Page 16 of Never the Roses

“You look perfect, darling,” Zarja, Queen of the Southern Lands, murmured appreciatively. “Come here.”

Leskai Orynych took one last look at himself in the mirror. He did look splendid, garbed in the new clothing his queen had gifted him. Never had he owned anything so richly made, so perfectly tailored to his tall, slim form. Even Yelena, the queen’s pet sorceress, looked upon him favorably, at least for the moment. Reluctantly, he tore his gaze from his own image and turned to obey his mistress, the queen, she who held sway over him in every sense of the word.

She was beautiful beyond doubt, sensual and mysterious with her ebony hair, light brown skin, and dark eyes. Generations of kings choosing the most beautiful virgins in all the realms they could access had assured this royal daughter perfect bone structure, straight teeth, and lustrous beauty. The attentions of countless handmaidens and the best treatments all the coin in the world could buy had ensured the flawless skin, silky hair, and gestures so graceful the queen seemed to move like water at midnight.

She beckoned to Leskai with that seamless grace, hand outstretched palm up, long, elegant fingers that had never done a moment’s manual labor curling him toward her. He went, as instructed, and sank down to one knee at her feet, shuddering with desire as those fingers combed through his pale hair. The thick mass of it waved back from his forehead and cascaded to nearlythe base of his neck. The queen had persuaded him to start growing it long, something for her to grab ahold of, she liked to say.

She twined her fingers in it now, dragging his head back so that he must look up at her. Her sensuous, red-painted lips curved in a satisfied smile and she tightened her grip just a bit more, pleased to see his inadvertent wince. She’d trained him well over the last year, preferring that he show no reaction to pain—or pleasure, for that matter—until he couldn’t help himself. She loved that part, extracting the sincere response through his attempts at resistance, breaking his poise and self-control repeatedly to demonstrate her power over him.

As if she needed to. Her power was absolute, and he trembled inside at the raw knowledge of it.

“I require a service from you, my darling Leskai,” she purred, leaning forward and pulling his head back harder.

“Anything, my queen,” he gasped, scraping his obedience through his strained throat, meaning it utterly. She liked to tighten the collar she’d placed on him so that she couldn’t insert so much as the long nail of one pinky finger between the black leather and his constrained skin. She tested it then with her free hand, scraping his flesh in an attempt to dig the nail in there. He whimpered and she kissed him, softly and lavishly, holding him helplessly in place. Not that he’d fight her, not without permission. Even then the most she allowed him was token squirming, and then only because it amused her to watch him struggle.

The tightness of his collar should be perfectly adjusted, she’d explained early on—enough to dig into his throat as a constant reminder of her ownership, not enough to restrict his ability to breathe, under most circumstances. When desire rode him hard as it did in that moment, his heart thundering, his body straining against the other bonds she’d placed beneath the fancy suit of clothing to tame him to her will, breath came painfully hard.

“Perfect,” she murmured against his mouth, licking his lips with lascivious sweeps of her tongue. She loved his mouth, she often remarked, the plush fullness of his lips unusual in a man. “Will you miss my collar, Leskai?”

He blinked at her in bleary confusion, head swimming with arousal and lack of air. “My queen?”

“As I said, I require a service of you, sweet Leskai. You will have to pretend to be your own man again, where I am sending you. Do you think you can do that, my darling pet?”

Leskai struggled to understand. He almost couldn’t comprehend her words, it had been so long since he’d been anything but her toy. His queen didn’t like her lovers to think, so that had been one of the first flaws she’d trained out of him. Mindless obedience and seething lust were what she required of him. That and to be beautiful for her.Sending him.She was sending him away. Beyond the queen, Yelena smirked, enjoying his panic.

“Have I displeased my queen?” he whispered in aghast horror, desire and terror twining together in agonized delight at the prospect of her punishment. Surely that’s what this was: part of a new torment she’d devised for him to prove his abject devotion.

“On the contrary.” She tapped his obediently open mouth with a long, sharp nail. “You have pleased me in every way, Leskai. You have submitted to my will more completely and with such heartfelt enthusiasm as I have never found in another man.”

Somewhere inside, a fragment of his old self curled in shame. He barely remembered the man he’d been when he arrived at Her Majesty’s court, full of ambition and hubris, eager to prove himself, dazzled by the beautiful queen’s interest in him. He’d eagerly succumbed to her invitations, perhaps even pretending to himself that she had fallen prey to his seductions, as so many women had before. Flirtation was both a talent and a skill, and Leskai had become very good at talking to women, insertinghimself into their trust and confidence. He treated them well, too, knowing how to please them in bed and out of it, always sincere in his way.

The queen had turned him inside out. And yes, it had been easy for her. For her and the lovely Yelena, who sometimes joined them in their games. Vaguely he understood that magic had been used, but he’d been easy to turn. Eager, even. And now the queen was sending him away. “Please don’t send me away, Your Majesty,” he begged, tears rolling down his face.

Queen Zarja wiped the tears away with her lips, smiling and no doubt leaving smears of her lipstick on his face. “I have a very important job for you to do. Once you complete it—to my satisfaction—then you may return to me, and I shall reward you beyond your wildest dreams.”

“I want only this,” he begged her with urgent sincerity. “I need nothing more than to belong to you.”

The queen straightened, a single line between her elegant brows marring her otherwise smooth forehead. “Leskai.” She spoke his name sternly, with disappointment. “What about whatIneed? Are you so selfish, so self-absorbed that you care nothing for what I want and need?”

He struggled against the sobs of protest, wanting to prostrate himself and beg her forgiveness, but she still held him in place. “No, my queen,” he gasped. “Whatever you ask of me, I’ll do gladly.”

The line vanished as if it had never been and she smiled radiantly, before bestowing another lavish kiss on him. “I knew I could count on you, my darling, my precious. You know you mean more to me than any of the others, yes?”

He didn’t know, but he wanted it to be true. He also knew better than to answer that question. “What would you have me do, Your Majesty?”

She finally released his hair, patting him on the cheek. “Stand up. Have some dignity.” She waited for him to obey, to attempt to compose himself. The collar was terribly tight, the rest of his body throbbing and swollen, straining against the bonds under his clothing, with no relief in sight. “I want you to travel to the fastness of the sorceress Oneira and convince her to come work for me again.”

“Oneira?” he echoed, searching his muddled brain. He’d heard the name before, but no face came to mind, even as he thought through the many magic-workers the queen employed. “Have I met her?”

“No.” The queen tapped her glittering nails on the arm of her throne, irritation glittering just as sharply from her dark eyes. “She departed before you arrived in our court, which gives you an advantage: she will not recognize you as being one of mine.”

“I see.” Though he didn’t, not yet.

“You will go to her fastness. It’s well-warded—nothing can get in or out without her knowledge and permission—so you will have to use your considerable charm to convince her to allow you in.” She fixed him with a stern look that made his knees weaken. “This is something you know how to do, Leskai, charm powerful and lonely women, remember?”

“I remember,” he answered through dry lips. Had the queen seen through him all along? Perhaps she’d been using him, twisting his confidence back on itself, making him into a tool from the beginning. He put a hand to his head, feeling a sudden pain. In a moment, Yelena was beside him. She laid cool fingertips to the stabbing ache and it immediately subsided, the disturbing questions receding like an ebb tide.

“Have a care, Your Majesty,” the sorceress said over her shoulder. “Leskai works so hard to please you that he will dredge up memories if you ask it, which creates dangerous cognitive dissonance.”She focused on Leskai, her eyes a blue as pale as ice. “There, darling, that’s better.”

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