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tenderness was more powerful. It enslaved her, and she surrendered, gasping into the furs. His hands took hold of shoulder and hip, turning and lifting her body to his, then joining them. Her body arched back gasping, and her eyes came open with wonder and awe and love. Out of control, her body convulsed against him in serpentine passion, as if her bones were made of butter.
    When they had finished, he kissed her florid cheek, and returned to the main room. He opened another wine jar, sat back against the edge of the table, and drank, watching the firelight play on Cobra’s flushed, moist body.
    Slowly her breathing came back under control, and she stood. Arranging her tom garment about her, she moved to the table and poured water from the pitcher into a bowl. Dipping her hands in the cold water, she held them against her burning cheeks. Then she sat on a stool in front of the fire, opened her pouch, removed a mirror and arranged her mussed hair under her skullcap. Using a vial of red paste taken from her pouch, she applied fresh color to her lips with the tip of a little finger. Finished, she glanced over her shoulder and acknowledged Gath with a big dark eye saying, “I’d like some wine.”
    He removed a cup from the shelf behind the table, and filled it as she joined him. Lifting the cup to her lips with two hands, Cobra stared past the rim at his brutal male flesh. Moist. Curls of soft black hair glistening like a panther’s on his chest. She sipped the wine, then murmured, “You have surprised me once more, Dark One. You live and feed like an animal, but you do not make love like one.”
    “You are disappointed?” There was a subtle mockery in his tone.
    She chuckled throatily, and said, “Hardly.” She moved close, her body again touching him, and her eyes holding his. Color rushed into her cheeks, and the sound of her breathing filled the room. A soft, vulnerable woman, yet proud, demanding.
    “I want you again,” she whispered. “Now.”
    Gath could not look away. She pressed against his chest, her lips slightly parted, her fragrant breath on his throat, cheeks. His lips lowered to meet hers. Without warning her eyes turned dead yellow, her cheeks ballooned like the cobra’s hood and venom spat past her wet red lips.
    The poison splashed across Gath’s open eyes, sizzled in his hair above his ear. Blinded him.
    He grabbed for Cobra. She was gone, had recoiled, or jumped away. He did not know which. He roared, lunged about, kicked the table over with his thigh splattering cups and wine jars in all directions.
    Cobra backed against the wall near the stairwell, watched. There was pain, fear in her wide-open eyes.
    Gath reeled, ran into a wall and it punched him to the floor. He lay dazed on his back for a brief moment, then rolled upright onto all fours, growling. He started to rise as the poison hit his spine, spread into his nerves. By the time he tottered to his feet, the best he could do was fall back down.
    Cobra watched him flounder on the floor for awhile, then said coolly, “Do not fight it, Dark One. There will be no permanent harm. You will not be able to move for a few hours… but then you will be fine.”
    He replied by rolling over on his back and twitching violently, then he lay still. His eyes were glazed. He could see nothing, feel nothing.
    Cobra removed a small empty turquoise jar from her pouch. She unplugged it, kneeled beside Gath, set the jar on the floor. Then, using her tiny dagger, she trimmed his fingernails and cut away a thick tuft of his pubic hair. These she placed in the jar. Using the edge of the blade, she gathered spittle from his lips, put it in the jar, then plugged the jar, put it in her pouch, and removed a brown earthenware vial. She uncorked it, lifted Gath’s head, poured the contents into his choking throat saying, “This will ease the pain while you recover.”
    She crossed to the alcove and came away with a fur blanket. She kneeled beside him, covered him