He smiled into her face. It was a knowing smile. An elegant hand stroked her jaw. “It is our night for pleasures, my precious,” he murmured against her lips, and then his mouth closed over hers. His kisses were slow, deep and sweet. He did not hurry his adoration of her lips. He nibbled at her, and his tongue played with hers.

Sapphira felt herself melting into his embrace, responding eagerly to his blatant adoration. Dillon had not touched her in several months, and his lovemaking, while enthusiastic, had never quite pulsed with the passion that this man did. Sapphira sighed, and with that small sound all of her inhibitions fled. If this was a dream it was a most satisfactory one, but she was beginning to realize that it was not a dream. Briefly she considered she would now be a fallen woman to her own people, but would she ever again see her own kind?

“I do not wish to tire you, my precious,” Ahura Mazda said to her, but his hands were already beginning to caress her beneath her silk robe.

Sapphira had a moment of doubt. Should she allow him to continue? Would it matter if he didn’t? His mouth closed over a nipple, and he began to suck upon it. She moaned as she felt her own desires beginning to stir and rise. How long it had been since she had enjoyed such delights? She wasn’t certain how she came to be in this place, or in the arms of the Yafir lord. There would be time later, she was certain, to consider it, but not now. Not when his mouth was wreaking such havoc with her body. Sapphira wiggled out of her robe, and her hands gently forced his garment from his body, gasping with delight as their naked bodies touched, and she felt the fire between her legs deepen.

He leisurely moved his lips over her lush body, kissing, tasting, nipping, the soft pale flesh beneath his mouth. She writhed with enjoyment beneath him, murmuring softly as he moved down her torso. As he reached the junction of her thighs they fell open for him. Sliding forward he peeled open her plump nether lips and buried his head between her legs, his tongue eagerly seeking out that sentient bit of flesh. His own excitement was high, for he had never before known her to be so eager, so acquiescent of his attentions. The taste of her was different tonight. She was musk and honey. Her juices flowed eagerly for him. Nipping at that little nub, he smiled as she squealed and shivered. But then she squirmed away from him, and reaching for his manhood, began to caress it.

Sapphira’s eyes widened slightly as she looked at the male member she now held in her two small hands. She had never before seen anything as huge. The king’s cock has certainly been of a goodly size in comparison with those she had previously seen. But this was enormous. Longer and certainly thicker. Bending, she licked its length several times. She took the tip of it into her mouth, and it filled it. Running her tongue about it she sucked hard. It was much too big, she thought. He would surely split her in two with such a formidable weapon. Releasing him, she looked up. “No,” she told him.

“Yes,” he said, and mounting her, he began to use her.

At first Sapphira struggled and resisted the Yafir lord who said he was her husband, but then she realized that his massive manhood, while stretching the walls of her sheath was also sending her into a paroxysm of pure delight. “Deeper!” she begged him after a few moments had passed. She wrapped her legs about him, clutching him.

He pistoned her enthusiastically.

“Deeper!” she cried out again.

Surprised, he stopped. “Unwrap your legs, and raise them up,” he instructed her. Then pushing her legs back and over her shoulders, he began to drive into her again.

“Harder! Harder!” the woman beneath him whimpered.

He thrust fiercely until her cries of pleasure were so great he could not contain his own juices, and they burst forth to flood her, overflowing, staining her thighs and the bed beneath them. Never had Cinnia given herself so freely, so uninhibitedly to him. He did not withdraw from her deliciousness, but after a few minutes began to ride her again if only to see how far he might drive her.

Her head was spinning. Never had she known pleasures quite like this. “Oh, yes, my lord!” she said to him. “Again! Do it to me again!”

Her memory might be slightly confused and impaired, Ahura Mazda thought as he fucked her in a leisurely manner, but the bump she received had certainly unleashed her inhibitions. Now I will get a child upon her. Now I will have the daughter I so desire! He fell back briefly.

“No!” she shrieked. “I want more!”

“And you shall have it, my precious,” he promised her as he turned her over onto her belly. “Get on your hands and knees, Cinnia,” he instructed her, and when she had, he slid his great cock into her again. “There,” he said as he thrust swiftly back and forth.

“Is that not nice, my darling? See how deep I can go?”

“Oh, yes!” she cried to him. “Yes! Do not cease, my lord, I beg you! Do not!”

It was a night he would not forget. She was amenable to everything he desired, and her passions were such as he had never known, but had always believed she was capable of giving. At one point as she knelt before him, taking his cock into her fiery sheath, he was even able to slowly push a well-oiled ivory replica of his thumb into her tight little fundament. She squealed wildly, but then spasmed violently, squeezing his manhood completely dry of his love juices in the process.

And finally they slept heavily in each others arms. When he awoke, surprised to realize he was still in her bed, he also discovered he was in no hurry to leave it. Rolling onto his side he watched her awaken, and when she did, he said, “Give me the daughter that I desire, Cinnia, and I will make you my queen. I will place you above all my other wives. Would you like that, my precious?”

His queen? Sapphira purred with her approval, and reaching up, pulled him into her arms again. This was not a dream. This was real. Somehow, and she could not even imagine how he had done it, Dillon had managed to put her in his wife’s place while returning Fflergant’s daughter to his side. As she realized what he had done her first instinct was to be furious, but then the Yafir lord began suckling upon her breast again, and promising her extravagances beyond her wildest imaginings. He wanted her. No, he wanted Cinnia, who had obviously not responded to his lusts as she, Sapphira, had. But he believed her to be Cinnia, and if Cinnia she must be, Sapphira thought, then Cinnia she would be. She was surrounded by luxury, adored by this Yafir lord, and the promise of power was enticing. Why did people rail so against the Yafir? She could see little difference between Belmairan and Yafir but for their exotic coloring. “I will gladly give you a daughter, my lord,” she promised him. “And then you will gladly make me your queen, and set me above all others, will you not?”

He looked up from her plump breast. “Of course I will,” he promised her. “I will make you the queen of Yafirdom, and when I take Belmair for our own, you will rule by my side there, as well. But first you must give me my daughter, my precious.” He caressed her soft cheek.

“I will do my best to please you, my lord,” Sapphira said to him. What fools her kin were. She was going to be very content living here among the Yafir, wherever here was, Sapphira thought as she drew his head back to her breast.

They remained within her bedchamber for the next three days while on the opposite side of the door Ahura Mazda’s five other wives waited and wondered. They did not, however, dare to disturb their lord and master. If they had not heard his roars of pleasure, and her cries of delight now and again, they might have considered that Cinnia had finally murdered him. And when he finally exited her bedchamber he was in an expansive mood such as they had never seen.

“Has the sorceress bewitched him?” Tyne wondered.

“Nay, her magic is small,” Arlais said.

“What has happened then?” Volupia asked.

Arlais shook her head. “I do not know.”

“I have heard of cases when a bump on the head changes a person,” Minau said. “Perhaps that is what has happened. Cinnia has changed, and she is more amenable to our husband, more accepting of him, of our world.”

They came to believe that that was what had happened, for the Cinnia they had known for a good year had indeed changed. She was no longer interested in her gardens or her apothecary. Her passion was for more beautiful garments and jewelry with which Ahura Mazda was delighted to gift her. She was imperious and disrespectful of the other women; spoke sharply to the servants, but the Yafir lord would not reprimand her. He was more besotted with her than ever before. He spent several nights a week in her bed, causing annoyance among the other wives who were not pleased to be ignored. And when she began to swell with child she became over proud and even more difficult.

“Have you forgotten about Belmair and King Dillon then?” Arlais asked her as the wives all sat together one afternoon in their shared dayroom.

Sapphira looked lazily up. “Our lord husband is my reason for living now.”

“Not your child?” Minau murmured wickedly.

“Of course,” Sapphira said, her tone now slightly irritated. “My daughter is most important to me. She will be a princess.”

“How can you be so certain it is a daughter you carry?” Volupia said. “We have all prayed for daughters and been denied. Our husband, it seems, can only throw male children, I fear. Most Yafir do, which is why it is necessary to steal women from Belmair for wives, although now we are unable to ever since an enchantment was put upon them. You are a sorceress, Cinnia. Can you not undo what was done?”

“No,” Sapphira said bluntly. “I no longer choose to practice my small magic.”

“But if it is not magic, what is it that makes you certain you carry a daughter?” Volupia persisted.

“I just know,” Cinnia said. Then she looked to the servant paring her toenails. “Be careful, you clumsy creature! Are you trying to cut my toe off?”

Arlais listened, and suddenly she knew that the girl carrying Ahura Mazda’s child was not Cinnia, daughter of Fflergant. Who was she then? Arlais searched her memory, and then she recalled that after they had found her in the gardens the girl had at first insisted that her name was Sapphira. A small smile touched Arlais’s lips. She did not know how, but she realized that King Dillon had finally found a way to retrieve his wife, Cinnia, leaving his mistress, Sapphira, behind in her place. It had been masterfully done.

Of all of Ahura Mazda’s wives it was Arlais who was the highest born, although Minau also came from a noble family. But Arlais had been the bride of a duke of Belia. She had been stolen on her wedding day. She understood better than the others the political machinations of Belmair. Ahura Mazda had told her that King Dillon sought peace between the two races. While her husband was a kind man by nature, he had never forgiven the Belmairans for their betrayal of the Yafir, and in his bitterness scorned the young king’s desire to reunite the two factions.

Then he had deliberately stolen Cinnia away from the king in an effort to taunt him. And Ahura Mazda had laughed himself sick as the young king had in his pain and despair looked high and low for his wife and for the Yafir. The Yafir lord knew that the Belmairans would never consider looking beneath the vast sea of Belmair. Yet King Dillon had finally sought beneath the seas, and he had obviously found them. What great magic the young king must possess, Arlais thought, to have been able to regain possession of his wife, replacing her with his mistress who was her duplicate.

And Ahura Mazda had not discovered it. Indeed this Cinnia made him happy. She did not want to escape Yafirdom. She was more than content with her place as his wife, and as the expectant mother of his child. It was to be hoped that time would mellow her difficult nature. The birth of one’s first child always made certain changes in a woman’s demeanor. I will not tell him of this deception that has been played upon him, Arlais decided. He is pleased with this Cinnia. King Dillon is undoubtedly relieved to have his wife back. And he has managed to circumvent the laws of Belmair without the Belmairans knowing. She smiled again. Perhaps King Dillon will attempt once more to make peace between us, Arlais thought. Mayhap she could even get Ahura Mazda to put aside his anger and bitterness for the sake of the Yafir.

She considered the generations that had been born beneath the sea. Was it not past time for them to return to the land? Sometimes, if she concentrated very hard, Arlais could conjure up the fragrance of the freshly ploughed land on her father’s estate in a small valley between the mountains in Belia. She wondered if after these several hundred years that estate was still there, and still in her family. She considered if she would ever know the answer to her questions. And if Ahura Mazda scorned any future overtures by King Dillon? Well, Arlais thought, she had born him several sons over the centuries, and she knew that while they said nothing to their father, that they had spoken with her about returning to the land.