Thrones of Desire Page 8

  Mother Matron’s Veils! A blush betrays me! My gaze travels swiftly up, from his chest, almost as broad and muscled as his steed’s and covered only by a vest of the same dark material as his leggings, to his face. Long black curls, slightly matted at his temples, frame the handsomest features I have ever seen. A thin, aesthetic pair of lips, a proud nose and eyes the color of—oom—the color of nothing I have ever seen before. Pale as river moss yet vibrant as new grass…impossible, but true. Green shall have to do.

  “Why—why do you say they will not find us?”

  “We are in an enchanted glade.”

  My knees buckle. He catches me and props me up again. Moving quickly he arranges me, legs spread, arms by my sides, chin up. He circles me, winding strands of silvery thread around me until I am bound like an insect in a web. Only my neck, face and pubis are left free.

  “You are a spider demon, then?”

  He takes my right nipple in his teeth and nibbles it, gentle as a girl for a flash, then sharp, like the sting of an insect. At the same time his tongue soothes the pain with soft, wet circles.

  ’Tis similar to when one is unwell; I am feverish and chilly at the same time. My nipple blushes and becomes hard enough for him to grasp with his teeth while he winds his magic thread around its base and knots it. His teeth move from my already aching pleasure peak to break the thread. He repeats this with my left breast. When he’s done the nipples have begun to swell and throb, two pleasure peaks that send a message to my pleasure point. It blushes and swells, too. I ache in three spots though he’s only torturing two.

  “Yes.” He admires his handiwork.

  I’m dazed. My gray eyes goggle.

  “I am a spider demon. Would you like to see my extra legs?”

  Inwardly I am shaking but the webbing is so tight it doesn’t show. When he is finished with me he shall chew chunks of flesh from my sides until I die or sprout the long, black, clickity-clacking legs of a spider demoness. I am doomed.

  He closes his eyes, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  I wait for the legs to burst from the sides of his rippled chest.

  “Ah, well.” His eyes open. He grins, which lights up his face and makes him more handsome than he was a moment ago. “Perhaps I am not a spider demon after all.”

  I try to stamp my foot but, of course, cannot. “Lying lecherous hodge. I shall see your head on a stick!”

  My fury makes him laugh. It’s a lovely sound.

  I don’t want his head on a stick; I want to laugh with him. I want to enjoy the joke but how can I, when it is on me?

  He removes his gloves and shows me the pouches hidden inside each, from which still hang silvery strings of web. “It is useful in battle, or when I wish to frighten a pretty princess.”

  “And do you do so often?”

  “Battle, yes. Princesses, no.” He smiles again, beautiful teeth, sensuous mouth. “Not that often.”

  My training keeps me from smiling back. That and the pain in my backside and my throbbing pleasure peaks. He may not be a spider demon but he must be some sort of demon, for he has obviously cast a spell upon me.

  “My queen,” he says, “must be able to take this.” He releases the strings binding the pouch to his privates and his male member, huge, with a great sack drooping below, are exposed.

  My mouth gapes. I have glimpsed such things before, on my brothers and palace servants, but never one as magnificent as this.

  “Good girl,” he exclaims. With a nimble leap he grabs two strong branches above me and hangs there, his wagging member inches from my face. He nudges the head between my still-parted lips and, just like that, it is in my mouth.

  Of course I’ve heard stories but this is not something girls at play can do. I’m startled but not frightened. My lips curl over my teeth so as not to harm the fat, firm, smooth tip of his manhood. There is no point in biting it as long as I am bound to this tree and anyway, I don’t want to.

  “Use your tongue,” he commands. He swings closer, lodging his feet on lower branches to either side of my face.

  Obediently I circle it with my tongue, lapping like a katarine preening.

  He grunts.

  The sound encourages me. I taste a wetness that is not of my mouth. It is thicker, like the cream that seeps from between my low lips when I am aroused—the cream that is seeping from me now.

  Slowly, his column, hard as a bone covered in skin stretched thin, enters my mouth. I lap and suck it as if it is a sticky treat. Fear has abandoned me, as has fury, as has pain. I am neither princess nor woman, I am lips and tongue, I am mouth and, as he thrusts himself deeper, I am throat.

  His pace quickens.

  When he begins to groan I match his sound with a hum of my own. His raggedy breath is echoed by my gasps as I grab what air I can while my tongue rolls round and round the rigid, living bone that swells as if it might burst and then, Mother’s Veils, it does!

  Cream fills my mouth and throat and now I would choke except as each burst of liquid spits from his manhood it begins to soften and shrink, until it slides free of me and I swallow and cough and drool without embarrassment. Whatever that was, I obviously did a very good job of it.

  He drops to the ground and wraps himself around me and in that way I become woman again. It is his knees that shake, not mine, as he clings to the tree and me, and moans. “Asha, Asha…”

  It’s as if he is in need of my mouth to quiet his and I almost pity him, though my own need burns fierce in my loins. I lick his temple (another tempting taste) until he turns his face to me and I can press my mouth to his.

  Matinna and I perfected the art of the kiss. I tease his tongue with mine, darting in and out of his mouth, pushing my soft lips against his thin ones until he nabs my tongue with his teeth and sucks it into his mouth. The tip of my wriggling tongue explores the cave it is held captive in; the backs of his teeth, the roof of his mouth. I tickle and lick until he sets my tongue free to lure his into my mouth. Our lips are slippery but we keep kissing until there is no more air to share and finally we pause, panting, pulling back to gasp for breath and stare at each other in mutual amazement.

  His body is still locked against mine. I feel his naked manhood pressed against my belly. Once again it is a thick, hard column. He desires me.

  “Queen, you say?” I can’t stop the triumphant little smile that plays across my shining lips. “What land would be your kingdom, Sire?”

  He glowers. “I should break you now and be done with it.” He cups my quim.

  I am soaking wet down there; could not be wetter had I peed in fear but I have not. It is all the wet cream of my desperate desire for release: from the tree, from this place, from my body and into him.

  His free hand slides between the back of my head and the tree. He grabs a fistful of my hair and twists it hard, this way and that, my head forced to follow.

  “I’ve got you now, don’t I?”

  I try to nod but cannot. “Yes.”

  He makes my head nod by twisting my hair.

  “You have heard of the land where there be dragons?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is my realm.”

  “You are the dragon slayer?”

  “I am. I have killed a thousand of those fire-breathing winged monsters and every year I have sent you a feather from the prettiest one whose throat I slit.”

  “Why?”

  “So you would come to understand your fate.”

  “Which is—”

  “To be used by me, and when I am finished to be sent to my stable to be used by all who dwell there, man and stallion alike, and then, when they’ve no more need of you, to be used as bait to lure the last of the dragons out of their caves so I may kill every one.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that is what I do. I kill the beautiful. And you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” He lifts me to my tiptoes with his palm. His mouth descends on mine, bruising my lips.

  My head is
released so he can tug the silver thread from my pulsating, purple nipples.

  The pain is excruciating. I scream.

  Again, he presses his body hard against mine. His chest seems to absorb some of the hurt. I’m grateful, though he is the one who caused it in the first place.

  “I want you,” he whispers.

  “Take me,” I reply.

  “No.”

  He nips each of my nipples before he drops to his knees and begins to slowly stroke the length of my slit with his tongue. Each languorous lap ends with his mouth sucking my pleasure point until it pulses as if it has a wee heartbeat of its own.

  I am astonished by the gentleness of his touch.

  One slim, long, gloveless finger slides between my low lips and curls upward in a gentle massage. Now his mouth concentrates on my pleasure point, sucking and licking until its tiny heart explodes.

  When the climax hits I do not need his hand to lift me. I shudder and shriek and make wet and each magnificent spasm snaps the threads that bind. I rise from the ground that has held me down my entire life and fly through the blazing blue sky. I am the feathered beast that he is so keen to kill and I could not care less. Oh, but let him catch me first!

  Which he does, when I pitch forward, free of the tree but no longer winged, not dragon or even bird but simply a broken woman.

  “Hush now,” he coos. “Brave Asha, lovely Asha, my princess, my queen.”

  There is the pounding of hooves as a lone rider approaches. Through bleary eyes I see my mare, now saddled and trinket-free. The rider is dressed for battle but at the sight of us, crouched at the base of a tree, the helmet is discarded.

  “Mother!” I could not possibly be more shocked.

  “Queen Shalilah,” whispers the dragon slayer. He lays me gently on the ground so that he may kneel properly as she dismounts.

  Once again I am wrong. His deference to her shocks me further.

  “Oh, Rodarren, what have you done?” She pauses to allow him to kiss her hand, then with the same hand draws her sword. “Have you taken her against her will?”

  “No!” I am the one who cries out. “I am still…” I would like to say “pure” but that doesn’t seem quite right, although essentially—

  “I would have her as my queen, if she will take me as her king.”

  “Yes, I’d heard you were King of the Dragon Realm, now. Congratulations.”

  “I’d not have wished my father’s death to come sooner, Shalilah, but…”

  “I had no choice, Rodarren. The King of Roz laid claim to me, a mere countess of the court. We have been happy.”

  My mother bends to take me in her arms. She holds a flask to my swollen lips and I slurp the water like a babe suckling.

  “What a mess,” she mutters. “Could you not have simply claimed her, as a king?”

  “And see your husband put my head on a stick?”

  “Mm.” Her attention returns to me. “Would you have him?”

  “Not if he loves another,” I murmur. Things are beginning to make sense to me, and I don’t like what I have deduced. “I am not a gift to console a man who cannot have the one he wants.”

  Deft fingers work the feathers from my hair. “Nonsense. It was another time. I wasn’t brave enough. And he was not even equal to me in years. A boy.”

  He frowns but doesn’t disagree.

  “And I don’t want to be tossed to stable grooms or used as bait for dragons. I don’t think dragons should be killed at all!”

  Rodarren’s face reddens under my mother’s cool gaze.

  “Rodarren, is it possible you are still too young for marriage?”

  “It was a test. That’s the way we do things in my kingdom. She passed.”

  He looks at me now, his eyes glittering like green stones in a clear pond. His smile is true. “Princess Asha, if you will grant me the honor of becoming my queen there will be no other, for either of us, ever.”

  My mother helps me to my feet. She tucks the handfuls of feathers she has taken from my hair into one of my saddle bags and pulls my riding clothes from another. “Get dressed. Much of your dowry is here, Asha, should you choose to go. But… you must hurry. I knew where to find you but the others…your screams were heard by all. They will come.”

  Rodarren ducks his head and disappears.

  It seems three ages have passed since I was last alone with my mother, although it was not even one darkness ago.

  “Mother,” I whisper, “he kills dragons.”

  “No, Asha. He is the Protector of the Dragons. You will see, if you go with him. You will ride over the mountains to the Enchanted Forest where the dragons live and make the rest of your journey on the back of a living, fire-breathing, winged dragon.”

  “Great Mother’s Veils.”

  “Indeed. But you can never come back, my babe.”

  “Oom. I am mad for him.”

  “Then go. They shall find me here, woeing the loss of my daughter to the Demon Spider.” She grins.

  Rodarren approaches, holding the reins of his horse. He wears his gloves and his groin pouch as well.

  “I accept,” I whisper. This is the first time I’ve been anything but nude before him, yet I am inexplicably shy.

  “You will never regret this decision,” he says. “I promise.”

  We mount our steeds.

  “Queen Shalilah,” he calls to my mother, “we shall send you a dragon feather for each babe that is born. Perhaps you will come?”

  My mother’s smile is brilliant, but her voice is small. “Perhaps. Go. Now!”

  “Follow me, my love,” he cries.

  With a whoop we are off, galloping through the forest, low to the necks of our horses. Rodarren leads me away from the Kingdom of Roz, to the Dragon Realm where I will fly, sometimes on the back of a magical beast and sometimes, I know, at the brutal, adoring, magical hands of my king.

  KEY TO THE QUEEN’S ELIXIR

  Jo Wu

  Your Majesty, here is an intruder we just found.”

  The Snow Queen’s wolves dragged before her a disheveled man weighed down by his iron armor. Each of his biceps was clenched between the wolves’ unyielding white fangs.

  “You have done well, Bone and Marrow.” The Snow Queen stood regal and proud from atop her dais of ice. She was as fair and flawless as the pure snow that blanketed the ground all around them, with white hair that hung behind her straight back in a silky curtain. Even her lips were bloodless. Only her eyes, a deep brown that shone like polished wood, contrasted with her skin. Her gown was sleeveless, baring her smooth arms and shoulders to the bitter eternal winter cold that she was immune to, her white dress like a lacework of snowflakes cupping the curves of her breasts, waist and legs into a white silhouette.

  “He was at the borders of our land, too weak to even draw his sword. The scent of his meat promises a fine meal.” Marrow was the wolf with an auburn tint to his fur. He licked his lips with a long, slick tongue.

  “Hurry and butcher him, Your Majesty!” Bone’s yellow eyes glowed against his silver fur like gold. “He’s making me hungry.”

  The Snow Queen gave a small smirk as she slinked off the dais, a dagger of ice in her right hand. “You don’t have to wait long, my darlings. You know I always interrogate your dinner before you eat them.”

  A soft groan emanated from the knight. His head hung like that of a lifeless mannequin.

  “Can you hear me?” demanded the Snow Queen.

  No response. The Snow Queen clutched a fistful of the knight’s brown hair, forcing his face upward. He now awoke. He was about forty, with strong cheekbones and thorny stubble pricking his chiseled jaw. His eyes were as brown as his hair, flecked with shards of apple green. They rolled in a drained fashion in his sockets, trying to sink into sleep.

  “Who are you?” hissed the Snow Queen. “Why have you come here?”

  The knight was gulping the frigid air.

  “Speak, or you will be dinner for my wolves sooner than yo
u think!” She twisted his hair, nearly ripping it from his scalp.

  “My name is Gerhard, a knight from the kingdom of Elswood.” His weary voice was as rough as the bark of an evergreen tree. “I…I have come to seek help…”

  “What sort of help?” snarled the Snow Queen, shaking his head as his voice began to falter. Bone and Marrow’s saliva froze into small icicles along their grizzled muzzles.

  “There’s an epidemic…inflicting the children of Elswood.” Gerhard was gasping, nearly choking. “Mothers and fathers are weeping over the children they have lost. Many more are fearing for their children’s lives. I have been advised to seek the Kingdom of Ice, where it is always winter and time is frozen, and the queen who reigns is forever young and beautiful. I was told to find an elixir here.”

  “There is no such thing!”

  The Snow Queen smashed Gerhard facedown into the thick snow. He only flopped upon the white surface, as if he welcomed a long-desired slumber.

  The Snow Queen sneered. “An elixir… He is sorely mistaken. He cannot obtain an elixir from me.”

  Bone and Marrow turned Gerhard onto his back so that his exhausted face with its closed eyes and parted lips faced the pearl-gray sky. With her dagger clutched between her bloodless fingers, the Snow Queen brushed away the matted brown hair that congealed to Gerhard’s neck. When she did so, a glimmering trinket slipped out from beneath his armor, dangling on a delicate silver chain around his tanned neck. A silver key lay upon his red skin like a pearl set against a brilliant rose.

  An image flashed in the Snow Queen’s head. A delicate hand with peachy skin and slender fingers, outstretched as if it were her own, stroked a very similar key as it dangled from a thin chain on a warm day, with sunlight that rendered a dazzling field orange and crimson-gold.

  Then she was back in the present, on her knees by Gerhard’s body, her dagger now lowered by her legs. She was stroking the key around his neck. Perhaps it was the exact one she had seen in her vision.

  “Your Majesty, what are you waiting for?” Marrow was baring his fangs in hunger.

  She stood up, gazing down at the knight who lay at her feet like a child sound asleep in a warm bed. “Take him to a bedchamber inside the castle,” she ordered.