Page 24

Damon grabs Lyr’s wrist and slams it down on the cot. “No,” he says sharply. “Listen to me. Why were you in Ramel’s harem if you were not his pleasure slave?”

“Jareleezi put me there when she ran.” Lyr tries to pull his wrist free of Damon’s grip. He can’t. “Please, you’re hurting me.” Then, darker, “Do you want to hurt me, Master?”

“No,” Damon snaps and lets go of Lyr’s wrist. He slides back, off the cot and kneels on the floor beside it. Queen Jareleezi, that was who they sent his ship to chase. “Tell me more about Jareleezi. What did she do to you?”

Lyr keeps talking, still sounding breathy and loose. “I was her slave. Always and only hers. She was cruel to me. Extremely cruel.”

“Queen Jareleezi was the last Hevelikar. She was a descendant of the old rulers of Azuria.”

“I know,” Lyr moans. He reaches for Damon, but Damon pushes him back.

There are two uses for foribunda, Damon knows. The first and most usual is as a sexual enhancement. Its use for such things is banned in Azuria, with small exceptions made for love draughts, allowed in some rare circumstances. But foribunda is permitted for the use of the Imperial Army and the Enforcers of Zai. For interrogation. For torture. Foribunda makes truth spill from the lips of those who have it roaring in their blood. Because with foribunda, nothing matters except satisfaction of a desire so great it is painful to ignore. Nothing.

Some say foribunda is a terrible way to gain information. Foribunda, they say, will make a person say anything to be touched, to be fucked. And that what they say cannot be trusted.

But others say foribunda opens the doors of the soul. Shows a truth that cannot be hidden in the state of extreme lust it creates.

“Do you know where she has gone? Did she have friends in Ik-Sundal?”

“She hated the Sundals,” Lyr says breathily. “It must be a trick if they think she has gone there. She loathed the heat of Pellex. She’d never travel into the desert.”

Damon notes this and says, “What did Jareleezi use you for?” He reaches out as he speaks and strokes Lyr’s wrist.

Lyr coos as Damon touches his skin. He is shaking with need. He whispers something. Not in Artemian or Juran, Damon thinks it’s Magaar. “Meru,” Lyr moans again, gazing into Damon’s eyes. “Meru.” He’s begging please in Magaar. It sounds beautiful. “She burned me and she cut me because sometimes her rituals needed pain, she said. She needed to cleanse me so I could be a vessel for her Gods to speak to her. Sometimes she needed other things. She coupled with me often. She has given me this drug before. Sometimes she used my seed. Sometimes she had men take me. There were many rites.” He looks into Damon’s eyes and blinks. “Please, Damon. Please fuck me.” He slides from Artemian back into Magaar. “Meru, Akai.”

Akai, the Magaar word for Master.

Damon shakes his head. He strokes Lyr’s cheek. This creature was Jareleezi’s, he thinks. He belonged to the Hevelikar witch that the Imperial army chases in Ik-Sundal. And none of them know. None of them know what Lyr truly is. Her slave. Part of her rituals. If they did know, they’d take Lyr, take him from Damon. Torture him for information. Maybe even try and trade him back to Jareleezi, use him as bait in a trap, sell him back to her in return for what she took from Blackstone Castle.

And more than that. Something that sits in Damon’s soul like a knife between his shoulder blades. Jareleezi hurt Lyr. Jareleezi raped him. And now he lies before Damon, drugged, helpless on foribunda, just as he was for her. Damon is sickened he came so close to taking Lyr like this. He’d be no better than her if he did so. It cannot be like this. He will not take Lyr like some pleasure slave from the backstreets of Attar.

It can’t happen like this.

Not like this.

Not for them.

“Meru,” Lyr whines again, throwing out an arm and looping it around Damon’s shoulders. It catches Damon by surprise and Lyr manages to pull him down so their lips meet in a kiss, but a brief one. A touch of their lips before Damon pulls back again and Lyr’s moan of pleasure turns into a whine of need.

Damon looks at Lyr and shakes his head. “I cannot,” he says firmly. “Not on Atticul’s ship. Not when you are drugged. And not after what Queen Jareleezi did to you.”

“Not on Atticul’s ship,” says Lyr woozily, slipping back to Artemian. The foribunda comes in waves. He blinks and seems a little more lucid as it recedes for a moment. “Damon, if we were somewhere else, if I asked you with a clear heart, then would you allow me to pleasure you? Please.” His arm reaches for Damon again. Damon grabs Lyr’s wrist but allows the palm of Lyr’s hand to rest on his stubbled cheek. “Please,” Lyr whimpers again. Damon can see his hips moving under the thin sheet, his cock still painfully hard, leaking wet, making a translucent patch in the fabric. “At least tell me that you would?”

Lyr strokes Damon’s face. Damon can feel the soft rasp as his stubble prickles over Lyr’s skin. He can’t take Lyr like this, he knows, but his blood is roaring from how beautiful he looks, desperate, wild and stupid with need. He nods. “I would. In another life, I would.”

Lyr makes a soft moaning noise, half a sob.

Damon carefully takes Lyr’s hand from his face and stands up.

He pulls off his shirt. He sees Lyr’s eyes light at the sight of his upper body. Damon is strong, and he knows he looks it. His body is big, solid muscle covered in fat. He’s built like a bull. His shoulders are broad. His chest carries scars. In Pluma-Ferris Trysta’s sword point nearly reached his throat, and its path still traces his chest. In Jur-Mattan, only days ago, he fell heavily against a pile of stone and the side of his body is still scuffed red and grey from it. He’s a mess, he knows. Bull body, all bruises and scars. Outside and in.

But Lyr, clearly, sees nothing but something desirable. His beautiful blue eyes are dark with desire as he stares at Damon like he’s drinking in the sight.

“Roll over,” says Damon, “face the wall.”

Lyr does as he’s told with a sigh of pleasure. The sheet slips off his body, revealing his ass and the delicate curve of his pale back. Damon sees those small runes, something more complex is written there. Damon traces a fingertip over them. Is this information? Information the empire wants? Would kill for? Would kill Lyr for?

No one else must know about these marks.