Pure Rapture

by Aja James

  But abruptly, the colossal weight was lifted off of her, and Ishtar stood looking down at her in vampire form once again.

  Ishtar beheld her broken sister with neither triumph nor remorse. She was dazed with pain from her wounds, exhausted and disoriented.

  What had just happened?

  A tight grip on her arm gained her attention and she looked into her mother’s dark, troubled eyes.

  When had the Queen come down from the dais? Ishtar’s eyes shifted to the left and right. Why were so many people surrounding them in the Great Hall?

  “Take him to your chambers and make the Claim,” Queen Ashlu said, low and urgent, “Do it tonight or I will give him to the nobles to use as a communal slave.”

  Ishtar gasped at the ugly threat.

  A communal Blood Slave was everyone’s property to use and abuse as they saw fit. Unclaimed, a Pure One had a high likelihood of being drained of blood within a few nights or group raped or both.

  The Queen took Ishtar’s chin in hand and looked directly into her eyes for long moments, searching for what Ishtar knew not.

  Finally she said, “Though I wish this happened under different circumstances, certainly not over of a piece of Pure meat, I am glad you have come into your power, my daughter.”

  She patted Ishtar’s cheek with something like affection, something like rebuke.

  “It has been long overdue.”

  *** *** *** ***

  Well, this was awkward.

  Sophia thought as she, Benji, and the “Mama Bear” who was prettier than Arwen from Lord of the Rings, gathered in the adjoining room to the healing chamber as Inanna and Gabriel stared back at them wordlessly.

  They’d probably been standing in silence for a good five minutes now, Sophia estimated. No one seemed to be blinking. Everyone seemed to be holding their breaths. The tension was thick enough to carve with a spoon.

  “I’ve got it!” Ava burst through the double doors with Rain on her heels, waving a piece of paper in her hand.

  “I’m absolutely certain she’s not a redhead, more than 50% certain she has brown or black hair, 97% brown or black eyes, although there’s a strain in there that looks like there’s a small probability it could even be purple, with a height between 5’8” and 5’11”—”

  Suddenly, she halted in her litany of physical attributes and noticed a newcomer amongst them.

  “Did I conjure you with my descriptions?” Ava asked, bewildered, “because you look exactly like what the DNA sample would draw out if DNA could draw.”

  Now six people stared unblinkingly at Ishtar, all holding their breaths.

  “I…” she began, her voice a thin whisper, then cleared her throat and tried again.

  “My name is Ishtar Anshar,” she stated more loudly. “I am here for Tal-Telal.”

  “You’re the Mistress and the lover,” Ava blurted out, never having possessed a social filter. Whatever came into her brain was whatever went out of her mouth.

  Inanna gasped.

  Gabriel cursed.

  The temperature in the room just went from cool to frigid.

  Ishtar’s instincts were to transform into the giant snow leopard in self-defense, but she willed her body to remain still.

  If her daughter and her daughter’s Mate decided to attack, it would be just punishment she’d take without retribution.

  “You did this,” Inanna hissed, baring long, sharp fangs, a warrior vampire on the verge of tearing her foe apart.

  She took a threatening step toward Ishtar, who held her ground, before Ava thrust herself in between them, arms stretched out to hold them at a distance.

  “Hang on a second, I have more,” Ava quickly got out.

  All eyes focused on her, and no one moved.

  “There are two different DNA signatures in Tal’s blood, besides his own that is,” Ava spoke fast, as if working furiously to defuse a bomb, “both are female and both have dark hair and dark eyes. One is taller…”

  She looked at Ishtar and blinked again at the miracle of her timely appearance.

  “And one is shorter by a couple of inches at least, without the purple strain in the alleles for her eye color.”

  Ava took a breath and plunged on, “I can’t tell from the way the different DNA interact with each other which one is the Mistress, or maybe they both are, if that’s possible, but…well…she—” Ava pointed to Ishtar—“or someone who looks uncannily like her, is the one, you know... with Tal, recently.”

  “What does that mean?” Benji piped up while Sophia blushed.

  “Come on, Benji, let’s get you that tub of chocolate chip cookie dough I promised,” Sophia said as she ushered the boy out of the room.

  “I am here for Tal,” Ishtar repeated, staring Inanna down. “I will do whatever it takes to help relieve his pain.”

  “You should have left him alone, then,” Inanna spat back, fangs still fully extended, eyes glowing red. “You made him into a…a…”

  “This is not the time to argue,” Rain said, stepping in.

  “If she is Tal’s Mistress and it appears she has good intentions, then perhaps the venom from her fangs can ease his pain at least, while we work on finding a way to heal him.”

  “I’m going to need a blood sample,” Ava told Ishtar, all business.

  Ishtar nodded as Inanna speared her with a lethal glare.

  “If you hurt him again, if you so much as—”

  Gabriel wrapped his Mate in his arms and squeezed, cutting off the rest of her threat. He said something near her ear, low and urgent, that only she could hear. Though she continued to breathe gustily, bristling with fury, the red glow in her eyes subsided and she leaned back against his chest, as if she couldn’t stand without his support.

  Well.

  Ishtar wanted to know how Inanna would react to her true self. Now she knew.

  She wasn’t sure whether Inanna realized that she was the one who birthed her, but it didn’t matter. She was the one responsible for her beloved papa’s torment.

  Ishtar swallowed her self-hatred and metaphorically thickened her skin.

  She turned to the two women who appeared to be the resident healers and asked, “Where is he? What can I do to help him?”

  “Come,” Rain said gently, gesturing for Ishtar to follow her into the adjoining room through an inner door.

  To Inanna and Gabriel she said, holding the door for Ava to precede her as well, “Give us a few moments. Ava and I will make sure no further harm befalls the warrior, I promise.”

  Despite her fragile appearance, with her ankle-length silvery hair, so crystalline it looked like diamonds under bright light, her porcelain complexion and child-like face, the Pure healer could more than hold her own against even seasoned warriors.

  Although her zhen, the individual strands of her living hair, no longer had the power to withdraw poisons and pain from patients’ wounds, they could still heal with the precision of acupuncture needles, harnessing living beings’ qi.

  And when she needed to defend herself or those she loved, the zhen became formidable weapons, sharp and deadly, with a tensile strength stronger than steel.

  Inanna nodded to accept her promise and reluctantly stayed back with her Mate.

  Rain gave her one last look of reassurance before closing the inner door with a click.

  “Truth and lies chase round and round, where one exists, the other is found. Your eyes and ears will willfully deceive you; unfetter your heart, your soul, and let them lead you.”

  —From the Ecliptic Prophesies, buried and forgotten

  Chapter Seven

  Third millennium BC. Capital City of Akkad. The Ivory Palace.

  Tal waited for hours in what appeared to be the Dark Princess’s sleeping quarters, if the gigantic platform bed was any indication.

  He was not allowed to lie upon it, of course, lowly blood whore that he would soon become.

  No, he was bound securely to one of the thick gold columns that propped
up the tall, gold-leafed ceiling above the bed, his arms tied around it behind him, his feet chained together at the base.

  Naked.

  Presumably to facilitate the Princess’s Claiming of him. With the ceremonial twelve-inch dagger resting in its scabbard on a nearby pedestal, deceivingly benign.

  The Princess.

  Ishtar.

  Tal swallowed down the unnamed emotion burning a fiery path from his heart, through his chest and up his throat.

  He had not foreseen this.

  He had known that he would become a Blood Slave. He could even discern that he would be the slave of someone high-ranked within the royal stronghold.

  It was why he’d chosen this path—given that the path toward the obliteration of the Pure Resistance was not an option—so that he could infiltrate the highest ranks of Dark society. Move about with relative freedom in the Palace, as it was one of the privileges accorded to the Claimed Blood Slave of a noble vampire or royalty.

  What better way to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Dark forces than from the inside? He would be able to see the moves of every military commander and political Consul before they happened.

  But he’d never imagined that he would become her Blood Slave.

  Ishtar was not a common name, but it was nevertheless used when families wanted to pay homage to the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, beauty and fertility, and bequeath their daughters with hopefully some of her gifts. The Dark Princesses were never referred to by name, only by title and honorifics.

  He never knew…

  Would he have made different choices had he known? Or would every path have led him to this critical juncture?

  It was pointless to wonder; the past could not be changed.

  And now he would become her property.

  Her whore.

  He would be stripped of all dignity and freedom. He would never know again a touch or kiss born of innocent desire, purity and love, and he would never know whether his body responded because he freely returned these feelings or because her will commanded it of him.

  He closed his eyes against a wave of pain, so deep and cutting his whole body shuddered from it.

  He felt as if he were mourning the death of something fragile and beautiful and full of joy—a potential future perhaps, one that he’d dreamed of all these years with his unconscious mind and his wayward heart.

  A future that was now made impossible.

  With an ominous creak, the doors to the chamber opened to admit her.

  Princess Ishtar.

  Tal opened his eyes and looked fully upon her, as she also looked fully upon him.

  She had cleansed herself of battle stains and changed into a loose, flowing tunic tied at the waist. Where her skin was revealed, he could see angry red lines from deep cuts that had barely knitted together. Her hair, unbound, cascaded in straight skeins to her waist, curling slightly at the ends. Her long, strong legs were revealed by the thigh-high slits in the tunic as she slowly approached him.

  She was the most beautiful being he’d ever beheld.

  “Leave us,” she commanded of the shadow warriors who blended into the walls of the room, indistinguishable from the shade cast by torchlight and candles.

  “We are to witness the Claiming,” a nebulous voice responded from the shifting darkness.

  “He will bear the brand by sunrise,” she said, her tone regal and immutable, “You will leave us now or face my wrath.”

  The last came out in a throaty growl, and her eyes flickered to light purple.

  Slowly, the shadows departed, spreading like spilled oil down the walls and beneath the chamber doors.

  She came to him then and undid the bindings around his arms and hands, broke apart the chains at his feet.

  How strong she’d grown, he thought with wonder. Much stronger than he physically.

  His limbs were freed in the nick of time to enfold her as she launched herself bodily at him and hugged him tightly, using enough strength that his waist and spine protested with groans and creaks.

  “I was so afraid and worried! I thought I could never win against Anunit. And then I’d hurt her so badly…I’m a horrible person! A terrible sister! Mother is with her now. She is healing well, she might not even have a scar.”

  The words tumbled from her lips like an apple cart overturned, most of them muffled against his chest and shoulder and neck as she nuzzled a meandering path with her face, rubbing her nose and lips against his skin, inhaling his scent deeply as if it were a drug to calm her.

  “At least you’re safe with me now,” she continued more slowly after catching a breath.

  “I missed you so much, Tal. Why did you go away? Why did you leave me?”

  Tal didn’t know what to say, what to do. One moment she was a lethal predator bent on rampage, and the next she was the kitten he knew so well, full of affection and innocence.

  His body seemed to know what to do, as his arms held her closely to his chest, his thighs opening to accommodate the snug fit of her hips between them, his hands smoothing comfortingly up and down her back, as if to say, “I’m here now. It’s all right. I’m yours. Always and only yours.”

  As if hearing the unsaid words, she raised her head from the crook of his neck and looked deeply into his eyes.

  “You’re mine now,” she whispered, torn between undiluted joy and aching sadness.

  “I’m so sorry that it has to be this way,” she said softly, her hands cupping his face.

  “I wished so hard and for so long that I could have you. I prayed to the Dark Goddess and all the stars in the heavens. I went to our cliff and our beach every day for two summers and waited for you. I even snuck to your old forge and hut, despite that I feared your displeasure, only to find them gone.”

  Her thumb brushed across his mouth and she lowered her eyes to it.

  “But you never came,” she rasped, her voice husky with tears.

  “I thought you didn’t want me anymore. I thought perhaps…perhaps you found a female of your own Kind and liked her better. And then I wished that I wasn’t in this body, in this place, in this position, but instead be the one close to you, wherever you may be.”

  She looked back up into his eyes and searched their turquoise pools for answers.

  “Am I still your first, Tal?” she asked with her heart in her penetrating gaze. “You are mine and always will be.”

  What was he? Her first? Her only?

  Tal was tempted to ask but didn’t. None of it mattered any more.

  In this moment, with Ishtar warm and vibrant in his arms, as if he’d caught the heaven’s brightest star, nothing mattered but her.

  Together with him at last.

  Nothing mattered. Not his freedom, not his pride. Not the Resistance nor the people who depended upon him.

  In this moment, he was simply a male, holding his female, aching to possess her, needing to be claimed in return.

  Five years of distance and time disappeared as smoke in the singeing sparks of desire between them as Tal pressed his mouth to hers and kissed her fully for the first time.

  With a sigh of pleasure and relief, her whole body melted against his, as if she’d been hurting all this time for lack of him and his touch soothed away the pain at last.

  He rubbed his lips against her full pink mouth, back and forth, plumping it, wetting it with his breath, until her tongue darted out to lick his lips and she emitted a low sound of impatience somewhere between a purr and a growl.

  He gave her what she wanted then, what he wanted so desperately as well—he thrust his tongue into her warm, wet softness and licked inside with a voluptuous sweep.

  They groaned in unison at the carnality of it, a small taste of sensuality and sexuality neither had ever experienced before, but were now helplessly in its thrall.

  He deepened the kiss while she held him closer, her hands tangling in his long, pale hair. She lapped at him like a kitten with milk, innocent and playful, but then thru
st her tongue into his mouth, demanding and greedy.

  Somewhere in the back of Tal’s mind, he realized a fundamental truth: he did know.

  No matter if he was enslaved or free, he would always know that his body responded to her touch because his heart and soul were already hers. Whether she commanded it of him or not, his body would only ever respond to her. Harden and thicken and lengthen and fill to overflowing with blood and seed for her.

  Because she was the only female his heart wanted to Nourish. Since the first time he looked into those light purple eyes he’d been hers.

  Brand or not, she owned him. All of him.

  Instinctively, she pressed deeper into his body, as if trying to crawl under his skin, fitting unerringly the soft notch at the apex of her thighs through her tunic to his naked length, hot and hard and throbbing with need for her.

  She undulated against him as she thrust her tongue deeply and possessively into his mouth, tangling with his. Her hands moved from his hair down his back to grasp his buttocks with an urgent squeeze, bringing his hips as close to hers as she could as she rubbed herself needfully along his swollen sex.

  Abruptly, he took his mouth away and turned his face to the side, his chest heaving with gusts of breath, as if he’d run a marathon distance in the past couple of minutes.

  He couldn’t risk making love with her, not when he felt so overwhelmed and out of control, his feelings both old and new.

  For he’d never tasted passion before this. The brief press of their mouths on the beach five summers ago was like a flickering candle of heat to this incinerating explosion of lightning and lava.

  He couldn’t be sure he would be able to control himself and not spend his seed within her, the primal urge to mate was so undeniable.

  If it was true that a Dark and Pure One could never be together, she might not be able to provide the Sustenance he needed during intercourse. Even if she loved him as she professed, spiritually, she simply might not be able to fulfill him. And if he gave himself, body, heart and soul, to her now, if the Decline were to ravage him in the aftermath, he wouldn’t be able to complete his task.