Kira had been a passionate, sensual creature for as long as she could remember. Her luscious body craved touch, intimacy, attention, her nerve fibers constantly seeking some sort of stimulation to relieve her from some mysterious emptiness she could not name. That hollow sensation had carved itself deeper into her guts during the years she’d been absent from Blossom Forest . . . and since returning to the land of her birth, it seemed as if this insidious ailment had only grown worse. More voracious. Scooping fullness from her insides, scraping scars into her already imperfect heart, wounding her in tiny increments every day. Kira needed LOVE—mountains of it, oceans of it—because her soul itself burned incandescent with adoration just waiting to warm another body. The snowbird had amused herself with chemical compounds that made butterflies dance in her vision and light ripple like water, yet even gripped in these lovely dreams she’d always known that no mere plant could compete with the high she gained from great sex. For Kirastasia, to live without romantic gratification was to suffer from abysmal hunger. And right now? She starved.

There was really no reason for this anguish. True, Kahlan repudiated her . . . and despite Kira’s promise to save the poor, shattered ex-healer, she’d gotten no closer to rescuing her first love’s heart. Glancing at Kah—when the earthen wolfess deigned go anywhere near her—made the vipera woman flinch. Kirastasia didn’t like to fail. When she did fail, as infrequent at that event was, she immediately attempted to distract herself. Seasons ago, that distraction arrived in the form of a dear young man with burning heaven-blue eyes: Drizzt. Her Drizzt—the pallid Tempest who called her his “soul mate.” Her husband! HERS! The delight of owning such a magnificent creature had filled Kira with happiness to the point of overflowing. At first. For a while. Drizzt remained the first and only male Kirastasia had ever savored relations with; before him, her partners had been exclusively female—because the tundra queen could never say no to a pretty face. Why, then, did she not seek out her Tempest in her time of need? It would have been simple to approach him, as she had a year ago, begging for the attention she so frantically thirsted for . . .

Could it be a fear of children?

The thought made Kirastasia snort with laughter even as she escaped the boundaries of Wudubearo, leaving her current pups slumbering peacefully in their warm den. Just as Drizzt was the first man she’d lain with, they were her first litter—a bundle of flawless, beautiful bodies that she’d carried inside her. Life that SHE had created, and then maintained. Someday, she knew, their inquisitive eyes would glow the same stunning azure as their sire. They’d be strong enough to run after their own prey, discover their own lives, and possibly fall in love. Perfect, divine, awful, amusing, terrible things. Her babies. Her legacy. Her chains. Ambrosia, Crusoe, Lotus . . . a knot of emotion suddenly tangled itself in her throat, and Kirastasia had to pause mid-stride, tears prickling at her maple windows. She pictured them as she’d left them this morning: pelts of black and brown and cream, snuggled up, sides rising and falling in the safety of their little dirt home. By now they must be used to their mother disappearing without explanation. Did they hate her for it? Had she lost their affection and not even realized it?

Claws dug into the frost-hard soil. Her snake armor had lost its sheen, as dull as the grey winter sky above. The dry sound of wind scratching itself over naked tree branches grated on her raw nerves. What if her pups didn’t love her? What if they grew bored of her? What if she’d made a mistake in raising them, and she’d ruined them irreparably? They’d resent her. Leave her, just like Kahlan. And then Drizzt would leave her too, and she’d be all alone, alone . . .

Kirastasia could have asked Drizzt to soothe her carnal needs. But she didn’t. And she hadn’t purposefully evaded his embrace because she felt anxious about having another litter.

Her babies were her world.

And somewhere in her chaotic, possessive, selfish mind, Kira understood that this world she’d built was impermanent as Blossom Forest itself. The landscape she used to know had transformed in an instant. Just as quickly, her current offspring would become alien. Separate. Air knifed in and out of her lungs as panic took hold, mixing with her burning lust to form an untenable maelstrom of feeling. My pups. I need them. But I might have ruined them. I’m an unfit mother. Drizzt will know. Drizzt will leave me. I need—I need—

An insane solution presented itself to her feverish thoughts and Kirastasia grasped it viciously in her fangs. Her tears of sorrow transmuted into tears of laughter—giggles that shook her shoulders with their energy. She broke from her stillness into a graceful run, racing toward a distant part of the woods. Of course! How had she not realized it sooner? The answer to her tumultuous problems was another litter, another trial of children to practice on, so that all the mishaps she’d stumbled through with the first might be smoothed over and forgotten. Drizzt would not abandon her, because he’d see what a fantastic caregiver she was. She had to have pups, had to put life in her womb immediately, had to find a worthy male to donate his seed, a male to help her burn through this agonizing arousal turning her blood to liquid fire and scrambling her brain—

And as luck would have it, the ivory maiden nearly collided with not one, but two strapping brutes—

And it was almost as if they’d been waiting for her, had been looking for her all along, because when Kirastasia threw herself at the grey merle and met him with a lingering kiss, he did not push her away, but instead welcomed her with another kiss of his own, and the red merle was nuzzling into her spine and whispering words of worship, and it was like an effortlessly choreographed dance as Kirastasia embraced them both with a fervor and passion that surprised her with its heat. The chilled air in the clearing sizzled hot with the warmth of active bodies and uncontrollable, instinctive lust. The rhythmic sounds of their copulation replaced birdsong in the sleeping limbs of dormant trees. For that time—immeasurable, surreal—Kira surrendered completely to her animal nature, to the demanding hunger inside that consumed and consumed but was never truly satisfied.