Searching for the Kingdom Key

by TylerRose.

  “You know quite a lot about these things,” he observed.

  She thought of Nails, missed him for a moment. “I used to be very close to a lawyer on Earth. I guess I learned more from him than I thought.”

  When she was ready, she intentionally walked the shorter corridor to the corner of the Gar suite, and saw a chair and a cot already there.

  “Did you ask for that cot already?” she asked Pisod.

  “I did not.”

  Up the long corridor to the stairs in the corner and Mankell was waiting for her at the bottom. Someone had alerted him that she had left her room and where she was coming down. All in the name of propriety, but it felt so much like a production. What would he do if he was allowed to do it however he wanted rather than adhering to a strict set of societal rules?

  “How do you like your new grav-bike?” he asked with a kiss to her hand.

  “I like it very much. Do you anticipate Pisod will be sleeping outside your door?”

  He realized how she could be offended by the assumption.

  “You are not of our culture. You do not know all its rules and traditions. Were you a K’Tran female, you would be offended if I did not immediately provide for your escort. It would be dishonorable and an insult if I sent you home from my House in the middle of the night, whether you’d been to my bed or not. I would be seen as the worst of degenerates.”

  “So putting the cot out is an indication to the escort and the woman that you have no intention of using her and dismissing her,” Tyler said.

  “Yes,” he smiled, relieved she understood and wasn’t angry. “You think the worst of me when I show you our best, Lar Tyler. Is your world so much the opposite?” he asked as they turned to walk across the front of the House.

  “Apparently. Why don’t we go in this door here?”

  “Because that would be the equivalent of sneaking you in. I bring you in the main door, for all to see you are my honored guest. My father insists my presence at your side should be well-known and expected for the duration of your visit.”

  She only smiled and let him make a grand show of walking into the Hall with her.

  “What’s this?” she asked of the white outline grid on the floor.

  It hadn’t been there before. Eleven squares by eleven squares, each square being bout 15” x 15”, obviously a game board. Chess played in the flesh?

  “It is a game of courtship called Parimend.”

  Combination of the words K’Tran words for courtship and foreplay. Cute.

  “The male selects three soldiers. Ch’Wik, Saber, Norshel,” he said, and gestured to the grid.

  They knew what to do, lining up so Ch’Wik was in the center square on the third row and the other two flanked him. Mankell stepped on the center square of the row by the edge.

  “The female places herself wherever she chooses to begin the game. The male may move either himself or his men each turn. He can move six spaces or he can move his men up to six spaces. But no one man can move more than three. No two pieces can occupy the same square. The soldiers cannot capture you. Only I can. You can move as many spaces as you want in a straight line so long as your path is not blocked.”

  “Can you jump a piece in your way?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She considered these rules. Four men against her, up to three men moving in one turn. Her eyes narrowed in an expression Ch’Wik and Saber were learning take as a serious warning.

  “So it’s designed for the woman to lose no matter what,” she said. “What’s the point of playing at all if she is doomed from the start?”

  “Think of it like mental foreplay for Gars. The thrill of the chase,” Ch’Wik said.

  Her head cocked low and her eyes narrowed to thin slits, an expression dangerous enough to stop him cold in his tracks. He could swear he saw the Raas in her eyes.

  “Very well.”

  She stepped onto the board and placed herself four spaces in front of Ch’Wik. Mankell at once looked confused. Most women put themselves as far back as they could.

  “Ch’Wik, three steps forward. Others, one,” he said.

  Ch’Wik grinned down at her shrugging.

  “Chi?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Remove yourself from my path unless you want me to take you on a twenty mile walk to Norquay’s market tomorrow.”

  “Twenty mile walk? Ma’am?”

  She said nothing, glaring up at him and he knew at once that she was not bluffing. She would make him walk it. He took one step to his right and she walked forward one footstep per square. When she was one square from Mankell, she gave a psychokinetic shove and took his square while he landed on his ass on the floor at her feet.

  “I win.”

  The dead silent room erupted into cheers and applause.

  “You cannot move my man,” he protested.

  “I didn’t. He moved himself. I am no easy or inevitable conquest.”

  She spun around on the toes of her left food and exited, Pisod behind her. She sat sideways on his bike.

  “You drive. On’R city.”

  They went to a restaurant in the market, had only just been seated when Ch’Wik and Saber came in.

  “Gar Mankell congratulates you on a match well-played, Lar Tyler, and requests the honor of your presence at his table,” Ch’Wik said, offering her a small jewel-type box.

  She opened it to find a lovely blue jade carving of a pair of Tihi birds standing together side by side from bodies to beaks.

  “A symbol of respect between his House and yours,” he explained. “If you wish to refuse it, you have to take it back to him and throw it into the fireplace and smash it in front of everyone.”

  She chuckled. “Very sneaky.”

  The waiter came over with starter drinks.

  “We won’t be staying after all. Give me the bill now,” she said to him, and chugged down her cocktail in a manner no respectable K’Tran woman would ever display.

  Pisod’s was only a fruit juice. He left it sit and led the way out to his bike. Approaching the last intersection, they saw bright lights in the open field in front of the neighbor’s house.

  “Kill your lights,” she said quickly.

  The three grav-bikes went dark and disappeared into the shadows on the unlit road.

  “What do you see?” Saber asked.

  “Sh!”

  She didn’t see. She was listening. Two of the four men who had defected were listening as Osan had a phone conversation with someone confirming what day the ore blocks were to fly. Osan was not to go after the second target at this time. The ore blocks would be enough for this trip.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Drive normally.”

  They didn’t need street lamps to see the drive, with the perimeter of Mankell’s House compound so well lit. She didn’t get off the bike immediately when they stopped.

  “Am I going to be seen as a fool? Like he calls and I come running back?”

  “No, Ma’am,” Saber said quickly. “He gave Ch’Wik the carving in front of everyone. It’s his reputation that is on the line, not yours. If you throw that into the fireplace, you have to leave his House and stay somewhere else and that would mean he failed at this important diplomacy.”

  “Well, we can’t have that, now can we,” she said, standing to step off. “Do you have any idea how ridiculously complex this society is?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “We live here, remember?”

  They followed her into the House, to the appropriate corner entry. As soon as she walked in, every man in the place was on his feet and turning to her, then went to one knee with head bowed and arms straight down as if a Rosaas had come into the room. Only Mankell was on his feet, with G’Ven at his side bowing to her.

  There the pale beauty stood

  Every man sworn to me

  Instead bowing in fealty at her feet.

  Where all men belong.

  He would write it down and put it in
the House Mondragoon in the morning. Right now, Mankell saw how uncomfortable she was with the unprompted display. The goddess within her did not like to be so openly worshiped. She was confused and alarmed by this spectacle, stood stock still with just her wide eyes moving around, her hands slowly clenching at her sides.

  Words stolen from breath,

  Anger for once replaced.

  Secret goddess recognized

  Naked and revealed

  He hadn’t known they were going to do this, and quickly crossed the distance to her. Taking her hand captured her attention away from them.

  “Lar Tyler, shall we retreat to my private table?”

  “Yes, please,” she said, frozen in her discomfort.

  She came meekly to my hand,

  Needing me to save her.

  To be a spectacle no more.

  He would have to remember this moment when next she was being difficult in the Hall. She went with relief into the door in the front that contained a spiral up to the second floor.

  “Only the Gar is allowed to use it,” he explained.

  “Of course,” she smiled, and went up.

  The door at the top came out of the end of the wall that shielded the balcony over the Hall below. Pisod had apparently run the long way, because he was there already.

  “The bathing room is the door at the corner there, if you want to freshen up,” he gestured toward the far wall

  This front room was for sitting and eating. Two sofas in the corner to the left, with a door to the Favorite’s room; small dining table in the center in front of a fireplace. Of course. Where else would it be. A chair and short sofa on a large white fur in front of another fireplace, facing the inner wall. A wall with short corridor, the bathroom being immediately on the right. The end of the corridor, three steps away, was open to the bedroom. She didn’t look, needing to use the toilet.

  Coming out, she saw that small table had been extended to left and right from the chairs, to make a longer board. Food items were going onto the extensions, to be within easy reach, and the center was set with their plates and glasses. Smallish plates for small servings, and all the serving utensils were on his side of the service dishes.

  The two men placed their last items, bowed to her first and then to Mankell and swiftly exited. He pulled out the chair for her, seated himself on the side with the spoon handles, and began to serve first her plate and then his own from three dishes on his left.

  “Is this the seduction set up?” she asked.

  “You have such a suspicious nature, Lar Tyler. It is appropriate that I should serve you at my own table. Small servings, three dishes at a time. We talk on nothing all that important and, for once, enjoy each other’s company without prying eyes watching.”

  “There are a great many eyes within a K’Tran House,” she had to agree. “And ears.”

  Indicating the glassless window openings.

  “A Gar does few things by himself,” he smiled, picking up his fork. “We lead a very public life due to the size and nature of the House system. Visitors arrive nearly every night for parts of the Gatherings. They report back what they see, of course, to their own Gars.”

  “If a Gar is here visiting you, who is at their place to receive visitors?” she asked.

  “A close brother or the Houseman. Sometimes a House will be closed to visitors for a night or a few nights. The Houseman puts a message on the answering machine each day to let people know if the House is or is not accepting visitors. The front door remains closed during the Gathering as a visible signal for those who didn’t get the message in time.”

  “How do you feel about slavery not being very well discouraged by some of your fellow Gars?”

  “It is not permitted on my land. Since I am the law enforcement on my own land, it is very much not permitted. I cannot speak for other Gars. I cannot speak for any law enforcement of any city. I can voice my disapproval but I do not have the authority to enforce the law outside of my own land.”

  “If you saw a man beating a woman, what would you do?” she asked.

  “That would depend on how hard she hit him back. Some do. On my own land, I break it up and find out what is going on. On another Gar’s land, it is for that Gar to deal with.”

  “So this is very much a ‘not my business’ society.”

  “If you see it that way,” he replied.

  “It begs the question of how a planet not uniformly governed can be a productive part of a galactic society,” she said. “None of it is going to be my personal decision, of course. I’m just a grunt here to gather information, check claims made on the application and generally be a nosy nuisance.”

  “You are very good at all of those things.”

  “Thank you. The Congress will vote and it may well ignore everything in my report. Given that Voran is the sponsor planet, I rather suspect anything I have to say will be discounted. So it doesn’t even matter what I find out or have to say. I’m probably here just to keep me busy and out of the way for a while.”

  “For being given busy work, you have chosen to pick some of the most dangerous work you could,” he said. “Attempting to bring down a corrupt Rosaas rarely works, even when guilt is obvious,” he told her. “There have been others in our history. Might I make a suggestion?”

  “What?”

  “That we not discuss any of those things in my suite. Let this be our sanctuary apart from the political intrigues of the galaxy. You are a beautiful and charming woman and I would like to enjoy your company.”

  “That reminds me.”

  She reached with two fingers into her cleavage for the carving of the Tihi birds.

  “What am I supposed to do with this now? Obviously, I didn’t smash it in your fireplace,” she smiled.

  “It is yours,” he smiled in return. “A symbol of mutual respect between Mankell and Tyler. No titles. No politics. What made you think to knock me off the game board?”

  She knew at once what she would do with the little carving, and set it aside for now.

  “It occurred to me that you gave me no ways that I could win. I suspected if I pushed you off the board and took your spot, the result would be your defeat, in the eyes of your House if not by the letter of the rules.”

  “What did you tell Ch’Wik? I could not hear.”

  She grinned bigger. “I told him I’d make him walk to Noqaray city market tomorrow if he didn’t step out of my way. I did not move him. He could have stood there and adhered to your order. He fears me more than he fears you at this point.”

  “You are a cunning woman.”

  She hadn’t touched a bite of her food yet.

  “Are you not hungry?”

  “I prefer to eat after the sex,” she told him, and got up from her seat to head for his bedroom.

  Arms behind herself to open the zipper, she paused just before the little hallway to drop the dress to the floor and walk the rest of the way in her spiked heels and stockings.

  He found her lying on her side across the foot of his bed, creamy white pale against the red velvet of the of the thin blanket. At once he was half his age, that brash twenty-two year old Gar on his first night after receiving his House, taking his first Favorite to bed. This woman was so much like his beloved Lanore.

  Boots kicked off one after the other before the tunic was pulled over his head, he was to her in three strides. He was on the bed, she turning to receive him, her thighs opening for him to fit himself against her and feel her soft breasts against his lean chest. Soft, cool flesh and her fingertips slipped up through the back of his hair at the nape of his neck.

  She knew well how to kiss a K’Tran male. He was not going to be her first, and resisted the urge to ask who she had known before. Of course he knew. His ancestor Arran had taught her how to love a Gar.

  He paused to look into her eyes, seeing the patience of experience.

  “You are not of our society. I must ask if you consent to what I’m about to do to you, Lar Ty
ler.”

  “So long as you stop calling me Lar while we’re in your rooms,” she said.

  “Agreed.”

  He stood to remove his trousers, returning to open the buckle on her shoe and take it from her foot. He relieved her of the second, leaving the stockings on. A hand, full palm, sliding up her leg from the slippery, sheer white cloth to the skin of her thigh, to press against the mound above her sex. Bright pink folds glistening, a finger exploring to see what it would find while his eyes looked down into hers.

  That sensitive nub at the top that caught her breath now and then as he traced and teased it. Now he had her here in his bed, he was in no rush to take her as he would a native girl. He could have her only for a short time. He would savor every moment.

  Lower, to find the opening that readily accepted his finger and an invasion of which caused her to close her eyes dreamily and give a soft moan. Here was the place to have her. Below, another opening, tightly closed but equally as sensitive and her knees moved wider apart.

  Enough exploration.

  He took his place to possess her with all the strength and vigor of a Gar within his own domain. When she worked too hard, he did the same thing Arran had, gripping her ass with one hand, hard and tight, to force her to be still — and was astonished that it made her have a powerful orgasm.

  Her back arching upwards lifted him as well. Breasts presented were irresistible, and he mouthed and bit those smooth curves of flesh. He forgot for a moment that she was not K’Tran, bit harder than he might have. She only came again, this time with a flood of liquid.

  Far from being the delicate creature he expected, she was ardent, strong, demanding. The goddess so unsure in his Hall was here in all her glory and he worshiped her without shame. Here, and only here, would she accept worship. Only her lover could have that part of her.

  As it should be.

  He had to pause, to stop himself from reaching his own climax too quickly. She displayed such abandon that she could easily undo him. He could have lost control over himself, and that was one thing a self-respecting Gar never did. He kissed those unintentionally deep bite marks, liking the sound of her breathing and the feel of the small motions of her body while waiting for him to resume. The clenching of her vagina around him. He could see how blinded she became in her own need.