Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep - Being revamped!

Chapter 12: Where the Gods Lead


Lord Vader arrived back from yet another round of meetings with the Emperor and his advisors. A satisfied smile brightened Vader’s face as he entered the apartment. Laughing, he pulled her to her feet and embraced her tightly. “You’re a wonder, Ree,” he murmured just before his lips covered hers.

Flustered from the kiss and his praise, Ree merely stared at him.

“You were perfection! Now they’re all convinced I’ve succumbed to their weakness for pleasures of the flesh,” he practically purred. “They think they’ve got me leashed and docile now.”

“And that is what you wanted?” Ree asked, her head tilted.

His eyes narrowed as he looked ahead to something only he could see. “Oh yes, it is exactly what I wanted.” He snorted in disgust. “They can’t see past their next conquest and so naturally think I’m too caught up with my mistress to be dangerous.”

Ree nodded in understanding. “And that is when an enemy is the most dangerous,” she murmured.

“Exactly,” he said, pleased at her observation. Then he sobered. “Thank you, Ree, for playing your part to such perfection.”

Silent, she stood gazing at him for a moment and then forced herself to speak. “Is that all I am, an actor in this play you’re putting on for the Emperor?”

His lashes swept down in that familiar gesture that meant he was uncomfortable with their conversation. “No…” he said, shifting on his feet. Then his eyes met hers, a fire sparking in his. “Am I merely a Master to you? Do you warm my bed because you fear I’ll kill you if you don’t please me?” His voice was a curious mixture of command and supplication.

Ree laughed, unable to help herself. “Milord, I stopped fearing that fate months ago,” she replied, putting a hand on his chest. “I am in your bed because that is where I want to be.” She looked down, suddenly shy.

He swallowed hard and took her hand, staring at it for a long moment. “I…I cannot offer you love, Ree,” he confessed, shaking his head. “I do not have the capacity to love anymore.”

“You are human, aren’t you?” she teased, ignoring the sinking sensation in her belly.

Haunted blue eyes met her gaze and then he laughed softly, bitterly. “I pretend to be human, Ree. Don’t be confused by the act.”

She cradled his face in her hands and rubbed her thumbs over his soft lips. “You are human, milord, though you wish not to be.”

“I can’t love you, Ree,” he said in an urgent voice. “But I can protect you and promise that I’ll never hurt you again.”

Her eyes shining with the love she would not speak of, she stood on her toes and kissed him tenderly. “Then I shall learn to be content with that, milord.”

*********************************************

The trip back to Vjun was uneventful and Ree had become accustomed to her Noghri bodyguards. They were unobtrusive for the most part, and always respectful to her.

It was on their first night home that Vader informed her he wanted her to move all of her belongings into his bedchamber. Ree blushed and then nodded, ignoring his laughter at her embarrassment. “Surely, Ree, you cannot be embarrassed to share a room with me after all that’s passed between us.”

She shrugged, unable to properly express her feelings. “It’s different, that’s all,” she said in explanation.

Vader laughed softly and embraced her, resting his chin on the top of her head. “How is it different?”

“It’s more…” she paused. “Intimate…”

“We shared a bedchamber before,” he reminded her.

“But that felt temporary,” she replied. “This feels-”

He pulled back to stare at her intently. “Not so temporary?”

Nodding, she then hung her head, unable to speak. When he lifted her face, he frowned at the tears on her face.

“This makes you sad?” His voice had taken on a husky note.

Ree shook her head. “No, milord, not sad,” she smiled. “Excuse me, for I cannot explain what I feel.”

He leaned down and his lips touched hers tenderly. It was a soft, tentative kiss more suited to courtship than to a Master and his concubine.

Then he pulled away and went to his desk. “Here,” he said, holding out a piece of flimsy. He sat down and waited for her to approach him.

Ree took it from his hand and read it to herself, her heart pounding the whole time. She stared at the document, and then her eyes flew up to his. “What does this mean?”

He smiled at her. “It means that I have freed all of those from your village,” he said quietly. “They are back home, their lives restored as best I could.”

Shaking her head, she put the document on the desk. “But how? Why?”

His lips thinned and he looked down at his hands on the table. “Because it is harder to know that someone you love is enslaved than it is to be a slave yourself.”

“But…”

For the first time, impatience settled on his face. “They are back where they belong, Ree. Just leave it at that!”

Ree was quiet for a moment, and then her soft voice broke the uncomfortable silence. “Am I to join them?”

He jerked in his chair and then became utterly still. “Do you want to?”

She did not answer him right away, but looked again at the document that had restored so many lives. “It was wrong for the Emperor to enslave them,” she murmured.

“I know, but I have done what I could to rectify that wrong,” Vader ground out. “I cannot undo what has been done.”

“Slavery is evil, milord,” Ree continued. “They are back home, but what about Ylez? What kind of life will she have now? Will she ever be able to forget the soldiers who have used her body over these last months?”

Vader shot out of his chair and began to pace. “Do you want to return to your village?” He repeated in a low and dangerous voice.

Ree’s mind was back on her family, her people, and the tiny village where she had grown up. But she knew that she could not live there again, at least not now. Her place was here for as long as he wanted her, by the side of this man she would never completely understand. For some reason, the gods had linked her fate to his, and she was where she was meant to be.

“To be a slave is a terrible thing, milord,” she mused, her thoughts on Ylez and all the others like her.

“You don’t know what slavery is!” He cried, his features twisted into something vicious. “You need only spread your legs for one man!” Vader’s hand bunched in the folds of her gown. “If you were truly a slave, you would be used by any man who had enough credits to purchase you from your Master,” he hissed.

“And if you were lucky, all he would want is to fuck you,” Vader continued in a low voice. “But there would always be that one, that one who could only find his pleasure in your pain. And when you were able to crawl from your dirty cot, battered and broken by his twisted lust, you would search for a crust of bread to feed your child while the man who raped and beat you dined like a king at your master’s table!”

Samri looked at him and suddenly the truth hit her with the force of a flash flood.

She saw a young boy, cowering while yet another faceless stranger abused his mother. His fury and fear battling each other, his stomach growling with desperate hunger while the man who sated his lust was fat with easy living. It had been then, as a child, that something within this man had been broken, and then clumsily repaired by time and his own strong will.

And with that realization, the seed of something that felt like love took root in her heart.

Her father’s words came back to her.

“There are times when a man’s wrath is so strong, that any spark of answering anger in you will start a blaze that will destroy you both. It is then that you must answer anger with love, and his harshness with a soft word.”

Shocking him, she threw herself on her knees and grasped his hand, nuzzling her cheek against it. “You misunderstand, milord,” she said, her voice an aching rasp, her eyes full of tears. “I did not curse my own fate, but theirs.”

He gave a groan of protest and pulled her to her feet. His lips were hot against her throat as his murmured words of apology. “I’m sorry, Ree,” he repeated. “I am cruel once again to the person who least deserves it…”

Laughing and crying at the same time, she rained kisses on his face. “Milord,” she protested. “I am not some pampered daughter of a nobleman; I will not break from a few harsh words.”

His kisses turned from apologetic to passionate, his hands pushing aside her robe to find her eager flesh beneath.

He lifted her up and carried her to the big bed that dominated the room. Tenderly, he placed her on it and then stretched out beside her, one leg thrown over her as he nuzzled her throat. His hips moved and she felt his hardness press against her thigh. She answered him with a movement of her own, eliciting a groan from him.

His hands made short work of her simple robe, removing it before she could even begin to work on his tunic. Her hands were as eager as his as they got rid of the impediments between them. Vader’s mouth slid from her throat to the hard peak that had been pressing into his palm. Softly licking it and then suckling gently, his fingers taunting the other nipple.

Ree arched off the bed, pressing herself into his body, moving so that he was cradled between her legs. She reached down and grasped his erection, lightly stroking and thrilling to the moan that was torn from him.

With a tenderness he had never shown to her before, Vader guided his cock to her entrance and slowly pushed inside of her. His mouth never leaving her flesh, his hands busy caressing her, teasing her, he moved slowly inside of her, each stroke making something spark deep within her.

She clutched at his shoulders, urging him on, murmuring her appreciation for the feel of his hardness with her. With a scream that she stifled by biting into his shoulder, her orgasm ripped through her, shattering her into tiny pieces that he brought together and made whole again.

Then he threw his head back and with a roar of male satisfaction, found his own completion, still moving within her.

At last, he collapsed against her, content to remain inside of her, around her. “Ree…” he whispered.

Ree kissed his sweaty brow as he drifted off to sleep, placing his hand over her heart, just where she felt it should be.