Chapter Eight

A shiver went through Anya as she opened her eyes and looked around. It was instantly obvious that she was neither on Earth or the world Legion had shown her that he’d told her was his home. She felt as if she was in a sauna/steam room. The air surrounding her was hot enough it burned her lungs and yet it was so heavy with moisture she felt as if she was drowning.

Lifting her head, she saw that a white star blazed overhead, but the haze of clouds and mist were so thick she could almost look directly at the white ball of fire. Pulling her gaze from the glaring light, she looked around again at the thick, jungle-like vegetation that surrounded the small clearing where she sat.

A sense of dread settled over her. As it was in many nightmares, she wasn’t certain why she felt the dread, only that she sensed a threat, brooding menace, as if something evil was watching her from the dense, alien growth. She felt no breeze, and yet she could see the strange plants shifting, hear the rustle of movement within its concealing fronds.

Living things were moving through the jungle surrounding her—big, small, and in between.

Her heart thundering in her chest, she pushed herself slowly to her feet, wondering if the creatures she sensed were moving toward her and how dangerous they might be. As she flicked a panicked gaze around, wondering where to run to, she spied it—the liezarct. It was open. She stared at it, too petrified to move, willing Legion to rise from it and assure her she was safe.

When minutes had passed and he didn’t, she tried to will her stiff limbs to move her toward it. She’d managed no more than a couple of steps, though, when a sudden great rustling behind her froze her in her tracks. Her head whipped in that direction in search of the threat.

It was shocked surprise that filled her when she saw what had made the noise, however, not terror.

Two small children had pushed through the vegetation. One was holding his arm, which was twisted at an impossible angle that made it clear it was broken, and in more than one place. His face was tight with pain. The other wore a sullen expression.

They were beautiful children, too young for their gender to be readily apparent, but so pretty, with long, almost white blond hair, she thought at first that it was two little girls. Somehow, though, she knew it was boys—twins—identical in every way except for the injury one child was nursing.

Her belly clenched painfully as she studied their little faces and knew abruptly who they belonged to. They were the image of their father—Legion. A wave of nauseating hurt washed through her that she didn’t want to identify.

“Stop whining,” the sullen child muttered. “It was not my fault.”

The injured child glared at him. “It was your fault, Zavier! I will tell mother when she comes for us and she will punish you for it!”

“She will not! She will look into my mind and yours and she will see that you were showing off or you would not have been hurt. I do not know why you do not just mend it!”

“I want to show Mother first,” the other child muttered sullenly.

“Well, she is not here! And she is not likely to be for a very long time, Legion! You might as well repair it yourself!”

Anya felt her chest tighten at the name, confirmation that she’d correctly assessed the situation—his namesake and the image of him.

She didn’t know what hurt most, that knowledge or her empathy for the injured child, but she couldn’t seem to move closer, couldn’t yield to the need she felt to sweep him into her arms and give him comfort, to see what she could do for his arm.

Because it was a dream, she realized, and she wasn’t actually with them.

If she had been, they would’ve been as aware of her as she was of them.

The injured boy stopped walking abruptly and sat down. “I do not like this place, Zavier! I do not want to wait for Mother and Father here. Can we not go back now? Why do we have to wait for them to come for us? We know the way. We can go back and surprise them with how clever we are!”

“Father said we were to wait until they came. They are trying something and he said it would be very difficult, even with everyone working together, and we would only be in the way. He will punish us if we disobey him!”

Legion stared at him unhappily for several moments and finally looked away. “I do not know how to fix this,” he muttered finally. “It hurts, Zavier!”

“I do not know why you did not tell me!” Zavier said irritably. “I will repair it. I know how.”

“No!”

“Do not be such a baby, Legion! I know how to do it. Let me see your arm.”

“You do not!”

“I do!”

“No, you do not. You only think because you are a little older that you can do things I cannot!”

“I am older! And I can do things you cannot!”

“Cannot! You are only sextants older! I do not know why you think you know so much when you are barely older than me!”

They began wrestling, but the injured child was at a disadvantage because he was hurt, regardless of the fact that the two seemed identical in size and weight.

“Stop it!” she yelled, abruptly released from her frozen state by the distress of the injured child. “You’ll hurt him!”

Neither child seemed to hear her. They continued to wrestle for dominance and Anya found that she could not move any closer to them no matter how hard she tried. Zavier managed to pin Legion to the ground and grabbed his injured arm. Legion cried out at the pain.

Anya’s heart twisted in empathy. “Stop it! You’re hurting him!”

“Be still! It will only hurt a few half sextants more if you will be still and let me meld it back as it should be!”

Anya felt her breath catch in her throat as Zavier’s hands began to glow—not just his hands, but an aura around them, as if heat was emanating from them. Legion’s face was twisted with pain, but he didn’t cry out again, didn’t so much as whimper as his brother twisted his arm back in place, running his glowing hands the length Legion’s arm from shoulder to wrist. The pain eased from Legion’s face after a moment. He relaxed. Zavier wore an expression of satisfaction as he sat back on Legion’s belly. “There! It is repaired now and that did not hurt much, did it?” he said triumphantly. “I told you that I knew how to fix it! Father taught me many things while Mother was coddling you!”

Legion glared up at him. Lifting both hands, he made a shoving motion at Zavier. Though he never actually touched him, Zavier flew backwards off of him as if a giant, unseen hand had swatted him away. “Get off!”

Zavier picked himself up and glared at his brother. “Spoiled, ungrateful brat!” he snarled.

“You hurt me and you did it on purpose!” Legion yelled back at him. “Mother would not have made it hurt worse before it was better!”

“Well I am not Mother! Mother is not here! I should have let you hurt until she came for us! It would serve you right!”

“Next time I will repair it myself … if Mother is not here!” Legion said angrily, getting to his feet and stalking toward the liezarct.

“You did not know how!” Zavier pointed out, following him.

“I do! I just did not know that the beziartre could be used that way! I have never injured the body! See!” He held up his hand and it began to glow brighter and brighter just as his brother’s hand had until it was red with the heat radiating from it.

Zavier looked disconcerted and then angry. “You only learned it just now! If Mother had taught it to you then you would have known it could be used that way. I have never injured the body either. Father told me all the ways it could be used when he trained me. Mother would have done the same, I am sure, except that she babies you!”

Legion glared at him furiously. “She does not!”

“Does too!”

“Does not! You are just angry because she loves me best!”

“She does not! She only teaches you because you were not supposed to be here at all! I should have been the only one, then everyone would not stare at us and behave as if we are strange! It is always fathers who teach, never the mothers. It is not because she loves you best! She feels sorry for you because you are a niuta! She has to teach you because you were not supposed to exist at all!”

Legion jolted to his feet furiously. “I am not a niuta! I look just as you do! If I am a niuta, then you are also!”

“You are a niuta because you are only a copy of me!”

Legion lifted his hands and made the shoving motion again. Zavier flew backwards, perhaps ten feet, taking out the vegetation in his path. Rage suffused his features when he stood up again. Uttering a snarl of fury, he made the shoving motion at Legion. This time it was Legion who flew backwards, except further.

Screaming in anger, he got to his feet and lifted his hands. This time, however, blue-white energy arched between his palms. Forming it into a ball roughly the size of a basketball, he hurled it as his brother. Zavier warded it off—somehow—merely by waving an arm and the ball of energy cut a large swath through the vegetation, felling several massive trees and turning them to ash.

When he’d rotated his arm full circle, Anya saw that he’d formed a ball of energy like the one Legion had formed, except nearly twice the size. Horror filled her.

“Stop it! Stop fighting before you hurt one another!” she screamed at them, but again neither boy seemed to hear her. They continued tossing one another around and throwing balls of fire and energy at each other until they’d exhausted themselves and sank weakly to the ground—the scorched ground.

Appalled, Anya looked around at the destruction the children had wreaked in their anger with one another. They’d lain waste to a chunk of jungle nearly the size of a city block and they were little more than toddlers!

Legion sniffed. He didn’t cry, but his face was twisted with sorrow as he reached tiredly into the liezarct and withdrew a glowing ball. It took Anya a moment to realize that it wasn’t merely a ball of energy, but rather something like a hologram. She could clearly see the images of two adults within it, a man who looked much like the two youngsters—or, she supposed, they had the look of their father—like the man she knew as Legion. The woman was petite—next to him, at any rate—with long, dark hair.

She felt her heart contract painfully in her chest, realizing abruptly that she’d been right. The two boys were his children. Why had he shown her this, she wondered abruptly? Why hadn’t he just told her that he’d lost his family—somehow?

This was why he seemed so … unfeeling, she realized, as if he was only going through the motions of feeling when he was too numb to feel anything real. He hadn’t just lost his world. He’d lost his woman and his children!

“I want my mother,” the young image of Legion whispered forlornly.

“She is my mother, too!”

Legion glanced at him, but he seemed too tired to argue. “When do you think she will come for us? We have been here a very long time.”

Zavier looked at him sullenly. “They probably will not. Because of you, we are both niutaz! They probably only said that there was danger and sent us away because they were tired of being shunned because of us!

Anya sucked in a sharp breath of pained surprise at that, jerking awake.

She discovered to her consternation, however, that she hadn’t awakened into reality but into another dream. She was on the alien world again—Legion’s world.

She whirled around, searching for Legion. As he had before, she saw him striding toward her. She wanted to run to him, embrace him and tell him how sorry she was for his loss. There was something about the way he was looking at her, though, that held her back, that rooted her to the spot.

He was looking at her with patent sexual interest, but without any real recognition. There was almost a sense of … detachment in his gaze, despite the carnal interest, that added to her unease, and she realized that, for all that she’d accused him more than once of feeling superior, Legion had never looked at her in that way at all before.

He stopped when he reached her, when he’d crowded her personal space and stood nearly toe to toe so that she had to crane her neck back at an uncomfortable angle to look up at him. For a few moments, he merely studied her. He seemed almost … surprised. His gaze sharpened with far more interest than he’d shown before, though the patent sexual interest didn’t wane by any means. It seemed to grow more acute, as well. “What manner of being are you?”

Anya blinked at him in increasing uneasiness and distress, struggling with a sense of hurt that seemed way out of proportion to the situation. It had to be a dream. It couldn’t be a ‘visitation’. He knew her. How could he have forgotten all the things that had happened between them, forgotten her so completely? “This is so strange. You know me. You can’t have forgotten. This is a dream, right?”

He tilted his head curiously. Something flickered in his eyes, irritation, she thought. “Humor me.”

“I’m Anya—Dr. Anya Rambo. How could you not remember me?”

His brows drew together in a faint frown, but she had the impression that it wasn’t entirely irritation at the questions she’d asked instead of answering him. She thought part of it was annoyance with her for that, but not all of it. He seemed to be searching his mind for some elusive ‘something’ he couldn’t quite grasp. “You remind me ….”

He lifted his hands, settling them on her shoulders heavily for a moment before he skimmed them upward and cupped them on either side of her neck, curling his fingers around the base of her skull. She felt an odd, itchy sort of sensation ripple through her mind. A wave of weakness followed it, an ache, as if she had the beginnings of a headache coming on. It grew steadily stronger until she began to feel faint from the pain.

Zavier had taken advantage of the fact that his appearance would deceive her, calculatedly decided to use it to his advantage to approach her and yet he found that he was still surprised at her reaction. There was no sense of … fear in the way that he’d expected, no sense of awe, no sense of inferiority. She gazed back at him with hurt—which he understood the moment he captured the thoughts flickering through her mind—but as … an equal.

It was almost as stunning to discover as it was infuriating that such a creature had no humility for her position in the order of things.

Intrigued in spite of his anger, he delved deeper, sifting the memories she shared with Legion at first with derisive amusement and a touch of heady excitement, both at the arousing, carnal nature of the images and the fact that he had pilfered them from Legion without his awareness of it. That lasted no more than a fraction of a sextant as he mind-shared Legion’s reaction to her and felt his heated desire for the female threading his own psyche, felt the feverish need and the shattering culmination as Legion melded his psyche with hers.

It shook him. No stranger to the desires inherent in his nature, certainly no stranger to relieving it with any female within his path that tempted his carnal hunger, he was still stunned at the magnitude of the things he felt.

He felt his purpose waver, his anger lessen, felt an upsurge of curiosity, and delved deeper, ruthlessly seeking more with little regard, in the beginning, for the frailty of the woman. Her memories, her thoughts, her feelings were his to explore and he sifted through them, feeling almost a fever of impatience for more as he delved deeper and deeper until he had absorbed all there was to know about her.

Disappointment filled him when he had, not at what he’d found, but because he discovered he still hungered for more, had not sated his need. It had seemed to grow steadily the more he drank in of knowledge of her instead of finding appeasement.

Despite that, a sense of remorse began to grow in him as he slowly, reluctantly, withdrew and discovered the pain he’d caused her with his disregard for the delicate creature that she was. He soothed the hurt with an unaccustomed since of shame for having caused it at all.

There no malice in her, only warmth and it bathed him, clung to him, soothed him—completely disarmed him when he had dragged himself back and refocused his vision upon her form.

He knew abruptly why Legion had behaved like a such a fool, realized he was not a fool at all. He had found a treasure, a being beautiful beyond compare.

It was no wonder he coveted her.

He felt the same possessiveness fill him, and equal hunger to wrap himself in her and bask in the warmth he had found there, inside of her, an endless font of it to soothe the cold ache deep in his own soul.

A taste wasn’t enough, he realized in surprise, understanding finally and completely why he’d felt disappointment. He needed … her.

Anya saw a strange expression flicker across his features as he held her, his gaze wandering over her face. “Human,” he said finally, almost absently. “The physiology of the form is certainly much like ours—very much—if not entirely the same. I see now why ….” He stopped himself before he finished the thought, his gaze sharpening on her face. It was only then that she realized his gaze had taken on an unfocused look, as if he was merely staring at her face while his thoughts were focused inward.

Desire gleamed in his eyes as they focused on her again. He made no attempt to hide it. “You are a lovely little thing, Anya, a delightful surprise in every way.

Anya’s confusion and uneasiness deepened. Unhappiness joined it, though she wasn’t willing to examine that too closely. “You said that before—when we first met, not the part about me reminding you of someone, though. Do I? Remind you of her … your woman? You told me you’d never had a mate.” She tried to keep the note of accusation out of her voice, but with indifferent success. She could understand him not wanting to talk about painful memories, but it stung that he’d outright lied to her about having had a woman before that was significant in his life.

Mostly, she realized, because she’d been seduced into opening herself to him, opening herself to the hurt that was slowly winding its way through her now.

He looked surprised, briefly confused himself, as if he was reviewing what he’d said, and then amused. “You misunderstood the … vision I gave you. I am intrigued, though, that you viewed it that way. Jealousy is not characteristic of you ordinarily, but this is a good sign, is it not? No, I do not think it was that fleeting physical similarity that captured the attention …. Mayhap at first, mayhap it intrigued enough to prompt a closer look ….”

He smiled faintly, stroking his thumbs caressingly along her cheeks. “You have a beautifully complex and intriguing mind, Anya of Rambo, a lovely, animated face, and a form that any male would find desirable—certainly this one. You are unique in all the universe and infinitely appealing—entirely captivating to this poor soul. Do not allow that comment to distress you. It would distress me to think I had wounded when that was never my intention.”

Anya wasn’t certain whether she was more mesmerized and charmed by what he’d said or his mouth as it drifted slowly toward her own. She couldn’t seem to find the will to even attempt to evade his touch, though, regardless of the doubts he’d given rise to. Maybe she wanted it because of the doubts, needed the reassurance of his touch?

Her lips tingled in anticipation long before she felt his touch. Her heart raced. Her lungs labored with the effort to drag in and expel even a small amount of air and the lack of sufficient air made her head swim.

Perhaps because he’d given rise to confusion and doubts, or because he was acting himself as if he’d never met her before, she felt an odd sense of disorientation when he touched her, a strangeness she couldn’t entirely understand. She knew his touch, his essence as well, now, as she knew her own body … or almost as well, and yet for just an instant, she felt as if he’d never touched her before, as if it was a stranger who held her.

A tremor rippled through her as his mouth settled over hers and his heat and taste invaded her in welcome conquest, though. The feel of his mouth, the hunger in his touch, thrilled her as much as it ever had before, perhaps more. Her sex quaked in want even as her form collided and melded with his with the tightening of his strong arms around her. She might deny, still, the entanglement of her emotions with this man, but there was no denying the melody of desire he summoned from every fiber of her being with little more than a look.

Uttering a faint sound of capitulation, she savored the dance of his tongue along hers, joined him in the waltz that made her body sing with joyful excitement. He responded with a fervor that was almost as unnerving as it was thrilling. His kiss became demanding, hard, ruthless, his hold upon her tightening for many moments before he seemed to force himself to ease his grip and began to explore her with hands that shook with eagerness.

She was naked. She hadn’t realized it until she felt the unrestricted stroke of his bare palm along her bare skin, but there was no surprise, only gladness that she could feel his caresses without the impediment of clothing.

Without any sense of movement, she found herself lying supine upon a cushy, faintly prickling bed of vegetation, felt the welcome weight of his naked form along the length of hers. He wrenched his lips from hers, stared down at her for a moment, his face taut, his thoughts unfathomable. “My soul knows yours, minotez, knows you are the half I have hungered for without knowing what it was I searched for.”

She stared at him dizzily, confused—impatient. Amusement flickered in his eyes. “I am impatient, as well, minotez,” he murmured, dipping his head toward her and nudging her chin up with his face so that he could explore her throat with his lips as he had her mouth. He sucked at the pulse point of her throat and lifted his head to find her lips again, kissing her with a feverish need that snatched all sense of control from her.

She stroked him, pulled at him to urge him to penetrate her at once, feeling a wildness of need to match his. As if he was as impatient as she was, he directed her with the caress of his stroking hand, arranging her for his possession, positioning himself to enter her. She gasped when he pierced her flesh with the turgid length of his, arching to counter his thrust, her throat closing with anticipation at his desperate forays to claim her, panting for breath when he’d forged a ruthless path along her channel and sank deeply inside of her.

“Ah, minotez,” he gasped raggedly. “It could not feel better if I was inside of you in truth.”

A tremor traveled through him and into her at his words. She felt her body quicken, leaping toward completion. Almost the moment he began to move, she felt the first warning tremors of imminent release. She clutched at him tightly, frantically, meeting each feverish, shaking thrust as he strove to reach his own peak. He shuddered when she stiffened and then began to utter breathless cries as her climax broke over her, hesitating briefly before he began to move faster, drive deeper, carrying her pleasure before him until she was almost screaming with the force of the convulsions rippling through her and finally joining her as her body reached a surfeit and began a descent.

Thoroughly spent, they lay tangled together for many moments, merely enjoying the ability to breathe more deeply, the slowing of their hearts. Curled around her possessively, he nuzzled her face and throat appreciatively, murmuring words she realized were love words even though she didn’t understand any of them.

It was enough that she felt like that was what he was saying. It chased away some of the doubts that still lingered in her mind. She caressed him in return, with gratitude for the pleasure he’d given her.

She was still disturbed by the fact that he hadn’t seemed to know her, though, and after a little time those doubts resurfaced. “Why didn’t you know me?”

He lifted his head to study her and finally shifted his weight from her. Lifting a hand, he touched her cheek lightly. She could see that he was wrestling with something that bothered him. “I think I did,” he murmured almost ruefully. “I think that is what drew me here, although I believed it was something else entirely. There is a link of the minds that distance cannot severe. I always feel that inescapable pull, no matter the distance. And it was far greater than ever before.”

She stared at him in confusion, wondering it if was just her sluggish, sated mind that made it impossible to follow or if he actually was speaking as cryptically as it seemed.

He grinned abruptly, dragging her close for a brief kiss. “I am being cryptic. Shall I show you my world, minotez? It hardly seems … just … that I know you as well as I know myself and you know so little of me.”

The offer distracted her. Pleasure wafted through her … and doubt. “You can do that?”

He chuckled. Rising to his feet, he seemed to brush at himself, but when he had, he was fully dressed. He reached down to her, pulling her to her feet and when she looked down at herself she saw that she was dressed, as well. She looked up at him in rueful amusement. “That’s hardly a miraculous feat when you’re in my head anyway,” she chided him.

He grinned at her. “I shall have to try harder to impress you, minotez!”

Releasing her hand, he lifted his arms. The countryside where they stood vanished and she found that they were standing in the streets of a city—an alien city. Bemused, she looked around at the towering buildings and the people strolling around the streets around them. In a sense, it might have been any city on earth—except that the architecture was unlike anything she’d ever seen before, and there was a strange peacefulness to it, an unhurried air about the citizens that was as completely alien to humans as their dress. They all wore robes as he did, light airy clothing that flowed around them as they walked.

Taking her hand, he guided her along the street while she craned her neck to take everything in, studying the people a while and then the buildings. There were markings here and there, on short pillars that edged the cross streets, above the doors of the buildings they passed, that seemed vaguely familiar to her. “It’s your language,” she said, a little surprised when she realized where she’d seen the markings before.

He glanced at her, lifted his brows questioningly a moment, and then grinned. “You thought it was someone else’s?” he asked teasingly.

She frowned. “It looked like several different languages. I don’t know why I thought that.”

“Clever, Anya. It is three.” He pointed to the sign above one door and then another and she saw the slight differences in the symbols. When they’d walked a short distance, he pointed to another.

“There are three languages spoken in the same city?” she asked in surprise.

“More than that, in truth. This is the … capitol city of Zaibetrophe,” he responded, obviously both amused and vaguely affronted at the comment. “Do they not speak many languages in your own cities?”

“Yes, but ….” Embarrassed, she felt her face redden. “I don’t know. I guess I thought ….”

He sent her a knowing look and she broke off. He was right. It was arrogant to think that her world was so completely unique that there couldn’t possibly be another world even similar.

They came at last to a structure that looked more like a palace than anything else—except there was no sign of guards. People strolled in and out of the front entrance completely unmolested.

It was the most breathtakingly beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She was awed by it even before they entered and the interior was even more beautiful, the intricate moldings and carvings gilded with some gleaming metal, the windows draped with some luxurious looking fabric, and thick carpets along the stone floor.

He guided her up a winding stair and into what appeared to be a private apartment.

She jolted to a halt when she saw the man and woman standing together near a window, their arms entwined. She recognized them instantly from the hologram the child in her other vision had held.

Legion pulled her close. “That is my parents,” he corrected her.

She looked up at him in surprise. “You look so much like your father!” she exclaimed, feeling a flicker of distrust as it occurred to her to wonder if he’d only said that to confuse her—as if she wasn’t already thoroughly bemused!

He frowned faintly and turned to study the man as if it hadn’t occurred to him before. “There is certainly a very strong resemblance,” he said finally.

He seemed to dismiss it in the next moment. A look of devilry entered his eyes. “Shall I show you my chambers?”

Anya couldn’t help but laugh. “I couldn’t begin to imagine what you have on your mind!” she said ruefully.

A slow grin curled his lips. His eyes danced with laughter, but there was a predatory gleam in them, as well. “Exactly as I thought,” he murmured. “You do not know me nearly well enough, yet, minotez, if you cannot guess what is on my mind.”

Catching her hand, he strode swiftly down a short corridor and pushed open the door to a large, airy room. She had a brief impression of the trappings of a child’s room before she found herself tumbling onto the wide bed in the center of the room.

She looked up at him, charmed by his playfulness. He grinned back at her, but sobered almost at once, desire blazing in his eyes. “Already I am addicted to the taste of you, my Anya. I do not think I can get enough quickly enough to appease the burning need.”

She felt her throat close at his expression, felt a rush of heated desire fill her even as he leaned closer and covered her mouth in heated possession.

It flickered through her mind that she was as addicted to his touch, maybe more, than he was to hers. She hadn’t seen this almost ‘devil may care’ side of him before, but it was as appealing in its own way as his more serious side.

His taste and touch were so intoxicating it flickered through her mind to wonder if it was real or if he was using powers she couldn’t even imagine to intensify a natural attraction she already felt. She didn’t actually doubt that he would if he could, she realized. There was a ruthlessness about him that couldn’t be denied despite his charm.

The attempt to qualify her feelings was woefully brief, however. The feel of his hot mouth moving over hers, the essence of him that invaded her created a dizzying lassitude that made rational thought impossible.

She wanted this … him … whatever the consequences. Regardless of whether he was cheating by manipulating her in some way, he was devastating to her senses, infinitely desirable.

“Let … her … go … brother.”