The baron snapped his fingers. ‘Rodolfo, take her to my horse. I will be there presently.’
A tall, handsome man in green hunting clothes with a leather belt slung across his shoulder presented himself.
‘Princess, are you well?’ Rodolfo asked, after Montreico had headed back upstairs, presumably to continue ransacking her belongings.
‘I am a bit faint,’ she confessed.
‘Allow me to help you.’
Allura was grateful for the man’s kindness. Taking her by the arm he steadied her as they walked from the castle towards the baron’s contingent.
‘Is there to be no carriage?’ she asked.
‘No, you are to ride on his horse.’ The man seemed chagrined to offer such poor arrangements, and Allura stored this observation in her head. Perhaps one day she would be able to use his empathy to her advantage. ‘I have never ridden so far in such a rough way,’ she played upon his apparent concern. ‘Especially not… with a man.’
‘I have never known the baron to mistreat a lady,’ he said cautiously.
‘Please, can we stop a moment, I am very weak now.’
‘Perhaps I should fetch a doctor.’
She smiled to herself; the man could be very useful. ‘No, I’ll be fine. I must be strong.’
‘I think perhaps you will need a carriage after all.’ He lifted her into his arms. ‘I will speak to the baron.’
The man’s strength surprised her, as did her own response. Cradled, safely enveloped, she wanted him to kiss her, his mustache tickling her lip, his brown eyes darkening with desire. Would he taste different to the baron? Would she melt in his kiss too, or would he yield to her power first?
Allura craned her neck, her eyes closing. She was so close she could feel his breath, and then, at the last possible second he begged off. ‘I should get a doctor after all,’ he said hastily, setting her down on the grass. ‘I’ll go at once.’
He put her down and ran back to the castle, and she looked up at the sky, dazed. What had she nearly just done? If she were caught kissing another Montreico would never have her. She’d be ruined, for sure.
The doctor rushed at the head of the pack, the usual gossipers and toadies close behind. The grand duke was there as well, looking very pasty.
‘My niece,’ he fell to his knees, ‘are you all right?’ In his eyes was another question: what had he done to her and was it too late to stop it?
‘Of course, she is fine,’ snapped the baron. ‘On your feet, Allura.’ She obeyed, and he lifted her by the waist and set her on the white stallion. ‘Say goodbye, Allura. The time has come.’
‘Uncle,’ she cried, denied a final hug.
Montreico swung himself upon his mount, taking his place behind her. ‘We will send word of the marriage date, Fortragian. It will be a private ceremony. One representative each from your household and mine.’
The grand duke bowed with the heaviness of a man defeated. He had spared his niece’s life, but at what cost? ‘Thank you, baron, for your generosity,’ he said flatly.
‘May our households grow strong together,’ Montreico carried on, in a tone that indicated he was expecting a much bigger piece of the pie in the future.
Allura was terrorized by the speed and power of the baron’s horse. It was clear to her now that he was a man of moods who did not enjoy being trifled with, especially not by a female. She would have to mark well her limits – where she could push and where she could not.
‘You are going too fast,’ she complained, and Montreico pulled on the reins, forcing her to grab the horn of the saddle for support as he brought the horse to a snorting stop.
‘Continue on, over the next ridge, wait for us there,’ said the baron to his men, who were caught just as off guard as Allura, who did not relish the idea of being left alone with him.
‘If you touch me I will scream,’ she told him, once the others had gone.
Montreico slipped athletically to the ground and took her by the waist, setting her down beside him on the grass. ‘Scream as loud as you like,’ he told her. ‘What a man does with his woman is between him and his gods.’
‘You will be cursed,’ she promised, ‘for taking their name in vain.’
‘That is my affair, princess. Yours, for the moment, is the removing of your undergarments.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I believe you heard me quite clearly. I want access to your naked sex under your dress, and I want it now.’
Allura took a step back, her head reeling. ‘You’re a madman.’
‘If you seek to escape,’ he said quite calmly, ‘I will run you down, strip you naked and tie you by the neck to the back of my horse. Is that how you’d like to enter my castle, princess?’
Allura narrowed her eyes venomously. ‘You are no kind of man,’ she informed him, ‘if this is the only way you have to see a woman unclothed.’
The baron winked at her. ‘It is not the only way, my sweet, it just happens to be my favorite.’ She stared at him in fury. ‘And you will maintain eye contact,’ he instructed.
Her cheeks reddened; she was losing her modesty in a far deeper way than mere clothes. Reaching under her skirts she tugged at her petticoat and silk underlinings, and pulled them down until there was nothing to cover her. It was a strange, disturbing sensation, to have her gown material against her buttocks and pubis, especially knowing that he intended to bare them to his own infernal ends, whatever they might be.
‘Walk,’ he said, pointing when she was done.
Allura looked at the meadow beyond the road. There was a single tree in the middle of it. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Whatever I will,’ replied the baron, dispatching her with a swift smack to her shapely derriere.
‘Ouch,’ she shrieked, ‘that hurt!’
Montreico laughed easily, sounding in genuine good humor. ‘How you carry on, girl. That was nothing, barely a tap.’
‘There won’t be another,’ she vowed, trudging through the grass and meadow flowers.
‘Save your breath.’ He took her arm, steering her where he wanted, directly beneath the shade of the tree’s branches. ‘Now hold up your skirts, facing away from me.’
‘I will do no such thing,’ she refused, but he shocked her by slapping her face. She was stunned by the sudden assault, holding her smarting cheek.
‘When I give an order I expect it to be obeyed,’ he said, by way of explanation for his violent action.
Sulkily, knowing there was little choice, Allura turned away from him and lifted her dress, precisely as he’d commanded. She was hardly done fighting him, but it seemed prudent not to press her point just now.
‘You have an attractive ass,’ he commented, rubbing his hands over it as if warming them. ‘A whore’s ass.’
‘May the Virgin Goddess come in the form of a bird,’ she said with deadly ease, ‘and peck out your organs one by one over a thousand years of suffering.’
The baron straightened a single finger and pressed, probing the muscle of her anus, then with a gasp she yielded to the disgusting deed and the digit skewered her rear passage.
‘You’ve no idea,’ he said over her squeal of protest, ‘what you are dealing with. I intend to break you, Allura, but I shall do so with such subtlety that up to the last possible moment you will delude yourself that you’re winning.’
‘And I will win,’ she grimaced. ‘Except in your dreams.’
Montreico worked a second finger into her pussy, which was surprisingly and shamefully wet. ‘The time has come for your first beating, princess,’ he announced.
‘Never,’ she defied, though at the very mention of physical discipline her sex began to moisten even more.
‘Your body craves it, and so does your soul. That is why you behave like such a brat. You have longed for a m
an to interpret your signals and put you under his yoke of bondage.’
‘I crave nothing,’ she argued, ‘save your slow and miserable death.’
Montreico massaged her clitoris, making her moan against her will. ‘I want you to beg for it,’ he growled. ‘I want you to beg me to stripe your pretty virgin ass until you scream in agony.’
‘This is sheer brutality,’ she insisted, though she was beginning to writhe with all the energy of a cheap whore.
‘I am waiting.’
He removed his finger from her clit, leaving her hanging. She tried to push back against him, but he held her fast until, in pure feminine frustration, she whimpered, ‘Please, discipline me… punish me… beat me… I’m yours.’
‘Later,’ he predicted, smoothing the luscious globes of her buttocks, ‘you will deny this ever happened. Your own mind will play tricks on you in an effort to hold on to your sham freedom and I will allow you this, because it pleases me; it is a game I enjoy.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she breathed.
‘No, you don’t,’ he agreed. ‘It’s not your place to. But I am going to leave you now, and I want you to bend and grasp your ankles. Do not move from that position until I return. I don’t care how long that might be. I don’t even care if the entire fellowship of the Monastery of St Torondo walk by and call for you to cover yourself, you will ignore them. For that matter, you will ignore even the apparition of one of the gods. Is that clear?’
‘Yes,’ said Allura, fearing that soon enough she would be calling him sir.
He eventually returned with a switch, fashioned from some other tree nearby. She had no idea how long he’d been gone, only that every instant was an agony, listening for every sound, the whispers of the breeze and – the gods forbid – the sound of footsteps or horses coming along the road.
‘Miss me?’ asked the baron.
‘I might have been accosted,’ she complained weakly.
‘And that would have broken your heart,’ he sneered.
‘What are you doing to me?’ she asked. I’ve never been—’
The stick thwacked across her buttocks. ‘Never been what?’
Allura cried out in shock and pain, and releasing her hold on her gown she fell forward, her hands bracing against the inevitable fall to the ground.
‘Get up,’ said the baron mercilessly. ‘Or you’ll endure twice the number already allotted.’
‘Y-you mean you intend to do that again?’ she queried miserably, looking up at him from beneath disheveled hair.
‘Every day for the rest of your life.’ He looked down at her grimly. ‘Depending on how well you behave yourself.’
‘But I’m not a child,’ she protested, much of the defiance already gone from her voice.
‘That’s true,’ he yanked her to her feet, pushing her forward against the tree, ‘a child would have some inherent sense of right and wrong and would at least try and appease its elders.’ This time he would strike her standing upright. ‘Brace yourself,’ he ordered as he lifted her skirt himself.
Allura placed her palms on the tree and leant against it, feeling the roughness of the bark through the material against her nipples. ‘Please don’t beat me anymore,’ she begged, though it was obvious he intended to do precisely that.
‘You will count the blows up to ten,’ he ordered, ignoring her pitiful plea. ‘If you miss any we will start again from the beginning.’
‘You’re a monster,’ she whispered, as the switch whistled through the air, biting and irresistible.
‘You missed the count,’ he stated. ‘We remain at zero.’
‘One!’ she cried as the switch bit again.
‘You mark well,’ he praised. ‘Were you a slave I would display you naked in the courtyard of my castle for twenty-four hours after every beating so everyone could enjoy the view.’
‘Two,’ she gasped, having no time for small talk.
‘Whipping a female takes more skill than one might imagine,’ he mused. ‘I prefer a lattice design myself. Up, down and across, maximizing the placement of the welts.’
‘Th-three,’ she stammered, scarcely believing they were not yet a third of the way through.
‘You are fortunate you are only my fiancée and not my slave. I would not be so lenient with a bonded female.’
Allura shivered. What exactly would he do to a slave under such circumstances? ‘I’ve done nothing to you,’ she defied, her breath torn and ragged, ‘but you do me a great injustice.’
The baron slashed again, high on her left buttock, too quick for her to respond. ‘The count returns to zero,’ he informed, enforcing his draconian rules.
‘No!’ she shrieked. ‘I’ll never bear it.’
‘I’m quite sure you’ll manage, my dear.’
As the blows passed one blended into another. Allura heard herself counting afresh, as if she were a third person, observing nearby or floating above. The pain, acute and pulsing, blended with her heartbeat and with her secret lusts. She was intensely aroused despite – or because of – what he was doing to her defenseless body.
‘Done,’ he proclaimed at last.
‘I… I feel strange,’ she mumbled, her voice a gasping whisper. Her bottom was continuing to clench, though he’d stopped striking her. ‘Baron, what is happening to me?’
‘It is the heat of a female in submission,’ he casually observed. ‘Must I teach you everything?’
Allura felt shamed by her own naivety, and by her reaction as well. If only this man were not such a monster she might be able to express to him her profound need to be held, to be neither judged nor pressured but simply allowed to absorb this most incredible experience.
‘We must be on our way to the castle,’ he said dismissively.
‘I don’t think I can walk,’ she told him.
‘You will walk,’ he stated uncompromisingly, ‘or I will whip you along the way for incentive.’
Allura gathered herself, facing the depth of her loneliness. Revenge alone sustained her, and the hope of seeing him in her place. If he thought he was heartless, she would be twice as bad.
‘The ride will not be pleasant,’ he warned as she stood meekly beside the horse. ‘Because of your welts,’ he clarified.
‘I should be allowed in the wagon,’ she said. ‘My own slave has better accommodations, as do my clothes.’
‘Your slave can be thrown to wild dogs at my slightest whim, as can your clothes,’ he laughed. ‘Is that the status you would like to share?’
‘I want my undergarments back,’ she demanded, ignoring his sarcasm.
‘No, you will ride as you are, and you will not sit on your skirt, either.’
The baron compelled her to sit bare-assed on the saddle, her agonized buttocks burning from the touch of the leather. ‘Hold on tight,’ he ordered, his arm clamping her waist and drawing her close. The horse gave a whinny and began to trot, and then to gallop, the moving saddle causing her pain and pleasure in equal measure. The man behind her was overwhelming too, with his scent and his iron will, palpable and deeply sexual. His cock was hard against her lower back, and she had the overwhelming desire to be on her knees, appeasing him with her mouth, her helplessness reinforcing her arousal.
Montreico returned them to the head of his troops. They passed the wagon and she saw the cage in the back was open. She wondered if Veeta was gone, but then behind it she saw the girl’s slender legs in the air, a faceless man rutting between them, his naked, hairy ass rising and falling rhythmically, one of the guards fucking her as the caravan moved slowly along.
Rodolfo pulled alongside his commander. ‘Baron, do you wish to stop at nightfall?’
‘No, we press on. You will ride ahead, Rodolfo. Alert the castle to be at the ready for us.’
Chapter Five
The silvery moon, barely a tenth fu
ll, was high above the baron’s castle when they arrived. Allura was grateful for the relative darkness to cover her unseemly entrance into the midst of his household. These were, after all, the servants over whom she would soon hold sway as their mistress. Seeing her arrival on the man’s horse as disheveled and flushed as she was would have been an uncompromising blow to her authority. She wondered if this was part of the baron’s reasoning for riding them so hard in one day.
‘Well done,’ he murmured to the steed, feeding it a carrot as soon as they dismounted. Allura was starving, but she wasn’t about to beg him for food.
‘Seeing as how you care so much more for your horse than you do for me, I should like to be shown to my chambers,’ she said icily. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’
He continued to pat the muscled neck of the horse as he addressed her. ‘You will have no chambers, only temporary guest quarters until we are married.’
For the moment Allura had not will with which to argue. ‘I am concerned only with tonight, baron. I am very tired.’
‘Rodolfo will show you the way,’ he said.
‘I will require my belongings as well,’ she said haughtily. ‘And my slave.’
‘Your slave is occupied at the moment. I shall have her sent presently.’
Allura bristled. ‘Occupied, you say? Don’t you mean she’s being abused by your men?’
‘She seems to be enjoying it well enough,’ he shrugged. ‘At any rate, my hands were tied. A few of them made use of her on the way here and now they all want her, so naturally, in the interests of fairness, I have allowed it.’
‘Allowed it? But you have no right. She is mine; a lady’s slave, meant for a lady’s service.’
The baron arched an eyebrow. ‘Veeta has told me differently,’ he countered. ‘She indicated you frequently punish her by throwing her to packs of men. Guardsmen, prisoners, even. And that afterwards you thirst to know every intimate detail of the experience.’
Allura was crimson. Once again he was hinting at her fascination with female slavery. ‘I am as far above a slave, baron, as I am above you,’ she spat.
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