by Morgan Rae
“Stop,” he says suddenly, urgently, and his hand clasps on my wrist. I still my movements, but I don’t release my grip. He throbs in my hand. I’m dangerously tempted to keep going until he drips down my fingers like a waterfall.
“Why?” I ask. Even he has to hear the hunger in my voice.
“My seed belongs buried inside of you,” he says. “I will not put it anywhere else.”
Oh. That should not turn me on as much as it does. To hear him confess that he refuses to come anywhere but inside of me takes my breath away. I don’t know a single man on earth with that kind of self-control. His devotion to me is uncanny and yet there’s nothing submissive about the way he stares at me. He’s claiming me with his eyes. He’s claiming me every time he spills a piece of himself inside of me. He’s marking me as his in every way he knows how and it makes me positively weak for him.
Despite my orgasm only moments ago, my sex picks up in small, aching pulses, like the rapid beat of butterfly wings. I let go of his cock and spread my legs, wide so he has a clear view. My eyes don’t leave his as I reach between my thighs and, gently, spread my rosebud lips apart, inviting him inside.
“I want you inside of me,” I tell him.
The look in his eyes is nothing short of carnal desire. His eyes don’t leave mine as he positions himself over me, takes his cock in hand, and presses it inside of my waiting entrance. I gasp as he slowly fills me. Every inch of him fills a craving inside of me, my body has learned to hunger him. I’m addicted to the way he feels inside of me. My body responds accordingly, throbbing around him, coaxing him deeper.
I’m short of breath again. I run my hands down his chest, digging in, loving how hot his skin feels under my palms. The way he kisses me is nothing short of utter devotion and I moan in his mouth as he thrusts inside of me. Each thrust is slow, deep, as though he’s savoring every bit of me. The exquisite torture makes me whimper and I hook my arms around his neck, utterly open to this man.
He makes love to me, the damp sweat from his body sticking to mine. I feel so connected to him, my body, my heart, my mind all bare for him. “I’m yours to take,” I whisper deliriously. “Always. Whenever you want me.”
“I know,” he says hoarsely into my ear. “My Goddess.”
He thrusts deep inside of me and I don’t realize I’m at my peak until I’m going over it. My orgasm is less of an explosion this time and more of a comforting wave of pleasure, little loving pulses kissing his organ. I don’t shout, but my breath hitches and I pant wildly as I curl up as close as possible in the crook of his neck, holding him to me. He moans in my ear as he comes with me, his hot seed shooting deep inside of me. He jerks his hips into mine a couple more times until he has completely emptied himself.
I feel worn, complete, filled. He lays me flat on my back and trails kisses down my collar bone, my chest. We pant, breathing in the same sweat-soaked air, as he slowly softens inside of me and our bodies exchange heat.
“How do you do that?” I laugh. “Every time, you find some new way to make me crazy.”
“I could say the same,” he grins as he presses a kiss to my mouth.
I linger at his lips for a moment, my hands clutching the sides of his face, before I break for air. Here, in the safe space between our satisfied bodies, I say, “I feel different with you.”
“Different how?” he asks.
“Everywhere else, I feel out of place. Anxious. With you, all of that goes away.”
He pulls out of me and shifts behind me. The emptiness of him is almost overwhelming, but when he hooks me against his chest and when I snuggle into his warmth, I feel safe again. “You should not feel out of place,” he says firmly. “You are home here.”
I tilt back so I can look him in the eyes. “Aren’t you ever nervous? You just seem on all the time. Confident.”
He laughs. “Yes. Every time I make a decision that could risk the lives and safety of my people I am nervous.”
I’ve just opened up the Kurah Rosetta Stone. It’s in these moments I see him more of as a human than Kurah. Real. Vulnerable. Not just a rugged face on a chiseled body. He’s talking about things I understand, fears I can relate to.
“What do you do?” I ask and knit my eyebrows. “When you feel nervous?”
“I must be strong so my tribe can be strong,” he says. “If I do not act afraid, or weep, or lose my temper, then neither will they. So if I feel an…” He looks confused again, hunting for the right word that fits both our dictionaries, and drops his fists against his chest, “…energy…”
“Emotional,” I guess. “Scared? Nervous?”
He nods. “I count to five and allow myself to feel fully. All of the emotion. Once I have counted, I must move on. It is dangerous to be stuck in a feeling.”
Of course, as soon as he says that, my brain jerks harshly to the one feeling I’ve been stuck in since I was a kid. I see the white, pristine hospital walls. The plastic chair dig into my palms as I clutch the sides in the waiting room. I hear the nurse, like all the adults in a Peanut’s cartoon. Wha wha, we did all we could, wha wha, your parents are in heaven together now, wha wha, do you have any other family we can contact—?
Fear. That knuckle baring, paralyzing fear. Just the sliver of memory draws my back to that chest tightening emotion and, for a second, I’m lost in it.
Garock’s hand catches my arm to draw me back down to his dimension. I focus on the dark of his eyes and my panic recedes. “What do you do when you feel too hard?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I lie. I do know. It’s less of an intentional lie and more of an apologetic way to start my confession. “I’m not a warrior. I’m a coward. I hide.”
His eyebrows furrow. He doesn’t look judgmental, just confused. “Where do you hide?
“Uh…I lock myself in my room, I guess. Curl up under the covers, and hide.” I point to my temple. “I hide in here.”
Garock curls his hand over mine “If you hide,” he says, “I will find you.”
My heart thumps wildly. He says it so simply, and to anyone else, that would mean nothing. But to me, the girl who was always left to deal with everything on her own, that’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.
I reach out and draw my fingers over his face. I trace the flat plane of his nose, his thick eyebrows, and work a line down the dark hair that follows his jaw. “I wish I’d met you earlier,” I say. “A long time ago. Maybe on earth, where you wouldn’t have to fight for your land. Our biggest problem would be deciding who has to get up to get the remote.”
Garock catches my fingers and presses a kiss to the back of them. “Once we defeat Faron, I will be yours. Completely.”
Behind Garock, his axe hangs dormant on the wall. I can see the glint of the steel from here and I know he’s been hard at work sharpening it. He is ready to fight. The thought of him throwing himself headfirst into battle makes my heart clench up in my chest. Why does this always happen to me? As soon as I let myself get close to someone, they leave. Forever. My parents first, and now him. Garock is strong. His muscles alone could crush me like a twig, but there are scars that lace his bare chest. Barely visible under the markings, but they’re there, and when I draw my palm over his chest I feel lines of risen, damaged skin. He’s not impenetrable. There is a very, very real chance that he could go into battle and not come back.
“I’m afraid,” I tell him, my voice is barely a whisper. “I don’t want you to fight.”
Garock cups my face in his hands. “With the Goddess at our side, we will not fail.”
“Or, as a thought experiment, what if we don’t fight?”
His eyebrows furrow and the line of his frown deepens. “We must fight,” he says firmly. “It is the only way.”
“Yes, but what if there was another way? Like negotiating, maybe, or coming to a truce? I mean, would it be so terrible to just let Faron have the throne so long as you got to keep your patch of land?
Everyone wins?”
“We will never bow to the Selith!” Garock’s voice is a crack of thunder and I tense as though struck by lightning. “If the Selith want a fight, they will have it. It is the Kurah way. The code of the Kurah is true.”
I’m speechless. I should have guessed by now that Garock is nothing if not equal parts passionate and stubborn. I grow quiet when I realize trying to convince him, Goddess or not, is useless. He’s made up his mind. Just like he made up his mind about me.
“Fine,” I say hollowly. “Code of the Kurah. Don’t have to tell me twice.”
There’s a distance between us that wasn’t there before as we stare at each other. I know that it’s not my fault. It’s not his. I’m just a little earthling with silly dreams like falling in love and starting a family. He’s a Kurah warrior whose best friend is an axe and who values his faith and his codes above all.
We’re worlds, no, universes apart. That’s not a gap that’s going to be bridged in one night.
“It is late,” he says finally and his tone is soft now, perhaps his way of apologizing for his outburst. “We should rest. Tomorrow will be a big day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY: KENNEDY
I sleep through the night. I don’t realize quite how exhausted I am until sleep hits me like a freight train. When I wake, I’m lying on one of the patterned, quilted rugs that covers the tent floor. Garock is asleep behind me, his arm snug around my middle. T-Bone climbed into our tent at some point in the middle of the night and his little body rises and falls rapidly with his short breaths, snuggled up in a tight ball against my chest. Big spoon, little spoon, tea spoon. I close my eyes and drink in the warmth of their sleeping bodies. Right now, I couldn’t be happier.
But then the events of last night rise to the surface of my mind and I feel that anxious disquiet in my chest. Leave it to me to spoil a perfectly good moment with another bout of rampant insecurity.
What once made me feel safe and cuddly is now making me feel claustrophobic, so I peel myself out from under Garock’s arm. Not an easy task, mind you, even his arm feels like a tree trunk. I wiggle out from underneath him, grab my robe, and slip it on. T-Bone growls irritably when I move, punishing me for ruining his sleep, but then he pulls himself up, lumbers a couple sleepy feet, and flops down against Garock’s warm chest instead. T-Bone is smaller than his head. The cuteness makes my heart clench. If I were a photographer I could sell a million of Burly Man and Tiny Dog Snuggling calendars.
There’s a small tray sitting near the opening of the tent with two clay mugs filled with steaming tea. I lift one of the mugs, blow, and take a sip of the minty tea. Must be nice to be Chief.
I take my mug with me and step out of the tent. It’s cooler out here, refreshing, and I take another sip as I scan the tents scattered out before me. Mostly everyone is still asleep, except for the shadowy figures of the Kurah that keep watch around the campsite. I catch them every now and then around the perimeter of the camp before they disappear from sight entirely.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Seer shift outside his tent. Tendrils of smoke curl through the sky from the pipe he’s gripping between his withered lips.
I decide to join the old man. I give him a neighborly wave and then go to stand beside him, clutching my mug protectively between both hands.
“Let me guess, that’s only medicinal,” I say once I get close enough.
He cocks his head at me then nods. “Goddess be with you on this day,” he recites politely.
“You mean me be with me, right? Seeing how I’m the Goddess and all.”
He only grunts and takes another lengthy sip from his pipe. The smoke curls out from his pierced nostrils.
“Unless, of course, you lied to everyone and told them I’m a Goddess when you know otherwise,” I say.
“What is it you want to know?” he asks. His gaze is impatient and piercing. It’s meant to intimate me into submission, meant to make me tuck tail and crawl away back to my tent.
I don’t. I stand my ground. “Did the bones really tell you I am the Goddess?” I ask firmly.
“No,” he says. “You are not the Goddess.” The simplicity of his answer is jarring. I should feel vindicated, but instead I just feel a sinking feeling in my chest.
Oh God. Did I actually allow myself to believe in the fantasy?
“Then why lie?” I ask. “Isn’t honesty all part of the Kurah way?” I’m trying not to sound bitter, but I’m not doing a great job of hiding it.
“Garock is stubborn,” the Seer says. “He would fight for you no matter what I said. We need our Tribe united now, not divided. It is the only way we will defeat the Selith.”
“Well, thanks to you, Garock now thinks he can single-handedly take on Faron and all the Selith. He’s making battle plans in his dreams.” I’m seething now. I don’t know where this anger is coming from. All I know is that it’s building dangerously in my chest. “I’m telling him.”
Again, the Seer gives me a glance from the corner of his eye. “Do as you wish,” he says. As I turn to leave he stops me with these words, “Garock is a man of strong faith. This fight between the Kurah and Selith will happen, whether you tell him or not. If he believes he has the Goddess on his side, we may yet win this war.”
I go still. “So you’re saying, if I tell him I’m not a Goddess…”
“You condemn us to certain death. And Garock.” His beady eyes lock on me challengingly and he smacks his dry lips. “But that is for you to decide. Not me.”
I can’t look at his smug face anymore. I turn around quickly and go to the security of the tent. My heart is nearly pounding out of my chest by time I get there. Garock and T-Bone are just where I left them, breathing heavily.
He looks so quiet in sleep. so peaceful. I kneel down in front of him, tempted to wake him. Gently, I draw my fingers along his jaw and feel the coarse scruff of his chin. He’s a good man, the best man I’ve ever known.
Lie to him or break his heart., those are the choices I’m left with. It’s not fair. I finally found a man who believes in me, a man who is nothing but honest and pure to me, and I have to carry his love with unclean hands and misshapen intentions.
How is a girl supposed to make this choice?
Gently, I scoop up T-Bone. This time, he doesn’t growl at me, he simply huffs once, shifts in my arms, and drops his head against my chest. My vision fogs and my eyes burn. I blink until I can see Garock clearly. I want to remember him like this. I draw a strand of his long hair behind his ear and press a small kiss to his face. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to him.
It’s not enough, but an apology is all I have to give him. That, and I untie the ribbon around my hair and tuck it away in his hand. Maybe this, at least, will remind him that he has a Goddess watching over him.
Quietly, with nothing but T-Bone in my arms, I duck out of the tent. I chance a glance over to the Seer’s tent. He’s gone and, for a second, my overactive imagination wonders if he was ever really there. I shake the thought from my head and make my way towards the edge of the camp. I have to crouch behind a dark tent to wait for the guards to walk a safe distance away before I dart out of the camp and into the woods.
The trees cover much of the sky, but the moon is bright tonight and leaves giant puddles of white light for me to follow. I set T-Bone down and the thick leaves shudder as he waddles through them, following close by my side. It takes me a second to get my bearings and when the trees finally split at a clearing, I see it. There’s the looming mountain ahead and, tucked away into the mountain face, a castle made of white rock. It’s not going to be an easy walk, but I steel myself and prepare to be on my feet all night.
We walk through the green, lush fields and soft, swollen hills. I hear strange insects buzzing around and birds chirping and trilling from the treetops. Those don’t bother me quite as much as the sounds of larger things, the shudder of bushes and loud clomping footsteps. When I hear something that sounds t
oo big, , or too unfamiliar, I quickly swoop T-Bone up and hide behind a thick tree until the sound vanishes in the distance.
This is crazy, I think to myself. I’m going to get killed by some wild beast and then that’s it, I’m done, no more Kennedy.
Then I remember Garock’s words and I close my eyes. Five seconds, I tell myself. You have five seconds to be anxious about this. I let the familiar sensation of anxiety fill my blood like cold ice and my heart start to beat a million miles a minute. I let it fill me, let the rush flow through my body, and then I let it go.
Come on, Kennedy, I tell myself. Move.
I push forward until the tall grass and thick trees breaks into something that looks like civilization. A dirt road turns into cobblestone and before long, the cobblestone is dotted with oil lamps lighting the way. A couple days in a tent and already I’ve forfeited modern technology. Modern technology. The thought makes me hazy for a second. I find myself dreaming about beds. Nothing too fancy, I don’t need a headboard or any fancy lace. Just a bed, a simple mattress fitted with clean sheets and pillows. The air is colder up here and a chilled breeze sweeps through me and tousles my hair. I feel some of the old Kennedy come back, the Kennedy before Garock, and for a second I almost feel guilty for craving my familiar material things.
But it’s hard not to. T-Bone is limping so I lift him up and he slumps in my arms. I’m exhausted too, my feet are blistered and bleeding from the long journey and I’m parched.
As I grow closer to the castle, I hear a clattering sound behind me, and we dodge to the side and crouch behind a tall bush. The clattering draws nearer and I see a horse drawn carriage approach. Well, not quite horse. These are the same horses I saw before, with wings on their backs, fluttering behind them as they move forward at a steady clip. The wheels of the wagon creek as they roll forward. My heart pounds in my ears and I remain frozen in place, debating what to do. Quit being so afraid, I tell myself. What would Goddess Wylah do?
I get to my feet and stand in the middle of the cobblestone path. Immediately, the horses whiney and come to a stop, barely a couple feet away from me. My heart is pounding and I keep T-Bone close.