For All That We Have and Are (Darken/Kahlan, Cara/Kahlan/Salindra, longshot)
I’ve had this idea floating around in my head for a while, and then the prompts for lots_pornbattle went up and I prompted ‘Darken/Kahlan, a strong man makes a strong mate.’ Well, no one took it in the first two days, and I’m impatient, so here I go. Probably has (a lot) more plot than most sexy fics, but that’s just how I roll. Also incorporates the lots_pornbattle Cara/Kahlan prompt ‘harsh beauty’ to a certain extent. Plus Salindra. Because I like her.
If you are under 17, I will be making a clean version of this story available on ff.net. Please do not read this version. I will know. Because I’m watching you. O_O
Title: For All That We Have and Are
Author: pristineungift
Betas: madmguillotine ; manders11685
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Wordcount: 6,347 words. Longshot is long.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Explicit sexuality; lack of free will; slight non-con; prostitution; contains both femslash and het, in that order.
Summary: What if the Confessors had not had a way to cross the Boundary? What would they do to save the Midlands if the Seeker was lost to them? A strong man makes a strong mate, and who could be stronger than a king upon a bloody throne. AU. Darken/Kahlan. Cara/Kahlan/Salindra. Salindra/Kahlan.
For All That We Have and Are
No easy hopes or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all -
For each one life to give.
Who stands if freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?
-For All We Have and Are, Rudyard Kipling
-l-
“Kahlan,” Dennee whispered, grasping for her older sister’s hands in the dark.
“I’m here, Dennee,” Kahlan reassured her, reaching across the ground they slept on.
The Forest of the Night Wisps was gone, as if it had never been there, though Kahlan and others who had a connection with the tiny Forest Fae could still hear them whisper in the back of their minds. They were not dead, but hidden. Hidden so completely, that even when standing in the center of their forest, all you saw was sky.
“What will we do now?” Dennee whispered, pulse in her throat as she struggled to remain calm. Bringing The Book of Counted Shadows to the Seeker across the Boundary had seemed an almost unattainable mission before.
Now it was completely impossible.
“We return to the Mother Confessor,” Kahlan answered, refusing to flinch, to give in to despair for even a moment. One moment of weakness, no matter how small, and she would go completely mad. “Mother Confessor Serena will have a new plan. That’s why she’s Mother Confessor.”
“She is a hard woman,” Dennee said without inflection.
“These are hard times,” Kahlan returned, not so neutrally.
They slept fitfully, or pretended to sleep for each other’s sake. When dawn broke, painting the horizon red, they mounted their horses and rode back the way they had come, away from the Boundary.
And the Seeker.
-l-
“My lord,” Egremont bowed, journey book in hand. “Our territories are inquiring as to whether they should send representatives and gifts to celebrate D’Hara’s National Festival.”
Gazing out at his gardens from the window seat in his council chamber, Darken raised a hand. “Why do you pester me with such trivialities, Egremont?”
Egremont strode carefully out of his lord’s reach, making it appear natural for him to do so, then answered, “Such matters are traditionally the province of the queen, my lord. But as you have neglected to take a wife…”
Darken waved the concern away, irritation in the stiffness of his hand. “I am young yet, Egremont. Let us not speak of this matter today. I trust your judgment in planning the National Festival.”
“Yes, Lord Rahl,” Egremont inclined his head, feeling his heart sink. He so hated planning social events.
“Now, let us move on to more important things. Tell me of the positioning of my troops.”
-l-
Mother Confessor Serena frowned, turning her back on Kahlan and Dennee. Her thoughts were a jumble, her heart made of stone. If finding the Seeker had become impossible without a cadre of wizards to bring down the Boundary, then there was only one avenue left open to them.
It was the obvious plan, though dangerous. It was an unethical plan, with only one chance of succeeding. It broke one of the fundamental laws Confessors lived by.
But Serena would sooner destroy all she stood for herself, than allow bloodthirsty D’Hara to burn Aydindril to the ground.
“I was afraid it would come to this,” she said softly. “Gather the rest of your sisters. We must speak of grave things.”
Meeting each other’s eyes, worry in their gazes, Kahlan and Dennee complied.
There were so few of them left. Once a full council of all the Confessors would have filled the room, spilled out into the hall. Now there were barely enough of them to fill the first two rows of seats in the Mother Confessor’s audience chamber. Some, like Mother Confessor Serena, wore grime streaked dresses of white that had seen better days. Others were garbed in black that did not show the wear, but highlighted the paleness of their skin, the gauntness of their faces.
The loss of hope.
“Confessors,” Serena began, “the mission to the Seeker has failed.” She waited for the cries of dismay to pass. “But all is not lost. There is another way to save ourselves, and the Midlands. But -” she paused to survey all the faces watching her. Some were hopeful, others broken with sorrow. All were dirty and less bright than the faces of young women should be.
Tired.
“But it will break one of the fundamental tenants by which we live. I will force no one to do this. Whoever accepts this mission, this task, must choose it. Know that we break one of our own laws to uphold the rest of them.” Serena’s gaze rested on Kahlan. She had always thought Kahlan would be Mother Confessor some day. If any of the women before her was strong enough, hard enough to do what she was about to ask…
It would be Kahlan.
“Our spies speak of plans for the D’Haran National Festival. There will be amusements and gifts to Lord Rahl. One of the traditional gifts given is the gift of concubines.”
There was a gasp, and Serena nodded, “Yes. The last path open to us, my daughters, is to confess Lord Rahl himself. One of you must take him as your mate, and become queen of D’Hara.”
“It is forbidden for any Confessor save the Mother Confessor to become a head of state,” someone sitting behind Kahlan said in a low voice. “Lest we become as corrupted as those we fight against.”
Serena nodded, “And that is why I will not command this of anyone. I am too old to pass as a concubine, but neither are any of you ready to be Mother Confessor. Yet, we must do this or face extinction.”
Again, her eyes rested on Kahlan.
There was a moment of silence broken only by hushed whispers, an interminable stretch of time in which Serena could see the future of her people dwindling before her.
And then Kahlan stood. “I will go,” she said with quiet conviction.
All the Confessors in the room turned to her as Dennee cried out, “No! It is too dangerous!”
Kahlan stroked Dennee’s face, “Not any more dangerous than being the Seeker’s Confessor.”
“I will come with you,” Dennee clutched at Kahlan’s hands, fire in her eyes. “Darken Rahl is known to favor blondes. I have a greater chance of succeeding than you,” she fingered Kahlan’s smoky black hair, the velvet night to Dennee’s sunny golden locks.
“Only one may go,” the Mother Confessor interrupted. “And I think it should be Kahlan.”
Dennee met her eyes, and in that moment knew that the Mother Confessor knew she had taken a mate, and was even now with child. To take another mate while the first yet lived would be to break not one, but two tenants of their kind. The Mother Confessor was only willing to bend far enough to preserve their people.
No farther.
Dennee bowed her head, “As you say, Mother Confessor.”
Thinking of the horrors committed by and in the name of Darken Rahl, Kahlan began to tremble. She would bed the beast that consumed the land and washed the rivers in blood, and she would make him her husband.
No - husband implied love, and that was something a Confessor could never have. Darken Rahl would be less than a husband, and more.
He would be her mate.
As if sensing her thoughts, the Mother Confessor gently took Kahlan’s arm, drawing her towards the door that led to Serena’s private chambers. “Come. We must make you ready.”
As one, the remaining Confessors stood. They watched as Kahlan Amnell turned to prepare, to take on this dangerous mission, this sacrifice, for them all. Though not one made a sound, one word rang silently among them, an echo that was felt rather than heard.
Praise.
-l-
“I know you beauties ain’t used to hard travel, but I won’t stand fer no whining’, ye hear?” Vargo the slave trader said from the seat of his wagon.
Sitting in the back amongst tattered blankets, trunks, and hay with several other women, Kahlan nodded. She did not trust herself to speak.
“Don’t look so scared,” a sharp faced blonde sitting next to Kahlan winked at her. With golden hair piled on top of her head and a plunging neckline, she was beautiful in a decidedly sexual way.
“I am not afraid,” Kahlan replied, very conscious of her own hair tumbling in curls from its pins and the amount of cleavage her black leather corset showed. She was not as finely turned out as some of the other women in the wagon, but it was the best they had been able to do with limited time and means.
The blonde laughed, a bright sound like pennies falling against stone, “Sure you’re not, sweetheart.” Her smile was dazzling. “I’m Salindra, and if I didn’t know any better I’d say that your daddy just sold you into slavery.”
Kahlan felt all the blood rush to her head, and she looked away. She had a duty to her people. She was more than a slave.
More than a whore.
Growing serious at the look on Kahlan’s face, Salindra reached out and grasped her chin, forcing Kahlan to look her in the eyes. “I was joking, but now I think maybe I hit too close to the truth. You look embarrassed. I can see the shame that’s choking you,” Salindra’s eyes glittered like lifeless diamonds. “You have nothing to be ashamed about. Nothing. A working girl sells something she can do, same as any entertainer. Maybe you didn’t choose it, but that’s your daddy’s problem. Yours is living with it.”
Lips slightly parted in shock, Kahlan gently pulled her chin from Salindra’s grasp. “You sound so sure.”
Salindra smiled again, but this time it did not reach her eyes, an empty shade of the moment before, “I’m a practical girl.”
“Stop jabberin’ back there! Yer givin’ me a headache,” Vargo called, whipping the horses to a faster pace so that the rattling of the wagon made Kahlan’s teeth chatter together.
Leaning forward, she whispered, “I’m Kahlan.”
Salindra hooked her arm through hers, and Kahlan felt she had made a friend in a place she would have never thought to look.
-l-
The capitol city surrounding the People’s Palace was loud, and bright, and overwhelming. The Slave Market within the city was more so, in addition to stinking of sweat and blood.
Vargo parked his wagon near one of the stages where women were being paraded before D’Haran buyers. There were notices posted everywhere that an envoy from the palace would arrive soon, along with those nobles who wished to purchase a concubine to give to Lord Rahl. When they arrived, a special auction would be held.
“You girls spruce yerselves up,” Vargo ordered, herding them over to a shack with a dirt floor and no doors. He made quick work of shackling each woman’s left ankle to a pole embedded in the ground. They could move, but only as far as the chains allowed. “I’ll be back ta get ye when the auction starts.”
Three girls were lucky enough to have small trunks filled with possessions. They opened them now, pulling out paint pots, ribbons, and perfumes, anything to help them get chosen.
“You all seem excited about this,” Kahlan said with a puzzled frown as Salindra opened her trunk, taking out a jealously guarded hand mirror.
“And why shouldn’t we be?” Salindra asked as she examined her face, then allowed Kahlan to hold the mirror while she dug deeper into her trunk. “Most of us here belong to a House. Half your earnings go to your master until you’ve paid off your purchase price. If your price was high,” the way she said it implied that Salindra’s had been very high indeed, “then you’re lucky to be free by the time you’re too old to enjoy it.”
A wrinkled dress was pulled from the trunk, a comb, paint pots, and even a courtly fan packed within its folds. Kahlan held up the mirror for Salindra as she painted her face. Hesitantly, both wanting to know more, and afraid of knowing more of this strange new reality in which she found herself, Kahlan asked, “But Lord Rahl is a tyrant, known for his cruelty. Aren’t you afraid of him, of what he’ll do to you?”
Salindra snorted, delicately lining her eyes with kohl, “To his enemies he’s a terror, that’s true. But I have it from a good source that he’s very kind to his concubines, an easy master. He visits you once or twice, and then he gets bored and gives you to a faithful vassal, or leaves you to rot in some well furnished tower, one of his pretty darlings.” Salindra looked past the mirror to meet Kahlan’s eyes, “He prefers his Mord’Sith.”
“But a king is expected to have concubines,” Kahlan said with understanding, both disgusted and relieved to find she could sympathize with Darken Rahl. In some ways, they were both doing their duty.
“Or he will look weak,” Salindra agreed, then was silent for a few moments as she painted her lips.
“Doesn’t it make you angry? To be a commodity to be bought and sold, to be given away, to have others decide your fate?” Kahlan asked once Salindra had finished, surprised to find her voice rising.
Salindra shushed her, then bade her to sit on top of the closed trunk. She painted Kahlan’s face as she had her own, something about the woman making her want to help.
Kahlan reminded Salindra of herself, when she had first been sold.
“The nice thing about nobles, is they don’t share their mistresses,” she said quietly, the tip of her pink tongue sticking out as she concentrated on lining Kahlan’s eyes. “No matter how bad the man, learning one man’s moods and temper is better than managing a dozen. And a rich man will keep you well fed, and warm, and give you presents. There are worse fates than to be a noble’s bed warmer.”
“What about love?” Kahlan felt a fool even as she said it. The last time she had asked that question she had watched the light in her mother’s eyes die.
“What about it?” was all Salindra said by way of reply.
Kahlan had always thought love was something that only Confessors were doomed to do without. Now she was no longer so sure.
It was both comforting, and more lonely.
“Put this in your hair,” Salindra handed Kahlan a green feather. “It goes well with your coloring. And you can use my fan.”
Taken by Salindra’s generosity and not daring to question it, Kahlan hugged the smaller woman to her chest, making a silent vow.
When she was the queen of D’Hara, she would buy every woman here, and set them free.
-l-
Cara marched at the head of a quad of soldiers, the afternoon sun beating down on her. A gaggle of nobles followed behind like goslings trotting behind their mother. She was the palace envoy, sent to select a gift for Lord Rahl on behalf of all his retainers.
She always chose well.
The nobles would watch her, trying to discern whatever it was about the women she chose that made them suitable for Lord Rahl, in the hopes that they could acquire an equally pleasing present and so gain Lord Rahl’s favor. Sometimes Cara deliberately led them to choose the wrong woman.
Cara, as Lord Rahl was fond of saying, had a wicked sense of humor.
“Begin the auction,” she snapped to the slavers, wasting no time on pleasantries as she took her seat on the dais reserved for Lord Rahl and his representatives. It was hot, and she wished to get this over with. The nobles crowded around her, a covey of cosseted weaklings. They were so tiresome.
Woman after woman was brought on to the stage for Cara’s inspection. Some looked better suited for serving in the Mord’Sith temples, and Cara signaled those women to be put aside to be retrieved later. It was Garen who purchased the temple slaves.
And then a more promising candidate was put forth. Her soot black hair was pinned in curls that tumbled around her head, a green feather bringing out the color of her skin without dimming the clear blue hue of her eyes. Her rough black leather corseted dress was not fine enough to be presented to Lord Rahl on such an occasion, but it did show off the pale swell of her bosom to advantage.
Cara licked her lips, then raised a finger to signal to the auctioneer that she would buy the woman.
-l-
Kahlan had never been so close to a Mord’Sith that wasn’t trying to kill her. Mistress Cara was no less sharp, no less a predator for all that she smiled and stroked Kahlan’s cheek. Kahlan had to stop herself from reaching for daggers she didn’t carry.
Once inside the palace, Kahlan and all the other women were led to an opulent room where they were to wait and primp until they were called on for the festivities in two days time. Mistress Cara instructed them to make use of the bathing facilities and in what they were to wear. There were certain standards Lord Rahl’s concubines were held to, it seemed.
Kahlan was relieved to see that Salindra had also been chosen to come to the palace, and was making her way to her friend when Mistress Cara’s voice cut across the room.
“You. Girl. Come here.”
Swallowing her pride, Kahlan went, knowing her life and the fate of the Midlands rested upon her ability to hold on to her temper until it was time to strike. “My name is Kahlan, mistress.”
Mistress Cara struck her.
“I did not ask your name,” Cara intoned neutrally, as if Kahlan’s cheek did not sting from a blow.
Kahlan said nothing.
Cara circled the woman, her long blonde braid swaying with her hips like some great cat’s tail. Suddenly she stepped close, red gloved hands playing over Kahlan’s breasts, lips a hair’s breadth from Kahlan’s own. “You are my gift to Lord Rahl. You must not disappoint me… or him,” the Mord’Sith purred, the barest edge of her tongue tasting Kahlan’s lips. Her hands slid lower.
Kahlan gasped, color rising to her cheeks as liquid heat shot through her, her belly coiling with something sweet and shameful. She mastered herself after a moment of struggle, pushing back the righteous anger of being touched uninvited, clamping down on the pleasurable fire that made her power of confession rise. She could not lose control, could not reveal herself, even in a moment of black eyed ecstasy not of her doing.
She made herself pliant and willing in Cara’s arms, surprised at how she reacted to the woman’s harsh beauty. She sighed hot air against Cara’s ear, teased at the tender flesh with her teeth, all the while giving Salindra a wide-eyed look over the Mord’Sith’s shoulder.
Mistress Cara must be too distracted to discover that Kahlan was a Confessor.
Responding to the look, thinking that perhaps Kahlan was unsure because she had never serviced a woman, Salindra rose to join them. She pressed herself to Cara’s back, ran her fingers over the hard red leather as Kahlan kissed Cara with an eager hunger that made Salindra reconsider her first assumption.
Kahlan caught the end of Cara’s braid, fingers working at the tie as Salindra slid to the side, straddling the mistress’ thigh and grinding against her, making sounds of enjoyment low in her throat. Giving up on the hair and the complexity of the buckles and straps that held the Mord’Sith’s armor in place, Kahlan nipped at Cara’s lips, ran her fingers over her breasts, and then down to grasp her hips. She was not well practiced, but her duty to the Midlands gave her purpose and the courage to feign a confidence she did not feel.
That Cara was a woman made it easier, for Kahlan was able to guess what would please her based on her own frantic fondlings in the dark of the night when she dreamed the impossible fantasy of a man that could love her without her powers coming between them.
That thought in mind, Kahlan lowered one hand further still even as Salindra wrapped her arms around Cara to hold her upright and began kissing her with a practiced efficiency.
Cara bucked as Kahlan cupped the juncture of her thighs. She could feel the heat Cara emitted, even through the leather, and imagining how wet she must be under the armor made Kahlan’s own thighs slick. Using two fingers she stroked long, hard strokes, watching the Mord’Sith’s face as Salindra kissed and suckled at her neck. Then, to Kahlan’s surprise, Salindra turned, winked at her, and pulled Kahlan into a kiss that clouded her mind with lust and tasted of Cara’s lips.
Jade eyes half-lidded, Cara watched them, slowly rolling her hips against Kahlan’s hand as Salindra rode her thigh, savoring the delicious build of tension and the eyes of the other women watching them. Kahlan opened her eyes, desperate to redirect Salindra’s attentions before she grew too addled to control herself, and guard her dangerous secret. She found Cara staring at her with a look of such fierce lust that she gasped against her will, her mouth going dry. Her fingers twitched, and then it was Cara’s turn to gasp, her sex parting around Kahlan’s fingers through the red leather of her armor.
Seeing the way Cara’s eyes rolled back in her head, Salindra’s moans in her ears, Kahlan pressed her advantage, rubbing her fingers in hard fast circles as Cara bucked against them. She could feel her own breasts tightening with want as first Salindra, and then Cara climaxed hard, their keens of pleasure echoing throughout the room.
Cheeks red with a strange combination of desire, frustration, and humiliation, Kahlan backed away as Cara gathered herself.
She was relieved and dismayed to see that she was not the only one that had found the display erotic. Two other women were petting themselves as they watched, no shame on their faces.
Later, Salindra explained that working girls stopped being embarrassed by sex or they stopped being working girls. It was a natural urge.
-l-
Darken Rahl sat on his devotional balcony, watching the National Festival play out before him.
He was bored.
He should have had his double, Walter, attend in his stead.
Egremont watched his lord from the corner of his eye, gauging his mood, and then looked across the balcony to Mistress Cara. She dipped her chin in a minute movement to signal she understood, and then was gone, her boots echoing against the marble of the floor.
“And now my lord, we should like to present you with gifts, in thanks to the royal line that has made our nation so great,” Egremont beckoned and a line of nobles stepped forward, one by one kissing Lord Rahl’s signet ring and placing a gift at his feet.
The more mundane gifts were presented first - furs, fine silks, gold and jewels, weapons made especially for the hand of the Lord Rahl. Darken received them all with the disinterested grace of a man who was used to such things.
And then Cara entered, and with her came the more exotic gifts. Each tied to a silken rope and led by one of his Mord’Sith, a line of buxom women made their way to his throne, then spread out at the direction of their handlers so that he could inspect them.
Darken rose, moving along the line, his red velvet robe trailing behind him. Cara smirked saucily, and his lips twitched at the expression. She felt she had a particularly nice treat for him, then. Refusing to do as she wanted too soon, Darken took his time over the other women, paying particular attention to a blonde who stood like she knew how to please a man.
She was dressed in finery he had provided, decked out in jewels, though tastefully so, her hair piled on top of her head. Darken did not care for such frilly things often, but he found a tumble or two with such a creature on occasions such as this could be rather diverting.
Cara cleared her throat. Suppressing a snort of amusement, Darken cut his gaze to her, and then approached.
-l-
Kahlan had expected Darken Rahl to be many things. She had expected power. She had expected cruelty. She had even expected charisma.
She had not expected him to be handsome.
Yes, of course she had heard the tales of his exploits, both magical and sexual. Yes, she had seen the drawings of him that were sold by street vendors. But she had expected that to be part of the legend, the lies, the carefully controlled image he portrayed to the world.
It was not.
His hair was as black as her own, his eyes a magnetic blue, and he moved with a feline grace that was as dangerous as it was intoxicating.
Perhaps it was appealing because of the edge of danger.
“Cara,” he addressed the Mord’Sith that held Kahlan’s velvet rope, his voice a deep caress that made a small dark part of Kahlan whisper that soon it would be only her name that he would say that way.
It was a dark, bright flame in her chest. Kahlan brutally quashed it.
“You have done well,” Darken Rahl was saying, trailing one finger along Kahlan’s breast as he walked around her to openly stare at her backside. She flushed and didn’t know why.
Darken Rahl came around to face her once more, fingers against his lips. “She does look good in green,” he continued to talk to Cara as if Kahlan wasn’t there, or was some sort of pet that could not understand them, “but with that hair, and these lips,” he ran his fingers over them, making Kahlan draw in a quick, surprised breath, “I think she would look better in red.”
Cara frowned.
Darken Rahl took the end of Kahlan’s silk leash from Cara, tugging on it with a wry twist to his lips. “Come along….?”
It took several long seconds for Kahlan to realize he wanted to know her name. She had to swallow twice before she could speak.
“Kahlan.”
“Come, Kahlan,” he smiled edgily, making Kahlan’s insides squirm with things both pleasant and terrible.
Kahlan went, following docilely behind him.
When she turned back for one last look at the other women, Salindra winked at her.
-l-
Kahlan stood awkwardly in Lord Rahl’s - no, Darken Rahl’s - bedchamber. He moved to a low table set with fruit and wine, pouring two glasses. She stood frozen in the moment.
Confess him as soon as you are alone, the Mother Confessor had told her, and she had agreed. No matter how charming he is, remember the deeds he has done, the lives he has destroyed.
Remember that evil can be beautiful, too.
She should do it now, and then bed him, try to conceive an heir that would solidify her hold on the throne even before she commanded him to marry her. She should walk up to him, hand outstretched, and take his throat in her fingers as she dropped the hold she always kept on the power that slumbered within.
She should make him beg to be allowed to touch her, in revenge for all the havoc he’d wrought, the humiliation she had suffered to make it to this moment, the damage done to her people.
“Are you going to stand there in the door, or are you coming in?” his voice jarred her out of her thoughts.
She stepped further into the room, walking towards him with a sinking feeling of destiny. He handed her a glass of wine, and she took it, jumping when their fingers brushed.
Darken Rahl raised a brow.
“I’m not used to men touching me,” she said, wondering why she bothered to explain.
He turned his back to her, then sprawled on the massive bed that dominated the room. “If you do not wish to be here, you are free to leave,” he said to her surprise. “There are too many women willing to come to my bed for me to bother with forcing those who are not.”
There was a lie somewhere in that statement, but Kahlan could not pin down what it was, though she could see the split second his awareness fell away, as if he was remembering something that happened long ago.
“I’m willing. I chose this,” she told him as she sank onto the bed next to him, unsure what else to do, but knowing she did not want to confess him yet.
He sat up, setting his wine glass aside, saying, “Then come to me, Kahlan.”
And he said her name the way he had said Cara’s, a caress down her spine, a tingle in her loins.
Working girls stop being embarrassed by sex, or they stop being working girls.
Was it so wrong to want a man’s touch, to want him to kiss and lick, and yes, make love to her without being compelled to by magic? Could it hurt to let him, to tease him?
Did it matter that it was Darken Rahl, so long as she completed her mission in the end?
Yes.
Did she care anymore?
No.
She was giving her life, her dreams, her hopes to the people.
This she would take for herself.
Kahlan knelt atop Darken Rahl, looking down at him, at the way his black hair fanned out on the pillow. Her voluminous skirts hindered her movement, but she pulled at the jewel studded sash that held his robes closed, gaping as he pulled sculpted arms from the sleeves.
She ran her hands along those arms, admiring the play of muscle under skin, and then he wrapped them around her, rolling them so that it was she who was pinned beneath. He pulled a dagger and her heart leapt into her throat as she reached up, confession at her fingertips.
But it was not an attack. Instead, he cut her bodice strings, and then the fabric of the dress itself, spilling her breasts out into the air. Kahlan barely had time to gasp before Darken Rahl bent his head to one of her rosy nipples, circling it with his tongue.
“Darken,” she moaned, hands in his hair, and had a moment to wonder when she had begun using his first name. But then she refused to call him ‘lord’ and the urgency of the moment did not give her time to consider what one calls the arch nemesis you are about to enslave forever while he runs tongue and teeth against your breasts.
The dagger flashed again, and there was a slit in her skirts that he parted with one skilled hand, the steel of his blade cool against her legs just as something more hot and insistent pressed into her side. She tensed when his hands found her undergarments, the knife scraping against skin, though not cutting as they too were ripped away.
Darken whispered reassurances into her breasts, into her neck, trailing biting kisses along her flesh. He would not hurt her, he would bring her only pleasure this night. Kahlan laid there in the tattered ruins of her dress that exposed all but her stomach and heard only the truth of his words as her thighs grew slick with desire. She squirmed under him, finding her voice to demand he kiss her.
He laughed, and indulged her, and his mustache tickled. It shocked a laugh from her, a strange bubble of joy amidst the shards of her shattered life. How strange and unexpected that Darken Rahl’s mustache would tickle when you kissed him.
He smiled against her mouth, then set his dagger aside as he sat up to remove his brocade vest and shimmy out of the skirt of his robes. It should have been funny, but all Kahlan could look at was the desire in his face, the sweet curve of his buttocks, and the hard strong length of him, plainly inspired by her presence in his bed.
Her. Not her magic. This man wanted her, ached for her, and he was not confessed.
She opened her arms to him, demanding things, asking for things that she later could not or would not remember, and he smirked and fulfilled her wishes, seeming to find it amusing when she was in fact there to service him.
And yet, very few made demands of Darken Rahl, in the bedroom or otherwise. He was always praised, so much so that he oft did not know what was real. But this concubine, this Kahlan, she demanded, and panted, and wanted with a veracity that drove his lust to new heights. Unwilling to hold himself back any longer, he plunged into her, sliding into her with a sharp thrust that made his eyes roll back in his head as she keened his name in half pain and half pleasure.
Her hands were on his back, nails raking, her legs around his waist as she rocked against him, demanding he move, commanding him to bring her to climax, an edge of desire so powerful that it bordered on violence in her voice. Darken knew even as he thrust into her that he was keeping this wanton woman, that he would not grow bored of her as he did with the others of her kind.
“Could you love me? Do you love me?” she hissed in his ear, wanted to know.
“Yes,” he answered smoothly, his chest gleaming with sweat. He rolled away, drawing a noise of outrage from her, but then he positioned her on her hands and knees and thrust in again from behind, and the outrage was replaced by a surprised squeal as the deeper thrusts the position allowed for hit a sweet spot inside her. His Kahlan. “I would make you my queen,” he whispered to her over the sound of flesh hitting flesh, voice rough with sex.
He was telling the truth, but he did not yet know it.
“Faster,” Kahlan panted, her knuckles white as she tangled her hands in the bedsheets, the tension inside her building to a climax. Darken obliged, his grip on her hips just shy this side of painful. In moments, or years, Kahlan came undone, turned inside out, saw spots before her eyes before they swirled black, the release of her power triggering another climax.
She never told anyone how good confession felt. She was afraid she was the only one.
Above her, Darken’s eyes flooded black as he too spasmed with release, then came to rest with a look of bliss.
“Command me, Confessor,” he whispered into her hair.
“Get off of me.”
He did, rolling to the side and then gazing upon her with a look of such tender love that it broke Kahlan’s heart.
“Mistress,” Darken touched her back, concerned, then gathered her into his arms, pillowing her head on his chest, “you’re crying.”
“Call me 'Kahlan' when we are alone, and 'my lady wife' when in public,” she ordered as her face paint ran with the salt of tears and sweat.
“You wish to wed me?” he asked, a grin of pure happiness stretching his lips wide.
“Yes. You will announce it tomorrow, that you are taking me as your queen. Will that make you happy, Darken?”
Darken’s heart fluttered when Kahlan said his name. “It will make me the happiest man who has ever lived. I love you.”
Kahlan nodded against his chest, her tears unabated. It was all so wrong and right at once, she didn’t know where to begin.
Salindra.
“The other women that were brought to you tonight? I want them. They are mine.”
“They are yours. Anything you ask of me is yours.”
Kahlan was silent so long, Darken thought she had fallen asleep. He strove to breathe shallowly, so the movements of his chest wouldn’t wake her.
“Darken… tell me what we are, because I don’t know.”
He kissed her forehead, gently pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear, “We are in love, we are the Lord and Lady Rahl, we will soon be husband and wife.”
Feeling more tears she refused to shed waiting at the edge of her eyes, Kahlan replied, “For all that we have, and all that we are, I wish we weren’t.”
No easy hopes or lies shall bring us to our goal, but iron sacrifice of body, will, and soul.
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Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave me a review, con-crit (as in you tell me how I can make something better, not just that you don't like it) welcome! I may write a sequel and/or continue this if it's well received. ^_^