Gates of Hell (36 page)

He turned toward the door, but froze on a sharp intake of breath. The room around him shifted and changed. The walls went all white, the floor a cool empty blue; a curtained window looked out over a blooming garden. The temperature in the room dropped like a stone. There was a taste of tears in his mouth. Emptiness swelled up and around him. He stretched out, and fell forward.

Space. Cold and dark and endless. He hung in darkness and all he heard was a far-off, anguished scream.

Roxanne. Where was Roxanne?

Pyr wrapped his body around him in a fierce rush of will. He stood in his messy cabin, made his lungs and eyes work and looked around. Frantic urgency tugged at his heart. Fury raced through his blood, along with fear. He had to hurry, do something. Now!

Where was Roxanne?

He stepped toward the fresher, but knew that was no good. He stood in the middle of the room, gathered all his power.

Roxanne!

Darkness turned into a long, endless tunnel with twined threads of gold and fire running through it. He followed the fire. Chased the gold. Was tangled in both.

Roxanne!

She moved ahead of him, beside him, in him, all at once. She was there and gone. Her pain drew him, filled him, became him. Her longing was his. She was leaving. Going. Gone. He ran and fell in the dark and ran again, reeling in the gold that was her, gathering her in, held her soul in his hands, fueled his determination with fury while she fought for freedom. She would not leave him. Not her. He would not be alone. Not again.

Roxanne!

She screamed and he loved the sound.

Roxanne!

Claws and teeth bit into his flesh. A hard blow connected with his jaw. A kick smashed his knee. He kicked back. Blocked a second blow to his head. His smile showed all his teeth. A stone knife flashed toward his gut. He broke her wrist and took the knife.

“Roxanne.”

“What?”

She turned, tossed her hair, and put her hands on the curved flare of her hips. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. Fierce, furious, beautiful-when-she-was-angry Roxanne.

He didn’t let her get away with yelling at him. “What am I doing? What by all the demons beyond the veil do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m in the middle of teleporting. You’re in the middle of getting us both killed.”

“You’re trying to escape.”

He looked around and saw that they stood close together in the middle of nothing. Empty blackness stretched away in this place where only they existed. Inside the mind, infinity is distracting even more than it is disconcerting. He recalled another time they had been locked within each other’s thoughts. Subjective reality, she’d called it, and had passed the understanding of how to manipulate it to him without thinking. He used the knowledge now to put ground under their feet. It was a desert, an empty place under a harsh red sky, a reflection of his own bleak rage.

Pyr watched Roxanne look around and frown, and then a few succulent green plants appeared on the stony ground, and a tiny spring bubbled up out of a rust- and red-striated boulder. Small gray and green birds settled to drink at the shaded pool beneath the boulder. She did not change his creation, but added life to it.

“Improves the real estate a bit,” she said when she looked back at him. She stepped back but he followed her, keeping barely a breath’s distance between them. She finally bumped into the boulder and stayed put. She put her hands on his chest and tried to push him away. He noticed that his chest was bare. He hadn’t noticed before now, but she was naked, too. He smiled. He liked her naked, and it was his subjective reality.

“What were you trying to do?” he demanded, before his attraction to this alien woman overrode his outrage.

“Escape, of course. Why else would I be trying to teleport? You ever tried teleporting?” Her hands had moved to his shoulders. She continued to try to push him away, but the effort was desultory. “It’s a wonder I’m not throwing up all over you right now. Actually,” she added, as she looked past his shoulder at their desert world. “We’re probably in a coma. We might even possibly be dead.”

“How inconvenient.”

He then kissed her. Her hands had stopped pushing him away and had drawn him closer instead, until kissing her was the only possible response he could make. It didn’t feel as if they were comatose or dead from the way they responded to each other. When her hands moved slowly over him, he became quite certain that he was not dead. She didn’t taste dead, or feel anything but soft, warm, and female. He kissed and stroked her for a long time. There was a lot of her to touch. She moved beneath his hands and made small alive sounds that deepened his own desire, sent him searching for more ways to please her.

Then subjective reality set in again and he found himself standing at least ten feet away from Roxanne, aroused, but shaking with outrage as much as with need. She stood opposite him, fists balled at her sides, her anger and need a mirror of his own. He did not know which of them had moved from the other. He didn’t think Roxanne knew either, as her angry eyes looked dark as midnight and as lonely.

“What are you doing?” he heard himself ask, forlorn and aching when he wanted to be outraged and righteous. “Why leave me?”

“You think I want to leave you?”

The words were sharp with sorrow, sharp enough to tear at his flesh and heart. She did not want to leave him, and he could hardly bear the happiness and confusion brought with that knowledge. It was not because of him! Not because he was an alien outcast. Not because he frightened her. They were one and the same being breathing in two different bodies.

“Why?” He was not sure from which of them the word came.

Roxanne waved her hand and the desert became a sea of corpses
—
all with dead, accusing eyes turned on her. Another gesture and the bodies were gone. The chill of death remained just the same. It was a cold wind that blew between them
.

“What choice do you give me?” she asked. “What else can I do but leave?”

“It will kill us both.”

“It will kill my soul,” she agreed. “Your People have yours.”

It was an unfair and damnably true thing to say. But not so true as it had once been. “Your soul is a part of me.” He held her in his arms again. Roxanne clung to him, her head resting on his shoulder. She shook with sobs as he touched her, gentle and fiercely protective at once. He felt her heart beating against his, with his, the same heart, stronger for being doubled.

Roxanne lifted her head and looked deep into his eyes. “Your soul is a part of me.” The words were part of a ritual they knew without having been taught. There was nothing of ritual in the way their mouths sought and clung to each other, sharing a hard, demanding kiss that gave away every last secret of need and desperate wanting. Their souls were naked, vulnerable, and trusting. And they rushed together at the speed of light and with the inevitability of the rise of continents. Nothing could stand between them. Nothing should.

RoxannePyrmylovemylife.

It was but a step, a movement that had no actual movement, but Pyr sensed himself take one small step
—
off a cliff, into infinity, across a boundary of smoke and fire. A whisper-thin barrier blew away
.

He stood naked, with a black stone knife in his hand. He held it aloft. He could kill the universe with this thing.

But he wouldn’t.

She held the clan symbol in her hand; the trio of shining flat stones stood for everything that was good and right and true.

No, they didn’t.

He handed the knife back to Roxanne. She gave the jewelry back to Pyr. They tossed the symbols aside. And smiled at each other.

“All right,” he said. “Now what do we do?”

She grinned at him. “What do you think?”

“
Shalsae
,” Roxanne said. She hit the pillow beside Pyr’s head with her fist. “Damn. I knew this was going to happen!” At least they were alive and back in the solid objective world.
Shalsae
didn’t kill you, but changed you forever. She recalled with an angry groan how the ceremony was begun—with a koltiri teleporting. The rite was also called Soul Catching. Well, Pyr had caught her, all right. She’d brought this on herself, but at least this time she wasn’t nauseated as an after-effect of teleporting. No, this time she was married in the most permanent, perfect way it was possible to be! “God damn it! Why’d we have to do this now?”

“Shut up and enjoy it,” Pyr said, and rolled her onto her back.

She wrapped her legs around his hips. “That’s easy for you to say,” she complained. “You’re not scheduled to be saving the universe this afternoon.”

“It’s on my agenda,” he said, and slowly kissed her breasts. “After we’re through here.” She had large breasts, and he had to be thorough. Nipples to kill for. She gasped as he touched the tip of his tongue to one.

“Who says we’re going to get through here anytime soon?” She sank her nails into his shoulders and drew him down for a long, hard kiss.

“Not me,” he answered eventually, breathless, senses reeling.

“What happened to our clothes?”

He kissed the top of her thigh. “Does it matter?”

“No. Do that again.”

“Rather do this,” he said, and moved his mouth lower still. He knew she enjoyed it because he felt her pleasure as much as she did. She giggled. It was an unexpected sound. He didn’t think he’d ever made a woman giggle before, certainly not in such a low-down dirty, sexy way. He laughed, couldn’t stop it from bursting out of him, and vocal laughter was something he indulged in very rarely.

Get used to it.

He didn’t know if the thought was his or hers, but it only made him laugh harder. The sound filled the room as he collapsed on top of her, shaking with merriment. It occurred to him that he’d interrupted a supremely romantic, erotic moment, and that made him laugh as well.

Roxanne watched Pyr’s face when he began to laugh. The sight and sound of his pleasure sent a shudder of love and longing all the way through her. When had she ever been aroused by laughter? she wondered. And why hadn’t she been? Humor was integral to life, and she loved life. She loved the man who was laughing, even when he dropped his considerable weight on her like a hard-muscled slab of permacrete. She laughed with him, and kissed the top of his head and ran her fingers around the tip of his elegantly pointed ears to see if they were ticklish. From the way he responded, she discovered that his ears were indeed sensitive, but they weren’t ticklish.

“Oh, good, a new erogenous zone,” she said, and began exploring the possibilities of what she could do with his ears. Within a few moments, Pyr wasn’t laughing, but he was making some very interesting sounds. “Temples,” she whispered huskily to him. “Touch my temples and I’m yours.”

“Really?” The look of euphoria on Pyr’s face was replaced by curiosity. The bright glitter of his eyes fascinated her. They were the most beautiful, sharp blue she’d ever seen. She’d thought that since she’d first seen him, and she’d hardly had reason to find the man attractive at the beginning. And how few days ago that had been? Now she couldn’t look at him without finding him perfect, and she’d pretty much found him perfect before melding into
Shalsae
with him.

“My parents were bonded like this,” she said while he kissed her temple, the words coming out in sporadic bursts.

Didn’t know it was possible to bond with an alien.

Stick with me, kid, and we’ll explore lots of possibilities. But we have to save the galaxy while we’re exploring each
—

“Other. Damn!”

“Demons!”

They swore at the same’ time, and found themselves kneeling on the rumpled bedclothes, facing each other. Their desire was in no way diminished, but their attention turned outward once more, to life and death beyond the shelter of this room.
Damn
! Roxanne swore again. She was aware of his arousal and of how his body glistened with sweat. She was on fire. Her pulse raced and all she wanted to do was touch him and stroke him and feel him inside of her.

No, it wasn’t
all
she wanted. Or her conscience wouldn’t have suddenly kicked back in when her body was demanding completion and satisfaction. “What is the matter with me? Do I have some sort of martyr complex?” She kept her gaze locked with his as she pushed hair away from her face. Pyr reached out to take her hand. He kissed her palm, then placed it over his heart and held it there. She turned a bleak smile on him.
Why did I have to remember so soon
—

Because it is who you are. Who we are.

It’s not fair!

Why was she always getting married in the middle of a crisis? Why couldn’t she and Pyr make time for each other? “Why now? Why did we have to bond because you wouldn’t let me escape?”

He tilted his head to one side; humor sparkled in his eyes as much as desire. “I think it has something to do with our being born to be together. That is correct, isn’t it, koltiri?”

“Of course. Embarrassingly romantic, but correct.”

“I’m told I’m something of a romantic. While you are more of a bloody-minded pragmatist.”

She pointed back and forth between them. “You sure you’ve got that right?”

He nodded. A smile curled his mouth. She wanted to kiss him while he smiled. She’d become quite fond of kissing. She sighed instead. “Wrong time and place, right man. A big wedding would have been nice. Why couldn’t I be able to pick out a dress? And have a wedding shower? A honeymoon would be a lovely thing.” She slapped her fist down on the bed. “Instead, we still have to cure the known galaxy of Sagouran Fever and kill whoever’s spreading it.”

He grabbed her free hand and pulled her to him. “Perhaps I should have let you go,” he said. “So you could work on saving the galaxy while I concentrate on the bad guys.”