First go back and vote for the last two chapters!!
I'm posting even when it's not 100 votes yet, requesting you to do your part atleast. ❤️🤗

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In the shadowed salsa of the steady burning candles, Raimoti's naked glowing body played a mystical hide and seek, half submerged in the lukewarm bath water. She inhaled the aromatic fragrance of the lavender oil, and then closed her eyes, a blissful smile curved on her lips, as she immersed herself completely into the water-filled stone bathing tub inside the royal bathroom.
Satyakirth had kept his words, by tending to her much needed privacy during these quiet moments. He had ensured that a section of the sprawling bathroom, along with one tub, was secluded from the rest of the area with a thick veil of ceiling long curtains. No one was allowed to enter when she'd bathe, except for him ofcourse, and there would be a small bell placed beside the tub, incase she needed anything. Two Mounis would be placed outside the bathroom door, unlike before, and unless they hear the bell, they weren't permitted to enter inside.
Raimoti got her privacy, and to test it's effectiveness, Satya had followed her to the bathroom, and had jumped inside the tub along with her that night, their naked bodies entangling with each other's in a sensuous collision.

The love making was raw, full of sensuality, and as she lay spent in the tub alone, her mind and body started to recall every ministered touch that Satya had showered on her a little while ago. The way he had kissed her, nibbling her skin, the way he had suckled on her entire body under the water was making Raimoti wet with a renewed arousal. She sighed and gasped, and then moved her hand and let it linger on her sculpted breasts to recreate his touch once again. Her legs pressing against one another, and her back arched in a self seduction.

Satya had left. The clock had announced some engagement for him, and Raimoti didn't stop him either.
This was meant to be their last night in the palace, and although she wished him all for herself, she knew there were matters that would need his intervention before they leave.

"Take your time my Princess... See you at dawn." Satya had painted a kiss on her dampened forehead before pulling a dry towel to wrap around his waist. And Raimoti inturn had lift her head to kiss him a wet temporary goodbye.
She was too exhausted to get up somehow!

Satya was indeed a skillful lover, experimental in a way, always eager to please her in ways that were beyond her imagination. He would send her to the moon everytime, and then would bring her back slowly, only to take her on a tour to the stars yet again. Raimoti had felt him dearly, all of him in every way possible, and everytime it felt new!
Always a new scar on his attractive body would add to her list, or some new bruise, yet everytime Satya's love for her would cross boundaries of all externalities... Just like the way she had experienced him a little while ago.
It all felt dreamy, rosy, and the more Raimoti thought about it, the more she felt her hand moving down her body, seeking refuge in between her pressed thighs.

A slight moan escaped from her lips, and slowly she let her touch escalate to the pleasure points of her own body. It felt delirious, it felt insatiable...

"Satya..."
She moaned out softly, enjoying her little time in seclusion, and slowly her fingers started to pump the insides of her soft wetness, immersed under water. She let her head hung back from the tub in absolute relaxation, and her body slowly started to reciprocate to all that she thought in her head.
"Ah... " She let out throaty groans, and closed her eyes, letting the sensation build inside her body, first her thudding heart, then her fluttering stomach, and then...
But wait, her stomach wasn't fluttering anymore! Rather, it was churning, just the way it had in the morning!

Raimoti opened her eyes at once, wide opened infact, as she pulled her fingers out of her folds and pressed her lower abdomen instead.

"Ahh...!"
She let out another groan, but it was different this time, and soon she felt that familiar pit raising up her guts, moving up to her throat, compelling her to throw up yet again.
She threw up just water, and then slowly it became better, leaving beads of perspiration on her forehead.

Raimoti quickly got up and wrapped the towel around her body, and then taking a long deep breath, she picked up the small bell and rang it twice.

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

It was a little dark, and holding the candle stand carefully, Raimoti was quick to determine her steps, leading herself through the backdoor of the royal infirmary. She ensured no one followed, and this little discretion was meant only to keep Satyakirth's apprehensions at bay, the apprehension of not letting her accompany him the day after, on the pretext of her illness.

The infirmary was dark, as expected, and minding her steps down the sprawling storeroom, she quietly entered inside the main infirmary chamber, as an expected slow tap of a hand from behind stopped her at once.

Raimoti turned around and smiled awkwardly.

"Umm... It's me again... Well... I was hoping... Well, I thought if you could give me something for... I mean..." She stammered and hesitated, letting the elderly Mouni frown at her with suspicion.
Raimoti sighed.
"You know what, nevermind!"
She breathed the words uncomfortably and turned to leave, but the woman held her by her arm and made her turn around, a calming smile plastered on her face in contrast to the frown that was there earlier. She moved her eyes enquiring about her affliction, and
Raimoti raised the candle up to see her face clearly.
She looked exactly like a mother would!

"Look, I know you won't talk, but I just want you to listen to me." She drew a long breath and spoke softly.
"I've been vomiting a bit too much since the last two days, no reasons apparently." She paused to measure her words.
"It's not that I feel sick, but yet, something isn't right... I'm nauseated, I feel like... like being with Raja Saheb all the time!" Her last words were more of a confession, and it made the old Mouni smile at her brightly, a tender affection radiating from her eyes.

Raimoti furrowed her eyebrows quizically at her, as the old woman slowly bend down to keep her right hand on Raimoti's abdomen, her eyes looking up at her with a elated happiness.

"Preg... Pregnant? Am I?" Raimoti shuddered at the thought and pressed her eyes closed.

"No... No... I don't think I am... I'm going with Raja Saheb tomorrow... This can't be... This can't happen..." She nodded her head vehemently and held the woman's shoulder.
"How sure are you? How certain?"

The smile slowly faded from the old Mouni's lips, as she joined her hands in some unknown plea to her.
Raimoti held her hands at once and asked the question again.

"How certain are you? What's the proof?"
She demanded.

It was the Mouni's turn to sigh. She lowered her head and held Raimoti's hand, as very gently, she guided her inside the ancient room where she had met that ancient woman with a thousand wrinkles on the face... The only Mouni who could speak!

A brief exchange of silent expressions and the old woman slowly got up and staggered towards Raimoti, who at that moment had forgotten all pretence of exchanging any form of greetings.

"Why do you think you... you can't bear his child in you?" was the first question, very slow and punctuated, and Raimoti gulped nervously and looked away.

"It's not that I can't, but I don't want to... Even he won't want me to... Not at this juncture of our lives." Her words were cutting her own heart somewhere, and Raimoti felt the sting of its sharpness.

"Oh...!" The ancient wrinkly crone sighed and turned away, gesturing something to the Mouni as she quickly nodded and walked out of the room.

"So you want to know if it's true? If you indeed have his royal blood growing in you or not?" She asked, and Raimoti nodded silently.

"Very well then, go with her, and she'd help you with the truth."
The old crone turned away and with woobly knees walked towards the proudly standing Krishna idol at the centre of the room.
"You aren't married to him, are you?" She suddenly asked, and without any pretence Raimoti murmured a slow response.

"No. I'm not."

The old crone let out a deep sigh.
"But you were able to lit the lamp in twenty five years girl." She sank down infront of the idol and joined her hands in a prayer.
"RadhaMadhav never makes a mistake!"
She smiled to herself.

"Do you think it's a sin?"
Raimoti paused a little before asking, and a soft chuckle came as a reply.

"How can love be sin dear girl? How can a gift of love be sin?"

"So what should I do?" Rai asked again, and the old woman replied without turning around.

"Exactly what you have been doing... Follow your heart" she paused, only to add one last sentence to her long held blessing.
"And let RadhaMadhav do the rest for you."

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

The cold stone slab felt dreadful. The nausea was returning back with a violent urge of puking her guts out. Raimoti was shivering in fear and anticipation. The old Mouni had made Raimoti lay on the rectangle stone slab inside the empty labour room, and then, very carefully she had lifted her saree up to her waist, letting it form a bunch there. Raimoti pressed her eyes shut and gulped in terror, her feminine parts now revealed to the mercy of the old woman standing at her feet.
Raimoti had pressed her thighs together, trying to fight with shame and fear at the same time, as the old Mouni slowly touched her legs, urging her to move them apart.

"What will you do?"
Raimoti lifted her head to look at her. She felt her throat drying up, and she cleared her voice to speak slowly.
"What's in that plate?" She pointed towards a small plate kept beside in the dark.

The Mouni sighed, and then just smiled at her, nodding her head in assurance.
Raimoti exhaled sharply and lay back once again, closing her eyes and counting numbers backward.

An exchange of words would have probably made this easier, she thought, as she felt exposed and vulnerable infront of the old woman working in silence.
The Mouni had held Raimoti's thighs, parting them further, and Raimoti jumped up as her cold fingers pushed against her soft folds without any prior intimation.

"What did you..." Raimoti gasped out loud, and the Mouni shook her head, as if in a command to ask her to stay still. Raimoti complied, and once again the Mouni pushed something deep inside her body, pushing it further in her core with her fingers.
Raimoti gulped nervously, as a tear threatened to slid down her closed eyelids.

It might have taken ten minutes, but to Raimoti it felt like a lifetime... Lying exposed infront of an almost unknown woman, unsure of what she was doing to her body.
The Mouni caressed her hair, and it made Raimoti open her eyes.

"It's done?" She asked, and the old woman nodded, smiling tenderly at her.

Raimoti however wasn't smiling. She quickly got up and tried to move down, but the woman seize her hasty movements.

"What did you do to me?" She asked, feeling sick to her core, and the Mouni first frowned in disbelief about her lack of knowledge, and then she smiled again, raising her hand in a gesture to wait.

Raimoti pulled her saree down and waited.

It took another five minutes for the Mouni to return, and in her hand was a small chit and a piece of peeled raw garlic.

"What's this?" Raimoti gasped and the woman pushed the chit in her hand, holding the oil lamp up for her to read.

'Its raw garlic in you.
If you mouth smells of it, your body is hollow.
Let RadhaMadhav do the right thing.'

Raimoti read the words, and then she re-read it.
'A pregnancy test!' She gasped out loud and looked at the old woman standing near.

"So what if my mouth do not smell of garlic? Then?" She asked, but in response the Mouni just leaned forward and kissed her forehead with something more than just motherly gentleness.

Raimoti got her reply clearly.

***********

The night was torturous...
Not a single ounce of sleep came to her eyes, as with wide opened eyelids Raimoti lay alone in the king-sized bed, counting the decorations on the stone ceiling. She was present, but her mind wasn't, her entire being shrouded by a dark cloud of frightening apprehension.

"Hey there Princess." Satya's gentle touch on her forehead was enough to bring her back to the reality. She exhaled softly and wiped the unconscious tear that had rolled down her eye.

"Raja Saheb." She smiled back at him, but the lustre was missing somewhere.

"What happened? Are you sad that we're leaving?" He sat down beside her, pulled her head to his lap, and Raimoti curled up more into his body for the much needed warmth of togetherness.

"No..." She let out a monosyllabic response.

"Then? Why do you look so gloom my love?"
He leaned down and planted a kiss on her nose and it made Raimoti smile at once. She lay on his lap still, feeling his heartbeat and her eyes stared vacantly outside the window, looking at the fire torches that glowed at every crevices of the palace, making the curvature of the stone walls a clear visual.

"Satya... Why is that bell there? I've never heard it ring!"

She asked unmindfully, and Satyakirth frowned at the abruptness of her question, and then he too let his eyes follow her gaze, fixation on the old ancient bell hanging from the west of the palace tower.
Satyakirth sighed.

"Because it doesn't have a reason to ring Princess."

"As in?"
Rai let her question linger in her lips lazily.

"This Royal Bell was first made when this palace was build by my ancestors. The purpose of it was to alert the entire kingdom of only two news." He paused.
"The advent of a new life, and departure of a king.... The last time it rang was when my father died."

"You were born that night too, weren't you?"

Raimoti shuddered at the thought and Satyakirth wrapped her gently in his arms.

"Yes, as I said, that was the last time that bell ever rang, for duel reasons ofcourse... But now, it would probably never ring again, not in my lifetime."

Raimoti felt a twitch in her heart, and then a sharp sting. She closed her eyes and tried to breath out her apprehensions, but Satyakirth had already seized her fears by capturing her lips.
Raimoti smiled in the kiss.

"Did I smell of garlic?" She asked, breaking away suddenly, and Satyakirth frowned at her question with amusement in his eyes.

"Garlic?" He teased.
"You're smelling of Lavender Princess, did you by chance drink any after I left? You were definitely drooling when I massaged it on you!"

His playful words earned him a smack from her, as his hearty laughter reverberated through the large stone walls of the Royal bed chamber.

"I love you Princess." He kissed her again, and Raimoti broke away from his lips abruptly.

"I should smell of garlic by now!"
She murmured to herself unmindfully, burying her face in Satya's toned abdomen.
"I should.... by now!" She repeated.

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