Perfect Master (4 page)

He wouldn’t do it because he intended to
keep her. Wanted her to take him willingly again, as she’d done earlier. Gods
but he hated the idea of having to restrain his lover. He’d done it too many
times in the pleasure palaces. He’d even hooded his partners so he wouldn’t
have to see the revulsion in their eyes. It was his fate to hide behind the
leather, his prize that the concealment seemed not to repulse his princess.

At least he could feel the creamy heat of
her cunt surrounding his naked cock, hear her cries of pleasure when she came.
Standing over her now, watching the slow rise and fall of her breasts, Arik
sent silent thanks to the gods that he’d not been totally blinded, that he
could stroke her visually, imagining in the deepest confines of his mind how
her ivory skin would feel—warm and incredibly soft against his naked flesh. His
nostrils flared at the scent of her that permeated the chamber—the scent of woman
and arousal and fulfillment.

His cock rose again against his belly. He
had to feel her warmth, experience her woman’s softness. With his good hand he
reached down, slid his fingers through those fiery shorn curls. Perhaps…perhaps
he could free his hand from the leather glove, learn by touch if the short
springy curls felt as soft as they looked.

Without thinking, he reached behind his
head for the lacings. Then he remembered. He’d insisted that the leather
garments be fashioned in such a way that once Hikaru had laced one onto him, it
was there to stay until the eunuch appeared in his chamber each evening to
remove it for the night. Its only opening that he could control was a small
zippered slit at the crotch through which he could empty his bowels when the
need arose—and the removable leather cock-sleeves on his everyday bodysuits
that he could wear or not as the occasion dictated.

He had deliberately ordered that his
bodysuits include a glove that would cover his hand. Now he regretted that
because he wanted so much to touch his mate’s creamy skin, her soft, curly
hair.

He hadn’t wanted to flaunt the scars that
had sent strong men running for the latrines. He still didn’t. His scars that
brought tears to his father’s eyes. It suited Arik to flaunt the leather and
the hook with its limited functionality, for it reminded his father every day
that he had tried to kill his own flesh and blood.

More important, Arik had no desire to look
upon himself, compare his undamaged left side with the devastated flesh on the
right.

He raised his prosthesis and moved it
toward the glove on his hand, struggling to move the muscles in his damaged arm
that caused the hook to open and close. Cursing silently, he finally caught the
glove and stripped it off, freeing his hand.

Almost afraid she’d waken and run away in
terror, Arik reached out and touched her satiny cheek, felt the softness of her
hair. When she began to stir, he withdrew and lifted his bare hand to the right
side of his face, feeling the sunken hole where his eye had been. That served
as a stark reminder of the ugliness that lurked behind the mask. The sight of
it, he knew from experience, terrified children and sent grown men running for
cover. Not even for the tactile pleasure of running his fingers through his mate’s
inviting curls, of stroking the ivory expanse of her belly, of dipping between
her thighs to feel the warmth and wetness there, would he risk sickening her by
exposing to her what he bore stoically as evidence of his father’s shame.

“Shall I waken her for you, my lord?”
Hikaru asked. “Or would you have me ease you?”

If Hikaru roused her, Arik feared he’d give
in to the compulsion to indulge his sense of touch beyond a mere caress for the
first time since he’d wakened in an Eastphalian clinic, more dead than alive,
to see pity on the faces of those who tended him.

“No. She needs her sleep. Carry her to her
chamber, go cleanse yourself, and return to me. I’ll pass the night outside my
leather prison, and I’ll make use of your ass to ease my lust.” It was the
least Arik could do to provide the only sexual pleasure left to this royal
cousin who served him with unfailing devotion, especially on this night.

Hikaru bowed low, his forehead brushing the
plush carpet before he placed a kiss on one of Arik’s booted feet. “Yes, my
lord. I will be forever grateful. You may trust me to care for your princess as
I care for you, and to hasten with my preparations and return quickly to you.”

Once Hikaru left, Arik grasped his cock,
felt it pulsing with life beneath his hand. What did seeing him swell with lust
at the sight of his mate do to the royal eunuchs whose bodies were forever
denied arousal and release? How did they feel, knowing they were so sexless
their uncle, the king, deemed them completely trustworthy to prepare and arouse
the crown princess of Obsidion for her prince’s pleasure?

Arik imagined it must pain them to realize
that while they licked and stroked his princess and plumbed her tight ass with
their false cocks, they could never experience the lust that had been so
evident in her eyes, in the creaming of her cunt and the swelling of his own
eager cock.

Over and over during the long day’s mating
ritual, the royal eunuchs had witnessed Arik fucking Emerald. They’d had to
watch while she brought him to climax with her mouth. They’d been forced to
stand by, experiencing vicariously the sort of sexual pleasure they’d each been
denied forever with the cruel slice of a surgeon’s laser scalpel.

Yes, Hikaru deserved whatever puny release
Arik could give him. No doubt his three cousins would even now be massaging
each other’s prostate glands, ass-fucking each other with dildos as they’d done
to Emerald earlier.

Arik reached into the drawer beside his bed
and drew out a condom and a tube of lubricant he’d brought back from one of his
rare trips outside the palace to the Sex Slave Emporium where he rented the
occasional willing female to ease his lust.

One thing about being less than whole—he
had to plan safe sex well in advance. Opening up a condom with a hand and a hook
wasn’t something he’d be able to manage through a haze of lust, especially when
he couldn’t use his teeth. He barely got the job done and laid the condom
beside the lubricant before he heard Hikaru’s footsteps in the hall.

Clearly, Hikaru had hurried. Water still
glistened on his hairless skin, beaded on his prominent nipples while he
unlaced Arik’s hood first and then loosened the laces that snaked down each
side of the garment from his hands to his feet. Cool air made his skin tingle
as Hikaru exposed it inch by inch. His queued hair tickled his shoulders. He
tried not to wince when the hood fell away, but the slightest pressure on his
crushed facial bones still sent shards of agony darting through the damaged
nerves.

His body, seen only by his father and
Hikaru since his return, reveled in the freedom from confinement. When he’d
first come back to the palace he’d refused to leave this chamber, declined to
receive anyone but the king, not even the royal eunuchs.

One day Hikaru had stationed himself outside
Arik’s locked chamber door and shouted out for all to hear, “My lord. You’ve
lost your beauty and your eye, you’ve got a hook for a hand, and you don’t move
about as gracefully as you once did. So what? We’ve all lost our cocks and
balls, and our freedom. Open the door and let me in. My brothers have chosen me
to be your body slave.”

If Arik had possessed the strength when
Hikaru had uttered those hurtful words, he’d have snatched up the impertinent
slave and heaved him through the tower window. He hadn’t, though, so he’d
merely sat and nursed his fury, until he’d realized the truth of what Hikaru
had said. Then he’d opened the door to a soft-skinned, hairless creature who
apparently took pleasure in flaunting his status as royal eunuch by using a
large diamond-studded crest of the House of Obsidion not only to cover the
indentation where they’d cut his cock and balls away, but also to secure a
thin, flexible, acrylic tube through which he apparently passed his urine. The
creature was, yet was not, the carefree younger cousin with whom Arik had spent
much of his childhood.

Since that day they’d bonded—the royal
eunuch and the crown prince—as custom decreed, yet more. Hikaru became Arik’s
only friend. The only soul, other than the king, allowed to see the bitterness
he wasn’t yet ready to relinquish. Arik smiled down at Hikaru as the slave
undid the last of the laces and worked the tight leather garment down and off.

Arik stood, balancing on his good left leg
while Hikaru kissed his feet. He sighed when the eunuch began to stroke his
scarred calf and thigh, imagining it was Emerald’s slender hands on his flesh,
soothing away the pain that never completely subsided. “Ahhhh, you have magic
hands. Do not stop.”

Hikaru didn’t, but tonight he did something
he’d never done before. Arik held back a moan when he felt a warm, wet tongue
bathing his ball sac and then sliding along his half-hard cock, licking and
nibbling much like Emerald had done earlier. Hikaru’s hands slid upward, found
Arik’s nipples and began to pinch the sensitive nubs.

It felt good. Too good. Arik reached down
and caught Hikaru’s smooth skull between his hand and his hook. He pictured his
princess’ short cap of curls, imagining how they’d feel against his fingers if
he dared caress her this way.

Gods but he was about to come. And this was
supposed to be for Hikaru. “Cease, slave. I want to fuck you now.” When Hikaru
stood, Arik positioned him over the bed on all fours, butt in the air, then
reached on the table to retrieve and put on the condom he’d opened earlier.
“Spread your ass cheeks for me.”

Arik smeared lubricant on his sheathed cock
and worked a large glob of it into Hikaru’s asshole, still cool and damp from
the thorough internal cleansing he must have performed. When Arik rubbed his
cock around the rim of Hikaru’s ass, the flesh gave way easily and sucked his
cock head past the tight sphincter muscle. Fuck but it felt good, sliding in
and out of the tight hole, his naked balls slapping Hikaru’s soft crotch while
he clutched the eunuch’s ass cheeks.

Naked flesh on naked flesh. Arik’s cock
swelled further as he imagined kneading Emerald’s plump breasts while he pumped
in and out of her cunt, or her ass. She’d be tight…so tight there. Soft and
womanly. Caught up in his fantasy, he slid his damaged arm higher, catching one
of Hikaru’s prominent nipples carefully between the prongs of his hook and
giving it a playful tug, the way he’d love to do to her.

Harder. Faster. Hikaru reared back and took
Arik’s cock to the balls into his slippery ass. “Oh, my lord, thank you,”
Hikaru said when Arik found and prodded his prostate, his tone one of wonder
and gratitude.

He’d learned quickly that even a eunuch
could experience a sort of orgasm through prostate stimulation, and knowing
he’d given Hikaru a climax made Arik so hot he lost control. Mindless now, he
concentrated on the building sensations that bombarded his cock and balls.
Couldn’t hold back. He had to come. Now.

“Don’t move.” Grasping Hikaru’s hips, Arik
slammed into his ass once, twice. With the third powerful thrust his cock
spasmed and began to spurt hot semen, bathing his own sheathed flesh with
creamy heat.

Chapter Four

Emerald blinked at the blinding light of
the morning sun, trying to get her bearings. She shaded her eyes with her hands
then looked around again. Her first impression had been right. This wasn’t the
chamber where she’d fallen asleep in her Master’s leather-clad arms last night,
the one with a west-facing window where she could look down and see her
father’s house. The window that had framed her prince in all his perfection the
night before their mating.

She was a princess now. And this room was
obviously part of her prince’s tower. A lady’s chamber, like those she’d read
about in ancient tomes? Perhaps royalty did things differently than commoners
who fucked together and slept together.

Well, that was about to change. She’d
submitted her cunt to her royal Master—she’d loved every minute of it, too—but
that didn’t mean she had suddenly become another royal slave, unless it was in
her Master’s bed.

She pressed a button on the bedside
console, stretching and reflecting on the delicious soreness between her legs
until one of the royal eunuchs stepped through the door and lay facedown on the
floor beside her sleeping couch.

“Up with you. Where is Prince Arik?” All
this subservience got annoying pretty quickly.

“In his chamber across the hall, my lady.”

“Then I will join him there.” Swinging her
legs over the side of the brocaded sleeping couch, Emerald started to get up
but hesitated when the eunuch hesitantly cleared his throat.

“I would not, my lady. My lord does not
receive visitors so early.”

“Visitors? I am not a visitor. I am his
royal highness’s mate. Who are you to tell me I cannot go about this palace as
I see fit?”

The eunuch cast his gaze downward, studying
the toes of his bare feet with apparent fascination, but when he spoke his
voice held the ring of command she’d have expected only from someone of the
royal blood. “I am Hikaru, royal eunuch and personal slave to Prince Arik. He
has charged me with dressing you before you descend with him into the great
hall. And it is on his order that I must prevent you from joining him unless he
has need of you.”