by Aja James
Sophia understood. She could command the zhen to release Dalair as well as to restrain him.
“Be very careful, my friend,” Rain warned. “I trust you will do the right thing.”
Sophia regarded the healer for many long moments silently. She comprehended what Rain didn’t say.
What might be the right thing for Sophia as a female who desperately loved her male might not be the right thing for her people, and the races at large, as Queen of the Pure Ones.
Rain talked about giving her privacy. That meant shutting off the surveillance of this chamber. She was trusting Sophia with the enemy. If things went south, Sophia would not only be risking her own life, but the safety of the Shield and all its inhabitants as well.
Wordlessly, Sophia nodded once, holding Rain’s gaze.
The healer left after that, as gracefully as she came, all but floating out the double doors in a flurry of silk, shutting them behind her silently.
Sophia waited in silence, surveying the chamber with a scrutinizing eye.
After a few minutes, almost imperceptibly, the glow from hidden cameras in the healing enclosure stopped blinking. No one was watching any more. No one was listening.
She was entirely alone in the silence with Dalair.
Before she could second guess herself, she doffed her clothes with efficiency and climbed onto the padded table beside him. Naked.
She didn’t touch him as she lay beside him, only an inch of space between them. Though he didn’t give off the heat he usually did, weakened and wounded as he was, she could still feel the magnetic draw of his body, making the fine hairs on her own skin vibrate at his nearness.
She turned toward him, propping her head up on one hand while hovering her other hand over his face.
How she ached to touch him!
Her out-stretched hand flexed, then balled into a fist, then flexed open again, before painstakingly settling against the far side of his face, her thumb trembling over his sharp cheekbone.
Oh Goddess. He was so cold. There seemed to be no life within this body, a mere husk of muscle, flesh and bone.
“Where are you, Dalair?” she whispered urgently, her heart squeezing with pain.
“Come back to me. Please. Come back to me.”
She glanced the back of her hand over his brow, swept just the tips of her fingers over his closed eyelids, fluttering his thick, long lashes with her thumb.
He was barely breathing. Even his breath felt icy when she touched his lips. His chest didn’t rise and fall in a reassuring cadence. Could his soul have completely departed despite the presence of his physical form?
For a moment, Sophia panicked. Had their enemies found a way to trap the warrior’s body in the mortal realm for their own nefarious purposes while his soul was truly gone? Was Dalair no more than a walking corpse? A killing machine commanded by Medusa, and now Wan’er?
No! Sophia wouldn’t believe it. She’d never accept it. Dalair couldn’t leave this world without her!
With a burst of emotion so strong, she couldn’t contain it, she clutched him to her without thinking, turning his face toward her, and kissed his closed mouth hard with all the desperation, fury and grief that she felt. Uncaring that she cut his bottom lip with her teeth. Ignoring the icy cold of his skin against hers, making her shiver uncontrollably.
Wake up, Dalair, please! She shouted in her mind. Even though she knew he wouldn’t answer. He wasn’t even there.
So when she pulled back and looked down again, a stunned breath left her body on a harsh exhale.
Because Dalair’s eyes were wide open, looking directly back at her.
Chapter Two
Need her. Need her. Need her.
The words throbbed through the warrior’s mind like ancient drum beats before battle.
Their meaning, however, barely registered. His heart simply thudded in sync to the instinctive rhythm, his blood heating, slowly thawing the ice in his veins.
His black eyes took in the face right before him, mere inches away.
It was blurry at first, his vision unfocused upon waking. Like a computer automatically running a health scan, his brain assessed his state of being.
His body was weak. He’d sustained heavy, near mortal damage. Severe blood loss. Ruptured internal organs. Broken ribs. His epidermis had knitted closed, stopping the external bleeding, but the tissues underneath were still torn. And his overall weakness stalled the healing process even further.
He could feel the trickle of internal bleeding, his body using significant reserves to absorb the excess while regenerating organs. Liver, both kidneys, spleen, left lung. Punctured stomach and small intestines. Even his heart had been nicked, though it was mostly protected beneath his chest bone.
All this, he surmised within a split second as he was programmed to do. He was a machine, after all. Made of flesh and blood.
A machine who nevertheless reacted to the female hovering over him in strange, unpredictable ways, as if she was a virus that had thrown his algorithms for a loop.
He concentrated harder on her face, making his crystalline lens, the photoreceptors behind his irises, work double-time.
An oval outline came slowly into focus. Large, warm brown eyes that had a slightly exotic tilt to them, framed by sooty lashes. Dark brows arching like wings above. Straight nose that fit the face, neither too small nor too large. Full lips, both top and bottom, almost equal in size. Small, pointed chin.
On a basic level, he recognized her.
Or, at least his body did. For his blood flowed hotter within his veins, and the drum beat of his pulse grew heavier, louder. Resonating in the throb of his sex, as it lengthened and thickened. Growing so hard, it felt as if his skin might split open.
Take her. Take her. Take her.
“Dalair,” she whispered, her warm breath fanning over his mouth, her lips almost touching his.
Yes, he recognized the name.
He was called that by some. He was also called the Paladin. Hazarapatish or Commanding Officer. General. Soldier. Brother. Son. Prince.
My Prince.
These titles meant nothing to him. Merely monikers to refer to his physical shell, to gain his attention.
He kept his eyes homed in on the female’s visage, unblinkingly taking in every minute detail, harnessing all of his senses, muted and weakened though they were.
She was touching him. Her hand rested on the side of his face. Her skin felt hot against his coldness. Smooth, but with slightly calloused palm and fingertips, indicating that she worked with her hands. As if she was used to holding weapons.
Was she a fighter then? His memory banks did not have much information on the subject, though he knew that she’d touched him before. He’d trained her as well, but those fragments of memories seemed deeply buried in his psyche, as if he had to dig miles-deep trenches to uncover them. Merely shards of broken glass.
His body craved more.
Just looking into her eyes, her palm on his cheek, his physical reaction to her was so tremendous, it defied his programming, made the synapses in his brain misfire, made his breathing shallow, his heartrate accelerate.
Why? Why did he feel this way?
But the warrior wasn’t calibrated to seek answers to such questions. If his body needed her, there must be a physical reason.
He was weak. All but helpless. Her nearness seemed to strengthen him. Her touch warmed him. He simply knew that he needed more of it.
“Do you… Do you know who I am, Dalair?” she asked in that same hushed voice, as if she feared startling him.
Her query made his eyelids flicker, but otherwise, he showed no external reaction.
Internally, he struggled.
First, because of her voice and the way it affected him. It caressed his skin in a visceral way, warm, slightly raspy, full of…something. Some emotion he couldn’t identify. It made a sweet ache pool low in his belly, pushing the agony of his wounds to the background. Made his cock clench refl
exively, squeezing out a pearl of dew through its swollen slit.
Second, because of her words and the meaning therein. Something was clawing at the edges of his program, like ghostly hands reaching from a forgotten dark grave, clinging to the edges of his consciousness by their fingernails, barely hanging on.
He scanned his memory banks again.
Sophia. Queen of the Pure Ones. Little Mite.
Those were titles he’d called her. And other names too, when she had been someone else. A different face and form. But those memories were inaccessible, flicking in the darkness of his consciousness like tendrils of smoke. He only recognized her in this present form. He’d lived with her. Fought for her. Protected her.
Then, he’d been ordered to abduct her. He’d gotten her to fuck him as his Mistress commanded.
And…he’d let her go.
Acute agony racked his entire body at the last thought, making his eyes roll into the back of his head as every muscle tensed into steel, automatically bracing against the onslaught.
“Dalair! What’s wrong? What can I do…”
He took a shuddering breath, and then another, and refocused back on the female who now straddled his torso, both hands holding his face as she peered down at him, her brown eyes wild with an emotion he didn’t know how to read.
That was the part of his program that remained to be perfected: emotions.
He comprehended the simpler ones—fear, hunger, anger, arousal. He could perceive whether someone meant him harm or not. He could easily calculate a reaction to every action. But the nuances and layers of emotions escaped him.
This female seemed…concerned for his wellbeing.
Other sensations overwhelmed him all at once before he could delve deeper on that particular emotion.
Sophia was sitting astride him, most of her weight balanced on her knees and thighs beside his hips, careful to avoid his wounds. Her hands still held his face between them, her own face farther away now given her position.
He could see her shoulder-length brown hair frame that symmetrical oval of peaches and cream like a silky halo. He could see her naked chest. Breasts that were the perfect size for her body, round, pert, punctuated by large, pink nipples. A clear, shallow line bisected her middle, displaying a strong, lean torso. Not particularly muscular. Soft and smooth.
Further below, where his eyes could not track, she sat directly over his groin. A cloth of some sort separated their flesh, but he could still feel her wet heat permeate through it, into the sensitive skin of his tumid sex.
Involuntarily, a low growl rumbled through his throat.
He wanted to rip that covering away. He needed to feel her moist silk directly against his crotch. Her softness enfolding his hardness.
Because he was untenably hard. So fucking hard he hurt.
She gasped as she felt it too, the thick brand of him beneath her, growing incredibly harder by the second.
Pulsing. Throbbing. Seeking. Needing.
Need her. Need her. Need her.
A primal, animalistic urge pounded through him, charging his veins, making them raise like tree roots against his skin.
He tried to move, instinctively reaching for her.
And that was when he realized that he couldn’t.
He was completely immobilized. Though he felt all of his limbs, and he could wiggle his toes and clench and unclench his fists, nothing else obeyed him. He was strapped down on a padded, flat surface, his arms pulled away from his sides, though not uncomfortably. His legs also spread apart, though not too wide.
He raised his head as far off the table as he could and looked down at himself.
He was naked but for the small towel over his groin. Bound by fine, silvery silk that tightened mercilessly when he tried to move.
He pulled against the intricate shackles to test them. There was no give. Like unforgiving, sinuous, smooth steel, completely conforming to his skin.
Weak. Injured. Trapped.
His body in agony, though his mind compartmentalized the sensation efficiently to avoid being distracted by the pain.
He was useless like this.
He could not carry out his orders.
He had to heal and get stronger first.
All of these deductions he arrived at in rapid succession. Objective. Unfeeling. Matter-of-fact.
He lay his head back down and looked up into the female’s face again.
Sophia.
The name meant nothing to him. She meant nothing to him. Just a body that his body reacted to. Something he physically needed.
She was his key to getting stronger.
She still looked concerned, but the pulse fluttering on the side of her neck had calmed a bit.
He didn’t like that she was so far away from him. He missed the heat of her nearness. He wanted to feel the satin of her naked skin upon his naked skin.
Need her. Need her. Need her.
“Cold,” he rasped low, his voice gravelly from lack of use.
Immediately, she lowered her torso down to his, her soft breasts grazing his chest, as she braced her upper body on forearms on either side of his head.
“Better?” she murmured, still speaking in little more than a whisper, as if she was coaxing a wild beast.
He did feel better. The moment more of her body touched his, he felt stronger. Even the pain of his wounds felt somewhat diffused.
The most insistent ache was now in his groin, where her core continued to warm and wet him through the thin towel.
He needed her there.
Instinctively, he shifted his hips a bit, as much as the restraints across his thighs allowed.
She huffed a gasp against his face as she continued to stare down at him. He could see her pupils dilate.
It was arousal he saw in those ever-expanding black pools. Not fear. He could distinguish the difference. And arousal meant that she wouldn’t run away. She’d want to get closer.
He could work with that.
He shifted his hips again, this time raising them as much as he could on an upward undulation, rubbing his turgid length along her core, bunching the towel askew.
She moaned against his mouth as her lower body ground down upon him, whether on reflex, a simple reaction to his action, or to keep him still, he didn’t know. Didn’t care.
It felt good.
Despite the agony everywhere else, there, in the root of him, where he was male, he felt unutterably good.
“More,” he growled, his voice guttural like an animal stripped down to its most basic instincts, the word almost incomprehensible to his own ears.
But she must have understood him, because she ground down upon him once more, shifting the towel further, until her weeping wet core blanketed his most sensitive flesh.
His eyelids lowered of their own volition, and his jaw clenched until the bones creaked in protest.
Gods, that feeling. It made him ravenous.
The slippery, silky heat upon his cock, making his member jump and pulse. Making him leak fluids of his own through the swollen head, adding to her wetness, melding their skin together.
If he were an animal in truth, he would overpower this female, bite her neck and hold her down beneath him, rutting into her with one long thrust. He’d pump his hips until he found release. He’d fill her with seed, and start all over again. Because once wouldn’t satisfy the beast within.
He’d rut until he was drained of every drop. Until his cream overflowed her channel, and his scent infused into every inch of her skin. It would probably take hours, because he felt like he had a lot to release.
But he couldn’t do that right now, though he was little better than a beast. A machine made of flesh and blood, but one who obviously still had physical urges. He couldn’t do that because he was trapped. He was weak. She had to take him instead.
He needed to feel her around him, feel that tight wet heat clench and milk him like a greedy fist.
Need her. Need her. Need her.
> “Sophia,” he bit out, trying to form intelligible words.
Instantly, she stilled above him; every cell of her being seemed concentrated on him.
“Need,” he gritted through clenched teeth, staring intensely into her eyes, willing her to understand what he was too disoriented and weak to say.
“Anything,” she whispered, stroking her thumb across his cheekbone.
Did she mean it? he wondered. He was too exhausted to analyze behavior. He’d find out soon enough.
“Inside,” he commanded, thrusting his hips up again, plowing his rod through tender folds.
He was desperate to feel her around him, his body coiled with tension, his muscles locked. Her body would heal him, he knew it without a doubt.
He needed her.
“Dalair…” she murmured, her eyes looking…
Sad? Worried?
He couldn’t tell. But he could see the arousal that still burned within the inky orbs, and that was enough.
“Are you…are you you?” she asked, her breath hitching.
Why was she hesitating? She obviously wanted to fuck him. The air around them was permeated with their mating musk. Hers and his. With a hard, ready male beneath her, one who aroused her, surely she felt compelled to ride out the heat.
He didn’t understand her question, so he simply stared back at her.
“I-I don’t want to…” she stuttered, her words trailing off.
She didn’t?
He focused his hyper-senses on other telltale signs of her body. Her rapidly fluttering pulse. The rhythmic thumping of her heart. Most of all, the flood of wetness where their flesh ground together, drenching him in delicious heat.
“Inside,” he said again, urging her to take what her body so obviously craved, then added her name for good measure because she seemed to melt when he uttered it before.
“Sophia.”
“Oh Goddess,” she groaned, lowering her face into the crook of his neck.
“Forgive me, Dalair,” she uttered against his throat. “I don’t have the will power. I need this too. So very badly.”
Why would he need to forgive her? There was only action and reaction.
