The Dog Master by W. Bruce Cameron Page A

finally freed him and saw how ready he was to take her. She fell back, pulling him with her, unable to think, already throbbing. It was fast and hot and urgent. Calli felt the pleasure seize control and peak within her, and then clutched Urs and smiled when he called out and shuddered. This was how it should be. Urs, her love. Husband and wife.
    She stroked his hard muscles, his long lean back, gloriously relaxed, now. It was, she decided, as if their passion was lightning and their mating was the thunder—the brighter the flash the more quick and loud the noise that came after, shaking bones, driving out the very breath of a person.
    After several moments of just lying there panting, she kissed his face. He seemed dazed. “We will do this again and again,” she promised him. “Just like that. As … powerful as that, as wonderful as that.”
    â€œYes,” he grunted.
    â€œI have never felt this way, Urs.”
    â€œI felt weak and strong at the same time.”
    â€œYes! That is it exactly. I love you, Urs. You are the only one for me. I love you and want nothing more than to be married to you.”
    â€œI love you and want to marry you, too.”
    â€œThen we will do as I have planned.”
    â€œAll is good. I will tell the council I have changed my mind, that I want to marry you.”
    â€œYou may be hunt master to the Kindred, but for me, you will always be my master spearman,” she said.
    They laughed together, pulling their clothing together as the wind licked the sweat from their skin and made them cold.

 
    ELEVEN
    Though it had been many days since the hunt had been successful, Palloc still retained some reindeer meat, which he held over his fire on a stick. As food ran low among the Kindred and the families turned to Coco’s communal stews and soups, it was considered ill manners to create such succulent odors at one’s own home fire, but he was in a foul mood and did not care what anyone thought. With his other hand he stroked his beard, which was a normal dark color and had not paled in the summer sun like the rest of his hair.
    â€œPalloc?” A woman’s voice.
    His vision blurry from staring into the fire, Palloc frowned as he tried to make out who was calling him from the shadows. He grunted when Renne stepped closer.
    â€œAre you well?” Renne whispered. Her slender build appeared so delicate in that moment, as if she and her shadow were one and the same. She politely squatted next to him by the fire.
    â€œI am well,” Palloc replied stonily.
    â€œThe hunt made an error. You are spear master. You are a wonderful hunter. It is you who should be hunt master.”
    Palloc did not react to the compliment. In his opinion, women knew less than nothing about the hunt.
    â€œUrs and Bellu. Engaged,” Renne continued. “This means you and Bellu will not be … well, I had always heard that the two of you were fated, you and her.” Her hand reached out and softly touched his for just a moment. “With Bellu promised to Urs, the council will need to find someone else to be your wife,” she whispered demurely.
    Numbly, Palloc considered this. Did she really suppose Bellu would marry him? And then he considered Renne. She was being very frank and forward with him, but with her parents dead, she had no one to speak on her behalf but the council, which was notoriously scattered when it came to arranging marriages for the orphaned women of the Kindred. A man without parents might prove himself on the hunt, but a woman in a similar position was no asset as a wife.
    She came into focus for him then. Her face flickering and her dark eyes glittering in the strengthening light from the fire. She looked very pretty. And she had picked a flowering vine and tied it around her neck, drawing his eyes to the tanned skin below her throat, where a hollow between her breasts showed above the deer hide vest she wore. Alone among the