12

Dragon

            Kyet caught up with me in my Alnese vacation suite, where I had sought refuge from the maelstrom of my thoughts. I looked up and saw him standing in the doorway, waiting. I’d never seen any martial tattoos on his limbs, yet a moment of panic flashed through me as I realized, Goddess, he could be one of them. He moves just like one of these killers, doesn’t he? I couldn’t deny him any longer, but I tried, offering no welcome, hardening my voice and lambasting, “So which one are you with? Arthmis? Mythras?” And when he shook his head from the doorway, I continued in the same accusing tone, “Then why do you move like they do?”

“What?”

“Just now you came up and I didn’t hear a sound! I recognize the same stealth, the same grace.”

Unbidden, he stepped across the threshold towards me, “Azetmir, I’m a dancer!”  Reaching the bed where I’d reclined to regain a calmer state, he crouched down, waiting to be sent off. When I didn’t lash out at his approach, he flowed to his knees and reached for my hands with his, sending further tremors into my reeling mind. He leaned forward ever so slightly, and I shrank from him. He stopped, flowed back up, seated himself on the edge of my bed, then moved one pair of joined hands slowly, gently, giving me every chance to withdraw, and touched my hand against his cheek.

“It’s true that Eden trained me. With my father. They did it for their own reasons. Azetmir, what’s the matter?”

“If I tried to explain to you, you would never understand.”

“Because I am not O’bonne and you are not Alnese.”

We had traveled down this road so many times before, both refusing to really hear the other. I the experienced adult, he the romantic youth, we both knew we were right. With such notions I had resisted him almost an entire winter, had refused to acknowledge the intoxicating effect of this boy-man, this native, this alien, only to fall all the harder when I finally gave in. And now my O’bonne mind told me to seize on this chance to break off what must surely be a disaster in the making, while my body was beginning to hum with the blood-fever we had unleashed together. Perhaps sensing my lack of resolve, he grew a little bolder. He moved my hand from his cheek to his lips. When I started to withdraw it, he held it back, slipped his lips over the tips of my fingers. Slight tingling gradually turned into dew drops of pleasure down my spine.

I did withdraw the hand.

“O’bonne . . . never kill?”

“Oh,” I almost laughed, “even O’bonne suffer from moments of madness.”

“Go on.”

“This was cold-blooded murder masqueraded as law enforcement.”

His lowered our joined hands, rested one of his on my knee. He leaned forward and brushed against the other knee with his mouth, moved to my thigh. He adjusted his position forward and his hair tumbled into my lap as he kissed his way down, then laid his cheek against my flesh and waited to be pushed off. I wrapped my fingers into the tangled mass of curls and tugged gently. His hands slid down my legs, fingernails scraping. I tugged a little harder, let go with one hand and pulled him up with the other until we were face to face again, and this time, when he leaned forward, I stayed still. “Azetmir, I’m not with Arthmis. I’m not with Mythras. I’m not with Tomrys. I’m not with Kalafo,” he whispered just before brushing against my lips. “I am a Pallas, and Eden’s my uncle,” he continued more soberly, “I didn’t think O’bonne were into guilt by association. Use your Dragon sight and tell me if I’m lying.”

My hand, still tangled in his hair, turned into a fist. He quieted under it, let me ride out the wave of conflict washing through me. When he felt my body relaxing, he reached for my face and stilled it for our first lovers’ kiss. The drops of pleasure mixed with a dry sob I could not suppress, and he broke it off, wrapped his arm around my head and pulled it to his shoulder just as Ray had. I hiccupped through another sob, my emotions dissolving into a mixture of tears and tingling. “What Dragon sight? I didn’t see the attack coming. I didn’t know Eden was going to sacrifice that arms dealer to convenience. I didn’t know Alnos is on the verge of civil war.”

“Civil war? We have some problems, true, but let’s not exaggerate. Maybe you didn’t see the attack coming in the Islands because you’ve been so immersed with your studies, you’re out of practice. When I don’t practice, my dancing unravels.”

Immersed in my studies, yes.  Indeed, in my studies I had sought refuge from the emotions stirred up by our unexpected spring thaw after two Alnese winters by myself. Observing Pallas Eden adjudicate this and that disagreement and meet with colleagues and lieutenants to coordinate his work with other Arthmis companies provided unending distractions. Add to them all our subsequent friendly meetings to hash over historical questions and pursue endlessly contradictory aspects of Alnese contractual law as if great consequences would follow from our discussions. Limitless access to the inner workings of an Arthmis group—what a perfect, most seductive bribe for an Obonne scholar! After two years immersed in Alnese history and traditions with nary a care for the present, I clung to that comfort zone once Kyet fissured my Alnese stay. But the moment had finally come when I could no longer deny the fissure, the present, Kyet’s thorough disruption of my ordered, scholarly life. Trying to clear my mind by pursuing yet more information, I smoothed out my voice as much as I could and asked, “So you’re not one of them, but you’ve trained like one of them. Why?”

“Oh my.” He averted his eyes, suppressed a sigh. “It’s a little embarrassing.”

I stilled my heart, focused clearly on the quality of his voice.

“You know my lineages. Xhania and Nandez, from my father. He shared those lineages with one other person for twenty-two years, until she gave up all ties to serve Alnos. I was three years old at the time.”

“Alnos Ciani.”

“My former aunt. That and,” he paused, “his work … He thought it would make me a target. He started training me almost from the day I took my first step.”

Many O’bonne planetologists had wondered how real the disavowal of family and clan ties by the Alnese regent was. We knew it was real enough to have prevented blood relatives from succeeding each other in the seventeen centuries since their arrival on the planet, but that didn’t tell us anything about other, less obvious forms of influence. After all, the Catholic Popes on Earth had been subject to similar rules, and they had found many ways to subvert them. “A target?” I repeated encouragingly.

“Not everyone understands our customs, and it’s not that hard to make the connection. Dad isn’t paranoid about it, but he has always taken precautions.”

“Precautions?” Figuring out what he was alluding to wasn’t hard, either. The uncomfortable realization that our secret was most likely shared by a number of faceless Alnese bodyguards hit me like a bucket of cold water in the depth of an Alnese winter. I marveled mostly to myself, “I’ve never noticed anything.”

“If you had, my father would be very disappointed in his people.” A shy caress feathered over me, then he kept one finger on each knee, “I could have alerted you to it. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

And I could have used my head and figured out that in an affair with Lady Ciani’s nephew, disavowed or acknowledged, discretion took on a whole new dimension. I closed my eyes and asked, “So they know? Your parents? Your clan?”

“I don’t think so. My bodyguards keep me safe; they don’t spy on me.” He inched a little closer to me and murmured against my right ear, “Azetmir, I know how important it is to you to keep our relationship private, and I’ve really tried. My bodyguards suspect something, sure, but that’s as far as it goes. And in any case, they don’t report on my activities.”

He moved my hand down and let me feel him hardening to my touch. Our current sparked through me, but I held back. When I had taken leave of my good O’bonne senses to take a native lover, I had fooled myself into thinking I would be able to keep it secret. Wrong. Passion really is a form of temporary insanity, as we O’bonne well know, and in my case, it had eclipsed my rational mind fully. I forced myself to consider the likely consequences of my continued entanglement with this man-boy, tried to channel the heat rising through me out of my mind, to disconnect from my own flesh.

He let go of my hand. I withdrew it only a little, let it rest on his thigh.

He grew very still, then edged my hand back between his legs, leaned forward and closed in on my ear again to whisper, “Please don’t ask me to stay away from you. I couldn’t. Not now. My senses sing for you, Azetmir.” My hands came alive for a long caress around his torso and down his back. The tingling I had tried to disconnect trickled back, quickened into a pulse that echoed through me.

I straightened my legs out from under me, dove back into his hair and locked onto his mouth. The flame had been lit and it was dripping into my fingers, my breasts, dripping between my legs. I let the rush of desire pulse through me and accepted his body’s pressure towards the pillows, accepted his bolder entanglement with me once there.

His breathing a husky echo against my ear, I twisted his belt aside and his shirt slid out. He pulled it off and helped me out of my tunic, then lay on top of my silken slip and rubbed his torso slightly up and down so the garment brushed against me. My breasts hardened under the loose fabric, and the pulse between my legs broke across my entire body. A rush of blood coursed through me, and I thought I could hear the pumping action of my hormone-mad heart beating itself into a frenzy. He helped me slide off the straps of my slip, caressing each breast as it was revealed. Then he pressed against me again as he glided one hand down my thigh. I bucked when he reached the quick of me, sought out its counterpart and pressed against it playfully.

“Azetmir. Azetmir.” He caught both my hands in his free one, slowly pulled them up and up and up above my head and I started to arch, a moan rumbling up and spilling out of my throat as he sought out one nipple with his mouth and my wet sheath with his hardened fifth limb. Our dance was rhythmic, indolent, smooth despite the violent volleys between us.  We were spinning off into our senses, into breaths and moans and shudders of delight, and pleasure overwhelmed all concerns.