Threads of Gold

Eighteen | اٹھارہ

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Like the drying petals of a rose, the sly smile previously budding on Zartasha's lips withered into a tight frown at Arzam's proximity and she jerked her head upwards to evade the warmth of the Sultan's voice.

Refusing to let him invade her senses more than he already had, the Malka braced her hands on the floor next to his face.

Her next move was to escape the glittering confines of her chamber. One where the mirror in the corner called out her name, where the lush bedding smelt of the amorous night ahead, where the hardness of the Kalthuran ruler's body below promised her a tantalizing cage for the rest of her life. Zartasha dipped her chin, gifting Arzam the scent of her skin for a moment so she could rip the rest of her body away from his strength.

The Sultan's sharp eyes, proving to be equally adroit in love and war, caught the evanescent intention in her bobbing throat and feral stare.

He clicked his tongue and before she could get her jewellery-adorned feet planted on the ground and not lying atop the king of king's hardened calves, he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"What in God's name is your problem?" A shrill voice was Zartasha's response to the Sultan's ever-tightening hold.

"You." A simple answer came out of his curving mouth. Her being the sole possessor of his words made the Malka realize the night she was in for her. She quieted into a stupor.

However, Arzam knew he was only offering the truth because, to him, his Zar was a troubling puzzle - one which he wanted none to piece together except for himself. It seemed her sharp and brittle edges were made to meld with the blazing ferocity and strength running through the Sultan's blood. At the thought that their fates were written in tandem with one another, he pressed her frame to himself.

Not enough.

There was not enough. Arzam could see his Zar's anger and feel her shock. Her body locked with his movements but the Kalthuran ruler was too far gone in his perusal of her.

He could see her coal-like eyes leaving angry trails of steam across his throat, he was touching the rivulets of crimson silk bunching up at her waist, he could smell the jasmine smoke threaded through the strands of her hair, and he was on the verge of speaking his truths at the deliriousness of her at his mercy when he realized something was amiss.

Sultan Hyderi had four of her insani senses in his control but alas, he could not hear her smokey yet resonant voice resound in his periphery.

With a maddening urge to see her call out for him, the supreme ruler decided to startle his stone-like bride. All in the hopes of a warm embrace where her hands would cover the heated skin over his beating heart, where the curtain of her inky locks would befall upon his face. And so his fingers strained around the surkh fabric bleeding into a pool of roses around them and he pulled.

Up and up and up.

Zartasha lost her balance and clutched his kurta, clinging to him akin to a vine entwining around black stone. She was unknowingly strengthening her roots within Arzam's heart. A wild need for her had already bloomed the moment her fingers grasped him. However, the Sultan understood her base reaction was due to the swiftness of his hands and not because she wished to share breaths and whispers and aches come morning but he'd be damned if he didn't allow himself the pleasure of her in the moments his God gifted him.

At least his soul was getting its fill as he got to feast upon her with his gaze.

Feeling a twisting sensation across the length of her, the Sherquli shehzadi lifted her head from the home it had found in the strong juncture between the base of his neck and shoulders. She caught Arzam's stare and witnessed the warm brown flaring at their eye contact. Zartasha had been an unshakable girl for the entirety of her life but the rumours were true, there was something about the amber glint in the Sultan's eyes which was unnerving. His intent gaze was not letting up and so, she lost her composure and spoke in a hard voice.