Horns for the Harem Girl (11 page)

The palace had a very, very good flock of art restoration specialists.

“Alara!”

Her favorite nemesis headed off an entire row dedicated to sisters. Even her brother bothered to come, which was a bit surprising. “He came?” she asked Alara.

“He heard there were jobs for the family in the royal palace and somehow, he brought himself down to showing up. He’s changed a lot though,” her sister whispered. “I think maybe he’s come down about fourteen pegs in the ego department. But that’s enough about all that. I guess I was wrong about the whole prince thing, huh?”

“I’d just about given up too,” Helena said. “But... yeah, I guess in the end, hope won out.”

“It always does, child,” Maret said. “I told you not to lose faith.” The old woman looked ten years younger than when Helena had last seen her. There was a glow about her face, her cheeks were pink and flushed. It was very, very hard for Helena to keep her mouth shut, but remembering the promise she’d made to Arad about doing that very thing, she managed. “It worked for me,” she finally said, with tears running down her cheeks. “Looks like it worked for you too.”

“Where’s the lucky groom-to-be?” her father asked, breaking the tearful reunion. “I haven’t seen him since he swept by to pluck you from the house last night.”

“You know,” she answered, “in all the hubbub I kind of lost track of him. And to be honest with you, I don’t have any idea what’s happening. We came to town this morning, and on the way into the palace, he dropped down on one knee and proposed to me.”

“Sounds like my son!” Maret said. “For all his strange quibbles, he’s got the heart of a romantic. I gave him that, you know,” she said to Helena’s father, “that’s where he got all his good traits. His father is a lump of an ibex.”

There was a lot of snickering and a lot of smiling, and then before she knew what was going on, really, all the lights in the ceremonial hall – which was almost the size of a football field, with magnificent stained glass framing either end, and a tiered dais on one end – where everyone’s attention was turned, dropped out completely.

The only light in the entire place was the multicolored disco-ball of dancing light from the stained glass with enough torches behind it to make the whole thing shine like an acid trip music video. Helena’s head swam, just a little bit, from the combination of the lights and the incense that met her nose. It was sweet-smelling, but not cloying; spicy but not overwhelming. There was frankincense in there, she thought, and maybe a touch of patchouli in the background. Fixating on dissection of the smell kept her from falling too far into her own head.

I’m marrying a prince. No! He’s the king. I’m marrying a king! What the hell is going on? Two weeks ago I was a harem girl failing totally at the harp and now I’m marrying a king? Oh goodness
.

“Queen?”

It was Maret’s voice calling her attention, but that was the first time she’d heard anyone call her that. It was... not a pleasant feeling that overwhelmed her poor stomach. It twisted, it turned, and wrenched up in a knot. It was a fairly pleasant knot, but still, it was a knot.

Aside from the knot, there was a lump down there somewhere that felt like it was tugging her stomach toward her feet. But then
he
appeared on the dais, and all that unpleasant sourness in the pit of Helena’s stomach seemed to dissipate like a cloud of smoke wafting off into the atmosphere.

“Queen!” Maret said again, grabbing at Helena’s sleeve. “I think someone is asking for you to go up there.”

“Up there?” Helena whispered. “In front of all those people? Oh my God what if I throw up?”

Maret stiffened. “A woman of the harem never vomits in public,” she said sharply. There was a smile behind her words though. Her old, plump face lined with a grin. “Go on, all you have to do is say a few words and then get out of here. It’s a small price to pay for being the queen, don’t you think?”

She felt her knees go all wobbly.
Damn it, she’s right
, Helena thought. Immediately, the girl stiffened her back, lowered her head in determination. On her way up the stairs, someone grabbed her hand. She turned her head to see Crane’s crooked nose. He nodded slightly, a gesture which she returned, and immediately felt more regal than she had before. With a certain spring in her stride, she finally could see Arad’s face.

She’d never, not once in her life, seen a smile like that.

He said his words, she said hers, and as promised, the ceremony was short, sweet, and the cheer afterward stuck with her for the rest of her life.

––––––––

“H
ow can this all possibly be real?” Helena asked as her slipper-clad feet slid over a cool, marble floor. Streaks of black, speckled with shimmering quartz shot through the stark whiteness of the tile, and crawled up the columns at the room’s entry.

Arad laughed softly. “Well, for two hundred years, this place has been a symbol of power, authority and... well, let’s just get right to the point – fear. It loomed over all these people and showed them they weren’t worthy to step into it.”

His mood didn’t exactly match what Helena thought he’d be showing, considering the whole wedding thing, and the twinkling gleam in his eyes she’d been so entranced with at the ceremony. “What’s wrong? You seem distracted.”

Slowly, Arad scanned the room, squeezing Helena’s hand tighter as he did. “It’s not that anything’s wrong, really, it’s just that things are,” he paused, considering his next word carefully. “Scary. Change always is.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” he said. “But we’re not going to live here for very long. I just can’t stand the thought of doing all I’ve done, of all those people sacrificing their lives and their happiness to make this country better, and then just ignoring it all.”

She dropped his hand and walked to the nearest wall. Running her fingers along the intricate carvings on the column, Helena curled her hand into a ball and froze in place. “What is there to be disappointed about?” she asked with her back to her reluctant king. “You’ve seen what I came from. Do you think that, really, I need all this? That I want it? My happiest memories were sitting with my father around a table and listening to him and his friends laugh and tell stories. All these things are just,” she trailed off.

“Things?” he asked, taking her hand and turning her to face him. Arad clenched his jaws so that his cheekbones stood out even more than they normally did. She watched his face, studying the lines and the curves and those beautiful eyes that had once again begun to twinkle like the stars burning overhead. A smile darted across his lips for a moment, and was gone a breath’s space later.

“Just things,” she repeated. “They don’t matter. What matters is right here. You, and me, and everyone else smiling and dancing and singing.”

Arad grunted a soft laugh. “I wish it were so simple,” he said. “But for right now, let’s just let it be that simple, hm?”

It was Helena’s turn to smile. But then, all of a sudden, she felt her head spin. Spots dotted her vision as though she were on the verge of a very violent and uncomfortable sort of sleep. “Arad,” she said, gripping his hand, then his forearm. “Something is...”

Her eyes fluttered and with only seconds of warning, she felt fuzz descend over her sight. “I’m...”

Knees buckling, Helena felt herself fall, but not far. Arad’s muscled arms closed around her, keeping her safe from collapse.

When she awoke, only a few seconds later, but what felt like hours to her addled brain, the first scent that hit Helena’s nose was a mixture of lavender and lilac, an intoxicating aroma that lifted her in a way that felt almost physical.

“Let’s get you in here,” she heard the words come from Arad’s mouth as though he was at one end of a long cave and she at the other. Echoes thrummed in her skull. Even so, his voice gave her comfort and the feeling that no matter what had happened, she was fine.

She felt the silk of her dress and loose-draped shawl slip from her skin. The slight cool in the air prickled Helena’s nipples, and the gentle rasp of the dusting of hair on Arad’s chest scratched wonderfully against her side.

Vision still wobbly and confusing, she felt the seductive warmth of a bath envelop her body. Moments later, her new husband slid in to the opposite end of the massive, glistening white tub. His thickly muscled legs encircled her body, his feet against the small of her back. He stroked long, patient lines up and down the sides of her backbone. Even with the alluring warmth surrounding her, Helena’s skin washed up and down with goosebumps.

“I... think I might know what happened,” she said after a few moments of blissful soaking and running her finger along the line in Arad’s thigh.

“You were so swept up by my dashing good looks and irresistible charm that you couldn’t manage to keep yourself from fainting?”

With a decidedly not-demure-at-all snort of a laugh, Helena threw her head back. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was going to say. Either that, or I haven’t eaten a single thing today. One of the two.”

Arad gave her a comically overblown look of offense, and a moment later, splashed a wave of lilac-scented water straight into her face.

She let out a playful scream, then drew her foot out of the tub and plunked it down, sending a depth charge partially up Arad’s nose, partially over his head, and partially onto the floor.

“She fights!” Arad announced, before splashing back and sitting up in the tub. Helena felt the heat from his legs around hers, and she slipped her ankles around his muscled waist. “I take you to the bath, undress you and make you comfortable, and you splash me!”

Smiling seductively, she wrapped her feet around his back, pulling the huge newly-minted king closer. She felt the growing tip of his erection against the deepest parts of her thighs, and ached to have him. But not yet – they were both having too much fun playing.

Remembering an old trick her father taught her, Helena made a fist in the tub, and when Arad drew near, eyes closed and lips expectant, she squeezed it. A jet of water shot straight into his face, and instead of surprise, he only bellowed with a laugh so deep and resonant that Helena felt it in her bones.

The chill that followed drew a shudder from her lips, and when she opened her eyes, Arad was scant inches from her face. This time when he drew in for a kiss, she relented, relaxing her legs and feeling his heat against her sweetest place in the instant before his lips caressed hers. He sucked gently on her bottom lip, then slid his tongue between her teeth, exploring every line and curve of her lips. She felt him push, eagerly and hungrily, against her as he gripped the small of her back and pulled her against his hardness.

He lay against her belly, thick and long, and the scent of his skin filled her nose. In that moment, that one, blissed flicker of a candle-flame, she knew that no matter what happened, she was home.

Arad kept her held close, but with his other hand, he explored her belly, her waist, and finally cupped one of her breasts in his rough palm. When he ran his thumb in a slow, exploratory circle around her nipple, Helena let her head drop back against the tub. She inhaled deeply, feeling the pleasure of his touch coursing through her body.

He moved closer still. With her mouth open and the heat burning into her, he nibbled softly at her lip, then kissed her again, more powerful and needy than before. Her hair crinkled softly against the headrest on the back of the bathtub. She drew another tentative breath when he pinched softly on her stiffened, pink nib, and before long, felt his tip slide down her sex.

“How did I find you?” she asked with her eyes closed, as her king ran a trail of kisses along her chin and down the side of her neck to the hollow of her throat. He sucked softly, and then slid his tongue up to her chin before taking her in another enveloping kiss.

“I think I found
you
,” he said, nibbling softly.

She smiled, and reached down to take his girth in her hand. Up, then down, she ran her hand along the silken skin, letting the heat from him thrill her from head to toe. He adjusted slightly, so that his tip moved downward, testing her entrance. Helena tilted her hips, begging for him to take her fully, but he pulled back.

“Not just yet,” he whispered.

The tingle of chill and pulse of energy that came along with his teasing boiled to a froth when Arad lifted his hand from behind her, and slid just the tip of his middle finger into Helena’s sweetness. With his erection sliding up the line of her sex and his finger curling into her, Helena threw her head back again, and let a low, rumbling groan escape her lips.

“More,” she whispered into his ear when she drew near enough to suck his earlobe between her teeth. “Please.”

With a gentle kiss behind her ear, Arad pulsed his finger into her one more time, and then let a second join in. The wonderful stretch in her deepest place made Helena think that this was the closest two people could ever get – the closest she could ever feel.

A moment later, when he pulled the fingers away, and guided the tip of himself between her folds, she knew she’d been wrong.

He was so slow, so patient and gentle, that as her body opened to accommodate him, the lapping of water up and down her back in time with her scant movements, sent another snake of electricity up and down her spine.

When Helena tried to pull him deeper, Arad refused, only allowing her a fraction at a time. With each press, every gentle push, their bodies drew closer until finally, he was within her completely, and she could feel the thumping of his heart deep inside herself.

Helena lifted her hands, letting her fingers trace the line of Arad’s hair and down his stubble-covered jaw. Warmth engulfed her as she looped her ankles around his thick waist and locked them together, pulling him as deep as she could manage. A shudder of pleasure worked through her, and a moan of ecstasy shuddered Arad. They were moving in time with each other – he’d pull and she’d push, he’d go deep and she’d rock her hips, relishing the luxurious strokes of his girth into herself.