Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
She has been much better behaved with the soldiers since we lost Lydia, but I did not know she was this familiar with them. It seems we have both been keeping our secrets.
I find her in the middle of a circle of three soldiers, training with them. I watch as she wields a sword. She is a novice, but there is a fierceness and a drive that shows she has made quick progress already, and will continue to make more. The soldiers she is working with are all women, and they are all well seasoned. None of them is as good as Lydia was, but I know all of them would make the same sacrifice she did if they were called to.
As I watch, I think about loyalty, how it can be so beautiful and so destructive at the same time. I think about what I have been loyal to, and why. And I watch my young wife do her best to become what she believes she needs to be.
I do not interrupt, not until the session ends. As the soldiers file out, I take hold of her and pull her into the same shadows in which I was lurking. I am sure they all knew I was there, and I am equally sure they all assumed that if I was not stopping them, they should not stop. They were right.
“Oh,” she says. “Arthur!”
“What are you doing?”
Mila looks up at me, her chin jutting out as she prepares to defend herself. She thinks she might be in trouble. She is not.
“I don’t ever want to depend on someone else’s life to save mine again,” she says. “Lydia should still be here, and I should know how to protect myself and my baby.”
“We won’t lose anybody else,” I say, hating the words because they feel like a lie to me.
“You don’t know that. I don’t know that. Even with the Artifice looking after us, bad things happen, because people are people.”
I think back to the sweet girl who came to me just over a year ago. I have taken so much innocence from her. Her physical and sexual innocence, and her moral innocence as well. She’s seen more than anybody should ever have seen.
“Don’t tell me I can’t do this, because I won’t stop,” she says.
“Is that right?”
Mila
He lifts a brow at me, before sweeping me suddenly up into his arms.
“Are you going to tell me what you will and will not do?” He questions me gruffly. “Are you going to be a disobedient bride? I think you’ve forgotten what I do to young ladies who don’t listen to me.”
I can tell he is not truly angry. He is being gruff, but there is a look in his eye that tells me he is pleased with me. The distance that has been feeling as though it might swallow us both up is diminished by this playful little conflict.
I am carried out of the general garrison and back inside the house, right through the entire place, all the way to the bedroom where I am kissed and stripped and finally fucked by my ardent husband.
“Get that sweet pussy on my cock,” he growls, pulling me down on his dick. I am sitting astride him, looking down at him, his hands on my hips as he locks me in place. His cock connects us, makes us one creature for a time. There is an intimacy to this position that I have greatly missed.
“We need to talk,” he says, fucking me slowly.
“You want to talk now?” I moan the question.
“Yes. Like this,” he says, rolling his hips skillfully to make his cock stretch me most expertly. He stretches his palm out, his thumb rubbing my clit as he finally talks to me.
“I can’t tell you everything I know about the world,” he says. “I wish I could, but it would put you in danger. What I can tell you is that I spent a lifetime serving the Artifice, and now I serve only you and our family.”
Those words would have been blasphemy before. If I know one thing about Arthur, it is that he is completely, fanatically devoted to the Artifice. He loves me, and he loves the baby, but the Artifice is what his life has been dedicated to.
“Nothing matters to me as much as you do,” he says. “I will continue to hold my position, and to serve the machine as long as it serves us. But I will never put you in a position of danger again.”
“You can’t stop it. We are important people, and you represent power and order. People will always be coming for you, and us, by extension.”
“What if I was to give it all up? Become normal?”
I laugh, feeling myself clench his cock as I do. “You’re not normal. You’re extraordinary, and you always will be. You are who you are. I just want to be ready. I want to be your equal. Your mate in all things. I don’t want to be the helpless little thing I was.”