Sisterhood Ch. 04

"Lelinahdara," I whispered, and the four naked Red Sisters all looked at me. She was proclaimed the Kiss of House Leluin; the most favored, though not the eldest, simply by merit. For being as powerful a Priestess as she was.

The Red Sister Prime snapped her fingers and they started moving up the steps. I was not guided; I was expected to accompany them under my own volition. As if I dared refuse.

I climbed the nine steps with them and paused, unsure whether to go ahead and lift myself onto the altar or not.

Unsure? I couldn't afford any uncertainty right now. I moved forward toward the stone marbled table at a speed that made me appear unafraid but also allowed me to catch any disapproval from the Priestess if I was doing something wrong.

She held up her hand and I stopped instantly and with a touch of relief.

Lelinahdara approached me instead and was looking into my eyes. Her mouth curved slightly and her voice practically embodied the reverence on the faces of the watchers: rich and seductive, a speaker's voice. "Your eyes are blue. It always denotes an unusual Drow."

Her eyes were a green brighter than emerald; even more unusual but I made no reply on that.

"What is your name and title, daughter of Lolth?"

"Sirana Thalluensareci," I answered.

The Priestess nodded and stepped away from me. She reached into her pouch and sprinkled a light dusting of something atop the blood-stained altar; she'd begun chanting in a tremulous alto as she stepped around to face the congregation of Red Sisters.

She nodded again to the four Drow standing on the platform with us, and they immediately came forward to seize me; one grabbed each limb and lifted me up as roughly as if I was resisting them. I emitted a cursed shriek and felt my body being drawn out, my arms and legs held taunt as they raised me up and set my bare, scratched back on the cold, stained marble.

They didn't let go but held me helpless, spread-eagled as the Priestess came into my view again. Lelinahdara stood beside me and placed her hand on my abdomen. Her flesh was warm and dry; I could tell mine was chilled and sticky. Her hand glided up to rest above my pounding heart. She was still chanting softly and I could feel a tingle coming into me from her hand.

What was she doing? Juarinia had done this but I'd never felt any quiver of energy before. Not like this.

The tingle started to trail up from my chest, through my lungs and neck and into my head. It felt like fingers were cradling my brain inside my skull, probing and squeezing for who knew what. My eyes were tightly shut as my head started to throb against even the meager light of the spare torches on the walls.

*Interesting,* her voice drifted through me, *your sister must have had a contact inside our temple, who divulged more than she should have about our rituals. Did you ever know who it was?*

I shook my head, my eyes still closed. *No, Priestess.*

*No matter. We'll find her if she still lives. Right now, I want to know your most feared ritual that she did to you. Show me.*

My body struggled haard as she searched around inside me, though the Red Sisters still held it firm. *Stop! No—!*

*I know she couldn't get away with the real sacrifices without your Matron finding out,* the Priestess coaxed. *It can't be that bad, Sirana, you still have all your limbs and digits, you still have your eyes and all your organs. I know this, I've just healed the damage you took from your trials. I know your body now. I'll perform the ritual for you and you'll see what real power is. Juarinia was nothing to fear.*

*But she was someone to see die,* I seethed.

*I'm not arguing that. If you hadn't done it, we would have when she applied yet again for our training. We were about to accept her before she died. I see now she would have given herself and her companion away eventually. She's dead now, however, and you'll now be the center vessel for a true ritual for the glory of Lolth. Survive it with your mind intact, and the Red Sisters will be your new family. But you have to give me what I want first.*

All or nothing. Keep resisting and they'd just plunge a dagger into my chest here and now, and forget me with barely a muttered, "Pity."

I drew a deep, shaking breath, relaxed and stopped fighting her. Lelinahdara found the memory in an instant.

*Vicious. The infertility affliction. She left you unable to bear children, Sirana.*

*You think I don't know that, Priestess?*

*How could you ever be Matron of House Thalluen then?*

*Because Juarinia simply would not be, by my will.*

*You've crippled your House. Kaltra is infirm. You are barren.*

I knew my body was struggling again, trembling with rage and fear, though I felt oddly separated from it as the Lelinahdara's voice filled me. Someone's mouth and tongue played at the junction of my thighs, teasing and soothing, yet someone else was biting my nipples, causing sharp pain.

*She couldn't get away with it...she just couldn't! I would find a way to get an heir once I was Matron.*

*And you could be so sure...*

I flinched as I felt something hot drip onto my thighs, my belly, my chest, scalding my skin. I knew what it was without opening my eyes; candle wax. The drips came too frequently and quickly became too much; I screamed at the next set of successive, stinging burns. The loud wail seemed to be what they wanted for now for no more wax fell.

Mouths were sucking on my toes, my fingers, and what had to be a thick candle was pushed between my legs, spreading me open and filling my birth canal.

A fist gripped my hair and pulled so that I had to squirm and shift my body up further upon the altar so that my head was no longer supported by the granite but leaned back, my draping hair almost touching the floor. I could smell aroused female petals right in front of me and the Red Sister still gripping my hair forced my mouth on her, demanding I service her with nary a word.

I hadn't done this since Juarinia died, yet it would seem one never forgets. My tongue flicked out and up and I started sucking on her, eating her almost automatically.

I felt someone withdraw the fat candle from me, and the Priestess was chanting again. I immediately remembered this part and writhed desperately, my cry of fear muffled between silken thighs. The Sister pressed me to her so hard as to almost suffocate me. Two others still held my ankles and my legs apart, and the fourth draped her weight across my chest to hold me down.

*NO! No, no, no, no...please no!*

Though I couldn't see her, I knew the Priestess would be standing between my legs with her ceremonial dagger unsheathed, the naked blade shining. I was to take that dagger as I would a phallus, feel it thrust up inside me.

Juarinia had almost killed me with this ritual, and for hours I suffered, bled, until she—out of sheer fright at being found out when the Matron came back—had brought me a healing potion from somewhere. I took a chance and drank it, and the flesh had finally healed on the outside. Inside, I knew there was scarring not completely repaired. And I could still say nothing to Mother about it...

The cold metal touched my thighs, its point scraped upward, drawing small pinpoints of blood, I was sure. The tip was nestled between my lips and paused there.

*Sirana? Did you ever know what this ritual was for?*

I was almost mindless in my fear. I couldn't answer, even with a thought.

*Sirana! Answer me!*

Every breath I heaved was steamy, fragrant, a Drow's intimate scent filling my head and her heat warming my face. Yet I was so cold. Damn sisters. Lolth curse all sisters...!

*Are you ready to break, then?* the Priestess taunted me. *I'll shove this blade inside you and you'll bleed out on the altar. What a pathetic end, exactly as Juarinia planned for you.*

I screamed in rage, thrashing as I could, unable to break the Red Sisters' hold. *F-fuck you, Priestess! Fuck you all!!*

She chuckled inside my head. *You shall, Sirana.*

She began pushing the dagger in and I expected fully to feel the edge slicing me open again. Instead, I felt the hard, thin shape of the naked blade but not the razor sharpness, as if it was somehow covered in a protective sheath.

I also felt a tingle, then a rush of energy that flooded into my guts and caused me to gasp with the keenest points of pleasure and pain I'd ever felt. I was still taut as a bowstring and still made wild sounds between another Drow's thighs, but now I could barely comprehend what I was even trying to say.

More?...Don't stop...?

She kept about half its length moving in and out, and instead of the ripping and shredding I remembered, it was electric and mind-wracking, like being squeezed in the grip of an endless orgasm.

*This is Lolth's Threshold, young one. This was the ritual she was trying to mimic. The longer I concentrate on your sensation, the greater the reward. Lucky for you, I am one of the best. If my relic touches the entrance to your womb, Sirana, it heals what was destroyed. It makes you fertile again. But I haven't reached your core yet. Can you take more of me without going mad?*

I writhed, I could barely think. I don't even know if I was breathing. I was hardly aware that I was anymore. *I...I...oh!....oh, Lolth!*

The Priestess's voice crooned to me. *Yes, Sirana, isn't she just? Go ahead and feel it. Do you want to become whole again? Do you want Sisters again? All or nothing, Sirana, just as you've always taken your existence, every goal you've ever had.*

I shuddered, straining against the exhalted flood of sensation, but I did understand what the Priestess was saying, even through my ecstasy and my agony. I twisted my head violently to the side and somehow released myself from the grip of thighs. My body undulated and I scooted down the altar, thrusting myself fully onto the ceremonial dagger, feeling the magic-charged point press into the entrance to my womb. I screamed.

I'd done it; I'd taken the entire length of the dagger willingly. My eldest sister had asked the same thing of me; it was a requirement, she said. I would have rather died. I almost did when she lost her patience.

This energy, though, centered in my core was intense, hot, and divine. I squirted when I peaked for the last time, spraying clear fluid over the dagger's handle and the Priestess's hand. Then I collapsed and fell into a paralyzing afterglow, my legs dangling off the altar. I couldn't move, couldn't open my eyes, but I could still hear. Barely. I believed even the Priestess thought me unconscious.

"Well, Priestess?" It was the Red Sister Prime. "Will she come out of this with a useful mind?"

"Absolutely," Lelinahdara replied with confidence. "I could sense her to the very end; she was as lucid as any in the past who've survived this ritual."

A wet, sticky hand adorned with metal lay itself over my abdomen and the Priestess continued.

"She's also not barren anymore. She will be highly fertile for the next few days. Unless you wish her to catch a child, keep males out of her reach. She will be craving them."

"She won't be seeing any males where she's going, Lelinahdara, not for weeks."

"Sirana is admitted, then?" The third voice was Varessa D'Shea.

"She is ours to train, Sister. We'll inform her Matron after she's been taken outside of the City."

One corner of my mouth twitched. It was just as they said.

No demons left but them.