Love Charms

by Multiple

“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 halfhearted 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 a
re 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.

  Chapter 8

  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.

  The moment was interrupted, however, by the sound of great horns and clamouring feet. There was commotion going on in the courtyard outside, but the horns and the sound of marching feet were definitely from the city proper below.

  Svella stood up, “The Seer,” she said, eyes wide, her voice full of awe and reverence. She’d gleaned little of the mystical Seer so far, not that the guards didn’t want to talk about her, they did! But they held her in almost as much reverence as the God-King himself, and when in a group were always afraid to speak of her at any length for fear of embarrassment.

  Moving to the tent flap she pulled it open, shameless about her near nudity. Mirella had not been confined to the tent for some time, or at least, she didn’t suppose so. Though she had contented herself with her Master’s will, coming at his whim or staying otherwise. When everything she could want was provided to her where she was, she had little reason to wander off.

  She didn’t bother fretting about her outfit—or lack of one—and simply rose. He had enjoyed her brazenness, but she had no real understanding if this woman would. She knew it was important and dared not to disappoint, so her back straightened and she mustered all the courage she could as she slipped past the tent’s entrance, standing outside in the glaring natural light. Her body was on display with her large, pregnant breasts spilling forth from the two strips of fabric that hid little more than her nipples, the dark areolas visible.

  No other concubine but her or the guards could have wandered off like that, but the two went to the walls of the palace courtyard and climbed the stairs. The few men who were still there moved away, giving them a wide berth. Though both were obviously pregnant with the God-King’s children, and they could not have supplanted that seed, there was still a tremendous taboo on being anywhere near his chosen women.

  Leaning upon the intricately carved walls, Svella looked out over the city below. The winding roadway that curled up the hillside through the buildings towards the palace was designed for defence. It meant a party such as the grand procession approaching the cities gates would take almost an hour to reach them.

  “There she is,” uttered Svella with awe in her voice, eyes wide with shimmering marvel.

  She didn’t feel the same awe, though she wondered if she should. The mother of a god… She wondered at that frequently over the course of the week, but still her mind hadn’t wrapped around it. The man—the god—she knew had no need for such things. She still had issues coming to terms with it, and as her stomach pressed against the cold stone she was transported, just for a moment, back to the garden.

  She shivered as she looked towards Svella’s gaze, trying to capture that same look of respect on her face.

  “How shoul
d I address her? What is she like?” Mirella murmured, moving instinctively closer to the other woman.

  Svella could not tear her gaze away from the procession below. For the Ka’reem it was one of majesty and pomp, which as a people they were not fond of.

  Large banners flew in the air, streaming in the winds from the north. It was hard to see them clearly from there, but Svella handed her an eye piece looted from the palace. “You do not address her,” she stated in a subdued voice. “The Seer is no longer a woman… she is beyond us now,” she explained.

  Peering through the monocular she saw the guards, they were women, like the concubines. But they wore heavy armour, long cloaks of shimmering black flowed behind them, and the full face masks and helmets made them look like hideous, beaked monsters. She saw nothing of the seer however, for she must have rode in the palanquin at the heart of the procession, shielded from sight by silks.

  Not a woman? The intrigue was getting to her as she stared over the procession, feeling suddenly so naked and vulnerable. It wasn’t a feeling she enjoyed outside of the bedroom—or the garden, or the throne room—and she looked back to Svella, “What do they think of us?”

  With a shrug of her shoulders Svella leaned on the parapet further. “It has been many generations since we have had a seer whom could pass on her foresight to the people. I have been in her presence, have performed ritual. But never has she spoken of or to me, if that is what you mean.” She looked directly at Mirella, “Many women would kill you if they knew you were about to see her. Even in defiance of the God-King,” she paid the deferment, “to keep our secrets safe.”

  “Oh.” Well that was reassuring. She handed back the looking glass and her skin prickled with nervousness. “We should await them?” she asked, more than said. She was usually so calm and in control, but in this, she was looking to her lone ally.

  Placing a hand reassuringly upon her shoulder, Svella gave her a reassuring smile, “Do not fret. If the God-King wishes it, it is for the best.” She could not doubt the large woman’s faith in her lord.