Читать книгу Scarlet Nights - Lucinda Betts - Страница 8

Enduring a Punishment from the Supplicant Queen required a peaceful and accepting mind, among other things. So Solstice strove for calm and focus—but Aster wasn’t making it easy.

“Lady Solstice, please hold still.” Standing on a step stool, Aster was replacing the many tight braids in Solstice’s hair. She removed the violet beads and put in scarlet. The red beads would gleam in the candlelight during tonight’s ritual. “You really must keep still.”

“I’m sorry.” The tugging at her scalp hurt, but pain wasn’t usually something Solstice avoided. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. “Truly, Aster.”

“Well, it isn’t like I can blame you. I’ve never seen the queen this angry. I wouldn’t want to be in your skin tonight.”

Solstice didn’t either…although the dark side of her mind admitted she was secretly intrigued. The Supplicant Queen understood how to wrap pleasure around pain, and everyone in court knew Solstice liked to play rough. To achieve a Punishment severe enough to capture Solstice’s attention, Queen Sureya would have to pull out all the stops.

Solstice just needed to know which stops.

“Has she told you what role I’m to play tonight?” Solstice knew she shouldn’t ask—it showed weakness—but she felt too upset to guard her tongue.

“Lady Solstice,” Aster said. She opened a small amphora with agile fingers. “I’ve never known you to care whether you wielded the whip or enjoyed the kiss of its lash.” She flashed her a sly grin. “Besides, it isn’t as if I could tell you…if I did know.”

Solstice took a deep breath. “Of course you can’t tell me.” But walking blind into one of the queen’s Punishments was like walking blind into a cage of hungry tigers. She would be better able to please the queen if she could prepare her mind for this ordeal. “And I apologize. I’m simply…nervous.”

Aster tugged at the binds holding Solstice’s hands above her head. “Nervous? You? I’ve never seen you nervous.”

Solstice let a little vulnerability shine through her eyes. “I’m uneasy.”

“This will calm you.” Aster stepped down from the stool and walked toward the table. She poured oil from the amphora into her palm. “The queen wants you to look spectacular tonight, and I’ll do my best to obey her command,” she said. “Although a body like yours makes my work simple.”

Solstice didn’t comment as the woman spread the oil over her skin. A large mirror stood opposite, and she could see a shimmering glitter within the oil. Her skin and hair would sparkle in the candlelight tonight.

“What of Lord Grip?” Solstice asked. “What has the queen done with him?”

Aster laughed as she began to oil Solstice’s ass. “Is it true you love him and were planning an elopement?”

A shocked expression took hold of Solstice’s face before she could stop it—and Aster saw.

“I thought not,” Aster said.

This wouldn’t do. Solstice couldn’t let her pride get the upper hand. “I love him, but we weren’t planning an elopement.”

“Ah.”

Solstice wasn’t sure Aster believed her, but she let it go. “Do you know where he is, or what the queen plans to do with him?”

“I haven’t heard.” Aster shrugged. “But what about the handsome trader from the west, the one with hair like gold? How do you know him?” Aster rubbed the oil over Solstice’s breasts, and her nipples pebbled. “Some people were saying you might elope with him instead of Lord Grip.”

“Elope with Lord Axel?” Solstice laughed and shook her head, which wasn’t easy with her arms tied above her. She wished she could get his look of disdain out of her mind. “Where do people get these ideas? I hadn’t seen Lord Axel in years—before today.”

“So you do know him. Tell me about it. Is he your long-lost love? Your first lover?”

Solstice snorted to hide the regret. There was a time when she would have welcomed him in her bed. But that time passed as his scorn took hold of his heart. “He worships the One God and holds all others in disdain.”

“No.” Aster’s tone made it clear she didn’t believe Solstice. “Who would do that?”

“I don’t know.” Solstice gasped at the skill of Aster’s clever fingers. “But that should tell you how many lovers he’s had.”

“None?”

“Exactly.”

Aster walked back to the table with a knowing grin. “So you’re the jilted love, jilted for a god. That’s a bitter draught to swallow.”

Solstice knew when she’d met her match. “Aster,” she said. “Just stop this.”

“Stop what?”

“I feel like I’m giving you all sorts of information, and you’re giving me nothing.”

“Nothing?” Aster continued to let her warm palm caress Solstice’s breast. “I give you nothing?” Her hand, slick with oil, slid to Solstice’s thigh. “I could give you something.”

Desire flickered in Solstice’s veins. Her Temple training was too complete for any other reaction. Seeing this, Aster chuckled. “Truly, you are my favorite. Perhaps I’ll misbehave just so the queen Punishes me, with you wielding the whip.”

“Should I tell her majesty just what a gossipmonger you are?” Solstice asked.

Aster pretended to be affronted. “I monger no gossip!”

“You don’t monger nearly enough gossip,” Solstice said. “What are the queen’s plans for me?”

“You know.” Aster’s playful tone was gone. She rubbed her slick hands over the curve of Solstice’s thighs, and Solstice had to admit that her touch did calm her. “The queen adores you. She’ll forgive you.”

“It’s because she loves me that her Punishment will be…surprising.” Solstice tilted her head so that Aster could reach her neck. “I’ve betrayed her. She’ll want her justice.”

Aster turned her back to Solstice and rummaged among the contents of her table. “I think you’re right.” Aster found what she was looking for. “She wants justice. The question is: what kind?”

Solstice’s gut twisted. “You’ve heard, haven’t you? You know exactly what she’s going to do to me.”

With a small smile, Aster hummed. She opened a small pot and found a painting brush. She dipped it into the paint and tested the color on Solstice’s foot, pale blue with a shimmer. “This color is perfect for skin as black as yours.” She began to run the brush over one of Solstice’s areolas.

For a heartbeat, the pleasure of the brush distracted her—but only for a heartbeat. “Aster,” Solstice said. “Please, tell me. What have you heard?”

A gleeful smile crossed the young woman’s face. “I can only say that the entire court is looking forward to tonight. The goddess hasn’t been honored like this in…” She threw up her hand to show the length of time, and blue sparkle splattered the table. “In forever.”

“What’s the Punishment?”

“What’s the worst the queen can do to you?”

Solstice thought for a moment and then laughed. “Make me honor the goddess by lying under Crescent while he pumps away over me.”

“Even you couldn’t honor the goddess that way.”

“I could.” Solstice shrugged. “But it wouldn’t be easy.”

Aster gave her a sly glance, her gray eyes shining. “But what if Crescent looked more like…hmmm…I don’t know. Lord Grip?”

“I have to lay beneath Lord Grip for my Punishment?” Would the queen actually compel her to honor the goddess with the man forbidden her? It was twisted enough to believe.

Aster shook her head. “That would be boring for everyone.”

“Boring?” Her brief time with Grip had been anything but boring. The fact that she’d disappointed so many people had been humiliating. Axel’s surprise entrance was particularly humiliating. But would people find her and Grip boring? “No.”

“Oh, la,” Aster said. “I don’t mean the partnering. No one wants to watch you lay beneath anyone. We’d all rather see you wield the whip or feel its kiss.”

“But with Lord Grip? Is that what the queen plans?”

Aster continued as if she hadn’t heard. “The queen doesn’t want to bore you or torment you. She wants to teach you humility.”

“Humility?” That gave her pause. “I’m humble.” But would a humble person say that?

“You’ve just been caught pleasuring the only man in the kingdom you’re not allowed to pleasure.” Aster laughed. “That wasn’t humble. That was prideful.”

“But—” Solstice blinked. She wanted to tell Aster the truth. She hadn’t honored the goddess with Grip out of a disregard for Queen Sureya; she pleasured him to save her queen!

“Just face it, Lady Solstice. You’re prideful.” Aster laughed. “How could you not be, accomplished as you are?”

“I’m not any more accomplished than the other Temple Virgins.”

“La.” Aster shook her head. “You play the pnignocio better than anyone at court, even the music master. Everyone agrees your dancing inspires more people to honor the goddess than any other dancer. And—”

“Stop!” Solstice would have put her hands over her ears if they weren’t tied about her head.

“Don’t shush me.” Aster nipped the side of her breast, sending pain right to her core—where it spiraled through her belly and turned to lust. “I was going to say that you’re the only one who not only endures the queen’s whip, but thrills in it.”

“Nadil enjoys the whip.”

“He’s a graceless fool, and you know it. Even by denying your skills, your humility and modesty are false. In seven short years you moved to the top of the court, and everyone says someday you’ll achieve the status of Perfect Hand.”

“I’m not achieving anything after today’s fiasco,” Solstice said through her distraction. She hadn’t been prideful in sleeping with Grip; she’d been sacrificing. She’d worked so hard to achieve all that Aster praised, but she’d thrown it away, unthanked.

Aster set her brush on the table and corked the pot of blue paint. “She’ll forgive you. She adores you.”

Solstice didn’t answer. Would a humble person agree or disagree? She suspected a humble person wouldn’t need to mull the question over.

“Which one do you prefer?” Aster sifted through more items on her table until she found what she sought. “This one?” She held up a leather bodice that showed a lot of skin. “Or this one?” She held up an even skimpier one.

“You’re going to pick the one opposite of my choice, aren’t you?”

Aster grinned. “Yes.”

“Then you’d better pick the one you prefer.”

“You were always my favorite,” Aster said. “Smart and lovely.”

“And prideful.”

Aster shrugged. “I’m not going back on my words.”

Guilt surged through Solstice. Aster was permitted her opinion of her. Of course she was. “Then at least tell me about my Punishment.”

“And prepare you for the surprise?” She laughed lightly. “If you were forewarned, you might not be as much fun tonight.”

“Ha.” Solstice knew an untruth when she heard one. “Would I ever disappoint you when it comes to honoring the goddess?”

“You’ve never disappointed us, it’s true.” Aster began to paint pale swirls of white around the curves of Solstice’s waist. “But you’ve never dallied injudiciously with the king’s man before today, either.”

“You’re not going to tell me?” The brush licked the sensitive flesh around her breast.

“I’ll tell you this.” Aster dipped the brush into the paint pot and brought it to Solstice’s nipple. “The Punishment lined up for tonight exceeds any I’ve seen—and not even old Hemlock has heard of anything like it.”

“Hemlock’s never heard of it?” Solstice swallowed. The queen must have her partnered with Grip. Would he hold the whip or would she? “But she’s a hundred years old if she’s a day.”

“That’s my point, exactly.” Aster laughed and ran a playful stroke of the brush over Solstice’s pearl. “And the frightening thing is…”

“What?”

“Even old Hemlock is looking forward to it.”

The queen truly had captured his men. The fact that Lord Kamir accompanied him through these halls proved it. A so-called Temple Virgin led Axel and his second-in-command through a labyrinth of halls. Regularly placed sconces lit the dark-paneled walls, and every turn looked just like the last. The scent of incense hung in the air, and the smoke burned his eyes. It also loosened his muscles, making him wonder what exactly the Virgins were burning.

Only the presence of Kamir at his side kept Axel from grabbing the woman serving as their guide. She’d give him answers if his hands were on her shoulders and he held her against the wall. She’d tell him what they were doing here, how the queen planned to punish him.

“It’s just this way.” The Temple Virgin’s voice was as sultry as the incense. She did nothing to ease him. In fact, she didn’t seem to recognize how hot his anger simmered.

“What’s this way?” Axel’s antagonism clipped his words. For a heartbeat, he wondered what would happen if he and Kamir simply turned and left. If the guards were as soft and weak as this woman, leaving the palace would be simple.

But then Axel remembered the soldier Solstice had been fucking. There’d been no weakness in him. “Where are we going?” Axel asked.

“You wish to know our destination?” The Temple Virgin flicked a look over her shoulder as she walked. The sensual movement made the light from the sconces glitter in her black hair. Her lips gleamed. “I’m sure the bath attendants explained. We’re going to the Ritual Chamber, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” Kamir said.

If the Virgin recognized the sarcasm, she didn’t acknowledge it. “We’re very close.” With the ease of a cat, she exuded carnality. Her hips swayed as she walked, and when she looked at him, her eyes were half closed. Her lips had been painted blood red, and thin, red fabric clung to her curves. Her long black hair hung in ringlets down her back. Following her, Axel could see the cleft of her ass through the thin silk.

“This is the land of heathens,” Kamir whispered to Axel. “Carnality.”

“It’s true,” Axel said.

“She’s the proof.” Kamir nodded at their guide.

“Yes.” Axel could only agree. Still, something about their guide made Axel wish he had had a few minutes to talk with Solstice before they’d taken her away. She’d seemed so comfortable in that stranger’s arms, under his naked body—but Axel pushed that thought away. He didn’t agree with the choices she’d made, but she had known him as a child. He couldn’t say that about many people.

Solstice was not the same as the harlot leading him to his punishment, whatever that was.

“We’ve got to escape this place,” Kamir said.

Axel didn’t agree. The measured way the queen had assessed him left him wondering: what did she know? “We’ll bide our time for now.”

“What are they going to do to you?”

“I don’t know.” Axel kept his voice low. “But the Supplicant Queen has honored her word so far. She brought you to me, fed the horses, let me bathe. She said I’ll be free in the morning.”

“Leading the lamb to the slaughter.” Kamir clicked his tongue in disapproval. “You can’t leave if she kills you.”

“I expect she’s telling the truth.”

“She’s going to release you whole and hale?” Kamir clicked his tongue again. “Remember Lord Bentre?”

“Kamir, you’re not helping.”

“Lord Khar released him in the morning,” Kamir said without pause. “Although ‘released’ is a funny thing to do to a man after you’ve cut off his feet.”

Axel shrugged. “I don’t know what the queen plans.” He hadn’t been to any land where he could trespass into the queen’s palace after smashing her shrine and expect to get off easily—but he hadn’t been to any place where the palace staff looked like the Temple Virgins either. This seemed like the land of weak women, as far as he could tell. “But I don’t see any people here missing hands or feet or eyes.”

“Maybe because they’re in the dungeon.”

“Kamir.” Axel didn’t take his eye off the Virgin’s back as he spoke. “You’re overreacting.”

Kamir didn’t answer at first, and then he shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. They’ve let us keep our weapons, for one.” His voice was low, but he touched the handle of his dagger.

“Yes.”

“None of this makes sense to me,” Kamir said, walking at Axel’s side. “I just wish I knew what they had in store for you.”

As they followed the Virgin around another turn in the labyrinth, Axel wished he, too, knew more. But he was a tracker, a man who knew how to find clues in the shifting sands of the desert. The fact that he couldn’t get words from these Virgins didn’t mean he knew nothing. “Whatever it is,” Axel said, his voice low, “I don’t think we’re going to like it.”

“What is it?”

“Be quiet for now.”

He’d seen the contraption the Virgins planned to use for the punishment—the bath attendants had ensured he’d seen. When he’d viewed the rows of shackles and whips, his heart had lurched. The Supplicant Queen might have many ways to make a man pay for his sins.

Thinking of the passageway through which he’d chased the slavers, something in Axel hardened. The people of Marotiri thought they had a champion in the queen. Ha.

He’d have to make certain the queen paid for her sins too—and his method of payment didn’t involve soft women in scarlet robes.

As if sensing his unspoken thoughts, the Temple Virgin offered her first unsolicited words. “You’re not from this land, are you?” She gave Axel a sultry glance from under her lashes as she looked over her shoulder. “I’m not.”

“From which land do you come?” She walked with a dancer’s grace.

“Greenhaven.”

“I see.” Disdain flickered across her face before she turned away. He could just see her imagining the masses of white-skinned folk all living free in some uncivilized outpost.

“Greenhaven does fall under Marotiri’s rule,” Axel found himself saying.

“Something might fall under something,” Kamir muttered to him under his breath.

A need to defend his land to this harlot made Axel speak. “Your Lady Solstice is from Greenhaven, too.” And Solstice’s skin was as dark as the Temple Virgin’s.

“We’re here,” the Virgin said. If she were impressed, she gave no sign.

Silently, Axel followed the woman into the main room, glad to have something to look at besides her silk-clad ass.

His relief was short lived, however. The dark hall gave way to a well-lit chamber with a ceiling higher than ten men, and the dome was painted with a scene right out of a raunchy adolescent’s dream.

Men pleasured men. Women, in various states of undress, pleasured women. Two women pleasured one man here, and over there two men pleasured one woman.

“By the One God,” Kamir said softly.

“Yes.” Axel could only agree. Was sex all these people thought about?

Like swans on a pond, people floated around the gilt room. Each woman wore a suggestive gown that showed off her ass and breasts. They’d piled hair high on top of their heads to display long, dark necks. Each man wore trousers that flattered muscular thighs and chests. Eyelids of both sexes glittered, and lips gleamed. Teeth shined behind lust-induced smiles.

Axel knew enough about himself to realize he was uptight, and to him, this room and the people in it seethed with carnality.

“So, what is this punishment, exactly?” Kamir asked the Virgin. From the dread in his tone, Axel knew Kamir had been equally intimidated.

“You’ll see soon enough.” The woman flashed a smile of white teeth behind red lips.

“What will it be? Stocks?” Kamir asked. “Flogging?”

But the Virgin didn’t answer the question. “You may sit here.” Her eyelids were coated in something that shimmered in the candlelight, and even though Axel knew the One God wouldn’t approve of lustful thoughts, for a heartbeat, he wondered what her skin would taste like. She gestured across the length of an oversized bench. “You’ll find this acceptable, I trust.”

“Thank you,” Kamir said, but he didn’t enter the pew area as the Virgin apparently desired. “But the punishment. What is it?”

“Please take the seats at the far end.” She pointed at the row with her elegant fingers. She’d painted her nails the same red as freshly spilt blood—and her lips.

Kamir didn’t move. “He is my commander.” Kamir pointed at Axel. “And that means it’s my job to protect him…even from you.”

The Virgin smiled then, the candlelight catching the dark ringlets of her hair. “I assure you, that won’t be necessary.”

“But what will?” Kamir asked.

The tiniest sigh came from her lips. “Sit, please.”

This conversation was not proceeding. Axel sat, even though the seating arrangement put him and Kamir right in the center of the room—next to the strange contraption that Axel had seen thanks to the bath attendants.

“You’re not going to give us any hint?” Kamir asked. He stood stubbornly and kept his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“I cannot.”

“Cannot or will not?”

Axel didn’t figure his second would have any more luck wheedling an answer from the Virgin than Axel had had with the bath attendants. So, when the Virgin turned toward them and straightened the silk sheath covering her lush breasts, Axel paid attention.

“I will tell you this,” the Virgin said in a husky voice. “Everyone…” Her eyes raked Axel. “Everyone will enjoy it—even you.”

Something in Axel’s gut twisted then. No monarch would do what he suspected the Supplicant Queen was about to do. No monarch would sully his religion by subjecting him to hers.

“What kind of land is this, that the prisoner enjoys his punishment?” Kamir asked. “Your words make no sense.”

The flirtatious look fell from the woman’s eyes for a moment. “It’s a harsh land, with a harsh monarch,” she said. “But be glad the king doesn’t see fit to punish you.” She eyed the swords at their hips. “Although that might be more what you’d expect.”

“A duel would be much cleaner than what I suspect will go on here tonight,” Kamir said.

The Virgin smiled. “Oh, there may well be a duel here tonight. It’s simply the choice of weapon that remains in question.”

Somehow Axel didn’t think the woman meant bows versus daggers. “I expect to leave here in the morning on my own volition,” Axel said.

She gestured toward the far bench. It was padded in scarlet velvet. “Please,” she said to Kamir. “Sit.”

“Very well.” Kamir entered the pew area. “What choice do I have?”

Only when Kamir sat did she turn. “Enjoy your evening.” Her parting words held no sarcasm, did they? She left before Axel could decide.

“So,” Kamir said as he arranged his sword. Like Axel, he wore clean court clothes. His second managed to look at home in the finery, but maybe that was simply a function of his black skin. “What is this punishment? You have any idea?”

Axel shrugged. “The bath attendants didn’t give me the details, but the best I can figure, we have to watch some ritual to make amends.”

“That doesn’t sound too retaliatory,” Kamir said.

Axel lowered his voice. “They worship the harlot goddess. I don’t think their idea of retaliation meshes so well with ours—which is probably a good thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think they’re going to make us watch something that the One God would find very offensive.” He nodded at the contraption.

Kamir sat for a moment in silence, his eyes turned toward the thing made from a dark polished wood, carved holes, and leather straps. “What is that?” he asked finally.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we have a choice—we have to watch them use it.”

“Use it?” Kamir asked.

“For sexual intercourse.”

“But that’s barbaric.”

“So is the harlot goddess,” Axel said. “We need to accept what we can’t alter, which means we need to remain focused on our task.”

Kamir wasn’t ready to let it go. “You can’t be right.” He shook his head and examined the room. “This is an opulent court. Look at all the silk and gold. Maybe you’ll have to pay a fine?”

Axel shrugged. “The queen said we can leave in the morning. I’ve no reason to doubt her. She has her own way to inflict pain—just be glad it’s only in our heads.”

“If it is only in our heads.”

“Of course it is.” Axel kept his voice low. “Tell me about the slavers. Did you catch them? Did they talk?”

“We caught them.” Kamir nodded. He seemed willing to follow the change of subject, which gave Axel some relief. The last thing he needed was his second-in-command in a frenzy among the people of this court.

“What’d you learn? Anything?”

“Crane made them talk,” Kamir said.

“And?”

“Their leader’s in Occam.”

“Occam?”

“That’s a good thing,” Kamir said. “Occam’s only a day’s ride from here.”

“They’re in more dangerous places than Occam.” Axel lowered his voice further. “I chased one into the palace.”

“What palace?”

Axel smashed down his impatience. “This palace.”

“You chased the slaver into this palace?” Kamir shot a furtive look around the room. “By the One’s balls, you did not.”

“How do you think I got arrested?”

“They said you smashed some statuary.”

“On my way into some secret entrance.”

“But that means—” Kamir looked at him. “That means the Supplicant Queen is housing slavers.”

“Exactly.”

“Does she know?”

“How should I know?”

“You didn’t tell her?”

“What if she’s in on it?”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“What can I do?” Axel ran his hand through his hair. “I’m a prisoner, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“A prisoner who can leave in the morning.”

“True.” Axel nodded.

Kamir sat silently for a moment, likely thinking the implications through. “Maybe we should still go to Occam,” he said. “It’s less than a day’s ride if we cut through Horse Thief Basin.”

Axel nodded curtly. “I thought the one I chased here was the leader. Perhaps I was wrong. He had inside help, though.”

“We can be in Occam tomorrow before sunset and clear up the mystery, assuming we survive the night.”

“We’ll survive,” Axel said. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning, before the sun rises.”

“I told the men you’d say that. They’ll be ready. The horses are getting fat in the queen’s stables.”

“And Grey?” Axel asked. He couldn’t think of the slavers without his brother’s face flashing through his mind. How had he come this close to finding his brother, only to fail? “Did they know anything about him?”

“No.”

“Which makes it all the more critical that we leave at dawn.”

“Yes.” Kamir shifted in his chair. “Unless we can leave now.”

“We’ll see this through,” Axel forced himself to say. The urge to bolt for the door was strong.

He sat back in his seat and tried to relax. If he were honest with himself—he hated when he was in this mood—he knew that the itch to catch the slavers wasn’t the only factor making him want to run for the nearest door and the safety of his horse’s back.

The truth was…he didn’t want to see her again. He didn’t want to see her perfect breasts, or her khal-colored skin. He didn’t want to see the way her gown clung to her lush curves. He didn’t want to see the set determination of her jaw. And he really didn’t want to lose himself in the depths of her dark eyes, the eyes that saw him so well.

The crowd around him began to whisper excitedly, and he looked at the dais. Queen Sureya had arrived. The woman’s raw sexuality put her so-called Virgins to shame. Her red hair was piled on top of her head, but small tendrils escaped and snaked down her naked shoulders. The red fabric of her gown covered the curves of her breasts and hips, barely. The slightest brush of a hand would lay her bare—and willing. Was there a man in the room who wouldn’t serve her? Was there a woman?

As her Temple Virgins poured water over her hands and dried them, he tried not to scan the room. Solstice might be the only woman whose beauty compared to the queen’s, her black skin night to the queen’s day. But he couldn’t help it. He looked. Everywhere.

When he couldn’t find her, he took a deep breath. Of relief, he told himself—although he didn’t quite believe it. Maybe it was frustration.

And then a prisoner at the back of the room caught his eye. Not a man. He stared at her with a growing horror. The scarlet cloak covered her curves, and the black blindfold covered her face, but he’d recognize her anywhere.

Solstice.

Axel stood then. He couldn’t rescue her. Not from this. But he couldn’t watch, either.

He walked toward the door, Kamir right behind him. But as his hand embraced the cool brass of the handle, a Temple Virgin stopped him. “Axel de la Couere.”

“Yes.”

“The queen asks you to stay.”

“Asks?” Axel didn’t bother to keep the scorn from his voice. “I was a child with that woman.” He pointed to Solstice. Blindfolded and quivering next to the oversized Virgin at her side, she looked as helpless as a newborn foal. “Why would I want to see her punished?”

A feral smile crossed the Temple Virgin’s lips. She tossed her hair like she was an untamed horse and laughed. The sound wrapped itself around his cock. “You’ll do more than see her punished.”

His blood chilled then. “What do you mean?”

“You’re to wield the whip.”

“Never.”

In a swirl of crimson silk, the Temple Virgin moved in closer to him. He could smell the tangerine fragrance of her perfume as she caressed his thigh. “You haven’t been initiated, have you, not in a Temple.”

This woman with her smug confidence was beginning to irritate him. “No woman has ever complained.” And that was true. As a follower of the One God, he’d been chaste.

Again that sultry chuckle. The hem of her red gown fluttered over his boot, joining them somehow, in a way he liked despite himself. There was a challenge in this woman’s eye, and he wanted to meet it, wrap his hand through her long dark hair and wipe that smug expression off her face with a kiss she wouldn’t forget. A kiss she wouldn’t learn from these over-groomed Temple Virgins.

“No woman may have complained yet,” the Virgin said. “But Solstice will definitely do so.”

That thought stopped him cold. First, because he could never pleasure her and stay true to his faith. And second, how many nights had he dreamed of tumbling Solstice? How many ways had he fantasized rolling her between the sheets until she screamed his name to the stars themselves? “I have no idea what you mean.” He couldn’t control the growl in his voice.

“I mean…” The Virgin ran her long fingernails over his chest. She pressed the flat of his nipple with her nail. He would have described the sensation as painful, but his cock hardened. “I mean that if you go in there and whip her like she was an unruly horse, Solstice will complain—and so will your audience.”

“But I thought—” He stopped and looked up the aisle at Queen Sureya. A black whip with long fringe hung from the narrow belt at her waist. It matched the one the Temple Virgin held. “I thought Solstice was to be punished.”

“If I had my way…” The Virgin leaned into him, felt his rigid cock, and smiled. “I’d make it the law. All men would require indoctrination into the ways of the flesh. Then you’d know.”

“Know what?”

“What sort of Punishment your lovely lady must endure.”

“She’s not my—”

“You will return to your seat. You will wield the whip.” She licked her lips and smiled. She looked hungry, and not for food. “Remember the point is not to rip flesh from the bones.”

“What is the point?”

“To tear pride from her heart.”

Which was why he’d been chosen. The Supplicant Queen knew how Solstice loathed him, and how he loathed her goddess.

“Come visit the Temple after the Punishment, and I’ll show you the correct way…” She let the back of her hand brush against his hardened cock.

“I know exactly how to—”

“To wield a crop for sport.”

“And what happens if I ignore you and go through these doors into the night?”

She grinned. “That would be fun.”

Something in the gleam of her eyes made him believe that her idea of fun and his idea might not have much in common. “How so?”

“The city guards would retrieve you, and the queen would subject you to the appropriate Punishment.” She stepped away from him. “Maybe the queen would allow me to whip you.”

Anger washed through Axel. He had no desire to play whatever game the Temple Virgin was playing.

He tried to push her hand from his arm, but the woman leaned into him and gave him a full kiss on his lips.

Within half a heartbeat, he knew who was master, and he wasn’t it. The crowd cheered when she stood on the tips of her toes and wrapped her fingers around his neck, pulling him toward her. She sank her teeth into the lobe of his ear. Chills raced though his stomach and right to his cock. He couldn’t stop himself.

And when she stepped away from him, he found that he had the whip in his hand.