VIOLENT/NON-CONSENSUAL SEX WARNING/DISCLAIMER: It is a story portraying a Conqueror/slave relationship, so it would appear non-consensual at first. As for sexual violence, there are scenes (In parts 3 and 4) which are detailed and graphic, and may not suite some readers.
Other Disclaimers: See Part 1
SPECIAL THANKS : My humble most ardent gratitude to the excellent, most brilliant Beta readers nancyjean and alexandriaruth , whom I can't thank enough.
Comments & Feedback : MOST WELCOMED – The more you write me, the quicker I post.
http://www.angelfire.com/id/DarkAngel/stories.html
Part 26
The next day, bright and early, soon after breakfast, the Conqueror took her bow and arrows, with not a trace of the previous night's misfortunate events about her, nothing but a freezing expression on her features.
"Does my Lord miss eating something she killed herself?" Gabrielle teased, in the hopes it would lighten up her Lord's mood and assuage last night's discord.
The Conqueror chuckled.
"What shall I hunt for you, Gabrielle?"
"A pair of hares would be lovely," replied Gabrielle with relief. Her Lord was warming up to her again.
"A pair of hares it is, then," the Conqueror confirmed, kissed her wife's temple and left.
She was back in her Lord's good graces, Gabrielle thought as she fed wood to the fire burning in the stove, and placed a large caldron over it. She was making stock that would complement the Conqueror's spoils nicely. She began with olive oil, onions, celery, carrots, then added a bundle of herbs consisting of parsley, bay leaves, a spring of thyme, which she knew her Lord liked. She used dried veal meat that was left for them outside the rear entrance to the villa.
A little after noon and after the ingredients she used had ample time to secrete their flavors into the water, filling the kitchen with delightful and appetizing odors, the Conqueror returned from the hunt.
The Conqueror took off her dirty boots at the entrance, not wishing to track mud into the villa. When she neared the kitchen door, she heard a feminine voice singing from within. She walked carefully so as not to let her presence be known, and to prolong her enjoyment at the sight of an oblivious Queen.
The Conqueror stood by the kitchen door, with fresh kill hanging over her shoulder. She observed the Queen hovering over the stove, occasionally tasting, seasoning and stirring and all the while singing an old bitter-sweet melody, which sounded like hello and ended in goodbye.
It was a melody that the Conqueror had heard in her childhood, but she couldn't place from where. Enthralled, she folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the doorframe and just watched her wife the Queen and listened to her voice, till she felt a great pressuring pain in her chest. The kind of pain she had felt when she thought she had lost her wife during childbirth; the kind of pain she had felt the previous night when Gabrielle had told her what her heart desired.
She felt profound sorrow, which she fought against and dull its effect, and though she managed to compose herself, a grave and heavy mood set upon her like a grey stubborn cloud that would not obey the winds.
She drew in a deep breath and strode into the kitchen.
"Your timing, my Lord, is impeccable," Gabrielle greeted her Lord with a smile, but she caught a glimpse of her Lord's murky mood.
The Conqueror forced a smile. "I'll go skin these," she said and flaunted her catch.
Outside, and while Gabrielle was watching her from the kitchen window, the Conqueror chopped some wood with an axe and started a bonfire, then turned to skin the hares. When she was done, she went back into the villa to wash from her hands and face the stench and filth of the hunt.
"Do you need any help?" the Conqueror offered.
"If it pleases you, my Lord can peel some potatoes and yams," the Queen suggested.
"Potatoes and yams…" the Conqueror repeated after her, took out her dagger tucked in her leather belt and standing next to her wife at the kitchen table, began peeling potatoes and yams, thinking how absurd they both must look.
And yet, she recognized the intimacy between them even with this tedious task, but the pivotal answer her wife had given her the previous night gnawed and ate away at her.
"My Lord is attacking the yams," Gabrielle began to laugh when she saw how brutally her Lord was handling the vegetable. "Here, permit me to show you." She took the yam from her Lord's hand and demonstrated the best way to peel the vegetable.
When supper was ready, they sat together by the fire outside. The hares over the fire gave out a delicious fragrance. The Conqueror carved the meat and placed a few slices onto her wife's plate and her own, and the Queen doused the succulent meat on both plates with the reduced stock she had made and loaded each plate with roasted potatoes and yams.
"It's the best meal I have ever had," the Conqueror complimented and sucked the palatable stock off her fingers. "Where did you learn to cook like this?"
"Thank you, my Lord. I began my service as a domestic. I had to learn to cook."
They ate the rest of their meal in silence, and when they finished, they settled into the armchairs by the fireplace in the common chamber.
There was something different about the Conqueror's mettle that night, some grievous shift of something base .
Gabrielle glanced at her Lord, who seemed despondent, deep in her thoughts and leagues away. She saw the Conqueror place a hand over her chest above her heart, almost lamentably. For the first time her Lord appeared to her as the picture of lassitude, and it pained and scared her. She surmised the cause had to be longing for their daughter and the situation with Lady Satrina, for she felt the same.
Gabrielle wished more than anything else to lift her Lord's spirit. She felt the time was perfect to raise the issue of children again. For sure, she thought, it would ease the Conqueror's longing for their firstborn and would also strengthen the bond between herself and her Lord. She remembered how attentive and affectionate her Lord had been towards her when she had been carrying their child.
With that conviction, she turned to her Lord and said, "I want to conceive again . "
The Conqueror sharply turned her head to face her wife and replied with narrow eyes, "I will not allow you to."
Gabrielle could not understand her Lord decisive refusal. "Please, I want to give you a second child and further secure your succession, my Lord," she argued.
"I said you are forbidden from ever conceiving again." The Conqueror response was harsh and she rose to stand on her feet, as if to better convince her wife of how determined she was.
Gabrielle stood up as well. "But I wish so much to have more children… And with our daughter so far away from us… I pray you, if my Lord could relent…" she begged.
"I will not relent!" The Conqueror was vexed and aloof. Something inside her was ready to come apart.
"But why, my Lord? Why won't you let me bear you more children?" It broke the Queen's heart that her Lord didn't want any more children by her. She dreaded her Lord's answer that might confirm her suspicions regarding her Lord's reason for rejecting her plea.
"Because I love you and I won't risk losing you again!" The Conqueror's tone was sharp and enraged and two lines appeared on her forehead between her eyebrows. She glared at her Queen and saw her chin quiver and her eyes becoming foggy with tears. “It was not my intention to raise my voice at you and cause you grief, Gabrielle,” she said still strict, and not yet aware of what she had let slip.
But Gabrielle failed to register the Conqueror's last sentence. The only thing that kept resonating in her incredulous ears was the Conqueror's declaration of love after so many years of her yearning for it. On shaking legs, she rushed to her Lord, and fell to her knees at her Lord's feet. She took her Lord's hand in both her hands and pelted it with soft and urgent kisses. Sweltering tears wouldn't stop running down her face.
It was a gesture that completely disarmed the Lord Conqueror of the Realm.
The Conqueror knelt down before her kneeling Queen, placed a gentle hand on Gabrielle's wet cheek, and then gathered her tightly in her arms, nearly crashing the petite woman against her body.
"I love you too, my Lord," the Queen sobbed. "If only my Lord knew how much…"
At first the Conqueror was stunned, but the realization of the words conveying love that she had mindlessly uttered in anger hit her hard, and nearly sealed her behind the fortress she had spent all her life building. There was no taking back her admission, spoken in rage notwithstanding, and not with Gabrielle reciprocating that love. For the first time in her life the Lord Conqueror wanted to relent and to surrender.
"I bear you great and perfect love, Gabrielle," the Conqueror's azure eyes shed tears as well, "It burns through me… It devours and consumes me." Her speech was labored as if she had to quarry and excavate the words out that had been buried so deeply inside of her.
Gabrielle couldn't believe her own ears, refused to trust her own eyes. As the Conqueror's lips lovingly and passionately kissed her wet cheeks, her watery eyes, her parted lips, her neck, she kept murmuring, beseeching completely dismantled, "Say it again, my Lord."
"I love you, my precious Gabrielle. I love you, my darling wife."
“Then take me to bed, my Lord, and brand me with your love,” the Queen ordered and her Lord obeyed.
Euphoric, the Conqueror cradled her wife in her arms, lifted her up and carried her upstairs to their bedchamber. She carefully laid the Queen on top of the bed and worked assiduously to rid her lover of her dress. She ripped the white cotton shift off her own torso and kicked off her trousers and boots. Her heart rejoiced, for she knew now that her Gabrielle bore her much more than compliance and obedience, but brilliant and pure love.
The Conqueror's impatient lover pulled her down to lay on top of her, as if even the slightest distance between them couldn't be tolerated. And as soon as their naked bodies connected, their lips fiercely locked. Their overflowing, overwhelming emotions for one another ignited and guided their actions.
While the Conqueror's tongue roamed the cavern of her lover's mouth, she could not keep her eyes closed. She wouldn't deprive herself the divine sight of Gabrielle's face radiating with bright love that almost blinded her.
Gabrielle felt her Lord's warm hands caressing her everywhere. Eager lips and tongue covered every patch of skin on her body, her breasts were thoroughly licked and suckled, the valley between her breasts was stroked; her stomach and her waist were reverently kissed. The Conqueror ran her hungry mouth over each of her lover's arms then rained small kisses on Gabrielle's legs and feet, not neglecting a single toe. Her kisses were scorching, as were the tears she shed in her wake.
Gabrielle was being passionately loved and worshiped. Years of agonizing pain were being slowly replaced by fulfillment and unrivaled satisfaction, though the very process itself was scathing.
The Conqueror took a mouthful of Gabrielle's flesh, when she gave her attention to her inner thighs, rubbing her cheek against the collared one. She moved her tongue through the wetness at Gabrielle's slit. The taste and fragrance of it were known to her as the taste of her own blood, and though she had known countless women before her Gabrielle, she knew with utmost conviction, she would easily be able to distinguish between Gabrielle's unique essence and that of all others.
The Conqueror's heart was breached wide open for giving, for offering with patience and extraordinary love. She didn't waste time teasing her lover, and she was powerless to deny her lover anything. And so, as soon as she sensed Gabrielle's hip rising to meet her touch, no further encouragement was necessary and she unleashed her most fervent and gentle attention. Her long thick tongue alternated between painting circles around Gabrielle's throbbing nub, and plunging into the very core of her need.
Gabrielle delved her small fingers into the Conqueror's smooth hair, not to prompt her Lord to attend to her aching need, but because it made her feel emotionally closer to her. It was almost too much for the Queen to bear her want for emotional and sexual release, and when it came, she couldn't breathe. She was brought to heights she had never known before, and felt the explosions of her body inside her heart and in her feminine depth. When she came down, her sobs increased.
Gabrielle wept uncontrollably. “I need you here, my Lord” she whispered and placed her hand over her heart.
The Conqueror climbed back up to her Queen, sporadically leaving warm loving kisses along the flushed, damp and sensitive body that was still writhing and quivering beneath her.
Their lips met again. The Conqueror's warm sensuous lips were caressing and nibbling, first Gabrielle's lower lip then her upper one.
As she sucked her Lord's tongue, Gabrielle could taste herself upon it.
“Shhhh… ” the Conqueror soothed her Queen. “There is no need for tears anymore,” she said with a hoarse and cracked voice, and thought she might have sounded more convincing if she could block her own from dripping down.
"Forgive me, my Lord," Gabrielle replied.
“There is nothing to forgive," the Conqueror said and gently stroked Gabrielle's golden hair and wet cheeks. "And if only for tonight, my love," she whispered and claimed her Queen's lips again, "I am Xena."
"Xena," Gabrielle moaned in delight and smiled. She tangled her hands in the Conqueror's long ebony hair as the latter swirled her tongue around Gabrielle's swollen aureole before claiming an erect nipple.
They had years' worth of unspoken words between them. So much wanted and needed to be said. But at that moment their mutual desire was to communicate with one another with the most natural, basic and immediate language they had taught themselves to use, forced themselves to use with one another. The only language they knew; a language that was unique to them.
"Now brand me, your humble servant, with your love," the Conqueror said and rolled both of their entwined bodies, till Gabrielle was lying on top of her.
Gabrielle was beside herself. Her Lord used language that Gabrielle never thought she knew, shed tears that Gabrielle never imagined she could, and granted touches that Gabrielle never dreamed she was capable of.
She rose to a sitting position over her Lord's pelvis and straddled it. Being on top of her Lord and looking down upon her seemed so strange, so foreign, yet so exhilarating to her that it almost baffled her. She took her Lord's hefty length and raised her hips up to enable access and steered its tip into the pit of her desire, then lowered her body down and swallowed it whole.
The Conqueror's flaring eyes were embedded into her Queen's. She observed and studied even the smallest of her wife's movements as if she was seeing her for the first time. She saw how her Queen's features contorted with pleasure, how determent she looked to deliver satisfaction to her as well, how she dug her toes into the bed for leverage, how her hips began to sensuously sway back and forth along her shaft and how her hands began to knead her own queenly breasts.
The Conqueror positioned her large hands over Gabrielle's, and both sets of hands pinched and molded Gabrielle's luscious breasts and nipples in unison. The sensation sent waves of arousal through the Queen's body, and straight to her womanhood, causing a flood to soak the Conqueror's burning loins.
Gabrielle lowered her torso and mercilessly assaulted the Conqueror's lips, her neck, her collarbone and her shoulders with her mouth. As she thrust and ground herself against her Lord's need, she moaned "I love you, Xena, with my every breath, with every fiber of my being and I am yours," then sunk her teeth into her Lord's earlobe and sucked on the sensitive flesh.
It sent shivers through the Conqueror's body. "I am as much yours as you are mine, love," she rasped, almost tormented, cupping her wife's buttocks with one hand and spurring her on to increase the rhythm. The thumb of her free hand rubbed her lover's pulsating bud steadily.
Love ran rampant in their bed that night. It was not just the carnal merging of needing bodies, but at last the merging of starved hearts and yearning souls.
The Conqueror sensed the pressure of her impending release approaching the point of no return, and as the soul-tearing climax began, her head pushed hard backwards into the pillow beneath it and her body stiffened and arched upwards off the bed, lifting her beloved Gabrielle along with it, reaching deeper into her womanhood.
Gabrielle's wrenching climax released out years of hoping, years of eviscerating longing, years of mute love.
"XENA!" Gabrielle's roaring testament pierced the quiet sleepy Thirian dawn.