ESSA
The first to enter the bydrune chamber was Lord Natath. Of course.
I watched from where I lay as he strode toward me slowly, biting his lower lip in anticipation. He said not a word but climbed up on the stone dais and knelt there between my legs, looking down on me.
His eyes flickered to the place where my missing hand would have been.
“They say you are maimed… but I have always found you to be…” his eyes drifted to my bare breasts. “Sufficient.”
He ran one hand up my side to my left breast and ran a thumb over my nipple. I realized I was shaking. A smile shifted his features, and he ran one hand down his salt-and-pepper beard thoughtfully.
“I’m surprised. No sharp words from you? No fight? I figured I’d find you kicking and spitting. No matter…”
He tugged his breeches down and took out his manhood. I’d seen only a handful of them in my life, but his seemed to me very average. He lowered himself onto his hands and knees and grunted as he inched his way up between my legs.
A vague sensation of surprise came over me. In truth, I’d never imagined the bydrune would actually happen. I imagined I’d change my mind, that I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. Or that something would intervene and prevent it from happening. That someone or something would save me.
But now, with a low grunt, Lord Natath was pushing himself inside me.
“So wet,” he whispered in my ear. “I remember your mother’s bydrune. She… oh, Gods.”
He winced, moving faster. I felt him inside me, but more than that, I felt the burning of the poison.
Its almost unbearable sting had calmed now to a dull, numbing ache.
Almost an anesthetic. Natath glanced at me, and I saw surprise on his face.
He expected me to look away, maybe, to shut my eyes.
But no. I wanted to watch as he plunged himself into the poison between my legs again and again. Faster. Harder.
But it must’ve been unnerving for him. He looked away fast, the eye contact too intimate for him to bear.
“Oh. Oh, Gods,” he groaned suddenly, spittle glinting on his lips. He quivered like a fish—then it was over. He backed away from me, stood catching his breath for a second.
I watched him, feeling less than nothing, as he put himself back in his breaches.
“Your Majesty.” He bowed, then turned and departed.
As I listened to the sound of his boot falls growing quieter and quieter, I thought:
so here is the price of being queen.
In a way, it was horribly easy…
The next to enter was Lord Chax—a man of at least seventy-five with a long, white beard who’d given me sweets on feast days when I was a little girl.
Surely, he wouldn’t—but he was already slipping out of his trousers and climbing on the dais with me.
He kept going for a tediously long time before finishing with a spasm that was like a sneeze.
I lost track of who came after that. The elders went first, esteemed older men I’d known my whole lives who’d formed the backbone of my mother’s court.
They were every type. Portly. Skinny. Tall. Short. Small. Smaller.
The massive dose of poison in the lotion left me feeling drunk, spinning with dizziness. I closed my eyes and surrendered to the feeling, content with knowing that if my plan worked, each man touching me now would die.
Cheers, Opheema. Thank you.
Of course, I might die, too, given the dose of poison in that lotion.
Knowing that only made it easier to give myself away.
I might die.
And maybe Charlie will be there waiting for me, in the Infinite Garden…
No, don’t think of him. Not now.
Concentrate on revenge. Concentrate on this act of war. Concentrate on avenging your mother. Killing all her enemies merely by lying here and letting them kill themselves…
I forced a smile onto my face. Forced myself to revel in what I was doing. Forced myself to keep my eyes shut, my legs spread.
I lost track of myself for a while. But I felt another one entering me, now.
This one was large. Larger than all the others.
Even wet as I was, slick with lotion, I felt my folds straining as they parted to accommodate it.
Felt it filling me. The burning of the poison had shifted into a sharper ache now—painful, yes, but oddly pleasurable, too.
I felt it burning in the swollen pearl of my pleasure as this new lord pushed deeper inside me, moving with maddening, infuriating slowness.
I felt gentle fingers slip up my belly, up my ribs, to my breasts, they brushed over my nipples that were so hard they felt like they would burst. I’d been pinched.
Flicked. Sucked. But this touch teased pleasure from me, fingertips feathering over both breasts in a way that made my back arch.
I didn’t want to enjoy this.
That would be sick. Wrong. A betrayal.
And yet…
He was moving inside faster now. The warmth of the poison felt so deliciously painful.
And I was so wet. Slathered. Overflowing with the men who’d come before.
So wet that even this huge, incredibly stiff cock that filled me moved with ease.
I refused to open my eyes. But I could feel the ridge of that hard, hard crown moving deep within me.
“Essa,” a voice whispered, low in my ear. “Let go.”
“No,” I tried to snarl, but the word came out a whisper, a puff of breath.
I shook my head, trying to fight it. I shifted my hips, trying to change his angle, trying to stop the wave of pleasure building inside me. But his strong hand found my hip and pulled me back.
“I want you to come,” the voice said in my ear.
“No. Please,” I gasped.
“I’m not stopping until you do,” the voice said in my ear.
“I won’t. I—I—”
But it was too late. Spasms of pleasure shook me, a moan rising from my throat. The burning of the poison had me flush. Plump. Inflamed. I felt the blood pumping between my legs as another wave of pleasure spasmed through me. Still, I gritted my teeth, trying to hold myself back.
The lord’s lips were on my neck now. Kissing.
Licking. Strong fingers slipping down my breast, down my belly, down to my swollen clit, burning and slick with poison.
No. I wouldn’t enjoy this. I wouldn’t… But Gods, those fingers moved, flicking gently, and my whole body convulsed with another wave of ecstasy.
And he wouldn’t stop. His fingers kept going, making little, torturous, gentle circles that teased more pleasure out of me even as I tried to fight it.
But it was too much. It was flowing out of me like a fountain, wave after wave of pleasure, until my body was slick with sweat.
I was moving with him in spite of myself, my back arched, my hips swiveling, moving in time with his.
The lord was pumping inside me harder now, so big and thick and deep it was like I could feel him in my belly. The world was spinning. My legs, shaking. A wail rising in the back of my throat.
“Oh yes. Yes, my Queen,” he hissed into my ear. Fucking me hard now. So hard.
I felt him let go inside me with a growl of pleasure. I came again too, with such force it felt like a cramp. I couldn’t breathe. The world was spinning. It wasn’t my fault. It was the poison, I told myself. The poison made it impossible to stop.
Finally, I managed to catch my breath, and I took a deep, shuddering sigh. My legs were still trembling. Tiny jolts of pleasure still shivered through me every few seconds, making me whimper with pleasure. I felt the lord sit back and slowly slide his massive length out of me.
I couldn’t resist anymore; I opened my eyes.
I saw the tousled, light brown hair, the square jaw, the perfect, chiseled torso—of the young Lord Natath. His eyes lingered on me and gave me the faintest hint of a grin, as if he knew exactly what he’d done to me.
For the faintest moment, I almost regretted what I’d done to him.
Then I corrected myself. Skill in bed was no reason to let traitors live.
He stood, pulled up his breaches, pulled his tunic over his head, then reached out and gently squeezed my bare foot.
“It won’t be the last time, my Queen,” he said.
“I think it will,” I whispered.
He tilted his head, considering. “We’ll see.” He gave me one last, lingering look, then departed.
Immediately, another young lord entered.
I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath, centering myself as he, too, slipped himself inside me.
I could feel that he wasn’t the specimen young Lord Natath was.
But in bringing my pleasure to a peak, Young Natath had unleashed something in me.
This new man worked himself inside me with none of the tenderness or craft of Lord Natath.
He fucked me. Vigorously. Artlessly. But still, though I tried to stop it, tried to hold it back, I felt my pleasure cresting once more.
I felt so hot. So wet. So full and slick with seed and poison.
I didn’t want to like it. Didn’t want to feel good. But I couldn’t stop myself.
And so, I stopped trying.
The next man came. And the next. And the next. And I used them for my pleasure.
If felt tender. Raw. My nipples stung, chapped from all the lips that had sucked them, the fingers that had pinched and brushed over them.
But the game had changed. With each man who arrived, I wrapped my legs around them, thrusting them deeper into me, working them with my hips, fighting to extract all the pleasure I could from them.
Again. And again. And again. Until I lost all track of how many men there had been or how many times I’d come.
And then—
“Essa,” this voice was familiar. Tender. It jarred me out of my feral state and my eyes snapped wide.
It was Braimar.
He stood over me, brushing a strand of sweaty hair from my face. “Are you okay? It’s over,” he whispered. “I’m the last one.”
My teeth were bared. My breathing fast. I felt like an animal, like a beast in heat.
“Go ahead, then,” I said, spreading my legs. “Do it.”
He frowned.
“Go ahead and fuck me. It’s what you want, isn’t it?” I found myself shouting. There were tears in my eyes, though I didn’t know why.
He looked stricken. Then sad. He shook his head.
“No,” he said softly, taking in my sweat-slicked skin at a glance. “You’ve been through enough.”
“Go ahead!” I snarled.
“No,” he said again, drawing his dagger. “Not like this.”
My eyes lingered on the blade glinting in his hand.
“What? You’re going to kill me, then? Is that what your uncle sent you to do?”
“Hardly,” he scoffed.
He leaned over me and began cutting my silk bonds.
The bydrune was over.