“Tell me, human. Why are you here?”
Lily blushed and looked at the floor, but Zamiza was patient. The silence finally forced Lily to look up and answer.
“Because the monst… the king wants to sire a child with a human woman. With me.”
Zamiza and Fayla exchanged a fleeting look at Lily’s slip of the tongue but said nothing about it.
“Yes,” said Zamiza after a while. “The king has been trying to achieve this for over a quarter of a century. He has not been successful. With time, we tried different ways of… enhancing the chance for the union to be fruitful. We found out that there is a higher possibility of conceiving if the female… feels the highest pleasure.”
Lily didn’t understand where Zamiza’s explanation was going. She waited for the fairy to continue.
“Please, understand the king’s frustration. He has been trying for twenty-five years, and so far he’s been unsuccessful. Although it may seem to you humans that he finds great pleasure in ravishing human women… Well, at this point it is just a chore. And with every unsuccessful attempt, the king’s passion wanes.
“But he still hopes. While his lifespan is much longer than a human’s, he’s not immortal. He wants to have an heir, and he intends it to be a child of a human woman. He has done much to build a bridge between your world and ours, and yet… He feels that a ruler born of his seed to a human woman would be able to unite us.”
Lily shook her head in disbelief.
“We’ve been told that it is just a sacrifice the monster king demands of us. To send one woman every year. That if she managed to become pregnant, he would marry her and make her one of his queens…”
Zamiza laughed, and her laughter rang both melodic and scornful.
“He has no other queens. He needs his half-human heir to be legitimate and his claim uncontested.”
All this time, Fayla’s and Eula’s hands had been wandering over Lily’s hair and arms. Now she shook them off and walked to the window. She felt uncomfortable with her thoughts and the way she had viewed the monster… the king. Who wasn’t a monster, apparently, but a man making countless sacrifices to make his subjects’ lives better.
“So, let’s get started on making that heir, shall we?” said Zamiza, her voice brightly energetic.
“What’s the point without him here?” asked Lily, turning to the fairies. Again, she was struck by their shimmering beauty as they stood together, sunshine drawn to their skin like bees to honey.
Zamiza laughed.
“Oh, he will arrive. We’re here to make sure that you’re ready for him when he comes. And that you find the encounter pleasurable.”
Understanding shot through Lily and lit her with anger. Was this another round ofpampering? Were the fairies supposed to make her pliant and eager for the king’s seed? Was she just a slab of meat to be tenderized and seasoned before cooking?
She had a vision of herself being pleasured by the skilled fingers of the beautiful women. And when she was just on the cusp of her climax, the king would come inside, completely unaffected, looking at her flushed, exposed body with a bored expression. He would quickly pump inside her, empty himself and leave. And she would be alone—dazzled, confused, humiliated…
“No,” she said, surprised that her voice sounded so authoritative. “Even the thought makes me feel sick. If he wants me to bear his child, he should at least come and participate like a man.”
Thunderous laughter boomed outside the bedroom. The door banged open and the monster king stepped inside.
Chapter V
He was nothing like the feral creature from her nightmare, and yet, he resembled him in an uncanny way. His eyes gleamed with the same unhinged passion, his frame towered over everyone in the room, and his muscles bulged and glinted.
His arms, powerful and thick, were left bare. His torso, broad in the shoulders and tapering off to a lean yet strong waist, was clad in a soft black fabric that molded to his skin. He wore loose trousers. His bare toes ended in claws, as did his fingers.
He wasn’t monstrously gigantic, just inhumanly tall. The sharp tips of his enormous ivory horns scraped lightly against the ceiling, and their color contrasted with the brick redness of his skin. The corded, tense muscles in his neck made it thick and powerful. Overwhelming strength emanated from his body even when he stood completely still. There was no escaping him.
When he smiled mockingly, showing his white, sharp teeth, Lily realized her mouth was hanging open. She closed it with a snap.
“Out,” he said.
He was looking at her when he said it. Lily’s legs listened, bypassing her brain. She was halfway to the door, following the fairies, when a red, muscled arm barred her way.
“Not you. You’re going to participate like a woman.”
A new sort of nervousness exploded in Lily’s abdomen. She gulped, trying to moisten her suddenly dry throat. And excitement followed close behind anxiety. He was monstrous… but so was her curiosity.
