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Damon groans. “I want to feed you more foribunda and watch you beg for me again. Forget how to speak Artemian and beg me in Magaar.”
“Fuck, Master, please. Please,” Lyr says, still in Magaar. Words sounding rough in his passion. Exu Achi, meru. Meru.
Damon puts his hand down the front of Lyr’s breeches and curls his fist around Lyr’s slick, needy cock.
Lyr keens, bucking up into Damon’s grasp. He finds his Artemian words again and pleads. “Damon, please. I’ll spend now if you do that.”
“Spend then. Spend for me, slave. Show me your desire.”
Lyr sobs out. “Call me that again, please.”
Damon leans in closer. His lips are against Lyr’s temple as he says, “Slave? You like to be called so?” His hand is still sliding against Lyr’s cock. For all his claims to resist his desires, he knows just how to touch a man.
Lyr whimpers, nodding his head, as his pleasure builds. “By you,” he breathes.
Damon says, “You are my slave. I own you. Spend now as your Master commands.”
Lyr cries out. Damon's words and the way he is touching him combine into something that is making him utterly helpless. He twists, thrusting into Damon’s grasp. Spilling his seed with a cry of pleasure.
Damon groans. “Zai. Zai, slave, you undo me. You will ruin me.”
He kisses Lyr’s neck again.
And behind them, someone says, “Damon?”
Lyr feels cold shock wash over him. The glow of pleasure from his spend draining away in an instant as Damon turns and says, “Inez?”
Inez stands only yards away. Her beautiful face pale. “Husband?” she says.
Damon takes a step towards her, leaving Lyr, dishevelled, leaning against the fence. “Wife, please. I…”
Inez shakes her head and turns. She runs.
“Inez. Wait,” Damon says in the most terrible, broken voice.
And he races after her.
9
DAMON
Damon runs through the orchard after Inez, She moves surprisingly fast, but Damon is faster. He catches up with her in the herb garden, grasping her shoulder and swinging her around to face him with a force he instantly regrets.
She looks at him, face pale with shock, eyes burning.
“Inez,” he says. “Inez, please.”
She pulls out of his grasp. “Do not touch me, luxorite.”
Damon takes his hand from her shoulder, bare above her delicate green gown. “Please,” he says, “let me explain.”
“Explain what?” Inez snaps. “Do you think I don’t hear what they say about you? Do you think I don’t know why you have still not come to my bed? I know you took a love draught on our wedding night. What is there to explain? I am no blushing fool. I know what you are.”
Damon’s heart aches. There are tears in Inez’s eyes. She didn’t ask for this. For any of it. “Please,” he says. “You are correct, there is nothing to explain. But can we speak? In private?”
“I suppose,” says Inez. “You are my husband.” She makes this fact sound like something truly dreadful.
She leads him back into the manor and up into her solar, with its wide, glazed, south-facing windows. The heat feels good on Damon’s skin. One handmaiden sits there, winding a ball of yarn. Three more balls rest in a basket at her feet. “Leave us, Hetta,” Inez says to her and the small woman scuttles from the room.
