The Lotus Ascension (25 page)

Konas chuckled.
“Hardly.
I like to have your charms veiled, that I might
have the pleasure of revealing them.”

“
So you would wait until you can see my face then?” Sillara kissed
Konas's nose. “Then I should change my seat.” She rose, and she heard his
groan.

“
Sillara—”

“
We should go over these histories anyway.” Sillara picked up the
first parchment. “We have perhaps two hours before the light will dim enough to
remove your bandages.”

Konas nodded,
still groaning slightly, and Sillara began to read aloud to him from a
parchment. It was easy, for it was written in ancient Sunjaa.

Two hours later,
Sillara laid aside the last one. “Abrexa have mercy.”

“
From your mouth to the goddess's
ears.”
Konas reached out for Sillara and pulled
her onto his lap once again. “I could not understand all of what you read, for
though my grasp of ancient Fihdal is sufficient, ancient Sunjaa is not
something I have studied much.”

Sillara smiled,
thinking how strange it was that she should know more than her tutor, but then,
it was not so strange. Ancient Sunjaa had been assigned to Soren to study, and
she had learned it by copying his lessons.

“
It is clear enough that Tambril was a half-Ausir from the uttermost
east, and he was the guide of a group of men who fled that original birthplace
of Men. Those people became the Fihdal and Vadal nations, but some small number
of them continued farther south until they reached the Sunjaa—”

“
Who
were already an ancient nation
then.”
Konas pressed his lips to her hair. “I remember reading of the arrival of the
Fihdal and Vadal in the west, and it was before I was born. It was in the days
of Lord Kan-Terak Seranimesti, the husband of the first Sillara.”

Sillara, glad
not to think of their predicament, asked, “And who was she, for you have never
mentioned her in all your histories of the Seranimesti House?”

“
She did not have any children,” said Konas. “She was the young bride
of Lord Kan-Terak Seranimesti, and she was murdered within two years of their
wedding. She spoke in defense of a wild stranger who had thrown
himself
on her mercy, but she spoke unknowingly for the son
of the greatest traitor the Ausir have ever known. For her speech, she was cut
down by one who had been present at the battle.”

Sillara kissed
Konas's lips. “So she was a sweet memory to her lord, but not the mother of his
children.”

“
Exactly.”
Konas returned her kiss with fervor. “But I hope for more from my
own Sillara.”

She laughed
then, enjoying the feel of Konas's hands roving over her body. “And this
Tambril, he was apparently the son of that same wild man, descended of the
Traitor, and he led the ones who would one day be the Desertmasters down past
where the Fihdal and Vadal founded their 'empires', to the Sunjaa. And they
were cast out.”

Konas, despite
not being able to see, began untying Sillara's breast-covering by touch alone.
“Of course they were. They were obviously cast out for interbreeding. The
Sunjaa have grown somewhat accustomed to mixed blood due to King Jahen, but
they still do not accept it.”

Sillara pressed
her hungry pussy down on the hard ridge of Konas's arousal. “They are less
accustomed to it than you think, Konas. A King's choice of wife is limited by
what is best for his people. His Grace was not permitted to take to wife—or as
concubine—anyone other than a full-blooded Sunjaa. He would have liked to wed
Merieke, or doubtless even myself, but we were not permissible brides.
Furthermore, his mother's name was recorded, not as Aramina, but as Aramineke.”

“
They wrote her down as Sunjaa?” Konas's shock was so great that he
paused in his untying.

“
For the Sunjaa, as a thing is written, so it
is
. For history,
His Grace's mother will have been Sunjaa.”

“
And they cast out the Desertmasters, along with any Sunjaa who had
interbred with them, and sent them west.”

“
To die,” said Sillara. “For west there is nothing.”

“
But they made a life here.”

“
Thanks to Tambril's skills, yes.”

“
And these Desertmasters have twisted the Sunjaa pride of blood into
a pride of half-blood, and as Tambril was half-Ausir—”

“
He took to wife a Sunjaa woman,” said Sillara. “And their son ruled
until his death. He died without issue, however, and there is no Ausir blood
left among the Desertmasters.”

“
They will never let us go.” It was a statement, not a question, and
Konas's voice was low.

“
But Soren will come for me,” said Sillara. “We must just be
patient.”

Konas captured
Sillara's nipple in his mouth then, and Sillara pushed all thoughts of the
Desertmasters from her. Instead she thought only of the exquisite pleasure
Konas's skilled tongue was giving her. When he moved to the other breast, she
reached up and loosed his blindfold.

And Konas
stopped still, staring up at her face as though he had never seen it before.

“
Goddess,” he whispered. He cradled her face in his hands, feeling
over the shape of it, kissing her brow, her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks.
“My love, my wife.”

Sillara
responded in kind, for some deep hunger in her seemed about to be fulfilled.
She took in Konas's face, his fair skin, his glowing green eyes, his long,
golden locks. He was beautiful, she knew, the most beautiful man she had ever
seen, apart from Soren.
And comparing a man to Soren is hardly fair.
She
pushed a wayward lock back from his brow, untangling it from his high, black
horn.

“
I love you,” said Konas.
“So very much.”

Sillara did not
speak; she acted. She brought her mouth crashing down on his, tasting his
sweetness. Without breaking their kiss, she pulled up the loincloth he wore,
Desertmaster
-fashion, and grabbed hold of his throbbing
cock. Konas moaned into her mouth, and Sillara adjusted herself over him. Then,
with a swiftness that seemed to shock even her orgy-master husband, Sillara sat
down on his hard shaft, taking it all the way inside her.

Once seated, she
released Konas's lips and began to rock back and forth, feasting her eyes on
his face.

“
My love, my love,” said Konas. His hands wandered from her breasts,
sliding between their bodies to be dipped in her overflowing wetness. When his
fingers were coated in her cum, he moved around to her ass.

And still she
rode him, still gazing into his adoring and beautiful face, still kissing his
face as he had kissed hers. Her pussy she tightened around his shaft, holding
his cock as though she held it in her fist. She had, she knew, much control of
her body, and she used it to please Konas.

Konas's finger,
his middle one, the longest, slipped into her ass, filling that hole as well,
and Sillara spasmed in her pleasure. White stars of delight burst behind her
eyes, and she bucked against Konas, pressing both his cock and his hand deeper
inside her.

“
My sweet,” she said, kissing his lips once more. She gave into the
kiss, letting her tongue seek out the nectar hidden in his mouth.

Konas kept his
gaze fixed on hers even as his cock thrust up with the pace of her downward
motions.

Sillara knew
then that what Konas was seeking, he could not find, not in this slow, gentle
sex, and as for
herself
, she knew that same longing
she had hoped would be fulfilled had not been. Konas's sex was magnificent, but
still Sillara was left wanting, wanting something for which she had no name.
She closed her eyes.
Soren would know. When he came for her, she would ask him. But in the meantime,
she would make certain that Konas did not miss a single pleasure.

“
Fuck my ass.” Sillara bent her head to whisper in Konas's ear. She
followed her words by slowly, teasingly nibbling on his earlobe, tracing the
skin all the way up to the hypersensitive tip. As she nipped at the top of
Konas's ear, he shoved her off him, his chest heaving.

“
Abrexa in flesh.”
Konas's words were a growl, and he stood, his cock dripping with
her cum, and swept Sillara up into his arms.

Sillara promptly
began to wriggle away, and the saucy look she threw Konas affected him just as
she had hoped it would. Konas grabbed her by the hips and held her. He sat back
down, lifting her up over his lap. Her legs were kept open by being on either
side of Konas's lap. He held her, however, up high enough over him that her
feet could find no purchase on the floor. He looked up into her face, and the
love she saw there cut her to the quick. She resolved to give him all the
pleasure he could accept.

Teasingly, she
reached up and cupped her own breasts, kneading them in her hands for Konas's
enjoyment.

“Abrexa.”

Sillara caught
Konas's murmur, and she howled as he slammed her down onto his lap, shoving his
cock into her ass. The burning pain of his cum-slick cock penetrating her,
deeply, deeply, sent the shivers of orgasm all through Sillara, and she rocked
back and forth in his lap, leaning forward and burying his face in her breasts.
Konas roared then and began to thrust upward. Sillara locked her heels around
his back and pushed against him with all her strength. Sweat dripped from her
brow onto Konas's golden hair, and Sillara knew he was close.

“
My goddess.”
Konas looked up from her breasts into her eyes. He was still
looking into her face when at last she felt his cock surging in his climax. As
his hot seed shot deep inside her ass, Sillara felt her orgasm gripping her
once again.

But when she lay on his shoulder,
sweating and dripping with both his cum and her own, she knew that when he
slept she would be vainly attempting to satisfy
herself
again.