On the day before the storm would break, Sylviana felt a stillness and sense of well-being in everything around her: in the gentle breeze of early morning, in the frolicking of the cub with David Rawlings, who would never have been so free with a human companion. She felt it in the absence of William from the camp, and even in the stubborn, unspeaking presence of the man-child. He would never leave her, of that she was now certain. And he would be near, very near when tomorrow, at last, her plans would be ripe. She no longer felt any hatred towards him. As their eyes met briefly she even felt the old, half admitted love that had once been the most important reality of her world. She didn't hate him. But she knew what she had to do. It didn't have to mean destroying him, which she was equally certain would never happen. How could steel be destroyed? It couldn't, she thought, only disciplined to be a better servant. And in her live imagination she felt the strong, shy touch of his hands across her back, her ribs and then her breasts, accentuated by kissing and tender words, the mouth sliding down across her neck, her chest, licking her nipples and then squeezing and sucking in earnest, the movements of his torso becoming less gentle as his penis grew rigid against her thigh. Then he was inside her, with or without her help, and began the innumerable thrusts that made of her body a single, roused vehicle of warmth and pleasure. She gently, and not so gently massaging his back, his buttocks. Till in the last fiery moments of passion he crushed her to him, crying out in a voice made terrible by jealous rage. 'You are mine!' She felt the strength of these images in the quickening of her heart, and the stirring of her womb. That the next day she would give herself to a man for whom she felt nothing, and who might have feelings of his own, she could not realize. It made it all too cold and sad. But this cruelty was not HER doing. She had not wanted it, or asked for it. It simply had to be done. She must think of herself first, be truly selfish for once, and let the men work it out as they would. That Kalus might hurt William, or himself, she refused to consider. That William might try to hurt HER, was beyond her imagining. Her eyes were hazy, her senses unaware. And she did not see the deadly serpent that crawled towards her through the grass. She knew nothing of it until the air beside her was rent by the sweep of some instrument whirled in sudden violence. Startled, she turned to find Rawlings standing, too close it seemed to her, then bending down over a wounded snake, pinned to the ground beneath his hoe. Without hesitation or remorse he drew out his knife, and separated it from its head. 'You better wake your ass up, girl,' he said bluntly. 'Or death will find you, even here.'