Copyright 1991 All rights reserved.Copyright 1991 All rights reserved. The Dark Lord made certain he was early for dinner, taking his place at the head of the table half an hour before his guests. He ignored the youngsters setting the table as they paused in their work to bow when he entered. There was much to discuss, and the Dark Lord was eager to be gone from the luxury and dull security of Dark Hold. He needed the excitement of another campaign, he could only tolerate leisurely decadence for so long. He was unsure why he begrudged himself the pampered life that so many of his nobility enjoyed. He did not know whether he was afraid it would wear away at him like salt water on the metal of a good sword, or that he would become addicted to such a life if he dallied with it too long. He knew such an addiction would sap his vitality, and reduce him to the type of lapdog courtier whose fawning and petty schemes he only permitted to exist because he needed their money to finance his ambition of seeing the entire continent of Quapu come under his banner of blood-stained midnight. Addiction was what he dreaded, he realized; the relinquishing of his will to something else. He had worked hard for all the power he had achieved, and he would not sacrifice any of it. But was it the lifestyle he worried about, or something else? The image of Rhea intruded on his thoughts, as if on cue, as it had been doing so often lately. For a change, he dwelled on it instead of dismissing it with the usual contempt. The girl had been coming to his mind far too often and he knew it was time to address the possibilities of why; that was the only way he could be rid of it. Having his permission, his memory lingered on the beauty he had just left in his bed chamber, his collar on her pretty throat, and a chain around her ankle. The fingers of his left hand idly stroked the arm of the chair, recalling her curves and how she had felt when she pressed herself to him in her wanton eagerness to please. Rhea had been with him longer than any other pet, and during that time she had been subjected to more than her fair share of pain and pleasure at his whim, but she had well-earned everything she had received, from her beatings to the limited power she held over the rest of his harem. |