Kierra's Thread (Argadian Heart Trilogy Book 2)

by Adrianna Dane

  “Do you think Jarek could be doing the same thing? Or maybe when Odon broke open all the doors, Jarek was forced to face things he’d locked away from himself?”

  Kierra looked at Eluria, as a new thought surfaced. “Do you think that might be it? There were—things—I saw when I went to him. Things he’d kept hidden from me.” Her heart palpitated in panic. “I may have left it too long. He’s built such solid walls now—not only around his mind, but his physical self.”

  Eluria nodded. “We’ve all seen it, he withdraws a little more each day. You may need to do something drastic. But I think you’re the only one who can bring him out of it.”

  Kierra set the cup down on the table and stood. “You’re right.” Tears flooded her eyes. “Isn’t it strange that the very action that set me free, bound him in chains. I still feel our connection, but I also sense he now denies it.”

  Eluria rose from the lounger and clasped Kierra’s hands, her expression sympathetic. “Did you know he has no memories of Serdion? He has no memories of childhood to offer him solace. No memories of his family before he was taken into bondage. The only knowledge he’s retained is his time with Odon. And you.”

  “But I’ve given him nothing,” Kierra cried. “His memories of me can offer little succor.”

  Eluria’s hands tightened on hers. “Then give him new memories. You must find a way to break through.”

  “I will find a way,” she vowed.

  “You know, I’m seeing so much of the old Kierra surface. She’s been gone a long time.” Eluria leaned forward to hug her. “I wasn’t sure you would ever return and I’m so thankful.”

  Kierra returned the warm clasp. “And now I just need to return Jarek to us. Thank you. You’ve given me some hope that I can find a way to reach him. Now, I just need a little guidance from you.”

  * * *

  As Jarek slid his identity card into the slot to gain entrance to his apartments, the weight he carried in his mind seemed particularly heavy. He’d made the decision he must leave Ednos and separate himself from Kierra.

  His abilities at concentration were poor at best. He was unable to assist on missions. He had no memories of his youth, of the world where he was birthed, or the family who’d nurtured him. No memories of traditions, ceremonies, beliefs.

  His first memories were of bondage, nothing of freedom. He stayed with the Freelion rebels now because he felt some link of friendship to the Argadians he’d fought with. But there was no memory of hate for the Tribunal who had ravaged his planet. Because he didn’t remember it or his culture.

  Hate thrived inside him for Odon and what he had perpetrated on Kierra, the woman he was drawn to, had loved in thoughtwalk, was linked to. And for what Odon had forced from him. But Odon was dead. And Jarek felt distanced somehow, cut off from emotions and relationships.

  Devon had told him of Serdion and its devastation, but it was as though those things had happened to someone else. He could visualize none of it.

  But Odon was another matter. And all he felt now was colored by his service in bondage. He questioned his every response to that man. Had he truly submitted to protect Kierra, or had it been something else? He remembered Odon forcing him to his knees, demanding Jarek service his khout with his mouth. Odon’s hand on his head, massaging as he did as he was commanded. And his own khout hardening in the sexual assault, his nipples tightening.

  He flung the memories aside as the door to his apartments slid open. Rather than protecting Kierra had he sought to be forced into submitting? These were the thoughts that drove him farther and farther away from Kierra. The idea that he has used her as an excuse to submit to a masochist.

  Or were the memories he thought he had of those moments manufactured by the programming of Odon? The memories, or lack of them, tortured him, and finally made him realize he could no longer stay here.

  Kierra deserved a male, not a coward who had let himself be used in such a manner. A male without memories, and what memories remained he couldn’t be sure were true or false. He didn’t trust himself.

  He knew he’d loved her in thoughtwalk, but what if his physical body didn’t respond in the same way? What if the altered memories changed him so he was unable to react to her in the ways of a male for his female mate?

  In his conscious mind he wanted to be with her, but what if something reared its ugly head and he failed to respond? She’d already suffered so much, and he couldn’t bear the thought of causing her pain by not being able to provide what she needed.

  But how did he tell her he was leaving? For good. And where would he go? Argadia was not home to him. Serdion, at least in his mind, didn’t exist. Where could he find peace from his thoughts, ones that he wasn’t even sure were his own?

  There should be colors in his mind, but he felt none of them. His mind was gray, unable to focus, hiding the speculation he couldn’t deal with, rationalizing the rest so he could function on some level. Every now and then a fracture of memory would be revealed to taunt him—bits and pieces—rootless images. He remembered the colors because they were part of his life with Kierra. He’d studied the information available on the Serdion culture, but that could only tell him so much. And some of his responses were instinctive in some way—done without memory. His mind was a ruin of what it had been.

  Although Odon was dead, Jarek was his legacy—a male without direction, half programmed, half free—and useless to all. A male should have purpose and he had none. He should not be wallowing in self-pity, but could find no way out.

  He pulled away to the present, realizing the illumination in the apartment wasn’t as bright as it should be. He turned and walked toward the controls.

  “Don’t,” a feminine voice behind him halted his hand. He whirled around and stopped. Blinking rapidly, he was positive his eyes played tricks on him. Contrary to what his dark thoughts had anticipated, his khout quickly hardened at the vision kneeling in his greeting room.

  “How did you get in?” he rasped, then swallowed, attempting to clear his throat.

  Kierra smiled. “I have connections.”

  “Why?”

  Her solemn gaze slid up to meet his. “Because you wouldn’t come to me. In fact, you’re moving away from me. And I didn’t want to wait any longer.”

  He couldn’t let her do this. Haydon, but he found he couldn’t just tell her to leave. The vision of her kneeling on the woven red rug, naked pearlescent skin, the jade-colored glow of her radiance emanating all around her—an indication of her sexual desire.

  She was any male’s vision of beauty and passion. Encompassing a fantasy realized. Her hair fell around her shoulders in a silken cloud. Full, rounded breasts teased his senses. He wanted to savor with his mouth and tongue their firm, decadent flavor.

  His gaze wandered downward, across her defined, luscious curves to the shadow of her shax, a hinted glimmer in the dusky light. He wanted to tell her to spread her thighs wider so he could see the sensitive, pink lips. His fingers trembled at the thought of touching her, piercing the entrance to her shax-ra, sliding through her sweet nectar, to a paradise that awaited.

  He felt the colors in his mind begin to surface and he turned away from the visions and his traitorous thoughts.

  Fuck her. Those were the first words to enter his mind. Take what she offers. Possess what you crave.

  He tried to stop them, but the colors of his own sexual desire swirled inside his head. Hues of scarlet and gold clung to him, calling him.

  “Go away, Kierra.”

  “No. Not this time. I have healed, Jarek. And now it’s time for you to heal. I’m not just here to be touched by you, but to touch you. I know you’ve lost memories, and I’m here to give you news ones. I hope, beautiful ones.”

  “You have no idea what you’re asking of me.”

  “Take a chance, Jarek. You were so patient with me. But I’m afraid I don’t have the same patience as you. I’ve given you as much time as I can. I’m only sorry it’s taken me so lo
ng to come to you.”

  “You don’t understand the memories I have. And what I don’t have.” How could he make her understand? Especially when his body, and what was left of his mind, were demanding he take what she offered.

  “Tell me, Jarek. You’ve locked me from your mind and I feel so lost without you.”

  He turned away from her, unable to continue looking at what he coveted more than anything else. “I don’t want you touched by what’s left to me. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. What are my memories and what are manufactured? I have no memories before bondage. Or rather what I do have are so splintered as to be worthless. And those—I don’t know what they are made of.”

  He heard a soft breath of movement and then felt her body pressed to his back. Tightening his body—denying her impact on his senses—he closed his eyes.

  “Let me in, Jarek,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Let me give you more memories. Let me show you that your memories of Odon hold no substance. I’m here for you.”

  “How can you know? I don’t know. I feel as though I’m alone in a worm hole of darkness without direction.”

  “Let me help you find your direction.” She began to undo the fastenings on his uniform. Her hands touched the flesh of his chest. It was like being branded, except it was silk brushing against his skin.

  Her hands moved upward, forcing the suit down his arms, falling to his waist. He could think of nothing but her hands shifting over his shoulders, down his arms, swirling over his back.

  “Kierra—”

  Her hands skirted to his waist and pushed the uniform off his hips. “Let me show you how much I love you.” She moved in front of him and knelt at his feet. “Allow me this. Please.”

  Unzipping first one boot, then the other, as he balanced a hand against the wall, she pulled them from his feet and tossed them aside. Then she removed his suit and tossed it aside.

  She rose, stepped away from him, and smiled. “You’re as magnificent in your physical body as in our thoughtwalk. What I’ve been missing all this time. I know that your people revere the melding through the mind higher than the physical. But, Jarek, we shall know both. And the colors we create—there will be none like them anywhere.”

  He reached for her, but again Kierra stepped away. “We will go slowly. I want you to know every moment of pleasure. And to know it is through us—you and I—that you know it. I’m going to give you such memories, they will usurp all previous ones. I promise you a new sanctuary.”

  “Sanctuary?” He had a vague sense of it, but most of that memory had been destroyed. Fragments. All fragments littered his mind.

  She touched his jaw. “You once shared your sanctuary with me. It was a beautiful place filled with colors, your colors, that seduced and pleasured me more than I thought possible. It was a place of no Befores or Beyonds. Right now you fear me in your mind, but I’ll bring you to a place where you will know I could never judge you for anything you’ve ever done.”

  “How could you not?” His body tingled with awareness of her in ways he’d never known. He wanted to open his mind to her—wanted her words to be true.

  “Do you judge me for what happened in our years of bondage? When my body was taken time and time again?”

  “How can you ask that?”

  “Then do you think me weak? That my love is such a poor thing it can’t be trusted not to judge? None of the Before matters. Not to me and not to you.”

  “I don’t know how to let go of it. I have no certainty that anything I remember is real.”

  “What about the thread that connects us? Do you think that is fashioned by Odon?”

  “No—I—” The thread linking him to Kierra was different. He was sure of it. There was some inner sense that denied it was part of anything that Odon had created or altered. “It is real.”

  She linked her hand with his. “Then come with me. Trust me. Let us share some of the bliss that is waiting for us.”

  “Where are we going? Hopefully not too far since we’re both naked.”

  He heard her throaty laugh, and his khout hardened even more.

  “We’re about to begin a journey. A cleansing that is long overdue.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  She’d been fearful he would reject her out of hand. That she had left it too long. Eluria attempted to impart the knowledge she’d learned as a Twilight Companion, skills and arts an ordinary female would not know. But in the end, Eluria had told Kierra to go with her instincts and they would guide her.

  What instincts? The only thing she’d ever known of physical joining was what the Enforcers had taught Kierra through pain and drugs. Jarek had offered her the sensual mind bonding, but she’d shied away from physical contact. Now, when she was finally ready, he’d been so damaged, he’d pulled away from her. Did she have what it would take to heal him?

  She led him into the shower enclosure. The automatic motion indicator engaged and a warm rain of water fell over them. Kierra reached for a bottle of fragrant liquid body cleanser and poured some into her hand.

  Turning back to him, she spread the liquid into the thick bed of dark hair on his chest. She worked the foamy liquid along his shoulders and down across his ribs.

  Moving closer, she brought her body flush with his and rubbed her sensitive breasts against his chest, enjoying the feel of rough hair as she moved her hands to his back and down over the curve of his muscled buttocks to skim the back of his upper thighs.

  The heat of his body penetrated the cool water that streamed down their bodies. Without touching his khout she progressed along the curve of his hip, to the inside sensitive flesh of his upper thigh. “Spread your legs,” she whispered.

  “Kierra, do you know what you’re doing to me?” He repositioned his feet, making room for her to continue roving over his body with her now frothy, slick hands.

  “So many years,” she whispered the words. “I’ve wanted to touch you like this. To know the pleasure that awaited. But this,” her hands slid down to his knees and back up to the crease at his thighs. “You are so much more. Your strength has supported me, protected me.”

  She gripped his thigh and she felt the muscle flex. “Oh Jarek,” she sighed. “All this strength, do you know what you do to me?”

  Pressing her body closer, Kierra rubbing sensuously against him. Gripping a cheek in each hand, she felt the muscles tighten as she kneaded and caressed.

  “I’m going to climax right here, if you don’t stop what you’re doing, Kierra. Symion, look at your radiance. You have all you can do to contain it here.”

  “Where are your colors? When I feel their touch it is like so many fingers stroking my body, yet I know they all belong to you. It is you who give me so much pleasure.”

  The suds rinsed away, she raised her hands to cup his face, and pressed his lips to hers. His hands gripped her hips and the heat in her abdomen flared hot. She wanted to feel him inside her. But not yet.

  As they were about to kiss, she flicked out her tongue and licked at the drops of water that clung to his lips. “I would cleanse Before from both of us. See the drain beneath our feet? Watch the nightmares seep away. Before is beneath us, Beyond awaits. And Now, I give you memories to fill the void between.”

  She drank from his lips, sucking his tongue deeply. His strong arms molded her to him. He lifted his head to look into her eyes.

  “How have I deserved you—merited your forgiveness?”

  “Forgiveness? There is nothing to forgive. We have both suffered at the hands of a madman. This is a re-affirmation that we live and have each other. Life has dealt us hard. Before is gone. You are the male I want at my side—inside me. And I want to be inside you.”

  She drew away from him and urged him from the shower. Pulling out a drying cloth, she proceeded to thoroughly dry him, then led him back to the living room, where the candles flickered and the scent of jasmine and rose mingled, offering an erotic atmosphere made for sealing.

/>   She encouraged him to lie on his stomach on the scarlet rug.

  “Now what are you planning?” he asked as he stretched out.

  She reached for the bottle of oil on the table and poured a little into her hands. She straddled him and spread the oil over his back. A twinge of pain struck her at the ragged scars that littered at angles all across his back and down his legs. She forced the thoughts away.

  “When was the last time you had a massage?” She spread the oil in long, flowing strokes.

  “I-I don’t remember ever having one.”

  She shouldn’t have asked. His memory and what was real and not real was painful to think about. She did not want to remind him of his loss.

  “I’m about to give you a memory—the first of many pleasant ones, I hope.”

  She hunched up until her sensitive shax rested against the ridge of his cheeks and as she began the long circular strokes along the length of his back, she undulated her hips, causing a pleasurable friction as her shax lips rubbed against his rounded, smooth rear.

  “Na nivia, you’re destroying me.”

  “Does it please you?”

  “More than that. It is exquisite pain.”

  “Will it give you good memories? Or should I stop and try something else?”

  He groaned. “Don’t stop. Symion, don’t stop. Where did you learn to do this?”

  She smiled to herself. Eluria had been right, thank goodness. Continuing for a few more minutes, she then stopped. If she didn’t, Kierra knew she was about to climax with the friction and she didn’t want that just yet. Her shax was dripping with her juices, her shax-ra pulsing for immediate attention.

  She lifted a leg and moved aside. “Turn over,” she instructed him.

  He did so and lay on his back, watching her, Jarek’s eyes flaring green emeralds. Again, Kierra straddled him. His khout lay thick and hard, shooting upward. An iron shaft needy of piercing her willing flesh. She wrapped her fingers around his flesh, feeling the silken hardness, hot to her touch. Pre-cum glistened along the slit on the engorged purple head. It looked to be ready to burst, the pressure of so much pleasure prepared to erupt.