Ride to Ecstasy

by Jory Strong

  Images of being held between two men, loved by them, rose in her thoughts, coming with Arabella’s voice and the often repeated conversation about dreams being premonition rather than fantasy.

  The pod dropped lower, blocking the sight of desert and replacing golden sand with jagged rock and icy peaks. Karena’s fingers whitened from gripping the armrests. Her heart pounded so fast that pain shot through her chest as they drew nearer, seemingly on a collision course.

  Only at the last minute did a ravine reveal itself, a narrow passageway through the mountain range. The pod slowed with a high whine, as if complaining about discovering no place to land after having committed to descend.

  It continued downward. Exiting the mountains to a seemingly endless expanse of desert except for a glimmer of green and a sheen of water in the distance. An oasis or a mirage, Karena didn’t know which.

  She suspected there could be no ascent, that the pod had expended its fuel source entering the Adjaran atmosphere and maneuvering to what had seemed habitable terrain.

  A shuddering drop sent her stomach crashing into her throat. But it was what she saw through the window a moment later that caught her breath in wonder and then in primal terror.

  Great plumes of sand rose in the desert. A multitude of storms created by what seemed like hundreds of robed figures riding astride magnificent land horses.

  Had they not been racing toward her like a ravening horde spread out across the land, with nothing of their features visible, she might have waited and revealed her talent, using it to barter for safety and a place among them, or transport to Z’nyia. But nothing in their manner suggested anything other than capture and rape.

  The moment the pod landed with a final shuddering drop, she scrambled from the belts tethering her to the chair. Frantic moments passed as she tried to find a way to open the door, pushing buttons and pulling levers, panting in her panic to escape and attempt to get to the mountains in the hopes of climbing to safety.

  Finally some combination of commands to the computer or touches to the controls led to success. A light above the door flashed from red to green and it opened.

  She jumped to the sand, remembering the money under the seat as she landed. Too late, she thought, looking up and seeing two riders well ahead of what she knew came behind them.

  A horse without a rider galloped with them, a dapple gray with flowing black mane and tail, feminine and female, and priceless on another world. Karena seized the opportunity, acting instinctively. She reached out with her mind and the connection was instant.

  In a surge of speed the filly lunged ahead as if in the home stretch of a race. Dainty hoofs barely marked the desert, barely landed in the sand before they lifted again.

  The distance between the gray and the other two horses grew despite the way the robed figures leaned over, riding low against the necks of their mounts and urging them to go faster.

  With a dramatic stop the filly halted when she reached Karena. She arched her neck and pranced in place, her nostrils flared from the run.

  Karena stroked her, mentally and physically. Admired her with touch and praise before asking permission to mount.

  The filly tossed her head. She offered her back and Karena grasped the silky mane, positioning herself astride the beautiful land horse with the same naturalness that came to her in the water.

  On another day, a race across the desert would have thrilled her beyond measure. But now terror rode Karena as she saw the two riders closing on her, and the plumes of sand created by the ones behind rolling forward like a violent storm.

  She turned the filly toward the mountain range and asked her to run.

  Chapter Four

  Exhilaration and joy sang through Zyan as he chased their third. She was free to claim as long as she was in the open territory of the desert.

  There would be no punishment for taking a woman belonging to another tribe. No payment required.

  The only thing to fear was that others would get to her first. Or that she reached the mountains, where the treaty would mean she belonged to the tribe whose turn it was to inhabit them.

  Her gift left him breathless. Witnessing it nearly quieted the internal voice that said if they lost her, it was because they’d lingered at the oasis making love when they should have hurried to the place they’d seen in the vision.

  There were few on Adjara who could communicate with horses as she’d been able to do. Calling the filly to her and gaining permission to ride an animal that had never had anything heavier than a blanket on its back.

  They’d been blessed with an incredible mate. Their tribe would be made richer by her addition. But they had to catch her first.

  “Get in front of her!” he yelled to Kaeden. “Drive her toward the oasis! I’ll stay between her and the others.”

  Not that it would matter if the rapidly approaching horsemen reached them before they’d taken possession of her. He and Kaeden would be overwhelmed, separated from their third by the sheer number of Syn’jahin tribesmen. Joining vision or not, their only chance of claiming her would be through combat, a challenge they’d have little hope of winning.

  The stallion surged ahead while Zyan angled the mare to the left, holding her back as she fought to charge after the other two horses. He managed it, though his own emotions raged just as wildly as the mount beneath him.

  Karena’s heart thundered as fast as the beat of horse hooves. For long moments, as she felt the powerful, smooth movement of the filly beneath her, exhilaration had overtaken raw terror. But as a robed horseman passed her, and the filly answered the call of instinct, to move as the stallion directed rather than obey Karena’s mental urgings, fear returned.

  Before Karena could silence its voice, it served to make the horse she rode more anxious for the safety of its own kind. The filly turned away from the mountains and ran with the horses flanking her.

  In front of them, the shimmer of promised water and glimpse of green seen through the pod’s window grew, taking the form of a small oasis.

  Karena’s hands tightened on the filly’s mane. She fought a terror that threatened to make her mindless by reminding herself she had never believed the rumors about women being killed on Adjara. By telling herself that surely, in a place with such magnificent horses, her gift would have true value.

  They reached the oasis and the men on either side of her moved in, each taking possession of an upper arm, their timing perfectly synchronized as they stopped their horses and the filly continued forward without Karena.

  With an ease that spoke of a lifetime on horseback they dismounted, holding onto her and to their reins as the horde descended, circling around the edges of the oasis, their voices raised, roaring like a hurricane.

  Kaeden ached at the way their woman trembled violently beneath his hand. Her terror pierced his skin and made him long to gather her in his arms and tell her he would die before he allowed the rape she obviously feared.

  “No one will touch you unless you are willing,” he said, releasing his grip on her and stepping backward as he would from a terrified animal.

  Affording her the opportunity to run away was the hardest thing he’d ever done. If she fled and got close enough for one of the Syn’jahin to grab her, they would lose her. And if she didn’t choose them in the moments to come, they would also lose her.

  “Kaeden speaks the truth. Rape is punishable by death on Adjara.”

  Zyan released her as well, moving to Kaeden’s side so she was no longer trapped between them, but stood facing them.

  Silence descended as the circling Syn’jahin halted and went quiet, waiting to see if a challenge could be issued under the terms of the treaty that related to those women brought to Adjara by fate.

  Karena clasped her arms over her chest, hugging herself in an attempt to stop shaking. It was unnerving to be in the presence of so many men, all of them covered in robes that revealed little more than the eyes focused completely on her.

  She fought t
o gather her wits. To find the courage that had enabled her to flee her father’s plans for her and trust faceless, nameless strangers to take her off Qumaar.

  The silence helped. As did the way the men in front of her showed no sign of becoming ravening beasts. If anything, their eyes held concern and uncertainty, worry rather than lust.

  “I am Kaeden du’Elsian,” the man who’d been on the stallion said. “No one will harm you. I swear it on my own honor, as well as my tribe’s.”

  “I am Zyan du’Elsian. I add my oath to Kaeden’s. Any man who violated a woman would be gutted and left to bleed out in the sand.”

  The terror left Karena in a nearly nauseating flow. She swayed and was instantly steadied with gentle hands that released her the instant she stood strong.

  Despite the chase across the desert and men now ringed around the oasis, blocking any possibility of escape, she believed what Kaeden and Zyan said. Why would they bother to lie?

  “Please, tell us your name,” Kaeden said, stepping forward and then hastily stepping back again as if in fear she’d feel threatened.

  “Karena.”

  She tried to force her arms to her sides but couldn’t. “I have a gift when it comes to horses. Will I be allowed to barter it for passage off Adjara?”

  Kaeden shook his head. “Your life is here now. Leaving Adjara is not a choice for any woman.”

  She took an involuntary step backward.

  “Trust us with your future, Karena,” Kaeden said, shocking her with the hint of panic she heard in his voice.

  Zyan took a small step forward. “Female children aren’t born to us except in our legends. The women we claim are valuable in their own right. And your gift… It humbles me to think Kaeden and I might have you as our third. We will do all that’s in our power to make you happy. We’ll do our best to ensure you never regret joining with us.”

  He pushed the concealing material away from his head and face, revealing long brown hair and the features of the blue-eyed man who pleasured her along with a green-eyed one in her dreams.

  Her breath caught, shock rippling through her. Then caught again when Kaeden copied Zyan’s actions, exposing blond hair cascading down in waves, framing a fantasy-familiar face with eyes the green of a calm Qumaaran sea.

  A curl of desire formed in Karena’s belly and for an instant she was back on Qumaar astride Cloud, lost in those moments when she’d imagined herself riding a land horse across the sand in a race of carnal pursuit.

  Staring at Zyan and Kaeden, it was easy to believe Arabella had been right all along when she claimed the dreams were premonition and not merely fantasy.

  Karena licked her lips and their gazes went to her mouth, their eyes darkening with desire. Her cunt clenched at the hunger they didn’t try to hide. Except in her dreams, no man had ever looked at her that way, even Ebann after consuming a potent aphrodisiac.

  She cringed away from thinking about those times when he’d lain on top of her. His cock moving in and out of her, bringing her to completion only because the drug in his system overrode his true feelings about the desirability of her body.

  “What about them?” she asked, glancing toward the men at the edge of the oasis, their postures and silence no longer threatening though she sensed they waited, poised to take action.

  Zyan turned the mare’s reins into a lead rope and secured it to the picket line they’d left in place, allowing her to trot over to the water for a drink. He took a tentative step forward as Kaeden secured the stallion in the same way.

  “You must choose,” Zyan said. “Kaeden and I are of the Elsian tribe. They are Syn’jahin. We reached you first, so it is our right to claim you, but unless you are willing to accept us as your lovers, and demonstrate it, there will be a challenge.”

  Kaeden stepped forward as well, both of them close enough she could reach out and touch them. “They will pit their two best and most cunning fighters against us. If we lose then they will take you to their camp and you will be matched and given to a joined pair according to their tribal customs.”

  “And what you said earlier, about rape?”

  Kaeden reached as though he would touch her, but his hand fell away before making contact. “We spoke the absolute truth. Showing a willingness to accept a pair as potential lovers doesn’t require penetration.”

  “A pair?” she asked, the question startled out of her though she’d heard rumors about Adjaran males all her life.

  Zyan placed his hand on Kaeden’s shoulder. “All women are claimed by at least two men who are officially joined and have been together long enough to demonstrate the relationship is a stable one. There are platonic arrangements, most often between men who are closely related, but the majority have what Kaeden and I have. We are lovers.”

  There was a fluttering in Karena’s womb as her labia grew flushed and swollen at imagining Zyan and Kaeden together. Heated arousal escaped her slit to wet her inner thighs. She shivered, not in fear, but at thinking of how often she’d imagined herself on a bed with men whose features were identical to Kaeden’s and Zyan’s. At how she’d touched herself as she’d fantasized that they looked at her with desire, caressing her with wicked hands and heated kisses and teasing bites as she did the same to them.

  She licked her lips again and watched their expressions tighten with the same need, the same desire that coursed through her and made her nipples ache to be touched. Sucked. That had her clit standing erect, pressed hard against the racing suit she wore beneath stolen clothes.

  Everything else faded as a lifetime of longing welled up inside her, to be cared for. Loved. To feel safe in body and in heart. To allow herself to believe it could happen.

  For long seconds they stared at each other, as if they were alone, locked in silent communication and speaking of soul-deep dreams, of hopes hardly dared.

  A shake of a horse’s head, the stomp of hooves as riders shifted in their saddles impatiently, and the spell was broken, reminding her of their audience, of the men whose gazes bored into her and who waited for a sign of what was to come next.

  There was only one choice as far as she was concerned. Zyan and Kaeden. The fear she’d carried with her for weeks on Qumaar had disappeared in their presence.

  She believed they spoke the truth about their world. She heard honesty in their wish for her to find happiness with them. She thought, maybe—not yet totally convinced by the dreams—the three of them were meant to be together.

  The lust she saw in their eyes felt real. Seeing it helped to unravel the constant knot in her chest at knowing her body wasn’t desirable to the men on Qumaar.

  Their desire for her had already begun the process of knitting together the places in her heart that had been ripped open by the ice-cold blade of her sisters’ taunts, and Ebann’s need of an aphrodisiac in order to bring himself to touch her.

  She glanced at the robed horsemen again, then back to Zyan and Kaeden. “I want to stay with you.”

  Their faces lit with happiness. Zyan reached for her, hesitating to make sure she would accept his touch before gently stroking her cheek, his expression holding such tenderness it nearly undid her.

  Kaeden’s hand settled lightly where her arms were still crossed over breasts now swollen, the nipples taut and eager. “The Syn’jahin won’t leave until your choice is made clear to them.”

  “How?”

  Zyan’s thumb brushed across her lips. “By pleasuring one of us until he orgasms. Or by allowing us to pleasure you until you cry out in release.”

  Heat climbed up her neck and spread across her cheeks. Shocking her with the knowledge that it wasn’t caused by embarrassment, but was a flush of excitement, put there by wicked, carnal images of having others watch the three of them together.

  Kaeden stepped closer, surrounding her with the scent of horse and potent male. “You can’t know how desperately we want you,” he said. “Neither Zyan nor I have ever been with a woman sexually. You are a fantasy made flesh and blood, a
dream turned into reality.”

  Tears formed at his words and the immediate alarm on his face cracked open a heart carefully shielded against pain, allowing the first glimmer of hope, of love in. Regardless of how she’d come to be here, and that she was in fact a prisoner now of this world, she thought she could be happy with these men. She could come to love them as if their match weren’t forced by circumstances.

  Kaeden cast an uncertain glance at Zyan, filling her with tenderness. “No one has ever said anything so beautiful to me before.”

  Zyan frowned. “Are the men on the planet you called home blind?”

  Some of the desire pooling in her belly coiled into chilly uncertainty. The soft warmth in her heart faded, cringing away in familiar fear and dread.

  She looked down, seeing a figure made more boyish by the clothing she wore. Remembering Melor’s hooded eyes and her suspicion that only by pretending she was male would he be able to harden and gain the heir that was his sole reason for accepting her as a wife.

  Her sisters’ taunts and laugher whispered through mind.

  You’re too short to be pleasing to a man.

  Your breasts are too small and the sight of your bare mound is enough to wither a man’s cock.

  Unless he’s wealthy enough to afford the most potent aphrodisiacs, that is.

  Or have them paid for by Mother, as part of the cost of overcoming disgrace at having given birth to someone who is almost a null.

  Karena wiped away the tears that had formed at Kaeden’s words, refusing to let them turn into a bitter waterfall of remembered hurt or a wet flood preceding anticipated pain. If her choice was to pleasure one of them to completion, or be pleasured, then it was better to let them see what they were getting. Better to let all of the gathered men see, and if they felt as the men on Qumaar did, perhaps her gift with horses would be more valuable than her womb, and she could barter to leave Adjara after all.

  She glanced once again at the robed figures encircling the oasis, relieved now at not being able to see their faces, at having them remain anonymous strangers.