Page 181 of Golden Queen
They were hungry things, those dark, twisted flames inside him. They were never satisfied.
Refaedon pulled himself out of Catia's warmth and ran his hands down her body, luxuriating in the feel of her soft skin. He gave her a firm slap on her rounded backside, and then slid from the bed.
Catia rolled over and stretched like a cat, looking up at him mischievously—like she was satisfied even though he knew she hadn’t climaxed.
It annoyed Refaedon to see her acting so sated when he knew she was anything but.
He didn’t have time to see to her needs today, though. He felt a pang of regret to leave her that way, even if the womanwasstill playing at being satisfied.
Satisfaction was something Catia had been far too unfamiliar with when she had first come to his bed.Selfish Ithcan bastards, he mused to himself.
It was a simple thing to make a woman come, but those pale-eyed islanders seemed woefully ignorant of the concept. Or woefully unwilling since she wasonly a whore.
Catia had come aboard his ship at a port in Ithc, along with several other women interested in servicing the crew in return for passage east to the mainland of Alterra.
They'd made the voyage a great deal less dull, even if some of them were old enough to be his mother.
Refaedon had had them all in turn over the weeks since they’d left Ithc—sometimes more than one at a time when he was particularly bored.
None were ever so eager as Catia, though. She moaned and screamed as though she was so far gone with lust she couldn’t contain herself.
It had been an act, of course. Refaedon could tell when a woman was truly enjoying herself in his bed.
So he’d spent the next few months making Catia, and each of the whores from Ithc, scream with real pleasure—in ways that most of them had never even considered.
It had become a game to him—one he thoroughly enjoyed. But none of the women screamed the way Catia did. And none of them had that pretty, round backside that bounced and jiggled as he pounded into her from behind.
Refaedon toyed with the idea of climbing over her on the bed now and using his tongue to make her come. He knew his fucking father would be waiting, though.
He would take her to Albiyn with him, he decided. He would make her come so many times over the next weeks or months, she would think of him every time she fucked some fat Windemerian lord.
As Refaedon stepped up onto the deck of his sleek, black warship, he thought about how much he missed the women of the Shadowlands. Beautiful, lusty, and skilled, the magi of Penjan knew their way around a man's cock. And as Guardian of the Black Fire, he'd certainly never lacked eager company in his bed.
He had a pang of regret to imagine how long it might be until he could set foot on the onyx sand of the Black Coast again.
They had been at sea for half a year, creeping across the ocean with the fleet in tow behind them. It was amazing how much could go wrong with an army of this size—how often they had to drop anchor to solve some crisis or other with one of the three thousand dohtor frigates.
The journey, which would normally last no more than four months as they hopped from port to port across the Great Sea, had taken them more than six. Refaedon had never wanted anything so much as he wanted to put his feet on solid land and not feel the roll of the sea beneath them.
They had finally arrived at their destination, though. Only a little behind his father and the bulk of the army.
Refaedon and his sister had been in the northern Thyella for a week trying to extricate one of Admiral Nadjin’s ships from the arms of a kraken. They had eventually left the whole damned boat to the beast, picking up a few of the crew that managed to swim out of reach of the thing’s arms.
It was just another reason why Refaedon wanted his feet on dry land again.
He looked across the water to Preahjiin’s ship. There were not many distinguishing features between the great black vessels, but the ship the princess captained as Supreme Commander of the Penjani Armada, had a long red pennant on the topmast that billowed out behind it in the wind like a stream of fresh flowing blood.
Refaedon didn't see his sister on the deck of her ship, and she was impossible to miss, even among the burly elves of her crew. Preahjiin was a beast of a woman. She had an angular, severe face and square jaw that resembled his a great deal, and her shoulders and arms were even thicker than his own. It gave her a more masculine appearance than most of the soft, feminine Penjani women.
But Preahjiin did not bemoan her sharp features or her muscular build. They suited her personality particularly well. She was powerful and feared, and she ruled over a harem that worshiped her as though she was a god come to earth for them to serve.
Refaedon had lost count of how many husbands and wives his sister truly had, but they were all present on board her ship, theLithia. It was named for one of her favorites, of course; the beautiful and intractable LithiaSilvegeo. She was the daughter of the Count of Silvegeo, some little hamlet in the backwaters of Arkyl.
When Preahjiin spied her in the middle of a gagger’s bazaar, she’d followed the girl all the way back to her father’s estate, razed the entire fortress, and collected her beautiful prize.
Lithia might have been a prize worthy of razing a fortress, but she was nothing special in terms of the harem. Each of them was more beautiful than the next—and strong—as Preahjiin required them to be. They were a little army all their own—trained with sword and axe and bow—dedicated to their leader above all else.
Preahjiin’s ship sidled up alongside his own, and he finally spied her tall form on deck. She was waving and pointing forward.
