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She guarded the avatar as he took his throne and the moment that he sat, a ripple spread through the walls and floor, a bright wave that passed over the entire world.

The Avatar of Zeering was home.

Chapter Six

When the priests started to kneel, Sebena lowered her weapon and looked at Issul. He was the embodiment of power—his hair moving slightly as energy shifted through him and throughout the room. His eyes were completely navy blue, a sure sign that Zeering was firmly in control.

A Reeban with a gold headpiece came forward. To Sebena’s surprise, he bowed low to Issul.

“Avatar, we have prayed for your safe return.”

“I am aware that this was not always the case, priest. My Avatar has been lost to me for a century and it was one of yours who caused the most painful separation.”

The priest flinched. “My dear Zeering. It is good to hear your voice. We have despaired of hearing you speak in our lifetimes.”

Zeering inclined his head. “My Avatar and I need to renew our bond. Please escort this woman to guest quarters and treat her as you would my wife. She is to retain her weapons.”

“But my lord, weapons are not allowed in the temple.”

“She is to retain her weapons.”

The priest bowed low. “Yes, my lord. She will retain her weapons. We will bring her to the guest quarters in the village.”

“She will remain here in the temple and sleep under my roof. Give her the Avatar’s chamber. She will rest in my bed. Go.”

The priest stood, his navy blue feathers ruffled. He looked at Sebena and bowed stiffly. “Lady. Please accompany this acolyte to your rooms. We will bring in a female to attend you.”

Her lips twitched in amusement. “Thank you, Priest. I welcome the rest.”

She got to her feet and released her hair from her ponytail, looking at the cotton-candy pink locks that Zeering had crafted for her. The priests looked at her hair and a grudging respect came to their eyes.

She looked to Issul and he gestured with his chin for her to leave him. The moment that she turned to follow the acolyte, a column of energy swallowed him as the power of Zeering bonded into his skin once again.

The acolyte led her up a set of stairs and down a hall. Two huge doors were at the end of the hallway and he reached out to open the doors, swinging them wide. “The Avatar’s quarters, Lady. We have kept them maintained for the last hundred years, waiting for his return.”

She smiled wryly. “And here I heard that the priests had attempted to kill Issul in an effort to install their own Avatar. Too bad no one asked Zeering about it. He can’t occupy a Reeban.”

The acolyte paused while opening the bathroom door. “What?”

“Apparently, your bodies or minds cannot hold him properly. You burn out too fast and every lost Avatar causes Zeering grief. He wanted your people to thrive, not to be lost in the grief of a world who had lost the extension of himself.” She was babbling and she knew it, but there was a pressure on her mind and she had to tell this young male exactly what the problem was between Zeering and his kind.

“Who told you this?”

“Zeering, while he was fully occupying his Avatar. Oh, is that a bathtub?”

The acolyte blinked at the change in topic. “Of course. The Avatar was used to bathing in water and so it was installed when the temple was built centuries ago.”

The young man with the mud brown hair bowed low. “Is there is nothing else for you, Lady?”

“A meal in an hour would be wonderful. For now, I would like to bathe.” She shooed him out and he bowed his way out of the bathing room and out through the two huge doors. He closed the doors behind him and she turned back to the bath with a happy giggle.

The taps were a little awkward, but she managed to turn them on and after a few minutes, the hot water flowed and began to fill the tub.

As she sat and waited, she went through the oils and soaps at the edge of the tub, sniffing until she had picked out her favourites.

The bathing room itself had a separate cabinet for the necessary, a charming sink and a wall of mirrors. It was a huge room and it seemed a shame to waste the Olympic-sized bathtub on herself.

She laughed and stripped out of the bodysuit. Who was she kidding? She was only too happy to jump into the water and enjoy a soak. Real water was in short supply on a mining ship that didn’t deal in ice.

Sebena dipped her toes into the water and with a happy sigh, she slid into the rising level. She turned off the water when it lapped against her breasts and she leaned back with another sigh. Oh, she had missed this.

Her body enjoyed the buoyancy of the water and she revelled in the feeling of her fingers getting pruney under the water.

She slid under the water and soaked her hair, getting the pink stuff nice and wet. With a happy growl, she poured some of the floral soap into her hand and lathered it up.

She soaped her hair and then her body, loving the smell and the relaxed sensation that spilled through her as the scent worked her over.

Laughing at herself, she rinsed off and flicked the drain. There was no time to spend the entire day in a bath, but it had been good while it lasted.

Decidedly woozy, she chalked up her light-headedness to the heat of the water, but when she took a few steps into the cooler air of the bedroom with a towel wrapped around her, she knew something was wrong.

She staggered forward and headed for the door. She only had the towel around her, but she didn’t care. She needed help and she needed it now.

Two young priests saw her and immediately ran to her side. “What is it, Lady?”

“I have been poisoned, bring me to the Avatar.”

“He is communing with Zeering. We are not to disturb him.”

She gave them a dark look. “If he wakes and his mate is dead, he will be a lot less pleased than if you simply interrupt him. Now. Please.”

She collapsed at their feet. The next few images were spotty from her point of view. She was carried, set down, carried again, set down again, she heard arguing and then a familiar voice that washed over her and made her feel warm from the inside out.

A hand of power lifted her and she hovered in the air, her body covered by the wrap she had grabbed in the bathing room.

“She has been poisoned.” Issul’s voice was deadly.

“She mentioned something to that effect, but she smells like Miyaka flowers. It was thought that she had an allergy to them.”

The priest’s voice trembled as he spoke. His tone was too high and his words too fast. He knew something, but in Sebena’s dazed state, she was too distracted to pick it out.

Her body was moved across the room, about four feet in the air. Pain was beginning to radiate from all her nerve endings. Zeering lifted her up the steps toward the throne, the power of the planet once again controlled by Issul’s body.

Sebena felt the surge of energy as she passed through the column of power that Zeering was radiating. He gently placed her across Issul’s lap and her lips quirked in a drowsy, pain-laden smile.

“I am sorry to have interrupted your meditation, Issul.”

“And I am sorry that our first coming together will have to be this way, but the poison that they used is invasive and you do not have much time.”

The towel was burned away in seconds in a blaze of blue fire and she was left naked and draped across his thighs and the arms of the throne. A matching flare covered Issul’s skin and in seconds she was sitting directly on hard thighs and a searing column of heat that caused a flicker in her body even while it began the process of dying.

She used the last of her remaining energy to look him in the eye and the touching concern on his face with his eyes equal parts of gold and blue made her smile. “I am far more interested in survival than dignity, so do what you have to do.”

His gentle smile burned itself into her memory and she relaxed as he began to stroke her skin. Whatever he was about to do was going to change her, and at this moment, she had no objection as long as she lived to reciprocate another day.

Chapter Seven

The light surrounding them became an opaque wall that shut out the curious priesthood and left them in a column of privacy that relieved the tiny bit of tension that Sebena had been harboring. She sighed happily as his hands stroked over her breasts, because everywhere he touched, the pain that was threatening to turn into an acidic shriek faded away.

When he caressed her breasts, she sighed and arched into his hands, feeling the curls of pleasure that were expanding inside her. Zeering was riding Issul’s every touch. The planet’s power was the pleasure that she felt coursing and pooling in her. It made sense it was far easier to acquire an Avatar with pleasure than with pain.

As the pain receded, she lifted one arm to caress Issul’s neck. She used her grip to lever herself upward and when their lips were half an inch apart, he ran his hand between her thighs and parted the lips of her sex in one slow stroke. Two fingers slid into her while he kissed her, the same slow kiss that he had given her on the Sheppan.

When his fingers thrust and retreated, she gasped and she could feel the curve of Issul’s lips against her own. Pleasure spun through her as he continued the slow kiss with the more insistent motions of his hand.

Heat spiked through her with every insertion and retreat of his hand. She felt the passion rise and after she passed the limits she thought she was capable of, harsh cries came from her lips as the tension snapped and her body curled against Issul while she shook in his grip. Her first orgasm instigated by someone else, it was an amazing revelation.

The soft laugh was part Issul and part Zeering as he shifted and lifted her against him. She was kneeling on either side of his hips, her legs pressed to the throne of Zeering. Face to face, she looked into his eyes as he whispered, “My Avatar, my life, my bride.”

Her eyes widened when the arrow-like head of Issul’s cock wedged in her opening. He pressed his hands against her hips and moved his hips so that she took him inside her. Her channel widened to take him, but there was still an ache of discomfort as he filled her in every dimension.

Her channel slicked with desire, making the next movement easier. Sebena’s instinct to move took over and she rose up on her knees before sliding back to rest fully against his thighs.

Issul’s eyes glowed as she rocked and ground against him. He leaned forward and this time, his kiss was not gentle. His teeth bit lightly at her lip and when she opened to him, he explored her mouth with his tongue. He mimicked the rhythm that she had taken up and while she sighed and looped her arms around his neck, he reached one hand between them to rub against the point where they joined, bringing her to another swift orgasm that made her buck against him and a trembling cry was given to him as his due.

He gripped her hips and thrust into her furiously, bringing her up on a spiral of pleasure that had her on the edge of pleasure again in moments.

Issul gripped her head and kissed her savagely as he shouted his release. She felt the jet of cum inside her, but there was a surprise that went along with it. The energy of Zeering burned into her, starting in her womb and radiating through her entire body.

The scream that came to her throat was swallowed by another kiss. Pleasure and pain blurred into one moment of confusion as the planet mapped every inch, every cell, every nerve and made himself at home.

Welcome, Sebena. You are ours now.

What the hell?

You were poisoned.

I know that. Why are you in my head?

Issul is in your body. You don’t seem to mind that.

She blushed. Zeering had a point.
It still feels a little invasive.

You will get used to it.

Does this mean…

Yes. You are mine now. The Alliance will be notified once you and Issul have completed the acclimatization.

She thought it out and realized that it was never going to end any other way. From the moment Issul had set eyes on her outside his pod, she had known that he was determined to have her, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why.

You are extraordinary and Issul looks forward to proving to you just how extraordinary you are at every opportunity. Now that he and I have renewed our bond and are aware of the threat that the Reeban pose, we will take steps.

What are you planning?

A little housekeeping. They will no longer be allowed to do what they have done here.

An image came into her mind of a mountain and a series of blasts that eventually left nothing but a tower of blue marble. The temple was built around the tower and she knew then what she was looking at. The Reeban had built a direct connection to the world below and tried to pass it off as tribute when it was really an attempt at manipulation.

What will you do?

We will discuss that after the bonding is complete. We still have some more work to do.

She fought the urge to smile, as the subject he was referring to was taking on an insistent form within her.
Does Issul know we are speaking?

He knows and is impatient for me to finish so that he can begin.

Amusement flowed from the planet and she felt him retreat to a previously unused corner of her mind. Humans didn’t use their entire brains at one time and it seemed that it was exactly the kind of arrangement that this planet preferred.

She could almost feel him setting up housekeeping.

Sebena looked at Issul’s face and reached up to caress his jaw, neck and shoulders. He ran his hands over her back and arched his hips into hers. The pillar of heat inside her started to move once again and she placed her hands on his shoulders for balance. The column that hid them from view flickered randomly as the joining continued. Sebena could see Issul with her, the pleasure that they were finding together as they moved as one and off in the corner of their thoughts, Zeering burned brightly.

The tension within her coiled and tightened, Sebena dug her nails into his shoulders and when his hands bruised her hips and his lips crushed against hers, he howled and she moaned. Their bodies locked together as his spasmodic jerks thrust him to the hilt in harsh repetition.