Shadows of the Night (Kingdom Key Book 2)

by TylerRose.

  “But—Encito, security measures at the home are all well and good,” she said, ignoring the shocked faces of his attendants that she should use the Emperor’s name. “But I’m not going to be in my home every minute. I’m not going to be cloistered because some asshole doesn’t like me.”

  “Tyler, stop,” Dorn said under his breath.

  “Shut up,” she told him, and looked back to Encito. “ Earnol is temporarily chastised and shamed. That means I’m free to go wherever I want without threat of being arrested. I want to travel to other planets again. I will not be kept like a pet. Thank you for the meal, Emperor Father. I will go home now. I want to get in some work on my garden while there is still light.”

  Encito gestured her toward him. She went, if reluctantly, and placed her hand in his as his open palm expected. He pulled her down slowly, insisting she lower to a knee.

  He leaned in to whisper into her ear. “You are the most untamable woman I’ve ever known. If I was a hundred years younger, I would be part of your pentagon. I would take on your challenge, Feralina, and relish every second. I envy my sons no end.”

  She smiled at him and leaned her mouth to his ear. “If you were a hundred years younger, you might have been up to the task.”

  He smiled, a particular expression in his eyes, kissed her cheek and let her go with a small gesture that she could leave. She stood to curtsy and left, Pisod bowing swiftly to go with her.

  “Father, please forgive her—“

  “Forgive her for what?” Encito interrupted Dorn. “Not being intimidated by a little old man with a big title or her most dangerous enemies?” He shook his head with dismissal. “She needs no forgiveness. She needs encouragement. Prepare us to leave. I will go back to my wives. I’ve a sudden need only certain ones can sate.”

  In his private rooms within the hour, Encito sighed with the tiredness of extreme old age. He would have to take a charge from the crystal just to have the energy to make love to a wife.

  “Dorn.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  “Go to her tonight.”

  Dorn stopped his fussing with his father’s shoes and looked up, question plain in his expression.

  “Go to her and worship her as she should be worshiped. Shestna won’t be back for several days. I know you are his Second and his Tribulator. I want you to be the lover she turns to when her husband isn’t available. I want you to give her reasons to stay put that he does not. If he’s made you punish her, apologize profusely.”

  “I have already told her that I am the one to come to when she wants pain, Father.”

  “She isn’t coming to you, is she. You are going to her.”

  “I will be her lover for only a few weeks. The contraceptive will wear off and my brother will keep her to himself until he impregnates her.”

  “What of her inability to conceive?” Encito asked.

  “Her status has changed. Not long ago, her cervix opened. It may take some time, but she is physically matured enough. She opted for the teleport infusion. All she has to do is not get the next one and she will, in all likelihood, be fertile.”

  “It will not matter. That woman needs a host of lovers to keep her satisfied. Any man who tries to keep her in monogamy is the most stupid of fools.”

  Finished removing his father’s shoes, Dorn sat on his calves with his head turned down a few seconds too long.

  “You have concerns. What are they?” Encito asked.

  “I did beat her legs rather hard with a belt. But later that night he gave her a whipping like I’d never to do a female. I saw her back the next day. And…he used his anchors on her. She’s marked deeply from them at both orifices. He used them to have her anally, Father. We don’t even do that with our own females, let alone another species. I know her well enough to know that she took it no matter how much it hurt.”

  He paused, letting his concern show in pinched eyes that the Emperor mirrored. The Emperor understood the physical discomfort those anchors gave when used carefully. He knew well how they could hurt a female whose private flesh was so tender and raw as a Sistarian’s.

  “I know he is trained in use of the Crystal energy, Father; but I worry that what he has is too powerful. It’s truly immense. I feel a more neutral to negative charge, which can negatively impact a person’s personality and easily bring out the worst in them. I worry that he will get carried away and really hurt her. I worry that he will permanently damage her.”

  Encito reached out to place a bracing hand on his son’s shoulder. “You are a good son and a good brother to bring it up. It is all the more reason for you to be their companion rather than mine at night, particularly in these early days. He needs time to gain proper control over the power he has taken unto himself. You will protect her from him if needs be. Whatever means necessary. She is the one who has to live. He is replaceable, as lover, as husband, as Apogee.”

  Dorn had nothing to say after that and no time to say it. The two younger wives sent for were arriving and it was time for him to make his exit. He went to his office to catch up on duty rosters and incident reports, first sending a message to the Neverseen coordinator that he needed a suitcase packed for an extended stay away from the palace. Feet up on his desk, he picked up the vidpad to start reading incident reports.

  “Father’s pet, finally in his office,” he heard a good hour later.

  Had it been a man speaking, Dorn would have beaten him. This, however, was his older sister. The one only five years older than himself, which meant he had been raised with her in the nursery through those first years.

  “For a few hours. How have you been, Fennica?”

  “Confounding would-be suitors and having sex with one of the men in the motor pool,” she smiled.

  “Still refusing to marry, then?” he teased.

  “To my dying breath. Unless the next Emperor will allow me to marry the one I love. And you?”

  “I’ll be taking care of the 1st Daughter whenever Shestna is not around. Are the other daughters angry about it?” he asked

  “Some of them. But the real 1st Daughter has been dead for a decade. They can grumble about it but they don’t have much to complain about. It’s father’s right since he never named anyone else 1st Daughter after Cecina’s death and I remind them of that every time they start to whine.”

  “Would you mind coming by her home tomorrow after breakfast? Her friend killed herself. Since then, she doesn’t interact with any women except in the market. Her friends are her guards. Maybe you could be a more…equal?...companion?”

  Fennica laughed, smiling with delight at her own thoughts. “I think Shestna would be completely baffled if he had two of us on his hands.”

  “Probably,” Dorn had to agree. “If there was one thing you would want from men in general, removing Father’s interference, what would it be?”

  She barely paused. “That they treat me as an intellectual equal at all times and in all ways. I am a Princess born to the 1st Wife, educated as far as I may be within our father’s indulgence and sometimes performing official duties for him, and yet the lowest peasant boy is above me in society just because I am female. The injustice of it is staggering. I could be as important an advisor as any man. A great many of our men take too much advantage of the low status of female and ignore the person she is.”

  He took her words to heart.

  “Teach Tyler our court intricacies. Pisod is her lead guard but there’s no reason you cannot educate her from the female perspective as well.”

  She regarded him peculiarly. “You admire her,” she accused.

  “I do. Father is throwing me into a Rovan Den and telling me to enjoy the drug most greedily to my heart’s content. So I will. I could love her.”

  “Good for you both. See you tomorrow.”

  He watched his full-blood sister leave his office, thinking many things about the future. Father’s motives were all too transparent. He wanted one of his sons to be at the Immaculate’s
side for as long as possible. He didn’t care which son. It was great that Shestna had the Crystal power inside himself, but she could accidentally take it from him. Someone else could take it from him in a fight if they knew what they were doing. If he became too violent with her, Dorn himself might have to take the power from him. He would do so without hesitation, to protect her for her future.

  “Cravil,” he said before he realized he was saying it.

  “Yes, Your Highness?” his half-brother presented himself.

  “I’m promoting you to 1st Captain of the Emperor’s Surety. My time is going to be much taken up elsewhere. You will take my place in service to our Emperor Father starting in the morning. In time, he will take you completely in my place.”

  “Thank you, Royal Brother. I did not expect any promotion so soon.”

  “I know you didn’t; but you’ve earned it and you deserve it. Take care of matters here as though I have gone on extended holiday. I’ll check in once a day until we agree you don’t need me to check in anymore.”

  “I’m not going to disagree with that,” Cravil grinned.

  Dorn left the office for the infant nursery to see his son. His first born, for whom he had no time except for minutes here and there between duties. Not that he’d have changed diapers and performed feedings. He wouldn’t. Fathers high up in the royal family didn’t do those things.

  Dorn waited in the sitting room while a lesser princess went into the sleeping room to bring his son. Holding his boy, Dorn knew that pride. That immense, almost painful, swelling of love in the chest for this tiny little boy with the pale gray facial skin and peach spots on his arms, his mother’s coloring more than Dorn’s.

  “Your mother sends all her love, my little Seaxe. I can hardly wait for you to be big enough to come with me and start to learn the duties of a Prince.”

  Lifting him up, Dorn bent his neck to lower his cheek to the tiny baby forehead. Velvet on velvet, so soft and warm before giving his son back to the young princess.

  “Thank you.”

  Looking up, he saw his mother in the doorway between rooms. He bowed to her.

  “Mother.”

  “You are going to the home of the 1st Daughter?” she asked.

  Of course she already knew. Father told her just about everything, as the one wife he trusted the most.

  “I am. Shall I send your love?”

  “Yes. Tell the 1st Daughter that she is most welcome to come help in the nursery whenever she would like to.”

  “I will, but don’t expect her to,” Dorn said.

  “I expect nothing of our 1st Daughter except that she may not know exactly where she belongs. It is my desire that we help her to figure that out.”

  “Mine as well. If you will please excuse me,” he said with another bow so he could leave and go about that exact task.

  The briefest of stops in his room, he picked up the suitcase one of the palace Neverseen had packed for him. He teleported directly from there with his personal device, arriving inside the front door of Tyler’s home. Strange music was coming from her bedroom. Two of her guards were playing cards at the library table, seemingly oblivious to the noise.

  “What is that?” he asked of the offensive sound.

  “Her music. She’s singing. Don’t go in there. She’ll throw something at you,” Volf replied in one breath.

  “Where is Pisod?”

  “He and the other two guys are at the market getting some things she wanted.

  “How long does this noise go on?”

  “I strongly suggest you not call it noise in her presence,” Saber said, laying a card. “You’ll be in the doghouse for at least a week.”

  Dorn passed them on his way to the door, the music seeming to fade.

  “Seriously, don’t go in there,” Volf warned.

  Dorn ignored him and knocked on the door.

  “What?” came her voice, more than a little annoyed.

  “It’s Dorn.”

  “Jesus Christ! Can’t you people leave me alone for more than an hour?”

  He opened the door and went in, finding her in a pile of white bubbles in the bathtub on the other side of the room.

  “It’s been four hours,” he told her. “You didn’t work in your garden at all, did you? That was a lie.”

  “So what if it was. I wanted alone time. My music is a private thing,” she said, and toked from her pipe.

  “Except that it can be heard more than fifty feet in any direction outside,” he chuckled, taking off a boot.

  “That doesn’t matter. What are you doing?”

  “What’s it look like? Getting undressed to come into the water with you.”

  “Because your father told you to?” she taunted.

  “What does that matter?” he tossed back at her, dropping his shirt on the floor. “I want to be here.”

  He stepped onto the top ledge and reached a foot down to the first under water. Scalding hot water surrounded his foot.

  “Wow that’s hot. What are you trying to do? Boil yourself?”

  “It just finished filling a few minutes ago. It will cool on its own. I didn’t turn on the heaters,” she said, watching amused as he eased the other foot down to the bottom and slowly lowered his body into the mountains of bubbles.

  “What did Father say to you when he held you on your knee?” he asked, floating and gliding between her thighs where she sat on the ledge.

  “That he wished he was a hundred years younger,” she admitted, not stopping him from fitting his penile rim into place.

  “I’m glad he’s not.”

  “Please don’t use the anchors.”

  “I won’t. I will never use them on you. I know Shestna did the other night, after he gave you that very hard whipping. I know he hurt you.”

  She smiled. “The whipping was marvelous, Dorn. In the moment, so were the anchors. It was afterward that I regretted the anchors, not during.”

  “All the more reason to be gentle with you now,” he said, and finally began a slow and patient penetration.

  When he was fully in, he slid his arms around her back to take her from the sitting shelf. Submerged to her shoulders, bubbles creating mountainous walls around them, she sighed and shivered and groaned with his slow retractions and extensions.

  “Do you have a story on Earth that relates how it feels to be ordered to fulfill one’s most ardent desires?” he asked in a near whisper, holding her tight to prevent her from trying to undulate up and down.

  “Yes. Briar Rabbit. He teased a bear and made it angry. The bear was going to eat him but Briar Rabbit convinced the bear that throwing him into the briar patch, a very thorny bush, would be the worst thing ever. So the bear threw him into the briar patch. Briar Rabbit laughed at the bear, because the bear himself had put Briar Rabbit exactly where he’d wanted to be to escape. When you threaten to cane me, you are throwing me into my own briar patch. Oh no, Tribulator. Anything but that! They always underestimate the intelligence of the rabbit.”

  She gave a sudden clench, and laughed.

  “This is my briar patch, Tyler. I have to be harsh. I have to uphold the old traditions in as many ways as possible because I am closest to the Emperor. But I have wanted you from the first time I saw you. I could not pursue you because you were already my brother’s. I could only be patient and wait for my brother and my father to order me to do what I wanted most to do to you and with you.”

  “Even when I called you a kitty cat?” she smirked.

  “You have no idea how much you provoked my lust with that. Not the words themselves, but that you would have the audacity to say it to my face.”

  “I’ve always preferred to issue my insults directly.”

  “Does the rabbit truly understand how dangerous are the bears she pokes?” he asked, holding her close against him cheek to cheek, as she had another of those shuddering orgasms with his cock pressing against her cervix.

  “Of course I do,” she breathed with the rel
ief of the pressure deep inside her.

  He extended again, slow and even. “I can feel your cervix opening more every time I press on it. Were it not for the contraceptive injection, I could impregnate my rabbit right now,” he said through her quiet orgasm.

  “Does that make you my bear?” she asked in return, resting her head on his shoulder with the gentle languor overcoming her.

  “If it would please you, I will be your bear and you my rabbit; but only in these most private moments. No one can know we eagerly and freely enjoy one another.”

  “I don’t care if they do. My own husband has assigned you as a permitted lover. We are free to be open about it, at least on my own property or his.”

  “You’re right. We are.”

  Holding her under the buttocks and around the upper back, he stood in the water. Her legs locked at the ankle around his waist, he walked up out of the tub. Across the room to the outside door, he held her tighter around the back to use his other hand to flip the latch. A foot kicked open the door and he carried her to the thick grass near the bench. A controlled kneel, hand out to brace himself with the other still around her back, and he lowered with her to lie on the dark green bed.

  Reaching down to a thigh, looking down to it as well, he saw the bright red stripes he had laid there two days ago. The hot bath had brought them out again. Penis retracted, he slid backwards and bent over while pulling her knee upwards.

  “I am sorry he made me do this to you,” he said, and kissed those long red lines. “I would much rather do it because you asked me to than because I am ordered to punish you.”

  “I asked to be punished,” she said. “I needed to be.”

  “That is beside the point, Rabbit. It’s one thing to have you ask for a pleasure. Another entirely for you to feel that you should be punished for just being yourself.”

  “What if I asked you now to whip some part of me?”

  “What part of you would like to be whipped?” he asked turning to lick and suck her open puss, effectively preventing her from answering until he had decided she’d had enough orgasms.