Chapter Forty-Seven: Choosing You Always Comes Easy
1742 Words
Aleu Diox Luciano
She was it! She was his answer.
The moment Fuscia had repeated her sweet words to him, the foggy clouds of doubt that had surrounded him began lifting slowly.
So then why did he hesitate before? Why did he not think killing the Empress would be a good idea when she was before him? When she had been awaiting his answer?
She wanted her own end, and it would be a favour to both him and Fuscia.
He could start a new life, and so could she, never having to suffer the night’s cold embrace only to catch on to a glimmer of the symphony played in waste to the nobles in the hall.
If the Empress meets her end, then Fuscia will not have to deal with her anti-faction because there will be nothing to fight against. As the Empress had said, she would automatically be the chair’s rightful owner.
Yet still, whenever he neared the Empress, he lost his sense of reason.
From the moment they were alone, all he longed to do was press her against the hedges, no, no, no he wouldn’t see her face, her breasts, her womanhood if he did that…then perhaps he would turn her to face him, tug at the flimsy chest piece that hid her bosoms from him and just…stare.
No, he couldn’t only stare. He needed to taste her…for sure, he did. Otherwise, he would grow mad, of that he was certain.
Still, if he were to wrap his mouth against her exposed sensitive nakedness, what expressions would frame her weary face? If he were to plunge himself, deep in her depths, how quickly would she cry his name?
Maddening, it was simply infuriating to have met her!
Still, how easily would she part her lips and….
No! he would not confuse himself any further!
She was not his! However, the woman beside him could be. Rather should be! The woman who had at many times held him comfortingly in her arms, the woman he knew and adored. She would never call him names to hurt him or to establish her superiority. Neither would she lead him into chaos. She was the very symbol of peace itself.
“Fuscia.” He called, suddenly aware of the little distance between them.
Her eyes shimmered, a little pink littering its green tint. His gaze fell to her lips. They were a pink blush, whispering tales of her innocence.
The Empress’s had been a deep crimson. Her lips held nothing but condescension for him.
-s**t-
He cursed inwardly because as much as he wished to loathe her attitude to him in his mind, his manhood stirred at the thought of her cursing him, taunting him…making him kneel then forcing him to crawl to her.
Contrary to his wishes, Aleu shuddered at the image that formed in his mind.
“Aleu?” Fuscia called, perhaps because his mind had wandered during his ‘mid-admirance’ of her features.
-Oh Gods!!- he startled.
This was not right! It was not right that he even harbour such thoughts!!
Aleu pulled himself away from Fuscia in more ways than physically.
“Aleu?” she called again.
Yet still, his horror at his own fantasies did not leave his expression.
What the hell? What was he to do beyond all this? Beyond the madness? He should not feel this way toward someone like her, someone that he had just met! Someone who…who...
He turned to Fuscia.
No, he would not shut her out. Perhaps she could offer the clarity that eluded him! He reasoned.
“Uh, yes, right. I’d rather you hear this from me than anyone else.” He began, “Fuscia, I have been selected as a candidate for her majesty’s harem.”
“What?” Fuscia stood abruptly from her seated position on the fountain's rim, however as the wet tiles inside the fountain's base offered little to no resistance, she slipped.
Aleu rushed to her rescue by capturing her in his arms then steadying her back into her upright position.
“Thank you,” she responded, still gripping the shoulder he offered in support for her to leave the fountains waters and slip right into her heeled shoes rather than step on the pavement first.
Fuscia did not wear those particular beautiful light green heels daily. Instead, they passed as her special-occasioned set. However, the wear on them was beginning to become more distinct.
There was no doubt in Aleu’s mind that she had set them aside to meet the Empress in them as most girls did dream of an audience with her majesty, yet here they were.
If that was not a proclamation on the importance of seeing him, too, he was uncertain of what would be.
Gods? What was he doing fantasising over another when clear as day, his first love stood.
The Empress had killed more than even most knights had, and if she did so in the spirit that he had witnessed earlier, she was nothing but a murderer. An abuser of authority as who would dare court the Empress? She was nought but a cruel tyrant, and if anything was to play as proof, it would be the fact that she had ordered for executions, only days after her miraculous recovery?
Who awakens in such a fashion?
Nothing but death surrounded the Empress, yet he wished to foolishly take her side while abandoning the ray in his life?
Preposterous!
A humourless laugh slipped from his lips.
“Wait! Before you grow insane, tell me again.” Fuscia insisted as she pushed herself off him.
If he were to kill her, the nation would gain a sane ruler, a kind ruler…a ruler that many wished to grow up and resemble.
Perhaps there was more to it than the Empress’s crude remarks. Perhaps she saw more than she was letting on, and that was the reason she wished for the end of the ‘Oleander’ family name.
“Tell you what again?”
“What you have just said, are you truly going to become her imperial majesty’s concubine?”
“Yes. However, the decision was not my own.”
“Of course...! Of course, the decision was not your own.” She repeated. “The decision is never your own. You never make any decisions!!”
Her voice grew louder as newfound moisture glistened her eyes.
“Aleu, I love you.” She said. “I truly and deeply cherish you, so much so that I would grow insane for you! Yet..yet your family, yet they would sell you! They would march you off to your death! How can they not see how precious you are..”
There was a period of silence as words had failed him.
“None of her majesty’s lovers has ever survived, Aleu. You can not do this!!”
Aleu watched the frazzled woman before him.
“Oh gods,” she said as her hands flew to her stomach as though the news had made it ache, “ Aleu, you can not become her trophy! You shine in so many ways! You…you can not do this we have to..we have to run! Oh, gods! Aleu, let us run away!!”
-Ahh!- Aleu thought, -How could he have ever been confused about such a straightforward choice-
With seemingly no resistance, he pulled the weeping girl into his arms.
This was not her fault. It was his family and her imperial majesty’s for putting him in a suffocating corner. Fuscia would never do something like that, so why was it that she was always crying for him?
Why is it that he never seemed to have enough power to halt her tears?
How could he have ever thought that the decision was impossible?
“I will not die.”
“Yes…yes, you will, and then you will leave me all alone!”
A laugh escaped his throat as he dug his hands into her hair.
“Are you wishing well for me?”
“Aleu…” she whimpered.
“I mean, you have literally just professed your love to me, and now you wish for my death? Is that not, a little-,”
“Stop toying with me! Aleu, this is not funny!”
“Never, I will never cease playing with you because I will not die, not now anyway.” He said, then began swaying the petite frame to the little music that hung unclouded in the night, “Fuscia Green, I am in love with you as well. Therefore I cannot bear to leave you alone in this frightening place.”
“So for you, I will not die. I will instead….”
“Instead?” she asked.
“Instead, I will become the Emperor.”
“The?” she pulled out from his arms, the makeup in her face long ‘racooning’ her eyes, “the Emperor?”
“Yes, the Emperor.” He replied.
“Aleu, you cannot say that, that kind of talk borders near treason!”
“Fuscia, I will become the Emperor, and I will do everything in my power to protect you.”
“Aleu? H..How? how would you even go about doing something like that?”
“Fuscia, before then…” he ignored her question then slid her hands into his and on one knee, he fell, “Should I accomplish my goal, will you become my concubine?”
Fuscia’s eyes rolled in her head, and a peal of sheepish laughter flew from her lips.
“I can ask you to be my Empress should you prefer-,” he responded to the flurry of laughter oozing from her
“Shh! Aleu, that is treason!!” she responded.
Despite her astute adamance in keeping his words clear of contradictions, the smile that coloured her cheeks blossomed.
“In every single way, yes.” She whispered as she joined him on her knees.
She offered no resistance when Aleu pulled her into his arms. Especially not as he tilted her head slightly and captured the delicious taste of her moistened lips for the first time in his life.
- Writer
