His big body leaned over her. “You belong to me, my faerie lover,” he growled as he slowly withdrew, and then plunged back within her. “This makes you mine alone.”
Lara did not bother to tell him of the Shadow Princes, who had taken her body lovingly in every possible way. She could barely remember that night for as her princely lover had told her, she had been on another plane as they taught her the lesson of complete trust. “For now,” she agreed, and then he shuddered, spilling his juices within her in great and violent spurts.
He collapsed upon her briefly, finally rising and pulling her up into his arms that he might kiss her. Over and over his mouth pressed kisses on her, and Lara reciprocated. Then laughing she pushed him away at last, and returned to the scented pool. He quickly joined her, pulling her back into his embrace for more kisses.
“I adore you!” he groaned against her lips.
“Do not love me, Magnus. At least not yet,” Lara warned him gently.
“If I can’t love you, I will surely kill you,” he whispered to her.
Lara pulled away from him, taking his face between her two hands. “No, you won’t,” she told him. “Trust me, my lord Dominus. I will not fail either of us.”
He drew her back into his arms, and her head rested against his shoulder. “Did you blood me before where you bit me?” he asked her.
“You will be bruised, I fear, but I did not bite you hard enough to break the skin. One day I may if you continue to offer us such incredible pleasure, Magnus.”
“You seek to placate me,” he told her.
“Aye,” she agreed.
He laughed. “Such candor is refreshing,” he told her.
“I am always honest,” she said softly. Then pulling away from him she stepped up from the warm water, and reaching for a drying cloth began to dry herself. “For a religious order the accommodations are quite fine, my lord Dominus. They are obviously wealthy, and no poor mendicants.”
“A third of what we earn in our trade with the Coastal Kings is given to the Temple of the Great Creator,” he explained. He remained within the pool cooling his ardor for the moment. She would be in his bed the night long, and they would pleasure each other again. And mayhap yet again, he considered.
Lara sat down on the bench where they had recently sported, and rubbed her hair dry with the cloth. He watched her enjoying the simple task she performed. Then she arose, and with a smile at him disappeared into the bedchamber. The warm water had relaxed him after their long day’s ride. Magnus climbed from the bathing pool, and taking a fresh drying cloth rubbed the droplets of water first from his big frame and then from his thick hair. Then he padded across the marble floor of the bath and into their bedchamber. Lara was brushing her hair with her beautiful gold brush.
He took it from her, and began to groom her tresses himself. “It’s like thistledown mixed with moonlight and sunbeams,” he told her.
“How poetic,” she said to him. “I like to have my hair brushed.”
“Have other men brushed it?” he asked, an edge to his voice.
“Yes,” she answered him simply.
“Who?” he demanded to know.
“Magnus,” Lara told him gently, “it is too soon for you to want every detail of my history. And right now I am not of a mind to relate that history. I will tell you that both my father and Gaius Prospero considered me born to give pleasure. But what they did not consider was that my destiny has nothing to do with either my beauty, or my proficiency for passion.” She stood up, and took the brush from his hand smiling into his turquoise eyes. “Are you weary, my lord Dominus? I know that I am. It has been a very long day, and I am tired.”
Taking his hand she led him to the bed that they would share.
“I am the ruler of a vast land,” he said to her, “and yet you do not fear me, my faerie love. Should you not?”
“Why?” she asked him with a smile, and drew him down into her embrace.
He laughed softly. “I shall never really tame you, Lara, will I?”
“You are clever to understand that so quickly, Magnus.”
He could see she was indeed tired, and their earlier bout of passion had taken the edge off his appetite for her. He shifted himself so that she was now in his arms, her head upon his broad chest. “Go to sleep, my faerie love,” he told her. The morning would be soon enough, the Dominus thought, and it was always a fine way to begin a day.
But when he awoke the sun was already streaming through the windows of the bedchamber, and Lara was gone. Where? he wondered, his feet hitting the floor. She was not in the bath. He looked into the outer chamber where they had eaten last night and saw her sitting silently at the table as a servant offered her fresh fruit, cheese and bread. She was already dressed in her pants, shirt and vest, her long hair fashioned in a single braid. Dressing quickly, he joined her, kissing her cheek in greeting, but saying nothing directly to her.
“Ask my uncle to attend me when he is able,” he told the hovering servant. “The lady Lara will see to my needs as the food is here.”
“Yes, my lord Dominus,” the servant said, and hurried out of the guest house.
“Are we alone otherwise?” Magnus Hauk asked his companion.
She nodded, but said nothing, putting her fingers to her lips in a warning, her eyes going to the left. Outside on the colonnaded porch he saw another servant sweeping.
“Good girl!” he approved her astuteness, and her caution.
Lara smiled, and began to serve him his meal. He ate swiftly, more to finish the meal than enjoy it. He was as anxious as she probably was to begin reviewing the books of Terah held by the temple. Finally Arik Hauk arrived.
“I am sorry,” he said. “The High Priest had many instructions for me this morning. I believe he seeks to impress upon you that he is still competent to do his job.”
“It is not my right to remove him even if he wasn’t,” the Dominus said.
“He has some moments of confusion although overall his wits remain sharp and clear. Still, he is one hundred and fifty. He has not many years left, Nephew, and he has been a good High Priest. May I be as excellent.”
“I do not fear for the brotherhood in your hands, Uncle,” Magnus Hauk said. “Now, the books. Will we view them here, or in the library?”
“I thought both,” Arik Hauk said. “That way it will appear natural. The Dominus is reviewing the books of Terah for himself while he visits. You were considered a scholar in your youth, Magnus, and that is well-known. When you are in the library, for Lara cannot go there, I will bring her a book to peruse here.”
For the next few days the Dominus, Arik and Lara read through the holy books of Terah, which were never finished, for each succeeding generation added to them. They reached the era in which Usi the Sorcerer had entered the brotherhood as a novice. They read of his progress as he made an assent through the various levels of the religious order. And then there came the first mention of difficulty with Usi, and the realization, too late, that he had turned from the light to the darkness. And the darkness brought Usi incredible power even after he had been expelled from the brotherhood. The sorcerer built a large army for himself, and overthrew the ruling royal family, systematically murdering them as he found them. But some escaped the sorcerer’s vigilance, going into hiding.
Usi had a fierce appetite for female flesh. He kept a great house of women for both his salacious pleasure, and to torture, for he gained more pleasure from inflicting pain than from merely copulating with a female. The Terahns began to hide their women in an attempt to protect them, but families caught shielding their wives, daughters, sisters and others were subject to great public humiliation. The women were publicly raped multiple times while their men were whipped until their backs were raw. Virgins were taken to the sorcerer for his delectation. Eventually the resistance ceased, and families took the chance that Usi would not take one of their women if they were discreet, and did not venture out too often.
All the profits from the trade with Hetar went into Usi’s pocket until one of his braver aides ventured that the craftsmen and women needed something if they were to continue in their work. Tools needed to be replaced, looms and spinning wheels repaired, and nothing could be had for free. Grudgingly the sorcerer gave a minute portion of his profits to the villages, threatening them with slow painful deaths if the quality of their goods grew shoddy. It was a time of terrible unhappiness, the books of Terah recalled in great and graphic detail.
And then one brave woman, a distant relation of the former ruling family, decided that Usi’s reign of terror must
