Avelina: The Cult of Anick: Book One

16. Chapter Sixteen

Though neither knew it, Linorra and Syndeth had bonded in the way of their ancestors, before the dragons of Hartha had mysteriously disappeared. The more time they spent together, the more their souls intertwined like fibers spun into yarn.

I scooched over to one side of the mattress, then pulled the blanket out from under myself and kicked it down to the bottom of the bed so he could climb in. His warm body slid in next to mine smoothly. There were two other pillows, but they were both flat, so he stacked them behind his head as if he had done it a million times.

When he’d settled himself, he leaned over to place a metal plate on the oil lamp, then pulled the blanket over us as the light dwindled and went out. He stretched his arm behind me, and I turned to lie on my side so I could melt into him, resting my head on his shoulder. His incredible scent made me think about things I could be doing other than sleeping. I placed my hand on his chest, and he curled his warm hand over mine, connecting.

I had thought it would be pitch-black without the lamp, but the two moons shone down through the oculus, casting a pale red spotlight onto the floor next to the bed. There was enough light in the room that I could see Aaron’s chest rising and falling. I closed my eyes, wanting to just feel him.

My awareness slid into him easily now, and the moment it happened, I was nearly overwhelmed by how aroused he was. He wanted to suppress it, but his heart raced, and he had to fight to control his breathing. He felt me notice and realized, with embarrassment, that he couldn’t suppress anything with me right there in his arms. He was so hard that he would have to go masturbate somewhere or face another night of no sleep.

Sorry,he thought to me. I can move over to the other side of the bed.

Don’t. It isn’t bothering me. I liked it, in fact. I didn’t send him that thought directly, but I suspected he knew. What I really wanted to do was run my hand down the length of his body and find out for myself how hard he was. I smiled, pleased that I could make his body react that way.

He took a deep breath in and out, then lifted his head a little to smell my hair.

“You smell so good,” he whispered.

“I do?”

“Yes,” he said, a little growl in his voice. He took another breath in and out. It’s too bad about the shirt, he thought. I could feel the heat radiating from him as he thought about me in that shirt. I had to stick one leg out of the blanket to regulate my temperature, and he looked at it, swallowing hard. I resisted the urge to slide my leg on top of him and instead concentrated on relaxing every muscle in my body, one by one.

I closed my eyes and yawned, then remembered that I had done the same thing right before drifting out of my body. Aaron must have remembered, too, because he tensed, then squeezed my hand as if that would keep my spirit tethered to him.

“I can’t spend the rest of my life not sleeping,” I said, then thought, It’s now or never.

Aaron stiffened, and I opened my eyes again to look at him, confused.

I meant now or never for sleeping, I thought, laughing a little at the misunderstanding. He’d thought I was telling him to make his move.

Oh,he thought, but he’d already worked himself up.

I knew what was coming, and he knew that I knew, but he needed a minute to think it through. I felt his minty breath on my face as I waited for him. It mixed with his natural scent, plus something flowery from his fresh tunic. The combination was intoxicating. I wanted to pull his tunic up and lick it off his body.

Finally, he repositioned himself on his side so that he faced me. I rolled to my back, opening my eyes again to meet his penetrating gaze. Through our Connection link, his emotions were a jumble of affection, excitement, fear of rejection, and awkwardness. He was still embarrassed at how he’d acted earlier, but his hunger for me outweighed his pride. It burned in his chest, pushing down into his belly and groin almost painfully.

It’s because of the Evocation fragment,he thought. It stirs things. He leaned down to smell my hair again. Lots of things.

That makes sense.My body tensed with anticipation, and I renewed my effort to breathe and relax.

“Lina,” Aaron said. “I need to explain something.”

I hesitated, sensing that, whatever he was about to say, it would be difficult for him. “I’m listening,” I said. I braced myself to hear something soul crushing, like, Lina, I really want to use you like a blow-up doll but I’m not in a place to make a commitment. Is that okay?

Aaron closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and opened them again. “I feel so much all the time that sometimes it’s like a fire, scarcely contained within a hearth, always threatening to surge out and burn down everything around me. Being around others has always been difficult, but you . . . you’re so calm. When that first dragon attacked us, I thought you would collapse from shock, but you just got up and kept going. When Seleca ambushed us, I expected you to run away and leave me to die, but you stood with me to face her. I . . . I am . . .” He closed his eyes, searching for words, then opened them again to gaze down at me. “I felt jealous once before, but it wasn’t like this. This was more like rage, like—”

“Like someone burned your house down?” I guessed.

Aaron blew out a breath and sank his head into the pillow. “Yes, exactly. The thought of you with someone else makes me want to commit murder. Also, I’m sorry about your house. I should have said that sooner.”

I stared at him, amazed. My soul remained uncrushed, but my heart was having a fit. No one had ever said anything like that to me before. Even after several years together, Drew had been loath to profess her feelings for me. Until it was too late, that is. Now here Aaron was, stating it plainly after two days. His face consumed every inch of my vision, his features in sharp focus despite the dim light.

“I would have been jealous, too,” I said, “had I been in your place, but I promise that you don’t need to be. Ward will never be anything more than a friend. I don’t know exactly what’s happening between us, but it’s more than friendship.”

Aaron caressed my cheek, then leaned down and gently brushed his lips against mine. The sensation made me shiver, and I let out a little sigh. He smiled at my reaction, and I felt his tongue tracing my bottom lip. I opened my mouth in response, and he bit my bottom lip gently, then pressed his mouth firmly onto mine.

This kiss was neither gentle nor patient, nor was it an attempt to simply claim. It was a probing, messy kiss that clearly said, I want to be inside you.

I had already decided I wanted him, and the way things were going, I didn’t know if I’d get another chance. If Seleca and her Ministry cronies decided to attack us in the middle of the night, this might literally be my last chance with anyone. What can I say? I guess I just wanted to go out with a bang.

On the other hand, on the off chance that we made it through the night, I didn’t want to surprise him with my sexual preferences after the fact. If I let my physical guard down too early only to find that I had wasted my time on a bigot, that could get ugly. He sensed my hesitation and pulled away to examine my face, disconnecting.

“Lina.”

“Mm?”

“Are you sure you’d rather be up here with me than down there with Ward?”

I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself. “Aaron, there’s something we need to discuss. Actually, there’s more than one thing.” Reluctantly, I pulled away from him and sat up. It had been a long day and my back lodged a complaint, but I needed to explain my situation to him, and I needed to do it without outing Ward before he was ready. I wasn’t sure if that was even possible with our mental link, but I would try.

Divide his attention,Evilina suggested.

I unbuttoned the top button of that hateful dress and climbed on top of him. The move startled him, which was kind of the point. His eyes darted all over me, taking in every inch of my body as I settled on his hips, straddling him. His wound had scabbed over and would finish healing in a few days if left alone. I didn’t intend to let that happen.

“Okay,” I said. “You just bravely shared your feelings with me. Now it’s my turn to explain something. First, I don’t sleep next to people just to be nice. If I wanted to be down there with Ward, I would be.” I unbuttoned another button and then another as he watched. We hadn’t reconnected yet, but it wasn’t difficult to guess what he felt.

“Is this okay?” I asked, gesturing to my position. He nodded, resting his hands on my thighs. “The second thing,” I continued, “is a little harder to explain and a little more awkward, so I need to ask you a question first.”

“What?” he asked, his eyes now fixed on my newly exposed cleavage.

“Do you know what the word ‘queer’ means?” I asked.

He nodded. “Unusual.”

That’s fair, I guess.“How about the word ‘gay’?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes, of course, it means happy, although it’s an old word. What is this about, Lina?”

I groaned. This was not going well. “Okay, how about the word ‘homosexual’?”

He stilled, squeezing his eyebrows together. Clearly that word was familiar, too, and he now seemed uneasy about where this conversation was going. I kept unbuttoning and despite his confusion, he dropped his eyes back down to watch my progress intently. The dress was now unbuttoned below the level of my breasts, but I held it closed with my hand.

“Well,” I said, “where I come from, those words all mean a similar thing. Gay and homosexual are pretty much the same, but queer is a little broader, and includes people like me.” His eyes snapped to mine, and he frowned.

“People like you?”

“Yes,” I said. I took his hand and leaned forward so that he had to focus on my face. “I’m bisexual. I am attracted to all kinds of different people, including you. Very strongly to you, but my last serious relationship was with another woman.” I let him absorb that for a moment before pushing back into a Connection link. Shocked, he stared into my eyes to see if I was serious.

“I’m serious,” I said. “I need to know if it’s something that will bother you. If it is, that’s fine. I’ll button this dress right back up and sleep over there. You should know, though, that it’s common on Earth, and fairly well accepted, though not by everyone. There are still people who think it’s an abomination, although I don’t think much of those people. I’m guessing that’s how it’s viewed here, and I’m concerned that, despite your disillusionment with the Ministry and their lies, you might feel the same way.”

I took a deep breath, having gotten through the hardest part. “That would be a deal-breaker for me,” I said, “because it’s who I am. I’m never going to change, and I don’t want to hide it from you. If you can accept this about me, we can move forward to the next thing. If you can’t, tell me now.” I sat up straight and let go of his hand, disconnecting to leave him alone with his decision.

Aaron shook his head a little. “You are sneaky and manipulative,” he said.

“I know,” I said, unbuttoning another one, then another. His eyes returned to my progress. I only had two buttons left. I tucked my feet underneath his thighs a little.

“I don’t understand it,” he said, tearing his eyes away from my chest up to my face, “but there are a lot of things I don’t understand. You will probably have to be patient with me, but I am willing to listen. Hard.”

My stomach did a little flip when he said the last word, and I smiled. “Oh, I think you made a joke,” I said. “That’s a good sign. Okay, I have another question.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Have you ever had sex before?”

He hesitated again, perhaps surprised by my bluntness. He pressed his mouth into a thin line, blinking a few times, but after a moment, he shook his head.

I nodded, my suspicion confirmed. I leaned over him again, pressing my hips gently into his body. The front of my dress was open almost enough to expose my breasts but not quite.

“I have,” I said, studying his face. Since he’d excavated memories from my brain, I was sure he already knew that, but I wanted to be clear. If this was an oppressively conservative society, then there was a possibility that my lack of virginity would be a deal-breaker for him. If that was the case, it was better to learn sooner rather than later.

Because that, I thought resolutely, would just be another form of rejecting my sexuality—something I cannot accept because it’s the same as rejecting my humanity.

Aaron waited for me to say something else, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to chase him, though I feared it was already too late for that. I hoped by being open and blunt I hadn’t broken some kind of unspoken rule that only men and elderly women knew, but if I had, then so be it. I exhaled and lay on top of him, resting my cheek on his chest.

He took in a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly. He shook a little, but he laid his hands on my back and hugged me to him. “That doesn’t matter to me. Goddess, I want you, but I’m not ready to bond you to me, although I wouldn’t discount it for the future.”

“Bonding is like marriage, right?” I asked, lifting my head to stare at him.

“Yes, ‘marriage’ is the word my mother used. It’s a lifelong commitment.”

“That’s what I thought,” I murmured, nodding absently.

Had he really just said that he could see himself marrying me someday? I searched his eyes for the answer but found none. The reddish moonlight cast a beautifully warm light on the tanned skin of his face, but his expression gave nothing away, so I cheated by reconnecting again. That was exactly what he”d said.

“I’m not ready to bond to you either,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “but what does that have to do with sex?” I made a face like I was very confused.

He gave me the look and said, “Lina, sex causes pregnancy. I wouldn’t want you to—”

I laughed under my breath, shaking my head. “I know, Aaron, I was just kidding. But I have an IUD, another one of those Earth inventions. It prevents pregnancy, although normally I would need you to wear a condom anyway. I doubt you have those here and I didn’t bring any, so there is some risk involved, but I’ve been tested for STIs recently, and you’re a virgin, so I think we’re good.”

I was rambling, and he didn’t seem like he understood a word of what I had just said. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about getting me pregnant. I swear.” I held three fingers up in the Boy Scout salute, not that he knew what that meant, either, and held my breath.

Aaron’s brow furrowed, then his expression transformed into something simultaneously enthusiastic and incredulous as he worked through the reasoning. Connection told him that I was truthful, but he still had to weigh the possibility that I might be wrong.

I rested my head against him again and released my breath, feeling his chest rise and fall while he decided. We were only superficially connected, so I didn’t hear his thoughts, but I guessed that he asked himself if the pregnancy risk was worth it.

It took for-freaking-ever. As I had noted before, Aaron liked to take his time to think things through. I lay against him as he caressed my hair, thinking. His touch sent electricity straight to my core, and I could feel his erection trapped between us. It was all I could do not to reach down and stroke him.

“Okay,” he whispered.

I let him hug me for a moment more, then I pushed myself back and sat up again. “Okay,” I repeated, “then touch me.” I took his right hand and placed it on my breastbone. His hand was hot, but the room was chilly. I let the heat seep into me, absorbing it like a sponge. The heat filled my chest, pushing down to the base of my spine. I connected to him through the touch and whispered, “Can I come in?”

He let me into a deep connection, and I immediately felt his powerful desire for me. It really wasn’t fair, to be honest. There hadn’t been much chance that he would say no, though his restraint was impressive given how painfully hard he was just from me sitting on top of him.

I could hear his thoughts now, and they were all variations on the same theme. Oh, Goddess. This is amazing, but what do I do? He had only seen breasts once before, and that was by accident when he was a kid.

Just touch me, I thought to him. Put your mouth on me. Start gentle and end rough. They were words of a sort, but they were infused with heat and mixed with images of what I wanted him to do to me, where I wanted his hands, his lips, his tongue, his teeth.

I took his other hand and molded his fingers around the fabric of my dress, sending the image of him pulling it open. He complied, pulling the fabric to the side, and I felt his reaction to seeing my breasts for the first time. His lips parted and his breath turned ragged. He was imagining tearing my dress all the way off. I wasn’t opposed. I hated that thing.

He slid his hand down to one breast, running his palm lightly over it. The touch sent a shiver through my whole body, and he felt it too. I felt him feeling it, like a feedback loop.

Wow, this is going to be good, I thought and let out a short, breathless laugh.

This clearly broke some kind of spell because he took charge then, lifting my whole body off him as if I were no heavier than a throw pillow. He rolled me to my back so he could hover over me, pressing his mouth back to mine. I spread my knees apart and pulled his hips down. He relaxed against me, his solid form on top of me like a weighted blanket. Despite everything, I had never felt safer than I did right there underneath his body.

“Lina,” Aaron whispered. He said my name like a prayer, reverent and suppliant. The sound of it sent an unexpected jolt through me and I moaned a little, grasping at his tunic. His mouth found my neck, then he lifted himself to pull my dress over my head.

My one set of undergarments was washed with my other clothes and laid out to dry. He hadn’t known that I wore nothing underneath, and he stopped to stare. I let him stare, then stuck my toes underneath his tunic and ran them from his leg up to his hip, reconnecting, and also learning that he wasn’t wearing anything under his tunic either. He reached down and tugged it off, flinging it to the side.

He was leaner than I had imagined. He was naturally a large person and broad, at least by Earth standards, but he wasn’t built like a bodybuilder. He looked like a man who had been living off the land, eating just enough to get by and doing lots of manual labor. His chest was lightly covered in black hair, and he had a pronounced farmer’s tan, though his palest skin was still darker than mine ever got. He was uncircumcised. I stared openly, wondering how much I could get in my mouth.

Only one way to find out.

He knelt there in front of me while I contemplated that, sending the image to him. He closed his eyes, imagining it, then lay down on top of me, pressing his naked skin against mine. His skin was just short of too hot.

He moved his mouth down to my neck again, then farther down to my breasts and belly. I let my head fall back to bask in the heat of his mouth. He wanted to take his time and worship every inch of my body, doing all the things I had showed him I wanted, but he felt my pleasure too intensely through our link, which made it difficult for him to slow down.

A short little growl escaped his tight control, which made me grin up at the ceiling. Bear Guy is growling at me, I thought.

His eyes locked onto mine, one corner of his mouth ticking up. Bear Guy, he thought, shaking his head. He moved his mouth back up to mine and settled between my legs, rocking his hips gently back and forth until I ached to push him inside.

Instead, I did something that I belatedly understood he’d been fantasizing about since the first moment he saw me, something that had previously filled him with so much shame that he’d been enraged by it. Despite my disheveled state and his resentment over years of isolation, he had wanted me to touch him so badly that he’d seriously considered leaving me out there in the woods to escape. He was ecstatic that he’d suppressed that impulse.

I slid my hand over his hip, continued down his thigh, then back up between his legs. I stroked him, and he pulled his mouth away and dropped his head back, making a sound like he’d set down something heavy. His voice vibrated through me, and I pulsed with need for him.

Tell me what you want, I thought to him, sending him images of his options.

He gazed into my eyes and thought, There’s time for all those things later. Right now, I just want to be inside you.

I want that too, I thought to him, relieved.

I stroked him a few more times, then guided him carefully to the correct angle. Once the path was assured, he lowered himself down on top of me, pushing inside me deeply with a loud groan.

I gasped, then I wrapped my legs tightly around him. I closed my eyes and relaxed back, taking in the feeling. He did the same, drinking in the experience of being completely connected to me in mind and body.

He kissed me gently on the lips and neck, barely moving his hips. I glanced up at the healing wound above his eye and decided that now was the time. I sent my intention to him, and he agreed, soI pushed Protection into him, directing it toward that wound again. He moaned loudly, then began thrusting in earnest.

I opened myself up fully to his need, letting him take control. He pinned one of my hands above my head, and I had the other in his hair. It was still damp and fell loosely around his head in dark waves.

I can’t believe how good this feels, he thought over and over. It’s so good. It’s so good. It’s so good. I felt the sensations of his body as if they were my own, and they were as much a part of my experience as those of my own body.

He closed his eyes and gave in to the pleasure, kissing me as he pressed into me again and again, just as I pressed my energy into him. He held nothing back, and I didn’t think it would take either of us long to climax. I suspected that our experiences were so entangled that I would have little choice but to be carried along with the tide.

Unfortunately, his wound chose that moment to finish healing. The scab fell off, landing on my forehead, almost in my eye, which broke my concentration and grossed me out a little. I tensed, unsure what to do. Aaron paused to see what had happened, then he laughed absurdly hard.

“Rude,” I said, but he sounded so happy that I couldn’t even bring myself to be annoyed. His deep belly laugh was a rare hymn.

“At least it’s not pus this time,” he responded and broke up again, shaking the whole bed.

“This is quite the romantic start we’ve got going here,” I commented.

He struggled to contain himself, then picked the icky little thing off my face and tossed it off the side of the bed. “Sorry,” he said. Then he kissed me again and restarted his rhythm.

“What would happen if I kept pushing Protection into you?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Nothing, I think. You can try.”

I did. At first, it seemed like he was right. He could feel it, and it still felt incredible, enhancing his pleasure and subsequently my own, but the energy didn’t pass through him or come back to me. Instead, it accumulated.

I should stop, I thought.

Not yet.

The unused Protection fragment sought a new target and, not finding one, became a diffuse energy that seeped into every cell of his body. After a minute or two, Aaron glowed with a faintly aqua-colored light. In fact, we were both glowing.

He paused briefly to gaze at his own hand, holding it up to his face just as I had the first time. He let out a short laugh then resumed thrusting. He looked back down at my face and thought to me, I want to try sending it back to you.

I nodded and closed my eyes, letting my head rest back again. With a grunt of effort, he pushed Protection back into me from the newly enhanced reservoir that had collected within him, and the feeling was just like what I had experienced in the portal. The pleasure was so intense that I involuntarily cried out. It was as sharp as pain, and I arched my back in response.

He felt it through Connection, just as I had, and it drove him into a frenzy, which was only heightened when the fragment flowed back into him from me a moment later. His speed increased to his maximum, and the room became brighter than day as we continued transferring the Protection fragment back and forth, building with each cycle.

The noise we made when that frag bomb finally detonated was probably heard on Earth. Aaron felt it coming and propped himself up on straight arms for leverage, then threw his head back, his entire body rigid. He was inside me as deeply as he would go, paralyzed by the intensity of his orgasm.

I was dragged willingly into the climax with him, overwhelmed by a feeling of not only pleasure but wholeness. Out of nowhere, my perception of reality bent and twisted, like an intense episode of déjà vu. My awareness expanded, allowing me to see my life as a river. It connected to an extracorporeal part of myself that I instinctively recognized but hadn’t been consciously aware of. I felt a Oneness with Aaron that existed in some space outside of physical reality, and for an instant, I caught a glimpse of myself outside of the constraints of time. The moment was over before I could process it, but I was left with the certainty that our paths had not crossed by accident.

Aaron had explained to me that his mother, Violet, predicted our meeting, but I didn’t comprehend until that moment the significance of the event. The outcome of our relationship would have momentous consequences not only for us, but also for everyone we knew and loved. If I hadn’t been in the middle of a mind-blowing orgasm, I would have been scared shitless.

The Protection fragment surged and subsided, then surged and subsided again, like a pulse. It finished cycling through us one last time, then dissipated. The room dimmed, and we clung to each other for a few more seconds. Aaron slowly pulled out and slid off to the side like a jellyfish, one leg still draped over me. We were both drenched in sweat and breathing hard. We lay there for a long time, panting.

I had never had sex like that before. The use of fragmental energy had turned the experience into something much more profound than just physical gratification. It had been a spiritual experience that had moved me and made me question my entire life’s purpose.

“I don’t even know what that was,” I said, “but it was worth risking the pit for.”

Aaron burst out laughing, joy radiating out from him like Evocation heat. “Good?” he asked, though he knew the answer.

I laughed even as tears streamed down my cheeks. “Yes,” I said, still catching my breath. “Understatement. Fragment sex. Holy crap. That was just . . .” I shook my head. I couldn’t think of a word that described it.

“The very essence of perfection,” he said in that deep voice.

I laughed again, almost hysterical. Jesus, I need to get ahold of myself. “Yes,” I said, “and your memory is too good. I need to watch what I say to you a little better.”

“You don’t,” he said seriously and hugged me to him.

“Good,” I said. “I was bluffing anyway. I’m going to fall asleep now. Poke me if I accidentally die.”

“That’s not funny,” he mumbled, “and I already did that. Maybe tomorrow.”

I grinned, surprised that he’d made another joke, then snuggled into him and closed my eyes. You sure did, I thought.

“I glowed,” he said.

I opened one eye and peered up at him. “Yes, and then you actively used Protection. Have you ever done that before?”

“No,” he said. “At first, it was similar to when you pulled me into the shield, but then I was able to take control of it, like I do with Evocation.”

“I think I gave it to you,” I mumbled, closing my eyes again. “Maybe now you’ll live forever. You’re welcome.”

Aaron kissed my forehead and mumbled something, but I was almost asleep and couldn’t retain it. I could feel him, though. He was full of wonder, gratitude, and possessiveness. He squeezed me a little and thought, Mine.

We’ll see, Bear Guy, I thought. We’ll see.