Rolat’s face darkened like a thundercloud. Cissy could tell he thought he knew what was coming. “Tell me he didn’t gain your trust and then hurt you.”
“Not me. Tasha.”
The men exchanged looks. Rolat looked ready to boil over. His muscled shoulders swelled against the short sleeves of his shirt. Wal’s features tightened. He looked ready to weep and scream all at once. Diltan maintained his stern facade, but Cissy spied the way his eyes widened and mouth tightened. The intensity of his gaze tripled. There was tension playing about him, and she thought that if he lost control he might be more destructive than Rolat.
Cissy wasn’t surprised. Sweet, inoffensive Tasha was the last person anyone would want to see victimized. It had nearly driven Cissy out of her skull when she’d found out.
She hurried on with her story, wanting to push it all out before anyone could erupt. “One day while a bunch of us were using this man’s pool, Tasha went inside his house to use the toilet. He cornered her in there.”
Diltan gave vent to some of his feelings. His voice thick, he said, “By the ancestors. How old was she?”
“Twelve. He didn’t go as far as raping her, but he made her take her swimsuit off. He touched her. That’s all I know about it, because she wouldn’t tell me anymore. She said the only reason she told me that much was so I wouldn’t let him get me alone.”
Wal looked sickened. “She didn’t trust your parents to tell them? To have them confront the monster?”
Cissy swiped at the tears creeping from her eyes. “Even if she had, what could they do? Our laws said a victim of sexual misconduct was as much to blame as the man who attacked her. If my parents had gone after him legally, Tasha might have been convicted of tempting him. She would have been sent to the work camps for her crime ... and most who went into the work camps did not come out alive.”
She watched as the men fought to absorb this. Wal’s head sank towards his chest to rest his face in his hands. Rolat stared into space, his fangs showing as he glared at nothing. Diltan kept his gaze on Cissy however, looking steadily into her eyes. He gripped one of her hands in his. It was as if he tried to pour strength into her.
Wal raised his head and took her other hand. His expression was filled with pain, but compassion as well. “I have heard of how your courts treated victims of such perversions. I had heard, but to know your sister went through the fear of it ... there are no words. No words at all.”
“Finish the story, Cissy,” Diltan urged. “Get it all out. What happened next?”
She licked her dry lips. “I promised Tasha I wouldn’t tell our parents. We were scared that since they couldn’t do anything legally, they might take justice into their own hands. It was a no-win situation.”
“But you decided to do something about this monster.”
“I was afraid he would go after Tasha again. I thought he might threaten her into making her do more things. He could have accused her of exposing herself to him, of trying to get him to lie with her. She has a small but distinctive scar under one breast, one that can only be seen if she’s naked. He saw that. He could have told authorities about it, proving his case to them.”
Rolat growled something. Cissy thought it was
bastard
, but the rumbling quality made it hard to tell.
She continued. “Two nights after he touched her, I snuck out of our house with some matches and lighter fluid. I set the front and back doors of his home on fire, but not the windows. I was sure he could get out. I just wanted to scare him. Maybe make him move away from us. That’s all. Okay, if he happened to get hurt too, that was fine. But I didn’t intend for him to die.”
Wal’s expression eased. “He didn’t escape, I take it.”
Cissy sighed. “It turned out his fire safety system’s wiring had been gnawed on by mice or moles or something. There was a hole in the outer wall where something had gotten in and chewed right through the wire. When the smoke alarms went off, his windows should have automatically opened at a touch, allowing him to get out. They didn’t.”
Diltan’s eyes glittered. “He got trapped.”
She nodded. “The newspaper said he did break one of the windows. He tried to climb out, but a sliver of glass cut right across his throat. He bled to death before rescue got there, hanging halfway out the window.”
There. It was out. Cissy’s fire, meant to frighten the neighbor away, had instead resulted in his death. If that wasn’t murder, she didn’t know what was.
The men were quiet for a few seconds, absorbing the tale with sober expressions on their faces. They sat there, forming verdicts in their minds. Cissy waited for them to rule on her guilt.
If they hadn’t been part of the legislative and justice system of Kalquor, she thought they might pardon her actions. Cissy knew that Kalquorian men were protective enough of women to kill in their defense. Tasha in particular would incite the most defensive actions of any man.
However, these were men charged with upholding laws and punishing wrongdoers. Diltan had proven through his actions that even emperors were not above the law. They must see her for what she was: an accidental murderer, but a murderer nonetheless.
When Wal spoke, he shocked her. “I would say justice was determined to be served, even if you didn’t want to be a killer. You did not commit homicide, Cissy.”
She shook her head at him though her heart filled to know he was willing to find her innocent. “You wouldn’t say that if you were judging the case.”
One side of his mouth twisted up in a weak smile. “Actually, I would. If the crime had been committed on Kalquor, you’d be tried for arson and possibly manslaughter. However, the mitigating circumstances would lead me to sentence you to psychological testing and counseling for the trauma you had suffered. Perhaps some community service, depending on your level of understanding the crime you’d committed. Probably not, considering you were only a child at the time of the incident. No, intensive recovery therapy would have been my decision.”
“But Wal ... a man died.”
Rolat snorted. “He went too easily considering his crime against Tasha. Under our laws, a sexual predator of minors would have been executed if found guilty anyway. He would have died a slow, agonizing death.”
Diltan nodded. “With executioners lined up for the privilege of doing so.”
Cissy looked from one man to the next. It dawned on her that nothing had changed between them – save for the looks of pride the men gave her.
“You mean all that? You don’t think it’s awful that I killed someone? That I’m a horrible bitch for ending a man’s life?”
Diltan held out his arms to her. “Little girl ... come to me.”
Rolat released her grudgingly. Scarcely believing her good fortune but reassured by the tender expression on the Dramok’s face, Cissy crawled to Diltan.
He gathered her in his arms. The other two men crowded close, surrounding her once more. Cissy sank into the heavenly sensation of being the one protected instead of the protector. Part of her chided herself for the weakness, but didn’t even the strong deserve a moment or two of being cared for? She’d have to ask Rolat.
For now, her gaze centered on Diltan. There was no trace of his trademark smugness on his stunning features. All was tender regard mixed with affection. Cissy basked in it.
His smile was far from the arrogant cast she’d grown used to. It was a smile that made her heart flutter, like some fairytale princess meeting her prince. Cissy wanted to groan at the mushy turn of her feelings, but right now the sensation was too right to summon disgust.
Even Diltan’s voice felt like a gentle caress. “What a wonderful sister you are, taking care of Tasha like that. You went to your sister’s rescue. No one with an ounce of sense would ever fault you for it. Besides, who knows how many other victims that monster attacked?”
Rolat took her hand to press kisses to each of her fingertips in turn. “Not to mention how many potential victims you saved from him. Your actions were those of a loyal, brave person.”
Wal cradled the back of her head in his hands. “Even if you had intended his death, there were too many variables to call you a murderer. You were a child, a frightened child taking on a responsibility too great. You have earned no criticism.”
Cissy could have argued that. She didn’t believe in execution, even for the most heinous of crimes. Her faith taught her that as long as someone lived, they could be redeemed. Her act had not been for vengeance, but the result had taken away a man’s chance to redress his wrongs.
Yet as Diltan’s mouth pressed against hers, all self recrimination fled. His kiss was slow, his tongue sliding in to twine silkily with hers. As he kissed her, the other two men stroked her body with feathery touches. She trembled at the care they gave her. It was somehow more profound than the raucous play they had indulged in up until now.
They slipped her clothes from her body. The men continued to kiss and fondle her with devoted attention. Cissy’s senses were astounded by how such tender touches could send her every cell alight. At once she felt melting soft and hyper aware. Mouths and fingers stroked soft tendrils of sensation that flared bright until she was left whimpering and shaking in Diltan’s lap.
They left no inch of her untouched. Mouths suckled on her earlobes, lips, nipples, fingers, toes, and clit. Warm, raspy tongues tasted all the trembling flesh they could find. Fingers explored every hill and fold, discovering the warm places, the sensitive parts, the secrets of her body. When their discoveries made Cissy cry out and strain with overwhelmed pleasure, they held her still as they coaxed storms of ecstasy free. When each squall ended, they started over again.
Cissy was only dimly aware when they carried her to their sleeping room. The billowy cloud of the mattress beneath her back and the warmth of Diltan and Rolat on either side roused her just a bit from her blissful dream. Wal’s solid heat covered her, and the welcome joining of his body to hers brought renewed desire. He moved over her, his flesh sliding within hers with easy, hair-raising friction.
As he loved her, the other two men continued to kiss and stroke, now dividing their attention between Cissy and Wal. The Imdiko moaned into her mouth, and she answered him as they strived for mutual bliss, aided by the urgings of Diltan and Rolat. Their cries rose to crescendo as pleasure swept their twined bodies.
Then Rolat’s bulk pinned her. He was careful as Wal had been. The Nobek’s restraint made Cissy feel his power as never before. Once more she and the man she made love to were encouraged by the other two. Knowing caresses goaded them towards shared rapture, adoring encouragements spoken in whispers. Cissy had a few wondrous moments of feeling Rolat filling her with his pleasure before her cries joined his.
Then Diltan blanketed her. Her most beautiful lover. Her often irritating opponent. Cissy realized that beneath the arrogance was a strong, loyal man, someone the equal to her strength. Someone who would call her on her rebelliousness just as she would call him on his overreaching ambition.
We were made for each other,
she thought. Then his cocks slid inside her, and she thought no more.
Long, careful, but eager strokes kindled into shared fire as they stared into each other’s eyes. They moved together as Wal and Rolat added to the heat, blazing hotter with each passing second. When combustion came, Cissy gave herself fully to the flames, screaming Diltan’s name. Her ears rang with his shouts of her name. They burned and burned, feeding themselves to the inferno until there was nothing left but glowing warmth.
Cissy drifted in the arms of the men surrounding her. She thought she must have fallen asleep, because Diltan’s voice pulled her into reality from a long way off.
“There now. Will that do as a reward for being such a good sister?”
Cissy sighed, snuggling between her lovers. “Killing is wrong. I believe in that with all of my being, but what you said about keeping that awful man from harming others also makes sense. I feel much better.”
She smiled at the three faces surrounding her, her heart filled with warmth. No, filled with more than just that. Filled with ... love.
Love. She loved these men. Even the one still lying on top of her, the one who drove her crazy most of the time. Perhaps especially him.
Cissy mentally shook her head, trying to order her thoughts. It couldn’t be. It was the afterglow of wonderful sex making her silly, making her think things that couldn’t be. Falling in love wasn’t possible yet, was it? It felt wrong to be head over heels all at once like this. Yet it also felt perfectly right.
With all the problems they faced right now, heaven help her.
Clajak kept his face impassive as Councilman Maf presented his evidence to the rest of the Royal Council and all of the Empire. The Dramok Emperor had no doubt every man and woman of Kalquor watched the vids. They probably exclaimed as angrily as the onlookers in the filled-to-capacity public gallery.
Every word out of Maf’s mouth damned the Empire’s leadership. Clajak could not take comfort in the fact that Tidro had thus far escaped extradition, nor that Jessica’s family was not in the private gallery watching the proceedings. Not when he could feel the very foundations of his world shaking beneath his feet. Not when despite all of Yuder’s protestations he knew Tidro was as guilty as the rest of his clan.
The threat of violence was all too real for anyone connected however remotely to the scandal. The cries for revolution grew every day. Accusations of genocide were made by public leaders and their followers. Many of the people called for the resignation of the entire council, for new elections to take place. There were calls for Yuder, Ospar, and Rajhir’s executions.
More troubling was the dissension coming from the military’s ranks. Bevau got hourly reports from the ground forces and space fleet of a spike in insubordinations. The fighting part of the Empire, made up overwhelmingly of unclanned Nobeks, was in turmoil. Some even openly sided with the Basma’s call for the government’s overthrow and expulsion of all Earthers.