Arousing Daddy's

by Taylor Sparks

  Not because she loved him, which she didn't. Not because he had done his best to save her family, which hadn't been enough.

  She wanted to comfort him because he was feeling everything she could not.

  She saw in him a perfect reflection, only her side of the mirror was wrong. She had been dry-eyed since yesterday, and the grief ached and stabbed where it tried futilely to free itself from her torturous cocoon of numbness. She craved release, but it eluded her.

  She couldn't comfort herself, since she couldn't cry, but maybe soothing Amiel would be the next closest thing.

  She approached deliberately and sank to the earth near his heaving form. The soil was soft and moist with the foreign nutrients needed by the tree. Wetness surprised her knees, seeping through the light linen of her skirts.

  Liorit wondered if the Wild Earth felt pain to reshape itself thusly; if transplanted by human hands, the tree's roots would have quickly been crushed by the hard baked earth, its cool flowers withered by the heavy sunshine. It was meant for another place, and another season.

  "The tree," she said quietly, "is wondrous."

  Amiel raised his head. His bronzed skin was flushed, tears clumped his overlong lashes, and the dark curls straggling to his chin were a disheveled mess. His eyes were deep with ancient regrets and battered with newly raw sorrow.

  "Cherry." His voice was its usual velvet-wrapped thunder. "It's called a cherry tree. They were my daughter's favorite." He shifted his large form, unfolding gracefully to sit up straighter beside his tree. His robe hung open above its corded belt, revealing a long swathe of defined chest and stomach muscles.

  "Daughter?" Liorit echoed.

  Carob brown eyes flicked from her to the arching dark branches and pale flowers above. Although his sobs had ceased, Amiel did nothing to dry the tears that streaked both cheeks and glistened along the square line of his jaw.

  "She was four, when the wild waters came. One of the youngest." He spoke softly, tranquilly even, lending a serene acceptance to his hopelessness. "I would coax cherry blossoms from the Wild for her while she was still at the breast, and she spoke the Wild Tongue before she could say 'Mama'."

  The Wild Tongue. Liorit recalled her purpose. "Amiel," she appealed, "please make the fires stop."

  She saw in his face that he'd forgotten. His tears had been for his own family, not hers. His darkest nightmares were of water, not fire.

  It didn't matter. Two thousand years ago or yesterday, the loss was the same. Liorit slipped closer and rose up onto her knees, sliding deft hands around his neck to pull his head under her chin. She hugged him to her chest, stroking his shoulder blades as if he were a child. Like a child, he let her.

  "Please," she said again. "They—they're still burning. For nothing, now." Her voice was poised, reasonable, treacherous. She could beg no more than she could cry.

  "Liorit," Amiel finally whispered. "You know I can't."

  Anger sliced through the enveloping numbness, and Liorit froze, startled into stillness. She examined the sudden emotion, dancing tentatively around it at first, then gripping it firmly. A faint thrill ran through her when it didn't dissolve in her grip. She clung to the anger, stiffening her embrace.

  "You won't," she accused flatly.

  Amiel pulled away. Coldness had replaced the anguish on his handsome immortal features. "We do not command."

  "So you've said," Liorit snapped. She ducked her head and seethed, slanting a glare up at Amiel from behind her long dark curtain of curls.

  "You flatter. You cajole." She threw his mantra back at him verbatim, surprising herself with the precision of her own memory. "You build a rapport and work to gain the Earth's trust, that the Wild elements might act in accordance with your wills."

  She sensed bitterness, pounced, and triumphantly reclaimed that emotion, too. It rivaled the anger in strength.

  She smacked the cherry tree, hard enough to bruise the heel of her palm. "The Wild Earth answered this request. Maybe," she suggested, "you just don't want some things badly enough."

  She said it to wound, to punish him for not being able to truly control the elements, the way the stories said.

  The stricken look in his eyes told her that he believed it. That he'd thrown the same accusation at himself, again and again, for two thousand years.

  Remorse, shame, guilt. These were right. This was what she wanted to feel. But the emotions she soaked up from Amiel were not enough. Liorit wanted to feel more. The desire to comfort Amiel was swept away by a powerful desire to share his pain. So she twisted the knife.

  "Did you even try? Did you ask? Or were you too scared of what it would mean if the Wild listened, this time?"

  A corner of her mind asked if she was trying to provoke the immortal into killing her. The idea surprised and excited her.

  Amiel only watched her in silence, though, his perfect face revealing no denial, no panic, no more guilt. His own peculiar brand of quiet anger had reasserted itself, and he had recovered his everlasting, absolute control.

  No, no, no. Control was what she was trying to escape. Remorse and shame began to fade, slipping away faster the more frantically she chased after them. Anger and bitterness followed, and a vast, hollow numbness opened to swallow her.

  "Please, Amiel," she whimpered. "Don't take them away. I want the pain. Give it back, please." So she could beg, after all. Curious.

  He recoiled from her, pity creasing his dark brow.

  "Please," she pleaded, desperate. "I didn't mean it. I know you wanted to save your wife, your daughter. I'm sorry! Just give me back the pain." Inspiration struck. "Burn me! Call fire, if you can't banish it. You can do this much. I know you can."

  Amiel rose swiftly to his feet and towered over her, dark eyes unreadable. He was stern and imposing and beautiful. "Stop it, Liorit," he commanded. "Stop it, now."

  She blinked up at him, trying to puzzle out his distress. "Stop?"

  "Stop," he repeated firmly. There was power in the calm order. Somehow, they had switched places, and he was reassuring her, now. "Stay here. Stay with me."

  "Stay," she repeated. She tasted the word until it made sense. He thought she wanted to die. She reminded him of those he'd lost to the Wild Tongue, the ones who spoke too often with the Earth, until they could understand nothing else. In their last days, the Lost spoke only of their own eagerly anticipated deaths.

  "No." She shook her head. "I'm human, remember? I cannot hear the Wild, and I don't want to die. I just want the pain, Amiel." She dug her hands into the soft dirt and clawed her fingers into fists. "Please?"

  He gazed down at her sadly. "The pain will come," he told her. "And you will feel no better."

  Why didn't he understand? "I don't want to feel better," she explained. "I want my mother back. I want my little sisters to laugh and play again. I want to kill Iofiel."

  Amiel flinched at the sound of his brother's name. "You, and the Wild Earth," he reminded her, bitter as dandelion. There was little question as to which of those Iofiel might actually have to worry about.

  "Why do you hide him, protect him?" she wanted to know. "It's his fault." She pushed herself to her feet, anger simmering just beyond her reach. "It's all his fault. Your floods, my fires. He tricked the Earth, and now we are all punished!"

  Amiel shook his head. He still stood several heads taller than her. "He didn't mean for the entire city to burn."

  His immovable forgiveness bashed a fissure into her cocooning numbness. Splinters shot out, and anger rushed in.

  "Four cities!" she cried. "Hundreds and hundreds of people. Children—" Liorit choked, gasping for breath. "He must have known. He did it on purpose!"

  "He didn't," Amiel said. His nostrils flared dangerously. "He wouldn't!"

  "Ask the Earth!" Liorit yelled. They confronted one another beneath the cherry tree, their anger crackling between them. "The Wild will tell you—he called it, persuaded it, forced it! I know it." She swiped the gathering moisture from her brow, smudgin
g the back of her hand with sweat and ash. "Why do you hide him?"

  "He is my brother," Amiel rasped, white-faced. "We don't betray brothers, not even to the Wild. Especially not to the Wild."

  "Damn you, Amiel!" Liorit took a furious step forward, and had to tilt her head further back to hold Amiel's gaze. "What the fuck do you call what he did to you?"

  "It wasn't him!" Amiel snapped back, trembling. "Even if he'd wanted to unleash the elements, the Wild will never bend itself to Iofiel's will again. Not ever."

  "I don't believe it." Liorit's anger boiled over. "I'll give him to the Earth myself." She threw herself at the cherry tree and dragged her dirt-caked nails down its slender trunk, mutilating the neat horizontal lines that slit the dark bark. "I'll give you Iofiel!" she shouted hoarsely. "Oldest, hear me! I know where to find Iofiel!"

  It wasn't strictly true. She had no idea where he'd gone after the fires had started to rain, although she did know that if he had survived, he'd make his way back to his brothers. And even if she had known exactly where to find Iofiel, she could not speak the Wild Tongue; the Earth could not hear her.

  Amiel hit her anyway.

  The blow snapped her head to the side, and Liorit was suddenly lying on her back, blinking through blackness. The darkness cleared slowly, revealing bright sunshine reaching down at her through a tapestry of pink blossoms.

  She groped at the raw thickness along her right temple, and her fingers came away bloody. A spasm pulsed between her thighs. She pressed harder into the bruise, and the dull ache solidified into a dizzying pain.

  Yes.

  Liorit gasped for air. "Oh," she breathed. "That's good."

  Amiel's face swam into view, and her prodding fingers were forced away from the wound.

  "Liorit," he murmured. "I am..." His voice trailed off. His eyes were huge, and the vestiges of his fury lurked beneath the concern and shame. "Are you...?"

  "It hurts," she told him gratefully. The tears would still not come, but the pain, at least, was fresh and strong and wonderful.

  He pulled her to her feet. Dizziness spun her, and she fell into him. He caught her easily, and propped her against the trunk of his tree, supporting her with steady arms.

  She squirmed, seeking to free herself from his iron hold, wanting to jab her fingers into her swelling face before the pain had a chance to fade. His grip tightened. Frustrated, she jerked her head back to dash it against the hard cherry wood.

  Pain, warm and comforting, flooded her mind. Her lips curved upwards.

  "Dammit, Liorit," Amiel grated at her. Her vision had blurred, but she could hear fear in his gravelly voice. "Stop it."

  She ducked her head to slam it backwards again, but before she could, long fingers grasped her throat. Amiel held her head in place.

  Liorit whined.

  Amiel dragged her chin up, forcing her gaze into his.

  When their eyes met, desire kicked Liorit in the stomach. She sighed in surprise and stopped fighting. Amiel held her so tightly that she barely moved at all as her muscles suddenly wilted. A wave of delightful craving shuddered through her, deepening the welcome agony in her head.

  Amiel stared back at her. Fear and distaste mixed in his dark eyes, but Liorit could feel his shaft stiffening against her hip. Self-loathing chased anger across his handsome face, and he pulled back abruptly.

  Liorit sagged against the tree, but managed not to fall when he released her. "Amiel!" she blurted.

  He didn't look away.

  "Don't go," she whispered.

  His eyes burned straight through her as he drew in again. His hands grazed the twin swells of her buttocks before circling her waist and pressing her in towards him as he crushed her against the tree. His erection was a hard bulge digging into her stomach, hot even through the layers of their robes.

  Amiel's hands slid back down to her buttocks and squeezed hard, as if he were juicing grapes. Then they slipped even lower and lifted her suddenly.

  Liorit's feet left the ground. Her dress ripped as it dragged up the trunk. Amiel stepping into the space she vacated, thrusting his thighs forward and balancing Liorit so that she was wedged between his pelvis and the tree.

  She gripped Amiel's hands where they held her thighs, wrapped her knees around his lean waist, and looked up at him.

  His face was expressionless, but there was a storm in his gaze. Liorit waited. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, each erratic beat echoing in the wound on her head.

  He didn't love her.

  Not the way Chay loved Liat, with the soul's entirety, with euphoric terror and fierce tenderness, with passion groping towards oneness.

  No, that love shone in his every unguarded smile, but it was not for her. Amiel loved three things, and Liorit was not one of them.

  He was in love with his wife, two thousand years dead, claimed by the Wild Earth in a moment of impulsive rage and fear.

  He loved his brothers, his brethren immortals, the survivors. Chay. Iofiel.

  And, in the way of immortals, he loved the Wild Earth.

  Liorit would never understand how he did, how he could still, despite what it had taken from him. It was a complicated love, a vast love, an inhuman love. Equal parts challenge and worship, it was a trust so complete, it had survived broken faith. It was violence and utter submission.

  Amiel loved his dead wife, his brothers, and the Wild Earth. He didn't love Liorit.

  She wondered if he hated her.

  Liorit stared into his burning brown eyes, and found no tenderness there, but no hate, either.

  She shivered when she realized what it was she saw.

  Need.

  The need in Amiel's eyes was more powerful than any desire. It was a simple inevitability, a desperate poverty, an insatiable compulsion. He didn't want her. He had to have her.

  "No," she croaked. "Not like this—"

  He cut off her words with his mouth, mashing his lips against her own and forcing his tongue roughly inside her. She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered, struggling to breathe around his assault. He wielded his tongue like a weapon, shoving it into the tender, membranous skin of her cheeks and gums until she tasted blood.

  Amiel jerked his head up and spat loudly. Liorit's eyes flew open as she dragged in a deep, ragged breath. The world reeled, a giddy jumble of pink and blue and brilliant sunshine. Still squashed between the man and the tree, Liorit grabbed Amiel's rigid shoulders and dug her nails into the muscles straining beneath his sleeves.

  Silence thundered around them.

  "Don't go," she repeated finally, her voice pitched low and scratchy.

  Amiel ripped her robe apart in agreement. The delicate weave gave easily, to expose Liorit's small breasts and taut stomach. Amiel yanked it all the way down to her hips before rubbing his hands up her sides to fondle her breasts. The coarse bark was rough against her skin, and bit where her spine protruded.

  A soft whimper escaped Liorit as she looked down at her chest. Amiel's large, elegant hands groped with a wholly uncharacteristic lack of grace and restraint. They squeezed too deeply, pulled too forcefully, pinched too hard. She would have bet all five cities that Amiel was a thoughtful, refined lover.

  Not that there were still five cities left to bet. Liorit groaned in despair, and thrust her hips forward. Her loincloth was drenched with the slippery fluids seeping from her slit. Craving friction, she tried to roll her hips, but was trapped too tightly against the tree.

  "Amiel!" she begged.

  He shifted beneath her, shoving one hip forward to hold her in place while he fumbled with a hand inside his robes. She ground against his jutting pelvic bone as he tugged the folds of soft wool apart and maneuvered to haul her skirts up around her waist and pull her undercloth out of the way.

  His erection dragged along her inner thigh, trailing wetness. Liorit gasped, arched her neck, and stared at the delicate flowering canopy overhead.

  There was a probing stiffness, a twitching, triumphant discovery, and an ab
rupt twinge as she was stretched open. Amiel's rigid length slid greedily inside.

  Liorit clenched her muscles around the unyielding shaft and hissed. Amiel buried himself in her, crushing her against the tree with his chest. He grunted throatily and began to thrust.

  He pounded her steadily into the tree. Each stroke glided deep, slamming in to fill Liorit over and over, teasing her insides with jolts of maddening pleasure. Rough bark chafed with exquisite pain as her back scraped up and down the trunk.

  She pushed her hands inside Amiel's open robe and around his jerking torso. His skin was sweaty, hot, and soft as butter. She raked her nails down the smoothness of his back, urging him to go harder, faster.

  "Oh!" A cry burst from Liorit as the pad of Amiel's thumb dove into the folds of skin above her opening. She was so wet that his finger slipped around uncontrollably, running over the tight, throbbing nub of nerves with no semblance of rhythm, or even conscious intent. The unpredictability propelled her higher.

  And higher. Pleasure flooded in her lower abdomen, spreading a tingling numbness through her buttocks, thighs, and stomach. The sensations inflated rapidly. Her pleasure swelled larger and larger, seeking a breaking point but not finding one, despite the preoccupied dedication with which Amiel was sawing away at it.

  She didn't notice when his hand left her clit, but she did notice when a slippery finger shoved into her other, tighter entrance. The surrounding muscles rippled. She moaned loudly as the new pressure intensified every sensation but still withheld release.

  The pleasure hurt, the pain hurt, and a haze gathered around Liorit. She cried out for Amiel, but instead of the beautiful immortal, her mind's eye saw two little girls.

  Shalhavit sat on the orchard wall and nibbled on sycamore figs, watching the guards with her quiet fearlessness.

  Amith peered excitedly around a corner, her peaking eye bright with challenge, a cloud of golden curls compromising her hiding spot.

  Shalhavit, riding double in front of Liat and swaying with the donkey's lazy pace, grinned and begged Liorit to teach her the words of a dirty song.

  Amith curled up in her sleep and pressed her cheek against the slumbering Shalhavit's back, both girls lulled under by the sound of Liorit's lyre, candlelight flickering over their small faces.