Page 89 of Dark Destiny: The Turning Of The Loom

Khiann looked triumphant.

She knew that look. She had seen it every time he had closed a good deal or had found a lucrative new import or export.

The slight tilt of his lips, the spark in his eyes, and the set of his shoulders were so familiar.

Her Khiann, sitting on the edge of her lounger in dark glasses, looked as if he had conquered a city or slain a dragon.

She had to kiss him.

Reaching up, she pulled him down, but instead of their lips smashing together, their eyeglasses collided, his frames catching on hers.

They both laughed.

"We are in the shade," he said. "I will survive without the glasses for a moment."

She removed hers and closed her eyes. "Kiss me."

This time, the kiss landed where it was supposed to, on her lips, and it lasted longer than any they had shared so far because Khiann felt triumphant.

When he finally lifted his head, she cupped his cheek. He leaned into it for a moment, then took her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist before putting his glasses back on.

She put her glasses back on as well, and it was a shame, because she couldn't see his eyes behind the dark lenses. But she could see the glow. A faint blue light was spilling out from beneath the frames. It should not have been visible at all in the middle of a sunny morning, even in the shade of the patio roof.

If she could see it, the glow had to be very strong.

"Smile for me," she said.

"Why?"

"Because I asked you nicely."

He smiled, a little, and there they were. His fangs, which had not shown a sign of life since he had been returned to her, had elongated. They were not fully descended, perhaps only halfway, and held.

Khiann had always had exquisite control over his fangs. He could bring them down or hold them back at will, which most young gods and immortals could not do. It usually took centuries to develop such control, and some never had.

"I have not seen your fangs in five thousand years." She sounded a little breathless. "I miss the venom bite."

She had not meant to say it. It had slipped out, and Khiann froze.

"What is the venom bite?" he asked in a whisper.

She suspected that he had asked quietly not because he thought it was a secret, but because he realized that it was something he should have known but did not.

During all their talks, she had never even mentioned the venom or the fangs because she assumed he knew. It was such an innate part of godly physiology that it had never occurred to her that he needed to be told. Mentioning this malfunctioning part of his anatomy would have been as shameful for him as mentioning his faltering erections.

But now that things were coming back online, she could tell him.

"Oh, sa-mu. I have so much to tell you."

32

KHIANN

The urge to bite Annani had been there since the first kiss, even before he knew his fangs could elongate, and he had not understood it.

He had assumed the fangs were a weapon.

Everything he had pieced together so far pointed that way. The gods and the Kra-ell had come from the same world, and the Kra-ell had fangs as well, which they used to drink blood from animals and kill their enemies. The gods had evolved differently, but they must have originated from the same common ancestors and were therefore warriors as well, or they had been in the past. The fangs were a remnant from the time before the split.