Rogan's Monsters 2: Below, page 17
Her puzzled frown remained firmly in place. “Like I have been hit in the head with a mallet,” she replied, chewing on the words as if she didn’t like the taste in her mouth. “What happened? I remember…” Her puzzlement increased. “I don’t know what I remember,” she finished.
At the same time, her expression had gained an aspect of suspicion, and she looked at me through uncertain eyes.
“The fruit you shared with Ash had an intoxicating effect,” I told her. Then, because I could think of no reason not to, I told her the rest. “You were friendlier than usual. It made for a pleasant change.”
Lady Gamma fixed me with a glare that her usual self would have been proud of. At the same time, her cheeks began to turn pink, and she asked with some trepidation, “How friendly?”
I did my best not to laugh. Yet, even if I had wanted to spare her the details, I could not. The compulsion was back, urging me to answer her question.
So I did.
“We didn’t do anything untoward, if that’s what you’re asking. Although it seemed that you wanted to.”
At this, the hint of pink in Gamma’s cheeks became more pronounced. She couldn’t maintain eye contact, and looked at the ground instead.
“And you turned me down?” she asked quietly. “Do I repulse you so much?”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. A moment before, I had been trying not to laugh at Lady Gamma’s humiliation. Now, I saw it was more than that. Despite everything I knew of the woman, her willingness to risk everything on this quest, her unexplained jealousies, and her talent with potions, I still hadn’t put it all together.
But now she made a little more sense. Despite all she was and could do, she had a fractured self-image, and perhaps her insecurities ran deeper than I had imagined.
Somehow, she thought I repulsed her, when in fact that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Sure, she was frustrating, irritating, and got on my nerves. And the compulsion, by its very nature, set us at odds. But to assume she repulsed me?
I went over to sit down near her, close enough that she would sense I was there without having to look up, but far enough away to not be a threat.
“I don’t find you repulsive,” I said. “You are beautiful.”
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She looked at me with a mixture of confusion and hope warring for dominance on her face. “Then why? When you have been happy to share yourself with Camille, with Zera, and even Ecco without hesitation. Why do you hesitate with me?”
“You were drunk,” I said simply. “Not in your usual mind. What if I had, and you woke to regret it?” I said it gently, hoping she would understand, but knowing in my heart that wasn’t the only reason. “And then there’s the small matter of the binding.”
Gamma could have focused on the first part of my statement. Instead, she focused on the latter.
“What about it?”
I considered the woman before me. Complex, a bunch of contradictory characteristics. Strength and fragility all rolled into one. The most human of my companions… and also the least. I knew that she thought of the binding only from her own perspective. It had been done to give her confidence. To ensure that she knew she was in charge.
Was it possible that she didn’t know what it meant for me?
“The binding takes away my freedom,” I said. “Whether I am awake or asleep, the compulsion associated with it remains. I am compelled to do as you demand, without argument. When you sent me away to scout, it was a mistake. I knew it. Ash knew it. Some of the others knew it as well. But I couldn’t even speak up against it.”
Once more, the woman before me blushed, but this time, the reason behind it was different. “I was angry with you,” she admitted. “I wanted you to go away for a while.”
I nodded. “Do you not see how dangerous that is?”
She nodded slowly, biting her lip.
“But I won’t do it again,” she said.
“I believe you,” I said. “But what if you make me do something else I don’t want to?”
“Something that puts us in danger?” she asked.
“Like that. Or anything, really. What if you had given me an order I couldn’t refuse while you were under the influence of that fermented fruit?”
I didn’t mention that she had almost done exactly that, didn’t even hint in that direction. But perhaps she remembered part of what she had done anyway.
She sat back from me, her expression becoming one of shock. “What did I do?”
I shook my head. “It isn’t what you did, but what you could do. The binding puts me and all of us at risk. What would have happened if I hadn’t returned in time when the worm creature attacked?”
Lady Gamma took in everything I was saying. She began to nod slowly. Then, to my surprise, she quirked a small grin. “And this is why you refused to share yourself with me? Really?”
I returned her grin. “Yes. Because, really, there would always have been doubt as to whether or not it was my choice. Not just my doubt, but yours as well. And, as I said, you weren’t yourself.”
Surprisingly, Gamma’s smile broadened. “Would you be more willing if we removed that binding?”
She really was full of surprises this morning. But I didn’t answer directly. “Would you want me to?”
“I can open myself up to the energies of heaven as you do. As can we all. But it comes to me like a trickle, where with you it is more like a torrent. Like some of the others, I am at a low ebb, and could do with a boost.”
I looked at her. “Is that it? The only reason?”
Once again, Gamma’s cheeks turned bright pink. But this time, she didn’t look away. “Not the only reason. Camille and Zera have been talking.”
It was my turn to feel vaguely embarrassed, although by the looks of things, maybe I should have been proud.
“Then why don’t we see if we can get rid of this binding,” I said, “and find out whether my position is changed.”
This was it. The moment of truth. Was Gamma going to follow through? Or would her difficult nature prevent her?
I could almost see the pros and cons being weighed as she stared at me, just as I could see the moment she shook her head, discarding all of that.
When it came down to it, there was just one thing that mattered.
“You are not happy with this constraint,” she said.
It was my turn to shake my head. “I am not.”
“Then, hold out your hands. Let us see if we can remove it.”
Lady Gamma held my hands in hers and asked me to activate my chi. She did the same, and, with Edda jumping up and down and chirping as if Gamma was making a mistake, she closed her eyes.
I could tell she wasn’t completely convinced. Not with Edda giving away some of her secrets. But all that mattered was that she went through with it.
I saw waves of chi energy searching around our joined hands, and knew it was the binding. Tendrils of chi were wrapped around my hands and Gamma’s, binding us together in a way that was far beyond physical.
This was what the binding was. This was the source of the compulsion. The chi tendrils that bound me to Gamma were stronger than steel, impossible to break by any means other than mine and Gamma’s will.
Gamma closed her eyes and concentrated on what she wanted to do. I felt her chi rise within her as she gathered her strength. I had no idea what she intended, but suddenly, her eyes flicked open again, and there was a grim determination to her expression I had never seen before. I felt the strength of her chi, and found myself in awe. Lady Gamma was beyond anything I had ever known, a being of power like none before.
No wonder she could make such powerful potions. Hers was not a passive chi power like that of Zera, Camille, or even Ash, there to bolster their flight, strength, or camouflage abilities. Hers was active, able to be used in multiple ways.
As was my own.
“Rogan Ward, I hereby release you from the binding we formed. From this moment on, you are free to act as you will in all things.”
With that, Gamma channeled her chi toward the tendrils of power binding our hands, bludgeoning it with all that she had.
I fully expected it to work. The power that Gamma had inside her was huge. I couldn’t see how such comparatively flimsy chi bindings could hold in the face of it.
But they did. The bindings flickered under the weight of Gamma’s chi, but when the waves of her power had passed, they were still there.
The look of surprise on Gamma’s face was genuine. She had expected it to work.
I felt a wave of disappointment, and I admit, resentment as well. I’d hoped that this would leave me free of the compulsion. Free to act as I wished. But it seemed that the binding was there to stay, for as long as it took to reach the temple.
But Gamma hadn’t given up. She shifted a little, just to ensure a more comfortable seat, but didn’t let go of my hands.
“Join your chi to mine,” she said. “Perhaps, with the two of us, it will work.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by joining our chi, and wondered if she meant like what happened when I gave Camille, Zera, or Ecco a chi boost. Nevertheless, I was willing to try, and Gamma had already started to gather her chi once again.
I did the same, calling forth all my power, building it up just as Gamma had done. At the same time, I sent out a chi probe, questing for her in a way I had never done before. She had said to join our chi together, and that’s what I intended to do.
Even with my eyes closed, I sensed Gamma’s surprise at my probe. Yet she didn’t hold back, instead reaching out with her own chi toward mine, questing, seeking a way to combine, to do as she said, and act together.
For a moment, there was resistance. As if my own psyche couldn’t accept that of another. But then I forced myself to relax, to give Gamma what she needed.
And all at once, our chis seemed to merge into one.
The sensation was like nothing I had ever felt before. Gamma and I were no longer separate entities, but were one being, in any way that mattered. My chi merged with hers until her chi and my chi no longer existed, and in its place was our chi.
And it wasn’t the simple addition of one power to the other. Instead, somehow, it was so much more. The whole had become many times the sum of the individual parts.
I felt power beyond all expectations. Far more than just my own and Gamma’s together. It was like between us, we had the power of divinity, and then some.
It was awesome. Like, between us, we had the power of the sun at our fingertips, to do what we wished. I was a god, and I could do anything I desired if only I could understand how.
It was ecstasy, and I was lost within it. But even as we came together, I knew it could not last.
This merging, this coadunation of talents, was inherently unstable. There was something about Gamma’s chi and my own that were essentially fractures. We could hold it together, could become unified and powerful for just a few moments, and then we would break apart once again.
Yet those few moments were enough. I could sense Gamma’s awe, her shock and amazement at the same time as I felt my own. It was like being buffeted by strong winds made of power, and it was all I could do to stand my ground and laugh.
But Gamma was able to do more than that.
She kept her focus and retained her original purpose like a rock standing up to the battering of the elements.
Almost contemptuously, like a goddess squashing an ant, she reached down with our combined might, aiming to tear the binding apart.
“Rogan Ward,” she repeated, her voice more vast in my mind than that of a goddess, “the binding is done. You are free to act as you will.”
With that, the combined weight of our chi, as massive as mountains, as huge as an ocean, came crashing down.
The binding didn’t have a chance. It flickered and went out like a candle in the face of a hurricane wind.
There was a muted, silent detonation that blew our joined hands apart, and all at once, our massive, combined chi parted, leaving us shaken, shocked, but our normal selves once again. I didn’t know what to expect next, or what I needed to do, but then Gamma breathed deeply, opened her eyes, and took my hands once again.
“I release you from your oath,” she said.
And that was that. The waves of chi power binding our hands seemed to give off a final burst of energy, and then they faded into nothing.
Lady Gamma held onto my hands for a moment longer, then let them go. “How do you feel?” she asked.
I thought about it. “No different,” I said. “Command me to do something.”
She nodded. “Rogan Ward, I command you to kiss me.”
Once again, her expression was a mixture of hope and anxiety.
I leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.
For one delicious, sweet moment, she kissed me back, and then she pulled away with an expression of shock. “Are you still bound?” she demanded.
I grinned at her. “No, I am not. The compulsion is gone.”
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Gamma stared at me for a moment, then she put two fingers to her own lips, as if she couldn’t believe I would kiss her of my own volition.
To prove differently, I took her wrist in my hand, moved her fingers away from her mouth, and leaned forward again. This time, Gamma met me halfway, kissing me back without hesitation. I was a bit surprised at the urgency I felt from her, but then, perhaps she had been thinking about me as long as I had been thinking about her.
When I tried to enter her mouth with my tongue, her lips partly eagerly, her own tongue meeting mine as if she was hungry and couldn’t get enough. I stood up on my knees and pulled her to me, lifting her slight frame off the ground as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Is this what you want?” I whispered against her lips. Then I kissed her again, this time adding my own hunger to it, to leave no doubt about how I felt.
In answer, she found her feet and stood. But it wasn’t so much that she could look down at me as so she could unfasten my cloak and pull it off my shoulders. She turned and casually laid it on the ground. Then, while I watched, she untied her robes and let them fall from her body.
She didn’t wear much underneath. A simple shift-like thing that stopped just at the top of her beautiful thighs, and another undergarment that was similar to panties. She moved to take off her shift, and I helped her.
At first, Gamma acted as if she wasn’t quite sure what I would think, and I knew perhaps her sense of modesty was kicking in. So I pulled her back down to me and looked in her eyes.
“You are every bit as beautiful as I thought,” I said. And she was. Despite her small frame, she had delicate curves and an hourglass figure that I wouldn’t have expected underneath the robes, and her breasts were small but perfectly shaped.
I put my hands on her waist, feeling her smooth skin, and then ran them up her ribs. She twitched as if that tickled, and I smiled a bit wickedly.
“Don’t you dare, Rogan Ward,” she warned, her brows knitting together in a playful and somewhat concerned manner.
Grinning, I refrained from tickling her anymore, and moved my hands to her breasts. She gasped a little when I thumbed her nipples, but then she closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.
I kissed her again and then began to remove my own clothes. Gamma’s cheeks turned that adorable shade of pink again, but she watched me with lust-filled eyes. And if she was trying to rein in how she really felt, then Edda betrayed her.
The little monkey quietly hopped up and down, her eyes wide as saucers as I removed all my clothing.
I laughed a little and then turned my attention back to Gamma. Thinking it was as good as anything, I laid her back on my cloak and joined her on the cavern floor, pressing my body into hers while trying not to crush her.
“I’ve idolized you for a long time,” she said after a moment—quietly, as if she couldn’t quite believe she was admitting it out loud. Then she reached up and tentatively ran her fingers through my hair, which was now loose about my face.
“I’m flattered,” I said, “but don’t idolize me. I’m just me.”
Then I leaned down to kiss her, and we didn’t talk again for some time.
I shifted so that I could run my hands down the front of her body, over her breasts, ribcage—where she squirmed again—and down her belly to her hips.
Sliding my hand inside her last undergarment, I found soft curls there. Gamma inhaled deeply when I quested further, moving my fingers down to find that she was already wet. I brought my hand up again, then, and pressed my fingers to her lips. Her eyes went wide, and then she drew my fingers into her mouth, tasting herself. She then released them with a soft pop and began making her own explorations with her hands, running them over my shoulders, down my back, and to the top of my butt.
I began to work her undergarment off her, and when I shifted onto my side to pull it off completely, she found my erection with her right hand. Gripping it, she gave it a few soft but deliberate strokes, and I closed my eyes at the sensation. When I opened them again, she was staring at me.
I sighed. “I would like nothing better than to draw this out,” I said softly, “but no one is standing guard at the moment.”
Gamma nodded. “I know. There’s no need this time. I’m ready.”
I half-smiled. “This time? What if you don’t like me and don’t ever want to do this again?” I asked, half-teasing.
Gamma laughed, and it was a beautiful sound. “That isn’t possible,” she said confidently. And then she opened her legs for me and shifted so her body was as close as possible to mine. I got the hint and moved over her.
Lining up with her entrance, I guided myself into her slowly, watching her eyes. In the corner of my vision, I saw Edda close her eyes and sag against the cave wall as if she couldn’t stand up anymore.
Beneath me, Gamma shifted her hips as if she was impatient. I pulled almost all the way out, and then pushed back in. She arched into me at the same time, making a small humming noise in the back of her throat that was beyond sexy.
