Cinder's Women: Mouse's Tale Ch. 01

"Well, there can't be any doubt now," the Girl Thief complained to the rat heard scrabbling through the darkness somewhere across the room, where it would hopefully stay. "I hate this town."

Anyone human with her in the dark cell would have readily agreed. Duke Victor Guinness was a tyrant and quite low on every local's list of favorite people. High taxes and bullyboy hired thugs notwithstanding; most hated him for keeping the jails clear.

There had been thieves who preyed on their neighbors and poachers caught hunting in the Imperial forests, but there were also the unfortunates who fell behind on their burdensome taxes and even a few who foolishly spoke aloud of open rebellion against the Duke. These were all caught and jailed in rapid order. Most prison terms often lasted less than a week. In Glankis- if you found your way to the cells beneath Guinness Manor you were tried and found guilty on Noble's Day, left to make peace with your god on Prayer Day, and were dead by sundown Reaper's Day. That is, unless Duke Victor took an interest in you during your trial.

Catching the Duke's interest was definitely considered unlucky and just as unhealthy as death. It could lead to long-term slavery in the Duke's court at best if you were skilled as a craftsman. Unskilled but hearty males often became fodder for the Black Bastard's love of inventing new tortures and inflicting pain until they died. Women were either sent to the dungeon alongside the men or cast into the bordello for the Duke's hired thugs, often both. The lucky ones died before leaving the dungeons.

She had seen one of the scant, broken few that had survived both hells wandering the streets. Scarred, shattered, and devoid of all but the faintest spark of life, these poor creatures gathered together to share the strength and will to continue living just one more day. No amount of magic could heal the terrible wounds they carried deep down in their souls. Shunned even by their own families, not one of these women was rumored to have lived more than a year without taking her own life.

I hope I have the good sense to die before it comes to that, she thought. The Girl Thief had no illusions as to her fate- she knew she was not unattractive. Men had lusted after her since she'd begun to blossom into womanhood. She had learned to make her favors an effective tool for a thief whose other skills were lacking. When getting caught usually meant having to lay with her captor willingly or not, she was often able to escape with a little something more than what she'd tried to steal in the first place. By getting caught and offering her body for her freedom, she survived to steal and run. It was hard to chase someone with your pants around your ankles, so she'd learned to be quick on her feet, taking advantage of men whose mind was more on their cocks than on her intentions. By having faster legs than clever hands she managed to get by, but just barely. Of course, that's just what had landed her in this cell in the first place- her hands were cleverer than her head.

She'd traded her meager scullery skills to a caravan master for safe passage in a wagon train out of Xelec before the guardsmen there caught her again. Eventually she'd hoped to make her way to the southern capital of Antilles, but by the time the caravan had reached Glankis, the Girl Thief had had quite enough of honest work for a while. In spite of the merchant's fatherly warning to avoid going into town, all the next Market Day she practiced her chosen trade in the crowded bazaar.

Hours of picking pockets had yielded only enough coins to fill one hand, bits and commons totaling barely one knight. Just enough for a few handfuls of straw to sleep on, with enough left over for a loaf of day old bread in the morning- hardly worth the work. That's why she'd tried for that mercenary's fat coin purse. If he'd caught her, she'd simply bed him for her freedom. Mercenaries with money were always eager to bed willing women she'd discovered. With luck he'd pay her for the privilege of using her body. Whoring was mildly more acceptable than starving, but not how she wanted to make her way through life. Sex was more for men, she believed, since she never got any pleasure from it. The threat of rape was always there, but that's why she carried a small knife under her skirt. While not much of a weapon by itself, the knife's little blade could make even big men cry like little children when stabbed into their groin at the right moment.

She hadn't counted on the strange-eyed man watching her from a stack of crates in front of an inn. Their eyes met for only an instant and she hesitated, just long enough to be caught by the City Guard. She struggled, but was eventually dragged away in irons, down a damp stairwell into the dungeons.

And now she was locked away in a tiny, windowless cell, shackled standing against the damp wall in bonds of rusty iron locked firmly around her wrists and throat, forced to spend the night with her arms stretched out in a human 'T'. Only the jailer had been alone with her, a fat eunuch whose meaty hands had manipulated the locks the way a jeweler handles tiny precious stones, stealing her tattered sandals and laughing at her when she offered herself to him in exchange for a chance to run. Within an hour her throat and wrists had been scratched sore and nearly raw.

That was yesterday afternoon. Dawn had to have come to Noble's Day by now. She hadn't been imprisoned long enough to lose all sense of time, even though no food had been brought and sleep had been impossible. Soon the guards would come for her and the others unlucky enough to be awaiting judgement this day. There seemed to be quite a few, judging by the moans and wails from other cells. Only those who had yet to be sentenced would have the strength to moan and wail. Force of pride kept her from adding to the moans and wails.

Moans, wails and the shouts of men, she realized. Shouts, screams and the ring of steel on steel, steel on stone. She'd never been locked in a dungeon before, and wasn't sure if those were regular noises or not. Soon the shouts died away, only to be followed by a more eerie and unnerving silence. A silence the seemed magnified by the all-consuming darkness around her. All night long there had been some sort of noise- a guard cursing aloud and rattling doors, other prisoners crying and begging, the scrabbling of rats on the clod stone floors. She considered calling out, but decided not to call attention to herself without cause.

She was almost relieved when she heard the turning key in the lock. Even going before the Duke would give her a few moments respite from her bonds. A chance to breath and stretch her weary limbs. Maybe even enough respite to attempt an escape.

"There you are little thief," said a voice from the center of the wash of lantern light that was enough to blind her after the creaky opening of the door.

Blinking and squinting, she adjusted her eyes to the light. This was not the jailer. The speaker was a better-built man with lean, hard limbs and a warrior's upright stance. A fold-over shirt of black chain mail hung on him from neck to knees and split for riding, belted about the waist with a wide engraved leather belt with a large silver buckle. Hanging from this belt was a heavy pouch, an empty tooled-leather and wood scabbard, and a thick handled, multi-tongued flogger. His gloves were thick, expensive leather gauntlets and in one hand he held a bloody sword, a yard of steel with a pommel shaped like a woman's body from the waist up, the other hand held the door open. Even his boots and breeches looked expensive and well worn under the stains of fresh blood.

The Girl Thief started when she saw his face, streaked with blood not his own. Here was that strange man from the market!

Atop his armored shoulders sat a wedge-shaped face, framed by disturbed dark hair. A carefully waxed mustache and beard partially covered one small scar running up his right cheek, a remnant of a long ago battle. She thought he was handsome, a powerful man that sent strange tremors through her. His mouth was firmly set in a thin, straight line- neither grim nor angry, but scarily noncommittal. His whole face was that way- perfectly cold and impersonal, calmly ruthless. Except his eyes. Those strange, chilling eyes under dark, brooding brows. They seemed to be staring at her with a mixture of intensity, anger, hunger and fulfillment. She suddenly felt very afraid. But what she was afraid of she would have a hard time saying. The way he was staring at her, the scrutiny stirred her in ways she found both uncomfortable and pleasant. His eyes conveyed so much while his face betrayed so little, feral eyes of hand-polished jet scrutinizing her from beneath sweat-limp black hair.

His eyes held no color beyond black and white.

"You have already caused me a great deal of trouble this week." His voice course with a sort of eager, barely controlled lust, he approached. His eyes wouldn't release her. "You had better be worth it.

"I heard about you from the caravan master with whom you took passage out of Xelec, and watched for you in the marketplace. You have shreds of talent, but no skill. You are a clumsy pickpocket, a guileless sneak thief, and have absolutely no slight-of-hand, foresight, or concepts of stealth or misdirection. As a thief you are a blot on your profession. If you ever had a teacher, I can't see any signs of it."

He lifted the ragged hem of her skirt with the bloodied tip of his blade. She trembled against the warm flat steel and dried blood touching the bare skin of her left knee and rising slowly along her inner thigh. She also felt a trickle seep from the slit of her pussy into the already wet crotch of her small-clothes. Her breath caught at this bizarre betrayal by her body. She suddenly had an insane desire to let him ravage her.

"Please," she begged, trying to look anywhere but into those infinitely black eyes. "Let me go and I promise I'll run away before the Duke finds out."

"The Duke is no longer a threat to anyone." The sword skimmed over her trembling muscles and smooth inner thigh with just enough pressure to stroke those primordial feelings of lust within her. She gasped as the warm blade brushed flatly against her tender crotch, drawn back until she felt the point press lightly against the front of her soiled undergarment.

"What...what do you mean?" She tried not to squirm as the sharp tip of the weapon slipped up around her narrow hip. Not the time to be ticklish. The razor edge caressed her side, brushed her ribs, and skimmed between her young breasts, all under her dress.

"Duke Victor Guinness is dead. You are now mine to do with as I see fit." As a tremble ran through her at this simple statement, he pressed his sword's flat blade against the chill pit of her belly. The sword was both hot and cold; the razor sharp point at the base of her throat, the blade nestled between her small breasts and the crosspiece just below her sex. With an easy turn of his wrist, the sharp edge of the blade lay against her shivering skin, with the hilt nudging her most personal place in a way she found disturbingly pleasurable. He put his face only a few inches from her own. "I really hope you're worth all the trouble you've caused me."

He stepped backward, pinning her more securely with those strange eyes than her iron bonds ever could. With one sharp, clean jerk, he split the sturdy cotton of her only dress from the ragged hem to the laced bodice cleanly along the sword's razor edge. Two similar passes sliced apart her sleeves from shoulder to cuff. Gathering a thick fistful of the rags in his free hand, he pulled and left her with nothing between her and the dungeon wall save sweat, dust, and her soiled small-cloth. Shivers ran down her spine- half from the moist cold air, half from fear. No where on her naked body existed a scratch caused by the weapon.

"Well," he commented while wiping dried blood off his blade with the remnants of her dress and carefully looking her over with a casual eye. "You appear healthy enough." Frowning at the most stubborn bloodstains, he slammed the weapon back into its scabbard. Finger by finger he removed his gloves and folded them over his belt.

"Of course, what one sees on the outside isn't necessarily the truth."

His hands were well groomed and clean, but rough like old leather. He tore away her shamefully stained loincloth, dropping it distastefully in the corner. She'd wept helplessly in the night when the long wait had finally forced her to vent her bladder down her legs. Thankfully the cell already stank of stale urine and other bodily products that what she had done didn't add too much to the smell. But overnight the puddle of urine she had then been forced to stand in barefoot had grown cold, only adding to her discomfort. Her skin itched where it had dried on her.

Stepping back, he took a long, silent moment to look her over. She had the uncomfortable experience of being judged as one might judge a horse or other valuable animal. Even with her arms and neck secured to the wall, she did her best to hide from his level, unnerving stare, fully aware of the passionate flash in his eyes. By pressing her legs together and twisting her lower body, she tried to hide from him, but even as she did she wasn't sure if it was from embarrassment at her naked form or her growing sexual arousal. Examining her firm and boyish body, he could see how young she was- the surprisingly flawless pale peach-colored skin save for her hands and face, and she was covered in a fine sheen of nervous sweat. Small, pert breasts with high, hardened nipples sat high on her chest with a sexy cluster of freckles strategically placed between them. She was lean, as one who steals to survive often is, but not so that she'd yet lost her female shape. Her belly was nice and flat, without a trace of fat but hard from hunger, though her skin had not begun to shrink around it, the rising and falling nicely with her nervous breathing. Her curves were not fully pronounced, as if she still had a few years of growth left, which she did not. Her hair and eyes were brown, the former a tangled dirty mess that hung generally straight but badly matted past her shoulder blades. Her face was oval set with young somewhat pretty features twisted in uncertain fear and nervous desire.

"Nothing a bath wouldn't fix it appears," he said finally, stepping close once again. His warm and callused hands fit easily over her small, soft breasts, roughly thumbing her high, pointed nipples. In spite of her fear, she moaned.

"Sensitive, that's good," he said, pleased in the way a rider is pleased that his favorite horse has new shoes. Looking down, he saw something that intrigued him; her dark-furred crotch was wet with her stew. "Open your legs." When she didn't immediately comply, he seized her left nipple in a fierce grip between finger and thumb and pinched hard. The Girl Thief cried out against the pain, but still refused. He twisted and her cries increased and her legs parted.

"More," he commanded, continuing to twist her tender nipple until she had opened her legs more than shoulder width apart. "Good. The sooner you obey, the easier this will be." He didn't appear angry, but a subtle edge in his voice told her that he was no longer entirely pleased. With no ceremony or warning, he reached down and pushed two fingers inside her, past her tender lips and into the tight tunnel she was humiliated to discover was moist with primal heat. His fingers were soaked the moment he entered her love hole. In spite of herself, she groaned, rubbing herself against his hand.

"Very good, still young and responsive," he said, pushing deeply into her, reaching for tender places. He lifted his hand, digging deep. She lifted a leg slightly, easing his passage. "You've known men before, but not many. No children apparently- you feel fairly fresh and snug. What are you- seventeen summers?"

"N-nineteen," she stammered as fear and desire beat a thunderous dueling rhythm on the tight drum of her heart. She knew she should be terrified, but he knew exactly how to touch her to send delightful jolts of erotic energy flying out of her pussy into the rest of her straining body. She was having trouble focusing her eyes while the not entirely unwelcome intrusion pushed her closer to the point of no return. He rubbed her rebelliously engorged clit and fingered her pussy, then began to work a wet finger into her tight little virgin ass hole. Wondering what he planned on doing to her next made the sweat run from her armpits down her bare flanks. How could a room so cold while she was dressed become so hot when she was naked?

"You appear younger, that's a very good sign. Youth is a fine tool for a thief. If you know how to use it." His fingers made a wet, sucking noise when drawn out of her, coaxing a steamy moan from deep down in the girl's belly. So close to completion, she was sorry to have them gone. The denial was almost cruel, more so than the invasion. With a firm, commanding grip, he lifted her chin and forced her mouth open by squeezing the base of her jaw, examining her teeth in the dull, flickering candlelight from the hallway. Unable to speak, unable to move, she was held transfixed in that dark stare. His dark brows came together, adding weight to the sharp edge in his voice.

"You have got to be the worst cutpurse I have ever come across. You lack sufficient skill, discipline, and restraint to be anything more than what you are right now: a wretched guttersnipe scratching for crumbs. Is that what you want? To be a worthless whore, selling your tired body to whomever will pay a few bits for your diseased hide? To spend weeks healing from the beatings given to you by those who catch you stealing after a sweaty, animal rut? To pick through refuse piles and fight rats for a few crusts of old bread, hard rinds of moldy cheese, and dirty old apple cores, to dine on the scraps left untouched by heartier scavengers? To be dead of a worn body at the ripe old age of twenty-five? If that's what you want, the path you walk now will lead you there without a doubt.

"Or, would you rather become a person of some renown? One whose name is whispered in reverent awe by less capable thieves throughout the Empire and feared by those with wealth? Would you like to be untouchable, unmatchable- a veritable phantom to the soldiers of your opponents? Does the thought of dining on fine rich foods, drinking old and expensive wines, and preying on lords in their very manor homes appeal to you? Do you want to be transformed from what you are right now almost entirely?"

"You can do that?" she asked in awe, blinking hard. He didn't seem to blink at all, his dark, smoldering eyes calling to her.

"That depends on you." He unbuckled his belt, dropping it on the pile of rags that had been her dress. She trembled in knowing terror when he slipped the wood and leather toggles closing his armor shirt open. She knew what was coming, wanting and not wanting it at the same time.

"If you let me free, I'll be yours," she promised with a shaky voice, trying to stall him. He laughed with a hollow humor. Even his laugh sounded flat and emotionless.

"You're mine whether you will it or not, little thief. Your only concern needs to be how long it will take you to satisfy me." He didn't remove the chain shirt, but rather left it open as he pressed his body close to hers. The jerkin he wore beneath it was deep blue and quilted, supple leather padded to allow him to accept the blows of crushing weapons more easily.

Their lips met as his tongue explored the inside of her mouth. He ran his fingers over her sensitive nipples, bent, his tongue flickering around the base of the point. His mouth descended with steam around her tender nipple, making her cry out the instant she felt the passionate heat scald her breast. She moaned as he sucked her tit between his lips, purred as the wet organ roughly toyed with the excited tip. His rough hands caressed the tender flesh around her hips and across belly, stroking the small egg of desire growing in her core. He slipped his hand between her thighs, his fingers stroking up and down outside her pussy. The smooth skin felt silky to his touch as he teased the small slit. She purred, her head turning from side to side as he continued to toy with her tit and pussy. He licked the nipple again as he bit the point, tugged on the tit, pulling it roughly from her body.