Queen Yavara Ch. 25

LEVERIA

"...three, two, one!" Elena grunted, and with a heave, we tossed Sir Fraldias's corpse down the spiraling staircase. It clanked and boomed as it disappeared into the stone blackness, then ended with a distant splash.

"How are you going to explain it?" Elena asked, catching her breath.

"I'm the queen of the Highlands; I don't need to explain anything." I smiled, wiping the blood off on my already-ruined night gown, "No one will question me about a missing knight, but a dead one at my door would've raised some eyebrows."

"It's going to stink in here if you leave him down there."

"The escape route leads to a drainage pipe that empties into the Bentius Bay. Sir Fraldias is likely halfway past the docks already."

Elena snorted, and pulled the lever by the fireplace. "And so Sir Piss and Shit is flushed." The secret passage closed, leaving only a brick wall. We turned around to look at the state of the room. A trail of blood led from the door, ruining a beige rug that had been woven by dawn-elf textiles, the very best in Tenvalia. The satin bedsheets were soaked in blood, sweat, and worse, and our clothing was a disaster of fluids.

"That's a lot of evidence." Elena muttered, "The servants will talk."

"Hmm." I mused, turning back around, "I am rather cold."

A minute later, the evidence was the tinder for a roaring fire, the priceless rug and luxurious sheets turned to fuel to bathe our bodies in warmth. We stood side by side, naked and filthy from the night before. I dared to touch fingers with her, and she dared to clasp our hands. And when I rested my head on her shoulder, she did not flinch or move away. It was a delicate thing, whatever this was, and so we tended it like an ailing infant, cautious and gentle.

"Do you wanna fuck again?" I whispered.

"Yeah." She whispered back.

Here, we were not cautious, nor gentle. Elena had me against the wall, driving as though to break me through it, forcing her cock so deep into me I thought she might pierce my womb. My legs splayed wide for her, my thighs jiggling with the ferocity of her thrusts, her fist entangled in my hair so that she could plunge her tongue into my mouth, tasting my surrender, my depthless need for her hatred, her lust, her... whatever this was. Then her foot was pressing my face into the cold stone floor, and my ass was perched high in the air so that she could fuck my sucking shithole, her girth stretching me enough that my rim clung to her with every retreat, my pelvic floor tenting about her pole, heinous pleasures singing through parts of me that were not meant to know such things. Then I was riding her, my hips rocking like they'd never rocked before, my thighs squeezing as though I bestrode a bucking bull, her filthy cock sullying my pussy with the sheen of my rectum, the dirtiness only heightening the primal rage of it all, her need to degrade me, to punish me, and my desperate desire for her to do so. And when we came, we did so with our eyes and lips locked, devouring each other's mouths like lionesses in fervent combat, our bodies heaving to take all we could. Then the catharsis waned from us, and our breaths fell, and I crawled down Elena Straltaira to suck her clean, to taste the comingling of my pussy and ass, but mostly to savor her flavor, the heat of her, the pulsing rigidity. No; it was to see the look in her eyes when I did with my mouth what even Yavara, with all her succubus D.N.A and adventurous lechery, could not. Elena came a second time, her nectar flowing from her tip without pressure like lava from the throbbing head. I drank it all, then kissed her tip, then kissed her. When I made to nestle myself in her arms, she rolled away from me, but she did not protest when I outlined her body with mine.

"Do you like being the little spoon?" I whispered into her pointed ear.

"Sometimes." She muttered.

"I've never been the big spoon before." I mused, marveling at the feeling of her athletic back pressing against my soft curves, her plump buttocks molding against my pelvis. "I think I like it." I ran my fingers up her spine until I felt the flesh change texture between her shoulders. "What does this tattoo mean?"

"It means I saved the Terdini chieftain from a pack of succubi."

"Did it hurt to get?"

"Are you thinking of getting one?" She looked inquisitively over her shoulder.

"Good god, no!" I giggled, "Could you imagine me marked like a common sailor?"

Elena rolled until she was facing me. "In the Great Forest, those with the most tattoos are those of the greatest standing."

"Savages." I smirked.

"One was a friend of mine, a woman named Sherok. She was the one who persuaded me to ink myself."

"And then Adarian put an arrow through her eye." My smile broadened.

"You think it's funny?"

"It's amusing." I whispered, daring to put my arm around her. She did the same, and pressed her thumb into my shoulder, where a bruise had formed around the spot she's stabbed me. I gasped, the pain lancing up my arm, singing through the tips of my fingers.

"I guess I gave you an impromptu tattoo of my own." Elena smirked, pressing her thumb harder, "This, Leveria, this is what I find amusing."

"You sadist." I whispered.

"An interesting accusation coming from you."

"I never denied it."

Her eyes sparkled with something akin to amusement, but darker. "If you could, would you put me back in chains and play with your knives?"

"Only if you asked me to."

Elena snorted. "No one's that much of a freak."

"You're only eighteen; give it time." I laughed breathily, "You would be surprised at the way trauma seeps into lust."

She touched our foreheads, our breaths lingering in each other's mouths. "The only trauma you've known is self-inflicted. I won't feel sorry for you."

"I know." I whispered back, laying my thigh over hers, pressing our pillowing breasts to feel her pert nipples stabbing pleasantly into my own. She eased her grip on my shoulder, and caressed the clotted wound with her thumb, an echo of the delicious pain sounding through my body with every motion. I placed my fingers against her lush lips, and she parted them to let me enter her. She sucked each one with a sensuality that melted me, then she took my hand, and used it as a pillow. Was I lost in her eyes was she gazed at me? I couldn't say in the moment. They seemed to be depthless, and I wanted to drown in them.

"What now?" She asked quietly, tending the moment with caution.

"We have to address the Noble Court in a few hours." I nestled myself closer to her.

"We?"

"It's time to make your debut as ambassador. Are you nervous?"

"Yes."

I traced the crease of her lips with my thumb. "I'll protect you."

Elena snorted. "Better than you protected yourself last night?"

I smiled. "Two years of being a ranger have dulled your mind with metal and muscle. You think strength is just the ability to fight?" I wrinkled my nose at her, "Words are sharper than any blade, and stouter than any shield. A naked expression of terror can protect better than an unyielding face of bravery."

"Did Daddy teach you that?" Elena laughed.

"He did, and he taught well." I smiled impishly, "You came to my chambers to kill me, and now you hold me like a lover."

"You like to think you're the master manipulator, don't you?" She clasped my hand around my throat, "But if I were to squeeze, I would steal the words from your tongue, and then what weapon would you use to save yourself?"

"This." I hissed, and sheathed myself with her cock once more. My nethers were raw and swollen, but the soft walls radiated and saturated with desire just to feel her grow hard in me once more. Her expression became hungry and wanton, her eyes burning. She rolled until she was atop, her weight suppressing me, her cock sliding all the way in.

"An effective strategy." Elena smiled against my lips, "Though in battle, the goal is to not be stabbed by your enemy."

"I do a very different kind of battle than you, Ranger." I gasped, wrapping my legs around her waist, my heels pressing into her ass, "In my world, getting stabbed is par for course; getting stabbed in the front is a victory."

"Mmm, but I know how much you like getting stabbed from behind." Elena moaned, her other hand moving beneath us to penetrate my anus with one finger. She grinned as I whimpered. "I wonder what the nobles would think if they knew their queen was being invaded by the enemy every night?" She curled her invading finger until it pressed against her cock from within, and I mewled like a whore for her. "I wonder what they'd think if they knew how easily she surrendered to me."

"Did I?" I gasped, "Or have I but lured you into a trap?"

Elena withdrew her finger with a pop, then brought it to my lips. Compliantly, and with submissive eyes, I sucked my ass from her. "You seem thoroughly conquered to me, Your Highness." She whispered.

I unwrapped my legs from her waist, and eased her out of me. "And now?" I asked, my voice tremulous.

Elena's smile faded. "You're bluffing."

"Perhaps." I grinned puckishly, fixing the expression so that I didn't betray the desperation churning in me, the vacancy between my legs aching like a hunger.

Elena withdrew from me, leaving the memory of her warmth on my flesh. "We should get some sleep." She muttered, then walked away, and closed the door behind her. If she had but looked back, I would've broken and begged for her with all my soul, but she didn't, and the sound of the door clicking shut echoed throughout the room, and in the annals of my mind. I sat up, my limbs a struggle of sexual lassitude, my abdomen a storm of unfulfilled need. There would be no sleep for me the rest of the short night. There would be nothing but the craving gnawing in my depths, and oh god, the remedy was right there! What was something as benign as pride to this starvation of desire?! I rushed to the door. It flung open. She was already there, the words poised on her lips: a reason, an excuse, a lie to bandage the wound of pride. We stared at each other in the doorway, then pounced on each other like animals. We did not sleep that night.

YAVARA

As dawn rose, I stared out at the silhouette of the Great Forest from atop the tower. The catharsis of vengeance had departed, and left me hollow. I had crossed a line I could not uncross, a line that others had held me back from even as my nature compelled me to step over it. But those others were gone now; Prestira and Elena, and when I'd been left to my own devices and desires, I'd done horrific things. And I'd liked doing them. As I thought on Elena's fate, the anguish threatened to take me once more into the darkness where I'd stored my prisoners, and wallow in the worst of my compulsions. I needed Adarian to know my pain! I needed to see it in his eyes! I stopped myself with a shaky breath. Inflicting pain was like taking a drug, and once the high had diminished, the low would follow. I was in one of the lows now. I looked to the west, where hundreds of miles away, Elena was suffering in the darkness beneath Bentius at the hands of a woman who would never know the lows of her own cruelty. Though I'd taken Castle Thorum nearly singlehandedly, I had no delusions about rescuing Elena from Castle Bentius, and I could practically see Leveria's merciless smile in the darkness of the dying night. I turned away.

A pair of eagles soared over the eastern horizon, gracefully flying just above the tree tops. They grew nearer, and I began to question my eyes. I hadn't slept in three days. One of the creatures was certainly a great avian, but the other looked more humanoid the closer it got. Valkyries didn't fly so far south from the Winged Mountains, but I didn't know what else it could be. Then I saw the creature's tail, the two sets of horns atop her head, and the color of her flesh, and I wondered at my sanity. But such wonderings were washed away when the great eagle descended to the tower, and morphed into the figure of Zander Fredeon. I held myself together for a bare moment before I broke into pieces and fell into his arms.

"I'm so, so sorry." I whimpered for the final time, and pulled from him. His smile was kind, but his white eyes were dull and unfeeling, and I feared in what they saw in me. I wiped the tears from my cheek, and addressed the spectacular creature who had guided him here. "Thank you," I said, "I am in your debt."

"You are," a familiar voice spoke from her mouth, "but I am afraid the sum is too great for you to ever pay, so do not think on it."

I stared disbelievingly. "Arbor?"

"In the flesh once more." She smiled a small smile, "Though this body suits me better than Tulip's, or Crystal's, as you know her. Where are my surviving daughters?"

"In the catacombs. They're starving, Arbor. I don't think they can go another day without you." I twisted my lips, "I'm sorry I couldn't save your master in time."

"Elena Straltaira holds no dominion over me." Arbor said, stepping to the ramparts. She looked to the east, then to the south, "My sons will be here by noon, and your chieftain will be here by nightfall with a host at his back."

"Your sons?" I asked.

She ignored me, instead turning her head to the northwest. "The deer and the elk run headlong into Pines, elven fletching sticking from their flanks. The vultures fly in opposition as though in migration. What compels them, do you think?" She turned to me.

"The Highland army." I muttered, "They're eleven days away from Glacier Lake."

Arbor nodded, then dove from the ramparts, and caught the wind in her wings.

"Eleven days?!" Zander exclaimed, "We were supposed to have months!"

"Leveria ran a very deep misinformation campaign. It's her specialty; I should've foreseen this."

Zander grabbed me by the shoulder. "Yavara, how can you be sure?"

"Let me show you."

ZANDER

Thomas Adarian meant nothing to me. He wasn't the man who had killed Prestira; he was but the hand that dealt it, and Leveria was but the mouth that ordered it, but mine was the mind that set Prestira on the doomed path, and mine was the heart that made her walk it. To me, the high-elf chained to the wall was just a victim like Prestira. Even Yavara was a victim just the same.

"I have plans for him," Yavara said quietly, "but if you wish, I would let you have vengeance."

"Not justice?"

"There won't be justice until Leveria rots in the earth." Yavara muttered. A wail sounded from the adjacent cell, a desperate sound that was something between a canine's whine and a woman's moan. Adarian's jaw worked, his fists clenched to white knuckles above his shackles. I'd seen April writhing on the floor, her hands chained in such a way that she could not relieve herself. I saw the dead look in her violet eyes, and I knew she'd been broken just as Prestira had been.

"It's something Alkandi would've done, isn't it?" Yavara whispered.

"Do you wish to emulate her?"

"I wish to be strong."

I stared at Thomas Adarian, at his broken features and defeated face, at the rage that danced behind his eyes. "What did he tell you?"

Yavara handed me a blood-soaked notepad. "The Highland army is several times larger than we thought it was, and already marching. There are also several ranger patrols in the forest that could cause havoc if not neutralized."

I read through the notes, searching for anything that would give us even the slightest bit of hope, but there was nothing in the pages that could negate eighty-thousand men. Even if I established a portal to get the chieftains out, I'd never get more through than their extended families before the army reached Glacier Lake. Eleven days. Eleven days to organize a mass evacuation to Castle Alkandra, and that was still under construction. It didn't matter; eleven days wasn't even enough time to get the supplies needed for the journey, much less the subsequent siege.

"How did she raise an army so fast?" Yavara asked.

"It's amazing what fear will do to a nation." I muttered, sifting through the pages, "Add a national sense of betrayal, and you'll find no shortage of patriots. They adored you once."

Yavara snorted. "They adored the idea of me."

"We're all just ideas to others." I sighed, finishing the last sentence of Adarian's notes. I put down the pages, then immediately picked them back up.

"What?" Yavara asked.

"Leveria nationalized the army; what do you mean by that?"

"It was a letter from Droughtius; he didn't seem to happy." Yavara said, "Some people high up were worried that the army was too politically segregated, so they reorganized the regiments. Now each one has a mix of all the noble houses."

"Droughtius had reason to be angry." I chewed on my lip, "Any kind of military reshuffling is complicated; it takes weeks for things to settle during peace time, but a complete reorganization while on the move? It would be an absolute clusterfuck. He's fortunate to have them all moving in the same direction."

"But they are moving, and it doesn't really matter how disorganized they are when they outnumber each of the Ten eight to one."

"Soldiers only move because their commanders tell them to. If a commander falls, then the next in rank takes his place, and the machine keeps cranking along. It's easy when the regiments are organized by house, because each man knows his place in the machine. But you've been around officers, Yavara, you know how they are."

"They're an ambitious bunch, aren't they?" Yavara raised a brow.

"The most enterprising, self-serving lot of bastards you'd ever know. If it weren't for military rank-and-file, they'd be worse than the Noble Court, but because of the system, every officer keeps his eyes fixed on the position directly above his own. You can bet your perfect round ass that every officer in that army knew exactly who was directly above him, but now...?" I grinned back at Yavara, "Let's say a captain of the fifth regiment dies. Who does the major replace him with? A lieutenant from House Shordian? A lieutenant from House Ternias? Maybe a lieutenant from House Xantian?" I shook my head, laughing, "He'd naturally be inclined to promote an officer from his house, but then the colonel in charge of him might have objection if he's of a different house, and the general might have issue if he's from a different house."

Yavara's eyes sparkled. "It would be a damn shame if a captain of the fifth regiment were to die."

"Can you imagine the chaos if a general were to fall?"

Yavara's grin turned diabolical. "Can you imagine the chaos if all of them did?"

"That's a tall order."

"And you're such a tall man." Yavara batted her lashes up at me.

I laughed and embraced her, planting a kiss on the top of her head. She broke into tears again, and I held her through it, letting her vent into my chest, wishing that I could do the same.

"You better come back to me, Zander." She sniffled when we parted.

"I will." I said, drying her cheek with my thumb. I looked at Adarian. His fair hair was stained crimson, his jaw was swollen, and his lip was split. I walked to him, and though he knew I was capable of tortures he couldn't imagine, his face remained impassive, and his gaze never faltered. I dropped into a crouch before him until our eyes were level.

"We met once, do you remember?" I asked.

He nodded a fraction.

"It was what, twelve years ago?" I scratched at my beard, "Clartias Tiadoa had nominated you for head-ranger, and sent you to me for confirmation. Our conversation was brief, but you impressed me then, and I sent you back with my response."

He nodded again.

"There were seven candidates before you, if I remember correctly, and I sent them all back with an envelope. I suspect they all thought they'd gotten the job, right up until the point Clartias read them my response, but not you; you thought you'd failed even before I wrote it."