The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3)

  The Hated

  Cassie Alexander

  Copyright © 2015, Cassie Alexander

  www.cassiealexander.com

  This ebook is licensed for personal use only. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between characters or events in this story and with any other person or creature, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Many thanks to Jeff Peterson for his keen eye.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ilylle’s Epilogue

  Zaan’s Epilogue

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  Prologue

  I heard the pearl before I saw it, rolling end over end against the jade tile until it tapped against my foot, shining white and as wide as a palm. I pretended to ignore it and kept reading my screen – it wouldn’t do to let the servants bother me so easily, no matter that I’d been the one to teach them this method to get around strict protocol as a child.

  I read to the bottom of my screen once, twice, and a third time --Yzin’s latest story was about a dark world very different from my own, torn apart by factions fighting tyrannical rule. It had been utterly fascinating up until the distraction of the pearl but now I found my gaze slowing. Where I hadn’t been thinking of pushing silk fabrics out of the way to touch and taste silkier skin before, now I could think of nothing but – and I knew Beza waited in the doorway.

  I read another page, relishing the rising tension. As Queen, I could ask my slavegirl to do anything and she would. But the reverse was not allowed – which was why the pearl had taken the place of Beza’s unspoken question.

  Did the Queen want to use her magic on me?

  As I waited I felt the answer to Beza’s question blossoming inside, and a moment before she would take my inaction as dismissal, I rocked my foot on its heel to slide the pearl beneath my toes, rolling it gently back and forth across the floor. I heard her gasp and grinned, finally giving her my attention. She was biting her full lips now, the very image of hope restrained, and I swooped the pearl up in one hand and stood.

  I could drop it here and take her by the bright glow of my screen. Or we could make a game of it, like we’d done when we were younger, now with very different stakes. I paced, my ocean-blue skirts trailing behind me, conscious of her watching.

  My great chamber was the nexus of most of the palace’s halls. The hallway to my servants’ sleeping chamber was shortest, but rolling the pearl down it would be uninspired. Instead I walked across the room to the arch of the Hall of Ages, a hall so long I had only been all the way to the back of it twice before. I knew it had halls of its own branching off in either direction, each with rooms, shelves, and cases full of all the forgotten grandeur Aranda had ever had to display.

  The fact that I, too, was on display inside my palace did not escape me. But I pushed that frustration from my mind, dropped to one knee, and sent the pearl careening.

  It skipped over tiles of jade and amethyst and Beza ran after it in a swirl of orange silk, clapping her hands. She had until it came to a stop to run and hide. I closed my eyes and listened to the pearl wind down, bumping and rebounding off of walls and statues and when I couldn’t hear it anymore I opened them. Beza was nowhere to be seen, but I would find her and then – I made a low sound and my secret place ached.

  I picked up my skirts to travel silently, prowling like the jacars in their cages in the distant Hall of Living Things. Just like a jacar I knew what I wanted -- and nothing was going to stop me.

  Eons of Aranda’s finest history went ignored as I strode past antechambers and branches. During my three hundred years of living in the palace my servants and I had exhausted all of the easiest hiding spots, and besides, it would be insulting for Beza to hide nearby when I had rolled the pearl so far intentionally.

  An eight-legged zoomer crawled up the hall faster than I could walk, off to scrape up some piece of dust that only it could see. It or one just like it would eventually return the pearl to the pile of gemstones in my room where it’d come from, gifts from my councilors after one of their interminable meetings. If the council knew what I was using the pearl for now – I felt myself flush. As Queen, I could do what I liked inside the palace, but I knew from the screens Yzin gave me that Queens ought not to know their servants quite so well.

  And as if to remind me of that fact, I walked past the chamber holding the statue of my King. I paused in his doorway, looking in. He was just as stern as the moment he’d been unveiled, a Zaibann warrior of my very own, trapped in stone until our wedding ceremony released him. He’d been chosen specially for me by the council’s celestitians, and I knew nothing about him except what I could see – his imperious gaze, his strong chin, his broad chest, and then, like a fertility deity of old, his erect stone cock, jutting out from between the folds of his statued armor.

  Seeing him turned my thoughts to the night that I’d discovered that I was magical – and it made my need for Beza grow.

  The halls held more statues, delicate arrangements of exotic flowers, elaborate rugs beaded with gemstones both hung on walls and walked on, fabulous paintings of successful generals and queens from before written history. Glasswork cages held mechanical and living lilans, singing the same songs in harmony. Hall after hall of beauty and I ignored the lot of it – what Beza offered was more precious than any of the art or jewels I passed.

  Places inside me ached to be touched and filled, my skin longed for the feel of her skin brushing against it – my patience waned as my need roared. I didn’t want to play fair any longer, it was time to use my powers. I closed my eyes, steadied myself, and felt out.

  Feeling was the only word for it, though I didn’t use my hands. I sent a part of myself that I couldn’t describe out to search for Beza, and soon I knew without being able to say how that I should turn right.

  I took a few steps down the right-hand hall, and stood in front of the Chamber of Vased History. My magic tugged at me again, like low hands pulling at my hips, and I opened the door to step inside.

  It was a massive room, full of styles of pottery from all of Aranda’s ages. I couldn’t recall anyone ever hiding in it before which was a shame; it was a perfect place, full of bulky jars and squat pedestals to hide behind.

  The vase at the end of the first row was almost big enough to hold Beza – it was as tall as I was, and the dark red color of blood. I could see the streaks its creator’s fingertips had left on its surface as I neared, my magic pulsing inside me with every step, pulling me toward what I desired.

  I still wasn’t used to having power – I worried that it would leave me, or that I was imagining things. So I crept closer slowly, hoping that my magic was true. I wanted it to be – I ached for it to be – but when I saw a tickle of orange fabric peeking out from behind the vase’s base it was hard not to gasp with relief.

  I pulled up my skirts and walked along lightly, controlling my breath. My servants had minds of their own and had played tricks on me before, dis
robing and leaving gowns behind like shed skins to race away naked, laughing at momentarily fooling their Queen.

  But more often than not when we played this game now whomever was found chose not to run very far – because being caught was what made the entire game worth playing.

  I whirled around the vase, surprising her. She startled and then laughed, clapping her hands to her chest, still breathing hard from her run.

  “I’ve found you,” I said, trying to sound imperious.

  “You have, my Queen.” Her lips parted in a wide smile.

  There could be ‘punishments’ for running – but more often there were rewards. My breath was loud in my ears now, from the thrill of her discovery, and knowing full well what I could do with her next.

  “Kneel,” I commanded, and Beza did so in an instant, head bowed, hair the color of the vase behind her slipping forward of her shoulder to hang in a smooth wave.

  I thought then of pulling up my skirts and putting them over her, presenting her with my darkest place, feeling her hands push my thighs open until she could lick the sweetness out of me – but, no – sometimes it was better to give than to receive. I put one slippered foot on her shoulder, waited the length of a breath, and then lightly pushed her back onto her rear.

  Beza went with the motion and fell back with a soft surprised sound, her back thumping lightly against the vase. She looked up, eyes shining, and I sank to meet her, kneeling, my azure skirts swirling with her orange ones. The colors merged like a sunset and it was easy to find her orange skirt’s hem. Pushing it up revealed skin every bit as luminous as the pearl had been.

  “My Queen,” she whispered in hope. Protocol still said that she could ask for nothing, and there was no pearl to be her messenger this time. But I knew what she longed for – and I leaned forward to kiss her.

  There was such a difference between kissing Beza and Joshan. Joshan’s kisses were strong, his lips heavier, while Beza’s were more softly yielding. I pushed my tongue into lovely Beza’s mouth and tasted her as she made gentle sounds, and felt her breath quicken as my hands slid higher.

  I had thought I’d known what it meant to rule before I’d kissed Beza but truth be told, trapped inside the palace, taking control of Beza’s desire was the first time I’d ever felt like a Queen.

  I pulled back as I pushed the final few inches of her skirt up, so that my slavegirl was completely exposed to me, watching her face all the while.

  “My Queen,” she whispered again, breathing hard.

  “My darling Beza.” There was a secret, dark place that she and I shared, and we hadn’t known until recently what could be done with it – but now that we knew, there was no turning back. “Would you hold back my hair?” I asked, and she nodded. Knowing what would come next, she spread her legs wide.

  I sank my head down reverently and pressed my lips to the petals between her thighs, kissing them until they opened and her honey ran out, and she stroked my hair back with a moan.

  Her voice rose under my attention, and by now I knew the fastest way to release her, but I didn’t want this to be over so quickly. Instead I buried myself in Beza’s lap, in the taste of my girl, the scent of my girl, the heat radiating off of my girl’s thighs. And for her part, my servant breathed heavy and moaned, rocking her head back, joyfully losing herself to her Queen’s desires. I purred in pleasure at pleasing her – looking up at her with her head tossed back, feeling her fingers tighten against my scalp as they pulled my hair. Yes – that – something about it – my magic swelled in me and suddenly I needed more, much more. I pulled up, Beza’s honey slick against my lips.

  “My Queen?” Beza asked, lost eyes trying to focus on me.

  “Just a moment,” I said, and snapped twice for Joshan.

  Some days I made him watch, pretending to be oblivious to the erection which his uniform did not disguise, other times I would rock back and make him take over, watching him and Beza as I satisfied myself. And still on other days – when he came into the room, I reached back and flipped my voluminous skirts up, revealing my own dark place to him. “I need you to service me.”

  “My Queen,” he acknowledged, and knelt down.

  He would do anything I asked – which was good, because his cock fit my dark place perfectly, hitting spots of me my fingers never could. I crouched in front of him, panting for a few eager moments as he readied himself and then – I moaned low as his cock slid inside. I held myself there until he began to stroke me, relishing the sensation of him pushing in and pulling out, before I bowed back down to Beza’s lap.

  What we were then, I couldn’t say. I licked and sucked at Beza’s petals, rolling her folds across my tongue, pushing her open, and then sucking up as if I could pull all the sweetness from her, me rocked all the while by each stroke of Joshan’s cock. I was trapped between them, taking what I wanted from my willing Beza at the same time Joshan answered all my needs.

  “My Queen, my Queen –“ Beza writhed and moaned, her voice as melodious as the birds chiming the hour outside as her moment neared. “My Queen, Queen – Queen –“ she shouted and screamed, hips roiling under my mouth, as I greedily sucked at her, before she collapsed on the ground beside the vase, in a tangle of orange.

  Now it was left to Joshan. I braced harder to take more of him in, and the servant rocking behind me moaned. It was his sole job to see me satisfied, and he had never let me down. Each thrust made him fill me and still wish for more, and it was my turn to sound like Beza had, shouting low with each thudding stroke.

  And then Beza’s hands were there, reaching out to hold my breasts, stroking my nipples through my dress’s thin gauze. I looked up at my serving girl’s face, and kissed her for knowing what I needed more than I did myself, as each deep push made my breasts sway.

  “More, Joshan,” I ordered, and my servant redoubled his efforts until I was falling forward, now held up by Beza as my girl reached back to rub the spot between my legs. These new feelings, being trapped and held and pinned and stroked, my breath hot on Beza’s neck as I clung to the girl who rubbed me right where Joshan’s cock was entering me so hard --

  I cried out helplessly, suffused with power, roiling between the two. Beza held onto me but didn’t stop, and neither did Joshan, until I sagged to the ground between them.

  Beza rocked back roughly as Joshan rocked forward, and the vase – already jostled from Beza’s time -- tilted precipitously, until it fell off of its stand away from us, shattering loudly into a million precious bits.

  Both the servants startled at this and looked to me. I gasped in surprise, and then laughed. At that, both of them laughed too, all three of us in a tangle of wild fabrics and shards of irreplaceable ancient pottery.

  This was life in the court of the Feather Palace, in the time of the Unfurling Lotus, year twenty-three thousand four-hundred and one.

  Chapter One

  Eventually I stood, pushing layers of gauzy blue back down. Beza was disheveled, orange skirts still high, and Joshan, ever patient, was hard and ready just in case his services were still required.

  “Beza, finish him, will you?”

  My serving girl nodded, and set to working at Joshan’s cock with her mouth.

  I breathed in and out deeply, watching her enthusiastic work. Joshan’s eyes were on me should I need him but I shook my head and watched the man dissolve in bliss. I knew just how good her tongue could feel, and didn’t want to interrupt his pleasure.

  They would have to be quick, though. A squad of zoomers would be here shortly to fix the mess we’d made. I knelt down to pick up a pottery shard. I couldn’t say how old the vase was, there was too much history to choose from, I only knew I’d never noticed it before. I turned the blood red piece over in my palm. Funny how the vase was more interesting after it’d been broken, then when it’d been one among the many of its kind.

  I heard Joshan’s grunting mount and watched him. Beza was crouched over his hips, mouth open, jaw dropped, taking his cock as he thrus
t it. His hands clutched out, found her hair, then he shouted, bucking in spasms, until he was through and gently pushed Beza back.

  “Satisfied?” I asked, smiling down.

  “Of course, my Queen,” he answered.

  Watching them made me think of asking for more, no matter that I had been so recently sated. We had spent days like this before, taking turns, two making the other one scream.

  But I could hear zoomers coming down the hall -- and overhead announcement chimes rang, the tones picked up and echoed by real and mechanical lilans throughout the palace. A council visit -- and we only had the time it took for the council to mount the thousand-step stair to prepare.

  I looked around at our disarray. If I had had more warning, I would bathe and be anointed with oils, put on fresh clothing, and choose one of the necklaces of my office to wear. Now, though – I knelt, and Beza began rebraiding my tangled hair. It would be easier with a brush, but it would take too long to fetch one now. Joshan tucked his cock away and set to straightening out my robes just as the first of the zoomers entered, and anything we might have said to one another was impossible to hear over the sound of their sharp teeth grinding pottery.

  Yzin was the only councilmember I liked. They were all old and stodgy, and each had their own way of taking up all the air in the room – I’d had to listen to each of them during the countless ceremonies we attended in assorted chambers, me sitting perfectly still as my image was projected to a thousand-thousand screens outside. Yzin was the only one who seemed to care about me – he’d taught me history, up until he said there wasn’t anymore, that we were making it ourselves – and he’d taught me how to read, then brought me screens to read for pleasure. Out of all the gifts the councilmen brought me, his were the only ones I enjoyed.

  One of the nearby zoomers ground to a stop, finishing the piece it held, reaching a paw out for more. Lifting a bigger shard revealed an unfamiliar object – I lunged for it and snatched it out of the zoomer’s path.