Blue-gray eyes were entranced by the fire's dancing glory. She picked at crisp blades of grass as her eyes grew heavy.
The fire continued its hypnotizing ways. Its sultry spell had all but conquered Autumn's wandering mind when something incredible began to take place.
The flames sparked brightly. Their chaotic rhythm took on a steady air. It thumped loudly as a deafening heartbeat.
The fire snaked upward. From its brilliant length, the flames conformed into a sinewy arm. It pulled forcibly at the sky, determined to claim it. Within the blazing fires, a face took shape. Its mouth opened in a passionate struggle. Another arm burst from the fire's depths. Together with both hands gripping possessively at the ground, an erotic torso propelled itself from the fire's base. Pulling at the earth around the campfire, feminine hips were birthed from the fiery womb. Sensuous legs drew out from the fire until the entire body had emerged from the fires.
A sudden wind broke over the land. Its force was unnatural. It whipped zealously through Autumn's long wavy hair. She gasped as it extinguished the flames from this woman born of fire. Before her eyes stood a woman with smooth mortal skin which steamed hotly beneath the breezes.
The woman attempted a solitary step only to collapse to her hands and knees. She lifted her soot-lined face. Her eyes were dazzlingly blue. They peered through sparkling lashes of gold to the woman slowly sitting up. A desperate need to touch the woman's face consumed her. Slowly, she extended her hand. “Autumn,” she breathed.
The Queen's heart leapt upward. It locked itself within her throat. She felt its wild fluttering distinctly. “Sacred Mother, help me,” she rasped. “You aren't real. You can't be real.”
Autumn backed further against the tree, wishing with all her might that it were possible to pass through it. With nowhere else to go, she watched as the blond drew closer to her. She felt the all too vivid heat of breath against her face. Her eyes widened in fearful disbelief as fingertips hovered near to her cheek.
“Autumn,” she heard, “my beautiful Autumn.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks in hot rivers. The Queen's eyes flashed with white hot rage. “You sent us to die!” she yelled. She lashed out with an angry hand. “I hate you! My father's dead because of you! If the Lucidians don't kill us all, I'll kill you myself!”
The Empress had only just managed to grasp Autumn by the wrist. She held it firmly preventing the hand from bringing its wrathful touch.
“I never meant for you to be in harm's way,” Aurea said. Her eyes glistened with sadness. “Believe what you want about me or the things I've done, but I would have never---”
“Stop talking!” Autumn commanded. She rolled their entangled bodies.
Gazing down at the Empress, who still relentlessly held her wrist, the Queen reached out with her free hand for a weapon of any kind. Her hand sealed around the blunt weight of a rock. She lifted it, seeing it reflect in the pristine pools of Aurea's eyes.
“I love you, Autumn,” the Empress stated simply.
Aurea turned her head quickly to the left, narrowly avoiding the rock crashing down where once her head had been.
“I love you.”
Autumn drew back her hand, bringing the stone down again. Its furious impact scarcely missed the Empress' head.
“Stop talking,” Autumn demanded emphasizing each word with a volatile blow.
“Then kill me, my Love,” Aurea shouted, “because that is the only way you're going to make me leave.”
“I hate you!”
“Love and hate don't just interchange because we want them to. You may want to hate me with all your heart, but----”
Autumn turned her head. She could not stand seeing the emotion flooding from Aurea's eyes as she spoke.
“You can't because we don't get to choose whom we love. Love chooses us!”
Aurea searched over the trembling creature looming above her. Her entire being longed to take her into her arms. It had been so long since she had held her beloved angel. “Put that down,” she soothed, “and let me go.”
“No!” Autumn cleaved more fiercely to the rock in hand. She weighed the true consequence of its worth within her hand through deeply troubled eyes.
“Autumn,” Aurea's voice was gentle and low, “how many Lucidians have you killed?”
Pale eyes shifted to her with such a swiftness that Aurea felt a shiver rush up her spine. She stared into those eternal storms, determined not to bow to them. She realized then that Autumn understood. If the warrior Queen had truly wished her dead, she would be like so many Lucidians to meet their Fate at Autumn's hands.
With a muted thud, the heavy stone fell to the ground. Autumn backed away. She sat with slumped shoulders before the fire. Dazed, she stared into it.
Aurea closed her eyes for a brief moment. She released a quavering breath, surprised that she was still alive. As she opened her eyes once more, she propped herself up onto her elbows. She stared after Autumn longingly.
Daring to tempt Fate again, she crept toward the dark-haired woman. Aurea knelt as close as she could. Her hands lingered in the air near tense shoulders. Timidly, she touched her hands to those rock-like shoulders. Her touch was gentle. She leaned forward, nuzzling her nose into the soft waves of chocolate she had longed to feel tickle her face.
Autumn closed her eyes at the feel of loving kisses bestowed with such tenderness to her head. “Go away,” she pleaded hoarsely.
“No,” Aurea whispered into her hair.
The Empress guided Autumn's head to turn. With a hand resting warmly against her cheek, she inched forward. Her lips were scarcely a breadth from Autumn's when she felt them move against her own.
“I hate you,” Autumn whispered as her body trembled.
Aurea brushed her lips over Autumn's sweet lips in a kiss which tasted of adoration and resentment and of love without trust.
The trepidation of the kiss soon fell away to little more than a memory as their kiss intensified with a heated inhalation of breath. Their kiss became a searing blaze to weld their bodies together. In its life, lived a battle for supremacy. Each pair of supple lips desperately fought to claim possession of the other: body and soul.
The Empress pulled Autumn closer with one hand while her other fell away from a proud jaw to traverse beneath the enigmatic warmth of the Queen's cowl. Her fingertips with light brushes painted the seductive swell of a full breast. She memorized its smoothness, shivering at the nub arching into her touch.
Autumn raised her hands to the clasp of her cowl. She unfastened it fluidly, sending the lengthy garment puddling to the ground around her. The hunger she witnessed stoking the flames of Aurea's eyes commanded her breath to tremble. She tilted her head offering up her neck to the Empress, who kissed along her delicate skin.
Aurea's hands explored her lover's body with slow intent. She mapped the tiny scars left by war in various accents upon the woman's sculpted arms and lean thighs. Her lips marveled at the strength of the heart beating beneath them. Before she could control herself, tears of love and rage spilled against the rolling hills of Autumn's breasts. She watered their landscapes in sporadic rains.
Hands moved to cup the Empress' face. She surrendered to their whims, allowing her face to be lifted. No masks hid the emotions written with such abandon across her face.
Why did you leave me, her eyes said. Do you have any idea how worried I've been, how frightened? I love you so much and I hate you for that.
Autumn's eyes had shifted from their flat gray to a piercing blue littered with iron flecks. She urged Aurea forward.
As their lips parted against the others, she pushed her long-held passions into her lover as the sensuous entrance of her soft tongue. It caressed Aurea's tenderly in a swirling dance.
The blond drew closer. She moved until she came to sit upon Autumn's lap. Her legs encircled around a narrow waist wantonly. She released a purr from the depths of her throat, feeling it reverberate within the recesses of her lover's mouth. Th
at sound quickly gave way to a low moan as palms which never broke contact with her skin slid down the flanks of her back. Her body writhed and shook beneath Autumn's touch. She intensified their kiss with all her might, scorching the woman with a kiss, the way that Autumn ignited her with her hands.
Nails carved a path of descent along her taut back. As her head fell back with a moan, Aurea felt the swells of her arching buttocks gripped possessively. For a brief instant, she saw the stars of the sky pulse brightly. Their beating life fell into a perfect harmony with the throbbing she felt alive in every part of her. Her ragged breath rose up into the night. The stars shifted as their bodies began to move together as one. She swooned violently. Her body fell forward as hundreds of stars began streaking wildly across the sky.
What fires Autumn's touch had created were birthed anew by the liquid heat which ran in quickened intent along the warrior's stomach. She arched her quivering abdomen against the fiery fount. Her eyes were alight in a way they had never been.
Aurea lifted her head to peer into those expressive orbs. She gripped tightly at her lover's shoulders, cleaving to her with all she had. In Autumn's eyes she saw the sky for all its beauteous glory. More than this, she witnessed the truest splendors of the Djidjiga constellation for it lived there like the very flames of the Empress' eyes.
********
Beneath a streaking sky, Lucidian women garbed in flowing hooded capes danced for the moon. Their beautiful faces were but a deeply-sought mystery. A mask concealed the area surrounding their eyes though it exposed the seduction of moistened lips and delicate jaws.
The land around them was pristinely white. New-fallen snow had covered everything with the freshness of new beginnings. And yet, in this land of alabaster perfection, the arcing lines of their dancing created an intricate pattern of circular unity much like the moon for which they danced.
The meteor shower had begun.
********
Her lover's entire body was fevered. Autumn could feel it so clearly beneath the sensitive planes of her palms. Every inch of Aurea that they traversed greeted her hands with blazing heat. The more she felt that heat, the more she yearned to draw it out, to allow it to consume her in its never-ending intensity.
Autumn ran her hands upward along Aurea's firm thighs. Her left hand cupped at the very instant which a sensuous leg met a voluptuous swell while her other hand curved inward, daring to seek out the depths of desirous heat.
Aurea cried out against her lover's mouth. She was slain. She had been shown the same unrelenting force which Autumn demonstrated upon the battlefield. This was what it was to die. This was what it meant to fall in Autumn's wake.
Casting unified shadows along the ground, their dance grew more impassioned. Nails ran as purposeful reminders of pain and mortality. Kisses rose and fell like the flames beckoning from the campfire.
Aurea's fever only continued to rise. The heat emanating from her body brought stinging tears to Autumn's eyes. Still, Autumn refused to step away from its heat. She offered herself up to it as a sacrifice.
The Empress leaned forward, guiding the dark-haired woman to rest against her back. As she left enslaving kisses over her torso, leaving no inch uncovered, her nails dug sharply into Autumn's erotic hip. She breathed deeply of the enticing perfume to sweeten the air. It possessed the same powerful qualities of any Djidjiga blooms but caused the bloom to pale in comparison.
The blond lowering with deliberate slowness ran the tip of her tongue down Autumn's abdomen, savoring every new sensation.
Autumn's body arched upward in a slow rise. She reached down with both hands, clutching full curls within her grasp. Her fluttering lashes were open just long enough to take in the sight of otherworldly movement.
The Queen commanded her eyes to focus. The heated air around Aurea was rippling. As the Empress' passions grew, her aura raised upward like radiant halos to her every action. Passion blazed scarlet. Then suddenly it lurched skyward taking the gossamer form of a crouching giant.
Crimson wings outstretched, its body loomed over Autumn. Though she could see the trees in the distance behind it, her eyes also caught sight of the fire's light dancing off dragon scales or shimmering against its massive claws. The harshness of its yellow eyes glowed like summer suns. Its wings rose higher in a menacing stretch.
In the very instant that Autumn felt herself entered by the softest bit of flesh she had ever felt, the creature leapt for her with open jaws. She let loose a cry which ripped from her soul. Her world fell to blackness as she was devoured.
********
The eerie stillness of twilight had quelled the world of its life. That stillness forced her body to tense violently. Her eyes flashed open to reveal a stormy gaze. She gasped, disoriented and afraid. The arm draped across her body returned her to the events of the night before. She released a whimpered sob as her eyes followed the captivating line of the arm to the sleeping blond whose beauty gave her sleeping face an entrancing glow.
Autumn extended a shaking hand. She touched the Empress' face with the utmost tenderness, fearful that anything less would cause the woman to stir. An odd sort of bravery touched her soul then. She spoke scarcely above a whisper, daring to say to Aurea's dreams what she realized she could never say to the blond during her waking life.
“As long as I exist,” she said, “it will be as one who loves you.”
Aurea tightened her embrace around the comforting form she felt pressed to hers. Still, she did not wake.
“And long after I am gone, I shall wait for you where judgments do not exist so that despite our deeds, both yours and mine, all that will matter is that I love you and you love me.”
Lowering her head, the Queen's dark hair fell sadly around her face. She parted her lips to speak, but instead watched a horrifying stiffness grip Aurea's body.
Blue eyes ripped open. They were held by the deepest reaches of terror. “No,” Aurea rasped.
With a sudden brutality, Aurea was wretched from Autumn's arms. She cleaved tightly to Autumn's hands with tears streaming hotly down her cheeks.
Autumn dug her heels into the earth, even as it gave way beneath her. She reached out with a desperate hand, holding with all her might to the fallen tree while her other wrist was fiercely held within Aurea's hands. Her eyes went to the fire born again of smoldering ashes. It reached outward as if owed an offering. The cost for their night together would be the return of the alluring blond.
“Don't let me go!” Aurea pleaded. “I want to stay with you.”
Autumn's hand upon the tree began to slip. She looked from it to Aurea and then back again with tearful eyes. “I'm losing my grip,” she cried. “Stop the spell!”
“I can't!” Aurea sobbed. She felt the ghostly arms of the fire pulling her into it. Already the lower half of her legs had slipped into the fires. Desperation flooded her eyes. “Come with me,” she begged.
Heart breaking inside her eyes, Autumn thought of her men, thought of her father, thought of the druids who had died and all because of Aurea's design. “Stop this war,” she countered suddenly. “Stop hunting the druids.”
Aurea growled loudly. Her body was lurched backward again with a stinging slide of her nude skin over gritty earth. “I can't!”
“Can't or won't?”
Together both, Autumn and Aurea were pulled that much closer to the fire as Autumn lost her grip of the tree.
As they slid in tangled struggle toward the fire, Aurea fell silent. Her eyes peered up into Autumn but still she could not answer.
That silence said more than Aurea had dared to dream. And so it was that they found themselves here yet again. They were two islands separated by seas of raging differences.
Quaking with sadness and regret, Autumn freed her hand from Aurea's grasp.
“No!” the Empress cried. She cleaved frantically to the ground, feeling the dirt reach deeply beneath her nails.
All that remained of her body now were her shoulders and arms. Sh
e gazed sorrowfully to the woman shakily beginning to stand. “Why aren't you fighting to keep us together?” Aurea demanded achingly.
Autumn bent down to collect her cape. She wrapped it around her body with tears streaming down her paling cheeks. Her face turned toward the direction of the rising sun. The battle would begin yet again very soon.
“We were pulled apart long ago,” she answered hoarsely, before she turned and left for the war, Aurea's war.
The Empress fell under the long shadow of Autumn's departing form. She screamed in fury and sadness as the last of her strength gave way and she was pulled completely into the fire. She plummeted into its depths then emerged through the other side. Her body violently crashed against her bedchamber floor.
Naked, alone and trembling, Aurea curled into a ball and cried for what she had lost while somewhere at the front, she knew that Autumn prepared to lead her men into another day from which she might not return.
Chapter Nineteen
O' but you were warned, you foolish many. What have you now? You are but fallen stars, destined to blaze as you fall painfully into the black night. What horrible sins have you committed?
Bitter tragedy, spare no truths for feeling's sake. Ring out with the clarity of stinging honesty and say: T’was not the faithless who condemned the world. T’was the faithful.
Killing can never be righteous especially if that righteousness was bestowed upon oneself. Do not linger upon the delusion that dogma makes the reflection of one’s own monstrosity easier to bear. Blood stains whatever she may touch whether you are holy or wicked.
---The Book Wrath
********
It covered the brooding Empress. She felt it upon every part of her. Love, she reeked of it. She bathed with a fiendish brutality but still it would not abandon her. It thrived in her memories, anointing the air in torturous breezes that brought her lover's scent. She trembled beneath phantom caresses.
Her hands rested against the massive windows within her bedchamber. She glared outside to the sunlight in its contented perfection.
The Flame of Wrath Page 33