Alliance Forged (37 page)

“If you’re anything like Kalan, the first thing he likes to indulge in once he comes off patrol is a bath.” She kept her tone deliberately light. “He swears that it takes a good hour of soaking to get rid of the musky odor of war-beasts on his skin. A poor excuse when I know he’s always been partial to hot water and a long bath.”

Varian said nothing, not even when she stopped at the edge of the pool and began unlacing his vest. His breathing had eased and he no longer trembled so violently. His aura held the dull edge of numbness, like he’d reached the end of his strength.

Or the eye of the storm.

As she slipped the vest from his arms, she grasped his hands. His skin was cold to the touch.

“Unbuckle your weapons belt and give it to me.” She kept her
voice soft but firm. “Just leave your clothes on the floor and get into the water.”

As she hung his belt and vest on the wall, he complied with her instruction. For the next quarter of an hour, she talked about her day, alternating between just chatting and passing him a cleaning cloth and soap-sand. When he was ready, she handed him a towel, then rifled through his travel pouch to find clean clothes.

“While you’re drying, I might send to the kitchen for some
geefan
blood.” She pulled a rolled-up ball of material out of the pouch. A quick shake and she knew she held a shirt, the light scent of herbal wash lingering in the fabric. She held it out to him. “I’m assuming you’re hungry?”

Varian’s hand closed over hers, but he didn’t take the shirt. A faint tremor shook his fingers as his aura flashed with dark heat. The intensity of it startled a gasp out of her.

“Kymora…” His voice broke on her name, a heart-wrenching half groan, half grating sob. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Why not?”

“I attacked Lisella.” His tone was flat, emotionless, but his aura lit up again like a log thrown on embers. Through the contact she had with his hand, a wave of guilt and regret closely followed by horror and disgust swamped her.

Her heart picked up speed with his admission as she fought to keep her reaction from showing on her face. “Is she all right?”

“I almost killed her.” His voice sounded like gravel grinding against itself. “Jole stopped me but I hurt her.”

His breath caught in a strangled hiccup as he pulled his hand away from hers and left her holding the shirt. “Varian?” He didn’t reply. She tilted her head, listening. There it was again, the muffled hiccup. “Varian?”

Kymora moved toward the sound. Her foot nudged warm flesh.
She reached out and found the top of Varian’s head at waist level. His head was bowed, the bare curve of one shoulder and arm cradling it.

She dropped to her knees beside his huddled form and wrapped her arms around him again. Silent now, his shoulders quivered in telling jerky movements.

Merciful Mother
, he was crying.

Kymora’s throat closed over and tears burned in her eyes.
Lady
knew what it cost him to open up to her like that, but his courage brought a shaky smile to her lips. She pressed her cheek against his damp hair and just held him.

If Jole had stopped him, he’d done enough to save Lisella and bring Varian out of the effects of battle rush. The exact details could wait.

“Lisella’s all right,” she murmured. “You wouldn’t be here if she weren’t.” Thank the
Lady
for
Her
mercy as she had little doubt Varian would be in chains or dead if he’d killed her. “That’s all that matters.”

“I can’t… control it… anymore.” Every word sounded torn from his soul. “It’s inside me… waiting… in the darkness…. It’s like a parasite.… It just burrows deeper, growing bigger, poisoning me…. I can’t stop it…. I tried….”

Kymora hugged him harder. Like a dam bursting, the words just poured out of him. She wasn’t sure if he realized what he was saying, but as she listened, much of what he revealed gave her a very clear picture of everything she’d ever felt or sensed in him.

He saw himself as two separate identities. Varian, leader of the
Na’Chi
, and the beast, the thing threatening to take over the man. Anger heated his words, his muscles tight with frustrated rage that he couldn’t control that part of himself. Impotent fury rode beside the fear as he believed he’d succumb to the part of him he saw as dark and evil. Despair interlocked all of it because he thought himself beyond forgiveness or redemption. All for being who and what he was. For what he’d done and everything he feared he would do.

Warm tears tracked down her cheeks, but she refused to let go of him to wipe them from her face. His outpouring filled her with hope, as painful as it was to listen to. He’d come to her. He’d fought against everything from his past to share his fears with her, a dual gift of giving her his trust and baring his soul.

Kymora traced the bowed curve of his head, the soft dampness of his hair sliding over her fingers. He shifted under her touch, the muscles of his shoulders and arms bunching with tension. His aura was brittle with shock, and shame bled through the cracks. He tried to pull away from her, but she refused to release him.

“You’d deny me the pleasure of comforting a friend by pulling away,” she said, softly. “Do you truly believe I’d let you face this alone?”

Did he expect her to abandon him when he needed her the most? The thought slashed at her heart like a blade. That it hurt so much drew her up short. Then she blinked, a slow, deliberate motion that gave her time to digest the impact of what it meant.

She loved him
. Her heart beat harder. Part of her balked in surprise; another part accepted it with a sense of rightness and joy.

Varian made a small sound in the back of his throat, and something flickered through his aura. With her focus torn between her realization and him, she almost didn’t catch it. As exciting as her insight was, analyzing what she felt would have to wait.

“You’re not weak, Varian.”

She moved so she was kneeling in front of him instead of beside, so he could see her face. This time she wanted him to see her expression. Water on the floor soaked into the folds of her dress, but she ignored it. She reached up to caress the side of his face.

Lady of Light,
be merciful and generous, steady my thoughts and guide me in my Journey.
A Journey perhaps now she understood more clearly.

“This jaw doesn’t belong to a weak man.” She trailed a hand over his shoulder and along his arm. “Nor does this strong arm, or these capable hands.” She pressed her palm to the center of his bare chest.
“Beneath this warm flesh beats the heart of a compassionate man, one who’s fought his whole life to fulfill his people’s dream. Just because you feel the need to lean on someone, to accept someone else’s strength for a little while, doesn’t make you weak.”

Varian’s chest rose on a sharp breath. She placed her fingers over his lips.

“You’ve always looked out and cared for others. Even me when I needed it.” The night spent in the cave after the rebel attack on the
Na’Chi
village was vivid. Kymora leaned forward and brushed her lips over his brow. “Please, I need to take care of you.”

Kymora held her breath. She was asking for more of his trust, pushing him. She swallowed against a dry throat. The hand that stroked his stubble-rough cheek trembled.

The fierce tenderness on Kymora’s face held Varian transfixed. While her lashes were wet with recently shed tears, the warmth in her emerald gaze wrapped around him like a blanket, soft and comforting. It was there, he could feel it, the tranquility he’d craved while standing outside her door.

Something stirred deep inside him, expanding, heating fast. His heart jolted and he stiffened, afraid that somehow he’d triggered the darkness to rise. But the rush never eventuated and the heat settled in his chest and infiltrated his heart.

“Just for now, accept it, Varian,” Kymora whispered.

Her words were like a release and permission all rolled into one. He exhaled a shuddering breath, and in between one heartbeat and the next, peacefulness filled him. Where she touched him, it bled into him through the pores of his skin. The deeper he breathed, the faster it rushed through his veins. He almost groaned with the sensation.

“This is temporary, Kymora.” He exhaled a shuddering breath. “It’ll disappear once I step outside your door….”

“Then I hope you’ll find me or send me a message, and I’ll come
to you. It’s what friends do. They’re there when you need them, Varian.”

“But you have your Temple duties….”

A smile curved her lips as her fingers eased the frown on his brow. “Let’s live in this moment, and worry about everything else later.”

She made it too easy to comply. That he sat naked on a cold tile floor while the most influential spiritual leader in all human territory knelt at his feet didn’t seem to matter. It would later, but for now Varian wanted to ignore the future and enjoy the present.

He reached to cup her cheek, chest aching at the tear tracks marking it, and smoothed his thumb over them. No one, except perhaps for Hesia, had ever cried over him before.

“You care too much,” he stated, grimacing at the hoarseness of his voice.

“I’ve been accused of that many times. It’s just who I am, Varian.” Kymora smiled and placed her hand over his.

A simple gesture but one that tugged something loose inside him. She stroked his knuckles, caressing each one with her fingers as if she were memorizing every crease and indent. While her touch wasn’t sexual in nature, there was a sensual element to her actions. One his nerves were beginning to fire and come alive with. A look at her face assured him she wasn’t doing it deliberately.

He wished she would.

He liked her hands on him. He’d never thought any woman would make him feel the way she did. It was contentment, satisfaction, hunger, desire, and lust all tangled together. His appetite for them all was a growing addiction.

He wanted more.

Varian twisted his hand under hers, gripped her wrist, and drew it to his mouth. He placed a kiss on the underside of her arm, where the skin was soft and warm. A faint flush stained Kymora’s cheeks,
and her scent deepened into a rich floral sweetness. The serene expression on her face changed to raw anticipation.

“I like you touching me, Varian.” Her scent confirmed her statement, yet she made no move toward him like he thought she might.

Was she waiting for confirmation of the direction he wanted to go with her? Where did he want to take this moment?

Images and sensations crowded his head, vivid and explicit. Some he’d already experienced with her, others he didn’t even know if they were possible. Fast and hot, arousal raced through him, a powerful jolt that hardened him in a matter of seconds. He swallowed a groan.

Varian released it as he reached for her, unable to resist. He buried his hands in her hair, tilting her head up so he could place his mouth on hers and taste. Her lips opened and her sweetness exploded on his tongue.

Merciful Mother
, she was nectar and honey, spice and heat.

The contact between them could have been minutes or just seconds. He didn’t know or care. Not when her tongue twined with his, tasting, taking, teasing him to the point of breathlessness. She made a soft sound, like a sigh, and the firestorm of need seething inside him erupted.

He wrapped his arms around her, and without losing contact with her mouth, pulled her over him so that she straddled his hips. He groaned as her weight settled on top of him. There was no way she could miss what he wanted, not with his erection caught between them.

Sliding his hands from her waist to her behind, he spread his fingers and cupped the taut curves of her rear, savoring the smooth heat of them through the folds of her robe. He gripped her hard so that he could feel the heat of her through her dress, then worked her in a slow, hot gliding motion against him.

Kymora cried out, breaking their kiss, and a small tremor traveled the length of her body. Varian sucked in a shocked breath, as
unprepared as her for the delicious heat that seared him. He could smell her desire, a concentrated, heavy scent he tasted in their next kiss.

When she started tugging at the folds of her robe, he stilled. “What are you doing?”

She issued a breathless chuckle. “I thought that would be obvious.” Her hands shook as she plucked at the tie. “I want to feel you skin to skin.”

It dawned on him then that they were still on the floor of her bathing room. He grimaced. Cold tiles were no place for her or what they were doing. “Put your arms around my neck.”

Once upright, he bent to grasp the hem of her robe and pulled it over her head and let it drop to join his clothes on the floor. The pleasure of just looking at her held him spellbound for several long seconds.

She stood before him, her skin flushed with a rosy hue, her long hair settling around her shoulders in a dark wavy curtain. Her breathing was as erratic as his and drew his attention to her breasts. It took every ounce of control not to reach out and cup them, to feel their weight, to stroke the dark-pointed tips of her nipples.

He wanted to savor the pleasure he’d brought her. The swollen wetness of her lips, the hard thumping of her heart, the fragrant heat glistening in the curls that covered her sex.

Sinking back onto one knee, he pressed a kiss to the curved flare of one hip. “
Mother of Light
, you’re so beautiful.”

As he closed his teeth over her flesh in a gentle bite, her fingers threaded through his hair and dug into his scalp. He banded his arms around her hips and back and scooped her up against him.

Kymora gave a startled cry as he lifted her from the ground and headed out of the bathing room. Her hands gripped his shoulders and squeezed. “Where are we going?”

Besides the door he’d entered through to come into her apartment, there were three others, all closed. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“Second on the right.” She buried her head into the crook of his neck, her breath hot against his skin. As he started in that direction, her lips pressed against his throat.

The sensation made him growl and she laughed softly in his ear. By the time he’d entered her room and kicked the door closed with his heel, she’d sampled both sides of his neck and left a stinging bite of her own just above the hollow of his throat.