He set his long, scaled hand to the line of her jaw and lowered his face to hers. Rapskal kissed her knowingly, his mouth moving gently on hers. She was paralyzed with desire and wonder. Where did they stop, where did they begin? It was all one. The man who knelt suddenly on the steps before her, opening her worn blouse to his greedy kisses was not a clumsy boy but a skilled lover. Her own skilled lover, long schooled to what would most stir her. There was nothing new in how he touched her or what she longed to do with him. She gasped at the touch of his teeth and put her hand on the back of his head. Her fingers tangled in his dark hair, and she guided his mouth against her. She sighed his name and he laughed softly, his mouth still against her skin. “Rapskal,” he corrected her. “But you can call me Tellator. Just as I can call you Amarinda.” He lifted his face to smile deep into her eyes. “Do you see now, Thymara? Do you understand? Everything we need to know about being Elderlings, we can learn here. Even this. And you won’t fear it anymore, because you’ve already done it. And you know how good it will be between us.”

She didn’t want him to talk. She didn’t want him to pause, didn’t want to think about what she was going to do. He was right. She didn’t need to. Others had made all the decisions for them, all those years ago. She leaned back, letting him do as he knew she wished.

“I didn’t fear this,” she told him breathlessly. “It was just . . .” She lost her words and her thought in his touch. Why had she been so reluctant?

“I didn’t think you did, really.” His voice was deep with pleasure as he fumbled at his clothing. “I knew Jerd was wrong when she said that you were afraid, that watching was as much as you’d ever want to do.”

Jerd? The name was like a bucket of cold water dashed against her. Thymara jerked back from Rapskal and then hitched away from him, pulling her shirt closed over her breasts. “Jerd?” she demanded of him, incensed. “Jerd! You discussed my doing this with Jerd? You took her advice on how best to accomplish what you wanted?” Fury washed through her, drowning desire. Jerd. She could just imagine her laughing, mocking, making lewd suggestions to Rapskal as to just how he could persuade her to mate with him. Jerd!