When she slumped over him, he disentangled her fingers from his hair and slid her leg off his shoulder. When he rose, his cheeks were reddened, his lips moist with her juices. “These weren’t meant for your enjoyment.”
Gabriella didn’t resent her new adornments or the implication they were intended to mark her as a slave. Marduk’s reaction had been too delicious. The warm, sexy feeling his unintended lovemaking had left kept her on the edge.
Dagon had been right. Even hidden beneath layers of gauzy clothing, her breasts and clit tingled, remaining engorged because every scrap of fabric, every breath of air that touched her, kept her mildly aroused. She did, however, mind her multilayered harem outfit.
Xalia had dressed Gabriella, fitting a slim short skirt in a ripe berry hue around her hips and tying it together with a jeweled braid. Then a see-through tunic was pulled over Gabriella’s head. The tunic was split at both sides, and fastened by a jeweled girdle around her waist. Bangles, all gold and studded with emeralds, sapphires, and rubies, encircled her wrists. A chain with golden bells, very like the ones Xalia wore was fastened around one ankle. A headdress comprised of a gauzy scarf covered her hair and cloaked her face. On her feet, she wore soft silk slippers.
The clothing barely hid her assets; the rings at her nipples merely denting the fabric and emphasizing their existence. The heavier jewelry made her feel as though she was indeed wearing a prisoner’s chains.
Beside her, Marduk had forgone his usual dark medieval-style garb. Tonight, he wore only a linen kilt that left his powerful torso and hewn thighs bare. A gold armband surrounded his left forearm, and a crown bearing the same crest as his ring sat atop his dark hair. She’d been attracted to his well-made body from the start. Now, he took her breath away.
And the bastard knew it. While her gaze ate up every inch of him, the corners of his lips curled in a self-satisfied smirk.
Walking beside him through the darkened streets, she stayed close to him, touching him, as he’d instructed, to keep the nightmares at bay. She thought she might have clung like a leech, anyway, because of the slithering sounds that surrounded them. The streets were far from empty. Far from quiet.
Rasping whispers in the dark, low moans, an occasional shriek—she felt as though she was walking through a Halloween fun house, only the creatures hidden in the darkness weren’t costumed monsters, they were the real thing.
Only because of Marduk’s presence at her side did she remain unmolested.
They didn’t have to travel far. Their route had taken them from Marduk’s turreted tower set inside the curtain wall through narrow cobbled streets toward the center of the small city inside the fortress. As they drew closer, above the tiled roofs, Gabriella caught glimpses of the inner wall surrounding the palace.
Another full moon shone from the sky, silvering the cobblestone beneath her feet and lending a soft, fairy-tale-like patina to the pale sandstone walls they approached. A barred gate rose slowly on creaking gears to let them enter, but they were stopped by a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a very beefy man, who stepped into their path.
Marduk’s hand slid over hers on his arm, but he remained quiet.
The bull-man nodded to Marduk, then turned to Gabriella.
Her eyes rounded as his face drew nearer. It was enormous, his nostrils flaring; humid heat gusted in her face with his snort. “The Mistress of the Dead demands tribute.”
“Tribute?” she said faintly.
“Give him your bracelets,” Marduk said softly.
Frowning, she slid them over her wrists and deposited them in the beast’s open palm.
The bull-man bowed and swept out his arm. “Enter, lady. May you find joy in Kur-gal this night.”
She watched the bull-man’s lips move, bemused, but Marduk gave her a gentle shake. “You were staring,” he whispered, bending toward her ear as they walked away.
“I couldn’t help it. I was talking to a cow.”
Marduk chuckled beside her, and Gabriella felt lighthearted again. So, they’d entered the Queen of the Dead’s palace—she should have expected a surprise or two.
The gate opened into a flagstone-paved courtyard filled with a lush profusion of fragrant flowers and guests. A fountain burbled in the center where several people sat, some with feet dangling in the water, watching a nude woman turning her face into the spill from a marble penis.
There were scantily dressed dancers in gauzy costumes even more revealing than her own moving among the milling guests, like characters straight from an Arabian Nights tale. More creatures like the bull-man at the gate were interspersed among the guests—hybrids produced through humans’ crossbreeding with goats, horses, and birds—male and female parts exposed as they roamed. And while clothing seemed an option, so far, this party wasn’t the orgy of lust she’d half expected.
“You seem disappointed,” he said softly.
She blinked. “No … just surprised. I’d expected something less like a frat party.”
“That term doesn’t translate well, but I’ll assume you were thinking that only sex and violence would occur here. We have only reached the first level of the entertainments. We have farther to go.”
He guided her toward the back of the courtyard and through another set of gates, guarded by a pair of bored-looking twins—male and seemingly all human. Their gazes sharpened on her, then turned to Marduk, to whom they bowed. “What tribute do you offer, Bel?” they said in unison.
Gabriella quirked an eyebrow, knowing what was coming.
“Your headdress and tiara should suffice,” Marduk said, so casually, she knew this was a game for him and he was waiting for her to balk.
Without complaint, she gave the items to the twins and was waved through gate with another, “May you find joy in Kur-gal.”
“What’s Kur-gal?”
“The name of an ancient Sumerian city, and what Irkalla fashioned this palace to be. She insists on ceremony. The first time Inanna entered these gates long ago, Irkalla forced her through the same ritual as you are going through now. It’s now used to acclimate all new guests to her rule.”
The gate they passed through opened into a hall filled with tables laden with large round trays of food—roasted lambs’ heads sitting in mounds of saffron rice, fruit of every description, round flat breads that the guests tore with their fingers and fed to their companions as laughter and goblets of wine were raised in the air.
“A party and a feast,” she said faintly, her heart rate beginning to escalate. “Other than the costumes, this doesn’t look so different from the hall where I arrived.”
“Here there are no penitents serving their guts to demons as punishment. They won’t be bathing in blood anytime soon.”
“But there are human dead and demons here.”
“These undead have been elevated from the cursed halls through favors they’ve given to their masters.”
“What sorts of favors earn them this reward?”
Marduk took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, drawing her gaze from the tables to his dark, penetrating gaze.
“Does sex earn them rewards?” she blurted. “Is it because they are more attractive?”
“Or more skilled. They also trade in information. Like when a particularly succulent living woman fled my captivity.”
“So you don’t have to set watchers. All the undead would scramble to be the first to sound an alert?”
Marduk’s smile didn’t alleviate her unease. “I wouldn’t mislead you. You should know you have no recourse but to behave.”
She looked around them. There were empty spaces at the benches pulled up to long trench tables. “We aren’t staying here either? Will you feed me sometime tonight? My stomach’s growling.” Then her gaze fell on one of the baked lambs’ heads and she shuddered. “But I can wait …”
“We will stop in the next chamber to eat. The crowd is smaller. Not quite so loud. And you will meet our rulers.”
Gabriella’s
breath caught when he dropped her hand and turned. She waited for a second, frozen, but the nightmare didn’t consume her. Assuming the palace was enchanted, just as his chamber was, she rushed to stay close behind him as he strode to the side of the room and a set of golden doors.
Even before they reached the guards—a rank of identical creatures, all sporting jackals’ heads and dressed in short golden kirtles—she was pulling her tunic off over her head. She dropped it into the hand of the jackal-man closest to the doors.
Which left her only with the silken slippers, slave’s bracelets and anklets, and the short skirt.
Her breasts with their new adornments prickled as the jackals’ gazes swept her nearly nude form.
“Come,” Marduk said, grabbing her arm and sweeping past the long rank, ignoring the customary welcome they intoned.
Inside the rulers’ private hall, Gabriella’s eyes widened. Gold shimmered wherever her gaze rested—on the cutlery, the plates, even the mosaic studded with precious stones beneath her feet. But it was the two figures seated atop a dais stretching along the back of the hall that glittered brightest of all.
Dressed in a silk tunic embroidered in gold thread and wearing a golden crown shaped like a Quaker oatmeal box and more jewelry on his wrists and fingers than she’d started this adventure with, the King of the Dead was a short, corpulent figure. Hunched over his plate, he was seemingly unaware that his queen’s rapacious gaze clung to Marduk’s frame as he strolled into the room.
Marduk had dropped his hand from her arm, gesturing silently that she must enter after him.
She didn’t resent being relegated to the rear. Staying three steps behind him, her head lowered, she watched everything from the corners of her downcast eyes.
All the occupants of the room, save the king and queen, were staring at her.
Gabriella trembled as dozens of demons assessed her body with greedy eyes, lifting noses to catch her scent as she passed. Did they smell life? Or a meal?
Marduk walked directly to the front of the dais and bent at the waist. “My queen,” he said softly, giving her a small, tight smile. Then he nodded to the king. “Sire.”
When he looked over his shoulder, his gaze compelled her to do the same. She swept into a curtsy, made awkward by the fact her short skirt pulled upward and she didn’t really want to flash her ass to the entire assemblage, but her attempt seemed to please the woman, whose wedge-like crown sparkled with diamonds and rubies. “Marduk, I’m so glad you recaptured your little pet.”
Gabriella ground her teeth at the woman’s tone, sarcasm served in whiskey-laced syrup.
Still, she couldn’t help but stare at Irkalla—she was the mirror image of her sister, Inanna; same long swath of raven hair, dusky skin, large, almond-shaped eyes. Her lips were just as lushly formed, but the corners tipped just the slightest bit downward. Was the power she’d amassed in this realm a bitter reward?
“She didn’t wander far,” Marduk murmured.
Irkalla’s gaze studied Gabriella’s body, pausing on her ripened breasts. “We’re pleased she seems to have come through her ordeal unscathed.”
Gabriella felt heat warm her cheeks and breasts. She wanted badly to join the conversation, irritated that they spoke as though she hadn’t a thought of her own.
Instead, she surreptitiously studied the other woman’s attributes, knowing Marduk had enjoyed them all. And she conceded the comparison—her own sturdy body against Irkalla’s lushly endowed frame—didn’t serve her well. Irkalla needn’t worry when she gazed into the mirror and asked, “Who’s the fairest of us all …?”
Her only competition would be her equally beautiful sister.
Dressed as Irkalla was, her station proclaimed in a gold-embroidered silk sheath and a broad, gold collar encrusted with large pearls and bloodred jewels that lay flat against her chest, Inanna didn’t stand a chance of outshining her sister.
As Marduk and Irkalla traded pleasantries, Gabriella shifted restlessly. She had so many questions begging for answers. She’d yet to see anything faintly reminiscent of the hell she’d been schooled to expect. This Land of the Dead seemed disappointingly tame. Not that she wasn’t grateful that fire wasn’t licking her skin. But still. As decadent as the sex had been with Marduk, she’d had darker, more deliciously frightening times spent in human “hells” and dungeons.
Suddenly, the downward curves of Irkalla’s lips slowly lifted, and her gaze fell on something right behind Gabriella.
She couldn’t resist peeking around her shoulder to see what amused the queen. Her gaze slammed into Inanna’s narrowed eyes. The vampire was led by a massively built, handsome man who held the end of a long silver chain attached to a studded black collar. Inanna’s chin tilted upward, a proud captive, her completely nude body gleaming with a light application of oil.
Gabriella silently promised to thank Marduk the first chance she got for not humiliating her in that fashion.
Her gaze went back to the man who held the repulsive leash. So, this was Dumuzi’s true face? Inanna’s husband had apparently shed the skin of the man he’d inhabited last in the other realm, Pasqual.
How had Inanna ever thought to rule him? His body, clothed only in a red kirtle, exuded power and sensuality. His features were rugged, completely masculine. His dark, narrowed gaze landed on Gabriella, and he smiled.
She shivered at the calculating way his gaze dropped to her breasts, then to the tender area just beneath her rib cage. She remembered the way he’d ripped the heart out of Alex’s phoenix, his cupped fingers plunging beneath her ribs and hooking upward, only to pull away, holding her still-beating heart in his hand.
Here was a hint of the wicked darkness. And then she wondered about the others at the tables in this hall, so seemingly civilized and well behaved. What sorts of beastly secrets did they carry inside their souls?
She edged closer to Marduk, felt his hand settle on her waist, and trembled with relief, her courage bolstered by his support.
“You’re already acquainted with my sister and her husband, yes?” Irkalla drawled.
Gabriella nodded. “We’ve met.”
“Old friends then?”
Inanna’s lips tightened, and she gave Gabriella a contemptuous stare at odds with the vulnerability of her appearance. “Never. Do you think I would consort with a werebeast?”
“Now, now, sister,” Irkalla said, amusement in her tone. “Lord Marduk might take umbrage to your comment. He’s also a shape-shifter, although he never stinks of dog. Won’t you join us, Marduk? A place will be made for your little slave, too. Dumuzi, would you like to sit beside them and renew your acquaintance?”
Dumuzi’s head lowered, his smile stretching his thin lips. “I would be honored to share your table. And my slave will behave this time.”
Inanna’s nostrils flared and her lips tightened, but she held the rebuke that Gabriella knew had to be burning inside her. The proud bitch had been humbled here. But Gabriella couldn’t work up any pity for the vampire.
Marduk led the strange procession around the end of the dais and climbed up the steps, taking a seat beside Irkalla, whose cheeks flared with excited color. A kneeler, like a church’s psalter was placed beside Marduk for her to take. Dumuzi had a chair, but Inanna had her own kneeler, which placed both their heads lower than anyone else’s at the table—annoying, but Gabriella wasn’t the one who had to make a place for herself in this world. She let the insult roll off her proud shoulders while Inanna’s gaze smoldered.
Without any spoken command, servers arrived in front of the table with gold plates and finely crafted chalices to set before Dumuzi and Marduk. Wine was poured; trays of meat, fish and vegetables, honeyed fruits were offered.
Marduk took samplings of all the foods, using his fingers to take bites. After he’d taken several, he offered her tidbits, feeding her like a favored pet.
She didn’t mind. When a sliver of beef was placed on her tongue, she sucked on the finger, licking up the warm j
uice.
His fingertip glided along her bottom lip when he pulled it away, and suddenly she was getting hot again, her eyes closing to relish the sweep of that finger, her nipples tightening, the golden rings offering a pinching sting that stimulated her further.
When she opened her eyes, the heat in his gaze told her he knew exactly what she felt. But he turned his head toward Irkalla to talk, ignoring her now, stoking resentment and a stirring of surprising jealousy, but also a slow-burning heat, because she knew the meal was one long tease and that she’d be sharing Marduk with another woman by the looks of Irkalla’s delighted smile.
Then Dumuzi’s hand landed on her shoulder, wrapping around the curve and squeezing.
Gabriella’s heartbeat slowed to a dull thud against her chest, and she held her breath while his fingers trailed between her breasts and downward, circling in teasing forays just below her ribs.
“Stop playing with her,” Irkalla said, laughter in her voice. “She must know Marduk isn’t ready to let you have her heart.”
“Pity. I’ve never tasted wolf.” His gaze cut to Inanna, who glared at Gabriella. “Perhaps, if you are good tonight, Irkalla will let you drink from the wolf.”
Irkalla lifted her hand and a server bolted forward, bowing in front of the table. “What may I bring you, mistress?”
“Something rare for my sister, but something still beating for her master.” Her gaze landed on Gabriella. “Have no fears this night. We will all seek our pleasures. Even you.”
Marduk remained silent beside her, his lips curved into a wicked smile. The threatening undercurrents swirling around them didn’t seem to concern him.
Gabriella relaxed, taking her cue from his easy posture. His fingers fed her another tidbit of meat and she wolfed it down, knowing she’d need her belly full.
The hand still stroking over her ribs climbed upward, cupped a breast, and toggled the golden circle. “So pretty, these little beads,” Dumuzi said. “I’d love to see them trembling …” His hand slid away. “Perhaps later.”
Gabriella clasped her hands in her lap and waited to be fed although her appetite had waned. Whatever came, she’d have to trust that Marduk’s influence would keep her safe, however much the others at this table might want to torment her with hints of harm.
Darkness Captured: A Novel Page 14
