The corner of Tychar’s mouth twitched into his signature smile, and his eyes sparkled with mischief. “The Darconians call it The Shrine of the Desert,” he replied, “but it’s actually the slave quarters.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!”
“No,” he assured me. “This is where they lock us up at night.”
Words like harem and seraglio leaped into my mind, even though the room wasn’t filled with beautiful women. In fact, the best I could tell, we were all alone there. “Well, you certainly can’t say you haven’t got a nice room,” I remarked, “even if you do have to share it.” I stared longingly at the fountain, watching as water spilled from a bouquet of stone flowers carved high in the stone wall to be captured in a large basin of highly polished shepra. It was undoubtedly against the rules, but all I wanted to do was to jump right into it and just sit there and soak for a couple of hours. “Where does the water come from?”
“Underground,” he replied. “This is the oasis source.”
“Oh, surely they don’t run all the water in through here, do they?” I found it hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would do such a thing. The slaves could have barricaded the doors and cut off the water supply to the whole city. Surely Scalia had thought of that when she decided to house her pets there.
“No,” he replied. “This is only a small portion of the water that flows from the spring.”
“And where do you sleep?”
“Anywhere we like,” he said. “We have pallets that are put away during the day. We may sleep inside or out, according to our own preferences.”
“And you, where do you sleep most often?”
“Out there,” he said, with a gesture toward the patio. “I like to look up at the stars.”
And dream of escaping to them one day—even with the knowledge that there were few of his kind left, that his homeworld had been destroyed, and that he might be hunted down for the bounty on Zetithians were he ever to leave this sanctuary. He must have dreamed of freedom, even though he might have had nowhere else to go.
“What was Zetith like?” I asked impulsively.
“Much like this room,” he replied. “Green, beautiful, warm, and with many plants and trees—though in some places there was open grassland.”
“What happened to it?”
The sparkle in his eyes disappeared, as did his smile. “We were at war,” he replied grimly, “and during that time, an asteroid struck it, destroying the entire planet.”
I tried to imagine what it would have been like to hear that the Earth had been obliterated while I was off gallivanting through space and couldn’t do it. Tycharian and his brother were alone and adrift in a universe with nowhere to call home. To lose everything in such a way would be so devastating that I doubted very much whether it would matter to me if I lived or died—or was sold as a slave…
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t even begin to imagine how you must feel.”
“I try not to dwell on it.”
He was thinking about it then, of course, for the sadness emanating from him was almost palpable, and I felt tears stinging my eyes. “I’m sorry I brought it up,” I said. “Please forgive me. I won’t mention it again.”
He nodded briefly and gestured toward a bench near the fountain where a flowering vine bloomed, forming an arch overhead. “You said you wanted to sit down,” he reminded me.
Blinking back unshed tears, I took a seat on the bench, telling myself firmly that Darconia was not the place for tears. Crying was simply a waste of water—and I needed all I could get.
Taking a cup from a niche in the wall by the fountain, Tychar dipped it into the basin and brought it to me.
“To drink from this cup is reputed to bring good fortune,” he said. “May it find you, as well.”
“It hasn’t done much for the slaves who live here, has it?”
“We are all alive and well,” he said reasonably. “How much more can anyone wish for?”
“You said you wanted love,” I reminded him. “Have you forgotten?”
“No,” he replied. “But I was speaking of the other slaves, not just of myself.” He smiled, but his gaze conveyed a different emotion. “I have drunk from this fountain many times, but my good fortune was long in coming.”
“You say that as though your good fortune had already arrived,” I observed. “Has it?”
His eyes softened. “Yes, Kyra,” he said. “It has. You are my good fortune—a beautiful woman for me to love and who will love me in return.”
I already felt weak, but what he was saying made it even worse. I needed to drink a lot more water if I was ever to hold my own with him. Taking a long sip, I could almost feel the water giving me strength and thought that perhaps the fact that water is necessary for life was the only good fortune it could bring—enabling you to go on living long enough to give good fortune the opportunity to seek you out.
Good fortune. To love and be loved. The words kept running through my mind, repeating over and over again. What better good fortune could there be than to love and be loved? I was already alive and well, with work that I enjoyed, so the pursuit of happiness was all that remained, and I had an idea it was standing right there in front of me. I had only to reach out and take it—or ask for it.
Tychar interrupted my thoughts, taking the cup and returning it to its niche. “Come, Kyra,” he said. “It is time for the midday meal.”
He was holding out his hand and I placed mine within it. It was a simple, polite gesture, but as we touched and he pulled me to my feet, I wanted to go the rest of the way, into his arms to hold him, to kiss him, and to love him. But I knew he wouldn’t do anything unless I asked him to. I stared at his lips, feeling an overwhelming desire to taste them. I wanted to kiss him so badly, and all I had to say was, “Kiss me.”
Apparently, I had, because he leaned down and touched my lips, whisper soft, warm, gentle—and sweet. Not like sugar, but with a sweetness that went far beyond that. No one had ever kissed me that way. It was as though he was trying to tell me just how long he’d waited for me, how he’d almost given up hope, and that if his happiness could be anything, he wanted it to be me. I sank into him then, my body flooded with desire, and for one blissful moment, I thought that perhaps, just perhaps, at some point, I could even ask him for more.
“Having fun?” another voice said mockingly.
Pulling away from Tychar, I saw that it was his brother Trag, and if my tiger was gentle and loving, this one was just the opposite, for his green eyes were ablaze with a barely suppressed anger, bordering on hatred.
My first thought was to make a run for it, but I had no idea where to go. We were in a part of the palace that I knew was well away from my own rooms, but I had no clue how to get there from where I stood.
“So, the little teacher lady is consorting with the slave boys, is she?” he snarled. “That’s funny, I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”
What he didn’t know about me would have filled a ten-zillion gigabyte memory chip, but at the time, I was too stunned to point that out to him. If I’d thought Scalia would be irked that I’d kissed one of her slaves, her displeasure was nothing when compared with his. I stuttered something in protest, but he cut me off.
“Scalia certainly knew what she was doing when she brought you here, didn’t she? Just look at him,” he spat out with a scornful glance at Tychar. “His cock’s so hard, it’s a wonder he can even walk.”
Evidently, unlike his brother, Trag wasn’t all that taken with human females. He was so different from Tychar—it was almost as if the difference in their coloring also reflected a difference in temperament. Even his speech patterns were different—less formal than Tychar’s—and his voice had a biting sarcasm that seemed to tear chunks out of my flesh. I was about to stammer out some feeble excuse or other, but then I realized
that I was being chewed out by a slave, and, to be quite honest, it got my dander up.
I wanted to tell him to shut up, but decided on a more subtle strategy. Glancing up at Tychar, I smiled grimly. “Does he talk to the Queen that way?”
Tychar laughed, saying, “She likes his fierceness, but no, he doesn’t, and he should not be speaking to you in that manner, either.” He followed that up with a glare at Trag, which promised retribution at some later date.
Trag backed down slightly, but with a bit of a snarl.
“You’re only angry because she preferred me to you,” Tychar went on. “Admit it.”
“She could have had both of us,” Trag growled. “Scalia wouldn’t have cared.”
I stared at him in disbelief. His anger had nothing to do with who I was or where I came from, but was simply due to the fact that I’d chosen his brother instead of himself! Typical male… “Humans are monogamous,” I interjected quickly, then had to add, “most of the time.” Actually, I’d never had the option of being anything but monogamous, and the thought of being able to have both of them was making me a bit weak in the knees. “Besides, all I did was kiss him,” I pointed out. “It wasn’t like we actually did anything—” I paused, searching for the right words, but Trag cut me off.
“Oh, you’ll mate with him,” Trag said hotly. “It’s just a matter of time. Every woman he’s ever met has wanted him—he’s so damned smooth—you just wait and see. It’ll happen, and I’ll get left out in the cold—again!”
“I am not to blame for your misfortunes,” Tychar chuckled. “And I had no part in Scalia’s decision.”
“No?” Trag said mockingly. “Scalia must have had some reason for picking you over me. Did she owe you a favor, or what?”
Tychar smiled roguishly. “You never have learned how to deal with the women of this world—or any other—have you?”
“Yes, I have!” Trag hissed. “I’ve had women in lots of places!”
“Spaceport brothels,” Tychar scoffed. “Women who flatter you only because you pay them.”
I stood there, watching helplessly as sparks seemed to fly between them, thinking that Scalia had better do something soon, or her two cats were going to kill each other.
Then it occurred to me that they were fighting over me. I’d never been fought over in my entire life, and now these two incredibly hot studs were about to duke it out for the chance to be my love slave! My knees turned to jelly, and I staggered back to the bench and sat down heavily. I felt quite faint and was getting hotter by the second, my skin growing slick with sweat and my hands clammy and trembling. “You guys stop that,” I said, surprised that I had the strength to get the words out. It’s funny how excessive heat can take you from romance and passion to unconsciousness in the blink of an eye. Obviously, I couldn’t let myself get too emotional during my sojourn on Darconia, or I was going to be fainting on a regular basis. And what was it you were supposed to do when you felt faint? Put your head between your knees?
I tried it, but to be quite honest, it didn’t seem to help very much. I would have given a queen’s ransom for a little ice at that point, but I had an idea that they’d probably never even heard of ice on this boiling cauldron of a planet. I was thankful to be sitting down, but with nothing but hard stone surrounding me, I was bound to crack my head open on something if I did happen to faint. With my vision rapidly growing dim, I noted that the two tigers were still all but spitting at each other.
“Forget it, guys,” I said weakly. “This heat’s gonna kill me before I ever get the chance to ‘mate’ with anyone.”
One of them started toward me—I believe it was Tychar—but that’s about all I can remember. I never found any lumps afterward, so I don’t think I fell, but my head was still spinning when I came to. It took me a moment to realize that while I was still sitting on the stone bench, I was now being supported between the two of them.
“She’s too weak,” Trag was saying. “She isn’t strong enough to be your mate.”
“But just smell her, Trag!” Tychar exclaimed. “The scent of her desire is even more intoxicating than that of our own females!”
“No,” Trag disagreed. “You’ve only forgotten. She’s not Zetithian, Ty, and as I said before, she is weak.”
It sounded like Trag had a bad case of sour grapes, because not long before, he’d been talking about a threesome, and now he seemed to be trying to talk his brother out of mating with me altogether! Of course, when he’d said I was too weak for Tychar, he hadn’t exactly excluded himself. I wondered what the difference was; they both seemed to be similarly equipped, but perhaps Tychar was a wilder ride than Trag. Even so, I wasn’t about to let him talk Tychar out of anything—at least, not yet. I might have been barely conscious at the time, but I’d been feeling plenty of desire before we were interrupted, and, aside from that, I was curious. That “I will give you joy unlike any you have ever known” remark had me downright intrigued.
“Weak, am I?” I grumbled. “And how many times did you pass out before you got used to this horrible climate?”
Trag didn’t reply, but Tychar laughed out loud. “You will adjust,” he said firmly. “As we did.”
“If I live long enough,” I said grimly. “You know, I think this tour of the palace should have waited a couple of days. I feel like I ought to stay in bed for a while.”
At the mere mention of my bed, they were both on their feet instantly, and Tychar gathered me up in his arms. Trag got me another drink from the fountain, and before I knew it, I was being carried swiftly back to my room.
Having just kissed him, being held against Tychar’s chest while he carried me was almost enough to make me pass out again, but I did my best to remain conscious enough to enjoy it. I wanted nothing more than to curl up with him forever—along with a big pitcher of water and a bucketful of the juiciest fruits and vegetables this dry rock of a planet could produce—and was about to say something to that effect, when Wazak intercepted us in the hallway.
“She is injured?” Wazak asked brusquely. It was a wide corridor, but as big as he was, he effectively blocked our path
“She was overcome by the heat,” Tychar explained.
“This should not be allowed,” Wazak said sternly. “See that it does not happen again.” With a glare which was undoubtedly meant to be intimidating, he swept on past us, his tail waving behind him.
“Whoo-hoo!” I exclaimed softly when we were out of earshot. “Good thing you didn’t slug me when you caught me kissing your brother, Trag! You’d have been locked up in the real jail for that, and then the only sex you could ever have would be with a lizard named Grunge.”
“That’s about all I can get as it is,” Trag muttered ruefully. “Not that I’d want it.” He blew out a pent-up breath. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to bed down with both of us?” he asked hopefully. “I didn’t really mean it when I said you were weak.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” I said, “but right now, I don’t think I’m up to bedding down with one man, let alone two! Besides, that would be too… promiscuous—or greedy!—which, as a general rule, I am not. ”
“I’m sure you aren’t!” Trag said hastily. He seemed to be regretting his earlier show of temper. “It’s just that I—” He paused there and gave his hair a yank in frustration. “Oh, shit! I blew it, didn’t I?”
“Probably so,” I agreed, though the thought of having both of them was beginning to grow on me. I thought it best to change the subject.
“Hey, tell me something,” I began. “How come you two talk so differently? I thought you were brothers, but you don’t even have the same accent.”
“I wasn’t raised on Zetith,” Trag replied. “I lived with our uncle, who owned a space freighter, which he taught me to pilot. We spent a lot of time in space—and in spaceports, too, so I learned a few things the guys back home didn’t—and I w
as on my way back home to find a mate when I got caught in the middle of the war.”
“Tough luck,” I remarked, hoping to sound reasonably sympathetic.
“Yeah, it was,” he agreed. “And as for the way Tychar talks, I think he only hangs on to that Zetithian accent because all the women around here seem to like it—sounds really suave, you know? I’ve taught him the right way to talk—and he does most of the time—but sometimes he holds onto the old ways a little too tight.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I said, “though he seems to be a little bit more progressive than you are in other ways. After all, he hasn’t held it against me that I’m not Zetithian!”
“I don’t think he does, either,” said Tychar.
Following his downward glance, I saw why. Trag’s cock was every bit as hard as Tychar’s had been all day. “I haven’t had a hard-on in twenty years!” Trag declared. “Almost forgotten what it feels like. None of the women around here smell good to us at all, but Tychar was right, because you smell absolutely fabulous.”
Tychar grinned knowingly. “I told you so.”
“Sorry, Trag,” I said meekly. “Didn’t mean to get you all hot and bothered.”
“Oh, I’m not complaining,” he assured me, “it’s just that I have an idea it’s not gonna do me a damn bit of good to have one unless Scalia shows up real quick.”
“The Queen?” I exclaimed, aghast at the notion that Scalia would consort with her slaves. It seemed rather medieval of her—though perhaps no more medieval than having slaves to begin with.
“She wants to have sex with anything that has a cock,” Trag said roundly. “But we couldn’t do it with her. Pissed her off a bit, I think. Been fucked by lots of the others, though.”
“So it is a harem!” I exclaimed. “I thought so!”
“Harem?” Tychar said curiously. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that word before.”
“It’s an old Earth custom in desert countries,” I explained. “The Sultan, or king, would have a whole bevy of females to choose from. They were kept locked up in a seraglio, which, by all accounts, was very similar to your quarters. Same idea, it’s just that Scalia’s put a slightly different spin on it.”
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