Dominance Fury

by Dominance Fury (lit)

  Leaning back against the rock wall, Sydney sighed. "Their brand of humor is starting to get old."

  Alea harrumphed without agreeing or disagreeing. "It is what it is."

  Both women fell silent for a time, each with their own thoughts. For Sydney, it was a comfort to now know that she wasn't alone in this alien world, that there was another Earthling around. It was good to have someone to relate to, who could relate to her and this plight. Even if they were from two different times, she felt Alea was still someone she could trust. Speaking of which…

  "So why don't you trust Bligh?" Sydney asked.

  "She's part of the Tertian regiment, sworn by duty. She didn't grow up here, and has had a very hard life. I'm suspicious that instead of celebrating the Triconjugal hunt, she'll just lead the men to us and then…" Alea scanned the area. "We should be safe here for awhile."

  Curious about the renewed angst she saw on Alea's face earlier, Sydney sat up and studied her expression further, recalling something Bligh had said. "What did she mean that this was no ordinary hunt?"

  "Uh…" Alea hesitated. "Once they've linked…are you familiar at all with the Trigon Rituals?"

  "What Calem and Arjim didn't tell me I've pretty much figured out on my own."

  "During the marriage hunts, the brethren choose their prowlers. They are able to link minds to collectively be at an advantage to find and hunt the Tina."

  "Okay, and?" Sydney had a general idea about some of that.

  "They're going to use the link to find you more quickly."

  "Isn't that the point?" Sydney couldn't suppress her grin. She was being hunted by two aliens who intended to wed and mate with her, two very sexy aliens that all of her life she'd been made to believe were fantasies. She sighed, her mind taking momentary delight in the thought, though when considering everything that had occurred it would seem more logical for her to be freaking right the hell out about it all!

  "It is the point," Alea continued. "But they have no intention of mating with you."

  "They don't?" Should Sydney tell her they'd already copulated during their mental link to her? After quickly thinking it over, she chose to keep that a secret for the time being. "Then what is it they intend to do?"

  "They intend to use their own sacred rituals to capture and arrest you." Alea told her. "What irks me is not only is it a betrayal to ancient customs but from what I understand they also linked to a few Esotarian Trigon brethren and are using them as Prowlers as well. It's just damn amoral and sacrilegious."

  "What?" Sydney was a little stunned and a lot hurt by what she was hearing. "Why are they doing this?"

  "You're a criminal."

  "I'm a…" Confusion set. Nothing she wasn't already used to where Calem and Arjim were concerned, but this new tidbit of information was a little disconcerting. "What did I do?"

  "Well I don't think you're a criminal," Alea reiterated. "But you broke some serious security laws by landing here without first being cleared on Angard."

  "On what?"

  "The space station."

  "Ah, I see." Sydney frowned at first and then became instantly irate. "But I couldn't help that!" Her voice echoed in angry trails bouncing off of the cavern walls.

  "I know that, and my Sh'em know that, but the Allegiance officials don't." The crease in Alea's worried brow deepened. "And if they catch you and put you on trial you could be…"

  Sydney stared at her wide-eyed, waiting for her to continue. When she didn't Sydney yelled. "Well don't stop now, Alea. You're on a roll!"

  Again her voice echoed off of the cave walls, and Alea winced, her worried frown deepening further. Now Sydney was beginning to become unglued, and oh god her heart was breaking. She thought Calem and Arjim loved her. She thought…what did she think? Why the snapping hell had they mated with her in the stupid transdelta linking thing then? Was it to get their rocks off, their jollies, their fucking piece before turning her in? Okay, now she was really starting to freak! "Tell me Alea, damn it!"

  Alea drew a long breath her shoulders tensing. When she exhaled her shoulders slumped. Her lips tightened and then she answered. "If they find you guilty…"

  "What? What!" Sydney rubbed her temple in frustration. "Just tell me."

  "They might execute you."

  ?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jardia peered through the foliage relieved she'd finally located the divinity. Gehu a Mahatma--Great divinities! Those Sh'emati strangers were so intent on capturing her, but she would never allow the savages to mate with her spirit goddess! They needed to keep her virginity intact else the She'amatina would never be blessed as it was promised in the prophecies, with emancipation from the transdelta linking forced upon them by those filthy, violent Sh'emati. And who was that woman that came barreling into their campsite like a furious demon high on zipping leaves? Perhaps she too was a divinity come to claim the spirit bird's hatchling because Jardia had failed in her task. Raising her talon arc, Jardia prepared to cut through the brush, prepared to retake her charge, but a hand cuffed the wrist of her striking arm. Another swept around her body shackling her to the chest of the captor who now stood behind her.

  "It is good to see you again, Jardia." Lips whispered against the lobe of her ear, speaking

  to her in the ancient Tertian language.

  "You!" Jardia was instantly irked. She knew that voice. "How dare you seek me out after

  all of these phases, at a time such as this."

  "At a time such as what, She'ami?"

  "When deliverance is upon us! The disintegration of the Sh'emati's ability to link to control us, to destroy their ability to brainwash us into the mating."

  "Is this what you believe?" Jer shook his head. "I would think your wisdom to be far superior than to misinterpret this fable of old."

  "It is not a fable, Pontiff." Jardia returned, obstinacy stressing her voice. "The appearance of the skybird is augured in the prophecies."

  She tried to pull free of him, but his grip tightened.

  "It is augmented in the prophecies, She'ami, fallacy built upon fallacy."

  "You fear the liberation of Trigon tradition, do you not, Pontiff." Jardia flashed a sly grin. "For such a thing would force you to surrender what lingers with futility in your own mind's wicked desire."

  "No liberation transcends these lands, Jardia." Jer turned to face her, his voice low, almost menacing. "Your interference breaks with Trigon tradition."

  "I am rescuing the virgin offspring!" she protested.

  "It is not your place to rescue her, Jardia," he warned. "She is the Tina of Calem and Arjim. The hunt can only be engaged in by those who are mated."

  "Your reminder is putrid!" Jardia growled as old, hated memories surfaced. "You pour brine in my wounds!"

  "Wounds you let not heal, reshena…little princess."

  The pain stabbed her, but Jardia refused to heed the truth in his words, instead allowing it to peak her anger. "What do you know of wounds when you only know how to inflict them?"

  She felt his body stiffen, and he released her. Jardia whirled around, while lifting her talon to strike. Silver rimmed irises met silver rimmed irises and sparks of passion passed between them. Jardia gasped. Now face to face with him, seeing him for the first time in more than fifteen phases, her determination to ignore her heart faltered. Though he'd aged, the phases had been kind to him. He was as handsome as ever. Yet, there was angst in his expression that reflected her own torment. She ignored it, preferring instead to concentrate on the bitterness she'd thrived on since the dawning they both lost all.

  "The wounds you self-inflict are far worse and dwell with even greater devastation than any I've ever felt within myself," he said to her. "Finding closure in your heart with what cannot be changed will be the only thing that brings you solitude, She'ami."

  "Don't call me that," Jardia growled through gritted teeth as she paced in a slow arc coming to stand behind him. She dared not let herself look upon his handsome face
overlong, dared not let the false sincerity in his eyes woo her forgiveness. "The Divinity must remain a virgin. It is the word of the ancient prophets."

  "Ka! Divinities be damned."

  "Blasphemous!" Jardia returned. "You, Jer! You claim to be of a holy Tribunal and yet…"

  The Pontiff turned to face her. "You know full well a spirit bird no more coughed her up than it did you or me, woman. You create a fallacy to suite your own trepidation and grief."

  "But the Divinities…"

  "Ka! The woman was Divinity sent, uyo." Jer stared at her coldly. "But not for the purpose you believe, Jardia. She is to be mated."

  "Over my dead body!" Jardia lowered her talon arc and poked the point of it at Jer's chest.

  Jer's gaze dropped and he fingered the crudely honed blade as if admiring it. A sullen smile appeared briefly on his lips, a flash of aggrieved emotion, but it vanished quickly. "Your interference with the Trigon Rituals is ill-timed, Jardia."

  "What do you insinuate?" Incensed, Jardia pushed the point of her weapon harder into the Pontiff's chest.

  "No cruel reminders." Jer wrapped his palm around the shaft of the talon just below the blade and moved it aside. "But it was almost over your dead body once, so many phases ago on this very dawning, reshena."

  "I am no longer little, Jer." She commented.

  "I can see that." He crooked a finger beneath her chin, studied her face, and then smiled tenderly when she didn't pull away. "But a princess all the same."

  His thumb skimmed over her lips and they parted. She released a slow, quivering breath, arousal stirring, reacting to his gentle stroke. "Your bitterness of what was meant that never came to be cannot be the driving force of your hate for this tripling Jardia. Let your heart find redemption."

  Her heart…her heart…Oh woe…oh woe…

  Jardia searched the Pontiff's face, his eyes. She lowered her gaze to watch his chest rise and fall with every breath. She remembered how he'd touched her, how he'd… Ayn! Jardia stiffened. Ayn, never! He would never be that to her again. She forced her heart to harden and she snarled at him. "It is my obligation to protect the divinity bird's offspring, a duty to the She'amatina!"

  "Your duty is with self-preservation and spite." Jer lowered his hand slowly and gave her a sullen look. "I too carry the burden of guilt and blame."

  "I live with no such thing, Pontiff…" She emphasized the sanctified title as if it were bitter on her tongue.

  Jer pulled the hood over his head allowing it to drape over his face. He began to back away from her. "I will be watching you, evala'luso. I am always watching you."

  Jardia's eyes closed. The duality in the words she was about to say were well understood before she even spoke them. "And I will run… always I will run."

  "I am counting on it," Jer answered, his voice carrying to her like a ghostly whisper on a distant breeze. "I am counting on it."

  * * * *

  "Oh this is wonderful." Sydney tipped her head back allowing the taw bubbles from the falls to cascade through her hair. "It feels like I haven't had a good bath in weeks and weeks."

  The effervescent property of the taw that swirled around her nude body was amazingly soothing, or at least it would be under other circumstances. Outwardly, she was trying to remain calm. Inwardly, after what Alea revealed about how her beloved Calem and Arjim were using the hunt, she was fuming. How dare they play with her body, tempt her, lure her, use their life-long friendship, make love to her for ulterior purposes.

  "The taw here is much more refreshing than earth water." Alea skimmed her arm across the pink liquid surface. Scooping some it with her cupped hand, she tossed it in the air watching it coalesce into bubbles and then burst as they hit the pool's surface. She chuckled. "I love it here."

  Alea pushed up to sit on the edge of the pool, and Sydney studied how her long auburn hair framed a very contented-looking face. Although Sydney was a bit younger than Alea, felt so much older. Alea had a lovely body, rounded in all the right places, and curiously, she had a thick patch of hair between her legs. Back on Earth nowadays, both women and men were hairless everywhere, except on their heads, though some preferred to be hairless there too.

  "Does it ever grow?"

  Sydney's gaze shifted upward when Alea spoke. Realizing Alea was aware of where she'd been staring, she blushed. "Uh, you mean the hair on my crotch?"

  "Yah," Alea's gazed dropped, and she unabashedly nodded downward, indicating an area lower on Sydney where her torso disappeared beneath the taw. "I mean you've been here awhile and you're as bald as a baby's butt. It should be growing back in by now."

  Sydney laughed. "I guess it's just the style, has been for as long as I can remember. Most people laser it off before they're even adults, armpits too. Same for most men too, armpits, chests, crotches."

  "Your Trigon mates here have hair on all those places," Alea commented with a smirk.

  "I've noticed that." Sydney tipped her head downward to stare at the water. She grinned, a visual of their naked bodies forming in her mind. "I actually find that very sexy."

  "When I was on Earth a lot of people just shaved the hair off. I never did my crotch." Alea leaned back, supporting herself on her arms. She nonchalantly kicked at the taw. "Isn't having that done expensive?"

  "Not at all. We use a wand at home that's no more expensive than getting a haircut.

  "Wow," Alea returned. "That is totally awesome. No more waxing or creams or razors?"

  "That's archaic." Sydney laughed. "I can't imagine ripping it out like that, ouch!"

  "I bet there's been a lot of changes I'd be amazed it." Alea returned. "Just the space station you worked at alone."

  "It must be odd having such a glimpse into the future." Sydney settled back against the pool's stone wall.

  "I think living here is a huge glimpse of the future!" Alea laughed.

  "True." Sydney chuckled in return. "I hope I get to see more of the Tertia's technology."

  Glancing upward she watched the effervescence of pink bubbles cascade downward to where it filled the small, rock tank they were soaking in. There didn't seem to be an outlet leading from the pool, and the approximate six foot wide nook was shallow, yet it wasn't overflowing. She wondered where the excess taw went.

  "The planet is beautiful, the colors, the sunny days, the warmth ... " Sinking further into the taw, Sydney watched her naked, full breasts bobbing on the surface. Sadness filled her. "This planet won't be my home, will it?"

  "Tren promised he'll do everything to get the charges dismissed."

  "How Alea?" Sydney gazed at her beseechingly. Her insides began to twist, tightening into knots of dismay and anger. The men who would be her lovers, Calem and Arjim intended on betraying her. "How will he do that?"

  "I'm really unsure." Alea admitted. "I was so pissed when Tren told me how they intended to capture you that I didn't wait around long enough to find out. Rjant and Tren were going to exclude me from the hunt, and the She'mana is always part of the hunt. I was just incredibly dumbfounded that they would use…"

  Alea gasped mid-sentence and stiffened. At the same time Sydney sensed that they were no longer alone. Someone was behind her. Sydney turned her head to see who it was, dreading it might be a Tertani soldier.

  "Gardenia!" Sydney beamed a smile. "You found me."

  "You know her?" Alea asked watching apprehensively as the Tertani native approached.

  "This is the woman who rescued me after I crashed."

  "The She'amatina?" Alea backed away from the pool and began to rise, her posture indicating that she was preparing to run.

  "I am not here to steal either of you to the pack." The She'amatina reassured her.

  "You speak modern Tertian?" Alea asked.

  "It is my second language. I learned the modern language after…" Jardia paused, her gaze falling to Sydney. "Never mind."

  "I wish I'd known," Sydney commented. "Thanks to Calem and Arjim, I've learned to speak Tertian fluently."
/>   "You did not speak it to me." Jardia returned.

  "I didn't think to." Sydney shrugged. "I was speaking my own language, but the communication between us would've been much easier had I known. How dumb am I?"

  "It matters not." Jardia moved a bit closer, and Alea shrank back, still leery.

  "I'm mated," Alea shook one of her ankles, the movement causing the fetter charms locked around it to jingle.

  Jardia stared at it briefly and then returned her attention to Sydney. "As I said, I am not here to steal either of you to pack."

  "I'm not sure, if I should stay here either, Gardenia." Sydney told her. "It's not safe for me."

  "Your mates seek you, and I am not to interfere." Jardia frowned. "My name is actually Jardia."

  "Oh," Sydney chuckled. "Well if it's any consolation, a gardenia is a very pleasant smelling flower on…uh…where I come from."

  "You may call me whatever is your command sky spirit." Jardia lowered her eyes and then bowed her head in reverence.

  "I'm not a spirit, or a goddess, or anything like that, Gardenia…I mean Jardia." Sydney corrected. "I'm a person just as you are."

  "So I have been told." Jardia returned.

  Alea frowned. "Told by whom?"

  "Alea," Sydney interrupted. "Do you suppose I should go with Jardia, you know, to be safe?"

  "Ayn," Jardia replied first. "To hide you from your mates could end in the death of either. I cannot have more blood on my hands."

  "What do you mean more blood?" Sydney asked curiously.

  "Not to worry of what plagues my mind," Jardia glanced skyward, her expression appearing strained. "You must be with your mates."

  Being reminded of her so-called mates and their underhanded intentions renewed Sydney's anger toward them. She looked to Alea for an answer. "What do you think?"

  Alea was silent for moment, and then she sighed heavily. "Maybe you should hide with the tribe."

  "Ayn, ayn!" Jardia protested and then reverted back to ancient Tertian. "Ish 'aju gia phedla biatu!"

  "Huh?" Sydney looked at her with confusion. "You wanna repeat that?"

  Jardia furled her brows and then spoke the modern Tertian language. "You will be where your mates reside! I cannot take you with me. It is the truth that I meant at first to interfere with your mating but now, I will not. I only meant to bring you this."