Starlight Complete

by Astrid Cooper

  My name is Sharille-Samantha Lucas Ronsevaal, Sher-ean-fe’ha tu. Now, Forever. My love I gift to you. My heart I gift to you, My body I gift to you. My soul is yours.

  My name is Kuno-John Lucas, Ronsevaal, san-Duran, your husband. Now. Forever. All I am, I gift to you.

  Then gift me the seduction.

  It is forbidden.

  You did it before.

  I was desperate.

  I’m still desperate. Seduce me. Give me the Starlight Seduction.

  You want it?

  Oh yes!

  He brought every sex scent to the fore and exhaled over her. She took his breath and exhaled over him. Back and forth, they traded scent, bodies, thoughts, caresses.

  Their songs lasted until the dawn when first light swept over their joined bodies. Sam raised herself on her elbows and smiled down at John.

  “My wish didn’t come true, kit-cat,” she whispered, kissing him.

  “No?”

  “I wished for things to be back the way they were. What we have, now, is so much more. I don’t want to go back. The past is gone.”

  His mind-laughter caressed. I thought you said you’re not good with speeches?

  “When I’m inspired. And you do so inspire me.” She swept her tongue over his lips. “How long did I exist in that prison? You never told me.”

  “Six weeks.” He paused. “But it’s a lifetime ago, Sam. You’re no longer Samantha, but Sharille, the Woman of Flowers. I sense the changes in you.”

  “Jo, no!”

  “It’s a compliment. We each evolve every day of our lives. We are not stagnant creatures, no felinus ever is.”

  “How profound.”

  “You want me to turn philosopher? Here’s something else for you to meditate upon. Within you are layers and textures, and I’ll spend my life studying your every nuance.” He laughed. “But let me just explain this. You wondered about the time you existed in that prison. Dreamscape time isn’t the same as real space time. I’ve used it sometimes in the past during consultations. And speaking of which, I’m hanging up my sensualator’s shingle.”

  “But what if someone needs your help? I know you’re good at what you do.”

  He blushed. “There are others more gifted. Besides, I’m just a pearl farmer.”

  She smiled and stroked his cheek. “There’s nothing just about you, Kuno.”

  “Oh, really?” He grinned.

  “Yes, oh really! Let me prove it.”

  “If you insist.”

  He lifted and plunged, she held and flexed, their joining a seductive dance of thrust and parry.

  Sam saw stars. Her skin tingled. John increased his thrusts, biting the base of her neck. Sam felt rapture, saw the lights weaving around her. Their souls merged in convergence.

  Still John moved steadily into her, flexing, expanding, heating her from inside out. She climaxed, but he did not pause, burying himself into her again and again. She caught his scent, the feral cat, male musk, starlight and danger and deepest love…

  She sang for him, My name is Samantha and I exist for you. Only for you. Now. Forever.

  He sang for her, My name is Kuno and I exist for you. Only for you. Now. Forever.

  His climax was scalding, but still he was relentless. On and on he moved upon her, in her…inexorable, inexhaustible.

  There followed a languid warmth, sweet, like honey oozing through her body.

  He kissed her neck, his teeth grazing a pleasure point. Sam gasped, opened her eyes and saw her skin glowing gold-blue. The touch of starlight.

  John’s arms, his hands were also covered with pulsing, swirling designs. He moved in time with the throbbing. She matched the rhythm and the lights converged, elevating passion.

  She turned her head to the side and his cheek rubbed against hers. Their tongues met and parried as their bodies met and parried. The light-tattoos intensified, becoming webs linking them.

  Bodies enjoined, nerves racing, their minds touched. Slowly, John teased and she opened to his quest. Her spirit flowed out to him, as his reached out to her, like ethereal fingers. Merging. Becoming one. Mind. Body. Spirit. The touch, the gift of schahor.

  Peace descended, deepest pleasure, beyond words, beyond everything but the moment. The moment stretched to eternity.

  Her afternoon meditation over, Sam watched the dolphins swimming around the underwater dome. The sea was alive with their creaks and groans and whistles—their songs. Dimly, she caught the meaning of their songs, more through feelings, than following actual words. John could understand and sang back to them when they swam together. She knew a few words of dolphin, but their names eluded her. Cetacean names were complicated, denoting lineage that went back ten generations, each name building on the first.

  Today, the dolphins formed a circle facing each other and began to blow bubble rings, capturing their creations on the end of their snouts and twirling them around like girls with hula hoops.

  Sam laughed and tapped the glass, waving.

  Suddenly the creatures erupted. They dashed around and around, squealing, disappearing into the depths below the house, reappearing like silver torpedoes to breach the sea surface.

  A ponderous shape loomed out of the shadows beneath the reef, slowly revealing itself. A humpback whale.

  Gazing at her with its dark eyes, it flipped upside down, so that its fluke pierced the surface of the water. It began to sing, a deep varooom that ended in a high pitched note.

  The dolphins circled the dome faster and faster, the water reverberating with their songs and squealing, creaks and groans. And one word they repeated over and over—the dolphin whistle-creak-growl—their word for song.

  The whale began again, a sound like no other she had heard. The deep varooom was left behind, this new tune lilted, teased and it…

  Sam froze in shock. The tune, though brief was Harimal’s—the opening canzone to his opera. The whale’s gaze captured hers and it sang again. There was no mistaking the music.

  Instinctively, she grabbed the crystal pendant. Her palm burned with the starfire, while the gem vibrated and her mind pulsed.

  How could a whale sing Hari’s song, unless…?

  Oh Stars!

  Sam raced up the steps, stumbling in her haste and flew over the patio and without pausing, plunged into the sea and dove down.

  The whale’s eyes met hers. It turned slightly and sang again.

  She opened her mouth to respond and swallowed water. Panicking, she flailed, but strong arms around her dragged her up to the surface, to the gangway steps.

  She thrashed wildly. “No. No let me go. Listen! Harimal!”

  John’s arms tightened, his fingers intractable. Dragging her from the water, he straddled her body, as she fought to be free.

  Samantha! His mind soothed. Kitten, easy.

  She caught his horror, that she had gone mad with her fears, that he had somehow not reached a hidden place within her that had finally driven her to the abyss.

  “Kuno. Listen!” She sang the song.

  “Yes, I’ve heard it before. Hari’s—”

  “The whale was singing it, just now.”

  “It—what?”

  “It sang Hari’s song.”

  “I need to hear.”

  They plunged back into the water, listening, until lack of oxygen drove them topside.

  While they struggled to catch their breaths, their minds worked overtime.

  Sam, the chances of that… Impossible. They locked gazes.

  Unless…Harimal is alive.

  Oh feegling stars! John leapt out of the water and ran into the house. Sam raced after him in time to see him go to the security monitor and flick off every shield.

  “I’ve had the screens on max. for weeks, and if Hari’s been trying to get through, well, no way could he, so he used the whale to reach me. He’d know I’d listen.”

  “Is he dead and maybe his spirit is trying to reach us?”

  “Possible.” He paused, studyin
g her. “There’s a way to find out.”

  “Yes.”

  “We join in convergence and reach out.”

  “Right. Let’s go.”

  “Sam, there’s a risk. That sort of communication within convergence, we can lose ourselves and not return to the present. Our daughter…”

  “You know what you’re doing, Kuno. I trust you.” Sam put her hand over her stomach and felt the flare. “She agrees.”

  “Sam!”

  “You told me I was more felinus than human, so were those words just hollow ones to appease? I am felinus and I know the risks and accept them.” We must do this, husband-mine!

  “Come on, then.”

  Going to the glass bubble, John sat beneath the overhead crystal, his back resting against the crystal growing from the floor. Sam sat astride him, her legs and arms wrapped about him.

  Sam glanced over John’s shoulder and saw the whale and the dolphins forming a circle around the dome.

  John eased his body into her at the same time as their minds and spirits merged. He sang the felinus love song and Sam’s blood ignited. She returned the song, feeling John’s body tense in her, against her. They plunged into Desire and blazed to Passion in moments. Convergence beckoned and together they reached it, shattering in the starlight climax. Galaxies whirled and light peeled away, layer by layer…

  Harimalllllllll…Their merged voice probed outwards.

  Sam held Hari’s image in her mind, diverting all her energy, her thoughts to him as John called his brother over and over. No response, even as each call probed the ether deeper and deeper.

  Harimal. Sam sang his song to him. She imaged the two cards—Harimal-the-Emperor and The Woman of Flowers, overlapping, using them to focus her call. The writing around the borders glowed blue and then gold. Then scorching red.

  Minutes, agonizing minutes passed.

  Samantha? Took feegling time.

  John and she wept at the voice.

  Harimal!

  Kitten. Child. Safe. Both?

  Yes.

  Are you dead? Sam demanded.

  No. Laughter. Can’t kill a cat. Nine lives.

  Eight used. Prison.

  Sam’s cry pierced the connection. Starlord. Alive?

  Dead. Certain. Trust.

  Where? Brother?

  Long way. No fret. Try home. Soon.

  Harimal. Where?

  Safe. Call Circle.

  When?

  Time. Need. Listen. Sam. Okay?

  Understand. John’s mind-touch was intense.

  Love. Both.

  There was a flare of rainbow-hued light and they saw Harimal, a shadowy outline, but the eyes were unmistakable, the piercing blue. Hari!

  Minds merged and then the image shattered, splintering their union in a pain beyond words.

  When John and Sam regained consciousness still enjoined, they wept, their arms and legs locked around one another.

  Shuddering with exhaustion, with bone numbing cold, they staggered upstairs, and grabbed a hot chocolate drink from the dispenser. On the patio, they sat on the deck-chairs and drank, trying to regain their strength.

  Slowly, the sun and the drink warmed and Sam’s teeth stopped chattering.

  “But where is he?”

  John frowned. “A long way. Not anywhere.”

  Sam’s smile froze and she grasped John’s arms. “If Hari is alive, then the monster…”

  “Harimal said the starlord is dead, Sam. He wasn’t lying to protect you. I know. Mind-linked like that in convergence, you can’t lie.”

  “We have to tell Herrall.”

  “No,” John said. “My father’s grieved for Hari. It would be cruel to give him false hope. He has no kitten to soothe him. To share.”

  “Isn’t there anything we can do to help Hari? Something. Anything.” She flung herself to her feet and paced back and forth along the terrace.

  “For Hari—wherever he is, he’s not that unhappy.”

  Sam glanced at John. “You know how much he hurts, then?”

  “Of course. He tried to hide it from me, but I’m a clever cat. I sometimes held him when he wept, when he couldn’t speak his grief, his loneliness. As he did for me.”

  “The felinus gift.”

  John smiled, his eyes misting with tears.

  “But how are we going to get him home? And what’s that thing about calling a Circle? He means your…our Circle? Taren and the others?”

  “It’s a ritual.” He laughed. “Yeah, don’t roll your eyes like that Sam. It’s something experienced between clan brothers and sisters, and mates. We form a Circle of shared bodies and minds and in so doing, such power is opened, can be channeled. Hari is part of the Circle. Hari is going to use that power when he’s ready and get home.”

  “But where is he?”

  “Not sure.” John inclined his head. “He gave the whale his song, so he must be close, but he’s not!”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It doesn’t have to, Sam. Hari will call and we’ll answer. Your link to him is strong. When the time is right, he’ll touch you.” John smiled. “Now, I want you to sing me all those songs of his.”

  “Again?”

  “Mm, again.”

  “But aren’t you going to email the Circle and let them know? Prepare them?”

  He smiled enigmatically. “They know already.”

  Sam gaped.

  “Do you think they didn’t feel that convergence and the message from one of their own? Trust me, kitten, Taren’s firing up his ship even as we speak.”

  “Cats!”

  “Why thank you. Now, a song if you will.”

  Sam put the finishing touches to her makeup. She was late, but then she’d not be missed by the guests.

  John’s human friends had insisted on a celebration to mark the marriage and his return to Broome and to welcome Sam.

  Now, those human friends were getting acquainted with more shifters than they ever dreamed possible…

  With Taren and Alesiar, Kareena and Lenar appearing unannounced two mornings ago at the spaceport in Taren’s hunter ship, settling down on the tarmac as bold as brass—that had been the start of the kerfuffle.

  When the ship’s door had slid open and two draconis plunged out, talons extended and teeth snapping, humans ran screaming in all directions. Officials and locals were plunged into an unmitigated panic and for the first time in its existence, the spaceport was locked down.

  No draconis had ever been sighted by humans and how could anyone demand formal ID from three meter tall, scaled, fanged creatures, who might breathe fire at any moment? At very least!

  To compound matters, the ship had not filed flight plans and to bureaucrats such was inconceivable and unforgivable and the pencil-pushers at Cable Beach spaceport were sticklers for protocol. But the draconis had guarded the ship and allowed no customs officer within a tail’s sweep of the ship and after much scratching of heads and official paper waving, the bureaucrats had retired to consider options.

  They didn’t have many. But they prolonged their moment of power for as long as they could before calling in the cavalry—John and herself.

  Sam would have loved to been able to witness the arrival scene and when it was relayed to them, John and she had roared with laughter.

  Taren and Alesiar came in formal assassin attire, every knife they owned strapped to their bodies. Taren had refused a body scan, refused to remove one knife and with arms folded and black eyes flashing, no one dared approach him. Kareena, irrepressible in a gold jump suit and her purple hair in ringlets to her knees, most males in the area went to goo. Lenar, dressed in a red kilt and jerkin was living sex and more than one woman fainted when he gazed around the arrival lounge.

  Zeren and Aarn, Sam’s youthful bodyguards made up the party and they morphed to cats and chased four local girls around the foyer, until they were grabbed by the scruffs of the neck by the dragons and hauled unceremoniously back to the spaceship.<
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  John and Sam had received the urgent summons and dashed to the port using the jet ski.

  The scene which confronted them on arrival had shocked even John. Sam had tried very hard not to laugh before racing forward into the outstretched arms of her shifter friends.

  John had quickly soothed ruffled feathers—Avenor and human official—and on his personal assurances, the shifters passed through customs and were transported via the hover ferry to John’s home.

  Two days and nights of catching up, Felinus style, had ensued. Much hugging, kissing, purring and loving, with a few scratches and teeth marks for good measure. Little business and much pleasure. The Circle was complete.

  Zeren and Aarn were too young to be included in the Circle and as John explained, one day they would form their own.

  “Already done,” Lenar said.

  “But they’re only boys.”

  “Our age when we formed our Circle.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yep,” Lenar said.

  “Must be getting old, Jo.” Sam laughed as he flushed. He hated it when she called him Jo. She used it as often as she dared.

  The two youngsters had proven to be pawfuls. As cats, they had raced across every gangplank and launched themselves into the water, spending hours swimming with the dolphins and diving to chase the fish.

  “Better chasing fish than the girls on shore, Kuno,” Taren had said. “They’re feegling kittens, all hormones and no brain cells.”

  “Are all cat-boys so naughty?” Sam asked, staring down at the sleek shapes swimming in the water. One leapt back onto the walkway, morphed to youth, did a somersault and in mid-air changed back to cat, yowling as he hit the sea, spraying them all with water.

  “Felinus youths are notorious.”

  “Doesn’t lessen with age,” Kareena said. “Felinus males are irrepressible. And don’t any of you cat-boys dare to look smug!” She hissed for emphasis.

  Sam laughed. “Then perhaps it’s lucky that my first is a girl. I’m not sure I could handle any more cat-boys. Yet.”

  “Ah, “Kareena said, smiling. “You know about the child within you?”

  “I might be human, but that doesn’t mean I’m dumb.”

  Kareena flushed.

  Sam blushed.