Cinnia wrinkled her nose. “Have I not said I do not wish to hear about your other women, my lord? It is not a subject that is of interest to me, nor are your exploits. But as I do not wish you to be discontent in Belmair for we need your magic, let us set a time each week for us to take pleasures together. If your lusts need to be released more frequently then you have my permission to take a concubine for your pleasures.”

“Nay, Cinnia, only you will serve my lusts, and you will do so when and where I desire it,” Dillon told her.

“How dare you order me about!” Cinnia cried out angrily.

“Dare?” He laughed briefly. “May I remind you, Cinnia, that I am the king of Belmair. And you are its queen only because I permit you to be. I think perhaps the time has come for me to teach you that lesson so you will not forget it again.” Reaching out he yanked her into his arms and kissed her hard. “Soften your lips,” he commanded her, and then he kissed her again. This time the kiss was slow and hot.

Her heart was beating wildly, but she wasn’t going to let this foreigner they had made her marry control her. Cinnia bit the lips kissing hers.

“Ouch!” Dillon yelped, surprised that she would fight back. But then taking her by her arm he dragged her across the hall, sat down upon a chair and yanked her down across his lap, pulling up her silk skirts as he did. His big hand descended to make contact with her bare flesh as he licked the blood from his lips.

Cinnia squealed furiously. “Stop that at once, you brute!” she commanded him.

Dillon began to spank her in earnest. “Did no one ever bother to teach you manners, you vicious little bitch?” he demanded. Eight. Nine. Ten.

“I hate you!” Cinnia yelled, and she struggled to escape his grasp.

“Your behavior and attitude haven’t exactly warmed my heart, either,” he growled at her. His hand continued to smack at her round bottom. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.

“I’ll never take pleasures with you again, you beast!” she threatened.

“Oh, yes, you will,” Dillon replied. Twenty! “I’m going to teach you how to be a woman, Cinnia.” He dumped her onto the hall floor, and stood up. “Anytime. Anyplace.” He quickly pulled her up. “Here. Now!”

Cinnia suddenly found herself being drawn down into his lap, and onto his manhood. She gasped with surprise to find herself very wet and ready for him. How could this be? He had been violent with her, and not at all a lover. She moaned low as her burning buttocks made contact with his bare thighs, and she felt him inside her fully sheathed. “The servants!” she cried softly.

“Will learn to be discreet,” he said as softly. “Now ride me, my queen, and ride me hard. If you do not give me pleasures, Cinnia, I will move us to the high board, and take you there until you do,” he threatened her. “I will lay your naked body upon that polished wood and make you scream for all in the castle to hear. Now, ride me!”

Cinnia began to cry. “I don’t know how!” she sobbed.

“Move yourself up and down upon my rod, my queen,” he told her, and when she began to comply he encouraged her, “That’s it, Cinnia. Now faster, and yet faster!”

She jogged up and down upon his manhood, her pace growing quicker with each passing moment. He held her gently about the waist, encouraging her onward. Her eyes closed and she grew languid as in spite of herself Cinnia began to enjoy the conjunction between them. His hardness felt so good. He probed her deeply and suddenly something within her responded. “Oh, yes!” she cried low. “Yes!”

Dillon smiled to himself. He had found her magic center. Every woman had one. It was just a matter of finding it. He helped her to help him work it, and very quickly Cinnia was whimpering as the pleasures began to flood her. “That’s it, my queen,” he murmured in her ear, and he kissed her mouth in a long and lingering kiss. This time she did not bite him. And then he felt the quivers within her beginning to rise up to overwhelm her. He allowed her the moment, and when she fell forward on his shoulder he gently lifted her off of his turgid manhood cradling her against his silk-covered chest. It would quiet itself shortly, and he was not at all ready to give up pleasures. The night was young. “Are you ready to eat now?” he asked her casually.

“You are a horrible man,” Cinnia murmured, her eyes still closed.

“When we have finished our meal I will show you some other places a man and a woman may take pleasures together,” he purred in her ear.

She wanted to stand up, but she knew that right now she couldn’t. How was it possible that he could make her feel this way? But it felt so right nestling against him.

Finally Cinnia thought she might stand up. “I’m ready now,” she told him, and arose from his lap wobbling just slightly. She felt his hand beneath her elbow and while she wanted to tell him she was perfectly capable of walking by herself, Cinnia didn’t dare because she knew it wasn’t true, and worse, so did he.

He seated her at their high board and took his place next to her. And then as if by magic the servants began entering the hall with the steaming bowls and platters with their meal. If any of them had seen or heard what had just transpired between their master and their mistress, they showed no evidence of it. Dillon filled his plate with raw oysters, prawns, ham and meat pie. Cinnia took prawns, capon and an artichoke. There was bread, butter and cheese, which they shared.

“The hall is too big for just the two of us,” Dillon noted. “Is there a smaller chamber we might use?”

“My father always ate in the Great Hall,” Cinnia said.

“I am not your father,” Dillon responded. “The hall is a grand place for entertaining, but you and I need a more intimate place to dine when we are alone.”

“It is tradition…” she began.

“Some traditions need to be changed. It is ridiculous for two people to eat in a hall built for great feasts. And it makes extra work for the servants who have to trot the length of this hall simply to bring us a platter or bowl so we may take a bit of food.” Dillon looked out over the hall to where the servants stood attentively awaiting an order.

“Who is steward here?” he asked.

A plump, short man stepped forward. “I am, Your Majesty. My name is Britto.” He bowed politely. “How may I serve Your Majesty?”

“Is there a smaller chamber where the queen and I may eat when we are alone?” Dillon asked the steward.

Britto’s brow furrowed in thought. Say no. The steward heard Cinnia’s voice in his head, for a quick look in her direction told him she had not spoken aloud. Say no! came the command again. “Your Majesty, I regret we have no other accommodation for your meals,” Britto said apologetically.

“You are certain, Britto?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, I am certain,” the stewart said nervously.

“Then there is nothing else for it but that I make the Great Hall smaller when it is just the two of us,” Dillon replied calmly. “Hall, small,” he said. And suddenly the chamber walls seemed to move in, and the length of the room shrank by three-quarters.

Britto’s eyes grew wide with his surprise, and the waiting servants murmured anxiously as they suddenly found themselves in a considerably smaller space.

“What have you done?” Cinnia demanded to know.

“It’s a simple charm,” Dillon told her. “When we leave the hall it will return to its original size. But if it is just the two of us, or we have fewer than ten guests, the hall will retain a lesser proportion. Your precious tradition is preserved, Cinnia.” He looked down at the steward, who still stood before the high board. “And in future, Britto, you will accept my orders over those of the queen. Do you understand?” Dillon picked up his wine cup and drank deeply.

Britto swallowed hard. “I heard her, Your Majesty. Plain as day, I did, but she never opened her mouth,” the steward said, looking distressed.

Dillon laughed. “I’m surprised all of Belmair didn’t hear her she was shouting at you so loud, Britto. Your mistress is a prankster, are you not, my queen?” He caught Cinnia’s hand up, and kissed it. “She will not do it again, however, will you, my pet? It really is not kind to frighten our good servants.”

“I am sorry I startled you, Britto,” Cinnia said, extricating her hand from her husband’s. She glared at Dillon. “How did you know?” she murmured at him as the servants now returned to their duties and began clearing the high board of the dishes.

“Speaking silently comes naturally to me,” he told her. “That is one of the ways my mother first knew of my talents. Certainly you didn’t think I wouldn’t hear you?”

“Why did the dragon pick you?” Cinnia responded with her own question.

“Because she needs a sorcerer with true strength, and I am he,” Dillon replied. “You simply do not have the skills to overcome whatever magic is at work in Belmair. I do. But I will need your help. The dragon would not have taught you magic if you could not be of help to me. You must stop being angry at me, Cinnia, because I am king. You could not rule by those traditions that you seem to hold so dear. And you will never lose your fear of taking pleasures with me until you stop being afraid of losing yourself to our passion, for there is great passion between us. You are my wife. I want no other woman.”

“How can you say that and mean it?” Cinnia said. “Until several days ago I knew nothing of you. But within moments of our meeting we were wed. And after that we were joined, to legitimize your selection by the dragon as this world’s king. You know nothing of me.” Was he, she wondered, the one she had sometimes felt watching her? A feeling had come upon her at times in the last few years that she was being spied upon. Nay, it could not be Dillon spying. The feeling was not the same and he had not been aware of her existence in years past.

“But I do know you,” Dillon continued. “You are beautiful, which is obvious to all who look upon you. You are intelligent, and perhaps a bit too proud. You are kind, for I saw how gently you spoke with your father in the hour before his death. You have manners. And you have magic about you, for ’twas not only I who created that spectacular effect that was the result of our joining, Cinnia.”

“It didn’t happen before we ate,” Cinnia answered him. “And of course I am proud. I was born royal.”

“It didn’t happen earlier because we were angry with one another. We were not making love. We were making war,” Dillon told her. “When I make love to you, my queen, you will experience passion again as you did at the joining. As for pride I recognize it easily. My grandmother has the same prideful bearing that you do. She was born a queen, and she never lets you forget it. Now, the table is cleared. I believe that we have some unfinished business.” He stood, drawing her up with him. “Come!”

“I don’t know you,” Cinnia said as he led her out of the hall and upstairs to their apartments where their servants were awaiting them.

“What would you like to know?” he asked her. “You can see that I am handsome,” he teased her.

“And vain!” she shot back. “You told me you are twenty-two to my seventeen. You have siblings. How many? Are they brothers or sisters? I’ll tell you what I do know. You seem kind. And your brow gets wrinkly when you concentrate on something. And I know that your magic is far greater than mine. But you could teach me.”

“I have three sisters and a brother,” he told her. “Anoush is the oldest. She is your age. Zagiri is thirteen. The twins-Taj is the boy, and his sister, Marzina-are nine. My little brother is my stepfather’s heir. On Hetar it is believed I am the son of the martyred Fiacre clan chief, Vartan. Anoush is his daughter. As for teaching you my magic, Cinnia, eventually I will share some of my knowledge with you, but right now you are not mature enough, and your temper is much to quick to be entrusted with too much power.” His hand touched the door to their apartments, and it sprang open for him. “We will bathe first,” he said to her. “Together.” Ferrex and Cinnia’s serving woman, Anke, hurried forward. “Prepare the bath,” Dillon said. “Anke, take your mistress, and when she has disrobed bring her to the bath chamber.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Anke said. Like Ferrex she was neither old nor young. She was of medium height with a sweet face, slightly plump with pretty brown eyes and brown hair she wore in two thick braids woven about her head.

“Do not dally, Anke,” the young king said.

“No, Your Majesty, I won’t,” Anke answered, and she led her mistress away.

“He wants us to bathe together,” Cinnia said to her servant. “Is that not shocking, Anke? I shall not do it. Lock the bedchamber door.”