Chapter 9

~The boy with wolf’s eyes stared at me, a look of hope and longing on his dark face. We were standing in a broad sandy field, and behind him, a gray-green river was flowing sluggishly. White birds with long necks stalked along its banks hunting for frogs. Heat shimmered in the distance, and the sky overhead was a merciless blue-white.~

~ “What do you want?” I asked him, as I always did. He was familiar to me but strange. Like someone I had known all my life and yet had not seen until that very moment.~

~ He turned from me and walked towards the river. I followed him, treading carefully in the loose sand that wanted to fill my sandals. I had on a plain white shift, made of some kind of linen, and I was naked beneath it.~

~ I thought he would lead me directly into the river, but instead, he stopped on the banks and pointed. I turned my head to follow the strange boy’s gesture and saw two massive figures carved from sand-colored stone standing on the bank beside me. They were posed as though seated, their huge stone hands turned palm up in their laps, in a gesture of supplication.~

~ As I stared at the statues, I realized that one was male and one was female, which was not immediately apparent because their heads were definitely not human. I looked harder and saw that the male statue had the long muzzle and pointed ears of some kind of dog or wolf. The female possessed the sleek whiskered face of a cat.~

~ “Look,” the boy said again. He took my hand and drew me closer. At the base of one of the statues, he pointed to some strange carvings—a language I did not know. I stared hard, feeling like I should be able to read what was written there. Slowly the carvings resolved into words, and this is what I read:~

“Born light and dark

Yet of one breed

If one is bitten

The other will bleed

Joined as one

Their bond to seal

If one is wounded

The other may heal

Lanor-zur

Has deadly wrath

Subject to

The full moon’s path

Lana-zeel

Has wisdom’s flower

To help contain

The killing power

Without the other

Each will die

Thus join they must

As Amon-kai

~“What does it mean?” I turned to the boy, but he had vanished. In his place stood a rangy black wolf with the same clear pale green eyes the boy had had. The same eyes I had myself.~

~The wolf looked at me and I knew it wanted something—needed something from me but I did not know what. The same hope and longing that had been in the boy’s face was plainly reflected in its beautiful strange eyes.~

~“What?” I asked softly. I loved the wolf—I felt that my heart might burst with love. It tore at me that there was something it wanted that I could not give. ~

~Suddenly the white-blue sky above me darkened to indigo as night fell with no warning. The huge statues by the riverbank were ominous shadows in the gathering gloom and I shivered as a cold dry wind, so different from the hot sandy stillness of the day, ruffled the thin linen shift I wore.~

~“Look.” The wolf did not speak but I heard the word plainly anyway. I looked up and saw a huge heavy moon, pregnant with some dreadful promise rising over the horizon. The silvery white orb threw a chilly light over the sluggish river and its sandy banks. Everything seemed coated in a thin layer of ice.~

~Then the wolf raised its muzzle and howled—a heartrending sound that tore at my soul. So much pain, so much loneliness was reflected in that single liquid howl. So much sorrow. It spoke to me. The loss of a loved one—of the only one. An endless search, an unrequited love as bitter as the love was sweet.~

~“I’m sorry!” I told the wolf. “Sorry—so sorry!”~

~I reached forward to pet it, to soothe its torment. But when I touched its thick black fur, my hands came away wet and sticky. I looked down in horror to see they were covered in blood.~

~Blood and blood and blood. I was drowning in it, choking on it. In the sky above my head, the moon had turned from chilly white to bloated red and I thought in my dazed horror, ‘Even the moon’s been dipped in blood.’ ~

~“Help me!” I cried. “Please help me!” I looked wildly for the wolf knowing only he could save me but he was gone…~

“Rachel, wake up! Wake up—it’s just a bad dream.”

Someone was shaking me awake, calling my name.

“Oh, God!” I gasped. “Blood! So much ~blood~.”

“Shh, calm down. It’s all right. It’s all right.” Strong arms were comforting me, warm hands were stroking my back and pushing the tangled mass of hair away from my eyes. A deep masculine voice was whispering soothing words, words meant to calm and comfort and protect.

At first, I didn’t know who it was, only that I needed him—that he must not let me go. Only in his arms was I safe from the moon and the blood. Only he could protect me from the furies of the night.

“Rachel,” he whispered into my hair. “Rachel, I love you. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

It was so nice to feel protected and warm. I hadn’t felt this safe since I was a child. Since Richard held me in his arms while my mother and father fought downstairs…Richard! Suddenly everything came back to me. Finding him after all these years, the strange things he had said to me, my mother’s warning that I must never see him again…

I opened my eyes to see him staring down into my face, a worried expression in his pale green eyes. He was holding me as though I was a child, cradled in his arms with my head against his chest. I could hear the steady heartbeat that had soothed me to sleep so many times when I was younger thrumming just beneath the smooth tan skin of his muscular chest.

“Hey,” he said gently. “You okay? You woke me up—you were screaming and thrashing. Scared me to death.”

“I...I’m fine.” I made an effort to sit up and shift off his lap. He was wearing boxer shorts, I could feel them against the backs of my thighs as I moved. He helped me, keeping an arm around my shoulders just in case. “It was just a dream.” I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand, as though to force the disturbing images out of my mind. God, the dream had been bad lately but this was definitely the worst it had ever been.

“What was it about?” Richard asked. “Tell me and maybe you’ll feel better.”

I opened my mouth to tell him, but the dream was already melting away. All I could remember were blurred images and a feeling of loneliness and terror. I shook my head.

“I don’t know. It was something about a wolf and the moon and a boy with some statues. And that weird word Dad always used to call us—what you were saying tonight. Something about the Amon-kai.”

“Hmm.” He kept rubbing my back absently but his face was quiet, lost in thought. Finally he said, “That’s all?”

I nodded. “All I can remember anyway. It’s...I have this dream every once in a while but usually I dream of a boy with our eyes.” I looked at him. “With ~your~ eyes, actually.” I frowned and ran a hand through my hair. “Come to think of it, I started having that dream right after Mom took me away. Maybe the boy in my dream is you. Maybe it’s more separation anxiety.”

“Could be.” His deep voice was noncommittal. “I used to dream of you too, you know.”

“Really?” I looked up at him. “What did you dream?”

He sighed. “It was always so sad. I just dreamed your face—your eyes crying, your mouth shaping my name. It always seemed like...like you were begging me to come and get you. And I would try and try but no matter what I did I couldn’t reach you. Then I’d wake up in a cold sweat.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, making a sandpapery sound as he rubbed the whiskers on his chin. “It was so damn frustrating seeing you hurt and not being able to help you.”

“That’s the same feeling I have in my dream,” I confessed. “Like you need me and I can’t get to you to give you what you need.”

“Rachel…” Richard sat up straighter beside me and his face took on the look of a man who has something both difficult and important to say.

“Yes?” I asked, sensing the change in him at once.

“Rachel, I...there’s something I have to tell you. I should have told you right away but I was afraid of what you’d say—what you’d think of me.”

“Richard,” I said earnestly. “You don’t have to be afraid. You’re my brother—I love you no matter what.” I was surprised at the strength of emotion that flooded me as I said the words. Surprised that he could disappear from my life seventeen years before and yet still be so important to me—so vital to my existence. Just at that moment I couldn’t imagine my life without him. Couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go—of losing him ever again.

“You’re so sweet,” he whispered. “So innocent and trusting.” He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand, looking into my eyes. I felt the familiar shiver of excitement course through me at the feel of his hand on my skin. Why did I never feel that way when Charles touched me?

“Shouldn’t I trust you?” I asked, my voice little more than a whisper.

His eyes darkened. “You can trust me with your life. Someday I hope you’ll trust me with your heart.” He cupped my cheek gently and bent his head to me. I thought he was going to kiss away my tears again, as he had at the PD. Instead, his mouth found mine with a sweet naturalness I had never imagined.

I found myself sinking into the kiss which lingered long past the bounds of brotherly affection or propriety. A small part of my brain understood that this was wrong—that I shouldn’t be doing this. But my skin was burning, my body aching for his touch, for the press of his lips on mine. I couldn’t seem to stop.

Richard ran his hands through my hair and slanted his mouth over mine, tasting me gently, leading me carefully down the road to certain damnation. It was only when he tried to deepen the kiss, to open my mouth to his that I pulled back. I could enjoy the sweet pleasure of his closed lips against mine but to allow his tongue entry into my mouth was too much—too evocative of other acts a sister must never perform with her brother. It didn’t matter that there was no real blood relation between us–we had been raised as though there was and I simply couldn’t get past my early upbringing.

“Rachel,” he whispered, trying to pull me close. I resisted him.

“No!” I was panting lightly from the sweet sensations still shooting through my veins like a forbidden, addictive drug. “Richard, we can’t,” I said. “You’re my…we just can’t.”

“We just did,” he said softly.

“It was an accident,” I said, trying to talk it away. Trying to justify it. “I was confused and it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other.”

He looked at me steadily. “Is that what you think? Is that why your heart beats so hard I can hear it every time I touch you? Rachel, don’t you remember anything about our past? About the promises we made?”

“Children promise lots of things,” I said softly, my mouth trembling. “But I never promised to let you…do that to me.”

“You really don’t remember, do you?” He pulled away from me, taking his warmth and comfort with him. I clutched at his arm.

“Don’t…don’t go,” I said. “Stay with me. Tell me what you need to tell me.”

He shook his head. “No. Not tonight. You’re not ready.” He started to rise from the bed but I pulled him back.

“Please, Richard. The dream—what if it comes back? I need you with me.”

“How do you need me?” In the darkness his voice was low and full of promises. Promises I was afraid he might keep.

“Don’t you remember when we were children?” I said, hearing the note of pleading in my voice and not caring. “The way you held me close and kept me safe when I was scared? Can’t…can’t it be like that?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, Rachel. Do you know how much I love you?”

I stared at him silently, my eyes wide in the darkness.

“No,” he murmured. “I don’t believe you do. All right, I’ll hold you until you go to sleep. But then I’d better go back to the cot.”

“All right.” We lay back down on the bed, my back to his front as we had when we were children. I felt his heart pound against me and the warmth of his big body cradling my own. Feeling comforted, I let the sweet sensations lull me to sleep.

I didn’t dream of the boy with wolf’s eyes again, but as I slipped into sleep, another image followed me down.

~My eyes fluttered closed and when I opened them again, I was in my old bedroom—the one in the Victorian mansion where Richard and I had spent our childhoods together. I recognized the princess bed decorated in delicate lace and climbing roses~ ~as well as the makeup vanity that matched the one in my room. But everything seemed smaller somehow, as though I had grown overnight.~

~ I sat up in the bed and looked down at myself, at the plain flannel gown that covered my body. Something was different here too—I was a child no longer, the tender buds of my breasts pressing from beneath the soft fabric and the long tan legs I saw under the hem of my nightgown proved it. Somehow I knew that I wasn’t as old as my dreaming self but I was no longer the physically and emotionally immature child I had been when I lived in this room.~

~ Suddenly the door creaked open and I looked up in fear. But it was only Richard, standing there, wearing only his pajama bottoms as he always did when he came to comfort me and sleep with me. ~

~ “Richard?” I asked uncertainly. Because this was Richard as I had never seen him before. He wasn’t the tall for his age boy I remembered from childhood or the handsome, confident man I had recently become reacquainted with. Instead, I saw the serious face of the young man in the graduation photo I’d found in my mother’s things. It was Richard as he would have been in his late teens or early twenties, if only I had known him then.~

~ “Richard?” I asked again but he shook his head and put a finger to his lips.~

~ “Shh, Rache. You know how mom feels about me coming to see you like this.”~

~ “Why?” I looked at him, genuinely confused. “You always come to see me, don’t you? You make me feel warm and safe when Mom and Dad fight. What’s wrong with that?”~

~ He sighed and shut the door behind him before coming to sit on the side of the bed with me. “It’s been a long time since all I’ve done is hold you, Rachel,” he said, putting an arm around me and pulling me close. “You know that.”~

~ “I don’t…don’t understand,” I murmured, but even as I spoke, he was laying me on my side and curling himself behind me, spooning me in the way that made me feel so cherished and safe.~

~ “You will,” he murmured in my ear. And then I felt him fumbling behind me and to my shock, I saw him toss a bundle of fabric, his pajama bottoms, to the foot of my bed.~

~ “Richard?” I asked, trying to turn around and see if he was really naked. But he stopped me with a kiss to the vulnerable nape of my neck.~

~ “Shh, Rache, it’s all right. Just relax and let me touch you—the same as always.”~

~ “The…the same as always?” I was still uncertain of his meaning but he didn’t leave me in the dark for long. Slowly his large, warm hands worked their way up my nightgown, starting at my thighs and stroking up my shivering sides to my breasts.

“Richard!” I protested as he raised my gown, baring my breasts to the cool night air. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing you, my Lana-zeel.” His voice was little more than a warm whisper in my ear. “Preparing your body to receive mine when the time is right. God, I wish it was tonight.”

I wanted to protest more but his large hands were cupping the tender mounds of my breasts, stroking my tight young nipples gently. I found myself completely unable to move away from his embrace, even though I knew this was wrong in so many ways I could scarcely name them all.

Then I felt something hard and hot bumping against the back of my thigh and Richard was raising my top leg, opening me so that my unprotected pussy was vulnerable to him as well.

“Richard, no!” I protested, overcome by the wrongness of the situation even as I felt my body responding helplessly to his.

“Shh, Rache,” he murmured soothingly. “You know I won’t breed you until the time is right. But you need to feel my essence in you tonight. You need to open your pussy and let me fill you.”

“I...I can’t,” I gasped, even as I felt the thick, mushroom-shaped head of his cock begin to slide between my slippery cunt lips. “I...I can’t let you do this, Richard. It’s wrong!”

“Only if you think like a human,” he whispered back, still stroking against me. His thickness was rubbing over my throbbing clit now and he was still playing with my tender breasts with his other hand. “If you open yourself to the Amon-kai part of yourself, you’ll realize that this is perfectly right. Perfectly natural.”

As he spoke, I felt the thick head of his cock breach my entrance and lodge just inside my tight, virgin pussy.

“Richard,” I moaned. “Please...please don’t do this!” But even as I spoke, I felt a hot flood of cum surging inside me, filling my pussy to the limit in heated waves.

“You’re Amon-kai, Rachel,” Richard whispered in my ear as he came in me again and again. “Accept it. Open yourself to it and you’ll finally be able to open yourself to me…”

I woke up from the disturbing dream, breathing hard, my hand pressed to my breasts. I was so wet between my thighs that for a moment I wondered if it had been no dream. But no, Richard wasn’t even in the bed with me. It was impossible, but my body didn’t think so.

I could feel my heart pounding like one of the frightened rabbits my father had used to take me and Richard to catch on our moonlight hunts. Then I shook my head, trying to block the memory. I hadn’t thought of that in ages—the way we’d run down the tiny fury creatures on foot and caught them in our teeth as though we were animals...

You’re Amon-kai, the dream Richard’s voice echoed in my head. I looked over and saw that he was sleeping in the cot, having apparently left my bed after I fell asleep myself. What was this crazy dream and why should I have it now? Why should I be thinking of things, feeling things, I hadn’t thought of or felt since childhood, seventeen years ago?

Disturbed, I lay back on the pillow and turned my back resolutely away from the sleeping form of my adopted brother. It’s just a dream, I told myself. No need to be so upset—people have weird dreams all the time. But why should I have a dream like that? That I had somehow gone back to a time I would have had with Richard if my mother hadn’t taken me away? But even if she hadn’t, Richard and I never would have done...that together, would we? Of course not, it was stupid, crazy, ridiculous...

But no matter what I told myself, I found it nearly impossible to get back to sleep that night.