“It’s unnatural to be this beautiful.” Imogen paused in admiring Cededa’s naked body to give him an apologetic look. “I mean that in the best way of course.”
Dressed only in morning light, the king reclined in the bed, leisurely stroking Imogen’s hip as she sat facing him. He smiled. “Of course. Considering I’m a few thousand years old, I’d say it’s unnatural to be this alive.”
She ran a hand over his shoulder and down one muscled arm. “You know what I mean. ‘Cededa the Fair’ wasn’t an exaggeration.”
“I was given that title before the Waters changed me, Imogen.”
“It still applies.”
She caressed his chest, sliding a finger down the line bisecting hard muscle. A myriad of scars, small and large, marked his pale skin.
“How did you get this?” Her palm rested over a puckered round of flesh just below his collarbone.
“Lucky shot from a Partik bowman.”
Another scar, half-moon in shape, aligned with his bottom rib. “And this?”
“One of my general’s war horses. He kicked me through a fence. I was lucky to walk away with only a few broken ribs.”
Imogen winced. “Lucky indeed.” She continued her exploration, stopping at a series of slashes that stair stepped his right side. Cuts made by a blade. “These?”
A sharp, indrawn breath made her look up. Cededa’s mouth had thinned to a tight line. An old grief flickered through his pale eyes. “My son.” He turned his gaze to the ceiling. “Some wounds never heal.”
He told her he had sired armies of children. Still, it was difficult to reconcile this legendary, solitary figure with a man who’d been not only a husband but a father as well—one who’d lost his children in ways beyond mortality.
Her heart ached for him. “I’m sorry, Sire.”
The shadows in his gaze lightened. “No need, Imogen. It was a very long time ago.”
She pushed a strand of flaxen hair away from his cheek. “That doesn’t make the hurt any less.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Imogen shifted positions, bracing her hands on either side of his shoulders. She bent and kissed his scars, touching each ridge and line with the tip of her tongue, learning the taste of him. He’d carry these reminders all his days. She didn’t possess the power to erase them, but she could try and lessen the pain each carried for him.
Cededa stretched beneath her, sinuous as a cat. Her tongue teased him, sent shivers dancing across his skin as she licked and nibbled her way from his ribs to his belly. Her fingers followed, dragging across the tips of his nipples, repeating the caress as he moaned and held her waist.
Beguiled by his reactions, Imogen embraced her newfound skills, plying her mouth and tongue across his navel and over the line of blond hair that led to the apex of his thighs.
His cock brushed her cheek as she knelt between his legs. Imogen paused. Last night, she had only glimpses of his nude body, too caught up in a dizzying whirl of sensation, fear and the anticipation of having him inside her to see or fully appreciate him. Now, with the morning upon them and slow time in a soft bed, she could indulge.
He seemed huge in her eyes, though Niamh’s straightforward remarks about a man’s body had taught her he was likely endowed as other men. Still, the memory of him stretching her, filling her until the pressure in her belly made her squirm, argued he was more blessed than most.
Her hand closed around his shaft. Cededa moaned. Delighted by his response, Imogen tightened her grip and dipped to nuzzle the inside of his thighs, the soft give of his bollocks. His scent filled her lungs, a faint musk mixed with the herbs from the soap he’d used to bathe earlier.
Cededa buried one hand in her hair and reached down with the other to grasp her hand. “Like this,” he instructed and guided her into quick strokes. She followed his lead, setting a rapid stroke up and down on his cock that had his hips thrusting in time. His head was arched back into the pillow, lips parted to breathe shallow breaths. His eyes were half closed, the whites showing beneath his lashes.
She grasped him even harder, savoring the feel of the stiff cock slipping back and forth against her palm. A milky bead of semen crested the tip. Imogen slid her hand higher to smear the fluid with her fingers. Incoherent sounds fell from Cededa’s lips, guttural, encouraging. She carefully licked one finger, tasting a touch of salt.
A vision of the fresco in the king’s chamber, of a woman kneeling before a man, his cock half in her mouth, filled her mind’s eye. Flushed and aroused by the feel of Cededa in her hand and the taste of him on her tongue, she bent to suck gently on the slippery head of his cock.
“Ah gods,” he breathed.
Hesitant at first and unsure of herself, Imogen soon set to her task, sucking him slowly and then with greater speed, lips curved around his shaft. His bollocks tightened in her hand, and his fingers tangled in her hair.
“Imogen,” he gasped. “If you don’t stop, I’ll come in your mouth.”
She paused in her torture of him, remembering the feel of him inside her, the hot stream of seed he pumped into her, the slippery sensation as it dripped down her thighs in thin streams. The memories built a molten pool in her lower belly, and she sucked him harder, deeper. Cededa gasped out her name and succumbed to the sensations overtaking him.
Two hard pulses along the length of his shaft and he filled Imogen’s mouth with a thick, salty heat. She swallowed, savoring his taste.
When she rose and slithered up his body, slippery with sweat and flushed a pale rose, he greeted her with a soft, satiated kiss.
“I’m not so sure you need a teacher, Imogen.”
Imogen twirled a silky strand of his hair around her finger and frowned. “Oh no you don’t, Sire. You promised.” She kissed his chin, the underside of his jaw. “Besides, a man who once had sixty-three wives and a few hundred concubines must have learned a few tricks between the sheets.”
She squealed when he suddenly rolled, flipping her onto her back so that he was the one resting on her. His grin set her heart to fluttering in her chest. Gods, he was beautiful.
“A few.”
Her eyebrow rose. “A few what? Tricks or concubines?”
His grin widened. “Both.”
He ran his fingers down her sides, tickling as she squirmed and laughed and tried to throw him off her. They wrestled in the bed until she was breathless and sweating. Once more she found herself atop Cededa, thighs spread. His pale eyes had gone dark, and his hands gripped her hips.
“Fucking your sweet mouth isn’t enough, Imogen. I want more.”
The coarse remark sent a flare of heat through her body. She curled her hand around his cock, still hard despite his recent orgasm, and guided it to her entrance, slick and aroused by his nearness and his words. “How much more?” she teased and slid partway down.
The faint soreness lingering from the previous night gave way to a throbbing. She moaned, the sound echoed by Cededa.
He gripped her hips in hard hands and thrust upward, going deep until she’d sheathed his cock completely. “All of you. I want all of you.”
Outside the sun rose, its light brightening the chamber as morning warmed to noon and Cededa introduced Imogen to many more pleasures of the flesh.
When they finally left the bed, she was weak-kneed and starved.
“You might not have to eat, but I think I could eat an entire boar by myself.”
As if on cue, Cededa’s stomach growled. His eyes widened. Were she not as shocked as he by the sound, Imogen might have laughed at the amazed expression on his face.
“When was the last time your belly made that noise?”
He rubbed his midriff. “Kingdoms have risen and fallen since I last ate a meal.”
“That’s a long time between breakfast and dinner, Sire.”
“True.” Cededa rubbed the taut muscles and was rewarded with another loud gurgle. They both laughed.
He took her hand and drew her to him. “Get dressed.” He glanced at the bag she’d brought with her to Tineroth. “Do you have another shift?” She nodded. “A good thing as I don’t think the other can be repaired. Meet me at the library. I’ll return there after my hunt. We can eat, and I’ll translate some of the Partik tomes for you.”
An uneasy frisson scattered down her back, one she couldn’t place. There was something here she should know. Some bit of reasoning that was escaping her. “Sire, what does your hunger mean?”
He kissed her and shrugged as if these cravings were nothing more than trivial news. “It means I am awakening, Imogen.” He gestured to her bag. “Get dressed,” he repeated. “I’ll see you in a little while.”
They ate while sitting on the floor of the library’s vestibule. Dust motes danced in the air above them, reminiscent of the fireflies lighting the city at night. Imogen watched as Cededa picked carefully at the roasted hare he’d provided, slicing off small slivers and eating slowly.
She didn’t blame him. Who knew how his body might react to those first bits of food to pass his lips after so long? At his initial bite, she’d prepared to scuttle out of the way in case he sickened. He didn’t. Instead, his eyes lit up. “This is good.”
“You’ve a decent cook in your kitchens.” She shrugged. “Whoever that might be and wherever your kitchens are.”
Cededa laughed. “You’re the recipient of the most talented hedgewitch magics, Imogen. Niamh would have approved.”
Imogen sighed. “I miss her very much. I’m glad you met her when she was young. The sickness didn’t just take her life. It stole her spirit…diminished her.”
“I didn’t know her that well.” His mouth turned up in a faint smile. “Certainly not in the way I’ve come to know you. What I did know I admired.”
She returned the smile. “She was amazing. Thoughtful, loving, sharp as a well-honed blade and educated. I’d never known any to best her in conversation or bargaining.”
“Did she ever tell you why you were born cursed?”
Imogen shook her head. “No. She only said she was a coward for not telling me.”
He rose abruptly and offered his hand to help her stand. “If you’re done, we’ll return to the palace. Gather up the scrolls you want to bring with you.”
He led her out of the library and across the city’s main avenue. They passed the ruin of the temple that preserved the queens’ names in stone and crossed the green stretch of the abandoned arena where Cededa practiced with various weaponry each morning. When they neared the catafalque with his effigy, she made him stop.
“Every portrait, every statue, any likeness of you has been defaced. Except this one. Why?”
Cededa stared at his likeness in stone, his expression so much like the effigy’s in that moment, Imogen suffered a touch of revulsion. “It was a message. One carved in marble instead of written on parchment, guaranteed to accompany me into this pathetic existence. There was rebellion in all parts of my empire, including this city. I’d led an army to Mir. While I was gone, the mages and ministers left behind emptied Tineroth and proceeded to destroy every likeness of me, except this one. It was no oversight. No accident. They left me a sepulcher I’d never be fortunate enough to use.”
Imogen shivered and hugged herself. “Were you truly so hated?”
Cededa closed his eyes. “I remember those days. Chaos and screaming mobs. Buildings set alight. Temples desecrated. People shouting for the ministers to bring forth the head of the Butcher.” He opened his eyes to gaze upon the effigy. “I think ‘hated’ is too mild a word.” He pointed to the inscription carved on the side of the catafalque. “This is written in Scetaq, the language of curses. It says ‘Here lies Cededa, alive yet dead. May he remember. May we forget.’”
Imogen gaped at him, unease worming its way through the glow of her fascination for her new lover. “What did you do to turn your people against you?”
“Enough to live four thousand years and still regret it. Still grieve it.”
They stood in silence for a moment before he motioned for her to follow him again. This time she didn’t take his hand, nor did he offer it. He led her to one of the tall spires still intact and shrouded in a green veil of ivy. Cededa wrenched the warped door open, snapping brittle hinges with his efforts.
He took her hand, and they climbed a stone staircase that spiraled endlessly upward. When they finally stopped, Imogen leaned against the wall and tried not to breathe in great gulps of dusty air.
“What are we doing?” she wheezed on a thin note. She scowled to see Cededa hadn’t even broken a sweat from the arduous climb.
He opened another door. Light poured into the stairwell’s gloom, along with fresh air. Imogen followed him out onto a balcony and gasped at the sight before her.
Tineroth lay in the afternoon sun, a relic of broken splendor awash in the pale filtered light of a cloudy sky. From her rooftop view, she saw the green crown of the surrounding forest with its strange trees and hidden occupants. Beyond the woods, the deep crevasse with its ribbon of river.
As if he heard her unspoken question, Cededa spoke. “Once I took back the key, the bridge disappeared. When you return home, I’ll summon it again so you can cross.”
Despair rose inside her at his words. Imogen tried to brush it away and failed. She should be glad to leave. She’d be free of her bane and could return to a world populated by others, where there was noise and market days and festivals, rainstorms and changes of seasons and the renewed hope of a normal life.
None of that seemed to matter as much at the moment. The king who’d become her savior and her lover wouldn’t accompany her into that new life.
“Why did you bring me to your chambers yesterday, Sire?”
He stayed quiet so long, she didn’t think he’d answer. “So that one living person might know I was once a man. Flawed and incomplete, but still a man like any other. I bled; I loved; I warred; I married and sired children. I am more than just the Undying King of Tineroth. I am also less.
“When I take you back across the bridge and leave you on the other side, I hope I will leave a woman with a knowledge beyond the stories told, even beyond the intimacy we now share between us.”
His words brought tears to her eyes, and she wiped them away. “Why are we here now?”
His measuring gaze held her in place. “You tell me, Imogen.”
She looked back over the city, its silent streets and empty courtyards. “So that I might see the beauty that once was.” A broken city, abandoned, empty and still regal. “Tineroth is your true wife.”
“She is my jailer and my mistress. I am bound to her, body and soul, charged with defending her from all invaders. The cost of the privilege that is immortality.”
Imogen turned to Cededa and slid her arms around his neck. He went willingly into her embrace. “I didn’t need to see your chambers or even Tineroth from this balcony to understand you or the price you pay. I saw the man within the king, Sire. Even if you had no way of lifting my bane, I’d remain grateful and happy to the end of my days that I met you, Cededa the Fair.”