Rituals of Passion (16 page)

Dane’s chuckle drowned out the crowd’s fascination as she met his amused  gaze.  “So you are unskilled with the Maran tiles,  my  little bride. I’d not anticipated that, ormy plans over the last two days might not have materialized.”

She hadn’t a clue what he was talking about,  but remained too uneasy to ask.

“All things  considered, however,” he went on,  “I couldn’t be more pleased at your lack of expertise. And I trust that before it’s over, you will be pleased by it as well.”

At this, a few snickers and some light laughter rose from the crowd, and finally she found her voice. “What happens now?”

“You shall see,” he said, and then  he began to look  out over the crowd and, to her surprise, call out men’s names. Each of the  men he addressed eased their way from the crowd to line up before her pedestal and  she found herself once again curious if her  pussy could be seen from their vantage point.

When all the men had assembled, the last  one being the now-familiar Kells—Dane’s

best friend—her husband addressed each of them.

“Havlin and Galt, you shall take the breasts. Van, Skylar, Melton, the cocks. And

Kells, the pussy is all yours, my friend.”

Then he turned his attention back  on Maven, who had begun to shiver with theoddest mix of fear and anticipation she’d ever experienced. “Maven, my bride, we are about to commence with the Rituals of Passion. These rituals, determined by the Maran tiles, are designed to  ready you for the marriage bed and the loss  of your virginity.  The tiles you leave on the board are believed to  be predestined, to give you exactly what you need.”

“What I…need?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from  quivering.

Dane smiled. “Yes, bride, what you need.  What you need to be ready for me when we adjourn to  the bedchamber this evening. My hand-selected men will provide you the stimulations set forth by the remaining tiles in order to excite you, to prepare you for fucking. Your job, bride, is merely to relax and  enjoy, to  let my men complete theirtasks, to let the fate of  the Maran tiles play out. Would you like another glass of wine before the rituals begin?”

“Yes,” she murmured, totally stunned. Not that  she needed  to be any more intoxicated  than she already was, but anything to stall the unbelievable proceedings another few moments.

Anya climbed the stairs bearing a fresh goblet of wine.

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“You must  drink fast, Maven,” Dane said, a  hint of teasing enjoyment in his  voice, “for I’ve waited long enough  to watch this sacred event and am ready to witness your pleasure.”

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Chapter Ten

At Dane’s prodding, Maven nervously gulped the wine, nearly draining the goblet in one long drink. She finished the last of  it, aware that everyone was waiting on her, her anxiety increasing with each passing second.

As soon as she finished, Anya returned  to take the goblet from her, and Kaelen ascended the platform as well.  She stopped directly before Maven and peered down into her eyes. “Are you ready?”

No.
 
Ares above, how could anyone be ready for what she’d just been told was aboutto happen?  “Yes,” she said anyway, the taste  of the wine still lingering on her tongue.

At that, Kaelen turned to the right and nodded her head toward someone Maven couldn’t see, and a slow drumbeat began to  echo through the hall. Kaelen moved withthe rhythm, walking around behind Maven’s  chair to begin undoing the braid in her hair—the braid that signified her  innocence…no longer, she supposed.

Swaying to  the steady pulse of the drum,  Kaelen unwound her hair—Maven felt it growing looser and looser against her head, and Kaelen worked quicker as thedrumbeat began to speed up, until finally  her locks fell free. The drumbeat  was racing now, pounding out a savage, wild rhythm  that Maven felt both in her heart and her cunt as Kaelen took great care spreading her long hair around her shoulders.

“Let the rites begin!” Dane shouted, his voice filling the  large room.

The two men he’d called Havlin and Galt began to approach the stairs. Maven’sstomach contracted with horror, even though she could not deny that  both were attractive and the idea  of them touching her  was not wholly unappealing.  Havlin was aman of dark hair and olive skin—his brown  eyes, when they met hers, delivered a hint of fire. Galt was slightly older, pale but handsome, with long blond hair pulled back ina low tail. Both men were garbed in leather pants and stood bare-chested but for theleather bands that crossed their muscled torsos.

Maven felt helpless, like prey, as the two men converged on either  side of her chair.  She bit her lip—nervous, excited— then watched as Havlin reached up, letting the back of his hand skim lightly  over the high ridge  of one breast. A blaze  of lust arced through her, coming to rest in her pussy.

Galt leaned in next, slow and reverent, grazing the tips of his fingers across the paleflesh of her other breast. Again, a sharp pang of pleasure spread through her at thetouch and her cunt surged with moisture beneath the short leather skirt.

At that point, Havlin returned, leaning in  to rain soft kisses across her upper breast, each of them like a shockingly enjoyable little bee sting that left her sighing with heat. When Havlin backed away this time, she looked  up  at  Galt  in  anticipation.  Suddenly

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this was not so terrible, but more like  a journey—a very good, hot journey—to

womanhood.

Galt’s kisses to her ever-so-responsive skin delivered the same delights—even more when his hand came up underneath, cupping  the lower half of her breast through theleather. She watched him kiss her, lightly  kneading her sensitive flesh.

When Havlin returned, however, Galt didn’t back away. Both men’s eyes were shaded now, looking entranced with the rituals they’d been chosen to perform.
 
More,
she thought.
 
I want more.
 
Because it felt deliciously lovely. And because her husbandwished it,
 
demanded
 
it. Because he took pleasure in
 
her
 
pleasure. Even through her hatefor him, she yearned to excite the  big brute. Her cunt hummed.

Havlin, too, began to caress her breast through the leather, and then, as if by plan, each man deftly drew down the stiff black leather that hid her nipples, folding it neatly in on  itself  so that the undersides of her breasts were still supported, but her nipples

were bared.

Maven was only vaguely aware of the  crowd’s reaction—a few heavy sighs, a masculine moan—as the men began to  tenderly  caress her breasts, kneading, gently

twirling or  tweaking her beaded nipples. Each touch seemed to connect straight to  her pussy and she wondered how her poor cunt  would stand this joyous torment and all  that was to come. She heard her own breath—heavy, labored. She felt her breasts heave  slightly in their capable hands. But mostly, she felt Dane’s eyes upon her, dark and piercing.

Havlin bent to rake a slow lick around her nipple and, oh Ares, if she wasn’t wet  before, she certainly was now! Her heated sigh  echoed upward and she felt lost to the  sensations as she watched the dark-complexioned man drag his wet tongue in a circle  around her  breast’s hard peak. “Mmm,” she purred in response, her cunt swelling.

Galt, too, leaned in, but rather than lick  her, he instead locked his mouth around hernipple and pulled. “Oh!” she said, soaking the  chair  beneath her. She watched him work, watched him tugging, and felt the  marvelous sensation all through her.

She bit her  lip and instinctually raised her hands to  run them through the men’s hair and also to hold  them in place—she didn’t want them to ever stop laving her breasts.

It was then that her gaze flitted upward  and locked with Dane’s. His lids lowered,leaving his  blue eyes to burn on  her like  mere slits of fire. He looked pleased—and heated. If anyone had told her yesterday she’d find herself in such a position, she’d have sworn she would dart her gaze away from his, sworn she would be horrified to have strange men’s hands and mouths on her,  let alone to have it  happen in  public. Butnothing was as she might have  predicted—it seemed with Dane, the abnormal turned normal, the  impossible turned natural and easy, good.

His eyes on hers added to the slow burn  in her cunt. Suddenly, her pleasure seemed as if it was his pleasure as well. And the  hands and mouths that caressed her sosurely—they were not Dane’s hands or Dane’s mouth, yet it  almost felt as if they were.

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He’d chosen these men for her,  after all. He’d  wanted to see it happen, wanted to watch them pleasure her.

She bit her lip and stared deeper into his  eyes as the men at her breasts became more ravenous. Both of them suckled her  now, leaving her helpless but to sigh and

moan at the sensations.

“Van,” he said without ever taking his eyes off her. “Bring the first cock.”

She should have been frightened anew  at this command, but she wasn’t. Her  pleasure was too profound—and her new husband intended for her to have more of it.

The young man with tawny hair  that fell in waves around his face reminded her slightly of Donnell. As he approached her, she waited with some anticipation  for him to reveal his cock, but to her surprise, he instead held in  his hand  a cylindrical object— clearly some sort of smooth, glazed clay representation of a man’s shaft. Although it was considerably smaller than the ones she’d seen so far, both  in width and length.

“Part your legs, bride,” Dane instructed  her in a voice that left no room for  argument.

Ares, even ten minutes ago, the idea of that would have been an abomination, but  now Maven simply did as she was told, spreading her  legs in the wide chair,  watching  as the action pushed her miniscule skirt to  her hips, revealing her smooth cunt, open  and pink, for all to see.

Again, the  crowd in the hall responded— gasps, sensuous sighs—but Maven was  too lost to the rituals to care. Havlin and Galt still licked and suckled her breasts as Van knelt between her thighs.

She waited as he dipped the clay shaft into a small bowl of something wet, gooey.  Then he poised the dripping rod at her pussy.

“Wider,” Dane said and she knew he meant to  spread her legs even farther apart.  She obeyed, keenly aware of the knob pushing against her cunt. “Now,” Dane told Van  and the young man began to make small, tender jabs at  the part of her which  she knew  should open to it. One part of her couldn’t fathom wanting such an object  inside her,  but her more sensual side yearned for the slick rod’s entry—anything to ease her ache.

As the other two men continued to delight her sensitive breasts, Maven bit her lip

and found herself voluntarily pushing against the small rod aimed at her opening.  When brief flashes of  sanity hit, she couldn’t believe this was her, the brave, strong  Maven who swore to never want  Dane the Dreadful…but she did. Oh, she did, and her  every sensation and movement now seemed unbreakably linked to him.

She pulled in her breath as the thin rod  slowly entered her pussy. What a strange sensation, to be entered, yet almost as quickly as it happened, she longed for something more there.

“Oh!” she cried on a breath of delight when  Van began to move the small shaft in  and out of her. “Oh Ares!” she sobbed, understanding that this was being fucked—that  Dane’s chosen young man was fucking her with  the clay cock, simulating the real event.

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Again she bit her lip, found her  hips rising off the chair slightly to meet the thrusts. She still held Havlin and Galt  snug against her breasts, her hands in their  hair.  Shebegan to feel lightheaded, as if she were floating, as if all of them  were adrift on some fluffy white cloud high over Caralon.

“Skylar, the next cock,” Dane announced, at  once breaking the  spell she’d fallen under and making her wonder why she needed  another shaft when the one wielded by  Van was fucking her quite nicely.

She gasped when he suddenly withdrew it, staring down at him in shock.
 
Why are you stopping?

Dane’s knowing chuckle drew her gaze to him even as her cunt seemed to wither at the loss of Van’s tool. “Fear not, bride. This  next cock will fill you even better and make you even more ready for my own.”

Lusty snickers wafted through the crowd,  but all Maven could concentrate  on was the need rushing through her body and the feel  of Dane’s eyes upon her as she allowed herself to be pleasured  by all these other men.

Skylar was young, blond, his expression  one  of rank confidence—and the clay shaft in his  hand  was both wider and longer than  the one Van had used. Her thighs remained

spread wide, and he looked down  on her parted cunt with an undeniable hunger that made her even hotter inside. In one sense, she was starting to be a  bit afraid—this cock was much  bigger, more like the boys who had fucked Lavonia during Maven’s Orientation—yet her body still burned to take it inside.

Kneeling before her, the blond man dipped the fake cock in the same gooey mixture  that Van had used a few minutes earlier, then  pressed the head of  the shaft against her.  Oooooh, Ares, she wanted it—wanted it inside her while Dane watched.
 
Please, now.
 
A  silent but desperate entreaty.