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be able to pull out of her ever again.
    Exhausted, completely drained, he fell limp upon her, his face on her breast, his lips
    touching her nipple. He was gasping for breath, shuddering as he felt her deliberately
    clenching her vaginal muscles over his shaft. It was a nearly unbearable torture but one
    he rode out until she grew tired of taunting him. Her hands were raking through his
    hair, holding his head to her and she was crooning an old, old Khirbetti folk song as she
    relaxed her legs and released him from her tight hold.
    He was asleep in her arms in a matter of moments, his breath cooling the sweat that
    had formed on their upper bodies.
    “You are mine, Khenty Ben-Alkazar,” she whispered. “I’ll allow no woman to take
    you from me.”
    Lightning flared beyond the windows and she turned her head to look at the
    pulsing. It was close to the sixth hour and he would need to be up and at his work. For
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    a little while though, she would let him rest. When he returned to her, she would be
    waiting.
    19
    Charlotte Boyett-Compo
    Chapter Two
    It was the howling that woke her.
    It was an animal baying to an absent moon as thunder and lightning clashed
    beyond the lace curtains of her bedchamber and rain pelted the glass like small pebbles.
    Wind skirled a haunting and lonesome sound through the eaves—moaning, lamenting.
    Catherine sat up in bed, unnerved by the mournful sound, made uneasy by the
    savagery of the baying. She swung her legs from the mattress and sighed pleasurably as
    her toes sank into the plush carpet. Padding barefoot to the window, she pulled back
    the curtain and tried to look out. Until the lightning flared again she could see nothing
    beyond her own reflection cast from the one lantern she had left turned low, but when
    the gray-white light streaked across the heavens, she could make out the melting
    landscape viewed through the harsh cascade of rain against the panes.
    Thunder shook the house, setting the glass panes to rattling in their casements.
    Flare after flare of lightning lit up the firmament in a succession of fiery volleys and it
    was then she saw the dark shape sitting upon a low hill, its head thrown back as
    another dark and inhuman cry of misery rent the air.
    Why was the animal out in the storm? she wondered, pressing her nose to the
    window to get a better look. From all she had read, wild beasts were afraid of such
    tempestuous weather and eagerly hid to wait out the storm. They tended to shy from
    fire and loud noises, and yet this one was right out in the open, seeming to welcome the
    dangerous strikes of lightning that fell all around it, almost daring the fiery missiles to
    hit it.
    Another wretched yowl was torn from the animal’s throat and the sound brought
    tears to Catherine’s eyes.
    “What has caused you such pain, little one?” she whispered to the beast. “I wish I
    could ease your sorrow.”
    Almost as though it had heard her, the animal lowered its head, swiveled its
    muzzle over its left shoulder and appeared to look right at her. For a long moment it
    held its position then pushed up from its haunches, turned and began to lope gracefully
    toward the house.
    Catherine’s hand tensed on the curtain but she did not draw back as the beast
    stopped just beneath her window and lifted its head to look up at her. She did not fear
    the animal for there was no way it could leap up to her window, close to twenty feet
    straight up.
    “You should be under some kind of shelter, little fellow,” she suggested, smiling at
    the sodden animal.
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    The beast’s eyes glowed fiery green as lightning branched across the sky. It sat
    down on its haunches—seemingly oblivious to the crashing storm around it—and
    continued to watch her.
    “Are you hungry? Is that it?” Catherine whispered, and watched the beast turn its
    head to the right—then left—in the manner her pet dog Brownie had often exhibited
    when she’d spoken to