WOLF DAWN: Science Fiction Thriller/ Romance (Forsaken Worlds)

by Susan Cartwright

  It was wonderful.

  Lindha unburdened his soul. It was as if Ash had been buried and Lindha was shoveling away the dirt that covered him, bringing him into the light one spade at a time.

  Ash’s memory of mind-touch with Lindha was seen then, all those years ago when she had brought him supplies. There had been many dreams for both of them after that time: erotic dreams, waking dreams, sleeping dreams and comforting dreams. Ash had touched Lindha’s mind, and had somehow stayed connected. He had focused on her as a foundation to build on; she was the one true thing in his world. And Lindha had to some degree been aware of that focus.

  We were together even then, they both realized with awe.

  Continuing her view, Lindha next came to Ash’s time as a captive. This was out of sequence in his mind and there was an odd echo: it was somehow reminiscent of experiencing the death of his people. This blackness seemed to be right here with him in the present. Lindha recalled what Ash had told her about the Dark Sankomin:

  All souls suffer the Dark Sankomin. If one is in the present, if the mind remains in attendance, the Sankomin cannot seize or bind. The Sankomin is a combination of all that has been and all that can be. It is not evil in itself: it merely is. Time is like a river and the mind is the water. When the water flows, all is well and sequential, in chronological order. However, these past events, encompassing all the conscious feelings within them — thought, pain and emotion — can fall on one en masse. They attach to one’s soul like metal filings drawn to a magnet. At times presenting as burdened river eddies, they dam the river and the mind becomes bound. It will not flow. The Dark Sankomin is solid, a heavy mass in the mind, a dark burden to the soul. Unresolved, it will cause madness and despair.

  So many dark events Ash could not share and view completely. Thoughts and anguish he couldn’t acknowledge to himself. These terrible burdens damming the river of his mind. Such despair. Lindha felt real pain with this memory: a dark cave, damp, cold — a timeless void, the emptiness of the mine. His terrible loneliness, the shivering consciousness he had been forced to face: the unfathomable purpose of a joyless, isolated existence.

  The truth was there: He had wanted to die.

  This was another surprising realization for Ash, another lightening of his soul, when he faced this self-destructive truth. He had wanted to die because he couldn’t face the world alone. He couldn’t.

  “I am with you,” Lindha sent the restful thought.

  Something that was wound tightly inside Ash, suddenly released.

  Lindha re-experienced the shock of his broken arm; she felt Seeta’s thick red fur and knew the astonishingly sweet, musky taste of wolf milk; she trembled through the death of the white deer and the pain of killing her fawn. Fire coursed through her veins as she experienced the wild, unrestrained passion of wolves when mating.

  These were events that Ash had, with the full force of his power, attempted to conceal from Lindha. But she had pierced his barriers, overcoming that anxious, inflexible shield with her love.

  Ash felt feather light bubbles bursting in her mind.

  It was laughter. Lindha was laughing!

  “Oh my. Those wolves. Indescribable. Those incredible sensations. I can understand why you found contact during mating an impossible habit to break.”

  Lindha hadn’t been disgusted. She understood.

  For some unaccountable reason, Ash also started to giggle, then chuckle, then laugh. He couldn’t stop laughing. He understood what had happened now. His guilt had started with the mind-touch with Forseth and his mother. After that, mind-touch with the wolves had, in a logical rationalization, compounded the wrong.

  His laughter tapered off, but his smile was irrepressible: he felt ridiculously happy. Time passed while everything fell into place. The dam in his mind freed itself, the river flowed, clearing away the debris.

  This explained everything.

  Sudden understanding and awareness was a blinding light in his mind.

  He stopped smiling then: all he could feel was awe.

  It was then, right then, that he fully realized what he had always known but had hidden from himself for some years. It was the common denominator for everything that had happened, the events that had caused him such constant guilt and pain.

  Ash had decided that he was a bad person — undeserving of his powers.

  Lindha marveled as she witnessed Ash’s spiral of life-shifting realizations. So many things that he had not wanted to view, to hide away from himself and others. Enthralled with the knowledge of his mind, she knew now what had been blocking his ability to mind-touch people. It was Ash. He had been stopping himself.

  She thought, “You’re so good, Ash. You sought to lose your power because you considered yourself evil. You were going to protect others from yourself. Jana has chosen well, Trueborn.”

  Ash knew what she felt: Lindha loved him.

  He thought in silent wonder, “You know everything? And you still love me?” He was incredulous. Ash felt transformed. He had been healed, cured from the degrading taint and the dark shadows that had been weighing him down for so long. Together they both experienced a tremendous mental relief. The heavy, murky mass of dim thoughts and burdens lifted and flew away. The river of his soul flowed freely. Only a soothing mental breeze of mutual affection and understanding remained. In concert, both Lindha and Ash experienced a lightness of being and an overpowering sensation of freedom. They knew what it was.

  It was spiritual well-being and release: euphoria caused by exultation of the soul.

  “Wonderful,” Lindha thought.

  “Yes,” Ash agreed, while they spiraled higher. His mind caressed her with immeasurable, unleashed power. He thought:

  “Soul-to-soul release, mind-to-mind release, flesh-to-flesh release. Mind-touch with one’s partner is the ultimate consummation.”

  Ash reached for Lindha, feeling her smooth skin brushing against his chest, reacting to his touch.

  “Oh,” Lindha breathed.

  As if their mental and spiritual contact had only been a momentary interlude, Lindha and Ash once more were filled with flesh desire. Their focus narrowed, concentrating on the physical. Thought, not required now; melted away with the fire of need. It was being replaced by an entirely physical plane: a tidal wave of sensation that molded Ash and Lindha together.

  Ash’s strong warm hands ran up upon her ankles, knees, hips and inside her thighs, touching her where no one had touched her before. He caressed and stroked softly with clever fingers. With her mental and physical response as his guide, Ash knew exactly how to touch her to cause the most pleasure. Ash felt her ecstasy, her bliss and it melded and combined with his own.

  They kissed and the kiss was a spike of desire that sent heat and languorous lust throbbing and burning through their veins like a drug. Ash had one hand just there, that exquisite place that she knew so well. It seemed that he knew it, too. His fingers stroking, stroking while one hand held her breast, held it so that he could worship it with his mouth. Lindha’s nipples were hard and she tasted divine. She was moaned and her arms pulled him to her.

  Enough. It had to be enough. Ash couldn’t wait any longer. He knelt between her knees and positioned himself, preparing to join his body with hers, as fully as he had his soul. “Lindha. I want to …” Lindha knew exactly what he wanted. She wanted it too. “Oh, yes, Ash. Please!”

  With a longing cry, Lindha clung to Ash. He lifted her and she arched to join him. She smelled the musk of his desire and spicy male sweat, the unique scent that was Ash. She felt him, rock hard against her softness.

  Both were taking great lungfuls of air now, the sound of their breath wild and abandoned, like running in a gale. The pleasure, the uncontrolled storm of sensation, was too much. As if clinging to a life raft in a tempest, she held on and attempted to absorb one sensation at a time: his heat, his weight, his need. She clutched Ash’s shoulders tenaciously as he pushed inside a little at a time, with a slow deliberate pa
ce. Lindha gasped and arched, accommodating him.

  “Lindha,” Ash groaned.

  She opened her eyes, head back, breathless. Ash was raised above her on trembling arms. Teeth clenched as if in pain, he was experiencing the exquisite agony of extreme pleasure, of ecstasy withheld.

  “Are you okay?” he panted out loud, searching her expression.

  Mentally he felt only her intense pleasure but he had to be sure. He was concerned because she was a maiden, afraid that he might be causing her pain. Once inside as far as he could go he had not moved from that position. It had taken a Herculean strength of will.

  “Very much so, yes,” Lindha thought. She let him see what he had obviously missed during their mental contact. While she had never been with a man, when she had come of age she had had her maidenhead intentionally breached during a formal Temple ceremony. She was feeling only pleasure.

  “You’re kidding,” Ash was delighted. “Not a virgin.” That meant no pain, no bleeding.

  Lindha mentally assured him, “You won’t hurt me, Ash. Don’t stop. It feels wonderful.”

  Her skin was hot. There was fire between them now, the heat of his power and the heat of their lust; both were sweating in the warm summer breeze.

  “Thank you, Jana.” Like a wild dog let off its chain, Ash was released to pursue his goal. He bounded forward, all his health, all his youth and vigor, all his strength and purpose going toward the one objective. He would kill to come inside her.

  He would die if he didn’t.

  There was a kind of mindlessness now, a thin thread of control as instinct took over. Such pleasure, such joy, it was glorious. Ash moved, building toward something overwhelming and inevitable. Lindha contributed, she had found his rhythm, joined in it, arching and rising to meet him. A kaleidoscope of sensations assailed them both, a maelstrom of pleasure coming in waves. Overflowing, uncontainable, Ash and Lindha were reaching toward a crest.

  They were so close.

  Lightning struck them.

  Together they bucked and screamed out their release. They held on to each other, clutching and straining together as if in a storm far out at sea. Holding on for dear life, their bodies joined, as wave after wave of sensation rode them. With ragged breath they clung to each other. They left the world together, floating away upon the heated ocean of his power, lost in a sparkling universe of pleasure.

  The minutes passed while Ash and Lindha returned from the heavens, back to the world. Utterly spent, they lay together, limbs entwined. More time passed. Ash reached up to touch her face, brushing back the soft, dark gold of her sweat dampened hair. Lindha smiled in response.

  “Lindha,” he whispered. Even her name sounded like a song from his heart.

  With mutual physical release, their mental connection had been broken.

  Ash reached out with his mind: a tentative caress. Softly, easily he made contact. “Lindha?”

  “I am here, Ash.” Her mental touch was like a lover’s caress.

  “Lindha. I’ve regained my powers!” Soul free and unburdened, Ash wanted to shout for joy. For five years he had dreaded the Dark Sankomin. “At last,” he thought with deep satisfaction. He communicated mentally. Using a rapid shorthand of pictures and thought, he showed Lindha his volatile passions; guilt, rage, grief and despair. As the last Delian, the fear of madness and death had always been with him. “Lindha, you have healed me. You have saved me from myself.”

  “Yes. You are good, Ash. You deserve saving. You are so good.”

  “Thank you, my love.”

  They each knew almost everything about each other, and about themselves. There could be no more perfect communication. All those years that he thought he would never know the consummate joy of two-way mind-touch, and now he had Lindha. He repeated the Testimonials for her: “How then to remain pure? To defeat the Dark Sankomin one must touch another’s mind, hiding nothing, showing all.” Out loud he said, “I love you, Lindha.”

  Lindha smiled. Her mind responded, “I know.”

  “You are my mate.” As Ash thought this, much more than words surged through him: permanence, eternity, a union of souls forever and ever and ever. These were unspoken concepts. It was an attraction, a binding that could not be articulated. In wolf-mate terms, Ash simply felt what he knew to be true: he belonged to Lindha: she belonged to him.

  “We are not married yet, Ash.”

  “We will be,” he thought, jubilant. “Now. Today.”

  “Not yet. It violates my vows.”

  Ash sat up, contact broken. “What? You’re not allowed to marry? But I require it. It … it is a Trueborn need. You want me, don’t you? I know you do.”

  “Yes, of course,” Lindha said calmly, sitting up. “I don’t know why, but it is a stipulation of the Prefect vows. If the Trueborn wishes to marry the Prefect it is not allowed until six months have passed from the time of his arrival. It isn’t long to wait, Ash.” Because he looked so upset, she added, “Of course, if you feel you don’t want me if it involves a six months wait, I am sure that there may be another Lady …”

  “Another Lady? I’ll always love only you.” He glared at Lindha and found her eyes laughing. He swore when he realized she was teasing him. Apparently he still had a temper that he had not yet learned to manage. “All right. What’s six months? Besides, our marriage won’t be legal until I’m eighteen. We can still pledge ourselves to each other however, can’t we?”

  “Yes, of course. We’ll make a formal announcement today. The moment we return in fact, if the Trueborn requires it.” She gave him a soft musical giggle.

  “Well,” Ash said, appeased. He grasped her by the shoulder. “I do require it. And there’s something else I want,” he murmured, his voice deep and low with desire. His gaze travelled languidly over her. “Only, I don’t want to wait until we return to the Temple.” He gently pushed her back down on to the soft violet grasses and began, once more, to stroke and caress her.

  “Certainly Trueborn,” Lindha breathed, instantly aroused. “As Prefect, it is my duty, and my privilege to provide for you whatever you need. Isn’t the Goddess most gracious, to have our desires so well aligned?”

  It was well after dusk before they returned to the Temple.

  29. Life is Good

  “Son, the battle within is between two wolves. One is unhappy. It is fear, anger, jealousy, selfishness, resentment, and lies. The other is happy. It is joy, love, kindness, generosity, truth, and compassion.” The boy thought about it for awhile and then asked, “Which wolf wins?” His father replied, “The one you feed.”

  The idea of two human minds interacting on a psychic level — intermingling — was something that both Ash and Lindha had felt intimations of in their early lives. For Ash, it had been the touch of his mother’s hand on his brow the many times he’d been sick. Dear son, be well. Be well. For Lindha, it had been the raw crimson of an Opan winter sunset, holding her father’s huge hand as a child. She is so perfect. Thus when Ash and Lindha had mind-touched each other it had been natural, and yet extraordinary. But never in their intimations of psychic connection had the two ever suspected that something would happen as would happen this day …

  “I’ll race you to the river,” Ash shouted, grinning like a madman. His favorite companion, mischievous best friend and lover, Lindha was a whole new world of unexplored fun for Ash. He had never been happier than he was right now. The sky was light green, the warm wind from the east. He and Lindha were riding their stallions through the upper meadows, an activity they had often enjoyed since they pledged themselves to each other.

  “No cheating,” Lindha admonished, “and no fair telling Bethan not to win as I’m sure you’ve done before.”

  “Insults. You cast aspersions on my honor as Trueborn. That is pure jealousy talking. Ha! I don’t need to cheat to beat you. Why, I could beat you riding any mount, even Sideso,” he taunted.

  Lindha’s eyebrows creased. “You’ll be sorry you said that,” she said. Her st
allion, Bethan, jumped to the lead.

  It was a fast race, both horses in a mad gallop, their necks and heads stretching, nostrils flared.

  “A tie,” Ash said.

  “What?” Lindha’s instant rejoinder rang with indignation. “I won!”

  “Is that so? I’ll show you what I do with the disciples of Taro who try to deceive me.” Outwardly he put on a furious face, but inside he was laughing. He leapt from his horse, pulling Lindha to the ground. Holding her down, Ash firmly sat down on her hips. Then he held her arms outstretched high above her head.

  “Let me go. You just can’t admit defeat,” she giggled, struggling to escape.

  Ash didn’t relinquish his hold. Instead he started to tickle her with his chin under her neck.

  “Stop!” She laughed.

  “I’ll stop if you say, ‘Ash is the best rider in the entire Temple.’”

  “Never!”

  “Say it,” he laughed, tickling her even more. “I won’t stop until you do.”

  “Ash is the best rider in the entire Temple,” she choked. He let her go, one hand fell to Lindha’s stomach as he lay down on his side beside her, smiling broadly.

  “Except for me,” Lindha added under her breath.

  “I heard that,” he said, reaching for her.

  “No, Ash, no. I have had enough. Please,” she begged, still laughing, and then added, with due seriousness. “I just didn’t want you to think that you could force me to do something against my will. Besides, you are the best rider in the Temple. There. I said it because it was true, not because you made me.”

  “All right,” he said. He reached over, and pulled her near to rest against him. He wanted to hold her. “No more tickles.” They lay together, Lindha nestled with her head against Ash’s chest. They sighed, each contented with the other’s nearness.