Shadows of the Night (Kingdom Key Book 2)

by TylerRose.

  “Give my love to Mother,” Shestna said by way of goodbye.

  Dorn teleported out and Shestna knew a moment of mild jealousy for having lost that convenience. The boosters and machines would no longer teleport him, no matter how strong they were. Trade-offs made for getting his health back and taking his permanent place as Apogee, things he’d had to give up to be part of her future.

  He went across the hall, finding her lying on her side facing the window. A pillow between her thighs alleviated her discomfort. He could see the red welts standing out on her white skin. Angry red stripes curving around the back of her thighs.mov

  He shaped himself to her, kissed her hot forehead. “Do you feel better?”

  “I will,” she said.

  “I think I hated it more than you did. In future, when you feel you need this kind of treatment, you will get it directly from Dorn without my having to order it. Call him or wait until the next time he comes here. He is here many times a week, so you would never have to wait long.”

  “Was he actually allowed to have sex with me before our public wedding ceremony? Or was he taking a liberty he should not have?” she asked.

  “He told you the he and I are your only lovers, did he not?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “He may have you whenever he wants because I have said he may.”

  “He also said he will make the rules for me and he will issue all punishments,” she said.

  “Yes, which he did today and will in the future. When there are no sons visiting, this will be your punishment room. It should be separate from my room and from yours, and should not be done in your own home unless you have requested it.”

  She turned in his arms to rest her head against him and be held closer. “I am sorry I behaved so badly. I handled it poorly. I will work on being patient.”

  “I want you to be yourself, Tyler. Don’t be something you’re not,” he said.

  “What if it’s what I want to become?”

  “Then it will take time, my dearest beloved. Time and conscious effort and we will both have to be patient.”

  She turned her head up to kiss him, and continue to kiss until she reached down to pinch between his penile hooks.

  “Shall I call Dorn back? Or Mankell?” he asked.

  “I want you. Only you.”

  He smiled, reaching to pull the pillow from between her thighs while they rolled in unison. He was gentle with her, this being the consummation of their permanent marriage. For once, she did not try to make him be harder. She took what he chose to be, enjoyed the moment when he was unmoving but fully inside her. She opened her eyes to see him watching her.

  “I do love you, Sta. All the other stuff aside, I really do love you. We’re married and there’s no such thing as divorce on Voran. So we’re married until one of us dies. Or I do the Immaculate thing, whatever that might be.” She paused, he waited. “I’m okay with it, even if I wasn’t ready for it.”

  He smiled, kissed her gently. His penis retracted. “Let us go out for supper and when we get home I will give you a lovely whipping before I take you to bed.”

  Rather than go into the Market, they got into the car to drive to the next Principality. He took her into an enclosed store that sold a variety of leather items. Gloves, hats, cloaks. In the back corner hung a selection of coiled whips. Braiding was braiding and whips really didn’t change all that much. She picked up a thin braided handle. About eight inches long, it split into three round braid tails only as big around as a pencil. They were about a foot long, and ended in straight lengths of flat leather another foot long and half an inch wide with an inverted V cut into the tips. Two feet plus the handle, the entire thing was about thirty, thirty two inches long.

  “What do you have there?” Shestna asked, looking over her shoulder.

  He took it from her hand, swished it back and forth to feel the action. Whip in his other hand put back, he bought the one she had picked up. Pulling her close for a kiss, he reached behind her to wrap the whip around her waist. The loose falls threaded twice through the hanging strap held it in place.

  “You will wear the whip I will use on you later,” he said.

  Rain starting up sent them to a restaurant with a fully covered interior but open walls. He ordered a variety of small dishes for the two of them to share. Waiting for their food, they danced slow and close together next to their table, to the sound of rain as a backdrop to the music. With his back to the people and her head resting on his chest, they were as alone as they could be in this public place. People knew who they were and watched them closely, but kept their distance out of respect. No one doubted they were in love and the marriage really was one of passion.

  They ate, dancing again for a time afterward before returning home.

  Neverseens dismissed, Shestna removed his bride’s dress. Unhurried, savoring the moment, first taking the whip from around her waist and hanging it over his own shoulder. Sliding the dress down her arms and chest, pushing it over her hips until it fell by its own weight to the floor.

  He selected a spot for her to kneel on the curving sofa with her head on her arms. He stood on his knees behind her, bent over her with his arms outside of hers to frame her.

  “My brother punished you. I will not. We may call it that for my father’s sake, for propriety’s sake and because it is expected that I will keep you in the traditional ways. You and I will know that this is how we enjoy our deepest intimacies. I will start carefully and give you time.”

  She nodded over her arms, under his cheek. One of his hands slid back and reached down to find the wetness between her legs. His hips went with hers as she gyrated and ground with the motion of his fingers.

  “It is easy to throw out the plan and simply have you,” he said, full palm gripping her sex. “But I promised you the first whipping of our marriage. Do you still want it?”

  “Yes, please,” she said, loud enough to be heard clearly.

  “Have I told you how very much I enjoy your politeness in asking for what you want?” he asked, gathering her hair in a tight fist.

  She only smiled, letting the question hang as rhetorical. He released her hair in front of her left shoulder, baring her fully. Velvety soft fingertips traced a vertical path over her unmarked skin. He backed away and swung the implement to test his reach and see how easily the piece would flick back and forth. She was already as far forward as she could be, against the back of the sofa. She could not pull inward and away.

  With moderate speed, the three falls sailing back and forth, he reached closer until the very tips swiped across her upper back. She winced, more surprised by the contact than in pain. He continued a dozen times before changing his swing to snap the tips into landing with a sudden sting. Flinching and then frozen in place, he waited for her to relax again before resuming the side to side motion.

  Three red splotches just a bit larger than the end inch of the falls appeared among the many horizontal pink stripes. Another three splotches joined them, her breathy grunt all the sound she made. Her strength in remaining in place, the heave of her shoulders and flexing of muscles in processing the pain, became a dance of their own. He wished he could feel through her mind as he used to.

  A split second of anger and he laid on the whip maybe a little too hard, with a little too much follow through. She gave a short cry as three stripes half a foot long streaked an angle across her right shoulder blade. Liquid ran down the inside of her left thigh, accompanied by a deep groan of relief.

  The whip moved faster side to side, the falls having more contact as they dragged across her skin in both directions in a second and giving her no respite for twenty passes. Sudden snap and her scream filled the room. He gave her no time, laying it again in the same way on the left side. She had pulled back away from the sofa. He stepped in, hand gripping the top of her shoulder and side of her neck to push her forward again and force her to lie over the top.

  “I decide when you move,” he said. �
�I decide when I’m done.”

  He was only done with the side to side motion. She had enough horizontal stripes. Shoes and shirt off, he flicked the tails out at her, the very tips landing. Swinging down and back, throwing forward, he fell into a left-right-left-right rhythm. She no longer screamed. Grunts and yelps, not every time. He threw the whip to the floor next to her head and removed his pants. Kneeling behind her, he lifted her farther up onto the floor over top of the sofa and took position.

  Holding her in place, he engaged his anchors fully. She jolted out of her haze, his hand braced and ready to keep in in that spot.

  “Tonight you get the full experience of the Voranian wife,” he said. “You don’t get to say no.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” she said, and groaned an orgasm as he filled her with his full extension.

  “Good. For the next weeks, I want you to enjoy the lovers I send to you. When it is time, you will not get your next contraceptive dose. I want my child in you as soon as I can make it happen. After the date of that appointment, which you will cancel, you will not have lovers out of my presence. Not even my brother.”

  “Good,” she said. “Shut up and fuck me already.”

  He laughed, giving her the vigor she didn’t know he’d lost over the last few years of illness.

  “This floor is hard,” she commented after a time and a string of strong orgasms.

  “The comfort of the female is irrelevant,” he told her.

  For some reason, that made her cum again. He stopped, disengaging the anchors she’d gotten used to. Her distressed yelp was exactly like any other female.

  “We will go to my bed in a moment. First, now the razors are off, I must do this.”

  A zipper sounded. A nail kit landed next to her head, open and with the clippers already missing. Her arm in hand, twisted up behind her, he cut the four healthy nails off and filed them flush with her fingertips.

  “You will give me your other arm,” he said, releasing the first.

  “No.”

  One hand holding the back of her neck, he reached for her right hand. She was no match for his strength now that he had the crystal power, and could sap her strength away by washing his energy over her in a breath. She gave up her brief fight. Arm bent as the first had been, he trimmed and filed the nails.

  “Now you are a properly declawed and subdued female. Take yourself to my bed,” he said, moving aside.

  She needed a moment sitting first. Unsteady legs carried her along and she used anything her hand could find for support. Her back stung and smarted, her vaginal opening throbbed from those sharp hook-like anchors. She was high as could be on the endorphins, head swimming so that the room was spinning when she fell onto her side on the bed. He took long enough that she fell asleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shestna watched her walk into the bedroom corridor and picked up the flashing phone he’d been ignoring for the last two minutes. Press of a button and he listened to the message.

  “It’s Baener. We’ve begun an investigation of the Congress Attorney General’s office and several others. Earnol knows he’s being investigated. Keep a close eye on her. I do have a secret compound on which she can stay if needs be.”

  Shestna called him back. “What compound?”

  “It’s a prison on Deek’Trai V. It’s small, not known by the Congress. There are some bungalows where she could be very well cared for.”

  “You mean the Culpation League, don’t you?”

  “Yes. The compound is small, but she can have the run of the grounds,” Baener said. “And the town below it.”

  “No. she’s not a criminal. I won’t have her caged like one,” Shestna said. “How many do you think we’ll take down with Earnol?”

  “I don’t know. The Attorney General can claim he was blackmailed and threatened. If we cannot find proof of complicity, we can’t really bring charges. Same with the Chief of Security. No one has ever been convicted of following orders.”

  “I cannot teleport back and forth to the Congress anymore. I have to use ships. I will ask Gar Mankell of K’Tran IV to assist you. Thank you, Baener.”

  Mankell was still on Voran, was leaving in the morning for home.

  “You’re accustomed to investigating matters,” Shestna said. “Would you help to investigate Earnol’s connections and influence over the AG office, Security, and any other office that would have helped him keep control.”

  “We may bring down half the administration,” Mankell observed.

  “We might.”

  “It would be my pleasure to assist in that enterprise. I’ll go to the station tomorrow rather than home.”

  Shestna thanked him and went to his bed to find his wife so asleep she didn’t stir when he kissed her cheek.

  Mankell decided not to wait. He left that night for the Congress, using the Voranian Palace’s high-powered teleport device to make the trip. He took three of his closest brothers and paid Baener a visit straight away. They took a meal together on the market level, discussing the case against Earnol, the Attorney General, the Security Chief, and whoever else was involved.

  “They will be revealed in time,” Baener said with confidence. “But it will take time. It may be months before we bring charges against anyone. She will be in danger every second until this is done.”

  “Even after,” Mankell added. “She will never be safe now this is in motion. Can we not remove him on preliminary charges? He did order her kidnapped. Is not that sufficient?”

  “Yes but the concern is that everyone else will begin to burn the evidence, as it were, if we take action this early.”

  “Will not they already be doing that if know they are being investigated?” Mankell asked. “We should arrest him. Let him go to a first hearing. See if a judge—one not on his payroll—will agree to hold him or place a high bond assuring his compliance.”

  “I come from a place where justice is fast and hard, so I do agree with you. Others are reluctant to act so precipitously.”

  “Then I say we bypass those who are reluctant and forge ahead on our own.”

  During the time Baener spent considering the option, Earnol came onto the level. He saw them and approached, making the mistake of offering a hand to Mankell.

  “It is good to see K’Tran Gars on the station in support of their Ambassador.”

  Mankell held the hand tight, standing his full height to look down two inches into the old man’s face.

  “You know your reign is ending and you know it will be ugly. Retire. Now.”

  “I have no intention of retiring,” Earnol chuckled.

  [Then let us be very clear] Mankell thought, smiling as cordially as any friend and knowing a person could not be charged with any thought. [If there is any attempt to abduct or in any way harm the First Daughter of Voran—if she gets so much as a bee sting—I will not wait for a trial. I will end you.]

  Mankell enjoyed the color draining from Earnol’s face. He released the hand, walking away to the lift with his men following. The last turned back to be sure they weren’t attacked from behind on their way to the lift.

  Earnol looked down to Baener still sitting at the table. “Investigate all you want. I’ve done nothing that was not within my power as Administrator. I never operate outside those boundaries.”

  “But you do, Earnol. We all know you do. Proof has always been the problem and now we have it and there is nothing you can do about it.”

  Earnol only smiled and walked on to his dinner engagement with the Attorney General of the Celestial Congress.

  “What do they actually have?” he asked after turning in his order.

  “It’s not good. She never formally renounced her Earth citizenship. Her California driver’s license identification is perfectly valid and the residence is maintained for her indefinitely. Plus she now owns the house and land that belonged to Adelaide.”

  “Gypsy tradition is to sell things to non-gypsies,” Earnol said.

 
“And some within the Romany community are quite up in arms over it,” the AG said. “Adelaide willed everything she owned to Tyler. Not only is she a citizen, but she’s a land-holder. Adelaide’s oldest son’s son is living there and taking care of it. The master bedroom is kept waiting for Tyler. They have you on that one, which also adds false arrest.”

  “How could I have known about the property? It had just happened.”

  “Earnol, you cannot in one setting go on about being the most powerful telepath and then turn to another setting and say ‘how could I have known?’ That’s not going to work. All they have to say is ‘you should have asked’ and they’d be right. You jumped the gun. Badly. You cannot deny she was a citizen. You cannot deny you didn’t know she was a citizen. You had no right to tell her she wasn’t allowed to go to Earth. If there’s more, you’d better tell me right now.”

  “There is. If my son decides to speak, he can tell them I told him not to help her develop her abilities. And I told the Doyen Confederacy to keep their distance.”

  The AG sighed long and hard.

  “Can we work out a deal between the two of us?” Earnol asked. “If you file the charges we agree to file and we go directly to our judge and he rules immediately for our plea agreement. Something that lets me resign and pay a fine but keeps me out of prison?”

  “It will probably have to include a condition that you not enter into politics or public service,” the AG said.

  “I can live with that. Can there be a stipulation that there be no other charges from my time in office?”

  “I don’t know if I can swing that.”

  “How soon can we do this?” Earnol asked.

  “Let me go talk to Judge Aaland. I may be able to do this tomorrow. I’ll let you know when and you can meet me at the courthouse on Sistair.”

  Earnol nodded his agreement, the server bringing their food.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hard, dreamless sleep she didn’t wake up from until the sun was bright. Ch’Wik and Saber were there, playing a card game.