Chapter 11 Kaitlyn
KAITLYN
The servant in the gold livery led them down another seemingly endless corridor. This one was different from the others—the walls were not black marble, but a deep, iridescent bronze that shimmered like oil on water, reflecting the torchlight in dizzying, liquid patterns.
The ceiling arched high above, lost in shadow, but from that darkness hung thousands of delicate, crystalline filaments, each one vibrating with a faint, sub-audible hum that made the air itself feel charged. It was both beautiful and deeply unnerving, Kaitlyn thought.
At the end of this humming, shimmering hall stood another set of doors. They were not merely golden—they appeared to be forged from a single, colossal slab of amber, within which were trapped millions of tiny, fossilized insects with iridescent wings.
The creatures were caught in eternal, frantic flight—their captured motion creating a mesmerizing, chaotic mosaic. As the two silent guards—their armor made of the same fossil-amber—pushed the doors inward, the light from the hall beyond made the entire tableau seem to writhe with ghostly life.
The sight that greeted Kaitlyn made her eyes go wide.
The Dining Hall was a cavernous space—easily the size of a cathedral—with a vaulted ceiling supported by ribs of glowing, milky crystal that pulsed with a soft, internal light.
Long tables, hewn from dark, polished wood, were arranged in a vast U-shape around a central oval space of empty floor—a kind of stage, she realized.
At the head of the room, on a raised dais of black stone veined with gold, was the Empress’s own table.
But Kaitlyn wasn’t looking at any of that—it was the arrangement of the guests that truly caught and held her attention.
Because everywhere, wives were seated upon their husbands.
Some males were on their hands and knees on the floor, their backs serving as living benches, their faces impassive or strained as their wives lounged upon them, laughing and gossiping with each other.
Others sat in slightly reclined chairs with their wives perched in their laps. The women’s body language spoke of possession—of casual but complete ownership. They used their husbands like furniture and nobody seemed to mind.
Kaitlyn felt a flutter of panic. Was she supposed to sit on Braze like that? And where were they supposed to go? The sheer spectacle before her was overwhelming.
Just as she was thinking she’d better try to find an empty spot at the U-shaped table, a different servant, his gold livery edged with silver thread, materialized at her elbow.
“The Empress commands your presence at the High Table, Ambassadress,” he murmured, his voice a toneless whisper. “Please follow me.”
They were led past the unsettling tableaux of power and submission and Kaitlyn tried not to stare.
The air was thick with the smell of rich, spiced meats…
exotic fruits…and the underlying, musky scent of sweat and arousal.
She kept her eyes forward, acutely aware of Braze’s massive, warm presence at her back.
It felt good to know her Protector was there, even though she wasn’t in any physical danger.
The big Beast Kindred made her feel calmer somehow.
They ascended the three shallow steps to the dais. There, the Empress herself held court in a manner that made the other arrangements look tame.
She was reclining on a pile of jewel-toned cushions, but they were arranged on the broad, straining back of a muscular male concubine who was on all fours.
The male’s face was red—a mask of controlled endurance—and his muscles were corded with the strain of bearing the Empress and remaining absolutely still.
But he wasn’t the only one serving his monarch.
Between the Empress’s spread thighs, which were bare beneath her diaphanous gown, knelt a second concubine.
His head was buried in her lap, his shoulders working rhythmically.
The wet, slick sounds of his tongue lapping at her flesh were barely audible over the general din, but to Kaitlyn, they seemed deafening.
The Empress’s head was tipped back, a slight, satisfied smile on her lips, but her eyes—sharp and knowing—snapped to Kaitlyn the moment she approached.
“Do come and sit by me, my dear Ambassadress,” she said, her voice carrying effortlessly over the din of the banquet hall. She didn’t halt the ministrations of the male between her legs for a second.
“Er, thank you—I’d be honored,” Kaitlyn said, nodding respectfully.
“Good—we have a real treat after the feast and the view is so much better up here for entertainment. Why, do you know we have a wild Kriver and its trainer scheduled for tonight? They’re meant to be absolutely bloodthirsty—the fiercest animal in the entire quadrant!”
Kaitlyn forced a polite smile, pushing down her instinctive revulsion at the idea of some fierce creature being tormented for amusement.
“That sounds… fascinating,” she managed, hoping her voice didn’t betray her disgust. “Er… how should I sit?” she asked, looking around the dais. There were no empty chairs—only the living furniture of the concubines and a few other favored guests in similar poses of carnal repose.
The Empress arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
“That depends on how well your dear husband has been behaving.” Her gaze, glittering and intrusive, swept over Braze’s near-naked form.
“Has he been good to you? Does he deserve to have you in his lap, or should you sit on his back? I peeked in on the two of you a little while ago, but I didn’t see him giving you a massage or pleasuring you with his tongue.
” She shook her head slowly in mock disappointment. “Not very nice, I’m afraid.”
A cold wave washed over Kaitlyn. She’d known they were being watched, but the casual, brazen admission of it—not to mention the critique of their performance—felt deeply violating.
But again, she couldn’t let her emotions show on her face.
“Oh, he didn’t have time to do…any of that,” she protested, hearing the slight tremor in her own voice. “We spent quite a long time with the Mistress of the Wardrobe getting him, er, mapped and then we barely had time to get dressed for the feast.”
The Empress studied her for a long, uncomfortable moment, the only sound the enthusiastic slurping from between her thighs.
“Well… I suppose you may sit on his lap then.” She didn’t sound convinced, but she snapped her fingers, anyway, making a sharp, cracking sound.
Two gold-liveried servants rushed forward and prostrated themselves so low their foreheads touched the polished stone of the dais.
“Yes, Empress—most holy and beautiful in all the land,” they chanted in eerie unison.
“Get a chair for my dear friend the Kindred Ambassadress,” the Empress commanded, waving a languid hand. “She wishes to sit in her husband’s lap, though as far as I can see, he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Yes, Empress, light of the kingdom,” they responded, again in perfect sync.
They scurried away and returned not a minute later, bearing a heavy-looking chair. It had a high back and a wide seat, but the bottom was not solid wood—it was a taut frame over which a thick, dark cloth was stretched, like a drumhead. Most notably, it was partially reclined.
The servants placed it to the left of the Empress’s living chair. Braze, following a slight nod from Kaitlyn, moved to it and sat.
As he settled himself, the effect was immediate and blatant—the reclined angle forced his hips forward. This meant his bare shaft—already rigid and straining against the cock ring—now jutted up from the open leather of his trousers like an angry, flushed exclamation point.
Kaitlyn stared, her mouth going dry. Maybe I should have asked to sit on his back instead? This was a trap or some kind of public test, she was sure. How in the world was she supposed to sit on her Protector without causing him pain…or doing something else entirely?
“Do sit down, my dear Ambassadress,” the Empress said, and the pleasantry in her voice was gone, replaced by the steel of a command.
Flustered, Kaitlyn’s eyes darted around the hall, searching for guidance—for any way out. That’s when she noticed the details she’d missed in her initial sweep of the Dining Hall.
The women who were seated in their husbands’ laps had their skirts arranged differently. They were hiked up, or spread wide open. In the gap, Kaitlyn could see what was really going on. This seating arrangement wasn't just casual ownership—it was a raw, open display of possession.
The husbands’ shafts, thick and hard, rose from between their thighs to press insistently against their wives’ exposed pussies—some glistening with arousal.
In some cases, the women weren’t just resting against them—they were fully and openly impaled—taking their husband's length deep inside their pussy as casually as if it were an extension of the chair itself.
Against her will, her gaze snagged on a pair a few tables away.
The wife—a woman with silver-streaked hair—had one hand braced on the table while the other was holding a crystal flute.
As Kaitlyn watched, she shifted slightly—a slow, subtle undulation of her hips that seemed to be less about comfort and more about pleasure.
Kaitlyn saw the powerful muscles in her husband’s bare thigh beneath her flex and tighten in response.
The woman’s lips parted on a silent sigh—a faint wince of intense sensation that quickly melted into a secret, knowing smile as she took a sip from her glass and wiggled again.
The subtle movement caused the man beneath her to grit his teeth—his hands gripping the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white.