Nadia Nightside's Best of 2015

by Nadia Nightside

  And she walked away, smiling to herself. Knowing he was watching the hot sway of her hips, the tight flexing of her short-covered ass, his mind running away from him with the thought of what he could do to her tiny, hot, busty blond body.

  * * * * *

  Not far from Brall’s tent was a training area for the cauldron. It was inside an old gym. The ceiling was mostly gone, one lip of shade in the corner providing some reprieve from the sun. The floor had once been wood, and in parts around the edges the thick boards could still be seen. But mostly the floor had been dug out and cleared away to get to the dirt underneath.

  Brall’s men held knives, clubs, chains. Whatever weapon of their choice. They were spread out wide enough so no one would hurt the other as they moved.

  He bellowed a command. “First attack!”

  The men all followed through with overhead blows, stepping into each movement.

  “Second!”

  They responded with another movement, swiping to the side.

  “Third!”

  More movement forward, swiping up from under. And so on—moving up, down, to the side—and then backward making the same motion. The early part of training was always these warm-ups. The men knew how to fight; they always had. This was just to get them used to hearing Brall’s voice—or the voice of his sergeants—and to get them used to following orders. Later in the training day, he would have them do the more important work: learning positions of attack. Forming up ranks. Mock-battles and studying tactics.

  There were more than seventy-five soldiers who followed him, and another hundred attached to those soldiers as whores, merchants, life-partners, or just otherwise hangers-on. Nearly two hundred mouths to feed needed only one thing more than food, and that was discipline.

  So, he trained them.

  A man with a belly full of food and a mind full of chaos was the most dangerous sort of person underneath a leader. Contrarywise, a man with an empty belly and a disciplined mind could be reasoned with—food is coming, you could say. Just follow me a little longer. It had saved Brall’s life in the long, famine-prone journeys in the wastes on more than one occasion.

  Brall felt drained, unloaded, but somehow more full than he ever had been in his life. Sated for the first time since he didn’t know when.

  She’s different. She can take me.

  That was always the problem. Finding a woman who could stand up to his desires, his mercurial attitudes, his need to relief every last ounce of stress in his bones and muscles through rampant lovemaking. And Brall had a lot of bone, a lot of muscle, and so a lot of stress that could build up in his body.

  He would meet her tonight, this time behind Farner's tavern. A darker place. More time for privacy. He couldn't wait. The only thing that kept his mind off of Robin was training, and so he kept training.

  Brall continued the training.

  At the side entrance, he saw Carthage leaning against the door. He picked out Garner from the crowd of training men, and told him to continue the practice. A good man, small and wiry and covered with tattoos.

  When he was sure that Garner would do the men justice, he turned to Carthage.

  “Did you get your money?”

  “No. Taught him a lesson, though. And I learned something.”

  “What’d you learn?”

  “I learned who you want. I learned she’s into it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Brall would never admit it, but he felt some self-awareness and even embarrassment at the suddenness of his affection for Robin. She was everything to him. She eclipsed Abigail in every possible way.

  But just yesterday he had been telling Carthage that Abigail was everything.

  His passions ran deep and dense, and he could not explain them; without being able to explain them, he did not want to be held accountable for them.

  But this was all deep beneath his surface. All Brall truly knew was that Carthage asked about his business, and Brall found no reason to oblige his questions.

  “It’s that Family girl, isn’t it?”

  Brall felt a glimmer of fear enter his heart. The wrong words whispered around his men would end him.

  “What?”

  He pushed him out of the gym and they walked back toward the tents, toward Temple.

  “Ah, yes now. Come, my friend!” Carthage clapped his back, squeezing his shoulder tight. “You need not hide such understandable wants from me. She is a beauty. A fine, fine beauty. You'd be doing right to make her yours, that’s true enough.”

  Brall eyed him, suspicious still. “No one knows about this. How do you know about this?”

  “What are you, some double? Some doppelganger stolen in the night to replace my old friend?” Carthage was laughing. Brall’s deadly serious look made him stop. “I...you’re serious? You’ve been talking about her for weeks, now. Weeks and weeks. I didn’t know it, of course. It was always ‘the blonde, the blonde, the blonde.’ But it is her, yes? It could not be another.”

  “...no.” Brall shook his head. “The one I spoke of is...nothing. Old news. Not for me. My heart belongs to another.”

  “Shit. I don't believe that for a minute. The words you said, friend! The way you romanticized!” Carthage let out another big belly laugh. “There ain't no way she's just been cast aside for some other.”

  “I’m telling you the truth, now.”

  “Of course you are.” Carthage winked.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t fucking do that. You know me.”

  “I know. I know. You a man who says what he wants. But sometimes a friend knows better than the man.”

  “Not this time.”

  Brall had much more to say still. They arrived at his tent, and he was about to invite Carthage inside and explain the entire matter to him, but a runner arrived.

  He looked at the paper, grinning slow.

  “New wire from those Sooners. Said they made up some time. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

  Carthage nodded, and left to prepare. There would be a battle soon, and battle for the Cauldron took precedence over all things.

  And yet Brall could not help but think, with Robin's life in the balance, that some sort of peace could be worked out. Perhaps he would sit down with Case or Troy or whoever ran the Family, and see what terms they could come to, just so long as he could have Robin at his side.

  * * * * *

  What Robin was really good for was accounting, but when the riders were at home, and the numbers were all crunched, her duties took her elsewhere.

  She and Abigail worked on the long driveway leading out into the wastes, just inside the wall surrounding Temple. The driveway led directly into the series of garages owned by the Family in the Compound.

  Robin stood over a tall metal pot set over a fire. The need for this task was regular enough that the fire had its own square built from stones. Abigail had pieced it together years ago using scrap from abandoned houses further out in the area surrounding Temple. The fire boiled pitch inside the pot, and as Robin stirred it around Abigail gathered up scoops of the thick black substance with a long wooden ladle and spread it out onto the drive.

  All through the wastes the men put their bikes on the hardest land around. The tires had to pass over rocks and dirt, bones and metal, scrap and rodents. When they got home, they deserved an easy path back into the safety of the Compound. Titus had insisted upon it, and so it became the law of the land. A strong home was a strong Family. Home life was built on a series of shared expectations, regular anticipation of others’ needs, and no lipping about what needed doing.

  But the men were always away, and so it became the women’s duty to perform maintenance such as this. Women also were responsible for patching holes in roofs, for clearing stuffed pipes, for rehabbing broken staircases and walls, for re-insulating houses that had been allowed to decay.

  Robin did not look much at Abigail. She felt ashamed for what had happened with Brall—but also joy. True joy. She knew that h
e would take care of her.

  She could not wait for tonight. She would lose her virginity then, she knew. Finally. To a real man. To a man who deserved her beauty, her body. She would fuck him rotten, and be fucked rotten.

  Maybe I'll even get pregnant.

  The thought delighted her dreamy, hot young mind.

  All the details were uncertain, now. Her body burned with the possibility of tasting him again, knowing his intimate touch once more. And her mind burned with the possibilities he promised, how their life might be once they declared for one another. The two sensations were in competition with one another. She could not possibly keep up them both and hope to remain a whole person. It would be like launching yourself into a fire with a rocket at your back.

  But she didn’t care. It felt so gloriously good to be consumed by something, anything that wasn’t fear. Fear of Troy, fear of the wastes, fear of the world.

  It would mean a betrayal of her family, a betrayal of her values, but somehow that wasn’t as important anymore. She knew he would take care of her, and that she would take care of him. She felt like he would need her. God, the way he had shuddered when he said her name, the way she had emptied him. She knew that she was important to his life now. It was integral to her being, knowing she suddenly couldn’t live without him—and knowing that he, too, in turn could not live without her. Once again, it was difficult to determine which was more exciting.

  Abigail leaned against the mop, staring at Robin as she stirred distantly.

  “I have to admit something to you.”

  “Oh?” Robin let the stirring stick settle for a moment. Leaning forward, she focused all her attention on her friend. “What’s up?”

  “The man I’ve said I’m in love with? The one I see?”

  This was a sudden turn in talk, but that was fine. Abigail had been distant all day long.

  “Your mysterious Romeo?” Robin nodded. “What about him?”

  “It’s Case.”

  “It’s...it’s Case?”

  This was even more shocking than Robin’s own hidden romance. She struggled with the sudden revulsion that shook her. Revulsion that centered squarely around the thought of fucking a stepbrother—when fucking her own, Troy, was the worst idea in the world to her.

  “My brother. Yeah. The one...you’re marrying.”

  “Right.” Robin had almost forgotten about that. “Right. Yes. I see.”

  “He loves me back. It’s not just me being crazy.”

  “Of course he does.” Robin nodded. “Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he? You’re terrific.”

  Be supportive. Try and understand. Abigail knew what she was doing. What she described was taboo, but Abigail had always been out there.

  God, what a taboo, though.

  “It’s just that...now with the marriage, he wants for us to stop. Because of what people might think.”

  But Robin’s mind raced. If Robin went to Brall, then Case would have to turn back to Abigail. He’d be emboldened, even, by Robin’s move. Abigail would comfort him. They would be together.

  Everyone would get what they want.

  “It will all...” Robin shrugged. “It will all work out. I know it will.”

  She did not look convinced. “How?”

  “It just...will, that’s all.”

  Abigail's mouth became hard, then.

  “Do you have anything to tell me?”

  “W-what do you mean?”

  “Anybody you’ve been seeing? Anything that’s happened?”

  Abigail knew. Of course she knew. Abigail always knew what was happening with Robin.

  But still, Robin shook her head. “Nothing. Sorry.” She gestured back to the pitch, and her bag of documents beyond. “Boring life.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Abigail.

  But strangely, she didn’t seem sorry at all. She left soon after, to where Robin did not know.

  * * * * *

  As the evening fell over Temple. Carthage dragged Brall out from his tent and walked him toward the hills surrounding the town.

  Brall didn't want to go—he was due to meet Robin—but Carthage insisted.

  “What have you got, big Boss? Who ain't gonna wait on you? Come on. This is important. You'll like this.”

  Brall didn't know to explain himself without revealing far too much. And so, he went along with Carthage, feeling trapped though he didn't know why.

  Robin would understand, he told himself. He'd explain it all the next he saw her. Get a message to her through someone in town. That would be simple enough. And then he'd make it clear—well clear, beforehand—that he was not to be disturbed during that time.

  Just a kink to work out. That's all this delay was. And then he'd sink himself into Robin just how he had always needed.

  Hell, if they finished up soon enough, he might even still see her. She would wait. He knew she would wait.

  He continued to press onto Carthage, asking him what was happening. At first, the big man would reveal nothing of his intentions, but after several minutes of Brall’s demands, Carthage finally gave in.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he smiled. “Your girl. We’re going to indoctrinate her.”

  “What?”

  “I know who your girl is. I found out. Very smart, your friend Carthage is. Now she’ll be yours. Consequences be damned. We are the Cauldron. If they want to fight us, let them boil.”

  Brall’s heart hammered with anticipation. He would have her, finally. Robin. His cock in her cunt. All his thoughts of working out kinks felt immediately wiped away. He was going to have her.

  Goddamn, what a friend he had in Carthage. He suddenly could not walk quickly enough to the indoctrination area.

  She could take the other men. He knew she could. And once she had been through that trial of fire, that tribulation of cocks and cum and brutality, he’d know for certain that she was his and his alone. Forever.

  But when they arrived finally in the small valley in the hills, the sand black and torches lit up in a circle to illuminate their dark ceremony, it was not Robin in the middle of the stones.

  It was Abigail. Not Robin. Not the love of his life.

  Abigail.

  She looked like she had arrived early, before the sun had properly started to set past the mud-red horizon. But it was dark now, and all the men were waiting for Brall to arrive.

  In the circle now, she was surrounded by six men. Each of them with muscles hard as the land they stood on. All of their thick, veiny members glistening with precum, stroked slowly and sure by helping Cauldron Girls aching for their own taste of the hot, delicious substance contained in every man. The soldiers thrummed with anticipation now that Brall had arrived—they would start soon.

  Abigail got down on all fours in the circle, her tight ass held high. Long blond hair draped to one side, the tips sliding in the dirt. Her thighs were wet already. She may have been a Family girl, but she was still a woman—all those hard, dripping cocks around her was driving her wild.

  “This isn’t enough men,” she called.

  A happy grumble struck up among Brall’s men. They all wanted a turn with Abigail. Even if she had not been a Family girl, and so all the more taboo of an offering, she was gorgeous. Positively gorgeous. Possibly the sexiest babe any of them had ever had chance to come across in the past, saving maybe for Robin. She was like an angel, fallen from on high, waiting to be corrupted and destroyed by their sinful ways. Their eyes shifted to Brall, each of them hoping to take the honor of having Abigail for themselves.

  Abigail continued. “And none of your number will be enough, truly...unless...”

  Her eyes blazed and rested on Brall. She brought up one hand slowly, like she was composing at a concert.

  “You. I want your cock to claim me.”

  Before, Brall had tolerated this exercise. Knowing something was up with the girl, knowing that she had her mind on evil things. It was the way of a mind like hers. But now his mood,
always volatile, had ramped up to a strange grinning fury. He could not turn down her request in front of all his men. And yet his heart burned with endless, furious hot passion for Robin. Only for Robin. The thought of fucking another woman—someone so close to Robin, as well—was not a welcome one. And yet he felt trapped. There was no choice in the matter.

  If he lost face in front of his warriors, he lost everything. Already, he had waited too long. To hesitate much longer would bring questions.

  Approaching the blond vixen his stance was tall and strong. He took off his vest and then the shirt beneath, revealing the massive musculature that had won him his primal kingdom of killers. Then his pants, his thighs dense and cut with rivulets of defined flesh, his cock half-hard but already more massive than any other in the mob. The Cauldron women in the crowd, previously purring in the ears of the soldiers next to them, stared in awe at his reveal. Muscles stacked high, each one chiseled and hard. Like a statue from old. His appearance struck something primordial in each of them, a distant relationship to the gods they had long ago abandoned for slaughter and hedonism.

  This was so even though almost all in the crowd had seen him before in such a manner—naked and hardening. Their awe was only re-doubled by seeing the force of his nakedness once more. Women stroking cocks stroked them harder, helpless before the power of so much manliness. Their minds consumed with the thought that maybe, somehow, by stroking the cock in their hands hard enough that it would take on the perfect form of the one on Brall which now filled their suddenly vacuous minds. Drool formed at their lips, and all jealousy from the other men struck away by this increase in pleasure encouraged by Brall’s colossal appearance.

  Even Abigail was impressed. As if she had to rethink what she knew upon seeing him—this new god in the primitive wastes of the earth. He held her by the face, stroking her downy soft hair. The strands thick and golden, streaming through his fingers like tangible sunlight. His cock pulsed just under her chin, and her breath caught, feeling the stark heat of him against her body.

  He placed his lips next to her ear so that only they two could hear.

  “I will make you pay for this.”