Beating Heart - Part 2

Part 2: UNREVISED.

Regina’s eyes opened to the touch. Cora’s hands had travelled to her hip, firm grip. She writhed, half with embarrassment and half with shyness, and smiled faintly.
       “Thank you…mother.”
       “You are so very welcome, dear. I didn’t know you were so… grown up now.”
   Regina stirred slightly with confusion. “However do you mean?” She felt her brow folding with a frown.
        “I didn’t mean anything bad by it,” Cora said, turning herself so that she was on top of Regina again.
   Again, Regina drew a sharp breath; and so sharp that she hiccupped with the impact.
Cora spared no sympathy and chuckled with amusement. She reached over to smooth away the stray hairs that threatened to curtain her daughter’s beautiful toffee eyes.
         “I will show you that you can trust me,” she said again, ducking her chin slightly as she spoke. “And then we can be together again.”
     There was another flash this time, only bright red. Cora’s lips were on her own, and her dear heart; it pounded wildly with the presence of its master.  She didn’t think to push or pull away, she didn’t think to squirm away with disgust. She lay beneath Cora’s burning kiss, head spinning with confusion.
    Now there were more flashes, but very small and quick ones before her: Cora teaching her that love was weakness, Cora promising Regina she loved her and that she only wanted her to do well in life.
     Regina telling Cora that she didn’t care about power; Regina sitting alone in the mayor’s office, pen atop her lower lip as she imagined what Cora must think of her right now.
Right now; Cora drew away with a gentle smack of mouth, her forehead kissing hers. The growing and dizzying cloud inside Regina’s brain travelled down her arms until she gripped Cora’s neck. She pulled her back down, offering a raw kiss in return. Her dry lips soon found moisture with the embrace; Cora cradling Regina’s back as she eagerly reciprocated. Indeed, love was weakness; but all along Regina had imagined it as a metaphor. Now it was proving to be a physical statement.
      The unwritten silence was a slather of hot red around them; drawing them closer together until Cora gasped with the throb of her daughter’s heart through her chest. She laughed once, almost coyly, as her lips found refuge at the brink of Regina’s jaw.
Regina tilted her head back with a quiet cry; she was barely aware that her nails were drills to Cora’s neck.
      It was Cora’s turn to cry out. “This won’t do,” she said irritably, waving her wrist. Then the duvet between them vanished, and their bodies reunited. At once the raw coolness of the air bit into Regina’s bare legs and arms; at least she thought that may be the reason for the tingling stiffness of her n*****s.
      “For years I wanted nothing more than your heart,” Cora said quietly. She returned her warm hand to Regina’s hip, and slid it upwards; very slowly. “I wanted your heart, because I wanted you to truly love me the way I do you. But the life of it is so strong that I feel its own echo through your naval.”
      “But I do love you,” Regina answered, almost pleadingly.
Then they were kissing again. It was born with a hesitant nudge of lips that became a rosy pink and blood red whirlpool. The kiss turned desperate, as if one of them might disappear through a portal at random just then and be lost forever.

    Cora’s hand slid quickly to cup Regina’s breast. Beneath it, her heart pounded wildly; master, master!
     “My heart is yours,” Regina gasped between their lips.
     “So it knows,” Cora sighed, her hand tightening around Regina’s breast. She squeezed until the n****e protruded her palm, and smiled. “And it shall beat even more wildly when I hand to you Snow’s heart. We will kill her together.”
With a growl Regina sat up, her lips clashing with Cora’s. Yes, they would kill Snow; and rule together. They would kill, too, even Rumpelstiltskin himself; unstoppable.
      Cora closed her eyes. Her daughter’s heart beat so furiously that it felt as though she were holding the heart itself. She could hear the rhythmic grumble of her pulse, the roar of blood around it.
      “You are the first and last I offer my own heart to,” Cora said gently and, finding her mouth at Regina’s ear, kissed it slowly.
    Whatever scented Regina’s hair danced before her in a sweet symphony and began to make her head spin. Outside, a blackbird squealed for its breakfast as it took to flight with a flap in the raw wind.
   Regina tilted her head to the side, her lower lip shuddering softly. The sweet stroke of Cora’s warm and wet tongue on her ear tickled her thighs open; And Cora slipped through them as naturally as a locket being closed. She reached for Regina’s hips again, squeezing them as she ground her pelvis into hers.
      “Good girl,” Cora whispered shakily into Regina’s ear, her mouth taking to the soft flesh of her neck. Her daughter’s skin was so warm that it left a slight sting on her tongue; she sank her teeth into cinnamon glazed flesh, tugging gently while her hands lovingly cradled Regina’s hips.
Regina didn’t know what to do. If she tried to escape she would knowingly fail, with the way her head was spinning so; but she didn’t want to, either. Now she was sure that her entire caramel pelt was slathered with the inflammation of excited chills.
      No, this was wrong… wasn’t it? This was not an act to commit with your mother, but Cora wasn’t just any mother. She was the Queen of Hearts; and sure enough, the only reason Regina’s own heart kept on beating. As if in response, a gentle moan seeped from her mouth. Cora was the only one who truly loved Regina, who believed entirely that she had succeeded in life. Together, they would complete the last task to make them rulers; once and for all.
      Cora stopped playing with Regina’s collarbone, and sat up slowly. Her mouth was slick with moisture, but her lipstick �" immaculate.
      “I missed you,” Regina said softly, turning her jaw to face Cora completely.
Her mother smiled back a real smile; and her face was like a thirsty desert beneath rain.
      “You have grown up beautifully,” Cora said, letting go of Regina to reach for her hair; where her hands left skin purred with sudden coolness.
     Cora tugged her hair free from its constriction, and Regina watched the long and dark tufts fall to her shoulders. The crown sat proud and still with the movement around it; proud to own its perfect mane.
     “This is a bit uncomfortable,” Cora murmured, writhing uneasily in her dress.
     “It’s a good thing I’m magic then,” Regina said with a gratified smile. She slid her hands slowly down Cora’s shoulders, to the roundness of her breasts; to hips that she suddenly wanted to ride.
    Several small pink sparkles followed her palms until the dress vanished with them, and Cora was
wearing only a ruby-silk corset with matching underwear. The thighs that straddled her were so flawlessly creamy, that Regina had to feel them to be sure of their perfection.
      “Didn’t I tell you that magic is strength is power,” Cora said with a wicked grin, sighing with the release of her skin.
      “Oh, that is so much better; where did you put my dress?”
      “Into a swamp,” Regina said flatly, following with a laugh. “It’s on the floor.”
   Cora smiled. “This is quite a home you have, dear… I was nearly lost on the way to your bedroom. But I know you don’t belong here; at all.” She hesitated, as if trying to organise the right words on her tongue.
     Regina now felt the warmest she had during the summer of July; which was slowly turning into August, every tree boasting the shades of a scorching season. She hadn’t seen Henry for a very long time, let alone anyone else who walked the streets of Storybrooke. She had become almost invisible, only to surface if her name sprung negatively within a conversation; and now she lay nude beneath a short nightgown beneath her mother, who smiled down proudly at her despite their differences.
    Despite what Regina had done.
   As if Regina were the only one who mattered to her.
Her mother broke her thoughts with a gentle sigh. “You don’t belong here because you are a powerful and beautiful Queen; and everyone here hates you.”
Regina bristled slightly with the sting of those words, even though the seams holding them together were bursting with truth. Instinctively, her chin jerked upwards with a royal tilt as she responded.
      “They hate me in our home land anyway,” she said bitterly, her eyes burning with newfound rage. “And I will never be happy until I have ripped all of their hearts out and crushed them over their stone-cold faces.”
     Cora listened as Regina spoke, her jaw turned slightly with thought. This was becoming a little too familiar to her somehow; wasn’t it with her early lover that she had spoken on similar terms? These dark words alone were aphrodisiacs, depending on who chose to illustrate them. Rumpelstiltskin’s sly encouragement was the birth of her heart burn; yet the equally �"if not, even more enticing- fire on Regina’s breath drew her nearer than she had ever been.
     Yes indeed, Regina still possessed and held close the shadow that had followed and aided her reign; but it would never flourish the way Cora believed it could if her daughter kept holding onto and retying personal strings. She was certain that Henry were the one responsible for the deadweight of her daughter’s heart. If Regina had found magic and power just from Daniel’s death, imagine what she could be after Henry’s-
      “What shall I do,” Regina whispered, disturbing Cora’s thought chain.
      “Shh,” Cora whispered back, leaning forward as she arranged herself into a lying position atop Regina. The weight of her body was at once a dizzying comfort; almost like blood lapping at nicotine after a long time without it. Regina slid her arms around Cora’s waist, hugging her close with a murmur.
    By now the day had woken completely, and she could see all the right colours of her bedroom. Cora’s hair spilled over her cheek with the embrace, swallowing her with the sweet rosy scent her mother seemed to always hold around her like a silver lining. Regina breathed it in with a gentle gasp. She had missed her.
       “Darling, I need to see your heart,” Cora said quietly into Regina’s ear, before kissing it and dragging her lips clumsily across her jawline.
   Those words alone were enough to raise a field of red flags inside Regina; but with her mother’s weakening kisses her speech was difficult to project.
       “My heart…?”
Regina awaited the sly laugh that would usually follow her mother’s remarks, but it never came. Cora was even more serious as she responded, her breath flaring.
       “These people have hurt you. And so long as you keep holding onto Henry, you will never be happy.”
       “I love Henry, Mother…”
       “It’s an illusion,” Cora said, finality in her voice. “Love is what you and I have. Henry cheated you, Regina.”
        “He hasn’t…” Regina’s voice broke. Had he?
        “Let me see your heart,” Cora asked once more. “I promise not to hurt or betray you.” Her hand slid back to Regina’s breast; she squeezed it firmly, and in slow and circular strokes. As wrong as the gesture may be considered by some, Regina sank further into the mattress and closed her eyes. The motion calmed her, and suddenly she knew that she could indeed trust Cora.
      “Yes,” she said quietly, caressing Cora’s arm and pulling her closer. “Yes… my heart is yours.”
Cora smiled softly against her daughter’s warm neck. “Good girl,” she whispered.
   The correct method of retrieving one’s heart required a harsh and fast penetration to the chest, so that with the force the heart was collected as quickly as it were disturbed from its cradle. But Cora felt that the method was too tough and heartless �"no pun intended- for the gentle moment between herself and her daughter it resided in. Closing her eyes with remorse she gripped Regina’s breast tighter and tighter until she could feel her fingers slowly slipping through the walls surrounding Regina’s heart.
    Regina cried out with the force, sucking air in through her teeth. This process was easily the greatest physical pain known to her, even more-so with the slowness; the near-blinding agony in her chest as though a big machine was crushing her rib cage in. She let go of Cora’s arm and clutched her waist for support.
        “I’m so sorry,” Cora said to her daughter, words nearly inaudible with the concentration.  Now she gripped the heart that beat so eagerly for her. It pulsed in her palm with excitement. With a final yank she tugged it free, bristling with pain at the discomfort on her daughter’s face.
     “I’m sorry,” she said again, sitting up and turning to the heart in her hand.
It was outlined in bright red which illuminated the body of her fingers, but a large pool of black circled the centre; swirling dangerously within its confinement. Regina turned to it with a gasp.
      “It’s blackening,” Regina observed; her knowing tone an awning over hidden fear.
Cora sighed gently. “Yes, it is blackening,” she admitted. “And unless you kill those who stand in your way it shan’t return to its ruby flourish.”
       “But it blackens when I kill,” Regina said, her voice dripping with doubt.
       “It only blackens if you truly believe that killing is wrong,” Cora explained, with a slight shake of her head. “Your heart is your soul; it will redden with your happiness, after you resume your role as Queen.  Do you believe that execution and justice is wrong, my dear?”
Regina opened her mouth to speak, but to no avail. Yes, it was justice for what Snow had done to her; for what Rumpel had done to her.  
    For what Emma had taken from her.
      “Why is it black, then?” she said finally.
Cora released her breath with a slow sigh. “Because they have poisoned you, my dear…those who fed you the idea that murder is wrong are responsible for the darkness within your heart. If you slay them, the darkness will fade. “
     She lifted the heart higher. “Watch it.”