From the beginning of our journey to The Kingdom of the Black Sun, into the Demon Realm, I had wondered exactly what my purpose was; what a rat of the royal court's outer circle was meant to do on a tribute mission to the Pharaoh's greatest enemy. Now I had my answer.
"This one is to stay in the palace's guest quarters tonight," the Chamberlain said, pointing to me with all the impersonality of an executioner. Aynaet, her name was, the blue-skinned Demoness who had greeted our party in lieu of Queen Nehebkau. The orange radiance of her eyes reminded me of a branding iron's dangerous glow, and it was when her stare fell upon my frightened heart that I knew I had been reduced to property.
Foolishly, I spoke up. "I-I am certainly honored, but—"
"He would be happy to accept such a privilege," the nobleman who led our party interrupted, giving Aynaet a polite smile. His eyes however, when they turned to the side and met my own, displayed anything but politeness.
The message was silent, but crushing in its clarity. I was a prisoner of social graces. Enslaved by the mission's goal to please our hosts. Whatever Aynaet and her masters wanted of our group, they would have, and putting me in the clutches of demons had now been laid bare as a planned expense. The feeling of hollow dread which had been creeping into my stomach ever since I had stepped into that throne room of evil became all-consuming when I saw Aynaet wave her hand to motion two guards forward.
They were lizard-beasts bent into the shapes of men, clad in armor made of leather and steel that seemed almost flimsy in comparison to their rough, dark-green hides. Each was taller than any man I had ever met, both of them wielding silver-hilted sabers that distinguished them as palace guards. To resist Aynaet's word was to resist them—and more than anything else I wanted to survive.
"Take him to Katherine. Tell her that he's a prized guest," she instructed the Lizard-men tersely.
Without hesitation, the two guards flanked me and harshly seized my shoulders, setting foot towards one of the many vaulted doorways which were connected to the throne room. The moment I was dragged along, the nobles continued their conversation with Aynaet about when they would meet with Queen Nehebkau like I had never even existed. If the helplessness on my face was seen by anyone in the room, they made no acknowledgment.
Pulled into the palace's inner reaches, I was lead through several hallways of dizzying extravagance; the carved basalt stonework mixing with sterling sliver and volcanic glass accents to create an atmosphere of imposing lavishness. My admiration was cut short however, when the Lizard-men halted their dragging of my body at the appearance of a new creature from some adjacent room. If the reptilians hauling me to my fate had been a strange sight, the being in front of me was otherworldly.
Her upper body was a disturbingly well-crafted imitation of the human female form, clad in a maid dress of unique design that seemed suited to her amorphous body. Beyond her upper half's hourglass figure though, there was no further attempts at displaying a sense of humanity. Her entire being seemed to be comprised of slime dyed in dark, midnight blues, which became most apparent below the waist of her maid dress—where instead of legs, her body became an unformed base of shambling gelatin dotted with eyes and branching into tentacles. I could barely bring myself to look at her face; the picture of a raven-haired beauty if you ignored the pale blue skin and distinctly cruel radiance of her glassy yellow eyes.
There was a moment of deafening silence, as the creature looked upon the Lizard-men rather disapprovingly. "Well?" she spoke up, revealing a voice possessing an echo that sounded like it was coming from inside my head. "You've deposited a grime-covered human worm at my feet, and on my freshly-polished tile floors, no less. Am I supposed to be impressed?"
"Prized guest. From Aynaet," the Lizard-man to my left said in a gravelly voice, choosing no further words.
It was then that I realized this creature was Katherine. There was a flash of annoyance on her face, her eyes flickering down to meet mine. Staring at one another, the sound of whispers crept into my skull, and I shivered with a mixture of fear and revulsion. Katherine's tight-lipped frown melted into a grin adjacent to madness.
"A prized guest, hm? It's been so long since we've had one of those. Though I'm not sure what Aynaet sees in this one. Perhaps there's something redeemable underneath all the rags and dirt on your body. We'll find out." Turning in a half circle, Katherine snapped a gloved finger and waved over her shoulder. "Follow me. Bring the worm."
Once more, my shoulders were seized by scaled claws, and I was dragged like a sack of grain through more resplendent hallways in Katherine's wake. Even from behind, her presence was disturbing; no part of Katherine's body sat still, the dark goo of her lower half always shifting and changing, eyes appearing and disappearing, appendages emerging and reshaping themselves. As our group moved, she hummed some strange tune to herself, which I was tortuously made party to from inside of my brain. To think that a creature like her was but a mere servant of Queen Nehebkau was a chilling thought.
Our journey came to a halt in front of a particularly large pair of ornate doors, covered in a lattice of silver filigree that highlighted the macabre designs carved into the dark stone. Bizarrely, the doors opened themselves at Katherine's presence, swinging inward to reveal an expansive series of baths. She moved forward with purpose, leading the two lizard men and I to one particular pool of water that had a generous amount of steam curling off its surface. The basin of the bath was made from polished obsidian, giving the water an appearance like a liquid void awaiting sacrifice.
Katherine ascended the bath steps to assess a dizzying array of soaps, oils, and other potions which rested in one corner of the bath, picking up some of the crystal containers to examine and re-arrange them with a few tendrils. "Get those cotton scraps off him," she commanded without even looking back at me.
The two Lizard-men dropped me onto the floor once again, just as harshly, their claws then moving towards my tattered, meager robes. "I can do it myself!" I objected loudly, refusing to let them rob me what precious little dignity I had left.
Katherine's head snapped to the side with speed unsuited to her appearance. Her gaze caught mine, and for a few moments I knew what it was like to stare into the eyes of something that could extinguish my life without even the smallest sliver of effort expended. Then, as quickly as she had regarded me with such overwhelming malevolence, Katherine's twisted smile returned.
"How interesting," she remarked. "Very well, you may remove them yourself. Hand it all to one of the brutes when you're done."
The Lizard-man to my right lifted a fraction of his lip in an almost imperceptible sneer, well-hidden from Katherine's observation. I worked quickly to remove the robes I was wearing, followed by the clothing underneath, all of it heavily worn and sand-blasted from my lengthy journey. I would never see those clothes again, I thought morosely. To be naked in front of strangers who held their fate in my hands was mortifying, but my skin didn't truly begin to crawl until Katherine finished her assessment of the bath's supplies and turned to assess me. It felt like every single hazy golden eye on her blight of a body was focused on my pitifully vulnerable form.
"The state you animals let yourselves fall into," Katherine scoffed with the utmost contempt in her reverberating voice. "But all treasures start out tarnished. That's where I come in."
In a burst of motion, Katherine's lower body grew a flurry of new rope-like appendages that surged forward to grasp my limbs and pull me into the bath. I struggled out of instinct, resisting the unwelcome pull, until she seized the sides of my head with her hands and an ear-splitting tone ripped through my mind.
"Agh! Fuck!" I yelled, gritting my teeth while everything below my neck suddenly went limp.
Katherine put a single gloved finger to my lips, possessing an excruciatingly patronizing stare. "Hush now, little worm. Can't have you wriggling around while I'm at work."
I was powerless but to watch as her tendrils guided my unresponsive body into the steaming bath water. Soon after, my ability to focus began to wane, giving way to a thick, syrupy state of semi-consciousness that glazed over my mind. Everything that followed was stuck in a haze of murky remembrance. All I could ascertain was that Katherine subjected me to an extremely thorough bath, the likes of which I think few men have ever endured.
When the strange fog surrounding my mind finally lifted, I found myself in the final stages of Katherine dressing me in some thin, ornate robe; her bizarre tendrils manipulating my limbs to slip it on and then tying the sash into a complex ornamental knot. My bleary gaze met her focused stare, and I was once again treated to her chilling smile.
"Ah, there you are. For a moment I wondered if I'd scrambled that tiny mind of yours for good! The effort I would have wasted…" she muttered in an irritated voice, before returning her focus to me. "Now that you don't reek of filth, one of the brutes will take you to your quarters for the night. Stay in there, if you know what's good for you."
Lacking the energy and inclination to discuss anything more with Katherine, I simply acknowledged her with a nod.
"Good. Off you go."
Without any further ado, Katherine's disturbing, gooey appendages set me back down on the floor of the bath house, quite conveniently in front of a Lizard-man who seemed to have been waiting around the whole time. We made eye contact, shared a wordless exchange, and I fell in line behind him as the two of us exited the baths. It seemed our mutual distaste for Katherine had earned me the right to walk on my own two feet—a rather mundane privilege I was suddenly quite grateful for. Though there was no shortage of splendid things to admire along the guided tour to my quarters, I was too busy attempting to take stock of my post-bath condition to care.
It was like I had been transported into someone else's body, with how much was different. Most immediately I noticed that my body had been scrubbed clean down to the finest details; there wasn't even a speck of dirt left under my fingernails. After that, I discovered that my hair—head, face, or otherwise—had been thoroughly cleaned, lightly trimmed, and dried to the point where it was hard to believe I had been anywhere near a bath. Finally, I realized that I smelled nothing like my usual self; any trace of my prior natural scent having been drowned out by a perplexing mix of what I guessed to be lavender and wine.
My attention was brought back to my surroundings by the sudden halting of the Lizard-man ahead of me. Predictably, we had arrived at a door bearing elaborate and unnerving designs on its stone surface like the ones on the bath house doors. The Lizard-man was quick to produce a metal key from his waistband, which he used to unlock the door before tossing it to me.
"Guest quarters. You stay here. Don't wander," the reptilian told me in his usual spartan verbal delivery style. "Wandering starts trouble."
"Believe me, I won't," I replied with a small shake of my head.
Apparently seeing no further need for his presence, the Lizard-man turned on a heel and departed, disappearing down some other dazzling hallway of the royal palace.
"Be seeing you," I mumbled sarcastically.
Pushing open the door to my guest quarters, I was greeted by a room that did all it could to maintain the standard of extravagance I had observed throughout the rest of the palace thus far. Smooth walls of sandstone sported eye-catching painted patterns, which gave way to three tall windows carved into the far wall of the room. Through them, the dark orange radiance of a decaying twilight streamed inside, illuminating curtains that were gently shimmering in the evening breeze. The realization that it was sunset restored my sense of time, which had been wholly absent ever since I had stepped through the doors of the palace with my former party of travelers.
I paid little mind to the rest of the room, focusing instead on the gargantuan bed which occupied half the floor space and abutted the right wall. Despite how desensitized I was becoming to the abundance of wealth in my environment, I still managed to feel a shock of surprise when I laid down on the bed and found the sheets to be made of white silk.
Perhaps without due reverence for the lavishness of the bed, I made myself comfortable, peeling back the sheets and quickly giving up on deciding what to do with the frustrating abundance of pillows. Barely a moment passed after I settled in before all of my built-up exhaustion came crashing down like a wave and swept me into a deep sleep.
I awoke sluggishly, to the feeling of an unfamiliar weight atop my body; like a heavy blanket had been tossed onto me while I slept. It wasn't quite enough to wake me up—but a wet flickering sensation against my cheek was. With a startled gasp I attempted to sit upright, but the weight on my chest and legs proved too much to overcome.
"Mmm… careful. He spooks easily," a mellifluous woman's voice whispered next to my left ear.
"It's to be expected," another woman's voice replied in an amused tone, somewhere to the right. "Humans are always skittish."
Once again, there was a lightly moist flickering against my cheek, which melted into a gently pressing kiss. "Ooh, he smells very nice," the voice on my left commented after taking her lips away. "Katherine must have put all our favorite scents on him."
"What a treat," the other vixen cooed, her hand making itself known on my chest. "I think she's going to love him."
I was quite literally in the dark on what was happening, the only illumination present being the few rays of moonlight that managed to break through the room's drawn curtains. Who my two guests were, or what they looked like, I had no idea, but it was clear that they were women with restless hands.
"What is the meaning of this?" I asked in a hushed, but stressed voice, ever so slightly struggling beneath the weight keeping me pinned down. "Who are you?"
"Ah~ Questions, questions… They always have questions," one of the women hissed in a playful voice, teasing the edge of my earlobe with her strangely cold lips.
"We're the Queen's handmaidens, my sweet thing," the other one answered in my opposite ear. "…and we're here to take you to paradise."
To my immediate terror, the weight atop me began to move itself in a steady slithering motion, causing me to thrash about in a panic. "What is that!?" I yelped in a much louder voice.
"Hush now, darling…" the handmaiden on my left whispered, cupping my face in her hands. "Look at me."
My eyes, fraught with panic and deprived of light by which to make out any of my surroundings, followed the sound of her voice and the coaxing of her hands. They guided my head to the side, where I locked gazes with a pair of eyes like glowing amber crystals. They were gems with endless facets, infinite sparking details, each bisected by a thin vertical pupil blacker than the night sky. It was as though all focus and attention was siphoned from my mind and into that bewitching stare, causing my resistant movements to slowly melt away until I was still.
"That's it… Just look at me, sweet thing," she murmured while gently rubbing my face with her thumbs. "Focus on the sound of my voice."
Somewhere far away, I was being coaxed out of bed, lifted and manipulated by two pairs of hands and some other strange, slithering weight. But it didn't matter. All that mattered were the eyes I was staring into, the voice filling my ears. So long as I had those, so long as I paid attention to them, everything would be alright.
I didn't come back to my senses until I was in the hallway outside my quarters. Only then, did I finally get a good look at my two uninvited guests. Initially I believed myself to be seeing double; on either side of me was a caramel-skinned beauty of a woman possessing impressively long pitch-black hair and those wicked, luminous yellow eyes. Upon closer inspection though, their differences did become apparent. One's facial features were softer, while the other seemed to prefer a more seductive shade of lipstick.
What truly grabbed my resurfaced attention however, was that both of them did not have legs—beginning somewhere at their hips, their lower bodies instead looked like they belonged to black-scaled serpents. Considering the creatures I had already been in close contact with, however, I wasn't terribly fazed. Both of the half-snake women were holding me by an arm, leading me through the palace hallways to some unknown destination.
"Come along, don't make trouble," the handmaiden to my right murmured with a smile, noticing that I had tuned back in to what was going on around me.
I nodded without a word, accepting that my destiny was yet again in the hands of strangers, and did my best to remain distracted by my surroundings as we walked. Now that I was paying attention, I realized what a different world the palace was at night. It was more vibrant, but at the same time more sinister. Previously dormant chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceilings were now alive, casting gentle candlelight onto the sparkling silver and garnet accents of the carved basalt walls. The light of the moon was still abundant, providing an undercurrent of illumination as it streamed in through the hall's evenly spaced transoms.
All together, the atmosphere was overwhelmingly eerie, manifesting a slowly-building sense of fear in my core. "Where are you taking me?" I asked in a voice that failed to conceal my nervousness.
"To see Queen Nehebkau, of course," one of them answered, sounding all too amused. "As all prized guests do."
"At this hour of the night?" I replied quizzically. "Surely this is some kind of joke at my expense. I know of no monarch that would take kindly to being drawn out of bed to meet with some foreign commoner by moonlight."
"I assure you the Queen is very much awake," the handmaiden on my right said wryly. "And I have a feeling your presence is going to delight her."
"Creatures of the night," I muttered under my breath somewhat contemptuously.
"Something like that. No need to be bitter about it, sweet thing. Some men would kill to be where you are right now."
"If only they would."
The rest of our journey was carried out in silence, the handmaidens guiding me to a corner of the palace that was unmistakably Queen Nehebkau's domain. There, the usual glyphs and patterns carved into the walls changed from a mix of demonic themes to a distinctly serpentine motif. But above all else, this section of the palace was marked as the Queen's personal territory thanks to the sudden and abundant use of purple hues in everything from the wall art to the dizzyingly ornate rugs. However it was no shellfish's purple, but instead some enchanting shade that could be plausibly be mistaken for black in the wrong lighting.
There were only a choice few doors in that wing of the palace, with our destination being a pair which sat at the very end of the hallway. Much like I had witnessed previously, they swung inward with no impetus other than our impending presence. While the doors crept open, the handmaiden on my right produced a lengthy cloak made of interwoven black and red fabrics, handing it over to me. "Put this on and keep your head down. We'll be your eyes from here."
Unnerved, but lacking alternatives, I did as she asked, slipping on the surprisingly soft garment and pulling up the hood. I had never considered myself a large person, but it proved almost too small for me; ostensibly tailored to reach the floor and drape over one's hands, but accomplishing neither. Complaining about such things seemed ill-suited to someone in my position, however. As commanded, I direct my gaze downward, blinded to anything except the patterning of the rug beneath my feet. The handmaidens, carefully leading me by each arm, slithered into the room ahead.
Stepping across the threshold, the first thing that struck me was the powerful scent of mixed incense—bold, and abundant to the senses, but not overwhelming to the point that it was distasteful. It added a strange sort of sweetness to the air, but any description beyond that cursory assessment eluded me. The lighting that was cast onto the floor changed in color as well, the previously orange candlelight giving way to a strange, sickly green shade of illumination.
"Ah, good evening, girls," someone called out from a short distance away. It was another woman's voice, but quite distinct from any I had heard before—smooth, calm, and commanding, with the faintest whisper of lecherous intent attached. It sounded royal. "What do we have here?"
The handmaiden on my left spoke up, sounding quite pleased with herself. "Something of a surprise gift, my Queen. Picked out by the ever-perceptive Aynaet, and dutifully prepared by the ever-devoted Katherine. Something of a… keepsake, from that band of humans who came stumbling in not long ago."
"Oh, dear~" Queen Nehebkau purred in an amused voice, "did Aynaet scoop one of them up? Just for me? You know how long it's been since I've had a prized guest all to myself…"
"Indeed she did, your highness," the second handmaiden replied, coaxing me forward in the direction of the Queen's voice, "and we think you'll be quite pleased with her selection. Katherine has done a wonderful job making him presentable."
"Hm, I'll be the judge of that."
A single finger hooked itself under my chin, a lengthy, sharpened fingernail pressing into the soft skin below my jawbone and guiding my head upwards. At the same time, the handmaidens removed my cloak, and brought me face-to-face the Queen of the Black Sun Kingdom.
The legends I had heard about her being from a Demon Realm now seemed like minimizations of the truth. Staring down at me was a terrifying corruption of the human form—half-woman, half-snake like her handmaidens, but far more thoroughly twisted. The skin of her upper body was a faint shade of lavender, while her lower body possessed scales like darkly-tinted amethyst crystals. Her eyes were anything but human; possessing blood-red irises and reptilian pupils set against obsidian sclera. Simply returning her gaze felt like the specter of death running its fingertips across my heart.
There was a lengthy moment of silence as we each studied one another, where everything seemed to hold incredibly still. The only thing that assured me time hadn't frozen completely was the gentle swaying of the platinum pendants that hung from her pointed ears. They matched well with the rest of the jewelry that liberally decorated her body, from an ornate neck-piece, to long fragmented cuff-pieces on each wrist, to a connected set of adornments that rested on either side of her hips and sparkled suggestively beneath a shawl of thin silk. In a few key places, garnets carved like demon's eyes were set into the platinum, giving her entire appearance a sense of malevolent opulence.
"Mmm, I must say… he looks quite good," Queen Nehebkau hummed thoughtfully, running a thumb across my jawline. "Katherine seems to have done an excellent job." Her terrifying eyes looked me up and down for another brief moment, before they flickered to one of the handmaidens behind me. "Take off the robe. I want to see if Aynaet made a good choice."
One of the handmaidens moved to undo my robe, but I rebuffed her, feeling bold. "I can do it myself."
Nehebkau arched an eyebrow in curiosity, but made no further note of my action. Removing the robe, I did not attempt take the entire thing off, instead slipping out of the sleeves and letting the top of the robe fall down over the sash at my waist, rendering me shirtless.
"My, my~" the Queen cooed in a blatantly flirtatious tone, leaning forward from her resting place to lightly draw one of her sharp fingernails down my sternum. "Such a lean and pale build… Like a vampire of old, with how little the sun must kiss your skin," she remarked with the briefest flick of her forked tongue across her lips. "I must say, men like you are something of a rarity in my palace."
"What are your intentions with me, demon?" I asked, keeping my tone and composure as even as I could. "You talk of me like a prized cow, rather than a man, or a guest."
"Oh, how fitting," she chuckled softly, cupping my chin and giving me a patronizing stare that I could feel the coldness of in my bones. "You human males… all spine, no brains. It's a miracle you even make it to an attractive age without getting killed by something you don't notice." Her gentle grip on my chin become more forceful, and she pulled my face closer to her own. "You are no longer a guest here, darling. You're my newest plaything."
"I would sooner die than become your slave," I retorted, scowling slightly. "Whatever effort you and your lackeys have put into convincing me this is some worthwhile arrangement has been wasted."
"Such pride," Queen Nehebkau said in a mocking tone, pulling me closer to her. "If your willingness in this was a factor, you would have been asked at the start. Did Aynaet ask you if you wanted to stay here?"
I ignored her question, cutting straight to the point. "You will have great difficulty making any use of me. Of that, I can promise you."
"I don't think so, sweet thing," she hissed with a cruel, fanged smile.
Time stood still for a single, fleeting moment, resuming shortly after in a flurry of chaotic action. With all the strength of a cornered animal, I wrenched myself from the Queen's hand, only for her serpentine lower half to close around my legs like a coiled vise. I moved to break myself free, but no sooner did I try to move my arms were they immobilized by the shocking strength of Nehebkau's handmaidens. I thrashed against my newfound restraints in a panic, but all my exertion amounted to nothing.
It was then that I realized what I was to Queen Nehebkau and her handmaidens—not a guest, not a man, not even a prized cow. I was prey.
"You truly are a breed apart," Nehebkau remarked approvingly, her horrifying stare taking on a new kind of intensity. "Such inner fire… I can hardly imagine the things you'll amount to inside these walls." As she spoke, the Queen's upper body drew closer and closer to me, until her front side was pressed flush against my own, her disturbingly cold skin robbing me of my body heat. One of her hands placed itself on the side of my head, the other bracing against my shoulder to expose the side of my neck. "Now hold still, sweet thing."
"No! Kill me or unhand me, demon!" I yelled, trying in vain to free myself once more. "What are you doing!?"
"I'm fixing that attitude problem of yours," Nehebkau replied, giving me an open-mouthed smirk that revealed the full extent of her lengthy, sinister fangs.
"She's making you her toy," one of the handmaidens whispered into my ear. "Making you perfect for us."
Nehebkau leaned into the crook of my neck, and I was helpless but to scream in a mixture of hate and agony as she bit down deeply. Her fangs pierced my flesh effortlessly, lighting my neck on fire with the radiations of a deep, searing pain. Every muscle in my body tensed at once, one last surge of animalistic panic overwhelming my body in a final attempt at escape. But like every attempt before, I failed. I was stuck, forced to remain still and wail like a beaten dog in a pitiful attempt at coping with the pain that had invaded my neck. If my reaction affected Queen Nehebkau at all, she made no acknowledgment, keeping her fangs sunk into my flesh for a torturous eternity.
A strangled yelp tore itself from my lips when the Queen's bite finally ended and she pulled back, a disgusting look of pride written on her face. "I love the ones who put up a fight. My venom mixes so beautifully with all that free adrenaline."
I had only just begun to grasp the meaning of her words when it all hit me at once. A sensation like sudden heat stroke washed over me, causing my skin to flush and sweat. My already hasty breathing quickly devolved into ragged panting, my lungs desperate for more air to try and calm my rapidly spinning head. My state of awareness was plunged into a deep, thick fog, even worse than the one Katherine had subjected me to. Pins and needles invaded my burning limbs and my ability to comprehend anything became lost in a churning wave of sensations that violated me from my skin down to my very soul.
Somewhere so very, very far away, I heard a voice. Who it belonged to, I didn't know. "Look at that… His reaction is even stronger than I thought."
In a flash, an acute sense of desperation consumed me. I had to ground myself, to escape the great abyssal delirium consuming my mind. I felt everything and nothing, all at once, nowhere and everywhere. Some part of me was dying, fading away, ceasing to be—but I couldn't even figure out what it was. Distantly, tears rolled down some part of my skin, like little rivulets of liquid fire.
"Oh, sweet thing," the voice said, intoning some emotion I couldn't grasp. "Don't cry… It'll all feel better soon."
Something soft and freezing cold pressed itself against my lips. From there, everything came rushing back. I leaned into the kiss shamelessly, seeking out its anchoring power with the hunger of a starving man. When the kiss broke apart, I whimpered in fear, but miraculously remained tethered to the present. My eyes opened, and I took a moment to try and discern my surroundings.
I was sprawled out on some expanse of cushions, their soft surfaces tickling my achingly hot skin in a thousand different places at once. Above me was Queen Nehebkau—from where I remembered her, I didn't know. All I knew was that she looked absolutely captivating, the way her dazzling red eyes gazed upon me with all the love and concern in the world.
"Can you sit up for me, darling?" she asked in a voice made from honey and silk.
I did as she asked, groaning slightly from the continual hot pain crawling across my body in the form of a sharp, throbbing ache. "Everything hurts," I whimpered, propping myself upright with the help of my arms. "It's all so hazy…"
"Focus on me, sweet thing, focus on my voice," Nehebkau instructed. "I want you to tell me how this feels."
Though my vision was still swimming, I watched the Queen reach out and place her hands on the sides of my ribs. Immediately, the chill of her touch brought blissful relief to my skin, drawing out a reactive shudder.
"It feels good," I panted, nodding my head slightly. "It's cold. I like the cold. It makes the pain go away."
"Not that," she snickered, "this."
Each of her incredibly sharp fingernails pressed deep into my skin, and raked a short path downward. A kick to the teeth probably would have delivered a similar surge to my brain, but there was nothing even remotely close to pain involved—only white-hot, excruciating pleasure.
"Oh, fuck…" I moaned, collapsing backwards from the sudden rush of endorphins. "Fuck… It feels good… So good…"
"You even drew blood," one of the handmaidens giggled. "Poor little thing~"
Out of nowhere, a thin, chilly tongue pressed itself against the fresh wounds on my left side, and my hips arched in an instinctive attempt to cope with the feeling. "So sensitive… And such a rich taste…" she cooed softly, the touch of her delightfully cold hand appearing on my stomach. "We're going to have plenty of fun with you."
Another tongue made itself known upon the scratch marks on my right side, at which point I began to squirm with pleasure.
"You're right, he tastes delightful," Nehebkau remarked, her own hands placing themselves on my torso and beginning to wander. "But he moves about too much, don't you think?"
Her statement was followed by frigid snakeskin caressing my ankles, then slowly advancing up my legs in a winding motion that bound them together. Every scale that slithered across me was a salve for the blistering heat that saturated my skin. Nehebkau's lower body stopped coiling around me just above my knees, which made my squirming much more subdued. The second handmaiden finally made herself known on my right side, where Queen Nehebkau had been moments prior. It was an excruciatingly pleasurable position I found myself in; the two handmaidens on either side of my laid-out body, lapping at the wounds on my ribs and feeling up my stomach, while Queen Nehebkau took her place looming above me, frisking my chest and shoulders with her own chilly hands.