Read Online Burning Shadows by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Free Book Online

against his lips. “Don’t say anything. I’ve just stopped crying,” she whispered; her eyes were reddened and swollen.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked as he gently wiped away her tears.
“I’m … I’m sorry to be going,” she said plaintively. “I know I must, and I understand that it must be now. I realize that you have been very kind to me, so I feel at odds with myself, for I can’t help but wonder if what lies ahead is as pleasant as this has been.”
“This may not be pleasant much longer,” he said with kindness.
“You will not want to be here if there is fighting. Your uncle would agree.”
She stamped her foot. “If I hadn’t committed myself to a brief stay, I might have been able to remain through the winter, but the Praetor Custodis requires that I leave, or permit my uncle to disown me.”
“Then the situation is out of your hands, and mine,” said Sanctu-Germainios, leading her toward the narrow couch near the window rather than toward her wide bed. “Here. I don’t want you to feel you are being pressed.”
“I didn’t understand about you.” She stared into his eyes, weighing her doubts against his steady acceptance. “I still don’t.”
“I am a foreigner; that is what I ask you to recollect when you are conjectural,” he said, offering his arm for her support as she sat down.
“More foreign, it turns out, than I was told,” she said, trying to keep from giving way again.
“All the more reason for you to leave,” he said with an element of regret. “If you stay here, things will change between us; you and I will no longer be able to lie together safely.”
“But it’s only been four times,” she wailed quietly.
“Six times and you will risk transforming to one of my blood when you die, and you have said you have no wish to do that. You recall what that would mean for you, do you not?” He spoke much more calmly than he would have done five centuries ago, and made no attempt to dissuade her.
“No. If what you told me is true, I wouldn’t want to become like you.” She touched the small, golden fish hanging from a hook on the wall. “The Bishop would condemn me if I should rise after death: it would be blasphemous.”
“And burning brings the True Death,” he said sympathetically.
“So you explained to me,” she responded, reaching from the fish to his hand. “But we have this one last chance, don’t we?”
“If it is what you want.” His nearly black eyes glowed blue in their depths. “You have only to tell me.”
“Oh, yes, it is what I want. We can say good-bye in the morning, but now, I want a farewell that will last for years to come.” She eased her hand into his and tugged to pull him down beside her, taking advantage of the confined space to embrace him. “Let this be something I will remember for all my life.”
“I will do all I can of what I can,” he pledged, and drew her close to him, kissing her lightly but persuasively, letting her warm to him, sensing passion rising in her.
She moved away from him as the kiss ended. “Wait. Wait while I send my serving-women away; I don’t want to be interrupted,” she said, breathing somewhat more quickly than she had before the kiss; she got to her feet and went to the door, half-opened it, and ordered the two women to tend to choosing the bedding for the wagon. “Make sure it is soft,” she said, and watched them depart before closing the door and coming back toward Sanctu-Germainios, untying her trabea and letting it fall to the floor as she approached her bed. “This will be more comfortable, Feranescus. There is more room and the mattress is softer.”
“As you like,” he said, rising from the couch and going to the bed, standing to face her at its foot.
She stretched up her arms. “Remove my palla, if you would.” The challenge in her mien was a mixture of desire and sadness.
Sanctu-Germainios unfastened the elaborately braided belt under her breasts, slipped his fingers under the pleated