“Here…?” Ky said in a low voice. “Or…”
The hands moved lower and stroked her inner thighs delicately. Dani knew what they were asking—what Ky wanted—and she wanted to give it to him.
With a little moan, she spread her legs, allowing his whisper hands easier access.
“Here…” His deep voice was a rumble so soft she felt it more than heard it. One of the strong, invisible hands cupped her mound and then whisper fingers were spreading the swollen outer lips of her pussy.
Dani bit back a moan and had to put her hand to one of the Kindred’s broad shoulders for balance when his whisper fingers glided inside her. They moved so delicately…so deliberately. First circling her aching pleasure button, they soon slid down her inner folds and found the entrance to her channel.
“Tell me, little girl,” Ky rumbled as his whisper fingers teased her, slipping just a little way inside her pussy before pulling out again. “Are you a virgin? Should I stop right here to avoid breaking your maiden barrier?”
“You…you probably should,” Dani moaned, though part of her didn’t want him to stop. “For I am a virgin—can’t you tell by my eyes?”
“Your eyes?” His fingers had moved up again, circling lazily around and around her tender, aching button. “What about them?”
“They’re still dark,” Dani told him. “They will not change color until a male claims me as his own and…” She could feel her cheeks heating in a blush. “Until he breeds me. Then and only then will my eyes find their true color.”
“Really?” The big Kindred looked intrigued. “I know of another people—the females of Tranq Prime—who have the same kind of deal. The color of their eyes changes when they first make love.”
“Eyes with color make it immediately apparent that a female has allowed a male to take her.” The thought made Dani feel anxious and for the first time she wanted to draw back. “There are…severe consequences for a female who is not married when that happens.”
“Don’t worry, little girl—I won’t change the color of your eyes if you don’t want me to.” Ky’s deep voice was soothing. “Let me just give you pleasure—I promise to be careful.”
“All right,” Dani whispered. She knew she ought to tell him to stop but she didn’t want to. She had a feeling like a wire was pulling taut in her lower belly. The wire was winding itself tighter and tighter and soon it would snap. When it finally snapped, she wasn’t sure what would occur but she wanted it to happen—wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.
“Tell me this, little girl,” Ky murmured, his eyes roving over her body. “I know you’re a virgin but have you ever had an orgasm?”
“An…a what?” Dani asked, frowning.
“Have you ever come? Reached the peak of pleasure?” Ky asked. When Dani frowned at him, thoroughly confused, he murmured, “I guess not.”
“A female is supposed to remain innocent of…of sexual matters until marriage,” Dani explained, half embarrassed and half defiant about her ignorance.
“That’s all right, little girl—I’m more than happy to explain. You see, when a female gets enough pleasure she can reach a kind of peak.” As he spoke, his whisper fingers continued to tease between her legs and now she felt more fingers plucking her right nipple while a hot, wet mouth encircled her left.
“Can…can she?” Dani asked, nearly panting now. She held tight to his shoulders, making sure she wasn’t touching any of his whip marks as she tried to keep her balance.
Slowly, he nodded.
“She can. A male can too.” He gave her a lazy grin. “But it’s more fun for me to do it to you.”
“You…you like touching me?” Dani whispered.
“Of course I do. Just wish I could give you the Deep Touch, little girl,” he murmured. “But we can’t do that…not without changing the color of your eyes.”
Dani wanted to ask him what the “Deep Touch” was but at that moment the fingers circling her pleasure button began to speed up and the mouth lapping her nipples began sucking harder and much more insistently.
“Oh!” she gasped, swaying on her feet. “Oh, Ky—what are you doing?”
“Bringing you to that peak we talked about, little girl,” he growled. “Gods, I wish I was sucking your nipples and feeling your pussy with my real mouth and fingers. It feels good like this but direct contact is even better.”
“You can…can suck me with your mouth if…if you want,” Dani told him breathlessly. Giving up all pretense of propriety, she pressed her breasts against his face as she had done earlier and moaned as he sucked her right nipple into his mouth.
At the same time the invisible fingers sped up even more, flicking lightly but firmly over her throbbing button…bringing her to the edge and beyond.
Suddenly the wire Dani had felt twisting in her lower belly snapped and a cascade of pleasure drenched her like warm water. It rushed through all her limbs, making her shake and cry out, making her clutch at Ky and press against him, trying to get closer still.
The orgasm was a revelation. She’d always scrupulously avoided touching herself before—wanting to avoid even the semblance of sexual impropriety. A princess of the Blood must be circumspect, above all. But now she welcomed the big Kindred’s touch, welcomed the pleasure it brought her…the way it forced helpless sounds of need and longing from her throat and made her knees so weak she could hardly stand.
“Oh,” she moaned breathlessly. “Oh, Ky!’
“Is it good, little girl?” he growled softly, his eyes drinking in her trembling reaction. “Does it feel good to let me Touch you? You like it when I suck your sweet nipples and spread your soft little pussy open to stroke inside you?”
His forbidden words seemed to drive her pleasure higher until Dani felt for a moment like she really might explode.
“Ky!’ she gasped. “Please, no more! I feel…I’ve never felt like this before.”
At once the sensations of the mouth and fingers on her gentled.
“It’s all right, little girl,” Ky murmured softly, though his eyes were still blazing and there was a rigid lump in the crotch of his black leather trousers where his shaft must be. “Just come down and let yourself relax. The first time can be intense.”
“Very intense,” Dani agreed and laughed shakily. “Now I know you’re truly not a shag-ra,” she told Ky, smiling at him. “No sha-gra could or would give such intense pleasure.”
“I’m glad it felt good for you, little girl.” His eyes were filled with need as he looked at her. “Gods, you’re beautiful when you come.”
“Thank you,” Dani whispered, feeling her cheeks heat. Gods, she couldn’t believe she’d let the big Kindred touch her like that—so intimately in a way no female should ever be touched except by the male who owned her.
And yet, she argued with herself. It’s not like he really touched me—not down below, at least. That was all the power of his mind—he never laid a hand on me.
The thought staved off any guilt she was temped to feel and she was able to smile again and stroke his hair and the short black whiskers which were growing on his strong jaw. When he’d first been taken his cheeks had been smooth but now they were rough—rough and silky at the same time. Dani enjoyed their texture greatly. In fact, she felt like she never wanted to stop touching the big Kindred.
And for his part, Ky seemed more than willing to be touched. He leaned into her hands, clearly relishing her small fingers on his skin and turned his head to place soft, hot kisses on her palms and wrists which made Dani’s heart start to pound all over again.
A low rumbling growl from the big Kindred’s stomach drew Dani back from the dream-like state of satiated pleasure she’d somehow fallen into.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed. “We’ve been together all this time and I haven’t even fed you yet!”
“I don’t mind,” Ky murmured. “I’d rather be Touching you than doing anything else.”
“Still, we have to keep your s
trength up.” Feeling in her pocket, Dani found the meat rolls she brought. She still had the wine too and she spent the last half hour it was safe to be in the cell with him feeding the big Kindred and slaking his thirst.
At last, however, she knew the banquet would be ending. It was time to go.
Dani cleaned up, making sure to pick up everything she’d brought with her in order to leave no trace of her presence behind. Still, she felt reluctant to go. If only she could stay with Ky and talk to him some more! The pleasure he had given her made her feel curiously close to him—so close she almost couldn’t bear to leave him.
“You’d better go now, little girl,” he said gently as she lingered around the doorway to the hidden corridor. “My guards will be back soon.”
Dani felt her stomach turn over. What if the guards whipped him again? What if they did something worse? Beat him or blinded him or broke his bones? She couldn’t stand that, she told herself. She would rather let them break her own bones than know that Ky had been harmed.
For a moment she considered turning off the shielded magnetic field which held his manacles to the ferromagnetic plate on the wall but one thought stopped her: there was no way Ky could get out of the palace by himself.
The mirrored halls were too bright and open and he was so big he would be extremely visible. So big she doubted he would fit into the small, dark passages Dani herself used for getting around the palace.
She couldn’t bear the thought of him being killed—of the guards converging on him and stabbing him over and over with their pain-spears as they surely would if they thought he had escaped on his own. Such an escape would be considered an act of witchcraft, for how else would he get free of the magno-shackles which held him so securely? They would label him a sha-gra and kill him on sight.
No, she couldn’t bear the idea! At least locked up here in her father’s private cell he was alive and she didn’t have to fear him being killed.
So she kept her mouth shut and simply told him goodnight and promised to try and come again soon—very soon. She prayed to all the gods above and below as she left that the guards would leave Ky alone and not whip him again. She wished she was a male so that she could fight them, or order them not to touch him. But as an inconsequential female, she could do nothing. Even a princess could not order a male around.
With a sigh and a feeling of anxious worry in the pit of her stomach, she stroked Ky’s thick brown hair and scratchy cheek once more and reluctantly left him.
Chapter Eight
A strange thing happened as Dani made her way back to her own rooms, using the secret corridors behind the walls to do so. Normally once she was safely out of the Royal bed chamber, she would simply have gone down the mirrored main hall to her own apartments.
This time, however, she chose to take the hidden passageways. There were still wet spots on her gown over her nipples where Ky had sucked her. Even more embarrassing, was the wet spot on her gown, right over her pussy. As the big Kindred had been stroking her with his whisper fingers, her pussy honey had overflowed, wetting her gown and her inner thighs in a most embarrassing display of need and desire.
So it was that she was taking the narrow, secret passage between her father’s chamber and her own royal apartments when she heard voices on the other side of the wall.
“…quite a beauty, Councilor—you were right,” a harsh, low voice was saying.
“Indeed she is. So you agree she’s worth the rights to the mine?”
“I do indeed, though I have never paid so much for a wife before.”
Dani froze for a moment—who was out there? One of the voices sounded disagreeably familiar but the other she had never heard in her life, she was certain.
Fumbling silently along the wall, she found one of the hidden spy holes and slipped the thin slab of wood which covered it aside. Putting her eye to the hole, she looked out, searching the mirrored hall outside to see who the speakers were.
Her spy hole was too close to the speakers for her to look at them directly but luckily, the glass of the corridor reflected them clearly. Dani bit back a gasp when she recognized Warro, Chieftain of the Thuggors and Councilor Tornk standing close together and speaking in low voices.
“I’ll see to it your path is clear,” Tornk was saying. “And in return, I want the deed to the mines in my hand with your own signature upon it.”
“You shall have the mines when the girl is officially my bride,” Warro growled. “And not before.”
“Very well.” Tornk scowled but nodded. “Let us grip on the bargain then.”
He held out his hand, palm up and Warro spat on his own palm and gripped with the other male.
“Now I must go,” he said in that low, hoarse voice of his. “It is not well to be seen together in this way.”
“Agreed. Until the morrow.” Tornk nodded, his bray-bray ears wagging in a way that would have been comical if what Dani had heard hadn’t made her so nervous. Then both men went in opposite directions down the long mirrored hallway, leaving Dani to wonder what they had been talking about.
Tornk means to broker some kind of marriage deal for Warro, that much is clear, she thought. But marriage to who?
The memory of how Warro had stared and stared at Lavi at the banquet table that night came to her mind but she pushed it away with horror. Surely her father would not consider such a match! He must know what a blood-thirsty, savage Warro was. Giving Lavi to him would be like throwing a spoiled pet lap-canis who had never spent a day outside into a den of wild lupines.
Father wouldn’t do that? Would he? she asked herself uneasily.
He had Ky whipped until he bled. A few days ago you wouldn’t have believed him capable of that either, whispered a troubling little voice in her head. Who knows what he might or might not do?
Dani shook her head. No! She would not believe it of her father. It must be some other female of noble birth that Warro was interested in. After all, there was no shortage of lovely females in the courts of the Monarch. Surely he could find one he liked without taking Lavi.
My Lord will have only the best, whispered the ghostly voice of Ahnai, the girl she had sat beside at the feast, in Dani’s head. She remembered the dead gray eye, bisected by the cruel scar and the boundless despair on the other girl’s face…
Stop it! Stop it right now, Dani—you’re working yourself up over something that’s probably nothing. You probably misunderstood what they were talking about. After all, you only heard the tail end of their conversation. It’s probably nothing at all.
But though she tried and tried to convince herself as she made her way along the narrow dark corridor to her own rooms, she couldn’t quite manage it. Nor could she forget the gleam of avarice she’d seen in Tornk’s ugly visage or the hungry lust in the eyes of Warro.
* * * * *
The next day around noon Lavi was called to the throne room. Since females were not meant to be there (Dani had been the exception until she was barred) it caused quite a stir in the women’s quarters.
“Oh! What can my Royal father want?” Lavi exclaimed, flying around, trying to find the perfect gown to wear.
“Now, now my precious one,” Yana said, smiling. “You know there is only one reason the Monarch, may he live forever, would call you in such a way.”
“It must mean he has made a match for me. Oh, Yana!” Lavi gripped her old nurse’s hands in excitement. “It must mean that Jontu has asked for me and has been granted permission to make me his wife!”
“It must be so.” Yana smiled, happy to see her favorite charge so excited but Dani wasn’t quite so sure this was cause for celebration. She would have liked to slip out of the room and get to her spy hole behind the throne. But Yana’s niece, Geora—a nosey girl who had been hired as a companion to Lavi—was there. Though everyone else was caught up in Lavi’s good news, Geora was keeping a watchful eye on Dani.
They got Lavi ready to go as quickly as possible and then she left with the escort of g
uards who had been sent for her. Apparently this was to be a very solemn and formal occasion.
Dani felt another surge of misgiving. This couldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if Lavi was only being given to a courtier, no matter how highly placed he was in the court.
Something was going on and it didn’t bode well for her sister.
Dani tried several times to leave the room on various pretexts but Geora was always right beside her, asking where she was going and what she was doing. She wouldn’t let Dani leave without going with her—it got so bad Dani wondered if the girl had been paid to watch her.
At last, just when she was deciding she would try to break away from the other girl at a dead run and then dodge around a corner and hide in a secret passageway, Lavi returned.
Gone was her joy, bubbling up like an unquenchable fount. Gone was the gleam in her eyes. Her face looked flat and shocked. In fact, Lavi’s blank expression reminded Dani uneasily of the dead, lifeless look on Ahnai’s face at the banquet the night before.
Yana saw there was something amiss at once.
“What is it, my precious one?” she asked, flying to Lavi’s side, her wrinkled features twisted with worry. “What’s wrong? Are you not to be married after all?”
“I am to be married, all right,” Lavi spoke in a shocked whisper which was difficult to hear. “But not to Jontu.”
“Oh dear, my sweet!” Yana fluttered around her, wringing her hands in agitation. “Oh my—that’s too bad. Too bad!”
“Who then?” Dani asked, dread filling her. “Who are you to marry?”
Lavi’s face worked as though she could barely get the words out.
“I…I am to be given to…to Warro,” she whispered at last. “I am to be one of his wives—his most treasured wife, or so…so he tells me.”
Then she burst into tears.
Dani felt like someone had dumped a bucket of icy water over her head. So Lavi had been the female Warro and Tornk were bargaining over last night. But how had Tornk gotten her father to agree with such a plan? What could he have said to convince a loving father to give up his youngest daughter to a monster who hit and cut and abused his wives? Who beat them for his own amusement and killed them if they didn’t conceive?