Alaskan Fury (28 page)

Kaashifah squashed that thought
with a vengeance.  Yes, it was going to take some
serious
cleansing to
be pure enough to step within the temples once more.  Her sisters would
probably make her meditate in solitude for a few years before they would even
allow themselves to gaze upon her again.

With that frustration niggling at
her mind, she finished the expansion of the cave and gestured impatiently to
the floor.  “Lie down, djinni, so that I may satisfy you.”

A slow grin began to spread
across the djinni as he lowered himself to a seated position on the floor. 
“Very well, mon Dhi’b, I suppose if you wish to satisfy me in the process, I
will not object.”

Kaashifah frowned.  “That was the
bargain.  You want me to satisfy you.”

‘Aqrab chuckled at her.  “No.  I
said until
you
were satisfied, mon Dhi’b.”

Her mouth fell open in horror
that she had become so complacent she had missed such a monumental change to
his wording.  “You gave me an impossible task!”

‘Aqrab studied her a moment. 
Then, all-too-carefully, he said in a soft voice, “Judging by what I saw a week
ago, I would disagree.”

Kaashifah’s heart was pounding,
now, and she wanted to be
anywhere
but in the cave with the djinni, but
as ‘Aqrab had proven to her so depressingly one week before, not even a v
oid-walk
would allow her to escape him.  Biting her lip in combined hunger and despair,
she turned away from him to look back out over the slopes, once again wondering
if she could somehow rummage up enough food from the mountainside to sate the
Third Lander’s wanton appetites.

“I will close my eyes again, if
that would help.”

Kaashifah let her breath out in a
spasm of anguish.  She nodded, still facing out over the snowswept landscape,
unable to bring herself to turn back to him.

She heard him settle back onto
the cavern floor.  “Ready when you are, mon Dhi’b.”

Kaashifah took a moment to brace
herself, then turned.

What she saw took her breath
away.  The djinni had stretched out upon the floor, his big arms up, hands
tucked beneath his head, displaying the muscles of his chest and shoulders to
their fullest effect.  He’d even lit a fire on the stone nearby, to better
illuminate his glorious body with the flickering orange light.

Lord of War,
Kaashifah
thought, fighting down an instinctive thrill at the work of art before her,
forgive
me for what I am about to do.
  Then, every inch an inner battle, she
brought herself to kneel beside ‘Aqrab.  Before she could reach out to touch
him, however, her fists balled of their own accord.  The djinni, true to his
word, had closed his eyes, allowing her access to his body, unmolested, but
still she couldn’t bring herself to touch him.

“Take as long as you need, mon
Dhi’b,” ‘Aqrab said gently, after several minutes of her inner struggle. 

“Just—” Kaashifah had to fight
down the urge to yell at him for interrupting her, “—don’t talk, djinni.” 

“As you wish,” he said softly.

With every ounce of willpower she
had, Kaashifah forced her hand open and pushed it out, until it hovered over
the djinni’s abdomen.  It took an inner battle to lower her fingers to his
muscled stomach and hold it there, soaking in the djinni’s unearthly heat.  She
waited, gritting her teeth as she felt the rise and fall of his breath beneath
her, fighting the urge to curl her fingers back into a fist.  “How long must I
do this?” she growled.  But she knew.  And the djinni knew she knew.  Silence
reigned in the cave, leaving her only the pounding of her own heart to
accompany her ragged breaths.

She needed to find satisfaction. 
She needed to
enjoy
it.  The thought made her guts twist, as it was an
unspeakable
abomination
to enjoy the touch of a man, and Kaashifah
almost drew back and ended their games right there, but a tiny voice in the
back of her head urged her onward.  The same voice that had once painted the
flesh of a man on a papyrus canvas…

At first, she couldn’t move her hand
from his abdomen.  She continued to feel him breathe beneath her, soft and
easy.  Then, very hesitantly, she began sliding her fingers up his belly, but
she quickly found she could not distance her mind from the fact that there was
a living, breathing
man
lying beneath her fingertips.  Her movements
were stiff, jerky, and her fingers shook.

“This isn’t going to work,” she
whimpered.

“Imagine I’m a statue,” the
djinni said, eyes still closed and perfectly still.

Kaashifah swallowed as she stared
down at his body.  With some effort, she was able to forcibly replace it with
lifeless stone in her mind.  Gingerly, she allowed herself to admire the ebony
curves, the beautiful obsidian lines.  Like lava-glass recently released from
its volcano, the djinni’s body was hot and solid as she followed the lines of
his stomach and abdomen with her touch, and only his slight intakes of breath
betrayed the fact she was touching a
man
and not a stone.

Still, she was able to disregard
it as she drew her fingers up his chest, across the wide expanse of his
shoulders, up the tender hollow of his neck.

She traced her fingers back
downwards and the djinni gasped as she touched a nipple.  Kaashifah bit her
lip, then, knowing that she would be condemned to a thousand hours of penance
for that one act—but still unable to fight her curiosity—she reached out and
flicked the djinni’s darker lobe of flesh with her fingernail.  The djinni
shuddered, his arms tensing under his head.  Leaning over to reach the left
half of his body, she repeated her gesture on the other side.

The djinni’s sharp intake of
breath made her give a nervous giggle.  She slid her fingers down, once more
lingering upon the ribbed surface of his stomach, drawing another sharp breath
from her victim.  She watched him tense as she traced a finger around his
navel, heard him suck in a lungful of air between his teeth when she followed
the triangular lines leading beneath his sirwal.

Then, suddenly, it occurred to
her.

“You’re
ticklish
, aren’t
you?” she cried.

“I don’t,” the djinni gritted, as
she drew her fingers quickly down his ribs, “have to answer that.”

“You word-twisting
hypocrite
!”
she laughed, diving in with both hands and tickling his exposed ribcage.

The djinni shrieked like a little
girl and lunged upwards—

—and a booming otherworldly voice
bellowed through him, “You have touched my body to your satisfaction,
fulfilling your side of the bargain.”  And the djinni’s face fell, his pleasure
fading.  Obviously disappointed, his violet eyes dropped and he said, “I’ll get
your meal, mon Dhi’b.”

Feeling exhilarated at the
possible applications of her newfound knowledge, Kaashifah waited until the
djinni’s back was turned, then reached in and ran her fingers all-too-quickly
along his ribs.

The djinni squealed and dropped
the sack of lamb he’d made her, spilling steaming, roasted meat across the
floor.  Then Kaashifah realized she’d touched him again, this time of her own
accord, her side of the bargain already complete, and her face began to redden.

The djinni seemed to recognize
that fact, too, because when he turned, he was gaping at her as if she’d grown
the scales of a serpent.  They stared at each other in open-mouthed shock for
long moments before the djinni slowly, all-too-carefully stepped over the sack
of lamb, toward her.  “That,” he said, his voice a deep, dangerous note, “was
completely uncalled for, mon Dhi’b.”

Feeling a thrill, Kaashifah took
a step back.  Her heart was beginning to pound again, slamming like a hammer in
her chest, and she couldn’t help but grin.  “Prove it.”

The djinni lunged for her, and
Kaashifah instinctively shrieked and ran—only to find herself cornered in the
back of the cave.  Then, before she could divert her path, ‘Aqrab was atop her,
bringing them both rolling to the ground, his hands seeking out the tender
areas of her ribs and stomach.

Kaashifah screamed and flailed,
slapping at him in shrieking, babbling glee.  Then, harnessing the wolf, she
twisted around and turned the tables, seeking out
his
sensitive parts,
tickling him until he begged for mercy.

The tables turned until the winds
howled outside and the meat the djinni had conjured grew cold.  By the night’s
end, Kaashifah found herself in a tangled heap, lying splayed in the djinni’s
arms, panting as he held her in a bear-hug, his final, desperate tactic to
prevent her from tickling his big bare feet.  Beneath her, the djinni was
likewise gasping, trying to catch his breath.  She felt him lift her with the
rise and fall of his chest, felt his warm body throughout her length, and only
worried about it in passing before she relaxed into his arms, enjoying the
heat.  At her back, the djinni gingerly eased his grip, until it was more of a
way of resting his arms than pinning her to his chest.

“You’re warm,” she whispered.

Somewhere near her ear, the
djinni rumbled gently, “You’re heavy.”

Kaashifah grinned, despite
herself.  “It’s the wolf.  I’ll be rid of it soon.”

Beneath her, the djinni’s breath
caught.  “Then you won’t be…trading me…to the serpents?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” she
managed, resting her head upon his shoulder as she stared up at the ceiling. 
“I might…”  she hesitated, swallowing down dread, “…make a wish.”

At her back, the djinni stopped
breathing.  “If this is a ploy to lull me into complacency, little wolf, you’re
doing an excellent job.”

“I could say the same of you,”
she laughed, snuggling closer.  This was
so
much more comfortable than
sleeping in the cold, on the floor.

Enjoy it
, the winds seemed
to whisper. 
Take your mate, sister.

Kaashifah, who had closed her
eyes while sprawled upon the djinni’s chest, lurched out of the djinni’s arms
in a sudden wash of horror, her back afire.  “No,” she blurted, twisting to
face him.

The djinni jerked, giving her a
startled look.  “No what?  What did I say?”

Kaashifah swallowed hard.  She
must have heard wrong.  A Fury only beget with men by their Lord’s command, out
of duty, the sheer necessary act of reproducing their numbers.  They never took
a
mate
.  That was the folly of the fallen.

To
reproduce
, a man was
chosen from a thousand worthy supplicants, one who had the best physical and
mental attributes, and was taken to a temple to be bathed and cleansed while
the Fury prepared herself to fulfill their Lord’s command.  When she reached
the peak of her yearly cycle, his body was disguised in a swath of fabric, his
face hidden by a mask.  Often, the Fury was ritually bound by her sisters, to keep
her from murdering the human in her loathing of the act that followed.

Then, once he had fulfilled his
duties of procreation, the male was whisked away, taken to some very distant
corner of the world, for if he were to stay near the temple, he would often be
found the next morning, dead by her sisters’ hands.

Then the Fury had almost ten
years to carry the child, before the man’s taint could be fully expelled from
her system.  And even then, the Fury’s trials could have been in vain.  Half
the time, her children were killed at birth. 

“You are looking at me as if I
just shat on myself,” the djinni commented.  He sniffed at his armpits.  “Do I
smell?”

Yet, if all of her sisters were
dead…  Kaashifah’s heart began a liquid thunder in her ears. 
No.  That is
not possible. 
Her Lord was
not
commanding her to lie with this djinni. 
Djinn were top-tier.  They had a chance of overpowering the Fury blood.  Half
would be djinn.  Which, by sheer numbers alone, only a quarter would she be
allowed to keep.

‘Aqrab was frowning, now. 
“You’re as pale as a sheet, mon Dhi’b.”

Yet what more beautiful body
could she ask?  What more brilliant mind than the twisting labyrinth of a
djinni?  What more perfect pairing for a strong Fury child?

Take your mate, sister,
the winds teased her. 

“No!” she snapped, scrabbling
backwards away from him, panic rising in her chest.  Surely it was not her
Time.  Surely there were others who could take that mantle, others who were not
already so
tainted
…  “I’m
not
having your child.”

The djinni was giving her an odd
look.  Tentatively, ‘Aqrab cleared his throat and said, “There is…uh…much
more…involved…with making a child, mon Dhi’b, so if you think that I’ve somehow
impregnated you by lying with you, you’ve been given…misleading…information.” 
He started to sit up.

“Stay down,” she babbled.

But he sat up anyway and eased
closer to her, gently reaching out to touch her hand.  “Mon Dhi’b,” he said
softly.  “You’re still safe.  It requires the joining of bodies—”

“
I know what it takes
!”
she cried, jerking away from him.

‘Aqrab dropped his arm and heaved
a huge sigh.  Looking over her shoulder, he frowned.  “My.  The wind’s picked
up.”

Beyond the mouth of the cave, the
mountainside had become a shrieking swirl of snow and air.  Kaashifah swallowed
hard and almost broke into a sob.  The winds had said
mate
, not
consort
. 
Had she fallen that low?  Had she met with that disgrace?  Was she no longer a
Fury, but a
breeder
?

‘Aqrab must have seen the anguish
in her face, because he very carefully sidled closer and reached out to wrap a
big arm around her shoulders, despite her wishes.  “I’m sorry, mon Dhi’b,” he
whispered, into her hair.  “I thought you were ready.”

Take your mate
, the winds
chanted outside. 
Take him, sister.