At her questioning gaze, he shook his head. “I am in your hands, Princess.”
As they moved off arm-in-arm, a thought occurred to him. “Fleur, did Patricio tell you what happened to his eyebrows?”
“He told me he was leaning over a cold brazier when it inexplicably exploded, badly singeing them. Ari, do you think we had anything to do with that?”
“I think we had everything to do with it.” He chuckled, then sobered. I best get this done.
“I need to speak with you, privately. Now.”
Her laughter abruptly died. “All right.”
“The library near your apartments.”
Fleur dropped her arm to her side and nodded. “If you will follow me, please.”
* * * * *
As they walked into the library, Ari turned back and closed the door. It is just as well she found me. I would never have gotten back here by myself. He stood, studying Fleur. From the emotions chasing themselves across her face, she was by turns apprehensive then curious.
“I just had a rather ‘interesting’ audience with your father.”
“Ah.” She wiped the palms of her hands on her skirt. “The contract?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.” She straightened her posture and inhaled deeply before meeting his eyes with a steady gaze. “Have you reached a decision?”
Interesting. I wager Fleur didn’t know about the King’s Warrant. I do not think she was the force behind that unpleasantness with His Majesty. I would bet the honor of my House that Patricio arranged that audience. Umm, my lovely princess. You are going to be quite a challenge.
Ari crossed to where she was standing and ran his fingers into the fine hair at the nape of her neck, tilting her jaw upward with his thumbs. He searched her blue eyes soberly, steadily. He felt her body trembling in his hands.
“House DeTano will honor its commitment to House Constante,” he said. “I will marry you. I will be your consort. I will give you two heirs, partner you in the rites and try to like you, ‘a little’.” It will be the easiest thing I have ever done.
A choked sob escaped before Fleur could school her features.
Ari bent and placed soft kisses on her bare neck and shoulders, smiling in satisfaction at the hitch in her breathing. And you, Princess, are not indifferent to me.
“I am yours to command, my Lady,” Ari murmured.
* * * * *
Ari convinced Fleur and her counselors that her coronation and their wedding should wait. Battles still raged in isolated areas on the planet. Until the entire planet was free from threat, the focus should be solely on defeating the Haarb. Verdantia should celebrate its new beginning with a global peace. Ari called Doral and portions of his joint command to Sylvan Mintoth to reorganize their forces and plan a sweep of the planet. In spite of the inexplicable disappearance of the majority of the Haarb surrounding Sylvan Mintoth, there remained areas of active conflict. They would also need to liberate the populace still held in prison compounds and assist in returning them to their homes—if those homes remained. After that, Ari would start thinking about how to search the wide reaches of space for their citizens sold into slavery. More than ever, Verdantia needed her people.
Ari stood in the courtyard and watched as Doral rode in and dismounted. Ari’s heart lightened, and then darkened at the sight of his aide. I have noted your absence, Doral. Damn you for a fine looking man. I’m going to wonder for the rest of my life what might have been. “Visconte.” Ari hailed. “Hand your horse off to the stable master, then come join me.”
Fleur walked up and stood at Ari’s side. “You could have prepared me for Visconte DeLorion.”
“He is an unusual man. It is hard to know what to say about him,” Ari said.
“I cannot remember ever seeing a man who is so beautiful and yet so clearly male. I’ll wager he has no lack of bed partners.”
“Hmm.” Ari agreed. “Surprisingly, I know of none. Doral is discretion personified. ” He ignored the ache that grew inside him.
* * * * *
Fleur’s warlord stood with his arms supporting her as the team of four black horses drew her father’s flower-bedecked coffin toward them at a slow walk, accompanied by the rolling, steady cadence of drums. His second, Visconte Doral DeLorion, stood at his other side. She could not remember when she had seen two more handsome—or dangerous—men together in one place.
A crowd of nobles and commoners quietly lined the gravel drive to the gravesite, the opulent tomb of their former kings and queens. Someday in the far future, she and Ari would be buried there.
Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. Ari pressed a linen square into her hand. “I know it is of little comfort, but he no longer suffers.”
His face appeared blurred by her steady tears. “Yes. He fought to remain alive. But for the cursed war, we might have moved him off-planet, gotten him some medical assistance. I know there are treatments unavailable to us here. He need not have died from consumption of the lungs.”
“I am sorry, my Princess, more sorry than I can say.”
“Thank you for being here. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this day without you.” She turned into him and sobbed softly in his sheltering arms.
It took a long time for her grief to subside. He held her wrapped in his arms, stroking her gently, the whole while.
* * * * *
Verdantia would crown a new queen and she would have her consort. That was part of Fleur’s immediate problem. She didn’t have her consort. Ari served her every way except physically. He would do everything but make love to her. She desperately desired the sexual confirmation he might care for her—a little.
Then there was her physical predicament. Not to dress it up too nicely, her continual level of low arousal tested her severely. She could only surmise the cinnagin lingered in her system. She could not understand it. Rather than decreasing, her arousal seemed to be winding tighter and tighter. Desperation drove her to actions normally unthinkable.
With two small hands barely meeting, Fleur held Ari firmly. Her warlord groaned as her tongue rimmed the crown of his engorged cock. Its rigid outer flare gave way to the softest of skin as she moved inward. She teased her tongue over the spongy softness-hardness of the head, playing her tongue’s very tip in and out of the small slit in its center, capturing the escaping fluid. A groan of appreciation for the source of her fascination vibrated in her chest. The most delicate of skin stretched over the hardness of steel and bore a taste reminiscent of the sea. Gods, who knew? This is the most succulent of treats.
She tongued down his length, flicking at the highly sensitive area underneath the flare of the glans before she engulfed the first few inches in her mouth. Sucking hard and sliding his cock out slowly, she popped him from her mouth with a liquid smack, relishing the feel of him sliding past her lips. Glancing up, the strain of holding back written across his face gave her an inner satisfaction. Good. Give in Ari. Give in.
“Damnation, you have gotten good at that,” he grunted. “By all that is holy, finish it.”
She ignored him and pulled his heavy balls away from his groin, palming them. She felt each perfect orb, enclosed by the impossibly soft skin of his scrotum, rolling in her hand. Her other hand rose and fell, slipping up and down his shaft in the trail left by her saliva. Every time the downward stroke of her hand revealed the flared crown of his cock, she leaned forward and sucked him into her mouth.
Her actions brought vivid curses. She smiled around his cock. You will give in to me.
She had exercised the power her warlord had freely given her. He had been standing in her chamber for the last hour, nude, legs spread, arms locked behind him as she did her very best to drive him out of his mind.
“Madam, this is the third time today. I have lost count of how many times this week. My officers look at me and shudder every time you summon me. You have not improved my disposition. Finish it.”
“No, Conte DeTano. The only way you are going to finish is
inside me.” She looked up at him, grimly determined. “And I forbid you to find relief by your hand.” You will make love to me!
Ari replied in measured tones, “You know why I won’t come in you.”
Removing her hands from his stone hard cock, she slumped to the floor between his trembling, outstretched legs.
“Yes, of course.” She rolled her eyes and recited like a schoolgirl, “Because I was pig-headed, no, sorry, mule-headed, you have spent in me too many times.” She bored a hole into him with her eyes. “You hold a morbid fear that I, and the rest of Verdantia, will think you use sex to control me, to usurp my throne. You have a horror I will feel manipulated and come to hate you. Have I forgotten anything? Oh yes, this is the best yet. If we just wait until the cinnagin clears my system—Ari, it could be months, months! I don’t care if you control me!”
“I care,” he responded through clenched teeth. “May I move? It is difficult to converse with you in this position.”
She examined him standing over her. His powerful legs were wide spread. His erect cock stood flat against his tightly muscled stomach, his balls pulled tight to its base. His head was up, eyes forward, arms locked behind his head with biceps bulging. His silky auburn hair curled down to his broad shoulders and teased his heavily muscled chest. He was the incarnation of male sexuality. By the gods, he was a potent temptation. She wanted him desperately.
“No. Don’t move.” She crossed her arms and sniffed. After a brief moment, she gave a snort, a victim of her irrepressible sense of the ridiculous. “You should see your face, Ari. You are a very poor submissive. I suspect Mistress Gabriella beat you regularly.”
Unhappy resignation written all over her, she sighed and relented. “Yes, you can move.” She stood and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. “I apologize. I have become a self-centered little horror. I am desperate for you. I cannot offer any other excuse. I am appalled at my behavior. It disgusts me but I can’t seem to control myself.”
“Madam, you can’t be more desperate than I.” He wound his arms around her and grunted. “The evidence is drooling on your stomach. I have not lost this erection for five days. Doral looks at me and winces. You have obliterated my dignity in front of my staff. I have become a laughingstock, a by-word for ‘pussy-whipped male’. Every time I walk into a room, the conversation dies. I entered the mess hall, yesterday—530 officers and enlisted men. Silence, Fleur. Dead silence.”
She sniffed. By the gods, this must be a unique experience for him. I’m certain he has never been the butt of the joke before.
“I don’t think you appreciate the torture and humiliation you inflict. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to ride a horse when I’m like this? Do you know how disconcerting it is to discuss cavalry deployment with Major Truillo while I’m sporting a cockstand to rival a stud horse? I couldn't get the man to look me in the face. Worse, he thought I reacted to him.”
She nuzzled her face into Ari’s chest and tried to contain her amusement. Her imagination supplied the picture of the very handsome, very homosexual, very short Major Truillo standing with covetous eyes riveted to Ari’s substantial erection, all the while discussing the dry topic of cavalry placement.
“For half an hour all I saw was the top of his head.” He paused for a moment then threw out, “He has a bald spot.”
Oh dear, and I am sure he followed Ari around for days like a lovesick puppy. How I wish I had seen that. She couldn’t hold in her amusement. A soft snort escaped her.
“She-devil. You are not unmoved. You are laughing at me.” Ari’s amused and resentful indictment shattered her teetering self-control.
She couldn’t hold it in anymore and collapsed into hoots of laughter. He swept her off her feet and carried her to a large, soft-cushioned chair, sitting down carefully with her on his lap.
She wiped the tears off her cheeks and fought to control her hiccups.
Ari chided her. “And you would be wrong about Mistress Gabriella. I was very well trained by the time I got to Gabriella. It was Julianna de Gresse who whipped me regularly. I never did thank her for that. Probably saved me from Peregrine’s fate.”
He couldn’t keep a straight face at her wide-eyed stare.
She sighed deeply. “What are we going to do? I can’t concentrate. I can’t sleep. I am eaten alive with desire for you. You won't orgasm in me. I can't orgasm unless you do. All that is left is to endure. As you demonstrate to me repeatedly, I don’t possess your iron control. I know it is petty of me, but I resent the fact you are handling this so well while I am reduced to a needy, whiny child. I hate this person!”
“I think you are being very hard on yourself. You show more discipline than I had at twenty-one.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yes, Madam, I know so. Of course, you may thank the cinnagin for your constant arousal. It does seem to be lingering in you.” He sat quietly, stroking her hair.
She sighed and wiggled in his lap. “In my more rational moments, I know how patient you are being with me. I don’t know it is only the cinnagin driving my physical state. My arousal becomes more intense when you are near me.”
“I have been considering going to our embassy on Raegill II. A summit meeting with the Joint Forces High Command is scheduled there in ten days,” Ari said. “The summit will take several weeks. I could prepare there as easily as here. I had thought to stay to direct the cleanup but Captain Rickard’s Blue Daggers are dealing handily with any remaining resistance. I am not really needed here.”
Her warlord’s smile was sardonic. “And we were honored. The High Council of the LFP will grace us with their presence. I told Admiral Lockwood we would have some sort of a reception. I think they wish to renegotiate their quota of cinnagin.” He frowned. “At least, I hope that is what they intend.” Ari tipped Fleur's face up and brushed his lips across hers. “I consulted with Elder Patricio.”With a wry smile, he stroked under her chin. “Close your mouth, Princess. Stupefied is not a good look for you.”
She snapped her jaw shut and looked at Ari narrowly. “You consulted with Elder Patricio?”
“Yes.”
“And he was alive when you left?”
He refused to respond to her baiting. “There is nothing in the near future you cannot deal with on your own or with his help.”
“All right. Go. I will be a brave little princess,” she scoffed, then dropped all teasing. “I will miss you, Conte DeTano. Come back to me as soon as you can.”
“And I will miss you, my Princess. But in addition to all of your other duties, you must plan a wedding and a coronation, and, of course, there is that reception for the LFP Council to coordinate. You will be thoroughly occupied.”
He tipped her face up. “Now, Princess, are you going to keep me in this condition?” He bumped his still rigid cock into the side of her thigh.
Slipping off his lap to kneel between his legs, she ran her fingers up the insides of his thighs, tickling his balls and stroking her fingers up his erect cock. She smiled seductively. He groaned as she licked her lips, wetting them in preparation.
“No, Conte.” Her voice was honeyed. “It will be my joy to relieve you of your ‘condition’. However,” sounding like the queen she was soon to be, she continued, “put your hands on the arms of the chair, hook your feet around the legs and don’t move.”
He arched his eyebrows but complied.
With a silky smile, she continued. “A little payback. You must ask for my permission before you come.” Her glance was evil. “Expect to ask more than once.”
He closed his eyes and let his head fall back. Pained amusement filled his voice. “Goddess, save me! A monster, I am going to marry a monster.”
Chapter Five
The view screen with its vast expanse of black interstellar space blurred as Ari fought to keep his eyes open.
“Doral, take over from me. I am falling asleep in this chair. At this rate, I will fly us into the side of an asteroid.” Ari unbuckl
ed himself from the padded seat in front of the command console for the hyper-light cruiser, Vestry.
“I am going to try to get some rest before we dock at Raegill II. We need to be at the top of our game for this Joint Summit.”
“Yes, sir. I'll let you know when we are in the final approach corridor.” Doral swung over and flipped a variety of switches transferring command overrides to his station.
“Is there anyone I should pay particular attention to when we arrive?” The visconte flashed a glance up at him.
Ari rubbed his chin in thought. “I would like to know what occurred in that last council meeting. And what the LFP's reason is for the two heavy battle cruisers in our orbital space—the ones that arrived forty-eight hours ago. Admiral Lockwood will be our best source. Find her. See if she will meet with me. Alone.” He caught Doral's nod as he looked up. “We desperately need to find out who the traitor is among the LFP. I know I don’t need to tell you that.”
“Consider it done.” Watching his console readings, Doral asked quietly, “Is there a personal message you would like me to give Admiral Lockwood?”
“Tell her I will forever associate chaleureuse brandy with an intimate portion of her anatomy. She will enjoy that.” He lifted a wry eyebrow. “It also happens to be true. Oh, and Doral,” he looked at his second for a long moment, “try not to frighten her to death.”
His eyes still tracking his displays, the corner of Doral’s mouth lifted. “As you command, High Lord.”
* * * * *
“That is an unconscionable violation of the League’s charter,” Admiral Charise Lockwood shouted at Council Head Herrimon. “What you are proposing will eliminate Verdantia’s autonomy. They will be nothing but your puppet.” Her angry voice rang against the exotically paneled walls of the council meeting chamber on Raegill II.
“My dear Admiral, Verdantia’s government has deteriorated to the point where it is ineffective. There is no social organization. Their Parliament has vanished. Their House of Lords is an empty building. The High Enclave, a collection of geneticists and magicians, is running the country. Their monarch is a twenty-one year old girl. Without us, their military cannot mount any sort of defense. The planet is in chaos. We will be helping the Verdantians regain their feet,” Herrimon oozed. “They will welcome our restructuring efforts. The presence of our military forces will allow them to sleep securely in their beds.”
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