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  “I think I reminded Father of what he’d done. I still remember him kneeling by the grave, holding Barsk’s head. I think he wanted me gone too, so he would not remember.

  “My younger brothers followed my parents, treating me as if I were … as if I were no more than the horses.”

  “Aketa,” he whispered, pulling her close. “I am so sorry, that is a terrible thing. Was there anyone in your life?”

  “There was a boy, briefly. The son of a tinker. He is why I am no longer a virgin.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “Love? I thought so. I was just so lonely. I did not like it when he touched me, the first few times. It hurt, and made me feel dirty. But then he began to touch me with his hand before he entered me, and it did not hurt, and then there was pleasure. He left when his family moved on. I’d thought he would take me with him. I thought he would marry me and take me away. I went to him, the night he was to leave. We lay together, and then he told me I was not a girl he could marry. His father saw my face, told him I was cursed. I tried to run away, but his father dragged me back to my own parents, saying they should not let one as deformed as me out to mingle with healthy people in case I drew demons to them. My parents apologized to him.”

  Her words hung heavy in the air. Her past painted anew every aspect of her. Her strength was twice what it had been, her sweet spirit all the more amazing for the fact that it had survived the deep suffering she’d endured.

  Moregon did not speak.

  Gradually she relaxed in his arms, the tension that had built as she told her story easing away. Holding her close, Moregon joined her in sleep, his dream filled with a young girl bleeding and alone.

  Chapter 19

  “Moregon, come with me.” The Queen turned on her heel, never doubting Moregon would obey and follow. Moregon hesitated, looking at the door he’d just come through, imagining the sleeping Aketa on the other side. With a sigh, he followed the Queen.

  She led him to her private chambers, seating herself and pouring a glass of wine. Knowing she would only speak when she chose to, and that it was not his place to question her—or to mention that he had many things to do and his time this day was precious—Moregon stood at attention, eyes on her, hands behind his back.

  “The rules of the game must be changed,” Cryessa announced.

  Moregon’s stomach clenched. “In what way, Majesty?”

  “It is clear that you have a favorite. It is time to level the playing field.”

  “It was my belief that your Majesty encouraged me to go to Aketa this night,” Moregon said carefully. There was no doubt that Cryessa had encouraged him to go to her. She’d arranged the room with the candles, had Aketa brought to the adjoining room, and laid down the rules. The Queen’s rules for that evening had been deceptively simple.

  First, no sex. Second, there must be bondage. Third, there must be pain.

  He’d obeyed those rules. He always obeyed her rules.

  “I encouraged it, but I also laid down rules.”

  “I followed the rules,” Moregon blurted out, before she’d even finished her sentence. The Queen raised a brow. Since the revolution Moregon counted Cryessa as a friend as well as his Queen, but at this moment there was no doubt that it was his Queen, not his friend, who spoke to him.

  “Forgive me,” he murmured, bowing his head.

  “You are forgiven. You may have followed the letter of the law, but the spirit was broken. I set those rules so that you could introduce her to the world that she will need to inhabit as your wife. Instead what you did tonight was play at both bondage and pain, doing only those things which were pleasing. By the time you entered true domination and submission you were both so lost in the pleasure of it that the effects were all muted.

  “As you know, there is more than sexual pleasure to dominance.”

  Moregon bowed his head, hiding his face. She was right and he agreed with her, but there was a small part of Moregon that wanted to rage at the Queen for listening in on his thoughts, for watching what had happened between himself and Aketa through the link she still shared with him. What had happened between them should have been private.

  There had been a time when Cryessa’s disapproval would have crippled him, but not tonight. Tonight her disapproval was a pale shadow when compared to the pleasure he’d shared with Aketa. He did not, and never would, regret it.

  “I had planned to allow you to introduce each girl to the world of bondage, after I’d lectured them on some of the principles and given them context. By allowing you to meet with Aketa before I could give that lecture I upset the balance. Considering all the prior contact you’d had with her, I did not think it would add too greatly to the effect, and I could feel that you were in need after returning from fighting the fire.”

  Cryessa paused, pouring herself another glass of wine and taking several sips before speaking again.

  “I no longer think you are capable of introducing the girls to the world of domination. Rohaj will do it instead. Tomorrow I will hand the girls over to him. Each will spend a night with him. They will be broken to the lash and fully dominated.”

  Moregon jerked in surprise, but then nodded his acquiescence.

  “Including Aketa.”

  “No!” Moregon lurched forward, taking a threatening step towards Cryessa. He would lay down his life to protect her, but in that moment he wanted her pain. Cryessa rose to her feet, face a calm mask.

  Moregon drew up short as a blade came to rest against his neck.

  “I suggest you practice stillness,” Sesah said, his blade at Moregon’s throat.

  “Let me be,” Moregon said, his voice a low rumble.

  “You are not yourself,” Sesah said.

  “Rohaj will not touch her,” Moregon said.

  “He will,” Cryessa commanded calmly. “Rohaj will teach Aketa the truth of dominance, not just the pleasure that can be derived from it.”

  “She is mine!”

  Moregon trust his arm up, forcing Sesah’s sword away from his neck. He spun and kicked, sweeping Sesah’s legs out from under him. The slender man fell to the floor. Moregon spun to run for the door. He would grab Aketa and take her away from the Palace.

  He did not see the three other men who emerged from the shadows: swords, staffs, and rope dangling from their hands.

  The King stepped in front of the doors, shaking his head. “Do not do this, brother.”

  “Let me go,” he commanded. It was the first time he had ever contradicted Tamlohn.

  “We do not want to hurt you,” Anleeh said, “but we will.”

  “You agreed what needed to come of this at the onset. We must abide by that, for your sake,” Rohaj added.

  Moregon turned to look at Rohaj, a man whom he considered a brother, beside whom he’d fought battles. Rage filled him.

  “You will not touch her,” he ground out.

  Rohaj twirled the long staff he held. “I will if the Queen commands it.”

  Moregon leapt at Rohaj.

  The battle was short but furious, punctuated by grunts and shouted commands. It took Tamlohn, Rohaj, Sesah and Anleeh to bring Moregon down, for he was the biggest of all of them, and possessed of the strength of a desperate man.

  They’d done their best not to hurt him, and, in truth, Moregon had been careful himself, but in the end they were all bloody and bruised, and none more so than Moregon, who lay on the floor, bound hand and foot. Tamlohn had hit him with a hard uppercut to the jaw—the blow finally felled him.

  Cryessa walked up to stand over Moregon whose eyes fluttered closed as the blow to the head drew him into unconsciousness. Tears streamed down her face.

  “We had to do it,” Tamlohn assured her, slipping an arm around her so she could lean into his side.

  “He needs a woman who can do more than give him a good fuck,” Rohaj said, looking at Moregon less than charitably. There was a large bruise growing around his eye and blood flowing from his nose and lip.


  “And what if he loves her?” the Queen asked.

  “Then their love will survive this,” Anleeh assured her. “But Moregon would not survive a lifetime without knowing bondage. He needs it, he has proven that. He feels something for Aketa. I understand. She is mysterious, though not purposefully so.”

  “She is strong. He would like that,” Rohaj added, “and knows the soil as he does.”

  Cryessa motioned and Rohaj, Sesah and Anleeh picked up Moregon. Tamlohn kissed his wife, aching for her. “You are doing what you must, beloved.”

  “What if I am wrong?” Cryessa asked. “If there is love between them, that love may be enough to satiate him.” She watched them carry Moregon from her chamber.

  “Enough to make up for the years of bondage and domination that have shaped every aspect of Moregon? How many times has he come to us, unable to sleep or eat because he is lost without the reassurance of chain on his wrists?”

  “I made him this way.”

  “You did what you had to, as the Priestess.”

  “I made him this way and in trying to find a way for him to live out his life I am hurting him more.”

  “You did what you must, as you are doing now,” Tamlohn said.

  Cryessa shook her head, but allowed her husband to lead her to bed. She did not sleep that night.

  Chapter 20

  “You have seen two demonstrations of bondage,” the Queen said, hands clasped before her. “And now the time has come for you to experience those things first hand.”

  Aketa shifted in her seat, attention wandering as she looked around the chamber, sure Moregon must be close. She was wearing her new dress and the vertical half mask Lord Anleeh had designed for her.

  The reaction from the other girls had been entirely gratifying. Freshly bathed, with her hair trimmed in a shorter style, well dressed and self-assured, knowing her scars were concealed, Aketa looked confident and imposing. The others had looked at her with wide eyes, seeing her for the first time. Amzel had complimented her, which Aketa had acknowledged with a nod, but Sornes had merely narrowed her eyes.

  That’s right, bitch. You can no longer dismiss me. I am here and I will win him. You don’t know the true prize he is, but I do and I will do anything to have him.

  She’d woken in an empty bed, but there was a note on the pillow beside her. Aketa could not read, but she’d known, in her heart, that Moregon had not left her without great regret.

  There had been no regret, no doubt on her side either. She could feel what they’d shared in the marks it had left upon her body. Her breasts were heavy and aching, her ass bruised and smarting.

  When the Queen summoned them, Aketa was sure it was to introduce the other two to what was about to happen and allow Moregon take his turn with each of them.

  She skittered away from that thought, losing herself in the pleasure of memories rather than torturing herself by imagining him sharing those same things with others . In her heart Aketa was sure that no other two people could share what they had. He might touch them, but they would not really know him as she did.

  The Queen’s first words confirmed Aketa’s theory, and her attention wandered. She knew the Queen must be aware of what she and Moregon had shared, after all it must be she who had set the rules. Perhaps Aketa would be allowed another turn with Moregon. The fact that she’d been allowed to be with him before the others, before this lecture by the Queen, must have been meant as a reward for her assistance with the fire, but since the other girls did not know perhaps she would get to be with him again.

  “I know this contest for Lord Moregon has been shrouded in mystery. I assure you it was necessary. The time has now come to reveal secrets and lay questions to rest.” The Queen took a seat in a chair facing the backless ottomans they were seated on. Aketa gave the Queen her full attention.

  “As you know the Lord Moregon was one of the Zinahs, one of my trusted guard when I was still the Priestess of this land. What do you know of the Zinahs?”

  Amzel and Sornes looked at one another, then back to the Queen. “They are powerful warriors, brought from the far corners of the world,” Sornes said.

  “And they are skilled with all weapons, and they lead—led—the Temple Army. The Prima Zinah was the head,” Amzel added, voice rising at the end as if it were a question.

  “All those things are true, and facts well known. What are the rumors you heard about the Zinahs and their service to me?”

  Again Sornes and Amzel looked at one another. They were both from the city, and would have been in a position to hear gossip whereas Aketa was not. What little she’d heard was no more than innuendo implying decadence, but what form that decadence took had always been left to the imagination.

  “Ah, well there were rumors that…” Amzel started, but did not finish the sentence.

  The Queen raised one gold brow, waiting for her to continue, but Amzel ducked her head and did not speak again. The Queen transferred her stare to Aketa.

  Rather than duck her head and hide herself Aketa raised her chin. She was not the terrified girl who’d lumbered into the Palace. The Queen looked her over, from the new shoes on her feet to the mask that covered half her face.

  Aketa remained silent. She may be more confident than she had been, but speaking was still not something that came naturally to her. She preferred silence to words, and was not afraid of it as many people were.

  The silence between herself and the Queen lasted until the Queen transferred her attention to Sornes.

  “I heard that they had sex with you,” Sornes blurted out. It sounded almost like an accusation, and Aketa looked nervously at the Queen.

  “Is that all?”

  “No, I heard that you had sex with all of them, at the same time.”

  “Anything else?”

  “And that you … did things to them, and to other men who came to the Temple.”

  The Queen sat back, lounging in the throne-like chair and looked them over. “What you heard … was true. All of it.”

  Almost as one they sucked in a breath. Aketa had a fairly good idea of what “did things to them” might entail, as should the others after seeing the displays, but she was struggling to imagine Moregon participating in an orgy. Unbidden her mind’s suggestion of how the King, Lord Rohaj, Lord Anleeh and Lord Sesah would each look naked sprang to her mind.

  “The Zinahs were more than my bodyguards, more than my servants. They were my slaves. They obeyed me in all aspects of their lives. They were servants of the Temple, offering up all they were, including their freedom.”

  The Queen let the statement hang in the air, a confirmation of things barely whispered, out in the open and said without remorse.

  “It is not easy to make a man your slave, and it takes a very strong woman to do it. What we have been testing these past few days is your strength of spirit, your cleverness, and your willingness to accept things that most people in this land would consider depraved.

  “You see Moregon is the only one of the Zinah to come from within our own borders. He was born and raised in the Temple, and had always planned to serve in the Temple Army. When he came to me, the last of my Zinahs, I was hard on him when I should not have been. I had been forced to fight and master my first four slaves, and so when Moregon was chosen I treated him as I had the others, despite the fact that he was more disposed to give up his freedom to serve the Temple.

  “What I did to him was…” the Queen shook her head, and for a moment the mask of power and authority she wore slipped to show a woman plagued by uncertainty. It was not until that moment that Aketa realized how young she was. “I was harsh, cruel, but in the end I had what I needed, a devoted slave. With the others the training was just enough to break them to my will, but with Moregon what I did changed him.

  “Though he is no longer my slave, and no longer bound to serve in the Temple, Moregon needs that relationship. Do you understand?”

  Aketa let out the breath she’d been holding. She could
barely contain the rampaging thoughts and speculations the Queen’s words started in her mind. She shook her head. In truth she thought she understood, but she wanted to hear more.

  “Moregon cannot live as other men do anymore. His time as a Zinah changed him, because I was too harsh with him. The woman he takes to wife must be willing and able to master him.”

  The Queen’s final words hung in the air, thick and frightening, like sheets of cobweb floating in the chamber.

  “He would … be our slave?” Sornes asked.

  “No,” the Queen said vehemently. “He is a Lord of this land, and as such will be ruler of his own prospect, but in his private life he would crave the control of a strong woman.”

  Amzel appeared more shaken by this news than anyone else. “As in … telling him what to do? My mother tells my father what to do all the time.”

  “No. Moregon is capable of not only caring for himself but for ruling the agricultural interests of this land. What he needs is a woman who is willing and able to master him in private.”

  “You mean sexually,” Sornes said.

  “It involves sex, yes,” the Queen conceded, “but that is not all. What we are speaking of is bondage, of both body and spirit. It is not an easy thing. There is pain and fear to be found in it, but there is also security and peace.

  “To understand it you must experience it. That is why I have called you here. You will each experience bondage first hand by learning to submit.”

  “But the Lord Moregon wants a-a master,” Amzel said, her expression wavering between fascination and fear.

  “You must first submit before you can know what it is to dominate. Tonight, at sundown, Sornes will be taken and mastered. You will then be kept in a private chamber until Amzel and finally Aketa have their turns.”

  “We will get to have sex with him?” Sornes asked.