Chapter 17 When Divinity is a Cage #2
Idan jerked his chin in confirmation. ‘While most young boys mastered liturgy and the arts of governance, I spent months in the sparring pits, learning the physics of the kill. I prevailed because, as a baby, my mother wove defensive strands into my genetic architecture. These modifications granted me a molecular density and a regenerative factor, allowing me to survive the Void-Forging trials that claimed the lives of my peers.’
‘Void-forging?’ Sheba asked, shivering at the thought.
‘It’s the concept of training warriors on a high-gravity moon.
Where the air is poison, and the sun is a permanent, bruised wound in the sky,’ Idan told her, staring into the dark amber of his glass.
‘They tempered us to withstand the dead space between dimensions where sinister magic and ghastly evil roil. I won all the challenges, and they called me the Scion of the Crimson Eclipse due to the lunar body that stains the firmament in that macabre place.’
‘You were a child forced to compete in that gravity?’
Sheba’s fingers clamped over Idan’s hand as her mind raced, horrified by what he endured.
Idan scoffed. ‘I didn’t remain young long.
The High Council soon drafted me into the Seven-Fold Legion, also known as the Nihil-Stalkers.
While the rank-and-file sang anthems of praise, my unit functioned as the scalpels of heaven.
We used our Ssignakht prescient power to stop wars before they formed as an idea in the minds of our enemies.
We destroyed armies before any of them drew a weapon and executed rogue deities before they realized a rebellion was taking shape in their thoughts. ’
‘The ultimate Shadow-Step,’ Issa explained.
‘A forward guard weaponized with psionic sight to navigate the currents of the future and the echoes of the past, designed to erase insurrection without an atom of mercy. My father used to recount how the Nihil were legendary for dismantling conspirators and treasonous souls, leaving nothing behind but charred ashes in their wake.’
Idan shrugged, his posture devoid of ego.
‘If we came for you, we never shimmered through the walls like ghosts. We crawled through the molten vents of your planet’s core, bypassed the atmospheric shields, and dismantled the foundations from the bottom up.
You never sensed us arrive, and you never noted us leave. ’
Issa nodded, her gaze unwavering. ‘From the Void Incursion to the Scorched Star Wars, you hunted Sulfiqar’s enemies, threw them into stars, and blew them up until their immortality was erased. Which is why we called you the Harbinger of the Divine Reckoning.’
Idan’s eyes darkened as he turned his gaze on his woman. ‘Now you know the full pedigree of the warrior I was, Sheba.’
‘Terrifying,’ his woman murmured, the word escaping her lips without thinking. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that,’ she blurted after her blunder.
He met her worried stare with a wry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
‘True, tis petrifying, salkia,’ he rasped, the squeeze of his hand steadying her. ‘But understand this: that is all in the past, the man beside you is nothing of whom I left behind.’
‘Liar,’ Sheba joked weakly. ‘I’ve seen you tear into a squad of kinais and obliterate them.’
Idan huffed. ‘Only to keep you safe, woman.’
The two of them remained locked in a silent, loaded tether of a lovers’ gaze until Ki’Remi cleared his throat.
‘So you two are kicking it, ay?’ Ki’Remi grinned, his eyes dancing.
Issa drove an elbow into her man’s ribs. ‘Forgive him, Sheba. Once a Rider, always a Rider; they present as competent, mature adult men, but every so often they descend into crudeness, sans subtlety and grace.’
Sheba shot her a lazy grin. ‘Idan, too, can be just as raw sometimes. Can’t you, honey?’ she said, winking at her man.
Idan leaned back, his thumb tracing the sensitive skin of her wrist with a deliberate, proprietary slow-burn.
His gaze darkened, the pupils dilating until the amber of his irises became a mere ring of fire.
He dragged his eyes from her to a grinning Ki’Remi.
‘If your question seeks to confirm whether we are entwined, then naam,’ Idan rasped, his timbre a rich, resonant rumble.
‘Our vigil in the mountains allowed us to unfurl our hearts, souls, and minds to each other. We now find ourselves helpless to passion, surrendering to a hunger that predates the firmament. We spend our hours drowning in the visceral ache of one another. Anchoring our spirits through the raw, sweating friction of the flesh til the boundary between her breath and mine dissolves into the scream of a dying sun.’
Sheba groaned, her face plunging into her palms as a fierce heat crawled up her neck.
His confession, however, had Issa and Ki’Remi in stitches.
‘Starbane’s void, Idan,’ Sheba muttered, her voice muffled through her fingers, her face heated. ‘You might have said ‘naam’ and spared me the embarrassment.’
Idan’s gravelly chuckle rumbled deep in his chest, a sound of pure, unadulterated satisfaction.
‘Where’s the fun in that? You did call me raw, nada? Besides, the truth of our ravenous lust and appetite for each other deserves a grander lexicon than your mortal dialects offer, my beautiful queen.’
As Sheba groaned once more, Ki’Remi raised his glass in a salute, his grin widening.
‘I raise a toast to your wild love. If you two possess a sliver of the incandescence and joy that Issa and I share, then may no one take it from you. For it is more precious than any kingdom won or any blood spilled in the name of glory.’
The Alatyr punched through the membrane of space, aided by a high-tech slipstream drive.
Inside the guest quarters, Sheba stood by the viewport, eyes on the distorted smear of distant stars and galaxies.
The conversation of the evening played on her mind.
She couldn’t get past Idan’s titles, which cast him in a new light.
In truth, learning of them emphasized just how insignificant her existence and fleeting mortality were when compared to his immortality and menacing magnificence.
She caught the whisper of his footsteps as he sauntered out of the bathroom.
‘You’re overthinking it, Sheba,’ he rasped moments later, arms encircling her from behind, pressing a kiss to her temple.
‘How am I supposed to reconcile the man who carried me up a mountain and the one with the hero with a thousand battles under his belt?’ she muttered.
‘Think only of this, my soul bleeds like yours, salkia,’ he implored, stoking her shoulders, his touch gliding down her back.
Sheba kept her back to him, her reflection in the glass pale and fragile, not quite listening to his murmured words. ‘Why are you standing in a guest suite with a mortal medic who has little to offer you?’
Idan cupped her breasts behind, his thumbs flicking her nipples.
Because I fokkin’ can’t get enough of her, his sub vox rumbled in her mind, sending a sensual jolt to her clit.
He turned her around, forcing her to confront the raw honesty in his molten eyes.
‘Divinity is a cage, salkia,’ he rasped, his touch tracing the line of her collarbone.
‘The High Council, the crowns of Sivania, the blood-soaked glory of the Seven-Fold Legion, are traps of eternal misery if you have no love. I spent millennia wielded as a weapon, with little passion or care for my soul. I no longer hunger for the songs of gods or the battles of ancient thrones. I crave and yearn only for you.’
He leaned down, pressing his forehead against hers, his breath hitching in his chest.
‘I’ll trade the heavens over and over to kiss the pulse in your wrist. I want the simplicity of your fire. I want to be a man who loves a woman, without the shadow of an immortally empty existence looming over me.’
Sheba gazed up at him, her doubt dissolving into a fierce, localized heat.
Now, can we stop talking as I’m already so tired from doing so this evening, and freakin’ make love?
Sheba huffed. Naam, my warrior god lover.
He led her to the velvet-upholstered divan that lined the curve of the viewport. There, they lost themselves to desperate, sensual reclamation.
He stripped his clothes and hers and lowered his head between her thighs.
She quivered as his tongue lashed her clit, dipping into her pussy to thrust into her.
His hands plumped and tweaked her nipples, as she shuddered under him.
Grunting, he surged to his feet, and she captured his cock in her hand.
He stroked her hair as she sucked on his onyx head and licked below his jutting member. Idan groaned when she tongued all along the throbbing vein that ran all the way down his length.
With a growl, he lifted her into his arms and strode to the wall, where he fokked her against a bulkhead.
Pistoning into her, his eyes burned into her, spilling with emotion. He thrust into her, palming her ass and thrusting with abandon.
He took her with a wild passion, his glyphs glowing, contrasting with her honeyed complexion.
He came with a guttural roar into her nape, her pussy rippling and squeezing him tight as he scorched her with his cum.
He collapsed to the floor with her in his embrace, his fingers playing on her clit, giving her royal treatment as she bucked and mewled through a second orgasm.
The cabin fell into a heavy stillness as they came down, breaths mingling, hands gliding over each other.
Idan held her to his chest, his arms a fortress, his presence absolute, a singular anchor in the shifting tides of hyperspace.
Sheba traced the cooling lines of his glyphs as her mind quieted.
Stay with me, forever, his rumbling sub vox whispered as he kissed the crown of her head.
I’ve nowhere else to go, handsome, she murmured, closing her eyes as the ship hurtled through infinity.