The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Ascension (7 page)

“I don’t know what she’s—“

“Stop lying to me,” MaLeila cut in.

“Don’t be so hard on him,” Tsubame said with a laugh. “I don’t think he even knows. Everyone in the world, this universe and my own, held the man in such reverence when they would have been sickened if they knew the depths of his madness and perversity. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is that you’ve been going about not being like him the wrong way. And though you don’t understand it now, you’ll thank me later. Don’t say I didn’t try to let you come to your own decision though. Hakim.”

A fine mist began to form in the air, increasing the shadows around them. MaLeila braced herself for what Marcel was about to do when she felt Devdan’s arm hook around her waist and pull her to him; her face buried in his chest; the smell of him like rain and the crisp air of winter in Georgia invading her senses and taking her back to one of the first times he held her like this. They were locked in a janitor’s closet to hide from a wizard who managed to transport them to a mirror dimension of her school on a physical plane that existed almost directly on top of their own plane. It was only the fact that she’d left her homework for the next period that he’d been there in the first place to drop it off when the wizard attacked. She hadn’t been fond of him back then, was still cautious of his presence when he was around still, but all the same she felt safer with the man who seemed like he was still trying to decide if he wanted to kill her than the wizard that certainly was trying to kill her or worse.

And after many more encounters of the same nature, MaLeila had gone back and forth between feeling protected and in danger around the man to always feeling protected but between loving and hating him. The love giving way to hate after every hurtful comment, every time he shut her out, pushed her away, and toyed with her emotions and the hate giving way to love as soon as he contradicted his words by sweeping in to protect her anyway, almost killing himself on many occasions from the effort. The binding had changed nothing it seemed, neither for better nor for worse. And it was because nothing had changed that MaLeila came to decision.

“We can’t keep doing this,” MaLeila whispered, knowing he’d hear it even with all the noise around them.

“I keep telling myself that,” he admitted.

“Then let me go. It’s time to stop protecting me, Devdan.” Before he could respond MaLeila continued, “But I know you can’t help it. So I’ll make it easy for us.”

She felt the man tense slightly around her as she pressed the cool metal of his own gun to his back.

“Let me go, Devdan.”

“You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you killed me,” Devdan said knowingly.

“I wouldn’t have to. At this range, the bullet would kill us both.”

His grip around her relaxed as the realization dawned on him. He kept his arms around her for a little while longer before he finally let her go completely and MaLeila stepped back from him, far enough that he couldn’t easily grab her again, but close enough for her to be able to hand him back his gun.

“Before you decide to hate me and close your heart up even more so that the next girl has an even worse time trying to melt that steel, keep in mind that you broke my heart first, okay?” MaLeila said as he grabbed the gun from her.

MaLeila let the gun go and turned her back to him before walking over to Tsubame.

“I’m ready now,” she said.

“It’s a shame. I was hoping Devdan and Bastet would be coming with you,” Tsubame stated as the mist began to collect even thicker obscuring the compound, Devdan, Bastet, everything from MaLeila’s sight.

7

Tsubame had taken them to some reclusive temple in the mountains to serve as their temporary sanctuary. Nika dropped MaLeila off in a room with large open windows and a sublime view of the mountain before leaving MaLeila to her own devices.

The room was fully furnished with a bed and drawers filled with clothing and attached to the room was a bathroom with black stone floors and walls that matched the rest of the temple but MaLeila still recognized as a recent addition. At some point either Tsubame, Nika, or Marcel had been here to prepare this place for them. It may have been what Tsubame had sent Marcel away to do after their date in the city right before it was ravished by the rebel’s attack.

That evening, only a day ago yet still seeming so long because so much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, brought a smile to her face. Though he was hesitant sometimes, Marcel held nothing back from her as he told her about how their Civil War had gone; from how while never being involved in the abolitionist movement, he had given a helping hand to runaways who crossed paths with him, even once guiding a group all the way to Canada; how initially he had been a neutral party in the war because while slavery had been the focal issue it certainly hadn’t been a war between two sides of the country with different morals regarding the people they held captive even though the abolitionists took advantage of the war to get slavery abolished; how he had gotten involved for all the wrong reasons when a pyromaniac sorcerer from the confederate army who infiltrated the union army set his house in Atlanta on fire and in the ensuing fight between the two, burned down the entire city Marcel called home in effort to incite more anger and drive for the confederates to beat the union army.

“I still wasn’t on the union’s side. I still didn’t think by the north winning they would end slavery for good, but I had a vendetta to settle.”

And it was as he was regaling her with stories about his involvement in the Civil War, always being mostly truthful even if he became hesitant when he didn’t think she’d like what he told her, that MaLeila realized that her attraction to him wasn’t because he reminded her of Devdan but because where it counted, Marcel didn’t. That thought in mind, MaLeila rid herself of her clothing and put the shower to good use to rid herself of the debris and grime from a few hours before.

The room had to be enchanted because MaLeila had little issue finding the items she needed around the room. She found hair products and a hair tie in the bottom drawer of the dresser in the room and at one of the vanities that Tsubame seemed to be so fond of, she moisturized and combed through her thick locks and found a black stocking to secure it in a shrunken tightly coiled puff that would take her forever to detangle later. When she was done, she searched the drawers and found a loose solid burnt orange chiffon tank dress that just passed her mid-thigh. Then she found a pair of sandals in the closet to protect her feet from the cold stone hall floors.

Once she honed in on his aura with her senses and determined that he was alone, MaLeila followed it to his room, a level beneath her own. MaLeila made a note to tell Tsubame later that even though she had followed her willingly, being secluded on the top floors was starting to make her feel like the princess trapped and hidden away in a tower like in fairytales.

She didn’t knock on the door when she got there figuring he had to sense her coming to him. When she entered the room, he was lying on the bed in a tank and lounge pants sans his glamour and scrolling through a tablet, no doubt already researching the fallout of the day’s events.

“And here I put myself as far away from you as possible so I wouldn’t be tempted to bother you and still you come to me,” he said, grey eyes still looking at the tablet.

“I thought we could finish our date since it was interrupted by whatever Tsubame needed you to do,” MaLeila said as she sat next to him on the bed.

Marcel put his tablet down before rolling over to his side and propping his head on his elbow, ebony locks falling in his face as he asked, “Are you sure about this?”

His question took her by surprise. The only time he had paused to get her reassurance regarding sex when she offered it was their first time together. Since then, he’d never asked for her reassurance again and she’d never stopped him.

“What do you mean am I sure?” MaLeila asked.

Marcel sat up and looked her directly in the face, close enough to kiss her if he wanted, but far enough away to resist the urge to.

“I’m certainly not above being someone’s rebound and I’m certainly not above taking advantage of someone’s breakup to get next to them. I’ve done it before, but I’m not going to do that to you. Not unless I’m sure that you’re sure this is what you really want, that you’ll have no regrets about it later,” he explained.

MaLeila frowned. “Is that what you think this is? Me rebounding?”

Marcel shrugged. “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. That’s why I’m asking you. I may not have heard what you said to Devdan, but obviously something happened between you two before you chose your side and I’m too old to believe that whatever happened has nothing to do with the fact that you’re here now after barely wanting to hold my hand these past couple of weeks.”

“You’re right.”

He raised his eyebrow, not in a patronizing matter-of-fact way like she was only telling him something that he already knew, but in a way that indicated MaLeila had caught him off guard.

“I am,” he stated in an effort to recover.

“You are.”

MaLeila’s relationship with Devdan had very much dictated her relationship with all men, just particularly so with Marcel. It had gotten worse when she learned that Marcel was an alternate version of Devdan from another universe, and she thought that her relationship with Marcel was only because he reminded her of Devdan on some subconscious level, making it possibly just as artificial as the relationship forced between her and Devdan to begin with. Marcel’s explanation of the alternate universes helped. So did the realization that it was the differences between the two that attracted her to Marcel more than the similarities. But even as she realized that, she had also needed closure.

“We’re toxic together. Me and Devdan. We’d never work any other way except by tearing each other apart. We never loved each other. We were just dangerously co-dependent. I realize that now and I don’t want that anymore,” MaLeila explained.

Marcel looked her directly in the eyes. Usually when he did this, she squirmed, blushed, averted her gaze; but for once she had nothing to hide. There wasn’t anything to find because there wasn’t anything she didn’t want him to see.

“And what do you want now?” he finally asked.

MaLeila didn’t hesitate. “You.”

His lips were upon hers and her hands went to the hem of his tank, lifting the garment up between them. She pulled her lips away from his to remove the tank and while they were already apart, she lifted her dress over her head uncovering her naked body. Marcel didn’t take time to admire her, only pressed his lips back to hers and positioned her thighs so she was straddling him. He lifted his hips to help him get his lounge pants off and she was pleasantly surprised to see that it was the last barrier between them.

Both naked, he laid back and pulled MaLeila down with him. She caught herself on her hands, separating their lips from each other. Neither was in a rush to reconnect their lips though, eyes locked on each other’s and to MaLeila’s surprise it was so easy to look at him like this, in the same body but without the disguise. She had doubted Marcel before when he said that despite all appearances she and Tsubame were very different from each other to him, but now MaLeila understood what Marcel meant about seeing people with much more than just his physical eyes. Now that she could see him beyond what her naked eyes could see, without the haze of her own doubts, hesitancy, and conflicting emotions, she saw that being with him, regardless of who he looked like, was still the same.

“What are you waiting for?” MaLeila asked finally. Marcel normally wasn’t this patient, especially not by the time they were both naked. He usually couldn’t keep his hands and mouth off her.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Marcel said. He grinned up at her, eyes flashing in amusement as he said, “You’re the one that came to me. So go ahead. Ravish me.”

MaLeila flushed, as comfortable as she was being naked with him, having him touching and fucking her, she wasn’t comfortable with this idea of taking the lead in their sexual encounters. Usually he led and she followed.

“Don’t act all shy and like you don’t know what to do now. I like to think I taught you well. You sure you want this? Then take it.”

There was a challenge underlying his tone, and the need to rise to this challenge and prove Marcel that she was just as capable of making him squirm just like he made her made her act. She kissed him once on the lips and then peppered kisses on his face, his jaw, continuing to make her way down his neck, sucking, biting him as she continued to make her way down to his chest. His cock throbbed against her thigh and he grabbed her butt on either side while groaning in her ear. This was the impatience MaLeila was used to, the need to make her his and let her know who she belonged to. A startling sense of ownership and control suddenly possessed her. She didn’t mind belonging to him, but she would certainly make sure he knew that the inverse was true today.

She repositioned herself so that both her legs were on one side of him so that he couldn’t align himself with her and enter her. Then she continued down his chest trailing kisses around his left nipple, then his right, before going back to cover it with her entire mouth, sucking it, licking around it, pulling away and then breathing her hot breath on it.

“Fuck girl,” he said trying to guide her head to the other with his hand, but MaLeila continued down his chest, licking a long trail down his abdomen and around his bellybutton.

His cocked throbbed into her neck and she leaned back to look at it before grasping it with both hands and beginning to massage it. She ran her hand up and down and rubbed her thumb over the tip causing him to thrust into her hand. Feeling a little more confident now, she continued with less hesitation, moving one hand to play with his balls. Finally, when it started to throb in her hand, she ran a finger teasingly up his length and over the tip, enjoying the way she could make him squirm underneath her.

“MaLeila,” he said, voice deep and husky, grey eyes burning into hers when she looked at him, a coy smile playing on her lips. “Stop fucking with me and fuck me.”

MaLeila was only too happy to oblige as she once again straddled his hips and grabbed his cock so she could guide it into her. He groaned as she slowly consumed all of him, hand gripping her hips tightly as she began to lift up and down in a slow steady pace, struggling to find a rhythm and figure out how high she could lift without making him come all the way out of her.

“Try this,” Marcel said, loosening his tight grip on her hips and helping her settle in a motion where her hips rocked both back and forth and up and down at the same time until she was comfortable doing it herself, without his hands guiding her.

Finally able to settle into a rhythm, she rocked back and forth, creating that sweet friction between them that sent jolts through her entire body. She cupped her breasts in her hand, to keep them from bouncing so much and closed her eyes to focus on the sensations, the sound of both their labored breathing and their hips slapping against each other’s filling the room, the smell of them mingling together with the musty scent of sex, magical aura’s intertwining with their sexual dance. She felt him pulse inside her and slowed down, stopping him from reaching his climax.

“Fuck, girl,” she heard him growl and them she felt his cup her sex, thumb rubbing her clit causing her to cry out and speed back up again feeling herself on the verge of coming.

Her body suddenly tensed, thighs clamping together against Marcel’s body in a vice grip as the powerful contractions of her orgasm quaked through her body. She gasped, gritting her teeth as a primal sound escaped her lips, vaginal walls clamping tightly on Marcel’s cock. He moved his hand from cupping her sex so he could grab her butt and thrust upward in deliberate hard strokes. Once, twice, and then she felt him pulse in her a final time before coming inside her. Her thighs continued to tremble as she slowly came down from her sexual peak. Slowly, she lowered her sweaty body onto Marcel’s, both their hearts racing as they struggled to catch their breath again.

“Marcel,” MaLeila said after a few moments.

“What?”

“What was Tsubame talking? When she said most people wouldn’t begin to know the depths of Claude’s perversity?”

“So that’s what this was all about?” Marcel laughed as her picked at her now tangled puff of hair. “Get me in bed, fuck me and then interrogate me while I’m coming down from the sexual high? Pillow talk so to speak?”

“No,” MaLeila said quickly. “It just came to mind is all.”

Marcel laughed again and kissed her forehead. “I’m just kidding. Besides, even if that was the case, being used isn’t something I take offense to especially not when the sex is that good.”

MaLeila lightly swatted Marcel on his upper arm in response to his statement and then asked, “So?”

Marcel sighed. “To be honest, I wouldn’t even completely know. She only knows the things about Devdan that I’ve told her and that wasn’t much to begin with.”