by Aja James
Ishtar took a deep, shaky breath and let it out slowly.
Oh Dark Goddess how she missed Tal!
She had no one to talk to; not even Anunit was allowed to see her. She worried for what her mother might do next. She worried for Tal’s safety.
Would Queen Ashlu go as far as to use him to threaten her? Would she hurt him to get Ishtar to obey her commands?
She knew enough of her mother that her stomach tied itself in knots.
Yes, the Dark Queen would do anything she felt she had to in order to get what she wanted.
Oh Tal!
She had to do something to ensure his safety. She had to find him and—
The door to her chambers opened slightly, enough to admit the male she most longed to see.
“Tal!”
Ishtar leapt from the bed and flew across the room to launch herself into his awaiting arms.
She hugged him and kissed him, everywhere she could reach, his eyes, his nose, his cheeks, his neck, and back to his mouth where she devoured him whole.
He hugged her tightly and kissed her back, giving her equal measure, passion for passion, fire for fire.
Finally she released his lips and nuzzled her face into the hollow of his neck, breathing deeply his intoxicating scent.
“I was so worried! I was so afraid! Where have you been? Are you hurt? Are you—”
“Shhh,” he murmured, stroking her back soothingly.
“I’m unhurt. I’m here.”
She raised her head to look up at him, searching those beautiful turquoise eyes.
“I told everyone I wanted you for my Blooded Mate,” she whispered, not because she regretted what she’d done, but because she was uncertain whether he wanted her too.
As usual, she’d just assumed. And now she wondered, perhaps too late, whether she’d been blind and selfish, blind to Tal’s wishes and desires, for he’d never shared them with her in so many words.
“I know,” was all he said, though he didn’t seem angry with her.
Just unbearably sad. Even though he was smiling.
It was a heartbreaking smile.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she said, still searching for answers in his eyes.
“I couldn’t lose you. I couldn’t Mate some other male. I don’t want anyone but you and I never will.”
“Never is a long time,” he murmured, his thumb absently stroking her cheek.
“It’s the truth,” she said, this time with a dose of fiery stubbornness.
“I know my own heart. It will not change.”
He closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to hers, as if he were leaning on her for strength.
“Let’s not dwell on that tonight,” he coaxed. “It’s your twentieth name day. We should be celebrating. But you crashed your own party before it started.”
She could hear a smile in his voice. He was teasing her as he used to do, before the last four months had happened.
“What would you like for your name day, Ishtar?” he whispered against her hair, warming her body with the heat of his embrace.
“I don’t have much to give you, but—”
“You,” she stated clearly, and waited until he opened his eyes to look at her.
“I want you. You’re all I’ll ever want and need. You’re everything my heart will ever desire.”
He gazed deeply into her eyes and smiled that achingly sad smile again.
Swallowing as he tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear, he inhaled a shuddering breath and forced his lips to curve higher.
“Then you shall have me,” he rasped huskily, his voice thick with emotion.
“You shall have all of me this night.”
And so she did.
She made love with him to her heart’s content.
There was no sleep, no words. For hours and hours they joined together, hours and hours she feasted on his body, with a hunger and ferocity that put her Claiming of him to shame.
Hours and hours, he gave her himself, everything he had—his body, his blood, his delicious, Nourishing seed.
Wave upon wave of it, washing over her womb, filling her to overflowing, imbuing her with a soaring strength she’d never felt before.
Would never feel again with anyone but Tal.
Well into the day they made love, snatching only tendrils of sleep a few minutes here and there. Until the sun was beginning to set again, and another night was upon them.
Holding him still deeply within her body, Ishtar faced him on her side and asked shyly, “Why do you never return my words? You have given me all of yourself countless times during the past glorious hours. Surely you would not do that if you didn’t love me just a little? Why won’t you ever tell me how you feel?”
That indefinable sadness entered his eyes again, making her heart hurt just to glimpse it.
“Do the words matter so much to you?” he asked softly in return. “Words sometimes lie; you cannot always trust them.”
“I’ve never lied,” she said. “Well, maybe little white lies to avoid my lessons, but I’ve never lied to you, Tal. I’ve only ever told you the truth. I love you so very, very much. Don’t you love me even a smidgeon?”
He was silent for a long while, so long she began to fret, her heart pounding loudly in her chest.
“Close your eyes,” he finally said, and she immediately, trustingly obeyed.
And then he began to move.
Slowly, languorously, stroking her body from the inside out, his sex hard and long and thick within her, rubbing tantalizingly against her core, sliding with mind-numbingly sublime friction through the hot, velvet vice of her vagina.
Ishtar gasped as her crisis built, so easily was he able to stoke her flames.
Her breath came shorter and her heart beat faster. She clutched him to her with all her limbs, reveling in the perfect symphony of sensations he created within her and without.
The slide of his hard chest against her swollen breasts. The push of his ribbed abdomen into her softness when he breathed out as she breathed in. The rub of his muscular legs between hers. The exquisite pressure of his pubic bone against her clitoris. The scent of their passion mingled together.
Every sensation seemed magnified and crystallized, as if time had slowed to tattoo every moment of their joining into her memory.
Every brush, every sigh. The deep, roughened timbre of his voice as he moaned, the shuddering squeeze of her core as she orgasmed continuously, the flood of his hot seed into her womb, drowning her in a sea of euphoria from which she never wanted to emerge.
“Feel me,” he rasped into her ear, as he endlessly released into her.
“Feel this. Believe in this feeling. Believe in me.”
And when she finally passed out from ecstasy and exhaustion, she forgot the question she’d asked him.
With the rise of a bright full moon, Ishtar awoke to find him gone.
On the pillow where his head lay just a short while before, still retaining the shape of him, only a wooden leopard and a comb remained.
*** *** *** ***
“He is disoriented and still in a great deal of pain,” Rain added, “but I think it’s no worse than the pain he’s always carried inside since the first time he arrived here at the Shield.”
“Come and keep him company,” Ava invited. “Rain and I need to get back to work on the blood samples.”
“But don’t overtax him,” Rain said, “You know how he likes his privacy and solitude. Half an hour of visitation, and then he should be left to take some nourishment if he feels up to it and rest some more.”
Inanna didn’t respond.
She had a lot of questions to ask her papa, so she couldn’t promise not to overtax him. They were questions only he could answer, though he never had, up to now.
And Tal was never one for sitting still, no matter how bad a shape he was in.
Her father had led the Pure Ones into battle while bleeding profusely from multiple wounds. He w
as famous for the grueling training of his warriors and ruthless fighting maneuvers, but he was always hardest on himself, pushing his body beyond limits.
Inanna wondered sometimes while growing up whether he’d been punishing himself purposely. As if he needed to atone for something he did with blood and sweat and pounds of flesh.
She went into the healing chamber alone. Ishtar didn’t seem ready to see him just yet, and Inanna didn’t rush her.
Tal was sitting upright in the bed, facing the far side, pulling on a black Henley over his torso. She could see that he was dressed in loose black trousers but wore no socks.
“You’re supposed to rest some more,” she said softly as she approached. “Your body needs more time to heal.”
“I’m as healed as I’ll ever be,” was his low reply, matter-of-fact, as if he weren’t two steps away from the jaws of death.
Inanna let out a frustrated breath.
Her father wasn’t any more forthcoming about his condition than he had been since they’d returned together from Japan. He obviously knew what it was he had, but he wouldn’t tell anyone else about it, nor would he talk about what he’d been through over the millennia of his captivity.
Not even who his captor was.
“Papa, why did you never tell me about…the Princess?” she asked, and immediately his movements stilled.
“Why did you never tell me about Ishtar?”
He was silent for long moments, and she got the sense that he was holding his breath.
“She’s here, you know,” Inanna said gently. “She’s waiting in the next room. We had a long chat.”
At her father’s continued silence, Inanna walked around the mechanical bed to stand in front of him.
Though he couldn’t see her, he must be able to feel her presence, perhaps even sense the way she was intently searching his face with large, clear blue eyes, almost the exact replica of his but without the shards of green.
Tal swallowed, eyes cast downwards. Inanna saw that his hands began to shake where they clawed into the sheets at his sides.
“I-” He began on barely a rasp, then cleared his throat to try again.
“I’m sorry. It was a turbulent time. There was excessive rage and hatred against vampires. I only wanted to protect you.”
She nodded, though he couldn’t see.
She’d grown to adulthood with Tal among the Pure Ones, and she’d never known she was different until the vampire within was awakened at the onset of her woman’s cycles.
“And…and I was ashamed,” he whispered so quietly she almost didn’t hear.
Inanna took her father’s hands and held them firmly in her own.
“Papa,” she said, taking a steadying breath to continue, infusing strength and conviction into her voice.
“You of all people should never feel ashamed. She told me what happened. There was no other choice. And I know you never would have made that sacrifice if you thought there was another way to help our people win the war.”
“They’re your people too,” he said, raising his eyes to stare unseeingly into her face.
“The Dark Ones are your mother’s people. They’re your people too.”
“Yes,” Inanna agreed. “I’ve lived with and fought alongside them as one of the Chosen in Jade Cicada’s New England Hive for hundreds of years. I’ve fought for both Pure and Dark over the millennia past. I’ve come to realize that there’s no right or wrong by virtue of birth; what we do is the only thing that matters.”
She squeezed his hands as she continued.
“The Great War had to happen. No one would fight for the Pure Ones if we didn’t fight for ourselves. You mustn’t blame yourself for doing what you had to. She doesn’t.”
Tal pulled his hands out of Inanna’s grasp and rubbed them absently on his thighs. They’d started shaking again.
“It was her venom that eased your pain,” Inanna told him, noticing how even the mention of Ishtar seemed to hurt him viscerally.
“She’s here to help us find a way to heal you, papa,” she said urgently. “I think she still lo—”
“Nothing can heal me,” he cut through her words with finality. “Don’t waste the energy and time.”
Inanna stepped closer, feeling so helpless and at wits end she wanted to shake her father.
“Why won’t you tell me what happened?” She couldn’t keep the frustration out of her voice.
“Who held you captive? What did they do to you? Why do you have so many unhealed wounds and scars? Who is the female you—”
“Enough.”
Inanna immediately stopped her badgering.
The pain and anguish in her father’s roughened, husky voice made an echoing pain wash over her face and chest, coalescing into a spiked ball within her heart.
It was always like this when she pushed too hard. She always backed down feeling guilty and remorseful for causing him pain.
But this was life and death. His life! She needed to get through to him somehow.
“Papa,” she whispered, taking a seat beside him on the bed, not touching him but letting him feel the warmth of her presence, “I don’t want to lose you again. We’re a family now, aren’t we? You, me, Gabriel and Benji?”
Tal closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, as if every word she said only hurt him more.
“And Ishtar?” she ventured tentatively, her voice so soft it could barely be heard.
“Sh-she seems worth knowing,” Inanna said hesitantly, then hastened to reassure, “but I won’t let her into our lives if you don’t—”
“You should know her,” he said, and took a deep breath as if trying desperately to find the strength to continue.
“She is blameless in all of this. I would have brought you together if I’d known how to find her, but I…”
“Papa—”
“A Blood Slave can always pick up the scent of his Mistress through her blood in his,” Tal plunged on, needing to get through this, needing Inanna to understand at least this much.
“I haven’t felt her in the millennia since we were last…together. Probably because she’d closed herself off from me.”
He gave a humorless huff and swallowed again.
“Because of her hatred for what I’ve done. For me.”
“Papa, listen—”
He stood abruptly.
“The consequences of my actions are mine to bear, Inanna. No one else should bear it. You can’t save me from it, nor do I wish to be saved.”
At her gasp, he smiled slightly, reaching out a hand to cup her cheek.
“Everything will be all right, my child. You mustn’t worry for my sake. All my wishes have been granted in this time I’ve had with you. I am so proud of the female you’ve become. The female you are.”
“Papa…” Inanna held her father’s hand to her cheek as tears filled her eyes anew.
“Take care of her. Your mother. You are the light that will lead her through the darkness ahead.”
Inanna got up too, but Tal took a couple of steps back, distancing himself from her.
“I wish to be alone now,” he said, his voice suddenly cold and clear. “I do not want to be disturbed.”
Unerringly, he made his way around the perimeter of the healing chamber, almost taking the door that led to the adjoining room. Until he recalled that Ishtar awaited beyond those doors.
Making an abrupt turn, Tal exited to the hallway instead and briskly strode to his own apartments.
He’d quickly memorized the entire architectural layout of the Shield once he was discharged from the healing chamber after several months of rehabilitation when he was first brought here. He knew the less traversed hallways and stairs to avoid being seen or noticed.
He took those now to enter his private chambers through the back door.
Once inside, he secured a sizable wad of cash that Inanna had given him over the past year for whatever desires or needs he might have when he was well enough to explore the city of Bosto
n on his own.
He didn’t take the credit card or phone because he’d learned they contained tiny chips that could be traced. He was still learning about the “Internet,” “electronic signatures” and “GPS” in this modern world, but he’d gleaned enough through careful listening to comprehend that they could be used to track the actions and movements of those who carried and used them.
He pulled on socks and a pair of well-worn, all-weather boots and headed right back out the door.
The voice in his head urged him to move faster, growing louder with each step:
Come out, come out, wherever you are. You better find me before I find you, my beautiful creature. You won’t like what happens to those around you when I do.
“Who are we truly? The one we are born or the one we are made? Where does our path lead? The one with footprints behind us or the one that Destiny laid?”
—From the Ecliptic Prophesies, buried and forgotten
Chapter Ten
The man took one last look around the abandoned psychiatry office and left with only a business card that contained the office address, an email but no phone, and the name “E. Weisman.”
The man assumed that this was his name, but he had no memory to confirm it.
The only logic that drove this assumption was that when he’d wandered to a luxurious high rise in Upper East Side, Manhattan, a number of nights ago, he’d known the codes to gain entry and the number of the apartment that was apparently his.
The concierge on the ground floor had tipped his hat and greeted, “Good night, Dr. Weisman.”
He’d been tempted to ask the man, “Do you know my full name? Because I’ve forgotten it.”
Instead, he’d wandered like a zombie into the stainless steel elevator that led to the penthouse on the top most floor and again punched in a series of codes to unlock the double doors of the apartment.
He’d spent the next couple of nights looking through every item in the apartment, all but tearing the place apart.
There was nothing that gave him any more clues as to who he was. Nothing that triggered any memories to fill his voided brain.
The only item of some use was an iMac Pro that sat on a polished modern desk facing a wall of windows overlooking Central Park.
