Venom's Taste - Lisa Smedman [60]
No matter. He could always do it later, when the odds of escape were better.
“Don’t worry,” he assured Gonthril. “I’ll behave.”
“Do I have your word you won’t try to escape?” Gonthril asked.
Arvin smiled to himself; he wasn’t bound by the ring any longer. “You have my word,” he said solemnly.
CHAPTER 10
24 Kythorn, Sunset
In his dream, Arvin moved through a crowd of laughing people who stood in a vineyard outside the city, their faces painted a ruddy orange by a bonfire that sent sparks spinning up into the night. Some stood and watched, tipping back bottles of wine, while others danced, arms linked as they moved in giddy circles around the bonfire. Several held small rectangles of wood, painted red and inscribed with a single word: “Chondath.” These they threw into the fire, together with spoiled fruits and limp, moldy vegetables. The air was filled with smoke, sparks, and the hissing noise of food being blackened by flame.
The humans called it the Rotting Dance. It was a celebration of the defeat of Chondath in the Rotting War of 902, of the rise of the city-states of the Vilhon Reach. Hlondeth had gained its independence nearly three centuries before necromantic magic laid waste to the empire’s armies on the Fields of Nun, and its people had suffered the aftermath of that battle-a plague that spread through the Vilhon Reach, afflicting those it touched with a disease that caused even the smallest of cuts to turn gangrenous. But its citizens celebrated the Rotting Dance just the same. Humans needed very little excuse for frivolity. Emotion was just one of their many weaknesses.
Arvin weaved his way through the humans, his tongue flickering in and out of his mouth as he tasted the excitement that laced the night air. Whenever he saw a man that caught his eye-one who was strong and well muscled, with lean hips and a glint in his eye that showed he was of a better stock than the average human-he worked his magic on him. “Come,” he whispered, staring intently into the man’s eyes. “Mate with me.”
One of the men Arvin selected already had a mate picked out for the evening-a human a few years older than Arvin, and prettier, by human standards. No matter. When she protested, Arvin merely stared at her. She began to tremble then, with a small shriek, dropped the man’s arm, surrendering him to Arvin, and fled into the night.
A part of Arvin’s mind, observing the dream from a distance, recoiled at the thought of propositioning men. But to his dreaming mind, the act felt as natural as his own skin. He swayed through the crowd, the five men he had chosen trailing in his wake, each of them yearning to stroke his scales, to touch his newly budding breasts, and to press themselves against his curved hips. Flicking his tongue, tasting their desire, he felt a surge of power. He might be just fourteen years old and in his first flush of sexuality, but he was in control. He owned these men, as surely as a master owns slaves.
He led the men to a secluded spot in a nearby field and, as they converged on him, unfastened the pin at his throat and let his dress fall around his ankles, shedding it like an old skin. As the men stepped forward eagerly, pressing themselves against him and tearing at their clothes, he drew a curtain of darkness around them. Then he pulled the men to the ground, where they formed a mating ball with Arvin at its center. A hard body pressed against his and was wrenched away, only to be replaced by another-and another-as the men wrestled with each other in an attempt to mate with Arvin. The smell of their sweat and of crushed grapes and torn earth filled Arvin’s nostrils as he slithered through the tangle of bodies, coiling around first one man, then another, taking each of them in turn. Acidic sweat erupted on his own body, soaking his hair and lubricating his scales-and burning the thin, sensitive skin of the humans who twined and fought and thrust against him. As ecstasy surged