Arca by G.R. Macallister

Author:G.R. Macallister
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press
Published: 2023-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18 INTERSECTIONS

Late summer, the All-Mother’s Year 517

On the road near Ursu, Paxim

Azur, Paulus, Heliane

Only three things in this world had ever brought Azur joy. First, the friendship of Ysilef, long dead but still mourned. Second, ending a life. Third, the pleasure of body meeting body, skin soft and yielding under her teeth, flesh hot against her tongue. During the Moon Rites of the All-Mother’s Year 517, Azur flung herself with abandon into the third of the three, and the only problem with the satisfaction it gave her was how quickly that satisfaction faded away.

She’d enjoyed herself almost as much as she had at the Sun Rites that had planted Madazur, her body just as responsive as it had been back then, giving and receiving pleasures with a wild generosity everyone seemed to appreciate. She lost track of the number of times her body had bucked with delicious abandon under someone else’s hips or hand or tongue; she extracted rain after rain from man after man with the steady persistence of a boneburner stoking a sacred fire.

But on the long ride back toward the Scorpican camp, only a day removed from those pleasures, all she had were memories. And perhaps, if the Scorpion smiled on her, a belly set to swell. That outcome would be unknown for a few months yet, long after she was back in the company of the full complement of Scorpicae on the far side of the world. In her bedroll at night she set her fingers to the task of satisfaction, fresh memories of what she’d done in the Holy City flickering in her mind, but it wasn’t the same, and it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

Azur didn’t know every single one of the young women who she led on this mission to the rites, but of course, all of them knew her. They knew she was the First Mother. Knew that she alone in their generation had proven she could bear a girl child. Some deferred to her to an embarrassing degree and others openly resented her leadership, but none of them contested that of all the women on this ride, she was in charge.

So it was strange when another pony drew alongside hers, the head of another warrior bobbing into Azur’s line of sight. For the entire ride so far, both to and from the Holy City, the First Mother had ridden alone at the front of the column. Azur didn’t turn her head, but she could still see the other warrior easily out of the corner of her eye, and she knew it was only a matter of time until the woman made what she wanted clear.

“You probably don’t remember me,” called the sleek young woman, who wore a cowl of rust-colored fabric draped over her hair and neck. The angle at which her sharp-nosed face poked out of the covering made her resemble a particularly alert and potentially troublesome fox.

Azur eyed her coolly as they rode side by side. “No,” she answered in a flat tone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.