He did not deserve such a gift, yet still she reached for him, her open desire honest and guileless. She argued that it was no hardship, yet how could that be? He was using her to maintain what little freedom he had. If he were a decent man, he would not.
Leaning into him, she exhaled softly, her breath warming the base of his throat.
Awareness bloomed, matching the throb from yielding heat in his palm. His entire being converged on those points, and all thoughts of decency and gallantry fled on angel wings.
She was woman, and he wanted her, wanted this. He could do nothing to stop it.
Twisting around in the circle of his arms, Asrial pulled her blouse over her head and flung it aside. With her hands on his shoulders, she pushed him back. A stack of crates cut off his retreat, hitting the backs of his knees and forcing him to sit. She straddled his lap, her strong calves gripping his hips, the long muscles of her back flexing against his palms.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she tugged loose his braid and sank her hands in his hair, impatiently unraveling the strands—and for the first time that he could remember, it did not matter that his hair was long enough to be so handled. At that moment all that mattered was that she held him.
The uncounted years of servitude were the farthest things from Romir’s mind as she tugged a thick handful of hair to her face and inhaled, her eyes falling shut in a look of bliss.
Just from that?
Then she bent over him with a lazy smile. Her breath warmed his lips, made them throb to the beat of an unbeating heart—impossible but undeniable. This form only mimicked life. Cut him, and he would not bleed. Yet his lips ached for her kiss, ached for the touch of her lips. Whether firm pressure or fleeting, it did not matter. Only that it was Asrial’s.
Romir pushed up, eliminating the finger’s breadth of air separating them. Sweet. A tenderness he had almost forgotten could exist, trapped as he was in this eternal death.
Her kiss filled him, spilling kindness and caring into his parched soul and unbidden generosity into his barren world. He yearned only to remain in this paradise.
She pushed his shirt off his shoulders, her intent obvious. Rather than release her, he let his clothes vanish back into the mists of power he had used to form them.
This dream that was no dream spun a cocoon of delight around his senses. Small, strong hands fondled him, held him. Fingertips roughened by honest effort explored his body. Soft curls tickled his chest, his belly, and lower . . . his inner thighs as she slid off his lap to kneel on the floor.
Asrial licked him slowly, leisurely, taking her time as she twirled the tip of her tongue up his length from the base to the tip and along the sensitive ridge. Pleasure flooded him in fiery waves, burning the hold of his prison to mere threads.
Romir groaned, grabbing the sides of the crate he sat on.
“Stay with me,” she whispered against him, her warm breath ruffling his short hairs in a moist caress.
As though he could wish to be elsewhere!
She used her mouth on him, her lips impossibly soft as she kissed and nibbled and sucked along his shaft. As though she wanted to eat him—except she had never evinced this much enjoyment with food. Hot delight clawed and danced up his spine, uncontrollable shivers sweeping his body.
Asrial watched him intently, amber glinting in her brown eyes as the flat of her tongue slathered him with wet heat. She plied her tongue with a sure instinct for pleasure, gliding over and around him, swirling without pause.
There was no mistaking her exultation at his response or the smile she wore just before she took the tip of his head into her mouth. He watched her pink lips close around him, the heart he did not have racing impossibly.
Need burned, seared, scorched—a carnal hunger she fed with her intimate kisses. There was no mistaking her desire—for him, for this—and that knowledge made his need burn hotter.
Her agile fingers stroked his balls, playing teasing scratching games on the thin skin. When she took them into her mouth and sucked, he nearly went up in flames.
Romir jerked at the sharp lash of pleasure, his hips rising. Shocked by the strength of his response, he did not feel the jolt when he landed back on the crate at her urging. A firestorm raged in his body, stoked by her avid encouragement.
Pleasure racked him, his shaft swollen almost to the point of pain. The flames of her making leaped high in his veins, ready to consume him.
“I—you—” His thoughts were scattered to the wind. He could not set them to words.
“That’s right. That’s it,” Asrial crooned, her breath on his damp flesh sparking another wave of excitement. She crawled up his yearning body and cradled him with hers. With sure hands, she guided him to her entrance and sank down with a wordless cry of pleasure.
Whatever his doubts, he could have none about her desire. At this moment, he had to believe that for her this lovemaking was not hardship.
She was wet, the clasp of her body glove-tight yet yielding to his entry. The warmth of her, the slickness, the pressure around him combined to stimulating, nerve-blazing effect. But all too soon she reversed her direction, rocking to her knees and denying him her heat. She rode him in short, shallow digs, dipping and rising and taking barely more than his sensitive head. Too shallow.
He lunged up, needing more, needing her. She took him deeper, but it still was not enough. Hugging her close, he dropped to his knees and laid her out on the floor, the better to pleasure her.
Asrial gave a startled shout, her eyes bright with surprise, her arms locked on his shoulders. She paused, assimilating their new position, then she hooked her ankles behind his thighs, her strong legs clamping around his waist and driving him deep to their mutual delight.
Finally—
finally!
—she took all of him. All the way to the center of her being.
Each thrust drew a moan of approval from her, low and hoarse and exquisitely sweet. Exquisitely precious. The sound was reward enough.
Again!
Romir slowly withdrew, prolonging the delicious torture of his senses. Though he could take no release, that edge of pain was precious—sure proof that his prison was not held by Mugheli hands. Only with Asrial had he felt such excruciating delight.
It was too soon to end it.
He whetted the hunger, honing the fiery edge of pleasure until it bordered on agony. He savored the sensations racking his body, the pangs of delight cutting him with jagged teeth.
Asrial cried out—triumphant, exultant. A joyful shout of abandon, free of all cares. The voice of a woman thoroughly and properly pleasured. Her body shuddered around him, ecstasy rippling through her in savage waves.
Hungry for sensation, he coaxed it on, spinning out the aftermath until she fell into an exhausted sleep, a smile curving her lips. Nothing about her sated stretch belied the appearance of contentment. No tension knotted her muscles.
An unfamiliar sensation filled his chest, a lightness of the heart despite the continued ache in his loins. That she could lie there so blissfully and he was the one who had given her that was a source of wonder.
He was djinn. The gods did not smile on such as he.
Romir laid Asrial
on her bed and—mindful of her dislike for his watching her while she slept—reluctantly left her cabin. Without her to occupy his mind, his thoughts circled back to the events of the day when he had pulled on the strands around him to brighten the lights in the corridor and to check for tampering.
It had been a long time since he had been called to weave power, but that minor tweaking of threads should not have wearied him so much that he began to fade. He remembered destroying entire cities, raining down fire from the sky, torrents of whirling blue flame melting everything before them, before succumbing to the call of his prison. Had that been because he had been commanded? Did the master’s will somehow ease a djinn’s chains?
If so, he could not be separated from Asrial for long, not if he wished to remain free. The conclusion left him with mixed emotions: while it offered him a measure of freedom, if she knew how much he depended on her, it would give her the shuttle hand in this weave between them.
He owed her his protection, but that was all he was willing to give her. Though he was in her debt for rescuing him from the mists, he could not bring himself to trust in her completely. If she knew the full extent of his betrayal, the millions of lives he had cost, surely she would gladly return him to his prison.
Eleven
The remainder of
their stay at Eskarion 14 passed without incident, though Asrial couldn’t throw off a persistent itch between her shoulder blades that claimed someone was staring at her. Nothing untoward happened. Even the Tehld kept their distance—though that might have been because she limited her excursions from the
Castel
to the cheaper vending kiosks in the docks to avoid the commercial district.
Once they transited, that nagging itch eased.
The Inner World half of the Eskarion Ring was noticeably busier than its Rim-side counterpart. Space traffic was heavier with more small craft, cargo ships, and passenger liners, and fewer freighters and traders than on the Rim. The traffic posed only a minor irritation; she’d transited through Eskarion so often she could have done it blindfolded with one ear to Ring control.
With supplies topped off, there was nothing to keep them hanging around the constellation. That left them almost two decs to make their way to Lyrel—and Amin and the auction.
Unfortunately, since she flew from Eskarion to Lyrel frequently and the course was regularly patrolled, the autopilot could readily handle most of the route between Jumps and stops at stations. That meant time hung heavy on her hands. However much she might want to make the most of having a man to warm her sheets, she could make love only so often before it became too much of a good thing.
The more time she spent with Romir, the more she wanted to know about him. And her heart railed against his slavery, that he was trapped in the “undying existence” of a djinn.
There had to be a way to free him.
Asrial stared at the rare example of Majian pottery. Intact. The only one of its kind, to her knowledge, which made it precious beyond belief. Glowing a golden brown, the flask represented so many possibilities. A complete and thorough upgrade for the
Castel
. Her promise to her cousins to visit. Seed capital for her emergency fund.
But no matter the cost, she couldn’t sell Romir’s prison. Selling it was unconscionable, and mourning the lost credits was a waste of time.
Despite her Rim rat’s disappointment, she suspected her parents would have approved. Whatever her circumstances, however much she might try to forget, she’d been raised a sovreine, and a sovreine was supposed to consider what was best for those under her care. For Jamyl Kharym Rashad of House Dilaryn that had meant abdication; for her that meant freeing Romir.
Fact of the matter was, she probably wouldn’t make enough on her cargo to refurbish the
Castel
, not if she was serious about freeing Romir. To do that, she needed more funds.
She’d have to sell the Dilaryn jewels. Though she’d steeled herself to the necessity, though she’d never worn them nor had any intention to do so, the decision still felt like a betrayal of her father. Her parents had worked so hard as traders—shuttling around a group of star systems while raising her in the
Castel
. They’d managed without selling a single piece. Despite his abdication, her father had considered it as much a sacred trust as Salima, House Dilaryn’s hereditary domain on Lomida. She’d kept that in mind when repairing the
Castel
after the pirate attack that had killed them.
But searching for a way to free Romir meant extraordinary expenses over and above those she incurred as a Rim rat. There would be added costs in time and research. But she’d meant it, then and now, when she vowed to free him. She couldn’t weld her hopes to another big find. She needed to secure funds now, not some nebulous point in the future.
Her heart shuddered like a failing thruster, laboring to move blood turned cold, but she’d never been one to avoid unpleasant duties. Best to catalog the jewels now and choose which to sell. Putting it off till later wouldn’t make it any easier.
Entering the cabin where she’d stored her parents’ belongings for safekeeping was unexpectedly difficult. The barren sterility of the space brought back the shock of their deaths and the disbelief of the succeeding days. Gathering their possessions and putting them away had been an exercise in tears and pain. She hadn’t had the heart to dispose of anything, even though it cut into the
Castel
’s available storage space.
“Lights, full.” With trembling fingers, Asrial keyed open the locker with her mother’s finery. The gems sparkled in a blinding display of wealth—crowns, rings, pins, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, armlets, whatever-lets—many of which her mother had probably never worn, the gaudy and ancient designs, especially. Most had come to Nasri upon her marriage into House Dilaryn, but she never used them that Asrial could remember.
“Never forget that you were born a sovreine.”
Her mother had been insistent. But Asrial preferred to do precisely that. The accident of her birth had never done her any good.
There were more treasures—the priceless historical tracts that were her mother’s delight, all loaded onto thousands of memory cubes, precisely cataloged. Nasri had been a historian at heart and by training. Asrial had lost count of the number of times she’d found a gem of information that had helped her with her relics. But those were tucked out of sight, their data accessible through the
Castel
’s comp.
Her eyes skimmed past an intricate earring with dangling swirls of gold and diamonds that looped and relooped in a three-dimensional replica of the symbol of Lomidar royalty. Nasri had worn it, but Asrial had no intention of taking up those airs. She didn’t style herself a sovreine and saw no reason to pretend otherwise even in the privacy of her own ship.