Claimed: Future Found Read online

  “You already understood that the binding needed to be extraordinary, and that sex would be the best way to boost it. Yes, it’s my belief that six people need to join in a thrice binding. Every combination will be exhausted. I suspect we’ll be as well.”

  She didn’t smile, but she wasn’t yelling.

  “I’ll probably need help, though.”

  “What do you mean?” She clasped her hands around one knee.

  “To get through it. What if I can’t find pleasure with them…or can’t get hard? I think if you’re there, and you can be part of it for me, when it’s my turn, I’ll be able to do it.”

  “Maybe you should practice beforehand.”

  He tipped his head, considering if she was making a joke. She wasn’t.

  “I hadn’t thought of that. It seems daunting enough to do it once.”

  “Remember what you said yesterday? About being passionate and respectful, and joining in joy and love? It should be like that. To bring true power to the ceremony.”

  He cleared his throat. “I…I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Is that what would make you more comfortable? Practice?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I wouldn’t want to be standing in front of a total stranger to raise the most important chi of my life.”

  “Have you ever been with a woman?”

  “No.”

  “Could you?”

  “If I knew her, respected her. If I had you next to me.”

  He swallowed at the thought of watching feminine hands touch Shay’s slight breasts with their sweet round nipples.

  Shay’s head canted. “You wouldn’t be jealous of the women?”

  “I know mentally that they are just as much an emotional threat, but in my gut, I only worry about the men.”

  “It’s the same for me, Sand. I’m only worried about the pleasure-bonds you build with the women.”

  He held his breath. “Does that mean you do care what I think?”

  “Of course I do. I fell in love with you yesterday.”

  All of his busy thoughts stilled. He swore Spirit reached out and touched his spine. There was only her eyes, as rich as the earth. He whispered, “Shay.”

  She stood up, walked to him, knelt between his legs. Her hands on his thighs were warm, slender. “Sand. You say how brave I am, but I’m not. I’m afraid. Afraid of you, of this ceremony, of the future. I will give all of my power to this symphony, your plan. I was trying to protect my heart this morning, and it was stupid of me. I can’t be scared to offer myself. I can’t hold back and hide cautiously. It’s love that brought this vision forth, and it’s love, not sex, that will set it in motion.

  “We all need to love each other, for this to work. The roots need to love the leaves and the bark. They can’t be jealous. They all have to work together, respect each other. Nature is an intertwined system of a thousand variables. Singers know this.”

  He reached out and touched her cheek. Softer than any cotton. She was so beautiful. Her clear, strong soul was something to live by. He would live by it. “I want to be a system with just you. I will be. Later, after we’ve raised a forest.”

  “That sounds good to me.” She laid her cheek into his hand. He held the weight of her head.

  “Well, maybe we could add a baby to our system.”

  Her eyes flew open. “I’m still thinking what a formal contract would do to my life. Give me time, Sand.”

  “Right.” He opened his arms and she shuffled into his hold. He closed around her and breathed deep. She smelled so good. Rich loam. Life.

  “I’m here, Shay. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be with you as much as I can, and I’ll fight to contract you to me after we’ve finished. Who knows if I’ll still have the station I have now. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”

  “You, too.” Her arms vised around his neck.

  “I’m being safe. I want to be with you.”

  “I’ll trust in the Spirit. And I’ll trust you, Sand.”

  He held her. In his arms. Skin to skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat.

  Chapter Eight

  She was still nervous. About him, not the symphony. He’d said he would give her time, stay in touch. She needed that. Needed to see his constancy. He was just so intense, so focused. But he was damn good in bed. After a sweaty session where the wash of chi between them practically vibrated her teeth from her head, she let him feed her. They went to the little oak and saw that it had grown some minor branches. He took her on the lounge this time, right in front of it there in the biodome. Slow, so slow, just the way she liked it. When he came, she captured his chi and sent it out to the baby oak. A promise. Tiny buds appeared on the upper branch. It made her so happy she cried. She had a lover, and two oaks to nourish.

  Soon, she’d have more lovers and many oaks. She’d take it one step at a time. Her future was found, but still unknown.

  “Just an hour left, Shay.” His voice was thick with sleep. “I can’t believe I’m going to have to watch you go, after waiting so long.”

  “I can’t believe I’ll have to leave you. I just found you.” Be there, Sand. By Spirit, you be there for me, tomorrow, next week, next month. Straddling his hips, Shay put all her weight on his pecs. She jostled his lax body. “Come on. You promised me the oak.”

  He nodded. But it seemed to her he was especially slow as he had the droid take the lounge away and reset the seals on the little tree.

  “Sand.” She laid a hand on his arm as he fiddled with the lattice controls that hid the door to the ancestral oak. “If you really don’t want to share it with me—”

  “That’s not it at all.” He grabbed her hand, pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Shay, I’m a little afraid of it.”

  “Afraid?”

  She couldn’t conceive of such an idea. Afraid of a sacred tree? He shook his head, drew her purposefully up to the lasered door. She was practically vibrating by the time the aircap finally went down in front of the generational oak.

  “Hunngh.” Her knees buckled and she fell. The earthen scent, the richness of the loam, the nutty smell of the tree itself wrapped around her. But that wasn’t all. There was something there. In the room with the tree. Alive.

  “Shay!” He had an arm around her, was lowering her to the floor.

  “No.” She pushed weakly at him. His touch made it worse, sent her heart pounding. Reclining in his arms, his hovering presence choked her when combined with the rush of energy.

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  “Spirit. So much Spirit.” She breathed through the chi that seemed to come at her from everywhere, flowing between her and Sand.

  She was under him and had a clear view of his strong throat swallowing when he threw a glance at the tree.

  “So it’s not just me? I thought I was being affected by memory.”

  “No. It’s not just you.”

  “How? Why doesn’t it leave?”

  There was no way to contain the Spirit. Not in a tree, garden or person. When a person prayed, and drew up a piece of Spirit in an energy called chi, it always dissipated when they stopped. It also dissipated when summoned by sex.

  “I don’t know. I’m not a priestess. Maybe a blood singer would know.” That made her think of something. “Blood. You said Tavish was…burned?”

  “They both were to some degree. Both were bleeding, but Tavish was bad.”

  “And Cullen healed him? Here?”

  “Yeah. He healed himself, too.”

  “Sand, did they have sex here?”

  He paused. “Tavish was unconscious.”

  “Sand…” Shay sat up with his help, the smell still dizzying her, the power in the room reaching out to swirl in her well. Her hands were burning, buzzing, to connect with the tree. The presence didn’t seem to be leaking past them out the hallway, but gathered around them. “You have to trust me. Please. Tell me what happened.”

  Sand let go of her. Sat on his heels. “Cullen kissed me.”

  She
was going to smack him in a minute. Was that all? “And you liked it?”

  “No.”

  She gritted her teeth, holding her silence. She was not going to fight for every detail.

  Sand angled toward the tree, leaning against one folded knee, as if he yearned to go to it. Of course he did. He swallowed.

  “Cullen and I prayed. I held one of Tavish’s hands, and Cullen held the other. He was working his enhancements, doing something with the waves of radiation. I poured as much of the new chi I’d picked up as I could back into Tav. We both laughed when he stopped bleeding. It was a miracle.

  “Then the tree…whispered.”

  Shay held her breath, her eyes darting from the tree to Sand’s clenched jaw. His green eyes were unseeing. No, they were watching the past.

  “It whispered to me. I asked Cullen if he heard it. Cullen didn’t. The tree wanted chi, life. But we’d just poured all we had into Tav. It went on and on, until all I could think of was helping it. I went to it, touched the trunk.”

  Sand was shivering now, shaking. It was her turn to swallow. She refused to fear for him, for what she felt was the Spirit.

  “I took my wrists, and without thinking, I dragged them as hard as I could down the bark. I ripped open the skin, let the blood drip onto the base, where the roots rose up. It was so old, so unbelievably old.

  “Cullen jumped up, grabbed my wrists, shook me. He shouted at me, but I couldn’t hear him. All I could hear was the tree, whispering. It wouldn’t stop. It was so hungry. He kissed me. I twisted away. I’d never been like that with them. I didn’t want him that way. He shook me again, and his hands were burning my wrists. It hurt like hell. He yelled at me, ‘Spirit wants life. I won’t let you choose that path. No more blood tonight.’

  “He pulled me down on my knees. We were side by side, facing the tree. He began to jack off. I couldn’t believe it. Tav was lying mutilated behind us, bloody, burnt. The tree was whispering, whispering, and I couldn’t think. It needed so badly. Cullen hissed in my ear, ‘You do it or I do it for you.’

  “So I did. I put my hand down my pants, and pulled, and nothing happened. The tree wouldn’t shut up. Then Cullen said, ‘Look at me.’”

  Sand was panting now, little breaths, rocking in his defensive crouch. She laid her hand on his rock-hard arm, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “He did…something to me. He gave me chi. He hit me with some sort of radiation. Heat like I’ve never felt went right to my dick. I was harder than I’d ever been in my life. My hand went faster and faster, and I couldn’t look away from his eyes. I saw him come, from the corner of my vision. He arched and spattered the tree. I came too. It felt so good, I think I stopped breathing. When I came, I gave all that I could of my chi. I sent it out, to the tree. It was silent for one moment, and then it started again. Craving.

  “Cullen looked at me and he said, ‘You’ll never forgive me for this.’ Then Tavish started to moan, and it got worse from there. We went to him and lay down on each side, and held him. His body rejected his implants. His skin split, and these fused, blackened hunks of wires pushed out of him. We both cried. I was so freaked out. I ached. I was ripped up inside, from watching the ritual on the lattice, from the tree. I was sure Tavish was dying. The tree was relentless. Cullen’s blue eyes burned into my vision. I’ll remember the look in his eyes till the day I die. He was determined. He was…furious.

  “Cullen stood up and he gave this speech to the tree. I can still hear his voice, all scratchy. He was choking. He claimed us, claimed the transferred souls, claimed the tree. He summoned Spirit forth and promised to be its guardian. Just like that, the tree stopped whispering. And this presence, that weight in the air, was all around us. It was the most… It was…”

  Sand rose, stumbling once. He had a beautiful erection, straight and thick and dark. He moved farther into the room, and she rose to follow. He walked up to the tree. He didn’t seem to feel the sharp leaves, scattered twigs, prickling acorns. She trailed behind him, her heart pounding. The closer to the tree she got, the heavier her womb grew. Her thighs slicked together with every step. Her throat was dry, and her hands shook.

  Sand stopped an arm’s length from the tree. She stood next to him.

  He cocked his head, his black hair falling across his forehead. “Do you hear it?” he whispered.

  She strained to listen. She felt warm, soft, achy. It was utterly quiet, not even the sound of air filters humming. Then the leaves whispered in an unseen breeze. Goose bumps erupted all over her arms.

  “No blood,” Sand murmured.

  Sand twisted, gripped her arm and swung her through the air. Shay impacted against the trunk, gasping at the massive surge of chi pressed from head to ass behind her. Her heels scrambled to hold her up, but then he was leaning against her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and lifted her thighs to grip his slender hips. He slammed her back into the tree, at the same time his erection thrust into her flesh.

  “Sing, Shay. Sing. It needs us.” He drove hard, and she grunted from the thickness of him. He split her open inside, and her body yielded.

  Closing her eyes, she let herself go. Her hair was snagged in the bark. Her shoulders stung, her ass chafed. His hands were bands of heat below her cheeks, his fingers brushing her opening, rubbing along where he thrust in her. Her arms draped down his back. She clamped inside, canted her hips to rub her clit into his bush. Biting her lip, she checked her gates, opened them, unleashed the chi that pulsed within her. It was so bizarre to feel it pulled in two directions. She was used to it focusing in her groin during sex, used to her skin opening like a sieve along a tree. But this was a stretching in both directions.

  What Sand did next was beyond her sexual experience. He roared in her ear, planted one hand against the trunk, and began to slam his body violently into hers. As if he were trying to consume her. He was much stronger than he’d ever shown her. His thighs drove hard as he shoved deep. Sand’s thrusting hips drove so high into her, she felt her insides compact. His chi melded with hers, perfectly. One of her hands fell off his shoulder to brace against the tree.

  The singer’s loop snapped into place. She envisioned the leaves, the bark, the air that fed her tree and the water that merged with earth to nourish the roots. She rose into a song. For the first time she knew, this was what it was supposed to be. Not singer and tree. Not singer and Spirit. Not singer and lover. All of them. Thrice bound. His come emptied into her body, pulling hers down to meet it. The shattering orgasm cascaded through her, breaking her song. His chi boiled hers, swirling the two together. They were so much more. More beautiful. Her spine against the tree was a snaking stream of lava. All the energy they generated shimmered away behind her. The oak drank them.

  Sand stilled, pressed tight to her, shaking. She crossed her ankles, bolstering her trembling thighs. She gathered him close with her one hand, nuzzled into his neck.

  “Shhh. Shhh. I’m here,” she whispered.

  He buried his face in her hair. In a moment, she felt him slide out of her. The loop hummed, faded into silence. She let her legs drop and held him with both hands. Hoped she hadn’t burned him this time.

  “Shay.”

  “Yeah.” How odd that her voice was hoarse.

  “Shay.”

  “I know.”

  When he pulled out of her arms, he smoothed her hair gently behind her ears, kissed her softly, lingering. The weight to the air was still there, but it wasn’t urgent now.

  “I’m sorry. I hurt you.”

  “I enjoyed it very much, Sand. There was only love here.”

  He shuddered. “Yeah. I don’t like what I did, though. It’s…complicated.”

  She wondered if he was talking about her, or Cullen.

  “You can feel good about it, Sand. It felt good to me. Good came from it.” Cupping his jaw in her hand, she pushed up. “Look.” She tipped his head back to look at the top of the biodome.

  The oak had passed through its dormancy,
always a tricky time for ancestral trees. Singers never knew if they’d summon the will to bring them back. The oak had tiny leaves the size of mouse ears, and the ground was littered with old leaves and more acorns.

  Sand smiled, a slow, male smile. He looked down at her. “We did this. It will thrive for another generation.”

  Ancestral trees only went dormant once every two-dozen years or so. “Yes.”

  He laughed, and she laughed with him, standing between her man and a tree of power and grace, growing once again.

  He leaned in and kissed the bark next to her ear. “Thank you, Spirit in this oak. For Tavish, for Cullen, for Shay.”

  From the open doorway, a metallic chime drifted. Sand said, “Our time is almost up.” He frowned. “Shay, will you stay here for just a moment, let me work the lattice?”

  “Shall I pray?”

  He hesitated. His eyes traveled the ground. She knew he didn’t entirely understand what was in this room. Neither did she. But she trusted it. He was wary.

  “I’ll be fine, Sandor.”

  “Pray if you want. I’ll leave the door open.”

  “All right.”

  He paused, looking over his shoulder in the doorway. She waved. He was a child of technology, and perhaps as wary of true nature as she was of circuits, which had proven to be the savior of life. She inhaled deeply, grateful for the privacy. She began to walk sunwise around the tree, trailing her hand over the bark. She circled and prayed.

  The tree hummed with health. Its loop of life was solid, steady. Trees didn’t have a heartbeat. They had a constant thrum, like a generator. Sometimes the thrum went up in scale, and sometimes it went down. As hard as she listened, she heard no whispering. Was Sand able to hear the very voice of Spirit? No wonder he was uneasy in the room. What exactly had Cullen done on that night he’d changed Sand’s sacrifice from blood to ejaculate? On the night he’d brought an elite back to life, creating a singer?

  A different chime sounded. She looked up. Caught her breath. Sand was leaning in the doorway, shoulders looking so broad as he filled up the space. He held a waterfall of starry-night synthsilk in one hand. His face was relaxed, and her breath caught as she understood the emotion glowing from his green eyes. Love. He looked at her with love.