Secrets of the Villainous Empress

Chapter Twenty-One: Reminiscent of You

Aleu Diox Luciano.

The sheets around Aleu's tired body were warm from the hot atmosphere. However, nothing in the room was familiar; even the mirror before him betrayed his image, but the sense of familiarity kept him curious enough to explore the moment.

He stood from the sheets easily, then stalked to the sun-filled balcony where a caramel-skinned woman with short brown hair stood watching the beautiful sun setting in the mountains.

The wind felt warm against his skin, and the view from the balcony resembled that of the pink Fleurian desert; however, that was not what Aleu enjoyed most. What caught his focus in every possible way was the enchanting view of the woman as the wind tugged at her short shoulder-length hair. The beige garment she wore was see-through, and though he understood that he should feel bashful at seeing a woman he had never met before naked, his blood rushed to his groin.

“Oberon?” the woman called, then turned to face him, and though her eyes were a beautiful shade of hazel, he could not tear his gaze from her darkened n*****s peeking through the flimsy see-through fabric.

A chuckle rose from her throat when Aleu finally realised that she had called a name different from his own, yet he could not find the words to correct her for fear that the moment would end.

“You have had me in every possible way,” she teased melodiously, her eyes on his bare erection drawing his focus to his own nakedness, “What stamina.”

Rather than blush, the realisation that she was teasing him sent delicious ripples of exhilaration through his entire being.

Aleu's eyes flew to the woman's face, and a soft tenderness filled his chest.

The woman resembled what he had been certain home was supposed to feel.  

“Come,” She extended her hand, and without even thinking, he took it and let her pull him into her embrace as though he were in a trance.

The woman smelled of pink lotus flowers and sweat, no, s*x. Her skin felt warm from her basking in the sun and the moment Aleu had slipped his hands into the annoyingly present fabric she had on that tried to obscure her fullness to him, she gasped deliciously.

His hands found her waist easily, and the rightness of the moment negated every protest that he had formed earlier. Her skin was warm and smooth, her body soft and yielding to his every touch.

As her breasts crushed against his chest, every ridiculous notion of breathing left his mind. The woman parted her legs slightly, then rested his hardness in her secure folds forcing him to let out a raspy breath that he was certain by now had clued her in on his excitement.

She whimpered slightly, then wrapped her hands around his large shoulders and whispered.

“Unfortunately,” she began, whispering the word in his ear. She then placed a soft kiss on his cheek before continuing, “I am a little tender right now, so perhaps we can rest like this?”

 “Until I burst?” he teased back in a raspy voice that in no way resembled his own.

She laughed again, a sound that made his belly dip in pleasure.

“Oberon?” she called again, and though he was certain that it was not his name, at the moment, it could be.

“Yes, my love?”

“Tell me again where you will take me?”

Her voice was tender as she spoke, but for some reason that he could not fathom, the hardness that had ravaged his body mercilessly began to subside. Cold seeped into his feet, and a lump that he could not swallow teased the base of his throat.

-Why?-

Was the question he wished to ask, instead, in a voice that did not sound like his, in eyes that pricked with warm tears, he answered naturally as though he had given the very same answer once before.

“To the corners of the world.”

Aleu could feel warm liquid trickle down his face, and as the s****l grip that had been present before turned tender, he realised that his entire body was trembling. 

His arms tightened around the strange yet familiar woman, and as though he was holding on for dear life, he squeezed. 

She began swaying softly, perhaps to distract the owner of the body he had borrowed for the dream, and in a soft voice that in no way elicited positive emotions, she whispered.

“Thank…you…”

-What for? Tell me? tell me something?? Tell me anything?-

-D-Don’t leave me!!-

  *

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                       *

Aleu jolted awake harshly in relatively familiar surroundings when the door burst open.

“ALEU!” A harsh voice from his half brother Brent aided in helping him place his surroundings.

“What? wha-?” he responded, confused at his brother's state of urgency. “What?”

“Oh good, you are awake.” His bother responded, smiling as he shut the door behind him.

"Barely," he murmured as he tried to place himself, an act that took a few seconds longer than normal as from the moment he had awoken, he had been searching for the woman in the desert tower. 

But she was not there, not around him nor before him.

A profound sense of loneliness that brought tears to his eyes filled him as he longed for a woman that he had never in his life seen before, Gods, but what a bitter dream.

“Whoa, are you crying because you’ve seen it already, or this is another case of I miss the little pink maid?” Calvin asked as he approached Aleu's bed hastily, and he finally recalled his true reality, not one basked in lust and sunsets, but rather the train they were on heading to Mayflower for the ball.

“How in the world did you get my room key?” Aleu asked, rubbing his eyes, rather, wiping the illogical tears off.  

He was seated upright on the bed, his white sheets covering his lower half.

-The dream was not a premonition on Fuscia, right? Nothing terrible had happened to her, right?-

“I asked the front desk after banging for almost ten minutes without a reply,” Calvin answered, then pressed a tiny blue button on the bedside table that turned on the crystal vision.

“Breaking news, apparently there is an ongoing execution in Mayflower,” his brother announced before plopping himself on the space on the double bed.

-Execution?-

- The Empress was alive?-

-So Fuscia had really been summoned by her and not by the allied houses to be used as a pawn.-

Aleu felt himself relax at the news that the cheerful Calvin, who had light brown hair that bordered on blonde, and mischievous light blue eyes, inadvertently shared.

 When Aleu had been younger, Fuscia had shared a secret concerning her being of the lineage of the Empire marking Saintess, Harriette’s sister.

Though pink hair was characteristic to the third saintess, many from the west sported it, so her hair was never indicative of anything other than the type of mana she held; however, some deeply held respect for that colour, particularly in Mayflower.

“Is that…is that the Empress?” Aleu asked his brother, pointing to the absurdly beautiful woman dressed in red on the screen.

"Oh, you also thought she was dead? Ohh...Aleu, I never pegged you for such pessimism."

"Hey, we all thought she was dead. anyway, doesn't she look different?"

“I think you mean hot, right?” Calvin asked rhetorically as he smiled.

‘Hot’ was an understatement. He had seen the Empress numerous times during interviews or balls, but it had been almost a year since her last public appearance. To think that a person could change so much in that amount of time.

Calvin Brent, Aleu's half brother, was an art professor in a university in the west; however, three days ago, his transfer request to the prestigious royal university for masters in Mayflower had been accepted. So soon, he would be moving to the capital.

He had promised Aleu that he would watch over Fuscia and his sister while in Mayflower, so, despite the loss of yet another of the limited people in the mansion who found his presence endearing, Aleu was oddly at peace with his brother's departure.

For the most part, Calvin was excellent at his job, but he was also a famous playboy with morals. He fraternised with the staff, but he drew a line when it came to his students, a weirdly inflexible line, even though they were over the legal age. 

-Wait? Execution?! Fuscia!!-

Panic gripped Aleu's chest as his eyes rushed to examine the screen in search of pink hair, but nothing of the sort popped up.

“What? You really think she was charged for treason?”

“She was summoned.”

“Yes, but how could she have committed treason from overseas without even knowing how to make proper weekend plans?”

“Not everyone wants to drink with you?”

“What? Who said that? Did- did you hear anything from-” Calvin began, then eyed Aleu as though he was the suspicious party in the conversation.

“Ahem! Anyway…” Calvin pressed then; instead of following up with a point in defence to the hanging topic, he turned up the volume on the broadcast.

“Wow, those are a lot of p-,” Aleu marvelled, following Calvin's shameless cue for changing the topic. 

“Right, it's crazy. You should have seen the news from the beginning when they were in the council room. The Empress owned everyone’s ass, even the big man’s, believe it or not.” He said, 'big man' obviously, meaning the grand duke of the west, and their though debatable, father, “It was…nuts.”

“Shhh…I want to hear her excus- I mean speech,” Aleu insisted, shushing his brother, then glued his eyes to the Empress, following her every move. “She looks so…familiar.”

“Are you stupid? Of course, she looks ‘familiar’. She is the Empress.”

-Right? Right! That’s..that's right.-

“Oh Gods, Kassim?” 

“Ohh…” Calvin responded, “I guess Gina is out a fiancé.”

“You think she’ll care?”

“Nope, maybe, the Nissian marquis’s daughter....what was her name? Oh! Lila, I think…? she was crazy about him. Virginia will probably shift her focus to…” Calvin paused, and when the next Sorbet heir was announced, his ears perked, “Tomas?...wow.”