The doctor paused, holding her still in the hallway, his gaze focused on some distant point. He took a deep breath. "How dare you."
"It was the right thing to do," said Ruby.
"No." He carried her through a doorway and set her down on a cushioned chair. "No." The doctor looked away, breathing hard.
"I saved the Tournament," said Ruby. The room was spacious, full of instruments and cabinets, scrupulously clean. The model from which his Pavilion tent had been copied. "And I saved the King from making a decision that would have shamed him."
"Nobody asked you," snapped the doctor.
"Nobody had asked me yet," Ruby corrected. "It wouldn't have taken long."
The doctor bowed his head.
Her hand heated as he worked his magic, and then the odd gloves turned opaque.
"Perhaps you have come to expect miracles," said the doctor, standing up and washing his hands in a bowl of water. "You make choices, I pay for them."
"Do you begrudge the price?" Ruby asked.
"Yes," said the doctor. "I do."
"Then I have abused your generosity," said Ruby, standing up. She was naked, and had no robe to cover herself with. "It will not happen again."
She turned to go.
"I found you," said the doctor to her back. "In the green spring grass, after the dragon ravaged you. I carried you back, close enough to death as makes no difference. I saw what he did to you, all of it, because I healed you. And then I watched you leave with him again, knowing I could do nothing but wait for him to return with your corpse."
Ruby bowed her head. She felt such love that she could not speak.
"Too high a price," he said. "Go rest, Ruby. Your hand will heal."
Ruby returned to her tent. The Steward visited with a sapphire bead, her seventh, and after him the King came to thank her. His praise told Ruby what she had already guessed—if she had not volunteered to service the dragon, she would have been asked, and then pressured.
But she could not blame them for wanting what she had wanted, or for valuing her life at the same price she had.
It took weeks for her hand to heal, but the convalescence was not hard. The doctor saw her every day, monitoring her progress and applying fresh surges of magic. The hand only pained her when she forgot the injury, and tried to grab or hold something with it—then she would almost collapse from the agony.
She was called back to Court soon after the doctor removed his magical bandage to reveal pink, unblemished skin. The skin was tender, her muscles clumsy, but she was whole and getting better. Once again Lily, Coral, and Milkweed bathed and dressed her. She donned a new robe, green this time, and entered when the Herald called for her by name.
"Come, sit with me," said the King, rising to his feet and holding out his hand.
When Ruby would have sat on the chair to his left, the King checked her. He invited her to sit on his couch, and she looked out at a hundred-odd faces as she took her place at his side, hip to hip with a man who had never before deigned to acknowledge her in public.
"You have done the country a great service," said the King, pushing her down so she lay flat on her back, "and now I offer you my favor."
Ruby trembled with desire and fear.
A murmur of admiration rose up from the audience as the King removed his clothing. He was beautiful, perfect, his cock standing erect and ready.
And unsheathed.
The King parted her legs and pulled her hips past the edge of the couch. He unbelted her robe and opened it, revealing her nakedness, and then dragged a finger through the folds of her cunt.
"You see how wet she is?" said the King, displaying his finger to the Court. "You see how she drips?"
The men howled. The women moaned, their voices tight with need and envy.
"This aspirant has passed seven Trials," said the King. "She has been used hard, and she has suffered. But her cunt is hot and hungry."
"Praise Morrow," shouted a voice in the audience, and the rest took up the call and repeated it: "Praise Morrow!"
"Here is our wealth and our power, our sword and our crown," said the King. "In our Tournament, in every citizen who enters. Honor women who wear the beads, as I honor Ruby, who earned her sapphire in blood and pain."
The King knelt before her.
Ruby began to pant. Her heart raced. She was so torn between want and dread that she froze, lying like a statue while the King positioned the flared head of his cock at the entrance to her cunt and nudged into the tight little hole.
Ruby whimpered. Even that small noise echoed through the room, as other women who watched the King's bare ass moaned and cried out.
"Look," said the King, his eyes on her. "Lift your head up and see."
Ruby looked past the King into his Court, where the fine ladies had torn away their clothes to bare their breasts and cunts. The men, surrounded by such heat, rubbed their cocks through their trousers and gathered in knots around the keening women.
"Are you ready?" said the King, planting his hands on her hips. "Are you ready for me to fuck you?"
Ruby wrapped her hands around his wrists, stalling him. "I'm frightened," she whispered.
"Don't you want to come?" The King pumped shallowly, teasing her, and a ripple of pleasure spread through Ruby's body like ink through water. She cried out, and knew by the moans that echoed back at her that some women in the audience were already on their backs, or on their knees, full of good cock.
They made her feel braver.
"I want to come," Ruby said. She gripped the King a little tighter, widened her legs. "I want you inside of me. I want you to fuck me."
His cock stretched her deliciously. Without the sheath she felt his size, the velvet smoothness of his shaft, the delicious friction as he pushed deep. "I love your cock," she cried, tilting her hips. "I'll die if you don't give me more."
The King worked his way in, his hands trembling. "Ruby," he said, a catch in his voice.
"Oh yes," moaned Ruby, already shaking with orgasm. Everything about sex with him was better now. The sensations stronger, more powerful. "You feel so good inside me."
He gripped her hips tighter and thrust, all the way to the root. Ruby closed her eyes and tossed her head back, astonished. How could anything feel so good? How could so much pleasure exist?
"Ruby," said the King, his voice tight. He pulled out and thrust again, out and in. "Oh, fuck."
"Mmm." Ruby moaned. He felt so right. He fit perfectly, as though he belonged.
"Fuck," said the King, grinding into her.
Ruby opened her eyes. The King stared down at her, his pupils dilated, pale and sheened with sweat.
He was coming.
"Sweet King," said Ruby, stunned. She cupped his cheek.
A few short, brutal thrusts and he was done, sagging forward as his cock began to soften inside of her. "Fuck," he said, pulling out. He watched the semen leak from her as she sat up. "Your cunt."
Ruby was surprised to realize that everyone in the throne room who was not fucking had dropped to their knees, bowing their heads to her.
"Ruby," said the King, still on his knees. He looked up to meet her eyes. "My Queen."
Ruby gasped. The Steward pressed a ruby bead into her palm and Ruby closed her fingers around it as she slid off the couch onto her own knees, so she could embrace the King, who would be her husband.
15
The Tournament Ends
Ruby was taken to a new set of rooms in the Palace, the airy bedroom suite she would share with the King, and Lily joined her there.
"Will you keep me?" she asked.
"Always at my side," said Ruby, holding her close.
She was crowned three days later. In the public square, as Queens always were, surrounded by the citizens who'd birthed and raised her. In the distance, she the peaks of the Pavilion tents rose above the Palace walls. Women stood between the crenellations, the last aspirants. Many had quit the moment a new Queen was announced, but a few stayed on to collect b
eads.
Her mother kept close, full of pride. Her friends showered her with embraces and tears, showing off their own bracelets and trading tales of the Tournament.
Ruby wore a thin robe of violet silk, which she discarded before she knelt, naked, to receive the crown. It was thin, a frail mesh of gold set with all the jewels that Ruby wore on her bracelet: amethyst, jade, aquamarine, sapphire, emerald, pearl and opal.
And diamonds, too, the one gem that she had yet to earn.
She stood and raised her braceleted arm high, fist clenched. All the women who'd come to witness the crowning of a new Queen raised their own arms, some with bare leather cords and others decked with many beads. The women of Morrow raised a high, keening cry, and Ruby let it swell around her before echoing it back at them, crowing at the top of her voice, a shout of victory and union.
Later, the groom who'd wept after he fucked her showed her around the stables, shy and proud at once, telling her which horses she might like to ride. The courtiers who'd laughed while Petal thrashed on the floor fawned over her. The cooks who'd spread her legs on their own banquet table laid out a feast, the guildsmen who'd led her into dim alcoves showered her with gifts of costly garments.
"I don't want to rush you," said the King, later that night. "But a Queen is meant to rule. I was born in the Palace, and I grew up in a barracks. I understand war and politics, but that's all. My voice is not enough."
"So I should advise you?" Ruby asked.
"Your words carry equal weight to mine," said the King. "Your authority is as great as mine, your commands as binding. But the country is strongest when we are united."
The Kick fucked her that night, brief and passionate as before, and held her in his arms as he drifted to sleep. In the morning, when they rose to prepare for Court, he fucked her again, gritting his teeth and panting to last a little longer. He kept her at his side in the Throne Room, his hand drifting to her breast while petitioners made their pleas, while Ruby listened silently, afraid to speak.
What did she understand of ruling? Her cunt had brought her here, not her brain.
And so it went for days. The King extended his performance bit by bit, until he could fuck her slowly, leisurely, holding her hands over her head while he lapped at her nipples with his tongue. Ruby relished his cock. She spread her legs for him eagerly, caressed him lovingly, but she had nothing to offer the Court.
One afternoon, the High General of Odesh arrived bearing tribute. The King of Odesh had sent the commander of his armies as a punishment, to humiliate him.
The King of Morrow had demanded gold, and the ruler of Odesh had sent gold statues, gold clocks, gold chamberpots and gold salt cellars. The defeated general stood in the Throne Room, sullen and humiliated, while servants carried these implements around the room so onlookers could admire their craftsmanship.
"It would be a crime to melt such beautifully worked treasure into coin," observed the King. "And terrible to hoard such wealth, when I waged war on the backs of my people."
"Our finest smiths worked day and night for months to produce these gifts," said the general. "Our King knows how highly you value a worthy craftsman's skill."
"Your King intended to provoke me," said the King. "That makes him a fool."
"We have given you everything that you demanded, and more besides," insisted the general. "If you value peace, as you say you do, you would thank us."
"A boon?" The King smiled, like a shark baring his teeth. "What do you wish for, High General of Odesh? What boon shall I offer in return for this gift?"
The general licked his lips. "You will allow me to fuck the Queen. Here, in the Court, for all to see."
The King laughed. "Ruby," he said. "Show the general your cunt."
Ruby lifted her leg and displayed herself to the general. She spread the folds of her pussy with her fingers, so that the High General of Odesh could see her cunt, and crave it.
"You will never touch it," said the King. "You will never fuck it. You lost the war, High General. Do not make demands."
The general's weathered face, seamed and leathery, flushed deep red. "Everyone has fucked that cunt. Bootblacks and drummer boys have fucked that cunt. Ambassadors of four lesser nations have fucked that cunt—and I am not good enough?" The High General sneered, red faced and righteous. "The King of Odesh will hear about this."
"Tell me, husband," said Ruby, speaking aloud in the Court for the first time, "was the General a worthy foe?"
The King shrugged and looked away. "A good leader who took the field with his soldiers."
"Did he mistreat captured soldiers?" Ruby asked.
"No," said the King. "He kept them decently, and we made fair exchanges after the war was done."
"Did he condone the rape of our women?"
"Never," snapped the general, before the King could reply.
"I will not offer what my husband has forbidden," said Ruby, sliding off the couch and dropping to her knees. "But I will suck your cock, High General of Odesh."
The General looked at her, and then to the King.
But the King had eyes only for Ruby. "Speak," he said.
"This is the humiliation of defeat," said Ruby, gesturing to the gifts of worked gold borne aloft by the Palace servants. "And this," she said, gesturing at herself, "is the humility of a victor. Come closer, General. The King offers peace, and I will give it. Peace and ease."
The High General rubbed his cock through his trousers, hard and straining, but he didn't move.
"The Queen of Morrow is on her knees for you," said Ruby, holding out her hand. "Haven't you earned our gratitude?"
"I cannot." The general backed away from Ruby as though she were a snake. "I cannot."
"Then go in peace," said Ruby. "If you should ask again, my answer will be the same."
The High General bowed and backed out of the room, his cock hard and his face still red.
"High General," called the King, before the man had reached the arched doorway.
The General paused.
"This is why we win wars," said the King. "This is why we will always win."
The High General looked as miserable as a man can look, frustrated, chastised, frightened and hungry. He was a picture of defeat, and he did not reply before fleeing.
The King bore her down on the couch and penetrated her swiftly. "My Queen," he murmured, as though they were alone.
Ruby stroked his silky hair and wrapped her legs around his waist.
"My Queen," he said again, slipping his tongue between her lips to tangle with hers. He grunted softly, pumping his hips as Ruby moved in rhythm. "I have never wanted you so badly."
That evening, the King brought the doctor with him to the bedroom they shared.
"I don't want to have children just yet," said the King. "I want to fuck you all the time."
"I feel the same way," said Ruby.
"I laid the charm that prevents conception myself," said the doctor, kneeling at her side and placing a hand on her belly. "The one she received before entering the Tournament didn't survive her injuries. But I will check to make sure it hasn't degraded."
The King watched his brother. "Can you smell her cunt?" he asked.
"Yes," said the doctor, rising to his feet. "She is ripe and hungry for your cock."
"That's right," said the King. "I'm going to fuck her now. Would you like to stay and watch?"
The doctor hesitated. His lips pursed, but just when Ruby was sure he would say, "No," he answered, "Yes."
"Get on your hands and knees, Ruby," said the King. "Give my brother a good view."
Ruby arranged herself so the doctor would see her profile, the sway of her hanging breasts and the arch of her back.
The King stood on his knees behind her and palmed the small of her back as he fit his cock into her cunt. He entered her slowly, letting out a groan of pleasure. The doctor wore a simple tunic and trousers, not his robes, and his cock hardened and rose while he watched.
&nb
sp; "Touch her breasts, brother," said the King, beginning to thrust. He filled Ruby deliciously, made her shiver and buck with pleasure. "Play with her nipples."
The doctor didn't move, at first. But when the King slammed into Ruby and made her cry out, plaintive and needy, the doctor could not resist. He fell to his knees by the bed and caressed her breasts while the King fucked her, squeezing in rhythm to the King's thrusts and teasing her nipples.
"Yes," Ruby moaned. "Mmm."
"Wouldn't you like to fuck her?" asked the King, his voice ragged. "Don't you wish this were your cock, buried to the root in her cunt?"
"Yes," said the doctor. He slid his hand down her belly. His fingers brushed her clit, delved deeper into her folds and forked around his brother's cock, squeezing as the King pumped in and out of her. "Yes."
"You can't have her," said the King, pulling out and dragging Ruby down to lie on her back. "She's mine now."
"I know," said the doctor, standing up. He licked his fingers, holding Ruby's gaze, then turned to leave.
The King entered her again, belly to belly as he thrust, looming over her. "Mine," he repeated, while Ruby came, and came, and came.
16
Brothers
After Court the next day, Ruby looked for the doctor in his examination room.
"My Queen," he greeted her. "Does something ail you?"
"The King ordered you not to fuck me anymore," said Ruby, sitting on the examination table. "Didn't he?"
The doctor nodded. "He did."
"Why?"
"Because I demanded something of him," said the doctor, "and he wanted something in return."
"What did you demand?"
The doctor sat down on his stool and folded his hands in his lap. "I made him promise that you would never taste his cock."
"Why?" Ruby wondered. "I have dreamed of tasting his cock."
"I know," said the doctor. "But I will not fuck you again, and you will never taste the King's cock."
"So if I can persuade you to fuck me again, then the King will feed me his cock and I will have everything I want," said Ruby.
"Yes," said the doctor. "And then you will lose it all."
The Tournament Page 10