The Golden Bell

by Autumn Dawn

  “Be good, my Dragonfly. Be very, very good,” he whispered, lifting her chin until their faces were only inches apart. He stroked his fingers lightly down her neck, making her breath catch. A warning glinted in his eyes. “You won’t like it if I have to correct you.”

  Jasmine pulled away and looked pointedly at the carved panels of the door, resenting how he made her feel. He was the enemy. “You get off on trying to scare women, don’t you?”

  Not really. Keilor paused, considering their uninvited guest. Initially he’d agreed with Jayems that the most efficient way to be rid of the human was to frighten her silly. That plan had failed miserably. But who could have known about her courage? Rihlia had been ready to run, and without provocation. Perhaps it was time to find a new way of dealing with the human.

  After all, like it or not, she was going to be here a while.

  Opening the door, he gestured her inside with a flourish. “Lights,” he called, and the lights came on. “Softer,” he ordered, and they dimmed. His eyes swept down her body, noting her tousled hair. She smelled like sweat and fear, and her eyes were shadowed with exhaustion.

  “Bath,” he called, and steaming water began to fill a tub at the side of the large room. It was large enough for four people and reached by a series of steps chiseled of blue veined marble. A carved screen, now folded, stood between it and a handsome armoire of red wood and mirrored doors. He gestured toward the armoire. “Towels. The door next to it is a closet, not that you’ll find anything in it at the moment.” He turned slightly on the parquet flooring. “Bed.”

  Jasmine glanced at the large bed against the left wall and did a double take. Vines curled around a pair of lovers entwined in a standing position on each post. She rolled her eyes, grateful that she rarely blushed. Heaven help her. It would be a miracle if she could get to sleep in such a bed. She dared a glance at the headboard and quickly looked away, brain burning.

  “Don’t you have somewhere else I can sleep?” Her eyes skittered restlessly around the otherwise elegant room, and then up at the ceiling. She groaned. An enormous mirror in a golden frame was mounted above the bed. “I mean...with a less…” She waved her hand at the bed.

  “I could,” he answered agreeably. He looked amused. “Though I couldn’t guarantee your bed would be solitary.”

  She glared at him. “Fine.” He raised an intrigued eyebrow. “This is fine,” she clarified.

  He shrugged. “As you wish. If you need anything—something to eat, for instance—just raise your voice slightly and call for service.”

  Jasmine waited a moment after he’d left and then quickly opened the door. Two wolf guards looked down at her inquiringly. She growled in frustration and shut the door, locking it for good measure. Then she slumped against it, done in. Lemming had stayed with Wiley, so nothing disturbed the silence in the room, or her thoughts, such as they were. Her brain felt numb—temporarily shocked into immobility by the events of the evening. Her body ached from her climb up and down the Alaskan hills, and her feet throbbed and sweated unmercifully in her double layer of socks.

  A click caused her to roll her head towards the tub. The water had stopped pouring. After a moment of contemplation she gave a fatalistic shrug. Ah, well. What else did she have to do?

  Jasmine sighed and stretched luxuriously against the silky sheets, then forced herself to roll over. It took a bit more effort to pry her eyes open long enough to actually see and process her surroundings. She sat up with a start.

  “Jas...are you awake yet?” Wiley’s voice sounded from a hidden intercom near the door.

  Jasmine groaned and brushed the sleep from her eyes, not certain she was ready to face the day. Remnants of her dreams, something involving mirrors and a dark haired lover, still haunted her mind. Well, she’d known this tacky bed was going to give her nightmares.

  “Jasmine!” Wiley sounded impatient.

  “Come in.”

  “I can’t—it’s locked.”

  “Ah, nuts.” Surrendering to the inevitable, she crawled out of bed and covered herself with a soft robe she’d found in the armoire before going to unlock the door.

  “About time,” Wiley grouched. Lemming was at her heels. “I was beginning to fear they’d done away with you, even though Jayems insisted you were still in here.” She gestured for the servants behind her to enter while Jasmine stifled a yawn. “I brought breakfast.” She crossed to the wardrobe and set a bundle of folded clothes inside. “You can see if these fit you after we eat, if you want.”

  “Great.” Jasmine pushed her shoulder length hair out of her face. A servant in a white and gold tunic and loose trousers set a large covered tray on the dining table and took off the lid. He set the table for two.

  “Shutters,” Wiley called out, and the wall directly opposite the door slid open like elevator doors, revealing a wall of clear glass with a breathtaking view.

  Jasmine drew in a breath, distracted from the delicious smells of breakfast, and moved closer to stare in awe at the sheer drop below her window.

  It was misty outside, the kind of thick fog that was almost rain, but even so she could make out the cove five stories below her room. Towering redwoods rose on every side, to the edges of the shore, though they were half hidden in the haze. Farther out, gray sea met smoky sky in a seamless melding that might have stretched forever, off unto the edge of the world. Or perhaps it was merely the hazy glass curve of the magician’s crystal that held this strange dream world.

  “It’s an inlet of the sea—I forget what it’s called. On a clear day you can see the mountains on the other side,” Wiley said. Today she wore a sky blue robe with a long sapphire tunic trimmed in silver embroidery. She stroked a sleeve absently, in a faintly troubled way.

  Jasmine shook her head, breaking the spell of the sea. “Beautiful,” she said to Wiley, suitably awed. Then she grinned. “Let’s eat.”

  Wiley laughed and moved towards the table. The male servant stood discreetly against the wall while the other made up the bed and collected Jasmine’s clothes, depositing them in a machine hidden behind a wall panel. Jasmine observed that her white uniform didn’t appear to be the best color for a maid as the woman began to clean the tub, and then dismissed the matter. Maybe they had superior methods of stain removal here. At any rate, she had more important things to worry about.

  She spread a napkin on her lap and had just opened her mouth to broach those matters when Wiley gasped and began to giggle. “What?”

  “You had to sleep there?” Wiley pointed an unsteady finger at the bed.

  She glanced at it, and the mirror on the ceiling, annoyed all over again. “Your sweet cousin seemed to think it was funny.” She surveyed the silver chopsticks and wide spoon beside her plate with consternation. Perhaps she should have tried harder to master the wooden ones in the Chinese restaurants back home. Picking up her spoon, she scooped a small taste of what appeared to be a sausage pilaf and nibbled on it experimentally. Satisfied, she took the serving scoop and piled a small mountain onto her china plate. “I won’t be sorry to see the end of him.”

  “Here, have some almond milk.” Wiley smiled almost nervously and handed her an insulated silver ewer.

  “Almond milk?” She made a face as she accepted it and poured a little in a tall crystal glass. “What is this, planet of the health food junkies?”

  Wiley shrugged in apology. “No dairy animals.”

  Jasmine’s brows shot up. “What? No whipped cream, no butter?” Frowning, she took a cautious sip from her cup. “Ok, it’s not bad, but if someone whips out a brick of tofu, I’m leaving.”

  Wiley toyed with her spoon. Addressing it, she said, “You can’t.” At Jasmine’s puzzled expression, she clarified, “They won’t let you leave. They think you’re planning to cause trouble if they let you go.”

  “Rescuing you, you mean.” She tossed down her spoon. “What right do they have to hold you here, anyway? Seems to me like they gave up on you a long time ago. Why take you
back now, when you don’t want to be here?”

  Wiley sighed heavily. “It’s worse. Jayems…. He claims he’s my husband.”

  “What?” The table rattled as Jasmine shot to her feet. “For crying out loud, why?”

  Wiley’s lip began to tremble. “He claims we were ‘joined in a betrothal ceremony’ when we were kids.”

  Jasmine shoved her chair away, her robe flapping against her legs as she stood up and paced, the better to rant. “That’s barbaric!” An awful thought occurred to her and she paled. “He hasn’t tried to…”

  Wiley’s eyes widened, reading her mind with the ease of long acquaintance. “No! No, nothing like that,” she hastily reassured her friend. “I don’t think he’d...I think he’d rather…” She cleared her throat and blushed. “Anyway, it’s the whole idea.”

  “I should say so,” Jasmine agreed indignantly, pacing again. She spotted the male servant watching her. No doubt he was sent to spy on them. Well, two could play that game. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

  “Knightin, my lady,” he said with a respectful inclination of his head.

  She puzzled for a second over the lady—he made it sound like a title—but let it pass, assuming it was a substitute for ma’am in this neck of the woods. She studied his face for a moment, noting that his long rusty hair was tied back. Long hair appeared to be in fashion on this world. “How do you get a divorce here?”

  A gasp came from her right, and she whipped her head around in time to see the maid fumbling for her dropped feather duster. Score one for the home team.

  Good, she thought with fierce satisfaction.

  Knightin’s expression turned wary. “It is not done, my lady.”

  “It’s not done, or it can’t be done?”

  He shifted a fraction and took a slight breath. “If a woman can prove she has no desire for her husband, then she may be released from her bond, however—”

  Jasmine smiled triumphantly at Wiley and watched her shoulders begin to relax. “There, you see? Nothing to—”

  “However,” Knightin interrupted, “in the Lady Rihlia’s case, it would be almost impossible to obtain.” He seemed almost angry, and Jasmine wanted to find out why.

  She pretended to be distracted by the view for a moment, letting him stew. She needed to keep her temper down. When she was calmer, she said, “Okay, please explain why Wiley would have trouble divorcing this Jayems.”

  He looked like she’d forced a bite of Chinese bitter melon on him. “Lord Jayems,” he emphasized the title like a nanny prompting diction, “Is the successor to Lord Rohmeis, but only through his bond with Lady Rihlia.”

  Jasmine winced a little at all the foreign terms and then looked at Wiley significantly. “So without Wiley, the leadership, or whatever it is, goes poof, huh? But would Wiley really be forced to stay with him if she didn’t want to?”

  Knightin relaxed and answered with a touch of male arrogance, “Considering the type of bond they share, it’s unlikely that ‘wanting’ could even be an issue.” When they just stared at him, he clarified with satisfaction, “Their marriage was determined by casting lots.”

  Jasmine’s temper began to get the better of her again. “Are you telling me…” she paused to control her tone, “that my best friend’s future husband was determined by essentially drawing straws?”

  Taken aback, he tried to explain, unconsciously speaking with his hands in his agitation, as well as his voice, “The lots are holy, reliable instruments of—”

  “I don’t care about your holy mumbo jumbo!” she shouted. “How could her family do that to her? Where were her parents? Don’t answer that,” she cut him off, raising a hand in warning. “I might get sick.” She glanced at Wiley, who looked worried again, and made herself calm down. Wiley didn’t need her losing her temper. She had it rough enough already.

  But it wasn’t fair—none of it. Wiley had already been through too much. Growing up an orphan was tough enough. Suddenly finding an entire family and being snatched by an alien world was more than enough to deal with without watching her friend throw temper tantrums on top of it. What they needed was a plan, and she had just the thing.

  She touched Wiley’s hand gently. “Don’t worry about it, Wile E. Coyote,” she teased. “We’ll just treat him like a wart—a little liquid nitrogen, a little discomfort, and poof, he’s gone.” Wiley laughed, as she’d intended.

  Knightin turned an unhealthy shade of bing cherry.

  She eyed him speculatively. “So, what exactly are your orders? Besides reporting every word we say, that is?” She watched in satisfaction as his jaw clenched, but he didn’t rise to the bait. “Do you have to follow her everywhere she goes, or only when she’s with me?”

  Annoyance simmered in his manner, but his answer was straight forward enough. “Only when she’s with you.”

  She smirked at Wiley, and said just to see her smile, “I guess you’d better step out while I get dressed. There’s only so much I’d care to have reported about me.”

  Wiley chuckled and waved her hand, more like her old self. “Go use the dressing room, brat. I promise not to let anyone follow you.”

  Jasmine entered the dressing room and closed the door behind her. She wasn’t nearly as calm as she pretended, but she didn’t want the panic she felt to show. They had to get home!

  Well, she’d feel better once she was properly dressed. She took a breath and examined the bundle of clothing Wiley had brought. There was a pair of black leather boots with breathable canvas panels in just her size and several pairs of socks. Comfortable black pants in a material similar to extremely thick silk with a button fly closure and a belt had been included. She set them aside while she searched for underwear.

  That was when she hit the first snag.

  In disbelief, Jasmine dangled a pair of silky panties up in the air. The material parted at the crotch, forming a butterfly. She’d never owned such a scandalous undergarment in her life, and she couldn’t believe Wiley would actually bring her such a thing. Yet here they were, several pairs of them. Yep, she could choose to be risqué in fire engine red, pink, black, white or midnight blue.

  It got worse.

  Jasmine had once seen a picture of some ancient Mediterranean pottery where the women wore a type of short-sleeved bustier/vest that had boosted their breasts. The garments had been cut out around the breast itself, leaving the naked breast lifted up and exposed as if held in two cupped hands, rather like an offering.

  If she wasn’t holding an exact replica, it was dang close.

  “Wiley!” she roared, “Get your butt in here!”

  Wiley entered on the run. Jasmine held the offending garment up accusingly, and her friend blushed all the way to the roots of her hair. “Don’t blame me,” she said defensively. “They’re standard issue here.”

  Jasmine’s eyes boggled, dropped to Wiley’s chest and then hurriedly away. She was not going to ask. “Fine,” she said, her voice strained. “I still can’t believe you brought them, though. As if I’m going to wear a bright red…” She dangled the garment on one finger. “What do you call this thing?”

  Wiley crossed her arms. “I never actually asked, and for your information, I wasn’t the one who picked them out.” She paused a moment, letting the horror build. “Keilor got them for you after I mentioned you needed a change of clothes.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Then, “You let your cousin pick out my underwear?” She ended on a shout.

  “He picked out your boots, too, and I don’t hear you complaining about them,” Wiley pointed out.

  Jasmine shut up. Some humiliations in life were best not dwelt upon. Trying not to think about it, she put on some panties, socks and pants. At least the pants were comfortable, she consoled herself. That left the naughty tops to choose from and several long scarves of matching colors.

  Still wearing her robe, Jasmine picked up a scarf and scowled at it. “What am I supposed to do with this, wrap it around my hea
d and pretend I’m a pirate?”

  Since Wiley didn’t know, they called in the maid for a consultation. It turned out that the scarf was made to be worn crossed over the breasts and tied at the back of the neck for a bandeau. Somehow the maid convinced Jasmine to put the bustier thing—which she called an overnji—over the bandeau and at least look at it.

  “It’s very respectable,” the older woman reassured her. “My daughters wear it all the time.”

  “I look like a harem girl,” Jasmine muttered, staring at the midnight blue overnji and white bandeau she’d been conned into.

  Wiley smirked and grabbed the dark blue sash. She wound it low about Jasmine’s hips and knotted it. “There,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and standing back to look over her creation. “Now you look like a harem escapee turned pirate.”

  “Why, thank you, Wiley,” Jasmine sneered, stalking out. “That is so much better.” She yanked open the armoire doors and extracted a brush she’d discovered there the night before. As she eyed the top in the mirrored doors while she worked the tangles from her hair, she decided that it wasn’t so bad. At least her stomach was flat. Heck, she’d worn crop tops in public that bared about the same amount of skin and never thought twice about it. Of course, none of those had ever been chosen for her by a man.

  With effort she chased the image of Keilor holding her new panties in his hands, perhaps imagining her in them. It was swiftly replaced by the image of him looking over the overnji, trying to guess at the size of her…

  She took a deep, deep breath and then expelled it slowly. Keilor wasn’t thinking about her breasts, or anything else for that matter. Men who looked like he did didn’t need to fantasize. Shoot, for all she knew, he was happily married and had three kids, not that she cared.

  What she needed to be thinking about was getting Wiley and herself back home where men were manageable and the local police force didn’t look like the cast of Howling III.