Rapture's Etesian by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

means ridding the land of Abalam.”
    “The Daughters might balk at helping,” Celadina said. “The Hell Hags are a breed unto their own.”
    “Aye, but Queen Mona has been known to spend time incognito in Ventura during the Festival of Spring,” Ophelia commented. “Some say that is how Lilit came to be.”
    “Lilit,” Haidee said with a frown. “I’ve heard it was a demon that sired her. She is a bloodthirsty child.”
    “A child not more than a year or so younger than you,” Erinyes remarked.
    “Four years younger,” Haidee said. “And has yet to have her first monthly.”
    “How would you know?” Erinyes questioned.
    “Must you question everything I say, Erinyes?” Haidee threw at her sister. “I spent two months in Bandar, remember? I was forced to sleep beside that miserable little bitch. She told me she would be glad when she had her first flow for then all her power would come to her.”
    “What power?” Celadina asked.
    “How would I know?” Haidee snapped. “I tried not to talk to that witch any more than I had to.” She shot her aunt a disgusted look. “I wasn’t there of my own accord.”
    “No, but you were there to represent the Ancaeus family,” Galatea reminded her niece. “Well, at least the female side of it even though my sister—the gods rest her burdened soul—was never allowed to make the trek to the Gatherings once she married that illiterate ass.”
    “Speaking of the illiterate ass, have you visited our father and brother of late, Kynthia?” Erinyes asked.
    Kynthia shot her sister a nasty look. “No, why should I? Have you?”
    “No reason to,” Erinyes replied. “Like you, I am well rid of those barbarians.”
    “You had best be thankful our laws do not require you to be re-dowered as do the Venturian and Akkadian laws,” Galatea said. “Else you would be back on the marriage auction block and not free to come and go as you do here.”
    “Father and his simpleton son can go to hell for all I care,” Erinyes said. “They have made their last copper piece off me!” She turned to Ophelia. “But you? You are different. They might remember you never wed that handsome boy, Phaon, and strike for another betrothal.”
    “They won’t,” Kynthia stated. When the others looked at her, she shrugged. “They know I’d never allow it. If Ophelia wants a man, it’s up to her to find him.”
    Galatea tilted her head to one side. “As you found Lord Leksi?”
    “All right!” Kynthia grated. “I admit you had a hand in putting the two of us together, but it was not your doing that sealed the deal!”
    With that said, Kynthia stalked off to her room.
    “The Venturian is going to have his hands full with Kynthia,” Celadina said.
    “I still can’t believe she gave in on this one,” Haidee said. “What makes this man different than all the others we brought to her?”
    “Did you get a good look at his cock?” Erinyes asked. “That alone should have been enough.”
    “It wasn’t the strength and length of his cock that won our Kynthia’s heart,” Galatea said, surprising the others who looked at her with wide eyes. “Aye, you heard me right—he won her heart.”
    “By going up through her cunt apparently,” Erinyes scoffed.
    “Perhaps,” Galatea agreed, “but since that was the crux of her problem with men to begin with, I believe he handled her just as the gods meant for him to.”

* * * * *
    Leksi was miserable as he pretended to listen to the Lord High Commander of the Venturian Forces detail the plan to subdue King Abalam. The warrior’s mind was on the lovely woman he had yet to make his own though he knew he had pleasured her quite well and—in the doing—won her affection. His hands itched to hold her again and his tool throbbed with the desire to plunge—
    “Helios, are you listening to me?” Lord Konan Krull bellowed.
    Leksi jumped, his face hot with embarrassment. “Aye, Your Grace. I have heard every word!”
    Lord Krull’s