WarriorsandLovers (7 page)

She was wet and warm. As his finger sank into her channel
his body tightened with the need to bury himself deep inside her. He refused to
weaken.

He thrust once, twice, and withdrew. Her essence perfumed
the air and he fought not to inhale it like some exotic drug.

He let his lips follow the line he’d traced around her
breasts. The spicy-sweet taste of her flooded him, battering at the firewall
he’d built to keep his inner self at bay. He wanted her so much, and he would
have her, but only if he locked all the need inside.

He intoned a wordless, soundless chant as his tongue circled
her nipple, coiling and licking. Her sighs of pleasure hammered at the wall but
he refused to allow it to fall.

As he slid downward toward her clitoris, he shouted the
chant louder in his mind. His muscles tightened until he feared they would
shatter.

He moved deeper, mouth parting her folds, pushing his tongue
into her hot, wet pussy. His cock twitched but he beat the sensation down,
concentrated instead on adjusting the rhythm of his thrusts to her erotic
moans. When he felt her pull taut, he pushed harder, his thumb centering on her
clit, flicking hard fast.

With a scream, she came, the walls of her channel pulsing.
He dropped his forehead onto her stomach, nostrils flaring as he took in the
musky aroma. He closed his eyes and waited until he was sure he could move. He
wanted to come—he would come—but not here, not now. He wanted to be inside her,
wanted his head beside her—and he wanted her eyes closed so she couldn’t see
the depth of his devotion.

* * * * *

Hopewood had chosen Elijah’s insertion point carefully.
Close enough to the target area that Elijah could walk there comfortably but
far enough away from any habitation that the signs of a teleport were likely to
go unnoticed.

He should already have reached the deserted city. Elijah’s
long stride covered ground quickly but the featureless rock walls made it hard
to judge his progress and twice he’d to retrace his steps when he’d turned down
passages that had led him in the wrong direction. No wonder the Dvalinn
teleported between waypoints, maintaining the interconnected tunnels for
emergency use only.

Ahead of him, the glow emanating from the rock walls
brightened, a sure sign he was approaching his target. Elijah picked up his
pace. He had a job to do. The sooner he reached his destination, the sooner he
could carry it out.

As he neared the city, the walls of the passageway opened
out. The rock walls were punctuated here and there with doors made of some
glittering mineral—most likely mica or quartz. The decorative carved, inlaid
surfaces were surprisingly attractive. Elijah had expected the artifacts of the
Dvalinn world to be as grim and cruel as the people who made them.

He pushed against one or two of the doors but they remained
firmly shut. If the Dvalinn who occupied these places on the city outskirts had
fled, they’d had time to lock up. Elijah expected things to be different
further into the city where Hopewood had launched his attack.

The passageway took a sudden turn. Elijah stopped, his feet
frozen to the earthen floor, his mouth open, his senses reeling.

A wide vista opened before him. Gardens overflowing with flowers,
framed by wide arches supporting curling vines. In the distance, green hills
fading to violet stood out against a cloudless blue sky.

Nothing Hopewood had told him had prepared him for this
inexplicable miracle. He hitched his pack more firmly over his shoulder and ran
toward one of the stone arched openings…and slammed up against a solid wall,
hitting his nose so hard that blood poured down over his mouth and chin.

He took a step back, wiped his face with the back of his
hand, then stretched it out. The pastoral scene in front of him was an image—an
exquisite work of
trompe l’oeil
. He knew such things existed on the
surface but surely not as masterfully executed as this. The scale of the work
was extraordinary—the illusion of reality surpassed anything he had ever seen
or could have imagined.

This was the work of a people who loved the surface world,
who knew beauty and who yearned for it. No other explanation for the scope and
detail could exist. Elijah walked through the city, noting the entranceways
concealed in the painted greenery. The entire work was coordinated, giving the
impression of walking into a lush landscape where nothing ugly marred the
perfection of the scene. Every wall was included in the design. No gaps broke
the illusion.

Hopewood
must
have seen the paintings. Elijah knew
for sure he had been to the city—his directions were too accurate. Did he
simply not think the paintings were important? Or did the wonder of it make
Hopewood as uncomfortable as it was making Elijah?

Every translucent leaf, every glitter of golden sunshine,
every blue-black shadow whispered that this was work of gentle, spiritual
people. He shook his head, bringing himself back to reality.

Hopewood hadn’t told him because it made no difference to his
mission. His time as a firefighter had taught him that people were complex. He
remembered the arsonist who’d set a wildfire that blazed out of control,
burning out an entire village, killing twenty-five people. His neighbors
described him as a nice, quiet man. He’d helped out at the local soup kitchen.
A few good deeds did not cancel out evil.

The Dvalinn loved art—they were still the implacable enemy
of humans. Hell, if they longed for the surface so desperately they might be
prepared to wipe out the human race to have access to it.

Second-guessing himself now wouldn’t help. Follow the plan.
This place was at the hub of the complex ventilation channels that served the
underground Dvalinn world. Even though the city itself was now abandoned, it
remained an integral part of the system. Poison gas released here would
circulate quickly and efficiently through intersecting passages, carrying to
the entire underground population, wiping out forever the loathsome Dvalinn
people.

Not people, he remonstrated with himself. Monsters. Forget
what he saw in front of him. The evidence of their inhumanity must lie hidden
within these illusory images.

He grasped a door handle disguised as a bunch of grapes
hanging on a sun-drenched vine and turned it. The door swung open. Elijah
pressed his back against the outside wall and waited. When nothing happened he
peeled his shoulders away from the solid rock and peered cautiously inside.

The room in front of him looked completely normal—so normal that
he reeled back on his heels. The furnishings, the floor covers, the size and
scale of the walls could have been from any apartment building anywhere in
Elijah’s world. The views through the windows were perhaps more idyllic than
you would expect from an urban dwelling, but as in the passageways outside,
these were illusions, cleverly constructed, framed with drapes to add to the
veracity of the experience.

A few quiet steps took Elijah across the room into an
adjoining bedroom. Again, the room looked like any bedroom on the surface. The
bed was made, the pillows fluffed as if waiting for someone to come and rest
there.

Tidy, Elijah realized. Everything was in its place and tidy.
He stormed through the rest of the apartment. There was no sign of panic, no
overturned furniture. The dining room table was set, knives and forks set out
and the chairs pulled back as if the inhabitants had vaporized in the middle of
a meal.

Hopewood’s weapon had obliterated the people of this city.
Wiped them from existence in an instant. But Hopewood’s weapons had only had the
capacity to wipe out one city at a time. The research he had funded had moved
on. The vials in Elijah’s backpack were capable of genocide. Elijah was the
instrument chosen to administer it.

A shudder of horror raced down his spine. Turning on his
heel, he headed back outside, running along the passageway, flinging open door
after door, each one the same, perfectly preserved and empty.

At last he drew to a halt, his head bent toward his knees as
he drew breath. He had a job to do and he was going to do it. Rid the world of
a menace most didn’t know existed and rid himself of a curse. His problem was
peripheral to the central issue—with the Dvalinn gone, the world would be
safer.

He walked slowly on until he came to the junction he’d been
looking for. Five wide passageways fed into the open space. Lowering the
backpack from his shoulders, Elijah swung it around, opened it, pushed aside
the bubble wrap and extracted the three boxes, two the same size, one much
larger. He placed each box on the ground then squatted beside them and took a
deep breath to steady himself.

He opened the largest and safest of the three containers.
From it he extracted a cube made of sturdy plastic. Perforations pierced each
of the four sides and the top. More plastic spanned the bottom of the box, with
two circles cut out to make a stand. Elijah removed the lid and put it on the
ground.

Now Elijah turned to the two smaller, identically sized
boxes, marked simply A and B. The sealed boxes contained two separate
components of the strongest nerve gas ever discovered. A descendent of the
class of gases used in the long-ago Tokyo underground attacks, this gas was the
product of years of covert research by government and non-government agencies.

Hopewood had used his contacts to source a product so deadly
that the amount held in these two one-liter vials was enough to kill millions
of people. In the sealed world of the Dvalinn cave system, every man, woman and
child was doomed.

Elijah picked up the box marked A. He opened the package and
unfolded the soft, neoprene-like material that acted as a shock absorber but
hardened into a solid, impenetrable shield if it suffered a blow. Elijah
withdrew the fragile glass globe it protected.

Holding his breath, every muscle tense, Elijah lowered it
into place in one of the prepared cradles in the box. It settled into place
with the tiniest of clatters.

He took a deep breath then wiped his sweating forehead.

Once he was calm and the fine tremor had passed from his
hands, he opened the second box. The packaging and the vial inside were
identical to the first, except for the letter B etched into the side of the
glass. He cupped the ball in the palm of his hand for a moment before he began
the agonizing process of lowering it into its seat. One slip meant disaster. If
the vial crashed into the other, the chemical process to release the gas would
begin. Elijah would be dead long before he could get back to the portal point
to teleport back to the surface.

With infinitely small movements Elijah lowered the vial into
place. At the last moment, slick with his perspiration, it slipped out of his
fingertips. Elijah gasped, but it slid into place without a sound. Gently, he
placed the lid back on top.

His shoulders slumped and he dropped his head onto his
chest. It was almost finished. He reached once more into the backpack and
pulled out a small, paper-wrapped package of explosives with a circuit board
embedded in it. He held it in his hands for a moment, staring intently at it.

Once he’d inserted the battery in the remote control
secreted in the front of his backpack, Elijah could trigger the explosion at the
last moment before he returned to the surface.

He put the detonator and explosive into place and closed the
unit with the lid. Then he stood. He walked away. What was done was done. He
would not look back.

Eora stirred and blinked her eyes open. The spot next to her
was empty. None of Nieko’s warmth or his lovely, earthy scent remained. Damn
it. Why did she have to fall asleep when she’d been so close to getting what
she’d wanted for as long as she could remember?

Nieko. Inside her. The two of them having sex the way she
longed for. She’d
known
sex with Nieko would be different to the
fumbling, cold attempts she’d experienced before. She and Nieko had a bond.
Something special. Something unique.

Then she’d ruined it. Exhaustion and sexual pleasure had
sent her gliding into unconsciousness and he’d left her.

She glanced over at the covered mound in the other bed. Her
heart stuttered. What was so wrong with her that he couldn’t stand to sleep in
the same bed? Why could she only be his friend without the benefits of real,
complete sex?

She sighed heavily and tucked her hands beneath her head.
For years she’d felt this need to be closer to Nieko. Though she’d never admit
it to anyone, part of her fascination with Tybor, Huon and the human was her
desire to discover what the love that they professed to feel was like. Because
she wondered if…

She broke off. There was no point trying to define an emotion
that might not exist.

She needed a plan. Although Nieko usually did what she
wanted, he seemed to have developed a resistance to her attempts to get him
into bed. Too bad for him. Eora never gave up. She would keep trying, seize any
opportunity.

What had happened the night before had been a start. If she
was being honest with herself, it was a lot more than a start—it was brilliant.
Her body still hummed with an echo of the pleasure he’d given her.

She wanted more. Much more.

She cast her mind back to their conversation. They’d been
talking about her past lovers. Maybe that was the key to pushing him into more
sex.

She wasn’t fool enough to think he was jealous—he was far
too Dvalinn for that—but he might be manipulated by rivalry. Nieko always
wanted to be the best at anything he tried.

If she hadn’t made any progress in her quest by the time
they got back from Ogof, she could tap into that. Seek out another lover,
flaunt him in front of Nieko, challenge him to do better.

She knew Nieko. It just might work. “Yesss!” she said, and
pumped her fist in the air.

“You’re awake.” Nieko’s voice rumbled sleepily.

* * * * *

Nieko pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked
over at Eora. Her cheeks were red. “I fell asleep, didn’t I? I remember we
were… You…” The red turned fiery. “I came, then I must have fallen asleep.” She
screwed her face up. “And you didn’t… You didn’t get to…”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I enjoyed what we did do.”

“Then why are you sleeping in the other bed?” she retorted.

“You were tossing and turning. We’d had a long day. I
thought it was a better idea.”

“It sounds like a stupid idea to me,” Eora pushed herself up
on her elbows and with a puff of air blew the hair out of her face.

Not half as stupid as lying all night with her cradled in
his arms would have been. Nieko was strong but not that strong. When he’d
finally had the control to open his eyes the night before and realized she’d
fallen asleep, he’d known he’d been given a reprieve.

He’d forced himself to walk away, to crawl into the other
bed, lying in the half-dark, staring at the rock wall, trying to continue
breathing through the pain of heartbreak.

“We need to get going,” he said, “if you still want to find
Tybor and Huon.” He pushed the bedding aside and stood. “I suppose it’s too much
to hope you’ve come to your senses.”

“Of course I still want to find them,” she replied. She
tossed her sheet to the floor, then stood there, naked, her skin glowing.

Nieko swallowed to try to get some moisture into his mouth.
He turned to the meal preparation area. “I’ll make us some breakfast.”

“It’s my turn,” Eora said, leaning in to him, warm and
desirable. “But wouldn’t you rather finish what we started last night?”

“There’ll be plenty of time. But it may not be long before
someone figures out where we’re going.”

Instantly she stepped back, reaching for her clothes,
dressing quickly. “You’re right. Don’t bother with breakfast. We can eat one of
the nut and grain bars as we walk.”

So much for hoping she might develop an undying passion for
him. First his attempts at sex sent her to sleep, now any interest in finishing
what they’d begun took a distant second place to hunting down the human and her
Dvalinn companions.

He ran his hand through his hair. Keeping Eora from getting
too close was what he wanted, but damn, it felt as if she’d taken a blade to
him and stripped the skin from his chest. He only hoped she couldn’t see his
bleeding heart, beating on in lonely yearning for her.

She tossed his pack to him. “Let’s get going, then.” For
some reason she seemed annoyed. Maybe she hadn’t enjoyed what they’d done last
night as much as he’d hoped.

“Sure,” he muttered. “Nothing quite as much fun as racing to
your doom.” Because one way or another, that was exactly what he was doing.

She strode on ahead of him, setting a brisk pace, her legs
covering the ground, her arms swinging. Nieko stood it for an hour before he
broke. If her pants hadn’t fit her so snugly, if her bottom hadn’t swished up
and down with every step—if she hadn’t been Eora, he would have been able to
suppress a groan.

Eora stopped at once. “Did you say something?”

Maybe if he brazened it out she’d get back on with the job
of leading him around by his dick. So he grunted, “No.”

Except she never let things go. “I heard you say something.
What was it?”

He’d never had much imagination. Making something up now,
while the blood his brain needed was on vacation in his groin, was impossible.
“I thought I felt something.” Oh, very creative. Like that would slow Eora’s
inquisition for a second.

“Why would that make you moan? It’s not as if—” Eora
stopped, her head tilted slightly to the side. “Oh shit! You did feel
something.”

“I did?” But the instant he spoke, it hit him—a hot stirring
of the air and throbbing pressure emanating from the rocks of the passageway. A
moment before he’d thought he’d have been grateful for anything to divert
Eora’s attention. But not this. Never this. “A thermo-magnetic storm! We have
to get to shelter.”

Eora was already picking up speed. “We probably have about
fifteen minutes before it hits. There’ll be another safe room somewhere
nearby.”

They ran. Even if they’d dared to, they couldn’t teleport
during a thermo-magnetic event. The disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field
sent their navigation system haywire. Any Dvalinn foolish enough to attempt to
teleport during a storm could find themselves miles away from where they
intended to be or, even worse, crushed into nothingness by teleporting into the
heart of the rock itself.

Even with their high levels of battle-ready fitness, Nieko
and Eora’s lungs were straining by the time they came across the red-marked
opening that indicated the presence of another shelter. They hurtled inside and
slumped against the wall.

Eora’s hand hovered over the button to lower the door,
sealing them off from the developing storm.

“Shut it,” Nieko panted.

“In a minute,” Eora replied. “The storm hasn’t fully hit
yet. Maybe someone else might need to get in.”

“Someone who?” Nieko retorted. “No one else is going to be out
there. You know tha —” Realization hit him. “You think
they
might come,
don’t you?”

“They who?” Eora asked. Her pseudo-innocence didn’t fool him
for a second.

“Tybor, Huon. The human. They’ll be in the city or wherever
it is they live…somewhere with proper protection from storms, anyway. They
won’t come here. Shut the door.”

With a loud sigh he knew was aimed at him, Eora slammed her
hand down over the button. A curtain of glittering black magnetic rock slid
from the ceiling and sealed them in.

The night before the presence of the wayside shelter had
been a convenience, a bit of an oddity, the shiny black walls so different to
the warm apricot glow they were used to. This room was smaller than the other,
and instead of two beds had one wide one. He groaned to himself. How was he
going to avoid Eora this time?

Maintaining control would be hard, but it beat the hell out
of the alternative. Without this haven, Eora and he would die in the building
storm. No Dvalinn ever wanted to get caught in one of those. If he’d known one
was approaching he would never have let Eora set out on this crazy quest.

He hadn’t known, because he’d had no reason to find out. But
Eora had planned… “If you knew this bloody storm was coming, I’ll wring your
neck,” he growled.

She turned to face him, shaking her head from side to side.
“I didn’t know, I swear it.”

“So you set out on this mad journey without even checking
the forecasts. Great. Just fucking great.”

Flecks of angry gold sparked in her eyes. “I checked. Twice.
There was no mention of a thermo-magnetic storm.” She glared at him. “The
forecasters don’t always get it right, you know.”

He slumped back against the wall. “I know. It’s not as if it
really matters. The magnetic shielding around population centers means most of
us never even notice a storm. There’s always a bit of warning anyway.” He
looked down his nose at her. “And no sane person would ever think to walk
between cities.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” she said, making yapping gestures with
her fingers. “We’ve had this conversation already. We’re here. We’re safe.” She
flung her gear down on the bed. “The worst part is we have no idea how long
we’ll be stuck here.” As soon as the words left her mouth, her face brightened
and a wicked smile curved across her face. “We were in the middle of something
last night, and since here we are with a nice bed and nothing to do but wait
out the storm, I suggest we get back to it.”

“After we’ve had something to eat and drink first,” Nieko
said in a rush. “And a shower. That last mad dash left me feeling sweaty and I—”

“Anyone would think you didn’t want to have sex with me.”
Eora said.

“No. I mean yes… I mean no, it’s not…” He stumbled to a
halt, no idea what it was exactly he was trying to say. Fortunately for him, at
that moment Eora’s stomach rumbled and she grinned. “You win. We’ll tend to
other bodily functions first. Go have your shower. I’ll get some food
together.”

The sense of being saved from a difficult situation faded a
little. “You don’t have to bother,” Nieko blurted out. “I don’t need to have a
shower yet. I’ll do it.”

“But I was supposed to get breakfast and all I did was
unwrap some power bars.”

“And they were great, honestly,” he said in a rush.

Eora’s laugh rang out. “Why don’t you say what you really
mean? You want me to stay the hell away from the food because in the entire
Dvalinn world no one can stuff up the preparation of a meal the way I can.”

“You do have a tendency to make a mess of it,” Nieko
admitted.

She grinned, opened a cupboard and stared inside. “Not this
time,” Eora replied. “Look.” She pulled out a packet and held it up. “I’ve
never seen these before. The meals are completely pre-prepared. All I have to
do is pull the tab and they self-heat. Even I couldn’t muck that up.”

Nieko hesitated before he nodded and turned away. He might
love her but it didn’t stop him from recognizing that her domestic skills did
not count among her strengths. He was pretty sure they didn’t number among her
skills at all.

“I might be a while,” he said as he left. “There’ll be
plenty of hot water and my legs and feet aren’t used to walking. A long soak
might do them good.” There! That sounded perfectly plausible. Far better than
having to admit that the thought of intimacy with her scared him stupid.

* * * * *

Elijah ran back down the passageway, his almost empty pack
bouncing against his shoulder blades. He kept his gaze fixed on the middle
distance, looking neither right nor left. He didn’t want to see the delicate
perfection of the paintings, didn’t want to think about the empty rooms behind
the cleverly disguised doors. He picked up his pace, ignoring his burning
lungs, but he couldn’t outrun the knowledge that ate at his gut.

Once he pressed the button on the remote, he’d be a mass
murderer, as bad in his way as Hitler or Pol Pot. Maybe the death count
wouldn’t be as high, but he would have done what both other men had failed to
do—committed genocide. Wiped out an entire race of people.

He skidded to a halt, the words echoing in his brain. He
pounded his fists against the solid rock. The Dvalinn were people. He’d seen
their homes, seen their artwork. They might be warlike, they might be the
implacable enemies of humanity, but they were men, women and children with
hopes, dreams and individual lives.

He stood straight and sucked breath into his heaving lungs.
The air felt hot and thick. For a moment he thought he would vomit. He splayed
his hand on the wall to brace himself. Instantly he snatched it back, the palm
burning where it had made contact.

Sweat soaked his body and his head pounded. He narrowed his
eyes and tried to focus. Ahead of him the passageway split in two. Thick air
distorted the light and he was no longer sure of his bearings.

He pulled the compass from his pocket and flipped it open.
The needle swung wildly from side to side and wouldn’t settle. The solid rock
heaved and the floor under his feet rippled like the swell in the ocean. His
head swam as if he’d been drinking and his vision blurred.

He tried to move forward but he stumbled, unable to gain a
footing on the rolling surface. The heat built and sweat poured into his eyes,
stinging and obscuring his sight.