Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

She knew she should get up, should get up now, but the stone beneath her hands was strong, oddly reassuring.

“What you’re trying to do... is alchemically impossible,” she said. “Flesh can’t grow into metal. Metal’s lifeless – all I’ve got is another experiment , dying before my eyes, I...”

“You’ll fix this, little lady. You’re the doctor, you can make this happen.” He came to one knee, right in front of her. One bleeding knuckle raised her chin to look up at him. He was overpowering. “I need you, Amethea. I’ll get you anything you want.”

Need you. There was a bite in her voice as she said, “Or I’ll be next?”

That made him smile, like the edge of a dirty knife.

“I’m running out of time. And patience. I know I can make this happen.”

She heard herself defy him – “You wouldn’t!” – even though she knew he absolutely would.

He laughed, a sound like a snarl. He put his hands on her shoulders, pushing her back to the wall and leaned in so she could feel his breath on her cheek.

He said softly, “It’s why I’m here, Thea: your world’s alchemy, your lost Elementalism – I am bringing them back to life!”

His weight was hurting. She didn’t care.

“I can’t , don’t you – ?” she began.

One hand shoved, hard. She fell back, crumpling gracelessly to the floor. In a moment, he was astride her, turning her onto her back, holding her hands easily above her head. Suddenly afraid, she struggled, but he was far too strong.

“What are you...?”

For a moment, he did nothing – just let her realise how much she was under his control. Her fright was rapidly growing – this wasn’t playing, she could feel his tightly controlled fury. She put her strength into it, writhing furiously. With a determined twist to his lips he held her down. As she subsided, his free hand stroked her jaw.

“Don’t fight me, little priestess. You know you’ll do what I want.”

His kiss was fire and heat and poison.

She twisted away, turning her head, her back arched as she pitted herself against him. He shifted his weight, let his whole body drop full-length onto hers. She could feel how hard he was – and she still responded to him, the sunrise glow between her thighs, her hips moving though she didn’t – couldn’t – want them to.

His breath was hot on the side on her throat. She felt the soft scratch of his beard. She felt his teeth.

“Oh, Gods...” Had that been her voice?

He reached down with his free hand, pulling at her skirts, at the strange, blue cotton trousers he wore. For a moment, she was fright and disbelief – yet her own body was betraying her, the anticipation of his touch was making her swell to meet him. She wanted this. Didn’t she?

He purred words in her ear, it didn’t matter what he said, the tone of his voice was flame and lust and her lips were parted, her breath catching on a whimper.

Gently, his fingers found her, found her more than ready.

With a deep, quiet chuckle, they eased into her.

Coaxing, stroking.

Oh, my Gods...

He knew just how to touch – there was no force, just a caress of absolute control. The pleasure was so intense, she could feel the blood rising in her face, feel her body quivering as he paused, then began again.

“You’ll make this happen, Amethea.”

Her hips ached towards him, muscles tightened around his touch, silently begging him deeper. But the resentment in her heart glittered, cold and hard and still. Somewhere, she remembered she wouldn’t be controlled like this – not any more. Jamming her cheek sideways against his, she said, “I can’t !”

He hissed exasperation; his fingers were gone. She gasped objection before she could stop herself. The wash of loss, the hollow ache of hunger...

But his weight was between her thighs, he was tugging her ridiculous skirts roughly out of the way. She was feet and shoulders and tailbone against the warm stone, eagerly welcoming his weight on hers, her legs rising to wrap round him even as her mind repeated, insanely, Nonononononono...

Yes.

The first thrust was slow, full length – tension rippled through him at the contact, he was holding his own need sternly back. She cried out, struggling to free her arms so she could... what? Hold him? Fight to free herself? He braced his hands against her wrists, held his weight on his elbows and, still buried in her to the hilt, leaned up to look at her flushed face, her splashed hair.

Somewhere in his soul, he smouldered. Embers burned in his vision.

Your alchemy, your lost Elementalism...

She could feel his heat, over and in her; hear her own breathing; feel her pulse hammering in her skin.

And beneath her, the rock was warming.

It seemed to thrum, as if summoned by his fire, by the drumbeat of her blood.

He withdrew – almost. Circling his hips gently, a tease, a tempt, he said, “You can. And you will.”

She wanted him back. Her legs tightened but he was too strong. The thrum beneath her was becoming a reverberation, an echo and broadcast of her own hammering heart. Somewhere between the heat of the stone and the burning between her thighs, she found herself saying again, between gritted teeth, between breaths of craving, “All... the tricks... in the world... won’t make it... any more possible.”

His face set, then, his eyes gave a single blaze of fury. He pushed into her slowly, watching her expression, and she stared back, unwavering; yet her voice was catching in her throat – a feminine cry she couldn’t stifle.

He withdrew, eased into her again, a long, smooth stroke. She gasped, wanted, needed still – couldn’t help it. She unwrapped her legs to brace her feet against the stone.

The hot pulse of the stone.

Metal’s lifeless...

The thought was incoherent – she hadn’t grasped it, not yet. Once before, she’d felt the vastness of the rock about her, that sense of potence and patience and loss and age...

She had been looking for something!

The reverberations of her own pulse echoed back through her skin. In the stone, something heard.

Oh, my Gods.

It was rhythmic and deep, its might massive, yet not hostile. It was far, far bigger than Maugrim’s petty lust, his need for control. It was bigger than her resentment, than her body or senses, the chamber, the passageways. She couldn’t encompass it or comprehend it. As waves of sensation and pleasure broke through her, she surrendered herself – not to Maugrim, but to the stone.

And he felt it too.

As she let go, it pulsed through her skin, her movements and responses and sounds. He gave a breath of amazement as the heat found him through her and he started to move more swiftly, making her cry wordless appreciation. She moved with him, matched him. He, too, lost himself in it, in her. She grounded him and he was her focus.

And the stone grew hotter. The thrum became a pound and it was tangible in the sweating air.

Now, she wasn’t fighting him any more. She found his mouth, craving as much contact as possible. He let her hands go and they were in his hair, over his shoulders, clumsily pulling his strange garments from him so she could feel his bare chest, the muscles move beneath his skin.

Leaning back, he tore the lacings down her top with one hand, bared her skin to his.

And the stone grew hotter.

She could feel it in her feet, bracing downwards against it as she pushed upwards into the impact of Maugrim’s body. The wet slide of him inside her was almost too much, she gripped him as hard as she could and he, too, cried out, guttural and abandoned.

She began to shake. Waves of sensation robbed her of every conscious thought. Her lips parted in inarticulate sounds – her hands clung to him, refusing to let him go.