Agosto 13, 1898
Bathala have mercy on me. I've failed. I hadn't the heart to bind or whip my beloved Bulalakaw and I fear he is lost to me now. All I have left is Bulan's promise that in my bloodline lies hope. It is ironic that for all that I cannot find the courage to draw blood, in the end, it is blood that will save those whose lives I shatter out of cowardice.
Dearest Tala, you are so real to me now, though I haven't the faintest idea how you will look, or even how much power you will someday command. I imagine you, build you in my mind. I would like to imagine you have the tiniest traces of me in your face. Perhaps in the fullness of your lips, or the low melody of your voice. Perhaps you would have the Spanish curve of hip and breast as a legacy from me, or fire in your curly hair. I make an image of you to comfort and old woman, to warm away my loneliness. Perhaps I am a fool, but I am taking what joy I can, where I can because all else is emptiness and defeat.
But let me resume my cautionary tale. Complete your ascension to the hallowed status of Baylanβdo what I could not. I know you can, for you carry the strength of my husband, for all that he has made me hate him with his rattan rods and leather straps. Your ancestor was so strong of will that an erupting volcano underfoot would not have killed him had he decided it would not. I pray he also gave you his physical strength, that of a water buffalo bull in its prime. You will need both and I pray the gods of the Skyworld give you these gifts you will need.
These traits I so hate make up the inheritance that will save you. So use them well. Don't think about how I detest them. Rather, focus on making it serve you as a tool and a lifeline. The legendary stubbornness of the Bienvenidos will be your strongest asset. So will their sturdy constitution.
I know this: You will have my passion, this force within me that pushes me forward. Passion that only fear will defeat, if you will permit fear free reign. Leash that fear, truss it up so it cannot move against you. Because there is no ignoring it. So conquer it as our Spanish forebears conquered and colonized. Find your sword and know its heft and balance. Hold up your shield and grip it tight.
You will have my sight, my instincts that guide me right, though I fight them at every turn. Do as I say, not as I do.
This is the Trial of the Third Hair and it will be the most difficult of all.
***
Tala turned in Buhawi's embrace, her whole body throbbing in the aftermath of the climaxes he'd drawn with the slowest strokes of fingers and tongue and pervasive penis.
She smiled into the purple darkness of the wee hours they'd slumbered through, her half-conscious mind slipping back into the delicious dream of Buhawi licking her neck lightly as he spooned her, pressing his body tight against her back so she could feel his heartbeat pulsing through his chest and the
tarugo
still pressed against her.
Tala shimmied slightly, drawing a sexy, low groan from Buhawi as his hard length found a haven between the cheeks of her ass. Buhawi's breath engulfed her ear in hot exhalations as she closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip.
"Look at you, sweetness," Buhawi's words were whispered on another baritone moan as he clasped a breast and pulled on her hardening nipple. "You look so gorgeous in moonlight and cotton-silk sheets."
He nudged Tala's head with his chin, turning it toward the floor-length cheval glass mirror across the bed. His other hand snaked under and around he waist and he began to gently finger the wetness of her cleft and the erect little soldier of her clit. "You were meant to be a goddess, Tala. You were made to be worshipped."
Buhawi's forefinger made a slow, tantalizing assay into her slick, tight heat and the exquisite sensation that flowed gently through her from her most female of places grew more intense as he crooked that digit within her once, then again, slowly and sensuously.
Words? She'd completely lost her faculty for words because Buhawi was nuzzling her neck at its most sensitive erogenous zobes, plucking hard nipples and making the sweetest, filthiest pillow-talk she'd ever heard.
"Tang-ina, ang sarap mo,"
Buhawi's voice was rough as a pebble beach now as he told her how good she felt and tasted, with a bit of profanity for emphasis.
The head of his erection was straining urgently against the indentation at the small of her back, leaving a wet spot of his pre-comeβevidence of how much he needed to enter her. His tongue punctuated his sentences with long, slow licks and his perfect teeth made sharp little nips at her neck and earlobe, triggering the most delicious shivers all over her skin.
"I'm so hard for you. But I am going to go so slow, make you as crazy as I feel now. We'll both be begging when I plunge my cock into this hot, dripping pussy."
Tala plucked at her other nipple, hooked a leg backward over Buhawi's elevated thigh and gasped as the night air touched her open, desire-swollen sex. She reached between her legs with her other hand, gripped Buhawi's writst and tried to push his hand in faster, but he wouldn't let her.
"Oh, sweet Baylan, you aren't going to make me finger-fuck you any faster than I decide to invade this sweet, tight hole," Buhawi pinched her nipple a bit harder as his other hand penetrated her wetness in a slow, deliberate tease that made her cry out in aroused frustration.
The zinging pain and pleasure went straight to her already twitching clitoris. "It would be so hot to watch you rub that stiff little nub while you and I play with your perfect tits. Or maybe I will tie you up and make you take every little torment I can wring from this gorgeous body of yours."
Tala whimpered as Buhawi moved as fast as the whirlwind that was his namesake. He pinned her under his body and held her hands to the headboard as he ground his hard length of
tarugo
against the wet slickness of her pussy, making sweet friction between labia glistening with her arousal, rubbing the head of her shameless clitoris.
***
"Tanikala."
Buhawi made the sound of the word for chains so sexy, a whisper of promised pleasure against the soft valley between her breasts. Soft material slithered around Tala's wrist quickly, binding her to the headboard firmly, not giving at all when she gasped and tried to tug her hands down, lightly at first, then with more effort.
Similar shackles, soft but unyielding, wrapped around her knees and pulled her legs apart and Buhawi rose, pulling the silken blanket off Tala's body slowly as a striptease's opening moves.
Her eyes went wide as she looked up at Buhawi, trying to find the words to protest, to set herself free. She struggled, but remained fastened firmly to the bed, noticing for the first time that there was a full length mirror embedded in the canopy above the bed.