Olivia (110 page)

“
And so it is clear you still do not understand my nature.  It is like breathing, Olivia Blake.  You can choose to take a breath, choose to hold it a while, choose to release it as a pant, a sigh, a word or a whistle, but whether you choose to or not, you still have to breathe.  And if you do none of these things by choice, you will breathe anyway, do you see
?”

“I think so.”

“
Good.  So try to imagine how it is with me.  I must wait for her all that while, and mere minutes after she arrives, she is gone
.”

“Minutes?”

“
At most
.”

Olivia wasn’t exactly warming up to him, but she found a tiny kernel of sympathy for him all the same.  “Why don’t you just find another woman?”

“
Urga exists to bear my children
,” he said curtly.  “
It is her purpose and hers alone.  In her mind, all those who lie with me seek to rob her of her sole function, and she would take a terrible revenge
.”

“She knows about me,” Olivia argued.  “She was the one who told me I had to submit to you.  I don’t think she cares that much.”

He gave his horns a toss and glowered at her.  “
Urga knows that you and I must have union, but she does not like it.  If my will were a little weaker, or hers a little stronger, you would be killed in the most gruesome manner that she could imagine
.”

“Have you tried to take another lover?”

“
Several
.”

“How can she stop you?”

“
She doesn’t stop
me
,” he answered vehemently.  “
Urga is mother to all gullan.  It is through her body that all souls must pass.  It is but an idle thought to take back one of those souls.  If I lie with a female, Urga knows, and Urga kills her.  If I possess a male’s body to share his passions, Urga kills them both.  And if I dare to seek out one of Bahgree’s get
—”

“You made her,” Olivia interrupted.  “Make her stop.”

He buried his face in his hands.  For a long time, he said nothing, only sat there, breathing slow.  “
Olivia
,” he said in a muffled voice.  “
If you insist upon asking questions, I must insist you listen to the answers.  Hear me again. Urga was part of me once, but was expelled.  I am her mate, and she obeys me, but she is my shadow, my equal in power.  I cannot force her obedience
.”  He straightened suddenly and pierced her with his stare, saying, “
But as you were told this night, Bahgree’s essence has become a power greater even than my own.  When you have consumed them and are made immortal at my side, then
you
will challenge Urga and defeat her. Then you will be my mate and, if you like, I will take many lovers
.”

“How very considerate,” she said. 

His gaze turned briefly dark, but he chose to forgive the sarcasm.  “
I have answered all your questions.  Lie back for me now
.”

“Are you serious?” she protested, mentally wincing at the whining quality of her words.  “It’s nearly dawn!”

“
It is hours until dawn
,” he countered, drumming the fingers of one hand on his knee.  “
You have nowhere else to be, you have sworn to be my consort, you require my seed to strengthen your power, and if you do not agree at once in spite of these reasonable arguments, I will throw you down and take you anyway
.”

“Oh, all right,” she said, standing.  “But this time, you lie down.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.  “
Why
?”

“Because you’ve already scraped my back up once tonight,” she said crossly.  “And once is all you get.  If you want to do this, then you lie down.”

He regarded her suspiciously, not moving.  “
You
,” he said, “
are trying to trick me
.”

She blinked at him, pulling her skirt up.  “What are you talking about?”

“
Males do not lie down
,” he stated.  “
It cannot be done that way
.”

She stared at him.  “Are you serious?” she asked at last.

His only answer was a silent, furious snarl. 

To distract him, she undressed rather than simply lift her skirt.  “It can,” she said, standing naked before him.  “Would I lie to you?”

He flicked his gaze up from his open appraisal of her flesh and glared at her.  “
Yes
.”

She put her hands on his shoulders and coaxed him around, then pushed him back on the bench.  It took quite a bit of pushing, and all the while, he glared reproachfully up at her.  “
I warn you now that if you think you can incapacitate me here and then flee, I shall run you down and oh
,” he finished, as she swung one leg over him and eased slowly over his jutting member.  He frowned, obviously flustered, pushing himself up just slightly on his elbows to watch her fit them together.  “
Just so
.”

Olivia bit her lip and bore down, using her power to assuage the pain of his entry, but gaining little ground.  “Help me,” she said at last, and rushed to add, “Slowly!” as he immediately seized her.

He eyed her with mild puzzlement, then lifted his head to study the join of their bodies.  He lifted her, shot a hot rush of semen between them, and levered her down again, pulling on her hips like handles.  “
This is…different
,” he remarked.

In exasperation, Olivia combed through the pelt of his chest, discovered a nipple, and tongued it while simultaneously stabbing at him with a knife of her power.

“
Unnngh!
”  The Great Spirit’s head flew back to crack on the bench and his hips thrust fiercely upwards as his hands clenched, slamming their bodies together with a brutal slap.  He thrummed once, then noticed where her mouth was at and curiosity briefly replaced the look of lust on his face.  He reached up to hunt out his other nipple with one claw.  “
I
have these
?” he marveled.  “
Why would I have done that
?”

Olivia slipped her hand beneath his and rolled the hard nub between her fingers, catching the one in her mouth between her teeth and blowing on it lightly.

The Great Spirit shuddered, clenched his hand on hers.  “
Perhaps this is not entirely unpleasant
,” he said.  “
I will indulge you in this
.” 

All in all, not a very impressive reaction, considering what it had done to other gullan.  Olivia studied him from the corner of her eyes as she lashed at him with her tongue, and then decided to try something different.  She pulled back from her body, but remained where she could see herself.  Honing all the power at her command, she began to manipulate herself and him: undulating and gripping him with her body, running her hands across every exposed part of him, applying her teeth and tongue to all the places most sensitive to touch.  She raked her nails across his thick hide, then caressed him tenderly, arched and rocked and circled and ground, and all the while she used her power to amplify the sensations she inflicted on him. 

Her mind floated, surveying her puppet body with a certain smugness as she worked.  Although she did not concern herself with so menial a concept as time, she was vaguely aware that she was siphoning energy out of him in a constant stream, using it to soothe the damage he inevitably did to her physical body as the minutes ticked by into hours.

She came to herself abruptly at the onset of a strange, unfamiliar sensation—a relentless coiling of white-hot power, emanating, not from her, but from the Great Spirit.  After a moment of worried confusion, she recognized the signs of strain and realized he was rising towards the cusp of an orgasm.  She sensed that she could push him higher, but that his cumming was going to be an ordeal for them both, and this was the limit of her mortal body.

She satisfied herself with that, overlapping their sexual wavelengths, and bringing them to a sudden, violent joining.  Sensation slammed into her, trailing raw power behind, a fiery comet with a tail of ice.  She cried out, but the sound was lost in his deafening roar.

Olivia’s mind scrambled back from the black tide of his climax, her spirit self working desperately to keep her physical husk alive in the grip of the god.  From this frightened distance, she could sense herself undergoing the single most painful moment of her existence; she knew instinctively that it could have killed her to be wholly there, and would have surely made her insane.

Olivia saw herself rise smoothly into the air as he arched off the bench, still roaring.  He came for what felt like an eternity, and then dropped back onto the stone with a jarring thud.  Her puppet fell limply atop him while her spirit remained hovering out of mental range, watching.

He put a hand on the small of her back, panting.  His eyes were closed.  His pelt was spiky with sweat.  He was done.  For the first time in his timeless existence, he was done.

Olivia’s consciousness stuck a toe into her body, decided it was safe, and dove back in.  She jerked, groaned, and tried to crawl deeper into his flesh.

He put the other arm around her.

The little heat she’d begun this enterprise with was now a roaring bonfire, and even so, it was having difficulty consuming the deluge of energy she’d stolen from the Great Spirit.  She could feel it throbbing inside her, feel a kind of burning itch all over her body as though she were sweating it out from her pores in an invisible aura.

Olivia shuddered, eliciting a sleepy-sounding murmur from the male beneath her.  She sympathized; she had been keyed-up before, but she was exhausted now.  “I have to go to sleep now,” she mumbled.

“
Then do so
,” he replied, and yawned.  His hands were still clasped around her.

She could feel herself dozing off at his suggestion, but roused herself with some effort.  “I have to go home to sleep,” she clarified, pushing herself into a sitting position.

His locked hands slid to her hips.  He watched her lazily through pleasure-slitted eyes as she stretched and yawned and tried to keep her own eyes open.  “
Sleep here
,” he offered generously.  “
I will hold watch over y
—”  He broke off, his eyes widening by slow degrees until he was gaping outright at her.

Instinctively, she checked the doorway, but found it empty.  Puzzled, she returned his stare.  “What?”

He seized her hips and lifted her into the air, sitting up in the same fluid movement to stare at his flaccid penis.  He made a sound, one just a little too tight and strangled to be a true scream.

Olivia, her hands resting over his and her toes dangling over the ground, finally realized what he was fussing over.  “That happens, you know,” she said mildly.

“
This is normal
?”  He prodded at himself, dumbstruck.

Olivia disguised her sigh as another yawn.  “When a male orgasms, he ceases to be hard.  It’s totally natural.”

“
But
—”

“Relax.  If I gave you ten minutes, you’d be on me again.”  She broke off when she saw the gleam in his eye.  “But I’m not going to give you ten minutes,” she said sternly.  “I know you don’t care or anything, but I’m tired.  I want to go home and go to sleep.”

He didn’t look as disappointed as she expected.  He set her down on her feet and watched her dress.  “
Strangely, I find that I do care
,” he said after several minutes, when Olivia no longer remembered what had prompted the ambiguous comment.  “
More now than ever.  Tell me, did you help me to arrive only because I never had before
?”

“Arrive?”

He furrowed his brow in thought.  “
Is that not what you called it
?”

“Oh,” she said, bewildered.  Then, as she realized what he meant, “Oh!  Actually, I didn’t expect you to cum at all, I was just trying to…see how far I could push you,” she finished, after a brief pause in which she decided that, ‘make you hurry up and get off me,’ wasn’t the most considerate way to end the conversation.

He acknowledged this with a grunt and stood up, resuming his towering posture over her and lowering his impressive horns.  “
You mean to leave me now, then.  This is not wise.  Unless you stand before me, I am no longer able to hear your calls.  It would be better that you remain with me until it is time to begin our journey
.”  He paused to study the dismay that surely flooded her face, then grunted again.  “
Far better.  And yet I am pleased by your service to me this night.  We shall hold to our bargain, Olivia Blake.  You shall return to me often to strengthen your power, and I shall await you.
”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.  The risk of being trapped here with him, never to see any face but his until he carried her off to fight Bahgree hadn’t even occurred to her.  “I’ll be certain to come back when I’m in season.”

“
Yes.  And you will bring me to arrival during our coupling.  A compromise
,” he concluded triumphantly, and sat down on the bench to wait.

CHAPTER SIX

LAST DAYS

1

Olivia went to the women’s tunnels and stayed there.  She helped out in the clinic as much as she could, and when there wasn’t enough to do, spent her days hard at work with the gullan females.  If the tribe needed directing, she sent Horumn to deliver her orders.  Now and then, Doru dropped by in his role as chief hunter either to bring meat or ask—for diplomacy’s sake alone—her permission to fly a night hunt.  She didn’t try to see Sudjummar even when he came to bring the odd tool, but sometimes Amy slipped in with Somurg and let her hold her son.  It didn’t help the way she’d thought it would; when she looked down into his scowling face, a part of her already seemed to be leaving him.