Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga)

by Anna Erishkigal

  "As it was when you first found me here," Mikhail threw back his head and laughed. "Do you not know, wife, that it nearly killed me to obey your father's wishes?"

  "Yes," Ninsianna gave him a predatory grin. "And I, silly maiden, thought it was because you did not desire me. But now that I know you do, I shall give you no quarter until you beg for mercy."

  “And what will happen if I disobey a direct order, Sir?” Mikhail asked. His body felt so alive that it felt as though he had touched a live wire, although he had no way to explain that modern analogy to her.

  "Then I shall have to administer punishment, disobedient Colonel," Ninsianna laughed. She caressed his exquisitely sensitive manhood into an even larger erection.

  "Oh, gods!" Mikhail arched his hips up to meet her touch. "I do declare I enjoy this punishment, General Ninsianna!"

  "Close your eyes and no peeking!" Ninsianna placed her hand over his eyes. "Now lay back and enjoy it, Colonel. That's an order."

  "Yes, Ma'am!"

  Mikhail's flesh trembled with anticipation of where she would touch him next. Eyes closed, he soaked up the sensation of heat flowing off of her healer's hands like two live wires that sang to every nerve fiber of his body, whispering of the pleasures to come. His eyes shot open again as her lips closed gently around the head of his manhood, playfully flitting her tongue down the little hole in the middle.

  “My lord, Ninsianna,” his hips arched upwards into her mouth despite his best efforts to play this game with dignity. “If you keep administering that kind of punishment, I shan't last long before I demand surrender!”

  “Ah! My sweet Angelic," Ninsianna teased. "You always recover so quickly. Perhaps I will make you lay still while you reach ecstasy again and again. I do so much enjoy the look on your face as you lose control."

  “But it was my intent to pleasure you tonight."

  “I’m in charge, remember?” Her golden eyes glowed brighter. “If you're a good soldier, perhaps I will allow you to be in charge of round two.”

  His belly jerked at each exquisite tug of her lips against the sensitive tip of his manhood. He fruitlessly tried to slip off his tightly laced combat boots to unhobble his ankles and only entangled himself further in the pleasant trap she had ensnared him in. There was not much he could do but surrender to her sweet, evil plans to turn him into a quivering bowl of porridge.

  “Yes, Ma'am,” he panted.

  Ninsianna cradled his testicles and sent shivers through his body as she ran her fingernails across the sensitive flesh, making his hair stand on end and giving him goose bumps. Exquisitely pleasant little power surges roiled through his body as she caressed him to a certain level of desire and then deliberately left him hanging, too close to release to stop, but not quite close enough to go the rest of the way without her. If she wanted him to whimper for mercy, he would, but oh! It felt so good to prolong the pleasure!

  Ninsianna gloated as he lay before her naked and vulnerable, each caress designed to elicit a tremble of desire. Did she have any idea how much power she held over him? He searched her eyes, yearning to finish whatever connection his subconscious screamed at him needed to be completed and realized the eyes which looked back at him were not his wife's, but older, cynical eyes which examined every shudder of pleasure as though it was a carefully calculated chess move. His passion turned cold. Ninsianna had an unwanted passenger.

  "Is nothing sacred?" Mikhail exclaimed. He sat up and touched the cheek of She-who-is-Ninsianna, determined this time not to react in anger, but to appeal to HER fundamental sense of fairness. "Don't you receive enough devotion from your own husband that you need to intrude upon Ninsianna's time with me?"

  She-who-is-Ninsianna gave him a predatory grin. Although the features were still Ninsianna's, he could detect the visage of an even more beautiful, if that were possible, chiseled beauty superimposed beneath the physical form of his wife. Was this what it was like for Ninsianna to see her visions?

  "And what makes you think she and I are not the same?" She-who-is-Ninsianna's voice reverberated with power.

  Mikhail wished fervently he had something to cover his nakedness from this deity who gazed upon him as though he was a tasty meal. With his ankles hobbled and his shirt pushed down to entrap his elbows, he was, quite literally, at the goddess' mercy.

  "Perhaps such intimacies are of little import to you," Mikhail pleaded with her. "But they are to me. I will serve you, but I will not make love to you. That gift is reserved only for my wife."

  "And what if I do not wish to relinquish my mortal vessel?" She-who-is-Ninsianna gave him a wolfish grin.

  He spoke now directly to his wife the same way he did whenever she traveled too far into the dreamtime and Needa fetched him to call her back. She-who-is was powerful, but what little he remembered about gods and demons whispered to him that there was always an element of choice.

  "It is you I wish to make love to, mo ghrá," Mikhail spoke to Ninsianna and not the deity who used her body. "Let She-who-is make love to her own husband, for it is said he protects her with his immortal existence."

  Mikhail sensed something shift beneath his own subconscious, as though his appeal had reached something which lurked beneath him, now, as well. What? Was his marriage some sort of dress-up game for the gods?

  "You spurn me, Sword of the Gods?" She-who-is-Ninsianna hissed. SHE crushed the tender balls of flesh cupped in Ninsianna's hand until his nostrils flared with pain and tears welled in his eyes, but he denied her the satisfaction of crying out. Her eyes turned copper with anger, but beneath it Mikhail thought he detected hurt and surprise. Had no mortal ever refused the goddess' affections?

  "We are not your puppets," Mikhail said to HER. "I will defend your mortal vessel with my dying breath, but I will only make love to her. Not you. Do not presume I cannot tell the difference."

  "Can you?" She-who-is-Ninsianna asked. "Really?"

  Yes … could he? Lately, it had been difficult to tell where Ninsianna ended and the power she channeled began. For the first time it dawned on him that perhaps allowing himself to fall in love with the goddess' Chosen One instead of simply defending her had not been his wisest decision? She-who-is caused Ninsianna's lips to curve up in a cruel smile.

  "Please," Mikhail begged. "To you this is but a game, but Ninsianna is my mate. How can you ask me to betray her love?"

  She-who-is-Ninsianna's contemptuous expression softened. She compelled Ninsianna to caress his cheek.

  "You sound like HIM!" She-who-is said softly. An expression of tenderness graced those beautiful features SHE had borrowed. "Perhaps HE is right? Perhaps sometimes I am a little too much like my father?"

  HER lips pressed tenderly against his, but it felt as though it was not him she kissed, but somebody else. A spark of electricity leaped between them. That dark hunger which moved perpetually beneath his subconscious swelled his heart and forced him to respond even though he knew this was not his wife. SHE then broke off her kiss, her expression wistful, and let Ninsianna go, leaving his wife wearing a puzzled expression.

  Ninsianna blinked several times before noticing she held his testicles crushed in her hand. She loosened her grip and patted the tender flesh with much affection. Mikhail gave a relieved sigh. Not only had that hurt, but for a moment he had feared the goddess would not let Ninsianna go.

  “Mikhail,” Ninsianna covered for the temporary memory lapse by pretending nothing had happened. “You chide me for drifting off to some other place! But look! Your little friend has fallen asleep on me.”

  He looked down to where his manhood had gone limp. Apparently She-who-is liked to control the men who served her by the short hairs. Literally. He did not think SHE was used to having her champions refuse her affections.

  “Get your mind off of whatever weapons training you’re thinking of and focus on this weapon!” Ninsianna pointed her finger at his manhood as though scolding a naughty child, clueless about what had just happened. "Stand at attention, soldier,
and salute your commanding officer!"

  He pulled her into his arms. This, he was certain, was Ninsianna. He grabbed her hand and kissed her palm, thankful the goddess had granted his prayer to release his wife.

  "Don't you understand that it is you I love," Mikhail searched for the sweet, beige-eyed woman he had fallen in love with and not the powerful golden-eyed one who commanded far more power than she realized, "and not the power of the gods?"

  "I do not understand of what you speak," Ninsianna's expression was confused.

  "You do," Mikhail flattened her palm against the scar in his chest. "Do not let HER come between us again. Please! It is you I love, not SHE."

  "But we are one and the same," Ninsianna said.

  "No," Mikhail touched her cheek. "You obey HER the same way that I obey my Emperor because in the end we have a common purpose in the scheme of things. But that does not mean we should give up who we are."

  Ninsianna vacillated as though she was not entirely certain what had happened. Was she aware of how much the goddess influenced her? Yes … and no. Didn't she have any idea how dangerous it was to give herself over to a god? The ancient ones might be powerful, but in a way, so far as he was concerned, they were little different than a village chief. Some were good, some not so good, but all had flaws … including the deity who ruled All-That-Is.

  Ninsianna's lip trembled with insecurity. She could no doubt sense he was less than pleased with her about something, but the goddess had wiped her memory of the little games she sometimes liked to play. That rational part of himself reminded him that it was SHE he was displeased with and not Ninsianna.

  “Tell me what you like and I will pleasure you," Ninsianna's eyes were wary.

  “I need you to love me as much as I love you.” Mikhail searched her eyes to see if she understood what he asked of her. By her puzzled expression she did not. How could she? He’d been unable to articulate the aching need which clamored for completion himself.

  “You know that I love you,” Ninsianna ran her fingers across his cheek. “You are my husband! I would not have married you if I did not love you.”

  “I know,” he said. “It’s just … it’s just that sometimes I wonder why you love me?”

  Understanding dawned as she realized whatever had been bothering him since the night of the attack bothered him once again.

  "You are the most beautiful, powerful, amazing man I have ever laid eyes upon.”

  “What if I wasn’t beautiful?” he scrutinized her expression to gauge the truth of her answer. “What if I was injured or disfigured? Or the Halifians cut off my wings so I couldn’t fly anymore? Or I couldn’t remember how to use a sword? Would you still love me then? Unconditionally?”

  Ninsianna frowned as though she weighed each possibility against the way she would feel should each event occur. Insecurity bubbled forth from Mikhail's subconscious, screaming that this was not the way a mated pair was supposed to judge one another. She spoke the words he yearned to hear.

  “Of course I would still love you,” she said with a not-entirely-genuine smile. “You are my husband. We took a vow to love one another until death rent us apart.”

  The memory niggled at his subconscious, but it would not surface. Something about her words did not sound right. He tried to wrest free the memory about why he felt so uneasy. If he couldn’t feel her and he got sick or injured, he would….

  Ninsianna touched his temple. Reassurance flooded into his mind.

  'These worries cause you great pain. Push them out of your mind, Mo ghrá. You are not alone…'

  The memory that had been trying to surface receded back beneath the surface.

  "Make love to me, my husband," Ninsianna's expression was tender. "And stop this talk of worries or fear. You know I love you, do you not?" Warmth flowed out of her hands to touch the shattered place where once upon a time she had reached into his chest and touched his still-beating heart.

  The instinct receded, went away, retreated into that part of his subconscious which She-who-is had never been able to repress, but Ninsianna had because she had promised him whilst standing at the doorway to eternity that he would never have to face the one thing he feared more than anything in the universe.

  Not alone…

  He shook his head. What had they just been discussing? His beautiful, golden-eyed wife stared down at him wearing a worried expression, her talented healer's hands stroking his manhood to awaken the fire which lived within his loins. With a growl he lay her down upon the bed, ravenous to feel himself inside of her. Tasting her lips like a hungry animal, he flared his wings and prepared to carry her to new heights of satisfaction. Nobody lay on the other side of the wall tonight to hear them if he thumped his wings. He did so deliberately just to hear her laugh.

  Ninsianna giggled. The worried expression she wore disappeared into one of relief. “Ah! The sound of love.”

  “My boots,” he complained between kisses as he tried to kick off his pants, “are stuck.”

  “Then you shall just have to make love to me hobbled at the ankles,” she nipped his neck to whisper in his ear. “While I milk your sweet manhood for the milk of your desire.”

  Electricity surged through his body and pooled in his loins at such naughty talk. His manhood twanged insistently for him to shut up and get to the business at hand. The only thing that mattered was the pure physical sensation of his manhood slipping gently into her warm, moist depths. She tilted her hips upward to welcome his length, reaching down to guide him to her waiting mysteries.

  “Tell me that you love me?” Her eyes were vulnerable, as though she feared he might answer that he did not love her.

  “I love you more than my own existence,” he trembled with the need to become one with her.

  She moaned with pleasure as he pushed inside of her and hesitated, trembling, until he felt her relax around him. Desire rang through his body and made his heart race. He gasped for breath at the intensity of their lovemaking, the sudden feeling that whatever worry had been weighing down upon him had been eliminated. She rose towards ecstasy with him as they both approached the edge together. Her feminine mysteries grabbed his manhood, milking his essence and pulling him along with her into that wonderful place where the world did not matter.

  With a cry of release, he shuddered into her as an expansive feeling exploded into his brain and spilled his seed into her already-full womb. He sensed there should be something more, but he brushed the clamoring off as an unimportant worry.

  “Oh … my gods … that … was …” Ninsianna panted. A huge smile lit up her face as she tried to catch her breath.

  “Amazing,” he collapsed to one side, sweaty and spent. "Ouch! I think I'll be sporting bruises tomorrow morning where I banged my wings against the wall." He captured her mouth for a tender kiss.

  "Shall we eat that food Mama sent before it gets too cold?" Ninsianna asked. "If we spend the night here together, we need to keep up our strength."

  Mikhail placed his hand upon the curve of her abdomen.

  "When shall I feel our son or daughter quicken?"

  "Perhaps another month for a first baby," Ninsianna gave him a sweet smile. “It’s a boy, you know?”

  “No matter what the gender, I shall love it,” he reassured her. "In my culture, we do not recognize such trivial differences."

  Her fingers moved a stray lock of hair out of his eyes. "I have missed you, my love. Let us not quarrel again. Okay? I do not like it when others come between us."

  His breath caught in his chest as his heart skipped a beat. No matter what it took, he would carve more days out of his busy schedule to spend with her. In his desire to assuage her fears that some great evil was coming, they had forgotten how they had come together in the first place. As for his other peculiar worry … it was unimportant, erased from his mind as though it had never existed.

  He gazed into her beautiful golden eyes, always amazed at the internal illumination glowed back at him after they
made love. Is it her? Some tiny voice whispered up from his subconscious? Yes. This was her. His mate. He gently encircled her in his arms and wings and fluffed out his feathers so she would not feel the autumn chill.

  Chapter 96

  November – 3,390 BC

  Earth: Village of Assur

  Gita

  Gita thought for sure the flood-tide had finally come which would someday tumble their mud-brick house off the precipice where the Hiddekel River had undercut the steep embankment. Only the most foolish or desperate lived in this outer ring which teetered at the brink of collapse. Not even the Chief's money, spent to shore up their outer wall after the last raid, could prevent this house from being taken by the river.

  Her exhaustion cleared. Somebody pounded at the door. Had she overslept? Oh … it was rest day. Just what she needed. To have no excuse to escape her father.

  She turned carefully to face the pounding so as not to roll off the fragile raised sleeping platform she had built for herself in the eves after the settling walls had caused the second story of their house to collapse downwards onto the first some years back. It was just wide enough to sleep on, so long as she didn't turn over.

  The knocking grew more insistent. She'd better go see who was at the door before it woke her father.

  Gita pulled on her tattered shawl, belting it around her waist like a man's kilt, and skittered down the slender pole she used as a ladder. The pole bowed beneath her weight, but the insubstantial ladder meant her father could do no more than rail at her instead of dragging her out of bed as each night alcohol fueled his anger. What few implements Merariy could lob at her fragile perch had long ago shattered except for his drinking flagon which, even in a drunken stupor, he was far too clever to crack and deprive himself of his favorite poison.

  She opened the door to find Shahla's father, Laum, standing in the pre-dawn light.