Daemon & Sunny Ch. 04

Tarkat II

"That is it? That stupid box?" Ragor, self-proclaimed Pirate King, kicked Davrol Saunders. "You brought me all the way out here with promises of the Matrix for a stupid, uglybox?"

"It contains the Matrix—it has to!" Saunders swore through pain-clenched teeth. "All my research pointed to the Matrix being on the ship that crashed here!"

"Prove it." Ragor planted his boot on Saunder's shoulder and shoved him into the pit. Saunders, who had made this bargain, to find the Matrix for his new, cruel master and gain his freedom with its ransom, gingerly touched the box. And stared. There was no protective field. He gripped it more firmly, pulled it out of the dirt, and righted it. The pirate crouched with a hiss, staring at that torn-centered ouroboros. "Itis the funerary box! The ashes alone will be worth a fortune!"

There was no protective zapping; Saunders could only think that the Matrix was no longer there. His first thought was that Saumwe had taken it somehow, but then the image of the stupor-quiet Dannonee woman came to him; she'd had time alone with the box, and Saumwe's encounter had seemed like a rejection. Ms. Dannonee's encounter seemed more like she had been lost in the secrets of the Matrix when the pirates had grabbed her. He thought quickly with the mind that had pieced together all the puzzles this far, found the funerary box's resting place for the past forty years. "Worth my freedom?"

"You bargained the Matrix for your freedom," Ragor reminded him with a cruel smile. "So where's the Matrix?"

"It's not here." Saunders flinched from the other man's raised fist and spoke quickly. "I had to be sure that bitch Dannonee hadn't stolen it by checking here first! Think of the valuable ashes as a bonus, Master!"

Ragor liked being called master. He lowered his fist, smiling cruelly once more. "So where is this 'bitch Dannonee'?"

"She was sold in the same slave house you bought me from. Master," Saunders added. "All we have to do is trace her sale, track her down, and force her to tell us where the Matrix is."

"If she managed to steal it, she might have managed to make herself the new Empress," Ragor pointed out. "And that would make the Matrix, and by extention you,useless."

"There may still be time to make yourself Emperor!" Saunders countered, appealing to his owner's ego. "That's assuming she's been chosen—she didn't strike me as the empress type. If she just stole it, you can steal the Matrix from her, and if she was chosen, you can marry her and become Emperor—she's a woman, Master," he coaxed. "All you have to do is beat her to put her in her place and keep her there, and you'll be the ruler of the Imperium, with the power of a god at your fingertips!"

Ragor smiled. He took the box from Saunder's hands. "These ashes aren't yours to bargain with, slave. But once I'm Emperor, I'll give you your freedom. You'll be too small and insignificant to torment, then. I'll have whole worlds to plunder."

"Yes, Master." Saunders bowed his head subserviently. Secretly burning inside to possess the Matrix for himself, to shred this bastard cell from cell with the power of the Matrix at his own command. "No one deserves it more than you."

Astorra Prime

One moment she was undulating in front of her instructors and their musicians, her hips twisting subtlely, carrying her body around in a small circle in time with the slow, sexy beat, her arms and hands flicking above her head like the hem of her tasseled, high-slit skirt, eyes demurely lowered. A gong shattered the music, interrupting it between one beat and the next. Instantly, thesaeda servants scattered. Sunny lowered her arms and looked behind her. Daemon was striding over the bridge, his hands impatiently stripping at the buttons of his jacket, dropping it behind him on the stone-tiled span. Interrupting her dancing lesson and the late evening quiet of the all but emptysaeda. By the time he reached her, they were alone in the great main hall.

It was just as well; he pushed her down into the large silk cushions scattered on the floor that the instructors and musicians had been seated on, freed himself, bared her own flesh simply by pushing her skirt out of the way, and buried himself in her, impassioned intensity in his pale blue-green gaze, his attention entirely on her. He took her fast and hard, impatiently. Relentlessly. The intensity of his wanting, the thoroughness of his driving thrusts, shuddered through her in erotic ecstasy. Just like that, Sunny came undone, but he wasn't done. He stroked into her over and over, strong and full, and utterly, ruthlessly relentless, until she was clawing at his back, crying out over and over as she writhed under his mastering. When he poured into her, she screamed from the sheer sensation of it, almost fainting as she felt his own pleasure coupled to hers.

When he rolled them over and impaled her over him for a second round, she whimpered and rocked onto him, willing and wild to go even more. She tore at his clothes, forcing the rest of them off of him so she could feel his flesh against hers even as he stripped her of the skirt and breastband she was wearing. They twisted together, writhed around each other. Culminated together. He rocked into her, over her once again, slowing down, his weight heavy over her once more, as his head dropped down onto her sweat-dampened shoulder. A few last, languid thrusts and he stilled, relaxing on top of her, pressing her down into the soft cushions lumped under them.

It took Sunny a few seconds to realize he had fallen asleep. Limply, reluctantly, deeply asleep. She lifted her head slightly, saw the red scratches on his back from her wilder moments, and dropped her head back with a heavy sigh, then had to suck in a deep breath; he weighed more than she did. Moving him was not exactly an option just yet, though breathing at least was still viable.

It did give her time to think, though. Or rather, rethink the things she had spent all afternoon and evening puzzling out.

Everyone knows the Emperor and Empress are marked by the Matrix, both by the glow of their eyes at the full manifestation of their powers, by those manifestations themselves...and by a physical, paired mark on their skin. If our complimentary, counterchanged freckles aren't a blatant, paired marking, I don't know what is. And the dragons I keep seeing—I see myself as the White Dragon, him as the Black Dragon. The marks of the Emperor and Empress are of the twinned, twined, ouroboros dragons devouring each other's tail, one white, one black; sometimes the white is female, sometimes it's the male...and I'm the white one in the images and impressions I've seen. And then there's that moment facing the Ruyikan Ambassador—all the chronicles say that the Emperor and Empress have godlike powers to read others' minds, to survive any attack unscathed...to alter the very face of reality with scope unmeasured and limits untold.

And the Emperor and Empress are always lifelong mates. In love with each other because it's their Destiny, a side-effect of the Matrix binding them together.

I have no choice—I neverhad any choice, Sunny realized slowly.The Matrix Chooses...and it Chose me. And him.

She looked at him, or rather, at his tangled black hair and the shadowed curve of his ear, the only parts visible of his head at that close of an angle. He murmured something in his sleep and nuzzled closer, nibbling on her shoulder before relaxing back into sleep. For a moment, Sunny wondered if the Matrix had somehow arranged everything; the theft of the funerary box, the crash of the pirate ship, her inclusion on the archaeological team, the second pirate attack, her sale and its subsequent arrival here, where the Matrix had selected her mate...

But...Iforced Lord Crellan to buy me, she realized slowly.I imposed my will on his, because Iwanted him to buy me, as opposed to the other two. That was my will, backed by the Matrix...wasn't it? And we're supposed to be in love with each other, me and Daemon here, if we're the new Empress and Emperor—but how can I love him? I don't even know him! How canhe be in love with me, for that matter, when he thinks of me as his possession, his slave?

...I can't tell him. If he doesn't know, he won't believe me. The Emperor and Empress are absolute equals, absolute co-rulers—which we can't ever be, so long as he keeps me as his concubine and slave. Sunny lay there under the sleeping Astorran king and worried. Wished for a brief moment she had never seen the box, never linked the message on that scrap of puterium with the Riddle of the Matrix. It came to her again as the lights dimmed around them automatically, sensing no movement in the atrium-like main hall and the lateness of the evening hour.

"That which Cannot,

And that which Can Be,

Touched if by Thou,

And Made if by Thee,

The One Chooses the Other,

And the Other Chooses the One,

What cannot be Touched or be Made,

Can always be Done or Undone."

I was the one who did all the touching, first the funerary box and the Matrix, then Daemon. Made...that would be his completing the Matrix, taking up the other dragonage, the other half of the power—wouldn't it be? She didn't know for certain, but there had to be more to it than just that.The dreams—we're not completely twined like the ouroboros just yet, though we're getting there.

She thought a while more, not sleepy yet.The images...when he first curved over and under me. We made love. Each time, we had made love, though notevery time that we did make love. This last time...

This last time, I gave in to the lust between us. And lust is known to bind two people closer together, at least in the beginning. But the priests and priestesses back home always said that lust was never enough. That one had to have love in a relationship as well as sex. If we're the new rulers of the Imperium...we need to have love between us before we ascend the thrones. I've got to make him fall in love with me, to free me and see me as his equal,before he realizes what we now are.

Sweet Natura! I can't even do that until I can get him to see me as a real person, not just his concubine-slave...

She didn't know how she was going to do it. But because Destiny had something else in mind for her than a tenured Historian's post at some Imperium University somewhere...she had to try. Her mind whirled this way and that in her thoughts, until the langor of their lovemaking finally settled her thoughts. She began to relax, to grow sleepy. Until she became aware of the suckling, scraping sensation of lips and teeth supping on her shoulder.

"Now you're awake..." Sunny muttered under her breath.

"You wore me out, yesterday. I must have needed more sleep today." He confessed it between kisses, working his way up from her shoulder to the side of her neck, then to the underside of her jaw. When she tipped her head slightly to give him better access to her tender flesh, Daemon let out a sound somewhere between a growl, a groan and a sigh; definitely a masculine one of appreciation. "I don't know what I was thinking, sleeping, when I could have been doing this..."

Sunny sucked in a sharp, appreciative breath as he tickled his fingers up from her hip to her ribs and caressed there with a light and ennervating touch. "Roll over."

Daemon stopped and blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Roll over. On your back," she ordered him. His brows lifted a moment, then he complied. And smiled when she rolled over on top of him and straddled him.

"Are you going to make love to me?"

"Mm-hmm. But for a price," she asserted, kissing his collarbone.

"I'm not setting you free," he warned her.

"I didn't think you would," she returned just as flatly. She bit at one of his pectoral muscles, then soothed the spot with her tongue. "I want you to tell me about your day."

"I came here to leave all of that behind," Daemon pointed out, catching her arms. "My intention is to forget about it."

Sunny pulled free and shoved off the cushions. She gave him a smile. "Goodnight."

"Sunny!"

Turned to leave him, she glanced back over her shoulder, knowing he was taking in her naked figure. "After I left you at breakfast, you...?"

"Why do you want to hear about my day?" he countered, sitting up to study her.

"Why not? You should talk about it with someone, and I'm someone."

"I don'twant to talk about it," Daemon asserted, dropping back onto the piled cushions. "I didn't even want to be the king."

If you didn't want to be king, you're not going to be happy about being Emperor, either, Sunny thought. "If you talk about it, it'll become a burden shared. Maybe a fresh perspective will help with any problems you might be having. Even just talking about it will help your own mind to deal with the events of your day."

"I thought you were a historian, not a psychologist."

"Then do it because I'm bored, and I'm used to spending my day dissecting the day-to-day life of an empire. Or rather, the Imperium, but in a pinch Astorra will do."

He considered that. Eyed her from under his lashes. "Will you be making love to me while I talk?"

"The more you tell me..." she bargained, letting the rest trail out unspoken.

Daemon tucked his hands under his head and smiled. "Then be prepared to go into exhaustive detail, my Consort."

"Considering you fell asleep earlier, that shouldn't be difficult," she snorted, coming back to him.

Laying a hand over his wounded heart, Daemon grinned at her. "I'm twenty-five, an old man! But now that I've had my nap, I'm rejuvenated—I can go forhours..."

Considering her past experience with him, Sunny didn't have much doubt about that. She started with his feet, massaging them, and paused and looked at him expectantly.

Daemon sighed and tucked his hand back behind his head. "The first thing I did was argue with Lord Estoll—my Grand Chamberlain—about cramming so much stuff into my schedule. By the grace of our god, Astor, I didnot bean him with acinnin roll. It wouldn't have worked, anyway; I'm never served stale ones. I think there's a law against it, or something," he added sardonically. "Then I suffered through four hours of morning Court instead of the normal three, greeting more dignitaries that hadn't made it to the coronation, or hadn't been included on the oritinal greeting and oathtaking list, seeing petitions for this problem and that, receiving gifts and such. I had to sentence two criminals against the empire to death, pardoned a third... Think of the most tedious lecture you've ever attended in college and multiply it until it lasts four hours long. And it's one of those classes where the teacher will mark you down if you fidget too much, and that's what Court is like, only everyone thinks of you as the captain of the fencing team, and they're constantly whispering gossip about you and wanting to catch your eye and your favor..."

...

Her days followed a cycle: she woke up being made love to by the insatiable Daemon, wherever they had fallen asleep, in her bed or his; she shared breakfast with him wherever that was, then they parted company. She then had lessons in concubinage, which ranged from dancing and singing to the biological science behind passion and how to arouse it to its full with various touches, erotic pressure points, and positions; a bath and a massage usually followed. He sent for her at lunch or thereabouts, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but rarely to eat food with her, then she came back and had another round of pampering.

During the pampering and afterwards, until he sent for her again at late midafternoon or so, Sunny studied. Armon lived up to his promise to get her anything she desired, and within a short time, the study in the Consort's Hall was filled with data crystals, books, and comp net hookups while she researched every scrap of information she could find on past Emperors and Empresses, their bonds, the Matrix, and the extent and uses of their powers. Then she rested for a little while, swam, had another pampering session, ate dinner, and spend time studying either her own pursuits or more concubinely ones. Whereupon she was either summoned to Daemon's quarters, or he came to her in thesaeda. And every evening, Sunny insisted on listening to his day.

And in offering advice. A week into her new life, she even argued with him.

"...No, no, no!" Sunny removed her mouth from its prayers and scowled up at him, interrupting his evening recital. "Imperium law states clearly that you cannot give that much preferential treatment in tariffs and exports with an empire outside the Imperium. Within, yes, because that empire follows Imperium law for its interstellar commerce, but the Ruyikans areoutside the Imperium!"

Daemon, irked that she had stopped what she was doing, and to all but yell at him at that, frowned back. "Since when have you been an Imperium attorney?"

"Since I studied the formation and reasoning behind Imperium Law as an integral part of its history and custom!" she shot back, shifting upright and sitting back on her heels, hands on her hips. "You give a non-Imperium empire preferential treatment, and they think the Imperium's weak, and start carving out pieces of the Peace!" Sunny pointed out, using the other name for the Imperium. "Firm and fair!" She chopped her hand through the air. "You give them the same deal you give everyone else, unless and until they agree to join the Imperium and abide by its laws—and that includes abolishing slavery and the slave trade, drug smuggling, artifact fencing, interstellar government-assisted money laundering, and other interdicted activities, and it also includes paying the Imperial Tax, to support the Imperium and its protections and intercessions on the behalf of its member worlds."

"They can't join the Imperium, because there aren't an Emperor and Empress to swear allegiance to!" he shot back, sitting up, balancing his weight with one hand dug into his bed. "The Ruyikans manufacture some of the best hoverfields out there, outside of Deducia—and certainly a lot cheaper," he argued. "If I agree to this trade deal, it'll mean revitalizing Astorra's hovercraft industry with the import of superior parts to those that we can manufacture on our own,and keep the costs low enough to be widely affordable."

"Itold you the Ruyikan Ambassador and his queen want something from you," Sunny reminded him. "First it's favored trade. Then it's mutual assurances of peace, then mutual assistance accords, then the next thing you know, you're linking your two empires closer and closer! What's her name... Queen Astrida proposes that, in the absence of the Emperor and Empress, she marries you to be able to 'join' the Imperium without having to go through the oathtaking—and the moment you do, that traps the Querridans, Solustrans, and Arbenites between Astorran and Ruyikan borders, so ofcourse you'll have to extend your protections to them, first with reassurances, then with treaties, and the next thing you know, you've got this huge chunk bitten out of the side of the Imperium under the ambition of an outsider with the taste of forty worlds at her command!"

"You just don't want me marrying her!"

"You're right; I don't." Her flat-out admission caught him with his counter-arguments stumbling to a stop in his throat. "But I don't have to worry about that. Because Itold you they want something from you. You said yourself that this was the same treaty that your father and your brother turned down; I told you that Ambassador Crellan had spies here in the palace, and your father died in a fall down the stairs, and your brother when his saddle girth broke."