Elliot, page 12
part #3 of Anarock Shifters Series
She was climaxing, but she couldn’t integrate it into what she knew about herself. She was lost. She was nowhere. She was swaying on his rhythm. She was taking his shaft inside herself and dissolving in torrents.
His biceps clenched around her ribs. She couldn’t breathe. She bucked to take him as deep as she could. She had to take him even knowing it would destroy her. He was her only path to sanity even as he drove her out of her mind.
He clamped his fist in her hair and pried her neck back. He bit her throat and sank his teeth into her chest. He hurt her as she’d never been hurt before, but she ached for it. She starved for the exquisite devastation of falling apart on him.
Her insides quivered around him. She stroked him on delicious slippery strokes. His veins tickled her in places she never knew existed. How did fucking him and being fucked by him become such a cosmic, brutal experience? How did she fool around with him so many times back in Anarock without feeling this?
Would she have been able to survive if she had felt this? Would she ever have been able to live without him? Would she have been able to touch him or even be in the same room with him without going insane?
He slammed both hands onto the bed and tilted her back. He wasn’t holding onto her anymore, but his meat kept stabbing her, touching her in the deepest places, exciting her and killing her.
He smashed into her bones. He shattered her to pieces. He made her sob and weep and whimper at the sheer impossible bliss of it all. She was dying, falling, disappearing.
He pulled back and she slumped to the floor. She hoisted herself to her knees and rotated around to face the bed, but she could only stare straight ahead. Her brain wouldn’t function. She tumbled in a whirlwind of impressions and confusion.
His hand came to rest against her back. He was pushing her, pressing her down flat on her chest. The bed gave slightly under the pressure. The next thing she knew, he was drilling into her from behind. Rockets of spasmodic energy raced up her spine and into her head. Her senses tilted. She spun out of control on those brutal injections.
He hit against her ass and jolted her into outer space. Nothing could bring her back. She lifted her head. She was looking at the Halcyon Coast, that wavering blue world of water and dreams, but she was gone. She was gone.
11
Elliot bent over and tied his boot laces. He stomped his heel down into the footbed and straightened up. Aria leaned against the wall across the room and observed him. She crossed her arms over her chest and her legs at the ankle. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m sure,” he replied. “Don’t say nothing. Pretend it didn’t happen.”
“What about the two I killed? How do I explain it?”
“Don’t explain it. No one knows what happened. No one knows where they are. That means Chimo and the others didn’t tell anyone, so we shouldn’t, either. Just let it stay a secret.”
She raised her head and surveyed the Halcyon Coast. It looked exactly the same as ever, but something changed last night. The dragon’s world never got fully dark up here near the surface, but it was Aria and Elliot who changed.
He woke up in the middle of the night with her in his arms. She twined around his chest and her hair scattered over his shoulder. She breathed in her sleep and he floated up out of a dream to find her sitting across his pelvis. She undulated in a supple dance. Her hair waved over her bare breasts. Her waist widened to her thighs hugging him. Her silken pussy throbbed around his shaft.
He couldn’t remember how many times she came to him. Every time he thought he was asleep, she was there. She was on top of him and next to him. She fell asleep with her ass towards him and he woke up inside her. He found his arms around her pulling him down on top of himself.
Now she stood over there the way she always did. She wore those stiff old clothes of hers and her sharp eyes glittered when she scanned her surroundings. No one would ever guess she could be so soft and supple and yielding. She never would be to anyone but him.
She was deadly. She was ready to explode into the bear at any time. At the same time, she could be vulnerable and quaking and crying when he folded her in his arms. That softness, that fragile little soul belonged to him and only him. The dragons would never take that from her. They were too dull to ever even find out it was there.
She turned aside and paced to the wall. She gazed toward the canyon out of sight. What would they find down there? What did Malfie and Beslatia and the other Kin want now?
Elliot refused to think about it. He stood up and approached her from behind. He placed both hands on her hips and nuzzled under her hair. He inhaled a deep breath of her neck. He could stay like that forever, but he didn’t. He broke away and took her hand. “Let’s go.”
They started walking in silence. They passed all the dragons from last night’s party. Elliot should have felt closer to them after sharing their secret rite. Instead, an unbridgeable divide held them apart. How many of them knew that Chimo and the others tried to kill Aria last night?
Elliot studied each one for weaknesses. Every single individual member of the Blood Kin was his enemy. He wanted them all dead, but he couldn’t fight them all. He had to choose his battles.
He kept a sharp lookout for Chimo or any other young ones from last night, but he didn’t see them. For the first time since he arrived, he didn’t see Chimo once. The young dragon made himself scarce.
They arrived at the same chamber where they found Malfie conversing with Beslatia. The other Kin waited to one side. Elliot let go of Aria’s hand. Why did he do that? He didn’t care if they saw him with her. He wanted them to see. He wanted them to understand, now more than ever, that he and Aria were a unit.
Malfie and Beslatia rotated around to face the pair. “We have considered our decision to accept you into our Kin. You participated in our dance, so we have arranged for you to take orders and become members of our society. We do require that you take up residence down here. You will abandon your former quarters near the surface and no longer return there.”
Elliot stiffened. “We can’t do that. We’ll stay up there.”
Malfie narrowed his eyes and scanned back and forth between Aria and Elliot. “Why would you make such a decision? Why would you withdraw from our Kin when we have so graciously invited you to join us? I think I need not remind you what an unusual honor this is.”
Elliot pulled himself up stiff and straight. So it came down to this. He had to draw a line in the sand now so he didn’t misrepresent himself or Aria. “I’m sure it’s a singular honor, but we’re more comfortable up there. There are fewer dragons and we…..”
“That is exactly why we require you to reside down here,” Malfie cut in. “To belong to our Kin, you will reside among dragons, will you not?”
Elliot sensed Aria tensing for a fight, so he changed the subject. “I’m grateful you have considered and decided to accept us. If that’s the case, we would like to propose an alliance between the Blood Kin and the New Breed of Anarock. Our two peoples can help each other against our mutual enemies. If the humans discover your existence, you’ll need the New Breed for….”
“The humans will never discover our existence because no one will ever divulge it,” Malfie boomed. “You will not return to the world above and we do not need the New Breed for anything.”
“How can you be certain of that? If by some chance the humans discovered your existence, you would be just as vulnerable to attack as the New Breed. You’re taking the step to accept us. Why not accept all New Breed? Why hold yourselves apart?”
“We accept you to live here and become our Kin,” Malfie returned. “We do not accept you to belong to the New Breed any longer. You will relinquish your membership in that society.”
Now it was Elliot’s turn to stiffen. “I think not. We will never relinquish the New Breed. We will always belong to Anarock even if we spend the rest of our lives here.”
“Then you would be fools,” Malfie thundered. “If you choose not to accept membership in the Blood Kin, you will die.”
Elliot stuffed down his mounting rage. He resisted the urge to tell Malfie to shove his glorious society up his arrogant dragon ass, but that wouldn’t accomplish anything.
He took a deep breath, but before he could say anything, Aria laid her hand on his arm. “Thank you for considering us. We feel the deep honor of you accepting us and we will do our best to integrate into your society.”
Elliot whipped around, but when he glared at her, she gave him a pointed stare and a barely precipitable shake of her head. He bit back the words hanging on his lips. If this affront didn’t offend her, he didn’t know what could. He damned well wouldn’t do his best to integrate into this tyrannical fucking society.
She didn’t like it any better than he did. Her glance told him so. She was playing along and making peace the way she always did. She was conciliating their massive, overblown egos to give herself the space to maneuver. He should do the same thing, but he couldn’t stop fuming at the dragons. Give up being New Breed to join their underwater playground? He didn’t hardly think so.
Malfie turned away grumbling to himself. Beslatia spoke up. “Your people make some very strange decisions. We do not understand their motives. We require you to explain them to us.”
Elliot clenched his jaws. He wouldn’t tell these fuckwitted dragons anything. If they didn’t want to help the New Breed, why should he help them?
Aria interjected again. “We’ll explain anything we can. We’re happy to help.”
Happy to help! Only a New Breed could something like say. The cocksucking Blood Kin didn’t understand happy to help.
Beslatia rotated around and the shiny window opened. Aria and Elliot gazed through it at a neighborhood street somewhere in New Orleans. Elliot recognized a few New Breed belonging to the Prometheus Crest.
“We do not understand these curious activities,” Beslatia told him. “What are they doing?”
Elliot frowned. “That’s Isaac Weaver. He’s questioning Luna Kehoe and she’s…..” He broke off. How much should he reveal?
Aria cut in one more time. “She’s showing him something in her hand. It looks like she’s looking through one of those portals like…. like this one. She’s showing him…..” She stopped and she and Elliot exchanged glances.
Malfie finished the sentence for him. “They are looking at the woman and the man we saw in the Omega Battalion. Why would they do that when these two don’t belong to your leadership? Do you not have rules for who may use these windows and who may not?”
Aria and Elliot looked at each other again. Elliot swallowed hard. “We don’t have rules for who can use their own power. Isaac’s sister was killed under strange circumstances. He must be canvassing the NightRage Crest for someone who can locate the people who killed her.”
“Your leadership must know all about this,” Malfie countered. “In our society, anyone who overstepped their position would be severely disciplined. If he found out anything about the Omega Battalion that your leadership didn’t know, he would have no choice but to report it. If she is capable of seeing the Omega Battalion as we do, the leadership must take her into their confidence the way we have taken you into ours. That is only prudent.”
Elliot turned away. He didn’t want to defend Anarock to these people. He didn’t want to talk to them about any of it. Aria answered for both of them. This was becoming a pattern. “We don’t have the same rules you do. Luna doesn’t answer to the leadership of the Prometheus Crest. If she used her power to help Isaac locate the Omega Battalion, that’s her business. Ours is a free society. Our leadership is responsible for protecting our safety. They’re not responsible for controlling who does what with whom and with what power.”
Malfie snorted through his nostrils. “Then your people are more foolish and misguided than we originally suspected. They will fall to their enemies without some more structured way of managing their kind. Your people are backward and juvenile. They do not deserve our help or even our attention. I would advise you to put them out of your minds and concentrate on your future here. You are dismissed.”
Elliot swelled out his shoulders. “Now you just listen to me….”
Aria slapped her knuckles against his chest and her voice cut him to the quick. “Thank you again for your time and consideration. We will definitely make every attempt to improve in order to earn your acceptance.”
Elliot seethed in annoyance with these bastard dragons, but Aria grabbed hold of him. She clenched her fist in a handful of his shirt and hauled him away by force. She marched him out of the room and back up the canyon. They got halfway to their own room before he snapped.
He rounded on her. “How could you do that? How could you kiss their fucking dragon asses like that? How could you blow a bunch of fucking sunshine up their tailpipes and thank them again and again for sticking it to Anarock? Where’s your loyalty?”
She didn’t react. She gazed up at him lost in her own reverie. “Don’t you notice anything strange about those portals they use to spy on everyone? That’s the second time they’ve shown us what’s going on in Anarock. They can see anywhere.”
“What does that have to do with the price of eggs?” he fired back. “That gets us exactly nowhere. We’re just as stuck as we were before and now they’re telling us the New Breed are backward and beyond saving because we have a free society where the leadership doesn’t control what everybody else does. They’re fucked. That’s what they are. They’re sick, heartless monsters. They deserve to die and now they want us to give up being New Breed so we can join their stupid fucking society.”
She actually smiled at that. He hated that smile as much as he hated everything else about this hopeless situation. She turned and started walking again, but he couldn’t let it go just like that.
He snatched her by the elbow and whirled her around. “Hey! I’m talking to you. You’re not going anywhere until I get some answers. How could you tell them we would work to earn their acceptance? You speak for yourself with that bullshit. I’ll never work to earn their acceptance and I will never quit Anarock—never! Do you understand me?”
She leaned back and studied him with her head on the side. “How do you think they got above ground in the first place? You said I fell through the Quag and then I came back out. You said Malfie came out of the ground and said I had to come back down with him and stay here. Isn’t that how you said it played out?”
“Yeah? So?”
“So…don’t you ever wonder how he did it? How do you think he got above ground in the first place? How do you think they brought us here? You should know that better than I do because I was out cold at the time. What did you see when they brought us down? How did they do it?”
Elliot blinked trying to remember. “I don’t fucking know. The ground just went soft and we sank through it the same way you did the first time. We sank through to here.”
She shook her head. “I can think of two possibilities. Either Malfie or somebody has some magical power that they use to travel through the ground or they use those windows as portals.”
“What the hell fucking difference does it make how they do it?” Elliot snapped. “We’re trapped here.”
“Use your brain,” she murmured. “There’s a way to travel between here and the Quag. We don’t know what it is, but there has to be a way. Either we find the person whose power softens the ground to allow travel through it or else….” She trailed off.
He waited for her to say something. “Or else what? Just say it and don’t leave me hanging.”
She rotated on her heel and started walking. She didn’t even bother to check that he kept up with her. “Or else we use one of those windows. We go through it and poof! We wind up back in Anarock where we belong.”
He skidded to a halt and gaped at her. “Are you fucking serious? Do you really think that will work?”
She halted and turned around to study him. “Which would you rather? Would you rather try it and find out if it works or not, or would you rather hang out here and nuzzle Malfie’s ass every time he sees something through that window that he doesn’t understand?”
Elliot recognized a rhetorical question when he heard one, but he couldn’t get his head around what she was telling him. He lowered his gaze and trailed after her.
She sauntered at his side in no particular hurry. She surveyed her surroundings like nothing in the world could be more interesting. “You know what I think? I’m really started to think they show us what’s going on up there to fuck with us. I think they show us Anarock in danger because they know not being able to help our people will disturb us. I think they do it to torment us.”
Elliot gasped, but he couldn’t look at her. He kept scrutinizing the landscape with the same vacuous disinterest. No matter how many times he saw it, it always presented a different conundrum to him. “Why on Earth would they do that?”
“Because they can. You heard what Malfie said. They would exercise any control they could just to enforce their position. They thrive on control. On the surface, the Blood Kin are a free people where everybody does exactly what they want. You start to dig down a little way and you find the opposite. He said he would never let someone use their power outside the leadership’s control. If they had someone like Luna Kehoe in their midst, the leadership would take her into custody and use her power for their own purposes. He said so point-blank. That means whoever creates this opening between the two worlds must be working for the Kin. If it isn’t Malfie, it’s someone close to him.”
He didn’t look at her. Her suggestion infected his mind. She was talking about escape! She put on an act for the Blood Kin when all the time she was planning to break out of here. “So what do you want to do?”
“I say we keep an eye out for an opportunity to test our theory. The next time they show us one of their windows into Anarock, we watch our chance to go through it. If it works, we’re free. If it doesn’t, we’ve lost nothing.”
