Chapter Seven
Lynx bit down into his bottom lip, withholding a groan as he tried to control himself. He could feel the softness of Rain's mouth making a slow, torturous path down his chest from the soft dip between his collarbones. She followed the touch of her lips with the gentle, almost imperceptible glide of her tongue. When her mouth reached his belly, she let her tongue dip into his navel, and the feeling sent a shiver through his body.
He had never had a craving like he did at that moment, but he didn't want to rush the delicious feelings so he gripped the sheets beside him and squeezed his eyes closed to keep himself from taking her head in his hands and pushing it down.
As if she could sense his need, Rain traced her mouth down the rest of his belly at a slightly faster speed, occasionally following the slick of her tongue with the nip of her teeth against his skin. Finally he could feel her hot, moist breath ripple along the length of his erection and just that one simple sensation caused him to arch his back off of the bed. She waited until he relaxed again to let her tongue trace along him, pausing to concentrate for a few delirious seconds on the sensitive bundle of nerves tucked just under the head before parting her lips further and taking him fully into her mouth.
The feeling nearly overwhelmed him and Lynx continued to struggle to control himself. He wanted to sit up, grab Rain, throw her down, and mate with her until he could no longer move, but at the same time he was reluctant to give up the incredible sensations she was creating inside him and also didn't want to frighten or upset her. It was a delicate balance, at once wanting to take complete control and having enough trust in her to give himself over to her. The combination of the relinquishing control and the hot, intense feeling of her mouth along his cock was something that Lynx had never experienced, but his body moved and reacted on instinct, his hips slowly and subtly rolling to push himself deeper along her tongue to encourage her to suck him harder.
Finally he couldn't control himself anymore and he lifted his hands from the bed, gripping her shoulder with one and burying the other into her hair so that he could guide her into a faster, deeper rhythm. Part of him worried that he had gone too far, that he had exerted too much aggression and dominance over her, but Rain seemed to enjoy it, letting out a soft moan and relaxing her mouth to welcome the thrusts of his hips. As she lowered her body to accept him deeper, Lynx felt her nipples graze against the skin of his thighs and his arousal threatened to topple over.
He pulled her back so that he withdrew from her mouth and took her by her upper arms. Coming up off of the bed, Lynx turned Rain so that he could lower her down onto the bed with her head resting on the pillows where he had just been lying. Her body stretched out beneath him and the impossible, crystal blue of her eyes stared up at him with such openness and trust that he felt his emotions swell almost painfully in his chest. The urgency dissipated as a need to savor and cherish her took over. Lynx lowered his head and touched a kiss to her throat and then another to the soft dip between her collarbones where he could feel her fast heartbeat pounding up at him from beneath her skin.
There was a need for her inside him, something that he could never have explained or even understood before that moment, and he sought to fulfill it completely. His hands stroked down her body, dipping into her curves and memorizing the soft swells of her hips, breasts, and belly. His tongue slid out from between his lips to run a long, slow lick from the valley between her breasts up to the tip of her chin. Her skin tasted warm and salty, her breath rang in his ears, and he could feel her body trembling beneath him. He wanted to experience her with every sense and meld with her into one existence.
Lifting up again to stare into her eyes, Lynx eased himself over her and settled his hips between her thighs. Her long, smooth arms wrapped around his neck and he felt her draw her knees up as if welcoming him into her body. He took a long breath and began to push his hips forward, but just before he sank into her, his eyes snapped open and the entire beautiful image dissolved around him.
Deep, radiating pain in his back overtook the pleasure her mouth had given him, and cold sheets replaced her trembling body. Lynx sat up sharply and gasped at the pain that intensified in his back. His hand came to his chest and he felt the rough bandages. Suddenly things started coming back to him. He remembered the fight with the Covra and the pain of his injuries. He remembered watching Bannack and Pyra fight alongside him. Then he remembered the sudden, all-consuming feeling of hatred and aggression toward the two men. He could feel only the need to destroy them, and then there was blackness.
Lynx dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing at them to try to clear his mind. He was aware of the feeling of a mattress beneath him and a thick blanket covering from his hips over his legs. His upper body was bare except for the bandages and the cool air of the room sent a chill across his skin. When he pulled his hands away from his eyes he could briefly only see bright colored sparks dancing in the darkness, and then they faded into hazy vision. The room around him was dark, but light from outside came in through the window, allowing him to see what was around him. He glanced down and saw Rain lying beside him, her position unchanged since when he first saw her. Having her so close to him was comforting and he ventured to run his fingers down the curve of her cheek.
As soon as his fingers touched her, Lynx experienced the same sudden flash of vision that he had had the first time he touched her, giving him the same glimpse into the last few seconds of her being awake before the Covra had come out and locked her right there in her bed. Something about the vision struck him strangely this time that hadn't occurred to him the first time. He touched her again, letting himself experience those moments again, and came out of them wondering why she had crawled into bed when the sun was still up and the room was filled with the rich light of late afternoon.
Suddenly he realized that he didn't know where Pyra, Bannack, or any of the other men were. He needed to know what had happened between the moment when he was overcome by the desire to kill them and when he awoke beside Rain. The vivid, intense dream about Rain repeating torturously in his mind, Lynx carefully climbed out of the bed and left the room.
Feeling on edge and worrying that the Covra would suddenly appear again, Lynx took a few steps down the hallway before he heard Pyra's voice from downstairs. He was speaking in a hushed tone, but even speaking as quietly as he could, Pyra wasn't able to keep his voice much lower than what many people would consider a normal conversational tone, and Lynx moved toward it feeling comforted that he didn't feel the compulsion to attack his friend.
"Lynx!" Ciyrs said when Lynx turned the corner from the stairwell into a large open room toward the back of the house.
He didn't remember when the clan's healer had arrived at the house, but he was relieved to see him. He wasn't sure what had happened to him or what exactly Ciyrs had done to ensure that he woke up out of it feeling relatively normal, but he was incredibly relieved that he had been there. From what he could remember feeling in the moments before everything went black, it was very possible that he might not have survived the incident had his friends not acted quickly to ensure that he did.
"It's good to see you up and about, buddy," Pyra said from a couch near a fireplace on the back wall.
"How long have I been out?" Lynx asked, settling gingerly onto another couch beside Bannack.
"A while. Are you feeling alright?" Bannack answered.
"Other than the horrible stabbing pain through my back and being confused as all hell, I think I'm doing fine. Tell me what happened."
As Lynx listened to Pyra and Bannack recount their battle in the bedroom against the Covra and then his sudden descent into a murderous rampage and then Ciyrs's healing, Lynx found his mind continuing to wander back to Rain. He couldn't keep this thoughts off of her, from the look of her lying there locked in her sleep in the bed, to the dream he had had about her as he lay beside her after being healed. As his mind flashed back and forth between the images, something that Pyra said snapped him back into the conversation.
"What?" he asked.
Pyra looked at him quizzically.
"What?"
"What did you just say?"
"I was just saying that you said something about their eyes and then the creatures started leaving, but we didn't know why."
"She didn't see them, so she couldn't fight them," Lynx muttered.
"What are you talking about?" Pyra asked, but Lynx was already on his feet.
"Where are all of the others?"
"They are in the other houses. We decided to stay here for the night before we keep going in the morning so that you could rest."
Lynx was shaking his head and starting for the door before the others could even get up to follow him.
"No. We aren't leaving here until we figure out what's going on, and I think I can help us do that. I need to find Ero."