Chapter Fourteen
“Pure and Dark, two sides of a coin, like magnets that attract and repel. Ever at odds and intertwined, which one is which—none can tell.”
—From the Ecliptic Prophesies, buried and forgotten
Ben awoke slowly to the brush of silk across his skin.
As awareness grew, he realized that it was Seven’s lips, leisurely caressing trails all over his face and neck, the fingers of one hand woven into his hair, the other lightly tracing across his features, over and over, as if she were memorizing him through touch.
He kept his eyes closed and simply reveled in the pleasure of it—awaking blissfully in his lover’s arms, her touch both arousing and tender, both giving and seeking. She seemed to be simply enjoying him. Enjoying the two of them together.
Not demanding. Not yet.
But he knew she would. And so would he.
He was still clasped within her tight, wet heat. It was probably unconscious, but her body slowly, rhythmically squeezed around him, keeping him painfully hard.
But it was a pleasurable pain. He reveled in the soreness of his muscles, especially in his cock and balls, and all around his groin, including his ass. Hours of continuous orgasmic release tended to take its toll on a man, and it had been so very long since he felt this special kind of torture.
Perhaps never.
In their past lives, they’d come together violently at times, leisurely too, and always with an insatiable passion. But it had never been like this between them. It had never been all-consuming, hearts wide-open.
At least, not on her part.
He’d always felt the absence of her love, like a gaping wound, a scathing void, as if he’d been mating with a phantom, a ghost. Someone who wasn’t emotionally there.
But earlier, for the first time, he felt her. Saw into her. Those iridescent eyes filled with entire universes. He heard the frightened yet hopeful beats of her heart. Felt her soul yearning for him, stretching toward him, and finally embracing his own.
When she touched him, kissed him, it hadn’t simply been about seeking pleasure. There’d been reverence and awe, care and gratitude, vulnerability and courage.
There had been love.
Though she hadn’t put it into words, he knew it was there. His heart and soul healed because of it.
It was there now, as her fingertips moved across his face, lingering on his lashes and lips.
He tried to reach into their Mated telepathic link to read her thoughts. Her mind was quiet, but in the silence, there was a profound wonderment. As if she couldn’t believe he was here, that they were together like this, that she got to have something so beautiful and extraordinary.
And there was an ever-present fear as well that he vowed to dispel. That she might lose him again. And lose herself again.
Destroying the entire universe in the process.
He opened his eyes then and met that swirling, iridescent gaze. His hands smoothed down her sides, thumbs brushing over her nipples, spanning her waist, to settle on the curves of her ass.
Gentling her. Grounding her to him.
And he clenched his buttocks and flexed his hips subtly to remind her that he was right here. Inside of her.
Always.
“Benjamin…” she murmured, flexing her own hips in time with his, the smallest increments of push and pull.
Her eyes said more than his name. So much more.
He felt what she didn’t say, and he tasted it in the tears that trailed down her cheeks and into her mouth as she bent down to kiss him. So deeply and softly. Yet possessive and fierce.
She pressed her torso tightly against his, from chest to stomach to hips. Her small movements dragged her swollen clit against his pubic bone, and her pussy worked his cock so that the engorged head dragged unerringly on that particular spot.
He squeezed her ass hard as she used his body to chase her pleasure, the too small movements of her hips bringing him to the edge and keeping him there, but not enough to tip him over.
It was perfect for her, however, and he gladly endured the sensuous torment. In less than a minute, a languorous orgasm shook through her, making her channel milk him forcefully.
Driving him insane.
He took over their kiss and devoured her mouth now, his tongue tangling with hers demandingly, teeth nipping, biting her swollen lips. His hands on her ass pushed their groins even more tightly together, as he fucked up into her from below in hard, short, staccato pumps. He bent his knees and put his feet flat on the bed, levered up his hips and pounded like a piston into her continuously convulsing cunt.
Her climax built to an almost unbearable crescendo; he felt it too, as her whole body clamped down on him in an unforgiving vise.
She screamed in a raw, broken voice into his mouth, and he swallowed it with his own guttural groan as he came apart too. Filling her to overflowing again, until their groins and thighs were slippery and sticky, both. And they lay in a heaving, sweaty mess, shuddering and gasping in each other’s arms.
They might have passed out a little after that. Until he felt her lips on his throat again.
He groaned without opening his eyes.
“Have mercy, goddess. I am only human.”
“That’s no excuse,” she retorted readily, though her voice was a sex-frayed smoky rasp.
“I am only human too. And besides, your body is still hard. It’s clearly capable of more. And I always want more.”
“You’ve bewitched my body,” he slurred, exhausted and wonderfully replete.
“It doesn’t obey my will anymore. I don’t think I can be near you and not be hard. But we have to separate at some point, if for no other reason than taking care of other bodily needs. Like taking a piss and taking a shower, maybe in that order.”
“I suppose I could eat as well,” she seemed to see the wisdom of his words.
She brushed her thumbs over his lashes, and he fluttered his eyes open, obeying her silent command.
“I want to feed you from my hands,” she murmured, staring down at him. “Then take my own Nourishment from your body. Take water and wine from your lips. Take cream and honey from your cock. I wish I could take blood as well the way I used to. To Claim you. To make you mine.”
He was silent for a time, simply absorbing her fervent desires. It had always been addictive, this magnetism between them. But now that her wants and needs were wrapped in love and joy…
Gods!
I’ve always been yours, he finally told her through their link.
I’ve only waited for you to be mine.
And there it was, that smile:
A shimmering light grew within her eyes before the rest of her face followed. As the light radiated outwards, first her pupils, then irises, then brightening her entire face until it glowed—the corners of her lips curled up, then stretched wider, plumping her cheeks. And her eyes crinkled as they squeezed into crescent moons, until the brightness of her irises became shaded by her lashes, like sunlight dappling through autumn woods.
There was true happiness in that smile. A purity and innocence, too, that ancient beings such as she, and a god besides, should have lost long ago, if it had ever existed to begin with.
But he’d always seen this potential in her. She’d always possessed this brightness. This light.
And she was shining it upon him now in full radiance. He couldn’t look away if he tried.
I’m yours…if you want me… she said haltingly through their link, tentatively trying it out for the first time, as if she couldn’t believe it was there.
I will try…I want to try…to deserve you this time. Even if it takes my whole life. And if that’s not long enough, I will endeavor to be reborn so I can try, try, and try again.
Well.
Such heart-felt declarations couldn’t go unrewarded. So, Ben spent the next hour or three providing positive reinforcement so that she wouldn’t even dream of changing her mind.
Eventually, they did separate long enough to take care of various necessities, including ordering room service and refilling their bellies to build up strength.
Because they needed it. Ben was not nearly done with her. He’d waited a lifetime—a thousand lifetimes—they had a lot of ground to cover before he’d feel remotely sated.
As they finished the last of the food, Seven went to the hotel desk and retrieved a piece of paper from its drawer.
“I wrote this yesterday after…”
After their confrontation in the park. After the dam had finally burst.
She handed it to him.
“I was going to leave this with you if…if you decided you didn’t want me after all. If you couldn’t forgive me. If…”
She bit her lip, fear of losing him twisting her face.
He took the letter in one hand and reached for her with the other, wrapping an arm around her waist and settling her in his lap.
“I forgive you,” he said clearly, so there would be no mistake.
Her eyes welled with tears again.
“I’m sorry,” she uttered wetly.
He touched his forehead to hers, connecting them.
I know.
You won’t lose me. Not ever again.
You can’t know that, she whispered in their minds, as if she dreaded thinking the words much less speaking them aloud.
No, we can’t predict the future, he agreed.
But no matter what happens, you must understand—you must know now—that my love is eternal. It will never falter. Never fade. Even if everything else disappears, it will always be yours.
Only yours.
He tipped her chin up so she looked him in the eye.
Slowly, she nodded. She might not fully believe him yet, but she was trying to. She wanted to.
“Should I still read this?” he asked, holding up the letter.
She nodded again.
“It’s just my theory. It might help or it might not. I know you and your friends are preparing for war. I can feel it too. Something burgeoning in the air. Something dark.”
She bit her lip, looking down at the letter.
Still holding her, Ben began to read:
Dearest Benjamin,
(You are my dearest, you know. I once thought it was my sister. My self. Godhood. Power. But now I know it is only you. Above all else.)
And so, if you decide that I am not worthy of you (I am well aware I am not), I will say goodbye. You will not see me again.
As if she knew where in the letter he was, her hands clutched his forearm, holding onto him. She was negating her words in the letter with her actions.
He held her tighter, silently reassuring her that he would not be saying goodbye.
Not ever.
But I wish I could help you one last time. You asked, so I will try.
Here is my theory about the dragon quests: it’s the Jade Emperor’s plan to test me and my creations. To see if I am truly capable of becoming the Destroyer of Worlds. And therefore, his own Usurper.
Side note: Isn’t it ironic that Lilith’s daughter—your previous incarnation’s daughter—is the Destroyer and the Queen of the Pure Ones, Sophia Victoria St. James? Wonder where she got that from, eh?
I guess it’s not irony so much as destiny.
The obvious pattern to the quests is long-forgotten dragons remembering their powers, and what triggers their Awakening is the love of a Mate. I think the Old Man wants to amass dragons in the Celestial Realm to keep them on a tight leash, the way he kept Cloud Drako, Divina, Rui and others for a very long time.
What makes dragons special, you might ask. Why not collect all of the Immortals from the human realm?
My theory is that the Pure and Dark Ones, Elementals and Beasts, have integrated themselves relatively seamlessly amongst humans. There are even pleasant fictions about them—vampires, were-shifters, elves, and sorcerers. They have been called many names across time and civilization.
And besides, humans vastly outnumber Immortals.
But dragons…
There is no other creature like them in creation. If they ever took their Beast forms, there would be no “blending in.” Each dragon contains all of the ingredients from the other Kinds, including humans. They are the rarest form of magic.
My magic.
Thus, they have the inherent ability and potential to destroy worlds.
When controlled and directed, dragons can perform miracles, their powers used for good instead of evil, so to speak. So can I. I wove the Celestial Realm, as you’ve seen. I can create beautiful things as easily as I can destroy them.
You are the perfect example.
I could have taken the dragons’ powers for my own, you know. I think that was part of the Old Man’s test. What I send out into the world, borne of my magic, I can also recall. I could have built up my powers again. Perhaps not to the same degree that I had it before.
Never that. I would need to become One again with my Twin for that. And she is gone. But I could have taken the magic for my own, become Immortal, maybe even a god again.
I was tempted to. I took the Dream and the Song with that in mind, not only to escape or to help the dragons, not at first.
Being human, being split into three bodies, was the weakest I have ever been in my entire existence. Mortality loomed so close, especially to a being who is used to infinite time.
But…
I discovered that I kind of liked being human after a while. I enjoyed Hallmark movies and ice-cream. I liked working at the diner with Mike. I looked forward to napping at the library and apprenticing with Tal-Telal.
And the highlight of all my days was you. Even though I didn’t understand why.
As a human, I experienced you in ways I’ve never done before. Not even when my Twin was the fox spirit who’d worn human skins, among others. I wanted to hold onto those feelings because they made me feel close to you.
They made me feel alive.
I realized that a few years near you as a human, even if I only saw you from afar, made me feel fuller, more whole, than all of my incarnations thus far as an Immortal.
You engaged my mind. You lit up my soul.
And…you gave me my heart back. Even though I thought I didn’t want it. Didn’t need it.
I do.
I want to learn how to love you with it. I want to try.
I don’t know what else the Jade Emperor has planned. I did not take his bait in the Celestial Realm, and even after I became human. Would this be the end of it? If I die a human death, would the Prophesy be rewritten?
And coming back to the brewing war…
I don’t know what the shadows are. But I don’t think the Jade Emperor is the one creating them. They seem to be echoes of living dragons. The more dragons that are found, the more shadows that arise.
I don’t know what they want. Are they the Balance against the dragons’ power? To contain and destroy what should not exist on earth?
I don’t know.
I just know that I want you and your loved ones to be safe. I want my Immortals to live, to thrive.
So, the rings are yours. The power is yours.
I want to be yours…
But I understand if you don’t want to be mine. I finally do understand.
Yours truly,
Seven
Carefully, Ben set the letter aside on the bedside table. He sat back against the wrought iron headboard and positioned Seven astride his lap.
Her swollen pussy was wet against the base of his cock, but he didn’t push inside her. Not yet. He wanted her to focus on what he said rather than be distracted by what their bodies were insatiable for.
“You are mine,” he told her in no uncertain terms, his voice a deep growling reverberation between them.
She shivered at the sound of it, as if the words were a physical caress.
“I won’t let you go. No matter what happens, there will never be another. Nod if you understand.”
Slowly, she nodded, staring into his eyes, her own wide with the weight of the moment. This was their vow to each other. Nothing could tear them apart from now on.
“You are mine,” she issued her own claim, putting her hands on his shoulders, her fingers digging in.
“Now that you have made your choice, I won’t ever let you take it back.”
He shook his head, holding her searing gaze, and she knew that his promise, once made, was forever. It was not a new promise, though it hadn’t been put in so many words. He’d made it long ago, and he’d never broken it.
“Whatever may come, I will always want you, always find you, always endeavor to do right by you,” she said.
Her promise was new, but it was equally unbreakable.
“I won’t ever hurt you again. Not knowingly. If I fuck up, you have to tell me. You can punish me for it however you want. Just as long as you let me stay by your side. Being away from you would be the worst form of torture. I couldn’t bear it.”
She said it so sincerely that Ben’s mouth quirked.
“Punish you however I want, hmm?” he murmured, planting an open-mouthed kiss on her throat, then trailing his lips over her collar bone to her breast, before licking delicately around her tightening bud.
“Benjamin…”
She arched into him, thrusting her fingers into his hair, holding him where she wanted, urging him to keep going.
He loved the way she said his name. She always said the whole name, like Ere.
But also not like Ere. Because Seven said it on these occasions as if he were a sex god and she was a helpless nymph willingly sacrificed at his altar. Each syllable rolled off her tongue with a vibrating moan, husky with her desire.
He rolled and pushed her back until she was splayed like a starfish on the bed. He sucked on her hardened nipple, first one, then the other, as his hands mapped her small, compact body. Her hands pulled at his hair, holding on and pushing him down.
He knew exactly where she wanted him, but he’d get there in his own good time. After all, this was “punishment.” The kind he wanted to dish out, so she’d better lie still and take it.
He sucked on her sensitive nipples and licked and kissed her breasts and stomach in a meandering, leisurely path. He dipped the tip of his tongue into her shallow navel, and she writhed wantonly beneath him, moaning with abandon, pulling roughly on his hair.
Let go, he commanded. Grab onto the headboard or put your arms beneath your head. You’re not to touch me until I say so.
She whimpered a little but obeyed, putting her hands beneath the pillow, holding tight.
He moved lower, settling between her wide-open thighs, his shoulders keeping them splayed. She was entirely exposed to him this way, pink and dewy, her nether lips swollen from his insatiable demands.
He petted her soft curls with his fingers, fascinated that she grew hair here. As a human, of course she would, unless she removed the hair purposely. But in her past forms, she’d always been hairless. Somehow, this made her more real to him.
She was truly here. Truly his.
Her pussy was small, like the rest of her. It amazed him that she could take all of him, because looking at her now, like this, the logistics didn’t seem possible.
But there was no doubt that she was made for him, and he for her. Her virgin body conformed readily to his, even though it felt like every time he entered her he was breaking in, making her his all over again.
He remembered the residue of blood that mixed with their fluids at the base of his cock and traces around his stalk when he finally pulled out of her body after endless hours of loving. A savage, primal triumph had blindsided him at the sight, at the proof of his possession, making him want to beat his chest and roar.
She was his! She was finally, totally, his! Only his!
She must have been extremely sore and tender through all of his attentions, and yet she only grabbed onto him, spurred him on for more. She couldn’t get enough either. Just as insatiable.
He spread his hands over her thighs and held her down, held her still, as he dipped his head to kiss her opening the way he kissed her mouth. Slowly and softly at first, sucking lightly on her lips, licking and plumping the sensitive flesh.
She shuddered helplessly, her hips moving restlessly, lifting and undulating to tempt him. Wanting more pressure. More penetration.
More.
He gave her more. But not at the pace she demanded.
He loved kissing her, and this was no exception. He intended to enjoy it. Taking his sweet fucking time.
In her previous incarnations, she’d never allowed much kissing. And every time she turned away from him, something died a little inside. She used him for sex, and he poured his love into her. It hurt more than mortal wounds that she never gave it back.
But now…
Though she didn’t voice it, he knew what she felt. He could feel it growing and blossoming within her. Hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes, feel it in her touch.
Taste it in her kisses.
He wanted to hoard those kisses. Take as many as he could and store them up. There were countless kisses she owed him, and he intended to collect on the debt like the stingiest financier.
All kinds of kisses, including the ones he was taking now. Drinking from her body, lapping up her honey.
He made love to her quivering entrance with his tongue and mouth, thrusting inside in a voluptuous sweep, making her convulse around him, already coming on a keening wail. He didn’t let up, gave her no quarter. He thrust and lapped at that tiny mouth and flicked her hard little pearl on every pass.
She was thrashing now, though she kept her hands clawed into the pillow beneath her head. He kept her lower body immobilized, but her torso arched and bucked, desperate for more.
Please…Benjamin…I need…
Please!
He inserted his longest finger into her then, and crooked it against her hard knot, lapping constantly all along her lips and clit.
She shattered again, long and hard, her channel clenching around him, clutching him like a lifeline.
He inserted two fingers and pressed against her bud with his thumb, just keeping the pressure there while she thrashed. Keeping her pinned with his hand, making her climax last and last.
She was crying in earnest now, practically sobbing, her body raw and hyper-sensitive. Yet despite the overwhelming pleasure, she was in pain. Because she was still empty where she wanted him most. Where his fingers, mouth and tongue couldn’t reach.
So, he gave her mercy. He rose up on his knees and slotted his erection against her sucking mouth, so big and rude at her delicate entrance. Yet, the moment he pushed a half inch inside, her body drew him in implacably, sucking him down to the hilt.
Only then, when he was seated deep, as deep as he could go, with his balls snug against her anus, did her cries stutter to a halt. Her body kept shuddering around him, and her hips undulated against his, rotating in jerky circles to wring his cockhead from the inside, pushing him against her pleasure center and keeping him there.
She let go of the pillow and reached for him.
But he wasn’t done “punishing” her yet. So, he clasped both of her hands in one of his, threading their fingers together, locking their fists above her head.
And he moved.
His thrusts were slow and dragging, a rolling undulation that made her feel every hard inch of him. With his free hand he cupped her breast, thumb worrying her hard bud. He sucked on the other breast as he fucked her with immeasurable patience. Building her up to a shattering crescendo, then slowing back down and drawing it out. Then fast and hard and ruthlessly pounding. Then soft and tender and deeply penetrating.
She was sobbing again before long, out of breath and out of her mind. Even her thoughts in their mind link became a litany of pleas and curses.
Gods…fuck…please! Too much… Never stop! I can’t…
No! Don’t go! Stay! Aaaahhhh…
Benjamin…Benjamin…
I hate you…Don’t stop…
I beg you…don’t ever stop…
Yes. Yes! YESSSSS!!!
And finally, he took her mouth again in a ravaging kiss. He let go of her hands, and she immediately clawed them into his shoulders and back, clutching him with her whole body as he surged within her over and over, hard and deep.
They came together at last as he finally let go, releasing into her fisting channel as she milked him violently. He flooded her womb with hot seed, but before he finished, he pulled out and knelt over her face, demanding entrance to her mouth, painting her lips with his still spurting cream.
She opened readily and licked the cream off her lips before sucking hard on his cockhead, wringing a new flood of semen from him. She swallowed as she worked him as mercilessly as he’d worked her. Her hands tightly wrapped around his staff and balls. Squeezing. Pulling. Until he jerked with painful emptiness.
And yet she kept sucking, kept swallowing, and his body shuddered to obey her, endlessly feeding her, as his ass clenched and hips stuttered, everything sore and well-used.
“Enough,” he said roughly, finally pulling out of her mouth.
She didn’t let him go though. She rubbed her face and lips against his still hard cock like a kitten, bathing herself in his musk.
“Enough,” he said again, a soft chastisement this time, and realigned their bodies to push slowly into her below, making them both groan at the beautiful pain of it.
He shifted them both to their sides, staying connected, and kissed her leisurely, making love to her mouth as if they had all the time in the world.
At length, she pulled back a little to look at him.
“So,” she said, smiling like a Cheshire cat.
That priceless, wondrous, supernova smile.
“That was my punishment?”
“Mmm,” he hummed, closing his eyes.
A long thoughtful silence.
Then—
“What do I have to do to earn that again?” she asked tiredly, but no less eagerly.
His silent laughter shook through them both as they drifted off to sleep.