WarriorsandLovers

by Alysha Ellis

  Her mouth was open mid-sentence. All sense and reason deserted him. He dropped his hands onto her shoulders and covered her lips with his.

  Honey! She tasted like honey—rich and warm. He licked into her, wanting more, wanting everything. Wanting Eora.

  She hummed a little note of satisfaction. The vibration drove him wild. He tumbled backward into the bedding. Lips still fused, her weight settled on top of him, her soft breasts pressing into his chest, the concave of her stomach rubbing against his erection.

  With every beat of his heart, his blood pumped into his cock, making it harder. His balls ached with need. Eora wriggled and he thought he’d explode. He focused every drop of willpower he could muster on the gargantuan task of not coming just from the feel of her, fully clothed, stretched along his body.

  She wriggled again, slipping her top off over her head and pushing her pants down over slim hips.

  Nieko knew she had smallish, firm breasts. He’d spent most of the last few years telling himself not to notice their arousing jiggle during combat practice, or when she ran, or when she bounced around in a welter of enthusiasm for some new scheme.

  He hadn’t known her nipples would be rosy tan, tight little buds in a soft circle of sweet flesh. He reached up to touch one, reverently, tentatively.

  “Oh yes,” she sighed. “That feels so good.”

  Then she grinned. “My turn.”

  She snapped open the fastenings of his pants. The breath froze in his lungs. His muscles tightened into rigidity. Shivers danced across his skin.

  The cool glide of her fingers circling his penis shattered his control. He flipped her over, rising up on his elbows, and ran his mouth over her, taking hard, stinging kisses he soothed with a quick wash of his tongue, soft sucking caresses and long, indulgent licks.

  She returned his attention with an exploration of her own. They writhed against each other, hands sliding and caressing. With every stroke of her hands, Nieko’s fever burned higher and he knew he was going to say something—say something stupid. If he didn’t do something to take himself mentally in hand, he’d come in Eora’s hand right now.

  All Dvalinn did a stint of compulsory combat training. After the destruction of Ogof and the other two cities, Nieko had been so angry he’d signed up for more formal training and thrown himself into it with a diligence fueled by his desire to protect his people. Now he turned his skills to a use he was pretty sure the tough, abrasive instructors had never thought of.

  One of the first things they’d taught him was how to ignore physical sensations that interfered with getting the job done—heat, cold, hunger, thirst, pain. Well hell, Nieko was coping with a barrage of physical sensations and if he didn’t shrug them off the wrong job was going to get done.

  Calling on responses imprinted on him through hours and hours of practice, he began to desensitize. He willed himself not to react to the sparks sizzling along his nerve endings. He could push through it, as he pushed through the shock of extreme cold. To completely resist Eora’s touch was impossible, but he could—he would—block it out enough to let him survive this battle. A battle not with Eora but with himself. He had to win, had to be able to put his own driving need aside to give Eora everything she wanted.

  Make it about her.

  He sank deeper into another layer of resistance. He became aware of the speed of his breathing and slowed it. The red fog faded from his brain and he took another mental step back.

  Groping and panting and rushing like a sex-starved adolescent wasn’t going to make either of them happy. Eora had already experienced that and had openly stated she hadn’t enjoyed it. Nieko had had years of fantasizing about the ways he would make love to Eora if he ever dared to take the chance. All he had to do was put it into practice, follow the script and bring her to a series of screaming orgasms. She would never love him, because she could not imagine such an emotion, but he would give her true sexual pleasure.

  He moved onto his knees, straddling her. Her hands stroked across any part of him she could reach, so he clamped them together, lifting them over her head and pinning them there. He reached down one-handed and untied and unthreaded the laces of his boots, whipping one around her slender wrists and lashing them to the bedpost. Her eyes widened and her tongue slipped out to moisten her lips. “What are you doing?”

  “Showing you how good sex can be,” he said, proud of how steady his voice sounded and how little of his nervousness and excitement showed through.

  “Do you have to tie me up?” she asked.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he replied. “Trust me.”

  “I do, Nieko. I would never let anyone else do this to me.”

  He knew it was true. Eora was a warrior in her own right, as strong and as fast as many men. That she would let him do this to her without trying to break his bones into small pieces made him even more determined to do this right.

  Using his belt and the other bootlace, he tied her feet, splayed wide apart, to the bottom of the bed.

  He leaned back and looked at her, lingering where her thighs parted. A faint pink blush tinged her skin and the soft aroma of aroused woman floated to his nostrils. He closed his eyes and bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

  “Nieko, I…”

  He placed his fingers on her mouth. “Hush. I don’t want you to say another word.”

  Her luscious lips closed and she nodded. Nieko drew a deep breath. Control. Distance. Detachment. Do it for her. Do it to her, but not with her.

  He ran the tip of his finger from her forehead, along her cheek, circled her ear and dropped to her neck. “I’m going to kiss you here, here and here,” he whispered stroking across her breasts, settling on her nipple. “I’m going to take my time here.” The nipple tightened and her back arched, thrusting it farther toward him.

  His hand moved again, cupping her vagina. The little purring sound she made hummed along his nerves and he bit down again on his already lacerated cheek.

  She was wet and warm. As his finger sank into her channel his body tightened with the need to bury himself deep inside her. He refused to weaken.

  He thrust once, twice, and withdrew. Her essence perfumed the air and he fought not to inhale it like some exotic drug.

  He let his lips follow the line he’d traced around her breasts. The spicy-sweet taste of her flooded him, battering at the firewall he’d built to keep his inner self at bay. He wanted her so much, and he would have her, but only if he locked all the need inside.

  He intoned a wordless, soundless chant as his tongue circled her nipple, coiling and licking. Her sighs of pleasure hammered at the wall but he refused to allow it to fall.

  As he slid downward toward her clitoris, he shouted the chant louder in his mind. His muscles tightened until he feared they would shatter.

  He moved deeper, mouth parting her folds, pushing his tongue into her hot, wet pussy. His cock twitched but he beat the sensation down, concentrated instead on adjusting the rhythm of his thrusts to her erotic moans. When he felt her pull taut, he pushed harder, his thumb centering on her clit, flicking hard fast.

  With a scream, she came, the walls of her channel pulsing. He dropped his forehead onto her stomach, nostrils flaring as he took in the musky aroma. He closed his eyes and waited until he was sure he could move. He wanted to come—he would come—but not here, not now. He wanted to be inside her, wanted his head beside her—and he wanted her eyes closed so she couldn’t see the depth of his devotion.

  * * * * *

  Hopewood had chosen Elijah’s insertion point carefully. Close enough to the target area that Elijah could walk there comfortably but far enough away from any habitation that the signs of a teleport were likely to go unnoticed.

  He should already have reached the deserted city. Elijah’s long stride covered ground quickly but the featureless rock walls made it hard to judge his progress and twice he’d to retrace his steps when he’d turned down passages that had led him in the wrong
direction. No wonder the Dvalinn teleported between waypoints, maintaining the interconnected tunnels for emergency use only.

  Ahead of him, the glow emanating from the rock walls brightened, a sure sign he was approaching his target. Elijah picked up his pace. He had a job to do. The sooner he reached his destination, the sooner he could carry it out.

  As he neared the city, the walls of the passageway opened out. The rock walls were punctuated here and there with doors made of some glittering mineral—most likely mica or quartz. The decorative carved, inlaid surfaces were surprisingly attractive. Elijah had expected the artifacts of the Dvalinn world to be as grim and cruel as the people who made them.

  He pushed against one or two of the doors but they remained firmly shut. If the Dvalinn who occupied these places on the city outskirts had fled, they’d had time to lock up. Elijah expected things to be different further into the city where Hopewood had launched his attack.

  The passageway took a sudden turn. Elijah stopped, his feet frozen to the earthen floor, his mouth open, his senses reeling.

  A wide vista opened before him. Gardens overflowing with flowers, framed by wide arches supporting curling vines. In the distance, green hills fading to violet stood out against a cloudless blue sky.

  Nothing Hopewood had told him had prepared him for this inexplicable miracle. He hitched his pack more firmly over his shoulder and ran toward one of the stone arched openings…and slammed up against a solid wall, hitting his nose so hard that blood poured down over his mouth and chin.

  He took a step back, wiped his face with the back of his hand, then stretched it out. The pastoral scene in front of him was an image—an exquisite work of trompe l’oeil. He knew such things existed on the surface but surely not as masterfully executed as this. The scale of the work was extraordinary—the illusion of reality surpassed anything he had ever seen or could have imagined.

  This was the work of a people who loved the surface world, who knew beauty and who yearned for it. No other explanation for the scope and detail could exist. Elijah walked through the city, noting the entranceways concealed in the painted greenery. The entire work was coordinated, giving the impression of walking into a lush landscape where nothing ugly marred the perfection of the scene. Every wall was included in the design. No gaps broke the illusion.

  Hopewood must have seen the paintings. Elijah knew for sure he had been to the city—his directions were too accurate. Did he simply not think the paintings were important? Or did the wonder of it make Hopewood as uncomfortable as it was making Elijah?

  Every translucent leaf, every glitter of golden sunshine, every blue-black shadow whispered that this was work of gentle, spiritual people. He shook his head, bringing himself back to reality.

  Hopewood hadn’t told him because it made no difference to his mission. His time as a firefighter had taught him that people were complex. He remembered the arsonist who’d set a wildfire that blazed out of control, burning out an entire village, killing twenty-five people. His neighbors described him as a nice, quiet man. He’d helped out at the local soup kitchen. A few good deeds did not cancel out evil.

  The Dvalinn loved art—they were still the implacable enemy of humans. Hell, if they longed for the surface so desperately they might be prepared to wipe out the human race to have access to it.

  Second-guessing himself now wouldn’t help. Follow the plan. This place was at the hub of the complex ventilation channels that served the underground Dvalinn world. Even though the city itself was now abandoned, it remained an integral part of the system. Poison gas released here would circulate quickly and efficiently through intersecting passages, carrying to the entire underground population, wiping out forever the loathsome Dvalinn people.

  Not people, he remonstrated with himself. Monsters. Forget what he saw in front of him. The evidence of their inhumanity must lie hidden within these illusory images.

  He grasped a door handle disguised as a bunch of grapes hanging on a sun-drenched vine and turned it. The door swung open. Elijah pressed his back against the outside wall and waited. When nothing happened he peeled his shoulders away from the solid rock and peered cautiously inside.

  The room in front of him looked completely normal—so normal that he reeled back on his heels. The furnishings, the floor covers, the size and scale of the walls could have been from any apartment building anywhere in Elijah’s world. The views through the windows were perhaps more idyllic than you would expect from an urban dwelling, but as in the passageways outside, these were illusions, cleverly constructed, framed with drapes to add to the veracity of the experience.

  A few quiet steps took Elijah across the room into an adjoining bedroom. Again, the room looked like any bedroom on the surface. The bed was made, the pillows fluffed as if waiting for someone to come and rest there.

  Tidy, Elijah realized. Everything was in its place and tidy. He stormed through the rest of the apartment. There was no sign of panic, no overturned furniture. The dining room table was set, knives and forks set out and the chairs pulled back as if the inhabitants had vaporized in the middle of a meal.

  Hopewood’s weapon had obliterated the people of this city. Wiped them from existence in an instant. But Hopewood’s weapons had only had the capacity to wipe out one city at a time. The research he had funded had moved on. The vials in Elijah’s backpack were capable of genocide. Elijah was the instrument chosen to administer it.

  A shudder of horror raced down his spine. Turning on his heel, he headed back outside, running along the passageway, flinging open door after door, each one the same, perfectly preserved and empty.

  At last he drew to a halt, his head bent toward his knees as he drew breath. He had a job to do and he was going to do it. Rid the world of a menace most didn’t know existed and rid himself of a curse. His problem was peripheral to the central issue—with the Dvalinn gone, the world would be safer.

  He walked slowly on until he came to the junction he’d been looking for. Five wide passageways fed into the open space. Lowering the backpack from his shoulders, Elijah swung it around, opened it, pushed aside the bubble wrap and extracted the three boxes, two the same size, one much larger. He placed each box on the ground then squatted beside them and took a deep breath to steady himself.

  He opened the largest and safest of the three containers. From it he extracted a cube made of sturdy plastic. Perforations pierced each of the four sides and the top. More plastic spanned the bottom of the box, with two circles cut out to make a stand. Elijah removed the lid and put it on the ground.

  Now Elijah turned to the two smaller, identically sized boxes, marked simply A and B. The sealed boxes contained two separate components of the strongest nerve gas ever discovered. A descendent of the class of gases used in the long-ago Tokyo underground attacks, this gas was the product of years of covert research by government and non-government agencies.

  Hopewood had used his contacts to source a product so deadly that the amount held in these two one-liter vials was enough to kill millions of people. In the sealed world of the Dvalinn cave system, every man, woman and child was doomed.

  Elijah picked up the box marked A. He opened the package and unfolded the soft, neoprene-like material that acted as a shock absorber but hardened into a solid, impenetrable shield if it suffered a blow. Elijah withdrew the fragile glass globe it protected.

  Holding his breath, every muscle tense, Elijah lowered it into place in one of the prepared cradles in the box. It settled into place with the tiniest of clatters.

  He took a deep breath then wiped his sweating forehead.

  Once he was calm and the fine tremor had passed from his hands, he opened the second box. The packaging and the vial inside were identical to the first, except for the letter B etched into the side of the glass. He cupped the ball in the palm of his hand for a moment before he began the agonizing process of lowering it into its seat. One slip meant disaster. If the vial crashed into the other, the chemical process to releas
e the gas would begin. Elijah would be dead long before he could get back to the portal point to teleport back to the surface.

  With infinitely small movements Elijah lowered the vial into place. At the last moment, slick with his perspiration, it slipped out of his fingertips. Elijah gasped, but it slid into place without a sound. Gently, he placed the lid back on top.

  His shoulders slumped and he dropped his head onto his chest. It was almost finished. He reached once more into the backpack and pulled out a small, paper-wrapped package of explosives with a circuit board embedded in it. He held it in his hands for a moment, staring intently at it.

  Once he’d inserted the battery in the remote control secreted in the front of his backpack, Elijah could trigger the explosion at the last moment before he returned to the surface.

  He put the detonator and explosive into place and closed the unit with the lid. Then he stood. He walked away. What was done was done. He would not look back.

  Chapter Three

  Eora stirred and blinked her eyes open. The spot next to her was empty. None of Nieko’s warmth or his lovely, earthy scent remained. Damn it. Why did she have to fall asleep when she’d been so close to getting what she’d wanted for as long as she could remember?

  Nieko. Inside her. The two of them having sex the way she longed for. She’d known sex with Nieko would be different to the fumbling, cold attempts she’d experienced before. She and Nieko had a bond. Something special. Something unique.

  Then she’d ruined it. Exhaustion and sexual pleasure had sent her gliding into unconsciousness and he’d left her.

  She glanced over at the covered mound in the other bed. Her heart stuttered. What was so wrong with her that he couldn’t stand to sleep in the same bed? Why could she only be his friend without the benefits of real, complete sex?

  She sighed heavily and tucked her hands beneath her head. For years she’d felt this need to be closer to Nieko. Though she’d never admit it to anyone, part of her fascination with Tybor, Huon and the human was her desire to discover what the love that they professed to feel was like. Because she wondered if…