by Aja James
“You’ve made your point!”
She smirks at me and tugs my hair in a bratty move.
“Have I?”
“Hmph,” I grunt, whipping my hair out of her clutches in a luxury-shampoo-commercial move. “Just so you know, I wasn’t even all the way inside. Pretty sure I beat Dalair in size and length.”
Sophia shakes silently in laughter.
“Pretty sure he beats you in endurance,” she quips. “It’s the motion of the ocean that counts, baby. And Dalair is all the man I need.”
“Oh!” I protest, affronted about the dig into my lasting power (even though it’s true). “I was trying to make it endurable for you, you being a virgin and all.”
“Admit it, you wanted it to be over before it started. You didn’t want to have sex with me at all.”
“I don’t want to have sex with anyone,” I confirm.
“Not even Dalair?” she eyes me sneakily.
“W-WHAT?!”
“I remember the way you looked at him,” she continues with an evil smile curling her mouth.
Why did I ever think she’s my friend!
“You loved Dalair more than me. I bet if you were married to him, you’d be longer lasting.”
“That’s—that’s ridiculous!” I sputter, my face likely a vivid purple hue by now. “I loved him like a brother. I-I admired him. He’s the best man I’ve ever met, outside of Tal-Telal.”
“Oh yeah?” she taunts, her tone disbelieving. “You never eyed his stallion ass for longer than was appropriate?”
My eyes dart guiltily to the side.
“Or have the irresistible desire to bury your face in the crook of his neck to snort up his scent like drugs?”
My eyes dart guiltily to the other side.
“It’s not that irresistible,” I mumble. Because I’d successfully resisted it.
“Or want to drown in those silvery gray eyes and never emerge, dreaming and hoping and praying that he’d drown his body in you?”
I huff a deep breath and throw my head back in defeat.
Yes! I had those thoughts. I never admitted to myself that I had them, but I did.
I don’t any more. Not since I realized that Dalair was in love with Kira. But there was a time that I found him unbelievably beautiful, irresistibly attractive. I suppose that’s why some subconscious part of me asked him whether he preferred males or females that day on the hilltop. Our hilltop.
And perhaps it’s also the reason why I was so heartbroken by his union with Kira. Not only because of her, but because of him. I was more jealous of Kira’s hold on Dalair than the reverse.
I regard Sophia again and declare, “I don’t feel that way any more. It was just a function of Dalair being the closest friend I had and we spent so much time together.”
Her eyes lose their teasing and soften instead.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Cam. Dalair is beautiful inside and out. I, of all people, can appreciate this thoroughly.”
“I’m not…you know…I don’t like men,” I stutter.
“Okay.”
“I don’t like women either,” I add.
She nods obligingly.
“I’m not a sexual person.”
“You just haven’t met the one for you yet,” she says softly.
“They don’t exist.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but then seems to think better of it.
“Are we friends again, Cam? Erebu?”
Both her hands wrap around one of mine.
A lump forms in my throat, preventing me from speech, so I simply nod.
“I’m glad,” she murmurs and presses a gentle kiss on my knuckles.
“Are you ready to talk about the other memories? From when we first met? Not as Cam and Kira but—”
My head buzzes with the onset of a migraine.
“No.”
“Very well,” Sophia agrees readily. “Would you like to come meet the rest of the Shield’s inhabitants? As the new, true you?”
I stand and offer her a hand to help her up.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
We walk out of my apartment hand in hand, as if this is a waking dream.
But for the first time in my entire existence, I am no longer walking alone.
Chapter Six: Don’t Think Those Stars Won’t Align
*TAL*
I feel…different.
My body is sated from the countless hours of loving with my Mate throughout the entire night. We only dozed for short intervals to catch our breath. Even when we slept, I stayed inside her, and she stayed inside me. We remained joined in all ways.
This respite from the never-ending pain that engulfs me is like the beacon of a lighthouse in thick, foggy darkness. One blink of a brave, solitary star in an interminable night. I collect them in my heart, one by one.
Perhaps, one day, my darkness will be ablaze with a million stars.
My mind is at peace. For once the nightmares of reliving the millennia of torture and captivity did not besiege my subconsciousness. My mind, body, heart and soul are full of Ishtar. Her taste, her scent, the resonance of my blood in her blood, the sounds of her contented sighs and breathy moans, the most intimate part of her embracing the most intimate part of me.
But that is not all the difference I feel.
We have good days and bad days, ups and downs. I dare not expect that this respite would be any more permanent than the other ephemeral periods of calm, though I will hold on to this gift as long as I can. I treasure each and every moment like this, a pauper counting pennies. A pauper who feels richer than a king.
There is something else, as well. Something new. I cannot put my finger on it.
It reminds me of how I felt when Ishtar and I were first reunited, in our “honeymoon” hotel, before Medusa abducted and trapped both of us and reopened all of my newly healing wounds. In that hotel, we loved each other just like we loved each other last night.
I started healing afterwards; I even began to “see” blurry outlines and sense shades of light. Because those hints of returning sight disappeared after Medusa got to us, and later, when my inner demons descended once more, I wondered whether it was all in my mind, what I thought I saw.
But this morning, as I walk down the corridor toward the training hall, something is…
Different.
When I come to the secured automatic double doors, I don’t know why I instinctively shift a step to the right. But the second after I do so, Tristan and Aella come barreling out, in the middle of shoving each other playfully but with enough force to make the other stagger and stumble.
“That was a dirty move, Amazon,” Tristan booms, pushing Aella’s shoulder so hard, she would have fallen to the floor had I not caught her.
I didn’t even realize I moved into position to catch her.
“Thanks, General,” she says and rights herself immediately, springing back on the balls of her feet as if she meant to fall and use my arms like springboards.
On the rebound, she flips herself forward, leaps onto Tristan’s shoulders with her thighs tight around his neck, twists with enough momentum to unbalance him, and uses the weight of the warrior’s own muscular bulk to nail him to the ground.
Wait…
How do I know this? A tingling shiver courses down my spine.
I didn’t “see” it. I just…expected it.
Or perhaps that’s not what happened. Perhaps she executed a different maneuver. But it seemed real, the way the fight sequence played out in my mind.
“Who’s your Uncle, Tristan du Lac?” she snickers as her strong thighs continue to suffocate her sparring partner. I can hear his belabored breaths.
“Or is it Auntie?” she ponders while Tristan starts choking in earnest. “What do you think, General?”
I shake my head, bemused by their antics, and head inside the training hall, leaving them to continue their playfighting.
They remind me of the soldiers I used to t
rain in ancient Akkad. Now, I help train the Chevaliers, the Pure Ones and humans who know of the immortal races and help the Royal Zodiac safeguard the Universal Balance.
Though Aella is a couple millennia old and Tristan must be several hundred years at least, they seem so young to me. It is not a matter of age. It’s that they have never fought a war. Only battles and skirmishes. They have never known enslavement and true savagery.
I pray they never do.
“’Sup, General,” Liv greets me, the resonance of her voice telling me that she’s about three feet in front of me.
With my other senses heightened to compensate for my blindness, I can visualize my surroundings with accuracy, especially if I am used to a space. It is only when I encounter a place for the first time, and the motions within it, that I feel some confusion at first and take longer to visualize the dimensions in my mind and react to the movements therein.
“Good morning to you, Liv,” I return.
I do not know if I will ever get used to the modern way of speaking. Why do people say things that make no sense? Why is “what’s up” the same meaning as “how are you”?
For more than a year, when people greeted me this way, I never know how to answer. And then, they shorten the words even further, until I’m not sure what they’re saying at all. At least now I know how to return one kind of greeting. There is so much to learn.
“Hankering to get my shot at you,” Liv says, and I can hear the grin in her voice. “Today is the day. I can feel it. I’ll finally get a hit in.”
My lips tilt at one corner. I admire the boundless energy and hopefulness of youth.
But no, she is not going to “get a hit in” today. I respect her too much to ever falsely let her win. She still has a long way to go in martial arts before she can surprise me with a move.
“You can try,” I answer.
We spend the next hour sparring. First without weapons, then adding swords, knives, an Asian weapon called “nunchucks” that Liv likes to wield. It took me a while to learn the weapon, but once I became comfortable with it, it became an extension of my body. In a way, my blindness aided rather than impeded me. I felt the weapon lash out and snap back, and was never distracted by the sight of it.
“I’m beat,” Liv huffs, sounding as if she is folded forward with her head near her knees. “You’re a machine today, General. Have you been humoring me thus far? Cuz dayyaamm! I don’t know how I can ever be even a tenth as good a fighter as you.”
Her words make me feel a bit guilty. She is human, after all. And I am a full-blooded warrior Pure One. Perhaps I should have calibrated my strength.
But no, I always hold back with her. Today has been no different. And yet, obviously, she feels it is.
“You won’t ever beat me in strength and endurance,” I tell her. “It is not how humans are built. But you can hone your technique, your ability to anticipate and self-control. That is the most important part of fighting. You must accurately assess your own strengths and weaknesses as well as your opponents. Everyone has them. Once you know what they are, you can formulate your strategy.”
“And do all that in a split second, huh?”
“Exactly.”
“Right. Piece of cake,” she mutters.
After Liv departs to the adjacent gym, I walk towards the two fighters at the end of the hall, distinctly separated from the rest.
When I stayed at the Shield before, and after I recovered enough from my wounds to start training and fighting again, I practiced with Valerius and Cloud, the two fiercest warriors in the Elite. I practiced with them, but I never truly fought them. I wasn’t strong enough then.
But, today, I want to test myself.
“General,” the Protector growls low in greeting.
Valerius is a male of even fewer words than me. I have noticed that he seldom acknowledges people verbally, likely greeting only with his eyes or a slight inclination of his head. He makes the exception for me, as I cannot see.
“Have you come to join our practice?” Cloud Drako asks. “Do you prefer the long staff today?”
“Yes, the long staff,” I answer. “But not for practice. How about one-on-one combat?”
I select a two-meter metal staff from the wall of weapons and heft it in my hands.
The Pure Ones’ weapons are specifically designed for our strength and height. A typical long staff, as I have learned, is 1.8 meters in length, about six feet. Ours are tailored to our longer bodies and limbs, and three to four times heavier than the comparable human weapons.
The silence that meets my words tells me that the two warriors are hesitant to engage me. They do not want to allude to my disability and weakness to protect my pride, I suppose.
In truth, I do not know if my strength is what it used to be. I hardly recall what I used to be at all. I have only inhabited that youthful, strong body for a handful of years before captivity and torture fundamentally and forever changed me.
But I do know that I am stronger now, stronger in a way I have never felt before, and I want to stretch the limits of that newfound power.
I crook the fingers of my left hand in invitation.
“You first, Protector.”
After a few more beats of silence, Valerius takes down his own staff and gets into position about twenty feet away.
“Do not ‘take it easy’ on me,” I order, the steel in my voice brooking no argument.
“Aye,” the warrior concedes.
Over the course of the next three hundred seconds, I know without a doubt that he is keeping his word. He unleashes attack after attack, his maneuvers deadly, precise, unrelenting.
But I hold my own. To my surprise, I am answering his attacks with forceful counters. In fact, it’s almost too easy.
I know he is fast; I can hear and feel his speed. In the whistles of the staff as it whirls before it strikes. In the sudden disturbance of air, followed by eerie stillness, like the calm before a storm.
Like a dream I’ve already had, I know exactly where he’ll strike next. I rotate immediately before impact, crouch low, and sweep my staff horizontally in a swift circle, knocking him off his feet. Before he can get back up, one end of my staff is already notched into his jugular.
“Yield,” I voice low, not even out of breath.
“I yield,” the warrior replies gruffly.
I reach down a hand and help him stand.
“Impressive, General,” Valerius comments. I can hear the smile in his tone.
Truth to tell, I am rather impressed myself. I don’t recall ever moving this fast.
No, that’s not right.
It’s not that I’ve gained speed. It’s that I somehow anticipated my opponent’s moves. But it wasn’t the anticipation of honed reflexes and a deep understanding of the other fighter. It’s…something else.
My heart races from more than the adrenaline of the fight. I want to test myself again. Perhaps this was a ‘fluke.’
“Cloud,” I call out. “Shall we dance?”
“Thought you’d never ask, General,” the warrior murmurs, stepping up. His voice is tinged with amusement and anticipation.
I can well relate. Warriors love the challenge. We want to hone our skills, and we can only do so with those who are our match or those we can learn from.
He attacks so suddenly and silently, I almost don’t react in time.
But, again, something makes me move at the last possible moment, avoiding a strike that would have shattered my bones.
And so, we engage in our deadly dance in earnest.
In the midst of battle, I can hear other people gathering around, the buildup of collective breaths, more than a dozen.
Cloud’s style is very different from Valerius’. He is fluid and graceful, as if he is one with the air. He doesn’t seem to use much force, as if he can harness and master every particle of qi or energy around him. But his strikes are no less impactful, though they are aimed more to maim than to kill, unlike Valerius.
“Stop holding back,” I grit out, and step up my own pace.
“That was never my intention,” Cloud returns, and I am pleased to hear that his breathing is not entirely even.
In a move I would never have anticipated even if I still retained my sight, the warrior leaps up as if he had wings and whirls the staff like a furiously spinning windmill.
Somehow, I am not certain how, I duck and roll just in time, holding my staff out to meet his just as he smashes it straight down at my head like the split of lightning from a stormy sky.
The jarring force of the impact drives me to one knee, and the reinforced steel rod caves inward inches from my forehead, protecting my skull from being split open like a watermelon. If I had not reacted when I did, my entire body would probably be pounded into the floor of the training hall in a heap of blood and broken bones.
I know Cloud has the skills to pull back just enough at the last second. But he didn’t pull back just then. I was able to answer his lethal strike on my own merits.
Nevertheless, he won this round, and we both know it. Had we been on a real battlefield, he would have swung his staff immediately after the last strike to smash my torso in.
“Yield,” he calls out, standing a few feet away again, his staff retracted.
“Aye,” I answer, and rise to my feet.
Distantly, I hear the clapping and cheering from our impromptu audience before they disperse again to return to their own training.
“You must teach me those moves,” I say to the warrior with full admiration.
“Gladly, General,” he answers. “To be fair, our fight was not entirely on an even footing. My preferred weapon is the long staff and spear. In my human life, I was trained to wield it almost from birth. Besides, though I no longer have the transformative powers of a celestial dragon, I still retain its strength and affinity with the Elements. Perhaps the next round, with different weapons, we would be an even match.”
“Indeed,” Valerius says on my other side. “I’d like to match you with my chained scythe, General, if you are game.”
I bare my teeth in a feral grin and crook my fingers.
“Let’s dance.”
*** *** *** ***
