Free Beneath the Thirteen Moons by Kathryne Kennedy

she didn’t want to live if she failed her family this time, so it wasn’t the dying that scared her, but the Power-changes that had happened to her since the coma. That they might be permanent, that she’d be this powerful for the rest of her life. The thought frightened her, because with great power came great responsibility and that’s something she’d never purposely seek. “I’m just a water-rat, Prince. And as scared as you are by what’s happening to me. I can’t hear him anymore, if that makes you feel any better.”
    He must have read the genuine fear in her face and for some reason that reassured him, because he adopted his superior attitude and raised one pale eyebrow. “Of course, just a temporary anomaly, probably from the accumulation of so much root in your system.”
    Reassured by his own superior logic, he bent over and picked her up, set her on her feet. Mahri swayed like the breeze, so the man stood behind her, his chest pressed to her back, his arms wrapped around her to hold her steady. His breath stirred the curls of her dark red hair as he spoke again, as if to himself. “I could do a thesis on this. ‘The Aberrant Affects on Root Overdosage’ by Healer Prince Korl. I like the sound of that.”
    Mahri understood about half of what he said as she melted against him. He felt deliciously warm.
    “Wait a minute.” He stiffened. “You can’t—you’ve never heard my thoughts, have you?”
    “No,” murmured Mahri, her fingers raking through the hair on his arms. “But I’ve heard your body.”
    Power whipped through her like bolts of lightning, her every nerve afire, her skin sensitive to the slightest of touches. It made his nearness practically unbearable. All he has to do, she thought, is come near me and I can’t think of anything else but getting closer. I just have to have him—all of him—and then maybe this craziness will stop.
    Korl turned her in his arms and impaled her with those mesmerizing eyes. “What do you mean, you can hear my body? Are all Wildings as powerful as you?”
    “I don’t need the Power to hear it.” Mahri stared, could see the fear in his face. No, she couldn’t hear his thoughts but she could imagine them well enough. If there were other Wildings like herself hidden in the swamps, what a threat that would be to the Royal line’s dominance. For if they banded together, they’d have a good chance of defeating even the Royal’s numbers, invading the Seer’s Tree, learning the guarded knowledge, allowing access to the root to any that could tolerate it. A Royal’s worst nightmare.
    Mahri then knew for certain that she could never let him return home. He’d start a Hunt like the one that had taken her mother; with his tales of her Power, his fears that there could be more like her. But she knew of no other Wildings like herself. It’d taken her years of exposure to the root to attain the level of tolerance she had for it now and most of the zabba she’d eaten this trip belonged to the village. She’d used it because it would save their lives, and although they’d lack for food and warmth in the cold season, at least they’d be alive to see it.
    Mahri grimaced. “I know of no other Wildings, and by the time we reach the village even I will probably cease to be. Like you said, Prince, I’m a freak of nature, not likely to be repeated anytime soon. And as for hearing your body,” she snaked her hands down the ridges of his chest, circled them around his waist to his lower back, slowly inched down until they rested on the sloping curve of his bottom. “I hear what any woman would when a man wants her.” And with a brazenness that reflected in her olive-colored eyes she caressed those mounds of muscle, tight beneath their thin layer of silk, pushing them towards her, grinning when she felt his hardened response.
    Korl froze. “You’re purposely baiting me.”
    “Aya.”
    “Do you mind telling me why?”
    Because I can’t help it, thought