Roderick was confused by the shift in the conversation. “Yes. Or at least I haven’t heard any reports that he’s dead.”
The king grunted. “He’s your closest living relative now, besides me, and I’m due for the graveyard. Call him to the palace. Either he’ll be your closes ally over the next few years because whoever is behind these assassinations will focus on him and you, or he’s behind it and it’s easier to deal with an enemy that’s close.”
“Thank you, Grandfather.”
“Give your mistress another bellyful as soon as you can,” he added. “Bastard children are better than no children. Your great-great-grandfather had more children than he could count by five different women. Caused a civil war, but he established a dynasty. So he was great in more than one respect.”
Roderick didn’t think that bedding five different women and starting a war that nearly destroyed their country was a good thing, but he wasn’t going to argue with his grandfather. There was no point in it now. “I’ll do what I can,” he said blandly.
“Good. Go.” King Dorian waved his hand at his grandson, dismissing him. “When I die, see that my funeral isn’t full of weeping women. Can’t stand crying women.”
Standing up, Roderick bowed slightly to his king, and exited the room.
Chapter Fourteen
After the shock of the murders and attempted murders of nearly every branch of the royal family, an uneasy peace settled through the palace. Roderick took over the role of Crown Prince, stepping into his father’s job. An investigation was launched into the murders. Security was tightened. Captain Gillard kept his head but spent as much time as possible outside the palace hunting for the killers. Some were easy to find, they were nothing more than desperate, hired men looking for easy money.
There had always been an underground criminal organization in the kingdom, but they kept their activities small and any killing was done surreptitiously and always with the tacit and unspoken approval of the king’s guard. The sudden blossom of death in the royal family was from an outside agency. It didn’t take long to figure that out.
Princess Annedulisia took an extra interest in the hunt for the killers and worked closely with Captain Gillard. It was easy for the aristocracy to say it was in revenge for the death of her husband, but the truth was something far more twisted.
“You shouldn’t be here, Princess,” Gillard said to the widow of the crown prince. The dungeon wasn’t dark and damp and noisome. Gillard ran a proper prison tower and dungeon. It was clean and well-lit with excellent sanitation. That only made it more horrible. In the dark, secrets could be hidden. In the bright light of day, torture always fully revealed the truth. He didn’t want his prisoners dying of some dread disease; he wanted them alive and well to give up their secrets.
“Am I forbidden?” she asked the captain.
“No, ma’am, but what we do here is not for delicate souls.”
Annedulisia took her eyes from Gillard to stare at the man strapped to the iron chair. Thick leather bands held him in place. His mouth was gagged but that would be removed shortly. The screams of the tortured were an effective tool in loosening the tongues of other prisoners.
“Is this the man who helped in killing my husband?” she asked, slowly approaching him.
“We believe so, but he hasn’t confessed. Yet.”
Besides the prisoner, the princess and the captain, there was only one other figure in the room, the torturer. He stood off to the side, waiting for his orders. The captain sat at his small wooden desk, making notes.
“He can’t confess if his mouth is gagged,” she pointed out.
“We haven’t begun questioning him yet,” said Gillard. “We haven’t even brought up the idea of torture.” He paused and wet his lips with the flagon of wine on the desk. “Your presence here, ma’am, makes things difficult.”
“Remove his gag,” said Annedulisia.
The torturer looked at Gillard. It was impossible to read the man’s expression with the red mask he wore to conceal his identity, and his dead eyes gave away nothing either, so Gillard just nodded and the royal expert in causing pain did as the princess requested.
“I didn’t do anything,” he quickly babbled. “I’m just a pitchman in the stables. I’m no one. Please, please,” he begged.
Annedulisia didn’t hear the man’s words. She walked slowly and carefully to the racks of instruments available to the torturer. They were out as yet another subtle piece of intimidation. There were tools there that didn’t have names and yet could still do grievous things to the human body.
The princess picked up one of the tools; it was nothing more than a long leather strap with a handle. The strap had sharp bits of metal embedded in it.
“Princess, please,” Gillard begged.
But she ignored him and went up to the prisoner who continued to babble his innocence. She lashed out twice with the tool, striking his chest both times. It left horrible bleeding cuts on his skin and he screamed and started telling them that he’d say anything they wanted. He was clearly frightened. Gillard was positive the man wasn’t a killer, but he knew something, maybe it wasn’t something the man considered important, but torture often sharpened a man’s mind where he’d give details he’d forgotten.
But the princess was disrupting the process.
“Did you kill Crown Prince Bradford?” she asked him coolly.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry I did. They made me do it. I didn’t mean to stab him to death. It was an accident. I had to do it or they’d kill me.”
The prince had been poisoned. She knew that because she saw it happen. The man was a liar. A useless liar. She lashed out with the studded leather strap again, this time it tore across his face, ripping off skin and making him scream. Blood flew through the air between them. Droplets landed on Annedulisia’s yellow dress and bare hands.
“Liar,” she said and dropped the strap. “I’ll speak with you when you’re done,” she said to Gillard. He just nodded as she left.
The woman excited him and scared him at the same time. He was glad he was seated at the desk so neither the prisoner or the torturer could see his erection.
“What do you know?” Gillard asked the bloodied man.
Annedulisia screamed in pleasure. It was torture to have Gillard’s cock up her ass, but it was also pure pleasure. She was on her back, her legs up over his shoulders, hips tilted wildly so her ass was presented to him rather than her cunt.
“I could fuck you like a normal man,” Gillard said to her as he steadily pumped his cock in and out of her ass.
The widowed princess panted and groaned as he slowed his pace; he didn’t want to her hurt. “No. You can’t.” She wasn’t calling him an abnormal man; she was denying him the type of sex he wanted.
They hadn’t been carrying on for long, but it had started before Crown Prince Bradford had been killed. She was used to concealing her affair. She took pleasure in being buggered and while the chance of her falling pregnant was nearly nonexistent, before Bradford’s death it could have been explained away, but not it was impossible. She was supposed to be a grieving widow. Getting fucked in the ass was easier all around—except for the pain it was a perfect solution.
“You’d love my cock in your cunt,” grunted Gillard as he continued to move his cock back and forth—carefully! Always carefully because he couldn’t risk hurting the princess—inside her.
Annedulisia snaked her hand down between her legs, scraping the fingers over her drooling cunt to grip his oiled cock as it went unnaturally into her. She teased him a moment before bringing her hand back to her cunt and finding her clit. In some ways she preferred sex like this because the pleasure it gave her was greater than straight sex even it came with some pain. The pain wasn’t terrible; it heightened the pleasure.
“Just fuck me and be done with it,” she demanded. She was right on the edge and her lover begging for sex she wasn’t willing to give spoiled the moment denying her the climax she des
perately desired.
Gillard shut up and focused on fucking the princess. Fucking her now wasn’t nearly as exciting as it had been when they needed to conceal their affair from everyone, especially the crown prince. Still, she was a willing partner, and a handsome woman who enjoyed their time in the bedroom. There was no reason to stop.
Her busy little fingers found exactly what she needed. With his cock up her ass, Annedulisia gasped and her entire body tightened up, especially her sphincter that was stretched out by Gillard’s cock. As she came the little thrill of pain shot up from her ass to her cunt and then through her body. Why did sex feel so good if the only way she could properly cum was with pain?
It took a long minute for the orgasm to pass through her body and dissipate. The feeling of elation afterwards didn’t go away and Gillard’s cock was still firmly embedded in her ass. She was willing to keep going. He spoiled the mood.
“I’m going to cum,” he grunted. He was always making pronouncements like that. She was torn between hating it—because it was distracting and he made it seem like some great accomplishment—and liking it because it gave her fair warning.
“Not in my ass,” she ordered him.
He nodded and pulled out of her ass. When his cock was gone, she felt a sense of loss but she didn’t have time to dwell on that because a second later, with his cock inside his fist, he started cumming.
It was probably a stupid obsession, Annedulisia knew, but she was fascinated by men ejaculating. The thick ropes of cum burst forth from his cock, briefly arced through the air, and landed heavily on her skin. He pained her with the white droplets from chest down to the upper edge of the hair triangle that covered her cunt.
“When will you let me cum in your cunt?” he asked. She had occasionally granted him the boon of cumming in her ass, but never in her cunt. Never, ever in her cunt.
“When you’ve earned it,” she told him and reached for a towel on the side of her bed. She wiped away his cum, all the while thinking the actual answer to his question was never.
He watched her, kneeling between her legs, his cock still in his hand. When she was done cleaning herself, she frowned at him. “Let me,” she said, indicating his cock.
He relinquished his grasp and she took his manhood in her hand. At first he was eager. Gillard never knew what to expect from the princess. Since he was still semi-hard he thought that she might revive him and they’d have another quick session. His cock was still slick with the oil they used to lubricate her ass before he penetrated her so her fingers glided up and down his length.
The sudden shock of pair as she twisted his balls forced his brain to focus with a sharpness that was sadly lacking in most of the men he interrogated in the tower. If she had been any other woman, he would have cuffed the side of her head and put her in her place. But she was still a princess and there was no way for him to explain both an affair with the recently widowed Annedulisia (“She threw herself at me. She needed the comfort of a man after the death of her husband. She’s obviously distraught.”) and a bruise on her face (“Yes I fucked the whore. She grabbed my Jon-Thomas and I smacked her for it.”) was impossible so he suffered her attention.
“I liked whipping that man today in your dungeon. I want to do it more. I want to help you find the person who ordered my husband’s death.”
It would have sounded more sincere if he hadn’t just fucked her. He believed she wanted to find the true killer, but he was certain that she was more interested in torturing men in the dungeon than she was in finding truth.
He ground his teeth together as he tried to form a logical response to her statement. “That would not be wise, Anne. Your involvement would corrupt the process.” He looked down at his cock being squeezed between her fingers. It was starting to turn purple even as it started to numb.
“A little corruption would be good at this point I think,” she pondered aloud.
Gillard violently shook his head. “No. That’s the worst possible outcome,” he proclaimed. “But perhaps...” he struggled to clear his head from the pain of her pressure on his testicles, “perhaps I could involve you on other interrogations. You seem to have a talent for inflicting just the right amount of pain on a man,” and he again glanced at his steadily purpling cock, “to loosen his tongue.”
That half-promise seemed to delight Annedulisia; her eyes sparkled with desire, not unlike the first time she had seduced Gillard into her bed. “I want to take you up on that offer. Right now!” In her excitement she leaned forward and kissed him, still not loosening her grasp on his cock, perhaps even squeezing harder in her excitement.
The only problem was at the moment, there wasn’t any prisoner for Annedulisia to practice her burgeoning torture talent. Gillard was luckily saved by an opportune knock at the door.
“Captain? There is an urgent matter for you to attend,” came the voice of a nameless soldier calling through the door. Gillard groaned and cursed, but not in the same as he used under Annedulisia’s firm hand, but one of annoyance rather than endured pain.
Annedulisia opened her mouth to retort to the nameless, faceless soldier, but Gillard violently shook his head and was so bold as to put his finger to her lips.
“Why am I being bothered when I am in consultation with the princess?” he boomed back at the soldier. He spared a glance to the door and saw the key was still in the lock. He was fairly certain he had turned the key assuring them of privacy. Fairly certain.
“I wouldn’t interrupt,” came the quavering voice of the soldier, “but Lieutenant Hammond insisted.”
Lieutenant Hammond was, as the title implied, Gillard’s most trusted lieutenant. Only a summons from the general would have carried more weight. He would have to leave his lover.
Only Annedulisia refused to relinquish his cock. In fact, her eyes sparkled even more and she twisted his manhood a little. “They know we are in here fucking,” she told him in a half-whisper. Amusement twisted her lips into a cruel smile, but was she amused because she was abusing him or because she found great mirth in being caught in her affair with the captain.
“They know nothing,” he hissed at her. Gillard had to believe that otherwise he could not think straight because of the risk.
“What good reason would you have to consult with me on anything in private?” she asked. With her free hand she reached up and pinched one of her nipples, twisting it at the same time, causing it to distend and pink up. “And behind a locked door, no less.”
Gillard couldn’t think of an answer. As long as no one saw, he reasoned he was fine. What sane man would risk his life bedding the recent widow of the crown prince? He had to focus and he needed to leave Annedulisia. “I’ll be in my office momentarily,” he called out to the messenger. “Have the lieutenant wait there for me.” It disturbed him greatly to know that a man was outside the princess’s apartments waiting for him while he dressed.
“Yessir!” There was a ceremonial stamping of his feet and Gillard was positive he could hear the man salute the door before marching off.
“Please, your highness,” Gillard said to Annedulisia. Her grip hadn’t loosened at all despite the perilous position they were in.
“What if I want to fuck you one more time before you leave me?” she asked. He could tell right away she was teasing, but even so, he had to persuade her to release his manhood. There was no way he would risk actually touching her unless by specific invitation. Annedulisia was exactly that sort of woman, that part of the aristocracy that took great pleasure in abusing their underlings.
“I’m afraid I’m spent,” he said. Even with her firm grasp on his cock, it was slowly and steadily shrinking. The anxiety of a meeting and being caught had effectively emasculated him in a manner that the princess was incapable of.
“You still have a mouth and fingers you can please me with,” she pointed out.
“My lady, please,” he begged. The strain, both physical and emotional, was too much for him to bear.
“O
h fine.” She abruptly released her grip on his cock and pushed his aside. “Go do what you have to, but I make you no promise. My body is my own. I’ll take another lover if the need arises before you return.”
He scrambled off the bed and started throwing on his clothes while he ignored the numb throbbing sensation in his cock. Was it really worth all this just to fuck a member of the aristocracy? There was no end goal of the affair.
Annedulisia fell back on the thick mattress and spread her legs wide, her knees pointed at the ceiling. Her fingers went between her thighs, finding her wet cunt. “I’m already missing you…maybe I’ll call in the serving boy…”
The only man that Gillard would consider trusting with his life stood waiting for him in the tiny office that was afforded the captain of the royal guard. “Royce,” he said with great relief, grasping his best friend’s forearm in greeting as Lt. Hammond did the same. “What is the urgency?”
Both men were experienced in the subtleties and polite fictions of guarding the royal family which always involved keeping secrets. Gillard would never have imagined himself involved in one of those delicate secrets, but here he was.
“I have good and troubling news, Johan.” If Royce picked up on the fact that Gillard was hiding something—specifically that he was fucking the widowed princess—he didn’t ask or he knew that Gillard had to be hiding dozens of secrets, so what was one more?
“You’ve tracked down who is behind the murders?” Gillard asked doubtfully. “That would be awfully quick work, even for you.”
Hammond smiled thinly. “Not that, but a good lead.” He paused. “I know a man who knows a man,” he began in the semi-joke they used to make all the time. It wasn’t far from the truth. The art of being a spy was all about knowing the right people. “And this man indicated that the Shadow Society is doing the killings.”
Gillard fell into his chair and gestured for Hammond to sit in the one other available seat. “First, that’s probably a story. Second, I could have guessed that and I already did. Third, the Shadow Society was wiped out years ago, before you and I were born.”
The Elliot Silvestri Erotic Reader Volume 6 Page 27