The slave girl gasped in horror as the hairbrush slipped from her fingers to the floor at her mistress’ feet. The count stood at nine hundred and ninety-one strokes to the princess’ golden locks – so close to her quota of a thousand, and yet so far.
‘Forgive your slave, mistress.’ She fell to her knees, putting her forehead to the marble floor. ‘Veeta begs to be allowed to begin again.’
The Princess Allura shook out her long sandy tresses and smiled, cat-like. ‘Too late, my inattentive little slut.’
‘Mercy,’ pleaded the barefoot girl as she lowered herself to her belly in the pitifully short rag of a covering, more a provocation to indulge than an actual garment.
Allura beheld the girl’s trembling, prostrate form through cold eyes, feeling as always the special thrill that came with having total control over a fellow female. ‘I grow weary of your sloppiness, Veeta, and your disobedience. Have you any reason to offer why I should not have you put to death this time?’
‘No, mistress, I have none,’ she replied piteously.
The fact that the slave had been denied sleep twenty-four hours straight doing the princess’ bidding was no excuse for her clumsiness. Nor was the fact that she had received in all that time only a few bites of food, table scraps, which she’d taken like a bitch off the floor, cringing on all fours at the dainty feet of her owner.
‘Nor can I,’ the princess declared. ‘You may kiss my royal slipper while I consider the matter.’
Veeta’s lips pressed softly against the woven lavender fibers of the princess’ shoe, the same color as her hand-woven dress. Allura could not remember a time when she did not enjoy such scenes; watching slaves and servants alike being humiliated and broken for the enjoyment of one and all.
As the only child of the king, Allura grew up a monstrously spoiled creature, not to mention a pure sadist at heart. She loved nothing more than to see her victims sweat and crawl and beg. As young as five she learned to manipulate events so as to cause these poor unfortunates to be put under torture. It didn’t take much to achieve her dark ends. A teacup surreptitiously pushed over the edge of the table, a tiny stone thrown to the ground to be caught up in the shoe of one of the carriage horses, even a bit of mud streaked across her own face or over the lacy hem of one of her dresses were all excellent causes for a beating to be administered to one or more of her attendants.
And if the servants had no chance around her, the slaves had still less. One wrong word from their mistress and they could be sent to the dungeon, sold or even killed outright. If they knew what was good for them they would put much energy into kissing the girl’s feet and licking clean her shoes.
For her eighth birthday her father gave her her very own riding crop, a device she used to great relish. It was said that the occasion of that gift marked a day of mourning on the part of the household staff, though Allura herself saw it as the beginning of her true lordship.
The princess also enjoyed torturing the boys her own age, the sons of the nobility. While Allura could not enjoy the thrill of punishing them, she could still make their lives miserable; for defeating her, either in games of skill or chance, was forbidden, as was opposing her physical tyranny. It was quite a comical sight to see the smaller female pushing round the larger males, making them wear girls’ clothes and play whatever games she desired.
Had her father seen firsthand the true depths of Allura’s cruelties he might well have checked it at a younger age. As it was he was frequently away at war, leaving her care to a great uncle, the Grand Duke Fortragian. The duke took little care in her upbringing, concerning himself with more pressing matters, such as the scourging of lovely peasant women with various rods and canes.
This, too, did not escape the notice of the young princess, who took every opportunity to watch them being brought in late at night. She never saw more than the looks on their faces, their nervous whimpers behind their gags as the soldiers conveyed them on pretty bare feet over the castle floor, but it was enough to make the girl’s heart race. Whatever happened behind the closed doors of her uncle’s bedchambers, it was serious, important, and above all nasty. Something different from the mere disciplinary beatings imposed on the cringing backs and crimsoned buttocks of the household staff, she was sure of it – but what?
Many years would she have to wait to learn more, and many events would she have to live out. Not the least of which was the sudden and untimely death of her father in a cavalry battle near the southern frontier.
Allura was eighteen when they brought her the fateful news. Her expression betrayed nothing, nor did her mannerisms. They would see no signs of weakness in her, of that she was determined. They would only know a crueler Allura, one more recklessly determined than ever to impose her will upon the world. It had been thirteen months since that dark day and she had yet to break her vow to herself.
‘Kneel up slave girl, it is time for us to decide your punishment.’
Veeta obeyed, assuming the required position, back on her heels, her knees wide apart. The slave had no undergarments beneath her short dress, a predicament that left her nether region exposed. She was kept hairless below, another condition of her subjugation. Allura liked that the girl could not conceal her privates. As an owned girl it was right and fitting that she should be on display to one and all. To the men, in particular.
‘Hands behind your back,’ said Allura, making Veeta cross her wrists as if they were bound. A long time ago, when she and Veeta were little girls, they had been friends. She had been Saraveeta then, daughter of one of her father’s nobles. They’d been thick as thieves growing up, till one day Saraveeta took a fancy to a boy Allura liked too. Allura told her father she’d seen Saraveeta kissing the young man, which was a lie, but a very important lie because by the laws of her people a woman could only kiss the one male who was to be her husband.
The young man had refused the union, which left Saraveeta in the unenviable position of being branded a harlot. The only two possible sentences were death or imbondment, but at Allura’s entreaty the girl’s life was spared, and now Saraveeta was her old friend’s slave.
‘What do you think should be done with you, slave girl?’ Allura asked, having fetched the sleek black crop of the type used by the jockeys in the royal races.
‘Whatever mistress desires.’ Veeta’s eyes were moist. Her suffering, as always, was great. Hungry and tired and afraid, she must now take responsibility for her own unjust sentencing, punishment for a crime she could not have avoided.
‘How cooperative you are all of a sudden,’ Allura scathed. ‘Now that I am holding the whip.’
Veeta did not flinch, even as Allura flicked the tip of it over her thinly covered nipples. ‘Yes, mistress.’
Allura struck her bare arm, leaving a welt. ‘Remove your garment.’
Veeta pulled the rag over her head without hesitation. She was a disciplined girl now – an obedient girl.
‘What are you, Veeta?’
‘A slave animal, mistress.’
‘Hands behind your back, slave animal, where they belong.’
Veeta snapped them back into place.
Allura regarded her, making her feel like the subhuman creature she was. ‘You are dirty, Veeta. Your hair needs washing. One can scarcely tell where the dirt leaves off and where you begin.’
‘Yes, mistress,’ said the once proud, raven-haired girl.
‘Do you think you are attractive to males, Veeta?’
‘I do not know, mistress.’
It was an honest answer, but Allura struck her savagely across her breasts anyway. ‘You are suitable only for sex, Veeta. For rutting like a pig. Like a little bitch whore. Do you think that makes you attractive?’
‘No, mistress,’ she whimpered from the pain.
‘Would Porfino want you now?’ She named the boy they’d once fought over. ‘Except as a convenient cunt?’
‘No, mistress.’
‘That’s what you are, Veeta. A cunt. Say it.’
‘I am a cunt, mistress.’
‘Very well, let us settle on your punishment. Which do you think is better suited to a lazy slave cunt who can’t even count to ten thousand – a sound beating or a good old-fashioned mass fuck?’
Veeta’s face grew pale. ‘I… I do not know, mistress.’
Allura laughed with cold disdain. ‘Of course you know, slave bitch. You’re just afraid to say it. You try to fool me into thinking both possibilities disgust you, when in fact you want it all – an ass-whipping and a mass fuck. Go on. Admit it. In fact, I could have you shipped to the frontier and given to the barbarians and even that would arouse you. I hear they know how to treat a woman – an enemy woman.’
The girl shook her head. Allura’s threat was a new one, saved for a special occasion. Veeta seemed like she might break down, something that hadn’t happened in some time now. ‘P-please,’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘don’t do this… if our friendship means anything to you, Allura.’
Allura’s features darkened. The little slut had pushed it too far this time. ‘On your back. Fingers in your cunt.’
The girl gave a little moan but moved to obey, spreading her legs wide so as to allow herself maximum access. Nothing made Veeta more vulnerable, and therefore more enslaved, than forced self-pleasuring.
‘Pinch your nipple, touch your clit.’
Veeta writhed at her own touch. How disgusting, and yet how totally provocative. In a way Allura envied her the freedom she had, to be naked like that, with no responsibility, no accountability and no reason to hold back.
‘Now tell me, Veeta, how does it feel when you’re being beaten?’
‘I get all hot and wet, mistress. Even when it hurts very much… especially then.’
‘You like the whip on your skin, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes, mistress,’ she sighed. ‘It burns me and brands me, it makes me feel… like a woman.’
‘And the cane?’
Her eyes glazed over. ‘The cane is so hard and brutal, mistress. There is nowhere to hide when it comes smacking down on my behind. I have to take it. I have to absorb the blows, and afterward, the marks. I run my hands over them sometimes when no one’s looking.’
‘But you like getting fucked, too, don’t you?’
Veeta arched her back, pressing her pelvic bone tight to her fingers. ‘Yes,’ she hissed. ‘Oh, yes.’
‘Tell me,’ Allura demanded, seeking enlightenment for her virgin ears. ‘What is it like to be with a man?’
‘Men are strong, mistress, they take what they want.’
‘And you must give it, for you are a slave.’
‘Yes,’ she tremored, on the brink of orgasm.
‘You may not come,’ said Allura cruelly, ‘or I shall have you sent to the barbarians, to be their sex toy. On the other hand, if you stop touching yourself I will have you impaled.’
Veeta whimpered, knowing the impossibility of her predicament. ‘Mercy, mistress, please.’
‘No,’ said the petulant princess. ‘Not till we’ve finished our discussion. Do you like being a slave girl?’
‘I have no choice, mistress.’
Allura bent down, whip in hand to lash at the girl’s thigh. ‘That is no answer.’
‘S-sometimes,’ she tried again. ‘I like to be a slave sometimes.’
‘Legs wider apart, bitch, and pinch those nipples.’
Veeta struggled to perform as ordered. The conversation, the game, was hardly new. They enacted it often, for Allura’s enjoyment.
‘We were rivals once. You liked to tease the boys with your body.’
‘Yes, mistress.’
‘You teased Porfino, for example.’
‘I did, mistress.’
‘You are no longer a tease, are you, Veeta?’
‘No, mistress.’
‘At the snap of my fingers you would crawl to any man’s belly and beg him to use you.’
‘Yes, mistress.’
Allura chortled with satisfaction. ‘Tonight I shall have you fucked by the guards again. You may thank me in advance.’
‘I-I thank you,’ she shuddered. ‘For having me fucked, mistress.’
‘You will enjoy it.’
‘Yes… my mistress.’ Veeta gasped. The convulsions were upon her. She would not be able to hold out much longer. ‘Please, mistress, I beg to be allowed to come.’
‘You will have plenty of chances to do that with the guards, won’t you, you lazy bitch?’
Veeta’s whimpers grew piteous. She shivered, writhing uncontrollably, her own fingers like fearsome invaders to her sex and breasts.
‘You are making a mess on my floor.’ Allura noted the glistening juices leaking from the girl’s crotch onto the marble. ‘When we are done you will lick it clean with your tongue.’
‘Yes, mistress.’
Allura felt the heat between her own thighs. There was a fevered light in the slave’s eyes. Something wicked she’d seen many times before. It occurred in her suffering, in her sexual distress. How could this be possible, that the two, pleasure and pain, could be linked?
‘Get up,’ the princess commanded, lashing the girl furiously. ‘To the columns with you. Show me what a little whore you are.’
Veeta did not need to have the order spelled out. She knew well what it meant to be ordered to the row of fluted marble columns ringing the princess’ sunken bathtub. She pressed her body against the first one, grinding as though it was a man. Few punishments were more humiliating to Veeta, or more pleasurable to Allura than this one.
If denying the slave orgasms was one form of torture, so was compelling them. And yet the desperate girl was more than willing to trade her pride for a chance to rub her breasts, belly and cunt against the cool, rounded surface. The first climax was upon her almost as soon as she clutched the column between her thighs. Wrapping her arms tight, she pushed her nipples savagely against it, allowing maximum friction.
In the beginning Veeta had cried and begged not to be forced to do this, especially when ordered to do so in full view of members of the household staff or guests. The whip, however, proved a very persuasive teacher, as did hunger and other tortures, too many to mention. But being a smart girl Veeta learned quickly that humping a column like a dog was by no means the worst thing that could be done to her enslaved flesh.
Sometimes Allura liked to make her hug the column while being whipped. This way Veeta would experience sweet stimulation and agonizing pain. Perhaps now would be such a time. She need only decide on the correct instrument of punishment – one of the snaking whips, perhaps, or the dreaded cane…
The princess’ reverie was interrupted by a knock upon the doors of her outer chambers. ‘Who is it?’ she raged, determined that someone should pay for this interruption. ‘Who dares disturb me?’
‘Forgive me, princess,’ came a voice she knew at once to be that of Meksior, the spineless vizier to her Uncle Fortragian. ‘I have come to inform you that your visitor has arrived.’
‘Visitor? What are you talking about? I am expecting no visitors.’
Veeta continued her heavy breathing as she pushed herself to another humiliating orgasm.
‘Count Raysar, princess. The latest suitor. You recall his appointment?’
The suitor. Yes. One of her uncle’s ideas. The grand duke, now regent of the realm, intended to marry Allura off so as to free himself of the problem of royal succession. By law she could not assume the crown herself unless married. It was a ridiculous practice and she intended to alter it at the next convocation of nobles. The princess would marry no one. She would be queen alone. In the mean time, she was humoring the grand duke, interviewing various prospective husbands, each of whom she promptly ran off, tail between his legs.
None were worthy of her, and she was systematically proving her case. This Raysar, whoever he was, would be no exception. In fact, she would see to it his humiliation exceeded that of all the others combined.
‘Very well, Meksior, I shall deign to see him. Send him in to me at once.’
There was a judicious pause, followed by the clearing of the vizier’s throat. ‘Princess, I am not sure it would be proper for the prince to meet you here… in your private chambers.’
Allura stormed to the doors and flung them open. ‘Fetch him this instant, you imbecile,’ she commanded to his cringing face. ‘Or I shall have you drawn and quartered.’
‘At once, princess.’ He cowered behind his purple robes, nearly tripping over himself in his effort to make it back to the stairs. A few moments later he returned with a high-strung young man, about six foot tall, thin and blonde with nice enough features and white teeth. The fact that he was uncomfortable meeting his potential bride in her bedroom was more than a little obvious, and she could hardly wait till he saw Veeta in the next room.
‘Leave us,’ the princess said to the vizier, denying him the chance to conduct a proper introduction. Then without further ado she closed the chamber doors, sealing them both inside. Let the games begin, she thought.
‘Princess,’ the count bowed awkwardly, ‘if you will allow me the honor of introducing myself, I am—’
‘I know who you are,’ she snapped. ‘And we both know why you’re here. I’m to evaluate you as a potential husband. In order to do this, I’ll need to consider many things. Not least of which, I’ll need to know how you fuck.’
His features whitened to the shade of a ghost. ‘B-begging your pardon, princess?’
‘Veeta,’ she called out, ‘get out here on the double,’ and the girl scurried into the room, falling to her knees before her mistress, then without being told she lowered her head to the marble floor and began to kiss her mistress’ slipper.
‘This is my slave girl,’ Allura explained, ‘and I would like you to fuck her while I watch.’
Raysar’s mouth hung open in shock.
‘Well you can’t expect me to lay for you myself. I’m a virgin. So you’ll fuck her in place of me and that will give me some sense of your skills. Bearing in mind, of course, that this is an owned bitch whom you may treat with as much brutality as you like whereas I am a princess, whom you will have to worship on bended knee.’
Raysar swallowed hard, sweat beading his forehead. ‘I believe this to have been a mistake, princess. I regret any inconvenience,’ he bowed, his retreating back colliding with the door.
‘Count, surely you are not afraid of a mere slave?’ A simple snap of her finger was all it took to set the highly trained girl in motion. Without hesitation Veeta lowered herself to her belly and began to crawl to him. Count Raysar, mesmerized by the sight of her undulating, captive flesh, marked as it was with the whip, decided to wait and see what would happen.
‘Master,’ said the slave, her face at his feet, ‘the slave Veeta begs to give pleasure.’
Raysar stiffened as she began to kiss and lick his boot, and Allura suppressed a smile as she watched the swell in his breeches, indicating that indeed he was enjoying the servile behavior.
‘On your knees, Veeta,’ she ordered. ‘Show our guest what you are good for.’
Veeta knelt up, breasts thrust out, back straight. She was a sex slave, which meant there was no mistaking what she must do. This, too, was an act the noble’s daughter had balked at when first she was made Allura’s bondservant. Never would the princess forget the look on the sweet girl’s face when she was first pushed to her knees in front of their mutual friends, pressed by the princess into service for the occasion.
‘I would rather die!’ pretty Saraveeta had screamed.
‘We shall do you one better,’ Allura pronounced, sentencing her to a week in the dungeon, a place which makes even the strongest soul beg for death. Chained and naked, the girl was left to lie upon the cold stones in the darkness. Shivering and terrified she could only watch as beady red eyes peered at her, the sharp-toothed rodents waiting for a moment of weakness on her part. There were men in the dark dungeon, too, hungry for bread, and even hungrier for the tight channel between a girl’s legs.
For a while Veeta managed to keep herself safe in a corner, out of the range of the shackled prisoners and the rats alike. But then, out of sheer exhaustion, she’d fallen asleep, only to awake feeling something nuzzling between her legs. It was one of the rats, pushing its snout deep inside her sex.
Veeta scurried to the men, begging protection, and knowing that they had her over a barrel, they made her serve them, compelling her to lick clean their filthy feet and cocks before being allowed to lie with them. For the rest of her sentence she was plowed fore and aft, without respite.
Upon being released Veeta showed she had learned her lesson by immediately begging to suck the cock of the young man she’d spurned earlier, but Allura denied her this privilege, compelling her instead to suck the cocks of the stable hands.
‘Princess, I must protest,’ Raysar objected, though he seemed in no particular hurry either to continue his exit or to hinder the naked girl from exposing his penis and sucking it between her lips.
‘Feel free to ejaculate in her mouth,’ Allura offered graciously. ‘Veeta swallows whatever’s she’s told.’
‘I… I really can’t abide this,’ the count stuttered, even as he grasped the girl’s face between his hands to increase the friction. ‘By the gods… this isn’t right.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re going to shoot off already?’ Allura mocked. ‘Surely if you were loving me you’d have more staying power?’
He flushed red. ‘Get off me,’ he said, not too convincingly. ‘Stop this at once.’
‘Down slave,’ ordered Allura, and Veeta stopped sucking, released him from her mouth and sat back on her heels, just like the good little animal she was.
‘By the heavens,’ he moaned, knees shaking, and just as Allura had hoped it was too late for the young man; he was going to ejaculate.
With both hands gripping his erection the count erupted, the thick stream pelting the tummy, breasts and face of the kneeling slave girl. Veeta made no move to shield herself, nor did she close her eyes as yet more coated her brow.
‘This isn’t possible,’ he gasped, looking down at the straining tip of his expended organ, but Allura was more interested in the sperm that had dripped onto the floor.
‘Lick it up, slave,’ she commanded, and Veeta bowed to all fours, lapping at the sticky discharge. ‘What do you think, slave; would he make a good husband or no?’ Veeta continued to lick the floor, the question rhetorical, for she would continue with the task until told explicitly to stop.
‘I do not think you are in need of a husband, princess,’ complained the affronted Raysar, ‘but rather a keeper.’
Allura made no effort to hide her contempt, or her amusement. ‘Be gone, little man.’ She waved her hand. ‘Before I grow angry with you.’
He left in a huff, not bothering to fasten his trousers. Pity the poor servant who had to point that out to him downstairs.
‘And that, my dear Veeta,’ Allura collapsed on her bed, exhausted from her labors, ‘is how you handle a suitor.’
‘But uncle,’ whined the princess, having been summoned by her uncle to his study, ‘I don’t wish to see another suitor today. I am tired.’
The Grand Duke Fortragian fretted visibly behind his thick white mustache and muttonchops, the weight of his responsibilities heavy upon his heart. ‘Grand niece,’ he pleaded wearily, ‘must you fight me in everything? Have you not had your way in all things? Even more so now that your dear father is passed?’
Allura pouted sulkily. ‘I haven’t gotten my way at all. It’s only because of you that I am entertaining these ridiculous suitors in the first place. The least you can do is let me meet them where and when I choose.’
‘And with all the others, yes, that was true. But Baron Montreico must be the exception.’
Allura looked upon the graying, wrinkled man before her, a fraction of what he had once been in his handsome blue uniform. How easy it would be to defeat his will, and yet it was true that as the soon-to-be queen she must learn to be gracious to her subjects. ‘Very well,’ she raised her nose haughtily, ‘I shall deign to meet him in the audience hall. He may have ten minutes, no longer.’
‘Ten minutes,’ he nodded, obviously relieved. ‘Thank you.’
‘Do not thank me so quickly. I merely said I would meet him. You can rest assured I will scarcely tolerate him, much less allow him to ever take my hand in marriage.’
‘Speak to him,’ the duke effused. ‘That is all I ask.’
Allura narrowed her gaze suspiciously. ‘Why is this man so special?’ she demanded. ‘What are you hiding from me?’
‘Nothing. Not a thing. Come.’ He ushered her towards the audience hall. ‘The baron awaits you.’
She stopped in her tracks. ‘What do you mean, he awaits me? Do you mean to say he is already in the audience chamber?’
This was indeed an outrage. As princess, she should be allowed to take her place first on the dais, so that he might present himself at the throne and bow to her as was her due.
Fortragian laughed a little nervously as he took her arm. ‘Really, Allura, it is nothing to be concerned about. As you said yourself, you will speak to one another for only a few minutes.’
‘Even a few seconds is too much under such horrid circumstances, uncle, and you know it.’
‘The time will fly,’ he promised, as a pair of liveried servants pulled open the doors to the chamber with a crisp flourish.
‘Until later, then,’ he bid her farewell, medals jingling on his gold embroidered jacket as he scurried for the cover of his study.
‘Ever the brave one,’ she muttered, observing his comical flight from the theatre of battle. She had been prepared for almost anything as she walked into the marble-columned room with vaulted ceilings and ancient hanging tapestries, but what she saw moved her to an unprecedented level of indignation and outrage.
The baron was sitting on the throne. Her father’s throne.
‘How dare you?’ she cried, storming to the dais. ‘I shall have you put to death for this!’
The Baron Montreico, a booted foot resting casually over an arm of the carved marble seat, merely smirked in response. ‘The death penalty is not for females to deliver,’ he stated. ‘Especially not insolent little brats like you.’
The Princess Allura was taken aback, if only for a moment. No one before had ever spoken to her like this, affronting her royal personhood, and to make matters worse the dark-haired devil was breathtakingly handsome, with lustrous curls, a thin mustache and rugged features. Allura had never seen anything remotely like him before. He was dressed like a buccaneer, with calfskin boots up to his knees, bright red hunting breeches and a long coat of blue adorned with brass buttons. Across his broad chest hung a sash and he was armed with a shining silver rapier. No dandy or court primp ever dressed this way. Even his hands stood out; manicured but capable, accustomed to hard work. She couldn’t keep her eyes off them, most especially because he was peeling an apple, running a sharp knife round and round the smooth fruit.
‘Death is too good for you,’ she decided, warily testing her limits with the man. ‘I think I shall have you whipped instead.’
The baron continued to peel his apple, seemingly indifferent.
‘Did you hear me?’ she demanded, her voice more shrill. ‘I intend to have you whipped, hard enough to make you beg to be put out of your misery.’
The baron at last regarded her. ‘And you think yourself equal to that task?’
Allura scowled. She did not like it one little bit when a man called attention to the inherent differences in the power of the two sexes. ‘The castle guards shall attend to it, under my orders. As punishment for insulting me and for casting injury upon the monarchy by… by lounging on the throne as though you were in some house of ill repute!’
‘And have you ever been to one of these?’ He arched an inquiring eyebrow.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘A house of ill repute. Have you ever been to one?’
Allura scowled. ‘Of course not. How dare you even suggest such a thing? Now will you get off the throne or shall I call for the guards?’
Montreico’s eyes darkened. ‘Do that and I’ll gag you.’
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she snorted, though in truth she had no idea what a man like this might be capable of.
‘Try me.’
‘You are not a gentleman,’ she said. ‘You are unworthy of your title.’
‘And I suppose,’ he laughed ironically, ‘that you are worthy of yours?’
Allura flew at him, her temper pushed beyond all limits of restraint. She’d intended to receive the satisfaction of a hard slap to his face, but what she got was the man’s hand clenched like a steel cuff upon her forearm, holding her at bay.
‘You’re hurting me,’ she gasped, hiding her shock at being restrained in such a way.
‘As you would have hurt me?’
‘I hate you,’ hissed the crown princess, summing up her emotions in a single potent, if immature outburst. ‘And I hope you rot in the dungeon.’
‘Be careful of your words,’ warned the baron, ‘lest you find yourself one day in a position of accountability.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ she demanded.
‘I am not a man to threaten.’
He released her and she rubbed her arm, though it was her pride that was injured more than her flesh. ‘When I am queen,’ she fumed, ‘I will have you fed to the dogs for laying hands upon me.’
The baron rose to his feet, towering over her. ‘And when I am king, my dear princess, you shall beg me to lay more than my hands upon you.’
She stepped back to avoid being thrust aside as though she were a mere serving wench, her heart thudding in her chest as she fought to find the words to put this man back in his place. But all she could do was watch him leave, swaggering, the sword swaying at his side, her small fists clenched, her throat dry.
‘One more thing.’ He turned back. ‘You have a slave by the name of Veeta, do you not?’
Allura tensed. ‘What of it?’
‘She indicates you show an inordinate curiosity in the life of an owned female, what it is like to perform for men, to be beaten and used, and so on. Is this so?’
‘I am interested only in as much as I am a slave owner,’ she replied, trying not to sound defensive. ‘My motives are purely academic.’
The baron smiled condescendingly. ‘Indeed. And are you curious as well – academically speaking – as to what I would do with you here and now, if you were my slave?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she laughed scornfully, even as she felt a strange heat mounting between her thighs.
‘Pity,’ he shrugged. ‘Good day, then.’
‘Wait, baron…’
He was nearly at the door. ‘Yes, princess?’
‘Tell me,’ she blurted impulsively, ‘what you would do to me.’
‘To begin with, I would strip you naked,’ he declared. ‘I would then order you across my lap and spank you for your insolence. Sufficiently humbled, you would be set to work. Picking up those apple peelings, perhaps in your mouth, on hands and knees. You would then give me pleasure, swallowing my issue, knowing that afterward you would be caged for the night like a dog, denied food and water till you begged to be allowed to serve me.’
Allura’s knees grew weak. ‘You are a pig.’
‘No,’ he grinned, ‘I am a man.’
A few moments later he was gone and she was alone, and for a long time she stared at the peelings deposited upon the dais. The room seemed full of the baron’s presence still. She could smell his scent. She could see his eyes, so deep and penetrating. And his words, so scandalous and cruel, still echoed in her ears. The things he would do to her. Impossible, horrible things, done only to a slave.
What would it be like? What if he had the power to compel her to remove every stitch of clothing and order her, naked, across his knee, her belly pressing to his red breeches, her ass utterly vulnerable to those masculine hands? Her pulse raced as she gave in to her forbidden thoughts. Desperately, her hands molding her own buttocks, she tried to imagine what it would feel like to be disciplined, to be taught obedience by such a cruel and powerful man. He would be merciless, that much was clear. He would redden her behind, smacking it over and over until she had no option but to beg for mercy.
He would eventually stop, but only when he wanted. Her tears would mean nothing. How would it feel to be treated so harshly, only to be forced at the conclusion to retrieve apple peelings with her teeth?
She had to know. She had to experience it, now, in the safety of her aloneness. Slowly, very carefully, feeling weak and hot, she lowered herself to her knees, and then to all fours. How cold was the marble on her palms! Was this what it was like for Veeta every time she had to crawl? Slowly, deliberately, Allura inched forward, the nearest apple peeling seeming to mock her, repeating the man’s words.
She would pick them up in her mouth, he had said, with the full knowledge that a cage awaited, and with it an endless life of suffering and obeying. She trembled as she lowered her face, using her lips she picked up some peel, and as she bit she wondered why a mere apple had never tasted so rich and alive before?
She was cleaning the floor, she told herself, on her hands and knees, using her mouth like a slave to remove a man’s careless waste. Allura pressed her thighs together. She was wet there. A little more friction and she might even come… but it was then the shame of it all over came her, and hastily rising to her feet, spitting out the horrid piece of the baron’s garbage, she bolted from the room.
‘I want that floor scrubbed,’ she cried out to the nearest servant as she ran for the stairs. ‘Have Veeta do it. Naked. On her hands and knees. Then send her to me!’
The princess did not breathe again till she had closed herself in her chambers and thrown herself on her bed. What had she done? And more importantly, what did she almost do?
The very next morning the princess had Veeta strung up by her wrists to be whipped; punished for speaking to the baron behind her back.
‘When did he approach you?’ Allura demanded.
The naked girl hung her head. ‘It was only yesterday, mistress. He intercepted me as I was fetching you tea. I am sorry I spoke to him, but he commanded me. What could I do?’
The princess struck at the slave’s breast, smooth and completely defenseless. The resulting welt was in good company with the many others she’d already suffered.
‘Do not be insolent with me, little bitch.’
‘No, mistress. Forgive me, mistress.’
‘What did he ask you about me? You will tell me every detail.’
Veeta hesitated. ‘He… he mostly asked me about myself, mistress.’
Allura fumed; how dare he show interest in a little slut like her? ‘You? What could possibly be interesting about you?’
‘M-my dreams, mistress. He wanted to know my dreams. And my childhood, that interested him too.’
Allura laughed in her face, inducing the hapless girl to lower her eyes shamefully. ‘He is as stupid as he is rude,’ she declared. ‘Who but an imbecile would care for the dreams of a slave?’
Still, the matter was curious. Was there some weakness on the baron’s part to be exploited here? Could it be the man had a soft spot for the little whore with big brown eyes? If so, Allura now had a means to hurt and humiliate him. ‘So what did he do when he’d finished interviewing you? Take you for a romantic stroll in the garden, perhaps? Or did he sing you a love song on bended knee?’
If the slave picked up on her mocking tone, she gave no indication. ‘No, mistress, he did neither of those things.’
‘What then?’
‘He fucked me, mistress.’
‘F-fucked you?’
‘On all fours. He commanded me to the floor then mounted me, thrusting his hard cock inside me, and he erupted, filling my womb with his hot seed.’
The graphic description and the images it evoked were more than Allura could bear. ‘You lying bitch!’ She struck at the slave’s pussy, delivering a cruel slash of the whip. ‘A man that powerful would never waste himself on a piece of collar meat like you.’
‘Forgive me,’ the slave pleaded, ‘but it is so. I was fucked on my hands and knees, spilling his noble issue inside my unworthy cunt.’
‘Don’t make it worse for yourself by repeating your filthy lies!’ Allura growled, though she could not understand why she was making such an issue of it. What did it matter to her what a pig like Baron Montreico did with his penis? Should she be surprised he’d sport with the lowest of slaves, even one as pathetic as Veeta? The man was of no significance to her whatsoever. She would never again give him audience nor would she permit him within a thousand feet of her person.
Under pain of death. His.
‘Chamberlain!’ she shouted, tugging loudly on the summoning bell, and a white-wigged man in long green livery entered, bowing at the waist. ‘Tell me, chamberlain, are the stable boys working today?’
‘Yes, princess, as always.’
‘Good. I want you to fetch me one. Any will do. Bring him directly as you find him; make no effort to clean him up in any way. Is that clear?’
‘Perfectly, princess.’ The man bowed again, taking three large steps backwards before turning crisply.
‘I’m going to do you a favor.’ The princess ran the leather thongs of the seven-stranded whip over the slave’s breasts and belly. ‘Since you were yesterday fucked by a pig, I am going to let you graduate today to a smelly stable boy, and as always you may thank me in advance for my ongoing kindness.’
‘Thank you, mistress.’ Veeta opened her mouth obediently to suck the proffered whip handle.
‘Maybe I should have him finish your whipping. Men are ever so much stronger.’
The gagged slave girl whimpered, the sound barely escaping her sucking mouth. She was protesting, but Allura could see the glistening juices between her legs.
‘How dare you pretend to be distressed,’ the princess squeezed an available breast, ‘when it’s obvious you love the idea?’ Veeta tried to shake her head, earning a heavy smack to her cheek. ‘Don’t contradict me, you miserable cunt.’
‘Princess, the stable boy has arrived.’ It was the chamberlain returned with her special delivery, a gorgeous stable boy with ripping muscles and long dark hair, shirtless and wearing tight leather breeches. For a split second she wondered what Montreico’s torso looked like under his shirt, how his muscles would be shaped, the strong biceps and triceps and the rock hard abdomen, but quickly she banished the image.
‘Stand upright,’ she told the bowing stable boy, looking him up and down. ‘He’ll do,’ she decreed. ‘You may go, chamberlain.’
‘Princess,’ he repeated the backwards bow, a move she’d seen so many times in her life it was now more dull than watching a dog scratch its fleas.
The stable boy looked nervously at the departing senior servant. Ordinarily a low level servant like him would go his entire life without ever setting foot in the castle, much less being in the same room as the crown princess, the very daughter of the dear departed king.
‘When I am queen, boy,’ she informed him, ‘I will own everything in the kingdom, including you.’
He swallowed nervously. ‘Yes, princess.’
She laughed. ‘I’m only joking. For goodness sake, relax. You’re here to have a good time.’ He was about to have a very good time, one that would surpass anything he was ever likely to enjoy again in his whole miserable life. She hoped he’d appreciate the extraordinary lengths she was going to for him. When her uncle found out about her bringing this male creature into her bedchambers he was sure to give her a stern lecture.
‘What you do reflects not only on you, Allura, but upon the monarchy itself. The very future of our realm depends upon your sensibilities.’ Those were his watchwords, or a close enough facsimile. As if the man himself did not have his own lowly liaisons, the pretty peasants girls rounded up to take his beatings and whatever else he could manage at his age.
What a caretaker like Fortragian would never understand, though, was the loneliness and isolation of the kingship itself. Her father had felt it and soon she would, too, but in the meantime she planned on enjoying her freedom. As well as practicing in small doses her soon to be absolute power over the whole kingdom.
‘Tell me your name, boy, and your age,’ she demanded.
‘I am Willemo and I have passed twenty summers, princess.’
‘That makes you a year older than me. Splendid. Now tell me, Willemo, is that slave hanging there pleasing in your sight? Does she have, in your estimation, a good body?’
‘Very much so, princess.’
‘You would fuck her, then?’
Willemo’s brow furrowed. He was becoming suspicious. ‘Princess, if you wish to make some accusation pray do so now and not later.’
‘No accusations, Willemo, merely a gift… in exchange for one small favor.’
‘Princess?’
‘You must whip the slut before you fuck her.’
‘But I have never done such a thing, princess.’
‘And you call yourself a man?’ she laughed. ‘Come, fetch the whip from my hand, boy. Veeta wants a taste of it, don’t you, slut?’
‘Yes, mistress,’ rasped the broken girl. ‘I beg to be beaten as the animal I am.’
Allura nodded in satisfaction. ‘There you have it, Willemo.’
His lips tightened, but he stepped forward to retrieve the seven-stranded leather whip without objection.
‘Not there.’ She stopped him as he moved to stand behind her. ‘You will whip the slut on her breasts and pussy.’
Veeta’s eyes watered. The pain would be exquisite.
‘And I should like you naked, Willemo, if you please.’
Knowing himself powerless to resist the command of one so powerful, he pulled off his boots and slid down his breeches, his semi-rigid cock a work of art.
‘Stand in front of the slut,’ Allura ordered. ‘Let her see what will be fucking her soon enough.’
Willemo was a big youth, with hairy balls and a sturdy penis.
‘Tell me, Veeta, is the baron this well endowed?’ Allura enquired mischievously.
‘N-not quite, mistress.’
‘Oh? And what of his muscles? Do you think he could beat this Willemo in a fair fight?’
‘I do not know,’ the hanging slave replied. ‘I did not get a close enough look.’
‘He possessed you, did he not?’
‘Yes, mistress.’
‘Then I would say you got very close. Willemo, strike her pussy, as hard as you can.’
Veeta cried out at his first attempt, but Allura was not satisfied.
‘You must do it harder, Willemo, or I will have you whipped by the guards in her place.’
Willemo reared back his arm and let loose, leaving a savage red mark across her denuded mound.
‘Now her breasts,’ the princess directed, and the young man lashed out, beginning to get the hang of the device. ‘More,’ ordered the princess, her pulse racing. ‘Hurt her more.’
How Allura wished she had a man’s arms, a man’s legs and a penis between her thighs to provide the ultimate punishment. ‘Where is your baron now to protect you, dear Saraveeta?’ she goaded.
‘Mistress, please,’ she moaned. ‘I am yours, only yours.’
‘Lying slut!’ She grabbed the whip. ‘You enjoyed him. You surrendered to him. How could you not with a man like that? How could you not yield and be his slave after just one touch?’
Allura hated her at that moment, more than she had any other human being on earth. What right had she to be fucked by that awful baron, or to give him pleasure? Veeta was her slave, and hers alone. ‘I believe today is the day I shall hurt you worse than all the others combined,’ she vowed, thrusting the handle into the slave’s sex, ignoring her sobs. ‘I will use iron rods, I will draw blood, I swear it!’
‘Have I interrupted something?’
Allura’s skin crawled. It was him, the dark and dangerous Montreico, right behind her. ‘You most certainly have,’ she whirled to face him, ‘and I shall thank you to leave at once.’ She was utterly unprepared for the sight of the rakish baron in his uniform of office; a red tunic, gold emblazoned, with black trousers, black boots and a rapier at his waist.
‘I shall be pleased to.’ He bowed. ‘Only there is the small matter of your girl, here.’
‘What about her?’
‘I should like the pleasure of her flesh once more this morning.’
Allura stiffened in rage. Was there no end to the man’s nerve? How could he possibly presume to barge into her private quarters and demand to use one of her personal serving slaves?
‘Sir, I shall ask you once more to leave, or else I shall summon the guards to have you removed. And while you are at it, I pray you do not stop merely at vacating my chambers, but rather the whole of my castle.’
The baron regarded her, amused. ‘You know, princess, you really are quite charming when you’re worked up. I’ll bet your nipples are hard, aren’t they?’
Allura’s first reaction was to attack him again, but she’d learned her lesson from the last time. ‘I have nothing more to say to you.’ She brushed by him.
‘I hope you’re not leaving on my account?’ he mused, and she treated him to her most charming but dangerous smile.
‘Actually I am on my way to my uncle to arrange for your arrest,’ she said. ‘Good day, baron.’ He hadn’t any clever retort, which she took as a good sign, and marching straight to the grand duke’s study she unleashed her venom without preamble.
‘The man is a menace, uncle,’ she gabbled. ‘He has insulted me for the last time. I want him thrown into the dungeon.’
Grand Duke Fortragian glanced over his reading spectacles at her. ‘Niece, have you not the common courtesy to knock before bursting in?’ he demanded irritably.
‘This couldn’t wait.’ she folded her arms determinedly across her bosom, the fact that her nipples really were erect secretly adding to her discomfort and fury. She was in no way attracted to the man. No, if anything it was the attractive servant Willemo arousing her.
‘All right,’ he sighed, putting down the quill he’d been using to sign promulgations, ‘tell me what this fellow has done.’
Allura proceeded to relate the entire sordid story, leaving out the salacious detail of her picking the peel off the floor of the throne room with her lips. The grand duke listened implacably, showing no small measure of patience as she made the same points again and again.
‘My dear niece,’ he said at last when she had wound herself down to where he could get a word in edgewise, ‘your father and I took great efforts in your rearing to keep you shielded from many of the harsher exigencies of life, but I’m afraid the time has come to elucidate you on certain political matters. Though it pains me to say so, I am not going to live forever, nor do I have vast power at my disposal to keep the various unruly nobles in line—’
‘And that is why you should lobby to change the law so the throne can be turned over to me, so I can deal with them,’ she blurted.
Fortragian held up a hand. ‘Interrupting your elders, young lady, is hardly a sign of royal maturity.’
The princess pouted.
‘Baron Montreico, coarse as his behavior might be, is a great ally of this throne, Allura. He has armies at his disposal and he is, at the moment, an indispensable part of my plan to insure you have a kingdom left to preside over. As for your ruling alone, we have been over this already. You must have the protection of a husband or the nobles will eat you alive.’
‘It is I who will eat them, uncle. This Montreico for starters.’
‘Niece, I beg you, simply tolerate the man while he is here. I am not asking you to marry him.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I would sooner marry a warthog.’
The grand duke pursed his lips. ‘He does not seem so objectionable to me. I see the way the maidens look at him, and the slaves cannot crawl to him fast enough.’
The princess turned her nose up. ‘The man does nothing for me, now if you will excuse me I think I should like to attend to my slave.’
‘We shall see you at dinner then,’ the grand duke reminded. ‘At eight promptly, if you please.’
Allura nodded her affirmation and was off again in a bustle of pink skirts. So she must endure the presence of the baron. Fine. That did not mean, however, that she must in any way acknowledge his existence as a human being. Let him try a dose of her cold shoulder treatment and the man would quickly be sorry for his outrageous behavior. By the time she was done with him, in fact, the man would wish he’d gotten off easy with a nice stay in the dungeon.
In the meantime she would continue her interrogation of Veeta, and may the gods help that man if he was still malingering her bedroom when she got back up there.
Which he was, being salaciously pleasured.
‘Allura,’ he beamed, lounging in one of her gilded wooden armchairs, Veeta between his outstretched legs sucking noisily on his manhood. ‘I was hoping you’d return to join us.’
The princess felt the blood drain from her face. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined such audacity. It was one thing for her to torment men this way, but no one had ever dared take such liberties with her.
Montreico pulled a cigar from his tunic. ‘She’s quite a good little cocksucker, isn’t she?’ he mocked. ‘Would you have a light, by any chance?’
The princess fought to keep her eyes off the man’s glistening cock, sliding in and out of the slave’s mouth. The baron had tied her hands behind her back, which made it more challenging for her to keep her balance.
‘Baron Montreico,’ Allura declared, refusing to yield to her passions, ‘if you have any honor at all, I demand that you remove yourself from here at once.’
‘Before I’ve come?’
‘Get out, baron, now,’ Allura snapped. ‘Do you hear me? Veeta, get away from him this instant.’
The baron held the slave in place as she tried to rise. ‘Stay where you are, Veeta.’
‘She is my slave,’ Allura grabbed the girl’s dark hair, ‘and I forbid her to give you pleasure.’ Veeta cried out as the princess pulled her by the hair away from the baron’s erection. ‘Now get out, damn you!’ she ordered the man, the girl trembling at her feet.
‘Am I not a guest of this house?’ The baron enquired, seemingly unperturbed.
Allura’s mouth watered at the sight of the pulsing, abandoned cock. ‘According to my uncle,’ she said acidly, ‘not me.’
‘But your uncle is head of this royal house, is he not? Therefore I am a guest by law, entitled to all that this house has to offer, including the pleasure of its slave flesh. Now unless you wish to take this girl’s place I suggest you return her to her task forthwith.’
The logic was as flawless as it was galling. ‘Very well, you two deserve each other,’ Allura hissed, shoving Veeta forward onto her face.
‘You have five seconds to return to your work.’ The baron ignored her, speaking directly to the bound slave, who contorted herself, repositioning her mouth. Allura had never seen the girl perform like this, with such perfect fear and obedience.
‘I hope it falls off, Montreico,’ she said sulkily.
‘Your kindness overwhelms me, princess. Now, about the light for my cigar?’
Allura fetched a candle, determined to maintain her aplomb. ‘Exactly what do you have on my uncle, anyway?’
‘Have on him?’
‘Yes. Why is he so afraid of you?’
‘I don’t know. Why are you so afraid of me?’
‘Me? Afraid? Hardly,’ she scoffed.
‘If you would do the honors.’ He indicated she should light his cigar with the candle resting on a nearby table.
‘Why not?’ she smiled, intending to burn him with it, her plan to drip wax on his cock, but too astute he grabbed her upper arm and knocked the candle to the floor, her protests instantly smothered by the kiss, aggressive and punishing, his grip like iron, his lips hot and pliant.
Allura let forth a moan, only to have her mouth plundered by his tongue. Her oversensitive nipples flared again, as did the delta between her legs, and by the time he released her she was moist, her thoughts focused entirely on lovemaking.
‘B-baron,’ she panted, her eyes heavy with desire. Had he any idea what he’d done? There was no denying the meaning behind his action. If he were to denounce her now her life would be effectively over, regardless of her actual culpability. And yet at this moment she didn’t care. Not when there was the chance to be kissed that way again.
‘My initial assessment was right,’ he rejected her coldly. ‘You are a frigid bitch.’
Allura’s lips trembled, her reverie shattered. Never had she been so humiliated in all her life. Lacking the will to slap him or even call him any names, she turned away and ran as fast as she could.
Trembling like a leaf she shut herself in one of the empty guest chambers, and it wasn’t until she’d locked the door that she allowed herself to fall apart, her tears, long repressed, falling like raindrops as she flopped sorrowfully on the bed.
Allura would have preferred to do almost anything else that evening than attend a state dinner. It didn’t matter that her new white gown with woven silver silk shone like the moon, or that her hair sparkled like the sun; everyone already knew she was the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, so why devote another dreadfully tedious evening to confirming it?
Especially when she was so distraught about her latest incident with Montreico. The man had kissed her, and worse, with disdain, as if she were a mere whore. And then to tell her she was frigid, as if she were supposed to melt on the spot and spread her legs for him in exchange for a kiss.
He was the frigid one, not her. She felt nothing from his forbidden touch. Well, almost nothing. All right, so she’d been worked up all afternoon, her pussy alive, strange images filling her head of being under the man’s wicked power, of having to do his bidding, sexual and otherwise. Things Veeta was forced to do on a daily basis because she was not free and had no rights over her own body. It was ridiculous, of course, and the sooner the man was gone from the castle the better.
She would count the hours – as would Veeta, who’d be spending her time in the dungeon until his departure. The girl had begged not to be cast back down there, and it was true, there was no good reason why the relatively obedient slave should be, but Allura was determined to cheat the baron of his slut, and she’d provide the same treatment for any of the other female slaves he took a shine to as well.
‘Leave me,’ she commanded the slave who’d been combing her hair.
‘Yes, mistress.’ The girl crawled backwards on her knees to the door, and then onto all fours to scamper away. No doubt she was grateful to have avoided any punishment, and Allura didn’t even care that she’d missed the opportunity. Suddenly her usual joys of torturing the females in her power seemed to have gone flat.
Looking at herself in the mirror, her hair elaborately fixed beneath the tiara, her ears and throat dripping with perfect diamonds, her luscious bosom subtly accented by the lace bodice of her dress, she could find no flaw. It was almost too easy; every man wanting her and yet so easily disposed of, blown away like dust.
Except for this Baron Montreico. The one man, it seemed, she could not thwart; the one man who held a secret over her; a terrible truth, the reality of a kiss that still branded her lips… and her heart.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts.
‘Princess, your presence is required by the grand duke,’ the chamberlain called from outside the door.
‘Tell my uncle I shall come when I’m ready, not before. And do not disturb me again,’ she snapped.
‘Allura, by the gods, what are you doing in there? I have five ambassadors waiting upon you!’
Her uncle was there too, come to fetch her, so she rushed and opened the door. ‘Sorry, uncle, I…’
His frown receded at the sight of her. ‘You are fortunate, Allura, to be so resplendent in your beauty. No one will ever fault your perpetual lateness, though it is a character defect.’
‘I know, uncle, and I shall mend my ways.’ She took his arm, feeling her usual radiant self once more. Let the dullards at dinner be overwhelmed, she told herself. At least they’d provide her with some amusement as she obliterated them. ‘I trust you’ve devised your usual ingenious seating plan, uncle?’
‘Funny you should say that, niece.’ He stopped at the head of the table, where he himself was to be seated. A hundred men and women bowed in unison, their garb representing a dozen provinces and twice that many foreign countries. ‘I should like you at the far end, Allura, beside the baron.’
Montreico strode forward to fetch her. He wore a uniform of black, with a gold sash and buttons. ‘I am honored, your excellency.’
How appropriate, she thought, black for a man with an infinitely dark heart.
‘It is you,’ Fortragian countered, shaking his head amiably, ‘who honor us.’
‘Princess?’ The baron extended an arm, a self-satisfied expression on his face.
‘Certainly,’ she smiled back, her poison-filled eyes containing her real sentiments, ‘I’d be delighted.’
Every head followed their progress down the table; no doubt the fools expecting an announcement of marriage at any moment.
‘I don’t know how you arranged this,’ she whispered from the side of her mouth, ‘but I promise you, you won’t get away with it.’
The baron held her chair for her, pushing it in behind her. ‘Surely you’re not as disappointed as all that?’ he whispered in reply. ‘I’m exactly the challenge you need. The only one who’ll give you a run for your money.’
‘You flatter yourself, baron. Anyway, I’m a frigid bitch, remember? Why would you waste your time?’
He sat beside her, unfurling his napkin with a flourish. ‘Frigid bitches are my specialty, princess. You are not the only one who enjoys a challenge.’
‘The only challenge you pose for me is finding a means of extermination for so large a rat.’
‘You pain me deeply. Wine, my dear?’ The baron leaned across to fill her glass without letting her accept or decline.
‘If you think getting me drunk will allow you to—’
‘What fragrance is that?’ the baron cut her off, making a show of sniffing the air. ‘It seems strikingly familiar.’
Allura clenched her legs in horror. There was no way his olfactory glands could be that sensitive. She’d bathed afterwards, for goodness sake.
‘Yes,’ he wrinkled his nose, inhaling again. ‘I’m sure I’m smelling something quite distinct from the fragrances of our dinner.’
‘And I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, without conviction. It had only been a brief dalliance – although highly arousing – before her bath.
‘Give me your hand.’
‘Let go of me.’
‘Aha,’ his nostrils flared, her fingertips just under his nose. ‘As I suspected, you’ve been masturbating.’
‘Quiet,’ she hissed fiercely. ‘Do you want to mortify me in front of half the nobles in the realm?’
He appeared to consider the matter. ‘Perhaps. Unless you’re prepared to provide me with some greater thrill later tonight?’
‘Montreico, I beg you, do not shame me this way.’
‘So now you are begging, are you? Fine, I give you my terms, take them or leave them. I shall not reveal your secret, so long as you agree to meet with me later, at a time and place of my choosing.’
‘How can I trust you?’ she asked.
He laughed. ‘More to the point, how can I trust you?’
Oh, how this man infuriated her. ‘You have my word. Now can we be done with this sordid discussion?’
‘Cheers…’ He smugly raised his glass, and Allura touched her own against it, trying to draw as little attention as possible to their private exchange, greatly relieved to see the first course being brought. The more distractions the less likely he’d be to say or do anything stupid.
‘Admiral Plico,’ said the baron, slipping a hand unseen over Allura’s thigh. ‘My congratulations on your latest victory over the Nasians. The fewer of those scum scouring the high seas the better, I say.’
The white-suited admiral across from them turned bright red, looking as though he’d swallowed an apple.
‘Montreico,’ Allura whispered fiercely, trying to dislodge his hand at the same time, ‘the Nasian ambassador is sitting right next to you.’
‘What? By the demons, so he is. You mean to say you’ve made peace already?’ The baron pushed his hand down between Allura’s thighs. ‘Why am I always the last to know?’
Because, thought Allura, clamping her thighs tight, he was a pompous, ignorant oaf without a smidgeon of worldly understanding.
‘Princess, were you aware of this development?’
‘Yes,’ she replied curtly, trying not to squirm. He was attempting to stimulate her through the material of her complicated dress.
‘I’m from the backwater,’ explained the baron. ‘But I do know what I like.’ And at the moment that would be her sex, and it was all Allura could do to keep from jumping up. She had no idea it would feel like this – a man’s fingers seeking and probing. It was so different than when she did it herself.
‘If you resist me in any way,’ he leaned over to whisper in her ear, ‘I will expose you… fully.’
‘But you promised not to shame me,’ she breathed.
‘And I won’t. If you obey.’
Obey. That terrible, charged word; a word for slaves and servants and wives, not for princesses and queens.
‘Personally I think it important to open all trade routes,’ the baron managed to work his tortures into the larger conversation. ‘Don’t you agree, princess?’
She managed a weak smile. He was referring not only to economic and political matters, but to her cunt. The pig wanted better access, but better that than having the whole sordid mess revealed.
‘Open… yes…’ she replied, her heart thumping in her chest. Could they know what was happening; all the nobles and ambassadors and their wives? Did they play games of their own under cover of the tablecloth?
A gasp passed through her, nearly audible as he managed to apply pressure directly to her clitoris. He had her now. One false move, on either of their parts, and she would be coming for him, right in front of every dignitary for miles around.
‘Princess,’ enquired a particularly nosy duchess, ‘is it true that the Lady Saraveeta is now your slave?’
The baron cast a gleeful sideways glance. ‘Yes, princess, do tell.’
‘It is true.’ She drew a steadying breath. ‘She was found to be a harlot and I spared her life.’
‘Only to send her to the dungeons to rot,’ Montreico reminded.
‘That is where slaves belong,’ she retorted.
He punished her with a flick of his thumb, enough to make her blush and squirm.
‘Princess, are you quite all right?’ the gray-coated ambassador from Zenuria asked.
‘I am quite fine… thank you,’ she gasped.
‘Perhaps the princess is overcome thinking of the turn of events for her poor friend,’ provoked the baron. ‘It must be difficult to see the dear girl in bonds, naked, reduced to the level of mere property.’
‘Harlots deserve what they get.’ The princess was determined to yield not an inch.
‘Personally,’ said the double-chinned wife of the Zenurian ambassador, ‘I find female slavery distasteful in its sexual aspects. It is an encouragement to loose morals.’
‘It is true,’ said the baron. ‘The female slave is a sex toy for her owners. The male may use her in every conceivable manner, and it is not even considered adultery on account of the creature being defined as animal and not human. The princess’ friend, Saraveeta – I believe she is simply Veeta now – is such an animal, is she not, princess?’
Allura slightly raised her buttocks from the seat, clenching her pussy muscles, desperately trying to draw in his fingers. If only the fatuous guests were not there and she could spread herself wide, rip off her clothes and let him finish her off. It didn’t matter that she hated him; it was sexual and she needed it.
‘Veeta is an animal, a pig, yes,’ the words poured forth, ill chosen and highly charged, ‘and a slut. But she always was easy with the boys. She never was a female, baron, only a slave, from the day she was born.’
Montreico withdrew his hand without notice, and Allura had to choke back the whimper of sudden deprivation. ‘And you, princess, are so much the opposite.’
There was a tinge of irony in his voice, enough to give pause to the conversation, and it was resumed again, lightly, only once the soup arrived.
‘Do not close your legs,’ the baron warned, and the princess sat open, her every nerve-ending alive, every word, every sound and taste connecting directly to her sex. The laughter of the men jarring her, like tremors threatening to knock her from her chair onto the floor at their feet. The clinking of glasses, the aroma of meat from the kitchens drawing attention to her empty belly, her ravenous need to eat, so easily controlled by a single man.
And worst of all, the metal of the soup spoon on her lips making her think of chains. Veeta was chained at that moment, locked in irons in the dungeon below them, her lithe body covered in filth as the bestial male prisoners pass her back and forth; male beasts sporting with a female beast.
For a second Allura felt the gut-wrenching tear of guilt. Were she and Veeta so very different? Wasn’t it Allura who’d wanted that kiss from Porfino so badly? Hadn’t she practically thrown herself at the boy not once, but again and again? Had she not offered him everything, the full obedience of her body in a vain effort to distract him from Saraveeta, his true love? And knowing herself second best in the end, had she not falsely accused an innocent girl in order to appease her own bruised ego? It was more than Allura could bear.
‘Is something wrong, princess?’
She was on her feet, bracing herself at the edge of the table. ‘I… I am in need of some air,’ she stammered, ‘that is all.’
‘Baron,’ the grand duke called from the far end of the table, ‘would you kindly escort the princess to the balcony?’
‘I am fine, uncle,’ she declined. ‘I should like to go alone.’
The baron grasped her elbow. ‘I will not be cheated of my end of the bargain, whether or not you leave,’ he growled.
‘Of course,’ she hissed, ‘being the son of a demon as you are, I fully expect you to try and collect. Only it seems you have failed to honor your end of the bargain; I have been disgraced, after all.’
‘Only if you make a scene now,’ he countered. ‘Come quietly and all will be well.’
The man was right and for the moment she had no choice but to cede her arm – and a measure of her pride. So consoling herself with all the nasty things she would do to him when she became queen, she allowed him to lead her from the state dining room out to the balcony overlooking the manicured gardens below.
Allura forced from her mind the feelings of comfort at having someone to lean on – a man to take the reins. She could not entertain such a thought now, for it was enough to confront the weakness in her knees, the heat passing from her body to his, so powerful beside her.
‘You may leave me,’ she dismissed him at the balustrade. ‘I am in no mood for company.’
‘I shall wait till I am assured that you are well.’
Well enough to run him through with a blade had she the strength of a man, she thought bitterly. ‘I think you’ve foisted yourself on me more than sufficiently for—’
The baron helped himself to another kiss, abruptly silencing her, this second even more intoxicating than the first, his hands at her bare back pressing her close, holding her prisoner. She nearly fainted at the feel of his hardness, the man aroused, as he had been with Veeta, only this time he wanted her. Allura felt her resistance ebbing, and as his hands moved down to grasp her buttocks she could muster no objection, no will to oppose him.
Her eyes closed, and the princess forgot for the moment her loathing of the man, praying it would go on, forever.
‘Allura! By the gods and goddesses, what is the meaning of this?’
The princess gasped, panic supplanting her lurid desire. It was the grand duke. ‘Uncle, I… I…’
‘No,’ he silenced her spluttering. ‘It is clear enough what has occurred here.’
‘The young lady has compromised my integrity,’ declared the baron. ‘I demand satisfaction.’
‘Me?’ she shrieked indignantly. ‘But it is you who grabbed me and—’
‘And what, Allura?’ he interrupted. ‘Can you prove to your uncle how I forced myself upon you? Or would you rather tell him the truth, how you put yourself upon me, appealing to my natural male desires?’
‘Is this true, Allura?’ her uncle quizzed, and her pulse raced. She knew well the laws and customs of her people. Without clear and overwhelming proof of abuse the woman was wrong, guilty no matter what the circumstances. Hadn’t she condemned Saraveeta in this very manner having no evidence whatsoever?
It was not a fair system, but it was straightforward. So long as the woman kept her distance she had all the power, but once she allowed the breaching of that barrier, though the touch be slight, everything shifted to the male. Her freedom, her very life was in his hands. ‘Uncle, you must give me a chance, alone, to explain,’ she pleaded, seeking to hide her increasing desperation. ‘There is more here than meets the eye.’
‘What could there be to explain?’ Montreico argued. ‘The law is clear. Fortragian, do you not side with me?’
The elderly grand duke frowned heavily. ‘The law is the law, Allura,’ he decreed. ‘I cannot override it, even for you.’
‘She is spoiled meat,’ the baron pointed out, quite unnecessarily, ‘and she has but one chance at redemption; a legitimate union with the offended party.’
Allura’s heart seized in her chest. The man couldn’t possibly propose marriage, not after all that had taken place between them. ‘Uncle,’ she desperately babbled, ‘I will never wed this man, do you hear me?’
‘Allura, the choice is no longer yours. And need I remind you that should the baron refuse you I shall be forced to sentence you to slavery as a harlot?’
‘Me, a slave?’ she gasped. ‘But I am crown princess!’
‘If slavery be too good for you there is always the option of death,’ reminded the baron. ‘And I would be happy to loan my hangman to your uncle for the occasion.’
‘I hate you!’ she screamed, turning on him with fists flying, but the baron made no effort to stop her pounding his chest, an action that only made her look all the weaker and hysterical.
‘I shall have to consider the matter, Fortragian,’ he said flatly. ‘In the morning I shall give you my decision as to whether I’ll have her or not.’
Allura stopped her useless attack, and burying her head in her hands she reverted to the use of tears. In the past it had helped her win her own way, but not now.
‘I am afraid I have grown quite fatigued, your excellency,’ Montreico said. ‘Until tomorrow, then?’
‘Very good, baron.’ The duke returned his crisp bow, then turning to his niece he said curtly, ‘Pull yourself together, girl. You got yourself into this mess. You’ve no one to blame but yourself.’
He left her alone to contemplate her options. He was right; she must pull herself together. What was she going to do? Drawing a deep breath she gazed into the night. She could wait until the baron was asleep and slit his throat; she could hardly imagine anyone missing such a man. But what if she should fail in her attempt? Montreico was obviously a cunning and treacherous man, of the sort not likely to be overtaken even in his sleep.
No, if she was to defeat him she must use her wits. She must beat the man at his own game. To begin with, she could be assured he would want her hand in marriage, which must have been his plan all along, to marry into the royal house, to gain leverage over the crown princess. And therein would lay his undoing. The man’s greed would fell him. She would make his life a living hell, removing from him every joy until he either begged her to release him from his vows, or to plunge a dagger into his heart to end his misery. In less than a year’s time, she predicted, she would be rid of him and sitting on the throne all by herself. Yes, it was the perfect solution. An immediate marriage would make her uncle happy and she would be one step closer to a life free of men all together.
The only small hitch was her confounded libido. She must in no way succumb to her desires. She must never again give in to his kiss or melt at his touch, and she must never, ever, under any circumstances give herself to the brute physically.
It would be a sexless marriage, and if she had to masturbate a hundred times a day or even give her favors over to some male servant like Willemo to keep her lust at bay, she’d do it; anything to keep her freedom, not to mention her chance of revenge.
In the meantime she had in mind a little game – something to ease the worries on her mind. To this end she would need a few of her special devices as well as the helpless body of Veeta the slave.
‘We are going to play princess and robber tonight,’ Allura told the girl a short while later, in the privacy of her bedchambers. ‘Aren’t you glad I got you out of the mean old dungeon so we can?’
‘Yes, mistress,’ said the shivering girl, freshly scrubbed and deloused after her ordeal. ‘Thank you, mistress.’
Allura so enjoyed the expressions on the slave’s face. Subtle as they had become, and as many times as they’d played the same games, Allura could still count on provoking reactions; a little sparkle in the eyes indicating fear, a slight furrowing of the brow, and of course the inevitable quaver in the voice. This was a fun game for Allura because she got to play a different role. Naturally she was the predatory robber, while Veeta would be the sleeping princess interrupted by the randy intruder. Allura was quite proud of herself for inventing a device to simulate a male member, which she could attach to herself by means of a harness. Made of smooth metal, the shaft was a silver replica of the cock of her father’s favorite horse, making it an especially humiliating thing for the highborn Saraveeta, who was in effect being fucked by a horse-cock.
‘What does it feel like?’ Allura would always ask, and then teasing she would add, ‘We should try the real thing, now that we have you stretched so well.’
The silver horse penis was attached to a wide belt, with connecting straps that fitted between the princess’ legs, and as an added treat for her she could install various devices that would insure her own continuous arousal while she was fucking the slave girl.
Veeta had been stretched well, indeed, and she could take a substantial amount of the huge cock, in both channels as well as in her mouth.
‘You are sucking a horse cock, Veeta,’ Allura would make sure to remind her as she performed on the silver shaft. ‘For the millionth time, aren’t you sorry for ever thinking you were more lovely and desirable than me?’
Allura readied herself now for their game. In her guise as robber she would sneak into the bedchamber, the cock firmly in place and assault the defenseless princess. For the occasion Allura would dress her childhood friend in a splendidly sheer and regal nightgown, and even do her hair and make-up. This would make Veeta cry, because it reminded her of all she’d lost.
Allura thought it funny to set up these little contrasts. Certainly Veeta was tortured by them, for it was ever so much crueler to wear finery time and again, only to be stripped and forced to eat on all fours from a bowl.
For the night’s game she was spending lots of time with Veeta’s hair, making the girl sit in her golden chair while she employed the dreaded silver brush.
‘The Baron Montreico fancies to marry me,’ she told her slave girl, as though it was some free offer she was considering. ‘Do you think him a good catch?’
Veeta wore a red negligee, low-cut, barely covering her nipples. The hem rode so far up as she sat that Allura could see her pink lips at the apex of her slightly parted legs. ‘I… I don’t know about such things.’ She looked anxiously at her mistress, knowing a wrong answer could land her an extra beating.
‘Is he handsome? Does he make you wet?’
The thighs of the girl clamped together abruptly. ‘Please, don’t make me answer, mistress.’
‘What? Is this modesty coming from a slave?’ Allura aimed the brush at her stomach. ‘Shall I have your belly sliced open to learn your secrets?’
It was an old expression, symbolizing the brutal nature of slave ownership, but Allura liked it for its literal connotations. If she wished she could disembowel her old friend. For that matter, she could also have her impregnated as a breeder; a fat breeding pig to make more stupid slaves like her.
‘No, mistress, forgive me!’ She recoiled.
‘Talk,’ Allura demanded, seizing a silk-covered nipple and twisting it savagely, the slave whimpering and squirming.
‘The baron is handsome, yes,’ she gasped, ‘and he makes me wet, mistress.’
Allura scowled, releasing her. She’d suspected as much. Her worthless slave had a crush. It was no surprise; what other sort of female would want a man of his low caliber? ‘How fitting,’ she brushed it off. ‘You are both pigs, after all.’
Nothing more was said, but Allura continued to ruminate on the matter. Why had she felt a slight tremor in her tummy at the idea of another female liking or wanting Montreico? Why wasn’t it fun to play her humiliation games with Veeta, using this particular man as the butt of the joke? ‘Get into bed,’ she snapped. ‘It’s time to start the fun.’
Veeta bowed her head. ‘Yes, mistress.’ The girl knew her part well. Perhaps she even enjoyed some of it. After all, when now did the former Saraveeta get a chance to lie alone and unmolested in a real bed, even for a few minutes? She claimed the huge penis hurt, but Allura thought she was exaggerating. Veeta was spoiled, that was all. Living in the castle was such a soft life for her; she had no idea what other slaves endured.
Allura enjoyed watching her find her place on the bed, crawling so sweetly over the opulent coverings. What a fine little bride she would have been. In many ways she’d even have made a better princess, with her natural grace and ability to charm one and all by her mere presence. Even with Allura’s blonde beauty and the servants always creating a fuss about her, there were times when Saraveeta would steal the light from her entirely.
‘Toss and turn, Veeta,’ directed Allura, trying to make things as realistic as possible. ‘You are dreaming of your lover; show me how that looks. He is coming and even in your sleep you are waiting.’
Veeta’s eyes closed. She was on her left side, and with the delicate fingers of one hand she drew a line up her naked thigh. Her lips were moist, and she let out a small moan. This was no fabrication, Allura realized. The girl really was imagining a dream lover. Did she think herself still worthy of noble men, handsome dukes and princes to fawn over her? Was she thinking of Montreico, even?
‘On your back,’ Allura commanded her personal plaything. ‘Open your legs and caress your breasts.’ The girl obliged, as manipulative as Allura had forced her to become. ‘Behold the princess,’ whispered Allura, playing the part of unseen narrator beside the bed. ‘Imagining sweet bliss. Not knowing the horror approaching.’
The window was open, and a light breeze wafted into the chamber. Allura gazed upon the girl’s body bathed in moonlight, transformed into something almost ethereal. ‘Touch yourself, Veeta. Play with your clit.’ The slave’s pussy was glistening, and silvery liquid anointed her fingertips as she touched that magical bud. ‘Yes, that’s it, think about your handsome prince, he is coming to rescue you, to carry you away on wings of love, his cock inside you as you fly, his lips kissing your breasts, giving you orgasm after orgasm…’
Allura stopped her just shy of fulfillment. ‘Enough. Now you are asleep.’
The girl bit her lip. It took all her will power to deny herself, and laying her hands over her face she pretended to be unconscious.
‘Sleep now, my princess.’ Allura’s voice drifted to nothing, her own sex on fire. She was wearing gloves, boots, and a dagger at her side. She had velvet breeches, the perpetually hard cock strapped into place. Thus would Veeta meet her brigand, again.
First a gloved hand clamped down over the lightly breathing mouth. The slave princess froze and opened her eyes, with genuine disquiet reflected in them.
‘Not a word, bitch.’ Allura brandished the knife, her body astride Veeta’s. ‘You’ll do what I say and you’ll live. Nod if you understand.’ Veeta did so. There was nothing fake about the blade, anymore than there was about the reality of Allura’s intention to dominate and terrorize. ‘Good girl, now lick my knife.’
Allura’s insides simmered as the tiny tongue extended to the flat of the blade, dabbing, seeking to appease, seeking to survive.
‘You like cock, girlie?’ she growled in a deep voice.
‘I-I’m a virgin, sir,’ said the de facto princess.
‘Not for long, eh?’
Veeta grit her teeth as Allura took her breast rudely, twisting the nipple much harder than before.
‘That hurts, sir!’ the slave wailed, but the point of the knife pressed into the girl’s concave tummy, and Allura’s heart quickened as she raised the stakes.
‘I enjoy hurting disrespectful girls like you. Didn’t you guess that yet?’
Veeta shook her head, wide-eyed as a kitten, fresh and innocent. One more thing for Allura to hate: the girl’s ability to renew herself through playacting.
Using the knife she cut away the girl’s silk negligee. ‘Prepare to be fucked.’
‘I submit,’ Veeta panted.
‘Beg to be fucked,’ Allura urged, her voice tense with arousal.
‘Fuck me, sir,’ Veeta sighed. ‘Use me as your whore.’
‘Too easy,’ Allura hissed. ‘Resist me.’
The poor slave pushed with her hands at Allura’s arms, being careful not to do it too hard, lest she really dislodge and anger her mistress.
‘I am too strong for you, girl. All men are too strong. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes, mistress… I mean, sir.’
‘Open your legs,’ the blonde princess ordered, Veeta did so, as wide as she could manage, and Allura pushed the huge phallus home, smooth metal penetrating easily the ripe, ready girl, who took more of it than she ever had before.
‘Who are you thinking about?’ Allura demanded. ‘Why are you so aroused all of a sudden?’
‘Please…’ Veeta gasped. ‘Please, just let me serve you. Use me as you will.’
‘You’re not getting off that easily, bitch.’ Allura pushed down, the adrenalin surging her to an unprecedented level of penetration.
‘Mercy,’ Veeta gasped.
‘Then tell the truth,’ Allura coaxed. ‘You are so wet because of him, the baron. You are wishing it was his cock invading you.’
‘Yes… yes… I crave him, I confess,’ Veeta sobbed.
Allura’s satisfaction was all too grim. ‘Turn over,’ she ordered. ‘Face down, ass in the air, spread yourself wide.’
The girl did not dare delay a single second, and obediently rolled onto her front. ‘I am yours,’ she sobbed, no longer sure in what guise to address the princess. ‘I submit to you.’
‘Liar!’ Allura smacked her ass, the force of the blow thrusting the slave forward with a guttural moan. It was a cruel and unexpected strike, but such was the lot of a chattel property, a toy for the enjoyment of the free. ‘You pay me lip service. It’s that despicable man you want to own you. You want to belong to Montreico.’ The princess could not think clearly; was she looking into the soul of the slave or was this about her own secret desires, hidden behind the character Veeta was playing?
‘I want to obey, mistress,’ Veeta wailed. ‘I want to be good. Please, let me be good. Let me be what you want me to be.’
Allura realized at once the futility of her actions. Veeta was indeed the perfect slave now, broken to her will and terrified more of disobedience than of losing her identity. She had no truth of her own, only Allura’s. If Allura told her she wanted the baron, than she would. Likewise any other master Allura picked for her.
‘There, there,’ the princess patted the head of her sobbing pet, ‘come and make your mistress happy. Come and suck your horse dick like a good girl.’
Veeta obeyed again, licking, kissing, then took it deep to the back of her throat, and when she looked up at her mistress, Allura paused from her thoughts to praise her. ‘What a good little cock sucker,’ she encouraged. ‘A certain little slut is going to earn a treat at this rate.’
Veeta garbled her thanks as well as her relief. With great passion would she continue to suck and afterward she would beg and sit up panting to take the tiny piece of candy that was the reward for the sexual performance of a slave.
Allura imagined Baron Montreico in the same position; naked and begging to eat from her palm, and the image made her smile. She would conquer the man, just like she’d conquered Veeta, breaking her will and changing her from a proud girl to a cringing slave. Never mind that Montreico was male, twice her strength and hugely more dangerous than Saraveeta. The difference was naught.
Or so she hoped.
Princess Allura Alesandra de Triante Volucien stood before the royal court in the finest of her blue velvet gowns. She considered it her best color, drawing out most fully her deep, misty eyes. Her hair was arranged to its greatest advantage, in sensual swirls set with diamonds and sapphires. About her waist she wore a chain of silver and a tiny dagger of state, the jeweled one belonging to her grandmother, Queen Aloethia the Pious.
The neckline plunged just enough to reveal her deep cleavage, also drawing attention to the sapphire and diamond necklace, the gems of which had once ransomed an enemy king in the days of her great great grandfather, King Milasos the Wise.
‘Do I look presentable?’ she’d asked Veeta on her way out of her chamber, the naked slave still exhausted from the night’s sexual excesses, and the slave wearily assured her mistress that no woman had ever looked lovelier in the history of the kingdom. Allura accused her of lying to ingratiate herself, and promised her punishment later.
That is, after she’d gotten this charade of a ceremony over with. Montreico had already kept them waiting about in the audience hall, and frankly she found it infuriating she should have to be kept hostage like this. What was the point? Obviously he would offer her marriage and the matter would be concluded.
‘Uncle, why do you not send the guards for him?’ she asked churlishly. ‘Clap him in irons for insulting my person in this way. And yours.’
The Grand Duke Fortragian gave her a cross look, one she’d never seen before. ‘That will be enough out of you, young lady.’
Allura bit her lip. The man had told her off, like a common serving wench or a child. If she weren’t so shocked she might well be indignant.
‘Good morning, grand duke.’
The hair on the back of Allura’s neck stood on end. It was him, waltzing into the chamber in one of his absurd hunting outfits, this time a pair of tight buckskin breeches and a loose weave shirt of forest green, the V-neck tied by loose leather strings. He had his sword belt and a medium-sized cutting knife, and clearly he’d been hunting in the early dawn.
‘Baron, we are pleased to receive you.’ Fortragian offered a low bow.
‘We would have been more pleased a half hour ago,’ snapped the princess.
‘Allura, silence!’ snapped her uncle, and the princess, avoiding Montreico’s stare as he moved to stand beside her, kept her eyes straight ahead. She swore if she were to see even the slightest trace of his smugness right now she would tear him to shreds with her bare hands.
‘Baron,’ continued the grand duke, ‘if it please you, may I offer you welcome into this hall, the home of the family which has offended you, and may I further offer the deepest apology, as that family’s senior member for the dishonor done to you and your house?’
‘As the offended party,’ Montreico replied, continuing the formal discourse employed in such situations, ‘I accept your family’s hospitality and apology, as well as the wisdom you bring as senior member.’
‘With your permission, then, may we proceed with the matter at hand?’ asked the grand duke.
The baron inclined his head. He smelled of fresh morning dew and of the forest. The scent of manhood, of conquest and of the kill hung about him in a way that made her weak-kneed and distinctly uncomfortable. ‘I do grant this permission.’
‘Allura, face your accuser.’
She did so, keeping her face a mask. As for Montreico’s, why hadn’t she remembered it as being quite so handsome, with its etched lines, capable of worry, laughter and, quite likely, deep passion?
‘Do you admit your offense, before these witnesses, that you did soil yourself, yielding to your feminine heat?’
The words rankled unbelievably. ‘Uncle, you don’t expect me to—’
The duke threw up his hand to stop her. ‘Enough, niece, my hands are tied. You will do as is required or this matter will be turned over to the magistrate.’
The magistrate; legal redresser for the poor, keeper of the prison court where even an ugly hag could expect abuse not only from her jailors but her defense attorney as well.
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she challenged, without real conviction, for one look at his aged face said he would. ‘Very well,’ she huffed, ‘I will play your game, but know for the record I think this is all a sham.’
‘I am waiting,’ prompted the baron, something in his tone making her react.
She took a deep breath. ‘I, Princess Allura, of the House of—’
‘No title required.’ This time it was the baron who interrupted. ‘You will use your given name only.’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I, Allura, before these witnesses do confess my crime, that I have soiled myself and yielded to… to my…’ She balked at the sight of Veeta being led into the chamber on a leash by a man in hunting gear like that of the baron. What was she doing there? ‘To my feminine heat,’ she concluded.
‘What are the details of your crime?’ asked her uncle, pretending not to know.
Allura’s cheeks flushed; this was exactly where Veeta had stood for her own false conviction, when Allura could barely contain her glee as the girl was found guilty and subsequently rejected by Porfino. Openly sweet young Saraveeta had wept at the reading of her sentence. ‘I… I touched this man… Baron Montreico.’ She faltered at saying his name, for the shame of arousal being exposed was more than could be borne. ‘I pressed my lips, my body against him.’
‘Do you, baron, acknowledge this offense?’ asked her uncle.
‘I do, your excellency.’
‘So be it. Accused, state for this assemblage your understanding of the implications of your action, stemming from the unleashing of your female heat.’
Allura’s mouth was dry with anxiety. The baron’s gaze upon her was so masterful, so utterly implacable. She dared not read into it or seek to understand. ‘By touching this man and unleashing my heat, I have disgraced my ancestors and myself. I am deserving of nothing more than slavery and nothing less than death, depending on the d-decision of my judges.’ She stammered the last few words, ancient and unchanging, memorized by every child as an early warning against future misdemeanors.
‘Accused, by the graciousness of the gods, there is one chance open to you for redemption from your sentence,’ her uncle pronounced. ‘Should the man you offended claim you as his bride, then you shall be neither killed nor enslaved. Instead, you will be delivered over and made subject to him in all things. Do you understand this reality?’
Allura quavered at the word ‘subject’. She had not thought of marriage in such terms. Surely such a thing would be unenforceable. ‘I understand, yes.’
‘And you further acknowledge that this man is under no obligation to take you? That he may, if he wishes, cast you away?’
Her, cast away? Never. ‘I know all this, yes,’ she said, somewhat curtly.
‘In that case, before the gods and these witnesses,’ recited Fortragian, ‘I now require you to acknowledge your indebtedness to this man. You must now beseech him.’
Allura drew her shoulders back proudly. Now would she begin to recoup herself; now would she shine as she ought, dazzling the loathsome man and all the others. Surely even the likes of this iron-hearted baron would melt in the face of such a largess on her part. Weak as her position might be, given that the man could have her or not, there could be no mistaking the honor befalling him.
‘I, Princess Al… I, Allura,’ she corrected herself, ‘do beseech you, Baron Montreico, to accept my favors, knowing that I humbly seek to belong to you in the state of matrimony, before the gods and these witnesses, till death do us part.’ She paused briefly before adding the following sentiment of her own to the formula. ‘Marry me, baron, by the light of my blue eyes under witness of my beating heart, and let us rule together, now and always.’
A murmur went through the assembly, and Allura allowed herself a discreet smile.
‘Baron, having heard these proceedings, being aware of your rights and privileges, are you prepared to render your decision?’
‘I am,’ he replied without emotion.
‘In that case,’ Fortragian declared, ‘I bid you speak.’
‘I, Baron Montreico, son of Alexo, do hereby reject this female,’ said he, ‘in front of any gods and witnesses you may wish to present… now and forever.’
Allura felt as though the floor gave way beneath her, and in a swirl of velvet she collapsed, her attendants rushing to her.
‘Good day,’ bowed the baron to the grand duke. ‘Your hospitality has been most appreciated.’
Allura heard the retreating footsteps. ‘Get off me, you imbeciles!’ she snapped, slapping away the many hands fawning over her. ‘Montreico, I forbid you to leave this room! Do you hear me? I will not permit it.’ He had reached the door. ‘I… wait, please. Don’t go.’
This final entreaty caused him to stop, and he turned, a look of interest on his face. ‘What reason have I to stay, princess, when my decision is made?’
‘But you must marry me; unmake your decision.’
‘Are you giving me an ultimatum?’
Allura’s heart pounded. She had not fully realized until this exact moment how little leverage she had anymore. ‘No,’ she sought to swallow her venom, ‘I intend no disrespect. I only ask that we have a chance to discuss the matter. Alone.’
Her head span with ideas. There was much she could offer in the way of bribes. With her at his side, as an ally, he could become king, powerful and effective. And she would rule behind the scenes. But first she must survive as a free woman.
‘Anything to be said may be done so in the presence of this court,’ he stated uncompromisingly, returning to stand in front of her.
She looked around at the inquisitive, nosey onlookers. A pin could be heard to drop amidst the eavesdropping silence. ‘I can give you a kingdom,’ she whispered.
‘You have nothing to give me, Allura,’ he countered. ‘You are ruined.’
‘I am still the crown princess,’ she argued.
‘Without my favor you go to the auction block,’ he reminded her. ‘Or that of the executioner.’
The man was like ice. Would he respond to a show of feminine helplessness? ‘Please,’ she offered meekly, ‘you cannot let that happen to me if you have any honor, any sense of mercy.’
‘Mercy?’ He laughed dryly. ‘Like you showed your good friend Saraveeta?’
Allura reddened in fury. So he knew the story. No doubt the treacherous slave had told him other things besides. ‘Just tell me,’ she stiffened, ‘what I must do. Every man has a price.’
It was a vicious insult and she feared it would spell her doom. But Montreico merely smiled thinly, pirate that he was, and delivered a counterattack, decisive, degrading and absolute. ‘We will have a kiss, Allura, and then I shall reconsider.’
‘Go to the demons,’ she hissed, snatching her head to one side a fraction as he touched her cheek.
‘You will look fetching in a collar,’ he went on, undeterred.
His touch made her insides melt, but she fought against her traitorous reaction. ‘You will die for that insolence, Montreico. Defiling me is the same as defiling the state.’
Montreico retracted the fingers at his leisure. ‘I am surprised, Allura, that someone of your intellect should come across now as such a stupid girl. You are not the state. You are a slut; your body is already forfeit, to me or whoever else buys you. The choice is yours.’
Her heart pounded. She ached to swoon into his arms, to be done with the words and simply let him have his way with her, but she was determined to fight him too, and when that was no longer possible, to mislead and deceive. ‘One kiss and then we shall marry,’ she bartered.
‘No bargaining. The kiss is merely the cost of keeping the negotiations open.’
‘Very well,’ she tried to keep her breathing under control, ‘get it over with.’
‘No,’ he rejected her waiting lips, ‘you will kiss me. Passionately and with abandon.’
Her heart caught in her throat. ‘But you are asking me to…’
‘To appear as a whore before the court?’ he supplied. ‘But that is what you are. Unless I marry you and make you mine.’
‘I hate you,’ Allura let him know. ‘And I shall always hate you.’
She rose on tiptoes, terrified to encroach the protective distance between them. Far worse than the shame of the act was what it might do to her inside, to that part of her that wanted to beg for him to take her virginity.
He yielded not an inch, forcing her to do all the work, pressing her breasts against his hard chest. The first contact was like the crackle of fire. Instant combustion. She did not wish to yield to passion, but she could not help but crave more.
Montreico seemed so unmoved and unresponsive. She was afraid he did not like it; was she doing it wrong? Did she not know even how to kiss a man properly? But why should she care? If he hated it, all the better. Maybe then he’d just leave her alone and go back to where he came from.
But she could feel his cock now, pressing against her tummy. They were in their own world, just as they had been last night; the court and her uncle gone. There were no disputes, no struggles, only the rightness of physical lust. And she knew that he knew it, too, that she was ready and hot and completely primed. He need only whisper in her ear, or better still just lower her to the floor and she would tear willingly at her clothes, baring herself for him.
But he did not intend to leave her in this world, this comforting place of security under the cloak of his power. He intended to expose her, to humiliate and ultimately conquer her.
‘You have my ear,’ he whispered. ‘Tell me why I should marry you?’ He released her panting body.
Allura could barely stand, her breathing labored and her thoughts spinning. ‘B-because it makes sense for both of us,’ she eventually managed, her voice shaking.
‘For you, not for me.’
‘But surely you wish to marry the future queen?’
‘The woman I marry will please me in bed,’ he said. ‘That shall be her only purpose.’
Allura swooned. She had no hope. ‘Montreico, haven’t you made me suffer enough?’
‘Actually, I have only begun,’ he declared, moving like a wolf to her throat, taking a bite that shivered down her spine.
‘Oh, god, no more…’
‘Now,’ he said, pulling back from her, ‘I suggest you attend to your affairs. You have one hour before we leave for my castle.’
‘S-so you will marry me?’ she gasped eagerly.
‘I shall take the matter under consideration. Now go to your room and await my final decision.’
‘Send every available servant to my quarters,’ Allura told the chamberlain upon entering the castle, having taken a few quiet moments to herself in the gardens, despite the baron having ordered her directly to her room. ‘I shall be packing for an immediate departure.’
A confused expression fell across his face. ‘But, Baron Montreico…’
‘What about the baron?’ she demanded, barely able to stand the pronunciation of his name.
‘Baron Montreico has already ordered all of your effects to be packed, princess.’
‘By what right?’ she fumed. ‘How dare he touch my possessions?’
‘But, princess,’ he spluttered, ‘the baron said clearly he was your fiancé; surely that gives him the authority?’
A flurry of conflicting emotions lurched in Allura’s stomach. So he was intending to marry her after all. She was free – at least from all the others who might want to own her enslaved body. But why had he not told her himself? Had he not just a few moments ago said he hadn’t decided what he was going to do with regard to her?
Allura’s expression froze in rage as she looked up at the sweeping staircase. The baron’s rough and ready guardsmen, forest men in leather boots and breeches were bringing down piles of her clothes. They were carrying them like rags, without the slightest respect for her station or for their exquisite value.
‘Put them down!’ she cried, attempting unsuccessfully to interdict one after another. ‘Those gowns are worth more money than you will see in a lifetime!’
‘Do not interfere,’ warned the baron, following his men down the stairs as though he owned the place, ‘or I shall be extremely annoyed with you.’
‘You are a monster,’ she spat. ‘How can you let them ruin my finest clothes like this?’
‘They’ll be fine. Or new ones can be made in their place, if need be.’
She rushed at him, throwing her fists at his chest, but he twisted her easily about, pinning her arm high up her back. ‘Let go of me!’ she shrieked.
‘Not till you stop making a little fool of yourself. Have you no pride?’
‘More than you,’ she countered. ‘Very well, let go and I’ll behave like a good little wife. Oh, wait, I wasn’t supposed to know that, was I?’
‘One day we’ll have to do something about that sarcasm,’ he said, releasing her.
‘You need only cut out your own heart and hand it to me,’ she told him, ‘and I will be quite calm and pleasant once again.’
It was then that Allura caught sight of the cage being carried down by a pair of burly men. Inside it, wide-eyed and nervous, squatted Veeta. ‘What are you doing with her?’ she demanded.
‘This slave is part of your personal effects,’ said the baron. ‘I therefore claim her as part of your dowry.’
‘You can’t have her,’ Allura complained. ‘I forbid it!’
Montreico laughed. ‘You are in no position to forbid me anything, princess. Besides, what difference does it make to you? You can still make use of her services as a handmaiden as often as you like.’
‘But you’ll have her,’ accused Allura. ‘You’ll fuck her.’
‘This is what one usually does with slave girls, yes,’ he mused.
‘Fine, then take her and leave me behind. Since you haven’t the decency to accept my offer of marriage to my face, I hereby rescind it. I’d rather kill myself.’
Montreico’s eyes darkened, storms brewing behind them at the mention of death. What nerve had she touched?
She dared not think of the real power of this man, the suffering he might have seen or the harshness with which he might be capable of acting. How many had he killed, she wondered, and how many had he seen die at his side in battle?
‘You are coming with me, princess,’ he said in determined tones that brooked no form of argument whatsoever. ‘Either gowned as you are, on your feet as my fiancée, or huddled naked in a cage as my slave. The choice is yours.’
The princess clenched her fists in impotence. He was trying to provoke and she must not give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘I am ready to go now; you will take me from here this instant,’ she said flatly.
The baron snapped his fingers. ‘Rodolfo, take her to my horse. I will be there presently.’
A tall, handsome man in green hunting clothes with a leather belt slung across his shoulder presented himself.
‘Princess, are you well?’ Rodolfo asked, after Montreico had headed back upstairs, presumably to continue ransacking her belongings.
‘I am a bit faint,’ she confessed.
‘Allow me to help you.’
Allura was grateful for the man’s kindness. Taking her by the arm he steadied her as they walked from the castle towards the baron’s contingent.
‘Is there to be no carriage?’ she asked.
‘No, you are to ride on his horse.’ The man seemed chagrined to offer such poor arrangements, and Allura stored this observation in her head. Perhaps one day she would be able to use his empathy to her advantage. ‘I have never ridden so far in such a rough way,’ she played upon his apparent concern. ‘Especially not… with a man.’
‘I have never known the baron to mistreat a lady,’ he said cautiously.
‘Please, can we stop a moment, I am very weak now.’
‘Perhaps I should fetch a doctor.’
She smiled to herself; the man could be very useful. ‘No, I’ll be fine. I must be strong.’
‘I think perhaps you will need a carriage after all.’ He lifted her into his arms. ‘I will speak to the baron.’
The man’s strength surprised her, as did her own response. Cradled, safely enveloped, she wanted him to kiss her, his mustache tickling her lip, his brown eyes darkening with desire. Would he taste different to the baron? Would she melt in his kiss too, or would he yield to her power first?
Allura craned her neck, her eyes closing. She was so close she could feel his breath, and then, at the last possible second he begged off. ‘I should get a doctor after all,’ he said hastily, setting her down on the grass. ‘I’ll go at once.’
He put her down and ran back to the castle, and she looked up at the sky, dazed. What had she nearly just done? If she were caught kissing another Montreico would never have her. She’d be ruined, for sure.
The doctor rushed at the head of the pack, the usual gossipers and toadies close behind. The grand duke was there as well, looking very pasty.
‘My niece,’ he fell to his knees, ‘are you all right?’ In his eyes was another question: what had he done to her and was it too late to stop it?
‘Of course, she is fine,’ snapped the baron. ‘On your feet, Allura.’ She obeyed, and he lifted her by the waist and set her on the white stallion. ‘Say goodbye, Allura. The time has come.’
‘Uncle,’ she cried, denied a final hug.
Montreico swung himself upon his mount, taking his place behind her. ‘We will send word of the marriage date, Fortragian. It will be a private ceremony. One representative each from your household and mine.’
The grand duke bowed with the heaviness of a man defeated. He had spared his niece’s life, but at what cost? ‘Thank you, baron, for your generosity,’ he said flatly.
‘May our households grow strong together,’ Montreico carried on, in a tone that indicated he was expecting a much bigger piece of the pie in the future.
Allura was terrorized by the speed and power of the baron’s horse. It was clear to her now that he was a man of moods who did not enjoy being trifled with, especially not by a female. She would have to mark well her limits – where she could push and where she could not.
‘You are going too fast,’ she complained, and Montreico pulled on the reins, forcing her to grab the horn of the saddle for support as he brought the horse to a snorting stop.
‘Continue on, over the next ridge, wait for us there,’ said the baron to his men, who were caught just as off guard as Allura, who did not relish the idea of being left alone with him.
‘If you touch me I will scream,’ she told him, once the others had gone.
Montreico slipped athletically to the ground and took her by the waist, setting her down beside him on the grass. ‘Scream as loud as you like,’ he told her. ‘What a man does with his woman is between him and his gods.’
‘You will be cursed,’ she promised, ‘for taking their name in vain.’
‘That is my affair, princess. Yours, for the moment, is the removing of your undergarments.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I believe you heard me quite clearly. I want access to your naked sex under your dress, and I want it now.’
Allura took a step back, her head reeling. ‘You’re a madman.’
‘If you seek to escape,’ he said quite calmly, ‘I will run you down, strip you naked and tie you by the neck to the back of my horse. Is that how you’d like to enter my castle, princess?’
Allura narrowed her eyes venomously. ‘You are no kind of man,’ she informed him, ‘if this is the only way you have to see a woman unclothed.’
The baron winked at her. ‘It is not the only way, my sweet, it just happens to be my favorite.’ She stared at him in fury. ‘And you will maintain eye contact,’ he instructed.
Her cheeks reddened; she was losing her modesty in a far deeper way than mere clothes. Reaching under her skirts she tugged at her petticoat and silk underlinings, and pulled them down until there was nothing to cover her. It was a strange, disturbing sensation, to have her gown material against her buttocks and pubis, especially knowing that he intended to bare them to his own infernal ends, whatever they might be.
‘Walk,’ he said, pointing when she was done.
Allura looked at the meadow beyond the road. There was a single tree in the middle of it. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Whatever I will,’ replied the baron, dispatching her with a swift smack to her shapely derriere.
‘Ouch,’ she shrieked, ‘that hurt!’
Montreico laughed easily, sounding in genuine good humor. ‘How you carry on, girl. That was nothing, barely a tap.’
‘There won’t be another,’ she vowed, trudging through the grass and meadow flowers.
‘Save your breath.’ He took her arm, steering her where he wanted, directly beneath the shade of the tree’s branches. ‘Now hold up your skirts, facing away from me.’
‘I will do no such thing,’ she refused, but he shocked her by slapping her face. She was stunned by the sudden assault, holding her smarting cheek.
‘When I give an order I expect it to be obeyed,’ he said, by way of explanation for his violent action.
Sulkily, knowing there was little choice, Allura turned away from him and lifted her dress, precisely as he’d commanded. She was hardly done fighting him, but it seemed prudent not to press her point just now.
‘You have an attractive ass,’ he commented, rubbing his hands over it as if warming them. ‘A whore’s ass.’
‘May the Virgin Goddess come in the form of a bird,’ she said with deadly ease, ‘and peck out your organs one by one over a thousand years of suffering.’
The baron straightened a single finger and pressed, probing the muscle of her anus, then with a gasp she yielded to the disgusting deed and the digit skewered her rear passage.
‘You’ve no idea,’ he said over her squeal of protest, ‘what you are dealing with. I intend to break you, Allura, but I shall do so with such subtlety that up to the last possible moment you will delude yourself that you’re winning.’
‘And I will win,’ she grimaced. ‘Except in your dreams.’
Montreico worked a second finger into her pussy, which was surprisingly and shamefully wet. ‘The time has come for your first beating, princess,’ he announced.
‘Never,’ she defied, though at the very mention of physical discipline her sex began to moisten even more.
‘Your body craves it, and so does your soul. That is why you behave like such a brat. You have longed for a man to interpret your signals and put you under his yoke of bondage.’
‘I crave nothing,’ she argued, ‘save your slow and miserable death.’
Montreico massaged her clitoris, making her moan against her will. ‘I want you to beg for it,’ he growled. ‘I want you to beg me to stripe your pretty virgin ass until you scream in agony.’
‘This is sheer brutality,’ she insisted, though she was beginning to writhe with all the energy of a cheap whore.
‘I am waiting.’
He removed his finger from her clit, leaving her hanging. She tried to push back against him, but he held her fast until, in pure feminine frustration, she whimpered, ‘Please, discipline me… punish me… beat me… I’m yours.’
‘Later,’ he predicted, smoothing the luscious globes of her buttocks, ‘you will deny this ever happened. Your own mind will play tricks on you in an effort to hold on to your sham freedom and I will allow you this, because it pleases me; it is a game I enjoy.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she breathed.
‘No, you don’t,’ he agreed. ‘It’s not your place to. But I am going to leave you now, and I want you to bend and grasp your ankles. Do not move from that position until I return. I don’t care how long that might be. I don’t even care if the entire fellowship of the Monastery of St Torondo walk by and call for you to cover yourself, you will ignore them. For that matter, you will ignore even the apparition of one of the gods. Is that clear?’
‘Yes,’ said Allura, fearing that soon enough she would be calling him sir.
He eventually returned with a switch, fashioned from some other tree nearby. She had no idea how long he’d been gone, only that every instant was an agony, listening for every sound, the whispers of the breeze and – the gods forbid – the sound of footsteps or horses coming along the road.
‘Miss me?’ asked the baron.
‘I might have been accosted,’ she complained weakly.
‘And that would have broken your heart,’ he sneered.
‘What are you doing to me?’ she asked. I’ve never been—’
The stick thwacked across her buttocks. ‘Never been what?’
Allura cried out in shock and pain, and releasing her hold on her gown she fell forward, her hands bracing against the inevitable fall to the ground.
‘Get up,’ said the baron mercilessly. ‘Or you’ll endure twice the number already allotted.’
‘Y-you mean you intend to do that again?’ she queried miserably, looking up at him from beneath disheveled hair.
‘Every day for the rest of your life.’ He looked down at her grimly. ‘Depending on how well you behave yourself.’
‘But I’m not a child,’ she protested, much of the defiance already gone from her voice.
‘That’s true,’ he yanked her to her feet, pushing her forward against the tree, ‘a child would have some inherent sense of right and wrong and would at least try and appease its elders.’ This time he would strike her standing upright. ‘Brace yourself,’ he ordered as he lifted her skirt himself.
Allura placed her palms on the tree and leant against it, feeling the roughness of the bark through the material against her nipples. ‘Please don’t beat me anymore,’ she begged, though it was obvious he intended to do precisely that.
‘You will count the blows up to ten,’ he ordered, ignoring her pitiful plea. ‘If you miss any we will start again from the beginning.’
‘You’re a monster,’ she whispered, as the switch whistled through the air, biting and irresistible.
‘You missed the count,’ he stated. ‘We remain at zero.’
‘One!’ she cried as the switch bit again.
‘You mark well,’ he praised. ‘Were you a slave I would display you naked in the courtyard of my castle for twenty-four hours after every beating so everyone could enjoy the view.’
‘Two,’ she gasped, having no time for small talk.
‘Whipping a female takes more skill than one might imagine,’ he mused. ‘I prefer a lattice design myself. Up, down and across, maximizing the placement of the welts.’
‘Th-three,’ she stammered, scarcely believing they were not yet a third of the way through.
‘You are fortunate you are only my fiancée and not my slave. I would not be so lenient with a bonded female.’
Allura shivered. What exactly would he do to a slave under such circumstances? ‘I’ve done nothing to you,’ she defied, her breath torn and ragged, ‘but you do me a great injustice.’
The baron slashed again, high on her left buttock, too quick for her to respond. ‘The count returns to zero,’ he informed, enforcing his draconian rules.
‘No!’ she shrieked. ‘I’ll never bear it.’
‘I’m quite sure you’ll manage, my dear.’
As the blows passed one blended into another. Allura heard herself counting afresh, as if she were a third person, observing nearby or floating above. The pain, acute and pulsing, blended with her heartbeat and with her secret lusts. She was intensely aroused despite – or because of – what he was doing to her defenseless body.
‘Done,’ he proclaimed at last.
‘I… I feel strange,’ she mumbled, her voice a gasping whisper. Her bottom was continuing to clench, though he’d stopped striking her. ‘Baron, what is happening to me?’
‘It is the heat of a female in submission,’ he casually observed. ‘Must I teach you everything?’
Allura felt shamed by her own naivety, and by her reaction as well. If only this man were not such a monster she might be able to express to him her profound need to be held, to be neither judged nor pressured but simply allowed to absorb this most incredible experience.
‘We must be on our way to the castle,’ he said dismissively.
‘I don’t think I can walk,’ she told him.
‘You will walk,’ he stated uncompromisingly, ‘or I will whip you along the way for incentive.’
Allura gathered herself, facing the depth of her loneliness. Revenge alone sustained her, and the hope of seeing him in her place. If he thought he was heartless, she would be twice as bad.
‘The ride will not be pleasant,’ he warned as she stood meekly beside the horse. ‘Because of your welts,’ he clarified.
‘I should be allowed in the wagon,’ she said. ‘My own slave has better accommodations, as do my clothes.’
‘Your slave can be thrown to wild dogs at my slightest whim, as can your clothes,’ he laughed. ‘Is that the status you would like to share?’
‘I want my undergarments back,’ she demanded, ignoring his sarcasm.
‘No, you will ride as you are, and you will not sit on your skirt, either.’
The baron compelled her to sit bare-assed on the saddle, her agonized buttocks burning from the touch of the leather. ‘Hold on tight,’ he ordered, his arm clamping her waist and drawing her close. The horse gave a whinny and began to trot, and then to gallop, the moving saddle causing her pain and pleasure in equal measure. The man behind her was overwhelming too, with his scent and his iron will, palpable and deeply sexual. His cock was hard against her lower back, and she had the overwhelming desire to be on her knees, appeasing him with her mouth, her helplessness reinforcing her arousal.
Montreico returned them to the head of his troops. They passed the wagon and she saw the cage in the back was open. She wondered if Veeta was gone, but then behind it she saw the girl’s slender legs in the air, a faceless man rutting between them, his naked, hairy ass rising and falling rhythmically, one of the guards fucking her as the caravan moved slowly along.
Rodolfo pulled alongside his commander. ‘Baron, do you wish to stop at nightfall?’
‘No, we press on. You will ride ahead, Rodolfo. Alert the castle to be at the ready for us.’