Free Captivity by Ann Herendeen

could not respond to
Dominic’s telepathic caresses in kind. Like a virgin bride on her
wedding night, I lay supine, urging my husband on with words alone. Hold me , I said. Kiss me again . It was the only scrap
of comfort I had enjoyed in so long, I wanted to make it last as
long as possible.
    Dominic was as reluctant to leave me as I was
to let him go. Beloved , he said, his deep voice as
electrifying in thought as in speech. My lady wife . He knew
I needed solace and encouragement, not passionate lovemaking, and
concentrated on simulating the sensation of his long arms wrapped
tightly around me.
    After a short interval, Dominic loosened the
embrace. We could not stay long in communion: not with the added
strain of maintaining the protective shield against Reynaldo’s
eavesdropping; not while Dominic must marshal his troops and make
preparations for the long journey back north. He used his mental
projection to touch my bruised cheek. I will heal your wound
myself , he said. I will break that criminal’s body in a
thousand places .
    “ Yes, my love ,” I said, thinking and
speaking simultaneously, trying to ignore the thought that my skin
would have plenty of time to heal on its own before Dominic could
rescue us.
    Jana’s voice broke in. “Papa!” She had seen
Reynaldo writhing, had heard the words I had spoken aloud. “I love
you, Papa,” she cried, looking into my eyes.
    Tell Jana I love her . Tell her she
is my own little soldier , he said, a long-standing joke between
them. And you must be my master sergeant , he added, finding
a suitable rank for me in this highly irregular Aranyi troop. I
felt his last thought to me, the soft kiss he laid on my lips.
    I gave Jana part of her father’s message.
“Papa says he loves you, too,” I said, and left it at that. She had
been strong enough, I felt, and did not need any more martial
inspiration.
    Val lay beside me in the straw, still
sniveling from the latest upset, his pudgy arms grasping me where
Dominic’s imagined touch had so recently rested. I scooped him into
my lap to rock him. “Papa loves his brave boy too,” I said, cooing
in the third-person baby talk Val hates. “Yes he does.”
    “Papa says Val was a surprise,” Jana said,
what sounded like a fragment of a long-ago conversation. “Papa
doesn’t like surprises.”
    Dominic’s visit had left me in a warm glow of
contentment, too brief to spoil it with jealousy. “Your papa loves
both his children,” I said, “however surprising they may be.”
    Val touched my face with sticky fingers. “I
desire to return home,” he said in formal speech, enunciating
precisely, his habitual defense against the infantile prattle. His
inner and outer eyelids drooped and he was asleep before I had to
answer. I sank back into the dirty straw, covered us up again in my
cloak and waited for morning.

CHAPTER 5
     
    The sound of animals bleating as they were led out to
pasture woke me before it seemed I had fully shut my eyes, the same
noise I can hear at Aranyi at the start of each day, on those rare
mornings when I am not deep in the last, best sleep of the long
Eclipsian night. For one aching moment I was convinced the past day
and night had all been an elaborately-detailed nightmare, brought
on by anger and jealousy, and from sleeping in the wrong
position.
    Dominic will say I told you so , I
thought, my lips curving in a fond smile. He always warns me not to
lie on my back, not unless he is there beside me to kiss away the
screams trapped in my sleep-paralyzed throat, to caress my body,
rigid with fear, into relaxation. I rarely have to ask; Dominic
usually knows, from our communion, when I have a bad dream and am
in need of comfort. I reached a lazy hand for him.
    It was unlike him, I thought, to pass up a
chance for some morning lovemaking. Dominic, amorous on awakening
like most men, would gladly have made a habit of what I had been
careful to preserve as a rare privilege. Niall , I thought,
amused at my