He had lost the carnal appetites that once consumed him only to discover them reawakened by her lethal touch.

The curse flowing black and powerful beneath her skin was killing him and bringing him back to life at the same time. Each day, they engaged in an odd courtship of profound intimacy and innocence, one that left him clawing for control and wondering if his heart would pound out of his chest.

He needed no one to tell him she was untried. Cededa had never cared for virgins. They were too much trouble for his debauched tastes, like high strung horses unbroken to the saddle. Imogen displayed none of those nervous traits, even when she discovered the brothel scroll tucked away in the library. Niamh had done a fine job raising a young woman grounded in practicality. Cededa, however, had no doubt Imogen was innocent in body and unfamiliar with the subtle signals of desire.

Cededa had lost count of the women he’d seduced and who had seduced him before the Waters made a mockery of his humanity. Practiced in the art of sensuality, his wives and concubines had been raised to capture the eye and passions of an emperor. Imogen seduced him with nothing more than her graceful, lethal hands and a steady faith in his ability to break the hold of her curse.

“Sire?”

The single word pulled him out of his musings. He dipped his chin. “My apologies for the inattention. I’ve something to show you.”

He crooked a finger. She crossed the room to stand beside him, listening as he uttered another soft word in a forgotten tongue. The torches brightened, their flames leaping higher to better illuminate the frescoes painted on the whitewashed walls. Not as bright as the illustrations on the scroll, they still glowed, their details highlighted in rich colors painted by a far more skilled artist than the one who painted the scroll.

These were neither landscapes nor portraits, unless one considered scenes of mating configurations of the land. A wide-eyed Imogen abandoned Cededa for the corner of the wall and a closer look at the first painting in the series that bordered the entire room.

Meant to arouse and excite the king and his chosen companion, the frescoes were as graphic in their depiction of sexual acts as the scroll had been.

The first painting showed a man covering a woman, his hips resting within the cradle of her thighs, the curve of his naked flank partially covered by her hand. He lay in profile to the viewer, and bent to suckle the woman’s breast. The woman’s painted eyes were heavy-lidded with pleasure. Cededa watched, fascinated, as a rosy blush crawled up Imogen’s neck and into her cheeks. A reciprocal heat that had nothing to do with Tineroth’s warm temperatures, pooled in his stomach before spilling downward. He stood still and enjoyed the once forgotten sensation of an erection.

Imogen moved on to the next painting. Here, the same man knelt behind a different woman, his cock half buried between her buttocks. In the next, the same woman knelt before him, sucking his cock into her mouth. A fourth had them switching places and partners. A different man and woman stretched out along the wall, his face hidden by her bent leg, her expression one of ecstasy as she arched her back and buried her fingers in his hair.