Of Coups and Cauls Read online

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed deep and heartily. When I finished, and she was poised to slap me again. I warded off the blow and yelled for Kais like we were under attack.

  Chapter Seven

  Kais

  Ryett is my friend. I knew he meant no harm. Sometimes us men just understood the depths of another’s struggle and anguish. He had left a husband, nay a king, and returned a paramour. Even if one proclaims to acknowledge and adhere by noble words, it is another matter entirely to see and follow them into practice.

  Waves of worry washed over me. I felt obligated to rush back through the doors and demand a one-on-one with him. The air needed cleared if we were to move forward as a team. My thoughts stole me, until the crisp sound of a smack resounded on the other side of the door.

  My palm and sword became one. It sounded louder than any emotional blow I had ever heard her use before. I put a shoulder to the door and tried to listen further. I was already leaning into it, so when Ryett started frantically calling my name, I nearly startled myself inside. My weight carried the door open the rest of the way with much more hesitancy than I had originally intended.

  “Shut it behind you,” Ryett urged.

  I instinctively rushed to do as he bid, before glancing back to the strategy table.

  “What the fuck?” I demanded, blinking at the pieces. My troops were scattered from Zaith to Heritage Hills, a few of the carved stones had flown to Faustlin.

  “That was all her.” He laughed.

  The sound of his laughter, and the resounding slap of objection that it brought on, drew my attention to our wife. She was naked, her dark skin was flushed with torment, and she was openly fucking me with her eyes. They rolled up my legs and settled on the High-Country kilt I wore. I wasn’t entirely sure if she even met my eyes before walking towards me.

  Ryett stepped out from behind the table. I’d always seen him as a brother, brother in law, but for the very first time… I was seeing him as fuckable. I was torn between her tone curves and his forbidden physic until Azaria’s fingers met my chest. The cheeky thing was always catching me off guard. True to form, I was shoved off my feet. This time, a chair caught me.

  “Teaching her tactic and strategy?” I tossed the question towards Ryett and spread my legs as Azaria sprawled out between my knees. His laughter carried him closer. I noticed his dark blue eyes were more intense than Ryver’s once desire took hold. I was lost. What little I had of a conscience wrangled with the fact that he was my lover’s brother.

  But then her teeth pinched at my bare thigh, and I hissed down at her, forgetting any reserve.

  The pink hint of a tongue washed over her lips, and she disappeared beneath the kilt. Nails grazed either side of my upper thighs and her tongue lapped from my balls to the head of my cock before promptly swallowing the first few inches of it. She could have mesmerized an army with the arching and rolling of her lower back. It was doing a carnal dance that was nothing short of an open invitation… which is exactly what Ryett took it for.

  While her lips nibbled and traced the tip of my meat, Ryett started towards us. His calves were nicer than Ryver’s, and judging from his thighs and abs, his thrusting could pack a far more serious punch. His hand slapped at my thigh, causing me to lurch with shock. My cock lunged haphazardly across her tongue, but she grappled and conquered it with ease.

  “You know,” he drawled, glancing up to me while he dropped himself into a kneeling position behind her, “…for being the alpha you gawk like a maid at the sight of cock.”

  My brows arched, and I opened my mouth to object, but Azaria’s laughter vibrated around my dick. My hand found the back of her head in a desperate bid for some form of control over the maddening effect of her vocals.

  I laughed around a gasp but didn’t deny his observation. How could I not stare? He was rolling and squeezing her ass until it was a sideshow all its own.

  His hand followed the path of her spine and the other reached beneath her. Without interrupting the rhythm of her mouth, he plucked her up an inch or few. Her nails dug into my hips. Her ass looked like an upside-down heart that had been filled to capacity from this angle. It thrashed back against him with angry slapping noises. After a few minutes of this, strangled moans escaped from beneath the bobbing mound of my kilt.

  The muscle of his chest and abdomen snapped with the effort of his thrusting. It was just as I had watched on their cording night, only this time, it was my toes curling and fighting to savor another second or two.

  His palm came down crudely to the center of her back and slid up under my kilt. His fingers curled between her shoulder and my leg, pinning her between us. Her cheeks snugged around my cock, as she alternated between struggled and encouraging moans. His hips battered, rocking her further down my shaft. While I fought for air, he cursed.

  Azaria’s muffled voice ordered us not to stop in a few languages, before her words became incoherent. Seers Below, if anyone in the courtroom heard us, they would likely have thought she had devised a new tongue. When her nails weren’t biting me, her hands were violently patting my thighs like she might break at any minute.

  “So that we’re perfectly clear... this,” Ryett cockily sang, “is how you introduce yourself to a queen’s cunt.”

  There was no warning to give—the fucker stole it. The torturous throbbing shot through my whole body and back out my prick when I watched him cum. It took a few breaths before I came back to my senses. I realized that her carnal cries had ceased vibrating. When I glanced down to my lap, her head was on my thigh, and he was slumped against the other.

  Chapter Eight

  Drayce

  There was nothing more calming than letting the sun wash your face. I did it every time I climbed up the steps to the reflection room alter. It cleansed me of any ill thoughts, problems, or distractions I might have carried along throughout the day. If no one was around, I preferred to bask in it, allowing the warmth to spread down my shoulders and arms until I felt like I might have the potential to be worthy of being her Seer.

  The court was empty that afternoon, so I leisurely cupped the solar blessing in my palms and rubbed them against each other before I finally made my way toward the stone slabs. I still tasted her on my lips. I could still see her sprawled out before me, on the very section of alter that I was now trailing my finger along.

  The door to the council room opened down the hall. As if sent by the Seers above, Azaria appeared. She smoothed her shirt down the front of her pants and glanced absently past me. When she noticed me, a smile split her features, and she started to come my way.

  She couldn’t reach around my neck like she did the other guys, so she settled for laying her head against my chest and resting her fingers over my shoulder. Her other hand stroked down my side with the rhythm of my breath.

  It felt good to be the one she drew strength from. My fingers sifted through the braids, and I skimmed a kiss atop them.

  “I needed that,” she murmured against me.

  I couldn’t resist giving her a reassuring squeeze. She needed me… it was an amazing and yet terrifying thought.

  “I beg you, oh Sacred Seer, have you any wine for your queen?”

  I laughed at her dramatics and tipped my head toward the office in the back. It was a quaint little room, but it was mine all the same.

  She lifted herself onto the desk, and I rummaged around for a cup. I scrounged up a wine glass and plucked the cork from the blackberry brew. The bottle was dusty, but even from a distance its aroma was sweet. I poured it to the brim and offered it out to her. She smiled and claimed the bottle from my other hand instead, leaving me with the dainty glass. Without a word, she clanked it against the glass and took a healthy swig.

  Sticky droplets rolled down the side of the thin glass and pooled around my thumb.

  “I… wow.” I chuckled, staring into her dark devious eyes. I think she lived for the shock factor alone at times. It sated her boredom and broke up the monotony of the l
ong courtesan seasons. I sipped at the wine, savoring the dry fruity flavor while she drank like a man at sea.

  I watched her absently finish what must have been two cups. Every drink fanned my concern, when I could no longer take it, I reached out and stilled the bottle. Her head snapped towards me and she narrowed her eyes before smiling.

  “What’s wrong Azaria? Talk to me. Please?”

  Her eyes narrowed into a squint, only this time, confusion crowed from the corners of her eyes and contrasted with a smile of anticipation.

  “Nothing. What do you mean?” she whispered, already staring down at the bottle.

  “You seem… like something’s on your mind. I don’t know…”

  She took a deep breath and stared back out the door. For a moment, I feared I had offended her. I was not unfamiliar with the need for companionable silence, why had I pushed her?

  “I don’t know.” Her voice was almost inaudible. It shook with emotion that I couldn’t place. “I only feel this way when something bad is in the horizon. Like the day Ryver—”

  “Hey…hey none of that. Azaria, no one is going anywhere,” I promised. I pulled her onto my lap and pressed my lips to her temple, but she wasn’t to be deterred. Her finger found the bottom of my glass and brought it up to my mouth.

  “Drink…” The weak voice beseeched. It made me shake on the inside. She had the power of the Savagelands in her. The caul skull and the scrying. I had seen her magic, just as she said the day Ryver went over the cliff. The day it all changed. What the fuck could be worse than that fateful day?

  I tipped the cup, chasing the bottom of it with one great swig. My timing couldn’t have been better. Ryver’s most hated herald presented in the doorway.

  “I swear! Your Majesty, by the Seers above and below… I told them they could have no audience until one had been granted,” the boy cried.

  I stood, letting her feet hit the floor before anyone might see her in such a familiar position. Her advice rang in my mind, and I made quick work of relieving her of the bottle. I took a few more sips and corked it before returning it to the shelf. When I glanced back to the doorways, Lady Awilda of the Savagelands stood towering over the young man.

  Chapter Nine

  Azaria

  The wine warmed my belly, but it didn’t take the chill from my bones. The sensation had snuck up on me when I entered the reflections room. I hoped I was wrong, perhaps a flu, but when Awilda appeared, I knew the time had come.

  It all made sense. The little blips of the jungle that weaseled into my dreams. The smell of burning when I climbed back to my senses in the morning.

  The woman staring back at me hadn’t slept in days. Her eyes were sunken and dark. Her posture betrayed the beating her mind and body had suffered. Despite all of this, the woman who had donated so much of her heart and life to me shakily descended. Her body stretched prone towards me and she swept the hair clear of her neck.

  “He took…” Awilda’s voice cracked and her shoulders heaved, “He has taken the Savagelands, my Goddess.”

  I anticipated her words, but the verbalization of them still paralyzed me. It chased the chill straight out of my bones and up my spine. Though I had watched her bravely fall into the officer’s execution stance, I hadn’t cognitively acknowledged what she was doing.

  “He took one of my Kings, too, so get the fuck off your belly and be of use to me.” The words came much harsher than I intended them. Even to my own ears, they sounded cold and diplomatic.

  She stood at once, her face a crumpled mess of bewilderment and relief. “I give you my oath. I will hunt him across this globe like an anim—” Awilda raged lowly.

  “You will wait your damn turn,” Ryett gruffly interrupted. Beside him, Kais nodded in agreement.

  The office suddenly felt very tiny. I pressed Awilda into a side hug and drew her with me through the doorway.

  “Come, the lot of you,” I called, leading them back to the council room. Eryx met us at the door with concern spelled out on his distinguished features.

  “I just heard,” he apologetically offered.

  Of course, he had. I was beginning to wonder if Tauran was aware of the concept of discretion. With Narelle away, who could possibly…

  My head snapped around in search of the herald. As expected, he was gone, no doubt spreading the news to anyone who would listen.

  “Fuck me. Meadow Manor will tremble with the tickling of its grapevine,” I scoffed, marching towards a chair.

  “I bet if I run, I can fling an arrow in his ass before he manages to tell more than a half of a dozen chamber maids,” Kais playfully contemplated.

  “If we had the time for such brilliance, I would do it myself,” I called from the strategy table.

  He joined me and made haste to put the carved cavalry pieces back where they belonged. Once things started to look put together, Awilda’s finger sailed across the Sea of Tears and landed on the Lost Isle.

  “Our people have taken refuge here,” she explained.

  I rubbed her back and tried to act as if her report hadn’t affected me, but I couldn’t. “My people are taking refuge on an isle of corpses?”

  Awilda’s chin met her shoulder and she nodded in humiliation. Rage filled her dark eyes when they met my own. “He. Will. Pay,” she growled over her pride.

  “Yes, he will,” Ryett promised, joining us. “He has my brother.”

  We all stared at the map, fuming, and without answers. One cannot sail from Southern Tauran directly to Faustlin. The Rabid sea was unfit for travel; capsizing and lost ships were known to the area. Even if one did safely land, it placed them at the Isle of Tears. A penal colony once shared by Tauran and the territories of Rochambeau. When Faustlin conquered the bottom of the mountain and seized everything to the sea, Tauran stopped sending boats to the isle. Unwilling to risk conflict with my father’s ambitious empire.

  “We could just go this way,” Drayce suggested, shifting his finger from the Crystal Cliffs of the high country up toward the Territorial Coasts.

  “That way is feasible, travel wise, but it’s likely that the Faustlin army is guarding the coast,” Kais pointed out.

  “They are likely sleeping on the sand, now that they have forced us from it. The Jungle is a realm all of its own at night.” Awilda smiled.

  “Suppose you could devise a way to attack. How many are your numbers, Commander?” Eryx leaned on the table before looking up towards Kais.

  I winced at the formal way they addressed each other, but his question was valid. Tauran had seen a civil war and defended against two invasion attempts in the last year.

  “Nowhere near what I would like them to be.” Kais sighed. “We lost two hundred Farm Folk in last attack, The Dells lost seventy-five archers and a handful of swordsmen. The village guard lost a little under two hundred men as well.”

  “What of the High-Country soldiers?” Drayce absently asked.

  Kais snorted.

  “They lost ten men,” Ryett recalled, causing us all to slowly look towards him. “Four of which were from pneumonia, days after the battle.” He had been captive during that time, but now seemed acutely aware of the statistics.

  Our eyes met, and he quickly pulled his gaze away. I could tell by the way his arm stiffened over the map that he hoped I would leave the matter alone for now. His finger hovered over the borders of the Savagelands before he gave up and shook his head along with Kais.

  “How many warriors do I have?” I tapped my finger over the curvy feminine proportions of the Savagelands coastal border.

  “You mean how many able warriors, do you have left,” Kais tried to correct. “They were just forced to flee their home.”

  Awilda and I stared at him while the silence grew heavier by the second.

  “What? I’m sure some were wounded along the way.” He awkwardly shrugged and scrunched his face up like it was common sense.

  “If my warriors draw air, then they are fit to fight. A true Savage would n
ever stay behind or sit idle whilst their fate rest in another’s hands.” I couldn’t keep the disgust from dripping through my tone.

  “One thousand warriors and eight hundred…” Awilda paused and swung her eyes towards Kais purposefully, “able bodied paramours. The Band of Young Warriors still holds strong at two hundred, three hundred and fifty wives, and one hundred twenty-five children were also on board the departing ships.”

  “Wait… wait. You just insulted my summarizing to correct it with a measly thousand warriors and a handful of whores?”

  “You are aware that Tauran could be taken with half our young warriors alone?” I asked, without amusement. I didn’t bother reminding him that the term ‘paramour’ was reserved for male consorts in the Barizon. As women, we are not exactly amused by weak men or the dainty fuck toys Tauran was accustomed to labelling as paramours.

  Awilda’s words had left me thinking, and I slowly leaned towards her. She held her breath, betraying the fact that she was counting on my ignorance. She shamefully avoided my gaze, forcing me to confront her with the distance of a breath.

  “How is that possible? There were one hundred thirty-eight children when I set sail for Tauran. Mother was so excited, never had there been one hundred and fifty. We were so close to that mark… Was there a plague in my absence?”

  “No, my Goddess,” she whispered, forcing up her chin. “There were two born in your absence. Octavius attacked while we were hunting. We returned to an inferno. Half the jungle greenery is now ash and charred stumps.”

  Her lip trembled, and she placed her focus on the ceiling, composing herself a bit before she continued.

  “We thought it was a cooking accident until we started to find the trail of bodies. The wives were scattered every couple of yards. Fifty warriors and one hundred concubines were lost. They were slicing up the children and throwing women into the flames faster than we could defend them. Those fucking feathered helmets!” Awilda roared. She slammed her fists against the table so hard that the pieces jolted.