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unusually-omegaverse · 1 year ago

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Under the Rays of an Autumn Sun

It pulses, bass beats thrumming so loud they become the shared heartbeat of the dancers under strobing azure lights. The lifeblood of Purgatory's night scene. Sweating bodies press and writhe together in sensual, decadent harmony. An asari undulates and her jewelry glitters like starlight with every pass of the light. There are many beautiful women here tonight, but none are the one I am looking for.

"Amonkira. Lord of Hunters. Grant that my hands be steady, my aim be true, and my feet swift," I whisper from my seat at the bar. No one hears my prayers over the driving music that courses through our veins. "And should the worst come to pass, grant me -"

"Whiskey, straight please," she says with a voice that has the strength of a rushing river. My prayers are answered before I am finished saying them. She smells of jasmine, a fragile and small, white blossom from Earth. I look up and I am greeted by eyes that look like the desert sands glimmering under the rays of an autumn sun, and she is looking at me.

I have always had a weakness for beautiful eyes. Humans have a saying, "The eyes are the windows into the soul." It's a sentiment I wholeheartedly share. Hers are a light brown that I am unused to seeing in humans, but they are heavy. I can see the weight she carries within them, evident in the red lines lightly spidering over the white space around her iris.

Blue tinged glass presses to soft, bare lips, and she coughs as the liquid burns down her throat. A warm chuckle bubbles up after it, and she sits next to me. "I don't know if I'll ever learn," she shakes her head, chestnut waves brush against the sun-kissed and freckled skin exposed on her back. "Eden Shepard," she says and offers me her hand to shake. She is named after the holy garden of one of Earth's many creation myths. It suits her, I think, but the thought passes before I can fully understand why I feel that way.

A warm, calloused hand wraps around mine, rougher than most human women, evidence of a life spent in service to her military. I can imagine how she holds her standard issue assault rifle based on the strength of her hands alone. "Niké Taon," I lie very kindly. The fine hairs on her muscular arms rise above goosebumps in response to my voice. I'm pleased by this.

"What are you drinking, Niké? I'm already regretting my choice. I barely like Earth's whiskey." She swirls the glass around, minute amber waves rise up around the edges, threatening to spill over onto her fingers. The liquor in the glass is pungent, sharp, I would not want to drink it either.

"Serrice Ice Brandy, it is far gentler on the tongue," I say as I raise my own glass to my lips. She watches me as I drink, I can see her eyes move as she considers my actions, my words are a subtle suggestion.

The music changes, it is very different from the usual synthetically generated house music that is always playing here. The beat is slower, and the drums roll out in a cascading pattern over what I believe humans call "funk guitar" that is the accent to the music not the driving force, the movement is all in the drums. Shepard moves quickly, her hand wraps around my wrist, and I fight the instinct to break hers to free myself from her grasp. She smiles at me, she looks like the sun. One of her front teeth is chipped. "I love this song! Dance with me, Niké!" She is pulling me after her, and I oblige.

I watch Eden Shepard every time she comes to the Citadel. In everything, she is meticulous, careful, and guarded. She travels with well-armed companions most of the time, usually a turian with a sniper rifle and the apparent skill required to use it, and a quarian woman armed with a high end omni-tool and a shotgun. Occasionally, she brings a krogan battlemaster with deep scars cut into his crimson head plates. I am skilled, but I am not foolish.

The only time she is not meticulous, careful, and guarded is when she goes to Purgatory. Here, she is not a commander or a marine. Of the three times I have seen her dancing in the club, she has gone to a hotel with a stranger twice.

I will be the third. It is the only way to avoid unnecessary violence.

Her cerulean dress clings to her skin as if it is a part of her, hard planes of muscle, broad shoulders all on display. Long legs disappear into the fabric stretched across muscular thighs. Now that she is standing, I can see her pistol strapped to her leg, below the short hem of her dress. It is a HMWP, the kind of handgun only a Spectre can get. Her status as the Council’s agent may be the reason why she is allowed to wear it so brazenly here. She does not wear synthetic leather or latex like most of the other dancers. I can feel the breathable, light, organic weave of her dress, soft under my fingers as she guides my hand to her waist.

The music moves through her with a shiver and she is overtaken by a spell. Eden presses her back against me, her eyes are closed and she is adrift in an ocean of harmonic waves. Then, almost as soon as she started, she stumbles, loses the rhythm and she can’t quite seem to get it back. I'm surprised by this, I have seen how she moves during a fight, the rhythm of gunfire guides her and she sows violence with the grace of a ballet dancer. It is why I have chosen to isolate her, she has the skills necessary to be a challenge.

This is clumsy. I know she is not inebriated, her glass is still sitting on the bartop, the honey colored liquid vibrates with the pulsating beat.

She throws her head back against my shoulder, and she laughs. The sound is jubilant, it rolls out of her with reckless abandon, and I am infected. I have not felt unadulterated joy in so long, it awakens a fire within me. The curve of her neck, a fragile thing, easily broken with the right twist of my hands, is exposed to me, and my mind is filled instead with thoughts of suckling on the tender skin there. I want to hear what other sounds I can draw from soft, rose-colored lips.

“I’ve never been good at dancing,” she shouts over the oscillations filling the air around us, she is still laughing, still moving off beat. I find myself enraptured, she throws herself so fully into an endeavor that she is mediocre at without embarrassment.

I have forgotten why I am here. No, I remember, I cannot forget. My goal has changed very suddenly, to end a life such as this would be as snuffing out a sun. The galaxy would grow unbearably bleak without the light of her gold-flecked eyes and the pure, sonorous mirth of her laughter.

I pull her flush against me, I feel the way her abdomen tightens under my palms, and a pleased sigh escapes from her, barely audible over the noise. But I am listening for every melodious note that she will bless me with. I lean down, my lips play across the ridge of her ear, “I will lead you, Eden. We will move as one tonight.”

A shiver rolls down her spine, and her cheeks blossom with color. “Yes,” her response flows out on a gentle breath. She wraps her hands over mine, and we are moving in tandem. Her eyes close again and she gives in, she surrenders control. The way she moves against me is full of power and promise, but she wants to be led. I feel a cord being pulled taut within me, I am full of wanting, and I need to feel her writhe like this beneath me.

As we dance, sweat gathers in beads like crystals along the swell of her breasts, and they roll suggestively into the valley between, disappearing where I cannot see them any longer. She guides one of my hands up her body, it ghosts teasingly over her chest, before she brings our hands to a rest against the side of her neck. I apply the faintest hint of pressure, I can feel the strain of tendons and ridges of her throat.

She moans, a sound of pure desire, and her fingers tighten over mine. “I have a room nearby, stay with me tonight?” A panting and plaintive request, it sounds almost like a prayer. It is I who should be praying to her.

I do not want to deny her, I do not believe that I could. “I said we would move as one tonight. Have you slept with a drell before?”

“I’ve never even seen anyone who looks like you before,” she pauses for a moment before continuing, “You’re beautiful.” She does not seem embarrassed by the admission, and I feel my heart swell with pride.

“I have venom, on my skin, on my tongue. You will be exposed to it.”

She is silent for precious heartbeats, I can feel her pulse quicken with my hand still pressed against her neck. “Will it kill me? Make me sick?”

I am at her ear again, and I can feel her squirm to try to move closer. “No. Eden, it will rob you of your senses until all that you know is the pleasure that I will give you. You will soar to the cosmos with my tongue in between your legs.” Her body shudders and I can feel how she is squeezing her thighs together. Her heart is racing, excitement thrums through her veins, just as it is through mine.

“Fuck,” she groans, and I can feel the warmth rising from her cheeks down to her breasts. She has already come undone for me.

Her grip around my hand increases, and suddenly she is pulling me away from the dance floor and quickly out of the club. The sudden silence is shocking, and I have to shake my head to clear the momentary confusion.

“I know a shortcut, I hope you’re not afraid of back alley thugs?”

It is my turn to laugh, it’s a sound I have not heard in too long. “Not at all.”

Eden’s head tilts a little, and she grins. Something cocksure and self-satisfied falls over her features. She enjoys the risk, and invites the danger to meet her. I have now seen the two faces of the same goddess. “Good. I would much rather see a gun in my face than another reporter’s camera.” I understand now why she comes all the way here to escape her duties and the pressure of being the first human Spectre.

I allow her to lead me through the alleys, though I already know where we're going. The last two were not brave enough to go this way, but I remember the twists and turns of this maze. I have been here before. I know it so well, I can easily spend the walk watching the subtle swing of her hips, the robust curve of her ass, and the sinewy muscles working in her legs as she walks ahead of me. She never looks behind at me, she is alert, her right hand lingers next to her hip, ready to draw her gun in a moment.

It is unnecessary. We arrive at the small hotel, well known for hosting Alliance marines on shore leave, without seeing a soul. She unlocks the door and she surprises me by turning to face me and pulling me into the room after her. The omni-tool on her wrist glows amber, and the door locks behind us. She has me by the collar of my synthetic weave armor, and her lips press into mine and they are even softer than they look. She giggles as I pull her flush against me.

“Do you always wear armor to go clubbing?” She asks her question to my mouth, she sounds deeply amused, not suspicious.

“Do you always wear a gun to go dancing?” I respond with a question that does not answer her query. I am so hot and it is taking all of my willpower not to rush. It is taking all of my willpower not to reveal my true name.

I can feel her smile, but I cannot see it, so close she is to me. “Fair enough … You’re going to have to give me some guidance, I don’t know where I should touch you,” she admits, her breath still warm against my lips.

I am an assassin, not a professor, but I will teach her tonight. I take her hand in mine and bring it to the frills at my neck, "Here, gently." I feel as she runs her thumb slowly across the folds there, she is watching her hand move as though she is trying to memorize the experience. Her touch sends electrical pulses through me, and warmth follows her fingers in a trail. Eden does not notice that I have unzipped her dress until the small straps holding it up fall loose on her arms.

She is not shy, however. Her answer is to step back and pull the garment up and over her head, and simultaneously kick off her shoes. She is suddenly a few inches shorter, but I barely notice. Eden Shepard stands before me wearing only underwear and a gun holster, and she is resplendent. The cheap lights illuminate freckled skin and soft breasts, the rise and fall of her chest is hypnotic. The small cloth barely covering the rest of her is soaked with her arousal, and I am overcome by this burning lust that has been building inside of me.

I want to taste her, all of her, starting with her mouth. I take her, my hand finds its way into the soft hair at the back of her head, and her heat is pulled against me, I can feel it even through my armor. Before I can take her mouth for mine, her hand gently falls to my lips. "Wait," she says. Her lids are heavy and she has not moved away, but still I worry that I've offended her. "I want to see all of you first. I want to be able to remember what you look like, clearly."

"Of course," I answer, and soon she is helping me remove the pieces of my armor. I am now as vulnerable as she is, more, in fact. She is still wearing her gun, and I know she's a powerful biotic in her own right. If her plan all along was to put me under a spell and bring me here so that she could end me, it would have worked.

But that is not what she does. Hazel eyes sweep over my form, and she is unabashed in her hunger. "Beautiful," she whispers, and this time she does not stop me from breathing in her praise as I claim her lips. She tastes faintly of the whiskey, but underneath it, something like citrus, she must have eaten before going to Purgatory. I brush my thumb over the roundness of her cheek, it is rougher than I imagined. Chapped by the winds of some barely hospitable planet, I think. As I am contemplating where she must have been last, I reach and undo the buckles holding her gun to her leg. It falls to the floor, and she doesn't care.

Her hands are all over me, her earlier hesitation forgotten as they roam every surface she can touch. She uses feathering touches along my waist and I cannot stop the rumbling chuckle that moves out of me in response, I am ticklish there. Eden hums in delight, and I catalog it as another of her sounds that I will cherish forever after this night. I know I will never see her again after this.

I memorize her on this night. Every sigh, every groan, every pleasured shout. The way she smells, jasmine mixed with the salt of her sweat and the musk of her desire. I know her taste and every place that makes her quiver and shake. The strength of her grasp as she pulls me against her and shouts a name she believes is mine. I will remember her eyes. First, as they were in Purgatory, bright and earthy. Then, as they were as we found release together, pupils so wide, only a thin halo of hazel around depths so dark, I am forever drowning in them.

I am saddened that she cannot remember as I can, but I hope she will think of me fondly. I will always remember how she sleeps on her stomach, an arm and a leg flung over the edge of the bed. I will remember the faintest sound of laughter at something only she can see, her dream bringing her some joke or oddity.

I must leave before she wakes. I am thrice damned and banished from the Garden of Eden of my own accord. I do not deserve to bask in her holy light.

I think I will go to Illium next.

I am crawling through an air ventilation shaft. It is a trite, stereotypical way to conduct an assassination, but effective nonetheless. I am not above convention if it leads me directly to my target. There is a group of soldiers fighting their way up the tower. They are the perfect distraction, this will be far simpler with their unknowing aid.

When I arrive at her office, my target is talking to someone, offering credits in exchange for the opportunity to keep her life. I can't hear the voice of the one she speaks to clearly. Nassana Dantius does not hear me drop from the ceiling.

I land behind a guard. Human male, rear approach, check shoulder to prevent turning, hands to chin and base of skull, neck-snap. Heavy pistol fire to dispatch the remaining guard. Nassana turns, I hold her in my arms as one might while comforting a lover and I shepherd her to the waters so lovingly tended by Kalahira.

There are three soldiers staring at me, but prayers for the wicked must not be forsaken. To my surprise, they wait for me to finish. As I turn to face them, their leader, a woman, puts her hands on her verdant helmet. She is a freelancer, perhaps.

"Well, I'll be damned, what a small galaxy," she says after a surprised chuckle. Even through the gentle warp of her breather helmet, it is a laugh that I treasure in my memories. A gentle hiss as the seal around her bright green helmet is released and chestnut hair falls in a wave, framing a smile like the sun, but her tooth is no longer chipped. Eyes the color of desert sands glimmering under the rays of an autumn sun look back at me. Her cheeks are covered in spidering, but healing scars. There can be no denying it, Eden Shepard stands before me. "It's safe to assume that your name never was Niké, was it?"

She is amused, I can hear her pure, sonorous, mirthful laughter hiding there, just beneath the surface of her question. "I apologize for the deception, Eden. It seemed necessary, at the time." She raises an eyebrow at me, I think perhaps she understands the context, but she is not upset. "I thought you were dead," I remark, everyone knows that she was killed two years ago. And not by me. It seems that fortune favors the bold, and there is no one bolder than her.

"I was dead - spaced with a suit rupture. But apparently it takes more than that to stop me!" She raises her armored fist in the air, a victorious gesture. She is laughing again, soulful eyes twinkle, and I feel the fire awaken in me once more. She is merry in spite of her own mortality. "I'm taking on the Collectors. I need someone with your skills on my team, Thane." I am blessed by my true name on her soft, rose-colored lips.

It is only now that I fully comprehend her two compatriots, a turian with a sniper rifle and the apparent skill required to use it, and a quarian woman armed with a high end omni-tool and a shotgun.

It is a small galaxy, indeed.

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