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CHAPTER 25

The movement of the lake confused me. As far as I was concerned, water shouldn't move in caves unless there was an earthquake. But it was moving and it was moving higher and faster up my legs. I looked over at Ezra and watched his chest rise in slumber, his eyes dart behind their lids. I touched him, but received nothing in response.

"Ez?"

No answer. My presence didn't even register. That wasn't normal. The water had alarmingly reached my knees and was barely receding in its down sweep. I shook Ezra roughly and still nothing. Satiny sand slipped through my fingers and fell away as I reached down to push myself up. The water solidified and wrapped around my legs. Without a moment to acknowledge the fear that climbed up my throat I was wretched across the sand and away from Ezra.

"Ezra! Wake up! EZRA!"

My gaze shot up as I yelled and the cave gave me back nothing. There was no echo. Nothing. It held my terror in its grasp and never let go. The lake dragged me screaming to its source while used every ounce of strength I possessed to grasp onto sliding crystal sand. I was pulled into ebony liquid that brought back terror I had fought to eradicate from previous nightmares.

Sweet tasting water filled my mouth as I pulled for magic. The lake's hold pulled me deeper into its depths despite my frantic struggles. It didn't take long for me to realize that I had no magic to help me breathe underwater. My thrashings slowed with my lack of air and I felt a familiar stillness come over me. I was dying... again. Inside I laughed, thinking of Ezra's insistence the first time that I was merely lost. My last thought was, maybe he could pull me out this time too.

I was jolted into awareness when I actually got an answer.

'Maybe he will.'

The voice sounded female, impassive. The darkness receded and I surveyed universes around me. My eyes were open, but I couldn't detect an actual body attached to my inner conscious. A multiple of conflicting emotions made me speechless.

'You have an advocate. Her name has been tossed around in conversation of late.'

The only word that filtered coherently in my mind came to the fore, 'Eshera.'

'Precisely. And so I called you to me and made Ezra drift in my silence.'

'Are you... are you...' I was at a loss for words.

'Their creator.'

'Oh.' I paused to let her acknowledgement sink in. 'I thought you'd be more... animated.'

The stars twinkled bright and shot across dark patches of space. I think she was laughing at me.

'You mean angry.'

'Excitable.' I countered, not wanting her to go into angry deity mode while having me in her control.

'There was a time of such.'

'Is Eshera with you?'

'Not here. Elsewhere. She is a hopeless romantic. She believes in both you and Ezra?'

I hesitated, unsure how to go on with this conversation.

'I have been watching.'

Her focus was a weight pinning me down, as if she was waiting for me to continue. Like it was my turn to contribute. I just wasn't sure with what. 'Ah, and who exactly have you been watching?'

There was a lengthy silence and a star shot across the night of space in front of my vision.

'Wrong question.'

I fumbled in my mind for the right question. Ezra's whispered words when I finally decided to move out of my confusion and depression flared bright in my mind. 'What have you decided?'

A star exploded in the distance. 'To give you the answers. To meet with the son that should have been mine.'

I dared an impertinent question to the Goddess, 'To forgive?'

This time the silence was overwhelming and leaden. Space had more gravity in that moment then I was ever taught. If I was breathing I would have gulped air when she lifted the pressure.

'That is between my daughter, Zhora, and me. You will not intercede for her. I have given her much lenience while I waited for Ezra to become an adult dragon before cursing her as a succubi.'

I let out my stray thought carelessly, 'Incubi suck.'

The stars twinkled in a progression at my outburst. I think she was smiling. 'I will not lay claim to their creation. They are a clever turning made of swiftness of purpose and longing.' The lilt in her voice turned serious, 'Our time is short. There is only so much your body will tolerate before it succumbs to permanent death and Ezra cannot bring you back.'

'I'm listening,' I said, catching on to her urgency.

'I am not punishing Ezra. My consort saw Zhora flying and was intrigued. They created Ezra. I retaliated and my consort... left.'

She paused as if reminiscing and the whole of space went still, no twinkling stars or moving galaxies. I wanted to tell her to hurry up despite what I could only relate to as her inner pain. I didn't. I really wanted to though.

The Goddess started again, 'He sought revenge and met with one of my trickster brothers, who decided to help him create more of his offspring. He taught him how to fling his magical intention into the world while Ezra was a wisp of fire curled in a nest of embers. And so the creation of male demons populated the world. He wanted me to watch as they took other woman, any woman, as long as it was not me. Understand, he is a consort and any creation should be with me and no other. He turned his back on me. It was retribution for my abandonment of Zhora and the knowledge of what she would turn into once Ezra was an adult dragon. For my forbiddance of continuing their liaison.'

I could feel anger come from her as she continued. 'He is trusting, like you, and my brother caged him in your sun, away from me. But, before he did, he stole power from my consort and combined it with his own. It was cast out on shooting stars into your mothers, his human creations. And your kind were created. My brother has always been curious and impulsive.'

I was speechless. It was a Greek tragedy in Cliff notes.

'That is enough. Ezra is abasing himself to me for you. He has avoided me for too long.'

'For good reason. You were angry,' I said quietly.

Her response was to sail a comet in front of my sight. I could feel ice shards spray across what I thought of as my face. Ezra's chanting voice filled my ears and blackness clouded my sight. 'Wait!' I shouted. 'Can you save Ezra's father?'

'The question is will I save him,' came her receding reply and then I found myself staring up into the night sky through a hole in a cave. I didn't move and Ezra never stopped his incantation. His low voice wove through the space and resonated in my body. I actually vibrated as he hit deeper notes. I gasped in a lungful of air when it finally hit me that I wasn't breathing. His flaming hands immediately framed my face as he bent over me.

"Dove," he whispered. "She told me she was going to keep you. Turn you into a star so we could be in the sky together." Ezra lowered his forehead onto mine and took a shuddering breath.

"She lied," I whispered.

"No, my Eshera. She changed her mind."

"Hmmm." I paused and coughed, "Are you happy you finally talked with her?"

Ezra grew still and then let out a gust of air as he stared off at the stone beneath us. "Partly. You?"

"Uh, yeah," my voice rasped and I coughed again. "Umm, really informative. A bit weird. Your dad's trapped in Earth's sun, by the way."

Ezra's head shot up and he stared his confusion at me. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. His wings slightly mimicked the movement by flaring partly behind him.

"Should we tell your Mother?"

"NO! Goddess no! She tried to fly to the sun when she was younger just to see if her fire was the same temperature."

I blinked. "Is that possible?"

"She never told me the outcome and it happened before I was born."

"Should we try to rescue your father?"

Ezra's face furrowed and his voice was a hollow whisper as he replied, "I have no idea how to answer that."

I nodded my head again, "Well, good. I'm not exactly sure how to go about doing that anyway. When I the Eternal She if she can rescue him she said the question should be will she rescue him."

Ezra shook his head and grimaced as he slid his hands behind my back and helped me sit up. I looked around and heard the trickle of water falling down the walls. Nothing looked familiar. "New cave?"

"Yes. She dropped us here. We are close to the start of a mountain pass. The Eternal She told me this is where Eshera plummeted to her death and Meloch beseeched her for mercy."

I quirked my lips, "Huh. Fitting." Then I stared at Ezra intently, "She told me how and why demons were created."

The bones in his face seemed to almost jut out of his face causing him to look closer to dragon than guardian form. My head pulled back from the starkness of it, but I still asked him the question.

"Are you ready to hear it?"

He still didn't reply, just looked at me. I was going to take that as a yes, so I told him. After more heavy silence he finally spoke.

"Mother started the demon race," he said in disbelief.

"Technically your father did in retribution against your... grandmother... Creator. Oh, you know." I said in exasperation

He looked at me and his eyes narrowed. That mind of his was working furiously on something, only his Goddess knew what. "Eshera..."

I interrupted him, "Oh Goddesses, don't call me that. I don't know what to do Ezra. You want me to lead, only I really don't know where to go from here." I took a deep breath and enjoyed the actuality of inhaling oxygen instead of water. "I do need clothes though."

Ezra held up his hand, "Wait."

In a rush he was flying through the gap of the mountain and was gone.

CHAPTER 26

"Step one. Check." I looked down at my clothes. It took both of us to get me into the smidgen too tight dress with all its hooks and buttons. I definitely wasn't going to ask where or how he got it.

I paced while contemplating our next move. "I can't fix things with Zhora and your Creator. I can't rescue your father. I can't breathe very well in this dress. Your turn." I looked pointedly at him only to find him staring at me with a very determined male look on his face and full erection. He smirked and toppled himself on me, his hand fumbling under the layers of skirt.

Between the kisses and sucking on my bottom lip he managed to grunt out something about sexy and dress. I couldn't get a coherent sentence out of him. It didn't matter, I understood.

"Oh. Oh! Mmmmm... Do we have time... OH!"

Two fingers slid expertly into my already wet passage and curled inside me.

"Yes," he paused his speaking to suck on my tongue. "Everything in its time, my Dove."

"Thank goodness!" I panted.

One strong hand locked my wrists above my head causing my insides to quiver in excitement. The other finally succeeded in rucking up layers of skirt and I could sense his impatience as he guided himself in. Somehow I knew that his forceful pounding in me was born from shock that the secret he had been looking for this whole time lay with his own father. He pushed his mind in me and grabbed at all my power. It was a devouring without permission. It felt like a declaration that he was in control and there was nothing I could do to stop him. We were at the brink, teetering on the edge and he refused to let go, of everything.

His growl came from deep in his chest, "Beg me." His tail lashed itself sharply around my raised leg that was encircling him.

"No." I panted out. I had nothing left but my word to defy him with. He was holding every ounce except one small drop of my magic within himself and it all shone bright through his eyes.

He slammed into me harder and I moaned, torn between pain and pleasure. The shining light of power started to leak out in pulsing arcs around his skin and when I thought he couldn't take any more from me he did. I inhaled sharply from the echoing hollowness of it.

"Beg me," he demanded.

I could only barely breathe out the word. "No."

He raised himself up slightly and placed his fingers on my clitoris, first rubbing that little circle of nerves, then pulling on the plumpness surrounding it.

"Beg me," he said quieter, with a surety born of arrogance.

"Eeeerr!" I mewled agitatedly in my throat and tried to push my hips higher. I felt the pressure of his hand tighten on my wrists as I tried to comprehend how it felt that he was getting bigger inside me. I realized the guardian shape he held on to still wasn't its full evolution and he transformed into it while fucking me on the verge of orgasm. My overcrowded passage soaked itself to accommodate him.

The sounds coming out of my mouth certainly would have been classified as begging at this point. It didn't quench his need for control though. It sparked somewhere in the back of my mind that he wasn't in control of much and he knew it. He needed this in a way I couldn't understand. In a demon way I suppose, or a male way. So I begged and he completely stilled.

"That should have been easier. Have no doubt that you are the Eshera." Then he gave a smile full of wicked looking teeth and let it all smash into me.

I couldn't move and I couldn't speak as I strained, arching into his pelvis, tighter than a strung bow. I could feel every pulse of his phallus inside me as he orgasmed. Power flooded into me simultaneously and it almost immediately felt as if I couldn't contain it in my body without bursting out. My inner muscles finally gave and I rode wave after wave of my own orgasm. The weight of Ezra collapsed on top of me finally registered when my quivering slowed. He flowed his body back into a familiar size as he nuzzled around my neck. Gads, even this guardian size was massive inside of me.

I lay still on the stone floor and stared at the cave ceiling in my after-sex stupor. Ezra, now half sprawled on me, continued lazily kissing and licking behind my ear. I had a brief memory of hearing something ripping on the dress and hoped it wasn't too obvious. I brought my focus back to the demon nipping just above my breast.

"Will the Goddess' visit repair the damage with your brother?"

Ezra propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at me. "Nazar needs to answer that question. Dame Genesis refused to tell him the whole of her story. He thinks that she was cursed into the succubi when I 'made' myself into a demon. He refuses to accept that I was born a demon. I do know that I can return as full family to my clan. After abasing myself to our Goddess she has marked us. Show the marks to conclave and none dare deny that Eternal She sanctified us. To do so would incur her wrath. "

I didn't notice any marks on him or me, at least not from her. "What marks? Where?"

"We carry the burning blackness of space around us. To look at us together others will see the whole of the universes and beyond. It is the same tale told of Meloch and Eshera. Dragons of all clans make pilgrimages to those few who have become a passageway to Her. They will humble themselves to us because we are one step closer to Her. Some will even hear Her."

"How do I see it?"

Ezra shrugged.

"Oh. You don't know, but you have an theory, but you're not going to tell me because you're not 100 percent sure."

Ezra merely looked at me, giving nothing away with his facial expression. I rolled my eyes and waved my hands in a sweeping motion of agitation. "Then let's go get your clan's blessing."

Ezra laid back down on the stone ground with his arms bent behind his head. "I do not want you to go to a full conclave. It is too dangerous and may spark dissent regardless. I will ask Dame Genesis to call a select one with fewer dragons. They will have the power to declare us sanctified to the whole of the clan without every Premier dragon present. From there we will fly you out quickly. The outcome may become...," he paused thinking, "confining for you."

"You mean imprisonment."

"You have to realize that it is an extraordinary gift she granted us, Dove. Meloch and Eshera were the last to become one with Her darkness." He shook his head. "I will stay and that should make them happy for a time. Half is always better than none."

I sat up and stared down at him in disbelief, "You want me to leave you."

He moved his hand up my arm until he was also sitting facing me. "You will go to Taurin."

"Taurin?! So soon. How long will you be gone?"

"I cannot say." His hand ran down my hair in a calming manner, smoothing its disarray. I leaned into it, loving his gentleness.

"Wait. How..."

He held a finger to my lips, "It will all work out in the end. You trust me."

I firmly closed my lips and grimaced. I didn't like where this was going. Did I trust him? Yes. Did I trust dragons? Probably not. His own brother wanted to kill him.

"Dove. I will find you. I will always find you."

"When?"

His head twisted in its snake like manner and he sighed angrily, leaning into my shoulder. "One of us must be part of Sanctuary and I must make amends to all dragons. I will be there as long as I need to be. No questions." He pushed up to look at me.

"You've done nothing wrong!" I growled adamantly.

"Dove." He crossed his arms and looked at me sternly, "I have done plenty. I have had centuries of maliciousness. Play out events and you will be flown to Taurin. This discussion is done." As he said the last word it turned into a quiet roar and he smoked his form into a dragon.

I inhaled quickly as my heartbeat sky rocketed. A quiet roar for a dragon is more like the loud vocalization of a lion I once heard on a nature program. When your not in the midst of amazing sex with said dragon it's very, very scary. He quickly moved as far down to the floor as he could get and turned his shoulder to me. Not quite an apology, just a mellowing of attitude. With a deep breath and pouting lips I hiked up my skirts and climbed onto him.

He flew lazily towards his home. Our time together was quickly approaching its end and I was satisfied with his unhurried glide. I watched the circling of flashes of warm colors from flying dragons overhead as we closed in on our destination. The landing was smooth and I almost didn't notice the movement from wings to four powerful legs as he sped onto the rocky outcropping. Zhora stood at the entrance of this part of mountain, almost as if she was waiting for us the entire time.

I had a brief sensation of falling and then found myself being carried by Ezra. He never missed a stride from flying, to landing, to guardian form. My soft smile of wonderment was in acknowledgement at how graceful and efficient he was. When he reached the entryway he let me stand on my own.

"We have much to tell."

"You succeeded. I can tell." She turned around to walk into the flickering light of the cave, her sensual perfume following after her.

Ezra put his arm behind my waist and ushered me in behind her.

"We hold Her darkness. Will you summon a select conclave?"

Her nonchalant reply was made without turning around, "Of course. What is your desire?"

We reached the vast chamber I originally arrived in as Ezra said, "I will stay, Dove will leave and you will tell Nazar the truth of my father."

She was so still that even her bells remained silent. Finally she turned slowly and gave her son a significant stare down. "I do not think that is wise, considering the Goddess' involvement with the truth. I do not know Her will."

I moved closer to her to speak my thoughts. A stupid mistake. I swayed and closed my eyes as I became overwhelmed with an image of Oldavai typing on a computer in an office. The click of the keys stopped. He inhaled deeply and tsk'd me as he brought his finger to his mouth, biting the pad and then outlining his lips.

The next moment I felt Ezra's arms jerking me hard onto his chest. My eyes opened and I found Zhora several feet away. Her finger poised on her bottom lip in mimicry of Oldavai's.

"Oh, that was delicious," she purred. "He almost could have reached out and grabbed you now that he's found where you are. Mmmm." Her body moved in a serpentine twist of sultriness as she continued in a low voice. "You best stay away, unless that is how you plan to leave here."