"I want, for the relationship part of my life, a situation that recharges my battery, and doesn't drain it."
She could feel his hands heat up and tremble so hard as they clasped hers within them that their fingers simply entwined by reflex to stop it. Her truth poured out, and flowed over their laps as she talked to their hands. Sudden tears stung her eyes for no reason at all, needing to release the tension and weariness of dealing with a high-voltage duo for so long that she couldn't remember what normal might be.
"I don't want to fight all the time," she said in a tight whisper, "or be in mad-crazy drama all the time. I want some stillness and serenity in between battles where I can create music, and work with kids.... I want trust, everlasting. I want to never have to walk on eggshells around egos about who's in charge... ya know? I want to be able to teach as well as learn--not just battle skills, but deep stuff, spiritual stuff. I want mutual respect and safe harbor for my deepest dreams. And, one day, I want to have children and not be afraid that their father is gonna go do some wild mess to put me or them in harm's way."
He slowly lowered his forehead until it touched hers. The damp sheen of perspiration on his brow had risen in shimmering, infinitesimal droplets as though his skin were leaking gold. The silver Neteru symbol on his chest had lit a neon signal beneath his sheer white robe, and had begun pulsing. Every structure in the room vibrated with slow, melodic murmurs that strummed desire through her cells. His bed was literally calling her name in a low, whispering mantra of bass lines and quiet baritone gasps. Their breaths in the small space between their clasped hands and touching foreheads created billowing warmth that spread over their chests and thighs, added a recycling heat to their faces as they both drew in and released slow, agonized breaths.
"Your spirit is sure. Your body is sure," he murmured. "But your heart is conflicted. I will not press the issue to add to heartbreak, though you cannot imagine how much I want to right now."
"I've never been with anyone else but him," she whispered.
Cain took in a breath through his mouth, cringed as though she'd stabbed him, and tilted his head. "Devastation, listen to me. Right now, you have--"
"He hurt me, Cain," she said, her eyes shut hard and her knees pressed tightly together. "This time around . . ."
"Go home. Become clear. I do not want you to do this because you are functioning from a vibration of anger or fear or anything from the lower octaves, and then blame me later. That would kill me."
She almost slid off the bench when he let her hands go, pulled his forehead away from hers, and dropped his head back with his eyes closed, beginning to hyperventilate. Her blouse and pants were sticking to her in a damp fusion with her skin. She was so turned on, it felt like she was ripening. "You sure?" She'd never had to ask a man that in her life.
He nodded with his eyes closed, breathing through his mouth. His voice came out on a gravelly whisper. "You are a child of the sun, as am I," he said, his sentences becoming choppy. "You are a Leo, I am a Leo, which rules the higher self, rules the will sector of the spirit."
She couldn't tell whether he was reminding himself, or trying to impart some deep information to her. But watching him try to talk, make sense, be chivalrous and not touch her, all at the same time was disorienting. His discipline was shredding hers. "That's why we're probably a perfect match."
He shook his head, now gulping air. "That is why you cannot go back and forth. He is a Scorpio, which rules the lower self-- desires and lusts. You two will be at odds back and forth until the end of time."
She pressed her hand to her heart, unable to stop looking at him as she spoke. "I know. I'll go home and resolve it, either way. I don't trust him anymore."
"That is not a reason to be with me," he said, bringing his head up slowly to stare at her with solid silver irises rimmed in three layers of gold. "If you choose to be with me, let it be because you trust me. That I am your friend, above all things. That you know I will never hurt you. Understand that my honor for you is worth drawing a blade in battle. Know that I would protect your music as much as our children."
Hot silver tears covered his irises but did not fall. A slight hint of fang crested, which almost made her stand as his voice dropped another octave and set off a depth charge within her canal.
"Detriment to my soul, I am hunted by you. My pride is no more. I would share you with him, rather than to not have you at all. Me. A king. Yes. But I am so torn apart at this moment that I am compelled to tell you what I have never told another woman. I would allow him to live, rather than have you ever hate me and shun me. And if he sired with you first, I would protect what grew inside you--because it was half yours! This is why I am afraid to bed you in my own lair tonight. After that, I will be slain, and I am old enough to be aware of that consequence."
He shook his head, stood, and pointed at her. "That is why you must be clear, and there can be no back and forth on this issue. It is not fair to either of us." He pulled his arm away, placed both hands atop his head, and began walking deeper into the massive room.
Somehow she found herself on the floor, not sure if she slid off the bench, or what. Every long stride he took down the side of the pool made her want to get up arid follow him. She was sweating silver; it was all over her hands as she tried to pat the puddle of moisture that had formed in the V of her throat. Her face was flushed, mouth dry, body flashing hot and cold as she watched his shoulders knead beneath fabric that should have been gone to show off his fabulous skin.
His thick ropes of dreadlocks swayed down his back like an angry lion's tail, his tight, stone-cut ass tapered into thick, marble-hard legs, and when he turned to hotly walk toward her, she fell back balancing on both hands behind her, eyes half-closed, panting.
"I've never felt like this in my life," she whispered, her gaze purely carnal as it raked its way down his torso and lingered on his groin. She had to remember to look up at his face to finish what she was trying to say, but forgot what that was as he outstretched his hand for her to stand and follow him to bed.
"Nor I, ever, in several thousand years."
It was now or never, and she was beyond saying no. But the fact that she was actually going to do this was almost an out-of-body experience. Forgetting that the pool wasn't water, she dipped her hand into it to splash the cool substance on her face. Last-minute clarity had been the objective. Yet it happened so fast, Cain's stooping down and yelling no, but unable to catch her wrist as it came up--the blue energy covered her eyes and forehead.
"What?" she murmured as he got down on his hands and knees, stricken, holding her to him.
"Oh, sweetness, I did not have time to remove the charged energy in this pool. No woman should ever see... Please forgive that it was in my home." .
He hugged her so tightly as he stroked her hair that she gasped just to breathe; it wasn't passion.
"Cain... I don't understand what. . ." Her words slowed down as the image finally settled behind her eyes into her second-sight. Her body froze and trapped a sob that she refused to allow to break free. "He did it to me again . . ." Her head found Cain's shoulder as she absently stroked his long bundle of locks down his back. "This time it's a she-dragon?" Damali laughed, but the sound of it was discordant with the harmonic energies around her.
"And here I was trying to put the Isis in my guilt," she said, her voice becoming quieter and quieter. "Right here I was wrestling that bitch of an emotion to the ground, trying to--"
"Shush," Cain said as her hand balled into a fist at his back. "Let me take this out of your mind," he said, kissing her temple.
She shook her head no as her visions blurred with the hot moisture in her eyes. "No. I need to remember this live and in living color." "I would not have--"