Queen Yavara Ch. 35

"Go fuck yourself."

"Don't act like the thought hasn't crossed your mind."

"My only position will be for peace." I said, "Vassalage is not an option, nor is me sitting on the throne, as absurd as that is." I twisted my name on the table, pointing it toward Leveria's name, then Ternias's. "Whichever one of you stubborn fuckers finally decides to call for peace will get my support. I won't threaten your throne, Leveria, but I will make it quite uncomfortable."

She laughed. "Don't be naïve. A unanimous vote of no confidence has never happened by one side convincing all the nobles to vote against the crown. It happens by getting enough nobles that you can kill the rest without consequence. Whoever you throw your support behind, the other will die."

I smiled crookedly at her, "I can be heartless."

"Not that heartless." She said softly, and brushed my pinky with her own.

I scowled at her. "We agreed to keep things separated."

"You're a solo act now. In this game you're about to play, there are no rules. The dirtier you fight, the better your chances of surviving. And I fight very, very dirty." She hissed. Her eyes traversed the length of my body, resting on the bulge in my dress.

"Is court adjourned?" I asked, arching by back to present my body.

Her eyes met mine once more. "You betrayed me today. If you were anyone else, you'd be begging for death right now. I think I'm owed a little something special tonight."

I stared into that cruel sapphire gaze, that imperious, beautiful face, and my cock grew rigid against my satin dress. I knew what she wanted from me, but even if I was half dark-elf, it scared me. And yet, I loved her, and her perverse sadism was part of that love. Ever since she'd inflicted her horrors upon me in the catacombs of Castle Thorum, she had held back on her worst desires. She had let me be dominant, she had let me abuse and ravage her, and she had loved it, yet I knew the dark corners of her mind still held fantasies that she wanted to fulfill upon my flesh. In truth, those horrific nights in the catacombs had changed me in dark ways too. Agony, terror, blood. Pleasure.

I took one breath, then another, and whispered, "Go get your knives."

YAVARA

I scratched the fox behind the ear, and she nuzzled her head into my lap with a growl. I stroked her down the spine, and she looked hopefully up at me. I shook my head, and she whimpered, and rested her head back. Ever since I'd left Alkandra, I'd kept April with me, safe from Brock, and safe from her own unnatural desires—those desires I'd carved into her mind. I didn't know if I could undo the damage that I'd done, but I was going to try. I owed it to April, and I owed it to Adrianna. I owed it to myself to prove that I wasn't the monster I feared I was becoming.

"There, there," I whispered to her, "it's alright."

"Great Froktora, great wizard, great queen," Gorlok Hertaki said, prostrating before us, "I have come at your behest."

"You have come in chains, coward." Brock said gruffly beside me.

"Coward?" Gorlok inquired at the ground, "Am I a coward for surviving? Is that my crime?" He looked up at Brock, "I charged headlong into that attack, and when we engaged the flank of the elven cavalry, and I turned to call for reinforcements, why did the centaurs just stand there and watch us?" He snorted, "I'm no fool, Froktora. I knew in that moment that my fate had been sealed. Then I learned later that the other chieftains and their heirs had all died gloriously in battle, and you call me a coward."

"I'll tear your bones out!" Brock roared to his feet. I put a hand on his thigh, and guided him back down.

Zander tapped his staff on the ground. "We lost tens of thousands on the battlefield, Gorlok. Do not look for a conspiracy where there is none. Chieftains lead their men, and so they are the most likely to fall. The centaurs you called for aid had been given orders to act as support, not reinforcements; you were mistaken. When you broke off your attack, you risked the elven cavalry summitting the hill and seeing the hidden force there. Had they not decided to pursue your cowardly flight, the whole battle may have been lost." Zander turned to me, "I think you should have him executed immediately."

"Send him into exile." Brock growled.

I stroked April, and considered the orc before me. Gorlok was right, there had been a conspiracy. Zander and I had meticulously planned the battlefield deaths of every chieftain of the Ten and their heirs to secure my power over the horde. Brock had hated the idea; it was why he voted for mercy even though he despised Gorlok.

"Gorlok Hertaki, I bid you to stand." I said. He did, his chains clanking. "Your actions on the field were cowardly and put the whole horde in jeopardy. For that, I strip you of your title, I erase your family name, and I sequester all lands that you claim. You are Gorlok of Alkandra now, and you will burn your tribal tattoos from your flesh."

"I would rather you just kill me." He grunted.

"That would be a pity." I replied, "For my army would lose its greatest warg-rider. You may not be a chieftain, but you will still be a general, and when the war is over, you might find that the fair rulers of Alkandra treat their heroic generals very, very well."

His lip curled at the thought. Ever since Trenok had come back from Alkandra and recounted his tale, legends of the hybrid's angelic beauty and demonic deeds had been told around the campfires, elevating Adrianna and her compatriots to the status of sainthood amongst the orcs.

Is it wise to let him live? Zander asked in my mind.

It was you who told me to spare Adarian and turn him into an asset.

There was never any risk of Adrianna inciting rebellion.

Gorlok is no headstrong fool. He'll play ball to get ahead in the new world. Find use for him, Zander.

Gorlok grunted, and rose to his feet. "If that is your verdict, Your Highness."

"It is." I said, and nodded to the guards. They unshackled the orc, and he was escorted with dignity from the tent. I turned to Zander. "Is that the last order of business for today?"

"Drake Titus wants to know when his next delivery is ready."

I frowned. "He's getting impatient."

"You did make a promise, Your Highness." Zander said, "It's best that you don't get too attached."

Brock grunted next to me. "The sooner you get them out, the better. If the horde learned what you were really doing with those Highland officers, there would be riots."

"Which is why we are doing it in secret, Brock." Zander said.

"We're doing a lot of things in secret these days, Wizard."

"Enough." I said, raising one hand. "Zander, are they ready to make the journey?"

"They are fully-developed."

"And we're going to just throw them away to Drake Titus." Brock growled, "It only took eight of them to build Alkandra from nothing, and now you're—"

"If you think this decision is easy for me, Brock, you are mistaken." I said sharply, "Every hybrid I create is like a child to me, and I have given fifty of them to Titus already! We all must make sacrifices in war, as you well know."

Brock clenched his jaw, but did not respond.

"Zander, you will prepare the hybrids for their journey." I said, then turned to Brock, "And you, my Froktora, will come with me."

BROCK

The Highland Rift towered over everything. It was a great wall that stretched from horizon to horizon, every inch of it fortified. Ballista, trebuchets and catapults loomed threateningly atop its ridgeline, and the glint of golden helms could be seen watching us from above. Even with the Dark Queen and all her great power, there was no way to assail the rift without taking massive casualties. Still, it was doable. Tens of thousands would die, but the Highlands would be mine—or Yavara's. I had told her as much, but she insisted that we spread the lines out and bleed the Highlanders for a season before we think about an invasion.

Think about an invasion. I thought bitterly to myself. With Elena and Prestira dead, I had hoped that Yavara would have no compunctions with finishing this war once and for all, but she was delaying the decision. Maybe it was for the best. After what Trenok had told me about Adrianna and the other hybrids, I knew my title of Froktora would mean next to nothing once the war was over. And then what? Would I spend the rest of my days in bars and brothels, fat and pissing on myself as I boasted about deeds no one gave a shit about anymore? Would I stand in the arena and try to recapture old glory as a gladiator? That would've been very appealing to a younger me, but not now. I hadn't clawed my way to the top of a kingdom just to become a celebrity. I had grander ambitions in mind.

Yavara surveyed the causeway that led to Mid Fort, her hands resting impatiently on her hips, her perfect ass painted with black leather armor.

Ask her, you coward. Came the voice in the back of my head. Grow a sack, and fucking ASK HER!

But I couldn't. There was a coldness to her now, a levelheadedness that tempered my confidence. She was no longer the carefree girl who would make rash decisions on the whim of the moment. She'd changed since coming back from Alkandra. She'd stopped drinking, she'd stopped rampantly fucking, and she'd stopped partying until dawn. It worried me. The Dark Queen was supposed to be chaotic and hedonistic, engaging in self-destructive revelry because she was indestructible. Now she was as calculating as Zander, and I knew I was not the answer to her equations.

"Why have they not sent an emissary?" Yavara asked, "Surely they'd want to open communications."

"Peter Shordian is an old-school tactician." I said, "He has the high ground, and he wants you to know it. An emissary will arrive, but only at his time."

"All this military posturing is so fucking pathetic." Yavara sighed, "Why does everything between men have to be a dick-measuring contest?"

"If that's how wars were decided, we would've already won."

She smirked over her shoulder at me. "Are you so sure about that?"

"Line me up shaft-to-shaft against any elf."

"There's a very fine line between machismo and flagrant homosexuality, and you walk it precariously, Brock."

I grabbed her leather-clad ass, and pushed my middle finger into her crack. I felt the supple flesh where she kept the cutaway in her armor, and penetrated her favorite hole. She sighed splendidly, and leaned against me, subtly arching her back so that my finger could slide deeper. All around us, the army mulled about, but none could see what I was doing to their queen in broad daylight, and I knew the idea turned her on, for I felt the wetness dripping down her taint.

"If you were a man, my queen, you'd be the most notorious faggot on Tenvalia. No woman should garner so much pleasure from where she shits." I growled lowly in her ear.

She purred in response, wilting against me, my words arousing her almost as much as my exploratory finger did.

"Now," I said lowly, "do you want to tell me what happened in Alkandra?"

"Nothing." She moaned breathily.

"You were never a good liar."

"I've never lied to you."

"But you are now." I pressed against her vaginal floor from the wrong side, and her knees buckled, "Why?"

"You're awful inquisitive today, Brock." Her breathing was becoming rapid, "And you have me at a bit of a disadvantage."

"Are we sparring with words? What does advantage matter?"

"I have always been forthright with you." She gasped, "Just because I have a secret, doesn't mean I'm being deceptive!"

"What happened between you and that whore-governess that's put you on edge?"

"That 'whore-governess' is the mother of your grandchild."

"Whore-governess, whore-queen; what does it matter?" I growled, pushing and twisting my finger until her rectum was seizing around me with pleasure, "Your kind are all the same in the end. You're as weak to my finger now as you were on that first night we met, only now you're not pretending you don't love it."

With a whine of immeasurable stress, Yavara gritted her teeth, and thrusted her hips forward. My finger popped free from her ass, and she stumbled as though struck, her legs shaking. Never since I'd known her had Yavara willingly ended an act before orgasm, but she did now. Her face was flushed, her eyes were wild, and her breathing was heavy with desire, but she stayed her compulsions, and straightened.

"I love you, Brock, but if you ever try to coerce information from me again, that finger will be up your own ass, and it will be removed from your hand."

"Of course, my queen." I said, bowing my head, "I only wished to know the source of your anxiety so that you could share the burden with me." I gave her a rueful look, "I don't want you to think you can't trust me. I've been with you since the beginning."

Her expression softened. "You've been my most loyal man, and it's not that I don't trust you; it's that I don't know if I can trust myself." She looked up at causeway that led to Mid Fort, "I know what you want me to do."

"It doesn't matter what I want."

"It does. What you want is what the horde wants. Even in Alkandra, the people cheer for conquest, invasion and vengeance." She tilted her head, studying the ramp, "You were right about me, I am weak to desire. Even before I became a dark-elf, I was weak to my compulsions. Before sex, it used to be killing that I loved. What does that say about me, I wonder? I'd killed scores of beasts before my seventeenth birthday, and yet I thought Leveria was a monster?"

I just grunted uncomfortably. When Yavara brought up her sister, it was almost always for a moment of introspection that I couldn't help her with. I knew she feared being compared to Leveria, and I knew in those moments of fear, that she wished I were Elena, or maybe even Adrianna. There was a bond between dark-elves that no one but them could understand. She had hated Thomas Adarian as I had hated him, but she loved Adrianna in a way that she could never love me. It didn't arise a jealousy within me, but set a cold sorrow in my gut. I glanced at the kitsune fox panting contentedly beside Yavara's feet, and knew why she'd taken her gift back from me.

"You think it's weakness to follow the will of your people?" I asked her.

"It's weakness because I would do it to feel good, not because it is right."

I pointed at the ridgeline. "The people on that side of the rift will never allow us peace. If you think orc hatred runs deep, then think on your own nation's odium. A thousand years of occupation, of culling us like wild swine, of keeping us broken and stupid while the rest of the world moved on. They will never settle for peace, my queen. They will never negotiate. They will wait until you're not watching, and then they'll cut your throat. Alkandi negotiated a peace deal with the Highlands after her defeat at Castle Thorum. Five-hundred years later, they killed her in her bed."

"So we should do the same to them?"

"You know I speak the truth. In the end, it's not about vengeance or justice. It's about survival."

Yavara chewed on her lip, and muttered, "There might be a way, Brock, but I have to make sure it's true."

"What?"

She shook her head, and tapped her foot as she regarded the fortress. Then she let out an exasperated sigh, and growled, "Good Mother, I'll just fucking do it myself."

FIELD MARSHAL SHORDIAN

I had watched Princess Yavara Tiadoa grow up. The whole kingdom had, and she was the delight of a nation. From the adorable adventurous toddler, to the stunning bow-wielding warrior, we'd all marveled at the Highland's prize jewel. It made the cut that much deeper when we found out who she really was. The last time I'd seen her, she was charming the Noble Court before her solo adventure to the east. Well, that was the last time I'd seen her as Princess Tiadoa. The last time I'd actually seen her was when she was a screaming angel of death hovering over the battlefield, raising her arms in victory as we fled for our lives.

As I watched her through my spyglass from atop the rift, she seemed less like the dark angel. She was in a discussion with Brock, an argument by the irritated tilt of her posture. Then she walked away from him, and meandered to the bottom of the causeway. She looked one way, then the other, then feigned a yawn, and with her cupping hand concealing her muzzle, she snuck her forefinger into her right nostril, and picked her nose. For about thirty seconds, she struggled to flick the booger from her finger. It was passed from her thumbnail to her index nail, refusing to fly off. She finally resigned herself to wiping her hand in the grass, then yelped and started upright when a bullfrog leapt from the spot. She stumbled back, fell on her ass, then hastily got to her feet, whipping her head around to see if anyone had been watching. I chuckled to myself. Her face slowly turned, and from across half a mile of distance, those orange eyes fell on me. I wasn't chuckling anymore. There was a flash of black, and she was gone. I readjusted my focus on the spyglass, and my entire field of vision was filled with a blazing orange iris.

"Field Marshal Peter Shordian," the Dark Queen said, "it is rude to spy on a woman."

I slowly lowered my spyglass. I didn't feel terror; I never did in the face of death. The terror would come later in the form of panic attacks that left me in a puddle of cold sweat. I suspected there wouldn't be a later for me, so I just nodded curtly to my harbinger.

"My apologies, Your Highness. I was merely scouting the enemy."

Yavara chuckled, "If I knew I had a secret admirer, I would've worn something more fun."

I glanced down at the ample exposure of cleavage she had in her leather one-piece, then gave her a frank look. "I don't know much about women's armor, but this seems wholly impractical."

"A woman's greatest weapon is her beauty." She looked to the side, "You can tell your mages to back off. I mean you no harm, and there's not nearly enough of them to make a damn bit of difference if I did."

I raised my hand, and the surrounding warlocks took a tentative step back. "What is it you want then?" I asked.

"It is custom for entrenched armies to open a line of communication with each other. Since you have not yet done it, I decided to extend the gesture." She held out her hand, "I believe you have a hand mirror at your hip." She pointed to the Jonian Spire behind me, its silhouette barely visible from so many miles away, "And I believe it connects to that tower, and that tower connects to another tower, and so on and so forth until we reach the last tower at the top of Castle Bentius, where my sister now resides."

"You would be correct in believing that."

"And I assume you have a mirror in your tent."

"I do."

"And so that makes this one an extra." She smiled brightly.

"It does indeed." I said, and handed it to her.

She took it graciously. "Thank you, Peter. When this war is over, I'll make sure it's returned to you." And then she leapt off the side of the cliff, dove head-first into the ground, and landed on her feet ten stories below me.

General Krakis stepped cautiously beside me. "Did you see—"

"Yes." I said, "I saw it very well."

He shook his head, a bewildered expression on his face. "Someday, I'll sit with my grandchildren on my knee, and recount the story of this war. And when they ask me about the Dark Queen, how will I tell them that the only thing I know about her, is that she bleaches her asshole?"

LEVERIA

"Torture me." Elena whispered, her voice shaking.

She was spread out on the bed, her wrists and ankles bound to the posts, her magnificent body naked and vulnerable. I'd already placed the clamps on her nipples, and had roped her breasts until they were but purple bulging globes, now separated to display her sternum. Her delicate pussy lips were pulled outward into grotesque triangles of flesh by the clamps I'd placed there, the cold metal biting into her, opening her curtains to expose her moist ruby insides. Her cock was dark with pressure above the ring at her base, squeezing until delicious frosting bubbled from her tip.