WOLF DAWN: Science Fiction Thriller/ Romance (Forsaken Worlds) (40 page)

Ashamed, Ash flinched, consumed by guilt. He pulled away and their mental contact was almost broken.

“No. Ash, wait,”
she cried out, refusing to let him go. He hesitated, and Lindha reached closer. Black mental turmoil beat against her like dark, heavy wings: shame, a fear of discovery, a desire to hide. Ash’s emotions were transparent, but his mind was a wall, a barrier erected for protection.

“There are some things I can’t … I can’t show you.”

“Ash, do you imagine that there could be something in your past that would make me think less of you?

“I know there is. Lindha, no. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t lose me. Trust me, my love. Please.”

“I can’t.”
Grief and sadness engulfed them both. Naturally guarded as a child, his time on Opan had only enhanced that state. While he knew about healing mind-touch and the baring of one’s soul, he had never actually exposed himself to another. No one really knew him. The truth of such complete exposure was frightening.

Lindha, although kind and understanding, was also determined and persistent. She said, “
Ash, there is nothing you could have done that could make me love you less. Nothing. I swear it. Let me know all of you.”

Moments passed, but at length Ash gave in. Crumbling with shame and humiliation, he loosened all barriers, opening his mind. The first thought that she encountered was an overwhelming surge of loss. Ash knew that Lindha would shun and despise him, feeling only abhorrence after she knew the truth.

Passing on, Lindha boldly looked further. She briefly experienced his life on Delian as a boy: a gray-bearded teacher instructing him; attending royal events, holovids and press conferences, which he hated. The innocent joy he had in walking with Tynan, his best friend and the love of his childhood. The smell of the woods. The soft touch of his mother’s hands. His father’s pride and worry. Time after time he suffered physical illness and pain that almost ended his life. He had battled through and did not dwell. Being sick and weak was unremarkable for him; it was just something to survive. She was awed by Ash’s determination and courage.

She knew the secret of his meeting with the Seer and felt burning agony in her lungs as she understood the fate of the people of Delian. The Dark Sankomin was a heavy pressure inside. Riding a tide of grief and regret, Lindha found that Ash felt guilt for the death of his father and mother and the genocide of his race.

These were hidden thoughts, certainties all too terrible to view. They had been entombed without a trace; buried even from himself. Somehow it was his fault. Ash felt he should never have left his father and the people of Delian. Hidden from view was the pervasive thought:
“I should have died with them.”

The realization was a surprise to both.

Knowing this irrational unconscious consideration made Ash feel lighter somehow. The heavy mass began to break. A small portion of the Dark Sankomin lifted and the river of Ash’s mind began to trickle through the breach.

Lindha searched on. Soon she came to the time in
Assurance
where he had inadvertently made love to his mother. Solid murky disgrace pervaded, hidden to the end. Mentally she uncovered details, as if peeling thick layers of skin from some multilayered fruit. It was then that Lindha found what Ash had most wished to hide, considering worst of all. While trapped in Forseth’s body he had found that he enjoyed it, that he wanted sex with his own mother as much as Forseth did. In a strange, illogical computation of his own, Ash had begun to lose his power to mind-touch humankind at that point. It was then that he had decided that touching people, experiencing their thoughts and emotions, was wrong, perverse and shameful.

Lindha thought
, “This is nothing to be ashamed of, Ash. What happened, happened. It was not planned. You were trapped in an aroused, adult male.
Ash could feel Lindha’s knowing mental smile of total understanding.
It means nothing more than that you are physically a man. And your mother was a beautiful woman.”

It was comforting for Ash to realize Lindha held not the slightest hint of judgment of his actions. Lindha’s pervading mental thought was that if she had been in Larren Forseth’s body at the time, even she would have done and felt exactly the same as he had. Her tranquil mental absolution soothed, calmed, and relieved him like water on a burn.

It was wonderful.

Lindha unburdened his soul. It was as if Ash had been buried and Lindha was shoveling away the dirt that covered him, bringing him into the light one spade at a time.

Ash’s memory of mind-touch with Lindha was seen then, all those years ago when she had brought him supplies. There had been many dreams for both of them after that time: erotic dreams, waking dreams, sleeping dreams and comforting dreams. Ash had touched Lindha’s mind, and had somehow stayed connected. He had focused on her as a foundation to build on; she was the one true thing in his world. And Lindha had to some degree been aware of that focus.

We were together even then,
they both realized with awe.

Continuing her view, Lindha next came to Ash’s time as a captive. This was out of sequence in his mind and there was an odd echo: it was somehow reminiscent of experiencing the death of his people. This blackness seemed to be right here with him in the present. Lindha recalled what Ash had told her about the Dark Sankomin:

All souls suffer the Dark Sankomin. If one is in the present, if the mind remains in attendance, the Sankomin cannot seize or bind. The Sankomin is a combination of all that has been and all that can be. It is not evil in itself: it merely is. Time is like a river and the mind is the water. When the water flows, all is well and sequential, in chronological order. However, these past events, encompassing all the conscious feelings within them — thought, pain and emotion — can fall on one en masse. They attach to one’s soul like metal filings drawn to a magnet. At times presenting as burdened river eddies, they dam the river and the mind becomes bound. It will not flow. The Dark Sankomin is solid, a heavy mass in the mind, a dark burden to the soul. Unresolved, it will cause madness and despair.

So many dark events Ash could not share and view completely. Thoughts and anguish he couldn’t acknowledge to himself. These terrible burdens damming the river of his mind.
Such despair.
Lindha felt real pain with this memory: a dark cave, damp, cold — a timeless void, the emptiness of the mine. His terrible loneliness, the shivering consciousness he had been forced to face: the unfathomable purpose of a joyless, isolated existence.

The truth was there: He had wanted to die.

This was another surprising realization for Ash, another lightening of his soul, when he faced this self-destructive truth. He had wanted to die because he couldn’t face the world alone. He couldn’t.

“I am with you,”
Lindha sent the restful thought.

Something that was wound tightly inside Ash, suddenly released.

Lindha re-experienced the shock of his broken arm; she felt Seeta’s thick red fur and knew the astonishingly sweet, musky taste of wolf milk; she trembled through the death of the white deer and the pain of killing her fawn. Fire coursed through her veins as she experienced the wild, unrestrained passion of wolves when mating.

These were events that Ash had, with the full force of his power, attempted to conceal from Lindha. But she had pierced his barriers, overcoming that anxious, inflexible shield with her love.

Ash felt feather light bubbles bursting in her mind.

It was laughter. Lindha was laughing!

“Oh my. Those wolves. Indescribable. Those incredible sensations. I can understand why you found contact during mating an impossible habit to break.”

Lindha hadn’t been disgusted. She understood.

For some unaccountable reason, Ash also started to giggle, then chuckle, then laugh. He couldn’t stop laughing. He understood what had happened now. His guilt had started with the mind-touch with Forseth and his mother. After that, mind-touch with the wolves had, in a logical rationalization, compounded the wrong.

His laughter tapered off, but his smile was irrepressible: he felt ridiculously happy. Time passed while everything fell into place. The dam in his mind freed itself, the river flowed, clearing away the debris.

This explained
everything.

Sudden understanding and awareness was a blinding light in his mind.

He stopped smiling then: all he could feel was awe.

It was then,
right then,
that he fully realized what he had always known but had hidden from himself for some years. It was the common denominator for everything that had happened, the events that had caused him such constant guilt and pain.

Ash had decided that he was a bad person — undeserving of his powers.

Lindha marveled as she witnessed Ash’s spiral of life-shifting realizations. So many things that he had not wanted to view, to hide away from himself and others. Enthralled with the knowledge of his mind, she knew now what had been blocking his ability to mind-touch people. It was Ash. He had been stopping himself.

She thought, “
You’re so good, Ash. You sought to lose your power because you considered yourself evil. You were going to protect others from yourself. Jana has chosen well, Trueborn.”

Ash knew what she felt: Lindha loved him.

He thought in silent wonder,
“You know everything? And you still love me
?” He was incredulous. Ash felt transformed. He had been healed, cured from the degrading taint and the dark shadows that had been weighing him down for so long. Together they both experienced a tremendous mental relief. The heavy, murky mass of dim thoughts and burdens lifted and flew away. The river of his soul flowed freely. Only a soothing mental breeze of mutual affection and understanding remained. In concert, both Lindha and Ash experienced a lightness of being and an overpowering sensation of freedom. They knew what it was.

It was spiritual well-being and release: euphoria caused by exultation of the soul.

“Wonderful,”
Lindha thought.

“Yes,”
Ash agreed, while they spiraled higher. His mind caressed her with immeasurable, unleashed power. He thought:

“Soul-to-soul release, mind-to-mind release, flesh-to-flesh release. Mind-touch with one’s partner is the ultimate consummation.”

Ash reached for Lindha, feeling her smooth skin brushing against his chest, reacting to his touch.

“Oh,” Lindha breathed.

As if their mental and spiritual contact had only been a momentary interlude, Lindha and Ash once more were filled with flesh desire. Their focus narrowed, concentrating on the physical. Thought, not required now; melted away with the fire of need. It was being replaced by an entirely physical plane: a tidal wave of sensation that molded Ash and Lindha together.

Ash’s strong warm hands ran up upon her ankles, knees, hips and inside her thighs, touching her where no one had touched her before. He caressed and stroked softly with clever fingers. With her mental and physical response as his guide, Ash knew exactly how to touch her to cause the most pleasure. Ash felt her ecstasy, her bliss and it melded and combined with his own.

They kissed and the kiss was a spike of desire that sent heat and languorous lust throbbing and burning through their veins like a drug. Ash had one hand just
there
, that
exquisite
place that she knew so well. It seemed that he knew it, too. His fingers stroking, stroking while one hand held her breast, held it so that he could worship it with his mouth. Lindha’s nipples were hard and she tasted divine. She was moaned and her arms pulled him to her.

Enough. It had to be enough. Ash couldn’t wait any longer. He knelt between her knees and positioned himself, preparing to join his body with hers, as fully as he had his soul.
“Lindha. I want to …”
Lindha knew exactly what he wanted. She wanted it too.
“Oh, yes, Ash. Please!”

With a longing cry, Lindha clung to Ash. He lifted her and she arched to join him. She smelled the musk of his desire and spicy male sweat, the unique scent that was Ash. She felt him, rock hard against her softness.

Both were taking great lungfuls of air now, the sound of their breath wild and abandoned, like running in a gale. The pleasure, the uncontrolled storm of sensation, was too much. As if clinging to a life raft in a tempest, she held on and attempted to absorb one sensation at a time: his heat, his weight, his need. She clutched Ash’s shoulders tenaciously as he pushed inside a little at a time, with a slow deliberate pace. Lindha gasped and arched, accommodating him.

“Lindha,” Ash groaned.

She opened her eyes, head back, breathless. Ash was raised above her on trembling arms. Teeth clenched as if in pain, he was experiencing the exquisite agony of extreme pleasure, of ecstasy withheld.

“Are you okay?” he panted out loud, searching her expression.

Mentally he felt only her intense pleasure but he had to be sure. He was concerned because she was a maiden, afraid that he might be causing her pain. Once inside as far as he could go he had not moved from that position. It had taken a Herculean strength of will.

“Very much so, yes,”
Lindha thought. She let him see what he had obviously missed during their mental contact. While she had never been with a man, when she had come of age she had had her maidenhead intentionally breached during a formal Temple ceremony. She was feeling only pleasure.

“You’re kidding,”
Ash was delighted.
“Not a virgin.”
That meant no pain, no bleeding.

Lindha mentally assured him,
“You won’t hurt me, Ash. Don’t stop. It feels wonderful.”

Her skin was hot. There was fire between them now, the heat of his power and the heat of their lust; both were sweating in the warm summer breeze.

“Thank you, Jana.”
Like a wild dog let off its chain, Ash was released to pursue his goal. He bounded forward, all his health, all his youth and vigor, all his strength and purpose going toward the one objective. He would
kill
to come inside her.