Bit by bit, his vision returned. Sparkles of white light glistened around him. He realized with a start that they were drops of melted silver—the remnants of chains.
He couldn’t see Vincentas, Bron, or the Queen. The world was still coated in a golden haze, but he could make out the bodies of Anton and Kurt lying on the floor a few feet away. They flopped around, the sluggish movements of their bodies suggesting a type of lethargy rather than pain.
“The brothers have been handsomely rewarded for the pleasure they gave me. It will be awhile before they are of any use to you though, I’m afraid.”
Aldric turned his gaze back to Saule. He flinched when he met her eyes, burning balls of pure sunlight. He tried to look away, but she put a hand on either side of his face and turned him back to her.
“I see a face inside you,” she whispered, her strange glowing eyes looking almost blind. “Who is in there?”
Aldric opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Fear shivered down his spine, even as the heat of Saule’s body pressed him to the floor. Her blood flowed through his veins, infusing him with a warmth he hadn’t felt in ages. He felt like a penitent, lying before his goddess. Waiting for her judgment. For the first time in centuries, he realized he was very very afraid.
“A shroud covers the man before me,” she said slowly, her voice echoing with power. She pulled her hands away from his face. “I must bring him back.”
Confusion sang with tension in his muscles as Saule turned herself around. Her arms nestled on either side of his hips as she spread her legs over his face. The scent of her pussy, like warm earth laced with fresh leaves, filled his senses, pushing away his fear and replacing it with a heated desire. He opened his mouth, eagerly welcoming the first taste of her juices on his lips.
The heat of her breath on his cock tightened his body, raising his flesh once again until he stood as hard and ready as before. She ran her cheek over the length of him and he cried out into her soaking flesh.
“Drink from me, Aldric,” she whispered against him. “I will take the chill from your body and you will see again.”
Somewhere, something inside Aldric stirred. A part of him he’d thought died almost two centuries ago suddenly turned its face to the light. His hands rose of their own accord, cupping her hips as though they were the most delicate of treasures. A sense of wonder settled over him as he drew his tongue along her pussy.
Her moan caressed him like a hand, stirring his passion as she lowered her mouth over the head of his cock. He licked her again, deeper this time. He lapped at the honey that coated her flesh, relishing the flavor of living sunlight. Over and over, he drew his tongue over her lips, delving into her depths to get more sweet nectar from her body. Every swallow added to the growing pool of warmth in his belly, every suckle of his mouth at her lips made the light before him a little brighter. He drank from her and knew he’d never be thirsty again.
Her lips locked around the head of his cock and he cried out as she ran her tongue in quick circles around the tip. Sizzling jolts of pleasure ricocheted down his length until his body bucked underneath her, straining to enter her mouth. Her hand wrapped around the base of his cock, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure to heighten his pleasure without causing pain.
Suddenly she opened her lips, sliding his cock inside her mouth until her lips met her fist. His fingers dug into her hips and he struggled not to thrust too violently for fear of hurting her. She pulled back, achingly slowly, her fist sliding up through her saliva so that she stroked him with long smooth motions.
“Saule,” he choked, his body rocking in time to her ministrations.
She settled herself firmly on his mouth, raising her lips just enough to say, “Drink.”
She didn’t wait for his response before taking his cock back in her mouth. Helpless to do anything else, Aldric did as she commanded.
Over and over again he licked at her pussy, teasing his tongue between her folds and coaxing more wetness from the depths of her being. Her body shuddered and began to rock against him, straining to put her clit against his questing tongue.
He readily obliged her, soothing the bundle of nerves he had tortured so firmly with his hand only minutes ago. Her mouth continued to slide over his cock, her hand working his shaft as her lips played over the head. Desire tightened his body, sending shockwaves down his limbs as his second orgasm drew closer.
His hips shuddered and he tried to pull back, to warn her he would not last much longer. She pressed her body down, silently urging him not to stop. He renewed his efforts, suckling at her clit and trying to build her own pleasure as quickly as she built his.
The orgasm hit him with a force he’d never felt before. His lower body thrust off the ground, his insides twisting and melting as if everything he was had been turned to liquid and was being drained from his body by the delicate mouth of the goddess on top of him. Her body spasmed and a flood of honey poured into his mouth, flowing down his throat like a stream of light and warmth.
He could taste spring in her juices. Budding life exploding from the earth, warm sunlight caressing the frozen ground, and the melting of winter’s last snow. It all flowed from her body into his, even as his very soul seemed to flow into her. Pleasure wrung their bodies until they lay in a boneless heap on the floor.
A thick muffled sound echoed in Aldric’s ears. His brain lay under a thick blanket of spent pleasure, too muddled to identify the noise. The sound came again. Then again. Each sound was the same, smooth and steady. Like a heartbeat.
A heartbeat
.
Aldric rocketed into a sitting position, shock vibrating his body as his hands flew to his chest. His flesh twitched as something inside him pulsed, pressing against his hand in rhythmic beats. It had been so long that the sound seemed foreign, almost unidentifiable. He fought to swallow past the lump of fear in his throat, the revived organ inside him filling his ears with its ominous beat.
He stared in shock at Saule where she lay on the ground, her glowing eyes once more the pale blue orbs they had been when he arrived. No longer like beads of ice, they shone at him like droplets of dew on early morning leaves. She smiled at him as he stared at her, lost and confused. The iron bar in his braid felt unbearably heavy and he winced as he strained to hold his head up.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered. “What have you done to me?”
“The human Aldric was my faithful servant,” Saule said sweetly. “The vampire Aldric turned his back on me, but the memory of my follower remained buried inside you. I am the goddess of the sun, my body is a chalice of life and rebirth.”
Terror seized Aldric, widening his eyes with growing realization. He’d drank from the body of a goddess, not just from her veins, but from the very essence of her feminine power. The strength he’d found in death had been stolen from him—drained away on a flood of life. He fought the fine tremble that threatened to crawl up his body as Saule leaned in and put her lips against his ear.
“You grew impatient with me once, Aldric. You threw away the life you’d promised to spend in service to me.” She licked his ear and then nuzzled his neck, sending shivers down his spine. “I’m going to teach you patience, little human. There will be no vampire standing by to offer you a faster way.”
He shivered in pleasure despite a growing sense of alarm. “What do you want from me?”
“Here in the Unseelie sithen, night and day coexist. Dubheasa has kindly offered me refuge here while I recondition you. And all it cost me was two of your guards.”
Aldric froze, his gaze searching in vain for Vincentas and Bron. The two men had entrusted him with their safety, had been loyal to him for hundreds of years. Now they were gone.
“You look so outraged.” Saule smiled. “Don’t worry,” she soothed. “The Queen will take good care of them.”
“They have done nothing to deserve punishment. They are not yours to bargain with.”
“I wouldn’t worry about them, my dear Aldric.”
The queen’s voice wound itself around his ears, tilting his head to look toward the entrance of the alcove. The queen stood there, her face smeared with blood and her eyes alight with some strange pleasure. She stepped into the alcove and came to stand where she could stare down at Aldric. “You have more important things to worry about.”
Understanding finally dawned. He turned his gaze back to Saule. “You planned this. You deliberately drew Oberon’s attentions so that Tatania would send you here because you knew Queen Dubheasa would help you lure me to the sithen in exchange for the brothers.”
Saule smiled. “Do you know what happens when you touch the sun, Aldric?”
His heart, so newly healed, nearly stopped in his chest. “You get—”
“Burned,” she whispered.
“Poor Aldric,” the queen said ruefully. “It seems your reign of terror is over.” She sighed. “Pity.”
The End . . . ?
“So you just
assumed
that because I left the tentacle lying on the floor that I was
done
with it?”
Queen Dubheasa narrowed her eyes a little further, keeping the smile from her face as her newest lady in waiting shrank before her. The key to tormenting servants was to make them question everything. Even the slightest task should make them tense with indecision as they tried to guess whether the greater danger lie in doing something or not doing something. For instance, would it anger the queen more to leave a bleeding tentacle lying on the floor of her throne room, or would she be more furious if it was discarded without consulting her? These were the questions that kept a sidhe from making hasty choices.
Rosemary’s normally pink tinted skin paled with terror until she was nearly as white as the queen herself.
“I—I—I—,” she sputtered.
“You look better with less color in your face,” Dubheasa mused aloud, admiring the woman’s new pallor. “I wonder how we might go about dying your skin to look that way all the time?”
The slender sidhe female swayed on her feet, a good sign she was about to faint. Tiny greed buds pushed through Rosemary’s skin, crawling down her arms like tiny green snakes. If the former Seelie sidhe kept panicking, she’d be covered in a rosebush before she could gather her wits to respond. Dark pleasure swirled around Dubheasa’s body. Less than five minutes and two hundred year old Rosemary was already losing control of her powers in the face of the queen’s psychological warfare.
These are the games that make living for centuries bearable
, the queen thought happily.
A sharp feminine moan came from behind her and Dubheasa glanced over her shoulder. Her shift in attention revealed nothing but a row of red velvet curtains hanging over a series of hidden alcoves. The queen would be hard pressed to remember what she’d put in each of the various hidey-holes, but she knew exactly where that moan had come from.
“Saule is obviously enjoying her revenge.” She glanced down at the floor, admiring the prone bodies of the two unconscious vampires she’d recently acquired. Congratulations were most definitely in order. Not only had she managed to get a front row seat for Aldric’s erotic revenge on the sun goddess, she’d struck a deal with the sun goddess to gain two vampire lovers in exchange for setting up Aldric. “Really,” she said out loud. “It’s a win for everyone involved. Aldric got his revenge, Saule got her revenge, and I got to watch it all and take two prizes home with me besides!”
The sound of rustling leaves drew her attention. She narrowed her eyes as she noticed her servant still quaking before her.
“Rosemary,” she growled. “Why are you still here? Can’t you see I have guests to entertain?”
Sobbing, Rosemary fled the throne room on wobbling legs, not even sparing a glance at the two “guests” on the floor. It wasn’t until she’d vanished out the door that the queen realized she’d meant to make the sniveling sidhe carry the vampires to her bedroom.