Not that he was worried about Gabriella. He’d appointed Dagon to watch over her and give silent warnings to others to go gently or face his wrath. Watching her with Dumuzi had been enraging enough.
But Dumuzi seemed content to humiliate his wife and hadn’t let his fist drift anywhere near Gabriella’s heart, although the thought of dining on a warm, living heart had to be killing him.
Not that Marduk didn’t appreciate the danger Dumuzi posed. Dumuzi might have married the wrong sister, but Irkalla clearly still favored him.
Fingers pulled his beard. “You aren’t watching me.”
“If I watch I’ll be overcome and unable to sustain this erection you ride,” he said drily.
Her lips formed a pretty moue. “Your mind is on your new pet. I’d be jealous if I didn’t know you’re just worried. So many are so interested. But where has she gone?” she said slyly.
Marduk glanced around the room, finding Dagon near the entrance to the corridor with the special cells. “She’s fine for now, mistress. May I make you come?” he asked, fire glinting in his eyes because around the others he had to ask.
She sighed. “Yes, but not like this. My thighs ache.”
Marduk lifted her off his lap, not liking her expression. She glanced beyond his shoulder and crooked her finger. Marduk stiffened, not giving her the satisfaction of gazing over his shoulder. He’d pretend he didn’t care who she invited to join them.
“My queen,” Dumuzi’s voice came from behind him. “How may I serve you?”
Marduk shot a glance behind him and found Dumuzi standing alone. Another glance found his spouse, kneeling on the floor with her arms crossing her chest, apparently left with instructions not to move. Her chest rose and fell quickly; heat flushed the tops of her breasts. Her fury was palpable.
“Marduk’s attention strays from me,” Irkalla said. “Perhaps a little competition will help him focus his efforts on my behalf.”
“Mistress …” Marduk growled a warning, not liking where this was headed.
Dumuzi’s sly smile stretched across his face. “I am yours to command, my queen. How may I pleasure you?”
Irkalla’s eyes narrowed on Marduk as she reached out to stroke Dumuzi’s cock. “Surprise me, but I expect to be overfilled with your lust.”
Dumuzi held out his palm. Irkalla took it and let him lead her to a wide, backless lounger, really a narrow bed.
Dumuzi lay down, gripping his staff to hold it perpendicular from his body, and gave her a glance filled with wicked intent. “For your pleasure, ma’am.”
“You have always known my heart, haven’t you?” she said, her voice girlish.
Dumuzi’s face betrayed a momentary sadness before he tugged her downward, helping her to straddle his hips, her knees digging into the cushions while she fit his cock to her entrance and sighed, slipping downward.
Marduk would rather have left them to their lovemaking, which it truly was from the yearning in both their expressions, but he knew he’d already made her angry. He climbed onto the end of the mattress, widening his knees around Dumuzi’s outstretched legs. When he reached Irkalla, he wrapped his arms around her waist as she glided on the other man’s shaft.
He cupped her breasts, pinched her nipples and twisted, and was rewarded with a sharp gasp. “Shall I slide inside you too?” he whispered, playing the supplicant. “Do you want to ride both our cocks?”
“Marduk!” Her breath caught as she slammed downward. “I would have you both share my woman’s channel.”
Then this was the punishment she’d planned all along. Marduk barely held back the snarl threatening to curl his lip. Irkalla knew he despised Dumuzi.
His hands tightened on her breasts, then released her. He gripped her shoulders and pushed her to lie against the other demon’s chest.
Dumuzi’s grin was back in place, and the gleam in his eyes said he knew how this act enraged him.
Marduk cupped Irkalla’s ass, his thumbs sliding into the crevice, hoping to stimulate her tiny hole and earn a reprieve. At least he’d have her inner wall between their cocks.
But Irkalla pressed closer to Dumuzi and reached behind her, spreading her folds and stretching the opening. “I want you now.”
Marduk had no choice. He guided the tip of his cock into the narrow space she’d made and squeezed inside, gliding into her channel and along Dumuzi’s shaft. The pressure was more pleasurable than he wanted to acknowledge.
“Move, Marduk. You will take us both.”
Then Irkalla leaned over her first lover and framed his face with her two hands, kissing him as Marduk began to stroke them both, pushing deeper in short thrusts, easing inside as her walls melted and honey eased down her passage.
She lifted her head. “Do you remember my first time?” Irkalla whispered to Dumuzi.
Dumuzi groaned. “The bathing pool, inside your father’s palace.”
“It was dark. I thought I was alone. I swam nude. I didn’t know you were watching until you sat at the edge and called to me.”
“I was overcome with lust at the sight of your beauty. I had never seen anyone lovelier.”
Her soft snort said she needed more praise. “My sister looks exactly as I do.”
“Your sister wears her arrogance in her face. I could always tell you apart.”
Her sigh said he’d pleased her. “I hadn’t yet experienced arousal, hadn’t begun my heat. My sister’s came first, and I was jealous. I decided I would have you anyway. I set out to seduce you.”
“And I had decided to have you for my own. I’d already approached your father—you were old enough. I didn’t understand why he wanted me to wait.”
“You didn’t know what I was. I understood. But I wished to claim you first because my sister had gleaned that I wanted you and I feared she would take you out of spite.”
“Which she did,” he growled.
Her finger tapped his lips. “That night, however, you were mine. My first. I had you first.”
Dumuzi’s gaze darkened. “Love, I remember, how small you were, how tightly your sex clasped my cock. I was overcome. I wasn’t as gentle as I’d hoped.”
“You hurt me. Stretched me. Like now. I hurt, Dumuzi, but then as now, I relish the bite of a cock stretching me, tearing at my inner walls. Do you feel my heat?”
Dumuzi clasped the corners of her shoulders and squeezed. “Mistress, move with him. I would feel your inner caress and let it take away my breath rather than let him be the cause of my joy.”
Irkalla looked over her shoulder. Her face was softened, dewy. Youthful as she must have been when she and her lover first tasted each other’s flesh.
Unaccountably, Marduk’s chest tightened, realizing the journey these two had taken, the twisted revenge they’d engineered to punish her sister for enslaving her lover in marriage.
Irkalla had entered the Land of the Dead and seduced Nergal, taking his power for her own. Dumuzi had no way of knowing that Irkalla had paved the way for him to join her when Inanna conspired to have her husband dragged into this realm. He’d been made into a demon, but was allowed to keep his human form since it pleased Irkalla to keep him here.
He must have waited eons, perhaps conspiring with Irkalla, to creep back into Inanna’s world and exact their revenge.
Still, for all that Irkalla clearly loved Dumuzi, she blamed him for succumbing to Inanna’s lure. Never mind that a human male would never have withstood the lure the wicked bitch had cast with her vampire heat.
Irkalla played with Dumuzi, like now, exposing old emotions that lingered between them both—catching the tattered strands and cauterizing them with her oscillating affections.
Marduk had seen them like this before, but had managed never to get himself pulled into their lovemaking.
His cock burned as he fucked her. Moisture, thick and creamy, coated him and Dumuzi, but the friction between their bodies heated up. His arousal caught the flickering flame and tightened his balls, which bounced against
Dumuzi’s, adding to the tension building inside him.
He stroked harder, meeting her backward lunges until her back arched against his belly, and then he saw Dagon, entering the dungeon alone. His gaze shot to the corridor where he’d last spotted him, only to see the back of a blond head as the figure hurried down the cells.
Something was afoot, and he knew it centered on his new pet. A shifter of some sort had interfered with her. Fear for her safety drove him to thrust hard and fast, not that the two beneath him seemed to mind.
He forced himself to concentrate on the pressure in his balls, the heat surrounding him, and at last, his seed poured into Irkalla.
Her arm reached behind her, snagging his neck. She turned her head to receive his kiss.
“I will leave you two alone now,” he said quietly. “I’m sure Inanna will be very displeased for you to linger with her husband.”
Irkalla laughed and turned back to stroke a finger over Dumuzi’s reddened lips. “She hates you so much, but her jealousy is stronger. Shall we do more to enrage her?”
Marduk heaved a sigh of relief that at last he was dismissed. He withdrew, rising swiftly, and strode toward the corridor where he’d last seen Gabriella. Each cell was occupied, but none held his woman.
Until the last.
Gabriella was letting down her legs from the flanks of a burly man wearing an executioner’s mask. Her mouth was blurred, her hair in disarray, and the room smelled of sex. When they both turned to face him, his gaze caught the widening of her eyes, then slid downward to see the fluids, copious amounts, dripping down her inner thighs.
The man’s large cock was similarly wet and still semi-aroused.
He’d known she would be expected to partake in the games. But to remain with one partner, to enjoy the experience as much as she clearly had …
Marduk’s shoulders stiffened. He narrowed his gaze on the man. “Who are you? I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I’m newly arrived,” came the gruff voice.
Marduk drew in the scents swimming in the air, discarded Gabriella’s and centered on the male’s. Beneath a floral layer, heated with sweat and male musk, lay something more damning.
“Another wolf?” She’d found one of her own kind to mate with? No wonder they seemed to have such a quick rapport. Even now her hand held the man’s forearm, trying to hold him back as though offering him protection.
“I am Wolfen,” the man admitted.
“And you just arrived?” Marduk stepped closer, drawing in the scent again. “Yet you don’t carry the scent of death.”
The wolf didn’t respond. Merely curled his fists.
“Marduk, why are you upset?” Gabriella broke in, instantly.
She was protecting this wolf—from him? He held out his hand, palm up. “Come, Gabriella. It’s time we leave.”
Her wild gaze met the wolf’s, whose expression remained stoic. His nod, giving her permission, had anger flushing Marduk’s skin. First, he had to get the woman away. Then he would discover whether they were accomplices.
Gabriella laid her trembling hand in his, and he pulled her close, bending to brand her lips with a hard kiss.
Then he lifted his gaze above her head.
The man’s face blanched white. His eyes narrowed in deadly intent.
They knew each other. Cared for each other. Before the night was through he’d know how deeply, and Gabriella would know never to betray him again.
When it was done, he’d soothe Gabriella’s grief. She’d have another chance to accept her place with him or she’d suffer the same fate as her lover.
As he pulled her behind him, down the corridor and into the chamber, he stopped beside the bull-man and leaned to whisper in his ear. The guard nodded sharply and lifted his fist into the air to alert the other sentries posted around the room.
Marduk kept moving forward, ignoring Gabriella’s gasping sobs as she stumbled behind him. “Please,” she cried. “Don’t harm him.”
“He’s no longer my concern, love.”
When they’d reached the door to the stairway, he halted and bent, dragging her over his shoulder because he wanted to leave quickly before she saw her lover devoured. However well the lesson might have served her, he wished to spare her that.
Behind him there were shouts and screams.
Gabriella wriggled on his shoulder, nearly dislodging herself, but he wrapped both arms tightly around her thighs and continued upward.
Not until he’d left the banquet room and courtyard far behind did he slow his pace.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“You will never see him again.”
She kicked her legs. “Dammit, put me down!”
Marduk held firm, ignoring her struggles. “Not until we’re well away. I don’t want you caught in the bloodlust.”
“Bloodlust! Are they going to eat him?”
He didn’t answer. But he wouldn’t be surprised. A fresh living man. Dumuzi would demand his heart. Irkalla would feast on the blood. Everyone had their own preference, and like lions surrounding a kill, they’d tear him apart and wander into their own corner with whatever they’d managed to rip from his frame.
“You have to do something.”
“It’s already too late.”
“You’re a monster! As much as any of them!” Gabriella’s sobs shook her body, and slowly her arms wrapped around his middle as she buried her face into his back. She understood now.
It was a start.
CHAPTER
15
While the demon hustled Gabriella out of sight, Guntram assessed his chances of making it out alive. He had no doubts the Master would alert the guards of his presence. The cell was the last one at the end of the corridor; the only way out was down that same narrow hallway and through the dungeon, which was filled with creatures that would all want a taste of him.
Not wanting anything obscuring his vision, he ripped off the mask. He considered pulling the garrote from the seam of his trousers, but knew he’d be lucky if he could get near enough to try it before being cleaved in two, so decided to try a little intimidation to bluster his way through. It wasn’t much of a plan, he conceded, but all he had at the moment.
Squaring his shoulders he faced the doorway, pulling on his game face, and letting anger fill his muscles with steel as the sound of booted feet hurried toward him.
Two guards, sharing grim smiles, halted outside the doorway. Rather than let them have a chance to think, he rushed through the cell door, knocking the first into the guard behind him. The two fell into a heap, and Guntram stepped over their bodies, arms outstretched, growling loudly as he rushed down the corridor.
He paused to duck beneath a curved sword slicing toward his neck, gripped the man’s hand holding the pommel, and dug his heels into the floor, continuing to power forward, turning at the last moment to slam the guard into the metal bars of another cell.
The sword loosened in the man’s grip, and Guntram peeled back his fingers, breaking them until he wrested it away.
Then he was facing the next wave of guards. This time with a weapon. Feeling more sure of his chances, he faced five now as they rushed into the narrow corridor. He lowered the sword and stabbed it upward into the next guard’s soft belly, driving toward his heart. The guard crumpled, and Guntram rammed his elbow into the one beside him and spun to face the next two.
It was too easy. Were they all so easy to best? So soft and ill trained?
Another slice of his sword severed the head of a goat-faced creature, and the last guard stood in front of him, sword held in a two-fisted grip. His shoulders nearly spanned the space. The nostrils in his horrible bull’s face dilated around a gusting snort.
Guntram reigned in his rage, sensing this one wouldn’t be so easy to defeat.
The bull-man raised one hand from his grip around his sword, curled his fingers, and then stepped backward.
He expected Guntram to follow. And he did, wanting the ex
tra space inside the wide chamber for this fight.
Once they’d both cleared the corridor, they faced off.
“Xenos, don’t bleed him completely,” came a feminine voice.
“Have buckets prepared, milady,” the bull snarled.
The woman stood on a sofa, her head above the others, watching.
Only sparing a glance, Guntram took in her dark skin and hair, her eyes flashing with excitement.
The room was quickly filling with more guards pouring through the doorway from the stairwell.
Guntram knew he wouldn’t leave this room. His glance confirmed the one fact he was grateful for. Gabriella was gone. She wouldn’t witness his death.
Again, he felt a welling of fierce satisfaction that he’d found her. That he’d claimed her, if only for an hour.
He’d lived for that moment. It was enough.
Still, he wasn’t ready to surrender. He’d die fighting like a wolf.
The bull-man snorted again, and Guntram focused his attention on his opponent. “Is it only you and me? Or should I look for a coward’s knife flying toward my back?”
“Take me, if you can. Win another night of life if you succeed.”
“Your promise, lady?” Guntram said, raising his gaze to the woman, already having divined that she was Irkalla, the Queen of the Dead.
“My promise, warrior,” she said, one corner of her mouth curling in a smirk. “If you are strong enough to defeat my finest, I will want to take a closer look at you.”
Guntram took what she said, decided to believe her, and fight the good fight. Another day meant another chance to escape. Gabriella’s fate was not yet sealed.
The bull-man began to circle him, flexing his shoulders and swinging his curved sword in slow arcs. With his chest puffed out and his head lifting high, Guntram knew the creature thought this would be an easy contest to win.
Guntram drew in deep breaths to calm his racing heart, then narrowed his focus to his opponent, closing out the sounds of the creatures stirring around him, shouting wagers on the outcome of the battle. He shook his head, loosening the muscles bunched in his neck and shoulders. He raised his sword and curled his fist and pounded at the air, filling his heart with quiet rage. Deep inside, he knew he wouldn’t lose this fight. Simon had brought him here for a purpose, and he had to believe this contest wasn’t the end.
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