Grow along with me, the best is yet to be.
-Robert Browning
TO MEET AND GREET
'Ah!' Catching herself in time, she steadied up, holding the rosewood almirah by the entrance as a large troop of woman bustled inside, shoving her as they went.
"Excuse me!" She frowned as almost 20 ladies gathered around her and her husband's bed. 'What is happening?' Her temper was slowly flaring as she watched her privacy being breached and her words being disregarded as if, she hadn't spoken at all.
"Excuse me!" She reiterated this time with a raucous loud tone of voice. "Now that all of you had already barged inside my personal chamber, may I have the privilege to hear what you all have to say....?"
"And then....get out? Maybe?" Devika didn't bother masking the displeasure on her features. She may not be a royal by birth but she was one now as the wife of the prince of this empire and even as the sole heiress of Raichand, she wouldn't let a few vain women to trample upon her in this manner.
"Get out, maybe?" A soft almost nice voice came amongst the flock as the ladies parted in front of her to reveal the most attractive woman Devika had ever laid her eyes on and for a moment her heart tightened in an unknown angst of worry. 'Is she....Is she the one her husband had bedded and abandoned?' For if so..... 'No!' Her insides heaved and twisted.
But then to Devika's great relief her peering eyes caught a few signs on the beautiful lady at the center adorned in nothing but diamonds encrusted in glittering gold. 'Signs of married woman....' She sighed. 'Thank you dear lord!' But then if she isn't the infamous foreign princess, who precisely is she?
"Why maybe Devika? We will get out for sure, wouldn't we ladies?" The beautiful enchantress stepped towards her reprimanding her in the satirical taunt as her ladies-in-waiting broke into loud sniggers. "But not before YOU run for the hills vacating this palace for once and for all!"
The 19 years old heiress would have slacked her tongue off for referring THIS surly discourteous woman 'beautiful' not once but twice and her tone kind, even if only in her thoughts but it was not the time, not since she had a hundred or so smart and 'Very nice' things to say to this lady.
"Sure, not a problem really....." Devika smiled demurely, keeping the opponent speculating. "I will leave right this moment if you insist that this whole palace belongs to you but then my lady you lack two major requirements to own this haveli...." She chewed on her lips still a bit unsure if she should continue....but did nevertheless.
" A mustache and the crown....I believe every emperor possesses these two things, now since, I have excluded the thing between his legs of course.....solely for your sake." There, she smiled watching her work bearing fruit as the lady turned redder than the ruby on her third finger. She watched the twenty or so ladies-in-waiting fighting to bring their urges down and grin and personally she was having a hard time to not to chortle aloud.
Yes, it was funny alright...but then...
"How dare you? Do you even know who she is?" One of the perceptive ones from the throngs of women stepped forth and evidently it was no sweat for Devika to infer who 'this' woman was now that her desire and intentions had been as clear as this morning's blue. "The fifteenth and 'latest empress', I suppose?" She smiled and then bowed, en-kindling the young queen's honor and esteem all at the same time.
'yes, She was the fifteenth wife of the king and yes she was the 'latest empress' as people invoked behind her back but never had a soul dared to besmirch and smear black across her character publicly thus. And yes, it burned inside her like never before but it was not the time...... 'She will leave this new vile addition to the family to spit and polish herself with the natural insults that tends to always be at the tip of her tongue until her opportunity arrives to payback to every cent and dime.'
"There's so much going in and around this palace that you are blissfully unaware of, but I would suggest you to begin counting your time Devika for when I see you again, it would be to tell you to collect your belongings." And as unceremoniously as they had all arrived, they all left. The last statement was a whisper down her ear yet it reverberated throughout her mind her soul as if it was the last thing she will ever hear.
~~~
RUMOR
"Leave me alone my sweet brother....the oh-so-great heir and the world renown crowned prince of maniteek...please have mercy on me and leave me alone...." The hissing remark of his younger brother Chandra might have triggered a smile on his face on any other day but not now, not today since things were getting out of hand and he had to talk to him now. "Chandra, it's about your wife...listen to me before it's too late."
Not so surprisingly then, the younger prince halted in his steps, stayed deathly-quite in his spot for a few instants before turning around ferociously to affront his brother Roopak. "I see, you had been taking extraordinary interest in my wife from the very first day, dare I speculate...why?" The words by now had a more vicious turn than the angry jabs he had been braving all day but this was vital and he have to rely it to his brother no matter what.
"Rumors are going all around the palace that your wife had insulted queen Sunayna publicly, called her the '15th empress' to be precise."
"What?" Chandra's eyebrows arched in the middle of his forehead before his lips broke into a mellowed smile. "Darn! Did I miss the show!" He tusked before smirking at his elder brother. "Goodnight! I could not wait to ask Devika how the wench's face must have looked at that split second of humiliation."
"Don't let your mouth run off like that Chandra.....it's not recommendable, not for a prince who had been disowned once and surely not for a 19 years old naïve girl who had been in this palace for two nights, no more!" Roopak warned, after all it was no secret what kind of a scheming little thing that queen is.
"Tell your wife to steer clear of that woman, Chandra and tell that to yourself too."
"Steer clear?" Chandra scoffed at his face. "I was disowned because of that wench and her sister who tried to trap me into a marriage....my father ordered to have me beheaded. I lived and breathed in the stench air of old tents and slept in moth eaten mattresses like a vagabond."
"And you are saying....that I should control my language?" Chandra hissed again turning away to leave when Roopak reproached, "Yes, you have been disowned because of that queen, yes, father had ordered to have you decapitated because of that queen and yet...... after all that you ask me why to steer clear of her?" Roopak patted his younger brother's shoulder. "I don't want you hurt and now that Devika means so much to you I don't want her hurt either, that's all!"
"Goodnight!"
~~~
BLOOMING LOVE
"Awake still?" The precedent foreboding thoughts that his elder brother instigated and forced upon his shoulders, slipped away as his eyes caught the erotic sight of his sensual woman lying in the centre of his lavish bedstead on her abdomen.
He smirked entering into his bed chamber, shutting close the door behind him in a haste.
But beyond that facade of smug confidence lay a bunch of nerves, his heart fluttering in his rib cage about to explode. 'God!' He sighed trying to quell those very nerves.
There had been about a dozen of women on that bed before, hadn't there? Yet and still, this nightfall was going to be a significantly memorable one. He knew.
"Devika?" He called out to her with a pleasant smile as he unbuttoned his over-coat.
"Humm..." she replied focusing on the patterns of the pillowcase as if it were to be more fascinating than him.
"Look at me..." He called softly throwing the coat away on the dressing chair but she did not budge which got him vying for her attention.
"My love, look at me..." this time he went down on his hunches to have his face directly facing her's awaiting and anticipating as her hazel orbs matched his and an untamed blazing inferno of fire flared deep within soul.
"I want to make you mine tonight...in any and every way imaginable." He didn't know from where the words were coming from, he was going to bring up about queen Sunayna.....yet, with that soft yet torrid pronouncement that shot spark straight upto her to toes, he waited no more to indulge and savour the plum, inviting delicacy her sweet lips always promised.
'Ohh!' He gasped through the moment, unable to satiate his cravings that doubled every second he let his lips feel hers, felt her petite form leaning on him for support, her soft young breasts kneading against his shirt.
Breaking free abruptly, he proceeded to climb on the enormous bed, discarding his shirt before he pulled his young unsuspecting wife into his lap.
The 19 year old bewitching heiress on the other hand blushed furiously, not sure if the reason was that scorching lip-to-lip encounter or to watch her husband half nude, sitting on his lap.
"Devika...tell me...what was the name of that pig of a prince you were going to marry?" He asked all of a sudden, cupping her cheeks within his warm palms so that she had nowhere else to look but him.
"W-what?" She thought she misheard him that he just brought out the topic of her dead fiancé as the intensity of his eyes continued to burn her skin with a warm, fuzzy and pleasant kind of fire.
"You heard me. Tell me his darned name!" He shook her, his stance almost furious?
"Why are you-" Her queries were disregarded for the time being. "Tell me his name, Devika!"
"I-I.....I...I..." Her frantic mind tried to search her memory and recall that name over and over again, yet every time she came at a dead end recalling nothing but the scorching kiss and could only focus at the warm unclothed chest of her man, rippling with muscles.
"I-I cannot remember....." Her innocent sigh bought another kind of tide onto his soul, altogether.
"Good!"
'She is here willingly this time, you fool!' He chastised himself, slowly laying her down into the bed as his hands and lips took the free reign to touch her, smooch her, love her....wherever and however he wanted. And he gloated in the glory to watch her enjoy every bit of it.
It's wasn't far into the night when his fingers skidded across the knot that held her skirt up, having already managed to tear open her blouse almost an hour ago, followed by a long exploration of her sensitive mounds. He was now pushing through the last barrier, she gasped as her skirt came undone in a flash but made no move to stop him either.
"I love you!" He murmured through the haze of passion becoming one with the most enchanting, ravishing and seductive woman, he knew. His love. His wife.
Hours later....when the serene darkness of night had started fading with the promise and assurance of a beautiful bright dawn, Devika at long last closed her eyes, enshrouded in the warm arms of her man as he continued playing and twirling her long curls in-and-around his fingers.
But then the sweet of sleep wasn't in her fate tonight. Every ounce of slumber along with that gentle smile was lost as soon as he murdered the words that had been troubling him from last night.
"With the first ray of sun at the break of dawn, I will have to leave for Dehra. "
There was no choice for either of them to delay or impede this journey yet neither of the reluctant souls knew that nothing will remain the same when 'he' would return.
It was still dark outside when her husband climbed off the bed (after kissing her senseless again)....in order to prepare for leaving and an owl hooted somewhere very far away. An ominous sound, people said.
~~♡♡~~
I suck at "love" scenes. Yeah, you probably already know.
Still, if the chapter took your fancy please vote and comment.
XxD
Shravani