Demon King's Pet Ch. 01

Chapter 1 - Tilling the Plot

The world twists and burns around her, corrupted in a heartbeat. Her mind hasn't even settled into understanding what had just happened before she finds herself in chains, pulled from the carnage surrounding her family's farm plot.

At some point she must have finally passed out, because now she is awake, tied to a stout pole holding up some sort of tent. Her arms are stiff, and a little tug proves she is bound securely. She is also as naked as the day she was born. The thin lines of silver metal chains--wrapping around her neck, dangling over her breasts, and finally arching behind her to bind her wrists--do absolutely nothing to cover her body. Someone had even tied back her long flaxen hair just to keep her exposed.

Maybe if she tugs--the delicate ropes don't seem strong enough to hold even a child--she could get free. So she tries. She pulls and writhes, finding that the thin lines hold fast, as well as whatever holds her wrists and neck against the pole.

"They're enchanted. I tried too." The tired voice of another woman reveals someone else chained up behind her.

Elli can't even turn to look at her, but it's almost a comfort to know that someone else is there. Alive.

"Do you know where we are? What these monsters want with us?" It didn't hurt to ask, even though she suspects the other woman must be just as disoriented as she is.

"No ideas yet. But we can't be far from Bridgefall, I think."

She nods before remembering the other bound woman can't see it. "I'm from the lands around that town." The more Elli sits and thinks, the more she starts to remember.

Her family worked a decent-sized plot for the lord's manor. Her father and most of her siblings would have been in the fields, working since before sunrise. She was responsible for starting breakfast, and had just come back from the well.

"Can you see anything useful on your side of the tent?" The other woman pulls the serf girl from her thoughts.

Elli looks, but the space is fairly bare beyond the rugs under her equally bare behind. "No, and if there were, my legs probably wouldn't reach far enough."

"That means they don't intend to keep us here for long." She can feel it when the woman sighs, the slight downward tug of the chains digging into her hair and back.

"Think we can somehow lift this center pole between the two of us?"

They struggle for a few long minutes, but it holds fast, unbudged even when Elli throws her weight behind her. And all the while, they listen for the dreaded sounds of their inhuman captors.

"I'm sorry. For what little that's worth." The words surprise her just as much as the defeat in the other woman's voice. "All this. I'm fairly damn certain it's my fault."

Now how could that be?

Elli works things over in her mind, sorting out the recent memories.

She'd walked back into the cottage with fresh water. Her little sister had left the sheep's milk on the doorstep for her, but the bucket was overturned, spilling white froth onto the dirt. The door was ajar, and she heard scuffling from inside.

Wary, she had ducked low to look inside. It would be uncommon for someone to ransack a simple farmhouse, but not unheard of. Maybe a desperate thief or wild animal?

Instead she found monsters. Skin mottled in grays and greens, metal helms over heads from which horns and long, pointed ears sprouted. The two inside her house weren't very big, but they both held black, rough-edged blades. And those pointy ears weren't for show. They turned towards the door the moment they heard her take a breath in surprise. She pummeled them with the clay dishes and her long-dead mother's cast-iron cookware until they lay on the hay floor.

"I," Elli stutters, pulling herself from the memory of those twisted faces, no longer moving, no longer snarling at her, "I'm sure it can't be your fault. Whatever these things are, surely."

"No, the more I think about it, the more certain I am." Her chained companion's breath hitches with tears Elli can't see. "It's all my fault. I just... the spell wasn't supposed to do that. It wasn't supposed to create an opening. All I wanted to do was see! And now..."

Elli can't help the way she stiffens, and she is certain the woman noticed. "So, you're probably not a simple hedgewitch. Maybe a sorceress?"

"A true sorceress should have known better than to make a mistake."

"My ma used to tell me, 'You can't help using the skills you were born with. And you can't know what you don't know. But dammit all, Elli, put that barrel down and go finish your chores before you play around.' That's all the practice I ever got, making stuff fly around."

Her companion draws in a breath. "That's it then, they captured us for our magic." And that realization sets a chill in her bones too. "It explains why they would raid an entire town and only have two captives."

"Well, shit." Elli can't remember what happened after she probably killed the two monsters in their cottage, sending the heaviest, hardest objects she could think of at their heads faster than they could react. After that was darkness. And maybe some sort of vague sense of pain in her head, but otherwise, nothing.

They hear the flap of a heavy tarp being thrown aside before they are no longer alone. The other woman, the sorceress, tenses, but holds her tongue as heavy footsteps and the jangling of armor echo around the small tent. A moment later, and a monstrous visage cuts into her field of view, just as twisted as the two she fought, but bigger. This one's skin is smoother, the gray tone more evened out. He reaches out with a meaty hand to force her chin up, straining the metal chains around her neck.

"Lookit you, not so tough now are you little dog?" He growls, lips paling as they twist around yellowed tusks. The tip of one looks like it had broken off recently, all jagged points and edges and only half the size of the other. His breath is worse than manure. "If it were up to me, I'd have you crawling around on the ground like a worm as I let my soldiers beat you for practice. But it's not. We'll just have to see how lucky you are."

She doesn't know who this big monster is, or what exactly she did to earn his wrath.

He barks orders to two other monsters built like him, and the grunts force both women to their feet. Elli finds herself--hands still bound behind her back--facing the sorceress's long auburn waves of hair. Her neck lead is attached to the other woman's wrists, and the sorceress's lead is held in Broken-Tusk's grip. The other two monsters flank them as he tugs on the lead, marching them into the cold air outside the tent.

Night has fallen, though Elli can't be certain how many days have passed since that horrible morning. There isn't a town in sight, only tents and the flames of torches to light the way. It isn't hard to guess their destination. At the center of the encampment, the monsters had built a raised platform. It may very well have been a gallows, but the only things up there were a large golden seat--like a throne, if she had to guess--and beings shrouded in dark red robes and hoods. Blood red, she reconsiders her assessment as they march closer, the flames burning higher.

Broken-Tusk stops them at the foot of the wooden staircase leading up, and large hands on their shoulders force them down onto their knees. While Elli is sure the sorceress kept her gaze fixed resolutely ahead, she instinctively bows her head and stares at the remnants of grass below her.

Movement. Footsteps. A hushed reverence. She tries ignoring the crowd as they approach, though she catches the sense that many types of monsters are gathered. Some are those small ones with those long ears, others are big and bulky and tusked, and some are slender and horned. All grow quiet as the footsteps stop.

"I have decided. Bring me the first prisoner." The voice is clear and calm, easily carrying the weight of power behind it. Elli forces herself to look up and watch as the sorceress is unhooked from her, and led up to the top of the platform by one of the hooded figures.

Their captors force the tall woman to kneel in front of the one standing before the gold throne. Elli hesitates to call the man a monster, despite the pale green tint to his skin, his unnatural, towering height, or the developed muscles exposed every time his open blood-red robes shift. And that is no crown on his head, but polished and decorated horns forming a circle around a head of white hair. Unlike the others she saw earlier, his face is calm, almost bored.

"You helped me find an anchor into this realm, allowed me to build a chasm to bring my army through." His smirk is cruel, "Even if it was unintentional, I thank you. So tell me, what is the name of my bride?"

Elli can feel the woman's defiance as she remains silent.

"Come now, are all the talented women of your realm like this?" His lips tilt in amusement, just as his long fingers tilt the sorceress's face up. "I could bestow a name upon you, and bind you irreversibly to my will. Is that what you wish for?" His threat lingers in the pinky finger gently tapping against her throat until she speaks.

"Arisselia."

With that single act of capitulation, the king of monsters forces her to her feet, spinning her to face the crowd. Now Elli can see that the woman is a few years older‐-and wiser--than she is, well past the age where a farm girl should be married off but not near to being so old that she'd be undesirable. The sorceress is anything but undesirable, in fact, and Elli can't help but compare herself to the naked woman. She's taller, more slender, fairer of face and skin, and her bright blue eyes are the only thing revealing her terror.

"Behold! Your queen, Arisselia." The king commands, and Elli can't look away as his hand trails over milky flesh, touching the woman in a way that shouldn't be done where others can see.

Arisselia struggles in his grasp, but something about the chains binding them has also bound whatever gives the people of their world the ability to do magic. All it takes is an arm wrapped around her, the hand moving from a breast up to her throat, to hold her still again. His other hand is busy feeling between her thighs, cupping her mound. A moment later, she shudders, so he sits down on his throne, pulling her into place on his lap.

The serf girl isn't naive. She knows how she ended up with so many siblings, the last of which claimed her mother's life. But it's still jarring to watch the sorceress try to fight the urge to moan when the self-proclaimed king ruts up into his new queen.

It's over quickly. The king passes her off to a pair of hooded beings, who hold her upright even as the woman's legs give out.

And then the ruler of the monsters turns his gaze on Elli. She wonders what the penalty is for killing his soldiers. She can only imagine her fate must be worse than the woman who had unwittingly aided him. Perhaps torn apart by the crowd. Maybe used and discarded, like most invading armies are said to do to the women and girls they come across.

It's her turn to be led up the stairs to her doom, and forced to kneel at his feet like a beaten dog.

"Tell me, are all the women of your realm so defiant? My queen tried to do everything in her power to stop us, even going so far as destroying her quaint little village and everyone in it in an attempt to close the rupture. Unfortunately, for all her sacrifices, I was stronger. And you, you summoned a whirlwind to fight my soldiers. It took a magus and a solid blow to your little blonde head to stop it."

Elli fights the urge to throw up. His hand has begun stroking her head, teasing the pale, dirty strands in an almost gentle way.

"I thought they had healed you, but you seem to be incapable of speech." The condescending tone threatens.

"I..." She forces herself to speak through the fear. "I do not think we're all defiant, or all submissive. And I cannot remember everything that happened, but you can't expect to invade and attack other people and not meet some resistance!" The collar burns around her throat as if reacting to her anger.

If she alone was here, if she alone had a chance to fight back, then what had happened to her family?

Elli falters, not even realizing she is trying to force herself up to her feet until his cruel laugh draws her attention upward.

He is so much taller than her. Even if she did get her footing under her, she'd barely make it up to his chest. As she trembles under the weight of his hand gripping the hair at the back of her head, she has a much too personal view under his robes. And of the inhuman mass still coated in the other woman's clear juices. Even spent, the dark green and pink appendage is closer to the size of her father's forearm than anything she could think of. With the fleshy spines at its tip and some bumpy ridges, it doesn't look anything like a dog's or horse's tool. Or a man's. In short, it is terrifying.

"I have an idea of what to do with you, pet."

The towering being sounds smug and amused, like one of the lord's men drunk in the town bar who always got his way when a barmaid caught his eye. Not that she was allowed to go into town like that, but her brothers were loud gossips. Used to be, she reminds herself.

"Clean up this mess, and I'll keep you as a concubine."

Her other options were probably much worse, like death. Who is she to argue, a serf's daughter with no marriage prospects who was lucky to have a washcloth and fresh water to scrub with every morning. And being a ruler's pet is far preferable to waiting to be married off to the next hardworking, smelly serf to gain the lord's notice. If that man was even still alive. This king certainly doesn't smell of animals and sunbaked grime.

So she leans forward, and despite the tangy, heady scent of sex and sweat, she begins to lick the monstrous cock. It isn't exactly pleasant, but it is manageable. He shifts to settle back onto his throne, making her follow. She doesn't dare look away, unsure if she can handle even a single glance at the sorceress who might be watching, or at any of the monsters who surely are.

Behind her, others come forth to address the king, and she tunes out their voices into a dark rumble as she focuses on her task. She starts at the base, licking up around the bumpy texture to the smoother shaft. His groin is bare of hair, making it easier to clean the underside, though she isn't sure how to reach the top side without her hands free to tug the appendage down. Instead she works towards the tip and its softened, spine-like bumps.

Words pierce the haze of her brain. "So eager to please, isn't she? What a good pet, perhaps I should give her a name."

The three beings behind her grow quiet until one speaks up. Broken-Tusk, she suspects. "A worthless dog who knows no self-control? That's a good idea, my King."

She trembles, pausing, until his hand returns to play with her hair.

"How I play with my things is of no concern to you. Begone from my sight." She pauses again, mid lick, afraid she was the one being dismissed, but he holds her still. "As for you, pet, this will go faster if you put the rest in your mouth to clean."

She dares a glance up at him, his eyes half-closed in amusement. "I'm not sure it will fit..."

"It will."

Well, it's not like she ever really had a choice.

And somehow, it does fit. Barely. He continues speaking with his servants while she takes his cock into her mouth. Maybe it isn't as big as she had feared, but her jaw tires faster than if she'd tried to eat an entire loaf of bread in one mouthful. And every time she tries to clean the base she practically chokes on it. It seemed no matter how much she licked, the king still didn't approve.

His hand remained on her head, both encouraging and forcing her to clean the entirety of his penis. So she keeps at it, sucking until it grows hard and hot in her mouth. Drool drips down Elli's chin, and it is almost impossible to breathe. But the unpleasant taste is gone, and the odor is not as strong. She just has to keep at it a little longer, hopefully before she stops being able to draw a breath at all.

As that worry forms in her mind, his sharp nails curve into her scalp as he holds her in place.

"Swallow."

Elli chokes down as much bitterness and spit as she can before the king finally releases her. She coughs as the cloaked monsters lead her and the new queen away.