Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Sarah

T he conduit temple had been built with large gray stones stacked in the shape of a wide pyramid, which stuck out from a cleared space in the middle of the forest. It had been a long trip to the temple in Allegiant , and night had fallen during the journey. None of us had said much on the ride—I was sure Deacon, Jac, and Omen were as nervous as I was.

My pulse fluttered as we walked into the temple. Omen lit a torch and used it to ignite the other torches in the corners of the enormous rectangular space. It could have been filled with hundreds of people, but the temple was empty, aside from some furs on the steps and the ominous altar in the middle of the sunken floor. I needed Deacon’s help down the stairs—they were built for long Ladrian legs, not my short human stems.

I approached the altar, heart in my throat. Nothing had changed since the last time I was there. The altar itself was made of the same stone as the walls, but the top of it was covered in a thick, black liquid. Before I laid my hands on it, I turned to my companions and said, “If this goes wrong or something, I want you both to know that I love you very much.”

Jac clutched Deacon’s hand like he was nervous, but calmly said, “I love you, too, and nothing is going to go wrong. You can do this, Sarah. I know you can.”

Deacon smiled and nodded once at me. “I love you, too, Consort.”

I took a deep breath and looked to Omen. “Thank you for your help, trying to prepare me.”

“You are a good student.” Omen gave me an encouraging smile. “You will prove me right.”

Gathering my courage, I placed my hands on the black top. Closing my eyes to concentrate, I tried to ignore my fear. It was just as cold as last time, and the sudden temperature drop made my bones ache in an instant. My hands were sucked into the liquid, just above my wrists.

This is just like last time when you tried to contact mom, no need to freak out. I redirected my thoughts to the Mother Test and took a deep breath.

The thick black liquid crept up my arms.

Okay, that’s not like last time.

Trying not to panic, I looked to Omen, who only watched what was happening. She’s not worried. Must be normal. I took another deep breath to relax myself, but the liquid kept rising up my arms. When it reached my shoulders, some of it slipped beneath my clothes, staying on my skin, as it began to coat my body.

Legit fear took over. When I tried to ask Omen if this was normal, the liquid came into my mouth, choking me. I tried to cough it out, but suddenly, I was no longer in the temple.

I wasn’t covered in the thick black liquid anymore, either.

I wore a purple uniform. My hands were my own—I hadn’t mogged into a Ladrian. Looking around, I came to realize I was in a ship’s hallway. But it wasn’t Sovereign or Allegiant . The floor was green, and the walls were brown, but the ceiling matched the floor. The air smelled fresh. Panels on the walls blinked with blue and purple lights, and there were no windows.

“You have come for me yet again, Contra,” a deep woman’s voice called out behind me.

I recognized it immediately. It was Portend. The conduit Mother I had killed.

I turned around to face her. She looked as old as I remembered—gray robes to the floor, a crinkled face with a wry smile. But unlike before, she was solid. No longer a ghost. I had killed her with a bone knife, so why the hell is she alive?

“I am not alive, Contra. I am not Portend, either. Not really. I am something else.” The vision seemed to struggle to find the right words. “I am a manifestation of your imagination. A representative of the ether which brings all grace and power to those who earn it. I have Portend’s memories because she has returned to me to be reborn one day.”

“Are you here to kill me? Get revenge?” I asked defensively.

She cackled like Portend, whoever she was. “She did not say you are funny. Let us begin. Follow me.”

So it begins. I steadied my breath and followed her through the hallway. “Where are we going?”

“To see if you are worthy of the title of Mother.” A door ahead was marked “Infirmary,” in English, and she stopped there. “Enter and remember—everything you see here is real.”

As I stepped forward, the door slid open. Inside, there were two humans hooked up to a bunch of life support machines. I saw their bare white forearms between the machines, so I knew it wasn’t Jac and Deacon. I was grateful for that.

Heartbeats beeped, the whoosh sound of lungs being artificially filled with air…it all brought back too many bad memories. Just like Mom, before she passed.

I hated the sights and sounds and smells of hospitals, ever since losing my mom in one. I couldn’t stand it and being inside the infirmary brought it all back. My worst memories come to life. I had expected to be tested, but not like this.

I closed the distance between myself and the two people on life support—obviously, Portend wanted me to see them. When I realized who they were, tears sprang from my eyes.

Elizabeth and Jenny. My sisters.

I screamed, “What the fuck!”

Portend entered, and the ship shook, knocking me back against a shiny medical table. I lurched forward and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. “They are not part of this!”

“They are part of you . To be a Mother means to sacrifice oneself, Contra.”

Terror for my sisters gripped me, and I backhanded her with all my might. “The fuck it does! You leave them out of it!”

She smiled when she licked the blood at her split lip. “You can assault me all you like, but your sisters are not going anywhere. Like the rest of us on the ship.”

“What?” I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. “What are you talking about?”

“The power on this ship is dying to keep them both alive on these machines. Your crew, all twelve of them, plus Jac and Deacon, are all going to die—”

The ship shook once more, sending me tumbling away from Portend. I crashed against Jenny’s bed, before I pulled myself to my feet.

Ether-Portend continued, “You, both your sisters, your crew, and your companions will all die, if you do not choose between them.”

I shook my head frantically. “That can’t be right!”

“It is. A Mother must be willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Hard choices come with the job. There is no time for you to confirm the status of your ship. You must act. Choose now.”

Omen said everything in the test was a simulation and if I die in it, I die for real…Ether-Portend says all of this is real…who is lying?

My mind snapped. I stood between my sisters, taking their hands in mine. “We die together.”

Portend frowned, and the ship swayed so hard, I thought I would throw up. She barked, "You will let everyone on this ship die? Your companions die, both of your sisters—”

“I will not choose between Elizabeth and Jenny,” I yelled back at her. “If we cannot all live, then we all die. Nothing will make me choose between them.”

“And so nothing has.” She smiled and clapped her hands.

The ship disintegrated, along with my sisters. Everything faded away, like dust in the wind. It was replaced by the battlefield in front of Valor’s home, where I had killed Portend not so long ago. It seemed as though no one saw us watching them—fighters ran through us across the field.

In this scene, we were near the end of the battle with the conduits, when Portend had taken me hostage. She had knocked into the side of my head, making me bleed down half of my face. She had me on my knees in front of her, with a bone knife to my throat as Deacon ran toward us.

As I watched it all happen, I remembered feeling a sense of calm come over me in that moment. I knew I would die, and I was okay with it, if that meant everyone else was safe. Then, everything slowed down as we watched it go on at half-speed.

Ether-Portend said, “There we are, Contra. In my final moments. I must say, you did catch me by surprise, and I was rarely surprised.”

“Um, thank you?”

She cackled again. “It is a good life when you can still be surprised. If you know everything that is coming, life gets dull. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome?”

She smiled down at me, but it receded quickly. “I was only there to kill you because of what you are to my people. You are our nightmare, our bogeyman. The thing that goes bump in the night. The contra, a word so fraught with dire meaning that for centuries, conduits only whispered it.”

I shook my head. “I never wanted to be your enemy, Portend.”

“And yet, you were,” she said simply. “I could not save my people from you. You could not stop being what you are. We were meant to come to a crossroads. Neither of us could have prevented such a thing from transpiring.”

She quieted down as battlefield-me slashed my own throat to bring her knife backward and shove it into her. “That was a fine move. Courageous and absurd, but fine, nonetheless. You were ready to sacrifice yourself for your companions and their families and crew. That is why you succeeded, Sarah. Not because you are the contra—that only gives you powers. You succeeded over me because of who you are. You will continue to succeed if you remember your powers are merely tools. You must learn to wield them correctly.”

Watching myself stab her was hard. I remembered the texture of her ghostly body, the way certain parts gave easily to the knife, while others fought it. I drove the blade into her as hard as I could—up to the hilt—and her ghost flowed over my hand. Visceral, yet mystical. A horror.

“I’m nothing special, Portend. I know you think I’m some scary thing, but I’m just me.”

“You sound guilty. Tell me, Sarah. Do you regret killing me?”

Battlefield-Deacon ran to me, crying. Then he grabbed my body, holding my throat to stop the blood from flowing, and screamed for help. It wounded me to see him so scared. But knowing that the threat was over—mostly—had given me peace. I watched myself smile as I knew the end had come for me, too.

I took a breath and said, “I kept my people safe. No, Portend. I don’t regret killing you.”

She turned to face me, and her dimming eyes locked on me. “I knew I would face you one day, Contra. The last Mother had told me about you. One day, you will face possession and on that day, you must choose wisely, or you will lose everything you love.”

Her words confused me. “But I’m united—how can I be possessed, if I’m united?”

She clapped her hands and a burst of purple light overwhelmed me. Portend vanished and I was surrounded by only the purple light. It surged through my body like knives, flexing my muscles, contorting me, shaking me. I couldn’t breathe or speak or think or do anything, aside from being taken by the energy of the purple light.

But it was over in a flash.

My body surged with a new sensation—something like goosebumps, but beneath my skin. Every part of me felt different. Stronger. Better. Aroused. Sparks of purple glowed in my vision and as my eyes tried to focus again, my hearing gradually came back, too.

“…alive?”

“I don’t know!” Deacon shouted over me.

Jac was near my face, while my chest hurt. He came close to my mouth, and my chest stopped hurting so much. When he put his lips on mine, he blew air into my mouth.

They’re doing CPR?

I hooked my arm around Jac and turned it into a kiss. But he froze in panic. “What the fuck?”

Deacon gasped, his eyes wild with fear. “Are you okay?”

I smiled up at him—he had been my chest compressions provider. “I am.”

Omen breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank the gods, you’re—”

“Omen, thank you for your concern,” I cut her off, as another hot rush of desire flooded my being. “But I’m gonna need you to leave right now. I need some time with my men.”

Her eyes widened in understanding. “Of course, Mother Sarah.”

“Just Sarah,” I corrected her. “Still.”

She nodded once and left us in the temple.

“Come here.” I grabbed at Deacon’s uniform to try and bring him in for a kiss.

But he didn’t budge and frowned at me. “You…you weren’t breathing a moment ago.”

“You didn’t have a heartbeat, either,” Jac added.

“And now, I do.” I sat up and put Jac’s hand over my heart. “Feel that?”

“But you—”

I kissed Jac to shut him up. I was done talking. I pushed him back onto the stone and straddled his lap, while I tore at his uniform. I needed my hands on the warmth of his body. When I touched his skin, it was like his heat nourished me. I kissed him harder, and we yanked our clothes out of the way.

Deacon soon stood over us. “You almost died again, Sarah.”

“And I didn’t,” I said, grinning up at him, both me and Jac now naked. “So help me celebrate because whatever the fuck just happened left me needing you both, right now .”

He closed his eyes in frustration but removed his uniform anyway. Jac and I watched until his body was on full display. I reached out for his cock—it was unusually half-hard—and when I wrapped my fingers around his shaft, I pulled him closer by using it, making him stand over Jac.

As soon as I licked him, he groaned and his cock perked right up and gave me all his attention. I could only get my mouth just around the head and another inch or two down his shaft, so I used both of my hands to cover the distance between me and his groin. His salty skin was velvety against my tongue.

While I sucked his cock, Jac rubbed the head of his erection against my pussy. I rolled myself back against him, taking his body into mine. I sank down onto him, filling me up and making me groan. Something was different, and I could tell what it was, but I wasn’t about to stop, either.

Jac gasped louder than usual as my pussy pulsed around his dick. “Fuck, baby, you feel electric.”

I released Deacon’s cock just in time to see Jac’s violet eyes flutter back. He swelled up inside me, tormenting my G-spot in all the right ways. He felt too damned good, all of his inches shockingly inside me—I thought I might come right then.

He swore beneath his breath and demanded, “You gotta stop—you’re gonna make me come!”

But I rode him harder instead, milking his cock with my tight channel. “What if that’s what I want?”

“Too soon, too soon,” he panted frantically, trying to hold out against this new sorcery of mine.

“That’s so unlike you,” Deacon taunted Jac.

“Fuck you,” Jac growled angrily. “You’ll get your turn.”

He grabbed my hips and ground me against him, his control splintering. His body contracted, jerking hard as he came in a roar until his voice was hoarse and the pleasure finally ebbed. As he panted and stared up at me in disbelief, Deacon rolled me off of him and onto my back.

Quickly, he laid on top of me and lined his cock up, his lust filled eyes holding mine. “I must know what enthralled Jac so much.”

He thrust into me roughly and his mouth dropped open in shock as he buried his cock to the hilt. “Fuck yes!”

I gasped as he pounded me into the stone floor, his back arched, pushing him deeper still. Every inch of him hit the right spots all over, and I clutched his shoulders, needing an anchor point to hang on to for the ride. There was no more discomfort when he thrust into me—unlike all the other times we had sex, he didn’t bottom out. He was able to put his full length into me.

My insides had changed—shifted somehow. I didn’t understand it, but in the moment, I didn’t care, either. I secured my legs around Deacon’s waist and rode upwards from beneath him, bucking my hips in time to his savage fucking.

I loved every second of it. I bit his chest, and he snarled at me. I nipped another spot harder, my teeth vibrating from his shouts and growls as he slammed into me, again and again.

Suddenly, my orgasm swept over my whole body. Engulfed in pleasure, burning from the inside out. My screams filled the temple, along with Deacon’s grunts and groans as he joined me as we both soared over the edge and straight into sublime pleasure.