The Five Read online

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m afraid for you.”

  Of course he was. That was Zem, through and through.

  “Me? How?” I asked, because I didn’t know just how deep his understanding of me went.

  “The Goddess is taking away your choices. She’s going to make you do things you aren’t ready to do. And you won’t be able to do it half-way, dipping your toe in a bit at a time until you feel safe. That was what I wanted for you. I wanted you to come to me when you felt safe enough. Now... She’s ruining everything. I’m going to have to watch you being forced into bonds with strangers. It’s like the airlings having to fight in the war, but worse. Oh, I don’t know.”

  This was more than he’d ever said aloud at one time, and I was shocked into silence for a while.

  “It’s not the sex so much... Well, it is. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to give my heart. I’m not Airsha. Loving comes naturally to her. She couldn’t stop loving if her life depended on it. And look how close she came to losing her life because she loved her brother too much. And her father. She has way more reasons not to trust love than I do, and yet she just keeps doing it. I can’t. It’s hard for me. I don’t think I’ll be able to give my whole heart to anyone. And then it’ll all be my fault. The Jayger running rampant and destroying the world. My fault.”

  “First, the fault lies with the Godling, not you. He’s the one who’s going to release this thing. And second, the Goddess could have chosen anyone for this task, but she chose you. So she thinks you can do it. If she’s wrong... well, that’s on her. Not you.”

  I gave a little laugh. “That’s a back-handed piece of support, if ever I heard one. If I fail it’s because the Goddess was wrong about me being good enough to be her champion. Aye, that makes me feel so much better about myself.”

  I felt more than saw him shrug. “All I mean is that you can only do your best. All any of us can do is our best.”

  I considered this. He was right. The Goddess had to know how emotionally retarded I was, and yet she’d chosen me for the task. It was on her if I failed. Not me. Though it did nothing for my self-confidence, it did take the pressure off a bit.

  I snuggled in to Zem’s side and breathed in his familiar scent of airling, soap and his own unique smell. A rush of arousal washed through me, making me want to cross my legs to tamp it down. Instead, I let it take me. This was Zem. He wouldn’t hurt me. If I was going to have to love four men, I might as well start with the easy one. I already loved my best friend. It would be like dipping my toe in the water.

  “Zem.”

  “Hmm?” But his body was already aware of where my mind had gone, and his thoughts had become a tangle of need and duty. He didn’t want me this way, out of obligation. But at the same time he’d waited for suns for me. His need was almost more than he could bear. Every day he was with me he had to force it down, or try to ease the pressure by taking another girl to his bed. But it was never enough. The ache was always there. For me.

  It was the first time he’d ever let me experience the extent of his need. At Airsha’s place he’d shown me his love, but had kept his lust hidden. Now I knew it all. Understood it all. And, instead of revulsion, I felt... an answering need rising inside me that was fuelled by his.

  Was this the Goddess’ work? Had she changed me somehow when she branded me? Where was the knee-jerk rejection of the sensual images and feelings I picked up from other people? It was gone. Or it was gone with Zem.

  “I know you don’t want me this way, but I have to get past this fear. If anyone can get me through it, it’s you. I know you won’t hurt me. I know you aren’t Airshin.”

  His mind raged at the mention of the name. I saw what he’d wanted to do to the little bastard. Back then he hadn’t known. It was only after he was dead and long gone that I’d told Zem what he’d done to me. The fury and impotence he’d felt then, because he couldn’t get to him and exact his own vengeance, had been frightening.

  “The way you can revenge yourself on him is by helping me get over what he did to me. Help me be okay with sex. Because, if it can’t be okay with you, there’s no way it’ll be okay with anyone else. I love you. Maybe not like Airsha loves the Airluds, but as much as I can.”

  Zem turned on his side and his nose slid up and down the side of mine—a caress of sorts. I knew I’d won. I knew he’d do anything I asked of him.

  “I want to be your first. And I’ll take it slow. You can say stop at any time. Well, maybe not...” He gritted his teeth. “Aye... any time. I will stop anytime you say.”

  I nodded, my mouth suddenly too dry for words. Zem slid his nose up mine one more time before gently kissing me. We’d kissed before, back during the rebellion when we were both inexperienced. Now it was only me who was inexperienced. Zem’s kiss was confident and self-assured.

  And it broke my heart.

  I felt tears pooling in the corners of my eyes. Zem drew back, concerned.

  “What? Do you want me to stop? Why are you suddenly sad?”

  I gave a little laugh and shrugged. “I was missing the lad who last kissed me. The lad who was as bad at it as I still am. That kiss after the battle was the best experience of my life. And for you it was just one of many.”

  In his mind I saw that kiss and felt it anew, this time from his perspective. His blood had been up after the battle, and all he’d wanted was to take me, there and then. Throw me down on the bodies of the dead and bury himself deep inside me. The extent of his lust had terrified him, and it had taken all his long suns of self-control to stop himself. It was the reason he’d backed off for a while afterwards as well. His self-loathing had taken time to overcome. That he could even have thought to do such a thing with someone like me had made him sick to his stomach.

  “You weren’t the only one overcome with lust that day,” I admitted. “I’m glad you had the strength to stop though, because I don’t think I did. I was a little ashamed of myself.”

  Zem kissed my lips again, tenderly. “A soldier told me that lust like that after a battle is normal. But it wouldn’t have been right. Not there. Not for us. Not with everyone around. If Calun had come upon me rutting you on a pile of corpses, they would have been adding me to that pile.”

  I shuddered at the picture he painted for me. But his black humour eased my tensions. I laughed. “And undo all my good work saving you that day.”

  “Nearly killing me, you mean.”

  I’d done it intentionally—distracted him from the intimacy of the moment. I was good at that. Good at knowing how to pull Zem’s strings. Not just because I knew his thoughts so well from my mind-reading, but because I knew him better than I knew myself. He was predictable in a very comforting way.

  To stop the argument and get us back on track, I kissed him. My inexperience irked me now. I didn’t want him to have something he excelled at more than me. I was competitive even in bedplay, it seemed.

  His kiss softened my own, inviting me to use my lips as tools of exploration. When he coaxed my mouth open a little, he slid the tip of his tongue along the slick, smooth inner flesh. I knew from images I’d picked up from others that using your tongue in a kiss was normal, but to me it was... repulsive. Airshin had thrust his gross tongue into my mouth as he pushed his gross cock inside my virgin channel. I’d thought I’d choke or suffocate under that smothering mouth. It had been worse than the pain between my legs.

  But Zem’s tongue wasn’t like that. It skimmed and lapped at the entrance to my mouth, teasing me, inviting me to feel more. To enjoy the strange sensations. I had never realised just how sensitive lips could be.

  After a few moments more of feeling the slick pleasure, Zem changed his focus. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth and suckled gently on it. I gasped, feeling a strange melting inside me, an ache that I had experienced before but learned to ignore.

  On a panting breath, Zem urged me on. “Your turn, sweetling. Taste me, explore me.”

  Not one to
back down from a challenge, I let my tongue taste his lips. That slick, hot skin of his inner lip felt incredible. I wanted more of it. I slid in deeper, encountering teeth. He tasted like the honey mead he’d had at dinner. His teeth felt smooth and hard, like mine but different.

  He moaned into my mouth and his fingers tangled in my hair. Up until that moment, he hadn’t been touching me anywhere but my mouth. Now his fingers stroked and kneaded my head and hair. And held me in place. I felt fear rising up again. He held me. I couldn’t get free.

  When I began to pull away in mounting panic, he took his hands away, though I could tell it wasn’t easy for him to do. He wanted more, so much more. His thoughts were blocked from me, but his feelings weren’t. And the lust and desire was seething through him. The aching need was unbearable.

  Suddenly, it wasn’t about me. Zem was my friend and I was hurting him. This physical arousal was pushing at his control. He was trying to count, I could sense that much past the block he’d erected in his mind. Counting backward from a hundred. He had to count backward. One hundred... ninety-nine... ninety-eight...

  I slid my hand down his tunic until I found his aching cock pressing hard against the confines of his breeches. Closing my hand around the thick shaft, I wondered at my own temerity. I could be brave for Zem. This wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought. As long as I kept my mind on Zem and not on me.

  All the numbers evaporated in Zem’s head and searing sensation, equal parts pleasure and pain washed over me. His barriers had come down. He wanted to be inside me, not taking his torturous time letting me grow confident. It was so much harder than he’d thought it would be. Gods, he needed the sweet release only my body could give him.

  I wasn’t being fair to him. He’d always been the one to put his needs second to mine. Now I’d invited this intimacy and it was torture for him. I was hurting my best friend because of my fears.

  And I did want him. And it wouldn’t last long. All I had to do was let him do what he needed to do and then Zem would feel better. He wanted to be inside me so much! I could stand it for that long, surely.

  He dragged himself away from me like I’d suddenly turned into a heated stove. Flopping onto the other side of the narrow bunk, gasping for air, he rubbed at his face with his hands.

  “What?” I demanded, confused and annoyed. He wanted this! I could feel it. So why was he stopping?

  “This isn’t about my need,” he croaked out. “I can feel you giving in to my need, not your own.”

  I frowned. “Zem, you’re hurting. My stupid fears are hurting you. Just let’s do it and then it’ll be... better.” I petered out because I had no idea what would happen after. He’d stick his limp cock back in his breeches and stride away? No! He wasn’t Airshin!

  He turned to face me, his features—in the shadowed room—barely discernible. But his thoughts filled in what I couldn’t see—his hurt, frustration and helplessness.

  Then his expression cleared as a new idea entered his tortured mind. He had a way to ease me into more intimacies, give me control and yet get the relief he so desperately needed. It wasn’t perfect. Certainly not romantic. But it might work.

  I was confused by all this inner strategising. Then I saw it. Me with my hands on his throbbing cock, exploring it, pleasuring him to the point where he released into a rag he kept in his pocket.

  He wouldn’t touch me. I would be the one in control. And he wouldn’t hurt anymore.

  My hand sought the hard length of him through his breeches again, telling him without words that I knew exactly what he wanted and was happy to oblige.

  “Sometimes your mind-reading is a pain. But other times, like now, it’s a blessing,” he said as he shucked off his breeches and lay back on the bed, offering himself up to me like a human sacrifice. Like Airsha would have been laid out in the temple, just before her father thrust a dagger into her chest. A human sacrifice to non-existent gods. The thought made me shudder.

  But Zem was no victim. Not in this. He wanted what he was encouraging me to do, more than I wanted to do it.

  Tentatively, I reached out and began stroking the silky length of him. His hitched breath told me I was having an effect. But then, affecting Zem was never the problem.

  I had seen cocks before, in people’s minds and by accident. Living and working with lads, you couldn’t avoid the odd, embarrassing moment. But this was my first opportunity to see for myself what a rampant cock looked and felt like. I’d never seen Airshin’s. Just felt it. Only after it was over, and it had shrivelled up, had I actually seen what had caused me so much agony. Such a pathetic little slug. I shouldn’t have let it have so much control over my life.

  But I had. And now I was finally starting to take back that control.

  While Zem lay tense beneath my exploring hands, I did whatever I wanted to do. I touched, and stroked, and fingered the odd, hairy sacks beneath his cock. From the thoughts I’d picked up at different times, I knew these little stones were very fragile. Airsha had taught me the fastest method of taking a man down was by attacking these small balls with a kick or a well-placed knee.

  “Is there pleasure here?” I asked as I gently felt each ball in turn.

  “Aye,” he croaked out. “But put me out of my misery, Flea. Take my shaft in your hands, and rub up and down. Please...”

  Leaving off my exploration for the moment, I did as he asked. In his mind, I saw exactly what he wanted me to do, and I did it.

  There was incredible power in what I did. Zem was like melted wax in my hands. Though that comparison was wrong, because soft his cock wasn’t. And the more I touched him, the harder it became. Yet it didn’t frighten me because I was in control of what was happening. Every touch, every stroke had Zem groaning and writhing in what appeared to be pain, but I felt was pleasure. And that pleasure was arousing me. I let it wash over me, fuelling the arousal he’d ignited with his kisses.

  When he could take no more, he wrapped his hands over mine and began forcing me to go harder and faster. I had lost my control, lost my power, but the pleasure coursing through him and into me was compensation enough. Gods, I had never experienced anything like it.

  Zem hastily grabbed up the rag and wrapped it around the tip of his throbbing member. He let out an agonised cry. His cock seemed to boil under my hands as it erupted. I would have pulled away in fear, but Zem held me where I was until his body relaxed, and he let out a relieved sigh.

  Only then did I get to reclaim my hands. But I didn’t mind. I was still riding the wave of intense pleasure I’d gotten from him.

  “That was the best sex ever,” he muttered in amazement.

  “It was pretty amazing,” I agreed.

  He laughed then, loud enough to disturb the sleeping men in the rooms nearby. “There’s nothing humble about you, is there, my sweet lass?”

  “Humble? Why? I was just agreeing that your release was very... pleasurable, from what I experienced of it.”

  “Pleasurable because of you. Most women would have taken it as a compliment and even said thank you. Not agreed they were amazing.”

  I frowned, not fully understanding. “But what you felt had nothing to do with me. Not really. My touch was nothing special. At the end you were doing most of it. I’m sure you’ve had more talented women give you pleasure.”

  Zem groaned. He turned to me and met my gaze in the gloom. “It had everything to do with you, Flea. When you love someone, their hands on you make it feel so much better than anything anyone else could do. I have wanted you and loved you for what feels like my whole life. Having you do that for me... You can have no idea. Even if you probe every part of my mind, you can’t truly understand. You are everything to me. Everything.”

  I felt tears stinging my eyes, and I blinked them away in embarrassment.

  Leaning in, I placed a chaste kiss on his lips. “Then I’ll say thank you. I’m happy to have obliged.”

  And just as I’d hoped, Zem lay back on the bed and laughed until he could
n’t get enough air into his lungs. All the while, I lay with my head on his bucking shoulder smiling smugly into the darkness, trying to get my mind around the meaning of his words.

  Chapter Three

  We must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew Zem was shaking me awake, his terror washing over me as forcefully as his pleasure had done not long ago. My own fear rose in response. What had happened? Were we under attack? Was The Jayger released already?

  “Wake up, Flea! Gods, wake up!” Zem cried, his voice higher than usual.

  “What’s wrong?” I got out croakily, glancing around the shadowed room as if I’d find the enemy there. I’d taken to carrying a sword strapped to my back when we were scouting, and it had its place under my bunk when I slept. Now I was automatically reaching for it, readying myself for a fight.

  “A dream. A nightmare! Are you all right?”

  Now I was awake and seemed none-the-worse for my experience, Zem relaxed, propping himself up against the stonewall abutting the bunk. He was shaking, but now I knew it was not from any outward threat.

  “Was it Airshin? Did... Did what we did bring up memories of him?” Zem asked, his voice raspy. His mind was filled with self-loathing. It was all his fault. He should never have come to my room. He should never have agreed to any kind of sexual involvement with me. I wasn’t ready. Gods, the agony I’d experienced. How could anyone survive such agony?

  I cast my mind back in confusion. I hadn’t been dreaming of Airshin. Of that I was sure. But what had I been dreaming about?

  It overtook me before I had time to draw another breath.

  I was in a dark cold room. I’d been woken from sleep by the clatter of a key being inserted in the lock. Light broke in through the crack as the door squeaked open on rusty hinges. It hurt my eyes. Gods, how it hurt my eyes.

  I saw her then, even with my watering vision. Tall and stately, or that was her description of herself. I wouldn’t know. All I knew came from her. What she had taught me about the world outside my room. And my books.