Once the bathing was done, Be­vau hefted him­self out of the pool to sit on the edge. Egilka boosted Jes­sica up so that her torso lay on the Nobek’s thighs. With a happy moan, she took Be­vau’s larger sex in her mouth, his smaller in one hand. He stroked her damp hair as she plea­sured him, rais­ing and low­er­ing her head over his lap.

  Her legs trailed in the wa­ter be­hind her. Egilka lifted her but­tocks out of the wa­ter and po­si­tioned him­self to en­ter her from be­hind. She groaned around Be­vau’s pe­nis as the Imdiko slid into her. His smaller or­gan rubbed de­light­fully against her pu­bic swirls.

  Cla­jak kneaded Jes­sica’s but­tocks with one hand and reached be­neath to cir­cle her cli­toris as Egilka made love to her. Light­ning sparks of plea­sure from her bud melded with the heav­ier plea­sure of Egilka’s cock rub­bing the nest of nerves in her vagina. She pulled back from Be­vau’s or­gan to cry out her plea­sure. She licked the tip of his pe­nis where a drop of sweet mois­ture beaded. The Nobek’s hand pressed gen­tly on the back of her head, guid­ing her back down on his shaft. She took all of him, re­lax­ing her throat so he might feel him­self buried to the hilt in her warmth.

  An­other soft, rolling cli­max threat­ened, but Jes­sica fought to keep from suc­cumb­ing just yet. She wanted to be sus­pended in time for a bit longer, the sole fo­cus of the three men she loved. The in­tox­i­ca­tion made it easy to push aside the knowl­edge she might have them for only an­other week.

  Egilka pulled free to re­po­si­tion so he might en­ter both her ori­fices. Jes­sica moaned in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the dou­ble in­va­sion. He pressed into her, and her body wel­comed him by yield­ing eas­ily. Cla­jak’s hand stopped knead­ing her but­tocks to spread the mounds apart. She imag­ined how it must look to him and Egilka, to see the Imdiko’s thick or­gans dis­ap­pear­ing into her tight open­ings. The thought, along with the sen­sa­tion of him fill­ing her anus and womb, tipped her over. Be­vau’s grip on the back of her head kept his cock in her mouth as she cried out ev­ery pulse of plea­sure that clenched her tighter around Egilka.

  The Imdiko gasped as he felt her con­trac­tions, but he con­tin­ued to thrust with a me­thod­i­cal pace. Cla­jak’s fin­gers never ceased to stroke her en­gorged cli­toris, and yet an­other, stronger or­gasm wracked her with de­light­ful spasms. Her hands clutched at Be­vau’s thighs, her nails bit­ing into his flesh.

  Egilka let go with a roar, plung­ing deep into Jes­sica to set off yet an­other cli­max. Be­vau let her head go so her un­muf­fled screams pealed and echoed in the cav­ernous space.

  Egilka barely had time to ex­tract him­self from Jes­sica’s limp body be­fore Be­vau lifted her from the wa­ter and slung her over his shoul­der. He car­ried her to the sleep­ing room.

  In­stead of lay­ing her on the bed, Be­vau put her face­down on a fur rug on the floor. Jes­sica stirred and tried to raise her­self up on all fours. Be­vau’s weight fell on her, press­ing her back down. His teeth, mi­nus the folded fangs, bit down on the back of her neck. He growled, send­ing vi­bra­tions down her spine.

  Jes­sica sub­mit­ted, let­ting her­self go limp be­neath him. His hands clamped around her hips and lifted them. She ex­pected Be­vau to be bes­tial, but other than the grip his teeth had on her neck, he re­mained as gen­tle as he’d been all evening. He guided him­self to her, en­ter­ing her with all the care of the most so­lic­i­tous lover. Rock­ing his hips slowly, he slipped in and out of her with ease. She sighed into the earthy musk of the fur be­neath her.

  Her hips lifted to greet a gen­tle thrust, and the Nobek’s bite tight­ened as he growled a warn­ing. The tiny bit of pain made Jes­sica shiver, and she forced her­self to still­ness. She gripped the fur in her fists, fight­ing against re­spond­ing to her body’s de­mands. Be­vau’s re­ac­tion made it clear he wanted com­plete con­trol. Jes­sica made her­self go soft with sub­mis­sion.

  Be­vau felt her sur­ren­der. He pressed down on her un­til she laid flat be­neath him. He spread his legs around hers and closed them tight. The po­si­tion nar­rowed her sheath, and he groaned with the sen­sa­tion of her so tight around him. Al­ready a snug fit, Jes­sica’s sex was al­most un­bear­ably con­strict­ing to his aching cock. He worked to push in and out of her hot cen­ter, her whim­per­ing gasps a sweet lul­laby to his ears. She poured honey all around his driv­ing length. Her but­tocks bucked the small­est bit against him, and he growled again. A sob es­caped her as she ac­qui­esced, again fall­ing limp be­neath him. Her sub­mis­sion brought him closer to the brink of re­lease, and he fought it off. Noth­ing would hurry him in this sweet, slow pos­ses­sion of the woman he loved. He would make it last as long as his hungers al­lowed.

  Jes­sica was close to los­ing con­trol. Be­vau’s thick­ness forc­ing in and out her tight sex drove her crazy. Her body clam­ored for crescendo, and only a mat­ter of a few more mo­ments would find her tip­ping over. Just a lit­tle closer … just a lit­tle closer … al­most there…

  Her belly filled with heav­i­ness and spilled over, mak­ing her quake be­neath the snarling man who rode her. The plea­sure shot from her womb all the way up to the top of her head, mak­ing her scream. Be­vau screamed too, his body strain­ing against hers, his sex puls­ing liq­uid warmth deep within her. He ground tight against her, shud­der­ing as plea­sure had its way with him. She writhed against the soft fur be­neath her, beat­ing small fists into the yield­ing rug.

  Be­vau groaned as the last tremors left his body. He kissed the back of her neck where he’d bit­ten. Jes­sica sighed, snug­gling back into the warmth of the man cov­er­ing her. His arms tight­ened around her. He bur­rowed his face in her hair.

  “I love you,” he whis­pered.

  Jes­sica’s heart swelled at the words. Be­vau was not a man who spoke them lightly.

  He picked her up and put her on the bed. He and Cla­jak snug­gled her be­tween them­selves. She felt sleep might come if con­cern would al­low it.

  Egilka said, “Have you eaten since this morn­ing?”

  Jes­sica blinked at him. “How can I eat at a time like this, when ev­ery­thing I want is on the brink of be­ing snatched away?”

  Cla­jak stroked her thigh. “You need your strength. The next ten days are go­ing to be hec­tic.”

  “Ten days? Oh, I for­got the Kalquo­rian week is longer than Earth’s.” Three ex­tra days. It still wasn’t enough.

  Egilka left the room, pre­sum­ably to fetch food. The other two men pet­ted her, and tears threat­ened as the in­tox­i­cant ebbed away. Jes­sica an­grily blinked them back. Now was not the time to give in to grief. She had to find a way to make the sit­u­a­tion right.

  “What did you mean when you said I had help mak­ing such a mess of things?”

  Cla­jak frowned, but his dis­plea­sure wasn’t aimed at her. “This vote to de­ter­mine who the peo­ple want for their princess won’t com­pletely be based on how you and Nar­pok present your­selves. A huge fac­tor will be my rep­u­ta­tion ver­sus Pwal­dur’s.”

  “What, be­cause you slept with a lot of women? Kalquo­ri­ans aren’t prudes. Why would it mat­ter?”

  “My sex life isn’t so much the is­sue. Pub­lic opin­ion for sev­eral years has been that Zarl is no longer fit to be em­peror.”

  Jes­sica scowled. “There is noth­ing wrong with his mind.”

  Be­vau kissed the frown line be­tween her eye­brows. “No one doubts his judg­ment or in­tel­lect. His body is weak how­ever, and it af­fects the per­for­mance of his du­ties.”

  “Du­ties I should have taken on over a decade ago.” Cla­jak sighed and stopped ca­ress­ing Jes­sica to rub his eyes. “My fear of as­sum­ing the throne drove me to run away all these years. Now my peo­ple be­lieve I am nei­ther wor­thy nor ca­pa­ble of be­ing em­peror.”

  Egilka en­tered the room bear­ing a tray of food as Cla­jak spoke. “The pain of watch­ing your beloved fa­ther de­te­ri­o­rate had a lot to do with your ac­tions.” He sat on the edge of the bed and beck­oned Jes­sica.

  She sat up and slid to his side, set­tling into the crook of the Imdiko’s arm. He fed her the Kalquo­rian ver­sion of a cheese­burger, a tasty con­coc­tion with richer fla­vor than the Earth orig­i­nal. He tore off small bites to pop into her mouth. She’d grown used to the Kalquo­ri­ans’ in­sis­tence they feed her when they dined in pri­vate. At first she found it odd, but now she en­joyed the in­ti­macy of the prac­tice.

  Be­vau sat up and pulled Cla­jak close. When any­one in the clan showed signs of emo­tional dis­tress, Be­vau’s Imdiko ten­den­cies took over. Cla­jak leaned back to rest against his clan­mate’s broad chest. Be­vau wrapped his arms around his leader, who at the mo­ment looked more like a lost child than the fu­ture Em­peror of Kalquor.

  Cla­jak’s voice was quiet as he spoke. “I’ve will­fully turned a blind eye to Zarl’s grow­ing in­fir­mi­ties. Jes­sica, if you could have seen him when he was younger, how strong he was be­fore the ac­ci­dent…”

  For a mo­ment the Dramok was over­come. His chest hitched, and he bowed his head as he fought to re­gain con­trol. His steel-col­ored hair hid his face. Be­vau’s grip tight­ened, but he said noth­ing.

  Af­ter a mo­ment, Cla­jak mut­tered, “I’ve al­ways thought if only I’d gone with him that day as I was sup­posed to—”

  Be­vau cut him off with a firm tone. “You’d be dead. It was a mir­a­cle Zarl sur­vived.”

  Egilka fed Jes­sica a french fry that tasted re­mark­ably au­then­tic. “These last few years while Cla­jak chased girls, Pwal­dur be­came a pop­u­lar ad­vo­cate of the com­mon Kalquo­rian. He never misses an op­por­tu­nity to in­gra­ti­ate him­self to the pop­u­lace.”

  “And he goes silent when some­thing’s con­tro­ver­sial enough to hurt his stand­ing,” Be­vau added.

  Jes­sica’s ap­petite took a nose­dive, but Egilka wouldn’t let her push the food away. She grudg­ingly ate what he stuffed in her mouth. She swal­lowed and said, “It’s im­pos­si­ble to win this, isn’t it? I’m so stupid.”

  Cla­jak raised his tearstained face to look at her. Re­mark­ably, he found a smile. “Not stupid. You’re our stub­born beast. We should have known you’d sneak into that ses­sion.” He pulled free of Be­vau.

  Be­vau eased back, giv­ing Cla­jak space and sit­ting closer to Jes­sica. “Have a lit­tle faith in us, my love. We’ve set in place a huge pub­lic re­la­tions push to let our peo­ple know who you are. You’ll be in­ter­viewed and tour the planet’s seven largest cities this week in prepa­ra­tion for next week’s ses­sion.”

  Egilka placed the food tray on the floor, most of its con­tents con­sumed. He drew Jes­sica into his lap. “Coun­cil­man Ra­jhir is ne­go­ti­at­ing on our be­half with Coun­cil­man Wag­nox for Pwal­dur, iron­ing out the de­tails of how the ses­sion will pro­ceed. Once he’s done that, we’ll be able to plan your strat­egy for the ses­sion it­self.”

  “Do you think it will help?” Jes­sica wanted to know. She yawned as ex­haus­tion set­tled over her. Per­haps she’d be able to sleep af­ter all.

  Cla­jak shrugged. “You’re more like­able than Nar­pok. Be your­self and Kalquo­ri­ans will re­spond to you pos­i­tively.”

  Jes­sica didn’t re­al­ize she was sway­ing drunk­enly un­til she over­bal­anced. Egilka’s grip kept her from tum­bling off his lap onto the floor. “I thought the in­tox­i­cant was wear­ing off,” she said, her words slur­ring.

  “It has. I put a seda­tive pre­scribed by Imdiko Flen­cik in your food.” Egilka smirked at her out­raged ex­pres­sion. “We start early in the morn­ing, so you need to rest.”

  “What if Nar­pok wins? You’ll have to clan her then, won’t you?” What Jes­sica re­ally wanted to ask was what will hap­pen to me?

  “I can’t face hav­ing Nar­pok as my Matara. More­over, I can’t face not hav­ing you with me.” Cla­jak’s voice came from far away. “You have to win this fight, my love.”

  Jes­sica tried to an­swer him. Be­fore she could her eyes slid shut, re­leas­ing her into obliv­ion.

  Chap­ter 17

  At home in the suites Nar­pok shared with Pwal­dur, the haughty beauty stepped into a cham­ber known only to her. Blue­prints of the Head Coun­cil­man’s home showed no hint of the nook. It was no won­der; the peb­ble-strewn cav­ity was more of a cramped space be­tween the rooms than a use­able area.

  Nar­pok didn’t mind the close quar­ters. She liked how the jagged rock of cliff sur­rounded her, em­brac­ing her in the il­lu­sion of safety. No fortress of­fered bet­ter shel­ter when she needed to hide.

  Soft light spilled into the area from a crack half­way up the wall. Nar­pok slipped to the thin fis­sure, her bare feet mak­ing no sound on the pit­ted floor. De­spite the niche’s con­stant cool tem­per­a­ture, she wore only thin un­der­clothes. The space of­fered no bar­rier to noise. Even the barest rus­tle of loose cloth­ing might give her away.

  The space was dank with the heavy smell of min­er­als left be­hind by the damp sea air. To Nar­pok it was a pleas­ant scent, a re­minder of the days when her mother had led her into the nook. Pwal­dur’s Matara liked to spy on him, es­pe­cially when all her clan­mates met in his of­fice.

  “Al­ways make it your busi­ness to know ev­ery­one else’s,” Matara Ladni had ad­vised her daugh­ter. “Our men find it nec­es­sary to shield us from fear­some news, but it is more stress­ful to be left won­der­ing.”

  Her mother’s ad­vice had stayed with her, and more than ever Nar­pok needed to know what was go­ing on. The hate­ful Earther Jes­sica had some­how sup­planted her claim on Cla­jak’s clan. The bitch had in­vaded the coun­cil’s ses­sion that morn­ing, but no one would tell Nar­pok what had hap­pened. All she knew was that she now had to face the coun­cil her­self and an­swer ques­tions as to why she was the bet­ter choice for Kalquor’s em­press.

  Om­nipo­tent Pwal­dur had been out­wit­ted by an Earther. Nar­pok her­self had to sal­vage her claim on Prince Cla­jak’s clan. As un­ap­peal­ing as she found the thought of mat­ing with the crown princes, they were her only hope for sal­va­tion. She needed to clan them to es­cape the night­mare her life had be­come.

  Nar­pok knelt on the cush­ion she’d left in the nook to save her knees from the jagged planes of the floor. From this po­si­tion, she peered through the crack in the wall.

  The light­ing panel cov­er­ing the wall of Pwal­dur’s home of­fice made her view of the room hazy, like look­ing through a win­dow smeared with driv­ing rain. Her fa­ther’s fa­mil­iar shape was a dark blob hunched over the square of his soft-hued desk. The green­ish light of a vid screen lit the con­torted smudge of his face. His thick arms moved with slight jerks, telling Nar­pok he was writ­ing yet an­other piece of leg­is­la­tion, a let­ter, or a speech. Per­haps he worked on some­thing to aid her claim on Cla­jak’s clan. She smiled with af­fec­tion.

  A knock sounded in the room, and Pwal­dur’s head reared up. Nar­pok watched as three fig­ures came into the room.

  “A rather late visit,” her fa­ther said, but he sounded pleased. “Come in and we’ll cel­e­brate our de­layed vic­tory.”

  Nar­pok’s surge of hap­pi­ness at his words crashed as Nobek Marzk­lis’ growl­ing tone an­swered. “It’s a bit pre­ma­ture, don’t you think?”

  It was Clan Wag­nox. Nar­pok couldn’t help but cringe. Her hands in­stinc­tively cov­ered her breasts and sex. The three men were al­most as well re­spected as her fa­ther and his clos­est friends. She al­ways made her­self scarce when they came to visit, of­ten hid­ing in this very room … ex­cept when she couldn’t, which hap­pened far too of­ten.

  Pwal­dur rose from be­hind his desk and lum­bered to the cooler where he kept a few bot­tles of kloq. She heard the clink of cups as he pre­pared drinks for all. “The fight is al­ready won. This vote next week won’t be who the bet­ter can­di­date for em­press is. It will be my pop­u­lar­ity against the heirs’. That damned Ra­jhir has only post­poned the in­evitable.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Wag­nox said. His voice sounded weary and his shape sank into the seat­ing cush­ions ar­ranged in the mid­dle of the room. “The Earther im­pressed many mem­bers of the coun­cil be­fore you pointed out how ill-pre­pared she is to de­fend her un­born.”

  “It’s enough that she can pro­duce a child,” Imdiko Sty­tyn pointed out. He was Nar­pok’s per­sonal doc­tor, much to her dis­may. “If it comes out Nar­pok is ac­tu­ally in­fer­tile—”

  Nar­pok gasped in shock. The sound might have given her hid­ing place away if Pwal­dur hadn’t spo­ken at the same mo­ment. “We agreed never to speak on that. We four are the only ones who know she is bar­ren.”

  Not fer­tile! Nar­pok fell back from the crack, her heart thud­ding painfully in her chest. They had lied to her! Now she could never be em­press, could never join Cla­jak’s clan. That meant the night­mare would con­tinue—

  Marzk­lis, the main vil­lain in Nar­pok’s per­sonal hell, spoke again. “No one here will do any­thing to en­dan­ger Nar­pok’s claim on the throne. But while we are on this sub­ject, how do we know Cla­jak and the oth­ers won’t still clan the Earther if Nar­pok wins?”

  “You mean ‘when’ Nar­pok wins.” Her fa­ther’s chuckle gave Nar­pok hope. Pwal­dur was pro­tect­ing her as he al­ways did, putting his love for her over his duty to the Em­pire. She pressed her eye to the crack again to see his frame lean­ing eas­ily against his desk. “The ridicu­lous fools prob­a­bly will clan their lit­tle Jes­sica. Love makes men reck­less, es­pe­cially where Earther women are con­cerned. One only need wit­ness the up­roar over the first ab­duc­tions and how close that has brought us to war with Earth. The princes have fallen into the same trap as over half the coun­cil.”