by Penny Dawn
He staved off the effects of the girl's touch and, nudging her aside, made his way closer to the bed. He peeled the women off Caroline's breasts, and they quickly went to work on one another, as if they'd been drugged as well.
Once he'd shrouded Caroline's body in a velvet sheet, he scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder. The brunette shoved a pillow between her thighs and thrust against it, moaning and writhing like a cat in heat.
"A better idea, ambassador." The familiar blonde gripped his forearm. "Let's share her, you and me. I'll ride her tongue. You can have whichever hole from whichever girl you prefer--or all, if you so desire."
Heady with need, he brushed his cheek against the curve of Caroline's ass, and imagined licking her from front to back, while this concubine blew his mind. "Come along." He headed for the door.
"I cannot allow you to leave with her. Our heads will be on a chopping block."
"I'm not staying."
"Treason!" The blonde screamed. "Treeeeeason!"
Sebastian picked up his pace as the scurry of steps began to echo in the hall around him. In a blink, the place swarmed with dozens of naked women and Bismallian soldiers tucking their cocks back into their pants. He ducked beyond a heavy drape into a dark room and shot noiselessly toward the window.
He held his breath as footsteps passed in the hall behind him.
A hearty chuckle sounded from across the room.
A sharp turn toward the sound revealed two shadows engaged in a playful game of lick-it-up. Sebastian huddled in the draperies.
"Sebasssssstian," Caroline breathed. Her hips bucked against his shoulder. "Fuck me now. I need you now. Now."
His rod jumped in his pants, even as dread pumped through his veins. The room's other occupants did not appear to have heard her, as they continued in their quest for oral-induced orgasms. He allowed himself to exhale, although he'd yet to devise a plan of escape.
From his vantage point at the window, he spied a gathering of Carman knights stationed just beyond a berm, but not nearly as many troops as the Bismallians now housed in this supposedly neutral territory. He had to warn the Carmans and advise them to retreat before battle ensued.
Not taking another moment for thought, he cranked open the stained glass window and swung a leg over the sill. His fingers tensed against Lady Caroline's soft rear as he peered to the ground. Not too far. Ten or twelve feet at the most.
He closed his eyes and jumped.
His ankle rolled when he hit the grass, but, ignoring the pain, he pressed on, with a giggling lady bouncing on his shoulder. The ground swarmed with cicadas; they landed on his arms, his legs, his face, as he made toward the Carman camp.
The Carman troops drew their bows. The wheesh in the air suggested an arrow had been released and had zipped very near him.
"Caroline!" he hissed into the night air. "I present Lady Caroline!"
"She's gone!" came a thundering boom from the hall. "Search the perimeter. Let no one out alive!"
"Retreat!" Sebastian screamed with all his might. "Retreat!"
An echo of the command came from a knight in the distance, and before he gained a sense of direction, the deafening pounding of hooves drowned the hum of locusts. In a flash, the lady was gone from his arms, swept up by a Carman knight. Moments later, he took an offered hand and, after whirling seconds, found himself straddling a horse.
Between his thighs, seated in front of him, was a most unlikely savior--even less likely that she'd be wearing armor. "Lady Morgana?" Pain shot through his right calf.
"This arrangement is temporary," she said over her shoulder. "I don't plan to make a regular habit of spending any time between your thighs again."
He winced with the throbbing in his lower leg, and looked to see what had pierced him. On sight of the shaft of an arrow, glimmering gold in the moonlight and peeking out one end of his leg, he felt his eyes roll back into his head. "I've been shot."
"Count your blessings. Beau might've fed you to the hippos."
Chapter 11
* * *
"What did I tell you, Morgana?" Sir Beauregard yanked the armor hood from his head and tossed it to a hook in the stables.
"What?" As she gazed up at him with innocent-looking eyes, she shed armor too large for her frame. It found a home alongside his.
"I told you to remain in the palace."
"And thank gods I didn't. He saved my sister! You were going to leave him there...bleeding!"
"I was going to do no such thing!"
"Oh, no? You ordered Preston to shoot him. If I hadn't circled around the hall, he'd be there still!"
"Take them to the infirmary." Beau directed young soldiers to tend to Caroline and Sebastian's unconscious bodies, still slumped on the backs of saddles. "They've been drugged."
"And the ambassador's been shot, but the good Sir Beauregard"--Morgana planted her hands on her hips and challenged him with a stare--"would rather neglect the wound."
"M'lady." Beau wrapped his arms around her, despite the hordes of knights still galloping into the stables. "Thank heaven you're all right."
"Of course I am. You taught me well how to ride."
"When I think of what could've happened..." He lowered his forehead to hers. "You had no business being out there tonight. And in your condition! I specifically told you to stay put."
"When do I ever listen to you?"
"Morgana, you must when it comes to combat action. Now more than ever, with the foreign embassies a threat, as well as Bismalle."
She nodded.
"I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to you, or if you'd lost it." He pressed a hand against her abdomen. "Tell me you feel the same way."
"I do." Her lips brushed a kiss onto his cheek. "But I couldn't bear the thought of waiting for you to return with my sister, knowing you were taking a team of archers with you. Anything could've happened."
"Precisely my point."
"And you were going to leave him there."
"I don't like it, but it seems he's part of this family. I wouldn't have left him."
"But you'd have let him sweat out there for a while."
"Maybe he needs to sweat a little." He felt a grin twitch at the corner of his mouth, despite his attempt to stop it.
"So you ordered him shot?"
"I didn't order Preston to shoot him. I ordered Preston to shoot. I didn't know who he was, only that he had Carrie. I assumed she was his hostage. I would've done the same, even had he been your father." He chucked her under the chin. "I'd expect any one of my men to do the same for our daughter. If, in fact, we have a daughter."
Lady Morgana smiled. "Likely, we will."
"I beg your pardon, Sir Beauregard." A foot soldier stood at attention.
"At ease." Beau discreetly tapped Morgana on the backside as she turned to go.
"I don't mean to bother you, but I thought you'd be interested to know the topaz is drawing power again."
"A weak stream?"
"No, sir." The young man shifted his weight, along with his eyes. "It's off the charts, sir. Shall I issue a report for the press?"
Beau shook his head. "Don't breathe a word."
Chapter 12
* * *
"Caroline."
When her eyes peeled open, light from the window surrounded her mother's face like a halo. "I'm dreaming."
"No, Carrie. You've been administered too much of a drug. You've been sleeping for days."
"But you--" She sat upright; the quick loss of blood to her brain rendered her dizzy. She leaned against the headboard and squeezed the late Olivia's hand. "You feel so real. I'm dreaming."
"The time has come for you to know what Morgana has known for some time. My death was necessary and imminent--so your aunt and I devised a plan."
"Does Daddy know? Lexie or Tiff?"
"You mustn't tell them."
"But why?" Tears filled Caroline's eyes. "We mourned for you! Morgana! She...she--"
"She did
what she needed to do for Carman, and now I expect you will do the same." Olivia wiped tears away. "Your aunt is very ill and cannot relay the information I now offer. You must listen carefully. The ambassador...I've been calling to him."
"It's most unusual, Mother. I know him, but I don't know how it's possible."
"Time would've brought you to him, but as time is of the essence, I found it necessary to interfere. According to the oracle, you've been meeting him in your dreams since you were a young girl."
"The oracle?"
"Of course." Olivia looked over her shoulder and indicated the dressing table. "The mirror sees inside your soul. You can keep no secrets from it, and, as you've discovered, it can keep none from you."
"But the things I've seen in that glass..." Three Sebastians crossed her mind. "Some of the scenes are simply impossible."
"Then you should look for what such scenes can teach you."
"I'd rather you teach me! If I need you, where can I--"
Olivia brought a finger to Caroline's lips. "I will return in time. Should you require guidance, seek it inside yourself. Go forth, my princess. Time is of the essence."
"Time? You always said we'd have plenty of it!"
"The assembly of foreign embassies will send an assassin. You must keep the ambassador safe from harm. Without his connections, Carman will falter. He is necessary in protecting the next Pearle."
"Pearle? Mother, you aren't making sense, I don't understand--"
"Every few generations, a Pearle is conceived. It is the Pearle who powers our mines, whose energy transforms ordinary minerals to fuel."
"You speak of the heir! We were both right--Beau and me. The embassy seeks a Carman heir, and they need him because they need our fuel."
"Our topaz isn't drawing power the way it used to. Until the next Pearle enacts his power, our reserves are all we have. Without the Pearle, our societies will rely on simple economics to survive. Economics equates to war, and as Olympia is a cluster of simple societies, we cannot win wars. Greater armies will capture our reserves and use our gems to purchase the fuel we can no longer produce."
"Time is of the essence."
"Yes, Caroline." Olivia kissed her forehead. "The Pearle must be conceived before the locusts retreat."
"Then we don't have time at all." With her mother's caress as influence, Caroline allowed her eyelids to fall, and when she opened them again, her mother had gone, leaving only an emptiness behind.
The nagging need to find Sebastian's arms around her also remained. She sauntered over to her mirror and sat. "Was it all a dream? Does he want me?"
Swirls of purple and grey answered her. Glimpses of an orgy filtered in and out--she and Sebastian, with four other women. She felt hands everywhere, a tongue exploring her folds, the heat of Sebastian's tongue laving her nipples.
"I love you, Caroline." The reflection answered her next question before she'd asked.
A parade surged in her panties. It was high time she experienced the real thing.
* * * *
Sebastian dropped his quill when, without knocking, Lady Caroline entered the smoking suite. Her hair hung free to her waist in a mass of golden curls. The curve of a naked breast dared to pop out at him from the lapels of a blue satin robe, and the scent of her--freshly bathed and powdered--was a beacon of lust.
Suddenly, his fly needed adjusting. He cleared his throat. "Good afternoon."
"Are you well?" She didn't bother to sit or take a cup of tea as she made small talk, but instead went directly to the bedchamber.
He lingered in the doorway and watched as she drew the draperies. "It aches a bit, where the arrow pierced, but the wound is superficial. Preston's serum--"
When she spun to face him, he shut up, taken with her beauty.
Her brow arced. "You saw me with those women."
His rod grew another inch. "Yes."
"Did you like what you saw?"
"Forgive me, m'lady--"
"It doesn't seem real."
"Hazy," he agreed.
"I feel as if I'm thinking clearly for the first time since you arrived in Carman."
"Me, as well."
"If you neglect to return to the assembly, they will assume your loyalty has changed. They'll send an assassin."
He nodded. "There's a chance I can fool them, give them a report full of nonsense, and live merrily wherever the assembly sees fit to station me. But what kind of life would that be? Even for a sub-par ambassador--"
"They wouldn't have sent you, if they think you're sub-par."
"On the contrary, m'lady, I believe that's precisely why they did. They knew I'd volunteer, they knew I wouldn't ask too many questions, they knew they'd get exactly what they wanted--dissonance in Olympia long after my departure, for I'm no more qualified to write a treaty than I am to fly to the moon.
"What they didn't expect, Caroline, was the power you'd have over me. I cannot present an erroneous report and bury my head in the sand. Not when it will put you, and the rest of Carman, in danger."
"But if you return and expose them, they'll kill you anyway."
"Perhaps I deserve such fate."
"Then you must remain here." She loosened her sash and the robe parted, granting him a spectacular view of her nude body beneath it. "My kingdom can offer you protection."
"She already has. This can be a new beginning for me, but I want nothing of it, if you aren't part of the package."
"We're starting over in a sense. Right here, right now."
"But I'm thrilled, all the same."
"Is that what you want from me, what you saw at the Olympian Hall?" She tore back the coverlet, revealing the white silk sheets he'd come to appreciate at the Palace of Carman. "Carnival sex?"
"No." He took a few steps closer. "M'lady, I belong here. With you."
"How will it work? Given your history with my sister, how do you expect--"
He took her mouth with his and pulled her tight to his chest. "I wouldn't dare to question the realms of this universe I don't understand." He dipped a hand into her robe, relished the smooth contour of a full breast, and delighted in her small groan when his fingers passed over her nipple.
"You'll tire of me," she said against his lips.
"Is that what you think?"
"It's what I fear." Yet she pressed her pelvis against his erection.
He groaned and bent to his knees, dropping kisses over the bare flesh of her stomach. His finger drew a line along the cleft between her legs. How he needed to kiss her there!
Bells in a nearby steeple began to chime a duet with the locusts' song.
"I don't have a ring," Sebastian said between kisses, "but I plan to make this official."
"If there's one thing ladies of Carman don't need, it's more jewelry." Her hands knotted in his hair when his tongue darted out to taste her clitoris, then brushed downward, in. "Let's make it official now."
"Done." His fingers searched her, opened her, created an avenue for his tongue.
She fell to the mattress, and he buried his mouth in her pussy.
Her thighs tensed, squeezing his head.
His prick jumped, eager to fill her.
He kissed a path back to her breasts, and tongued circles around her nipples.
"Ohhhh."
"God, I love that," he whispered into her cleavage. "I love a responsive woman." The head of his cock danced against her wet crevice. Slowly, he rocked into her.
He nipped at a nipple.
She lifted her hips to accept him.
His cock slid deeper into her dark terrain.
"Ohhhh, Sebastian!"
His mouth found hers.
He pistoned in and out of her tight crevice, meeting a sweet spot in her depths.
His head was already reeling and he fought to delay his orgasm.
He cupped the side of a breast and thumbed her nipple.
"Ohhhh!" Her eyes snapped open and locked with his gaze.
He shot his seed into h
er waiting womb.
At once, the hum of the cicadas ceased.
* * * *
Stay tuned for the next book of The Carman Chronicles, in which Lady Alexis flees with a bejeweled scepter to the annual masquerade ball.
Penny Dawn
An author of gay erotic/romantic fiction, J. M. Snyder began self-publishing gay erotic fiction in 2002. Since then, Snyder has released several books in trade paperback format and has begun exploring the world of e-publishing, working with both Aspen Mountain Press and Amber Quill Press. Snyder's highly erotic short gay fiction has been published online at Ruthie's Club, Tit-Elation, Sticky Pen, and Amazon Shorts, as well as in anthologies by Aspen Mountain Press and Cleis Press. A full bibliography, as well as free fiction, book excerpts, purchasing information, and exclusive contests, can be found at: http://jmsnyder.net
* * * *
Don't miss Under A Confederate Moon, by J. M. Snyder,
available at AmberHeat.com!
All right, so who among us doesn't have a few demons to exorcise?
Penny Dawn began her writing career at the tender age of seven, before she realized it's impossible to be All Good, All the Time...at least in the religious sense (grinning like a Cheshire.) Romantic stories with passionate twists have since become this Good Girl's forte...and she unleashes her demons on paper, over and over and over again.
Penny Dawn holds a B. A. in history and English from Northern Illinois University and an M. A. in Creative Writing from Seton Hill University, whose alumnae include spicy novelists Jacki King, Shannon Hollis, Suzanne Forster, Dana Marton, and others. When she isn't writing, Penny enjoys tap, ballet, and jazz dance, photography, physical fitness, and renovating her 1906 Victorian Lady with her husband and two daughters.
Drop by her web site www.pennydawn.com to discuss all things decadent.