The people broke apart, mingling and taking food from the large banquet tables, loud and raucous. Clara smiled, they were relaxed and happy, their new ruler someone they followed out of respect, not fear.
Charles was animatedly speaking with Sarah and everyone seemed to be deep in cup, food or conversation. Clara found her eyes seeking the man she could not stop thinking about.
There he was, his gaze already locked upon her.
Matthew saw Clara's eyes find his and his body moved of its own volition, the need to be near her burning from the inside out. It had been three long weeks of explaining and regaining trust and he had been kept from her. Now, finally, they could see each other.
Clara met him halfway, the throne a backdrop behind them, her gaze went to the gills on his neck and she belatedly realized that when he was excited they would fully open, as they did now. The stripes of pink flesh decorated a neck the size of one of the small timbers Outside.
Her legs weakened as he got closer, then he was suddenly there, right in front of her. When he took her elbow, she could feel his fingers like brands of fire, running from the point of contact and radiating throughout her body, as warm heat spread.
His nostrils flared as he looked at her mouth and she knew, knew, that he wished to put his upon her lips. But propriety swirled around them and as they looked at each other, President Bowen appeared.
He cleared his throat and Clara felt Matthew's fingers slide down her forearm, then fall away and it felt like a loss.
They turned and faced him.
He looked at them both and indicated they talk in a far corner of the Gathering Room. Clara saw Charles watch her, his face darkening.
He was all for the treaty but did not like her role amongst the savages... clan, she corrected herself.
She knew, as Sarah and Olive had both said, that Charles' feelings went beyond friendship. It was causing a strain this past month. A strain upon a friendship that had once been easy.
Bowen turned, taking her arm and Matthew tensed. She sensed he did not like anyone touching her, any male.
She came back to what Bowen had been saying reluctantly, distracted this near Matthew.
She interrupted him, “I apologize, President Bowen, I missed that first part...”
“Arthur, please, Clara.”
She nodded.
“As I was saying, now that the signing of the treaty is behind us, how do you propose to introduce the delicacies of ...” and he raised his eyebrow.
She was unsure how to broach the subject. Possibly, she could let it run its natural course. She said as much, Matthew's pulsating heat spilling into her.
He shook his head. “That may take time. Perhaps there are women who would wish to live Outside, become part of the community. Then they may find themselves amongst the men of the clan. Visitation would not facilitate unions with any expediency as compared to a change of residency.”
He was right, but how to say such without the whole of the kingdom becoming squeamish about the basest fact that the Clan was dying out because there were not enough females? There was not an easy solution within the societal constraints in which they lived.
“Unless....” Bowen trailed off.
Clara looked at him sharply, her mind racing furiously to intuit his implication.
“What say you, President?”
“Unless their Queen was to mate with a clan-dweller. In that way, she would lead by example,” he said, his eyes hooded, his expression cloaked in the shadows of the corner.
Matthew's eyebrows lowered and his hands became tight. “She cannot mate with just anyone, sir!” he said fiercely, his face a mass of tight angles. Clara reached out and he relaxed under her touch, his eyes softening.
“I did not say she was without choice. Obviously, it is entirely up to the Queen, whom she would choose. She is a select, after all. That very thing predicates the choosing.”
They fell silent, her strange select status a detail which needed much discussion.
“She needs to come to the clan, stand before the Band and be tested. This is the only way,” Matthew ground out.
President Bowen bowed his head, not meeting Clara's eyes.
“Sir... Arthur, what is this he says?” she asked, giving them troubled eyes.
“We have not encountered a select in many years, before my time,” he paused, spreading his palms away from his body. “It used to be these special females were meant only for the Band and that whoever they responded to most, would then be their chosen mate. It was not a matter of intellect, but rather, biology.”
“I am understanding that you wish for me to come to the Band, be 'tested' to see if I react to certain males more than others? And if so, I should choose which to mate?”
They stood there silently and Clara felt their discomfort.
“What?” she asked impatiently.
“If there is more than one male of the Band that you respond to equally, they may decide to....”
“To fight for you,” Matthew finished flatly for Bowen.
Clara stood there, struggling with her emotions. Is what she felt for Matthew some kind of odd chemistry? It was not real? She could possibly go to the Band, and feel this with one of the others? It was a terrible potential.
Matthew's anguished eyes told her she was right.
But she had her duty, always her duty. It was not just to the people of her sphere. She had given her word that she would do all she could for the people of the clan as well.
Clara straightened. “When?”
President Bowen exhaled in a great rush. “One day hence.”
Clara nodded, looking at Matthew, what would this mean for them?
“Clara,” Bowen said her name.
She looked at him. “You understand that Matthew's standing amongst the Band has been compromised by your taking...” he trailed off.
She looked at him. “Meaning?”
“That he will not be included in the test.”
Her eyes met Matthew's tortured gaze and she could only stare.
“That is not acceptable,” she all but yelled. “Did he not tell you of his...” she looked at Matthew, not wanting to betray what she knew of him, “past circumstances? Surely that gives him some allowance?” she finished, placing her hands on her hips, her eyes on fire, the hair that Matthew so admired flying about her hips. He looked at her with a longing that shook her to her core. She would not desert him, wrest his chance with her because the Band and their leader were trifling about what had happened. She was fine, she was well, all was as it should be.
Abuse free at last.
“If I do this, at least allow his inclusion.” She gazed steadily at the President, their eyes meeting for a pregnant pause.
“Very well, but on this condition,” he said, looking at them both, “he shall be last.” His words sat there in the moist air, both men blotting their faces with linen cloths, neither acclimated to the humidity that was the sphere.
Clara deliberated. It was the best she could do and satisfy everyone. The larger question remained: what would happen if another of the Band made her feel the way she had with Matthew? What then? She happened to raise her eyes and saw that Charles' full attention was on her small group of three and his eyes narrowed. She knew he would never condone this. But for his own reasons.
It was an excellent political decision for the sphere. Her marriage to their allies would solidify and progress the alliance. That had been Queen Ada's reasoning, even though flawed with Ada wishing Clara to marry the sadist Prince. However, their friendship would suffer, and that she valued, she valued it very much.
As he approached, a thousand memories encroached and her spirit felt torn. He was her closest friend, yet, his love for her crippled his objectivity. She had not seen it before.
She did now.
“What is this, Clara?” Charles asked, looking at the two men, his eyes settling on her.
“We were discussing my designation as a select.”
Charles' gaze darkened. “What of it?”
Clara drew a deep breath. “They have a tradition amongst the clan-dwellers in which if there is a select, she is 'tested' with the males of the Band for the most beneficial mating.”
A silence cloaked the moment so thoroughly it felt as though the noise all around them was heard through glass and rain, deafening and at the same time, silent.
He kept staring and she stared back. It was when his face started to gain high color that Clara became alarmed, but it was not she that he directed his anger at it was Matthew. He was more than ready to respond, his emotions boiling beneath the surface.
“You cannot leave her alone, can you? What exactly did you do to her Outside, when no one was around to defend her against you?” Charles said in a low and furious voice which traveled better than she would have liked.
Matthew closed the distance between them in two long strides. “I have not forced my hand or body against her, sphere-dweller,” he said. Grabbing Charles by the lapel, he dragged them almost nose-to-nose, which instantly gained the attention of all the Band members and a few of Clara's subjects as well.
She came between them, struggling to assert her body, dividing their anger physically.
“Stop this, both of you,” Clara said. Turning in the tangle of their arms and facing Charles, her back pressed against Matthew's chest she stared at Charles. “Please, do not do this, not now. Let us discuss this later, in private.”
Her eyes dug into his, imploring him. Charles grappled, he was most assuredly done with hiding his feelings, he no longer wished to squelch what he felt for Clara, yet he did not wish to hurt her. He was starting to calm down when the savage leaned down and took a deep breath of the crown of her head, smelling her fragrant hair, which undid him utterly. Every intellectual command he had just given himself was gone in a red haze of rage and jealously.
He launched himself around Clara, landing a grazing punch on the jaw of the savage, who used one arm to twist Clara behind him, protecting her from him.
Clara couldn't believe this was the Charles she had grown up with, this raging animal who came at Matthew, death riding his eyes.
“Guards!” Clara screamed and they came to their Queen's command, grabbing Matthew.
“No!” she shrieked as Charles landed another blow on Matthew, and he retaliated, snapping his arm forward as quick as a snake, impacting Charles' jaw as she watched his head snap back and he staggered backward. But like an enraged bull, he came at Matthew again, his bell rung but not stopped. Head down he charged and Clara did the most stupidest thing she had ever done in her life. She ran in front of Matthew, as if her fragility was a shield that he needed.
“Clara, no!” Matthew roared and Charles' momentum carried him into them both, knocking the wind out of Clara. She fell against Matthew, who pinwheeling backward, grabbed onto her as she was falling, cushioning her fall. She bounced on top of him and her head cracked back into his forehead and she was saw stars, literally.
Bright spots of color danced before her eyes like fireflies, narrowing to a single pinpoint laser beam of light. The last face she saw was Bracus, his mouth moving but no sound coming out, then she knew no more.
CHAPTER 35
Clara came awake in stages with Charles at her bedside. She did not snatch her hand away but she said the one thing that came to her mind, “Matthew.” She saw Charles' eyes flinch and she had a stab of guilt, then recalled his behavior and was battling her remorse less keenly.
It was not Matthew but Bracus which appeared at her bedside. Clara gazed about her room and saw that there were four guards, two inside her doorway and two outside. Breathing easier, she sat up, releasing Charles' hand and arranging the pillows behind her.
She noticed that she was still in her royal wardrobe but missing the crown. Olive had put it away, she was sure. Clara had not yet donned the Queen's crown, preferring her own to the ostentatious ornament that had been Ada's.
Clara's head throbbed where it had landed on Matthew's forehead and she gathered her wits about her laboriously. “Bracus,” she began and he stepped forward under the glare of Charles' scrutiny.
“Where is Matthew?”
“He is in the guest chamber's of the Band,” Bracus answered.
She nodded, that was good. “Is he, did I hurt him?”
Bracus grinned so wide she heard his face smile, his gills opening slightly. “Nay, Queen Clara, a wee thing such as you bouncing off his thick skull would do nothing.” His smile faded and he looked at Charles briefly then back at her. “It is you that had us worried.” His gaze traveled her face as if he knew every curve and plane. Clara could feel a reciprocal heat warm her face and she knew that her response showed. Charles' eyes narrowed as he watched. What had happened to him? His anger seemed always near now.
Clara did not wish to incite Charles further and a pool of resentment bubbled up within. She was tired of tiptoeing about, walking amongst peoples' feelings as if eggs were scattered at her feet.
She sighed. “Bracus?”
He inclined his head, taking in her loveliness, that special fragrance that was Clara but also more, other. That “adviser” of hers was going to be trouble, even before today Bracus had known it. His feelings for Clara clear to all but her.
“Let me have a word with Charles at present and later today we will convene with your president and choose a time that works for all.”
“Yes, Queen Clara.”
“Please, we have been through entirely too much to stand on ceremony, it is my wish to be called Clara by you.”
Bracus smiled, she made a fine ruler for one so young. He did not mourn the other Queen's passing. Especially in light of what Matthew had told the Band. He paused remembering what he had said:
*
“She has known little of compassion since the death of her father, the king.”
“Why did the Queen beat her?” James had asked Matthew.
To which he had shrugged. “She drinks of the cup incessantly. She only breaks from it while asleep. Clara kept the secret of her abuse for years.”
“Aye, it is very good that she is dead. It is that wolverine of a Prince that gives me worry. He and that guard evaded our blades. I, for one, will not rest until his neck is beneath it again.”
The Band put their fist to their hearts, a promise was forged. For the protection of the new Queen, for the strengthening of the alliance between their peoples, the Prince must be found and executed.
“Bracus?” Clara laughed.
“I apologize, Clara, I was deep in my memories.”
“Of what, pray tell?” Charles asked, and Clara gave him a look of warning but he ignored her.
“I was thinking of the discussion I have had most recently with the Band about the Prince and the serpent's whereabouts,” Bracus said with gravity.
Charles nodded. “We have scouts on the patrol for him but with the rain of the Outside...”
Bracus nodded. The weather had made tracking virtually impossible.
“He will not try to enter the sphere again. Let him take his chances amongst the fragment and clans which are not as friendly as yours,” Clara said dismissively, the Prince utterly gone from her mind.
And that was where she wished for him to remain.
“I am afraid the fragment may welcome someone such as he,” Bracus said. “However, we can do no more and he has no force now that the king of that sphere has cast him out. He is but a refugee of the Outside,” rolling his tremendous shoulders into a shrug.
Clara nodded and Bracus began to walk to the doorway where a guard opened the massive door of oak, turning he looked to her directly. “I will speak with you later, all of us.”
Matthew.
Just thinking of him had brought a trembling energy to her body and she struggled to suppress it, Charles watching her facial expressions like a hawk.
Clara got right to it. “Charles,” she began, taking his hand, “we are the greatest of fr
iends and although you have made your intentions for me known, my feelings do not extend beyond friendship.”
“Can you not see what we could be together?” he asked.
She could see, that was the misery of it. Clara loved him, with all her heart. But there was no fire, no passion. Mayhap in time, it could grow, she did not know. Then there was the complication of being a select. Whatever that meant. She did not fully understand it yet. She knew that there was a certain biological compulsion working within her that colored her thoughts and emotional processes. Mayhap robbing her of what she may have thought and chosen in their absence. The facts were, it was her reality now. And apparently, for a few others as yet undiscovered. Clara was keenly aware that she was royal, her father never let her forget her sense of duty. If she were to marry, or mate, as the clan referred to it, she could not exclude the Band, as they were seen as the “royalty” of their culture. It was all very convoluted and she wished not to dwell upon it but dwell she must.
Clara needed to walk, holding on to Charles' hand she swung her stocking feet out from the covers and stood, Charles rising with her.
“You answered not my question.”
“I will, let us walk. I need to ease the throbbing in my head and I believe my blood moving will aid in that.”
Charles could not suppress his guilty expression. Clara had suffered because of his jealously. He held out his arm and she took it, the guard smoothly opening the door that led out of her chamber. He could not longer think and act rationally where Clara was concerned and it troubled him.
Clara felt a trifle lightheaded as they made their way to the top of the huge staircase and began their descent, Charles' right hand gliding atop the polished wood bannister.
“I do see what we could be, Charles. But there is more to my decisions than potential. I have many things to consider.”
Charles stopped on the stairwell, the magnificent stained glass mermaid observing them. Charles put his back to the glass, the colors of the sea washing him in a halo of aquamarine. Clara looked into his face and then the sun slanted into her eyes through the sphere wall, bleeding through the glass. Lifting her hand to shield her eyes at the same time she shadowed her eyes the face of the mermaid was in shadowed relief, only the eyes glowing softly down at them.
The SAVAGE Series, Books 1-3: The Pearl Savage, The Savage Blood and The Savage Principle Page 27