Submissive (25 page)

They were playing a game with slivers of geodes painted with pictures in luminous colors. At the feet of one player knelt another young woman. She was dressed in a leather thong and collar, and seemed to be watching with much interest as the player pored over his cards. Gillian saw his hand dip down and pat her hair like a man would a loyal pet.

“Ah, you are on time for once, Attendant,” commented one of the players. He regarded one of the harem girls and his hard brow seemed to soften.

“Come here, Belinda,” he said, and the girl hastened to him, giving a little squeal as he embraced her.

The other two went to stand beside two of the other gargoylemen, while their attendant led Gillian to a single unoccupied chair.

“Who is this morsel, girly-boy?” demanded one of the players. Seeing how the face of the attendant blanched, she felt an immediate dislike for the speaker.

The youth managed a breezy smile. “Our king's new acquisition, my lord.”

Then he bade Gillian to kneel beside the chair. She was appalled. Was she some animal to kneel anywhere—especially in a room full of men who were not men?

But the attendant must have sensed her unwillingness and gave her a look that warned that this wasn't the time or place to resist. With a heavy sigh she relented and took her place on the floor. The other harem girls were allowed to stand or were invited to sit on the lap of this or that player, and it was obvious that they were well acquainted with the men, who caressed them frankly.

The youthful attendant quietly exited the room. As the door shut softly on its stone hinges, Gillian's chest swelled with terror. Her place on the floor seemed suddenly a welcome refuge from the scrutiny of the inhuman males. She hugged the leg of the huge chair and turned her face away from the table, staring at the wall behind, hoping they had forgotten her entirely while they talked and played their game.

Then she heard one of them speak, “Did you know he had taken a new one?”

“He doesn't confide in me these days,” replied another. “He is preoccupied much of the time.”

A third snorted thickly. “And with what? That Queen Marianne again—and King Marcus's ridiculous threats?”

“How would I know?” retorted the second speaker. “But it is not my concern, nor yours, brother.”

“It is the concern of us all,” said another balefully. “Yet, I suspect he might just keep the pretty queen for himself. That would show Marcus!”

There was a deep grunt from one. “Ah, but this is not the time, my brothers…our ladies are here. And I am interested in how long this new little pet will last him.”

“You mean survive him?” spoke another in an undertone.

The first speaker told him to hush, but an icy sweat already covered Gillian.

Almost to her relief she heard one of them scold the girl at his side, “You are not wearing the jewel I gave you?”

The girl stammered, “M-Martine would not let me keep it. She said it is too valuable and I must wait…”

The creature's voice grew surly. “The overseeress is trying to overstep her position again. You will inform Martine that next time you are brought to me and I do not see the jewel on your finger, she will answer to me.”

The girl's voice was shaky, “Yes, my Master.”

Then Gillian heard a loud smack and the girl whimpered. A chair was scooted back from the table, and she heard the creature rise from his seat. The girl made a languid little moan and the man stood and led her from the table. Gillian watched furtively as he directed her to a couch in a dark corner of the room. The girl lay down on her back, and her Master raised her knees with her thighs parted. She moaned again, a sound mingled of both timidity and passion. Beneath the idle talk of the others he gave her some order that brought a sultry curve to her lips. And slowly, hesitantly, the girl's hands crept down into the nest of soft brownish curls between her thighs. To Gillian's shock, she began to masturbate under her Master's rapt and approving gaze.

A sharp, pleasurable twinge shot through Gillian's belly. With a gasp, she covered her eyes and turned her head to the shelter of the chair. She tried to think of nothing, but the creatures at the table were fondling the harem girls at their arms. The girls' amorous sighs lilted the air, and the one in the corner began to moan. Then one of the gargoyle creatures remarked that Gillian's hair was blonder on the mountain than at the valley, and her cheeks blazed. Fervently, she prayed that the attendant would return soon and escort her from the room.

But more so, she wanted something to take her away from the disturbing sense of normalcy she felt amid all she heard and saw.

What is wrong with me?

The next moment one of the beings rose from his seat and came round toward her sheltering chair. Before she knew what to do, he grabbed her up by the arms and raised her to her feet. Her head reeled with panic. With his huge hands, he lifted her by the wrists so that her feet only brushed the floor. As inhuman as he was, his eyes gleamed with earthy lust. She squirmed in his grasp and desperate tears sprang to her eyes. But they fetched no sympathy from the gargoyle-man; he simply lifted her higher, and turning, dangled her before the others.

Their hungry eyes roamed over her. Gillian's face scalded with humiliation, and without thinking, she lifted a foot and drove it back so that her heel struck her captor's thigh. He laughed, and when again she kicked, he was obliged to swivel his hip before she struck him fully in the scrotum.

“A feisty one!”

“Bring her here, Ghi,” purred one of his companions. This one scooted his chair away from the table. Gillian let out an agitated squeal, and again kicked back at the captor. But her efforts were useless against his agility.

“I would enjoy training this one, yes.” His brazen words agitated her deeply. Against her will, she felt her sex ripen. Mortified, she struggled to loosen herself.

Then to her utter disbelief he carried her around the table to where the other one sat. This one greeted her with a lick of his lips. Gillian's agitation intensified. When he reached out and touched her leg, she screamed and kicked him squarely in the chest. The impact made a soft thud, and a disapproving frown creased his brow. Gillian cringed with remorse for the stupid move, knowing full well that she was no match for any one of these creatures, let alone half a dozen of them.

The next moment this one seized her legs. With a leer, he yanked her legs wide apart. She struggled with both legs to break free, but like her wrists, they were well constrained.

“I could break your legs off, pretty one,” he said softly, “as easily as a child snaps off a butterfly's wings.”

His wicked threat halted her struggle. Gillian felt close to fainting with terror; and yet, as she saw him peering at her nether mouth, an undercurrent of excitement passed through her shivering limbs.

“That's better,” he said. Leaning forward in his seat, he pressed his stony lips over her tenderest flesh. His skin felt like baked leather against her fount. His tongue flicked over her pubic lips; it was a leathery, snakelike thing that inflamed her against her will. His devilish tongue parted the folds of her labia; Gillian felt her clit stir and a trickle of moisture seep from her trapped sex.

“You must not,” she panted.

“Hush,” cautioned Ghi, “or we can gag that little mouth.”

Tears of humiliation flooded her eyes so that his face was only a misted image. She struggled to restrain her hips as his mouth continued to ravish her, and as his tongue entered her fount, her entire sex convulsed madly. Her nipples hardened within the pinching loop clamps. The soft tinkle of the bangle coins seemed an ornate and mocking song of her helplessness.

His tongue plunged in and out of her, turning her pussy into a swollen, starving, pulsating orifice. Wantonly, her hips arched toward his cruel face and her clit pulsed wildly. As her head lolled back, she saw Ghi watching with much amusement. Seeing her, he winked. Gillian blushed and closed her eyes. The other continued to lick her clit, and her pussy ached enviously, growing wetter as his tongue teased the aroused organ again and again. Mounting pleasure coursed through her body. Gillian's hips bucked wildly in the air, and her moans rebounded indecently against the cream walls.

And then she heard a door open. It seemed a faraway, unimportant sound. But the one who held her legs looked over his shoulder. Her sex throbbed for his tormenting mouth even as she felt the sudden change all around her. He lowered her legs suddenly, so that she swayed on her unsteady legs. If not for Ghi holding her wrists, she would have fallen.

The other one growled thickly under his breath. Following his eyes, she saw another titanic figure standing at the open door.

He was as humanly male as these others were only hulking caricatures. Gillian's entire body shuddered as he stepped in, and when his eyes set upon her, her quickened breath stopped.

He was the single most beautiful man she had ever seen. With a smooth complexion and fine features, his skin had a subtle, exotic over-sheen of olive. His mane of silvery-blond hair was long and silken and there was a widow's peak on his high brow. His clothes were fashioned similarly to the others, except his were cut of a more refined fabric and his boots were of dark suede leather. Through his gossamer hunter-green shirt she could see his lean torso and the sinews of his long arms. But it was his deep-set eyes that most keenly defined his looks. Pale and blue as the sky, they regarded her like two hard, brilliant aquamarines beneath his heavy silvery brows.

Only the hard set of his mouth indicated his displeasure. Gillian heard the gargoyle-man in the corner tell his girl to be quiet, while the others at the table rose from their seats. In two great strides the newcomer was at Gillian's side. The one who had ravished her stood up immediately and shrank back. Ghi, however, grasped her wrists all the more jealously.

In an uncertain tone he challenged the one that looked like a man, “It is custom to share, brother!”

Brother! Gillian could not believe it. Surely, she thought, this is only a turn of phrase they used when addressing one another.

The newcomer replied in a voice melodious as well as fierce, “In my domain you will follow my custom. Now, release my woman.”

When Ghi hesitated, he uttered a threatening, eerily light sound. A ripple of terror crawled up Gillian's spine. Ghi did not back off, but returned the sound with his own guttural challenge. She winced to see the baleful glint in the newcomer's eyes. They lowered a moment, however, and registered her frightened gaze. And confronting Ghi again, his hands clamped into fists and again he uttered another dreadful growl.

The air was growing insufferably hot, and Gillian felt the others edging away to the recesses of the room. The women were pressed protectively behind the palisade of their forms.

And though she was terrified, Gillian could not take her eyes from this newcomer. She heard Ghi speak some words that brought a flare of color to the handsome one's cheeks.

Then to her amazement, flecks of heated amber glowed in the surface of his blue eyes. Fear like a cold blade cut through her belly, and the room reeled as a sickening sense of familiarity swept over her. She smelled him now—the faint tinge of sulfur beneath his virile scent. It seemed to strangle her, and the half-memories that flooded into her mind suddenly were precious things that ravaged her heart. She felt Ghi finally relent and release his hold, and the newcomer's hands clasped her shoulders to steady her.

She tore at those hands, pushed away from him, and pressed herself under Ghi's towering form.

“You,” she gasped, “you are the reason I'm here!”

She didn't know how she knew this, but she did. His now gentle regard did not fool her, nor did she know comfort as the amber flecks in his eyes softened and faded as if by will. She perceived an emotion like hatred chafing at her consciousness, and an instinctive knowledge that he was dangerous.

Sprinkles of pain filled her head. All the horrid reasons for her hatred deluged her mind. Memories of Nemi and of Madam; of the lush forest surrounding the household. She felt the handsome Warden taking her over the sofa; heard Clive's honeyed words in her ear. She saw again the Ur'theriems, the prisoners, the coolly passionate Leather Wives.

And she remembered Sir Bruce. Her Sir Bruce.

This was the Dhjinn E'noch who had tried to seduce her outside the Temple of Purity. She recalled the shatter of the window in the kitchen at Bruce's chalet. This creature's phantom presence and ghostly caresses came back to her, as did the stifling odor of the acrid mist in which he'd carried her off.

She ignored the pretty mask he donned now. Her entire body shook with hatred. He'd kidnapped her from Nemi and, worse, her true love. This creature had corrupted the only happiness she had ever known.

The hatred bled with violence into all of her memories.

His features blurred into a thousand angry, crimson dots before Gillian's eyes and her surging blood roared in her temples. She thought she moved toward him; she definitely felt her nails sink into her palms as her hands drew into fists. She hissed and raised her arms to strike when consciousness seeped away.