Clockwork Countess (9 page)

             
An explosion of starlight splintered behind her cl
osed eyes as her body spasmed in a rush of pleasure
around
Roderick’s
slick fingers,
sweeping
her away into o
blivion, as her body contracted
in one
pulsing
release
after
another
until she lay spent on the silken sheets.
 

             
Yet
she wanted more
. 

             
With her body
still
pounding and we
t with desire, Rowan pulled at
Roderick's
dressing
gown
,
revealing
his
beautiful
masculine
body and the thrust of his ha
rd cock
pressing
insistently up
wards.  She took his velvet shaft into he
r hands.  "I want you
," she panted.

             
Tossing
the
vibrating
device to the side,
Roderick
positioned himself
on top of her.
"I think you're ready now," he whispered, cupping her face in his hands
as she felt the tip of him
probe her
entrance
, stretching
her
virginity. 
             

             
B
ut her hot
,
wet flesh was
willing
,
and he slowly began to move in and out of her,
setting
off a new storm of pulsing
,
blinding
sensation
as her orgasm
reignited
even more powerfully than the first
time
and
she cried out in pleasu
re as his body joined more deeply with
her
s
.
She bucked
and moaned
under him as,
at l
ast
, with one hard thrust
,
he
pierced
the
barrier
of
her
virginity
, th
e pain almost pleasurable
amidst
the
waves of
her shuddering, rushing gratification
. 

             
He called out too
,
and his tempo increased as he
released
his seed into her
,
just as she
opened
her eyes, her body relaxing
enough
to
be present
and take in the beauty of his flushed face
for his final moment of
ecstasy
. 

             
He collapsed on her breast and they just lay there, warm skin on skin, breathing as they came back to
themselves
again. 

             
Rowan drew her fingers lightly along his back,
reveling
in
the
feel of her husband's skin under her touch.  He looked up at her and pressed a kiss in the hollow between her breasts. 

             
She smiled.
"I am pleased to see you've turned your
mind
back to scientific pursuits
, my lord
."

             
Roderick grinned
sleepily
up at her. 
"We shall see
what
new creations I can dream up
to please you."
 

             
Rowan
shivered
in anticipated pleasure as she snuggled deep
er into her husband's
arms.  She closed her eyes and allowed
the soft hiss
of the steamer boat
and the gentle rocking of the sea
lull her to sleep
,
content at last with her true love's heart beating against her own
.

EXCERPT FROM:

CLEOPATRA'S SECRET:

THE KEEPERS OF THE LIGHT

by

Lydia Storm

"The difference between history and mythology is that mythology is true.  History gets rewritten by every generation."

–– Guru Singh

I am the daughter of Isis, Mistress of Magic.  I hold the power of worlds between my jeweled fingers.  I am keeper of the Mysteries of Egypt.  I call up the ocean tempests and calm the shining sea.  I am Beauty.  I stir agonies of rapture in the night between women and men.  No man can resist the rose-petal softness of my dusky skin, the lure of my honey-toned call, or the seduction of delights to be found behind the veil of incense in my dark chamber.  I am sister and wife of Osiris.  Mother of immortal Horus.  I am the Lady of Dreams.  I pass like moonbeams through men’s souls revealing the divine light within. I am Lady of Fate.  Even the Gods bend to my will.  My secrets, like pearls in deep ocean vaults, lie hidden beneath lapping waves––safe from the uninitiated.  I am Isis, I am Mother, I am Cleopatra, last Pharaoh of Egypt.  The wisdom I hold in my watery tomb shall be revealed again, when Fate will have it so.

PROLOGUE

Unnatural, this quiet.

Cleopatra’s jade eyes glittered in the moonlight, her long copper limbs twisted uncomfortably in the fine linen sheets and a faint glow of perspiration covered her softly curved body.  She glanced at her infant son, Caesarion, snuggled at her side.  His fluttery breath tickled her neck, his chubby hand resting on her collarbone.  Her attendants, Iris and Charmion, lay at the foot of her bed peacefully dreaming on silken pallets carried from Alexandria along with the perfumes and incense Cleopatra had brought with her as tokens of her cherished Egypt.

Although this was the most spacious chamber in the villa Caesar had provided for her stay in Rome, it was cramped and crude compared with the fabulous palace she left behind.  But then, she expected no more from the Romans, who dedicated their skill and expertise more to the art of destruction than to the fashioning of beautiful homes.

Tonight, however, she had little thought for Roman artistry––or lack of it.  With the intense focus of a priestess of Isis, she concentrated on the strange moon which spilled its sickly light across the floor.  Only the last quarter remained.  Soon the nights would be dark and Black Isis would have her reign.

Carefully rolling her son from her warm breast, Cleopatra placed him in the cradle at her bedside.  She walked to the balcony and looked out across the sprawling city below.   Not an insect's chirp disrupted the unearthly silence which hung over the capital.  In the Field of Mars, no midnight breeze stirred the laurel wreath crowning the brow of Caesar's statue.  The Senate’s marble stones gleamed like polished old bones in the waning moonlight and a low fog lay heavy over the Tiber.  Her eyes swept across the stone houses that lined the streets.  They might almost have been mistaken for tombs of the Necropolis, so silent and mysterious were the sleeping citizens of Rome.

Isis, why this fear?
 

She gazed up at the cold moon.  A cloud drifted across the silvery face of the Goddess and the light softened and diffused.  Cleopatra’s limbs were suddenly too heavy.  She grasped her forehead as pinpricks of pain surged through her third eye.  Blinking back tears, she watched the clouds slowly whirl around the dying moon, swirling faster and faster, until she stood hypnotized by the spinning tunnel of stardust tearing a void in the sky. 

With a sharp rush of breath, she lurched back as an intense pressure built in her chest.  She grasped the railing for support.  But her numbed fingers slipped across the metal as her heart center opened and her immortal
ka
was violently sucked from her chest into the shimmering tornado, leaving her crumpled body on the balcony floor. 

She was spinning now, flying, airy as the feather of Ma’at.  The light seared her eyes as she hit the whiteness, and for a moment was one with it, before she broke through and entered the Time Out of Time. 

She was falling again, falling through billows of storm-gray fog.  She reached out and tried to find something solid to grasp, tried to discern some shape or light, but everything was covered by heavy swirling mists.  Taking a deep breath, she forced her mind to calm. 

This was not, after all, her first time in this place. 

As her mind grew steadier, the falling sensation began to still.  She floated in the fog, a disembodied form lost in the Time Out of Time. 

A familiar odor rose up from somewhere below.  It was moist and filled with the aroma of damp fertile earth and soggy green things.  Her feet touched muddy ground and she found herself walking along the banks of the Nile through the marshy Land of the Reeds––gateway to the Land of the Dead. 

As the mists thinned, a black sarcophagus became visible floating in the murky water.  Dread rose up from the pit of her stomach. 

What lay in there? 

Cleopatra splashed into the river, the warm currents dragging at her linen skirts, impeding her progress.  She reached out to touch the coffin, but just as her fingertips brushed the smooth granite, it floated farther downstream.  Diving into the water, she swam up to the side of the sarcophagus, determined this time to reach it, but once more the Nile carried it just beyond her grasp.  

Cleopatra swam back and heaved herself onto dry land.  With her heart hammering, she struggled to keep up with the sarcophagus on foot.  As she ran through the mists, the coffin floated along the currents, until at last it hit a shallow bend in the river and stuck in the thick mud. 

Ignoring the swampland that sucked at her feet, she forced her way through the papyrus reeds to the coffin.  She paused, terrified of what lay inside, and yet she must know.  Must see it with her own eyes.

The stone was as smooth and black as jet.  Searching for a place to grip her fingers, she finally found a groove beneath the lip of the lid and began to pull with all her might.  Her wrists ached as she strained her tendons trying to lift it, but her hands slipped out and she fell back into the marshland.

Cleopatra rose, the wet green clay sticking to her dress and hands, and once more grabbed hold of the sarcophagus.  She
would
know what was inside.  Taking a deep breath, and gritting her teeth, she pulled. 

Isis, help me!

With a rough scraping of rock against rock, the enormous weight of the stone shifted.  She pulled harder, with everything she had, and at last the heavy lid slowly, bit by bit, slipped off unit it finally fell with a thud into the silt. 

She peered inside. 

For a moment she couldn’t breathe.  Cleopatra stared at the figure blankly, then gripped by sudden intense grief, crumpled against the side of the sarcophagus. 

“This cannot be.  This cannot be….” she repeated it like a mantra, closing her eyes tight and pressing her brow against the granite.  She would block out everything but the darkness and the cool stone beneath her skin. 

But the yearning to see him, to touch his cold cheek, forced her to lift her head and her tears spilled onto his lifeless form.  With the strength of Isis flowing through her, she tenderly lifted him from the coffin and held him close against her breast, rocking him back and forth with a heartache so piercing, she knew only her immortal blood prevented it from killing her. 

She traced her fingertips over his inanimate features.  He was the great hope of her life: lover, mentor, protector, father of her son.

She pressed a heartbroken kiss to his chilled forehead. “Caesar, not you….”

Cleopatra awoke to feel Iris gently shaking her, calling her back from the vision.  As consciousness returned, she realized she still lay on the chilly balcony.  Her stiff limbs ached as Iris helped her to stand. 

How long had she been there? 

She looked up at the sky.  The sickle of a moon still hung low over the dark horizon. 

Perhaps it was not too late.

As Cleopatra hurried into her chamber, Charmion came forward with a goblet of water.  Thankfully, Cleopatra drank it down, cooling the parched heat that always claimed her after a vision.  She pressed her hands to her temples, trying to force away the nightmare image of Caesar’s lifeless body resting in the black sarcophagus.

Worry clouded Iris’s pale blue eyes. "Queen of Heaven, are you ill?"

Cleopatra took a deep breath. "I must see Caesar.”  She turned to her other attendant.  “Charmion, have my chariot prepared as quickly as possible."

Charmion, her ebony skin gleaming in the soft lamplight, bowed and retreated into the dark corridor. 

Cleopatra’s attention fell back on Iris. "Awaken Apollodorus.  I must speak with him–"

But the old priest already stood in her doorway, awaiting permission to enter.  Cleopatra was not surprised.  Her grandfather’s ability to read the thoughts of others was even greater than her own.  She was thankful he had come so quickly.  Even at this hour, he was correctly dressed in his pleated white kilt, a leopard skin fastened across his right shoulder, his head shaved clean.

Cleopatra beckoned him in.
"Praise the Gods you’re here."

Apollodorus bowed. "Queen of Heaven, I thought you would need me tonight.  I have seen terrible visions of Caesar."
             

Her heart sank.  Why did he have to confirm her fears?  "I’ve seen them too." 

The old priest sighed. "Tomorrow the Senate is to award Caesar the crown of Rome, is it not?"

Cleopatra nodded, afraid of what they both knew. "The senators will betray him.  They’ll claim they guard their precious Republic from the tyranny of a king, when it’s they who are tyrants, always greedy for more land, more power.  I must warn Caesar!"   She pulled her mantle around her shoulders and headed towards the corridor.

The old priest’s gaze fell on the sleeping baby in his cradled and lingered there a moment.  “I’ll order your barge to sail at dawn and keep careful watch over Caesarion until you are aboard."

Cleopatra stopped in her tracks.  "Are you so sure Caesar cannot be saved?"

Apollodorus gently took her hand and she detected pity in his eyes. "Caesar is a brave and stubborn man.  Tomorrow he is to be crowned king of the largest territory in the world.  Do you think he’ll stay away from the Senate because you have had a bad dream?"

"But he honors the Gods as we do," she protested. "He knows we’re sent visions for a reason.  Surely I can persuade him, at least, to take precautions?"

"I pray you’re right, but you must prepare for the worst.  If Caesar dies, how long do you think you and Caesarion will be safe in Rome?”

Cleopatra cast a worried glance at her baby, his plump little face peaceful in slumber.  Instinctively, she placed her hand over his tiny heart to quell the fear that anything might harm him.

“They have the audacity, in whispers of course, to question Caesarion's paternity,” said Cleopatra bitterly.  “Because Caesar never got his barren wife, Calpurnia, with child, they don’t believe he could get one with me.” 

Apollodorus looked grim.  “Still, that doesn’t make Caesarion any safer from Rome’s assassins.”

"If I fail…." she paused at the unwelcome tightening in her throat.  "If I fail to persuade Caesar to stay away from the Senate tomorrow, then we set sail at dawn."

Cleopatra looked down at her sleeping baby and felt dizzy at the idea of his father coming to harm, but she forced herself to take a deep breath and remain calm.  Falling apart now would not help Caesar.  She pulled the hood of her mantle up to hide her face in shadow, but just before slipping into the darkness of the unlit passage, she turned back to Iris and Apollodorus.

"Guard my son well."

Cleopatra ordered her driver to stop the chariot a short distance from Caesar's villa.  The moon had disappeared behind gathering storm clouds and bold flashes of lightning streaked across the sky. 

As she neared the servant’s entrance at the rear of the villa, the sound of chariot wheels clamoring up from the deserted stable yard reached her ears.  Cleopatra paused.  She did not need witnesses to her midnight visit at Caesar’s home.  There had already been enough malicious gossip concerning herself and the beloved general. 

She was about to head for another entrance, when a prickling down her spine made her peer into the stable yard. 

The torchlight revealed a Roman soldier standing with one powerful hand gripping the reins of his two nervous stallions.  He was staring at her boldly, naked aggression burned in his dark blue eyes, his broad handsome face was flushed with wine.  Involuntarily, she looked up and he held her gaze.

Cleopatra felt blood rushing to her cheeks as her pulse began to race.  Of course her reaction stemmed from indignation that he stared at her so openly, so ruthlessly, as if she were something on his battlefield to be conquered and ravished.