Eliana (11 page)

“Kon. Kon, wake up. Where are we?” She touched his cheek. It burned, the sensation a shock after the lack of feeling elsewhere. “Kon, please.”

“This is what you feel like to me.” He raised his head. His eyes were filled with sadness. The air around him hung heavy with despair as if he’d given up all hope and his heart was as frozen as the surrounding landscape.

She took a step back. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“This is
you
. Your inner landscape.”

She turned and fled, not going more than ten steps before she found the tree and Kon in front of her again. She tried a different direction, and another, figuring the whiteness had disoriented her. Every new path forged in the snow led straight back to Kon. Panic rose. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but
stop
it. Let me go!”

Kon wiggled his fingers, one of the few parts he could move. “I’m not the one who trapped you.”

This was a bunch of cryptic bullshit. She must have fallen asleep watching some crazy science fiction movie.

Except she hadn’t seen a film actor, science fiction or otherwise, with a body she wanted to kiss and stroke and—

Heat pooled in her belly, all the more obvious because she could feel little else. She turned away, ashamed by her response. She ought to untie him, but merely looking at him caused such a deep, physical reaction she didn’t know how to react.

“Do you trust me?”

She whirled, automatically bracing herself for the hip pain that didn’t happen. “Why should I?”

“I can show you the way out.”

She didn’t want a guide. Anything worth doing she could do herself.

“You won’t make it alone. You need me.”

She needed him like a shot in her other hip. One look at him and heat flooded her body. A tense, tingling excitement grew low in her belly. Wetness gathered between her legs, and her mind went to how
good
it would feel to have his cock filling her.

Against her better judgment, she moved closer to him. Kon didn’t seem to be aware of the cold either. His skin was free of goose bumps—at least, until she caressed his chest. He shivered. She slid her hand lower, eager to heft the weight of his manhood.

When she grasped his flaccid length, he lifted his head. His brown eyes were filled with a hunger which provoked a matching need within her. With her free hand, she cupped his chin and studied his lips, soft and warm and all man despite that beautiful, effeminate face. She kissed him.

A shock drove through her body, bright and electric. For a moment, she was blinded and overwhelmed by the onslaught of sensation. Arousal. Pain. Grief. Longing. Some were hers and some…were Kon’s.

She held on, paralyzed by the stream of emotions and intimate knowledge. She wasn’t the only one with a bleak hopelessness inside. Kon too had his share of desolation. He hadn’t become a masochist as a means of punishing himself for imagined sins; that was who he was. No, the emptiness was similar to hers. He sought comfort he didn’t believe he’d find. Dane was his perfect match, his true love, yet Dane couldn’t make up for a childhood empty of love and people treating him as a freak.

Why he thought himself a freak, she couldn’t tell; there was only a self-hatred burning inside him like a torch on the verge of going out…or creating an immense conflagration.

A hand yanked her away. She doubled over, gasping, fighting to separate her emotions from Kon’s. When she at last had a grip on herself, she gazed up to see Dane. Here in the surreal landscape, it seemed as though his heart emitted a fiery orange glow, which twisted and writhed like a snake. His eyes burned with matching vigor.

Something landed in the snow beside her. She jumped, at first believing the long, dark shape to be a snake, but on closer inspection, it was a switch. She lifted it, fascinated by its suppleness.

“Use it,” Dane said. He stood next to her, stiff and unreadable. “Free him, and in doing so free yourself.”

She stared at the switch, not comprehending. It wasn’t sharp enough to cut Kon’s bonds. There was no compass to help her find her way home.

“Strike him. He wants it.”

She lifted the switch with the intent of refusing and throwing it away, but something made her look at Kon. His gaze met hers. Pleading.

He
wanted
to be hit, and suddenly, incomprehensibly, she wanted to be the one to do it.

She brought the switch down hard against his chest with a satisfying
crack
. Kon thrust his head back, mouth wide as he moaned, though whether it was ecstasy or agony she couldn’t tell. Again she swung and left a second welt rising on his torso.

Her jacket hindered her movement. She tugged the zipper, then pulled the coat off, both surprised and not to find she wore nothing beneath. In moments, she was as naked as he and free of the scars normally traversing her belly.

Kon too seemed to appreciate her nudity. His gaze went from her face to her breasts and continued downward before returning to her eyes. A shiver ran through her as their gazes locked.
More
, his eyes said.
Please.

She lashed him, moving outward from his chest toward the more tender areas on his arms and legs. Kon trembled but did not cry out. His breaths came in heavy, panting gasps, yet she didn’t stop. If she were at risk of harming him, Dane would have stopped her. Instead, he stood passively as she thrashed his lover.

The newfound power made Eliana giddy. A blow here and Kon writhed against his bonds. A strike to his inner thigh and he moaned. She loved the control and wondered what would happen if she landed a blow atop his straining cock.

Dane set his hand on hers. “It’s too much. A light touch will do.”

She calmed and took a closer look. Kon’s eyes were glazed over as he stared into space. Dane was right. She tossed the switch aside. Any more harshness would push Kon too far.

She knelt in the snow. Cupping his balls in one hand, she lifted his cock with the other. The only evidence of Kon’s awareness was an increased tremor throughout his body. A kiss to the tip of his cock and it grew stiff and hard. She took him into her mouth, tasting the salty smoothness of his skin. She ran her tongue around his length and savored the way he jerked and twitched. He clearly wanted a blowjob, but she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction—not until she got her own.

She stood and released his wrists. Dane caught him as he collapsed and gently lowered Kon onto the ground. He settled Kon’s head in his lap, stroking his cheek with a loving caress. Eliana knelt beside them, taking in how different Kon’s body looked now that he was lying down. Cradled by drifts of snow, he appeared even more angelic.

She met Dane’s gaze. He nodded. Straddling Kon, she eased herself down and let his hardness fill her. She waited a few breaths to let their bodies become accustomed to one another before lifting up and sliding down again. His cock stroked her inside, rubbing against a point which sent tingles all through her. She was amazed at how comfortable and right it was to have him there. Up and down she went, taking him deeper each time. She kissed him, driving her tongue between his lips to taste the sweetness of his unresisting mouth. He moaned, and she took it into herself, feeling the sound vibrate throughout her body.

Once she sat up, Dane caught her face and kissed her, licking at whatever remnants she’d gotten from Kon. He nipped and sucked at her mouth as if he were feeding on her very essence. The kiss grew harder, deeper, and more frantic as her mind reeled from being penetrated at either end by two different men—two very handsome men who didn’t frighten her and had only mutual satisfaction in mind.

She tightened her body around Kon’s, determined to wring every possible ounce of pleasure from him. He twitched and jerked, then tensed.

Wet heat flooded into her as Kon climaxed. Eliana gasped, unprepared for the sensation. In response, her lower belly drew tighter, then crested into a throbbing release. Her body gripped Kon’s and released again and again.

Before she’d finished gasping, Dane was there, mouth atop hers, murmuring his own appreciations. Breathing hard, they both gazed down at Kon. The look of absolute bliss on his face was worth every moment. For a while, at least, the sadness was gone.

* * * *

In the darkness, Dane rolled onto his side and fumbled in the sheets for Kon. His lover wasn’t there, and it took him a moment to remember why.

He lifted onto his elbows and gazed off the side of the bed. Kon lay on the floor, one arm crooked under his head. The hurt from Kon’s words remained. Dane was willing to accept Eliana and to train her—if she was willing—on how best to please Kon in order to make Kon happy. The fact that Kon didn’t trust him to do so was a blow that had struck deeply.

Dane had the inclination to blame Kon’s attitude on Evan, who, as Chief Warden, provided the greatest professional influence over Kon, but most of the other Wardens agreed with his viewpoint. Dane didn’t like being relegated to a second-class existence for the sole fact that he
might
one day lose control of his demon and he
might
hurt someone. Plenty of full-blooded humans ran the risk of harming their partner, deliberately or not.

Kon murmured something in German, then let out a whimper, which made Dane remember the dream he’d just had. The beer coupled with his angst must have inspired the weird images of Kon tied to a tree while Eliana thrashed him.

And he’d watched as Kon—
his
Kon—wriggled beneath her. Their bodies had joined, and Dane wasn’t sure whether he was jealous or relieved they both enjoyed themselves.

Another whimper and Dane relinquished his order to make Kon sleep on the floor. He rolled off the mattress, gathered Kon into his arms, and tucked him into bed. Once Dane crawled under the covers, he balanced on his arm and kissed Kon lightly on the cheek. Kon smiled.

Dane could never stay mad at him for long.

* * * *

Morning light limned the curtain. Kon turned over in bed, surprised to find a cold, damp spot on the sheets, which stuck to his legs. He hadn’t had a wet dream in years.

Though neither had he had such a realistic, erotic dream for some time. He wandered into the bathroom and flicked on the light, half expecting to see welts crisscrossing his chest where Eliana had struck him. There were none, but his skin tingled with the familiar aftermath of a good lashing.

He washed up and dressed, barely finishing before Dane rushed past him. Kon caught the severe queasiness and quickly headed out, shutting the door behind him. Having no reason to stay and be party to Dane’s poor decision of drinking beer and too little water, he went outside to meditate.

Chapter Thirteen

In bed, Eliana drifted on the last remnants of her vibrant, erotic dream. A pleasant languor made her feel warm and fuzzy. As she slowly let her consciousness drift back into her body, she became aware of another sensation, something she hadn’t felt since before she’d been shot.

Gingerly, she reached between her legs to find herself slick and wet.

That’s not possible
. Shocked, she yanked her hand back.
It was a dream. Only a dream. It can’t happen in real life. The bullet stopped me from feeling anything down there.

She curled tight on her side and swore at the dart of pain through her hip. Irritating as it was, she preferred the familiar ache to the strange, impossible one. Yet all she had to do was think of Kon and the fullness of his cock within her and—

Damn it. Stop taunting yourself.

Dane’s words echoed in her mind.
Free him, and in doing so free yourself
. It must have been the usual nonsense spouted in dreams. Beating Kon couldn’t possibly lead to freedom of any sort.

She rose, dressed, and downed a pain pill. Then she parted the curtains to look outside and blinked at the sheer brightness. It didn’t look as if any new snow had fallen overnight, but the sun made the drifts blindingly white.

When her eyes adjusted, she could just make out a figure beneath a leafless tree. The image caused an eerie shock of recognition, although this tree was too thin and pitiful to tie anyone to.

Yet the man near it was the same. She would have recognized Kon’s slender, androgynous form anywhere, but he was just
standing
there, knees slightly bent, arms held out in front of him at chest level.
What the hell is he doing?

She tugged on her boots and coat, grabbed her cane, and went outside. Her breath fogged in the cold air, but she didn’t mind the chill. Kon didn’t acknowledge her presence, not even when she stood right next to him. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“It’s qi gong,” Kon said without changing his stance.

The words meant nothing to her. “Okay.”

“A sort of meditation focusing on energy and health.”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.” She turned, embarrassed at interrupting something so personal.

“Stay. You can do it with me.

A couple exited their room, carrying luggage. The woman looked at them. Eliana looked back. “People are staring.”

“So?”

Fine
. “What do I do?”

“Stand comfortably. Relax. Focus on your breathing.”

Easier said than done. She tried to emulate Kon’s posture, but her hip protested at the awkwardness. She shifted, finally finding something bearable with a portion of her weight on the cane.

“Now breathe. Nice and slow. Let your belly move out. Don’t force it. There you go. Good.”

How he knew all this without even looking at her, she had no idea.

“Now feel the areas of discomfort in your body. Imagine the breath flowing throughout your body. Breathe energy in; release pain and tension on the way out.”

The first part was easy. Her right arm and shoulder ached from using the cane. Her hip throbbed as always, and her left leg had a knot from constantly overcompensating for her weaker right side. The second part she had trouble with. Believing the aches would go away if she organized her thoughts correctly seemed ridiculous.