Shadows of the Night (Kingdom Key Book 2)

by TylerRose.

  “No. This is it. I remain inside you as long as I can manage it. It will be more difficult for me without using the anchors, but I prefer your comfort at this time.”

  “How am I supposed to sleep like this?” she asked. “What is the purpose?”

  “You will eventually sleep. It is called the Thought Giver. It is performed the night before release, to give the female this time, locked together intimately, to deeply and carefully consider her decision to end the marriage. It also gives the male one last chance to impregnate her. We both know that won’t be happening. It also gives me the most lasting memory of our time together. I don’t remember everything I did with every Seven-Day bride, but I remember every Thought Giver vividly.”

  She managed it for around half an hour before becoming uncomfortable and want it to end…or for him to fuck her. He held her tighter, shushed her.

  “You have to push through the difficult moments and let the arousal go.”

  She needed almost ten more minutes to calm down, the last of the endorphins melting away into sleep. She startled awake late into the night, again aroused and uncomfortable. He made her be still and calm and endure until she drifted to sleep again. When next she woke, he gave her the pumping movements she needed along with the stroking to her clitoris that drove her into a long and hard orgasm. He held her in the orgasm as long as he could, capturing hands that tried to push his fingers away. He held both wrists in one hand to the pillow over her head.

  She was not moved to tears as some of his other brides had been, but descended into a sleep so profound that she didn’t change position until she woke at midmorning.

  Leaving the bedroom, she found him in his office and on the vid-phone with another ambassador. She remained in the doorway, unseen by the other but completely distracting Shestna with her nudity in his wedding beads.

  “Thank you, Ambassador. I’ll come to Ercoli myself tomorrow and we will discuss it further,” he said and quickly cut the transmission.

  He regarded her with cocked head and narrow eyes.

  “Do you know that you could not be a more proper Voranian wife?”

  “How so?” she asked, standing her ground as he approached.

  “Presenting yourself nude and ready for use,” he replied, turning her to put her back against the door jamb. “Supplicant.”

  Arms up over head and he smiled. Opening his trousers, stepping into place, holding her wrists overhead.

  “Do you not ever get sore from lovemaking?” he asked, watching her face and chest flush rosy pink with his sudden penetration.

  “Sometimes. Usually when there are two or three men going at me in turns without rest. If I have rest, I don’t often get sore.”

  “Three men? Is that the most who have served your sex at one time?” he asked.

  “Four. They thought I was serving theirs,” she smirked. “Silly men.”

  “They have it totally wrong. Any man who makes love to you is servicing you. They just don’t know it.”

  “Shhh. Don’t tell anyone.”

  As soon as he had his ejaculation, they sat down to breakfast at the table, he dressed and she not. He enjoyed looking on her while eating, searing the image into his memory.

  “Go take your bath and dress for leaving,” he said after the meal. “Take your time as you did coming to me to begin this week. When you are ready to face the end of our week, come out to the sitting area.”

  She only nodded and went, feeling his eyes on her backside as she circled around to her door. She needed a soak in a hot bath, needed to steel herself for going back to the galaxy. Her respite was over.

  Dressed in the same bustier and jeans as she when she arrived, with her favorite boots and a bolero jacket, hair brushed but not adorned, she remembered to put on the gold bracelet given her by Encito. The rest she left on the empty dresser.

  There was no sense delaying the inevitable. She went out, this time having not smoked her pipe, and put the messenger bag next to the steps. He was sitting on the sofa and she did what she had not done for any man other than Kevin. She knelt in front of him without being told to.

  He looked down at her for a long moment, studying every line of her face, how his wedding beads caught on the edge of her bustier and the last few draped over the front.

  “I am not going to follow the exact tradition because it involves striking you in the face,” he said. “I hope I never have cause to do that. Everything else I will do according to custom.”

  She only nodded, her throat already hurting with emotion building.

  “Was this week meaningful to you? Or was it only pleasures and words?” he asked.

  “I don’t tell someone I love him unless I love him, Sta.”

  “Nor do I. I love you a great deal, Tyler.”

  “And I love you.”

  “I must ask you one time and one time only. You can answer one time and one time only.”

  He paused, gathering his nerve.

  “Tyler, First Daughter of Voran, will you remain my wife? Or do you insist I release you?”

  The moment of truth. She could easily remain his wife. A thousand reasons to stay went through her mind, along with another thousand reasons to go. A week was fine, but she was not anywhere near ready to be tied to one person for decades.

  “I insist you release me.”

  He grasped the beads and yanked downward, hard. The string flew apart in all directions. She had thought he would lift them off her. The pain of the string and the violence of the yank sent her scrambling to pick up beads.

  “No!”

  “Yes. Leave them,” he demanded, short and sharp. “They are not yours to keep.

  “But I could make a bracelet to remember—“

  “No. You may not. You cannot wear my beads in any bracelet or necklace form ever again. You are no longer my wife. You will leave my home now,” he said, physically taking beads from her fist.

  “You people have some cruel-ass customs, Shestna,” she scowled up at him.

  On her feet and stomping to the steps, she snatched up the messenger bag and teleported. Arriving at her own home, in the front room, she dropped the bag and the jacket and stomped into the bedroom to have a good long cry.

  “How may I help, Mistress?” came the voice of one of the female Neverseens.

  “You can’t. Just leave me alone.”

  “I have brought a cold water, Mistress. Is there a person I can call to be with you?”

  “No. Call Julian on the station and tell him I won’t be there until tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Tell him not to come here.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  Her cry over, Tyler went out to her garden corridor and into her small yard. She had shade trees, small garden beds, several benches dotted around. The wall was easily twelve feet high, to keep out prying eyes. She could not see a single building except the tall, blank wall of the temple.

  Immaculate. Only two blocks outside her door. She walked to it and stood at the candles, lighting one after another after another, welcoming the focus the automatic action eventually brought.

  “A temple on Voran named Immaculate. What are the odds?” she heard Julian’s voice behind her.

  “I told the Neverseen to tell you not to come,” she said.

  “Yes, you did. I ignored that because you do too much pushing away right when you need someone the most.”

  She walked away from the candles and he followed. Outside, he captured her arm on his to walk to her home.

  “Nice,” he drawled from the entry. “Needs some paintings and things, but it’s very nice.”

  “I don’t need you hovering, Julian.”

  “I think you do. I want you to meet Mariah today. She’s a good kid and I think you two will get along well.”

  Feeling something uncomfortable in her bustier, Tyler reached in with a hand and found a bead. She stared at it. He stared at it.

  “He’s supposed to get all those
back,” Julian said.

  “Not this one. This one is mine.”

  She went to the dining table and brought her jewelry making supplies to herself. A sack of gold rings appeared in her hand and she pulled one out. Julian watched in fascination while she stuck gold wire through the bead three times and then wrapped it around the top of a gold ring and melted the wire to become part of the ring.

  “But…you’re not supposed to wear them again.”

  “He said no bracelet or necklace. He said nothing about a ring,” she said defiantly, and put it on the middle finger of her right hand as soon as it was cool enough. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Mariah met them in the station’s arboretum. She was eighteen, brunette, a couple inches taller than Tyler’s 5’3”, and the two of them got on so well that Julian gave them half a day’s assignments on the spot. Tyler needed to be kept occupied anyway, and Mariah was dying to get off the station and start doing something.

  Shestna wept.Standing alone in the middle of his sitting room, he shed tears over a bride for the first time. Gone ten seconds, she had left a gaping, painful, hole in his heart. When he stopped, and his mind came back to the room, he saw a Neverseen waiting with the small box in hand. She had already gathered the beads for him and placed them in a small clear box.

  “There is but one missing. We will find it eventually.”

  “Thank you,” he whispered, not able to speak any louder for the weakness in his throat and chest. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “We will miss the Mistress, Master. She is kind and considerate.”

  “That she is.”

  He took the box to his room and opened the lid of a jewelry box. He placed the box of blue beads inside, where he would see it often, rather than in the bottom drawer where the others were. Next, he called Dorn to tell him it was done and she had gone.

  “I’m on my way to the medical center now for my treatment. I’m three days late for it.”

  “She doesn’t know you’re ill, does she?” Dorn asked.

  “She does not and she will not. I will not have her be guilted into remaining with me.”

  “Very well. I will meet you at the center as usual.”

  Chapter Five

  Before they could leave the station, Tyler was summoned to Earnol’s office.

  “You were gone longer than you told Julian you would be,” he accused.

  “So what. I was never told I couldn’t take time to myself when I wanted. I’ll do so whenever I please.”

  “Why were you gone so long?”

  “Not that it’s any of your fucking business, and I think you already know; but I got married,” she happily announced, and held out her arm to show him the bracelet from Encito and the wedding bead on her new ring, both on the same arm. “I am now First Daughter of Voran and remain so even though Shestna and I are not married anymore. Encito is delighted to have me as his daughter, as is Alila. I am under direct protection of Emperor Encito and there is nothing you can do about it. Imagine what he might do if anything happens to me.”

  “You were given your own home there, yes?” he asked.

  “What of it?”

  “Now that you have a permanent residence and citizenship elsewhere, you must observe the regulations regarding Earth. You cannot go to Earth again without a specific purpose and my express permission. If you do, you can be prosecuted like anyone else.”

  “You know what, I really don’t give a flying fuck about your made up regulations. Not going to Earth is not an actual Congressional law and I know it. It’s not in the law book of the Congress. It’s your rule, made up for your own purposes. There was no vote on it and that means you just don’t want me there. It’s none of your god-damn business if I go to my home planet or what I choose to do there. I am a citizen of Earth. I am a natural born and tax-paying citizen of the United States of America and that you cannot change just because you want to. So you take your made up bullshit regulation and shove it up your ass sideways.”

  “You will never change. You will always be a mouthy little brat overstepping her boundaries at every opportunity.”

  “The word you’re looking for is bitch. Mess with me again and you won’t comprehend the level of bitch I will achieve. So fuck you and the horse you rode in on, you hemorrhoidal asshole,” she said, calm as could be. “I’ll do my job and you stay the fuck out of my way, old man.”

  “Or what?” he challenged.

  Eyes narrowing, she stared at him with that same feeling as when she killed Hynder in the street in front of a hundred people. He felt the tightening in his throat, as if someone was pinching his larynx. No enough to choke or kill him, but enough to be felt and know that she was doing it.

  “I don’t know. Do you really want to find out exactly what I’m capable of?” she asked, and teleported away.

  Alarms went off all over the station, set off by her unauthorized teleportation.

  “Okay, let’s go,” she said to her new co-worker Mariah.

  “What did you do?” Julian had to ask.

  “Told your father to go fuck himself but with more words. We’ll talk about other things later. Come to my place on Voran after our deliveries are done.”

  Tyler took Mariah by the forearm and teleported to their first stop, the Ercoli Embassy on Mamude. Pick up a package to take back to Ercoli. Simple enough. On the other end, they had to leave the Embassy building and walk two blocks up the street to the appropriate office. Halfway there, a small procession halted traffic and everyone watched with grave faces.

  Mariah giggled to see a man in toga-like shorts on his hands and knees crawling behind a priest in a tall robe and hat. Tyler shushed her.

  [He did something bad and this is part of his punishment. He’s on his way to render an apology and beg forgiveness,] Tyler told her telepathically. [Laughing can get you kicked off the planet.]

  [Oops. Sorry.]

  They waited for the Penitent to pass, the entire section of the block resuming its motion at the same time. Package dropped off, they went to their next pickup. An overstuffed envelope on Tarax going to DaiXi. Two more assignments and they were done for their half day.

  “You can come to my place on Voran III or go back to the station,” Tyler told Mariah.

  “Fuck the station. I don’t want to go back there again if I don’t ever have to,” Mariah made a sour face. “But I need my stuff.”

  Tyler teleported to her front room and sent a message to Julian, asking him to bring Mariah’s belongings when he came.

  “Be seen Neverseen,” Tyler said.

  One of the royal servants appeared in front of her. The male, bowing at once.

  “Mistress, you are back already.”

  “It seems I will be here most nights. Is the guest room ready as I said?”

  “It is, Mistress.”

  “My friend Mariah will use it. Make sure she has everything she needs. Call Shestna’s home and get the list of foods I liked from his Neverseens and get something for supper quick as you can manage.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” he said, and vanished to full speed to perform his job.

  “They teleport all over?” Mariah asked.

  “No. They move so fast you can’t see them unless they stand still and move slowly. I have them only because I was married to the First Prince of Voran for a week. Which reminds me. Do not accept any flowers from any man while you’re here unless you want to find yourself accidentally married to a complete stranger and unable to get out of it for seven days and nights.”

  “Is that what happened to you? Is that why you’re in such a bad mood?”

  “You will find she’s always in a bad mood,” Julian said, having arrived with Mariah’s suitcase.

  “Only when the Universe pisses me off,” Tyler said, leading the way out the door and into the corridor courtyard separating the back portion of the house. “The last door on the right is yours, Mariah. Go ahead and unpack and just consider this home.”

  “Thanks!”


  Julian turned back to see Mariah going into the room with her suitcase.

  “You’ve known her for four hours. You’re comfortable letting her live with you?” he questioned.

  “She’s a sweet girl. She’s not a thief and isn’t given to criminal mischief. She needs a place where she can be herself without conforming to what the grownups want. Let’s just say I identify.”

  The sun was setting off to the right but the sky was still bright. They sat on the bench in the middle of her yard.

  “What did you find out?” he asked first.

  “The ban on going to Earth is not a law. Earnol made it a thing because he wanted to and without a vote. It was so long ago no one remembers. There are no records here on Voran of a space station scouting out a location for the Congress. It didn’t happen that way.”

  “Nor are there any records on Deek’Trai VI. I had Baener check. He was shut out just like you were. No one can ask those questions. I couldn’t find records on Sistair either,” Julian shared.

  “Before Solomon killed him, Alen said to try the Doyen Confederacy. I’d completely forgotten until earlier today.”

  “I’ll look into it. The Confederacy is older than the Congress. I am a member. My mentor is nearly as old as my father. I’ll ask him directly if he knows anything.”

  Tyler only nodded, seeing Prince Shestna come out of the courtyard corridor.

  “Want me to send him away?” Julian asked under his breath.

  “No. Just give us a minute.”

  Julian stepped away to call his mentor and get questions going.

  “May I sit?” Shestna asked in the Royal Voranian tongue.

  Hopeful tone. Hoping she would not turn him away.

  “You may,” she chose to say.

  He did quickly, before she had a chance to change her mind.

  “I did not expect you to be back so soon,” he said.

  “Neither did I. I realized I could not stomach the thought of being on the station with that fuckhead Earnol. Besides, all my courier work is out here in Gamma Quadrant. It makes no sense to teleport all the way back to Pluto after my deliveries.”