by Ravyn Wilde
“Can’t they be healed?” Tala inquired, fascinated by the story.
“Over time, there have been several attempts to enter their minds. There is no recognizable thought process. We haven’t been able to figure out why they don’t respond to any stimulation, or do anything without being told.” Shalan thought to her self, I’m working on it though. “In your situation though, I’m thinking that what they have to offer is just what you need. I can give them direction. Guide them with instruction for the first couple of times, as you may not feel comfortable with how to phrase it. As I have stated, they do nothing without explicit direction. You will discover what is pleasing to you and, when you’re ready, you can take it from there. Experiment with this for a couple of bi-nons and see if you have it within you to become a Selven Goddess. What do you say, Tala? Do you want to try?”
“And what happens if it doesn’t work? If I can’t go through with it?” Tala asked finally.
“Then they will stop. Think of it as being similar to the males’ intimacy training. It is just a learning of your body and what pleases you. You will be able to direct them if you wish. My directions will just get things going until you’re ready to take over.” Shalan answered.
Tala looked down at her trembling hands. She really needed to get over Mica. The thought of someone else touching her was upsetting. Until this problem could be resolved, she would be no worse off than she was now. She had to try. Looking up, she steadily met Shalan’s gaze. “Okay,” she said. “I know I need to work through this. I’ll try it. What do I do now?”
Shalan smiled. Tala looked as if she were being sentenced to death, not pleasure. “Simple. Go to your rooms, get undressed and lie down on the reclining couch. I will send a Nube to you with some simple and basic instructions. If and when you feel comfortable with proceeding further, you need merely to ask for what you want.”
Blushing, Tala stammered an answer, “Mum. I think I would prefer to not to have to think about what I…ah, want to do this first time.”
Shalan smiled and reassured her, “Don’t worry Tala, I think maybe you need to start slowly—maybe with a full body massage. Let things build from there. I will go find one of the Nubes. You will want to start with one at a time.” And in the meantime I will send a very irritated message to Mica.
Tala’s eyes widened as Shalan left and she contemplated what lay ahead. Start with one at a time…that meant eventually she’d have to work up to more than one at a time.
Oh, Zylar’s moons, what had she gotten herself into?
Chapter 7
Shalan walked quietly into her chamber. A man was sitting silently in the corner. He was a large and impressive man, incredible to look at. A marvelous sight with long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, his upper body bare and heavily muscled. The sight of him never failed to take her breath away. She could spend hours doing nothing more than rubbing oil on that body. And hours having him do nothing but brush out her hair. She hated the fact that he couldn’t respond to her, didn’t show any reaction to her touch, or what she asked of him. Demanded. Damn!
Her thoughts drifted over the first time she had seen him; she’d been 25 life cycles. A priestess-in-training. Flinching away from memories of why she’d come to the Selven Refuge, she instead concentrated on her first sight of the man in front of her. His beautiful hair had been loose, flowing over his broad shoulders. His marvelous physique had overwhelmed her senses, made her itch to be allowed to trace those muscles with her tongue and fingertips. Something in him had called to her. Then the High Priestess had laughed at her, explained that he was a Nube—a zombie—but, if she were good, if she paid attention to her lessons and advanced, Shalan would be allowed to play with him, and let him pleasure her. Because she had wanted him so desperately, she had studied hard. He was her reward.
Why couldn’t she figure out what kept the Nube’s minds locked away? What kept them from having any thought? Any emotion? If she could discover where they came from, would that give her any answers? She spent every spare minion she had, searching through the ancient texts and the written records of the Selven. She was looking for any mention of where they could have come from, whom they might be, why…anything? As far as she knew, the ones at the Refuge were the only ones in existence.
The five were all so different. Even their skin color varied enormously. Tones ranging from green and blue skin to pale white—golden tan to almost black. The only thing they had in common…they were built like warriors. Muscle and strength must have been bred into them. They maintained that massive bulk without effort. They didn’t have names. They were all just Nube. The light one, the dark, and the one she knew she shouldn’t think of as hers, the golden one. His skin was the shade of dark honey. She couldn’t look at that skin without wanting to taste it. And over the 25 life cycles with the Selven, she’d been able to indulge her desire for his taste countless times.
She had made many, many healing attempts with the Nubes. Entering their minds, searching for something that would lead her to a memory, but there wasn’t a glimmer of thought or a thread to follow. They existed. They ate, bathed, carried objects when told to and the last High Priestess had trained them to pleasure the Goddesses with their mouths and hands. They were the Selven’s only male servants. Sensual pleasure seemed to make no difference to them. Their beautiful bodies remained flaccid, the male organs always at rest. At first that had been almost a challenge to her, she wanted to be the one he responded to. The challenge had paled. He never, no…they never showed even a small hint of emotion, a ghost of a smile, or any sign of a sense of humor. They never seemed to grow any older. It was as if all life were held captive within them, their bodies just a shell.
Walking over to the Nube who appeared to just be sitting quietly, she placed a hand gently on his arm. He looked up at her, his beautiful green eyes vacant. Sighing, she dropped her hand. She couldn’t send him. She hated that she was so transparent to the others at the Refuge. She kept this Nube to herself, hidden away in her room. She just couldn’t bring herself to share him. She would find one of the others for Tala. Shaking her head, she left him sitting there; he would still be there when she returned. She really would like to figure out why they responded to direction and could follow orders to an amazing degree, but had no thoughts of their own.
Just once—with him—she’d like to change that. She had thought about giving him a name. But knew in her heart that at one time he’d had a name and that somehow he would hate her calling this shell by something else. “Golden one” was as close as she’d been able to get to assigning him a name.
Shalan brought herself up. That was a selfish thought, she chastised herself. You want to change it so they have their life back. It must be Hell living in a frozen state for what must seem like forever to them. I’ll try harder, she told herself. I’ll figure this out and release him. Them. Quickly she changed the word in her mind. I can’t let this get personal.
* * * * *
Mica woke slowly, carefully. Something was wrong. Sitting up, he sent mental feelers throughout his boyhood home. Raj. He was having a nightmare. Smiling, he rose slowly, painfully from his bed and stumbled. He was still incredibly tired and his muscles were protesting his movement. But this brought back so many of his childhood memories. Raj had always had nightmares. They were part of his hunter being, a side effect of being Vampen. Sometimes the dreams were a portent of upcoming events, once in awhile Raj picked up a drifting psychic thread of someone in trouble and he would live their pain in his sleep. Sometimes…sometimes, they were just nightmares.
During one such time, when Mica was only about 7 cycles, he’d been sleeping and felt Raj’s fear. He’d been too tired to get up and wake his brother, so without planning it he just entered Raj’s dream and directed one of their favorite games. His brother had quieted, then played with him and woke up bursting to tell Mica of the dream adventures he’d shared with him in his sleep. That was the first time Mica had Dream Walked. He was to
o tired for that now. He had no mental reserves left. He would just stumble across the hall and shake Raj awake.
Raj was indeed in the throes of a nightmare. She needed him. He didn’t know why but she was crying, bent double in a cold, dark room that reeked of fear. He tried to get to her, to ask her what was wrong. But he was kept away from her. Something was holding him back. He needed desperately to help her. She had hair that curtained her upper body; it brushed the elbows that were bent to hold her hands over her face. It was too dark to tell what color her hair was, or see much beyond a figure kneeling on the floor. He tried again to reach her, and was rudely shaken awake.
“Stop it,” he cried. “I need to get to her.” It was too late—the vision was gone. Disgusted, he turned to glare at his brother. “What are you doing? Why did you wake me up,” he demanded grumpily.
“Sorry,” Mica said with no remorse. He was too worn out to fight with anyone. “You were having a nightmare, it woke me and I need my rest. So do you. Shoot me.”
Raj sighed. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It wasn’t a nightmare. Someone was calling me.”
Mica looked at Raj, saw that he looked better but that he was a long way from being able to help anyone. “You couldn’t help them in this state anyway. Get some rest, get better and then maybe you can help.” There was no use in telling Raj that he couldn’t save everyone. He already knew that but he would still have to try.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he decided he would make an effort to take Raj’s mind off the mental cry for help. “Raj, before I go back to sleep for a Setnon, tell me what you remember about the events that led up to your stumbling home. Your body was bruised and battered; an extinct bug had bitten you—or at least one the ancients believed to be extinct—and it caused some mind damage. What do you remember?” he asked.
Sighing, Raj tried to prop himself up against the headboard and finally, with Mica’s assistance, he managed it and looked at his brother with a sheepish grin. “You’re not going to like this,” he stated baldly.
“Oh, now there is a revelation,” Mica said with heavy sarcasm. “I thought I’d love the story about how my baby brother came home looking like he’d been beaten with a stick and just about died.”
Ignoring the baby—he was only one cycle younger than Mica—Raj told the tale. “I had been hired to find someone; a daughter of one of the Ten.”
Mica started, he hadn’t heard anyone was missing. And if it involved one of the ruler’s council, he should have heard. Rather than stopping the story, he let Raj continue.
“I had followed her psychic thread into the Northern Mountains. Something wasn’t right about this Mica. I still don’t know what but, when I feel better, I’ll discuss it with you. For now, I think all I can do is tell you what happened to me, anything else would take too long and I am bone tired.” Raj looked questioningly at his brother. Mica nodded, so he continued.
“I never found her. I didn’t lose her trail but I found a strange village of hostile women in the process.”
Mica interrupted him, “Village of women?”
“Yes, it was strange that there were no men living in the village, and their attitude was almost militant toward me. More about that and my impressions I will have to tell you about later, I just don’t have the strength now. You won’t believe it. Anyway, I had realized my psychic powers were draining. The women of this village were unclaimed and of age. So I explained who and what I was, asked if there were any of them that would mind ‘feeding’ me. And found myself under some sort of spell, locked in a room I couldn’t get out of and required to service several women at a time, over and over again.” The disgust in Raj’s voice was evident.
Mica’s jaw dropped but he quickly recovered and howled with laughter.
Raj reached out and weakly punched his arm to stop him. He didn’t have much strength but it managed to shut his brother up. “It wasn’t funny, Mica. You know I love women; I need them to live, for Goddess sake. But I have never taken anyone by force, never used any compulsion over them. Thankfully the Vampen nature didn’t allow them to use me that way.” Raj stopped, thinking now that it was a mixed blessing that the Vampen couldn’t reach orgasm with anyone other than his or her life mate. Get hard, yes. Climax no.
“Anyway, they didn’t know or think about the fact that all that psychic energy and life force was pouring into me from their orgasms. Eventually I became strong enough to break whatever hold it was they had on me and to escape. I had picked up the trail of the woman I was supposed to be tracking just on the other side of the village. I made sure I had put enough distance between that bizarre village and myself and I covered my own tracks, both mental and physical, just in case they had any female hunters. Then I fell asleep under a tree. I felt rather odd the next morning, woozy and, Hell, I don’t know dazed. I tried to contact you, but couldn’t get my mind to work. I started for Zelph. At first I could move short distances by thought and was able to manage enough strength to transform. That helped me speed towards home. Later, I didn’t have enough energy to make that possible. I had almost made it to Zelph’s boundaries, barely knowing my own name by that time, when a band of thieves came up and attacked me. They didn’t steal anything, I never carry anything worth stealing when I’m hunting, but they got their jollies by using me as a punching bag. I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t even raise my arms.” Raj stopped, exhausted. He could scarcely keep his eyes open.
Mica reached out and moved him back down on to the bed. “Sleep, little brother. Don’t worry. We will talk more later on and figure this out together. We’ll get to the bottom of it all as soon as you are well.” By the time he had shifted Raj more comfortably on the bed, his brother was again snoring softly, this time with no nightmare calling to him. Shaking his head at the story he’d just heard, Mica realized, no, felt, that what his brother had gone through, the missing girl, the village, all of it was important. Exactly how it mattered would have to wait for another time. A time when they both weren’t so tired.
Chapter 8
Tala was lying naked and face down on the long reclining couch in her room. She had draped a satin sheet over her exposed backside knowing she couldn’t lie there completely naked. She was lying with her chin propped up on her arms so that she could look around her. She let her eyes roam over the large chamber, barely noticing the rich color and texture of the coverings on the stone floors and walls. Her glance skimmed over the door to the bathing chamber several feet from the head of the couch she was on. The reclining couch was long and lushly cushioned. It had a slight padded roll at either end, but no back. It was positioned crossways between the corner windows at the far end of the elegant room.
She felt tense and vulnerable. The sunlight streaming through the windows was warm on her sensitive skin but still she shivered as her thoughts raced. Mindlessly she gazed across the floor. She looked at, but didn’t see, the colorful cushions that surrounded a low wooden table placed between where she lay and the heavily carved door to the outer hall. The vivid reds, blues and purples that had pleased her the first time she was shown to the chamber escaped any notice. Her entire focus was concentrated on the door to her rooms.
Silently it opened. Framed in the high doorway stood a man. He was tall and lean with short blonde hair curling around his impassive face. A face that seemed chiseled and, well, blank. His eyes were dark—startling with his pale green skin. His body was well muscled and he moved through the door with a warrior’s grace. Her breathing sped up, not with the beauty of him, though Tala knew he was gorgeous, but with the thought of what she would have to endure. He would be putting those large hands on her body.
She watched as he silently searched the room with his eyes, he saw her and stopped. Quietly, and with measured strides, he moved towards her, saying nothing. But then, Shalan had said the Nubes didn’t talk. Great. He was dressed in a white flowing tunic and loose fitting pants. He stopped beside her and without a sound, dropped to his knees and placed his palms on her
exposed back. This was so weird. She just wasn’t sure she could go through with it.
Tala lay tense and motionless. Poised to jump up and run if given the slightest provocation. The Nube calmly stroked down her spine, pushing the sheet down to just cover her butt. He moved to take something out of his pants. Tala tensed. It was a bottle. He poured something from the bottle onto one of his palms. Then he set the bottle on the floor beside the couch, rubbed his hands together and returned his attention to her back. Oil. He was spreading some type of oil over her taut skin. That’s funny; it smelled like spicy heat. How could something smell like heat? Tala relaxed ever so slightly.
After several minons of the quiet stroking, she allowed her eyes to close and began to concentrate on letting go. It wasn’t hard to do. The hands that were kneading her back and shoulders moved to glide hypnotically over her skin. For long moments they ran only over her back, then they shifted slightly to include her arms, gently moving them to lie along each side.
Fingers dug carefully into her shoulders, her biceps, and then further down to work the kinks out of her clenched fists. She opened her hands and relaxed a little more, finally starting to enjoy the soothing caresses.
She let her mind drift a little, struggling to keep it from moving towards thoughts of Mica. She schooled herself to think only of the gentle hands. Hands that moved lower down her body. Skipping over her still covered backside to massage her legs from mid thigh to the tips of her toes. Oahu! That felt good. It was compelling. Lulling her almost to sleep.
Slowly the hands worked back from her ankles, up her legs, past her thighs and continued up. By the time Tala realized they hadn’t stopped and that the sheet was no longer between her and the silken glide of skin on skin, one hand slipped carefully between the juncture at the top of her legs. Skimming up and over to lightly press oil slicked fingers along the crease between, down then back up, following the slit between the small globes of her ass.
