Courting Kel by Dee Brice Page A

How do they stay like that?”
    “Fairies,” he told her, flinging their sopping blankets
aside.
    Snorting, she scoffed, “At home we call it swamp gas. Unwary
invaders are lured by the lights and fall into kniqudac.” His frown made her
add, “Swamp stuff that looks like sand but sucks the unwary to their deaths.
Most we rescue.” She sighed. “Some, sadly, we cannot.”
    “Why sadly ? I thought Amazonian women have only one
purpose for captured men. That you all fight or fuck them.” The whorls in her
ear fascinated him and he traced them with his tongue.
    Shivering, pressing closer, she said, “You have the right of
it. But any loss of life saddens us. It’s not so much the death of one man, but
the loss of the children he might have given us.”
    “I’ll never understand your people.”
    “Or I yours.”
    The silence between them made Aren aware of other sounds.
The lessening anger of the storm. Rain pitter-patting on the canopy of trees
towering above the hot spring. The sound of Kel’s soft sobs.
    “Sweetheart.” Turning her to face him, he cupped her
tear-streaked face. “You’re homesick.”
    Crying harder, she nodded but wouldn’t meet his gaze.
    “What else, Flame? Don’t lie. I can see in your eyes that
something else troubles you. If you tell me, I might ease your sadness.”
    “With mating?” She shoved him away. “They’ll be no mating,
Aren. My menses began today.”
    He felt as if she had ripped out his guts. Just reached her
hand inside his belly and jerked them out to dangle bloodless yet writhing in
her delicate hands. Until this moment he hadn’t realized how much he wanted to
make a child with her. Now he would have to send her home. He’d no excuse to
keep her except…she’d promised Storr she’d stay nine months. Aren knew she’d
promised the term of her possible pregnancy and had meant only that. He
suspected she thought he’d send her home now they knew there’d be no baby. But
if she thought her menses had freed her, she would have to think again. Her
tears told him she too regretted the loss of their child—even though he’d not
given her one. Yet.
    He had more than eight months left to court her. If he
failed to return her to his bed by then… He’d take her to Amazonia and stay
there until he convinced her and Basalia that Kel was his life mate. And he was
hers.
    When Storr ordered Aren to marry—announced he’d already
chosen his bride—Aren had done his duty and deflowered Kel. He’d resigned
himself to keep her—and himself—in a loveless marriage. He hadn’t planned on
wanting her, even though he knew fucking was perhaps the most pleasurable
aspect of marriage. Now after only a couple of weeks with Kel in his life, he
wanted her to stay with him.
    “I…I suppose you want to go back to Storr City as soon as
the storm passes,” she murmured. “I’m certain the princesses will welcome you.”
    “No reason to hurry. Besides, as a married man, I’m no
longer eligible to fuck another.”
    Whirling in the thigh-high water, she planted her fists on
her hips. “The need for that farce ended today. We are not married!”
    Aren decided her menses caused the wild swings in her moods
and tempered his need to shout. “By Ondrican law we are. Moreover, you promised
you’d stay for nine months—”
    “The need to stay also ended this morning!”
    “Or are an Amazonian’s promises as worthless as swamp gas?”
    Her eyes black, she swung at his belly and connected.
Grimacing, she shook her hand. “Fool!”
    “Both of us,” he countered, rubbing his stomach. “I’m hungry
and intend to eat. You’ll join me—if for no other reason than to keep up your
strength. If you’re too weak to run you can’t escape.” Not that I’d let you.
    Ignoring his proffered hand, she waded out of the hot
spring. Scooping up both blankets, she strode toward the lodge. Her rigid back
and squared shoulders proclaimed her royally pissed.
    Chuckling, he followed.
    * * *