“Finish it,” Raj Ahten said to his chief facilitator. He’d stripped from his armor, and sat on a cushion, awaiting the endowment.

He listened with rising excitement as the facilitator sang the familiar words to the chants. Salim shrieked in pain while the forcible burned his flesh, adding to the scent of charred fat and burning hair that filled the Pavilion.

To take an endowment, to feel the kiss of the forcibles, gave profound delight. It was like making love to a beautiful woman. But to take an endowment from someone who already had received many endowments, to combine that euphoria over and over again—that gave unspeakable ecstasy. By the time Salim had taken his endowments from eleven men—men who had all received endowments of their own—he had combined nearly forty endowments of metabolism, all waiting to burst free into Raj Ahten at once.

Seldom did Raj Ahten receive such great pleasure.

He was sweating with anticipation by the time the facilitator drew the forcible away from Salim, held its glowing tip high, and danced across the room, painting the air inside the tent with ribbons of sulfurous light.

When the tip of the forcible touched the skin beneath Raj Ahten’s nipple, the Wolf Lord shuddered with such unspeakable ecstasy that he could barely contain it. He fell to the floor, his body racked by waves of pure pleasure, and he cried out as if in orgasm. Only his many endowments of stamina allowed him to survive the pleasure. For several moments, he blacked out.

When he woke, the facilitators knelt over him nervously. Raj Ahten’s sweaty skin shivered. He looked up at his men.

“My lord, are you well?” Facilitator Hepolus asked. The words slurred, as if he spoke very slowly. The whole world seemed strange and exotic, as if in some liquid dream. The men around him moved slowly, and the air felt heavy, thick.

Raj Ahten wiped the sweat from his body, took care not to leap up too quickly.

Long ago, he’d learned that when one takes an endowment of metabolism, it affects the hearing. Not only do people around you speak and move very slowly, but the entire way that sound is perceived is affected. High pitches become lower, while low pitches become almost inaudible. To reply to a question in a manner that others could understand required both patience and great control of Voice.

“I am well,” Raj Ahten answered with care.

The facilitators glanced around meaningfully, moving with such seeming deliberation they looked like old, old men.

Raj Ahten waved at Salim, lying on the carpets within the tent. “Move my vector to the Dedicates’ wagon. Place guards to watch these others.”