Running Wild

by Lucinda Betts

  “Now it is my turn,” he said. She felt him move. Was he sitting now?

  When he began sliding warm fingers over her shoulders in a deliberate way, Shahrazad didn’t object. Even as she looked down and saw her breasts shining in the candlelight, she didn’t want to object. She longed for…something. For something she didn’t know how to describe.

  Warm and seductive flesh touched her cheek, slid across it tenderly. He was kissing her, she realized. His lips stroked her cheek and then her chin, teasing her. With half-closed eyes, Shahrazad parted her lips, inviting his attention.

  She wanted to be devoured; she wanted to devour. A primal hunger was upon her, and she didn’t want to wait another moment.

  He molded his hands over her breasts, running his fingernails lightly over her nipples. The friction sent a crack of electricity through her.

  Writhing from the sensation, Shahrazad felt her very core soften and yield. She parted her legs to reduce the throbbing, but the texture of her silk skirt against her thighs did little to soothe.

  Then he slid a finger just under the edge of Shahrazad’s bedlah skirt. His rough fingertip glided over the bone of her hip, danced just above her pubic line. Rubbing one hand lightly over her nipple, his hand swept over her mound, pressing, pitching the hunger to a fever heat.

  And when his finger caressed her nerve-filled nub, her breath hitched in surprised pleasure. The delight between her thighs hovered right on the line of exquisite pleasure.

  Each time he neared her throbbing nub she thought she’d explode from the pleasure of near release. “In God’s eyes,” Shahrazad moaned, grasping the silk blanket in tight fingers. “Please. I need—” But she didn’t know what she needed.

  Prince Tahir did.

  He nudged her with the tip of his experienced tongue. Shahrazad jerked in response to the searing lash of delight that burst over her.

  Between butterfly-light strokes of his tongue, he sucked. Then, while he stroked, he slid his thumb heavily over her nub, gliding just barely inside her opening.

  Shahrazad arched toward her lover, seeking release from this excruciating torture, but he pulled back. She sensed a smile on his invisible face.

  “Do you know what you want?” he asked.

  “Yes—” Shahrazad said. “I want…” She wanted him. She wanted him now.

  “You must be able to tell me what you want,” he said without recrimination. “You must be able to tell your husband.”

  In answer, she grabbed his hand and slid it between her thighs.

  Again, she sensed amusement, but not a cruel sort. Something patient and kind.

  “What do you want, Princess Shahrazad?”

  “I want you,” she said, finally answering the question. “Please, slake this fire.”

  “Are you burning for me? Do you ache for the Way of Pleasure?”

  “I—” She couldn’t help herself. She pushed his fingers where she wanted them to be. “I ache. Help me. Please.”

  “Yes,” he said. Then the bed shifted, and she felt his lips touch hers, kissing her lips gently. “Do you want this?” He flicked his tongue just inside Shahrazad’s mouth, tracing the line of her lips.

  She opened herself to the kiss—and wasn’t disappointed. His tongue twined around hers, teasing and promising—pulling a groan of pleasure from her.

  “Do you?” he asked again, flicking the tip of his tongue over Shahrazad’s top lip.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” her teacher breathed. His breath tasted of cloves and cinnamon, and his lips burned a path from her neck to her breast. Tiny kisses covered each nipple, leaving her breathless. She’d never imagined a touch could feel so…erotic.

  When he softly sucked a nipple, it felt as natural as breathing. He applied the gentlest pressure, as lightly as a feathered sunchaser landing on a flower, and Shahrazad blossomed.

  With a groan of pure longing, she rolled her head back and gave herself to the pleasure, to the delight. Whatever he wanted to do to her, she’d allow it. He could have her mouth, her breasts. He could have her thighs and what lay between them.

  Spreading her thighs, she caressed her own breasts and pushed them up, offering them. Tahir sucked harder, grazing her nipple with careful teeth. Shahrazad pressed toward him, moaning, and he ran his thumb over the other nipple, pressing harder as he circled.

  Pleasure left her malleable as wet oasis clay, even as she gave her mouth and breasts and tongue to him.

  An ivory item floated from the end table—he carried it, she knew—and her fear did more than whisper. The item—the imitation penis—glowed like bone in the dim light, and Shahrazad wondered what it would look like stained with her blood.

  “You like that?” he asked, tracing his fingers over the curve of her stomach.

  “Oh,” she breathed. “I like it.”

  And as he sucked the sensitive skin on her neck, she longed to show him exactly how much she liked it. He traced the low line of Shahrazad’s pubic hair, sending delicious shivers of anticipation through her.

  When the ivory penis lightly glided over Shahrazad’s inner thigh, liquid fire lit through her blood. He slid it between her legs, over her nub, and she gasped. Open your legs, he silently demanded, and she wanted nothing more than to obey.

  “You’re beautiful,” Tahir breathed. And Shahrazad believed him. She felt him shift around her, the bed moving. Then she felt the heat of his breath between her legs. As he placed a gentle kiss on her nub, teasing her thighs with the ivory penis, hot anticipation thrummed through her veins.

  His tongue danced over Shahrazad’s nub, his thumb stroking her nipple. He sucked and stroked until Shahrazad couldn’t tell where his skin ended and her own began.

  And as the ivory penis, warm from his palm, slipped just inside her, her need for satisfaction burst through her.

  She pushed her pelvis toward him in hopes that she would ease her hunger, that he would lick and suckle between her thighs, that he would fill her—that he would end this beautiful yearning.

  Lying on his stomach between her legs, he spread her with deft fingertips. She felt his hot breath as he nuzzled his face into her. Lightly at first, he trailed his tongue, swirling around the tip.

  Every muscle in her body was tightened in throbbing ecstasy. If he didn’t stop sucking, flicking, gliding, she knew she’d lose her mind.

  But the sizzling flicks of delight unrelentingly swarmed her body. Then, while he stroked, her lover slid the toy more fully into Shahrazad.

  Squeezing her eyes shut against the sudden rush of pleasure, she screamed as he slid the toy to just the right spot. The pain was fleeting, but the pleasure encompassed her very soul. She didn’t care what he thought as she shrieked. She didn’t care if her voice bounced off the palace walls and woke every member of the household.

  For several moments, she was unable to move, unable to take any but the most shallow of breaths. Tahir stroked her cheek and caressed her neck. The soothing touch offered the counterpoint to her beating heart.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes. The room spun.

  “Princess Shahrazad?” he said, sliding the ivory toy from her.

  “Mmmm.”

  “Welcome to the Way of Pleasure.”

  She stretched just then, arching her back and extending her arms above her head. God’s eyes, he thought, eyeing the long line of her waist, the curve of her lush breasts. She was beautiful. Her bedlah skirt hid her thighs in shadows, but the gem in her belly button shined in the lantern light. It shined like her eyes.

  Just then, he saw her fingers surreptitiously exploring, looking for him. Even after she was sated, she wanted him. That knowledge did something to his heart. And to his cock. He rolled toward her and nipped her ear. He’d used the ivory toy on her. Now it was time for flesh.

  Tahir touched her breasts and pushed them together. Flicking his tongue first over one hard nipple and then over the other made Shahrazad writhe, ecstasy clear on her face. He edged off the side of the bed,
planning on pleasuring her with his tongue, his mouth.

  Suddenly a huge soldier ran right into him. Both the soldier and Tahir tumbled to the ground.

  Tahir leaped quickly out of the way, hoping the guard didn’t figure out he’d just tackled a naked, invisible man.

  “What the fuck,” the guard said under his breath. He struggled to his feet as Tahir silently stole the guard’s dagger.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Princess Shahrazad asked in an arrogant voice. Tahir heard no fear.

  “My ladies,” the soldier said in a breathless voice, his bulk filling the chamber.

  The princess sat and deliberately wrapped a silk around herself with all the elegance of a queen. “Fool,” she said. Then she turned toward the wall and said, “This man had better have the ultimate excuse for bursting into this chamber—on this of all days—or I’ll see his head decorating the Pike Wall.”

  “My ladies,” he said, his breath mostly regained. “I—” He paused and looked around the chamber in confusion. “Where is the Flower Taker?”

  “This fool should realize that the Flower Taker is seeing to her business. What reason could this fool have for bursting into this chamber and attempting to speak directly to the princess?”

  “I have news, and you—I mean, the Princess Shahrazad—must come with me this very moment.” The princess did not move, her eyes dilated with khansari. He added with impatience, “Come, come! We’ll retrieve the Flower Taker later.”

  “The princess will not be going anywhere, not alone with a foolish soldier,” she said. She looked distressed, but Tahir couldn’t rescue her yet. Not until he understood the situation better.

  “It’s Badr the Bad, the magician,” the soldier said finally, sweat beaded in the russet hair of his brow. “He’s escaped his cell. He’s loose in the palace.” Suddenly the soldier stopped and sniffed the air. “What’s that scent?” he asked. “It smells like…” He paused, perhaps following the thought to its logical conclusion. “There’s a man in here with you,” he said to the princess, turning toward her, his spear at the ready.

  Tahir brought the soldier to his knees with a blow to the side of his neck, and all nine hells broke lose—beginning with the Flower Taker’s shouted warning, in his head.

  Shitani! he heard in his brain, the magician’s voice—her feminine one—said.

  And then she appeared in Shahrazad’s bed. In the flesh.

  9

  For a moment, Shahrazad failed to understand what her eyes registered. Something invisible pummeled her father’s guard. She blinked, trying to make sense of that, and the Flower Taker appeared like magic.

  But then the Flower Taker—no, she remembered—the magician—leaped from the bed opposite the guard, grabbed Shahrazad’s hand, and jerked her to the floor.

  “Make no sound,” Badra whispered. “Come with me now.”

  “What—” Shahrazad started to say, but the other woman shoved her under the bed.

  “Move!”

  “I don’t understand. What’s—”

  “Go!” Badra hissed. She shoved her farther under the bed. Were they hiding? How absurd! This didn’t strike her as a child’s game.

  “What do you think you’re doi—”

  But the blond woman gave a mighty thrust, and Shahrazad screamed as she fell. She fell, farther than should have been possible under the bed. Her fingernails scraped walls.

  She hit the floor before she understood what was happening, the landing knocking her breath completely from her lungs. As Shahrazad battled the pain in her struggle to breathe, the magician landed on top of her, her elbow hitting her stomach.

  “We can’t just leave Prince—” Shahrazad managed to gasp.

  “Shh!” the other woman said, standing. Shahrazad heard her slide something above her head, and then she heard a click.

  “There,” Badra said. “It’s locked.” The magician had a frightening knowledge of the palace Shahrazad had always considered her home, her safe home.

  Shahrazad carefully stood in the pitch-black chamber. She rubbed her stomach, aching from the elbow. Then she rubbed her head. She must have hit that on something too. “Where are we?”

  “Nowhere safe,” the magician answered. She sounded angry, or perhaps frustrated. “We must hurry. Please, hold my waist.”

  Extending her hand in the darkness, Shahrazad accidentally found the other woman’s breasts.

  “Not those,” Badra said with a deep chuckle. “Although I appreciate the enthusiasm. Try here.” The woman slid Shahrazad’s hands lower.

  “Is the prince safe?” Shahrazad asked. “What’s happening?”

  “Your father will kill you when he hears you were with Prince Tahir at your Flower Taking.” Badra began to walk—exactly like she knew where they were going in this utter darkness. “I need to remove you from his grasp.”

  A zip of fear raced through her. Her father would kill her when the soldier reported back, empty handed. Shahrazad heard the sound of another sliding panel, and the small chamber they’d been in gave way to a hall lit with the smallest lanterns Shahrazad had ever seen. The flagstone floor lay at a sharp incline.

  “What just happened?” Shahrazad asked, still confused. “Were you expecting trouble?” Shahrazad pointed to the lanterns.

  “Everyone’s expecting trouble, everyone across all the lands. Auguries in all of the cities and palaces and villages are warning about shitani.”

  “Shitani.” Shahrazad said this remembering the green monsters she and Tahir had battled.

  Badra did not look behind her as she sped down the hallway. “I’ve read your destiny—fate has deemed you worthy. Therefore, I am saving you.”

  “Me? Worthy of what?” They’d stopped in front of a paneled wall. The magician slid another wooden panel aside, pushed Shahrazad through it, and latched it. Shahrazad saw they were in the lighted hall near the entryway.

  “The way I see it,” the golden-haired woman said, closing the panel behind them, “it’s like this. It’s within your power to rein in the demons, but should you fail…” The magician was running now, pulling Shahrazad by her arm.

  “Should I fail, what—” Shahrazad ran to keep up with the other woman, but a horrible screeching on the other side of the thin panel stopped her words.

  It sounded like the cry of some wounded animal, and it was attacking the wooden panel as if it would die if it failed. It sounded like a dervish of claws and teeth, and another shriek filled the air. Was it human? Was it masculine? The scent of human sweat filled the chamber, accompanied by the odor of gardenias.

  “Is that the demons?” she asked Badra, alarm breaking through the haze of the khansari tobacco and the physical pleasure to which she’d been introduced. “Is Tahir battling a shitani?”

  “Don’t distract me.” The magician turned left around a corner.

  “We must help Tahir. He cannot conquer a demon and a soldier.”

  “He will win the night,” the magician said. “That I can assure you.”

  The sound of fighting echoed down the dark hallways, and it didn’t inspire confidence. “But we must help him,” Shahrazad insisted.

  “I am helping you instead—because I need your help.” The blond woman threw a glance over her shoulder, and she began to pull Shahrazad down the hall, toward the main gate. More wood splintered within the chamber’s heart, and Shahrazad heard the sound of shattering glass.

  The woman didn’t pause; she continued to drag Shahrazad behind her, pulling her toward the door. Cold dread coiled through her stomach as an additional—and horrifying—thought occurred to her. If the magician was truly a woman, did that mean that the burning touch on the first day of her wedding had come from a woman—not a man? Was her embrace with Tahir the first time a man had touched her?

  Her eyes locked on the woman as horror roiled through her veins. She tried to step back toward the direction from which they’d come, but the magician wouldn’t let her.

  “Princess,” she
said.

  “Are you a man or a woman?”

  “Why do you care?” She dragged Shahrazad a few more steps.

  “If I let a man touch me, shitani invade. My land will fall.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t—the augury does.” She yanked her arm hard, but still the magician dragged her toward the main gate. Had she been safe from the augury’s warning until just now, until she’d dallied with Tahir at the magician’s suggestion?

  “Princess Shahrazad,” the magician said. “You think this is your fate, to doom your land?”

  She nodded. “I fear it,” she said.

  “Then fight it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Run. Or fly. Do not remain here.”

  Shahrazad tried to pry the other woman’s fingers from her arms, tried kicking her legs. The smoke addled her brain. “I won’t go with you, Badra. You need to lift the curse from me. You need to restore Tahir’s sister to the throne.”

  “If you stay here, you’ll die. Your head will go on the Pike Wall or the shitani will destroy you.”

  Shahrazad wanted to scream and cry and run away from this insanity. But the death grip on her arm prohibited her, and it forced a cold logic into her heart.

  “Which do you choose?” the magician asked.

  “I will not run from my duties, and my duties are to my land.”

  The magician stopped and looked at her, easing the grip on her arm. “Your father won’t believe that. Come with me. I’ll keep you safe. You can flee this land and its fundamentalist rules. You can live as you will, love as you will.”

  “No, Badra.” Her voice was calm. “I won’t go with you. I won’t run from this.”

  The violet eyes of the blond woman met hers for a moment. “Fool.” She shook her head, but she released her arm altogether. “Your father will find exactly the evidence he needs to behead you, and you’ll have no choice but to run to me.”

  And then the air around Badra began to shimmer.

  Shahrazad lunged at it. She couldn’t let the magician vanish, not until the pegaz curse was lifted. Not until Queen Kalila was returned.

  But the other woman was too fast.

  “You’ll run to me,” Badra said as the air coalesced around her. “Come to me.”