Elliot, page 13
part #3 of Anarock Shifters Series
“Nothing but their goodwill, you mean,” he countered. “If we try and fail, they’ll know we don’t intend to integrate at all, that we’ve been lying to them all this time.”
“I’m willing to take that risk,” she murmured. “They already consider me their enemy. Some of them tried to kill me last night. It can’t get much worse.”
12
Aria flipped over on her back and sighed. The sweat from her latest love-making session with Elliot still clung to her skin and her ears whined with energy. She breathed in a ragged sigh and let her eyes relax on the watery surface above her.
Elliot coughed and flipped over. He did something over the edge of the bed, but she didn’t see what. She didn’t want to see.
He stretched out next to her. Beads of sweat darkened the cleft of his chest where small black curls of hair showed up against his deep brown skin. He tapped her on the shoulder. “Come here, girl.”
She snuggled into his arm and he pulled her down on his shoulder. She threaded her fingertips through his chest hair, but she couldn’t focus her eyes. Her brain buzzed with the pleasure and delight of sharing herself with him. Even now, after he completely satiated her desires, she wanted more.
He turned his head and mumbled into her hair. “Talk about what’s gonna happen when we get back to Anarock.”
“What’s gonna happen when we get back to Anarock? I don’t know.”
“I mean about us. What’s gonna happen with us when we get back to Anarock?”
She craned back her head, but she didn’t look at him. Her eyes refused to concentrate on anything. “What do you want to happen when we get back to Anarock?”
“I guess we’ll get married. I guess we’ll go before the whole damned Crest and promise ourselves to each other, blood for blood, life for a life against all others. That’s what I say.”
Her eyes snapped open and she found herself staring at the side of his cheek. He gazed upward with that misty haze clouding his features. Did he even notice her reaction?
Get married? Marry Elliot Weeks? For a second, she flashed to his family—Colonel Horace Weeks, his brothers Finn and Bryant, his sister Alexa. They were all loyal to the Prometheus Crest—all but Alexa, that is. Did Aria really want to marry into that?
She reverted to considering her own family—her father Tom, her mother Hilda, her sisters Gianna and Amaya. What would they think of her marrying Elliot? If they knew for a fraction of a second that he courted the NightRage Crest against Victor, her father would drive Elliot off with a shotgun. He wouldn’t let his daughter near someone who disloyal to the Prometheus Crest.
Now here she was, lying in Elliot’s arms. She just did it with him and this wasn’t the first time—not by a mile. Her father would shit a brick if he knew, but he would never know. No one would ever know Elliot dabbled with NightRage because no one but Aria knew he’d done it. They would never know because she would never tell them.
She fucked him, all right, but marry him? Life for a life against all others? That was a whole different ball game.
His head swung over and he locked his eyes on her. “Did you hear me, baby?”
“I heard you.” She rolled over on her back and extricated herself from his embrace.
“What’s the matter? You don’t want to get married?”
“It’s not that.” It was that. “I just never thought about what would happen after we got the hell out of here. That’s been weighing on my mind so much I never imagined what comes after that. If I did, I guess I thought we would wind up back in the Quag where we started.”
“Even if we did wind up back in the Quag, we would eventually go back to Anarock. We would have to go back to tell everybody what we know.”
“What we know?” She examined him. “What do you mean?”
“About Bryce and Alexa planning another attack, for one thing. We would have to tell Victor all about the Blood Kin and everything. We would even have to report Isaac for trying to find the Omega Battalion. We would have to tell everything. We couldn’t hold anything back.”
She went back to staring upward. The filmy liquid up there blocked all view of the world beyond. It created an impenetrable barrier that made the upper world seem real and far away when it wasn’t. It was only a few feet above their heads. What was stopping them from swimming up there, breaking the surface, and climbing out onto the bank? Seriously, what on Earth was stopping them? Something told her not to try it, but its proximity sure did tempt her.
He slipped one hand along her cheek and rotated her head to face him. “I asked you a question, girl. Will you marry me?”
“That’s not what you asked me at all. You asked what we would do when we got back to Anarock. You said you thought we would get married. You never straight up asked me.”
“Well, I’m asking you now.” His eyes sparkled. They reflected the sun flashing on the turbulent waves. “Marry me.”
“That’s not a question.” Why did she persist in these games? Why didn’t she just say yes or no like she wanted to? “You still haven’t asked. Asking means it ends with a question mark.”
He smacked his lips, but he didn’t ask. He twisted up on his shoulder and kissed her. He steered her mouth to his and his lips closed over her mouth. In a second, he was devouring her in luscious sweeping penetrations of his tongue. His heat and his passion translated through him to infect her.
That warm, squirrely sensation wormed down her stomach to her crotch. A sweet ache dug into her forgotten center and she let herself glide closer to him on the bed. All his muscles stiffened. He swelled and got bigger while she shrank and made herself small against him.
He gathered her in his arms and her flesh answered him in slow, sensuous undulations. The burning ache inside her spread to her limbs. It dissolved her defenses and turned her to jelly where his hardness probed her.
His hands grew stronger and more demanding. He dug his fingertips into her spine and one hand closed around her ass. His prick worked between her legs and touched the molten petals already excited to receive him.
She didn’t stop him rotating her up on top of him. Her body draped over him all supple and responsive. Everything he did made her respond. She didn’t try to stop it. She wanted it. She wanted all of it and so much more. The more he took her, the more she responded. She became incapable of resisting.
He pulled her legs along either side of his pelvis. His rigid shaft lay inside her cleft and her juices bathed it. Her insides cried for it all over again even as she throbbed from orgasms he already gave her.
His lips consumed her mouth in rabid bites. His tongue probed her soul and melted her mind with his unstoppable fervor. Would it ever end? Would it always be so even when they returned to Anarock? Would she marry him? If things continued this way, she didn’t see herself ever parting from him.
How did this happen? How could she fall so hard for someone she questioned so recently? Besides saving her life from Chimo and his friends, he hadn’t really done anything to redeem himself to her. He still waffled at the wrong times. He spoke when he should keep silent and he kept silent when he should speak. She had to bail him out of his own impulsive need to throw his weight around.
Even so, she seemed to belong here with his cock working into her pussy. She didn’t seem to be made for anything but to spread herself over his shaft puncturing into her and setting her world on fire.
She moaned into his mouth. She couldn’t kiss him when he pushed inside her like that. She could only gape in stunned astonishment at the massive boiling intensity of it all. She could only whimper when his ridges touched the blistering nodes of excitement along her channel.
He seized her thighs and rocked her on his spike. He milked her wetness around his meat and catapulted her into the stars all over again. It always happened like this. He drove her out of her mind so she couldn’t think straight.
Would she decide not to if she could think for herself? Would she push him away? Would she hold him at a distance or would she welcome him into her body like this if she could decide on her own?
He flattened his palms against her shoulders and sat her up. His cock drilled too deep and she sobbed in endless orgasm. Everything he did sent her careening over the edge of insanity into something she couldn’t recognize.
She swayed on his spike convulsing again and again. She moaned and cried, but nothing would stop it. He cupped her breasts and pinched her nipples between his fingers. Far down below her on the bed, his eyes softened in blissful, dreamy ecstasy. He admired her from below, but she dwelt somewhere beyond him. She swam in watery bliss hugging him inside her.
Marry him? She couldn’t think about that. She couldn’t conceptualize it. She only knew his body filling her with cosmic serenity. He gave her a small sanctuary of happiness in a world of uncertainty. She smelled and tasted and inhaled him through her skin.
She merged with him. That union made marriage a passing fancy, a secondary triviality. It meant nothing compared to the explosions firing through her, melting her, welding her to him between her legs. This slippery molten quicksilver, this quaking devotion—what did marriage have to do with any of that?
She knew no past and no future. She knew only now and him. She knew only the collapse of satin completion falling, toppling her over to sink into his chest. She knew only his arms gripping her, holding her to slam inside her sparking another torrent of climax. It went on forever without end. She didn’t have to marry him. She already belonged to him and owned him at the same time.
13
Elliot sat on his bed and observed Aria foraging in search of food. She never bothered to fish. She occasionally shared his kills, but not often. She ate her own food and kept to herself.
She never answered his question about getting married. Somehow, bringing up the future always led to sex. That sex raised more questions than it answered. It seemed to drive them farther apart instead of locking them together the way he wished it would.
When it ended and they got dressed and went about their daily business, he questioned her more than if he never did it with her at all. Did she care at all or was she just taking quick and easy comfort in his body? If that was how she felt, he didn’t want to do it with her at all.
His heart ached thinking she might not feel the same way about him. She never came right out and answered his questions about it. She deflected his suggestions about their future. Did she do that out of uncertainty over the present or was she trying to send him a message?
She gave nothing away. She kept her insecurities to herself. She never cracked under the pressure. She maintained a stony façade hiding her fears under a mask of reserve. She kept that reserve even when she fucked him.
He never felt like he fucked her. He never really touched her even when he got inside her. She came all over his cock. She kissed him in passionate fulfillment, but some part of her always remained distant and out of reach. Would she ever really belong to him? He didn’t want to dream about her if she was always going to hold him at arm’s length.
Just look at her now. She never once glanced in his direction. She never smiled at him to let him know she was thinking of him or loving him. He wanted her to. In the last few days since they started having regular sex, he realized he loved her.
She didn’t love him, though. Maybe she couldn’t because of their situation. Maybe she had to defend herself against any emotion or maybe she just didn’t. Maybe she never really cared about him at all. Maybe all the time they spent together was just a game to her. Maybe this was a game she was playing with him now.
A rustling sound made him look away. He didn’t want to watch her anymore. Her glorious beauty stung his pride. He turned around to see a young female dragon whizzing through the water. He didn’t know her name. He never really had anything to do with her before. What was she doing up here so far from the Halcyon Coast?
She dove into his room, but she didn’t land. She swam in a circle before his eyes. “Malfie and the other Kin call you to their chamber. They say it is crucial you come without delay.”
He got to his feet. “All right. I’ll just go get Aria and we’ll come now.”
“Only you,” she interrupted. “The stranger is not called. You must come alone.”
Elliot froze. “Why? Why not Aria?”
At that moment, Aria straightened up. She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled exactly the way he just imagined she would. Her features burst into a radiant supernova of happiness and compassion. She beamed at him the way he ached and dreamed and prayed she would.
That look shot to his heart. How could he doubt her? How could he think the worst of her at a time like this? He didn’t deserve her. Maybe that was why she wouldn’t agree to marry him.
The young female rotated shot away. “I do not question the Kin’s orders. I only deliver them. Come at once.”
In a second, she disappeared and left him alone. When he peered over his shoulder, Aria was bending over a large rock. She rummaged behind it for something and didn’t notice him. In front of his eyes, she stepped down behind it and he lost sight of her.
He wouldn’t disturb her. She enjoyed spending time alone in this world without privacy. Hunting for her daily food gave her one of her only opportunities to do that. He would go see what Malfie and the others wanted. By the time he got back, she would be finished and they could talk.
He walked off down the canyon to Malfie’s chamber. Elliot spotted the young female on the way, but she didn’t talk to him again. She occupied herself with her friends.
Elliot stepped into Malfie’s chamber and stopped. Instead of the Blood Kin arranged in a row to interrogate him, Elliot found Malfie alone. The giant monster paced up and down puffing and snorting.
Without introduction, he started talking as though continuing a conversation already in progress. “I fear I have received some unsettling reports, my young friend. It seems some of the younger dragons claim your companion ambushed them and engaged them in an altercation that left at least one of our Kin dead and another injured.”
Elliot braced himself. He wasn’t expecting this, but on second thought, he should have been. He thought Chimo would be too cowardly to mention his own misguided attempt on Aria’s life. Apparently, Elliot misjudged that punk’s stupidity.
“I don’t know what you heard,” he told Malfie, “but Aria was defending her life. It was them who ambushed her, not the other way around.”
“I have no choice but to take the word of our Kin above a stranger,” Malfie rumbled. “Our informant claims…..”
“Your informant!” Elliot interrupted. “Why don’t you just come right out and call him by his name? It was Chimo who informed you, wasn’t it? He’s the only one who would have the balls to make such an accusation.”
Malfie wrinkled his nose and looked away. “The identity of the informant means nothing.”
“Bullshit!” Without Aria to rein him in, Elliot heard himself spiraling out of control.
Malfie dropped his voice another register. “As I was in the middle of saying, my young friend, our informant claims your companion cornered him and his friends during the dragons’ dance. I need not remind you what a grave breach of etiquette this is. If it is true, we would have no choice but to treat it with the utmost seriousness.”
Elliot shook his head fast, but he was way beyond sparing this creature’s feelings. “What do you mean—if it’s true? You just said you have to take Chimo’s word against hers. You don’t care if it’s true or you wouldn’t call me here alone. You would call her to tell you what happened. You gave us both a big song and dance about ruling to accept us, but that was obviously a lie. You never accepted us or you wouldn’t be calling her a stranger. You will never accept her or me so don’t spin me a yarn now.”
“What the Blood Kin do or do not decide regarding your fate rests with me and the rest of the Kin. You will remain silent and receive our decision.”
“Your decision, you mean,” Elliot fired back. “I don’t see the rest of the Kin here. You’re going to decide on your own what to believe and what to do. You don’t answer to anyone, not even the other Kin.”
Malfie made a sinister rumble low in his chest. Elliot had never heard any sound in his life that so exactly communicated a threat. “As I was in the middle of informing you, my young friend, your companion attacked these Kin in the most heinous possible manner at a time when our kind celebrate our society in peace and togetherness. This alone makes her our enemy.”
Elliot stiffened. He threw back his shoulders and locked his eyes on this fiend. He never knew with more certainty than at this very moment that the Blood Kin were his enemies, too. He no longer cared what they did or how they did it. They would say and do whatever suited them. They would spin his head full of any lie that cast the situation in their favor. They answered to no one but themselves.
“If Aria is your enemy, then you better go ahead and kill us both now and get it over with. You don’t have any reason to keep us hanging around causing you trouble. Just do it and put an end to these ridiculous games.”
“She may be our enemy, my friend, but you both still serve a function in our society.” Malfie turned away and the mystic window materialized on the wall behind him. “This man appears to somehow have divined our presence. He has been interrogating certain elements in your world to discover some opening to our world. We cannot allow that.”
The portal cleared and Elliot blinked at a picture of Victor Griffin walking through the Quag. In a split second, Elliot recognized the area where he and Aria first encountered Malfie. Victor and his party were hiking through the woods south of the village where Aria asked about Victor’s location.
Was it possible Victor somehow figured out what happened to the pair? Was he searching for them? Did he track them to the spot where they went down into the Halcyon Coast?
Elliot’s spirits soared. The next minute, he thrust that thought away. No one could have guessed the Halcyon Coast existed. At best, Victor must have tracked Aria and Elliot to the place where their footprints disappeared. Victor was an expert tracker. If anyone could find Aria and Elliot, he could.
