WarriorsandLovers (6 page)

And kept falling. The ground that should have slammed into
him turned into a thick, blood-red mist. Waves of sound crashed against his
eardrums, the pain tearing and unbearable. His scream was an internal
convulsion, unvocalized and unheard. He couldn’t feel his hands, his arms, his
legs. He tried to breathe but there was no air.

The red in front of his eyes exploded into molten gold and
black.

Slowly, like a creeping insect, consciousness began to
nibble at his brain. The first thing he became aware of was the rise and fall
of his chest, then the solid feel of a hard surface against his back. He flexed
his fingers and wriggled his toes. No pain. No sound either, but he couldn’t
tell for the moment whether that was because the explosion had left him deaf or
there was nothing to hear in this place.

He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath and opened his eyes
to a mellow amber glow. For a moment there was nothing else—no definition, no
detail—then his eyes began to adjust. He noticed texture, rough and irregular.

The texture resolved itself into a rock wall, part of a
wide, high tunnel. The glow came from the rock itself, as if it had some
internal source of illumination.

He sat up and scooted backward so the rock wall gave him
some protection from behind. The slight movement of his feet scraped against
the sandy floor, letting him know his hearing still worked, but other than that
and the sound of his breath, the silence remained unbroken.

With agonizing slowness, his heart pounding, he moved
forward. Gently, carefully, he eased the backpack from his shoulders.

His fingers trembled as he unbuckled the straps and opened
the bag to reveal a thick layer of bubble wrap. Squinting to see through the
blurriness of his vision, he lifted one corner. Nothing seemed to be disturbed
or broken. His breath rushed out of his lungs. With even more care than he’d
removed the pack, he shrugged it back into position and scrambled to his feet.

He shook his head, trying to focus on the right course of
action. He couldn’t stay here, exposed and disorientated. He knew he had to
head south but the featureless walls were the same in both directions. Nothing
looked anything like the hand-drawn maps Hopewood had shown him during his
training.

For fuck’s sake. He had a compass! Before they reached
Stonehenge, Hopewood had given him a compass that he’d put… He shook his head, trying
to clear the confused fog from his mind. In his pocket. The side pocket of his
pants.

He bent down, undid the button, pulled out a solid metal
case and snapped it open. The needle, safe in its glass housing, swung gently
for a moment then settled into a steady north-south alignment. The passage he
was in ran south-west rather than due south but it was close enough.

He hoped.

The last thing he wanted to do was wander into a living
Dvalinn city. Maybe his appearance would let him pass for a Dvalinn but he had
no desire to test the theory.

He pulled out the pencil and paper he’d stashed in his other
pocket. He’d have liked to use a GPS with automatic recording of waypoints, but
Hopewood had insisted they wouldn’t work in the underworld, and wouldn’t let Elijah
have access to anything like that anyway.

The old-fashioned ways had worked for the explorers of the
surface world. They’d have to work for him too. He squared his shoulders and
took the first step on his journey.

* * * * *

“I found one,” Eora cried. “I can’t believe you don’t
remember learning about them.”

Nieko shook his head in disbelief. Things fell into place
for Eora. Okay, so maybe he had been taught about these emergency shelters when
he was at school. But he was willing to bet that, like him, most people
completely forgot about their existence. When everyone teleported from place to
place, who cared if some over-cautious committee in the past had made a law
decreeing that shelters must be maintained at strategic points in the tunnel
system—just in case?

Most travellers were sensible and had no need of these
precautions. There couldn’t be two people like Eora who insisted on doing
things her way, regardless of law, convenience or sense.

“This will be a good place to stop. There’s water and a food
cache.” She peered into the glistening black-walled room. “It doesn’t look as
if it’s been used.” A smile curved her luscious full lips. “No one would think
of looking for us here. We shouldn’t be disturbed.”

Nieko nodded dumbly. He couldn’t think of anything to say,
mostly because he couldn’t think at all. He was going to do something really
stupid. No doubt about it. His brain, deciding he was beyond redemption, had
switched itself off in disgust.

He looked around him. The room had cooking equipment and a
couple of clean and comfortable-looking beds. He’d have been happier if they’d
had to sleep on the stone floor. In separate rooms.

Eora was already poking through the packages on the shelf
carved into the rock wall. “Some of this stuff looks pretty tasty,” she said.
“We should use it and save our supplies in case we get stuck somewhere where we
need them.”

Nieko grunted something he hoped sounded like agreement. If
he was really lucky the stored food would be contaminated and they’d get food
poisoning. No one could think about sex while they were busy throwing up.

“I’ll cook,” he said. “Your turn tomorrow.”

Surely the mundane tasks of heating water and making sure
the food didn’t burn would dampen his raging horniness.

His condition wasn’t helped by the absence of anywhere to
sit except for the damn beds. Although he kept his back turned, he could hear
Eora wriggling around, making herself comfortable. Every rustle and sigh made
his cock twitch.

He drowned out the sounds by clattering the utensils, taking
more time and making more mess than he needed to.

When it was ready, the concentration he needed to stop the
reconstituted freeze-dried stew from spilling gave him a perfect excuse to keep
his gaze fixed on the floor.

“Here,” he said, his voice gruff, hand outstretched blindly.

She took the stew from him, her hand brushing softly against
his. He let go a long, slow breath and turned to take a seat on the other bed.
Before he reached its beckoning safety, Eora patted the space beside her. “Sit
next to me.”

He should say no or ignore the request, but Eora would want
to know why. Eora
always
wanted to know everything. What could he say?
If he lied, she’d know. If he told the truth…

He swallowed, feeling the convulsive jerk of his Adam’s
apple, and let himself sink onto the covers beside her.

She patted his leg and leaned against him, shoulder to
shoulder, “This is much nicer. I don’t want you all the way over there.”

Nieko looked at the other bed, no more than three feet away.
Three feet was nothing but at the moment those thirty-six inches meant the
difference between sanity and the certain knowledge he was doomed.

He shoveled the food into his mouth, swallowing by rote,
tasting nothing. His senses were saturated with Eora. The warm spot on his
shoulder where she touched him, the spicy, sweet smell that filled his
nostrils, the soft hum of her voice as she murmured something about the meal.

He hadn’t realized he was sitting there, empty bowl cradled
in his hands, until Eora took it from him, placing it on the floor alongside
hers.

“I have dessert,” she said, reaching into her bag and
pulling out a bar, sticky with honey from the hives in the farm caves.

She took a bite then held it out to him. His lips closed
around the place where hers had been. His heart thudded in his chest. His cock
grew ramrod stiff and he moaned.

“Yeah, it’s really good, isn’t it?” Eora said. “I got it
from a woman who specializes in—”

Her mouth was open mid-sentence. All sense and reason
deserted him. He dropped his hands onto her shoulders and covered her lips with
his.

Honey! She tasted like honey—rich and warm. He licked into
her, wanting more, wanting everything. Wanting Eora.

She hummed a little note of satisfaction. The vibration
drove him wild. He tumbled backward into the bedding. Lips still fused, her
weight settled on top of him, her soft breasts pressing into his chest, the
concave of her stomach rubbing against his erection.

With every beat of his heart, his blood pumped into his cock,
making it harder. His balls ached with need. Eora wriggled and he thought he’d
explode. He focused every drop of willpower he could muster on the gargantuan
task of not coming just from the feel of her, fully clothed, stretched along
his body.

She wriggled again, slipping her top off over her head and
pushing her pants down over slim hips.

Nieko knew she had smallish, firm breasts. He’d spent most
of the last few years telling himself not to notice their arousing jiggle
during combat practice, or when she ran, or when she bounced around in a welter
of enthusiasm for some new scheme.

He hadn’t known her nipples would be rosy tan, tight little
buds in a soft circle of sweet flesh. He reached up to touch one, reverently,
tentatively.

“Oh yes,” she sighed. “That feels so good.”

Then she grinned. “My turn.”

She snapped open the fastenings of his pants. The breath
froze in his lungs. His muscles tightened into rigidity. Shivers danced across
his skin.

The cool glide of her fingers circling his penis shattered
his control. He flipped her over, rising up on his elbows, and ran his mouth
over her, taking hard, stinging kisses he soothed with a quick wash of his
tongue, soft sucking caresses and long, indulgent licks.

She returned his attention with an exploration of her own.
They writhed against each other, hands sliding and caressing. With every stroke
of her hands, Nieko’s fever burned higher and he knew he was going to say
something—say something stupid. If he didn’t do something to take himself
mentally in hand, he’d come in
Eora’s
hand right now.

All Dvalinn did a stint of compulsory combat training. After
the destruction of Ogof and the other two cities, Nieko had been so angry he’d
signed up for more formal training and thrown himself into it with a diligence fueled
by his desire to protect his people. Now he turned his skills to a use he was
pretty sure the tough, abrasive instructors had never thought of.

One of the first things they’d taught him was how to ignore
physical sensations that interfered with getting the job done—heat, cold,
hunger, thirst, pain. Well hell, Nieko was coping with a barrage of physical
sensations and if he didn’t shrug them off the wrong job was going to get done.

Calling on responses imprinted on him through hours and
hours of practice, he began to desensitize. He willed himself not to react to
the sparks sizzling along his nerve endings. He could push through it, as he
pushed through the shock of extreme cold. To completely resist Eora’s touch was
impossible, but he could—he would—block it out enough to let him survive this
battle. A battle not with Eora but with himself. He had to win, had to be able
to put his own driving need aside to give Eora everything she wanted.

Make it about her.

He sank deeper into another layer of resistance. He became
aware of the speed of his breathing and slowed it. The red fog faded from his
brain and he took another mental step back.

Groping and panting and rushing like a sex-starved
adolescent wasn’t going to make either of them happy. Eora had already
experienced that and had openly stated she hadn’t enjoyed it. Nieko had had
years of fantasizing about the ways he would make love to Eora if he ever dared
to take the chance. All he had to do was put it into practice, follow the
script and bring her to a series of screaming orgasms. She would never love
him, because she could not imagine such an emotion, but he would give her true
sexual pleasure.

He moved onto his knees, straddling her. Her hands stroked
across any part of him she could reach, so he clamped them together, lifting
them over her head and pinning them there. He reached down one-handed and
untied and unthreaded the laces of his boots, whipping one around her slender
wrists and lashing them to the bedpost. Her eyes widened and her tongue slipped
out to moisten her lips. “What are you doing?”

“Showing you how good sex can be,” he said, proud of how
steady his voice sounded and how little of his nervousness and excitement
showed through.

“Do you have to tie me up?” she asked.

“I won’t hurt you,” he replied. “Trust me.”

“I do, Nieko. I would never let anyone else do this to me.”

He knew it was true. Eora was a warrior in her own right, as
strong and as fast as many men. That she would let him do this to her without
trying to break his bones into small pieces made him even more determined to do
this right.

Using his belt and the other bootlace, he tied her feet,
splayed wide apart, to the bottom of the bed.

He leaned back and looked at her, lingering where her thighs
parted. A faint pink blush tinged her skin and the soft aroma of aroused woman
floated to his nostrils. He closed his eyes and bit down on the inside of his
cheek until he tasted blood.

“Nieko, I…”

He placed his fingers on her mouth. “Hush. I don’t want you
to say another word.”

Her luscious lips closed and she nodded. Nieko drew a deep
breath. Control. Distance. Detachment. Do it for her. Do it to her, but not
with her.

He ran the tip of his finger from her forehead, along her
cheek, circled her ear and dropped to her neck. “I’m going to kiss you here,
here and here,” he whispered stroking across her breasts, settling on her
nipple. “I’m going to take my time here.” The nipple tightened and her back
arched, thrusting it farther toward him.

His hand moved again, cupping her vagina. The little purring
sound she made hummed along his nerves and he bit down again on his already
lacerated cheek.