Inferno

by Nancey Cummings

  “I’d be out of my mind in grief,” he said, agreeably. “But it is not. It is Mishal, and he is far too stubborn to leave his mate over a little bit of cold.” He draped a blanket over her shoulders. “We all need to rest.”

  “And Kira?”

  “The storm will last at least two days. When the weather clears, we will search.” He sat behind her, and she leaned back into his embrace.

  He was correct. They could do nothing until the weather broke. Kira craved the cold, thanks to what they did to her on the Concord. If anyone could survive that blizzard, it would be her.

  Until then, she should enjoy the company.

  Chapter Eleven

  Amber

  She woke, face-to-face and limbs entangled with Mishal. She smiled up at his sleeping face. “Hey, good morning.”

  He remained unresponsive.

  At least, she thought it was morning. The wind howled outside the entrance to the cave, and the storm blocked the majority of the sunlight. It could be morning or late afternoon.

  Pel had wandered off. The drop in temperature of him leaving had been the thing to wake her. With the fire down to embers, the cave had grown chilly. She added more dung and stoked the flames until it burned merrily. She dressed in her now dried clothes and shoved her feet back in her boots.

  She checked Mishal’s body temperature—almost normal, meaning he was burning up—before moving to the ceramic pot of water by the fire. Pungent tea leaves floated on the top. She filled her cup and drank while listening to the storm. Pel said it would last for days. Days. She hoped Kira found shelter. As immune to the cold as she appeared to be, she was still vulnerable to hail, wind and hungry critters. Amber knew the City in the Caldera was too hot for Kira. Discomfort and misery had been written all over the woman’s face. Kira wanted to live with the Northern Valos, in the ice and snow.

  Maybe Amber still felt responsible for her group of survivors—she couldn’t claim Kira was a good friend, but she liked the woman and hoped Kira was okay.

  A strong gust howled by the cave’s entrance.

  Somehow, Kira had to pull through because if she didn’t, then that meant that Amber got her selfish wish to be alone with Pel and Mishal. Every night, she drifted to sleep sandwiched between her two handsome men, and silently wished Kira had stayed home. Or was deaf. Amber wouldn’t let things between them progress beyond kisses and caresses because getting down while Kira was sleeping just feet away was wrong and gross.

  Now she got her wish, and she felt like a heel. She had gone so long without any tender touches or companionship, and she had two men to lavish her with affection and scorching kisses, but she never would have agreed if she knew it would put someone else in danger.

  Amber refilled her cup and shifted closer to Mishal. His color did look better, not as bright or incendiary as before their trek to the north but better than cold ashes. She moved the pouch on his loincloth to better inspect his hip joint—honest—and the movement jostled loose a hard, cylindrical object.

  Flin’s broken heartstone.

  Warm to the touch, it was a clear crystal with a sickly orange fracture through the center. She turned the crystal over in her hands, studying the deep fracture that ran through its heart.

  It looked so different than the crystals that glowed in Pel and Mishal’s chest. Why had their heartstones worked and this one broke? Was there a flaw in the design? In the crystal itself?

  It wasn’t a machine. Definitely not a computer chip or processor. It had to be something more durable than quartz. Diamond, then. Diamonds were incredibly common and durable. It appeared to be entirely natural, but she recalled Pel telling that Sheenika gave them the heartstones then removed them.

  The heartstones had to be something more than a crystal. Why else would that crazy scientist install them, then remove them, if they didn’t do something? Lucie speculated Sheenika used nanotech to alter the valos. She believed the heartstones acted as a regulator, allowing the nanobots to replicate. When the heartstone was removed, the Fire Valos needed to periodically return to the Forge and douse themselves with the “renewing fires.”

  She held the heartstone up to the fire. The orange fracture seemed darker, more brutal as the crystal caught the light.

  Lucie’s ideas made sense, considering how Pel and Mishal were able to control their body temperature. Before, they claimed they burned uncontrollably as an inferno. Amber could only think that the heartstones uploaded some sort of programming to regulate the nanotech, which is why they had to be installed. Taking them away and locking them in a vault served as a means of control.

  “You are awake. I brought your morning meal.” Pel returned to the fire, carrying a small furry animal. He butchered it efficiently and set it cooking on the fire.

  “That smells amazing.” Amber leaned toward the meaty aroma and breathed deep. Despite carrying dried meat and fruit in the packs, she hadn’t eaten much in the way of hot food. The cold plus physical exhaustion made her ravenous and idea of nibbling on cold jerky did not appeal. “Thank you for breakfast.”

  He held out a cooked strip. She reached, but he snatched it back. “Hey!”

  He sat and patted his lap, indicating where she should sit. Rolling her eyes, she complied. As she settled, the tunic hiked up and exposed more of her ass than she intended. “Oh, that’s interesting,” he said, pushing the hem up further.

  Amber batted his hand away. She needed to refuel herself. “Food first. Five days of marching wore me out.”

  “Forgive my impatience.” His fingers skated down her neck and across her collarbone. His skin heated at the point of contact, searing a trail.

  “Careful with your temperature.” So far, the guys handled her carefully and avoided burning her, but she worried.

  Pel picked up the heartstone. “What were you doing with this?”

  “Just thinking,” she said between bites.

  “Tell me. I enjoy listening to how your mind works.”

  Amber wiggled her hips and bottom at his praise. “You like my mind?”

  “I like many things about you. Keep wiggling, and you’ll see how much.”

  Grinning broadly, she reached for the flask of water. “I was just wondering how the heartstones worked,” she said, between sips. “And if this was the standard size. Was yours shaped like this?” Flin’s fractured heartstone was shaped in an oval, flat in the center with facets at the rim.

  “I believe so.” Pel touched his heartstone as he spoke.

  Amber nodded at his suggestion. “Lucie said that the way Sarsen and Asche explained the process, it reminded her of nanobots. While they were without their heartstones, they needed to replenish the nanobots in the Forge, right? The renewal fires?”

  Pel offered another portion of roasted critter, prompting her to open her mouth.

  “I’m full,” she said.

  “You need to regain your strength. Many days of walking, you said.” He brought the slice of meat back to her lips. This time she opened, and he placed it on her tongue, his fingers lingered on her lips. “Now that you have your heartstones, you don’t need to go back to the renewing pool and get a fresh dose of bots. It sounds, to me, that the heartstones regulate the nanobots. But you also didn’t have much control over your fire without the heartstones, so it must regulate heat, too.”

  “Controlling my fires takes effort and focus,” Pel said.

  “You weren’t born being able to control fire.”

  “I do not control fire. I manipulate.”

  “Right, but you couldn’t do that before Sheenika arrived,” she stated for clarification.

  “That was one of the abilities given to us when she made us her thralls, but my tribe has long had an affinity to fire.”

  “Lucie suspects you may have had a natural mutation for that,” she said. The scientists on the prison selected their test subject based on genetic markers. Amber had seen the files and the reports. While the technical language went above her head, she saw th
e pattern. Sheenika probably did something similar. “So the heartstones came after your transformation. I wonder where the programming is kept. On the crystal or on the nanobots? If it’s the bots, then…”

  She paused, sitting up straight. No. That was too simple. But Lucie had said that the vanished Creator had a brutal and simplistic style.

  “What is it?” Pel asked.

  “If the nanobots do all the thinking, then a broken crystal can be replaced.” She’d need to examine the heartstone to be sure. Holding it up to the light and looking at it with her naked eye was not good enough. “Logically, it makes sense. It should work.”

  “It will work,” Pel said with certainty.

  Except they didn’t really know. They journeyed north in the hopes that replacing the heartstones would work. Amber could convince herself that it would work with deductive reasoning, but she’d worry until the moment the sleeping valos opened their eyes. “Maybe. I don’t know,” she said.

  Pel picked her up off his lap and rose to his feet. “Come. There is something I wish to show you.”

  Amber slipped on her boots and followed him deeper into the cave. He glowed with his own internal fire in the dim light. She followed him as the passage grew darker and narrower. “Where are we going?”

  “Patience.”

  The air grew warmer and carried the unmistakable scent of sulfur. A breeze ruffled the hair on top of her head.

  The passage opened onto a grotto. Steam curled off the surface of the water. A hole in the ceiling high above functioned as a skylight, allowing in just enough light.

  “A hot spring?” She crouched at the water’s edge, cautiously dipping a finger in to gauge the temperature. She hadn’t bathed properly in days. Using a cloth at the campfire did not compare to a good long soak in hot water.

  The water was the perfect temperature.

  “Did you do this? Heat the water?” Amber looked for melting ice on the ceiling. Snow drifted in through the skylight in the ceiling, but it melted as soon as it hit the hot steam rising from the pool.

  “Me? No. I explored the cave while you and Mishal slept, to clear it of any predators, and I found this.”

  “It’s wonderful. Is it safe?” she asked.

  “Yes. I verified this earlier,” Pel said.

  “I need to get the soap and my comb,” she said, never so excited to have a bath. “Thank you! This is wonderful.” She shucked off her boots and tunic before easing into the water.

  Heat worked its way into the over-tired muscles of her calves, thighs and lower back. With her eyes closed, she tilted her head back and let her body float. When she opened her eyes, she found Pel standing over her, clutching her pack. She smiled, not the least bit embarrassed at her total nudity. This was the first time he had seen her completely naked. Floating in the pool like a water nymph made for a pretty good first impression.

  “Do you want to come in?” she asked.

  He nodded, wordlessly.

  Amber scrubbed her arms and front quickly, finally feeling clean. He took the soap and lathered up her hair, strong fingers kneading her scalp. She melted. His hands worked their way down her neck, easing the last of her tired muscles and then finally lathering her backside. His fingers skimmed down her sides, brushing against her breasts and giving a slight squeeze at her hips. When he reached her butt, he took extra care to massage and lather. Amber spread her legs reflexively as his hand grazed the sensitive lips of her pussy. She gasped at the sensation, eliciting a light chuckle from him.

  His hands worked their way down her thighs. With a tap on her hip, she turned around. He gestured to her feet. Floating on her back, Amber anchored herself with one hand on the rim of the pool and Pel gently lathered and massaged her feet, one at a time.

  Once cleaned to his satisfaction, she returned the favor. Dried mud and other dirt showed easily against his charcoal dark complexion, not that he was that dirty. Mainly Amber enjoyed lathering up her hands and running them across his skin. It was pliable like leather, and not as hard as she expected. The smoothness surprised her. She had only really touched his face, which was smooth, and his delightfully rough hands. The cracks and crevices that ran along his torso and his arms felt more like scar tissue than anything else.

  Entranced, her fingers slipped down his torso, tracing each hard ridge of his abs and finally reaching his cock. Her hand wrapped around it, already hard and warm. Her fingers barely met around his girth. Damn.

  Moving her hand down, she felt ridges. Ridges. Oh, she was going to have fun with those. At the base, she encountered hard bumps.

  She took her hand away to get a better look.

  Yup, he had bumps. She gave one a touch and Pel sucked in his breath. The nubs were sensitive, then.

  “I think these are in just the right spot to drive me crazy,” she said, caressing the nubs at the base of his cock. They’d hit her clit with each thrust, and if she ground down on him—

  Wow.

  “Amber,” he growled.

  “Is that an Amber stop or Amber don’t stop?”

  “Stop,” he said, sounding as if it took all his control.

  “Oh. Okay.” She backed away, fighting back her disappointment. “I got carried away. No worries.”

  “You misunderstand,” he said.

  “No. It’s fine.” She dunked herself one last time and climbed out of the pool.

  His hand on her ankle stopped her. “Amber, I have plans that require you.”

  His eyes glowed with a fiery intensity that stirred a tight feeling of anticipation in her core. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. Now, do as I say.”

  His words sparked desire through her, and her body loved his take-charge nature. “How do you want me?”

  Another flare of light in his eyes. “Any way I can get you but for now, on your back. Put your feet here.” He patted a spot on the rim of the pool.

  Amber complied, setting her feet wide apart and letting her thighs fall open, putting herself on display for him.

  He studied her with intensity for several moments.

  “Is everything okay?” Did humans not look like a female valo down there? Their parts were compatible—Lucie and Brandi could testify to that—but that didn’t mean it looked weird. His dick looked like a dick, sort of. It had a few extra bumps at the base and ridges, but it was functionally the same.

  “I am staggered by this wonder of creation,” he said. “You’re so pink and you glisten, wet for me.” He stroked her folds, spreading her wetness. “I cannot think of anything better to feast upon.”

  He lowered his head, breathing her in before his hot and insistent tongue lapped at her.

  Sensation sparked through her instantly, and she found herself climaxing embarrassingly fast. His touch proved too much, and she bucked away. He growled, lifting her hips and holding her to his face. His tongue worked her clit with ruthless abandon, wringing another climax from her.

  “Pel, please,” she begged. Her core ached. She needed him.

  His tongue breached her channel. In and out he speared her, his heat catching her on fire from her innermost places.

  She grabbed his head, fingers scrambling where a human man would have hair to hold but found no purchase. She grabbed the lobe of his flat ears and pulled him toward her, causing a growl. The vibrations went straight through her, and she crested once again, her shout echoing off the cave walls.

  Pel continued to lap at her pussy, his tongue gentle and calming, no longer demanding climax after climax from her. This was meant to soothe her, to ease her body back down from the heights of pleasure.

  “I think we woke up Mishal,” she said with a small laugh.

  Pel placed a kiss on the inside of her thigh before climbing out of the pool to join her. She snuggled up next to his heat.

  “A fine meal,” he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “On such a regime, I will regain all my strength.”

  He leaned over and placed a soft kiss on her lips, ta
sting salty and musky.

  “Glutton,” she said.

  “With you, of course.”

  She moved to her knees and patted the ground next to her. Pel hauled himself up next to her. Water steamed off his torso. He sat before her, cock standing proud.

  She watched the water evaporate off him quickly, rather than drip and form rivulets. How hot was he?

  No. She believed he wouldn’t hurt her. Brandi had not been hurt by her valos. Before she could talk herself out of it, she reached for his cock.

  Firm yet pliable, his skin was softer here, like velvet over steel. Amber skimmed her fingers upwards, enjoying every bump and ridge. A bead of pre-cum leaked at the head. Her thumb smeared the scalding fluid.

  He sucked in his breath. “My fires run too hot. I will burn you.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, wrapping her hand around his girth. She had to know what he tasted like.

  Her tongue swirled around the head, tingling from the warmth of him. As she licked down and back up the length of him, his skin grew warmer. Not alarmingly so, but his control slipped.

  “We cannot,” he said, distress in his voice.

  Amber paused, the crown of his cock at her lips. She looked up at him. “I don’t want to make you do anything you’re uncomfortable with, but I’d like to see how hot you get.” She kissed his member, eliciting a moan from him. “Tell me when you’re about to shoot your load. I’ll get out of the way.” She didn’t think that was super sexy, telling her man she wouldn’t swallow or even touch him as he came, but his cock jumped at her words. Someone liked her idea.

  She went back to work, using both hands to pump as her tongue swirled around the head. He was warm and growing warmer, but the temperature didn’t feel dangerous. Not yet.

  His fingers twisted in her hair, urging her on. She looked up, wanting him to see her eyes when her mouth was full of him. Any larger and she wouldn’t be able to do this. Her jaw would ache in the morning, but the look of rapture on his face made it worthwhile.

  Pel tensed. His eyes flared with warning. His cock pulsed in her hands.