He breached their distance, embracing her, his mouth searching for hers, hungrily taking possession of the warm opening. “You have no idea how much I love you, honey,” he said when he managed to pull away. “Come.”
Vyler led her inside the Temple’s cool interior. The elegant building was almost a replica of the Moon Temple, only bigger in size. Large columns surrounded the sacred area and at the back gave way to the Priest’s dwelling. The closed quarters were spacious, using stonemasons’ best workmanship to insure comfortable surrounding. Maybe too comfortable, Keylar thought, catching a glimpse of Jaydon. He was deep in thought, staring blindly into empty space. “Precious, look who wants to talk to you,” Vyler called him.
Jaydon got up and walked to them. Keylar shivered. The blond beauty in front of her was really disturbing. On Atlantis, the predominant skin color was black. White people, like Jaydon, had no place in the beautiful city. Dark skin adapted far better to the sun’s unmerciful rays. So everyone in Atlantis was black, with the sole exception of Keylar and Vyler. Their families had mixed with foreigners somewhere along the line, giving them a lighter shade, similar to chocolate, with eyes brightly colored, quite unlike the widespread.
Jaydon, instead, was completely different. Tall, blond hair, and intense gray eyes, his skin was an uncommon pink shade. Keylar had never seen anyone like him and this just added to her suspicions. He seemed to have dropped directly from the moon above. And yet she could not deny his beauty. He was beautiful, disturbingly so. For the sake of honesty, she also had to admit that a part of her was attracted to him, though she did not trust him at all.
“Why don’t you like me?” Jaydon asked, getting closer.
“I don’t think it really matters,” she said, challenging him to prove her wrong.
“Of course it does,” he replied softly, now very close to both of them.
Keylar turned to Vyler for protection, almost wishing to melt inside his body. The dark man placed a hand on her back, pulling her closer.
“No it isn’t,” she said defiantly, taking strength from Vyler’s embrace. “I came here to listen to your tale.”
“If you don’t like me, you’re not going to believe a single word I say,” Jaydon argued reasonably.
“Try me,” Keylar challenged again. But the mood was shifting already in a quite unexpected direction. The blond creature, so close to them, reached out and his hand lightly brushed Keylar’s arm. She shivered again.
“Fear or pleasure?” Jaydon asked huskily.
She swallowed hard, unable to speak.
“You know,” he continued softly, his hand still on her arm, “I would like to know you better.” His hand changed direction, going up her shoulder then slowly dropping down. “I like you, Keylar, but so far you haven’t given me the chance to prove it.”
Again she shivered as he brushed her breast.
“Lover,” Jaydon turned to Vyler. “Do you think she’s ready?”
“Ready for what?” she wondered out loud.
“For love, honey.”
She had no time to answer. Vyler’s hand, so far resting on her back, slipped down, first closing on her ass, then asking admission between her legs. Jaydon had taken firmer possession of her breasts, his thumb rhythmically stroking the soft cloth, feeling the nipple harden. But she was not the only object of attraction. Jaydon’s free hand grabbed Vyler’s neck and pulled him close to him, their mouths hungrily looking for each other.
Fascinated, Keylar watched their kiss. She had always believed two men kissing would disgust her, but she was wrong. Maybe it was the context or just Vyler, whichever the case, the situation only added to her growing desire. Somehow, she wanted to see more, feel more from both men and almost unconsciously her body opened to their exploration.
Sensing the change, Jaydon tried his luck. He shifted from Vyler down to Keylar, his mouth closing on hers, tongue pushing inside, asking for complete surrender. Surprised, Keylar did not challenge him, savoring the new taste, deeply inhaling his smell, feeling him getting harder by the second. Not that he was the only one. Vyler’s bulge, pressing on her buttocks, gave clear indication about his desires as well. She reached in front of her, caressing Jaydon, feeling his long length, wanting to…
“Please, do,” he said huskily, as if reading her mind.
A gentle push on her shoulders and she dropped on her knees. Keylar could not believe she felt hungry for the stranger, but had no time to think. Her mouth closed on Jaydon, then switched to Vyler before returning to the blond. Her tongue lapped alternatively on one and the other, Keylar could not decide which she liked more. But they did not give her time to make up her mind.
Vyler picked Keylar up and brought her to the double carpet he used as a bed. Jaydon helped him and their hands removed pieces of clothing, torturing the soft flesh, every touch causing a shiver of pleasure. But Jaydon wanted more. His mouth pressed down on her skin, and left a fiery trail on its way, stopping at her breasts to suck the nipples, then resumed its journey. Keylar was on fire. Her muscles tensed spasmodically, almost hurting in the process, her mouth was dry, desire screaming from every pore.
“Relax, honey,” Vyler whispered seductively in her ear. He bent down and kissed her deeply. Jaydon traveled back up.
“Lover,” he said softly.
Vyler broke off from Keylar and they kissed. But their hands never stopped roaming over Keylar, bringing her desire to a fever pitch. Her mouth had not been kept idle in the meantime, though she only felt the deep throbbing between her legs.
“Let me, lover,” Jaydon begged.
Vyler nodded and the blond creature’s mouth traveled back down the fiery route.
This time he did not stop at her stomach, but dipped down, into the wet valley. She could not scream when his tongue hit her throbbing swell, grown hard with desire, but her whole body shook violently with pleasure. But once more, they gave her no time to properly enjoy it. As if they had a prior arrangement, Jaydon picked her up, while Vyler lay down.
“Ready, lover?” Jaydon asked as he slowly brought Keylar down on him.
Vyler grabbed her hips, and pulled her down the rest of the way. When she settled on him, he whispered, “Now are you ready, honey?”
She had a vague idea of what would happen to her. Jaydon was playing with her ass, his fingers gently pushing in and out, feeling her willingness to have him.
“You haven’t done much exploring here, have you, lover?”
“Actually no, precious,” Vyler grinned. “Knowing how much you enjoy it, I thought I’d leave it to you.”
“How thoughtful.”
Before Keylar could protest, Jaydon pushed his way inside. As he had justly noted, she was not very used to this way of loving, yet oddly it hurt her less than she thought, maybe because Jaydon did not push so hard or all at once. His slow entrance gave her body time to adjust to its changing reality and Vyler’s stroking also helped. When both men were firmly inside, they moved slowly, rhythmically, adapting to her needs.
At first it seemed so strange, to feel both inside, filling her every space. After a while they were almost not enough, so she increased the pace, moving faster on Vyler and pushing back on Jaydon, matching every thrust in an uncontrollable race until everything blurred in her mind and body. She screamed, pleasure waves shooting up her back, down her legs, reaching from her hair all the way to her toes. The men could not resist any longer either and they came a second after her. Soon after, too exhausted to move, Keylar and Jaydon collapsed on Vyler, laying still for a long time. The blond creature was the first to move, rolling off her.
“Now I understand why you love her so much,” Jaydon exclaimed, his hand trailing down Keylar’s back.
“Yes, precious, she’s incredible.”
“It’s too bad you’re throwing all this away,” Jaydon observed.
“We’re not throwing anything away,” Keylar objected.
“All your plans of moving away from Atlantis will be your undoing,�
�� Jaydon retorted.
Keylar turned to look at the dazzling gray eyes. “The Moon has clearly told me that a catastrophe is about to occur and if our people do not get away from here, we will all die. That’s why we are planning the exodus to a safer place.”
“Your Moon Goddess could be wrong, Keylar.”
“How would you know?” she asked aggressively.
Jaydon sighed. He turned to Vyler, a look of intense love crossing his face. “What I’m about to tell you must remain a secret,” he began slowly. “I am an envoy from another time—”
“Another time?” Vyler interrupted. “What do you mean?”
“I was born centuries after your time. I still belong to Earth, but my world is light years ahead of yours.” He looked at them, realizing they had no idea what a light year was. “Well, hundreds of years after your time.”
“But how is it possible you’re here?” Keylar asked.
“We humans have invented a device that allows us to travel through time. We can shift from one period to another quite easily.”
“And why did you come here?” Keylar asked suspiciously.
Jaydon did not answer immediately. Instead, he turned on a side, his hand now reaching for Vyler, tracing the contours of his beautiful face. “Actually, my mission was to help plan your escape,” he admitted at last.
“But…” a look of surprise spread on Keylar’s face.
“Oh yes, you are supposed to escape right into the arms of death.”
“What are you talking about, precious?”
Jaydon did not stop caressing Vyler. “Love is so unpredictable,” he answered instead. “I thought my mission was easy, until I saw you, lover,” his fingers traced Vyler’s mouth. “And everything changed.”
No one spoke for a while.
“When you saw me on that hill,” Jaydon resumed after a while, “I was thinking about the easiest way to get everyone packing. Then I saw you and I couldn’t let you die.”
Keylar objected. “If we leave, we’re going to live and—”
“It’s a trap, Your Highness,” he cut her short.
His harsh words gave no hope. “A trap?” she asked at last.
“Yes, Keylar, a trap. My people are not very considerate of others, particularly the ones that live in the past. On my world…well, actually in my time, a meteorite, a stone from the sky, is about to impact the Earth, causing mass destruction. Unfortunately, we lack the means to destroy it, so we’re resorting to the only technology we have—”
“You’re going to send it back in time?” Keylar asked.
“Exactly. That’s why you saw the destruction. But we carefully selected a place in time and space where no one would get hurt. Now your plans to leave would take you exactly under the impact point.”
“So if we stay, nothing bad will happen to Atlantis?” Vyler asked.
Jaydon nodded. “The real danger is leaving Atlantis,” he argued. “If you stay, the catastrophe will take place so far away that you won’t even feel it.”
Again, silence fell in the room. Keylar looked at Jaydon, doubts clouding her eyes. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” she inquired at last.
Jaydon got up and searched his pockets, returning with a small metallic object in his hands, clearly not a product of Atlantis’s technology. “See this device? It’s what allows for time travel. If I push this button here, I would disappear from view.”
“Try it,” Keylar challenged.
“No, wait,” Vyler almost shouted, but he was too late. Jaydon disappeared. Keylar and Vyler were left alone. “Where did he go?” Vyler got up, looking around the room “Why did you have to—”
Jaydon reappeared before Vyler had time to finish his sentence.
The dark man embraced the blond creature tightly. “Precious, I thought I lost you.”
“No, lover,” Jaydon returned Vyler’s embrace. “As I said, I love you and now I’d find it hard to leave you. That’s why, in spite of my mission, I want to help you.”
“What was your mission?”
“I was to lead you straight to the point of impact.”
“But why would your people want to wipe out a civilization thousands of years before theirs?”
Jaydon gently untied himself from Vyler’s embrace and went to Keylar.
“My lady,” he said softly, “you will influence future generations for centuries. You have reached one of the highest points in human civilization and if we wiped you out, we would condemn the world to poverty, sufferings and wars.”
“So why would anyone want that?”
“Because there are people who would gain power and money from the world’s miseries. They want to control everyone, but it’s not possible if people live under your influence.”
“But if you don’t carry out the mission, they’ll punish you.”
Jaydon shrugged. “I’ll destroy the device so they can never reach me.”
“Then you’ll stay with me forever, precious?”
Jaydon turned to Vyler. “Come here lover,” he said softly.
Vyler reached them on the carpet.
Jaydon pulled him close, kissing him passionately. “I love you,” he repeated. “I don’t ever want to leave you.”
Before anyone could say another word, Jaydon’s fiery touch sparked new desire. Keylar did not stop to think. She gave in to her senses so easily it was like slipping into a warm pool, drowning out all other concerns. And it was not just temporary. From that day on, Keylar fell into a dream-like state, only coming alive at nights, firmly held between the two men who loved her inside out. In the meantime, plans were undone, her new task definitely easier than the former one. It was simpler to convince people to stay rather than push them to leave. Yet the issue did not seem as important as it had before. Lost in the world of sensual pleasure, Keylar’s reality became the burning night with its fire and desire that only they could quench. As if drugged, she faced each new day with less awareness, shutting out any thought of the future…whatever it came to be.
“So we’re not leaving anymore?” she asked one last time.
“No, honey, there’s no need to.” Vyler turned to Jaydon. “Right, precious?”
“Exactly, lover.” The blond man bent down to kiss the Sun Priest. “By my calculations, the danger is over, so there’s just one last thing for me to do—”
“To destroy your device,” Keylar finished the sentence for him.
He nodded.
“Can we help, precious?”
“I wish you could, lover.” Jaydon looked at Vyler, regret burning within him. “But I have to do it by myself. This device is very dangerous to people not of my world. When I destroy it, the metallic components will give off harmful rays, which are fatal to anyone who is not properly shielded. I have an induced natural immunity to those rays, so they won’t harm me, no matter what I do to the device.”
“Will it take long, precious?”
“No, lover.” Jaydon stole another kiss. “I’ll be back at sunrise, don’t worry.”
* * * *
“Captain Jaydon, please report on your mission.”
“It was a complete success, sir.”
“Good. We achieved all our objectives?”
“Yes, sir. The nuclear explosion wiped out Atlantis and all its people. Temperatures dropped below freezing point, and ice covered the land almost on impact.”
“Good. No one’s going to find them below all that ice,” the general grinned at Captain Jaydon. “So you convinced them to stay after all?”
A fleeting moment of regret shot through his heart, but was quickly repressed. His world did not look kindly on emotions, especially when they hindered duty. “I evidently did,” Jaydon concluded at last, looking around him.
A sea of faces returned his gaze with satisfaction. They had definitely reached their objective.
“Yes, Captain,” the general agreed. “We finally succeeded in wiping them all out and sent them to freezing hell. Now, we’re t
he only ones left on the planet.”
The plan had been magnificent from the start, Jaydon could not argue with their logic. His heart twitched. Pain was just a step away and he knew his future would hold nothing less from then on. Pain and the awareness of betrayal. Vyler’s face floated in front of him, the lovely black features he had loved. But his duty came first, as it always had.
“Yes, sir, your plan worked just fine,” he agreed.
At that same exact moment, while congratulations on their success were still passed around, fire from the sky burned down on them.
The Noble Athenian
Alexis Anthony
A fair wind drove the warship west across the sea toward home. The large, cold waves of the North Atlantic were topped by whitecaps and the spray soaked the sailors on the deck. Those aloft were baked by the Sun. The sails and the rigging strained to push the ship from wave to wave.
Trontarow peered west at the dark, bluish green rollers as they sped beneath the hull. The ship surfed each large wave. These were the best sailors the world had ever seen. The Pillars of Hercules were behind them, passed days ago. The fleet should arrive home today. He expected a hail from the masthead any minute.
“Sir?”
Trontarow turned his head to face the ship’s Captain. “Yes, Mixius?”
“Sir, breakfast is prepared.”
Trontarow smiled grimly. Breakfast on a warship long at sea was nothing to look forward to. But no one was allowed to eat before the Admiral unless or until he authorized it. “Very well, Captain, send the hands to breakfast. I will meet you in the wardroom in a few moments.” He leaned on the taffrail, looking once more across the sea. “The wind, the spray is invigorating this morning, isn’t it?”
“It is, My Lord Admiral. Especially since we should be home soon.”
“Ah, yes,” said Trontarow, “home.” He straightened up and turned toward the companionway. He was a tall man, built more like an Atlantean soldier than a sailor. Captain Mixius was built more like a sailor, sturdy, medium height, with powerful arms and legs. Trontarow’s ancestors had all been soldiers. His parents had been against his decision to go to sea as a boy. But it had been the right course. He was returning as the most successful commander in the history of Atlantis.
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