by Eve Bradley
And she’d wanted Margaret to spend time alone planning and working with Zothar.
Margaret contemplated leaving under the shadow of night. She contemplated going into hiding. She could emigrate elsewhere. She could start her own company of courtesans. She was sure there would be some ready to part ways with Snow Lily and join her. But then she’d be ever living in fear of the two most powerful figures in the realm. There was no way they’d allow her that slight. Either way, she was going to die. The question was, how long could she stay alive?
She blew out a breath and shirked her bodice around.
Then she knew what to do.
Margaret stood before a gathering of twenty women. The air was intensely floral, saturated with perfume. She looked over them all as if inspecting cattle. She would have made her father proud.
“Each one of you has been given to me and are now under my jurisdiction. Although you belong to yourselves, I will give you much incentive to stay if you do everything that I ask. And I think you’ll find that doing as I say will benefit you more than anything else possibly could. I will pay you all from my own private coffers. But I do not only pay your wages, no. I pay,” she cleared her throat and stepped forward, looking across them all sternly. “For your loyalty.”
There was a hush in the air, and Margaret licked her lips.
“Here is what I expect. I will assign you a target. A man whom I wish you to seduce. Seduction is the first part of your task; the second will be listening. I want to know who they speak with, what they say, and anything else you notice that may not seem of interest. I will meet you all separately throughout the weeks, and I expect you to arrive at the chosen time. We will not only meet here in my chambers. We will meet in other rooms or places. Aside from this, I expect you to be careful in the words you choose. If you think for one moment that you are being watched or followed, do not come to me. If anyone questions why you are there, say that you’re all gifts from the Snow Lily Company.”
The women seemed nearly afraid.
“Your recompense will be greater than any number you might have seen before,” Margaret added. “On your way out the door, I will give you a man, and a time and place to meet me. If you have something urgent you wish to relay to me, send me a message through only my servant, of which one of you will become.”
Margaret scanned the lot of them and pointed to a girl with common brown hair and pale skin. She looked to be the youngest of the lot, probably no more than sixteen.
“You. Your name?”
“Elibeth, of house Hornbrok.”
It was even sweeter that nearly every one of the girls was Catharsan.
“Elibeth, you’ll be my personal maid. You will deliver and transmit all of my messages safely. You will take care of me in my private chambers. You and I will be a team, truly, against the other maids.” she then addressed the rest of the room. “Only the women you see in this room are trustworthy. No one else, and I mean no one else, should be granted trust. Practice careful speech and be smart about what you say. It’s better if people think you are dumb than know that you are aware of current affairs.”
The women nodded and agreed with her as she finished.
“Now. One by one you’ll be allowed from the chambers. Not all at once. But once you are, go stalk your prey,” she smiled, nearly gleeful at how her plans had come about.
“You’re the best courtesans in all the realm. Do what must be done.”
She sent one to each of the council, aside for Sir Mathers, the crippled old man who’d spoken on her behalf. She thought maybe she would spend a bit of time with him herself. If he’d spoken for her outrightly, maybe she could count upon him directly. Only time would tell.
Margaret walked through the drafty halls and over the copper bridges. Her scalp and neck tingled with fear. Zothar had sent for her, and she didn’t know what to expect. She would have to maintain a professional veneer and never stray from it. They couldn’t speak of what he’d told her in the storage shed near the gardens. She couldn’t risk anything. There was too much at stake. Far too much, because as much as she hated her existence at this point, she wanted to live.
Her guards escorted her to a cozy parlor chamber in the upper right wing of the castle. She felt like a beetle in a vast tree trunk, confused about where she was going and never knowing which way to turn. But the guards knew. They waited for her outside the doors, taking up their posts in stiff stances. She granted them both two flicks of her eyes and then entered.
“Queen Margaret,” Zothar boomed, his large scraggly black beard and hair even more coarse and wild than she’d seen it before. His mammoth figure lounged over a table, and a ledger was splayed open before him, which she knew would hold names of all the great houses of Catharsa.
“Sir,” she curtsied quickly and came to stand at the other end of the table.
They were alone in the room, and the silence was deafening. Part of her wanted to ask him a thousand questions. The other wanted to leave and never return. He would be her demise if the queen could make it so.
“How are you?” he asked.
“How am I?” she repeated, losing her breath as she did so.
The question was so off base, so ridiculously out of place that it made her angry. Fury and fear scoured her insides.
“You are joking?” she switched to the Catharsan tongue.
“What? It was a simple question,” Zothar shrugged his massive shoulders and crossed his arms.
“If you know as much as you pretend you do, you will know that I am not well,” she balked, voice nearly shrill.
“You’re still alive,” he and his expression was questioning, strangely amused, as if there was no reason for her to be upset.
She paced the length of the table, hands bracing her hips.
“Hardly,” she uttered.
Zothar caught her eyes again. The silence and intensity of his dark gaze made her feel like a woman, the woman she’d been the past ten years. She had always been a courtesan, albeit not the prettiest, but she had always been an intelligent communicator. She had always used sex to her advantage. It was how she’d seduced King Ludrogan. He liked her mind mingled with the sex, and it was funny now that she was a queen pretending to be stupid. If Ludrogan could see her now, he would laugh for hours. He’d probably laugh as he went about his daily routines when being reminded that the court tried to paint his prized courtesan as impudent and foolish. But how prized had she really been if he’d offered her to Luc? Perhaps Ludrogan knew she would be able to please Lucarian. Perhaps he knew that no other woman would be able to survive him.
“I don’t see your gravestone yet, your Grace. What I do see, is that you took my advice,” his brows raised pompously.
“Have I?” she challenged smoothly, tracing her fingers along the table. “I’m not in any better standing.”
He leaned a bit closer over the table, causing her to feel the urge to shrink back.
“But you’re not any worse, so that’s saying something.”
“Let’s get this done,” Margaret said coolly. “I don’t want to be stuck in this room with you all day.”
“Ah, Margaret. You have a way of wounding me like no other,” he pretended to wince in pain. “Very well, tell me who we should invite.”
“Why does she want Catharsan royals?” Margaret began to think out loud. “Won’t they dislike the idea when they know that Raspandar now has an alliance with the clans?”
Zothar did not respond but waited for her to complete the thought that was lingering in her mind.
“You know more, but you won’t speak of it,” she harassed, annoyed by his secrecy. “What do you gain from helping me? You’re on their side...you want a godless world and freedom to pillage and plunder and live a debauched life forever? Why offer me advice?”
Zothar came around the table quickly and stood in front of her. He nearly pressed her into the sharp edge of the table.
“Quiet your voice, little woman,” he point
ed a finger at her chest.
For a moment, she was afraid. His scent filled up her head, nearly intoxicating her. She remembered when she’d pretended Lucarian was Zothar, and felt her cheeks grow hot. She wanted to reach up and touch his beard and the bulky muscles of his chest. She’d never been with a man so large, and curiosity clamped her lungs so that she couldn’t take a full breath. In fact, he wasn’t her usual type. He shouldn’t even be tempting.
“Don’t try to intimidate me. I’ve dealt with worse than you,” she sneered up at him.
“I’d never try to intimidate you,” he relaxed a bit and sighed. “My clansmen and I have high standards for how we treat women. Even the high and mighty sort.”
“High and mighty? Sir, you don’t know me if that’s what you think of me,” she retorted briskly.
He chuckled, and she frowned.
“Sorry, but you are a queen. Whether you think you are or not,” he moved away from her and back towards the table. “It’s just the truth. And your questions will need to go unanswered. Just remember that I am doing what I can on my end.”
“And that is?” she raised her brows, cold fingers crimped onto her skirts.
“What I can, woman. Now help me choose which affluent bastards to invite to the Queen mother’s gathering before we spend too much time together.”
“You don’t want to spend time with me?” she blurted.
“Your words, not mine.”
The serpentine attraction that slithered between them scarred the air. She lowered her eyes when he said it, because there was too much rawness. She could nearly feel the heat of him from across the table. This was the problem. How long would going through the names take? Would she be able to abstain from him if they were forced to spend more than this day together? Naturally, this bud of attraction, given the time would bloom...and ruin her in the process.
She didn’t want to look at him. There was so much disaster in his eyes. So much lawlessness and yet, devotion. Safety. The fact that he’d said his men don’t intimidate women made her heart ache.
“If we’re to be friends, I need to know why you want to help me,” she told him and came around to stand beside him.
He stifled a smile and picked up a quill.
“Is it enough for me to say that I like your spirit?” he said and peered at her unrestrainedly.
“So you don’t feel sorry for me?” she rounded, willing him to answer.
“That could be some of it,” he nodded, rolling the thoughts around in his mind. “But not all.”
The way he said “not all” made her core ripple with feeling. She hated herself for thinking him so damn attractive. His giant biceps called to her womb like a damn enchantment. His masculine energy clouding her mind with the idea that he’d be rough, yet gentle and passionate. She nearly groaned but looked down once more. Gods help her if Lucarian were here...
Grief welled in her eyes, and she set about her work, wiping the dewy droplets away as she did.
Catryn
Jurdu, Yamar
Catryn’s body felt electrified. As if lightning itself now called her bones home.
The magic was like an ocean inside her, coursing and flowing with emotion. Everything inside her was reckless and part of her felt an urgency to release the condensed magic from her human form. It was a new love affair. Every second she felt the power, the way it now did her bidding like some colossal beast inside her waiting for a chance to stretch its muscles, she thanked the gods and goddesses. It was completely anchored now, and yet...it was overwhelming. Sometimes she couldn’t sleep. She could only relate it to the feeling of being on very strong drugs.
Sarth was entrenched in sadness, and she tried her best to heal him, but her magic wouldn’t work on him. Either his mind could not be healed, or the magic didn’t work on Djinn.
“They’re coming,” he told her, hair flowing about his skull as if he were underwater. His eyes were dull and lost.
Catryn was aware. She didn’t think the Vulzonic Djinn would be dead. The smoky demons would survive and were surely following. They had to return and make sure, for once and all, that Yamar and all its people would be safe. She tried to ignore it. Even with her power, she doubted herself. She doubted that she could kill a god. It seemed irrational even to wish that she might achieve it. All she knew was that she’d never give up. If she died in the process, she’d die having done everything she could to save humanity from the poisonous upheaval.
“Aisha was protecting us,” Sarth told her in a deflated tone. “She was forced into her servitude, producing those creatures. Half Djinn. Half demon. There’s no other reason. She had no other choice. And now both she and Mela are gone. Along with many others.”
Catryn’s mind flashed with the visions of the great hulking god pinning Aisha down. She clenched her fists.
Maru walked beside her. Their hands brushed, and memories of the cave came to mind. Guilt trickled through the cracks of her shielded mind.
All she wanted was to get back to her Guardians. Valryn...who lived and breathed service and a surly attitude, his gray wolf's eyes nearly cruel with judgment, always admonishing her for something and yet giving her pleasure relentlessly. The edge of her lip curled up as she dragged her tired legs over the inconstant pools of sand. Darrian’s naked body came to her mind. His perfectly muscled abdomen and pectorals, the angular shape below his belly that led down to his thick cock. Then she imagined Glend, his smooth sensual mouth on her sex and hard, lithe body nearly causing her to stumble.
Then she felt them, the pulses of their souls nearly wrenching her heart out. Anguish and horror touched her skin in cold pangs.
She needed to be with them.
She could almost forget that she’d spent the past few weeks in the desert battling demons and experiencing the highest form of fear she’d ever felt. She did forget it when she saw them. Everything she’d endured was soaked up in the vision of the three men standing before her. Her jaw dropped. They were fucking gods. How had she become so lucky as to have them all? They stood at the ready, each one with their chiseled stone expressions fighting emotion. Their connections were flaming. Sore from under-use.
“Cat...” Valryn’s voice was a pained whisper.
His voice shattered her, and she looked to each of them slowly. Darrian stood upright; arms crossed loosely. His lips parted in suspense. She noticed that both Valryn and Darrian had scrapes and bruises on their faces, but couldn’t comment about it then.
Glend stood beside him, his animated face more severe than she’d ever seen it, his high cheekbones causing him to look grave and critical. Every second that passed felt like a lifetime, and the breaths that came were filled with anxiety and passion that was held back before someone snapped and broke them into a calamity of desire.
“I’m sorry...” Catryn wheezed the words, and her sight blurred as the tears welled. She hadn’t realized how much she missed them. How large the gaping hole had become in her chest. “What happened to your faces?”
Her words set them in motion. She heard their heavy footfalls, and then they were all around her, their hands skimming the lines of her waist and between her shoulder blades. Three sets of hands pausing over the slimness of her frame and then moving again as if they were reminding themselves she was real.
“Just a small disagreement,” Darrian murmured.
She eyed them curiously. Instinctively she felt the urge to pull away because of the way she looked. Caked with sand. Eyes clouded and defeated. Body broken and bruised. But she touched them all. The magic inside her sung like a harmonious humming under her skin. The connection to them was flaming, causing every nerve to spike with feeling. It was almost as if…
Then something changed, and she heard them.
You did it. We want to know everything.
Valryn’s voice was clear and strong in her mind.
Woah. This is new.
She recognized Glend’s tone and could feel each of their minds. And now apparent
ly, hear their thoughts. She could tell that if she wanted, she could put up a wall to stop hearing the incessant inner rambling, sort of like how she could with the gods. But this was so much stranger.
Darrian kissed her knuckles, and she melted against him, her eyes shining with tears and infatuation. He, with his gorgeous physique, broad shoulders that could scoop her up into a tight hold. For a moment, she heard something in Val’s thoughts that wisped across them all, a wave of subtle anger that he immediately retracted. Glend reached one hand and steadied it to cradle her neck, and he leaned in to kiss her shoulder. He drew back the ruined cloth, and his lips sent shock waves down her arm.
We missed you. Valryn’s thoughts pressed into her, dark and dripping with loneliness.
She thought that for a second they might all begin to cry. She wanted to cry. She wanted to sob against their chests and wreck herself with self-hatred. But she couldn’t. She knew that she’d finally found herself, finally done what had needed to be done all along. And she hoped to the fucking gods that they’d realize this. She just hadn’t realized how bad it would hurt. How much this reunion was tearing her apart in so many ways. It was contorting her with guilt, shame, relief, and lust.
We understand…now.
Darrian’s thoughts nearly broke her.
Valryn’s rough hands wrapped around her waist and he tugged her close. His eyes caught hers as he swept her up, and he wasted no time in joining his lips with hers. He tasted clean and fresh, and his lips were supple and tender. The way he worked his against hers made her shiver with want.
The room was quiet. All she could hear was the flicker of an incense candle in the background and the light movements of the men. She smelled intoxicating Yamarian aromas and felt the heat of their bodies in their loose garments. It was better than she remembered. Being with them was what she wanted...forever. She wouldn’t ever leave them again.
