Chronicles of Raan

Chapter 3: Always Raina


Salif sat on the bed, a silent coil of tense energy. In his mind, the chant for peace was running over and over again, as he strove for calm. Two hours.

Use the girl as distraction.

Raina’s voice, in his head again, filled still with amused mocking. She was always there with him.

The girl came out of the shower, naked, her skin glistening with moisture, her hair damp tendrils around her face. She walked over to the bed, and sank gracefully on her knees next to Salif. “My thanks, my lord prince.”

“Get on the bed.” An order.

I will f*ck the girl now, and then, I will pick a path in the fork ahead.

She obeyed, lying on the bed, her legs spread just wide enough for Salif to see her outer p-ssy lips, to just glimpse the warmth of the interior.

All night long, Salif had imposed his iron will on his body. Not letting himself erupt in the girl’s mouth. This, this warm, all-enveloping wetness, the sweetness of her juices coating his dick, this was his reward. He thrust into her hard, fluidly.

She mewled for the first time, her hands gripping the sheets on the bed as he ripped through her. Her eyes were closed, she bit her lips to keep her moans under control. Her hips thrust to meet him in an instinctive answer. Salif could feel her p-ssy clench in response around his cock, responding to his hardness with softness, caressing his sheath, as she writhed under him.

He kept thrusting. The beats of the djembe pulsing a steady rhythm in his head, a cadence his body matched. The girl moaned musically, her body moving under him. He could feel the mind-lust rise, his hands roaming on the girl’s body, smacking her ass, driving her higher, faster, pinching her nipples, reaching forward and sucking them into his mouth, now to flick a tongue over a nipple, now to graze it between his teeth, and her moans were melody to him, the counter point to his inner drum beat, and then, finally, the crescendo. His hands clenched over her hips, as he came in shuddering release.

One instant of weakness. That’s all it takes.

“Hello Salif.” A voice sounded in his room; a voice that had been part of his inner self for so long. Raina. But no more just a voice in his head. She was standing in front of him, expressionless, as she looked down at him. The warning bells started to ring in Salif’s mind.

“No, no, don’t get up.” Her voice was winter and ice. She waved a hand, even as he was beginning to straighten, to shape a warding of protection. The magic leapt to obey her, and Salif found he couldn’t move.

He hissed in anger. She used magic against Argentia royalty? This was a transgression punishable by death.

But inside, his heart was breaking as his eyes drank her in. His Raina. His first love; the only woman he’d ever truly loved. The woman who had seen the essence of him, and had loved him anyway. He gazed at her, devouring her hungrily. It had been fifteen years. Whatever caused the hate in her voice, it could not stop his eyes from searching hers.

The years had been kind to his Raina. She had been twenty-three to his twenty-five; she would now be thirty-eight. Yet her hair shone as glossily black as the first time he’d run his hands through them. Her body, clad in a gossamer robe of purple silk was still supple, the skin on her face just beginning to lose the elasticity of youth. The laughter lines around her eyes had deepened, though as he gazed at her, he realized not all the lines came from laughter. She had felt pain, his Raina.


She had closed her eyes in silent despair against his inspection. He searched her mind, but she was shielded against him. Ahh, Raina, my love. Why?

“Why?” The question was torn from his lips, the words giving voice to the heartbreak. Leila slipped off the bed, silent, watchful, forgotten for the moment.

Raina’s eyes flew open, flew to his in icy anger. “You dare to question why?”

“Yes.” His words were simple. If she were to kill him here, as she undoubtedly had planned to do, she would have to explain why. She owed him that much. He closed his eyes, as pain ripped through his heart. She’d been his only friend in Argentia. Friend. Lover. Equal.

When she spoke, her voice was low, the words torn from her.

“Katya was my kinswoman. I was there when her body was returned to our clan house. Her broken, bloodied body.” Her breathing was harsh. “She was like my older sister. She was only twenty-five when she was killed. I swore the blood oath.”

The blood oath, binding for life, made in front of witnesses. Raina would never rest till she’d tracked down and killed all responsible.

“You’d disappeared. No one would talk.” Her voice was still low as she continued the story. “In despair, we bribed the harem guards, bankrupted our clan. Finally, one talked. Revealed that you were not alone that evening in the harem. That the Mage King was there with you.”

“Despair upon despair…” her voice intoned. “The magic was strong in you, even stronger perhaps in the Mage King. I did not have the strength to fulfil my blood oath.”

He could imagine her wild, caged grief, as she sought a way out. A way to revenge her kinswoman, to fulfil the blood oath.

“I sought alliance.” Her voice was flat.

Who had the power to challenge the Mage-Born of Argentia?

His unspoken question lay in the air. But there was only one answer. Only one force with enough power.

“Yes.” She saw the awareness rise in his eyes, along with fear. “Yes. I sought the aid of the witches of Raan.”

Salif’s fear rose, instinctive. Even the Mage Prince of Argentia would not challenge the witches lightly. They were the one power above all power on his homeworld of Raan.

“With their help, I killed your father.” Her voice was again expressionless. She knew what she revealed. Knew that she doubled her death sentence. She had killed Argentia royalty. A quick death would be a kindness.

Salif closed his eyes. He had always known his father needed to die. There was no pain, no grief. He hurt only for Raina, for the necessity that drove her to do this.

“How did you find me?” His voice was even.

“You let the magic in tonight when you played the drums of this world…”

He drew a sharp breath, still held immobile by her spell. If there had been magic in the music, it had been the very slightest amount, one beyond the ability of any Tracker to find.

“I am always attuned to you.” She answered his unasked question. He could hear the tension in her voice. “I sent Leila to distract you… I could only move against you when you were weakened, when your essence mingled with hers…”

She looked at Leila for the first time, and Salif could see love in her eyes, hear the love in her voice. “You’ve done well, my little one.”

“Thank you, mistress.” There was gratitude and answering love in Leila’s voice. Salif’s eyes closed. Plots within plots, an Argentia speciality.

Raina straightened her shoulders, looked back at him. “And now, Salif. Death comes to you, as I fulfil my blood oath.” Her voice was level, but Salif had known her better than anyone ever had. Beneath the flatness, there ran rivers of sorrow and anguish that she would have to kill the only man she had ever loved. He could hear the love beneath it all. She would kill him, of that he was certain. But she would also mourn him. The thought gave him odd satisfaction.

His mind had stayed shielded to her, the shield thrown up in automatic response to the warning bells. But now, as the moment of death approached, Salif smiled at Raina. His eyes gentle, accepting. Understanding her, understanding that she did what she had to do.

“Raina, my first and only love. I give to you a gift.” he said. And he dropped his mind-shield, and made himself relive that terrible memory again, sending her that memory as a gift, so she might know and understand at last what had happened that evening at the harem.

The tears ran unchecked down her cheeks as she relived Katya’s beating; watched Salif try to form the wards of protection; relived Salif’s final gesture of mercy. Relived his anguish and self-loathing at what he had to do.

Salif looked into her eyes, unshielded. “You cannot judge me any worse than I judge myself.” The words were clipped. The aching remained. “I was complicit in her death. I welcome your fulfilment of the blood oath.” Ritual words, accepting responsibility, accepting her right to judge him.

She was shaking her head in utter denial. “No.” A world of pain in that one small word. Her hands made a sparse movement; Salif was freed. She knelt by the bed and spoke, the words etched in formality.

“Mage King of Argentia. I give thanks for your mercy towards my kinswoman. You are not complicit in her death, I judge my blood oath fulfilled.” There was an ancient magic shaping her words, the magic of the blood oath.

The magic must judge the truth of her words.

Both Salif and Raina’s life hung in the balance as the magic swirled in the air, seeking motive and assigning responsibility. But finally, the magic quieted. Raina’s words had been judged true; her blood oath fulfilled.

Mage King of Argentia, she had said. The thought rose in his mind.

I am Salif Al-Hasn. I am the Mage King of Argentia.

Salif straightened, rose off the bed. The dawn of a new era. Raina would need to be punished, of course. Her life was forfeit for the murder of his father, and besides, she couldn’t go around using magic on Salif without consequences. Salif smiled in anticipation.

Perhaps Raina and Leila, tied together, and whipped? Their naked bodies rubbing on each other as they danced to the music of the whip, their bodies writhing over each other, mouths buried in each other’s p-ssy? That would be entertaining indeed. His eyes gleamed at the mental image.

And then after, Raina would have to marry him, of course. It was the only way to save her life. That thought filled him with quiet joy. His Raina. Friend. Lover. Equal. Wife.

His mind was still unshielded, and Raina had always been able to read his thoughts. Her eyebrows had raised and her lips had twitched at his fantasy of whipping the girls. But her body had stilled as she’d read his next thought, yet Salif could feel the emotion rise in her heart. Relief, laughter, and above all, complete, steadfast love.

She bent and performed the triple obeisance, the proper homage due to the Mage King. She spoke, and her voice was clear.

“I am yours to command in all things, Mage King of Argentia.”