you do not. Home is changed, gone to time.’
‘Do you know that?’ He jerked his head-away, cracking it against the bed’s
wooden headboard.
‘I believe it.’
‘I cannot believe anything, any more. I surely cannot believe that your hand is
saying what it seems to be saying.’
‘I cannot,’ she said, between kisses at his throat he could not, somehow, fend
off, ‘leave … with … debts … owing.’
‘Sorry,’ he said firmly, and got out from under her hands. ‘I am just not in the
mood.’
She shrugged, unwrapped the wands, and wound her hair up with them. ‘Surely, you
will regret this, later.’
‘Maybe you are right,’ he sighed heavily. ‘But that is my problem. I release you
from any debt. We are even. I remember past gifts, given when you still knew how
to give freely.’ There was no way in the world he was going to hurt her. He
would not strip before her. With those two constraints, he had no option. He
chased her out of there. He was as cruel about it as he could manage to be, for
both their sakes.
Then he yelled downstairs for service.
When he descended the steps in the cool night air, a movement startled him, on
the grey’s off side.
‘It is me, Shadowspawn.’
‘It is I, Shadowspawn,’ he corrected, huskily. His face averted, he mounted from
the wrong side. The horse whickered disapprovingly. ‘What is it, snipe?’
As clouds covered the moon, Tempus seemed to pull all night’s shadows round him.
Hanse might have the name, but this Tempus had the skill. Hanse shivered. There
were no Shadow Lords any longer … ‘I was admiring your horse. Bunch of hawk