“A woman should not involve herself with magic,” he told her.

Cinnia rolled her eyes, very surprised. “You sound more Belmairan than Yafir,” she told him. “Do you see women only as a means of breeding your children and keeping your home, my lord? Is that all female creatures mean to you?”

“Yafir women have always been modest and unassuming,” he said.

“Then you should not have taken she who is called the sorceress of Belmair for a wife,” Cinnia said bluntly.

“The dragon taught you little,” Ahura Mazda said. “Oh, you can shape-shift, my precious, and it is most amusing I will admit. But other than that you do nothing more than brew teas and make salves. Do you not know that I watched as you grew up?”

“And did you watch when Dillon and I made love, my lord?” Cinnia asked softly. “Did you not see what happened when we took pleasures together?”

“A trick used by the sorcerer to convince you that you were his!” the Yafir lord said angrily. He had seen them entwined, the light about them golden, the air alive. He hated Dillon for the passion he had, and the passion he brought out in Cinnia. She had shown no such passion for him, Ahura Mazda thought jealously.

“’Twas no trick, my lord,” Cinnia said low.

“You belong to me!” he told her.

“If you say so, my lord,” Cinnia responded.

“Sorceress, will you defy me?” the Yafir lord demanded.

“Nay, my lord, I am yours to command,” Cinnia said dutifully.

He took her mouth in a quick hard kiss, pinioning her beneath him. “Aye, you are mine to command, and I command you kiss me willingly now!”

He would not break her, Cinnia thought. He would take her from the husband she loved. Then she would make this Yafir fall deeper and deeper in love with her. She would break his heart, Cinnia decided. Reaching up she pulled his head back to hers, and began to kiss him slowly, deliberately, with a heated passion that set his blood aboil.

She took his tongue into her mouth, sucking upon it. Her hands roamed his lean body, caressing him with sensuous touches. She arched her body so that her round breasts pushed against him. Then drawing a little away from him, she said, “Is this what you require of me, my lord?” And when he groaned with his longing for her, she continued, “Give me what I want, and you shall have all of me that you desire, my lord Ahura Mazda. I shall hold nothing back from you. Nothing!”

“Will you love me?” he asked her.

“Because I am an honest woman I will make no promises to you,” Cinnia said. “I hate you for stealing me from Dillon, and from our life together. But I am a Belmairan king’s daughter. I know that as much as I desire to return to him and to the life we had, it can never be. From all I have read in the Academy library the Yafir were not always scorned by my people. Once we lived together amicably. And after centuries of interbreeding with Belmairan women you are actually more like us than you would admit.

“I will accept that this must now be the life I live, my lord. I will give you my body, and take pleasures with you. What other choice do I have? It is all well and good to say that you marked me as yours when I was born. Until you told me that I knew it not. When my father lay dying I was given to a stranger. I came to love him, and he me. But I do not believe I can ever love you for the injury you have done to me, to Dillon. Still, if you are content to have me knowing how I feel, then I will no longer challenge your authority over me, or over my life. Just give me some Belmairan earth, and some plants of my choosing so I may once again have a purpose. Certainly you have illness in Yafirdom. It will only increase your prestige to have a wife who is a healer, my lord.”

“I can have my way with you without concessions,” he answered her, a little bit angered by her candor. He was not used to women speaking to him so frankly. His women worshipped and adored him. He was the lord of the Yafir.

“Surely you can, my lord,” Cinnia agreed with him pleasantly, “but forcing me to your will will never be as sweet for you as if I give myself to you willingly.” Reaching up she brushed his face with the back of her hand. “You know that in your heart, my lord.”

“Belmairan sorceress,” he growled at her.

And Cinnia smiled into his aquamarine eyes. “Perhaps there is more to my sorcery than you had anticipated, my lord.” She drew his head down to hers and kissed him slowly. Releasing him, she whispered against his lips, “Give me what I desire. And I will give you what you desire. I do not ask you for gold or jewels. Just a bit of my native soil and some plants so I may keep busy. Is it truly so much that you would deny me?” Pushing him from her she opened her chamber robe revealing her breasts. He lunged toward her, but Cinnia stopped him with a hard hand. “Promise me you will give me what I want. My earth. My plants.”

“I want your breasts,” he said angrily, “and I am your lord!”

“Promise me!” she hissed at him. And then she murmured a quick silent spell. Keep me free from all lust. My wish is fair. My need is just. Her words had been swift, and he did not hear her, for his desires were fully engaged.

Pinioning her down beneath him his silver head lowered to reach her nipple, and he sucked hard on it. After some time had past he transferred his attentions to the other nipple. Cinnia lay still. Frustrated he bit the nipple in his mouth. Nothing. His lips kissed their way down her torso. Cinnia did not move. His head pushed between her thighs, and peeling her nether lips back he licked at her pleasure jewel, sucked desperately upon it. To his shock she made no sound, nor did her love juices release themselves. His cock was as hard as rock, but he knew he would gain no satisfaction even if he fucked her for an hour without stopping. Her small magic was allowing her to deny him pleasures.

In all of his life Ahura Mazda had never been defeated in anything he had undertaken. But now he knew if he was to have what he wanted of Cinnia, he must give her what she wanted. “You shall have your Belmairan earth and your plants,” he told her with a groan. “Refuse my passion no longer, my precious.”

“I should make you wait until I have what I want,” Cinnia said cruelly. “But I will not punish you this time. I shall give you a taste of what you want now, my lord, in order to encourage you to good behavior with me. It will not be like our hasty matings each day when you come to get me with child. It will be time filled with fire, and should you attempt to cheat me of my due, Ahura Mazda, it will never again be like this! You will suffer and ache with the memory of what could be. Now let us begin again with my breasts, my lord. Pleasure me well, and you shall be pleasured in return.” Fill me now with heated lust. The debt is paid. My lord is just. Cinnia said silently as his mouth closed again over a nipple.

Immediately fire flowed through her. She moaned as he sucked and tongued her, his other hand kneading her other breast. She could feel her need for him rising slowly, slowly as he moved to her other breast, then finally began to kiss his way down her torso. But this time he did not go directly to her mons. He kissed the length of each slender leg, kissed each dainty foot, sucking seductively upon her toes. Then he surprised her by turning her onto her belly. He licked up her calves, and thighs. He kissed and nibbled her buttocks. Then briefly he lay atop her, kissing the back of her neck, whispering soft words of his love into her ear with a hot breath. Then he rolled off of her, turning her onto her back and looking down into her face.

Cinnia smiled up at him thinking as she did that she would never love him as she did Dillon. Indeed she might never love him at all. But she could see the passion he had for her in his own beautiful eyes. She could never return to Belmair as anything other than an outcast. And like the other women here she would live for who knew how long. She did not think she was meant to be miserable. Dillon would eventually enjoy pleasures with another woman. Why should she not enjoy them, too? Reaching up, she drew his head back down to hers, kissing him slowly, hungrily. “For tonight,” she told him, “I am yours, my lord.”

Ahura Mazda had seen the slight shift in her emotions within her green eyes. And now he meant to punish her just a little for her strength. Laying upon his hip next to her he pushed two fingers past her nether lips and thrust into her now wet sheath. His fingers moved back and forth until Cinnia was actually squirming upon his hand with her need for pleasures. Withdrawing the fingers he smiled slightly at her hiss of annoyance. “Beg me for it,” he said in a cold, hard voice. “Beg me for pleasures, my precious Belmairan sorceress. I have others here to satisfy my cravings. You have only me! Beg! Or I will leave you, and you will go without my cock, which I know you are ready for now.” Then he laughed at the look of outrage upon her face. And to tease her further he found her pleasure jewel, and began to worry at it with a wickedly skilled fingertip.

“Just when I think I might begin to at least like you,” Cinnia told him, “you show me once more the monster you are!” She strained against his finger, trying to gain some measure of satisfaction, but he cleverly tortured her while refusing her release.

“Beg me!” he told her, grinning, quite pleased with himself.

“To Limbo with you, my lord! Go and fuck one of your willing women who will spread themselves and say thank-you afterward,” she taunted him. “We both know that you want only me, Ahura Mazda! That you marked me at my birth to be yours!” Cinnia mocked the Yafir lord. Then she laughed triumphantly as he flung himself atop her, and drove his great cock into her throbbing sheath with a groan. “Harder! Deeper!” she cried.

Now it was he who laughed. “You are begging for it after all,” he told her. “You shall have what you want, my precious. I will work you harder, go deeper until you are screaming with the pleasures we are sharing.” And then he proceeded to do just that.

Cinnia’s head spun wildly. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Their mating was utterly incredible. She could feel every inch of his cock as it drove back and forth inside of her. It was massive, stretching the walls of her sheath, pulsing with life as it made its way deeper and deeper within her until she was crying out with the pleasures overwhelming her, overcoming him. “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” she whimpered to him. And he didn’t until the pleasures overcame them both, and they fell into a half swoon.

And at that same moment Dillon groaned, and awoke from his sleep. He had been dreaming. Dreaming that Cinnia had taken pleasures with the Yafir lord, and enjoyed them. Tears pricked the back of his eyelids. He swallowed hard. Could he, a foreign king of Belmair, cast aside all tradition just to have his wife back? And if Belmairans would not accept her, what was he to do? He could not take Cinnia and depart. The dragon had chosen him to rule Belmair. His father concurred. He had a duty to Belmair. When the morning came he sought out his mother. “What am I to do?” he asked her. “Last night I had a dream. Cinnia lay in the arms of Ahura Mazda and enjoyed pleasures with him. I believe it is true, Mother. I am coming to realize as each day passes that even if I regain my wife, the Belmairans will not accept her. I have tried to hide from this truth, but I can no longer do it. I do not know what to do. They will force me to another marriage sooner or later, I fear.”

“I have never before seen you at a loss,” Lara said. “You must love Cinnia greatly, my son. If she has taken pleasures with the Yafir lord you know it is because she had no choice in the matter. Why should it distress you? Women are able, even as men, to enjoy pleasures with those other than their mates. She did not seek him out. He took her. She does what she must to survive until you can find her. At least she will not give the Yafir lord a child thanks to the spell you set upon her. We will get her back, Dillon.”

“The searchers grow fewer for the fields needed planting, and tending,” he told her. “Among the dukes only Alban of Belia truly aids me now. We have sought everywhere, Mother. There is no trace of the Yafir.”

“You have searched in all the obvious places,” Lara said. “Where have you not looked, Dillon?”

He shrugged. “We have inspected every cave, the hills, the fields, the woodlands, the meadows. We have sought out villages now deserted but we can find nothing at all.”

He sighed. “Where else is there to look?” Dillon asked his mother.

Lara considered the answer to her son’s question, and then she said, “Have you sought in the sea?” she asked him