WarriorsandLovers

by Alysha Ellis

  “Then why are you going anywhere near them, Eora? If they are diseased and infectious why don’t we stay away?”

  “I told you.” She glared at him. “I want to know more about humans. I want to know how a people who are so like us, who have all the access to the upper world we are denied, can cause such utter destruction. I want to find out why they hate us.”

  “And once you know? What good will it do?”

  “I want to make them change. I want to find a way for Dvalinn and humans to coexist.”

  “Why? We don’t want any more of the Dvalinn to be killed. But the elders have taken care of that. They’ve decreed no Dvalinn will ever go to the surface again. They’ve put detectors on the exit portals so we can’t teleport out. Huon and Tybor killed the only human who knew how to penetrate our world. We’re safe as long as we stay underground.”

  Eora spun to face him. Her eyes glowed with passion. She clasped his forearms so hard her thumbs made little dents in the firm skin. “I hate these caves. I want to learn about sun and sky and clear air. I can’t stand being locked down here forever. I’ll die if I can’t get out.”

  Nieko felt the blood drain from his face. He’d never realized Eora felt like this.

  “The human killed every man, woman and child in Ogof,” he said. Why couldn’t Eora understand this? Why did she persist in believing some humans were different? “Humans hate us. They’d take any chance to destroy us.”

  “One human and the group he formed hated us. That’s all we know for sure. Huon and Tybor killed the Gatekeepers. The female human killed their leader.”

  “The human testified she hit him. Huon and Tybor believe he died, but they admitted to the council they didn’t check.” Nieko shook his head. “Even if he is dead, how do you know there weren’t more Gatekeepers? Ones Huon and Tybor didn’t find? It will never be safe for the Dvalinn to go to the surface again.”

  He rotated his hands so that he clasped Eora’s forearms, and gave her a little shake. “Humans and Dvalinn cannot coexist.”

  “They can! They do. Tybor, Huon and the human,” she said. “There’s no need for us to be enemies.”

  “We are at war. Nothing you do will change that.” No matter how headstrong she was, she had to understand. “You can’t fix this.”

  “You don’t know! Who has ever tried?” Eora shook herself free and kept walking, throwing the comment back over her shoulder at him. “I want to see Tybor and Huon and the human. I want to ask them to help us. I’m going to.”

  “Yeah. I get that loud and clear.” He sighed. Eora wasn’t going to give up. He didn’t have the energy to argue with her the whole way. He stomped after her once more. “Does your ban on teleporting include a ban on summoning up some food? I’m starving.”

  Eora laughed. “You’re always starving. Why do you think I’m carrying this huge pack? I knew you’d come with me.” She handed him a protein bar. “This should keep you going until we stop to sleep.” She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling. “You might need the extra energy. I have plans for you.”

  Nieko stumbled, stopping himself from falling only by propping his hands against the rock wall. Shit! They were going to spend the night together, probably huddled together for warmth and safety. For five years Nieko had done everything he could to avoid any situation where there was an opportunity for prolonged bouts of intimacy.

  The Dvalinn treated sex like any other appetite, to be indulged when it arose. Like an appetite for food, it didn’t matter what food assuaged it, so long as the need was filled. Like food, there was no jealousy or passion involved. Sex was sex.

  Nieko could have had sex with Eora. Everyone who knew them assumed they’d done it. Multiple times. But he hadn’t slept with her even once. He couldn’t. Because he knew he would never be able to fuck Eora without revealing his secret. Once she knew, Eora would despise him for it. Maybe she wouldn’t laugh. Maybe for the sake of their friendship she wouldn’t report him to the UDBC, but she would never look at him the same way.

  “We haven’t ever had sex,” Eora said.

  Shit! Nieko felt a bubble of panic churn in his stomach. Maybe stress was interfering with his ability to mask his feelings. Dvalinn didn’t read thoughts, exactly, but they could pick up emotions and general impressions. Nieko used up a good bit of his energy making sure no one ever broke open this particular seething corner of his mind.

  Eora charged on. “Don’t you want to?”

  Nieko swallowed. He’d had years to think of an answer for this. He knew what he had to say but he hadn’t expected some huge rock to suddenly teleport into his throat and choke him. He turned away, shuffling his feet on the sandy debris on the floor to hide the sound of him clearing his throat. “We’re friends,” he managed to utter. “We, ah, don’t think of each other that way.”

  “We could.” She looked at him, her eyes wide. “It wouldn’t have to hurt our friendship.”

  “Are you still friends with all the other guys you’ve done it with?” Nieko bit his tongue. If he could hear the hurt and accusation in his voice, so could Eora.

  She looked down at the ground. Nieko thought he saw her cheeks redden under the light brown of her skin. “There haven’t been as many as you think,” she muttered. Her shoulders squared and she looked up. “I tried it a couple of times. It wasn’t as…enjoyable as I thought it was going to be.”

  “You don’t like sex?” Nieko gasped. “Then why did you say you had plans for me. If you don’t like the idea…”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” she snapped. “I said it wasn’t as enjoyable as I expected. It was because…oh shit, I’m just going to say it. The boys I chose…they didn’t feel right. So I gave up. I thought…”

  Nieko was right. Her cheeks were coloring—a bright flame-red burned there.

  She took a deep breath and continued in a rush. “I thought it might be better with you because I like you. You’re my friend. We’re comfortable with each other.”

  She thought this was comfortable? Nieko’s skin felt too tight. His heart thudded so loudly it was a wonder she couldn’t hear it. His cock made a tent in of the front of his pants. Shit! If she looked down, she’d know. He’d have no excuse.

  He strode off, trying to get so far ahead of her that she’d have to struggle to catch up. He conjured up images of squashed cave worms and rotting gas smells—anything to make his erection subside.

  “Nieko!” she called. He could hear her scurrying to catch up with him. If his attempt to get away offended her, so much the better. She could sulk all she liked—at least he would be spared her horror when she discovered the truth.

  His complaisance shattered when she sprinted up beside him and slipped her hand into his. “You don’t have to hurry,” she panted. “I’m as keen as you are but we’ll have all night.” She went on, winding up the tension all over again. “If we like it…well, it doesn’t matter how long we take to find the others. We can take a day off to, you know…indulge.”

  He wished he hated the sound of that but his whole body thrummed with the need to take her. His only hope was to keep walking, hoping she wore out—or he did. Maybe if he was so tired he could hardly move he’d be able to take her, just once, without breaking down and showing her how much she meant to him.

  He kept his gaze resolutely ahead and shook his hand free.

  “Nieko?” This time she sounded hesitant and Nieko’s head shot around. Eora never sounded anything but one hundred percent sure of herself. It was one of the things he loved about her. She was beautiful, strong and confident.

  “Nieko, don’t you want to sleep with me?” She’d stopped walking. “If you don’t find me attractive…”

  How the hell did he get himself into these situations…and how the hell was he going to get out of it with even a shred of self-respect and dignity?

  “You’re attractive,” he said. He could have lied, he supposed, but she couldn’t possibly have believed him. Long-legged, smooth-skinned, with big,
dark-brown eyes and high cheekbones…she’d have to be blind not to realize how beautiful she was.

  So many nights Nieko had lain awake, racked with jealousy because he’d imagined other men having what he wanted so much and did not dare take. Her revelation that she’d only slept with two other guys left him reeling with shock and selfish satisfaction. She’d only had two other men and she hadn’t liked it.

  He’d managed to put himself in a position where sex with her was inevitable. If they spent the night together, just the two of them, and she wanted to sleep with him, he was never going to have the strength of will to resist her. There was going to be sex. Once he accepted that, he had only to wonder which of the scenarios he conjured in his mind would occur. He hoped he had enough control to keep the true depth of his passion secret. If he spewed out his feelings she’d be repulsed, embarrassed, and never speak to him again. He figured he was only going to get one chance with her. He had to make it great. Leave her feeling so good she would at least be sure the problem she had with sex was not her fault.

  He dropped her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders in what he hoped was a gesture she’d interpret as friendly, willing and nothing more. “Come on. We have a long way to go to get to Ogof. We’ll worry about what happens tonight when we get to it. ”

  * * * * *

  The weathered rock faces of the inner circle of Stonehenge loomed over him, their shadows a deeper darkness on the moonlit plain. Brian Hopewood stood off to the side, his gaze fixed on Elijah as if the force of his will alone could propel him through the earth.

  Elijah closed his eyes. He tried to empty his mind of everything but thoughts of the Dvalinn underworld. It was hard to concentrate. His skin prickled with anxiety. Doubts bombarded him. What if a security patrol made a midnight drive-by and stopped to check? What if someone spotted the car? What if he couldn’t teleport after all?

  He clenched his fists and concentrated harder. Tension tightened his shoulders. The swoosh of his blood sounded loud in the silence.

  An invisible force beat inside his brain, rhythmic, repetitive, on the edge of pain. The pace sped up. His vision blurred and became one with the thrumming vibrations. The solid stones surrounding him bent and wavered. His legs felt suddenly weak and he fell.

  And kept falling. The ground that should have slammed into him turned into a thick, blood-red mist. Waves of sound crashed against his eardrums, the pain tearing and unbearable. His scream was an internal convulsion, unvocalized and unheard. He couldn’t feel his hands, his arms, his legs. He tried to breathe but there was no air.

  The red in front of his eyes exploded into molten gold and black.

  Slowly, like a creeping insect, consciousness began to nibble at his brain. The first thing he became aware of was the rise and fall of his chest, then the solid feel of a hard surface against his back. He flexed his fingers and wriggled his toes. No pain. No sound either, but he couldn’t tell for the moment whether that was because the explosion had left him deaf or there was nothing to hear in this place.

  He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath and opened his eyes to a mellow amber glow. For a moment there was nothing else—no definition, no detail—then his eyes began to adjust. He noticed texture, rough and irregular.

  The texture resolved itself into a rock wall, part of a wide, high tunnel. The glow came from the rock itself, as if it had some internal source of illumination.

  He sat up and scooted backward so the rock wall gave him some protection from behind. The slight movement of his feet scraped against the sandy floor, letting him know his hearing still worked, but other than that and the sound of his breath, the silence remained unbroken.

  With agonizing slowness, his heart pounding, he moved forward. Gently, carefully, he eased the backpack from his shoulders.

  His fingers trembled as he unbuckled the straps and opened the bag to reveal a thick layer of bubble wrap. Squinting to see through the blurriness of his vision, he lifted one corner. Nothing seemed to be disturbed or broken. His breath rushed out of his lungs. With even more care than he’d removed the pack, he shrugged it back into position and scrambled to his feet.

  He shook his head, trying to focus on the right course of action. He couldn’t stay here, exposed and disorientated. He knew he had to head south but the featureless walls were the same in both directions. Nothing looked anything like the hand-drawn maps Hopewood had shown him during his training.

  For fuck’s sake. He had a compass! Before they reached Stonehenge, Hopewood had given him a compass that he’d put… He shook his head, trying to clear the confused fog from his mind. In his pocket. The side pocket of his pants.

  He bent down, undid the button, pulled out a solid metal case and snapped it open. The needle, safe in its glass housing, swung gently for a moment then settled into a steady north-south alignment. The passage he was in ran south-west rather than due south but it was close enough.

  He hoped.

  The last thing he wanted to do was wander into a living Dvalinn city. Maybe his appearance would let him pass for a Dvalinn but he had no desire to test the theory.

  He pulled out the pencil and paper he’d stashed in his other pocket. He’d have liked to use a GPS with automatic recording of waypoints, but Hopewood had insisted they wouldn’t work in the underworld, and wouldn’t let Elijah have access to anything like that anyway.

  The old-fashioned ways had worked for the explorers of the surface world. They’d have to work for him too. He squared his shoulders and took the first step on his journey.

  * * * * *

  “I found one,” Eora cried. “I can’t believe you don’t remember learning about them.”

  Nieko shook his head in disbelief. Things fell into place for Eora. Okay, so maybe he had been taught about these emergency shelters when he was at school. But he was willing to bet that, like him, most people completely forgot about their existence. When everyone teleported from place to place, who cared if some over-cautious committee in the past had made a law decreeing that shelters must be maintained at strategic points in the tunnel system—just in case?

  Most travellers were sensible and had no need of these precautions. There couldn’t be two people like Eora who insisted on doing things her way, regardless of law, convenience or sense.

  “This will be a good place to stop. There’s water and a food cache.” She peered into the glistening black-walled room. “It doesn’t look as if it’s been used.” A smile curved her luscious full lips. “No one would think of looking for us here. We shouldn’t be disturbed.”

  Nieko nodded dumbly. He couldn’t think of anything to say, mostly because he couldn’t think at all. He was going to do something really stupid. No doubt about it. His brain, deciding he was beyond redemption, had switched itself off in disgust.

  He looked around him. The room had cooking equipment and a couple of clean and comfortable-looking beds. He’d have been happier if they’d had to sleep on the stone floor. In separate rooms.

  Eora was already poking through the packages on the shelf carved into the rock wall. “Some of this stuff looks pretty tasty,” she said. “We should use it and save our supplies in case we get stuck somewhere where we need them.”

  Nieko grunted something he hoped sounded like agreement. If he was really lucky the stored food would be contaminated and they’d get food poisoning. No one could think about sex while they were busy throwing up.

  “I’ll cook,” he said. “Your turn tomorrow.”

  Surely the mundane tasks of heating water and making sure the food didn’t burn would dampen his raging horniness.

  His condition wasn’t helped by the absence of anywhere to sit except for the damn beds. Although he kept his back turned, he could hear Eora wriggling around, making herself comfortable. Every rustle and sigh made his cock twitch.

  He drowned out the sounds by clattering the utensils, taking more time and making more mess than he needed to.

  When it was ready, the concent
ration he needed to stop the reconstituted freeze-dried stew from spilling gave him a perfect excuse to keep his gaze fixed on the floor.

  “Here,” he said, his voice gruff, hand outstretched blindly.

  She took the stew from him, her hand brushing softly against his. He let go a long, slow breath and turned to take a seat on the other bed. Before he reached its beckoning safety, Eora patted the space beside her. “Sit next to me.”

  He should say no or ignore the request, but Eora would want to know why. Eora always wanted to know everything. What could he say? If he lied, she’d know. If he told the truth…

  He swallowed, feeling the convulsive jerk of his Adam’s apple, and let himself sink onto the covers beside her.

  She patted his leg and leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder, “This is much nicer. I don’t want you all the way over there.”

  Nieko looked at the other bed, no more than three feet away. Three feet was nothing but at the moment those thirty-six inches meant the difference between sanity and the certain knowledge he was doomed.

  He shoveled the food into his mouth, swallowing by rote, tasting nothing. His senses were saturated with Eora. The warm spot on his shoulder where she touched him, the spicy, sweet smell that filled his nostrils, the soft hum of her voice as she murmured something about the meal.

  He hadn’t realized he was sitting there, empty bowl cradled in his hands, until Eora took it from him, placing it on the floor alongside hers.

  “I have dessert,” she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a bar, sticky with honey from the hives in the farm caves.

  She took a bite then held it out to him. His lips closed around the place where hers had been. His heart thudded in his chest. His cock grew ramrod stiff and he moaned.

  “Yeah, it’s really good, isn’t it?” Eora said. “I got it from a woman who specializes in—”