Pure Healing (7 page)

With both hands she brought his cock to her lips and opened her mouth around the plump, hot head. His gasp as she did so fueled her passion further. Slowly she began to suckle him, only the very tip of him fitting in her small mouth. But it was enough for her as she lapped up his milk greedily.
The taste of him was ambrosia to her. Tangy, salty, wondrous. Vaguely it occurred to her that all others before and after him paled in comparison. She would go on to have many more Consorts over the ages, but there would be no other such as he.
She moved one of her hands to the heavy sacs beneath his penis and squeezed ever so lightly. On command, the flow of his Nourishment became stronger, filling her mouth with a thin stream of cream. It was not nearly enough. But she knew she was already taking this trial too far, even farther than the trial of pain and endurance. But she was addicted. One taste of him and she could not stop.
Just a little longer, she thought as she continued to suckle him hungrily. She’d been starved for far too long.
Valerius’ body strained for release. The pressure within him was so intense every cell ached. Even the roots of his hair hurt. Instinct had taken over, and all he wanted was to get inside of her, fill her to the brim with his blood, his seed. He’d never, ever, felt this way, not even in his dreams. For the first time in his long, stoic existence, he yearned for something more. Not for his people, not for the world he protected, but for himself. He wanted to matter.
To her.
On a shuddering breath, Rain withdrew from him all too soon, her hands and lips reluctantly releasing his still swollen cock. It bobbed in protest when she took her touch away and jutted toward her as if begging her to suckle some more.
Shakily, she stood up but kept her head bowed, her hands held demurely in front of her as if she were suddenly embarrassed.
He could see that her face was flushed from passion, and her body all but hummed for more of him. But before he could offer himself once more, she said quietly, “I choose you.”
With a flick of her hand, his restraints came undone. He rubbed his wrists absent-mindedly, barely registering that they were raw and chafed from his struggles as his body conformed to her needs.
Her head still bowed, she said in the same soft voice, “I choose you, but on one condition.”
Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet his. “You must never fall in love with me, for I will never fall in love with you. Over the course of the Phoenix Cycle you will Serve me as a Mate serves his female. But I will not return the same to you. You will feel ever unfulfilled, even when you find sexual release. You will always hover painfully between want and completion. You will grow weaker with each passing day, as if you are dying, but at the end of the thirty days, you will gradually recover.”
She moved away from him to take a long white robe from a side table and handed it to him to cover himself. The soft terry cloth of the robe felt oddly abrasive against his still sensitized skin as he shrugged into it and tied the belt at his waist.
“With your healing abilities, I imagine you will recover far more quickly than others.” But even as she said so, Rain sounded hesitant and worried. “As long as you don’t fall in love,” she added so quietly he almost didn’t hear.
Abruptly, she squared her shoulders and met his eyes again. Her next words stunned him even as he felt soothed by them.
“I’m sorry for pushing you too far,” she said, though he didn’t know precisely to what she referred, the second trial or the third just now. “I’m sorry for being cruel. I-I don’t know what came over me. But I have been harsh and unfair with you and I am neither.”
She bowed her head again and whispered, “I know you are doing this out of some misguided sense of duty, I know you don’t want to be here, that you despise being touched.”
He tried to reach out to her, but she moved away. “I want you anyway. I have no pride where you’re concerned. And apparently, after two thousand five hundred years, no self-control either.”
He began to shake his head. She was not at fault. He was the one with the demons to overcome. And when he was with Rain, he felt he could finally have a hope, a chance of putting them behind him.
“I will try not to make this more difficult for you than it has to be,” she continued, not seeing his expression. “Perhaps we don’t need to…” she waved her hand around as if expecting the air to fill in the words. Finally she said, “perhaps we can avoid intercourse unless…”
She darted a glance at his impassive face and couldn’t finish her thought.
“Well,” she finally said. “You should rest as much as you can over the next day. For the thirty days after, we will share the inner chamber adjoining this Enclosure. We will both go about our days as usual with our mutual responsibilities, but... you will avail yourself to me when I need your Service.”
Valerius gave a nod of assent. Tentatively, he reached out to her again, but she’d already turned away, leaving him alone in a flurry of silk.
Valerius closed his eyes and fell to the nearest seat. He would do his damnest to meet her every desire. He would conquer his demons, his doubts, his fears. But there was one thing he couldn’t give her.
The promise not to fall in love.
*** *** *** ***
Sophia startled from her doze when the chair next to her scraped against the floor as it got pulled back. Drowsily, she rubbed her eyes and blinked at the guy who took the seat beside her.
And blinked some more.
He was truly beautiful. And Sophia didn’t use that term lightly. She was surrounded by supernatural beings who were also supernaturally good looking, but this guy took the cake.
Sophia liked to think of herself as a connoisseur of attractive people, men in particular. She appreciated their beauty rather like a devoted art lover
appreciated the works of Renaissance masters, or like a lowly imperfect human prized the unattainable perfection.
She had an adjective for every type of beauty. Tristan was gruffly handsome, in an affable golden retriever sort of way. Leonidas was striking. Valerius would be devastatingly gorgeous if not for his infallibly stoic demeanor. Alexandros was rather magnificent, and Dalair…
Well, she hadn’t quite decided what he was. The word hadn’t been invented yet for what he was.
But the guy beside her was definitely beautiful.
Almost pretty, with his long dark curling lashes framing rich chocolate eyes so dark they were almost black, pale flawless skin and full French-kiss type of mouth. She could see that his hair was long, for it was pulled back in some sort of pony tail at the nape of his neck. Better to show off his fallen-angel visage, she supposed.
His angular features, however, saved him from being too pretty. Those sharp cheekbones that could cut glass, the hard
V
of his jaw, the long muscles of his neck and the prominent Adam’s apple, even the slight widow’s peak at his hairline.
“Hello,” the dark beauty greeted her, an enchanting lop-sided smile gracing his Expensive-Men’s-Colognemodel face.
Sophia was not impressed by her own incoherent grunt of a response. It was not her brightest moment.
His bewitching smile grew slightly wider and he leaned forward on his elbow on the table they shared in the school canteen, regarding her with warm amusement.
“Are you a first year?” he asked in that lilting, slightly accented voice.
“Unh,” Sophia grunted again in response. Really, her verbal prowess was mind boggling.
“Where are you from?”
“Why are you talking to me?” Sophia didn’t mean to blurt out the question, but she couldn’t help herself. Beautiful dark strangers didn’t usually seek her out for tête à têtes.
He chuckled softly, baring perfect white teeth. “Can I not have a conversation with a lovely girl?” he teased her with a smile. “You are very lovely, you know.”
Was he actually
flirting
? With
her
? Sophia looked to her left, then to her right. Nope. He didn’t seem to be talking to someone else.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“S-Sophia,” she managed to stutter her reply.
“My name is Ere,” he returned, spelling out the letters in the air with one long, elegant finger.
“Eh-ray,” Sophia repeated slowly, trying to roll the
r
slightly like he had.
“Pe
rrr
fect,” he praised in encouragement, drawing out the rolling
r
like a feline purring.
Sophia ducked her head as a blush suffused her face. This guy was really too much. She got hot all over just looking at him.
He chuckled again as if amused by her
embarrassment, then reached out to touch the stack of books on the table. “Ancient Chinese History, Ancient Egyptian Civilization, and Greek Mythology. What interesting course choices.”
“Yeah,” Sophia muttered a bit defensively, “I like that sort of stuff.”
“I like it too,” Ere responded quickly. “In fact, if you are taking Professor McGowen’s class, I am his teaching assistant.”
“No way,” Sophia breathed with happy surprise. What were the chances that such an inhumanly beautiful creature would share a class with her? Well, and the forty other students.
“Does that please you?” Ere asked, seeing how her expression brightened considerably.
“Yeah,” she blurted out honestly, then added, “I mean, why wouldn’t it.”
“I am glad,” Ere said in his angelic voice.
Catching something out of the corner of his eye, he stood to leave. “It has been a pleasure meeting you, lovely Sophia. I shall look forward to seeing you in class.”
As he departed, striding away in a long, loose, devilmay-care gait, he passed Dalair who was making his way toward Sophia’s table. The Paladin paused briefly in passing and turned to assess Ere with a scrutinizing look.
Ere nodded in greeting and smiled a flippant smile, then walked out of the canteen and out of Sophia’s view, even as she craned her neck to watch after him.
Dalair approached Sophia and sat in the chair Ere had used, asking without preamble, “What was that all about? Who is he?”
Sophia lost the puppy-love look and turned away from her Elite guard. “None of your business,” she sniffed. “Do I have to report all my friends to you?”
Dalair’s eyes narrowed. “Is he a friend?”
Sophia shrugged. “Maybe. But not if you keep hovering so close you suck out all the oxygen in the room,” she groused.
“I only came to take you to your next class,” Dalair explained with patience. He wondered whether she was this antagonistic to all her guards. “If it pleases you, I will ask no more about him. But tell me this, what is his name?”
“Why? So you can Google him and do a background check?”
At Dalair’s impassive expression, Sophia rolled her eyes. “Fine. His name is Ere. E-R-E. Don’t know his last name, but I’ll find out soon enough since he’s going to be my Ancient Egyptian Civilization class’s teaching assistant.”
Dalair nodded, letting it go at that. Speaking more about this
Ere
would only incite her temper further.
He tried to help her rise, but she brushed him off, getting to her feet on her own, shoving her books into her book bag and slinging it over her shoulder.
“Don’t stand so close,” Sophia ordered. “People might think we’re together.”
“And that is a problem why?” Dalair inquired, sincerely curious.
She rolled her eyes again.
Dalair was really disenchanted with this teenage American habit.
“How am I supposed to get a boyfriend if you’re always underfoot?” she asked acidly.
Dalair’s eyebrows lifted a notch. “You wish for a boyfriend?”
“Hypothetically speaking,” Sophia ground out. “Just because I can’t throw away my virginity at the closest dick on hand doesn’t mean I can’t date.”
Dalair frowned with concern, more at her desire to date than at her language. “You know that is unwise,” he said quietly.
“I know,” she replied in a small voice, the anger seeping out of her like air out of a balloon. “But sometimes I just want to be a normal girl. This Queen of the Pure Ones business isn’t a cake walk. Sometimes I wish…”
He waited patiently for her to finish her train of thought.
Finally she said, “I wish people weren’t around me because they had to be, but because they wanted to be. I wish people treated me like a normal human girl rather than some long-awaited ruler who’s going to save the universe.”
As he digested that, she pushed passed him and threw behind her back, “Don’t follow too closely. And stay out of sight.”
Dalair hesitated, then obeyed her wishes.
Duty or desire, it didn’t matter. He would always be around her, to comfort her, protect her, even though she didn’t want it, even though he sometimes couldn’t bear it.

The formal bonding ritual between the Healer and her chosen Consort took place on the eve of the third day, concluding the Rite of the Phoenix.

The Royal Zodiac gathered above ground, in the starlit glass dome of the Christian Science cathedral to attend as witnesses to the ceremony, just as they would for any Mating ritual between two of their kind, as they were so rare and special. They formed a broad ring around Valerius, Rain, and the master of ceremony, Ayelet, each member holding a large, brightly blazing candle.

Valerius, naked but for the ceremonial cloth around his loins, knelt on one knee before the Healer, who stood wreathed in flowing white robes, bowed his head in reverence, both his hands grasping both of hers as Ayelet recited the ancient vows:

In Darkness and Light, in Life and Death Two souls will join to share One Path With heart and mind, and every breath You become each other’s present and past What the future holds only the Goddess can see Paved by the choices you both shall make Step by step toward your Destiny In Bond Eternal that none shall break

Valerius raised his gaze to his Phoenix Mate and solemnly gave his pledge, “My body, my blood, my life are yours. I live to Serve none other but you. Rain. Take from me the Nourishment you crave. Let me become your strength, your protection, and fulfill your every need. I offer you all that I am, all that I was, all that I ever shall be.”

A few startled gasps broke the silence of the room, and Rain’s eyes filled with tears as she heard her Consort’s heart-wrenching words.

He had spoken the pledge for a true Mating ritual, not the Phoenix Bonding Ritual that promised no future beyond the next thirty days. Though words were just words and imparted no magical bond, she knew the Protector never spoke lightly. Surely he could not mean what he said. Surely he knew that their union would be but a fleeting moment in the long existence they had led and would continue to lead.