The Warlord's Concubine (8 page)

“Something troubles you?” she asked as she moved to
his lap, quite brazenly sitting her firm rear atop his leather clad
lap.

They were alone, and it was strange to be in such a massive hall
accompanied only by the marble columns around them. He responded
quite well to her approach, putting his arm around her, holding her
close and taking no objection to her forward manner. She’d come
to realize over the time since he’d taken over that he
appreciated her brazenness. Mixed with her true devotion, it made a
sweet nectar for the dark man. A true respite from everyone else with
their fear and grovelling.

Stroking his hand along her hip and waist he kept his gaze through
the mountain pass ahead. “The seer is coming,” he stated
simply, sounding troubled, rubbing his lower lip with his free hand
before he placed it on her lap.

Her breath held, and her back pressed against his chest, “The
Princess still sulks. I had hoped it would isolate her, leaving you
to become her only point of contact, yet I’ve failed you,”
she lamented. “If only that fucking bitch would get over
herself for ten seconds, I could have her be yours, I’m certain
of it.” She didn’t sound whiny, but she was quite
obviously disappointed in herself.

Sliding his dark gaze over to her it was like having her soul
flayed. With a squeeze of her hip and thigh he took a deep breath,
his chest expanding. “The seer would not be coming here unless
it was urgent. More urgent than the fickle whims of a little
princess.”

His gaze passed down over her, her bare flesh distracting him, but
only somewhat. She could still see the creases of worry on his broad
face despite his attraction to her, despite the throb of a stirred
cock beneath her round ass.

Her hand went to his face, trailing along him, seeking to work out
the worried furrows and reassure him, “I’m only your
servant, Your Greatness. I cannot hope to foresee things as you. What
do you make of it?” she asked, her words so gentle and not at
all condescending. She was absolutely genuine with him.

She had spent most of the months since the conquest in the
concubine’s tent, but on occasion he had taken her out, brought
her to various places in the palace itself. Most often the breakfast
grove, since she seemed to like it. But this was the first time he’d
taken her aside merely for the pleasure of her company, it seemed.
For even though he stirred to her, he didn’t simply take her as
he usually did.

“I fear events move quicker than I foresaw,” he
muttered in that dark, otherworldly voice of his. “I thought I
would have over a year at least to secure my holdings before the
Empire stirred. But if my mother—” he hesitated, as if he
didn’t mean to say that and regretted it, “the Seer
comes, then it can only be to warn me of grave doom. She would not
leave her hovel otherwise.”

She spent a long while thinking on this. She hadn’t great
military prowess or knowledge, and her face contorted briefly. “If
the King is dead, then it must be the Princess’ betrothed
bringing you trouble. He is the only one with a true vested
interest,” she said calmly. She always hungered for him, but
she wouldn’t dream of presuming upon him when troubled so.
Instead she just continued to stroke him, her fingers working along
his muscles.

Taking a deep breath, he reclined, shutting his eyes as her olive
toned fingers strummed over his muscles, soothing away his worries.
She comforted him. It was such a realization, to acknowledge that her
king—her god—found comfort and relief by her mere
presence and touch.

“You’re wise,” he said at last, opening his eyes
to narrow slits and looking at her. “But if you’re right,
and a prince of the empire marches against me, I haven’t the
men to stand against them.” His grip on her tightened,
painfully so, for just a heartbeat, but he relaxed. “Retreat
might be the only option. To leave behind the city and its spoils.”

She rubbed him so gently as she thought that over, her head
shaking in protest, “This is yours. The city and its spoils
belong to you, and I won’t let you lose that. I may have failed
with the Princess, but I will not fail in this. There is a way,”
she nuzzled his jaw. “We will think of something.”

Her bold words surprised him, and he furrowed his brows again as
he looked to her, studying her as if she were a new person
altogether.

It was a long silence of his studied gaze, only broken when he
lifted his hand, stroking his fingertips along her stomach, then
breast. He pressed his palm to her darkened areola and squeezed, the
tender, swollen mound aching with the pain of it before he released.
“You’re pregnant,” he said simply.

“Yes,” she responded in the same, clipped tone, but
her smile was undeniable. Her fingers ran along his jaw, teasing him
before returning to tend to the muscles in his neck and shoulders.
“And I will give birth in the same place I conceived. This is
your domain, now, Your Greatness. We will fight for you,” she
paused, licking her lips. “One of the others,” she said,
obviously referring to the concubines, for whom else was there, for
her? “They mentioned they have certain powers you can best take
advantage of. Would you grace me with their battle knowledge?”

She had seen nobody but the other concubines and him for so long,
there was no mistaking who she meant. The suggestion made him arch
his brow and look on at her in surprise again. She was full of
intrigue.

Licking along his own full lips, he squeezed her against his hard
body. “The women of the Ka’reem are forbidden to fight.
It has been so for time immemorial,” he stated this plainly,
“until I came along.” But she could tell on his voice
there was something else. Something he wasn’t saying but seemed
to beg to be pried out of him.

Her lips found his neck, and her breath washed over his throat
before she kissed him, the light sensation so tender and doting.
“But?” she whispered, her smooth skin rubbing along his
as she nuzzled his ear with her nose. Her fingers still worked
against him and she was a constant source of pleasure with the way
her expert ministrations worked him.

With a husky groan he squeezed his thick bicep about her, mashing
those heavy, engorged breasts to his pecs. Biting her ear, he ground
his arousal against her, stroking a hand along her full hip as he
muttered lowly. “You are a vexing woman, Mirella. A dangerous
plaything,” he remarked with every bit of complement his voice
could hold.

“It is a secret. Even amongst the Ka’reem themselves.”
He hesitated, his breathing heavy, “It is why the men fear
their women without even knowing why.”

A brief huff of air passed his flesh, a half-hearted laugh with a
quirked grin, “I thought it was just because they were tough.”
Her hands kept finding all those right places, playing him so
expertly even in this new situation. Her tongue traced along his
Adam’s apple, suctioning around it for a second before she
pulled back, her green eyes on his.

“I am yours, Your Greatness. In all things. Let me help you
and share your burdens,” she pleaded, so genuinely.

It was no easy decision. That much was obvious watching his
smooth, unblemished face contort in thought over the question.
Sliding a hand over her stomach, he pressed in against it, feeling
the slight bit of hardness beneath her soft, smooth skin, as if
feeling evidence of her pregnant state confirmed something for him he
needed to know.

With a stern nod he said, “You’ll meet the seer.
She’ll judge you. Perhaps teach you,” he remarked. Then
added softer, “I hope she finds you worthy, as I have.”

She felt so tender at his touch, but his words drove her to a
place she’d never known existed within herself. She fought back
the signs of her weakness, but that moisture remained in her eyes
even as she tried to blink it back, “What should I do? How will
she judge me?”

He saw her weakness, those dark eyes of his broke through her
barriers and saw the softness within her despite her attempts to hide
it.

“I don’t know,” his lack of knowledge obviously
bothering him. “As I have said, these are matters of the
Ka’reem women.” He reached up, brushing some of her sleek
black hair from her face, leaning in and kissing her forehead. “I
understand them better than any man alive, yet I do not have the
answer to either question. You shall just have to show you are better
than your birth.”

She nodded, but there was something stuck in her throat that she
struggled to swallow down, her lips pressing against his so flushly.
“I will do it for you,” she murmured against his mouth,
her nose pressing against his as she shifted, her swollen breasts
flattened against his muscular chest. “How long do I have? And
how shall I dress?”

“Days,” he responded to the first, but had a slight
smirk for the latter. “It does not matter. The seer does not
see what is. Only what will be. Or was.” He kissed her lips
then, the sound of their moist mouths smacking resonating in the
massive, empty hall.

He throbbed beneath her needfully, and he finished, “Now do
your duty for your king. I must think.” His hand moved through
her hair, taking hold of her head and pushing it down in so blatantly
suggestive a manner she could hardly miss it.

As always, she was only too willing. She shifted into position
before her teeth tugged at the binds that held him. Her hands and
mouth sought him out as he sat atop that throne, stewing about the
future. She, too, had matters on her mind, but the moment that
throbbing shaft pulsed against her wet mouth, they all slipped away
in favour of better things.

The Seer’s arrival took longer than anticipated. It was a
week of anxious waiting, though during it Mirella had managed to grow
closer with one of the guard-concubines. Svella, as she came to learn
her name, was a tall, voluptuous woman that looked fearsome at most
times. Even with her bare belly swollen, pregnancy having sunk its
teeth into her rather fully, she looked like nobody to trifle with.

In some ways she was similar to Mirella herself; her devotion was
no less true to the God-King, though it was not like hers. Nobodies
could be, she determined.

Sat with her legs crossed, the pale Svella, with her dark hair
braided down around her shoulder, dressed only in boots and
loincloth, told her tales of the north. “Our people once rode
the fields of the south, many long ages ago. We were strong and rich.
Now,” she shrugged her strong shoulders, “it is that
which taunts us. Boils in the veins of so many Ka’reem. That we
sat in weak hovels in the north, cold and hungry, while the little
straw-necks lived large.”

Mirella was dressed in a casual strip of material that just barely
hid her engorged breasts and showed off her large ass as it pressed
against one of the pillows. “No one could blame that,”
she agreed, her forced casualness obvious, even to a less observant
woman than Svella. She braided her hair against her shoulder, undoing
the twists and redoing them, just to keep from fidgeting more
obviously. “Once your numbers grow, you’ll be a force to
reckon with once more.”

With a haughty laugh the large woman gave her a look over that
Mirella could’ve taken as open hostility if she hadn’t
gotten to know the woman over the past months. “We already are.
The God-King has taught us we are greater than any other force,”
she stated with full certainty. “He brought to our fighters the
cunning we lacked. Now we are unstoppable,” she stated with a
broad smile that showed her conviction.

Therein lay the difference between the two women. Svella was
absolutely dedicated to her lord, but only because she saw him as the
saviour of her people. The embodiment of her people.

Mirella smiled, her lips quirked so pleasantly as she observed the
other woman. By rights she should see her as competition, but both
were swollen and both served their god in their own ways. She was as
close to a friend as she could manage in this place, and she accepted
it willingly. She was a damn spot brighter than the Princess, anyway.
Besides, Svella never held it against her that she’d supplanted
her as the God-King’s favourite.

“Well, then, imagine when your numbers do swell. It’ll
be overkill and then some,” she teased, looking quite excited
for the prospect.

It was strange. The numbers of the concubines never decreased, but
almost none of them were familiar to Mirella now. Aside from the
Ka’reem guards, she was the only woman allowed to stay on after
it became apparent she was pregnant. The others got their ‘freedom’,
or whatever it was that happened to them once taken away, the moment
they showed signs of pregnancy.

Mirella was blessed. And the guards had come to accept she was
special as well, albeit begrudgingly in most cases.

The new women from the city were always the same; beautiful,
young, frightened. Their numbers always restocked, and Mirella had a
hand in each of their deflowerings.

“I confess,” Svella began, “I was jealous of you
at first. You have the God-King’s eyes,” she made a
symbol over her chest and downcast her eyes at the mention of His
Majesty. “But you serve him better in such manners than I have
or could,” she stated with a sort of professional
understanding. It was all duty for her.

“You have other things to focus on. I have him, fully and
utterly. We both serve, in our own ways.” Mirella left it
unspoken that her way was better, of course, though no woman could
blame her for thinking it. “But thank you,” she smiled at
the other woman, her eyes scanning over her with a kind reverence.
“He deserves to rule this land.”

For Svella the notion of the God-King as a man and as an
embodiment of a whole people was a dichotomy integral to her faith,
but something she barely understood. All the same, she nodded and
gave a light smile. They were so different, despite their unifying
cause.