‘When I saw you just now I was reminded of the day I first laid eyes on you in the slave market,’ she confessed. ‘I knew then that you would come to be of great importance in my life, but I didn’t know how or why.’
Chang’s smile did not reach his obsidian eyes. ‘You may have felt those things but most of all you wanted me to fuck you. Your cunt was wet for me and that was more than enough to make you bid so high. I also remember that day all too well. The sun was so bright I could only see you as a small veiled figure, yet I could sense the lust you felt for me,’ he added in a soft sensuous voice. ‘Just as I can sense it now. I can smell the musky odour of your arousal. You’re soaking. You’d love me to bury my face between your thighs and suck you until you came against my lips.’
Niska’s legs shivered and felt weak as she moved them slightly, and her robe fell open from the waist. It was dark, the flickering firelight could not reach into the blackness between her open thighs, yet she could feel Chang’s eyes caressing her there. The strange sensation sent the blood pounding through her veins, and made every nerve ending tremble with the promise of untold pleasure. She felt like a vixen in heat; her cunt hungered for his cock. Recollections of their violent couplings in the past made her limbs feel weak and just once more she wanted to savour the pleasure of fucking him. Nevertheless, if everything was to proceed as planned she could not allow that to happen. ‘I wish . . .’ she began.
‘I know.’ He laid a finger against her lips, letting the unspoken words increase the sexual tension until it was a palpable entity in the cold night air.
The baron had been away on business the day she had first taken Chang home from the slave market. Her steward had feared the fierce-looking warrior and advised against removing his chains, but Niska had insisted. Chang had said nothing on his release, just sat down on the floor of her chamber and stared meditatively into the distance. Niska had left him there and gone to her bed, but later he had come to her, moving so swiftly and silently that she’d not even heard him until he had pounced. Chang had fucked her hard and brutally, using her in ways no other man had dared, not even her half-impotent husband. She had been sore for nearly three days, but the pleasure he gave her had been worth every second of the subsequent discomfort.
‘If only matters had turned out differently,’ she murmured, unable to keep her gaze from roving his naked body.
Blue tattoos of strange serpents ringed his arms and a winged creature that could only have existed in the most terrible of nightmares was pictured on his back. It was designed in such a way that its clawed feet and spine-tipped wings appeared to move of their own volition as he walked or flexed his muscles. Serpents also twined erotically around his upper thighs, their fanged jaws reaching ravenously out towards his cock. That was also decorated with tattoos, and the elaborate pattern was even more impressive when he was fully aroused.
‘The fault was mine,’ he said softly, his gaze never leaving the dark valley of her quim, seeming to caress the silken folds until clear fluid began to dribble from the hungry opening. ‘I was jealous, knowing that you were forced to warm the baron’s bed. The beast within me burst free as I imagined his boney fingers exploring your body, and his shrivelled organ forcing its way inside you. I sought out something, anything, upon which to slake my resentful lust, and I came upon the baron’s favourite slave. Possessing her felt like sweet justice at the time.’ For once his troubled emotions showed on his face. ‘If she had not struggled, not fought me so hard, she might well have lived. It was her reluctance, her fear and her terrified pleas that allowed the loathsome beast to cloud my mind, fill it with dark obscene thoughts, desires I thought I’d long conquered.’
Niska shivered as she recalled that fateful night. She had woken in the baron’s arms to hear the anguished screams and she’d followed her husband into the garden. By the light of the full moon, in those tranquil surroundings, she had seen Chang rutting with the slave, his hands locked around the terrified girl’s throat. It was too late even then for anyone to help her. Chang had climaxed at the exact moment his straining fingers had drained the last ounce of life from her body.
He’d not even bothered to fight as he was forced away from the corpse by the baron’s soldiers. Niska would never forget his eyes: they’d been as cold and lifeless as if he too were dead. Then she’d watched in painful disbelief as Chang was dragged away to be incarcerated in a cell until his punishment was decided.
‘How can you blame yourself?’ she asked. ‘You told me that the urge to kill at the moment of sexual release was not born in you. It was a curse inflicted on you by one of your greatest enemies.’
‘I was foolish, because I thought I’d learned to master it, but I have been forced to accept that I cannot ever be sure of controlling it.’ He smiled sadly.
‘Yet you hold it in check now,’ she pointed out, noticing that his cock had grown hard.
‘On occasions with great difficulty,’ he confessed with a grimace. ‘I want you even now, Niska. But if I tried to take you I could not be sure you’d be safe. The curse grows even stronger because my lust consumes me, eats me up inside.’ He ground his nails into his palms, finding a kind of peace in the infliction of pain on himself.
Guiltily Niska covered herself, knowing that she had contributed to his agony. She had the means to alleviate the desires that simmered inside her, Chang did not – all he had was his own self-will. ‘I am sorry, I did not think,’ she muttered.
‘Often I think that you should have allowed me to die. You could have let the execution go ahead!’
‘I could not have done that.’ Niska had gone to the prison the day before he was due to be beheaded for his crime and bribed the guards to allow Chang to escape. She had kept him safely hidden, so that he could help her murder the baron, while making her husband’s death look like nothing but a tragic accident.
‘The future is not as bleak as you think it to be, never forget that. In Vestfold you can confront and fight the demon who dwells within you. There are many skilled Necromancers there, and others who use the power of magic. You will be able to find someone to help you lift the curse,’ she told him.
‘So you say.’ Chang folded his arms and looked down at his cock, watching it slowly return to its generous natural size. ‘It may be possible to find a way,’ he agreed, sounding less than convinced. ‘But first we have to reach Vestfold.’
‘Have you ascertained how many of Leon’s men might choose to join us?’
‘Less than half his troops at the most,’ Chang replied. ‘As long as the price is right. We will have to find ways to rid ourselves of the rest. Three or four can disappear slowly over the next few days. Now that the war is over, it would not be surprising if they stole secretly away in the night – deserted in order to return to their families.’
‘And the others?’
‘In a day or so I will send a small party to scout ahead – it will be composed of our most trustworthy men and the rest of Leon’s loyal soldiers. Once they are well away from us, they will unfortunately be set upon by bandits and none of Leon’s men will survive the attack.’
‘It might be more convincing if we lose one or two of our own men.’ Niska smiled encouragingly.
‘I agree.’ Chang nodded. ‘There are a couple I would be happy to be rid of – troublemakers of the worst sort.’
‘So we dispense with them at the same time?’ Niska shivered, realising how cold it had become. Chang was never troubled by the vagaries of the weather, withstanding heat and cold with equanimity. ‘You must arrange it with the mercenaries you have taken into your confidence.’
‘Will Leon prove any problems to these plans?’ Chang watched Niska pull her robe more firmly around herself, then blow on her icy hands in a vain attempt to warm them.
‘I can handle, Leon.’ She rose stiffly to her feet. ‘I’ll keep him busy so that he doesn’t realise what is happening until it is too late. It won’t take me long to convince him to accompany me to Vestfold.
I can persuade him to do anything I want him to. Compared to you and I he is but a helpless child.’
‘Even children can prove to be disobedient and uncooperative at times,’ he said sagely, then closed his eyes as Niska walked away from him.
As Niska entered her tent it felt deliriously warm in contrast to the chill night air. She stepped over to the large portable brass stove filled with glowing coals and held her frozen fingers out to the welcome heat.
‘My lady, your skin is like ice,’ her maid, Tanith, said as she gently placed a soft cashmere shawl around her shoulders.
‘Do you think I should send for Leon to warm me up?’ There was a teasing note in Niska’s voice that made Tanith blush.
‘Is that your wish?’ she asked. ‘I can send for him now?’
Niska still ached for Chang. Leon’s lovemaking was feeble in comparison. The first time they’d been reunited a few days ago, he had shown a glimmer of promise, which had raised her hopes, but since then he’d been irritatingly gentle with her when she had allowed him to her bed. The brief hint of brutality he’d displayed just that one time was a far cry from the cruel pleasure Chang could give her.
‘I am in no mood for Leon yet,’ she replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘His loving-demands irritate me when I am feeling tense. Undress me, Tanith, then I’ll get into bed.’
Tanith removed the cashmere shawl, then Niska’s loose robe. Her fingers felt incredibly comforting as they brushed against Niska’s icy flesh. ‘I could massage you with scented oils, or just try to warm you with my hands,’ Tanith suggested with a slight catch in her voice.
Niska turned round to face her maid, feeling the heat from the stove caressing her buttocks. ‘Do you want to touch me, Tanith?’ She gave a soft husky laugh.
‘You know I do.’ The maidservant’s bottom lip quivered as she tentatively lifted her hands. She ran her warm palms up and down Niska’s arms and over her shoulders, nervously sliding them down towards her breasts. ‘Please let me massage you, my lady,’ she begged, her fingers brushing Niska’s pale nipples.
‘Not tonight,’ Niska said dismissively as she stretched her arms upwards, rolling her shoulders. The casual movement gave extra emphasis to the firm swell of her pert breasts, while the diamond that pierced one of her nipples caught the light, sparkling enticingly against her pale flesh.
‘I beg of you.’ Tanith ventured to press her hand against Niska’s belly, letting it slide cautiously downwards to stroke her mistress’s naked mons.
‘You’re a greedy little bitch.’ Niska’s eyes gleamed as she opened her thighs to allow Tanith’s fingers to invade her damp slit, shuddering as the maid’s pudgy fingers slipped inside to tentatively caress the sensitive interior.
‘Enough!’ She slapped the girl’s hand away. ‘Be assured, Tanith, if you behave like that again I will punish you.’
Tanith sank to her knees, her shoulders shaking as tears started to slide down her plump cheeks. ‘Forgive me,’ she wailed.
Tanith was a plump young woman, and as she crouched there her skirt moulded to her body, revealing tight little rolls of fat round her belly. Niska dug her toe in the plump mounds, sliding it slowly downwards until she was pressing her foot hard against Tanith’s pussy. She smiled as she heard Tanith’s hungry groan. She found the maid’s soft plumpness an interesting contrast to the firm hard bodies of the men she welcomed in her bed, but she was not in the mood for Tanith’s gentle caresses tonight. She needed stronger and more vigorous stimulation.
‘I always do forgive you, don’t I, Tanith?’ she said irritably. ‘Now get up and find me a nightgown!’
Tanith sprang to her feet and scurried to do Niska’s bidding, sliding a finely embroidered lawn nightgown over her head, then covering it with an ornate velvet robe. ‘Would you like me to prepare you something to eat or drink?’
‘Has our guest been fed?’ Niska enquired.
Tanith nodded. ‘She ate little, and now she sleeps again. I fear the potion we gave her this morning was too strong.’
‘At least while she’s sleeping she is not a problem to us,’ Niska said thoughtfully. She often spoke her thoughts aloud to Tanith, although usually the maidservant had little or no idea what she was talking about. ‘She appears compliant, but I’m not sure I can place any trust in what she says. She promised me she’d not speak of the past to Leon, but she always was a liar and if the opportunity should arise I am sure she will.’ She walked over to a brass table and snapped open a delicate silver box, withdrawing two similar vials. One held a greyish powder, which she handed to Tanith. ‘One pinch of this in her food tomorrow morning. It will cloud her mind, make her more amenable. And this . . .’ The other vial contained shimmering, green viscous liquid. ‘It is a potion from Cimmera, so precious it cost me a hundred pieces of gold just for this small amount. One drop only, every day.’
The potion was an aphrodisiac and Niska had often used it on Sarin to ensure his interest in her never waned. Although it had not stopped him from arranging a marriage of convenience with Rianna. The union had destroyed Niska’s hopes of becoming Queen of Percheron. Then somehow Rianna had managed to worm her way into Sarin’s affections, and he had cast her aside. When she had plotted her revenge, and made plans with Cador to gain possession of Tarn, and keep him as her slave, Niska had intended to use the potion on him. Then he would have forgotten his hopeless love for Rianna and come to her bed all too willingly. But the bitch had helped Tarn escape, and foiled all her carefully thought-out plans. Now at last she was about to have her revenge.
‘Is it very precious?’ Tanith asked nervously.
‘Immensely, and so rare I can obtain no more of it,’ Niska warned her.
As Tanith scuttled away to place the vials in a safe place, she wondered what would happen when she reached Vestfold. She was unsure of the welcome she would receive, but both her older brothers were dead now, and during their childhood Ragnor had always been her friend. Surely he would be more than happy to see his long-lost half-sister, especially if she brought with her the beautiful daughter of the Ruler of Harn, the intended bride of the King of Kabra, as his slave.
Chapter Four
WHEN RIANNA AWOKE again it was still night, and she had no idea how many hours had passed. Her thoughts were still confused and, even though she’d slept for a day or more, she still felt extraordinarily tired as if all the energy had drained from her body. Rianna was well versed in the art of caring for the sick and skilled in the use of herbs. She was convinced that the drink she’d been given had been laced with something to make her fall into a deep sleep.
She sat up, trying to make some sense of her muddled thoughts. It was Niska who had done this, probably so that she wouldn’t discover the baroness’s true identity until it was too late. If she had found out near the start of this journey, she could have refused to travel with Niska and insisted that Leon take her back to the castle. Now she was here, in the middle of this inhospitable forest, and Leon and his men were totally outnumbered by Niska’s mercenaries.
She would have to find a way to speak to Leon in secret, and warn him about Niska. Rianna couldn’t believe that Niska really planned to remain in Ruberoc, especially not as Leon’s wife. He was only a minor nobleman of little importance, and he was far too kind and gentle a man to keep Niska happy for long. She must have other plans, and Rianna knew she had to try and find out what they were.
The dim glimmer of campfires was still visible through the fabric walls of the tent, and Rianna could hear odd snatches of muted conversation and the clank of weaponry as a sentry walked by. She shivered, she had been so consumed by her concerns she had ignored the fact that Niska was only a stone’s throw away, in another portion of the warm, opulently furnished tent. She could hear her, or rather she could hear the soft moans and groans of lovemaking.
Rising to her knees, Rianna crept towards the heavy curtain that separated her small section of the tent. A thin line of light showed under the hem. Rianna caut
iously eased some of the thick fabric aside, and saw two naked figures reclining on a fur-covered mattress. One was Niska, the other she was certain was Leon, even though he had his back to her.
Leon’s brown hair clung damply to the nape of his neck, and his lean, muscular back glittered with sweat. He had small firm buttocks, which were moving in a smooth rocking motion as he thrust into Niska. With a soft grunt, he rolled on to his back pulling Niska with him, their bodies still locked together.
Niska gave a husky laugh, tensing her slim thighs as she straddled Leon and rode him vigorously. Her fingers grabbed hold of his flat brown paps, pinching and twisting them until he winced in discomfort, then groaned as Niska ground her pelvis harder against his.
Despite her loathing for Niska, Rianna could not fail to be aroused by the sight, and the soft wet sounds of their coupling. She tensed, clenching her thighs together as Leon reached up Niska’s writhing form and kneaded her pert breasts. He twisted the glittering diamond, straining her pale flesh alarmingly as Niska gave a low feral growl of bliss. Rianna knew how much the bitch enjoyed pain, almost as much as the pleasure she derived from inflicting it on others.
Niska began to move faster, lifting her hips higher before each thrust. Rianna unconsciously held her breath for a moment as she caught a brief glimpse of Leon’s damp shiny shaft, before it disappeared deep inside Niska again. She felt a stab of need deep inside her own sex as Niska’s thrusting body devoured Leon like a hungry animal feeding on its prey. He moaned and rolled his head from side to side, his fingers still pulling urgently at Niska’s nipples, until she arched her back and gave a strangled cry.
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