Moon Witch Ch. 07

"We got there late. I didn't hear what the charges were for."

He shrugs. "Hes and Awvag were found harboring my property. The little flower ran away and I was wondering who did it. We sent the scholar to Gesethe as a punishment. All of them should know better than to inflame me."

I feel the anger tightening in my gut. "Apologies, my king, but all of this for one girl? People have been punished less for worse crimes."

"It's been a while since we've had an execution. The people must be contained."

"You know that Hes was like a father to me. I beg you, Azrath. Spare them." I bend my head down in a show of deference, swallowing my pride in hopes that Azrath will concede.

"Oh yes, he would always go on about how you're like the peyo he could never have, the silly old man. But in all honesty, with his health deteriorating so fast, it's not like he will live beyond the next couple of years anyways. This is a perfect time to cement a message to any who would try to rise above me."

His light, lilting tone fans the embers of my anger in my chest. He takes another sip of his drink, and it takes all of my willpower not to punch it straight into his teeth. "What will it take for you to change your mind?"

He takes a seat comfortably, settling his arms on the armrests of the chair. "You can't, Eryx. It's not worth it, either. There are more important things to worry about it, like how we are with Kefo's tribe. I'm ready to hear your report."

Despite his light tone, his eyes are steady and unyielding against mine. The expression on his face is solemn and is meant to send only one message to me. Don't question my authority. I feel cold and stiff, his rigid response ringing loudly in my ears.

I remember being good friends with Azrath when we were young boys, though he was a bit older than me. Although I was raised away from Gra'marah under the care of my father's sister, whenever I returned to Gra'marah my friend would race out of the palace, ready to embrace me. As months passed, the time to wait for my friend to emerge from the palace would take longer and longer. More and more, I would be scolded to treat him more as a king than as a friend. But maybe it was he that stopped considering me a friend long ago.

And so I bite my tongue. I'll have to figure things out on my own.

I fill him in on the political climate, the tidbits of information that Kefo teased us with. That we didn't actually get anything done. I leave out the other details. I know that Azrath is no stranger to the erotic pastimes that Kefo favors.

"Very good." Azrath smiles.

"Yes?" I'm confused despite my simmering anger. There wasn't anything particularly good about what I just shared.

"Kefo doesn't have much else to offer in partnership with the East Isles. We, however, have secured a deal."

"I was never informed of this, my king."

"Negotiations for this began when you were up North dealing with the Sorreans. That you brought back a healer was great, an insurance if you will, in the case that Hes were to die too early. But that you brought back a beautiful creature like that girl - she'll be a fantastic addition to my collection. No matter, though. It is just that we no longer have any need for either Hes or the girl." Hes calls for a servant, telling him, "Bring the doctor in."

"What is a doctor?" This isn't a Gra'marian or Sorrean word I recognize.

"They have technology and innovations in the east. We've been relying on magic for long, Eryx, but they have medicine. It's basically magic, with how much more they know about healing the body than the healers that we've had here. You know that even Hes was never properly meant for the job."

I bite my tongue again and try to keep my face blank and neutral. But Azrath notices a hint of the sour expression underneath my mask.

"Eryx," he says to me now, his eyes intense. Azrath isn't stupid. And he knows me extremely well - he can see right through the poker face that would fool a million others. "Remember your station. Forget about Hes. Forget about the girl. Your loyalty is to your people and to me."

At this time the servant sends in the doctor. With a stone cold heart, I meet what Azrath called the doctor, who is pale-skinned with pale hair like all the people of the East Isles. He greets me politely and absolutely unremarkably. I don't see anything special about him. As soon as I can, I bid my leave and depart from Azrath.

I pad down the hall, my steps slow. My heart is heavy thinking of everything I've come to lose in this place that no longer feels like home. When I joined our military, I remember the vow that left my lips - to serve Gra'marah and the Gra'marian king until my dying breath. I vowed to live out my loyalty in everything I do.

But I realize my loyalty is no longer blindly to Gra'marah and its king. My family comes to mind. Hes and Awvag. My dead parents. My aunt and Asa. My heart lurches as oddly enough, Selene's face surfaces again.

I've always devoted myself to the people of Gra'marah, but... maybe our king doesn't feel the same. Halfway to my room, I change course. I know where I must go.

---

It's cold and lonely. After the weird show that they put on with myself, Hes, and Awvag, I was strapped horizontally to a wooden contraption, which had been sanded down and polished so it wouldn't be rough on my naked flesh. A thick beam ran from my chin to my crotch, with soft leather padding my chin. Some more leather, this one with nubs on it, was plastered over the area where my crotch was, so that if I was moved around at all it would be despairingly stimulating.

I don't know how long I was left there. I don't remember most of it, the drugs in my system leaving my senses dull and hazy even still. I had been left there for the crowd to come and use my body as they pleased. For hours it felt like, men I didn't know would shove their erections into my throat, jaw sore and held open by another part of the contraption.

While the lembi was still strong in my system, it was nearly heavenly, my body at a maximum state of arousal receiving the stimulation it ached for. From behind me I would feel unfamiliar hands gripping my waist as my hips were ground into the leather under me. My mind was blank, co-existing with the endless stream of cocks and fingers that accosted my stretched out form. The lembi they gave us before it all started to wear off after a while, so near the end I just remember the excruciating pain of being stuck in that position and the soreness of my chest and between my legs.

It was dark when I was released from the straps. I felt dirty and exhausted. I collapsed off of the wooden structure onto the ground, wishing for nothing more than to close my eyes and fall into a deep sleep.

I guess I did at some point, because next thing I know, I'm sitting where I am now in this room. It's not plush and comfortable as the rooms in the palace are. The door locks and there are metal bars at the front so that I have no privacy from the guards I can see are seated right outside.

I'm curled up in the sad excuse for a bed I'm given now, waiting for anyone to come talk to me. I want nothing more than for someone to come speak to me and tell me what's going on, but who knows, maybe I'll be left to rot in this cold and grey cell.

Even if someone came to inform me, it's unlikely that I'd even be able to understand them. During the event Hes would whisper translations to me of what I was expected to do, but otherwise, only Gra'marian was spoken around me. Even those translations stopped coming as the intimate acts and the effects of the drugs increased in intensity. Soon, all I was experiencing was being a couple of tight passages for Hes and Awvag.

My heart aches to see either of them again. I had little to no awareness of what was happening to me throughout my ordeal, let alone to the two older men. Thinking of the two of them penetrating me, a cocktail of shame and humiliation flushes through me. Under it all, dull memories of the pleasure and the countless orgasms I had while I was in the center of the crowd fills my head.

Tears prick my vision thinking about what happened. I don't want to think about it, but it's like the more I want to push the memories and feelings down, the more they take over me. A bubble of hysteria rises and I feel the sob in my throat. I take a shaky breath before the dam holding back my hopelessness breaks.

I miss Era. I miss being home and being in the fold of my family's love. Back then it was simple.

Did I go wrong somewhere? Maybe something about where I'm at today is my fault? My mind goes back to the night I first met the general. The giddiness I felt with the moon-glow in my hands, the hope for our future it filled in me. Maybe I should have fought more to escape before I was taken to Gra'marah. I should have ran off instead of becoming so quickly accustomed to the routine of living in the palace.

I'd been like the weak and spoiled princesses of my father's tall tales. He said that they were based off of children's stories from the East Isles, and I'd always told him it was disappointing that these main characters would just sit around and what - wait for a prince to come save them from danger?

The instances where the king of Gra'marah violated my body and my mind sits heavy upon my shoulders, and my heart clenches with the shameful knowledge that I climaxed during my assaults. What was even worse was his smugness at my unwilling pleasure - like he knew that despite my protests I would be orgasming under his steel drum weight pinning me to his mattress.

And even worse is the degradation I endured between the naked bodies of two men I grew to trust. My memories may be hazy from my drugged experience, but I still remember the mind-numbing pleasure coursing through my body as I was bounced up and down with my legs spread for all of Gra'marah to witness my humiliation.

My mind continues to dwell on the perversion I've been sucked into. Every so often, my mind reaches back into the past, to recall happy memories of my parents and me, our whole happy family, and then just me and Era trying our best to survive in our lonely cottage by the forest. And every time I imagine my sister's bright and smiling face, my heart sinks a little more at my hopeless plight and another sob escapes from my chest in a weak whine. Like it was a lifetime ago, I feel like the memories of my peaceful life are quickly losing color and becoming out of focus.

I don't know what to do anymore. No one has bothered to tell me what will happen to me next. This cell could be my home until the day that I die.

With that thought looping over and over in my head, I bite the knuckle of my thumb to try to stifle the sounds of my crying.

Spots appear at the edges of my vision as I struggle to breathe normally, my body fighting to pull in more and more oxygen. I squeeze my eyes shut and bite down into my hand, powerless against my body's need to hyperventilate. My mind is racing almost as fast as my heart rate has risen. The thought that my panic will kill me strikes and it just makes me panic even harder.

"In and out." Sorrean words enter my consciousness and momentary shock stills my spiraling. I have no wherewithal to do anything but listen as the voice softly and slowly repeats its rhythm. The speaker breathes with me as I follow its guidance, ignoring the tears still streaming down my face. "In. Hmmmm. Out. Whoooo. One more time. In. Hmmmm. Out. Whoooo."

I follow the voice's direction for who knows how long, until I no longer feel trapped under the stormy waves of the sea, buffeted by each new tide. The swells of my panic have subsided so I let my eyes open. The light stings my eyes, which feel tight and sensitive.

"Hello, Selene." My lungs feel too small for the airflow that I need when I see the familiar figure outside. I hate that he's witnessing me in my tears and weakness and panic. I hate that he's here, his very presence gloating over my weakness and vulnerability. My belly clenches with anger and dislike, but fear grips my heart. I only draw in a breath, willing myself to keep my breaths regular in front of the king of Gra'marah.

"My late mother suffered from many panic attacks. I'm no stranger to helping people... Return to reality." I only pull in cool air in a slow but still shaky breath. I shift away from his piercing gaze. I feel like a cornered animal. "She would have liked you, you know. Of course, in a different way than I've enjoyed your presence."

"Leave me alone." My voice wavers. He seems to dislike my words.

"The sooner you understand the position you're in, the better it will be for you." I don't feel anything but anger at the sympathetic tone of his voice. I can hear an air of impatience around his voice. "I can give you anything you desire, little flower. Just let go - let me have my way with you."

Hearing his words, it's as if a piece of me dies. "Why are you so obsessed with me?"

"I want your submission. I want you to break."

I don't respond. This man is psychotic.

"Don't deny that you don't like my attentions. You came on my cock just like any other common whore. Give yourself over to me and I'll fulfill what you need - what your body craves. Look at me, Selene." I think it might be the morbid curiosity that draws my gaze to him. I see the fervency in his eyes and it terrifies me. The possessiveness over me that I see in that second is enough to send ice down my spine. He crouches down, his normally tall pillar of a figure stooping down to my level. It's suffocating. "You can't keep lying to yourself. I told you that you have a body made for fucking, but more than that is your spirit. It's screaming to be taken. You need to be owned and it's as if I'm the only one that can see it."

"Just - just leave me alone." His words send a thrill through my body, but it's coupled with the sick feeling in my gut at his deep dive into my psyche. His analysis of my reaction to my body's treatment by his hands hits a little too close to home. I'm so terrified of how much my body responds to his touch.

He smiles a little too casually for my comfort and makes to leave. "I'm going to enjoy breaking you, Selene."

"Wait! You can't - you can't do this to me. You need me. Gra'marah needs me. That's what you all told me." The desperation is clear in my voice.

"You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?" I want to scream with frustration at his patronizing tone. "You'll be given my harem piercings and brandings come morning. Welcome to serving me."

"You can't do this to me!" But King Azrath spins on his heel and walks out, my last words falling on deaf ears.

The silence that falls in my cold cell makes me feel lonelier than ever.

---

If you enjoy my writing, please consider leaving your comments, voting, and following me. I appreciate your thoughts!