Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) (29 page)

‘Who?’ she murmured, her eyes wide and guileless.

Taur chuckled and drew her down onto the silken bed.

‘Who indeed?’ he whispered, lowering his head to her breast.

From that moment Gynevra was lost. Gotham, Judge Fahad and the Justiciary guards just beyond the door, even the bed on which they lay, ceased to exist. Her only reality was Taur in her arms, his mouth and hands pleasuring her as she'd dreamed so often of late, his passion for her fierce and burning brighter with every soft moan from the back of her throat, every involuntary thrust of her hips and fluttery gasp of her breath.

One half of her was incoherently pleading, ‘Now, now, now!’ while the other half moaned with a lover's illogic, ‘Please let this last forever!’

Their thoughts had been one since his arrival. Now their bodies fused with the perfection of a clay figurine to its mold, and with the thrust and power of a crystal-powered turbine. There was no longer any effort to conceal their desire for one another from Gotham, nor even any intent. Gynevra would have been hard pressed to remember who he was, and Taur had ceased to care.

As he drove deep for her womb, as her hips thrust up to receive him, neither noticed the Prince had become a silent, glowering explosion waiting to happen.

‘I've never—known a woman—to make me—burn—like this!’ Taur rasped.

Gynevra clung to him and moaned, ‘Oh Taur—Sweet Ist—Oh Taur,’ over and over.

Then it welled up from somewhere deep inside her, as if in her very soul a flower began to open to the sun. As it bloomed, the perfume, the color, the energy of it burst through her being with the blinding flash of a lightning bolt. She couldn't have controlled her wild cries of completion even if she'd thought to try.

With the orgasm of her body around his, Taur was flung to heights he'd never attained before, and with a deep thrust of his hips, he shouted in the ecstasy of his release. In the singing aftermath they clung to each other as if afraid their bodies would shatter in the cataclysm of their energies.

Then Gynevra began to cry, harsh rending sobs that grated on air still vibrating with their joy.

‘Hush, hush, hush, my Gyn'a, hush,’ Taur murmured, rolling to his side and gathering her to him. ‘Ah, what have I denied us? I'm sorry, alara.’

His lips pressed warm and soft into her hair and his hand caressed down her back in a long rhythmic sweep.

‘Sacred Mother, you feel so good in my arms. None other fits as you do. What a thick-headed fool I am.’

Gynevra's sobs quietened and she lay curled into his chest until her breathing eased. Then lifting her head, she dashed at the tears and gazed at him with a tremulous smile.

‘Oh Taur. Oh—words fail me.’

He smiled mistily back at her, brushed a tangled lock of hair off her face, and opened his mouth to say something else. But Gynevra never heard it for Gotham suddenly began shouting loudly and crudely for Fahad.

‘Come and get me out of this padopan cow byre. Cronos! They'll start breara mooing next. Fahad!’

The door burst open and the Judge entered with the four guards in close attendance. Taur shielded Gynevra with his body and put his lips to her ear.

‘Seems we're always fated to be interrupted.’

Remembering the dwarf, Pog, who'd come looking for his master in the grotto, Gynevra began to giggle. But it was no matter. With Gotham swearing and blustering and demanding to be set free none would've noticed had she laughed outright.

‘You're sure you want to go, my Lord Prince?’

‘Scrog it! I'm sure!’ Gotham snarled, elbowing the guards aside and striding out of the room. ‘D'you think I want to sit there and watch him pawing the ground like a breara bull and her squealing like a pig in a wallow? I've seen better shows at the breara Swamp!’

His words were emphasized by the slap of leather curtain and the absolute silence following it. Gynevra fought to smother her relieved giggles against Taur's chest.

‘I believe that'll be all, thanks Fahad,’ Taur said, with a suspicious quirk in his voice. ‘I'd be obliged if you'd escort the Prince from the Temple and see he doesn't return.’

‘That's—um—a bit irregular, sire,’ Fahad opined, his eyes beginning to dance.

‘Not as irregular as it'll be if he gets back in here, Fahad,’ Taur growled, abandoning all pretense at lightness. ‘I've a contract to fulfil and neither the Princess nor I are satisfied it's done yet. I expect you to see the Prince has company in the Palace cellars, for I doubt he'll feel like showing his face for a while—arabo lins.’

The last two words were muttered through ground teeth against Gynevra's hair.

‘The guards will see to it, sire. I'll remain in my Lady's common room to give some regularity to the situation. I'm sure I can persuade the Princess's excellent housemaid to make me a herbal—pick-me-up—or something.’ Then he turned to the guards. ‘Follow the Prince, attach to him like pitch, and see he gets so cupped he sleeps till the morrow. If he turns up back here, you're dismissed!’

At a run the men were gone. With a muttered ‘see you in the morning’, Fahad followed them.

In a rush of wonder Gynevra whispered, ‘We've got until morning! Can you stay that long?’

Taur rolled with a hiss of elation, and swung Gynevra up onto his chest.

‘I'll worry about it tomorrow. Now, my Golden One, what on earth will we do with all that time?’

Gynevra grinned down into the dancing green eyes.

‘I'm sure we'll think of something, what with having total freedom of the cow byre and the pig wallow!’

Their shared laughter was precious, and as the thought crystallized, tears filled her eyes again. Then cupping his face gently in her hands, she whispered, ‘I want to start with just looking.’

Those idyllic hours were never far from Gynevra's mind as her body thickened with Taur's child in the months that followed. Between bouts of soaring passion they'd touched, caressed and memorized every curve and hollow of each other’s bodies. They'd talked; words of endearment, tenderness and longing; shared secret fears, hopes, and dreams.

She‘d told him how she missed animals in Fyr Trephyr.

‘It was wonderful when I went back to Qrazil. I was able to ride my horse again. I didn't realize how much I'd missed the wind in my face, the feel of Auriga beneath me, the warmth and scent of her. I long to ride again,’ she'd ended with a sigh.

‘I'm your horse, your great, rearing warhorse, alara. Ride me.’

His eyes had glowed like coals in black ash, and his strong hands lifted her astride him, and for a time the only words they'd shared were the arousing, hungry words of lovers.

Later, Taur talked of his determination to bring his capital, the ancient and still rather primitive, city of Fyr Heceuda, into line with the other Atlantean provincial capitals in regard to crystal technology. Traditionally, he told her, the Northern Province had been the farmyard of Atlantis. Nyalda's people were content with their slower paced rural lifestyle and many were quite vocal in their resistance to what they called ‘the vice of power’.

Taur was sure he could change their minds if only he could show them how much easier their lives would be with crystal cookers, washers, cleaners, and the myriad other machines being developed to run off the mega-strength power generated by the giant fire crystals. He intended to install one on the foreshore of Heceuda Harbor. He would gift his people with that most precious of all gifts, time. They'd have more time for the joyous leisure pastimes, like—like—

‘Ah, Cronos, Golden One! The only pleasure I desire more time for is lying with you like this, bringing a flush to your skin with the brush of my lips, my tongue. Hearing you moan as I suckle your breasts, releasing the flood of your desire for me as I explore these secret inner places. Cronos, when you moan like that you incite the dragon that dwells in my blood; you ignite the dragon-fire in my belly. All I can think of is unleashing his life force upon you, within you.’

No matter what they'd talked of, sooner or later their bodies took over the conversation, their passion wrote the words, sang the songs.

Now as her body swelled and she became heavy and ungainly, her mind turned often to the rustic scenes he'd painted for her and she was filled with a strange longing for the simple life of Nyalda as Taur had described it. But more often than not, she was simply homesick for the place and people of her childhood. The only joy Fyr Trephyr afforded her now was encapsulated in the tiny being growing within her. Even that was a joy laced with bitterness. Her child, hers and Taur's, would one day rule this great glass midden and she would never be allowed to take him away. He belonged to the province, to its people. He, like his sacred father before him, would symbolize the Golden Stallion.

Tears flowed easily as nameless fears for the future of her child flooded her being. Would Gotham acknowledge him? Could he not? Could he bring himself to fulfil his role as pavuon to his child sired by another, a child moreover, more likely to become King than Gotham himself?

Not once since he'd stormed from her rooms during the contracted siring of this child, had he come to the Temple, or demanded she return to the Palace. Twice, King Orestes had ordered her presence at an official royal occasion in order to show the people she did indeed carry their future King in her belly. To all intents she was once again living as a priestess, rarely leaving the Temple precincts except to visit Temple Meranil at dawn each morning of alternate quarters to perform the dawn latreia, though she'd refused to enter the crystal caverns to do any more programming work for Lord Kah until after the baby was born.

Solon Cadal signaled his arrival into the Temple birthing chamber with a lusty bellow of indignation shortly after midnight of a new moon, over a tonn earlier than expected and word was immediately taken to the Prince.

Difleer and Anya kept Gynevra informed of the latest rumors from the city and from the court. The Lady Craelia, wife of the City Governor, had died of some mysterious illness which some said was blood poisoning. Prince Gotham it seemed, had never been far from her side during this illness and the talk was he'd been quite distressed by her passing.

‘I do believe she cared for him greatly,’ Gynevra commented thoughtfully, the morning Anya passed on this latest tidbit of court news.

Anya nodded.

‘And if my princely brother ever really cared for any woman, it was Craelia. She bore five children and he sired them all.’

‘Yes,’ Gynevra said. ‘It used to bother me. Now I just wonder why they didn't join?’

‘Gotham wasn't for joining with anybody. Nor did he need to. He had more women than he could manage clamoring for him to sire their children. With all respects to your pride, Gyn'a, I think King Ahron may have bribed him, substantially. Even so I doubt he would've agreed to join with you if it hadn't been for the kudos you brought as Ahron's daughter, and the severity of the injury that kept him from going to war.—You know why that happened, don't you?’

‘The injury? No. I've always wondered. Taur said it was as if he fell—or stumbled—which seems so unlikely.’

‘Craelia was having her last baby and it wasn't going well for her. She'd been in labor since the day before and he refused to shut down the mind-link with her. Her scream of pain undermined his concentration—so Craelia told Foetizia. Apparently she blamed herself, said she might as well have castrated him.’

‘She might as well have,’ Gynevra agreed flatly.

‘Well, if the gossips say true, she's paid for it,’ commented Difleer.

‘What is it they say?’ demanded Anya.

Difleer pursed her lips in mock reluctance, but then settled back in readiness to relate her tale with relish. Gynevra smiled. Story-telling was something Difleer did with her own personal flair.

‘T'was Arlina, the Lady Foetizia's maid who told me. She said the Lady Foetizia was talking with the Lady Crigo and they were crying about the Lady Craelia, and were quite unaware she was there. It's not hard for Arlina to make like a shadow, she's as skinny as a light beam without the light.’

Both Gynevra and Anya grinned at Difleer's graphic picture. Arlina was not only thin, she wasn't very bright.

‘What was upsetting the great ladies?’ Anya asked with a harsh note in her voice.

‘Oh, Ladies,’ Difleer said, her eyes widening with horror. ‘If 'tis true, 'tis awful! Foetizia said Prince Gotham had been visiting some sorceress in the city, in that place they call the Swamp, to be exact, to get treatment for his—um—’

‘Tell it like it is,’ Anya suggested.

‘Mondecon kondemon.’

‘Oh how the mighty have fallen,’ gloated Anya with relish. ‘So what was this treatment?’

Difleer gazed wide-eyed from Anya to Gynevra, then said in a hushed voice, ‘Foetizia said the sorceress filled it with lion's blood and he wasn't s'posed to scrog for two days but he couldn't wait—’

‘When could he ever?’ Anya interrupted.

‘—and he raped Lady Craelia 'cos she wasn't as welcoming as he thought she should be, and so she was poisoned and died. They say the Prince is quite demented. One could almost feel sorry for him,’ Difleer finished.

‘Not ever,’ Gynevra whispered, with a bitter compression of her lips. ‘It could just as easily have been me.’