Last Dancer of the Egyptian Sky (Lovers of the Gods #3)
The Sacrifice
MERYT
More precious than gold. More captivating than the coil of a lasso. More full of warmth and brilliance than Amun-Ra’s gaze at its utmost peak. And more arousing than the seductive sway of goddess Hathor’s hips in the midst of a dance.
Those were my lover’s eyes.
My Nakht’s eyes.
Dawn to my dusk.
“Beautiful,” husked the general, voice already rough with growing arousal, as I arched backward, spine curving for my hands to nearly touch the floor. Before they could, I tightened the muscles of my stomach to roll upright with a flutter of the fabrics so minimally covering me.
Nakht’s eyes greeted my ascent. Our bodies moved in synchronization, with Nakht emulating me, his spine curving backward now as mine curved forward.
“Beautiful,” rumbled the general again.
We were. Especially when together.
Our outfits were little more than chokers and belts draped with sheer fabric that scarcely hid our nakedness, presenting the lines of our cocks as tempting shadows, and our nipples through the top fabric as teasing peeks.
Our tops may as well have been handkerchiefs, short enough to show our midriffs.
We wore bracelets and armlets, rings and earrings, all accented with stones or colored glass.
I was in blue, while Nakht wore red. The only differences in our ensembles were the sleeves added to mine.
Nakht’s russet hair and bronze skin against carnelian stones and ruby textiles made him the perfect sunrise.
My darker skin and hair against shimmering azures and lapis lazuli made me the first moments of twilight.
Or so my mother said when she chose our colors upon our first royal dance together.
“Slower,” General Paser said, and we instantly found the tempo in the music beyond our curtained area of the hall to restrain ourselves to half speed.
Nakht’s hair, long and intermittently plaited, shimmered reddish from the nearby torchlight. The golden baubles and beads woven into his locks shimmered too, tinkling to the music as his head faced the floor.
An occasional shadow might slink past our curtains, another performer or drunken nobleman, or perhaps more often one of the palace cats. Although, when one of Pharaoh's celebrations got particularly raucous, the cats left us to our revelry and tended to keep the guards company or seek empty beds.
When Nakht rolled upright again, I echoed him, only this time our hips nearly ground together when both of us stood erect. We allowed the faintest brush of our hardening lengths, but only that, only enough to ignite the general’s lust all the more.
He grunted, and in answer, we flitted our tongues out to taste one another like hungry snakes.
No more than that yet either. Even as our bodies rolled and rippled around each other in continued dance, no part of us touched again.
We were a harmonized push and pull meant to embody the sensual perfection of not only Hathor, the goddess most associated with dance, but of all things divine.
For we belonged to Pharaoh, and he was divinity on earth.
What he owned and found worthy was forever blessed.
And he owned us.
Nakht and I rolled and rocked, contorting our bodies in practiced movement. Our muscles strained all the more at the sluggish pace, but in those brief moments when we were truly parallel, we found reprieve, with Nakht being the salvation leading me home.
“You, in red, keep dancing. But in blue…” The general’s voice turned husky as his eyes slid to me. “Come.”
We paused at our next apex, bodies aligned. While it was Nakht’s touch that I favored, always, forever, it was no hardship to be shared nor to share him, for even a performance with another was for Nakht’s eyes to devour.
I moved with that in mind, dancing toward the general with all thought on Nakht’s gaze watching the slow swivel of my hips.
Nakht and I were equal in height, but where my muscles were more defined and compact, Nakht was lean and sleek with broader shoulders and a trimmer waist. Where my nose was delicate and broad, his was long and sharp.
My smile was subtler with plumper lips, while his was wide and full of teeth.
In private, Nakht was the quieter one, content to lounge in simple repose, reading or writing poetry. I was the one who could chatter on for hours, whether with Nakht or our peers, feeling stifled by silence. But when we danced, Nakht became the bold and brash one, and I the coquettish seductor.
The general reclined on a lavishly cushioned daybed. He didn’t reach to pull me onto his lap, so I danced over him, leaving what came next to his discretion. Although narrow, I knew the daybed was sturdy enough to accommodate several bodies. Soon, I imagined, it would.
General Paser was the highest-ranking commander of Pharaoh’s armies, elitest of the elite excluding Pharaoh himself or his vizier. To be beckoned by him, chosen by him, was a great honor, especially tonight.
Paser positioned himself enough at the end of the daybed to drop his knees over its edge.
He spread his legs, coaxing me to dance between them.
He was handsome, rugged from many battles with a finely chiseled physique beneath his linens and leather cuirass.
He wore a ceremonial version of his armor tonight, for this was an anniversary of peace time and his last great victory over Pharaoh’s enemies.
What would be firmer, sturdier armor on a battlefield, was light and pliable, decoratively studded with bronze and gold like the ornaments in Nakht’s hair.
I wore no such baubles in my buoyant curls, for they were a shorter thatch, but among them was a headband woven with blue lotuses in perfect bloom.
Ribbons were tied to it, swaying along with me, as I spun upon the stone floor, turning so I faced Nakht.
I fastened onto his gaze as I lowered myself nearly to the general’s lap, only to lift up again.
Paser’s hands gripped my hips, tugging me back down, though not forcefully.
He liked the tease and wanted more, so I followed his pull just enough to feel the spring of his cock against my backside before I rolled up again.
We wore nothing beneath our draping fabrics, and the general was well aware.
He grunted lower, hands squeezing possessively around my hips. Nakht, witness to it all, mimicked my movements, but more than I could manage with how Paser held me, rolling torso, neck, and arms as much as his lower half. He danced closer to us, a silent message to me that he enjoyed the show.
I batted my eyes to say I did too.
Paser latched onto the sinew of my neck like he might take a bite. He did a little, enough to make indents and elicit a gasp from me. Then he licked and kissed up to my ear, urging me to drop my head back, baring my neck to him and nearly resting my head on his shoulder.
He tugged me down again, so I repeated the tease, the dip, the brush of his cock between my cheeks, the denial as I swiveled upright.
His grunting was more a growl now as he ran his hands up my stomach, beneath the line of my azure top.
He squeezed my chest and thumbed my nipples with equal possessiveness as he had grasped my hips.
Dancing closer, Nakht mimicked the general more than me now, at first grasping his own hips, and then slithering his hands up his stomach and further beneath his crimson top. The pertness of his nipples after he brushed them made little tents of the fabric.
Just as my cock tented the fabric over it.
I wanted to squeeze it, stroke it, or better, have Nakht do so, but he hadn’t been invited to join us, and I dared not do so myself without permission. I shifted instead so that my next grind down and brush against Paser’s cock also brushed my cock against his knee.
He husked rougher than before, “Such an amorous beauty. I like that.” He moved his hand back, lower, slowly down my stomach, and found the spring of my arousal.
He stroked it like I needed, and as the motion moved aside the fabric covering it and Nakht’s eyes drifted down to watch, the front of his lower fabric tented too.
Nakht slowed the motion of his body even further, and I matched his tempo, thrusting into the general’s hand at Nakht’s speed, as though he were the one touching me.
It was always Nakht in my mind. Him and me.
Dawn and dusk. Because of that, I had never thought of us as slaves, even though we had both been born into our chains.
“Also amorous, I see.” The general peered at Nakht over my shoulder. “You may touch yourself, but do not stop dancing.”
We had practiced that often, as well as dancing while also touching each other.
Watching Nakht slip a hand beneath the fall of red fabric, but only seeing his strokes as shadow and motion, plumped me harder in the general’s grasp.
I lowered myself again, thighs quaking from how many times I had. I could do so for hours, but that didn’t mean I never ached. I ached for so much. To be fondled. To be filled. The sight of my beloved touching himself while dancing nourished me to my core, but I needed more.
Nakht slowed again—his dance, his hand—so I did the same, gliding along the general’s length so it bounced up between my cheeks more insistently. I hovered like that, teasing him, thighs trembling, and feeling just how wet I had become in his palm.
He pushed me up and forward so suddenly, I feared I would pitch toward the floor, but he held firm to my hips as he tore my belt from me and plunged his tongue inside my entrance.
I moaned, loud enough to echo, but I was not the only one adding to the music.
The great hall had been sectioned into many alcoves, for larger or smaller dalliances like ours.
Moans and gasps and pleasured cries were the chorus amid the songs.
Some might have stolen away to bedrooms, perhaps even Pharaoh was with one of his wives by now, or more likely a concubine or dancer of his own.