Together they fell onto the bedroll Ammas had intended for his solitary use, alternately pushing the other's clothing away and clumsily reaching for their own, until they pressed against each other wholly naked, coming together in a thing they had both wanted for longer than either of them would admit, or even realize.

The height difference was not so great with Ammas atop her and Carala with her legs opened to him, raising them to coil them behind his knees, their fierce kiss breaking apart in a mutual gasp as he entered her, the heat of her body like a furnace, her hands clutching his back hard enough to sting, gentling enough so she could lightly trace her fingers along the network of scars that had risen from a lifetime of battling things such as what she had become. Sweat rose from both of them, mingling, Carala's woodland scent and Ammas's more mundane human aromas blending into something richly compelling.

For Carala there was something cleansing about it, taking this man who had sworn himself to her, who had fought so hard on her behalf, whose confession of that morning set him on a whole different plane than Tacen. And there was a spite to it, she supposed. Not spite for Ammas, or Denisius, or even Tacen, but spite for her father, and all the things he had done, the terrible crimes he had committed even decades before her own birth.

Clutching Ammas to her, crying out in pleasure as she felt him on and in her, one hand burying in his curls as her paw had done in the forest night, there seemed to be something so right about this -- about laying with this man who had suffered so much because of her family. In that moment she admitted all of it was true, that she had been taught nothing but lies since she could crawl, that the truth was to be found with this man, in this ruined manor which in a more just world should have been lit and warm and alive with the house of Mourthia.

Ammas's feelings were nearly as complicated, drowned though they were in the exquisite pleasure that threatened to drive all sense from him completely, his hands greedy on Carala's body, plundering her, savoring her as he shivered in her immense heat. He was thinking not of that moment in the tunnels where this had almost certainly begun, or how she had looked stripped and bound to the altar, but of a moment even earlier than that, when he had caught her stealing a touch of his broken astrolabe; when they had stood side-by-side consulting a moon chart; when he had pondered what sort of student she would have made.

What he did with her here in this sad old house's cellar was strictly forbidden by the rules of his fellowship, but what did it matter now? There was also no small amount of apprehension: he had not done this in over twenty years; had not even thought he was capable of the act anymore. But those desires had returned with a vengeance, and in a distant way he realized he was pleasuring Carala not despite the caution of his touch but because of it. The deliberation in his body gave him a thoroughness that Tacen had conspicuously lacked.

Their cries echoed off the dusty stones of the empty cellar, diminishing into low sounds of pleasure, into hard gasps of air, into the gentle sounds of kisses and almost inaudible caresses, Carala curling against Ammas as he lay backward, both basking in the satisfaction of it. Tonight she would be the wolf, and tomorrow they might both die at the hands of the Swiftfoot wolves, but for now there was this, and both of them savored it.

Carala had nearly drifted off to sleep when she became aware Ammas's face had turned from her, his chest shaking. For a moment she was alarmed, thinking he was suffering some sort of attack -- she remembered too well how he had collapsed when they'd escaped the tunnels -- but she soon realized he was weeping.

"Ammas?" she whispered cautiously. Lightly he pulled away from her, but she wouldn't have it: firmly she tugged at his shoulder, turning him back to her. At once he pressed his face to her neck, breathing hard. Wetness trickled onto her skin from his eyes; his cheek, but it was a restrained sort of weeping, and she wondered if he was ashamed of it.

Why he wept he was never able to explain to her fully. Perhaps he wept for the realization that no one would chide him or punish him for bedding a client, since all his fellowship was dead and gone. Perhaps he wept out of a sense of betrayal: betrayal of his father, his family, and his brethren, laying with and even caring for the daughter of Somilius Deyn. Perhaps he wept for Lena, who might have been the one to share his bed had he not been so blind to her affection and if she had not died trying to help the woman beside him now. But perhaps most of all he wept for twenty years of isolation and solitude, twenty years of hiding and scrounging, twenty years of living as a fugitive who was barely one step above a criminal.

She held him, soothing him, feeling the sting of tears herself, wondering if this was some admission that he could not cure her, that she was to be the wolf forever. That was a terrible thing if it was true . . . but it was also an excuse never to return to Talinara or her father's house. And an excuse to stay instead with Ammas. As she stroked his head, pressing herself to him, sharing her warmth, he began to still, one arm draping across her waist, and he drifted into a doze.

The day drew on, the sun westering above, unseen by them, but the imminent return of the white moon easily felt deep in Carala's heart. There was some time, she knew, but she could feel the wolf rousing from its slumber, strangely pleased by what it scented on her; by what it felt on the half-slumbering man beside her. Lightly her fingers wandered over the tattoo on his shoulder: the beautiful sailing ship.

"Sailor's Crown," she murmured. The scar beneath it was an ugly thing, but this close she could make out the remnants of the mark worn by soldiers who served under her brother Silenio. As Vos had immediately recognized upon seeing it, she understood this scar was of Ammas's own making: that he had been unable to bear wearing the mark of the man who had murdered his young cousin and slain his aunt and uncle.

But what had happened to Gratham Mourthia and his family, cruel as it might have been, was nothing compared to what her father had inflicted on Ammas's family. The wolf was awake. Caution no longer seemed so important. And now, in the wake of what they had done, why keep any secrets from him? Ammas had confessed to her, after all.

Sleekly she rolled to her belly, tracing her nails along Ammas's jawline until he stirred, a faint smile on his lips as he saw her. "It's not moonrise yet, is it?"

"Not yet," she murmured. "Ammas, I must tell you something."

He looked at her expectantly, still smiling as he roamed a hand over the nape of her neck.

"I know what happened to your father. Your mother."

That expectant smile crumbled at once, his eyes widening as if she had slapped him.

Fearing -- no, knowing he had misunderstood her intent, Carala prowled forward, fingers curling against his shoulders, her grip tight enough to prevent him from fleeing, or pushing her away.

"They lied to me for years. Covered it up. My brother was practically exiled for disagreeing with it. I know everything, Ammas. I know your father never tried to kill him. I know -- what happened."

Even in this strange, hungry mood, her eyes shining amber, she could not bear to hurt him with the details of it. His face had gone ghostly white, and his hands trembled on her waist, shaking like an old, old man's.

"I'll come to Munazyr with you. I'll be yours. I want him to know. I want you to take me again." Her tongue lathed her lips, her incisors grown long and sharp. "I would have him see us if I could. Have him see the son of Senrich Mourthia and his own she-wolf daughter serving you. And if you wanted it," she stretched forward, taking his lower lip in her sharpening teeth and suckling on it, "I'd go to him as the wolf, and I would tear out his heart, and I would bring it to you. For what he did to you."

"Carala," he said in a tremulous voice utterly unlike his own, "this is the wolf speaking."

"Good," she growled, and slid off him, arching the sweet curve of her backside upward, glowering at him over one bare shoulder with those lambent eyes. "Then give me what a wolf craves."