Kingdom of Khal: Redeeming Davik

by Madison Hayes

  By the time Davik reached the river, Warrik had the girl stripped and pinned against the smooth cliff face, his hard body holding hers against the stone at his elevation. His forearms supported her open thighs while his hands clutched the round cheeks of her bottom. Davik watched Warrik’s muscles ripple in his naked flanks, watched his cock slide out of her an inch, gleaming with her moisture. With eager hunger, Warrik forged back into her. Davik felt his stomach clench in a cold fist.

  What was wrong with him? He wanted to turn and leave but the girl’s clenched jaw and closed eyes forestalled him as Warrik banged her hard against the stone. “You’ll break her back against that rock,” Davik said irritably.

  Warrik didn’t cease in his motion. “Don’t criticize unless you’re willing to help,” he panted.

  Davik stared at them a moment longer. Then he walked over and leaned back on the rock wall beside them. “Give her to me.”

  Warrik lifted her into Davik’s arms, never missing a stroke. Supporting the length of her thighs with his forearms, Davik had to bend his knees a bit to bring the girl to his brother’s ramming elevation. Releasing his grip on the girl, Warrik planted his hands on the rock either side of his brother’s head. Davik’s hands were near the back of her knees as Warrik flexed his knees to thrust into her. Increasing the tempo and force, Warrik hammered the girl into Davik, and Davik back against the rock, the power of Warrik’s thrusts punching him into the cliff. Like a winded warhorse, the big blonde’s breath blasted from his chest; his eyes were shut, his teeth in his lower lip. Davik inched the girl’s knees up with each thrust until they were tucked into his brother’s armpits. Her head dropped back onto his neck and he felt her body attempt to arch within the tight confines of two hard male bodies. He pressed his lips against her ear, then followed with the tip of his tongue.

  “Are you ready darling?” he breathed into her ear. “Are you ready? Say when Petra. Say when and we’ll make it perfect.” She murmured into his neck. “Say when, Petra,” he reminded her. He watched her take a few more thrusts.

  She whimpered and her head began to toss. “No,” she moaned, her voice thick and honey-sweet. “No-no-no-no…”

  “Now Warrik.” Holding the girl tightly, he leaned forward, bringing her weight down brutally on The Heir’s massive steel, watched the pair strain together a long instant, and felt her shudder, her body a captured wave in his arms.

  “Davik.” She whispered his name into his neck, a faint prayer of thanks. He should have smiled, but he felt like crying. He squeezed his eyes shut and hid his face in her hair.

  His eyes opened when Warrik rumbled his exhausted laughter against her temple. Pulling her out of Davik’s arms, he crushed the girl in a hug, and laughed at his brother. “How can you do that without getting hard?” he asked.

  “I can’t,” Davik responded sullenly.

  “Hang on. I’ll wash her for you.” He carried her down to the river, threw her in, and dove in behind her.

  Resentfully, Davik watched them resurface together. If he had any pride, he’d leave.

  Evidently he didn’t have any.

  He did, however, have an extremely irate dick that would give him no end of grief should he walk away at this point.

  He watched the pair slosh out of the river together. With a hand on the girl’s bottom, Warrik pushed the girl toward his brother then turned into the setting sun and stood, eyes closed, reveling in the late golden rays that slanted over his huge frame. Like a god, Davik thought. His brother was like a god. How could a man compete with that! He had never tried before. Never wanted to before.

  The girl stood uncertainly on the bit of sandy bank, looking from one man to the other. Naked and splendid, she had to be Warrik’s counterpart, his perfect match in the near-immortal department. Where he was polished ivory, she was burnished bronze. Where he was glowing gold, she was glistening jet shot with white quartz. She matched his sparkling aquamarine with opaque lapis. And where he was the exuberant day, she was the sultry night. They were made for each other, Davik realized with a pang. And he was out of his league.

  Warrik strode across the sand, pulled on his breeks and threw his wet hair behind his back. “Need help getting started, Davik?” He wore a teasing smile as he tugged his ties closed. “Petra?” He said her name slowly and, at the same time, shot his brother an accusing grin. He swept up his jerkin and weapons and backed away from them as he pointed at the girl. “Don’t fall in love with him,” he ordered, then turned and jogged up the slope.

  Davik watched his brother’s back. Warrik wasn’t the musclehead some people took him for.

  She gave him a warm smile as she twisted her hair over one shoulder. He tried to return the smile, but it wouldn’t come forth. He watched her as she wrapped her arms around herself, which only served to lift her breasts into full prominence and the center of attention—the center of his attention, at any rate. As he stood with his back against the cliff, she regarded him submissively—waiting for him to command her, he realized. The idea annoyed him.

  “Are you wed?” he asked abruptly. “Do you have a husband?” he added impatiently when she didn’t answer.

  She shook her head slowly.

  “A lover?” Damn. His voice sawed in the middle of the question.

  “Other than you?”

  His stiff expression softened as his cock stiffened in inverse proportion.

  “I don’t want you to submit, Petra.” Andarta! Where had that come from? It must have sounded strange to her. It sounded strange to him. His voice sawed unnaturally.

  She gave him her curious attention.

  He shook his head. “Oh, I would have you make love to me, yes. But I want you to do it willingly.”

  She lowered her eyes. “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing? Submitting willingly?”

  He nodded. He deserved that. “Now I want you to make love to me willingly, without submittal. Would you, were you given the choice?”

  She raised her eyes and he’d hoped she’d smile, but her expression was haunted. That was the only word to describe it, he thought. That look tugged his heart right out of his chest. He closed the distance between them in three steps. “I’m sorry,” he said into her lips. “It’s too much too soon.” He started a kiss that only meant to ask forgiveness. He was relieved when she apparently forgave him—for a very long time—and willingly as far as he could tell, in a kiss that lasted from there right through to completion. Neat trick. She was underneath him on the sand when his cock coughed and spewed his silver stream inside her tight channel. Covering her mouth with his, swallowing her cries, he held onto the kiss as she lurched beneath him, held onto the kiss until her body quieted and her lips resumed the kiss with tenderness and yielding gratitude.

  Chapter Seven

  “Sieging is a dull business.”

  “They can’t last much longer.”

  “Sieging is a dull business,” Warrik repeated, determined to have his say. “Maybe that’s why…all I can think about is sex.” He turned to his brother. “Does she have the same effect on you?”

  Davik stared at his brother. They’d left camp early and taken a mounted unit to meet the pay wagon reported en route by their scouts. The dawn was gray and cool and wreathed in wispy fog.

  “When I’m fucking her I feel like…”

  Davik waited politely about two instants. “A Prince? A King?” he suggested snidely.

  “Don’t mock me, brother, or I’ll cut you off when I come into my inheritance.”

  Davik grunted. “I don’t need your money, Warrik.”

  The Heir shook his head. “I wasn’t talking about money.”

  “Oh.” Davik made a face. “I don’t suppose you’re talking about my head, either.”

  With a hard grin, Warrik shook his head again. “…and when she comes on me! When her body ripples and her tight slot clamps along my dick…it feels like my soul is being sucked right out through my cock.” Warrik halted, pleased with this imagery. “What is i
t about the girl?”

  “She’s quiet,” Davik said dryly.

  “That’s it!” Warrik snapped his fingers. “Good quality in a woman.” He grinned at his brother and went on. “I want her at least four times a day, and several times at night,” he admitted. “I’d take her that often, too if you’d let me.”

  “You’d hurt her.”

  “I’d hurt her,” Warrik agreed. “I’d probably hurt myself. She’s so—willing.”

  “She’s just keeping her word,” Davik grumbled. “She agreed to submit because she didn’t want to be bound—or raped.”

  “We weren’t going to rape her,” Warrik protested.

  “She didn’t know that.”

  Warrik looked surprised.

  Their horses vied for position and Davik reined his mount back. “We took her captive. She had no choice! She has none now.”

  “I thought it was conjugal. Conjugal sex,” his brother affirmed with bewilderment. “Or is that what you do to verbs?”

  “Conjugate is what you do to verbs. Conjugal is what you do to your wife.”

  Warrik was silent a while. “One of us should wed her,” he said, finally. “So I can conjugate without guilt.”

  The idea of wedding took Davik unawares. “Which—one of us?”

  “You,” he said decisively and grinned.

  Davik made a great show of considering this. “If I wed her, I might not want to share her anymore,” he pointed out.

  Warrik gave this his shocked consideration. “What? You mean, like not at the same time? We’d take turns?”

  “No. I mean, like you go find your own wife and leave us alone.” Davik grinned as his gelding moved forward a few impatient steps.

  “You’re kidding Davik. You’re kidding, right?” Warrik urged his horse to join his brother’s.

  * * * * *

  The girl was quiet, he realized. Why should he find that interesting? Probably just the mystery, he thought. That haunting face. That haunted expression that made her seem so vulnerable. Why should vulnerability engage his interest so strongly? What was it that haunted her? Stupid question. Her years in prison, no doubt. And yet she talked about those years calmly, without rancor.

  “Ride the lines today,” Davik suggested abruptly. “That will keep your mind off her for most of the day.”

  Warrik nodded glumly. “And keep me from pumping myself dry between her legs. Mother will be furious if I pump all my silver into her slot and don’t have enough left to produce an heir. You coming?”

  Davik shook his head, his eyes already turned in the direction of camp. What was it that haunted her? Was there something she was bent to do, some purpose that was interrupted when they’d taken her captive? Or was she in some kind of danger?

  * * * * *

  Davik burst through the inn door before the day had got properly started. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. He threw a small pair of doeskin breeks in her direction then went outside to pick out a mare for her.

  They raced through the lines without halting; he let her take the lead, confident his mount could catch hers if the need arose. Urging the mare into a stretching gallop, she streaked toward the foothills. He followed her up an open wooded slope, out across a meadow, finally dropping into a winding valley that led to a minor mountain thrusting into the sky like a rebellious fist. She slid off her mount and threw the reins around a branch. Without waiting for him, she started up a narrow fault that split the giant rock. The breeks were a good idea, he thought as he watched her derriere rising above him. When she disappeared from view, he hauled himself up the last few feet to burst upward into a complete, perfect, panoramic view of Northern Khal. Breathless from the climb, he turned in awed silence as she grinned at him.

  “You’ve been here before.”

  She nodded.

  And she’d spent a great deal of time in the saddle, too, he thought. Her eyes shone, as her face was turned northeast to the mountains. “You’re a quiet woman,” he started.

  She nodded. “Habit. Five years of silence will do that to a girl.”

  Ouch and Damn, he thought. He fell into that one. Someone ought to kick him from here to Hadi’s Gates. And yet, she had spoken without bitterness. She turned and he followed her to a small bit of meadow spread like a green blanket on a gentle slope. “Where were you heading when my men stopped you?”

  “Leaving the City. I didn’t get far.”

  “They didn’t…harm you—”

  “No, of course not,” she said quickly.

  He smiled at this stout endorsement of his soldiers. She dropped onto the grass and he threw himself down beside her. “Where were you going?”

  “I have a grandmother in Thrall.”

  “Any other family?”

  “One brother still living. My parents died when I was ten. They had a farm in Northern Khal. Near the coast.”

  He rolled from his stomach to his back and put his hands behind his head. Drawing words out of her was like trying to pluck tears from the heavens. “That’s good. That must have been all of ten words. Go on.”

  “Go on?”

  He smiled up at her. “Go on, as in keep talking. I like the sound of your voice.”

  “You promised to submit,” he reminded her when she wasn’t forthcoming. “Do you sing, play an instrument? Can you read, write. What do you read? What is your favorite song? If you can string a dozen words together, we’ll call it a conversation.”

  She gave him a stinging smile. “I can sing,” she answered, “although I doubt many people would enjoy it if I did. I play the lyre and the pipes fairly well, I suppose. My favorite song is an old Slurian melody. A sort of a love song.”

  “The one about the pyramids?” The stinging smile warmed a great deal. “I read it somewhere, but I’ve never heard it sung.”

  “It needs a lyre,” she said. “If you can find me one, I’ll attempt it for you. I like to read,” she continued, “when I have time.”

  When she had time, he wondered. What did that mean? “Poetry,” he guessed, disingenuously. “Romance?”

  She shook her head. “History. I’ve read everything written about Conan, the Warrior King.”

  Everything written, he mused. And only a farmer’s daughter—who had spent five years in prison. When had she read?

  “How of you, Davik? You have other brothers?”

  “Davik? Not Prince Davik or My Prince or even My Lord.”

  She smiled. “It’s a little late to stand on ceremony. But if you wish, I can call you My Prince. Of course you won’t know to which Prince I’m referring in the middle of my—”

  He laughed. “So you do possess a sense of humor.”

  “It’s a bit rusty,” she admitted.

  “A bit! It’s so rusty it’s practically seized.” She smiled at him reproachfully. “We’ll give it some oil and get in running again,” he said, patting her knee. “Yes, to answer your question, I have three other brothers, all younger than Warrik and I, as well as two older sisters.”

  “Your sisters are older?”

  “Father’s a bit of a chauvinist. Insists on one of his sons inheriting the throne—unlike Morghan, who gave his daughter, Tien, the throne even though her brother was older.”

  “Halthar didn’t wish to rule.”

  Davik nodded, impressed with her grasp of history.

  Morghan was the Skraeling half-breed from overseas who befriended the Prince of Amdahl and inherited his throne when the Prince died. He earned the alliance of Agryppa when he helped drive the marauding Thralls from that country. Following the Thralls across the Middle Sea, he subdued that unruly country and brought it under his dominion. Wedding the Agryppan Queen, the two monarchs introduced self-rule to their combined countries of Amdahl, Agryppa and Thrall.

  Morghan was a giant. Both in stature and in deed. Garrik smiled. And that was before Chay—his general—came on the scene.

  Chay, a young soldier in Morghan’s army caught his eye when she—through a seri
es of unusual circumstances—inadvertently and unintentionally freed the slaves of Cymra, forcing the Cymran Prince to grant the slaves citizenship. Morghan and his wife, Tahrra, were tickled with this development; they’d had a long-running disagreement with Prince Gryfudd. The young soldier was working her way up through the ranks when the Maydayn blight swept across Skythia, threatening Thrall and the civilized world.

  Morghan thwarted the massive Maydayn invasion when he promoted the girl and gave his new captain her head. Crossing the intraversible Labyrinth, Chay dove behind enemy lines with the Maghmarin brothers, causing complete and utter chaos. At the peak of this chaos, Morghan attacked the Maydayn army and drove them back into Skythia and beyond. Chay was eventually promoted to general and the continent enjoyed a long peace.

  Davik shook his head. History had overlooked Chay—somewhat—because she was largely a peacetime general; historians had missed the fact that Morghan’s general was the reason there was peace.

  Late in life, Morghan left his throne to his daughter and sailed overseas with his wife. Tien had already proven herself—if you could call it that—when she went alone into Skythia to rescue her lover. Looking for an army to aid her in this purpose, she freed the slave miners at Black Flats. The last man up on the lift was Wyeth; the man she sought. Together they fought their way back home, forging a growing army out of the slaves they released en route. Skythia was eventually brought under Tien’s rule and joined the Kingdoms of Amdahl, Agryppa, and Thrall, today referred to as Greater Thrall or Thrall And Etc.

  The Old Queen still ruled. Her children, like her brother, showed little interest in ascension. Tien’s brother had spent most of his youth on the Middle Sea with Morghan’s admiral, Venatir. He, in turn, had served as Tien’s admiral until his death. But Prince Halthar’s reluctance to rule was a little known fact.