Quest for the Sun Orb (37 page)

Time lost all meaning as he continued to stroke her clit, the pleasure rising higher and higher until her body began to tense and she tried to pull away.  It was too much, she thought, she couldn’t take any more. 

“Easy, Tiari mine,” Tomas said, his voice trembling as he pulled her closer.  “Relax and let it happen.”

“I’m afraid,” she gasped, uncertain what it was she was afraid of, but sure that something very big was about to happen.

“I need this,” Tomas said, gazing deeply into her eyes.  “Please, give me this, my love.”

Tiari nodded.  She would never deny him anything that he needed.  “Try to relax, I will not let anything bad happen to you.

Tiari nodded again, trusting him, then let herself get lost in the pleasure again as he resumed stroking that one spot, over and over, faster and faster.  Her eyes closed, her body arched, the pleasure built and built until once again she felt that something big was going to happen and began to tense.

But Tomas knew what was coming, and got there first.  He leaned down and captured her mouth with his own while at the same time he pinched the nub of her swollen, pulsing clit between his fingers just hard enough to send her over the edge.  He took the scream of her first orgasm into his mouth, then joined her helplessly when her climax sent a flood of moisture to bathe his hand.

Their bodies strained against each other as they came in wave after wave of pleasure.  He released her clit when her sensitivity became too much for his touch to be pleasurable and stroked her thighs in a motion meant to soothe rather than arouse.  They held tightly to each other for long minutes, until they’d both caught their breath and their bodies relaxed.

“You are so beautiful, Tiari-mine,” Tomas said, kissing her gently.  “Thank you for giving me that.”

Tiari blushed, but didn’t try to hide her face.  “That was...amazing.”  She shook her head.  “I’m sorry, I don’t have words for how I feel right now.”

“Nor do I,” Tomas said, smiling.  He tugged her nightshift down so that it covered her properly, then sighed.  “I have to confess that I very nearly allowed us to go too far.  I apologize for that.”

“Too far?” Tiari asked, confused.

“I very nearly took you, Tiari-
mena
,” he said.  “I wanted to.  I wanted to make you mine so badly that I honestly don’t know how I was able to stop myself.”

“But I am yours,” Tiari said.  “And you did stop.  I thank you for that because I never even thought of it.”

“We will have to be more careful,” Tomas said.  “I don’t think we can take such a risk again.  On the bright side, we will reach the Hidden Sister in a few days.  Once the sun orb is claimed, we will be married, and will have to wait no longer.”

“Will it be better than what we just did?” Tiari asked.

“As difficult as it is to believe right now, yes, Tiari-
mena
, it will be much, much better.” 

Chapter Twenty

Bredon pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders and hunched more closely over his small fire.  For two and a half days and two nights he’d seen nothing but the same cold, dark fog, the same bare stone path, and nothing more.  He’d heard...
things
...in the distance.  Screams, howls, growls and once a low, maniacal laughter that had nearly frozen the blood in his veins.  But none of the sounds were nearby, as far as he could tell.  He’d noticed that sound acted strangely here, so he didn’t fully trust his ears.  Instead, he relied on his Hunter senses, and forced himself to stay alert.  It wasn’t easy to do when the fog frequently lulled him into a false sense of peace.

“We should reach the center in a few hours,”
Marene said.

Bredon knew that Marene disliked the fog nearly as much as he did, though he didn’t know why.  He’d occupied himself with trying to break further through her barriers while traveling through Darkly Fen.  Her emotions were almost too easy to discern now, but he still only got occasional flashes of the thoughts behind them.  And he was running out of time.

“Will this infernal fog cover the center as well?” he asked.

 “I have no idea,”
Marene replied without her usual curtness.  Perhaps she was as tired of this as he was. 
“Let’s go.  The sooner we get there, the sooner we can be done with this.”

“We shall continue when this fire has burned down,” he said.

“Why wait?”

“Because this is the last of the firewood,” Bredon said.  “After this I will have no warmth, and no light.  I will not waste what is left.”

Marene remained silent, which was just as well.  He had no desire to spoil these last moments of warmth with her nattering in his head.  Before long the flames of his tiny fire went out, but he waited until the coals began to cool before getting to his feet.  The diplo had eaten the last of the grain while he’d used the last of the wood.  He wished he had water for it even though he knew full well it could go another week or more without it.  He patted it on the neck, then mounted.  

“Bredon,”
Marene said after he’d been walking for a few minutes. 

“Yes?”

“How much of what happened that night do you understand?”

Bredon’s hands gripped the reins so tightly that the leather dug into his calloused palms.  He did not have to ask her what night she referred to.  There had only been one.  He forced himself to relax his hands, one finger at a time, before answering her.  He would not give her the satisfaction of his anger and frustration.

“I neither understand, nor fully remember that night,” he said evenly.  “I know only that you did something that allowed you to gain entrance to my mind and body.”

“True,”
Marene replied.
  “Do you want to know what I did?”

“No, I do not,”
Bredon replied tightly.

“I suppose I can understand that,”
Marene conceded.
  “Do you not care
why
I did it, though?”

Bredon wondered where she was going with this.  He weighed his distaste of the subject against the possibility that he might learn something useful, and sighed.  “I assume you did it for the power.”

“Did it not occur to you that I already had power?  I had everything I could possibly ask for, save one thing.”

“Zakiel,” Bredon said.

“Yes, and no,”
Marene said. 
“I wanted what only Zakiel could give me, but I found Zakiel himself severely wanting.  He was, and is, a bore.  I never cared for him at all.”

“That’s not exactly a secret, Marene.  Everyone knew it, including Zakiel.”

“Of course they did,”
Marene said. 
“Should I have hidden it?  I was the most logical choice for him to make.  What would the point be in pretending otherwise?”

“It might have helped your cause had you pretended to at least like the Prince,” Bredon said wryly. 

“Obviously,”
Marene said. 
“Since I cared nothing for what others thought, I didn’t see the point, nor do I now.”

“What is the point of this conversation?” Bredon asked.

“I know that you have feelings for Kapia, Bredon,”
she said, ignoring his question.

“How do you know this?” Bredon asked, suddenly worried that she had turned the tables on him and could now read his mind.

“You are not a subtle man,”
Marene said. 
“The only two people who didn’t know you and Kapia were in love with each other were you and Kapia.”

“And yet, knowing that, you still used me,” he said bitterly.

“Of course,”
Marene said matter of factly. 
“It could have been anyone, Bredon.  It was your own bad luck to be available at exactly the wrong time.  Besides, it wasn’t like you had any intentions of declaring yourself for the Princess
.”

“Again I ask, what is the point of this?” Bredon demanded, his patience worn thin by her casual attitude toward the near total destruction of his life.

“My point is that you know what it is like to want something, or some
one
in your case, so badly that there is little you will not do to achieve it,”
Marene said.

“Yes, I suppose I do,” Bredon lied.  He knew there were some things he would not do for any reason, but Marene needn’t know that.

“I’d been approached many times by the demons,”
Marene said with a definite air of smugness.  Did she think this was something to brag about? he wondered.  

“I had no need of their aid, and plenty of power of my own, so I turned them down.  Then that off-world alien witch, the Lady Techu, came and stole the Prince right out from beneath my nose.”
  Marene’s voice turned cold and angry as she spoke of Karma. 
“Zakiel could see no one but her, hear no one but her, think of no one but her.  He was completely besotted.  I soon realized that my power was not enough to stop what had begun, so I turned to the demons, and accepted their bargain.”

“You thought that the demons could give you the power to make Zakiel love you?” Bredon asked.

“Of course not,”
Marene said disdainfully. 
“Demons know nothing of love.  But they could give me the power to destroy Lady Techu.  And they did.”

“But it didn’t work,” Bredon said. 

“It would have, had your precious little Kapia not interfered,”
Marene said. 

Bredon’s heart skipped a beat.  “What did Kapia do?”

“I was winning the battle between myself and Lady Techu until she jumped in and struck a killing blow to my head,”
Marene said. 
“From behind, I should add.  I confess that I have no tender feelings for your beloved Kapia.  She destroyed my body, forcing me to inhabit first a demon, and then you.  In many ways, you could say your current situation is her fault.”

Bredon grimaced.  Marene’s reasoning was so twisted it was difficult to follow and nearly impossible to understand.  “So you became demon because you were angry, and you needed more power to get the revenge you craved.”

“Exactly,”
Marene said, sounding relieved. 
“I did not choose to become evil, Bredon.  I simply needed more power.”

Bredon nearly gaped at this leap of immoral, self-serving logic.  Somehow, she’d managed to categorize her need for power, (in order to murder an innocent woman), as something other than evil.  Not only did it make sense in her mind, she expected it to make sense to him, as well.

“I see,” he said, his voice sounding strangled to his own ears.  He took a moment to collect himself.  When he was sure he could speak calmly, he continued.  “I do not understand why you want me to know this, Marene.”

Marene was silent for a long time.  Bredon carefully probed her emotions and found them mixed.  Worry.  Trepidation.  Fear. 

He decided to wait her out.  A few minutes later, she began to speak.

“When we reach the center of Darkly Fen, and find the scepter, we will part company,”
she said. 
“At that time we will both face a decision.”

“A decision about what?”

“Whether or not to kill each other,”
Marene said. 

“Yes, I’m sure that will be a thought that goes through my mind,” Bredon said.  He’d actually decided to do that about two minutes after she’d told him about the scepter, but that was another one of those things she didn’t need to know.

“I think we should agree to let each other walk away,”
Marene said. 

“Why?” Bredon asked.

“Because, as I’ve just explained, I’m not evil, Bredon,”
Marene said. 
“I know this hasn’t been easy for you, and I’d hate to repay you for all you’ve done by killing you.”

Bredon’s eyes widened in shock as the truth slipped into his mind along with her spoken words. 
She couldn’t kill him without destroying herself!
  But why?  He reached for more, but got nothing. 

“I should not kill you because even though you’ve made a pact with the demons, you are not evil,” Bredon said, delving for more information.  “And what is your reason for not killing me?”

“Like it or not, Bredon, you and I are connected now,”
she said. 
“We cannot do harm to one another without suffering for it.”

Bredon knew instantly that she was telling the truth, and he hated the knowledge.  “How are we connected?” he demanded.

“I don’t think it can be explained,”
she said. 
“Believe me, Bredon, we are connected.  Should we attempt to kill each other, we will destroy ourselves as well.”

 “How am I to know you are telling me the truth?” he asked, though he knew she was.  There was something a little wrong with what she’d said, but he wasn’t sure what it was.  For the most part, he believed her.  “How do I know you won’t kill me the moment I turn my back on you?”

“I would,” Marene admitted easily.  “If I could.”

“Now
that,
I believe,” Bredon said. 

“Think on it,”
Marene said. 
“I am going to rest now.  We will reach our destination soon and I will need my energy for what must come next.”

Bredon waited until he was certain that Marene had gone to sleep, or whatever one could call what she did.  When he was certain that she was unconscious, he went over all that she’d said, and the feelings he’d gotten from her as she spoke.  In the end, he came to two conclusions.

The first was that Marene had actually been attempting to elicit some sympathy from him, probably in an effort to convince him not to kill her.  Second, she was, for the most part, telling the truth when she said that they would destroy themselves if they tried to kill each other.  The lie in her words didn’t matter.  The risk of destroying himself by trying to kill her was too great.  It made far more sense to walk away when he got the chance, and live to fight her another day.

There was a part of him that rose up in objection, but he silenced it ruthlessly.  All other considerations aside, he was in no condition, mentally or physically, to engage in battle with a demon.  With that argument, the grumbling voices of his conscience fell silent.