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  Tears that she had fought against shedding since she’d left her parents began to soak the blindfold.

  Then, all of a sudden, it stopped and those fingers were back, making her ache in that alien, unfamiliar manner—much, much more so now that her bottom was singed and stinging—that had her wanting to clench her legs together, as if she needed to go, in the worst way, although she somehow knew instinctively that that would land her in even more hot water.

  Eventually, he withdrew his manipulating fingers and, maintaining his hold on her wrists, he drew them up her back until he held them up between her shoulder blades. Fleur wanted to weep again at the loss, despite—or maybe because of, she was horrified to realize—how humiliating it was for her to have him to touch her there.

  She heard a belt being unbuckled very near her head, then a zipper being unzipped. He bound her wrists where they were by means of that very belt wrapped completely around her, compressing her breasts uncomfortably in front and her wrists in back. When she thought he had gotten it as tight as he could possibly and still allow her to draw a breath, he bade her exhale, and brought it a notch even tighter. He grabbed what was now the messy bun of her hair at the back of her head and leaned down, his tone almost conversational as his lips pressed to her ear.

  “I am going to help you learn how to do something now that you’ll need to know how to do to get by here. It’s just your first lesson of many, but try to remember as much as you can about it. It’ll come in very handy in future.” But then his tone changed. “And if you hurt me in any way, I’ll give you to the pig master’s lowliest man for the next two years and suggest, when he tires of you, that he rent you out by the minute to his comrades.”

  Terrified at that threat, Fleur found something pressed against her mouth that she didn’t recognize. Its skin was very soft, almost velvety, but she sensed a strength behind it.

  “Open your mouth, Fleur. Your mouth should always be open to receive but not to speak.”

  She did as she was told, barely able to believe what she was doing. The velvety tip gave way to a long, thick length of much less soft skin over what felt like fleshy iron. It took possession of her mouth as if it had always had a home there and buried itself inside her until she could feel prickly hairs making her lips itch where they brushed against them. He immediately began pumping all the way out and all the way in again in a rhythm that was jerky at first, but then became more steady.

  “Pull your lips over your teeth,” he ground out. “I should never know that you have teeth. If you have trouble with that, I can make it so.”

  She yelped around him at that possibility, always careful to follow his advice from that point on.

  He didn’t taste bad, although he was almost too big for her mouth, and she let her tongue touch his length experimentally, surprised when he jerked and moaned.

  “No, no. Keep your tongue to yourself for now, but that’s a very good instinct you have. I don’t think I could—I couldn’t–” He stiffened and pressed himself all the way into her mouth, his hand at the back of her head preventing her from rejecting him as a strange liquid poured down her throat in several short spurts.

  Afterward, he held her there for a moment, then withdrew and made the necessary adjustments. “I think you’re going to get along just fine, Fleur. You might not want to in some cases, but you will,” he said cryptically as he removed the belt from her. Fleur was thankful to be able to draw a full breath again.

  He summoned an aide, not bothering to untie her wrists as he gave the man instructions as to what was to be done with her.

  “Take her downstairs and see that she is well-groomed. I’ll send down the garments I wish her to wear for this evening. Tell the mistresses of the bath that they are to pay particular attention to her teeth, skin and hair. I want them all to glow tonight.”

  Groomed? Fleur turned the phrase over in her mind as she was led away. The only thing that was ever groomed that she knew of was a horse.

  She had to change her mind after she’d spent several hours in a place that seemed to be devoted to nothing but the pampering of tributes, which was to the contrary of how she expected to be treated, but then Master Cromwell was no common man. She had figured she’d end up helping a farmer or, if she was lucky, a merchant. But instead she’d ended up with one of the most powerful men in the realm.

  After the restraints and blindfold were removed, she was very thoroughly bathed, with several middle aged women around her clucking at the state of her behind.

  “Someone’s been busy,” one of them said, and Fleur knew they weren’t talking to but rather about her.

  “Someone’s been naughty,” another corrected her with a tsk.

  Every bit of her skin—including that which had already received less than comfortable attentions—was scrubbed until she wondered if she’d have any left. Her hair was exclaimed over. “Is this its natural color, girl?”

  Fleur took insult at that question, answering quickly, and entirely without thinking, “Yes, of course!” in a voice that sounded angry and imperious, even to her own ears.

  The correction for forgetting was immediate and excruciating—someone grabbed the very tip of her nipple and pinched it with the end of a nail while twisting it as far around as it would go at the same time. “If Master Cromwell hadn’t forbidden it, you’d be getting the whipping of your life instead of just being on the receiving end of a little titty twist. You’d best mind your manners or you’ll find yourself in a world of pain such as you have no idea exists, my girl.”

  She didn’t know if she was allowed to say “I’m sorry, my lady,” but she did, in as submissive a tone as she could muster.

  Instead of praise for humbling herself and admitting that she’d done wrong, she got derision. “Oh, ‘my lady’, is she? La di da,” One of them taunted.

  But no one bothered to tell her how she should refer to them instead. They just went about finishing up her bath, then washing and brushing dry her hair until it shone around her like a wavy silk curtain.

  Chapter III

  When she had been plucked, scrubbed, brushed, polished and made up to within an inch of her life, she was then dressed in the outfit that Master Cromwell had sent for her.

  It was a relatively simple ensemble in the exact shade that matched her eyes perfectly. He had also sent along instructions that her hair was to be down—as befits a maiden, she overheard one of the women say—and a circlet of gold and amethysts was provided to perch atop it, holding a veil that began dark purple at the top of her head and ended at her neck in a very pale shade of lilac. The rest of the outfit flowed down over shoulders that were provocatively bare, although that was hardly the least of it. Although it appeared at first glance that the veils of varying shades of ombre silk were covering her completely from the way they were gathered tightly just above her breasts, the fact that none of those strips were stitched together meant that her bare breasts, whose nipples seemed to be permanently peaked, often poked impudently out from between the pieces of fabric. The amethyst encrusted gold belt that curved lovingly low on her hips, with an egg sized amethyst dangling just above her mons, also managed to expose most of her hindquarters and legs with every step she took. The ribbons fell to where they were anchored at her waist by more multicolored strips around her ankles—echoing the same at her wrists—as if they were soft restraints. Her feet were bare, so that the beautiful polishing job they had done was evident for all to see—it too reflected the ombre style of dark to light shades of purple.

  The only part of her that remained even slightly hidden were her privates. Although as she walked with Master Cromwell, who had come to collect her, she could feel the cool air wafting over areas of her body that hadn’t felt it for a prolonged period of time, not since she was very little girl who slipped away from her nurse at bath time to run naked around the palace and if she were quick, the grounds. At least until her father caught her and swung her around, letting her pretend she was flying until he
tucked her under his arm and carried her back to her nurse as if she was a pig he’d brought home from the market.

  He had always delighted in his children. Her mother as she recalled, however, wasn’t quite so enchanted by her behavior; neither was nurse.

  It was a long walk to wherever it was that they were headed. It was conducted in complete silence, even though the further they walked, the more populated the place became. There were people who were obviously servants—or perhaps tributes who had been there longer than she had been—it was sometimes hard to tell. At first, they all scurried around to do their chores, but on seeing whom she was walking with immediately stopped, stood ramrod straight then bowed low.

  Master Cromwell didn’t acknowledge their gestures in anyway, but then, if they had been townspeople in her father’s kingdom who were bowing to her, she wouldn’t have done much more than nod at them, if that. She accepted their submission as her due, and apparently so did he. They ended up at the top of an impressive flight of stairs, where someone was calling out introductions as couples and single people filed into the massive room. Executor and Lady Carruthers were just before them.

  And she knew them! They were friends of her parents—she’d met them plenty of times.

  Fleur somehow hadn’t considered that she might encounter people she knew while she was a tribute. There were few in her area—most of them seemed to stay within the empress’s realm, for some reason, or perhaps she just wasn’t made aware of their existence, which was entirely possible, she was beginning to realize.

  Cromwell could feel her stiffen next to him and stopped to turn to her. “Breathe deeply. It’ll calm your nerves. You are obviously a highborn girl, although whatever your title was is denied to you for a while. You must comport yourself nobly regardless. This audience is a mixture of the highest and the lowest in the land. But there is no one here to compare to you, Fleur.”

  With that, he pulled out a collar that matched the other jewelry she was wearing tonight and fit it with a loud click around her neck. “Stay two paces behind me at all times,” he commanded in a whisper before coming to stand before the master of ceremonies.

  Surprised at the compliment, Fleur managed to compose herself, finding that he was right about the deep breaths.

  “Master Cromwell.”

  She hadn’t really expected it, but there was no acknowledgment of her whatsoever as the man ahead of her took the stairs much more quickly than she expected and she practically had to run to keep up with him, but she tried to make her hurried pace look as elegant as possible.

  They approached a tall, imposing woman who was wearing all white, accented here and there with gold. She was quite striking looking, her hair a bright auburn color that was very nicely offset by the white that surrounded it.

  Somehow, it took Fleur a moment to realize that the person who left the ornate throne to come down to stand in front of Master Cromwell was the Empress Illiana, in all her glory. She was all of twenty-seven or so—old to Fleur, but quite young to be the ultimate ruler of six realms by anyone else’s standard.

  And govern she did, with an iron hand.

  She was also surprised—and not a little frightened—to hear the murmured conversations around them die out as they approached the throne.

  “Well, Robert, I was told you wouldn’t be coming.”

  Fleur couldn’t tell whether that was a dig against him or not. Her tone was very carefully neutral.

  Master Cromwell bowed low before his ruler, saying slickly, “How could I possibly resist the chance to see you in your finery, your imperial and royal majesty? You put every other female here to shame with your fiery beauty.”

  An almost smile played about the empress’s lips. “Ever the courtier, Robert. I know well that your tongue has a much better use than that.”

  Some few dared to titter at that revelation, but mostly the room remained almost deathly quiet, and Fleur remained completely in the dark as to what was meant.

  She was horrified when the empress’s attention shifted to her as the ruler came to stand in front of her. “And who do we have here?”

  Not realizing just what she was revealing about herself as she did it, the training Fleur had received at her coming out took over and she dropped to a deep curtsey, allowing her forehead to touch the floor in front of the older woman’s shoe.

  Quite startled at her actions, but quick to recover, Robert said, “This is Fleur, Ma’am. She is a tribute initiate, just arrived.”

  “I assume she’s here for the hunt?”

  Fleur rose slowly, only to have the empress circle her as if she was inspecting a bit of horseflesh. Although everything in her wanted to scream and run away, she managed to quell that impulse and stand stock still as the woman reached out to boldly heft one of her breasts, flicking her thumb against Fleur’s taut nipple. She rounded her side and let a strand of Fleur’s hair cascade through her fingers. Next, she insinuated her hand between the ribbons of fabric to cup a rounded, still stinging buttock. It wasn’t easy, but Fleur managed to remain still while she was groped, but just barely.

  The master looked surprisingly befuddled at that question, which was actually more of a statement. “I hadn’t thought of that, Ma’am–”

  “Oh, come now, Robert, why else would you have brought her? Of course she’ll run.” Having made a full circle around her, she reached out and snatched the veil away from Fleur’s face. Those close enough to see her drew startled breaths at her beauty and those amazing eyes.

  Even the Empress seemed impressed. “Some young hunter is going to catch himself a wonderful prize tonight, I can see. I only hope he’ll know how to treat her correctly once he gets her.” She motioned to one of the ever-present pages, dressed in her livery of gold and burgundy.

  “Take Fleur to where the runners are being held.”

  Although she didn’t know why she would have felt safer with Master Cromwell, Fleur was suddenly of a mind to struggle against the two big, burly men who each took possession of an upper arm, nearly lifting her off the floor in the process. But then she reconsidered—remembering where she was and her current place in the world, and not wanting to shame her family or herself under any circumstances.

  And definitely not wanting to be punished again, in any of the manners she’d already experienced or any new ones, for that matter.

  She was brought to a place that was well away from the beauty and glamor of the empress’s throne room. It was, in fact, not far from the stables, and, although their exterior, too, was made out of marble imported from the kingdoms in the south, they were, after all, still places where animals were housed, and they smelled quite ripe.

  But then Fleur realized when she was stripped of her finery and practically thrown into a good-sized corral that it was apparently designed to hold humans. It was easy to pick out those who were well cared for, even without clothes to broadcast their status—or rather, the status of their masters—even more loudly. Some of them were dirty from head to toe, and didn’t look as if they’d had a bath since they’d left their homes, or perhaps even before that. Those were the ones she recognized first with her nose. Others, though, looked as they, too, had just been in the presence of their ruler, and somehow, without it being enforced in any way, it seemed as if there were two camps within the enclosure—the haves and the have nots sorted themselves out even without the aid of outward trappings, apparently.

  Fleur stayed towards the front of the corral, near where she had just entered, not really joining either group, but just wanting to be left alone and preferably remain as untouched as possible.

  But one man stepped out of the group of have nots—although he looked much cleaner than most of them—and stood before her. “Do you remember me?”

  Fleur didn’t know where to look. He was as naked as she, and she’d rarely even seen a male with his shirt off, much less completely exposed as he was.

  Well, he wasn’t quite entirely exposed. There was some kind of contraption fi
tted over the things that hung between his legs, kind of holding them together in a leather and silver cage of some sort.

  She snuck a quick look at his face and couldn’t place him.

  “I helped you into the wagon this morning. My name’s Zay. Zay D’Varra.”

  Not looking up again, Fleur nodded, mumbling. “Thank you.” She had no idea what the rules were about talking, but she had no interest in being punished any further for speaking out of turn—not that anyone else in the enclosure seemed hesitant to use their voices to give life to their opinions loudly, well within the earshot of the guards that were posted in strategic positions around their enclosure.

  “You’re welcome.”

  She had turned away from him, pressing herself against the fence looking out into the darkness.

  “Oh, your fanny got roasted, didn’t it? What did you do to deserve that?”

  Fleur wanted to turn back around to face him, but somehow that made her feel even more exposed than she was right now, like her body would tell him without her mind’s permission about what had happened to her since they had arrived, not that it was any of his business.

  Which is exactly what she told him.

  He took several steps towards her, trapping her there against the fence with his body. “If you were mine, I’d punish you every day—several times, probably—then make love to you until you forgave me for doing so.” He emitted a cry of anguish at the end of his little speech, drawing Fleur’s attention.

  She turned partially towards him, asking curiously, “Are you hurt?”

  He smiled at her indulgently. “No, princess. Not in the way you think, anyway.” He had never in his life wanted to rub his throbbing cock more than at this moment, but he knew that that would only get him into more of the same trouble as what had caused him to cry out in the first place.

  He could see that his answer confused her. She was delightfully innocent, although he doubted that would last much longer than moments after the hunt began.