When he collapsed onto her she felt a moment of nausea, revolted by the idea of his seed inside her, although she knew he was clean and healthy - his Sidhe mistresses would not have tolerated anything else.
So far all the experience had done was increase her contempt for the man, but if she stopped now she would have achieved nothing; his deep shields remained as strong as ever.
Besides, the backwash of his climax had awakened something in her mind that was nothing to do with sex or pleasure. A shadow of unity.
Stifling her feelings of distaste she thought to him,
He withdrew, leaving her feeling sticky, and a little cold. Though she did not relish the thought of continuing, now he had made himself vulnerable to her by letting himself go in orgasm, she felt more comfortable with this thing they did.
When they resumed she found that his shields had finally begun to relax. She took care broaching them. If he chose, he could still block her. She did her best to make sure he was distracted enough not to.
By the time he was ready to enter her again she was somewhat distracted herself. Even though the situation was unpalatable, there was no doubt his mixture of confidence and subservience was arousing her, helped by her imagining that the hands stroking and fondling belonged to Taro. She was also growing more confident herself; having maintained a parallel mental connection to their physical contact, she suspected she could, if she chose, control his pleasure purely by exerting her will over him. It was tempting, but as she had said herself, that was not the bargain they had made.
This time, she took the lead.
As she rocked up and down and he writhed under her, she felt their physical union strengthening their mental connection, a coming together of minds that fed off the coming together of bodies.
This wasn’t unity, because unity had nothing to do with such mindless grinding and rubbing to stimulate physical pleasure. But it was what he craved, and perhaps what she needed.
Letting her body do what it wanted, she dived deeper into his head. The resistance was gone. In return, she felt her mind opening, just as her body did.
Opening to him.
He knew this sensation well; his life was built around such false unity. She was new to it, inexperienced and uncertain. He began to take control. She felt her resilience cracking, felt herself falling into desire, willingly becoming its slave. He knew how sex could affect the mind. Even as he gave himself to her, he was undermining her psyche.
But he was only human.
She was Sidhe.
She neither knew nor liked this man, but in some ways she understood him more completely than she did Jarek or Taro. He was a creature of the Sidhe, conditioned to their touch; his joy was to love and obey them.
To receive such adulation was her birthright.
First she reined back her own pleasure, dissociating herself from what her body was doing so she could focus. Then she clamped her will over his, deflecting his attempts to subvert her mind. At the same time she froze his pleasure, cutting his consciousness free of the cycle of arousal and fulfilment.
He gasped in shock.
She released him again, amplifying and enhancing the sensations he yearned to feel. He bucked beneath her, giving a wordless cry. Those parts of his mind not drowning in ecstasy were filled with remorse, a wordless pleading for her forgiveness for having dared to become the dominant partner.
She took him to the brink and left him there, not granting him the release of orgasm, pulling back even as he begged her to let him go.
Then she did it all over again.
This was almost too easy. He revelled in the exquisite torture, any ambition to fight her driven from his mind. And she had free access to his thoughts.
The wave of rising pleasure surprised her. The signals from her own body were interfering with her concentration, and for a moment she considered blocking the sensation, or else bringing herself to climax quickly, the better to free herself of such distractions.
But then, why should she not enjoy this to the full?
Maintaining her hold, forbidding him to orgasm, she forced him to work faster, slaving his will to her pleasure. As she came she heard herself cry out and wondered at the lack of dignity, even as she relished the mindless release.
After the last shudders had passed through her she pushed herself fully upright, focusing on her partner for the first time in some minutes. His skin was grey and filmed with sweat, his half-healed stomach wound livid. But he looked up at her as a worshipper looks upon a goddess.
She touched his forehead with a quivering finger, smiling as pleasure exploded through him and he shuddered beneath her. She let herself ride the sensation, all thoughts of reading him forgotten in the face of this wordless, animal communion.
She felt his physical climax riding hard on the mental one, and retained just enough self-control to block it.
Her eyes were still closed when he spoke in her head, his voice ragged with yearning.
She opened her eyes, and looked straight into his.
As she began to move on him for the last time, she sensed the fear in him, the soul-deep realisation of what he had committed himself to.
A final wave of resistance passed through him.
She dispelled it effortlessly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jarek woke slowly, wondering what the weight on his leg was. Of course: Taro. They’d ended up in his cabin eventually. The couch on the bridge wasn’t built for sex, though that hadn’t stopped Taro trying. Jarek smiled to himself, before remembering how the evening had started. Hot on the heels of that memory a new realisation swam up from the depths; another discovery he’d made at Serenein, one that hadn’t seemed immediately relevant before last night.
He eased Taro’s leg away and sat up, wincing at a twinge from his bruised ribs.
Taro opened his eyes, smiled up at Jarek, then frowned, no doubt also remembering why they’d ended up in bed together.
‘Did you want to stay here for a while?’ asked Jarek. He hoped he would. The extra complication that had just occurred to him was going to make things even worse for the boy.
‘No,’ said Taro, though he didn’t look convinced. Jarek found some relatively clean clothes, and lent Taro a robe.
Nual sat alone at the table, nursing a steaming mug. From her still-wet hair Jarek guessed she’d just showered. ‘Good morning,’ he said with forced cheerfulness.
She looked around, surprised; she must’ve been so deep in thought that she hadn’t sensed them there. Taro put his arms around Jarek’s waist, with his head on his shoulder and one hand dangling just above Jarek’s groin. Jarek resisted the urge to shake him off; pleasant though the contact was, Taro wasn’t doing it for his benefit.
Nual said nothing, just looked at the two of them, her face unreadable.
Jarek decided there was no easy way to tell her what she needed to know. ‘Listen, did you . . . if you didn’t, uh, take precautions you might want to get yourself checked out.’
He felt Taro tense.
Nual spoke slowly and carefully, as though each word was fragile, potentially dangerous. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know . . .’ He’d assumed she’d probably use contraception, until he thought about the kind of solitary life she must have led. ‘Precautions, as in—’
‘No,’ she said, her voice as cold as space. ‘I did not.’ She stared at him for a moment, then flinched. ‘Why did you not tell me this before?’ she hissed.
‘Tell her what?’ Taro’s voice was loud in Jarek’s ear. ‘What is it?’ He pulled back.
Jarek wanted to go up to the bridge and pretend he was still alone on his ship. But even before these two had come into his life he’d already started thinking differently. His experiences on Serenein had changed him; he was no longer just a footloose trader, and his ship was no longer a lonely refuge from which to view the universe. He sighed and turned to Taro. ‘It’s something I forgot to say. I only worked this out recently. Everyone thinks the Sidhe are aliens, a different race to humans. They’re not, at least not exactly. They’re humans who’ve mutated - they’ve been changed genetically. We had a common ancestor, that’s for sure, so it’s possible—’
Nual cut across him. ‘I will do as you suggest. Are there any other revelations you have kept back from us?’
‘No,’ said Jarek, ‘and I didn’t mean to hide anything, but the Sidhe screwed me up pretty badly. I’m still getting my life back. If I haven’t been as up front as I could’ve been, then I’m sorry.’ In passing, he wondered if Taro had noticed that she said
us
, not
me
.
If he did, he didn’t say anything, and neither did Nual. Jarek was tempted to leave them to it, but it looked like restoring harmony on his ship was down to him. ‘So,’ he said as casually as he could, ‘is it just the three of us for breakfast?’ He hoped it was. The atmosphere was bad enough already.
Nual pushed her chair back and stood up. She turned to face them. ‘That is right. There will just be the three of us.’
Jarek wasn’t sure whether it was intuition or Nual’s failure to fully shield her emotions, but he knew something terrible had happened.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Where is he?’
‘The pilot is dead.’
‘
What?
’
‘He is dead, Jarek. I killed him.’
Taro made a strangled noise. Jarek felt his knees buckle. ‘I - where is he?’ he asked stupidly.
‘In the spare cabin.’
‘Wait,’ said Taro, his voice breaking, ‘that can’t be right. You—You can’t . . . you didn’t.’
‘I did.’ Her voice gentle, she said, ‘It was his wish to die. I granted that wish.’
‘You’re saying you killed him, but didn’t fuck him?’ said Taro.
‘I am saying that I gave him the death he craved.’
Taro rushed forward, then caught himself. ‘No fucking way!’
‘Shit, Nual,’ said Jarek, as his imagination worked through what she’d just said.
‘That was our deal,’ said Nual. ‘That he be allowed to die in the bliss he was addicted to; in return he let down his barriers and permitted me into his mind.’
Taro stared at her in disbelief.
Jarek said, ‘Listen, when I said we needed to find out what he knew—Having sex with someone is one thing; taking their life is something else!’
‘And what did you plan to do with him?’ asked Nual.
‘My plan? I was going to find out what I could - without killing or seriously hurting him - then drop him off somewhere so he could get over what’d happened to him and find a new life.’
‘He would
never
be able to
get over it
!’ Nual’s voice was fierce. ‘Do you not understand? He had been with the Sidhe since he was a boy -
they were his life
- and without them, he was already dead inside. All I did was complete the process.’
‘Ah, right, so it was a mercy killing, was it?’
‘It was, though if you choose not to see it that way then I will have to accept that. You know what I am.’ She sounded upset, and Jarek’s initial horror and anger began to give way to pity.
Was she doing that to him? Was she influencing his feelings, making him understand her actions, even though she’d just murdered a stranger?
She shook her head. ‘I keep my promises, Jarek. Even the difficult ones. Your feelings are your own.’
‘So, was it worth it?’ said Taro bitterly. ‘’Cos if you fucked him and killed him and you never got any secrets out of his head, well, that’d be a top prime joke, wouldn’t it?’ From Taro’s tone of voice he thought it was anything but funny. But he had a point.