Out of the Dark by Jennifer Blake

of skin and the flavor of it, explore scents and sounds and sensitivities. Playful and cavorting, or grasping in hard, internal convulsions of feeling, they sought for true intimacy with hands and tongues, lips and souls. And discovered it in soft, sweet whispers and pleas; in quick, flicking licks and slow absorbing assaults that plumbed resistance and endurance, readiness and mercy.
    When they came together, the small physical barrier to penetration gave way with warm, liquid ease, aided by his careful penetration, her infinite trust. Locked in tight conjunction, they tried each other, learned each other. Then moving together, rising, falling, seeking and finding a mutual rhythm, they sought the final glory.
    And discovered it. Discovered, too, the release from their aloneness, from their grief, their worry and pain. For in loving was the benediction and reward for choosing life. Even if it was not everlasting, it was still, finally, enough.
    They were caught close in each other’s arms as the steamboat slipped its moorings with the dawn. Rocked by the movement, soothed by the steady heart-like beat of the steam engine, they slept on while everything they had known slipped away behind them.
    It was a slow passage, but they came at last to Lucien’s house set among ancient oaks on the vast and spreading lands below New Orleans. They settled in, taking their time, growing used to each other by wondrous degrees. Summer passed into autumn and the nights grew cooler. Still, it was a night of pleasant warmth when Anne-Marie woke to see her husband standing in nude splendor at the French doors that opened out onto the upper gallery from their bedroom. He appeared transfixed as he stared out over the lawn.
    “What is it?” she asked, smothering a yawn.
    He turned his head but did not answer. Touching his fingers to his lips, he made a quick motion for her to join him.
    She slid from between the sheets at once, as naked as he as she glided to his side and curled an arm about his waist. She rubbed his shoulder with her cheek an instant before turning to follow the direction of his gaze. For a moment, she saw nothing unusual. Then she caught her breath.
    There under the trees that dotted the lawn, in the strong, copper-tinted light of a harvest moon, dark, dangerous shapes glided in and out of the hard-edged shadows. There were two—no, three. Sleek, sinuous, with coats shining like cut-pile velvet, it was a family of panthers: male, female, and a single kit.
    “Oh,” she said softly, while gladness rose in her heart, filling it to send tears tracking down her face.
    It was Satan. It had to be. Didn’t it?
    Below her, the largest of the great cats stalked into the open area and stopped in the full, flooding path of the moon. Powerful, beautiful in his grace, he stood twitching his tail while he lifted his head and stared straight up at the window where they stood.
    “He found you,” Lucien said quietly as he turned his head to look down at her.
    “You said he would,” she answered, and met his gaze a long moment before turning once more, drawn to where the panther that had once been her pet stood like a sleek ebony statue.
    He was safe. He was whole. Now he could live in peace on these wide lands without being hunted. He could come and go as he willed, if he willed. He and his family.
    Now his mate had seen them there at the window. She was nervous. Gathering her kit, she faded into the shadows and was lost almost immediately in the deep black of the woodland beyond. At its edge, she called, a plaintive demand.
    Satan turned his head to look, but swung back toward the window once more. If she herself called, Anne-Marie thought, he might come, might stay, might come close to be petted and loved, even as wild as he had become.
    She did not move. Satan had his mate and his territory; she was near if she was needed. But he was no longer dependent on her as he had once been, and in truth she no longer looked to him as a symbol