by Aja James
Sophia narrowed her eyes. “You rigged the console, didn’t you?”
Aella chortled at the outrageous accusation. “Come on, babe, have the grace to admit defeat. I can’t help it if Yun and I are like this,” she said, crossing her fingers to indicate the tightness of their virtual bond. “I barely have to stroke the buttons and he kicks ass like nobody’s business. We make an unbeatable team. What can I say?”
Giving up on her tirade with a huff, Sophia sat back down beside the Amazon, switching the display to a new game, a single-player racing game that Aella couldn’t beat her at.
“So what’s eating at you, chica?” Aella asked quietly, noting the lines of frustration around the young Queen’s mouth.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” came the rote denial.
Aella did her elegant non-eye-rolling move. “Oh, just that you seem a little stressed lately. A little more prone to throw tantrums. PMS?”
“I do not throw tantrums!” Sophia retorted at a near shout, then lowered her voice and said, “I’m just a little pissed off.”
“Hmm. Boy trouble?”
“Is there any other kind?”
Aella shrugged. She wouldn’t know. She didn’t ever have boy troubles. Whatever male she wanted, she got. Not all the way of course, but close enough.
Intercourse was overrated.
Sophia’s slim shoulders drooped an inch. “I’m kinda confused,” she admitted. Then she asked without turning toward Aella, “Have you ever liked two guys at once?”
Aella gave that a minute or two of thought. Finally she said, “I’m a one-man woman. At least, I’m only interested in one man at a time. Now, the attraction might not last past a day or two, or sometimes even an hour or two, but while I’m with a man, I’m completely focused on him. I see no others.”
“Huh,” Sophia absorbed that as her shoulders slumped a little more. “I guess I’m more of a twotimer.” She sounded very upset at herself at the revelation.
Aella smiled at Sophia’s disgruntled look. “Ere got competition, does he?”
The Queen sighed dramatically. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen him in a while. The professor says he went on a short research trip and would be back in a few more days. I probably just miss him.”
Suddenly Sophia squared her shoulders. “Not that I have any right to miss him. I mean, he’s just my teaching assistant, and he’s very nice and all. It’s not like we have any relationship beyond class.”
Aella did not argue. What would be the point? Rather, she focused the topic on the mysterious male Sophia confessed to two timing Ere with. “So who’s behind door number two?” she asked casually, making sure she didn’t sound too curious.
Sophia hunched again, hiding the side of her face with her shoulder and arm. “Nobody you know.”
Aella smelled the big fat lie from a mile away. “I won’t point out that it’s my business to know everyone you know,” she reminded the girl. “I’ll just say that this guy must be pretty incredible to have you compare him against Ere. That male was one fine piece of –”
“Yeah, thanks,” Sophia cut her off before she got too graphic. She never felt threatened by Aella’s beauty and sexuality before, but right this moment she felt inexplicably possessive and protective of both her men. Not that they were hers, she added to herself. “And I’m not really comparing them. They’re just… different. Polar opposites, almost. They’re not comparable.”
“But you like both of them,” Aella said, her tone not a question.
“I don’t know if I like either of them,” Sophia replied. “I just feel… confused when I’m with them. It’s no big deal.”
As the young Queen concentrated on increasing her racing score, Aella knew that the conversation had ended. Sophia wasn’t about to reveal more tonight.
Ah, young love, Aella thought. There was nothing like the headiness of a first crush. Or first crushes, rather. It was all good.
She narrowed her eyes at Sophia’s profile.
It was all good as long as the Queen didn’t fall in love in earnest.
Chapter Eleven Rain wearily dragged herself into the Phoenix Enclosure around midnight. Her legs felt like they weighed a ton, and she was so dizzy she felt as if her head was about to roll off her shoulders. Despite her resolve to spare Valerius as much as possible from her needs, she must avail herself to his Nourishment tonight. The how, she’d have to be creative about. Perhaps while he slept, perhaps she would simply use her zhen…
Abruptly, Rain stopped just as she stepped beyond the threshold of the inner chamber of the Enclosure. Like the night of their bonding, Valerius stood before the wall tapestry, gazing silently at the landscape of her homeland.
Entirely nude. Waiting for her.
Every time she beheld him, her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest. Just the sight of him invigorated her.
At the sound of the chamber door closing, Valerius turned toward the Healer, revealing the state of his arousal and readiness to Serve her.
“I will Nourish you this night,” he said in his low, husky voice.
Rain started to protest, he could see her grasping at excuses, but he interrupted her before she could speak, “You will take me,” he said resolutely. “You will accept me into your body.”
Rain was speechless, his words making her flash hot and cold. He sounded commanding, and Valerius was never commanding. Not with her. Not like this. He always relented to her wishes, even when she was just torturing herself with denial.
As she watched him agape, he closed the distance between them in three long strides and before she could blink, his mouth was hot and insistent upon hers.
Oh the male could kiss!
Rain reflexively arched her body upwards and stood on tiptoe to better match his passionate assault. She wrapped her arms around his waist and stretched her hands possessively over his muscular backside, her nails digging into the unyielding flesh as she tried to get better purchase.
He slanted his hot mouth over and over against hers, his tongue sweeping in voluptuous strokes, mating with her own. He sucked at her plump lips with a single-minded focus, as if every action was calculated to deliver the maximum impact, to arouse her beyond control.
Rain rejoiced in the feel of his massive erection prodding demandingly at her belly, refusing to be ignored.
Not tonight.
Oh Goddess she’d waited so long for this. Too long to feel him against her like this. She barely dared to imagine that soon his blood would be flowing through her veins, his body joined intimately with hers, filling her, Nourishing her, bringing her untold pleasure.
She squeezed his buttocks with surprising force, and he groaned deeply at the wordless urging to mate.
At the guttural sound, the haze of mindless passion lifted enough for Rain to realize what she was doing. What she was pushing him to do. Abruptly she pulled out of his embrace and took a couple of hasty steps back, then one more for good measure, until she was out of arm’s reach.
Chest heaving, ears ringing, she stared at him aghast, furious with herself for losing control. “I-I don’t think this is a good night for me,” she lied through her teeth.
“And besides, we have to set out early tomorrow for China,” she stuttered, desperately searching her frazzled brain for a plausible excuse. “I had a long day and I-I just need a bit of blood. But it doesn’t have to be right now,” she added. “I can take it tomorrow morning before you’re awake.” Like she’d been doing for the past few days.
Valerius forced himself to stay still, even though his heart and soul staggered back like the fatally wounded at the cruelty of her rejection.
Yet again.
He forced his expression to remain stoic, though the muscle in his jaw ticked involuntarily as the only outward sign of his distress, and stated quietly, “We will mate tonight. You will take me into your body.”
“Valerius, please,” she started to say, shaking her head, “y
ou don’t have to do this. You don’t have to –”
“Isn’t this the duty of the Consort?” he broke in, “isn’t this what you shared with every other Consort you’ve chosen? There must have been hundreds, you said you admired and respected each one. I am not asking that of you. I don’t expect that much.”
In a voice so low she almost couldn’t hear, he added, “I know I am worthless.”
And in that moment, Rain understood the source of his pain. She’d been entirely mistaken all this time. She’d intended to give him space and not demand his Service of her when she knew the way in which he’d been brutalized in the past, the memories that must still haunt him whenever he felt another’s touch. She thought she was being kind, she thought staying away would atone for the selfishness and greed that had led her to choose him as her Consort.
But she saw now that her refusal to take his Nourishment only hurt him more. And her heart broke at the sight of this brave, strong, beautiful warrior bowing his head in shame.
Without a word she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his back, pressing her tearstreaked face to his chest, shaking her head to refute his self-condemnation. She was sobbing so hard she couldn’t get enough air to speak, so she just hugged him to her tighter, willing him to feel her apology, her empathy, her unfettered desire for him.
His arms full of weeping woman, Valerius knew not what to do. Had he gone too far to demand her acceptance of him?
“I-” he forced down the lump in his throat and tried again, “I would Serve you any way you want, just tell me how. I would do anything you want,” he swallowed and forced out, “Anything.”
Rain continued to shake her head, the power of speech beyond her. The raw words that tore from him only made it worse. She could feel how much it cost him to say these things, to surrender so much of himself, in essence laying himself entirely vulnerable before her, to do with as she pleased.
But Valerius could not read her as clearly as she was able to read him. Besieged by self-doubt, he couldn’t even begin to guess at how she felt. Was she afraid of his size? Maybe he’d hurt her the last time, he feared, a wave of nausea overwhelming him, maybe he’d pushed her too hard.
“You can tie me down if it eases your mind,” he offered with a note of desperation, the very idea almost killing him. “There are chains that –” he squeezed his eyes shut as horrific memories assailed him, making his body quake with torment, but he made himself go on, “you can keep me restrained. You can have all control. Just… please… take my Nourishment. Take me.”
Unable to stand it anymore, Rain grabbed the back of his neck and tugged his head down to hers, silencing him with a soul-searing kiss. She told him with her body and mouth how much she wanted him, how endlessly she craved him, how beautiful and pure he was to her.
“There will be no restraint,” she finally uttered against his mouth. “Not for either one of us. I want to lose myself in your body. I want to fill myself to overflowing with your Nourishment.”
Valerius released a long shuddering breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. She would accept him. She wanted him.
He swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed in two ground-eating strides. When he bent over to lay her down upon the silken sheets, she yanked her thin white slip off, wrapped her arms and legs around his neck and hips and brought him down on top of her. As he pushed to his elbows to keep some weight off her, she sank her fangs voraciously into the vein along his throat.
Valerius hissed at the sensation of her first deep draw and the transformation that blind-sighted him, elongating and infusing his muscles with the irresistible urge to Mate. The scent of his essence blossomed in the air, surrounding them both with its intoxicating headiness. He struggled to keep his weight off of her, tried to keep his body from overwhelming her. And he almost succeeded but for the persistent push of his penis as it burrowed unerringly at the lips to her core.
Rain opened herself immediately to his possession. She let go of his throat and arched her back like a bow, thrusting her hips forward in one fluid motion to take the head of him inside.
They both gasped at the incredible pleasure, but for Valerius, it was also pain, for the pressure building inside of him made him feel like he was going to explode out of his own skin.
Rain’s hands moved down to clutch his shoulders, her nails digging into his trapezoids as she widened her legs and flexed her hips to take more of him inside. Again she pushed in a voluptuous undulation and gained two more hot, steely inches.
Valerius couldn’t control his body’s trembling, but he willed himself with everything he had to stay still, to let her set the pace, let her take control. Every instinct told him to ram the rest of the way into her, but he held back.
He’d die before he hurt her.
As if her bones had melted and her flesh turned to liquid, Rain continued to stretch and open herself, taking more of him inside by slow, rapturous degrees. The process itself of taking him fully within her body had ignited so much pleasure, her inner muscles contracted repeatedly in small bursts of orgasms.
Valerius gritted his teeth through the feeling of her vaginal walls milking him, stoking the pressure and fire within to unbearable heights.
After what seemed like an eternity, he was seated within her to the hilt. Rain splayed beneath him like a butterfly pinned to a wall, and then she slowly tightened her limbs around him, linking her hands around his lower back, locking her ankles around his buttocks.
That action in itself, enfolding him fully in her embrace, rubbed the head of him deliciously against her pleasure center deep inside. And while she’d stretched to accommodate his size, her pleasure spot had elongated along with her internal walls until it felt like her entire vaginal canal was one giant clitoris turned inside out. Even the smallest friction, the slightest rub of his satiny staff within her sparked torrents of pleasure throughout her body.
On a long, broken moan, she crested upon an orgasm so intense her entire body squeezed him like a steel vise.
Valerius couldn’t help his answering groan, vibrating throughout his tortured, sweat-dampened body. He raised his head to look down upon her. The sight of her head thrown back in ecstasy, her cheeks glowing with heat and arousal, her soft, pliant body trembling at the intensity of the pleasure he brought her almost sent him over the edge.
But he couldn’t let go. His body wouldn’t release. And he hurt so badly he could barely breathe. Fighting back the incredible pain, Valerius squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw against cowardly cries that threatened to escape.
As the long, euphoric crest of her orgasm subsided, Rain looked upon the Protector and felt her heart stutter. Knowing the depth of his anguish, the source of his torment, Rain reached up with both hands to cup his face.
“Come with me, airen,” she entreated him, “look at me.”
Slowly, Valerius relaxed his tightly shut eyes and gazed into the Healer’s shimmering orbs. In them he saw understanding, acceptance, admiration and gratitude.
And then she smiled.
That slow, Mona Lisa smile that set every cell in his body ablaze. She pulled his face down to hers and nibbled gently on his earlobe. At the same time, her lower body squeezed him languorously, wetly, silkily drawing him deeper into her, then releasing slightly only to draw him back.
Valerius gasped at the inexorable pulls of her core upon his sex. All of his energy and power coalesced in the place where they were intimately joined. All he wanted to do was to release his life force into her.
It was the Nourishment she needed. It was the release that would heal him.
Her lips beside his ear, Rain began to whisper softly in her native tongue. Her hands roamed down his back to clutch his buttocks possessively, urgently.
He didn’t know what she said to him, but he caught the one word that she repeated over and over again.
Airen.
Lover. Beloved.
Valerius let loose his deepest
desires and let himself imagine, for one moment, that she truly loved him. And as his mind and heart opened, he felt his heavy testicles contract sharply a split second before his orgasm exploded throughout his body, filling her with his seed, the Nourishment she craved, in great undulating waves.
He groaned deeply at the indescribable sensation of being set free.
Finally, after an eternity of Hell, after millennia of restraint, his body, mind, and spirit soared. For the first time in his too-long existence, he felt undiluted pleasure. In Rain’s embrace, he tasted his first slice of happiness and peace.
Rain sobbed with relief and joy at the feeling of being filled by Valerius’ Nourishment. Her body drank him thirstily in shuddering gulps. Immediately, she was infused with strength and vitality. Her blood practically sang at the return of her power. In his body, she found Heaven. Never had she known such bliss.
It seemed to go on forever, the shockwaves that racked him, the intense pleasure-pain that blazed through him, and she seemed to absorb it all into herself, her core sucking and pulling at him even more hungrily. He could no longer keep his weight balanced off her. Every muscle seemed to flash fire, then numbness, then fire again.
And then she whispered, “I’m sorry” as she wrapped her limbs more tightly around him, needles of her hair penetrating his pores.
Just as his orgasm started to ebb, a blast of breathtaking pain followed so close on its heels, Valerius reeled from the impact. It was the same splintering pain he’d felt during the second day of the Rite when she’d tested him for endurance. She was releasing the accumulation of pain from the wounds she’d healed over the past ten years into him. Even dissipated and diffused, the onslaught brought him to his knees.
Valerius gulped for breath, his chest hurting with his wildly pounding heart, his entire body reduced to one giant wound.
But before he could even remotely prepare himself, she moaned huskily:
“Again.”
On command, Valerius’ body tightened from head to toe as another orgasmic onslaught overwhelmed him, jetting hot pulses of Nourishment into her.
