Long, silken strands of gold shot with fire tumbled over her bare shoulders, sweeping the tiny butterfly tattoo at the small of her back. A thin chain bound her hips, only emphasising their swing as she moved down the steps.
Wispy rose cloth clung to a moulded gold necklet, skimming the sides of her breasts and falling to several inches above her knees. The gathered folds only served to emphasis the high, firm mounds thrusting impudently against the thin material and the sweet cheeks of her bottom.
Arik's hand clenched around the silver goblet. As if sensing his brooding gaze, Jolie's head turned slightly, glimpsing him with her pure profile. He silently willed her to turn about, to come to him of her own free will. It was like a kick in the gut when she continued to walk away from him, the tattoo taunting him with each swing of her hips.
She had looked upon him with hurt golden eyes when he given the order for the delicate tattoo. It had not taken long before he had settled on the beautiful winged creatures unique to where she grew up as the mark of his consort. Even though it pained him to see her suffer, the ink mark was as crucial as it was binding. It marked her as his. A slave collar could be removed. A tattoo was irrevocable.
Jolie had escaped him once. He could recall with startling clarity the debilitating agony that had seized him, not knowing whether she was alive or safe. He had been consumed by fear and an unfamiliar indecisiveness. He realised then no woman had mattered as much to him. And he had no one to blame, for she had run from him.
Her cool indifference to him was as infuriating as it was irritating. He had kept her in his bed since her recapture, seeking to imprint himself on her in the most elemental way he knew how. Jolie had yielded to him, gloriously and wantonly. She was too passionate and inexperienced to deny him. Yet when the fiery heat had abated and their bodies exhausted, there remained a secret part of herself she held from him.
It frustrated the gods out of him, that invisible distance she held him at. And could remove all reason. He wanted to chain her to his bed or lock her up in a gilded cage all for the sole reward of knowing that she would constantly think of him, even if it be in hate. He was no better than a sulky prince who refused anything but the best sword despite not being skilled enough to wield it.
~*~
When the time for Jolie' birthing came, Arik felt as though his sword hand had been ripped off as he listened to Jolie's cries. He alternated between praying and hitting something with his fists. When the first faint cry came, his tired eyes burned and he rubbed at them furiously. He was immediately by her side, the midwives parting silently as he reached an exhausted Jolie holding a tiny bundle to her breast.
Jolie met his gaze, hers soft and glimmering, her face luminous. He smiled down at her, his heart clenching with tenderness, and gently brushed back a stray golden lock. Around them worked the midwives.
"I want to name her Isaleen, after my mother," she told him.
"Isaleen," he murmured, stoking the downy softness of his daughter's fragile head with a trembling hand. "It's perfect. She's perfect. And tiny, just like her mother."
A gasp of laughter escaped Jolie. "She will soon grow."
They silently watched their daughter, a squirming bundle that tugged at his heart. It was a moment of respite in Jolie's silent war against Arik, and it gave him hope that not all was lost.
~*~
Arik gazed around the circle of men, his bleary eyes narrowed. Arik had faced men in the battlefield, had seen his men struck down by wounds that would make a grown man shudder. But many a night changing Isaleen's cloths sometime between dusk and dawn and bringing her to their bed so that Jolie could feed the little one, tested a warrior's strength. Time and time again he was amazed his precious daughter could produce a stink that could fell a grown man.
Jolie and her babe were the foremost portent of hope for his people. Word had begun to trickle in of more Alverdian's swelling with child. What held the war council in stunned silence was the reporting that a Loas woman had swelled with the Alverdian seed of her love slave. A triumphant relief had surged through him at the knowledge his people were no longer destined to wither and die. Yet this news did not deter his decision and only made him more determined. He was irritated beyond bearing that they dithered long over a decision of such import to Arik.
"She is a princess of her own people," Arik reiterated.
"She is a love slave, of no standing."
"Only because I made her so."
"She is not chaste."
"Obviously, and again, only because I made her so. Indeed, most of you bore witness to the occasion."
"She does not know our people, our customs."
"She is learning."
So it went on.
The men who were friends of his father were the most stalwart against any move away from the tradition of picking his Queen from the handful of daughters of the best families. The families of the men on his war council. It was unheard of, they said, that a captive of war could become Queen. Only one said he would rather fall on his sword than crown a heathen, and Arik, lacking any measure of diplomacy by that point, invited the man to do so. There was little quibbling after that, only hushed whispers.
Finally, and after a moon of debating, the council secretly decreed Jolina could become his Queen. Arik's last remaining barrier was Jolie herself, and he wondered how or if he could convince her.
~*~
