Enthralled: The Sex Goddess Read online

  The scent grew stronger as he drew nearer the base of the massive tree, his strong feet curling around the uneven segments of bark that acted as steps.

  It wasn’t Jane’s scent that he followed, but that of the man. Jonathan was his name.

  Zaren knew if he found Jonathan, he would find Jane.

  A rustle in the jungle below had him pausing to listen. It was a two-legged creature, making an awkward, fumbling noise. A man with little skill at moving throughout the jungle.

  Curling his lips in a determined, feral smile, Zaren launched himself to another tree, catching a thick vine in the process. He swung silently and smoothly from branch to branch toward the sound, avoiding a massive brown spider that he knew had a dangerous bite and the particular bulbous green growth on a branch that would turn his skin red.

  Zaren saw the thick greenery moving below, and with one last swoop, he landed in a branch above the man, then dropped neatly to the ground in front of him.

  Jonathan staggered back in surprise, his eyes wide and arm upraised to shield himself. But once he recovered from the obvious shock, he straightened and whipped out something sharp and silver. Half crouching in front of Zaren, the pale-skinned man gave off the stink of fear mingled with determination. He waved the weapon in front of him and said, “Get back!”

  “Where is Jane?” Zaren demanded. He’d practiced saying those words to himself, over and over, and now he spoke them with more confidence than he’d spoken any words as long as he could remember. “Where is Jane?”

  “Who the bloody hell are you?” Jonathan replied, still brandishing his weapon. Knife, Zaren reminded himself. Knife.

  “Jane. Where is Jane?” Zaren said again, eyeing the blade while keeping watch for any tension on the other man’s feet and body. Jonathan appeared skilled with his weapon, and Zaren remained on guard, as he would be when facing any wild animal. He would not underestimate this creature any more than he would a hungry lion or a coiled snake.

  “Jane’s gone,” Jonathan said, but Zaren didn’t miss the way his eyes flickered oh-so slightly in the direction of tonight’s moonrise. “I don’t know where she is.”

  Liar. The weak man in front of him spoke nothing but falsehoods, and Zaren read him as easily as Jane had read his picture book. Fury filled him, dark and quick, and his hand shot out with the speed of a snake’s strike. He had Jonathan’s wrist in his fingers in a trice, the knife falling harmlessly to the ground.

  “Where is Jane?” he said again. This time, Zaren punctuated his demand by whipping Jonathan around by the arm, slamming him into a tree.

  This knocked the breath out of the other man, but Zaren had no sympathy. He kicked the blade into the thick brush as Jonathan squealed, “My knife! I need my knife!”

  “Tell me…where is Jane?”

  “She’s…she’s…they have her. I was going to send for help when I got back. I was going to get Darkdale, and we were going to bring help.” Jonathan’s eyes were wide and pleading. “They made me leave. They have her.”

  Zaren dredged the word from deep in his memory, from some long-lost time: “Bastard.” He tightened his hand around the man’s throat. “Where?”

  “That way.” Jonathan pointed, then babbled out more information. His words were too fast and ran into each other as if they too were terrified—but Zaren only needed the direction. Now he could follow the trail the white-skinned, cowardly man had made when he left behind his mate.

  Jane. Zaren would never leave Jane.

  He would die before he abandoned her.

  The very thought made his vision burn red and dark as he looked down at the cringing man before him. “You leave Jane,” he growled. “You leave her.”

  “No, no, they made me go, they sent me away. They won’t hurt her.”

  Zaren had heard enough. With a roar, he flung the insulting weakling of a man away, tossing him into the brush with a great heave.

  And then, without another thought for the man who’d left Jane, Zaren leapt up into the lowest branch of a tree and went to find her.

  — VI —

  Not long after Devilish Grin left her sprawled over the altar, two women came into the room and took Jane back to her hut. Blessedly, she was then left alone and unrestrained, and she sank wearily onto her pallet. Her eyes closed readily.

  Despite her apprehension about what was to come, Jane slept for much longer than she expected. When she awakened, the sun was already past its high point in the sky. Food and a jug of herb-scented water had been brought in some time during her sleep, and she ate and drank gratefully.

  Her body was sore.: her wrists and ankles, while not horribly chafed, had red marks around them. Her muscles ached from being strung up on the spears and carried over the crowd, and her arms in particular screamed with pain every time she shifted.

  But the worst was the sensitivity of her quim. Jane could hardly move without her legs brushing together, compressing her swollen nether lips and engorged pip. It seemed as if all the pleasure she’d taken the day before only caused her body to want more—to need to be touched, licked, sucked, kissed.

  Jane had always enjoyed coitus, and been easily aroused, but her current situation was nearly unbearable. The constant throbbing and slick slide between her legs kept her in a constant state of arousal.

  Did they somehow make me this way, or was I always a sex goddess? she couldn’t help wonder, only partly in jest. Then even that bit of levity eroded into despair. I must get away from here!

  Now, rested and her hunger abated, Jane had the opportunity to put into play a half-formed escape plan. She went to the farthest corner of the hut, the side of the structure that had neither window nor door, and that partly faced the jungle, and began to examine the wall. Made from dry grasses woven together with bamboo, the barrier to the outside was relatively flimsy.

  It wasn’t difficult for her to find a thin area of the wall, and to start pulling the grasses away, little by little. The trick would be to loosen it without making a hole until she was ready to go. And she wouldn’t be ready to go until she had clothing, a skin for water, and some sort of weapon.

  But at least she was doing something. Something that kept her mind off Jonathan and his grand betrayal, and something that kept her focused on her Papa and Effie, and the hope that she would soon see them again…and Zaren.

  Jane paused for a moment, for the pain arcing through her heart shocked her. And despite the fact that her body cried for pleasure and a man’s touch, it wasn’t the thought of Zaren’s strong, powerful body sliding against hers that made her insides hurt. It was his kind, brilliant blue eyes—filled with wonder and tenderness. And the reverence and joy with which he treated her, as if she were a prized possession, yet not a fragile one, to be protected and locked up in corsets and confined by heavy skirts. Despite their clumsy method of communication, Jane felt as if Zaren understood her in a way no one else did—accepting her for just what she was; no more and no less.

  No man had ever looked at her in that way before, or treated her with such respect—except for Papa, on the rare occasions his mind wasn’t wandering off to butterfly mating.

  I will escape. I will find my way back…

  Jane returned to her work with renewed fervor. Her fingers became scraped and raw from the dry, prickling grass and the sharp edges of bamboo, but that discomfort was nothing compared to the need that drove her.

  Fortunately, Jane heard her captors approach before the door opened, and she had time to dive across the small hut onto her pallet. She was lying there when Cold Eyes walked in, followed by the five women from yesterday’s bathing episode. Behind them were three men carrying the tub.

  “Your bath, goddess,” Cold Eyes said.

  Jane couldn’t control the little shudder that rippled through her at the sight of the women, and the memory of their pleasurable assault. Please, not again…not again.

  But today’s process was much different than that of yesterday’s—and Jane attributed it to th
e fact that Cold Eyes remained in the hut, watching over the women as they bathed her once again. Perhaps he had learnt about the events of yesterday, and he didn’t mean for them to be repeated.

  Today her hair was kept dry, bundled onto her head, and the hands that soaped and massaged her exhausted body were, if not completely impersonal, at least not quite as invasive and erotic as before. But Jane couldn’t ignore the knowing, heated look the leader of the women gave her when she smoothed the flat of her palm over Jane’s swollen quim…once, twice, thrice.

  As before, after the bath, Jane was dried and massaged with scented oil. The aroma was spicy and musky, and as the women rubbed it over her breasts, her legs, her arse, her inner thighs, its essence wafted up and mingled with the smoky incense coming from the fire. Jane tried to remain still and unaffected, but those hands slid slick and temptingly over her breasts, and came close enough to brush against her pulsing quim, and she found herself breathing heavily, twitching and straining to be touched.

  At last, the torture was over—at least, in one respect—for the women released her and Jane was no longer being manipulated.

  She looked over at Cold Eyes, who’d watched impassively during the entire ritual. If she had not known about his problem, she would have suspected it now, for any other man would surely have been unable to sit without participating in such a titillating scene. What she didn’t know, of course, was whether his problem stemmed from the fact that he preferred men, or some other physical issue. Not that it mattered.

  “Goddess. Tonight begins our formal ritual, of which you are a part. The most important part.” He leered at her, and all at once Jane wasn’t certain whether she was glad he spoke English or not. Perhaps she would be better off not knowing what was to happen to her.

  “Will it be more satisfying than last night?” she responded boldly as the women helped her to stand. “Or do all the men in your village suffer from the same condition as you?”

  His face darkened, and for a moment, she thought he might slap her. Jane shivered. That was foolish of me. But she was a goddess. She refused to be cowed, or to show herself as weak. These villagers might take over her body, but they could not destroy her mind and her spirit.

  She would not allow it.

  “It is a good thing no one else in this bloody village can understand you,” Cold Eyes said, wandering over to stand next to her. The women were braiding her hair and actually putting clothing—of a sort—on her. “Or you would find yourself hanging in the sun for a week, open to anyone and anything who wished to have you.”

  “Tell me the truth, then: did Jonathan bring me to you? Or did he simply use my abduction as a convenient escape after we were captured?”

  “Oh, he brought you here, under the guise of an abduction. That was the agreement. He had long painted stories for us of the woman with fire hair and glittering emerald eyes and a moonlight body, spinning tales of her lusty passion and decadence. We have been without a babe in this village for nearly ten years, and the people are desperate. And so, when he learnt from the other man—Darkdale—that you had unexpectedly come to the jungle, he promised us a fertility goddess—you, the woman with the fire hair—in exchange for a map to the diamond mine he’d been seeking.”

  “I thought he already had a map.” Jane forced herself to speak, rather than dwell on Jonathan’s malevolence.

  “It did not lead to the mine; it was a false one.” Cold Eyes’s smile, as usual, did not reach his gaze. “I made certain of it.”

  “And the map you gave him this time?”

  “Just as false. In fact, it will lead him into the den of a mad lion, deep in the rocky mountains. I do not think you will be troubled by that man ever again. He went on his way early this morning, and I expect to hear the mad cat’s roar at any time now. That particular sound carries long and far, particularly when it is satisfied.”

  Jane bit her lip. Poor Jonathan! Despite what he’d done to her, she didn’t wish him mauled to death.

  Dead, perhaps. But not dead by mauling.

  “His death will also ensure no one will be looking for the red-headed Englishwoman. You and he will be presumed dead, and you will remain here with us for as long as we need you.” Cold Eyes’s attention skimmed over her like an icy hand. “Let us hope you bring good fortune, for the alternative will be rather unpleasant.”

  She swallowed, but kept her chin lifted proudly. “Beware you do not bring down the wrath of the goddess upon you.”

  He laughed, his eyes warming just slightly. “Tonight, I hope instead of your wrath, the village will be filled with the sounds of your cries of pleasure, goddess. For if you are pleasured, then so are all…and so will the seeds of babes be sown strongly in our women.”

  By now her attendants had finished their work, dressing Jane for whatever tonight’s ritual was. They had adorned her hair with flowers, braiding them into her curls with vines and scented leaves, and leaving it falling in thick tresses over her chest and shoulders. Instead of pulling a tunic over her, the women draped Jane in strips of loose, soft animal skins. The effect was not so much to hide her body, but to draw attention to it—for her breasts were left mostly bare, as was the brilliant patch of red hair at the juncture of her legs. Thick cuffs, made of tanned skin, were affixed at her ankles, throat, and wrists, and when Jane noticed the large metal loops on each of them, her mouth went dry. She knew what they were for.

  Just then, the sound of drums, low and thudding, came from outside.

  “Come, goddess. It’s time for you to meet your subjects.” Cold Eyes gestured toward the door, but just as he was about to leave, one of the women said something. He froze and turned.

  Jane’s heart dropped. The woman was pointing to the corner of the hut where she had carefully been paring away the grass wall.

  “So,” said Cold Eyes, turning back to her. “You are more resourceful than I had expected. No matter. We have already prepared a place for our goddess. A cage to house our lovely bird. You will be much more comfortable there—and more securely confined.”

  He made an abrupt gesture and gave a command in his native tongue. Two of the women came to flank Jane, and the other three lined up behind her. The drumbeats became faster and more intense, and the ominous sound seemed to fill her ears, thudding through her body as if the drums were inside her.

  She stepped forward when prodded, putting one bare foot in front of the other as they left the hut. Jane and the women followed Cold Eyes as he walked out into the small village. The sun was low, but it was still very light outside. Nevertheless, a large fire roared in front of the same dais where Jane had originally been presented to the villagers—only yesterday.

  The small crowd parted as the procession came through. Jane tried not to look at the hot, lascivious gazes, from both men and women, that settled on her like grabby, smothering hands. Instead, she kept her attention straight ahead. Her heart thudded, her breasts bobbed gently among the scraps of skin in which she’d been draped. Her legs rubbed against her nether lips as she walked, and she couldn’t ignore their full, moist sensation.

  Up onto the dais she went, the drumbeats becoming faster and harder, just as the pumping and thrusting of fucking. Jane caught sight of Devilish Grin, and looked quickly away. The very thought of that massive cock had her breath catching in her throat.

  On the dais was a piece of furniture that looked like another, smaller stage. It was larger than a chair, but not as large as a table. Standing on four legs, it had a surface at hip height and was covered with furs. Standing at each corner was a bamboo pole decorated with flowering vines, their perfume heavy and sweet in the air.

  Cold Eyes gestured for Jane to sit on the small platform, and she did, feeling as if she’d settled on a throne. Chanting rose around her, mingling with the drumbeats. Torches, carried by villagers, danced and streaked in the growing darkness. A scent carried by the now familiar smoking leaves filled Jane’s nose and she grew warm and lightheaded.

  On and on t
hey chanted, danced, ate, and drank as she sat there, waiting for something to happen…and yet dreading whatever came next.

  At last the mood changed and Cold Eyes came to stand next to her. Jane was still unbound and unrestricted, merely sitting on her throne, and she tensed as he moved closer. But he said nothing to her, instead addressing the now silent crowd in his native tongue.

  Then the villagers separated and created a sort of narrow aisle among them. A man and woman walked down the path, came up onto the dais, bowed, then sank into a kneel in front of her. Jane tensed when she realized the woman was the leader of the five who’d attended to her, but she didn’t so much as reach out to touch her. Instead, her companion offered Jane a cup.

  “Take it. Drink,” ordered Cold Eyes when she hesitated.

  Jane did as bid, lifting the cup to her lips. At first she meant to merely pretend to taste it, but Cold Eyes shoved the cup up and the liquid splashed into her mouth and over her chin. It was sweet and sticky, and tasted as though it was made from fermented berries.

  “Drink it all. It is an offering,” Cold Eyes told her.

  She had no choice; surely they weren’t intending to poison her. Perhaps it was even a drug that might dull her senses for whatever was to come. A guard took the cup after she finished drinking, and only then did the couple rise from their obeisance and face Cold Eyes. He waved an arm-length stick decorated with feathers in a sort of blessing gesture, then sprinkled them with dried leaves. Then the couple left the dais.

  Another couple approached—the woman being one of her other attendants—and bowed in front of Jane. This time, she was given a plate with a small, dark square on it.

  “Eat,” she was told.

  Another offering. Jane consumed the small square, which was a cake that tasted like dried figs and dates, along with some other element she couldn’t identify. Then the couple turned to Cold Eyes for his presumed blessing. And then another couple came with a cup. And another with a special pipe. Still another with a musky-scented oil.