Andormeda

Andormeda rolled from her side to her back as she woke, letting the waking world wash gently over her. Though her tent was dark, the covering over the door was draped up, allowing in the bright morning light. It drifted in over Nikos where he slept, lying on his back nude.

She smiled, the worries that had attacked her the moment she’d woken suddenly abating as she bent back over his sleeping form. Her golden-red hair spilled in a tangled mess around them both as she brushed her lips across his. He made a small noise in the back of his throat, his lips twitching slightly into a smile as he tried to turn away from her and continue to sleep.

Andormeda exerted a small amount of pressure on his arm to keep him where he was, her mouth now traveling along his stubble-covered jaw, tickling the pulse that now beat strongly at his throat.

“Why won’t you let me sleep, woman?” he demanded in a groggy voice, finally opening his eyes.

“You’ve slept all night,” she protested against his throat.

“Half the night,” Nikos disagreed. “Less than half, really.”

She raised her head, brushing her cascading fire-hair back. “Are you complaining?”

His dark brown eyes sparkled with laughter and the memory of their night. “No, mistress.” He lowered his lashes in a traditional gesture of submission, for the same reason he used the ceremonial term for an Amazon lover: merely to annoy her.

“No, I think you were,” she disagreed, crawling up his body, turning so that she was firmly on top of him, her large breasts pressed to his chest, her legs spread over his. She nipped his jaw, then his lips, her hands squeezing at his shoulders in mock punishment. He squirmed uncomfortably, but his hands trailed up from the outsides of her thighs, along her waist until he cupped the sides of her breasts.

“Now, how to punish you?” she mused in a low voice. Her kiss and her purr tugged at his body in ways older than time; she giggled like a young girl first learning what a male was when she felt him hardening against her.

“I am yours, mistress,” he mumbled, kissing her back. “Do what you will with me.”

Andormeda thrust her hips once, hard, against his, telling him just what she would do with him. He grinned with pure male excitement, the gentle exploration of her body his hands had been in changing to that of hunger, a fierce need to touch, cup, squeeze, enflame.

“Andormeda,” he mumbled against her breast.

“Andormeda,” the voice came from the tent entrance, where Eva had just entered. “Asteria calls for her warriors. Something happens to the east.”

Andormeda turned her head to face her friend. Eva was a dark shadow in the bright light, her face well hidden; she could not even see the bright hazel of the younger woman’s eyes.

Andormeda nodded. “I come,” she promised.

Eva nodded in return, then left with a silence that was common to their people.

“Your punishment will have to wait, slave. My queen calls.” Andormeda meant the comment to the playful, teasing, but Nikos’ hand went around the back of her head and suddenly he was kissing her with a strange desperation, tinted with fear. It was a long, hard kiss, and when he finally released her they were both gasping.

“Be careful, Andormeda. Promise me,” he whispered against her lips, his fingers stroking through her hair.

“I am always careful, Nikos.”

“I knew this day would be tainted with blood. I foresaw it last night,” he mumbled. He sounded so helpless.

Nikos’ visions were renowned throughout their entire tribal village. When he saw something, everyone, even their queen, Asteria, cousin to the great queen Hippolyta, listened. No one knew how he had the powers of an oracle. Some said he had been a woman in a former life, others proclaimed that he was an abomination that should be put to death, that he defied the Great Goddess. Andormeda chose to believe that he was a gift to her from Artemis, a special man to be cherished and loved.

“What did you see?”

He turned his head away, so that she could not see the emotions that danced in his eyes. “I saw a battle to the east, between the Greek men and your people. It will happen in the plains, where your people are more vulnerable. There will be many men, nearly four for every Amazon. The blood will run like water during high tide. Your sisters from other villages will receive word of the battle and rush to aid you. There will be too few of them, and they will arrive too late.”

“What are you saying? That I will die, my people will be defeated?”

He closed his eyes to hide the tears. “You know I cannot see your future, my love; we are too close… But the Amazons will fall.”

Andormeda was quiet. She tried to think through what he had said, but it refused to make sense. Her people fall? It was a ridiculous notion; her people were great. All were warriors, all were devoted to the Great Goddess Artemis and none would die without a fight. They were a people blessed.

It was true that they had been at war with the Greek men for a long time, and that the battles were taking their toil in lives, supplies and fire for the fight. But her people were still strong. It seemed impossible that…that they would not succeed.

“You say you had this vision last night?” she asked softly, tears burning in her eyes at the images that her mind stirred up.

“Yes,” he responded in the same quiet voice.

“Why did you not tell me of it then?”

His hand cupped her cheek, turning her back to face him. “I had great need of you last night, as you did of me. I…I knew once I told you, things would change. I was selfish, I admit, but I wanted to hold you, to love you just one more night before the war takes you from me.”

His words stung. “I would not leave you.”

A tear traced backwards, along his temple to his dark hair. “My love, my brave Amazon—you’ll have no choice.”

She thumped him hard on the chest. “Don’t speak like that. I will not leave you. We will be together always; we promised…remember?”

He tucked her head against his chest, under his chin when twin tears, proof her emotions, of her upset, left her eyes.

“Sometimes things that we cannot control happen, Andormeda. I would not have left my city for anything in the world, but look at me, at us, now. We are both better off for my leaving there. There is purpose in this. You must have faith that there is.”

She cried silent tears that wet his chest, the droplets catching in the dark patch of coarse hair on his skin.

She raised her head. “I will not leave you, Nikos. I gave my word, and my word binds me. I will not leave you.”

“My heart is yours,” he said, believing her conviction, believing that she believed her words, and would stand by them with her life. But he knew it would not be; the Fates had already determined the hour of her death and though he as the man who loved her with everything in him had not the heart to tell her, he would always bear the pain of knowing.

Copyrighted © 2008 Arden Ashart