And she’d been clumsy in an endearing way. Honi had learned quickly to scan her surroundings for half-filled cups or electronic equipment that stood too close to the edge. If there was something to be swept off a surface, Adi’s bag or coat would do it.
Honi focused back on the alluring girl who was putting on a show for him. She certainly wasn’t shy now, dancing with only her panties on. Adi swung her hips enticingly, and Honi’s mouth went dry. He had become sidetracked following his train of thought, and his excitement had wound down a little. Then Adi turned around, and look, a G-string.
Honi stared at her perfectly round ass, swaying in front of him. His libido sprung back into full action, and he couldn’t help himself. He grabbed her hips with both hands and pulled her back onto his lap. For several long seconds, she ground her hips down. She left him breathless, so aroused that he rubbed and humped against her lower back like a horny teenager.
Before he lost complete control of the situation, he pushed her off and turned her back towards him. Her breasts were at the perfect height in front of his face, and he eagerly sucked a pert pink nipple between his lips. He flicked his tongue across the way he knew she liked. Her back arched again, and a long, drawn-out moan was his reward.
Adi couldn’t hold her lower body still. Her hips tilted back and forward of their own accord. When Honi bit down gently, she gasped. Her movements advertised her need, her desire for him. She surrounded him, blocking out all other thoughts. Her skin in his mouth, her breathless moans in his ears, her arms around his neck.
He hadn’t noticed, but at some stage, she must have opened his pants. Her elegant fingers wrapped around his arousal, she licked his neck as he threw his head back in helpless surrender. She drove him crazy, pressed tight against his chest, rubbing his erection, sucking bruises into his skin.
He needed some space, a break, before he embarrassed himself. After Adi had left, he’d lost all interest in sleeping with anybody else. His libido had gone into hibernation but had decided right now, with Adi writhing in his lap, to make a furious reappearance.
Time for action. With a twist of his powerful back and a push of his thighs, he threw her off him and bounced her onto the bed. He came to rest on top of her, keeping some of his weight off her rib cage, leaning on his elbows next to her head. The perfect position to kiss her.
His mouth descended, and he took a moment to breathe her in. Cinnamon, apple, spice—the fragrance drifting up from her skin pulled another groan from him. His hips ground down without conscious thought when another, sharper smell hit his nostrils. Somewhere in his lust-addled brain he registered the ozone scent as new, different, but all it did was make him harder.
His tongue first licked along her panting mouth, then pushed in and claimed her. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and her hands pulled him tighter with surprising strength. Their tongues tangled until Honi ran out of breath. He lifted his head, and their eyes locked.
Brown irises, so light with the sun coming in through the window that they reminded him of tumblers of the finest Scotch whiskey. A face so delicate, it could have been painted by one of the Italian Renaissance masters. Honi closed his eyes and peppered kisses all along Adi’s temples and ears.
His lips brushed over her hair until bristles stabbed the delicate skin on his mouth. Honi’s eyes shot open as he flinched back. He saw nothing but soft, long auburn hair when just a second ago, there’d been hard, coarse stubbles under his mouth. While he still frowned, staring at the skin on her ears that was as soft as on the rest of her body, Adi turned her face and bit the tendon on his neck gently, then sucked the skin.
A shot of arousal rushed through his body, and he couldn’t help but seek her mouth again, all other thoughts forgotten. Her hand slipped between their bodies and grabbed him tightly, moving up and down and driving him insane with desire.
When her other hand pushed firmly against his chest, he looked at Adi, wondering why she wanted him to stop. Adi smiled seductively.
“Lose the pants, lover boy,” she purred. Lover boy? Seriously? She’d never called him that particular pet name before. He wasn’t going to argue, though, so he rolled off her and stripped as quickly as he could.
Then he kneeled back between her legs and looked at her. Really looked. She was stretched out in her tiny panties, her breasts perfectly shaped as she moved her arms above her head. Her knees were slightly bent, exposing herself to him, fabric wet with her excitement.
He couldn’t resist any longer. Grabbing the G-string, he pulled and tugged until she was completely naked. Then he covered her small body with his, intent on more kissing, more rubbing, just more.
“Enough,” she interrupted. “Get to it, I’ve waited all this time for you.”
Honi moved his hand between her legs, wanting to give her as much pleasure as he could. Adi pushed it away. “No, I need you now.” Her voice was demanding, harsh, but God, did it turn him on.
He positioned himself carefully, the tip of his dick right there, when she grabbed him and impaled herself. His eyes closed in shock at feeling her so tight and hot around him. Before he could recover, she’d set the rhythm, her pelvis tilting back and forth, pulling on him, squeezing him. His breath stopped with his effort not to come immediately.
What the hell had gotten into her? They’d made love plenty of times before, but never had she been as aggressive as today. He loved a girl who knew what she wanted in bed and wasn’t shy about expressing her desire, but Adi was rough to the point of pain.
She twisted her hips and just like that, he felt the arousal tighten at the bottom of his spine. He moaned helplessly, feeling her hands scratch his lower back, her legs tighten around his waist. Her breathing sped up and her tiny gasps and moans rose in intensity until they culminated in a half-choked scream.
Her whole body clamped down tight on his dick, and he frantically moved in and out of her, all technique forgotten. A sweet ache, like sucking a hollow tooth, emanated from his spine and spread through his stomach, his legs, his arms. Another one, two strokes, and his balls, his whole groin tightened, until the tension released from his cock.
Honi’s head was buried in Adi’s neck, clutching her body to his, hanging on for dear life, while he howled his pleasure soundlessly. Another spasm ran through him, and when he opened his eyes, he stared at Adi’s beautiful green irises, her face relaxed as she came down from her peak. She smiled at him, then her eyes closed again.
He rolled off as his mind churned in shock. Something was wrong. Now that he was no longer distracted by his libido, adrenaline coursed through him and removed the last vestiges of afterglow. His eyes narrowing, he looked at her face again. He hadn’t been imagining things—her eyes had been green, like a cat’s. His thoughts roiled feverishly. What the hell was going on?
He concentrated on keeping his face slack, to show none of the turmoil he was going through. He pulled her close, holding her in a tight embrace. Adi nestled her face against his collarbone, sighing contentedly. It should have been a beautiful, tender moment, making love to his girlfriend after fearing that he’d lost her. Instead, his hands were shaking, and the loving embrace was meant to hide his shock and anguish.
Determined to get to the bottom of this, he relaxed his body muscle by muscle, as he had learned years ago from his teacher, John. He closed his eyes and calmed his mind, pushing away his churning fear. When he was deep in trance, he reached out into the darkness, searching for his spirit animal.
Ho’neo approached him slowly, and if Honi hadn’t already feared that something was very wrong, he would have had his confirmation by the way the wolf behaved. Lips pulled back from his fearsome teeth, the animal slunk sideways, torn between running and fighting. His black fur was standing up on his neck, and his tail was swishing back and forth aggressively.
His ears flattened to his skull, Ho’neo couldn’t have shown any more strongly how freaked out he was. Honi sent calming thoughts his way but didn’t manage to speak telepathically to
him. He wasn’t too worried about it, because Ho’neo wasn’t keen on using words while Honi was in trance. Sometimes they had to communicate while Honi was meditating, but generally, the spirit animal saved it for the dreams they shared regularly.
What did alarm him was that he couldn’t parse the wolf’s state of mind. Sure, he saw that the animal was upset and angry, but he couldn’t feel it. And that was new.
Honi sank deeper, his heartbeat slowing dramatically. He didn’t go that deep often because it left him freezing cold when he woke up. This was a special case, though. Something was very wrong, and he needed to get to the bottom of it. He drifted for a little while, imagining himself huddling up to his friend.
Ho’neo’s body was stiff and unyielding, and Honi gave up after some time. The wolf tried to tell him something, licking his hands, pushing his nose against his cheek. But no matter how hard Honi tried, he couldn’t understand what the animal wanted from him.
Despite burying his hands in Ho’neo’s thick pelt, Honi’s arms were covered in goose bumps. Something was tugging on his consciousness, and shivers were running up and down his body faster and faster. Honi tried to breathe through them and stay under, but it was no good. Like a diver losing control of his buoyancy, he drifted up, towards the bright room his body lay in.
This hadn’t happened to Honi since he’d been a young boy. He was an experienced spirit walker—staying in trance for hours was an easy task. Desperately, he expanded his mind, trying to find what was distracting him so badly that he was being pulled out against his will.
He tried to force it, knowing full well that willpower didn’t work with something as fragile as the meditative state. Just as he was about to give up and open his eyes, a bright-green light sparked into existence. Or maybe it had been there all along, but he hadn’t seen it. He drifted towards it, and the sensation of cold, of freezing, grew the closer the spark appeared.
Honi tried again. He inhaled deeply through his nose, held his breath, then expelled it slowly through his mouth, imagining the chill leaving his body. Every time he exhaled, he got the impression that the light was expanding, that there was a sentience hiding behind the spark. He focused harder, and the tight light relaxed, expanding into the shape of a girl, lying prone on her tummy, legs tucked under.
Honi’s mind stuttered as he recognized Adi’s outline. But there was something alien, cold about the vision. He had no doubt that he looked at the psychic signature of his girlfriend—if nothing else, he had seen the very same color when Adi had opened her eyes in the throes of passion.
Except this wasn’t Adi. It might look like her, but it wasn’t her. Honi had spent days in her company when they were trapped in the spirit world. He knew her spirit signature as well as Ho’neo’s or his own. This… whatever it was, was not his girlfriend. The moment the revelation hit Honi, he gasped for breath and snapped open his eyes.
The Adi creature was on top of him, her green eyes regarding him calmly.
“So now you know,” she said.
“Who the hell are you?” Honi’s eyes flitted across her face, her naked body. Except for the freaky eyes, she was the spitting image of Adi, an exact copy.
“Where is Adi?” Honi pushed against the girl, and she rolled off him. Honi refused to panic yet, but his stomach churned with worry.
The girl sighed. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t find out so soon. We could have had some more fun.” The longer she talked, the stranger her voice sounded to Honi—as if she couldn’t be bothered to keep up the pretense any longer, the sound fractured like icicles breaking on rocks.
“I can’t tell you anything other than you better forget about your girlfriend. You won’t find her in this world, spirit walker.”
Honi tried to sit up, but the doppelganger put her hand on his chest. Despite her slight stature, she held him down easily.
“I wouldn’t if I were you. Stay for a while, enjoy the city, pick up a girl and fuck her brains out. Then go back to your homeland and forget what happened here.”
The girl put an ice-cold hand on Honi’s forehead. A spike of pain pierced through his mind, and while his body sank into darkness, his last conscious thought registered a rough, warm tongue licking his fingers.
18
“Hey, Mann, ist alles okay?”
Honi opened his eyes. It was pitch dark in the room, and he groggily struggled to his feet. There was somebody outside the bedroom door, knocking hard. Honi wasn’t dressed, and he quickly picked up his underwear and threw it on. When he opened the door, the blond dude—what was his name? Lukas?—had his hand raised to knock again.
“Hey, sorry to wake you. I’ve tried knocking several times but you were dead to the world,” Lukas said in his slightly accented English. Honi scratched his head, yawning, to appear like he’d had a nap. No point confessing to the German student that he’d been knocked out by some kind of supernatural Rohypnol.
Lukas continued, “Adi left over four hours ago. You didn’t go with her, so we assumed you’d try to sleep off your jet lag. Not a good idea, by the way—it’ll hit you harder that way…”
His voice trailed off as his eyes scanned up and down the half-naked man in front of him. He blushed a little before taking a deep breath and continuing, “Gerald and I are having some food. Would you like to join us? Unless you have other things planned with Adi?”
Honi blinked. He was hungry, now that Lukas had mentioned it. Maybe he could find out some more information from Adi’s flatmates that might help him find her. He flashed a wide smile. “Sure, that would be great! Thanks for inviting me!”
After quickly getting fully dressed and pulling his hair back into a tight ponytail, he followed the sound of voices to the kitchen. Opening the door, he nodded hello to a tall dark-haired man he assumed to be Gerald. Gerald smiled widely and with big strides crossed the kitchen and held out his hand.
Honi couldn’t help but return his smile. He introduced himself and sat down at the table, where plates were set out with a selection of cold meats and cheese. Small wineglasses were half-filled with a dark red liquid, reflecting the single light source above the table. He squinted at the bottle that bore a familiar label. Gerald noticed his glance and laughed.
“Globalisierung, ja?” Then he turned to his friend, “Lukas, was heisst Globalisierung nochmal?”
Lukas turned from the sink to the table, salad bowl in hand filled with halved cherry tomatoes, lamb’s lettuce and little pomegranate seed jewels. Honi’s mouth watered at the sight of the spread. These guys certainly knew how to eat well!
“My boyfriend is referring to the fact that we serve Californian red wine to our American friends. German wines are awesome, but we like this one for every day.” Lukas set the bowl down and put his hand on Gerald’s shoulder.
“Is Adi coming back soon? Should we wait for her?”
Honi shrugged. Better to play the confused boyfriend than admit that he had no idea where Adi was. “I’m not sure. I fell asleep before we could make plans for tonight.”
Lukas laughed. “Yeah, we guessed that she wore you out. That’s why we didn’t want to disturb you sooner.”
More seriously, he asked, “So, Honi, what brings you to Heidelberg? Adi didn’t mention you before. Are you a student?”
Honi considered his answer carefully. He didn’t know how long the doppelganger had been impersonating Adi. The only clue he had was that Adi was not in this world. There was only one other world that Honi was aware of, and that was the spirit realm. Better stick with the truth as much as possible.
“I study anthropology in the States. Adi and I decided to take a break when she came over here. I’ve missed her, though, and since I needed some research material for my degree, I booked a flight and traveled here.”
Lukas nodded, chewing a piece of salami. He swallowed, then asked, “Honi. That’s an unusual name. What does it mean? Is it an Indian name?”
Honi looked at him sharply, but the question had been asked innocently, so he
let him off. “It is. Most of us prefer ‘Native American,’ though. ‘Indian’ refers to people living in India.”
Lukas looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. In German, we call them ‘Indianer’ and Indians we call ‘Inder,’ but it translates the same.” Then his face brightened. “This is exciting. I’ve never met a Native American before! What tribe are you from?”
Honi was amused—people generally didn’t ask those kinds of questions straight out. He’d heard that Germans were in your face, and he had no issue with people wanting to know more. Better than assuming all kinds of offensive things about him, like one girl asking him how he managed to finance college, what with Indians being alcoholics and poor and living in squalor on reservations. That one had really pissed him off. Lukas obviously didn’t mean to offend, and he was still waiting for an answer, his face open and expectant.
“I’m Mekui’te. We live in Oklahoma.”
“So do you have your own language? What does Honi stand for?”
Honi shifted a little in his seat, uncomfortable under the dual scrutiny from the two men. “We do have our own language, but unfortunately hardly anybody speaks it anymore. It’s closely related to Cheyenne, so we can understand each other. Honi is short for Honiahaka, which means Little Wolf.”
When Lukas opened his mouth again, Honi smiled and held up his hand. “Sorry, guys, I’m really tired. I’ll tell you more tomorrow, if you want. I’ve got some questions myself, if you don’t mind.”
When Lukas nodded, Honi continued, “Have you noticed any difference in Adi from when she first arrived here? Like, did she start hanging out with anybody?”
Lukas and Gerald exchanged a quick glance, and Honi sat up straighter. “Well,” Lukas began, “she mentioned some guy she met, a student called Florice.” When Honi’s eyebrows drew together, Lukas hastily continued, “No no no, he’s not her lover, he’s just a friend. I think.”
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