Eluria's Enforcer (The Argadian Heart Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

“Look at me,” he demanded. She was attempting
to shield herself from him. Didn’t she realize things were different? “Do you
understand what took place between us? That we are changed?”

“Nothing has changed. You have a path to
follow. I must find a way to get you to Ednos.” She went silent. Finally, she
looked up at him and he saw, and felt, pain emanating from her. “There can be
nothing more between us. We shouldn’t have sealed. The-the depth of what took
place was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, but it can’t happen
again.”

Devon yanked her wrist up and held it before
her eyes. “Do you see this?” Her gaze widen in shock. “Look at the markings on
my chest, look at your own markings. My markings are the exact mirror of
yours.”

“It’s not possible,” Eluria whispered
desperately, yanking her wrist free. “It’s a figment tale, nothing more.” She
pulled free of him and raced across the chamber.

“You are my tafai, the union is honored by
Guardian. You know this. Your vision was mine. We would not hold the markings
of higher union if it weren’t true. Your eyes are the magenta of union. Union
to me.”

“You don’t understand,” she said with frantic
despair. “I can’t be your tafai. I’m unpure.” She took a deep breath. “I’m a
twilighter…”

“You
were
a twilighter,” he corrected
her.

“No…no. When I contracted my purity…” He saw
the pain and fear of a cornered animal in her eyes. “When I contracted my
purity…I was modified.” She raised a tortured gaze to his. “I’m barren, Devon.
My body will never carry your children. Never, do you understand?”

She pounded her closed fists against the rock wall. “Oh,
Guardian,” she cried, “why would you do this to him? Bind him to an unpure
female who could offer no hope for Beyond. This isn’t what was supposed to
happen.”

After dressing, Eluria paced the chamber, arms
folded across her chest.
Haydon, what a mess. There had to be a way out.
She straightened her left arm and studied her wrist. It displayed a beautiful,
intricate pattern of colors, similar in design to a delicate tri-colored,
braided wrist adornment. True Union, the markings of Guardian’s acceptance. It
was disaster.

“Stop obsessing, it won’t give you any
answers. You can’t separate what Guardian has joined.”

She whirled around at the sound of Devon’s
deep voice.

“Then what will?” she demanded. “How do we
repair what shouldn’t have happened? We never should have sealed. Never.” She
shook her head in denial and began pacing again. “There must be a way to free
you.”

“What? Again?” There was a hint of amusement
in Devon’s tone.

She spun back and stared at him. “You find
humor in this situation?” Of all times for his sense of humor to surface, she
wouldn’t have expected it to be now.

He walked toward her and cupped her chin.
“You’ve given that to me, Eluria. The ability to feel again. To experience joy
and pleasure.” She saw his eyes darken and a blaze began to glow inside her.
“Guardian has brought us back to each other. Why do you continue to question?”

Eluria bit her lip, tried to look away, but
his firm grip held her steady. “Maybe because I want it too badly. It’s always
been at the back of my mind, the vision of what could have been if not for my
father’s intervention.”

“You aren’t to blame for what he did,” he
protested.

“Maybe not directly, but it never would have
happened if using me hadn’t been part of his plan.”

Devon brought his other hand up and cupped
her face. “You have suffered enough. You’ve sacrificed too much already. Don’t
try to sacrifice what we’ve found.”

He tilted her head and leaned forward to
possess her lips with a kiss claiming her acceptance and allowing no argument.
Eluria wanted to fight him, to ignore the needs of her body, the visions
planned long ago, which never faltered over the years.

Devon stroked his tongue across her lips,
coaxing her to yield, and finally, unable to deny him, she opened her mouth,
allowing him entry. When his tongue drove home, a shudder passed through her.
She wanted him so much.

Pulling back, he yanked at the front closing
of her skinsuit, then pulled open the front of his own. He clasped each of her
hands, placed one on his chest, then he pressed his left hand to her chest,
between her breasts.

“Feel the rhythms, Eluria,” he commanded her
in a guttural, husky tone. “I detected the change when we first awoke. What do
you feel?”

She felt the steady life-beats, absorbed the
rhythms. Her gaze widened with uncertainty as she looked into his face. “There
is no difference in the patterns. How can that be?”

He nodded. “We are in perfect
concordance—balance, if you will. A change to your rhythm will cause a change
in mine. If you feel fear, I will know it. If you feel pleasure, I will
experience it. If your life-beats stop, so will mine.”

“No, oh no.” The full import of what he
implied caused her to panic. “If something happened to me, if I were
terminated—”

“I don’t fear termination, Eluria. If your
life-beats were to end, I wouldn’t want mine to continue. It is an assurance
that in the future you will have a care.”

“But to tie you to a twilighter—” She didn’t
want that for him. Eluria could give him no Beyond.

“An ex-twilighter. As I am an ex-Enforcer.
Our paths were ordained to part and to come together with knowledge to combat
the Tribunal. Together we will succeed. We are stronger.” Devon cupped her
face, his gaze locking with hers. “If children are in our Beyond, we’ll find
the path. Know this. I’d rather be joined with you in True Union without surety
of Beyond, than any other female and a planet full of children offering
continuity. That will never change. There is no other vision for me.”

Eluria wanted to believe him. Too badly. “I
want this too much,” she murmured, trying to convince herself she would have
her visions. That she would not be destroyed because of it.

“Seal with me, Eluria.” Slowly he pushed her
skinsuit from her shoulders, releasing her arms from the material. He shifted
to his knees and pushed the cloth down her legs. As he lifted one of her feet
to remove the garment, he leaned forward and placed a kiss at the center of her
smooth, golden stomach.

“I want to feel your silk surround me again,”
he whispered against her skin. She felt the vibrations of his words through her
whole body.

“It arouses me when we move closer to
completion, to know that when your anstillia cord penetrates my anal entrance
you feel the extent of my pleasure as I fill you. That you bind us
completely—that you dwell inside me and possess me as completely as I do you.”

Her golden radiance glimmered, bathing them
in its light. Her breathing hitched as he shed his own clothing. The prominent
display of his desire rose thick and long. His body was that of a warrior, hard
and tightly muscled. His passion only for her. A shudder of fiery desire raced
through her, and her arousal ran warm and rich down her inner thighs.

Again he knelt and with his tongue, he traced
the scar running from her first rib to the top of her hip bone. “Where did this
scar come from? How close did I come to losing you without even being aware of
it? I could have ended this life without ever experiencing the sweet taste of
you.”

Swallowing hard, she found it difficult to
concentrate. “It-it was an altercation with an Enforcer. Oh, Symion, Devon, I’m
burning up from your touch.”

Her radiance extended. “I can see your
passion,
na-nivia
. How bright will it burn before we reach balance, I
wonder?” He forced her to part her legs, and she moaned when his lips moved to
her mound, sending an electrical path of pleasure spiraling through her.

“Who tried to terminate you? Does he still
live?”

She felt his moist breath at her shax lips.
Thrusting her hips, she needed to feel his mouth, his tongue.

Devon slid his hands along her calves, up her
thighs. With his fingers, he parted her secret lips and she felt the warm
seduction of his tongue lapping at her slick juices. “No—ah—no, he’s dead. I
killed him,” she rasped, as her knees buckled.

Devon eased her to the ground, his tongue
buried deep inside her. He pulled her legs wider, buried himself deeper. His
hands were at her shax lips, his thumb circling her hard bud. He leaned away
and lightly blew across her lips, making her quiver. Then he inserted two
fingers, rubbing, sliding, driving her ever beyond. So many sensations swirled
inside her – heat, need, raw lust.

“Your passion glows bright enough to keep us
warm in the fiercest of ice storms.
Na-nivia
, release for me. You throb
with need, your body calls to me. Release for me and I’ll take us both to
completion. Dance for me, beautiful one.”

She could do no other as he drove her onwards,
his words inciting her passion to radiate, vibrating around them. The exquisite
explosion overcame her in a sweet, magical cadence, her glow pulsing in rhythm
with her release. Not the mind-numbing, heat-filled release achieved with
completion, but the gentle, rhythmic billowing of all-consuming pleasure.

“Oh, Devon, please,” she gasped, “I need to your
khout inside me. I want to feel you grow, feel your vibris stroking me.
Please.”

He moved up her body, stopping at her
breasts. The moist warmth of his tongue drove her wild, as he sucked and
nibbled, drawing sensations that arrowed straight to her shax-ra, building her
need. He licked and tugged until both of her nipples glistened and beaded with
desire. Eluria arched back, driven wild with the determination to have him
buried inside her.

Finally, moving up her body, the tip of his
khout pushed at her entrance. “Yes,” she breathed, tangling her fingers in his
hair, and pulling him down. “Seal with me, please.”

Devon drove his hips forward, seating himself
deep, retreating and driving inwards again, his twin sacs slapping hard against
her each time. Finally, he halted, buried inside. Breathing hard, heartbeats
aligned, she stared into his eyes as she felt his steely shaft lengthen,
filling her completely. When at last the thick tip pushed against her cervix,
again he began to move in long, slow thrusts, driving them both to the summit.
He brought a hand down to tease her hard bud.

Anchoring her hips, he powered faster and
faster. She screamed her pleasure as he buried himself, and she felt the vibris
release and seduce her opening for full acceptance of his seed. Her shax
threads reached out, twining at the base of his khout, sealing them, halting
all movement, preventing him from withdrawing.

Breathing stopped as her anstillia cord
extended, found his anal channel, massaging the entrance. It slid in and out of
his opening, lubricating, until finally plunging home, sealing them as they
entered completion. His guttural groan was one of pleasure as Eluria’s cord
locked him to her.

She felt Devon’s life-beat, knew it was his,
yet felt the essence of his pleasure inside herself, intensifying her own. Her
soul released to join his in balance. Her scream mingled with Devon’s groans of
fulfillment as together they entered the void of soundless balance, seconds
later the wash of colors and completion, and her golden radiance, bathed them
in ecstasy.

“If this be Lydion,” she whispered, wrapping
her arms around Devon and inhaling his scent, “let me not awake.” Tears of joy
bathe Eluria’s face. Happiness as she’d never known filled her as the blanket
of unconsciousness wrapped around her.

*          *          *

Eluria woke to find herself cocooned in
warmth. She lifted her head and glanced around. Devon had apparently moved them
to the bedroll, one muscled leg was anchored across her lower body, and a hard
arm was curled possessively around her waist. She studied him as he lay sleeping.
She felt the strong beat of his heart matching the beat inside her own body. Its
steady rhythm soothed her. She remembered the erratic beat changes when they
sealed, how that elemental physical, as well as spiritual, connection enhanced
her own arousal, knowing its source.

Devon was right. The ties Guardian joined
could not be severed and she would have to accept that. The intensity of their
completion and balance confirmed it. Eluria admitted to herself she hadn’t
wanted to be free of that special connection. She and Devon were bound into the
Beyond. As it should be.

She laid her head on his shoulder. There
would never be a time she would grow tired of feeling his body next to her,
inside her, of knowing his life-beat was her own.

This time of bonding had been necessary in
order to rediscover their love. Being with him began the healing process of her
soul. The wounds had been open and gaping, bleeding endlessly through the
years. Devon’s love acted as a magical mediseal, healing her as nothing else
could.

“I love you, Devon Andromeda. You are my
heart,” she whispered, snuggling against his hard chest.

“As you are mine, Eluria Zydon.” She
stiffened at the deep rumble of his voice, assuming he’d been in stasis. “My
heart and my soul.”

Leaning back, she tilted her head to look
into his intense turquoise eyes. She raised a hand and stroked the side of his
face. “I’ve always loved the color of your eyes. When you look at me, it’s as
though I can feel your hands stroking my body, feel you inside me.”

Easing her close, he nuzzled at her neck.
“There will never be a time I’m not inside you. Never again. Always, you’ll
feel my presence, know I’m with you.”

They stayed entwined for long moments, before
Devon released a heavy sigh. “I suppose it’s time to prepare.”

Eluria pulled away. “Yes. We must return to
Ednos. With the antidote and the fact we now know it works, we need to move
quickly. And your mother and sister await you, Devon. They need to know you’ve
been restored.”

Sitting up, Devon threw back the blanket. “I
know. I am eager to see them after all this time.”

“They are much changed,” she cautioned.

Sadness reflected in his eyes as he reached
up, fingering his white hair. “As am I, Eluria.”

She leaned forward brushing her hand along
the whitened locks. “Your essence has been restored. I loved your raven hair,
but this white makes you look quite dashing, I think.” Her lips curved in a
smile.

“It is the signature of an Enforcer,” he
responded bleakly.

Rising to her knees, she cupped his face, and drew him
towards her. “But no longer a Tribunal Enforcer. Now you’re my Enforcer.” She
felt his breath against her lips. “Eluria’s Enforcer,” she whispered. “And that
makes a whole world of difference.” The heat of his kiss captured her. Another
few moments of tasting ecstasy in his arms would be well worth the delay of
their departure.