Serpent's Silver by Piers Anthony & Robert E. Margroff

Author:Piers Anthony & Robert E. Margroff [Anthony, Piers & Margroff, Robert E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Serpent’s Hole

KIAN FELT HER STIFFEN and the gauntlet jerked. He knew she had been pierced by the gaze of a serpent or a flopear. At least he hoped that was it, rather than an arrow. He felt himself swing around, pulled by the left gauntlet, and the jarring thud as shield struck hard against a flopear’s face. The flopear went down in a heap, his raised club flying from his hands.

Kian gave Lonny a quick slap and saw her eyes unglaze. He could hear more flopears coming in the distance, uttering hoarse shouts. The only flopear in sight was the one he had knocked unconscious.

They had to hide! There was no fighting these flopears. If they didn’t get out of sight, they were going to be killed or captured.

A hole showed there in the rocks. A cave? A den? What did it matter? It was a hiding place.

He jerked Lonny the distance and pushed her ahead of him into the darkness of the hole. If they could just stay here until the flopears were past—until nightfall, perhaps.

Outside, the flopears were calling to one another in hoarse shouts. Yes, they’d have to stay hidden. They hadn’t been seen or discovered yet. They had found the club-wielder and were trying to decide what had happened.

“Kian,” Lonny whispered, moving close. “Kian—”

“Not now, Lonny.” God, how he wanted her arms around him! But he didn’t want her to feel his trembling. Heroes, after all, were supposed to be brave.

“Kian—I—I love you.”

That was what he had been afraid she would say. He was so attracted to her—and this in the wrong frame!

“Kian, there’s something you should know.”

He was afraid he already knew it. That mergence in the serpent—that hadn’t been just because they were both captive. It had been because they both wanted it. They both wanted it now, in their physical bodies, too.

His arms found her and held her. He could feel her heart beating under her light shirt. The trembling of his limbs now didn’t seem to matter. In a moment, except for the danger, he might forget himself. Blessed be the peril, part of him thought. Damn! another part retorted.

But if they were in immediate danger of dying, why was he holding back? Why save himself for a woman of the other frame if there was to be no encounter with her? Wouldn’t it be better simply to take advantage of that scant time remaining here?

“Kian, we’re about to die.”

“M-maybe not,” he managed to say. Evidently her logic was paralleling his. She was such a precious armful, all sweet and soft and female. “I’ve still got my sword and my shield and the gauntlets. Even if they find us, they can’t make eye contact in the dark. I can defend this cave for a long time.” But was that what he really wanted to do? How much easier to abandon thoughts of combat and simply lose himself in her!

“Kian, this isn’t a cave. This is the tunnel a big serpent makes.”

He shuddered in spite of himself.

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