by Starla Night
His hesitation gave her pause. Didn’t they share the same feelings? Was she wrong?
His chest expanded with a shudder, and he seated their mouths more firmly, deepening their connection. Hot arousal flushed through her veins. He returned her strokes, tangling tongues, giving and taking.
Fire kindled in her lower belly and between her thighs. Desire she had fought from the beginning bubbled up and spilled over.
Harmony had never been the one to ask for sex. Never the one to take. She was always the passive girlfriend, so grateful to have caught the eye of a nice man, she’d yielded to his demands and ignored her own.
She had given sex willingly but always knowing she would go at her partner’s pace.
This was a new world for her. Faier would never force her to his pace. He would refuse her before he demanded.
And he thought she couldn’t look past his scars. So she had to show him just how much she wanted the warrior within. She would not be refused.
Harmony looped her arms around his waist. Hard muscle flexed beneath her sensitive skin.
His fingers tightened on her shoulders, and the warm glow of his inner soul flickered to life, reaching her and resonating.
Desire to desire. Need to need. Hunger to hunger.
She stroked his flexing buttocks.
He moaned and broke free of her mouth to gaze into her eyes as if to question. Are you sure? Do you really want this? Really want me?
But she did really want this. Him. Faier. He made her ask. She couldn’t passively receive. She had to know what she wanted and go hunt it.
Hunt him.
She hunted a male for the first time in her life. Faier was hers. She claimed him.
And she had never felt more alive.
Harmony rubbed her breasts over his chest. Her nipples tightened.
His features lifted. Arousal washed over him like a hot wave. His hard cock pressed into her hip.
She encircled his thick male member with eager fingers.
He closed his eyes and shuddered. When he opened them again, the mauve threads gleamed and his soul light burned hotter. “Harmony…”
She stroked from base to tip to base.
He shuddered.
Her pussy throbbed. She wanted him inside her, connecting their bodies as well as their hearts.
He caressed her buttocks, fitted his taut abdomen against the soft swell of her belly, and cupped her tight breasts reverently, stroking her aching nipples with his deliciously rough thumbs. He worshipped her as the queen he continued to call her.
Did he finally believe her?
Harmony wrapped her legs around his lean torso.
His cock nudged her waiting entrance.
Her nethers throbbed.
He pinioned her gaze with his mauve-threaded dark eyes, battered by his hunger but refusing to take until she offered.
She drew him in.
He yielded to her will, filling her channel with his cock slowly and completely until they were one. Faier shuddered. An earthquake shook his heart. It reverberated in her soul.
This was the man she wanted. Her male. She chose him.
They were both prisoners, and yet, in this exact moment, they were both free.
He eased out and thrust into her, filling her with sparkling heat, gilding her with liquid pleasure.
Yes. She wanted this dance. This transformation. With him.
He thrust again, and again, bobbing in and out of her channel, fulfilling her unspoken needs.
Harmony had given her body to doomed crushes and selfish lovers. Faier was neither. If she hurt him again, she would hate herself. And that made loving him the most dangerous act of all.
She clung on as her orgasm built. Fear crashed against hunger like two warring tides.
He drove into her pleasure spot, and the orgasm welled, pulling her on storm-driven currents that broke over her and tumbled them both out of control.
The pressure in her body released. She cried out.
A moment later, Faier thrust to his own completion and filled her with his essence.
Her veins tingled with blue sparkles like the ones she had seen in the twilit ocean on the surface, when her trust in Faier was new and for the first time since boarding Lifet’s yacht, she’d thought maybe she would survive.
She felt that way again. Heavy and warm and safe. Everything would be okay. Together, they would find their way out of this prison on Aiycaya and survive.
Faier trembled.
She stroked his back. “Hey. You’re okay.”
His trembles grew to full shakes. He shivered as if an icy blizzard encased him while she, still hugging him and connected, rested in his arms toasty warm.
“Hey. Faier?”
His teeth chattered.
What? Had she hurt him? Harmony pushed back to look him in the eye. “Are you okay?”
He veered away from her gaze and nodded into her shoulder. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Is there something I can do?”
He shook his trembling head. “I…do not regret…”
She pressed his dark head to her chest and teased her fingers through his hair, stroking his little ducktail, until the trembles soothed. She understood. The moment she’d realized he would always try to save her a hundred earthquakes had set off in her own heart.
They slept together in a tangle surrounded by the stillness of this undersea forest. An unknown time later, a distant echo of warriors shouted.
“…Harmony? Sacred bride! We are coming to rescue…”
Faier lifted his head. Dark knowledge dulled the mauve gleams in his eyes.
They could not hide here forever. And the last thing those warriors needed to see was her entwined with their supposed enemy.
She stretched and vibrated a sigh. “Oh, well. Someday we’ll be together freely.”
He seemed unsure but he agreed and released her.
They separated. Cold water rushed between their bodies. She shivered.
He rubbed her chilled arms and traced the small red dots on her chest from the mantis shrimp stings. Keeping her close and touching her sweetly, he eased the worry invading her heart.
She relaxed into his gentle grooming. “I can’t believe I got those marks from just a couple of shrimp.”
“Just?” His brows rose. “Mantis shrimp are formidable enemies. They drive off predators much larger than a Trench Jack. You have also presented a problem for the warriors. They cannot enter without significant danger.”
“I supposed we can’t leave either.”
“They will tunnel another entrance elsewhere. What do you wish to do while we wait?”
“I don’t know.” She took both his hands. “I have to make King Kayo see you’re not his enemy.”
“I am a rebel, and his city is traditional. He must yield to the All-Council or risk plunging his entire city into war.” Faier stroked her cheek with his knuckle. “Besides, he will regard any warrior who takes ‘his’ sacred bride to be an enemy.”
“So tell me what to do.”
Faier floated with her. His support was a sun. He warmed her with his presence. “What do you want to do?”
He was encouraging her to decide. Even though her last ideas to fight the Aiycaya warriors had gone badly.
Lifet had taken her choices away and punished her for deciding on her own. These warriors hadn’t helped by brushing away her wishes and trying to force their demands.
Faier encouraged her to try again. He healed her by believing in her. Now she had to learn to believe in herself.
Believe.
“If I can reach King Kayo,” she continued, telling herself more than him, “and I will get him to see that First Lieutenant Tibe and Elder Bawa are colluding against him. I’m sure wherever Warlord Sao was taking me, Elder Bawa was at the bottom of it. And it’s suspicious that Tibe has tried to kill you so many times, and then the short time we’re left alone together, a
big fish targets our prison.”
“You would unbalance the whole city.”
“Rebalance.” She tried to smile. “I guess that’s crazy, isn’t it? Lifet was once a nicer man. He got led down a dark path. And I’m afraid the only way to get King Kayo to pardon you is to lead him away from the darkness into the sunlight.”
“If you can accomplish this you will do the city and all the ocean a great favor.” He frowned. “I must protect you.”
“They’ll imprison you if they see you leave here.”
“Then they will not see me.” He squeezed her hands. “Let us search again for another exit.”
They explored the small sleeve of coral.
There was no other way out.
They returned to the meadow. Faier looked defeated and worried.
“We have no choice,” Harmony said. But instead of that phrase marking the end of her resistance, for the first time it marked the beginning. “We have to wait here until the warriors break through and then we have to fight them.”
“In close quarters,” he agreed, reviewing the space like a fighter envisioning an arena, “while I heal my injury, and bare-handed.”
Again.
She swallowed as a new, terrifying idea began to take hold. “I could…maybe I could approach King Kayo again.”
“They will attack me as soon as we pass the mantis shrimp.”
“You, yes. Not me.”
“Harmony. Do not sacrifice yourself—”
“I’m not,” she assured him in a rush. “Not like before. I’ll convince King Kayo to pardon you. He’ll keep me safe from Tibe and Bawa. We’re getting out of here together. I promise you.”
Faier set his jaw.
Nerves assaulted her. She tangled her fingers. “You don’t think I can do it?”
He calmed and entwined her fingers. “You are a queen. The power to rule is within you.”
“But not without you or King Kayo.”
“Even alone without us.”
“I know I can’t really do anything on my own.”
He nipped the tips, focusing her attention on him. “From the moment my leg cramped and the warriors surrounded me on the surface, my life was forfeit. But I am still alive. You have saved me, Harmony. Not once or twice. Many times. Although I greatly prefer to risk my life rescuing you I would be a fool to ignore that I am injured and in danger. I owe my life to you. You are more than capable of accomplishing a great many feats.”
The confession was ripped from this proud male’s soul.
She treasured it and him.
He did not like being rescued. Being the knight was in his blood. He had to rescue others. And she was perfectly happy to let a white knight carry her away to safety.
But due to his injury, it was time this fair lady—or, in her case, tan-beige lady—picked up his sword.
“Do you really think I can do it?” she asked.
“You have experienced this dark path before,” he said. “Tell the king what you see. Your experience can save him. If he will be saved.”
Worry wrinkled his steady gaze but he nodded as if he believed her.
Nerves crunched in her belly.
Faier trusted her.
She would just have to trust herself.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“The problem is leaving. Me. Leaving.” Harmony twirled, her long fins and bright soul a powerful sign she was ready to claim her queen powers, even though she feared them and looked to him for reassurance. “Me leaving you.”
He did not argue.
Aloud.
“Because if I can get out, what’s stopping the warriors from using my escape to— Oh! Hello.”
The king’s house guardian jetted into her arms.
She cupped the bright creature, laughing with joy. “How did you get in? Did we miss an entrance?”
Faier’s belly twinged.
Harmony belonged here. In Aiycaya.
But she had claimed Faier. Of Atlantis.
He pushed aside his deep discomfort. Harmony had proved a hundred times that she chose him. He needed to believe her.
But that was easier said than done.
“A house guardian may pass through any hole large enough to fit its beak.”
Harmony tickled her. “You are such a good helper. How did you know I needed your help? And you’re so modest too. You’re such a lady.”
The house guardian puffed up her funnel and preened.
“She likes that compliment,” he noted.
“She’s a lady? Oh, I see what you mean. You are a Lady. No Tramps around here, though. Just me and Faier.” She grinned at him, and her chest was so light, it made his throat tighten. “That was one of my mom’s favorite movies. Lady and the Tramp. Lady got unjustly punished, but she saved everyone.” Her smile faded as she released the house guardian. “It seems appropriate.”
They lingered in the meadow beneath the mantis shrimp.
The shrimp buzzed in the tunnel. Her house guardian, Lady, darted beneath the cloud, plucked stray mantis shrimp, and ate them with a crunch. The mantis shrimp clicked and swarmed Lady. She flew down a side tunnel, leading the swarm on a merry chase.
“Perhaps the warriors above can draw off the mantis shrimp.”
“Good idea.” She locked eyes on Faier as she drifted backward toward the buzzing shrimp. “I’ll call out.”
His heart stopped. “Harmony—”
She rotated upright beneath the hole and vibrated hard. “King Kayo!”
He kicked to rescue her.
But a strange thing happened.
The remaining mantis shrimp did not swarm her for disturbing them.
“King Kayo?”
They gathered beneath her fins and then boiled over, buzzing straight for him.
He kicked hard, flying away.
They stopped once he was halfway across the meadow. He floated at a safe distance, watching her call a third and fourth time.
“Sacred Bride Harmony?” a different warrior replied to her from a far distance. “You are alive?”
“Warrior Poro! Yes. Where’s the king?”
“He is coming, Sacred Bride Harmony.”
“Great. You can, uh, just call me Harmony.”
“I cannot call you that, Sacred Bride Harmony. I must not speak to you.”
“Oh. Right.” She glanced down, and her vibrations returned to normal. “Faier? What are you doing over there?”
He approached cautiously. “Harmony…”
The mantis shrimp oriented on him. Click click click.
She saw them. Instead of fear, her first reaction was to turn thunderous. “Just a minute.”
Click click click click.
“I said wait.”
The mantis shrimp buzzed more furiously, but the warning noises ceased.
“Sorry. What were you saying?”
His chest heaved. Realization washed over him. He had known the truth. Facing it again hurt double the second time. “You can order them.”
“I can order who? Warrior Poro? Oh. You mean the mantis shrimp.” She frowned. “I did, didn’t I? It just popped out. Sorry, guys. Or gals. My bad.”
“You are very good. They think—they know—you are Aiycaya’s queen.”
Aiycaya. Not Atlantis.
She didn’t understand him.
“You are linked to the Aiycaya Life Tree,” he explained. “Its sap flows in your veins. These mantis shrimp—and all creatures of this forest—rely on the Aiycaya Life Tree for life.”
King Kayo shouted from a great distance, “Bride Harmony! I am here. Warrior Luin will battle the mantis shrimp so we can rescue you.”
The mantis shrimp disappeared up the tunnel. Distant clicks grated on his teeth.
She frowned and asked Faier, “Won’t that be dangerous to Warrior Luin?”
“Deadly.”
She vibrated hard to reach the king. “Wait! Okay? I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“—knows there is no other
way. He will perish for your safe return.”
“Perish? Stop! There has to be another way.”
“—for death with honor,” the king continued, droning over her as though repeating answers someone else had drilled into him. “Warrior Luin had the responsibility for watching over you, and he failed. He will perform this last act as penance.”
“Listen! Will you listen?”
“Go, Warrior Luin.”
“This was not Warrior Luin’s fault. Just listen for one second.”
“Bride Harmony, Warrior Luin is coming.”
“STOP.”
“Do not fear, Bride Harmony.”
“I’m not afraid. I am PISSED OFF.” She waved her fists.
The mantis shrimp buzzed, echoing her exasperation.
“Hurry!” Warriors shouted from above. “They are swarming. Go forth, Warrior Luin!”
The warriors screamed. Excited buzzing drowned out the sounds.
Harmony ground her fists into her forehead. “Argh. What can I say to make them understand?”
“The warriors understand,” Faier replied cynically. “They prefer not to hear.”
“Welcome to my life!” She laughed. Her soul light flickered. “This happens to me all the time. No one listens. No one.” She glanced at him. “Except you.”
“You must make them listen.”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t have it in me.”
“It is in you. These mantis shrimp feel it. I feel it also. You can take control of the city, Harmony. You can do anything.”
“Why? How come you feel this ability, this ‘power’ to issue orders, and the other warriors clearly don’t?”
“Because they do not wish to. But you are my mate. Our souls resonate. Of course I would sense your power. Sense it and celebrate.”
She listened intently.
“Be strong,” he encouraged. “You have already ordered them. You rested with me in prison. You refused to marry King Kayo. You will save Warrior Luin also. Despite their wishes.”
“Despite their wishes…” Harmony stared up at the tunnel and then back at Faier with new determination. “I always give up too soon. You make me want to fight. Be better. Take on more. Because of you I think I will change my destiny.”
His chest warmed. “You will.”
