Darkyn studied the silvery-black eyes of his hallas, weighing the merit of her words. As his stone made contact with the pa on her chest, he caught visions of them coupling outdoors, beside rivers, in rivers, in jungles, on mountain plateaus. Images of others joining their pleasure bombarded him. The two women he had seen at Camford—Elise and Georgia, those names came to him easily. His brother Akad.
With the fervor easing, Darkyn took no offense at these fantasies like an off-worlder might. To each family, their own freedom. Though he could scarcely see himself mating with the women of the Tul’Mar Clan, even to please Krysta…
The thought trailed off into stunned nothingness, taking his arousal with it.
Krysta realized the wrongness in his lack of motion. The fire in her expression dimmed, and she gave him a look of pure concern.
“What is it?” And then absurdly, “Did I hurt you?”
Darkyn felt like his world had narrowed to the few stellar inches surrounding the two of them. He let her go and stood over her, and still she gazed up at him innocently, seeming confused.
“Get up,” he said darkly, no play in the words. No play in his heart, not anywhere.
She complied, getting slowly to her feet.
“What is it?” Her tone reflected nervousness now, perhaps some fear.
Of what? Him? Of those secrets she mentioned once before, then accidentally shared?
“How could you not tell me?” he asked quietly, using his psi abilities to switch off the dampers and summon his brother. He took a step back from her with a sense like wheels turning in his head. “I could understand at first, the way you were brought here against your will, but have we not shared enough for me to earn your honesty?”
Awareness was breaking across her lovely face as Akad entered the room.
Darkyn turned on his brother. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew she was a Tul’Mar, and you let me join with her without warning?”
“I wanted to tell you,” Krysta said dryly. Darkyn wouldn’t look at her, but he figured her for chagrined, or still afraid. “Akad advised against it—”
She cut herself off.
A wave of fervor-enhanced rage blazed through Darkyn as he studied his brother. “Why?”
Akad’s expression flickered for a moment, to uncertainty, to a dark sort of frustration. After the longest moments Darkyn could remember, his brother said, “The ancients forbade it. It wasn’t yet part of the pattern. But what is, is. There’s no putting milk back in the teat.”
“What?” Krysta’s irritated question came out at the same moment Darkyn’s did.
“Though you have little reason to, you will both have to trust me in this.” Akad’s shoulders sagged. “I have long been hearing and respecting the voices of the ancients.”
He looked up sharply, as if daring either of them to scoff. “I think you’ve heard them, too. A strong voice that sometimes comes as one, and sometimes comes as many, sexless and ageless. It fights the darkness, and it fights our doubts.”
At that description, Darkyn felt his rage deflate. He wanted to argue with his brother, tell him he was stupid and wrong, but the stone in his chest was burning in a familiar, cold, and painful way. Telling him he had to listen.
To the truth.
Krysta was not arguing either, which meant she likely had heard the voice of the ancients, too, or something similar.
Darkyn opened his mouth to speak, but his brother cut him off with resonant, eerie words. “Will you for once be silent and trust the will of others? Not all things lie within your hands, Darkyn Weil.”
As Akad spoke that startlingly familiar admonishment, a golden glow surrounded him in the shape of a triangle. Darkyn had a sense of presence, of otherworldly occupation, and the feeling that all that had happened concerning the Barung—and all that would happen—was now on an exact time-table not of their making. It would be their task to do the work, to rise to the almost unimaginable challenge, but the field and the players, the nature of the game and its ticking clock, was not of their making or under their control. It was theirs only in the sense that they could fail their parts in the grand scheme, and thus fail the universe.
Gods, what an awful thing to know, though I think I’ve known it at some level all along. Darkyn grimaced, feeling the pressures of the universe settle along every nerve ending and sector of flesh.
The sense of otherworldly presence departed, leaving only his brother in its wake.
For the first time Darkyn could remember, Akad looked tired, and frightened, and in need of comfort. He literally sagged where he stood, looking bowed at the shoulder from the pressures mounted on his mind.
Darkyn moved to him without thinking, taking his a’mun twin into a firm clasp. “How long have you borne this alone?” he whispered, feeling Krysta join the embrace and welcoming her presence. She felt suddenly close to him again, all guise and discord vanished at the shocking sight of Akad’s weariness and his…his…aloneness.
As the three of them stood there, it occurred to Darkyn that his shanna’s other family ties truly did not matter to him. It was clear that she had surrendered much of that old identity, that she was struggling to find her new way, her new role.
Her new self.
She was just as much a part of his family now as any. No matter, really, for he would have loved her and claimed her all the same, just with more self-doubt and angst and difficulty. As it was, the way to the truth had been smoothed. By his brother, as usual. Akad the priest. Akad the healer. Akad the a’mun, who was supposed to be the weaker of the two of them.
“How long?” he repeated, feeling a dread of knowing all the same. “Tell me.”
“I have heard the voice—the voices—since I was a child.” Akad’s forehead rested against Darkyn’s and Krysta’s. He was the only one of them still clothed, but Krysta was remedying that with one deft hand, pulling off the brown robes to expose Akad’s pa-patterned skin. Great ropes of silver glittered beneath her touch, and she traced them as if she knew them well.
Darkyn felt the greatest relief that his shanna knew his brother in such a way, that she was already comfortable with him, and he with her. What had enraged him weeks before gave him peace now, and hope that they might bring Akad some pleasure to distract him from his many burdens.
I have been a selfish man, Darkyn psi-spoke to his twin. Focused only on my own worries. All the while, you have carried the weight of the ancients within you. Forgive me, a’mun. Share what is mine, and take from us what strength we might give you.
There is nothing to forgive, Akad said, and then Krysta slipped between them like an adhesive, binding them even closer to each other through her very flesh. Darkyn experienced his brother’s relaxing as Krysta kissed him, and then his attention turned to Krysta’s pleasure and Krysta’s pleasure alone. Darkyn lifted her hair and bit her neck, and she moaned into her kiss with Akad.
The sound of her excitement roused Darkyn’s cock quicker than he could form a thought. He pressed his growing erection into her soft ass, rubbing up and down on the cheeks as he nipped her neck. She smelled of sex and fresh water and oh, so lightly of bayflowers. Subtle. Intoxicating.
And so giving as she turned slowly, joining her mouth and pa to his. For a moment, Darkyn knew only her, only her touch on his face, his shoulders, only the taste of her tongue joining with his. Her breasts rubbed against his chest, and then she stepped back a little so Akad could cup them.
Darkyn kept up his kisses and rubbed his swollen cock against her pa-coated bush.
She moaned softly, “Yes, yes,” as Akad pinched her nipples and Darkyn slipped his fingers into her nether lips.
She was wet and ready.
They had only to tease her a little further, and she’d be back in full fervor. Dangerous, perhaps, but deeply satisfying.
Time suddenly seems so short. If we had forever, Akad, we could find many ways to please her.
Akad’s answer was swift and forceful. We may have forever, and we m
ay have only a few tomorrows. Let us be certain she never forgets this first sharing of our family, Brother.
Chapter 10
Krysta gasped as Darkyn found her clit and pinched. She was facing him, loving the bright streaks in his dark hair, the rough rub of his scars on her flesh, the feel of their mingled pa and Akad’s skillful tweaking of her nipples. She felt like liquid between them, their growing heat and sweat like kisses all along her flesh.
It felt so right, being with both of them, giving some of their joy to Akad for all he had given them.
For all he had given everyone.
Krysta knew she couldn’t please the priest like a soul’s mate, but sharing the pleasure of her marital bed was as close as she could come.
As he held her from behind, his erection pressing against her ass, her mate held her from the front. His cock thrust against her quim, awaiting entry.
She could take them both. She had taken two men before, and even three. Yet they held back.
Akad maddened her by squeezing her nipples harder and harder. He rolled the stiff flesh between his fingers until it ached, then held them both forward for Darkyn to flick with his tongue. The wet heat of Darkyn’s mouth, the sharp nip of his teeth on the already tender points made her cry out and squirm. Her clit throbbed now, pulsing as Darkyn flicked and teased it with his fingers just as he teased her nipples with his mouth.
“Be still,” he said in his deep, rumbling command-tone.
“Do you want her still, Brother?” Akad rumbled from behind her, just as deep. She felt his hold on her tighten. He pulled her against him, using her nipples for leverage.
Darkyn grinned and bent down, suckling first one and then the other as he let her clit suffer. Akad’s erection parted her ass cheeks and nudged, but went no further.
Krysta fought them both, to arouse them and make them fight her harder in return. Her blood pumped and pounded, and her quim felt like a molten river as Darkyn once more rubbed her clit with his thumb.
A little shock traveled through her, and Akad clucked softly in her ear. “No control. What a shame. Now we’ll have to start over, won’t we, Brother?”
“Mmmm,” Darkyn agreed, returning his lips to Krysta’s mouth as she screamed in pleasure and frustration.
His mouth tasted of salt, of metal, of man, and he smelled the same. All man. Akad’s scent was spicier, more exotic. It whispered of incense and temples and long-buried secrets. Damn the priest’s strong, wiry arms, for holding her so firmly!
Darkyn broke away from their kiss, gave her another grin, then lowered his attentions to her neck, biting her softly, then briskly, and moving to her nipples. Shivers of pleasure threatened at his every move, but Krysta held them back, determined there would be no more “start-overs.”
“That’s it,” Akad whispered in her ear, keeping her arms pinned as Darkyn ran his tongue between her breasts and down across the crackling pa on her belly. “Steady. No coming without our granting.”
She nodded, plotting revenge for later. Oh, yes. For this, there would be a later…
Lower and lower went Darkyn’s mouth, until he was tasting the top of her wet bush. Her pa-coated lower lips pulsed with each light touch, but she managed not to scream or thrash.
“Open your legs,” Akad commanded. “Just a little.”
Krysta complied, giving Darkyn more room to tease her with the relentless strokes of his tongue. He took his sweet time, circling in the silvery hair, slowly licking the sides of either lip. Occasionally, he would flick across her swollen clit, making her jump.
“Ah-ah,” Akad said each time, holding her tighter.
Her arms almost felt numb.
She would get the priest for this, in some sensual, torture-some way.
Just see if I won’t get you, she thought, making the sort of rudimentary psi-contact she had always made with him.
His laughter filled her mind even as Darkyn’s tongue once more touched her clit and nearly made her explode.
“Are you ready?” Akad whispered, nudging her ass with his rigid cock again. “Which way should we take you first?”
Krysta thought about answering, then decided they would only torture her more.
“No finishing,” the priest cautioned, and Darkyn fastened his mouth on her quim and began to suck and lick her clit at the same time.
Despite her best efforts, Krysta moaned and had to fight to keep her knees from buckling.
Darkyn pressed harder, brushing his tongue in circles over the ever-hardening button, drawing it through his lips and letting it pop free again and again. Krysta arched into his mouth.
“I’m going to come,” she said, barely able to speak.
Instantly, Darkyn pulled back, lightly kissing her clit, her lower lips.
If he says anything about starting over, I swear I will maim them both.
But Darkyn said nothing. He simply stood, gazed deep into her being with those wild yellow eyes of his, wrapped his arms around her waist, and lifted her into his embrace as he had the first time they joined.
In turn, she wrapped her legs around him, feeling him grasp her ass to better support her. From behind, Akad let go of her arms but moved in close, holding her with his hands on both breasts. He slid her nipples between his fingers and kept up constant pressure. She felt the priest’s lips moving along her shoulders, and she moaned as Darkyn eased forward to kiss her.
His pa snapped as they touched, giving them both a deep charge of fire that transferred to Akad. Krysta felt the priest quake against her, and she felt the delicious heat of his pa on her bare back and ass.
She also felt their cocks, poised and ready. One pushed at her quim. The other at her ass. They seemed to be taking turns, keeping her uncertain of which entry to expect first. She was only vaguely aware of Akad lubricating himself with a bath oil. The fragrance teased her nose, doubling her anticipation.
Her mind drifted into fervor again, and time seemed to stop as they drove her arousal higher and higher. She was getting wetter and wetter, and crazier and crazier.
“Fuck me,” she whispered, making a bet with herself that neither of them would be willing to start over now.
With hedonistic growls, both men plunged into her at the same time, tearing a scream of pleasure from her depths.
She had never felt so full, so whole or complete. There was some pain, yes, but it was perfect pain. The kind that made her crazier still. Moaning without reserve, Krysta grabbed Darkyn’s hair in one hand and Akad’s in the other, then rested her head on Akad’s shoulder and went limp, letting them support her as they thrust in and out of her ass and quim, building speed and force with each movement.
“Beautiful,” Darkyn murmured, kissing her lips, her chin, her neck.
“So tight,” Akad said, pounding into her ass until his bollocks bounced and slapped against her thighs. Every few seconds, he gave her nipples a fierce pinch, starting a new round of groans.
This time, as Krysta felt orgasm threatening, she knew she couldn’t turn back. “Let me come,” she said, more a demand than a request. “You have to. I can’t stand it!”
“Yes, you may.” Darkyn kept his strokes even and refused to gain any more speed. Akad followed suit, and the devils held her there, right over the edge, suspended, just as she was suspended between the two of them.
Her body seemed like nothing but sensation, a raw nerve stroked along its entire length. Her quim and ass clenched and pulsed around their cocks with each movement, keeping her on the precipice. She thought her nipples might explode. She thought she might explode.
Are you ready now? Akad asked in her mind.
Yes! she screamed, aloud and through the psi-link she had with the priest.
“Then come,” Darkyn ordered, moving her up and down along their shafts as they both plunged in and out with new frenzy.
Krysta had a sensation like melting, and then like catching fire. It started in her legs and arms, then drew to her center with lightning speed as she relaxed
into the pure pleasure of fucking her soul’s mate and his brother at the same time. Every corner of her body burned with excited satiation. She shook and cried out, convulsing like one who might be dying. Her pa blazed into Darkyn’s, and in turn into Akad’s, and both men emptied their seed into her waiting depths.
Their come felt like the hot jets of the natural pool, shooting and swirling through her, joining her to both men in new and deeper ways.
Darkyn and Akad pressed against her, groaning from their own releases. As Darkyn’s stone pressed into the pa on Krysta’s chest, she felt the shock of unguarded and blissfully full mind-to-mind contact with both men.
She saw what her sha really thought of her, felt how he really felt, and rejoiced in the truth and beauty of it. In his absolute love and devotion, still newborn but growing stronger by each stellar minute.
For the briefest moment, the contact lifted her to new heights. It didn’t hurt. For the briefest moment.
The pain came with no warning, so terrible and complete she thought her head might blow off her shoulders.
“Pull out!” she heard Akad yell to Darkyn, but even then it was too late. The psi-energy had overwhelmed her ability to absorb it.
How stupid, she told herself as she tumbled toward oblivion. Akad yelled at Ki and Fari when they nearly killed Elise this way with too much psi-force…
Just before her mind was attacked and absorbed by the awful, screaming, darkness approaching Uhr faster than she thought possible, she thought she heard Elise shouting at Georgia over a baby’s plaintive wail.
No, don’t even tell them! The idiots. Damn it, what is it with men and enemies and wars? Just get us a fucking speeder now. Now!
Chapter 11
Time had stopped for Darkyn Weil. Minutes, stellar hours—he had no understanding of the passage, nor did he care. He had never known such complete misery. As he sat on a rug by the side of his hallas in the sick room of his home, without his weapon, without the force and fury and sureness he had used to lead The People, he felt furiously helpless. This was the same room his people had come to for comfort across the many centuries, but there was no Ta to advise him. His brother Akad was bound by his own guilt. Not to mention absorbed by the task of preparing for early-arriving participants in the pao and explaining to the citizens of Gese what had happened to their Ta and his new mate.
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