Nobody graced me with questions loaded with concern. Instead, I passed through the darkness of the bath.
The pool's glowing light drew me to its hard rim where I stood staring into the bubbling swirls like a mosquito at a bug zapper.
Was there any place on this planet where I could just sit and forget my stress? Where is Borun? Maybe floating in the relaxing warm water would help? I marched back to the well-lit rectangular doorway and shut out Lehd's form where he stood anchoring the wall on the guard's side in full duty stance, guarding me.
Thank God he didn't argue how he should protect me with the door open. I stripped off my clothing quickly while walking back to the pool and stepped into the warm massaging water.
Slowly it licked up my legs to my calves, hungrily, sexually, luring me deeper into its intoxicating whirl of lust. If I called out Lehd's name. If… He would come to me. All love-sick eyes. All his incredible muscles. And where would I be? Straddling the crevasse of morality. Was it even possible to love more than one male at a time? It seemed logical a person could. But to love so many? Impossible. But morality was relative given some cultures practiced polyandry back home.
A chill shook me.
But sometimes, multiple spouses just worked. My problem with the concept was some deep inner thing buried beneath an unfathomable amount of cultural brainwashing. Yes, universe, I realize people in the United States weren't truly monogamous. Serial monogamy only feigned monogamy in the idea of devoting oneself to an individual but, through divorce, allowed a person to have multiple mates. One at a time though. The concept of having more than one husband is just new to me. And desire was natural. I just had to embrace my needs and forgive myself of the damned lead chest I hauled around as cultural baggage.
Was it even possible for me to recondition myself?
Everything circled back to possible these days. At least the risk of my murder had dwindled into Borun allowing me to be alone in my personal quarters. Having Lehd's undivided attention was wearing down my last vestiges of the Aisling I knew back on Earth. But back when I walked through that portal, I knew my past life was simply that. Past. Gone. And here was my new reality. I floated over to the pool's ledge and sat.
My feet dangled in the whirlpool of change.
The door creaked behind me.
What now? Can't I be left to flounder in my misery?
Black boots paused in my periphery. Then knees jutted into view as the warrior descended into a squat.
Most likely Lehd. Should I care if the man saw my nude body? I don't. He'd do me a service yanking me out of the pool and ramming my madness into an orgasm. That's all I needed. Rough. Hot. Sex.
"Mart says you're ill, little one."
My heart dove into the bottom of the pool.
Borun.
"Aisling? Your heartsong says otherwise."
I choked back tears of relief rising at the sound of Borun's voice and shifted my seat until I could look into his golden eyes.
Could he see my need? He was about to. I pushed up from the pool's firm rim to look him in the eye.
His hand gently curled around my jaw and held me where he wanted me. "What is it?"
I'm dying. It's as much your fault as mine. I held out my hands. They shook like mate meters. "I need you." Did I even need to say those words?
He pulled me up and carried me to the stack of furs where he left me in trembling heap to undo his pants. He moved like darkness, invisible in the room's shadows, then crouched over me, slowly lowering his glowing eyes down to within an inch of mine.
Shut up and kiss me came to mind.
His hot breath caressed my cheeks.
But still he said nothing.
"Borun," I whispered.
His lips fluttered against mine.
Not his ordinary act of possessing me. I slid my palms up the supple iron of his arms.
His lips sucked across my cheek, down to my neck, and forced me to look away from the bit of light cast by the pool.
Who cared about the light? My nipples were so hard that the still air hurt them. If only he nibbled the pain into softness.
* * * *
Borun relished in the fact his mate only wanted him as he inhaled her unique clean scent at the bend of her neck. He knew the bath's darkness shrouded the truth. My thoughts are corrupt to her guards. Was I wrong in wanting to keep her to myself? But I couldn't refuse her. I wanted her. And only for me. Was I any different than Aisling in refusing the other Royal Guards by allowing her disrespect of them? I should do the honorable thing and call in one of the other warriors to please her. Not this time. I greedily grabbed a handful of her breast.
She groaned and arched the soft flesh into my hand.
If the Queens' orbs glowed overhead, I'd see the dark red nipple. The bead that would burst into a pink blossom if I fed upon the bud.
Her fingers raked into my queue and shoved my mouth down to feed. "Borun," she groaned.
What was one more time bedding her before I departed for the Ice realm? Before I left her with her guards? I trailed the tip of my tongue around the tiny fleshy knot she begged me to work.
She hissed and arched against my mouth.
Her blood lust blazed. More than mine. Was this because of her planet of origin? She said her species was more susceptible to the blood lust. I needed to heal her. To heal both of us. I sucked her soul's pearl into my mouth and clamped my teeth around the bead until she writhed between my legs.
Bless the stars I hadn't settled down between her thighs, or I'd be pounding home in her hot flesh already. This would be the last time I satiated her blood lust for days. I didn't want to waste this moment in one heated thrust. I sucked the softening nipple between my teeth until it stretched across my tongue. Until the mark of the youngling called. I crawled down, kissing her flinching belly, tracing out the mark of two babes in her womb.
Slowly, methodically, I planted a kiss along each scrolling vine-symbols of growing life somehow magically appearing on every female's abdomen. Each vine meandered down her midline to her navel where I loved to trace out the small circle, sending her heartsong racing as if my hardness thrust into her very soul.
Her heartsong played the song her consorts would kill to hear as she flinched beneath my body.
But I still had to taste her. One last taste to carry me through my journey ahead. I rose enough to slide my hand between her damp thighs.
One of her knees fell aside.
I loved how she opened herself to me. I slid my palm along the silkiness of her inner thigh, down to the delicate touch of her curls I couldn't erase from my memory. And memory would have to carry me through the days ahead. For now, I'd revel in making love to her. I spread her soft folds wide, bearing her sex, and circled her clit with my thumb.
Her hips rocked. She managed to lift her head and found my gaze, gasping for breath. Her head fell back to rock away her agony.
Blood lust or not, I reveled in her reactions to me. I knew how to get an even better one. I leaned down and sucked that salty pebble.
She bucked wildly, riding the war beast.
Oh to bring her close to climax. To make her ready for me. I nibbled the nub, relishing the way I could make her quiver and groan.
"Borun!"
My mate desired a ride through the meadows. And I could give her the release she yearned for. Over and over. I shoved up onto my palms and made my way up along her quaking abdomen to clamp onto her nipple.
She groaned and squirmed, looking up to watch me grate her tender flesh from root to tip with my teeth. I switched breasts and kneaded the other taut stone into a soft peak. Into long a long point I could suckle like a famished youngling.
Her mouth gaped. "Borun, inside me. I want you inside me." She grounded her head against the pile of furs and ran her warm palms across my shoulders, lingering on the straps of my halter.
She wanted to ride me. And I'd take her over the palace gates. I plunged my aching shaft inside the mouth of her ti
ght flesh.
We both groaned together, as if we were already one.
As it should be.
My lower abdomen muscles pumped molten blood into my engorged member. So much that I had to hold my breath, or I'd explode. Aisling's shuddering channel milked me nonetheless. Tempting me. Teasing me into wasting this last time we'd have together before I saw Wryn safely to the Ice clan.
"Borun!"
Well, I had good intentions. I withdrew and thrust, and withdrew and thrust until there was nothing but the pulse of blood rushing through my erection and the beat of her blood in her womb. We rode the war beast out to Realm's Edge and out into the crashing surf. Beyond the land of the living into the Waters of the Dead. Down into the silence of sea beasts and pulsing almost nonexistent sounds. Here we clutched each other, her nails clawing my back. But time caught up with us, stealing away with every breath we could gasp, leaving us trembling, gulping for air. I settled my brow on the throb of blood in her neck and waited for our bodies to slowly calm after the blue light faded between us.
Her palms slid across my shoulders.
Seductively.
I knew very little could keep me from lying here. Practically nothing could tear me away. But the clans desperately needed someone to unite them. Change was upon the realms. And she had empowered me to begin the transformation. Her proposal of a political alliance had sparked my options. And I had to act now.
She would have to change her ways also.
She would have to accept the Royal Guards she teased with her presence.
Or those shaking hands would drive her mad.
And the guards desired her. Mart smiled all the time now that she spent her days working under his nose. She had Lehd kneeling at her feet with want. Which of the others would be next? And all the while I'm forced to argue with Mother over leading an expedition into the Ice realm with Wryn. Aisling had to come around. She had to give into her Royal Guard and allow me to make this journey for our sanity. For the Luvks.
Aisling inhaled a deep breath, her chest rising beneath me.
How could I confess what I must do for the Luvks? "Little one?"
"Yes," she whispered.
So much passion filled that word that my heart stopped beating.
"Little one, I must leave tomorrow."
?
Chapter Twenty
Aisling just laid there in the darkness of the bath with her exhausted mate's weight pinning her down atop the drying furs. Good thing, she thought. Or I'd run. "You can't leave me, Borun. You're my blood mate. And now, more than ever, I need you nearby."
Her heartsong resonated the same tune.
"I must do this for all Luvks. I must try to bring them together even though all Ishan wants is to increase her power." His golden eyes glowed as he rose to prop his head on a palm where he could look down at me. "Aisling, we have the syringes. I will only be gone a few days ride there and back. As Marshals, we should be involved, monitoring this shift in politics to ensure no one is hurt. Especially a female who can't protect herself."
But what about me? What about my morals? What about my needs? Doesn't it matter I've sacrificed so much to be a part of this great social transformation he thinks he's starting? "What if you're killed? What if I'm left here with two syringes of blood? That's twenty days of life. What about your children?"
"Little one, you are strong. You have the strongest warriors here to protect you. And they can provide you with any distractions you require to wait out my return."
He implied I should take them all to my bed. "Borun, I never knew my father because men on my home world don't respect the women they mate. They leave them pregnant. Leave them alone to raise their children. And feeding the young is not as easy as hunting or fishing. Yes, my world is very different. But it's truly the same if you look long enough. My mother encouraged me to educate myself so I would never have to rely on a man." I tried to shove out from beneath his massive body. "And I feel like I'm right back where she was when she told my father she was pregnant. You are my blood mate. You and I have a bond that can't be broken. I don't understand how you can leave me here."
"Our worlds are very different. Luvk males aren't like Earth males. And I will be back in ten days."
Ten days of Hell…
* * * *
Borun quickly chose his weapons while his mate scoured Mart's scrolls in the guards' quarters. Quietly leaving the lodge early would make things easier for both of us, he decided. She wouldn't be sulking. And I could prepare the caravan. I pushed out with my mind, searching for Mart.
"Yes, Borun?" Mart replied.
"Is Aisling with you?"
"Right here. Working on her dictionary."
"Keep her there. When she begins acting strangely, see if her hands are shaking."
"They've been shaking for a short while."
I needed to disappear before Aisling cornered me. There would be no refusing her. "That's the sign."
"What sign?"
"She has to mate often." I wouldn't tell him it's because of a blood bond. There was no need to create animosity between her guards. Favoritism would only cause more problems. "It's part of Earth pregnancies. Stay with her. Give her anything she requests."
"Anything?"
"Whatever she asks for. We are of the same Royal Guard now. Even more, consorts. We serve Aisling."
"She is strong-willed."
That I knew more than anyone. "And you must be even stronger. For her sake. For the sake of the Luvks as well."
"I understand."
"And if you see Kruk, kill him."
* * * *
Later that evening, Aisling sat next to Mart who had kindly stopped flirting with her. But working with scripts and linguistics for an archaeologist was just as big a turn on as any devilish grin or seductive arch of a brow. So I kept my gaze focused on my work and off of the warrior. As much as possible given my hands kept shaking.
Boy, I sat with a prince. For the first time it dawned on me that these Royal Guards were royalty, not just guards. The prince taught me his written language. A gorgeous prince. I'm in so much trouble.
Mart leaned close, stretching his muscled striped arm across the leather he read from, in front of me, beneath my nose, and against my knuckles. "Aisling, this line speaks of the borderlands before the portal brought the Slakens to Luvk." Mart's clean nail on his white fingertip pointed to the far column of text near the top of the hide.
Gooseflesh warmed my arms.
He either purposely touched me or tried to get my attention. Especially after what they had to hear take place after I entered the bath earlier today. Damn them for their exceptional hearing.
"Do you see the circle containing the two slashes cut with a third?"
"Yes." Anything to get his addictive skin away from mine. Where was Borun?
"This mark notes time. It is a symbol of the year seventeen-hundred and forty-eight."
They kept time in a way similar to a method on Earth? She slid her gaze to his silver eyes.
His gaze lingered upon her lips.
Oh shit. Time to think fast. Talk about time. "How did the ancients calculate that measurement of time?"
He pulled his arm back across the leather, barely rubbing the back of my hand, diverting his gaze as if I wouldn't notice his touch. "We still use the method although most don't do more than count the years." He proceeded to explain they used a base-ten system with centuries and millennia.
The universe seemed to nucleate toward that particular method of noting time. But what of the beginning point? Was there some trigger event that set the scribe ticking away years on a rock or hide like the birth of Christ for the West back home? "What did they use to anchor their counting system? A monumental event is usually the zero point."
His eyes flashed appreciatively.
Was that respect?
"Explain what you studied to me?" He leaned onto an elbow but still towered over me.
"Culture. What it is to be huma
n on my home world. How a group of people changes through time. The measurement of time would be an aspect of the people."
He nodded. "And you studied war?"
"Oh yes." Enough to know I didn't care for it.
"This war," he waved at the scripts, "nearly annihilated the Luvks. We went through a period of offering our most prized high-castes as slaves to the Slakens. Daughters and sons. Anything to appease their voracious appetite for possessing our finest possessions."
And my children are being born into this world. Where was Borun? He'd explain again how safe I would be without him. I shoved up from the sturdy table top and skirted the wood.
Lehd and Var shot me concerned glances.
These princes could kiss my ass goodbye. Borun had some explaining to do. I strode in and out of darkness into the bright light cast by the orb lights in my personal quarters. But Borun was nowhere to be found.
"He's gone," Mart said behind me. "He left for the Ice realm not long ago. He said to tell you he'd return in ten days. That you shouldn't worry."
Worry? I stood with my back to him and held up my palms.
They trembled.
Not at the thought of losing my blood mate.
The blood lust was talking.
And I'd already found myself entranced by Mart's damned grin. What next? Just submit to desire? I turned to the red and purple pillows surrounding my fire pit's golden flames and tried to descend upon them with as much grace and dignity as my needy body could muster.
Mart knelt beside me.
All those muscles bulged along the split running the length of his leather pants. Even more above his lean waistline. I couldn't bring myself to look into his eyes. To see what those mirrors reflected of his thoughts. To know he could sense my dilemma. Or that he relished it. God, anything to avoid seeing what the reflection showed of myself.
How was I wrong in being attracted to the guards? They were my mates. My consorts. And that meant nothing to anyone back home because nobody knew. Who would care? My mother was dead. Yet my mother was probably the force behind my convictions. And principles were learned. I learned from my mother that men weren't there for you, if only in how her life panned out. And I'd be damned if any suave bastard was going to get the best of me. But I couldn't find one thing about these males that irked me. Other than the obvious that they were in line to prove willing mates. Could they leave me? Yes. But their culture placed them in my care. Why were the two so disconnected for me?
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