By the Sea of Sand Read online

  Inside, she took her handheld into her bedroom and closed the door firmly. She tapped in the Rav Aluf’s access code, expecting to leave only an angry message and surprised when the man’s status showed him as online. She didn’t bother to choose visual access as she had no desire to look at him.

  “Why did you bring him here?” she said without preamble, her words automatically converting to text and being delivered to him. “Of all the places for him to recover, you chose the one most likely to trigger him! Is it your intent to lose him?”

  His answer didn’t come right away, but when it did, it was entirely unsatisfactory. “No.”

  “He would get better care in a medica.”

  “Nobody could care for him better than you,” came the reply.

  “He is insane,” Teila said after a moment, hating herself for it. “Worse than most of the others you’ve sent me. And there’s too much here we have to avoid. Anything could tip him over. Anything could set him off. You need to come and take him away.”

  The instant the words left her lips, she wanted to reclaim them. But it was too late since they’d been translated and transmitted. The small blinking indicator on the handheld screen told her the Rav Aluf had received the message and was replying, and Teila didn’t quite have the courage to disconnect before she heard his answer. She wasn’t in the military, and she was his daughter-in-law, but he was still one of the most powerful men in the world. Some said the Rav Aluf had more power than the Melek himself, and Teila understood how that could be true. The Melek of Sheirra might rule the world, but the Rav Aluf was in charge of keeping it safe.

  “Once you told me I had no right to take him from you. Do you remember that?”

  Of course she did. It hadn’t mattered then. “Yes. But that was different.”

  “Was it?”

  There was no way to hear tone from reading words on the screen, but she could well imagine the sound of her father-in-law’s voice. His son had mastered the same supercilious lift at the end of a sentence, though Kason had only ever done it to mock his father, never her. She took her time in voicing her reply, careful to be sure not to give him any reason to call her hysterical or irrational, or even rude.

  “Of course it was. Then you were taking away my husband from me, when we both knew he didn’t want to go. This time . . .”

  “You think he’d want to go away from you again? If he knew?”

  “But he doesn’t!” she cried, then lowered her voice. The handheld wouldn’t interpret her tone any more than it had his, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of even guessing at her distress.

  “He might, someday. And when he comes back to himself, do you want him to remember that you sent him away?”

  “He would understand,” Teila said slowly.

  No answer came for some time, while she waited impatiently. Finally, the indicator light blinked to show his message was being translated. It was not the reply she was expecting.

  “Please,” said the Rav Aluf. “You are the only one I trust with my son’s life.”

  Chapter 6

  Days passed, as they do, and if the man in the top room seemed to grow no better, at least he grew no worse. His daily nightmares had become so commonplace they no longer woke anyone but Teila, who often stopped to check on him when she was doing her nightly check of the lamp. She told herself it was what she’d have done for any of the wounded who’d been sent for her care, but she knew the truth. She went to him at night because that was when he took her.

  Kason had always been a tender lover, over careful of bruising her. Even before he’d gone into the SDF he’d been a big and strong man. His hands had once been able to span her waist. But that was no longer, she thought ruefully as she bathed herself in the quiet of her chambers. Childbirth and age had made that impossible.

  Kason had kissed her gently, held her with soft hands. He’d made love to her for hours, sometimes until both of them passed out from exhaustion, only to wake her with his face savoring between her legs. Then he’d make love to her again. He’d studied and learned her body so thoroughly she’d never thought of taking a lover, not even after the Rav Aluf had come to her with the news Kason had been captured and would never be likely to come home. No man could ever know her the way her husband had.

  Jodah, however . . . Jodah was a different man. Bigger in some ways than Kason had been, his shoulders marginally broader. Thighs thicker. The differences might’ve been minor to someone else who hadn’t studied his body as well as he’d known hers, but to Teila it was as though she traced the lines and curves of someone else who wore her husband’s face. His cock was the same, long and thick and delicious. It filled her the same, brought her the same pleasure, but he didn’t use it the same way. Kason had made love to her. Jodah fucked her. Rough and raw and hard, full of need and greed. And Teila loved it.

  The first time it happened, she’d acted on instinct, reacting to his touch. But since then she’d grown to expect and crave the way he reached for her. Now as she used scented oils to clean herself and dressed in soft robes that would open without struggle, Teila’s nipples peaked. Her cunt slicked. She was ready for him before she even went inside the room.

  He was sleeping fitfully when she opened the door. At the thin crack of light from the hall, some of it spilling over from the lamp, he stirred. She’d taken care to block out his windows from the sunslight to protect his damaged eyes, but soon they’d heal well enough for him to start to be exposed to the brightness. He threw up a hand, wincing at even this faint spill of gold across the floor.

  “I heard you cry out.” She crossed to him, not waiting for him to reach for her but settling herself next to him on the bed. The heat radiating from him was immense. Not a fever, but a byproduct of the enhancements in his system. He would run hot for the rest of his life. “You were dreaming.”

  “I’m always dreaming.” Jodah, for he was Jodah now, not Kason, rubbed at his face. His broad shoulders flexed, along with his back muscles.

  She kept herself from touching him, but only barely. Everything about his body cried out for her caress. She said nothing.

  Jodah leaned toward her. “I’m dreaming now, aren’t I?”

  “Do you want this to be a dream?”

  He seemed to study her, though she knew she had to still be nothing more than a blur. He could smell her though, and he did just that, nuzzling at her neck. Teila’s eyelids fluttered from the pleasure of that simple touch.

  “They give us this to keep us hoping,” Jodah muttered against her skin.

  Teila froze, every muscle stiff and tight.

  “Keep us hoping,” Jodah said again in a low, sing-songy voice. Gruff. A broken voice. “They give us this to keep us believing we might someday get out, get home. Isn’t that right?”

  She turned to him, but before she could speak, he’d captured her mouth. He rolled her, one of his big hands pinning both her wrists over her head. With one knee, he shoved her legs apart and pressed his erection against her. His other hand went between them to tug up her robe so he could get at her bare skin.

  He paused, fingers tracing light patterns on her inner thighs, and pushed himself off her. He’d been fully naked with her, but so far she’d always been almost completely clothed—his eagerness to get inside her had never allowed for the time to take off her robes. Tonight, though, Jodah toyed with the laces at her throat. He tugged them free, loop by loop, until her breasts lay exposed.

  Again, Teila froze at this change. She lay still beneath him, but only until he bent to tug at her nipples with his mouth. One, then the other. He sucked at the tender peaks until she gasped, writhing, her back arching. The pleasure was so intense on her super-sensitive flesh that it edged on pain.

  Pressing her breasts together with his hands, Jodah nuzzled and licked at her until she couldn’t stand it anymore. With a low, sobbing cry, Teila shattered. When the pleasure eased, she found him staring at her.

  “I want to see all of you,�