I didn’t plan on pissing off Mr. Do What I Say. It just happened. He didn’t talk to me the entire walk home from the cave and not even at dinner. I thought that the whole day of slaughtering creatures and torturing—excuse me, training—little boys and girls how to do the same would calm his delicate nerves but no. He insisted on being sulky. It was a mystery to me why anyone would waste their time on being upset if they could be happy instead. The Instaarii and their logic.
I’d already bathed, changed into Lashka’s flowy nightgown, and made myself comfortable in my new room when Sambor decided to interrupt my evening stretch.
“What the… hell is that?”
“Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend,” I said while staring at him, my head upside down between my feet. There was sheer terror, or maybe delight, or maybe both, on his face. “Good for refreshing your mind. You should try it.”
“No… Thanks. My mind is fresh enough.” His signature hemming canceled out everything he’d just said. “Come down when you’re ready. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish.”
I briskly straightened my body, psyched up for the new exchange. I spun around and walked toward him. “I’m ready.” I placed my hand on his chest. Still nothing.
He stiffened as if physical contact caused him pain, but he didn’t brush off my hand. “Why are you touching me like this?”
I heaved a sigh of disappointment and dropped my hand. Well, I couldn’t resist tracing my fingers down his abdomen. “Just checking something.”
“If I have a heart?” He snorted. “I do but it’s as black as Koliada Night. You’d better watch out.”
“Uuuu… I’m so scared.” I shivered theatrically. “Please don’t eat me.”
He raised his eyebrow at me before turning around. I swear I heard him mumbling under his nose, “We’ll see about that.”
He led me through the same lantern-lit path behind his house, past the Hot Spring, further into the woods. When I already started worrying that he indeed planned on chopping me into pieces with that stupid ax and frying me in a pan together with the legendary boar’s balls, we reached another stream. A wobbly hanging bridge led straight into the roaring mouth of a stone bear.
“Bear’s Lair… Now I understand where the name comes from.” My head almost fell off my neck from all the twisting and gaping upwards. “It’s huuuge!”
“Are you coming?” Sambor asked, already on the other side.
“Yeah.” I ran across the bridge, jumped on the first step carved in the bear’s tongue, and touched the lower canine. “Amazing! So big and hard.”
Sambor’s gaze darkened, a bizarre smile pulling at his lips. “And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He turned around and walked up the corridor. As he lit the wall torches from the one in his hand, startled bats flew above our heads.
“Wait here,” he commanded when we reached the end of the corridor. He hopped a few steps down into the darkness.
Gradually, every candle in every chandelier sparked up. With each new cloud of light, a beautiful chamber came to life before my eyes. It was decorated with trophies, weapons, sculptures, and showcases filled with treasures, spoils of war, surely. There was one stone bed in the center. I swallowed heavily.
“Is this where you torture your enemies?” I asked.
“Only little girls who try to outsmart grown men.” He pulled out a sheet from his pouch and laid it on the bed. On the table next to it, he placed his tools of “torture.”
I hopped down the stairs. “It’s your own fault for underestimating your opponent.”
“I’ll make sure to never let my guard down in the presence of a teenage Chochlik.” He mixed the powder he made in the cave with some yellow brew. “How old are you, anyway? Twelve?”
I strolled along the walls, giving the decor a more detailed examination. “In Instaarii years? Maybe six hundred… Or maybe six thousand. Hard to say.”
“Or maybe sixteen?” he suggested.
I gave a shrug. “Maybe. I’m young but well-traveled. You know what they say—the world is a basket of moonberries and those who do not travel, eat only one.” I tapped the muzzle of yet another rock bear overseeing the room. “Is that your Akasha tattoo? Your spirit animal?”
He scowled slightly. “My father’s.”
“Oh…” I mumbled. “He must be a very brave man.”
Sambor placed his tat sticks on a white cloth, one next to another, in the perfect order from the thinnest to the thickest. “He was. The best man possible. True leader, great father, tireless warrior, and an unparalleled Akasha artist.” He looked at me. “But I’m gonna be better.”
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. Not only was the guy salty but also full of himself. That couldn’t be good for his health.
“So what’s your tattoo?” I asked with no luck. I examined through narrowed eyes the geometry on his back. “A panther?” Still no answer. “A wolf?” Nothing. “A bunny?”
He finally honored me with his tender glare. “You’d better pray to never see my bunny up close. It might bite off your hand.”
“Don’t worry. I’m good with my hands. I’ll be gentle with your bunny.” I winked.
He frowned and turned around, stirring yet again that ink that had already been mixed. Oh, well.
“I wonder what my animal will be,” I said to his back. “Maybe a swan, or a dolphin, or a—”
“Frog,” he finished. So mature, indeed.
I pulled myself up onto the bed of torture. “I bet my frog will beat your bunny anytime.”
His braids shook in disapproval. “You better pray it doesn’t beat you. Some people get consumed by their animals. Can’t control them.”
As he faced me, I gave him my most seductive smile. “That’s not gonna be my case.”
“We’ll see about that the first time you go apeshit.” He grabbed one of the tat sticks and smacked the bed with it. “Now, take off your clothes.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice.” I quickly untied my shoes, but as soon as I pulled my nightgown up, the smug look slid off Sambor’s face. He dropped his gaze. What a gentleman, who would guess.
“The jewelry too,” he muttered under his breath.
I took off the Dargiin necklace I got at the Amber Fields. I touched the cuffs with hesitation. “The bracelets stay,” I said.
“All is off, or I don’t do it. Nothing can constrain Akasha flow in your body.”
I slid off one of the cuffs. The slit was deep, dark-red, quite impossible to go unnoticed. But then, why would he care? I placed both bracelets on the table.
“Lie on your belly,” I heard a command.
I did as he said. Little shivers ran down my body under the blanket of chilly air.
I lay for some time waiting for anything to happen, but the only thing I heard was the pattering of Sambor’s tools. “Have you started yet? Tell me when you start.”
“Ye-yeah… Starting in a moment. You’re cold, right? Give me a second,” he said. There was some scraping on the floor, followed by pleasant warmth engulfing me completely. He’d dragged candelabra to each side of the bed.
"Better now?”
“Yhmmm,” I murmured.
He cleared his throat again. “I will place my hands above your head and move them down your body, to feel where your animal lives. You may feel some tingling.”
“I don’t mind tingling,” I said into the bed, utter relaxation falling onto my body. I heard Sambor make a prayer in Lasota language. A few moments later, his big hands landed in my hair.
Shivers tickled my body in funny places. Little ants made hundreds of trails on my shoulder blades, my arms, my wrists… He stopped gliding his hands for a second. Did he notice the scars? Even if he did, he didn’t say anything. His fingers in my palms… How would it feel to hold his hands? Back to the ribs. I giggled slightly. He went down, slowly, ever so slowly… Flames crawled down my back, a wildfire burning every little hair on the hills of my buttocks. Lower and lower, to the canyons marking the border with my thighs… His two thumbs were precisely in the place I wanted them, like lasers drilling a hole in my crotch. Enter, go in there, go! I clasped my fingers on the sides of the bed and sighed quietly. The hands moved down, as if startled, now like feathers on the back of my thighs, my calves, my feet… I giggled again. And then it stopped.
I turned my head and looked at him, “And? Where is it?”
He licked his lower lip, his eyes shining like onyxes. “Not here. Must be on the other side.”
I turned around without waiting for his command, and he immediately pulled back to the table, stirring the ink like crazy. I waited patiently, stuck to the bed by a strange and heavy feeling. “I’m ready,” I gasped, my mouth dry.
He nodded and turned back to me. His eyes met mine. Suddenly it was hot, so hot. Damn candelabra!
He placed his hands on my face. My little cheeks burned in his wide palms smelling of oak, fire, and wind. He caressed the air above my neck. An electrical current pierced through my collarbones. My heart beat like a hungry hummingbird, chest rising up and down. His fingers flew like dandelions above my breasts, my nipples so hard they could cut crystals. I just wanted a touch, one touch, just one! I bent up, brushing my nipples against the skin of his palms. As if by the wave of a magic wand, a field of roses bloomed in my lower abdomen, their thorns teasing my swollen tissues. I moaned.
“Tsss…” he said, “silly girl,” his voice raspy like sand. He’d forgotten to clear his throat.
The warmth of his fingers meandered down my ribs to my stomach, burning, invading, marking its land. So close, so close, almost there… My pussy liquified.
“Aaah,” I let out another desperate moan as he brushed a millimeter above my clit. And then the flames pulled out.
“What? What? What happened?” I gasped, my yearning eyes stuck on Sambor’s hands, clasped behind his neck.
Without looking at me, he mumbled into the air, “I’ve found the place.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was calm, veeery calm. “Where?”
He forced himself to look at me again. Silently, he drew a curved trail in the air, from my right side, just below my breast, across the ribcage, above the hip, all the way down to my… mound of Lela.
“Oh,” I managed to say.
He went to the table and poured some orange liquid on a cloth. “You can put on your panties. We will start from the top.”
What got you into writing?
I’ve been writing since I remember—poetry, essays, short stories. Any angst or pain I felt as a teen was easily resolved by pouring it onto paper. It somehow hurt less when it was transformed into something tangible and beautiful.
Determined to travel the world, I left my native Poland in my early twenties and I lived in a different country every year. I’ve had several travel- and poetry-related blogs. When I lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I cracked my Spoken Word cherry by performing on stage. Soon, my international escapades resulted in a collection of fervently passionate poems and an equally ardent debut novel Happy Ever(ywhere) After. Loosely based on my life in Turkey, Costa Rica, Colombia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand, it tells the story of a slightly lost twenty-something, trying to understand her role in the world.
Incandescence, my newest fantasy romance, was born from a heartbreak I experienced two years ago. I lived in Brazil at the time and my entire world seemed to have crumbled into pieces. I moved back to Poland, to my parents’ house, and spent the entire winter in bed, miserable. The only thing that kept me sane was writing and, oh well, my mom’s pierogi. I wrote Incandescence in three months and when I finished it, it felt as if I were reborn. I woke up from my hibernation and left my cave with a manuscript in my hand. The time to share it with the world has come now.
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