DISCLAIMER : The characters of Xena and Gabrielle and some others belong in their entirety to Universal/MCA, Renaissance Pictures, and all the other powers that be. No copyright infringement is intended. I wrote this story at the urging of my muse; it should never be used for profit.
This story is a sequel to the stories “Lord Conqueror of the Realm” and "Queen of the Realm." I strongly recommend you read them first because in this story there are references to events that took place in them. Here is where you can find them:
http://www.academyofbards.org/fanfic/w/warriorjudge_lordconqueror1.html
http://www.academyofbards.org/fanfic/w/warriorjudge_queenoftherealm1.html
Announcement - Thanks to my savvy, diligent and extraordinary beta-reader, Nancyjean - Lord Conqueror of the Realm can now be found on an Ebook format as well. Here is the link:
http://www.xenalibrary.com/ebooklibrary.htm
Lord Conqueror of the Realm is listed alphabetically down the page, the first "L" story.
SPECIAL THANKS : My humble most ardent gratitude to the excellent, most brilliant Beta readers Nancyjean and Alexandriaruth whom I can't thank enough.
Comments, thoughts, questions & feedback : MOST WELCOMED – The more you write me, the quicker I post – I mean it!
Part 20
Later that evening after suppertime, as had become her routine, the Queen, clad only in her nightgown, entered the Imperial bedchamber. The fire wasn't burning in the hearth and her breath was visible to the naked eye, like white smoke against the blackness. The floor beneath her bare feet was so cold that her toes nearly frosted against the marble before she finally reached the Persian carpet. Her eyes squinted several times to adjust to the darkness before they discerned a dark figure lying in wait for her, then moving in the shadows, almost skulking.
The Conqueror was waiting for her that night, unlike in previous nights when the Conqueror had unceremoniously approached her after finishing eating or bathing and had perfunctorily taken her as if it had been just another casual, mundane chore that needed to be done before sleep.
When she'd been the Conqueror's slave, she used to dread these little deviations from what had become their habit. Back then she had believed that the Conqueror had devised these little changes for the sole purpose of rendering her without the customary cues that had informed her of how she ought to behave.
Gabrielle became frightened of the Conqueror, knowing she was no longer shielded and protected by the Conqueror's love – a sentiment she had not harbored for many years – a sentiment she could not believe she would ever harbor again. She removed her gown from her shoulders, made sure that the collar was fastened properly around her neck, and then she knelt with her knees against the carpet's hairs.
Gabrielle wore no expression over her countenance. However frightened she was, and however needing or desiring, her face remained sealed. Inwardly, she reverted back to those times when she had been in service and all that preoccupied her mind was to perform her service to the best of her abilities and please her Master. She quelled her expectations, and suppressed any desire to be forgiven or to return back to the Conqueror's favor and good graces, effacing herself and subjugating completely before her Master.
How ironic, she suddenly thought, that back in her servitude days she had appeared to the world as nothing but a body slave while to her Lord she had been far more than that, and that now she appeared to the world as a great Queen while being nothing but a body slave to her Lord. The Fates, she learned, were not without a cruel sense of humor.
A percussion of metal striking against flint ignited sparks that flew into the dormant hearth and fire caught in the kindle resting there. There was light in the Imperial bedchamber.
The Conqueror was revealed to Gabrielle, standing squared shouldered by the hearth in leather trousers and a dark heavy robe that almost reached the Conqueror's ankles.
On the prowl, the Sovereign Lord covered the distance between them, and leered at the woman who was kneeling between her immodestly parted legs, motionless as a statue before her.
"Do you know what I did three days ago?" the Conqueror asked with an even tone of voice as if she was asking about some trifle matter such as where her boots were.
Through the leather Gabrielle could smell the potent scent of the Conqueror's arousal and felt its overpowering warmth permeating her senses at the expense of all others, till she almost forgot that the Conqueror was waiting on an answer. She wasn't sure what answer was expected of her, and as her mind reeled in search for a satisfactory reply she heard the Conqueror hiss a warning at her.
"You will answer me when I speak to you."
Upon hearing the Conqueror's warning, Gabrielle thought it odd that her soul seemed to hold two conflicting emotions, terror on the one hand and relief on the other – terror, for obvious reasons and relief, for the Conqueror finally broke her ruinous silence.
"My Lord exacted justice on the traitors Drusus, Sirus and Likos," Gabrielle replied succinctly.
An unnerving half smile appeared on the left angle of the Conqueror's mouth and Gabrielle knew it wasn't amusement that that half smile reflected but something sinister.
"That is correct," the Conqueror said then dropped two more words, "in part." The Conqueror folded her arms over her chest, and her biceps flexed beneath heated skin. "I also had to kill their families," the Conqueror paused again, letting the words fall slowly and heavily out of her mouth. "Specifically, I had to kill Khryseis, Melantha and Adonia - the wives of all three traitors. You do remember them, do you not?"
The muscles of the Conqueror's back tightened and hardened. Her ravenous battle-lust, that had been arrested for long days and through enticing events and had been pressing to be unleashed, began to beat against its cage as the Conqueror was slowly releasing her grip over the muzzle.
Of course Gabrielle remembered them. They had met in formal factions at the Great Hall and had exchanged pleasantries on several occasions over the years.
"I do, my Lord," Gabrielle replied and inwardly she immediately felt sorry for them. She was not sure as to why the Conqueror chose to bring up the matter of the traitors' executions. At first she thought it might have been the Conqueror's way of explaining her current frame of mind but Gabrielle had to dismiss that thought. The Conqueror was not one to provide explanations to her actions. Uncertainty began to slip through the cracks of the very core of her being.
"Can you guess what thought crossed my mind as I swung my blade over their heads?" The Conqueror posed a question that Gabrielle had no possible way of knowing the answer to.
Her reply would not satisfy the Conqueror, but it was the only reply she had to offer. "I cannot, my Lord."
A vein in the Conqueror's neck began to swell and her jaw slightly jutted. "Of course you cannot!" she shouted incensed and with a swift motion leaned down and closed powerful fingers around Gabrielle's jaw and neck and lifted the smaller woman slightly upwards till her knees detached from the ground leaving only her taut toes to flutter against it to support her weight.
Feeling like her head was about to be ripped off her body, on an instinct, with neither thought nor intention, Gabrielle's hands latched around the Conqueror's strong arm, which held her by her throat and jaw almost suspended in midair while her legs were crumpled beneath her body. It felt like touching hot, corded steel.
"As I killed them, I thought to myself how I envied their husbands!" the Conqueror yelled as she brought her raging features closer to Gabrielle's ensnared ones. "You made me envy my enemies. Madame!" the Conqueror castigated her.
The Ruler's eyes were flaring fire and brimstones and her lips were thin with ire.
The pain of the Conqueror's iron grip was immense. "Please, my Lord," Gabrielle barely managed to utter through her trapped jaw.
"Did I give you leave to speak?!" the Conqueror scowled at her.
Gabrielle could hardly breathe and she became wild with fear, squirming like a fish out of the water.
The Conqueror's arm did not seem to tire. She raised it even higher till Gabrielle's toes could no longer feel the carpet beneath them. Taking a few short steps with Gabrielle flailing helplessly in her snare, the Conqueror shoved her captive into the wall.
The hit against the hard wall was agonizing, but so was the desire and want that Gabrielle bore towards the Conqueror. She kept reminding herself that it was necessary if they were to have hope, ever again.
The Conqueror's fingers eventually fell from Gabrielle's jaw. Leaning her elbow against the wall above Gabrielle's shoulder, the Conqueror pushed her forearm against Gabrielle's throat, slightly leaning her weight against it as her fingers encircled a rosy nipple.
Gabrielle was not afforded the slightest room for movement even if she wasn't too paralyzed by fright to attempt movement.
"Do you know why I envied my enemies?" the Conqueror almost crooned and calloused fingers began to pinch the sensitive flesh.
Gabrielle failed again, as the Conqueror expected her to, wanted her to.
"I do not, my Lord," she whispered and fought her tears.
"Let us try an easier question," the Conqueror said almost sounding sincere, "and do make an effort to reply, this time." It was by no means an attempt on the Conqueror's side to give aid or allowance to Gabrielle. It was yet another tactic to break the woman whom she believed had wronged her, by inspiring hope, vain hope that she might succeed and thus appease her Master.
"Why did I execute the wives?" the Conqueror asked.
And just as the Conqueror expected, she saw a sliver of hope flash across Gabrielle's face. Evidently, she thought she knew the answer to that question.
"Because they knew about their husbands' plot against my Lord and did not inform my Lord about it," Gabrielle replied.
"Obviously!" the Conqueror bellowed and scoffed with displeasure.
Gabrielle felt her nipple being squeezed harder and harder between the Conqueror's fingers and it shot both pain and pleasure through her body. The small nub became sore and erect under the Conqueror's punishment.
"They placed their husbands above their Sovereign Lord. Their only crime was their loyalty to their husbands, and as I severed the women's heads from their bodies, I envied my enemies for having such loyal wives who chose them over me."
The Conqueror's nostrils flared before she sunk her teeth into Gabrielle's lips, piercing the flesh.
Gabrielle yelped as she felt the blood seeping out of the wound down her chin and onto the Conqueror's forearm beneath it. She believed she deserved it for having caused the Conqueror far greater pain.
"Those miserable bastards I've tortured, castrated and butchered were sent to their graves knowing that they were richer than I am for they had wives who put them above all else."
The Conqueror's wrath was loose and rampant and Gabrielle could not be sure who was controlling whom. She was desperate for the Conqueror's forgiveness but she wasn't granted permission to speak and her subservience to her Master would not allow her to voice any requests or expect anything beyond her Master's pleasure and satisfaction.
Whether it had been loyalty or good old-fashion greed that had guided the wives of the traitors, there was no disputing or arguing with the Conqueror, not when every fiber of her being was overwrought with battle-lust, unprecedented in its intensity and ferocity.
The Conqueror released Gabrielle from her confinement and Gabrielle plummeted to the ground with a gasp for air, but before she was able to compose herself the Conqueror's fingers viciously pulled at her hair, yanking her head as far backwards as her neck allowed, jerking her entire body with the force of the motion.
She then saw the Conqueror unbutton her trousers and fingers disappear behind the leather and a fist forming around the long, thick shaft, underneath, then extracting it out and revealing it to Gabrielle's eyes.
The hand grabbed the golden hair as if it were reigns, callously swirled Gabrielle on her knees to face the stone wall. She was then shoved against it, feeling her breasts being scraped against the hard, uneven surface.
Next she heard the Conqueror kneeling behind her, and from the corner of her eye she caught sight of the Conqueror's robe billowing then blanketing the floor around them like a spill of tar. Gabrielle masked her excitement when she felt the heat emanating from the Conqueror's seething blood glowing against her back.
She was too scared and too aroused to move. She could hear the Conqueror's ragged huffing grow louder and she realized that the Ruler was nearing her.
"Are you still denying me, Madame?!" the Conqueror's voice was a growl into Gabrielle's ear that made her skin bristle.
When she had been the Conqueror's body slave, whenever the Conqueror had ordered her into that position, the Conqueror had come to expect her servant to arch her back and raise her rear asset to give access and accommodate it.
"No, my Lord," Gabrielle answered with a small voice and arched her back.
"Splay your flesh for me, then," the Conqueror ordered, encumbered by the sting of being jilted by the woman in front of her. For too long she had being suffering the hurt of being abandoned by the woman who was supposed to love her above all else and had felt dejected and powerless.
Gabrielle parted her mounds with both hands, exposing her orifice for the Conqueror's pleasure, bracing herself for the Conqueror's dominance. She recalled how tormenting it had been as a slave to hide her body's sexual awakening from the Conqueror's overbearing, perennial attention.
The Conqueror did not penetrate her, though. The Conqueror's hardness slithered back and fro like a giant stiff snake in the valley between, grazing the sensitive opening and making it tingle and sizzle with want and un-fulfillment.
Tears of frustration blurred her vision, but Gabrielle, who pined for the reaming to commence, repressed the urge to weep.
"I could have any woman on this earth," the Conqueror spoke with a gruff voice, "yet the one I desire," the shaft stopped in its track as if to not let the movement distract the receiver's attention from her words, "my own wife spurned my advances and rejected me from her bed again and again!" the Conqueror's chided.
It seemed as if sheer rage pushed the Conqueror backwards, making her shaft pull away abruptly from Gabrielle's buttocks with a sharp motion, but before Gabrielle had time to grieve the loss she was spun away from the wall to face the Conqueror again.
Blind pain shot through Gabrielle's upper face and neck and it took her a few moments to register what had happened. It had happened so quickly that she hadn't seen it coming. A dull ache began to pulsate in her left cheek. Noticing the bruise on the Conqueror hard knuckles, and the feel of warm, thick wetness slowly slither down her cheek, she gathered that her flesh was split between her cheekbone and the Conqueror's backhand.
To her recollection, the Conqueror had never before caused injury to her face, or had it been too long ago for her to recall, Gabrielle wondered.
It became harder for Gabrielle to keep her wits about her. On all fours, she shifted her weight to her arms to catch her breath, unwittingly granting the Conqueror clear view of her scarred shoulder blade.
From above, the Conqueror's haunting stare lingered on it for a few moments. She then leaned down and with a single, almost gentle fingertip traced the outline of the mark she had branded years ago.
"I should have branded my insignia into your breast rather than on your back," the Conqueror growled as she slid her finger from the brand mark and slipped it beneath Gabrielle's collar, "for perhaps if you were able to see it better," she continued and yanked the collar forward and forced Gabrielle down to lie on her stomach, "then you'd have remembered constantly to whom you belong, Madame," she concluded, and went to her desk from which her whip wasn't removed since she had returned to Corinth.
Gabrielle swallowed hard. Her throat was dry and sore. She saw the Conqueror brandish her whip downwards, and down the leather spiraled to the ground. The first lash landed on the floor a hair away from Gabrielle's head. It meant to call her fear to attention. The Conqueror, she knew, never missed her mark.
“You do not deserve the taste of my whip, Madame. Consider it the last act of kindness I show you,” the Conqueror stated and sent her whip flying with considerable force to paint a long cerise welt on Gabrielle's back.
As she felt a hot line burning on her back, silent tears no longer obeyed Gabrielle's will and departed from her eyes.
“Tears?!” the Conqueror shouted. “Are you giving me tears?!” the Conqueror shouted again and whipped Gabrielle's buttocks, leaving another scolding, reddened welt across both mounds of white flesh.
Gabrielle did her very best not to flinch from the brutal contact of the harsh ragged whip with her body. She wasn't sure whether it was her imagination playing tricks on her or whether the Conqueror's strikes indeed were more powerful now than ever before. Her skin tingled as if small flames were dancing on it, and beneath it sprouting wet, tongue-like roots down to her very core. She could not reconcile her tortured body and soul with her surging desires.
“Do you think your tears will save you? Do you think your tears will soften me?” Another bout of flagellations covered the inside of her thighs and firm, perfectly round globes. “Do you think your tears hold any power over me, Madame?”
Gabrielle's tears seemed to enrage the Conqueror to a much higher level, but Gabrielle could not control the renegade tears, which kept rolling down on their own accord as the Conqueror's whiplashes bit and sliced her body.
“Your tears lost their power when you decided to deny me bed and board –“ Infuriated, the Conqueror continued and raised the arm gripping the whip to strike Gabrielle's calves, “when you chose my Heir over me! When you broke our covenant!”
“Look at me when I am speaking to you,” the Conqueror ordered and Gabrielle lifted her wet face, and with bloodshot eyes, she looked up at her once lover, who had loved her at times as gently as the warm light breeze of spring and who at times loved her as roughly as the stormy sea. She knew that for this tremendous loss, she would live the rest of her life mourning with profound regret far greater than any before and hence forth.
“I am immune to your tears,” the Conqueror said almost pleased, like she was glad she finally got rid of some pest, some ailment, or impediment. “There's nothing here anymore,” she said and hit her chest with the fist around the whip handle. To Gabrielle's ears the thud upon impact sounded frightfully hollow.
The Conqueror then went to crouch over Gabrielle and straddled her. She then wrapped her whip around her throat, pulling it hard, choking her, forcing her head up and backwards to look at their marital bed.
“Do you remember what you said to me right there on our wedding night, Madame?” the Conqueror whispered in her ear and loosened the leather noose from around Gabrielle's neck to enable her to speak.
“I do, my Lord,” Gabrielle answered hoarsely.
“What was your promise to me that night when I took a slave and made her a Queen?”
Gabrielle felt the Conqueror's hardness push against the scorched flesh of her buttocks, parting the globes at the middle, tittering over the rim.
“I promised my Lord that in this bed, I was my Lord's ever willingly obedient, ever willingly submissive, ever willingly compliant servant,” Gabrielle answered.
The Conqueror's free hand cupped Gabrielle's taut left breast and squeezed the hard, erect nipple between two fingers. “You lied to me, Madame!” she hissed between clenched teeth, never neglecting the chastisement she wreaked on the ample breast snared in her grasp.
“Go lie in my bed one last time,” the Conqueror ordered.
Gabrielle's heart felt as if it stopped beating. The pain inside her chest was excruciating, far more so that any physical pain the Conqueror had ever or could ever inflict upon her. It was as the Conqueror closed a clenched fist around the pulsating organ that gave life and squashed it and Gabrielle's entire body suddenly became numb. She no longer felt the throbbing ache in her lips and cheek, or the burning sensation of her singed backside from the whiplashes she had received. It was all gone, drowned down and shut by the agonizing pain she felt in her heart and soul.
She felt the Conqueror's hold on her loosen and then the Conqueror rising up and off her body, allowing her to get up and obey her command. Gabrielle feared neither the Conqueror's wrath nor what it would wreak on her body, any longer. The only fear nestling, clawing, tearing up her soul was the notion that she would never lay with the Conqueror again.
The cool silk linens soothed her heated back and buttocks. She took comfort in the fact that the Conqueror did not order her to turn over and lie on her front. If this were the last time she would ever experience the Conqueror's passion, she did not wish to be taken from behind but rather facing the Conqueror so that she could behold her glory where it was at its sublime best, even more than on the battlefield.
A pinch of disappointment twisted her scathed and bleeding heart when she saw the Conqueror climb into bed without first disrobing, as if she did not wish to have that naked contact with her own body. It was the Conqueror rejecting her and the rejection plunged Gabrielle into abject misery.
Intentionally, she did not spread her legs in an invitation as she would usually do when she and the Conqueror had made love in the past. She wanted to see whether the Conqueror would order her to spread them, or rather coax her thighs herself, so to confirm her suspicion.
“Open your legs,” the Conqueror ordered.
Gabrielle did as she was ordered.
The Conqueror moved and suspended her body over Gabrielle on one arm, as her free hand guided her member into Gabrielle's womanhood.
Gabrielle suppressed a sigh. The Conqueror did not fondle or stroke the nub crying with need with her fingers as she usually did, and kept her distance as if she couldn't stand the propinquity. The rejection was unbearable, demeaning even, and Gabrielle suddenly realized that the Conqueror was repaying her with equal measure to her offence.
Suspended on both her full-length starched arms, hovering over the woman lying in silence beneath her with her robe veiling them, the Conqueror pushed herself all the way into Gabrielle.
Gabrielle gasped at the aggressive intrusion. She looked up and studied the Conqueror's tussled hair and the piercing eyes boring into her. She felt muscles swell and harden against her, working in perfect harmony for the Conqueror to achieve release. These were not thrusts, Gabrielle thought, but stabs wrenching at her insides as if the Conqueror was trying to kill something deep inside of her.
It was as if her body was divided into two parts, the lower half of her body was writhing with divine pleasure, pushed to the brink of rapture, and the upper half was torn and aching by unimaginable despair.
The Conqueror's breath came in shallow labored pants and in her eyes, beneath heavy lids, was undifferentiated fog of lust.
Time was running out. She was about to lose the war. She would not survive defeat and the arid era filled with unrequited longing for the one she loved more than anything else. I am the Lord Conqueror's wife, she told herself; I'm the mother of the Lord Conqueror's children; I'm Queen of the Realm, she reminded herself, and Queen of the Amazons. She would not lose without a fight. Love is my power.
Queen Gabrielle released her clasp from the sheets, raised her hand and tentatively touched the Conqueror's face.
Two flaming blue eyes opened widely in surprise. “Do not touch me,” the Conqueror growled out and reamed harder into Gabrielle.
But the Queen did not obey. She brought her other hand to the Conqueror's face and lovingly caressed the handsome, sculpted features she adored and worshiped.
“I said, do not touch me,” the Conqueror warned a second time.
But the Queen did not heed the warning. She lifted herself upwards to reach the Conqueror's face and began to lay tender kisses along the trails of her caressing fingers. Cupping the Conqueror's face in both hands, she brushed her lips along the Conqueror's jawline, kissed the plains of the Conqueror's high, carved cheeks and stroked the angles of the Conqueror's mouth with her tongue, eliciting a deep groan from the Conqueror.
The pressure of the impending rapture grew stronger in the Queen. “You are forever my Lord and Master," the Queen moaned between passionate kisses. "Forever my sole Possessor."
The Conqueror violently shook her head, trying to release herself from the Queen's tender affections, but the Queen clung tightly and would not let go of that which was most dear to her.
“Do not speak!” the Conqueror's voice roared and her wrath was so severe that her furrowed eyebrows met above her nose.
Again, the Queen disregarded the Conqueror's order. “You will never know how deeply sorry I am, my Lord,” she ardently whispered between kisses.
The Conqueror's anger was not assuaged. With a swift motion, she coarsely removed the Queen's hands from her face, splayed her palm against the Queen's breasts and pushed her back down against the bed. She gripped the Queen's face and leaned down till their noses nearly touched.
“It's not that you thought you knew better than me,” the Conqueror scowled at the woman trapped beneath her, still inside her, “and it's not even that you defied me by denying your favors, but that you managed it. You succeeded in keeping away from me, Madame – and that's what cuts the deepest.”
The Queen wept uncontrollably. “I beg of you, my Lord… Forgive me.”
“You broke my heart and so it is only fair that I should break yours,” the Conqueror jeered, incensed.
Retribution, one of the most potent weapons in the Conqueror's arsenal – the Queen was desperate. She sent her hand to reach beneath the Conqueror's pillow till she felt a cold metal that she expected to find there. She grabbed the ivory hilt of the Conqueror's dagger, placed it in the Conqueror's hand and brought its blade to her neck.
“If my death might satisfy your anger towards me,” the Queen said, “if it might replace the rage in your heart with a loving memory of me,” she went on to say and pressed the Conqueror's hand holding the dagger even closer against her neck till its sharp edge nearly broke skin, “if it might enable you to forgive me and allow me back into your heart – then I pray you, do it, my Lord… It is a sacrifice I am glad to make,” her voice broke and her tearing, shimmering eyes beheld her Lord with all the love that she bore her, “as glad as I was when I sacrificed my freedom for you on the road back from Persia .” The Queen sighed heavily and spoke her next words with absolute conviction and perfect sorrow, “Death has to be better than living without your love.”
The Conqueror observed her wife and Queen, willingly making the ultimate act of penance and contrition, prepared to offer the ultimate sacrifice to demonstrate her submission, utter capitulation and above all – her love. Her shoulders began a slight shuddering and her brows receded as she witnessed her wife's gesture of purity. The Conqueror's eyes thawed and melted. The beast was on the run now, retreating back to the bleak abyss from which it hailed.
The Conqueror removed the dagger from the Queen's neck and laid it down.
Hot, purging tears weld up and sparkled in the Ruler's eyes. "Oh, Gabrielle…" It was a sigh that sounded as if it originated from the deepest corner in the citadel in which the Conqueror's soul dwelled. The vise-like grip on Gabrielle's face softened into a gentle caress.
Gabrielle watched in awe at the metamorphosis of the Conqueror from an enraged, vicious, chthonic beast back into her spouse and lover. Reaching up a hand, she brushed a stray strand of hair away from her Lord's face.
The Conqueror leaned down and touched her lips to her wife's lips. The intense contact of affirmation made their hearts hammer in their chests. Their souls were uplifted and in their soar to the highest of heights they merged together again.
"Xena," Gabrielle breathed into the Conqueror's mouth before their lips pressed together again in ravenous hunger, and when she felt the Conqueror's tongue sensually twirl around hers deep inside the cavern of her mouth, Gabrielle thought that if she spent the rest of her life with her Lord's lips against hers, she would want for nothing more.
Sensing teardrops falling from above and onto her face, mixing with her own tears, further inflamed Gabrielle's raw need. She ripped her Lord's shirt and what she did not manage to tear she sliced with the dagger. She cut through the fabric of the robe around the Conqueror's neck as her feet pushed down the leather trousers, sliding the soles of her feet against the scented animal skin, feeling the chiseled curves of her Lord's body moving beneath them. The torn garments were discarded in haste on the floor and heated, naked bodies were now joined together.
When the Conqueror's mouth closed around a tough nipple, Gabrielle thought she would come and the flicking tongue against the pebbled flesh along with the firm suckle caused her slit to ooze wetness. Her nails raked hard against the Conqueror's back like claws of a wild animal desperately trying to embed itself into the object of its desires, and her legs wrapped themselves around the Conqueror's slender waist.
The Conqueror resumed the adulating motions of her harnessed pelvis, only this time there were reverent thrusts which stroked the sodden, contracting cave and reached the spot of her wife's source of pleasure. Slowly and deliberately she grinded her pubic bone into Gabrielle's swollen bud while their lips were locked in a powerful, breathtaking kiss.
Throbs of delicious pain - radiating from the pierced lips, split cheek and stripes on her backside from brutal treatment - were replaced and drowned in throbs of pure pleasure.
Queen Gabrielle withheld nothing, concealed nothing, and denied nothing. She unabashedly glimmered with a breadth of emotions.
"Am I forgiven, my Lord?" the Queen asked between kisses and shallow pants, when she felt her rapture approaching.
The Conqueror released the flesh of Gabrielle's neck she was sucking on and groaned into her ear, "I forgive you, my precious Lady."
The Conqueror's forgiveness was the final form of the Conqueror's ineffable, great love for her wife, and with that they tightened their embrace as hips bucked and rocked against each other before that last jounce when the Conqueror plunged as deep as Gabrielle's sopping wet sex allowed and kept it in there pressing hard against Gabrielle's bud when the climb to the precipice began.
As release began to hit them with gusts of almost unbearable pleasure and release they kept still, not even drawing breath, connected together as one body while the world around them quaked. The tearing pleasure and exultation of souls was so intense that they did not feel the basic urge for air.
The tempest subsided. The lovers gazed at one another in silence, relishing the satisfaction and serenity spreading through their tangled limbs.
"I am in bindings for you, my Lion," the Queen said through leisured, weary smile, "And I love you."
It was still dark outside and a weak azureous moon cast soft, pallid sliver-blue rays onto resting bodies of the Conqueror and her Queen, safely wreathed by strong, encompassing arms.
The Conqueror was the first to move. She poured fresh water into a basin and dipped a clean piece of cloth into the cool water then wringed out the excess water. She brought the damp cloth to her wife and with a tender touch she began to rinse the blood off her face, the evidences of her savagery.
As the cloth moved with care over her features, the Queen looked up and examined her Lord's gaze, which avoided hers and intently followed the movements of her cleansing hand.
"Do not trouble yourself, my Lord," the Queen said again.
"I won't, my Lady," the Conqueror answered but her countenance did not match her words.
After some time passed between them in silence, the Conqueror washed the cloth from her wife's blood in the basin. "Turn around, Love," she gently requested.
The Queen rolled over with some difficulty to lie on her belly. Now she felt the burn of her Lord's whip's bites all over her back, buttocks and along the back of her legs. Her nipples were sore, as was the crevice that the Conqueror invaded and filled so completely.
The Conqueror soothed the heat with the wet cloth, watching the droplets of water slide down her wife's narrow waist, thinking how much she adored her wife's curves.
Once the Queen's body was completely washed, from her wife's nightstand the Conqueror retrieved a salve made by the Queen's hand, which hadn't been used in a long time. With butterfly-like touches she applied the salve to the welts she had left.
"All will heal in a few days, my Lord," the Queen said, basking in the afterglow of their passionate intercourse and her Lord's tenderness.
After all wounds were carefully and mindfully treated, Gabrielle returned back to her Lord's loving arms and rested her head against the strong chest. A single finger strolled along the Conqueror's collarbone.
The Conqueror looked down into her wife's glittering eyes as her fingers gently skimmed over the injuries she had inflicted to Gabrielle's features. "I have been too rough with you, my Love," she muttered with an almost sad smile that reflected remorseful, apologetic compassion.
"Please, my Lord…" the Queen tangled her fingers into the Conqueror's moist mane and fondly combed it. "Do not apologize to me," she whispered.
Remembering what Princess Sieglinde had told her, the Conqueror's lips drew an inscrutable smile. The Queen wondered about that enigmatic smile but did not ask about it.
"I thought I was protecting our daughter," she suddenly began to say.
The Conqueror did not reply but allowed her wife to speak without adversity.
"With a single decision I offended against you three times: I did not trust your remarkable sagacity, I've betrayed our bond by allowing another to come between us and above you, and superciliously I've allowed myself to forget who you are," she said.
"Shhh…" the Conqueror placed a hushing finger over her Queen's lips, "All is forgiven, my Lady."
Queen Gabrielle was defenseless against what she thought to be her Lord's unwarranted kindness towards her, overwhelmed by it, and feelings of guilt and unworthiness came about her and forced mute tears down her face again.
"I know and I am forever grateful for your undeserving benevolence," she replied, stifling the sobs obstructing her throat, "but I wish for you to know that I have realized my great error when I saw you delivering us from Likos' men on the palace's grounds."
The Conqueror chuckled knowingly. "Huh, yes…" she said, "The lions… You were impressed by the lions."
"I was impressed by you and your power, my Lord," the Queen replied and her eyelids felt heavy. The emotional day exhausted her and left her drained. She had so much more to say, so much more to share after such a long dry spell of silence.
"Sleep now," the Conqueror whispered and lazily stroked her Queen's hair. "We'll talk more in the morning."