Flesh: Alpha Males and Taboo Tales by Scarlett Skyes et al Read Free Book Online Page A

a good chance I would not survive, but my mission was the last hope for peace between the elves and the lizardmen. I heard my companions shuffling behind me, their chains clanking in time with mine. I hated myself for putting them at risk, knowing what might happen to us. Elf and lizardman had been at war for generations. They raided our settlements, stole our food, and carried us off into the night for no one knew what, and here I was, my people’s sovereign, walking with a company of my subjects into their midst.
    I approached them under a flag of truce, my personal guard of trained maiden arches my only companions, as we agree. They took us by cover of night, slipping into our camp. We were divided and conquered, trussed up, and carried back here to their caves. The dank, cold air stung my skin, and I could feel mud squeezing between my toes. A lizardman’s rough hand pushed me forward and I nearly fell. I could feel now that I was in an open space. Stepped off the mud and onto tiles, the muck squelching under my feet.
    They drew the bag off my head, letting my golden curls spill over my pale shoulders. I was dressed in my battle armor, interlocking plates of metal that was soft and fine, almost like silk, unless it was struck, in which case it was as hard as stone. I stood proudly, my chin high, though I spared a glance at my followers. They were on their knees, the lizardman guards standing behind them holding them by their shoulders or by knotted handfuls of hair. They hissed at each other in their guttural language, their laughter like tearing silk.
    The king sat on a throne of worked gold, the image of a sun fanning up behind him. He sat sideways on it, one leg through over the arm of the throne. His skin was a pale blue, his scales shimmering like glass except on his flat belly and the insides of this thighs, where it was a pale yellow and softer, almost not scaly at all. Unlike the low, hissing minions behind me, his countenance was almost regal, less like some crocodilian monster and almost birdlike. He wore a crown of gold and feathers that trailed down his back, and a band of golden ceremonial armor around his chest. A cloth of green silk girded his loins. He looked at me as though he were bored, propping his chin on his fist.
    He spoke perfect, clear Elvish. “Why are you here?”
    “To broker a peace,” I said, ignoring the hissing laughter from behind me.
    He sat up. “You’re not in much of a position to offer terms, your majesty. I’d call this a surrender.”
    I stiffened. His arrogance displeased me.
    He draped his arms between his legs, and his alien lizard face twisted into a grin, his big eyes fixing on me. “I think I might agree to a truce, if you agree to surrender to me. Personally.”
    “What do you want me to do?” I sighed. “Bow? Kneel? Serve you?”
    “Something like that. Bring her to me.”
    Two of the guards seized me by the arms and dragged me up the dais until I stood directly in front of him. The lizard king studied me thoroughly, his gaze sliding over my body. I tensed, offended by his presumption.
    “You wear too many clothes. Disrobe.”
    My jaw dropped, and then my teeth clicked shut. “What?”
    “You heard me. Your robes, remove them.”
    I turned to call for members of my guard to help me out of my armor.
    “No. You do it.”
    I was shaking with rage. It almost hurt to uncoil my fists and my fingers shook as I undid the clasps. I undid the high collar of my flexible armor and tugged at the skeins of mail draped over my shoulders. The lizard king gave me an amused look and reclined in his throne, scratching his chin with his claws.
    “Slowly,” he said.
    I slowed. I shifted my mail and cloak from my shoulders. There was only the mail shirt that clung to my body and my armored leggings and skirts. The cool air sucked the heat out of my bare skin and I shivered, no matter how desperately I tried not to. I reached behind my back and undid the clasp holding my skirt in