But as much as she wanted to move past it, she didn’t dare put herself in the same position. She tightened her grip, preparing to roll them over so she could look up at Salomen instead of down. With any luck, she wouldn’t have to ask. Salomen would know, and she would drive them the rest of the way through this.
Except…shek. Her new skin couldn’t handle her being on the bottom. She had no choice. She almost wept in sheer frustration.
“Andira. I need you to tell me something.”
And now her time had run out. With a deep breath, she raised her head and met Salomen’s expectant gaze. “What?”
“That business of you not letting me touch myself—are you really that possessive? Because if you are, we’re going to fight about it.”
Tal stared, not understanding the words that were so far removed from what she had anticipated. Then it all clicked, and she let out a strangled laugh.
“No,” she said, and laughed again. “No, I’m not.”
“Then that was a one-time thing? For future reference, the correct answer is yes.”
Salomen knew exactly what she was doing, and Tal loved her for it. She wanted to thank her, but saying the words would acknowledge what had just happened. She kissed her instead, pouring out her gratitude in a different language.
The next time she lifted her head, everything was as it should be. She was in the same position, but in full control. And now that her brain was operating properly, she shook her head at her earlier stupidity. This was not her only option; they could finish in any number of positions. Not that she would, of course. She had something to prove.
“I cannot say it was a one-time thing. Because I might have to do it again—for both our sakes,” she added, stopping Salomen from speaking. “Watching you do that was the sexiest thing I have ever seen. If I’d let you continue, I would have finished in three pipticks.”
“Good answer.” Salomen’s gentle smile took on a different shape. “The sexiest thing you’ve ever seen, hm?”
“You have no idea. I want you to do that again, believe me. Just…not this time.”
“Well, if I’m not allowed to touch myself, then do you think you could take care of me?” Salomen brushed her hands through Tal’s hair, ran them down the sides of her neck, then moved to her breasts, where she lightly tugged the nipples. “We don’t have to—”
“Yes, we do.” Those fingers were stirring a spark back to life, and as Tal looked at her tyree, flushed with arousal and achingly beautiful, she felt a fierce sense of victory. They had survived. Salomen was here, right now, vibrantly alive and watching her with so much love that a sonsales could have seen it from fifty paces. “Yes, we do,” she repeated, her smile broadening.
It was the easiest thing in the world to move her hips now. They both jolted at the sensation, their molwines nearly as sensitive as they had been before their unscheduled break. Tal kept their rhythm slow, easing them back to their prior level, and took the opportunity to cover Salomen’s throat and jaw with grateful kisses. In a surprisingly short time, she was far enough away from her embarrassment to say it.
“Thank you, tyrina,” she whispered. “I don’t know how you knew what to do, but you were exactly what I needed.”
A golden surge of love and pride burst from Salomen as she held Tal’s head between her hands. “That’s all I ever want to be,” she said.
Something in her unwavering gaze shifted the air between them, but Tal had no time to consider it before Salomen began sucking on the ridge along her neck.
All higher levels of brain function ceased immediately. Tal had never known she was that sensitive there, nor had she known that her control could be ripped away so easily. By the time she was released again, her hips were moving faster than she intended, stimulating their molwines in an agony of building pressure.
“May I—is this…?” Salomen couldn’t finish her sentence, but her hands were tentatively at Tal’s sides, not moving and far too light.
Tal huffed out an impatient laugh. “Yes. Please.”
The hands slid around her back, and Tal felt nothing but what she should. She kissed Salomen in elation, wanting more, wanting every part of their bodies connected. The closer Salomen held her, the happier she was. This was no longer just a joining; it was an affirmation of life and survival and triumph over anything that tried to come between them.
Salomen tucked her face into Tal’s throat. “Don’t stop,” she said desperately. “Tyrina—” A wave of sensation rippled through her, bringing her shoulders off the bed, and she tightened her grip.
Tal was beyond any concern about her new skin, but despite Salomen’s plea, she didn’t want this to end so soon. Somehow she dredged up enough willpower to slow her motions, trying to tamp down their need, but after a few pipticks Salomen would have no more of it. She gripped Tal’s head, forced it to one side, and bit down hard on her neck ridge.
The power of that bite would have shocked Tal at any other time, but right now it sent her into the atmosphere. A second bite made her gasp, and without conscious thought she buried her fingers in Salomen’s hair, wrenching her head back. For a moment she paused, looking at the ridges running down each side of Salomen’s throat. They were a potent signal of passion, invisible at any time except during a joining. Now they stood out in sharp relief, begging for attention, and Tal closed her teeth on the nearest one. The half-scream she heard would have told her precisely how good that felt even if she hadn’t been able to sense the sharp rise in Salomen’s arousal.
“Andira…” Salomen groaned.
Her head was still trapped in Tal’s grip, and the sight of her exposed throat, swollen ridges, and open mouth were making Tal dizzy. Her hips moved of their own accord; slowing down was not an option. She had used up all her willpower.
She bit the other throat ridge harder than the first, letting up on the pressure only to work her way down the entire length of it and nearly getting herself bucked off in the process. Salomen’s hoarse cries drove her to a whole new level, where control ended and only instinct remained. When she lifted her head, she saw the same wildness in Salomen’s eyes. They had become creatures of pure passion, moving together in a glorious storm of sensation as they gasped for breath and strained for the moment they wanted so desperately.
Salomen reached for her, and Tal expected to have her head pushed to the side again. She realized her mistake when one of Salomen’s hands settled on the back of her neck. As the other touched her cheek and jaw, she matched the positions with her own hands and rested their foreheads together.
The Sharing was explosive. Had she not been so deeply lost in her sexual haze, she might have pulled back from the sheer shock of it. Of course it would be different from their previous two Sharings, but she hadn’t expected anything like this.
Her empathic awareness rocketed outward, surpassing her normal range in the blink of an eye. She was aware of every Alsean in the entire State House complex, as well as those living in the streets nearest the city hub. The sense of so many people all at once was overwhelming, but before Tal could even begin to make sense of it, the explosion reversed itself and she fell directly into Salomen’s mind. Everything else was shut out as they became a single entity, aware of every emotional nuance and physical sensation shared between them. It was like inhabiting two bodies at the same time—and both of those bodies were exquisitely close to physical release. The sudden wash of Salomen’s love and passion, experienced from the inside with no barriers, pushed Tal to the ragged edge. She was Salomen as much as she was herself; they were the same person, the same body, the same gripping need—and then they were there, minds and bodies frozen as everything crashed around them. It seemed to go on for half a hantick, draining every bit of energy from both of them. When their bodies were finally released from the spasms that had held them so rigidly, it was all Tal could do
not to drop her hands and break their connection. Somehow she held on even as her head pounded and her lungs ached for air, and for a few pipticks she felt as if a thick blanket had been thrown over their senses.
“It’s gone,” Salomen said breathlessly. “I can’t feel you!”
Hadn’t she experienced the blackout before? But she had said as much, Tal remembered, when she confessed to never really letting go in a Sharing.
“It’s not gone. We’re just burned out for a moment. Wait, it will come back.”
By the time they caught their breath, their senses opened up again. This time it wasn’t so explosive, seeming more like a dawning of light over a familiar landscape. They reveled in the exquisite intimacy of their emotions, feeling each other as they felt themselves.
“It was never like this,” Salomen murmured. “There’s no division between us—I can hardly tell the difference between you and me.”
“This is how it’s supposed to be. This is a true Sharing, tyrina.”
But she was wrong. It wasn’t like any Sharing she’d had before, a fact she realized as soon as they turned their attention outward. The welcome familiarity dropped away; this was an entirely new world. They felt the presence of every life-form in the area, from the people still in the State House right down to the smallest bird searching for insects in a tree by the gates, and their range seemed to cover several lengths without even trying.
By unspoken agreement they expanded their reach, searching for the limits of their combined senses. They soared over Blacksun, taking in millions of lives in their myriad states, and flew past the western edge of the city into the fields beyond. They felt predators and prey playing out their lives in the dying light of the day, while nocturnal creatures began to stir from sleep. They felt the primal satisfaction as a nightwing snapped its beak on a large moth, filling its belly for another few ticks while it searched for the next bite. The density of life all around them was bewildering, and in an instinctive reach for something familiar, they found themselves at Hol-Opah.
“We’re ninety lengths away!” Two ticks ago, Tal would have said this was impossible.
“There’s Father and Nikin, in the parlor as usual.” Salomen’s joy at sensing her family had overwhelmed any disbelief in their extreme range. “Oh, and Jaros is getting in trouble.”
The youngest Opah was by himself, probably in the kitchen based on the location of the other two emotional signatures. And if his guilt and fear of discovery were any indication, he was stealing a sweet snack. Salomen’s laugh brought Tal’s eyes open, and she jerked her head back in shock.
Their hands were glowing.
Salomen’s eyes snapped open as well, and she gasped. “Andira!”
It should have ended then. Without their foreheads touching, they no longer had a full connection. But their minds were still wrapped together, and they were still impossibly aware of Jaros sneaking upstairs with his prize. Tal tried to take her hands off the energy points, but it was as if they were no longer attached to her body.
“This is what happened at Whitemoon Temple,” she whispered. Her initial surprise had turned to fascination; Fahla’s sign hadn’t been symbolic at all.
“How can this be?”
“I don’t know.” Tal watched the glow increasing. Her hands were on fire, a sensation that should have been terrifying given her recent injuries. But there was no pain in this heat, and she seemed in no danger of another flashback.
“It happened at home, too. When we Shared with my family. My hands felt warm when I touched you; it almost burned. But not like this.” Salomen’s eyes widened. “Great Mother! I can see my bones!”
Tal was staring at hers as well and saw the glow of Salomen’s hand in her peripheral vision. “If this is like before, it will pass on its own.”
They waited, their minds hovering over Hol-Opah, but the heat in their hands did not abate.
“I have to know,” Salomen said.
Tal understood. As one they pushed away from Hol-Opah, heading west. If they could not break this connection on their own, then they might as well find out how far it could take them.
Their shared consciousness flew over the remaining fields in Blacksun Basin, reaching the fingers of forest that marked the first change in elevation. A complex web of life was all around them, in the air, on the ground, in the trees; the smallest mouse and the largest treecat alike in basic needs and desires, all of it registering on their enhanced empathic senses.
In their long-distance training, Tal had begun to teach Salomen to mentally navigate the landscape using the life glow of organisms living atop or rooted in the surface of the soil. All life made itself apparent on the empathic plane, but never had Tal seen it so clearly mapped. This was not just the background glow of active cells feeding and producing energy. It was textured, layered, dense in pockets where vegetation grew in thick profusion, patchy in areas of rocks and poor soil, and constantly crackling with flares produced by more complex organisms.
With no effort they soared up the steepening slopes of the mountains, covered with the tall, slow-pulsing life of trees. They burst past the top of the nearest range and arced over the deep valley behind it before letting themselves slide down the back side of the next peak, where they located a stream by the brilliant flares of complex life-forms confined within it. On the other side of that valley they climbed up once again, finding and following a herd of winden that were making their unhurried way along a ridge top.
“So beautiful,” Salomen whispered, voicing Tal’s own thought. To feel a winden! Not to glimpse them running from the shadow of a transport, but to feel them and know that they were heading for a safe place to bed down for the night…it was beyond anything she could have dreamed.
They stayed with the winden until the animals stopped, milled around, and then began fading in consciousness. Tal thought her perception had reached its limit, but understood a moment later. “They’re going to sleep,” she said in delight.
“Amazing.” Salomen was just as entranced. They hovered until most of herd was sleeping, though a few scouts remained wide awake as they watched out for the rest of the herd.
Finally they moved off, soaring over ridge after ridge until they reached the final mountains in the range. Just as they flew over a peak and began descending to the plains below, their perceptions dimmed. Tal looked at her hands and saw their glow dimming as well, and in another piptick the incredible vision was gone.
“Great Mother.” Salomen lifted her hands and watched them tremble. “What in the name of all that grows was that?”
“I don’t know.” Tal pushed off, carefully turning onto her back and relaxing her strained muscles with a gusty sigh. “But it was incredible. Like we multiplied our powers instead of just adding them together.”
“It must be part of the tyree bond.” Salomen rolled onto her side, and Tal turned her head to meet her eyes.
“I don’t think it’s part of a normal tyree bond.”
“We’re not normal tyrees.”
“Yes, well, I’m not sure that’s normal even for our kind of tyree.”
They fell silent, their hands finding each other in the quiet dimness.
“We must have covered four hundred lengths,” Salomen said after a long pause.
“At least. We were nearly to Pollonius, and that’s five hundred by transport.”
Another pause.
“I wonder—” they began simultaneously, then laughed.
“Only one way to find out,” said Tal.
“Are you up to it?”
“Tsk. When will the producer learn to stop asking the warrior such questions?”
“When the warrior learns she does not need to be invincible with her tyree. Soon, I hope.”
Tal smiled and turned onto her side. “I’m up to it.�
�
They scooted closer together and reached out, connecting their energy points. A slight hesitation betrayed their uncertainty.
“I’m half afraid we won’t be able to,” Salomen said, “and half afraid we will.”
“I know.”
They watched each other a few pipticks longer, then closed their eyes and touched their foreheads together.
This time the shock was not so pronounced, but Tal was still jolted by the outward explosion of their awareness. They hovered in place and soon realized that their immediate range had a radius of nearly thirty lengths. It was bewildering to feel so many lives all at once, but the different emotional levels enabled them to screen out Alseans from other life-forms. After a few ticks they found that they could choose not to be aware of anything but Alseans, much like tuning out a constant background noise. With that filter in place, the emotional landscape came into sharper focus.
Tal opened her eyes to find their hands glowing again. Now the sight seemed reassuring rather than shocking, a measure of the energy flowing between them and enabling their newly expanded powers.
Salomen’s eyes opened as well, flicking from her hands to Tal’s face, and she smiled. “Where shall we go?”
“How about south? Port Calerna is one thousand and four hundred lengths; shall we see if we can reach it?”
“You want to triple our distance? You are a warrior. Always pushing it.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t want to know.”
Salomen laughed quietly. “Of course I do.”
They sped over the valley floor, each small producer community shining like a beacon with the glow of so many lives concentrated together. Other Alseans dotted the countryside, riding in transports, walking in fields, and on a few occasions, joined together in an emotional blend that could only be a Sharing in progress.
“I feel a bit like a voyeur,” Salomen whispered as they passed over another Sharing couple.
Without a Front: The Warrior's Challenge (Chronicles of Alsea Book 3) Page 11
