The Gypsy Queen (55 page)

CRACK!

  Bastion could not tell if that cut her open. Blood was everywhere. Bastion felt as though he could feel the strikes on his own back, just as he could feel her energy, without touch, during happier times.

CRACK!

Yana
jerked hard, and screamed horribly through the leather. Bastion could not st
and it, but his relief c
ould
only
come from finishing this. Settling it forever. He wanted to hurry and be done with it, but he needed to give her some sort of intervals to handle the pain.

CRACK!

  Her skin opened again. Bastion could feel the jagged edge dig into her. She pulled and fought her chains. Bastion was in absolute awe.

What sort of girl would love a man enough to do this?

CRACK!

  She shrieked again, and Bastion could feel her agony. He was furious with himself, that it had come to this. He wished he would have prevented this somehow. It was the worst heartache he had ever known. It was one thing to kill an enemy, but to draw blood from
Yana
, as she knelt and allowed him to willingly...

His love for her was bursting inside him. He had admired her on many occasions, but none so much as this. For whatever her past, her transgressions, he would never doubt her. Not after this. She was proving herself. Just one more, he thought.

CRACK!

 
Yana
was wracked with pain, sobbing wildly, and went between jerking the chains tight, and setting her face to the ground, on her knees. She loved Bastion, as she suffered. She did this for him. She did this for her. She did this, because it had to be done.

  “Ten!” the magistrate called. “Enough.”

Bastion looked upon her for just one more moment, as the whip fell from his hand. He was awestruck. She collapsed, broken and bloody... and as beautiful as a woman could ever be. He had loved her dearly. He loved her now, infinitely. Just as she had earned her st
ripes, she had earned
his heart.

He rushed to her, and began to unfasten her bonds quickly. She was crying uncontrollably, and he hefted her easily into his arms, and hurried her away, into the halls of the palace. He was fully unaware of his own injury, or that he was limping. All he cared about was
Yana
.

  “Did I do good, my Lord?” she asked through her pain. Bastion felt love and pain and grief course through his veins, at the question.

  “Yes my love
,” Bastion said,
choking back his own tears.

Yana
was awash with crushing, screaming pain, but she was in the arms of the man she loved. She was in the only place in the world she wanted to be, and finally, she was truly free.

  Bastion had set her free, after all.

He took her to his chambers and set her on his bed, hastily tearing into his sheets for bandages for her wounds.

  “Release me,”
Yana
whimpered, on the bed. “Please, take me.”

  “What?” Bastion could not have heard that right.

  “Take me, take me right now, I am yours!”
Yana
cried. “I need you!”

Bastion needed her too.

  “Restore me, my love,”
Yana
said. “Restore me to you, if you desire me.”

  Bastion was full of desire for her, beyond measure. He dropped his clothes to the floor, and pulled off the garment from her waist. He entered her, as she screamed in pain anew. Her wounds were bleeding, and her blood was on her skin, on Bastion, and on the bed. The leather strap was still around her neck.

  Bastion thrust into her, as she cried out, an ecstasy beyond any other, her mind exploded into a mix of pleasure and pain that was beyond her understanding. She thrashed, she struggled, an
d she took what he gave
.

  Bastion was ferocious and tender, loving her dee
ply, as he pushed.
A
s he drove himself inside her,
even the pain in her voice inspired him
. The sight of her, wounded and restored, as they made love... was more powerful than he would have imagined.

  Bastio
n unleashed, climaxing with her
as she screamed, gripping his body as he pulled her upward, her legs clutching around his waist.
Yana
came hard, shuddering, barely able to breathe. Finally, she was spent, and collapsed on the bed, unconscious.

  Bastion set his weight on her, but only briefly.
Yana
needed help. He stumbled backward from the bed, looking at her.

  She was passed out, naked and bleeding.

  It was done.

  Finished.

  Restored. Resolved. Reconciled.

  Healed.

  They could be together for all their lives in honor
now
, if they wished it.

S
he had
surely
saved his life once more.

  He looked around, needing to tend to her. He saw that his bath had been filled. That was highly unusual. He looked closer, walking towards it. The water had cooled some.

  Right next to it, was a small coffee urn, and two little clay cups.

  Bastion knew who must have drawn this bath, and set them out for him. He appreciated it greatly. There were towels, and other supplies. He picked
Yana
up from the bed, as she was regaining consciousness. He stepped into the bath, setting her in his lap, and dipping her in. He tended her wounds, as she wa
s mostly quiet, just kissing his hands
sometimes as he went. The water ran red, but he cleaned her wounds, and bandaged them, as she sat on the ed
ge of the tub. Bastion
remembered the salve that Luba had made for Dimmie, and had given to him. It was cold, as Bastion was finishing, making
Yana
jump a little.

  “Luba made this,” Bastion said, “for my leg.”

  “It’s freezing!”
Yana
said, with a little laugh. Bastion poured them some coffee from the urn. It had cooled some too, but was still good and warm. Bastion finally finished,
and set one of his robes on her-
the violet one with silver trim. He led her to the bed, pulling off the sheets, so they could just rest a while.

  “Please, my Lord, I must tend you,”
Yana
said, guiding him to sit on the edge of the bed. Bastion was not sure what she meant.
Yana
went and got the salve that Luba had made. She knelt down, tending Bastion’s leg, the ugly
-
looking wound he had gotten doing battle with Draiman. He looked at her, in his royal robe, tending to him, even after he had whipped her severely.

  She was like no other.

 
Yana
went and got her shawl, the red and gold one that matched Bastion’s mantle, that she saw hanging on the wall. She wrapped his leg with it, making his ugly wound into something beautiful, and she watched his aura light up, complementing the shawl perfectly.

  “
Yana
,” Bastion said. “Will you marry me?”
Yana
looked up at him.

  “
Will you tell me we will not fail?
”
Yana
said.

  “We will not fail,
Yana
,” he said. “We will be invincible.”

  “We
are
invincible,” he said.

 
Yana
believed him.

  More than ever, she knew it was true.

Just as the stones contained the fire, she knew he would make sure.

  Bastion and Yana spent the rest of the day
and night
in his chambers. They ate fine foods, and drank fresh water and good wine. They talked and laughed into the night, as the world melted away, leaving only the two of them, and their love for each other. They tended each other’s wounds, and at the end of the night, she pressed her wounded backside into the chest of her King.

  Yana fell asleep that night, in the curve of Bastion’s body.

______________________

The Gypsy Queen- CHAPTER 31- “ride”

  Bastion escorted
Yana
through the city streets. They dressed so as not to be noticed. Bastion had insisted he had something to show her. He seemed eager to share it.
Yana
was sore from her wounds, though Bastion had given her fresh bandages when they woke. He took her to the tower where they had made love, the night before the Coronation.

  They climbed the stairs inside, emerging on the flat roof of it. They looked out onto the meadows, where the gypsy wagons were camped.

  “There,” Bastion pointed. It was the big structure that Obadiah had been working on.
Yana
had asked about it a few times, but Bastion had given vague answers.

  “What is it, Bastion?”

  “It is a theatre,” he said. “I
had it built
for you.”

  “A theatre? What?”
Yana
looked. It was an open air amphitheatre, with tiered steps and a fine stage.

  “I built it for you, so that you would always have a place to dance and sing and perform with your friends. The citizens can all come see the performances, and maybe they will understand the beauty of the gypsy people.”

 
Yana
was speechless.

  “I had hoped that it might encourage you to stay. The west meadows will be a gypsy territory, where they will always be welcome to stay. Even if you have to be in the city... well, this way, some of your people would always be nearby.”

  “Errr....” he said, “
Our
people.” The King was half-gypsy himself, after all.

 
Yana
embraced him.

  When Bastion wanted to give someone a gift, he certainly did it up big.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You will always be my gypsy man,”
Yana
said, kissing him.

  “And you will always be my queen,” he said. They watched the stone workers, as they worked to finish the project.

  “What will you name it?” Bastion asked.

  “I get to name it?”
Yana
said.

  “Well, it
is
yours. You name it.” Bastion said.

  “We will call it the Kesali Lyubov theatre,”
Yana
said. The name of Bastion’s mother, and her own dear friend.

  “Well done,” he said. “Well done.” He looked across the horizon, over the
kingdom
.

  “What will you name these?” Bastion said. “These towers.”
Yana
looked out at them. There were five of them in total, fortifying the city. They were fortresses, each of them.
Yana
remembered the way she felt safe, close to her lover’s steadfast walls. The way she felt, standing atop them even now.

  “You want me to name them?”
Yana
said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” he said.
Yana
smiled with delight.

  “Then they shall be called bastions.”

Bastion and
Yana
headed for the Great Hall. Bastion had called a meeting, and the throne room was too small for those who were to attend.
Yana
was dressed beautifully, looking every bit a gypsy. She was eager to see her friends.