At the Edge of Desire

I can hear fighting. Shouting. It sounds like there is a battle outside and it’s been raging for hours. I flinch, seeking refuge of the shadows, wondering what the hell is happening.

Issar is not here. He hasn’t returned. I heard the guards talking days ago that he left. I have been locked in this cage for three days now and they’ve only given me food once. Dry, stale bread and water, but I ate it anyway.

No one has even looked at me. I’m half delirious with hunger and pain. And a part of me wonders if this entire battle is simply in my head.

A shout echoes down the stairwell outside. Whoever is attacking, whatever is going on, it’s right here now. Right where I am. A man cries out and I recognize the sound, the heart-wrenching cry of someone who’s been fatally wounded.

I hear the slump as his body falls and then the slump as another soldier falls. They’re coming and I cannot escape.

I can see the shadow. Someone is here on the other side of the door. I’m shaking. I want to run, to flee, but I am stuck in this cell, shackled like a dog.

The door slams open, crashing against the wall, and I cry out in shock and fear. But it’s instantly silenced by the presence of this man. This figure in the door.

I can feel his power, his strength from across the dungeon. He is massive, domineering, commanding the very air around him. If Issar was terrifying, then this man before me is so much worse.

“Kera?” the man asks and I gulp because he knows my name. It sounds strange on his lips, seductive even, and that thought throws me off.

The creature in me stirs, but she does not want to play. She is as confused as me.

I don’t move. I stay where I am, shackled, paralyzed in the corner.

He steps forward into the room, and as he does, his features come into focus.

His dark hair is unruly around his shoulders. His face is undeniably, alarmingly handsome, and his eyes…my heart twists at his eyes. They’re golden, glowing; it’s as if a tiger is staring back at me.

I gasp in shock because now I know who this man is. King Helos. Leader of the Great Council.

I’m on my feet. I don’t remember standing, but I know I am. This man, this king, before me is too much. His energy, his aura…I can’t take it.

I shut my eyes and look away. My head is spinning. My mind is lost. And as my fear catches in my chest, I pass out into oblivion.

***

I come round, knowing that I am dressed, that I am being carried. That King Helos of all people has me in his arms.

I don’t understand it. I don’t want to understand it. Now that I am out of the dungeons and my body is no longer numb with cold, all I can feel is my pain.

He lays me down on what feels like a camp bed, and I glance around, realizing that it is another carriage. A bigger carriage. This king is taking me away.

I shut my eyes, wanting to cry. I don’t know whether to feel relief or fear, and my body seems to flit constantly from one to the other.

The collar is gone from my neck. Someone removed it, and my skin feels so sore from where it rubbed.

I let myself drift, and for days I don’t move. I don’t do anything but sleep. My body is healing itself, and the pain is fading.

As I sleep, I dream of the sea. Of the water. I dream that I am swimming in it. Submerged in it. Safe in it.

But then Issar is there, in the water with me. I can feel his awful eyes as he watches me. I can feel his essence poisoning the water all around me.

It is no longer a place of safety; it is a place of poison, of festering toxicity. I gasp, and the poison is in me. It’s seeping in through my body, leeching inside, and the creature in me twists in agony.

He is killing us.

I scream out and try to fight, but he is still there, and his poison still lingers.

I scream again, louder, and my cry echoes in my head. Someone is touching me, comforting me. I open my eyes, but they can’t focus. All I can see is him. And I whimper because it feels like he has taken my only joy in this world.

I drift off again and more days pass. I dream of the sea over and over. Of the water. Of the waves crashing and tumbling around me. Of everything my body yearns for. Issar is no longer there. He is no longer tormenting me.

All there is now is me floating in the heady daze of my imagined ocean, with its delicious saltiness soaking into my skin.

And I’m delirious for it, desperate for it. The creature inside me is melding with my mind and together we are lost in our fantasy. She wants to get out. She is fighting to be free and I have to stop her.

The sheets are wrapped around me and I’m aware so vaguely that there is someone there, in the carriage, but I also know somehow that he is sleeping.

I make a barely perceptible groan. My face is rammed into the pillow. My eyes are shut tight. The water is around me in my mind and I am drowning in the ecstasy of it.

I am wet between my legs. So wet. The creature shudders and I know I have to do something or I will lose all control.

I’m writhing, slowly, grinding with my body flat against the mattress because my need is such that nothing else matters, nothing else exists.

I’m intoxicated by it.

Beguiled.

So incandescently lost in my mind that I cannot stop even if I wanted to.

I groan again, and without thinking, my hand is moving down to touch between my legs. I have to. I have to get some release before I am lost. The creature inside me is screaming for it.

She’s as desperate as I am. We both yearn for this. We both need this. Our survival depends upon it because if I don’t, she will come out and there will be nothing to stop her.

My fingers are beneath the skirts of the dress they put me in, stroking, touching, playing. I am so wet I feel myself dripping, and as my fingers circle my clit, I moan again.

Quietly, though, softly. I don’t want the man to hear. I don’t want him to know. I have to do this in secret.

I’m so close. My body is humming, throbbing; my climax is right here, and it’s so different from the awful ones Issar has forced on me. I am filled with pleasure, with want, with a desire that only this moment now can fulfill.

My body shudders and I breathe out my orgasm in long, low, gasping breaths. If I could, I would scream. I would scream so loud, but this moment is enough.

This moment, this almost silent release gives me what I need. What my body needs. What we both need to survive.

I shudder again, throwing my head back, and the man clears his throat loudly.

I turn. Stupidly, I turn.

He is awake. He is watching me. And he knows exactly what I’m doing.

My fingers are still there on my clit, though the sheets are thick enough that he cannot exactly make it out. My arousal hangs thick between us though; we can both smell it, and his golden eyes express something I cannot read.

I gulp. King Helos is right here, in the carriage, and I don’t know what to do.

My heart is racing even harder. My breath is caught in my throat, my arousal is leaking out of me, and all the while my eyes are locked on him.

He stands up as best he can. His body is too big, too strong for this space, and then he leaves without speaking, without looking at me. Without saying a word.