Read Online Bones of the Dragon by Margaret Weis - Free Book Online

much better. I must return to the village. Garn will need my help—”
    Skylan took a step, swayed dizzily, and sagged to his knees. Aylaen knelt down beside him and slipped her arm around his midriff.
    “Put your arm across my shoulder,” she ordered.
    Skylan was too weak to argue. He did as she told him.
    Aylaen’s body pressed against his, and with her help, he was able to stand. Skylan could feel the softness of her breast beneath the wool of her gown, the firmness of her thigh, the play of her muscles, and desire outdid his pain.
    Aylaen was tall for a woman, above average height, and she was strong, for she had done hard physical labor on the family farm from childhood onward. She had no trouble supporting Skylan’s weight. Her red mass of curls—so different from the silky blond hair of the rest of her family—brushed against his cheek.
    No one else in the Torgun had red hair. There were whispers that the man who had been married to her mother was not her real father. Perhaps that was one reason Sigurd seemed to have so little fondness for his brother’s wife.
    “Owl Woman won’t be in her dwelling,” said Skylan huskily. The ache of desire warred with his pain. “She would have gone into the hills with the other women.”
    He’d never been this close to Aylaen, not since they were children and had played their rough-and-tumble games. He’d wanted to hold her, the gods knew! But he could never bring himself to touch her, which was odd, because he’d had no such inhibitions regarding other women.
    He could still have his pick of those women, but he wanted only one, and that was Aylaen. He thought of her constantly, dreamed of her at night to wake with a groan of longing. He spent hours imagining what he would say to her that would cause her eyes to glow with desire for him. And yet, when he started to say the words, Aylaen would mock him and laugh at him, pretending she didn’t understand.
    She did understand; he was certain of it. He was convinced she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Women liked to tease a man, toy with him as fox kits toy with a dead rabbit.
    Skylan slowed his steps. “Let me rest a moment with you. The two of us together, here, where it is quiet—”
    His arm tightened suggestively around her shoulder.
    “I have left my sister alone too long already,” said Aylaen. “As for Owl Mother, she will be in her dwelling. She would never leave her animals. Just a little farther, brother—”
    “Don’t call me that!” Skylan ordered angrily.
    “Why not?” Aylaen asked pertly. “That’s how I think of you.”
    “I don’t want you to think of me that way!” Skylan said. “You are my betrothed. Soon you will be my wife.”
    “You don’t need a wife. You have too many women already,” Aylaen said teasingly.
    “I have not slept with anyone in two years!”
    Aylaen’s eyes widened. She was mocking him. “Truly?”
    Skylan made a dismissive gesture. “I want you and no other.”
    “I was jesting,” she said.
    “I wasn’t,” he replied.
    Aylaen flushed and lowered her eyes in confusion. “Skylan, there is something I must tell you—”
    “Stop right there, whoever you are!” said a warning voice. “One more step, and I’ll set the wolves on you.”
    The sound of a low, rumbling growl caused Skylan to draw his knife.
    “We should leave!” he said.
    Aylaen ignored him, as usual.
    “It’s Aylaen, Owl Mother, and Skylan Ivorson. He was gored by a boar. He needs your help.”
    “Let the gods heal him,” came the scornful reply. “I have work to do.”
    “Perhaps you have not heard, Owl Mother. Ogres came to the village and—”
    “I know about the ogres. The crows told me. What has that to do with anything?”
    Aylaen and Skylan exchanged glances.
    “The ogres said there was a great battle in heaven, Owl Mother,” Aylaen replied. “They claim our gods were defeated—”
    Her words were met by silence.
    “We’re getting out of here,” Skylan said