The Queen's Consorts (18 page)

She felt empowered and invigorated and so wet with need she couldn’t help but slip her free hand between her legs. She moaned, the sound of it vibrating against Taryen’s cock.

“Come here. We’ll do it together.” Taryen used his hold on her hair to tug lightly. His chest continued to heave under the onslaught of pleasure. His voice was low and gravelly in a way that caused a shiver to dance over Sari’s skin. “I need to taste you.”

She heard the truth in his words. Taryen craved her taste as deeply she craved his. Rather than give him what he wanted and switch their positions by crawling over him, she simply slipped first one and then two fingers inside her wet pussy, which gripped the digits hungrily. Her entire body strained for real penetration, but knowing she couldn’t have it, she just sucked his cock harder and savored the hard grunt of pleasure he gave her for it.

Then she stopped touching herself, reached up, and held her hand out to him. She thought he’d complain and say something about rules and society. Instead he grabbed her hand and sucked her glistening fingers into his mouth greedily.

Gods, Taryen was the embodiment of pure sex at that moment.

Sari released him with a
pop
and surged up, pulled her fingers away to capture his lips in a powerful kiss. He returned it enthusiastically, pushing his tongue into her mouth and leaving the slight tang of her sex in its wake. It was naughty, so completely decadent, and made her think about kissing him after he found release in her mouth. With their tongues brushing like this, it would bring their essences together in a way they could actually taste.

She pulled back breathlessly and looked down at his darkly handsome face. “Is it against the rules to find release in my mouth?”

He
nodded,
his dark eyes alive with a wild sort of fire. “For a sister, most definitely, but you’re not—” He took a deep, cooling breath as if looking for sanity and then sighed as he reached up once more with both hands to brush her curls away from her face. Even with the raging lust, there was
a sadness
to his voice he couldn’t mask. “Fighting this battle is pointless…for both of us.”

She knew it too, and they hadn’t even waged a noble war against it. After this night they were facing a sinister and ominous future, one that was very likely short-lived for Sari. Somehow, Laysa knew they’d fall. They didn’t even need that much of a push, and it made everything that had happened since she’d arrived seem so much crueler.

“If you could have one night to find true happiness, what would you do?” Taryen asked, his voice still aching, but he did a very good job of hiding the uncharacteristic bout of sorrow.

Before tonight, Sari wouldn’t have had an answer to that question. Now she looked down at Taryen’s magnificent body, one so surreally beautiful it was meant for a queen, and she knew the answer. She tilted her head and ran a hand down his chest, over his abdominal muscles, watching the fine sheen of goose bumps following in the wake.

Her only regret was Calder wasn’t there with them.

“I don’t want them to hurt you,” she whispered, realizing she’d already accepted her own fate and really, it didn’t feel like too high of a price to pay as she admired Taryen. “I’d rather kill myself right now.”

“They’ll hurt me anyway.” He sounded disturbingly unconcerned about that part of it. “It’s very likely we’ll die together. I’ll never stand by willingly and let them separate us again. So we’ll take tonight and fight with the dawn.”

She lifted her gaze back to him, hearing the truth in his words. “You want me?”

“No, I
need
you,” he corrected her with that low hitch of desire in his tone that was impossible to mistake. “You’re like sunshine to me, and I never realized just what that meant until now.”

She smiled at the compliment as tears filled her eyes. “I feel the same about you.”

It occurred to her they’d only met a few days ago, but suddenly Taryen and Calder were her whole world, and it didn’t even seem odd. It was all shockingly right, as if the broken pieces of her life snapped back together with their appearance in her reality and now she couldn’t fathom being without them. It was as if she hadn’t started living until the moment she woke up in their room surrounded by burning herbs and low, concerned male voices.

She leaned down and placed another kiss against Taryen’s chest. Then another, running her lips
down
his abdominals once more. If she had one night to find happiness, she was determined to make the most of it.

When she took him into her mouth a second time, the sound Taryen made was one of pure bliss and surrender to the night. It dragged Sari down with him, and it washed away any thought of loss or fear along with it.

She’d just found out she’d likely die in the morning, but she was the happiest she’d ever been in her life because she was with Taryen now, and it was all that mattered.

Calder crawled to the curtain that led backstage after Laysa left. She didn’t like to see the cleanup. She got her pleasure. She got her blood, even more of a high than climax for her, and now she was off to find her lifemates. She’d spend the rest of the night taking out her passions on them, and Calder had to wonder if Macro knew what a horrible existence his brother Garid lived.

Calder’s reality wasn’t stellar, but he’d much rather be a consort to serve many, than one of the lifemates forced to serve Laysa exclusively and endure her twisted tastes relentlessly. Most of the sisters simply used him for his tongue and fingers, not that it seemed like an improvement over pain at the moment. Between the two, he would have chosen a hundred more lashes if it could have spared him from pleasuring Laysa afterward.

Calder was a few heartbeats away from throwing up, and he grabbed the first cup of water he found backstage. He drank deeply and then swished it around in his mouth, trying desperately to get rid of her taste. He didn’t want to think why Laysa’s taste on his tongue was suddenly and unexpectedly so repulsive he couldn’t bare it. He had a lot of things to complain about in life, but using his tongue on a female, even Laysa, was usually far down on the list. If he was pleasuring her, she wasn’t ripping into him, and that was always preferred.

Until now.

He spit out the water and drank again, a horrible shudder seizing him. He spit it out again, finding that he was out of water.

“Can I help you, my lord?”

Calder turned to the lone attendant who was tasked with cleaning up the backstage area and hadn’t been forced to leave. He saw her pity, knowing she’d witnessed what Laysa had done to him, but he was immune to that sort of shame. “I need wine.
Something strong.”

She turned around quickly, searching for something as Calder collapsed on the floor and stretched out on his stomach. His back was on fire, the pain of it consumed him, and he just lay there, feeling his heart beat through the wounds as the blood rolled down his sides and pooled around him.

“This is the only one I could find.”

Calder lifted his head, staring at the glass of vibrantly green wine she held out. It figured, but he needed the taste gone and in his mind only alcohol would purge it. He struggled to sit up and took the wine. He swished it in his mouth the same as he had the water. He spit it into the empty cup as another shudder seized him.

He felt possessed. He knew the attendant likely thought he’d finally lost his mind as he sat there for several minutes, uncaring about the open, bleeding wounds on his back, instead focused on rinsing and spitting, making the effects of the wine even worse as more herb entered his system.

Rather than judge him, she sat next to him, tucking her long, black robes under her and being careful of the blood still on the floor around him. Calder looked at her curiously, not recognizing this one who, in his opinion, was too young to be dealing with the aftermath of a dinner performance. He guessed her to be not more than sixteen, and he felt his cheeks heat in a way they hadn’t in a long time, especially when he considered what he’d been forced to do at sixteen.

“Look.” She pointed to the row of windows when Calder took another long drink of the spiked wine. “I’ve never seen them so clearly before.”

Calder spit it out, hoping to have rid himself of the last of Laysa’s taste, and followed the attendant’s gaze. He gaped at the round orbs of Auroria’s two moons resting side by side in the dark sky. Despite his injuries, he got up and walked to the windows. He tilted his head back, spying the sea of stars framing the moons that were so bright it rendered him speechless.

“If it was day, we’d feel the sun.”

Calder turned to look at her in surprise, realizing she was right. The sky was completely clear of clouds. It’d be a bright spring day if the sun was out. There was only one person who could bring spring to a region, and only one thing that was supposed to make it this stunningly beautiful and clear, as if the person who held the pulse of their planet’s energy in her hands didn’t have a single thought in her head or a care in the world save love and beauty.

“I have to go,” he whispered, still fighting his shock as he looked to the moons once more, unable to believe what he was seeing.

He’d caught peeks of them through the clouds many times over the years, but this was something completely different. He turned to leave without clothes to cover his nakedness and injuries. The desperateness of the situation hit him with such velocity he didn’t even feel the pain in his back anymore.

“Take my robes.” The attendant pulled them off without hesitation. “They’re designed to be loose. They should fit, and they’ll hide the blood from her.”

Calder took them without questioning how she knew. Everyone in their entire region could see evidence of Sari and Taryen being together. Sometime much later, Calder was going to beat Macro for not confirming to him what they’d all been suspecting; then he was going to kick himself for not knowing it beyond a shadow of a doubt from the first moment he’d laid eyes on Sari and wanted her. He’d been ignorant to take the captain of the guard at his word.

What reason could Macro have to hide her in full view?

Though even in his fury, Calder had to acknowledge Haven and Macro were at the assembly when usually they avoided it in protest. Calder knew now they’d been guarding her all along, allowing Sari to somewhat adjust before they literally dumped the weight of the world on her shoulders.

But they weren’t there to guard her now. The herb would have already rendered them useless. How convenient for those in power who would seek to destroy the queen if she tried to retake her throne. Laysa likely knew too. Hell, the whole Sacred City had been whispering and pondering it since Sari arrived, but what proof did they have? Her claim to the throne would need to be verified, and it would likely take time they didn’t have when dealing with Laysa and the sister council.

But none of that mattered when they were dealing with nature and a ritual that had been part of their planet for as long as time had been recorded, perhaps since the very beginning if the scriptures were true. Somewhere in this palace Taryen and Sari were doing something that should have happened when they turned seventeen. They were sealing their bond and solidifying Sari as queen. The full powers of the great mother didn’t surge until she became an adult, and she wasn’t officially grown until she bonded with her consorts.

Calder was fairly certain one would do. As long as Sari had Taryen, it was enough to ensure the monarchy would carry on. He would make her happy and bring the sun back to their people. Joy was Taryen’s gift. He could easily manage the task. More so, he would one day plant his seed and give their planet a new queen to carry the burden Sari’s mother had left her with.

He pulled on the black robes quickly in his haste, mumbling through the fabric. “Thank you.”

“Save her for our people,” the attendant pleaded solemnly. “Preserve the monarchy.”

“I plan to.”

Calder pulled the hood over his head as he walked to the curtain that led to the banquet hall as a white-hot surge of determination rushed through him. Laysa would not win. That bitch couldn’t have Sari, not as long as Calder still took breath into his lungs. This would very likely be the night he died, because he was willing to do anything to get Taryen and Sari to safety.

* * * *

If the day came where Calder was restored to his place as one of the three rulers of their people, he would find that young attendant who so kindly donated her robes and not only free her but give her enough Tourillan gold to feed her for ten lifetimes. The black attendant’s robes made him completely invisible. It didn’t matter that they made him the tallest, thickest attendant in existence; none of the Sacred City’s brothers and sisters bothered to look at him. Their cruel rules were playing in his favor, and he used it to his fullest potential as he made his way to his and Taryen’s apartments.

As he walked past the massive but wilted and dying Tree of Good Fortune in the main courtyard, he could see the masses of people standing around staring at the sky. The queen’s guards seemed to be mobilizing. Not that it was any comfort. Twice as many brothers were wearing their swords across their backs, sisters held bolter weapons, and no one seemed to know whom to trust. While many had been loyal to the queen while she was gone, most of the Rayians were like grain that bent to the way of the wind. They would fight the queen’s guards if they thought Laysa was the one more likely to win. The nervousness in the Sacred City was palpable, and though Calder moved swiftly, he still listened.

“It’s her.
The new one.
I heard she left with Taryen,” one of the sisters was saying to her friend. “Do you think she’ll recognize us from the banquet hall tonight?”

“What do I have to fear?” Her friend shrugged. “I was at the back of the room.”

“Liar!
You watched like the rest of us.”

“Well, at least I haven’t used the consorts for my pleasure. Don’t think Taryen won’t remember you. I know you’ve used your connections with the council to have him service you at least twice.”