Now she put her arms around his neck, and let out a most extraordinary sigh: a sound of complete abandonment.
Todd looked down at her face with something that began to feel like helpless adoration. The polishers who’d put a shine on everything in this strange world must have saved their best labors for her. The down on her cheek, the dark curve of her lashes, the fabulous hierarchy of lilacs and blues and turquoise in her eyes, all were perfect. She was almost unbearably beautiful: his eyes stung at the sight of her.
“I love you,” he said.
The words came out with such ease that they were said before he had chance to spoil them by making a performance out of them.
Of course he’d said it before, plenty of times (too many times, in truth) but never like this. It sounded, for the first time, simple. Simple and true. She raised her head from the ground, until her lips were almost touching his.
“I love you too,” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“You know I do. You’re the one I’ve waited for, Todd. All these years. I’ve been patient, because I knew you’d come.”
She pressed her hips up towards him, sheathing him completely. Then, still holding onto him, she began to pull herself off him a little way, just until the head of his dick was about to find the air, then smothering it again, down to the root.
There was a heavy reverberation in the ground. Todd could feel it through his palms.
“The hunters … ” he said.
“Yes,” she said, as though this was of little consequence. “Goga’s close. We should stay very still until he’s passed by.”
She drew Todd down on top of her. He couldn’t see the huntsmen yet, but the noise was getting louder nevertheless. The reverberations made the little shards of rock around her head, decorated with tiny fragments of fossil, dance.
Finally, they came into view, rising over the crest of a hill some twenty-five or thirty yards from where they lay, locked together.
There were five of them in the Duke’s party, and they looked as though they’d been riding for a very long time. Their horses shone with sweat, and the men — all of whom were dressed in tattered tunics — showed signs of extreme fatigue. But even their exhaustion had a kind of livid beauty to it. Their skin was as bright, or brighter, than the bone that it concealed; their eyes, which were sunk deep in their sockets, had a fevered brilliance in them. Todd wasn’t surprised they looked so harried, given the orders of beast he’d glimpsed here. Yes, there were wild pigs and stags, but there were other kinds of creature, far less easily categorized; things that looked as though the Devil had had a hand in their design. Lethal quarry, no doubt. Indeed there were signs that the party had been recently attacked. One of the horses had a number of deep gashes on its rump, and its rider had dearly suffered in the encounter. His left arm hung limply, and a large dark bloodstain had spread from a place under his arm across a third of his upper body. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in pain, his eyelids drooping.
Even if Katya hadn’t named the leader, it would have been clear to Todd that he was of a higher social standing than his companions, his horse a more finely bred animal than those the others rode, its mane and tail braided. As for the man himself, he was almost as beautifully coifed as his mount, his full, dark beard well-shaped, his long hair a good deal cleaner than that of his companions. But these cosmetic polishes aside, he was in no better shape than his fellow riders. His eyes were sunk deep into his skull and his body, for all the upright position he held in his saddle, was full of little tics, as though he were uncomfortable in his own skin. In his left hand he held the reins of his horse. His right rested on the golden pommel of his sword, ready to unsheathe the blade in a heartbeat.