Hold Me Never (Holding Never) (23 page)

I fight to keep my voice steady. “W-why does my
skin have to be cool on the outside?” While I burn on the
inside.

“
So the chocolate and desserts won't melt.”

What?

Did she say chocolate and desserts?

Two Matrons roll a trolley towards me. I glance at the
luscious offerings on the silver trays and gulp audibly. The trays
are filled with intricate, delicate, handcrafted cakes and sweets.

My eyes widen in startled comprehension. I am a
walking, dancing, serving platter.

I stand rooted to my platform, trembling as the two
Matrons help Gwin secure the exquisite desserts to my body. Lashings
of chocolate streak down my arms and legs. The chocolate doesn't
melt upon contact with my skin, which remains dry and cool, not slick
with sweat.

A necklace of sweets hang from my neck with a large
candy pendant swaying between my breasts. Around my waist is a rope
of twisted dark chocolate. My hips support a short straw skirt. The
straw skirt feels a little sticky against my thighs, and it smells
like caramel.

The other girls stare at me openly. There is no point
trying to hide the expression on their faces. This is it. My death
dance.

I am to be eaten, devoured and savored. Nothing will be
left of me.

I raise my arms and rotate slowly for Mam Mallisa's
inspection.

“
Perfect,” she says breathlessly. “You
are perfect.”

I exhale a shuddering breath at the fierce ache in my
heart. The image of Jaxon's face, his eyes telling me how perfect I
feel beneath him looms in my mind.

I shake my head hard.

Nothing to lose. He is not mine to lose.

“
Places, places everyone! It's time!” Mam
Mallisa announces in a tremulous voice. “Remember your steps.
Move your beautiful, young bodies. You know what you have to do.
Seduce, and pleasure. Seduce...and—” Her voice drops as
she locks her eyes on me. “Feed them. Satisfy them.”

I stand in the middle of the long row of leaf-and-grape
clad girls. Everyone looks stoically ahead. The tension and fear is
palpable, but no one makes a sound.

Under the escort of palace guards, we step through that
white wall and walk under the glittering, golden lights of the
chandeliers. Music can be heard wafting down the corridors. Music
and voices and laughter induced by too much food and drink.

The sounds of making merry at the expense of others'
suffering and shame. Abruptly, I think of Hani. I blink hard as the
memory of her sad, beautiful face and her strange, quiet voice flood
my senses. I remember everything she said, everything she told me.

“
I won't forget,” I whisper under my breath.
“I won't forget you.”

The imposing, gilded door opens into the Great Hall and
I am momentarily blinded by the lights. Spotlights seemed to be
trained on us as we enter. We stand in the middle of the Hall and I
blink quickly to focus my sight. The long banquet table is gone.

Instead of the table, there are a dozen bedded platforms
lining the Hall. Plush, velvet cushions are strewn on these wide
beds. The guests are lounging on these beds, as food and bubbly,
alcoholic drinks are brought to their side tables. There are a
couple of Generals that I recognize from the previous banquet. A few
new faces in uniform. Even the Emperor is in military garb, with
outlandish sashes and medals hanging all over his narrow chest.

The Emperor and his guests are not alone in their beds.

One of the Generals has a naked male in front of him.
His fly is undone, and the male is kneeling in front of him.

The Emperor and Empress are lying in two separate
poster beds, surrounded by a few naked bodies. I scan the three new
faces in uniform. They are also in military garb, but their uniforms
are of a different color and design.

Not Generals of the Unified State?

Generals of a surrendering army perhaps.

I wonder if their soldiers know that their Generals are
giving up without a fight.

That their military leaders are being bought with wine
and sex.

I sniff the air and wince. What is that smell? Do I
smell blood?

With a sudden dread, I look down at the floor and gulp
down a scream. The floor is smeared with fresh blood, making it warm
and slippery. I squint hard against the spotlights, trying to find
the source.

I finally see him.

Crouched in front of the Empress's bed, Owen is staring
at me. His white hair is splattered red, and his hands are
bloodstained.

There has been another fight, and he was won. Again.

I stare at the naked males being chained to the beds,
kneeling and forced to service these laughing guests. Some of them
look barely out of their teens.

Some naked females are spread out on the beds of the
guests and the Emperor. The poor females are hardly conscious, their
heads lolling around, their bodies limp. A low moan or whimper is
heard occasionally as hands grope and grab at their bruised, abused
bodies.

Even as I stand reeling in the middle of the bloody
floor, that horrible, haunting music begins to play. That is the
music I have to dance to. As practiced, the girls begin to fan out,
swaying and gyrating in undulating circles around me. I turn around,
trying to get my bearings and remember my steps as the girls close in
on me, rotating slowly, disorientating me.

I fight down the surging nausea as the music screeches
towards its climax.

On cue, the girls begin to move away from me. I keep my
head high, staring straight ahead as the dancers fall away one by
one, pirouetting away to the front of the platforms.

I stand still as a statue, watching the girls bend and
stretch their bodies. I had thought those movements awkward and
curious at the rehearsals. Now I see exactly what they are meant to
do.

Moving their limbs fluidly, they lean towards greedy,
open mouths to feed the guests, to allow the guests to pluck the
grapes from their breasts. Despite the roaring music, I hear stifled
cries of alarm and pain as bunches of grapes are pushed aside and
teeth grind down on bare breasts and nipples.

“
Ladies and Gentlemen!” I hear the
Empress's piercing laughter. “If you have had your fill of
fruit, then...behold! Dessert is served.”

There are movements throughout the room. The figures
lounging on the beds sit up straighter, necks are craned and eyes
follow me as I step forward mechanically.

My thundering heartbeat threatens to drown out the
music, but I manage to catch snatches of the screeching, eerie melody
and move my body accordingly. Waving my arms and swaying my body in
what is supposed to be a seductive, sensual manner, I inch my way
forward, towards the Empress and Emperor. I can feel eyes on my
back, as the guests and the naked males chained to the corner of
their beds all follow my movements.

As I stop to curtsey deeply before the Emperor and
Empress, I stare at the naked bodies strewn on their beds. A female
with flowing jet black hair lies beside the Emperor. Her slender,
olive-skinned body is covered with deep cuts and pulsing, fresh
bruises. There is blood under her nails.

Blood roars in my ears. I am unable to take a step or a
breath.

The whole Hall seem to darken behind me, and the only
thing I can see is that girl on the bed.

No. It can't be. Please don't let it be...

As if she'd heard my pleas, she lifts her head and her
obsidian eyes find mine. Those eyes which had been filled with so
much life and grit are now just hollow pools of black.

“
Hani...” Her name falls from my lips in a
ragged breath.

The air seems to chill around me, even though my body is
burning up inside, like there is a cyclone of fire spinning in my
gut.

The fever rises, burning through my brain, consuming all
my splintered thoughts. The inferno in my body burns higher, more
furiously and desperately, burning my heart to ashes.

I thought that I'd never see her again. Should I be
happy that she is here? Looking down at her empty face and battered
body, should I be glad and relieved that she is alive? Or horrified
and pained at her obvious suffering? As an agonized sound wheezes
from my chest, I see Hani lift her head from the Emperor's bed and
give me a cracked smile.

Keep your eyes down
, she mouths.
Always
.

I obey instantly. Even at this time, even through her
pain, she remains so lucid and strong. I can't let her down.

I inhale sharply and resolutely. Survive. I will,
Hani.
We
will.

“
Dance.” The Emperor commands lazily. I
flick my eyes up to see his fingers curling slowly around Hani's
throat. The threat is thinly veiled.

Dance, or she dies.

Gulping, trying not to let my expression betray me, I
bow and back away from the Emperor and Empress to approach their
drooling guests. Dancing in front of a red-faced general at the end
of the room, I dip my chest forward, allowing the necklace of sweets
to sway invitingly in his face. The general clambers forward on his
bedded platform and his plump tongue flicks out to taste the treats
around my neck. With a snap, he bites one sweet off and crunches it
between his teeth. “Delightful,” he smirks. “Come
closer, I'd like to have another one.”

I lean in stiffly. Immediately, his mouth closes around
my right nipple and he sucks greedily. Fighting every urge to wrench
his repugnant face away from my breast and claw our his beady eyes
with my bare hands, I try to twist away from him. The general grabs
my torso roughly to hold me in place, his mouth making loud, sucking
noises.

“
Hey, General Wynston, keep you hands off the
dessert platter! The rest of us haven't even had a taste!”

Sharp whistling, bawdy comments and rude jokes are
hurled at him until finally he has no choice but to let go. I
stagger back and regain my footing as best I can.

There are teeth marks on my right breast. My nipple is
sore and red, my whole body quivering in anger and pain.

My body temperature seems to have risen exponentially.
My blood seems to be boiling in my veins, my insides twisting and
stewing as I lurch around.

Feverishly, deliriously, with my heart palpitating too
wildly, I stagger through my steps, the hellish music swirling around
me like creeping vines. Imprisoning me, compelling me, confusing me.

Dizzily, I make my way round the groping, giggling
guests. The sweets around my neck are gone, and my candied skirt has
been ripped to shreds. Even the delicate, looping patterns of
chocolate lining my arms and legs are nothing more than dark smears
down my limbs. Hands, mouths, tongues have been all over me, but I
have felt nothing of them. My mind seems to have shut down all my
nerves, so that my body can feel nothing, save that tormenting fire
that is consuming me from the inside. Even my eyes see nothing of
this bizarre spectacle. I only see hazy images as I go through the
motions of placing myself in front of the guests and moving numbly in
time to the eerie music.

Maybe the sweets are laced with alcohol or drugs. The
guests are shouting, singing and laughing raucously, their words not
making any sense.

After devouring the desserts on my body, the drunken
guests seem to have lost the last traces of their inhibition. Many
of them have lunged forward to dive into the circle of dancing girls
behind me. Howling and making slobbering, animal noises, they drag
the frightened girls back to their bedded platforms. The girls can
only struggle feebly as they are thrown onto the platforms and pinned
down. Muffled screams and pleas reach my ears, but I block them out.

If I don't, I will go mad.

Right here. Right now.

Grasping at the tearing shreds of my sanity, I turn and
focus on Hani. She gives me the strength to put one foot in front of
the other and move slowly to the front, back to the Emperor and
Empress.

The Empress cocks her head at me, her eyes drifting down
to Owen, who is still crouching at the corner of her bed.

“
Come here, love.”

There is no love in her eyes.

There is no love in this entire Hall, just crazed,
beastly lust.

I walk forward and stop a few inches from Owen.

“
Is she what you want, my pet?” the Empress
drawls.

“
Yes, Your Majesty,” he answers without
tearing his eyes from me.

“
She must taste exquisite,” the Empress
smiles. “All our guests have had a taste of her, and look at
how happy they are!”

Owen's emerald eyes harden into flints of green ice.

“
Do you think I should offer our guests a second
helping of her, before you have your fill? Hmm? Pet?” She
runs a curved nail through his hair. “It is only proper and
polite for a host to offer her guests the very best.” She
claps twice. “More food!” she orders the servants who
appear at her side. “More food for all!” She leans
forward to tickle Owen behind his ear. “Food, like sex, must
be enjoyed, and shared,” she says slowly.