Standing, Kedar held out his arms as a comfortable loose caftan was wrapped about him. He slid his feet into the soft slippers that were offered him, and with a smile of thanks to the bath attendants he left the room and walked toward his own apartments. As he reached them the eunuch guarding the door flung it open at precisely the right moment, and Kedar walked through into a large room.

It was a simple but elegant room with walls that were covered in black, red, and white tiles in a geometric pattern a quarter of the way up and whitewashed above. To the left of the door were three casement windows, the wall above the windows decorated in a fan-shaped pattern of designed plaster. The floor was cool red tile, but over a good portion of it was a fine, thick red, blue, and gold rug. On either side of the room were low, armless divans of red brocade with plump white pillows embroidered in gold thread. In the center was a footed brass brazier, and from the dark beamed ceiling hung a brass lamp with amber glass. Near the divans there were polished low, round ebony tables, upon which rested smaller decorated brass lamps with their amusingly curved mouths spouting wicks.

Opposite the salon door was a large double couch curtained in red velvet and cloth of gold. Over the couch was a brocaded cloth of gold awning with wide red velvet stripes, and the walls around the high couch were hung in embroidered red velvet. The couch was covered in a matching brocaded velvet fabric with a busy geometric design upon it. Enormous feather and down cushions in multi-colored silks and velvets were piled upon it in the corners and along the back. A long red velvet cushion with silk tassels at each corner had been set upon the tiled step to the couch.

She should have been awaiting him there, but she was not. Instead, she was sleeping upon the couch, within the curtained alcove. Tonight Kedar thought he would be indulgent, but he would teach her her proper place in his life. He was not an Ottoman to be ruled by his women. For a long moment he stood looking down at her, and then kneeling upon the cushions, he studied her at close range. His uncle had been right. She was indeed a beauty. He didn't need to touch her hair to know that it was soft. And her skin! Allah! Had there ever been such skin? Reaching out, he lifted back one side of her ridiculous little bolero, exposing her breast. For a long time he studied the flawless contours of that breast without even touching it. It had the most pleasing roundness to it, and yet the impudent way in which the small pink nipple tilted upward enchanted him. Here again there was no hurry to touch, for he could see with his sharp, knowledgeable eye that the skin was soft, smooth, and firm.

It was then that Skye opened her eyes and caught him in her cool blue-green gaze for a brief moment before lowering her long black lashes in feigned modesty. A tiny smile played at the corners of Kedar's mouth. For a small second she had made him feel like a little boy discovered just as he was about to be naughty. The fact that she could do that on such short acquaintance delighted him. "You cannot blame me for contemplating your beauty, my fair Muna," he said in his deep voice. "You have already ravished me with your face and form."

"It is not for me to say, my lord Kedar," she answered. "I am but your humble slave."

"You recite the words perfectly," was his answer, "yet I do not think for one moment that you believe them."

"I was not raised to be a slave, my lord Kedar."

"Nonetheless you are an exquisite one, and I give thanks to the beneficent Allah who has given you to me, my fair Muna." He was pleased to see that captivity had not broken her spirit. Skye smiled inwardly to herself at his words. She had decided not to be overly meek with this man. It would quickly bore him. His next words caused her to start. "Disrobe for me now, Muna. I would see your beauty entirely rather than through the taunting diaphanous silk of your charming costume."

Skye could not help the shiver that raced through her. This was the moment she had dreaded, for now there was no going back. Once again she wondered if she were mad in what she was attempting to do. Despite what Osman said, there were no guarantees that she would find Niall. What if he was dead by the time she arrived in Fez? Nothing was more fierce than a woman rejected by a man she desires, and Princess Turkhan was a powerful woman. A slave had no rights. He could be killed by his master simply because it amused his master to kill him. For a single second she contemplated racing from the room and begging Osman to stop this charade immediately, before it was too late. Then came the horrifying realization: It was already too late.

Silently she slipped from the soft couch, turning to keep her back to him. With a motion so fluidly graceful that he wasn't even certain how she had accomplished it, Skye slipped the little bolero off and dropped it to the floor. Seated upon the couch now, Kedar admired the long line of her back. There was not a mark on her skin. It was as pristine as an unwritten parchment. Skye carefully loosened her pantaloons, and they puddled around her ankles before she stepped out of them. As she turned he had just a quick glimpse of her breasts and belly before she was kneeling before him, her dark head pressing into the wool carpet. "As my lord commands," she murmured at him.

Ravish. The word entwined itself about his brain. He wanted to ravish her; to leap from his position upon the couch, press her back into the rug, and ravish her! Instead, he took several deep breaths to calm himself. He did not believe in hurrying a woman along passion's pathway, but he had to admit to himself that he had never before desired a woman as greatly as he did this one. Perhaps it was his abstinence on his journey; but Kedar knew it was not. He was not a man to neglect his harem, often sending for two or three women in a single night; but neither was he one of those weak fools who could not survive a day without shoving himself into a warm and willing woman. No. This one was different, and he was fascinated. "Stand up," he commanded her, and watched with pleasure as she gracefully rose from her obeisance.

She, in turn, watched him from beneath lowered lashes as he stood and came down from the couch on the dais toward her. He stopped and then studied her in a slow and leisurely fashion, giving an occasional command which she obeyed silently. "Turn, Muna," and she could feel his eyes moving from her shoulders down to her buttocks, down her legs to her feet. "Turn again." His hazel eyes moved from her feet, up her legs, to her beautifully plump, pearl-smooth Venus mont. He could see that her cleft was fine, long, and deep, an indication, according to harem tradition, of a passionate woman. His eyes continued their inspection to her pleasingly rounded belly, to her lean, flat, and long torso, to her breasts. "Raise your arms," he commanded her. "Put them behind your head."

This had the effect of raising her breasts upward so he might have a complete view of them. Skye had never felt more debased in her entire life as his glance fastened hungrily upon her round breasts. She wondered almost bitterly if he would ask her to open her mouth so he might inspect and count her teeth. She had never until now understood the awful and terrifying degradation of being a slave. Oh, she had legally been the slave of Khalid el Bey until he freed her before their marriage; but Khalid had never treated her like one. He had from the beginning been a man in love. Kedar was not a man in love. He was a man in lust; a man delighted with his new possession, as his careful inspection of her person indicated.

Kedar, however, was not entirely insensitive to his slave. He saw the flush of embarrassment that stained her cheeks as she was silently forced to comply with his wishes. He saw the quickening of her heartbeat in the visible fluttering in her chest, a pounding pulse at the base of her slender throat. He noted that she was trembling ever so slightly, although she forced herself to stand grimly still. Yes, her spirit was still there, and he was glad! He would not break it, only tame it, but then a truly wild thing was never really completely tame. The pleasure at that particular thought washed over him like a soothing balm.

Reaching out, he touched her for the first time. He touched her as he would touch one of his thoroughbred Arab mares to gentle it. His hand smoothed down from her shoulder to her buttock in a slow and easy motion. "Don't be afraid, my fair Muna," he said in his deep, velvet voice; but Skye couldn't restrain the fierce shudder that rolled over her, for the purr in his voice was that of a well-fed and powerful cat. One arm came strongly about her waist, and drawing her close to him he touched her lips gently with his. Then, to her surprise, he loosened her, and holding her lightly, cupped a breast firmly in his other hand. She raised her arm instinctively to fend him off, but he chided her in a mock-stern voice. "No, Muna, it is my right. You belong to me now. I will be patient, fair one, but you are no virgin to fear me." He pulled the silk band from her head, and her long black hair swirled loose.

"I do not know you," she whispered. To her surprise, Skye found that she really was afraid of this man, and what was worse she did not know why.

"It is no matter," he answered. "You are mine, you are beautiful, and I desire you." His thumb rubbed insistently against her hardened nipple, and Skye had to bite her lower lip to keep from screaming aloud. "You have marvelous breasts," he continued. "See how perfectly you fit my hand just to overflowing, Muna? I believe that you have the most perfect breasts I have ever seen." He smiled down at her. 'The bath girls say you are no maid, and they believe that you had children. Were you married, my fair one?"

"Yes, my lord. I am a widow. I have two children, little boys who will now be orphaned, and left to the mercy of my late husband's family." Her head drooped sadly.

"Did you nurse your sons, Muna?"

"Only a little while, my lord. Then came the wet nurse, for women of my class are expected to attend court with their husbands. I could not do that and nurse my babies."

So she was of that high a rank! Kedar was impressed, and very pleased. He quickly decided to have children by this exquisite slave woman, but already his passion for her was so great that he did not want her to waste her time nursing children when she might nurse him. His mother had nursed him until he was six, and he had developed a taste for breast milk that even today was not lost. The idea of being within Muna's fair body while he drank of her milk excited him tremendously, and without meaning to he crushed her tender breast in his hand. Skye cried out with pain, and Kedar, instantly remorseful, caressed her tenderly. "Forgive me, my fair Muna. I was quite lost in contemplation of your charms." He soothed her breasts, clucking worriedly, wondering aloud if he had bruised her soft skin.

My God, Skye thought, I am naught to him except a possession! He feels nothing for me but the need to own me, to sate his bodily lusts.

Kedar returned to a closer exploration of her body, moving his hand downward to rub across her fluttering belly. His touch was like fire against her skin, stroking seductively, sending tiny darts of fear through her. She wondered if Osman had known the kind of man his nephew really was when he had turned her over to Kedar. This was not a man to be satisfied with the mere taking of her body. He wanted far more than that. He wanted her. He wanted her soul and her mind as well as her body. Could she resist him? Already her treacherous body was beginning to stir under his touch.

His fingers moved downward again, this time coming to rest atop her cleft. Gently he moved his hand back and forth, touching her ever so lightly but insistently. She couldn't let him do this to her, she thought frantically, but her legs seemed made of jelly; and then he demanded, 'Tell me about the first time, Muna? Was he gentle? Did you like it?"

"My lord…" she stuttered her shyness at such an intimate question, and then she almost wept to remember Niall, to remember how it had been with him that first time.

"Tell me!" he murmured against her ear, his tongue licking it softly, his fingers slipping deeper into her cleft to coax the honey down from the hidden recesses of her fevered body.

"H-he was gentle," she whispered, "and yes, I liked it."

"Was he a good lover, my fair Muna?"

"My lord, I was a maid when I went to my husband. I have known but one man in my lifetime. How can I know the answer to such a question?" Her answer was certainly in keeping with the story Osman had concocted about her, and she must remember that story else Niall be lost.