The queen's private bedchamber was richly decorated, lined by large palms and flaming torches. Cordoned off from the other areas of her private rooms, all that separated it was a sheer curtain. Beyond that her guards moved to turn their backs, like true sentries.
Antal led me and Marxim behind her, the two of us having equal status, and Lucius followed behind me, Uloga last, each man knowing his place well.
Antal waved her hand and Marxim moved aside to take up a seat on some posh pillows on a ledge overlooking the bed. The bed itself was huge, it could fit eight people comfortably, and the wall behind it's back posters was a glass-fronted cabinet lined with wicked looking toys.
With a nod to him from Marxim, Lucius joined the other consort leaving Uloga and myself to face the queen.
She turned with a smile. "Virtal, Lucius' seed is still within you?" She waited for my nod. "Uloga, you will remove it."
I felt a small tremor of embarrassment, which I squelched quickly. Embarrassment, I thought as Uloga dropped to his knees and guided my legs apart, would only lead to shame, and that was what the queen wanted. I would not give it to her.
He pressed his face to my mound through the parting of my robe and I tried to raise my arousal, but the fear I felt coming off in waves from the men was distracting. At the first lick of his lips chills ran along my limbs, and desire slowly followed.
He teased me, working the very tip of his tongue along the folds and valleys, and my breaths shortened. I reached out to grab his broad shoulders for support and was rewarded with the firmer press of his tongue against me. My knees trembled and my eyes fluttered closed with the faint hope that there was to be no horror, only pleasure.
And then I heard the hiss of a whip and felt Uloga jerk against me. I opened my eyes to the tang of blood in the air and a haze of pain in his eyes. Behind him the queen stood proud and lustful, rage and need warring in her gaze.
"I said clean her, not pleasure her!"
Uloga obediently began to slide his tongue inside and suckle. This did not diminish my pleasure at all, instead it increased it tenfold. I too felt lust with a man on his knees before me, serving me, but unlike the queen it was knowing his pleasure in it matched mine that drove me, with her it was their suffering. True pain could never entice me, and with that thought my desire died.
Antal must have read my face, for she laughed in victory, and it was a chilling laugh indeed.
She raised the whip again and protective instinct made me throw out my arm and the whip hit it. The very tail on grazed me, cutting me slightly, but I cried out nonetheless.
Uloga jerked to his feet as did Lucius, but my consort was held back by the queen's.
"You dare defy me, little one?"
In that moment I so badly hated the queen, I wanted to kill her. In the annals of history many times that was how it had been done, but I needed to know the harem, the elite, the powerful were on my side. The harem was split after Mystrike, I knew, and the elite and powerful knew from one ceremony only, and that very night. It was not the time.
"Instinct, my queen," I grunted out.
Uloga sank to his knees and pressed his face against me again, trying to hide or go unnoticed.
"I've changed my mind. Virtal, I was going to test your limits, but tonight, I will see how far you push Uloga's. Come, take the whip."
I had never been permitted by Cassipe to learn how to wield one, but I had not always been under my tutor's watchful eye. My sisters had to learn to use one on livestock, and I had studied in their shadows. I knew my craft well, and took the whip with confidence as she passed it to me.
"See what he can take."
I stood back and twisted and coiled the whip in flight, testing the strength and length of it. Once I had a feel for it, I met Uloga's eyes over his shoulder and gave him a soft look.
I kissed his back with it. I did what I had long fantasized about as a growing girl, using the tip to stroke his flesh harshly without opening it. Pleasure and pain I dreamed danced in the pattern I drew, and the look on his face confirmed it.
I snuck a look at Marxim and Lucius and the men seemed fascinated, but Lucius raised his eyes to mine and nodded in approval before his eyes widened in horror.
Suddenly I heard another rush of air and then I felt a cane slam across my robed back. It was hard agony, and I dropped to my knees willing myself not to cry, not to fold into myself and give up like I knew she wanted.
"I said hurt him!"
"No!"
She leaned down and grabbed my hair in her hand, jerking my head back harshly. "Him or you, Virtal."
"Me," I said without a thought.
"Virtal, no!" Uloga cried and was rewarded by the flick of the cane.
In a rage the queen dropped me and began battering him. I wanted to come between them but when I looked to the other men they both shook their heads. Uloga knew to expect this, I understood, but still, it was killing me to see the red welts rise, the blood flow, hear his cries of pain.
It seemed to go on for hours, but it was less than two turns of a sand dial. Uloga was beaten, his face left unmarred, but his body a bloody mess.
"Lucius, see him to the healer," the queen ordered as if Uloga had simply turned an ankle.
My consort brushed his hip against my shoulder where I still knelt, the only comfort he could offer, and helped his friend to his feet. Together they left, stumbling, leaving blood on the marble floors. There it looked shiny and crimson, horrifically so.
"Marxim, tie Virtal to the bed."
He stood at last and crossed to help me up. My back was one fire, and I worried madly if I was to be made to lie on the wound and irritate it, or on my stomach to receive more. Either thought chilled my blood.
Marxim removed my robe and made me kneel on the bed. He drew me to the head and set me to wait while he drew down some velvet covered rope. This he wrapped around my wrists, looking to the queen who stood at the foot, watching us with narrowed eyes, evil intent in her gaze.
"Tie her tightly, make the bitch kneel."
I gulped as he drew the cords tight and tied me so firmly I knew I could not escape. I sagged against the bonds, watching as Marxim drew back to stand beside the bed and await his orders. He was a thing of pure masculine beauty, his eyes sad, his stance firm. He offset the queen with her bright red hair well, but something in the pairing seemed off. It was not that they did not love each other, it would be foolish to think rulers and consorts did, but something else stood between them other than her rage and his fear.
She took the flogger and walked around like a jungle cat stalking prey. Marxim towered over her, but anyone watching would know he was clearly her victim.
"Present!"
At her barked command he drew his bottom covering down, exposing firm buttocks and bent over the bed, bracing himself on his forearms. I snuck a look at Lucius and he seemed as entranced with Marxim's supple beauty as I was, but fear lay in his eyes too. For me, for Marxim, or for himself I knew not.
Antal drew back her arm and began to slap the flogger against Marxim's bottom. At first she warmed him, lust warring with anger in her face, but soon she no longer drew the flogger back and smoothed it with her free hand.
Tall enough to stoop to reach the soft flesh proffered up, she knelt and began to swing the flogger over her head. Slap, slap, slap it rang out, but it was still not hard enough to draw blood.
Her consort's face twisted in dark pleasure, and as I watched his erection grew. I trembled for I knew this was what the evil bitch wanted. We had all been twisted by her darkest desires and craved the tinge of pain to offset pleasure, but now that he had achieved arousal, she would twist his desire into agony.
Now the floggers tips hit his lower back and the sensitive organs inside, it snaked between his bunched thighs and hit the sensitive sac exposed there. Up and down the backs of those thighs she left angry red welts, across his back making Marxim jerk.
His erection flagged, enraging her even more, and she beat him harder while he stoically tried to bite his lip and contain his cries. At last she was panting and tired, but far from spent.