Chapter 14: New Friends
"I was just wanted to know the basics," she said as her face still flushing. "You're doing good so far, my goddess," the king teased her.
"Do we need to do it in public?" she asked.
"Trust me, we need to do our first mating to clear all the doubts and to strengthen your position and our child as my heir," he said.
"I don't want position, I want freedom," she muttered.
"You can have freedom if you have power," the king said seriously. He still rugged looking with his beard and long hair. She didn't argue, a freedom can also be felt and experience by commoners even though they don't have power.
"I like your look when you married me, so clean and so handsome,' she uttered without realizing it.
The king laughed, "do I look dirty? Do I smell bad now?" he asked amused.
"No, you smell so good, so distinct and sooo…I can't explain it. You scent is so delicious, I want to eat you alive. I felt like a flesh-sucker," she said.
The king suddenly changed his amused expression into something serious. "Come here my goddess, show to me how delicious I am," he ordered as he pulled her hand and she went to her lap. She stared at his eyes. He's challenging her to do the first move. She can't help herself, it seemed that the universe was pulling her to him. That whenever he's around, all her senses focused on him, as if everything he do connected to her.
She kissed him as though her life depended on it. But for all his enthusiasm, she sensed that he was holding back much more. He cradled her cheek with one hand, the gentlest touch she'd ever felt. With his thumb, he slowly stroked her cheek and gentled the kiss. She wrapped her arm around his neck and ran her fingers up into his thick hair. He drew back, and she saw confusion swimming in his dark eyes.
"You need to stop my goddess or we will both be humiliated. I don't know how much more I could hold on," he said and kissed her forehead. He stood up, "enjoy reading," he said and kissed her lips briefly again before he turned and walked towards the door.
She replaced the two guards with her android scouts once the king was gone. Lilet will keep an eye on them. General Gan appeared before her. The king left with a lot of food on the table. She nodded when he looked at her as if he wanted permission to devour the food. "I was told you refused a bath even though you smell bad," she said dryly.
"There's a reason I don't want to take a bath," he explained as he devoured the meat. As he appeared in front of them, Kahlo joined them. In contrast to General Gan, he appeared to be in good health and content. He just had a bath, looking freshly yet his fierce look didn't change.
"It appears that sex brightened your day, Kahlo," she observed. Kahlo grinned and looked at his friend happily. "How are you my friend? I am pleased to see you again," he stated. "I'm surviving, thanks to the generosity of Her Highness," he said as he made a large bite of chicken leg. "I can give you a good bang too, like Kahlo here," she suggested.
Both men looked at her with horror. She rolled her eyes, "not me of course, I have friends who can give such service," she said. "Yeah, her friends are wild little thing," Kahlo seconded. "Don't worry my friends are not choosy, they didn't care if you smell bad," she said referring to the robot sex entertainer.
"Let us discuss something else first, I wiped out the flesh suckers below and turned out they are all male. Most of them are warriors. I even encountered them in the northern border. All of them were warriors, former warriors. I am not familiar with how witch craft are done here. So, tell me," she said.
"How do you practice your witch craft then?" Kahlo asked.
"I used it to make my life comfortable, to heal, to travel, and to kill my enemy if they threatened my life," she explained referring to the features of Lilet and her androids.
General Gan was tricked by the queen, she told him, he committed treason but people and the king was told he died in a battle. Even in this world fakes news are used to deceived people like some kind of political propaganda.
"The witch used her power to stay young, to stay beautiful, by taking the lives of young girls. She also summoned the dead and make men her puppet under her spell. Her latest achievement is to make those men undead by killing them first and take their soul. She used dark techniques to control them and the soul, we didn't know where" Kahlo said.
"I discovered that the witch can also inflict the curse on men by mating. She used incantation while mating, and the man is now subject to her spell. She tried to seduce me before, but I already knew her secret, so I refused. She came to see me in the dungeon several times and tried to persuade me, but I refused again. I wasn't as good as I used to be, and my smell helped me," he joked.
"So, the queen can only use her power if the man is willing," she concluded.
"No, she can only wield her power if the man is willing and engrossed in her. That his thoughts and mind are solely for her. With the king's affection for you, we doubt she can perform the incantation even if he'll bed her," General Gan said.
"How do you know of this?" she asked.
"She seduced my two young officers, I saw them inside the tent and witnessed how she did it, turning the young men into undead. She first asked them while doing...you know... my men were obsessed with her. After the spell, she ordered them to kill their comrades. The men they killed were their friends, they fought together and the two obsessed young men just killed them like a sacrifice to their goddess."
"Why you did not do something to stop them? They're your soldiers!" she asked.
"I can't move, Aryana used her spell on me. She wanted to see what will happen. But the witch sensed us, Aryana escaped and I was captured and you know the rest," he said.
"She planned to give you to your undead men to be eaten, that was gross," she said. "If she found her mate or her true love, well be dead," she commented.
"That witch has no heart," Kahlo muttered angrily.
"I thought she and the king was childhood sweetheart?" she asked again.
"They met when they were young but the former king was against it and they separated. When my sister fell in love with the king, he was also infatuated with her. But things changed when the witch befriended my sister and seduced the king," Kahlo said scowling.
"It's the king's fault; he's gullible. He should have protected his lover, your sister," she remarked dryly.
Both men were taken aback by what she had said. "Men must protect their women," she said, shrugging. "If they found another, it is still their responsibility to ensure the welfare of the woman for whom they once cared. The system here is dysfunctional."
"How can you say that to your husband and to our king?" General Gan asked.
"Why are people so twisted that if you tell them the truth, they despise you? But they can be hypocritical. They tolerated gossipers as long as they were nice. They patronize the lazy as long as they are flattered. When selfish people turned their backs when it was their turn to give their part, people simply ignored it and took the part that was skipped by the selfish ones," she said. The two stared at her like she was insane.
"Have I turned you against me because I speak my mind and tell the truth? I despise fanatical friendship. I'm not going to try to please you anymore. I'll just do my part and leave as if we were strangers.:
"You're just odd but I won't be your enemy," Kahlo said like he was committing to her.
"You're such a refreshing woman, no wonder the king was intrigue by you," General Gan said.
"Why the queen, suggested to the king that we should have public consummation of marriage?" she asked herself loudly.
"She wanted the king to hate you. She'll do everything to ruin your before the first mating. So, be careful, the woman was so cunning. We may not know what she was thinking. She tried to set us up remember?' he said.
Lilet told her that the queen was on her way to talk to her. The two was instantly vanished. Kahlo returned to his quarter while General Gan returned to his cell along the android sex entertainer. The table became empty and she was not sitting on the couch reading a book about herbs as she awaits the queen.
The queen came in and she stood and bowed at her. The queen's eyes roamed around the huge library. "Where did you learn the art?" she asked. What art? Was she talking about the art of magic? She asked herself.
"It's in my blood Your Majesty," she replied. She can't deny it to her, how could she explain the changes she made in the once messy library into this one? Kahlo and General Gan were thinking she was using witchcrafts just like the queen.
There are no more witches in her world, but the agency was able to save some blood and somatic cells from the last witch who died whi knows what century, which has now become a part of her.
The issue was...What good are a witch's genes if she can't even cast a simple spell?
The agency should have obtained the witch's manual as well, so that a portion of her could be useful.
The queen gasped. For the first time Venus, saw some emotion from the queen's face. Her eyes slanted like a rabid wolf. She was saying some foreign language. Too fast that Lilet was able to translate it a little. The library turned dark. Damn! she's using her dark magic on her!
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone