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.“I am strong enough,” he said, wrestling her around so that he could spin her arms about her body and turn her away from him, holding her tighter.“Coward,” she hissed, spitting.But he had turned her around now and the spit flew past him.“Witch,” he said.“Clown!” she taunted.“Harpy!” he replied.Then she pushed her body back at him and banged him into the table.It weakened his grip enough that she was able to pull free.She whirled on him and bared her nails like an angry cat, reading to strike at him and rake down his face.He thrust his face forward, daring her to.Instead she reached out a hand and grabbed him by the hair, twisting it painfully and pulling his head towards her.He put both his hands into her hair and twisted it as viciously, pulling her face to his.They snarled at each other once before their lips met.Then they were kissing passionately.The way they had kissed when they first met.Before the years of courtly behaviour and business etiquette had turned them into strangers.Before the long years of parenting had replaced their tumultuous love for each other with a more stable love for their daughter.With her missing, and in danger, it was like that had been sucked out of the space between them, drawing them violently together.They fell to the ground and lay there in a tight embrace, panting and kissing, husband and wife, hands in each other’s hair and around each other’s throats.XXXV“Come to bed and we can make the majestic moth together,” the Nameless One’s wife said to him.She lay in their bed, with an imploring look upon her face.He looked at her for a moment and then said, “Of course.”He took his time undressing though, as if it were vitally important that each item of clothing be folded just so.“Do you remember when we were younger and spent a week on that small farm in the hills?” she asked him.She often let her memory roam back to their youth.Back before everything.But they were painful memories to him as they were so wonderful.“Yes,” he said.“It was a blessed time.”“We made the majestic moth together endlessly,” she said.He nodded his head, recalling it.It was warm and they were alone in the farmhouse and had dismissed the servants whenever they were able and spent the day in each other’s embrace.“Truly blessed,” he said.But it was a different time too, he thought.He had been much younger and she had been, well, she had been the woman he had married.Had been young and vibrant and full of wit.This evil disease had left but a shadow of his wife.A woman who was like her in so many ways, but also not quite her.Finally he stood there naked and she held out a hand to him.The way she had when they were younger and alone in that farm house.He wanted to take her hand, but he also wanted to weep at the sadness that was filling him.“Come,” she said.Wordlessly he climbed into bed beside her and lay down next to her.“Stroke my hair,” she said, and he did.“Hold me,” she said, and he did.Her good hand touched his bare chest and he closed his eyes and tried to remember the feeling of being in the farm house with her.Any glimpse of a naked part of her body had filled him with passion.He had wrapped his arms around her tightly and they’d flown on the breeze like a majestic moth, to all corners of the house, settling on a couch in the sunshine, or on a rug on the floor.He screwed his eyes tight to try to recall it now, but he could not feel the lightness filling him.She ran her hand lower down his stomach, but he was still failing to respond.He tried to think of her when she was younger.And then he felt himself stirring.She grabbed hold of his ivory tower and felt it rise in her hands.“Come,” she said again.He had to do the rest of the work.Her limbs were too weak.She could but lie there and let him enter her cave of wonders.Let him climb the heights of the mountain of desire.Let him try to carry them both away in the flight of the majestic moth.But all he could feel was his weight upon her.She had been the one who’d filled him with lightness.She had been the soft wings that had beaten for them, bearing them aloft.And now she was broken and he felt his mortal weight pushing her into the mattress of the bed each time he plunged inside her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]