Reede caught Elco’s chin, lifting his head ungently. “Now listen to me, you little turd. You tell your father … you tell him it didn’t work. And tell him he’s out of his depth. You tell him it’s a closed game, between me and the Source. That this is just a warning. That next time they’ll have to put the pieces of your body back together like a puzzle just to bury you… . And that’s nothing, compared to what I’ll do to him. Do you think you can remember all that?”
“Y-yes,” Elco Teel whimpered. Tears leaked out of his eyes.
“Then go tell him.” Reede wiped his blade on the rags of Elco Teel’s shirt and stepped aside, opening a space for Elco Teel and the others to escape. They fled, Elco Teel leading the way.
Reede watched them go, listened for the heavy reverberation of the slamming door. He put his knife away.
Ananke did the same, echoing his motions. Reede saw the look on his face then, half stunned admiration and half concern. “What’s going to happen now?” Ananke said finally.
“What do you mean?”
“The Source—”
Reede grimaced, realizing with an odd annoyance that the concern in Ananke’s eyes had as much to do with him as it did with Ananke’s own safety. He shook his head, and shrugged, all the response he could bring himself to make.
Soft hands touched him again, unexpectedly, and he started. Ariele was back beside him, caressing him, her lips brushing his cheek. Her touch was more tentative this time, but still it made his body sing like a plucked wire. “Stop it,” he murmured; but this time it was harder to push her away, as if something was slowing his motions, weighing down his resolve like gravity.
Ananke stood watching them, with uncertainty coming back into his face.
“Go back to the club and find Niburu,” Reede said. “Tell him everything’s all right.”
Ananke glanced at Ariele. “What about—?”
“She’ll be all right.”
“Maybe I should stay, and help you get her home… .”
“I’ll take care of it,” he snapped, when Ananke still hesitated. “Get out.”
Ananke nodded, with obvious reluctance. His eyes stayed on Ariele, on her hands, her mouth, and the things they were trying to do to Reede’s body, as he started for the door.
Reede jerked free of her again as Ananke went out; taking hold of her arms when she reached for him. His skin seemed to burn where she had touched it. Elco Teel must have slipped her a dose of possession. He knew that it breathed through the skin, making someone who was under its influence contagious, infecting whoever touched them with the same helpless arousal. The throbbing ache in his loins spread through his entire body, making him sweat, making him burn. He told himself that it was impossible, drugs didn’t affect him at all— “Ariele,” he said fiercely, shaking her. “You don’t want this. Stop it!”
She struggled against his hold, her eyes filling with tears… her eyes that were like agate, like fog, like no eyes he had ever seen. “I didn’t want them—I wanted you. I want you.” Suddenly she was soft and yielding in his grip, candlewax touched by flame, clinging to him everywhere, warm and fragrant. Murmuring, “Please, oh please … Reede please … only you. Only you. …” She pressed her lips to his half-bared chest, devouring him with kisses. His own arms were suddenly strengthless as he heard her speak his name, as he saw recognition in her eyes.
“No,” he said, as her arms slid around him. “No, Ariele—” His hands rose to push her away; but now his hands seemed to have gained a life of their own, fusing to her flesh, refusing to stop touching her. Helplessly he felt the silk and velvet of her skin, the pressure of her body against his, making his nerves sing as though some live circuit had closed between them when they touched … and he knew that the impossible had happened. His mouth found hers, in a long, deep kiss. He knew that he was lost….
She sank down along his body, pulling open his clothes, kissing him everywhere; drawing him down with her onto the cargo mats as the cold, barren space around them dissolved into waves of heat.
Ariele woke out of a dream of a dream, feeling the heaviness of arousal still congesting her languid body, making every motion deliciously sensual. She ran her hands down over herself, finding that she was naked beneath bedcovers; not what she had expected to find. She opened her eyes and discovered the ceiling of a room she had never seen before, but no memory at all of how she had gotten to this place. She felt a sudden coldness drop through her as she saw herself in her mind’s eye, saw a cold, echoing space in which she was surrounded by strangers, offworlders with hard hands and soulless eyes, letting them… letting them….
But the images metamorphosed like cloudforms, and it was no stranger, but Reede Kullervo holding her, caressing her, peeling away her clothing as his kisses dissolved her mind into seafoam… . His hands on her, melting her very flesh from her bones as they opened and explored her. She remembered the burning sword of his manhood tracing a fiery track across her skin, its white heat driven deep into her loins, searing the soft folds below with its exquisite passage as he sought, and found, and took possession of the secret core of her being; as he buried himself souldeep in her annealing, fluid depths… .
She remembered a slow, deep rhythm that went on and on, filling her, fulfilling her, m a way that she had never known before, until she screamed like a sea bird with the length, the depth, the purity of sensation as her pleasure crested and fell away into blissful release … only to be carried upward to crest again, by the rhythm that went on and on, driving her into delirium dreams….
She turned her head on the pillow, as the cascading memories dissolved into the brightness of day. Turning away from the light that filled her eyes, she searched the space beside her for a form, a face; suddenly afraid that she would not find him, not find anyone—
But he was there, to her relief and joy, lying beside her, sound asleep. She studied his face, turned toward her; fascinated by the sight of him at rest, at peace. He never looked that way, so peaceful, so vulnerable, when he was awake; he was always like a fist full of thorns, filled with potential pain. It was what had drawn her to him, the hint of danger, the wildness in his eyes. But it was the man sleeping next to her now who had held her: the haunted, haunting stranger she caught glimpses of as they talked together about the mers. She was sure it was that man who had kept coming back to her, even while something inside him fought against it, keeping her at bay, keeping him unreachable and untouchable.
She reached out, touching his cheek, so softly that she barely proved his reality. She let her hand trace the line of his jaw, down along his throat, his shoulder. She had never been allowed to touch him, before; he had never let her. She studied the tattooing that tendriled the length of his arm, fascinated by the complexity of the designs. Someone had told her once that they meant he was some kind of criminal; the prospect had secretly excited her.
But he had denied it, when she had found the nerve to ask him about them. And now, looking at the beauty of the many-colored symmetries, patterns resolving into other patterns even as she looked at them, by the magic of their design, she did not believe it either. They made her think of secrets, transformations, messages with hidden meanings. They reminded her of the mersong… of the mystery of human existence, in all its richness and variety … things that she could contemplate forever, like these exotic patterns, and the mysteries of the man who wore them….
Reede’s hand came alive suddenly, under her touch; caught her own hand in a painful grip. He sat up, staring at her, while the emotions on his face changed and changed again, so quickly that she could only see his anger. Her smile died stillborn, and she shrank back from what she found in his eyes.