By the Sea of Sand Read online

  All at once, everything came back to him.

  Chapter 33

  She’d lost him. Teila held her son in her arms, willing him to breathe and unable to make him. The man in front of her staggered forward, going to his knees in front of her with a low, moaning sob.

  “No,” he said. “No. He’s not gone.”

  Her own sobs came then, stealing her voice. She reached for him. He pulled her close, one of his hands on Stephin’s chest. He looked into her eyes.

  “Teila, I can save him. But you have to trust me.” He kissed her swiftly, saying against her mouth, “I remember.”

  She gasped and choked, her grief too vast for any amount of joy to find its way in. When he tried to take the boy from her arms, she couldn’t even find the strength to fight him. He lifted Stephin gently and moved toward the door.

  “Come on,” he told her. “You can make it, Teila. You’re strong enough. Come on.”

  The lights came on as she reached the hallway. The brightness hurt her eyes, but even squinting against it she kept moving after him. Down the stairs, along the corridor, to the kitchen where Kason laid Stephin on the blood-stained kitchen table.

  Billis burst through the back door. “I fixed the—is he dead?”

  “Salt,” Kason barked, arranging Stephin’s limbs into straight lines. “As much as you can find. A barrel of it, if you have one.”

  They did, of course, for storing the milka in. Several barrels, as a matter of fact, in the store room. Billis ran at once to bring one while Teila moved to the table. Every part of her ached and stung and the world threatened to spin out from beneath her feet. She clung to the table edge, head down, unable to do more than that.

  “Water,” Kason said. “Make a paste. Cover him with it. It will draw out the poison.”

  Billis moved to help him while all Teila could do was take up her son’s limp and lifeless hand. “It’s too late, Kason.”

  “No. The data stream,” he said. “I know how to do this.”

  With the water and the salt, Kason made a thick paste and covered as much of Stephin’s skin as possible, even tucking some onto the boy’s tongue. Then he tipped the boy’s head back and positioned his mouth over Stephin’s and blew hard enough to raise the boy’s chest. Then again. Again. Teila could only watch, horrified and overrun with grief.

  Kason worked for a long time, many heartbeats, too many too count. Until at last, defeated, he sagged into a chair with his head in his hands. His shoulders shook.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I failed.”

  Teila couldn’t speak. She took her son’s hand with both of hers and brought it to her lips. Her tears wet the gritty paste covering his skin. She tasted salt and the sting of whale oil beneath that.

  Let me die from it, she thought, numb. Let it kill me, too.

  From the corner, Billis began to cry. At her side, her husband buried his face against her. Teila wept without sound.

  In front of her, Stephin opened his mouth and let out a long, choking cough.

  Epilogue

  Her husband touched her with slow but certain hands. Smoothing fingers up the backs of her calves, the insides of her thighs. He teased her soft flesh, stroking along her seam and parting it to slip inside. His thumb pressed her clit as the heat of his breath caressed her. Teasing.

  “Kason.” Pleasure pushed his name to her lips, intensified by the simple ability to use it without fear. She breathed it out with every sigh. “Kason, Kason, Kason . . .”

  His murmured laughter sent shivers of desire pulsing through her as his lips found her clit. Then, his tongue. He worked her body with his mouth and fingers until she arched and shuddered under him. But he didn’t let her go over. No, he knew her better than that.

  Easing off, he kept her on the edge until everything else faded away but his touch. Teila lost herself in it, greedy and not ashamed to urge him with the lift of her hips, her gasps, the tug of her fingers in his hair. She gave herself up to him even as she demanded more from him. And he gave it to her. He gave her everything.

  Her orgasm rippled through her, tickling and then coming in a rush. She bucked helplessly against the waves of pleasure devouring her. It consumed her. She went up in flames and became her own fiery sun.

  “I know why the poets call climax ‘joining the sun’,” she said lazily when she’d found her voice again. Her fingers threaded through his hair.

  Kason had rested his head on her belly, his hand still cupping between her legs. He looked up at her with mischievous eyes, his mouth still wet from her arousal. “Oh?”

  “Yes. Yes, yes, yes,” she said. “Yes.”

  She pulled him to her mouth, open for his kiss, and sucked his tongue. She licked him with feathery strokes and nibbled his chin, his jaw. She pressed her mouth to the beat of pulse in his throat. She dug her nails into the muscles of his ass and urged him to press his cock against her.

  “Yes?” Kason asked. “This?”

  He rubbed his cock back and forth over her clit, sliding with ease from her slickness. It seemed impossible that she could rise to pleasure again, but he took his time until both of them were shuddering and she ached with an emptiness she desperately needed him to fill. Yet still he teased her, though the muscles on his arms corded with effort and a thin sheen of sweat coated him.

  Teila opened herself to him as he moved, and though Kason might’ve intended to keep on stroking his cock over her, she’d tilted her body at just the right angle to urge him inside with nothing more than a well-placed wriggle. He laughed and groaned at her trick, but seated himself balls deep. He kissed her, long and wet, not moving anything but his mouth. The beat of his heart thumped against her, and she clung to him, tight.

  “I love you, husband,” she said. “I love you, love you, love you.”

  “And I love you, wife,” he murmured between kisses.

  With him filling her, all she had to do was tighten her internal muscles to bring them both another wave of pleasure. She laughed at his groan and sighed at his shudder. Hooking her heels behind his calves, Teila ran her nails lightly down his back, urging him to fuck into her. He didn’t at first, resisting, but with another shift, another squeeze, he gave in at last.

  He moved. She sighed, her hips rocking. They made love for a long time, slow and steady, until once more she could no longer hold back the fire inside her. No explosion this time, more a steady growing flame that eventually consumed her. Consumed them both.

  Shaking, Kason kissed her as he spent himself. He crushed her with his full weight for a moment or so, but then slid to the side to cradle her against him. He nuzzled into the hollow of her shoulder.

  “I could stay here forever. Never get up,” he said.

  She stroked his hair. “I would let you, sweetheart. But the lamp . . .”

  He sighed, put-upon, but she knew he didn’t mean it. He looked up at her with a faint grin. “I’ll still be here when you get back.”

  “Oh, you.” She knuckled his side, which turned into him pinning her arms above her head . . . which became him kissing her breathless.

  With his hand flat on her belly, Kason propped himself on one elbow. “You stay in bed. I’ll check the lamp. You need your rest.”

  She gave him a lifted brow. “I appreciate the sentiment, husband, but somehow the time we’ve just spent doesn’t reflect that attitude very well. In fact, it sounds like more of an excuse simply to keep me abed for your own pleasure.”

  “Guilty,” he told her, then slid down her body to kiss her stomach and the slightest of bulges there. “But there’s this, as well. Tell me, Teila. You feel all right?”

  She didn’t laugh at his concern. “Yes, sweetheart. I feel totally fine. I’m all right.”

  He moved to kiss her mouth again. “Because we could have a medicus come—”

  “I’ve seen one.” They’d all seen one after the horror with Rehker and Pera and poor Venga. Vikus would need months of care but was well on his way to recovery, and Step
hin’s blisters had left scars that were slow to heal.

  She’d known before the exam, of course, that she carried Kason’s child. But it had relieved her fears to know that the medicus had found nothing wrong with her or the child swimming inside her. Rehker’s abuse hadn’t harmed either of them, but against her and Kason’s wishes, the Rav Aluf and the SDF had used his story as a further example about the horrors of the Wirthera. They were out there, she believed that. But she’d become unconvinced that sacrificing Sheirran citizens in the constant fight was effective, or would ever be.

  But that was a problem bigger than any of them in the lighthouse for now, something to work toward solving over time. For now, she settled against her husband whose eyes had closed, his breathing steady and regular. In a few moments she’d get up and check the lamp to keep the sea safe for the ships that travelled on it.

  For now, it was enough to be safe in her bed with the man she loved beside her.

  Passion Model

  Excerpt

  The scent of sex is an aphrodisiac for some. For others, a reminder of last night’s drunken mistake. For me, it’s just part of the job.

  The crowd parted before me like the thighs of a LUV 180 at the sight of a twentycredit chit. I passed a number of Pleasurebots, but didn’t stop. I’d spotted the one I wanted the minute I walked through the Lovehut door. An early model PSSN-M, maybe an 02 or an 03, one of the first Pleasurebots to strut off the assembly line. The standard was blond hair and blue eyes, but this one was was a chestnut-haired, with eyes the color of mahogany. The muscled arms and taut abs looked factory issue, but the rest was clearly a custom order.

  Pleasurebots are gregarious by their programming and don’t keep to themselves, but this one stood along the wall, alone. He could’ve been waiting for someone, but any sort of offbeat behavior from a PSSN was enough for me to suspect something more serious, like a malfunction. I made my way through the bumping and grinding crowd, my hand ready to grab my stunner if I needed it. Some PSSNs have a malfunctioning ignition. You can turn them on, you just can’t turn them off.

  A man who rented a PSSN-F-02 in one of the older Lovehuts learned that the hard way. She fucked him to death. Since then, Howard Adar and the Newcity Ruling Council have had the Recreational Intercourse Operatives working heavy duty overtime to find the faulty models and haul them in for repairs. It isn’t always easy. There are certain men and women who will pay ten times the going rate for the thrill of risking a Passion Model with a busted ignition.

  It isn’t easy to convince a PSSN he or she needs to be fixed, either, not when shoddy repairs can put them out of commission for a long time. Sometimes, even forever. Passion Models can spot an R.I. Op a mile away, even out of uniform.

  Sometimes they run.

  This one met my eyes and let a slow, hot smile cross his perfectly shaped lips like synthetic butter on a hot cob of articorn. “Hello, officer.”

  “Operative GMMA 4121609.” I slid up my sleeve to show him the tattoo badge on my forearm. “Personal ID unit?”

  He spread his fingers in a mock-innocent gesture. “Must’ve left it at home.”

  I raised one eyebrow at him to let him know I wasn’t fooled. “You know you’ll have to come to the nearest inspection station with me.”

  In the glaring neon light from above the bar, his eyes looked dark as midnight. Blue and green swirls glittered from the flashing lights. He frowned.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  He took the opportunity to let his gaze move completely along my body, paying special attention to my nipples, which pushed at the navy blue artisilk of my uniform. And then, damn him, when he looked at the junction of my legs, he licked his lips.

  “No, officer. You don’t.”

  “You know the laws, buddy. All bots have to be registered and licensed…and inspected.” This close, he smelled unbelievable. Something expensive, custom-blended. I could smell him even above the tang of deathsticks and hallucinabars. This Passion Model was high class.

  He nodded then, but his dark eyes narrowed. “You think I’m—”

  I put my hand on my stunner far less than casually. “Are you going to give me a hard time?”

  At my unintentional pun, he flashed me that grin again. “I guess I am. If you insist.”

  I made a show of shaking my head and rolling my eyes, but since it appeared he was going to come with me quietly, I just waved him toward the door. God-of-choice, the view from behind was just as sweet. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the PSSN-M. They were built with a quality that seems to have gone by the wayside. Sure, the newer Pleasurebots have been improved. They make the PSSY models with an intelligence to rival any sixth grader, and the CUM 180s can even add and subtract. But when it comes right down to their real function, sex, the first PSSNs have a wonderful quality all their own, lost in the later upgrades. A sense of humor. I guess most people don’t like to laugh while they’re naked.

  He tossed a glance over his shoulder as we pushed through the doors to the parking lot. “You sure you want to do this?”

  “It’s my job, metalboy. Keep it moving.”

  And did he ever. I hadn’t seen an ass move like that since R.I. Op training, when we were forced to undergo hours of simulated stimulation—and even most of the simstim hadn’t looked that good.

  “Someone put a lot of money into you,” I told him.

  He paused at the edge of the moving tread sidewalk and gave me another of his cocky grins. “Which way do you want me?”

  He was asking me which direction I wanted him to take the pedtread, but his sexy double entendre served its purpose. I felt the flush rise along my cheeks. I was going to enjoy this inspection, faulty ignition or no.

  “Follow me.”

  Using the pedtread, we reached the nearest inspection station only a minute away. Its red neon sign blinked a beacon for us as we stepped off the pedtread and onto the sidewalk. He looked up at the sign, one of the more graphic ones. This one showed a gigantic erect phallus penetrating a pulsating pussy. The neon was old and flickering, giving the simulated copulation a frenzied look.

  He nodded toward it. “In there?”

  His pretense at innocence was beginning to annoy me. “You have another place in mind?”

  He let that liquid chocolate gaze slide down over my breasts and center between my thighs again before he replied. “My apartment, maybe.”

  “You know that’s illegal. Get inside.”

  He hesitated again, one foot on the doorstep. “I’ve never been inside one of these places.”

  For an instant, just a moment, I felt sorry for him. It’s not a Passion Model’s fault if he or she malfunctions. Still, the laws had been passed and I was just doing my job. Better for me to risk a bot going into overdrive than an untrained civilian. I could handle it. Most people couldn’t.

  “Inside.”

  He shrugged again and laughed. “Sure thing.”

  The benches in the lobby were empty. All the magazines had been put away neatly in their racks. A pair of saucy breasts peeked out at me from one magazine cover. A set of nice firm male buns showed on another. Directly ahead of us sat the receptionist, and behind her desk stretched the long corridor of inspection rooms.

  “Slow night?” I slid up my sleeve to show her the tatbadge, though Miriam and I had known each other since I first graduated from R.I.O.

  Miriam nodded and brushed her waist-length ebony hair over one shoulder with crimson-painted nails. The movement slid her neckline even farther open to show the cherry tips of her perfect white breasts. Behind me, I heard the PSSN let out a low mutter. Miriam smiled.

  “Yeah.” She looked me over. “But I might say that you are looking fine tonight, Gemma.”

  “I’m on duty.”

  She shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

  I had to force back a chuckle. “Just sign us in, okay?”

  Miriam yawned. “Take your pick.
They’re all empty.”

  I held out my arm so she could scan the badge, then opened my eyes so she could give me the retinal scan. The bright light, as always, left dark spots in my vision for a few seconds. Blinking, I stopped her when she moved to give my detainee the scan.

  “He doesn’t have a license.”

  A Pleasurebot without a license wouldn’t have a retscan code either. Newcity Council’s pressure to keep the Lovehuts clean hadn’t extended to a bigger budget. Captain Rando was coming down hard on the department for unnecessary expenses, and full scans cost a minimum of .75 credits. I didn’t want to be on the Chief’s rant list without reason.

  Miriam looked at him more closely. “Malfunction?”

  I gave him a glance. “No reports and no complaints. Just a random inspection. He didn’t have his personal ID unit, so…”

  “You have got the best job.” Miriam sighed. “C’mon.”

  Through the entire exchange, my handsome Passion Model had remained silent. When Miriam left the security of her desk, however, he let out a low, strained whistle. I could understand why. Miriam’s skirt covered her from waist to toes, but the material was so sheer nothing was hidden. Her taut buttocks were clearly visible under the cloth. When she reached the door to the inspection room, the dark triangle of her pubic area pressed against the gauzy cloth. It was just demure enough to be totally captivating.

  “See you later,” she said and gave my bot a wink that made him groan.

  Once inside the inspection room, I gave him a moment to calm down. “Have a seat.”

  Predictably enough, he chose the bed. I stayed standing while I prepared to read him his rights. “You are aware that Mandate 6978 requires all Pleasurebots to be licensed, registered and regularly inspected?”

  “Yeah. I know about that.”

  I fingered the top snap of my jumpsuit. “You are aware that by not providing me with the appropriate license you gave me reason to require you to accompany me to Inspection Station 7308 for a full and thorough inspection of all your functions, to be completed at my discretion and to my satisfaction?”