A hot breath released from my lungs, a mistic fog blurring the corners of my orbs, the steaming temperature lifted, and I gently bite down onto his pant leg to brace for the second whip of his palm, and when it does, the sound resonated like sharp thunderous whip of lightning, but the pleasure it evokes in me pools liquid from my mouth and core, and I smiled.

"Now you know why you're getting this right?" He says above me.

I trembled at the deep vibration that rolls down his body, wakening all fibers in me. "Y-yes." I whined.

Needy sounds flee from my lungs before I can catch them, just as he whips me with his palm, he uses the same one to rub the burn, sensually rubbing onto the flesh as If he were caressing a trophy.

"You really upset me." he says. I begged to differ in that moment, he tries to sound disappointed, but I felt the solid organ awakening underneath me.

In the sanctuary of the shed, the midst of two o'clock sun, bright rays raining its tiny stars through the window, finally granting life into the gloomy run down shed of dying wood. But Nasir and I hid in the darkness of it. My body hunched over his strong knees and my dressed scrunched up to the slim of my back.

Apparently, neither one of us were innocent, both carrying guilt on our backs, but he wasn't happy to learn where Gunter's mouth had been, in fact I joyously awoke this morning and even skipped breakfast just to go see him again, thinking about his lips all over. But to my dismay, there he stood, in the dark cold, all alone, awaiting me like a hungry fox, and I was the foolish rabbit to step foot without even wondering or minding my surroundings, and ended up here.

In his grasp. His grip on me is iron. And nowhere to flee.

"I hate sharing." he growls and delivers another sharp slap to my rippling bum. My teeth caught the bottom of my lip. Every force of his hand grows his need under me, I twisted my head then to peek at him.

Hot adrenaline molting its way into my veins at the sight of him. As if holding himself back was painful, his bronze skin glowing, three of his buttons undone, silky curls tied high, and the trimmed stubble of his beard.

"Don't, look at me like that." he groans, his palm sensually massaging the burning sting of my bum.

"You're so handsome." I could only say in the thickening lust. He can feel my heart rate accelerating furiously against his skin.

He looks at me, a smirk etching on his face, "And you're so beautiful over my knees." Another slap and I gasped.

"I hate when your next to him. I can't stand not having you to myself. Thinking about his lips on you, fuck."

I force to breath, "He is my husband Nasir, I need to play along."

"I know." He frustratingly huffs. "I know, and I can't take it anymore."

"But I am yours when he isn't around." I could only interject, feeling him tense under me.

"I want you to be mine fully." he says, but his voice suddenly drifted until it was a mere whisper. "I just want you and me until the end of time."

My spanking came to a steady stop. I heard every one of his words and marinated the thought, my heart beating widely in the silence even as he lifted and arranged ourselves, we didn't talk, instead took the moment to solemnly gaze at each other as if waiting for a sound to cut the tension.

I wanted to hear it again; I wanted to listen to the way he felt. But he looked at me, as If I was something he could only watch from behind a glass, longing with the desire to hold me and never let go.

"Tiana-"

He spoke than, and my heart leapt. Anticipation welding was this a confession? it couldn't be, even if I finally admitted my feelings, nothing could be pursued.

"I-"

"Nasir." I interrupted, shying away from him, and he used a hand to lift me head by the chin, bringing me back to meet his eyes.

My view. A heavenly view. His touch is firm and soft, and it keeps me in place, he angles his head in a way to arrange me to best fit him, my lips involuntarily parting, waiting for us to mold together again when something kept me from getting any closer. And it poked my stomach.

My cheeks burn. I'm sure he noticed, it didn't matter to him, but the moment faltered, and he released my chin. "I'll be out training today. Prepping the guards for the ceremony."

"All day?" I whimpered, on a verge of sobbing. I already having an inkling, woe weighing on me, knowing this will be our only time together. And when he slowly nodded, it sunk my heart further.

"Charlotte, is in the library." he says, "But if you need me all you have to do is call."

***

I observe from my window, hidden behind the faint line of the bright green curtain. Enraptured by the image, Nasir like a mighty king himself stood at the center of marching man. Ranging form slim to muscular, some even bulkier than Nasir himself, and a few towered over him. It didn't matter they knew not to challenge, instead each dreading to look into his eyes, following his every command.

Hakeem and Carter delivering water, and ear ringing tweets of whistles. Under the beaming sun, they glisten with sweat, performing a multitude of daunting tasks that leave their shirts drenched down the backside and armpits. Except Ray who perched himself in the shade, with a book in hand.

A rest day for the crew. And the men had a field day ahead of them.

My lingering gaze burned bullets into his frame, and he whips up to the feel to me, at my window, clashing our eyes together, abruptly, and I pivoted from sight.

Heaving, and flushed, my hand over my heart trying to keep it it from springing out. I act like a schoolgirl stalking her crush. These emotions have gotten out of hand, this burning lust that I can't scratch, every time I blink, I see that angry outline and lick my lips.

I peel from the wall, cautious to not let him see me, and strode myself to the library where Charlotte sat on a couch reading. Deep admiral blue slips from the pages to look up to my approaching frame and she rose to her feet and bowed.

"My queen." Her face unusually blushed with pink, as if she spent this moment alone giggling.

I nodded, and suspiciously raked my eyes down her curves, and lingered it on the book resting on the couch behind her, and upon my glare she quickly sits, shielding the cover from sight.

"Are we finally having ourselves another girl's day?" she asks.

Sheepishly I smiled to the thought, "It has been a while. And there is something I - I wanted to talk to you about."

If there is only one person I felt like I could trust in this moment, and entrust this information too, Charlotte would be the one.

Her neck crooked as her lids widened, she was intrigued, her perfectly trimmed brows lifted with amusement. "Come." she cheesed, patting the sofa next to her.

The empty library was wide, a matrix of a sort that could very well have hidden anyone, and I would have no way of knowing if we were actually alone. She watched my every move, even the twiddling of my fingers until I sat aside her.

"Speak to me." she smiles her voice soft enough for only me to listen. Propping an elbow at the head of the sofa, she angles her body and gave me her full attention.

"Have you ever had desires?"

Just as her face lifted with shock it mellowed into a mischievous gleam, it was only me taken back by how straightforward I sounded.

She scooted in closer, "Desires, my queen?" her words are drawled, beckoning for elaboration.

I sighed, still buried into my shell. "I have been having thoughts and feelings about."

"No one is here my queen." she cut in, bubble gum breath fanning along my chin, golden strands of her hair brushing along her shoulders at her face leaning in. "Tell me."

She fishes for the real me in this moment, the same me that hid in a closet and fondled myself. And she did. I cleared the gravel, there was no way of hiding anymore under those sheen blue, and I nearly whine. "I can't stop thinking about him Charlotte."

"Who?" she sung, her face beaming red.

"Nas-" before I could even finish the name she uplifted with a squeal, cupping her manicured fingers around my hand.

"I knew it!"

"Was it obvious?" I groaned. The weight of this secret finally uplifts, and I was able to relax and mellow into mush in her hands.

"I mean the only time it is obvious s when your around each other, but other than that, you sell it pretty well around Gunter."

That was satisfying clarity.

"Keep going, keep going." She ushers, her soft grip beginning to tighten.

Tiny flicks of stars sprinkle in my vision, rummaging those moments that filed my chest everlasting joy, "Since we were younger, he was my best friend, a protector even, someone that went out of his way to try and give me everything despite ... everything he went through. I remember times he'd pick the prettiest flowers, and rubbed the dirt on himself and it would accidentally get on his cheeks." I blushed.

Charlotte never blinked, even when I had long forgotten I was speaking to her, I instead entered a moment of floating in the clouds, saying words aloud.

Than my smile steadily lops when reality slithered back into sight, "I always thought whatever I was feeling back than would soon fade. And me and him would grow apart, especially with the new tasks I am forced with, but that hasn't been the case. In fact, the day I saw him again for the first time, I felt this pull and ever since than it plays with these emotions like strings in my heart."

"Ohhhh." Charlotte sung; she was like a cheerleader. "Have you told him, I bet he feels the same."

"I think so too, but ... but it can't happen. It could never be possible."

And knowing of the reason she didn't question me on that. "You can't just keep quiet on these feelings my queen; you will both suffer in the end."

"I don't have much of a choice really. We haven't been caught bu-"

"WAIT-" she blurts midway, startling me. "Haven't been getting caught?"

I pursed my lips, hot blood rushing to my nose, but now I was under the spotlight, the secret is out.

"Tiana," she beamed, "You two have ..."

She didn't finish the sentence, but her knowing eye was everything. "No! I mean well, he won't."

"Won't what ... Touch you?

I nodded, feeling embarrassed. "Is it ... me?"

"With all due respect, he is doing well keeping his hands to himself around you."

"So, he is experienced with it?" I crinkled my face, hoping she wouldn't probe me to say anything further, but I witnessed her face dread off, shifting her glare from mine and I furrowed my brows.

"Nasir, is inexperienced, is he?"

"Uh. H - he has had a fair share of women over the last decade."

A harpoon flung through my chest, "A fair share?"

She pursed her lips and nodded.

"By a fair share ... how many exactly are we talking?"

"We should change the topic, My queen."

And she was right, but there was a nerve sizzling in my veins, desperate to know. "Tell me."

... She sighs, "I honestly lost count, but ... ever since we grew to teenagers, his appetite increased immensely."

"Appetite? Charlotte, I mean how many women has he slept with."

"No, that's the thing. When I say appetite, I mean sexual prowess."

I wanted to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Of course she meant sexual appetite. I cringed, almost baring teeth.

"It's ok." She giggles. Noticing my shift, her palm reassuringly rubbing up my arm. "Do you want me to keep going?"

I know I'll regret it, but ... "Yes."

She summons a breath, and as she prepped to speak, I quickly flinched.

"Just ... give me the estimate."

"Well, from when he was 16 -"

My jaw tore, "16?"

"During training at the camp, it takes a huge toll on the body, and we are always happy to be alive. And from there, there were always new children, the same like us. Kidnapped and orphaned, and they that grew up with us. Nasir became leader quickly and was always saving lives of women, so they thanked him."

I noticed the sentence cut. And the emphasize on the word thanked. "How many." I asked feeling the lump swell in my throat.

"Tiana," she squeezed my palm, "Don't you worry about that, those women are no more, all he sees is you, all he has ever thought about in that whole camp was you."

Her words didn't make a dent to soothe me, and she squeezed my shoulder. "Have you seen the tattoo?"

"The one on his pinky," I say trying to fight back the tears.

She nodded, "Every deadly challenge we survive. We get a gift."

I drifted my eyes, reuniting with her mellow gaze, her eyes softening to a softer cerulean shade.

"I returned from the academy, and Nasir was being rewarded. Adelheid took him into the office and told him he will grant him one desire. By then Nasir was still flourishing, he had one wish that he had always spoke about, even when he is asleep. He came out of the office and had a distant look in his eyes, something defeated, lifeless. I called out his name that day, but when he looked, it's like I wasn't there to him, and it was like he wasn't there."

I await in silence, simmering every word.

"He would not talk or eat. Buried himself into a shell for a few days, until he came into the room with a tattoo. That tattoo. His first ever. And when I asked him about it, he finally spoke, and he said. 'They would not let me go and see her, so I brought her to me. My one and only reminder that I live because of this and will soon show it to her, and prove she never left my mind, for all these years.

Something triggered in me in that moment, and those tears I tried to hold back fall with the blink of my eyes, warm beads hit the top of my breast, trailing into the ample valley, he never forgot me. He meant it.

Charlotte smiles, using a finger to wipe the smears. "You were always his force to survive, the reason why he looked forwards to tomorrow, because he tells me all the time, how he sees you in his finish line, waiting for him in that bright end of the smoky fogginess."

It's too much, the words were iron from her tongue. Slight tremors took over me, but I held myself steady, it's not worth the tears, there is no point in crying, when there really could never be a future between un. Even if we felt the same way about each other.

"Your quiet." I hear Charlottes feathery voice and looked at her through the blur of my wet eyes.

"I waited for him too Char. I waited for years and years to see him again, and every passing day I grew more and more disappointed. But ... I refused to give up. I refused to believe he was dead. I just - I just always knew he was alive, otherwise, my heart would have stopped beating long ago."

"Two souls meant to be one." She comments, smiling widely, so wide her cheeks puffed, and I thought I imagined tears brimming along her eyes.

"No." I sniffled, rippling the moment. "Two souls force to never have met."

"Don't say that."

"It's not possible Char. Even speaking like this could lead us all in trouble."

"Your only speaking like this because your heart is growing to heavy. There is no one else you can say this to my Queen. I know you feel the same for him."

"I took an oath."

"A piece of paper?"

"This is my destiny."

"Yours to change whenever."

"I was coronated before my people."

"So they have no say in what the Queen, chooses. Your the Queen and what you want have no concern is to them."

"I'll be beheaded Charlotte." I blurted, growing agitated by every moment. "In the oath, any treason, lust, desire, or forgery of my crown, will lead me to death, and the man I lay with will be burned alive."

It had now hit her in the moment, the depth of it all if I do ended up giving into these desires. My death. The ways of my old ancestors, including my great grandmother who fell in love with a commoner and their heads were severed upon a stone and burned.

"My great grandmother." I said aloud what I was thinking, "Fell in love with a commoner. She gave in on her desires, and in the end watched as they skin him alive first. Before the beheaded him, and she was next."

I watched Charlottes pupils widen, but these were things that she was accustomed too, knowing of her upbringing.

"Once that oath is signed, I am on a pedestal. A promise in the flesh, and if dented or broken in any way, it is seen as betrayal, a broken dream of many who believed in me, a leader that couldn't provide, because I chose to fall in love with someone that wasn't seem fit."

Vivid memories of my past configure, the day my father stepped in for a day when I was only ten, to teach me a ten thousand word list of things and protocols that I had to recite word for word, and every failed pronunciation, he would hit me in the back of the hand with wood, and his abuse progressed more violently at each approaching day. Horrid days I never want to recall, hence why now, the sight of my father leaves a sour taste on my tongue, and I have not done any research for his whereabouts, and since discovering of his participation in the rituals, I could only hope his karma is me.

Charlotte lunged at me, her slender arms wrapped tightly around my neck, fruit body spray engulfs me all around, and her soft hair tickling my nose and face.

"I've got you." she whispers. "Your abuse was horrible, I'm sorry you were born into this, I'm sorry that you feel stuck, I am sorry -"

She apologized over and over again, for all the things that she wasn't cursed with, tears drip down my shoulders. I couldn't grasp why, until I realized, she wept because she knows. Not being able to live life as a child, our destiny's stolen and forced into a life that we only knew to survive in. Only those that have walked in sullied shoes knows it is no different than walking bare footed.

I grant my self the moment to cry and I found the perfect shoulder. My Charlotte, who like me and all of us, dealt with the toughest time.

"I'm always in your corner Charlotte. Your my best friend."

"No, my queen I'm your sister."

Its tense. Its real. The moment I release it all, what burden me for so long. I feel the pain diminishing the harder I cried, tears that were stored.

My stolen childhood. This life I'm forced into. And Nasir, who underwent it all, and I wasn't there for him. And Charlotte weeps for herself, the tighter we hugged, the more we cried until we went dry in the eyes, exhaustion lulling and my face drooped. We must have stayed entangled for ... didn't even know, but she went silent on my end.

"You up?" I whispered.

"Yea," she whispered back. "I was waiting for you to finish it all,"

I giggled, "You could have let go."

"Nah," she shook. "I wanted you to let it all go."

My process of healing had only begun, but now that the burden have finally been wept, I had more room to embrace. And I chose that second to drift my eyes downwards to the book hidden into the cushion of the couch. The title meant little, it was the picture that caught my eye.