by Lee Ramsay
With a languid gesture of her hand, the sorceress summoned flames to the wicks of the black tapers framing the coat of arms over the bed. Golden light gleamed in the polished metal surface and infused her skin with false warmth, and stole the cover of gloom within which Tristan hoped to cloak the horror of her intent.
Flesh whispered as Ankara slid the inside of her leg over his knees. The mattress beneath them dimpled beneath their combined weight as she shifted and rested her weight on his thighs. Reflected candlelight shimmered in her black hair as it spilled across her body; one hand resting on his belly, she raked the tumble from her face with the slender fingers of the other. Her multifaceted emerald swayed on its silver chain, seeming to burn with a muted fire in its heart while planes glittered with candlelight.
Unable to resist, Tristan stared up into the noblewoman’s smirking face as she gazed down on him. His head positioned on a bunched mass of the coverlet, he could not avoid staring down the length of his body. Complex urges and fearful thoughts gripped him at the sight of her splayed knees framing his hips and the dusting of black hair across her mound.
Her fingers slid upward through the short, coppery hairs downing his torso. The ends of her mane tickled his skin as her shoulders curved and lowered, and he shuddered as a stream of warm air flowed from her lips to tickle his manhood. Hot and wet, the tip of her tongue followed the line where his thigh joined his pelvis; as it moved upward, the outer curves of her breasts pressed into his flesh. Cold metal and hard emerald slipped along his scrotum and across his abdomen as she worked her way higher.
Clawed fingernails dug into the sutures closing the wound of his severed nipple, breaking open the scabbed flesh. Blood welled and flowed down his side as a mewl of pain rose from his throat. A cooing, almost purring answer came from her as she lapped the bloody trickle; it shifted to a throatier sound as her lips closed over the injury to suckle the flow.
Quivers spasmed through his muscles as she drew on the injury. The emerald pendant burned with a subtle fire as it lay on his belly, fed by the energies she pulled from his flesh.
Ankara’s knees moved up his side as she broke the suction on his bleeding chest and straightened, her hands raking strands of inky hair from her face. Dilated, her pupils all but swallowed the sapphire of her irises. Blood darkened the carmine staining her lips, and a trickle of gore beaded on the curve of her chin before dropping to her breast.
Balancing herself with a hand on Tristan’s belly, she rocked her hips forward to glide the folds of her heated sex along the underside of his shaft. With her left hand, she guided the swollen head past the ring of muscle crowning her sheath. Hot and velvety smooth, yet tight despite the slickness seeping from the walls of her body, her flesh stretched to swallow his length.
An animal groan of pleasure clawed his throat even as his mind recoiled. Ankara matched the sound with her own purring moan as her eyes closed; her lip caught between her teeth as she controlled her impalement with excruciating slowness and lowered her weight on his loins. The dark circles of her nipples stiffened and rose as she sheathed him in her depths.
The smoky fire of cardamom, musk, and sweat drowned Tristan’s senses as she lay against his chest. Her hips rocked, the walls of her body gripping his manhood with an undulating pulsation as she slipped along its length. Lightning flashes of pleasure arced through his nerves and spread through his body, somehow stealing his breath while forcing him to breathe faster. Sweat sheathed their bodies as she undulated against him, heightening the gliding sensation of her flesh against his as her pebble-hard nipples scraped his chest.
She took his mouth with hers in a perversion of tenderness and worked her tongue between his lips. Her hips rolled, shifting the angle of his penetration to match the intrusion of her tongue. Hot slickness collected on his abdomen as she pressed her parted folds down on him, the dark hair between her thighs whispering against the copper strands downing his belly. Her forehead pressed to his as she broke the kiss, and her breath was hot and sweet as she stared into his eyes.
“Touch me,” she commanded, her voice hungry and passionate yet somehow cruel in its amusement. “Touch me as though I am the woman you want most.”
Tristan’s heart and mind recoiled as her words summoned a vision of Jayna. He tried to shove the apparition away, but it was too late; his body responded to her command.
His hands cupped her waist as his heels dug into the mattress, so large they nearly encircled her in his grip. She met the thrust of his hips with a drive of her own, her flesh pliant and accommodating as he filled her. Raw grunts tore from his chest as they writhed against each other, their flesh sweat-slicked and meeting with damp slaps and peeling suction. Her breasts filled his hands, pressing into them as her ribs expanded with gasping inhalations as his fingers curved over their roundness and dimpled the skin.
Pleasure careened through his senses as instinct and rishka commanded his lusts. The hot musk of her arousal blended with the heated oils on her skin as she threw her head back and curved her spine. Muscular contractions feathered his turgid flesh as the walls of her womanhood shifted. Beaded sweat glistened like diamonds across her body, salty as his mouth found and fastened upon a nipple.
Then, with a suddenness that devastated his mind, ecstasy inundated his senses and seized his muscles as his swollen flesh pulsed and flooded her depths. His primal mind and flesh cared little, seeking to prolong the sensation by continuing to rise against her flesh as his conscious self shrank from the corrupted intimacy.
Ankara began a ragged chant with a predatory, sated smile on her lips as his spend flowed into her. Fire burned in the emerald’s depths in response to her call, pulsing in time to the wild race of Tristan’s heart. The enchantment sank its tentacles into him, grasping for the essence of his being and siphoning it into the sorceress’s flesh. She shuddered with fresh climax and writhed against him in the thrall of her ecstasy. As her release passed, she lay atop him, her chest thrumming with an amused, throaty laugh at the dread and loathing in his eyes.
When at last the connection between them ended, the magic releasing him and his flaccidness slipping from her body, his imprisoned mind ached with a sense of diminishment.
Chapter 32
Low-burning braziers cast a shifting gloom through the chamber. Blood’s iron tang filled Tristan’s nose and throat, souring his tongue as he knelt on the floor with his manacled wrists locked over his head. Some of the taste came from his injuries. Most of the stench did not.
The corpse of Ankara’s latest victim had been dragged away. His ears still rang with the unfortunate woman’s screams as several Dushken savaged her while the prisoners were forced to watch. Ankara had reclined in her throne-like chair, encouraging the young huntsman to satisfy themselves and tear their victim apart. Sathra had lounged in the tub as the prisoner’s blood washed over her, her small emerald pendant blazing as she chanted the words that stole away the orphan girl’s vitality.
He ignored the weeping around him. Empathizing with the other prisoners was growing more difficult, though not because he did not feel the same terror. He simply could not spare the emotion.
The youth was growing to understand Ankara’s game and what she wanted from the poor souls trapped in that room, and despised her as much as he loathed himself. His inability to figure out a way to escape provided her with what she desired – a festering fear and hatred coupled with a desperate need for freedom.
The situation’s irony disturbed him. Ankara kept the prisoners so she might drain their life force, but they were tended as long as they clung to life. Prisoners were slain only when they lost the will to survive; when they were too weak or broken for recovery, their blood was drained into the tub for either Ankara or Sathra to absorb.
He did not know how long he had been confined to this room and subjected to the sorceresses’ whims. Stitched wounds in varying stares of healing crossed his torso, legs, and arms. Drugged servants tended his wounds whenever they drained him t
o the point where he thought he might die, and fed him the yeasty drink to sustain his strength. While he recovered, the sorceresses turned their attention to the other prisoners to satiate their hunger. Once sufficiently healed, however, he would once more become their focus.
All too easily, he recalled the stinging cut of the blades, the feel of Ankara or Sathra pressing their nude bodies against his to suckle the blood spilling from his flesh. He shied away from those memories and focused his eyes on the deserted dais.
The murdered woman – he thought her name was Canae, or something similar – had struck on the idea to enjoy what they did to her. Blue eyes feverish as she begged her captors’ favor, she began volunteering herself for the blade and eagerly brought Ankara or Sathra to release when they took her to the bed. Soon after, two men followed Canae’s example.
Tristan understood it to be a fool’s ploy. Their victims’ enjoyment was not what these enchantresses wanted or needed. He and most of the others grit their teeth against what they knew to be inevitable. Soon after, the weaker of the two men was taken to the front of the chamber, where three young Dushken were unleashed on him. They ravaged him, his voice breaking from his agonized screams until an overeager huntsman’s long canines tore out his throat.
Though much of the blood was lost, enough remained to satiate Sathra’s need.
Fed rishka to keep him docile, older Dushken brutalized the second man’s pliant flesh. His molestation and murder had been slow, careful, and designed to heighten the other prisoners’ dread before he, too, was consumed. They did not bother with the rishka when Canae’s turn to die came, knowing her struggles and desperate cries would madden the remaining orphans. Her death had not been swift.
More disturbing than the reality of the magic and the deeds done to the prisoners was the sight of Ankara’s gore-smeared face as she ate flesh cut from the corpses. Even Sathra paled when the ancient sorceress cannibalized her victims, but he wondered how long it would be before the young woman sank to that depravity.
Of all the prisoners, Tristan alone seemed able to bear what was done. He was frightened, but furious as well. He buried his dread deep and used it to fuel the rage and hate keeping him alive – which vexed and fascinated Ankara in equal measure and drew her to him like a moth to the flame.
IT BEGAN AS SOON AS Ankara finished bedding him that first time.
Tristan stared at the golden flames burning on atop the black tapers framing Anahar’s sigil as he lay on the profane bed. His sweating body breathed no harder than he might after a fast walk once the aftershocks of climax faded. The wetness slicking his manhood grew chilled as Ankara slid free of him.
He tried summoning Jayna’s face but saw only Ankara’s sharp, symmetrical features within a curtain of raven hair. The girl’s clean scent of soap and dye drowned beneath the cardamom clinging to the sorceress’s skin. Tristan knew the young woman’s lean-muscled body to be strong and had often fantasized about how she would feel pressed against him. For all the sharp angles of sorceress’s face, her body was sleek and supple, soft and pliant.
Something of his thoughts must have shown in his eyes; Ankara’s full lips curved into a knowing smile, as though she could read his every thought. He found the idea impossible to dismiss after having experienced her theft of his living essence. Futile rage welled within him at the possibility of her robbing him of his thoughts and memories.
If he thought her finished with him, he was mistaken. She commanded him to drink from a silver flask, and his drugged body obeyed. More rishka passed his lips, sliding down his throat to unfurl hot fingers through his belly. Distracted by the drug’s effects, he missed whatever passed between Ankara and Sathra. The words were spoken softly, but the older sorceress’s commanding tone edged on threatening. The younger woman’s staccato replies were short, tinged with fearful resentment and anger.
He understood what the older sorceress intended when the mattress shifted beneath Sathra’s weight. She would establish dominance over her kinswoman through him.
Distaste soured the younger noblewoman’s expression, hardening her ice-blue eyes and turning her lips downward. More hesitant than her kinswoman, a tremble coursed through her body as she pulled herself onto the bed. Her hand reached for him with uncertainty, pausing above his chest before resting on his skin.
A matching tremor ran through Tristan’s body, though its source differed from Sathra’s; rishka heightened his senses even as it robbed him of control over his body. Her touch was a peculiar sensation, a mixture of coolness against his heated skin and warmth compared to the chamber’s relative chill. Perfume covered her natural muskiness, sweet with rosewater and jasmine; the combination was strong enough to linger in his nose and settle on his tongue. A flutter shifted beneath the skin under her jaw, betraying the rapidity of her heartbeat, and her quick and shallow breaths possessed a raspiness that scraped his ears.
Unlike with Ankara, who he knew to be centuries old, his base instincts needed no coaxing to respond to the nearness of a woman no more than five years his elder. It did not matter that he desired her touch as little as Sathra wanted to give it. Fine hairs across his body stood erect as his skin tightened beneath her touch, and a film of sweat rose as his flesh stirred. An instinctive hunger, unleashed by the drug, warred with intuitive distaste as her hand stuttered across his torso.
Thick with comingled amusement and exasperation, Ankara sighed. “Take her, Tristan. Take her now.”
Prompted by a command that played on his base arousal, the youth’s muscles surged into motion. His hand smacked Sathra’s shoulder with bruising force, knocking her sideways as he rose from his prone position. The young noblewoman scuttled backward across the satin sheet. Fingers viced closed around her ankle, and she yelped as he yanked her toward him; in her desperation to get away, her balled fist bashed him across the jaw with enough force to snap his head to one side.
Larger, stronger, and driven by the rishka, he shook off the blow. Blood salted his tongue from where his teeth had torn the inside of his cheek. A fierce growl rumbled through his chest as his body tightened its grip on her ankle. The mattress dimpled beneath their weight as he hauled the woman toward him. Satin sheets bunched beneath her spine as she slid closer – and she used the shift in her position to deliver a kick to the side of his chest that interrupted the growls emerging from his throat.
Unfazed, he smacked her knees apart and threw himself on top of her. Blood dribbled across her breasts from the torn sutures in his chest as he used his weight to pin her down. She squirmed and bucked, clawed fingers raking bloody furrows into his shoulders and cheeks as she tried to wiggle out from beneath him.
The pain of the shallow injuries commingled with the slick warmth of her shifting body fanned the instinctive violent hungers ignited by the drug. He caught one of her wrists with a bruising force and pinned it to the rumpled sheet. Releasing his hold on her ankle, he grabbed her other flailing hand and pressed it to the mattress over her head.
Hate blazed in Sathra’s ice-blue eyes, matching the self-loathing clawing Tristan’s vitals. His intoxicated body ignored the helpless pleas of his trapped mind. Drunk on violence and drowning in her body’s perfume-heightened musky heat, his hips shifted to align with the opening to her depths. Flesh parted around the painful hardness of his loins as his hips drove forward. Her chest rose against his with a ragged, sucking inhalation as he split her open and touched the quick of her flesh. The small emerald pendant Sathra wore glittered on her breast as he thrust against her time and time again.
Ankara joined them on the mattress with a low, mocking laugh. The bed sank beneath her added weight as she straddled Tristan’s calves and pressed her nakedness to his sweating back. Her heavier emerald pendant was cold as it scraped his upper spine, but it rapidly warmed as she lay on his shifting muscles and pressed her chin to his shoulder. Hot breath flowed across the sweat on his cheek as the grand duchess’s hand slipped between the writhing bodies beneath her. Blood seeping
from his injured breast smeared as her palm rested over the gallop of his heart.
“Excellent. Your fear is a whetstone to your anger. I feel your virility swelling, your young blood burning hot,” she purred in his ear. The sorceress’s tongue flicked against a bead of sweat slipping down his cheek as she pressed her hips against his buttocks. “You are an animal, but you cannot accept your nature. Few can. Is this not more natural than the veneer of civility impressed on you from your earliest days? Take her, Tristan. Harder.”
Unable to resist the command, his body did as she commanded. Lean muscles bunched as he savaged Sathra’s loins and drove her into the mattress. The grand duchess clung to him as he bucked beneath her, struggling to keep her balance as her nakedness pressed his spine. The sorceress thrummed another laugh as her mouth pressed to his shoulder; blood welled with a flare of pain as her teeth pierced his flesh, and her tongue lapped at the trickle rising from the arc of shallow punctures.
Lips stained with his blood, Ankara’s sapphire eyes caught and held her kinswoman’s paler orbs. “Conquer him, Sathra, as you would bring any unbroken dog to heel. Speak the words to harness the beast the rishka has released, and take its primal energy into yourself. Master him, or forever be his inferior.”
For a moment, there was nothing but Tristan’s rough grunts as he battered Sathra’s thrashing body. His mind recoiled from the unwanted pleasures even as his primal instincts reveled in their freedom. Sathra’s chant came in ragged bursts, driven from her by his weight against her chest.
