The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Ascension (21 page)

“Maybe. But a soul bond supersedes all bonds, even the marriage bond.”

“What about the master and slave one? Do you know that one?”

“No. But I suppose a powerful sorcerer could force another bond on top of the soul bond to try to destroy it. But the red string can’t be destroyed. Only deformed, in rare cases that I’ve only heard about—and the red string bond is rare to begin with—beyond repair.”

“That motherfucker,” Devdan growled, suddenly standing to his feet and startling Adina.

“What?”

Devdan didn’t answer and looked for Tsubame. She had been in the lobby a few minutes ago, at least certainly until MaLeila left because he noticed the woman curiously watching them. When he didn’t find her, he made his way out the lobby and to the staircase. He made a beeline to the elevator, only remembering when he was halfway up to the seventh floor that he could have traveled the shadows to get there. The suite Tsubame had chosen for herself when she arrived was at the end of the hall. He started not to knock on the door, but then remember how pissed off he was the previous day when MaLeila didn’t knock and decided otherwise. He knocked twice and immediately Tsubame answered coolly for him to come in from the other side.

Devdan opened the door to find the woman lounging in an armchair with a Harry Potter book in hand. He might have commented about it if it weren’t for other pressing matters.

The woman didn’t look up from her book as she said, “Now aren’t you a pleasant surprise. I do love surprises. When you get to be my age and you’ve seen so many things in that time, you begin to despise predictability. Let me finish this page.”

Since she brought it up, Devdan couldn’t help but say, “The great Queen Tsubame likes Harry Potter?”

“The author’s imagination and depiction of magic truly is fascinating. While most of it is silly conjecture, some of it is stunningly accurate and true of witch and wizard magic. I wonder if the author didn’t have some knowledge of the real magic world when she wrote this, even if her magical world is far more fantastical and far less complex and engrained into the non-magical world than ours is,” Tsubame said before closing the book and setting it aside. “Now how can I help you Devdan.”

A few minutes ago, asking Tsubame about Adina’s observation and his suspicions seemed like the perfect idea. Now Devdan was rethinking it. How could he even trust the woman? Why should he try? Then again, she was the only one who might know. The only one old enough and powerful enough that she may have seen a similar occurrence in her world before or even experienced it.

“Do you know anything about soul bonds?”

“You mean the red string of fate?”

“Yes.”

“It’s about time you or Miss Samara asked me about that. I was starting to think I may have to guide Miss Samara into looking into the matter herself. Honestly, I didn’t expect you to be the one to come ask about it,” Tsubame admitted.

“You knew?”

“About the bond between you two? Of course I knew about it. Hakim—Marcel that is—and I have one. It was only natural that the two of you had one also.”

“Were you and Marcel’s bound with another binding on top of it?”

“Another bind?” Tsubame asked, now sounding intrigued whereas before she had been matter-of-fact and seemingly bored.

“The master slave bind that Claude put on me and Bastet to bind us to MaLeila,” Devdan clarified.

Tsubame frowned and put her book aside. Then she said, “Explain this bind to me.”

Devdan explained what the bind was and how it normally worked first before explaining his suspicion that he, MaLeila, and Bastet were at the same time the master and the slave to each other, all mutually forced in the way that the marriage bind was a mutually agreeing contract.

“I didn’t think much of it until Adina mentioned that she saw the red string connecting MaLeila and my heart together and that she was surprised we were so restrained around each other,” Devdan added.

“That’s true,” Tsubame said. “I didn’t learn about the red string until decades after I discovered magic and certainly a while after I became queen. But it does begin to manifest itself between a sorcerer and a sorceress as a heavily sexual romantic relationship once both parties are or start to reach sexual maturity. I did wonder why Marcel and my bond began to manifest itself so late, but I always chalked it up to both of us being too stubborn and him being too prudish and protective because we were over a century apart to admit there was sexual chemistry between us. But you think it was the bind Claude put on you all.”

“It wasn’t on you all?” Devdan asked.

“If it was, Marcel and Nika never told me about it or rather the occasion to tell me never came up,” Tsubame replied. “And after a few centuries, I suppose it hardly matters. But it would certainly explain a lot of things.”

“Explain what?” Devdan asked.

“Why you and Miss Samara’s bond is so damaged. It might actually explain a lot of things about Marcel and I but by the time I saw our red string, most of the damage to it must have healed and mended on its own over the years.”

Adina mentioned their bond was damaged too. Before Devdan could say that to Tsubame though she laughed and said, “Fucking bastard. Perverse as he was, the man was still a magical genius and he still manages to marvel centuries from the grave.”

“What do you mean?”

Tsubame gave Devdan a wry look that he had seen on her counterpart’s face dozens of times before.

“Don’t act like you didn’t suspect it. That’s why you came to me in the first place. You don’t accidently damage the red string bond. That bond transcends every other bond. You have to purposefully and willfully be trying to severe or inhibit the red string bond in order to damage it so much that it inhibits that natural effects of the bind. The inherent trust, the emotional connection, the sexual inclination.”

“But you said you thought you and Marcel were too stubborn.”

“I
did
, until I did more research on the bond. I just thought that one of my earlier deranged enemies managed to see the bond and interfere with it when we first met. Today is my first time hearing about the slave bind. To think that Claude was so sick that he purposely interfered with a red string bond,” Tsubame said standing up to go to the kitchen in her suite. She took out an expensive bottle and glass before turning to Devdan and tilting the wine his way in askance.

Devdan shook his head. He didn’t think he could stomach it even if he wanted to.

“But why would he do that?” Devdan muttered, more to himself than to Tsubame. The woman answered regardless.

“I suppose we could look into the past, get into the man’s head and see his intentions. But I think that’s a little too much for both you and me. Besides, I get the feeling you know the answer without having to go through the trouble. You certainly understood him well enough to trick him into sealing you first while Bastet took his book of magical theories and the new staff he’d created and fled the country, knowing he’d be dead before he could track her down,” Tsubame said.

Devdan didn’t ask Tsubame how she knew that as the woman knew a lot of things and connected the pieces of many puzzles that the average person couldn’t decipher. But she was right. He already knew or at least had a strong certainty about Claude’s intentions. He knew the man tended to be jealous when Devdan got close to other people and even always suspected that the man had something to do with the death of the girl he had planned to marry. But for the most part Devdan always assumed he’d been able to quell most of the man’s darker tendencies when he stopped fighting the man’s sexual advances, even encouraging them when it got him to leave Bastet be for chopping off her hair to deter white men from wanting her or when it distracted him from the fact that he and Bastet were hiding runaway slaves in the storage shed and placing concealing enchantments on them so they could make it to all the way north.

But Devdan guessed he hadn’t been as successful in that department as he thought he had, guessed that Claude had somehow figured out that Devdan was manipulating him all along, guessed that it explained why the man had suffered from violent mood swings and suddenly had a kink for rough and violent sex with Devdan. The man had been going mad with jealousy because he had seen Devdan’s future, seen MaLeila coming a century and a half before she was born, very aware of her dark brown almond shaped eyes, kinky hair, and milk chocolate skin, seen how powerful she would be. So he fashioned a staff for her, left her his legacy, knowing that as soon as she accepted it as his heir, the binding he placed on them would be sealed and wreak havoc on the red string connecting them. Claude making her his heir had never been a benevolent blessing from a wise old man. It had been a curse to them both for something neither he nor MaLeila had any control over. An act of revenge.

“Genius really. Cruel. Unusual. Certainly wrong. But genius. People rarely question the bad times, if the bad feelings are real or artificial. But we’re so afraid of heartbreak that it’s human nature to question the good that befalls us,” Tsubame mused.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, that the very nature of a bind made to give masters control over their slaves is one of mistrust and darkness. Slavery is an unnatural phenomenon in the laws of the universe, so naturally it breeds resentment, mistrust, and strong feelings of hate between the slave and the master. It’s good for no one. And I’m willing to bet that it never occurred to you that it was all those ill feelings that were manufactured by the slave bind and not you all’s affinity,” Tsubame explained.

Tsubame was right. That thought had never occurred to Devdan. He always thought Claude’s bind caused the affinity he and MaLeila had for each other so they’d be trapped in a never ending cycle between love and hate. Even now, part of Devdan whispered that it was so, even as a bigger part of him finally realized that the bind being gone was the reason the darker feelings of resentment toward MaLeila had begun gone away, why it was easier to talk about her, to be around her, even to just touch her.

Tsubame tossed back her wine and then laughed. “Almost makes me wish the bastard was still alive so I could kill him myself. But oh well. He’s dead now. What are you going to do about it?”

Devdan slowly turned to look back at Tsubame, her question taking a while to register in his brain as things that had never made sense before started to click.

“What am I going to do?” Devdan asked.

“Yeah. Personally, I think you should go right to her room and ravish her. Something like that will heal the bind that much quicker and you two will live happily ever after. It’s that simple,” Tsubame said sounding like a five-year-old child who didn’t understand the complexities of emotions.

Devdan gave Tsubame a wry look and said, “You must have forgotten that she’s the reason Marcel’s probably not here with you right now.”

Tsubame laughed. “This is normal behavior for me and Marcel. Have an affair with someone, get bored, decided to come back to each other. Albeit, he’s never been gone this long, but that’s only because their connection is so similar to the bonds they already have with us, but without the damage. Regardless, it’s still artificial.”

“Unlike Claude, I’m not about purposely interfering with two people’s relationship,” Devdan said dryly, not allowing himself to be bitter over a dead man. Claude being his master from the grave stopped now.

“That’s your choice then,” Tsubame said. “I never had any qualms about interfering with Marcel’s affairs and vice versa. It was our game I suppose.”

Devdan started to head out the room. He had the information he needed and didn’t want to be around Tsubame any longer than necessary. He may have needed her help and she may have helped him, but it didn’t mean he trusted her, nor that he had any intention of taking her advice. The last thing he needed was to distract MaLeila or make her emotionally conflicted, not when she was in the middle of dealing with something much more important than their relationship. The two of them sorting things out with each other could certainly wait.

“Just let it happen,” Tsubame said after Devdan had opened the door.

Devdan turned back to glance her. Her expression serious but not stern, head tilted as she watched him.

“If you’re not going to go after it yourself, if you’re not going to tell her anything, then just let everything happen. Don’t fight it.”

Then Tsubame turned her back to him to put the wine away.

21

MaLeila found Marcel sitting by himself in a small private longue on the other side of the hotel, away from the noise of the celebration. MaLeila silently closed the doors and made her way over to where he was laid out on the round divan in the middle of the room. He wasn’t asleep, rather just resting and certainly aware that she had entered the room.

She stopped right next to the divan and silently observed him. She wondered why he always defaulted back to this disguise; blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin. Both his forms were handsome and while she was more comfortable with him in his disguise, it seemed like he should naturally default to his true guise. Or maybe it as just something he did around her. In a way it was probably a defense mechanism. Even now, he only let her see as much of him as he wanted her to see, never all of him.

“I need you to do something for me,” she said.

“Considering that the last time we were in the same room alone together you got angry with me, I’m a little surprised you can come in here and ask me that like nothing happened,” Marcel said. There was no malice in his tone.

MaLeila sighed. “I’ll give you that. But even you have to admit I had a right to be.”

“I’ll give you that.”

He moved over on the divan, giving MaLeila room to lie next to him.

“Every time I think I can get away from that woman, I managed to prove it’s impossible,” Marcel said.

“You mean Tsubame?”

“Who else?”

It always amazed MaLeila how Marcel was always so easily able to distinguish her and Tsubame as two different people. To get past so easily the fact that they were essentially the same spirit, dwelling in identical bodies, but shaped differently by their varied experiences. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard if Devdan wasn’t so closed about his life to her. Then maybe she could make out the distinctions better.

“We both do it. And we let each other,” Marcel continued. “Because we’re both too stubborn to let destiny win so easily, to admit that the universe brought us into existence for each other. You would think after centuries of bringing the best and worst out of each other, we would get it. But you haven’t had that kind of epiphany about someone. So what changed you?”

MaLeila didn’t have to think of an answer. It fell from her lips without thought.

“I learned to stand on my own two feet. I’m not ashamed of my ambitions and desires anymore.”

“Who taught you that?”

“Tsubame partly. You some. But mostly when I was left to myself without a bunch of people pulling me in different directions while at Marie’s castle.”

“Nice stunt you pulled out there by the way,” Marcel added. “I haven’t turned on the news yet, but someone got you using magic to deflect that missile on camera. And the world is probably having a field day. That’s even bolder than Tsubame. She didn’t expose the magical world until she had endeared herself to the people and she did so gradually. It wasn’t until decades after she was queen that she fully exposed it.”

“Which brings me to why I came to you in the first place,” MaLeila said starting to sit up.

Marcel wouldn’t let her, rolling over so that he was on top of her. He laughed when she tried to squirm away. MaLeila scowled at him. She had long ago made peace with her petite stature though times like these she wished she had Bastet’s height and medium to large frame. It was the first thing about Bastet that wowed her when they first met, that the woman was physically capable of holding her own against men with large statures.

“Marcel. What are you doing?” MaLeila sighed.

“About to fuck you is what?” Marcel said, burying his face in her neck and planting kisses from jawline to her neck.

Trying to ignore the slow tingling through her body, MaLeila said, “I didn’t think we would have to spell it out for each other, but maybe you missed the implication that we’re breaking up.”

Marcel laughed again as he settled between her legs and put both hands on her butt, bringing their hips aligned through their clothes.

“I know that, but there has to be break up sex,” he said, grinning down at her. “You know. So there won’t be any hard feelings.”

MaLeila rolled her eyes. “There aren’t any hard feelings. I have bigger things to worry about. Besides, I need to ask you a favor.”

“So ask,” Marcel said leaning back down to kiss her neck, this time unzipping the front of her jumpsuit and beginning to peel it off her body.

MaLeila sighed, ignoring the tingling on her skin as Marcel’s hands touched exposed skin as he pulled down her jumpsuit.

“I was just thinking. Why would Devdan gather all the African Magic families here to speak with them?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Marcel replied. “I couldn’t get it out him while I was here. It’s the reason Tsubame sent me in the first place.”

“I didn’t really pay it any attention, not until he told me he wasn’t after taking over Algeria. That he was in it for a bigger fight.”

“Oh yeah,” Marcel said pausing to play with her breasts after he had lowered her jumpsuit to her hips.

MaLeila squirmed underneath him, now trying to ignore the painful ache and uncomfortable wetness between her legs. But she had to ask Marcel this while it made sense in her head.

“So?” Marcel asked, pulling her jumpsuit down the rest of the way along with her panties.

“Is there a way to vote the Magic Council out of their positions?”

“Yeah,” Marcel said stopping the removal of her jumpsuit to remove her shoes. After her shoes were off, he then proceeded to remove her panties and jumpsuit fully and drop them on the floor. “That’s how Anya got her position.”

“That’s not what I meant,” MaLeila said, sitting up on her elbows, not allowing herself to be distracted by Marcel undressing himself.

“Then what did you mean,” Marcel asked, climbing back over her, now naked.

“I meant—“

MaLeila gasped, arching herself into Marcel when he suddenly thrust into her. She felt so tight and she was now unable to ignore the aching need of her sex, her body quivering at just the anticipation of what kind of high Marcel would bring her to. She tried to buck her hips into him, but he put a hand above her pelvis, right above where they were joined together.

“You meant what?” he asked slowing inching back out of her.

MaLeila wasn’t sure. Well, she was sure what she meant, she just couldn’t remember the word to describe what she meant, not when she was so focused on the torturously slow friction Marcel was causing as he slowly inched out of her until only the tip of him remained.

“Fuck,” MaLeila said, body shaking with need.

“What was that?” Marcel asked, pressing his lips against hers and slowly sliding back in, hitting just the right angle.

A moan dragged itself from MaLeila’s throat rather than the words she needed.

“Fuck me,” MaLeila muttered against his lips.

“I thought we needed to talk.”

“We’ll talk later. Just fuck me,” she demanded.

Marcel slowly pulled back out of her again and then pushed slowly back into her so that MaLeila felt every centimeter of him. He picked up his pace after that, but only marginally so. Her legs quivered and she whined at the torture he was inflicting upon her, delaying her orgasm. Pleading moans escaped her lips as he thrust into her, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“Marcel,” she managed as she felt the tension coiling tightly inside her. She loudly cried out when the tight coil of tension inside her released, her thighs clenching around his waist as her body shook beneath him on the divan.

He began to thrust inside her faster. Her body, sensitive from coming once already and overwhelmed by the physical sensations, was unable to do more than lie there as his hips slapped against her. She cried out again as another orgasm took her, this time in conjunction with Marcel’s guttural cry as he came inside her.

When he was done emptying himself in her, he collapsed on top of her, but MaLeila didn’t mind, her body not feeling pain or discomfort; just every sensation, even Marcel lying on top of her planting kisses on her forehead, feeling like he was still fucking her. It didn’t feel at all like breaking up with someone, just saying farewell to a friend.

After a few more moments, Marcel finally lifted off her so that he was hovering over her. He kissed her one final time before saying, “I wanted you to have a good memory of me,” before rolling over her and lying next to her, allowing them both to recover.

“Now what was that favor.”

MaLeila took a moment to remember what she’d come to him for initially. When she did, she panted out, “The Magic Council. Is there a way to remove them indefinitely? Without having to storm into the Vatican to kill them all.”

“There may be,” Marcel replied. “I suppose I could look into it for you as a last favor to my girlfriend.”

MaLeila nodded and when Marcel got up, she tentatively sat up and tested the strength of her legs. She could walk, but she was as sore as she had been when she had sex the first time. She picked up her panties, but rethought putting them back upon seeing how wet they were and how sticky her entire body was, in particular between her legs. In fact, she probably could have used a shower a lot earlier. After the battle all she had done was wash her face and hands, dust herself off, and sit in the lobby after Tsubame revealed she could bring Dominik back. She’d had no intention of having sex.

“Marcel?”

“Hm?”

“Can you do me one more favor?”

He raised an eyebrow at her, a smirk playing his lips.

MaLeila flushed a little as she asked, “Mind taking me to my room? Through the shadows? I need to shower and I really don’t want to have to—“

Marcel laughing cut her, and she scowled at him before huffing and picking up her jumpsuit.

“I’ll take you. Really, you’re so serious. You need to learn to laugh.”

MaLeila fought a smile as she said, “We also need to clean this divan. I don’t think Farah will appreciate the mess.”

Marcel glanced at the dark wet stain on the divan and then shrugged while muttering that he’d come back and clean it after he took her to her room. He grabbed onto her arm and pulled them through the nearest shadow. They reappeared in her room from out of the shadow of the small table near the kitchen. Marcel didn’t stick around very long. He vanished once again through the same shadow. There were no feelings of guilt or even the dull ache that had been present the last time she broke off a serious relationship. And MaLeila didn’t know if that was because of the sex or because she had made peace with it before it was even official. Regardless, with that part of her life out of the way and done with for now, MaLeila headed to the shower, mind set and focused for the challenge and task ahead of once, for all, and officially making the Magic Council bow at her feet.

******

“It’s almost funny to think how this time last year I couldn’t have cared less about the magical world, its wellbeing, and its politics. I was concerned about what college I was going to or if I was going to go at all,” MaLeila replied. “Now I’ve summoned the magical world to me and I’m honestly shocked most of them responded.”

“It’s not particularly shocking. You’ve made a lot of friends over the years.”

“Many of them because of you and Bastet.”

Devdan sighed and said, “But most of them are coming because you called. I don’t think they would have answered otherwise.”

MaLeila looked at Devdan, head tilted to the right as she observed him. They’d had their moments like this before, times were he complimented her. But they had been few and far in between. The times he sought her out without actually needing something from her or trying to protect her were also few and far in between. But today, as she was getting ready, he slipped into the room for no other reason than just to sit and silently watch her. No picking at her. No voicing any uncertainties about what she was doing. No telling her she didn’t know what she was getting herself into. Just there.

“You’ve mellowed out,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “Whatever Adina’s doing, she needs to keep doing it.”

Devdan opened his mouth to say something to her, but then appeared to think better of it and shook his head. He seemed to have been doing that a lot lately too, MaLeila mused. Finally he said, “I’ve used all the energy I usually put into aggression on this entire mess. Being an ass to you seems petty comparatively, especially when we’re allied in the same fight.”

“I though you said we were enemies.”

“I didn’t say that. You did,” Devdan corrected.

MaLeila blushed and said, “Yeah. I did.”

In the past, MaLeila was sure one or both of them would have been bitter about the comment but MaLeila was okay with it and Devdan didn’t appear to show any resentment about it either. On the other hand, MaLeila wasn’t okay with her hair. She groaned and undid her tresses once more, wishing Bastet or Tsubame could be here to fix it. Bastet was coming with the council and she hadn’t seen much of Tsubame in over a week, not since she told the woman her plans and together they picked out one of the many dresses Tsubame had given her to wear for the current occasion; a long black satin dress with long flowing sleeves and a thick gold sash tied just under her breasts. Tsubame had suggested she wear white to look more innocent, pure, and angelic, but MaLeila disagreed thinking it was about time the world learned that some angels were black and that didn’t make them any less pure.