Pradyumna – Son of Krishna by Usha Narayanan
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Pradyumna – Son of Krishna by Usha Narayanan
1 THE PEACOCK BOAT “No, my prince, no...!” The girl’s clear voice rose in the air above the still waters of the lake fringing the palace of the asura Emperor Kaalasura. There was a loud gasp and then soft moans and murmurs, the sounds of young love. Huge brass lamps filled the room with a warm glow. On the low bed, a young girl lay stretched out, with her head on the lap of a handsome bare-chested warrior. His shoulders were powerful and his arms were corded with muscles that flexed with his every movement. His face was chiselled in clear lines and his hair tumbled like a dark rain cloud. A bright yellow dhoti encircled his waist. A rope of pearls round his neck vied with the sparkle in his eyes as he lowered his lips to hers. “Do you really want me to stop?” asked Vama. “Don’t you love me?”
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Pradyumna – Son of Krishna by Usha Narayanan
“Every girl in the kingdom loves you. But whom do you love?” the girl pouted. “Krithika says she hasn’t slept a wink since she met you. Vikruti forgets her dance steps. Rajini threatens to scratch out my eyes if I dare look at you.” “Don’t you know I love you more than anyone else?” he asked as he pressed soft kisses on her face and her lush, curving lips. His hand caressed her slender neck and ran down to her tiny waist. But Tara was not to be distracted. “Then there’s your mother, the queen,” she said, a frown darkening her heart-shaped face. “She turns into a monster when she sees you with a girl.” Tara was very young, barely seventeen, the same age as Vama. She had recently joined as an attendant to Mayavati, Kaalasura’s wife and was terrified of incurring the queen’s wrath. She had seen what the queen did when she caught her son with Roopmala, the lead dancer in the court. Her screams had brought her attendants and guards rushing to the prince’s chambers. Then http://www.writersezine.com/p/pradyumna-son-of-krishna-giveaway.html
Pradyumna – Son of Krishna by Usha Narayanan
they had stood watching as the queen dragged the girl from her son’s bed by her long braid, raining blows on her body that made all the onlookers cringe. “You are my slave, my servant. You eat my food. You wear the silks and jewels I throw at you. And you dare covet my precious Vama?” The queen howled like a flesh-eating pishacha. “I’ll gouge out your eyes! I’ll kill your family and torch your whole filthy village! Then I’ll hang you above the fortress gates as a warning to all harlots!” She snatched Roopmala’s earrings, tearing the girl’s earlobes. She ripped the pearl armlets from her arms. She pulled off her girdle bearing Kaalasura’s emblem of two intertwined serpents. She tugged at her garments to strip her naked. Roopmala threw herself at the queen’s feet, blubbering. Mayavati kicked her away and gestured to the guards to drag her out of the palace. The queen’s eyes were wild as she flung vases and jugs at the girl’s receding back. She http://www.writersezine.com/p/pradyumna-son-of-krishna-giveaway.html
Pradyumna – Son of Krishna by Usha Narayanan
shouted at the other maids, threatening to burn them alive if they ever made eyes at Vama. Tara knew that Vama could not stand up to his mother, and toyed with the girls only when he was sure that the queen was not present. He always chose the easy path and preferred to enjoy the luxuries of the court rather than toughen his body on the battlefield. Though Tara was madly in love with him, she could not risk losing the comforts of the court and being forced to return to the grinding poverty of her village. Her world until recently had been limited to the hovel that her large family lived in, eking out a precarious living. Then she had caught the eye of the courtiers who had been looking for young, pretty girls to wait on the queen. Her parents had been elated at the stroke of good fortune and looked to her to rescue them from their lives of deprivation. She could not now sacrifice their interests because of her feelings for the prince. Tara herself was enraptured by the beauty of the new world that she had entered. She loved the http://www.writersezine.com/p/pradyumna-son-of-krishna-giveaway.html
Pradyumna – Son of Krishna by Usha Narayanan
soft beds, the scented baths and the magical palaces and gardens. She liked performing delicate tasks for the queen ― rubbing sandal paste on her body or singing her to sleep. And Mayavati was generous when her son was not in the picture, giving her maids gifts of gold and money that they could send to their families. Tara looked up at Vama’s face as a new thought struck her. “Do you know that Roopmala was thrown out of the city gates and not even allowed to bid her family goodbye?” she asked him. He shook his head. So that was why he had never seen her again. He had been afraid to ask his mother, and the other girls had been too terrified to speak. Tara was still talking. “Why does your mother behave like a jealous lover? Doesn’t she know that girls will naturally flock to you?” She stopped as she saw his despondent face. Why was she wasting her precious time with him by quarrelling? “Play me a song on your flute,
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Pradyumna – Son of Krishna by Usha Narayanan
my love,” she said, her eyelids fluttering. “A song just for me.” His face cleared as he raised the flute to his lips. The music transported him to another place and time where he wore a crown and danced in the middle of a bevy of girls. He twirled the girls around and felt their glossy braids flicking his cheeks. Their soft arms clung and caressed. His blood pounded to the rhythm set by their anklets. He looked down at Tara and saw that her eyes were half-closed in desire. Her breasts were heaving under her gauzy silk robe. She was so entrancing, with skin that smelt of roses and sandal paste, and bee-stung lips that teased and tantalised. He felt a deep tenderness and swore to himself that he would keep her safe. The cuckoos on the trees stopped singing as the music throbbed through the air. The trees bent their boughs to listen, and the deer forgot to graze.
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Pradyumna – Son of Krishna by Usha Narayanan
But the idyll was not destined to last long. Someone was approaching. Someone whose rage set the deer scampering away. Buy from Flipkart | Amazon.in
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