Nimmet, Goddess of Love

by Anastasia Rabiyah

  Now I know why. It is this woman I have wanted for longer than I can remember. And I can never have her. "I’m sorry. I can’t help what I am."

  "Neither can I." She shrugged. "I’ll see you in the morning, my Oemir." She strolled away, calling to her wards. The three joined ranks, walking in a side by side line toward the gray, church shuttle at the roadside lot.

  Oemir Leuj waited until the shuttle hovered, before retreating to his office to plan his war on Taraf. He didn’t want to think about women for a while, not until this business with the Shiemir cleared up. He tapped out the keycode on his touchscreen.

  S-i-m-a-S-a-l-v-a-t-i-o-n

  He believed she was that, his salvation or his deliverance, and if any man needed to be saved, Leuj felt he was the one. Shiemir Alonwei’s secretary appeared on the monitor. The mousy woman shook her head at him.

  "Let me speak to Enrue."

  "He will not take your com. Strict orders, Oemir. Enrue buried his daughter an hour ago, and you have the gall to disturb his grief?"

  "I have more gall than you know. My troops are en route. Tell him to surrender Taraf, or I’ll take it by force and kill anyone standing in my way."

  "Why, Leuj? Do you need more slaves for your Hemec mines? Not enough Unangi left to do the hard labor?"

  "Tell him. This is no time for foolish arguments. Taraf will be under Irnian rule by the end of the week."

  The secretary shook her head, clucking her tongue at him. "We’ll see, you little glutton. We’ll see." She reached across her desk and the picture clicked out as she disconnected.

  Chapter Eighteen – Games

  His fingers tapped softly against the undersides of hers, the movement so slight that the doctor wouldn’t notice. She found herself lost in Razi’s deep brown eyes, longing to be back in his room, back in the moment when he’d kissed her in that cushy bed. I wish I could kiss him right now, she thought, but Sima knew vidcams perched at every conceivable place in the palace, waiting to capture any indiscretion. She swallowed her fear, willing it to pass as the nurse padded sanitizers over her wounds. "It’s good to see you again."

  Razi’s mouth twitched. She knew he was holding back his sideways grin, trying to play the part. "Again? Lady, I don’t know you. Never seen you before in my life." He leaned across the bed to whisper to the male nurse. "Is she delusional?"

  "She might be. She did jump through a window." The man’s voice held no emotion and it droned in the room much like the bright lights overhead.

  Sima hadn’t taken a good look at the nurse and didn’t care too. He daubed harder across her lower back. The cold liquid ran down her skin, numbing it. A bitter scent hung in the air, making her gag.

  The doctor walked like a skinny sea bird, wobbling as he moved. In his hand, he clutched the laser gun. Blue glasses hid his eyes from view. He bumbled to the bedside, dismissing his attendant with a murmured command. "You must hold still or it will scar."

  The gun clicked. Heat fused her flesh, and Sima winked at Razi. "Kind of you to carry me back to my cage."

  "A pretty bird belongs in a cage." He waved his free hand, gesturing around him. "This is a fine cage, marble everywhere, gilded banisters, servants to attend each room. Why would you want to fly away?" The grin came, his teeth flashing for a brief moment.

  "Why do birds have wings if not to fly?" She crinkled her nose at him. The unpleasant odor of burning flesh glossed over the sanitizer’s bitterness. Razi’s fingers curled tight over hers.

  "To dazzle their owners," he murmured. "You have forgotten your place, Pretty Bird."

  The doctor burned a line across her lower back. Sima knew the pain would slow her down for a few days. "He does not own me."

  The final singe graced the dimple over her butt cheek. The doctor clicked off his gun and bobbled back to his little table of gadgets. Razi studied the reedy old man for a time. When it seemed the doctor wasn’t paying attention, he leaned over, his breath tickling her ear as he spoke. "No one owns you, Sima. You’re free. As free as I am now."

  "Get me out," she mouthed as he withdrew.

  He pulled his hand away, tucking it into his pants pocket. "Good things come to those who wait, Pretty Bird. I’m sure you’ll see in time," he paused and spoke low, "that this man loves you."

  "He didn’t say that," she spat back, angry that he toyed with her about the situation. "He said he cares for me. There’s a difference. You watch the news. He cares for many things until, like a cat toying with its meal; he loses interest in the game of chase."

  Razi’s lips pursed. His eyes flashed over the room, scanning. "This man loves you," he repeated, shrugging. "I think this man likes games."

  Her brow furrowed. "Games?"

  "This man will play any game for you." He nodded, his mischievous smirk lightening her mood.

  Sima closed her eyes. His words rang with familiarity. "Does this man like falafel?" she whispered, making the connection.

  "He loves falafel as much as he loves you."

  "He has odd tastes."

  Metal clacked across trays. She kept her eyes shut tight. The nurse placed a heated blanket over her body and she sighed at the comfort it offered. "Razi? Is that your name?" she pretended to slur. "I’m bad with names, especially Unangi ones."

  "Yes, I’m Razi. Is there a game you want to play now?" His fingers found hers beneath the blanket. She squeezed his hand, and he returned the gesture.

  "I want to rest for a little while. It’s so bright in here. The lights hurt my eyes. Tell them to turn off the lights."

  "Doctor? The lady wants to sleep. Can we turn the lights down?"

  "Off. I want them off."

  The nasally doctor’s voice answered from across the room. "After the implant, she can sleep in the recovery room."

  "Pretty Bird, your owner wants to give you a marker." His thumb traced her wrist, tickling to the point that she found it hard to feign weariness. "You’ll be a good girl and hold still, won’t you?"

  "I will not," she mouthed.

  "That’s a good girl."

  Sima cracked one eye open in time to see the doctor approach. He held a different gun and in its clear barrel, a thin square of plastic sheathed the tracking device.

  "I must ask you to step aside," the doctor told him. "My attendant will hold her down."

  "I’m sorry," Razi began, "but I can’t do that."

  "What did you say?" The doctor’s mouth twisted in shock.

  Sima stared as Razi, startled. His smile vanished. His fingers left her skin, balling into a fist even before they left the blanket. Turning in a swift motion, he laid his knuckles into the doctor’s left cheek. Blue glasses flew across the room, cracking against a countertop. The spindly man crashed into a table of metal instruments. Handles and picks clattered to the floor.

  The nurse crossed the room, his face aghast. "You can’t…"

  Razi charged toward the man, who Sima now noticed stood at least six feet tall. They grappled, overturning another set of medical tools.

  Sima didn’t wait. She gathered the warm blanket around her body, thankful the sanitizer still numbed her pain. Her bare feet touched the chilled floor.

  A fist met flesh with a dull thud. "Servant’s door!" Razi shouted. "Now."

  She raced past him toward the rear of the elongated room. White vinyl curtains hid the passage. She ducked behind them, frantically searching with an outstretched hand. The seam between the door and the wall felt like a crack, a glimpse of escape. She found the latch, activated it, and dashed clumsily inside. The metal door slid shut. Sima stopped. "Not without you," she whispered.

  Behind the door, she heard the struggle, the shouts and banging of more tools overturned onto the floor. A deeper thud resounded. She shivered, hoping, praying. Footsteps crunched across broken glass. Then she heard the latch clunk.

  The door opened and Razi grinned at her, his left eye half open and starting to swell. "Are you all right?" he asked, his chest heaving from the fight.

 
She reached for him as he stepped into the passage. He embraced her, gently, avoiding the wounds across her back. He smelled like the earth, like musk and sweat. "Yes," she murmured against his chest. "Yes, now I’m all right."

  "You crazy woman. Why did you buy my freedom? You ruined my whole life."

  She laughed under her breath. "Because I like you. I didn’t want you in that place. You were kind to me."

  He kissed her cheek hard, breathing in a deep breath through his nose. His lips felt dangerous against her skin. Sima wanted to forget where she was. She wanted to turn and find those lips with her own. Reaching around him, she slid her hands beneath his shirt. His skin felt hot, damp with sweat. His breathing came and went in strong waves, pressing his chest into her breasts with each intake. He kissed his way to her ear, and she felt his cheek rise when he smiled. "You look sexy in a blanket, but I like you better in a towel."

  She half laughed, half cried at his joke. "I hope you know a way out. He won’t be happy to find me gone. The sooner we get past Alga’s border, the better."

  "No clue how to get out." Razi leaned his forehead against hers. "But we’ll find a way."

  She held her breath, lost once more in his dark eyes, a feeling akin to watching the sunset, mesmerizing. A line of sweat trickled down his forehead as she leaned up to kiss him. She stood on her tiptoes. His lips tasted like salt, his mouth, like sweetwater and mint. Tears, warm and wet trailed down her cheeks.

  The palace alarm sounded, droning in an annoying buzz that echoed through the passage. Razi pulled away, his eyes alight with fear. "Time to go."

  Chapter Nineteen – Hiding

  The narrow passage made her feel claustrophobic. Her chest tightened and her eyes widened. Razi pulled Sima along, his fingers meshed with hers. At first, they passed little view stations, complete with monitors, call buttons and some even had a closet nearby with sundries for the adjoining rooms. Her bare feet made as little sound as Razi’s boots against the odd metal floor. "Where are we going?"

  "I don’t know." He spoke in a low tone, just loud enough for her to hear. "Away from the palace for starters. You do want to get away from the Oemir still, don’t you?"

  "Only if I get to stay with you." She meant her words, but they startled her all the same when she blurted them out. Sima bit her lower lip, trying to silence herself.

  The servant’s passage forked three ways. He stopped, staring down each passage with a determined look in his shadowed brown eyes. She remembered how much she wanted to gaze into them that first moment they’d met. The memory sent a thrill through her body, warming her.

  "This one," he decided. The passage he started down lacked lighting. Every monitor they passed looked dead. Some of the keypads were missing, severed wires jutting out where the buttons used to be. They clung to the sides of her blanket as Sima plowed along, scratching, clawing, a feeble attempt to slow her escape.

  The unused passage then forked five ways. Two shafts bore stairs into pitch darkness. She didn’t want to venture down there. Who knows what Leuj hides beneath his palace? What dark secrets lay forgotten there?

  Razi squeezed her hand. "Which one?"

  "Neither." She leaned into his warmth, wishing she had more than a medical blanket to wear in the growing chill.

  "He won’t look for us down there, especially if you’re afraid of it. How well does Leuj know you?"

  "Better than you do." She glanced at his face, startled by the twitch of his mouth as if he…felt jealous?

  He shook his head, forcing a smile. "When he wants something, someone, he researches, and learns everything about it. It was all over Investigating the Stars."

  "Ah." She held back her laughter. "At least that stupid show is good for something. Bunch of gossip and paparazzi cheap shots."

  "You seem offended." He smiled, the expression softening his face.

  "You watch too much TV." She reached up to touch the rise of his cheek.

  He chuckled. "Not much else to do where I was, except watch porn. That gets old after the first five years. Then the regulars, with their routines and the occasional odd chic." He shrugged. "Too much information?"

  "I would say so." She chewed her lip a bit longer, turning her attention to the two dark offerings of stairs to the lower hell of the palace. "That one." She pointed. "Let’s try that one."

  "A wise choice." He leaned down to plant a kiss on her cheek.

  "Really?" Her skin prickled from his closeness. The scent of dragon lilies clung to his uniform. She pressed her cheek against his as he withdrew, feeling his soft stubble grate over her skin.

  "Not really. I just thought I’d make you feel important." His grin flashed in the gray light as they started down the stairs. Sima clenched her fingers around his, terrified he’d let go, that she’d find herself alone in the pitch black.

  As if he heard her thoughts, he paused, turning to pull her against him. "I won’t let you go. Not this time."

  "I’m very good at running away." She felt his fingers sweep over her neck, down the blanket that covered her back, tentatively caressing her.

  "How did he find you? I mean, I knew he would, but you seemed so determined. You left in such a pissy mood. I was afraid I’d never see you again."

  "I made it to the mountains." Sima sighed, long and hard, reliving the memory of Grandfather staring at her with his accusing, dead eyes. "Soldiers came. They were looking for wards for Hicklan."

  "Soldiers?" His thumb traced the skin at the back of her neck. "Ah, yeah, Lensi said they were using soldiers now. Makes sense."

  "Why?"

  "The Kyleenian Empire is all about assimilation. The sooner the native Unangi tribes are cleaned out of the mountains, the sooner they can move in and colonize. It won’t be much longer now. Saw a documentary on Natural World a few months ago."

  "You’re a regular couch potato."

  He shrugged once more. "Like I said. Nothing else to do."

  When he brushed his mouth against hers, Sima sighed. She moved in, stealing his breath with a deep kiss. His firm lips parted to let her explore. Then the alarm went silent, startling her back to reality. "That can’t be good."

  "No." His hand fell away from her skin, returning to her fingers. "Into the unknown we go."

  The pitch black engulfed them. Sima tried to hold onto the image of his face when he’d laughed earlier, the rounding of his cheeks, the way his mysterious eyes sparkled with mischief. The emptiness in the metal corridor and the near silence of their steps fought against her though, trying to wrench a scream from her throat with its loose wires scratching against her skin. She guessed the section of passageways must be under construction.

  Underfoot, she felt the change of the floor material when they found the end of the stairs. The platform tink-tinked beneath Razi’s boot heels and made a lesser sliding sound against the pads of her feet. In the distance, she heard water dripping, an annoying ceaseless sound that reminded her of an Ouvian torture handbook she’d come across in an obscure library on Tagia.

  She made out the subtle sound of Razi’s fingers rubbing across the wall they passed.

  "Aha," he said. "Old door here." He guided her back a few steps. "Lemme see if I can pry it open. The rollers may be fused shut if its not been oiled in a few years."

  When he let go of her hand, she panicked. Her lungs constricted; her breathing went wild. Metal creaked, then groaned. Rollers grated across their slides. Sima’s heart pounded so hard she thought it might burst from her chest.

  "There we go." Blue light showed in the sliver of a passage beyond the door he’d pried free. "What do you say? Should we?"

  Sima darted forth, grabbing his hand. "Okay. Just don’t let go of me again."

  Concern creased his brow, the luminous color in the passage making him appear ghostly. "I’ll hold you forever if that’s what you want." He tugged her into the passage. "Forever might not last very long if we can’t find a way out of this maze." Razi lowered her hand to his waist. "I need to clo
se it back up."

  She nodded. Her fingers twisted into the coarse fabric of the uniform shirt he wore.

  He forced the old door across its runners, sliding it agonizingly slow into place. When he turned to face her, he cupped her chin. "You look too scared. Are you sure you’re the same woman that came to my wardroom, scrambled my brain, stole my heart and royally screwed my whole easy life?" Without waiting for an answer, he pressed her against the hall passage wall, his body hot against hers.

  She was thankful the painkiller hadn’t worn off on her laser sutures yet. It felt good to be crushed close by this man, his rigid body intrusive and tempting against hers. If they weren’t running from Leuj, she knew she’d let him have his way with her right then, that she’d yield to any and every advance he made. "Can I kiss you?"

  "Of course. You don’t have to ask. I’m yours as much as I was that first moment I saw you."

  "You weren’t mine then. You didn’t—I mean that is—you don’t even know me."

  "But I want to." He nipped at her upper lip, his growing hard-on announcing its presence just below her navel. He worked his way across her mouth, teasing her with each gentle bite. When she closed her eyes, sighing, he kissed her hard, aggressively claiming her mouth.

  Chapter Twenty – Wine Cellar

  Trying to resist Sima proved challenging, even in the dank servant’s passages they marched through. Razi lost count of how many doors he’d pried open and how many times he stopped to kiss her. He didn’t tell her, but when they entered the wide room smelling of dust and faintly of wine, he’d almost given up hope that they’d get anywhere at all. Never in his assignments to the rich homes on the north side of Irnia had he encountered servant’s halls so winding and confusing. The palace had several levels beneath the main floor, which Razi assumed prior Oemirs built over the years. Old remained buried by new and slowly, with the passage of time, all seemed forgotten.

  "What is this place?" Sima asked, her forearm tangled around his.