‘I don’t want…’ Haniven was saying. ‘No. I don’t want…that…Gael…please don’t…’

‘Why? You started this? I thought you said you wanted to finish it. We have time. No-one will miss us. No-one will need us.’

‘That isn’t the point.’

There was a brief silence, punctuated only by heavy breathing, then the wet sound of a kiss. Menys held her breath. She had come up from one of the lower caverns, just off the kitchen, with a basket full of laundry. The cavern led out to a spring, and a small pool, conveniently placed for anyone living in the Eyrie who wanted to bath, or wash their clothes, or drown interlopers before kicking them off the mountain. She’d dared a glance down the sheer mountainside, which was mostly waterfall, but even a quick glimpse told her there were bones there.

Gods, these people were monsters!

She shuddered. And Rhas had been right about Gael. Even so, if Haniven was in love with Rosa, he wasn’t making any effort at all to stop Gael practically eating him alive. For all Gael had seemed shy and quiet, he was anything but in the bedroom. She peered around the open doorway – if a rough-cut arch in a wall of rock could be called a doorway – and saw the two of them on a bed, grappling with each other in sweaty desperation. Gael was underneath. That raised her eyebrows. And Haniven had his arm hooked behind one of Gael’s knees, drawing his leg up and over his shoulder, and was preparing to…

‘Do you always evesdrop – no wait, you’re not even evesdropping, you’re staring boldly in through an open doorway!’

Menys spun round at Rosa’s voice. ‘You said it best – open doorway! What am I to think, if they’re so bold and shameless as to fuck in plain sight!’ Why, it was as bad as the brothel!

Haniven sat up, and Gael, red-faced beneath him, pushed him away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘Rosa…’

‘I don’t care,’ she drawled, amused. ‘Best get dressed, lad. Supper’s on the table. You too, Han.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking contrite. He glowered at Menys. ‘How long were you there?’

‘Long enough,’ Rosa answered for her. ‘Like she said, have you two no shame? Hurry up now. It’s getting cold.’

Menys trailed after Rosa, back into the kitchen, setting her basket on the floor just inside and taking her place at the table. Rosa was a good cook, and there was a steaming tureen of venison stew, another of herby dumplings, and a platter of sorrel salad, scattered with toasted hazelnuts from the last Autumn.

Later, in the gloom of the dormitory, in one of the beds, two bodies made a writhing, thrusting shape in the faint gleam of the single lamp over the door. Muffled moans, stifled gasps, ragged pants; a cry, bitten off. Menys thought back to what Rhas had told her, and decided that Larentus had made his way into someone else’s bed. Adharan? Rhas had said he’d been sweet on Gael, once. Perhaps he sought to soothe his broken heart with Laurentus. Either way, the sounds were making her hot. And wet. A familiar ache began between her legs; her hand crept down there, under the covers, inside the folds of her nightgown, parting her inner folds, slick and swollen. In the bed to her right, Haniven’s coverlet was rising and falling over his groin in rhythmic movements. Menys heard his breath grow ragged. She held hers. If he thought she was awake, and hot with need, he might want to satiate their desire together. She’d seen enough of orgies in House Willow to know that people, once aroused, were willing enough to have their lust slaked by any means available.

She didn’t want that. Surreptitiously, aware that the slightest catch in her low, even breathing would attract Haniven’s notice, she pushed a finger inside herself, then drew it slowly out again. She slowly circled her nub with the slick digit. Slowly, at first, then dipped back inside herself, and circled once more, faster now, keeping time with the rhythmic thwap thwap coming from Laurentus and his partner, and with the staccato pants from Haniven, his coverlets jerking up and down with the movement of his arm.

He was blatantly masturbating, with no care to who heard him. A moan escaped his lips, low and soaked with pleasure.

Menys worked up speed. From the clearly audible moans from Laurentus, he was nearing his climax. She didn’t want him to come before she did.

Haniven arched his hips, flinging his covers from him, shouting his pleasure, his white-knuckled grip encircling the purple, swollen head of his cock as a jet of white fluid spurted over his stomach.

A low laugh sounded from Laurentus, and his partner swore, his tone amused. They didn’t pause their lovemaking long. But they abandoned their attempts at stealth, and went for it, and Menys saw that the other man was indeed Adharan, his blond hair spilling across the sheets as Laurentus pounded him thoroughly into them.

Haniven turned over and pulled his covers over him, apparently disinterested in any more. Menys relaxed. Her finger, idly circling her sensitive, swollen nub, resumed its urgency, egged on by Adharan’s raw-throated pleas to Laurentus to not spare him but to fuck him through the mattress and into the floor. He’d got his hips up now, and one hand worked his own cock, the other tearing at sheets damp with sweat. His filthy language turned to incoherent obscenities. The bed creaked alarmingly, pushed almost beyond endurance by the two men fucking each other’s brains out atop its rickety slats. The headboard thumped the wall repeatedly. A chunk of loose rock clattered onto the floor. Adharan gripped the top of the headboard and shouted in triumph. His hips thrust backwards, and Menys could clearly see Laurentus disappear, again and again, into him, his fingers digging cruelly into Adharan’s white flesh.

Then, just as Adharan came with a strangled cry, anointing the headboard with his semen, Laurentus pulled out, flipped him over, and wanked himself over Adharan’s smooth white belly. His moans echoed through the cavern.

Menys felt her own belly ripple at the sight of his creamy come splattering Adharan’s prone body, and then she was climaxing hard, her heels drumming hard on the mattress, her own voice shrill in her ears.

‘For Nol’s sake, shut up!’ Haniven complained. ‘Some of us are trying to sleep!’

Menys’ hips crashed back to the mattress. She found her wrist in Gael’s grip. He drew her hand to his nose, sniffed, then gave it back to her with a grin.

‘Someone likes cream,’ he said. ‘Did you learn such pleasure from Louen?’

‘Leave her alone, Gael.’ Haniven sat up, no longer sleepy. ‘She has as much right to pleasure as we do.’

Menys glanced over to the bed that held Laurentus and Adharan. Both were watching her, curiosity spilling off them in waves. Adharan had his head on Laurentus’ shoulder, his tangled hair only showing a little of his face, but she was certain he was grinning.

She wouldn’t feel ashamed. She wouldn’t! They didn’t.

Why should I?

Haniven was right. She had as much right to be aroused, and to sate that arousal, as they did. She would not be ashamed!

It was easier said than done, though. She hated that she hadn’t been able to control herself, that she hadn’t simply got up and left the cavern, and gone into the kitchen where it would be quiet. Why had she stayed and pleasured herself, with three sexually-aroused men around her?

What if they’d…tried to…fuck her?

She felt her cheeks burning. What indeed!

‘Alright, get up, and let’s have you in here,’ came Rosa’s voice from the darkness. ‘The rest of you, go the fuck to sleep, you randy lot! I don’t want to hear anybody’s dick making its way into anybody’s arse, or mouth, or hand again tonight, am I clear?!’

There was a faint, grumbling rumble of assent, and then Laurentus cursing as he stumbled over somebody’s boot on his way back to his own bed, then silence. Menys forced herself to breath evenly, and deep, her eyes closed, in the hope Rosa would think she was asleep. The last thing she wanted to do was spend the rest of the night in the woman’s company in the kitchen. She was perfectly safe where she was. No-one seemed the least inclined to molest her – although the reasons for this were unclear, and she hoped nothing to do with their disgust for her -admittedly disgusting – self.

I am disgusting. Maybe…maybe tomorrow I can try a bath, and a comb. It’s not as if she can find me here, is it? And even if she can, she couldn’t get up to get me. Not even her magic could break Rhas’ wards.

‘Menys?’

Menys tried a snore.

‘Fine,’ Rosa muttered. ‘Don’t blame me if you wake with a sweaty idiot on top of you tomorrow, then. Good night!’

Tomorrow, I’ll wash and comb my hair. And if that bitch finds me, well…we’ll be ready for her.