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PROLOGUE
The prickle of my patron's stare scratched at my breasts as the beautiful bodies surged against me, rolling me between them. I'd had plenty of guests who preferred to watch my work rather than partake of it themselves. Some as high and mighty as you might find on thrones or behind pulpits. I'd always enjoyed their strained energy, their desperate refusal. They sought to deny themselves pleasure, but they didn't understand their own habit. The denial was the source for them, and it fed my own hunger and craving every bit as much as the grunting, gasping, sweating figures who touched me with enthusiasm and demand.
But not this man. There was no warmth from his stare, no need and no denial. He watched for some other purpose, studied with some other goal.
It should've warned me, but I was busy feasting.
Thenéktarwas rich from the two men on the bed with me. They wereother, like I was, although not in any way I could perceive.
A mouth lowered to my breath, kiss almost vicious, and I arched with a cry, pressing my ass to the hips fitted behind me. They held me close, their frenzied need like clouds of perfume in the air. I gasped, swallowing it by the lungful, my skin stroked with the ripples of rising sexual pleasure. My ambrosia. Mynéktar. A richer drink than wine, a stronger meal than a king's roast.
In my body, release was a wave, a sweeping, curling, retreating motion. But in my soul, it was a sudden flood, a cascading rush into the hollow of my belly. If I was starving, I might be sated, soothed by the fresh supply of pleasure.
Whoring was clever work for one of Hedone's daughters, and I was never starving.
A golden hand gripped my throat, drawing me back like a bowstring, and the man behind me bellowed as he reached his finish. I laughed as his hand squeezed a little too tightly, my head soaking in the surplus of rapture. My breath was gifted back to me as the lovely young man pounding into my cunt cried out, falling into me, sending the pile of us to heavy, soft sheets.
It was a beautiful drowning. I would sleep for hours until it settled into my bones. I would glow brightly and dazzle eyes for days. I smiled, reaching drowsy hands to my companions, petting them with sweet gratitude.
Out of the corner of my eye, the shadow of my third guest rose from his seat.
"She'll do very well. Collect her."
I giggled at the words, and the man at my back groaned, shoving me to the side, the younger man still catching his breath.
"Quickly," the cool voice ordered. "Before she recovers."
I was drunk and vulnerable in my satisfaction. My hands were limp as someone covered my face with fabric, thrusting a coarse bag over my head. I scratched weakly at the hand that wrestled my arms behind my back.
And still I laughed, cried, trembled in the wake of my traitorous guests' pleasure.
I was trapped, though I didn't yet know what kind of cage had fallen down around me in my foolish naïveté. Only that I was of a kind to survive.
I didn't know that survival would not be a blessing.
And so, centuries passed…
CHAPTER1
FREEDOM AND STARVATION
“Fancy a fuck, luv?"
"Give us a wink."
"I'll see you right, mi'lord."
The pretty birds of the evening fluttered on the corner in front of me, skirts swishing up to reveal the wares on offer.
"She's costin' us punters," one of the women hissed as the pack of merry men passed our little huddle.
I hunched and ducked my head, turning my back to the group.
"She's no more trouble than a mouse."
"She looks ill. They'll think we're the same."
I licked my lips, torn and chapped as they were, and they stung in the wake. My hands were numb. My feet too. The street wavered and slid side to side in my vision.
