A Price Paid Ch. 01

"She talks about it," Anna said, the warmth of the comradeship, the alcohol, and the imagery causing her hand to briefly brush her right breast before remembering where she was just in time, eyes darting to see if anyone really noticed. "She could just lay there, drowning in pleasure and her own drool while he plows away. She says it's like having a god inside you."

"And Cassea Voss," Dion added, bringing a look of respect from Bryana as a tribute to her perception. Dion caught the gaze. "It's well-hidden, don't get me wrong. But they snipe at one another with too much joy for it to just be comfortable banter. To my ear it's quite flirty, but I could be mistaken."

Bryana contemplated her response for a moment. These were among Neral's most trusted soldiers and friends to begin with and once friendships had blossomed between them and Bryana on its own Neral made it clear that Bryana could share as she pleased. That being so, she decided that it wasn't such a secret, though she they didn't need to know that she chose slavery in her own way once she'd tasted the feeling.

"You are not mistaken." She stuck with truth enough about the woman that even Cassea would own if it ever came up in conversation, though Bryana had learned to trust that it would not. "To ingratiate herself into a greater House, she made the calculation that it would benefit her to make herself valuable to the man of the House in every way possible, though it's very much an instance of hate to love it."

They all understood. Dynamics within and without the various Great Houses was complex and such things weren't uncommon in the slightest. People used whatever advantages they could find within the houses and without to better their position, solidifying and extending their power for their own ends. The Houses were, in that way, amplified microcosms of society.

Dion nodded with a chuckle. "Thaaaaaaaat's what I hear."

"She really has come to be deeply fond of him over the years."

"Cumming does make the heart grow fonder," Anna concluded and no one disputed it. "Are you missing out to be with us, Bryana? Could you be home getting a hard, merciless, southie fucking right now?"

"I can get that as I please," she said. "I will just say that he and Miss Voss have been sniping one another quite frequently today."

Anna's pity was hollow. "Poor girl, having to get that man inside her like that as a job."

* * *

Cassea's eyes opened to the dark at the touch of him. It didn't seem to her that she'd been asleep long, but one couldn't always tell. She was completely awake with the feel of his fingers grazing her neck, her nerves alive at the random trail his fingertips drew on her skin. Every hair stood on end with the feel of his lips planting tender kisses where his fingers had been, her nerves feeding to her the feeling of disgust and a slave's need that she was helplessly addicted to.

"Southie pig."

He snorted softly into the nape of her neck, finding humor in it.

"Go fuck your wife."

"She's occupied," he whispered. "Tessa kindly asked for her time and you know Neral is fond of her."

"So she would rather dine between the legs of the House Mistress than have to handle your cock? I can't say that surprises me."

"But you love to handle it," Cassea, he countered using the tiniest bit of his skill to light the candles in the room. There was enough now to where they could both see one another and the walls were dappled in flickering orange light and long shadows, but not so bright that either of their eyes burned much or for long. When she could open them fully she rolled over, brushing against his thighs as she moved to see him, knees on either side of her, his nude frame, lording over her.

Muscles over muscles under a fine down of dark hair. His hair was close-cropped and his blue eyes always had a fierceness behind them, Cassea seeing them as windows into his power in spite of the fact that they always seemed to carry his mirth and warmth into the world. She knew people and, so many of them, with a fraction of his gifts or influence, wore it with arrogance, like the rest were bugs at his feet. She knew it was so because it's how she looked at much of the world before she met him. While she still knew in her heart that she was better than most, years with him helped her admit, albeit grudgingly, that virtually everyone had value in the world.

Why shouldn't he lord over you? He owns you. In that light, with the way the light played, he looked every bit the beast she accused him of being. It still repulsed her rational mind in ways that it didn't bother either of them that she would make known whenever was appropriate. Before her collar she never would have given such a man a serious look. He was rabble, born from parents in the Southern Quarter, and beneath her breeding in every way. And if he hadn't been whisked away to live his life in a mythical land in the wastes where the mages had fled after civilization all but purged them, he would still be beneath her.

But now he was beyond her, over her in every way. Her hand went to the heavy silver and gold necklace that served as her collar and unbreakable chain to him. She felt the warmth and power of it and it thrilled. She didn't even need it anymore, but she almost never took it off because it was a constant reminder that she was a slave. It reminded her that she was owned in the moments not now. It reminded her that she was owned by him when he treated her like he didn't.

Now he was there and in the mood to show her who chained her body and her soul.

And there was his cock long and proud and beautiful and beneath her standing. It made her mouth water and her toes curl even as she relished that it still, how ever briefly, turned her stomach.

"Handle it, Cassea," he said as though it were a dare.

She swallowed hard, closing her eyes so that she didn't have to gaze at that thing that sometimes seemed to behave like a beast in its own right. "Have Elan do it," she hissed. "She would crawl through glass shards for you."

"So would you," he corrected, with her able to hear the smile in his voice. "You'd just complain more, but that's the way you like it, Cassea. I own you."

Her eyes closed more tightly as her heart raced at those last words. She felt his hands on her neck, across her necklace and to the neck of her silken gown that she quite liked that was imported and suitably expensive. She felt his fingers curl under the collar and knew what was coming. She knew what was coming and she still jumped and a gasp still escaped her as he ripped it apart enough to expose her full breasts to his hungry eyes. She knew he was looking even if she wasn't. "I don't suppose you care about how expensive that was."

"Not really. It was covering what's mine. Look at you, Cassea Voss, you don't want to look at me because you'll want me if you do." His voice found that dark edge that he knew called to her. "Handle it, Cassea. Touch my cock."

"You are vile."

"Touch me. Service me."

The sigh was audible.

"Love and service your Master."

He watched the blood rush and her pink nipples almost instantly harden. "You don't want me to go to Elan, do you?" It wasn't really a question in the moment. "You don't want me to do that, do you? Answer me or I will go to her. I will go to her and she will carry out my every desire."

"I will go to her and you will be here alone. You will be alone and wanting. You'll be jealous. You'll feel empty. Is that what you want? Do you want that empty feeling you had after I first broke you? That sick feeling that tortured you when you thought I would never take you again before I turned that necklace of yours into what it is now, like you begged me to?"

He inched forward on the bed until his cock was nearly touching her lips. "Service me because I own you. Service me because you love me now and that's almost worse for you than being owned, isn't it? He grabbed a handful of long, thick mane. She jumped again at the contact, but her expression smoothed. The feel of his hand on her skull felt so good. It felt like he'd taken hold of her brain.

He did that a long time ago, Cassea. You handed it to him, and you'd do it again to feel owned like this. You'd do it a million times to feel your mind in his clutches like this.

"Service me now, little slave pussy."

She opened wide, feeling drool fall from her as she did so, engulfing half his thickness in the first pass, bathing it in more spit, steadying her breathing through her nose so that she could take more. Cassea finally opened her eyes to see the wild thatch of hair before her nose touched it, She moved her head around it to force it to tickle the back of her throat for as long as she could endure it before her body forced her to expel it with a choking gasp. She took it deep again, looking up at him with tearing eyes, his image a blur, but she didn't have to see him to know what his reaction would be to that.

After the fourth time she heard and felt her victory. She felt him push her head down on his raging shaft, holding her there for long seconds beyond what she was prepared to endure, but she endured it because she heard the beast moan, growl and whimper in one long sound that curled her toes. "Yes, I love you, you vile thing," she began, nursing his left nut wantonly before popping it out of her mouth and taking his cock down her throat for another round of sucking it hard and driving it down into her belly before she coughed it out.

Clearing her throat afterwards, her voice sounded strained, "But you're not here for that." She pressed her tongue flat against his sack and licked it like the fuck animal that she was. "You can have love with Neral. Or Bryana. Or Elan. You could be with them if you wanted that, but you're here."

His right testicle was bathed on it's own, her rolling it on her tongue roughly, but reverently. She listened to his voice waver as he pushed her down on his cock and she surrendered to it. "Then why am I here, Cassea?"

Because part of me hates you." She flicked her tongue down to the base and back up again, "Part of me hates what you made me feel."

Again, and he moaned when she spit on him and took only the head in her mouth to put her tongue in orbit around that plum of purple velvet. She kissed it, as her hand worked the shaft. Like milking a bull. It made her grin. "Because you know part of me hates that I begged for it and always will. You come to me for that spark, my Master. It adds a heat that brings you to me over any other. There is the itch inside you that sometimes only I can scratch."

She sucked it deeply again, allowing herself to feel its heat and to feel it twitch in her mouth and expelled it again with a gag over a pop. "I know it's so, and it's one of the things that makes being owned by you bearable, especially after I begged for it."

Her teary eyes met his and he looked upon the disheveled mess she was already was, but she looked nothing close to broken. She looked like a woman that was relishing a victory. "I will always need you more than you need me...but you fucking need me. A slave has to take what victories she can get, no?"

She rose to her knees, caressed his smooth cheeks and kissed him roughly, but not without a good measure of tenderness to go with it, "What is it you want from me tonight, my despised beloved?"

Cassea pushed herself from his chest and onto the bed and pushing herself up the bed by her feet until her back was against the headboard. Drawing her legs up, she gathered her ruined gown upward to expose her toned thighs and pink mound like a whore on the docks who had a quota to meet. She worked two fingers in circles around her clit in a way that she knew herself well enough to know would make her thighs quiver and pull a whimper from her before she dipped those fingers deep inside.

His eyes were on hers, and his eyes were on her fingers and his cock jumped when he heard the wet sounds her fingers made as they molested her. After a thorough plowing, she sucked each seductively and she saw that he was entranced, in his own way. My victory. "She's ready for her Master."

Cassea laughed as he clamped down on each ankle, pulling her back towards him. He drank her in and she invited his gaze by ripping her gown the rest of the way off and stretched her arms above her to display herself. Cassea Voss was beautiful and she knew it. It had been so her entire life and she'd learned early how to use it to get what she wanted. Her body was firm and toned, yet soft and supple in all the right places, her breasts proud handfuls of flesh that begged to be touched, kissed, and fondled.

She panted, feeling herself fall under his sway as he kissed up her belly and growled when he bit each breast with a bit more than playful force. In response, when they were face to face, she slapped him with greater force than he bit her, the snapping sound of skin on skin filling the room.

When he slapped her in return, her sudden flash of anger ebbed with the knowledge that it was his place if that's what he ached for, "Is that what you need, lovely beast? You need to be the beast tonight?"

"I could be that with Elan," he told her, taking a breast roughly and stuffing the flesh into his mouth, sucking it in, biting the nipple enough to make her buck against him and hiss.

Cassea pulled him from her breast, feeling his teeth drag the flesh. "And she would bask in it and give back to you every bit of what you gave. But she would indeed bask in it. And tonight my animal wants to feel the fire and see it in my eyes."

He pulled her to him roughly, the panting breaths of each on the other's face before they kissed madly once again, Her hips took control of her body without her and ground her clit into his shaft, running the nub of flesh up and down its formidable length, her juices already covering it as they watched one another watch one another, seeing who might show the slightest sign of breaking. She watched his eyes widen as his hunger grew and he watched hers flutter at the pleasure of grinding him that way.

He let her drive him, watching her hips move and breasts heave. "You always lose to me, beast. Your magic melted my mind ." She slapped him again and snickered as he took it with a growl, "but once you're inside me, it's my cunt that melts you. Come on, beast."

She struck him again, loving the exhalation from him that reminded her of a growl. "There he is. I hear him now. You come to me for the anger. You come to me because sometimes you need the hatred from me because it feels good on your cock."

Her open hand found his cheek again. "Sometimes you come to me because you need a slave that still has some fight in her even though she is no less owned."

He caught her wrist before the next blow and he pulled it behind her back until she yelped, but she recovered quickly to try to burn through him with her gaze. "See? I know what you need tonight. I knew it at your first touch."

He kissed her, savoring the taste of her tongue and even the feel of her teeth tugging at his lower lip. "Don't you just hate that?"

"You have no idea," she said as she humped against him more ferociously now.

"I have some idea," he quipped. "You tell me often."

Shaking off the momentary pain of her arm finally straightening after being set free, she took his cock roughly by the base and balls, squeezing to illicit a gasp before she lifted enough to impale herself inch by glorious inch. This time she got to watch his eyes flutter as the wicked power of her pink tightness asserted itself over him, fireworks already going off in her brain at the feel of it.

She could have surrendered completely. She would have if he wanted her to. All it took anymore was the right combination of dirty, dominant thoughts whispered into her brain and she could become Elan in those moments, only to bask in the shame of it later.

The only thing that prevented it was the knowledge that, in this moment, as with the moments where she could reason him into doing what she thought was best or in those moments of tenderness, when, after they were finished, she was stripped bare enough in her soul enough to admit she loved the man that could have remade her entirely. What prevented it was that he was here because the fight was what his cock craved.

Cassea locked her ankles around him and felt him effortlessly lift her, driving himself into her with the ferocity of wild animals in the forest, she bit his neck again, feeling him clutch her before she found his ear and began whispering words of love and hatred for what she had become to the beast, ready to drive and tease him until he could pass out on top of her. She would end up with many marks to hide, as a proper woman in the world would be required to.

But so will he. she promised herself with anticipation.

Cassea Voss whispered and rode.

* * *

Mae Kaven was a nondescript officer in the armed forces of Erette and, to be honest, she was fine with that. Not everyone was cut out to be the best of the best. If they could all be, there would be no best to start with. Let there be the "The Goddess's Lances" as they were known; archers that could shoot an arrow through the eye of a needle. Let there be "The Black Daggers" infantry units. Let there be Jaye's Elite. When she and the officers closest to her rode by, Mae could see her fellow soldiers stop everything and watch them go and see the awe on their faces. She could hear the tales other troops told about them nightly with so much enthusiasm one would thing they were talking about things they'd done.

Mae knew though that they lived vicariously through the exploits of those elites because most of them were never going to be noticed or be as if possessed with a sword in hand and stand upon a pile of their enemies, waiting to be immortalized in song and story and they knew it, or they used the stories of othes to try to deny that truth to themselves. Most would march, then die in a fight, or retire. People like her were the army; people that were just there and did their jobs.

She was happy with her status. 'Noticed' usually meant more work. She was well paid, hadn't been asked to kill or die yet, and it at least got her off her family farm that she would likely have been slaved to otherwise. The service was about the only option that would have gotten her out of that, and dying on a battlefield somewhere was almost preferable to being part of a fifth generation of family farmers. She would stay in the service long enough to have enough to buy her own little tract of land with her own little house, and then decide her future from there.

In the meantime, she did her work, kept her head down and was content to keep her personal outings to a minimum so she could save money for that little dream. Tonight though, she decided she needed some time out. The walls were feeling close, she wanted some fresh air, and she wanted to be out and be a bit social without her fellow soldiers, some of whom could always be counted on to be out and about.

So she intentionally avoided their usual haunts, finding herself at an out of the way pub she'd frequented whenever she had the sudden urge to be out for the past few months. Her only plans tonight were her usual ones for this place; she'd have a few drinks, perhaps dance with a handsome soul or two and maybe take one home if she fancied them well enough.

She entered the bar, looking around to see what regulars might have decided to keep their appearance streak going tonight. She exchanged pleasantries with a couple of them, though they didn't know her well and she didn't know them much beyond those pleasantries. They were bar friends and a part of the atmosphere of the place and that was about it. String music was coming from the small stage in the back where a duo of two men played played a slow tune that she didn't remember hearing before while several couples danced.