CHAPTER TWO
Alad
With my good humor restored by my flight, I bathe in the river before hunkering down upon the whitewashed mud-brick platform Gil ordered be erected in the center of the Il-Ugina. The cost was enormous. City engineers were forced to stop the river’s flow in order to build.
But he had it constructed for me. For us. Because we often enjoy a quiet dusk, gazing westward towards the distant mountains behind which the sun dies. Some of our best conversations have taken place upon the platform.
There’s a peace here I can’t find elsewhere. I enjoy it while the drops dry upon my hide before I return to the palace, ready for whatever adventure Gilgamesh will seek.
There’s always something.
As I enter the dining hall, he’s roaring about the wild creature of the forest that he intends to hunt next. His gaze lands upon me, and he breaks off and waves me over.
“Alad! We’re leaving tomorrow to hunt the hairy man, Enkidu. He’s eaten three of my Fourth Guard. Roasted them like ducks on a spit.”
“Did he? Who became his supper?” I sink down to his right upon the long reed mat made especially to my size. My long lion’s body requires more room than the cushions upon which the rest of the court perch, excepting my mother, of course, but she stands guard at the entrance, as always.
“Gildi, Hilmaz, and Kisher. They went to hunt the beast with the rest of the garrison.”
“Then you don’t know for certain they’re dead and roasted.”
From across the expansive space, my mother turns from her surveillance to give me the stink-eye.
“Of course I know. I feel it. Here.” The king, for once, is not smiling as he bangs his fist over his chest. He doesn’t like it when his men are killed, and this Enkidu, the wild man of the forests, has lately become his sworn enemy.
“But I’ll succeed where the garrison failed and take the bastard’s head. With your help, of course.”
He throws me the last as a sop. We both know that of the two of us, I’m the greater threat.
I may possess the head of a man, but in my Third Form, I can unhinge my leonine jaws to reveal razor-sharp teeth.
Even in my First Form, my hide is thick, nearly impermeable, and my claws are their own kind of danger.
Ignoring the heaviness in my chest at the idea of yet another hunt for another innocent creature—presumably innocent—I nod my head. At least I’ll be able to stretch my legs and thoughts once free of the city.
Supper progresses in the normal course. I allow the sea of words to flow over me, paying attention only to the poet who sings of a desperate love I can’t imagine. No woman has ever moved me except to stick my i?arum between her thighs.
Suddenly, there’s a flurry at the door. The guards position their spears, alert, facing outward. More pile from around the room and line behind the first row. Gilgamesh rises, as do I.
“What goes there?” he demands, already hopping over the table as if it’s a small puddle, before striding towards the door.
My legs are not so easily gained, but I’m still only a step behind him before I leap in front. It’s my job to protect him, though he rarely allows it.
Before we reach halfway across the floor of the bejeweled hall, the guards begin laughing. They raise their spears and start pounding the butts in a rhythm upon the floor. The men break to each side, leaving room for a group of perfumed dancers to sashay in-between them.
Tempting flesh, wide hips swaying, narrow waists contracting with tight muscles, breasts scantily clad and on display. The dancing girls trill, as dancing girls do, before throwing themselves at the floor in obeisance to their king. Their fingers, in bronze castanets, clatter upon the tile.
Gilgamesh laughs heartily, pushing me out of the way before he begins slapping some of the guards upon the shoulders and punching others playfully in their abdomens, even though he needs to bend nearly double to do so. “Whose joke is this to make me fear an intrusion? Tell me. Face your king.”
The men push forward one of the youngest of the Imperial Guard, a fresh-faced lad with barely any whiskers upon his cheeks. Eighteen, maybe. Not more than twenty years, surely.
Fresh-face falls to his knees, head bowed, but a smirk lines his countenance.
It’s true that the men love Gil; at least, those who appreciate blood and battle do.
He’s a man’s man, though even women love him.
Alpha to his core, even were he a lowly leatherworker, women would line up to test his wares, and many men as well.
True to form, Gil draws a sword from one of the laughing guards and pretends to arc it down upon the lad’s bare neck. He stops at the very last moment, his precision, as always, exact.
“For services to the king, a silver shekel.” He gestures to the court treasurer, who unties the string from around his neck and begrudgingly draws a silver shekel from it.
Next to him, the scribe notes the expenditure upon a soft clay tablet.
Once it’s done, Gil tucks the lad against his hip. “Now, come help me enjoy my gift.”
Fresh-face barely rises to Gil’s waist, though he appears of average height for a human. The king leads his newest admirer to the table and seats him to his left.
Once we’re all arranged, Gilgamesh claps his hands. The dancing girls, faces now veiled in transparent cotton to match their kaunakes, begin their sinuous movement. Their castanets keep time to the notes the musicians play. One in particular catches my attention.
My breath holds. The very room seems to pulse.
A flurry of ants rushes over my skin, and even my paws tingle.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but her hair, revealed in brief bites as she spins, sparkles like spun sunlight.
Her eyes, when she lifts them above the veiling, are as blue as those of the Watchers, those celestial entities who sometimes venture into the city.
Added to the beauty of her features is the profound delight of her body.
Shaped like Inanna herself, as if the goddess molded the human to her own specifications, she begs for a man’s hands to trace her creamy skin.
She isn’t bronzed. No hint of green enlivens her flesh.
She is as fresh as barley with traces of pink.
Odd shade, and normally not one I should find appealing, but there’s something about her hair.
Odd, all of it, and yet my heart races.
She must come from a foreign land. A slave assigned to Inanna’s temple, because no Urukian woman looks as she does.
Plus, as she dances, her beautiful blue eyes are more often cast down or hidden behind veiling than they seek the room.
There’s also a lack of grace in her movements, as if she didn’t grow to adulthood practicing a female’s wiles.
Odd and wonderful in a way I can’t fix or describe.
I sit, captivated, unable to look away from her.
For every fleeting glance of her blue irises, my body tightens.
My i?arum rises strong, pulsing as her gauzy veiling slips to reveal nipples as pink as the interior of a shell.
And all I can wonder is if the flesh between her legs is similarly colored like pale sugar. And if it tastes as sweet.
Gilgamesh suddenly slaps me on the back. “Found something you like, I see. Well, why not? Let it not be said that Gilgamesh won’t share the treasures of his bounty with his brother.”
I want to tell him the girl isn’t bounty. She has a mind, a soul, a choice, slim though it may be.
Once, humans were engineered by the gods to be slaves. Our ancestors, all of them, his, mine, every human’s, originated in captivity. How can he be so obtuse as to treat her as chattel?
But I might as well rail against the entirety of the world.
Instead of protesting as he probably expects me to do, given I’m always protesting something he says or does, all I say is, “Thank you.”
And though my soul rises up at my lips’ betrayal, I stare at the body that will soon lie beneath mine—unless she objects—and lust. Better still, she’ll lie on top of me. Mating in my First or Third Forms is easier with a woman’s thighs stretched around me.
Already, my paws itch with the need to stroke the female’s curves. My tongue aches to be buried within her sweet kir, lapping honey delicious enough to sear a man’s brain.
When the girls collapse to the floor in final salute, their veiling gone along with their kaunakes, their eyes fix upon the king.
Even her. She sends Gil a soft smile, a promising smile.
A twinge of something acidic roughs through my blood.
I push the feeling away. Of course she would prefer to lie with the king, but it won’t matter.
My i?arum has needs. And it’s her job, isn’t it?
To seduce, appease, and fuck men—that’s a dancer’s work.
That’s the work of the temple prostitutes, and she’s obviously one of them, whether free or enchained.
We all have jobs we less prefer, and if she doesn’t want me…
There are plenty who do, plenty who would give much to pleasure the king’s best friend, even if I am a hybrid.
So why do I feel so unsettled by the woman’s unwavering stare at Gilgamesh?
“Come. Let’s seek our mats.” This time, Gil clasps his hand around my foreleg. He’s big, but I’m bigger. His fingers don’t stretch all the way around to meet. Still, there’s an intimacy in his touch that shivers through me in the wrong way.
Again, I shake off my feelings. I stretch to my legs as he takes to his. His hand leaves to stroke along my upper back. From the sides of my eyes, I send him an inquiring glance, but he’s staring at the girls. When he leans to whisper into his servant’s ear, I step away so his hand drops.
Games. Always games. We’ve shared women before, and I guess it’s what he wants now. I’m not happy with the arrangement as he usually gives me a girl’s mouth or ass while he takes the sweetest part, but he’s given me first choice with the golden-haired girl.
I want all of her. I need all of her.