Page 27 - Microsoft Word - FANG EMPIRE - NOVEL.docx

GoGo slid her fingers sensually down Amie’s neck to her blooming breasts and caressed

them.

“Will you have any further need for me tonight?” Amie whispered.

GoGo was tempted to ravish the young Delilah, but she knew this night’s business was

with the king.

“Not tonight,” she said.

“Then I bid you sleep well, my queen—and dream,” said Amie and exited as GoGo

watched her with lingering desire . . . and sadness. “I shall do neither.”

There was a time in GoGo’s life when the simple pleasures of royalty at the end of the day

washed away the burdens of the crown. There was a time when being the queen was wonderful; to

sleep was to dream. But those times were gone and GoGo no longer dreamed, for to sleep was to

escape.

Kanja entered the bedchamber. GoGo heard him but did not turn around. She lifted the

jeweled handled mirror pretending to look at her face but used it to watch Kanja behind her.

Strangely, and possibly due to the queen’s reflective mood, Belly Pot’s mirror seemed to give her

a glimpse into the king’s soul. He looked exhausted from life. His movements were languid like a

ghostly prisoner long shackled under the weight of heavy chains. Usually, Kanja’s aides would

have helped him disrobe, but oddly not tonight.

“Where are they?” GoGo wondered.

The king’s soul was alone and he wandered his familiar bedchamber looking lost as he

removed his royal regalia and let it drop lifeless to the floor. GoGo knew her husband’s manner

well and had seen him after court a thousand times, yet the reflection of the king was that of a

grim and crestfallen, boney naked man and she gasped for she did not recognize him.

“Have the high and mighty all left?” she said, continuing to watch him in the mirror.