She stood naked by the side of the basin, trembling; the sight of it arousing him beyond all reason. His body hardened, his blood surged, his member lengthened. He prepared himself for another onslaught to his mind too, so tense and heightened his senses were, but it never came. His mind remained quiet. The only noise and sensation coming from his need.

He enjoyed her fear - but only when it was inspired by him, as this eve's earlier events had demonstrated - but he decided quickly that he enjoyed the sight of her unclothed body more.

Naked, she looked less like the small fragile thing he'd found cowering in the sand, and more like some ornament carved from Azurian gold itself.

Her skin was bronzed and smooth, but it was scattered with cuts and bruises, fissures of torn skin which had not been given the proper time or attention required to heal. They would heal quicker with his assistance but he knew she would never allow that. The backs of her arms - which she had pulled across her body to shield herself - her shoulder, the backs of her legs; all bore the evidence of a beating.

He felt a low rumble of rage emit from deep within him at the idea of another causing her harm. Causing harm to something which was now his under the law of spoil. He should have choked the life from Prahan as honour bid him. Why had he let that dog crawl away from him and breathe another breath?

Cassine avoided his eyes and stared down into the water by his feet, unmoving. Theodan's body felt softer from the wine and hot water, but her constant disobedience gnawed at his patience.

'What are you waiting for?' he asked, impatient. 'Get in.'

She stiffened and lifted her eyes to him, her hatred burning bright for a moment, brilliant and blinding before it dimmed and an almost soft look replaced it.

'I, I t-told you,' she began. 'I am untouched..' she cast a furtive glance over his body, then down where the water covered his modesty. 'I have never bathed with a man. I have never...' She trailed.

'But I'm not a man,' Theodan pointed out. 'I'm not even human. I'm an animal - a beast of Leoth as you so named me.' He stopped, raised an eyebrow at her. Smirked. 'Or have you seen something which has altered this perception, Cassine? Do you now look upon me as a man?' he spread his thighs suggestively and she paled.

For an instant, she thought about turning and bolting from the tent; he could see it in her eyes and in the way her body tensed in readiness. Her body shook still, and still, it was from something more than the chill that was creeping in with the night.

He could see how badly she wanted to run from him. Could see her consideration of how far she might get before he caught her. Considering if submitting to the sea would be an easier fate than what he had planned for her. He could see her mind work over every possible outcome and with it, its repercussions. And all of them were written plainly on her comely features. He wondered if she was aware of how expressive her eyes were.

'To the entrance perhaps,' he helpfully supplied. She shot him a look. 'Have you ever seen a Leoth move at speed, female? Since you know so much about my kind I assume you have...'

'I was not..' she shook her head. 'I had not thought to...'

'Then you hesitate to get into the water because you think my word weak? You think yourself that tempting? That I would break my word over you?' He scoffed.

She glowered at him, enraged once more. His body roared with need once more.

'You know why I hesitate...' she bit out, firey resentment dripping from her tongue.

'Because I am a beast of Leoth and because the idea of bathing with me repulses you.' He said. She said nothing. 'Oh, you mean because you are untouched?' Again she said nothing. 'Well, the first, I cannot change female, but the latter, I gave you my word on. Now enough of this - get in; I can smell your filth from here.'

'Why are you doing this?' she asked after a moment of silence. Her voice was quiet, like a soft breath of wind blowing in from outside. The question itself seemed to take her by surprise, as much as it did him, almost as though she had not meant to speak the words aloud. He blinked once, then again, and fixed her with a hard stare.

'Why? Why do any of us do the things we do? Because we are compelled to do so. Because we are commanded to do so,' he gave her a pointed look. 'because the consequences of not doing so are worse. Or, sometimes we do things simply because we can.'

He wasn't certain which 'why' she had been referring to, and he didn't particularly care. All he cared about was her cleaning the filthy Zybar stink from her body, finishing his wine, and expelling the tension of today in the soft giving flesh of a female. At this point, any female.

'Enough talking - I gave you an order,' he said, his patience worn through.

He'd put her in the water if she did not move in the next instant. It irritated him that still, she refused to do as he told her, still, this tiny foreign female refused to recognise the authority that should be apparent. Theodan gave orders: to his varveh, to his army, to other men's armies, often to the council. And mostly, they were followed without question or complaint. It was tiresome having to coerce obedience into a slave he hadn't even been of a mind to take before he arrived in this infuriatingly hot land.

She gave him one last look of something unnamed before lifting her leg and climbing inside the basin with him. She sunk down beneath the water and lifted her eyes to him warily. Mistrust and fear swimming in the gold of her gaze. He thought about it. About what she feared most. His taking her. He imagined moving towards her and turning her away from him before bending her over the rim to plunge himself into her. He imagined licking across the skin of her neck and shoulder, healing the broken skin, tasting her sweet flesh, Then he imagined breaking the skin himself, sinking his teeth into the soft golden skin of her throat or her wrist where her blood flowed most readily.

Watching her intently as he let the image swim around his mind, he lifted his cup and drained the rest of his wine. His member was desperate and angry about what it could not now have and his irritation flared over the notion too. Damn his stupid, honourable, word. He needed more wine.

Of course, she did not come between his legs as he'd suggested. Staying instead at the opposite end, she kept her back straight and her knees pulled up to her chin, the great lengths of her hair floating around her, cloaking her body from him even more. He scooped some water from the space between them and dipped his head forward to cover his hair with it. Then he lifted the bar of hardened plant oil to lather his hands before handing it to her with an order she do the same.

He had a sudden ridiculous impulse then to clean her himself. To scrub the Zybar filth from her body and rinse the dirt from the locks of her matted hair, watching as the water cascaded over her cleansed skin. Ridiculous. She should be washing him. As slaves were supposed to do. In fact, she had yet to carry out a single duty that made her worthy of the title — removing his leg coverings did not count. Gods, Draden had done that for him when he had been unable to due to injury or an overindulgence on wine or forest ale.

As he cleaned himself he watched her. Watched as she scrubbed at her body with efficient, circular, motions of her little hands; across her bloodied knees, down her dirty arms, inside the rim of her clipped fingernails. She kept herself covered as much as possible, her body covered expertly, and it brought his mind back to her claim of being untouched. Perhaps it was true?

The first time she'd said it he had tasted the lie in her words. The way her eyes had avoided his as she repeated them had only convinced him further.

Before she'd made the claim he was certain she'd been a favourite of the dead prince. No mere servant would look so broken at the sight of their master being cut down. True, Azurian's loved their fair and noble rulers, but he suspected it to be more than this. After all, she had captured the eye of Prahan and his mutts, and Theodan's own attentions so he could not imagine she would have escaped the desires of the young prince as she carried out her palace duties. And similarly, a Crown Prince would have been hard to resist for a loyal Azurian servant, no matter how virtuous she may consider herself to be. True she was not the most obedient of slaves, but Theodan took this as a personal affront. For her Azurian masters, he imagined she must have been exemplary.

But watching her modest actions now, perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps she was untouched by a male. Perhaps her emotion in the throne room and as they spoke of the prince's death before was merely that of a devoted and loyal subject.

Theodan was far more comfortable with that idea, he found. He did not enjoy the idea of her moaning and writhing in pleasure beneath that polished boy prince. In fact, the idea almost made him glad he was the one to end his life.

Azurian males knew nothing of claiming a female. Knew nothing of demonstrating one's strength and honour to prove their worth to a female. Defeat her chosen champion for the honour of her hand in betrothal. Azurian males enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh much like they enjoyed a hot meal or glass of wine. Much like the Zybar did. The Calate had a more considered approach to mating but it was all frivolous to Theodan's mind. The Leothine mated with their chosen male or female for life.

Meaning this 'marriage' - as the other three realms called it -between Torrik's heir, whose name he'd momentarily forgotten, and Vala was an entertaining thought indeed. Of course, it would not happen, but the Zybar did not know this. And they would not know this until it was too late.

He was not sure why his mind had gone down the path of mates and betrothals - for breeding with a slave came with no such rules or binds of honour. Slaves were meant to be used and enjoyed only as their masters' desires prescribed.

Across the basin, Cassine continued her ministrations. As she dipped her head forward to rinse the foam from her dark brown lengths, her body slid forward without her control. To steady herself she shot out her foot, lodging it in the space where his thighs and ass met the bottom of the basin. As she moved to retract it she caught the tip of his cock, and let out a soft gasp of shock and sat bolt upright once more. Not before offering him a glance of her small pert breasts with dusky pink nipples. He felt his thirst grow again.

As he lifted his eyes to her face, the look of embarrassment lingered - a delicious pink heat which spread outward from her nose and across her cheeks. Theodan had forgotten that about humans; the way their bodies displayed their feelings so clearly for all to see. He'd saw her turn the same colour as she'd stared up at him from her knees after she'd removed his clothing. Innocence and guilelessness swam in her eyes. Hmmm. Further evidence that she was untouched?

Holding her gaze, he stood from the water. She held his eyes a brief moment before dropping her head. He could have imagined it, but he was certain her eyes flickered over his hardness before landing in the water.

'Finish bathing yourself,' he ordered as he stepped out of the basin and grabbed the drying cloth.

He wiped the cloth over his body in swift movements before turning to present it to her. He froze. She was standing in the basin, one arm crossed over her body to shield her, the other draped down to cover the area between her legs.

He blinked once, preparing himself for the onslaught that he could feel was about to flood his mind. He could feel it whipping into a frenzy inside him; his body trembling, his bones tightening, his breathing shortening. But it didn't come. His body was loud but his mind remained completely in the quiet. A surge of heat roared through his blood. A surge of need rushed between his legs. But his mind was still. Completely focused. On her. Dripping wet, she looked very much like some sea temptress. A silky glistening water nymph he would likely follow to the blackest depths of the ash sea.

Across her flesh, little mounds of brown markings were sprinkled at occasional intervals; below her breast, in the cushion of her neck, above her curled golden brown pubic hair. He wanted to trace them with his fingers and then his tongue until she writhed and moaned in pleasure. As he'd imagined her doing beneath Galyn of Azura.

Though his body had earlier been softened and calmed from the effects of wine and the hot heat of the water, it felt tense once more. It felt similar to the state of agitation it possessed before it was about to go into battle; his teeth tingled, his nails sharpened, and the beating of his heart was loud like thunder in his chest. It was how he was certain he was about to have a vision. He needed more wine. He needed to kill something.

No. He needed a female.

With a growl of frustration, he thrust out the length of drying cloth to her. She did not take it right away, hesitant, he presumed, over which area of her body she felt more willing to reveal to him. Decision made, she reached out tentatively and took the cloth from him, her tiny wet hands grazing his own as she did.

As she turned the sight of her bared breasts away from him to begin drying herself, he stalked to the table to pour some more wine into his cup. The jug was empty, and so he slammed down his cup and stalked to the entrance where pulled back the flap and shouted in Leoth for Jhaan to bring more wine as well as something clean for her to wear and something for her to sleep on.

Then, after a brief pause, he shouted the third instruction.