Thirst of Power (Complete)

Part 11: leaving is an art

She closed her eyes pretending to be asleep when he entered. She nipped at her lower lip making sure the sounds of her agony that were suspiring in the four walls of that tarpaulin tent doesn't reach his notice. 

And thankfully it didn't, because he did't spare a single glance at her napping form and went about his chores, unconcerned.

In the golden gleam of the lamp she peeped through her closed eyelids and as soon as caught him unbuttoning his shirt, shut them tight once again. "Ram-Ram!" She mused in her mind. 'He's indeed a shameless man, even though he knows a lady is here under the same roof and he's undressing.'

"But you're no common lady......You're my wife."His smooth husky voice was a well planned trap and she fell right into it by looking straight at him.

"Oh my!" She failed to close both, her saucer shaped eyes and the gaped mouth witnessing him standing proud in all his glory. His chest rippling with taut muscles in her clear view.

For a moment her pupils refused to move from where they were stuck, at what seemed to be the epitome of maleness.

But as soon as her eyes trailed back to his face from his shapely waist disappearing in his pants, she realized her mistake. The proud smug smile on his face turning her, the tigress in a meek blushing doll.

"Fret not...like I said, you are no common lady....you are my wife and you have a right on me and my body."He winked and the blushing doll then started to blabber on her own. "I was slee-ping a-nd yo-u  came and woke me up. I-t  is no-t my fau-lt." and then to save herself from any futhur mortification, she turned her head away to face the other side of the tent, for she knew how idiotic she had just sounded.

clutching the hem of her skirt, she fervently prayed for this embarrassing episode to come to an end.

"Now you must rest, tomorrow we have to ride back to the city once again."He threw his pillow on the ground beside her. She did not ask the sarcastic 'Why though?' that was at the tip of her tongue and instead, lied down on the bare grass. Trying to shut both, her eyes and her senses, for what she was experiencing was a hard blow to her self-worth.

'The Raichands! The Princes! The chiefs! All are the same, the wretched mentality of men! Isn't it?' They could use a woman whenever he wanted, however they wanted, making them a pawn in their petty games and then the instant they would realize that the pawn had turned useless and the game was over, they would try to unburden their shoulders the very next moment.

And if by any chance, her dear husband believed her to be pawn in his little play-down, then he is the biggest buffoon in the world.

'And that chief.' She smiled bitterly as Chandra doused the lamp. 'will regret his words with his very life, she will make sure of it.' With a soft thud beside her on the ground, he marked his presence and that bought a full blown smile on the face of a lone heiress in the dead of the night.

She knew sleep would not grace her with it's presence tonight and she did not regret it one bit because after a long-long time she had felt  'that' thrill again.

The thrill of chase, before the kill!

The Prince had done it all! Wrecked her life! Killed her betrothed!Instigated her own father towards her! And now he is sending her back? To where she belongs....?

But  a leave that had been once plucked away...could never be a part of that ever again.

  "To choke you to your death for your ungrateful betraying deed but then you are my own flesh and blood and I could do no such thing."  The world swirled in her mind or one could say they had never stopped haunting for a single moment after her father had spoken them, inducing an excruciating throb that had stayed like a dull ache, ever since.

And this barbaric monster was asking her sweet questions? Providing her empathy a while ago? Did he really believes her to be such a dim-wit woman, that she would blush and smile at the fake charm of a murderer?

Well then, the prince was in for a very big surprise.

because she was going to play the delightful wife until the very end of this game. A game that was going to occupy the major part of the upcoming year.

***

MANITEEK

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"Your highness, I want justice!" The tear stained cheek and red eyes of the queen along with her spine chilling declaration, did nothing but to bring a sigh out of the king who stood unmoved at the entrance of the door, where the victim foreign princess lay drowsed under the effects of sedative.

"It have been 3 weeks!" The young queen curled her fingers into her fist, for this was a point that was eating away her own sanity. Her plan had risks, she knew a long time before she decided to send her sister to that prince, but she was convinced she would win! There are so many things she hadn't anticipated. Neither had she foreseen him to challenge the King in the court, nor the way he eloped and now that after all this time he still hadn't been captured despite the whole army sniffing for him, had her breaking into cold sweat.

'What will happen to my sister?' She wondered. 'She would never be able to find a husband anymore since she is 'Pure' no more, a fact that the whole Hindustan knows.'

'What will she do if the prince is never caught?'An involuntary shudder ran down her spine.

When out of nowhere the king decide to pull her chin up, in an intimate clasp so that she could look nowhere else but into his seventy years old wrinkled face and bunch of white whiskers. "Worry not! Give the men a little more time and I am sure they will find that cheat!" The king tried to diffuse her concerns. "But for now, I would like you to spend the night with me." The darkness of the night did nothing to hide the hunger for her in those old eyes that bought another fresh chilling jolt into the body of the young queen.

Now this, was yet another ugly face of her failing life.

She smiled coyly at him, something she knew the king would like. The man still liked his woman 'willing' and 'shy'.

"As you wish your highness."