Echo Prophecy

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  “Don’t,” I told Dominic as he again started to approach me. At only a few strides away, I could see something in his eyes that looked like sadness mixed with admiration, or maybe envy. I couldn’t believe it. Does he think I handled that well? Was that some instinctive Nejeret thing?

  The truth behind Marcus’s many claims that we weren’t human finally sunk in. In my recent identity crisis, I’d been asking the wrong question. I shouldn’t have been focused on the who, but on the what. What am I?

  Not human.

  Wrapping my wild emotions around me, I approached Marcus. The crowd parted for me obediently, each Nejeret head bowing as I passed. It had the feeling of ritual.

  Marcus still stood just outside the door to his tent, arms crossed and watching me. He hadn’t moved a muscle to rescue Sara.

  I stopped a few feet in front of him, watching him … waiting. His face was a thin mask of unconcern barely concealing some unidentifiable, intense emotion.

  “Back to your tents,” he called over my head to the crowd before reaching behind him to hold open the flap covering the entrance to his tent.

  I ducked under his arm and entered his temporary home. It was the first time I’d actually set foot in his tent. There was a small wooden desk, several folding chairs, and a few trunks set against the canvas wall. An electric lantern hanging at the apex of the ceiling was the only source of light. With a deep inhale, I assured myself that the interior didn’t smell like sex. What the hell is up with me and sniffing? I wondered remotely.

  Marcus followed close behind me. The temperature had been in the mid-nineties earlier that day, but it had dropped drastically when the sun went down a short while ago. It was Marcus’s heat that seeped into me now.

  “Satisfied?” he asked roughly.

  I took several steps away from him, toward the doorway to his “bedroom,” and peered over my shoulder. “Satisfied? I definitely wouldn’t describe myself as satisfied at the moment.”

  His chest rumbled, and his expression turned predatory.

  Not human, I reminded myself.

  “Would you like me to remedy that?” he asked quietly.

  Looking away, I stepped out of my sandals and let the warm sand beneath the canvas floor mold to my feet. “Tell me why you killed my siblings.”

  From the sound of Marcus’s exhale, he hadn’t moved. “I killed them because it was my job. I killed them because the majority of the Council decreed it and because they refused to forswear their bloodline and swear loyalty to the Council. I killed them because they followed Set blindly.”

  I faced him, surprised by his answer. I’d been under the mistaken impression that he’d hunted Set’s offspring, killing any and all he could get his hands on.

  “Ah … I see it in your eyes. You thought the worst. Did you think I killed them as babes in their cradles? Or maybe tore them from their mothers’ breasts? Or, perhaps I just killed the pregnant mothers? No. They were grown. They had a choice. They chose wrong.”

  As a silent, shameful tear slid down my cheek, I asked, “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth on the plane? I imagined such awful things about you.”

  He chuckled, but the sound held no amusement. “You thought the worst, and yet you were still willing to claim me as yours. You are unbelievable.”

  I shifted my feet and frowned. “Claim you as mine?” I remembered thinking something similar, but I had no clue where the urge had come from. Who claims another person?

  Shaking his head, Marcus said, “And you don’t even know what you did. I forget sometimes that you weren’t raised among us, that you don’t know our ways. But, it would seem that your instincts have a way of making up for your missing knowledge.” He hitched his head toward the direction of my confrontation with Sara. “What you just did—that was one of several types of claiming ceremonies. In the old ways, you just declared me yours.”

  “I did? But I didn’t mean to.”

  “Too late. It’s done.” He took a small step toward me, then another. “Do you know what comes next?”

  Swallowing, I shook my head.

  “Once the Nejeret, or Nejerette in this case, claims her intended, it’s up to the claimed to complete the ceremony by either rejecting or accepting the Nejerette,” he explained.

  Looking at his boots, I asked, “How would the claimed reject the Nejerette?”

  “By publicly vowing never to speak to her, touch her, or look upon her again. It’s the reason claiming is not very common.”

  My eyes flew up to his, searching his face for any hint of his intentions. Will he reject me? After what I’d thought of him, I feared it was a distinct possibility.

  “And how would the claimed accept the Nejerette?” I asked softly.

  A slow, wolfish smile spread across Marcus’s face, and his golden eyes darkened with desire.

  “Oh,” I breathed. My belly tightened, and my groin throbbed in rhythm with my suddenly speeding heartbeat.

  “Would the Nejerette like her claimed to accept?” Marcus took another small step, leaving only a few feet between us.

  Unable to look away from his eyes, I nodded. Short, quick breaths prevented me from speaking.

  “Tell me you want me to accept.” His deep voice, with its complex accent, curled around me, enticing, encouraging. “Tell me what you want.” Not “beg me to accept,” or even “ask me to accept.” He wanted me to tell him. He was giving me the control, setting me up as his equal.

  He took one last step, closing the distance between us.

  “I want you to accept,” I said, and miraculously, both my gaze and voice were steady.

  “Finally,” he growled, picking me up by the waist and setting me on the desk. Just like that, he took back control.

  By the time his lips touched mine, he was between my legs, grinding against me. I let out a throaty groan and grasped his firm backside, increasing the friction between us.

  Marcus kissed me like I was air and he’d been underwater for years. His jaw forced mine open, allowing his tongue entry to explore. I thought I’d experienced the glories of his mouth before, of his lips and tongue, but I’d been wrong.

  While he kissed me, his hands traveled over my white linen dress, from my hips to my waist, searing along my ribcage and breasts, until they reached the thin straps at my shoulders. One at a time I removed my hands from their hold on his rhythmically clenching glutes so he could slip the strips of fabric over my shoulders and down my arms.

  Only then did he break our kiss. As each part of me was revealed, he worshiped it like I was a goddess … his goddess … his she-falcon. First my breasts, then my rib cage, waist, and hips received his mouth’s devoted attention until, finally, he reached my lower abdomen.

  He began at my left hip, laying a line of feather-light kisses along the top of my pale-blue lace panties until he reached the other side. Lips still pressed against my oh-so-sensitive flesh, he looked up, locking our gazes. His eyes were black wells of desire, his pupils dilated completely. He looked high out of his mind. I felt high out of my mind and wondered if my eyes were as black as his. The heightened emotions he stirred within me—the jealousy and desire, and above all, something that could only be described as love, except love wasn’t strong enough, didn’t encompass the enormity of what I felt for him—they were addictive. I craved him and the emotions he stoked so desperately that I felt I might die if I didn’t get another, stronger fix. It felt unnatural and possibly unhealthy, and I didn’t care. I needed him … more of him … all of him, body, mind, and soul.

  Momentarily lifting my butt off the desk, Marcus inched my dress and underwear over the curve of my hips. He knelt, sliding the fabric down until he’d uncovered every part of me and a small pile of white linen and light blue lace lay on the floor at his knees.

  He was utterly transfixed by his examination of my body. Tenderly, greedily, he kissed my inner thighs, leaving a trail of pleasurable, electric fire as he moved higher. Brazen moans escaped my throat, growin
g desperate the closer he came to the junction between my thighs. I’d become so incredibly aroused during the process that as soon as his mouth closed over my most sensitive of places, as soon as his tongue caressed me, pleasure exploded in my core. An intense, electric sensation throbbed outward toward my nerve endings, making me gasp and groan as I shuddered.

  “Mmm …” Marcus rumbled, giving me a long, languorous lick.

  “Marcus,” I gasped, tugging at the shoulders of his shirt to bring him back up to my level. He stood, catching his breath when I found the hard length of him and rubbed it through his pants. “I need you inside me … please … now. Marcus …” I begged. He’d said I would beg, and he’d been right. Something was happening inside of me, something wild and terrifying, and I seriously feared for my sanity—and possibly for my life—if I didn’t join with him immediately.

  “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined hearing you say those words,” he said, stepping back to pull his shirt over his head.

  Oh. My. God. His pants were suddenly on the ground and he was absolutely, wonderfully naked. My eyes feasted on his pristine masculinity. The lines of his muscles all flowed together in a pattern that screamed of savagery, strength, and sex.

  I wasn’t allowed to stare for long. He resumed his position between my legs, rubbing himself against me and kissing me deeply. “What do you want?” he asked against my mouth.

  “You,” I breathed.

  “Where?”

  “Inside me,” I said. My pulse was erratic, my need for him all-encompassing. To continue living, to continue breathing, I needed to be one with him. It was the only thing that mattered.

  With one hand between my shoulder blades and the other pressed against my lower back, he lifted me off the desk and sank himself into my core.

  “Marcus!” I exclaimed. Finally he was inside me, joined with me, where he belonged. I’d been aching for him so intensely that it both satiated and stoked an infinite hunger—feasting on Marcus only made me want more … need more.

  Still joined, he lowered me to the ground until my back touched canvas. Watching my face with unrivaled intensity, he slowly moved within me. His eyes scoured my features like he was memorizing me, preparing to immortalize my every expression in stone. He continued the achingly slow pace until I made a noise of frustration—a groan mixed with a growl. I wanted more. I needed more.

  “Ah … that’s what I was waiting for,” he said roughly and brushed his lips against mine. He pulled away just in time to hold my eyes for his first, powerful thrust. I nearly screamed.

  Moving with the precision of a calligrapher and the focus of hunter stalking prey, Marcus was the embodiment of raw, unbridled sexuality. His intensity only increased, and he became the center of my world … he became my world. Nothing existed outside of him and the way he felt … tasted … sounded. With my enhanced Nejerette senses, I experienced sensations unlike anything I’d ever felt. But, there was something else … something more … something different.

  As I cried out and dug my nails into his back, climaxing unexpectedly, Marcus roared above me, his whole body tensing with the strength of his own release. I thought he was finished. I was so wonderfully wrong.

  Flipping me over onto hands and knees, Marcus reentered me. Strong and solid, his arms wrapped around me, one at my middle and the other reaching higher so he could wrap a gentle hand around my neck. He held me against him, kissing my shoulder and the side of my neck as he resumed his relentless thrusting.

  Abruptly, he reached a second, more intense crescendo, driving into me as deeply as possible and holding me against him in a crushing embrace. He touched me with his fingers as he filled me, dragging me with him over the edge and into an abyss of white-hot pleasure.

  I gasped, oblivious to everything but him. “Marcus! Oh God, Marcus!” Even after the spasms subsided, my pulse throbbed under the hand he still held against my pubic bone. I let out a shaky breath. Is it possible to die from too much pleasure?

  “Fuck, woman …” Marcus groaned.

  “Hmmm … mmm …” I mumbled lazily.

  ***

  Hours later, I was straddling his hips as he lay on his cot. He was once again hard and sheathed inside me, but we remained still. We both enjoyed the sensation of being joined, motionless, like we were one being. Elbows on his chest, I was resting my chin on my hands and watching him as he studied me with an unfathomable expression.

  “Is it always like this?” I asked.

  He traced my lips with his thumb before sliding both of his hands down my body, grazing over my breasts, belly, and hips. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve never felt anything like this … I don’t think I could have felt anything like this before,” I explained. “When two Nejerets are together, is it always so intense?”

  Inhaling deeply, he grasped my hips and ground his pubic bone against mine, pushing himself deeper within me. An involuntary groan escaped from my throat, and he smiled lazily. I loved when he smiled like that. It seemed to temporarily wash away all the pain and inhumanity that had built up over his thousands of years.

  “No,” he said. “Definitely not.”

  “But how do you—” I let the words die unspoken at his wary expression. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “No, you don’t,” he agreed. His voice had deepened, grown rougher, and I felt him throb inside me. After another slow grind and my answering moan, he said, “Whatever genetic mutation enabled us to enter the At also altered us significantly from humans in other ways. Regeneration, sensory enhancement … you know about those changes. But there are other, more subtle differences. Some of our people have been researching a pheromone we release when we’re particularly enamored with someone. We seem to have specific receptors that become, for lack of a better word, addicted to a specific Nejeret or Nejerette’s pheromone. We call it ‘bonding.’”

  Nuin’s prophecy mentioned bonding—Heru will make her his she-falcon and she will bind herself to him. Was it referring to an actual, physiological phenomenon? I’d thought it was figurative, but I’d been wrong about so many other things, it was feasible that I was wrong about that as well.

  Marcus’s expression filled with amazement as he continued, “I didn’t expect it to be so intense, but it’s the only explanation for …” He closed his eyes momentarily and took a deep, blissful breath. “It’s the only explanation for this.” His fingers dug into the soft swell of my hips as he pushed deeper into me once again.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed, trembling. I sat up and ran my hands over his tensed abdomen. “So you’re not usually such a repeat offender?” I teased, shifting my hips in a slow, circular motion. He’d already reached completion three times in the past few hours—a feat I hadn’t known was possible for a man in a single night, at least, not a human man. But human was something Marcus had never truly been.

  Groaning, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back as I continued to move on top of him, so incredibly slowly. He was practically panting, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the enraptured expression on his face. “No, Lex … I’m not. At least … not with … quite so … many … repeats.”

  Convulsively, his hands clenched on my hips, and his breathing turned erratic. He made a guttural noise and raised his head, his blackened-gold irises locking onto their red-brown counterparts. I could feel his abs flexing rhythmically under my hands.

  “Lex,” he whispered, letting his head fall back. “Lex …”

  I leaned down and kissed the shallow valley between his pectorals, darting out my tongue to taste his damp, salty skin. When I raised my eyes, I found him watching me. Without breaking eye contact, I again touched my lips to his skin and whispered a single word. “Mine.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sex & Blood

  “Do you think they know?” I asked, peeking through the door of Marcus’s tent. The sun had just risen, bringing our sprawling canvas town to life. I should have been exhausted from sleepin
g only a few hours, but I wasn’t. I was exhilarated.

  Chuckling, Marcus wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my neck. “Little Ivanov … they heard.” I groaned, and Marcus’s chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh. His breath tickled my skin as he inhaled and exhaled deeply. “We need to shower—you smell like you just had marathon sex.”

  “Funny … I wonder if that’s because I just had marathon sex.” I leaned against him, already wanting him again. The hyperaware, hypersensitive bonding thing would take some getting used to—everywhere he touched me felt infinitely more sensitive than it had the previous day, and I couldn’t resist touching him at every possible opportunity.

  “It just may be,” he said, nibbling the curve between my shoulder and neck. “But I don’t want anyone else smelling you like this.” He inhaled again. “Mmm … this is mine.”

  “There’s a slight problem, then,” I told him.

  “Hmm?” His attentions to my neck continued, giving me goose bumps.

  “We have to pass pretty much everyone on the way to the showers, and they all have noses, so …”

  He smiled against my skin before letting me go and poking his head out of the tent to bark some orders to my guards. Minutes later, we stepped out into the bright light of the new day; the camp appeared empty aside from my guards, who were standing about ten tents away. Marcus had cleared us a path.

  We stopped by my neighboring tent so I could grab some clean clothes and toiletries, and then we headed to the shower trailer beyond the west edge of camp. We showered together in the large, handicapped stall, washing each other liberally. We were nearly finished when Marcus slipped his hand between my legs.

  “Marcus! You’re defeating the purpose,” I gasped as his fingers found my most sensitive place.

  “Apologies, Little Ivanov, but seeing you like this—” He removed his hand, and within seconds, had my back against the wall, my legs wrapped around his hips. “—I … just … can’t … resist.”