by Willa Hart
“Fuck,” I hiss out. To take her right here and right now would be a pleasure. Hidden in an alcove in this giant mausoleum of a castle, we can see the corridors around us that lead to both the party in the main ballroom and to the wings that house our personal quarters, and yet where we stand we’re completely protected from prying eyes. She rubs my cock faster and the heat and friction make my desires grow. Her hand is not what I want.
I press my thumb to her nipple and rub over the silk of her low-cut dress, stroking the taught bud that strains the fabric.
“Oh, Leo, yes, please, take me to your room.”
“Oh yes—”
“Let’s have Sarkany and Taraz come too,” she says.
I choke the laughter that threatens to bubble up into my throat. I can’t tell her what Sarkany said, about how transparent she is, can I, and still have sex with her tonight? Any Eliterrati knows that she must be bedded by all three of us to even be considered a potential mate. She’d like to start with me, of course, because I’m the easiest brother to bed. Even I know that I’m a fucking dog when it comes to the ladies—but then again, I’m going to make one of them Queen—or we are, me and my three brothers together. I already know that Marianna is a hard pass where Sarkany is concerned, but me? Not so much. She’s quite an attractive little bird and if she agrees to go to my room alone with me, instead of needing all three brothers, then I’ve no problem with that. It’s only at the insistence of all three brothers bedding her together, that I must decline.
I pull the shoulders down from her dress. Her breasts are bared to me and they’re perfect Ahh…I bend forward and pull a tight, dark bud deep into my mouth. I suck and roll the flesh around with my tongue.
“Go get them,” she pants.
Her fingernails dig deep into the flesh of my shoulder and her hips tilt forward, oh yes, pretty Marianna, I want to drive myself hip-deep into her tight vulveri. “Let’s go,” I growl.
Marianna pulls back. “But what about Sarkany and Taraz?”
“What about them?” I move my mouth to her other breast to suck on her nipple.
“Don’t the three of us have to consummate?”
“Hmm…” I still have her nipple in my mouth. I grasp a handful of her gorgeous hair and pull her head back. Out of the corner of my eye, across the corridor, I see movement.
She does too. “Leo who is that?” she hisses. She pulls her breast away from me and yanks the shoulders of her dress up over her body. Gone are her beautiful breasts…damn. So round and perfect. Gorgeously large but not too big. I turn my head and glance toward the shadows of the far corridor.
“Could be anyone really,” I say. Could be as simple as Sarkany watching me so he might either jack off to the memory of me sucking Marianna’s tits, or so he could tease me unmercifully as he loves to do.
“Most likely a servant, nothing more—why must you put those two beauties away?” I reach for the top of Marianna’s dress. While I attempt to convince her to slide the dress down over her shoulders once again, I reach out across the corridor into the shadows with my mind toward the movement that came from across the hall. Being a Royal Eliterrati has its privileges and one is that I may enter any mind at will. No permission needed. It’s my birthright—some would say my duty—to access Dreg and Eliterrati minds alike, as I so choose.
In the darkness across the hall, now going down another corridor, I’m in the mind and see the shoes and—bang! The mind’s door closes, and I am shut out.
“What the fuck?”
“I said…” Marianna continues babbling on. But I haven’t heard the last few sentences, so entranced in the mind of the person who was walking down the corridor. I thought it was a Dreg…but shut out? No Dreg has the ability to shut me out and no Eliterrati would ever dare.
“I have to go.” I glance at her tits, now hanging out of her dress again. “Fix yourself and go back to the party. I’ll look for you there.”
“What? But you just asked me to take them out again!”
I don’t stay long enough to grapple with the irritation on Marianna’s face. I’ve declined to bed her with my brothers, sucked on her beautiful breasts, and now shooed her away like a pesky fly…which in some ways she is.
I turn the corner to the corridor that leads to our Royal rooms, following in the shadows the trail that the Dreg or Eliterrati took.
The hair on the back of my neck tingles.
Hmm…an Eliterrati that would shut me out and head to our rooms? This cannot be good, and after losing our parents as we did, none of us brothers can be too careful. I should call for a guard, that’s what I’ve been trained to do, but fuck that—I’m a man, a Prince, a Roya, I need no guard in my own palace.
My presence is hidden in the darkness of the corridor, and my steps are soundless. I reach out again with my mind, and still there’s nothing but a giant wooden door closing me from the person’s thoughts. I cannot even import their feelings.
A very strong Slayer indeed. Which of course serves to heighten my intrigue. Who can close both their thoughts and their emotions to me? Is it an assassin Slayer with ill-intent? Possibly. Of course, there are always threats against the Royal house and with the North Uprising, those threats, according to Uncle, have become more common and more severe.
Sarkany? Taraz? I reach my mind out to my brothers.
What is it? Sarkany responds. I’m quite busy with that tiny little elfin-like creature, Delicia. Why are you bothering me?
You don’t like small women, I think.
No, I don’t like some small women, Sarkany responds. There is heat and want in his thoughts.
You’re rutting, and you respond, I think.
Some of us can do two things at once, Sarkany thinks.
Hmm, wonder if she thinks you are doing either thing very well?
Fuck off. We’re in my bed. What is it you needed? Sarkany thinks.
Taraz? I inquire.
In the library, Taraz responds.
Alone?
Fuck you, Taraz responds. Yes.
There’s an Eliterrati who has blocked me in the corridor that leads to our chambers, I think.
Call a guard, Taraz thinks.
Pussy, Sarkany responds.
Fuck you, I think. I don’t need a guard to protect me—
Not you, her, Sarkany responds.
Sarkany’s thoughts are deep in the act of bedding Delicia and they’re scrambling his ability to communicate with us.
I creep slowly along the wall following the shadow ahead; as the body turns, a flash of candlelight falls on the face—I know that face it’s—it’s Meela.
Meela?
Meela?
But it’s illegal, she would be…she would be killed, Taraz thinks.
Meela enters Katya’s chamber where earlier this night, before the ball began, Katya had a horrible rage and threatened to decapitate a lovely young Dreg who is Katya’s seamstress. Something about the girl forgetting to bring back the right dress. Usually Katya doesn’t behave like Uncle, her father, but tonight angry words about Blood Purity streamed from Katya’s lips, as they often stream from my Uncle’s. Usually vicious words only come from Katya’s mouth when she feels as though an error has been committed by a Dreg that proves, once again, their inferiority to us Eliterrati.
What is she doing? Taraz inquires.
Fuck yes! Sarkany yells.
Put a mental block up while you’re fucking, Taraz thinks.
Sarkany doesn’t respond to Taraz, but instead we hear a roar that sounds like a cross between a lion and a bear. Yes, our brother, Sarkany, has orgasmed. Just what I didn’t need to hear in my mind.
Jealous, brother? Sarkany thinks, and I can all but see his sly smile.
I throw up a mental block, which could be easily breached, but the block lets Sarkany know I have no time or inclination for his jokes. I move toward the doorway and peer into Katya’s room.
Meela stuns me with her beauty.
She wears an Eliterrati dr
ess, unadorned, and yet made beautiful by Meela’s body. Firm breasts high and tight, her flat belly with the tiniest of curves, hips that flare in a feminine way, inviting not only my eyes, but my cock. Her hair is up, away from her neck, a long and luscious curve of skin. She is, quite simply, exquisite. In her hands is a dress, and she reaches for a hanger in Katya’s closet.
“Did you steal that dress?” I ask.
She whips around with the hanger in one hand and Katya’s dress in the other.
Her eyes are like saucers and her mouth drops open. She gapes at me. I feel her mind spinning and yet…I press further into her thoughts…and yet…I can read nothing.
How are you doing this? I inquire. You are a Dreg.
Her eyes meet mine. Her thoughts are shrouded behind a silken veil, almost like a fine mist that one sees after a rain. The thoughts are present but they are just beyond my ability to grasp them and know them for what they are.
“Prince Roya,” she says, and curtsies to me as though she is Eliterrati. “Your cousin requested this gown and we found it hung in the wrong closet, so I—”
I cross my arms over my chest. She’s brazen. I lift an eyebrow. With one word I can have this Ninaku bird’s head chopped and feathers plucked. First, to impersonate an Eliterrati—a treasonous crime which results in death—and second, for lying about the dress.
I step closer and peer into Meela’s eyes.
Do you believe that I do not recognize you? I think.
Again, there is no response. I flood her mind with the images from my dream of her last night. The dream in which I stripped her body bare and laid her on my bed. I opened her thighs with my hand and bent forward and slid my tongue deep into her vulveri until her hips bucked upward and she screamed my name.
A flush floods her neck and then her cheeks. Oh yes, she sees the images I’m sending her. I glance to her breasts, her nipples are hard beneath the silk of the Eliterrati dress. A tiny gasp escapes over her lips.
“Prince Roya, I must return to—”
“Why are you both in my room?” Katya’s voice slices at me from behind.
“Ahh, Cousin, it would seem the dress you desired was found,” I say.
I sense Meela’s heartbeat, she’s like a rabbit caught in a trap.
“What? But where?” Katya walks forward and takes the gown from Meela’s hand. “Where was it found?” She holds the dress in front of her and spins toward the mirror.
“In the wrong closet, Princess,” Meela says.
I’m quite impressed. If I didn’t know for a fact that you are a Ninaku bird, you might pass for Eliterrati, I think.
You’re an ass.
I slide my gaze toward Meela, but she maintains her gaze on my cousin and her facial expression remains unchanged. Such cheek, and really to be quite honest, brave considering the rabbit’s position right now.
“Will that be all, Princess?” Meela asks.
“Send in my handmaids, I’m wearing this tonight, now that it’s found. Tell the guards there is no reason to go and roust the seamstress. She may live another day.”
Meela’s face pales. “Yes, Princess,” she whispers, and hastens to the door.
Then, for the briefest of moments—because of the passion and feeling behind the thought, the love and the fear—I see the image Meela’s saved as the veil disappears: a picture of Huali, the seamstress. Meela’s sister.
Meela rushes past me with her head down. I do not reach out to grasp her arm, though I consider doing so. No, instead I send a thought to the head of the garrison that’s been dispatched to get Huali and tell them to hold off, that there is no need to detain the seamstress. Instead, tomorrow I shall ride with them to pick up this girl.
“Wait,” Katya calls, just as Meela reaches the door. Meela pauses and turns back. “Who are you?”
“Excuse me, Princess Katya?” Meela responds.
“Are you stupid?” Katya takes a step closer to Meela. “You appear so familiar and yet, I can’t place you. You’re dressed as an Eliterrati but you carry a dress from a seamstress.” Katya’s eyes narrow. “Who are you?”
“I…I am—” Meela blushes and fear washes over her face; it pulses through me as I watch her struggle. My very own heart starts to hurt for Meela. Empathy? From me? Before this moment I’d have thought it impossible.
As would I, Taraz thinks.
“She’s handmaiden to Marianna Sansirius,” I blurt out, interrupting Meela’s stumbling words. I’m the only one in this room with the capability of saving Meela now.
“Hmm.” Katya turns her gaze to me. “She doesn’t look as though she is someone from House Sansirius, they are usually quite white-haired and very dark.”
“Well, you know genetics in the Kingdom, they’re random, are they not?” I smile at Katya.
“So we’re told,” Katya says. She walks up close to Meela, and Meela’s breathing shallows under Katya’s gaze. I feel a tendril of my cousin’s mind reaching out, and I place a deterrent in front of her, a vision of the handmaidens’ room in Castle Sansirius, a picture that I know from firsthand knowledge is quite accurate.
“Katya,” I say, pulling her mind away from Meela; my cousin Katya is many things—beautiful and sharp-tongued being two of those things—but she is not a powerful Mindslayer. I’m quite confident in any other situation, Meela could slay Katya in an instant, but tonight, in this Palace, Meela dropping Katya to her knees with a slay is the last thing I wish to see happen.
“May I return the handmaiden to Marianna?” I ask.
“Mmmm…” Katya smiles at me. “Playing cocksman with the Princess of Sansirius? You know it’s a waste of your time, Sarkany will never consent to her becoming Queen.”
“I have no intention of Marianna becoming our Queen,” I say, and lower my voice. “I only intend to sport for a while.” I place my hand on Meela’s elbow as though to guide her from Katya’s room, and I am jolted.
My touch to Meela’s elbow feels as if I’ve gripped a lightning bolt from the sky. I clear my throat…her mind, Meela’s mind, is nearly open to me, transparent and alive. Her feelings flow through me accompanied by a brilliant shining golden light flooding all of me and—Meela pulls her elbow from my grasp. The warmth of that light, the electrical charge, the very essence of what is good is closed off from me in Meela’s one miniscule movement.
What the fuck just happened?
“Did you hear me?” Katya interrupts my thoughts, her gaze on me.
“My apologies cousin. I was…I was thinking of later tonight, with Marianna,” I lie.
“I said yes, take her back to Marianna, but first have her whipped by the guards.”
My heart jolts.
“Whipped?” I ask. “Whatever for?”
“She was alone in my room, that’s what for.”
“But I was with her,” I insist.
“Only because you stumbled upon her. Have her whipped for her impudence.” Katya’s gaze hardens upon Meela. “She should’ve taken the gown to her mistress, or me, or one of my handmaidens. This handmaiden from the House of Sansirius had no right to come into my room alone and rifle through my things. A few lashes to her back shall cure her of that behavior.”
Meela’s eyes widen. If she’s whipped in the Palace, her mindslay abilities as well as her being a Dreg will surely be found out; her mind will sear with the pain and any Eliterrati nearby will feel the lash upon their back and come looking for her. It is my guess she’s not learned how to keep her mind quiet yet from physical pain.
“Guards,” Katya calls, and two giant men each wearing the Royal Crest and colors walk into the room. “Take her to be whipped, no more than ten lashes should do it.”
My stomach churns with the idea that Meela shall be whipped, found out, and quite likely killed.
What the hell is going on? Taraz’s thoughts are in my mind. My god, you’ve gotten the Ninaku bird whipped?
Me? I return the thought, furious at Taraz’s insinuation. She’s the one galivantin
g about the Palace as though she were Eliterrati and not Dreg—she’s gotten herself whipped and rightly so, to be honest.
The guards each take one of Meela’s arms, and I see neither of them reacting as a stunned bird clutched by a cat’s paw as I did when I touched Meela’s flesh.
She’s pulled away from me, and now that the guards have her, I stand in the center of Katya’s room as though deaf and dumb and completely uncertain as to what I must do to save this Dreg and why exactly I feel as though I must.
“Leo?” Katya interrupts my stunned silence. “Leave me and send in my handmaids. I must change.” Katya swings the dress in front of her with a giant smile on her face. She’s not a bad person, my cousin, but she’s just ordered horrible physical pain be inflicted upon a person and now she’s quite ready to put on another gown and return to a ball.
An oily, churning sensation pulses through my gut with the thought of Meela being whipped by guards. I must…I must find a way to save this girl, because even though she’s Dreg, I know from the vision I saw when I touched her elbow…this Dreg might very well be our Queen.
Chapter Eight
Meela
The guards smell of whiskey, the sour stench of unwashed flesh, and the putrid stink of onions as though they’ve never bathed. They are big and horrible with minds filled of nothing but visions of naked Eliterrati women and what they wish to do to them and the vision of the Dregs they wish to kill. I pull my thoughts back from each of their minds, because the rancid stink of them combined with the darkness that permeates the essence of their being could swallow me whole, and makes it impossible to think clearly.
Their boots stomp against the stones within the bowels of the castle. Each grips one of my arms with an unkind grasp that’ll leave a mark upon my flesh. Water sweats along the stone walls of the Palace and glistens beneath the torchlight in the long hallway.
“She’ll be a good one to watch moan under the lash,” the guard on my right says, and jerks my arm. He’s taller and younger with a beard the color of sunlight.