The Wings of Ashtaroth

Chapter 7: Traitors: Section III: Kirin

Kirin: Marianus's Domus: Lorar

The smell of pigeon pie mingled with the sweat of the kitchen slaves, meaty and thick, a scent that filled Kirin's belly and made a home of the noisy space.

Pretty, yellow-haired Irina sat in Kirin's lap, brushing her fingers over his scruff of beard as he teased her nipple beneath her stola. She stretched her back against him and every inch of him tensed. The roll of her shoulder against the crook of his collarbone may as well have been the delicate drag of fingernails along his cock.

The chatter of the kitchen slaves as they chopped herbs and grated roots at the tables cut in and out of Kirin's attention: natter about the election, the refugees, the weather.

"All I know is what she told me," Irina's thin-fingered friend, Edra, prattled as she chopped. Her knife clip-clip-clipped the dillweed. She waved her blade at an older woman named Ibby. "And what she told me was that the Drenda clan paid for a sacrifice to the Good Ones and it came out bad."

Ibby snorted. "Bad for whom?"

"Bad for them," said Edra. "They say Attia herself appeared at the altar and snapped an olive branch before their faces. It means loss for certain, and death most likely."

Attia, the worst of the Good Ones, who cut life's thread when fate came calling. It was almost enough to cool the heat of Irina's hands on Kirin's skin. Edra was a fool to even speak her name. Had she truly appeared before Yakov's in-laws? Kirin had never seen a god before.

"They say all kinds of nonsense." Ibby huffed. "Well, the Yellows were never going to win the election. Not even Basimus Drenda can turn the fidelia away from Marianus now, not with war brewing. Half the Yellowers don't even like Yakovius, and he's their own man."

Edra scraped a small heap of dill and fennel leaf from the tabletop and into her hand. "He's a pest."

Pest. Kirin grinned as he pictured Yakovius. Then, annoyed at the distraction, he reached beneath Irina's skirt to shuffle the fabric out of the way. She fumbled for his cock through his tunic. Gods, he wanted her, but he was soon to replace Oran at Marianus's side. He had places to be and senators to protect. Marianus would expect him to taste the food before he could eat—a task usually given the praegustator, but lately Kirin, Oran, and Ydelka's duty. The last taster had broken his neck on the stairs. Not the way Kirin would have expected him to go out.

Kirin groaned as he slid his hand out from beneath Irina's dress and sucked in a raspy breath.

Fuck his duty to the heavens.

He leaned back against the wall, tilting the stool like he meant to tip he and Irina onto the floor. Irina squealed and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him to keep from falling.

Kirin laughed and let the stool fall back into place with a grating scratch of wood against stone.

Ibby clucked at them from across the room. She glared into Kirin's eyes "And you. You could be useful instead of sticking your hands where no one wants them."

"Irina wants them." He grinned.

Irina slapped his back."You're a turd."

He pecked her on the cheek and shoved her off him.

Just as Irina looked about to slap him again, Marianus's head slave, Delos, hurried inside the kitchen. Immediately he snapped his fingers, commanding the cooks and servers this way and that. He barely glanced Kirin's way, and Kirin took the opportunity to grab his semi-erect cock and waggle it tauntingly at the eunuch.