By the Sea of Sand Read online

  Calmly, though his grasp hurt, she put her hand over his. “You’re awake.”

  “Where am I?” He didn’t let go. In fact, he yanked her closer, hard enough to make her stumble on the hem of her robe. He sat up, legs swinging over the edge of the bed, and caught her before she could fall.

  Reflexes, not consideration. She reminded herself of that, even as the harsh grip on her wrist loosened and his other hand went automatically to her hip to steady her. It had been many circuits of the suns since a man had held her this close.

  He smelled good. Yes, there was the odor of blood and stale sweat, scents she’d sadly grown accustomed to since the Rav Aluf had started bringing her patients. But below that was a spicy, rich scent. Not of dust and heat but of green and growing things. Of black earth, not scorched sand. Of . . . water. Oh, how he smelled of fresh, clean water, of the air after a rare storm.

  “Where am I?” he demanded, his fingers gripping and bunching her robe. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Teila. I’m a lighthouse keeper, though in recent years I’ve been put into practice as something a little more.” She paused, considering how to answer him. “You’re in the lighthouse at Apheera, on the edge of the Sea of Sand.”

  “Which one?”

  She laughed, because although there were indeed a multitude of sand seas on Sheira, along with only two saltwater seas, both so small as to be barely significant, there was only one Sea of Sand. The others had different names and were broken by islands and inlets and peninsulas and civilization. The great body of evershifting sands outside her windows was vast and mostly uninterrupted, the only body of sand large enough to provide haven to the whales.

  “The big one,” she told him.

  He peered at her through heavy lidded eyes. The starfire that had burned his skin and caused internal radiation damage hadn’t ruined his eyes. She knew they were a pure and vivid gray—or would be so in the light and once the swelling and redness had gone down. Now she could only glimpse a hint of the color. She put a hand on his shoulder, her fingertips brushing the skin of his neck.

  “Are you thirsty? Hungry? We have fresh milka. I could bring you some water or juice. It would be best if you didn’t overindulge yourself too much at once.”

  The hand on her hip gripped yet harder, shifting her closer so that she stood between his legs. Seated, he had to look up at her, but not by much. Jodah was as tall as the Rav Aluf, if not a few inches taller. His mouth parted and his tongue swiped along his lips.

  “Hungry,” he said.

  “I’ll bring you something.” Teila didn’t move. This close to him she could see the pattern of crimson veins and arteries raised against the lighter brown flesh of his forehead. Starfire burned from the inside out. She traced the map of his injuries with a fingertip, not trying to cause him pain.

  He winced anyway. She leaned a little closer, unable to stop herself from looking him over as best she could in the dim light. Her eyes had adjusted, but there were still details she couldn’t make out.

  She drew in a breath when he pulled her still closer, bending her at the waist to get his mouth and nose close to her neck, exposed by the way she’d arranged her hair. At the touch of his lips there, she shivered. At the brief tickle of his tongue against her skin, she shuddered. And when he breathed her in, giving a low moan of need, she let him pull her onto his lap.

  The man called Jodah mouthed her throat while his other hand slipped under the hem of her robe, finding her bare skin above the thigh-high leggings. His fingertips traced her heat there. Then higher.

  “Who are you?” he breathed, his fingers painting pleasure on her skin.

  She whispered, “My name is Teila. I’m the lighthouse keeper. And I’m going to take care of you.”

  His hardness pressed against her. Everything about him was hard—legs, arms, the chest against which she was so firmly nestled. Teila was used to the bodies of soldiers, but Jodah was more than a mere soldier. He wore this skin like a shield, his bones beneath replaced or covered by metal. She could guess that his lungs and kidneys had been replaced by artificial components too.

  “My heart,” he muttered, pressing her hand to it. “It’s beating so fast.”

  His heart was still real.

  She couldn’t keep herself from kissing him, then. She cupped his face and opened his mouth with hers. Their tongues met, stroking. It had been so long. So achingly long.

  He growled when she moved against him, the sound low and chilling. His eyelids fluttered, and for a terrifying moment she thought she’d somehow set off the Wirtheran nanotriggers roaming the channels of his brain. But no, arousal moved him. Not pain.

  He ground her rear onto his cock, his hips pushing upward while the hand between her legs found her clit as easily as if she’d directed his touch. She wore nothing under the robe but the thin slipcloth undergown and her leggings, and at the press of bare flesh on hers, Teila cried out. When he slid one thick finger into her, she had no voice and could only shake.

  A life without pleasure is no life at all. That old Sheirran saying had been one of her father’s favorites and one Teila had taken as her own. But her life had been without pleasure, at least of this sort, since before the birth of her son. Her own hands had never been an adequate substitute for a man’s rough caress, and though she’d had many offers over the years, she’d declined them all.

  Waiting.

  “I want to taste you.” He moved so fast, so smooth, and he’d pushed her onto the bed before she could blink. Then he was between her legs, pushing her robe up, his mouth following the path his fingers had made.

  He kissed between her thighs gently, the heat of his breath like fire. His tongue found the tight knot of her clitoris and stroked along it, then lower to dip inside her labia. Teila’s back arched when he moaned against her. At the press of his tongue inside her, she had to stifle her own cry by biting her fist.

  It felt so good, so good, and her hips lifted, pressing herself to the delights of his lips and tongue. Bright threads of pleasure wove themselves into a tapestry of ecstasy as he licked and sucked at her clit. When he pinched it gently between two fingers, jerking it slowly while he flickered his tongue over it, Teila lost her mind. Her orgasm rose inside her like the surge of sand on the wind, rolling and shifting, and all she could do was ride it.

  There was no biting back her cry this time, not shattering with climax as she was. The pleasure tore through her and left her spent and gasping, shuddering with the aftershocks as Jodah continued to lap at her clit and fuck deep inside her with his fingers. It was no substitute for his cock, but when he curled his fingers just so against the hidden spot inside her, Teila shuddered again with a second climax that came hard on the edge of the first.

  “So sweet,” Jodah said when she’d finally quieted. He pressed a gentle kiss to her cunt and withdrew just long enough to shuck out of his trousers. Again moving so fast and seamlessly she didn’t have time to react, he moved forward and slid inside her, so deep that at first the press of him inside her passage, so long without such attentions, made her squirm.

  But only for a moment, because when he began to move, her body surged along with his. She raked her fingernails down his bare back, not wanting to hurt him but helpless to keep herself from the reaction. Jodah muttered in wordless pleasure, fucking into her harder. He supported himself with one hand while the other moved beneath her knee to lift it, opening her to him further. Deeper. She moved with him, this dance a familiar one and never out of fashion, no matter how long it had been since she’d last made the steps.

  He bit down on the softness between her neck and shoulder when he climaxed, and Teila relished that pain. When he collapsed on top of her, she ran her fingers over and over through his hair, down his back and finally cupped the back of his neck when he went still. She listened to the sound of his slow breathing, felt the weight of him grow heavier as his body went slack in sleep. Then, she carefully pushed him off her, and he rolled onto his side,
curling against himself and going quiet.

  She lay beside him only a moment longer after that. She had no time to spend in this bed, even if her legs felt boneless and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to walk. She listened to the rattling in-out of his breathing, reassured that it was harsh but not labored. She touched his hair gently; he didn’t stir.

  In the hallway outside, she quickly arranged her robes and smoothed her hair. There was nothing to be done for the marks he’d left on her skin, but she answered to nobody even if any of them should ask. In the lamp room she made sure all the switches were on, the solar cells charged. The light was built to last a millennium without burning out and would come on automatically, but she still checked and would check again as the suns dipped below the horizon and darkness fell. She’d check in the middle of the night, too, because while only once had the light ever gone out, it had left behind the wreckage of three whalers. That had been the night her father died.

  One of the mechbots whirred and chirped at her as Teila checked the switches once more, and she paused to touch it lightly on its “head.” It let out a series of low hoots that made her smile. It was programmed to react to petting, though of course it had only the lowest level of intelligence and had no emotions whatsoever. Its reactions had been built to make people think of it as a pet, not a robot, and therefore be more likely to treat it nicely if and when it malfunctioned. Vikus kept all the ‘bots in the lighthouse working, but it did require constant tinkering, especially now that the parts for repairs were so hard to come by. Someday and maybe soon, ‘bots would be made illegal and she’d have to decide how on earth she’d manage the lighthouse without them, though for now the subject was cause for debate and controversy each election, but it had not yet been changed.

  Downstairs, she checked with the kitchen to be sure the meals had been prepared. The other residents, each with their own room in the lower parts of the lighthouse, would serve themselves as they were hungry, but Teila had implemented a communal dining time for the evening meal. It was good for the residents, many struggling with socialization or other mental issues related to their traumas, to have the company of others even if the rest of the time many of them preferred solitude. With that task taken care of, she climbed again to the top level and her own quarters, down the hall from the room she had insisted on giving Jodah.

  Stephin was still too young to stay awake for the night meal. He’d been given his dinner by his amira, who’d been Teila’s amira and also her father’s before that. Amira Densi would probably be the amira to Stephin’s children, too. Curled in his small bed, one fist tucked beneath his cheek, her son slept without stirring even when she stroked his hair. But when she made to leave, his wide gray eyes opened.

  “Mao?”

  “Yes, love.”

  But he only smiled and sank back to sleep. She sat with him for a while, her hand on his back, testing the rise and fall of his breath. This boy was her life. He was all she’d had of his father since many months before his birth and all she’d come to believe she would ever have again. Until now, she thought with a prayer of gratitude sent up to the triple Mothers who’d seen fit to return Teila’s husband, though his own father, the Rav Aluf, had told her he’d been lost in battle.

  Now, her husband had come home.

  Chapter 4

  He could no longer tell the passing of time. Day or night, nothing mattered with the blurriness in his eyes. Looking too long at anything made his head hurt so bad he swore it was going to explode, and perhaps even wished for it to happen, if only to stop the pain. The rest of his body was slowly healing, but there were times he swore he could feel the skittering touch of insects scuttling in his brain.

  He still couldn’t remember his name or how he’d come to this place, but the taste of a woman was something he’d never forget. Now it coated his tongue and lips, making his cock so hard it ached. There was softness beneath him; a bed. He remembered the touch of her hair against his face, the stroke of her fingers on him. The smell of her.

  He slept and did not dream.

  He woke at the sound of her voice. She called him “Jodah,” which didn’t sound right. Didn’t fit or feel right. Still, he rubbed at his sticky eyes and tried to find her in the room’s dim light. It had a different feel to it, a paler gray. Rectangles of light marked the windows he realized had been covered, probably to protect his vision.

  Her name was . . . Teila. He remembered that. She was taking care of him. But was she the woman he’d spent himself inside? Yesterday, the day before, a lifetime ago, Jodah couldn’t remember if it had been real or a dream. For that matter, was this happening now or was it another of his brain’s attempts at getting him to leave behind the pain?

  “You’ll be well enough to join us for meals soon,” she said. There came the clatter of plates on a tray. The smell of something good. She moved close to him, the bed dipping when she sat. “Here. Let me help you.”

  The broth was thick and rich, but he could take only a little bit before his stomach urged him to stop. The flavor of it was familiar the way so much else seemed to be, but then it was overlaid by the memory of thick ration paste, the nutritionally complete meals that never tasted of what they were supposed to. And another memory flooded him with bitter and sour, making him wince.

  “. . . They made me grateful for ration paste,” he said aloud. The sound of his own voice was as unfamiliar as a stranger’s.

  Teila said nothing at first. Then her gentle hands took away the tray and wiped at a spill on the front of him. “Who did?”

  But that was as lost to him as everything else. She moved closer to him to press a damp cloth to his forehead. He was sweating and hadn’t known.

  Need rose in him again, and he pulled her close. She was beneath him in a heartbeat. Her body, open and slick and willing, drew him in. It felt so good he couldn’t speak, could only move. Thrust and grind and fuck.

  She tightened on his cock, and he slowed, remembering what it was like to draw out the pleasure. To make a woman scream with it. Not to simply pound away and find his own climax, though it was close and he had to fight it. He forced himself to steady his pace. To slide in and out, adding a grind of his hips to press himself against her clitoris when he was fully inside her.

  He kissed her.

  Her mouth was a sweet heaven. He plundered her mouth with his tongue, stroking in and out in time with the thrust of his hips. He lost himself in her mouth, her cunt. Her arms around him, her legs around his waist. She urged him to move faster but he kept the pace slow and steady until she writhed beneath him and her body clutched and fluttered around his cock. Only then did he move faster again, deep and deeper inside her until ecstasy overtook him and made him blinder than any injury.

  Then there was dark again, the soft sound of her singing and the press of another cool cloth on his face. Some time after that, the whirr of metal on metal. The stink of blood. The sounds of screaming, and he was screaming and running . . . running . . . and they’d pinned him down while the bonesaws buzzed and the sting of needles pressed him all over. Then all he had was pain.

  Chapter 5

  Vikus looked up at the sound of far-off screams. “Should he be here? This isn’t a medica.”

  “The Rav Aluf thought this place would be best. And it is,” Teila told him as they walked along the edge of the sea. Dust powdered the edge of her robe. A few steps in one direction would take her onto rocky, barren soil. A few in the other would have her up to her neck in the slickly sliding sand. She kept herself carefully on the edge.

  “He’s worse than any of the others ever were. He screams every night. During the day, too. He’s mad.”

  She gave him a sharp look. “Wouldn’t you be? And you act as if he’s the only one who ever came here with bad dreams.”

  Vikus had the grace to look ashamed, but he shielded his eyes to look up at the windows at the top of the lighthouse. “You know he could become one of them at any time.”

  “Not if w
e’re careful. Not if we keep him safe. Anyway, all of them could.” Stubbornly, Teila refused to look where he was looking. She forced herself to think of her husband as Jodah, not Kason, because she didn’t dare slip up and call him by his real name. It could be the worst sort of trigger, worse than her own name, which she’d given him despite the risks. “He needs to come back to himself, Vikus. Slowly. That’s all. On his own.”

  “What if he never does?”

  Her heart leapt into her throat at the thought of that, and she glared at him. “Bite your Mothers-forsaken tongue. He’s strong. He’s a soldier, for the love of the Mothers!”

  “And been one for a long time.” Vikus’ expression went dark. “And he’s not . . . the same, Teila. I loved Kason—”

  “Jodah,” she corrected sharply. “You must call him that.”

  Vikus began to speak, but Teila cut him off by grabbing the front of his robe. “You must promise me, Vikus. If he’s mad, it was done to him in service to this world. For me, and for you too. My husband would’ve given his life to protect us from being enslaved by the Wirthera.”

  “And if he turns, we will likely give ours.” Vikus had never looked so serious in all his life. But then he took Teila in his arms and hugged her tight. “I would fight him, if it came to that. To protect you and Stephin. And the others. Even Billis.”

  “It won’t come to that.”

  But, no matter how much she loved him, Teila knew it was entirely possible that her husband, if he turned, could very well slaughter them all in the name of the Wirthera. Without a second thought. Without remorse.

  As she’d told Vikus, all of them could. The difference was simple, she realized as she watched Vikus head back toward the lighthouse to finish his chores. None of the others who’d ever come here would’ve had any reason to be triggered by something in the lighthouse. For Jodah, on the other hand, everything could be.