The Superman & Wonder Woman Fan Archive

Chapter Five

I awoke to soft lamplight and Kal’s warm fingers trailing across the curve of my belly. I gasped, twisting my hips against the sudden onslaught, lifting my head to look directly into his clear blue eyes. “Finally, you’re awake,” he murmured, his teeth grazing the delicate underside of my breast. “I had to go ahead and start without you.” A snort of laughter escaped me. Kal had never looked like a man with a sense of humor. “That’s fine, if you want to continue, I shall just lie back and enjoy myself…”

Sweet Aphrodite, give me strength, I prayed….The tension thickened, my baser needs roaring to the surface. His ragged breaths burned against my damp skin. Another crash of flame leapt through my body. I lost all senses, time, everything for brief moments…

I was a queen, I deserved a consort such as Kal, an intoxicating riot of power and beauty and skill. My birth, my training, my conditioning wanted it, demanded it. I had been groomed for just such an occasion – to mate and take my place as queen.

Artemis had told me of her own time with Hal, but the traitorous woman had made no mention of Kal. Thinking of Artemis reminded me, “Kal…” his name was practically a snarl, I wanted to know exactly what had happened with him and Artmeis, before I lost all sense of reasoning once again.

But Kal had other ideas – he clearly did not want to talk.  His clever tongue and fingers moved across my body, awakening quick little fires…

I arched under him, but his hands held me firm, and his mouth moved low on my abdomen, his lips burning as he left a trail of little kisses on every inch of my skin…

Slowly, so slowly I came back to myself and wiped at the tracks of tears staining my face. The bittersweet knowledge that he would never belong completely to me, stabbed a sharp edge into the glory of my release.

I ran trembling fingers though my damp hair. I pushed down the hurt lying thick in my soul. I swallowed. The time had come for me to give up my power to him as ordered by his mother, the Empress.

Just two little words and a symbolic act would avoid the war to come, would ensure that Themsycira lived in peace. Would ensure that the lives of my mother and sisters would be safe.

I had to remind myself of that, because I wanted nothing more than to shove my fists into his abdomen and overcome him, making him kneel to me. I wanted his power. I wanted him as my mate. Athena, help me, I did not want to give up without a fight – I was not bred that way.

Kal used the strength of his body to hold me in place, even as his fingers splayed across my body, he gripped me as the fiery need for me to have him, have the power of him bow to me raged. And all the while, his clever fingers did not stop playing with my body.

I bit out a small command, “More.”

“Remember who rules here, Diana.” His fingers stilled, but I put my hands over his and guided him.

“Until I kneel.” I said, as I shifted my hips and felt the press of another of Kal’s fingers. I caught my hands in my hair and I couldn’t help the soft moan. “Or better yet, you do, neither of us—” His fingers scissored and all ability to speak deserted me.

“More,” I said and his growl deepened, Kal working his magic until we were both shattered yet again.

As I slowly regained awareness this time, I smiled a little smugly to myself, thinking of Kal and his sklavas. Even his most favourite one, Lois, was undone by a small bout, if what he had said was true.

And I had not only matched him, move for move, I was still eager for more….

My mother would be scandalized! But ah Aphrodite, how great was your gift to me – this capacity to love…

“It’s not long before dawn, Diana,” he murmured against my ear, skin prickling at the brush of his warm breath. Kal moved his hand to trace a gentle line along my ribs, waist and hips. “We must make you my sklava.”

Something in his voice pushed cold under my skin. I closed my eyes and fought the sudden cramp in my gut. He had kept his promise of pleasuring me, but that was as far as he wanted it to go. Kal didn’t want another sklava.

Lady Aphrodite, why did your gift sting the most? To find the most perfect mate, to fit so well together, but to be denied it all, after brief pleasure?

Kal had seven women already, quite prepared to do his slightest bidding, women he had chosen. I’d been foisted on him by the machinations of his mother.

I let out a slow breath. And I would have him in my bed only when he saw fit. No, neither of us wanted this.

“I could run, Kal. Hide. You could say your stamina in bed drained me beyond endurance, which wouldn’t do your reputation any harm—”

His hand had stilled on my hip, his fingers digging into soft flesh. “You want people to think that I killed you?”

I ignored the undercurrent of anger in his voice. “Wouldn’t that be easier for everyone? Kara has no contest for the Sky Throne. You don’t have yet another sklava you don’t want and I get…”

“What?”

Not to see you pick a woman every night that isn’t me.

But the truth went unsaid. “I’ll be free, Kal. I’ll get my freedom.”

“You know neither of us can do that. If I don’t obey the Empress,” his fingers loosened on my hip and began to caress me with long, easy strokes, “then I have no honor.”

I closed my eyes and let his gentle touch soothe me. “I could live with that.”

“Diana, don’t you realize that its not your decision any more? Your very presence among the Amazons brings danger closer than ever to them. Would you be able to live with more deaths of your people, of your sister, of your mother? The destruction of your home? To know that you could have avoided it all, by simply surrendering yourself?”

Put so eloquently, how could I not see reason?

There was a saying back on our island, “The home’s fire must be put out with the home’s ashes.” Obviously, I was to be the means of peace, much differently from what I thought, but, peace would ensue from my actions. Lives would be saved, yet my own life’s fire would be nothing more than ashes.

Could there be a nobler reason for me to do that needed to be done?

Kal pressed his mouth to my shoulder and I felt his smile. “Queens are often a law to themselves.”

This time, my gut didn’t cramp as I murmured, “Time for me to give that up.”

I pushed out from under his body. And half-sat up to look at him, wanting to commit every inch of his sculpted body to memory.

I pulled free of him and slid off the bed. A smile pulled at my mouth and the unexpected ease of what I was about to do surprised me.

Finally making the decision eased my regret. My gaze slid over his perfection, golden lamplight shadowing his honey skin. It seemed the most natural thing to drop to my knees. I tried not to think about the padding that cushioned the floor, whether it was by design to accommodate a captured aikaterine…

Before I could say the words, I felt strong arms pull me to my feet.

“Diana…” He brushed at my hair, pushing it back from my face. His fingers stroked my cheek, his hand trembling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you like this. I wanted—”

I kissed his mouth and broke his words. I didn’t need his explanations.

With the rising of the sun, I began a new life, just not the one I’d been expecting.

I would live that new life by the very motto that had guided my old life. The motto that I had taken when I had first started to train with weapons, the motto which I used in battle, which was engraved on the shield given to me by Athena herself – Veritate et Virtute (Truth and Courage)

Needing to taste his strength again, I pressed my mouth to his lips…he tasted and smelled faintly of me…I looked up to see his eyes darken in a familiar expression for what I now knew was pleasure, I leaned into his strength and warmth and told him…“You smell of me”

“We should wash.”

In one fluid movement, he was walking toward the bathroom, gripping my hand and tugging me along.

Lights flickered on as he padded into the room, brilliant spots of light sliding over pale terracotta walls. He pulled me toward a curve of wall, the slap of his bare feet echoing around the room.

I glanced out of the large window. The sky was losing the deep black of night. Already the stars were fading. Dawn was almost with us.

The splash of water snapped through the first stirrings of panic. Kal stood under a stream of hot water, jets caressing his sculpted body. He was beautiful.

I stepped onto the cushioned floor of the shower, splaying a hand against his chest and watching water cascade over my fingers. I traced the whorls of hair flattening to his pectorals, as the shower plastered my hair to my head.

“Washing first,” Kal said, squeezing a cold line of lotion across my shoulders.

I shivered and glanced up, slicking up against him as he rubbed a warm hand down my spine. I pinched him and he yelped, managing to look indignant and shocked. Obviously, no one had ever pinched the Empress’s son before.

I grabbed the soap and squirted it over his stomach, lathering his chest, stomach and back, sliding my hands over his body.

“Diana…”

My gaze flicked up and through the fall of water, I caught the red-hot fire in his eyes. Passion edged with pain burned there. He crushed his eyes shut and lifted his jaw, the muscles tight. He seemed more upset about my change in status than I did.

Both of us knew that the new morning would seal it.

But in that moment, I didn’t, couldn’t care. With my body on fire, water rushing hot over my skin and my body pressed close to Kal, I could live my life as his plaything.

I would be his.

 “Diana!” The half-growl that came with my name brought me out of my reverie.

Kal pulled my mouth free of him, dragging me against his body, holding me in tight, fierce arms, his face pressed into my neck. I couldn’t catch his fast murmured words. I just clung to him. The press of his hot body had me sighing.

“I’m sorry, Diana.” Kal pulled back, his hands framing my face. “I didn’t want this. I wanted…” His mouth found mine, hungry and consuming. Breaking free, his forehead rested against me. “I wanted you.”

A smile curved my mouth. I was happy and sated deep in my soul. I really didn’t feel all that different. Maybe…maybe I could live with it.

“You have me, Kal.”

“No, I haven’t. I wanted you to be my queen, Diana.”

A stone lodged in my chest and I felt jolted out of my happy, satiated state.

“You…?”

“Kara said it. I was the weak point in their plan.” He let out a slow, hot sigh, rivulets of water coursing his face. “I would’ve knelt down to you in the hall and taken you as my queen and mate.”

The pain in my chest bound tighter. Damn it, how could it hurt more than thinking he didn’t want me? My throat ached. In a time that could be counted in minutes, the sun would’ve sealed our union and our future stretched out.

A province, children, sons, daughters…

I crushed my eyes shut, letting my tears into the flow of water. Kal would have given me daughters…

“Diana…”

I wanted to hate him, punch him, make him hurt as I did but it would be pointless. Nothing I did would change my fate. “The sun will take away the regret for you.” I ran my thumb along his bottom lip. “Maybe for both of us.”

“There is more to tell you…I…”

He wanted to apologize again, but the hard press of my thumb stopped him. I stepped back from him, out of the hot jets of water. Cold air robbed me of heat and I shivered. “Time to welcome the new day.”