Originally Human

heels, breathing heavily. "Give me a moment."
    "No," he said, and pulled me over him like a blanket.
    "I think you've forgotten who's in charge," I said as he licked my nipple. He smiled and blew on it. I shivered.
    Passion was no less strong, but it built more slowly. Maybe because he and I both had to keep track of other things—he was watching the energies I couldn't see, manipulating them in ways I couldn't guess. But I could feel them, oh, yes, feel the power rising, swirling between us, yet I had to keep us paced to each other.
    Finally I rose over him, guided myself down and sighed with pleasure at the fullness. I ran my fingernails over his chest. "I am
very
happy with the body you chose," I said, leaning forward and all but purring. "If you see your friend again, give him my compliments."
    Michael laughed. He gripped my hips and thrust up. And undid all my care. The fall towards climax hit so fast I couldn't stop it. "Michael!" He thrust again and the swirls seemed to reach for me. "Wait!"
    "No, Molly, it's now. Now! Reach for me, go deep—"
    I reached. Gripped him tight with my inner muscles even as I bore down, drank-deep—convulsed. And screamed.
    It wasn't pain, though something ripped me open. It wasn't pleasure, though I spun on the wheel of a climax, caught in a vortex that was intensely physical, and not physical at all. It wasn't dark or light, warm or cold, or anything I have names for.
    And then, for a timeless period, it wasn't me anymore.
    Not just me.
    Then I was myself again, the only one in my body. Which ached all over, and not just in the usual places. Michael was a warm, lumpy mattress beneath me. His breath was warm and moist against my cheek.
    It was dark. The candles had burned down. One was flickering, nearly out. "Well, sailor," I whispered, "you do know how to show a girl a good time."
    "Ahh," he said. "I don't think I have the breath to laugh." He paused. "I can't feel my left hand."
    I realized I was lying on it. I moved. "It's asleep. Be prepared for some fierce pins and needles."
    "Pins and… ow!" He held it up, glaring at it. "Bizarre."
    "Returning circulation." I managed to roll off him. "Whew." I turned my head to smile at him. "About eight hundred, if I've figured it right."
    His brow creased. "What?"
    "You. You're something over eight hundred years old. Though you weren't entirely
there
for the first three or four centuries, were you?"
    I hadn't experienced all of Michael, nor had he, I think, blended with all of me. Partly because, as he'd said, he was still in pieces, with large gaps in his memories. Partly because some of what he'd lived I had no context for, so it hadn't stuck.
    I had enough. "Poor Cullen. If he'd known he was entertaining the—"
    "Shh." He laid a hand over my lips. "Not even in teasing, Molly. Not even here. It isn't safe."
    I nodded, understanding. Understanding so much more than I'd expected to. My lover, my mystery man really was a myth of sorts.
    Michael was the missing Codex Arcanum. The Book of All Magic.
    His creator… I had only shadowy images of the one who'd conceived him An adept? One of the Old Ones? I didn't know, nor did I understand why he'd done it. Perhaps the same desire that led humans to build libraries, the need to keep knowledge from being scattered or destroyed. For centuries, whatever the sorcerers and magicians of many realms had written in their spell books—which weren't always books, nor was the recording always writing—had also been "written" into Michael.
    He'd been created here, though. Here on Earth, that is. Not on this continent, but somewhere in my world. Shortly after being made, he'd been sent to another realm, a place where magic ran wild.
    Later, he'd developed a sort of homesickness for this world. At the time, though, he hadn't cared. He wasn't alive then.
    Had his creator planned for him to come to consciousness? Michael himself didn't know, and I wasn't about to guess. But the place where he'd been stashed was much smaller than our universe, with magic spilling all over itself. Anything that held on to a stable form there for long achieved life. Anything living and sufficiently complex become sentient.
    Michael had been built to last. And he certainly wasn't simple.
    He shifted beside me, propping himself up to look down on my face. He traced my lip with a finger. "You are well, Molly? You are all right?"
    "I'm well." I kissed his finger. "Unbelievably tired, but well. Um… shouldn't we be getting out