(See important disclaimers at the beginning of Part 1)

Renee helped Jess stretch out on the padded back bench of the van, while she squeezed into the cramped floorspace behind the driver's seat. They were both covered by a green canvass tarp. Benton had strewn enough painting supplies around to make the back of the van comfortably messy, and therefore nondescript.

To Renee's combined relief and consternation, their escape from the Clinic had hardly merited that term -- essentially, they walked out. Mac, the night guard, all but tipped his hat and held the door for them. She still couldn't believe it.

But then, Renee thought, I can't give much credence to most of this week.

"Can you hear me, Ben?"

The tent of the tarp over them made the Amazon's voice resonate beside her. She could barely see Jess in the green shadows, but she could feel her warmth.

"Yo," Benton answered.

The big man had been sweating profusely as he covered them, but now his driving was smooth and unhurried as the van left the Clinic grounds. Renee fingered the edge of the tarp aside, and saw the high spiked fence of the entrance tick by the window. She shivered with a relief she knew was not fully warranted yet.

Renee thought of the bag of personal belongings Benton had retrieved from the staff locker room. She wondered if he'd seen the small bottle of vodka. She wanted a drink so badly, she could feel the cool glass of the bottle in her hands.

"Benton, what about you and Emily?" Jess shifted, stiffly. "You know they'll send officers to your apartment the moment -- "

"We won't be going back," Benton said from the driver's seat. "Emily's driving on to Clearwater. I'm going to arc north and meet her there next week."

"Ben." Renee heard grieving in Jess's voice. "You were almost through school."

"There are lots of schools."

"Not with scholarships. You used two years of tuition to bribe us out of -- ."

"There's only one Marian, though," Benton continued as if Jess hadn't spoken, and his tone had gone rough with affection. "Mother would scalp me if I didn't help her three -- four, sorry -- little village chicks escape."

"On behalf of Tristaine," Jess said, "The chick reference was inappropriate."

"Noted," Benton replied.

Renee slid her arm up over Jess automatically to brace her as the lumbering van pulled a long left. Her status with Jess may have changed from captor to collaborator, but she would always be a medic first. She saw Jess smile at her through the rocking shadows.

"How are you holding up?" Jess asked.

"Fine." Renee shrugged. "I wish I was real drunk."

Jess grinned understanding, but then her expression grew watchful.

"This was too easy," Jess murmured, and Renee shivered again.

"Not necessarily," Benton called back. The van thumped over a bulge in the asphalt, and Renee clenched her teeth as Jess grimaced. "These guys down here think a whole different way than you do in Tristaine, Jesstin. They don't expect resistance. They're too used to having every neck securely lodged beneath their very large boot."

"That's true," Renee whispered, wanting to believe they were safe.

"You two lay low, we're coming into the city."

The steady thrum of the worn tires on the roadway lulled Renee. She couldn't possibly sleep, but at least the heart-popping anxiety was receding. She turned her head and tried to see Jess. "Hey?"

"Hey."

"Your turn, status report."

"I'm okay," Jess said. She shifted again, trying to find anything resembling comfort on the padded bench. "I mean, I hurt, but I'm still functional."

"Where are we going?" Renee hadn't wanted to know until they were off the Clinic grounds, at least. If they were captured, she doubted she could remain silent under Caster's interrogation. "Tristaine?"

"Eventually, I hope. But not tonight," Jess sighed. She flexed her shoulders absently. "Tristaine is days from here, deep in the mountains. We're going to have to hike there, I'm afraid. Luckily we know the hills pretty well."

"Lucky's the word for it." Renee's tone was hollow.

"Ben will drop us close to a river that the kids know as a meeting place." Jess's eyes drifted shut, as soothed by the thrumming pavement as Renee was. "We'll need to cover some ground before we rest -- at least make some inroads up through the foothills."

"You're planning on scaling cliffs?" Renee's hand found and cupped the back of Jess's neck. She was running a low-grade fever -- Renee had first felt it back at the Clinic, an hour before Benton returned for them. "You're not getting any cooler, Jess."

"We're under a tarp."

"Jesstin." Renee's grip on the back of Jess's neck tightened. "Do you really think you can do this?"

"I don't know." Jess swallowed, and her blue eyes were suddenly vulnerable. "I come from good stock, Renee, but I'm about played out. What if I can't?"

Renee didn't answer for a moment. When she did, she spoke to Jess as a nurse and as a friend. "Then I'll help you. We'll get everybody home safe, okay?"

Jess smiled, puzzled. Either she was having an unusually vivid deja-ju, or the bump on her head was giving her delusions, but she was sure she'd heard Renee say those words before -- and in that same caressing voice, that made her seem the older of the two.

Renee kept her hand on the back of Jess's neck, and began the familiar massage that she knew would relax her. "Close your eyes, try to rest while we can."

Benton took the on-ramp for the interstate, and headed for the hills.

The van was parked on a rather precarious turnout at the base of the mountains, its front tires inches away from a sandy ridge. Below the wash of the van's headlights, the hill sloped steeply until it hit a line of trees. Thick ones, impossible to see through at high noon, much less at 3:00 am.

Renee was carrying more than a woman her size should have been able to lift. The rudimentary aluminum camping frame strapped to her back held blankets, two lanterns, her bag, and enough dried fruit and meat to feed a small family for a week.

Which was about how long it would take the four women to hike through the mountains to Tristaine, Renee figured. If Jess held out. If they weren't caught. If Jess could convince her friends that Renee was not a spy, and they didn't slit her throat.

The young medic shivered in the pine-scented chill and adjusted the aluminum frame on her back. She could slip it off quickly if she had to run, she had checked.

"I may not see you again." Jess was saying goodbye to Benton. She clasped his forearm warmly. "My thanks, Ben, for everything."

"De nada." The ugly man grinned. "I made a lousy orderly, but I scored all the fenodal in Renee's locker -- my wife's gonna love me -- it balances out. Here." He picked up Jess's hand and folded two capsules into it. "It's demerol, for pain. Two were all I could get, so use them when you need them most."

Jess nodded thanks, and slipped them into the breast pocket of her black shirt. "Give our love to Emily."

"Take care, Jesstin." Benton kissed Jess soundly on her unbruised cheek. He turned, and almost ran into Renee. He chuckled, and lay his big hands gently on her shoulders. "Renee, get these chicks home safe."

"Thank you, Benton." Renee lifted herself on her toes and kissed Benton's cheek, surprising him into speechlessness. She smiled up at him crookedly through her spiked bangs, and Benton fell a little in love. "I will, I'll do my best."

The van's headlights illuminated the treacherous sandy slope before them. Jess glanced down the hill, shifting the coils of rope over her shoulder, all Renee and Benton would let her carry.

"Have you hiked much, Ren?"

"What other recreation is there, on a medic's pay," Renee grumbled, adjusting the straps of her heavy backframe. She thought she sounded perfectly calm.

"Good." Jess grinned at her, her teeth flashing a ghostly white in the glare of the headlamps. "Then you know to compensate for the weight of your pack when you descend, so you're not thrown off-balance, right?"

Jess took the younger woman's hand without waiting for a reply, and Renee let her keep it. The Amazon tossed a nod of farewell back to the invisible Benton, and side-stepped off the ridge. Renee followed.

Jess was able to let go of Renee half-way down. She'd guessed that the blonde woman would be steady on her feet, but the adrenaline coursing through Jess made her especially cautious. Above them, they heard the sandy grinding of the van turning back toward the road, and the illumination from its headlights winked out. After their eyes adjusted, the blue moonlight overhead proved an adequate guide.

Renee figured Jess knew where they were going, so she just concentrated on keeping her balance in the deep sand. The slope leveled off into a grassy area leading into the trees, and Renee followed Jess into them silently. They were both moving well, walking side by side now that they were weaving through clumps of aspen. Both women were quiet, their senses pitched to the straining point to detect any danger.

They covered a mile or more. The air around them was caught in the tense hush that signals the coming of dawn in the wild.

Renee stopped, her head coming up like a young deer scenting the air. "Is that water?"

"Do you hear it, or smell it?" Jess asked her.

Renee closed her eyes. "Both," she said. She wouldn't have thought she knew what a clean river smelled like, but that faint, tinny scent was unmistakable.

"Good, Ren, your radar's already on." Jess touched the younger woman's shoulder, and continued on through the trees. "Watch your footing."

Renee focused on the root-strewn soil beneath her sneakered feet, and on not bonking her head on tree limbs. Already the city, and its Clinic, seemed miles behind them, but they'd been walking less than an hour.

Renee heard the river long before she saw it. Finally flecks of white registered in her eyes, water moving swiftly over stone. The broad stream emerged as a dark snake cutting through the forest floor in front of them.

"It's all right," Jess called suddenly behind her. Renee turned, startled, but Jess was studying the surrounding trees, and buttoning the collar of her black shirt to the throat. "This is Renee. What Emily told you is true, she's with me."

"Who're you -- " Renee faltered. "You mean they're -- "

But Jess was looking over Renee's shoulder and grinning, so Renee turned -- just in time to be spun back around when her shoulder was smacked by a body hurtling past her.

"Hello, Jesstin!"

A small woman took a running leap into the arms Jess held open, and the tall Amazon gave a half-grunt, half-laugh as she caught her.

"Good morning, little sister." Jess's blue eyes glowed as she looked down at the young redhead in her arms. "I missed you."

Renee took a step back and walked up against a slender tree. The tree coughed and excused itself, and Renee whirled.

"Camryn," the tree said, by way of introduction.

"Renee," Renee stammered, her hand on her chest. "People come and go so quickly here," she murmured to herself, and then quelled a manic bray of laughter.

Cam and Kyla were dressed in the same kind of green scrubs Renee wore. On Camryn, they made her look like a sturdy young surgeon -- she stood almost as tall as Jess.

Cam nodded, and her cool grey eyes went to the dark woman. "Jesstin? You all right?"

"Hello, Cam." Jess smiled at the brown-haired Amazon with unmistakable fondness. "It looks like the two of you took good -- "

"Uh, no, she's not all right." Kyla was answering Cam, and she sounded ominous. She stood on her toes and cupped Jess's chin, turning her face to try to see her more clearly in the moonlight. "She's not all right at all, Cam, look at her! What the hell is this, Jesstin?"

Jess caught Kyla's hand, but not before the younger woman pulled down her collar and uncovered the ugly burn between her breasts.

"Jesus, adannin," Kyla breathed.

Cam's gray eyes narrowed when she saw the redness covering Jess's upper chest, and then she spun on Renee and slapped her, hard, in one fluid movement.

Renee's vision exploded in sparks -- the girl's powerful blow across her cheek carried as much destructive force as a roundhouse right. The blonde woman dropped where she stood, fully conscious, but caught completely off-guard.

Jess moved so quickly Cam didn't have time to turn back around to face her. Her wrist was seized by steely fingers, and Jess's voice was cold.

"Is that how Dyan taught you to use superior strength against a woman, Camryn? Strike her down without warning?"

Renee stared up at Jess, almost afraid of her fierceness. Cam looked at her evenly, but she stood very still in Jess's grasp.

"And what did Shann tell us both about not letting passion rule us?" Jess's grip on Cam's wrist remained tight. Renee heard the faint brogue of Tristaine inflect the tall Amazon's voice, as she now knew it did under stress. "You don't know this girl, Cam, or what happened to us."

"We both know you've been tortured." Kyla's voice shook, but the look she gave Renee almost flash-fried her. "She worked in the Clinic, Jess. Are you saying she defended you?"

"She has a name, Kyla." Jess held out her hand to Renee, who took it and let her pull her to her feet. "Renee did work at the Clinic, yeah. But she also saved my life."

Jess released Cam. She waited until Kyla joined them, and they stood in a loose circle.

"Look," Jess said quietly. "I don't care if the three of you become life-long friends, but we're working together from now on. Kyla, Cam, you treat Renee like adannin, because that's what she is to me. Are we clear on that?"

"Yeah, Jess." Cam still held Jess's eyes. Kyla nodded. Renee did too, and folded her arms and stared at the ground. The entire side of Renee's face throbbed, hotly.

"I have something for you." Jess pulled a small square of paper out of her breast pocket and handed it to Cam.

Cam blinked, and took it. She was grinning even before she tilted the small photograph to see its image in the moonlight. She lifted it toward Jess, nodded, and then slipped the picture into the pocket of her scrubs.

"Uh, listen." Renee cleared her throat, and the others looked at her. "It's all going to come out in fits and starts, Jess, eventually, so can I go ahead and get it over with?" Her green eyes were shadowed.

"What?" Jess asked.

"That I did work at the Clinic," Renee sighed. She ticked off the points on her hands. "That I was assigned to you, and I let -- things happen to you. And yes, I hurt you myself."

Both of the younger women looked at Jess, who merely watched Renee.

"Jess probably saved my life by bringing me out here," Renee said. She wondered if that adult, rational voice was really coming from her, but she was too tired and scared to be faking it. "I owe her -- something, a lot. But for the record, I don't want anything from you guys, except a chance to get out of the state. I promise, I'll carry my own weight."

Kyla started to speak, but Jess put out a hand and hushed her, her eyes trained on the sky. Dawn was still an hour away, but a dark blue light had begun to fill the heavens.

"Plane?" Cam asked doubtfully, looking at the rugged terrain around them.

"Helicopter, I think," Jess corrected. That brought all their eyes up, but they could see nothing yet. Renee could hear it now, a far-off intermittent buzzing, and like the two younger Amazons, she looked automatically at Jess. "We've got to get higher, folks."

All traces of weariness vanished.

Renee felt adrenaline pump through her legs as they churned up the tree-studded hillside, in a widening parallel to the river. The four women ran in close formation, alert to each other and listening hard for the rotary blade of the chopper.

The burring chatter grew louder, but the strong searchlight beaming down from the mechanical wasp never came near them. They were under the cover of the trees.

Jesstin signaled a halt a mile in. Not just a mile in, Renee thought, her chest burning, a mile up. She stood with the others with her hands on her knees, pulling for breath. Jess straightened and listened, her hands on Cam's back, and Renee's. Alone among them, her face was streaked with sweat in the cool pre-dawn air. There was no sound except their gasping and the expected cracklings of an awakening forest.

"We need to get under cover before the sun rises," Jess panted, scanning the sky. "Cam, you can find a cave in a desert, take off."

Cam nodded, and turned to head up the rocky hillside. Kyla followed her, her smaller form almost visible now in the gray light.

"Hey," Jess said, surprised, and Kyla turned to look back at her inquiringly.

"Oh -- we're bonded, Jess," the girl called. She smiled, and displayed the dimples her sister Dyan used to tease her about unmercifully. "But don't tell Shann."

Renee looked at Jess's open-mouthed stare. "What? You didn't want her to go with Camryn? Wait -- bonded? Does that mean they're -- "

"They got hitched," Jess said heavily, her brows still arched as she watched the two figures retreat around the bend ahead. "And I'm not supposed to tell Shan."

"Shan," Renee repeated. "Your leader, right?"

"She Who Must Be Obeyed," Jess agreed. She groaned. "Artemis, take me now."

Renee grinned, and then noticed Jess's sweating face. "How are you?"

"We can make some kind of camp in an hour." Jess scrubbed her hand over her face.

"That's not what I asked," Renee pointed out. She reached for Jess's forehead, but the tall Amazon slapped her fingers away lightly.

"I can make it for an hour," Jess said. "Stop hovering, Ren."

"Jesstin, I think I liked you better when I could tie you down." Renee waited to see if the quip held any sting, for either of them. Jess grinned, and she relaxed.

Renee studied the three women of Tristaine as she helped them lay camp, not in a cave, but on a broad shelf of rock, well-protected by trees and shrubbery. She recognized their unspoken affection for each other in the touch of a hand on a shoulder, and the warmth of the smiles they exchanged -- the same kind of physical grace-notes she had always shared with her younger sister. Sammy, Renee thought. She closed her eyes.

"She's going to send us off again, in a minute."

Renee lifted her head, startled, as Kyla settled down cross-legged beside her. They both leaned against the sandstone rock behind them, the surface still cold in the weak morning sunlight. "What was that?"

"Jess is going to banish us again." Kyla's brown eyes were friendly. She had the gamine face of a beautiful young woman passing through the last stage of girlishness. "I think it's because she wants to be alone with you. Cam says its because Jess doesn't want to watch us make out. Personally, I think Cam's uncomfortable kissing me in front of Jess. What do you think?"

"Well, let's see." Renee smiled as she watched Cam and Jess construct a pile of unseasoned wood for a smokeless fire. "Off-hand, I think, Jess is still trying to cope with the fact that you two are, together. Blended?"

"Bonded," Kyla corrected, and snickered. Renee grinned.

"Well, we weren't, when they transferred the three of us to the prison from the Clinic." Kyla looked at Camryn with dreaming eyes. "Cam and I were friends, but not bonded. We would have been eventually, no matter what. But once they took Jess, and we were alone together . . . we were kept naked all the time. It got pretty cold."

Renee said nothing. She was surprised by a soft hand, covering her own.

"I wasn't jabbing at you, Renee." Kyla's voice was warm. "You weren't the one calling the shots back there, I know that."

Renee nodded.

"Jess called you adannin," Kyla said. "Do you know what that means?"

"I thought it meant someone from Tristaine," Renee answered, watching the muscles in Jess's arms flex as she broke kindling over her knee.

"It means sister." Kyla nudged the blonde woman with her shoulder. "Like, capital S. It's not a word we apply to every woman, not even every woman in Tristaine. And very few, outside of it."

Renee nodded again, her green eyes still on Jess. "So what am I to you, Kyla?"

Kyla blinked, not prepared for a city girl to match her amazonian directness. She would learn later that it had thrown Jess off at first, too. "I don't know yet," she said finally. "Cam still doesn't trust you. She's sorry she hit you, but she's not going to apologize for it, anytime soon."

"That's Camryn." Renee turned her head against the rock to look at the younger woman.

"I think that except for Jess, you feel all alone out here, and that must be hard." The brown eyes were measuring, but compassionate, and Renee felt a tightness in her chest. "We won't let anything happen to you, okay, Renee? Please don't worry. Even Cam, she'd fight anybody for you, now that Jess has named you adannin. That makes you our sister in a way, too."

Renee returned Kyla's open gaze for a moment, then glanced down at the green scrubs they both wore. "Does that mean I can borrow your outfits?"

Kyla let out a bark of surprised laughter.

"We gotta find something besides dehydrated baconfat for breakfast," Camryn sighed, slinging down a last stack of kindling. "Come on, Ky."

"What did I tell you?" Kyla murmured, as she pushed herself to her feet. Her brown eyes twinkled warmly at Renee, and then she took Cam's hand and followed her around the side of the rock shelf. Renee noted that Camryn didn't meet her eyes as she passed.

"Stay within whistle-call," Jess called after them, unnecessarily. She seemed to wait until the soft footfalls faded in the morning air. Then she walked, too casually, over to the neat stack of backpacks and removed an armload of blankets. She started to reach for the canteen in Camryn's frame, but Renee's hand darted in ahead of hers and lifted it out.

"We don't have a lot of time," Renee said. She took Jess's arm. "You don't want them to see your back, that's why you sent them away, right?"

Jess's cheek dimpled, but Renee thought her eyes were haggard. "Yeah, that's right."

"More Amazon macha," Renee suggested, leading Jess over to a protected, shaded corner of the shelf.

"Yeah." Jess waited until Renee snapped one of the blankets out over the cool stone, then she settled stiffly on top of it, crossed her long legs, and unbuttoned her shirt. She started to peel it off her shoulders, and had to bite back a yell.

"Hold it," Renee said quickly. "This is going to be cold." She tipped the open canteen over Jess's shoulder, and felt the dark woman shiver as the stream of water soaked her black shirt. After a moment, Renee was able to lift the cloth clear of her skin, and slip the shirt down her arms.

There didn't seem to be much need for talk; their silence was comfortable. Renee washed Jess's back carefully, unaware that her own eyes darkened every time the Amazon tightened at her touch. She applied an antiseptic to the lashmarks that was far milder than the astringent one provided at the Clinic. Its bite wasn't too terrible.

Jess rested her head on her crossed arms as Renee worked, letting exhaustion fill her now that there was no immediate need for action. Her dark lashes fluttered against her cheek as she flexed her wide shoulders, and tried to relax.

"Okay, you're done." Renee lay her hand on Jess's head, and the Amazon opened her eyes, abruptly.

It was happening again, that unsettling deja-vu. Jess wondered if Renee felt it. From the quick, uncertain way the younger woman's fingers lifted from her hair, she thought it was possible. Jess said nothing as Renee slipped her shirt back up her arms. She left it unsnapped, and Renee helped her stretch out carefully on her side.

"You're still warm," Renee observed, covering Jess with a second blanket.

"Someone needs to keep watch," Jess mumbled, her eyes closing again.

"I will, until the kids get back." Renee smiled at herself, and shook her head as she pulled the blanket up over Jess's shoulder. "Jesus, I sound like a mother."

"That's what adannin does to you," Jess yawned.

"Listen, do you want one of those Demerol?"

Jess shook her head, eyes still closed. "Probably need it more in the morning."

"Jess." Renee hesitated. "Why did you tell Kyla and Camryn that I saved your life? Did you mean the CPR, after you tried to -- "

"I meant you wouldn't let me die, you called me back." Jess tried to hold off sleep for a bit longer, unsuccessfully. A moment later Renee felt a familiar thrum beneath her hand as Jess's breathing deepened.

They were to sleep as long as they could. There could be no more travel until the moon rose again, and they were better hidden from Caster's remote eyes.

Sometime in the next hours, during Cam's shift watching over the camp, Jess moaned in her sleep.

Concerned, Cam lifted herself from the stone lip of the shelf, but then she saw the young blonde nurse shift closer to the sleeping Amazon. She watched her feel Jess's face, then her throat. She pulled the blanket off of Jess, and spread open her shirt. Then she lifted the hem of the green shirt she wore over her head, to bare her own breasts, and lay down beside Jess. She rested her large breasts against Jess's firm ones, to try to cool her. She slipped an arm carefully around Jess's broad shoulders, cleared her throat quietly, and closed her eyes again.

Camryn watched them silently for a moment, and then returned to her watch.

Renee cursed herself for an idiot. She should have realized the danger of concealing Jess's condition from anyone in their party. Jess should have realized it too, of course, and her insistence on privacy was evidence enough that she wasn't thinking straight.

She never heard Jess get up to relieve Cam, and take her turn at watch. If she had, she would have stopped her, and made her lie down again to take advantage of the rare hours of healing rest.

Renee jerked awake when the sun rose high enough to bathe her naked breasts in warm light, and she realized she lay alone on the blankets. She lifted herself on one hand uneasily, pulling her shirt down to cover herself decently. She saw Camryn and Kyla huddled beneath another set of blankets, asleep, still in shadow. She didn't see Jess.

She stood up. And then sat down again, with an ungainly thump, or she would have fallen. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest, testament to last night's uphill flight with a full pack. Renee was certain for a moment that she would throw up, but the sharp nausea receded as quickly as it hit. She felt chilled, and her hands shook. The back of her throat thirsted for the sharp bite of whiskey. She held her head in her hands for a moment, until she was able to get back on her feet.

Renee limped down the only path leading from their rock shelf -- Jess wasn't in the camp, and there was no other direction she could have gone. She had left them unguarded, and that more than anything alarmed Renee -- she had learned that much about adannin.

They'd found shelter barely out of the foothills, not far west of the river that had been their rendezvous point. To reach the rock shelf, they'd had to travel a long stretch through open land, and Renee looked back over that vista now. Her fine green eyes scanned the sun-lit reaches of the foothills, searching. She heard a splashing sound and turned quickly. She glimpsed Jess through a barrier-hedge of trees, and she ran toward it.

The dark Amazon was in the stream, on her hands and knees in the frigid water, which swirled and tumbled around her wrists and thighs. She had immersed herself fully, more than once, and her thick hair hung in soaked strands around her face. Renee stared at Jess, appalled, realizing what had driven her here.

Jess's fever must have rocketed while they slept. There was no telling how rational her thinking had been when she sought out the water, but the precept was basically sound -- Jess was trying to cool her body, fast. And she was apparently unconcerned that she was completely in the open, exposed beneath a cloudless blue sky.

"Jess!" Renee gave the empty heavens a fast search, and then she jumped off the shallow bank and into the river. She staggered when her sneakered feet hit the smooth rocks of the riverbed, but her athlete's reflexes steadied her. Her ankles went numb with the immediate, stinging cold of the water, small waves slapping up to her knees.

Renee slogged through the gentle current, alarmed that Jess didn't seem to hear her. "Jesstin! Hey, look at me!"

Jess ignored her, and sank her head completely beneath the frigid swells a third time. Renee reached her while her head was still submerged, and at first the younger woman thought she was merely startled.

The Amazon's reaction was galvanic. At the first touch of Renee's hands on her back, Jess reared up on her knees like a branded stallion, slinging jets of water from her black hair, and the cobalt blue of her eyes was mindless.

"Jess, Jesus!" Renee hissed. She fell to her knees in the water and gripped Jess's shoulders, hard. "You idiot, I don't care how strong you are, your heart stopped not -- "

Jess plucked Renee's hands off her shoulders effortlessly. With both of them kneeling, she towered over the blonde woman, and her grip on her wrists was cruel. Renee saw a greedy light ignite in Jess's eyes that she'd never seen before.

"Every time you touched me." Jess's voice was soft. "Whenever I felt your fingers on my skin, sweet Renee, I felt my mouth on you."

"Wh -- Jess, make sense." Renee pulled one hand free and cupped the back of Jess's neck. "This fever is dangerously high -- "

Jess lunged to her feet, carrying Renee with her. Pure instinct reigned then, on both sides. Renee fought to free herself, and Jess fought to carry her to the bank. Jess was bigger, but Renee was no weakling. It took all the delirious Amazon's strength to haul her out of the river and up the muddy bank.

Jess threw Renee down on her back in the grass and dropped on top of her. "I'm not breaking my word, Renee." Her cobalt eyes seared into the staring green ones below her. "I'm asking permission. All you have to do to stop me, is call it off."

The calm, rational tone seemed to belong to a different woman. The one pressing Renee down on her back began to strip her viciously.

Renee cried out and managed to grip Jess's wrists. Her considerable strength meant nothing. Jess tossed her hands off, and finished pulling her pants down past her knees, baring the red-gold mound between her thighs.

"The first time you touched me, when I was rigged to the frame." Jess's voice grew husky as she forced Renee's knees wide. "Your eyes can hide nothing, Ren. You wanted this so badly, Caster hardly needed the drug."

She looked down at the blonde woman's exposed vulva, the lips pulled slightly apart by her wide-spread knees. Renee moaned and turned her head on the grass, feeling that blue gaze on her labia as palpably as heat. Jess pressed her cold, wet palm snugly against the warm cunt, and the moan ended in a cry of shock. She used her other arm to flatten Renee against the grassy bank. Jess's gaze fastened on her naked, bobbing breasts, and stayed there.

"Do you know the control it took, not touching you when you were strapped there, in my place?" Jess's long fingers slithered up into Renee's vagina.

"Jesstin," Renee gasped. She was copiously wet.

"I wouldn't let myself look at you. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stop, if I did." Jess's gaze feasted openly on Renee's breasts as she began to fuck her, her four fingers gradually disappearing inside her, twisting slowly, allowing the stubborn tunnel to relax its sucking pull on her knuckles, to let her burrow deeper..

Renee lifted herself on her heels and grunted, a dark, swirling pleasure she hadn't consciously named now rising so high she had to express it. "Damn you, Jess," she whispered.

"I almost took you after the whipping." Jess's voice grew more even as she settled into a rhythm, her muscular forearm stroking easily between the young woman's splayed knees. Renee moaned with each thrust, her eyes squeezed shut against the harsh sunlight overhead.

"When we were locked in together, overnight." Jess's eyes moved to Renee's still face as she pumped into her. Her thumb sought, and found, her clitoris, and began to strum it like a guitar string. "I awoke in your lap, and found you naked and sleeping, these breasts inches from my eyes . . . . "

Jess's words cut off as arousal coursed through her, and she had to lower her head to Renee's stomach. Her fingers deep in the girl's snatch never slowed in their twisting, skewering dance, and her thumb circled the turgid clit with growing urgency.

Renee's belly was flooding with heat, and a fiery pleasure coursed through her nipples and returned to simmer in her loins. She meant to moan out a protest, but all that emerged was Jess's name. Renee knew her movements were changing. She began undulating beneath the tall woman pinning her, her green eyes slitted and greedy now on Jess's blue ones.

"You've only known me powerless, Bri." Jess struggled through the haze fogging her mind to speak her heart. "Never make the mistake of believing me so now."

Jess lifted her hand from Renee's throat and covered her mouth. Then she bent, fastened her lips around her protruding clitoris, and nibbled it gently.

Climax hit Renee so fast and fiercely she convulsed with it. Her hoarse scream was drowned by the Amazon's hand over her mouth, but her lips opened against it, and she screamed again.

Jess chewed her relentlessly, until the spasms in Renee's hips began to subside. Then she unconvered her mouth, and worked her hand gently from between her legs, leaving her emptied. Jess climbed stiffly to her feet.

The tall woman looked down at Renee, silently, her dark clothing still dripping with river water. She didn't move to help her stand, and Renee did not ask her assistance, she simply stood up.

The younger woman adjusted her clothing, without any real haste. The green eyes on Jess's were clear and tearless. That was rape, Renee told Jess silently, trying the word out in her mind. Jess's expressive face held no regret, or shame. Renee felt neither regret nor shame -- against all logic, she was filled with a shimmering peace. She wondered if she was losing her sanity.

Jess's head lifted imperceptibly when Cam's voice reached them from the other side of the trees. The low call held some apprehension in it, and Jess answered at once, with a trilling whistle of assurance. A moment later, an answering whistle acknowledged her.

Jess looked back at Renee, and her expression changed, her eyes growing dark. "I left the camp unguarded?"

"It was the fever," Renee said quietly. She was still trembling with the after-effects of orgasm, and with new tension. "You've been -- out of your head, Jess."

Jess stared at her.

"You didn't hurt me," Renee added.

"I know that." Jess turned and started toward the trees.

"Jess, you were delirious," Renee called.

"No, I wasn't." Jess turned back. "My fever broke in the stream, Renee. I knew exactly what I was doing." She nodded toward the trees. "Come on, we need to get under cover."