A Harem Fantasy Ch. 09

The queen's private bedchamber was richly decorated, lined by large palms and flaming torches. Cordoned off from the other areas of her private rooms, all that separated it was a sheer curtain. Beyond that her guards moved to turn their backs, like true sentries.

Antal led me and Marxim behind her, the two of us having equal status, and Lucius followed behind me, Uloga last, each man knowing his place well.

Antal waved her hand and Marxim moved aside to take up a seat on some posh pillows on a ledge overlooking the bed. The bed itself was huge, it could fit eight people comfortably, and the wall behind it's back posters was a glass-fronted cabinet lined with wicked looking toys.

With a nod to him from Marxim, Lucius joined the other consort leaving Uloga and myself to face the queen.

She turned with a smile. "Virtal, Lucius' seed is still within you?" She waited for my nod. "Uloga, you will remove it."

I felt a small tremor of embarrassment, which I squelched quickly. Embarrassment, I thought as Uloga dropped to his knees and guided my legs apart, would only lead to shame, and that was what the queen wanted. I would not give it to her.

He pressed his face to my mound through the parting of my robe and I tried to raise my arousal, but the fear I felt coming off in waves from the men was distracting. At the first lick of his lips chills ran along my limbs, and desire slowly followed.

He teased me, working the very tip of his tongue along the folds and valleys, and my breaths shortened. I reached out to grab his broad shoulders for support and was rewarded with the firmer press of his tongue against me. My knees trembled and my eyes fluttered closed with the faint hope that there was to be no horror, only pleasure.

And then I heard the hiss of a whip and felt Uloga jerk against me. I opened my eyes to the tang of blood in the air and a haze of pain in his eyes. Behind him the queen stood proud and lustful, rage and need warring in her gaze.

"I said clean her, not pleasure her!"

Uloga obediently began to slide his tongue inside and suckle. This did not diminish my pleasure at all, instead it increased it tenfold. I too felt lust with a man on his knees before me, serving me, but unlike the queen it was knowing his pleasure in it matched mine that drove me, with her it was their suffering. True pain could never entice me, and with that thought my desire died.

Antal must have read my face, for she laughed in victory, and it was a chilling laugh indeed.

She raised the whip again and protective instinct made me throw out my arm and the whip hit it. The very tail on grazed me, cutting me slightly, but I cried out nonetheless.

Uloga jerked to his feet as did Lucius, but my consort was held back by the queen's.

"You dare defy me, little one?"

In that moment I so badly hated the queen, I wanted to kill her. In the annals of history many times that was how it had been done, but I needed to know the harem, the elite, the powerful were on my side. The harem was split after Mystrike, I knew, and the elite and powerful knew from one ceremony only, and that very night. It was not the time.

"Instinct, my queen," I grunted out.

Uloga sank to his knees and pressed his face against me again, trying to hide or go unnoticed.

"I've changed my mind. Virtal, I was going to test your limits, but tonight, I will see how far you push Uloga's. Come, take the whip."

I had never been permitted by Cassipe to learn how to wield one, but I had not always been under my tutor's watchful eye. My sisters had to learn to use one on livestock, and I had studied in their shadows. I knew my craft well, and took the whip with confidence as she passed it to me.

"See what he can take."

I stood back and twisted and coiled the whip in flight, testing the strength and length of it. Once I had a feel for it, I met Uloga's eyes over his shoulder and gave him a soft look.

I kissed his back with it. I did what I had long fantasized about as a growing girl, using the tip to stroke his flesh harshly without opening it. Pleasure and pain I dreamed danced in the pattern I drew, and the look on his face confirmed it.

I snuck a look at Marxim and Lucius and the men seemed fascinated, but Lucius raised his eyes to mine and nodded in approval before his eyes widened in horror.

Suddenly I heard another rush of air and then I felt a cane slam across my robed back. It was hard agony, and I dropped to my knees willing myself not to cry, not to fold into myself and give up like I knew she wanted.

"I said hurt him!"

"No!"

She leaned down and grabbed my hair in her hand, jerking my head back harshly. "Him or you, Virtal."

"Me," I said without a thought.

"Virtal, no!" Uloga cried and was rewarded by the flick of the cane.

In a rage the queen dropped me and began battering him. I wanted to come between them but when I looked to the other men they both shook their heads. Uloga knew to expect this, I understood, but still, it was killing me to see the red welts rise, the blood flow, hear his cries of pain.

It seemed to go on for hours, but it was less than two turns of a sand dial. Uloga was beaten, his face left unmarred, but his body a bloody mess.

"Lucius, see him to the healer," the queen ordered as if Uloga had simply turned an ankle.

My consort brushed his hip against my shoulder where I still knelt, the only comfort he could offer, and helped his friend to his feet. Together they left, stumbling, leaving blood on the marble floors. There it looked shiny and crimson, horrifically so.

"Marxim, tie Virtal to the bed."

He stood at last and crossed to help me up. My back was one fire, and I worried madly if I was to be made to lie on the wound and irritate it, or on my stomach to receive more. Either thought chilled my blood.

Marxim removed my robe and made me kneel on the bed. He drew me to the head and set me to wait while he drew down some velvet covered rope. This he wrapped around my wrists, looking to the queen who stood at the foot, watching us with narrowed eyes, evil intent in her gaze.

"Tie her tightly, make the bitch kneel."

I gulped as he drew the cords tight and tied me so firmly I knew I could not escape. I sagged against the bonds, watching as Marxim drew back to stand beside the bed and await his orders. He was a thing of pure masculine beauty, his eyes sad, his stance firm. He offset the queen with her bright red hair well, but something in the pairing seemed off. It was not that they did not love each other, it would be foolish to think rulers and consorts did, but something else stood between them other than her rage and his fear.

She took the flogger and walked around like a jungle cat stalking prey. Marxim towered over her, but anyone watching would know he was clearly her victim.

"Present!"

At her barked command he drew his bottom covering down, exposing firm buttocks and bent over the bed, bracing himself on his forearms. I snuck a look at Lucius and he seemed as entranced with Marxim's supple beauty as I was, but fear lay in his eyes too. For me, for Marxim, or for himself I knew not.

Antal drew back her arm and began to slap the flogger against Marxim's bottom. At first she warmed him, lust warring with anger in her face, but soon she no longer drew the flogger back and smoothed it with her free hand.

Tall enough to stoop to reach the soft flesh proffered up, she knelt and began to swing the flogger over her head. Slap, slap, slap it rang out, but it was still not hard enough to draw blood.

Her consort's face twisted in dark pleasure, and as I watched his erection grew. I trembled for I knew this was what the evil bitch wanted. We had all been twisted by her darkest desires and craved the tinge of pain to offset pleasure, but now that he had achieved arousal, she would twist his desire into agony.

Now the floggers tips hit his lower back and the sensitive organs inside, it snaked between his bunched thighs and hit the sensitive sac exposed there. Up and down the backs of those thighs she left angry red welts, across his back making Marxim jerk.

His erection flagged, enraging her even more, and she beat him harder while he stoically tried to bite his lip and contain his cries. At last she was panting and tired, but far from spent.

"On the bed, on your back, your head between her legs."

I gasped as he moved gingerly to lay on the very flesh so recently tortured, and she smiled at me like a jackal through bushes. "Remember, to know pleasure from my consort is death, my successor."

As he lay down and began to slide up I stretched up as far as I could, and his head slid between my legs. I couldn't move too well and so his hair and ears brushed the inside of my thighs, teasing me, but his lips were far enough. If I sank so much as an inch his nose would touch my inner folds and death would be demanded, I knew, and so my heart raced even as I stood stock still.

The Queen ordered Lucius over and made him fetch rope. As he walked he gave me a look of warm encouragement and I nodded as best I could.

When he brought the ropes back, rough hemp ropes from the eastern fields, Antal ordered Lucius to bind Marxim to the bedposts. With skill honed under her harsh tutelage he tied the ropes intricately around Marxim's middle, winding them out along his limbs in beautiful patterns until they latched onto the posts. The artistic creation was infinitely practical and made it so he could not move except perhaps to arch his back.

I could not see his eyes and it troubled me. Where our skin touched I felt a strange kind of magic, much more earth bound than that of the moon and sun. It was powerful, more powerful than anything I'd ever felt, and perhaps that and my fear was what clouded my judgment.

When Lucius was done he stepped back and the queen came to his side, drawing the tips of her fingers down an arm, leaving small red marks. When he shuddered she laughed and kicked his buttocks as he walked back to the cushions.

"You will watch...for now," Antal ordered him cryptically.

The queen began to strip off, baring her skin. She was pale yet golden, her body like marble without warmth, her muscles sleek yet well defined, moving beneath her skin in a manner that eerily reminded me of kittens in burlap.

She knelt on the bed between his legs and without warning grabbed the sac between them and twisted. Her jerked and cried out, his hot breath searing me intimately before I too jerked up and away from his thrashing head.

"She didn't stop him. Lucius, would you like to be assigned a duty your future queen will never again allow?" Antal looked at me when she said this, and I knew her game. She hoped to scare and enrage me, and use Lucius to do it, and she hoped I would beat my consort the way she did hers.

I felt a tear slide down Marxim's face against my inner thigh, and I knew I would never hurt anyone the way she did. Never.

His erection had flagged to nothing and so she leaned to the side of the bed and pulled out a drawer from below the mattress. From it Antal took a vial of liquid and a strange metal ring of bronze.

The ring she put over his soft penis until it rested at the base, then she poured oil into her hands and rubbed them together, warming them.

"Take the flogger and give my successor 20 strips for being disobedient."

My blood chilled, not at the promise of pain which was distantly exciting, but for the effect this might have on my consort. I tried to turn and see Lucius but as he moved he was blocked from my sight.

I heard the flogger be whisked up and began to hold my breath, my muscles tensing. Antal began to stroke Marxim's cock now, smoothing along it in long, sensuous pulls. The woman was not pure evil, but it was often hard to tell, yet as she handled him carefully I saw something of a bond.

From Marxim I felt his breaths timed to mine and I knew what he was doing. We could not touch sensually, that was forbidden, but just as he'd taught me, we began to breathe together. From this I felt his power flow, and again I realized it felt different, and he had held back that previous time, or perhaps the emergency had been too much for my mind to take it all in.

Lucius came into the space behind the bed and when he parted the curtains I felt a soft breeze, making me shiver. Would he truly hurt me, strip the flesh from my body? I prayed not, not for vanity's sake, but because I needed my strength, then more than ever.

The first hit was firm but gentle, a sharp sting followed by a sizzling sensitizing of the flesh on my back. I still jerked in surprise and the queen smiled, seeming to think he had hit me with greater force.

Another landed now on the flesh of my own buttocks, and a strange, expectant languor flowed over me. Beneath Marxim made an almost humming sound as moisture slipped from between my folds to coat his nose. At the queen's hand he lengthened, swelling, pressing against the bronze ring until his erection seemed huge and impossibly dark.

I watched as the queen drew herself up and over, but strangely she tuned her back. Marxim did have a slight bend in his penis, the ring made it even more pronounced, bending almost down, and as she sank onto it, she groaned.

Beneath me Marxim jerked, hissing, his breathing interrupted and the power flow between us broken. All the while Lucius hit me gently, and I found the teasing dance of pleasure and pain incredibly erotic, but there was no relief in sight. My nipples were hard, aching points and my body was straining to the point of madness. In front of my the queen moved like liquid silk flowing over her consort, drawing his power in little sparks where their skin touched.

The number of ordered strips had been reached and Lucius dropped the flogger and pressed into me. His arms came around so his hands could cup my breasts and he ground his erection into my sensitive, aching back. "I hope I didn't hurt you," he whispered into my ear.

I turned as much as I could. "It was wonderful."

I kissed him then, a desperate meeting of lips and teeth and tongues, and his nimble fingers pulled and twisted at my nipples, making me whimper with desire. Between my legs I felt the power of Marxim's paced breathing build and build like a palpable force against me. Just when I thought I would go mad his tongue stretched out and the very tip landed on the sensitive nub there.

Power shot between us like lightning, and I felt it strike Lucius too, responding to the sun and moon inside us. He came with a shudder, wetting my back, shouting his pleasure into my mouth even as I screamed mine into his.

I felt waves of intense, searing pleasure like nothing I'd eve known roll through me, rocking me. I would have surely ground myself down onto Marxim's face if Lucius hadn't held me, and he gripped my like an iron cage.

The queen herd my scream and likely assumed it was one of agony for she gave a hoarse shout and came with a shudder, ordering Marxim not to release as she came down.

Just as her body stilled Lucius sprung back and Marxim withdrew his tongue from me. I hung my head hoping my hair curtained my face, for I knew I wore a look of complete and total pleasure, and the queen needed me broken by other means.

She rolled off and raised my eyes to see her grasp Marxim's huge erection and begin to work off the ring without any care of his comfort. The blood was trapped there so his tumescence remained, though he was wincing and bracing in discomfort.

"Leave us now, Lucius, I will return Virtal to you in hours, if she can withstand the temptation to take what is mine."

The look her gave me as he left told me he had read between her lines as well as I did.

***

I was mad with lust. It was nearly morning and all through the night I had watched my queen take her consort again and again. All through it on bunched thighs I could not sink down or find relief, and their pleasure had driven me to seek my own with no escape.

I ached from holding myself up, my arms were asleep, my entire body throbbed with emotion and fatigue.

I went to Lucius and found him asleep. He was gloriously naked beneath the thin blanket and I peeled it down slowly. With what little strength I had left I bent over, closing my mouth around his half flagging erection and began to suck and lick it to full hardness.

Sleepily he woke and I found his hands in my hair, my name on his lips. When at last he was hard I raised my head. "Take me, for I am weak. Take me, hard and fast and now, before I lose my mind."

He moved quickly, startling a cry from me as he jerked me up across his body and then rolled me beneath him. In the darkness I saw a flash of white teeth, the glint of light off one incredible eye, and then he filled me.

Lucius seemed larger than I remembered, and he filled me deeply, almost to pain. I cried out and his mouth was there, tasting of sleep and drink and man. We stayed locked like that, my feeble limbs wrapped around his, and just as the night had begun, we began to breath together, in and out in tandem. Sparks flowed as power between us grew, and when one made me jump Lucius began to move.

His sparse chest hair abraded my nipples as he slammed into me so hard we scooted back on his bed towards the headboard. I was too far gone to care and my pleasure had already been a knife's edge.

I peaked, screaming into his mouth, and Lucius kept moving. He wasn't as close as I and the thrusting movements drove me swiftly to another peak, then another.

Sweat poured off of us and the sparks turned into a glow that lit the room, making him appear like a dark angel bent on conquering me. I gasped and tugged his head down for another kiss, and when our tongues touched the glow deepened.

This peak built more slowly, almost pain as it went, but at least my Lucius built with me. When it broke we screamed, we clawed, we pulled, we went mad. I was torn apart into nothingness, my consciousness hanging by a slim thread connected to my consort.

I came down panting as he did and the glow seeped back into us. I concentrated on healing and felt my muscles relax, my body reenergize. I groaned as did Lucius, and he broke the spell, falling to his side.

Still he gathered me close, and when the night fell into me and all that I had been through slipped, he held me as I cried. I knew that I had done something I knew no other queen, future or realized, had ever done.

I fell in love with my consort.