The Alpha and the Omega: Act I | Chapter 6
21 Aug 2018User1355
ACT I - CONQUESTCHAPTER 6
The intrigue surrounding Sola Morgana’s courtship increased as the months passed, suitors now paying homage to the Matriarch in person. Heirs of clans from across Pegasi were now common sights at the capital city of Caerdinas, where Sola entertained the most worthy among them in private. None but best-connected- and best-looking- were allowed this honor. Competition among the clans for such reached an intense- though diplomatic- fever pitch. Yet it was clear who was in control of the process, and only the best among them would succeed. Sola began spending more and more time not with an heir, but with a proper Patriarch.
Cassian Ortega was tall, dark, and rakishly handsome. He was in many ways Sola’s masculine counterpart: a charismatic leader of action, preferring to share the danger alongside his fellow clansmen than strut around and preen. He had inherited his position at a young age, proving himself equal to the challenges of navigating clan politics and wielding martial power alike. Now all of Clan Ortega was at his heel, their assets nearly that of the Kamorin system itself. Ortega’s own warrior mate had tragically perished, a victim of the internecine conflicts for which the clans were known. It was said that Cassian had massacred those responsible and ordered that public sport be made of the survivors.
All in all, he was a promising match.
He and Sola spent more and more time together, both in their of icial capacities and in the more scandalous confines of her bed chamber. Yet no low seduction would do the trick, and the young leader knew it. Cassian was a man of cunning and restraint, embracing that his every word and gesture was a stroke in a rapier duel of wits. He understood his counterpart better than any other, and to be in her presence- even in private- was to dance the dance of her great game.
Sola developed a grudging respect for the new man in her life, respect that gave way to camaraderie. As the months passed she even began to look forward to his visits, unafraid to be seen at his side. Soon camaraderie grew into something greater, something warmer. An unknown feeling stirred within Sola at his touch, the first from any man which did not repulse her. Touch begat embrace, and embrace begat royal lips pressed together in passionate union.
For the first time in her life, Sola Morgana opened herself to a man not as an obligation but as a willing lover. The dam that had contained her carnal energies burst, the woman nearly weeping at the pleasure that for too long had been usurped by contempt. In her fevered afterglow she renounced her warrior-mate, renounced their union, and renounced any god that had blessed it. In her heart she swore
secret love to Cassian of the Clan Ortega. The sweat had not even cooled from their spent bodies when Patriarch and Matriarch began to amorously plan their and their clans’ future.
Man and woman settled into each other’s arms with the windows to her bed chamber thrown open, the gentle New Cambrian breeze whisking the heat from their bodies away. Yet sleep eluded the young Matriarch, rising from her bed and striding nude to the adjacent balcony to bask in the night’s darkness. In it Sola felt a familiar presence, a certainty that the events of the night had been guided by a hand older and wiser than her own. In the shadows of the New Cambrian night the Crone’s outline could almost be seen.
It said nothing, and Sola said nothing in return. The time for words had passed, and a new era of action would accompany the coming morn.
Read the complete chapter here!