Riyannah didn't seem to be hurt at all, but she walked slowly on the way back to camp. Blade let her set the pace, though his feet itched to break into a run and his fingers itched to strip and oil the salvaged rifle. It was half their arsenal, and he was quite sure they hadn't seen the last of the bat-cats.

They reached camp without seeing or hearing any more of the beasts. Blade quickly built the fire up to a roaring blaze, spread a blanket on the ground beside it, then started laying out the parts of the rifle.

«Riyannah, there's a can of oil in your pack. Get it out, will you?» Blade spoke without raising his eyes from his work. When silence followed his words, he looked up. She was nowhere in sight.

«Riyannah?» He started to get up. Then she stepped out of the shelter, wrapped from shoulders to knees in her blanket.

«Riyannah, did you get the-?»

He broke off as she shrugged her shoulders and let the blanket slip to the ground. Then she stepped toward him, naked and laughing, with a glow in her eyes that seemed to flow down and light up her skin as well. Slowly Blade put the rifle bolt down on the blanket. Then he rose to his feet and opened his arms to Riyannah.

She came up to him, then laughed and pressed both palms against his chest. «Blade, your clothes!»

«You're right.» He knelt and began unlacing his boots. As he did, he was very much aware of Riyannah's soft breath on his cheek and in his ear, and her breasts almost in his face as she bent over him.

Blade finished with his boots and stood up. Riyannah knelt, unbuckled his belt with one hand, and unzipped his trousers with the other hand. This time when Riyannah's lips drifted down onto his flesh, they stayed there.

They stayed there until the warmth in Blade's groin became heat, then a form of delicious agony he couldn't have described to save his life. Half his mind and body wanted those lips to continue their work until the agony came to an end in fierce release. The other half of his mind and body wanted her to leave him for a moment while he stripped off the rest of his clothes.