Running Wild

by Lucinda Betts

  Even with the drug wrapped around her mind, Shahrazad saw she lay in the presence of a master dancer. The drum began a more complicated tattoo, and the Flower Taker’s arms slithered through the air as gracefully as a snake charmer’s serpents. Her hips and breasts swiveled and summoned. Her arms and fingers tantalized.

  “Dance with me. Imagine your…husband. Dance for him and he will desire you above all others.”

  As if lifted by the drumbeat instead of her own will, Shahrazad found herself on her feet, her own hips undulating. She closed her eyes as she danced, letting the rhythm pour over her, through her.

  And then the drums quickened. The music poured crazily over her, like a wild spring rain that sends the desert into riotous bloom. Her long black braids floated around her shoulders as her feet spun madly over the floor.

  She slowed, picking up every fourth beat instead of every third. Her arms snaked through the air, but she could easily imagine holding the Flower Taker or a lover—her lover. She reached her fingertips toward her teacher. Hoping.

  “Yes,” the Flower Taker breathed, and this time Shahrazad opened her eyes. The woman danced in front of her, a small step away.

  Shahrazad’s hips flowed like water, and the Flower Taker’s followed. Like they were bound together with an invisible tie, everything Shahrazad’s hips did, the Flower Taker’s tracked. Watching the other woman, Shahrazad couldn’t help but imagine Prince Tahir. He looked like he’d dance, like he could match his hips to hers.

  For a moment, she could feel him dancing behind her. His cock pressed hard between her legs, and his sandalwood scent teased her nose. She could feel the heat of his chest against her back. Lost in the khansari fantasy of him, she leaned back as she danced and imagined his hands gliding over her waist, skimming her stomach. His cock throbbed against her ass, hard and insistent with his desire for her.

  The fantasy seemed so real for a moment she knew he was there, dancing behind her. She twirled and reached for him but caught only air.

  “I’m here, little hawk.” The voice was feminine, and ruby-covered breasts shimmied so close to Shahrazad’s plum-covered ones that one misstep would bring a soft collision. The woman moved her breasts to the wild beat of the drum, and the purple of her areola peaked over the top of her brassiere.

  The Flower Taker spun again, bringing her breasts so close to Shahrazad’s own that she could feel the heat pouring off the woman’s body. Inside her plum-colored brassiere, her own nipples hardened until they ached.

  “Go ahead, little hawk,” the woman purred. “For tonight, your desire gets full rein, full freedom.”

  Craving that freedom, Shahrazad’s hands reached out, skimmed the Flower Taker’s breasts. She pressed her hips against the Flower Taker’s, and as their hips together circled to the drumbeat in a delicious dance, Shahrazad slid a fingertip over the woman’s areola.

  Like lightning over the night dunes, the effect electrified her. She did it again, dipping her finger into the woman’s brassiere. The tiny nub of her nipple was as hard as a pebble.

  “You may taste if you desire,” the Flower Taker invited, arching her back to present a breast to Shahrazad even as her hips followed the drumbeat.

  Shahrazad didn’t need a second invitation. She dipped her lips to the woman’s breast and licked. The woman tasted of warm sunblossom just picked from a sun-soaked orchard. She licked again. And then again, her hips rocking against the other woman’s, no longer needing the guiding pressure of the Flower Taker’s hands.

  If Prince Tahir licked her nipples…

  The drumming slowed to a stop, but it didn’t break the spell. The Flower Taker captured Shahrazad’s hand and led her to the bed, her hips still swiveling to a rhythm only she heard. Gently, the woman laid her in the piles of silk.

  Shahrazad hummed in pleasure. “I should have realized…”

  “Should have realized what, little hawk?” The Flower Taker caressed the grooves of her ribs, just beneath her breasts, and Shahrazad hummed again, squirming.

  “What your secret is, of course. As you said, all the clues lay before me.”

  “Oh, really?” The blond woman’s hand ran over Shahrazad’s bared midriff as her fingers delighted her nipples. She wanted out of her brassiere.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Is it that I’ve lusted after you since the heartbeat I laid eyes on you?”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Is it that I’ve lusted after your Duha since the heartbeat I laid eyes on her?” Her lips followed her fingers.

  Shahrazad laughed. “No. But that feels delightful.”

  “I give up then.”

  “I doubt that.”

  The Flower Taker’s fingertips flowed exactly where the burning was—exactly where the magician had touched her. “You have a delightful birthmark here.” She leaned over and kissed the burning spot. Her hot lips cooled the pain. “Unusual.”

  “I think it’s unusual,” Shahrazad said. “But I doubt it surprises you. I suspect you’ve seen others like it. It tells me your identity.”

  “Your birthmark tells you my identity?”

  “That is no birthmark.” She rolled to her back and looked the supposed Flower Taker in the eye. “You’re the magician, and you put it there—on the first day of my wedding ceremony.”

  Badra had been stroking the girl’s back, preparing to induct her into the most pleasurable of human experiences—when the girl’s words stopped her still. The girl had guessed. What a delight this princess was. She would indeed rule well as the magician.

  “How?” Badra asked. “How did you discover my secret?”

  “Your accent,” the girl said. “I recognize it from when you snuck up behind me at the wedding. From when you touched me.”

  “Very clever.” And Badra meant it. Her accent was unusual since the people who spoke her dialect had been gone for centuries. She tried to keep it modern so she could blend in with local populations as necessary, but apparently she hadn’t been completely successful.

  “Your gender fooled me for a while,” Shahrazad said. “Everyone knows Badr the Bad is a man.” She shrugged, a delightful movement that shimmied her full breasts. “But of course, you’re a magician. You changed me into a pegaz. Why should you limit yourself to one form?”

  “Why indeed?” Badra asked in admiration. “Would you like to take—” She shut her mouth before she could finish the sentence.

  Truly, her age was catching up on her. After the way the Sultan had responded with a direct request to replace her, what did she think the princess would do? Agree? Preposterous.

  “Would I like to take what, magician?” the princess asked.

  In that moment, Badra knew what she had to do to ensure the compliance of Princess Shahrazad, to convince her to take her position—to make her believe she had no other choice. She needed to unmask the second secret she harbored this evening.

  “Would you like to take full freedom tonight? Would you like to truly run wild?” she asked, laying the lightest kiss on the girl’s full, delicious lips. “I can grant your heart’s desire.”

  Badra felt the girl freeze beneath her, even as she deepened her kiss. “What do you know about my heart’s desire?” the princess asked.

  “I know he’s standing next to you, thinking he’s invisible.” Badra had lured him to her, planting the suggestion in his mind that he’d find the magician with the princess, planting the suggestion that he should watch…protect the princess. Having him close let her observe him without draining her powers overmuch.

  “What?” The girl’s raised eyebrows bespoke her alarm even if her controlled voice masked it.

  “Prince Tahir, you may speak,” she said, using her most compelling magician’s voice, wasting more precious prana.

  “What?” Shahrazad sat, pushing Badra firmly away. “Prince Tahir is here? Did you trick him? Trap him?”

  Badra let a sultry wisdom fill her voice, amused that the prince was standing as still as one of th
e walls. Did he truly believe she, the greatest magician in five hundred years, couldn’t see through demon spit? “I suspect he thought to protect you from me.”

  “I tracked you here,” he said, finally stepping forward, the scent of gardenias wafting around him. “From the prison. Badra, I need my sister, and I need her now.

  “Then why are you watching?”

  “I wanted to make certain you didn’t…” He didn’t sound certain, and indeed he wasn’t. His actions had been suggested—strongly suggested—by the magician.

  “Didn’t what?” she asked, provoking him. “Hurt the princess?”

  “Virgins can be fragile,” he said.

  “Ah, you speak from great experience.”

  Princess Shahrazad stood, her knees visibly wobbling, no doubt from the herb they’d smoked. “I don’t know how most women’s Flower Taking’s progress, but I doubt this particular set of scenarios is acceptable. I need to find the Sultan.”

  “And tell him that Prince Tahir has seen you naked?” Badra scoffed. “Your head will join your cousin’s. Pike Wall will be filled with beautiful young girls cut down in their prime.”

  “What are you suggesting then?” the princess demanded. “You wretched creature.”

  “He could be yours,” she said, teasing the girl with her gentle fingertips over her stomach. “For tonight only, of course. You know you want him. You entered my chamber thick with desire for him.”

  “I cannot.” Her tone held no hesitation. She didn’t sound remotely tempted. What a fantastic magician she would make. “I cannot risk my land,” Shahrazad said.

  “I’m leaving you no choice.”

  “You can’t make me succumb to him,” the princess said.

  “Oh, but I can,” Badra said, laughing at the girl’s innocence. Desire and duty could so easily be coalesced into one.

  “You cannot make us lie together, magician,” Prince Tahir said. “I will not take her against her will, and her will is clear.”

  “This is why you two will fuck. You,” she turned to the princess, “must leave this chamber without your maidenhead. The only way to do that is with him.”

  “You can’t—” the princess began to say.

  “You have two choices: enjoy the pleasure of the flesh with the man of your dreams or don’t.”

  And with those words, Badra the Bad vanished, releasing her hold on these two. She needed to give free will a chance to work its magic.

  8

  “Badr!” Tahir howled, launching himself toward the golden-haired woman. “You’ll come with me now. Give me my sister.”

  But she was gone. Of course she was. He’d waited too long.

  “Your land,” Princess Shahrazad said, calmly wrapping a blanket around herself. Her huge pupils obscured the honey color of her eyes. “How will we find her now?”

  Her words calmed him—because he knew the answer. “I’m not doomed, at least my land isn’t. The magician’s in my head,” he said, touching his temples. “She called me here.”

  “Is she talking to you? Telepathically?”

  “No, I feel her. I’m linked to her somehow.” He looked at her as he sifted through his thoughts, trying to make sense of them. “I said I’d serve the magician—Badr the Bad—for a month and a day. When I spoke those words, he—I mean, she—took hold of some part of my mind.”

  “For a month and a day?”

  “I hope not a heartbeat longer. Even this is too long.”

  “And you can detect her, find her?” she asked, rising from the bed. “Or can she only call to you?”

  He paused for a moment, concentrating. Even while in the oasis far from here, he’d sensed the magician’s lifepulse. Focusing on that pulse, he realized he could track it even now. “I think I can find her,” he said. “I believe she’s still in the palace.” He paused again. “I believe she’s several floors down from here…in a room filled with books. The library?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He nodded. “That feels right. She’s…” he paused again. “Looking for something, something on the shelves.”

  “Tracking her at will could be very useful,” the princess said, “even if she can vanish so easily.”

  “Yes.”

  Princess Shahrazad walked past him, wrapped demurely in her blanket. “I shall dress myself then, and we shall retrieve your sister. Or we shall attempt to.”

  “And when you arrive in your marriage bed as a virgin?”

  “The marriage will be annulled. The Raj will reject me. The shitani will invade.”

  “We cannot allow that.”

  “But you know where the magician is, what she’s doing. We must find her and restore your sister.”

  “I can always find the magician. I can find her after we meet your needs.”

  A desire to wrap her in his arms surged through him. He could hold her and protect her from her father and her husband-to-be. He could love her, show her the Way of Pleasure. Keep her for his own.

  But the smell of khansari tobacco burning in the huqqa filled the air, bringing him back to himself. “I—” Tahir reached for her, but stopped himself. “My desire for you burns my skin. I ache for you. I fear my desire to aid you is completely self serving.”

  She smiled shyly, her eyes cast on her feet. “It would serve me as well.” She stepped toward him and said, “Show me my tattoo, if you please.”

  And Prince Tahir couldn’t disobey a direct order from a woman. Could he?

  He could not. “Your birthmark looks like this,” he said, pushing the edge of the saffron blanket aside with gentle fingers. He placed a lingering kiss on the base of Shahrazad’s spine, his fingers tracing the silk-covered line of the princess’s thigh.

  He thought his bold touch might make her flee like a hunted deer, but instead she stood trembling under his hand. She moaned in pleasure as he placed kiss above kiss, climbing the princess’s back.

  “Its tongue is right here,” he said, flicking his own tongue over Shahrazad’s right hip.

  “Oh.” She drew the syllable into one long moan of pleasure. The scent of her desire filled the room, making him ache for her.

  “And what if this delicious snake slithered over here?” he asked as he rolled Shahrazad onto her back, keeping his tongue on the skin right above the bedlah skirt.

  “Tattoos don’t slither,” Shahrazad answered, her voice nearly as husky as his. The way her hips moved told Tahir exactly how much desire burned her veins; desire burned in his veins. “Tattoos don’t move.”

  “But what if it did?” He traced the gold-beaded triangle with his finger, and the princess caught her breath. “I’d crawl right here, if I were that snake.” The vee plunged from the curve of her hips down over her pubic hair, and as he traced the edging, the princess’s nipples pebbled beneath the plum-colored top. Her nipples were as hard as any of the gold beads, as hard as his cock.

  “Are you a snake to crawl over me so?”

  “For you, I will be. I’ll crawl all over each of your curves. I’ll lick every bit of you that craves me.”

  And when his red lips traveled the same line his fingers had traced, Tahir felt the princess surrender. In the smoke-filled room, he imagined the heat between her thighs turning to molten silk. He longed to swim in her river.

  “Does my invisibility distract you?” he asked.

  “Perhaps it makes me bold.”

  “Let us see how bold.” Spying a perfect accoutrement to pleasure, he retrieved a small glass jar from the end table. It was inlaid with the same blue gems as the huqqa sitting on the small table by the bed, and he suspected it contained massage oil. When he uncorked it, the pop sounded ethereal, like it came from a distant plane. Tahir knew then that the smoke had stoned him too.

  “I’m going to give you a massage.” He warmed the oil in his palms.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  He slid his hands lingeringly over the princess’s stomach, her hips, her navel. Then he moved higher, coating her shoulders an
d arms with the warm oil. His fingers teased at the edge of her brassiere, just where the swell of her breasts began.

  He craved her full lips, imagined them wrapped around him, sliding and sucking. He knew he shouldn’t think of her this way, destined as she was for another man, but still…he wanted her. He imagined her writhing beneath him, calling his name. He imagined sucking her breast, tasting her kiss. Did he dare?

  “Your husband will like it if you do this to him,” he said, rubbing oiled hands over her midriff.

  “And you?” she asked. “Would you like it?”

  “I crave your touch,” he said as the princess took the jar from him. He knew she was about to touch him in ways he’d been touched before, by many women. But the fact that it was she—Princess Shahrazad, who was shy and bold in equal measure, who was braver than any of his mother’s Warqueen Abbesses when fighting the demons…Never had he ached like this. “Today,” his voice sounded just like a croaking toad’s, “you may practice on me.”

  “I might like such an opportunity.” Her words were solemn, but her fingers were tracing his hip.

  “Where are you, my prince?”

  “If you want me, you should find me.”

  “You doubt my desire?”

  He laughed, a low, seductive sound. “I don’t doubt. Not you.”

  “Then where are you?”

  The bed shifted. A caress delighted her arm. “Find me.”

  Slowly, Shahrazad closed her eyes and used her intuition to find the man. She caressed his flat stomach. At first she used only fingertips. But he hummed in pleasure, giving Shahrazad a sense of boldness. The curve of his chest invited the whole flat of her palm.

  And the delight that raced through Shahrazad’s hands as she skimmed the surface of his stomach and chest and arms left her sizzling with a new hunger.

  “You may press harder, you know.”

  Tahir’s voice was barely recognizable, but Shahrazad obeyed, letting the texture of his skin speak to her breasts, her thighs.