A single black falcon feather.
Krysta allowed the image to pass from mind to mind in their link before she placed the feather between her breasts like a battle amulet.
Ahead loomed the nexus where Barung’s past crimes would become his current doom. The site where Perth once stood, now an empty, psi-reinforced hole in space.
With one arm linked with her sha and one hand on the feather between her breasts, Krysta flew straight at that deadly hole.
Closer and closer.
She felt Ki’s alertness. Fari’s tenseness. The concern of Darkyn, Elise, and Georgia.
And behind them, all too close, she felt Barung and his terrible, murderous purpose.
With only fractions to spare, Krysta psi-shouted, Now! The force of her will mingled with Darkyn’s support and strength pulled Arcus upward in a steep climb.
Calamus and Telum followed. Like arrows fired from their bow, they streaked away. Fari and Georgia headed for Earth in Telum. Calamus carried Elise and Ki toward Kaerad. Krysta and Darkyn, charged with the hardest task but wielding the fastest ship, curved over the outer edge of Barung’s cloud of foul energy and shot back toward Arda.
Barung shouted and roared, but could not slow his headlong pursuit. His essence tumbled into Perth’s dead space, which closed around him like a merciless web.
Krysta leaned forward, guiding Arcus on a clear path, trusting her solid knowledge of stars, planets, and large asteroids—and trusting the ship and her instincts for the rest. She hadn’t dared fly this fast before, for fear of outstripping Calamus and Telum, but that was no issue now. She could feel the energies of her brothers receding, feel the smallest shimmer of what Darkyn must have experienced, separating from Akad with relative certainty that they would never be rejoined. She wondered at his strength to stand even that pain, and bore hers only with the warmth of her sha’s presence.
“Fly,” he whispered. “Fly, hallas!”
Chapter 15
Space had become a blur of speed and trepidation for Darkyn Weil. He had been stripped of all roles now, past that of Krysta’s sha and member of a circle of six who had taken on a task of utter necessity—and madness. He had no axe, no voice of authority. Nothing but his heart and mind and ready hands.
How could they possibly reach Arda in time? How could the other two make it to Earth and Kaerad?
With life, with pa, with love, there is nothing outside the range of possibility…
Akad’s words repeated in Darkyn’s mind as he glanced at the feather protruding from Krysta’s jumpsuit. Once more, he felt a wash of wonder and awe. Were you speaking from the grave, Brother? I saw your ship explode.
With life, with pa, with love, there is nothing outside the range of possibility…
A riddle for a later time, but a riddle of hope, of potential.
He leaned into the ship’s explosive forward motion. “How long?”
“Stellar minutes,” Krysta breathed. She looked like a goddess in an artist’s rendering. Her white-silver hair shimmered against her cheeks and shoulders, while her ample pa sparkled in the natural metallic gray light of the ship’s interior. As it had before when she was aboard, Krysta’s pa pulsed in time with the hull as Arcus hurtled through space. One hand remained between her breasts, on the falcon feather. Her other arm was looped through his, keeping them as close as they could be in this difficult and tense sequence of events.
His sense of the Barung remained bitter and sharp, like the pungent smell of death lingering in his nose and mind. The beast thrashed in his trap, sending out bolts of horror and gut-wrenching, poisonous emotional pain.
For now, though, it—he—was contained.
Darkyn’s impressions of the two ships lessened with each passing moment, and somehow, he knew this was wrong. Using tricks of the mind long-trained by Akad, he re-gated the energy of his thoughts, supporting Krysta but also holding tight to the threads of connection to his family-by-marriage on Calamus and Telum. Georgia and Elise responded to his effort in kind, strengthening their bond with him.
Sexual energy flowed into the link from Georgia’s connection.
Gods. The woman was sucking Fari’s cock at such a moment! What would possess her—?
Darkyn’s thoughts broke off as his shanna’s arm disengaged from his. She dropped her hand to his crotch and squeezed, simultaneously relieving and worsening the instant erection he developed.
“Be at ease,” Krysta said aloud. “Having sex is a normal state of being for Georgia. She functions best when aroused. So does my brother. She’s but following a true instinct to give them more power.”
Darkyn considered this as Krysta continued stroking him through his breeches.
He ground his teeth at the pleasure and absurdity of the moment. “Given my fortunes of late, mating with you aside of course, you will tell me that frustrated arousal is my most powerful state.”
“Actually yes, it is.” Krysta squeezed and released, squeezed and released, bringing him further toward a place of absorption in her touch. “And mine as well, though less so since meeting you.”
Careful to keep Akad’s feather in her fingers, she lowered the zipper on her jumpsuit.
Darkyn groaned at the sight of her hard nipples, one sweetapple and one pa-silver, unfettered and awaiting his mouth.
“No, sha.” Krysta kept her eyes straight forward. “For now, just look and enjoy while you can.”
Her skilled fingers kept a broken rhythm on his cock now, preventing him from coming to orgasm. Darkyn clenched his jaw so hard his eyes narrowed. “And what, may I ask, is Ki’s most powerful state—and Elise, his shanna?”
“Satiated,” Krysta said without hesitating. “They’ve already come to orgasm once.”
In his mind’s eye, Darkyn saw the Sailmaster of Arda, piloting his vessel as surely and easily as Krysta, with his graceful, sensual woman bent forward in front of him, bracing herself on a shelf where the companel in a normal ship would have been. Elise was naked and flushed, and she still rode her sha’s cock like a woman prolonging her own satisfaction.
“Life is less than fair at times,” he growled, then realized he had enjoyed a few blissful seconds of distraction from burden, worry, and grief. In those few seconds, the power of his mind had increased. He was helping in the guidance of Arcus more, sparing Krysta’s energy to aid in strengthening their psi-bonds.
His hallas was wise indeed.
And then the truth of Akad’s last statement struck him.
I charge you with remembering this, now and always…
Krysta would be the one to remember such things, wouldn’t she? It seemed a natural role for her.
The farther they got from Barung and from each other, the more difficult the overall energy drains became.
Krysta let go his throbbing cock, with his understanding but also his frustration. She placed a hand on the forward shelf of Arcus, and Darkyn knew she was falling into a more direct link with the ship. Her knees were shaking.
“We’ve entered Ardani space,” she whispered as Darkyn moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her. He fondled her nipples, feeling the fires of her passion ignite beneath his touch. The nubs swelled and hardened, then swelled and hardened even more. He eased back on the pressure and teasing when he sensed her arousal beginning to overbalance her focus.
Darkyn found himself grateful that this journey would be so short, that they each flew ships that defied the normal space-time continuum. He didn’t think he could bear for it to go on much longer.
And in the relentless theater of his mind, the Sailmaster’s woman reached another orgasm. The Sailkeeper and his bride found a new position to enjoy each other while still attending to the needs of the ship. Georgia was leaning back across the forward shelf of Telum, legs spread wide and red curls glistening with moisture from her swollen quim. Fari entered her with ease, holding her hips and pumping even as his arrow flew through the increasingly crowded space of Earth’s solar system.
; Darkyn groaned, then sighed. “Life is less than fair at times,” he repeated as he rubbed his own cock against Krysta’s ass.
Arcus began to slow, and Darkyn realized they were taking up orbit around Arda. He felt more than heard the ongoing song of the Chimera on the planet below, and farther away, on Uhr. It sounded like a welcome. It sounded blissfully, wonderfully like home.
In the distance, though, the bellows and shrieks of Barung were unmistakable.
And the fact that his thrashings were more effective.
He is beginning to break free, Darkyn psi-warned, hearing the edge to his own broadcast. We must give energy to reinforcing the containment until the pressure destroys him.
How? Ki’s question carried both concern and frustration. We are at maximum, all of us.
There was a moment of stillness following the truth of his comment. Krysta sagged back against him, and Darkyn knew how tired she was. He cupped her breasts gently and kissed her neck, feeling the sweet sting of her pa against his lips.
The sting became a short, sharp burn as the hull of Arcus rippled, absorbing the Chimera song like a thirsty animal.
The boost settled into Krysta, and she managed to stand straight again. Darkyn kept his hands on her breasts, kept his cock firmly lodged against her ass.
Channel all the energy to me when I ask, she instructed suddenly, in a voice enhanced beyond what Darkyn expected. He startled, pinching her nipples in the process, and the flow of raw power over his fingers kept him from protesting her decision.
He knew instantly what she was considering, how she was thinking of drawing power from the ships, from the worlds at the triangle points.
This could kill you, hallas, he warned in a psi-voice pitched for her mind only.
She sighed and leaned back against him. It could kill us all, munas. If so, then we all will have to die.
Krysta’s even tones made Darkyn understand he was in the presence of a spiritual force beyond his mate alone. It was what she called him, however, that focused his will and attention sharper than the point of a well-thrown lance.
Munas. Made of stone.
Yes. Just as she is hallas, made of fire. A perfect match.
He held his soul’s mate closer, surrendering himself to her truth, her strength, determined to be stone to her flames. Determined to do whatever it took to help her, protect her, and destroy this evil that threatened them all.
One by one, Darkyn opened the gates to his consciousness full and wide, preparing for her call.
It came with a forceful, Now!
Reality left Darkyn in a harsh rush. He went blind and deaf all at once, and lost a sense of his body in the next instant.
The ships had disappeared.
He seemed to be…hovering.
Above.
But above where?
Not Arda, no. The space below was too vast. Like the base of a great galactic pyramid, with a dark hole, center bottom. A pit. A pit with something horrid and dangerous crashing against its walls and sealed roof.
On three sides of him, he could make out brilliant points of silver light, each connected to and feeding into the point where he stood. Brilliant white-silver flames shot up and down the connections, as if building them stronger, drawing them closer and tighter.
Darkyn found it difficult to keep his footing.
I am munas, he told himself. I am the stone that anchors, the stone that doesn’t burn.
He then understood with a fierce rush of pride what—and who—those nearby silver-white flames were, in corporeal form.
A full awareness possessed him, and he felt all of his new family in their purest forms. Ki and Fari Tul’Mar had become the energy that kept them suspended in space, their support and power. Elise had become the strength of mind, the steadiness that kept them focused and in the same location. Georgia had become a halo of red fire, protecting them from any harm or disruption.
And then there was Krysta, the brilliance who used her infinite love to pull extra energy from their respective home worlds into the pa of their ships, and then pulled the pa of the ships into their very beings. From there, she had joined them by drawing on the true essence of each personality.
They had become a solid force of pa, directly over Barung. They were holding him in the pit of dead space, gradually compressing it more, and more still. Like their ships had been, the six were now unbound by conventions of time and space. They were now limitless.
What are we? Darkyn wondered. Are we still human?
For now, came Elise’s bottomless response, you are munas. Only munas.
Respecting the instruction of their stabilizing force, Darkyn returned his attention to being the stone the other energies could use as an anchor point.
Sooner than he thought possible, the task was done.
Barung was trapped beneath the pyramid of energy they had created—but would the force of their will be enough to destroy him?
Darkyn felt grateful for the blood of Arda’s first and strongest Ord’pa, flowing through the veins of Krysta and her brothers. There was, in fact, some place in the universe for righteous ruthlessness, and that place was right here, right now.
A bubble of silver light began to form around Darkyn. It expanded to be large enough to comfortably hold six people in corporeal form, and attached itself to the topmost point of the pyramid, directly beneath his feet.
Moments later, Darkyn began to feel his body again, though a faint electrical charge seemed to play along his skin. He realized he was naked. His pa hummed pleasantly, and the stone in his chest glowed brilliant yellow as it vibrated.
Elise and Georgia materialized next, also naked. Darkyn allowed himself a healthy appreciation of their beauty, so different, but neither less than the other. Elise had a classical shape, with the smooth, sharply defined lines of an ice sculpture. Her breasts, while not as full as Krysta’s, were certainly pleasing, along with the notable blush of her nipples. The shimmering blonde hair of her head repeated itself between her legs, and flames of pa seemed to lick every inch of her hips, thighs, and belly.
Georgia was flame to Elise’s ice, with wild red hair on her head and thatch, and irregular vines of pa covering her body in random, bright patterns. Her nipples, large and round, and pulled to a point of arousal, approached the dark color of his shanna’s gifts, but didn’t reach it.
As he stared, filled with relief, more shapes began to materialize in the bubble. Three, exactly. Krysta, and her brothers.
Darkyn paid little mind to the men. His eyes were drawn to his woman with undeniable magnetic force.
As always, she was a splendid vision, even more so as she became whole in her naked splendor, pa shimmering in rhythm with the bubble around them. A new mark graced her chest, dead center between her breasts, and Darkyn recognized it for what it was. Guardian’s gift—Akad’s feather—only now in pa form, alive in Krysta’s flesh evermore.
He wanted to hold her, taste the sweet wetness of her mouth, caress her nipples, bring her endless hours of pleasure some place safe, and quiet, and dark—three conditions they had rarely enjoyed in their short time together.
“What now?” Georgia asked, approaching Krysta close enough to stroke her shoulder.
Krysta took a slow breath and glanced down, through the floor of the bubble and the point of the tightly drawn pyramid. “We have done what we can. Now, we give what energy and strength we can to these bonds and wait for him to be destroyed—or defeat his trap.”
“And what happens to us?” Elise’s voice held no hint of regret or fear. Only wonder, and perhaps concern for her child.
“I do not know.” Krysta’s answer was weighted with burden, as Akad’s had often been.
Darkyn started toward her, and realized Georgia and Elise had heard the same heaviness in her words. She needed them.
The six of them needed each other, and all the energy they could generate.
Before he could reach his shanna, Georgia and Elise had her cradled between them,
kissing her neck and lips, running hands along her curves and rivers of pa.
A groan of need and desire filled the bubble, and Darkyn realized it was his own. Fari and Ki gave him small, uncomfortable smiles that spoke of kinship and understanding. Like him, they had erections of massive proportions.
Unlike him, however, they had both had relief many times over this day.
“I do not yet know how I feel about you,” Ki Tul’Mar grumbled. “I will never know unless we survive this moment in time, which seems unlikely at best.”
Fari agreed with a grunt.
Their meaning was clear.
Here and now, Darkyn could sample the pleasures of his family, his circle—and he should, for they might have a short time to yet know and enjoy this life. On the off chance they survived, the brothers, would make their decisions about him over time.
Darkyn didn’t need a second invitation. He strode toward the women, focusing on Krysta, on her expression of relaxed joy at the caresses of Elise and Georgia. These women had enjoyed each other before, many times. They knew just where to pinch his hallas, just where to stroke her nipples and quim to draw out long sighs of pleasure.
He stood, holding his own cock, unable to take his eyes from the gathered loveliness.
Georgia kissed Krysta fondly, gently on the mouth, the differing shades of their lips mingling into one color as Georgia massaged first one nipple and then the other with long, flexible fingers.
Krysta moaned as Georgia kneaded her breasts, bringing the nubs to fine points as Elise, standing on Krysta’s other side, kissed Krysta’s ear and ran her tongue down the splash of pa on Krysta’s neck.
Krysta had her arms around the women, squeezing their asses as she often squeezed Darkyn’s cock.
Elise’s hand drifted into the silvery thatch of hair between Krysta’s legs and began a slow, sensual rub of her clit.
Darkyn heard the wetness move around Elise’s fingers, smelled the ready musk of Krysta’s arousal.
His hand tightened on his cock, holding back his own desire.
Let the monster rattle and scream in his prison at the bottom of this pyramid. Let him try to break through our energy field as we pour these passions, these truths into the bonds!
Arda: The Captain's Fancy Page 18