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Push him away? "Oh, you mean…" I pause, not wanting to say the name in case he disappears on me again. "That guy. The one that keeps you, uh, captive."
Yes. Being with you makes it easier to fight. His lips rub against my palm again. When you are not there, I am confused and maddened. It makes it easy for him to step in and take over.
For some reason, I can feel his anger and frustration bleeding through his mind. He loathes being “trapped,” but at the same time is embarrassed that it happens.
It should not happen to me. I am one of the Queen's Guard.
"The queen?" I echo. "Who's the queen?"
He pauses, and there is nothing for a long time. I can practically feel him searching his thoughts, looking for something. I…do not know. I am missing pieces. Like my name. Mhal is part of it but not all of it. But I do not know the rest. I do not know a great many things anymore, and it bothers me.
"I'm sure they'll come back with time."
Will they? I do not know. Your world does strange things to a mind. I have not been myself since I came through the Rift.
"I don't think anyone has," I point out. "Our world was turned upside down, too." My thoughts fill with those early days, of fire and destruction, of the constant smell of ash on the wind. Of seeing familiar buildings and safe places burning, always burning, and dark, terrifying shapes in the skies. I remember how awful it was to realize that there was no safety in the world any longer, that everything you thought you knew could be turned upside down.
Then came the riots. And then, the starvation. So many people didn't make it, and those of us that did were completely changed.
The Rift took everything away from us, and yet it gave us much, too.
"Did it? Like what?" I try to keep my tone amused, but it's hard to think of a positive thing associated with the Rift, the constant symbol of our destruction.
It brought me you, my mate. His lips are warm on my palm again, and I'm filled with hot yearning. I want to see his face, so much. He brushes his tongue over my skin, and then his mouth goes to my wrist, hot and wet and hungry.
I suck in a breath. I've never thought of myself as particularly sexual. It's hard to be like that in the After, when every man thinks he can take what he wants from you. It's hard to look at sex positively when you see how awful it can be for so many people—the whores at Blowjob Becky's, for example, or even the girls that come back from a night with the men, bruised and angry. I've seen how Bethany's husband treats her. I've been propositioned dozens of times and I've always been left cold. I know what the books and movies always told us sex was supposed to be like, but it's never matched with what I've seen in the After. I figured that if there was any desire left inside of me, the Rift burned it right out.
But with Mhal's mouth on my skin, and his thoughts lacing through my head…I feel different.
For the first time, I wonder what it might be like.
I will show you, Mhal tells me, and his thoughts are sultry with need. I will take your soft, weak human body against mine.
"Gee, thanks—"
I will change to my two-legged form and breathe in the sweetness of your scent. He takes in such a deep breath that it makes the air catch in my throat. I will lick you all over, tasting you. I will learn your body with my tongue, and I will discover what touches make you cry out, what touches make you sigh, and what touches make your cunt wet and hungry.
I gasp, shocked at the blatant words—and the visuals swirling through my mind. He's sending me pictures of his big hands parting my thighs and his face burrowing between them, seeking out my warmth.
When your body is ready for mine, I will give you my fires, and then you will truly become mine.
"Your fires?" I haven't heard of this. "What does that mean?"
In my dream, Mhal suddenly exposes sharp fangs that seem longer than ever. He leans forward, grabs me by the throat, and sinks his teeth in, biting me.
11
JENNY
I wake up with a yelp, my limbs flailing. I sit up, panting and wide-eyed, trying to make sense of things. My body throbs, a curious mixture of fear and lust both, and I'm tempted to put my hand between my thighs like I sometimes do when I'm in the baths alone, just to get that body-wrenching release.
Something big shifts behind me, and I turn, rubbing the last of the sleep out of my eyes as I do.
