WarriorsApprentice Read online

  “Did they listen?” she asked. “Surely they wouldn’t charge him for that—although here on the surface the military are pretty insistent on following orders and not keen on independent thinking.”

  “The Dvalinn are more flexible, I think, especially with someone with a reputation like Tybor’s,” Huon replied. “In any case, the captain told me they hadn’t arrested Tybor. When I demanded to know where he was, the captain told me he’d requested a meeting with senior officers and would, he assumed, be returning to his quarters afterwards.”

  “Did he? Return to his quarters I mean.”

  Huon nodded.

  “And did you find him there?”

  Again, Huon dipped his head, a single, convulsive jerk.

  “Huon,” she murmured, holding his hand tighter, “what happened then?”

  He didn’t speak.

  “Please, Huon. Tell me. Whatever it was is upsetting you so much.”

  When he still didn’t speak she said, more firmly, “I care about you and I care about Tybor, too. Don’t you think I deserve to understand this?”

  “I told him…I told him I had learned something important on the surface world. Learned something important from you.” Now he met her eyes. “I told him I had learned to love. That I loved you, and wanted to be with you.” His lips formed a tight white line and he licked them. “Then I told him I loved him, too, and that I believed he loved me and that just as we had with you, I wanted to…to…make love to him, to give a physical expression to what we already felt.”

  The breath caught in her throat, making it hard to breathe. “What did he say?”

  “He turned his back to me and grabbed a bag from his closet and started throwing things into it. Said he had asked to be assigned to a Dvalinn city on the other side of the world and that he never wanted to see me or hear my mawkish, human sentiments again.”

  “Oh, Huon,” she cried, her heart breaking not only for him but for herself as well.

  “I’m not proud of what happened next,” Huon murmured. “I…I begged him. I got to my knees like the stupid weakling he always thought I was and I begged him to give us a chance, to just try it, but he kicked me aside and walked away.” A tear rolled down the alabaster cheek. “He didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t look back. He just slammed the door behind him.” He took a deep breath. “That’s when I realized there was nothing for me there. No reason to stay. All those years people taunted me and bullied me for not being a true Dvalinn. They were right. If being a true Dvalinn means having no emotions, or worse, having them and refusing to admit it, then I’m not one of them. I had my powers back, so I decided to come and search for you.”

  Judie waited and Huon’s lips curved into a tiny, embryonic smile “I didn’t expect you to be in the very first place I looked.” He stroked her face with his free hand. “How is it that you’re here?”

  “I can’t explain it,” she told him. “I felt compelled to come back to Venice and I ended up at your apartment.”

  “We were meant to be together,” Huon replied.

  “But the price you have to pay is so high.” She scrubbed her hands across her eyes, trying to brush away the tears. “You’re sacrificing everything—your way of life and being with your own people.”

  “What I’m giving up means nothing compared to what I gain,” Huon whispered. “If being Dvalinn means living without you, then I don’t want to be Dvalinn.”

  He tilted her face up and lowered his lips to hers.

  The cold that had sunk through her bones and into her soul began to dissipate under the warm pressure. Her mouth moved, opened, and his tongue swept in, bringing her his sweet, familiar taste mixed with the faint tang of salt. His tears, her tears—she couldn’t tell.

  For a moment they clung together, then Huon’s hands, swift and sure, pulled off her clothes, tore at his own, tossing them aside, urgency mounting, as if he could not bear to be separated from her another moment.

  “I need you,” he groaned into her mouth.

  And she had come so close to losing him, so close to never seeing him again. She held her hands out to him.

  “We can be happy, just you and me. As long as we’re together, it’ll be all right,” she whispered. “Stay with me. I couldn’t bear you to leave me again.”

  Any dreams of the three of them together had to be forgotten. Tybor was who he was and he could not and would not change. She had Huon and that was more than she had believed she would ever have.

  Her skin ached for contact and she pulled Huon to her, holding him tight, afraid to let him go. He buried his face in the hollow of her neck, his hands spread out on her back, pressing her close as if he was trying to meld their two selves into one. Then he arched away and she clasped him convulsively but he only made enough room to slide his rigid cock into her warmth, his thick presence filling her just as his spirit and nearness filled so many hollow places in her heart. She knew, though, that for both of them, there remained a missing part their need for each other could not completely hide.

  Huon groaned, pulled back, then plunged, driving hard, claiming her in the most primitive, basic rite. Beneath him, Judie writhed and pushed, meeting him, joining in the frantic drive to completion—body, mind and soul uniting to seal her bond with Huon.

  The fire of passion consumed her. Her skin stretched tight on her bones, her vagina hot and wet and tight, closing around his rigid cock with each inward thrust, surrendering to the delicious friction. Huon’s relentless rhythm, his lithe, lean body rising and falling above, the thin glow of sweat on his ivory skin, the musky scent of sex and aroused male filling her nostrils, drove her toward the peak of completion.

  He raised his head, teeth bared in a grimace of sexual ecstasy, and whispered, his voice raspy and intense, “I love you, and I will never leave you,” and she came in a dark, hot, velvet wave.

  She heard Huon’s shout as he followed her, felt the pulse of his cock as he spent himself inside her.

  The aftershocks of orgasm shuddered through them as they lay joined. She kept her arms clasped around him, not wanting him to move, needing to maintain their closeness.

  As if their connection extended to their thoughts, Huon changed his grip on her, then he rolled them both to their sides.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked. “Where will we go?”

  He kissed her softly, gently, the passion between them a warm echo. “Sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow will be soon enough to make plans.”

  As if she had been waiting for permission, she closed her eyes and let darkness take her.

  A strange tingling of her skin woke her, like someone applying the lightest of electric currents to her nerve endings. She blinked to clear her eyes of the haze of sleep but the blurriness deepened. The air shimmered and a dark figure, clad only in combat pants, stepped out of the mist. Before she had time to gather her scattered wits, Huon sat up.

  “What do you want?”

  “You.” Tybor uttered the single syllable in his deep, compelling voice.

  “They sent you to arrest me for desertion,” Huon sneered. “I guess they thought you could do the job on your own. No need to waste any more manpower on a pathetic, useless disgrace to the Dvalinn line.” He pushed the bedclothes aside and stood up. “Well, you’ll have to kill me first because I’m not leaving Judie.”

  “No, I—”

  Before Tybor could finish his sentence, Huon launched himself at the older man, fists swinging, roaring a wordless battle cry. Tybor fought back while Judie scrambled to the head of the bed. Huon’s fist landed on Tybor’s nose with a thump and red blood spurted. Tybor shouted, his arms flew up and he grappled with Huon, the muscles on his arms standing out as he exerted himself to maintain his grip.

  Heart pounding, Judie watched. She believed Huon when he said he would die before he let Tybor take him back and the fear that she was watching a fight to the death paralyzed her. She knew any attempt to get between them would most likely result in her being injure
d and while she was certain Huon would stop to help her, Tybor would probably use the distraction to overpower him.

  Her nails dug into her palms but she ignored the pain, keeping her entire focus on the fight before her. Huon struggled to land a solid punch, because Tybor had him wrapped in a relentless bear hug, and with sick certainty Judie realized that Huon was having difficulty breathing. His slender frame bent backward as Tybor forced him down.

  With a sweep of one leg, Tybor kicked Huon’s feet out from under him, crashing him onto his back on the floor. Tybor leaned over him, holding his forearms, his chest heaving and his legs straddling Huon’s.

  Tybor’s lips were drawn back into a fierce grimace, the brown skin stretched tight along his cheekbones. His eyes were half shut, the lids veiling his expression. He shook Huon once and Judie whimpered.

  Tybor didn’t spare her a glance. “You still have a lot to learn, boy,” he growled. Then his lips softened and he said, “But not as much as I do,” and he bent his head and kissed him. A long, passionate kiss that Judie watched wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

  When at last he drew back, all three of them were gasping for breath. Judie wanted to say something, anything, but nothing emerged from the stunned recesses of her brain. Huon just lay there as if he had a mountain instead of a man sitting on him.

  “Nothing to say?” Tybor asked. “Either of you?” He smiled. “Good. That gives me a chance to speak.” He looked at Huon. “If I let you up, do you think you could refrain from attacking me until after you hear me out?”

  Still speechless, Huon nodded.

  Tybor stood and put out a hand to pull Huon to his feet. Then, without releasing his hold, he moved to the bed. “Judie, Huon, I came to apologize, to beg your forgiveness and, I hope, set things right.”

  “I don’t understand…” Judie began, but Tybor held up his hand.

  “Hearing me out, remember?”

  “I didn’t promise that,” Judie muttered, but she shut up anyway. She wanted to hear what he had to say.

  Beneath the brown of his skin Tybor reddened and he dropped Huon’s hand and folded his arms across his chest in a defensive gesture. “This is hard for me. Meeting you has forced me to change my ideas about who I am. And I didn’t take it well. I’ve fought against it. Hard.”

  Huon glanced down at the marked skin where Tybor had held him, but maintained his silence.

  “Not just physically,” Tybor said, following Huon’s gaze. “If what I felt had been simply physical, I could have ignored it and moved on.” He lifted his head to look at Judie. “I’m good at that. It was my plan with you all along. But you made me feel things I didn’t believe in, didn’t want to believe in, and I did the only thing I knew how to do. I put up defensive walls to keep you out.”

  He stopped and silence filled the room.

  After a long moment, Huon spoke, his voice soft. “Why are you here, Tybor?”

  Tybor wiped his hand across his mouth. “I thought about what you said, about exploring what we have, and it kept playing over and over in my head. I wanted to talk to you. To see you. Both of you. It was like an ache, a pain I couldn’t ignore. I went back to look for you. You were gone. I knew you’d go looking for Judie. So I followed you.”

  “I found Judie by accident.” Huon’s brow wrinkled. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “You may not feel like a true Dvalinn,” Tybor replied, “but you’re Dvalinn enough for me to trace the emanations you leave when you transport.”

  “So you’ve found us,” Judie said. “What next?”

  “That’s…up to you.” Tybor sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. “I pushed you both away. Now I’m asking for another chance. But before you decide,” he swallowed and breathed deeply, “I don’t…this won’t be easy for me. I’m going to need your help and your patience. I’ll understand if you can’t give me that,” he said and bowed his head. His knees sagged and he sank onto the side of the bed.

  Huon’s eyes met Judie’s and she nodded. She put her hand under Tybor’s chin and lifted it. Huon’s arm slid across his shoulders.

  “Give us a chance and we’ll give you everything we can,” she whispered.

  Tybor leaned forward and touched his lips to hers and heat flared immediately, igniting the sexual desire she’d thought sated from the lovemaking with Huon. Tybor’s hands slid across Judie’s naked skin, his hesitancy discarded, once more the alpha male, in control, seeking and giving pleasure. His tongue thrust into her mouth, exploring, and the taste of him, musky, male and potent, made her reel. Through dazed eyes she saw Huon turn onto his knees, his cock hard, weeping a tiny drop of pre-cum. He slid his arms around Tybor’s waist, undid his pants and pushed them down his thighs. Tybor’s cock, heavy and full, bounced free, curving upwards, and Huon wrapped his fist around it.

  Tybor’s head snapped up, breaking the kiss, and he tensed, his muscles quivering.

  Huon ran his lips along the tightly corded muscles of his neck and whispered, “Relax. It’s all right.”

  His lean white fingers ran up and down Tybor’s rigid penis and it jerked and a pearlescent drop winked into existence on the tip. Huon leaned down, his tongue flicked out and he licked. Tybor shuddered, his strong frame trembling. With a lingering caress of his fingers, Huon released him.

  His seductive voice continued, “I want you, Tybor.”

  “I want you both,” Tybor responded.

  “Yes,” Judie breathed, “Like we were before. On the train.”

  “Not like that.” Huon sounded certain. “Not this time.” He cupped Tybor’s face in his hands. “Do you really want me, Tybor?”

  A ripple passed across the powerful muscles of Tybor’s abdomen. “Yes.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “I trust you with my life,” Tybor replied. “And my future.”

  “Then let me…” Huon’s voice cracked. “Let me have you. While you make love to Judie, let me make love to you.”

  Tybor swallowed, the muscles of his throat visibly working. “Yes,” he whispered. Then, more powerfully, the hint of smile curving his lips, “Hell, yes.”

  Huon dropped his hands and hugged Tybor to him, then held out one arm to include Judie. She leaned in, her head resting on Tybor’s shoulder, waiting for Huon to go on, sensing his need to control this miraculous moment.

  “Judie, lie down on your stomach and pull all those pillows under your hips.”

  She obeyed, turning her head to the side in time to catch Tybor’s tongue flicking out to moisten his lips. Her big, battle-hardened warrior was nervous. She wriggled her bottom and smiled when Tybor’s expression changed from apprehension to lust, his pupils growing dark and wide. Her heart pounded as she anticipated Huon’s next instruction.

  “Lift your hips and spread your legs wide, and Tybor…”

  “I’ve got the idea,” Tybor said, swinging his head to look at Huon. “For someone who a very short while ago was a virgin, you seem to be giving a lot of orders here.”

  “I spent a lot of time doing what you told me to do,” Huon said. “Now it’s time for you to listen to me.” He leaned forward again to kiss the corner of Tybor’s mouth. “Think you can do that?”

  Twisting further, Tybor put a hand behind Huon’s head and kissed him, meeting his lips, hard and demanding. The walls of Judie’s vagina clenched and pulsed, the sight of her two fierce warriors, all hard-carved muscle, brown and ivory, locked in a passionate embrace, driving her need to desperation. She moaned and Huon pulled away, licking his lips.

  “Later. There will be time for so much more, but for now,” he said, “I want us joined. I want to be inside you, Tybor. I want that so much.”

  Tybor stiffened, his hands dropping to his sides, and for a moment Judie feared he would push up off the bed and leave. A shudder flurried across his skin and his nostrils flared as though he was some magnificent beast scenting the air, then he lifted himself to straddle her legs, pushing himself against the cleft of her buttocks, h
is heavy cock held in his fist ready for her.

  She raised herself up, rubbing the hot, wet lips of her pussy against his cock, wriggling until she positioned the head at her entrance. The breath left his lungs, washing over the back of her neck her in a warm rush, and he surged inside, his thick hardness filling her. He leaned down until she could see his face. The tenderness she saw, the heaviness of his eyes and the gentle softness of his mouth, took her breath away. That look and the hard thickness filling her, the feel of his heart beating wildly against her back, drove her to an instant rush of orgasm.

  The soft pulsing of her vagina faded but he remained there unmoving, his breath rushing in and out in short, sharp bursts.

  “Tybor?” Huon’s voice penetrated her sensual haze. “Are you ready for me?

  Judie felt him tense, bracing himself. He didn’t speak but his head moved up and down in a jerky nod. A moment later a groan erupted from his lips. “Ah God, that’s…”

  “It’s just my finger, Tybor, you need to be lubed,” Huon said.

  Judie strained her neck but she couldn’t see what was happening. Her awareness relied on the rapid hitch in Tybor’s breathing and the feel of his body as it jerked suddenly against her.

  “Easy,” Huon murmured. “Relax.”

  “Do as he says, Tybor. That’s what you told me, remember? ‘Once you relax it will stop hurting’,” Judie reminded him. “Are you okay now?”

  “Yes. No. Oh fuck, it feels incredible,” he gasped.

  “I’ve got two fingers inside you, Tybor. You feel so good. So tight and warm. Just let me put in one more…one more,” Huon whispered. “Then I’ll spread them out like…”

  “Fuck me,” Tybor moaned.

  “Oh, I will.” Huon chuckled. “I will.”

  He raised himself up and Judie felt Tybor’s cock move inside her, pushing forward at the same time he let out a long drawn out, “Aah,” the sound echoed in Huon’s softer voice behind him.