Meeting the Sister and the Niece

Apparently Hippolyta had no intention of turning the arrival of her sister and niece into a ceremony. No courtyard reception had been arranged, no household officers were waiting in formal ranks, and Winston had not even been moved to one of the manor’s reception rooms. Instead he had been left in the comparative privacy of his inner chambers, reclining against the cushions of the bed while Hippolyta sat beside him and insisted upon feeding him figs and grapes from a shallow silver dish. According to her, the afternoon’s lesson had left him thinking far too hard and this was an effort to make him relax before Astarte and Theana arrived. Winston suspected it was at least equally an excuse for his wife to fuss over him, though he had discovered that objecting usually resulted in Hippolyta becoming more determined.

Guarding the chamber were two recent additions to his personal retinue, both selected after Penthascara and Xanthibarqa had spoken highly of their exemplary service. What, precisely, either woman had done to earn that description remained unclear to Winston. He had asked once and received an answer so full of Amazon military shorthand that he had decided ignorance might be more restful. Their appearance, at least, required considerably less interpretation.

Nearest the doors stood Arshaxia, tall enough that the open-faced helm and the sweeping gold ornament above it only exaggerated her height. The armor beneath was unmistakably that of Winston’s personal guard: overlapping gold scales molded over the full swell of her breasts, the metal sitting low enough that the lower curves were left bare, sculpted pauldrons and long vambraces framing the bare stretch of her midriff above an ornate belt and the fall of deep blue cloth that clung at her hips before opening over one thigh. Against all that polished metal her complexion had a warm golden cast of its own, lighter than the deeper bronze Winston had come to associate with many Amazons. Pale-blonde hair escaped behind the helm in a long fall, setting off blue eyes, strong features and a red mouth that gave her beauty a severe, almost royal quality. She carried a broad shield at one side and a sword so heavy-looking that he suspected most men would have regarded it as a two-handed weapon. Arshaxia held it without any visible effort, the set of her shoulders and the bare line of her waist making the weight look ornamental.

The woman beside her made the contrast impossible to miss. Valzarina’s skin was a richer bronze-brown, darkened further by the gold around it, and her hair had been drawn back into a thick braid that reached well down her back, leaving the strong column of her throat and the upper slope of her chest open to view. The same blue-and-gold uniform looked different on her simply because she wore it differently. There was less of the ceremonial impression Arshaxia created and more of something bluntly martial in the set of her shoulders, the strong line of her jaw and the dark eyes that kept roaming the chamber even while Hippolyta fed Winston grapes a few paces away. A long-handled double-headed axe rested against one shoulder, its weight apparently no more troublesome to her than the broad red-brown shield braced near her leg, and the scales across her breasts sat just as low, the bare abdomen and the high cut of the blue cloth at her hips making the armor look less like concealment than display.

Winston’s gaze moved over them and stayed. Arshaxia’s shoulders opened a fraction under it, the low scales and the bare curve beneath them turned more fully toward him, and Valzarina’s mouth took on a small, satisfied set while she let him look, the high cut of the blue cloth at her hip shifting as she adjusted her stance. Neither woman covered herself. Neither looked away. The armor had been cut so that little of either body was hidden from him, and the way they held under the lingering of his eyes made the intention plain. They were there to stand between him and danger. They were also there to be seen, and both of them took a clear pleasure in the seeing.

A grape came into his hand from the side. He ate it without lifting his eyes from the two by the doors, the last of the sweetness still on his tongue when Hippolyta’s mouth met his, warm and unhurried, the softness giving way under the pressure of the kiss until her lips parted and the tip of her tongue brushed his, tasting the grape. The kiss deepened and lingered while Arshaxia and Valzarina remained in his sight, and only when she eased back far enough to speak did the looking break, her voice low enough that it still carried the few paces to the doors, still smiling.

"You bravely endure being surrounded by women who love you and wish you to take them to bed and give them your cildren," she whispered seductively. "A terrible burden. I do not know how you bear it, lord husband." Hippolyta's smile stayed, though her voice had dropped into something lower and warmer, and before she went on her tongue passed slowly across her lower lip and left it wet and shining. "I do not know how they do either, standing there with you in reach and permitted nothing but looking. If I were in their place I would have you out of those clothes and under me every chance I was given, and I would make certain there were a great many chances. Someone would have to prise me off you."

A low, pleased hum came from Arshaxia. Valzarina answered it a moment later, the sound just as quiet and just as satisfied, both of them still in Winston's line of sight as if the picture Hippolyta had named were already something they were tasting.

Before Winston could answer, a muted knock sounded from beyond the chamber doors. Valzarina turned toward it while Arshaxia reached for the small bronze catch set into the wall beside the frame, one of the less obvious arrangements built into the inner rooms. The heavy doors could not be opened from the corridor while that catch remained engaged; someone inside had to release the mechanism first. A short turn of the handle drew the internal bolts clear with a dull metallic shift, and only then did the guards stationed outside take hold of the doors and pull them outward into the passage.

The widening gap revealed the women Hippolyta had been preparing him to meet.

The first woman through the widening doors caught Winston’s attention largely because there was so much of her, and because something in the set of her face and the long blonde braid over one shoulder struck him as familiar before he could place it. Even by Amazon standards she stood a little taller than average, and the extra height had been filled out with a heavy, powerful build that made her seem broader through the shoulders and thicker through the limbs than most of the women he had met.

There was nothing soft about the impression despite the obvious beauty of her face, yet the gold wing-shaped plates of her breastplate sat close enough over the full weight of her breasts that the resemblance to Hippolyta became harder to ignore the longer he looked. Muscle stood plainly beneath the skin of her arms, abdomen and thighs, old pale scars cutting across one shoulder and along an upper arm, but the hard plane of her bare stomach and the short crimson cloth that left most of her powerful thighs exposed did as much work as the spear in her hand. The cool blue stone of her circlet picked up the striking brightness of her eyes, and the overall effect was of a woman built to meet something head-on and remain standing after it regretted the decision, while still carrying enough of Hippolyta’s line and enough of the same generous curves that Winston found himself noticing the way the armor and the short skirt framed her more than he meant to.

Behind her came the woman Winston took for Astarte almost at once. The resemblance to Hippolyta was stronger than anything he had seen in the first woman, who had to be Theana, showing in the same clear blue eyes, the proud set of the mouth, and the effortless certainty with which she carried herself into a room as though space would make way for her without being asked. Her blonde hair had been gathered into a high, immaculate coil beneath a silver crown, and a long blue cloak fell from her shoulders behind a fitted gold cuirass and a divided crimson skirt edged in geometric gold. Age had done very little to soften the family resemblance. If anything, Astarte looked like a broader, more heavily muscled variation on her sister, with thick arms, powerful thighs, and the kind of posture that suggested she had spent centuries expecting to be obeyed.

The gold of the cuirass sat low and tight over an exceptionally full chest, the polished metal curving around breasts so heavy and generous that even the famously statuesque women of Themyscira would have seemed restrained beside them. The cut of the armor left the deep swell of them on open display, and Winston’s attention stalled there for half a second longer than he meant it to, the sheer weight and fullness of her figure under the metal making the rest of her powerful build feel almost secondary. That realization dragged his gaze upward again, where Astarte’s composed expression and unmistakably Hippolyta-like features were waiting for him. The resemblance somehow made the moment worse. This was not merely an extraordinarily beautiful Amazon arriving in his chambers. This was his wife’s sister, newly released from an island whose magic he had spent the afternoon discovering had developed opinions about him, and he had managed to greet her by momentarily forgetting how faces worked.

As the doors closed behind them with the solid click of the inner mechanism catching, and both women immediately sank to one knee. Theana planting the butt of her spear beside her as she went down on one knee, Astarte settling more formally into the same posture among the folds of her crimson skirt. The discipline of the gesture did little to disguise what happened when Theana finally had Winston directly in front of her. Her blue eyes moved over him with an openness that bordered on hungry, lingering long enough that he became acutely conscious of still being half-reclined against the cushions with Hippolyta beside him. A smile slowly found its way across Theana’s mouth, bright with an affection far too intimate for a woman meeting him for the first time.

“My king,” she said, and even the title sounded personal in her voice. Since my recovery enterd it final streches I have wished to see you.” The words carried enough feeling that Winston glanced toward Astarte almost instinctively.

Hippolyta’s sister was considerably better at governing herself, one knee resting among the folds of her crimson skirt, shoulders straight beneath the blue cloak, hands composed against her thigh as though she were appearing before a throne rather than kneeling beside her daughter in a bedchamber. Only her eyes betrayed the same warmth Winston had already learned to recognize in women affected by his authority, deeper than courtesy and held under deliberate control, and when his gaze dropped for a moment to the full swell of her breasts under the gold cuirass he realized her own attention had already settled lower, on the unmistakable line of his erection under the robes.

“My king,” Astarte said, then allowed the formality to soften into “Sister-husband,” a faint smile touching her mouth at the second title in a way that made the affection behind the restraint more obvious rather than less. “It is good to finally stand before you, Winston. Hippolyta has spoken of you with great love, though I confess the island had given me reason enough to look forward to this meeting before my sister ever had the opportunity.”

Beside her, Theana had made no comparable effort to conceal herself, her gaze returning to Winston almost immediately and traveling over him with a frankly appreciative interest that made it very clear her eagerness was not confined to meeting a sovereign, and when their eyes met she did not glance away, her smile deepening instead.

“She is being polite,” Theana said. “Mother was counting the minutes by the end.”

A slight turn of the head from Astarte was enough to deliver the look, though Theana met it without the slightest repentance. “What? He should know.”

The afternoon had already taught Winston why that kind of instant devotion ought to trouble him, and the sight of Theana kneeling there as though being allowed within arm’s reach of him had already fulfilled some private wish only made the lesson harder to keep theoretical, especially with the knowledge that Astarte was still carefully keeping her eyes above the line of his robes.

A polite cough from Astarte broke the moment as she and Theana rose, the older woman’s hands settling briefly against the crimson fabric at her hips before she spoke. “If it would not be unwelcome, my king, and with my sister’s agreement, Theana and I would be glad to join you both.”

The request was delivered with the same composed courtesy she had used for the titles, yet the warmth that had been held in her eyes now sat openly enough that the meaning required no further explanation. Beside her, Theana’s smile had already widened, the restraint her mother was still attempting clearly of little interest to her.