The Empire (The Lover's Opalus)

by Grayson Reyes-Cole

  “She is your daughter true.”

  “Indeed.” He put the book away then pushed back to sit against the centuries old headboard of a giant bed that was the twin of her own. “Raeche, let us accept that your teachers, your aunts, and your mother all failed at their task. They did not train you to please me. They trained you to fear me.”

  “No.” Raeche’s response was pure reflex. Hiding that she despised her mother, her aunts, and her teachers had not been necessary but the right thing to do. Despite all their demands, their instruction, their push and their pull. “They did not fail. I am sure they would all dive to their deaths from the Standing Rocks if they should hear these words or have any inkling of your perception.”

  “They shall have no inkling. They have had none this whole time you and I have existed apart.”

  “You cannot blame them for my fear of you. It has consumed me my whole life. I feel it when you are near. I feel it even when I think of you.”

  Lanus nodded and unfolded his hands. The Emperor frequently talked in gestures. “I know. When you came to me you were merely a frightened girl.”

  Her chin came up a notch. “Only one ring separates us.”

  “Yes, but my father had already begun to waste. My mother refused to leave his side. I had been ruling in truth for two rings by then. Surely, our experiences were different.” He continued earnestly, “Though I did not want to, for your eyes were yet wide as a child’s and I believed you would lie still, cold as ice beneath me, I had to take you. Until then our marriage was not true. Though you would not, you had the right to leave me. I was weak. You were beautiful. So unlike any other woman. I could not allow the chance that you would escape me. Because, though I felt shame, I knew I wanted you, and you have always been mine. The thought that you could spring like a tsillis from a trap coursed like poison through my veins.”

  “You had an Empire.”

  “You are the Empire.”

  A ball of fire dropped from her throat down to her belly and lower. The words were formal. They had been said many times in other, official settings, but this time. This… She licked her lips and took a breath despite the tingling of her nerves. “You could have declined me as your bride.”

  “It is traitorous to deny the Empire anything.” Lanus’s hands fisted. “You were and are mine, Raeche.”

  “Am I an object, then? Am I a curious formation living from the bark of your tree, no more than my birth? Do you seek sway or power over the fools who write songs to my beauty and hurl themselves at my feet for a favorable glance? Or the stupid girls who stoop in their gowns to appear short and stain their faces beneath their eye to mimic my mark?”

  “You insist on believing the opposite of my words and my Spirit. What I seek, Raeche, is forgiveness. I hurt you. Because I lost myself in pleasure I hurt you, making this fear you have of me a permanent thing.”

  Raeche felt embarrassment on behalf of her husband. “I knew it would hurt the first time.”

  “And so, when you willingly came to me the second time, I shamed myself and hurt you again.”

  Raeche offered, “I have learned that is not unusual with one who is small like me, especially when coupled with one who is large like you.”

  “Nevertheless, I vowed to stay away from you until you were ready. I needed to wait until I no longer felt I was bedding a child.”

  “I was no child.”

  “You were. You nursed childish dreams and rebellion. You still do.”

  Raeche’s lips were dry. She wanted water. She wanted Lanus to stop speaking.

  He did not. “Because you feared me, resented the loss of your childhood, you sought what was not me. You risked death to chase a man that held dominion over nothing more than his timra. A man who chose you and who you chose in return rather than someone arranged for you by your parents. You chose a man who was calmer, smaller, whose body held no fear. You chose someone who was not me, not at all like me.”

  He knew of Galan. He knew. He knew. He knew.

  As he sat there calmly, Raeche thought to deny it, but what use was that? “I do not know what you mean.” She acted an imbecile anyway.

  Lanus sighed. “Go back to your chamber. Do not use the curtain again.”

  Her brows drew tight and her body felt as if it were aflame. “You have no right to bar me from this room.”

  “You misunderstand. I have asked that you come to the door and knock, that you never come around the curtain that separates this space.”

  “And your bed?”

  “You may not come to my bed.”

  “It is traitorous to deny the Empire anything,” she challenged.

  “Then I make it a request, Empress. It would please me greatly were you to stay on the other side of the curtain.”

  “If I do not come to your bed, no woman comes to your bed.” It was bold, angry, and something that, should he will it, Raeche could not enforce. It was law. Should one partner deny their spouse their bed, the other would be well within their rights to seek the bed of another. Unfortunately for Lanus, his denial had come three rings too late. She had betrayed him with Galan a long time ago.

  “Raeche.”

  “No woman comes to your bed,” she growled, her fists tight at her sides.

  “Eyes like the soil in the forest, hair the color of the foundation of the Living Tree, skin like watered Black Seed Extract. Frightened of her own shadow yet foolishly audacious at the oddest of times. No woman lives but you, little dark one.”

  He used a tone of sincerity and appeal. He settled his soft green gaze on her. Raeche wanted to crawl into bed with him, rub her cheek against his chest. Let him touch her heavy breasts. She let out a frustrated sound. He had been angry. Refused to lie with her. Then he said lovely words that seemed oddly natural parting a warrior’s lips.

  “Lanus.” She whispered his name, her first use of it.

  “My Raeche.”

  She felt his Spirit reach for hers and warmed. But her husband pulled back, distanced himself from her once more. In doing so, he inspired her temper.

  “You do not want to discuss Rucha?”

  His lips compressed into a line before he answered. “What is there to discuss? Rucha is my daughter.”

  “She is,” Raeche agreed, “but how…”

  “You know.”

  Raeche dragged her fingers through her heavy black locks. “But you were there when I met him.”

  “Indeed.” With his first two fingers, Lanus rubbed at his brow as he did sometimes in private moments. Then, as if he realized what he did, he jerked his hand down and leveled his gaze at her. “All watched as his eyes followed you from the time you entered the hall–a tiny beauty with dark hair, dark eyes, wearing a metallic gray dress weighted with black and blue jewels that sparkled as they embraced and revealed. All saw the shy smile with which you favored him. All heard the softened sounds as he blew an ancient song of love instead of the dancing song he was commissioned to play.”

  “You knew.”

  Chapter 10

  “I knew. I also knew he tricked Taritana into giving you his gift which was not a gift at all.”

  “It was a flower from the single-vine.” Raeche remembered clearly the blood red petals that turned to pink then to white until she held not a bloom at all but a bit of parchment with a heartfelt plea.

  “The flower turned to a missive which asked you to meet him at–”

  “At the Lovers’ Opalus.”

  Raeche ran her hands over the soft, thin material covering her hips. Like beams from the daystar, Lanus’s gaze struck her hands and the movement of the fabric over her body.

  “Do you know why it is called the Lovers’ Opalus?”

  She did. All knew. “The Lovers’ Opalus is a round, smooth white rock surrounded by two pleats or folds of the same smooth rock but darker. Some say it appears as if the earth gives birth to a new nightstar. Some say it is Emperor Qualyan’s milk-blind eye.”

  “Men say that it looks li
ke the hooded bud of a woman’s sex.”

  Raeche shivered then took a soft step forward. His awareness of her had grown so much. It was as if he embraced her with his gaze. She put her own arms around her waist and did not care when the front of her gown dipped. Instead she watched him shift his lower body slightly. Watched his mouth move.

  “I think that it does in truth look like that.”

  Raeche swallowed and rubbed her eyes before running her fingers through her hair. She could no longer stand still. She lifted the hem of her dress to scratch a light itch on the inside of her thigh before finishing the tale. “It is said that the Lovers’ Opalus protects forbidden lovers. When two who are forbidden to love agree to meet at this place they are never stopped, never caught.”

  Lanus rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling with one knee bent. He laced his fingers over his eyes. But his temper reached out and stroked her skin with flame. “I can bear witness that this is true.”

  “I met with him but once there. We shared no more than a kiss.”

  Though her voice was soft and he stayed still, she knew he heard because he responded, “I can bear witness that this also is true.”

  What was she to do? Should she apologize, beg forgiveness, throw herself onto his sword? She had never been taught what to do when caught in deception. No one would have believed she had the temerity to betray the great Emperor and so they had never spoken of it.

  As if seized by Darl the Mischiefmaker, she rushed over, slapped her hands on his bed, then bent over him to blurt, “I met with him again!”

  Slowly, he rolled to his side, forcing her to back away from him. He held the sheet up over his hips as he planted his naked feet on the floor and his elbows on his thighs. One hand still clutched the sheet between his knees. Never once did it slip. Seated, he was nearly the same height as she and he captured her gaze with his own.

  Suddenly, striking quick as a timra, he grabbed the front of her gown and dragged her close. Raeche stumbled forward reflexively, trying to prevent the garment from ripping. She steadied herself with her hands on his knees. The backs of his fingers grazed the tops of her breasts as he held her in place to make sure she maintained the Lock of True Eyes. “No, Raeche, you did not meet with him again.”

  She knew this, did she not? She had known for cycles now. In truth, perhaps, she had known when Rucha was first pressed to her heart.

  For cycles she had wondered. Had she forgotten an intimacy between them? Had she been drugged? More embarrassing–had she misunderstood the amount of time it took to bear a child of the North? Could the cycle have been different? Could the Emperor have tricked her? To accuse one of trickery in the Empire was to invoke the punishment of death, either for the proven trickster or the lying accuser. Trickery was a sin in the Empire.

  As she stood wondering, grasping at fleeting thoughts, she found herself distracted by their contact. Absently, she ran her hands up over the light dusting of hair on his thighs. He pushed her hands away and received her full attention. “You should go to bed, little dark one. Give yourself time to think what you will and feel what you will. Give me time to calm my storm.”

  What storm could he possibly have that she did not already share?

  “Do you find your pleasure elsewhere?” She wished to be felled by lightning the moment the last syllable left her lips. It was not a question she should ask, ever. It was not a question she deserved to ask in light of what he knew of her own indiscretion, but as she stood before him her body stung.

  “Do you care, Empress?”

  The question was meant to be mocking. Indeed if she could have flushed any hotter than she already had, she would have. Instead she retreated. Finally her sense seemed to be returning to her. She relied on what was familiar, what she knew she should say. With a small curtsy and a bowed head she said, “I care about all things that affect you, Emperor. Whatever you do in the name of joy pleases me.”

  He made a noise in the back of his throat like his pack of hunters made when set free to chase down their prey. Perhaps at some other time, the sound would have sent her into a swift retreat. Tonight she welcomed his attack. Excitement stole through her. She stood still, did not raise her head, but a ghost of smile broke across her lips.

  He growled again and her stupid grin widened.

  “Go to bed, Raeche.” Perhaps it was a command, but where force should have been, desperation reigned. Those tantalizing spikes of fire shooting from him to her were, well….

  He raised a hand as if he would touch her then dropped it. Raeche studied his long fingers and something seemed to drop in her belly.

  “A misused bottle of scent brought you here tonight and has made you bold in a way you have never been bold in my presence. Sleep. When you truly want to set fire to the forest in order to light a torch, return to me.”

  Perhaps sleep would end the feeling that even now threatened to devour her. Raeche backed up, tripped on the hem of her nightgown then dived around the curtain, her breath heaving in her chest and the sparks of fire and energy from Lanus still assaulting her senses.

  In bed, though, she found a return of the perversion that had overtaken her. She pulled the covers over her head though the night was warm. Beneath, she tugged at the folds of her gown until it slipped up, gathered as high as her neck. She moved her hands to the bare soft insides of her thighs, up over her belly to touch her own breasts. She sighed and the sensual noise was louder than she had intended, but the feel of hands on her body–even her own–after so long was indescribable.

  Raeche ran one hand over her own flesh, trying not to touch until the moment she absolutely had to. As her fingers hovered and moisture seeped from her body, a harsh thump and crack caused her to jerk her gown down, covering herself before sitting up to listen.

  A hard knock at her door bade her answer.

  “I go to the Clear Pool, Empress.” Her husband’s voice rumbled through the barrier. He never told her his comings and goings.

  “The chill on the air tonight is violent.”

  He opened the door, stepped inside, then stared at her in the darkness. “If the Spirit is good, it will kill me.”

  “If the Spirit is good, it will come to me now and drop the Clear Pool on you.” Sometimes Raeche still forgot her power. Because she uttered these words with faith in the Spirit in her heart, freezing water from the Clear Pool rained down over Lanus’s head, drenching him.

  Raeche gave a startled scream as he wiped water out of his eyes, stepped into her room, then slammed her door shut behind him. Steam rose from his skin and soaked clothing, curling white in the night as he strode in. The heated current of his Spirit was so strong that–

  Lanus ripped the covers back and dragged her from the bed. Instinct made her fight. She grabbed for the sheets but his hold did not waver. Raeche was lifted from her feet. Reaching out for something to steady her, she grabbed the wet fabric of his tunic. When she met his gaze, his green eyes sparked in the dark. His jaw clenched, he held her too tightly and where he touched her, molten heat scorched her skin.

  Raeche did not have a moment to lose or reason and memory would inject themselves and stay his hand. Tangling her fingers in his wet hair, she pulled him down so their lips could meet, their tongues collide. Brilliant flashes of color flared behind her eyelids. Lanus tasted of the beauty and wildness of the Clear Pool. He was the Spirit of Paradise. He deepened the kiss. Every nerve ending in her body tingled when he cupped her behind in his large hands and stroked her back. She moaned as she fumbled at his soaking wet clothing, stripping them from him even as she heard her gown rip. Cool air whispered over her skin, tightening her nipples and causing an almost painful contraction inside her. She moaned again. Lanus took the opportunity to slip his thumb across her lips and into her mouth. He pulled it out slowly as she drew on it with her lips and tongue. He slipped his hand low between them and parted her.

  “Here I thought I was the wet one,” he remarked softly with a smile.

>   Raeche’s knees buckled, in part from the delicious feel of his hand working her, discovering how to make her squirm and flex her hips for more, in part because his passion surged high yet he played with her. He was not going to come to his senses and leave her wanting. In possession of all his faculties, still he wanted her.

  Reacting to her, Lanus lifted her again, holding her close to his body. Her awareness of their nakedness, skin to skin, drove all rational thought from her mind. With her hands and lips, she frantically explored his shoulders, his arms, his back, his chest, savoring the perfection of his form as she had never done before and committing it to memory.

  He did not simply allow her exploration. Lanus seemed to glory in it. His soft words encouraged her–her touch stole his sanity, he said. Her touch was fire. There was never a more beautiful woman in all time passed in the Empire. He busied his own hands with stroking the sides of her breasts, the smoothness of her belly, the cleft of her buttocks, the scorching sheath that was already sopping wet for him. He seduced her with his touch and she had no will but Lanus’s.

  Raeche reached between their bodies and took him in her hand as best she could–she could not close her fingers over him. He was much longer than the width of her palm. This was what she remembered. So silken, so hot, so hard, so big. So much bigger than Galan. This was what she needed. Once this ache was satisfied the Emperor would no longer drive her to madness. She moved her hand over him until he grew firmer, larger. Her body clenched and she hesitated. She would be brave. Even though she remembered how difficult and painful it had been before, there was no way in the Empire or the Spirit she would not take this risk again.

  His hand clamped around her wrist and their eyes locked. “I do not want to hurt you.”

  “You are hurting me now,” she told him as she continued to stroke him. “You have been hurting me for so long. Please, Lanus, make me feel better.”