Ask For It by Gail Faulkner Page A

will not hurt, I’ll just bleed out slowly. Don’t disappoint me, beloved.”
     
    Shaking her head, she knelt beside him. “I can’t,” whispered from her lips again.
     
    Tor grasped her fists around the knife. He knew what he had to do. She really couldn’t do the deed, and forcing her was sadistic torture. Her hand had to be on the blade but he’d do it for her.
     
    “Let’s go over it,” he said quietly.
     
    “I love you. So much,” Sahara whispered in a trembling sob as he raised her hands, the knife held between them as he gripped her hands around it.
     
    Tor paused as she looked into his eyes. “I know, beloved. Now remember, you will turn and run for the flyer.”
     
    She was nodding when his hands tightened and powerful arms jerked her hands down, thrusting the blade deep in his chest.
     
    Sahara froze in shock. His hands squeezed hers gently and released them. “Run,” he gasped around the pain.
     
    It was already too late. The darkness closed in around him. Yet he felt her with him. Not just her body, her soul somehow. That wasn’t right and he struggled for consciousness, gathering the strength to shove her way. She must live!
     
    His thoughts were slow, disjointed. The cold. It should happen slower. Where was Sahara?

 
    Chapter Nine
     
     
     
    Salt air. Strange. The afterlife was a seaside place? He heard waves pounding the shore. Tor dug fingers into the sand beneath them and marveled that he could feel those sensations as if he had a regular body.
     
    Opening his eyes, he gazed up into a blue sky with huge white clouds floating across it. Not what he’d been expecting. Scents of the ocean, texture of sand, and a delicate moan beside him.
     
    What? That moan was too familiar and Tor shot up to a sitting position, glaring down at the body beside him. This was not the deal he’d made. It was only supposed to be him in the afterlife.
     
    Her eyes opened and gazed at him blankly. Suddenly understanding lit them and Sahara sat up, reaching for him. Her hands grasped the material covering his chest and seemed to be clawing at it.
     
    Looking down, Tor realized there wasn’t a rip where the blade had entered his chest. Sahara’s nimble fingers were now unfastening his flight suit. Pulling it apart, they both looked at clean fur covering his pectorals. There was no sign of blood. No white ribbon of fur marking a scar.
     
    Sahara’s hands traveled up his chest and neck to cup his jaw. “You’re not dead?”
     
    “We could both be dead,” he countered logically.
     
    Her eyes were confused a moment and then suddenly laughter lit her face. “Fine by me.” She pounced at him, somehow launching herself from a sitting position into his chest and knocking him back on the sand.
     
    Her mouth came down on his and her tongue thrust in. The kiss was all Sahara, eating at Tor as if she were starving. His arms gripped her naturally and rolled them over. That was better. Sahara belonged under him. The kiss changed as Tor growled into her mouth and took control.
     
    In the distance came a distinctly mechanical roaring scream. Tor knew the sound of a transport coming at them fast. He glanced up but didn’t take his mouth off her. There it was. The royal emblem on the nose swiftly evident as it raced toward them.
     
    Tor lifted his head and looked at the woman in his arms and back at the very non-afterlife vehicle approaching.
     
    “Don’t think we’re dead,” he commented. “Too bad. No one would bother us then.”
     
    Sahara’s head arched up in the sand to look at the transport now slowing as it approached. “What happened?”
     
    “You don’t remember?” he asked cautiously.
     
    “I remember right up to the knife part.” Sahara scowled. “What happened next?”
     
    Tor sat up with Sahara still on his chest. “Look.” He pointed at the ocean.
     
    Far out to sea they could just see the top of the obelisk between the waves rising in normal crests. They were sitting on