Imperius Ch. 09

She lowered her head back to his chest.

"Everything I have done, wrong or right, I have done with the intent to protect you. If you believe nothing else, at least believe that."

~ < > ~

Several days passed, and Magnus had only been near Lilah a handful of times. She had ceased her impulsive tidying, and instead spent most of her time sleeping, or following Daegon listlessly from the bedroom to the skyship bathhouse. For Magnus' part, he had turned his focus toward meetings with his lieutenants. That was enough to distract him in the daytime.

But when night came, he'd find himself in bed beside her as she slept. She was soft and pliable each time he wrapped his arms around her to draw her against him. But no matter how warm and lush her curves felt, he made himself resist every pang of lust. He simply held her, and she simply let him. It was a kind of pleasure and a kind of agony, confusingly entwined within him.

One morning he woke with a particularly impatient erection and his senses full of her--the rainshower scent of her hair against his nose, the plush cushion of her ass against his cock, the lush warmth of her breasts against his hands.

He inhaled the scent, the muscles in his fingers flexing, yearning to sink into her flesh.

She's yours. Take her. Your cock could be wet with her slick or down her throat already if you want it. What are you waiting for?

With a desperate, herculean effort, he tore himself away from the bed and snatched up the dress she had been wearing the day before, stealing it away into the washroom. A dozen ruthless strokes of his cock against the silk, imagining it was her--her mouth, her quim, and he relieved the physical tension, but it did little to alleviate his craving for the sound of her sweet moans against his ear, or her sky blue eyes watching him with reluctant fascination.

When he stepped out of the washroom, Lilah was sitting up, blinking sleepily, and yawning in a way that made her look vulnerable, as if she hadn't realized her surroundings through the lingering mist of slumber.

She was looking at him, and he could see in her eyes that she had realized what he'd been doing. Her eyes were large, wide, full of slow-thinking surprise. She averted her gaze the moment it met his and that filled him with a sense of something approaching embarrassment.

The room suddenly seemed so large, and the distance between them so small, so little boundary between him and what he wanted, what he was hungry to devour.

He wanted to leap at her, tear at her, pull her down and pull her open, pluck her every string and stretch her every feeling until she was just a trembling musical instrument keening obediently under his fingertips--

At that moment, there was a familiar knock at the door. He threw the dress in a hamper of dirty clothing, and focused on dressing with swift, crackling efficiency.

"Enter!" he ordered, crisp and businesslike, buttoning his trousers.

Saphir entered, the much taller Daegon on his heels, and two women behind him. The handmaidens, Magnus thought, as he nodded to Saphir and pulled his shirt down over his head before striding out of the room. He had forgotten.

He never forgot anything.

Fuck.

~ < > ~

Lilah could hear Magnus saying something brief to Saphir as he stepped through the doorway--his voice as close to mortification as she'd ever heard it sound.

When Saphir entered, he said her name softly and persistently more than once, before she conceded to look at him.

"Lilah," he said, "I've brought you someone--two someones, for you to meet."

He indicated two women standing behind him. They were clad in flowing sunset gold fabric, sleek and form-fitting around the bodice, and softly flared at the hips and shoulders. They swished like little oceans when they moved.

"These are Charis and Ianthe. They'll serve as your new attendants."

"Attendants," Lilah repeated, the word flat on her tongue.

"People to oversee your grooming and bathing, as I did," he said quietly, as though she might have forgotten.

As if she could forget. A kind voice. Water lily perfume. Nothing at all like what one would expect from a ruthless imperial assassin--from someone who took Hilde's life with a cold, vacant stare.

"They've been told to accommodate your requests, within reason," he said, even more softly, as though he knew where her thoughts had turned. "The capacity to which they serve you is yours to decide."

Lilah forced herself to sit up. She'd promised to be cooperative, and there was no point in going back on her word now.

Her eyes went to the women in question, moving over them. One of them had bronze skin and reddish hair, and wore slave jewelry, while the other had dark brown curls and a more dignified dress robe.

"And if I choose not to have them serve me at all?"

"A life of leisure?" the one with coppery hair asked, a blithe smile curling at her lips. When Lilah raised her eyebrows at her, the smile only deepened, and she shrugged. "The day just gets better and better."

The other one--Charis, Lilah believed--who seemed to repress some instinctual irritation when the redhead spoke, said, "Your master has procured us. If you reject the chance to make use of us, we will gain some other responsibility or we will be sent back to our former mistress."

"Your former mistress?" Lilah asked.

"Praetor Ariadne," replied the attendant. She seemed to consider whether or not to say more, before adding, "What I ought to make clear is that I am a free citizen of the Imperium." She said this with tremendous pride and dignity, her back straight. "I am one of the best stylists you could hope to find in or outside of the empire. I've served both praetors and princesses." Her tone was solemn as she added, "And in the spirit of frankness, I shall warn you, I do not take my duties lightly. I once scolded the wife of a senator for not sitting still during a fitting," she said. "And I assure you, she sat still."

She smoothed her skirt matter of factly. "I shall gladly take on any charge placed before me--and I shall of course adhere to your wishes as your master commands me to--and to be perfectly frank, you'd be fortunate to have me."

The first attendant--Ianthe, Lilah supposed--seemed to not want to be left out of this interview. "My specialty is massage," she said cheerfully. "And if you'd prefer being attended by someone with a sense of humor, you could always use me and not her."

Charis didn't dignify this with a response, but simply smoothed the fabric of her robe once more, primly.

Lilah felt her eyebrow quirk, slightly, and then looked at Saphir. "You said they've been instructed to accommodate my requests?"

"Yes," Saphir said, a hint of caution to his tone. "Within reason."

Lilah stood. "Then I request that you don't expect much conversation from me. Let's only discuss what we have to," she said tiredly.

So Lilah let her new attendants "care" for her, and if she had to admit it, there was less primping and polishing than usual. They gave her a hot bath, and a massage, and brushed her hair. The outfit they put her in was less risque than the others she'd been ordered to endure--a simple white dress, in a soft fabric.

Charis was calm and aloof throughout the experience, while Ianthe continuously attempted to draw Lilah out. She remarked upon Lilah's hair, and the tightness of the muscles in her back--a steady barrage of charm that left Lilah both overwhelmed and slightly lulled by the uncommon frankness of Ianthe's interest.

Ianthe would ask Lilah about her preferred fragrance, her preferred hairstyle, her preferred foods--and though Lilah's answers were reticent, Ianthe had a way of prying out what she asked for, while never losing her airy manner.

When Lilah hinted that she had asked for the opposite, Ianthe protested that she absolutely did have to discuss these things.

"What could be more vital?" she said, with a wink.

Perhaps she had a point, Lilah thought to herself. Indeed, what could be vital at all?

~ < > ~

It was another week before the day that Lilah noticed that the dressing of Daegon's wound could use a change, and she asked for a medical kit to do it herself. They looked at her in surprise, and told her that they would inquire.

Lilah was half surprised when Saphir permitted them to honor her request. He brought the medical kit himself, and remained as she set about her work, and it wasn't long before she had her head bent over a sitting Daegon, ministering to the wound on his upper chest.

Daegon bore her ministrations with unsurprising stoicism, and Saphir reverted to silence in the corner--Lilah was surprised the beautiful, ruthless slave stayed at all--but he seemed motivated by some unspoken caution. In fact, in contrast with Daegon, she felt she could read his wariness fairly well. Perhaps he thought she might stab Daegon with her scalpel when given the chance, she considered distantly.

"So--," said Ianthe, picking up one of the medical implements that Lilah had left on the table and examining it idly, "Are you at all curious about the Capitol? We can fill you in on any details you have questions about--Well, I can do so more than Charis." Ianthe glanced toward the other woman and then touched the blade of her hand against the side of her mouth--a mockery of subtlety, Lilah supposed--and said in a stage whisper, "She's from Valence."

Lilah glanced at Charis, who stood with immaculate posture and her hands placed primly, one over the other. She seemed to be determined not to react to Ianthe's general sense of amusement at her expense--beyond a slight glare of displeasure at the redhead. Lilah sensed that she disliked the other woman's licentious flair for conversation as much as she resented the deliberate slight.

"Curious might not be the word exactly," Lilah replied, shrugging as she set aside a bottle of salve and picked up a needle, "--but I'm not opposed to hearing about it."

"Well, how much do you know already?" Ianthe asked.

"A small handful of political factors," said Lilah, "I've also heard the parties tend to be lavish." She finished lacing the needle with a medical thread, and refocused on Daegon's wound. "--And that they tend to become orgies."

"An exaggeration, I'm afraid," said Ianthe, a slight sparkle in her eyes. She rested her hip against the table and absently and picked up the bottle of salve, turning it between her fingers and looking pleased to do so. "House Valerianus is notoriously austere." She sighed and tossed back her hair, "More's the pity."

"Hmm," Lilah said distantly, barely feeling the other slave's eyes refocus on her critically.

"Aren't you at all curious as to why?" Ianthe asked.

"It wouldn't be our place to discuss it even if she were," said Charis sharply. "Our master's affairs are his own."

Ianthe ignored the other woman, still speaking to Lilah. "What about you? Do you think we should be silent and careful and full of servility?"

"I think I am mourning," said Lilah, her eyes still fixed on Daegon's wound, nearly restitched, "-and tired."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, there was the sound from the doorway, and the group turned in unison to see Magnus standing with his back against the wall, next to a small chest table with his arms crossed, watching them.

~ < > ~

Magnus' eyes were fixed on her with a familiar heat, but Lilah only felt the mildest curiosity that she hadn't noticed him enter the room--before her escape, it had felt as though she was trained on him and his presence, and would never fail to notice him. It was as though that part of her had been silenced for the time being.

The moment stretched, and then he said "Leave, all of you."

The attendants, Saphir, and Daegon, all obeyed, quietly filing out of the room. When Lilah made a gesture toward Daegon's wound--stitched, but undressed, he raised a hand to stop her, and she relented. It wouldn't tear, in any case, unless he performed vigorous calisthenics.

When she moved to obey his command, following the others, he only caught her smoothly by the arm and looked at her intently. He seemed slightly surprised she would take this as an order intended for her--and if she were honest with herself, she would have to admit that she'd suspected it wasn't--but there was something, deep in her chest, that was pleased to have the chance to follow his order while defying the spirit behind it.

But then, something in his eyes shifted, and he seemed--pleased by something he saw within hers.

"You are extraordinary," he said, his voice edged with something between admiration and amusement.

He appeared to be at ease, but it seemed to Lilah like the ease of a jungle cat, stopped mid-prowl by some primal curiosity. His expression was both fierce and entranced--a tight, intense focus that had always made her heart stutter and her breath stop short--but her heart didn't stutter, and her breath kept it's rhythm--for all that she could feel it begin with. It was as though all the parts of herself that had previously reacted to him had been replaced by dead wood, hollow and brittle.

And yet even now, something passed between them. An understanding of a sort, perhaps. She felt the heat in him, radiant and restrained, like fire beneath steel. She might have mustered the energy to curse this empathy between them, especially now, when she could sense his desires as though they were invading her mind. He was a strategist through and through, she suspected. Perhaps he couldn't see her as something other than a fortress to be conquered.

Yet, the restraint she saw in his eyes was peculiar, different from any sort Lilah had noticed before. She considered distantly as she looked away and began placing the equipment back into the medical bag with efficient and businesslike movements, as though she were still a medical officer fresh out of an operation, and not a captive wearing a flimsy bit of silk under the eyes of a domineering enslaver.

"Do you know what it does to me--," he said, tightening his hold of her wrist and drawing her close, "To see you like that? Do you know what it did to me, the first time I met you?"

He took her hand, and it seemed so small inside of his as he lifted it, and kissed the knuckles softly. "You were so gentle, Lilah," he said, drawing her so close that she was against him. She was frigid, at least for a moment, until she realized her body was warming to him against her will, softening like a cat in slumber--even as her mind protested that she hated him, that she couldn't possibly feel aroused, not now, when she had so much to mourn--so much to resent him for.

He chafed her earlobe with his teeth, deliberate and seductive, and then moved his hand in her hair to make her neck more available to his lips. As he trailed warm, brushing kisses against the skin of her throat, she felt his hand come near the heat of her sex, and she reddened--perhaps for the first time since her escape--to realize that she wasn't just warm for him, but already wet. She felt his lips shape into a subtle smile against her skin, and he kissed her again, trailing down.

Slowly, she responded, arching her back and sighing. He growled, yanking her still closer, and his lips reached her breasts.

It was a cresting wave, threatening to break inside of her.

The pleasure would turn incandescent--and she felt it would destroy her, the torment of feeling pleasure at the hands of this man--this destroyer of her life, her home, her father.

She felt like she was choking.

~ < > ~

Magnus kissed his way down her stomach, appreciating the dainty tautness of her waist, warmed by the fresh responsiveness of her muscles. His cock jerked when he reached her hips, and felt her heat grow, her scent deepen.

Her skirts fell apart easily for him, and there was nothing underneath, nothing between him and her well shaven quim.

It pained him not to burrow into the folds, to devour her immediately. Instead, he scrutinized every reaction, every breath he could hear from her above his head.

"Have you missed me Lilah?" he asked. "Have you missed me here?"

"It's only been..," she said, but she gasped on her own breathless words when he burrowed his finger into her sex.

"Not an answer," he said, and traced the petals of her sex with his fingertips. They were so soft, and her inner walls flexed before his eyes.

Gods, he had intended to wait, he had intended to--

He nipped at her inner thigh, and his cock spasmed when she quivered in raw physical delight.

Her sex was wet, and warm and spread open before him, and the scent--the tantalizing scent, soft and sweet and blooming in his senses.

She would be the death of him.

Or perhaps he would be the death of her, he thought, at the sound of her delirious moan when he nibbled at her folds.

A voice in his head was giving off steady warning sounds, the word tactics resounded from a distance. But the voice was wrong, wasn't it? These tactics oughtn't work against her, perhaps, but somehow they did. Somehow, she lay, warm and waiting under him, deeply in his thrall.

He kissed along the edges of her folds, all the pinkest places he could find, and held her still by her thighs when she arched desperately under him.

And then his tongue was in her, caressing the silky wetness, and when she screamed in pleasure, he mourned that he had never done this before.

Her taste was sweet and fresh and bright, succulent as honeydew, and he slaked his thirst for it with zealous, thorough strokes of his tongue. The muscles of her quim flexed under his ministrations, simultaneously strong and velvety soft. She attempted to close her legs, as if on instinct, and this time he didn't scold her--he simply held her where she was, her legs wide in front of him, her quim wet and inviting and full of the scent and taste of her arousal.

She mewled, her muscles continuously flexing in fluid, wavelike movements. Sighs gave way to moans, which turned hungrier and hungrier, and even from below, he could see her cheeks turn red. She wriggled, and he only moved his tongue more fervently, his fingers pressing into her flesh more dominantly.

This taste deepened as she came for him, her juices flooding his mouth, and he growled with hungry pleasure even as she cried for him, sweet, mewling, urgent sounds. He lapped gently as she descended over the edge of that crest, tumbling into a still sort of fugue state.

He rose up, ascending her body until his eyes were even with hers, seeking something elusive in her sky blue gaze.

And then, of all things, she put her palm on the back of his head, and brought his mouth to hers.

The kiss alone was enough to turn the throbbing need in his cock to something desperate, but more than that, she was tasting herself, her own juices, the evidence of her orgasm, on his lips. It was the headiest sensation Magnus had ever had, an intoxicating rush.

He held her close to him, and she turned warm and pliable in his arms. He kissed her throat, and she trembled.

"Lilah," he whispered, and she trembled again. When she returned his embrace, and kissed him back, he growled, the sound low and full of longing, into that kiss. His cock jerked, and he felt he might come from this alone.

But he sheathed himself in her, and the motion was smooth, slick and welcoming. Heat and pleasure throttled through his cock all the way to his brain and he growled, arching his spine as much as she had arched at the sensation of his tongue. Groaning, he gripped the back of her neck with his hand, the muscles flexing and throbbing. The intensity of the pleasure turned his every instinct into something aggressive, almost furious, but he kept his control with an instant of pause, eyes closed and teeth gritted. When he met her eyes again, she seemed to see--deeply and clearly--what he held back. She appeared so delicate, so fragile, but when she took in his reigned ferocity there was no fear in her eyes. There was an understanding there, instead, glittering at him in the shadowed light.