The Kingdoms of Evil (64 page)

Freetrick tried to control his breathing. Tried not to look at her.

"You would like that, my lord. Would you not?"

"No." Freetrick squeezed his eyes shut. "Don't be…disgusting."

There was a frustrated noise from the bed. "It was my hope that, since my lord obviously dislikes submitting to me, he might prefer dominating over me. Those being the only two alternatives available."

"Bloodbyrn," Freetrick turned around, saw her again, and turned his eyes determinedly upward. "There's a lot more to sex than just one person dominating the other. Apparently."

"Then what shall we do, my lord, you and I?"

"I've been giving it a lot of thought, actually." Freetrick turned and sat on the edge of his bed, still carefully not looking at her. "We all saw this morning that I can't let people think that we're not uh…Anyway." Freetrick tried to restart his train of thought. "Sticking to you seems like a good way of keeping everyone else off me—giving me some time…" he would not tell her for what. "And if what you want is a child…I…uh…guess that would be all right with me, too." At least it would mean that they weren't going to kill him, Freetrick thought, "so yes, I'll throw in my lot with you, Bloodbyrn. But if you and I are going to be together, we need to lay some ground rules. We need to really talk about what we're doing here. Do you think you could do that?"

There was a sigh from behind him. "When I asked what we should do," Bloodbyrn said, "I was referring to my lord's preferences regarding sexual position."

"Argh!"

"Well," Bloodbyrn explained, "when my lord said there was a lot more to sex, I assumed he had something novel in mind."

"Bloodbyrn, I'm not going to have sex with you while you're tied up!"

A pause.

"Then I suppose you had better untie me."

Freetrick hesitated. He should untie Bloodbyrn, but that would mean he would have to turn around.

"My lord," she said, "why are you not looking at me?"

"Hmph."

"Look at me!"

The command in Bloodbyrn's voice whipped his head around before Freetrick could think about it. And Freetrick found himself looking at his naked bride.

He flinched. Aversion training indeed. But of course Bloodbyrn couldn't hit him. For the first time, it was actually safe to look.

Bloodbyrn was…small. Smaller than he usually thought of her, anyway. Maybe part of the impression was just the large bed framing her, but Bloodbyrn, minus her voluminous layers of stiff clothing, looked tiny. Her nude waist wasn't as unnaturally narrow as it was under her corset, of course, but it looked much softer and more inviting—and it still looked as if Freetrick could stretch his hand over her belly and cover the whole thing. Without all those lacy petticoats and reinforced underwear, he could see how that waist flared out into her hips, then out more at the tops of her thighs. Without underwear. Freetrick swallowed and, shockingly, recalled his wedding night without any reference to zombies.

Bloodbyrn pulled against the ropes and her crotch seemed to lunge at him.

"Whoah!" Freetrick tumbled backward, "what the hell, Bloodbyrn?"

"I was growing impatient."

"Well…stop!"

Bloodbyrn settled down, and Freetrick got off the floor, thoughts of sex banished. Maybe he could untie her hands without having to look too much at the rest of her, and she could do her own feet.

Bloodbyrn's hands were tied by what looked like black leather to a pair of metal rings pounded into the stone wall, apparently for this purpose alone. He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed again and began to tug at the right-hand one.

"My lord," said Bloodbyrn after a while, "why are you afraid of sex?"

Freetrick looked down at her. "I'm not afrai—gah! Stop doing that!"

"You are afraid of sex. Demonstrably. Why is that?"

"Maybe it's your aversion-training," Freetrick grumbled.

"Hmm…Doubtful." She said, "would that I could take credit for such a masterful example of behavior modification, but no. More likely my lord's…difficulty is not of my doing."

"Really?" Strike out whatever maniac had tied this stupid leather thong. Fiendish only began to describe it.

"Yes," said Bloodbyrn, "at first I believed it to be the work of another dominatrix, but now it seems clear to me that my lord's sexual irregularities are the results of childhood indoctrination."

"Uh huh?" said Freetrick, and then "strike it!" as one of his nails bent backward.

"My lord will see a pair of protruding ends on the underside of the wall bracket," said Bloodbyrn. "Pull the lower one."

"Oh," he did. The binding slid through the ring as Bloodbyrn pulled her arm down.

"The other side now. Excellent." The sheets rustled behind his back and Bloodbyrn leaned forward to untie the thongs around her feet. It was surprisingly hard not to watch her do that.

"So, to continue," said Bloodbyrn, "what is sex like in The Rationalist Union, my lord?"

"I don't know," said Freetrick, "I never had any."

"So my lord has informed me. It explains much, but my question was meant to be more general. Ah." There was the sound of a possibly-leather thong hitting the ground. "I am glad I am out of that confinement. In the future, I believe it is you who shall be tied up. I in the Rationalist Union, which gender is most often on top? What sort of peripheral equipment is most commonly used? This is the sort of information to which I was referring."

"Uh…" said Freetrick. "I don't know."

"My lord, I am only endeavoring to make our rendezvous more familiar for you. Obfuscation will be detrimental to your interests."

"I don't know!" Freetrick glared at her through the corner of his eye, "I've never done any of that stuff."

The bed moved under him as Bloodbyrn settled onto it behind him. "My lord's experience is even more limited than I had supposed. All right, then. What of erotic play?"

"I…uh…haven't done that either."

"Oh come now, my lord! I am not speaking only of oral sex, but any of the kind of experimentation to which the young are so prone. Such as the one where the boy tries to see if his teeth can draw blood from the neck of the girl."

"Yuck!"

"Very well then. What of verbal flirtation? Exchanges of suggestive gifts? Kissing? Arranging the assassinations of rivals? Has my lord done anything romantic ever in his life?"

"Well, uh." Freetrick considered the lofty peaks of his pre-Skrean sexual awakening. "There was this girl at school."

"Yes?"

"One time I went to a play with her and put my arm around her."

"And?" He felt her little hands sliding up his back.

"And she wouldn't talk to me after that."

"Most likely she was struck dumb with frustration." Bloodbyrn's arms slid down to either side of his neck, and there was a pleasant squish as she pressed herself against him. Her breath warmed his ear. "My lord, you must take what you want!" Her cheek brushed across his as Freetrick turned his face toward hers. "If the woman is willing, then you will have her, and if unwilling, then the resulting battle will at least be amusing."

Freetrick blinked. "Yeah," he said sourly "call me crazy, but I would rather be nice to the girl."

"Ah yes, my lord's tenderness fetish." Bloodbyrn was sliding her body over his shoulder, pressing against him as she did so in a way that moved his upper body inexorably downward. "let us see what we can do to re-educate him." She reached out and plucked his new pince-nez from his nose.

"Gluh—," said Freetrick. Then her lips were on his.

Freetrick's eyes squeezed shut.

Her lips parted over his, her tongue flickering against his mouth. His hand was behind her head. He pressed her closer to him, his own mouth open. There was the hardness of her teeth, the outline of her nose and cheek pressed against his, and then individual sensations vanished in the heat that seemed to rise from his chest. His heart ached with it. And his lips burned with it. His lips…"OW!"

Freetrick jerked backward, nearly kneeing Bloodbyrn in the belly. His hand disentangled itself from her hair and clapped against his face. Freetrick probed, eyes crossing, trying to determine whether Bloodbyrn had actually bitten half of his lower lip off. "Ow," he said again, prodding the gash, "you striking bit me!"

"Of course I bit you!" Bloodbyrn shook her head, blinking rapidly. "That was…I mean…I was endeavoring to…uh!" She ran a hand through her tangled dark hair, "Most men of my acquaintance enjoyed that stimulation immensely."

"Well, I didn't!" Freetrick pressed his hand against his jaw. "Burning libraries that hurt!"

Bloodbyrn made another frustrated noise. "Really, my lord. You are so squeamish." She flopped down on the bed. "Just how am I to predict your multifarious sexual stumbling blocks?"

"Well, how am I supposed to predict your striking weird fetishes?"

Bloodbyrn sighed. "Well. There is nothing for it but to wait until my lord's small discomfiture has passed, I suppose, then resume." Bloodbyrn sat back on the bed, her legs folded under her bottom. Even through the burning in his lower lip, Freetrick couldn't help but notice the perfectly balanced hourglass outline of her body. When she was upright, Bloodbyrn's breasts stood out from her ribs like drops of water sliding down the curved surface of a wine glass. Or beads of sweat—

He blinked. "No, Bloodbyrn, I can't stay here all day trying to have sex with you."

"Oh yes?" said Bloodbyrn, rolling her shoulders, "and why is that, my lord?"

"Well," blustered Freetrick, trying and failing to keep his eyes from tracking the tiny, perfect arcs made by her nipples, "I have—uh—stuff to do." He swallowed. "And anyway, I think we need to talk about this before we—"

Bloodbyrn leaned forward, shifting her weight from her folded legs to her arms. Her spine curved down, and her breasts swung forward. "I do not think you need to talk at all, my lord." She looked up into his face, eyes half-lidded, a hint of white tooth glistening from between her lips.

Freetrick's own lip throbbed. "No, Bloodbyrn. Not—not now." He slid sideways and scooted past Bloodbyrn off the bed.

Bloodbyrn settled onto her back. "This is most frustrating."

"No kidding," growled Freetrick. His body, apparently no longer worried about being chewed to pieces, had turned its attention back to the fact that it wasn't having sex. "But we really need to talk about things."

"What things?" Bloodbyrn murmured.

"About the plans we need to make," said Freetrick. "About what exactly you and your father and want from me. And about what I can expect to get in return from—"

She rolled over onto her side, and Freetrick stopped talking. All of a sudden, her waist went way down, then flared back up into a vaulting hip and thigh in a beautiful curved line. Once again civil unrest wracked Freetrick's body.

"These are details we can discus at our leisure, my lord," she said, smiling. "Or rather, after our leisure." Freetrick stared. Her upper breast was resting on the lower one. "Come to me, my lord."

"No." Freetrick put his foot down, and winced, as the vibration through his leg jostled the dissident elements. It felt like they were lighting fires down there. "Call it a bargaining chip. I'm only going to…ensure the succession with you after I'm confident I can, uh, expect to live through the ordeal."

"Perhaps you will not." She rolled onto her stomach, her upper body supported by her elbows. Long muscles moved down a back that tapered, sank, then widened and rose again. A shipment of arms and ammunition arrived at the headquarters of the revolutionaries in Freetrick's pants. "Perhaps my lord would like to find out whether he can live through me or not." A knee bent and a leg rose, tapering along its length to a perfect, tiny foot.

Freetrick stared at the foot, the ruling council in his head considering an offer of cease-fire. He swallowed, and stared.

"Yes, my puppet," Bloodbyrn purred. "Dance for me."

"Guh?" Civil administration and dissident elements alike stopped paused in their battle, united again by blaring danger sirens. "Woah," Freetrick shook his head, "not sexy, Bloodbyrn."