Love as a Form of Binding Ch. 17

"Is this the one who made you laugh?" she asked Kerry while nodding toward the small pair.

"Yes," he smiled, "That was when I knew that I could laugh here. It made me happy to see her."

"Then I think that I am in your debt, sweet one," Brin said to Illa, "and I can see why you made him happy. My thanks to you. None of us had ever seen something like that before last night. His smiles to his legions and his laughter made their waiting for him worthwhile."

"It was nothing," the imp replied, "I was just bein' maself, mostly, but ye're welcome if I helped anything."

"I have been a fighter for a long time," Brin said to no one in particular. "I have been lucky. Luckier than most, I'd say. What I drew from it all was a way to feel it when a brawl is about to begin. Though I do not know the reason for it, I feel that now," she said with a smirk, her hands pointing to the sets of opponents in the room.

"Those two took something of mine," Tereth said from between his clenched teeth.

His statement caused Illa to sit up and tilt her head in a slightly challenging way. "Is that so?" she asked, "That's no the way that we see it at all.

We took what was given te us. It was already gone to you. We had our reasons," the imp said, holding her head up in defiance. "We was told that we could have it by our mistresses, the sisters, that ye'd not be needin' it anymore very shortly and te be ready if we wanted a wee meal."

"Why?" he asked, not recognizing Thiery, "What have I done to you to deserve it?"

"Te me?" Illa asked, "Not a thing, but I know that my male Thiery here, he had a score te settle wi' ye. I know what ye done te him, many, many times outta nothin' that he did, other than ye were bigger and stronger than he was then.

Ye didna even fancy him, ye only wanted te beat him and fuck him because ye could make a wee kobold hurt so much and nobody would say a word over it. You were like everybody else in that place, only worse, since ye always tried te look fer him so's ye could rape him again. What did he do te deserve that?"

Tereth stared at the kobold, so much larger now and heavily muscled. His gaze was returned in a calm and mildly interested way, but there was tension in the arm holding that axe.

"I didn't know him then, Mr. Tereth," Illa said as she got down from the bench and walked toward him, "but all the same, I know what ye did.

Ye hurt my Thiery, over and over," she said, holding up a set of her razor-like claws to him, "and I'd be happy fer the chance te gut ye and put my own marks on yer fine-lookin' body as soon as look at ye, and if ye don't change the way that ye're lookin' at us, well I'll take yer eyes too fer yer trouble - before ye can blink twice."

She nodded to him, "We'll see then how ye fare without them."

Thiery slipped off the bench then and walked past Illa to where Tereth stood. Before the demon had the chance to decide whether he really wanted to start anything now, or even if he wanted to try his weakened and untested powers, the kobold stood before him, looking as though he was about to set the head of his axe against the floor and lean on the haft of it comfortably.

Tereth tightened his grip on the knife again unconsciously and then he felt the side of the axe head against the flesh of his index finger for a split-second, and then it was gone again, wrenched free from the old counter in the blink of an eye. The thin broken blade of the old knife clattered off across the room as Tereth pulled his uninjured hand back.

"I want te tell ye somethin', Tereth," the kobold said very quietly. "I'm no the same helpless wee kobold that ye liked te have yer fun with over the years. That was before, when I'd never known how te protect maself and couldna do a thing in a place where nobody would help me. We're a lot closer in our sizes now, aren't we? I'm not as tall as you, but I daresay that I've got just a wee bit more strength in my arms now than ye've got, by the look of it.

The last time that I saw ye, you was thinkin' of killin' me. I could see it in yer eyes there. Ye thought that I'd squealed on ye te the laird about how ye're no hunter worth knowin' about.

I didna do that.

I told him about the other hunter. He'd a found out in another few minutes from the others anyway, but I did it because of what Laird Gorek woulda done te me if I didn't. He was throwin' me against the wall, over and over. I think ye can recall what he's like, yeah? I told him nothing about you. I had enough te fear ye for, didn't I?

So I want te make it clear te ye that what I did wasna out of wantin' te get even wi' ye. Understand? It was te get him te stop throwin' me against the wall."

Illa walked to Thiery. He took her hand in his and they walked to the doorway.

"Eatin' yer wee prick and yer bollocks," Thiery said over his shoulder,

"That was te get even."

The pair were gone a moment later and Tereth felt the gaze of the others. No one said a word. They didn't need to, really.

Tereth thought that he was familiar with the concept of helplessness. Now he found that he had a new measure of the meaning of it. He was now also painfully aware of the meaning of impotence as a concept, and for far more than the obvious.

He hung his head and walked out of the scullery by a different doorway. It led to a storage room that he'd found that morning. There was a large opening through the floor to somewhere far below. The opening had a bit of a guard wall around it to prevent accidental falls, and there was a frame standing over everything with a block and tackle so that something could be raised or lowered. Tereth slid down to a sitting position with his back to the low wall.

He'd never been a sociable creature, so friends weren't anything that he'd know much about. He'd always gotten by on his brass and his bullshit, or his wits if all else failed him. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. He sat alone and looked at the wall facing him a few feet away and thought about where he was.

The demons here seemed happy, and it was something that he'd never seen before -- in his whole life. Thinking about them, he suddenly knew that he'd always been unhappy by comparison; the only variable from one day to the next had been the degree, and then he thought that right now, his unhappiness was off the bottom of the chart.

He was a servant here. That hadn't changed from what he'd always been. Only now, the things that he'd done had caught up with him. He was smaller, weaker, and he'd been emasculated. That was horrible enough, the loss of something near to the center of any male's psyche. But it was becoming clear to him that he'd never be free of this. He could never make the amends that he was coming to believe might help him. Most of the unfortunates who had crossed his path were dead and who knew where their souls had gone?

He thought of Thiery and the ones like him that he'd chased and run down so that he could torment them for no other purpose than to make himself feel a little bit less miserable about his own life. Thiery didn't know it, but he was one of the more fortunate ones. Quite a few like him hadn't stirred again after Tereth had sated his lust.

He began to weep quietly. Maybe it was the trauma of what had happened to him, but he'd done fairly well over the last two days and had even tried hard to do what was asked of him. For once in his life, Tereth wanted to fit in.

But even that was catching up to him now. If he kept on doing as he was commanded, he knew that he could likely have a far better life here than what he really deserved, but it didn't make him feel any better. He pulled his knees up and sat with his arms around them as his tears streamed down. Someone here would always throw what he'd done in his face, no matter what he did, and the price that had been extracted by Maezou, ... the finality of that ...

He leaned his head against his knees and cried.

Sharon stood in the doorway wanting to cry herself. She knew a tiny bit of his background now, and yet she still wanted to know him, at least. She wondered why none of the others felt as she did. Tereth needed a friend, or at least, somebody who might care enough to try to make him feel a little better.

She'd have thought that she could be a person like that. She really didn't know what was wrong with her. She was now a little afraid to try. She'd been told that he was weaker now, but even so, they'd said that he was still strong enough to seriously harm or kill her with little more than a thought. She backed away, feeling badly, guilty, a little frightened, and thoroughly disgusted with herself.

"He's still crying," she said to Lily, who still sat at the table in discussions and the planning for their defence.

Lily nodded, "He begins to see that nothing can be changed and he feels hopeless."

Megeara shrugged, "So what? Let him suffer a little."

"He cannot undo anything," the older demon said, "He wishes to change himself, but he knows that he cannot. He must come to a point where he knows that he can go on, even as he is with the past which follows him. Tereth has to know that no demon, no one can leave his past, but he does not need to be cruel to feel better."

"I still want him to suffer," the succubus smiled, "for all of the women."

Lily glanced darkly at Racephet, "Tell your consort why she should hold her tongue, Lord Racephet. I am far older than she knows and she is too stupid to listen to me or even know how close she now stands to my wrath."

Megaera began to glare, "He needs to tell me nothing."

"Yes he does," Lily said quietly, "He knows what you do not, and he is calm enough to --"

"I don't have to sit here and listen to --"

The succubus sat frozen in her odd position, stricken dumb. Her eyes were wide in sudden shock.

"You do need to listen," Lily said very quietly, "and you will hear me. I was already ages old when you were spawned. If I can cause a wind to blow so that nothing can stand against it, and bring rain forth from out of a cloudless sky, why do you think that you do not need to listen when I choose to tell you something?"

She wasn't even looking at Megaera as she sat, still looking at Racephet. "I am sorry, Lord Racephet," she said, "but I will not tolerate a pot who shrills that the kettle is burned by the same fire that she sits in herself. Try to teach her when you can, the next time that you hold her mind and join your body to hers. We are all demons, and each of us can be cruel. We just do not always need to be. She should look to her own bone pile before she howls about anyone else's."

When Lily turned her head to look into Megaera's terror-filled face, the succubus stared into the bright glow of the featureless golden eyes before her. The air in between their eyes seemed to roil and qualm as though heated and in a moment, Megaera began to see the faces of people there, humans, so many humans, all of them men who were caught at the moment of their horrific passing from this world at the hands of the self-righteous Fury.

As she watched, the faces faded away to be replaced by those of women, thousands of weeping and keening women. Megaera couldn't tear her gaze from the sight and she couldn't even close her eyes to block any of it out.

"Think on this," she heard Lily's voice through the wailing in her head, "None of us are perfect, Megaera, and you are lower than poor Tereth in my eyes. Hide yourself from my sight for the day, but do not leave here, and if you ever try to throw scorn at Tereth again, you will see those tortured souls in your sleep for a thousand years so that you might keep the lesson in mind."

With that, Lily released Megaera, who looked around herself frantically and flew through the doorway, shrieking her way to the roof of the cavern.

Lily looked at Brinack and spoke in a low voice. "Tereth was never the sort of hunter that Maezou here was known to be, but he is still a hunter. In a little while, he will begin to wonder about something, and he may try to seek it out in the halls below. Tereth is a little tortured now and I want no harm to come to him. There is one who hangs near to the door there out in the hall. If it is possible, I wish for Tereth to be followed discretely and protected if need be."

Brinack nodded and stepped to the doorway. With a low whistle and a nod, she motioned the large slayer to her. The demon stepped over quickly and would have saluted, but Brinack shook her head.

"You are off-duty now?"

The dark eyes in the helmet regarded her calmly with a curt nod.

"You stood here because of one that you saw, a hunter," she said, "I know this. Follow that one, close enough to lend aid, far enough to be a doubt in the darkness. I am told that the one you must watch will seek something in the passageways underneath. Find your own way there and follow. That one's name is Tereth."

The slayer nodded again and ran off.

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Gorek walked through the blowing sand toward the main entrance of his hell. He couldn't say how he knew it, but he was more than a little certain that he'd need at least some help very soon.

He walked until he saw two shapes there in the billowing dust. One of them had been his gate guardian.

The other one was something else, something that knew that Gorek would come.

"What are you doing?" the sand demon asked in shock.

The other one ignored him for the moment, chewing a little thoughtfully before she paused to spit out a tusk and some skull fragments. The eyes regarded him as her mouth moved to cover the place where the head had been a minute earlier. She held up the headless body as she sucked what liquid she could get from it. She let it go when there was nothing more to get.

"You keep it a little too dry here for my liking," she said, "What was it that you wished to see me about?"

He shook his head," I did not wish to see you."

"Somewhat true," she nodded. "Very well then, Gorek, what was it that you needed to see me about?"

"I didn't, ...." he began, before wondering how this had happened.

"I'll tell you how it will go then," the large and hideous face smiled a little. "I will aid you in your time of trouble. The one that you seek will be ours, Gorek, yours and mine. She will be enslaved again, along with any that I find who have allied themselves with her. They will do as they are commanded, and this charming place will prosper again.

In return, sand demon, you will be my consort, filling me with your gritty seed whenever you wish, but you may keep the mud that you pump into those that you rape. I want only your seed for my eggs, and I will want it from you often."

He stared as she turned the guardian's body over. Bending down, she tore the testicles off the corpse and swallowed them. A tendril extended from her midsection to affix itself to his member. In seconds he was hard and she stood with her wet arm on his shoulder as he shuddered from what she was doing to him. He groaned as he shot his gush into her grasping appendage.

"A little humidity would be welcome as well, since I will come here to live. I like it moist, Gorek. I like mold to lie in while I mate, and my spawn need quite a bit of flesh to eat." She took his gaping face into her open mouth and he felt his tongue being teased by several of hers.

He couldn't believe it, but he was rock hard again. She moved her face back and smiled.

"Five days, Gorek. Have your host ready to fight in five days. We will win this, and then you will be mine," she groaned as she sank down to take him into her slick and gaping mouth. When she stood up a couple of minutes later, he watched as her tongues found any seed that they'd missed.

"If you liked that, mighty Gorek, imagine how it will feel to mount me when I allow it. My hole can do all of what you felt and much more. Try to be ready in five days, Gorek, and it will be so."

She chuckled, "You will like it so much that you will never want to climb off me. I will carry you with me everywhere and you may fuck me as often as you think that you can."

She kissed him again and then she turned to stride away in the sand. She wasn't fond of sand either, though with eight legs walking on it became manageable. When she was out of his sight, she finished the thought as she went. "You will ride me everywhere that I take you, until you are an empty husk and I eat you in my search for the next one."

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Tereth sat where he'd been for the past two hours. With no more tears in him for the moment, a little rational thought came to him as he calmed. It wasn't a sense of peace, but it was enough to go on for now.

He looked down at the part of his body where his genitals had once been. It was a little odd to him but he had a thought that if this was what he had, and it could be made to feel good, it might give him something. He just didn't know what. He didn't know what sort of fulfilment was possible with this, other than how it felt nice to graze his hands there gently.

He regarded the area and noticed that there was something a little different about it now. Maybe it was the way that it looked when he was in this sitting position -- he didn't know -- but the last time that he'd taken the time to regard it, he could have sworn that it was just a flat little expanse of his skin with a small opening in it so that he could urinate.

He couldn't even see that opening now and thought again that it was because of his sitting position. There was a line now; a fold which hid that opening inside it. He lowered one of his legs as he watched. It was still there, though less pronounced. He reached with his fingers and gently pulled the fold open while still straining a little to see.

There was still nothing there but that little hole, the rest of that line was only a blank sort of furrow. Being very careful about it, he felt along the shallow groove and found that the same feeling was returned to him. It was sensitive and maybe just a little more so since the tender part had been hidden for a little while. He leaned his other knee away and watched as the furrow grew a little shallower, though it still remained. It made him wonder if he'd done something to inflame or irritate it.

But then he thought that it didn't hurt at all if he was gentle with it. He gave a small mental shrug as he thought about it. He still wasn't the male that he'd been, and for damned certain, he wasn't a female. So he wondered what he was now, and decided that clinically, he must be a eunuch, though even that didn't really fit, did it?

Tereth licked his fingertips and began to experiment a little. He sat with his eyes closed and toyed with what he'd been left with.

That was how Sharon found him, gasping a little in surprise and regretting the sound instantly. Tereth pulled his hands away and hid what he'd been doing as best he could.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her.

"I wanted to see if you felt any better, Tereth," she said, "I'm sorry about all of that out there, and I'm really sorry that I lost my nerve earlier. I wanted to see if I could make you feel any better, but what Megaera said kind of scared me."

"I won't hurt you," Tereth said, "Why would I? You're about the only one who's been kind to me."

"What were you doing?" she asked, "it looked nice to see."

"It did?" Tereth was a little surprised as he watched her nodding. "I was, ... trying to see what I've got, ... to work with, I guess, and I noticed that it's a little bit different now, I think. There's a, ... I don't really know what it is."

"Well can I see?" Sharon asked, "I can probably see it better than you can. At least, I'll tell you what's there."

Tereth was about to demure and ask that she leave him alone, but her face looked concerned for him and she seemed to want to help.