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  Next, she made quick work of his shirt, ripping the buttons apart. He laughed and when she spread his arms up above his head, accommodated her further by spreading his legs. What she did next made him draw in a quick, shocked breath.

  She turned so that her backside was to him and used her feet to anchor his wrists to the ground. Firmly gripping his thighs to keep them spread, she lowered her head and took his erect member into her mouth.

  “Wench!” he warned, sucking in another stunned breath.

  Kynthia smiled as she withdrew her intimate embrace and giggled when she heard his groan of frustration. Once more, she gripped his penis, bent her head and, pushing his penis down, licked him slowly from just above his anus all the way across his balls and then to the tip of his cock. As she felt him stiffen beneath her, she reached up with one hand, spread apart the slit in his penis with her fingers, and then used the tip of her tongue to flick mercilessly at the head.

  “Shit!” Leksi warned, bucking beneath her.

  Before he could come, she took him into her mouth and drew hard on that straining shaft, her lips pressed tightly. With a heavy grunt, he came, his hands clawing at her ankles. One long shudder gripped him, he bellowed his release, and then he lay limp beneath her, his head tilted to one side.

  Her aunt had told Kynthia she might not like the taste of a man’s love juice or the feel of it in her mouth but that it was a natural way to pleasure your lover. To Kynthia, the taste wasn’t all that bad so she swallowed it.

  “Wench?” he questioned.

  She turned around, wiping her lips with the heel of her palm. “Aye, warrior?” she returned.

  “The next time, I will be atop you and inside you,” he said softly.

  “Well, I should hope so,” she said, stretching out beside him.

  He took her into his arms and nuzzled his face against her neck. She smelled faintly of lemons and he drew in a deep breath, enjoying the scent.

  She twirled a strand of his chest hair around her finger then ran her hand over the crisp wiriness of that broad expanse. She liked the feel of his hard muscles and the ridges of his hard paps. Using her palm, she massaged those manly nipples and idly plucked at them with her fingertips.

  “If you keep that up, a situation might arise, wench,” he warned.

  “Like I said—I hope so,” she told him.

  Smoothing her hand down his flat belly, her palm gliding over ridges of striated muscle, she slid her fingers into the wiry curls at the juncture of his thighs, plucking at them lightly.

  “Did your aunt give you a lesson or two since last we met?” he asked.

  “I believe something was mentioned,” she replied.

  “That woman is a veritable font of knowledge,” he said with a grin. “Her Ocnus taught her well.”

  Kynthia craned her head and looked up at him. “What makes you think it was Ocnus who taught her and not the other way around?” she teased.

  Leksi smiled and closed his eyes, enjoying the lassitude that was settling over him. His free hand was traveling up and down her bare arm and he marveled at how soft her skin was.

  “I should discuss a bit of business with you,” she said, sensing he was on the verge of falling asleep.

  “I would rather not,” he said.

  “Nevertheless, it is important.”

  The warrior sighed. “All right, wench. What?”

  “The Council of Elders has agreed to help you with the problem but there is a catch.”

  Leksi opened his eyes. “What kind of catch?” he asked, frowning.

  “They wish for you and Lord Krull to come to them and put your petition before the assemblage.” When he tensed and a low growl came from him, she pushed herself up on one elbow. “Your safety has been guaranteed and it is simply a matter of courtesy that they wish you to journey to Amazeen.”

  “Courtesy,” he repeated.

  “Aye. There is much admiration of you and Lord Krull in Amazeen, but this is a request you should not dismiss.”

  Leksi looked her in the eye. “I will have to run it by Lord Krull. He has no great love of the warrioresses.”

  “No, but he did help them during both the famine and the drought.”

  “Aye, so they owe him.”

  Kynthia sighed. “And will repay him. It is strictly a matter of courtesy on his part.” She began toying with his shaft.

  Leksi sighed. “All right. I’ll add my recommendation that we go to Amazeen.”

  “Good,” she said, and began paying closer attention to his burgeoning member.

  The warrior drew in a long, deep breath and as her fingers slid down his length, felt the stirrings of passion once more. He lay there until her delicate ministrations had him hard as a rock then very gently turned her to her back.

  “I will repay you in kind for earlier, milady, but for now, I will claim you as mine once and for all,” he said, looking down into her eyes.

  Very gently and slowly, he sat up and held his hand out to her. When she was up, he reached out with trembling fingers and unbuttoned her bodice, helping her out of it, careful not to touch the glorious breasts that taunted him. With her help, he eased the gown from her long legs and drew in a ragged breath as the scent of her filled his nostrils. He knelt there for a moment, taking in her beauty, deliberately avoiding looking at her crotch for just the thought of those wiry curls made his mouth water and his palms itch to caress them.

  “Lie down, my love,” he said in a husky voice and when she was once more lying on her back, he stretched out beside her.

  Kynthia stiffened as he nudged her legs apart but he did no more than lie atop her, his sword pressing against her crotch, his cheek pillowed upon her chest. As she had toyed with his nipples, so did he toy with hers and when she squirmed beneath his weight, lifted up only enough to position himself at the entrance of her vagina.

  “It will be tight and perhaps a bit uncomfortable for me to enter you, my love, but I will be as gentle as I know how to be.”

  She relaxed and when the tip of him pushed gently inside her, she closed her eyes, giving herself up to whatever he did.

  “Look at me, Kynni,” he whispered.

  Her eyes fluttered open and he could see the wound still deep in their gray depths. Not for the first time he wished he had the Basarabian demon that had raped her in his clutches.

  “Your cunt will ooze around me when I am fully seated. There will be less friction. Just relax and trust me.”

  With firm, steady pressure, he slid carefully inside her then lay still, for he could sense her discomfort and he wanted to wait until she was fully moist before he began to thrust.

  Kynthia marveled at how he filled her. Though she was nervous, afraid he would unintentionally hurt her, it was thrilling to have him impaling her.

  Very slowly, he withdrew just a bit then settled back to near the limit of his length. He was not a boastful man but he knew himself to be larger than the average man, though not nearly as well hung as Konan Krull.

  “How would you know how that warrior’s equipment looks?” she asked in a curious tone.

  At first Leksi wondered how she had intercepted his thoughts then remembered that Reapers had that astonishing ability. He laughed. “Men surreptitiously spy on one another when they are at bath or the like. We tend to compare our equipment, as you call it.”

  “Like when you’re pissing you compare sizes?”

  “No!” he said, shock flaring his eyes. “That’s considered bad manners, wench.”

  “Oh,” she said. “And Lord Krull is bigger than you?” She asked it in a voice that hinted such a thing was doubtful.

  “Not that you are ever going to find out,” he said firmly, “but, aye. He is much larger than I.”

  “And does his lady-wife find that painful?”

  “By all accounts, Lady Isabell finds it much to her liking. They have six children.”

  “I like the length of you. Though he hurt me, Minos had the prick the size of a worm’s
.” She snorted. “Now, he’s worm meat!”

  Leksi chuckled and as he did, his cock wriggled inside her and before he could still the movement, his lady had wrapped her legs around his hips, anchoring him as deeply inside her as he could get.

  “I’m tired of this tenderness, warrior,” she said through clenched teeth. “Claim me, now!”

  Her heel was dug between the cheeks of his ass and the sensation prodded him even more than her words. Throwing caution to the winds, he began pumping inside and was soon so caught up in the rhythm and the superb pleasure squeezing his flesh, he was slamming against her.

  There had been a moment or two of pain but Kynthia knew that had to be. That pain was soon taken over with the most delicious of sensations rippling through her body. She clung to her lover and lifted her hips up to meet his short, shallow strokes, wishing he’d go deeper.

  Leksi felt the first clenches of her vaginal muscles around the tip of his cock and lengthened his stroke. As soon as he felt her straining against him, he pushed deep and held.

  The pleasure was so intense, so completely enthralling, Kynthia arched her head back and screamed with her release. Her lover echoed her cry for he jerked inside her and pumped like mad two or three times before stilling then collapsing atop her, shuddering.

  She wrapped her arms around him and licked a droplet of sweat from his shoulder. At last, she was his and he was hers.

  “I love you, Leksi Helios,” she whispered.

  “And I you, Kynthia Ancaeus,” he replied.

  Somewhere off in the distance, a wolf howled and Kynthia sighed contentedly. Kirkor had serviced his mate, too, and just wanted his human friend to know.

  Chapter Ten

  Where Qabala met Ventura was a mere spit of ground no more than a few hundred feet long and ten feet broad at its widest point. On a map, it looked to be a crooked finger with Ventura the fist of the hand and Qabala the finger, the Rysalian Gulf on one side and the Sea of Aziz on the other. In order to journey from Ventura to the Amazeen lands, a traveler had to pass over that finger of land. At the tip, Qabala spread out again for about a mile before joining with Amazeen to the West. There at the tip, the land slanted downward then up at a fairly good incline so that one trekked through a valley that had once been part of the Sea of Aziz. With large boulders and sheer cliffs to either side of the well-traveled roadway, there was always a chance of being set upon by thieves. Though there had never been an incident in which someone traveling that spit of land known as the Bridge of Naji had been robbed, experienced travelers took into consideration the lay of the land and kept a close watch on their surroundings.

  Lord Krull and Leksi were no different. Each was diligent in surveying the area around them as they entered the Valley of Kaseeb. Each rode with his hand upon the dagger at his side, the sword sheathed on his back well oiled for ease of drawing and honed to razor thinness.

  “I’ve a prickling sensation in my nuts,” Krull said softly.

  “I’m uneasy, as well,” Leksi replied.

  There was something in the air, and by rights that should not be, for they were on Qabalan land and the Qabalans were a neutral people. First to flee a fight if they could not reason with an enemy, the people of Qabala were known cowards.

  “Do you think we’re riding into a trap?” Leksi asked.

  “I think we’re being watched, if nothing else,” his commander answered. He squinted, thinking he had seen a flash of light off to his right.

  “Do you hear that?” Leksi asked.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Krull said.

  “Neither do I and I find that strange, don’t you?”

  Krull pulled on his mount’s reins and bent over the steed’s neck, patting the point of its shoulder as though something ailed the beast. Instead, he was listening attentively but his Captain was right—there was nothing to hear and that in itself was out of the ordinary.

  “There should be sea bird calls along the coast if nothing else,” Leksi said.

  “And the thump of mining machines from the quarry at Yasar,” Krull reasoned. “That’s less than two miles east of us.” He looked up at the sky. “It’s too early for them to have knocked off for lunch and to my knowledge there was no Qabalan holiday declared.” He straightened up in the saddle.

  “Something isn’t right.”

  “I agree.”

  “Perhaps we should turn around.”

  Krull took the water skin from his saddle horn and uncorked it. He took a long pull on the tepid liquid, his keen eyes sawing back and forth across the vista before them. When he lowered the water skin, he offered Leksi a drink.

  “Twenty degrees to your left,” the Lord High Commander stated. “We’ve got company over there.”

  Leksi took the water skin, drank, swished the water around in his mouth, and then turned his head to spit out the water. As he did, he caught sight of the horsemen partially hidden behind a cliff. “I see them,” he said, handing the water skin back to Krull.

  “We’ll be going up either way we run,” Krull said, “but the trek back is the steeper path. I don’t see we have a choice.”

  “Chances are there are more riders up there behind those boulders,” Leksi commented.

  “I’d stake my commission on it,” Krull agreed.

  “What do you suggest?”

  Before Krull could answer, a bloodthirsty yell came from behind them and the warriors turned to see a group of at least a dozen men spurring their mounts down the incline over which Krull and Leksi had just passed. Another yell signaled the advance of riders coming from behind the boulders. Outnumbered ten to one, the warriors glanced at one another.

  “Go with the Wind, Leksi,” Krull said, reaching up to draw his sword.

  “I will look for you in Paradise, milord.”

  Kicking their horses into action, the warriors engaged their enemies head on, the flash of their blades blindingly fast in the late morning sun. The skirl of metal sliding along metal, sword edge meeting sword edge with a deadly tattoo and with sparks flying, echoed off the high walls of the valley. The sounds of men grunting, cursing, shouting orders drowned out the excited whinny of the horses and the occasional cry of the wounded.

  Krull was a powerful warrior with no compassion for his enemies lurking within his robust breast. He fought viciously, brutally with a dogged determination to kill as many men as his sword could pierce. His athletic prowess was known far and wide, and those foolish enough to take him on knew they had no chance to engage him fairly in battle. Underhanded tricks would have to be the order of the day. While one attacker met the Lord High Commander’s sword blade-on, another used a slingshot to fling small, sharp rocks at Krull’s back and shoulders, his legs and arms. The cowardly attack was more annoying than painful although Krull’s concentration was badly affected as his frustration and temper rose. Twice he was unable to stop himself from turning his head around when a particularly sharp rock struck his flesh and because of that, he had two nasty cuts along his left forearm.

  “Take them alive!” had been the cry as the Nebullian warriors began their attack and knowing this, both Krull and Leksi were determined to take as many of their enemies down before they fell beneath their enemies’ onslaught.

  Leksi was fairing no better than his Commander, and was bleeding profusely from several nasty cuts on his arms. The loss of blood was weakening him rapidly and he was woozy. He stumbled backward, lost his footing, and fell to the ground, a sword point to his throat.

  “Beg quarter, Pretty One,” his attacker said with a grin, and dug the point of his weapon into the hollow of the warrior’s neck until a trickle of blood eased down Leksi’s throat. “It would be a shame to close those sweet little eyes forever.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Leksi seethed between clenched teeth. Had he been able to, he would have swept his weapon up into the gut of the man hovering over him but another attacker was standing on Leksi’s arm, grinding the sole of his boot against the fallen warrior’s
wrist.

  Leksi’s opponent threw back his head and laughed. He removed his sword from the younger man’s throat and saluted him. “You are a brave—if foolish—young man.” He nodded to the man standing on Leksi’s wrist. “Get him up.”

  Krull was still fighting but there were five men circling him, each reaching out to nick the warrior’s arms and back. His shirt was bloody and he was staggering as he lashed out, panting in between curses. Tripping over a foot stuck out to bring him down, he was so winded and weak from his own blood loss, he had no energy left to stop his enemies from taking hold of him.

  It was a one-sided fight that saw only four attackers dead and as many wounded by the time it was over. Sweaty and defeated, Krull and Leksi were driven to their knees, their arms drawn behind them with heavy shackles that pulled brutally at their shoulders.

  The burly man in charge of the attackers had not engaged in the battle. He had been watching from the sidelines but now strode arrogantly to Leksi and reached down to grip the young man’s chin and jerk his head back. “You’re right, Khaliq. He is a pretty boy,” the man chortled. “The king will have a fine time with him!”

  “Go to hell,” Leksi snarled, and tried to pull his face free of the man’s brutal hold.

  “You’ll squeal like a pig when he rams it into you, boy. He likes to hear them squeal.”

  Konan Krull made no threats as he was jerked to his feet. It was useless to speak to the troopers who had ridden down on them. They were merely following orders and had no say in the final outcome of the attack. Though he was itching to know who had told the Nebullians their plans, he knew he’d get nothing out of the bastard in charge.

  “So you are the all-powerful Krull,” the one in charge said, snorting. He hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it at Krull’s feet. “You don’t look like much to me.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” Krull said, his eyes steady on the man.

  The leader’s eyes fluttered and he stepped closer, his offensive body odor far more lethal than the clumsy blade he had wielded during the attack.

  “We’ll see how cocky you are when King Abalam is finished coring you, Lord Krull. I don’t think you’ll be quite so arrogant then.”