Call of the Goddess: A Bona Dea Novel (Stormflies Book 1) (28 page)

Hungrily, he pressed his lips to hers, feeding her desires with his own. She felt herself lifted into his arms and carried to her soft bed. She fumbled with his buttons while he pushed the fabric of her dress from her shoulders. His lips traced her collarbone from her shoulder to her throat. In his mind, he showed her everything he wanted to do for her and sought permission.

Willingly, she gave it.

20th Octember, 307

Axandra woke
somewhat groggy and found the suns hanging at about three o'clock in the sky. She couldn't believe after all that excitement that she dozed off. Beneath the airy algodon sheets, she lay nude, her long hair tousled across the pillows. Stretching, she twisted around to take in a view of her room.

Quinn was gone. Where had he disappeared to? She feared for a moment that he had run off, back to North Compass or Lazzonir, suddenly needed somewhere.

Then she chuckled at herself for being impractical. She could find him easily, especially now. Their minds intertwined in such a way during their lovemaking that she felt as though he left a part of himself attached to her. She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of his storm cloud-blue eyes. A part of her floated outward, unhindered by physical being. Along the way, she touched several minds—the guards outside, Miri, Marta, that distasteful Lynn. Then she found him. He existed above her in space. She heard musical tones through his ears, hammers on metal strings. The staff common room held a piano.

Slipping back into her dress, she collected her mass of wavy locks into a simple ribbon at the base of her neck. She skipped from her bedroom, humming a lively sea-shanty she'd known since childhood. The uplifting ditty told of clear skies and good fishing.

Barefoot, Axandra padded out of the Residence and headed upstairs, noting the curiosity of the guard that followed her. He would never ask. None of them would ever ask. They watched and protected her from trouble.

On the fifth floor, Axandra heard piano music coming from the common room. The corridor was empty of any people, not that she cared. She followed the music to find him, already knowing that he was alone.

She hid just outside the doorway. Inside, Quinn perched on the bench in front of the large wood-encased instrument, his fingers pressing the keys tenderly as he played the piece. He played from memory, his eyes watching his own fingers. The piece covered the keyboard in smooth arpeggios and expansive chords, struck out at a gentle walking pace.

“Come in,” Quinn called without missing a beat. She slowly walked forward, wary of ruining the tune. She waited behind him until the piece ended.

“That was quite beautiful,” she praised softly, trying to retain the mood. She placed a hand on his shoulder, unable to resist the need to touch him.

“Thank you,” Quinn accepted. “It's unusual to find an original instrument in such superb condition,” he commented. His right hand stroked the clear lacquer directly above the word Wurlitzer, admiring the grain of the wood shining through. “It's difficult to find a piano at all, they take so much time to construct. This one—this is almost five hundred years old.”

Quinn spun on the bench to face her, meaning to leave the instrument behind. He had slipped on his same clothes, but left the top few buttons open and rolled up his sleeves.

“You look rested,” he observed, caressing her hands. She peered down at his smiling face, her own cheeks glowing.

“I didn't realize I was so tired,” she apologized. “Will you play some more?”

“You enjoyed it? I missed a lot of notes on that one.” He attempted to be modest.

“I didn't notice.”

He received her words with a nod. Patting the bench beside him, he turned back around and paused a moment to consider what to play.

He kicked off a quick tune of eighths and sixteenths, his fingers blithely bouncing over the keys. Fingers crossed over one another to reach each key in time. A few ivories slipped untouched beneath his fingertips. The music lasted less than a minute, barely time to for her to blink.

“Oh,” she expressed when it ended, mildly surprised how quickly it was over.

“Not to your liking?” he asked attentively.

“After the first one, it wasn't what I expected.” She felt sheepish about what she said. She felt she didn't have time to enjoy something so short.

“All right,” he accepted. As he thought about what to play next, his fingers tapped out chord progressions on the keyboard, major to minor and back again. “Let me try another one.”

After a moment of silence, he played. All the while his eyes roamed over her face and body. He appreciated her as he would the sunrise, for she brought light to him like the suns brought a new day. She blushed at his romantic thoughts, but did not hide herself. She watched him in the same way.

The piece sounded very peaceful and serene. Axandra let her eyes close and listened to each note. The hammer operated by each key struck a metal string. The high strings sounded crisp and clean, while the lower notes echoed over their own harmonics as the coils vibrated against each other. The musician played the music at an unhurried pace, as though holding back each passing second and stretching the very fabric of time. With each phrase, she breathed deeply.

Quinn touched her shoulder when the music ended, bringing her back to the present stream of time. She found her head resting upon his shoulder.

Now that he was finished with music, she sensed his concern for her. He thought she looked faint, and he worried that she looked thin.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, thinking of her own stomach. A growl came from her midsection. “I didn't eat my lunch. There was too much distraction.”

“That sounds like a fine idea,” he agreed. “Hop on my back.” He stood, turned his back to her and crouched low enough that she could climb on.

“What? That's ridiculous!”

“No, it's not,” he urged playfully. “You're light as a feather. I'll carry you down to the kitchen.”

Since she did feel weak and wobbly, she agreed to climb on his back, her arms draped over his shoulders and her legs about his waist. He locked his elbows around her knees and started off singing a song.

Quinn's tenor tones rang against the stone walls all the way down the main staircase. Her weight cost him no effort as he descended the dozens of steps. She giggled as she held on, laughing at him and at the poor guard who seemed utterly confused by the situation.

As they arrived just outside the dining room, Quinn let her slip gently to the floor. “Front door service, Madam. Let me get the chef.” He marched ahead of her as they entered the room. The tables were all set for dinnertime, with fresh tablecloths, utensils and napkins. Pulling out a chair for her at a table near the kitchen entrance, he left her momentarily to enter the kitchen and obtain nourishment.

Axandra heard some commotion as she waited, voices in the kitchen. Someone yelped, startled by the stranger, but seemed quickly calmed. The voices quieted to normal tones. Colors popped in front of her eyes the hungrier she got. She despised the sensation and wished she had eaten an earlier snack to avoid it. She did not want an outturned stomach to ruin the rest of the day. Again. Quinn's early arrival boosted her failing spirits, and everything felt so right at this moment.

When Quinn returned, the chef followed him carrying a small silver tray with goblets of cold water and a saucer holding a cone fruit. The fruit had been sliced to open like a flower.

“Good afternoon, Your Honor,” the chef greeted with a brief but respectful bow. “I saved your lunch from earlier, since Miri brought it back to me. It will be warmed shortly. This should appease your immediate hunger.” The chef placed the delicately prepared appetizer on the table between their two seats. He waited while she took a petal of the “flower” and crunched it between her teeth. Then he disappeared back into the kitchen.

The overly sweet fruit instantly inverted her off-balance blood sugar and the flashing lights dissipated. Quinn sat to her left at the large round table, one of four set in the room, each able to seat twelve diners at a time. Each table sat adorned with centerpieces of live plants, some of which bloomed with delicate white flowers and their vines trailed across the surfaces. The dining room was typically used by the Councilors and staff for meals. Axandra usually took her meals on the veranda or in her rooms, away from the others.

“Feeling better,” Quinn asked, breaking off a fruit petal from the core for himself.

Sucking the juice from another chunk, Axandra nodded. “Yes. I sometimes get light-headed if I don't eat. I guess I haven't had anything since breakfast.” The crisp flesh tasted fresh, as though the fruit had just been picked from the tree.

The chef sent out two shallow bowls of thin soup and chunks of warm crusty bread. Flecks of herbs seasoned the vegetable broth, but there were also tiny black pieces of something she didn't immediately recognize. The specks felt like fish bones on the way down her throat.

“Chef,” she summoned, as he lingered nearby. “What is in this soup?”

There came a lengthy pause, during which the chef avoided eye contact. “Oh, well—we were looking for another source of protein to supplement everyone's diet. Fish are somewhat difficult to come by right now.”

Bumping her shoulder with his own, Quinn whispered, “It's probably better that you don't ask.”

But her brain already wrapped around an idea of what types of living things provided protein. She realized the black specks looked like beetle parts. Covering her lips with her hand, she repressed the urged to vomit.

“Actually,” the chef continued, “it did help with another problem that we were having down in the store rooms—”

“It's delicious!” Quinn praised the chef boisterously, interrupting any further details. “Thank you. We will enjoy it. Perhaps you have a dessert we can share?”

“Dessert? Yes, of course.” Chastened, the chef scuttled back into the kitchen.

Replacing her spoon upon the placemat, Axandra moved the bowl toward the center of the table. Her appetite fled.

In a somewhat bold move, Quinn placed his hand in the path of the bowl and pushed it back toward her. “Eat the soup,” he insisted quietly. He was nearly finished with his own already, black specks and all. “You need to eat.”

While she agreed that she did need to eat—since this morning's revelation as to what was happening to her body, she thought to herself that she should eat everything within sight in hopes of fighting the deterioration—she simply could not bring herself to take even a spoonful. She could only think of beetles as large as her foot ambulating over the ground, thin legs and shining black shells. She reached for her bread and spread the airy surface with butter, saying nothing to him.

“We're not leaving the table until you eat the soup,” Quinn promised, like a father would to a child who refused to eat. “It's actually very delicious.”

“I don't think I can.”

“Take your spoon and put the soup in your mouth. I know you can do that.”

She glared at him fiercely. “I don't appreciate your patronizing tone,” she hissed.

“I'm not patronizing you. I'm telling you to eat the soup. You are wasting away and I–I can't stand it.” His voice sounded apologetic and sad. He looked away from her, folding his hands together in the air. “I just found you. I don't want you to vanish.”

For some reason, the words he spoke went deep into her soul. No one else could make her feel so important. She knew she was important. The entire population looked to her with reverence. But she was important to him for a different reason. He needed her in a different, more intimate way.

Grasping the spoon in her fist, she shook it at him. “Fine. But don't blame me if it comes back up on your shoes.”

He only chuckled at the threat and waited patiently for her to finish her meal. She managed to swallow most of it by avoiding the hard beetle parts. The black bits rested at the bottom of the bowl.

“That will do,” he dismissed at last. “Thank you.”

“What would you like to do for the rest of the afternoon?” Axandra asked, shifting Quinn's focus from her health to more amusing endeavors. “I only want to check on the reports of the tides. I'm very hopeful that the flooding won't be as terrible as the scientists predicted.”

“I'll follow you in whatever you do,” he offered submissively. “I have no other plans.”

“You seem lost without your work,” she observed in a soft voice. She felt such as she looked into his gray-blue eyes.

“Today, I am not lost,” he corrected. His hand connected with hers in a tender embrace.

“Well, I wanted to ask you to help me with a little research,” she explained, smiling at him demurely.

“Oh?” he perked up.

She beckoned him to come with her. As she rose from the table, she found that her body felt energized after eating a full meal. They proceeded hand-in-hand across the main hall to the Council wing, stopping in a small office only briefly to retrieve a sheaf of papers from the desk where the reports were left for her. Then they headed up to the second floor and to the Library.

“I have a lot of questions about the Prophets,” she explained, opening up to him about her private thoughts. “And since you are an expert in history and very inquisitive, I thought you might enjoy helping me find the answers I'm looking for.”

“A challenge!” Quinn reveled, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “There isn't much known about them, but perhaps your Library holds a few secrets to discover. What questions do you have?”

She waited until they entered the book room before she told him. She closed the wide double doors, shutting out the Elite and signaling not to be disturbed. “Councilor Morton doesn't like me questioning such things,” she complained when she sensed his curiosity about why she shut them in. “Well, Morton doesn't like me being with you, either.”

She moved across the room to open two of the large windows and let in the crisp autumn air. Icy, thin clouds gathered in the southwest, shading the suns' descent to the horizon. In the shadows, the air cooled quickly, though the rest of the day passed in pleasant warmth.

“Ms. Morton seems to have a poor attitude about many things,” he criticized. “I have never met her personally, but I've heard many remarks about her—such as if she ever smiled, her face might crack.”