Crystal Dreams

Tahirah yanked the door open and stalked inside, scowling. The heavy wooden door made a very satisfying sound as it slammed shut behind her.

It had been a peachy day from the very beginning: this new patch of trainees from the Stone City were rambunctious, belligerent, precocious – and each of them much too smart for their own benefit. Tahirah had spent half the day wondering whether she herself had been such a terror at the age of seven – and the rest of the day marveling that her Mother had dealt with twenty such terrors day in, day out year after year… after year. She was aggravated and frazzled by the time the day’s lessons had ended. Give her Anubis’ Warriors, idiotic foreigners blinded with the sickness of greed, or life-sucking spirits of long dead princesses anytime. Praise Allah that Mother Ghusun would be back in three more days – she just might make it until then.

By the time the night had rolled in, Tahirah was in a beautiful mood for a romantic assignation: hot, tired and ill-tempered. The last thing she felt like doing was to partake of the evening meal in her grandfather’s tent. He would expect her to be witty and lively and charming… finally yield her feminine pride and formally agree to the joining of two powerful bloodlines… and announce the Day Of Marriage.

Upon returning from the Stone City, Tahirah had announced to her high and mighty grandfather, and equally lofty two brothers, who it was she had selected to be her husband. Gleeful anticipation had colored her words, for she fully expected consternation and shock that she dared to choose outside her own tribe and the approved suitors. Why, her noble grandfather would positively sputter at the effrontery of his own daughter’s willful offspring. Tahirah thought it was only fitting they pay a price for the heavy-handed way they had pressured her into choosing a husband, especially when she had no desire to take one. In compromise of their desire and hers, they had given her leave to make her own choosing… as long as she made it within the time frame they had set.

Yet, to Tahirah’s consternation and severe disappointment, her anticipated triumph had failed miserably. Her grandfather and brothers were delighted at the prospect of joining bloodlines of the house of Bay and the house of Husayn… delighted. Even more surprisingly, the Medjai Council of Elders considered it a good match. Indeed, they had been so pleased at the prospect, it now only remained for the bride and groom to consent to the union… yet there the marriage plans stalled: both steadfastly refused – they were locked in a battle of wills. What was it that was keeping these two apart when they so obviously were interested – oh what an inadequate word to describe the electricity crackling between these two every time they were within shouting distance of one another… what held them apart?

The situation had the elders of both nations baffled and frustrated – war clubs infused with infinite reason and swung with the mightiest of arms seemed incapable of slamming any sense into these two stubborn heads… With that option removed from them, they tried cajoling, begging, demanding, ordering, threatening, appealing to their better natures… and when that failed, they reminded the pair of the pleasures of the flesh. But stubborn is as stubborn does, and these two were nothing if not stubborn. From the first move, their gazes had collided and held over the rail of the ship in the Giza port.  They had been locked in a combat of their own, a game of passion and pride, will and lust: It would end only when these two chose to end it.

Of course, both thought that the other should be the one to yield, to submit. Perhaps, if the past nine years had not folded out as they had… if oldest child of the Husayn house, the heir to the throne after Tahirah’s father had succumbed to illness, had not vanished into the night… Perhaps, if Tahirah as the next oldest child, hadn’t been brought to take her brother’s supposed place at the age of sixteen, despite her gender and youth… It had been the Council’s intent to use the daughter to stabilize the situation, to rule through Tahirah until such a time that a rightful male heir could be restored to the position. And at first it had appeared to work – but she was the issue of a long line of leaders and warriors, male and female. Tahirah had solidified her position, and ruled in her own right.

A soak in warm, scented water made her feel better, while the quiet coolness and uncluttered space of bath chamber soothed her frazzled nerves. She had seen Ardeth several times that day, and it rattled her that each time he seemed to be enjoying himself, looking devastatingly handsome and cool – it had rankled her even more that he was the cause of her current predicament… in more ways than one. It had been his idea for their families to visit without interference from their two stubborn children. And, it most certainly was his fault that the usual heat of the sun increased exponentially every time he came into her line of sight until she was so hot that she felt like climbing right out of her skin… And damn him, he knew exactly what she was feeling. He knew and enjoyed it – the annoying satisfied little smile bragging from the corners of his sensual, lush mouth told her that clearly enough. And her temper had frayed further. She had even entertained the idea of not attending the dinner – the thing was, she knew she wanted him. If that meant enduring another long dinner where her grandfather did his best, in his roundabout way, to force her to submit… then, for Ardeth Bay, she would do so.

She still was cranky when she called for traditional permission to enter her grandfather’s tent. She would have loved to go off on a walk, a horse ride… anything first, to clear her mind and regain her equilibrium. But there simply wasn’t time enough, and she felt less than congenial as she waited for the invitation to enter. It came, surprisingly, not in her grandfather’s rough voice but in Ardeth’s velvety one. Her grandfather was nowhere to be seen, but she could hear muffled voices from the inner sanctum of the sprawling tent. It didn’t matter – from the moment she walked in, her husband-to-be commanded her complete attention… and that,too, rankled her.

She stalked towards her husband-to-be, consciously adding a little extra sway to her hips.

“We worked through the midday meal,” she charged ominously. “We only finished less than an hour ago. It was nothing… nothing… but it took us forever to find it, because we were hungry and couldn’t concentrate. And that was because you insisted it be added to our training program.”

The tent was a peculiar yet comfortable mingling of East and West; her grandmother’s beloved pieces of English furniture sharing space with her grandfather’s Egyptian decor. Ardeth leaned leisurely back against a massive, wooden bookcase that entirely covered one side of the spacious living area of the tent. He surveyed her thoughtfully, the dark, heated look in his eyes drawing her gaze with compelling power. Her heart begun to pound in the heightened, heavy rhythm of excitement. His elegant, strong warrior’s hands holding a leather bound volume of… something… as delicately as if it was a baby, absently stroking the soft leather with his fingertips. Suddenly she was very envious of that lucky book.

Ardeth grinned slowly, annoying her even more with the tingle that grin gave her. “Do you always get ill-tempered when you get hungry?”

“Of course I do! Doesn’t everyone?”

“Hmm, no. Most people do not.”

“Oh.”

Silence stretched between them, pregnant with words that could not be spoken at this moment… yet oddly enough, it didn’t make her feel uncomfortable. But then again, he was giving her that look… the one that made her aware of the hot rush of blood in her veins, of the way the simple silk gown wrapped around her body… of the way her body would quicken under his delightedly, wickedly knowing hands. How his taste might very well be insatiable. He watched her as if he had already made love to her, possessed her, and in that look was all the male hunger she roused in him.

He watched the darkening of her eyes, the quickening of her breath. “You know, do you not… There is only one word you have to say, one word which will end this foolishness between us?” His voice rumbled like a distant thunder, with the husky note of passion.

“Never.” Her response was as swift as it was self-assured. “Have you? Is it not time for you to admit that our way is better? More… logical?”

His mouth quirked in that half-amused, half-frustrated – but all-arrogant way of a male utterly confident in his conviction. “No.”

“So we are at a pass. Still.”

Shuffling of feet announced the impending arrival of her grandfather, and swiftly, Ardeth crossed the small distance to her,  kissed her – a quick, hard kiss, slanting his mouth hotly over hers, his tongue lightly telling his tale, but telling it fully just the same.   ”Pity, is it not?” He murmured, brushing his fingertips down her cheek and briefly resting them against the madly beating pulse at her throat.

All thoughts of food had fled her mind. She stared at him; need darkening her eyes into stormy gray. “Yes,” she said under her breath, “a great one.”

They could have eaten sawdust for all the attention she paid to their food. All she remembered afterwards was the wonderful, cool water and the comforting dimness. Her grandfather kept up an easy stream of conversation, and both she and Ardeth must have made the right vocalizations at the right times because he didn’t look strangely at them – only with that infuriating, shrewd and amused knowing way that made her feel as if she was as easily readable to him as his beloved books. He knew she wanted Ardeth Bay, and when he excused himself with a reason that would not bear any sort of closer examining, she wasn’t at all surprised – except for that he hadn’t left them alone sooner. She briefly scowled at the fact that her own beloved grandfather – infuriating and overbearing as he could be – left her alone in the lion’s den.

Her husband-to-be sat across from her, big and masculine and wonderful, with that dangerous glitter in his eyes that told her she was in trouble… trouble she didn’t want to avoid. The entire evening she had been watching him, thinking about their marriage bed, the seal of flesh. It wasn’t a question of if, only of when. Ardeth was thinking about it, too, his sexual intent plain for her to see. He made his possessiveness obvious in the way he looked at her, his gaze lingering on every inch of her, his voice low and deep in the gentling, persuasive note of seduction.

They lingered over the delicacies a moment longer, talking about nothing, and everything. The waiting abraded on her nerves – she craved his touch, felt like she could not breathe another moment without it. Finally she blurted out, cutting that fantastic silence with an even more fantastic verbal knife:

“Why are we waiting?”

He had been leisurely studying her erect nipples thrusting against the thin material of her silk gown, and now his gaze slowly lifted to her face, searing her with savage, black fire. “So that you can settle down and relax,” he murmured. “For the walk to your home so you can have complete darkness and privacy, if it would make you feel more at ease.”

“It won’t,” Tahirah snapped. Unable to bear the tension without action, she surged gracefully to her feet, fierce and proud as the legendary female warriors of her tribe. They were long gone, but their blood still ran hot and deep in her veins, despite the centuries that had passed. “You’ll have to find some other way to relax me.”

Ardeth stood up, too, his warm, masculine nearness making her feel blissfully small and feminine – never more so than when he pulled her down with him. She didn’t quite know how it happened, but somehow he was sitting with his back propped against the side of the couch with his long legs stretched out on the seat, and she herself was lying pressed against his side, the couch at her back and her head tilted up hotly against his shoulder. An arrogant, challenging look glittered in his eyes as he looked at her, lying there against him, stroking his free hand along her arm, the warm touch leaving tiny sparks of awakening sensation in its wake.

His warm breath fanned the fine hairs at her temple. “Here are the rules, witch woman. Rule one: I’m not going to make love to you this night. Your first time will be upon our marriage bed, not on your grandfather’s divan.”

“Speak for yourself, Medjai. I promise to follow no rules except those of our tradition.”

He pressed a quick, hard kiss to her lips to silence her; her toes curled in her sandals.

“Rule two, we are going to keep most of our clothes on, because if we do not, your first time will be on your grandfather’s divan.”

She cleared her throat, excitement, fear and pride beating in tandem in her veins. “Sounds very frustrating.”

Ardeth laughed, the sound deep and rich. “It is. It is the point of this exercise. But remember…”

She sighed impatiently and wound her arms about his neck. “Yes, yes – one word from me, I know. Get down here – you never know, it could be you saying it to me.”

He lifted his head up, eyes glittering down at her: “In your dreams perhaps, witch woman.”

“Yes well, it was my dreams that got me into this whole predicament in the first place. So if I were you, I wouldn’t count on them…” Tahirah informed him quickly, but he murmured something intelligible, breathing a hot moist path down her throat to linger where the frantic beating of her pulse shimmered just under the skin…

The End

So there it was! I don’t know, as I read it, I thought it sounded more like a modern story than one taking place in the 1920/30s and I don’t recall ever even planning one, much less writing one LOL