The Empire (The Lover's Opalus)

Cover Copy

When is an Empire not an Empire? When it rules the West, the North, and the East, but the Death-White Border to the South must never be breached...

The Empress, all darkness and allure, has betrayed the Emperor. Raeche does not know what the cruel and calculating warrior will do when the baby growing in her belly is born and Lanus discovers it is not his. Only, when the child is born, she is the image of the Emperor. Raeche is shocked... and intrigued. The game is afoot. The Emperor's trickery becomes unique seduction as the keys to the true Empire are unlocked.

Warning: Scenes of graphic violence and sexual situations.

Teaser

“What is your greatest fear?”

A spark jolted her heart and she jumped, wrapping an arm reflexively around the swell of her belly. The Emperor’s deep voice had pushed through her shield of silence and isolation.

Perhaps he had knocked at the door and she had not heard. He usually knocked despite the glaring truth: an emperor did not have to knock to gain entry anywhere.

Perhaps he had intentionally startled her.
 

What is your greatest fear?

In moments like these, when a surge of power signaled his nearness and her heart raced, Raeche understood in her Spirit that she would never be safe.

Yet, as dictated by breeding, she recovered quickly. She stood to face him.

“Emperor.” Her voice more air than tone, she raised her right hand, thumb and forefinger together, then bowed her head slightly in a greeting which showed respect but was absent of deference. For in this strange, strange world to which she had been born, Raeche was his equal.

“Your greatest fear, Empress,” he continued, “once was my bed, but now that I no longer require you in it…”

A single slow step brought him into the chamber. Another and he stalked her.

The Empire

By Grayson Reyes-Cole

The Empire

9781616503833

Copyright © 2012, Grayson Reyes-Cole

Edited by Danielle Fine

Book design by Lyrical Press, Inc.

Cover Art by Valerie Tibbs

First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: June, 2012

Lyrical Press, Incorporated

http://www.lyricalpress.com

eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. 

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
 

Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my Lanus.

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank Danielle Fine for her endless yet perfect edits.

Author’s Note

In The Empire, Book 1 of the Lovers’ Opalus, I hope to deliver a full fantasy experience. In the world-building of this Empire, the editor and I took creative license with grammar conventions and capitalized some common nouns where we felt necessary in this fictional world.
 

I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1

Alone in her chamber, staring out at the dense, night-green forest to the East, Raeche felt safe. No one ventured to that part of the palace unless bidden and Raeche, who cultivated and nurtured and was seduced by her solitude, rarely bade. Even Taritana, her Personal, only came once at Light and once at Dark, at which times the Personal waited and monitored–hunger of a different sort in her eyes–to make certain Raeche took enough food.

On this day, the Personal had long since come and gone, so Raeche exploited her freedom to do as she always did when alone. Sitting at the window with one hand tangled in the thick, embroidered window covering, she studied the sheltered entrance to the East Forest–though it never changed, nevermore produced a dream in the shape of a man. Having a thought to be sad about this, Raeche sometimes summoned sorrow. Her throat closed when she realized the emotion, though carefully constructed, remained completely inauthentic. Manufactured longing where true longing should have been.

In truth, during these past cycles of the nightstar, though Raeche had grieved, it had not been for the loss of a true love. She grieved for the absence of definition. She was nothing of her own, had never been anything of her own. Raeche had always been the Empire.

“What is your greatest fear?”

A spark jolted her heart and she jumped, wrapping an arm reflexively around the swell of her belly. The Emperor’s deep voice had pushed through her shield of silence and isolation.

Perhaps he had knocked at the door and she had not heard. He usually knocked despite the glaring truth: an emperor did not have to knock to gain entry
anywhere
.

Perhaps he had intentionally startled her.
What is your greatest fear?

In moments like these, when a surge of power signaled his nearness and her heart raced, Raeche understood in her Spirit that she would never be safe.

Yet, as dictated by breeding, she recovered quickly. She stood to face him.

“Emperor.” Her voice more air than tone, she raised her right hand, thumb and forefinger together, then bowed her head slightly in a greeting which showed respect but was absent of deference. For in this strange, strange world to which she had been born, Raeche was his equal.

“Your greatest fear, Empress,” he continued, “once was my bed, but now that I no longer require you in it…”

A single slow step brought him into the chamber. Another and he stalked her. Two heads taller than she, with shoulders almost as wide as the doorway, his presence shrank the large room. Raeche believed she might never breathe again. He took yet another step. When she did finally breathe, his earthy scent curled in her nostrils, filled her lungs. He smelled of the East Forest. His eyes–the color of the Clear Pool beneath the trees there–bored into her.

From childhood to present, she had never truly mastered gathering her thoughts when he came close. Pregnancy had only enhanced that affliction. He both repelled and magnetized her, inspiring confusion. In turn, that confusion served to excavate more of that certain madness which constructed her nature. Wildly, she wondered if he could or would kill her while this babe grew inside her. He had never been known for violence toward women or children but perhaps a man who had bathed in the blood of so many would have no conscience when seeking revenge for such intimate treachery.

“I wonder what it is now…”

Closer still he came.

A thump and thrum within her made Raeche’s chest heave. She placed one hand over her belly, the other over her heart, while taking care to hold his eyes with her own despite the insistence of instinct that she lower them. Desperation sped her pulse. Something foolish made her stand her ground, refuse to step back or make herself even smaller, more fragile.

This infant rebellion had started within her cycles ago and grew as her baby did. She felt something when in the Emperor’s presence she had yet to unravel. The emotions were, perhaps, easy to identify–anger, terror, misery–but their cause remained a mystery. He had only brought her pain in one way and it had been unintentional. Since that time, he had treated her with persistent coolness and formality. His fine masculine features rarely creased or lined or even colored to demonstrate that his Spirit yet lived behind his deep green eyes. He spoke pretty platitudes to her.

Distance
. The Codex of the Empire listed the Spirit of Distance in the Appendix of Cultivation. The Emperor wielded the Spirit of Distance as weapon and armor both.

Standing before him, close to him, she raised her chin. Dared him, though all reason urged against it.

He licked his lips. Bent closer. “Your greatest fear.” His tone glided over her skin like the fur of a shaksa.

Another woman may have found it seductive. After all, no man in the Empire wielded such an abundance of desirable circumstance. Through inheritance, intelligence, and brutality, the young emperor ruled the West and North with absolute power. Now, through his marriage to Raeche and his deserved legend, he preserved his rule of the East. At rest, he appeared cool and calm. Amiable. Even now, he cultivated the Spirit of Distance with a soft tone. His hair, warm blond like the color of the daystar, and his hooded, pale green eyes reflected the appearance of peace and serenity. The Empire had fallen in love with the alluring façade, yet Raeche knew the truth. Inside, he raged.

Invisible sparks rained from him–showering over her, scalding her skin, burrowing into her body, scaring her even as they heated her with something she dared not confess. Inside the Emperor dwelled a beast he unleashed at will and with joy whenever he needed to secure what he believed to be his own. This included all things–plant and beast, soil and sky, water and hearth–in the great Empire. It included a virginal, frightened Raeche in his bed so many rings before.

Raeche knew these things and this knowledge made clear the picture of her doom. As long as he practiced Distance, she would seek to bring forth the beast.

Lost in thought, she had somehow lost track of him. The heat of his presence had become molten and, if she looked up, her nose would be a mere inch from his throat. He placed his hands on her stomach so lightly she could barely feel the touch, but inside her, the child rolled and kicked and reached for him in greeting.

The Emperor smiled and Distance shattered. Expressive lines around his mouth turned an already handsome man into one that both mesmerized and frightened her. Wed for nearly three rings, betrothed and known to him since birth, Raeche’s abject fear of him had been immediate. It had not lessened in all this time. In recent rings, it had developed into an all-too-physical, near-debilitating reaction. Even in this moment, even as he smiled in pleasure and peace and his body radiated warmth, Raeche vibrated with tension. What would he do when the babe came?

“My greatest fear is for her,” the Emperor confessed, interrupting her flailing thoughts. “My Rucha, she will have my intelligence, and more. Your indefatigable will, and more. My Spirit, and more. Your Spirit, and more. Yet our combined gifts will not be able to protect her from the Road of Pain.”

“We all walk the Road of Pain. It is on the Map from–”

“It is on the Map from Birth to Earth.” He quoted the old proverb. “Indeed.”

He said no more. Instead, he gave her belly a pat in farewell to the babe. Before he quit the room, he said, “You need not fear me, Raeche. You have never needed to fear me.” He closed the door quietly behind him.

Raeche exhaled before dropping back onto her bed. She struggled for calm. Rubbing soothing circles on her belly, she tried not to upset the child. The girl. She had not known she would have a girl.

Rucha
.

The name the Emperor had given her meant “Raeche” in his language.