They named him Xiao Xiu. He still couldn't remember the last time he was called anything other than Paru Kisa.
His arms burned under the straps as the Princess leered at him and heat constricted his veins. The poison they gave him wasn't right. He didn't need her to tell him that.
"Let's talk," she said, as if her words could even be trusted.
But he didn't have much of a choice, either; someone back home had betrayed him, or Aliyu Okon had been, and he was left holding the mess.
Her body was like that of a boa constrictor and a lion as she reclined on the elevated, pillowed bed, her eyes regarding him as little more than an unanswerable question and a release.
His hips stung, but the poison, or drug, it seemed more like, numbed the pain to some degree. He stood on his knees, wobbling forward, inching through the thin, strand-like gold curtain until he reached the foot of the bed below, where she sat.
The Princess sighed. "Now, tell me the truth."
"Aliyu Okon is the one who offered me the hit," he rasped out as her eyes sharpened on his form, and then he cleared his throat. "I do know that he was working on a water infrastructure project for your sister, Princess Lawali. I don't know what that plan is or what--"
"Say that I believe you," the Princess cut in. "How will you convince me?"
"I don't--?"
"You do."
Her eyes filled with a humor that he couldn't reflect as she spread her legs open and helir cock in its flushing, twitching glory stared back.
With his arms still tied, he leaned forward and opened his mouth, shallowly sucking her between his lips. She leaned back, watching him still with that humorous smile, mocking him as he sucked her in deeper. Her cock filled his mouth and he could barely take more in before she grabbed his hair lightly nestling her cock down his throat further and further down until he swallowed her to the root.
She sighed and rubbed her hand through his scalp as she dragged her cock out inch by inch and then nudged it back in. He could taste her dripping down his throat as she languidly thrusted fully again and pulled out using his throat like a toy.
He felt her cock twitch in his throat and then heard her groan, "Swallow it all. Every bit." as her cock filled her throat and cum gurgled down, gulping bit by bit until she dragged out with a thin string of cum and spit connected still between her cock and his tongue. "Good," she sighed before she reclined again while he sat at her feet, waiting.
All he could do was continue to swallow the residual clinging to his throat. His eyes caught the lighting outside. He couldn't tell how long it had been, but the moon was out, and it was nighttime already.
"Oh, did you want to run?" she said, following the line of his gaze to the window, and then waved him off. "I think you should try to see what's out there for you. I'll even untie you as soon as you see the message bringing you to safety. Might even let you kill me to solve your little problem."
His eyes burned, but he stood up shakily, glaring as he stumbled over to the opening, searching for any sign someone had come for him among the sprawl of people still celebrating the wedding ceremony below.
The usual ones were flame signals, a whistling signal, or even colored smoke. He paced the window, waiting until the sprawl became smaller and smaller. The sounds of celebration grew quieter and quieter until the flames of the lights were blown out.
There were no signals.
He'd been abandoned.
Again.
He turned around and found the Princess yawning as she unhurriedly palmed her cock stroking lazily.
He asked her, "An aphrodisiac?"
The likes of things he had never seen or thought to study. There was nothing about the pill that warned him it wasn't the typical sort of poison to knock out and maim a mark. And he'd killed more than a few with similarly shaped, colored pills.
"An expensive one, rare, even," she sleepily replied. "Not something I believed I would get comfortable with being hit with a second time. Life always strikes when it's hot. In the meantime, you should try to remember who gave it to you. I struggle to guess they feel anything except hatred for you. No reason to keep them close."
His training master handed it to him—one of the few visits he ever did since his training ended.
A man who also happened to be his grandfather.
"Why would someone do this?"
The Princess furrowed her brows and then said, "If they did this for themselves or someone else, they would've been here instead. If the person who did it is someone you trust, they could've plotted to have you reined in. That is only something you would know."
His father would do whatever his grandfather said. He wasn't one to speak up. And his omega mother, a woman with no status and title, was long dead.
"He would know it wouldn't work."
"And why's that?" was said. The Princess was awake now. Leaning forward on her haunches as if she had prepared to hunt again. "And remember, the truth."
She stood up, wandering towards him before snatching the straps and halfway dragging him back to the foot of the bed. His locked arms prevented him from even trying to struggle.
"It's not complicated," he huffed. "I'm an alpha. What use would it be?"
He winced when she burst out into laughter.
"Truly?"
He retorted, "You were worried about knocking me up."
"I wasn't before," she shook her head and said. "I am now. I'm sure there will be some room in my expanded quarters. You're better off near Elijah than Micah. Srinivas will eat you alive. I'm not that cruel."
Her words twisted into nonsense and he snapped, "You sound insane."
"That drink you swallowed down was a contraceptive."
"Good."
"It works only on omegas."
"Fine."
The Princess pinched her nose bridge and then said, "You were given an aphrodisiac that spurs your fertility, and the contraceptive is rumored to manipulate our dynamics. Not that I needed to prove his batshit theory now. You smell like a ripe harvest. That's not an alpha scent."
"Scents change all the time," he said, remembering that he had heard similar rumors of dynamics changing. Those sorts of things were impossible. "The poison could have--?"
"If you were an omega," the Princess interrupted again, "would the person who handed you that pill use you in this way? It's a yes or no answer."
Yes. Easily. He imagined his grandfather was disappointed that he couldn't be used so easily every day of his life, especially now that his father would be remarried.
He had even less use.
"What will you do with me?" His voice broke and he slumped over. This was it. It was all over now. "Could you--make it quick."
He was dead. And trembled as he knew the story about the man who was fed to the pigs with his limbs slowly eaten simply for insulting one of the Imperial family members.
The Princess fell back against the bed and then said, "Come here." as she stroked her cock again.
He pulled himself up onto the bed with his legs over her hips. She wrapped her hands around the straps and then twisted them until they untied. His arms were free again.
"Until it's out of my system," the Princess sighed as she dug into the pillowed bedding. "You can turn around and bounce on my cock."
He nearly opened his mouth to ask how long, why him, why not kill him instead, yet he snapped his mouth shut and said nothing. With an aching maneuver, he turned around and wriggled his hips until she lifted her cock to his hole. His hips dropped and fully sucked her in.
As lazy as she pretended to be, her hands still found their way to rub his chest and massage the mounds. His hands reached behind until he could leverage his hips ramming her cock in and out, outlining his insides until he couldn't remember what it was like not to have her hardened cock filling him. He couldn't tell how many times he's lunged his arms, his legs, and slammed his hips. It was much tougher than any training regimen he had before.
The Princess squeezed, prodded, and flicked his chest until it began to burn and her hands slid down his hips shoving him on her cock over and over again until he was loose enough that her cum dripped out of his body and down her cock. Even when she loosened her grip, his body slid down her still thickly hardened cock, like hands to a glove.
She merely clicked her tongue and then rolled her hips until her cock plugged him full. "We'll deal with the rest tomorrow," and her free hand wrapped around him like a claw. He couldn't move even if he wanted to.
His eyes blearily blinked until he felt sleepiness consume him.
Jata Niara had many questions about the man sleeping comfortably on her chest while her cock sat nestled inside him. She winced as she felt her release yank out of her sore body.
Myron had warned them that Kinya was involved with Aliyu Okon but he seemed like such an easy man to deal with that she felt no rush to check if he had more nefarious dealings. In some ways, this was her own fault for not taking the Sarakhs seriously until now. Her limbs carefully moved forward as the assassin, whose name she still didn't know, she thanked the gods that female alphas had smaller sacks than male alphas. Her legs could barely waddle forward as her sack continued to drain into the assassin until she felt it, like a light pop. It started to shrink. It felt awkward to hold him tight just until her cock was fully drained. The reminder that he agreed towards the end helped. Although she found it odd that an assassin could sleep so deeply, she kept her hold steady, shifting so that he could sleep facing her, until Enkidu arrived.
Her eyes tripped over the barrel of water only to refuse to use it in the case that it was contaminated too.
The door knocked, and with a muffled shriek, Enkidu slowly entered the room as quiet as death. His eyes widened at her and then at the mess of the room from when they had fought.
"Who is--?!" Enkidu covered his mouth as if to cover up the shock as the assassin mumbled out some words but still didn't awaken. "Where is Noë?"
"I don't know," Jata Niara said pointedly. "I hoped you would know by the time you arrived. Where is Nwaijaku?"
"Outside," Enkidu said in a lowered voice. "Should I--?"
"Yes and hurry."
It didn't take very long after her royal guard arrived for Nwaijaku's typical dour expression to sour, like bitter fruit for wine, when her eyes rolled over the room, falling on her last.
"Akhutenan sent an emergency hawk that trailed him to one of the Zhuong granaries on the border of the city. It appeared to be where the Zhuong Crown Prince and Zhuong ambassador planned to meet," Nwaijaku informed her as Enkidu wandered around the room mumbling complaints as he cleaned. "Considering I had to threaten one of the guards and crack a few fingers to get this information, there's something else going on."
"Has Babatu sent in a complaint for the location of his son?"
"No."
"Then it's not his plot, or the Empress' Consort."
"You believe it's Zhuong's or Akira Lin?"
"It's the effect of having multiple players playing the same game," she said. "We should find out who sent the Athari. Whoever did that is likely the same person who's causing this mess."
"Could it be the Zhuong Crown Prince?" Nwaijaku said. "His appearance wasn't announced until the beginning of the ceremony and a few hours prior on his port entrance but even then it wasn't a loud celebration. The Empress is unperturbed but since her consort's refused his jade leopard as a gift, there is little to be done between our nations."
Kinya Sarakh's words could have been purposefully distracting and subterfuge but he lacked any fear in speaking to her. It didn't seem he cared one way or another if she knew his immediate actions when she couldn't stop his cascading ones.
Zhuong was on the way to war with either the Carolingian or Sonhrai, depending on how the next several months went. She had to ensure it stayed Carolingian and not Sonhrai.
"If the Zhuong Crown Prince is as he's rumored, a peacemaker, we shouldn't have an issue. We should follow Akhutenan to the warehouse quickly," she ended. "His responses will decide our answer."
"And if he decides to respond in violence."
"Then his secretive meeting with the ambassador is an act of collusion."
They shared a nod.
An act of collusion in their empire was an immediate execution. She may not be able to execute the Crown Prince, but the ambassador was another thing entirely. As for Akhutenan, he would be arrested and tried for treason if she weren't there soon.
The assassin groaned against her neck and slowly awakened. She felt herself loosen from his body and brushed her hands over his back in a soothing motion, speaking low enough for only them both to hear, "You will be sent to my home by kajawa. I expect you to have the proper manners needed on arrival."
"I'm not a child."
"I am well aware," she grinned. "You appear the likeness of a lazy feline wrapped in warmth."
His eyes flashed against her but he merely slid back into sleep. She slipped herself out of him and wrapped him in the nearest blanket. She motioned for Enkidu to bring in the lightest kajawa, sliding him in and then lowering the curtain as servants removed him from the quarters.
She gestured for Nwaijaku to lead the way towards the armory. It appeared that she was underdressed for what would likely be a battle between small forces or guardsmen.
"And what will we do about Noë?"
"I have a feeling that I know exactly where he is," she sighed. "Let Myron know that we will need Mbizi's help. I imagine he already knows what to do. And to check the dowry treasure vault first."
The brief form of Micah out of the corner of her eye surprised her yesterday, but she thought it was nothing but sheer curiosity from the omega.
She hoped it was only that.
And not a plan of his that went awry.
"May I ask?" Nwaijaku said with her hands at the side. "It would be best to get rid of him."
She grinned at her old friend. "But I finally have something on Kinya Sarakh, don't I? Something that will finally bend things in my favor and out from Lawali."
Oh, Aliyu Okon, you fool.
She wouldn't even have to deal with him if he had truly betrayed Kinya Sarakh.