Getting Lost Ch. 01

Sabrael always knew what was best for her. Lotus tilted her head further. Shaking her white-blond hair from her face, she obediently gave her keeper full access to his marks. There was no pain as the tendrils curled into the familiar shapes at her left temple. An Eloua's touch was never painful, often comforting, and as an adult, Lotus also found it stimulating. As his feelers writhed on her face, goose bumps rose, and her areolae tightened. Then there was a strong thrumming noise and bright flash behind her eyes.

*****

Sabrael removed his thellim from his unconscious Lotus' face, and he took a moment to admire her beauty and muse at what a pair they made. She was elf, and he was Eloua, but that didn't matter. Elves lived nearly as long as Eloua, so as far as Sabrael was concerned, his Lotus would be his forever. He was nearly eight feet tall, and she was such a tiny thing at just over five feet. Her breasts and hips curved in pleasing proportions. Like her skin and her hair, Lotus' shape was perfection to Sabrael. Long tapered ears were decorated with the earrings he'd given her over their years together, a small vanity that he loved to indulge.

He noticed one of her pieces of jewelry was a tiny bell midway down her right earlobe. Playfully, he flicked the bell with the tip of a finger to wake her. Her eyes, a deep startling blue, matched the moods of the Arcadian sea, and she looked up at him with trust and devotion. She smiled at him and asked in her native elf language, "What are we doing in the pool, Sabrael? Did-did I have a vision? I can't remember."

"No, love. You fell asleep in the pool again. You really shouldn't be here alone, Lotus." He swept her up into his arms then and carried her to the side where he gently laid her down. She started to sit up, but he pressed her back down. Her nipples were still hard from when she'd responded to his thellim, and he wanted to pleasure her further. "You had a bad dream. We should examine you, just to make sure you're unharmed."

If an Oracle encountered hazards while her spirit roamed, it was possible for her body to manifest injuries upon her return. It was not unusual for a cursory medical exam to follow after a difficult vision. Sabrael and Lotus both knew she was physically fine. However, the "exams" had become an excuse to touch her intimately— to touch her and share in her orgasmic pleasure. Every emotion Sabrael had ever had was "borrowed" from other beings. The only time Sabrael felt anything on his own at all is when he was with Lotus.

She lay back and put her hands to either side of her head. She wanted his touch as much as he wanted to give it. Their relationship hadn't always been that way. His people had taken her in when she'd been orphaned on her home-world, and Sabrael had been the one to care for her as a child, but that was almost a century ago. He had always been as fond of her as he could be for anyone, but in recent years his fondness had changed. Body, mind, and spirit, Lotus had grown into a beautiful woman. And to Sabrael, there was none more perfect in all the multiverse, because she made him truly feel.

He stood in the pool and leaned over her reclining form as she lay on the edge. With a soft touch, he ran his fingers along her collar bones and her upper arms. She sighed and closed her eyes, her face settling into a peaceful bliss. Slowly, he moved down her torso, delighting in the supple silk of her creamy skin. He avoided her pert, rosy nipples for the moment, keeping up the façade of looking for wounds. When he got to her navel, he couldn't help but extend a tendril of his thellim and tickle her. Her belly tightened on her giggle, and Sabrael moved lower.

Unlike the hundred or so humans who worked for the Eloua and lived in the village above the temple, elves were hairless at the pubis. Sabrael was tempted to leave off his game nearing the pair of soft full lips that closed over her genitalia. Still, he moved down, caressing her thighs, smooth calves, and even her feet. Accustomed to the routine, she turned, giving him access to her back. He methodically worked his way back up, pausing to massage away a knot here and there.

"You're tense," he lied, but his Lotus didn't mind. "Let me help you, love."

She turned to lay on her back again. He felt heat gather at his genital pouch. His thellimtok, his mating tentacles, writhed and pushed for freedom, but he wouldn't mate with her, not yet. Sabrael vowed to satisfy himself only in the mental sharing of her climax, at least until he could get her off world, away from his fellow Eloua.

With a firmer touch, he fondled her breasts, teasing her nipples erect between his fingers. He allowed his thellim to emerge again and stroke her smooth curves. His tentacles had a pattern of ridged swirls. Like fingerprints, they were unique to each Eloua. The texture further excited Lotus' sensitive areolae. Her head tilted back, lips parted, and she started to pant. Her back arched slightly, thrusting her chest upward into his hands. As her arousal became more intense, he wound tendrils around her engorged nubs. He tightened and loosened his hold, pinching and pulling. His Lotus writhed under his ministrations, and little noises escaped her delicate throat.

In the pool, his thellimtok burst from his genital pouch and churned the water. Those greater tentacles reached for the surface, reached for her, his gods-given mate. Still, Sabrael denied the demands of his body. He sought Lotus through their psychic bond and found her mind as open to him as her flesh. He felt and shared in her passion, and her lust nearly overwhelmed him.

He kept one hand on her breast and moved the other between her splayed thighs. Her sex was hot, wet, and she throbbed in time with the tendril that plucked at her nipple. Her mewling noises grew louder when he thrust two long fingers inside her. His thellim slithered around her clitoris while he massaged her inner walls. Two tendrils deftly parted the hood, while a third slipped up and down the length of the tiny bud. He curled his fingers to tap a familiar spot, and his Lotus came off the floor.

Lotus' climax shot through Sabrael's spirit like a bolt of lightning. White and searing, every nerve in his body fired at once. She was everything to him, all he needed, and her pleasure was enough. Even though they had been denied her touch, his thellimtok released into the pool. Clouds of his seed slowly dispersed as his greater tentacles reluctantly returned to their place.

Lotus rolled off the edge and into to the pool with him. If she noticed his release, she gave no indication of it, and Lotus rinsed herself. She smiled up at him and gave a slight tug on his mantle. Sabrael lowered his head to receive a kiss on the cheek form his Oracle. "Thank you," she said, without a trace of worry in her voice or her thoughts.

She was meant for him, he knew, but Eloua only mated with other Eloua. Sabrael's desire for Lotus was unprecedented, and he was certain the Elder Council would disapprove. If they found out about the ways he touched a sacred Oracle, about the sensual pleasures he'd shared with her, they would take her away. Sabrael would never allow that to happen.

He had applied for a research mission in another solar system, to study the sentient beings on a life-bearing planet called Hibreon. Seers and astral travelers were an invaluable resource on journeys so far from home. It was customary to send an Oracle along on such an assignment, and of course, he'd requested Lotus. The elders accepted his application, and Sabrael was ecstatic, but Lotus' visions had been troubling her.

It was only nerves, he thought. Since they'd taken her from her home-world, Lotus hadn't left Arcadia. But she was intelligent and curious, and Sabrael knew she would enjoy studying another species. His Lotus was also a spritely soul, quick to smile and so easy to please. Once he had her to himself, he knew he would keep her happy always. In the meantime, he could help ease her stress by blocking the memories of her disturbing dreams.

In the early morning, before the setting of the moons, Sabrael took Lotus to her home on the topmost level of the temple. As he'd raised her, Lotus had been to school with Eloua and the occasional aliens that were brought in as Oracles, but she'd lived in his home with him. Since her adulthood, Lotus was expected to live in the Temple proper with the few other Oracles on the island. Lotus was the only elf among them, and Sabrael had tried to use this as reason to keep her in his home, but it was one of the few times the Elder council refused him. Like himself, Lotus was unique. Sabrael needed no one other than Lotus, and he would make sure that he, alone, was enough for her.

Lotus never complained about her life in the temple, though she hardly had anything to compare it to. The Eloua were nocturnal, and Sabrael's day was winding to a close, whereas Lotus' day would begin in just a few hours. She never complained about that either. In the doorway to the Oracles' dormitory, he whispered so as not to wake her colleagues. "Rest well, Lotus. Tomorrow night, the Elders will receive you for a final blessing before our journey begins."