Chapter 13 ~ The Next Step
Bella’s POV ~
I bite my lip and move around Edwaird to feel the water pouring out of the showerhead. I can feel his eyes on me as I move, and I swallow thickly, feeling my body respond to his proximity. I feel the tension and want this like it‘s our first time all over again. I wonder if that since I pretty much died...again, it is like our first time all over again. Whether it is or not, I can’t deny how much I want him. I no longer wonder if he feels the same way, I know he does. I can feel it in my blood, like his body wants to pull me into him, absorb me, be me.
We are already one.
I pick up a hair brush and begin to pull it through my matted nest of hair. There are too many tangles -- dead planet debris, blood, and everything else ensure that the brush only serves as a hindrance. I set it back down, and Edwaird has not uttered a single word, but I feel his eyes once again, measuring each of my moves, calculating my health against his need to once again make me his.
This makes me smile, and there is no time for games. I want him too, need him.
I stick my hand under the water, testing its temperature against my skin. I look at Edwaird, biting my lip to tease him, and begin to undress. He simply watches me with hunger in his eyes; I step under the spray.
He doesn’t immediately follow me so I begin to wash my hair. It takes me a while considering all of the tangles I have to get through, and when I finally finish, there is a mess of particles and red tinged water cluttering the drain and flowing down into it.
Edwaird finally steps in behind me, and I want to sing “Hallelujah! Now fuck me!” but I refrain.
I grab the wash cloth-style rag and swipe the soap across it, lathering it, then raise it to my neck and gently begin to wash over the tender, newly exposed holes behind my ears. I hear a low rumble behind me, and a hand reaches up, taking the cloth from me. Edwaird moves my hair to hang over my shoulder and begins to softly rub the cloth against the skin near my ear. He makes small circular movements, working gently to get the dried blood off of me. I thought most of it would have come off when I washed my hair but apparently not. When he is satisfied with one side, he moves to the other side and repeats the motions.
Before I notice it, he is sliding the cloth down my back and swoops his hand around to the front of me. He runs it across my hips, then up my torso. He grazes my breasts, and I gasp, grinding my ass against him. The arm not holding the cloth wraps around my middle, and he pulls me closer to him. All of a sudden, I couldn’t give a fuck whether or not I’m clean.
His tongue begins to make a trail across my shoulder and in towards my neck. He kisses the skin at the base, and I shiver when I feel him nibble ever so slightly. What he does next is what ruins me completely. Every pleasant sensation I have ever felt in my entire life lights my body on fire, and then, there are other sensations, the ones I can’t quite put a name to.
I hear Edwaird’s intake of air, and he gently blows it across my flain. I feel them constrict with pleasure, then widen back up as my eyes grow wide. Everything in my body would scream if it could. I swear I can feel every cell in my body pulse, and I heat up everywhere. It’s not the water, because that is actually beginning to grow slightly cold.
Edwaird drops the cloth to the floor of the bath, and it makes a wet “clop” sound as it hits. He moves his free hand up, then grazes across my nipple, causing me to moan loudly, unable to contain it a moment longer. He blows across my flain once again and something happens. As a “human” I would have been mildly turned on, but as this “alien” that I am, the air that passes over my flain and lightly touches the shell of my ear, new sensations, sounds, tastes and scents hit me. It’s so much more… everything, making me feel as though I may just float right up off of the floor and into the air.
In my head, I hear this voice that sounds like my voice, but in several different octaves at once. There is a moan, and it’s like this exquisite moan of ecstasy, enlightenment.
Edwaird wildly spins me around to face him and stares into my eyes, his own eyes wide and searching into mine for something. I look back into his, then ask mentally, what is it?
He simply says, “Issss true,” then attacks my mouth like it is the last kiss we will ever share. I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer to me, and kiss him back with equal force.
Our tongues twine together, needing to be closer to each other. Tiny pants escape our mouths and trade bodies as we continue to mate with only our tongues. Our teeth click, and when I think I’m about to pass out, I finally pull away. He twists us both around so that I am closest to the wall and moves us closer to it. My back touches it, and he lifts me up by my ass. My legs wrap around his waist, and I can feel him right at my entrance but not yet inside. He pushes against me, kissing down my neck and across my collar bones. My hands go into his hair, doing whatever I can to hold on tightly to some part of him, any part of him, so I don’t float away in this amazing feeling.
“Uh, Edwaird. You are my love; you are me. I need you. Please, I need you,” I beg.
He kisses back up my neck, and when he gets to my ear, he whispers, “And I am you,” then plunges into me, sinking hilt-deep.
I scream out in pleasure, unable to hold it in and hide our intimacy from the rest of our family. I only pray they are occupied enough to not hear or notice my sounds.
I move my arms underneath of Edwairds, sliding them under his armpits so that I can grip onto his shoulders from behind and give myself any kind of leverage to move with him. He moves slowly inside of me, his cock sliding against my sensitive insides and eliciting more moans and cries from me. This is sex like I’ve never known, never could have known before, and I know it is because of the holes that have been uncovered behind my ears. I feel sorry for humans now.
Edwaird begins to pump into me steadily, and my fingernails dig into the taut flesh of his shoulder. He hisses and pushes into me even harder. The tightness in my belly pulls closer together, and I feel myself getting closer to the edge.
“Oh! Ung. I’m going to... Edwaird. I’m going to...ung...come.”
I pull on his shoulders so hard that my arms tremble, and he pounds into me hard, my back up against the cool wall behind me. I suddenly come undone, quivering, whimpering, with my muscles clenching and unclenching around him. He comes shortly after me, and we stand frozen for several moments, trying to catch our ragged breaths.
Edwaird lowers us to the bottom of the tub, then reaches behind him to turn off the now cold water. When he turns back around, there is a look of sadness in his eyes that nearly breaks me in two.
“I thought I’d lossst you. Never be away from me again, my
I gently grab his face and tip it towards mine. Our noses touch, and his eyes close. I kiss his nose first, then each eye, and his forehead before moving over to his ear. “I will never leave you. I am always with you. We will always be.”
His arms around me tighten, and we sit like this for a while. Soon we both grow too cold to stay put, so Edwaird stands us up. He steps out of the tub first, then lifts me up and out after, wrapping a rough towel around me.
When we are both dried, combed and dressed, Edwaird runs down to the kitchen to grab some food for both of us. I can’t deny how completely starved I feel, as though I could eat all day long, but I suppose not having food for who knows how many days and pretty much dying will do that to a girl.
As I wait for him, I sit in the window seat, looking at the land beyond me. My land, my home. This is my home now, but not only is it my home now, it was my home before. It doesn’t seem possible that the life I lived on Earth really wasn’t meant to be, doesn’t seem like my loving parents could have held that truth from me for my entire life and would have held it to their graves. I think about who I am, and how absurd it feels. I feel like me, the same Bella I have always been, except now I have funky ear holes like everyone else here. Oh, except I have four, and there has apparently only ever been one other to have had four flain holes...her. And by her, I don’t mean my bitch of a biological mother -- no -- I mean the woman for whom the necklace I wear was named after.
Sssisssooka. The Oracle, as Edwaird called her, said that Sssissooka was both a creator and a destroyer. I’m not sure about the destroyer part, and, well, I’m not so sure about the creator part either. I’ve always been a bit squeamish around children in general. What worries me the most is that they think that I am the reincarnate of this woman. I don’t even know how this is possible, as, I’ve never been an overly religious person and haven’t really thought much about the possibility of reincarnation, but this takes it to a whole new level. This means that I’m somebody, really somebody, and that notion freaks me the fuck out, because what if I’m really not? What if it’s a fluke, and I seriously fuck these people over on accident?
Anxiety flutters in my belly, leaving me feeling slightly nauseous just as Edwaird walks through the door carrying a tray. I want to start spouting off movie lines, but I refrain, knowing the blank look I’ll get from Edwaird for it.
Edwaird pulls a table over to the window and sets the tray down on it. There is an assortment of foods that I am beginning to now recognize, and I reach for the one that tasted kind of like honeydew melon the last time. I have to do something with my hands to keep them busy and stuff something in my mouth so I don’t start bombarding him with millions of questions.
We sit silently for a few moments, eating the food before us and watching each other. I don’t know where to start, so I tell him so.
“I don’t know what to do, Edwaird. What does all of this mean? What do we do from here?” My eyes plead with his, begging him to know exactly what we need to do.
Edwaird wipes his hand on a small towel then takes both of my hands in his. He doesn’t say anything right away, just looking at me, and I feel slightly calmer just from his touch.
I sigh and look away from him out the window. “That evil bitch of a Queen is my mother. My mother, Edwaird. What does that say about me? What does it say about the horrible blood that belongs to her and runs through my veins? It means that I could be equally as horrible as her? You have to tell me everything. You have to tell me the things she has done!” My voice begins to rise in my fear of being anything like her.
Edwaird gently grabs my chin and turns me to face him once again. “You are only of her blood, my
I think about his words, feel the force of them move through me. I nod my head at him. “You must promise me that you will never let me be like her. Ever! No matter what!” Unexpectedly, tears begin to pool in my eyes and slip down my cheeks. Edwaird shooshs me and wipes the tears away with his long fingers.
He pulls my head to his chest and begins to rock us back and forth, and it immediately begins to calm me again. We stay like that for a long time. At some point, he quits rocking us, and we sit still with my head leaned into him. I feel a sharp pain move through my back from sitting bent over at an odd angle for such a long time, but the pain brings clarity, and the clarity brings me to a decision.
I sit up quickly, snapping to attention, and he stares at me in question. “We can’t let her do this anymore. She can’t keep doing this to people. She is evil. We have to get rid of her, Edwaird.”
oOo
After a bit more discussion, we have everyone congregated in the kitchen -- which seems to be my favorite place in the house -- and tell them we need to have a discussion. A serious discussion. Edwaird tells them that I have come to a decision, and I feel all eyes fall on me.
I take a deep breath, then tell them what I told Edwaird up in our bedroom. That we have to get rid of the Queen. I don’t necessarily mean we have to kill her, but we have to get rid of her. She needs to be dropped somewhere into a deep abyss or a random planet that she blew up and be left to fend for herself against the elements. I don’t know, but she just can’t be left to rule Sssisla the way she has been.
Conversation erupts around us then, and it doesn’t take us long to figure out that we are going to have to go into the city to start our planning. We have to plan a revolt, and we will need a lot of people to do that. We are also going to have to talk The Oracle into going to the city with us, and as Essssme says, this won’t be an easy task.
“Why is that, Essssme?” I ask.
Essssme walks over to me, and Edwaird scoots away from me a little, making room for his mother to sit in between us.
“The Oracle issss a very old woman. Ssssshe hasss chosssen to live her life amidssst the foressst. Ssshe was married onccce, and had a family, but the Queen wasss unhappy with a foretelling The Oracle onccce gave her, and ssso the Queen killed her mate, and her family. The Oracle fled the cccity and ssssaid sssshe would never return, never get clossse to the Queen again, and sssshe never hasss. It will be hard to assssk her to do thisss for ussss.”
I feel tears prick my eyes again at this new piece of information. It’s no wonder The Oracle “looked” at me the way she did. Her face had been quite stony when she first spoke to me. I feel the disgust for my mo...ugh, I can’t even think it. That woman, I hate her, and I hate what she has done to so many people. I gain even more resolve in that moment.
“Essssme? Will you allow for me to ask The Oracle to do this for us? I feel that I owe her something, even if no one else thinks so, I’d like to speak to her, and to apologize.”
Essssme reaches over and grips my hand in hers, and with tears in her eyes, she nods at me.
She stands and returns to the table, sitting next to Carlissss. For the next few hours, we make plans. Plans upon plans upon plans. Many of our plans exclude Emmeet. He is thoroughly grumpy about this, but it’s too dangerous for him and the baby to partake in any of the real action. He is satisfied knowing that in the end, it will be him that flies the ship with the Queen on it to dispose of her to wherever we decide.
Over the next four days, we write letters to people, disguised as invitations to a mating ceremony celebration for Edwaird and myself. In truth, the letters ask some of the Cul-len Tribe’s closest friends and acquaintances to meet at their city home on specific dates and at specific times that move around the schedules of the Queen and her guard. We make sure that their patrol near the city house’s area does not coincide with any of our meeting times. This takes some time to arrange, as we have to gain access to their schedules, but my family knows many people - many people that do not hold the Queen in high regard.
On the fifth day, all of our planning is mostly done, but now we have to figure out where it is we will send the Queen. It would have been great to have been able to send her to Kasswhahk to both spit on her for Jasspeer’s and my own sake, but in her attempt to be rid of me, she blew the last remnant of the planet to tiny space debris.
We search the maps and satellites for hours until finally, Jassspeer points out a small planet with next to nothing for water, and therefore, probably not much for food either. There is some, and of course, enough to take care of the Queen and her minions for a few years, but probably not much longer than that. I can almost mentally see them killing each other off for the last cup of water, the last tree that bears edible fruit. She deserves it, she deserves to be tortured and possibly killed by one of her own.
Twenty or so minutes later we are heading back to the house. The moons are high in the sky, and it is getting on towards very late at night. We will go to The Oracle tomorrow and beg her to go with us. Whatever it takes, she must go, for there is a chance that people will not believe what we tell them without her.
We all relax in front of the fire in the kitchen, sipping on some type of warmed up liquor. It burns as it goes down my throat but leaves me feeling very euphoric. By the time I finish my first cup, I am beginning to feel very tipsy and seeing swirling patterns in my vision. When I start trying to grab at them, Edwaird decides I’ve had enough and carries me upstairs.
oOo
In the morning, I feel refreshed after sleeping in long after the sun has risen. When I finally make my way down to the kitchen, it is bustling with movement. There are several faces that I don’t recognize, and I move over to the fireplace where Essssme sits with Roe-salie, discussing something and pointing at pieces of paper. I rest my hand on Essssme’s shoulder, and she jumps slightly, then looks up at me and smiles.
She slides over, and I sit beside her. “What are you looking at and who are all these people?” I ask her, gesturing to the extra bodies in the room.
“No-madsss,” Roe-salie answers. She looks around the room, then back at me. “They know of our planssss. They will not take part in the battle, but they will help usss to prepare for it. They over anyone elsssse understand what it meanssss to be rid of the Queen. Ssshe hasss damaged them all in some way.”
Some of them look over at us, and as I catch some of their eyes, they dip their head at me, lowering their eyes to the floor, then resume their work.
I look at Essssme who is watching me.
“They consssider you to be their lasssst hope. You are the Sssissook Princessss, bringer of Enlightenment,
Later in the day, I head out of the house on foot along with Esssssme. Roe-salie is supposed to come with us, but Emmeet is having an overly emotional day so she decides she’d better stay back with him. Ah-lisss is busy preparing the ship with everything that we will need for our meetings with the people in the city, so it is just Esssme and I. We walk close together for quite some time, heading for the tree line of the forest that leads to the bunker.
Instead of heading in the direction that we usually take to the bunker, we head around the other side of the hill, and once we are at the back of it, I see it. There is a tiny little cabin that looks a lot like a log cabin on Earth. There is even a stone chimney that pours smoke into the air. I feel Essssme’s eyes on me then, and I swallow down a lump in my throat, because she could easily say no to me, but I have to have faith in her and faith in myself.
I square my shoulders and grab onto Essssme’s hand. I see her smile out of the corner of my eye as we set off, and I simply squeeze her hand in acknowledgement. She is proud of me, and my love for her grows in that simple expression.
We walk the rest of the way to the one room size cabin, and Esssme leads. Now, you would think that she would knock on the door or something, but she doesn’t, we simply stand there quietly as if The Oracle will hear our silent feet upon her little porch.
The funny thing is...is that she does. After only standing there for a few moments, I hear the shuffling of her feet and the taps her cane makes against the floor as she crosses it. The door opens slowly, and the eyeball cane is the first thing we see.
The Oracle wastes no time, and I should know better that she knows what we want -- what I want, but I’m still caught of guard when she says, “There isssss no other choiccccce. It mussst be done. I will go with you.”
I expect an argument, to have to plead with her, but I don’t. Instead, she invites us in for some kind of tea and instead asks me to relay my plans to her. So for the next couple of hours or so, I voice my plans -- our plans, to The Oracle. When I finish, she looks to her fireplace, just her face and not the cane, cocks her head to the side and says nothing.
After a few moments of fidgety silence -- on my part, she speaks. “The third risssse of the Ssssun from thissss day we will depart. There issss much work to do -- a battle to prepare for. Are you ready, young princess?”
I nod my head although she can’t see me, and not much later, we rise and head back toward home. Her words pulse in my ears, weigh on my conscience. A battle to prepare for. I know that this won’t be an easy task and that the Queen will not just willingly leave. She for all intents and purposes, thinks she has the upper hand. We will allow her to think that for the moment, but we have been quick responses, wedding RSVP’s so to speak, and we know that our numbers are growing. The people are tired of being scared of the wretched woman whom has ruled over them for so long. I only hope that once they know that I am of her blood and hear of our plan, they will still want to help, because The Oracle has not confirmed it for us.
Blood will be shed.
Lives will be lost.
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