Wonderland: King of Diamonds Read online




  WONDERLAND: KING OF DIAMONDS

  An Ellora’s Cave publication, November 2003

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc. USA

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Ltd. UK

  PO Box 787

  Hudson OH 44236

  ISBN

  MS Reader (LIT) # 1-84360-680-1

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML

  WONDERLAND: KING OF DIAMONDS © CHEYENNE MCCRAY, 2003.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This e-book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by email forwarding, copying, fax, or any other mode of communication without author/publisher permission.

  Edited by ANN RICHARDSON

  Cover Art by CHRISTINE CLAVEL

  To Mama Zuca:

  You have given me support and love and

  I appreciate you more than you will ever realize.

  Author’s Note

  The Wonderland series is intended to be purely fantasy, taking only elements of BDSM and Domination/submission. None of the books in the series are intended to accurately portray a true BDSM or Dom/sub relationship.

  In the spirit of fantasy, the Wonderland series is also pure fantasy when it comes to sex. In real life, keep it real and practice safe sex. We’ll keep the fantasies in Wonderland. ;-)

  Chey McCray

  Prologue

  The mansion’s windowpanes rattled and thunder cleaved the night as a brilliant flash of lightning briefly illuminated the dim room. Smells of burning tallow, sandalwood, spice, and scents of arousal from the two women in his bedchambers, caused Karn’s nostrils to flare and his cock to stiffen.

  Like a caged tiger, the Ruler of the Kingdom of Diamonds paced his expansive candlelit chambers and ignored the two naked females silently waiting for him. Cool air caressed his scarred chest, and he flexed his muscles as he fought against what he was required to do. For even though he was King of his own realm, he still answered to the High King, his brother Jarronn.

  Unlike his three brothers’ castles and palaces, Karn resided in a stately mansion. He preferred to live in elegance, yet simplicity. The endless moors around his manse gave him comfort and a sense of peace. His subjects within the Kingdom of Diamonds were loyal to Karn as well as to Jarronn the High King of Tarok.

  He paused before one window and looked out into the darkness. The storm obscured his view of the village, the surrounding homes, and even the ocean, giving the dark mansion a feeling of being more remote than it actually was.

  Lost in his thoughts, Karn barely spared a glance at the two cards lying face down upon the a’bin. Despite his orders, despite the sorceress Kalina’s urgent plea that he choose a card and select his mate as his elder twin brothers had, Karn was loathe to comply. He had no desire to bring a woman from another world into a loveless joining…for Karn would never love anyone outside his brothers and their mates, his nieces, and his nephews. Even to those individuals a portion of his heart was cut off and would be known to none.

  Not after losing his parents to a magical fever, not after losing his sister to evil insanity, not after losing the one woman he had ever given his love to.

  No. He would never love again.

  Instead of the magical cards, Karn stopped pacing and focused his attention on Kalina and Aleana, his favored pleasure toys. Flickering candleflame danced upon the midnight skin of Aleana who stood beside the a’bin, at the foot of his massive four-poster bed. Her dark skin was perfection, like silk made from the night sky and created for a man’s touch. A single white lock graced her long black hair, framing one side of her face as it spilled from her part, over her forehead, and down to her shoulders. The paleness of the lock was a stunning contrast to her lovely skin.

  “My beauty.” Karn moved close enough to Aleana to lightly stroke her breasts with his fingertips. He pinched one pierced nipple and she gave an excited cry. The white diamond hanging from the piercing glittered in the candlelight, casting rainbows throughout the dim room. “Do you know what I desire of you, my sweet?” he asked.

  Aleana licked her full burgundy lips with the tip of her tongue and her brown eyes flashed with need. “I wish only for your pleasure, Sire.”

  With a nod, Karn motioned to Kalina to come closer as he continued to fondle Aleana’s nipple. “Before I perform my duty to my people, I wish for you to perform your duty to me,” Karn said.

  Thunder rumbled again as the sorceress approached and he could feel the charge in the air as the sky prepared to break loose with all its fury.

  When Kalina was close enough, Karn reached out and rubbed the pad of his thumb over her taut nipple and its diamond piercing, causing her to gasp with pleasure. “You have little time, Sire. The path will not stay open for long.”

  “I am aware of how much time I have and do not have.” Karn’s voice held just enough reproach that Kalina lowered her fire-ice eyes.

  “Yes, Sire.”

  He let his hands fall away from the women and stepped back so that he might better observe his pleasure toys. “Sorceress, I wish for you to suck Aleana’s nipples.”

  Kalina’s expression was one of desire as she turned to Aleana. The sorceress cupped the woman’s breast, lowered her head, and flicked her tongue across Aleana’s nipple as instructed.

  Aleana moaned and arched her back, forcing her nipple further into Kalina’s mouth and the sorceress sucked harder yet. Kalina brought her hands to Aleana’s slender hips as her mouth moved to the woman’s other breast.

  Karn’s cock stiffened at the sight of Kalina’s ivory flesh against Aleana’s ebony skin. It never ceased to please him to watch two women pleasuring one another and then to fuck them both until they could take no more. However, he had yet to discover a partner with whom he could find complete release, and now that he was forced to choose his Queen from a card, he likely never would. Even two women fully trained in sexual arts could not satisfy him. How could one woman do so—and a woman ignorant to the sensual ways of his own world, no less?

  A flash of light and then thunder boomed again. “Widen your stance Aleana,” he commanded as he slowly walked around the two women, enjoying the sight of their naked bodies. When Aleana obeyed, he stopped behind Kalina, grabbed a handful of the sorceress’s black hair as she liked him to, and pulled downward. “Lick Aleana’s quim.”

  “Yes, Sire.” Gracefully Kalina knelt, her mouth curving into a sensual smile, and Karn released his hold on her. She used her slender fingers to part Aleana’s slit. Kalina flicked her tongue against the woman’s clit then buried her face within Aleana’s folds.

  Aleana moaned and slid her hands into Kalina’s hair, pressing the sorceress even tighter against her quim.

  A low rumble rose up in Karn’s chest and moved into a loud purr as he watched his lovely playthings. Earth and skies but his lust always raged at the sight of them teasing each other. He enjoyed watching a woman reach climax. Even better was seeing two women orgasm at once.

  “May I come, Sire?” Aleana asked, her brown eyes meeting his gaze.

  “Not yet.” He gestured to the black hide on the dark flagstone floor, beside the sorceress’s a’bin. “Kalina, cease. Go, and lie upon your back upon the bearskin.”

  The sorceress lifted her head, licked Aleana’s juices from her lips, and hurried to do as he bade. She settled on the coarse rug, looking both relaxed and excited. Ah, but she was beautiful, her flawless skin so white against the black fur.

  “On your hands and knees over Kalina,” he ordered Aleana. “And make sure your breasts are above the sorceress’s mouth.”

  “Yes, Sire,” Aleana replied as she obeyed.

  “Kalina, I wish
for you to suck Aleana’s nipples while I fuck her.”

  “Yes, Sire.” Kalina grasped both Aleana’s breasts in her hands and held them so that the woman’s nipples were close enough together that both could be easily stroked with her tongue.

  Karn knelt behind Aleana, between Kalina’s widespread thighs. Aleana moaned as he caressed her gorgeous firm ass and as Kalina sucked her nipples. He enjoyed viewing a woman’s quim from this angle, and with the sorceress beneath Aleana, he had a fine view of her lovely folds as well.

  With his magic he summoned a three-dimensional diamond-shaped toy that he often used with his beautiful playthings. At the same time he placed the head of his cock to Aleana’s core, he put the toy to Kalina’s quim.

  “What would you like me to do to you?” Karn asked as he fondled Aleana’s ass.

  “If it pleases you, Sire,” Aleana said in a voice that told him she found it difficult to speak, “I wish for you to fuck me.”

  “That’s my sweet.” Karn teased her opening for a few seconds, just long enough to make her groan with anticipation. Then he drove his cock into Aleana at the same time he slipped the toy into Kalina.

  Both women shouted and moaned. With his free hand he spanked Aleana’s ass the way he knew she enjoyed it, the sound of each slap ringing out in the room and mingling with the crash of thunder. She gave cries of delight and thrust back against him at the same time he pushed into her and spanked her.

  He watched his cock moving in and out of her and his lust increased, yet he would not allow himself to reach his peak.

  It was only moments more before Aleana begged him again to let her climax. When he gave her permission, she immediately cried out and her core contracted around his cock. She was still recovering from her orgasm when he ordered her to move so that she was to Kalina’s side.

  He was kneeling between only Kalina’s thighs then. Long had he enjoyed fucking the sorceress the times he visited the Kingdom of Hearts when she served his brother Jarronn, and later in Spades when she belonged to Darronn. Now she was Karn’s…until he took his own Queen, and she would then go to the youngest King, Ty.

  Karn pulled the diamond-shaped toy from Kalina’s quim and used his magic to send it back to its place in his room. The sorceress’s eyes were heavy-lidded with lust as he hooked his arms beneath her knees and brought her ass up off the floor so she was high enough that she was at the perfect level for his cock.

  “Lick Kalina’s clit,” he ordered Aleana, and she quickly complied.

  Aleana knelt on the bearskin and lowered her face to the sorceress’s clit, Karn drove into Kalina’s core. She moaned and fondled her own nipples as Aleana licked her folds and Karn fucked her.

  “May I come, Sire?” the sorceress begged, but he refused her.

  While he thrust in and out of Kalina, he released one of her legs to reach over to the a’bin and hold his hands above the two cards. The second one glowed and a jolt of sensation ran through his body and straight to his cock, so intense he almost came.

  Karn snatched the card up, even as he continued to fuck the sorceress. And then he almost lost control yet again as he turned the card over and for the first time saw his future mate.

  Annie. The name came to him like a whisper on the wind. Her name is Annie.

  Long brown hair, a voluptuous body, and beguiling innocence wrapped into one delectable package. Suddenly it was her he imagined he was fucking. It was the woman in the card who enjoyed the combined pleasures of Aleana’s tongue and his cock.

  “May I come, Sire?” he heard the desperate plea from far away.

  Yes, kitten, he responded to the woman in the card. She whimpered and came, her core milking his cock. His own orgasm slammed into him and he growled as he emptied his fluid into her quim.

  Slowly he returned to the present, the card still in his hand and the sorceress and Aleana before him.

  Not the woman from the card.

  The shock of being transported from the moment into imagining he was fucking his future mate made him near speechless.

  He withdrew from the sorceress. Her pleased and well-sated expression told him that not only had she experienced pleasure at his hands, but that she had seen him take the card and was satisfied with his response.

  Karn felt a mixture of irritation and intrigue. He hadn’t expected anything, much less such a strong wave of sensation. He stood, moved to the window and gazed out into the stormy night. Lightning illuminated his realm, a land slipping into spring. Thunder boomed and windowpanes rattled again.

  “It is time,” he murmured under his breath. “It is time.”

  Chapter One

  Annie Travis squeezed a dab of navy blue paint onto her palette, her hand trembling slightly as memories of the past two years threatened her creative energy. First her cousin Alice had disappeared and then exactly a year later to the day, Alice’s twin Alexi vanished.

  The note. Remember the note, Annie reminded herself as she screwed on the tube’s lid and put the paint back into her artist’s toolbox. The room smelled of her paints and of the unlit cranberry and spice candles in her apartment. Her cat, Abracadabra, curled around Annie’s ankles and warmed her bare feet.

  She tossed her braid over her shoulder and stared at the enormous blank canvas that was four feet high and three feet wide. She had no idea why she’d purchased one this size. It was certainly too big for her apartment. Perhaps it would look good in Aunt Awai’s condo, depending on what scene Annie came up with. Something was stirring in the back of her consciousness. It was like her mind was already working on what she wanted to paint, she just needed to give it a little more time to gel.

  Abra gave a little meow as if reminding Annie she was supposed to be painting and not moping over her missing cousins. Annie absently reached down from her stool to rub behind the calico cat’s ears until Abra purred and nuzzled Annie’s bare feet.

  With a smile, Annie pushed her wire rimmed half-glasses up the bridge of her nose then selected a paintbrush with heavy bristles. For a moment she glanced away from her canvas to the window. The curtains were tied back so that she could clearly see the rare sunny morning, the sky a cerulean blue with just a few wisps of transparent clouds streaking the horizon.

  She lived with only Abra for company, right off the beach in Pacifica, a suburb of San Francisco. Year round the Pacific Ocean in the Bay Area was too darn cold for anyone to brave it without wetsuits, but Annie wasn’t much into water sports anyway. She’d chosen the apartment because rent was cheaper here than in the city, and because she loved to watch and experience the ocean, with all of her artist’s senses. The dark push and pull of the waves, the way they crested pearl-white when the water was rough and slammed onto the beach, the stark black cliffs against slate blue waters, and the tang of salt and brine in the air.

  But today she was attempting to portray the sunny beauty outside and get her mind off of her missing twin cousins.

  Yellow. Bright, happy, relaxing…It’s not working.

  A few months after Alexi’s disappearance, Annie had gone to the twins’ townhouse to clean it out for the landlord and to put her cousins’ belongings into storage. But when she’d walked into Alexi’s bedroom, she found a rolled-up piece of parchment tied with a black ribbon on Alexi’s bedspread. A spade crest was stamped onto a wax seal.

  After Annie had removed the tie, broken the seal, and unrolled the note, she saw that it was written in Alexi’s bold scrawl. It even looked as if she had used a quill, of all things—there were a couple of smudges and a blob of ink at one corner.

  A kaleidoscope of emotions had whirled through Annie when she’d first read the note. Uncertainty, disbelief…and hope. Definitely hope.

  Dragging herself back to the present, Annie set her paintbrush onto her easel and slipped one hand into the pocket of her smock to retrieve the parchment. She didn’t know why she’d taken it from her nightstand this morning. Maybe it was for the comfort it gave her to read the words she was sure Alexi had pe
nned. It was like her cousin was talking to her, reassuring her.

  Annie’s hands were steadier now as she slipped the black tie from around the note and let the ribbon fall to the floor. The parchment felt thick and coarse to her fingertips as she smoothed it out on her lap and read it for at least the hundredth time.

  Dear Annie and Aunt Awai,

  Please don’t worry about Alice and me. It’s a very long story, and it’s one I hope to tell you one day in person. But for now just know we’re both safe, and we’re both happy. It’s likely we won’t be able to see you until another “path” opens between us. I know this all sounds cryptic, but please trust me.

  So that you’ll know it’s me and not someone else: Annie, remember the time Alice and I accidentally turned your hair orange when we were teenagers? We were grounded most of our eighth grade year over that one. Never thought you’d forgive us.

  And Awai, I bet you’ll never forget the time we broke that unusual glass cylindrical sculpture we found in your bedroom. Of course it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I ran across one in an erotic boutique and learned it was a glass cock. Go, Auntie!

  Hugs and kisses from both Alice and me. I found her! Well, more or less. Anyway, you can imagine how happy I am. I only wish that you could be here with us.

  I also wish they had computers here, and e-mail. This ink stick is frickin’ hard to write with.

  All my Love, Alexi

  A smile tugged at the corner of Annie’s mouth, at the same time tears burned behind her eyes. Amused and sad—the two emotions blended like discordant colors. She shook her head as she retrieved the black ribbon from Abra who had pounced on it where it had fallen on the floor, and promptly attacked it.

  “Listen you little imp,” Annie said as she leaned down and snatched up the ribbon from Abra. Annie rolled the note and tied it while trying to keep the cat from untying it again. “This is my ribbon and you can’t have it.”