Page 55 of Into The Rift

That took away any enjoyment I might have had from the dancing, and I glared over at Linnius. I tried to imagine if I might have been forced to do that if Niko hadn’t claimed me, and I got a brief, intense feeling of homesickness. I was so far away from everyone and everything I’d ever known. Tygeria might have its faults—and patently we did—but we had no slavery in any of the Tygerian governed planets. Not anymore, since the war. It was a totally abhorrent idea to me.

Linnius clapped his hands when the dancing was finally over and said something to the crowd—again, I turned off the device in my ear, because I didn’t want to hear anything from him. That’s why I missed what he called out to Niko. But when Niko’s lips tightened and he snapped something back at Linnius in a loud voice, I scrambled to flip the device back on.

Linnius was laughing, and Melanius was giving me a mean, well-satisfied look. I whirled to look at Niko.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

“Niko, tell me.”

His face darkening, he spat out the words. “He asked me if I’d let you give him a lap dance.”

“To which you replied?”

“What do you think?” he said, his voice angry.

“Okay, then tell him this. Tell him I said, I dance only for you.”

He looked over at me in shock and said, “No, princeling, don’t let him taunt you into doing something beneath you.”

“Oh, it would be my pleasure,” I said, and slipped over into his lap, facing him. I glanced back over at Linnius, who was staring at us with his mouth hanging slightly open.

The music, which had never stopped, was playing something slow and sexy sounding, so I began to move my hips in time to it and leaned in to kiss the side of Niko’s face over and over again. He put his hands down on my ass, which I knew was to cover it from view and I kissed him again, this time on the lips and more lingeringly this time. Niko’s tongue gently touched mine and his breath was intoxicating, like the sweet wine we’d been drinking. I made no effort to pull away, but only increased my hip gyrations and his lush lips moved over mine again and again.

I felt him tuck his hands inside my tights and caress me over and over in some pretty intimate places. It was getting harder to breathe and a silence had fallen all around us as we put on our little show. He pulled away and whispered in my ear, and his breath in my ear gave me a full body shudder. My typpid had never been so hard, and I was actually feeling lightheaded. He held me close and then bit down on the place just under my jaw where he’d given me the first bite.

“Raise up a little, princeling,” he whispered, and when I did, he slid down my tights to expose my ass. He immediately pulled down my jacket over it, so no one got more than a glimpse, and that was probably just the way he’d planned it.

I started blushing as he told me to wrap my legs around his waist. It was hard to do that and awkward, but I managed. He began to thrust his hips as if he was fucking me right there at the table, and all I could do was hang on for the ride. His typpid was somehow bare too, and I didn’t know when that happened, but he was moving it between my thighs, and I was almost swooning as he moved against me and bent over to suck my blood at the same time.

I think I did swoon after a while, because the next thing I really remembered was sitting in my seat again, with Niko’s arm around me and my head lying on his shoulder. He looked down at me solicitously.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?”

Sweetheart? He’d never called me names like that before and it electrified me. I nodded and cuddled closer. “We’ll go as soon as you’ve recovered. I believe I got too carried away. When I get you home, I can give you some of my blood.”

“Why wait? Why not show them who we are to each other?”

He smiled and kissed me, and then bit almost casually into his wrist to hold it to my lips. “Just suck gently and take only a little. You’re not used to it, and it will make you drunk.”

I began to suck, and it tasted about like I thought it would—slightly coppery and not really unpleasant since I knew it was his. It began to warm me all over like strong liquor then, and it was only when I started moaning and trying to hold onto his wrist with both hands that he gently pulled away. I realized that I already felt stronger and not so lightheaded. But he was right. I did feel a little drunk.

He got to his feet and pulled me up beside him as new dancers came out to take the floor. I glanced over at the emperor’s table and saw him watching us with angry, hooded eyes. Niko led me out through the darkened room and out into the sweeter air of one of the courtyards. It was almost as bright as daylight, though the light had a silvery quality.

“It’s the moons,” Niko told me, pointing up at the night sky. They’re all in the same phase at the moment. Not full.”

“Blake calls that a gibbous moon. The one that follows the full moon and is the beginning of the moon’s transition into darkness.”

“Yes, that sounds like it.”

“With three of our moons close by, we get a good deal of light. You see the closest ones—Naha, Doco, and Tri.”

“And that’s Mara way back over there.”

“Yes. The one we were on not long ago.”

“Where you first made love to me.”

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