by N J Adel
“Again, with the time error, everything is possible. The amount accumulated might be much more than needed.”
“If your assumption is correct, and the formulation has worked mathematically, we could last for ten whole days without food, water or sleep.”
He shrugged. “There is one way to know for sure.”
“To tell Drusus to eat all our suppers for ten days.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nur and I reached the second vault in silence. After that awkward encounter, I didn’t have much to say, and the chances to subtly test Nur’s wild energy had slimmed.
Perhaps a more blunt and straightforward method would garner better results.
And hopefully, unlike how they were with my guard, satisfactory.
I smiled to myself at my mischievous thoughts.
Nur walked in the vast, rectangular chamber toward a set of large wooden crates against the opposite wall. “I stored all the tools that had been buried with us in here.”
I took in the place, my eyes well-adjusted to the dim light. Festooned with fresco grapevines and pomegranates, bewailed by red and blue tragic masks, guarded by mosaic gods, this vault was a mockery garden with the smell of a tomb.
Nur hung the torches on the wall. “This place is the most suitable one in the house for setting the experiment hall. Enough space. Away from any distractions or intrusions.”
“If we can get used to the smell,” I said.
His nose scrunched. “It does smell like a burial chamber, but considering where we had been in the past thousand years, it won’t be difficult to get accustomed to it.”
I smiled in agreement. I’d have thought breathing well was going to be a challenge down here, but I was wrong.
We were both breathing just fine.
“With Majesty’s permission, I’ll set some tables and will see if I can make a few shelves tonight. Without the need to rest or recharge, I believe I can turn this forsaken vault into a decent experiment hall in a day and a half at most.”
“Very well. You might want to find a way to insulate the walls or this place won’t stand any of our physical experiments.”
A line appeared between his eyebrows. “Yes, my Queen. I haven’t paid attention to that detail.”
“Because you haven’t experienced the fire yet?” I glanced at him over my shoulder, and his scowl deepened.
“I have no valid assumptions about why that hasn’t happened till now.”
“I do.”
He strode toward me, filling my nostrils with a more pleasant odor—the calm yasmine fragrance he always smelled like—that almost overpowered that ugly smell of death. “Enlighten me, Majesty. Please.”
I scrutinized his face, deciding on the best approach to reach our common goal without further discomfiture. “How do you like Tia? Do you find her attractive?”
His brows cocked and then hitched. “Tia?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure she’s a fine woman, but what does she have to do with my implicit energy?”
“Answer the question.”
He hesitated for a moment. “Like I said, she is a fine woman, Majesty, but I’ve never thought of her that way.”
I stepped closer. “What about me? Do you find me attractive?”
His eyes widened, but, instantly, he looked away, bowing his head. “Majesty, if this is about…that irresponsible moment at the passage, I deeply apologize. I have no excuse for my behavior and accept whatever punishment Majesty sees fit.”
I do love to give that spectacular bottom of his a good, old-fashioned spanking.
With my index finger, I tilted his chin up. He stared at me with so much tension that it bordered on fear, not only shame.
I smiled at him, hoping to ease away his concerns, but I didn’t seem to succeed. He looked as if he was a moment away from collapsing.
“It’s all right. You can tell me,” I whispered.
His spine stiffened. “I can’t.”
My smile turned into a smirk. “And if I tell you that your sexual drive could be the only igniter of your wild energy?”
His lashes fluttered. “I am very confused at the moment. What are you asking of me, Majesty?”
“To forget about who we are and behave like a man in the solitary company of a woman he finds alluring.” My eyes narrowed at his lips. “How much more clarity do you seek?”
His heart skipped a beat as he gulped, a little tremor spreading through him. “That’s a very difficult task for me, Majesty.”
“Unless that moment at the passage was a mere reflex, it won’t be.”
He exhaled a shuddering sigh. “Majesty, I beg you to understand my situation and have mercy on me.”
I held his gaze, determined to sabre his emotions even if I couldn’t dissect them with my new power. “What is your situation, Nur? I do not see your predicament unless…your loins stir for someone else such as…Redamun.”
“No! No.” He shook his head vigorously. “No.” His voice lowered, his tone firm.
My finger dropped off of his chin as I tilted up mine. “Then I can’t understand. I’m giving you permission to do something many men would kill for, and you’re refusing it.”
“My Queen…I’m not aloof to your beauty.” His deep eyes trailed on me with the same intensity they showed at the passage. “Never been.”
The way he said it, with passion I’d rarely felt from him for anything other than knowledge, sent a familiar tingling down my core. “Never been? But you’ve never showed it before, not once.”
“How could I have? Majesty has been generous enough to take me under her wings and nourish me with her knowledge and wisdom. You have chosen me to be your apprentice of all the temple students, trusted me with your most valuable secrets. How could I have betrayed that sacred bond?”
I didn’t need a special power to sense the sincerity of his internal battles. He’d been struggling with the same conflict that hit me the moment Tia suggested I seduce him. The only difference was that I’d had it for a few hours.
He? Years.
Something about that made Nur more enticing to me. Tormented, unrequited emotions that would last this long had an appeal more intense and pure than that of hopeful ones.
The memory of the almost kiss in the passage, and the struggle I saw in his restless hands now, advancing and retreating in the small space between us, as if he was going to touch me then backed down the last instant, added to my building arousal.
Add all of the above to the equation and a man with a body like that…
Although the preternatural fire in me didn’t blaze, the womanly one did.
My intentions had changed. This endeavor wasn’t about learning purposes any longer.
I wanted Nur.
The man who dreamed about his Queen and never showed it out of fear.
The student who lusted over his teacher and hid it out of respect.
I wanted him with all his composure and secret passions. With all the strength and the sweetness.
On top of me.
Inside of me.
Right here. Right now.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I spun in a small circle around Nur, close enough for him to smell the heat between my legs, and for me to enjoy the backside of his figure as well as the front. “In your thoughts, in your heart, you have betrayed that sacred bond.”
“I have created a cage inside me ever since, where I locked it all up. And when that didn’t work, I built a wall around it. Year by year, the wall became higher, and the cage darker,” he said.
“A cage and a wall?” I mused, pausing before his eyes.
“Yes, Majesty. It was the only way.”
“You know? I have developed something similar, not around my desires but around my true emotions. The cold act every Queen must keep so no one could read her. I wonder if that’s the reason behind the discrepancies.”
He took a few pensive moments before he spoke again. “It does make sense. My body has been accusto
med for years to block my desires, my feelings. It must be doing the same to the energy.”
“And mine blocks anyone from knowing how I feel. That’s why none of you can sense me.” I grinned. “If this is true, it will be the answer I’m looking for.”
“The answer?”
“Yes. Each one of us has a cage or a wall around something. A feeling, a desire, a secret, a fear, a tragedy. Whatever it is, we can use that blocking force, channel it to control our energy…and our powers.”
Finally, a smile found its way to his face. “Majesty and the rest shall have to practice. A lot.”
“Majesty and the rest? What about you?”
“I have yet to find my fire before I try to contain it.”
Deciding not to wait another moment, I took two steps forward and rested my hands on his hips. “Awakening Day. Second hour after dark. Experiment two. Subject: Nur. Theory to be tested: ability to generate fireballs due to overwhelming sensations.”
“Majesty—”
“Hush.” I put my index finger on his lips. They were much softer than I’d imagined, and I couldn’t wait to feel them on various places of my body.
He wet his lips, and his tongue touched my finger on the way, making my skin tingle. Reflexively, I lowered my finger.
“I’ve never imagined if Majesty ever grants me this ultimate wish, it will be methodical. A means to prove a theory.”
“How did you imagine it?” I whispered, deliberately, fanning his face with my breaths.
His gaze wandered to my hair, and then his hand followed, touching it ever so softly. “I can show you, my Queen.”
“Yes.” Please.
His fingers, featherlike, felt my ear, my face, traced the lines of my forehead, cheekbones and jaws, and then fell to my neck. His palm crawled down until it stilled on my heart and remained there.
Then his soft lips claimed me.
We breathed into each other, his hands strong against my frame, one squeezing around my heartbeat, the other my waist. The vault’s toxic smell melted with Nur’s calm scent. And with the depth of his kiss, my head felt light.
Never taking his mouth away from mine, he secured his forearm under my buttocks and lifted me to him. My hands wrapped behind his neck for support, my legs around his hips as he walked us to a wall.
When he made sure my weight was braced against the stone behind it, he broke our kiss and took both his hands to my shoulders, peeling my dress off, feeling me up, stripping me bare in his grip. “Satin over satin.”
I smiled and untangled my legs from him to let the dress hanging around my calves drop. He gripped my backside to keep me from toppling on the ground, his strong fingers digging into my skin.
As my feet touched the floor, his hands explored my body slowly, meticulously, with enticing skill. I loved every moment of it. The way he rolled my breasts under his palms. The way his eyes darkened like never before as he squeezed the fleshy part of my waist and traveled down my buttocks. The way his breath labored with every move.
My gaze wandered to his covered figure. I wanted to see and feel his body like he did mine. And as if he’d heard my thoughts, he took off his tunic and stood before me in only his undergarment.
My fingers curled against his shoulder, my fingernails marking into his flesh, as I ogled him. Then I couldn’t stop myself from feeling this work of art. The sculpted chest. The grooves of his muscled abdomen. The narrow cut of his hips.
The firm, chiseled buttocks.
It was time for me to claim his mouth. I stretched on my toes and kissed him until his hardness ached against my stomach. My hands tight in his cropped hair, over his skull and back around his neck.
I rested my back on the wall, climbed up, and my legs wrapped around his bare waist. My breasts so close to his mouth that he’d have devoured them if only he wasn’t currently occupied with my lips.
Unwrapping one hand from his neck, I reached for his hardness, bearing it so roughly that he growled against my mouth.
My nipples hardened as the harsh breathing and sweat forming sounds drowned out the world. “I want you. Now.”
He kicked his undergarment away, revealing one of the thickest erections I might have ever seen.
And he pressed it against my throbbing sex.
My heart pumped my blood dangerously, and it rushed to my core. My wild energy could take over any moment. All thought narrowed to a screaming, fiery need.
He did this, kindled this flame that was about to consume me. This mind-churning need that glazed over my eyes. These jolts of desire that quivered my thighs.
This abyss of frustration.
“Do you feel your fire, Nur?”
“Yes. The one a woman such as Your Majesty can ignite in any man. That I feel,” he whispered against my neck, teasing my slit with his velvety tip.
“Break your wall for me. I want to unleash your power.”
“And I want to unleash your pleasure.” His thumb slithered into my sex. “Would Majesty let me see her cream?”
I gasped, the fire already in my belly. The suggestion alone was so intimate and tantalizing. A man selflessly inducing my climax, watching me come to pieces in sweet pain. “I wish I could, but I think I’ll burn you off.”
“It’s all right.” His thumb already moved in circles inside me. “I can take it.”
A small moan escaped my throat. Then I kissed him again, my fist around his shaft, the nagging feeling inside my sex pulsing.
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, moving his tip up and down between my nether lips. A nice friction that rippled through me along with the sensations his thumb was arousing.
He nibbled my earlobe. “My Queen, my teacher is wet for me.”
“Oh, yes. Wet and burning at the same time.”
He pushed in a little more, parting me farther. “I want to see your eyes when you’re wet like this, my Queen.”
I opened my eyes, moaning loudly, and he was wincing. “Am I melting you already?”
“Don’t mind me.” His voice shook. “I can feel Majesty’s nub protruding. Let me have this glorious moment, please.”
It was impossible to focus or resist with the pressure building in my belly and the fire blazing my whole body up and down.
His thumb vibrated over me, and my fist moved faster. His free hand rested on my inner thigh, running the fingertips over my skin, breaking it into gooseflesh.
Sweat dripped from our bare skin. The moist air teased my face, my neck, and the tops of my aching breasts.
I pressed against him, my heart galloping. My hips undulated at the sudden deluge of heat between my legs. His thumb moved faster and faster, and I thought of what would have happened if it hadn’t been the only thing entering me, if that long, hard erection was fully in, too.
A shudder took over me as Nur drove me over the edge. A moment I’d yearned for yet feared. I screamed at the top of my lungs, and he watched me contort and whimper and beg.
His erection and pouch swelled, until it was him ready to whimper and beg.
I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The world stopped around me. There was nothing but this commanding sensation. My body arched to the unseen sky, surrendering to an explosion of pleasure and fire and—
Cold air hit me as Nur’s body was ripped away from mine, and I fell. My eyes snapped open, the world coming into focus to reveal my apprentice now flat on his back, trails of smoke dancing off him in the dark.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Seriously?” I shook my head, kneeling next to Nur’s body, examining the burns, his heartbeat steady. “How many people am I going to scorch in one day?”
Assessing the damages, I twisted my lips, my nose rucked up at the smell of grilled flesh. Unlike Redamun, Nur received a full fireball, not just some searing fluids. Thus my student would take longer to heal.
I placed my hands on his chest and focused on healing him, like I’d done with Drusus at the tomb. My power along with Nur’s would expedite the process.
The blue light from my hands appeared faster this time. The blackened skin wilted and peeled as new layers formed under it. Then Nur’s body was as good as new.
Third time today—almost fourth with Tia—and I still hadn’t gotten used to the miraculous act.
Nur’s chest rose with a sharp intake of breath, and then he bolted upright. His hands flew around his body, phallus first, inspecting.
I looked at the shebr-long manhood. “It’s still working, I hope?”
He laughed. “I have yet to put it to test, but from the external examination, I’d say the prospects are very high.”
Touching it myself, it rose and pulsed in my grip. “It’s working fine.”
“You are an exceptional woman, Your Majesty.”
I shrugged, my lips pursed. “Indeed. I’m awfully sure no one else can shoot fireballs from her sex.”
He laughed harder. I had no idea what he picked from my tone, the mockery or the frustration.
Rising to my knees, I reached for my clothes. His hand around my wrist stopped me.
I glanced from it to his eyes. They shone with an anticipating gleam. “What are you doing?”
He raised my palm to his lips and planted a kiss there. “I haven’t found my wild energy yet nor have I finished showing Majesty how I’ve imagined my dream coupling with her.”
My buttocks rested on my heels, and I cupped his masculinity. “You have big ones in your pouch, I give you that.”
His eyes flashed, and his nostrils flared with a feral intent that sent a bolt of lightning through me. Kneeling, he grabbed his tunic and spread it on the mosaic floor.
An invitation my body accepted without consulting my brain.
I lay on my back, the floor coldness sifting through the fabric of his clothes and into my bones. He pushed me apart and held my tingling thighs open before him, the sudden rush of air against my swollen sex agonizing.
He bared his teeth, his eyes narrow on my slick opening, the tip of his tongue brushing his teeth hungrily. “You’re still wet, Majesty.”
“A man who dares spread his Queen’s legs for her after burning by her fireballs deserves her honey.”