Daughter of the Blood

he could do but endure.
    As one of Zuultah's witches moved on him, intent on her pleasure, he silently swore the most vicious curses he could think of. His hands clenched the brass rails of the headboard, had been clenching them throughout the night with such pressure that the shape of his fingers was embedded in them.
    Again and again and again, one after another. With each the pain grew worse. He hated them for the pain, for their pleasure, for their laughter, for the food and water they taunted him with, trying to make him beg.
    He was Lucivar Yaslana, an Eyrien Warlord Prince. He wouldn't beg. Wouldn't beg. Wouldn't.
    Lucivar opened his eyes to silence. The bed curtains were closed at the bottom of the bed and along one side, cutting off his view of the room. He tried to shift position and ease his stiff muscles, but he'd been stretched out when they tied him, and there wasn't any slack.
    He licked his lips. He was so thirsty, so tired. So easy to slip away from the pain, from memories.
    Male voices murmured in the hallway. Movement in the room, hidden by the closed curtains. At last, Zuultah saying, "Bring him."
    The room was gray, a sweet, misty gray where the light danced through shards of glass and voices were heard under water.
    The guards untied his hands and feet, retied his hands behind his back. Lucivar snarled at them, but it was a faraway sound of no importance, no importance at all.
    For a moment, when he saw the marble lady, his vision cleared, and the pain made his legs buckle. The guards dragged him to the leather leg straps, forced him to his knees, and strapped him to the floor behind his knees and at his ankles. They rolled the marble cylinder, with its smoothly carved orifices, into position. When he was fitted into an orifice, they held him in place with a leather strap beneath his buttocks. There was enough slack for him to thrust but not enough for him to withdraw.
    The gray. The sweet, twisting gray.
    "That will be all," Zuultah said arrogantly, waving the guards out of the room with her switch and locking the door.
    The floor hurt his knees. Pain. Sweet pain.
    The switch hit his buttocks. Blood trickled over the leather strap. Scented silk brushed against his shoulder and face.
    "Are you thirsty, Yasi?" Zuultah cooed as she swung herself up on the flat top of the marble lady. "Want some cream?" She opened her robe and spread her thighs, revealing the dark triangle of hair.
    The switch hit his shoulder. "This is your reward, Yasi. This is your pleasure."
    Red streaks in the gray. Red streaks and a dark triangle.
    "Thrust, you bastard." The switch hitting, cutting where one wing joined his back.
    Thrust, thrust, thrust into the gray. Lips against the wet. Tongue obedient. Thrust, thrust. Deeper into the pain, the wet, the dark, the dark, the dark, the pain twisting to a sweetness, shards of glass, twisting, the wet, the dark, the dark streaked with red, the hunger, the pain, the red fire boiling, rising, the Ebon-gray boiling, rising, the hunger, the hunger, teeth, pleasure, pain, moaning, moaning, teeth, pleasure, rising, boiling, pain, pleasure, moaning, hunger, teeth, moaning, teeth, screaming, screaming, screaming, red, red, hot sweet red, boiling, rushing, free.
    Lucivar swayed, confused. Zuultah rolled on the floor, screaming, screaming. He tried to lick the moisture from his lips but something was in the way. He turned his head and spat.
    For a long time, while guards pounded on the locked door and Zuultah screamed, he stared at the small thing his teeth had found to ease the hunger. At first he didn't understand what it was. When his flaccid organ finally slipped out of the orifice and he recognized the red for what it was, Lucivar lifted his head and let out a howling, savage laugh.

3—Terreille
    "You have a visitor," Philip said tersely as he tapped piles of papers into neat stacks, something he did when annoyed.
    Daemon raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
    Philip glanced toward him but refused to look at him.
    "In the gold salon. Keep it brief, if possible. You have a full schedule today."
    Daemon glided to the gold salon. The psychic scent hit him before he touched the door. He settled his face into its cold mask, locked away his heart, and opened the door.
    "Lord Kartane," he said in a bored voice as he closed the door and leaned against it, his hands in his trouser pockets.
    "Sadi." Kartane's eyes were filled with malicious glee. Still, he took a nervous step backward.
    Daemon waited,