The Inner Self: The Prophecy

by Raqurra Ishmar

  I step into his face as annoyance flares up inside of me. “Look, you wanted to know how we were going to get a bed? Well, I found a way. It’s been me that put a roof over our heads this entire trip, save Dee. Maybe you can start showing a little more gratitude.” I push him away from me and I open the door with the tree carved on it. I turn around to stare at Caylen with a question in my eyes. His bright smile was answer enough for me. He follows me into the room and I’m shocked by the lamps placed around the room.

  There’s a large bed in the middle of the room, with a dark blue comforter place on top. The room is incredibly homey, and it feels as if it was someone’s bedroom instead of an inn’s room. A door is to the immediate left of the entrance, and I open it thinking that it was a closet. To my surprise, it’s a modern looking bathroom. It’s about the size of a typical hotel bathroom, decked out with a tub, toilet, and sink with a mirror.

  “Whoa,” I say. “I didn’t know you guys had bathrooms on this planet.”

  “Yeah,” he chuckles. “The closer we get to Kor, the more advanced things are.”

  “Thank fuck. I need a shower right now before I do anything else.”

  “Is that an invitation?” he smoothly says behind me. He presses against my back, causing his heat to seep through my berrot.

  “Only if the answer is yes,” I say as I lean against his broad chest. I tilt my head back as he trails kisses down my throat.

  “Oh, Ren. The answer will always be ‘yes’.” He backs away so that he could pull my berrot over my head. I look up to see that there is a shower head directly in the center of the ceiling. The shower is made of dark grey and black rocks and looks surprisingly modern. He looks around and finds some knobs on the right side of the wall and turns them on. Instantly water begins to stream from the large shower head and I immediately begin to get excited at the thought of getting clean. We’ve been traveling for two days now, and I’m sure we look and smell as if we’ve been traveling for longer.

  Steam starts to fill up the medium sized bathroom, and a quick glance in the mirror causes me to want to rush into the shower. My hair is sticking up all over my head and there are smudges on my cheeks.

  Ok, so I look like shit. But regardless of how tore up I look, I still have this sexy man staring at me as if I’m the most beautiful person in the entire worlds.

  He grabs his shirt by the hem and pulls it over his head, revealing a muscular upper body. I stare at the expanse of his tan skin and my mouth waters with the desire to taste it. His stomach is peppered with abs that beg for me to run my tongue down and a happy trail leads down to what I really want to see. I slowly walk towards him without taking my eyes from his stomach. I grab his belt with much more confidence than when I tried to undress Titus.

  I successfully unbuckle his jeans and I pull them down over his hips. I’m not surprised to see that he’s not wearing any underwear either. His shaft is already hard and there’s a bead of precum at the tip. I brazenly grab his member in my hand, causing a hiss to escape from between his teeth.

  “I think we should wash up before we go any further,” he tells me in a voice much deeper than what I’m used to hearing from him.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I agree. He pulls my shirt over my head, grabbing my sports bra on his way and taking them both off in one fell swoop. He unbuckles my jeans, dragging them down until they’re pooled at my feet. I step out of them, kicking my underwear off as I go. I pull the ponytail holder from my hair and drop it to the floor.

  I step into the shower, a low moan escaping from my mouth as the hot water pours over me. I tilt my head back so that my face is exposed to the water, but that also leaves my throat exposed to my shower partner. He brazenly steps into the shower with me, hands immediately gripping my hips and dragging them until they’re aligned against his. A moan gets caught in the back of my throat and I wrap my arms around his neck.

  His lips find mine and he slowly explores my mouth as the hot water beats down on our heads. The steam seeps into my body, relaxing my weary muscles and encouraging me to lean my weight even more into his strong body.

  He glides his hands slowly down my side, rubbing gently against my thighs before moving back and cupping my ass in both of his hands.

  “We’re supposed to be cleaning up,” he murmurs against my lips.

  “Then why aren’t you cleaning me?” I tease him.

  Needing no other invitation, he untangles himself from my arms and reaches around to grab a bar of soap from the bar rack. It was wrapped in a leaf like wrapper and the smell of jasmine and vanilla immediately teased my senses.

  He guides me until my back hits the shower wall and presses the bar against my skin. He glides the soap across my collarbone while claiming my lips with his own. I try to focus on the path of the soap but I can’t quite follow it while also trying to breathe. He breaks our kiss and quickly washes the signs of travel from my body.

  Once I’m relatively clean, and relatively horny, I return the favor by cleaning him as well. I take my time when I get to his shaft, wrapping my hand around it and earning a deep moan from him. He only allows me to tease him for a few more moments before he’s pulling out of my grip and rinsing himself off.

  We quickly get out of the shower and forgo the towels that’s waiting for us on the wracks. Instead, we make our way out of the bathroom and to the nice queen sized bed that’s in the middle of the room. Caylen picks me up and throws me onto the bed, eliciting a small squeak out of me that I’ll probably be embarrassed over later. Right now, all I can seem to focus on is this beautiful man crawling up the bed.

  His blue eyes are dark with lust as he stares into my brown ones, and my breath catches in my throat when he leans down and begins to lick the water from the inside of my sensitive thighs. I can’t help but stare at him as he continues his path, stopping only when he gets to the junction between my legs.

  He takes his time lapping up my center, and I don’t even stifle the gasp that leaves my mouth when his hot tongue meets my bundle of nerves. I fist my hands through his silky hair and drags his head closer to my heat.

  “Caylen… please,” I whisper, even though I’m not too sure what I’m even begging him for.

  Even though it’s clear that he understands.

  He picks up the pace, lapping at my slit in earnest. I throw my head back until it’s buried into the pillows. I wrap my legs around his shoulders, using them to pull him closer to me. The moans leaving my mouth would be embarrassing if what he was doing to me wasn’t so damn good.

  He slips one finger into me, curling it in a way that pushes me immediately over the cliff and directly into a sea of pleasure. I crash around his mouth, barely able to catch my breath before he climbs up my body and immediately sheaths himself inside of me.

  The sensations are almost too much, my body still hyper-sensitive from his earlier ministration. He gazes down on me, eyes lidded heavily with lust.

  “You feel…,” he begins, pausing as he moans into my neck. His hips move slowly, pounding into me with such force, my eyes roll into the back of my head. “Damn, Ren, you feel, mmmm, you feel amazing, baby.”

  His husky voice mixed with the tantalizing sounds of his moans quickly brings me back to the brink of another orgasm. He hitches my leg over one of his shoulders and I cry out as he slams even deeper into me.

  He picks up the pace as he nears his own release. Using his free hand, he drags it up my stomach until he’s grabbing my breast. He tweaks my already hard nipple between his fingers and I clench around his shaft as the pain intensifies my pleasure. The glint in his eyes shows that he enjoys my reaction to what he just did.

  His pace is almost brutal at this point, and still I desire more. Sensing my need, he wraps his hand around my throat and squeezes.

  “Fuck,” I gasp out as I explode around him. I instantly begin to see stars, and I’m not sure if it’s from the intense orgasm or from the lack of air. Either way, I’d happily see these constellations every nig
ht if this is what it feels like.

  He slams into me a few more times before he stills inside of me. We’re both panting heavily, staring into each other's eyes as the glow settles into us. With great reluctance, he pulls out of me and flops next to me. He grabs me and pull one of my legs across his waist, snuggling me close to his side.

  “You know,” he starts. “I won’t reject the mating bond if it starts.”

  I tense up against him, not knowing exactly what I should say to that. I want to ask Sheya, but they seem to vehemently give me space during my private time.

  “Why?” I ask the only thing I could think of. Why would he want to be mated to me? I’m just a girl born on Earth, reincarnated from a girl born on Relvaria. He barely knows me and in the short amount of time that we have known each other, we’ve gone through so much. Not much of it is positive. Still, I can’t deny the giddy feeling taking residence in my heart at his words. The rejection from Titus still smarts as if it just happened, and it feels good to know that someone wouldn’t mind being with you for the rest of your life.

  “I can’t explain it,” he says. “I just feel like we go well together. I wouldn’t mind simply dating, but that’s not possible.”

  “Why isn’t it?” I ask, feeling that sting of rejection seeping back in.

  “There are things that you don’t know about,” he sighs. “And you’ll hate me when you find out. I rather you knew everything.”

  “Like what?”

  He’s silent for so long, I fear that he’s not going to answer me. I tilt my head back so that I can look up at him, but he refuses to meet my searching gaze. Instead, he chooses to stare at the ceiling as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world. I mean, it’s a nice ceiling, I guess.

  “Have you ever felt like, no matter what you do, you’ll be making the wrong decision?” he finally asks.

  “Um, no?”

  He sighs as his hand grips my thigh a little firmer, pulling it up until my sex is pressed firmly against his side. I’m still a little sensitive, but I can’t help but rock my hips slightly to create a little friction. His hand moves to grip my ass, and even though we’re supposed to be having a serious conversation, my body immediately heats back up.

  “Ren… I just… I just don’t know what to do,” he whispers.

  I stop dry humping his hip long enough to think of his confession. There are so many different things that he could be talking about, that I don’t know how to respond.

  “Do what you can live with,” I finally say. Shit, that seems generic enough that he could use that for anything.

  He finally looks at me, so many emotions filtering through his cerulean eyes. I reach up to cup his face, bringing his lips down to meet mine. The kiss is slow and languid and it wakes my body up in every way that counts.

  “Renee, I-"

  “Shhh,” I cut him off. “We can talk about it later. There are other ways I’d like to spend this night.”

  He stares at me for a moment, conflict clear in his gaze, before nodding his head and showing me exactly what I’ve been missing from the second he introduced himself.

  29

  Caylen

  I wake to the feel of a soft body pressed against my side and a small hand pressed against my neck.

  Shit.

  I open my eyes and glance down at the beautiful girl steadily asleep against me and I can’t help but have a flashback of everything we did last night. I’ve been with my fair share of women in my life, but none like Ren. I wouldn’t have known that she just lost her virginity to Titus if he didn’t tell me.

  And now here she is, curled around me with the cutest little snores escaping from her and I can’t help but smile as if I won the biggest prize in the world. I thought I fucked up way too much for her to want to be with me like this.

  I turn my gaze to the ceiling, basking in the dual contentment in my chest.

  Wait. Dual?

  I search inside of me a little harder, trying to make sense of what it is I’m feeling. After minutes of what seems like fruitless searching, I find exactly what I’m looking for.

  There.

  Fuck.

  Why the hell did I spout that shit about not caring if we begin the mating bond? Was that some kind of request that the Ancestors actually took seriously? It should take a lot more than a long night of amazing sex to begin the mating bond; but isn’t this the same thing that happened to Titus? And if what he said was true, they didn’t have nearly as much sex as she and I did last night.

  Happiness and hope begins to bloom in my chest as I think about spending the rest of my life with a girl like Ren. Yeah, we don’t really know each other like that, but I can already tell that she’s so much more than anything I’ve ever wanted. She’s funny, caring and she’s fine as hell.

  She’s also the reincarnated almost Priestess Ren and it’s my job to turn her over to the sadistic bastard of a king and she has no idea.

  That thought was like a cold bucket of water that splashes over my head and brings me back to reality. I started bonding with the woman that I have to inevitably betray in order to save my father, a man that sacrificed everything for three teenage boys that he owed nothing to.

  The conflicting feeling of her contentment and my dread causes my head to spin. I know that when the bond is completely finished, we’ll be able to feel each other as if we were one person, but I’ll never know how that would be like. Not with her.

  Because when she finds out what we did, she’ll hate me. She'll hate all of us so much that Sheya would probably try to kill us.

  Ren begins to stir against me, and I curse myself. If I can feel her emotions, she can clearly feel mine.

  Fuck.

  How is this going to work? She’ll know that something is up with me when she realizes that she’s feeling my emotions. Or maybe she won’t know it’s me. She’s still connected to Titus. Maybe…

  Shit.

  I should just tell her. I should tell her all about the King and everything that he has over us. How he has our dad and the only way to get him back alive is to give her over to him. Dad wouldn’t want us to give the potential savior of our world over to that bastard just to save him. He raised us better than that. Showed us better than that.

  But my brother would never forgive me if I did that. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I did that. But I also won’t forgive myself for turning Renee over to the King.

  She stirs a little more against me before opening those honey brown eyes and peers at me sleepily. A small smile pulls at her full lips and I can’t stop myself from leaning down and pressing mine against them. She presses her full breasts against me as she leans deeper into our kiss. I’m painfully hard by the time she pulls back and I almost forget what I was stressing about until she says, “Good morning, almost mate.”

  I stiffen against her and a surge of panic pikes through my heart. Her eyebrows furrow over her eyes as she tries to assess my behavior.

  “What?” she finally says. “Didn’t you say you didn’t mind if we mated?”

  “Yeah,” I swallow. “That’s what I said.”

  “So what’s wrong?” she frowns. “Do you regret sleeping with me?”

  I hate how small her voice sounds, or the fact that I can feel her body pulling away from mine. I pull her closer until she’s lying on my chest. I cradle her head against my chest, threading my fingers through her smooth black hair.

  “Hell no, I don’t regret a single second of last night,” I whisper honestly. And I don’t. I don’t regret spending the night with this amazing woman. I’ll cherish last night for the rest of my life, because that may be the only memory I’ll have with her.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “I just… I just don’t want you to regret it.”

  She leans her head back and stretches her neck until her soft lips are pressed against my jaw. “For some reason, I think I should actually be concerned now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you an
d Titus both are saying that you hope I don’t regret it. Now, I may not be all that experienced with after sex talk, but I’m sure that’s not the norm. Is it because you’re Unblessed?”

  It’ll be so easy to take that excuse and run with it. She’s presented me with a great way out of this, but I can’t take it. Not with her pressed against me and kissing me as if she’d love nothing more than to go for round four. No. I have to tell her.

  “No, it’s because-,” I start, but the banging on the door stops me before I can continue.

  “It’s time to go,” Zavid’s muffled voice easily carries to where we’re cuddled on the bed, and I can’t help but feel that maybe he’s been listening for a long time. There’s no way that his timing could just naturally be so fucking shitty.

  I sigh, kissing Ren on her head before sitting up. She slides off of me and stands. Naked. Completely fucking naked as the light shines through the window, bathing her brown skin in an ethereal light that makes my dick twitch just at the sight of her. She quirks an eyebrow at me with a shit eating smirk on her lips and I can’t stop the groan that gets caught in my throat.

  “They can wait another fifteen or twenty minutes,” I decide while grabbing her around her waist and dragging her soft body against mine.

  “You think we can do it before Zavid bursts through the door?” she whispers as she slides down my length, sheathing me inside her warmth.

  “I fucking hope so,” I bite out. Because if he takes this last blissful moment away from us, I won’t forgive him. He’s already going to take her away from me forever. I’ll remember this morning. As her soft moans dance across my lips, her pebbled nipples brushing against my chest, and her supple body bouncing on my shaft, meeting me stroke for stroke. I’ll remember this, because this is all I’ll ever have.

  30