by Nunn, PL
When Yhalen’s gagging heaves let up, Bloodraven pulled him up again, swinging him brusquely over a shoulder to finish the climb up to his den. A small whoof of lost air and a groan of discomfort was all the complaint he got.
He reached his den, won four summers ago from an ogre that had joked a little too long and little too maliciously about his mixed bloodlines. Bloodraven had challenged and won a cliff-side den along with a fine set of battle-axes. The battle-axes he’d traded to Ironbone the smithy for the durable, well-crafted sword that he had carried into the southland months before.
He bent to enter his den, noting absently that the now threadbare flap of leather across the mouth was not the one that had hung there when he had left. He let Yhalen down with considerably more gentleness than he’d hauled him up. Yhalen groaned when his back hit the furs, eyes shut tight, fingers twitching slightly.
“Still sick?” Bloodraven asked softly, pulling the small knife that Yhalen had carried from his boot and slicing through the twine that bound his wrists.
“Not that,” Yhalen murmured, not opening his eyes. “He gave something to me—my head feels…light.”
Bloodraven held Yhalen’s slender wrists, feeling the unnatural heat in his hands. His fingers were slightly swollen, his palms puffy and red save for the taut, swollen white flesh around the closed mouth of a wound in the fleshy part of the hand below the thumb. Wrathbone’s thorns. Bloodraven growled softly, contemplating piercing the old shaman’s flesh with something sharper and longer by far.
He found Yhalen’s tunic, and pulled him up long enough to get it back on, then laid his coat over him when he’d settled him back down. Any bedding he’d had, had been taken while he was gone. He’d find more before the chill of the night sent temperatures plummeting. He sat for a while next to Yhalen, who lay murmuring softly in a sort of half sleep, shifting his hands now and then in agitation.
Bloodraven looked down at his own big hands and found that they shook ever so slightly. He canted his head, staring curiously for a while, then clenched his fists to quell the weakness and rose, having business to attend before circumstance and fate turned against him and he lost the chance to do what he’d come here to do. He had other halflings to see and to convince of things. Borebeetle, Stinkbug and Hakkgor, the three halflings he’d met outside the village, would spread what word they could, but there were those that needed his personal assurances before they would risk life and limb on an uncertain bid for a new life.
No other halflings were so honored, nor so physically capable, as to have won dwellings within the cliffs. He would have to venture outside of the gorge to the tents and rock shanties that the gatherers and the slaves used for shelter to further his plans.
“Yhalen,” he said, grasping his human’s face and giving him a little shake to rouse him from his stupor. Wide-pupiled eyes blinked up at him.
“I’m going for a while. I’ll be back. Don’t pick at your hands, hear?” He shook his jaw a little more emphasis, afraid that Wrathbone or his set of human slaves might come by and check. Yhalen blinked at him.
“Say you understand,” he ordered, squeezing hard enough for pain, and Yhalen’s eyes watered a little.
He tried to nod, then answered brokenly, “I won’t….”
Bloodraven sighed and patted his cheek, then brushed back strands of fine hair. Uncomfortably, he offered, “You’ve done well. Very well. We may survive this yet.”
Then he rose to creep into a darkening evening to engage in a conspiracy that Wartooth and his council of proud ogre war chieftains would find no less intolerable than the curse of dark human magicks.
Yhalen dozed, fevered and on the edge of true unconsciousness. The dull throb of irritation radiated out from his hands to lock his body in turmoil. He scrubbed his palms absently against the furs, moaning at the insufficient relief from the bone-deep itch, and tried to bend stiff fingers into fists. He came back to himself, his body curled under the too thin layer of his coat, and rocked in agitation.
Don’t pick at your hands. Don’t pluck the poison out of his palms, Bloodraven had insisted. Had ordered, no nonsense. Just like he’d ordered Yhalen’s debasement, forcing him to take filth into his mouth and swallow it down. And they’d laughed at him. He heard their cruel laughter in his fever dreams and felt the heat of their eyes upon his body while he cowered on the floor and licked the crud off the boots of some damned big, stern-looking ogre. And he’d done it. Out of fear. Out of the confused mess whatever herb the old ogre had made him swallow made of his thoughts. Because Bloodraven had used that voice, the one that brooked no insubordination, the one Yhalen responded to, deep down, like the slave they accused him of being.
He drifted off, and came back to rustling and the creak of leather, to a big body moving at the mouth of the cave, nothing but an indistinct shape in the darkness. He tensed, scrambling backwards, sleep falling away.
“Calm.”
Bloodraven’s voice, soft and deep. Yhalen took a breath, and lay against the back wall of the den, breathing harshly. Bloodraven was adding a thick hide to the threadbare one across the den’s mouth.
Its addition blocked out the trickle of moonlight the other flap had let in. It prevented the breeze.
Bloodraven moved in complete darkness, and draped the heavy warmth of supple furs across Yhalen’s legs. Big hands moved up Yhalen’s hips, finding him braced against the wall, and pulled him down back onto the comfort of the pallet, then pulled the new furs up, encasing Yhalen in warmth. Yhalen breathed deep, letting his body relax, listening to the sounds of Bloodraven unbuckling belts and shrugging out of leathers in the dark.
Bloodraven lifted the edge of the furs and slipped under, rolling towards Yhalen. His hands touched Yhalen’s hair, fingers stroking strands away from his cheek and thumb caressing the flesh behind his ear. He found Yhalen’s hand under the furs and drew it up, covering the swollen palm with his mouth, his tongue brushing out to lick the wound.
Yhalen curled his fingers, focus drawn back to the itch in his hands, the rasp of Bloodraven’s tongue not nearly enough to relieve it.
“What…happened today?” he asked, though he thought he knew well enough, having seen Deathclaw.
Bloodraven pressed a finger against his lips, a gentle warning, then leaned close and breathed against Yhalen’s ear. “Softly. There are no doors here and many curious ears. We are far from safe yet.”
“We’ll leave soon?” Yhalen whispered, lashes fluttering as Bloodraven’s warm tongue found its way around the curve of his ear.
“Mmmm,” Bloodraven murmured in what seemed assent, and Yhalen wondered if he’d done what he’d come here to do. Whether the other half-breeds would now spread the word he wanted, of sanctuary in a vale that most ogres held in deepest suspicion.
Bloodraven’s hand slid under his tunic, big and warm on his skin.
“The old one,” Yhalen formed the words, barely hearing them himself, his voice was so low. “What he did to me….”
“Shaman.” Bloodraven sucked the lobe of Yhalen’s ear between his lips, teeth gently nibbling at the soft flesh. Yhalen trembled, cock twitching to life between his legs. “The marks—the thorns—are to bind magicks.” Bloodraven paused, lifting his head somewhat in the dark and Yhalen sensed him staring, and wondered vaguely if ogres could see better in the dark than Ydregi or humans.
“Do they?” Bloodraven asked softly.
Yhalen had no notion. He knew not the power or magicks practiced by another race, not enough to disparage them at any rate. If anything, the herb that had clouded his head had gone the furthest to blunting what sense he had of the ethereal world—he had no idea what purpose the thorns in his body served, other than a persistent cruelty. Bloodraven took his silence as answer enough. His fingers under Yhalen’s tunic traced small circles around his nipples, causing the flesh to pimple and harden.
“I have great need for your warmth this night. For release in your body,” Bloodraven murmured in his ear. “Will
you grant it to me?”
Yhalen expelled a surprised breath. He didn’t recall Bloodraven having ever asked for his permission before. Perhaps the fading traces of what the shaman had given him made him giddy, for he felt a little surge of pleasure at the question. A surge of need that tightened his belly and stiffened his cock. He turned his head, finding Bloodraven’s jaw in the dark and pressed a kiss upon it. Found his way to Bloodraven’s mouth and covered it with his own in answer. Bloodraven growled in satisfaction, rolling Yhalen on top of him as they kissed, suckling each other’s lips, testing the insides of each other’s mouths with warm, moist tongues.
Bloodraven was naked save for his breechclout, and Yhalen felt the jut of his erection against his leg, felt his own hard cock pressed between them. He trailed fingers tentatively across Bloodraven’s skin, wincing a little at the discomfort in his hands. Bloodraven caught his wrists, kissed his palms and pushed him up so that he sat straddling the hard stomach.
“Clothes,” Bloodraven instructed when Yhalen simply sat there, breathing hard and moving his hips against Bloodraven’s belly. Bloodraven helped him with the lacings when his fingers fumbled the job and he rose to shed the pants, then dropped back down quickly into the warmth of the furs.
Bloodraven draped the covers over them, then shifted onto an elbow, making a tent over Yhalen as he bent across his body. Warm hands traveled across his cool flesh—down Yhalen’s thighs to the backs of his knees, up across his hips and belly, on over his ribs and up the backs of his arms. As if Yhalen’s skin alone gave him great pleasure.
Yhalen moaned and writhed under the stroking of Bloodraven’s callused palms. Moaned louder when Bloodraven bent to take a hard nipple in his mouth, one hand covering Yhalen’s cock and balls, encasing them in warmth. He arched into both the touch and the mouth on his nipple, wanting more. He tried to curl his fist in Bloodraven’s hair, but his hand was still too swollen to tighten it, so he settled for stroking the hair and caressing the tapered ridge of Bloodraven’s pointed ear.
Bloodraven groaned, tightening his hand upon Yhalen’s genitals as he responded to the touch on his ears, which Yhalen had never before teased. A sensitive place, then, and one to be remembered. Yhalen let his fingers explore the delicate curve of cartilage on the inside and found satisfaction in Bloodraven’s shudder. If he could have reached with his mouth, he would have used his tongue—but Bloodraven was moving his head lower, his own tongue licking its way down Yhalen’s belly to his cock, which he took the tip of in his mouth and teased with lips and tongue. He took the whole thing down, an easy feat for him, and sucked hard enough to make Yhalen cry out and half come up off the furs.
Bloodraven made no complaint about his cries, having no apparent issue with his neighbors hearing the sounds of his slave being used to sate ogre urges.
When Bloodraven sucked his balls into his mouth along with his cock, Yhalen went over the edge into unbearable ecstasy. He dug his hands into the fur, blind to the pain and thrust his hips up, back curved off the bedding and toes curling, his body taut as a bowstring as he spilled into Bloodraven’s mouth.
He went limp afterwards, collapsing back into the furs. Bloodraven kept his softening genitals within the warm protection of his mouth, gently sucking and stroking with his tongue until Yhalen’s head lolled and his mouth gaped slack from the subtle, gentle pleasure that seeped through his body after such a blinding crescendo a few moments before.
When Bloodraven finally left him, his balls drew up from the departure of warmth. He listened to Bloodraven rustle in the packs that he and Vorjd had brought here and then Bloodraven was back, burrowing under the furs next to him, big hands on his hips urging him to turn onto his belly.
He did so willingly, and made to rise onto his knees, but Bloodraven kept him flat with a hand on his rear. He moved to kneel between his legs, and Yhalen spread his thighs wider to allow the big body space. Cool air touched his back and he shivered, but not so much from cold as from anticipation. The little den with its new thick pelt door had warmed considerably since their activities had begun.
He heard the unstoppering of a jar, and scented the familiar smell of the oil Elvardo had so thoughtfully provided Bloodraven for the use of him. Elvardo’s generosities, Yhalen thought, were based more upon his own amusements than any true consideration of others. And then he stopped thinking about anything other than the slick thumb that stroked the sensitive pucker of his hole.
Bloodraven ran an oily finger down the cleft of his ass, pausing to fondle his balls in their loose sack, to tickle the breadth of skin between them and his anus.
Yhalen shuddered, his teeth chattering a little at that nerve tingling sensation. The finger went back to circling his pucker, tickling the edges of pink flesh before the tip of one finger pressed at the center and worked its way in. Bloodraven was slow about it, pressing in to the first digit and pulling out, then pressing back in and twirling his finger. His other hand massaged Yhalen’s left buttock, big fingers kneading and stroking—relaxing muscles and bringing great pleasure at once. Yhalen’s balls began to tighten, his spent cock twitching again under his belly.
The finger went in to the knuckle, curving inside him to massage the walls of his rectum. He hit a spot, over and over, that made Yhalen’s body quiver, spasms of pleasure rippling over his skin. A second finger was added, sliding in next to the first with only a modicum of discomfort as his body stretched to receive it. He found himself rocking back upon the intrusion, aching for more, unsatisfied by the gentle stretching of two big fingers when he had become accustomed to so much more. He was hard again from the want, the moisture smearing upon his belly from the tip of his cock.
“Now. Now. Please,” he gasped, rotating his hips wantonly and grinding up against Bloodraven’s hand. Bloodraven squeezed his ass harder, fingers scissoring inside him, stretching him this way, then that. A third finger went in and Yhalen pressed his face against the furs, drooling.
Bloodraven pulled him up, one hand under his hips and fingers still inside him, and Yhalen shifted position eagerly. When the fingers pulled out, the tip of Bloodraven’s cock, pressing firmly against Yhalen’s opening, immediately replaced them. It was bigger than three fingers, and he had to push to force it inside. He stopped, the flared head of his cock resting outside the grasping mouth of Yhalen’s ass. He held steady for a moment, thumbs parting Yhalen’s buttocks as his fingers bit into the fleshy muscle of his cheeks—and then he pushed in, and Yhalen’s body stretched to accept him as fingers of pain lanced out from protesting flesh. But the pain faded, replaced by a constant sensation of tension that increased by increments as Bloodraven slowly inched his way inside.
Six inches in, and he would pull out so only the head was still buried, then slide back in. Eight inches and he would repeat the process, slowly and methodically allowing Yhalen’s body to adjust to the presence of his cock. Slowly and methodically driving Yhalen senseless with need, until all he could think or feel or focus on the thick heat of what stretched his body, the rapid pulse of a heart beat thrumming through the silken skin of that cock, independent of his own.
Bloodraven bent over his back, big balls warm against the back of Yhalen’s thighs, as he rested skin against skin for long moments, while Yhalen quivered on splayed knees, his face against the furs as he trembled.
Then Bloodraven pushed himself up, a hand on the floor to either side of Yhalen’s shoulders, and began to move. Slow and powerful strokes that threatened to steal Yhalen’s breath upon each deep-seated thrust.
Bloodraven pulled him backwards, back against his chest, so that he was sitting on Bloodraven’s cock, impaled on a length that weight and his position allowed to sink deeper into his bowels. He moaned, head back against the twitching muscle of Bloodraven’s shoulder, Bloodraven’s hands firm on his hips as he moved him up and down upon his lap. Yhalen stroked his cock, the pain in his hands a forgotten, trivial thing in comparison to the sensations in his guts. His balls tightened into hard little gl
obes and he came a second time, spilling on his hands and his belly. Bloodraven still thrust into him, into his rhythm now. Without the stimulation of Yhalen’s own erection, the pleasure began to fall more into the category of pain. His gasps became louder, his moans more desperate, the little sounds he made beginning to sound more like whimpers than cries of pleasure.
Bloodraven pushed him forward and pulled out of him without coming, deftly turning him over onto his back and pushing his legs up to his chest. Yhalen could not see his expression in the pitch-blackness of the den, but he knew from experience it would be determined and grim, every particle of Bloodraven’s essence focused in on the fucking. He pushed back in, hard, bearing down with his considerable weight to full insertion, then began thrusting quickly, his own growling groans drowning out the sounds Yhalen made. A dozen thrusts and he cried out, straining as his cock spasmed and he spilled into Yhalen’s bowels.
Yhalen screamed, and Bloodraven did as well—a hoarse cry of shock and his body jerked forward, crushing Yhalen almost in two. He rocked almost in impact before he rolled to the side, and Yhalen’s dazed eyes saw the pelt at the door held open by a huge silhouette of an ogre body. He saw the glint of a long blade as it rose and plunged into the shadowy contours of Bloodraven’s body, and he screamed again, propelling himself forward against that huge body. Trying to stop another plunge of the blade, because Bloodraven wasn’t moving to deflect it himself.
He was shoved backwards, into the wall of the cave, as the big shape moved into the cramped den.
Shaking off the pain of shoulder and head against the stone, he scrambled in the dark to shield Bloodraven.