It was fortunate that Ultima hadmastered the skill of the poker face. She was too distraught formany moments to manage anything even approaching welcome, but shewas able to prevent herself from creating, or adding to, any sortof divisiveness by seeming to favor Tau above theothers.
It gave her time to think, time torealize that it was absolutely critical to hold her little grouptogether in a positive working environment to achieve what they allwanted. It wasn’t about taking lovers or building a personalpartnership.
Even though, in a lot of respects, ithad begun to feel that way.
And, truthfully, when all was said anddone, even though she was partial to Tau, she was also fond of Xiand Quan and if it transpired that this time was all the time anyof them had she wanted to make the most of it.
It had, in fact, become the mantra ofmost of those left to fight.
Live while you can.
Chapter Eight
Given a few moments to collectherself, Ultima managed to welcome Xi with enough enthusiasm toprevent discord … on that account, anyway—she thought.
It still took her a few moments towarm up to the ‘theme’ of the night, but Xi was nothing in notthorough. By the time he’d explored her like he had the first time,she felt like she was lying on a livewire—sizzling and sparkingeverywhere—and this time there was no pain of sufficient intensityto distract her.
Thoughts of Tau did, briefly, but bythe time Xi had kissed her on the lips as hungrily as he had therest of her, there was not really room for thought at all. He’dheated her up to the point that her mind had melted down into apool of primordial soup—where nothing existed but hunger and needand the pursuit of satisfaction.
And she wasstillsurprised when shehit overload and achieved orgasm—as easily with Xi as if she hadn’tbeen thoroughly satisfied by Tau the night before. As easily as ifhe was a well known lover familiar with all the things she likedbest but with the added spice of being a new lover at the sametime.
Naturally, reality crept in at onepoint—when she fell to Earth, but she was so leached of strengthand reasoning ability by the time she reached the ground that shesank fairly quickly toward oblivion.
The morning after was awkward anduncomfortable.
She wouldn’t exactly accuse Tau ofbeing sulky, but he wasn’t the cheerful self he’d been the morningbefore, and he kept giving Xi the evil eye every time he caught Xigiving her tender looks for the pleasure she’d givenhim.
Quan was oblivious, too focused oneating her alive with hungry looks to notice anythingelse.
If she’d been in any doubt that shewas on the evening’s menu.
Which she hadn’t been.
She’d had time to see the lay of theland and she was reasonably comfortable with it.
She wasn’t giving up control of thedam, but she was content enough to allow them to take whateverpeace and pleasure they might get from sexual congress. Even if itinconvenienced her at least a little.
So far, they had shown generosity andas long as they continued to show appreciation she was fine withthe situation.
Until and unless she wastired.
Or got her monthly visit from thebitch.
Not that she ever knewwhen to expectthatanymore. She’d lost all concept of time beyond meal time andbedtime—and even those were hard to pin down. She didn’t get to eatwhen she was hungry. She ate when she had something to eat. She gotup when there was enough light to see and went to bed when therewasn’t.
They’d lost the power grid fairlyquickly after the invasion started. Within a matter of days,everything had pretty much collapsed and there were none of thethings that had made their modern world convenient and consistentleft to them now.
She had no idea what year it was, whatmonth or day of the week—or even the season except veryloosely.
Her body was still hers, though. Andshe’d share when she felt like and not share when she didn’t feellike it.
Not that they’d shown any inclinationtoward simply taking what they pleased as if she was only there fortheir convenience. And she didn’t like to think they might havethat gene, but she didn’t mean to teach it to them by notestablishing firm parameters.
With that in mind, she left theshelter a little behind them since she was feeling up to helpingwith the work load and looked around for them.
She found them near the top of thetower.
Tau and Xi, at any rate.
