The Musing of R. L. Frymire

THE NEXT FEW nights, Aimor avoided being alone with Amiya. Everything was… different. A line had been crossed, and he didn’t know how they were to go back to the way they were before. Or if he wanted to.

It was probably time for him to move out of his father’s home, but the thought made him grimace. Not because he’d miss being around his cantankerous old man, but because her. It was always because of her. She was in his head. In his blood. He couldn’t escape her. Didn’t want to. Unable to stay but unable to leave, he was stuck in inaction.

Until that night, when he heard his father yelling clearly, “So, you think you’re too good for me, do you?” Then a loud slap and a feminine cry of pain.

Aimor was out of bed and rushing into his father’s room, heart pounding at the meaty sounds of flesh hitting flesh. In the doorway, he cried out and lunged forward, grabbing onto the fist his father raised to his second wife. In his other hand, he held Amiya aloft by her dark hair, crimson splattered across her face.

“Stop! What are you doing?!”

His father tried to shake him off, but Aimor clung to him. “Don’t interfere with a man disciplining his wife,” Ernesh shouted. There was a crazed look in his wild eyes, alarming Aimor.

He spoke softly, not wishing to set his father off further. “Calm down. Or you’ll kill her.”

Amiya somehow freed herself and shed behind his skinny back. While his chest puffed out with pride at the idea that he was protecting her—his woman, his heart shriveled as his father foamed at the mouth as though diseased.

He looked beyond livid. Like a feral animal.

“Get back here, you little tease!” Completely ignoring his son, Ernesh lunged for her. Amiya cried out and Aimor shoved his father back.

“Stop this! You already broke her nose.”

A fist slammed into his jaw in answer, and Aimor fell back. Amiya hit the wall behind him and quickly slid to the floor before his weight could crush her. Using the wall as support, he stood over her, and shook off the ringing in his ears, before lifting placating hands. “Father, listen to—”

“Has she been sharing your bed behind my back, too? I know she’s been sneaking off. She thinks I don’t know, but I can smell them on her! You’ve been with her, haven’t you?”

Aimor opened his mouth to deny it, but remembered the kiss, and lost his voice. Suddenly, he couldn’t meet his father’s eyes.

Ernesh’s nostrils flared. “I’ll kill you!”

Ernesh lunged for him, and Aimor barely stumbled out of the way in time when Ernesh’s fist crashed into the wall, through the wall. Hate filled eyes turned on him.

He’s really going to kill me!

Refusing to be a coward—again, Aimor grabbed Amiya and dashed out of the room. His father roared like a savage beast behind them, his boots stomping after them.

Amiya cried out, and her arm was yanked from his hold. Aimor turned and saw his father throw her against the far wall near the cooking fire, the ashes cold. Aimor moved between them quickly. “Stop!” His voice came out high-pitched, his knees shaking.

A meaty fist shot out, sinking painfully into his diaphragm.

Eyes rounding, Aimor bent over with a gasp, spittle flying from his mouth, before he slowly sank to his knees at his father’s feet. The underside of Ernesh’s boot crashed into his forehead. Aimor went down, the back of his skull bouncing off the packed dirt floor, and he saw stars.

Then he felt a small form curl over his body protectively.

“You little witch,” his father gritted out, seeing them together.

Aimor looked up in time to see Ernesh backhand his wife, who fell with a sickening thud as her head hit the cooking pot with a dull ring. Then she lay on the floor, unmoving.

“No!” Aimor shrieked. Even as his father bent to grab Amiya, Aimor groping wildly around him, searching. Until his fingers brushed a familiar rod. Grabbing it, he lunged to his feet and swung the fire poker with all his might.

Crack!

In slow motion, Ernesh crumbled to the floor.

Panting, Aimor froze. Wild eyed, he watched as blood began to pool around his father’s head. In stunned fascination, he watched the crimson puddle grow larger and wider. Ernesh didn’t move.

Unsure, Aimor took a hesitant step forward, leaning down, hand outstretched to touch him. “Father?”

White peaked out from the wicked wound on the back of Ernesh’s skull. Bile surged up Aimor’s throat, and he fell to his knees, his legs too weak to hold him as he emptied his stomach of what little there was. He dry heaved for long, painful moment, until his stomach was in agony.

When he was finally done, spittle and vomit dribbling down his chin, he felt a small hand on his arm. He turned. Amiya was leaning over him. Blood ran down her face from her broken nose, and her lush lip was split and bleeding. Bruises were already forming, and one eye was beginning to swell shut.

But all he could think was, “I’ve killed him.” Numbness embraced him. Shock.

Abruptly, lips captured his.

Aimor blinked, stunned as lithe arms wound around his neck, pulling him closer. While he tried to process the suddenness of Amiya’s embrace, she forced her tongue into his mouth. He tasted copper, her blood mixing with the acidity of his vomit. Yanking back, he held her at arm’s length by grasping her upper arms.

They both were panting heavily as they stared at one another. Her scent wrapped around him, sending his senses reeling. Yanking her against him, he wasn’t gentle as he kissed her.

A feminine moan made him shiver with need.

Like before, Amiya pressed against his chest, encouraging him to lie back, intending to mount him. A growl erupted from his throat, and Aimor did what he’d been dying to do since the moment their eyes locked over the flames that long ago day. He shoved her to the ground, beneath him. Where she belonged.

Consumed with passion, he tore her shirt from her body, and watched as her breasts bounced free. The sight of her, fully bared to his hungry gaze for the first time, captivated him. Her curves called to him. He began to lean down, mouth open, seeking, when she startled him. He jerked, then groaned when he felt her grasp him.

From nowhere, he remembered his father’s words. The little tease… She’s been sneaking off… I can smell them on her!

Her touch was too bold. Too familiar.

Was it true? “How many have you done… this with?” Suspicion tightened his gut, madness creeping into the back of his skull.

He thought back on the past months since this wild woman had entered his life. His eyes hadn’t been the only ones that followed her. Other men watched her. He knew because he’d seen it. Their interest. Their lust. Even the married men.

But what he found truly damning was that he hadn’t been the only one she’d smiled at.

Jealousy clawed at him mercilessly.

Was his father’s accusations justified? Was Amiya denying his father’s bed while warming another’s? Or multiple beds, his mind whispered insidiously, recalling how she’d touched him, kissed him not so very long ago. In this very room.

Quietly, she stared up at him.

“Answer me!” He shook her roughly, causing her head to smack against the floor repeatedly. Her breasts bounced with the violent motion, distracting him with their loveliness. He wanted to touch them, to squeeze and fondle them. How soft were they?

He should feel horrified by his ill actions. Where was all this aggression coming from?

Somehow, those eyes seemed to mock him, amber boring into him without flinching. Then that bloody mouth smiled. Curling into a wordless taunt, he was certain. Anger stiffened his spine and without thinking, he lifted his fist. All he could think of was crushing that amused look. Everyone was always laughing at him! Belittling and disrespecting him. He’d show her. He’d show them all—

“Do you feel like a man, now?”

Aimor stared, mouth going slack in surprise. Had Amiya just spoken? In his language? Stupidly, he asked, “Did you just… talk to me?”

Those eyes flashed with an inner light, dazzling him. “I see the way you look at me,” she purred.

Aimor shivered at her sultry tone. Despite her injuries, she was still the most gorgeous woman he’d ever lain eyes on.

“And I know you slacken your lust when you’re alone in your room, when you think no one can hear.” Her nostrils flared. “I could smell it. Every. Single. Time.”

Unable to answer, his eyes were drawn to her breasts when she cupped them, squeezing the generous mounds. Aimor licked his dry lips, and felt something leathery stroked his face. He eyed her hands on her breasts in confusion, and nearly choked when three, slim fingers were shoved into his mouth. Too deep! They tickled the back of his throat.

Gagging, he reared back on his knees and stared down at her.

In unblinking fascination, he watched as a second thin, twig unfurl from the underside of her breasts, to stroke along her abdomen alongside the first. He saw hands. One wet with his spit, which glistened along the flat expanse of her bronze belly. All this time, she’d effectively hidden the decrepit appendages beneath the generous swells of her breasts. The twigs were arms, black and withered. Grotesque.

As though a fog had lifted, he saw her as he never had before, as well as the second set of breasts beneath the top pair. They were small and deflated, the skin sagging and tinted a purplish grey. Like rotting flesh. The tips were somehow worse. Like utters. The yellowish-brown nubs were thicker than his thumb and longer than his pointer finger. The contrast between the healthy, beautiful pair and the shriveled set beneath was startling. Monstrous.

A leathery finger tapped him on the nose, startling him. He cringed on a harsh gasp, realizing that three of those crippled digits had been in his mouth. With a shout, Aimor fell backwards, or would have if Amiya hadn’t wrapped her human arms around him. She was much stronger than she looked.

Staring down at her in alarm, his heart stuttering in his chest, he blinked rapidly, wondering if he was stuck in some sick nightmare.

“Oh darling, you are very much awake, and this…” In disgusted fascination, he watched as those withered, black hands tore away her underthings, revealing an impossible sight. “I am very much real.”

She’d read his mind, but he couldn’t focus on that, not when his eyes were full of her. All of her.

Her flat, tanned stomach flared out with her trim hips, and betwixt her shapely thighs, he saw a woman’s intimate flesh for the very first time. She was hairless, beautiful, until she defiled her loveliness by stroking herself with those crippled fingers. Bile rose in his throat as the other wizened hand went lower to stroke an appendage that shouldn’t exist on a woman. It was too long, too thick. Imposing.

His blanched, aghast. His mind locked along with his body.

Then she smiled at him.

Aimor screamed and tried to shove away, when suddenly, that scent caught his attention. He’d smelled it on her before, many times. Unbelievably, his flesh quickened, rising to that intoxicating scent; though, his size was pathetically small—compared to hers.

“Your innocence calls to me.” A withered hand boldly cupped him, stroking. “A worthy offering to my master.”

She released him, only for those inhuman hands to reach up and cup his face. They were dry yet slick. Wet without a hint of moisture. Aimor smacked his palms against the floor on either side of this… creature, trying to fight against the pull of her strong hands. His arms trembled, straining against her, and getting nowhere.

“What’s the matter, lover? Don’t you want me?”

Sweat beaded his forehead, falling and mixing with the blood on her face. Not just his sweat, but his blood. His nose was bleeding. With a swipe of her tongue, she tasted him, licking up his essence. His body clenched. In need.

Aimor whimpered, tears filling his eyes, helplessness in this wanting, this desperate need that couldn’t be his own.

He didn’t want her!

But he did.

“Now, now, my love,” the creature crooned. “Big, strong men take what they want.” Her hips wiggled against his hardness, and the tears fell, for he could not control his body’s response, no matter how the sight of her filled him with disgust and horror.

Inwardly, he screamed at himself to leap way, but his muscles were frozen, unresponsive, save for the bulge in his pants.

“Heat, desire. Envy, obsession,” she moaned. “Gifts to offer up to my Dark Prince. But somethings… missing.” He felt the ties of his waistband release. “Rapture.”

An awful image infiltrated his mind, and he knew she somehow projected it to him. With awful clarity, he understood the alignment of her dual gender. While he was inside of her, she would be inside of him. His heart shriveled in his chest, and wished it had the same effect on his traitorous flesh. A hand stroked him, as if mocking his uncontrollable response.

“Come, my love. Don’t be shy.”

He felt air on his bared skin, and screamed again.

She released another wave of her wonderful scent that sucker punched in him the gut. His scream stopped midway as his mind clouded over with a red sheen of lust.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, falling into her waiting arms.

No! Please, stop this, a small voice cried somewhere deep inside him.

Unable to heed the fear and revulsion crawling through him, that intoxicating scent locked away his inner voice. Following the pull of her withered hands, he buried his face against her smaller, sickly breasts, and tasted something sour. He drank greedily.

She smelled so good, tasted divine.

He had to have her or die with wanting. Even as she aligned their bodies to become one, the screaming within his mind never ceased.

He was ensnared.