Read Fantasyland 02 The Golden Dynasty for Free Online Page A

dais.
    That’s right… threw him . He threw an enormous, grown man through the air down ten steps.
    Holy crap!
    The Dax stood at the top step looking down
and then his rough voice rumbled through the drum filled night when
he called, “Kah Dahksahna me ahnoo.”
    The warrior scrambled to his feet, the Dax’s
body tensed to alert, the crying woman in my arms shoved closer
into my body, my arms tightened around her but other than that, I
stood stock-still.
    They went into stare down and this lasted
awhile before the warrior spit on the steps and stalked away.
    The Dax turned and, without looking at me or
the girl, he moved back to his throne and sat. Two women bustled up
the steps and laid gentle hands on the girl, pulling her away from
me then to the side of the dais then they ducked into the crowd
after they reached the bottom of the steps.
    “Kah Dahksahna,” I heard the Dax say from
behind me, I turned and caught his painted eyes.
    They were burning into mine. Then they
looked at my throne and back at me.
    Guess it was time for me to sit back
down.
    I took in a shuddering breath and slowly
lowered myself to the pad under the Dax’s black gaze. Once my ass
was to the pad, he turned away and jerked his chin at the next
warrior.
    And then the wedding rite continued like
nothing happened.
    No joke.
    Like nothing happened.
    God, I had to get out of this place.
     
     

Chapter Four
    The Golden Dynasty
     
    Three days later…
    “Kah Dahksahna, shalah dahnay,” the woman
implored, her hand resting light on my hip over the silk sheet.
    My head was to pile of silk pillows; my eyes
were open and unseeing. I could feel the soft hides under my body.
The light, silk sheet was down around my waist but I was covering
my naked breasts with my arm.
    And I wanted to die.
    Every day, I didn’t wake up at home. Three
nights of sleep, three days of waking up and I wasn’t going home.
Three days of waking up to the attentions of the king. Three nights
of being woken to more attention when he arrived back at the
tent.
    There were no murmured words of tenderness,
even ones I didn’t understand. There was no attempt at foreplay. No
cuddling afterward. He didn’t hold me in his sleep. He just turned
me to my belly, yanked me up to my knees, used me, pulled out,
dropped down beside me and fell asleep (or, in the mornings, after
he took me, he got up, dosed himself with water from a jug, pulled
on his hides without even toweling off and prowled out).
    He didn’t share meals with me (not that I
got up to eat, I didn’t get up at all, except to use the pot at the
back). He didn’t visit with me.
    He didn’t even know my name.
    At least he was gone during the days.
    And he had just left and like every day when
he left, the five women who’d seen to me after the claiming rushed
in and bustled around his tent with great activity. The one with
dark skin, clearly the leader of the group, as usual coming to me,
talking gently but increasingly anxiously using words I didn’t
understand but her hand was always light on me, the shakes she’d
give my body always gentle and I got the message – she wanted me to
get up.
    I didn’t get up and eventually they gave up
and stole out.
    I barely looked at them.
    I needed to get home. I needed to
get the
fuck out of
there.
    I needed to do it but I had no clue, not
that first stinking clue, how to
do that.
    And my nightmare rolled on.
    The hand left my hip and I felt her get up
from the bed. Then I heard her speaking softly but urgently to the
other women.
    I shoved my hand under the pile of soft
pillows at my head and kept staring across the tent, seeing
nothing, still feeling him between my legs, knowing he’d be
back.
    What could have been five minutes or five
hours later, I heard the tent flap slap back, my body tensed, my
mind searched the tent to see if it could feel if it was him who had returned (it would be a
first, it was still daylight) and I didn’t feel his raw, brutal
energy filling