Myla By Moonlight by Inez Kelley

broken.
    Shoving Taric back, Myla scrambled upright. The burn inside her replaced by stinging shame, she jerked her chiton into place with tremulous fingers. She closed her eyes and in uncharacteristic cowardice began to mist without farewell.
    “No! Stay, my guardian. Remain with me.”
    Magic halted her escape and she crashed into physical form with excruciating force. She welcomed the pain, an ache to mask the loss of his ardor. Her arms wrapped about her body to hide the evidence of his mouth, her nipple marking the silk with a wet smudge. She wanted but she should not. Protection not pleasure, she tried to remind herself, but all her mind could grasp was that her body yearned for his. Wracked with conflicting emotions, she squatted, curled into a ball and buried her face in her crossed arms. If only she had the power to open the stone and curl beneath the floor.
    “Myla.” Rough with his desire, Taric’s voice stretched to her, along with an open palm seeking to comfort, but she pushed it aside with a headshake.
    Her unbound hair shimmied across her back and a drop of salt reached her mouth. She licked her trembling lips with a lonely tongue. Tears. She hadn’t known she could cry. Her first sob shuddered from her agonized chest.
    His hands cupped her head. His stroke was gentle, sliding through her tresses down to her shoulders and onto her quivering arms. “Myla, please, don’t cry. Come here, my love.”
    She lacked the ability to fight him. He pulled her up and then close. It was not passion which flowed through him but compassion. Comfort was as foreign as lust but much easier to swallow so she slid her arms around his shoulders, stealing what strength she could through human touch.
    His arms hard against her ribs, he hugged her tightly, face buried in her hair.
    “Let me return. You swore to me.” A fragile crack in her watery tone whispered against his neck.
    He shook his head. “I know. I’m sorry. This is the last time. Talk to me. Why the tears? I didn’t know you could cry.”
    “I didn’t either.”
    His blond head snapped back. Brows angled sharply, he searched her face. “What did you say?”
    “I didn’t know I could cry. I never have before.”
    “Didn’t… Myla, you said didn’t, not did not . I’ve never heard you shorten words…and you’re crying…like a human woman.”
    “I—I—I do not know why.” Confused and still quivering, she stepped from his embrace and he let her. “Perhaps I have spent too much time in your company of late. Rarely before have I seen you with this frequency. It must be the exposure which dilutes my cadence.”
    A furrow creased his forehead and he regarded her with intense sable eyes. “Myla, what’s the longest time you’ve spent with me?”
    Casting her mind back, she reviewed each time she had come to him. It was an excellent diversionary move and allowed her to grab the reins on her wildly erratic emotions. While she thought, Taric began to pace almost absently, as if unaware he moved. He possessed the stealth of her jaguar, sleek and powerful in a tightly bound body.
    “I spent many hours lounging on your bed as your pet while you studied. You liked to stroke my fur while you read.”
    “We’ll talk about Soot later. Besides, that’s when I was a child.” He waved his hand as he paced and a smile tilted her lips. Balic had the same mannerism when troubled. Did Taric realize this? “Since I’ve been an adult, what has been the longest?”
    “I suppose…the night we dined. That night I was of this world for several hours. Then in the meadow, it was…perhaps an hour I was with you.”
    The furrow deepened, a rough fist rubbing his chin in contemplation and his tread lengthened. He never could stay still while sorting through problems. She supposed he may have walked thousands of miles within this chamber, most since he came of age to take over military duties. The past seven seasons had not yet worn a trough in the stone but she