The Golden Dynasty (Fantasyland #2)(8)

Once I was washed head-to-toe, the woman holding me said something softly, the others nodded, rushed away, bent to some trunk that was about five feet away and then they rushed back carrying things that sparkled in the moonlight.

Oh please, God, let it be clothes.

My prayers were answered, sort of.

First came what looked like gold chain links. Tinkling over my head, they pulled it down, fastened it and I saw it was a halter top exposing as much as it covered.

Not great but at least not nothing.

A short skirt of the same links was wrapped low around my hips.

Okay, still not great but not nothing.

Then a wide, low hanging, very heavy, battered gold necklace was pulled over my head. It was so wide and hung so low, it covered my br**sts almost completely, just some flesh at the sides and bottoms showing.

All right, this was getting better.

Then a very heavy, very wide belt made entirely of gold disks, more dangling from the bottom, was attached around my hips, hiding my sex but, I could feel, not entirely covering the cheeks of my ass.

It wasn’t enough, it didn’t make me comfortable, all that gold was damned heavy but I was not going to quibble.

Then gold bands were pushed up my arms to my biceps on both sides, the same with very wide cuffs wrapped around that nearly covered me from wrists to elbows.

Well, I would have preferred that amount of coverage elsewhere but again, I was not going to complain.

And then, a thin band of golden feathers, so golden, they glinted in the moonlight like they had glitter on them was wrapped around my head at my forehead and tied at the back.

Finally, moving quickly, they coated my body in a thin layer of oil so that it glistened.

Totally weird.

This was, clearly, the finishing touch for the minute they were done with the oil, they all moved, stepping backward and bowing while the woman who held me murmured something to the Dax.

Before I knew it, me and all my heavy gold were swooped up in a powerful arm and planted on the horse. The second my ass hit the horse, the Dax swung up behind me.

But we didn’t move and one of the women rushed forward. She took one of my ankles in her hand, pushed up and made as if to swing my leg around the beast’s neck.

She was telling me I was meant to ride straddling, not as I had been, side saddle.

I didn’t demur. I didn’t have it in me to demur. Any demurring was left on a stone some ways back. So I swung my leg around. She nodded in approval, smiled at me and started to step back, bowing.

The Dax made a noise of tongue against teeth and the horse moved forward even before the woman fully cleared the animal.

Okay, so, the bad news was, I was in another world, I had no idea how I got there and that other world was absolutely no way a place I wanted to be. I’d been paraded before warriors and hunted. I watched a man die for me, a man who did not even know me. I’d been pursued through a wasteland and forced to receive the attentions of a savage king. Then I’d endured the humiliating ride back wearing nothing but a necklace, chained to a brute. I had no way of knowing when this would end, if it would end and if I would ever get back home.

But, at least I wasn’t going to be paraded through a primitive village naked. The gold was heavy, the chain links weren’t exactly the finest silk, the whole ensemble didn’t entirely cover me.

But I decided I’d look on that as the good news.

People started flooding toward us as the horse became visible outside the Daxshee and the Dax changed our positions on the horse. This change was minute but significant. His arm around my waist slid up so the swells of my br**sts rested on it and it tightened so I was held snug to his big body. This said I was not a bundle to be delivered safely. This was more intimate. This said I was claimed.

Then his mouth came to my ear and he said the first words since he took me.

I didn’t understand a one of them but I recognized the last one and even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t forget it. The last word he said in his deep, scary, rough voice was a forceful, “Lahnahsahna.”

Okay, whatever the hell that meant, it meant something to him. Therefore, I needed to find out what it meant. And I was figuring I needed to find that out fast.

With the old-fashioned attired men holding back but their eyes still on us, his native people rushed the horse, took one look at me in my golden outfit and started cheering, smiling, laughing, jumping in joy, holding their hands up and waving them, some of them chanting as we rode through them. Then flowers were thrown, just petals but the deeper we got into the Daxshee, the more people there were, the more petals drifted around us until they were all I could see.

It sucked but I had to admit their softness felt nice floating and gliding against my hot, scraped, aching flesh. And, if this was a joyous occasion, like a real wedding of people uniting in love (which it was not) those light petals drifting through the torchlit night would be beautiful.

The Dax said not a word as he rode through the crowd and his horse didn’t miss a beat but kept his slow, steady walk through the throng.

The people and their petal throwing stopped when we reached the dais area. They hung back but their cheers and chants carried on as the horse took us to the center of a wide semi-circle of stone that bowed out from the dais. This semi-circle was created by warriors astride horses, their claimed women in front of them on the horse, straddling it, wearing nothing but their necklaces with the warrior’s chain hooked to it.