In the Flesh (2 page)

The other
mätresses
, royal concubines like her, were gossiping in the
seraglio
, but she didn’t want to socialize today. In fact, over the last few years she’d found herself growing more dissatisfied with her life in the palace. She was an active woman with a variety of interests. The indolent life of a concubine, while highly respected and esteemed, was not suited to her temperament.

Despite this, Sapphire remained grateful that the
King of Sari had chosen her from among the many women graduating from the Sensual Arts School in the capital city of Sari. Her graduation had come soon after the end of the D’Ashier Confrontations, a drawn-out war with a neighboring nation that had drained Sari’s resources. For a time, concubines became an unaffordable luxury, and many graduates had been forced to auction their contracts to the highest bidder. The king’s interest saved her from a similar fate, and created her high social status. All she’d had to relinquish was her name. She was now known as Sapphire, the royal stone of Sari. The appellation was an undeniable declaration of the king’s possession, and the driving force of her fame.

But she possessed her king more surely than he would ever possess her. His love for her was obsessive, his desire insatiable. He demanded her presence at all public events. Since their first night together, he had never taken another woman to his bed. Not even the queen.

This last result pained Sapphire greatly. It was obvious the Queen of Sari loved her husband. Sapphire had no personal experience with that powerful emotion, but she imagined the pain would be devastating—loving a man who in turn loved another. She hated to be the cause of such misery.

Over the last few years she had taken every opportunity to speak highly of her queen. She pointed out Her Majesty’s beauty, poise, and ease with command, but her praise fell on deaf ears. Her best efforts to help the other woman all met with failure.

Setting aside the compu-pad with a sigh, Sap
phire rose to her feet and began to stroll along the tiled path.

“I hate to see you so bored,” came a lilting voice from the doorway.

Sapphire turned her head and her gaze met eyes of soft, pale green. Dressed in flowing pink robes, the blonde woman who’d spoken was a welcome sight. “Mom!”

“Hi, sweetheart.” Sasha Erikson opened her arms and Sapphire rushed into them, curling with pleasure into the maternal embrace. “I’ve missed you. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“A great deal of nothing, sad to say.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Her mother kissed her forehead. “More and more, I think I did you a disservice by not seeing where your true calling lay.”

Sasha had loved the life of a concubine and urged Sapphire into pursuing the career. Retired now and a tenured professor at the Sensual Arts School, Sasha was widely appreciated for her beauty and the adoration of her idolized husband. Sapphire’s success was largely attributed to the tutelage of her mother and she was grateful for that advantage. However, she’d realized too late that she was far more suited to her father’s military occupation than her mother’s sensual one.

“You know better than that.” Sapphire’s tone was softly chastising. Linking arms, she pulled her mother into the atrium. “I wouldn’t have pursued this career if I hadn’t wanted it. My expectations were off. That is no one’s fault but my own.”

“What did you expect?”

“Too much, apparently. I can tell you what I
didn’t
expect. I never expected the Confrontations or the sale of my contract to the king. I didn’t expect that the political marriage between our monarchs was in fact a love match for only one of them. I never would have accepted His Majesty’s offer if I’d known.” She wrinkled her nose. “I was naïve.”

“You? Naïve?” Sasha squeezed her hand. “Sweetheart, you are one of the most pragmatic women I know.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I’d hoped for then. I wanted to find what you and father have. You have a great love story—the handsome, heroic general who falls in love with and marries his beautiful concubine. You said when you first saw him it was as if your blood caught fire. That’s so romantic, Mom.” She sighed dramatically and her mother laughed. “See? You think I’m silly. Girlish fantasies and daydreams.”

Her mother shook her head. “The majority of people don’t find love in the course of their employment. But I don’t think you’re silly.”

Sapphire arched a dubious brow.

“Oh, okay,” Sasha conceded. “Maybe a little silly.”

Grinning, Sapphire rang for a
mästare
to bring wine. Then she sat on the tiled lip of the fountain and settled in to experience much-needed excitement through the words of her mother.

In just a few moments, her husband would leave the exotic haven of their private rooms for the bed of his concubine.

Desperate to reach him before he left, Brenna,
Queen of Sari, spoke bluntly. “You have to make love to me, Gunther, if you want me to conceive. I cannot do it alone.”

As the king began to pace in front of her, his frustration was clear. He was such a handsome man, tall with golden hair and skin. In all of her life, she had never met a man who could equal him. With every breath she took, she loved him more than the last.

“The precedence is clear and unbreakable. I cannot be artificially inseminated,” she reminded him ruthlessly. “All royal heirs must be conceived naturally.”

Running a hand through his hair, Gunther shot her a scathing glance. He strode past where she sat on the velvet-draped divan. “I know the rules!”

His reluctance to bed her cut deep. As she thought of his concubine, her nails dug into her palms. Sapphire was the
karimai
—most prized of all the
mätresses
.

The concubine’s quarters remained full with women of every description, but for five years now the other
mätresses
had exclusively been sexually pleasured by the
mästares
who protected and served them. Only Sapphire shared the bed of the king—a place that should be Brenna’s, and would be again. Soon.

“Send her away,” Brenna suggested, as she had a hundred times. It always sparked an argument, but she refused to stop trying. She would get rid of her rival. Somehow. “Sari must have an heir.”

He growled and paced faster. “I weary of your harping.”

“We have been married for years! The people grow restless. They begin to doubt our fertility.”

“You lie. No one would dare speak of such things.”

She leaped to her feet. “They think it. They whisper it.”

Coming to a halt, Gunther’s gaze darted around as if he was trapped. No doubt he felt as if he was.

“Gunther?”

“Do it, then.”

Her breath caught.

“Tomorrow, Brenna. Before I change my mind.”

“Yes, of course.”

Gunther stared at her for a long moment. Then he shook his head and made his egress.

To go to her.
To Sapphire.

Brenna fought back the bile that rose in her throat. She had only hours left to wait until the
mätress
would be gone.

Then the king would be hers again.

As Sapphire made love to the King of Sari, her mind was firmly on her job. She barely registered the opulence of her surroundings, heeding them only in passing recognition of their enhancement of her duties. Simulated candlelight and smoky incense drifted lazily through the room. White stone arches draped in blue velvet circled the divan where she pleasured the king. Beyond was a shallow bathing pool; the tinkling melody of water pouring from the fountains was masked by the rhythmic sounds of sex.

She concentrated instead on the king’s body signals—the rapidness of his breathing, the impatient upward drives of his hips, and the glazed look in his blue eyes. Using the powerful muscles of her
thighs, Sapphire raised and lowered herself with practiced grace above him, conscious of her appearance because she knew the king liked to watch her. She was rewarded by the masculine satisfaction that curved his lips.

Soon he was gripping the pillows around him, hoarse cries torn from his throat as she serviced him. The all-powerful King of Sari groaned, sweat breaking out over his handsome features.

Sapphire arched her back as the king’s orgasm pulsed within her. Her job done to his satisfaction, she closed her eyes and reached her own climax. Her moan of release echoed through her bedchamber along with the king’s.

Replete, she sank into the king’s embrace with a sigh. He was a tall man with a sinewy strength she admired. The monarch was golden from the top of his blond head down to his manicured toes, and he was kind to her.

Once she’d dreamed of falling in love with her king, but in the end it was impossible. The King of Sari placed his pleasure paramount to hers. He knew nothing about her and made no effort to learn. After five years, she was still served food she didn’t enjoy. They listened to music he liked and the clothes provided for her were made in colors and materials he chose with no care for her preferences.

Once a concubine accepted a labor contract, she was bound to her chosen protector until he decided to release her. Sapphire wondered if the king would ever allow her to go. How long would she be asked to remain his concubine? His interest showed no signs of waning.

Sapphire wanted to find someone who cared for her as she truly was—inside and out. She wanted to make love to a man because she was giving herself to him with her heart, a gift of herself for the man she loved.

That would never happen if the king never released her.

Nuzzling against his neck, Sapphire gave a throaty laugh as the evidence of his renewing desire swelled inside her. Her eyes met his.

“Give me a moment, my king.” Her voice dropped to a throaty purr. “And I will pleasure you again.”

He gripped her face between his hands, his gaze fierce. “No matter what happens in the future, you must promise me that you’ll always remember you are my
karisette.
You have been from the moment I first saw you.”

The intensity of his tone startled her, as did his words.
Karisette
—“true love.”

“My king—”

“Promise me!”

She caressed his chest soothingly, turning her voice into a gentle croon. “Of course. I promise.”

He rolled her beneath him and took her again.

Restless and edgy, Brenna paced the length of the throne room. Whenever she felt powerless, she found this location—the seat of her power—to be soothing. It had been dark when she first came here. Now the massive chamber brightened as the sun rose, spilling light through the domed skylights above.

“Your Majesty.”

She turned her head and saw the prostrated messenger by the door. “Rise.”

He stood swiftly, straightening the blue and gold vest that proclaimed his position as a member of the royal staff. “I have a message for the king.”

“You may tell me,” she said, needing the distraction. “His Majesty is occupied.”

“A family near the border reported a disturbance they likened to blaster fire. A unit was dispatched to investigate and in the ensuing fight a mercenary was captured.” He paused. “It is Tarin Gordmere.”

Brenna’s brows rose. Gordmere was a well-known irritant to Gunther. He had no qualms about raiding certain sectors, often costing the royal coffers a great deal of income. If she were to present the mercenary to the king, it would put him in a good mood, which could only be conducive to softening his feelings toward her, if only a little. “Where is he now?”

“At the southern detention facility.”

“Excellent.” She gifted the messenger with a bright smile. “I will see that the king hears of this. You are dismissed.”

“There is more, Your Majesty.”

“What is it?” Her tone was curt, an audible sign of her thinning patience.

“Gordmere’s lieutenant approached the jail soon after the incarceration and offered an exchange.”

“He has nothing we want,” she scoffed.

“He claims he has Crown Prince Wulfric of D’Ashier.”

She stopped midstep. “Impossible.”

“The captain assures you that he would not bring
this information to the palace without proof. The mercenary carried a signet ring bearing the royal shield of D’Ashier.”

Stunned, Brenna attempted to reason out the implications of this new development.

Gordmere. Prince Wulfric.

How delicious, if the tale was true. Certainly if she presented Gunther with the prince, he would admire her daring. She would prove to him that she was fit to be his queen and worthy of Sari. He would see what he’d been blind to all these years—that she was perfect for him.

“Guardian,” she called out.

“Yes, Your Majesty?”
responded the masculine voice of the palace computer.

“Inform my guards to prepare for my departure.” She strode past the servant, needing to change and depart before her husband was made aware of the day’s events. “I leave within the half hour.”

Sari, the Borderlands

Adjusting the train of her velvet robes, Brenna disembarked from the antigrav-craft. As she took in her surroundings, her nose wrinkled. The vast cave they’d been directed to made her skin crawl, and the smell of uncleansed air was offensive.

“Where is he?” She was eager to finish the distasteful business ahead.

The large sandy-haired man who waited at the end of the ramp bowed at the waist, a grave insult
since he should have dropped to his knees and prostrated himself. “This way, Your Majesty.”

Brenna could order her guards to force Tor Smithson down and would have if the mercenary didn’t have something she wanted. But he did, so she followed, surrounded by her guardsmen. They traversed a long hallway, then turned a corner.

The sight that met her made her gag.

Covering her mouth, it took a few moments to find breath enough to speak. “If he’s dead,” she choked out, “you get nothing!”

“He’s not dead.” Smithson shrugged. “I just had a little fun with him.”

A little fun.

Her stomach roiled violently. The man was mad. What she saw before her was near carnage. The stone walls around them were spattered with so much blood she couldn’t believe it belonged to one person.