The Bridge Beyond Her World (The Boy and the Beast Book 2) (29 page)

Damien’s hand ran up the side of her face. Her eyes, her parted lips, they screamed for him to come. His head dipped down and their lips met, his pressing softly into hers, delicious, tender. It was just a moment, and then he lingered intimately close, his face warming her skin. She exhaled with a shudder, her breath washing over him, calling him back.

“Damien.” Her words barely audible. “What does this mean?”

“It means my feelings for you are far more than for a friend.”

She looked into his eyes for a moment, like a girl lost in a dream, then shifted her eyes away, overwhelmed.

“You should stay here tonight,” said Damien.

“Stay?” she whispered.

“My castle is yours for as long as you want. I’ll have a room prepared for you.”

Responses came to mind, but she forced herself to go slow. She’d learned a valuable lesson from Rueik. If she wanted this man to make her a queen of Loam, he was the one who would have to vanquish her, and not the other way around. She was the clay and he the sculptor.

Whether sooner or later, be it before or after their future marriage, she would bed him, and there her control would be solidified. In the same way she fulfilled his longing to persuade others of his cause, she would fulfill his fantasy of being a man to a woman. She, the innocent beauty enraptured by his every touch.

She would esteem him, validate his causes, give him space when he needed it, and always, always cry out in love making, as if he were a god.

Again his lips pressed into hers.

One step at a time, she told herself as her mouth moved in tandem with his. She still had tomorrow to worry about…the gathering at Aven’s farm. If it went as well as tonight had, she would be the only Guardian left alive by the end of the day.

_____

WINTER

Winter couldn’t sleep. She sat on the floor before her bedroom window, arm stretched out upon one knee. The lights of Anantium had dwindled down until there were now no candles burning in any of the buildings she could see. Whisper’s tiny legs tickled the wrist of her outstretched hand as it stepped slowly closer.

Her eyelids were beginning to grow heavy. She closed them; the sense of dread that had been haunting her began to ease.

I love him. I cannot lose him.
Her thoughts were those of exhaustion. Half a prayer to the Makers, and half consolation for herself.
Aven is a part of me. I need him.

His life is just beginning to hold joy and hope; my vision cannot come to pass. It mustn’t.

Her thoughts trailed off into dreamlike images. Vague, wistful. A scene from their childhood. Aven laughing under a canopy of trees. Him sitting and talking with her in her room as she weaved a crown of twigs together under candlelight.

Blood gushed and spattered on a metallic floor.

Two legs, severed at the thigh, fell from a hulking shadow.

Winter’s heart pounded, and her mind raced awake but it wasn’t a dream to be chased away.

The massive head lowered to the floor and gingerly pinched one of the legs between its lips, then spasmed forward, the leg disappearing within the cavernous mouth. The creature’s sagging throat rolled as it swallowed.

Winter grabbed her stomach and was vaguely conscious that she was vomiting, but her vision held her mind’s eye on the monster. It stared at her. She wanted to turn away, but it was not possible.

Slowly the monster faded from sight, and she had a sense of being pushed, then plummeting down toward a thick canopy of green. The ragged outlines of giant leaves like serrated saws rushing up to meet her.

She screamed.

The roar of the wind in her ears grew deafening, then she hit the fronds and her head made a sickening crack.

All went dark and silent.

CHAPTER 30

AVEN

“This is what my sister will be doing to train?” asked Aven.

Arentiss and Daeymara sat around a small circular table in the Missionary enclave, the late morning light piercing through the windows along the outer wall. The vid screen hung from the ceiling behind them, only now there was just a dark mirrored reflection. No moving images of distant lands and peoples.

“Yes,” said Daeymara. She pressed her thumb against the pages of a thick book and fanned through them. “Six-hundred and forty-seven pages of procedure and case studies.”

“I look forward to assisting your sister in her training,” said Arentiss. “Where is Winter now?”

“Asleep,” said Aven. “She’s not feeling well.”

He wished it was just a sickness, and in a way it was. She’d had another vision, though Winter wouldn’t tell him of it. He’d stayed by her bedside until her breathing became calm, and she fell asleep.

Aven felt a slight touch on his right knee, then another. He put his hand under the table and found small, slender fingers waiting for him. They slid softly into his.

Arentiss wasn’t smiling, but there was a warm glow on her face that made Aven smile.

“I wouldn’t mind training your sister either,” said Daeymara. She looked at Arentiss. “What do you say we split our time with her?”

“You only have a matter of weeks before your mission. It makes little sense for you to start her training, only to leave her. Besides, I am more than capable to handle assisting her myself.”

Aven found himself strangely conflicted inside because of Arentiss’s words. Sad that Daeymara would be leaving soon. She
had
made an impression on him. He barely knew her, though. Perhaps in her remaining weeks, they could spend more time together.

And Arentiss, he was glad to hear she wanted to help train his sister. Her soft fingers were beginning to feel comfortable in his. She peered at him now, her blue eyes, though beautiful, were difficult to read. He felt certain her needs weren’t
purely
practical. He saw an underlying passion beneath the surface of her well composed face.

He squeezed her hand and watched the corners of her lips curl up ever so slightly.

The door to the enclave opened, and Karience entered.

“Aven, I am in need of your assistance,” said Karience. “Are you ready for your first duty as an Emissary?”

Aven let go of Arentiss’s hand and stood. “If you believe I’m ready.”

Karience chuckled. “Considering all you have to do is walk through the portal, I think you are proficient enough.”

“Who is he taking?” said Daeymara.

Karience placed a hand on her chest. “He’ll be taking me. I must talk with the Magnus Empyrean on his homeworld, Core 9. Are you ready to go now, Aven?”

“Yes,” he said. “How long will we be gone?”

“A matter of three or four hours,” said Karience.

Her answer relieved him. He didn’t want to be gone from Winter too long, not in the state she was in. And also, tonight he was going to get his farm. Just the thought made his chest burn with pride.

Aven came alongside Karience as she turned for the door.

“May I have permission to go along?” asked Daeymara.

“And may I also?” chimed in Arentiss.

Karience pivoted around. “I suppose one of you can join. Arentiss, you accompanied Aven last time, so come along Daeymara, and quickly. I want this to be a short trip”

Aven looked back at Arentiss as he passed through the door.

Arentiss held a gaze as sharp as an arrow tip. It was aimed with precision at the back of Daeymara’s head.

CORE

…top of her class, astute, analytical, ambitious. Her strengths far outweigh her flaws, of which I know of only one. She was diagnosed as a child with a mild social inversion disorder. Far from hampering her talent, I believe it has caused her to excel, with but a small price to her relationships. In her pursuit of joining a Missionary enclave, Arentiss has my highest recommendations.

-Jeund-Rue, Instructor of Psychology, (Transmission to Higelion, Magnus Empyrean of Sector 54, per Bridge Missions Director, Missionary enclave placement)

…Winter is a grave threat and Karience may not like the outcome of the Sanctor’s visit. If the Oracle is not delivered, we will be forced to remove her by other means.

Let us hope for deliverance. But if it is out of reach, or if the Sanctor feels it will require too much time, then we must be ready for the alternative.

I’ve looked at Karience’s psych file. She is intuitive and intelligent. No matter how good our assassin, she may suspect the truth, and it will be your duty to assuage her questions.

In other words, if Winter is to have a funeral, you will need to attend.

-Sentinel Cosimo, (private transmission to Higelion, Magnus Empyrean of Sector 54)

CHAPTER 31

DAEYMARA

It was Daeymara’s first time on Core 9. After following Karience through the portal to her homeworld, Night 2, they’d gone to Bridge and acquired a Core 9 Emissary to take them to the place they were now.

Daeymara followed close behind Aven, as Karience lead the way through the security zones. Core, like all the upworlds, had a wide swath of land cut out around their portal, which was on the side of a mountain. The mountain was completely barren; the natural growth of the surrounding peaks had been cut down and exterminated, leaving only rock.

A sheer path led down from the portal to the city below. Portions of the jungle-entwined metropolis rose out of the dense green foliage. Spires jutted up half as tall as the mountains, cylindrical, and plated with windows.

The wind on this barren rock tore into ones ears. Daeymara watched it whip Aven’s short hair about, and couldn’t help but wonder what her own hair would look like by the time they reached their destination below.

Aven looked back at her, checking to make sure she hadn’t fallen behind. He gave her a quick smile before turning around.

His smile was so kind. So strangely kind. And his reservations about sex were…affecting her. The peculiar feelings she had surrounding him excited her. She’d heard about similar things happening when upworlder’s traveled to primworlds. The unique traits to primworlds—their traditions, their way of life—they often echoed in a primal way within an upworlder’s soul, beckoning them back to a time when their own people had held to such ways of life.

Loam hadn’t been especially endearing. She had never been to a primworld until joining the enclave there, and though she’d been on Loam for well over a year, she hadn’t met anyone like Aven and Winter, farmers from beyond Anantium.

The farmers seemed very different than those who dwelt in the Royal City. Both shared the monogamous family structures, but in the city, she’d seen and heard enough to know that these were mostly a facade. Brothels and prostitutes and mistresses…infidelity abounded in both the men and the women. This was the odd byproduct of a culture beginning to break free from the old structures of marriage and family.

In Aven, however, she had glimpsed the genuine thing—something that existed outside the cities, in the distant rural territory. And against her own superior knowledge, she found it fascinating…attractive even.

She was on the verge of leaving for her mission. It was less than two months away. She understood herself well enough. The psychological stresses and pressures she was experiencing. Once Hark, she, and Zoecara stepped through the portal, there was no telling where they would arrive or what would happen?

It was a gamble with her life that she’d chosen to live out. The Guardians had saved her world from destruction long ago, when a Beast’s army entered through her peoples’ portal. Ever since hearing the stories of the Guardians as a child, she’d felt drawn to the Missionaries. They were so few, and so crucial. And the thought of finding a world like Loam, whose people hadn’t even known the dangers they faced, she felt called to reach out to them.

But now this alluring boy walking in front of her was messing with her head. She didn’t care. It felt right, what she was thinking. Maybe it was…

It was strange, what a few words from Aven had done to her. She’d wanted a night of exciting sex and companionship. His body was strong and muscular from farm work, and he had such a sweet disposition. And his mouth, his eyes, the curve of his jaw—he had exceptionally handsome features, which would have made the sex all the more exhilarating.

But after what he’d said, he stirred in her a deeper longing. A longing she had never felt strongly enough to truly consider its possibility.

Faithfulness. Stability.

She recalled her question:
“What do you do when you want to be intimate with someone other than your mate?”

“We train our mind not to want that,”
he had said.

“So you just shut off that desire?”

She remembered the sincerity in his voice when he said,
“We turn that intimacy toward our mate…”

“…a mate for life,”
as he called it.

There was something powerful about that statement. The safety that could be found in permanence. Though sexual desire was like an animal, those within Aven’s farm culture were taught to tame it. To concentrate it on one person for life.