had never thought that he would feel that way about anybody. And
he wondered if she felt the-same way about him. Sometimes he
didn’t think she did.
It always seemed to him as if she was holding something back. It
was nothing he could put his finger on, but it was there, just the
same. It made him feel foolish and a little guilty, but there was no
avoiding it. It was nothing that she said or did, but somehow he
always felt that even in bed, Modred came between them. He
wondered, and he hated himself for it, if she ever thought of
Modred when they made love.
He could not complete with Modred. Modred was everything he
wasn’t. Modred was mature, sophisticated, handsome. Modred was
self-assured and confident, with the build of an Adonis and a
powerful, magnetic personality. And Modred was dangerous. A
killer. And though he knew that Kira was deeply disturbed by that,
he also knew that she was perversely fascinated by it. She was
drawn to him in spite of herself. She had always been a danger
junkie. It was one of the things that had made her a successful cat
burglar. She got off on risk, on taking chances. And there was
nothing risky about himself, Wyrdrune thought. He was safe and
eminently predictable.
He had no doubt that Kira loved him. He was the one she shared
her bed with, not Modred. Modred seemed completely oblivious of
her feelings toward him. It seemed incredible that he could be
unaware of how she felt about him. The way she sometimes looked
at him, the subtle clues in her manner and tone of voice and body
language, it was all there, plain as day. How could he fail to see it?
Maybe he simply chose not to notice.
Wyrdrune sighed and got out of bed. He looked down at Kira. She
was lying on her side, her legs slightly bent, her hands tucked
beneath her cheek. She looked so vulnerable lying there, like a
beautiful child-woman. She always tried to cultivate a toughness, a
streetwise, aggressive manner that was part of her survival
instincts, born of years of fending for herself. She always tried to
look tough, dress tough, act tough, but at night he saw her as she
really was. His gaze lingered on the graceful curves of her back and
buttocks, on her long, exquisitely shaped legs, on the delicate arch