The Contestants Ch. 01

"Yes, I am, true isn't it?" she shouted back at him. "I've been on sale from the beginning haven't I, to be bargained over and with!"

"I want to kill you!" he screamed. "I want to kill you!!"

"Yes, why don't you?" she gasped. "You should have killed me from the start, it would have been so much easier and better, wouldn't it?!!"

With a groan that rose to a roar he slammed her into the wall behind her and pressed her body against it, lifting her up so that she had to wrap her legs around his waist to keep him from crushing her. He tore her thin linen to pieces and exposed her breasts, and then he freed his huge erection with a swift movement of his hand and impaled her with it. She let out a high, sharp cry and tried to push him away, grabbing hold of his head, entangling her hands in his silver hair. He sank his teeth into her breast, and she screamed again. He fucked her hard and fast now, showing no mercy, oblivious to whether he caused her pain or not. Yet, she came before him in a shattering orgasm that made her choke on her gasps, and he exploded within her when she contracted violently around him, and he flooded her with his hot semen. Then his knees gave away, and he fell with her to the floor.

They were still entangled in each other's arms and legs when she started to cry. She howled in pain, and he drew her close but she fought him like a wild animal. She hit him, she scratched him, and when he caught her hands and pinned them to the floor, she tried to kick him and bite him. Not until he rolled on top of her and covered her with his body did she give in and she began to shiver uncontrollably in the cold.

At last silence fell. She still cried but without a sound now. He bent down and kissed her. He licked her face wet from salty tears, and he sucked long and hungrily on her lips and her tongue.

"I did it for her" she sobbed against his mouth. "I did it for Eavan, so she wouldn't find out." He lifted his head and looked down on her.

"Eavan!" he said. "Most likely she was the first one to suspect anything at all. She knew long before I even set eyes on you. She may well have known from the beginning when she fought to keep you here."

"But why didn't she leave me to the changelings then?" Anna cried in exasperation. "Why didn't she have me killed?"

"Why, you ask why?" He laughed bitterly. "She fell in love with you, of course, like all the rest of us. We've never had a girl growing up in Inis before. You have complained about your lack of power in this place, you don't seem to know of the terrible powers that you do possess."

"She also wanted to test me, I know," he continued after a brief pause, "and I fell, head first, in the pit she had dug."

He managed to get up from the floor, and he lifted her to the bed. He blew life into the extinguished fire in the fireplace. Thoughtfully he traced the open wound on her breast he had caused with his fangs, and he healed it with his finger. The wound left a tiny scar on her otherwise flawless skin. She looked silently at him with her tired eyes, red from crying. Then she stretched out her hand towards him and eased it inside his jacket putting it to rest on the warm skin of his stomach. He closed his eyes and started to shiver.

"You burn me," he murmured, and he fell on the bed beside her.

She ripped his jacket open and exposed his heaving chest. Then she bent down over him and her long golden hair fell around her face onto his bare skin when she started to kiss his stomach and his hard muscular belly exposed through his still open pants. He groaned low and put his hands around her shoulders, and he drew her close. She rolled on top of him and traced the scars on his chest, wondering about the story behind each and everyone. She nuzzled her head in by his neck and sucked on the golden ring in his earlobe. She almost paralyzed him with her caresses. He lay with closed eyes under her, quietly moaning and holding on to her. Then he took her face between his hands and sought her mouth in hunger and need again.

She helped him remove his clothes, and she let him enter her again, this time with deliberation and strong softness. He moved within her with long lazy strokes as if caressing the inside of her cunt making up for the pain he had inflicted upon her earlier. He kissed her breasts, and his tongue drew circles of wet fire around her nipples. Of his fangs, she felt nothing. She didn't want to come, she wanted this to go on forever, and he seemed to understand that. He was prepared to give her all the time in the world. To prolong the sweet torture, she slid off him and had him turn over on his back so she could study all of him in the flickering light from the fire. She looked at his cock, wet from her juices and hard from wanting her, and she greedily took it into her mouth and let her tongue play over the head of his erection; he moved involuntarily and he groaned with the growing pleasure.

"Oh Lord, fuck me!" he whispered and thrust even deeper into her mouth.

Still, she wasn't prepared to release him just yet. She fell back into the bed and spread herself for him, and he sought out her clit between her silken folds and played gently with it. She soaked him with her wetness and started to move in rhythm with his hand, and when she felt the liquid fire starting to burn within, she motioned him to enter her again. He pulled her up between his thighs, steadying her, so he could get at her clit while he fucked her, and he fondled her with relentless gentleness, letting his hand roam all over her, cupping and kneading her breasts, playing with her clit. He put his fingers in her mouth, and she sucked her juices off them. Then he brought her tighter and closer to his body and started to move faster. She threw her head back and moaned in small gasps with open mouth, wrapping her legs around his waist. Her body tensed, she had no control over it any longer, and with each of his rhythmic strokes she felt herself coming nearer and nearer to the point when she would implode, cease to exist for a second. Her whole consciousness was concentrated on the movements of his cock and his fingers when she finally came. It was a long, long orgasm, starting slow and filling her with white light. Then she descended and relaxed into the hot, wet darkness of the pounding blood inside her body. He stretched them out on the bed not pulling out of her just yet. He kept stroking her back under her hair with his strong, warm hands, and he covered her lips with his hot mouth not getting enough of her. She could feel that he was still hard, and he was still hungry for her.

She almost drifted off to sleep while he kept pushing his throbbing hardness gently in and out of her. He had laid his head to rest on her breasts, and he sucked her nipples like a baby. It was the most sensual and sexual feeling she had ever experienced. Whenever he squeezed her nipple with his tongue, she felt a contracting twinge of wanting in her womb.

"I can't stand it much longer," he moaned in a whisper.

She smiled for the first time during the night and opened her thighs wide for him and let him sink to the hilt inside her. Before he could increase his rhythm to launch his final attack on her, he started to shudder, and his whole body tensed when the release that he couldn't hold back came at last. He buried his face between her breasts and let himself go helplessly. She closed her eyes and arched her back slightly to receive him, and she milked him dry, contracting her strong muscles around his twitching cock, letting her guts drink the hot liquid he offered. Then she sighed and felt a contentment fill her, and they found peace in each other's arms for a short moment in infinity.

Hours later, when the dawn was about to break, and they had tasted each other fully several times and were exhausted, he put a deep sleep over her. He lay watching her for a long time, and then he bent down over her and kissed her softly. Had she been awake, she would have looked at him in wonder because he was crying for the first time in his life, tears streaming down his face. Then he slowly dematerialized and vanished from her room.

**********

When Anna woke up, she was alone, and she was immediately hit by a strong feeling of imminent disaster. She stumbled out of bed and stood on shaky legs for a moment, holding on to the bedpost. She listened to the sounds of the castle and heard an eerie wailing that sounded like someone crying. Then she realized it was the wind blowing through the palace. She dressed quickly and went down to the Great Hall. She found herself all alone and all the doors were open to every room surrounding the hall, but she saw light coming from only one of them, the Council Room. She entered as if in a trance not knowing what to expect or what awaited her. She saw a figure of a man standing in front of the large windows, and she recognized Gareth. When he became aware of her presence he slowly turned around, and Anna was stunned by the icy aura of power that emanated from him. Without realizing what she did, she sank into a low reverence before him.

He greeted her with a formal bow and then he said, "They are both gone, both Mother and Father."

Anna looked up at him and a cry broke from her lips, and she knew that it was her own wailing she had heard earlier carried by the wind. She turned and ran out of the Council Room, and she didn't see the compassion in his eyes.

Anna ran to the part of the palace that Eavan and Conaill had occupied, and she found all doors open and all furniture crushed and broken to pieces as if a flood had rushed through the rooms. None of the numerous servants was to be seen, not even a guard was in sight. Anna cried out again and left the disheveled apartment. She fled from the palace, out into the garden and out of Inis, and she stumbled through the streets of the city to reach the only haven, the only sanctuary left; Celia's arms.

********************

Celia screamed in alarm when she found Anna lying lifeless on the ground of the little courtyard. Celia called for help and so great was the commotion that also Marie de Beauvoir and her servants were alerted. They all helped to carry Anna into Celia's house and put her down on Celia's bed.

Anna hovered between life and death almost for a month. She didn't want to live, but the longevity that she had been given was keeping the flicker of life burning within her with a withering flame. The forces that had caused her collapse were however strong enough to kill her so Celia watched over Anna days on end. Although Anna didn't respond and acted like a zombie the short moments she was awake, Celia continued to talk to her as if Anna really listened and understood what was said. Celia told Anna long stories in the manner her own mother had done, stories with their origins in Jamaica and in Africa, and she sang lullabies and rocked Anna in her arms. It happened that Marie de Beauvoir came to the room, but she didn't stay long. It seemed to give her pain to acknowledge that Celia played the part in Anna's life that should have been hers.

The first sign that Anna was returning to life came when Celia woke from a short slumber late one night and heard Anna cry. Anna cried with huge sobs, but it was the first reaction she had shown in a month's time, and Celia laughed out loud. She went over to the bed and took Anna into her arms the way she had done so many times before.

"My Honey Child," she cooed, "everything will be all right. Don't you cry no more."

"I don't want to live," Anna whispered brokenly. "Please let me die."

"No My Precious," Celia answered, "you will not die. You will not want to die, believe me."

Celia steadily nursed Anna back to life. When Anna started to eat properly, she soon regained her strength, and she could sit in the shade in the courtyard among the blooming mimosa and oleander. She even accepted the company of her mother and started to ask furtive questions about her family. Most of all she wanted to know about her father. She regretted that there was no painting of him that she could see, but of course, that would have been a luxury that Paul de Beauvoir couldn't afford. Marie tried however to describe him as accurately as possible. As the weeks went by, Anna gradually lost her totally negative attitude towards her mother. She was still very reserved in Marie's company though.

One night, Celia woke up when Anna stumbled into her room. Anna was crying hard, and she threw herself into Celia's arms.

"What's the use? What's left for me?" she sobbed. "Celia, you and I are of the same kind now. You can help me to die. Won't you please help me?"

"Now Child, I don't want to hear such rubbish from you," Celia admonished her trying to sound stern but not succeeding very well. "I've told you that you don't want to die. I will tell to you that I have met them booth, the two men."

Anna stopped crying immediately and sat up.

"You have met them?!" she exclaimed. "When and where? Why haven't you told me?"

"You have been much too unstable until now to be told," Celia answered. "About the man Conaill I mustn't tell anything about my meeting with him. He made me promise that. And I will be sorry if I break that promise. But I can tell you that he is alive. The younger one, Gareth, I found in your room one night. He didn't scare me. I was very sure that he would be good to you. He said that he wanted to see for himself that everything was all right with you," Celia concluded.

Somehow Anna was greatly comforted by the thought that Gareth's intentions towards her were good and that he had felt the need to check on her himself. And Conaill was alive. He was alive somewhere out there... . Of Eavan, there was no news. Anna wondered if Eavan was the one who had died — Eavan, who had known all the time, who had triggered the disaster and done nothing to prevent it. Was she still alive?

When she was finally summoned, Anna was ready to go. One day, the parlor maid brought her a letter. She recognized Gareth's handwriting at once. "Your presence in the palace is requested this night," he wrote without elaborating on the subject. Anna told Celia that she had to go and that Celia needn't be frightened. Anna would return and if that didn't happen right away, she would let Celia know of her plans.

"You see, Celia," Anna said, "this place is the one I will always return to, and I want you to be here when I come. Sometimes I will have to be away now and then, performing some duty connected to Inis, but I will always come back to you." They hugged and Anna left.

**********

Anna entered the palace as if she were a queen returning from a long absence; she had dressed in one of her most beautiful dresses made of golden silk with an abundance of handmade lace. She slowly advanced into the Great Hall, and she greeted old friends and enemies with bland courtesy. Her face was impenetrable, not even her eyes revealed what she really thought anymore. The whispers that had started when she made her entrance soon died out, and people met her with awe and respect.

Anna saw Gareth from afar. He was dressed in black silk and had a flowing cape over his shoulders. His beautiful face was almost translucent, and his ethereal features were more prominent than the last time Anna had seen him; the aquiline nose sharper, the skin drawn tighter over his high cheekbones, and his thin lips settled into an ironic, slightly mocking smile. He had an air of immense power around him, and his dark eyes were fastened on her with a penetrating gaze. When she came face to face with him, she made the most exquisite reverence in front of him and bowed her head. She didn't rise until he reached out his hand to her and motioned her to.

"It is very good to see you again," he said, "and in such good health."

A sumptuous dinner was served, and Anna took great care to be an observant and interested guest at the table. She laughed and entertained her company, and she danced afterwards with several of the courtiers. Later on in the evening Gareth approached her telling her that he had a matter to discuss with her, and he brought her to one of the windows.

"I want you to go to Vienna," he said. "Napoleon is in ST Helena and Paris is no longer the center of the world. The focus is now concentrated on Vienna, and we need to establish us there. I have bought a property in the city, and I want you to supervise this new 'embassy' of ours. I want you to get yourself into the emperor's court, and I want reports of what is going on there."

"Likewise," he continued after a brief pause, "I'm interested in Venice. This city has of old a crucial position between Western Europe and the Balkans. If you feel like going there and look for a good property, you have my permission."

She inclined her head accepting his commands and said that she would leave the next day.

**********

Late, late that night when the formal evening was over, Anna came to Gareth's room. He showed no surprise but merely lifted the silk covers so that she could slip into his bed beside him. She shivered and instantly huddled into his embrace. They lay quietly for a while just resting in the nearness of each other.

"Have you heard anything about Eavan?" she wondered.

"No," he answered slowly. "It worries me, but I'm not surprised on the other hand. Mother was always the expert when it came to shielding her thoughts and cloud her path. I was never able to read her mind. I sometimes wonder if anyone could. Father certainly couldn't."

"I did it for her," Anna whispered in an echo of her own words to Conaill. "I did it because I thought I could keep the truth from her."

"Yes, I know," he answered quietly. "You don't have to explain. I know everything."

She began to cry against his neck.

"He is alive," she sobbed. "He is alive out there."

"I know," he repeated, and he drew her close to his body.

"Why did you spare his life?" she asked when she managed to speak again.

"Because he left of his own free will. I didn't have to force him," he answered evasively.

She knew that he would never ever admit to that he let Conaill go because of her.

"You know where he is, don't you?" she asked after a brief pause.

"Yes," he answered without making another comment on the subject.

She knew that she shouldn't, but she couldn't help asking anyway.

"Can't you please tell me?" she whispered.

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "No, I can't do that, you know the rules as well as I do. Please don't ask me again."

"Yes, I know the rules," she said in an unsteady voice. He groaned low and wrapped his arm around her even tighter, and she didn't see the anguish in his eyes.

Yes, Anna knew the rules. She had given her virginity to Gareth; therefore, she belonged to him. He was now the only one having power over her, and the one to decide about her destiny. Every decision concerning her life from now on — be it good or bad — was his to make. Conaill had also known the rules, yet he had broken them and taken her, thereby committing a terrible outrage. Not only had he betrayed his wife, he had taken the woman his son claimed to be his. Thus, Conaill had forfeited his life, and Gareth could pursue him till the farthest corner of the universe and until the end of time.

"I'm going to keep looking for him," she said defiantly. "I don't care what you do. You can kill me if you like. I don't want to live anyway!"

"Oh, don't be silly," he murmured in her hair. "Of course I'm not going to kill you."

"But if I want to die?" she cried.

"No, you don't. You don't want to die," he answered soothingly and reminded her of Celia.

In the end, she quieted down out of sheer exhaustion.

She rested her head on his shoulder, and then she put her mouth against his cheek. "Brother," she breathed almost inaudibly. "Sister," he answered in a whisper against her lips.