DISCLAIMER: The characters of Xena and Gabrielle and some others belong in their entirety to Universal/MCA, Renaissance Pictures, and all the other powers that be. No copyright infringement is intended. I wrote this story at the urging of my muse; it should never be used for profit.
This story is a sequel to the story “Lord Conqueror of the Realm”. I strongly recommend you read it first because in this story there are references to events that took place in “Lord Conqueror of the Realm.” Here is where you can find it:
http://www.academyofbards.org/fanfic/w/warriorjudge_lordconqueror1.html
LOVE/SEX WARNING/DISCLAIMER: This story involves both love and sex (at times some rough/raw play with very mild BDSM elements – all consensual - nothing severe) between two adult women. If you’re under 18 or if this type of story is illegal in the state or country in which you live, please do not read it.
SPECIAL THANKS: My humble most ardent gratitude to the excellent, most brilliant Beta readers Nancyjean and Alexandriaruth whom I can't thank enough.
Comments, thoughts, questions & feedback: MOST WELCOMED – The more you write me, the quicker I post – I mean it!
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Part 17
Facing each other on the bank of a nearly frozen lake stood the Conqueror and the Queen, along with another wall between them and glistening snow beneath them that failed in cooling the growingly heated argument.
"So there it is in a nutshell," the Queen professed in frustration.
“You disobeyed me!” the Conqueror chided and in her effort to rein in her temper, her breathing intensified and against the chilling air, rhythmic gushes of vapors burst through her nostrils.
These vapors indicated to the Queen just how irate the Conqueror truly felt. “In all humility, I did no such thing. Your words to me before your departure were ‘by all means, stay here.’”
The Conqueror turned her back to the Queen, who in her mind was splitting hairs, in order to achieve a better frame of mind, but she was too livid. She turned to stand toe to toe with the Queen and waved a reproachful finger at her. "What ever happened to your oath to me? ‘Where you go I go' you said! ‘To the gates of the kingdom of Hades,’ you promised - but not to gates of mine?!" You were willing to part with me in order to frolic about with your precious Amazons. What have they given you that I haven’t?”
The Queen wasn’t sure how to reply the Conqueror’s charge. She did break her promise, or so she supposed. Facing the Conqueror’s rage was unendurable to her, but she had been carrying ill-feeling grievances of her own, which she had never enunciated. If this great matter could ever be resolved, she knew she could keep silent no longer.
"Do you remember when we had the… delicate difficulty with Lady Satrina?” she finally asked.
That question that seemed to stem out of nowhere left the Conqueror perplexed and stumped. It took her a few moments before she gave in and asked, “What does it have to do with any of this?”
“Just hear me, and it will soon become apparent,” the Queen replied resolutely.
The Conqueror folded her arms over her chest in a somewhat confrontational manner, but that wouldn’t make the Queen recede. “When first I told you that Lady Satrina had told me about the love she had borne you, you seemed nonchalant and unmoved, but as soon as I told you about the love she had borne me… well, that provoked anger in you and she had to be banished from Court," the Queen said.
“For the life of me, you make no sense to me,” the Conqueror stated and held on to her stubbornness.
The Queen wore a somewhat pensive look, “When I was your slave, I never envied the noble ladies with their superb jewelry, or their daughters in their fine clothes I saw when they visited in your palace. But when I came here, I, Queen of the Realm, envied the Amazons. I envied them without understanding or recognizing this feeling in me for what it really was, envy. I saw how free these women were and how free their Queen was. The Realm’s noble ladies do not enjoy such freedom, for they live in golden cages, their station and their wealth notwithstanding.”
“Caging you in gold, is that what you think I’m doing to you?” the Conqueror’s voice rose to a roar. She couldn’t believe the words that came out of the Queen’s mouth and stabbed at her heart. Ingratitude wasn’t like her Queen.
Meeting with the Conqueror's notorious wrath and intemperate words, the Queen imagined herself teetering on the edge of a dark precipice. “That is not what I meant,” she tried to explain, but the Conqueror was too enraged and too impervious to listen.
“Aside from more children, which the love I bear you wouldn't allow me to grant you, have I not given you everything you ever wished for? Haven’t you been free to do as you please? You remained here despite the fact that I didn’t want you to and neither ordered you back to Corinth nor took you there by force. You did as you pleased. I didn’t stop you,” the Conqueror averred.
“You didn’t make it easy on me, though, did you?”
“I told you, anger cannot be dishonest or would you have me lie to you?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” the Queen answered. “And I have learnt long ago that anger is one of the sinews of your soul, and it is ironic to me still that although at times it troubles me and I wish you were less angry than you are, at other times it attracts me to you and lights me afire for you.”
A brief smile flickered upon the Conqueror’s pursed lips, but too soon, her soul became dyed with the color of her thoughts yet again. “I don’t understand. What were you hoping to find here? If you wanted to learn the skills of combat, all you had to do was ask. I would have taught you.”
“These trainings strengthened my body, but they accomplished far more than that. They instilled confidence in me. Nevertheless, physical strength and combat skills weren't the reasons for my staying here.”
“Then what, then?”
“Strength of spirit and mind,” the Queen answered and absentmindedly straightened her shoulders.
“You are the most powerful woman in the world. How much more powerful were you hoping to get, staying here? I thought you didn’t care for power. How many times have you told me that you hoped we could live in Thira, being just you and me? What is it in the Amazons that has developed such an appetite for power in you?” It was all that the Conqueror could do not to raise her voice. She felt her wife and Queen drifting away from her and her grasp over her slackening and it terrified her. What she dreaded the most was about to come to fruition. She could hardly recognize the woman who stood in front of her dressed in the Amazon Queen’s attire as the woman she loved.
“You misunderstand,” the Queen insisted.
“Then explain it to me,” the Conqueror demanded. “What power have they bestowed upon you which is greater than the power I have bestowed upon you? What power do these Amazons even possess? I could wipe them out in less time that it would take me to eat an apple.”
“I’m not powerful at all, or do I need reminding you of your old flame, that Amazon, Molpadia," Queen Gabrielle finally asserted, reproaching.
The Conqueror was fuming. "She is not an 'old flame' of mine. Like all that came before you, she was nothing but sport to me, as well you know, Madame."
"With respect, Majesty, that is beside the point!” the Queen maintained and took another deep breath to regain composure.
To hear her wife and Queen addressing her as 'Majesty' for the first time in all their years together tore her heart asunder, but the Conqueror wouldn't yield to it. “I would have discouraged her given the chance or did you not trust me,” she yelled more harshly than initially intended but with all sincerity.
“I didn’t want you to 'discourage' her! I should have been able to confront her, but I couldn't for I was restricted!” the Queen cried out loud in frustration and vexation far greater than the Conqueror had ever witnesses before. The Queen paused and looked intently into the Conqueror’s eyes. “Perhaps I was acquiescent in your decision to keep your love for me a secret. I agreed to keep your love for me a secret, at no small price on my part. If your love for me had been known to all, that Amazon wouldn't have had the audacity to offer herself to you, the brass to seduce my own husband right before my very eyes."
For the first time since that conversation had begun, the Conqueror was speechless. It took her some time to gather her thoughts and prepare a worthy reply. “Molpadia is a nuisance at best and of no consequence to you or to us,” she argued, but she knew that that reply of hers was a far cry from being worthy.
The Queen knew it as well and she felt as if she was finally getting through to the Conqueror. “And before her there was Lady Octavia, and even Lady Satrina, none showing any shame in throwing themselves at you in one way or another, at my expense and without any regard for my feelings or the slightest concern for my reaction.” The Queen paused and saw reckoning across the Conqueror's face combined with something else she couldn't decipher. “There is an Amazon here that I was told took a fancy to me."
"Mysia," the Conqueror stated and when she saw the Queen raise a questioning brow, she explained, "I've seen the way she looks at you."
"But she never approached me with her infatuation. She didn’t dare to. Not out of reverence for me or my station or fear of my rejection, mind you, but out of fear of you, I believe. All think the Lord Conqueror a philanderer, but a possessive philanderer. All know better than to touch what is yours but notice no hindrance in offering themselves to you – and feel not at all bothered touching what is mine. You said I have power and that I am the strongest in the Realm, yet I didn't feel strong enough to put that Amazon in her proper place. If I demonstrated jealousy or possessiveness towards you, people would suspect our true feelings, and so I am left humiliated in my shame. How do you think it makes me feel when I, your wife and Queen, am asked about your talents as a lover and another woman dares answer in stead of me and in my presence, no less?" The Queen's eyes welled up in tears that were the blend of divested anger and deep sadness and judging by the timbre of her voice, she was on the verge of crying. "Love," she said with a quiver in her voice and with shimmering eyes, "is the only power I have. When you publically deny our love, I am left with close to nothing. Love is my power and my freedom. "
The Conqueror rubbed her forehead and covered her eyes. As she listened to her Queen’s speech, she imagined herself in her Queen's place and understood. When her wife had spoken about the question she had been asked and another woman answering, she realized something had occurred that wasn't in the scope of her knowledge.
"Soon after you had proposed marriage to me, the late Princess Lao-Ling gave me a piece of advice," the Queen continued when the Conqueror unveiled her eyes, "that I should never ignore or pardon any disrespect towards me for any disrespect towards me was disrespect directed at you as well."
The Conqueror heavily weighted her Queen's words. Two of the most important things in her life, the Realm and her Queen's happiness, were standing on each opposite sides of the scales. Above anything else rose her longing for her wife's love towards her like the tide.
Seeing minor assuage in the Conqueror's demeanor, the Queen took two steps forward and covered the distance between them. She felt an enormous wave of pure love washing over her. She rested the palm of her hand over the Conqueror's chest, above her heart. “I am your wife, your closest companion, and I love you with everything that I am. Tell me what’s in here," she pleaded and caressed the spot that her palm was pressed against on the Conqueror's body. "I’d prefer it if you told me rather than not knowing and have my imagination run wild and loose within me dreading the worst…" she whispered.
"I acted out of fear of losing you," the Conqueror admitted with immense difficulty. "I feared that living amongst the Amazons and learning their ways might change you, might alter you from the woman I know and love into someone else."
It was then that a tear left the Queen's eye. It scoured her heart to see her powerful Lord struggling in pain.
"When I saw that you had removed your collar from around your thigh, fear gripped in my gut that I would lose you and that the removal of the collar symbolized the cornerstone of your transformation into someone different,” the Conqueror lingered before continuing, “independent who would no longer cherish who I am, relish or even need my protection or treasured what is uniquely shared between us… and now that you are Queen of the Amazons…" her speech faltered when their eyes met again.
As soon as the Conqueror finished uttering her words, the Queen reached beneath her cloak and under her blouse and retrieved her collar. "Soon after you'd left, I sewed small inside pockets into all my blouses so that I could carry the collar on my person at all times," she said and showed it to the Conqueror.
The Conqueror was just about overwhelmed by remorse, and her wife's next words pierced even deeper.
"Nothing will change what is between us or who and what we are to one another, not a hundred titles nor a thousand crowns. If it is your will, I shall wear it around my neck for all my Amazon sisters and subjects to see. I am proud of who I am - A strong and powerful Queen of the Realm and of the Amazons, who is perceived by others as such and a loving and devoted wife to you, who melts at your dominance and eagerly awaits to capitulate to it."
The Conqueror touched her fingertips to her Queen's cheeks and gently stroked the cold pale skin.
"I feel deeply ashamed admitting to you just how selfish my love for you is that I should deprive you of freedom and true friends and keep you all to myself." The Conqueror spoke softly and her anger ebbed away. "I considered that leaving you amongst the Amazons, you'd be presented with… other alternatives and I feared your liberty would spoil the love you bear me."
The Queen had to smile with sparkling eyes. "There could never be anything or anyone else but you for me, don't you know that?" she said and a myriad of emotions crossed her joyous features. "I am forever your humble and willing servant. All I ask is that you allow me latitude and trust in my love and submission to you. It shall never diminish my love for you. No woman on this earth has ever loved as much as I love you."
"Will you accept my sincere apology, Gabrielle, and forgive me for all the pain that I've caused you?" the Conqueror asked. It was the first time that the Conqueror had ever apologized or asked for forgiveness. The Queen didn't underestimate the magnitude of the event, but when she saw tears welling up in the Conqueror's cobalt eyes as well, it was her undoing and she began to soundlessly weep.
"Of course I forgive you," she said with quavering voice and felt her trembling body being pressed against the Conqueror's lengthy warm one.
As her head was pressed against the Conqueror's chest and the Conqueror's heart thumbed loudly in her ear, she said, "It took me a long time before I could come to terms with the fact I wanted to be stronger so I could put that Amazon, Molpadia in her place. I reckon I was too ashamed to admit it, even to myself. I thought it petty and quite demeaning to me."
From above her head, she felt the Conqueror smirk in high spirit. She sinisterly relished the fact that her wife was jealous and was very guiltily amused every time her wife had referred to Molpadia as 'that Amazon.'
"But in spite of my initial intent and motivation to stay here, however clandestine to me, I have gained so much more and I am thankful for it," the Queen said still clinging to the Conqueror.
"Then I am pleased.”
“Are you really?”
“Hmmm…” The Conqueror released her wife from her embrace to look into her eyes when she said, “I shall make my love for you known and we shall hide it no more.”
The smile of sublime happiness illuminated her Queen’s face, coupled with two tiny wrinkles to each side of her nose just beneath her eyes, which the Conqueror had always been enamored and enchanted by.
"As for Thiba and her sisters…" the Conqueror began to say.
"I realize it is a great concession for me to ask of you to make and I do understand the foreseeable ramification such dispensation might yield. Nevertheless, in spite of their crimes against us and the Amazon Nation, I cannot in good conscience condemn them to death after all they've suffered."
The Conqueror couldn't hold the Queen's merciful heart against her, for it was that merciful heart that she had fallen in love with. "They suffered a fate no worse than yours, yet you maintained your kindness and goodness," she argued.
The Queen considered the Conqueror's words, then a mysterious smile ornamented her lips. "Different experiences in life put their mark on different people in many different ways. I dare say you weren’t the only one who ever suffered the loss of a brother or the mayhem of a warlord in their homeland, yet you are the only Conqueror."
The Conqueror mirrored her wife's smile and admired just how shrewd her wife was.
"Only the Amazons know about the attempt on our lives the day we first came here and theirs is a reclusive tribe. Those outside Amazon borders who know about the attack specifically upon us are very few and can be trusted to hold their tongues. If you can assure me that no Amazon will reveal that I have spared the lives of traitors of the Realm, then I shall leave for you to decide Thiba’ and her sisters' fates."
The Queen was moved beyond words by the Conqueror's tremendous gesture. She could hardly believe it. A healthy sobbing smothered her throat and she barely managed to say "Thank you," as she lowered her head and gaze in decorous and demure gratitude.
The Conqueror placed two fingers beneath the Queen's chin and gently prompted the Queen's features upwards to meet her gaze. "May I kiss you, my Lady?" the Conqueror asked.
The Queen's smile was rained over by soundless tears born out of sheer delight. "You are the Ruler of the world, are you not, my Lord?"
There were no tentative nibbles or sluggish exploration. The Conqueror leaned down as the Queen lifted herself to stand on her tiptoes and their mouths fervently impinged against one another and sucked on flesh. As the Queen placed one hand against the Conqueror's jaw so to enjoy the movement of the working muscles there and the other weaved in the Conqueror's tresses, the Conqueror wrapped her left around the Queen's waist and with her right she cupped the back of the Queen's head to increase pressure and depth between them. But the deeper the touch, the more unrelenting and demanding it got. The heat of their rapid pants engulfed them in a white cloud.
The Conqueror was first to break the indulgence in love. With grim concern and heavy conscience she said, still breathless, "There is something I must tell you."
"It is of no importance now, my Lion," the Queen said as she studied the Conqueror's features.
"But it is," the Conqueror replied.
The Queen took the Conqueror's hand. "You wish to tell me that while in Corinth you tried to have another perform my wifely duties," she said as though she had witnessed the event with her own eyes.
What amazed the Conqueror wasn't that her Queen surmised that she had had another woman in her absence, but that the Queen knew that she had tried.
When she saw the surprised looked on her Lord's face, the Queen smiled slyly and pressed her body against her Lord’s. "You were lonely and cross with me - that I understand. What I do not understand however is,” she said, nipping the Conqueror’s earlobe with her teeth and whispering in her ear “What folly has made you think you could take pleasure from another? You are no longer capable of it any more than I am."
“Do you forgive me then?” the Conqueror rasped by the Queen’s solicitation of her desire, and sent her hands to knead the Queen’s buttocks.
Never neglecting her seduction, the Queen pressed her hips against her Lord’s loins and answered, “That depends…” she blew hot breath in her Lord’s ear, “How long before you came to your senses, my Lord?” she teased.
“Lady Satrina didn’t reach the stairs after I had sent her on the errand… I stopped her when still in the corridor.”
“Then I forgive you.” When she couldn't suffer any longer, the Queen's lips left the Conqueror's and hastily traveled to the Conqueror's ear with a claim on her breath. "Take me somewhere close and warm where we can be alone and lie with me, my Lord."
The Conqueror's lips roamed down the Queen's milky neck. "I think I saw a sweat lodge nearby."
"Take me…" Gabrielle pressed and moaned when she felt the Conqueror's teeth sink into her flesh, then added, "there."
With great effort their bodies parted so that their legs could quickly carry them to that warm private place where they could be connected.
As soon as they reached the steam hut, the Conqueror turned to divest her wife and Queen of her clothes. When Gabrielle's nakedness was revealed to her, the Conqueror's ravishing eyes roamed the alluring form. Her fingers worked proficiently to rid herself of her bodices, while the Queen attended the hot rocks above the burning ambers. As the hot water sizzled over the rocks, hot steams burst upwards and permeated the wooden hut.
The Conqueror lifted one of the benches that stood along the hut's walls and placed it in the middle of the hut. She outstretched her hand to her wife and her wife took it. “Go, lay on the bench,” she said.
The steams seemed to part way as the Queen, majestic in her nudity and strides, made her way to the bench and lay prone atop it and felt its hard wooden surface beneath her back.
The Conqueror joined her waiting wife. She sat on the bench at her wife’s feet, straddling it, and feasted her eyes on her Queen’s sweaty, firm body. “Let me take in this magnificent sight of you,” she said as she took her wife’s feet in her large hands and brought them to her lips. She kissed the soles and rubbed them against her face, sighing, “Oh, how I’ve missed this… How I’ve longed for you.”
The Queen’s sultry gaze captured the Conqueror’s and held it. “I thought I should go mad without you…” the Queen whispered.
The Conqueror’s lips and tongue moved up the Queen’s calves and admired how much stronger they had gotten.
The Queen waited breathlessly for her Lord to reach where she so desperately needed her.
“I thought I would lose you,” the Conqueror said with a hoarse voice as her mouth savored the taste of the softer flesh of Gabrielle’s thighs. “I prepared myself for suffering the loss of you, beloved.”
“My Lion,” the Queen moaned and tangled her fingers in to her Lord’s dark mane. “Nothing is changed between us.”
The tip of the Conqueror’s nose moved against the Queen’s wet folds. She snorted the Queen’s fragrant lust in deeply, like she was taking stock of it in her lungs. The Queen didn’t rush her, but when she felt her Lord’s thick and agile tongue roaming over her womanhood and garnering her wetness, a scream of pleasure escaped her straining throat and the need became unendurable.
“Did you honestly think I would ever part with you?” she asked urgently as her desire kept mounting “Did you truly believe I would give this up for anything?” she groaned, lifted her hips and pressed her sex as hard as she could against her Lord’s lapping tongue.
The Conqueror abandoned the Queen’s aching need. As her tongue continued its journey up the Queen’s body, it consumed the beads of sweat pooling between the Queen’s breasts. She moved to sit closer between her wife’s thighs while her tongue slid over the luscious mounds and the Conqueror sated her thirst for her wife by drinking her scrumptious sweat.
The Queen shivered when she felt the weight and width of the Conqueror’s length resting over her womanhood and her belly. She hungered for it inside her.
They kissed again, nearly swallowing one another. The Queen caught her breath every time the Conqueror’s teeth sank into her flesh.
“I cannot suffer this torment any longer…” the Queen cried. “I’m torn between wanting you to take your time and make it last so we could relish it, and begging you to bring me release.”
The Conqueror penetrated her Queen with her toes pushing rhythmically against the floor for leverage and her upper body slick with sweat encompassing the Queen’s.
“We have all the time in the world. Let us have this first one as our desire demands it… just to relieve some of the pressure and take the edge off,” the Conqueror grunted as she rotated her loins in and out of the Queen’s seething slit, savoring the sensation of her Queen’s legs tight around her.
Their mouths met again in hunger and they became so enthralled by their soaring desire amidst the humid steams, lost to anything else but their passion and the sounds of their wet bodies slapping against each other and their ragged breathings, that they failed to hear the sounds of footsteps outside nearing the steam hut.
The door to the hut opened. A mortified Antiope stood there with a slack jaw and gawking eyes, staring at the naked Conqueror and at her flexing muscles adorning her physique engaging in pneumatic grinding into her naked Queen.
The Conqueror stilled her movement as soon as she felt the brush of cool fresh air against her heated skin and the light of midday sunlight. Her head sharply turned to the entrance.
“Sweet Artemis!” exclaimed the Amazon.
But the Queen didn’t care. She dug her nails into the Conqueror’s backside, spurring the primal in her. “Don’t stop!” she pleaded, and her Lord resumed her delicious poundings into her need.
It took Antiope a few moments to regain control of her bodily functions. She closed the door, turned around and still in shock announced to Athena, who had returned back to the village and walked a few steps behind her, and several of her sisters, “The steam hut is occupied.”
“What do you mean occupied? I’m freezing out here…” Princess Athena protested.
“Trust me, your Grace,” Antiope muttered flatly, “You don’t need the image I just witnessed inside your head,” was all the explanation she was willing to give.
Back in the hut, compelled by long moons of yearnings, the Royal couple was engrossed in their lovemaking. When the Conqueror sensed the impending torrents of release about to hit them, she tenderly cupped her wife’s cheek and when they soared together on tidal wave upon tidal wave of elating climax that had been denied of them for so long, they looked into each other’s eyes and their souls touched and came together.
They embraced one another tightly for a long time, basking in their union and the last waves of satisfaction.
“Do you think there’ll be a scandal?” the Queen asked and made her Lord laugh.
“Does it matter?” the Conqueror replied.
The Queen’s belly grumbled. “I’m hungry,” she remarked.
“Working up a sweat would do that to you,” the Conqueror chuckled.
The lovers dried their bodies, dressed and exited the hut. They walked in the woods near the lake till the Queen spotted a stag. Mutely, she pointed it out to her Lord. The Conqueror took out an arrow, stalked and subdued the animal.
“Why didn’t you use your labrys?” the Conqueror asked as she loaded the stag on her shoulders, “You had a clear shot.”
“I have taken three kills from you today, my Lord, and hadn’t the heart to take away a fourth,” the Queen replied only it was not the whole truth. There was something about watching her Lion hunt and throw the kill at her feet, so to speak, that made the Queen burn for her Lord.