Gabriella heaved a sigh as Guntram was led away. The less time he spent here, the less opportunity for her blunt warrior to condemn himself.
Marduk’s hand pressed into her shoulder, a silent warning that she heeded without knowing why he cautioned her. But since he’d managed to maneuver the queen to serve their interest, she would trust in him a little while longer.
Marduk’s mind raced with the opportunity unfolding before him now. So many questions had been answered in the last few minutes that he fought hard to keep his excitement from showing in his face.
Ruthlessly, he forced his breaths and heartbeats to remain even.
Irkalla lifted her hand, and Marduk stood to help her up, turning his back on Gabriella, but she got the hint and backed off the platform. She’d follow his lead without question this night.
Marduk led Irkalla down the steps, then fell in behind her, standing to the side and gesturing to Gabriella to follow his mistress, then allowing Inanna and Dumuzi to precede him, as well. Dumuzi dropped the leash.
When they entered the dark stairwell, Marduk snaked out his forearm and wrapped it around Dumuzi’s throat, drawing him back.
“Keep your voice down or I’ll break your neck,” he whispered.
Dumuzi’s hands tightened on his forearm, but didn’t try to break the hold. “How did you know?” he replied quietly.
“The demon you impersonate loves a larger audience to witness his wife’s humiliations. Who are you?”
The mage, who wore Dumuzi’s face, replied wryly, “I think you know.”
Marduk jerked his arm against his neck. “Tell me why I shouldn’t bring the guards down on you.”
“Because I’m the only one who will open the portal for you.”
Marduk loosened his grip, letting the mage take a step downward. The mage filled his lungs with air. His face, Dumuzi’s hateful visage, was imbued with a gleeful mirth. “Be ready.”
Marduk nodded. “We’d best not call attention.”
They hurried down the steps, falling in behind the others and entering the chamber, which was lit by dozens of torches and candles but empty, save for two guards.
Irkalla glanced around her at the empty sofas. “What do you think, Marduk?”
“I think one of the cells would serve us best. The larger one at the rear, perhaps?”
Inanna didn’t move to follow, eying Dumuzi as Irkalla led the procession to the cell. Her gaze narrowed and a frown bisected her perfectly arched brows. “Husband …”
The man wearing her husband’s face turned, his mouth curving downward with displeasure.
“Something doesn’t smell right,” she said softly.
Marduk halted, his heart thudding hard against his chest. If she revealed them now, all would be lost.
The mage bent toward her, wrapping her leash around his fist and pulling her close. “Inanna,” he said into her face. “I think you know who I am.”
Inanna’s eyes widened as she returned his stare. “Where is he?”
“Do you care if he suffers?”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Of course not.”
“Would you not like to exact a little revenge for how badly he has treated you?”
“Why shouldn’t I demand you take me with you when you return to Ardeal?” she asked, her voice shaking.
The mage’s expression hardened. “Because you know I will not, even if it means I must sacrifice my mission. Your husband lies asleep and bound in your bed. If you hurry, you can keep him there indefinitely.”
Inanna’s lips parted, her indecision clear in her glittering eyes.
The mage leaned closer. “Won’t you enjoy your sister’s fury when she realizes she’s been betrayed? You will be there to soothe her, to remind her of your familial bonds. She will grow to trust you again.”
Inanna backed up a pace, then whirled and ran for the steps.
As she disappeared, Marduk said, “Do you trust she won’t simply alert the guards above?”
The mage lifted one brow. “She hopes we will kill her sister. Her need for revenge against the two of them will be too much for her to resist. Let’s not keep Irkalla waiting.”
Irkalla stood inside the entrance of the cell, a frown creasing her forehead. “Where is my sister?”
“It’s too crowded in here,” Marduk said easily. “I sent her away. She was disappointed at not being here to enjoy the wolf’s submission.”
Irkalla didn’t look pleased at the bit of news, but her gaze strayed to Guntram, whose gleaming physique rippled as he tensed his fists. “It is crowded. Do we need the girl here?”
“If you prefer, she can wait outside the cell and watch. You like watching, don’t you, Gabriella?” Marduk said, careful to keep his tone crafty.
Gabriella’s eyes widened, then her gaze went to Guntram, a desperate plea in her gaze.
Irkalla’s lips stretched. “I think she does. Outside, girl.”
Marduk tamped down his disgust and jerked his chin toward the door.
Gabriella walked stiffly outside, then leaned against the far wall, her face hidden in the shadows.
Guntram’s chest rose, his fists curling tighter. Marduk hoped he wouldn’t spoil the moment he sensed was coming by moving too soon. Guards still lingered in the hallway. They needed to press closer.
Irkalla approached the warrior and slipped a finger beneath the top edge of the garment that covered Guntram’s hips. “Take it off.”
Guntram kept his gaze above her shoulder, pinned to Gabriella, and slipped the knot at his hip.
Irkalla released the breath she’d been holding and reached down to clasp his flaccid cock. “I admire a man who doesn’t lack self-discipline. But I also find great satisfaction in testing his limits.” She caressed his cock, lifting it and touching the smooth cap with a finger. “I’ve heard things about a wolf’s cock. How it expands when aroused to lodge inside a female. I would know what that feels like. But first I’d like to see it.”
A muscle flexed at the side of Guntram’s square jaw. The grinding of teeth was audible.
“Must I bring your female inside and tie her to the bench for you to watch another rape her, or will you give me what I command? You did give me your vow.”
Guntram closed his eyes, and his expression betrayed a hint of anguish as he seemed to sink into a memory. But his cock slowly filled inside Irkalla’s grasp.
“Not so terrible, was that? You’ve surrendered only a little of your pride.” Irkalla knelt in front of him and opened her mouth, taking him inside and suckling, drawing back her head to milk him and tug him into a full erection.
When she was satisfied she sat back on her heels. “I would have it all. Don’t withhold.”
Guntram reached down, pushing her hand away, and then manipulated his cock, gripping it tighter than she had and squeezing until blood filled the tip and it swelled.
The thick, rounded knot appeared to fascinate her, and she bent again to take the cap in her mouth and suckle. “It’s hard,” she said when she came off. “And so broad.” She met his narrowed gaze, then glanced over her shoulder at Gabriella. “But you would know that. Could you feel the difference deep inside you?”
Gabriella wouldn’t meet Guntram’s gaze. Marduk wondered if she didn’t dare because the emotions she’d felt when he’d been locked deep inside her would have shown on her face. “I felt the difference,” she said softly.
“Why should you deny yourself the experience, my queen?” Marduk murmured.
“Why, indeed?” she replied, laughing. “But will you be jealous? I might find his cock more memorable than yours.”
“I wish only your pleasure, mistress.”
“Of course you do.” Her tone held no irony. The bitch believed that everyone was concerned for her pleasure.
“You should let him take you like the dog he is.”
“On all fours?”
“Bent, your sex presented for him to sniff and nuzzle before he ruts.” Marduk gave Guntram
a look, reminding him of the need to cooperate, but Guntram’s lips flattened into a furious, thin line.
“Your new pet doesn’t know how precious the gift of your attentions can be. The rewards cannot be measured,” Marduk said slowly.
Guntram grunted, but his expression eased into a passive façade.
“The bench, darling,” Marduk urged. “You needn’t grovel on the floor.”
“What say you, Dumuzi?” Irkalla said, as though just remembering that he was there. “You’ve been so quiet all evening. Does the thought of me rutting with a dog disturb you?”
Dumuzi’s head inclined. “When the shine dulls from your latest acquisition, you will remember who serves you best.”
“I can always count on you, can’t I?”
Dumuzi’s face reddened. How did the mage do it? Assume the emotions of the one he impersonated? Dumuzi would have been quietly furious at the reminder of the one time he hadn’t been so dependable, when Inanna had seduced him, taking him for her mate as his lust ruled him.
“When I am not at the mercy of a sorcerer’s tricks, you know well that you can count on me.”
“Yes I can. So why don’t you help me onto the bench, and watch over me in case this wolf decides he must pin me with his jaws?”
The guards outside the cell shifted restlessly on their feet. “Ma’am, should we not be inside with you to protect you?” a thick-necked guard said.
“I have protectors here. The warrior prides himself on honor, and he wants to live another day to free his woman. Incentive enough to cause me no harm. He won’t dare savage me.”
With her hand inside the mage’s, she stepped onto the platform and bent over the padded bench. “Shall I restrain your hands?” the mage whispered.
Irkalla laughed. “Why not?”
Marduk knew the thrill of eminent danger fueled her arousal as much as the thought of experimenting with the unusual cock. Both hands were bound in leather cuffs. “Leave off the ankle restraints. I will want to move.”
Then Marduk ambled toward the cell door, ostensibly for a better view, and turned his back on the guards just outside the open door. Dumuzi took up a position on the opposite side of the door.
Guntram gave them both a surreptitious glance, then lifted his gaze to Gabriella.
Marduk held his breath. He needed to arouse the queen and distract the guards with their lusty play, leaving them less vigilant.
Marduk cleared his throat, pulling Gabriella’s attention to him. He gave her a small nod. Her wide gaze went back to Guntram, a silent plea in her golden brown depths to accompany the small, tight smile she wore.
Guntram’s jaw tightened, but he stepped behind the queen and bent. First his hands landed on her buttocks, smoothing over them then gripping them firmly to hold them apart. Then his head dipped and the wet sounds of a tongue lapping in profuse moisture followed. For long, tense moments the watchers held their breaths.
Irkalla’s head lifted, her back arching, her bottom lifting higher. Her face was radiant, skin flushing a deep rose, her lush lips forming an excited circle.
The guards beside him breathed deeply, their gazes likewise glued to the queen’s rapturous expression.
Just a few minutes more and they would make their move.
“Come inside me,” Irkalla crooned. Her hips lifted, her knees settling deeper onto the cushioned squabs.
Guntram rose, his face red, his lips moist. He fisted his hand around his cock and squeezed, increasing his girth before kneeling on the step behind Irkalla and bending over her.
He breathed deeply as though girding himself to accept a great burden.
The moment he entered her, everyone knew because Irkalla’s eyes slid shut and her mouth opened around a soft gasp.
The first slam of his hips rattled the wooden platform. The second forced air from Irkalla in a soft, feminine grunt. By the third, Guntram’s desperate gaze met Gabriella’s and Marduk knew they had to move now before the warrior ruined their chance by exposing his anguish to everyone there.
CHAPTER
19
The queen’s heat clasped Guntram’s engorged cock and his stomach tightened with revulsion. The only woman he’d ever wanted to slip inside was only paces away, watching as he pleasured another.
Feeling as vile, as amoral as the vampires he despised, he lashed his hips at the bitch beneath him, slamming hard to punish her and her kind for the fact that he was here, punishing her for the fact that he and Gabriella suffered for the convenience of others.
Gabriella’s eyes were glassy, filling quickly, but Guntram hadn’t the strength to reassure her, to tell her silently that he’d get past this. Instead, he bared his teeth and hammered harder.
While blood rushed to his sex and to his head, he did note subtle stirrings from the other two men. At last.
Perhaps they’d make their move, and he could withdraw before he gave Irkalla her pleasure, before he spewed his precious wolf’s seed into her whore’s cunt.
He let go of her ass and bent closer, his hand sliding to the thin wire he’d hidden in his fist, then stuffed beneath the cushions of the bench when he first entered the room.
His excitement over the battle to come increased his sexual fervor and Irkalla groaned, no doubt thinking his escalating ardor was all about her. But Guntram had had enough. If the men were still waiting for the right moment, he’d give it to them.
He leaned over her back, still rutting into ripe heat, and slid his hands forward, carrying the wire beneath Irkalla’s outstretched neck. Then he straightened, pulling his hands up, tightening the garrote—just enough to slice shallowly into her tender skin.
Irkalla let out a muffled shriek and bucked against him.
“Easy, now,” he whispered, looking up.
The guards, their eyebrows lowered, stepped toward the entrance, but Marduk was already moving, shoving them both against the corridor wall and looping an arm around the one closest to him—tightening, then twisting, breaking the guard’s neck and letting him fall silently to the ground.
Likewise, Dumuzi caught the other, halting his shout with a knife slicing across his throat. As blood spurted, he pushed him to the ground.
Gabriella’s expression grew taut, fear and excitement shivering through her.
Guntram pulled out of Irkalla, looped the garrote twice around the queen’s neck, then tied it below the bench. “The wire’s very sharp,” he rasped. “If you move, if you try to shout, you’ll risk severing your own head.”
Then he was off the platform, pausing to tie the slave’s skirt he’d been given to wear around his hips and lifting a sword from the ground beside one of the fallen guards. He straightened, his muscles flexing as adrenaline spiked his blood, and followed the others down the corridor toward the empty chamber.
“How are we going to get out of here?” he asked quietly.
Marduk’s smile was tight, determined. “You’ll follow the dragon.”
Then they were racing up the steps, Marduk in the lead, Guntram at the rear. When they entered the hall, all gazes swung their way.
Gazes locked, expressions shifting from suspicion to shock at the sight of the wolf carrying a sword and the blood spatter that coated the other three.
Guards at the back of the hall shouted and began to run through the crowd, shoving away anyone in their way.
Marduk leapt atop a table, spread out his arms and transformed, crushing the table beneath him. His tail swung in every direction, lashing out, clearing a path for them, then he lifted his head and a fiery explosion blasted a hole through the ceiling.
“Get on his back,” Simon shouted, once again wearing his own face.
They all climbed on, one behind the other between his wings, and Marduk rose on his hind legs, his forearms pulling at the edges of the hole in the ceiling to widen it. With one powerful downward flap, they were shooting through the hole and into the darkened sky.
Below them, shouts erupted, arrows whistling silently behind the
m—but they were already too high.
“There’s a cave beneath the ridge,” Simon shouted. “We have to get to it. I have what I need to open the portal there.”
“Hold on,” came a voice inside Guntram’s head, Marduk’s voice.
Guntram wrapped his arm around Gabriella’s waist and clasped a spiny ridge, then bent forward as Marduk soared downward.
“They won’t be far behind us. Already the guard is spilling out of the gates.”
“Why are they following? Why aren’t you repelling them, Marduk?” Simon said.
“Have to conserve,” he replied. “Save something in case we need it later.”
Shrill shrieks came from off to one side, and Guntram swung toward the sound. Winged, black-skinned demons were bearing down on them.
Marduk skimmed downward between hills of sand and then turned upward, his wingtips hitting the tops of the dunes and spraying sand into the air behind them.
But the dark, winged demons were undeterred, continuing to gain on them, their strange, shrill cries filling the air.
“They will try to unseat you.”
The creatures behind them were faster, more agile, and Guntram knew he’d spoken the truth. “I’d rather make a stand on the ground with a sword in my hand,” Guntram shouted.
“Hold tight!” Marduk executed a sharp turn, heading back toward the ridge. “Where is that damned cave?”
“Midway up, just to the left,” Simon said
“I see it. You might have mentioned how small it is.” Marduk flew straight for the opening, then lifted his wings and angled them forward to brake. Turning, he hovered near the entrance. “You have to jump.”
“Fuck me!” Guntram muttered, staring down at the steep drop, but he stood first and waited for the next downward flap of wings to clear the cave’s entrance and leapt for it, landing at the lip of the entrance. Then he turned, grabbed a jagged edge of rock and reached out to help Gabriella, who also sailed safely across, landing hard on her bare knees.
He helped her up, then turned to await Simon, but Gabriella’s soft gasp behind him had him turning back. She sat huddled on the ground, her face leeched of color.
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