by Isabel Wroth
She explored the smooth surface of Arkhan's transformed body, transfixed by the way the thick tendrils of his mane and tail swirled in the breeze that blew through the atrium. Except for those few minor details that weren't quite right, Arkhan was a horse.
An enormous, regal horse with gold and silver eyes.
"Can I climb up?"
"Up? You wish to ride me?"
Deja raked her bottom lip through her teeth, still stroking Arkhan's shoulder. "Would that be alright?"
Arkhan bent his forelegs and lowered himself to his knees in answer, beckoning her with a toss of his head. "Come."
Her stomach gave an exhilarating twist when he stood and her heart raced with so much eagerness she was trembling. Arkhan stretched his neck around to touch his silken muzzle to her calf, nuzzling at her comfortingly.
"Do not be afraid, I would never allow you to fall."
She blinked away the happy tears blurring her vision, folding herself in half in order to hug her arms around Arkhan's neck.
"I'm not afraid. I'm deliriously happy. I had a horse on Earth. His name was Finnegan and I rode him through the only green bit of forest left in Hyde Park every day when I was a child. I used to dream about Finn while I was a prisoner and remembered what it felt like to be free."
Izax and Azurryn both rose from their seats on the floor to shift into another pair of shadow horses.
"Though there are many forests on Sonhadra. They are not safe to roam at night, but we have green places here in Penumbra. You are free, a prisoner no longer. Come, we will remind you."
IZAX~
Deja slid off Arkhan's back and into Izax’s arms. She released a soft, happy moan, and her eyes fluttered shut. The four of them had run for hours, Deja whooping in delight the faster Arkhan ran, lying low on his neck with her legs clamped tight around his belly, and her hair streaming behind her like the tail of a shooting star.
When her fatigue had begun to dampen the joy she shared with them, Azurryn had led the way to where the river sands turned silver and the lichen bulbs sprouting from the high ceilings of the cavern sparkled like stars.
Returning to the palace had been a slow, leisurely affair, and all the while Deja's happiness had warmed him from the inside out.
Happiness. Had Izax ever known this feeling? After a lifetime of famine, Izax was bombarded with emotions. Overwhelmed, he struggled to identify what he felt, finding himself focusing on the vibrations of his heartstone, searching the memories in the blood Deja had given him.
He knew contentment in this moment, carrying Deja through the atrium and to her bed, memorizing the way she fit against him and how his own body reacted.
He knew pain of a new and hellish kind. The appendage which gave him gender was constantly flushed and stiff, rasping against the material of the clothes Deja had asked him to wear.
An ache he believed was a common malady amongst humankind. It led them to rut in what looked like a painful experience for the females, or the males on the receiving end, frequently and with great vigor. Perhaps it was to relieve the relentless pressure building, or to keep from exploding into ether.
Stroking his appendage had been the purest ecstasy Izax had ever known, and he hadn't wanted to stop, but asking Deja if she would feel the same pleasure had made her pale cheeks flush with embarrassed heat and she had had quickly changed the subject.
Astaria had never asked any of her valo to mate, and while his body tightened with selfish want, Izax was uncertain Deja had any such interest.
She proclaimed him free of servitude, free to choose, and she was not adverse to his touch, holding onto him with a sleepy murmur when he lay her down.
Deja rubbed her cheek against his chest, causing the strangest melting, twisting sensation to churn in his belly.
"Stay." She sighed, making more of her soft noises when Izax obeyed. He stared in awe-filled wonder at Azurryn and Arkhan as he tried to find the position that made Deja most comfortable.
Izax discovered he didn't have to do much, simply lie there and allow her to pillow her head on his shoulder.
She threw a long leg over his, her thigh making far too brief contact with his furious appendage, clearly unaware of the way it made him shudder in bliss, and finally spread her palm over the center of his chest. Over his heartstone, as though the soft skin and delicate bones of her hand could protect it.
Izax found himself turning his face to her hair, his eyes closing to better process the delirious contentment he experienced, simply by inhaling the scent so unique to her.
He wrapped his arm around her back, his palm big enough to cover the bare skin of her hip, earning another contented purr from Deja when he settled his other hand over top of hers on his chest.
His kind went into hibernation when there were no shadows to feed them. They did not require sleep, but with his body sore from the long run and Deja's tender curves intertwined with his limbs, Izax felt himself on the verge of following her into slumber.
His eyelids felt heavy, languishing in this new experience, in the rawness of needing and wanting something he had no name for.
"I ache for her so badly. After so long feeling nothing, it is all I can think of." Arkhan admitted hoarsely, reaching down to readjust his appendage where it stuck almost straight out from his body.
Izax winced in sympathy, overjoyed he could feel anything at all for his brother warrior.
"I have no name for it, but I ache just the same. Here," he nodded to where his hand covered Deja's over his heartstone. "and here." He raised his hips just a little to shift his appendage into a more comfortable position.
"Desire," Azurryn breathed, none of them daring to speak above a whisper. "The ache is desire."
"To do what?" Arkhan asked, his brow puckered with confusion.
"To mate. To bond. To care for her. I know the ache well. When I began to accept she was not like Astaria, I ached to speak to her. To hold her as you do, Izax, instead of clumsily clutching her in stone hands when she is frightened or in pain. She is ours now, a treasure we must protect."
Izax rubbed his cheek against Deja's hair, unwilling to give up a single moment to hibernation or sleep.
"Ours." he murmured, feeling the rightness of the word echo within himself. "Yes."
TEN
~DEJA
Deja sat in her crystal pool, up to her chin in the alien bath gel, absently thinking how fabulous it was to be able to walk into the bath fully clothed-sort of-and not having to worry about washing her clothes in the river, while trying to reconcile her feelings with having woken up surrounded on both sides by Izax and Arkhan.
Azurryn had apparently stood beside the balcony doors all night to watch them sleep. She couldn't recall having ever slept so soundly.
There had been no nightmares of her imprisonment, or of faceless hordes of people accusing her of being as monstrous as Dr. Travis and her uncle, blaming her for not having helped them.
In fact, Deja hadn't had any dreams at all. She had floated in a haze of warm, languorous darkness, comfortably drifting in absolute relaxation.
When she woke curled between her shadows made flesh, the most profound sense of belonging had overwhelmed her. Deja had seen Azurryn first. His head had been turned towards her just as she had opened her eyes, a small smile of warmth and utter content, of absolute peace, curving his sensual lips.
Her reaction was a gut punch of lust, realizing the warmth she felt was due to the press of hard male flesh on either side of her, half under her in Izax's case.
Both he and Arkhan opened their eyes when she shifted, happiness warring with desire flashed across their handsome faces, and truth be told, Deja hadn't even thought to ask why they were in bed with her. She'd liked it too much to protest.
The urge to rise up and kiss their smiling mouths, one after the other, had been enough to make her take a mental step back to evaluate.
Her handful of lovers had been among her own peer group, polite, polished, all of them interes
ted in her family money and little else.
She hadn't needed a partner or multiple partners to support her financially. She had plenty of wealth and resources because of her family’s business.
Thus, when those ladder climbing lovers had learned they wouldn't see a dime of her family money, they had vanished and left Deja with no reason to consider such a commitment.
She wasn't shy, per se, but then again, those lovers had been predictable, uncomplicated, and human.
The three males staring at her like she was a rare delicacy they were starving for, were alien, unpredictable, and decidedly complicated.
Only hours ago, two of them had been emotionless automatons, and the third a mute and uncommunicative, and now they were all flesh and...blood? Shadow? She just didn't know.
Azurryn was the only one to reintegrate with his heartstone knowing what it was to feel emotion, yet they were all brand new to the physical sensations bombarding them. Truthfully, Deja was surprised by how quickly they were adapting.
They were almost childlike in a way, everything new and astonishing as they moved through their world with senses wide open and raw. She could only pretend to imagine what it must be like for them.
They looked at her in all the ways a woman could possibly want to be stared at. Visually worshiped with sexual heat burning in their electric gazes, so intense Deja could close her eyes and know exactly who was staring at what.
She longed to just let go and allow herself to indulge in those looks, until her eyes caught on the bowl heaping with heartstones.
She felt a pang of guilt for being focused on how the trio of warriors could inspire such desire, when there was a city full of slaves waiting to be set free.
"Deja, what thoughts fill your mind? I feel your...disquiet." Arkhan came to crouch at the edge of the pool, close enough she that could have reached out to touch him. And she wanted to. God, she wanted to.
Pleasure slid down her arm when he took her hand, his other arm banding around her waist to hoist her up and out of the gel. By the time Arkhan had pulled her out and held her against his chest, she was completely dry and her dress was perfectly clean.
She would have remarked on the near magical quality of the bath, the ingeniousness of the alien technology, but she was too caught up in the way it felt to be plastered against Arkhan from thigh to breast.
It was the most natural thing in the world to wrap her arms around his shoulders. Her stomach turned circles inside her as the look in his eyes, changing from one of concern to sensual in a second.
Again, she forgot about the heartstones, about the other valos in Penumbra who deserved their freedom. Arkhan's expression of absolute want consumed her, made her breath come in short pants as arousal ignited from a spark and steadily grew.
Arkhan shifted his weight from foot to foot, a grimace of painful need pulling at his lips when his movements caused his cock to rub harder against her belly.
The sheer fabric of their clothes was the thinnest of barriers between them, and as Deja had yet to find any alien knickers, her inner thighs grew slick and impossibly wet.
Breathless, wanting so badly to peel her knees apart and wrap her thighs around Arkhan's waist, she attempted to find one final bit of sanity.
"You can put me down if you want to."
A deep growl rattled in Arkhan's chest, making her gasp as it vibrated against her breasts, need spiking through her so sharply it almost hurt.
"I do not want to." He grated seriously, sweat dotting his upper lip as he tucked his hips up against her tighter, his body instinctively rooting for a place between her thighs. "I ache and I want, so badly. You do too. I can feel it so strongly in your blood it is almost a taste upon my tongue. I want...I want you but I don't know...how do I...I need something more."
Deja sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down to keep from smiling at the look of utter frustration twisted across his inhumanly handsome face.
Tenderness took the edge off the burning heat of her own need, delight bubbling out of her in a laugh when she raked her hand through the thick pelt of his silvery hair.
The simple touch caused Arkhan's eyes to roll back in his head. A kiss to his cheek made him shudder and his arms tighten around her.
"You don't need to do anything except hold onto me and feel. If you don't like something, tell me and I'll stop, alright?"
Arkhan croaked out an affirmative, his breath heaving out of him on a whuff when Deja wiggled herself up a little.
She braced her elbows on his shoulders so she could hug his hips with her knees, wrapping herself around him with a growing sense of excitement as she opened herself to him.
Deja could feel Azurryn and Izax move in closer to watch her every move, and instead of it making her feel shy or self-conscious, it emboldened her.
Deja remembered her first kiss, the slobbery mess Henry Pickering made of it and how traumatized she had been by his clumsy fumbling. Who would have thought someday she would be the one to give an alien his first kiss?
The thrill of it was heady, and the first brush of her lips on Arkhan's was wondrous. His entire body stiffened, trembled, and to her delighted surprise, she felt his cock give a powerful thump where it was pressed between them.
His lips were as soft as the precious rose petals Deja had grown in her botany lab at Orchid; silken, the bottom curve plump enough to suckle, the thinner top curve utterly lickable.
Deja kept her kisses gentle, patiently taking her time to learn every inch of his lips, unable to keep her hands from twisting in his warm hair. She yelped in shock when Arkhan suddenly fell to his knees.
Deja drew back to ask if he was alright, but his big hands shot up to fist in her hair, and clearly Arkhan had been paying rapt attention, because now he was kissing her back with a shocking amount of ravenous finesse.
The cloth of his makeshift trousers rasped against the lips of her sex, turning the material slick and slippery with her juices, and Deja forgot why she hadn't intended to do more than kiss him.
It was her turn to shiver, undulating in his lap, smiling when Arkhan fed her an agonized groan of surprise. His head fell back at the teasing kisses she tracked across his face which flushed with shock and wonder when her teeth caught at his ear for a little nibble. The strong cords in his neck bulged with strain at the light exhale she breathed across his throat.
Deja gently pushed on his shoulders, following him down to the floor, mapping the dips and hollows of his body with her hands and mouth, pausing with her lips nestled just below his navel when Arkhan threw his arms out to the side, his hands scrabbling for purchase on the smooth stone while the breath heaved out of him.
"Do you need me to stop?"
"No!" Arkhan shot up to his elbow, reaching out to her with one trembling hand, his eyes wide and frantic. "Please, light take me, don't stop."
Deja smiled, turning her face to his palm to press a kiss there in the center. That frantic look faded, replaced with knowledge. He turned the tables on her so quickly, one minute she was in charge and the next she was beneath Arkhan, receiving the same pleasures she had been giving him.
He wasn't clumsy with his kisses, in fact, every press of his lips was a tender mimic of what she had done to him. He suckled and licked at her mouth, smiling into the kiss when she sighed and hummed her pleasure back to him.
Arkhan took the same slow path on her body; everywhere she had kissed or touched him, he did the exact same to her. Like every male in creation, he was fascinated with breasts.
Izax and Azurryn were kneeling directly on either side of them now, lips parted, their eyes hooded and glittering while Arkhan used his mouth to lick and peel back the thin black fabric covering her, his hands hot and oh so careful as he explored the texture of the malleable flesh.
The way he eagerly licked his lips before ducking his head to taste her made her belly knot and little quakes of pleasure shoot all the way down to her toes.
Arkhan followed the wordless tug o
f her hands in his hair, his cheeks hollowing as he suckled at her nipples, his tongue flattening the tender tips against the roof of his mouth. Instinct or simply an overwhelming need had him thrusting against her, his weight driving her down into the floor.
His loose pants were now drenched with her arousal, seeming to make the slick slide of his shaft between the lips of her pussy that much more intense. Deja wound her arms and legs around him, straining for the orgasm hurtling towards her.
Arkhan pressed his forearms to the floor on either side of her head, releasing her breasts in favor of more kisses, completely surrounding her as they devoured one another.
The orgasm wasn't the best she had ever had, but it had been so long it might as well have been cataclysmic.
It shot stars off behind her eyes, made her belly knot and twist in blissful release, her legs tightening around his churning hips to selfishly maintain the pressure where she needed it the most.
Then all of a sudden Arkhan threw himself back with a shout, collapsing beside her to writhe wildly.
She sat up to reach for him, only then realizing that Izax and Azurryn were also on the floor convulsing, hips jerking in time with the last pulses of pleasure that licked at her insides.
Arkhan twitched like she'd slapped him when she gently curled her hand around his bicep. His chest heaved with effort, pupils blown wide when he turned to look up at her in astonishment.
"Arkhan, are you alright?"
He reached up with a shaking hand to stroke his fingertips down the slope of her cheek, a sloppy grin of undeniably male pride plastered on his handsome face.
"Yes. What was that?"
"An orgasm." She told him with a laugh. "How do you feel?"
Arkhan blinked at her, very seriously considering his response. "The ache is still there, but less. I feel relief. Tired. Wonderful."
"Good." Deja felt herself blushing with undeniable pride as she leaned down for another kiss.
"And this?" he asked, holding her in place so each word was another little caress.
"A kiss."