Demon's Fire (11 page)

“I am gratified to have your good opinion.”

Had Charles been a Yama, Pahndir would have risen then. He’d supplied an end point to the conversation, truthful and yet indirect. But Charles wasn’t a Yama, and Pahndir wasn’t ready to go. He felt something gathering in the human, something hanging in balance.

Charles struggled up onto his elbows, his belly as flat and muscled as Pahndir’s own. “Maybe I should have accepted your offer to feed from me yourself. Maybe I should have asked for everything I wanted.”

The words went through him with a punch of adrenaline. Pahndir had suspected he was part of what Charles wanted, but to hear him say it…Charles’s gaze was holding his, the shade he’d drawn over his private thoughts lifted enough for Pahndir to see the glimmer of a fire within.

Most astounding of all, Pahndir didn’t think the glimmer was entirely lust.

That had his pulse tripping unavoidably over itself. Royal Yama didn’t generally have the luxury of juggling lovers’ affections. They found their mates, bonded, and if they took additional sexual partners, those relationships ran a distant second to the match their genes had selected. Bonded sex was simply too intense, too consuming for it to be otherwise.

Because of this, Pahndir wasn’t prepared for the guilt that swept over him. He felt as if he were doing something underhanded by being drawn to this man when he’d so recently been thrashing on the floor with Beth. If Beth was sunlight, Charles was storm: two halves of one delectable repast. Pahndir couldn’t deny he wanted to seduce them both, but he’d been thinking with his flesh alone. To his surprise, there was, in both these humans, the potential for true connection.

He couldn’t imagine what the objects of his interest would think of his reluctance to choose between them. Most humans were more conservative than Yama when it came to creative erotic arrangements.

You’d be likelier to hit your target,
he chided himself,
if you weren’t aiming for a million-mile-long shot.

“Let me call for a meal,” he said, deciding avoidance of the topic was his best strategy for now. “You need to replenish your energy. As a chef like you ought to know, everything looks better with a full stomach.”

Charles touched the sleeve of Pahndir’s robes before he could rise. “Thank you. You made this better than it might have been.”

“Hmm. I believe I’ll run out and quote you in all my ads.”

Charles laughed aloud, not as easily as his friend, but easily enough. The pleasure of calling the reaction from him was sweeter than Pahndir would have guessed.

Being queen was no stroll along the river. Tou had miles of correspondence to dictate to the scribes, endless meetings with her advisers, and stacks of news to sort through from the provinces. As a formerly illiterate orphan, she reveled in the exercise of her intelligence. She loved being quicker, keener, and harder than those who would take advantage of their female liege. Still, administration was not the favorite of her queenly duties. Her favorite came after the sun had melted into the desert, after the torches of her palace were trimmed and lit.

She licked her lips like a temple cat as she strode down the well-guarded corridor toward her harem. She wore her thinnest pleated linen gown, the wrap of it around her modest, the transparency not at all. Some of the guards were hard-pressed not to stare at the curve of her beneath it. Their struggle plumped the folds between her thighs.

Tou was their ruler, yes, but she was also a woman men desired.

When she reached her goal, a wrestling match was under way in the
zenana’
s enclosed courtyard. The roar of watchers—that most primordial of male sounds—hit her ears before she stepped beneath the hammered bronze entryway. The heavy door stood open, waiting for her to free herself from her obligations and make her nightly selection of bed partners. Since her arrival was impossible to predict, her harem were entertaining themselves in the meantime.

Unseen as yet, Tou leaned against the doorway and grinned at them. A dozen men were clustered around the sand-filled fighting pit where two of their number strained for dominance. Most of the men were naked, the better to seduce her when she showed up, but some still wore the simple linen kilts of Hhamoun. Their skin gleamed with sweat and oil, the muscles beneath a sight to behold. Tou felt her nipples tighten with anticipation. These fine strong men were hers, every one, tribute from the tribes she’d conquered.

Tribute from the tribes I’ve conquered
so far,
she reminded herself.

They were chosen not just for their beauty but also for their health and stamina. The mysterious chamber around which she’d built her palace, the secret she would take with her to her grave, had magnified the strength of her person and her desires. Only the fittest slave could last a night with Hhamoun’s glorious queen. Even five were sometimes challenged to keep up.

Some nights Tou feared she had a gaping hole inside her, a keyless lock no amount of sex could fill up.

She shook the pointless worry away. She was queen now, outcast no more, and that mattered more than anything. At the far side of the pit, opposite the door, Deir of the Jeru elbowed his companion. Both straightened from the smooth bronze railing at the sight of her. From there, news of her arrival spread around the courtyard in a murmurous wave. Soon even the pair who had been wrestling were on their feet. To her surprise, both were bloodied. Whatever had begun the fight must have been serious.

“Your Highness.” Deir stepped forward, drawing her eyes to him. “You honor us with your presence.”

He was the most confident of her harem, a natural leader who kept order in the
zenana.
He was also a creative lover, a frequent choice for her night’s consorts. Now she frowned at him.

“My property has been harmed,” she said, gesturing at the blood-streaked men.

“They are new, Your Highness. They thought they could win the right to be your choice tonight.”

She turned to them. The larger of the two, a gold-skinned Southerner named Baal, fell to his knees and raised clasped hands. He must have taken an elbow to the eye. His left lid was swiftly swelling shut.

“Please, Your Highness,” he said. “Alban and I only wish to serve you. You are so beautiful and we have been so many months without release. Our chiefs ordered us to refrain until you chose us to share your bed.”

They must have obeyed, because the pain of their scrapes and bruises did not prevent their phalluses from lifting, thick and hard, between their muscled thighs. Both were hung like stallions, the equine impression heightened by the twitching of their sweaty skin. Arousal was always quick to rise inside her, and the pulsation of their large male organs was more than goad enough. Tou’s body heated, thinking of the pleasure these two would give as they competed to outdo each other in her bed.

Sensing her thoughts, and deciding they didn’t bode well for the rest of the harem, someone in the crowd of hopefuls groaned.

“You cannot mean to reward them for their arrogance,” Deir said, his face both startled and aggrieved
. “You
choose here, not any of us.”

“That is correct, Deir.
I
choose, for whatever reasons appeal to me.”

Her tone was stern enough to remind him of his place. Deir shivered and bowed his head. Whatever his feelings at the reprimand, she noticed he had hardened, too. His cock thrust up against his snow-white kilt, lifting the material impressively. Indeed, as she turned her gaze around the room, she saw that all of the harem had reached full erection. To a man, their faces were flushed with their lust for her, muscles tense with restraint.

Tou was accustomed to them wanting her, but couldn’t recall if she’d ever seen them all this fiercely aroused at once. The scent of them, the vibration of their longing through the musky air, wound her own desire to fever pitch. Fluid welled from her, hot and slick. She ached for their aching, her hunger so intense she feared it would swallow her.

No queen could afford a need as deep as this.

“Take these two to the bathing pool,” she ordered Deir, hoping the harshness of her tone would be blamed on anger. “Bind any wounds that need it and escort them to my bedchamber. I’ll choose the other three while you’re occupied.”

Deir’s proud head bowed lower. Then, to her surprise, her favorite lover, the son of generations of chiefs, went down on one knee. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough.

“Your Highness,” he said. “Beloved Tou-Hhamoun. You need not choose me, but can’t you choose more of us? All of us would be honored to serve you more frequently.”

Tou had been choosing five men a night for years. Five was enough to satisfy her, at least temporarily, without betraying what might be considered an unqueenly greed. When she looked around, however, she saw many heads nodding in agreement. She hadn’t known her decision to restrict herself was so universally bemoaned.

“I have rescinded my order against self-pleasuring,” she said. “Surely you are not all in such need.”

“We would rather wait for you to choose us,” Semna of Saqqar answered softly. “Spilling inside your body is the ecstasy we all crave.”

“You have been waiting? All of you? Without release?”

“We have been waiting,” Deir confirmed, still kneeling on the floor with his erection standing out starkly. “We ache for you, my queen, but we prefer the honor of abstinence.”

Her hand was to her throat, her pulse beating hard beneath her fingertips. What had she done to earn such loyalty? Moved by their offering, her need swelled large enough to drown the moon.

“I will take you then,” she said hoarsely. “Tonight, all of you will come to me.”

Beth opened her arms to them, her golden bracelets gleaming, her naked body trembling with the strength of her desire. They were lucky the bed was large. Every man who found a corner to crawl onto groaned with relief.

The ones who didn’t knelt beside the low platform.

“Now,” she said, her legs seeming to sprawl apart by themselves. “None of you need to wait.”

A signal passed between the men, order amid the eagerness. The wrestler with the blackened eye found his place atop her first. Taking her at her word, he didn’t wait to roll his hips forward, but kissed her as he speared her, slow and thick and powerful. Baal had indeed been hungry for this. As he reached full penetration, he expressed his pleasure in a groan that sounded more like pain.

“You are hot,” he gasped. “As hot and sweet as they said you’d be.”

The others helped him, a sea of arms and hands to maneuver their two joined bodies in the old rhythm. Beth couldn’t doubt her harem enjoyed taking control in this unusual manner. Erections rubbed her from head to toe, all different shapes and sizes, all shuddering with passion and steam-hot blood. Mouths kissed her as she wriggled. Fingers plucked her like a harp. Strong limbs braced her where she needed it. Her knees were crooked for her, her bottom tipped. She had the power to throw off the men, but their care for her felt too sweet. She moved only her pussy, only the muscles that surrounded her partner’s increasingly rigid cock. The tight caress made him sob with pleasure, which shoved her pleasure past the edge.

She came without effort and brought Baal with her.

Another concubine replaced him, and another after that, each as fresh and eager as the one before. In truth, each man’s efforts seemed to drive the next one to greater heights. She was filled and refilled with hot, sleek flesh. Those who had not had her began to pant with their struggle to keep their seed contained. Their cocks wept against her body where they couldn’t resist rubbing, their hands growing slick with sweat. She teased one prick with her mouth until its owner begged her to stop.

“My queen,” he pleaded. “Leave me hard to have my turn.”

At last, only Deir remained unbedded. He was different tonight. His eyes were silver, not brown as she remembered. They burned into hers like crystals set aflame. One of the men moaned at the picture of desire he made. Deir was the largest of them all, the hardest, his cock so high and thick and red it barely seemed human. It dripped with excitement as he knelt before her, taking his place at last between her legs.

“I don’t need help,” he snapped to the others when they would have moved to him.

“Maybe
I
need help,” she purred, her muscles slack from the pleasure she had enjoyed. She still wanted more, still wanted Deir—anger and all. She’d seen him in this state before, and knew he’d take her forcefully. Since the secret chamber had changed her, more force was almost always what she craved. She trailed her hands over her belly and onto her inner thighs, letting him see the sheen of the other men’s seed on her.

As she’d hoped, rage flashed across his face. Though he tried to hide it, Deir wanted her for himself. His hands felt like pincers where they wrapped her hipbones and heaved her up. She had to fling out her arms for balance, but he had no trouble supporting her. His night-dark hair spilled like a cape around them. With a grunt that might have been impatience, he notched himself to her gate.

The head of him was almost too broad to fit.

And then it did fit, pushed firmly into her body with the stubbornness of long-held lust.

“You’re mine,” he growled at her through gritted teeth. “The only help you’ll ever need is mine.”

Pahndir was right. Only when
his
shaft’s ardent labors brought her to completion, did her body finally find peace.

Beth jerked up in her chair with a startled cry. Damn it all to perdition. She’d fallen asleep at work again. And had another dream where she’d confused herself with Tou. The sensations she’d experienced had been so vivid she was still pulsing.

Don’t forget that bit at the end,
she told herself dourly.
Where you confused your favorite harem slave with Prince Pahndir.

“Damn it!” She slapped her desk in anger at herself. A cracking sound unexpectedly met the blow, followed by the sturdy plank that topped the folding legs splintering in two.

“Memsahib!” said a frightened voice at her door.

She spun around in alarm. The dig’s water boy stood there, the whites of his eyes showing. To her amazement, he had hidden one hand by his side and was making the two-horned sign against evil.

“Termites,” she said. “Or the wood dried and split without my knowing it. This
is
the desert.”

The water boy swallowed. “Memsahib should be careful what artifacts she handles. Objects at these digs can be cursed.”

“I’m not cursed. The wood was dry! And I’m not a memsahib, just a miss.”

“Yes, miss,” said the boy. “Would miss like a drink?”

“I’d like one,” said a voice behind him, “if you’ve got a cup to spare.”

The voice belonged to Charles. His arrival seemed to relax the boy as much as it caused Beth to tighten up. But at least the water boy hadn’t exacerbated her condition. She could console herself that she wasn’t turning into an indiscriminate sex fiend.

That realization enabled her to pull herself together while Charles had his drink.

“What happened here?” he asked once their company was gone. He stared in bemusement at her broken desk. “Why did that water boy leave your tent like devils were after him?”

“He thought I—Oh, never mind. Sometimes the locals are too superstitious to take seriously.”

He smiled, a slanted lift of his perfect mouth. To her gratitude, he didn’t push. “I came to see if you wanted a ride home. It looks like you’re finished with work for now.”

She was actually a bit ahead, which made her feel less of a nitwit for her little nap.

It was just a dream,
she told herself.
Just bits and bobs you put together from your subconscious. It doesn’t matter how real it seemed.

“Beth?” said Charles.

He seemed normal standing there. Smiling. Easy. Not like a person who’d engaged in his most-feared debauch the night before. If his looks had been improved by the encounter, she couldn’t tell. If anything, he appeared tired, though only a friend would have noticed the tiny pulls of strain around his sea-blue eyes. Clearly, he was going to pretend his night at The Prince’s Flame had never been.