Rapture's Etesian Read online

  Kynthia held that stiff cock in her hand and felt it throbbing in her palm. Her fingers barely met around the thickness of it. There was a soft heat that emanated from it to scorch her palm, and as he began moving her fingers up and down the length of his staff, she closed her eyes.

  “It wants you, Sweeting,” Leksi told her. “Feel how much it wants you.”

  She felt dominant with that mighty rod grasped in her hand. Were she of a mind, she could rip it off at the root, but her grasp turned soft as velvet as she stroked him.

  Though he was still clothed in opened breeches and boots, he was as defenseless in her hands as a newborn babe and he knew it. She had hold of the very essence of him and Leksi was aware of her power. Her stroke was firm but gentle—not too tight and not too fast.

  “You are very good at that,” he managed to say.

  “I listen well,” she replied, thinking of the many times she had overheard her aunt and sisters discussing their conquests.

  “Lucky for me, wench.”

  She smiled, but doubted he could see her for he was above her, blotting out the light of the pale moon. She looked up at his dark face, wishing she could see his expression but making a decision, she knew would affect them both forever.

  “Undress me, warrior,” she asked, her voice as soft as her touch upon his staff.

  Though he wanted nothing more than to rip the clothing from her chest, Leksi leaned over and unhooked each button with infinite care. When the last one came undone, he put his fingers under the edge of the fabric and pushed it away from her breasts. Unbound, the soft globes fell sweetly into his palms.

  Kynthia sucked in a breath as his thumbs moved back and forth over her turgid nipples, then circled them with the calloused pads.

  “Please!” she whispered.

  He lowered his hands down her rib cage, burning a pathway down her flesh until he lightly grasped her waist. She was trembling as his fingers found the closing of her breeches and opened them. Even as he drew the fabric down her legs, she had hooked the toe of one foot against the boot heel of the other foot and was pushing hard, grunting with the effort.

  “I’ll get them,” he said, and moved back so he could grip the boots and pull them off.

  Then he drew the breeches from her long legs and tossed them aside.

  With her blouse pushed aside, Kynthia was lying exposed totally to him, her dewy flesh awash in the light of the overhead moon. A part of her reasoned that she should be ashamed of her brazenness, but the larger part of her was eager to know his thrust—his possession.

  Leksi put his hand upon the dark patch of hair at her crotch and cupped her, allowing her to feel the heat of the heel of his palm against her clit. When she squirmed and lifted her hips, he pressed a bit harder.

  “Lay still, wench, and let me pleasure you,” he said in a gruff voice.

  Kynthia stilled, though she lowered her hands to her sides and dug her fingers into the sand. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the delicious maneuverings going on between her legs.

  The warrior slid his hand downward until he could bracket her nether lips with his index and ring fingers of his right hand. His middle finger moved down over his lady’s clit then flicked upward gently, his fingernail making wicked contact with that sensitive little protrusion.

  “Argh!” Kynthia cried out, and drew her lower lips between her teeth to help her keep quiet.

  As he tenderly manipulated her clitoris with deft, possessive upward flicks of his nail, he watched Kynthia’s face, smiling as he saw the strain on those lovely features and the light sheen of sweat that dotted her forehead.

  “Concentrate, wench,” he whispered.

  Kynthia’s eyes popped open for a moment, and then she squeezed them tightly shut. “What the hell do you think I’m doing, warrior?” she demanded.

  Leksi chuckled to himself then dipped his middle finger into her oozing slit.

  Kynthia squirmed as her lover-to-be slowly turned his finger around inside her. As his probe moved deeper into her, she could feel the knuckles of his hand pressing against her vaginal lips. When his finger crooked inside and touched some sensitive spot that made her entire body hum, she jerked her hips upward, wanting more of that sublime sensation.

  “Kratos once told me to search for a small node that feels different than the rest of the lady’s love walls,” Leksi commented.

  “I think you found it,” Kynthia stuttered.

  “Good,” he said and withdrew his finger.

  “No!” Kynthia gasped, her eyes wide.

  “Do you trust me, wench?” he asked.

  “I want you to…”

  “Do you trust me?” he repeated.

  “Aye!”

  “Then get on your hands and knees.”

  “You’ll not take me like that!” she swore, eyes flashing, teeth showing.

  “No, I will not, but I wish to give you the ultimate in satisfaction and the way to do that is to have my hand inside you as you squat.”

  “Minos…”

  “I am not Minos,” he said firmly.

  She stared at him for a moment, her body craving his touch, and when at last her lust could no longer be denied, she flipped to her side, pushed herself to her hands and knees, and shrugged out of her blouse.

  “Lower your head and tilt your hips upward,” he instructed, and she did as he commanded without a comment. As she moved into position, Leksi put his index and middle fingers into his mouth and wet them. Then with his palm downward, he gently slipped the fingers into Kynthia’s vagina.

  “Ah…” his lady moaned and wriggled her hip against him. “I like that.”

  “Then you should like this even more,” he said as he probed the front wall of her vagina until once more he found the slightly raised area—about the size of a copper coin—and touched it.

  “Aye,” she sighed, the word drawn out with emotion. “I damned well like that more!”

  Since he was kneeling beside her, Leksi reached under her with his free hand and laid his palm against her abdomen, just above the wiry curls, and pressed firmly upward.

  “Oh, my god!” Kynthia cried out. She rotated her hips, tilted her lower body until the glorious spot Leksi stroked was in full contact with his strong fingers.

  He could feel her body gearing up to come. As the walls of her cunt began to tighten, he slipped the hand pressing into her abdomen down to her clit and fingered it.

  A sensation unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life shot over Kynthia Ancaeus. Her entire body quivered from head to toe and the heated gripping sensations pulsing within her lower body was awareness unto itself.

  Leksi moved his fingers in and out of her in quick, shorter strokes and when her climax burst upon her, pressed those digits deep inside her and held them there, reveling in the quickening sensation that squeezed around them.

  She was impaled on his hand, and gloried in the feeling. She could feel the fabric of his breeches rubbing against her bare thigh and even that sensation was wondrous.

  Just as her aunt and sisters had predicted it would be.

  When the last throb of her sex had ceased, her body felt limp and she collapsed upon the sand, dragging in deep, shallow breaths.

  Leksi stretched out beside her, careful not to allow his stony erection to touch her. He pushed a damp strand of her hair from her cheek and bent over to kiss her shoulder. As he did, he saw the great, white male wolf staring back at him from ten feet away.

  “Do you approve?” the warrior asked the wolf.

  Both Kirkor and Kynthia agreed. She mumbled her concurrence and the wolf stretched out with his head between his paws and closed his eyes as though he was as tired as the human male.

  “You did not hurt me,” Kynthia said softly.

  “It was not my intention to hurt you,” Leksi responded, and cast the wolf a sardonic look. He doubted Kirkor would have allowed him to hurt the lady.

  “But you did not gain pleasure from the mating,” s
he said, opening her eyes to look at him.

  “That wasn’t a true mating,” he replied. “Next time, my body will gain the enjoyment. This time, my heart knew the pleasure.”

  She studied his handsome face, and was very content with what she saw. It was not so much the sheer beauty of his male face that attracted her, but the honesty and integrity in his eyes. She sensed the honor in this man and knew he had spoken the truth to his friend at the inn, “I would like this woman as my life-mate.”

  Not, she thought, as she lost herself in his golden gaze, as a broodmare or a harlot to ride when the itch struck, but as one to spend the rest of his years beside.

  “Would we be equal partners?” she asked softly.

  “Equal partners in what, wench?” he asked, stifling a yawn.

  “Should we to become life-mates.”

  Leksi’s eyebrows shot up. “You would consider it?”

  “Are you proposing?”

  “Would you accept if I did?”

  “Best to ask then find out, don’t you think, warrior?” she countered.

  “I thought you hated all men and had no use for us.”

  Kynthia shrugged, and turned over to lie on her back. She placed her arms beneath her head and looked up at the night sky. “Are you going to ask me or not?”

  He was staring at her lush breasts, bare to the moonlight and glistening with a sheen of perspiration. He reached out and laid his palm on one firm globe, and kneaded gently.

  “What will your aunt and sisters think?”

  “They will be glad they will no longer have to waylay strangers in an attempt to find me a man,” she said with a sigh.

  “They will accept me?”

  Kynthia was becoming aroused again as his hand worked its magic on her breast.

  “They brought you to me in the first place, didn’t they?”

  “Aye, but I wasn’t the nicest of visitors,” he muttered.

  “As a man being pillaged, you acquitted yourself well enough. I think they found you cute.”

  Leksi snorted. “I should have had each of them thrown into a dungeon with other rapists,” he groused.

  “You would not have and you know it,” she said with a grin. “What man would admit being taken by force by a woman or two?”

  “One intent on bragging, I suppose,” he said, and leaned over to press his lips around her nipple.

  Kynthia sighed with pleasure, and removed one arm from under her head so she could run her fingers through the silk of his thick hair.

  “You know,” she said, as the heat began building in her cunt once more, “they had never allowed a male to escape before you.”

  “Um,” he said, laving her nipple. He flicked it with his tongue then lightly grazed it with his teeth.

  “It was either sell them to the Amazeens or the Hell Hags, but you were different.”

  “How come?” he asked, as he moved his attention to the other nipple.

  “Aunt Galatea most likely decided you were the one, else she would never have suckled you.”

  He stopped and looked up at her. “Is that going to be a problem should we become life-mates?”

  “Aunt Galatea?”

  “Aye.”

  “I think not. She approves of you,” Kynthia replied. “I think she gave you her seal of endorsement, don’t you?”

  “I suppose you could say that,” he said, withdrawing from her luscious breasts. He was about to push his breeches down over his hips when a discreet clearing of the throat snapped his head sideways.

  Kratos was standing where the wolf had been lying. Arms akimbo, he was looking up at the night sky, studiously avoiding looking at the naked woman lying beside Leksi.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” Leksi demanded. He got to his feet and began buttoning up his breeches despite the stiff erection that threatened to poke through the fabric.

  “Lord Krull has called in all the men. We have a situation in Pleiades,” Kratos answered, finding something even more interesting than the night sky as he studied a date palm close beside him.

  “Now?” Leksi moaned. “Why the hell now?”

  Kratos risked looking at his young friend. “I suppose I could go back and ask him to delay whatever it is he thinks is important until you dip your wick, Helios. Think you he will be understanding?”

  Leksi cursed beneath his breath. He looked about him for his shirt and picked what he thought was his clothing, and thrust his arms through the sleeves, frowning as he tried to button it.

  “I think that belongs to the lady,” Kratos said with a chuckle that pretended to be a cough.

  Kynthia sat up—unconcerned by her nudity and unsure why—and snagged her own breeches. “Is there a border war brewing, Lord Kratos?” she asked, remembering the name the warrior had termed this very striking man.

  Kratos smiled, greatly entertained at the sight of her nudity. “Aye, Lady Kynthia, I believe ‘tis.”

  As she stepped into her breeches, Kynthia glanced at Leksi. “Was that why you were in Qabala? Were you trying to arrange a truce between Ventura and the Pleiadesians?”

  “For what good it did me,” Leksi said. He stuffed his shirt into his breeches. “The Qabalans are afraid of their own shadow. They refused to get involved.”

  “Well, they have always been neutral during any of the wars,” Kynthia defended.

  “They are noncommittal, evasive, irritatingly vague shitheads,” Leksi snapped.

  “But they make an excellent cheese,” Kratos observed.

  Kynthia hid a smile behind her hand. “Perhaps my sisters and I could be of some assistance to you. We have reason to hate the Pleiadesians.”

  Leksi looked around. “Are you offering the help of the Amazeen?”

  “The Daughters of the Night, as well,” Kynthia said. “Queen Mona of the Bandarese has ample reason to hate King Abalam of Pleiades. Her daughter Lilit, even more so.”

  “I’ve heard strange tales of Princess Lilit,” Kratos commented.

  “Aye,” Kynthia agreed. “She is power-hungry and when her mother dies, I think the Daughters will be led in a new direction if Lilit has her way.”

  “I will need to run this by Lord Krull, but I imagine he would welcome all the help he can get against King Abalam. The Akkadians are keeping out of it along with the Qabalans so we’re up against a force greater than our own as it is.”

  “The Akkadians are in the midst of their own civil war,” Kynthia pointed out. “Now is not the time to ask for their help.”

  Leksi shrugged. “There has never been any love lost between Akkadia and Ventura.”

  “I will ride back to my aunt’s villa and have her call an assembly. She sits on the Council of the Elders and her word is held in high esteem,” Kynthia said, making for her mount.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, wench?” Leksi called out.

  Kynthia looked around. “What?”

  “Did you not ask me if I intended to do something?”

  Kynthia glanced at Kratos then back to her lover. “Aye,” she said.

  “Then consider the question asked,” Leksi said.

  Narrowing her eyes, Kynthia put her hands on her hips. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “That is not the way it will play out, warrior.”

  Leksi frowned. “You want me on my knees?”

  Kratos puckered his lips in a silent whistle, and looked from the warrior to the lady then back again.

  “I will have it done properly,” Kynthia agreed.

  Rolling his eyes and throwing his hands to the heavens, Leksi strode to her, stopped, and then went gracefully to one knee. Reaching out, he took her left hand in his and put his right hand over his heart.

  “Lady Kynthia, will you Join with me and become my life-mate?” he asked.

  Kynthia grinned. “Aye, Lord Leksi Helios, I pledge myself to you as your life-mate.”

  “So be it,” Leksi said, and released her hand. “When this present situation has been remedied, we will
plight our troth.”

  “We will,” she agreed and put her shirt back on. She nodded and without another word, un-hobbled her steed and swung atop the restless beast. With a curt bob of her head to Kratos, she kicked Aeolus into motion and was soon lost in the dark shadows of the desert.

  “By the gods, boy,” Kratos said, his voice rife with admiration. “I believe you have plucked the cream of the crop there. She is as lovely as you claimed her to be.”

  “Let’s get this war over with so I can claim her in reality, old friend,” Leksi said then realized he had forgotten to bring a mount of his own when he had returned Kynthia’s.

  “Up for a run, are you?” Kratos remarked as he headed for his horse.

  Chapter Six

  “It requires a meeting of the combined assemblies,” Galatea explained, “but I doubt any of the Sisters will gainsay a temporary alliance with Ventura if it means ridding the land of Abalam.”

  “The Daughters might balk at helping,” Celadina said. “The Hell Hags are a breed unto their own.”

  “Aye, but Queen Mona has been known to spend time incognito in Ventura during the Festival of Spring,” Ophelia commented. “Some say that is how Lilit came to be.”

  “Lilit,” Haidee said with a frown. “I’ve heard it was a demon that sired her. She is a bloodthirsty child.”

  “A child not more than a year or so younger than you,” Erinyes remarked.

  “Four years younger,” Haidee said. “And has yet to have her first monthly.”

  “How would you know?” Erinyes questioned.

  “Must you question everything I say, Erinyes?” Haidee threw at her sister. “I spent two months in Bandar, remember? I was forced to sleep beside that miserable little bitch. She told me she would be glad when she had her first flow for then all her power would come to her.”

  “What power?” Celadina asked.

  “How would I know?” Haidee snapped. “I tried not to talk to that witch any more than I had to.” She shot her aunt a disgusted look. “I wasn’t there of my own accord.”

  “No, but you were there to represent the Ancaeus family,” Galatea reminded her niece. “Well, at least the female side of it even though my sister—the gods rest her burdened soul—was never allowed to make the trek to the Gatherings once she married that illiterate ass.”