A War Dawning Ch. 06

"Nasty thing." He came around to the front, her breasts just large enough to have shape and those nipples, a bright pink, begged for abuse. Later certainly. He let the palm of his hand graze her nipple, his fingers spread, not touching her with them and he was pleased by the flutter of her eyelids. "You do like this, don't you?"

He saw the flash of hesitancy there and decided to tease both of them. "Don't answer. You might lie just now and I don't want that."

After securing her wrists to the biting leather cuffs and a bit of manipulation with the hand cranks that held the chains with a long metal poll for the purpose, she was as he wished her, arms in a "Y," somewhat behind her as though she were diving from height into water, torso forward and legs back and spread. It was a nice stress position for those strong enough to endure it and so far Elan had done so without complaint. He liked it too, because it showed off the sculpture present in her form. He had simply watched her endure it for twenty minutes he asked her while retrieving his flogger from atop the cabinet. "Comfortable?"

The only sign of real stress was a slight labor to her breath, "Not particularly, Master."

"Wonderful to hear, Elan. You're doing well. I've has women in your position who were weeping in half the time. It's but one of the reasons I find servicewomen so compelling. The military teaches them tolerance." He let his flogger spin and click again as he stood just behind that tight ass, "And it teaches endurance."

She grunted when the strikes began and with every fourth or fifth, which seemed to be about as long as she could contain herself before she expressed the pain. It wasn't particularly intense at first. It was only slightly stinging. She had gotten struck harder than that on the back during celebrations, but the "hands" in this case were many and insistent. She could feel the force reverberate through her muscle and bone.

Lash after lash struck as he let his wrist turn and repeatedly transfer the energy to the flogger. Her muscles flexed and she breathed evenly, in through her nose, out through her mouth. Elan fell into the rhythm of the strikes too, finding the feeling and intensity not unpleasant. The lashes went up and down, to everywhere they could reach and back again.

He loved the quivers of her. "Are you a virgin, Elan?"

"No, Master." The answer came quickly and as a grunt.

"Do you have a lover now? A man?"

"I do, Master."

"Does he know you're here with me?"

He sped up, which shocked her from the rhythm she'd become accustomed to. "No, Master."

"Does he love you?"

There would be too much nuance to explain to him in anything less than a week even if it were his concern, but she knew she had a place in his heart. "Yes, Master."

He alternated speed and randomized the time between doing so. Too much of the same rhythm made for complacency for the toy. "Do you love him?"

The truth was perfectly appropriate here and now, if, for no other reason than it was what he would have wanted to hear. "Love has no depth by comparison." She exhaled sharply this time. "I am his."

"Yet you are here. Now. Love has no depth and yet, here you are, mine."

"I do...what I must. One does not..touch the other."

Her head sagged as he stopped to admire his work. Her back, form collarbone, to small, to the curve of her ass was a lovely pink and he was only getting started; the sweat making a sexy sheen that he just had to touch.

Then there was the scent of her that he had never truly noticed before. It was spicy but not strong. He knew some of the finer soaps one could find had scents that carried greater strength when mixed with sweat. He inhaled deeply and relished how she jumped when he touched her, his hand feeling positively icy on her back. He ran a serpentine line from her neck to her ass. "A lovely scent, dear. Did you prepare especially for me?"

"Yes, Master. Dennet arranged for me to have a room at the Temple Inn for an hour between guests before our meeting."

"Your idea or his," he asked as brought a small table from the periphery to sit near her.

"Mine, Master. I...needed this to work." Without new pain from the flogger, her body was able to focus more on what had already happened. The pain was a now a dull, pulsing thud, her body having a memory of the last pattern and when her mind thought of when that impact should hit, the muscles responded.

Returning the heavier flogger in favor of a stinger with much finer straps, he put the loop to his wrist, he let it dangle there as he took two candles from the wall. Placing them on the table, close enough to reach, but far enough to avoid an accident he let the tips of the fine leather brush her back. "Of course you did, Elan. If you were an unappealing whore, you might not be here, now, isn't that right?"

It was what he craved, so she gave it, "I'm not..."

That was defiance enough for him to start the stinger across her shoulders and layering it as the stinger made its way down. In tune with her distant body enough to feel and respond, she whimpered like a begging dog at the sensation. With her skin already raw, it increased the bite of the stinger more than a bit, making her body jerk to attempt to pull away from it. "But you are a whore." He picked up the pace and intensity when he reached the meat of her ass to maintain the same level of pain throughout before layering it upward again.

"Your reasoning is not relevant. I've heard it all before and it doesn't matter. You need to eat. You want nice things. You want to help your mother. Justify it all as you please, but you're still mine for the night having sold yourself to me. That makes you a whore." Her back was fire red now and the hash marks had melded together nicely. It was like creating an abstract painting with leather brushes on a fragile, responsive canvas.

Elan found that she did enjoy it. The rhythm...the pain...the restraint. They all combined to put her body in a place not unlike her mind; it was afloat in a mass of sensation and the two states complimented one another. She feared and anticipated the next step.

"Admit it, girl." He lifted one of the thick white candles into his hand, tipping it left and right to enjoy how the light reflected in the liquid wax. He tipped it slowly and the wax dripped from shoulder to shoulder. She whined and pulled against the chains and sucked in air in great droughts. "You are a whore. Say it."

The cry came as the candle dripped down her spine. "I'm a whore, Master."

He could not see her face but he imagined the drying wax as as her tears. And the spicy scent of her skin filled the room and his nostrils. He breathed it deeply in droughts too as Elan did her own breath. It was the scent of his victory. Her voice mixed with it and tickled his ears. It was glorious. Everything about this woman was a gift. "You are a whore. What would happen if your superiors knew you were here?"

"I would be..."

Drip, drip, drip.

She strained, "...susceptible to blackmail and..."

Drip, drip, drip.

"...drummed from the service."

Letting her pain contend with her he caressed her ass with both hand, spreading to look upon that pink asshole and the white hair of her mound matted. The spice was even there, dizzying and teasing, his cock pressing against him demanding attention. The animal part of him, as much as he wanted her, was fearful that he would not last and he so wanted to savor it all. He'd never felt anything like it before with any other pet here.

"You like this, don't you?"

Her resignation made his cock push against his trousers. "Yes, Master."

"You will come to me, whore. You will come to me. I will hurt you in the ways that make you drip as you are now. If you do not, I will see to it that you are expelled from the service. Perhaps I will anyway..."

"...Goddess."

That broken little word was too much and he positioned himself behind her, pulling out his thick cock, and rubbing it up and down her slit and let her drip upon his shaft before rubbing it in. It was slick and creamy and smelled so of the spice that he knew if he bent down to eat her it would consume him. I don't eat slaves. If he were in full control of his faculties he might have expanded upon that thought and perhaps posed other questions.

Having the sort of outside herself awareness she now enjoyed she sensed the brief hesitation in him and acted finding a mix between excitement and fear to drive what thrilled him about finding such women to bring here in the first place. "Please don't. I'll do as you say, just don't cost me the service and I will... be your whore."

"Mmm...you will no matter what I do, Elan. End your career and you groveling in any menial job you can find." He sank fully into her and she welcomed him. He grunted as he pushed through her tightness which was easier to do than it probably should have been, but she was sooooo wet. It was like the sweetest syrup that helped his cock get deep quickly. The feeling, coupled with the look of her used body, and sound of her broken voice that expressed pleasure as it was filled.

"What...what will you tell your man?"

She was nearly breathless. "I don't...I don't know."

"He will not think this does not touch what he thinks you feel for him." Her wetness dripped from his balls and onto the floor, and the warmth of her spread throughout his body. "He will abandon you to your whore ways."

She hoped that she'd sounded suitably mortified, "No."

Even if he does not. Even if he is weak and allows it, I bet that will excite you as well. You will come home dripping me, with my marks upon your body."

"Oooooooooooooooooo."

"You want that." The gentlemanly tone was long gone, the burning animal in him now holding sway. "You came to me with noble intent, but you wanted to experience being a well-used whore. Now you like it.

Elan came, straining her body against the sensations and catching the glimpse of her delicate toes digging into the floor tweaked him and he leaned forward to drag his tongue along her back. Her sweat was like a spicy honey, sweet with a bit of bite and he drooled shamelessly as he took another taste as it mixed with the heat of her freshly tamed skin. Her pussy clamped tightly and the warmth of her filled him like an empty vessel. His cock bucked against her as he spilled seed deep within her that did nothing to quench the heat of her or his need to fuck.

Truth happily escaped her. "I like it. I want it. To be a slave is what I was remade to be."

He rutted and she pushed her body back, driving him, letting her milk his body and his mind as he contented himself with slapping his body against hers with the crack like a single-tail against skin and slobbering all over her to get more of that sweet spice into his belly. Time passed before she made sounds other than a whimper, and those sounds were composed and now indifferent to the use of her body. Elan pulled her mind away.

There was work to be done for her true Master and her queen. "Ariz, what will happen if I tell you to stop?"

Right then, the very thought behind the question was an anathema to his continued existence. It was all about the next thrust into, orgasm with, and taste of his slave. "I'll have to stop, slave. Please don't ask me to do that." His tongue tasted again, kissing with his licks. There seemed to be no end to the sweet and it was a joy.

"I won't make you stop, but you must obey your slave."

There was no incongruity in that for his drowning mind. "Yes, slave. I will. I always will."

The chains rattled. "You created a poison recently; a poison that resists magic. Tell me how it might be broken. Tell me how you made it."

The thought of him being of service to his slave triggered another eruption of seed that the slave milked as she should. He slowed long enough to relish it before fucking again in earnest.

It would please him to be of service to her. His mind pushed through the lust to answer. "Didn't create it, Elan. Wouldn't. I have no need to kill anyone. It was only a thought exercise; questions asked, pondered, then answered. I correspond with others that share my... interests and skills. It was," he panted, "the result of correspondence over years. He...mmmmmmmm...actually made it? And used it?"

"Yes. Who is he?"

There was no hesitation."Drax. A mage that lives in Draleth lands."

"Later I will want to see the correspondence, all of it. For now, tell me everything."

"Of course, slave."

***

Evaline looked out the window. From this height, the city looked fine, the people bustling along with their lives, but she knew it wasn't so. There was fear and uncertainty all over. Indeed, the only thing that kept riots from the streets was that uncertainty. Stories had rushed through the city like a flood of the fire in the sky that burned an island to a cinder and boiled the water around it to great plumes of steam that rose far into the air.

A few thought it was the end and there had been sporadic reports of suicides since, but, for the most part, people just didn't know what to make of things and the greatest source of stress with the people was that they wanted answers. Was it true? If it was true, what was it? War? Something just not understood? Divine retribution? And queen and Court were running out of non-answers to give that would mollify them. She couldn't tell them that it was a war and she couldn't tell them that it was one that the greatest of the world's military forces would vanish in a flash of orange fire.

She couldn't tell them that the Draleth Ambassador was behind her demanding her surrender on their behalf without having fired a shot to defend them. She could see her father's disappointment and hear his words. It wouldn't matter why. It wouldn't matter that it was beyond her control. He would simply look upon her as the last queen of Erette and that would somehow have met his expectations.

"Surrender," she repeated.

"I fail to see what other choice you have, Majesty." Ambassador Xi stood there making little effort to hide the smugness he felt. His hook nose, beady eyes, and the arrogance he carried made him look like a carrion bird salivating at a freshly dead meal.

General Jaye stood to her right in her own full black and gold-braided dress uniform and Bae to her left in white with similar braiding, and the queen in her own formal attire while Xi stood there in a suit of muted browns. It was a contrast all around. "Surrender after you set up bandits to use your land to strike against us? For what purpose? Just to show us this weapon of yours?"

"We had nothing to do with that. It was just a fortunate coincidence that the military of Erette saw the first test. Word would have gotten back to you in any event." He smiled at Neral. "But I trust that General Jaye has been forthcoming about its power. The Draleth have been pushed aside by the greater powers for far too long."

He liked the sound of what came next. Now we are in a position to make the rules. Rest assured that we will be more than fair, assuming that you do not make it necessary for us to make an example of you."

"Was assassinating me just to destabilize the kingdom? So you could get your surrender in the confusion?"

"I'm afraid I have nothing to offer when it comes to that most unfortunate event beyond my full cooperation, which I continue to provide."

She saw the reaction to his choice of words in Bae's eyes and could be sure it was mirrored in Neral's had she looked. "Of course you do."

"Think carefully, Majesty. Think carefully before you attempt to be the brave queen who stands against the unstoppable storm. Imagine each city of the kingdom burning around you. Imagine all the lives snuffed out." He laid on the false empathy like glaze on a roasting pig. "The blame would be yours. But the praise for saving them would be yours, too. And you would still have power. Of course, King Mareth would move the capitol here, but you would still wield powe. He will need a liaison between himself and the Court of Erette. You will all be needed to help keep the peace, lest other examples of our newfound power be required."

The unveiled threat hung in the air and Xi leaned forward, his hands on the queen's desk as if to dare her then and there. Evaline had to work to keep her physical composure, though her voice was almost monotone as she restrained her rage. "Ambassador, please allow us a moment to consider your king's generous offer."

He stood, pushing from the desk with a haughty grin on his lips, "I hope to be able to convey to my king that you've made the sensible decision and spared your people senseless destruction." Once the door closed behind him, leaving the three alone, Evaline looked hopefully to Neral. "You've had time to think. You are certain there is no defense?"

Visions of the destruction were still crystal clear in her mind. "None, Majesty. The light...melted everything in its path. Anything touched by it is burned away. The kingdom would be gone as quickly as the island." Neral loathed the position of impotence it placed her in almost as much as she hated and feared the threat it posed. To fall after a fight wasn't shameful so long as you gave all of yourself in the effort, but to not be able to fight at all; to start from a position of loss and to know there was nothing to do to change it crushed her.

And it was acid in the wound to think of all the people she couldn't defend. Evaline was right. She took everyone with her. She thought of the weddings in their lives, births, deaths and all the other stuff of life and she wondered how quickly all that would change for the worse. Mareth was a dictatorial pig and, in short order, Erette would be unrecognizable, leaving her to shudder at the thought of what it would become.

On top of it all, she had failed her queen.

She looked to both of them."Magic? Or something from the old world?"

Bae pondered, her eyes searching her own thoughts. "The old world, I would think, Majesty. Not even the worst of the wickedness of mages in the stories suggested they had power like that, and it's said the old world had all manner of weapons with which to happily destroy themselves. It's even said they took the first steps toward exploring the darkness of space before they ended the world as they knew it. Who knows everything they had at their disposal?"

"Respectfully, does it matter? The choice is the same either way: surrender or fight."

Evaline faced Neral, "My general chooses to fight."

Neral's brown eyes met hers. "There are many ways to fight. In this case there is...nothing to engage, at least nothing we can reach or fight in a conventional sense." Her mood lifted slightly at the discussion because it was something that she knew. "But there are other ways to fight. We could play at surrender, pretend at compromise, and look for that which we need to know, or simply make it so costly to hold Erette that they are forced away."

"To burn us down anyway," Bae finished.

"Perhaps," Neral conceded with some bitterness, "but they will have paid a price to do it and that's better than just inviting them in to raise their flag."

"Court is terrified either way. They lose their lives or their place."

Evaline's eyes showed that she was asking a question to which the answer was already known. "Is there a difference?"

"At least is they are sufficiently paralyzed by the question that they will let you tell them what to do."

"They could help lead a resistance," Neral said, conveying a lesson of the word's history. "The five kingdoms broke from tyranny. We could do it again." The fire in her belly lit again.

Bae challenged her with the very ridiculousness of the notion. "Do you honestly believe more than a handful of the nobles are capable? Or willing?"