The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

It actually wasn't quite as unstable as it appeared. Although there were a few bad moments, they were both surprised at how well the horses negotiated the slope. They were glad to put it behind them, but as they continued to climb, they encountered other difficult areas. In their mutual concern for each other and the horses, they were talking comfortably again.

The slope was easy for Wolf. He had run up to the top and back down again while they were carefully leading the horses up. When they reached the top, Ayla whistled for him and waited. Jondalar watched her and it occurred to him that she seemed much more protective toward the animal. He wondered why, thought about asking her, changed his mind afraid she would get angry, then decided to bring it up anyway.

"Ayla, am I wrong, or are you more concerned about Wolf than you were? You used to let him come and go. I wish you'd tell me what's troubling you. You were the one who said we shouldn't keep things from each other."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, her forehead wrinkled in a frown. Then she looked up at him. "You're right. It's not that I was keeping it from you. I've been trying to keep it from myself. Remember those deer down there, that were rubbing the velvet off their antlers?"

"Yes." Jondalar nodded.

"I'm not sure, but it might be the season of Pleasures for wolves, too. I don't even want to think about it, for fear that would make it happen, but Tholie brought it up when I was talking about Baby leaving to find his own mate. She asked me if I thought Wolf would leave someday, like Baby did. I don't want Wolf to leave, Jond

alar. He's almost like a child to me, like a son."

"What makes you think he will?"

"Before Baby left, he would go off for longer and longer times. First a day, then several days, and sometimes, when he came back, I could see he had been fighting. I knew he was looking for a mate. And he found one. Now, every time Wolf goes, I'm afraid he's looking for a mate," Ayla said.

"So that's it. I'm not sure we can do anything about it, but is it likely?" Jondalar asked. Unbidden came the thought that he wished it was. He didn't want her to be unhappy, but more than once the wolf had delayed them or caused tension between them. He had to admit that if Wolf found a mate and went off with her, he would wish him well and be glad he was gone.

"I don't know," Ayla said. "So far, he's come back every time, and he seems happy to be traveling with us. He greets me like he thinks we are his pack, but you know how it is with Pleasures. It is a powerful Gift. The need can be very strong."

"That's true. Well, I don't know if there is anything you can do about it, but I'm glad you told me."

They rode together in silence for a while, up another high meadow, but it was a companionable silence. He was glad she had told him. At least he understood her strange behavior a little better. She had been acting like an overly concerned mother, though he was glad she didn't normally. He'd always felt sorry for the boys whose mothers didn't want them to do things that might be a little dangerous, like going deep in a cave, or climbing high places.

"Look, Ayla. There's an ibex," Jondalar said, pointing to a nimble and beautiful goatlike animal with long curved horns. It was perched on a precipitous ledge high up on the mountain. "I have hunted those before. And look over there. Those are chamois!"

"Are those really the animal the Shamudoi hunt?" Ayla asked as she watched the antelope relative of the wild mountain goat, with smaller upright horns, gamboling across inaccessible peaks and scarp faces of rock.

"Yes. I've gone with them."

"How can anybody hunt animals like that? How do you reach them?"

"It's a matter of climbing up behind them. They tend to look down all the time for danger, so if you can get above them, you can usually get close enough for a kill. You can see why the spear-thrower would be a great advantage," Jondalar explained.

"It makes me appreciate that outfit Roshario gave me even more," Ayla said.

They continued their climb and by afternoon were just below the snowline. Sheer walls reared up on both sides of them with patches of ice and snow not far above. The top of the slope ahead was outlined with blue sky and seemed to lead to the very edge of the world. As they topped the rise, they halted and looked. The view was spectacular.

Behind them was a clear vista of their climb up the mountain from the treeline. Below that the evergreen-carpeted slopes cushioned the hard rock and disguised the rough terrain they had struggled over. To the east they could even see the plain below with its braided ribbons of water flowing sluggishly across it, which surprised Ayla. The Great Mother River seemed hardly more than a few trickles from their vantage point on the frigid mountaintop, and she couldn't quite believe that ages ago they had sweltered in the heat traveling beside her. In front of them was a view of the next mountain ridge somewhat below and the deep valley of feathery green spires that separated them. Looming close above were the glimmering icebound peaks.

Ayla looked around in awe, her eyes glistening with wonder, moved by the grandeur and beauty of the sight. In the chill, sharp air, puffs of steam escaping her mouth made every excited breath perceptible.

"Oh, Jondalar, we are higher than everything. I have never been so high. I feel like we're on the very top of the world!" she said. "And it's so ... so beautiful, so exciting."

As the man watched her expressions of wonder, her sparkling eyes, her beautiful smile, his own enthusiasm for the dramatic panorama was fired by her sheer excitement, and he was moved with immediate desire for her.

"Yes, so beautiful, so exciting," he said. Something in his voice sent a shiver through her and made her turn away from the extraordinary view to look at him.

His eyes were such an impossibly rich shade of blue, it seemed for a moment that he had stolen two small pieces of the deep, luminous blue sky, and filled them with his love and wanting. She was caught by them, captured by his ineffable charm, whose source was as unknowable to her as the magic of his love, but which she could not—and did not want to—deny. Just his desire for her had always been his "signal." For Ayla, it was not an act of will but a physical reaction, a need as strong and driving as his own.

Without being aware that she moved, Ayla was in his arms, feeling his strong embrace and his warm and eager mouth on hers. There was certainly no lack of Pleasures in her life; they shared that Gift of the Mother regularly, with great enjoyment, but this moment was exceptional. Perhaps it was the excitement of the setting, but she felt a heightened awareness of every sensation. Every place she felt the pressure of his body on hers, a tingling coursed through her; his hands on her back, his arms around her, his thighs against hers. The bulge in his groin, felt through the thicknesses of fur-lined winter parkas, seemed warm, and his lips on hers gave her an indescribable sense of wanting him never to stop.

The instant he released her and stepped back enough to unfasten the closures of her outer garment, her body ached with the desire and expectation of his touch. She could hardly wait, yet she did not want him to hurry. When he reached under her tunic to cup her breast, she was glad his hands were cold for the contrasting shock to the heat she felt inside. She gasped when he squeezed a hard nipple, feeling fires that raised goosebumps as they raced through her to the place deep inside that burned with wanting more.

Jondalar sensed her powerful reactions and felt a corresponding increase in his own heat. His member surged erect and pulsed with its fullness. He felt her smooth warm tongue reaching inside his mouth and suckled it. Then he released it to seek the soft warmth of hers, and he suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to taste the warm salt and feel the moist folds of her other opening, but he did not want to stop kissing her. He wished he could have all of her all at once. He took both breasts in his hands, played with both nipples, squeezing, rubbing, then lifted her tunic and took one in his mouth and suckled hard, feeling her push against him and hearing her moan with pleasure.

He felt a throbbing and imagined his full manhood being inside her. They kissed again and she felt the strength of her need and her wanting grow. She was hungry for his touch, his hands, his body, his mouth, his manhood.