by N P Hector
He spoke in hushed, encouraging tones, “love, it’s the first full moon since you’ve been here. I need you to come with me to the pools. This is our only chance. Okay?” He took her robe and shook it out before placing it beside her on the bed.
She sat up in the bed and rubbed her face, “look, Rom. Can we go swimming later? I’m just really, really tired.”
He shook his head and gently took her hands. He pulled her out of bed until she was standing in her no nonsense, plain white cotton nightgown. She didn’t own any sexy nightclothes, and preferred the floaty, whimsical white nightgowns to the scratchy imitated silk most stores carried.
She found them to be more comfortable. She wasn’t shy about her night clothes, so instead of tossing on the too warm robe she left it alone. The plain nightgown probably wouldn’t get his heart going, anyways.
His jaw clenched and his throat bobbed as he took in her marble like white skin and the inky black cloud of her hair. There was something ethereal about her as the moonlight fell over her. She looked like a nightingale. The gauzy white of her nightgown gave her a romantic appearance.
She climbed out of bed when she realized that Rom was serious about taking her to the pool. Or pools. She couldn’t remember what he had said.
Drowsily, she stood from the bed and immediately put her arms around his neck. He looked down in surprise. “I’m getting used to this mode of transport, hm?” she mumbled sleepily. He chuckled and brought her close as they snapped through time and place.
When they landed in the next place her bare feet hit a cold stone surface damp with water. It felt like walking on the sidewalk after it had rained.
Still holding her arms around Romulus, she looked around at the massive stone walls. The are they were in was surrounded by tall walls that formed a tower around a glistening dark pool. A single shaft of moonlight beamed down from the oculus at the top of the stone tower. The light from the small circle was the only light in the tower. She felt that the air should be cold and damp given the water at her feet, but this air was thick and warm. The contrast made her dizzy.
Stepping away from Romulus, she asked, “Rom, what is this place?”
Romulus put his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants and moved towards the pool, “this place is sacred to my people. To our people.” He crouched beside the pool and scooped water into his palm, “it has the ability to share memories of the occupants.”
She crouched beside him and let her hair drop forward. She didn’t care that the bottom of her nightgown was getting wet, or that her feet were bare. She felt drawn to the pool. Still, she found it odd that the body of water did not reflect anything. Instead of a mirror reflecting their images the pool was a smooth, bottomless void.
She moved forward to scoop water but he stopped her hand, “Selene, if we both enter this pool, you’ll see the memories I share with you. Do you understand?” She nodded.
He continued, “it’s time to show you what I know. To show you who we are at the center of our souls.” Maybe it had been the connection she had felt to him in the library. Or maybe it was that she was still half asleep, but she wanted to share this with him.
He stood and shucked off his shirt. She stared in awe as the hard ridges of his abdomen were revealed to her. His chest was magnificent and his biceps stretched as he raised the fabric over his head. She had sensed that he had a powerful form during their brief encounters earlier, but she could never have guessed that he would be so astoundingly attractive. It looked like his frame was steel wrapped in velvet. He could have been carved from marble.
She was still crouched by the pool when she realized that he caught her ogling him. He towered over her, his silver hair falling across his chest and the pendant he wore around his neck.
He went to remove his sweatpants, but at her panicked look he just kicked off his shoes. His muscles bulged as he lowered himself from the edge of the pool and into the water. He made his way over to where she was crouching and held his hands forward. The tips of his silver hair floated on the surface. His chest was scarred with gashes that had healed roughly. She traced a long scar that raced across his collarbone.
He didn’t say anything, he merely put his hands on her slender waist. His hands caressed her hips as he looked up at her with those bottomless eyes, black as the pool he stood in, and asked her, “are you ready?”
She braced her hands on his broad shoulders. Once she nodded, the sinew of his shoulders and biceps contracted as lowered her ever so gently into the pool. She slid down his chest and into the water.
Every area their bodies touched was excruciatingly electric. Once her feet touched the stone bottom of the pool, she realized that their reflections were still not shown in the glass of the water. And instead of causing ripples as she was lowered the pool remained flat.
Her arms were still around his neck when she looked up at him and asked, “so, what happens now.” He smiled and brushed the hair out of her face as the edge of the pool lit up. Selene turned frantically to watch as the pool began to ripple. Suddenly, it drew flat and an image of a woman with bright scarlet hair appeared in the pool. The woman was...stunning. She was gathering herbs in the woods when an arrow whizzed by her. She dropped her basket and sprinted up the hill. The sound of hooves pounding through the trees filled the chasm of the pool. Selene frowned as the woman was clearly losing ground as the horses gained. The woman held up her hands as if to create the same shield Selene had seen Romulus produce. But nothing formed. The woman screamed in frustration and looked around frantically. She was suddenly surrounded by men dressed in period costume and holding swords. Instead of bursting into tears, the woman straightened and lifted her chin, defiant in the face of danger.
Romulus’s grip tightened on her waist. She shot him a questioning look. “Sorcha was always so brave, even in the face of insurmountable odds” he said.
Selene looked back into the pool and watched as a man with dark hair and an impressive build appeared next to the circle. He was handsome in a roguish way. The woman shied away and probably though he was a part of the cabal. But instead of joining the men, he called to them in a booming voice, “gentlemen, do you know this lady?”
A portly man on a speckled horse “you have no business here. We’re transporting this woman to Kem’s camp. We can kill you and take her, or, you can step away and we’ll take her.” The roguish man addressed the woman and said, “it hardly seems like anyone consulted you, did they?” She looked at him like he was demented.
“Jewel of Andorra, we’ve been instructed to bring you back to the camp. They only stipulated that you be alive, they didn't give us any guidelines about your condition.” When she made no effort to follow them, the same man spoke again and gestured for the men to take her, “seize her.”
Just as a thin man with a straggly moustache yanked her arm, the dark-haired handsome stranger lit up a ring of fire around the woman. The man on the horse screamed and dropped her arm as the flames scorched him. The other men dismounted and drew their swords. But the young man dispatched them quickly, and when the ring of fire was extinguished, he stood there. His muscular chest was heaving from the exertion, his body covered in blood not his own. Running a hand through his hair, he shoved his sword into the ground and strode towards the woman in the circle.
The pool shimmered once more. Selene leaned so her back was to his chest and took a deep breath in, “Rom, what was that?”
He wrapped her in his arms and rested his chin atop her head, “that was how we met.”
Selene turned her neck so she could meet his eyes. Before she could ask him to elaborate, he reached forward and swooped his hand across the pool. The ripples caused by the movement of his arm caused a new image to emerge. Except this time, the man and young woman met along the side of a large limestone wall. They were laughing and embracing, and when a patrol marched along the upper portion of the wall the young woman pulled the roguish looking man into an enclave and kissed him with all her heart.
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The pool shimmered again, and this time the young man scaled the building by moonlight. Once he had a firm grip on the tower’s windowsill, he heaved his body into the room. The woman was in this image as well, except this time her hair was longer, and she embraced him readily in what appeared to be her bedroom. The two kissed passionately and made their way to the bed. It felt intrusive and wrong to be a voyeur to such…. intimacy. She could only see the images the pool provided but she could already tell that the young couple was very much in love. It was in his protective body language and her soft caress of his skin, her welcoming embrace.
She turned her eyes from the image, but Rom nudged her shoulder, “this is the final image.” The pool now revealed a terrified but determined couple fleeing on horseback. They rode dangerously through a thick forest at night. It wasn’t long before the woman was yanked off the horse and a thick circle of fire rose to protect the small group as it had when they first met. But as a menacing man with a regal bearing and dark red hair in a purple velvet duvet approached the circle of fire Selene felt her stomach drop instinctually. She watched as the young warrior fought to protect his circle of fire and the woman within it. And she watched as the woman threw herself in front of the blade to protect her lover, and the two embraced for the final time. She felt water droplets fall on her cheek and lifted her head to see if it was raining. It wasn’t long before she realized that it wasn’t rain, but her own tears.
The image in the pool disappeared and the water was still once more. She was shaking and looked furtively at the pool, hoping for a happier ending. But the pool was eerily silent and still. Her harsh breathing filled the oppressive silence.
She couldn’t stop crying.
She turned to embrace Romulus. In that moment she felt drawn to him, this handsome stoic man who held such pain in the memory pool. Who had felt such tremendous love and loss.
He soothed her and stroked her hair reassuringly, “love, it’s in the past. Shhh it’s done and gone. We’re here now.”
Selene drew away from him and sniffled, “it’s just so sad. They loved each other so much and it was just ripped away from them. Just gone, at the snap of someone’s fingers. People search a lifetime for that love, and then just to lose it…” she shook her head, “it is unbearably cruel.”
He placed gentle kisses on her cheeks and kissed away her tears. She leaned into his touch and caressed the back of his head.
In a voice so low it was almost a growl, he tipped her chin up so she could meet his eyes, “love is so precious, so rare. Only something so beautiful in life could come from death-- the death of a star.”
He murmured against her hair, “my dear Selene, you are so precious to me. The other half of my soul. Now that I’ve found you don’t ask me to let you go.”
Here was this statue of a man, his jaw firm and framed by the silver of his hair. He was a picture of black, white, and silver, standing like an Adonis in a pool of black and a white moonbeam. And he looked at her so earnestly, with such devotion that she felt it in the pit of her stomach. He looked at her like a man who loved a woman with every bit of his soul.
But although his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, as if he itched to touch her, she knew that he would not touch her. Not until she made the first move. She knew he wanted it to be her decision. And that’s exactly what she did in the dark pool in this sacred place.
It wasn’t the memories of the pool that made her hands grip the length of his hair. Nor was it the devotion he had to the woman he called Sorcha that made her draw his face down to hers. It was the slow building tension that had started like a fuse as soon as she met him. The way he held her close and thought of her needs. The way he let her lead as he watched with his dark, thoughtful eyes. This was a man who loved her and respected her wholly as a woman.
And so, in that pool of memories, they shared a passionate kiss. The first kiss they shared was like slow, hot molasses. But this, this was a wildfire. Selene had sensed that he kept a firm grip on his passion. But all that emotion and power was unleashed when she drew his lips to hers.
He moved lightning fast and pulled her close with both hands, his fingers digging into the skin of her lower waist and ass. He kissed her like he would devour her. She drew her legs around his trim waist, and he backed her to the edge of the pool so she was caught between the marble wall of the pool and the hardness of his body.
He tore his mouth away from hers and began kissing the apex of her neck and shoulder. He growled against her skin, “my god. You’re intoxicating.” She let her head fall back so he could access more of her sensitive skin, and she pulled at the muscled planes of his back in an effort to pull him impossibly closer.
She smelled the fragrance that was his. The natural sandalwood that seemed to follow him everywhere. She breathed it in as he nipped at her skin, as if he would devour her whole. “Rom, I need you to love me as me. I couldn’t bare anything else.”
He paused in the caress of her body and drew back to look at her face. “What are you asking me?”
She had known that it would come to this. That eventually the rubber band of attraction between them would snap shut and pull them into each other. She also knew that Rom was too honorable to accept anything less than her full and complete consent. And there was something sexy about his demand that the first move come from her very lips. Although the tension roiled almost visibly beneath his skin, he waited for her. Leaning in, she whispered in his ear, “Rom, I want you to make me see the stars you speak so highly of.”
That was everything he needed. The passion that he had kept leashed exploded, and he kissed her lips. She tightened her hold on his body and when her lips left his it was so she could worship his body with them.
He growled low in his throat and shifted her so he could lift the nightgown off her body. “I need to see you. All of you.” She helped him wriggle out the sopping wet gown, and he tossed it to the edge of the pool where it hit with a thud.
She resisted the urge to cover her chest with her arms. But there was something so vulnerable about touching him completely naked, chest to chest. He let out a low breath and caressed her breasts softly. So softly that his touch flicked over her. He captured her mouth in his again and cupped her fully, caressing her breasts with his large hands.
She felt restless now. The emptiness she felt was almost unbearable. She wriggled against him in an effort to relieve the building pressure. He released her mouth and threw back his head.
“if you keep doing that this will be over much faster than I want it to be."
When he looked back down at her his eyes were pure silver. He looked over the cream of her skin and palmed the globes of her hips. He lifted her ever so slightly so he could press against her.
With the edge of the pool at her back and his hard body pressing against hers Selene let out a moan and undulated against him. “Rom, I need…” a frenzy had overtaken her body. She needed him to quench the fire that was rising within her.
He clenched his jaw as he languidly caressed her body before pressing ever so gently into her. He held her back with one arm and her head to his with the other. He murmured sweet nothings into her ear. How beautiful she was. How much he loved her. How good they felt together.
Her eyes were wide open now as she took his passion and gave it back equally, if not more. She had known that taking this step with Rom would be profound, but she had no idea that it could be like this. Her body shook and she tried to clutch him closer. Ever so closer.
There was a building pressure in her. In one fierce stroke it erupted and she felt it fizzle through her like lightning. She was limp in his arms as she slowly drifted down from the stars. Her body was still tingling as he filled her completely, rocking into her.
His body shuddered as he threw back his head and roared. He gripped her so close to him that she felt his fingers biting into her flesh.
She kissed him fully as he came down and his body relaxed. Hers, he was finally hers
. Just as she was his. The magik of the moment drifted over them.
He looked into her eyes and kissed her on the forehead as he tucked her gently into his chest. Against the sleekness of his chest she could hear his heart beating a fast tempo. She smiled with the knowledge that she had given him that.
He gave her body another squeeze and let out a deep sigh.
“Selene, my beautiful Selene. You’ve given me the stars.”
She placed a gently kiss on his chest as they stood in the smooth water of the memory pool.
Chapter Thirteen
Today and always, beyond tomorrow, I need you beside me, always as my friend, lover and forever soul mate...
– Ritu Ghatourey
Selene had woken that morning in Romulus’s arms. She had stretched like a cat in the sun and burrowed into his chest. She felt loved and protected and there was no feeling like it in the world.
He had smiled lazily and pulled her closer. They didn’t need to say anything about last night. They both knew that something had shifted fundamentally between them. They were bonded together in a way that was so strong, and so pure.
She had managed to pry herself away from his arms and jump into the shower. He had tried to join her but she reminded him that he had to be in the council room.
Reluctant, he gave her one last longing glance and left the room. After the shower Selene had skipped down the stairs and to the kitchen for breakfast. She knew that it irked Frederik that she refused to eat in the formal dining room. But, she was pleasantly surprised when she arrived and found another young women sitting in the kitchen.
The woman had bright red hair and a slim build. She reminded Selene of a garden pixie. She tried to look at the woman’s ears discreetly. She had been caught red handed and the woman waved her over to join her. Frederik looked disapprovingly at the two ladies seated in the island, and tsked at their presence. They knew that it was likely false bravado. Deep down they both knew that Frederik enjoyed the company.
