“Dysfunction! I function just fine, thank you very much,” she burst out in a fast, low voice that hissed through her teeth. “I own two successful businesses and train dozens of people in the martial arts every day.”
“You hunt down evil men and women by sinking into their worlds and their habits until you can think like them and anticipate what they will do next so you can catch them. Asia, that would jade and embitter anyone, but for a woman like you, with such a stunning emotional aura and the outstanding potential for passionate expression, it’s like pumping poison into a mountain spring. It’s polluting and a waste of a pristine resource. But don’t worry, zini. Given time and a different environment, I have faith that you can recover from all the taint your society poured into you.”
He was reaching out for her again, and to Asia’s surprise, she had no urge to pull away this time. His hand closed around the back of her neck and he drew her flush to his body.
“Now,” he whispered softly as he touched dry, gentle lips against hers, “let me show you how you are so special compared to all of the other women.”
Asia anticipated him. She could feel the sexual aggression pouring off of him in waves that were tumultuous and raw despite his tenderness of the moment. She stiffened and shot a glance to the nearest tiers of bunks and the children within them.
“Julian,” she murmured in protest, an unexpected flush infusing her cheeks.
“Trust me, Asia, they need you just as much as I do.”
Julian covered her lips warmly, kissing away her awkward hesitation in a single, burning moment. Her hands came up to grip his thick, powerful arms as his hands locked hard against her back and dragged her deep into the bend of his body. It was just as much of a shock to her as the first kiss had been. The approach, the need, and the response were so alien to her.
Here, you are the alien.
His words echoed into her head and she realized just how true it was. Not because she was such a different species, a different culture, but because she thought so coldly and so darkly in comparison to him. And why? Was her entire species on the edge of death and obliteration? Not imminently, no. She griped about things like disrespect, dysfunction, and social malfunction. He faced death and disease and knowing he was getting first taste of all the best energy while a boy he knew and others like him lay dying of starvation.
“Julian,” she whispered against his mouth, her heart hurting with a powerful compassion for him and all of those with him. As he kissed her with deeper and deeper passion, burning new and powerful paths of need along the surface of her skin, she finally believed her sister had volunteered to become a part of these people. Kenya had always been free and wild, and had always hurt when others had hurt. The environment of Beneath was the perfect lure for a girl like Kenya. She had a cause, the power to help, and more men to choose from than she could have ever imagined. Kenya actually used to joke about wanting to go to Alaska where men outnumbered women almost ten to one. Hearty, sexy, rugged men, she hoped. But she’d always followed it up by jokingly realizing she wouldn’t be very attractive if her tits froze off the minute she got there.
Julian choked out a laugh against her mouth and Asia gasped when she realized he must have heard her thoughts again. Or felt them. Or whatever it was he did.
“It’s both. It is hearing and feeling at the same time,” he explained softly as his lips trailed over her cheek. “Think of it like whale song. It’s sound, emotional thought, and vibration all together. Now,” his mouth slid back over hers to brush against her lips as he spoke, “the more you feel, the louder you get.” He lowered his voice to the barest whisper. “Rather like the way you screamed when you came for me.”
This time Asia felt her entire body burn in a fierce blush. But it was the sudden wash of her memory to his reference more than it was outrage or displeasure. She felt silly for feeling that way. But at the same time she liked the scorching need rushing down through her every organ and the sudden curve of hunger that bent her body into his. Now that she was far less inclined to think of Julian as the ultimate villain, she was quickly made aware of all those irresistible male temptations he was gifted with that no longer seemed so sinister or deceptive. Perhaps she was not as quick to toss away her life as Kenya was, but that didn’t mean—
Asia jolted back away from him in sudden, sharp realization. Again, the memory of her sister brazenly stroking her hand over Julian’s backside invaded her like a horrid pestilence.
“Oh God. You slept with my sister!”
“The hell I did!” Julian shot back in equally offended explosion. “What gave you that idea?”
She got instantly snide, her hands fisted in violence against her hips. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I listened to you screw everything in a skirt every night for three weeks! God, you and your slick charm! I can’t believe I fell for that!”
“You listened? But did you see? Better yet,” he ground out, pushing his face into hers as he seized her by the shoulders, “do you remember? If you had been outside the night I took you, what would you have heard, Asia? A woman moaning softly with pleasure? The increasingly wild cries?” His voice lowered so only she would hear him. “The begging for a deep, hard fuck?” A tremor racked him and Asia knew without a doubt that there was nothing wrong with his memory. She knew he recalled every moment she had done every single one of those things. “I haven’t been with a woman in a very long time, Asia,” he confessed to her hotly, scorching her with the wash of his breath against her face. “There are none here, remember? And the energy it takes to become sexually aroused is a luxury I cannot afford. It would be selfish and would be like stealing food out of the mouths of these babes.”
He turned her sharply so she saw the entire room of sickly patients, his big body looming up behind her as his hard, gripping hands never once let her go, no matter how often they kept shifting over her arms, shoulders, collarbone, and throat.
“Do you think I would do that?” he demanded in a growl next to her ear.
“But…” She struggled to turn back, but he held her tight. It forced her to whisper harshly over her shoulder to him. “You were aroused with me. You are even now,” she pointed out. She thrust her bottom back against him to prove her point, giving his very obvious erection a rather saucy rub between her cheeks.
“God,” he gasped on a suddenly hitching voice as his hands locked down on her hips and forced her to repeat the wicked motion. She didn’t want to feel the steaming of her skin that happened in response to feeling him like that, but it seemed she had no choice over how her body wanted to behave. Then he cupped her chin in a big palm and drew her attention to the boys in their beds. “Look,” he rasped. “Look at them. See why you are different to me. See why you are the only one I can indulge in this with.”
She looked.
And she saw.
Right before her eyes she saw pale skin flush with color and limp bodies began to squirm. Dull eyes instantly began to brighten. Groans and stirring started from other beds and areas as well, the whole infirmary seeming to suddenly rouse and come alive from under its pall. The male attendants caring for them began to hurry about to tend to them and answer their calls.
“If I did you up against this wall behind us,” he whispered wickedly, “they’d be eating and trying to walk and wanting to play for the first time in months. Do you see? You are special. To me. You are kindra, Asia. It means you are my one true mate. My ultimate match. My soul and my body recognized you instantly, and that is why I reacted with you like I have not felt in so very long a time. It burned no energy to feel arousal for you, but instead created it. Every rush of heat and breath you feel, every throb of pleasure and beating of your pulse generates a power that feeds them. But it won’t just be sex, zini. It will be laughter, happiness, joy of all kinds. It will be resentment, suspicion, and anger. You have a right to feel it all, but be certain you never throw it around carelessly. You remember the tremor from before? That was because I became a
ngry with you and let my control of it slip. At the moment, your influence on me has me drunk with emotion, need, and power, and it is all I can do to manage it and give you what you are demanding from me all at the same time.”
“So you never had sex with any of those women?” she asked, her disbelief loud and clear. Still, she remembered how she had trapped him to her body, begged him to take her, and yet he had withheld. Even though he believed this thing about her being his kindra and made it sound as if that somehow gave him special rights to her, he had still denied himself when he could so easily have taken.
“None. I wanted nothing of any of them except one night of rich, abundant energy. They believe other things happened, but they did not. You will have to take my word for that, for I have no way to prove it to you.”
Well, not that it mattered, she told herself sternly. It would if he’d been with Kenya, and she’d tell her the truth of that soon enough, perhaps. But it wasn’t as though he didn’t have the right to screw anyone or anything he wanted.
“Does Kenya think you and she…” She trailed off. Even if it was a fantasy implanted in her sister’s mind, it would still be just like the same thing. One thing she refused to do was to poach or share a man her sister had claimed first.
“No. She was Chosen, remember? She got the entire truth in the end. The pleasure she shared with me was a mental gathering of energy I conducted back to this plane. I never touched her physically.”
“I’m not so sure the mental touch is not still too intimate,” she said quietly.
“You tell me, Asia. We’ve shared it between us already.”
He had a point. At this stage, she and Kenya were on equal footing.
“But it is not Kenya that I desire,” he whispered against her ear, his tongue touching a sensitive spot oh-so-briefly. “Keep that always in mind.”
Julian stepped away from her and reached for the door.
Chapter 7
Julian drew a deep breath of fresh air as he stepped onto the planking outside. His entire body ached for the woman he’d left behind and it was well beyond the level of pain at this point. He leaned back against the infirmary’s exterior wall and forced himself to breathe and to calm his painfully raging body. God, she had no idea what it felt like just to touch her, never mind the shocking pleasure of her kiss and the sinful bliss of feeling her rub tauntingly against him. She couldn’t possibly know what it was like to live always on the edge of starvation and in nearly total emotional denial, only to suddenly be swamped with the glut of power and feeling she provided. Julian couldn’t believe the scope of this need he felt. He could count on three fingers how many times he had had actual physical sex. The conduction of orgasmic energy—well, that rolled into far higher numbers, and he had learned much more from those encounters than he had from the physical ones. He had learned the depths of a woman and how it could sometimes be so mystical and endless.
For the first time he felt as though he was facing a physical possibility that would not only match the mental but far, far surpass it. To say it was intimidating would be understating matters. To say he craved it with every fiber of his being was an equally weak description.
It was also clear she had no trust in him whatsoever. It was quite alien, actually, to be treated with distrust and suspicion. He wasn’t used to being disbelieved and having his every action questioned and dissected. At least, not outside of Ampliphi chambers. Justice Hall was the place for such things to happen. This…this he would be bringing into his own home.
Julian glanced up several more levels until he saw the bottom of his house. Therein dwelled yet another problem he had to attend to. Ariel. Her deception and betrayal of loyalty to him broiled him with temper and a rage he had to work very hard to control. He’d already shaken the village with it once. He couldn’t afford to infect so many men with his hostility. So long as Asia was beside him, feeding him energy, he would be too rich a resource as well. The problem was she triggered his temper so easily, converting energy into anger that, frankly, the colony did not need.
After a moment, Asia stepped out after him, her movement cautious as she kept away from the edge of the planking. She turned and saw him there and he confronted her cold, hard gaze. They were two such different creatures, and yet so much the same. Different parts of similar beasts, he thought. He was becoming well acquainted with his more savage tendencies ever since she’d stepped into his sphere, and she was a ruthless sort of predator herself, dogging him and hunting him for flaws and answers until he would likely drop from exhaustion.
“Julian,” she said quietly, her eyes softening briefly, “I feel for the plight of those boys…for all of your people. But this place…I don’t belong here. This isn’t where I want to be.”
“You do belong here. And how can you know if you want it or me when you have given neither the respect of your time and attention? Will you not even try before you so cavalierly dismiss us all?”
He didn’t mean to be so harsh, but it wasn’t as if he was in much control over himself at the moment. He was trying to manage far too many volatile emotions. To top it off, she was swamping him with her desires to abandon them all. To escape. To flee as fast as she could.
It was much colder than he had expected of her, even from one so jaded as she was. Was his kindra really so selfish a creature that she would shrug off the sick and the dying so simply? The thought made his rage take over and he lashed out at her, rather than ejecting it to poison the others around them.
“It matters not,” he hissed. “The law says you cannot go back. You know too much. You have seen too much. To send you back would be a liability to us and millions of others. No individual’s desires are worth the risk to an entire species. Suck it up, sweetheart. You’re here to stay.”
Julian pushed away from the wall and began to walk toward home. He heard her make a sound of outrage before she rushed after him. Quite bravely, he mused, for a woman who had overshot a walkway once already that day.
“You arrogant bastard!” she shouted to his back. “You can’t keep me here! I have a life!”
“You still have a life. Be grateful for that.”
That gave her a moment’s pause that made her fluctuate between regret for those whose lives were at risk, and the understanding that there was a potential threat in his remark. If she could only understand just how voluble her emotional energy was, how easily she spoke what she didn’t want others to hear.
“Are you threatening me?” she demanded. “Are you saying that you’d have me killed or something if I don’t play your whore?”
Julian stopped short, causing her to ram into him. He whirled to catch her arm, keeping her from stepping back into open air. She gasped in fear as she realized she’d almost fallen again, but when he pulled her into himself with a harsh tug, she realized quickly where the real danger was.
“You insult me and yourself to refer to a mating between us in such a way. And no, I would not have you killed. I would be incapable of ordering any harm to my kindra. It would destroy me to see you hurt. But,” he added, the word falling with hard dread, “the Ampliphi would sacrifice us both in an instant to keep this world safe. Never doubt that. And so you understand just what that means, I will tell you that each village has a ruling family. As well as Gatherer, I am the leader of the ruling family of this village. I suppose you would call me a king in your world. The Ampliphi is my council, just as they are council to every king of every colony of our species. We who rule aspire to become Ampliphi one day. But while we as rulers are autonomous to a certain point, there are bounds even we may not cross lest we come under Ampliphi justice. I assure you, Asia, as valuable as I am to them, they will see me destroyed before they will see you destroy them. Think of what that means, I beg of you, before you toss your selfish desires around so carelessly.”
“It’s not selfish to want what I worked so hard for! My school…”
“Will be run by others or will disappear, but little boys and jaded
, stained men will live and be redeemed.”
“Stop trivializing my life like that!” she wrenched out, tears gathering sharply in her eyes as she clenched her fists. “You don’t know the hell I went through to make my life! You don’t know what it took to make Kenya the woman you so admire! Goddamn you!”
“You’re right,” he countered softly, “I don’t know any of that.” Julian reached out to catch the lone tear that escaped her fierce control. “But I want to know it all. I want to know everything about you, Asia.”
If only she would let it be that simple, but Julian knew she wouldn’t. Still, that was okay. He had never been the sort to seek an easy way out, although in this case, the easier it went for him, the better for his people.
“Let’s start with I don’t belong to you,” she said angrily. “Not you or any other man on any other world. You do not and will never own me! You might force me to stay here, but you won’t force me to be your…your…”
Julian knew just how terrible his warning expression must have been to make her check her tirade when it had so much momentum. But, damn it, he couldn’t stomach her cheapening their connection again. Maybe he should have let her, because what she did instead all but gutted him.
“I can do whatever I want. I’ll be like Kenya. A sex goddess for thousands of men to admire! I’ll fuck whoever I want whenever I want and have a jolly time of it. Your people will get plenty of my energy and I won’t have to look at you ever again!”
No.
No, no, no, oh no, she did not just say that.
But she had, and like lighting a very, very short fuse, there was no way to stop the explosion to follow and no way to get anyone to safety.