The Contestants Ch. 01

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The next days Anna couldn't feel Conaill's presence in the castle, and when she asked furtively about him, she was informed that he was in Ireland for the moment and wasn't expected back for at least a week. She felt as if she had been allowed a breathing space, and she used the time to try to come to terms with her situation. What made matters so hard for her, was that she knew that he would always be able to seek her out. She felt so utterly helpless. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the terrible sweetness of his kiss, and her whole inside melted in the fire. She thought that the experience would have left marks on her for everyone to see. Most of all she feared what would happen if Eavan found out. She used up several sleepless nights to think of a solution to the problem of keeping Eavan out of what had happened. And how would Gareth react? She cried and cried, but that didn't solve any issue.

In the meantime, Celia had recovered so much that she could move to her new home. Anna had explained about the house and that her mother occupied half of it. Anna also told Celia that she had been very strict in her terms about the apartment Celia was to use.

"It's yours," Anna said, "and don't let anyone move you out of it. In the case there is any trouble, you can tell them that I will eventually come and live there too. And I mean it. It is vital for me Celia that I have somewhere to go where I can feel some safety. When my mother is gone — we will outlive her you know — we shall have the whole house to ourselves."

Before Celia left, Anna overheard a conversation between Celia and Eavan. Eavan seemed anxious to know if Celia was able to take good care of Anna.

"I must be absolutely sure," Eavan persisted, "that you on no account will leave Anna."

"Your Highness," Celia answered, "you needn't ask. Of course, I will stay with Anna until my dying day," and that answer seemed to give Eavan peace of mind.

With Celia gone, Anna had no excuse to avoid her own problems and gradually she worked out a plan that to its content was deadly. She realized that all the actors in the drama that was about to unfold were indeed in danger of death. Not that she could inflict a deadly wound to any of the other participants, being a human as she was, but Conaill, Eavan, and Gareth were all capable of killing each other as well as of killing her.

As there was no shelter for her either Beyond The Border or in Inis, Anna thought that she would have to perform an act so repulsive to Conaill that he would turn away from her in disgust, and that would cloud the real issue to Eavan so effectively that Eavan wouldn't suspect the truth. Her plan involved Gareth. She didn't know what his reaction would be, and everything depended on what he would do. It was as if she had to take a leap over the edge of a cliff blindfolded.

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The days went by alarmingly fast, and Anna knew that time was running out. Late one evening, she went to the part of the palace that Gareth occupied, and she entered his rooms and went up to the fireplace. She felt cold to the bone, and the fire warmed a little at least. Gareth wasn't there when she came, and she had planned it that way. She knew he was in council in Conaill's absence. She didn't know how long she stood there alone before she heard him enter. She didn't turn around but realized that he stopped for an instant before advancing into the room. Then he was by her side, and she could see him out of the corner of her eye. He was formally dressed in black studded with tiny diamonds, which made him shimmer with every move he made. All his boyish features were long gone, and his face had taken on an alluring quality where the aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and brilliant eyes were belied by the soft, sensual quality of his mouth and the unruly silver blonde hair. He was hauntingly beautiful to look at, but it was increasingly clear that one couldn't be sure of if his charms were deadly or not.

"To what do I owe this infinite pleasure?" he asked cautiously. She divined the almost imperceptible but sharp edge to his voice.

Anna turned to face him. Gareth wasn't evidently going to make this easy for her, but she hadn't counted on that either. She looked at him with tired eyes, and she couldn't smile. He searched her face keenly, and he didn't smile either. He still waited for her to answer.

At last she pulled herself together. "I want you to sleep with me," she said in a hurried voice.

Gareth raised his eyebrows, and although he kept the bland look on his face, she could see his nostrils whiten and that he clenched and unclenched his jaw. His brilliant eyes darkened slowly, and he moved closer to her.

"What a strange proposal from one looking as if she was going to a funeral and what makes you think that I would like to do that?"

"Because that would give you power that might make it possible for you to challenge Conaill," she said almost inaudibly.

"So, it has nothing to do with what you might feel about me? Or I about you for that matter? It's strictly a business transaction?"

He circled her now as if stalking his prey. She tried desperately to keep him from noticing how she shivered inside, and she kept following him with her eyes.

"Is this attitude something that you have picked up at your frequent visits to a certain house in New Orleans?" he continued relentlessly.

"Let's say that I need you to sleep with me," she ventured at last with an unsteady voice, knowing fully well how lame that sounded.

"Why?" he asked and when she didn't answer, he went on, "Well, we're certainly not talking about the kind of need that one usually connects with lovemaking."

She closed her eyes and wondered in agony when he would stop tormenting her. She knew deep inside that he knew. There wasn't a thing that she had been able to keep from him during their whole life together. He had always read her like an open book. She opened her eyes in desperation at last and fastened her gaze on him. Then she slowly started to unbutton her dress, and when she had finished, she let it fall to her feet. Now she stood naked in front of him, and he stopped circling her. She heard him draw his breath in a small, sharp intake — it almost sounded like a low cry. Then he moved very close to her, and she had to lift her face to look into his eyes, and she saw pain, rage and desire in them. He took her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom and put her down on the bed. He kicked off his boots and stretched himself out beside her. Resting on an elbow, he looked down on her in silence for a while. Then he slowly bent over her and started kissing her. She closed her eyes, and she couldn't help feeling and seeing Conaill in front of her although she had promised herself that she would refrain from comparisons. He broke free almost immediately, and he slapped her face. The sharp sting of his hand made her open her eyes wide with fear. He gripped her face hard and wrenched it close to his own.

"Don't for one minute think that you can pull that one on me," he hissed through his clenched teeth. "There is only going be the two of us in my bed tonight, you and me! Look at me and keep your eyes open when I make love to you!"

Then he took possession of her mouth again, and she looked into his smoldering eyes as he bit her lips and licked her, forcing his tongue into her mouth, twisting it around hers, tasting her, drinking her. With a jolt inside, she felt the heat starting to pound dully in her guts. She knew then that she wasn't going to get away with detaching herself from the act. He was determined to get under her skin, and she wouldn't be able to stop him.

His eyes and his mouth were savage, but his supple hands made exquisite and subtle love to her at the same time. He bit her hard on the neck causing her to bleed, but his hands traveled over her body, drawing almost unbearably arousing caresses around her breasts and over her stomach. He gently forced her legs apart and started feeling her sex, probing her sensitive folds. Then he inserted two fingers into her causing her a sharp, stinging pain, but her cunt instantly filled with wetness, and he slid his fingers in and out of her without meeting any resistance now. She had fantasized about this moment so many times, and now she knew that she hadn't even been close. An urgent feeling of need started to build up inside her — a need which mingled pain and pleasure. She heard herself moaning, and she lifted her arms and drew his body closer to hers. He pressed his fingers against her cunt walls, and at the same time he started to circle her clit with his thumb. Before she had time to prepare or even knew what was about to happen, the need became overwhelming, and she had to give herself over to her first orgasm that he relentlessly forced on her, but it was too quick and left her bewildered and unappeased. She saw a devilish grin break on his face when he became aware of that he had rendered her helpless with his attacks.

"You will have to beg me," he whispered.

He removed his clothes and rolled on top of her, pressing his swollen penis into her stomach. He sought out her breasts, sucking them and biting her nipples gently and when they were all wet from his kissing, he blew cold air on them making them achingly hard when they puckered. She tried to get hold of his hard cock to make him enter her, but he removed her hand and looked tauntingly at her again.

"Beg me," he repeated and sat up in the bed beside her.

She was shivering with pain and need now, and she groaned and curled herself up in a cramp. He started fondling her buttocks and inserted yet another finger into her, caressing the inside of her cunt. She moaned incessantly now.

"Please," she whispered.

"I can't hear you," he replied.

She turned her face towards him and screamed, "Please! Can't you put an end to it?"

"I didn't start this game!" he burst out with passionate anger, but he turned her around and spread her legs and with a quick and savage stroke he entered her at last.

She gave a wailing cry when he caused her pain and to ease it she pressed him even further into her tight wetness. She moved under him with feverish, undulating movements, determined to make them both come quickly, but he pressed her down into the bed and steadied her.

"I set the pace," he whispered against her mouth.

Then he wrapped his arms around her, securing her body against his and his rhythm was slow and sensual when he glided in and out of her. Finally, she let go and stopped fighting him and the cramp in her body dissolved. She felt a sweet heat starting to burn in her cunt, and it traveled to every beating pulse in her body. The orgasm started like a freezing chill, a tickle all over her skin. Then wave after wave of contractions rocked her guts until she could take no more and she let herself be shattered, broken to pieces. When she started to feel the bliss of her relief, he pushed savagely into her and stopped there for a fraction of a second before his body tensed, and he shot his seed into her, and he kept filling her until he was empty at last, then he let his body slowly relax between her thighs.

Anna lay very still looking up at the canopy over the bed. She held him in her arms, and she could feel his heartbeats slow down to a normal pace. They lay in silence, too exhausted to keep on fighting for the moment when she slowly motioned him to roll over on his back in the bed. He complied lazily, but she sat up beside him, and then she straddled his hips. He opened his eyes, and she saw a fleeting moment of surprise in them, yet he remained still under her, perhaps curious to know what she was about to do next. Anna gently caressed his chest, and then she put her right hand over his heart and pressed her nails to his skin. She didn't use much force, yet she drew blood from him, and she could see that he now attempted to get up from under her, but he couldn't move. She had nailed him to the bed. He opened his eyes wide and met the challenge in hers.

"I invoke upon you that you one day will experience love the way we humans do so that you will love, knowing that no magic power on earth will serve you. I invoke upon you to suffer through love so that you have to meet your chosen one as a beggar instead of a king," she whispered, and there was no rage or malice in her voice, just sorrow. "And mind you," she added, "I will be around to watch!"

Then she let go of him, and the blood on his chest vanished. He looked at her thoughtfully and put his hands over her hips, drawing her down towards him.

"Yes, I know. You will be around to watch," he said slowly with a deep sigh as she started to drift into sleep on the pillow beside him.

When he was sure of that she was in deep sleep, he gathered her in his arms with infinite gentleness. He put his cheek to hers and closed his eyes over his pain. Then he got out of the bed and carried her to her rooms.

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The next few days were like a lull before the storm. Anna felt that Conaill hadn't returned, she kept out of the way of Gareth, and she only got evasive answers when she inquired about Eavan's whereabouts. She had a strong sense of an oncoming disaster as if given a hurricane warning, but not knowing how fast the storm was moving in her direction. She went to the Library, but even Ibn seemed affected by the strange situation. He was busy updating on several new books and clearly showed that he had no time to engage in small talk. He was absent-minded and seemed worried. The garden outside the palace was beautiful but unearthly quiet. Even the guards seem subdued and scurried out of her way when they spotted her. To escape the oppressive atmosphere, Anna fled to Celia.

It was another kind of strange feeling to enter the townhouse and feel for the first time that she entered a place she could call home. She pushed the big oak doors closed behind her and stood for a while in the little courtyard listening to the silence and the splash of a small fountain. She cast a furtive glance over at the part of the building her mother occupied, and she thought she saw a curtain move, but she couldn't be sure. She didn't stop finding out but hurried into Celia's apartment. Celia, who still couldn't move around in her usual speed due to injuries, limped to greet her, a big white smile breaking her dark face in two.

"Oh, Miss Anna, you are here at last!" Celia cried and hugged Anna to her ample bosom, and Anna felt safe and comforted for the first time in many days. She heaved a big sigh and closed her eyes.

Anna had seen to that Celia had help in her house since it would take time before Celia could manage on a full scale again, if ever. However, Celia ruled her little household with stern hands, keeping both the kitchen boy and the parlor maid busy. This night she had an excellent dinner prepared and afterwards they sat on the porch in the last rays of sunlight.

"Something worryin' you Child?" Celia asked and scrutinized Anna's face.

Anna smiled a little; she sometimes forgot that Celia was a mighty sorceress too and had been so for a long time. It was hard to keep secrets from her.

"I don't want to talk about it tonight if you don't mind," Anna answered. "I want to know how you manage instead," she added.

Celia then told her of her meetings with Anna's mother.

"The poor soul," Celia said and wiped her eyes.

Anna wasn't really surprised that Marie had turned to Celia because Celia inspired confidences, and Marie must have realized that Celia was the perfect and perhaps only link for her to Anna.

Marie had told her the whole story, beginning with her escape from France and the French Revolution and her arrival in America and New Orleans. Marie hadn't been able to bring along much of her family's fortune, just a couple of pieces of jewelry, but she soon found herself a husband among the settlers and could at least count on being provided with the bare necessities of life. Anna's father, Paul de Beauvoir, was a trader and was doing moderately well. Marie soon learned that there was no luxury to be expected and no glamour in her new life. She confessed to Celia that she was complaining most of the time over what she had lost. Her poor husband tried to do his best, but generally she had given him a hard time. Then Anna was born, and Marie thought it very inconvenient because they didn't even have a house of their own to live in at the time but rented an apartment. Anna had been a difficult child, crying most of the time, and in a fit of rage one day, overtired as she was, Marie had wished that her child was dead. She cried out loud that it had been better, had Anna never been born. She got frantic when she realized that she had really lost her baby and tried with all her might to get it back, but the twelve hours in the grim Borderland proved too much for her and the King of Inis scared her to death. So Anna was lost to her. To Paul, Marie said that Indians had taken her child, and he sent a search party out into the bayous to look for Anna. Eventually, Marie got another child, a boy, but he was sickly from the start, and he didn't survive the malaria he caught early. Marie looked upon his death as her punishment for having abandoned Anna. Paul had died a couple of years ago. He was wounded when he went on an expedition to Canada to obtain furs, and the wound never healed Celia concluded.

"She only wants to make peace with you before she dies. She has rheumatism and malaria, and she is very poorly."

Anna contemplated Celia's words. She still found it almost impossible to speak to her mother, but she consented to see her off and on at least.

"Celia, you must understand that I cannot command a feeling of forgiveness. She has ruined my whole life, and she is a stranger to me, but I promise that I will try to get to know her a little."

Anna stayed with Celia until the unrest inside her started to eat her up, and she knew then that she had to go back and face whatever awaited her there. Celia seemed very worried about Anna, but she kept her promise and refrained from discussing the matter until Anna herself brought the subject up. However, Anna decided to leave without talking to Celia. She left late at night trying to slip away unnoticed. She didn't see Celia behind the curtains on the second floor observing her when she hastened over the courtyard to the big oak door.

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The palace was eerily quiet when Anna returned and she went to her rooms without meeting anyone. The next morning she couldn't bring herself to go to any of the halls where the court met daily, so she stayed in her rooms and ordered some simple food to be brought to her there. She knew without asking that Conaill was back, and she also knew that Gareth was still in the castle. Anna was uncertain about Eavan however, and that worried her. She couldn't feel the aura of Eavan anywhere. Anna decided that if she got no sign from Eavan during the day she would have to go and look for her. She felt that she needed desperately to talk to Eavan.

In the late evening, it started to rain, and Anna noticed how different everything looked all of a sudden. She observed that she could see the Border far away from her window. Usually the lush foliage in the garden close to the palace hid it. Even the garden seemed sinister tonight, and she felt scared and lonely. She went to bed determined to try to obtain some news about Eavan in the morning, and she fell into a troubled sleep.

Anna woke up when someone ripped the bed curtains to the side and bent down over her. She gave a violent start and sat up, and she recognized Conaill immediately. He grabbed her by the shoulders and tore her out of the bed.

"Whore!" he shouted at her, and his face was so close to hers that she could see the gold on fire in his eyes in the light from the flashes outside the window.