The women around Clea gasped at the man’s audacity and looked to their lady, expecting her to chastise the offender. But Clea picked up her tapestry needle and thread, and kept silent.
“You,” Nergal said with a grunt, pointing at Marbas. “Come to my quarters at half-past the hour.” He turned and started to walk away but Clea’s voice stopped him.
“She is suffering from the pox, Lord Nergal. Do you still wish her to come to your bed?”
Lord Nergal turned around and glared at the king’s daughter. His handsome features were tight with disgust. Without another word, he spun around and marched off.
“Milady, he will go to the Healer and—”
“And the Healer will tell him that each of Princess Clea’s ladies-in-waiting are pox-riddled,” Clea assured her. “I have greased his filthy palm many times over to save you women the curse of being mauled by a piece of offal like Sorath Nergal!”
Marbas rushed to her mistress and knelt down beside her, wrapping her hands around Clea’s scrawny legs. “Thank you, Your Grace. Oh, thank you!”
Clea put a hand to the girl’s dark hair. “We will save your virginal offering to a man worthy to claim it, Mari. I swear that to you on my beloved mother’s grave.”
“I wish the Venturians had won the war,” Sariel stated. “With a man like Lord Krull at the head of our Tribunal, the women of Pleiades would not have to suffer at the hands of men like Lord Nergal.”
“I, too, wish they had won the war, Sariel,” Clea told her. “Perhaps one day those powerful warriors will march on Nebul and free us all.”
“But would you be allowed to keep the throne, Your Grace?” Marbas questioned.
Clea continued to stroke Marbas’ hair. Her rheumy eyes gazed into the distance. “I don’t see why not. I am no threat to them, and I believe I would make a good monarch.”
“The best,” Marbas swore. “The very best, milady!”
“Then let’s say our prayers that one day the gods will take pity on us and rid us of the wickedness that prevails in our land,” Clea advised her women.
“Come to us, Lord Krull,” Sariel pleaded, her hands clasped to her chin. “Come and deliver us from the evil in which we are forced to live.”
“Come, Leksi,” Clea whispered, her gaze shifting to the man who visited her often in her secret dreams. “Come and rescue me.”
Chapter Eight
Kynthia tossed upon her bed and flung the covers this way and that. She was restless in her sleep for an age-old nightmare had come to gallop across her memory, its pounding hooves striking to the rhythm of her terrified heart.
In her dreams, she was running upon the Isle of Uaigneas, trying to outdistance the gruesome thing racing toward her. She ran through the forest with tree limbs slapping at her face, she stumbled over logs and fell face down in the blistering sand. Looking behind her, she could see the loathsome entity slithering after her and she got up and ran again, the stitch in her side so painful she moaned in her sleep. For what felt like hours, she raced through the forest until she came to the high cliff overlooking the island where the Reaper’s airship, The Levant, sat perched like a mighty black raptor.
There was nowhere else to run. All avenues of escape were closed off to her and when she dared to look around one last time, she was horrified to find the thing from which she had been striving to escape loaming over her, wicked talons curled, and flashing incisors dripping with saliva, glowing red eyes piercing her to the marrow of her bones. She could either accept the evil coming at her or turn and jump from the cliff to the jagged rocks far below. The decision was hers.
“It is your choice, wench,” Cainer Cree’s voice came at her from the sky.
And she had made her decision by holding her arms out to the creature and offering her neck to its wicked fangs. As the sharpness hooked into her flesh, Kynthia Ancaeus sank to the ground in unconscious worship of the Transition she knew would soon come.
With a gasp, Kynthia sat up in the bed. Her legs were tangled in the rumpled sheets and she viciously kicked them away, unnerved by the restriction that had wound its way around her ankles. Shivering, her teeth chattering, she plastered herself to the headboard and drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and sat there rocking back and forth, a soft keening sound issuing from her constricted throat as her backbone thumped against the wooden slats of the headboard.
“It was your choice, wench,” she thought she heard the Reaper say.
“I know,” Kynthia muttered. “I know it was.”
Yet there were times she bitterly regretted accepting the parasite from Cainer Cree.
“You will need to harvest it from my back,” the Reaper explained. “There is a small jug into which you will drop the fledgling. Be quick and cover the jug for it will strive to escape.”
“How big is the thing inside you?” she asked.
“The Queen is about a foot long. She is coiled around her hive of about four-dozen nestlings. All you need to gather is one of them.”
“But how will I—”
“You won’t be able to miss it once you cut me open,” he interrupted. “The Queen looks like an organ and you won’t see either her head or her tail. The nestlings are eel-like, squirming things which are in a honeycombed sac attached to my kidney.”
Kynthia felt nauseous. “Will the parasite I harvest from you grow to be as big as the Queen inside you?”
“Aye.”
“Inside me,” Kynthia whispered. “Such things will grow inside me.”
“Aye, wench. Inside you.”
That evening, she had dreamed of the horror coming at her for the first time and when she had awoke screaming, she had found herself wrapped tightly in the Reaper’s arms, his soothing voice calming her as she clung to him.
“It is your choice, Kynthia. Do not make it unless you are totally committed to this. You have the freedom to walk away from what I am offering,” he told her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I want this.”
She had fallen asleep in his arms and her dreams had changed drastically. Instead of fleeing to the brink of death upon the cliff, she was running happily toward Cainer Cree, his beckoning arms wide. Gladly she had gone into those arms and felt them close around her.
He swung her up in his brawny arms and carried her to his hut. There, he laid her upon his solitary bunk and with the wave of his hands, freed her of her clothing. In the beat of a heart, his vanished from his heavily muscled frame as his knee pressed into the mattress and he straddled her.
She could feel the heat and weight of his staff as it lay against her thigh. Closing her eyes to his knowing hands as they kneaded her breasts and his strong fingers plucked at her nipples, she reached down to grasp that steely tool.
He was warm in her hands and throbbing, as hard as stone in her hand. Looking past his muscular forearms, she stared at the thick veins than ran the length of his cock. There was power in those veins and she ran the tip of her finger down one crooked length.
“It is your choice, Kynthia,” he whispered to her, and that mighty weapon leapt in her hand.
She held her arms out to him and he lowered his body to hers. The weight of him was delicious, his scent one of heady potency. As he settled atop her, he claimed her mouth with his and did wickedly delectable things with his quick tongue. His hands were on her hips then sliding beneath her to cup her ass. She could feel his fingers digging lightly into her flesh and reveled in the sensation.
His cock was throbbing against her clit and she opened her legs as he moved to position his legs between hers.
“It is your choice,” he repeated, and his staff stirred against her, straining to thrust inside her welcoming slit.
She arched her back and threw her legs around his hips, anchoring him to her. Once more, she felt his cock pressing against her vaginal lips. She strained toward him, granting him permission to take her.
But it was not his cock that thrust inside her.
I
t was the triangular green head of the Queen that snaked her way inside Kynthia’s cunt. The thick, horny scales ripped at the tender flesh and tore open the walls of her vagina as the beastess drove deeper inside Kynthia’s shuddering body.
Screams of agony ripped from a throat half-paralyzed with fear and disgust. Writhing upon the bed, she tried to buck off the creature impaling her for the Reaper’s handsome face had melted into the leering, deadly stare of something not of this world.
“It was your choice,” the creature taunted, and with one brutal, savage thrust drove its body deep into Kynthia. As it did, it became one long, snakelike thing that vanished into her depths, its forked tail the last thing she saw disappearing inside her before spiraling into unconsciousness.
“Kynthia, wake!”
The Reaper’s voice seem to be coming from the heavens when in truth he was right beside her, his arms wrapped tightly around her. When she opened her eyes and looked up into his stern face, she started thrashing, pushing against him in an effort to escape. When he would not let go of her, she began to scream mindlessly and lash out at him with her fists. She heard one annoyed sigh then saw the stars come down from the heavens as he gave her a light tap that immediately brought her out of her frenzy.
“Behave,” he warned, and tightened his arms around her.
Shaking her head to send the stars back to the cosmos, she began to cry. “I’m sorry!” she burst out.
He crooned to her in a language she did not know and suspected was his native tongue from that world far beyond her own. It was lyrical and bore a decided similarity to Chalean High Speech. As he spoke, he calmly smoothed her hair and rocked her gently against him.
“I am so ashamed,” she blubbered.
“For what?” he inquired. “Having wicked dreams of me?”
She looked up at him. “You read my thoughts?” she accused.
“How could I not when they were so strong, Sweeting?”
Pushing away from him, she ran the sleeve of her blouse under her nose. “I didn’t mean to have such evil dreams of you.”
“Of course, you didn’t, and the dream really wasn’t about me.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. It was partially the need you have for a man’s body to satisfy you and—”
“I want no such thing!”
He held up a hand, forestalling any further denials. “And partially the fear of taking on the parasite.”
“Had you but known what would happen to you, would you not have feared it, Reaper?” she challenged.
“I had no choice. You do.”
“So you keep telling me,” she snapped.
“Are you still sure that is what you wish to do?”
“Aye, I am very sure. But that part about me wanting a man—”
“One day, you will meet a man whose hand will start a fire in your loins, milady. His gentlest touch will stoke that fire until it is a blazing inferno only his male potency can extinguish. When you find such a man, hold fast to him for you will know you have found your life-mate.”
“Aye, well, how will I know such a man when I happen upon him?” she sneered.
“You will know him by his honesty and his honor. He will vow never to hurt you,” he replied. “Nor will he ever allow anyone or anything to hurt you. He will swear to cherish you, as you deserve to be cherished. That is how you will know.”
“Humph,” Kynthia snorted. “I’ll believe that when I find such a mythical creature.”
“Like dragons, they do exist, wench,” the Reaper said with a glint in his golden eyes.
* * * * *
Sitting pressed to the headboard of her bed in Aunt Galatea’s villa, Kynthia closed her eyes. “Reaper?” she asked. “Are you there?”
Where else would I be? came an amused whisper.
Kynthia smiled. “I found him, just as you said I would.”
Aye, and he seems a good man.
“I think he wants to become One with the Blood.”
I gleaned as much, but he might be more concerned with being than with being.
Kynthia frowned. “I don’t understand.”
He knows there is strength in a Reaper, and the warrior in him sees that as a powerful benefit. The politician in him sees the ability to read minds as an advantage. With the capability of nearly instantaneous healing, the inability to catch illnesses and a Reaper’s natural longevity, the pragmatic in him sees more positive than negative things in the changing.
“Rather than simply wanting to be my mate and spend his lifetime with me?” she offered.
He wants those things, too, wench, but he is a practical man, and practicality will always come first with him even though his heart is firmly in your keeping.
“You think so?”
I know so.
“So should I have him harvest one of my nestlings?”
It is your decision to make, Kynthia. Only you can decide.
Kynthia sighed. She knew he would say no more about Leksi Helios’ desire to be One with the Blood. “Have you made any more like us?”
There was a long moment of silence then the Reaper’s tone was harsh when he replied.
Only a few and only one to whom I am exceedingly sorry I gave it. He has made many more like us and not a one of them is worthy of the positive things the changeling can accomplish.
“Who is he? Should I be concerned about him?”
No. His days are numbered. Leave his punishment to the gods for it will surely come with a vengeance. Those he made will vanish from the face of the earth.
She sensed him pulling away and let him go. She pictured him sitting on the cliff, staring out at his beloved airship and dreaming dreams of yesteryears when he was not the strange recluse on the Isle of Uaigneas.
* * * * *
Lord Krull swirled his goblet of Chalean brandy and stared down into the potent amber liquid. He had been silent for half an hour and both Leksi and Kratos knew better than to interrupt whatever thoughts the Lord High Commander was reading in the fiery liquor.
“I met Queen Mona a few years ago,” Krull finally said. “She seems a very competent woman though that daughter of hers makes my balls tighten.”
“I’ve heard rumors that the daughter was sired by a demon,” Kratos commented.
“That doesn’t surprise me in the least,” the Lord High Commander said, taking a sip of his brandy. “She had a fierce, nasty look about her and kept staring at me as though I was a confection on a dessert trencher, and there I was near to four times her age.”
Leksi wiggled in his chair. “There are some females who mature early, Your Grace. Perhaps she is one of them.”
“Well, such lascivious thoughts I sensed from that child would unsettle any grown man lest he be one who likes to diddle children,” Krull said.
“Have you met the Amazeen queens?” Kratos inquired.
“No, and I don’t care to,” Krull said, draining his goblet.
“For the life of me,” Leksi said, “I do not understand why they need two queens.”
“One is for defense and the other for domestic issues,” Krull commented. “It seems strange to us but seems to work for them. Queen Deianeira is the defense queen. Her twin sister, Antianeira, is the domestic queen. I have heard they are beauties with hair of flame but with only one breast.”
“Legend has it that at puberty the Amazeens have their right breasts removed,” Kratos explained. “Unless she is left-handed and then it’s her left breast.”
“Why?” Leksi asked, his forehead crinkled.
“The better to pull a bowstring,” Krull answered for Kratos.
“Oh,” Leksi said.
“So your lady thinks she can bring both the Daughters of the Night and the Amazeen to be our allies,” Krull stated. “Do you think she can pull it off, Helios?”
“She told me both the Daughters and the Amazeen have reason to hate the Pleiadesians.”
“You know why, don’t you?” Krull queried.
&
nbsp; Both Leksi and Kratos shook their heads.
Krull leaned back in his chair and put his booted feet on the top of his desk then crossed his ankles. Lacing his fingers together, he put them behind his head. “I found out about it from Queen Mona, herself,” he said. “She was in Akkadia asking for help from those sons-of-bitches but King Asshole refused.”
Leksi and Kratos exchanged an amused glance. They knew with what contempt their commander held King Ashbrolen of Akkadia.
“Back around the time King Jordyle took the throne of Ventura there was a squadron of Hell Hags escorting a group of novitiates to the Abbey of Marpesia in Bandar. In route, they were attacked by a party of Nebullian storm troopers.”
“They were a long way from the border,” Leksi said.
“Obviously they were looking for trouble and found it with the Witches of Bandar. The Hell Hags acquitted themselves well enough—slaying all but three of the fifteen storm troopers—but all save one of the novitiates was killed during the melee. The one who remained was Queen Mona’s niece and the surviving storm troopers made off with her.”
“That had to have infuriated the Witches,” Leksi said.
“For the most part, the Daughters of the Night were not warrior women back then. They were mystics, healers, the teachers of children. So, Queen Mona asked the Amazeens for help. Their defense queen sent a force of women to try to catch the storm troopers before they crossed back into Pleiades, but there was an ambush and not one of the Amazeen survived the attack. The bastards raped the women as they lay dying then took their remaining breasts as trophies.
“Left with having to bed King Abalam for her niece’s return, Queen Mona sent word to him. As you can imagine, he laughed at the note and sent word back that he had every intention of keeping the girl there for his own amusement. She was but twelve at the time.”
“Bastard,” Kratos snarled.
“So Queen Mona went to the Akkadians. I was there as a representative of our new King and listened to her petition before the Akkadian High Council. When they turned her down, I followed her outside and offered my assistance.”
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