nuzzled her neck from behind, working the ties of her corset loose. Slipping her dress off her shoulders, the young don let the golden chiffon tumble away in a shimmering wave, underthings following, stripping her bare.
Mia’s eyes roamed the girl’s body as she climbed onto the bed on hands and knees, prowling like a cat. Alenna knelt above her, sighing as the young don sank to his knees behind her, kisses trailing down her back, over her arse. Mia felt the girl’s hands trail the insides of her shivering thighs, breath coming fast as those fingers brushed her lips. Alenna was breathing quick too, groaning as Aurelius pressed his mouth between her legs, went to work with his tongue. Her eyes were bright with lust as she leaned in close, seeking Mia’s mouth again.
Mia turned away, one hand to the girl’s lips.
“No.”
She reached out across Alenna’s skin, finding Aurelius’s hand at the girl’s hip. Entwining her fingers with his own, the beauty sighed in protest as Mia dragged him away from his prize. Eyes on his. Breathless.
“Kiss me,” she begged.
Aurelius smiled as Alenna descended, the girl’s kisses like ice and fire across Mia’s throat, breasts, belly. The young don crawled up the mattress as the girl sank farther down, licking the cusp of Mia’s navel, the divots at her hips. Mia felt gentle teeth on the inside of her thighs, hands roaming her skin, whimpering as Alenna blew on her softly, lips just a whisper away from her own. Mia reached up with one hand, down with the other, tangling her fingers in their hair. She dragged Aurelius toward her, pleading, pulling Alenna in. And the don’s mouth closed over her own, smothering her breathless moan as she felt the first touch of the beauty’s tongue.
They went to work, the pair of them, Mia writhing on the fur as they adored her. A heat like she’ d never known burned between her legs as Alenna kissed her like no man ever had, back arching, fingers knotted in the girl’s tresses. She could taste the girl on Aurelius’s tongue, the salt and sweetness of it. She kissed him fiercely, biting his lip hard enough to split the skin, dark red paint mixing with the blood on their mouths. Her lips smothered his gasp of pain, her tongue found his, teasing, tasting, dancing in some pale semblance of the beauty’s between her legs.
Time stopped turning, the world stopped spinning. Breaking away from her mouth, the don left a trail of bloody kisses down her neck. Mia gasped as he descended, licking, suckling, biting, eyes fluttering closed as Alenna began her work in earnest, lapping at her swollen bud.
Aurelius lifted his head.
A quick shudder ran through him.
A soft groan slipped past his lips.
And drawing in a ragged breath, the young don coughed a mouthful of bright red blood all over Mia’s breasts.
“F-four Daughters …”
Aurelius stared in horror at the scarlet on Mia’s skin, on his hands. Mia pulled herself up on her elbows as he fell back with another red cough, fingers at his throat. Alenna realized what was happening, her face spattered with crimson. Rearing back, she drew breath to scream as Mia lunged across the bed and seized her throat, dragging her into a choke hold.
“Hushhh, now,” she whispered, lips brushing the beauty’s ear.
The girl struggled in Mia’s grip, but the assassin was stronger, harder. The pair toppled to the floorboards, into the tangle of their clothes as Aurelius began thrashing, fingernails clawing his neck as he coughed up another lungful.
“I know it’s hard to watch,” Mia whispered to the beauty. “But it only lasts a moment.”
“Th-the wine …?”
Mia shook her head. “Not on the mouth, remember?”
Alenna stared at the split Mia had bitten in Aurelius’s lip, the red paint smeared with the blood around his mouth. The young don flopped on the bed like a landed fish, every muscle seizing tight, face twisted. Alenna’s lips parted to scream as a shadow moved on the headboard, another at the foot—two shapes cut from the darkness itself. Mia’s hand closed about the girl’s mouth again as Mister Kindly and Eclipse coalesced, staring enraptured as the young don groaned in agony, blood bubbling between his teeth. And with eyes wide, lips peeling back in a silent cry, the first and only son of Senator Alexus Aurelius exhaled his final breath.
“Hear me, Niah,” Mia whispered. “Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This life, this end, my gift to you. Hold him close.”
Mister Kindly tilted his head, watching the young don die.
His purr almost sounded like a sigh.
Mia was thirsty.
That was the worst part. The cage, the heat, the stink, she could stomach it all. But no matter how much her captors gave her to drink, in this bastard desert it was never enough. When Dogger or Graccus shoved the ladle through the bars of her cage, that lukewarm water seemed a gift from the Mother herself. But between the swelter and the sweat and the wagon’s crush, her lips were soon cracking, her tongue swollen and dry.
The captives were jammed together like strips of salt pork in a barrel, and the smell was sickening. The first turn she’d spent baking inside that kiln-hot cage, Mia had begun to think she’d made an awful mistake.
Think it. But not fear it.
Never flinch.
Never fear.
Mia tried not to talk much. She didn’t want to grow too close to the other captives, knowing what was coming at the Hanging Gardens. But she watched how they cared for each other, an elderly woman comforting a lass crying for her mother, or a girl giving her own meager ration to a boy who’d puked his own meal down the front of his rags. Little kindnesses that spoke of the biggest hearts.
Mia wondered where her own might be.
No place for it out here, girl.
Her captors were a motley bunch. Their captain, Teardrinker, looked to be bedding her second, Cesare, though Mia had no doubt who’d be holding the reins on that particular ride. No woman got to lead an outfit of cutthroat slavers in the Ashkahi wastes unless she had the sharpest of teeth.
The Itreyans, Dogger and Graccus, both seemed the typical brand of bastard you’d find in any one of a hundred fleshpeddler outfits operating out of Ashkah. As per Captain’s orders, they didn’t lay a finger on the women. But from the hungry looks they threw her way, Mia imagined they resented it no end. They spent their downtime playing Spank with a dog-eared set of playing cards, betting with a handful of clipped beggars.fn3
The big Dweymeri, Dustwalker, seemed a more careful sort. He played the flute, and he’d treat the captives to a melody when he had no other work to do. The last of them was Luka—the young Liisian Mia had kicked into the dust. Short locks and a dimpled smile. The slop he cooked tasted worse than a pig’s arsehole, but Mia had seen him sneak some extra bread to the children
