left his body in a rush. “What?” he whispered with no voice at all.
Tobin let go of him, gasping softly. “You didn’t know?”
“Tell me. Now.” He grabbed her arms, both of them, and held tight.
Tobin stared up at him wide-eyed and apprehensive. “Before I married Chay she teased me about not knowing how to best please a man, and offered to lend me one of her faradh’im to give me the same sort of lessons they receive at Goddess Keep.”
She explained haltingly that upon receipt of the first ring, Sunrunners spent a night with an unknown lover so that when they went to the grove the next day, they would no longer be children. “A girl can’t see what the Womantree must show her unless she is a woman,” Tobin finished. “Rohan, I thought you knew.”
“So. Our dear aunt runs a whorehouse. How many men do the teaching, sister dear?” Had touched Sioned, tasted her mouth, held her supple body close and discovered her secrets—
“Don’t be a fool! It’s only the once, only one night—”
“Once? You expect me to believe that?”
“You’re only angry because you’ve never—” She broke off and took a step back from him, frightened now.
“How little you know about me, Tobin,” he said smoothly. There had been a girl—once, after the victory over the Merida, when he’d been incredibly drunk. She had been an archer from one of the smallest keeps along the coast and had not known who he was. He’d awakened the next day with a ravaging headache and the panicky realization that he had to leave before she found out his identity. The real trouble had been that he had very little clear memory of exactly what had happened between them. He was not entirely ignorant of sexual matters, but he lacked real knowledge, and it galled him.
“Rohan—”
“What else did Andrade forget to mention? Does she honestly believe I’ll take used goods to my bed?”
“Rohan! How can you think of Sioned and say such a thing?”
He ignored her and strode off, wondering how he could still breathe with dragon claws gripping his chest. Inexperienced, was he? He stifled the impulse to kick something and told himself savagely that there were methods of remedying that situation—and the sooner the better.
Chapter Nine
Rohan could not have chosen a worse time for it if he’d tried. With family, servants, and vassals watching every move he made, he could not have snuck a mouse into his chambers, let alone a girl. Having worked himself around to the point where he almost didn’t care if everyone lined up in the Hall to observe his choice of a bedmate, he ran into an unexpected difficulty. Not a single female in Stronghold—with one obvious exception—appealed to him.
The pretty ones were too young, married, or betrothed, and therefore unapproachable. He was, after all, an honorable man. Besides, the picture of himself as infamous seducer was ludicrous. After rejecting the pretty ones, he tried to interest himself in the plain. At this juncture his pride rebelled. Why should a prince of his wealth and importance have to settle for some long-nosed, pillow-hipped girl who reeked of onions? Working up enthusiasm for the task would have been impossible. So back to the pretty ones his gaze went, and they lost any charms they might otherwise have held for him when he contrasted them with Sioned.
Unsurprisingly in a man so young, he directed his anger at her. His masculine pride had taken a severe blow and his sense of humor was incapable of restoring his balance. Rohan cursed his position and his character for landing him in this mess. Production of royal bastards was never a good idea, and he had long ago decided he would never complicate the succession by siring any. Fastidious as well, he had never distributed his favors among the girls at Stronghold, much to their chagrin. To do so now, when everyone knew he would be choosing a wife at the Rialla, would be a revolution of character that would make him ridiculous. So, compelled to anticipate a marriage bed where his lack of practical experience would be only too evident to a woman of Sioned’s undoubted accomplishments, his temper grew increasingly foul.
It did not improve on the late summer afternoon when, moodily staring down at a stack of parchments waiting for his immediate attention, he sensed a strangeness in the air and knew, without knowing how he knew, that the she-dragons had taken flight. He leaned out the window of