"C'mon, girl," he said, kissing her face, her eyelids, and the bridge of her nose as the lions growled. "Holmes is about to walk in here--"
She jerked her head up, seeming totally paralyzed by fear for a moment. "Under the surface," she said quickly.
Carlos immediately obliged her, his heart pounding. What the hell could clear blue energy do to hide them? But he watched as Cain strode by, took off his blade, dropped it on a bench, and glanced around, perplexed. He heard Cain bellow his name, but the sound of Cain's voice was muffled. Zehiradangra squeezed her eyes shut and put one finger to her lips. As Cain walked back down the other side of the pool, she thrust Carlos's head deeper beneath the surface.
Electric-like sensations were making his hair stand up as though static was yanking it from the roots. She kept pointing down, as though trying to tell him to go further and follow the current. Girlfriend didn't have to tell him twice.
But he had to admit that he was a little messed up when she suddenly elongated, and opened a six-foot pair of silvery wings, and her entire form became a voluptuous, pastel, scale-plated water dragon. Damali was gonna kick his ass, for sure. The she-dragon glanced back with an apology in her jewel-green eyes, and slung her seashell-smooth tail toward him to hitch a quicker ride.
A hundred thoughts fought for dominance as he hung on, increased in speed, and finally dropped in a clearing surrounded by mountains. He stood quickly and watched her transform from the lithe creature into the dark, voluptuous beauty she'd been.
"I didn't want you to have to see that," she said quietly. "It's better than what I can turn into," he said, touching her face. She was all-right people. "I thought your man wasn't jealous, though?"
She swallowed a smile. "All right, I lied."
Carlos laughed.
"Oh, he is not that bad. We used to have regular trysts before this became a prison void of sensation." She swept her arms out and let them fall with a sigh. "Then, after trying and trying until it became too excruciating to dwell upon it, we found a comfortable compromise." "Which was?" He had to hear this one.
"All of us are in the same predicament. We became friends. Share each other's secrets. Use our minds to give each other joy through laughter. Share sentiment through sound, music... please the eye with the beauty of art." She smiled and kissed him gently. "When we get hungry for the sensual, we absorb knowledge. The unplundered original texts of the Library of Alexandria are here, the University of Timbuktu, Luxor, and Karnack, plus all the floor plans for every architectural achievement... we build, we learn, we... love from afar."
"That's terrible," Carlos whispered, really meaning it. "I'll bring you over to our side, I promise."
"He would have been angry, not because you touched my physical being, but because he and I are such old friends, and... in a very short time, you had touched my mind and my spirit. Do you understand?"
He didn't. Carlos admitted that by shaking his head slowly. He thought Cain was about to wig because his hands were all over her and he'd punctured her jugular.
She smiled patiently. "My friend would never deny me sensual pleasure, knowing how rare a commodity that is. That is an easily forgivable offense. The flesh is weak." She cupped Carlos's face. "But when I opened my mind to you, shared my fantasies... the mind lock breached his trust. That was our private sanctuary, that was something neither of us expected." She allowed her hand to fall away, and she wrapped her arms around herself as tears began to form in her eyes. She pursed her lips before speaking. "In order to let you do that, I had to trust you-- something that was only his. Do you not understand, when you give someone your complete trust, you have indeed given them your heart. You have given them profound love. He felt the invasion the moment I crossed the line, and that is what brought him home."
She walked away and pointed to the edge of a cliff. "The rip is there."
Carlos glanced at it, but his eyes then returned to her sad face. "I'm sorry," he murmured, "had I known . . ."
"But I understand why you did it." She smiled as two tears streamed down her face. "You did not want to breach the way trust is conveyed in your realm. The claim to the body is offered as the ultimate trust, but fantasies, friendship, caring... these are elements that are freely exchanged in your world. But here, where the body is etheric, energy can fuse at will with other bodies and it is considered matter that will shift, change, and be of no consequence. But fantasies are closely guarded and cherished, as are dreams and hopes, and alliances... there is a matter of honor, to be sure."
Carlos rubbed his hands down his face. What she had told him was so profound he was at a loss for words. "Aw, baby... then why did you let me do that? I'm so damned sorry, because I've gotta leave you here, now, with a very pissed off, very strong--"
"You still do not understand, do you?"
Carlos stared at her, feeling so stupid he could have kicked himself.
"I could sense that you would not give me your body the way I needed you to," she admitted calmly, without emotion. "I was leveraging you, and I knew it." She closed her eyes. "Cain cares for me so, and felt that you were young and given to excess, so he gave you to me as a friendship gift."
"He what?" Carlos folded his arms over his chest, so indignant that he almost walked away from her. "Hear me out," she said quietly. "He knew you wanted to go home, and has no interest in keeping you in his lair. But for all the years of friendship between us, he told me, 'Go to him, Zehira... let him pleasure you and then send him home. Let him give you what I cannot in this realm, for you are my dearest friend.' "
She covered her mouth and caught a sob as Carlos remained stunned and speechless. "Neither of us understood how attached you were to the young female one of your kind. It had been so long, we had forgotten the flesh bond of the earth plane... and I lost my perspective, needed release so badly that I betrayed my friend. I let you into my mind, did not care that you entered it, as long as you would topple me over the edge of raw sensation." She walked away, covering her face with her hands, weeping into them and sputtering as she spoke. "He was so generous, so trusting, and that I did this to him for a moment of flesh pleasure--oh, how can I face him and explain? I have dishonored him in his own lair!"
"Okay, okay," Carlos said, worry for her safety now knotting his stomach. "Is there any way you can get him to blame it on me? Like, like, tell him I mind raped you, just went in and sucked your brain out through your ear, whatever. Tell him the silver-tongued bastard he tumbled through the rip with did it out of spite because he'd flesh kissed his woman. I can't let you take this kinda weight, but I need to get back on my side to go up against him before I starve to death. I don't know... But baby, I can't leave you over here to get your head--"
"He will never believe that a mere unseasoned vampire--young Neteru hybrid could bend the will of a centuries' old goddess!" She walked in a mad circle. "You? A kid? Take my mind against my will? Oh, by the gods, be serious!"
"Damn, that hurt, sis," Carlos said, truly meaning it. He rubbed his jaw, contemplating the older woman who'd just told him something he'd never thought he'd hear a woman tell him with such unblemished honesty. It stung like a slap, but he still didn't want to leave her ass-out. "Well, still, we need a plan to keep you safe, so lemme go get enough juice to pull you through, and you lay low until we can sync up a signal so I can extract you, so he doesn't--"
"He won't kill me!" she shrieked, covering her face as her head dropped back. "He'll shun me!" Bitter sobs wracked her body. "He has the most brilliant mind in the entire kingdom! He won't touch a hair on my head." She wiped her eyes with both fists and then brought her voice to a normal, decibel. "He will very simply refuse to mind lock with me ever again. I will no longer be his friend. I will be denied the silver fire within his brilliant synapses... his voice inside my head . . ."
"Wow... he's all that in the head?" Carlos asked, gazing out toward the barrier.
"You cannot even begin to fathom where centuries have allowed his mind to go," she whispered. "To be denied that... he might as well take off my head when I go back to him."