“Why does that amuse you?”

  “Be­cause it will al­low me to chal­lenge their right to as­cend to the throne. With all the calls for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion into who or­dered those kid­nap­pings, the ma­jor­ity of the coun­cil dares not fur­ther op­pose the will of the peo­ple. To save their clan­ships with their pre­cious lit­tle Earth­ers, they will fall in line with my vote of no con­fi­dence in the right of Clan Cla­jak to rule the Em­pire. We will snatch power first from the princes and next from the em­per­ors them­selves.”

  Wag­nox’s laugh­ter gave Nar­pok chills. “What­ever clan you back will be the next in line, no mat­ter how the em­per­ors may fight it. Bril­liant!”

  “You will be­come the Im­pe­rial Clan when Zarl fi­nally con­cedes his health, and Nar­pok takes her right­ful place as em­press at your sides.” Nar­pok heard the tri­umph in her fa­ther’s voice.

  Oh no. Not clanned to them … not to those mon­sters! But if I tell Fa­ther … if he knew … they’d kill him!

  Marzk­lis’ voice took on the in­sin­u­at­ing tone Nar­pok knew too well. “Did she have a good din­ner tonight?”

  Pwal­dur rose to get him­self an­other cup of kloq. He sounded apolo­getic. “Not tonight. I was too busy work­ing on her cam­paign to pre­pare her drink.”

  What does he mean, pre­pare my drink? Nar­pok was mys­ti­fied.

  Sty­tyn sighed. “I was look­ing for­ward to her com­pany. If the princes do clan her, our once a week vis­its will come to an end.”

  Nar­pok went cold. Was the Imdiko talk­ing about the vis­its his clan made to her room? In front of her fa­ther, whom Marzk­lis promised to kill if she ever breathed a word about their as­saults?

  Pwal­dur threw his head back as he downed his kloq. “To­mor­row, my friends. I will see to it she is in­ca­pac­i­tated for your plea­sure. I wouldn’t worry about Cla­jak clan­ning her; he’s far too self­ish.” The head coun­cil­man chuck­led. “Won’t it be nice when you are the Im­pe­rial clan and can have sex with your Matara any time you wish? I won’t have to drug her for you any­more.”

  Mur­murs of laugh­ing agree­ment greeted his words. Nar­pok smashed her fists against her mouth to hold in her hor­ri­fied screams.

  Chap­ter 18

  Jes­sica stood on the clan’s bal­cony, look­ing at the pink beach and ex­pan­sive jewel-green sea. The roar of the surf filled her ears. That and the tang of salt in the air re­minded her of home. She found no com­fort in it.

  In the sleep­ing room be­hind her, she heard Cla­jak, Be­vau, and Egilka in earnest con­ver­sa­tion. She couldn’t make out the words but didn’t need to. No doubt they con­tin­ued to plot and plan even though the time for that had ex­pired.

  The week had flown past in a blur of in­ter­views, speeches, coach­ing, and miles of greet­ing lines. Kalquo­ri­ans had turned out by the thou­sands to get a glimpse of the Earther who had lured the crown princes to her bed. She’d been eval­u­ated and picked apart by the me­dia, which in the end agreed Jes­sica McIn­ness was not such a bad choice for Kalquor’s em­press. How­ever, it also opined the crown princes were wrong to toss aside Nar­pok and the prom­ise of a pure­blood Kalquo­rian heir.

  As feared, Pwal­dur’s and Cla­jak’s mer­its had been de­bated and the Crown Prince found want­ing. Egilka’s fail­ure to sal­vage a pure­blood Kalquo­rian race was also fod­der for dis­cus­sion, as was Be­vau’s rare equal mix of Nobek and Imdiko traits. Most agreed that with Pwal­dur’s guid­ing hand, Nar­pok rep­re­sented the one hope for a ca­pa­ble Kalquo­rian ruler.

  Jes­sica sighed, phys­i­cal and emo­tional ex­haus­tion wear­ing her to her very soul. The old night­mare of dark­ness and howl­ing wind haunted her ev­ery night, no doubt in re­sponse to the stress she felt. It took away des­per­ately needed sleep.

  The clan had re­turned home from their whirl­wind tour the day be­fore. A last-minute coach­ing ses­sion with the em­per­ors and Ra­jhir had ended only an hour ago. To­mor­row was the coun­cil ses­sion and Jes­sica’s face-off with Nar­pok. A de­cent night’s sleep not­with­stand­ing, Jes­sica was as ready as she would ever be.

  She knew she would give a good ac­count­ing of her­self. She also knew ‘good’ wouldn’t be nearly enough to sway the Kalquo­rian pop­u­lace to her side. Bar­ring a mir­a­cle, Nar­pok would emerge the vic­tor.

  Ac­cept­ing the com­ing de­feat, Jes­sica wor­ried about a great many things. Chief among her con­cerns was that her clan would keep her as their Matara de­spite their peo­ple’s will. She feared such a de­ci­sion would tear the planet apart.

  Cla­jak’s arms cir­cled Jes­sica from be­hind. She leaned back into his strong, warm body and blinked back sud­den tears. Egilka and Be­vau stepped up to ei­ther side, their arms in light con­tact with her. They too looked out over the ocean. No one spoke, but none of the men seemed to share her dread. To her sur­prise, the ex­pres­sions on the three men’s faces were re­laxed for the first time in days. How could they be so calm when the fate of their clan looked so bleak?

  I have to let them go. For the good of Kalquor, I have to walk away when Nar­pok is voted in. There is no other way.

  Swal­low­ing hard against the lump in her throat, Jes­sica said, “It’s beau­ti­ful out here. It’s too bad I haven’t had the chance to walk on the beach yet.”

  Cla­jak re­leased her and took her hand. He tugged her to­wards the suite. “A walk with you would be very nice. Let’s go now.”

  Egilka took her other hand, and Be­vau fol­lowed the three to the con­veyance.

  * * * *

  Jes­sica took off her bal­let-style slip­pers to dig her toes in the shin­ing pink sand. She gasped to find it soft, like baby pow­der. It had none of the grit she’d known on Flor­ida’s beaches.

  Her arms twined in those of Cla­jak and Egilka, the group walked along the shore­line. Their Royal Guard con­tin­gent fol­lowed a re­spect­ful dis­tance be­hind. The roar of the surf pounded in Jes­sica’s ears and the over­head whir of trans­port traf­fic was lost in the sound. She in­haled deeply of the sea-salt air. She let some of her wor­ries be car­ried away on the breeze, al­low­ing her­self to re­lax for the mo­ment.

  “Is it much like your home?” Cla­jak asked.

  “It smells the same,” Jes­sica said. She looked up in the sky, see­ing only half a dozen trans­ports shoot­ing be­low the clouds. “There are no seag­ulls though.” At the men’s ques­tion­ing glances she added, “It’s a kind of bird that lives on the shores of Earth. For me, the air seems oddly empty with­out their cries. I like the sand here though. It’s not gritty.”

  They walked on, the si­lence be­tween them com­pan­ion­able. It was enough to be in each oth­ers’ pres­ence. Jes­sica felt as if she had al­ways be­longed to the clan. To think to­mor­row could end it all…

  The cliffs be­came shorter and shorter, slowly pe­ter­ing out to dis­ap­pear into the dunes. Here and there, small ridges of rock rose from the sand, like the spine of a par­tially buried pre­his­toric beast. The col­or­ful patch­work of for­est blan­keted the dis­tant land­scape.

  “What’s that?” she asked, point­ing at a darker mass ris­ing from the pearles­cent gleam of the pink sand.

  Be­vau said, “A small cave.”

  “I used to play in it as a child,” Cla­jak said, a slight smile of happy mem­o­ries play­ing over his ex­pres­sion.

  “So you still go there?” Jes­sica teased.

  He grinned back and tick­led her un­til she fell on the ground, laugh­ing and strug­gling. Af­ter a few mo­ments of that, she warned she would lose blad­der con­trol if he didn’t stop. Chuck­ling, the men helped her to her feet and brushed the pow­dery sand from her bare limbs and the sheath she wore. They con­tin­ued on to the cave.

  Call­ing it a cave gave the hol­lowed rock credit it didn’t quite de­serve. The shal­low space was lit­tle more than an in­den­ta­tion. Its ceil­ing barely stretched tall enough for Jes­sica to walk up­right. She could see to the back of the shad­owed in­te­rior. A lit­tle boy would in­deed en­joy such a spot. Look­ing at her steel-haired, mus­cu­lar mate, she found it hard to en­vi­sion Cla­jak as that boy.

  “Watch your heads,” Be­vau cau­tioned as ev­ery­one else ducked to en­ter.

  A glance around sat­is­fied all the ex­plo­ration re­quired. Cla­jak said, “My friends and I used this as our re­be­cub lair. We pre­tended to lie in wait for sea ships, plan­ning our at­tacks to steal their goods.”

  “Kalquor had pi­rates? Earth did too.” Jes­sica grinned at the sim­i­lar­ity. “When my sis­ter and I played, we used sticks to have sword fights. There was a fake pi­rate ship on the play­ground across the street from our house.”

  “The re­be­cub stalked the ocean a very long time ago, be­fore the tech­nol­ogy ex­isted to cap­ture them eas­ily,” Egilka con­firmed.

  Jes­sica sat down in the mid­dle of the sand-swept floor. Her hands ca­ressed the pow­der-soft sub­stance. “It’s cool in here,” she said, en­joy­ing the break from the Kalquo­rian sum­mer sun.

  She looked out at the beach be­yond. The Royal Guard was nowhere to be seen. No doubt they re­mained some­where near, but they had po­si­tioned them­selves in such a way as to give the Crown Prince Clan its pri­vacy.

  Her men sat around her, their com­bined body heat chas­ing some of the chill away. Hands stroked her all over, and she soft­ened to their ca­resses. Mouths joined the hands, brush­ing her bare arms, legs, and neck with but­ter­fly-soft kisses.

  Jes­sica didn’t want to ruin the mo­ment, es­pe­cially since she had so lit­tle time left with her clan. She was re­al­is­tic enough to know a talk could no longer be put off. Sigh­ing un­hap­pily, she dove in.

  “You have to do what’s right for Kalquor no mat­ter what hap­pens to­mor­row. Prom­ise me you’ll—”

  Be­vau cut her off with a de­mand­ing kiss. His rough tongue swept in to twine with hers, and his hands cov­ered her breasts. She moaned into his mouth as he squeezed the pli­able mounds.

  Cla­jak and Egilka also in­creased the in­ten­sity of their se­duc­tion. The gen­tle kisses grew pas­sion­ate, their teeth nip­ping her soft flesh. Egilka swept the skirt of her sheath up to her waist, growl­ing in ap­pre­ci­a­tion as he dis­cov­ered she wore no panties. His ex­plor­ing fin­gers found her al­ready wet.

  Cla­jak tugged the straps of the sheath down Jes­sica’s arms, bar­ing her breasts for Be­vau’s busy hands. His tongue licked del­i­cately at the whorls of her ear, his breath rais­ing goose­flesh on her arms.

  Be­vau re­leased her lips to mouth the line of her jaw. Jes­sica ached to sub­mit to their love­mak­ing with­out an­other word. She knew bet­ter.

  “Guys—”

  Cla­jak growled his frus­tra­tion in her ear. “Stop fret­ting. We’ll do what we have to.”

  “Which is what?” Jes­sica pushed against them as best she could, know­ing full well they would over­whelm her if they chose to. She still had to try.

  They drew back, look­ing at her with in­dul­gent ex­pres­sions. “We may as well tell her,” Egilka said to the other two. He stroked her cheek as if she was a child. “If you lose to­mor­row’s chal­lenge, we will ab­di­cate the throne in fa­vor of the babe you carry. You will re­main our Matara, and the royal line will con­tinue.”

  Jes­sica’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t do that. Zarl can’t wait for our child to be old enough to as­cend.”

  Cla­jak rubbed her shoul­ders. “We’ll ask Ra­jhir’s clan to act as re­gents. He’s my cousin, and the men of his clan are all quite ca­pa­ble of rul­ing for sev­eral years. We be­lieve such an ar­range­ment would be ac­cept­able to the peo­ple of Kalquor. As­sum­ing Clan Ra­jhir ac­cepts, they’ll lead the Em­pire un­til our child and his – or her – clan is old enough to as­sume the throne.”

  Hope flared in Jes­sica’s heart for an in­stant. “Is that even pos­si­ble?”

  A brief flash of worry in Be­vau’s eyes told her the so­lu­tion wasn’t as cut and dry as they were try­ing to make it sound. “It’s only been done once be­fore when an en­tire Im­pe­rial clan was killed in a Tra­goom am­bush. Their child, Cla­jak’s great-great-great grand­mother, was old enough to take the throne but not fully clanned at the time. Her un­cle’s clan ruled in her stead.”

  Cla­jak added, “She took over the throne two years later af­ter adding the fi­nal mem­ber of her clan.”

  Jes­sica blinked. “I thought all the males of a clan had to be in place for at least a year be­fore a Matara could be added. But you say she’s wasn’t fully clanned yet?”

  The Dramok shrugged. “At least one of her mates had al­ready been ar­ranged. Maybe a sec­ond, but I don’t quite re­mem­ber. At any rate, she was al­lowed to be de­clared the Matara for who­ever her ex­ist­ing matches were be­cause of the ex­treme cir­cum­stances.”

  “The sit­u­a­tion isn’t quite the same,” Jes­sica pointed out. “None of you are dead.”

  Egilka frowned for a mo­ment. “What we plan is un­prece­dented, but we’re not giv­ing you up.” His eyes were dark with pur­pose.

  Cla­jak mur­mured in her ear, “We love you, you stub­born beast.”

  “Won’t your fa­thers be heart­bro­ken if you refuse the throne, Cla­jak? I get the im­pres­sion they are look­ing for­ward to you in­her­it­ing it.”

  “They know what it is to love a woman be­yond rea­son. They also know the un­fath­omable pain of los­ing her. Even if they protest, we can’t face our lives with­out you.”

  They were ready to give up ev­ery­thing for her. Jes­sica’s voice choked. “I love you too. I would never ask you to do this.”

  Cla­jak smiled down on her and brushed at the tears stream­ing down her cheeks. “That’s why we don’t mind do­ing it. If Kalquor votes in fa­vor of Nar­pok, they’ll never know the great­ness of the em­press they lost.”

  Be­vau wrapped his mus­cled arms around her, crush­ing her to his chest. “You are our Matara now and for­ever.”

  Jes­sica buried her face against his warm skin, in­hal­ing his scent as if she could ab­sorb him in her lungs. When the men touched her in­ti­mately again, she didn’t re­sist. All her ques­tions, though not her wor­ries, had been put to rest.

  Lips, teeth, tongues, and hands roamed her body at will. She sighed at the gen­tle ca­resses, cried out with pas­sion at the sting­ing pinches and nips. When Be­vau’s mouth fed on her mound, she plunged her hands in his long, silky hair, pulling him closer. Egilka and Cla­jak each bent to a breast, suck­ing the soft orbs deep into their hun­gry maws. Be­vau left her sex mo­men­tar­ily to lick the in­side of one thigh. As if chore­ographed, the three men’s fangs pierced her flesh si­mul­ta­ne­ously, and Jes­sica emit­ted a small scream that echoed in the small cave. She trem­bled with help­less sur­ren­der as the in­tox­i­cant en­tered her blood­stream to weaken her with eu­pho­ria.

  Be­vau re­turned to con­sum­ing the honey pump­ing from her body. Jes­sica lay limp in the oth­ers’ arms as they dis­en­gaged their fangs to lick the thin streams of blood run­ning from the pin­prick holes. The feel­ing of wet, scratchy tongues slowly lap­ping at her flesh made her lower re­gions clench. She closed her eyes, lost in sen­sa­tion.

  Once she stopped bleed­ing, Cla­jak and Egilka ran their tongues over her, find­ing new erot­i­cally-charged ar­eas she’d never sus­pected. The hol­low of her throat was sen­si­tive, as was the in­side of her el­bows, the un­der­side of her breasts where they joined with her ribcage, the deep dim­ple of the scar on her chest, and the cup of her navel. They sucked each of her fin­gers into their mouths, one at a time, and she thrilled at the amaz­ing sen­sa­tion.

  Be­vau lifted his face from her sex, his lips glis­ten­ing from her juices. Two of his fin­gers dove into her, search­ing un­til he found the sen­si­tive spot in­side her sheath. His other hand cov­ered her mound and cli­toris, rub­bing cir­cles with his palm. Jes­sica arched, cry­ing out as plea­sure leapt from his know­ing touch. Cla­jak and Egilka held her con­vuls­ing body eas­ily, watch­ing her suc­cumb to their clan­mate’s se­duc­tion with parted mouths and dark eyes. Their fangs had de­scended once more, their arousal bring­ing prim­i­tive urges to the fore. They looked at her with hunger more an­i­mal than in­tel­li­gent, and a twinge of fear rose through the in­tox­i­ca­tion to feed her help­less de­sire. She screamed as or­gasm ripped through her.

  When the strong­est of the spasms had passed, Egilka and Cla­jak pinned her wrists to the ground. Be­vau pressed his slick sexes into Jes­sica, feel­ing how her in­sides still quaked. Her flesh pulled hard against his as fresh spasms took her over. Be­vau hov­ered over her as if ready to per­form pushups. He looked at his lovely lit­tle Matara stretched be­neath him, her pert breasts pointed up, her tight belly con­vuls­ing with plea­sure, her ea­ger flesh ac­cept­ing his. As she thrashed help­lessly in the throes of or­gasm he took her, his hips thrust­ing hard against her buck­ing body. His mus­cles stood out in corded gran­ite as he re­sisted the urge to grant his own re­lease. It wasn’t easy to deny his aching groin. Jes­sica’s on­go­ing cli­maxes made her tighter, more pleas­ing to his livid flesh. The yield­ing warmth of her womb sucked at his sex like a hun­gry mouth. His smaller pe­nis dove into the dark sweet­ness of her nether ori­fice.

  See­ing Jes­sica pow­er­less against him brought Be­vau ever closer to los­ing con­trol. She would deny him noth­ing, and for that he would give her ev­ery­thing he could. She was his woman, a fact he’d never felt so keenly un­til now.

  Jes­sica sobbed like a child, her face rap­tur­ous. I’m do­ing this to her, Be­vau thought with pride. He was close now, tee­ter­ing on the brink, but see­ing his mate’s con­tin­ued ec­stasy helped him hold off a few sec­onds more. The last few thrusts were beau­ti­ful agony for Be­vau as the bliss of de­layed re­lease be­came painful. Jes­sica’s head tossed from side to side, her cries bird­like as her voice started to give out.