The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Awakening (12 page)

“Coming?” he called once he had disappeared into the room.

MaLeila had every intention to once she was sure she could walk without stumbling and falling, and by the mischievousness that was seeping through his lust clouded aura, Marcel was aware of her problem. Eventually she made her way to Marcel’s room, where she found him waiting for her in only his boxer briefs and the gold chain with his family crest. Her eyes went to his erection and suddenly, MaLeila was nervous when only moments before she hadn’t been.

Sensing her nervousness, Marcel moved to stand directly in front of her and forced her to look up at him.

“I had almost forgotten you’d never done this before.”

MaLeila flushed, more than she already was from their encounter so far. “Was it obvious?”

“Yes,” Marcel said with a laugh. Then he added, “We can wait if you want. It doesn’t have to be this fast.”

“No, I…” MaLeila shook her head. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” he whispered, even though no one else was around.

MaLeila nodded, to which Marcel responded by putting his hand in her hair, tilting her head back and kissing her, at which points all nervousness left her as she was once again overwhelmed by the sensations of his body against hers.

He lifted her off the ground and led them to his bed. He sat her on the edge of it before unhooking her bra with practiced ease and removing it from her body. MaLeila pulled herself back on the bed some and leaned on her elbows and carefully watched as he slipped his hands under her hips and hooked his fingers in the waist of her panties, already sticky with her arousal, and slid the garment down her legs. When they fell on the floor, Marcel urged her to lie all the way back and then his lips covered her right nipple. Like last the last time he did this, the action sent sensations through her entire body, specifically sending a jolt to the tight ache between her legs, feeling as though he was physically touching her where she so desperately wanted—needed him to. She threw her head back and put her hand in his hair, holding his head there to encourage him further.

When she felt his finger stroke her from the opening of her vagina and then up to her clit, she gasped and a whimpering moan escaped her at the loss of contact. The loss of contact wasn’t for long though. She felt a finger touch her opening again and then slide into her. She arched towards him again, not able to find enough breath to moan, only to gasp as another finger joined to thrust inside her while his thumb rubbed her clit.

He lifted his mouth off her breast but the sensations didn’t leave, not with him continuing to thrust his fingers inside her, periodically stopping to rub circles on her clit with his thumb before continuing. Even with her eyes squeezed shut, MaLeila could feel his gaze on her, sense his smugness as he watched her writhe under him, toes curling and uncurling as each thrust of his finger and massaging of her clit caused the ache to build and get tighter.

She arched toward Marcel one last time before the tight ache reached its peak, her toes curling  and uncurling as she felt the tightness release, her body going stiff and them limp as every nerve in her body reacted and tingled with her orgasm.

MaLeila inhaled and exhaled deeply and slowly, finally opening her eyes to see Marcel still leaning over her, his fingers still inside her.

“Fuck,” MaLeila muttered.

Marcel kissed her on the lips once and whispered, “Was that nice?”

MaLeila couldn’t even bring herself to be embarrassed by his teasing. She couldn’t even come up with a response. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and tried to urge him to close the gap between them so their skin was touching, but Marcel didn’t let her.

He kissed her again and muttered, “Hold on.”

Then he crawled off the bed and stood in front of her. With a little feeling back in her arms, MaLeila propped herself up on her elbows and watched as Marcel removed his briefs. She could still only take slow deep breaths at the moment, but her mouth fell open as she saw his erection for the first time. She tilted her head to the left and then to the right to get different angles on it as she visually inspected his erection. MaLeila had never seen one before, not in real life anyway. Nina had once roped her into looking at some sexy NSFW photos at her house once a couple of years ago, so she’d seen a few pictures, but an erection in real life looked so much bigger than it did on a computer screen.

Marcel got back on the bed and settled between her legs. MaLeila sat up, hand reaching out to touch him in curiosity, but nervousness stopped her.

“It’s okay. You can touch it,” Marcel urged. When she still didn’t cover the rest of the distance between her hand and his erection, her grabbed her wrist and guided her hand until it was touching him.

She tapped her fingers against it first, before gripping it with her entire hand. She froze when Marcel groaned and started to retreat her hand until he reached out with his right hand and said, “Want to put this on for me?”

MaLeila looked at the item in his hand, body growing hotter when she saw it was a condom. When she heard him laugh at her embarrassment, she carefully snatched the condom out his hand, pinched the tip, and slid it onto him. Sex-ed had at least been good for that if nothing else.

She lay back on the bed again and Marcel hovered over her, one hand on the left side of her head while he used his left hand to guide himself toward her opening. She tensed up when she felt it poking at her, causing Marcel to lean down and tell her to relax before he pressed his lips against hers. As he did so, she felt his erection sliding into her. It didn’t hurt like Nina had once told her. If anything, once he was fully inside her it felt uncomfortable, like an awkward stretch.

Marcel looked at her, watching for discomfort, and seeing none, he began to thrust back and forth inside her, hips slapping against hers, her breast bouncing up and down with the motions. Even through her discomfort, MaLeila felt keenly aware of her body as he thrust in and out of her, like he was touching her entire body everywhere at once without touching her. And then his lips were touching her, kissing her neck, her shoulders, her face, everywhere he could get his lips to reach. Not only could she feel him, she smell him, his scent exacerbated even through the musty scent of sweat and sex; she could taste him, even though her mouth wasn’t on him. As she began to moan, whimper his name and urge him on, his thrust became faster, more aggressive and he began to pulse inside her. He sat up on his knees, grabbed her hips tightly and lifted them slightly off the bed. His thrust were deeper and the angle changed so that every time he went back in her, he brushed against her clit. After only doing this twice, MaLeila gripped onto the comforter as her body stiffened and her second release of the night came. Something about being joined with him, filled with him, made it all the more intense though and she trembled with the spasms of her core. It was during these spasms that caused MaLeila’s body to go more and more limp until she couldn’t make her fingers curls anymore, that Marcel tensed above her and disjointedly breathed her name as he found his release.

After a few more halfhearted thrusts, her hips fell from Marcel’s slackened grip on him, and she landed softly on the bed, his now soft penis slipping out of her. It wasn’t until a few moments later when MaLeila opened her eyes that she realized she had closed them at all to begin with.

He was staring at her and if MaLeila had to describe the expression she would say he looked reverent and in awe, like she was a goddess to be worshipped. She felt heat rise to her cheeks and she looked away from him. Her behavior caused Marcel to chuckle as he leaned his body over her and looked her directly in the face.

“A little late to be shy now, isn’t it?” he asked, hand caressing the outside of her left ass cheek and thigh.

“Stop teasing me,” MaLeila tried to snap playfully, but instead whined.

“Can’t help it. You make it so easy,” Marcel replied with a shrug. Then he said, “God. You’re so beautiful.”

MaLeila doubted it. As she was beginning to come down from her high, the sweatiness and stickiness that she hadn’t cared about before made her feel messy and no doubt her hair was a puffy, tangled mess, and there was a tease of the soreness she would no doubt feel in the morning. Still, this afterglow and the warmth that still lingered felt good. And for the first time in a while, she didn’t care what consequences, good or bad lay ahead.

13

It was another presence that woke MaLeila up for the second time that morning. The first time she had awakened, it was to try to go take a shower. Marcel had felt her shifting though and wouldn’t let her leave, claiming that she wasn’t allowed to get out of bed, nor was she allowed to put on any clothes at which point her proceeded to have sex with her again. That was a couple of hours ago, according to the digital clock on the nightstand next to the bed.

MaLeila sat up to see a woman with black hair and dark eyes wearing an A-line skirt and a blouse that was only buttoned up halfway and untucked from her skirt. She was leaning in the doorway of the room, taking a puff of her cigarette.

When she took the cigarette out her mouth and blew out the smoke, the woman said, “Well damn I was hoping to get here and talk some sense into my brother and maybe scare you out of dating him before he fucked you. And I was only a night too late.”

MaLeila heard Marcel groan next to her.

“I just talked to you yesterday. You didn’t say you’d be here this soon.”

“I said I be here sometime within the week. I just didn’t know if it would be sooner or later. Turned out to be sooner.”

“Whatever, Katinika,” Marcel groaned as he rolled over to look at his sister. “I wish you would have called me.”

“So you could have known how long you had to fuck your new girlfriend and adjust accordingly?” the woman asked. And then said, “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

“Would it be better to wait until we’re both not naked in bed?” Marcel asked bluntly, his question mirroring MaLeila’s thoughts and sentiments.

“Nope,” the woman said as she came into the room and sat in a chair in the corner of the room. “Now get to it.”

Marcel sighed and grumbled, “MaLeila, this is my sister, Katinika, but everyone calls her Nika. Nika, this is MaLeila.”

“Nice to meet you,” MaLeila said slowly.

“Don’t bother with pleasantries,” Nika said,” Because honestly I haven’t determined whether or not it was nice to meet you yet.”

“Don’t be so mean to her, Nika,” Marcel muttered from where he was now lying back down with his face in the pillow.

“Relax. I won’t treat her any differently than I treat anyone else.”

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Marcel replied. “Now go away. We’ll be out later.”

“No time,” Nika replied. “Anya is on her way here.”

“Anya from the council,” Marcel said sitting back up to look at his sister.

“Yes.”

MaLeila resisted the urge to groan. Of all the council members, Anya had to be the one she hated the most. Compared to the other council members, she was young, younger than Bastet, and one of only three active female member on the council. Yet in most ways, she was worse than the other members in her elitist, classist, and even racist views, which surprised MaLeila when she realized the woman had them because the “Dominican Republican” born woman was probably only a shade lighter than MaLeila when it came down to it. MaLeila had a harder time dealing with Anya than she had dealing with the other older and mostly male council members.

“I’ll just go then,” MaLeila said.

“No. Stay. It concerns you too,” Nika said and then added, “If I were you, I’d call your guardians over here too.”

Her phone was in the living room in her jeans and knit, so MaLeila looked for something to cover herself before she dragged herself out of bed. Nika laughed from where she was sitting.

“My brother saw you naked last night so what do you need to be modest about? Certainly not for my sake. We’re both women, and it’s not like I don’t know what you two were up to.”

MaLeila put on her bra and panties anyway before going to the living room and grabbing her phone off the coffee table to text Bastet, who promptly replied that she was on the way, and Devdan, who didn’t reply. Devdan’s lack of response didn’t bother her. It could have meant anything because even when they were on good terms, Devdan was bad about answering his phone at all.

Devdan arrived first, just a few minutes after MaLeila had showered, put on clothes and made herself look decent. She shouldn’t care. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but she still had a hard time meeting the man’s eyes anyway, even without any evidence that she had sex with Marcel just the night before. MaLeila couldn’t imagine how awkward she’d feel if Devdan had gotten there any sooner, nor would she have known how to deal with his reaction whether it had been aloof indifference or overbearing protectiveness.

He sat on a stool next to the counter, eyes watching Nika who rather than be unsettled watched him in return, periodically looking at her phone as if it was going to explode every time it vibrated. MaLeila commented on it, more to cut through the tension in the air than it was to tease or mess with Nika.

Nika chuckled mirthlessly and replied, “You’re not that far off, except it’s not my phone. It’s the world.”

“Is it?”

“This thing in the Middle East with that sorcerer that just took over, it’s unsettling to the Magical Council and the powerful magic families to say the least,” Marcel responded before Nika could.

“Why is that?” MaLeila asked.

Nika pulled out another cigarette, the tip magically lighting without the aid of a lighter. Then she explained, “The leading families are afraid of what this means for them. None of them got into power through the pulling up of their own bootstraps as they would like the whole damn world to believe. They killed, murdered, manipulated, broke alliances and treaties and they live by the same principles today, so don’t ever be fooled by their so-called civilized snobbery,” Nika said rolling her eyes. “Everything that ever happened in the world, good and bad, if you go back and follow the thread through the knots and tangles the Magic Council or a greedy magic family had something to do with it.”

Nika didn’t need to tell MaLeila that. She had been on the receiving end of those manipulations more times than she appreciated and she was sure Nika knew it, so Nika’s comment must have been a preamble to something else, a nudge in the right direction.

“But the Magic Council and the magic families had nothing to do with this coup, did they?” MaLeila asked.

“So you are a smart girl,” Nika said. Then she turned to look at Marcel and added, “Guess you like her for more than just her pretty looks, huh brother?”

Marcel rolled his eyes, muttering something to Nika in another language. Nika only laughed and continued, “Anyway, they don’t take someone acting out of how they’ve predicted or manipulated them into acting lightly. It means they’re not in control.”

“So they’re afraid that Fathi is acting outside they’re control?”

“To make a long story short for you,” Nika replied.

“Or worse,” Devdan cut in, causing everyone to look at him. “They’re afraid he’s acting under the control of someone else more powerful and not on their radar.”

“Like Tsubame,” MaLeila stated.

Marcel shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But the council is certainly taking your inquiry about an unregistered sorceress more seriously now.”

“What are they going to do?” MaLeila asked. “What’s it got to do with Anya coming here and why do I need to speak to her too. I don’t know anything about Tsubame.”

It was Bastet, who had just walked into the apartment, that answered, “They’re going to try to quell the rest of the magic families first, make sure none of them pre-empt the rest of the magical world before they decide on a course of action. Probably send someone to talk and do damage control. With Russia first. The leading magic family there has never been happy about what’s going on in the Middle East, but they trusted the council and the western families to deal with it their way. Now they want to deal with it their own way because the last thing anyone wants or needs is for this thing with Fathi to escalate into another Hitler and WWII. I don’t blame them. It’s the reason I left the Magic Council to deal with the Cold War on their own after that.”

“Hitler was a sorcerer?” MaLeila asked.

“Him. Napoleon, the Huns. You name it. Rarely is there a major world conflict that doesn’t involve the magical world. Our world has ways of hiding our hand in history without erasing the players,” Marcel explained.

MaLeila started to ask more questions when suddenly she became aware of a presence at the other side of the front door, one that still made her tense, even if it had been years since she had been in the presence.

Nika glanced at the door and soon after it unlocked and fell open.

“Please,” she grumbled. “Let yourself in, Anya.”

Based on the flair of annoyance she sensed from the councilwoman, MaLeila guessed Anya was annoyed that no one came to the door to greet her. Then again, the woman was always haughtily annoyed about something every time MaLeila had been in her presence.

The mid-twenties looking woman with smoky topaz colored skin, a long face, sharply shaped eyes and eyebrows, and lips shaped like a bow sat on the love seat that was diagonally across from the couch. She went through her brown and golden tote and pulled out her tablet, scrolling through it as though they all weren’t waiting for her to acknowledge them.

“Okay Anya. Stop the fucking power play trying to make us know our place and that we aren’t much better than the fucking microscopic dust on your shoes. Tell us what the council wants,” Nika snapped.

Bastet snickered, muttering to Devdan, “I could get along with Marcel’s sister.”

Anya looked at Nika and then looked directly at Bastet before looking back at Nika and asking, “Did you brief them on the situation?”

Nika shrugged. “For the most part.”

Anya nodded and proceeded to say, “Simply put, the families want Fathi, along with Tsubame swiftly dealt with. We’ve already sent in spies to assess the situation further, see what prompted this coup without the Magic Council having any idea it was happening. However, that’s not enough for the families. So we’re going to have to send representatives over there personally to reassure them. Starting with the Romanov Clan in Russia. They have a lot of clout when it comes to the Russian military and government and we don’t want them to even begin to get any ideas and think of pulling those strings,” Anya added grimly.

“Nika was just over there. Why didn’t you just go ahead and send her before you let her catch a flight all the way to the states?” Marcel asked

Nika answered before Anya could saying, “Because neither the Prime Minister nor Dmitriy Romanov appreciate being told what to do by a woman who takes no bullshit. Even if it’s on behalf of the council.”

“I can attest to that,” Bastet muttered.

“So you’re sending me on a mission to quell Dmitriy’s worries. You could have called me to tell me to do that,” Marcel pointed out. “So why are you here?”

“Because she’s here to see me,” MaLeila said. “Right?”

MaLeila wasn’t surprised when Anya nodded her head. She had thought it was weird that the woman was making a trip over just to see Marcel and Nika when she could have just called them both in and they would have come to see the council. So it must have meant that Anya had come to see someone who no longer answered to or acted on summons from the council. That consisted of MaLeila herself, Bastet, and Devdan. The council hadn’t bothered Bastet since the Cold War though, long before MaLeila was born, and apparently Devdan had done nothing to warrant the council’s attention. MaLeila had always found it suspicious that while the council bothered her for being a powerful black sorceress, they never seemed concerned about Bastet and Devdan who were users of powerful yang and yin magic respectively in their own right. After Devdan’s revelation earlier this week, MaLeila understood why. The council probably figured if they could control the master they controlled the slave. So when Devdan cloaked the entire city in temporary darkness for almost twenty-four hours in order to temporarily neutralize the powers of a demon trying to possess her and eat her soul from within while she found a way to banish it from her, she got the blame for the risk of accidentally exposing their world. And when Bastet caused a small earthquake to soften and create cracks in the ground in order to swallow up the storm of a sorceress who could control the rain and wanted MaLeila’s powers to control other forces of nature, MaLeila distinctly remembered the council reprimanding her and whining about all the money they would have to pay in order to fix the damage caused by the disaster. Had she been the only one that hadn’t known about the fact that Bastet and Devdan were bound to her?

MaLeila pushed the flare of annoyance and anger that had built within her aside as she dryly said to the woman, “What did I do now? You’re really going to have to tell me because it’s been so long since you made a visit I was beginning to think I had done something right for once.”

“It’s not what you’ve done for once. It’s what you can do.” Before MaLeila could ask what Anya meant by that, she continued, “We want you to go with Marcel when he visits the Romanovs.”

MaLeila opened and closed her mouth a few times before laughing and saying, “You’re going to have to explain to me why after years of wanting nothing to do with me except to give me trouble you suddenly want to embrace me into your loving arms. Sorry if your intentions are good and I’m just being difficult, but I can’t help being a little skeptical.”