Her thirsty tongue aroused a desire for the forbidden. Her eyes were warming torches that held him in their grip. She was connected to him with her thighs and arms and lips and through lineage. The kernel of his soul. His body dissolved into hers like warm wax. She was consuming him, and it seemed an innate act that should have transpired long ago.

She sat up, turned around, and straddled him, facing his feet. Her core exposed, she bent to drink from the source. A drop of salty liquid at the tip burst in her mouth. She went back for more and more, always careful to slacken her lips and trail her tongue around the edges so as not to drain him of all his fluids.

When he gasped, no longer able to endure her thirst, she faced him, taking him between her breasts. She felt his experienced hands tease her body and was angry with the many women he had had. She rose on her knees, then lowered herself on him, again and again, crushing him under her until he moaned that animal sound he had locked for years. The cry she had been awaiting. The plea of a king rendered helpless by the enormity of his desire. A cry of submission no other woman had evoked.

Moonlight flooded his face and the white of his teeth. He was smiling.

She no longer shunned the moon.

“I will bear you sons.”

Her father. Her lover. She would bear him sons and obliterate the shame he had endured for so long.

She lifted herself and planted her legs at his sides, looming above him. Milky thighs spread wide over him, she had a regal quality that assured him the strength to support both love and loss. The loss of Gold Dust. The love of Raven.

She lowered herself.

A roar welled up from him. A cry of pain. His pain. Her pain. He shot into her the seeds that would become his sons. The heirs of the empire.

“Pedar,” she moaned. “Don’t force fidelity with death. Let your favorite go.”

44

Honey glanced at her reflection in the mirror in Gold Dust’s room. Layers of black concealed all but her bewildered eyes. Her mind raced, and the rhythm of her heart was broken, but determination propelled her on. For too long, she had desired women who disliked her or was refused by those who feared the Shah. She was thirty-six, an old and tired woman, who had experienced more than women twice her age. Gold Dust’s charm and candor had enriched her life. She was thankful for that.

The chatter of crickets entered through the window. Bright-colored drapes static in the heat; gifts of silver and crystal glittering in the moonlight. She slid her fingers over Gold Dust’s hair.

Gold Dust sprang up. All of last week while the Shah had avoided her, while the eunuch was in hiding, while Moon Face sported an eternal smile, and Raven’s glances were secretive, Gold Dust had wondered if the Shah had found out about her and Soleiman. Now she gazed at Honey’s eyes and knew she bore bad news.