Beauty's Release - By A. N. Roquelaure & Anne Rice Page 0,63

grand palaces.”

BEAUTY: REVELATIONS AT SEA

BEAUTY SAT sobbing in the middle of the open carpet. The hold of the ship was very small and the lantern creeked on its hook, the ship traveling fast over the open sea, the windows pounded with spray, the whole craft listing slightly.

Now and then, she looked up at the baffled Captain of the Guard and at the angry Nicolas, who stared back at her.

Tristan sat in the corner with his knees drawn up and his head resting on his knees. And Laurent lay, smiling, on the bunk, watching everything as though it were very amusing.

And Lexius, poor beautiful Lexius, lay against the far wall, his face buried in the crook of his arm, his naked body seeming infinitely more vulnerable than her own. She could not understand why he had been recently whipped, why he had been brought with them.

“You can’t mean, Princess, that you actually wished to remain in this strange land,” Nicolas pleaded with her.

“But my Lord, it was such an elegant place, and so full of new delights and new intrigues. Why did you have to come? Why didn’t you rescue Dmitri or Rosalynd or Elena?

“Because we were not sent to rescue Rosalynd, or Dmitri or Elena,” Nicolas replied angrily. “By all reports they are content in the Sultan’s land and we were told to leave them there.”

“And so was I content in the Sultan’s land!” Beauty raged. “Why did you do this to me!”

“I too was content,” said Laurent quietly. “Why didn’t you leave us with the others?”

“Must I remind you that you are the Queen’s slaves?” Nicolas stormed, glaring at Laurent and then at the silent Tristan. “It is Her Majesty who decides where and how her slaves will serve her. Your insolence is intolerable!”

Beauty could only break into helpless sobs again.

“Come,” said the Captain of the Guard finally. “We have a long time to spend at sea. And you must not spend it weeping.” He helped Beauty to her feet.

And unable to resist the urge to lean upon him, she pressed her face against his leather jerkin.

“There, there, my sweet,” he said. “You haven’t forgotten your Master, have you?” He led her out of the room and into a small adjacent cabin. The low wooden roof sloped down over the shelf bed. A bit of sun shone bright through the wet little porthole.

The Captain sat down on the side of the bed, and he put Beauty on his lap, his fingers inspecting her body—her breasts, her sex, her thighs.

She had to admit to herself that she was soothed by his touch. She leaned against his shculder, and the feel of his rough beard delighted her, the smell of his leather clothes delighted her. It seemed in his hair she could smell the fresh country winds of Europe, and even the smell of the fresh cut grass in the fields of the village manor houses.

But still she cried. She would never see her beloved Inanna again. And would Inanna remember the lessons Beauty had taught her? Would she find some shared passion with the other women of the harem? Beauty could only hope so. What Beauty herself had learned, of the sweetness and intensity of such love, would always be with her.

Yet even now, in the Captain’s arms, she thought of other kinds of love, of Mistress Lockley’s rough wooden paddle that had punished her so well in the village, of the Captain’s leather strap, and his hard cock which was pushing against her naked thigh now, the rough cloth of his breeches cruelly imprisoning it. She let her fingers touch it through the cloth. She felt it move, like a being unto itself.

And her nipples became two stiff little points as she sighed, her mouth opening as she looked up at the Captain. He was smiling and studying her. And he let her kiss the crust of beard on his chin and chew on his lower lip. She squirmed on his lap, pressing her breasts to his jerkin. His hand moved under her bottom, squeezing the flesh.

“No marks, no welts,” he whispered in her ear.

“No, My Lord,” she said. Just those delicate little thongs lashing at her. How she hated them. She slipped her arms tightly around his neck, her mouth covering his. She pushed her tongue between his lips.

“And we have become so forward,” he said.

“Do you dislike it, My Lord?” she whispered, feeding on his lower lip, licking at his tongue and his teeth as she had