“Bathe,” he said to her, taking in the exhaustion she was trying to hide but that had made her wings begin to droop. “We can’t be out in the open at dawn.”
Andromeda placed her sword carefully on the grass. “Turn your back.”
“I want to be clean, too.” The scent of the reborn was ugly.
“I’ll watch for threats while you bathe if you do the same for me.” She folded her arms and stood in place. “I’m not stripping off unless you turn your back.”
He bared his teeth at her, but did as she asked. Dmitri had taught him that he must never take what a woman didn’t want to give.
Do not steal what only has value if freely given.
Naasir had needed to hear that. He wasn’t a bad person inside, but though he could put on a cultured skin that fooled people, inside, he sometimes still didn’t know how to behave. When he’d been younger and first starting to feel the urge to rut with females—and before he’d grown up to the point where many of the opposite sex found him irresistible—he’d tried to court girls by bringing them meat and shiny things.
It turned out he’d scared them.
“Most women and girls,” Dmitri had told him, “don’t know what to do when a man drops a hunk of raw meat in their hands.”
He’d learned that lesson after the girls screamed, dropping perfectly good meat he’d spent time hunting and skinning. When he’d come back with the shiny things, they’d looked at him with huge eyes and he’d smelled fear-stink. It had angered him and confused him and so he’d gone back to Dmitri.
“I’m not going to hurt them.”
“Unfortunately, they see you as a threat now. Start with the shiny things next time and skip the meat. If you smell fear on a woman, back off and don’t return.”
Dmitri’s advice had worked. Some women liked the shiny things and they liked to be naked with him, but then he’d scared them in bed. Apparently, biting wasn’t always allowed, and pounding into a woman’s wetness wasn’t always acceptable. Those women had pushed him off and screamed that he should be “gentle” and “courteous” and not “a feral beast.” Irritated, he’d found others who didn’t mind if he pounded or bit.
Today, many women said he was a good lover. What they didn’t know was that ever since he’d realized what was and wasn’t acceptable, he no longer unleashed his full desire, even with the women who didn’t mind if he was rough: they couldn’t take it. And with Andromeda . . . he was so deeply sexually hungry that he wanted to turn around and pounce on her, do all the sexual things he’d never before permitted himself.
A splash sounded behind him, accompanied by a startled little squeak-scream.
Grinning, he turned around and went to crouch at the water’s edge.
16
“Hey!” Andromeda splashed water at him. “You’re supposed to keep your back turned.”
“I won’t look under the water,” he promised her as he got up to prowl along the edge of the pond. “Are you cold?”
Her teeth clattered as she said, “Fr-freezing. But the b-blood. Want it off. Rain wasn’t enough.”
Finding what he needed, he tore up a clump and went back to her. “Come here and I’ll wash your hair.”
Giving him a suspicious look, she nonetheless came over so that her back was braced against the edge. He knelt behind her and tapped her shoulder with a single claw. “Here. This grass will help you be clean.” The smell was sharp, lemony.
“Oh!” She looked up and smiled at him and he felt good.
Crushing the grass he still held, he retracted his claws, then unraveled her braid and used the grass like a soap. He did it quickly because she was shivering so hard her bones were almost clattering against one another. “Angels are built for cold.” For the icy places high above the earth.
“Just because we can stand it doesn’t mean we all like it,” she said, sounding grumpy.
“Go under and rinse your hair.”