She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew he belonged to her, and she to him, and together they belonged to the fecund earth and the wild forest and the heart-piercing song of nature that cried out to her from everywhere around them.
The song was strongest behind her. Beckoning in sweet, rising thick notes that washed over her, unrelenting, undeniable, it called from the trees.
She turned her head to look at the forest—to the place where the song came flowing strong and high with a delectable, irresistible siren’s call of HERE HERE HERE—then turned back to the man.
She tried to speak, but the only sound that came from her throat now was a strange, rumbling chirrup, a low, chuffing invitation that made the man’s shoulders relax. He filled his lungs with air, the tension left his body, a
