the power pulsed hungrily insider her, burning in her eyes so that the light of his life-force and even that of little Somurg glowed brilliantly through the black.

“Where are you?” he whispered.  “Oliv—”

She fell on him, shoving him hard against the wall and pressing herself tight against him, as if she were trying to satisfy the power in the most direct fashion—by crawling bodily inside him.  His arms came around her at once, trying to embrace her, to caress her, but she didn’t want caresses.

Olivia hooked one leg around his hips and ground against him furiously, trying to unhook his belt with both hands.  That this would be best accomplished if she were standing back from him never entered her mind. With a frustrated growl, she found the edge of his loincloth and pulled it loose enough to slip her hands inside.  He was hard, he was hot, he was blazing in her mind’s eye like flame. 

Power swelled, cramping furiously through body and soul alike, and finally surged free.  She howled, but there was no fear or even pleasure in the sound, only relief.  It was finally out and it felt so good, so strong, so
divine
, that no part of her was left to feel concern for the unsuspecting man it snared. Sudjummar’s body jerked hard, every muscle like steel, and then she was thrust up against the wall and deliciously split up the middle.  After that, she knew nothing but the pounding of her sweat-slicked body and the hot musk of his pelt and the dizzying echoes of his climax becoming hers provoking his.

She wouldn’t draw this out.  No, no matter how good it felt.  The Great Spirit might not care what happened to the people who suffered his spark, but Olivia did.  She’d hurt Bodual; she would not hurt Sudjummar.

Now that she had done it once, she found she could easily distance her mind from her body and see the hooks that held him to her.  She could free him any time she wanted, and she would (but oh it felt so good).  Still, she hesitated, watching their energies boil together with the fury of their coupling, feeling the somehow unimportant sensations of his thrusts.  The power was there, pumping steadily out of him, building up inside of her, ready to be used.