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  He kissed the inside of her thigh and then lapped at the bare lips of her sex. He hated that she’d been shaved here in order to humiliate, but he could not deny that he liked the results. Her bare pussy lips were soft against his lips, the flesh white and pink, like a delicate pearl.

  He kissed her sex the way he would her mouth, massaging the lips with his, using small forays of his tongue to gain entrance. He dipped his tongue in deep enough to touch her clit and Aketa came.

  Her thighs trembled around his head as she panted and gasped.

  “That was fast, very fast,” she babbled, “I didn’t know, I didn’t think I was ready yet. I wish I could hear you. I wish I could see you.”

  In reply Moregon went back to kissing her sex, sucking the unabused lip into his mouth and nursing it as her body calmed. She might not understand why she’d come so quickly, but he did. Her body was trying to make sense of all that had happened this night, and, as such, every inch of skin was awake and responsive, needing only slight stimulation.

  He waited until she had cooled and then began again.

  Unlike the night in the Palace he did not force additional orgasms from her body. These were a gift, from him to her, a way for him to soothe the hurt.

  He licked her clit, over and over. He let the momentum build slowly, until she was begging for more, for him to move faster. He obeyed.

  Aketa came a second time her body arching so acutely that Moregon had to scramble to hold her. As she descended from the orgasm he carefully set her down, then arranged them so he sat with his back to the wall, Aketa seated on his lap, tilted on one hip so she kept off her welts. She tucked her head into his neck and Moregon pressed his lips to her head.

  They remained that way until Cryessa and Rohaj approached. Cryessa attached a chain to his collar, while Rohaj took up Aketa’s lead, and they were forced apart.

  Chapter 26

  Rohaj returned her to the Palace, wrapped in a cloak and carried in his arms. The way had been cleared for them. They encountered no guards, no servants, as they left the room with the magical doorway.

  Rohaj took her to a private chamber, where Sesah waited. Aketa stiffened in Rohaj’s arms, terrified she was to be passed off for more training.

  “Don’t fear,” Rohaj said. “He is here to tend to you.”

  Rohaj laid her down and stripped her of her cloak. Aketa winced as yet another person saw her naked, but she acquiesced, too tired to truly fight, her emotions too wrung out to feel more than passing embarrassment.

  They applied ointment to her welts, and cold compresses to angry red flesh. Aketa dozed as they tended her. When Sesah pulled a sheet over her, Aketa sighed in relief. He went to the window and pulled the drape to the side.

  “Dawn has come,” Sesah said in his richly accented tones.

  The night was gone. Aketa blinked away tears of relief. Sesah turned to go.

  “Wait,” she whispered.

  “How may I serve?”

  “Is there, is there a place I could go, outside the Palace walls? Forest or fields?”

  “You wish to leave,” he said in carefully neutral tones.

  “No, I wish … I wish only to have some time, in a place that is familiar.”

  “I will have a servant wait outside to take you when you wake,” he said. Bowing, he left the room.

  As the sun rose, she slipped into sleep.

  * * * *

  She did not wake until near dusk. Disoriented, for she was used to sleeping in the dark, not in the day, Aketa did not immediately rise. Instead she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

  She did not hurt as much as she’d imagined she might. Her legs and butt were sore, but no more so than they would have been after a hard day in harvest season. Lifting the cover she looked at her breasts, and the fading welt. It was a thin line of red, almost as if it had been painted there.

  Smoothing the cover down over her breasts, Aketa closed her eyes and thought about the night before. She did not think on the fear or the suffering, did not think on the understanding that had come to her about the appeal of the bondage, about the freedom to be found.

  Her thoughts went to Moregon.

  Last night she had been sure it was him who came to her, his hands on her face, his scent in her nostrils, his lips on hers.

  But in the dying light of the next day she was not so sure. Had it been a trick? Had that been Rohaj who lifted her and kissed her sex so sweetly? Aketa’s stomach knotted in disgust at the thought.

  It must have been him; she would not have been wrong about that. But without sight or sound she’d been disabled and disoriented. It would not have been difficult to trick her. Though there were the chains to consider. She remembered the drag of cold metal across her thighs, and she’d felt the manacle with her lips.

  Had he been there the whole time? Had Moregon been the second set of faint footsteps she’d heard?

  Aketa had too many questions and no answers.

  She was tired of this place, of these people, who were so very foreign to her. Being here had changed her, and she was terribly frightened. Home to Aketa was not the house she shared with her family, but a place inside her own head. Home was a place she’d created, a sanctuary where people were friendly and talkative, where the crops and plants had thoughts and feelings to share with her, where the pain of the past and the hopelessness of the future could not touch her.

  She was losing that place, losing her home. It was disappearing under an onslaught of emotion and hope, understanding and wonder, pain and fear.

  Aketa slid from the bed. Her dress was on a small stool beside it, the undergarments she’d neglected beneath it. Distaining the dress, she slipped on a thin chemise, with a deep V to match the neckline of the dress, slipped on her mask, whose ties had been mended, and wrapped herself in the cloak Rohaj had left.

  Holding the cloak closed to cover her minimal dress, Aketa slipped out into the hall. A solider, who’d been sitting on the floor, rose to his feet.

  “How may I serve you, Lady Aketa?”

  Aketa started at the title, but whispered, “I wish to go out.”

  “Lord Sesah advised me of a place.”

  Aketa followed the solider out of the castle, to a small coach that waited in the courtyard. She’d never ridden in a coach, and marveled at the pillowed seat. The solider jumped onto the seat and the coach rumbled off. As they moved through the city she could see people looking into the carriage.

  They looked at her as if she was someone important, someone to be marveled at.

  Her life had changed.

  They took one of the city ring roads, moving away from the center of the city. They turned off the road and came to a heavy gate. When the carriage rumbled through the gates, they entered a new world, a beautiful world. The land beyond the gates was filled with a patchwork of crops. There was barley and wheat, carrots and potatoes. An orchard was visible in the distance, with trees ripe with different kinds of fruit. Though they were productive, the fields were small, too small to be useful for heavy production of each crop.

  Aketa stepped down from the coach before it had fully stopped. She walked into a field of wheat, forgetting the coach, the solider, the Palace and all that was there. She closed her eyes and held out her hands, so the tops of the wheat stalks brushed her palms. Aketa slipped off her shoes and walked barefoot through the land.

  Home was not lost; it was here.

  He was there, at the far end of the field. Aketa was not surprised. The moment she’d seen it she’d known this was his land. Who but the Minister of Agriculture would oversee a land of test crops?

  He was dressed simply, brown pants and a top. He looked like the farmer she’d first imagined him to be.

  She did not know who started running first, but between one breath and the next her feet were flying across the ground, the cloak streaming out behind her. They met amidst the wheat, Moregon catching her up in his arms, burying his face within her hair. Aketa wrapped her arm
s over his shoulders, pressing her face into his neck and smelling the scents of earth and man.

  “Aketa, Aketa,” he whispered, her name a chant, a prayer, upon his lips.

  Aketa’s throat was tight with tears; she could not speak. But she told him with kisses along his neck, his cheek and finally his lips. He fumbled with the ties, releasing her mask and throwing it away, until he was kissing not only the perfect side of her face, but the scarred flesh, the imperfections she’d fought so hard to hide.

  They did not speak, and that was fine. He bore her down to the earth, flattening the wheat beneath their bodies.

  There were no chains, no cuffs, nothing binding them but what they felt for one another.

  Aketa helped him remove his shirt, exposing the broad expanse of his chest. She traced his muscles with fingers, lips and teeth. She unlaced his boots pulling them off and helping him remove his breaches.

  Aketa took his cock into her hands for the first time, running her palms up and down the shaft. He was warm and smooth, the tip already wet. Aketa wrapped him in her fists and bent her head, sucking the tip into her mough. Because of her scar, she couldn’t close her mouth tightly around the head, but she did her best, sucking and licking him, in the way she’d wanted to since they first came together.

  Moregon’s hands were not idle. He untied and pushed the cloak away, hands sliding under the chemise to touch her thighs. Aketa lifted her head with a last lick at the tip of his cock.

  She drew off her chemise, revealing herself to him. Kneeling there in the moonlight beside his reclining form she was more naked than she’d ever been. This nakedness was far more profound than anything she’d exposed last night, more meaningful than any exposure that could be forced.

  “You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he breathed. And Aketa believed.

  She came to him, swinging her leg over his hips. Moregon traced his hands up her stomach, fondling her breasts, petting her nipples with his thumbs. Aketa took his hands, lacing her fingers with his, and kissing his knuckles.

  She raised herself up, and together they guided their bodies into alignment. Aketa looked into his eyes as she sank down. Moregon gazed back at her, his blue eyes filled with something she was afraid to name.

  The tip of his cock brushed along the bare lips of her sex, and Aketa was glad for what Rohaj had done because she felt each soft touch. His cock was thick and hard, the heavy blunt tip wet from both of their bodies.

  She tilted her hips and let her body weight bring her down. His cock pushed into her, solid and hot. Aketa watched him as his cock filled her, bringing them together in a way they’d been denied for too long.

  Once he was fully within her, Aketa began to rock her hips, forward and back, not wanting to be disconnected from him for even a moment. She leaned forward, bearing their linked hands to the ground, so that she held him there, claimed him for her own. There were no ropes, no chains, and yet she bound him more securely than either could have.

  They came together, after long moments of gently fucking in the light of the rising moons. At the moment of climax Moregon surged up, wrapping his arms around her, claiming her mouth in a kiss.

  When it was done, Moregon lay back, his arms still around her, and now it was she who was bound.

  Chapter 27

  They walked through the fields in the moonlight. Moregon pointed out the more interesting of his experimental crops. He told her about his gardens on the roof of the Temple, and how he grew things there, then brought them here to test on a larger scale.

  She bit into a juicy pear he picked for her, giggling when he licked the juice from her chin.

  “I want another,” she said, leaning against his shoulder. Moregon stretched up, his powerful body elongating as he went to pluck a pear. Aketa swooped in, running her hands across his bare chest while he was distracted.

  “Was that a ploy to fondle me?” he asked with a smile.

  “Would you be angry if it was?”

  “Nay.” He lifted her by the waist, seating her on a low branch as she gasped and giggled. She felt small with him, delicate when she knew she wasn’t. “You are welcome to fondle me,” he said, hands sliding, up her waist, “and I hope I may do the same.”

  “Always,” she agreed. Aketa looked around and then plucked a pear. Biting into its soft brown skin, she filled her mouth with its juice and then bent her face to his.

  They shared the pear, bite by bite, tongues and lips smearing juice until their faces were sticky with it. Moregon turned his back to Aketa, and she looped her arms around his neck, legs hugging his waist. The continued the tour that way, Aketa riding his back, laughing and giggling like children in the throes of their first love.

  Moregon spun in a circle until they were both dizzy, Aketa shrieking with laughter. She leaped from his back and went racing through the orchard. Moregon followed her, darting around trees, his laugh a low happy rumble. Aketa hid behind a large tree, peaking around to the left. Moregon came to her from the right, catching her by the waist and pulling her in for a kiss.

  The night had grown dark around them, as they played like children, and suddenly Aketa shivered.

  “Come,” he whispered, taking her hand and leading her from the orchard. They returned to their spot amidst the wheat. Moregon spread out his shirt on the ground. He wrapped her in the cloak and then pulled her down onto his lap.

  Aketa rested her head on his shoulder, knowing more peace than she ever had before.

  But this interlude could not last, and as Moregon stroked her hair, the questions Aketa had rose to the surface.

  “It was you last night, wasn’t it?”

  “It was.” He kissed her brow.

  “I knew it was. When I woke today I thought I might have been wrong, but I do not think I would ever mistake you for another.”

  Silence descended. Moregon continued to stroke her hair, a steady rhythm.

  “That’s what you need, isn’t it?” she blurted out. “Someone who can do to you what Rohaj did to me?”

  She sat up, turning to face him. His jaw clenched at her words, but he nodded.

  “Why didn’t you explain it to me?”

  “I am a warrior, I should not … I should not want a woman to do that to me. I should be head of the house. I should lead her.”

  “But you can, you did, for me? Don’t you remember?”

  “It is not the same. That was lightness … play.”

  “What is wrong with that? With play? There is so much suffering and pain in life. Why would you want to throw yourself into such treatment?”

  “He hurt you.”

  “Yes.”

  “If not for me you would not have suffered that.”

  “I was willing.”

  “You should not have suffered for me. That is not what I wanted.”

  “I was willing to do it, for you. I understand what you see in that. There is a kind of … peace.”

  He looked up, eyes bright. “You understand.”

  “I think so, but I … I am not sure I could treat someone I … someone I love, that way.”

  She looked up at him, her feelings writ upon her face, but all he heard was the condemnation he feared above all.

  “You think me … you think me weak.”

  “No,” Aketa said. Hadn’t he heard her say she loved him? “I said I would not want to do that to you every day. I would want light things too.”

  “You do not want me.”

  Moregon shot to his feet, leaving Aketa kneeling in the field.

  “I-I did not say that!” she cried out.

  Moregon turned away, “You deserve someone better than I.”

  He walked away.

  Chapter 28

  Moregon rolled through the Palace like thunder. The night servants scrambled to clear the way long before he was upon them, and they gathered in his wake, murmuring words of concern at seeing the kind and quiet Lord Moregon so clearly in distress.

  His mind rolled w
ith thoughts dark and dangerous as snakes in a garden. He’d lost the woman he wanted because of his own failings. He was barely a man. For all his strength, for all his power of arm, he was not able to claim and keep the one thing he wanted.

  For a moment he hated Queen Cryessa for what she’d done, what she’d made him. For those who had served with him, and learned to survive the whip and lash as he did, had come out of that world when their service was done.

  He alone was weak.

  But for all his weakness, all his flaws, he could protect the one he loved.

  “Where are they?” Moregon ripped the covers from Rohaj’s bed. Rohaj sat up, bringing a knife to bear against Moregon’s throat before he was fully awake. The brunette in Rohaj’s bed squeaked in fear and crawled off the far side of the bed.

  Rohaj blinked, lowering the knife, “Damn, but you should not do that.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Who?”

  “The other two. Where are they?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Tell me. And tell me which is better suited to dominate.”

  “Moregon,” Rohaj braced his hand on the other man’s shoulder, “what has happened? Where is Aketa?”

  “Don’t ever say her name.” Moregon grabbed Rohaj’s wrist, squeezing until he felt the bones grinding together. Rohaj grunted in pain but did not pull away. “Which of them, and where is she?”

  “Sornes. Fourth floor, a small chamber on the east wall.”

  Moregon released him and stormed from the room. He did not have much time. Rohaj would go to Cryessa and Tamlohn, but he had time enough to make sure there would be no turning back.

  He found Sornes’s chamber, for the simple fact that it was the only one with the door closed. He knocked, and knocked again.

  A sleepy voice sounded from within, and Moregon opened the door.

  She was beautiful, there was no denying it. Curtains of dark hair draped her shoulders, spilling over her breasts, which were covered by only a thin night dress.

  “Lord Moregon!” She scrambled out of bed and dipped into a curtsy, watching him from beneath her lashes.