by Jayne Faith
“Those who are monitoring me will have no doubt of my vitality.” His voice dropped to a low, husky register. His lips twitched with amusement, but he didn’t return my smile. Instead, he gave my dress another appreciative glance, and the heat in his eyes stoked a few degrees.
“Hmm . . .” I touched an index finger to my lips and pretended to think for a moment. “I don’t have the benefit of monitors, so I think we should play a little game.”
He arched a brow. “A game?”
“Sure, why not?” My heart was pounding, and I had to clutch my goblet to keep my hands from visibly trembling, but I recalled Clarisse’s advice, taking my time and keeping my eyes locked on his. “This is how it will work. I’ll do something, and then I’ll ask you whether it had any effect on your physiological responses. You’ll tell me yes or no.”
I paused and leaned forward slightly, pulling my shoulders back so the silky, thin fabric of my dress pulled tighter across my chest. “Would you like to play?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
Taking my time, I adjusted the skirt of my dress so the slit revealed even more of my upper thigh. I bent slightly and reached down with my other hand so I could slip off each shoe. I let them drop one at a time. Still leaning over, I looked up at him from under my lashes.
“Yes or no?” I asked.
“Yes.” The word seemed to be carried along on his breath, as if he couldn’t quite find his voice.
I carefully stepped down from the chair, and my pulse kicked up with the knowledge that by getting up from the table I was signaling the film crew to resume recording. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t spend the rest of the evening sitting in the chair, not with what I had planned. I narrowed my focus to Lord Toric, trying to block out the thought that others were watching.
Once I was standing on the floor, I turned, angling my body away until I was looking at him over my shoulder. I reached for the side zipper on my dress, and ever so slowly, I pulled it down halfway.
I paused. “Yes or no?”
“Yes,” he said, a raw edge to his voice.
As slowly as I could, I moved the zipper down until it stopped at my hip and glanced at him questioningly.
“Yes.”
I slid one strap from my shoulder and pulled my arm through. Lord Toric couldn’t see from where he was sitting, but I’d just bared one breast. If Clarisse had been correct in her explanation of the challenge, my half-bare chest should have halted the filming again.
“Yes or no, Lord Toric?” I asked, my voice a buttery purr that surprised even me.
“Yes.” His lips were parted, and he was breathing more heavily.
The bright overhead lights suddenly went out, and I gasped and looked around. We were left with only the warm glow of several candles and a couple of table lamps.
Then I allowed a slow, full smile. Lord Toric had said nothing about nudity halting the filming, but Clarisse must have been right.
I twisted a little, turned my head to look at him over my other shoulder, and slipped the other strap down and off my arm. The top of my dress fell away, leaving the upper half of my body bare.
“Yes,” he said, before I even had a chance to ask.
My dress barely hung on my lower waist, and it would have taken only the slightest movement to send it down over the curve of my hips.
I placed the fingers of each hand on the sides of my waist and then slowly moved them downward.
My dress slid off my thighs, down my legs, and pooled around my feet on the floor.
With my heart racing, I turned slowly until I was facing him.
“Yes or no, my Lord?” I whispered.
3
Toric
WHEN MAYA WALKED into my bedchamber, her energy exploded across my senses in a hot blast. Taking her in through my eyes while feeling her energy signature nearly sent me reeling. It was only the thought of many thousands of eyes on us, by way of the hidden cameras, that kept me composed.
Her familiar energy swirled with the darkness that had risen within her after Orion’s death, along with something new. It was a delicious mix of determination, confidence, and something I could only describe as eroticism. It wasn’t that she was aroused, but her mind and her body were very much focused on the sensual aspect of her being, and that focus seemed to have awakened something new in her. I nearly ached with the desire to drink it in.
When she rose from the table and reached for the zipper at the side of her lovely, body-hugging gown, some remote corner of my mind recalled that nudity would prompt a cease of recording. The thought flickered like the passing of a remote satellite, but the rest of me—mind, body, and soul—was completely taken in by the woman before me.
Watching her undress, taking her time and revealing herself in increments, was an exquisite torment far beyond anything I’d ever known.
My pulse throbbed at the side of my neck in time with the throbbing of my arousal, which pressed achingly against the fabric of my trousers.
Vaguely aware of the tiny sensors attached to my chest—courtesy of Akantha—I briefly imagined the monitors beginning to smoke as they attempted to display my skyrocketing vital signs.
Maya’s smooth skin was fairer than when she’d first arrived on Calisto. Then, it had been sun-kissed from a summer and autumn spent working outside. But all of her time indoors had faded her skin to the color of buttercream, a shade that was somehow even more delectable than before.
I imagined touching my tongue to her bare shoulder, tracing a line up her neck and along her jaw, and a groan of longing rose up in my throat. I held my breath for a moment, not wanting to make any noise that might disrupt her hypnotizing movements.
Each time she glanced at me, looking for my response, my heart dipped in my chest and a hot thrill shot through me like a flaming arrow.
When her gown fell from her body into a ring of shimmering fabric around her feet, my eyes nearly rolled back in my head. It was all I could do to stay in my chair, when my body was urging me to tear off my own clothes, go to her, and touch my lips to every inch of her body while pressing my skin to hers. I longed to bring her to ecstasy, to take control of her pleasure and watch her lose herself.
She kept her back to me for a couple of breathless seconds before slowly turning and stepping out of the ring of her discarded gown.
I took in every curve of her body. If she felt self-conscious, she did not show it.
“Yes,” I said in response to her query, my voice guttural with arousal and longing.
A small smile touched her lips, and her lashes lowered a bit.
“My Lord,” she said. “Where are your whips?”
My eyes widened, and I inhaled sharply, as if startled by a sudden noise.
When I didn’t respond right away, uncertainty flickered across her face. “Lord Toric, from what you told me, I thought you enjoyed—that is, I assumed you wanted pain with your pleasure.” Her voice rose slightly in question at the end.
I swallowed hard as conflicting desires stormed within me. The thought of Maya going to my cabinet and coming back with a strap clutched in her delicate hands and then using it on my bare skin nearly drove me mad with desire. But a part of me wanted to preserve the purity of this experience, to form a barricade around the two of us that blocked out my dark needs.
And in fact, at that moment, I did not need anything but her.
I gave a slight shake of my head. “No whips,” I said. “Not this time.”
I rose and went to her, my muscles moving slowly as if I walked through a dream. I bent, ready to pick her up and carry her to my bed, but she held her palm out, halting me.
“This evening is about your pleasure, my Lord,” she said.
“Right at this moment, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to bring pleasure to you.”
Her face tightened, and she looked ready to protest, but then she wordlessly gave in, stepping toward me within my arms’ reach.
I swept her up, a light little
slip of a thing, my exotic dark angel. She looped one arm around my neck and used the other hand to tilt my face down to hers. Our lips met in an explosion of hot urgency.
I set her down on the bed and then went to extinguish the lamps, leaving only the light of several candles. Her courage and confidence were admirable and deeply attractive, but I had known the first time I sensed her energy that she was an innocent, and I hoped the lower light would help her feel more comfortable.
This would not be a night for consummation—I knew it by her energy, which silently communicated enough of her intention for me to understand the boundaries of what she desired—but there was still a universe of touch and sensation and ecstasy to explore. I relished all the possibilities just as much as, maybe even more than, the thought of possessing her fully.
I turned to find she’d shifted over onto one hip, raising herself to one elbow, to watch me move around the room. Waves of dark hair draped across her chest, partially covering her breasts. Her steady gaze and open posture didn’t betray a shred of hesitation or shyness. Perhaps she didn’t need the safety of muted lighting after all.
She moved as I approached, rising to her knees on the bed.
“Stop there, Lord Toric.”
Her words were barely above a whisper, but they seemed to expand in my ears and then shoot straight down through my core to double my arousal.
I did as she asked.
“We’re not quite done with our game,” she said, again with the darkly mischievous little smile she’d given me when we’d still sat at the table.
With her eyes locked on mine, she reached up slowly to push her fingers into her dark waves of hair, raising her arms in such a way that invited me to drop my eyes to her chest. She moved her hands, taking her time to gather her hair back away from her face and behind her shoulders.
And then, still with deliciously slow and deliberate movements, she let her fingers trail down from her hair, down the sides of her neck to her collarbone. Her hands moved to the top of each curve of her breasts and then shifted down.
Then her hands froze, cupped over the fullness of her chest. My eyes darted to her face, and she gave a slight tilt of her head. “Well, my Lord? Yes or no?”
“Yes . . . yes,” I barely managed to say.
Her hands caressed down over her ribs and abdomen and came to rest on her hips. She moved her thumbs, hooking them under the thin strap of her panties over each hip, and then stopped again, waiting.
“Yes,” I breathed.
But instead of pulling down her undergarment as I expected—dearly hoped—her hands continued down the fronts of her creamy thighs. She moved her hands to her inner thighs and began caressing up.
When her hands came together at the V of her legs, I could stand it no longer. I reached down to grasp my shirt, tearing it off so violently I heard seams pop. In two swift steps I went to her, sweeping her up off the bed and then laying her down on her back.
I crushed my mouth on hers, running one hand down her neck, following the path her own hand had just traced. I circled my fingers over her breast, and her moan hummed against my lips.
My lips left hers and slowly chased my hand down her body, over her hip, and then up her inner thigh.
I lost myself in Maya’s body, her soft moans, the scent of her skin. That night was the first time in my life I experienced that level of pleasure without any of the implements in my cabinet. It did not change who I was or what I needed, but it was a brief amnesty, a gift.
Later, as I lay in bed with Maya gathered in my arms, her head on my chest and her soft even breaths of sleep tickling my skin, I tried to capture the moment in my mind. I wanted to preserve it perfectly— the peaceful quiet of my mind and the feel of her body against me.
But a small point of dread had already begun to form deep within me. Four nights of the challenge still remained. Four more women who would come to my bedchamber.
I’d been greedy and selfish with Maya, and I couldn’t help second-guessing my decision. If I’d allowed her to use the whips and disallowed them with all of the other women, it would have assured Maya’s victory in the challenge. But I’d been so focused on experiencing her purely with only our own bodies as instruments of pleasure.
I would simply have to completely refuse the advances of the other women, ignore all pleasures offered to me. It would humiliate and confuse them to be so thoroughly rejected, but I was hopelessly enamored with my dark angel. I could not lose her, and I would do anything to keep her with me.
4
High Priestess Lunaria
AS I SAT at my desk, I tried not to contemplate the very narrow margin that had placed me behind the desk and Novia on the other side. She was the Temple’s most accomplished scholar and historian, and she had nearly beaten me for the position of High Priestess following the death of my predecessor, High Priestess Atria.
I’d reluctantly asked Novia to help me interpret the more cryptic passages in the secret volume of the sacred text, the mysterious book that had been delivered to me from an unknown sender many weeks back.
Novia was a curvy woman, a bit shorter than the average Calistan. I’d always thought it odd that, despite her womanly figure, she seemed devoid of sensuality. Her pale blue eyes were the color of polar ice, and her manner was usually just as cold as the shade of her eyes.
She’d contacted me after lunch, and I’d immediately cleared my schedule to receive her.
“You and your team have uncovered something in your research?” I prompted her, knowing she didn’t expect any small talk or niceties.
“Yes, we’ve discovered something regarding the symbol that you identified in the margins of two volumes of the sacred texts.”
She leaned forward and set her tablet on my desk. It displayed an enhanced version of the symbol, which had looked like a faint dirty smudge until I’d examined it under magnification. It was an emblem of some sort—a wing with a knotted circle around it.
She looked up at me, and my heart thumped with apprehension. Novia’s chilly gaze held something I’d never seen in her eyes before. I wasn’t sure if it was doubt or a touch of fear, but either one was uncharacteristic, and yet did not adequately prepare me for what she said next.
“The symbol is not of Calistan origin,” she said. “It comes from one of our enemies, a small tribe we annihilated years ago.”
My brows drew low over my eyes, and I looked down at the tablet. She tapped it, and the emblem disappeared and lines of text filled the screen. I opened my mouth to ask her to explain, but when a few of the words on the tablet snagged my attention, I gasped instead.
“It’s from the Pirros? The people who stole and tortured Lord Toric?” I blinked several times and looked up at her, half waiting for her to scoff and tell me that I’d read incorrectly.
“It’s definitely Pirro. It’s a symbol that appeared on some of their warships,” she said. Her lips formed a hard line for a moment, as if she did not want to continue speaking. She switched off her tablet and dropped her hands to her lap. “A scenario in which a Pirro could have placed the marks in the books seems exceedingly unlikely. Though to be thorough, we have not ruled that out. It seems more likely that a Calistan placed them there.”
“The original volumes of the sacred text are kept locked here in the office of the High Priestess; they always have been. Rarely are they ever allowed out of this room. Is there any way to tell how long the marks have been there?”
“We might discover that if we subjected the symbols to forensic analysis, but in doing so, we would partially destroy the patch of paper upon which they symbols are printed. And that, of course, is out of the question.”
“What do you suggest as next steps?” I asked, deeply hoping she had some brilliant and speedy method for solving the mystery.
“We have requisitioned additional resources and have already begun an automated search of every known image and video to look for this symbol. It will take some time, and we must hope the universe b
lesses us with a lead.”
Novia bringing prayer into the discussion did not at all reassure me. Though she was deeply spiritual in her own way, she was a scholar through and through and normally not one to rely on hopes and prayers when it came to her work.
“All soldiers who were involved in the Pirro battles should be interviewed.” Even as I said the words, a dark sinking feeling filled me. Who knew how many of those soldiers were still alive. It would be a huge effort to track them down and try to jog their memories.
She nodded in agreement. “I’m forming a team who will start with any soldiers who had direct contact with Pirros.”
I looked off to the side for a long moment and then shook my head. “This is all taking too much time,” I said quietly.
Silence filled the room for several breaths. I glanced at the window, where the light of the dying semi-sun—the Third Sign of the Return—illuminated the stained glass with an unnaturally bright glare, a daily reminder of the urgency and gravity of the current times.
“You’re right, Your Holiness. I do not think we have the luxury of time.” Novia’s tone was every bit as somber as mine, and for once I actually wished for her to argue with me. “But we must do what we can as rapidly as we can. And there is one person who knows more of the Pirros than anyone else on Calisto. We must speak to him.”
I turned my head to look at her sharply. “I’ll do it. Lord Toric trusts me.”
*
It was no accident that Lord Toric occupied the throne as we made strides down the path that would lead us back to Earthenfell—I strongly believed that, anyway. I knew not why the stars had chosen him specifically but could not argue that he had been chosen. After he’d been taken from Calisto as a young boy, and months and then years passed, everyone had assumed him dead. From what little I knew of the Pirros’ treatment of him during the nearly four years he was held captive, he should not have survived. And how at the tender age of fifteen he had managed to escape his captors and return home and still have retained enough sanity to grow into a noble and devout Lord . . . the sum of his life was nothing less than miraculous. And the biggest miracle—the Return—still awaited.
