Eyes of Crow Read Online Free PDF Page A

to meet his.
    “Rhia, love, you must go. It’s well past your time.”
    She shook her head. “I’d have to leave you.”
    “For a while. Then you’ll return with your gift.”
    She thought of the war that would slay Dorius. “But what if while I’m gone—?”
    “Shh.” He kissed her, and she pulled away.
    “You don’t understand,” she said. “You didn’t see what I saw.”
    “I understand that you’re troubled, and that the only way to ease your mind is to learn how to face your powers.” His hand moved to her waist, and he nuzzled the bare spot where her shoulder met the curve of her neck. She closed her eyes for a moment to savor his lips against her skin, then gathered her nerve and returned to the subject she had avoided before.
    “I have a secret,” she said.
    He raised his head, his eyelashes flickering with intrigue, but said nothing.
    “My mother’s noticed how close we are, you and I,” Rhia continued, “and so she sent me to Silina.”
    “Silina? The Turtle woman? I thought she helped women have babies.” He drew back to stare at her belly. “Are you—”
    “Of course not. Silina does help women have babies. Or not have them.”
    Arcas cocked his head. “How? How not have babies?”
    She grinned at his innocence and incoherence. “With herbs, of course.” She pointed to the lacy white flowers waving their heads throughout the meadow. “Wild carrot. I’ve harvested the seeds at summer’s end for my mother ever since I was a little girl. She called them a woman’s ‘freedom flowers’ but would never explain.”
    “Until now.”
    “Until now. Also, the—our being together—it has to be during the right, er, phase of the moon.”
    His gaze scampered over the blue sky until it found the moon’s waxing crescent. “Is that a good moon?”
    “For me, it’s good.” She took his hand and kissed the velvet skin inside his wrist, one of the few places on his body not tanned and toughened by his shepherd’s work. “For us, it’s very good.”
    Without another word they undressed each other, trembling more than usual, then stretched out on the soft, lush grass. They had lain like this before, exploring and enjoying each other’s bodies, yet this time would end not in longing but fulfillment.
    Rhia’s fingers followed a trickle of sweat traveling over Arcas’s broad chest and shoulders. A sudden hesitation seized her. Once they had joined together, how could she ever leave him? Now she understood why they should wait until they had both taken on their Aspects. She was incomplete.
    Arcas’s expression darkened. “What’s wrong?”
    “When I go away, will you wait for me?”
    “I will.” His thumb traced her lower lip in a motion she found both seductive and soothing. “And what about you?”
    Rhia tried to answer, tried to put into words the love that would live in her heart until the day it stopped beating. She failed.
    Instead she kissed him, long and deep, and pressed her body forward to let his heat burn away the doubt and fear in her mind. Arcas groaned, and his arms snaked down her back to wrap around her waist, eventually parting her legs to accept his searching fingers. A familiar warmth spread through her, infused with an even more familiar need.
    He rolled her on top of him, and together, fumbling, laughing at their own clumsiness, they guided him inside her.
    Ready as she was to receive him, Rhia had not expected so much pain. It radiated to the core of her body and outward again. The sharpness of her cry made Arcas freeze, his eyes wide.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “Oh, love, I’m so sorry.” He stroked the hair at her temple. “Should we stop?”
    She wanted to say yes, to retreat back into her clothes and maybe even the cool river, anything to soothe the ache. Instead she took a long breath and shook her head.
    He moved more slowly inside her after that, and when her eyes were open she saw him studying her face for the signs of pain she tried to hide.