War Prize Ch. 01

"You must be starving. Drink this. It will help your pain."

She clamped her lips and her eyes shut. She felt the top of the tube pressed to her mouth, then smelled something sweet.

"Drink," he said again, sternly. "You need this sustenance. I will not allow you to die. So, drink on your own, or..."

He left the implication to hang. She knew exactly what he meant. She'd seen in the first camp she'd been brought to just after the fall of the city. A group of survivors had mounted a hunger strike. The guards let them go a week, then systematically strapped them into chairs and force fed them. She saw little profit in subjecting herself to that.

She opened her eyes and her lips. He guided the tube into her mouth and she sucked in. She hated that she immediately enjoyed the taste. It was thick, creamy and cold. Something sweet but not overpowering, with a slightly tart aftertaste that encouraged her to drink more. It soothed her throat instantly, and that with the first few drops her stomach reminded her how long it had been since she'd eaten.

While she was drinking, he softly stroked her cheek and down her neck. He held the bottle for her, and she sucked the beverage in. His hand wandered gently down her side, brushing her breast. His fingertips circled her still sore and swollen nipple, grazing it lightly and sending a shiver of pleasure through her. She moved to spit out the tube, but he pressed it deeper into her mouth, and she knew she needed the food. She closed her eyes against his intrusion.

His hand roamed further, down her stomach, around her navel, and lower still. She clamped her legs together when his hand reached her sex, attempting to prevent his searching fingers from finding what they sought. But he was patient, he rested his hand on her inner thigh, his longest finger barely touching her vulva. He didn't move again, until the strain of holding her legs so tightly wore her out and she had to relax. He waited still, until she was swallowing a large mouthful of the drink, then slipped his fingers into her softest folds and tapped the wetness there.

She was wet. She was wet, and her labia swollen. She'd known that. Her body was reacting to his familiarity. Her Mate had put her in so many similar situations, and despite her circumstances and her anger, she was aroused. She craved the touch, but didn't want to crave it. That's why she'd tried to deny him access. In so many ways this General reminded her of Him. In his tone of voice, his manner of speech, in the shape of his jaw and the size of his hands. Now, even in the movements of his fingers, tracing small circles around her clit, and gliding softly deeper. Even his chosen method of punishment recalled sessions with Him that had left her wracked from the sheer number of orgasms He forced from her.

She sucked on the tube, idly wondering how much fluid was in that bottle. She began to relax.

'It's drugged,' she thought. 'More chemical restraints so he can do what he wants with me.'

She tried to ignore the growing sensations of pleasure that the General's movements caused in her. She tried to deny the effect that his fingers were having on her. That he was touching her as gently and expertly as her Mate ever had. That the feel of the callous on the side of his finger thrilled her. That she was consciously preventing herself from opening her legs and allowing him to explore further. She kept her eyes closed, she kept her head tucked, pressed into her shoulders, barely moving enough to ingest the beverage.

The General's fingers kept working on her, and a soft moan rolled out from her mouth unbidden. She heard the General's responding grunt, and it sounded like satisfaction from him. He added another finger and pressed deeper. Now his thumb circled her nub while his two fingers plunged her depths, slowly but rhythmically and insistently. She found herself sucking and swallowing in time, bobbing her head on the tube, mimicking other actions. She forced herself to stop, hoping that he hadn't noticed her lapse in control.

She felt so very tired as the drugs in the food began working in her system. The General's fingers moved faster, his thumb keeping pace with them and pressing into her pubis. She recognized the inevitability of it, that he was determined to draw a climax from her.

'So you can assuage your guilt, invader,' she thought. 'Tell yourself whatever you want. You may have my body, but that's all.'

She surrendered control. His fingers moved in her, and she opened herself to him. She allowed herself to relax, and to move in time with his movements. She conceded the effects of his ministrations on her physiology. She swallowed the last of the drink, and sank into the cot. His fingers worked in her. He dropped the bottle back on the floor, and used the now free hand to caress and massage her breast. He rolled her nipple between finger and thumb, and pinched down in a series of pulses that matched his rhythm below.

She felt the orgasm bubbling up from deep within her, a sensation she'd not experienced since the bombardment of her city had begun. The General's fingers were plunging deep now, thick and rough, strong and moving in exactly the right way. He carried her over, and she clenched around him, crying out softly, and jerking her hips onto his hand. She shuddered to a stop; all tension drained from her. She was awash in the last throes of the climax. She opened her eyes halfway, in time to see him put his fingers in his mouth and suck her taste from them. She saw him as he smiled. Then, before she could close her eyes again, he looked directly at her.

'They could almost be brothers,' she thought. Her heart jumped; her confusion spiked. She almost spoke, but clamped her mouth shut once more.

The General shifted in his chair, cupping her face with both his hands.

He leaned down as he spoke. "Yes, I am going to have you. I'm going to take you when I'm ready. We both know that. You're not a stupid woman. You've understood from the beginning what your fate will be. I'm not going to pretend that I can get you to like me. I don't much care if you do."

She was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. None of this was news to her.

He tapped her forehead, to gain her attention. "I do think that I can make this more enjoyable for you than you suspect." He waited until her eyes drooped, then leaned down and whispered, "He told me everything I need to know about you."

She would have reacted, but the medicine in the beverage had too firm a hold on her. She slept.

~~**~~**~~**~~

The dream was a memory, or as some dreams are, a series of memories. She hung, suspended in ropes in their favorite position. Face up, the harness at her pelvis cradling her tightly. The harness around her chest lower, allowing her back to arch and her breasts to fall toward her head. More ropes wrapped around her thighs, allowing her legs to open or close as He wished. Her hair flowing below her, and her arms bound together behind. Once again, He had balanced her weight and her shape perfectly.

She hadn't needed training to accept the ropes. She had loved them from the first time He immobilized one of her limbs. She had immediately relaxed into the constriction, floating in a dreamy haze while He worked. Hanging from His specially constructed frame only heightened her enjoyment. However long He allowed her in the ropes, she always craved more. He was usually gentle while she was suspended; He enjoyed her bliss, enjoyed prolonging it. He would stand over her, suckling her breasts, or between her legs, using the swinging motion to accentuate His movements in her. But He loved to watch her, loved to leave her bound in the air, touching her as He went about His day's business.

The dream shifted, to a memory of a dinner party He threw for His political colleagues. He placed her, hanging from His frame, at the edge of their main room. Her body became a table which held trays of canapés before dinner and small sweets after. The guests swirled around her, plucking morsels from her, some taking the time to stroke her skin. The sophisticates He'd invited were expected to pay no heed to the fact that their buffet table was woman clad only in tight loops of brightly colored hemp rope. For the most part they did. She floated, mostly oblivious herself, only paying mind as trays were placed and then removed. When the party ended, He adjusted the ropes so her head was raised. He fed her, by His hand, and praised her once again for submitting to His whims. As though she'd ever consider doing otherwise.

There were other memories in the dream, stricter bindings, harder suspensions. But even in those memories, her main focus was on His care of her. She dreamt of the time He took, making sure the tension restricted movement but not blood flow. She dreamt of His hands over her, the intimacy of the action as He wound the ropes. She dreamt of the trust she always felt, trust He had earned over the years. In the dream, hanging in His ropes might as well have been a physical manifestation of that trust.

Throughout the dream there was the sensation of His mouth on her breasts, suckling, drawing her taste deep into Him. As she drifted closer to waking, that sensation remained, and she felt familiar hands stroking her, parting her thighs, fingers taking their turns exploring her depths.

At the boundary edge of sleep, an orgasm shook her.

~~**~~**~~**~~

She opened her eyes, smiling. The General leaned over her, his hands pressed between her legs, and his mouth latched onto her breast. She recoiled, crying out, but he kept moving, he kept flooding her with the sensations and the motions. Her hatred peaked and cracked, and she shuddered under him in a bewildering mix of pleasure and fury.

The General moved from the head of the bed to the side. She was now on her back, arms and legs spread; each limb fastened to a corner of the bed. She realized this was no cot, but a true bed, large enough for him to join her in it. He continued to suckle her breasts, alternating, drawing her nipples deep into his mouth, licking them while vacuuming her skin into him. His hand worked below, now three fingers deep inside her and his thumb rubbing and rolling over her clit. Then the infernal device implanted in her began vibrating. She thrashed under him, her emotions compounding and confounding. She hated herself for responding, hated her body for enjoying it. She closed her eyes and tried to scream at him to stop. She tried and failed, and not due to lack of air or any vow of silence.

'Gods help me,' she thought angrily. 'I don't want him to stop.'

He bit down, lightly, on one of her nipples, and the jolt that shot through her caused her sex to coat his fingers and hand. He switched to the other nipple and repeated the tactic. He pinched her clit, rubbing furiously and her hips bucked into his hand. His fingers found her most sensitive spots deep in her canal, and her muscles clenched around him again. She could smell her own arousal, briny and sweet. She found her hand nearest his body was trying to reach out, trying to reach for him, to find his erection if she could.

The implanted device ramped up, and the General shifted positions again, putting his mouth where his hands hand been. His tongue found her, continuing the work his fingers had been doing. When he bit lightly on her labia, near her clit, she did scream. A scream of unadulterated pleasure which elicited an answering groan from him. She shivered and shuddered, her body shaking and her limbs rattling their chains. She gasped as the orgasm peaked, forcing more cries of pleasure from her. He eased off when she calmed. He stood and she saw that he had released his erection from his pants. He stroked himself quickly and efficiently, staring at her and saying nothing. Her juice glistened on his hand and his mouth.

She stared at him, dividing her gaze between his eyes and his cock. She banished the idle thought that she'd like to know what the rest of him looked like. The appearance of that thought startled and shamed her. But she didn't look away from him. She watched as his hand flew on his member, barely aware that her lips were parted and that she'd inclined her head up, toward him. He reached his climax and spurted, his seed shooting out and landing on her stomach. She twitched as the hot liquid landed on her, and inhaled his scent deep into her lungs. He'd marked her, much as her Mate used to. She laid her head back and closed her eyes.

She thought, 'Am I becoming resigned to this?'

The General left her restrained in the bed and exited what she now realized was the cordoned off area toward the front of the tent. She relaxed into position, knowing that there wasn't any point in resisting. As her mind drifted, she found her thoughts hanging up on two pieces of information she'd heard since the start of her punishment.

The first was the General's name. He had named himself Sydnor Curran-Toms. Her Mate's given name was Curran, not that she ever addressed Him by it. In her country that was an unusual but not unheard of name. But still it was another in a long line of coincidences she'd noted since she met this General.

Additionally, she thought about that whispered statement just as she was one the edge of sleep.

'What was it he'd said exactly?' she thought. 'Something about knowing everything he needed to know about me. No, that wasn't it. That wasn't the. "He told me." That's what he said. "He told me everything I need to know." Who? Who could have told him anything? No one knows me. I was unimportant as far as the government went, or society. I was just His.' She sighed. 'I was His Mate. His acknowledged Partner. Wooed and then trained by Him.'

She raised her head as much as she could, looking around the smaller area, listening to the sounds in the tent. She faintly heard water running, and then that sound shutting off as she listened.

'Wooed,' she thought, remembering again their first meetings and the way He presented Himself to her. For the first time, she allowed herself to wonder how much choice she'd had in the pairing with Him. None of that mattered now. She'd loved Him; she was sure He'd loved her. He was dead; she'd seen it happen. She'd been in the crowd, just after she'd arrived at this horrific camp, when the survivors were corralled and made to witness execution after execution. The crowd of enemy officers on the dais, watching their death squad earn its pay. The next day she'd attempted to escape the second time.

The General pulled back the curtain. His hair was wet and he now wore a robe, crossed over in the front and secured with a belt. He walked around the bed, unhooking the chains attached to her right wrist and ankle. He rolled her onto her left side, securing the limbs again on the other side of the bed. Each of the chains had a little slack in them, and she was able to arrange herself in fair comfort.

'I've slept in more bondage than this,' she thought.

The General walked around behind her and she felt the mattress shifting as he got into the bed with her. He pulled a sheet and blanket over them both. As he settled in, she felt him turning on his side, curling his body around hers.

She didn't sleep for a long time. She listened to his breathing. She wondered about all the coincidences. She made an inventory of their similarities. She searched and cataloged the differences. All the while one memory after another rolled through her of her life with Him. She thought of the pleasures it had brought her. The pain. She thought of the ways she changed, and the things she was now capable of that she wouldn't have believed before.

Her body still throbbed, but lightly, bearably. And after so many months of terror and loneliness, the feeling of this man wrapping himself around her comforted.