Chapter 12
* * *
Sern opened the door, a wary look on his bearded face. "Lord Conar!" he exclaimed, bowing deeply, sweeping his arm before him as he stepped back. "Come in, Milord! Come in!"
The smell of aged rushes mixed with offal and decaying food wafted out of the nomad's hut. Conar's nostrils quivered. "Thank you, but I would prefer not to." He locked his gaze with the desert man's hawk-like stare. "I need something from you."
Sern craned his neck out the door, scanning the street. "We are being observed, Milord," Sern whispered.
Conar spied Bent Armitage lurking behind a rolling vegetable stall. "Hell." He took a deep breath before entering the hut.
Sern closed the door. "You are most welcome to my humble abode, Lord Conar."
Conar tried to focus his eyes in the pale, smoky halo of yellowish light, cast by the single oil lamp on a low-slung table, but the horrendous stench distracted him. "By all that's holy, Sern, this place smells like an outhouse!"
Sern ducked his head. "I'll clean it, Milord." He indicated a chair.
"I don't plan on being here long."
"I have prepared something new for you, Milord." Sern rushed to the table. "I think you will be most pleasantly surprised with this new concoction." He picked up a beaker of milky fluid and extended it toward his benefactor. "You will find the effect does not wear away as rapidly as the opium mixture."
Conar eyed the mixture with distaste. "What's in this?"
Sern shrugged. "A little of this; a little of that." He winked. "It is a mixture of powerful stimulants, Lord Conar. With this elixir, you can forget every trouble you have!"
"Or create more," Conar mumbled.
A smile spread over Sern's thick lips. "But with this elixir, you can solve the problem quickly!" He put the container in Conar's hand. "You can conceal this in an ordinary brandy bottle and no one will be the wiser."
Conar handed the container back to Sern. "I dare not leave here with that. Bent would break his neck going to Brelan and Roget. Just give me some here and I'll leave."
"But Lord Conar—"
"You can bring the rest to the Grotto tonight and leave it in the usual place. I'll retrieve it in the morning."
"Yes, but—"
"I want it now, Sern!" Conar hissed, his lips twitching, his hands trembling.
"As you wish, Milord." After pouring a half-ounce of the milky fluid into a goblet, he extended it to Conar.
"That's it?"
"Only one swallow. No more is needed, it is so powerful. You must be sure no one sees you when you take this. The drug causes different kinds of reactions, depending on what you have consumed within the hour or so before taking it."
Conar hardly heard the nomad. He brought the goblet to his lips, prepared for the bitter taste he was used to, but was indeed surprised when a sweet, mellow taste flooded his taste buds. He swallowed, felt no numbing inside his mouth, and licked his lips.
Sern watched him carefully. "Did it taste like mangoes?" At Conar's nod, he sighed. "I should have known," he grumbled
Known what? Conar wanted to say, but stopped.
He hadn't prepared for the immediate effect of this drug. The dim light began to throb with intensity. The room suddenly tilted to the right, causing him to stumble against Sern. He grabbed for the nomad, barely aware his knees had buckled. He dropped to the rush-strewn floor.
"Liquor," Sern muttered. He staggered with Conar's dead weight, trying to lift him from the filthy floor.
Conar felt warm, too warm. An insane itching started along his arms and chest. It grew so intense he felt he would scream if he did not scratch it. A numbness, almost a dead void, attempted to block his hearing. The room tilted the other way and he closed his eyes to keep from passing out.
"It is always liquor with you!" Sern admonished. "If you do not stop drinking liquor with these drugs, they will kill you!"
"Sern?" he questioned, his belly cramping and his head spinning. He felt as though he had no control over his body. His legs and arms felt like water.
"I am here!" Sern snapped, maneuvering Conar onto the bed.
Something cold snapped around his wrist. He craned his neck to see what was happening. At first, the dull band of iron encircling his wrist did not register. "What are you doing?" He tried to scratch at the itch under his left arm, but Sern brought Conar's other arm over his head. Once more, he felt cold metal on his flesh. He was suddenly afraid. Very afraid.
"It is for your own protection," the nomad explained, moving to the foot of the bed. Talking to himself, the nomad pulled off Conar's boots, then spread Conar's unresisting legs and manacled his ankles to the bed's thick metal posts.
"What are you doing?" Conar asked, trying to pull free. "Unchain me!"
"I do not dare, Milord. In a moment, you will know why I did not want you to take the drug here. Now, I will have to—"
The itching along Conar's chest and arms spread rapidly over his entire body. He whimpered at its intensity. The warmth flowed over him, prickling like a million ants on his flesh. The room spun crazily for a moment before screeching to a stop with a bright flare of light. Sound returned with such immense clarity, he could hear laughter and tinkling glasses from the tavern halfway down the street. Sight focused so sharply he could make out, in detail, every nuance of the hut. His body felt light and carefree, young and vibrantly alive. Every nerve ending tingled with energy.
"Oh, god!" he cried. "What have you done to me?"
"What you will feel will please you," Sern whispered. "This drug I have tested on myself. Do you feel it yet?"
Even as the desert dweller spoke, Conar felt the sudden, urgent, almost painful, tightening in his groin. His manhood leapt into an erection so full, so throbbing with blood, he strained against his breeches. An intense, unsettling need drove deep into him. He gasped, feeling as though he had not lain with a woman for years.
"Aye, Lord Conar." His black gaze swept to Conar's crotch. His smile widened. "A pleasure unlike any you have yet to experience."
Conar shifted on the dirty mattress, squirming among the rumpled, stinking covers. Despite the desire to vomit from the stench, he was more aroused than ever before, near to bursting with the need to plunge his staff into warm, wet flesh. He needed a woman's body, her juices flowing around him, sheathing him, soothing him.
His breath came out in tiny pants. He felt as though his entire body strained to erupt. "Get me a woman!"
Sern smiled knowingly. "I will be but a moment."
"Hurry, Sern!" he begged, his hips grinding into the mattress as he jerked on his chains. "Hurry!"
He vaguely heard the hut's door open, close. He was so aroused, most everything else around him had been pushed into the background. His mind worked feverishly, remembering another time when he'd known such intense arousal—in the oubliette at the Monastery. But that ache had been different, a guilty, shameful need he had not wanted to satisfy. This need, this overwhelming sexual anticipation was so excruciating—
"Sern!"
* * *
From his place behind the vegetable stall, Bent watched the nomad exit the hut. Frowning, he looked back at the door, but Conar didn't appear. Bent was about to cross the distance between stall and hut when he saw the desert dweller being stopped by a woman in a long red robe. Bent couldn't see her face, but her slim hands closed around the nomad's arm. After a moment of conversation, the nomad gestured toward his hut.
"Whoremaster," Bent snarled.
His face hardened with distaste as Sern and the woman hurried to the hut. Hunkering down amid the hawkers and their wares, Bent snorted. It appeared Conar had come to the nomad for one of his sluts, not the opium Brelan suspected.
* * *
By the time the door opened and Sern entered, Conar was panting heavily. His wrists were already bruising from the fierce pulls against his chains, his fingers flexing with a mind of their own. When he saw the woman, he snarled, baring his teeth, aching to plunge
into her. He sniffed like a stag scenting a doe in heat. His nostrils quivered to her scent; his mouth watered in anticipation.
"Let me loose!" he demanded, straining against the chains.
"I dare not." Sern motioned the woman forward. "You would hurt her."
"Let me loose!" He pulled as hard as he could, needing to put his hands on the soft feminine flesh, aching to drive himself to the hilt within the folds of her womanhood.
"She can pleasure you without you being in a position to hurt her." He looked at the woman. "He is strong. He could tear you apart like he is now."
The woman nodded as her fingers went to the laces of her cloak. Though her face was hidden within the fold of the cowl, her bright green eyes glowed in the room's dimness.
"I need her!" Conar snarled, his body lurching as he fought to free himself. "Sern! I need her!"
"And you shall have me, Lord Conar," the woman answered in a throaty, lightly-accented voice. She dropped the cloak and took a step forward.
* * *
When Sern saw her face, his mouth dropped open. Never had he seen a more beautiful creature. Outside, when she had accosted him on the street, he had not bothered to look at the face beneath the cowl. It had not mattered what she looked like, for it was not her face Conar needed.
"How much?" the nomad had snapped.
"A favor for a favor, Sern Jamar," she had said in a coaxing voice.
"What favor?"
"The favor of lying with the Dark Overlord. That is what you are seeking, is it not? A woman to pleasure him?"
Knowing that every moment he delayed in providing relief for the man chained to his bed, the more dangerous that man became, Sern had not bothered being as cautious as normal and bade the woman follow him.
"His need is great," he mumbled as they hurried to the hut. "I have had to restrain him. Otherwise he would hurt you." He hadn't even questioned the woman's seeming lack of surprise.
Watching her now, looking at the porcelain perfection of her creamy complexion, the deep emerald of her brilliant eyes—glowing with a need of their own—the waist-length sweep of heavy coal-black hair, and the lush red ripeness of her full lips, Sern knew this woman was no common trollop.
"Who are you?" Sern asked as she began to remove her gown. "I have never seen you before. I would surely have remembered a woman so lovely."
Though the woman didn't answer, Sern nodded with approval as she dropped her chemise, revealing twin globes of perfection tipped with large, prominent nipples that tilted slightly upward. His mouth went dry as she rubbed the expanse of her right breast, lifting it.
Such beauty will be wasted him this day, Sern thought, casting a quick glance to the man squirming on the bed.
"Come to me," Conar begged, his voice deep with need. He lifted his head, flinging the damp hair from his forehead. "Lady, please!"
Naked, she stepped forward, her hips swaying seductively. The faint scent of lilac clung to her. In the close, cramped room, a thin veil of perspiration had gathered on her lush breasts, glistening like morning dew.
"Hurry, woman!" Sern implored. "He is in pain even now."
She glanced at him with disdain. "And who gave him such pain, Jamar?"
She bent down toward Conar, allowing the light from the oil lamp to fully reveal to him her small oval face.
* * *
Conar's world crashed to a halt. He stared into eyes that mocked him, terrified him, thrilled him. He didn't know which was greater, his arousal of the woman bending over him or his fear.
"Do you remember me, Milord?" she cooed. She dragged a finger down the length of his thigh from hip to knee. "Did I stay in your memory?"
At her touch, he sucked in a breath, feeling her fingertip to the marrow of his soul. Where she touched, his skin beneath his cords burned. As the finger moved, he groaned.
"Ah, I see you do remember my touch, if not me." She smiled, moving her finger to the underside of his left arm. His grunt of need seemed to please her.
"For the love of All who are holy, woman," Sern pleaded, "do not torture him!"
She ignored him. Her finger trailed up Conar's arm to his wrist, where a thin beading of blood had welled up under the manacle. She clucked her tongue. "I have waited so long to have you. It is a pity you can not touch what you ache to touch, is it not?"
Conar moaned, shifting under the heat of her hand as it moved to his scarred cheek. Her fingers caressed his flesh, slid down to his neck. Her fingertips pressed against the heavy beating tattoo of his pulse.
"You have no idea how sensual it is to watch the vein throbbing in a man's neck when he is aroused. It beats in time to the throbbing of his shaft."
A whimper of longing burst from Conar's tightly compressed lips. His breathing came so fast, so heavy, so shallow. A tear of frustration fell down his cheek.
"Do you want me?" she whispered, leaning over him so he could look directly into her face.
Conar tried to turn his head, but she took his head in her hands and anchored it. "Don't," he begged, speaking through teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached.
"You don't want me?" Her lips pursed in a tiny pout of dismay.
"No." He groaned with concentration as he tried to will away his arousal for her.
She eased her thumb over his lips, circled their fullness, parted them, pulled down the lower one and rubbed the moist inner side.
He shuddered against her intimate invasion. He knew what she was going to do, had felt her sensual attack once before many years earlier. But when her fingers withdrew from his lips and he saw her slipping her index finger into the ripe redness of her mouth, he didn't try to turn away. The finger, wet with her saliva, moved again to his lower lip and spread warm, moist heat across his flesh.
"God!"
"You don't want me," she whispered, "but you need me." Her tongue flicked over his ear, making him jump.
"Stop taunting him," Sern demanded, moving to the side of the bed. "Can you not see what you are doing to him?"
Her teeth drew back in a snarl of pure evil. She turned toward the nomad. "He is mine to do with as I please, Jamar!" she spat, much as a jungle cat might hiss at an intruder. "Get away from me!"
Conar opened his mouth to protest, to plead with her to leave him alone, but she leaned over and her mouth fastened itself to his. Her darting tongue slipped between his lips to taste, to plunder, and he squeezed his eyes shut, groaning as her tongue raped his mouth. Even when she moved back, her tongue flicking lightly over his lips, he refused to look at her, wincing as her trilling laughter flowed over him.
"Did they tell you that you were mine?" she asked, her hands trailing down his chest. "That you are my mate, now?"
Her words made no sense. He tried to shut them out, but his acute senses made him hear even the tiny, sweet breaths she took.
"I have come to claim you."
Her fingers moved to Conar's belt. She made quick work of the leather strap and the buttons of his cords. She yanked down the cords as far as they would go, pushed up Conar's shirt over his belly, then pulled free the thick expanse of his manhood, caressing it thoroughly, expertly.
"You want me to stop, Milord?" she taunted, gazing into his sweating face. Her hands moved over his flesh. "Do you wish me to leave you to your pain?" Her lips closed around the turgid thrust of his flesh.
"No!" he bellowed, trying to press his rump into the mattress to avoid her touch. He heaved from one side to another, but her mouth sucked avidly at his flesh, attached without relief to the very root of him, drawing from him that which he strove to keep inside. When her lips left him, he shuddered.
"You are at my mercy, sweet warrior. I can do with you as I have wanted for so very long."
"Don't—" The pulsing of his member was so intense, so achingly full with the need for relief, he cried, tears sliding unheeded his cheeks as he strove not to shame himself. "Please, don't."
She straddled him, her hand still on his flesh. "How long shall I hold you like this th
en, my warrior?" she asked, stroking, pulling at his blood-engorged manhood. "A minute? Five? Ten? How long will you deny us both the pleasure?"
It took every ounce of self-control to keep his seed from spraying. He grunted with the effort, panted with such arousal, his body grew fevered, slick with sweat. He tensed as she shifted, sat on the taut plain of his belly, rubbed her woman's heat along the pelt of hair at the juncture of his thighs.
"Sweet Alel, don't!" he pleaded, smelling her musky scent, feeling the warmth of her against his belly.
"I will have you, Milord. I shall ride you as you ride that hellish black steed of yours." She lowered herself until she was poised, his rigid flesh paused at the threshold of her sex. "I will ride you until I have had my fill."
She groaned as she slid down his length, burying him deeply within her. He felt her contract around him, felt her moistness oozing around his flesh, and he went hard as stone.
"Nooo! Someone help me! Get her off me!"
"Come to the bed, nomad!" she ordered, flinging her head toward Sern. "You will not want him to bring the watch down upon our heads!"
Sern stared at her, obvious not understanding. But as Conar groaned once more, his cries loud and carrying, the nomad stepped forward and sat on the mattress beside Conar's head. His oily hand, smelling vividly of garlic and something more pungent, clamped down over Conar's mouth.
Conar barely noticed, as his attention was centered at the base of his being, at the turgid, ripe, ready-to-burst core of him that was throbbing with an intensity he had never known. The moist velvet surrounding him was drawing from him the very essence of his life. He felt the rhythmic spasms pulling at his flesh, suckling him, caressing him. Vaguely, he heard her cry of release. He moaned against the constriction of his lips as another spasm began along the root of him. She violently pressed herself against him, heaved up and down on his manhood. Her heavy breasts jiggled as she bounced. Her nails dug into his sides as she gripped him, her strong thighs tight around his. As soon as one set of convulsions shook her warmth and ceased, another set in, and saliva formed on her lower lip, dripped down her chin to land on his belly.
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