Wasteland: The Wanderer

by Crystal Jordan

  “Yes,” Kadira gasped. Dark ecstasy shimmered through her when she felt Ezra’s gaze on her. She turned her head to see him stroking his cock while his gaze remained fixed on them. Biting her lips on a groan as Sahar suckled her with delicate skill, Kadira beckoned the redhead forward. “Sahar’s not enjoying this as much as she could be.”

  Golden eyes met hers, a question there that she smiled in answer to. She held out her hand, and he took it, pressing his lips to her fingers. With his other hand, he rubbed his cock up and down Sahar’s slit, and then stabbed his cock into the blond woman’s pussy. She whimpered, the vibration moving against Kadira’s clit, who gasped in response.

  Ezra drove his hand into her hair, hauling her forward so he could kiss her over Sahar’s arching back. The woman’s tongue snaked out, flicking over Kadira’s clit so swiftly it left her screaming in Ezra’s mouth. He drove his hips forward to spank loudly against Sahar’s soft ass, his talented lips molding to Kadira’s. Her sex fisted tight around Gamal’s cock, and with his next rough thrust, he sent her flying out of control. Sahar’s tongue and Ezra’s mouth and Gamal’s cock, working her at different speeds that spun her into beautiful, heart-pounding chaos. She came hard, light bursting in front of her eyes, caught between three lovers that pleasured her and pleasured themselves. Sahar bit down on Kadira’s clitoris as she reached orgasm, moaning with each jolting push of Ezra’s thick cock inside her pussy. Before she’d even finished coming, Ezra jerked out of her body. “I want Kadira next.”

  Rolling the blond onto her back, he picked up the discarded phallus and slid it home into her wet, gaping pussy. He wrapped her hand around it, showing her the knob that controlled its vibrations. Her lips parted in a wanton smile. “Ezra, I want one of these to take with me after Rites.”

  “You’ll have one.” He laughed and leaned down to suckle her nipples until she shuddered and squirmed. When he left her to toy with herself while she watched them, she bit her lower lip and worked herself on the quaking phallus.

  “This is going to be fun, fucking your ass, and feeling his cock while he takes your tight pussy,” Gamal’s voice gritted in Kadira’s ear, his breath an excited rush. “And my Sahar’s eyes on me.” He groaned, slipped out of her sex to press his cock into her anus, and her own moisture and the oil Ezra had put there made the glide an exquisite pain.

  Red hair glinted in the light from his pharos while he moved toward her. Pulling her legs even farther apart, he nudged the head of his cock against her wet entrance. The press of his thick sex made her moan. Both men were large, and they stretched her past bearing. She arched between them, but it only worked her on their cocks as one filled her and the other retreated.

  They set a swift rhythm for her, their movements in perfect tandem. Gamal’s hands gripped her hips, and her head rested in the crook of his shoulder, which bowed her back just enough to let Ezra suck one of her nipples into his mouth. He worried the tight crest with his teeth. A sharp cry burst out of her as one too many sensations piled like an avalanche on top of her. She reared up, but the two men just pinned her between them with their heavier muscles. Clutching at Ezra, she held on for dear life while the hair on his chest rubbed against her over-stimulated nipples. She slid her hands down his flexing back, grabbing the hard globes of his ass to pull him closer.

  “Oooh, yes. Touch him, Kadira. Fuck her, Gamal.” Sahar writhed on the pelts, gasping for breath as her gaze burned into their flesh. “This is the most erotic thing I’ve ever…”

  Grinning at the blonde’s enthusiasm, Kadira parted Ezra’s buttocks and thrust her fingers into his anus. She pressed inward until she found the spot that she knew drove him to madness. His hips rammed harder, deeper, and he rotated his pelvis against her swollen clit. Gamal moved with them, letting Ezra’s thrusts shove her backward to impale her ass more fully on his cock. It was too much. Fulfillment exploded through her body, and every muscle locked tight around the men’s cocks. A shriek wrenched up from inside her as she bowed in their arms. Orgasm dragged her under, pulsing hot pleasure through her as both men groaned and bucked against her. First Gamal, then Ezra. Their shudders shook through her, and she let her fingers slip from Ezra’s anus while his seed flooded her clenching sex. Sahar sobbed and stuffed her pussy full of the vibrating toy, her heels bracing on the furs and her hips lifting high as she came with them.

  Ezra caught Kadira close when she crumpled against him, his arms cradling her to his chest. He kissed her sweaty temple. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” More than all right. She was as close to perfection as she’d ever been. Ezra held her, and two other lovers beckoned to both of them. She wrapped her arms around him as emotions clogged her throat. Something bigger and more terrifying than happiness swamped her, and she didn’t know what to say or how to say it, so she lifted her mouth for his sweet kisses, and he gave her everything she wanted.

  And it was perfect.

  Hours later, Kadira’s muscles burned with exhaustion. Her body had been well used in every imaginable position and combination, Gamal proving nearly as creative as Ezra. The younger warrior scooped a sleeping Sahar into his arms and nodded a farewell to Ezra, then he smiled at Kadira. “Will we see you in the morning, shaman? For our bond marks?”

  “Yes.” She yawned as the two disappeared through the tent flap. Ezra collapsed onto the pallet, a tired groan escaping as he rolled onto his back. Kneeling beside him, she pressed her palms to his chest. “All right. We’re alone, so now you can talk to me. Why did you do it?”

  “Because you wanted it. Because I meant what I said—I can cope with your desire to experiment if I am involved, but only then.” Her heart squeezed at the sincerity on his face. He stroked a single fingertip down her cheek. “It was a gift. For your pleasure.”

  She chuckled and flopped onto the furs, then winced and lifted herself as something dug into her ribs. His vibrating phallus. She held it up and grinned. “You do give the very best gifts, Ezra.”

  He chuckled, snagged the toy from her hand and tossed it on a nearby table.

  “Thank you. That was just what I needed.” She kissed his chest. “I don’t want to replace you.” The way his mother had sought to replace his father. No. Never that. There could be no replacing a man like Ezra. “But I don’t mind…sharing you. Occasionally.” Or she wouldn’t mind if they had more than a week left to call their own, but suddenly she felt selfish. She didn’t want to share him again during their arrangement. She wanted every night and all his attention for herself.

  He raised her hand to his mouth, brushing his lips over the tips of her fingers. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He grinned, his golden eyes sleepy. “I know I did.”

  “Good.” She sighed, letting some relief trickle through her that he seemed at peace with everything they’d done. “No bad moments?”

  “With you? Never.” His gaze unfocused, and his lashes made crescents on his cheekbones as his eyes slid shut. After a few moments, his breathing leveled out into deep slumber. She shook her head. Let a breathy laugh escape.

  Such a remarkable man. Even if they weren’t bonded like his parents had been, he’d still confronted something that he feared, just for her. What she wanted was more important to him than what troubled him. It took strength of character to do something like that, especially when he didn’t have to. No one expected it of him—it wasn’t a public gesture as a chieftain, but a private one for her. Even Gamal and Sahar would never know what it meant to him to invite them into his bed, or what it meant to her that he had done so. Was it any wonder why she loved him?

  The breath seized in her lungs, and dread froze her down to the very marrow of her bones. No. No, that couldn’t be. She closed her eyes and willed it not to be. Caring, respect, amazing sex, even bonding was acceptable, but love? Not that. Love made you weak, ate you up inside and made you scream and scream like a trapped and dying animal. Her belly heaved as memories she’d buried so many times she’d lost count resurfaced to mock her sense o
f security and control. Curling away from Ezra, she wrapped her arms around herself, as if she could ward off all the feelings that lived inside of her.

  She loved him.

  It was her worst nightmare, and that was the last thought she had before sleep claimed her, dragging her into blood-soaked dreams.

  Ezra jerked from a deep slumber at the sound of her ragged moan. Something was wrong. He had his dagger in his hand before he was fully alert. Chills broke down his spine as he searched the tent for a threat and found none. He looked down at Kadira and realized she still slept. Sweat coated her skin, and she thrashed on the furs. He tossed aside the blade and caught her swinging fist as she fought imaginary foes.

  “No.” A wretched sob erupted from her lips, and she twisted to escape his imprisoning grip. “No!”

  Shaking her shoulders to wake her, he leaned close to her face. “Kadira. Kadira, wake up. It’s just a dream, beloved. Wake up, now.”

  She bolted upright, scrambling backwards. Her chest heaving with every breath, she snatched a dagger from the piles of clothing strewn across the floor, and rounded on him with it.

  “Don’t touch me,” she hissed, her voice dropping to a low, ominous snarl. “You do not have my permission to touch me.”

  “I’m not touching you.” He held up his hands for her to see. Unarmed. In fact, it was his knife she wielded. He rose to his feet, his movements unhurried and unthreatening. “I would never touch you without your permission. You know this.”

  Horror tripped through him as her words, her actions, the terror lurking behind her dark eyes, seeped into his conscious.

  “Someone…violated you.” The thought of his proud, brave, beautiful Kadira being forced in such a way made his stomach revolt and bile burn the back of his throat. Murderous rage ripped through him, and his fists clenched at his sides. He would hunt the bastard down and kill him with his bare hands. “Who? Who hurt you? Give me his name.”

  Her throat worked, and she shook her head. Her ebony locks whipped around her pale face, her pupils pinpoints of shock as her grip whitened on the dagger’s hilt. “It wasn’t… It wasn’t me.”

  A shiver went through her, goose bumps roughing her bare skin, and he took a step toward her, but she stumbled back. He swallowed, wanting to pull her into his arms and protect her, but he couldn’t. “Who was it?”

  She swayed where she stood, and a moment of agonizing clarity shone in her gaze as it met his. “My parents.”

  “Tell me.” His voice emerged a harsh rasp, and he was uncertain he wanted her to tell him anything.

  “I… We…” She swallowed, her eyes staring into the distance as she looked at something that wasn’t in the tent with them. Memories. Her past. “It was a bad expedition across the Wasteland. We’d had sandstorms, broken wheels, lost one of the horses. A few of my uncles had been injured and couldn’t help keep the caravan moving. I was eight and small for my age, but even I was out in the winds trying to get us going. We were running out of water. It was…bad.” She blinked, another shiver quaking through her. “They hit us so fast, I still can’t remember when they…they were just there.”

  “Who was?” He wanted to stop her, wanted to tell her it was over and it couldn’t hurt her anymore, but it wouldn’t be true. It had hurt her, it still hurt her, and she needed to excise the wound.

  “The road pirates.” A harsh sound poured between her clenched teeth. “They killed my uncles, and made my father and me watch while they raped my mother. All of them. Again and again while she cried and reached for him and told him she loved him.” She gagged on a breath, her shoulders bowing. “Then they raped my father, held him down, forced him. He never made a sound until…”

  “Until what?” Horror curdled in Ezra’s gut.

  “They tied him to a pole and…roasted him over a fire.” The hand with the knife pressed flat to her belly, and he watched her stomach heave. It was all he could do not to vomit himself. “He screamed for hours. The sound wasn’t even…human. I didn’t know a person could make such a noise.” Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the woven rug. “Then they ate him, feasted on his flesh and laughed and danced around the fire and drank the moonshine we’d brought with us to trade in the city.” A painful, rasping laugh escaped her. “They were still busy raping my mother when the Badawi warriors overtook our caravan, and slaughtered them all.”

  He knelt beside her, too many realizations swirling through his mind. “They saved you. You and your mother.” If they hadn’t, Ezra might never have known her, and the thought was so alien, it didn’t even register in his mind. He couldn’t even recognize a life without her.

  Kadira shook her head, then nodded, then shook it again. “She killed herself three months later…walked off the side of a mountain rather than birth the evil they had planted in her womb.”

  “El and Ela,” he breathed, sickened once more by what she’d endured.

  “Yes.” A long pause echoed in the silence, then she dipped her chin in a sharp nod. “She is with my father now. Where she belongs. Where she would wish to be.”

  “Did they touch you?” He had to ask, had to know, and braced himself for an answer he didn’t want.

  “No.” She ran a weary hand down her face. “I was too small to be of interest to them, especially when they had my parents to…play with.”

  There it was. The final piece of the puzzle, the reason Kadira was Kadira. Mystery solved. A part of him wished he didn’t know the truth, and another part was humbled that she had told him. He doubted she had ever spoken of it to anyone, and only those who had rescued her knew what had happened to her family, how she had come to be among the Wanderers.

  “Your parents and uncles… What were their names?”

  She shook her head, pushing slowly to her feet. “Traders do not speak the names of the dead. To do so is to call them back from their final rest. It is forbidden.”

  He narrowed his eyes, tilting his head as he considered her. “Kadira is a Wanderer name.”

  “Yes. I took the name when I was adopted by the Badawi.” Her expression flattened, and she refused to meet his gaze. “The trader’s daughter died that day.”

  “And you will not speak her name?”

  “I do not wish to call her back.” She lifted her chin in that stubborn way of hers. “I am a Wanderer now.”

  Ah, his poor Kadira. She’d put aside the helpless child, too weak to save her family, and taken on the mantle of her saviors, become a strong Wanderer. He ached for her loss, for her suffering, for the confused child she’d been. Because he understood the desire to cut away the ugliness of the past, he questioned her no further. She’d been through enough.

  Rising to his feet, he approached her, his movements still slow and unthreatening. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, and she didn’t protest when he removed his dagger and dropped it to the floor. Then he drew her into his arms, folding her tight against his chest. Her body stiffened, her breathing uneven. A great shudder passed through her slender form before she relaxed against him. One rough, ragged sob escaped her, the only sound of her great grief, and it made his heart literally stop. Moisture stung his eyes, but he held her closer while she trembled.

  “I’m all right.” She tried to pull away, but he cradled her closer.

  “Of course you are.” He stroked his fingers through her long hair, kissing her cheek, her temple, her forehead. Anywhere he could reach. He held her for a long, long time, until her breathing leveled out and she grew pliant in his embrace. Rocking her gently, he rested his chin on the top of her head. “I just enjoy having you in my arms. You must have realized this by now.”

  A soft laugh slid out of her. “I noticed.”

  “Ah, such an intelligent woman. I have a deep weakness for intelligent women.”

  She didn’t respond to that, remained quiet. Then she whimpered, the sound quickly cut off, but she buried her face in his chest. “I can still hear the sounds of their screaming. It haunts my dreams. It always
will.”

  “No. No, you must not remember them that way.” How often did she have such nightmares? Who comforted her in the night? He almost snorted. No one. She wouldn’t allow it. He closed his eyes, more grateful than he could say that he was here for her this time. He groped for words that might comfort her in the future, when he could not. Pain knifed through him at the thought, but he pushed it away. Kadira was more important. “Think of how they lived, not how they died. The horror is natural, such evil cannot help but scar us as would any great battle we survive, but it is only a moment in time. Think of the other moments.”

  “They were good people. Honorable.” She quivered once. “They loved each other and they loved me and the road pirates used that love to torture them.” Her voice rose higher toward the end, and he could hear the tears she wouldn’t shed.

  “Think of how they were honorable, not of how horribly things went.” He squeezed her harder. “I have no doubt they were very good people. They made you, did they not?”

  She huffed out a breath, her lips moving against his skin. “I am not that good.”

  “You are.” He leaned back to meet her eyes, let all of his admiration for her show. She shook her head, doubt in her eyes, and he ached for that too. “A brave warrior, a blessed shaman. You look at yourself and you see what you are not. Nothing you do, no matter how hard you try, will erase that you were not born of a Wanderer clan.”

  “I know that.”

  “Yes, but you do not know that you are wonderful just as you are. Stop battering yourself into the ground for what you can never be, and respect what you are. You are a strong and gifted woman who has earned the respect of every clansman I have ever heard speak of you. That is difficult to achieve for anyone, regardless of their bloodlines. You are the one who sees you as less than a Wanderer, not me, and not the rest of the clans. They would never have allowed you to train as a shaman otherwise.” He cradled her face between his palms, compelling her to listen to him. “For once, see yourself as I do, someone who has nothing left to prove to anyone. Someone who is capable and whole just as she is. Someone who deserves every good thing, every blessing, everything she could ever want.” He stroked a thumb over her cheekbone. “Because you do.”