Asia’s entire mind seemed to go suddenly slack as his thick and insistent fingers played against her. She moaned, trying to hold on to what she was doing, what she had wanted to do to torment him the way he’d spent the day tormenting her in one fashion or another. But it all abandoned her. Now she wanted one thing and one thing only: To have him inside her. To have him fucking her until she couldn’t see or think straight.
“Julian,” she panted, clearly begging him for just that as she began to manipulate him into her body.
Begging wasn’t necessary. He reached to pull her hand out from between their bodies and then hooked an arm under one of her knees, hauling her up into a perfect position for his first and best thrust. He almost made it all the way inside her with just that single movement, but as wet as she was and as open and eager as she was being, he was still too big for such ambition. But it was enough to get a real satisfying gasp out of her.
“Oh God! Yes!” she cried, using the undulation of her body to force him even deeper inside her. Her shoulders against the wall were excellent leverage and she curved into his hands and against him with an arching of her back. Julian grasped her so tightly he knew she was going to be bruised for it. His chest ached with the way it felt to have her sliding down around him with raw perfection. And no sooner was he inside her than he had to leave her. But only to return again. Not that he would have much of a choice. The clench of her legs demanded he come into her again and then again. He was lost from the start of it all, completely overwhelmed by knowing he was finally inside his kindra, the incredible and precious thing he’d been given that no other would ever know. It was all he could do to keep from falling instantly into orgasm, so devastated with pleasure and emotion was he. The only thing that tainted the far edges of it all was the knowledge that she saw this only as the physical connection of the moment.
But he would prove to her that it was otherwise. He would force her to feel it if it was the very last thing he ever did. To that end he reached to clasp her head between both of his hands, forcing those glacial blue eyes to stare straight into his, forcing her to see the depths of his need for her even as he sought the depths of her body. He emanated his thoughts and emotions into her, flooding her with the desperate need he had of her.
“You feel me,” he demanded of her through the tight clench of his teeth. “Feel me.”
Asia couldn’t help but feel him, but she knew by looking into the depths of his gaze that he wasn’t demanding the physical from her. He was already getting that. What he wanted went much, much deeper than the hard thrusts of his hips could reach. Now, for the first time since this had started, Asia felt the first frisson of trepidation. She reached to grab for his wrists, trying to pull his hands away, trying to free her head so she could look away from him. He wanted too much. Wasn’t it enough that he was inside her, turning her inside out with heat and need? Why did he have to ruin it by pushing her for more than she was capable of?
“You lie to yourself if you really believe that,” he whispered to her. But then he released her and swooped in for a kiss. He knew she wanted to hide, and for now he would let her. He would make himself be content with what he had. So he took hold of her hips and used the grip to add to the counterforce of having her against the wall. He began to take her hard and wildly, driving into her again and again until she was crying out with irrepressible pleasure. Then he opened his mindheart to her and swept her mind into the equation as well. He was careful, though, not to push her too hard because he didn’t want her to accidentally call the Gate to them. But just the same, she exploded into a violent orgasm, her entire body bowing with the rocketing pleasure. Julian gasped as she clutched around him tight enough to strangle him. His forehead fell against the wall behind her and he gritted his teeth and rode out the buck and beauty of her release. It brought tears to his eyes as he fought the desire to simply lose himself in the moment. But he couldn’t afford to let this end so quickly. So he waited for her to fall from her crest, waited until she was gasping for breath against his ear. Then he hauled her up tighter against the wall, set his feet, and began to drill himself into the heaven of her body all over again.
Julian was relentless, his psyche devouring every cry that escaped her lips, every single time her body locked up like a high-tech vault, every wave of ultimate pleasure she succumbed to. He ignored the frantic digging of her nails into his back and shoulders, the bite of her teeth into the side of his neck, the crest of his shoulder, and even his lower lip. It was all a matter of what was closest to her at the time.
“Stop! No!” she burst out blindly, not even realizing she was trying to pull him into her even as she said it. In the end it was the clawing of her nails up over his buttocks that finally made him lose all control. The next instant they both exploded into wild orgasmic bliss, their cries mingling together even as the wetness of their bodies did. Julian felt the release all the way to the soles of his feet, all around his heart and beyond the place in his soul that knew she was forever his.
Chapter 14
The Ampliphi lived in Justice Hall, each in their own quarters. Connected to those quarters was a second suite of rooms meant for the Ampliphi’s Gatherer to stay in when they were not doing their duties on the Earth plane. Julian had always been the exception to this because he was also the ruler of his colony. In the past, Kloe had understood the reasons why he had preferred to bed down in his colony home.
But tonight both Kine and Shade were missing from their quarters as well. While this wasn’t against any rules, their Ampliphi frowned on not being asked permission to have leave of them. But neither Shade nor Kine wanted to be put in a position where they would have to explain the reasons for their absences, so they figured in this case that it would be better to apologize in the aftermath.
As a result, Sydelle, Kloe, and Giselle had no better company than one another that night. Kloe was in too good a mood to be rattling around her suite on her own and she was feeling very tolerant of her contemporaries’ presence.
So it came to pass that they were all together when the raw power of the most dynamic energy they’d felt in years belted through them. Each woman gasped, Sydelle even falling out of her chair and onto her knees, one hand clutching in a fist against her chest, as they absorbed the rogue wave as best they could. It tore through every last one of them and overfilled their capabilities. Within a minute every last one of them turned fully to flesh, a state none of them had seen for decades. Giselle looked at her companions in shock as she was able to touch her own hair for the first time in ages. Her skin glowed and turned flush with the power of it, making her laugh out loud.
But Kloe wasn’t laughing. The moment she became true flesh, even feeling the soft hairs on her arms under her stunned touch, she knew what had happened. Her hands curled into fists and she threw back her head and screamed out in fury. Her rage was impossible to absorb since the Ampliphi were already glutted with the positive passion of kind coming together.
“How dare they disobey me!” she raged, fighting to keep her fury as the swamping heat of passion overwhelmed them all. “She was supposed to be at the holding colony! She cannot be there if they are together!”
Giselle slowly gained her feet, still too amazed by her transformation to resist fondling the silken feel of her gown between her fingers. It was Sydelle who was the first to turn on her peer.
“You selfish bitch,” she rasped out in a hoarse emanation. “They’ve created an explosion of energy so magnificent it has fed us to overflowing, and all you can do is scream about it? Have you any idea what must be happening in our colonies right now? Can you not feel that? Every one of the Ampliphi is overfull, and that means pure energy is being fed straight to the colonies now for the first time in untold ages! No filtering, no doling it out, no piecemeal portioning or rationing based on class or importance! Praise be to all. Starving children are knowing the pleasure of a pure feed for what may be the first time in their lives, and all you can think of is you
r wounded arrogance? Bitter, bitter creature! You shame us all!”
“But I—”
“Quiet, Kloe.” The command came from Christophe, who now stood in the doorway of the room. Sydelle laughed, seeing him in flesh tickling her for unknown reasons. She moved over to him and touched her hands to his fine form, feeling the strength within it and the glut of energy on him that made his eyes a vibrant scarlet color. She had forgotten how handsome the Ampliphi was. The faded energy they existed as was a means of conservation, a way of bringing their energy consumption down to the barest minimum. It had been so long….
“Christophe,” she emanated with great awe, “I had forgotten what a beautiful man you are.”
This won her something even rarer than solidity—a smile from the leader of the Ampliphi. He reached out to her, brushing a fond thumb over the warm blush on her cheek. “And you as well,” he said to her, admiring the brilliant vermilion color of her eyes and the silky mocha brown of her hair. She’d had no cause to cut or grow it, all normal bodily functions merely a waste of energy to them, but it was the same long and lush length it had been before she had become Ampliphi.
And then the moment was gone, Christophe turning his full attention to Kloe, who sat seething, turning pure, clean energy into something vicious and twisted.
“You will control yourself and stop this temper tantrum immediately,” Christophe warned in a powerful emanation that made it suddenly difficult to draw breath in the room. “If the human woman has committed a capital crime as she is being accused of, she will be in the penal colony soon enough. Then this, all of this,” he indicated their solid state, “will be gone forever. We will fade back to what we were, scavengers feeding weakly off others who have more than we do. Will that make you happy then, Ampliphi Kloe?”
Breathing heavily but called into check by the one being who could potentially destroy her, Kloe managed to shake her head. “I only meant that if one of us is disrespected, then all of us are. To let it pass, even because they are kind, is to invite all manner of insubordination! What good would any of this be if our world descends into the violent chaos you well know humans carry with them?”
“It is true that humans are a risk. But they are a calculated and necessary risk, Kloe. We cannot survive without them. What will it matter, all of this, if we are dead and dust because of starvation or because we cannot birth new generations? And these humans you so despise, they are not so different from us, Ampliphi Kloe.” Christophe turned to include all the Ampliphi who had arrived into his remarks. “We get no rest tonight. Instead, we must see to it that all the colonies have benefitted from this unexpected surplus. No one will be left out. By morning we shall see everyone from all colonies just as renewed as we now are.”
The group nodded as one, and each quickly disappeared to see to the needs of their respective colonies.
The bells for predawn exit rang harshly throughout the holding colony. It woke Julian and he felt instant anxiety clutching at his chest. He was lying on one of the parlor couches, Asia sprawled out naked over him like a decadent blanket. He recalled stumbling over to it the night before, utter exhaustion keeping him from going any deeper into the suite with her. They’d both slept the entire night on the narrow piece of furniture. He wasn’t surprised. They’d had a hell of a day between them, not to mention not having slept for the better part of two days. It also didn’t surprise him that the exit alarm didn’t make Asia stir so much as an inch. She just lay there breathing deeply, her ebony hair spread all around her head and her mouth softly open against his collarbone.
Gently he took her shoulders in his hands, turning with her until she dropped onto the cushions and he could gain his feet. His movement did what the shrill alarms had not. She complained about it in a numb sort of mumble, her sleep so heavy she didn’t understand what was happening around her. But he knew he couldn’t leave her without saying good-bye and he couldn’t stay without getting in trouble. If he didn’t leave the colony before the alarms stopped ringing, he would be forcibly removed. That meant he only had minutes to get dressed and say his farewells. But if all went well with the Ampliphi this morning, then he would be seeing her again shortly.
“Asia,” he called to her, giving her shoulder a shake even as he looked around for his clothes. They were scattered hastily to and fro.
“Fuck off,” she mumbled, the words barely coherent. It made him smile, and that was when he realized he was getting into very deep trouble with her. Nothing she did vexed him any longer. He was beginning to trust her. What was more, he was beginning to feel very deeply for her. The trouble was, he knew very well that she did not return his fondness. Not that he blamed her. He’d done some pretty terrible things to her in the name of saving his people. But he had no regrets. Perhaps he would have wished things to have gone more smoothly, but he would not regret bringing her there. And neither would his people.
“Asia,” he tried again, “I have to go.”
That woke her instantly, and she raised up so fast that she cracked her head into his.
“Ow!”
“Shit!” Julian swore as he jerked back from her, his hand going to the nose she’d just smacked with her skull. His fingers came away bright pink and he cursed again.
“Man, those English swear words must have been the first thing you guys learned,” Asia remarked as she rubbed the back of her head, “because you sure do have a handle on them.”
“Isn’t that what you call a pot calling a kettle black?” he challenged her.
“Mmm. Perhaps.” But the response was more than a little distracted as she sat there staring at him, seeing him fully naked for really the first time. “Holy shit! You’re…different!” It was the nicest word she could come up with on short notice.
What he was, was entirely free of body hair, and his legs were starkly tattooed in rings of black runic symbols, all the way from his hips to his toes. The symbology was even tattooed in a V along the inside of his pelvis, accentuating the line that ran from his navel to his cock. To be honest, she was surprised that wasn’t tattooed as well!
Julian followed her gaze to his own body and shrugged.
“They are the markings of my Advocacy. Every Ampliphi puts their own special stamp on their Gatherer. This is Kloe’s.”
That made Asia frown. “Does it come off? I’m not sure I like the idea of that bitch having her mark all over you.”
Julian supposed he ought to have taken the time to correct her for the way she constantly disparaged Kloe, but he was too busy being delighted by the rather possessive nature of her remarks.
“Can we talk about this later?” he said evasively, reaching to pull on his pants. “I’m about to get forcibly kicked out of your bed if I don’t present myself at the gate before the bell stops.”
“We never made it to my bed,” she noted with a saucy little grin. It made him laugh.
“You know what I mean. Besides, I have an appointment to keep, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember.” Asia frowned, her fingers plucking irritably at the couch fabric for a moment. “You know, Ariel is not a criminal. She’s sick in the head, and the only person she hurt was herself.”
“She’s trying to hurt you,” he reminded her.
“I know that. But look at what she risked. She almost killed herself to try to keep you to herself, Julian. That’s the act of a sick mind. And they want to make her nightfly? That’ll push her into a psychotic break! There has to be another way!”
“Not in this world,” he said softly as he shrugged into his shirt. “Asia, I don’t have time to talk to you about this now. I have to go.”
“Then go. I’ll take a shower or something and sit here waiting while you and the high-and-mighty Ampliphi decide my fate.”
Her sarcasm was clear even to a man who rarely used it for himself.
“You need to stop being so disrespectful,” he warned her with a frown. “I understand how you feel, but the Ampliphi are everything to my people. They
are the first and the last authority. If they hear you acting so disrespectful, you will offend people. I don’t think that’s how you want to start out your life here Beneath.”
Suddenly the bells outside silenced.
“What does that mean?” she asked suspiciously.
“It means I’m going to get my ass kicked if I don’t get to the gate.” He stepped over to her and bent quickly to give her a kiss, then hurried to turn the wheel to the door. He gave her one last look before stepping out, trying to capture the picture of her lying there naked in his mind. “I’ll be back for you in a few hours. Just…try not to get killed. Stay in your rooms. Clear?”
“Clear,” she acknowledged, giving him a salute.
And just like that, he was gone.
Julian was not expecting what he found when he entered Justice Hall.
To see the Ampliphi made flesh astounded him. To see them smiling and energetic with happiness all but took his breath away. He walked into the center of the chamber, faced the row of Ampliphi, and respectfully took a knee before them.
“Gatherer,” Christophe greeted him, brilliant scarlet pupils shining down on him. “How do you fare this happy morning?”
“I…I fare well,” he responded cautiously, trying to figure out what was going on. The Ampliphi maintained an energy state for a very good reason. Why would they suddenly change that? And Christophe bordering on joviality? It was all just too strange. What next? Would Rennin give up the art of criticism?