Beneath the Thirteen Moons by Kathryne Kennedy

petal.
    “It’s beautiful,” she sighed.
    Korl’s voice sounded very close, compellingly deep with emotion. “Yes, beautiful,” he agreed. But when she turned to face him he wasn’t looking down the tunnel of white, but at her. “Beautiful,” he repeated, his voice gentled to a whisper but intense with desire.
    His hand rose, with aching slowness, and he brushed her wayward hair from her cheek, his fingertips burning like fire against her skin. Mahri reflexively turning her head into his palm, cradling it there with a silent moan. She watched him through her lashes, through the white down that fell between them.
    “I don’t even know you,” he said, his hand dropping to his side, the absence of his palm a cold ache on her skin.
    “Nor I you.” And Mahri dropped her staff, set her own palms on his shoulders, the muscles hard beneath the pads of her fingers. The silk of his shirt bunched, then dropped with a sigh as she slid her hands toward his neck, reached beneath that pale-gold hair, curled it around her fingers. So incredibly soft.
    His head lowered and her mouth rose to meet his of its own accord. “Yet,” he breathed, his lips so close she could feel their heat. “It feels like I’ve known you forever.”
    Mahri inhaled, pulled his breath deep into her own lungs, relished the thought of that mingling even as she closed the gap between them, met the firm softness of his mouth. Dry warmth, wet heat, she strove toward him, aware of nothing but this furious need to taste, touch, crush him to her.
    As if a rope had snapped she felt him move, his hands grip her lower back, pull her hard against him, smashing the falling petals between their joined bodies, releasing a fresh wave of perfume. Mahri ground her hips into his in response and he groaned, the sound rumbling through her own chest, making her smile beneath his mouth.
    She arched her back and he followed, lowered her to a bed of flowers, ground his own hardness against her. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and she stroked it with her own, fevered, hungry for all of him. When he ripped away from her lips and tasted the skin on her cheek, trailed the hot fire of his mouth to her ear, she tried to follow, grazing the side of his face. In the madness of her desire she plunged her tongue into his ear, felt him shudder and impale her in the same way.
    An inarticulate cry tore from her throat and he pulled back and stared at her. She could only pant as they gazed at one another, transfixed by the reflected mania of their desire.
    “Who are you?” he demanded, looking at her as if he could see into her very soul, search it for an answer.
    Mahri didn’t know what he meant, didn’t care. “Itdoesn’t matter,” she whispered, and ran her hands beneath the silk shirt across his back. Smooth hardness, coiled strength.
    “Ahh, but it does.” He smiled sadly, making the shallow dimple appear in his cheek. “Royals,” he recited, “do not consort with water-rats.”
    Consort? Thought Mahri. He sounded so ridiculously pompous. “Not even to tumble?” she invited, still in the grip of her fired senses, ignoring his ridiculous words for the hunger that still emanated from his face.
    His chin jut into air. “I do not ‘tumble.’” Korl sat back on his heels, shook the hair from his face. That mask of arrogant hauteur settled again over his features and he lectured her as if she were an ignorant child. “A Royal, especially a prince, has to keep the line pure. It’s our duty to strengthen the blood by producing children of master-level root tolerance.”
    Mahri sat up, slapping away the petals that covered her. “By-the-thirteen-moons who said anything about having kids?” Desire faded and was being replaced by fury. She just had to be physically drawn to an up-tight, morally-conscious… snob!
    “Are you denying it’s a possibility?”
    Mahri made a strangled noise. “I’ve got more,” she ground out, “root-tolerance in my little finger than