by Mary Wine
“Madam!”
Mary frowned at his outrage, aiming the full strength of her temper at her husband for the very first time in their marriage.
“You’re a selfish man, Howard, and your high-society friends are selfish to pump their wives until they feel the bite of climax, while lecturing their female companions on the merits of abstaining from pleasures of the flesh. You get to spend, but I must act as though I have never felt passion or desire.”
“Mary! You are my wife.”
“Yes, I have been your wife, but you made a promise to me, Howard, one you broke when you sent our daughter to that clinic.” Mary turned the full force of her fury onto her husband. “I agreed to every one of your stipulations, and I have upheld my promise, but you broke your word to me. You swore an oath to me that you would never treat me or any female children I gave you like chattel.”
“Janette needed treatment…”
“For what? For not behaving like a mindless fool?” Mary took a few steps back toward her husband, unable to resist the urge to shout at him. “You arrogant toadstool! How dare you have my daughter locked up for being intelligent? We had a bargain, and you have broken it. So I will no longer obey you.”
“Really, Mary.” Her husband was on his feet now. “And this display of gutter behavior is your way of getting even with me?”
“No. Leaving you is.” Mary regained her composure. “I am returning to face the charges against me.”
“You cannot. I forbid it.”
Mary reached for the door handle. “You have lost my allegiance.”
“Janette is fine and safe!”
Mary turned on her husband. “She is halfway around the world! Being fought over by ruthless men. I am a fool to have gone to the country while you sent her to that Helikeian devil! How could you send your own child to a stranger?”
Mary didn’t receive an answer. Howard sucked in his breath, as though in pain. Her hand was on the doorknob, but his lips moved, and no sound emerged. He kept trying to say something while reaching for his chest. A solid foot of a rapier protruded from his chest; in the darkened room, a man had moved up behind him without their noticing.
“You won’t be facing those charges, my dear Zenais.”
Photios pushed Howard off his rapier. Mary’s husband fell to the floor with a dull sound, rolling over and lifting one hand to reach toward her. But a trickle of blood ran across his bare skin, telling her his lung was filling with blood from a puncture wound.
“It was charming to witness your little fight with your husband, and quite fortunate you allowed the maid to witness your arrival.” He dropped the rapier on the floor and lifted his hands. “It will be quite believable when the constables find your husband run through with his father’s dueling rapier, and you strangled nearby.
“Where is my daughter?”
Photios smirked at her, clearly confident that she was at his mercy. “In the Crystal Fields, harvesting for the Helikeian Order. She could have been born into our ranks if you had only seen the wisdom of wedding me. She would be so much happier right now.”
“I knew there was something dishonest about you. It was in the way you always made sure I couldn’t even talk to another male Illuminist.”
“You were to be mine,” Photios declared. “Your blood and mine would have produced Pure Spirits. Fate still favors me—your daughter will bear my grandchildren, and they will be proud Helikeians.”
He raised his hands, his fingers forming claws. “I didn’t want to kill you, but it is the only way to cover taking your daughter.”
There was no way to open the door, no time, so Mary sent an Asian back kick toward Photios. Her skills were rusty, but they proved solid, and her foot landed on his belly. The force of her kick sent him stumbling backward. It gave her enough time to open the door and dash through it.
But the house was dark, the servants having fled to avoid dealing with the master’s displeasure over her arrival. Photios was behind her, his footfalls gaining on her, so she crunched herself down at the top of the stairs, hugging her knees and tucking her chin against them. Her attacker let out a hoarse cry as he hit her body and flew over her. She heard him crashing into the stairs on his way to the bottom floor. Raising her face, she watched the way his body flailed, frantically trying to stop until one loud crack signaled the end of his struggle.
Photios rolled down the last few steps in a lifeless heap. His body sprawled at the base of the stairs, his lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling. The silence was nearly deafening, but satisfaction began to grow in her belly.
At last…her life was her own again.
***
“Where are we?”
Janette couldn’t stop herself from sounding intrigued. Darius pulled her a few more steps into a clearing before stopping.
“One of the tribal villages,” he muttered. “My pronunciation of the name would be insulting to the inhabitants.”
The people in question were watching them. The warriors of the tribe picked up their spears and sent their children scurrying back to their mothers.
“Stand still. Don’t move until they welcome us.”
“I don’t believe I needed that warning, Darius.”
The warriors came closer, keeping the sharp points of their spears pointed at them. Darius waited until one of them spoke, and then stunned her by answering the man in his native tongue. A few moments later, the spears were lowered. Darius turned a smug look toward her.
“You might have told me you could speak their language.”
His lips remained raised in a smirk. “Ah…but where would the fun have been in that, sweet siren?”
Janette straightened her back and gave him a hard glare. “And when, pray tell, did we begin having fun?”
He stepped close and cupped the back of her head with one hand. So simply, she was in his power once more. His eyes were full of mischief, and he pressed a hard kiss onto her mouth. The warriors cheered him on as she pushed against his chest. He released her with a chuckle.
“I brought you here to begin having some, siren.”
Disbelief held her in its grasp. “You did what?” she demanded, without a care for how shrewish she sounded. “What happened to your devotion to duty? And the expectations set out for me?”
He reached out and stroked the side of her face. Sensation rippled down her body in spite of the warriors watching them with keen interest. They might not have any reservations about witnessing such intimacy, but Janette stepped back.
Darius followed her, grasping a handful of her filthy skirt to hold her still.
“I decided I agreed with you.”
His eyes had narrowed, and his voice turned hard. She could feel the tension in him but couldn’t decide what the reason behind it was. “On what topic?”
“That you don’t know who I am, so I’ve brought you to a place where no one will interrupt us while we get to know each other. You’ve met the Guardian, Janette, but there is part of me that clings to the Order because it allows me to witness life in different forms. If you want to return to something more familiar, you have only to ask—but I will never fit into the mold of a gentleman. It isn’t in my nature.”
Cryptic and confusing, his words left her stunned. He used the moment to kiss her once more before he was pulled away by a group of women. He laughed at her, more at ease than she saw him most of the time. Only in those few moments before he’d left her rooms had she seen this side of him, and yet there was something new too. A look of freedom in his eyes she’d never seen before. Yet there was also a challenge. Darius watched her, his dark eyes intent on her reaction to the women surrounding her.
Part of her was looking forward to getting to know this side of his nature, and that was a solid fact.
***
The women too
k her to another river. Janette stared at it with trepidation. A shudder shook her, but her escort didn’t pay it any mind. They cheerfully stripped her and pulled her toward a deep pool. The women wore only short pieces of fabric wrapped around their loins. Many had necklaces of shells around their necks, but every one of them was nude from the waist up. Their nipples were dark, and they giggled when her rose-colored ones were exposed.
They all wanted to touch her, stroking her softly with their fingertips as more women came to join them. They pulled the remaining pins from her hair and combed it gently before washing it. The soap was held in coconut shells and smelled like the fruit too. By the time they finished bathing her, there wasn’t part of her they hadn’t touched.
She should have been mortified; instead, she was intoxicated by the uniqueness of the moment. It was like being back in the Garden of Eden. There was no shame, only playfulness. Little girls scampered about, no one snapping fingers at them to be silent. Instead, their laughter made Janette smile. The air was balmy and warm, making clothing unnecessary.
Janette couldn’t seem to soak up enough details; there were so many differences between them that she found fascinating. She wanted to know everything in a moment, wanted to absorb the feeling of the water and the sand beneath her bare feet, and even the way her body felt without anything but the sunshine against it.
Fine, she was wicked, and yet she couldn’t agree with what she knew her society would have said about her. What made England’s view on propriety any more correct than the native girls surrounding her with their seashell necklaces and bare breasts? The truth was she was enjoying her adventure too much to judge it.
Once she was clean, the girls pulled her up and onto the rocks so that her hair would dry. The sun began to sink on the horizon as the birds called to one another. The girls were all excited, chattering and giggling. They added flowers to their unbound hair and to hers as well. Other women were weaving long strips of leaves into skirts the girls tied about their hips. They shook from side to side, sending the strips of leaves swishing, and the air filled with a rustling sound. Once it was dark, drums began to beat back at the village. Crimson light flickered on the trees to announce a fire.
“Come…come…” Janette felt the first stab of concern puncturing her moment of enjoyment. The village was full of men, and she had only a loincloth on.
But the girls were clearly excited. They smiled and took her along with them as the light of fires shimmered ahead. Straight out of a fiction novel, the village looked like a savage stronghold. The red and gold flames sent dancing light over carved images of pagan idols. In the darkness, the stones set into the eyes of the wooden masks glittered in the firelight.
The beating of the drums added to the moment, easily carrying her away on a pounding that was in time with her own heartbeat. The girls all began to keep rhythm with the drummers, their hips jerking and moving as the men used bare hands to play the drums. She was caught in the middle of them, moving along almost without consent as they increased their dancing in response to the tempo.
It was wild, and in the middle of it, Darius sat near an older man who looked important. He had a silver chain around his neck and a headdress adorned with what looked like tusks of wild pigs. Darius sat in the same manner as the man next to him, with his legs folded, on a mat woven from dried palm leaves. The firelight illuminated his bare chest, sending a bolt of desire through her. It was twisting inside her like some living force.
He sat watching her—not the women performing with far more skill, but her. His dark gaze was on her breasts and her hips. Heat spread up her body, and she felt need building inside her. She wanted to entice him, wanted to inspire lust in him. Wanted to be only herself, not the person she’d always been groomed to be. Just a woman, free of society, because deep down inside, she was the same as every woman before her—from any society throughout history.
The women all jerked and swished, their breasts bouncing with their motions, and it set off an intense desire inside her. It began to pound through her blood, her nipples hardening while her clitoris throbbed. She finally understood what the matrons referred to as brain fever. It consumed her, driving away all thoughts of decorum.
And she didn’t care.
Like any lunatic, she was happy in her insanity. In fact, she was proud. It was primitive, this desire to have Darius as her lover once more. Her passage heated, the folds of her sex becoming moist. She lifted her arms, reaching for what she desired as her hips mimicked the motions of making love.
Darius surged to his feet. The older man beside him laughed, but Janette didn’t have time to look at anyone save Darius. He closed the space between them, the women parting to allow him a path to her. They didn’t stop dancing, though. They raised their arms to the night sky, and the drums continued at a frantic pace until Darius hoisted her off her feet and spun her around.
Her unbound hair flew in a wide circle before he lowered her. But her feet never touched the ground. He cradled her against his chest and carried her away from the dancing and into one of the huts that ringed the center of the village.
The sound of the drums followed them. It was so loud, it felt like it shook the very air around them. Janette wanted to remain immersed in the pounding tempo. She reached up, sliding her hands along the column of his throat before pressing a kiss to his warm skin. A soft growl was his response, and it fanned the flames of her desire. She reached for his shoulders, gripping them to pull herself up and kiss farther up on his throat.
He gripped her hips and pressed her back against a thick support beam, spreading her thighs with his body to the delight of her raging need. Her clitoris ached, her passage feeling empty. The hard bulge of his cock was pressing against her slit, teasing her with how swollen it was. The thin layer of his loincloth was suddenly frustrating her to the point of desperation.
“I need to be inside you, Janette.”
He was growling, and her kisses turned hard.
“Then be inside of me,” she answered. It was a demand, rising from the wildness surging through her. There was only her need for him, being driven by the pounding drums. She thrust toward him, grinding against his erection.
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed before pushing her back and ripping the fabric out from between them. He pressed her against the beam at her back with his chest, flattening her breasts and sending another white-hot shaft of need through her.
“Tonight is perfect. You are perfect.”
He thrust deep, sending pleasure through her. She groaned, too caught in the web of sensations to remain silent. Her spine arched, and her head tipped back. He pulled free before returning to her with a hard motion of his hips.
“Together, we are perfect…” she purred.
He said softly, “Exactly.”
Their skin slapped together, adding to the intensity of the moment. There was only pleasure and the hard motion of his hips, driving in and out of her body. She met him on every thrust, moving in time with the music and his demands. Her need had become desperate, the churning desire tightening beyond anything she’d felt before. Every muscle she had felt tight enough to snap, and still he continued to thrust against her. She could feel the pleasure waiting to burst, but it held off, making her frantic for release. With a final effort, it spilled over her like a cauldron of hot water, burning a path along her body, not missing a single inch as she twisted and contorted.
Darius tightened his grip on her hips as his seed began to fill her. She gasped again, a second wave of delight ripping through her belly. This one was deeper, the walls of her passage tightening around his cock to pull every last drop of seed from it. Her head sank onto his shoulder, her body a quivering mass as she tried to breathe. Beneath her hands, she could feel him shaking too.
He pressed a kiss against her neck, and she heard him draw in a deep breath before he straightened.
&n
bsp; “So now you know, Janette. I am no gentleman, and quite happy about it. You wondered why I always warned you away? It’s because I will embrace the moment, and I will not apologize for it.”
He cradled her against his chest, walking through the dark hut and laying her in a sleeping net. He stroked her face, his touch gentle and tender.
“But that’s what draws me to you, Darius. You offer me freedom, and I adore it.”
The net swayed, making it impossible to resist falling into sleep. The drums faded into the distance as satisfaction carried her off on tiny ripples of pleasure.
Darius stared at her. She didn’t mean it. Couldn’t have.
Doubt was a vicious demon, and it was running loose through him in that moment. It tore at the firm conviction that no lady could accept him just as he was. Tomorrow, when she was back in civilization, she’d turn her nose up. All he’d be left with was the memory of how free she’d been while no one was looking.
But there was part of him demanding proof that she wouldn’t accept him. It became a challenge that burned through his doubt, and he looked back at her sleeping form.
Tomorrow. Morning light would show him the truth of the matter.
***
She heard the crystals.
Janette opened her eyes to see that the sun wasn’t up enough to light the inside of the hut very well. But she heard the humming. She rolled out of the sleeping net and landed on her feet. She’d slept in only the loincloth, and her breasts were still bare to enjoy the cool morning air.
“You’ll want to cover up.”
Darius was outside the hut, but he’d heard her.
“I hear crystals.”
He moved into view and pointed up. “Lykos has sent out small airships in search of us. They had to wait until first light, though.”
Good.
Her cheeks turned pink as the memories of last night erupted in full color. Darius didn’t miss her blush.
