Queen Yavara Ch. 41

"What?"

"Field Marshal Shordian kept his mirror on during the battle. At one point, he was convinced that all was lost. The enemy had taken the courtyard, and was about to overwhelm the defenses at the gate. Then a miracle happened. The causeway was blown away by a wind so great that it threw boulders like leaves. The mages think it must've been an ancient spell laid into the rock of the fortress, but Shordian's family built those fortresses, and they know every stone." She narrowed her eyes at me, "Why did you do it?"

"Shordian gives his mages too little credit. They mounted quite a miraculous defense."

"You can't lie to me, Yavara. You never could."

"Then I won't bother trying." I said, and palmed the glass.

ADRIANNA

I wasn't sure what Arbor could and could not see. Her descriptions of her ethereal sight were always poetic and vague. 'I see through crook and bog, moss and leaf, bark and beetle,' she once told me, and I decided I was way too high at the time to consider what it meant. I always got the sense that she could see into people like a telepath—she could speak mind to mind—but I didn't think she could read thoughts. She could identify anyone walking in her forest, but how did she identify them? I did not know. All I knew is that she'd know me for who I was no matter what body I wore, and so going beneath her forest was the only option.

Furia held a week's rations in her hands. To deal with the craving, we would keep our elf forms well nourished, risking only a few minutes each day to transform to our normal selves so that we could eat. While one of us ate bread and beans, the other would feed from her throat. In case one of us lost control, we each had Nadi wood stakes. Just the touch of it on a vampire's flesh would send them reeling in pain. The pointy end was for the other vampires down there. If for whatever reason they decided to attack us in our vampire forms, the stakes had metal handles we could hold them from.

"And if Yavara comes back while we're away?" Furia asked.

"We went out on a goodwill mission to the northern isles to recruit the mermaids." I said.

She nodded, and took a deep breath. "I'm scared, Adrianna."

"So am I." I said. The dusk air was chilly, our breath frosting from our mouths. Before us, the darkness of the mine entrance seemed to whisper to the predator lurking beneath my flesh. Come, dance with me in the blackness, child. Be blood and flesh and nothing else.

"It's calling to me." Furia muttered.

"Me too." I said.

"No, I mean it's saying words."

"I know."

"What is it?"

"Something ancient."

She swallowed. "What if we get lost?"

"Rangers don't get lost."

"That's not what I meant. What if we... get lost."

I held out my hand, and she took it. "We can never be lost like this; like this, we're always home."

She cracked a smile for the first time in two days. "That was so fucking corny."

I cracked my first smile back at her. "But romantic enough to get my pussy eaten later, right?"

"Oh, most definitely. I think I just grew a second set of ovaries."

I laughed, then took one breath, and another. Furia did the same, and we flipped the switches in our minds, and became wild.

ELENA

"Beg, you fucking slut!" Huntiata snarled in my ear. His breath stank of booze, his sweat was rank, his stubble was coarse.

"Please fuck my pussy!" I screamed. Truth be told, I was more than happy with what he was doing, but he got off on the idea that fucking me in the ass was something I didn't like. I could tell by the gusto with which he railed into me, that no woman had ever let him in her back door before. I was quite delighted to feel his eagerness thrusting so viciously inside me.

"You don't deserve it, you faggot-whore!" He sneered, "This is the only hole you get fucked in from now on! A filthy little shithole for a filthy piece of dark meat."

"Fuck my fucking faggot ass!" I sobbed. I hadn't even gotten out of my dress before he forced me to my knees and made me gag on his cock. After he'd ruined my makeup and hair to his satisfaction, he'd thrown me into an armchair so that my front was against its back, pinned my wrists together high on my back so that it hurt my shoulders, then hiked up my dress, parted my cheeks, and drove himself all the way up my dirty hole. It had hurt; he was barely greased with my spit, and he drove into me like he was trying to dig my guts out. It had hurt in just the right way.

His crotch clapped against my jiggling cheeks, his chest pressed down on my back, and his face was beside mine, snarling his lustful hatred in my receptive ear. I could not hide my pleasure from him any longer, and my screams of feigned fear and pain became cries and moans. I could not keep myself static in sex when the pleasure was so great, so I undulated with him, backing my ass into his thrusts to take him ever deeper, relishing the way his brutal weapon abused the tender anal organ within me, each pulse against it causing a froth of cum to bubble from my tip and stain the front of my dress.

"You like it here, you fucking twink cunt?!" He snarled

"Yes! Oh god, I love it when you fuck my slutty little faggot asshole!" I wailed, "I can't help it! I'm just your little fucking whore! Please fuck my undeserving pussy! Fuck it with your filthy shit-stained cock!" Good god, if my mother heard me say that...

Huntiata grabbed me by the throat, hauled me out of the chair, tripped, and fell backward. Ever-graceful in the arts of debauchery, I corrected for the both of us, rotated to face him, and navigated our stumble to finish on the loveseat. There, with me straddled atop him, and his hands still wrapped around my neck, I elevated my pelvis, pulled his hot filthy rod out of my abused ass, and angled it into my slit. He thrusted hard, burying every wretched inch into my pristine sanctity, sullying me to the core.

"Thank you!" I whimpered through my strangled throat. He pounded against me, bouncing me off his crotch, making me feel every forceful impact. As the breath left my lungs, and my head swam with ecstasy, I began to dance against him, grinding my hips in a rotation to savor every surface that violated my pink channel. My cock stood rigid and unattended, and I grasped it, angling it upward and stroking it to the fervency of his thrusts. With my other hand, I reached behind myself, slid two fingers between my clapping cheeks, and easily entered the gaping hole he'd left there. I pushed in as far as I could, pressed against my churning prostate, and finished what he'd started back there.

"You come to my house like some street whore!" He snarled, squeezing until I couldn't even squeak a response, "How desperate are you, harlot of the court, that you would come crawling to me just for my cock?!"

I could only stare down at him, my eyes watery and darkened with the pressure of strangulation, but baring a look of such gratefulness for giving me this lust. I knew it galled him that I did not break. I suspected his poor wife would've wept if he did these things to her, but if I wept, it was only with tears of ecstasy. It galled him, yes, but it also enticed him more than anything. Had I not come to his house, he would've come to me in the night when his passions had finally overtaken his pride. I spared him the indignity. Dignity for me was just something to discard like lingerie, but it meant everything to the nobles.

I oscillated around his pumping shaft, my breasts jiggling with the force of each thrust, my hair flailing, my belly tensing with contractions. He pushed through the tender squeeze of my nethers, flattening my salivating walls, stretching me down to the bottom, hitting that spot deep inside. My eyes began to roll back. My anally-penetrating fingers lost their sensuality, and began violently rubbing against my pulsating organ, working it into a frenzy as my other hand pounded against my pelvis with the force of my strokes. I sputtered around my choking cry, spit leaking from my lips. I heaved with the ferocity of my climax, my back arching and curving, my abdomen flexing and stretching, the exertion of such terrible ecstasy taking me over! My fist met my crotch one last time, and I exploded all over myself, showering my tummy, breasts, and face, sullying my feminine beauty with my masculine filth. He came inside me, erupting into my starving center, his milk sating my deepest hunger. The last drives of our joining eased, and he let go of my neck. I landed gracefully atop him, and made a pillow of his broad hairy chest, enjoying the way his wilting cock pulsed inside of me, his cum dripping deliciously out.

"My wife will be home soon." He muttered, gently stroking my hair. Oh, how differently he treated me post-coitus now. He'd been awkward and unsure after the first time, but he soon learned to feel no shame with me. Now he held me like a lover, his hands traversing my curves, savoring my body with a covetousness that bordered on worship. I knew I was addicting, and I made sure to feed that addiction with him.

"Your wife could join us." I chuckled, "I have something she might like."

He tugged on my hair playfully. "If you were a man, I'd break your jaw for that."

"You nearly broke it anyway, Mr. Girth."

He grinned. "Now you're just stroking my ego."

"Is that what you call it?"

He laughed, and kissed me. I kissed him back, letting him taste the unbridled lechery he would never know from any other woman. I could feel him growing hard again, a man of nearly sixty, now suddenly with the libido of an eighteen-year-old. I was a bona fide miracle worker.

"Sorry, my lord, but your wife will be home soon." I whispered on his lips, "Besides, I want you to be eager for tomorrow."

"Where's my fucking money, Elena?" He whispered back.

"That's 'Lady Straltaira' to you, my lord." I scolded, "Either that, or 'faggot-whore,' but never 'Elena.' Only my friends get to call me 'Elena,' and friends don't pressure friends for money."

"You came here to reassure yourself of my loyalty. My loyalty has a price, especially my loyalty to you. You have a strange way of making me feel like a traitor."

"As you said, you're just taking a whore's money. No shame in it."

He studied my gaze. "When I look into your eyes, I see Highland Blue, but when those eyes express themselves, there's nothing but Alkandra in them. You're loyal to the Dark Queen, aren't you?"

I drew my finger across his throat, and grinned against his lips. "That's a very dangerous accusation, my lord. One that might get someone killed."

"Is it true?"

"Of course not."

"Then why do you want peace so damn much? Don't try to placate me with that armistice bullshit again."

I contemplated the man, pathing my fingers into his grey-blonde hair, enjoying the wizened creases of his hard, yet handsome face. "I don't trust you, Huntiata, but what I'm about to tell you, you won't be able to repeat anyway, because no one will believe it."

"What?"

"We lost that battle today. We were overrun in minutes, the fort was taken by surprise, and the enemy was inches away from throwing open the gate. That was, until Yavara turned the entire causeway into dust."

"Bullshit!"

"The second division was a total loss. Not a single survivor of seven-thousand men. They weren't surrounded, they weren't cutoff, and yet, they're gone. There's not even a hair left to identify them. They were vaporized in an explosion that rendered the entire causeway to rubble. Who else has that kind of power? Do we?"

"I don't believe it."

"Go ask the queen. She won't give you the truth, because the truth is dangerous to her, but if you ask the right questions, you'll find that she'll reveal the answer I've given you."

He narrowed his eyes. "If this is true, then why does the Dark Queen continue the war?"

"To kill the warmongers." I ended the path of my fingers upon his brow. "Unlike here in the Highlands, those who call the loudest for war in Alkandra must be on the frontlines to fight it. Yavara cannot appear weak to her people. She must seem like the battle queen they want her to be, and so she cannot pursue peace directly. It is why I fight so hard for it here."

"If she is truly unwilling to win the war, then why would we stop fighting her? An enemy that refuses to go for the throat is weak."

"You don't understand, do you? She could win at any time. She could blow down the walls of South Fort, march her army up the causeway, and be in Bentius within a week. She chooses not to win. She is waiting for us, but Lord Huntiata, you remember Princess Yavara; she is very impatient."

YAVARA

I couldn't find April anywhere. The kitsune fox had fled the tent during the chaos of the battle, and I'd lost her tracks somewhere in the camp. Not knowing what else to do, I searched for her.

"My queen, what are you doing?" Zander asked.

"Looking for April." I said, digging through a pile of decapitated bovine heads, "She's not with the succubi, so I figured that she must've gotten hungry. She does love cow tongue."

"Are you sure this is a job a queen should be doing?"

I glanced up to see several orcs gawking at me. I waved to the butchers with a smile and blood-soaked hand, and recommenced my search.

Zander laid a hand on my shoulder. "You need to select a new battle commander."

I hoisted up a cow head, and shook it with a frown. Foxes were known to burrow.

"My queen?"

"Don't orcs elect their own Froktora?"

"The tribes did. The tribes are gone. You have to choose."

I sighed, and dropped the head. Wherever April had gone, she would return to me. "Ok," I said, "I'll choose..." It was that moment that I realized I couldn't name a single orc in my army. When I looked around, all I saw were strangers and strange faces. How many of them had been intimate with me? Scores? Hundreds? And yet, I didn't know any of them. This army was never my army, but it was now. It was mine in totality, and I didn't want it.

I cleaned my hands off in a basin. "Find me our best commanders from each division. Pick the one who will be the most loyal to me. I trust your judgement."

Zander bowed and walked away. The mirror on my hip illuminated. I flew a hundred feet up, palmed the glass, and blurted, "Elena, it wasn't me. Brock—"

"I know." She said, "What happened?"

I took a deep breath through my trembling lips. I hadn't realized how off-center I'd been until Elena brought me back. The tears began to roll down my cheeks, and I told her everything. And though the gentleness of her words and the affection in her voice soothed me, there was not the deftness of her touch or the warmth of her embrace to comfort me. The cold fall air chilled me in my sky-bound confessional, reminding me that I was alone in this, and that the woman I spoke to, this woman that I loved, was ultimately my enemy. I could see that she was saddened by Brock and Trenok, but part of her that she could not conceal was very happy with what had happened.

"I'm so proud of you." She said, her cheeks wet, "It took enormous courage to do what you did, and don't for a second think you're a coward for it."

"That's very easy for you to say, Elena." I sniffled, wiping my nose with my sleeve, "You've washed your hands of this war, so you can point the finger at evil and call it what it is, but what of us with bloody hands? Everything I do is starting to feel like a betrayal, and I don't know what's right anymore!"

"You could offer peace." She said simply.

"You know I can't."

"No, you just won't."

"Any offer by me will be rejected now. The war-hawks in your court think they've drawn blood."

"An armistice then. Just long enough for the farmers to harvest what they can from the fields before the frost-bitten grain rots."

"No. I've made my sacrifices. I've shown what I'm willing to do to keep my word. Now you do what must be done, or accept what must happen."

Her face became hard. "Your army was defeated. Your Froktora is dead. These are the lies you've put out into the world, and for what ultimate purpose? Peace! Why can't you—"

"Why can't you, Elena?!" I snapped, "Every time we talk, you lay the blame at my feet! What of your blame?! You're in my sister's bed! Tell her that if she sends me a peace deal right now, I will sign it! Sing out to the nobles that if they want an end to this war, they just have to ask! We can negotiate the details behind closed doors, but I need a symbol of fucking contrition for one thousand years of oppression before I move one fucking sword off this border!" I screamed, and slapped the mirror hard enough for the glass to fracture.