by Lisa Cach
“A quinotaur?”
“A sea beast, with the head of a bull and body of a fish. A beast of Neptune’s . . . or Neptune in a beast’s form.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what shape it was, only that it came from the sea. The quinotaur took the queen, and she birthed my grandfather Merovech. Or so I believed.”
“You don’t now?”
He held out his hand, palm down. “Do you see scales? But I might have believed, still, if I hadn’t seen so little evidence of divinity in my father. To be paid to fight . . . where is the honor? Is that the behavior of a god? A true king fights for land. He fights for the right to rule. He fights to protect his people. He does not fight for coin, doled out to him as if he were hired to do the laundry.”
“But why must you take Soissons? And so soon?”
“I want to unite all the Franks under my banner; all the tribes. To do that, we need a common enemy, which Sygarius, the last dux of the Western Roman Empire, conveniently provides. But that’s only the beginning, Nimia. Soissons is the gateway to all of Gaul. Gaul will belong to the Franks. It is our destiny.”
“If you already know that, then you don’t need me.”
He stopped walking, and pulled me to a halt, as well. “How can you say that? You have been the one to guide me to where I am today. Without you, I might not be king. I need you, Nimia.”
He needed my visions, not me. Not Nimia, the foolish girl who kept hoping that her heart would be cherished by a murderous, power-mad Frank.
“I need,” he said, “for you to tell me how to kill Sygarius.”
It feels nice, I swear it,” I said, as Clovis licked my petals and swirled the tip of his tongue around my stamen with cool efficiency. It did feel good; how could it not? But my body was hovering maddeningly at a middle hum of arousal, refusing to lift me higher. “I don’t know why I’m not getting a vision.”
Clovis raised his face from my loins. “We’ve been trying for half the day, and getting nowhere. I don’t have time for this!”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” I shot back. “It’s hard to enjoy myself when I can feel your impatience. You’re touching me with all the desire of a farmhand milking a cow. Your thoughts are elsewhere, you’re tired, and you want to be done with it.”
“And why wouldn’t I want to be done with it? I have a thousand tasks more pressing than trying to bring off a wench who’d rather have an old Roman thrusting between her thighs.”
I closed my legs and sat up. “That’s unfair.”
“It’s the truth. You prefer Sygarius. Why else would you be lying there like a dead frog?”
That hurt. I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, feeling exposed and ugly. “Clovis,” I protested softly.
“You don’t want me to kill him. You don’t want me to take Soissons. It makes no sense to me, Nimia.” He sat on the bed and leaned toward me, his expression hard. “As long as he lives, he will believe you to be his slave. How can you bear that? Have you no pride? Don’t you want to be free, forever?”
“I’m trying to give you a vision. I am. No, I don’t want to see you kill Sygarius, but neither do I want to see you kill anyone. I don’t want a war, when it will mean so much death and misery, and make life so much harder for the common people. I don’t understand your need to conquer Gaul. I don’t see how any of it is for the overall good. But,” I said as I saw he was about to speak. I put a hand on his arm, trying to reach him, trying to make him understand something of what was inside me. “I made my choice: I chose you. Whether I agree with you or not, I am helpless before your needs. I don’t even know why it is so, why I feel so bound to you. You do terrible things . . .”
“Necessary things.”
“Perhaps.” I almost told him that he frightened me, but held my tongue. He wouldn’t respect me for it. Showing weakness would earn his contempt, not his sympathy. “No matter what you do, or would have me do, I am yours. Even when I fight against it, I am yours.”
He gripped my chin. “Then give me the vision I need. Help me bring down your slave master.”
“I’m trying,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. I’d given up struggling against what he wanted, even when it was so against my wishes as to lead to Sygarius’s death. For all that Sygarius had turned me into a slave, he had not hurt me. He had not been cruel to me. I never wanted to be under his control again, but I did not hate him. “That’s the problem. I’m trying so hard, all I can do is think about seeing a vision.”
He shook his head, scowling, not understanding.
“It’s like when you’re trying to go to sleep, and can’t. You lie there thinking about not sleeping, and that pushes sleep even farther away.”
“Then what? What do you need?”
I needed him not to be angry with me. Impatient. Frustrated. I needed him to show me real passion, untainted by ulterior motives. Telling him that, though, would be about as useful as trying to make myself go to sleep or see a vision.
“I don’t know what I need. To be distracted, maybe. Surprised. Overwhelmed.”
“How?”
I flung my hands out in frustration. “If I told you, I wouldn’t be surprised. Try something new, something different. Shock me.”
Clovis chewed his lips, his brow lowered, his eyes going over my body, looking for ideas. Traitorous memories rose in my mind’s eye, of the inventive sexual “lessons” Sygarius had given me, which played on my emotions and innocence, arousing me to near orgasm without ever laying a finger upon me. His imagination had been rich and deep, and I knew I had only seen the surface of it.
Sygarius had called Clovis a “mere boy.” It felt like I was seeing that now, the difference between an experienced older man, who’d had decades to contemplate the nuances of seduction, versus a young man, who had so far relied on vigor rather than technique. Not that I had any right to complain; I was even more inexperienced than Clovis, and knew nothing of seducing a man or bringing him pleasure, beyond the offering of my willing body.
Maybe that was how it should be: two children, finding their way together.
A tentative smile came to Clovis’s lips and he grabbed my ankles, pulling my legs out straight and then pulling me down so that I lay flat on the bed. He straddled my waist, and his half-tumescent staff thickened and bobbed.
Oh please, let this be good. Don’t let it be disappointing.
He put his hands over my breasts, and leaned forward until his mentula lay against my sternum. He pressed my breasts together over him and began to move.
I looked up at him in surprise—surprise! Good, that was good—and lifted my hands to push against my breasts from the sides, helping to envelop him. As he let me take over, I splayed my fingers over my nipples, the pink pebbles peeking through.
It felt . . . not bad. A little grippy; a spot of moisture or oil would help him slide. But I liked the feel of his rod against my sternum, and with each stroke I felt a quiver down in my cunny. I wet my lips and looked up at him. His eyes were narrowed, watching my face, as interested in my reaction as in what pleasure he was getting. I felt my delight begin to fall off. Where was the fun, in having every moment evaluated? This was supposed to be about letting go and losing oneself.
He must have read that in my eyes: I saw his jaw tense.
A commotion at the outer door to Clovis’s quarters distracted us both. Thank the gods.
Clovis stopped his thrusting, and we both turned our heads toward the doorway. I released my breasts as Ragnachar appeared in the door frame.
Ragnachar said something in Frankish to Clovis. I was becoming accustomed to the sound of the language, and finding its similarities to the Visigoth tongue I’d learned while my mother and I were their captives. I understood “message” and heard the name Sygarius.
Clovis dismounted from me, not showing any signs of shyness at his rigid mentula waving in fr
ont of him like a drawn sword.
Ragnachar handed him a scroll.
As Clovis climbed off the bed and went to the window to read it in the last of the day’s light, Ragnachar looked at me. I relaxed my arms to my sides and let him. His gaze roved over my body, caressing every curve and dwelling in every hollow.
I felt myself responding. This is what I wanted: desire. Hunger. A man looking at me with only pleasure on his mind.
“Sygarius wants to meet with me in Soissons,” Clovis said, “to discuss continuing the arrangement he had with my father. He must have had a spy among us, to have received word so quickly.”
Clovis’s voice sounded as far away as his attention. Ragnachar stepped farther into the room, toward the foot of the bed, his eyes never leaving me. I parted my thighs and let him look into my folds.
His eyes burned.
I parted my lips, my breath coming fast. Yes, look. You want me, don’t you? Do you want to see more? Do you want to touch? Like this? I lifted my hand and lightly stroked my petals.
Ragnachar closed his eyes, his face flushing.
Clovis turned from the window, and I saw him taking in the scene. “Do you want her, Ragnachar?” he said. “You can have her, as long as you stay out of her cunny. And let me watch.” He wedged his hip onto the sill of the window and crossed his arms, settling in.
Ragnachar said something in Frankish, his tone both questioning and hopeful.
“Try it, and see,” Clovis said, then added something else in Frankish that made Ragnachar laugh, and then look back at me with new fire in his eyes.
I met Clovis’s gaze, seeking an answer. He would do this to me, truly? Why? His expression was rigid, but couldn’t completely hide his uncertainty. Or his anger.
That was my answer, wasn’t it? He wanted to punish me for not responding to him as he wanted, and for making him feel less than wholly virile and male. The specter of Sygarius bringing me pleasure haunted his imagination.
“You said it didn’t matter what I would have you do,” Clovis said to me. “This is your chance to prove it. Undress him.” He wanted to humiliate me, and make me feel small so that he might feel bigger.
I looked at Ragnachar, who seemed barely aware of Clovis, his eyes all for me. He didn’t care about power plays or humiliation; his lust was pure, and as potent as a stag who has scented a doe.
Oh yes, I wanted him. Ragnachar’s open desire sent liquid heat through my sex, and I knelt at the edge of the bed and gestured him closer, to where I could reach his clothes. Piece by piece I removed his garb, my fingertips skimming over the teeth and hair sewn to his tunic. My arousal had turned the hideousness of the decoration into erotic evidence of his earthy passions. Ragnachar was more animal than man.
Clovis would lose this game he played with me. There would be no victory for him in giving me what I already wanted. He would be the loser, watching Ragnachar take me to the heights that he could not.
Good. Let him suffer. Let him grow up and behave like a man, not a petulant child.
I pulled the tunic off over Ragnachar’s head, standing up on the bed to reach. The moment his torso was bare, all thoughts of Clovis and games fled my mind.
Gods. That chest. Those shoulders. Such size, such breadth, and all of it muscled. Pale pink ridges of puckered flesh zigged and zagged across his body, the evidence of battles fought. I remembered the sight of him holding up Danoweg’s head, blood dripping from his severed neck.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I was rubbing my breasts against Ragnachar, sliding my hands over his shoulders, making mewling sounds like a kitten in the back of my throat. Such raw, physical power. I wanted it, all of it, in me, around me, crushing me.
I dropped back to my knees and untied his breeches, pushing them down over his hips and the hard mounds of his buttocks. My mouth watered as I waited to see his cock emerge.
A catch of the leather, a moment of tugging, and then he was free.
I paused, not believing it.
How could this be possible? A cock of this size?
It was the smallest mentula I’d ever seen, as puny as a boy’s.
Ragnachar’s hand came down on my head, his fingers digging into my hair. I gathered my wits: even as inexperienced as I was, I knew I could not let him see my surprise. He had to know how ridiculous his rod looked, poking like a lady’s thumb from the broad thatch of his loins.
Maybe it just looked tiny, compared to the size of him. Maybe it was an illusion.
I put my hands on his hips and lowered my mouth, pulling him inside. I sucked and rubbed my tongue against him, and felt his hand tighten in my hair, his hips thrusting against my mouth. It had been no illusion: he really was that small. It created a strange fervor in me, and I sucked all the harder as if I could make it grow.
Then he was lifting me away from him. He put his hands to either side of my chest and hoisted me as if I had all the weight of a pillow. He sat on the edge of the bed and lay back, and before I knew which way was up, I found myself straddling his face. His hands slid down to my hips and held me where he wanted, and then his broad tongue stroked me, harder than I liked. When I tried to shift away and force a lighter touch, his grip on my hips tightened. Again, the broad brushstroke of his tongue, hard and slow, starting at my gates and ending, for only a fraction of a moment, at my fragile stamen.
I looked down at him between my thighs, and saw that his eyes were open, watching me. Did he know this wasn’t quite what I liked? Could he tell?
Did he care?
He forced another of his rough tongue strokes on me, and despite myself I felt a swelling warmth in my folds. This was no teasing, tingling touch: with each overstrong stroke, I could only feel pressure and warmth. But between each stroke . . . that was when the pleasure rushed in, and I caught my breath, waiting for the next deep brush of his tongue, and for that brief moment when his tongue touched against my stamen.
I growled, deep in my throat. In the distance, I heard the humming of bees.
I sensed movement, and looked up. I was facing Clovis, who was standing a few feet from the bed, his staff rigid and his fists clenched at his sides. He was watching me; watching the hard strokes of Ragnachar’s tongue on my folds, and watching the way I rocked under the force of his mouth. I put my palms on my belly and moved them slowly up toward my breasts, Clovis’s gaze following the movement. I cupped my breasts, squeezed them, and pinched my nipples between thumbs and forefingers.
Clovis’s eyes flicked to mine. I wet my lips and squeezed my breasts again.
“Your eyes are glowing copper,” he said, and then he leaped up onto the bed, quick and graceful as a leopard, and his cock was in front of my face. I didn’t need to be told what he wanted; it was what I wanted, too. I took hold of him, wrapping my hand around the velvet thickness, and drew his head into my mouth, swirling my tongue over him, tasting the drop of salty moisture at the small slit at the end.
The golden swarm moved closer, shimmering in sunlight.
Ragnachar continued to lick me, and I sucked on Clovis, my other hand going to cup his balls. His legs were spread wide for balance, his hands still fisted at his sides, not touching me. I didn’t care. His rod was all I wanted, and the scent of him, warm and musky and male. I closed my eyes and sank into the rich world of his loins. I wanted him to lose control; to spill into my mouth, and let me swallow his essence.
The golden swarm spun away, leaving behind a golden cage. Inside, a small bird hopped and sang.
Ragnachar suddenly latched his mouth over my stamen and suckled, the tip of his tongue flicking at me fast and light. My hand tightened on Clovis’s staff, my body taken by surprise.
“What do you see?” Clovis demanded, his voice hoarse with arousal.
The sudden flicking of Ragnachar’s tongue was too much, and I felt myself going over the edge, falling into waves of released
desire, falling on pulsing waves of pleasure.
Clovis must have felt the tensing of my muscles, the moment where I hung in the balance before relaxing, because I heard him swear. He pulled me off his rod and said something harsh in Frankish.
Ragnachar lifted me off him, and the next thing I knew I was belly-down on the bed, my hips at the edge, and Ragnachar had parted my cheeks with his big hands and was spitting on my arsehole. A moment later I felt something hard pressing for entrance, and the coarse hair of his legs against my thighs. I pushed up on my hands, trying to get away, but I was weak and small as a butterfly under his strength.
“He knows he has a small cock,” Clovis said, “so he likes to use the smallest hole. It holds him better.”
Ragnachar grunted in agreement, and I felt him slip inside my arse.
“Is this shocking enough for you, Nimia? Are you surprised? Is it different?”
It was different, all right. I froze as Ragnachar worked himself inside me, tilling virgin ground. For all his size and animal nature, he was gentle with my arse, making sure I could take him before easing deeper and then, carefully, beginning to thrust.
I hadn’t thought there could be wanted sensations there, not for the receiver of such an invasion. But to my shock—a shock even greater than the first feel of Ragnachar pushing inside me—I felt a new, tingling pleasure start to spread from his tiny, thrusting rod to the rest of my sex. I had spent myself a moment before, but already was building toward a fresh crest of pleasure.
Ragnachar lay on top of me, scooping an arm under my waist, then rolled onto his back with me still impaled upon him. My legs rested atop his, hanging off the bed. Ragnachar put his blunt fingers to my folds and stroked, lightly, with more delicacy than I could have believed of him.
I whimpered and squirmed. His fingers on my folds and his rod in my arse made me painfully aware of the emptiness of my cunny. I wanted more. I wanted to be filled, everywhere. My sex was swollen, slick and wet and starving for a thick cock.