The Daughters of Persephone, A Space Opera Special Edition

by Julia Barrett

  Estian bolted upright in bed. Something was different. Something… He peered around his darkened cubicle. He was alone, as he’d been when he’d fallen asleep, and nothing in the room had changed. Yet he was certain he’d heard something move. Something had shifted.

  “Brother Fran,” Estian called out. “Brother Fran, are you out there?”

  The door opened a crack. “Yes, Father. How may I help you?”

  “Did you…? Did someone drop something?”

  “No, Father, the night has been quiet as a tomb. Why?”

  “Something woke me,” said the high priest. “I could swear I heard a noise, a scraping noise, like the sound of a heavy door opening or furniture moving.”

  “I heard nothing. So sorry, Father. Perhaps the sound came from the courtyard. I can send a Brother to check for intruders if you so order. There’s been no alarm from the guards at the gate.”

  “Yes, do that. I would feel better if a few of the Brothers were to check the perimeter of the monastery. Call down to the guards. Tell them to be on the alert. I heard something. I can’t quite describe it, but I know I heard a sound.”

  “I’ll do that now, Father.” Brother Fran turned away.

  “No, wait. After the Brothers have scoured the monastery grounds, report back to me.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Brother Fran disappeared from the doorway. The high priest rose from his bed. Chilled, he pulled his robes tight around him. He strode to the window and looked out over the grounds. The two moons of Ottorum had already set and the night was very dark. He could see figures moving about, but the shapes were vague and ill defined. He knew it was the Brothers along with the few secular guards they employed.

  Something had stirred in the night and awakened him. Estian closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind. If he only had some of the Blood to help him find what he sought.

  He got the distinct feeling she had moved, the One, the Thousand Year Empress. He stood still, eyes squeezed shut, mind stretching to the best of his limited ability. To his surprise, he caught the briefest glimpse of a tall woman with mahogany hair and gray eyes. She turned to look at him. She looked right at him, sending a chill through his entire body. Her cool gray eyes stared, unblinking, into his and she smiled.

  In the space of a heartbeat, she vanished.

  Estian opened his eyes. His legs shook beneath him. She’d emerged from hiding, praise the One God, of that he had no doubt. The Thousand Year Empress was calling him, tempting him to come after her.

  Did he dare? The vision reeked of danger. But then, every vision he’d ever had reeked of danger. That had never stopped him. Where was she? Why now? Or was this merely a dream within a dream, born out of desperation?

  Estian left his room and made his way to the Chapel of the God. The supplicants would be there, red and black candles lit, crawling back and forth on the rough stones, streaking the floor with their useless blood.

  He edged past the bodies in his path as if they were garbage. These supplicants were unimportant. They were the ignorant who believed the power of the One God was out of their reach; that it resided up in the heavens. Estian and his inner circle knew better. The One God would live in him and in the Brothers if he could only drink the Blood, her God-cursed, God-blessed Royal Blood.

  He entered his personal office through the small door hidden behind the altar. Seated behind his desk, Estian sent out private messages to his most trusted advisors, ordering them back to Ottorum by the earliest transport available and then he called his assistant, Brother Draghure.

  “Recruit more seekers,” he ordered. “Purchase the services of as many as we can afford. Use any means necessary to get them to Calen, to Tista Province. She has returned.”

  Kane lowered Issa to the ground. It had taken all his strength not to bury his face in her hair and bite the soft, fragrant nape of her neck, in the manner of a stallion covering a mare. Every step Bes took rubbed her sweet bottom against him, keeping him in agony.

  “I’ll see to the horses,” he said, his voice brusque, motioning her toward his cabin. “The door is unlatched.”

  “I’ll see to my own horse,” replied Issa, her voice as rough as his. “No one does my work for me.”

  “Ah, but he’s my horse now,” Kane reminded her. “He’s your gift to me.”

  Issa leaned against the horse’s flank, facing him. “He doesn’t come free, you know. There are conditions attached.”

  Dropping the reins, Kane put his palms on the black stallion’s side, one on either side of her head. “Conditions, you say? Tell me about these conditions.” He saw Issa glance to the right and left.

  “You are one,” she murmured, lifting her luminous gray eyes to his. “I am another.”

  Kane took her mouth then, tasting those luscious lips he’d dreamed of for eight long years. They were soft and warm against his, and innocent. He lifted his head and searched her eyes. “You’ve never?”

  Issa turned her face from his and stared at the wooden gate, but her voice was clear in the night air. “It was not permitted. I haven’t been permitted to… I am of the Blood, Kane. I cannot be with just any man. I told you eight years ago you were my mate. Nothing has happened to change that.”

  Kane traced the line of her jaw with a gentle finger, her cheek cool beneath his touch. He tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “It will hurt, Issa, and I don’t want your first time to be in a paddock.”

  He saw the tears that filled her eyes. “I want my first time to be wherever you wish it to be and it must be soon. Kane, I burn through and through with power. Please, it must be soon.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ll understand after,” Issa said. “Let me help you with the horses, please. I must focus on something and then we can, whatever you wish, wherever you wish.”

  “All right,” Kane agreed. He could hear desperation in her voice, and truth. He decided now was not the time to press her for answers. They unsaddled the horses in silence, putting their gear away in Kane’s shed. Both brushed the dust and sweat from the stallions and scattered grass hay and grain in two separate piles. Kane checked to make certain the water trough was full and there was no ice on the surface.

  He watched Issa toss her saddlebags over her shoulder. She wore a knife at her belt and she held her sheathed sword in her left hand. At the entrance to the barn she hesitated, as if waiting for him to lead the way.

  Kane approached, noticing how pale her face appeared in the moonlight, how her eyes were half-closed. He saw the way her legs shook beneath her.

  “What in the seven hells?”

  He scooped Issa up in his arms just as she dropped everything she carried and began to topple forward. She lay like a limp rag against his chest and he ran with her to the door of his cottage, kicking it open and laying her on his pallet before the dark, cold fireplace.

  “Issa,” he murmured. “Issa.” Kane reached his hand beneath her weave and pressed his palm to her chest. He could feel her heart flutter against his hand. Her breath came in quick pants.

  “A knife.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Give me a knife.”

  “Why?”

  Issa opened her eyes and looked into his, showing him the depths of her terror. Without hesitation he pulled his knife from its sheath and pressed the handle into her open palm.

  She sliced deep into her flesh. Her blood flowed red even in the dark, and then she grabbed his hand with surprising strength. Kane flinched, but he didn’t pull away. She cut into his palm as well and she held their bleeding hands together. She closed her eyes and lay back.

  Within seconds, his body burned.

  “I need this,” she said, and her voice broke. “I need you or I will vanish. Kane, help me.”

  “What do I do? How do I help you?” He held tight to her hand, watching as their blood mingled and streaked the pale skin of her wrist.

  He watched Issa swallow hard. “This is the Blood Bond,” she said. “
We must… You must… Kane, shut up and kiss me.”

  Kane wasn’t certain he understood everything, but he knew what she wanted. He could feel it in the pounding of his heart as her blood flowed into his body.

  Take me, she urged him. Claim me. Make me yours.

  His lips descended upon hers, and this time she opened for him, allowing him to taste her, to feel the silk softness of her mouth. She touched the tip of her tongue to his, tentative at first, then with boldness and she began to kiss him back. He throbbed with wanting, aching to bury himself inside her.

  Kane tore his mouth away. Still keeping his one hand twined with hers, he managed to use his free hand to lift Issa’s weave and unfasten her trousers. Issa sighed.

  “I need my hand,” he growled and she released him. He shot a glance at his palm, expecting to see a gaping wound, but the skin had closed beneath a smear of blood. Kane spared his hand no more thought as he tugged her boots off and then her trousers. Issa lay exposed before him, her skin flawless in the light of the setting moon shining through the uncovered window. Her legs were long and muscular, well formed, her ankles delicate, her hips round and inviting, and he knew she would grip him tight when he was inside her.

  Gods, her smell was sweet. Without a second thought, he spread her wider, and lowered his head to the satin flesh hidden between her legs. He licked her, closing his eyes, savoring her sweet salt. His tongue was greedy, invading every part of her as she writhed against him, crying out his name.

  He felt her thread her hands through his braids and he groaned. She tried to pull his head away then, and he knew it was because she had never before experienced the kind of pleasure he was giving her.

  “No,” he said. “Let me do this. Let me have this.”

  She lay back down, granting him permission.

  At last Kane rose over her. By the Gods, the woman was heaven, with skin as smooth as a new-born brahmah, a taste as rare as Akkan honey, a mouth designed for kissing, a body created for love.

  Enough foreplay. Kane could contain himself no longer.

  “I’m going to take you,” Kane murmured in her ear. Issa sucked in a breath and nodded; the movement barely perceptible in the dark. “It will hurt, Issa. I’m a big man.”

  “It will hurt less if we share the Blood once more.” Issa’s voice was low. “Take your knife and cut us both. I will heal you, I promise. We will share the pleasure and the pain. Are you willing? It is the way of the Blood.”

  “Where?” Kane hissed as he unfastened his trousers and freed himself.

  “My hand, my wrist, my arm, anywhere.”

  Kane picked up his knife from the side of the pallet and he tried not to hesitate when Issa presented her right palm to him. He sliced across its surface as fast as he could, reluctant to mar her perfect skin. He sliced his left palm and pressed their bleeding hands together. At the same moment, he shifted his hips and thrust into her in one quick, hard motion, taking her innocence, feeling her body jerk beneath him at his sudden invasion. The pleasure was exquisite, and the pain, her pain, just as moving. Kane hung his head and held himself still for a few moments, glorying in the otherworldly sensation.

  Issa wrapped her long legs around his hips. Her free arm clutched at his shoulders as her mouth sought his and any intention he’d had about taking her with gentleness vanished. “Seven hells, Issa,” he gritted out against her mouth as he plunged into her. “I wanted to take you with care.”

  Her only answer was to meet him thrust for thrust, lifting him higher than he’d ever been as they both peaked together. He could feel her climax crash over her, as he was carried along for the ride of his life.

  Kane held himself above her afterwards, his arms shaking with effort.

  “Come here,” Issa whispered. She pulled him to her chest.

  Kane tucked his head into her neck, pressing his lips to her delicate flesh. He wanted to say something, tell her how much this joining had meant to him, how much she meant to him, how many nights he’d dreamed of this very thing, but he couldn’t seem to find the words.

  “It’s all right,” Issa said. “You don’t have to speak. I already know.”

  Half asleep, Issa felt Kane remove the rest of her clothing and wrap her in blankets of the softest winat wool. He left the cabin, returning a short time later with her gear and her sword. She kept her eyes closed, sated, resting in that space she thought of as in-between while she watched him move about the cottage, seeing through his eyes.

  He carried in an armful of wood and built a fire in the cold stove. She felt hungry, she felt his hunger as well, and she knew she should eat, but she hungered for far more than food. She hungered to repeat that connection, the joining with the man of her choice, sharing the little death that had been bequeathed to mankind by the First Gods.

  This was why the Empress Aja and the Lady Ennat had turned away from power, to be with their men. To bear children who were not cursed with the sight.

  Tem had never allowed herself to share the Blood Bond as her sisters had. She avoided any real connection with the men she had intercourse with. Their value lay in their genetic contribution to the line, nothing more. There was a method behind Tem’s madness, but Issa viewed it as a form of madness nonetheless.

  In sharing her blood, Issa had discovered the love in Kane’s heart and she grasped the rightness of Aja’s act.

  I will not save the Empire. I will perhaps save Calen, but the Empire must fend for itself. Aja is correct in her thinking. Right or wrong, good or bad, men and women want what they want, and they are fated to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. My actions or inactions will make no difference in the long run.

  Hearing Kane putter about the kitchen, Issa turned her attention to the future, studying the various paths before her.

  It may take another thousand years, but evil will rise and so will another like me, and the cycle will repeat until the end of time.

  No, she would resist the temptation Tem had laid before her, the temptation to travel between the future and the past, to mend the holes humans tore in the fabric of time and space. Let mankind do their worst, she decided. Her affairs would be in the here and now, and right now, her affairs involved Kane Tirol.

  Issa opened her eyes to find Kane sitting beside her. He held a steaming mug of broth. As he helped her to sit, the blanket slid off her shoulders and she saw his eyes follow its course and come to rest on her exposed nipples. They puckered beneath his gaze. He grinned at her and set the mug down on a nearby chest.

  “Tasty,” he said, his voice rough, and he leaned down to tug on each nipple with his teeth.

  Issa gasped and thrust her chest forward. It seemed to be an automatic response to his attention.

  “Gods,” he muttered, “you are beautiful.” He bent to retrieve the broth. “Eat,” he ordered her, handing over the mug. “I know you are hungry.”

  Issa grinned. “No one orders the Empress to do anything,” she said.

  Kane grinned back at her, his smile filled with humor and warmth, and Issa felt his wanting all the way to her toes.

  “Here, lean on me.” He climbed onto the pallet and slid behind her, pulling her back against him, tugging on her until she reclined against his chest, her legs stretched out between his own. “Drink,” he repeated, pulling the blanket up to her waist.

  “I’m naked,” Issa protested. “You are fully clothed.”

  “Ah, I’ve planned it that way, my Lady. All the better to please you.”

  Issa burst out laughing. “So I’m supposed to drink this while you pleasure me?”

  “Yes,” Kane breathed the word in her ear and he bit down on her shoulder. “You have much catching up to do.”

  Issa sucked in a quick breath. “And you intend to catch me up in one night? Look there.” She inclined her head toward the window. “It’s nearly dawn.”

  “Without a doubt,” Kane growled and his hands slid around her to cup her breasts. “I intend to do many things with you, my lov
e. We have time. I’ve seen what’s in your mind and I know we have time.”

  “You’ve seen what’s in my mind?” Issa rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “That’s not possible.”

  “Possible or not, I’ve seen it.”

  A hand slipped along her abdomen, the mere touch of his calloused palm against her skin arousing her more than she imagined possible. “Drink your soup,” he ordered.

  Issa cooperated and she took a sip, concentrating on the saltiness of the broth and the feel of his fingers on her, and she realized that attending to both required all her will. It was the same in nature as the tests Aja had put her to, but Kane was not Aja, and his challenge was pure pleasure while Aja’s practices often involved extreme duress. Without thinking, Issa laughed. She had come back to the future only to find the past repeated, but in a way she much preferred.

  “Kane,” she murmured. “Not everything happens exactly as I see it. The ways of the future are not set in stone. Things can change.”

  “Things have already changed, Issa, but I know we have time. Two days before Upo arrives with men. Three days before my men report. Drink.”

  Issa closed her eyes and sipped as his fingers worked magic. Her hand began to shake and she set the mug down on the chest, concerned she would spill the hot soup. She lifted her arms and reached behind her, cradling Kane’s head, pulling him close. He used his chin to shift her hair away and he bit down on the tender juncture of her neck and shoulder.

  Issa shivered. “Oh, Kane, yes.”

  “Upo will be here in half a day,” announced Issa, as she drowsed against Kane in his wooden bathing tub. “He brings a rider with him. The man is a traitor.”

  “Oh?” asked Kane. “What name does he go by?”

  “He calls himself Coppi Hesh. He has been off world a long time. The high priest of the Black Frocks pays him well to do his bidding, to sniff out women and children of the Blood. His mission is to find me.”

  “Then I’ll kill him for you, Lady.” Kane’s voice was very serious, but his hands soaped her breasts and Issa couldn’t help but laugh.