by Simone Sinna
Kadar continued to stroke her gently as Damon lay on her other side. “Can you take another?”
She wondered vaguely if Kadar would squash her but he had an answer to that. “Sit on me so I can watch you.”
Misty looked at his body and marveled at the sheer bulk. If ever she needed protection, she would find it here. Sitting astride him, she lowered herself over his cock, her pussy still wet with juices, so when she relaxed it was easily manageable. But as soon as Kadar told her she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and grasped her hips as he thrust into her, the same internal response happened, muscles clamping over and sucking him in. One of his hands went to her clit and the extra stimulation sent another wave through her, spiraling her excitement up even higher. She leant back, hands on his legs, tipping her head back as her hips rocked and clamped over him. At the exact moment she and Kadar came, Damon, kneeling up beside her, brought his mouth over hers, hands pinching her nipples, and her climax continued, frenzied and exhausting, in a feeling of being totally complete in a way that she had never felt before.
Chapter Five
Damon and Kadar insisted on taking her to the plane. When she got to the international gate, she threw her arms around them and kissed each in turn. Kadar engulfed her in a bear hug. After he released her, Damon traced his finger down her cheek, staring into her eyes and saying a million things she couldn’t hear. She didn’t want to say good-bye, thinking this would somehow jinx a romance that was too impossible to work but too magic not to. She turned to go through security and they followed her.
Kadar grinned and pulled out his passport, Damon the tickets.
“We thought we’d come, too, but the farewell scene was so good we didn’t want to spoil it.”
Misty tried to glare at them but couldn’t maintain it, her righteous indignation breaking into a fit of giggles. It was hard to hold onto the fragments of feelings that intermittently washed over her, but the feeling ultimately was a good one.
It was a long flight, but stuck between the two of them—at least they had the row with extra leg room—put economy air travel into a whole different perspective.
“Want to join the mile-high club?” Kadar whispered into her ear as his hand snaked under the blanket.
Misty bit her lip and tried not to smile too much like the cat that got the cream. No one, she was sure, would recognize her. She’d even let her hair out of its plait because Kadar was obsessed with running his hands through it at every opportunity.
Mac and Mitch were waiting at the Hobart terminal. With them was a bright-eyed girl with dark-red curls tumbling over her shoulders, presumably Gabriella. Misty hadn’t had time to warn them about Damon and Kadar beyond a text from Heathrow saying she’d have two of Gabriella’s cousins with her.
Gabriella looked as stunned as her brothers. After hugging Misty warmly, she stood back, shaking her head. “Well, you two are as surprising as ever.” She laughed as she regarded her cousins. Turning to the Mortimers, she said, “There were those who fought at family functions, those who tried to make peace, and then these two.”
Mac, Misty could see, was on alert. He wasn’t ready to accept these ghosts just yet. Their extended family had, after all, burnt Tarrabah almost to the ground.
Gabriella put her arm through Mac’s. She knew, Misty thought with surprise, exactly how to handle him. “We all used to wish we weren’t there, but Damon and Kadar developed absenteeism into an art form. Then when they became adults they went”—her hands simulated a small explosion—“poof and all but disappeared.”
“We’ve just been studying and working overseas,” said Damon. Misty could tell he was tense. She took a lesson from Gabriella and slipped her arm around his. There would be time later to make sense of what had happened and where they, the next generation, were heading.
* * * *
The next two weeks were so busy each day appeared to merge into the next. Mac and Mitch had been apologetic, but there was no room for Misty to stay with them. Lena, another of Gabriella and the Karlssen men’s cousins, was staying and recuperating, and Kael and Lincoln, Misty’s second cousins, were often there, too. Misty could have stayed with her parents in their temporary caravan, but she felt they’d all feel more comfortable in a hotel. She took her own room, but didn’t use it often.
Melody looked frail and thin, but she was improving daily and there was an inner glow radiating from her. Her fiancé, Curt, still looked like he was trying to process all that had happened to him—he had only found out Melody was a were-devil after she’d been infected with the viral curse. But on the wedding day, he looked splendid in his tuxedo, with Mac and Mitch as best man and groomsman. Both wore golden ties that matched the golden bronze shades of Misty and Melody’s best friend’s simple but stunningly elegant bridesmaids’ outfits. The dresses had scooped fronts and a backless V that went down to below the waist and had Damon and Kadar salivating. Her father, aged through the troubles, looked proud as he handed his daughter over to her new husband.
The reception was at a local homestead by the sea, away from their charcoal-stained homeland, and, though small, all the family was there. It was wonderful to see them united over something positive so soon after what had almost been an indescribable tragedy. Her parents were beaming, their whole brood together for the first time in more than a year, as were her two grandmothers and the one remaining grandfather. Edmund had never returned from the war. Edmund’s wife, Grandma Lyn, had had a hard life, little more than a few days with the man who fathered her children and then a lifetime as a single mother, bearing also the brunt of knowing that Edmund marrying her had caused the curse to descend upon them.
Because she looked a little like this grandmother, now a tiny wizened creature, wrinkled and gray, but still with the almond eyes that gleamed with knowledge, Misty made a special point of spending time with her and her maiden aunt, Ophelia, who lived with her.
“You aren’t getting out much these days are you, Mum?” Ophelia said. To Misty she tapped her own head. “Mind’s going,” she whispered.
“Nothing wrong with my hearing, Ophelia,” Grandma Lyn said sharply. “You,” she said, pointing to Misty, “shouldn’t be here.”
“Now, Mum,” said Ophelia.
“Don’t you now Mum me!” Grandma Lyn was clearly not having one of her better days. “You,” she said, still looking intently at Misty, “need to go back.”
“I will,” said Misty, who wasn’t sure she would do any such thing. “I have a PhD to finish.”
“No,” said Grandma Lyn, looking a little confused. “To where he died.”
“There, there, Mum,” said Ophelia, patting her mother’s hand. “She’s upset they’re digging up the French battlefields,” she whispered to Misty.
“He didn’t die in France,” the older woman said, as astute, it seemed to Misty, as she ever had been. “He died in England.”
“Mum, we’ve been through this a million times,” said Ophelia. “He was in France. That’s what all the records say.”
Grandma Lyn smiled conspiratorially and leant into Misty. “Bring him back to me,” she said. “Then this will all end.”
Misty realized her grandmother’s mind must have been like Ophelia had indicated, perhaps not exactly as clear as it once had been, but the interaction left her shaken. She returned to the party to help Melody get into her going-away outfit.
The night after the wedding, when Curt had whisked his bride away to Bali, probably relieved to be free of all the family issues for a while, Misty ate out with the Karlssen men at a local restaurant. New since she’d last been there, it was bustling with people, the menu challenging with offal and wild combinations and accompanied by a thick wine menu of Tasmanian wines.
“We have to head back,” said Damon.
Misty knew they had a meeting in the UK at the end of the month but had been trying not to think about it. “I know,” she said. There were a million questions she wanted to ask. Is this the end of us
? Will I see you again? What did it mean to you? But she lowered her eyes and said nothing.
“No,” said Kadar. “It isn’t the end of us.”
“Yes, if all goes well, you will see us again,” said Damon.
“Everything,” all three said in unison as their minds shared her third question.
Misty froze, looking up and staring at them. Shaken, she realized she could read their minds, too. “What happened?”
“We visited Lincoln and Tilman, with Lena, earlier in the week,” said Damon. “I wanted to understand the science behind what they have learned. It is…nothing short of revolutionary for us. Ghosts and were-devils alike.”
Misty had also spoken to Tilman. He’d confirmed that while there was a lot of work to do, he was sure they had all the ingredients to be able to vaccinate the two populations.
“He’d just put together the vaccine for ghosts against Hendra,” Kadar added. “We thought we should test it, though we weren’t sure if it would work.”
“We still aren’t,” said Damon. “But it has triggered something that enables a silent connection to you. In Kael and Lincoln, it took away their scent.”
“So, it’s really over,” said Misty, half to herself.
Damon shifted awkwardly in his seat, blocking his thoughts. “Not exactly.”
“Because?”
“We’ve been trying to break the Baekken vampire code for years,” Damon began. He’d already told her some of the background and about their covert role at WHO. “Through our work at VECCI, we are almost certain we can trace the hand of the Baekkens in most if not all infectious epidemics since the Black Death.”
Misty could barely comprehend what she was hearing. “You’re saying they were deliberate?”
“Yes,” said Damon grimly. “The Black Death right through to the influenza in 1919 and more recently HIV and SARS.”
“No,” said Misty, aghast.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Kadar said. “We mapped the start and the spread of them all. Naturally, the more we know about viruses, the more we can predict and plan.”
“I get that, but where do the Baekkens come in?”
“They’ve been there, their handprint every time,” said Damon, sounding as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “SARS? We have bank records of a massive payment to an Asian company who benefitted from creating travel and air travel havoc. It seems China had been a little harsh and was being encouraged to reconsider some decisions. They did.”
“HIV? A particularly nasty bit of human history about which we are unlikely to ever fully bring all the pieces together, and probably just as well. It involves a disgruntled priest who was excommunicated, at least one love affair gone wrong, and a bitter billionaire who had nothing better to do with his money.”
“Can you prove this?”
Damon shrugged. “In a court of law with expert, overpaid barristers on the other side? Probably not. But the weight of evidence is clear. Less for the older epidemics where we can’t access records, but I have no doubt. In any case, they implicated themselves.”
“How?”
The brothers looked at each other. “When we met them, they had their scientist there with them,” said Kadar. “He twitched when we got close to the truth.”
“The truth that Tilman had the answer?” Misty asked.
“That was of some annoyance,” said Damon. “But they pushed us to make a wild guess, however much an educated one, and that is the real answer. One we don’t yet have.”
Misty felt her heart beating uncomfortably. Why were the Karlssens blocking their thoughts and why did she feel this sense of dread?
“It’s not about the viruses,” said Damon finally. “The viruses exist but they are only the means to control, not the secret of how to protect. The Baekkens may well have got the HIV from apes and modified it just like Torq Tremain modified one to end up with Hendra.”
“Then what is it about?” asked Misty.
“Our genetics,” said Damon. “And they think you know the answer and that we will be able to tell them.”
* * * *
Misty wanted to return with them but the Karlssens insisted it was too dangerous. It was clear to her that they were both walking into a trap, unarmed, and she was terrified they wouldn’t return. The night before they left, they came to her in her hotel room for what she knew might be the last time.
Misty stood in front of them and wordlessly let her nightdress drop to the floor, leaving her naked in front of them, nipples already hard and her pussy moistening in anticipation.
“Let us pleasure you,” Damon whispered in her ear, hand running down her arm. “But you will have to trust us completely.”
Misty held her breath and nodded. Damon told her to lie on the bed and that they were going to tie her to the brass posts. Misty stiffened.
“If at any time you change your mind or want to be set free, you only have to ask,” Kadar told her as he slipped a red silken tie over her wrist and then, placing her arm above her head, secured the other end to the bed. Damon did the same with her other hand, lingering over a kiss, his tongue tracing her lips and the tip of her nose.
Nervously, Misty watched them take a leg each and, splaying her out, tie her legs also. She was not physically uncomfortable, and though half embarrassed at how much of her they now could view in the shadows of the lamplight, she was also aware of how aroused she was. The very thought of being totally at their mercy caused her juices to start running down the lips of her cunt, which they would be able to surely see.
“Now,” said Damon softly, another broader length of black silk in his hand. “We are going to blindfold you.”
Misty’s eyes widened. But as Kadar’s lips closed over a nipple, instead of protesting she let the butterflies in her stomach flutter, and closed her eyes as Damon covered them.
Kadar pulled back and for at least a minute no one touched her. While there was only the slightest sounds of movement, she imagined them soaking her in and enjoying her.
Two hands gently traced over her body and she became aware that her imagination and the men’s true thoughts were whirling together, she could feel her own arousal and theirs in harmony. She felt Damon’s admiration of her shape, the slim waist and the slight but definite widening of her hips. He massaged her calves and her thighs, bending them at the hip to the degree the ligatures would allow, opening her even further, his eyes on her pussy but not touching it.
Misty felt warm oil drop onto her nipples and sensed Kadar’s hands over both her breasts as he leant over her, the warmth of his body pressing against her and sending through her messages of love and hope and a future he was, if only briefly, allowing himself to believe. The thoughts whirled around in her mind and left her feeling so certain that these men were her destiny that she found her mind opening up into a new dimension. At first it startled her. Lying in the dark, there seemed to be a light, but the light was a feeling rather than visual and the door that Kadar had opened for her allowed her to meet Damon there also, in a dark deep recess of his mind she knew no one had ever before seen.
There was a temptation to open it further, but Damon pulled her gently back to the moment, whispering into her ear, “Stay with the feelings.” So she did. She was vaguely aware that they must have lit incense, a musky rose smell infiltrating her nasal passages and having much the same effect she imagined opium did in the dens of history. More warm oil was dripped over her and the men eased it into every pore, fingers pushing deeper into the muscles so that her relaxation was total. Each time they eased fingers into the crevices where her legs met her pussy lips, they brushed ever so lightly across the top of her bush, but never ventured further.
“Now,” whispered Damon, “we are going to expose you even more.”
Misty held her breath, feeling their arousal, the anticipation of what might be coming leaving her shaking slightly. She could hear movement, one of them going to the bathroom and running the tap while the other dropped the
warm oil onto her bush and rubbed his fingers into it, briefly circling over her clit. She moaned, wanting more, but he pulled back as his brother returned.
One moved to each side and pulled up her knees. More oil dripped, right into her crack, and then she felt the gentle tug as a razor started to remove the hair of her bush. She’d never had a Brazilian, thought the whole idea of wax and beauticians doing something so personal was somewhat repugnant. But this was a whole different experience. She would be, as Damon said, totally nude before them, and the idea sent more butterflies through her stomach and juice into her slit.
It took a little time as the razor did its work, but Damon, and she was sure it was him as she went into his mind, kept to the pubic area and the inner thighs, not touching her lips until Kadar whispered to her, “Now for the fun bit.”
In her inner sanctum she could feel the men communicating but couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but she quickly lost interest in listening when their fingers opened her up and the razor went over the lips and then onto the inner edges. They worked slowly and methodically, taking it in turns to do one side each. When she was finally denuded, each ran a finger very gently over her slit. Kadar circled around her clit, gently teasing it out, as it hardened. Tingling electrical impulses vibrated through her.
“We’re going to untie you and turn you over,” said Damon, and she found herself on her stomach, this time hands together over her head and her legs tied apart but with more movement possible.
“We want to look at your very delicious ass,” said Kadar as warm oil dropped down her crack. Fingers pulled apart her butt cheeks and she felt again the pull of the razor before fingers massaged over her asshole. One finger dipped inside and she nearly cried out no, but before the word could form a wave of pleasure silenced her. She clamped on the finger and her hips began to rock.