Elise bit her lip. Earlier the very idea of giving him such free access to her body had made her break out into a cold sweat. And no one had put anything inside her since…but she wouldn’t think about that. Not now.
“Yes,” she heard herself saying, glad that he’d asked instead of just assuming it was okay. “Yes, if you go slowly.”
“Of course.” Merrick nodded at her in the viewer, their eyes meeting briefly and she could see that his were filled with unexpressed longing. “Just watch,” he told her again. “Tell me if you want me to stop. I promise I will.”
“O-okay,” Elise stuttered, nodding. “I…I’ll be all right.”
“Yes I know you will, baby. Because I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He kissed her tenderly on the cheek and then slowly, gently, began to breach her entrance with two long, thick fingers.
Elise moaned breathlessly as she watched them slide into her. She was tight—both from fear and disuse—but so wet and slippery from his earlier stroking that he slid in with surprising ease. But to her surprise, Merrick stopped well before he reached the end of her channel.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, looking at his face in the viewer. “Is everything all right?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you,” he murmured. “Wanted to make sure. You want me to go all the way? Penetrate you to the core?”
The hot look in his eyes as he asked her and the feel of his fingers halfway buried in her tight but willing pussy made Elise want to squirm and moan shamelessly. Somehow she managed to hold still. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Merrick—take me all the way.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” With no more hesitation, he slid his fingers deeply into her, finding the end of her channel and pressing gently but firmly, as though claiming her in some way.
Elise moaned at the jolt of pleasure the tender, intimate touch gave her. God, but it felt good—surprisingly good—to open herself to him like this, to let him penetrate her.
Merrick must have been feeling good too because he began talking in her ear. “Look at that baby, look at how deep my fingers are inside you.” He pulled out slightly and thrust in again, making her gasp. “You’re so brave, you know that?” he continued. “So brave to spread your pussy and let me in, to let me fingerfuck you like this.”
His hot, dirty words gave Elise another jolt of pleasure and she moaned and wiggled her hips. She couldn’t stop looking at the erotic sight in the viewer—looking at the huge muscular man who was cradling a much smaller woman in his lap and stroking and penetrating her wet, open pussy with his fingers.
“Merrick,” she begged breathlessly. “Merrick please, I need to come.”
“Don’t worry, baby, you will,” he assured her. Slowly his fingers, now slick with her juices, slid out of the well of her pussy and slipped over her clit. This time he stroked both sides at once, framing the throbbing button between his two thick digits but still managing to never quite touch it head-on. Then he slid down and entered her to the core again, making sure to press deep and hard against the end of her channel.
“Oh…” A long sigh of pure pleasure fell from her lips as he repeated the action again and then again and again, establishing the all-important rhythm he’d talked about as he touched her with just the right amount of gentleness and strength.
Elise couldn’t help herself—she began to move. Reaching out, she gripped his knees and leaned back against him hard, bracing herself. Then, instinctively, she flexed her hips, thrusting her pelvis in time to his strokes as she gave herself up to the pleasure of his thick fingers stroking into her again and again.
“That’s good, baby, real good,” he murmured and she could hear the lust in his deep voice and feel his need for her against her back. “Ride my fingers. Fuck yourself on them.”
Elise did as he said, feeling wanton and wild and sexual in a way she never had before. She could feel the pleasure building as his fingers slipped over her clit and buried themselves to the hilt in her pussy over and over again, could feel her inner muscles clenching, her hands gripping Merrick’s knees as she worked to reach the elusive peak.
The girl in the viewer looked like a wild thing—her long black hair strewn haphazardly over her shoulders, her cheeks flushed, her nipples two hard pink pebbles at the ends of her breasts as she pumped against the big man’s fingers, as she opened herself for the pleasure he gave her…
“That’s right, baby,” she heard Merrick growl. “Work for it. Work hard.” As he spoke, his fingers stroked over her clit once more and thrust deep into her pussy, filling her completely, sending her over the edge at last.
Elise threw her head back and moaned, uninhibited and unashamed as the tidal wave of pleasure washed over her. Oh God, she’d never felt anything like this. Never felt anything even close. It was so good, so incredibly good and right and wonderful and somehow familiar…
And abruptly, it was all too much.
A sudden memory came back to her—a flash going off with blinding intensity in her head.
***
I was in my room, I thought I had the house to myself. I was on the bed, touching myself. It felt good but scary. Scary but too pleasurable to stop…
Then suddenly, the door to her room had been flung open and he had been standing there. “Well, well, well,” he’d said, leering at her in that hungry way that always made her feel like slugs were crawling all over her body, leaving a trail of slime. “Look who’s all grown up and ready to fuck.”
He started to come in the room…if Buck hadn’t come running up the stairs at my call…
She remembered his angry face, his snarl of disappointment as he was denied what he wanted yet again.
“Keep it up, sweetheart. That mangy mutt won’t always be around to get in my way…”
And then I felt so dirty, so wrong. It was the first time I realized it was my fault he looked at me that way. My fault he wanted to…to…NO!
Elise shoved the hateful memory away as hard as she could. She couldn’t think about this now—couldn’t face it, couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t!
***
“Elise? Baby, are you all right?”
She blinked and realized the worried voice belonged to Merrick.
“Okay?” she repeated stupidly.
“Yeah. One minute you were having the time of your life and the next you just kind of spaced out. Fucking scared me.” He frowned worriedly.
Merrick cares. He really cares.
Merrick who was still naked on the bed with her. Who had touched her so gently, so sweetly. Who had made her come and let one of the corpses escape from the vault.
“No,” she said, pushing him away, getting off the bed as fast as she could. “No, I…I don’t feel good. I think I need to lie down—in my own room. Alone.”
And before he could say another word, she grabbed her discarded clothing off the floor and fled.
Chapter Fifteen
“Oh my Goddess…oh no! No!” Lissa stood in the doorway of Minverna’s quarters and stared with horror at the sight that met her eyes.
“What is it?” Councilor Rast came in behind her, his half-spread wings barely clearing the doorway. He’d insisted on coming with Lissa this time, in case the confrontation with the ex-head priestess turned ugly, as it had last time.
And it did, Lissa thought dismally, staring at the stiff body lying in a pool of dried blood. So much uglier than I ever imagined.
“Shit.” The Councilor’s mouth was a hard line and his truegreen eyes were unhappy.
“What is it?” Nadiah was right behind him, trying to see over his wings. “What’s going on?”
“Back. Out. Both of you.” The Councilor shooed both Lissa and Nadiah back out of the room. “Don’t contaminate the scene. Let me look at it.”
Lissa stepped back into the long hallway that ran half the length of the holy mountain feeling numb.
“What is it?” Nadiah asked. “I couldn’t see—what happened?”
/> “She’s dead.” Lissa buried her face in her hands. “And oh, Nadiah…it looks like…it looks like she killed herself.”
“Killed herself? Surely not!” Nadiah exclaimed. But Councilor Rast’s deep voice confirmed Lissa’s worst fears.
“I’m afraid so. You two can come back in—just don’t touch anything.” Lissa forced herself to follow the sound of his voice and found him kneeling over Minverna’s body with a grim look on his face. “Wish I had a forensics team here to confirm it, but as far as I can see, she shoved a dagger in her eye.”
Lissa’s stomach lurched at the sight of the shiny silver hilt protruding from the ex-high priestess’s unseeing eye. One cold, dead hand was still curled tightly around it, as though she couldn’t bear to let go of it, even in death. “This is my fault! Everything I said to her—everything I did. If it wasn’t for me, she’d still be alive.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Nadiah put an arm around her shoulders. “Of course this isn’t your fault, Lissa. Minverna was a very unhappy woman long before you went to talk to her. You can’t blame yourself.”
But Lissa did blame herself—very much. She could still remember the helpless look of anger and hatred on the older woman’s face, could still hear the snarl in her voice as she promised vengeance. But I didn’t know she’d pay me back like this…pay me back in her own blood! she thought wildly.
“Looks like it happened several days ago. The blood’s mostly dry.” Councilor Rast’s nose wrinkled. “And she smells pretty ripe, too. Amazing it’s not worse, considering the heat around here.”
“She must have done it right after our confrontation.” Lissa felt tears welling up in her eyes and tried to hold them back without success. “I can’t believe this. I knew I hurt her but I never thought she’d…she’d do something like this.”
Nadiah tried to comfort her but Councilor Rast was obviously still engrossed in what he had called “the scene.”
“This is the strangest looking dagger I’ve ever seen. Looks like it’s made out of one big silvery diamond or something.”
“Let me see.” Nadiah stepped forward and looked down. “It’s hard to tell since her hand is still locked around the handle but…I think that’s mirror-mere.” She sounded amazed.
“Mirror what?” Councilor Rast looked up with a frown.
“One of the rarest and most expensive substances in the universe. Some people call it a jewel, but it can be molded like metal,” Nadiah explained. “How in the world Minverna got her hands on this much of it, I have no idea.” She gestured at the bloody dagger. “If that’s pure mirror-mere, there’s enough of it there to buy a small planet.”
“Wow.” The Councilor shook his head. “Where would she get the money for something like that?”
Nadiah frowned. “I don’t know…but I have my suspicions.”
“Which are?” He looked at her but she shook her head.
“No, let me do a little more research first. I need to be certain before I speak ill of the dead.”
Rast sighed. “All right. Well, I guess we’d better get this cleaned up.” He looked at Lissa. “Uh, I hate to ask you when you’re so upset, but is there any kind of protocol we’re supposed to follow here? Any customs you have when a priestess dies?”
Lissa nodded, feeling cold inside. “Yes. When a high priestess dies, all the other priestesses have a time of mourning. We cut our hair and go naked—as bare as the Goddess sent us into the world—to show our respect and sorrow.”
Councilor Rast’s eyebrows shot up. “Uh, really? Is that necessary? I mean, she wasn’t high priestess anymore at the time of…of her death.”
“No, but she was high priestess for many years.” Lissa felt like someone had tied a stone to her heart and thrown it into a bottomless well. “I won’t require the other priestesses to do it, but I will myself. I will spend my period of mourning in the desert, alone.”
“Oh Lissa, you don’t have to do that!” Nadiah put an arm around her waist.
The Councilor cleared his throat. “Honestly, I agree with Nadiah. That sounds unnecessarily harsh to me. Not to mention Goddamn dangerous. You could die of exposure out there.”
Lissa lifted her chin. “No, I must do it. It is my duty, and the last respect I can pay to she who was my high priestess for so many years.”
“Lissa—” Councilor Rast began but Nadiah shook her head at him.
“Let me.” To Lissa she said, “Come on, let’s get out of here and talk.”
Nadiah led Lissa away from the gory scene on the floor of Minverna’s room and down the long hallway. They stopped in a small alcove, bathed in sunlight from the gaps cut in the rock wall opposite it. The holy mountain was full of such fissures, cut to let in the light and illuminate the darkness. How the early First Kindred had done it, no one knew—it was a lost technique. However it had been done, Lissa was grateful for the warm light on her face. It helped ease her shivering.
“Now, Lissa,” Nadiah began, but Lissa was already shaking her head.
“I know what you’re going to say, my Lady, but I’m afraid I can’t change my mind. Minverna was my head priestess for years—I owe her this respect.”
“Are you sure you’re doing this out of respect and not guilt?” Nadiah asked quietly. “You had every right to assert your authority with her, Lissa. You told me the things she said to you—they were unforgivable.”
“Perhaps.” Lissa looked down at her hands. “But they were also true. I do still desire what I should not. Still wish for what I must never have.” She looked up at Nadiah. “I can’t tell you how many times I wake in the middle of the night, feeling his touch on me. And how I weep when I find it’s just a dream.”
“You never forget your first love.” Nadiah hugged her consolingly but Lissa shook her head again.
“I should. I must. He is my brother, my Lady. The feelings I have for him are completely unforgivable. And, to everyone else of my clan, unimaginably wrong.”
Nadiah frowned. “How can they be so inflexible? Surely you and Saber can’t be the first ones from the same clan to fall in love!”
“It has happened in the past but only very, very rarely.” Lissa sighed. “It almost never happens since the kinship compound was invented.”
“Kinship compound?” Nadiah frowned. “You said something about that before. What is it?”
“A drug that acts to repress and eradicate inappropriate feelings between clan members,” Lissa explained. “Every infant is injected with it at birth. It works on the hormonal systems of the body, suppressing any feeling of desire that might grow between two members of the same clan.” She sighed. “In fact, intimate physical touch between clan members is supposed to have the opposite effect of what it would between two who are sanctioned to be together.”
Nadiah shook her head. “I’m not sure I follow. So…this shot—this injection—you all get, is supposed to keep you from getting, uh, hot and bothered by another member of your tribe?”
Lissa nodded. “Essentially, yes. The compound is said to cause revulsion instead of desire. It is supposed to have a direct effect on the body—causing a wrongly sexual touch to make one nearly sick with disgust. And the more intimate the touch, the stronger the physical reaction to it.”
“That seems kind of harsh.” Nadiah frowned. “Anyway, I guess it didn’t work with you and Saber.”
Lissa shrugged. “I don’t know if it did or not. I told you, we were not so depraved as to try and touch each other physically. At least, not intimately. We held hands when no one was looking and once or twice he hugged me and kissed my forehead, but nothing more.” She looked down. “I think that’s one reason Saber told me he would be happy to have a nonphysical relationship and only Touch each other with our minds. We were both afraid that a physical touch between us would have the opposite effect—that it would kill our love for each other.”
“Oh, Lissa…” Nadiah squeezed her shoulders, a look of sorrow on her lovely face. “I’m so sorry! So now y
ou’ll never know…”
“If I could have physically touched him or not. If…if I could have received the Deep Touch from him. No, I will never know that.” Lissa sighed. “Sometimes in my dreams he holds me…caresses my cheek…kisses my lips…” She trailed off, feeling her cheeks burn with shame. “Forgive me, my lady. I should not disclose such…immodest thoughts to you.”
“Of course you can—that’s what I’m here for. We’re friends, remember?” Impulsively, Nadiah kissed her cheek. “I keep telling you—you can talk to me about anything and I promise I won’t judge you. My family didn’t want me with Rast either, you know.”
“Yes, but the Councilor is not in any way related to you,” Lissa said softly. “He is not your…your Moch Daer.”
“What does that mean? Moch Daer?”
“It’s a word…a word with many meanings in my culture.” Lissa sighed. “First and foremost, it mean’s ‘older brother.’ But not just any older brother—it means a male you can trust. A protector who holds a special place in your heart. One you love above all others.” She shook her head. “I called Saber that but I didn’t love him as an amalla—as a beloved little sister should, but in a wrong and incestuous way.” She shook her head. “Minverna knew that. She looked into my heart and saw my shame. What she said about me before she…she died was right and true.”
“That’s still no reason to cut off all your gorgeous hair and run around naked in the desert for a month,” Nadiah objected. “Please, Lissa—please reconsider.”
Lissa took a deep breath and shook her head. “I am sorry, my Lady…Nadiah, if my decision causes you pain. But I must do what I feel is right for me.”
“But this isn’t just a gesture of respect for Minverna—it’s some kind of penance you’re trying to do,” Nadiah objected. “You’re torturing yourself for feelings you can’t help having and that’s not right!”
“Forgive me.” Lissa looked down. “Please, my Lady—forgive me as I cannot forgive myself.”