“It’s possible to finish my training and not be a High Mystik then?”
“More or less, aye.” Arista thought that over. “You shall retain the title of Mystik until you are ready to rule your own sector. Even though you’ll have the skills of a High Mystik in deed, only she who rules in name as well as deed is awarded the power and voting rights that come with it.”
Kari blew out a breath of relief. “I just hope Klykka accepts my decision.”
“She will. Leastways, ‘twill like as not serve to further endear you to her.”
Kari hoped so, but didn’t say as much. She knew The de Valor’s time was precious and didn’t want to waste any more of it with her selfish concerns. “Thank you, Arista. I’ll see you tonight.”
The holo-call came to an end. Lost in thought, Kari absently stared at where The de Valor’s image had been but moments prior.
“Do not perform for those warriors,” a deep voice said harshly. “’Tis a command, that.”
Kari whirled around. Her eyes widened and her heart raced. She tried not to smile, but she knew it didn’t matter—the weird bond they shared told him she was happy to see him.
“I thought you were gone,” Kari said, her head notching up. He hadn’t left her without saying goodbye after all! “I woke up to an empty bed.”
“I was. I went to the bartering stalls to buy food.” Isar’s golden gaze possessively raked over her naked body. “Leastways, I would have starved had I known whilst in my absence you would agree to perform this moon-rising.”
“Food?” She shook her head. “I could have ordered you any food you wanted and it would have been instantly prepared.”
“I did not know this.”
“Well thank you for buying food. That was thoughtful of you.”
He grunted in response. She smiled.
“How did you get back in here?” Kari asked. “You don’t have the proper laser scan.”
“I’ve my ways.” He shifted the bags of food in his arms to draw attention to them. “Let us eat so I’ve the energy to fuck what’s mine again.”
Kari blew out a breath. The warlord’s blunt words aroused her more than they probably should have. She inclined her head and led the way to the terrace where she took her meals. She could sense him following behind her, his eyes all but burning a brand into her buttocks.
“I have to perform,” Kari said as she led him into the terrace’s gardens. “I gave Arista my word.” When they reached her favorite table, she turned to face him. “And I don’t break my word.”
Isar frowned. “Then I will accompany you this eve,” he grumbled. “Leastways, you will touch no warrior but me.”
She didn’t want to anyway, but pretended to strike a bargain. “Fair enough.” She sat down at the table and watched him pull an array of delicious foods from the crystal-spun bags. Her mouth started to water. “But we can’t have penetration there. Only oral sex.”
“Nay. I want all there to know you belong to me.”
“They cannot know,” Kari told him. She picked up a sticky breakfast treat that reminded her of the pastries back home. “I’d get in trouble with my Mistress. Galians disallow their females to have intercourse with Trystonni warriors.”
One black eyebrow shot up. “Why?”
“Because your kind has stolen Galian females in the past.” She bit into the felani. “This is really good.”
His eyes were amused. “Do I penetrate you at Mettle Tavern they will think I would kidnap you?”
“Yes.”
“Mayhap I will.”
Kari almost choked on her second bite of felani. She fiddled with some buttons on the table and pici juice instantly appeared. She quickly drank some down. His gaze, still amused, watched her every movement. Once recovered, she gave him a stern frown.
“Me almost dying is funny to you?”
“I would never let you die, pani. Leastways, do you die, I die.”
Kari begrudgingly experienced a thrill from his admission. Metaphorical or not, it made her pulse race pleasurably. She studied his handsome face and didn’t know how she’d ever say goodbye to him.
“When I take my leave from Galis, ‘tis mine you still are. Touch no other male.”
She grunted. “I’m supposed to be a nun when you leave?”
“What is a nun?”
“Never mind.” She took another big bite of felani. “Will you be with other females?”
“Only if needs be. Leastways, I will keep to the Kefa slaves.”
“One, it’s wrong to own slaves. And two, if you’re fucking other females I’m fucking whoever I want!”
“You are fucking no male and the slaves are not real!” he barked. “How can you know naught of the Kefas?”
Kari was getting a headache. “You fuck invisible female slaves?”
Isar frowned at her sarcasm. “They are made of the colored trelli sands and enchanted by priestesses for unmated warriors to mount.”
“Tryston sounds too weird,” she muttered. “Look. I love spending this time with you, but we both know it will come to an end.”
“For mayhap a spell,” he conceded. “I would that I could take you as my Sacred Mate now.” He sighed. “Leastways, for your own safety, I cannot.”
Kari didn’t know what he was talking about, but she was too sad to give it more thought. Whether Isar understood or not, she could never truly belong to him. Such would be a slap in the face to the High Mystik who’d adopted her as her own. She wished there was a way to have it all, but knew it wasn’t possible. Even if Kari chose to defy Klykka, which she couldn’t fathom doing, she realized she could never be happy living out her life on a planet where women were mere possessions. And a warrior such as Isar? He would never be able to accept the lowly status of men on Galis. Both planets were fucked up in their own ways.
They had a week left together, maybe ten days at best. Kari wanted to savor every moment of it with him because she realized she would never feel for any man what she felt when Isar Kal Draji looked at her.
“Do not be sad, pani,” Isar murmured, “for it makes me sad when you are.”
“I’m trying not to be,” Kari whispered, “but we both know our time together is nearing its end.”
“Only for a while.”
Kari knew differently, but said nothing. She morosely decided the plot of Romeo and Juliet was too close to home for her liking.
Standing up, she walked to where the warlord sat. She got on her knees and fumbled with his leather pants until his long, thick, hard cock sprang free. She looked up and met his glowing gaze while she stroked his shaft. His intake of breath was quickly followed by a massive hand entwining its fingers in her hair.
“Fuck me with your mouth,” Isar said hoarsely. “I needs be close to you.”
“Don’t ever forget me,” Kari murmured, her heart wrenching, “because I’ll never forget you.”
He opened his mouth to speak. “Shhh,” Kari said softly, “right now we have each other and it’s all I need.”
She lowered her head and took his cock into her mouth. His low growl of approval made her want to please him all the more. She slowly began sucking his shaft, taking in as much of him as was humanly possible.
“Kara,” he hissed. His fingers wrapped tighter around her tendrils of hair. “Suck him hard, pani.”
Her nipples stiffened at his provocative words. She picked up the pace, sucking his cock in fast, deep strokes. His groans of pleasure mingled with the sound of wet mouth meeting rigid flesh. Her head bobbed up and down as she ferociously sucked him off, ready and wanting to taste his cum.
“Faster,” Isar gritted out. “I’m almost there, pani.”
Kari sucked his cock harder and faster, her throat opening for his huge erection. She took him in impossibly deeper while maintaining a feverish pace. She fucked him with her wet mouth, over and over, again and again. When his entire body tensed, she sucked even harder, her head wildly bobbing up and down.
?
??I’m coming,” he said thickly. “I’m com—”
Isar came on a roar, his flexed body convulsing, as he spurted his hot cum into her mouth. Kari moaned as she drank him, her mouth and throat still sucking him off, milking him of everything he had to give. She kept sucking and sucking, like a grown baby on a bottle, until a harder, final spurt of cum erupted in her mouth. He groaned as she eagerly drank from him, loving the taste of his seed.
His breathing was ragged, his skin slick with perspiration. The moment her mouth stopped milking him, he lifted her onto his lap. Kari plunged down onto his cock, her tight pussy enveloping him, causing both of them to moan. The warrior lowered his head and sucked on her erect nipples like lollipops while she rode him to orgasm.
“And so you know?” Isar said, panting. “For a certainty I love your perversions.”
Kari grinned and kept riding him.
Chapter Twelve
“I asked you not to penetrate me,” Kari hissed as the pod spat them back out into Klykka’s Crystal City palace. “But you did. What if Arista tells my sister?!”
“I seem to recall you begged me for it,” Isar reminded her. His stance and timbre reeked of arrogance. “Leastways, the hard fucking I gave you knocked out every bedamned warrior within an hour of Crystal City.”
Kari agitatedly ran a hand through her long mane of curls. “Only because you got me so worked up. You could have saved that for when we got back here, you know.”
“Aye.”
She frowned at his admission. He had told her he wanted everyone to know she belonged to him and had taken it upon himself to demonstrate as much. Now when called out on it, he unapologetically confirmed he had done so. She sighed. She supposed the bright side was the warrior didn’t bother with lying.
“Kara,” Isar said thickly, calling her by her birth name. He took her hand and placed it on the bulge in his leather pants. She could feel his massive erection beneath her palm. “I needs be inside you.”
Kari wet her lips. It wasn’t natural to be this horny thirty Nuba-minutes after engaging in sex. She didn’t understand the effect this man had on her, but she was tired of trying to analyze it. “You’re driving me insane.”
“Insane?”
“Mad, daft.”
“I’m already there,” Isar murmured. “’Tis a boon do we go daft together.”
Kari half snorted and half laughed. “That doesn’t even make sense.” She grinned, her dimples showing, as she squeezed his erection. “But you’re so sexy I’ll let you get away with it.”
His expression grew serious. “I love you, Kara. No matter what fate decides, know that I always will.”
Her hand dropped to her side. Her gaze softened. She could feel his pain again as though it were her own. “I love you too, Isar, and I always will.”
The warlord picked her up as though she weighed no more than a flower and carried her into the bedchamber. Their sex that night wasn’t rough and animalistic, but all-consuming and emotional.
Isar had given her another first. Until this night, Kari had no idea what it felt like to make love.
* * * * *
Kari had stopped keeping track of the days and no longer knew how many had passed. Seven? Nine? Ten thousand? It didn’t matter; she could never get enough of Isar Kal Draji. And therein lay the problem.
The more time she spent in his presence, the more difficult the idea of separating from him became. Their holiday together was a hairsbreadth from ending. Once upon a time she’d been heartbroken when she thought he’d left Galis without saying goodbye; now Kari wondered if that parting farewell was a word she could handle hearing.
“Maybe I should leave Crystal City now, while Isar is out attending to business,” she murmured to herself. Her heart was heavy—and broken. “At least then I could pretend it’s not goodbye and only a to be continued.” Sighing, she sank down into her favorite vesha-soft crystal chair on the balcony. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
“Mayhap you are desirous of my counsel?”
“Not really,” Kari said, her voice as monotone as Rumschlag’s, “but I’m sure you’ll give it to me anyway.”
“Like as not, aye.”
Kari grunted. “You barely spoke when I arrived in Crystal City. Hell, you didn’t even tell me how the bathing chamber worked or how to order food for that matter! Now you rarely shut up. I’m starting to wax nostalgic for the old days.”
“’Tis rubber I am, ‘tis glue you are.”
Kari plopped her elbow onto the table and her chin onto her palm. “Your English is improving at least. Go on. Counsel away.”
“’Twill injure the warlord’s feelings do you take your leave without giving him your farewell, yet ‘twill pain you sorely do you say it to him.”
“Thanks for the recap. You’re a regular Oracle of Delphi.”
“I know naught of this Oracle, yet I recognize sarcasm when I hear it. Do you desire my counsel or nay?”
Kari sighed. She really had nothing to lose. “Okay, Rumschlag. I’m listening.”
“I have run all the variables and calculated all the probabilities in 30,000,000,105 known mathematical systems. Leastways, you should take your leave of Crystal City the soonest.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” she whispered.
“Leave a holo-message with me and I shall give it to the High Lord upon his return.”
Kari closed her eyes.
“I sense you wish to gaze upon him a final time, yet my calculations assure me ‘tis wiser do you not.”
“Because I’ll hurt even more than I otherwise would?” Assuming that was in the realm of possibility. “Or because it’ll hurt us both?”
“Probability suggests that when faced with the reality of separation, the warlord will defy the path the goddess has decreed and steal you away from Galis.”
Kari’s pulse picked up. She lifted her head. “Really?”
“’Tis foolhardy do you give him this opportunity, even do you desire it. Leastways, he can never truly be free of the mental chains that bind him do you not force his hand that he might walk the path the goddess has so decreed.”
The former master Isar had spoken of. The one he was determined to track down and eradicate.
“You will be all hindrance and no help, Kari Gy’at Li, for you’ve still to complete your training in the warring arts.”
“Can you read my damn mind?” Kari asked, her irritation apparent. She rubbed her weary temples. “Don’t answer that. I’m sure I don’t want to know.”
“I sense that you are desirous of matpow. Shall I have a carafe delivered?”
“Make it two, Rumschlag,” Kari muttered. She sighed. “I have a feeling I’m going to need it.”
* * * * *
Safely ensconced in her rooms back in the Gy’at Li sector, Kari didn’t know whether or not she wished to see the holo-image Rumschlag had transmitted to her. She’d been back home for nearly a week and had been in possession of the as yet unviewed transmission for almost as long. It was time to make a choice. Klykka and Dorra were expected to return from their pack-hunt in a mere few Nuba-hours. If she wanted to view the holo-image without worrying someone would walk in on her while watching it, the time to do so was now.
Kari nibbled at her bottom lip, an anxious quirk she’d developed this past week. One of the manservants had even commented on it, pointing out how raw her mouth looked. She couldn’t help it. Every time she contemplated Isar’s possible reactions, she unconsciously resumed the biting. Was Isar angry? Hurt? Unaffected? Unfortunately, none of the possibilities would make her feel better. And yet…
“Who am I kidding?” Kari whispered to the walls. “I have to know what happened. I’ll drive myself crazy otherwise.”
She took a deep, steadying breath. As prepared as she ever would be, Kari reached out a shaky hand and pressed the button. The recorded memory instantly zinged to life.
“I’m sorry I ran, Isar.”
Kari watched her holo
gram spill out her apology to the warlord. Her heart raced just seeing him again, even if it was only in holo-memory.
“I just couldn’t bear to hear you say goodbye. Nor could I bear saying that word to you. Just know that I will never forget you and I will keep the memories of our time together close to my heart.”
Isar reached out a heavily muscled arm, his hand extending as if wanting to touch her, though he realized she wasn’t actually there. Kari’s eyes filled with unshed tears. She knew too well how he felt.
“You have a path you must walk and a destiny to fulfill. I fear that my presence will only serve to distract you from that goal. You deserve to be whole again. You deserve to feel worthy of your birth name.”
He said nothing, only listened, but his eyes blazed with emotion.
“When you love someone—I mean truly love that person with all that you are—their happiness becomes more important to you than your own. This is the love I have for you, Isar Kal Draji. And this is why I had to leave.”
The warlord lifted his hand to her holographic face. He wanted to wipe away the single tear that had spilled down her cheek. Kari watched in silence, the scene as humbling as it was heart-wrenching.
“Whether our paths are destined to cross again in this lifetime or whether we must wait to be reunited at the Rah, know that I will always—always—love you.” Her final words were a whisper. “Goodbye, my love.”
Kari couldn’t stop the tears from flowing as Isar spoke to her hologram.
“I love you too, pani.” His voice caught in his throat. “Goodbye, my beloved.”
The recorded memory zapped out of existence. Kari collapsed onto her bed and sat there unblinking. She stared at nothing for a long moment, praying the numbness she felt would stay.
It didn’t. Kari Gy’at Li, born Kara Summers, slid to the floor of her bedchamber. The tears turned to weeping and the weeping into body-racking sobs of anguish. She was completely and irrevocably broken.