by Colette Gale
The slave muttered something in a language Zaren didn’t comprehend, but his meaning was clear, and it sent another shock of desire bolting through him.
“Well, well,” said Mendiara from—somewhere; Zaren hadn’t noticed where she went, for his attention had been focused on Gidaro: his movements, his actions, his scent. “I see there is no need for preparation at all with Lord Hampstead. He is quite ready to go. I’m sorry, Gidaro. You’ll have to wait for that.”
For a moment, Zaren thought the other man was going to disobey the implicit command, but after one charged instant, Gidaro released him and moved away—his massive cock still trusting forward, so taut and full it hardly moved at all.
“Now, then, Lord Hampstead…we really must dispense with the titles, I think. And Hampstead is too much of a…mouthful,” she added slyly, “for one to speak in the moment of passion. What is your given name, then?”
“Zaren,” he replied quietly as he took in the way she’d arranged herself on the impossibly large bed. It was the size of three of the one he’d shared with Jane—Jane!—and that had been large enough for three people alone.
Mendiara was sprawled among the pillows and cushions, her arms cast artfully above her head over the pillows. Her legs were demurely together, yet one slipped to the side just enough that there was a hint of slick, pink flesh to be seen.
“Zaren, then,” she said, seemingly pleased by this. “Pleasure me, Zaren.”
His cock gave a sharp little jolt at her command, and his belly a matching lurch.
He drew in a deeper breath of the mélange of scents in the chamber. The dark, lush, feral perfume of sex fueled his desire, and, without allowing himself to think about it, he moved to the luxurious, silk-covered bed.
In a matter of moments, he was engulfed by the scent and body of Mendiara: her sleek muscles and hot skin, the large, pebbled nipples that brushed against his chest, the unfamiliar—yet compelling—scent of woman buried in the creases and juncture of her neck and throat.
He didn’t want to kiss her, he didn’t want to slide his larger, darker body against hers, but he did what he had to do—what his body insisted he do. He kissed her lips, tongues tangling like battling snakes—hard, violent, rapacious.
He bent to her breasts, each far larger than a handful. They were heavy, full, and with massive nipples that he drew into his mouth over and over, tonguing the texture as she shifted and sighed beneath him, and the perfume of her lust grew stronger and stronger.
Unlike Jane, she didn’t touch him. She lay like the queen she was, and he worshipped her like the slave he’d become: tasting, petting, nibbling.
She parted her legs and he found her with his hand: drenched, hot, and painfully swollen, and Zaren felt his cock tighten up with readiness. He wanted there.
With hardly a coherent thought, he positioned himself over her, ready to thrust home into the slick, hot place with a scent that made him feel like the animal he’d been. He arched over Mendiara, the knob of his great, raging cock slipping in her juices as he positioned himself.
“Stop,” she gasped. “No!”
Zaren barely heard her, barely halted in time. As it was, he pressed against her—against that glistening sheath with its massive red pip and he just kept himself from thrusting home. His eyes flew to hers as he trembled in position over her. Everything about him vibrated and roared and he could make no coherent thought but Stop.
Mendiara looked up at him. She was panting, and her eyes were shocked and wide. Her mouth was slack and her lips wildly red and puffy. Her breasts were covered by marks from his mouth—soft red marks, glistening trails from his lips.
“You,” she said, clearly fighting for her own clarity, “are to pleasure me. Not yourself. Never yourself…without permission.”
His chest heaving, his mind spinning, Zaren drew back a little. His proud cock arched between them and her eyes fastened on it. She made a soft little sound like a desperate moan, and gave a tiny shiver. He swore he felt her pulse sharply between her legs, that a little surge of juices came forth as if she’d just reached her own little climax—and he felt his own seed gathering up in preparation for the same.
“I will pleasure you,” he said, forcing the words from a voice that hardly sounded like his. “I want to pleasure you.”
With a trembling hand, he reached for that glistening pussy and touched her. A pump of lust fired through him, followed sharply by a shock of pain that seemed to tear him asunder as he willingly, eagerly betrayed his wife.
Mendiara cried out at his touch, and she pulsed beneath his fingers, arching and shuddering in a long, violent orgasm. Zaren’s mouth was dry and his eyes burned as he couldn’t pull them away from the hot, wet, red place he wanted to be…he needed to be. The strong, rich scent of her musk made everything fall away but the necessity of pleasure. Of release.
“Please,” he might have groaned, possibly have whispered. Then more desperately, “Please.”
“Yes,” Mendiara gasped, her eyes rolled back in her head, her body still thrumming and vibrating. “Yes, Zaren, yes, you may—”
He didn’t wait for her to finish; he found his massive cock with his hand and plunged inside the most important place in the world.
She cried out as he filled her, and his world suddenly became its own burning, steaming, lust-scented universe of pleasure as he felt that tight, hot sheath slip around him, the rhythm of strokes building as he fought to keep the end away as long as possible.
He pumped wildly, then slowly, growling with effort, feeling his seed gathering up—and then forcing it back again, forcing himself back from the peak. Mendiara cried out once more, her nails digging into his skin so that the scent of blood—his blood—was hot and thick in the air.
The smells and sensations were too much for him, and Zaren knew he couldn’t hold back much longer. He bowed over her, thrusting wildly, steadily, as hard as he could. His sweat dripped onto her face and throat, her mouth puffed up desperate, erotica gasps beneath him as she writhed and arched, her hips meeting him over and over.
Then suddenly, someone grabbed him from behind. Strong hands at his waist, something hot and hard and slick prodding him. In the haze of his lust, Zaren had nevertheless recognized Gidaro’s scent the moment before the man shoved his cock deep inside him, powerful fingers digging into his hips, his muscled thighs banging into his flank.
Zaren gave a roar of shock and fury—twisting and arching. Then suddenly the pleasure of being impaled while impaling stole everything from him except the moment. White-hot pleasure—hard and dark and violent—bolted through him in a great, blazing red moment of release. He cried out again as he exploded into Mendiara, who screamed her own climax…and then Gidaro, with one last violent pump and great, strong hands pulling Zaren back sharply onto his tree-trunk cock—over and over and over—moaned thickly in his ear and shot his own seed with a deep, violent thrust.
For a moment, the only sounds were that of desperate panting and gasping. The pounding of his heart filled his ears, and was echoed in the lingering, gentle pulse of his cock. His mind was blank, empty, shattered and it wasn’t until Gidaro moved behind him—pulling free—that Zaren came back to himself.
With a roar he couldn’t contain, a reaction he couldn’t master, Zaren spun around, pulling free from Mendiara, and launched himself at Gidaro. Even as he still felt the last bit of quivering in the hole of his arse, the sense of stretching and being filled, and the sensitivity there, he blazed with fury as he shoved Gidaro against a massive pillar in the center of the chamber.
He held him there by the throat, very nearly frothing at the mouth like a mad wolf, and tightened his fingers around the slave’s neck.
“Stop!” A breathless, furious cry cut through the inferno raging within him.
He paused, loosening his fingers so Gidaro could draw in a breath, and looked over at Mendiara. There was such heat and lust in her expression he nearly filled an erection yet again, instantly—but it was the rea
lization of what he had wrought, what he had done—what he had agreed to—that brought him back to the moment.
To the reality. To this predicament.
To his life.
And how easily it could be ended if he misstepped. His heart thudded and he felt around the chamber with his instincts: was there a blade, an arrow, a spear, ready to sink into his heart?
Would his life end here, now?
“By the gods, I’ve chosen well. Both of you,” Mendiara said as she slid from the bed. “No, no, don’t release him. No, not yet. I just want to look at the two of you…and admire you. All those bulging muscles. Your steel rods…” She swallowed hard as she looked where Zaren’s and Gidaro’s half-mast cocks arched between them.
“The two rich shades of dark skin—what sight it will be to see the two of you together. On top of each other. Fucking the other…” Her voice shivered with lust. “Oh, I have chosen well. We will have such pleasure…all of us.”
She’d reached Zaren now, and she ran two hands over his shoulders and down over his back. He trembled at her touch—at the desire inherent in it, at the strong perfume of her musky female passion, at the memory of the wild moments they’d just shared.
“But first…the two of you…well, you must be punished. Thoroughly, my loves. My pets. Quite, quite thoroughly.”
— VII —
But Jane had no opportunity to attempt a seduction of Akenov.
Instead, she was kept in a chamber—one of such luxury and comfort she could hardly comprehend it—for several days. She saw no one but three shy maidservants—always veiled, always accompanied by two large guards who watched her with impassive eyes. They brought her food and drink, they bathed and groomed her every day so perfectly it was as if she were to be presented to the Queen’s court. But she never left the chamber.
They provided entertainment in the way of books, chess, backgammon, and even one Jane hadn’t ever learned called mah-jongg. One of them played the lute and another the flute, and the third sang.
She wasn’t bored. Not much anyway. She was confused, however. Where was Akenov? Why was he doing this? Why was he ignoring her?
And then, after she’d been in the chamber for two days, one of the maidservants—who until this point had been silent and efficient—erupted with a great exclamation when she discovered that Jane had begun her monthly flux.
The bevy of maids were so celebratory that Jane now understood what had been happening: Akenov was waiting to make certain she hadn’t been impregnated by anyone.
By Zaren.
Her heart, still so bruised and filled with pain, thumped in a soft, sad queasy way. Her last bit of hope, to have something of Zaren—to have something that might bring him back to her, regardless of how he felt—was gone.
She hadn’t even realized how she’d nurtured the chance until the possibility was taken away from her.
While the maids celebrated, Jane mourned silently under their ministrations. And for the next several days, until her monthly bleeding finished, she remained cloistered in the chamber—buffed and polished and bathed and prettied—as if waiting for something…or someone…that would never come.
At last, late in the afternoon of the day after she’d finished bleeding, the maids squealed and came to attention. Some silent or subtle sign notified the guards, and they snapped upright.
And then Akenov entered, flinging the doors of the chamber wide as he strode in.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the entire space changed: became charged and alive, and filled with his masculine presence.
Jane, who’d been reading a book, nearly dropped it in her lap. She was startled by the way her heart leapt and her insides buzzed, warm and expectant.
He was incredibly handsome and imposing, with his thick, dark brown curls, sculpted features, and brilliant blue eyes. These eyes were hot and avid as they went directly to her, scoring over her body as she reclined on the large circular bed-platform with her book and many silken pillows.
“Leave,” he commanded in a voice that was hardly above a whisper, but that nevertheless shook the walls of the chamber and sent all of the silken curtains and tapestries to shivering.
He had no reason to watch to ensure the servants followed his commands, for they disappeared in an instant—and by that time, he’d come to stand at the farthest end of the bed.
Jane’s mouth was dry and the book slipped from her hands. She remained still as he looked at her—taking in her creamy, perfumed skin, bared at the arms, throat, and legs by a satiny almost-sheer tunic of emerald green. Her nipples had already gone tight and ready, in expectation.
Akenov was garbed in breeches that ran from hip to knee, and were well-fitting enough to demonstrate that he hadn’t lost any of his desire for her. His cut, muscular arms were exposed by a sleeveless vest that opened over his ridged belly, plank-like pectorals, and the enticing patch of caramel-colored hair that grew on his chest down into a line that led directly to his cock.
Jane swallowed hard. “My lord,” she managed to say. Her desperate need to seduce him had ebbed over the last few days, but now it roared back with such violence she nearly sighed as her quim filled and her belly quivered expectantly.
“My queen,” he replied. But he didn’t reach for her, nor call her to him.
Though his eyes were filled with hot desire, there was also a layer of determination and steel beneath the lust. Jane felt an answering twinge of nervousness. What now?
“I trust you’ve been comfortable. And well-cared for,” he said.
“Of course, my lord.”
“This will be your chamber—if it pleases you—once you’ve been installed as my wife. I’ll visit at my leisure, and you’ll never bar me from your bed.”
Jane licked her lips, suddenly nervous as a virgin bride, and his eyes fastened there. She felt him draw in a struggling breath, saw the flare of desperate need in his face before it was quickly masked. “Yes, my lord. Why do you not…join me, then? Now?”
Naked desire arced over his face, and she saw him catch his breath, then regain control once again. “No. I will not…not until…Jane.” His voice became hard. “I must demand one thing of you.”
Her heart pounded harder. “My lord?”
“You must love me. You must give me your body, and your mind—and most of all, you must give me your heart. You must. And then,” he said, at last sinking onto the bed next to her. “And then we shall have what we both want. What we know will be…unparalleled pleasure and passion.”
Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head mutely. “But my lord…I cannot. Much as I might want to do so, I cannot…I cannot forsake my Zaren. I can give you my body—and give and receive great pleasure—and even my mind, for you have oft been on it these last days. But my heart…it belongs to Zaren. That will always be so.”
“No,” he whispered, his eyes flat and dark. “I’ll not accept that, Jane. I’ll not accept that. People change. They love again. You’ll change.”
“No,” she whispered.
He spun from the bed, paced violently across the room, then back again. Desperation and lust raged in his eyes. “I have no choice, Jane. If you cannot forget him…then I must make you do so.”
“But my lord,” she said. “Please…why do you not come to me? Why do you impose such strictures on yourself?”
“Because I refuse to be weakened by a mere woman!” he roared. “Because you must bow to me before I give in to my desire for you. The Lord of Sallito does not share.” He slammed his fist into the wall, leaving an ugly, violent hole. “You make my decision for me, then, Jane. Damn you!”
With that, he swept from the room. She heard the sounds of snapped orders and could not contain a roil of fear of what he might be commanding them to do to her.
Moments later, the maidservants were back with wide eyes and their ever-efficient hands. They answered none of her questions as Jane was stripped and garbed in a heavy, cloaking shift unlike anything she’d wor
n since coming to Amazonia or Sallito Island: made from linen, died dark blue, and hardly more than a loose sack. Then she was wrapped in an equally-enveloping cape that dragged the floor and over the sandals shoved onto her feet.
Her brilliant, noteworthy hair was bound in a simple, thick braid and tucked down beneath the hood of her cloak.
As Jane waited, nervous but determined, time went by and night fell. Though food had been left on the table next to her, she couldn’t bring herself to eat.
Just as she was about to slip off to sleep, sitting up in a chair as she’d been awaiting news of her fate, a shadow slipped inside her chamber from the terrace window.
She started, then was silenced as a familiar hand covered her mouth. Akenov? But why would he sneak into her chamber in the dead of night—through the window?
She didn’t voice her questions, but now nerves and fear trembled through her. Did he mean to take her off somewhere secretly and dispose of her? Since she wouldn’t give him what he wanted, would he rid himself of the woman he’d announced as his queen in order to save face among his subjects?
He pulled her along to the palace walls, to a hidden door with a secret latch that was unlikely known to many. Beyond the door, out in the open, Fulmar Mountain reared up like a jagged spear, threatening the night sky.
“There,” said Akenov, speaking for the first time as he grabbed the reins of a massive black horse that someone had tied and left waiting for them. “I have no choice, Jane, but to take you there.” He gestured to the forbidding peak.
He climbed onto the horse, which had no saddle, then reached down and scooped her up onto the beast in front of him. She’d hardly landed with a soft whoosh—legs stride and feet dangling on each side, and the layers of linen bunched up in front of her—when Akenov kicked at their mount and the horse leapt off into the darkness.
She clutched the beast’s mane, startled by the sudden speed with which she’d been taken from her comfortable chamber and was now bolting through the night.
