Future Found

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520 Macon GA 31201 Future Found Copyright © 2008 by Mima ISBN: 978-1-60504-225-1 Edited by Anne Scott Cover by Anne Cain All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: November 2008 www.samhainpublishing.com

Claimed: Future Found Mima

Dedication

To anyone who has ever enjoyed Guild Wars. /flex Thanks so much for all the questing. /bow Kurzicks unite! /cheer

Future Found

Chapter One

The laser gate of the compound fractured, hissing harmlessly around the car. Entry codes her elite client had sent let her into his sanctum. Sliding soundlessly on a cushion of air, the car ceased hovering as soon as it entered the tiny holding lot between fence and house. Shay took a slow, deep breath. She always dreaded meeting her clients. When you were the best tree singer on the planet, and charged as much as she did, they usually demanded an in-the-skin meeting. As if it mattered. The trees she sang to thrived. That’s all they needed to know. It was a small-enough concession for the pleasure of her work. Sometimes the elite who commanded her presence sickened her. The emptiness of their souls, the assessing greed of their stares. It was enough to suck the life out of anything. No wonder they needed her to save their ancestral trees. If only she didn’t have to leave the comfort of the other singers in her compound. Walking among the elite was like dodging a psychic obstacle course, but meeting new trees was worth it. Trees were worth any inconvenience and every discomfort. Singing to the few left was how she served Spirit. She was not the only singer to note the irony of how the technologically enhanced elite were the ones in complete control of the few living organisms humanity had managed to save after the Cataclysm. True, they were the ones who saved humanity in those first generations, but now that the singers had emerged, many felt it was time the caretaking shifted. Then there were renegades like Shay who felt the caretakers should be the nulls, the ordinary people who had no voice at all. For now, the few reconstructed gardens and trees that existed were firmly in the elite’s cybernetic control. The aircap around the velvet car seats faded, letting the stale, purified compound air wash in. Shay tucked her knees together, swung to the side and daintily placed her bare feet on the plascon drive. Her red toenails gleamed like cherries against the gray. Knives, jabbing deep. No one would know her pain by looking at her reserved, controlled face.

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The compound was new, a geometric set of blocks in chrome, silver and mirrors. She kept the disgust off her face. Poor tree, trapped in such an ugly box. She stood, her black veil slithering reluctantly off the red velvet. Gathering herself, she did a body check. Red cap of hair smoothed, big brown eyes subtly tinted, lashes enhanced, lips gleaming with a tasteful nude gel. Her veil aligned around her body, a massive piece of transparent synthsilk that lay over her head and trailed on the ground around her. Synthsilk was the only material singers could bear to have near their bodies. Shay went nude when she was at home in her singer compound, but she preferred a veil when faced with strangers. She’d chosen black woven with filaments of silver. It darkened her form, and the glitter drew a person’s eyes to her veil, not her bare skin beneath. She was good to go. The lasered door went down, and to her surprise, a textured swath of steelron emerged from the trans-droid that swept through. The machine laid the pieces out quickly right to her very red toenails. It hurt singers to walk on plascon, a wholly unnatural chemical mix. Not many knew that. Gratefully, she stepped onto the cool metal. The texture was one of rounded nubs, which was interesting and energizing on her feet. The droid zipped in ahead of her, silent on its air cushion. She heard the lasers sizzle into being as the hem of her veil passed the threshold. The elite with their layers of security. So paranoid, when they were the ones who were the greatest danger with their scheming and politics. She stopped. The entire foyer was laid with stone. Called marble, it was ancient, freezing with age and power. Her astonished gaze traveled over the smooth expanse, noting the wonderful imperfections that marked it of the natural world. Swallowing, she let herself be lost in the subtle shades of white and gray. Her breath was coming in little pants as she willed herself forward. Stepping off the pebbled steelron, she clenched her teeth against a moan of pleasure. Stone of the earth. Glorious. There were so few untainted resources left. The singers collected what they could, but the elite held more money, more power. When she was able to focus again, she became aware of the man walking toward her from the far wall. His footsteps were an ominous drumbeat marking counter-time to her

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heart. He was slightly more original than the compound’s architect. He wore black instead of gray. It matched his hair. He was as pale as she. With the air poisoned, no one could bask in the pure sun anymore, but even many singers roasted themselves under elite sunshine lamps. He too was barefoot, not typical of the elite she met. A wide, tall, solid column of black, he stopped just out of reach, a polite distance. His shirt was loose and looked soft. His pants looked even softer. Mesmerized by the density of the fabric, she was reaching for it before she was aware of her own need. Her foot took one small step onto a cooler patch of marble. Then her mesh-covered fingers brushed the fabric above his stomach. “Ohhh,” she moaned. She was sure now it was cotton. This fabric had been alive. Warmed by the human presence under it, it was magnificent. She stepped closer, her hand flattening against a hot, hard torso. A strong body to match a strong life force, his chi. The whole of him hummed to her. She cursed her veil. She needed to be closer. “Are you Elite Sandor?” “I am. Greetings, Tree Singer Shay-non.” His gravelly voice was textured, like the stone her feet pulsed against, like the black cotton. She smoothed her hand over his ribs, pulling the cotton tight. Only when her other hand rose to join in the decadence did she realize what she was doing. Freezing, she took a step back, the marble’s chill racing up her legs to wrap around her lungs. What had she done? Incredibly, her hands were still upraised as if fighting for the chance to touch him—no, his shirt—again. She forced them down, curling them into fists. “My apologies. I have never seen cotton before. It took me by surprise.” She had just laid hands on an elite, of her own free will. She held her breath. “No apology necessary, Shay-non.” Her breath eased painfully from her frozen lips. Her brain still struggled to understand her loss of control. She raised her gaze to his for the first time. Her lips parted. Green. He had blessed eyes. And he was not fooled by the dark glitter of her veil. His stare burrowed right through it and pinned hers ruthlessly.

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“It would of course be my pleasure to accept your request. I take you into my keeping.” He waited, watching. Her heart burst alive again in her chest. “Sir, I know you understand that I did not mean—” He interrupted her by taking his hand out of his pocket. He held an irregular, thick glass that fit his huge hand perfectly. The latest in personal video-player models, it was very elegant. It replayed a distance shot of her reaching for him. Taking that extra step toward him. The next vid replayed the shot at a closer distance and a different angle, the awe and lust on her face clearly visible. Then it showed a devastating close-up of her veiled fingers, the short narrow nails unsteady, resting against him. Despite everything, her fingers pulsed with the need to return to him. Without her veil. She tore her eyes from the damning screen to his steady regard. There was nothing for her to say. She had just signed her life away for the next twenty-four hours. MultiClass Regulation Nine: Singer-initiated contact indicates a physical request the chosen elite shall attend to for one standard day. Shay closed her eyes. For the first time in her life, she’d been tempted. No, she’d been tricked. Trapped. Her stomach churned. The room dipped. She would not be sick. She’d grown complacent, unwary. Now she would pay. The only thing that kept her from screaming was the lack of gloating in his face. No triumph lit his eyes and no smirk tipped his lips. He was a mask of calm. She knew better than to ask why he did this. All the nature singers were trophies to be coveted in bed. Or so she’d heard. Some elite collected them. Apparently, Sandor was one of those who craved the rush of chi they brought to their partners. It was a paradox how the sex between a singer and cybernetic elite could temporarily boost their mechanical enhancements. Machines shouldn’t be affected by the untouchable force of shared pleasure. By touching him unasked, she had triggered a contract. The law said he was her patron over the next day. His charge was to pleasure her, combine their chi, and thus ground her with an essential life component she could not get alone. Grinding her teeth, Shay stared at the beautiful gray marble floor.

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When she simply stood before him in her glittering veil, silent, he stirred. “I will show you to your apartment.” He held out his arm, fist clenched. In formal circles, she was to lay her forearm along the top of his, fingers resting on the back of his fist, elbows stacked. She remained still, aching fists at her side. She would not participate in this. Not even for the touch of cotton without her veil. Let him try to earn the chi he craved from her unwilling body. It would only transfer to him if he gave her pleasure. He lowered his arm, but did not lead the way. They stood there in that gray hall with gleaming chrome accents. She was a singer. He was a fool to try to outwait her. Finally he said, “Shay-non, you are safe here.” Locked in, no doubt. Guarded by lasers. She didn’t fear the low masses, the wild gangs, the hungry hoard. She was a goddess to the nulls. She might be safely guarded in this compound, but she was in terrible danger. Mentally. Sexually. “You think I tricked you. But your actions reveal a deep need. Our contract will be beneficial for both of us.” As if she couldn’t have gone her whole life without an elite pawing at her sex and still been able to heal an entire forest. If any forests existed. “The law exists for just this reason. Singers need an exchange of chi, and often fail to notice when they begin to fade. Your power makes you arrogant. Fading is not an impossibility for you. But you cannot deny you came to me. Clearly, you are in need.” “I came to the cotton.” “You did not. You did not reach for a fold of cloth. You took it against my body.” She would not argue with him. “You will be pleased here, Shay-non. Rejuvenated. The contract has been filed. Face your actions. Face me.” As if. Trying to goad her pride. He could face the results of his underhanded deception. “Do you even have a tree?” She kept her glare on the floor. Controlled her desire to scream. To run.

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“I do. Would you like to see it first?” “Yes.” He held out his arm. He could suck spit. “Singer, are you so petty?” Yes. “Are you?” How dare he force this power play on her. He knew as soon as she touched that cotton, it would all be over. He lowered his arm again. “I would afford you every respect. Every care.” Uh-huh. “The tree, Elite Sandor?” “Please call me Sand.” A nature name? Nickname, true, but she’d never heard an elite use one. Sand. Worn by water, blown by air, fired into glass. Beautiful, shimmering, soft sand that she kept in a wood dish on her altar. From what she knew of him, she hadn’t expected him to use such a label for himself. Of course she’d been briefed on her newest client. He was a strategist, one of three living. His enhancements were advanced. The government didn’t like to have strategy elites, as they were viewed with suspicion and as true potential threats. Still, Sandor had apparently been too perfect a strategist to deny and redirect to a secondary skill. He’d been slated for the enhancement since he was identified as a complement for it at six, and built at eighteen, to the day of his birth. He could trace deeply into the lattice, their worldwide information and communication grid. There, he could sift vast amounts of data for patterns, and make predictions that were damn near precognitive. He was right. She was arrogant. As soon as she’d seen the strategist designation, she should have refused the above-average, even for her, commission. He probably didn’t breathe without considering every implication and repercussion. Sandor, Sand, led the way into one of the three doors off the foyer. She followed two paces behind, pausing only briefly when she realized the floor changed to glass. The fortune this must have cost. She mentally reviewed the file she’d glanced at this morning. This job should have taken an hour. She hadn’t studied it long when she’d received the assignment a few hours ago.

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Age thirty-two. He’d had a good childhood. His parents were both moderately successful elites, and his future label had given them another cushion of status. They both still lived. He had taken to his enhancements easily and risen steadily to top-tier status. Ole Sand moved in exalted circles. Exalted enough for no one to care if she fought this contract. She was the best, but there were several other tree singers in her generation. She wasn’t irreplaceable. He’d built this house last year. She expected the tree to be a sapling, a twig of potential, or more likely with his designation, knee-high because he would have had the foresight to invest in one before he had a grand compound of his own. She bet he had one of the showy flowering fruits. The only three fruit trees she’d worked on had all been owned by important government officials. He paused in front of a glowing square of light. Unusual to have an interior laser door. He dismissed the lasers, but the opaqueness of a deadly chi field over the doorway remained. He dismissed that and she saw the tree. A generational oak. She stepped forward, bouncing off the skittering energy of an aircap, the same kind that surrounded her car. “How?” All six of the generational oaks were accounted for. This was a red oak, the spiky leaves a glorious leathery amber. It had entered its final stage before rest. One of the other six was a red, but she’d memorized all the nuances of every generational tree humanity still had, and this wasn’t it. Expertly assessing, she abruptly ripped her gaze from the maze of majestic branches to the ground. Good spread of dirt, covered in moss, indicating sustained well-being. Scattered, fallen leaves were everywhere. And so were the acorns. “Spirit save me.” She was looking at enough money to start a forest. And the means to do it. All of the other oaks were in the government’s hands. Their acorns were physically and metaphorically squirreled away, never seen again. She’d worked on the single pin oak once. Every tree was sacred to her. But that one had visited her dreams longer than most.

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“Let me in.” She pushed impatiently at the ungiving wall of air blocking the doorway. The domed bioroom beyond was old, from a period of prior generations. It looked massive enough, but she needed to verify it wasn’t binding the tree. “Shay-non.” Blindly, she looked in his direction. She couldn’t feel it. It was right there, but without connecting to the earth it sat in, she might well have been looking at a vid. “No.” His voice was calm. What? “What!” “You’ll meet the oak after our contract is fulfilled. You’ll be even better able to serve my tree then.” She focused. Those green eyes…such a splash of color between the black of his hair and shirt. Blackmail. He’d thought of everything. She didn’t miss his possessive statement either, claiming the tree as his. The audacity. “It isn’t yours. You are merely the caretaker.” “I am an excellent caretaker. As you will discover.” She turned again to the incredible majesty mere meters away. Her throat swelled in awe, in need. She would do anything. It wasn’t a reward, although it would be that as well. Serving the oak became a physical need in her, a duty that bordered on compulsion. Now that she’d seen it, she’d spread her legs like a whore for whatever he wanted. She became aware of time passing when her feet began to ache and her hands tingled from being in proximity to the aircap too long. Sighing, she thought she’d memorized it enough to dream it if she had to. As she wanted to. “Are you ready?” He’d waited next to her all this time. Reluctantly, she nodded. He did not offer his arm again, which earned him a point, that he didn’t force her retreat from that little skirmish she’d won before. He triggered the layers of protection, the enhanced mesh in his palms and wrists glowing a pale blue, then led her back to the foyer. They went in another door after crossing the sensational marble. This floor was the

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steelron nubs of before. Her feet were even more sensitive to the sensation of walking on tiny packed-in balls now that she’d stood so long. It felt invigorating, like a massage. “All the floors that are not natural will be covered like this while you are here.” She considered saying thank you. Didn’t. The corridor branched off in three directions. He pointed down the left. “That’s my apartment.” He pointed down the right. “That’s my parents’ rooms. They won’t be in residence.” He led her down the central lane. “This is yours.” They passed through the doorway and the floor changed to cloth. Wool. Ancient woven carpets, their coarseness thick and fascinating. The colors were muted with age, but the reds and blues still glowed. The walls were a terra-cotta shade, and the light was all indirect. Several shelves circled the room. Velvet-covered lounging furniture was grouped in a loose central cluster. Sitting in the middle of the floor was an altar. It had a beam of pure light shining down from above. Amazingly, it was wood, carved and black with age. As high as her waist, the scooped counter over four sturdy legs seemed somehow sensual. All altars featured natural objects, but this extravagant expanse of wealth took her breath away. “This belongs in a museum.” “I hope it helps balance you during your stay. I left it empty because I thought you would like to choose your own focus items from my things.” He gestured to the shelves. She saw a straw basket, a pair of leather gloves, a feather. She couldn’t take any more wealth in. “You collect natural things?” She faced him, her veil pulling a bit as it trailed across the wool floor. He considered her for a long moment. She hadn’t thought the question worthy of that wait time. “No.” She raised one eyebrow. Gestured, as he had, to the shelves. “No?” “All of this was for you.” She lowered her hand. Straightened her spine at the confirmation that he had indeed planned this. Rage burst at how he’d played her. A pretty cage for his singers.

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“I don’t collect singers either.” Hmph. “You’re the only one I want. The first I’ve contracted with.” Really. All of this extravagance for her? “You don’t want me to tell. About the oak.” “You’ll do what you think best.” What was that, some sort of reverse thinking to convince her that his way was best? “I know you won’t tell.” Really. So she was to be some piece in a devious elite plan. He was lucky he had an ancestral red oak, or she’d be planning revenge. Anger curled her toes in the lush wool. She’d keep her eyes open. “Are you hungry?” She bet he had fine synth bites here. “Sure.” Might as well enjoy this wealth while she was stuck. Singers lived as well as most elite, but this was beyond luxurious. “I’ll bring the food.” “You will?” She was surprised and let it show. “I prefer to craft what fuels my body with my own hands. Droids can be altered.” Paranoid. She could use that. “I’ll be back soon. You have enough time to rest. Feel free to explore your rooms.” Ahhh. There it was. The cage was closed. “And Shay-non.” There was a surprising bite of command in his voice that had been absent before now. “Yes?” She considered his retreating back warily. “I’ll expect you to fulfill the contract’s initiation when I return. Prepare.” His footsteps echoed as he disappeared out of sight in the foyer. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Her heavy heartbeat remained.

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Chapter Two

He crossed the foyer into the public space of his home. With every step, his rocksolid erection bobbed against the cotton pants, causing it to jerk in reflex. When he got to the kitchen, he calmly worked with a droid to pull down the supplies. He set to making food for two. He couldn’t let himself think of the years of planning that had gone into this. He couldn’t think about the money he’d saved all his life and invested in this moment. He couldn’t think of his irrational fear that his tree, his treasure, his miracle, was dying while he calmly ignored it, mixing these flavors in his galley. The oak was only entering its dormancy. Shay-non would check on it soon enough. He needed her more, first. He needed her now. He had to pause, lay down the spoon. Bracing his fists on the counter, he closed his eyes and breathed through the rising, unstoppable ejaculation. She was taller than he’d thought she’d be, even though he knew her height was thirty centimeters less than his. She was also more slender, with a waist his hands could grip as he drove into her from below. She had bitable ass cheeks and mouth-sized breasts with the tiniest, reddest nipples. Not as red as the hair on her head, or the color of her toes. There’d been no red curls shielding her labia below that shifting, glimmering veil that made her look like a mystical goddess. She wasn’t a goddess, just a powerful woman with the skills he needed, who he was going to fuck within the next three hours. A woman he’d grown to know well, and admired passionately. He pulled the precious cotton down, wrapped a rough kitchen wipe around his tip and let himself come. Those big brown eyes staring at him in shock. That little fist clenched bone white. It was a brief, pulsing pleasure, then was gone. He cleaned himself, adjusted his pants, continued. This was an allowable deviation from the plan. He’d have

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more control now. He hoped. He would give her everything, anything, for her cooperation. He’d make it good for her. No, he’d fucking explode her world. Shay-non was going to be the first to join their triad, making them a more stable quartet. It was all in motion now. When the food was in the synthesizer only he could work, he went to his office and sank into the lattice. He traced her contract’s acceptance from the singers’ compound. Without a vid, he couldn’t get a reading of how it was accepted, but they also couldn’t get a reading off of him. He sent a trace to the others of his triad once it was acknowledged. The message was simple: Contract acquired. Out of contact twenty-four hours. He could just picture Tavish’s hard nod, and Cullen’s smirk. Tavish would say, “Do her well.” Cullen would say, “Tending the Spirit is such holy work.” The original plan had called for Tavish to bring the tree singer into their group. But when Sand had found Shay-non, he had known he didn’t want Tavish to be the one to convince her. Sand had wanted her. Deeply, painfully. His friends both agreed with his reassignment. Twelve years ago, he and his two best friends had bonded in an amazing experience. An experience he still wasn’t sure whether to call a burden or a gift. Elements of both wove through the frightening reality that long-ago night had created. Some days the pattern was more painful. This wasn’t one of them. This day, he’d met Shay-non, face-toface. Soon he’d meet her in the skin, literally. It was a responsibility his friends trusted him with, to convince her, to bind her to their plan. It was a reward his friends granted him, as they waited for him to identify the other two partners they’d need to take on for their plan to come to fruition. Returning to the kitchen, he gathered up the food on light metal plates and set the droid to carry it. His dick twitched as he entered her hallway. There was a freshness to the air. Her scent. The initiation would come soon: her unveiling, and a touch of her choice, skin to skin. He stopped while the droid laid out the eating cloth and set the food precisely in the middle. Then it left. And he was still staring. She was on the altar, unveiled. The opalescence of her skin was more glorious than the silver veil. Kneeling with her legs

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splayed, he could clearly make out her sex below her spread ass. Her cheeks rested on her heels, her back arched, her hands reaching gracefully up into the cone of light. The crown of her ruby hair faced him since her head was thrown back in apparent ecstasy. It was worth the cost of the sunshine bulb he’d installed. He walked around her, within touching distance. Her belly was adorable. Her nipples were hard, bitty berries. The position she held flattened her breasts to merest swells. At mouth level. Slowly, her hands drifted down and rested on those splayed thighs. She rolled her head forward to look down at him. He’d meant to initiate the contract after a meal and some conversation to reassure her. But the plan could tolerate this new deviation. “Shay-non, you are unveiled before me.” His voice sounded husky but he didn’t care. Let her see that his attraction was more than the plan needed. “Sand, I initiate this contract.” He did not think about the plan, his goals, his faith or his tree. He thought about the impact of those eyes without a veil between them. That skin, blushing in the strong light. That musk scent rising from her spread thighs. Those blood-red, lickable nipples. Wait. Wait for her. It must be her. His eyes flitted from one part of her to another, dazzled by her reality. Curves, everywhere. His cock fattened. An eternity later, her hand rose toward him. His gaze flew to hers, but she was staring at his hair. She reached out like a slowed, half-time vid. Her touch landed on his hair near his left ear. He watched her eyes dilate, the brown fading from chocolate to black. He saw the tremor of her long lashes, her lips break open revealing a row of tiny white teeth. He was lifting in his pants, the cotton catching him. Her fingers threaded into his hair and touched his scalp. He could feel each of the three fingertips. She pulled her hand down through his layers, behind his ear, heat scalding the rim. A hectic red appeared on her cheekbones that had been too pale. She hesitated at the bottom, then her thumb gently trapped his earlobe and rubbed it with her forefinger. He was so aware of how it was fleshy, and hot, in her firm grip. His head spun as his cock abruptly hardened.

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Her gaze moved along the line of his jaw, and he felt her focus on his mouth like a physical touch. His own lips parted, fascinated, as the blush on her face spread down her neck. His earlobe was abandoned when she delved in a sweep along the curve of his ear. His breath began to come heavier. The head of him was rubbing against the soft waistband. Her fingers moved where her gaze had, all of them trailing along, petting his lips, the outer edge, the inner skin. Rotating her hand, she sent her palm gliding on the sensitive skin under his chin while her thumb tested the edge of his teeth, boldly daring his lips. He froze absolutely still when she held her breath. She pushed her thumb into his mouth and he closed his lips over the joint while his tongue curled and sucked. The blush cascaded onto her chest, and his gaze followed it. Her other hand lifted to touch herself, hesitated, middle finger a breath from her nipple. He sucked gently, scraped his tongue over her nail. Her nails scored restlessly against the line of his throat. She took her thumb from his mouth and laid her hand on his shoulder, her damp touch painting the hollow above his collarbone. Then she closed her eyes as she delicately played over her nipple. He watched her face, now flushed. Her eyes tossed behind her lids. He studied her fingers, how she dragged the edge of a nail over the tip, how she barely touched herself, sometimes tracing the lower swell where her breast met her torso. His dick bounced. Her grip tightened on his shoulder, nails biting suddenly, as she trailed those fingers down her sternum, over her belly, and hovered over her split lips. Open your eyes. See me. He didn’t say it. But she answered his plea. She gave the faintest gasp at catching his gaze. She wasn’t focusing as well as he. Her lashes fluttered like the rarest butterflies. Her lips were so plump and ripe. His mouth burst with saliva. Her hand lightened its grip on his shoulder, soothed the shirt over the muscle there with a swirl of sensation. Then she dragged her palm flat down onto his pec and ground her heel into his nipple. His balls churned and boiled. Her eyes looked dazed as she watched her hand massage him, gripping the fabric and his muscle, fingertips pattering over the whole sweep of his chest. Finally, she stilled with her thumb pressing hard

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against his nipple. He was still watching her face, the want on it making him fiercely glad, when she looked up and met his eyes again. His breath hitched. Hers looked blank now, wild. He steeled himself as her weight increased, pressing against him. She rose up higher onto her knees. She paused, gathering her balance, taking a deep breath, then looked down at her lower hand hovering over herself. He had no choice but to follow the slender line of her arm down past her breasts. Her knees were spread wide to the edges of the altar. The curved shape helped her hold the position, giving her something to brace against. Her clit was visible, angry red flesh, and her fingers shifted at the last moment so that it was her ring finger that set down and touched it. His ass clenched hard against the need to come. His heart beat furiously against the pressure of her hand on his chest. He swallowed against the flood of moisture in his mouth. He saw the long line of cream drip from under her. It hung suspended for a moment, then the line snapped. It pooled on the gleaming wood, a button-sized treasure. His lungs struggled to keep up with his heart, leaving him light-headed. Her finger wagged over her clit once. Stopped. Again. Stopped. She waited, just touching herself with the barest connection. Another line of cream snaked down the inside of one thigh, a trail of want. His dick swelled solid, pulsing tight against the painfully soft cotton. With a cry, her fingers clamped onto her clit, rubbing it, crushing it into her hood. He looked up at her face, but her head was thrown back again, her neck a study in muscle and hollows, gleaming white, a frozen statue of passion. His gaze jumped everywhere as it had when he’d first seen her. Her shoulder, her ribs, her hip, her nipples, and finally, her sloppily pumping fist. Her thumb drilled into his nipple. He came in utter silence, grinding his teeth, willing her to ask for him. All he needed was one little “please”. He could even work with his name, uttered on a cry. But she didn’t. She finished herself, her body rocking and shuddering, drawn bow tight. A small throaty moan of delight drifted over their gasping breaths. She sank back

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down onto her heels, her hand on his chest falling away to her thigh. Her other hand lay like a shining white jewel. “Shay-non. You carry the Spirit in you when you come. That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” She focused on him blearily. Face red, a shine of sweat causing her bangs to stick to her forehead. Her face was not closed, as it had been before, nor was it happy and welcoming. She seemed a bit dazed still. She tipped her head in acknowledgment. “Shay-non, I’m serious. I am so honored to serve this contract with you. You were more glorious than the oak.” At once, he saw it was a tactical mistake. An emotional veil fell and her eyes took on her cold goddess look, her pursed mouth kept from primness by the puffiness of her overheated lips. Mentally, he kicked himself. It was true, but it was a truth so outrageous he sounded like a fawning supplicant. His gaze caught on that pebble-sized dollop of her cream. He was reaching for it before he calculated the repercussions. It was on his finger and his brain was screaming at him but he couldn’t have stopped that finger from going into his mouth if she’d lit him on fire. The taste burst on his tongue. He closed his eyes, rocked as he swallowed the juices her body had made. Dry and bitter, tangy and natural. He savored the taste, rolling it in his mouth. On his third swallow, he opened his eyes. Her face was still serious, but he saw surprise there too. “Will you let me help you down?” She looked down at her hands on her thighs. “I can’t feel my legs.” “That wasn’t an answer.” She sighed in a resigned sort of way that really irritated him. “Yes.” He reached up, stepping into her, turning his head to the side to respect her breasts, sliding one arm up around her torso. Bracing his other hand on her hip, he lifted her and pulled her forward, catching her close as he took her weight. Her arms came around his shoulders. She moaned when her legs dragged off the altar. She moaned again when they extended to hang down along his. Her arms gripped his neck tight when he bent slightly

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to set her on her feet. He didn’t let go, and she didn’t either, both of them aware when her knees failed to hold her. He scooped her up sideways, hefting her once, and set her on the synthsilk velvet lounge chair. He had to kneel to do it and her weight pulled him forward a bit onto her as he laid her down. When he went to pull his arms out from under her, she moaned longer, lower, and her hands dug into his shoulders. Surprised, he glanced at her face. It was scrunched in agony. She spasmed under him, writhing, her groan rising to a guttural wail. Alarmed, he demanded, “Shay-non. What is it?” She only pulled him closer, making him fall across her. Getting his balance, he set a hip on the edge of the chair so that he could stretch out next to her. Carefully, he gathered her up, his hands spread wide on her back and hip. She pressed fully against him, undulating. Spirit, she was burning hot. She smelled so good. Her body was strong and smooth, utterly hairless. “Shay-non?” Her hands left his shoulders to attack his chest. She grabbed fistfuls of the cotton and dragged it over her breast with one hand, while the other smoothed around in a circle on his belly button. That’s when he knew. The cotton. He was precariously perched on the edge of the lounge so he let himself roll off and onto the rug. She followed him down, landing hard. She was pulling so hard on his shirt, he feared she would rip it. He tried to angle up so that he could pull it off. It took two tries before he drew the back over his head, but she wouldn’t back away enough for him to get it down his arms. The material bunched between them. She was straddling his hips, pressing the sopping fabric against his groin. It was uncomfortably sticky and cool, but already he could feel the heat of her pressing down on him. He cursed his lack of control in the kitchen. He’d be longer recovering since he’d come twice, and so recently. She needed him now. He felt like he held living flame in his arms. She never stopped moving, her hips churning on his, her thighs grappling, her hands stroking herself and him with the cotton. Every once in a while, her palm would slap down onto his skin, a shocking, searing

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imprint of chi sizzling his core, then she’d be off. She was leaning over him, her hair swinging like fire around her head. Her breath was desperate, panting, mewing, groaning. His hands stroked her back in long glorious passes. When it became clear she wasn’t going to stop, he settled his grip on her hips, subtly rocking her with his strength, pushing up from below. Ask, baby. Give me permission, damn it! Her fingers were on his nipples, rubbing in circles with tight jerking movements that made him remember how she touched herself. He could do that. She dropped down onto him, lying full out, rubbing her chest over the lumps of shirt between them. He couldn’t stop the moan that rose to his own throat. Her weight was glorious. Gasping, she sat up, gripping her breasts in a full-fingered spread. “Sand!” The demand was clear in her voice. Fine, he didn’t need permission. An order would also suit. That was it. That’s all he needed. He dragged her up over his belly, and shoved his hand deep between her legs, his thumb settling into the groove of her hood. His other arm wrestled the black shirt off and over her flinging head. She fought him briefly as he pulled it down over her shoulders, then cried out, swaying above him. He had to brace her from falling sideways. Tightening his stomach, he sat up, gathering her close, using his pumping hand with all his strength, fluttering his fingers to widen her, adding more and pressing hard into her clit. His mouth closed on one breast, lips sealing, tongue gently soothing over that sweet berry. He smoothed the cotton over her back. When he had to breathe, he pulled back, licked up her salty throat. She came, howling, thrashing in his arms. His heart kicked. Her head was tossing so much her hair was fringe dancing on the air. Amazingly, her chi sizzled in his palm as her soft tissue massaged his fingers. He shouldn’t have been able to feel it unless he was orgasming too. The circuits in his wrist heated, throbbing, as they did after hours of heavy use. “So perfect,” he breathed. He withdrew from her burning, clasping core, trailing his fingers over her labia, and she came again, shaking. He stopped breathing. Her neck beckoned his tongue. Dancing up her throat, he lapped and pressed into her beating pulse. When he came to the hollow behind her ear, he swirled his tongue there, over and over. While he gathered her gently,

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he sucked. With a tiny cry, she came again. His gut knotted. Capturing her earlobe with his teeth, he bit hard. Under the edge of the shirt, his hands cupped her ass, pushing her mound into his stomach. She convulsed, shaking, sobbing slightly as she slumped onto his shoulder. He rocked with her through her finishing shudders, her breath settling into uneven hiccups. His body shook along with her. “Off.” He soothed her back under the drape of the loose shirt. “What, Shay-non?” “Off. Cotton.” He pulled away from her and dragged the shirt over her head to toss it carelessly on the ground near the altar. She was dead weight against him, and he lay back, draping her over his body. She jerked and moaned, pumping her hips against his, clutching at his arms. When she finished, he held her carefully, keeping his hands still on her oversensitized flesh. “Finished?” She grunted. He took that as a yes. Time drifted as he lay there. The rug was scratchy on his sweaty back. His crotch was damp. She was heavy and warm. The laxness of her body was a gift of trust, of reward. Her hair smelled of herbs, was soft against his jaw. He could feel her breasts pressing into his chest. The taste of her still lingered in his mouth. When she stirred, he let her go. She sat up, straddling him. Her hair was no longer a smooth, shining cap with bangs to her brows and a swing along her jaw. It was tousled, sweaty. His dick stirred. She began the slightest rocking motion against his pelvis. He wasn’t sure if she even knew she was doing it. “You want to tell me what that was all about?” he asked quietly. His voice was gritty. “The initiation, as requested.” He considered her. She was smart, and still pissed. Best not to underestimate her. “The initiation need be nothing more than your unveiling, and a skin-on-skin touch. Your presentation far surpassed that.”

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“I didn’t hear you arguing.” She pressed firmly down, grinding on his erection, which was painfully angled down by her stance. Then she commenced her gentle rocking. “You are magnificent, as I already shared. The second time was a nice warm-up for tonight.” Her brown eyes hardened to stone. “And then I want to see the oak again.” “All right.” “The oak that shouldn’t exist.” “Yes.” “Others must know.” “Yes.” “Who? Why? Your fortune is made.” “If you really want to talk to me about how and why I’ve adopted the oak, or why I am keeping it secret, I’ll be happy to tell you. But once I tell you, you can’t undo the knowledge. You’ll have to live with it.” “You mean, I’ll have to support you.” “You’ll want to.” “You’re annoying.” His lips twitched. “I’ve done a full psych history on you, Shay-non. You’ll want to support our efforts with the oak if you know about it. I wouldn’t have approached you otherwise. But it’s dangerous.” He played her pride, her pique. “You’ve already endangered me just by telling me about it.” The one thing he was truly sorry for. They needed her. “Not like this. You have a choice not to know what I’m doing. Just say you were tricked into the contract, you sang and left.” “You admit it! You’re like a mad conductor treating people’s lives like instruments in your own private song only you can hear.” The truth of that statement unnerved him. Sometimes he felt the ache of the responsibility his gift gave him. He needed Spirit’s guidance more than most, to always

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understand he wasn’t a puppet master but working for the greater good. “You couldn’t have been seduced by the cotton if you weren’t about to snap from isolation. I stand by that belief.” Otherwise he would have approached her years ago. But she hadn’t been ready. She’d needed to be weaker. Dammit. He’d had no choice but to ache, waiting for her. There could be no chance of her having the will to resist. She frowned down at his chest, still rocking on him. Her wetness had soaked through the cotton to his lower belly. He didn’t feel so bad about messing the pants after all, now. “I have news for you, Elite. People tend to resent coercion. If that wasn’t a generational oak, the only thing my brain would be focused on would be how to screw you for playing me like a fool.” “I have never, will never, think you a fool. But this isn’t coercion, Shay. This is destiny. There’s no one else more suited to aiding me than you. The power in this relationship is definitely in your favor.” Swooping low, she mouthed his collarbone, her breasts nestling on his chest. Her lips were soft and busy, her tongue hot and lashing. “Sand,” she whispered to his throat, “I don’t believe you.” She nipped him. “I don’t like you.” She kissed the sting gently. “I don’t trust you.” Leaning up, she hovered over his ear. “But for not taking advantage of me while I was out of my mind with the cotton, I’ll listen to what you have to say.” Gooseflesh broke out in a wave down his arms. Her stomach growled. Now it was his turn to frown. “Let’s eat.” He fit his hands into the dip of her waist and lifted. She pulled away, resting against the lounge. Petting the high-end fabric that was one of the few man-made materials singers could tolerate, she murmured, “You thought of everything. You’ve been planning this for a long time.” She had no idea. He stood and went to the eating cloth, poured their drinks. Glancing up at her movement, he froze, mesmerized. She crawled. She slunk across the carpet in a movement that should have looked absurd in a grown woman, but only looked utterly confident. She was captivating. Her

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hips swayed as her knees slid forward, her small breasts with their tight tips making gentle points between her arms. She slid into a crouch across from him and proceeded to devour her food. He smiled, a full-lip spread. She was so fierce in her hunger, her face still frowning in concentration on the puzzle he’d placed her in. When she finished, he summoned the droid to clear the mess. She sprawled on the floor, limbs splayed, one hand caressing what was no doubt a full tummy. It was so far from the contained singer who’d glided toward him a few hours ago, safe in her glittering cone of a veil. Don’t get cocky, he warned himself. “Why me?” Her voice was drowsy. The sex and the food were a relaxing combination. “Because I’m the strongest tree singer?” “No. Because you truly worship the Spirit.” Rolling her head, she blinked sleepily at him. He wanted to curl around her and cuddle. Too soon. “And because of your temple project.” “You tricked me into a contract, spent a fortune on collecting natural things to tempt me, because I’m trying to help the nulls have open access to faith.” Her disbelieving tone wasn’t questioning, but he confirmed her words anyway. “Yes. Of course I had to make sure you had a sense of duty and justice, and the fact that you are powerful and gorgeous didn’t hurt either.” Looking up at the ceiling, she heaved a huge put-upon sigh that made him want to smile. He let his lips move only a bit. Her lids were drooping heavily. “Why don’t you rest up on one of the lounges?” “Too far,” she muttered. He dragged a lounge over next to her, knelt and lifted her up onto it. His grip bit hard into her thigh as he shifted her. He couldn’t help but notice her delicious little nipples were hard when he moved away from her. She was probably cold. Picking up the cotton shirt, he smoothed it, then laid it down over her torso. She sighed softly, happily. “Mmmmm.”

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Now he did smile. The best four hundred decos he’d ever spent. Rising, he went to the altar. His altar. The dried white smudge in the middle was more precious than any of the natural things he’d honored in the past. Placing his hands flat against the wood on either side of it, he closed his eyes. He prayed. That she’d be the one they needed. That he’d be able to keep her and his tree safe. That this was the beginning of a revolution. A thousand years ago, religion had brought about the Cataclysm. The government that had formed from the ashes several hundred years ago had made open worship illegal. Only private worship was allowed. But it was people’s nature to band together. The whole point of society was to live peacefully, furthering humanity with lawfulness and art. The old religions of orders and swords were gone. Now people sought out chi and fostered it, for they had learned the lessons of the Cataclysm well. The symbols of the old ways were still remembered—the book, the cross, the moon, the star. All of those symbols were now banned. But now there was no symbol for the new Spirit that had emerged. Without an organized temple for people to turn to, those that still lived selfishly continued to spawn bitter greed and hate like a virus. They fell easily to violence and disorder, dragging more down with them. He believed that the nulls would not live in such danger and the government would not struggle with violence if there was just something for the people to touch, to believe in. To protect. They needed more than a symbol. They needed physical proof of the Spirit’s miraculous reality. Proof that humanity was thriving once again, not still hanging by their fingernails in a cycle of despair. What was more perfect a creation of balanced chi than a tree? He turned from his altar and looked at the sleeping singer. She held more chi in her body than ten elite, or two dozen humans, who weren’t really entirely null. Her ability to connect to the chi of trees was innate. His ability to survive the integration of technological enhancements was innate. They were the privileged, the educated, the protected. They had no reason to bother with the nulls beyond keeping them away or using them as drones. Indeed, most of their people didn’t bother with them. Unless they

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needed workers, the elite ignored the masses of people who lived outside their gleaming private compounds. But his friends had formed a pact after a mystical evening under an ancestral tree. For twelve years he’d strategized for the pact, for the dream of three traumatized and dazzled boys. For the last eight years, he’d known they needed her. It was with joy he’d learned that another who thought like them was agitating for the same idea. She was going about it in entirely the wrong way, of course, but her existence and her efforts were a glowing beacon to keep him strong when he despaired of the time passing on the pact. Sand had spent eight years tracking Shay-non, monitoring her. Imagining the role she’d play in this daring coup. And now she was here, sleeping within reach. She’d pleasured herself on his altar. She’d fallen in love with his tree. She’d taken the bait of his cotton shirt, and she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. It was all following his strategy. But better than that, she was his own dream come true.

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Chapter Three

Shay woke to a warm softness enveloping her front. The static feel of velvet was beneath her. Her arms were folded behind her head. Her legs were splayed, her feet resting on a scratchy floor. And her cunt was soaking wet. Someone was between her legs, their presence strong, but without the vitality of a singer. An elite. Everything came rushing back. She opened her eyes. The curve of the lounge lifted her so that she could easily see the dark head mere inches from her crotch. He was blowing on her steadily. He looked up. Those green eyes made her gut clench. He made a show of smelling her, lifting his head as he inhaled, baring his pale throat. He was following every letter of a contract. No touching unless she initiated it. She remembered looking down at him in the strong light, the heat of it on her bare head. Her knees and shins cupped by the wide curved altar, the chi in the old wood faint, throbbing gently. The power she’d felt touching herself in front of him, for him. Touching him, so warm, so different from her. Then he’d pressed her against the cotton, and it had all erupted. Before she’d fallen asleep, he’d dared her to hear some grand, dangerous plan. He opened those green eyes and blew on her again. The warm breath on her wide, open center was gentle. Too gentle. Maddening. Her clit throbbed. “Have a good nap?” She loved how his face and tone showed no emotion, but his voice betrayed him. The husky rasp of it washed over her belly. Surprisingly, yes. She watched as he swallowed, his tongue moving thickly between his open lips as if he restrained himself from tasting her. His face slack with awe as he lifted a gleaming finger to his lips… “Sand?” www.samhainpublishing.com

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“Yes, Shay-non?” He blew softly, steadily on her. “Shay. Just Shay.” His tormenting breath stopped, more torment. He smiled slowly at her. Those eyes of his didn’t look real. “Are your eyes enhanced?” “No. The left one was lasered for precision sight when I was a teen, but they are not rebuilt.” “You have really nice eyes.” “Thanks. I like yours too.” He blew on her again. Hers were nothing special, just an even brown. “Sand?” “Shay?” “Will you please me?” He stopped. He swallowed again, this time without the show. “I swear I will, Shay. I have the skills. I’m good enough to take care of you.” “That’s not what I meant. I want you. Touch me.” He held her gaze as she held her breath. With one lunge his face was between her thighs, his hands clamped on each hip. Biting her lip, she arched to drive herself harder against his open mouth. His teeth cut a bit as he pressed himself as wide as he could, his tongue slapping at her hole in long licks. He shifted, gasping sloppily in her juices, canting his head as he licked up along her lips, swiped each side of her clit, making her hips shiver as they jerked in his grip. His fingers turned in, spreading her, and he really set to work, moving his whole head to get full sweeps over her ass, her thighs, the crease of her legs, her baby-smooth mound and finally her clit. “Hunnngghh!” The ugly sound ripped from her throat. He pressed hard, smoothing up from her opening over her clit in lick after lick. Taking her hands from behind her head finally, she grabbed his hair, trying to get him to stay on the point she wanted. It was thick and warm, silky beneath her palms. But not as silky as his wet tongue.

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Then he pulled back, despite her fisted grip on his head, and blew gently across her. She moaned, and he did it again. “Touch me.” He blew once more, then leaned in again. She almost sobbed with relief. His tongue ever so softly touched the tip of her. She shoved her hips up as much as his grip would allow, burning. He flicked the tip of her again. She growled. He wouldn’t give in. She wound tighter and tighter with each feathery brush of his tongue on just that tiny spot. Her flesh cooled around him so that it felt like a brand each time it came. Touch. Pause. Tap. Pause. Flick. Pause. She was drawn so tight she felt like she would shatter. Then he closed his teeth around her and she did. She heaved with her whole body when his mouth suckled her clit, tongue and lips working her hard, dragging her pleasure on and on. “Look at me.” His voice was right over her face. Opening dazed eyes, she swirled into his greenscape. “The next time you come, I’m going to be inside you. And you’re going to open the door on your chi, Shay.” “I don’t respond well to demands from sneaky strategists.” Her voice was hoarse. Had she been screaming? Possibly. Her ears were still ringing. He smiled, his lips and jaw shining with her juices. “I’ve noticed. But you also don’t like surprises. So I’m giving you fair warning. Last time I did that, it worked pretty spectacularly.” He was so handsome when he smiled. His eyes had long black lashes. She wanted to nibble them. “Don’t think of it as a demand. Think of it as inevitable.” His eyes flared, and she could tell he wanted her. She reached out a hand and curled it around the wet cloth at his hips, gripping the hot, hard ridge of him. The cotton wasn’t as seductive wet, but it was still fascinating enough for her to experiment with. Especially when he was inside it. His jaw grew tighter.

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“The next time you come, I’m going to blow every circuit you have. Take that as ‘fair warning’.” “Duly noted,” he whispered faintly, rocking his hips into her grip. His eyes lost their focus when she tightened her fingers. “I know it’s probably part of your plan…” She fisted his head. “But I want you to know I appreciate it.” She rubbed his tip with her thumb. “Appreciate what?” “The flooring. The altar. The beautiful specimens here.” She dragged the thick cloth down to his base, watching as he licked his lips of her cream. “The fact you didn’t push me like you could have.” He was handsome and hot. He could have laid her out on the floor and fucked her in front of the tree. She would have let him, and possibly even needed it. But she would have hated him. She was still angry about being trapped here. But hate was looking like an impossibility. He was nice, when he wasn’t being annoyingly controlling. Those green eyes focused like a laser. She froze at the passion in them. “Shay, there is a plan. But it was all designed for you.” She swallowed, blinking up at him. She was proud to be a singer. She loved her gift, lived for it. But all her life she’d just drifted through, waiting. Wondering. Her temple project felt impossible, but it gave her something to focus on between trees. This was what she’d been waiting for. This man, and his improbable secret tree, and his talk of faith. She felt like she was waking up, on the cusp of some greater purpose. She licked her own lips, putting both hands on his hard chest. “Sand, I know you’re all worked up…but do you think you could take a break and talk to me about the tree now?” There was no mistaking the relief that washed over his face. He nodded, his lashes sweeping down as he levered himself off her. Just like that, he controlled his need, and she admired him for it.

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He led her down the hall, across the foyer, through the glass walkway and back to the tree’s room. His ass looked so manly in the clinging cotton, his wide, pale shoulders rippling with strength that he no doubt carefully planned with a strategic workout routine. It was weird to be walking without her veil in this strange home. The air moved so freely around her body, making her feel exposed, even though she was always nude. After opening the first two safety layers, but leaving the aircap in place, he pulled her down to sit between his legs in the doorway. She sprawled back against his strength. He was warm, solid. They spent a few minutes just gazing at the tree. If she lived at this compound, she would set up her bedroom here, in the entry to the biodome. It was just too beautiful. Too rare, too amazing. This tree had defied so many odds, had been loved by so many. “I grew up relatively privileged, but not in the top tier.” His voice rumbled against her back. She relaxed into his heat that surrounded her. She was only distantly surprised how at ease she was with him already. “I went to training school when I was twelve.” She nodded. The elite sent their children to be trained in skills that matched their specialties, and to be trained to withstand pain, so they’d survive their implantations. Also, puberty was monitored closely, as the cusp of maturity was the time they were augmented. “I immediately made two friends. We were inseparable. One of them was Cullen. He’s from a Council family, and a radiation elite.” Sand’s hands held her tighter. “I don’t see him much anymore, since it all happened.” Shay swallowed. Radiation elite were the people who developed the filters to protect what was left of the atmosphere. They also designed the sunshine bulbs everyone needed to live by, that mimicked the sun of old. Radiation elites also worked in offense, designing weapons that burned or disintegrated. She didn’t know which was scarier, Cullen’s skills or his family status. The Council controlled all the compounds, and thus all life. Beyond the compounds was a desolation of poisoned wasteland.

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“Cullen was summoned to the house of a priestess when he was sixteen. It was on this spot, and at the heart of it was this oak. She was the keeper of it, the biggest secret possibly in all of the compounds. He came back a day later, shell-shocked. He didn’t talk for days. When he did, he sealed us in a privacy booth and asked us about our faith.” Illegal, to talk about what you believed outside of your family. “We all had altars, so we already knew that we believed in the Spirit enough to worship, even as boys away from our families. It was one of the things that bound us, I think, at first. Others took down their altars after a few weeks at school. But we used ours. “We talked about it, and all of us had family trees that played a big role in our belief and childhood. Mine wasn’t an ancestral one, but it will be someday.” If a family built up enough power and wealth, they could design a nursery that would support a sapling. Petition the government for enough years, pay the enormous fee, and they’d be granted a baby tree. If the family wealth stayed strong enough, they kept the tree alive until it was ancient and needed a singer. Then it was an ancestral tree and logged as such, a national treasure the government would help support. “What is your family’s tree?” she asked. “A hickory.” She smiled. A hardwood. A slow-growing tree, it spoke of a family that valued inner strength over looks. And to think she had thought him a flowering fruit. Now she knew better. “Cullen told Tavish and me about the priestess and her secret oak. She was fifty-five, and had no children. She wanted to leave him her estate, if he’d prove himself.” Sand shifted behind her. “He had to bed her.” Shay blinked. The old perv. Poor boy. “Did he?” “She wanted him to do it when he was legal. Of his own free will. It wasn’t for pleasure. She wanted to give him her chi. But more than that, she wanted to give him this oak.”

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Shay jerked in Sand’s arms. Twisting, she looked at him incredulously. Only such a shocking statement could have ripped her gaze from the oak. “She offered him transference? But why did she choose him?” It was the most sacred ceremony a person could perform. Transference was both suicide and a way to cheat death, sharing all your acquired power with another in one burst. It was also illegal, because it usually killed both participants, rebounding onto the recipient as well. “He asked the same thing. She said it was because of us, his friends. She said the time was right. To bring Spirit back to the people.” Shay didn’t know what that meant, but it sent a resonance through her as if his words had plucked her heart like an instrument. Turning back, she focused on the tree. A tree that had to have been sung to for generations. Off the record. “She wasn’t the first, was she. She was part of a line. They’d been passing their chi for a long time. Building it.” “Yes. How’d you guess?” “It’s the only way to explain the oak’s survival without singers. When an ancestral tree goes into dormancy once every generation, it needs a massive influx of chi to pull it out. The priestess must have been part of a line using transference to nourish the tree, passing on its caretaking in secret.” Not many respected the priests and priestesses. Some were singers, some were elite, some were nulls. They chose to abandon their abilities, even their names, and live outside the world of business, helping the poor and violent among the nulls. It was thankless work. The government forbade any communal worship, and they wandered from home to home, often at night, when people could hide their faith from the elite’s dour police. Praying in public would net you a ticket, but leading a prayer group outside your own family would net you an arrest. Shay mused, “Cullen is the name of one of the Council members now.” “Yes.” “Tavish,” she gasped. “The elite who turned singer. I’ve met him.” “Yes.” Some kind of pain was in Sand’s voice.

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It was rare, as in once-every-five-generations rare, that an elite would manifest singer powers. Singers were born. Their innate connection to the natural world let them heal it, mold it into something that would survive, if they all worked together, blending their chi. Tavish’s arrival as a young man in the singer society had been huge news. “You must still be able to see him. Contact him on the lattice.” “Sure. I was just remembering.” She considered the clues that had been building. Sand was disturbed, remembering his friends, remembering this story. “The transfer. I’ve heard it’s very painful.” It always led to the death of the giver. Only the most powerful of souls could withstand the onslaught of the giver’s chi being passed into them. “Yeah.” Sand whispered the word, rubbed his face against her hair. “Yeah.” She realized. “You were there.” “Yes.” “I thought she invited Cullen?” “Cullen was jumpy. He wanted the tree. Who wouldn’t? He’d been brought to an old family’s compound, thinking to gain some real-life experience with a disgraced elite priestess. He’d discovered the revelation of a lifetime—she had control of an unregistered ancestral oak. But she was asking for him to prepare to take over not just the oak, not even just her faith that the oak had a role to play in changing the balance of political power. She was asking him to include his friends and take her soul into his keeping. “For one day, she kept him there, answering his questions about transference. Or rather, sharing what few answers she had. For another day, he debated forgetting the whole thing, denying her request. But in the end, he came to us. Tavish never hesitated. He volunteered to take on the transference himself, and Tavish, to my knowledge, has never looked at a woman sexually in his life. “I’ll always remember his instant acceptance. He said, ‘This is it. This is what I’ve struggled for. This is why I’m here.’ Tavish hated school. He hated the training, the habituation exercises where we were tortured. He saw this secret as a reason to keep going, presented at a time when he was about to throw it all away and quit.

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“But Cullen said the priestess had made it clear she’d pass herself only to him. So, with Tavish egging us on, we agreed that we’d do it. We sat in that little room, stinking of terror. Three clueless idiots agreed to keep the priestess’s tree secret and work toward a successful transfer of her power into Cullen. I’m not sure you can get more cocky and recklessly confident than teenage elite males. I’m not very proud of how self-important and proud we were for the next few years.” Sand snorted derisively. “We had time to research transference, waiting for Cullen to reach legal maturity. I found the merest hints of how the ceremony could be survived. I decided his best chance was if he had a feedback loop. Tavish was a microbiology elite. With my systems knowledge, Tav’s cellular knowledge and Cullen’s radiation knowledge, we worked out a way to blend ourselves with me as the focus. Tavish could monitor Cullen’s energy internally, and drain it off, spread it out, help control power spikes. I was going to be on the lattice, where I’m most powerful. I could pull in a lot of power and dump it there, too, if need be.” He closed his hand into a fist. Tracing on the lattice was something anyone could do for communication and knowledge sharing on a limited scale. You touched the lattice interface, and you focused, using a numerical cue. What Sand did was much, much more. By patching in using a specially enhanced chair, he could build one of those numerical cues. He could control them, link them, via the ports in his wrist and neck. Piles more data than she was capable of comprehending could pass through his brain, be filtered for relations and collated for meaning. They were still trying to build droids who processed a bit of what Sand did, but the human brain had never been solved. Probably because the elite who studied it kept discounting Spirit. The audacity of what Sand was describing was dazzling. She’d never considered the ability to actually use chi on the lattice. To her it was a cold, hostile, mechanical world used for convenience as little as possible.

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Chapter Four

“Will you share what happened?” She soothed her hand along his arm. It was several moments before he took a deep breath. “We initiated the ritual years later, when Tavish finally recovered from gaining his enhancements. It still makes me sad, to think of the pain he endured, the training all those years, the ugly rejection and reconstruction, all for nothing. “We went to her compound. This room”—he gestured to the tree—“was the only decent thing about it. It was absolutely crumbling. She didn’t greet us, feed us, talk to us about anything. She just opened the gate—it wasn’t even automated, if you can believe that, and led us to her bedroom, where she took off her clothes and lay down.” Shay held her breath, riveted by the human drama he was sharing, even though she already knew the outcome. “She was fit, and still attractive, but by that point, none of us were feeling sexy. I think all three pairs of our knees were knocking so hard we sounded like Council drums. Basically, we were looking at a dead woman. A woman who was going to die under Cullen. It was…surreal. We’d prayed together, before we came over. It was powerful, reassuring. We were so determined, so pumped when we left. But standing in that room, I…” Shay covered his fist with her hand. “I can’t imagine your courage.” “No. Not me, not even Cullen. Think instead of the faith and courage she had.” Shay did, contemplating a life in isolated service to the Spirit. The woman gave up her name in her effort, and in the end, gave up her very life. All because elites used fear of repeating the past as an excuse to banish faith from people’s lives. She shivered. “I webbed in all three of them first, to the ancient lattice link in the bedroom. Then I followed Cullen’s directions and found her study, and traced in with a decrepit chair.” 38

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Shay shivered again. She didn’t like sitting in the interface chairs the lattice needed. None of the singers did. Besides the pain of the contact with man-made materials, the zinging electricity it buffered compared mentally to standing in front of a towering dam of sticks holding back a lake. Eerie, and dangerous to her. “My mind was monitoring all three on the lattice. Back in her bedroom, Cullen took her body. Tavish took Cullen’s. That was what the research had revealed, a need for synchronous feedback.” Shay’s body stiffened involuntarily. “Cullen…?” Sand gave her a hug. “It wasn’t forced. Cullen and Tavish were already lovers. I watched the biofeedback on the lattice. Cullen came first, then Tavish, and then…the priestess. She gave it all up. All of herself”—his fingers pinched as his grip tightened— “just”—his breath came harsh—“poured into them. I’ll remember Cullen’s scream forever. There was no feedback loop we could ever conceive that would be powerful enough to contain her death. It wasn’t a transfer of chi, Shay. It was a transfer of souls. Hers, and all the others that had passed to her before. The power was terrifying.” “It didn’t affect you?” “A bit. I was definitely riding a chi wave bigger than any I’ve felt since. But Cullen burnt half his enhancements, and Tavish…just fried.” “‘Fried’ seems a bit of a euphemism.” “No. He burned. Inside. His enhancements had always given him trouble. We’d had to wait for three repairs on him, and his adjustment took six months. They were both unconscious when I made it into the room. I managed to restart Tavish’s heart. “I was sitting there, looking at her body, looking at Cullen to see if he was going to explode, looking at Tavish to see if he would die, looking at the lattice to decide if I should call for help. I was nineteen. “Then Cullen came out of it and told me about it being a soul transfer. They hadn’t transferred just one priestess’s chi. There were too many to understand. Like what you understood immediately, that she was merely the last in a long line of them. She hadn’t told us. We weren’t prepared.

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“Tavish was sick, so sick. Cullen said, ‘We’ve got to get him to the tree.’ “Cullen opened this biodome up, and it took both of us to drag the big bastard in. We took him in and wrapped ourselves around him… The fallen branches and acorns hurt. I’d never walked on earth before. I was out of my mind with awe at the size of it. The power of the chi in me, Cullen could barely speak, Tavish’s life fading, the dead body back in the bedroom… It wasn’t a good experience. And it got worse.” Shay was mesmerized by the story. She stroked the thighs that were rock solid along hers. “I know he lived. What happened under the tree?” “Yeah, he lived. Cullen did something, with the tree, with his enhancements, with his new chi. With the Spirit.” Shay waited but Sand seemed to be lost in memory. She swallowed. He was holding something back. “What did he do, Sand?” Sand laughed bitterly. “I have no fucking idea. I wonder if he even knows. Cullen took the light, he took the air, and wove it. It sizzled. The enhancements he had left started to smoke, and I felt this presence gather, this pressure, as if it would pop my head like a balloon. Tavish’s wrist and throat stopped bleeding, but then it was my turn to go crazy.” “I can’t imagine you ever being crazed.” “It’s not something I like to remember.” Sand’s voice was the lowest it had gotten since he began to tell his story. “We were three boys who were totally overwhelmed, unprepared, for the stewardship of such an oak, such a plan. We lay there together, crying, terrified… It changed us. There was never a question of going back, of ignoring it. It was given to us.” He hadn’t told her everything, but she let it go. “I’ve never heard of such a line of transference.” Shay considered generations of people willing to give all of their power into another’s keeping, and finding souls strong enough to withstand that as the generations built. “Wow.” He squeezed her gently.

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“When we left that room, Tavish was an earth singer. And Cullen…was scary. The air around him practically boiled. His eyes, I’ll always remember his eyes. Sometimes I wonder if he isn’t still riding the chi he took that night.” “Cullen is one of the youngest Council members ever, right?” “He moved into politics immediately and held his father’s seat within two years. It took Tavish months to recover.” Tavish lived in a different singer compound across the land, but their paths had crossed. Now that she thought about it… “Did Tavish know I was part of this plan of yours?” “Yes.” “How long has this plan been in place?” “Years.” “How many—” “Leave it, Shay.” She wondered. She could do the math. If it was developed after Tavish became a singer, then it had been in place over twelve years. How long had Sand been watching her? “How did you hide this room?” “I built the hall to it myself and created another bioroom for my legal tree. The architect suspects I have an illegal garden at the center of my compound.” Shay’s gaze was drawn to the leaf-strewn, mossy ground that surrounded the base of the tree. “I wanted to build just a little stone temple. A place people could go for help, for prayer. Something to focus on, if they want to. For those who can’t afford an altar. I don’t believe it’s as dangerous as the government says. The priests and priestesses I’ve talked to all support the idea. They say there are a few underground temples that already exist that people flock to. But many won’t come because of the danger of being arrested.” Sand sighed. “The Council will never give permission. What we have to do is build it secretly. And unveil it so publicly it will be impossible for them to reseal it into secrecy. Then make it so amazing, even they won’t destroy it. They’ll have to accept it. They’ll

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want to take control of it and they can. But they’ll never be able to take away the awe of it. It will be labeled a museum, but the people will call it temple. The nulls will come to pray. The fight will be to keep it free. But that will be for the next generation.” “You want to design a temple in secret?” “Yes.” “The workers, the land… It’s impossible.” “It’s already been done.” Shay blinked. “All we need now is to start the forest.” She blinked again. Forest. The word echoed through her body like a chord. He played her like a master musician. “For that we need the most powerful tree singer who’s ever lived.” She remembered to breathe. “We need you, Shay, to come to our hidden temple. We need to meld the chi of the place into a nova of life. We need the acorns and seeds to grow, bound together, so that they can’t be undone without losing them all.”

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Chapter Five

Her heart was pounding so hard, it was going to climb out of her throat. She stared at the oak, imagining a field of them, ringed by people, sharing their chi in prayer. “Shhh. Shhh.” Sand rocked her while her brain restarted. “I’ll need air, sun, water and earth support too.” “Working on it.” His hands rose to cover her breasts. “Cullen is your sun, and there’s Tav, of course, for earth. I’m still identifying air and water. They’re slippery traits to pin down, and there are so many factors to consider. I have a very narrow pool and an idea of how to proceed.” When singers united to bring life to a seed, to nurture a garden, to cleanse some new piece of recovered stone, they united in a blend of elements, their chi dancing and binding. What it would take to raise a forest, all at once, entwined… She wanted it. She wanted to dare to reach for that power. “It will require a binding ceremony of a level never before done, between all of us.” “Tavish says that my systemic skills can be integrated into the traditional singer unit. He says I can help balance everyone, at the same time linking them. It sounds intense, but much more manageable than the transference. I’m looking forward to it.” He purred, palming her harder. “Does that mean you’re in?” “I should say of course not. It’s insane. But I’m looking at an impossibility right here. It’s like Spirit is daring me not to believe. I already made the commitment to lay my faith out as a laughingstock when I started my own project.” She stopped, considered. “I shouldn’t have done that. Now they’ll be expecting something like this from me.” “They can’t conceive of something like this. They don’t have the vision or the faith. You’ll have to keep agitating like you have been. You can become disappointed, let it

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slack off in a while. We’ll have to keep our association secret. This contract is as much public contact as we’ll ever have.” Shay breathed sharply. She was surprised at the pain. “Ever?” she whispered. “Until it’s done, Shay. Only until it’s done. Then I’ll approach you about a more significant contract length. As in a formal, sealed one.” She hadn’t considered a bond of that depth. Why would he say that? “It’s a ways off, a year at least,” his voice soothed her. “In the meantime, I’ll be in contact with you on the lattice, in secret. Tavish can pass messages.” Shay sat cradled in the body of the most amazing mind she’d ever met. Her hands traced the scars that lined his forearms. There would be more over the back of his neck. The pain he’d undergone, all because he was born with the physiology that wouldn’t reject cyber enhancements. He’d been found by a secret line of transferred priestesses. He’d dared to plan a forest. This was amazing. This was right. This just might be possible. Maybe. If they weren’t assassinated or burned out. So many things had to come together, and stay apart. “Sand?” “Hmm.” “Thank you for choosing me.” “Shay…” His fingers played gently with her nipples. “Thank you for listening.” “I’m ready. To share my chi with you.” He groaned. Rubbed his face in her hair. “Those are the sweetest words I’ve ever heard. Come on then, I’d like to share that with you in a special place.” He stood and resealed the oak’s defenses. Moving back, he walked down the hall and triggered a lattice connection she’d missed in the wall. She watched his face tighten as his hand splayed on the glass, how his skin lit blood red from inside, blue cybernetics lighting up like jewels. A wall slid into place, another fell down. Turning, she saw a magnificent doorway of carved wood. The scrollwork was pre-Cataclysm.

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“Oh!” She couldn’t help but go to it, touch it. She noticed the hidden door’s lasers only when their light faded. Then the wash of fresh-earth scent rolled out to her. “Sand!” “Meet the official reason you were hired.” In a tub of earth as wide as her car sat a red oak sapling. It had four branches and about twenty leaves. She knew at once it wasn’t descended from the ancestral oak. “It’s five years old in a month.” The fondness in his voice, the respect, moved her. She faced him. Raising on tiptoe, she curled her hand behind his neck, ignoring the ridges of scars. She kissed him. Softly, gently. She moved her lips over his as his head lowered to meet her, so she could come off her tiptoes. The glass was slick beneath her feet, and he smelled of her. She delved into his mouth. Warm, wet tongue met hers delicately, testing. How long they stood there, she didn’t know. Their lips sealed, and after the wash of heat ignited when their bodies pressed close, they settled in to the give and take of the kiss. It was a precursor of what was to come. When he began to walk her into the room, she followed without any awkwardness, their bodies moving as one, swaying. His kiss was deep and drugging, and his hair was so soft. One hand went down over his chest, around his ribs, caressed his tight ass through the sensuous cotton pants. Then, he wrapped her tight and breathed into her mouth. She stopped, adjusted her body and breathed back. He took in her air as his inhale, then exhaled into her. Moisture burst between her legs, her knees trembling. It was so beautiful, so incredible, to share breath from him. After another exchange she was overcome and broke the seal to bury her face in his chest, shuddering. “Shhh. I’m here.” He was. An elite standing solid around her. She trusted him. “Shay-non, Tree Singer, sing for my tree.” She turned her face to the infant sapling. “I’d be happy to, Sand.”

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Slowly peeling herself off him, she knelt near the tub of earth centered in the glowing light. She closed her eyes, gathering herself, closing off awareness of his presence behind her. She was suddenly fiercely determined to prove to him just how powerful she was. When she’d steadied her breathing and heart rate, when her blood was ignited and the well of her will was opened, she called forth Spirit. Her body suffused with power, tingling, hot. She knew she was glowing softly now, less stunning than when Sand used his enhancements, but all over. Eyes closed, her hands moved through space until they connected with the tree. She gently closed both palms over the thin trunk. The life within jumped and writhed, but she soothed it, flowed into it. When it had resumed its circular pattern, and she had the whole of its energy traced, she opened the gate she controlled in her hands. And sang. The power rolled out of her, into her, Spirit moving around everything natural, everything alive. When she closed her gate, she knew the tree as well as her own body. She buzzed with sensation, her skin tight, her thighs damp. Singing made her feel good. “Spirit, that was gorgeous.” He was right behind her. “Cue in to me, Shay.” She expanded her well of power, pushing the bubble out and felt him near her back. She connected to his heartbeat first. It was hard, fast, but hers was right there to match it. Then, she stretched her energy down his torso. Her power coiled there and spread into his limbs. “Spread your legs. Arms up.” She widened her kneeling stance, rising up. Lifting her hands, she twined them in the air, playing with the feel of the energy pulsing between each of her fingers. It was an exact copy of her position earlier on the altar. Her knees on the glass floor were still slightly sore. His energy moved forward, then his heat, and finally his skin met hers as he slid between her legs, his hands on her waist. He gripped her hard and lifted her onto his

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folded thighs, setting a bare erection against her sopping cunt. He swiveled his hips, the head of him shifting in her folds. He held her there, poised. She’d shown him how she liked the delay, the hint, the promise, as much as the act. He’d listened, already proven he could give her what she needed. His mouth closed over her nape where her shoulder met her neck. He mouthed her gently, licking, nipping, then licking again. Switching to the other side, he moved his hips under her again, his tip slipping up to brush her clit, before sliding back to notch in her hole. His tongue trailed up her spine to play in the base of her skull, his breath scalding her even through her hair. “You just dripped cream all over me. I can feel it running down the front of me.” His thumbs swirled once on the back of her hips, his cock head slipping between her cheeks, leaving a trail of dampness, before sweeping back to her center. He nibbled down her spine, and he tightened his grip, lifting her higher so his mouth could nip at her tailbone. Without warning he dropped her, and she fell onto his erection, his fat tip lodging halfway into her channel. “Ahhh!” She cried out at the sudden force of it. He grunted behind her. With a snarl, his hands came up around her front to hook on her shoulders. He drove his hips up as he yanked her down, tunneling his cock deep. She panted for breath, her hands gripping each other tightly in the air above her. Like her initial contact with the tree, her chi spun wildly at a foreign addition in the midst of her. She surrounded the energy, swayed on him, claimed him. He snarled again, grinding into her. She felt the fat head plowing deep inside, trapped as she clamped hard around the thick shock of him. She quivered, shaking, balanced on his spike, his thighs spreading hers to the point where air brushed over her exposed clit. His hands softened on her shoulders, trailing over her breasts, down her ribs, her belly, to play in the line between her hips and thighs. With a moan, she lost strength, her hands falling to his, gripping his wrists tightly. He moved one of his hands back to her throat, another into the cave of her clit. She dug her nails into him, felt the sizzling presence of his enhancements. He gripped her throat

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gently, stroking it with long curls of his fingers. His other hand echoed the same curling strokes above where they were joined. His hips thrust up against her again, and she felt his well open, the place where he held his chi. His will poured over her, wringing a cry from her lips. He was coming silently, but his chi was screaming into her. She came too, her chi pouring from her core into him. He caught it, returned it in another pulse, and the loop began. He held her twisting body against his as she fell into the timeless place where pleasure merged with Spirit. The happy little tree before her eyes shimmered into view, and she saw in her mind’s eye a field of them, dozens. Without thinking, she opened the gates of her fingertips and sank into his body. He screamed, bowing them forward. Her heart stopped. “Sand!” “Shay,” he groaned. “What happened?” “Shhh…” He was able to straighten after a moment. “Oh, Singer. Thank you.” “I hurt you!” “Yeah. Sweet, biting pain. Like your cunt had teeth.” “I’m so sorry. What was that?” He chuckled weakly. “You sang.” “But…it hurt?” “Sure. I’m not a tree. Look.” He twisted his hands gently to dislodge her grip on his forearms. Burned into his skin was an imprint of her hands. “Sand…” “It was sweet, Shay. I tasted you. I held you, inside. You can sing in me anytime, lady. Spirit, I feel like I could run from here to land’s edge right now.” He gathered her up, hugged their sweaty bodies together. The feel of him shifting out of her wet clasp brought a moan to her lips. He hummed. “How do you feel?” She considered. Her brain was awake, her heart was steady, her body relaxed, but powerful. “Like I could run to land’s edge right now. Or raise a forest.”

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Both of them focused on the oak in front of them. It was now half again the height it had been, and would continue to grow on its infusion of singer chi for the next day. “You will.” The rock-solid certainty of his voice echoed in her belly like a kettledrum’s solid, solemn toll. She swallowed. “If they find out, they won’t imprison us. They’ll kill us.” “Yes. But between my skills on the lattice and Cullen’s Council insight, we’ll be all right.” “Tavish is a singer liaison.” He’d seemed a natural choice for an envoy to the elites. He’d been one. “He’s been in contact with many supporters in secret.” She shivered, leaning against his heat, breathing deep of the scent of their sex and the tree’s soil. “How many people know?” “Just we four know everything.” “You said there’s going to be more. We need others. Will you…contract with them as well? Show them the oak?” He was quiet. Lifting her, she moaned to feel his come slide from her warmth, painting her thighs. He helped her stand, turning her into his arms. Holding her as if she were the most precious, rarest of his natural treasures. His green eyes glowed. “I don’t know yet if I’ll be the contact or not, Shay. Ideally, it should be the person who’s going to be their partner in the ceremony.” “Sun to air, water to earth.” She cuddled against him, petting his nipple. “Yes.” “So Tavish and Cullen aren’t partners?” “They’ve contracted a few times.” He smoothed one hand over the back of her head, a gesture that reminded her of her mother, dead now for several years. Singers led shorter lives than elite. The more powerful, the shorter. She expected to be dead in twenty years. “If it wasn’t for this plan, would they have taken a formal contract?” “I’m not sure. They’re complicated.”

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“Hmmm.” She was needed to do the Spirit’s work. She was part of an amazing project, honored to be part of it. She’d no place laying claim to the sexual ties she was enjoying. “You never contracted with an elite before.” “Nope.” She snorted. “I’ve not met many I’d even view as human beings let alone bedmates.” “Elites enjoy many benefits for the path they travel, but it is not as easy as it appears. We subject ourselves voluntarily to what amounts to torture, for the good of the whole. Shay, you don’t know what it’s like…the daily pain we train in to survive our enhancements. Pain so deep it makes your bones ache. It can suck the life out of you. It can suck the Spirit out of you. I’m not excusing them. But I understand how they get that way.” Shay was silent. She knew the elite performed vital services with which life in the protected lands continued. “Without elites, we would not exist. But most are such bastards it’s hard to be grateful.” Sand grunted. “Do you have a lover who is special?” Do you? She bit the question back. “I have friends I go to when I’m lonely.” Strangely, the chi loop between singers was never as strong as it was between singers and elite. Even a singer and null partnering was stronger than singer to singer. But it had been enough to get by. She didn’t have sex for power, but for comfort. “I was sorry to hear about your mother.” “Thank you. It’s weird to think of you spying on me for so long.” “I prefer to think of it as watching over you.” She pulled back and studied him with disbelieving eyes. “Conductor.” “I never interfered in your life. Not even when I thought you would be taken in by that protein elite with the pin oak.” “Her? She had a very nice tree. And she was one of the few who seemed to have a bit of soul. But she wasn’t my type.” The words fell between them. He was her type. But she was just part of the plan.

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“It’s been a long day, Shay. Will you sleep with me?” She smiled at him. “I’d like that. Here?” He blinked. “Would you really want that?” “Oh, yes. There’s a sleeping platform around the singer’s tree in my compound. Sometimes every room is empty and we’re all in there.” There were three singers’ compounds, and each had a garden the equal of the Council’s formal chamber. Looking at his tree, he tilted his head. “Do you know, that’s never even occurred to me? Just to be in the room with it seems…sacrilegious.” “You managed to rise to the occasion.” She grinned at her innuendo. “So I did. Because you blew my mind.” She laughed. It felt so good, she did it again. “Can I ask for a naughty favor?” “My favorite kind to grant.” “I want to sleep in the cotton.” He narrowed his eyes. “You mean masturbate in the cotton.” “Well, it depends on what kind of a morning person you are.” “I’ll be the available kind.” She laughed again. “We’ll see. This body waits for no man when cotton is at hand.” To her surprise, he laughed with her. It was a deep, relaxed, joyful sound. “Let’s get a lounge in here.”

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Chapter Six

The arrangements were done by droid, as he took her to the bath. She braced for some lavish astonishment, but it was just a very nice bath, with sanitizer and waste chair. He let her use the room first. Then she spent the time back in her room choosing a focus for the evening prayer among his shelves of treasure. When he came to her, hair damp, she’d arranged a feather and a river stone on the altar. He reached for her hand and she clasped his. His was so big, surrounding hers in strength. She exhaled peacefully, standing with him outside the beam of light that lit the altar. “Shall I leave you?” “Will you join me?” They spoke at the same time. Looking at each other, they smiled. Still holding hands, they knelt. She prayed, connecting to the altar. She’d chosen the focus items because they made her think of air and water, the two most elusive elements they needed for the plan. She couldn’t keep calling it that. They were going to make a forest. In a temple. A point of such power that the Spirit could not be denied, or hidden. A new start on the shattered, poisoned, ruined ground the land had become. The people who lived and worked so hard would have a place of peace. The priestesses would not have to work on the streets, the priests would not have to visit houses in secret. She would call it the symphony. Sand’s grand strategy, the master plan envisioned by a line of priestesses and passed on to three young, privileged, powerful, devout boys. She was now an instrument in the symphony. She’d play when she was needed and rest when she wasn’t.

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Focusing on the feather and the river stone, she called to those elements. Air, water, insubstantial elements. She’d always been drawn to water, but air was a personal challenge to connect to. When she opened her eyes, she knew she’d been close, but hadn’t achieved the connection she wished. She turned her head. Sand was sitting cross-legged on a lounge, watching her. He was nude. The cotton outfit was folded at his side. “When you pray, you glow just like you do when you sing.” “Not always.” “Shay, what you just did… It’s very much like what I can do when I tap into the lattice.” She had no idea what he was talking about. “You pray on the lattice?” She saw technology as anathema to Spirit, but knew it was her own bias. Technology had saved what was left of the land, in the end, after the Cataclysm. The elite had been born on a tide of bloody, desperate experimentation. Eventually the singers emerged, but it had taken generations. The elite claimed their prominence by right of heritage, of their being humanity’s saviors in those first dark decades. Indeed, if the elite hadn’t been identified and created, there would likely be no one left. “No, your focus, the calling, the merging. It was like you went seeking, like I do on the lattice.” “I was praying.” “But I felt the echo of water, through your hand. Maybe because our chi is still synched from our loving.” Her heart stopped. He’d called it loving. He shouldn’t. “You mean sex.” “It was powerful, loving sex. There was no aggression or anger in it. Just passion, freely shared, respectfully.” Oh. That wasn’t love. Love was when the person you were with mattered as much as the pleasure.

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“I think, if you’d be willing, I’d like to trace on the lattice a bit tomorrow, with the jump you’ve given my energy. Then, while I’m hooked in, I’d like to try to connect with you while you’re praying.” “All right.” Shit. Even she heard the stiffness in her voice. He frowned. “If it bothers you, I won’t do it.” “Do I have to be in a tracing chair?” “No.” “Then it won’t bother me.” “You’re upset about something. You don’t want me to call it loving?” Dammit. “If you must poke at it, then yes. Just call it sex.” He looked at her reproachfully. “I’m a player in your orchestra, Sand. Let’s just remember our parts.” Now he was outright scowling. “You are special to me, Shay.” Damn straight. Wait till he saw what she could do to a mature tree that could handle all her power. None of the other tree singers could do what he was asking. They didn’t have the chi for it. She didn’t even have it, yet. She’d need the mother of all binding rituals to boost her. “Do you trust me, Shay-non? Do you know I will never betray you?” She mentally rolled her eyes. “I trust you, Sand. I don’t believe this is an elaborate hoax to set me up.” “Then you must know—” “Can we go to bed? I think I was taken in prayer quite a while. I’m tired.” That was a lie. She had enough chi surging through her from one time with him to stay awake for days. But her internal clock said she’d passed over an hour in prayer, so maybe he’d buy it. “I didn’t wash the clothes.” He was all stiff. He didn’t buy it. “That’s fine. I don’t mind the smell of us.” She stood and went to the lounge, looking down at the cotton. Her fingers twitched. Her breath caught. She was going to put it on

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her body, completely all over her. Just draping the shirt around her neck before had blown her mind. “Do you want me to leave the two of you alone for privacy?” His voice was dry. “How long have you been wearing it?” “About two years. Rarely, of course.” “How do you bear to take it off?” He shrugged. “It’s like sex. It has to end eventually.” She stared at the neat black folds. She yearned. She coveted them. Greed crawled across her skin in a wave that left her dizzy. She reached out a shaking hand, pulled it back. “Help me put it on?” He looked at her. Stood. Lifting the shirt, he casually crumpled the torso into a ring, and lifted it toward her head. Her breath came in small pants. “I’ll just drape it over your head, like you wore it before.” Before, it had triggered a series of orgasms that took her breath and almost made her pass out. She nodded. He pulled the circle down around her neck and let go, leaving the fabric hanging on her shoulders. An immense sun, shining on fields of green dotted with white. Black earth below, air blowing clean. “Ungh.” She grunted, shivering. “All right?” She nodded. He pulled the shirt down so that it hung in a tube, trapping her arms where they clung to her waist. The hem tickled the top of her ass. Her nipples were caressed by softness. Her arms stroked in warmth. Instantly, her body was surrounded. She moaned. He stroked her spine, his hand attempting to soothe, but causing her to sway. “I don’t see this working for you as a sleeping arrangement.” “Pants.” “Put your arms through the holes at the shoulders.” “No.” She couldn’t be that bound in it.

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“Well, the pants are going to be too long, but I can roll them. Maybe you should sit.” She sat, gingerly. The shifting of the whispering fabric that had once lived caused her to break out in gooseflesh. He knelt at her feet, ringing one leg, and she put her foot in. The fabric was a band around one ankle. He did the other foot. Shackled by pleasure. “Wait.” She had to take it all in. Her body was going to be surrounded in it. When her breathing steadied, he motioned her to stand. Then he drew the fabric slowly up her legs. His fingers brushed her knees, her thighs, her hips. His hands pulled a synthsilk strand of ribbon threaded in the waist, and cinched it. “Sand!” “I’m here.” He gently maneuvered her back. Her knees, already weak, hit the lounge and she collapsed. The feel of the cotton trapped along her legs was overloading her. It was against her ass, even pulled up into her sensitive crack. It gripped tight across her tummy, gripped her knees. Sand pushed her legs open and suddenly his fist was grinding in kneading circles in her core. His pestle worked the fabric into her, where it stuck, twisted, touched. His thumb added in. She arched, clinging to herself under the shroud of black cotton. “So pretty. Come on, red. Open those brown eyes.” His other hand was stroking her back under the shirt, his skin practically coarse compared to the feeling of the shirt on her body. His wrist twisted in a steady, sinuous dance. She stared down at his pale skin, the white lines of scars, against the black encasing her body. “Come on, red. Come on. Come.” Dazed, she dragged her gaze up his forearm, with the strands of sinew, up over his bulging biceps, rounded shoulder. His hair was shaggy against his neck, long for an elite. His jaw was clenched, his lips opened, revealing the edge of white teeth. She met his eyes, and the green exploded in her vision. She fell back, the pleasure a radiating nova from her core. Her back arched as her shoulders hung over the far side of the chair, her head hanging upside down. She closed her eyes.

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Then he took his finger and drove the cotton up inside her. It was so thick. The opening of her vagina burned as it took in the damp fabric. She came again, arching, rolling as her hands bit into her ribs. Then his hands were ripping at the waist, and his fingers were inside the pants, shoving harshly inside her without the cotton. She clamped hard on the three he shoved deep. The blood was pounding in her head, her eyesight spotty. He stretched his fingers inside her. This time the orgasm was on the edge of pain, her muscles locked so hard as to be nearly a cramp. She was grabbed up and slung onto the length of the lounge, the change causing the room to spin. The pants were at her knees, and his hips were plunging against hers. Because her legs couldn’t open, only half of him could reach her. But it was a thick, hot, hard half. Her breath was a harsh rasping in the room, only matched by his. She looked at him, shocked. He thrust and thrust, but couldn’t get deeper. The head of him dragging in and out of her entrance blew her apart in a few strokes. Her back ached, her neck bowed, and she screamed. She felt the heat of his ejaculation in scalding wetness against her sensitive opening. She was rocked with shudders. He writhed on her, his weight crushing, his hands clenching in her hair. “Shay, Shay, Shay, Shay,” he chanted between breaths. His chi exploded into her and she caught it, swallowed it, slung her own back. They were so beautiful, so much more, together. It was all she knew before darkness took her.

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Chapter Seven

When he woke up in the night, he was rock hard, the tip of him pushing into something soft and grasping. Spirit help him, he was inside her while they slept. For some reason, the thought seemed taboo to him, utterly intimate in a way he’d never thought to be. He grew harder, throbbing. He’d spent the entire day loving her. Over half his time, gone. His heart clenched. He pulled back, concerned, but she seemed to be breathing all right. He turned her, slowly, carefully. Settling in behind her, he greased her ass with her own cream. Slowly, he nudged her with his forefinger. He’d never been more patient. One millimeter at a time, to the first knuckle. Retreat. Gather more cream, again. He lay with her soft, cottonwrapped warmth tucked against his front. His dick ached, furious at being wrenched from its warm home. For an hour, he worked her ass until he was slowly sliding his entire finger in and out, painstakingly, drowsily. When he’d managed that, he nudged a second tip in along with the first, and worked her all over again, incrementally. He’d just gotten both fingers as deep as they could go for the first time when he felt her breath change. He froze where he was, body relaxed, breathing steady. Her ass burned around his fingers, boiling hot. The cotton was still around her thighs, and the curve of her fit to his groin perfectly. Deciding he’d stolen enough, he closed his eyes, and dreamed of his cock being where his fingers were. Owning her. He matched his breath to hers as she sank back into sleep. The dream slipped up sweetly. Three boys, racing across the wide courtyard of the elite training compound. They jumped up on the sculptures sprinkled throughout with casual displays of energy and athleticism. Laughing they held poses as they balanced precariously on the free-formed pieces. 58

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“Watch this!” “Ho-oh, he’s losing it!” “Overbalanced by that fat head once again.” “Ah, but which one? Upper or lower?” The boys laughing, jostling and happy. In a blink the clear yellow light changed to glaring white. Tavish’s slack body leaving a red wake down an old tiled hall. Cullen crying, sobbing, as he struggled with a foot under each arm. Sand’s hands gouged into Tavish’s arms as he struggled to lift the man’s torso. The light changed again, to a shadowy cream that was supposed to be soothing. The boys waiting for each other as they left the conditioning rooms, silent, exhausted. The pain conditioning left no marks, unless a person inflicted them upon themselves in agony. Today, Sand had four long furrows in his right forearm. He hid them with his shirt, but it hurt. Halfway to the dorm, Cullen’s knees buckled. Tavish picked him up. The look they exchanged made Sand look away. Bright golden light, shining on more earth than he’d ever seen. Tavish’s hand lying on emerald moss, the hair on the back glinting copper compared to the dark smears of drying blood. Blackened flesh smoking. An acorn sat near his thumb. It whispered, “I hunger, Sandor. My child, feed me. I hunger. Feed me. Save me, I’m dying.” I can’t feed you. I don’t understand you. The acorn replied, “You don’t understand her, either. She’s wary. She’ll test you, like I did. Don’t back down.” Cullen walking on his hands in the courtyard, the sunshine lamps on full, simulating midday. His shirt tumbled down around his chest as if gravity were playing peekaboo, revealing the stripes of a lash on his back. Flipping to his feet, he pulled the shirt down roughly. All the laughter the boys had shared shut off. Tavish scowled at him. “If you’d just back down, keep it to yourself, he wouldn’t go at you. You’re too bold.”

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Cullen ignored him. “I’m starving, let’s go eat.” Tavish let the dark moment pass. “You’re always starving. You’d think you wouldn’t be so puny with all the bites you pack away.” “Come to my room, I’ll make some toasted crackers.” Sandor hated the cafeteria. “Huzzah for the chef.” Cullen leaped on Sand, buffeting his head as he jumped up onto his back. Sand staggered under his weight and wove in the direction of their dorms. “I call first serving.” Tavish ran ahead, massive legs churning. Sand laughed…happy. It was dark, and warm, the smell of life thick in his throat, and the sound of leaves blown by the wind soothing him, calming him, strengthening him. When he woke, her ass was pressing rhythmically against his hand. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled, pushed his fingers farther into her body. The length of her against his front amazed him, filled him with gratitude and wonder. Both of Shay’s hands were moving subtly on her front. And his balls hurt, hard as rocks. “Sand…” “I’m here.” “Inside.” She clenched her ass on his fingers again. “How?” Baby, just say yes. “I’ve never had it there.” “Does it feel good?” “Yeah…” She sounded so adorable, sleepy. He moved his fingers, twisting them in place. She sighed. He pulled out, a bit faster than he’d done before, until he was at his first knuckle, then pushed back in. He mimicked the movement with his hips, sliding himself against the soft skin of her spine. He pumped into her with smooth strokes, working against the movement of her thrusts. “Can’t you, you know, do both?” He chuckled. “Are you feeling empty?”

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“Yeah.” “Use your hands,” he urged. “I don’t like to. I feel all gushy and sloppy.” He paused, surprised into more of a chuckle. “Well, you’ll just have to settle for touching your clit then.” His other hand was trapped under him, between them. He wasn’t at the right angle to be in her, and her damn pants were still on. He felt her shift her hands. After a little bit she grew rigid along him. Shivered. Such a sweet, sleepy, morning orgasm. He kissed her neck. Her smooth, unscarred neck. He slid out, gently pulled her pants up. When he came back from the bathroom, still toweling his wet hair from a shower, she was walking stiffly around the room. “Good morning. Hungry?” “Yes.” “Feel all right?” She stopped, watched him. Her hair was even more vivid paired with the black. She looked so fragile with it around her, paler, tinier. “Yes.” “I’ll be back with breakfast.” “No.” He raised a brow at her. “Sit down.” She was up to something. “I didn’t satisfy you?” He knew he had. “Of course you did. But it’s time this contract went both ways a little more equally.” “Shay, you’re here for me to care for. It’s my duty in the contract. I’ll please you, but let me feed you first.” “No. Sit down.”

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He sighed, debated. He sat on the lounge they’d slept on. It wasn’t meant for two, but they seemed to have done just fine. He wasn’t used to always being nude, as she was. It didn’t bother him, but the velvet under his ass was interesting. “Such a sigh. Was that so hard?” “I don’t think you’re done with me.” “Hmm. I’m told that my fondness for delay tests a man’s control. That men like it faster, harder, simpler.” “You may have noticed that I like your way just fine. My control is up to it.” “Mmm. Spread your legs.” Warily, he widened his stance. His erection had faded on the walk to the bathroom and back, but was fattening already. She came and stood before him, a tall, slim column of soft black. She stared at his crotch. Cocked her head. His anxiety continued to rise. She was in a weird mood. “You saw me yesterday.” “Not really.” She knelt. Oh Spirit. She couldn’t do what he thought she was thinking. “Shay…” he warned her. She took her hands out from under her shirt. She was holding the feather they’d prayed with last night. It was a tough flight feather, blue and black striped, white near the base. “Shay?” He couldn’t believe she’d had it under the shirt. What if she’d bent it? She reached out and drew the tip of it down his dick and he leaped up, but she put out a hand to his sternum and pushed him right back down. He bounced, and his dick bounced too. “Sit.” She kicked his foot farther out. “Spread.” “Are you always this bossy in the morning?” “Only the mornings I wake up to fingers in my ass.” “Ah. I’ll remember that.” “Yes, you’ll remember.” She wouldn’t take her hard stare away from his dick. He glanced down at himself. It wasn’t particularly attractive. All bumpy and red and veined, spearing out from a nest of dense black hair. She was so soft and pretty, her folds

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like petals. Bare and dewy. Looking up the line of her slight body, he wished she’d take the cotton off so he could see her. She reached out with that feather and he grabbed her wrist. “Shay, that feather is for prayer.” She flicked it within his hold and he gasped when it rasped along the side of his dick. “Take your hands off of me.” Gritting his teeth, he put his fists on either side of his hips. “I don’t want to ruin the feather, Shay.” “I would never.” She dusted him all over with it. Cool, silky, unique. She even stirred a path up to his belly button, across the crease of one thigh. Then she reversed it and poked one ball with the quill. “Does that hurt?” “It stings a bit.” “Hmm.” She did it again. And then again to the other sac. He wondered if he should be afraid. She rose and went to the altar, laying the feather on it after smoothing it in her fingers. He breathed a sigh of relief. She walked back to him, no longer moving stiffly, but with the slink of her prowling crawl he’d seen yesterday. She knelt gracefully between his legs, bent and engulfed him in her mouth. Right down to the base, her lips closed tight in his nest of hair. He grabbed her head, a shocked shout ripping from him. She hummed. Then her head began to drag up and down in hard, quick bobs, her wet lips tight to him, her tongue lashing his tip. Each of her hands planted on his hips, her nails giving a bite. In four strokes he knew he was going to go. “Shay, you’ve got to stop.” She hummed again. “Nnnnnnn.” “Shay, I’m going to come.” He focused on not thrusting. “Mmmmmm.”

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“Shay. Red, you’re going to—” He couldn’t hold it. Her mouth was too hot, her lips too tight, her tongue too soft. She swallowed on a downstroke and the pull of her throat brought him in a burning gush. His hands held her skull carefully as she sucked three more pulses from his balls. He swallowed, choking on his breath. She laved him gently with her tongue, cleaning the thick moisture away. Pulling up, she smiled at him, licking her lips. The distance in her eyes stopped his heart. “Shay-non.” “Good?” She sat back on her heels. “No. It wasn’t. I was confused the whole time. I don’t feel that we shared anything. It was just sex. Why did you do that?” “I pay my debts. You got me off lots yesterday and didn’t come. And again this morning. You think I like feeling played? I was trying to balance the scales.” “There are no scales here. We are two people sharing ourselves, building a relationship.” “Whatever.” The caustic dismissal boiled his blood. “Where is this coming from? Where is the giving woman of yesterday who shared my vision?” “Look, Sandor. I’m here to train my body to like sex with you. The binding ceremony singers usually follow to raise chi isn’t going to be enough. This is going to be sexual, and you know it. You’re here to cue my chi to yours. The ceremony won’t be for a while, and who knows what will happen in the meantime. Life is short, and this is a crazy plan, but I’m in. “I didn’t appreciate your talk about a future sealed contract, and your talk of this being about love. I’m a big girl. We fuck so we can bring power to each other. Clarity and energy. You’ll do it again with others, and so will I. Before and during the ceremony. The aftermath will be even harder, when we reveal the temple and come under worldwide scrutiny. “Don’t start building some castle in the clouds for me. I don’t need it.”

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He was so furious he couldn’t think. The frightened little bitch. She’d just sucked him off to hurt him, as some sort of power play. He stood slowly, swung his leg over her head and strode out the door. “Don’t you walk away from me!” He ignored her. If he stayed, he could get violent. There were too many precious things in that room he could harm, not the least of which was her. He stalked to the kitchen. He didn’t even see as he mixed the food, adjusted it. She followed him in, propping one black-clad hip against the silver counter. “Are you acting all hurt? Come on, Sandor. You’re going to forget me and focus on the next singer you need as soon as I walk out. You’ve already bagged me for your project.” He stopped, laying the searing rod precisely next to the bowl. “You are being a contrary, hurtful bitch, all in order to gain reassurance. I’m very disappointed in you.” He nodded at her outraged gasp. “If you don’t want to hear several other brutal truths, you’d better get out now, because I’m too angry to filter my thoughts at the moment.” “I’d have to care for you to have the power to hurt me.” He gritted his teeth, his vision narrowing to her closed face. Her bangs formed a square around her eyes, highlighting their rich chocolate color. He’d thought them warm yesterday. Now they were flat. “Well, I care. And you are hurting me. So do me a favor and go suck spit somewhere else for a while.” “I can’t! You trapped me here for twenty-four hours, remember? According to the contract, I can get some of your dick whenever I want it. So there.” He considered fucking her on the table. The cotton might protect her from the reaction with the countertop. He considered using the tree as leverage, but knew that would only escalate her. He saw with utter clarity that she was absolutely terrified. He left the room, walked to the foyer, lay down in the center of the icy marble. She stopped just inside the doorway, hovering. He grasped himself and pumped, his hand

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brutal on the sensitive skin that was getting more action in the past day than he’d had in a month. “Well, here’s the dick. I assume you want it since you won’t leave me alone. I said I’d take care of you and I will. Come and get it.” “You don’t think I really will.” “But you don’t care what I think.” She crossed her arms. “Singer, either you want some dick in your pussy to scratch an itch or you don’t. Decide.” She was absolutely rigid. He put his hands behind his head, crossed his ankles. His dick stood boldly in the air, aching. He blew her a kiss. She stalked around him and down the hall to the bedrooms. Breathing harshly, he stayed where he was for a long moment. He wanted to run to her, gather her up, apologize. He wanted to sling her on her stomach and go at her. He wanted to get on his knees and worship her until she believed in him. Stiffly, he stood. When breakfast was finished, he sent the droid to her room. Standing at the sink, he forced himself to eat a portion. Then he went to his office. Settling into his chair, patching into the lattice, he sent his mind drifting, gathering. All was well. No developments. No waves from their contract that he could detect. He traced to Tavish. Sand relaxed a bit when his friend’s face clarified on the lattice. The swirling darkness of cascading information stilled in his brain. “Sand?” The man was clearly surprised to see him. “I spooked her. We had a fight.” Tavish frowned. He was a huge man, one of the biggest Sand had ever met. His face was brutish, hard and tough. He was a slow thinker, careful. “I can’t believe you didn’t plan for this. You think of every contingency.” “I planned for resistance that I would wear down. I didn’t plan for an instant connection that she immediately ripped to shreds.”

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Tavish sent one hand over his shadowed jaw. He’d refused to get any of his body hair lasered. “Well, think on it, man. You’re the strategist. You’ve never met a problem you couldn’t solve.” “I don’t have time. I only have her for a handful of hours.” “Well, you’ll have to apologize, grovel a bit. Go down on her, that usually works.” “It was her fault.” “Sand.” He sighed. “I know.” “You have to find what she’s scared of and neutralize it.” He shook his head. “I can’t neutralize this.” “What is it?” “I love her. But the plan has to come first. She’s jealous. And she’s afraid of the wait. It’s lonely. Then there’s the uncertainty of what comes next, and she doesn’t trust that I’ll still want her.” “You mean, you want a formal contract?” “Spirit, yes.” “You’ve been dreaming of this woman, studying her, for years, Sand. She’s got to have a bit to catch up.” “She doesn’t have a bit. She has a few hours.” “Of course she has longer than that. It’s not like you can’t woo her after this.” “It’s too dangerous.” “Pish.” “Tav…” “You’ll find a way. Don’t rush her. Let her know you’re not going anywhere.” Tavish’s wisdom was like a trumpet blast. He’d done just the opposite, warning her he’d be gone shortly. What a tactical error. “As for the jealousy, you’ve got to show her how it will be from your angle. When she sees it through your eyes, it will affect her understanding of sharing you.” Shay, wrapped around Tavish, face slack with pleasure, skin glowing with power.

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“Shit.” Tavish grinned an indolent pirate grin. Sand pointed a stern finger at him. “Keep your brain off of her.” “Uh-huh. What about my partner? Any more luck with that?” “I have a lead actually. Something that happened yesterday with Shay made me think of a new way to adjust through the choices. If Cullen didn’t switch sides it would be easier, you know.” “Pish. More options this way, for the best match to us.” Sand rubbed his eyes, wearily. He felt drained in the aftermath of his fury. “Thanks for the advice, Tavish.” “Anytime.” The men looked at each other. Nodded. Sand disconnected. He went to work out. Forgetting the weights, he harnessed himself to the elastic band and did a brutal cardio sprint set. When he was thoroughly sweaty, he dragged himself to the bathroom. Shay was exiting. She froze. Her eyes were red, dammit. “I’d like to talk to you.” She nodded. “Of course,” she said calmly. Surely she wasn’t going to act as if nothing had happened. “I need to shower first. I’ll come to your room in a minute.” She nodded again, slipped past him. He sanitized quickly. His time in the shower was full of flashbacks of her face caught up in passion. Her teeth just peeping past her flushed lips, her eyes squeezed shut. For so long he’d seen her veiled, composed. Why had he wasted even this hour on his pride and her fear? The flush on her chest, the sheen of sweat, the glimmer of her fine body hair in the low light. When he entered the room he remembered the vision of her spread backside poised on the altar. No such vision greeted him today. She’d taken the cotton off and sat nude on one lounge. Legs crossed, arms crossed, cradling those berry nipples.

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He sat on a lounge opposite her. He’d thought the words would come out stiff and fake, but it was suddenly easy to say. “I’m sorry.” She nodded. “Me too.” There was no use trying to work her around to believing him. He would simply give her the truth and trust that she recognized it. “Shay, I’ve loved you for years.” She pulled her head back a bit. The unconscious reaction sent a pain to his breastbone. “Yes. I realize you haven’t had time to understand that. I’m sorry you don’t believe my feelings are real. But I’ll wait for you. I’ll prove myself to you.” “You don’t owe me that kind of allegiance, Sand.” “This isn’t about gratitude, or obligation. I worked up a portfolio on all available tree singers. I saw that you were not only a good fit, but virtually perfect, as if your beliefs and interests were tailored to fit with Tavish, Cullen and me. I studied your portfolio, I watched vid of you singing, I interviewed people who knew you, and once I even spied on you, watching you transfer from your compound to your car on the way to a job. I’m not sure when my fascination became love, but it did. “I love the intelligent woman who spends her time thinking of others, who openly dares to worship Spirit. I love the woman brave enough to challenge the status quo, in public. I love the woman smart enough to realize what we’re trying to do is as necessary as it is crazy. It’s you, Shay-non. Your elegant poise, your dedication, your vision.” A pretty blush rode her cheeks, cascaded down her neck as he spoke. “This is sudden for me, Sand.” “I spoke to Tavish today. He gave me some advice. He said to talk to you about my feelings regarding you and the ceremony, and he also said to go down on you.” Her face softened. “Good advice. Let’s do it in order though. Feelings first.” “If I have to contract with other women, it will be a duty. Something I’m doing out of dedication to this cause I’ve joined. I’ll respect them, I’ll honor the contract and I’ll do everything in my power to avoid it in the first place. Because my heart belongs to you.” Her face closed up again, eyes shaded by lowered lids.

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He became committed to never taking another contract. “I want to seal a formal contract with you. I didn’t say that yesterday to lure you into some horrible, manipulative lie. I wouldn’t do that to a powerful woman helping us on such a dangerous quest. I’m telling the truth. I’m sorry I’m rushing you. I’ll try to give you more time. “When I said we couldn’t have further contact, I meant it, but I think I won’t be able to help it. I’ll be so lonely without you. I can’t go back to just watching from afar. We’ll find a way to keep in touch, and I’ll find a way to see you, even if it’s at a formal function.” The variables he’d have to juggle, the information outlets, the spy networks, the lattice cue points he’d have to manipulate… His brain spun with all that would need to take place just for him to circulate in the same air with her and not draw anyone’s attention. How soon could he manage it? Next week? Tomorrow? She licked her lips. “That’s too dangerous.” “You’re worth it. To reassure you that I’m still there, that I’m waiting for you, would be worth it. “Hopefully, the other partners I find can be approached by Cullen or Tavish. I’ll work hard to make that happen. Eventually, we’ll all have to meet, because we’ll have to be ready for the binding ceremony.” His voice slowed, lowered, as he forced his fears out into the world. Speaking them made them that much closer. Tell her. Make her believe in you. “I believe in this plan enough to commit to it body and soul. I’m going to give all of myself over to it when the time comes, despite the fact that I’m…I’m—I know that I’ll have to…” She leaned forward, reaching out a finely shaped, slender white hand. He took it. “I’m terrified of being with Cullen and Tav.” An image of his two friends kissing struck his mind, Tav’s large hands clasping Cullen’s creamy blond curls, holding him in place. “And sick at imagining you with them. I’m going to try to sink into the moment, and find the love I have for Spirit, and the desire to share that, and I’ll get it done.” “You’re scared?”

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“I vary between overwhelmed, nauseated and disturbed at how interested I am.” He let her adjust to that. Shay took her hand back, looking thoughtful. “You’re talking about a thrice binding.” “You already understood that the binding needed to be extraordinary, and that sex would be the best way to boost it. Yes, it’s my belief that six people need to join in a thrice binding. Every combination will be exhausted. I suspect we’ll be as well.” She didn’t smile, but she wasn’t yelling. “I’ll probably need help, though.” “What do you mean?” She clasped her hands around one knee. “To get through it. What if I can’t find pleasure with them…or can’t get hard? I think if you’re there, and you can be part of it for me, when it’s my turn, I’ll be able to do it.” “Maybe you should practice beforehand.” He tipped his head, considering if she was making a joke. She wasn’t. “I hadn’t thought of that. It seems daunting enough to do it once.” “Remember what you said yesterday? About being passionate and respectful, and joining in joy and love? It should be like that. To bring true power to the ceremony.” He cleared his throat. “I…I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Is that what would make you more comfortable? Practice?” She nodded. “Yeah. I wouldn’t want to be standing in front of a total stranger to raise the most important chi of my life.” “Have you ever been with a woman?” “No.” “Could you?” “If I knew her, respected her. If I had you next to me.” He swallowed at the thought of watching feminine hands touch Shay’s slight breasts with their sweet round nipples. Shay’s head canted. “You wouldn’t be jealous of the women?”

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“I know mentally that they are just as much an emotional threat, but in my gut, I only worry about the men.” “It’s the same for me, Sand. I’m only worried about the pleasure-bonds you build with the women.” He held his breath. “Does that mean you do care what I think?” “Of course I do. I fell in love with you yesterday.” All of his busy thoughts stilled. He swore Spirit reached out and touched his spine. There was only her eyes, as rich as the earth. He whispered, “Shay.” She stood up, walked to him, knelt between his legs. Her hands on his thighs were warm, slender. “Sand. You say how brave I am, but I’m not. I’m afraid. Afraid of you, of this ceremony, of the future. I will give all of my power to this symphony, your plan. I was trying to protect my heart this morning, and it was stupid of me. I can’t be scared to offer myself. I can’t hold back and hide cautiously. It’s love that brought this vision forth, and it’s love, not sex, that will set it in motion. “We all need to love each other, for this to work. The roots need to love the leaves and the bark. They can’t be jealous. They all have to work together, respect each other. Nature is an intertwined system of a thousand variables. Singers know this.” He reached out and touched her cheek. Softer than any cotton. She was so beautiful. Her clear, strong soul was something to live by. He would live by it. “I want to be a system with just you. I will be. Later, after we’ve raised a forest.” “That sounds good to me.” She laid her cheek into his hand. He held the weight of her head. “Well, maybe we could add a baby to our system.” Her eyes flew open. “I’m still thinking what a formal contract would do to my life. Give me time, Sand.” “Right.” He opened his arms and she shuffled into his hold. He closed around her and breathed deep. She smelled so good. Rich loam. Life.

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“I’m here, Shay. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be with you as much as I can, and I’ll fight to contract you to me after we’ve finished. Who knows if I’ll still have the station I have now. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.” “You, too.” Her arms vised around his neck. “I’m being safe. I want to be with you.” “I’ll trust in the Spirit. And I’ll trust you, Sand.” He held her. In his arms. Skin to skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat.

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Chapter Eight

She was still nervous. About him, not the symphony. He’d said he would give her time, stay in touch. She needed that. Needed to see his constancy. He was just so intense, so focused. But he was damn good in bed. After a sweaty session where the wash of chi between them practically vibrated her teeth from her head, she let him feed her. They went to the little oak and saw that it had grown some minor branches. He took her on the lounge this time, right in front of it there in the biodome. Slow, so slow, just the way she liked it. When he came, she captured his chi and sent it out to the baby oak. A promise. Tiny buds appeared on the upper branch. It made her so happy she cried. She had a lover, and two oaks to nourish. Soon, she’d have more lovers and many oaks. She’d take it one step at a time. Her future was found, but still unknown. “Just an hour left, Shay.” His voice was thick with sleep. “I can’t believe I’m going to have to watch you go, after waiting so long.” “I can’t believe I’ll have to leave you. I just found you.” Be there, Sand. By Spirit, you be there for me, tomorrow, next week, next month. Straddling his hips, Shay put all her weight on his pecs. She jostled his lax body. “Come on. You promised me the oak.” He nodded. But it seemed to her he was especially slow as he had the droid take the lounge away and reset the seals on the little tree. “Sand.” She laid a hand on his arm as he fiddled with the lattice controls that hid the door to the ancestral oak. “If you really don’t want to share it with me—” “That’s not it at all.” He grabbed her hand, pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Shay, I’m a little afraid of it.” “Afraid?”

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She couldn’t conceive of such an idea. Afraid of a sacred tree? He shook his head, drew her purposefully up to the lasered door. She was practically vibrating by the time the aircap finally went down in front of the generational oak. “Hunngh.” Her knees buckled and she fell. The earthen scent, the richness of the loam, the nutty smell of the tree itself wrapped around her. But that wasn’t all. There was something there. In the room with the tree. Alive. “Shay!” He had an arm around her, was lowering her to the floor. “No.” She pushed weakly at him. His touch made it worse, sent her heart pounding. Reclining in his arms, his hovering presence choked her when combined with the rush of energy. “What is it?” he demanded. “Spirit. So much Spirit.” She breathed through the chi that seemed to come at her from everywhere, flowing between her and Sand. She was under him and had a clear view of his strong throat swallowing when he threw a glance at the tree. “So it’s not just me? I thought I was being affected by memory.” “No. It’s not just you.” “How? Why doesn’t it leave?” There was no way to contain the Spirit. Not in a tree, garden or person. When a person prayed, and drew up a piece of Spirit in an energy called chi, it always dissipated when they stopped. It also dissipated when summoned by sex. “I don’t know. I’m not a priestess. Maybe a blood singer would know.” That made her think of something. “Blood. You said Tavish was…burned?” “They both were to some degree. Both were bleeding, but Tavish was bad.” “And Cullen healed him? Here?” “Yeah. He healed himself, too.” “Sand, did they have sex here?” He paused. “Tavish was unconscious.”

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“Sand…” Shay sat up with his help, the smell still dizzying her, the power in the room reaching out to swirl in her well. Her hands were burning, buzzing, to connect with the tree. The presence didn’t seem to be leaking past them out the hallway, but gathered around them. “You have to trust me. Please. Tell me what happened.” Sand let go of her. Sat on his heels. “Cullen kissed me.” She was going to smack him in a minute. Was that all? “And you liked it?” “No.” She gritted her teeth, holding her silence. She was not going to fight for every detail. Sand angled toward the tree, leaning against one folded knee, as if he yearned to go to it. Of course he did. He swallowed. “Cullen and I prayed. I held one of Tavish’s hands, and Cullen held the other. He was working his enhancements, doing something with the waves of radiation. I poured as much of the new chi I’d picked up as I could back into Tav. We both laughed when he stopped bleeding. It was a miracle. “Then the tree…whispered.” Shay held her breath, her eyes darting from the tree to Sand’s clenched jaw. His green eyes were unseeing. No, they were watching the past. “It whispered to me. I asked Cullen if he heard it. Cullen didn’t. The tree wanted chi, life. But we’d just poured all we had into Tav. It went on and on, until all I could think of was helping it. I went to it, touched the trunk.” Sand was shivering now, shaking. It was her turn to swallow. She refused to fear for him, for what she felt was the Spirit. “I took my wrists, and without thinking, I dragged them as hard as I could down the bark. I ripped open the skin, let the blood drip onto the base, where the roots rose up. It was so old, so unbelievably old. “Cullen jumped up, grabbed my wrists, shook me. He shouted at me, but I couldn’t hear him. All I could hear was the tree, whispering. It wouldn’t stop. It was so hungry. He kissed me. I twisted away. I’d never been like that with them. I didn’t want him that way.

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He shook me again, and his hands were burning my wrists. It hurt like hell. He yelled at me, ‘Spirit wants life. I won’t let you choose that path. No more blood tonight.’ “He pulled me down on my knees. We were side by side, facing the tree. He began to jack off. I couldn’t believe it. Tav was lying mutilated behind us, bloody, burnt. The tree was whispering, whispering, and I couldn’t think. It needed so badly. Cullen hissed in my ear, ‘You do it or I do it for you.’ “So I did. I put my hand down my pants, and pulled, and nothing happened. The tree wouldn’t shut up. Then Cullen said, ‘Look at me.’” Sand was panting now, little breaths, rocking in his defensive crouch. She laid her hand on his rock-hard arm, but he didn’t seem to notice. “He did…something to me. He gave me chi. He hit me with some sort of radiation. Heat like I’ve never felt went right to my dick. I was harder than I’d ever been in my life. My hand went faster and faster, and I couldn’t look away from his eyes. I saw him come, from the corner of my vision. He arched and spattered the tree. I came too. It felt so good, I think I stopped breathing. When I came, I gave all that I could of my chi. I sent it out, to the tree. It was silent for one moment, and then it started again. Craving. “Cullen looked at me and he said, ‘You’ll never forgive me for this.’ Then Tavish started to moan, and it got worse from there. We went to him and lay down on each side, and held him. His body rejected his implants. His skin split, and these fused, blackened hunks of wires pushed out of him. We both cried. I was so freaked out. I ached. I was ripped up inside, from watching the ritual on the lattice, from the tree. I was sure Tavish was dying. The tree was relentless. Cullen’s blue eyes burned into my vision. I’ll remember the look in his eyes till the day I die. He was determined. He was…furious. “Cullen stood up and he gave this speech to the tree. I can still hear his voice, all scratchy. He was choking. He claimed us, claimed the transferred souls, claimed the tree. He summoned Spirit forth and promised to be its guardian. Just like that, the tree stopped whispering. And this presence, that weight in the air, was all around us. It was the most… It was…”

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Sand rose, stumbling once. He had a beautiful erection, straight and thick and dark. He moved farther into the room, and she rose to follow. He walked up to the tree. He didn’t seem to feel the sharp leaves, scattered twigs, prickling acorns. She trailed behind him, her heart pounding. The closer to the tree she got, the heavier her womb grew. Her thighs slicked together with every step. Her throat was dry, and her hands shook. Sand stopped an arm’s length from the tree. She stood next to him. He cocked his head, his black hair falling across his forehead. “Do you hear it?” he whispered. She strained to listen. She felt warm, soft, achy. It was utterly quiet, not even the sound of air filters humming. Then the leaves whispered in an unseen breeze. Goose bumps erupted all over her arms. “No blood,” Sand murmured. Sand twisted, gripped her arm and swung her through the air. Shay impacted against the trunk, gasping at the massive surge of chi pressed from head to ass behind her. Her heels scrambled to hold her up, but then he was leaning against her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and lifted her thighs to grip his slender hips. He slammed her back into the tree, at the same time his erection thrust into her flesh. “Sing, Shay. Sing. It needs us.” He drove hard, and she grunted from the thickness of him. He split her open inside, and her body yielded. Closing her eyes, she let herself go. Her hair was snagged in the bark. Her shoulders stung, her ass chafed. His hands were bands of heat below her cheeks, his fingers brushing her opening, rubbing along where he thrust in her. Her arms draped down his back. She clamped inside, canted her hips to rub her clit into his bush. Biting her lip, she checked her gates, opened them, unleashed the chi that pulsed within her. It was so bizarre to feel it pulled in two directions. She was used to it focusing in her groin during sex, used to her skin opening like a sieve along a tree. But this was a stretching in both directions. What Sand did next was beyond her sexual experience. He roared in her ear, planted one hand against the trunk, and began to slam his body violently into hers. As if he were

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trying to consume her. He was much stronger than he’d ever shown her. His thighs drove hard as he shoved deep. Sand’s thrusting hips drove so high into her, she felt her insides compact. His chi melded with hers, perfectly. One of her hands fell off his shoulder to brace against the tree. The singer’s loop snapped into place. She envisioned the leaves, the bark, the air that fed her tree and the water that merged with earth to nourish the roots. She rose into a song. For the first time she knew, this was what it was supposed to be. Not singer and tree. Not singer and Spirit. Not singer and lover. All of them. Thrice bound. His come emptied into her body, pulling hers down to meet it. The shattering orgasm cascaded through her, breaking her song. His chi boiled hers, swirling the two together. They were so much more. More beautiful. Her spine against the tree was a snaking stream of lava. All the energy they generated shimmered away behind her. The oak drank them. Sand stilled, pressed tight to her, shaking. She crossed her ankles, bolstering her trembling thighs. She gathered him close with her one hand, nuzzled into his neck. “Shhh. Shhh. I’m here,” she whispered. He buried his face in her hair. In a moment, she felt him slide out of her. The loop hummed, faded into silence. She let her legs drop and held him with both hands. Hoped she hadn’t burned him this time. “Shay.” “Yeah.” How odd that her voice was hoarse. “Shay.” “I know.” When he pulled out of her arms, he smoothed her hair gently behind her ears, kissed her softly, lingering. The weight to the air was still there, but it wasn’t urgent now. “I’m sorry. I hurt you.” “I enjoyed it very much, Sand. There was only love here.” He shuddered. “Yeah. I don’t like what I did, though. It’s…complicated.” She wondered if he was talking about her, or Cullen.

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“You can feel good about it, Sand. It felt good to me. Good came from it.” Cupping his jaw in her hand, she pushed up. “Look.” She tipped his head back to look at the top of the biodome. The oak had passed through its dormancy, always a tricky time for ancestral trees. Singers never knew if they’d summon the will to bring them back. The oak had tiny leaves the size of mouse ears, and the ground was littered with old leaves and more acorns. Sand smiled, a slow, male smile. He looked down at her. “We did this. It will thrive for another generation.” Ancestral trees only went dormant once every two-dozen years or so. “Yes.” He laughed, and she laughed with him, standing between her man and a tree of power and grace, growing once again. He leaned in and kissed the bark next to her ear. “Thank you, Spirit in this oak. For Tavish, for Cullen, for Shay.” From the open doorway, a metallic chime drifted. Sand said, “Our time is almost up.” He frowned. “Shay, will you stay here for just a moment, let me work the lattice?” “Shall I pray?” He hesitated. His eyes traveled the ground. She knew he didn’t entirely understand what was in this room. Neither did she. But she trusted it. He was wary. “I’ll be fine, Sandor.” “Pray if you want. I’ll leave the door open.” “All right.” He paused, looking over his shoulder in the doorway. She waved. He was a child of technology, and perhaps as wary of true nature as she was of circuits, which had proven to be the savior of life. She inhaled deeply, grateful for the privacy. She began to walk sunwise around the tree, trailing her hand over the bark. She circled and prayed. The tree hummed with health. Its loop of life was solid, steady. Trees didn’t have a heartbeat. They had a constant thrum, like a generator. Sometimes the thrum went up in scale, and sometimes it went down. As hard as she listened, she heard no whispering.

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Was Sand able to hear the very voice of Spirit? No wonder he was uneasy in the room. What exactly had Cullen done on that night he’d changed Sand’s sacrifice from blood to ejaculate? On the night he’d brought an elite back to life, creating a singer? A different chime sounded. She looked up. Caught her breath. Sand was leaning in the doorway, shoulders looking so broad as he filled up the space. He held a waterfall of starry-night synthsilk in one hand. His face was relaxed, and her breath caught as she understood the emotion glowing from his green eyes. Love. He looked at her with love. It was suddenly easy to leave the tree, when it was him she went to. She took the veil from his hand. One day. She’d been with him one day. And everything was different. She was different. They walked quietly to the front door across the marble foyer. She pulled the veil on over her. Caught her breath at the smell of their sex trapped under the fabric. She looked at him through the transparent cloth. He arranged the folds so that they fell evenly down around her red toenails. Her skin bubbled with energy. She wanted to taste him again, this time leisurely, enjoying him, tormenting his length with teeth and tongue. “I can’t linger, can I.” “I’m sorry, Shay. I’ll find a way for us to be together soon.” “How did it go on the lattice?” “With the power the tree gave me through you, it was like I was looking at the bottom of a clear lake. It was all so clear, so easy. I found them. Both of them.” “The matches for Tavish and Cullen? Partners that will fill out a thrice binding?” “Yes.” “That’s good. The more time we have to plan the ceremony, the better.” “With you by my side, I’ll start to look forward to this ceremony. I’ll trust you with them, and them with you.” She grinned. He was generous to share his fears with her. Knowing how he felt made her feel steadier. A thrill at the thought of enacting the culmination of the symphony zinged around the crown of her head. She decided to lighten the moment, tease him.

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“Maybe we can start to practice. I can’t wait to meet your friends. I feel strongly that the partners you’ve just found will no doubt be beautiful.” His lips twitched. “You’ll see.” “I want to meet them, at least.” She laid one glitter-shrouded hand against his abdomen, a gesture mimicking the first touch she’d given him. She loved that he stood before her nude. No enticing cotton was needed for her to crave him, reach for him, now. “When will I see you again? I’d like to think about what just happened. With the tree. I’d like to talk with you about it more. I had a major revelation that will help the symphony, and I need to work out more of what Cullen summoned.” “You’ll hear from me tonight. Hopefully, with this power flowing through me, I’ll be able to have a plan for how to meet privately when I talk to you.” Shay’s lips twitched. Sand and his plans. “I’ll see you, Singer of my heart.” She grinned, happiness a chant under her heartbeat. An elite had captured her body, opened her mind, filled her Spirit, sung in her body. “I’ll enjoy that, Elite of mine. Spirit go with you.” “Oh, it does. It does.” Sand kissed her gently on the forehead, lingering long enough for her to feel his warmth, if not the softness of his lips. Shay turned away, veil rustling, with only the slightest ache in her heart. She believed. A forest was coming on a symphony that no one could stop. They were going to build a temple open to all, not a status symbol of power and wealth. People would unite in sacred promise that humans would never destroy what was left of the earth’s chi again. She was going to be there, with Sand at her side.

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About the Author

Mima lives in western NY with her husband and her cat. Talk to her on Guild Wars as Mima Darkcrow. She’s either there, writing, or reading. To learn more about Mima, please visit www.MimaWithin.com.Send an email to Mima

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Her survival depends on the man—and the erotic sex—of her dreams.

Blood Ties © 2008 Cathryn Fox A Claimed story.

Dari Blake has spent her life sheltered from the world, believing she has a rare, genetic blood disorder that prevents her from aging. Her overprotective guardians are her only company, except for the mysterious man who enters her nightmares, soothing them into erotic dreams. Only he seems to have the power to help her shut out the cacophony of voices in her head. Alone in his English castle, Mikel Sare has one mission in life: to protect Dari, his soul mate. Unbeknownst to her, she isn’t suffering from a rare disorder, she is a rare creature herself. She, like Mikel, is a Nallie. Part human, part vampire, one of only two left in the world. Her womb, and her psychic ability, are more powerful—and more dangerous—than she could ever imagine. Now the alien vampires who created their kind are back, killing everyone in their path as they seek to take control of her child-bearing body. To defeat them, Mikel and Dari must join together—mind, body, blood and soul—in a ritual that will exponentially increase their power. Warning: This book contains explicit sex, graphic language, ménage a quatre, and a little bit of red-hot manlove. Reading this book without your partner, or a few toys nearby, may be hazardous to your health.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Blood Ties: He’d had sex before, of course. For the sake of sex. For physical relief only. With Dari it was different. Less physical, more emotional. She was his mate. The one and only meant for him. Unfortunately, with the threat against their lives, he could only make love to her in her dream world. And if he grew careless, prolonging their psychic connection, even that could prove dangerous.

She pulled back, breathless, and licked the moisture from her plump, kiss-swollen lips. Her flushed face was full of desire, her eyes darkly seductive. “Come see what I found.” She gathered his hand and tugged. Mikel’s fangs receded as he fell into step beside her. She guided him across a bed of freshly cut, crisp green summer grass. The dead flowers had once again sprung to life as happy thoughts filled her mind. “Where are you taking me, Dari?” A smile pulled at her lips as she extended her hands and tilted her head back to look at him. “Right here.” Arousal edged her voice and made his cock pulse. He had to admit, she did have one hell of an imagination. Mikel took in the picturesque waterfall spilling over a cluster of rocks. The cool spray reached them on the grassy embankment, moistening their skin and clothes, but doing little to help ease the heat inside him. Her provocative pout made him harder than he’d ever been before as she toyed with the top button on her dress. “Will you join me?” she murmured seductively. He shot her a sidelong glance and cocked one brow. “Like you even had to ask.” He stepped closer. Her blue floral dress had changed in color, turning crimson red, indicating her mood, reflecting the passion inside her. He grabbed her hands and anchored them to her sides. “Allow me.” His nimble fingers worked the row of buttons lining the front. Once finished he slowly pulled it open to reveal her gorgeous breasts. He quickly discarded the flimsy piece of material that had prohibited his gaze from caressing her naked flesh. He slipped it from her shoulders and let it fall to her feet. The bright red dress spilled across the grass like blood. He stood back, drew a deep, steadying breath and panned the length of the sensuous woman before him. Her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she in turn appraised him. He registered every detail of her gorgeous curvy body as his gaze shifted to her breasts, to pert nipples that beckoned his mouth. Who was he to deny them? In one quick stride, he closed the short distance and removed the flower from behind her ear. He brought it to his nose and sniffed.

“This doesn’t smell nearly as sweet as you.” Dari tilted her head back and exhaled a sexy bedroom moan as he trailed the flower over her lips, her neck and lower until he skimmed her breasts. He brushed the tulip over her nipples, scenting her ethereal, porcelain-white flesh. The enticing combination of Dari mixed with the flora became his undoing. Unable to deny his mouth the taste of her any longer, he lowered his head. Flicking his tongue out, he circled her pale mounds, drawing the blade of his tongue closer to the engorged peaks. Dari arched and tangled her fingers through his hair. He blew a heated breath on her wet nipples and watched them tighten in bliss. “Oh, Mikel.” When he closed his mouth around one extended nipple and sucked, she exhaled a shuddery breath and quivered in delight. “You always know how to touch me just right.” He trailed the tulip down lower, curling it around her belly button, dipping it into the hollow, tickling her oversensitive flesh. As though moving of its own accord, the flower descended, whispering across her thighs. She widened her stance in silent invitation. He growled his approval. Mikel brushed the scented petals over her pussy, caressing, arousing her clit out from its pink hood. His finger skimmed her folds. Her twin lips were damp with passion. She trembled as he paid homage to her other breast. Drawing her hard bud into his mouth, he bit down until she cried in pleasure and pain. His fingers replaced the flower between the juncture of her legs. It pleased him to find her so warm and wanting. He opened her labia and pressed a finger into her slick heat, pushing all the way inside her passion-drenched sheath. A shiver wracked her body. He reveled in her texture, her warmth, her heady aroma. “You are so hot, Dari.” “That’s because you don’t visit me often enough.” “Let me make up for that right now.” He pressed another finger inside her. Her body vibrated, her chest heaved. His own muscles clenched as he fought down the primal beast itching to make its presence. Itching to plunge into her and stake his claim.

Dari threw her arms around his neck. Her head lolled to the side as her body opened for him, granting him access to her most private parts. “I love how you touch me.” Mikel’s chest puffed up knowing how excited she was, how much she enjoyed and longed for his visits and their intimate playtime. If only their unions could be more frequent. If only he could truly have her with him. Mikel pushed that painful thought aside and turned his concentration to her beautiful body. “Mikel,” she whispered, her aroused voice sounding suddenly impatient. “Yes,” he mumbled around a mouthful of breast. “You’re overdressed.” Small hands tugged at his shirt. She stepped back, taking her heat with her. His fingers slowly slipped from her soaked pussy. The pad of his thumb nudged her marbled clitoris. Her body quivered in response to the erotic withdrawal. Lids fluttering, she let out a little gasp. Moisture dampened his flesh as he felt her shiver of pleasure as though it was his own. He immediately missed her feminine heat as his hands fell to his sides. He growled, showing his displeasure. She smiled, a sparkle lit her dark eyes. God, how she loved to tease him. He scrubbed his hand over his chin. Her scent lingered before his nostrils. “I want to see you naked. There are things I want to do to you.” Her raspy voice played down his spine, prompting him into action. Mikel made short work of his clothes, hastily tearing away his shirt and his pants. He tossed them aside, leaving them to mingle with hers on the ground a few feet away. Lacking modesty, he stood before her, naked, eager, his cock jutting forward, aching to sink into her heated core. Her eyes swept over him. She smiled her approval. Lust thickened his voice as fire burned through his veins. “Now where were we?” he inquired with a raise of his brow. Dari turned her back to him, gifting him with a view of her perfect backside. She wiggled slightly and pointed to the waterfall. His gaze fell from the X branded on her back, a mark identical to his since they were given to all Nallie at birth, to her perfect heart-shaped ass. He groaned, knowing he’d have to have her right there, in her tight fissure, if she continued to provocatively shake it at him.

“I think I’ll take a swim.” She ran away and jumped into the pool of water at the foot of the falls. A low rumble rose up from the depths of his throat. “You are such a tease. I’m going to make you pay for that.” He let out a patient sigh. Her laugh was raspy, sexy. “That’s what I’m counting on.” He didn’t miss the note of amusement in her voice as she splashed water at him. God, he loved it when she was happy. She disappeared under the waves, encouraging him to chase her. Mikel dove in after her. It didn’t take long for the frigid water to clear his lustsaturated mind and ease the heat inside him. Couldn’t she have at least made the waterfall warm? With long even strides, he swam after her. They both surfaced in the shallow end and moved under the waterfall. Ribbons of water pelted against their skin, stinging his flesh but arousing his senses at the same time. Her dark eyes met his. Her long thick hair clung to her pale skin, a few strands curling around her blissfully hard nipple. Mikel brushed her bangs from her forehead and dropped a hard kiss on her mouth. His fingers traced the pattern of her curves. His gaze left her face to track a stream of water as it slipped between her breasts, over her flat stomach to bury itself in her feminine mound. He moved his hand to the small of her back. Sexual awareness leapt between them. “I’m naked like you wanted. So what are you going to do with me?” he taunted, pushing her closer to the smooth rock wall behind the cascading stream and onto the sandy ledge. Sunlight broke through the canopy of water. The soft glow made her skin glisten. “Anything I want to. After all, it’s my dream.” The pleasure in her voice excited him. Grinning, she dipped her head and feathered kisses over his chest. Her thick lashes fluttered against her skin. She took such great pleasure in tormenting him, prolonging her sexual seduction. He groaned in frustration. The coldness of the water was quickly forgotten. Her hands snaked out. One small palm closed over his engorged cock. She stroked him once, then twice, brushing her thumb over the slit. Dipping into the liquid arousal dripping from the tip. She brought her thumb to her mouth and licked it. “Mmmm,” she moaned.

He sucked in a tight breath. “Dari.” All teasing slipped from his voice. “Soon, Mikel,” she whispered. “After I taste more of you.”

How to trust him…when she can’t even trust herself?

Empath © 2008 Bonnie Dee A Gifted story.

Jordan Langley thought he could deal with his empathic “gift”—until a traumatic event drove him into seclusion. As a hermit, he can avoid a world that tears his own emotions to shreds. But now a friend needs his help to reach an autistic boy who witnessed a murder. Detective Lauren Sadler specializes in blocking her emotions so she can do her job. She can’t deny Jordan’s ability to reach the troubled boy, but she hadn’t counted on how his touch affects her. In the midst of the investigation, Jordan and Lauren break their own rules, sharing a night of passion that shatters all their barriers. Jordan is intrigued by the vulnerability and self-doubt he senses underneath Lauren’s tough exterior. But Lauren isn’t sure if she’s ready to yield to the power of the most intimate exchange she has ever known. Even if it’s the only way to catch a killer.

Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex using graphic terms. Mind sex…you’ll have to read to find out what that is. Enjoy the following excerpt for Empath: Lauren got out of the car, rehearsing what she would say as she walked up the path to the front door. She stood on the stoop for several minutes gathering courage. Just as she raised her hand to ring the bell, the porch light turned on and the door opened. Backlit in the doorway, Jordan’s imposing height and shadowed features made him appear ominous for a moment. Then he stepped into the light and the illusion was dispelled. Once more his heavy-lidded eyes and up-tilted eyebrows reminded her of a sad hound dog. But a smile curved his mouth, creasing his cheeks and his warm brown eyes lit up at the sight of her. “You’re here.”

“Hi. I just came to…” She trailed off, giving up the pretense she was here because of the case before she’d even spoken it. “Come on in.” He stepped aside so she could enter the house. As she passed by him, she felt his body’s heat. He was wearing a T-shirt so old and thin she could see his muscles and the bump of each nipple pressing against the material. He had on a pair of gray sweats and below that bare feet—big like the rest of his gangly body. What would it be like to have those long arms and legs wrapped around her? He closed the door behind them, and for a moment they stood in his front hall facing each other, a weighted silence between them. “Find out anything new today?” The soft rumble of his voice made her nipples tingle and her pussy go soft as butter. The sound vibrated down her spine and through her nervous system. “Not much. Talked to some people.” The words they exchanged seemed superfluous to the sexual tension shimmering in the air. “Oh.” Another moment slipped by as their gazes remained locked, burning into one another in unspoken communication. Her heart raced. Her body yearned. The magnetic feeling grew stronger, drawing her inevitably to where she’d known she was going to end up this evening. Dropping her purse on the floor, she stepped toward him. Jordan met her halfway, dragging her into his arms and up against his body, hard enough that she gave a soft grunt. He leaned to cover her mouth with his. His lips were soft but the kiss firm and possessive. She sagged against him, melting into his embrace, giving herself over to him. It felt so good to relax and let down her guard. How strange that she was ready to do that with a near stranger when she’d been with Mark almost two years and had never let him in. She was letting Jordan into her mind simply by allowing him to touch her. Lauren knew he could feel her, because she could feel him too. His warmth wrapped around her, both inside and out. This was more than the coming together of two bodies hungry for sex.

God, he was tall. She wasn’t a petite woman, but pressed up against the length of his body, she felt fragile. And she certainly didn’t need protection; physically she could probably kick Jordan’s ass because she was trained in martial arts and he wasn’t. Yet she felt protected and safe in the circle of his arms. The kiss was lingering, tongues softly exploring, lips opening and pressing together. He tasted like wine, fruity, a little dry, a woodsy bouquet. Lauren knew she tasted like mint because she’d popped a breath freshener on the drive over. She’d known this was going to happen and hadn’t wanted to taste like leftover fast food. Wrapping her arms around him, she pressed her hands flat against his back, feeling his shoulder blades, his muscle and bone through the T-shirt. Male. Hot. Need. Her mind clamored like a cavewoman. Lauren grasped the material and tugged. Jordan broke off the kiss long enough for her to pull the shirt over his head and toss it aside. His shaggy, dark hair tufted in all directions and he pushed it impatiently back from his forehead. The gesture was unbearably sexy and boyish. Lauren slid her hands up his naked back, feeling each bump of vertebrae, and curved them around his neck, pulling him to her for another kiss. She plunged her fingers into the slippery, smooth strands of his hair, grasping and twisting them a little. A soft groan rumbled from his chest into hers. He cupped her ass, pressing her even tighter to his groin, then slid his hands up her back to comb his fingers through her hair and cradle her skull. He progressed from soft brushes of his lips over hers to little nibbling kisses to deep exploring ones that went on and on. Finally Lauren ended their urgent kissing, untangling her hands from Jordan’s hair and stripping off her shirt. His brown eyes glowed at the sight of her barely covered breasts. She wore a sheer, peach bra and black lace panties, and wished she’d had the foresight to stop home to change into matching underwear and clean clothes. At least she had condoms in her purse. The fact she’d stopped to buy them revealed more than she wanted to admit about her intentions in coming here. He rested his hand on her chest, palm flat, fingers splayed, his tan skin a contrast to the pale swells of her breasts. She hated that she was always so white. Porcelain, her mother called it. Chalky, Lauren thought.

For several moments, he stood there like that, feeling her heartbeat and probably other things she’d just as soon he couldn’t feel. It was unnerving that he could sense the insecurities she kept well hidden. Scary, but also oddly liberating, knowing she couldn’t hide them from him. His expressive eyes penetrated hers. A small smile played at the corners of his lips— sympathetic, not amused. Beneath his hand and under his gaze, she felt the hard knot of tension that lived deep inside her begin to ease. Then he moved his hand to cup her breast while he lowered his head to nuzzle her throat. He pressed his lips to the hollow between her collarbones, and lower, across her chest to the plump cleavage the bra gave her. Without the push-up, she didn’t have a lot to offer in front. As his soft lips and wet tongue moved over her curves, Lauren sucked in a breath. Reaching behind her, he unfastened the bra and pulled it down her arms. Her breasts bobbed free, small but still pretty perky at thirty-three. They were tender, swelling at the touch of his mouth, the nipples hardening when he swept his tongue over them. She rested a hand at the back of his head and watched as Jordan’s mouth engulfed one tight, rosy bud. The tugging sensation shot a bolt of desire straight to her crotch. She shivered and thrust her chest toward him, admiring the curve of his black eyelashes against his cheekbones, the prominent nose outlined against her breast, the shock of walnut-dark hair tumbling over his forehead. Her other hand gripped his upper arms, feeling the sinew of his biceps, the sleekness of his skin. Her eyes half-closed when he transferred his attention to her other breast, sucking it in and rolling his tongue over the nipple. Sparkles of delight filled her. Her pussy tightened and released, begging to be filled. She moaned softly and Jordan gave an answering quiet groan. My God, he can feel me, knows how much I need this, how good it feels. The idea was exciting, as she imagined her arousal feeding and magnifying his. She could almost feel him too—not just his suckling mouth or fondling hands, but a warm glow of desire spreading from him into her. Was it really his emotion or just her own escalating yearning? Impossible to tell. Unnecessary to know. But she enjoyed believing he was touching her deep within.

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