Ultimate Warriors (10 page)

     
"You
disgust me!" she spat out angrily.

     
He
closed his eyes. As she stared at him in surprise, his features began to shift
and change. She blinked. When she opened her eyes once more, she saw that it
was Savage who hovered above her.

     
She
swallowed. Onyx was playing with her mind.

     
Or was
he?

     
Was it
possible there had never been a Dr. Savage at all? Had this demon appeared to
her in a form he thought would please her more? Tried to gain her trust by
appearing to her as an attractive human being?

     
Almost
as if he had read her mind, he asked, "Is this form more pleasing to
you?"

     
Instead
of answering, Nari looked away from him, feeling ill at the thought that she’d
kissed Savage with such pleasure when he might only have been Onyx all along.

     
"Perhaps this, then?"

     
Despite
her unwillingness to be drawn into his game, whatever it was, Nari found she
couldn’t resist looking at him when he spoke again. To her horror, she saw
Xalen above her--Onyx looking like Xalen--or maybe there’d never been a Xalen
either? Maybe there’d never been anyone but Onyx.

     
He
growled angrily when she merely stared at him. "There is no pleasing
you."

     
"You
can not please me," Nari retorted.

     
His eyes
narrowed cunningly. "I can wring pleasure from your body whether it is
your will to feel it or not. You responded to me before. I smelled the sweet
scent of your desire, felt the heat of your body."

     
Nari
swallowed with an effort. She could lie and deny it, but he would know.

     
She
steeled herself as he lowered his head, turning her face away. He sucked the
flesh of her neck, almost to the point of pain, but heat flooded her despite
that. She felt her nipples pucker and stand erect.

     
Onyx
felt it, too. The hard little tips drew his attention and he moved down her
body. Nari gritted her teeth as his mouth covered one tip, trying her best to
ignore the rampant, pleasurable sensations that shot through her. Despite her
efforts, her body sang to life, began to tremble as he continued to suckle her
determinedly, flicking his tongue over the sensitive tip. She was struggling to
catch her breath by the time he turned his attention to its mate.

     
There
was no bracing herself for the onslaught. As repulsed as she was by the evil in
Onyx, her body had no conscience. It sang beneath his touch, soared. Moisture
gathered in her vaginal passage, welcoming his possession and when he reached
his hand down to probe her once more, he grunted in satisfaction.

     
Shifting,
he pressed his hard cock along her cleft, searching, finding the passage that
quivered with need in spite of all Nari could do.

     
Pain
shot through her as he lunged, plunging deeply inside of her in one powerful
thrust and rupturing her hymen as he claimed her. She
screamed,
the euphoria he’d created vanishing instantly. He looked down at her with Onyx’s
eyes in Xalen’s face, his gaze calculating, impatient,
filled
with lust.

     
Slowly
the pain subsided, became a dull throbbing. Twisting, he began to tease her
flesh with his mouth and tongue once more. Gradually, beneath his persistence,
her body responded until she was gasping with need once more, squirming beneath
him. He began to move then, thrusting his cock deeply inside of her,
withdrawing slowly and thrusting once more. Euphoria intoxicated her, building
inside of her in an ever tightening band until she felt her body could not
continue to withstand the ever mounting pleasure, until she felt her body
trembling, reaching for appeasement.

     
Without
warning, the bubble that had been building inside of her toward
explosion,
erupted. She screamed with the force of it,
feeling as if it would rend her body into tiny fragments, feeling such white
hot fire and power explode forth from her that she feared for many moments that
when it ceased to flow outward from her that there would be nothing left but an
empty shell.

     
Around
her, she heard the shock waves spreading outward, heard the terrified screams
of the cult members who had gathered to watch,
heard
Onyx roar in pain.

     
It
continued rippling outward, jerking from within her. Her flesh heated,
a sheen
of sweat coated her skin in response, and still the
ruptures of ecstasy rolled from within. Something had happened, different from
her orgasms before, as if having demon flesh inside her had awakened an
innermost part she hadn’t known existed.

     
She felt
that part now, called it forth, but there was no controlling it. A crack of
thunder shook the cavern walls, bouncing through the cavern in a deafening
echo.
Her eardrums spasmed.

     
Her mind
whirled dizzily, and she blacked out. For how long, she couldn’t know. When she
opened her eyes at last, she discovered she had not imagined any of it. The
room around her was decimated, burned, the bodies of the cult members crumpled.

     
Nari sat
up in surprise, discovering the manacles were broken, twisted fragments now.

     
Disbelief
filled her as she stared at Onyx, far across the room now, struggling to rise.
She looked down at herself, but she didn’t have so much as a scratch. What had
happened?

     
She
screamed when Xalen materialized beside the altar. He caught her arms, giving
her a slight shake.
"Nari!
You summoned me!"

     
Nari
swallowed with an effort. "Is it … really you?"

     
He
frowned, pulling her close as he surveyed the damage to the room; the dead and
dying cult members, the blackened walls, the blasted stones. Seeing Onyx, he
released Nari. She caught his arm. "No. Let him go."

     
His lips
tightened. "He is weak now. If we allow him to go, he will grow strong
again."

     
Nari’s
chin wobbled. "Please, just take me home."

     
After a
moment, he nodded and scooped her into his arms. Grateful, Nari wrapped her
arms around his shoulders, burying her face against his neck. A sensation of
movement filtered through her beleaguered senses. Slowly, Xalen’s warmth began
to chase the chill of fear and shock from her and then she felt herself being
lowered and looked around to discover she was in her own bedroom once more.

     
She
clung to Xalen when he would have released her. He settled next to her on her
bed, holding her close.

     
"What
happened?" he asked softly.

     
"I
don’t really know," she responded, the words muffled against his neck.
"Onyx … raped me. And then I felt this powerful force building inside of
me."

     
Xalen
was silent for a time, rubbing her back soothingly. "He wanted you to
unlock his own powers. Instead, he unlocked yours and it nearly destroyed him.
I have to confess you are far more powerful than I had imagined possible. I
have never seen anything even approaching the powers that you have. I have
heard tell of such things in legend, but I hadn’t believed they were anything
but tales."

     
Nari
leaned away from him, studying him in confusion. "I don’t
understand."

     
"You
do. You just don’t want to accept. You are half demon, Nari. The demon who was
your father was well known to me."

     
Nari
pulled away from him. "He raped my mother."

     
"He
loved your mother … in as much as a demon is capable of loving a human being.
He was destroyed trying to protect the two of you from harm."

     
An
uncomfortable knot of sorrow rose in her throat. With an effort, she swallowed
against it. "How do you know this? And, if you knew, why didn’t you come
to me sooner?"

     
He
frowned. "When Daxen was destroyed, your mother took you and disappeared.
We believed that you had both been killed when he died. Until you came to me
and we found the records, I had no way of knowing you still lived."

     
Nari
stared at him. "Wait a minute! I didn’t…."

     
Even as
her voice trailed off to nothingness, Xalen transformed, became Savage right
before her eyes. Nari sucked in a frightened breath.
"You!
Onyx appeared as you, transformed himself into Xalen."

     
His hand
closed around her arm when she would have leapt from the bed. "You know
me! No matter what form I take, you know me, Nari."

     
Her fear
began to subside almost at once, for she realized it was true. She sensed that
he was Xalen, and she realized that she had always felt that she could trust
him, as Savage, and when he appeared to her as Xalen. No wonder she had been
confused about her feelings for both of them.

     
When she
ceased to resist, he pulled her close to him, fitting her against his length.
The soothing skate of his hand along her flesh calmed the last of her fears
and, as she relaxed, kindled a spark of warmth. When he lowered his head and
brushed his lips along her cheek, she lifted her own lips to meet his. Warmth
flooded her as his mouth moved over hers, as his tongue slid sinuously along
hers in an intimate caress,
then
became heat as
longing began to build inside of her.

     
Reluctantly,
she broke the kiss. "We can’t," she protested weakly.

     
"As
much as I wish to argue the matter, I agree," he responded. "Now that
your power is awakened, it must be controlled before we can … do more."

     
Nari
blinked at him in surprise. "You’re not serious."

     
There
wasn’t a touch of humor in his eyes. "I am. You are awakened now, however,
though I am certain this was not in Onyx’s plan. He cannot harm you in your
dreams without retaliation."

     
For
that, she was thankful, but what it entailed scared her. What if she dreamed of
sex and something happened? She could hurt anyone without even knowing it. Nari
swallowed fearfully, thinking about what could’ve happened if she’d decided to
have sex with him before she’d known. "I almost destroyed Onyx." I
could have killed you, she left unspoken. They both knew it.

     
He
smiled faintly. "In time, I will teach you how to control, and use, your
powers. You will need them, Blazearc. There are others out there, like you,
with powers. We must find them. We will need their help to fight the demon
horde, to destroy them, or send them back beyond the gateway and then we will
need to destroy the gateway."

The End …
or just the beginning…?

By

Brenna
Lyons

©
copyright
August 2004, Brenna Lyons

DEDICATION

     
When
Jaide put out the call for this anthology, it fired my imagination. Between
hearing
my son "invent" one superhero after
another, having a younger brother with a degree in graphic arts and reading
comic books when I was growing up, I’ve always had a fondness for the genre.
Right away, I decided I didn’t want to create a world of superheroes in the
normal sense of the word. The thought that immediately lodged in my head was
simple. What if superheroes evolved ala X-Men and were forced to live in service
to society with no choice in the matter?

     
I have
to thank Stan Lee and Marvel Comics for my fascination with the subject and for
the concepts that I have come to associate with superheroes in general. My
major sources of inspiration were the X-Men, Superman, Batman, The Justice
League, and most especially … The Amazing Spiderman and Professor Xavier.

     
I hope
you enjoy "With Great Power." I had a great time writing it.

     
Brenna
Lyons