“You’re the one who said you trusted me.”
“I’m starting to wonder if it might be misplaced.”
8
As he thrust himself inside her with little concern about whether he was gentle, Tsubame rested her arms over his shoulder, wrapping them around his neck, fingers playing with the nape of his hair, face buried in his shoulder as she let out gasping moans. Her naked breasts bounced up and down with the force of his thrusts and his hands gripped her thighs and butt to push and pull Tsubame back and forth to meet his thrusts.
“Fathi. I…. I…” Tsubame’s words were abruptly cut off as the tight knot that had formed in her pelvic regions released, causing her to cry out as the release travelled through the rest of her body, head falling backwards as she rode the high.
He continued to thrust in her a while longer until finally he grunted in her ear, calling out the name of his god as he released inside her. She rested against him as they both stayed still to recover. Then Fathi pulled out of her and shifted them so they were lying on the bed next to each other. Eventually, he fell asleep next to her, and Tsubame idly began using magic to collect water into different shapes in the air.
It had taken her a month to get to this point, certainly not the longest time it had taken her to get a man to fall in bed with her, but certainly not the shortest. She could have done it faster, but Fathi was a warrior. He enjoyed the thrill of the fight, didn’t truly like things that came easy to him. After that first encounter with him in his room, she continued to serve him for a week until one day she went to pour his tea and feigned discovering that it was cold. When she went to leave to warm it, assuring him that she’d return quickly, he stopped her when he spoke to her for the first time and told her there was an easier way for her to do that if she wanted. It was then he revealed magic to her. There were many ways to react to that. Some might have thought it would be more realistic to cower from the idea in fear, but since Fathi admired her bravery, she didn’t shy away from the magic even though she did act surprised.
“What’s this?” she asked.
And so began his teaching her about magic. Most of it she already knew, about how to extend the magic inside her as a feeler to manipulate the magic in the air around them and therefore manipulating the forces that the magic around them resided in. Once he seemed comfortable around her, she told him that she was a healer and asked about the injury that kept him away from all other prying eyes. It turned out to be a bad sprain in his leg, one that he’d had for a while but ignored, causing it to get progressively worse until his leg swelled after a fight and he was barely able to walk on it.
She impressed him with her healing, not from the herbs she mixed to soothe it, but the way she incorporated magic into her healing. After two weeks of serving and being in his company in private, he finally stopped taking meals to his room and joined the rest of his comrades in dining hall. He was a discreet man, so unlike Ahmed, who requested whatever servant that may have caught his attention at the time to serve him, Fathi wasn’t particular about her serving him during meals. Still though, how at ease she was with serving him compared to the other servants showed. While most of his comrades dismissed it, Ahmed certainly noticed; not in any of her mannerisms, but she made sure to give the man cues through a subtle flare and pulsing of her aura when she was around Fathi. That alerted Ahmed both to her magic and to her supposed affinity for Fathi.
Even with their discretion, rumors began to go around amongst the servants and naturally that information circulated to the soldiers. Tsubame was only mildly concerned about them because the rumors could either work in her favor or set her back. The rumors could simply spur his anger, and make him decide to act and give everyone something to talk about since they wanted to talk so much and would talk anyway. Or Fathi could let the rumors get to him out of embarrassment and her work getting next to him would be undone; and though she would certainly be able to fix it, she’d rather not have to deal with any unnecessary setbacks or unneeded drama. It was always hard to exactly pinpoint with men like Fathi. Either way though, she would get what she wanted. And who knew? Sometimes setbacks worked out better for her than her original plans ever did.
Eventually it came to head one evening, when Tsubame brought him a paste that was specially made from her herb garden and enhanced using magic. Though Fathi had come out of isolation from his room, his leg was still giving him trouble. When she set to put the paste on it, he pushed her away and grumbled that he’d do it himself. She insisted that she’d do it for him, choosing to ignore his bad mood and quickly going through all the ways that she could possibly quell him and bring herself back into his favor if her prior manipulations had been undone by the rumors among the servants and soldiers about him. When he pushed her away again, she decided that the best course of action was to ask him what exactly was wrong with him so she could decide how to manipulate him next.
For a long time he said nothing, and Tsubame started to ask her question again when he suddenly grabbed her, and the next thing she knew, he was kissing her, tugging off her clothes, and fucking her with no real concern about being gentle with her. She didn’t fight him. Part of manipulating anyone was letting them think they were in control, that she was being submissive to them when in reality, she was the dominant one. He even offered an apology for being so violent with her later to which Tsubame admitted that she’d experienced worse before. She didn’t clarify whether she meant sexually or otherwise, choosing instead to leave it to interpretation. It was always better to let people interpret things the way they wanted. That way when things blew up in their face, she was never the liar.
That first encounter had been a week and a half or so ago and since then, the sex had been okay. Not the worst she’d ever had and certainly not the best, but it served its purpose. Now it was time to implement the next stage of her plan.
“You’ve certainly taken very easily to using magic,” Fathi suddenly said.
Tsubame pretended to lose her concentration in surprise at him being awake. She let go of the magical grip she had on the water and let it fall on her. Fathi laughed next to her, and because she couldn’t bring herself to fake a blush no matter how hard she tried because hardly anything truly embarrassed her anymore, Tsubame poked out her bottom lip in annoyance before collecting the water again and creating a fine mist.
“You may even be able to rival the nigger witch.”
Tsubame paused manipulating the water, eyebrows furrowing in wonder.
“Who?” she asked.
“You wouldn’t have heard of her, but she’s infamous in the magic community; a sorceress who became the heir of one of Europe’s most famous sorcerers. Rumor has it she took to magic quickly, much like you have.”
“So she’s a sorceress?” Tsubame asked. “Then why call her a witch? Didn’t you say there was a difference?”
“There is. But that’s what everyone calls her.”
Tsubame frowned. She was well aware of the differences between a witch and a sorceress. Witches and wizards were hardly more than non-magical people who could limitedly manipulate magic by casting spells and charms with a wand. Sorcerers could do everything a witch and wizard could do and then some without incantations and without a wand. Most of them had staffs or some item to channel their magic through, but a sorcerer’s magic wasn’t just spells and moving items around the room. At its weakest, a sorcerer’s magical talent was the ability to align themselves with a specific type of magic under either yin or yang, and at its strongest it was the ability to manipulate the very fabric of the universe under either sign. To knowingly demean a sorceress by calling her a witch was more than an insult. It was purposefully denying her true potential.
Tsubame was also well aware of the sorceress Fathi was talking about. Not only had her first encounter with a sorceress in this world been with the young girl, but even at her age, having barely even begun to tap into her full potential as a sorceress, Claude Thorne’s heir was famous and every
measure was being made to keep her from ever living up to that potential. In a world ruled by sexist and misogynist men who thought the only thing a woman was good for was lying on her back, they would go to any measure to make sure she never became a threat to their power. The fact that she was black only gave the ruling magic powers added incentives.
Before Tsubame could ask any more about the girl, Fathi told her that he would be leaving in a few days and wasn’t sure when he would come back only that he was going to. Tsubame didn’t need his assurances, nor was she surprised he was leaving. She had known eventually Ahmed would send him away. It was part of her plan.
Once Fathi left, all she had to do was wait. Only a day after Fathi left, Saha told her Ahmed requested that she serve him at dinner. She did so clinically, ignoring the way he leered at her and unnecessarily touched her like he touched all the servants he asked to serve him. It was that very evening that she was summoned to bring him tea, and upon hearing it Tsubame was almost disappointed that the man hadn’t made it more challenging.
There was something about someone else finding use or value in something that made a person who hadn’t been interested in it in the first place want it, especially when their friend had it. Ahmed was no different. He hadn’t even glanced twice at her when she was brought to the compound, preferring girls that were barely even teenagers to accompany him and was content to let anyone else have their way with her. Once Fathi began to show interest in her all the other soldiers backed off, but it had the opposite effect on Ahmed. Rather than losing interest in her, the more time she spent with Fathi, especially after it became obvious she was spending most of her nights with him, the more Ahmed’s interest rose. Tsubame had been very aware of the way he now looked at her when she came to serve during the meals, how his hand twitched every time she walked by because he was itching to touch her. There was just something about not being able to have her that made him want her more. It wasn’t that she was necessarily forbidden. Ahmed was their leader and could do whatever he wanted, but Fathi was his second, his right hand man, and the last thing he wanted to do was piss him off by taking to bed the first woman he’d shown interest in having for an extended period of time. Now Ahmed thought he could have his way with her since Fathi was gone because even if the man did find out, at least he’d been discreet.
After she set the man’s tea out, Ahmed asked her to stay and gestured for her to sit on the bed. As Tsubame watched him drink his tea, her mind began to wander in boredom, something she rarely allowed herself to do because every second she spent with idle thoughts was a second she could be spending observing and perfecting her plans. But there wasn’t much more that needed planning. Now was a waiting game, and because she was forced to wait in the confined spaces of where she was allowed to go in the compound, she was growing restless.
Finally Ahmed gestured for her to come sit in his lap. She did so slowly, feigning hesitancy until when she was finally within his reached he snatched her to him and pulled her into his lap. He began to run his hand slowly up and down her back, then he used a finger to trail a finger down her cheek, the side of her neck and to her collar bone. Then he opened the front of her dress and pulled it down to her waist, exposing her breasts. He gently caressed them at first and then pinched her nipples. She retreated from his touch, an action that angered him because suddenly he put his hand in her hair and balled his fist tightly in it before forcing her to look at him.
“Don’t resist me,” he said.
Tsubame nodded and continued to let him have her way with her, trying to make sure to find a balance between coerced submission and not making the encounter seem too easy. It wasn’t too hard since by nature she wasn’t one to submit to anyone she didn’t want to, and even when she did submit, she either wanted to do what she was submitting to anyway or was feigning submission when she was really the one in control. Thus she resisted twice more, once when she turned her head aside when he tried to kiss her and once more when he told her to open her legs.
Before she had ever made her move on Fathi, Tsubame’s observations had not only been limited to seeing who was in charge, it had also been about observing their culture, how men and women related, how the men in charge saw the women who served and laid down with them. It was clear that women were seen as objects, something to be owned and used at a man’s whims. It was with this knowledge that Tsubame had chosen Fathi as her target, knowing that Ahmed’s attention would soon follow, knowing that Ahmed would take her as soon as his second was out of sight. And as an object, with no true will of her own and no desires except the ones given to her by men, Fathi would never blame her. Be angry? Yes. Blame her? No. The blame would lie solely with Ahmed, where the cracks in the working relationship between the chief and his commander would be exacerbated until they shattered.
Tsubame had seen the thin cracks when she first got there and learned more as she spent time with Fathi. As a man who respected courage first and strength later, Fathi, while acknowledging respecting Ahmed’s strength, saw his leader as little more now than a coward who was afraid to lose his power, but whom he owed a debt to and would give his life to. But debt weight on people in these types of situations. Where everything a person owned belonged to their benefactor; where nothing ever truly belonged to the debtor unless their benefactor allowed it; and even when the benefactor allowed it, he could always take it away; that when a person left, the benefactor could take or repossess the debtor’s acquisitions at will; like Ahmed planned to do as he pleased with Tsubame while Fathi was gone.
On the flip side Ahmed was secretly threatened by Fathi’s courage and worried that people would see him for the coward who was afraid to lose his power that he was. His subtle ways of reminding Fathi of his debt—sending him to battle at his own whims when a lesser soldier could handle it, silencing or stopping any valid arguments of the man during meals because Fathi would do whatever Ahmed wanted anyway, taking Tsubame to bed with no respect for the fact that his second favored her—they were simply power plays so that Fathi always remembered who had the power. And it would be Ahmed’s fatal mistake. Reminding a slave that they were a slave was a sure way to cause rebellion from that slave. It was the reason Ahmed hadn’t even figured out he was a pawn in the magic council’s ploy to keep themselves and the ruling magic families ruling. She doubted he’d be so keen about keeping Fathi under foot if he really knew why he was in power.
When Ahmed was done with her, he dismissed her for the night and allowed her to return back to the room she shared with three other servants. Even if Tsubame wanted to be discreet, she couldn’t. When she got to her room, she could feel the eyes of the other servants as they pretended to be asleep, watching as she took off her dress and put on the slip she wore to sleep in. They would talk tomorrow, one of them would be bold enough to ask questions, and Tsubame’s silence and apparent discretion would only spur the rumors. The rumors would undoubtedly be passed along to the soldiers they associated with. Undoubtedly, Ahmed would call her back multiple times before Fathi returned which would only intensify the talk. By the time Fathi got back, someone would tell him if Tsubame didn’t find a way to tell him herself without being suspicious, and then all Tsubame had to do was wait for Fathi and Ahmed to unwittingly carry out the rest of her plan for her. For such complex beings, average humans could be painfully predictable once you understood their nature and studied the things that made them tick. Ahmed and Fathi would most certainly tick. All Tsubame had to do was wait.
9
Fuck Devdan.
Fuck him and his secrets. Fuck him and his aloofness. Fuck him and his trust issues. Fuck him and his protectiveness. Fuck him and his inability to deal with his emotions. Fuck him because she couldn’t get the feel of his lips on hers out her head, the feel of his hands pressing her against him and pulling on her clothes. Actually, fucking Devdan didn’t seem like a bad idea…
MaLeila sighed and stopped typing up her English essay. She would have turned it in this morning if sh
e hadn’t been forced to chase down a sorcerer with a strong proficiency in illusions, disguises, and general magic that required sleight of hand, who stole her staff from her on her way home from another photo shoot. If he hadn’t starting casting spells that could potentially suck the city into a vacuum in space, MaLeila might have gone home and waited to find him later, because him stealing her staff was more detrimental to him than it was to her because very few had enough magic potential to wield her staff as a way to channel their magic without killing themselves. As it was, the sorcerer did end up killing himself when he ended up using all his magic and life force accidently opening the vacuum. The better part of the rest of the evening and night was spent with MaLeila and Marcel figuring out a way to close the vacuum permanently while Devdan and Bastet held it closed temporarily for the duration of their research.
She had been so exhausted afterward that Devdan had to carry her home or so Bastet told her. And though the man had finished the majority of the homework that MaLeila had to turn in before spring break, he refrained from writing the essay because MaLeila would only get into more trouble for plagiarism if her teacher noticed that the essay wasn’t in MaLeila’s writing style. She and Devdan had gotten in trouble for it once the previous year as it was.
When she woke, she saw the stack of finished homework and found Devdan waiting for her as always to walk to school in the morning. They had argued before—MaLeila touching a on a subject that was too personal for Devdan’s comfort or Devdan frustrating her with his distance or saying something she didn’t like. And for a while now they’d always been something more than friends or siblings, but much less than lovers, but never in any of those encounters had they ever dared to venture out of the relationship limbo they seemed to have found a way to be comfortable in. And no matter how much they ignored what happened or tried to hide their awareness, something had shifted between them after their kiss, even if it was out of anger.
The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Awakening Page 8