Beyond the Dark

by Angela Knight

Naturally, the queen chose then to enter the zenana. She took in the scene with a single glance. “Oh, very nice,” she said, her sarcasm plain. “What a fine welcome you boys give.” She pinned one of the men with her honeyed eyes. “Where was Deir while this was going on?”

  “Otherwise engaged?” the man answered nervously.

  “Otherwise engaged, my ass,” she said under her breath. But whoever Deir was, his transgressions weren’t her priority. Memnon tensed as she came to him, his cock giving a warning twitch. He could smell her again, could see the silken luminosity of her skin. Her pupils swelled slightly larger when she stopped before him, as if she were fighting attraction, too.

  That suspicion lifted his kilt considerably.

  “You know they were testing you,” she said. “They wanted you to lose control.”

  Memnon crossed his arms, willing her gaze to remain on his. If she looked down, his reaction would be difficult to miss. “I wouldn’t call what I did losing control. I’d call it establishing order.”

  “Establishing order is my master of harem’s job.”

  “Perhaps when he isn’t ‘otherwise engaged,’ I’ll let him handle it.”

  He’d hit the target with his guess. Queen Tou’s beautiful eyes narrowed, but Memnon gave her his blandest face. Though his pulse was racing like a stallion scenting a mare, he didn’t have to let her know that.

  “Call the physician,” she ordered the others without turning her head. “Have him splint Abram’s nose. Joseph, you may escort this one to my room after you’ve cleaned the stink off him. I’ll choose the rest of tonight’s companions when he’s gone.”

  “Your highness!” said Abram’s wheat-haired friend. “You can’t mean to favor this one after what he did.”

  Joseph couldn’t see the darkness underlying Queen Tou’s smile, but Memnon had all too good a view of it. He was pretty sure showing him favor wasn’t what she had in mind.

  “I believe my newest husband will enjoy a lesson in whose order we follow around here.”

  Joseph sucked a breath of sudden understanding. “You think he’d enjoy your special accommodations, your highness?”

  Her dangerous grin broadened, her eyes never leaving his. Memnon fought a shiver that wasn’t dread. “Oh, yes, Joseph, I believe the prince will enjoy them inordinately.”

  HHAMOUN’S queen knew a thing or two about torturing men. Joseph and three others escorted Memnon to a bathing room where he was doused repeatedly in water and then stripped while he stood spluttering. From there, he was led down stairs and through twisting, narrow hallways to the queen’s bedchamber.

  Ironically, her room was more prisonlike than his. Though large enough to host a banquet, it was located underground with thick stone walls and no windows. Beautiful furniture and carpets softened the fortresslike impression, but nothing could hide the fact that Tou lived like a ruler with enemies.

  Her “special accommodations” proved to be a set of leather wrist and ankle cuffs that were anchored to the granite wall. They were soft from many uses, though he doubted they’d held anyone who could have broken free as easily as he could. Since the restraints provided an excellent view of Tou’s capacious bed, he had no trouble guessing why he was being strapped into them.

  To make matters worse, his escorts found it hilarious that he was erect, the dousing having failed to discourage him. Memnon gritted his teeth and ignored their words. It was a quirk of his makeup that when he grew particularly aroused, his erection would not subside until he came—and sometimes not until he came many times.

  “Oh, you are in for it,” Joseph laughed, giving his glans a flick with his fingers that stung too much to be playful. “I wouldn’t want to be in your sandals tonight.”

  Knowing he could have fought off twice their number did not improve Memnon’s mood. He’d made an agreement. Short of letting the queen’s harem think him an easy mark, he was honor bound to adhere to it. If that meant watching the queen fuck everyone in the room but him, he’d simply have to live with it.

  Of course, it didn’t help that his cock jerked like a dog the moment Tou walked in. Maybe she was a witch, as his father claimed.

  Or maybe—he squirmed in his involuntary spread-eagle pose—maybe she was exactly the sort of woman his god-touched body had been craving.

  When she saw him, she widened her eyes at his large erection but made no comment, turning instead to the partners she had chosen. There were five in all, and—like him—they were all naked and aroused. They seemed accustomed to the exposure, but no doubt men in their position had a lot of practice relieving their needs in front of a crowd.

  Memnon had never done so, not even with close friends. The nature of his sexual drive was too different, too intense and extravagant. In contrast to his father, Memnon disliked drawing attention to the ways in which he wasn’t an ordinary man.

  Tou didn’t know it, but she couldn’t have chosen a better way to punish him.

  She lined up her partners, one of whom was the wheat-haired Joseph, on five low stools facing him. Each man grimaced as he sat, their stones being tender from the rigid state of their cocks. Memnon was impressed in spite of himself. The queen hadn’t touched them, and they were all so swollen they were shaking. Either making love to Tou was an event worth trembling over, or they didn’t get the chance to do it often.

  That possibility troubled him; sex was a necessity to a man like him. He wasn’t certain what he’d do if he wasn’t going to be well used.

  “Watch him,” the queen said to Joseph, who was last in line on the wooden stools. “If Prince Memnon closes his eyes even for an instant, I want to know.”

  And then she turned to him herself and unwrapped her gown.

  The sheer pleated linen hadn’t hidden much, but as she stood there in nothing but her golden jewelry, hers was a beauty bright enough to blind. A sound he didn’t mean to make broke in his throat. Her breasts, her curving belly, her exquisitely endless legs, caused his cock to stiffen as if he hadn’t spilled in years. When he spied the sheen of aroused moisture on her inner thighs, he almost did close his eyes. To his shock, the thought of not seeing her loveliness was more painful.

  Perhaps sensing her advantage, she touched her breast, one fingertip lightly circling the jewel-tight peak. Memnon swallowed with a mouth gone as dry as the sands of the Vharzovhin.

  “You won’t be broken,” she said softly. “That’s not my way. But you will learn the price of failing to respect what’s mine.”

  “I understand,” he said hoarsely, though he knew he couldn’t have acted any differently than he had. He wasn’t like Nico. He didn’t automatically think of Tou as the enemy. She was simply the other side. But that didn’t mean he would let anyone think of him as less than he was. Being a prince was more than a role he’d been born into.

  “Please,” said one of the men behind her, pulling Tou’s eyes from the hot lock they had on his. “Let us enjoy each other now.”

  She didn’t scold him for his impatience, perhaps because she shared it herself. Memnon’s heart thundered in his chest as she spread her legs around the first man’s lap, gripped his muscular shoulders, and lowered herself onto his erection without more ado.

  The man cried out as if she’d stabbed him with ecstasy.

  “Wait,” she ordered, her head falling back with her own pleasure, her thick, black hair sweeping her spine. “You don’t come until I tell you to.”

  The man groaned but obeyed her, his hands roving her back and hips with a freedom Memnon couldn’t help but envy. She brought herself off twice before she gave the man permission to go over, then repeated the process with the other four.

  The roll of her hips on them mesmerized him, the graceful tensing of her muscles. Each man received a slightly different speed and motion—his personal preference, perhaps—though none were treated with what Memnon would have called gentleness.

  The queen needed these releases, every one of them. With each low moan she uttered, the remaining
men grew more excited. Evidently, being ridden by their queen was extraordinarily enjoyable. When she at last reached Joseph, the man’s breath sobbed from him with his thrusts, his knuckles white where they clamped her hips. He held on for three of the queen’s orgasms, some proof of superiority, Memnon supposed. The restraint cost him. When he came, it was with a scream that stood the hairs on Memnon’s skin on end.

  Despite the strength of his needs, he had never in his life made a sound like that.

  But Tou must have inspired such accolades many times. She patted Joseph’s cheek and lifted from his body. His penis sagged like a bladder with the air let out.

  “You may go,” she said to the men. “My thanks to all of you for your care.”

  They murmured their thanks as they filed somewhat shakily from her room. One of them stumbled as he bent to kiss her hand. Tou had to catch his elbow to steady him.

  “Rest,” she said with a gentleness that took Memnon by surprise. “You’ll want to be strong before you visit me again.”

  “The gods make it soon,” the man replied fervently.

  And then he and Tou were alone. Though Memnon doubted she was going to relieve his frustration, their solitude aroused him more than he’d thought possible. The chill of the granite wall he was bound to didn’t ease the fire. His skin burned with arousal, his cock a steady, throbbing ache. He realized he’d been straining against the leather cuffs. He had to will his legs and arms to relax before he ripped the bolts from the wall.

  Tou gave him time to draw one full breath before she ran her eyes to his groin and smiled. Memnon knew how large he could get, how stiff and reddened by desire, but seeing himself in her eyes was enough to kick his pulse faster.

  “You,” she purred, “are a better audience than I’d hoped.”

  “You put on a lovely show, your highness.”

  She stepped to him, those long, muscled thighs of hers shining with her consorts’ seed. The sight made him want to supplant every drop of it with his own. When she touched one finger to his breastbone, it was hard to breathe.

  “So polite,” she murmured, drawing that spot of fire a few inches up and down. “I wonder if you realize you’re mine now, that you’ll get no pleasure until I say.”

  She was testing him, just as her consorts had.

  “I’m not too proud to use my own hand,” he said as calmly as he could.

  “Aren’t you?” Her eyes slanted, catlike, with her broadened smile. Both her hands slid up his upraised arms, until she wove her fingers and his together. The grip felt righter than it should have, strangely comforting. Her breasts brushed his chest, warm and silky, the rasp of her hardened nipples forcing a shiver from his tense muscles. “I suppose you haven’t heard that my men have forsworn self-pleasuring as a point of honor. Naturally, you must decide for yourself, but if you’re the only one who indulges, you’ll lose the status you broke Abram’s nose to get.”

  She was on her toes, her mouth hovering an inch from his, her breath as sweet and enticing as the rest of her. Memnon didn’t have room enough to lick his lips without touching hers.

  “You enjoy their suffering,” he said hoarsely. “You like knowing no one but you can relieve them.”

  “I am a queen. What else would I like? But you, Prince Memnon—” She wriggled agonizingly on his front, her belly whispering over his erection. “Tales of you reach us all the way in Hhamoun. They say you only take a woman once a month, but that you fuck her so long and hard she can scarcely walk when you’re done with her.”

  “You mean like that man who nearly fell to his knees tonight?”

  “It’s not a complaint, prince. As you may have noted, I value men with strong appetites.” She tilted her head to look down his body, to where his cock had begun to weep with longing. Even for him, the flow felt unnaturally copious. “By all appearances, you could be taking women every night. So I’m wondering what your self-control is meant to prove. Perhaps that the son is different from the father?”

  The queen seemed to know there was no appropriate response to this. Rather than wait for one, she released his hands, her fingertips skimming the reverse course down his arms. His nerves seemed to have doubled in sensitivity. He shivered again, violently. Her hands were sweeping down his ribs, toward the muscles of his belly and the tower of pain his prick had become. He had to moan when she clasped him, had to jerk his hips in her too-gentle hold. His balls felt as if they were about to burst with frustration.

  “Tell me, prince.” Her tongue came out to draw a line of wetness up his chin. “How strong are your needs tonight?”

  The tightness of his throat strangled the answer, but he got it out. “You can see how strong they are for yourself.”

  “But I so want you to tell me.”

  She licked her tongue over his upper lip, teasing the tip for an instant inside his mouth. She was breathing more unevenly than she had for her men, and that—more than any of her tricks—made him speak honestly.

  “I want you very badly, but my desires aren’t due to peak for another week.”

  Her eyes darkened. “That I would like to see.”

  “You’re bound to, whether you pleasure me tonight or not.”

  She pushed back from him, her laugh of disbelief husky. “You honestly think I’ll pleasure you tonight?”

  “I think you might. You’ve had five men already, but you look aroused enough to have had none.”

  She laughed again and ran her fingers back through her hair. What she didn’t do was walk away, and that had his lips curving.

  “You’d only need me,” he said, knowing a bit about torture himself. “Only me, and you’d be satisfied for quite some time.”

  TOU shuddered without meaning to. Was it true, or was this son of her enemy simply arrogant? He was right about her feeling as if she’d had no pleasure, but that was neither here nor there. Men were her slaves, not the other way around.

  If she wanted him to know that, she was going to have to control herself. She moved back to him, spread her hands on his broad, warm chest, and leaned in.

  “Hold your seed,” she said, “and I’ll give you a chance to prove what you say.”

  “Hold my—” He broke off with a gasp as she knelt before him, her mouth breathing fire across his pounding groin. “Lords of Sky and—”

  When she took him in her mouth, he groaned, thickly, loudly, with a greedy forward thrust of his hips. Tou could not mind his lack of discipline. He was hot and silky—and larger than she could take whole. Groaning a bit herself, she cupped the weight of his balls in one hand and wrapped the other around his root.

  Cream welled inside her when she realized her fingers would not quite meet.

  Oh, she was enjoying this! He tasted better than any man she’d had in her mouth, and in all her decades there had been quite a few. It was as if some aphrodisiac were running from his slit. She was hot and achy, dripping with more than her lovers’ seed. Despite the many climaxes she’d enjoyed, she wanted Memnon’s seed inside her, wanted his long, hard thickness pumping deep and fast. She dragged her tongue across his seeping tip and discovered she was so excited she had to gasp for air.

  The momentary pause cleared her head. She narrowed her gaze at him. “What is this spicy, burning fluid that flows from you?”

  His knees shifted back and forth, reluctant evidence of his eagerness to continue. “I don’t know, my queen. No other woman has mentioned it. Perhaps only you call it forth from me.”

  He was a flatterer, but possibly an honest one. Chances were he was as god-touched as she—which didn’t mean she had to like this heightening of her needs. She took consolation in the fact that his needs seemed demanding, too. The iron screws that held his cuffs to the wall rattled loudly as he tried to lurch back into her mouth.

  “How long?” he asked raggedly. “How long do you want me to hold my seed?”

  But this wasn’t a contest she could afford to let him win, no matter how the ache between her legs urged her
to. She resumed her sucking with increased force, massaging him with both fingers and palms. His testicles were heavy—and apparently sensitive.

  He began to moan, and then they were like cats singing to each other, his desire setting flame to hers. If she’d had a hand free, she would have jammed it into herself and come a hundred times.

  “Oh, gods,” he gasped, his shaft swelling dangerously in her mouth. “Please ease up.”

  Easing up was the last thing she was going to do. She took more of him, nearly all of him, her saliva running down his skin. Her throat was burning but not with pain. She squeezed his balls and that sweet, spicy juice of his shot across her tongue.

  More, she thought, lost to reason and swallowing. Her sex constricted so dramatically she almost came.

  “It burns,” he panted. “Itches. I can’t—Oh, gods, go faster.”

  She gave him what he asked for, all the speed, all the pressure, all the flicking, sucking, cleverness the gods had made her lips and tongue capable of.

  He cried out and shoved deeper, exploding with a force that took her by surprise. Those heavy balls must have been stuffed with seed. She had to pull him out, had to finish him with the wrap and rub of her strong fingers.

  He groaned at the last hard spurt, sagging against his bonds as if she’d sapped his strength.

  Tou had a little trouble getting to her feet herself.

  “No one’s ever done that to me,” he said once they were face-to-face. “No one’s ever emptied me out like that.”

  Tou touched his lower lip, which was bruised where he’d bitten it. His honesty surprised her as much as his climax had. And then he broke into a grin, the expression transforming his hard soldier’s face. He looked so boyishly pleased with himself—and so ready to be pleased with her that, for a heartbeat, she wished they weren’t enemies.

  That was enough to bring her guard up again. This man was not her friend. This man was the means to her revenge, meant to be humbled by her seductive power. Recalled to herself, she ran both thumbs across his smiling mouth.

  “I want you to remember how I made you feel,” she said. “Every night, when you lay alone in your bed and know that someone else is pleasing me.”