Chapter 16
Aimee stood at the door of her tent. Her friends sat around the transmogrifier with their evening meal. The men talked in low tones, and the women laughed together on the bench in front of the store chamber. Tension no longer hung over the camp, and the soldiers and warriors relaxed their watches. Word spread through the armies. The Avitras had made peace. Everyone would leave here in the morning for their own homes.
Aimee couldn’t join them, though, and she wasn’t hungry. She looked around, but nothing appealed to her. Her eyes wandered up to the mountain, and she slipped away unnoticed. She walked slowly through the woods knowing what she was looking for and what she would find, but the old compulsion no longer drove her. She found him waiting for her under the tree where they’d first talked. “I thought you’d come here.”
“I suppose you’ll be leaving in the morning with the Avitras,” she remarked.
He nodded. “There’s a lot of work to do. You’ll be going back to the Lycaon. What will you do, now that the warriors no longer have to patrol the border?”
She didn’t answer. She gazed at the sun through the trees. “I’ve never heard the woods so quiet. Even the animals seem quieter.”
“Everyone is more relaxed,” he replied. “They all know what you did here today. You’ve given them peace.”
Her eyes widened. “Me? I didn’t give them peace. If anyone did it, it was you.”
He shook his head. “You stepped between the Avitras and the Aqinas.”
“You stepped between them first,” she countered. “I only followed you.”
“Aquilla wouldn’t have stopped his attack for me,” he told her. “He only hesitated when the others moved forward, and they wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t told them to.”
She blushed. “I didn’t tell them to do anything. Besides, it was Sasha and Frieda who convinced him to make peace. None of us knew about his father protecting the Aqinas.”
“I knew about it,” he pointed out.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.
“That would have sent him into a rage,” he replied. “No one could have told him except one of you human women. That’s your genius. You can say things and do things and make decisions no one else can. That’s why it’s you who’s responsible for this peace. If we had to do it ourselves, we never could put aside our hostility to talk, let alone come to any agreement.”
She sighed. “I’m just glad it’s over.”
He studied her. “Is it over?”
She smiled and nodded. Then she turned to him and placed her hands on his chest. His eyebrows went up, but he didn’t say anything. She pushed him back against the tree trunk and kissed him. His breath filled her nostrils, and her heartbeat quickened. Scorching heat ached between her legs, and she no longer held back her desire.
She pushed him down on the ground, and he lay back on the fallen leaves. Aimee stretched herself out on top of him and closed her eyes in his kiss. His breath caught in his throat. The same ache tormented him. His body tightened in desperate need, but he kept still underneath her. He waited for her to release him.
She pressed her breasts into his chest, and a shiver ran down her belly to the yawning chasm between her legs. She would take him for herself. The forgotten shade would rise out of the past and destroy the hollow shell she had become. She inhaled the pungent scent of Piwaka, of the forest, of the leaves under them, and the transformation was complete. Raw hunger took over, and she let it control her. Nothing held her back anymore.
She kissed him harder, and he opened his mouth to let her tongue enter. He clasped his arms around her chest and pulled her down on top of him, but he remained flat on the ground. He left the work to her who could best accomplish it. She flexed her hips down on the bulge between his legs and rubbed her throbbing flesh against it. He lifted his hips to meet her, but that was all.
She moaned, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted him, all of him. She pushed herself up with her hands and straddled him, but she kept her mouth locked on his. She kissed him and undulated back and forth on his growing spike. His breathing came rough and hard. He wrapped his arms around her neck and crushed her mouth against his. In a flash, she shucked off her pants and jacket and sat astride him in naked glory. He lay back on the ground with his arms at his sides. His hands rested on her knees. He squinted into the sun at her outline against the sky. She was alive, at long last—fully and finally alive.
His shaft slipped between her legs and filled her as no food ever could. The bottomless hunger of her soul cried out in joy and fulfillment. Pulses of energy exploded in her guts and spread up and out through the top of her head. They joined the aurora surrounding the planet and rocketed out into deep space.
Aimee lifted her face to the sun and let the waves of light rush through her. She gave free rein to her insatiable desire and rode him with all her might. Her voice echoed through the trees and into the clouds. She bore down on him as hard as she could. She would crush him into the ground, driving his shaft deeper into her body, and be satisfied.
A laser stream of searing fire rushed out of him into her. It lifted her off the ground. She took flight and broke the envelope of the planet to hover disembodied over the forest. She gazed down on herself looking up, with her legs gripping Piwaka by the hips. Unbridled joy radiated from her upturned face, and her body glowed from within with clear light. Sunshine warmed her bare skin.
Piwaka bared his teeth in orgasmic completion, and soft tranquility suffused his body. His hands gripped her knees. Aimee gazed down at him until his eyes opened. The radiant energy that sent her skyward filled her with gentle calm. The peace agreement couldn’t give her that, but he could. Aimee bent down and kissed him without releasing his shaft from her clutches. She rocked gently on top of him in the warm wetness above and below.
Neither spoke until they were walking down the hill again. Aimee didn’t notice how close they had come to the Ursidrean camp until she turned a corner and noticed the sun glinting off the store chamber. “What’s going to happen to us?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Will we ever see each other again?” she asked.
He studied her face. “You don’t really want to go back to the Lycaon, do you?”
Her eyes snapped to his face. “I don’t think I can, not after everything we’ve been through together.”
“Then come to the Avitras,” he urged. “Come back with me.”
“How can I?” she asked. “I would never see my cousins or my friends again.”
“You could see them whenever you want,” he replied. “We’re cementing a peace agreement, remember?”
“What difference will that make?” she asked. “We’ve got decades of negotiations in front of us before Angondra is truly at peace.”
“That’s my point,” he replied. “We’ll have to communicate with the other factions on a constant basis. We’ll be communicating more than we ever communicated in the past. You could act as a messenger to the other factions. You’re a fast runner, so you’d be perfect for the job. You could go back and forth between their territories and ours, and you could see your cousins and your friends whenever you wanted.”
Her face brightened, and he smiled. “You would probably be thrust into dealings with them whether you wanted to or not. They’re the Alpha’s mates. Emily and Anna are mated with Faruk and Menlo, so you would be dealing with them all the time, and Chris is mated to Turk, who is in essence a second Alpha to the Lycaon. Deek is secondary to Fritz, so it only makes sense that you would liaise with Sasha and Frieda to finalize relations with the Aqinas....”
“You make it sound so simple,” she remarked.
“What could be simpler?” he asked. “It’s the perfect solution to so many problems. Who better for the role than someone the other factions already know and trust?”
Her eyes widened. “You’re serious.”
“I was never more serious in my life,” he replied. “This is what makes you human women so brilliant. Your relationships with each other provide the perfect conduit for the factions to negotiate with each other. You’re friends, you’re cousins and sisters. You don’t have the history of war and hatred the men do. What could be better?”
She smiled, but she didn’t answer. She started down the hill, but he pulled her back by her hand. “So....will you come with me?”
She blushed. “I better get back. I’ll see you tomorrow morning when we all meet to say good-bye.”