The fire had turned to embers by the time I finished my story, and the food was long gone. There had been no meat today- that sort of thing was to be saved, except when a new burug was brought down- but dinner had been filling and delicious, and left little more than errant stains of grease on our fingers. Joanna and I just sat in silence, watching each other, as she thought through all that I had said. I was still nowhere near as physically dangerous as she was, but now, in a way, both of us were gods. Or at least we were pale imitations of divinity. Her skin shone almost gold in the dwindling embers, and at that moment I was sure that real or not, she made a pretty convincing deity.

“So are you still… you?” Joanna asked, trying to soften the question and failing.

“If I wasn’t, how would I know?” I smiled with my eyes to let her know I was trying to be funny. “I think that I’m still me. I still remember everything that I knew yesterday. But now I just know so much more. There is a lot more that I understand.” Remembering suddenly, I tried to contain my excitement and said, in Pan-American, “For example, I can speak your language now.” The word ‘speak’ came out more like ‘spheak’ around my fangs, but that was alright.

Joanna returned the smile with her lips. “Alright, I suppose it’s not entirely fair for me to grill you on this when I just went through the same thing not a week ago.”

“Well, I didn’t get my heart ripped out, so I think I got the easier deal,” I joked.

Joanna smirked. “But you can’t strike people with lightning. I’d say that’s worth a little heart-transplant.”

We just sat there together for a while basking in the glow of the fading fire and enjoying each other’s company. When the embers finally died, and all that remained was ash and a circle of stones, I asked, “Has Perwik gotten you set up with a place to sleep yet?”

Joanna shook her head. “Not as such. He has had his hands full stamping out all the little fires that idiot Vassa started. Not to mention Lot and his people. Fortunately for us, I think the other Stormcallers are a little afraid of your sister. Something about her ‘ripping down’ my barrier storm ‘when Lot and all his people were barely hanging on?’ I think Thukkar has been telling stories at the ranger lodge, and the myths are already being made.” She stood. “As for a place to sleep, I’ll probably bed down in the ranger lodge. They have extra bunks, and maybe that will help with my image- make me ‘just one of the people’.”

I shook my head. “Nonsense. This hut is mine now. You can stay here. You take the bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor or the worktop. Tomorrow we can see about getting you a proper home.” I tried to keep any trepidation out of my voice, hoping that my suggestion had come out casual and unassuming.

Joanna wasn't fooled. Her smile was slow and wicked. "I wouldn't dream of making you sleep on the floor in your own home, ‘Deepseeker.' You must sleep in the bed, I insist."

Sensing a trap, I plunged blindly ahead anyway. “There is no way I’m letting a woman sleep on the floor of my hut while I’m sleeping comfortably in a bed.”

Joanna’s smile widened. “I didn’t say anything about me sleeping on the floor.”

I knew it was coming, and still the kiss surprised me. We were pressed together, all of a sudden, touching and tasting, the heat rising between us. Through the intoxication of her scent, her touch, her voice, I had the presence of mind to stand and pull her with me into the hut. People would talk anyway, but there was no sense in making it easy on the gossips.

We stumbled back into the darkness of the hut. For one mad second, I was convinced that I needed to find and light a candle so that we could see, but the thought was driven thoroughly from my mind ahead of the onslaught of Joanna’s relentless kisses. I seized her about the waist, lifting her easily- she was so light- and she wrapped her legs around me. I could feel the muscles sliding beneath her skin as she pressed herself to me, and I kissed her mouth, her neck, her jaw, her ear.

"Jo-" I tried to say, but her mouth sealed on mine and she seized on my lip with her teeth, tugging just enough that I felt a short jolt of sweet pain. I felt a growl rising instinctively in my chest. She growled back, perhaps less ferociously, but no less insistently. I dipped my head and kissed her neck, then let my fangs score against her skin. Just a little- not enough to draw blood. My fangs could do serious damage if I weren't careful. Still, she sucked in a deep breath like I had clamped down with all of my strength, throwing her head back and tossing her hair as she let out a low, hungry moan. I staggered back with her to the bed and sat down hard. She let herself forward, uncrossing her legs at the last moment so that she pushed me down onto my back, straddling my waist. "Joanna, I-" I began, but whatever word I meant to say next was swallowed in a sound somewhere between a yelp of pain and a bark of surprise. She had leaned forward, and in a perfect mirror of me, she had bit down hard on the big muscles on the side of my neck. It didn't really hurt, but it surprised the hell out of me. One part of me felt a prickle of irrational outrage. But something else, something much more important within me loved it.

I growled again, and the sound came out as a deep, feral rumble. The beast inside me, the one that lived inside every Erinye, lifted its massive head and began to sniff around. Joanna must have seen it in my eyes, because her face split into a smile, wide and triumphant. "Yes," she hissed. "That's what I'm talking about. Let it out. You aren't going to break me."

I reached up and ran the very tips of my claws down the side of her face, tracing them along the perfect curve of her jaw. I continued the trail down from her jaw to her neck and down over her collarbone. She was breathing hard now, and she didn't want to waste a single moment. Her arms came up, crossed in front of her, and she stripped the sealskin shirt off of her body in one smooth motion, shaking her hair out as she tossed it casually aside. I reached up and took hold of her breasts, letting them fill my hands. I crooked one finger, just one, so that the tip of my claw touched the sensitive skin around her nipples, and she sucked in another deep breath, letting it out in another low moan.

I reached up, bracing myself with one arm, and wrapped the other one around her, pulling her close. Then, with a twist of my hips, I turned us over, depositing her firmly into the piled furs of the bed. Joanna wriggled with pleasure as the luxurious comfort of the furs received her, and her joy coaxed a purr of pleasure out from somewhere deep in my chest before I could stop it. She laughed with delight. I bent and seized one of her nipples with my mouth, drawing circles around it with my tongue. She gasped and sighed, her body arching beneath me. I did the same to the other breast, and this time, her moan was a little higher pitched than before. Her hands flowed over my body, starting from my shoulders and flowing down the muscles of my back towards my waist.

I pushed myself up off of her pulled back, just enough that I could undo the two large buttons that fastened her trousers. I stood and took hold of both trouser legs and tugged them free, tossing them to land in the dark somewhere behind me. I realized that I was still fully dressed and stripped out of my clothes in a hurry. All of that cloth and hide was just getting in the way. I stepped forward, back towards the bed, my body painfully hard from wanting her, but instead of moving to take her immediately, I dipped my head down between her legs and sought the sharp, sweet taste of her sex.

Joanna moaned as my tongue flicked out, caressing and licking inside her. I started with long, slow strokes, tasting her, exploring her. Her hands clenched in my hair, and I could hear her breath coming faster and faster. I changed my rhythm then, licking more quickly and exploring deeper inside her. She cried out, and her legs squeezed the sides of my head, but I didn't stop. Just a little further... Joanna came suddenly, all in a rush. She bucked hard, and I backed away as she writhed in the grip of the orgasm. I didn't want her to crush my skull with her thighs. She was very, very strong now, and right at this moment she wasn't thinking about holding back.

When she relaxed, I settled down over her, bending to kiss her lips even as I gently pushed myself inside of her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and cried out again, and crossed her ankles behind my back once more. I took her with slow, deliberate thrusts of my hips. I didn’t want to rush things. I wanted to feel all of her. I ran my hands over her breasts and rubbed her nipples lightly between my fingers. I traced the tip of one claw carefully down from her chin to the hollow of her throat. All the while I held the same slow, meticulous rhythm, struggling to hold back the mounting need inside me. I wanted to savor this. I wanted to take every second of it with me.

Joanna came again in a sudden clenching spasm of concentric shudders, and she stretched her back and neck all the way out, pushing her head back as far as it would go. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her cries took on a plaintive, pleading quality that took hold of something deep and primal within me. "Please," she sighed. "Please, Vol."

I think it was “please” that shattered my control. I thrust into her with redoubled need, all thoughts of holding back blown away before the fire inside me. Her moans rose even as my own came to my lips unbidden, and then we were both calling out, wanting more, needing more. The dam broke, and everything inside me came surging forth, gathering with a tempest’s promise and blasting out of me as I spent myself inside her.

Suddenly drained of all of my strength and energy, I fell forward over her and lay panting, my mouth against the side of her neck, my forehead swathed in her hair. We lay tangled together for a long time, just breathing. Then, regaining some semblance of consciousness, I carefully extricated my sweaty body from hers and rolled onto the furs beside her. I was exhausted as if I had just fought a battle or run for half a day. This hadn't been my first tumble in the furs, but it had been a long time for me. A moment passed, and then Joanna cuddled up next to me, her head resting on my outstretched arm. She blinked up at me with huge smoldering eyes and sighed with satisfaction.

After a moment, Joanna lifted her head to look at me. “You kept trying to say something. What was it?”

I laughed feebly, exhausted. “I was trying to say I didn’t want to rush you into anything.”

“Oh,” Joanna remarked with a chuckle, her burning eyes smiling at me from beneath long lashes. “Well, never mind that.” She let her head rest back on my upper arm, and before long, her breath slowed as she drifted to sleep. I felt the dark dragging at me, tugging my eyelids closed as well. I didn’t fight it. This was the most peaceful rest I had in a very long time.

I was moments from sleep, drifting a hair's width from the abyss when I smelled it. Rotting meat and burned oil. My eyes snapped open wide, and I focused on the thing just as it dropped towards my face. It was metallic and segmented and had entirely too many insectoid legs. I snapped my free hand up and slapped it away from me, sending it bouncing away into the dark of the tent. I twisted, rolling with Joanna to deposit her on the side of the bed closest to the wall of the hut. She woke suddenly, thrashing in confusion and blind panic, but I couldn't stop to calm her. There was an abomination in the tent with us- a Child of the Eater-King.

I leaped to my feet, claws scratching on the stone. The metal insect came springing at me again; legs spread wide to pierce my flesh. I ripped cloth covering the worktop away and flung it in the little monster's path, tangling it in the worn rags and sending it thrashing to the stone. I crouched and snatched the evil bundle up off of the ground, then whirled, putting my whole weight into smashing it against the stone of the mountain. It hit the ground with a nasty crunch, but incredibly it wasn't dead. I kicked it out of the hut, sending it tumbling into the remains of the fire pit. Not wasting a moment, I grabbed the dragon pipe off of the worktop. It was familiar in my hands, which made sense. I was Palamun, after all. I had made it. I aimed without thinking, flicked the crude safety off, and squeezed the trigger with my first two fingers.

The weapon belched a sphere of fire into the air, bright as a star, sending the seething comet arcing into the ash of the night's fire. The metal monster was just struggling to its feet when the bright orb struck it. There was a crack like thunder, a flash of blinding light, and a bloom of heated air that dried the sweat from my face. Flecks of rock clattered against the stone as they bounced off of me and the sides of the hut. Nothing remained of the Eater-Spawn. I looked down at the dragon pipe with new respect. "Not bad. I need to work on splash damage, though."

"What the hell was that?" Joanna had pressed up against me from behind so that she could see over my shoulder. "Are you alright?" I could hear shouts from down in the village. Any minute now, rangers would be sprinting up the path toward us to investigate the blast. I must have been going insane because the only thing on my mind at that moment was that if people weren't talking about Joanna and me already, they would be soon.

“I’m fine,” I said over my shoulder. “This was an assassination attempt. It seems the enemy wants one of us dead.”

“Why just one? Why not both?”

"Only one Eater-Spawn. It was meant to puppet one of us, use us against the tribe." I turned and saw only Joanna's eyes burning in the dark. I could feel her anger, however, boiling within. I wasn't sure what was going on behind those ember eyes; I only knew that the enemy out there had made a grave mistake. "Go back to bed," I said, scrambling back into my discarded clothes. "I'll handle the rangers, and I'll see that a search is done. This may not have been the only monster sent to sneak into our home."

* * *