“Why’d you shoot him?”
“Because I’m allowed to. You, if I left it uncertain, could be executed for murdering a free man.”
“Oh.” Her throat sank to her toes but she managed a whispered, “Thank you.”
Sassik only grunted.
Chapter 7
“You stole. You ran away. You killed a man.” Sassik’s words etched into Blue’s soul.
“I’m sorry.” She ducked her head and bit at her lip, trying to be calm.
He’d rescued her from a dire situation, one he’d warned her would happen. Aerthe totally sucked.
This room was in some sort of hotel. Though clean it echoed with fear. Hers.
“Are you?”
“Yes.” She added quietly, “Um. Thank you, for helping me.”
“It was my duty as your owner. You killed a man with a knife throw.” Sassik sighed and sat on the bed behind him. “That did impress me.”
Blue ventured a smile, if a wobbly one, then watched as Sassik pulled what appeared to be a cane from his bag on the bed. This stick was new.
“Turn around, strip, then lean into the wall with both hands.”
No explanation but she knew this was punishment. Leaving wasn’t an option. Trying to would only prolong this.
With cold and trembling fingers, she stripped off her boots, top, skirt, and underwear then leaned her palms on the wall.
So vulnerable, waiting. The wall creaked. Sassik was quiet, though he swished the cane in the air a few times.
“Don’t speak, don’t move. If you flinch, get back into position immediately. I’m done when I’m done. I need to teach you this lesson, and I will, over and over if necessary. I may not have disciplined my own slave before, but I have used a cane. I’m good at making girls scream.”
He was trying to make her nervous.
She would’ve rolled her eyes, if she wasn’t on Aerthe, if she didn’t know he had the authority of a god over her. If she wasn’t already worried.
Another man might’ve sold her already.
Yet, he kept her.
It was a revelation that led to the question, why?
The cane tapped between her legs, then he withdrew it, stepped to the side, and smacked the back of her thighs. She jerked onto her toes. “Tense and this will hurt ten times worse.”
The first powerful blow struck, whipping in and scoring pain across her buttocks. She gasped and clenched everywhere, until she remembered to relax. He’d paused, to let her remember what to –
The next blow struck and she yelped.
The next she was almost ready for and she only gritted her teeth. After that, each blow drew louder, more involuntary sounds from her. He kept going, and going, until she wanted to beg him to stop. Then she did beg and he struck her harder for three blows. Her body shook and not tensing became impossible. When her hands slid down the wall or she moved, he waited for her to get back into place then resumed the punishment.
Time blurred, measured only by the strikes of the cane.
“Done.” The vile thing rattled across the floor when he tossed it aside. “Stay there.”
Tears wet her face and her hands and arms had cramped. Her arms began to shake again, her hair swaying before her eyes. She wrenched in gulps of air, trying not to feel the agony flooding her ass and thighs. Her forehead pressed on the wall, taking some of her weight. She could tell from the sounds that he stood behind her.
“I find I like seeing you all red. Turn your face.”
She turned her head to the side but couldn’t look at him.
“And these.” His thumb caressed the path of her tears. “I don’t want to have to hurt you again. Not like this. Will you do this again?”
What else could she say except, “No.” When he pinched her ass, stirring pain, Blue sobbed out, “No.” Yet was it true?
“Good. You can stand straight.”
She heard him retreat then the creak of the bed as he sat. A pillow landed beside her.
“Turn around, kneel on that. You’re going to play with yourself; I want to see you come.”
After he’d hurt her?
“Go.”
Slowly Blue turned, wiping her face with her hand until he told her not to. She kneeled, cursing when her ass hit her heels. This was impossible. Words bubbled out. “I don’t think I can.”
He leaned forward. “Do it here or do it downstairs, beside the road. Maybe you’d prefer strangers to help you?”
Bastard. She shut her eyes and reached down, put her hand over her mound, her fingers hiding her clit.
“Begin.”
She fumbled but found herself preoccupied.
Until he stood and came to her. “Up.”
As she rose, before halfway to her feet, he wrapped his fists about each breast as if they were handles, and pulled her higher, then pushed her backward until she found herself jammed between him and wall.
Though her abused rear was being squashed, it was the crushing of her breasts that overwhelmed her. Not simply pain, this was personal, confronting, and he leaned in and took her mouth with his, forcing her to open. Tongue and teeth, his breath in her, his hands in fierce possession of parts of her that should never be handled like this – as crazy as a slap to the face.
Her desires slammed to the fore.
She strained on tiptoes, gasping as he kissed and bit her mouth, her throat, bewildered by the sensations. Perversely, she found herself clutching his shoulders, holding him as if she wanted this.
God, yes. Yes, she did.
He released one breast and forced his fingers inside her, pumping at her pussy for several thrusts, then he wiped his hand on her pinkened breast while she watched, mouth agape.
The loss of control had blasted her sense of self into fragments. A moan escaped before she could stop herself.
Her lips stung and she found she’d spread her thighs, inviting him in.
If only.
He let her down to stand on the flats of her feet then carefully twisted her hair together and tied it with cord. Swaying, heart tumbling, she let him.
What this man could do. She was in awe.
The caning, the force...the taste of his tongue in her mouth. He was a storm.
He pushed until she kneeled on the pillow again. Only now her clit was engorged, her pussy remembered his fingers, and she dearly needed to be fucked.
“There. Now do it.” He returned to the bed.
Blue put her hand to herself. The simplest pressure had her catching her breath. Her eyelids lowered as she worked with finger and thumb. An orgasm built rapidly, and Sassik stared, intent on what she did.
He pulled something from the bag and stretched forward to give it to her. “Fuck yourself.”
A dildo – carved from wood and shaped like an erect but curved cock.
If only this were him. Why did she taunt herself?
She spread her thighs and leaned over, probing for her entrance. Moaning softly at the flare of sensation, she inserted it. Heat pooled as she forced the wooden cock in and out while rubbing at herself.
At first, her sounds embarrassed her until she found herself shuddering and close to climax. The man brought his cock out. Fascinated, she watched him stroke it while she fucked herself. Her pussy clamped painfully onto the timber. Arching made it hard to cram the thing inside as well as play with herself, but doing so let her see him.
Watching him while he watched her...
Seconds from coming, thighs straining, sweat dripping from her nose, her pussy muscles striving to crush the foreign thing, he barked stop. He brought her something metal and several inches long. At one end cord dangled from an eyelet, at the other was a large hook that swelled to a blunt bulb.
He put his hand out for the dildo and she extracted it, now slippery with her wetness.
“This is an anal hook, Blue.” He smiled the most devious smile she’d yet seen. Still quivering from her almost-climax, she whimpered when he pushed her body forward until she ben
t at the waist and her head almost touched her knees.
His palm swiped between her legs, collecting lubrication. The metal bulb pressed at her asshole.
“Wait, wait, wait.” She clenched, squirmed.
“Next time, think before you do.”
“You already punished me.” But she bit her lip, dragging in air. The pressure flowered into something...nice. Blue shuddered as the bulb slickly entered her. He pushed until it could go no deeper.
“I’m tying you to it. Be good.” His hand took possession of her ponytail and pulled at her scalp, forcing her to arch. Her ponytail was being tied to the hook buried in her ass. As he finished the knots, the jerks on her hair and ass distracted her.
Not as distracting as the unusual pressure below.
“Hands to your sides.”
She clenched them into fists, eyes closing. This was evil.
When he was done, she paused and simply felt how this was. How it affected her. His fingers plunged into her cunt and stayed there. The pleasure of both penetrations blurred.
When he sucked out his fingers, Blue wriggled and gasped out a please.
“Please? You want me?”
Fuck. Why had she said that?
He chuckled. “No.”
On her knees, with her head tied back, she watched as he walked to the bed.
“Make yourself come.”
She slid her hand between her legs, squeezing rhythmically, whimpering at the doubly strange feeling of the hook buried in her ass. If she spasmed as she came, she might tear herself. How awful that this degrading punishment somehow thrilled her. It spoke to such base desires.
Though her eyes had closed, she was sure he had his hand on his cock. Imagining that, her fingers and thumb frantically massaged, and the metal tugged at the rim of her ass.
Incoherent, she writhed into climax, blinded and overcome.
His cock pushed at her lips. “Open.”
There was no time to acclimatize to his cock fucking her mouth. Her head was released from the cord and he plunged deeper, hitting the back of her throat, thrusting, stretching her lips. Spluttering, trying to suck air through her nose, she felt the hot gush of cum. He pulled out and squirted the rest on her face and breasts.
Then he lowered himself and kissed her.
Slippery. Warm. Possession. Those words said everything about that moment.
The room rocked when he let her go. His hand slipped to her nape, steadying her while she wrestled with how to breathe without snorting cum. Her palms rested on his strong thighs. With fingers spread, she barely encompassed much of the width of his muscles. When she bowed her body over him and rested the side of her head on his legs, he pulled her close.
“What’d you do to me?” The hair on his thighs brushed her lips.
There was no reply, only his hands on her extracting the hook. She winced. He laid it aside, then his hands were on her again stroking her back and where he’d caned her.
She stared blindly, along the unfocused floor.
She’d obeyed him. Let him cane her. It wasn’t, she thought, merely obedience, or that might was right. The pain had centered her. She’d done something that was out of kilter for this world. A man was dead, a bad man, but still. She didn’t fit here.
Sassik was right. But not about everything.
She didn’t want to be owned by some stranger.
“Did you mean what you said you wouldn’t run?”
She blinked. The crux of the matter. Worn out by everything that had happened this day, she was past lying. The one thing she knew of Sassik was that he’d not lied to her. If she kept running, bad things would happen. He’d said she could choose her owner.
“Yes. I did.”
The tears mingled with the sweat and the cum and she doubted he knew she wept.
Chapter 8
They journeyed onward for many days. Sassik trained her to kneel and to obey, to bow her head when he commanded it, to submit. He trained her to masturbate before him. Punishments were rare, though spanking her was something he could seriously do forever.
Watching her walk away from him, naked, with a red ass, with her hips doing that female sway – he wanted that on a loop.
When she brushed against a shrub that lanced her with hundreds of thorns, he had her lie over him while he extracted them. Tedious, but enjoyable – not because it hurt her, though watching her squirm and squeak was fun. He’d liked caring for her.
A lot of men proposed to buy Blue. Half he rejected as assholes, the other half Blue said no to. One persistent man had to be shot.
“Better shot than strung up by your balls,” he’d told the idiot as he was stretchered away. Some people didn’t get hints well.
He stuck to the bargain and let her choose. He detested lying, yet with each passing day he saw himself as more and more dishonest.
Before, he’d had a gut-felt inkling of what it was he wanted. Now he was surer about the nuances. It was too odd to be normal, and he resisted, because doing it, saying it to her, would be ridiculous.
He didn’t stick his cock in her again, at either end, because of this. Possessing this woman would happen so easily, like slipping on shoes. He wanted her, in a perverse way that most men who had slaves would think bizarre.
Still, he was vetoing men just because he couldn’t bear to give her to them. He also suspected she’d never say yes.
He was going to talk to her about this, or smack some sense into her. After he smacked some sense into himself.
The last town before the Chasm was Diavulge. On the far side of the town, a road wound up into the mountains. Heavy clouds obscured the sky above the green slopes.
Between them and the road, the town sprawled. This was one of the few civilized places that’d sprung up in association with a destroyed city. The shattered remains of once-towering buildings lay in slumped heaps where they’d fallen.
Far to the left, great holes had been gouged, where landships had swept by, grazing the town, gulping up the ground and mining. It was what Mekkers did. Most visits led to trade. Sometimes there was violence.
“Never trust a Mekker,” he muttered.
He parked outside a drinking hole called Last Chance, and he pointed through the grimy windshield.
“This is the only place with liquor before we hit that road going up to the Chasm.”
Blue nodded. He didn’t cuff her to the door anymore. She wore the cuffs, though that was more due to him liking them on her. The collar was still the original Mekker one.
“I might find a physician here. It’s a big place. Then I can get that collar off you.”
She put her hand to the collar. “Thank you.”
Of course, he’d only replace it with his own.
They found a physician on the outskirts where the land began to rise. Not only did he remove the bloodsucking collar and the tube that led into her artery, he healed the wound. That meant Sassik could put his on Blue immediately. He was at the truck unearthing it from the satchel when Blue made a noise.
He looked where she gazed.
The swathe route.
Hadn’t asked about its schedule.
A dust haze marked where it approached. Too far away to hear the sound. Even so, he imagined he could hear the crunch of the jaws as the land was eaten, refined, spat out. Landships left masticated earth behind them. Mekker shit, some called it. This would not be the swathe Osta had hit – that roamed a different area.
They’d graze the outer fringe but miss the town, trade, keep going.
Blue was looking so intently. He moved to the side so he could see her face. Longing; he saw it in her expression.
The red collar was in his hand and he tapped it on his pants leg. There came a time when decisions must be made, no matter if you dreaded the outcome.
Rear engines whining, a shriker rose from the far environs of the town, where a crumpled skyscraper marked the merging of new buildings and old. Some people lived in the ruins. Things could be found the
re, even after all these years. The shriker upped engine power and thrummed toward the nearest landship, flying a few yards above the ground.
The comparative smallness of the shriker became obvious as it neared the side of the giant ship. Why had a scout been sent so soon?
A siren blared, a sound most would respond to. Many towns used them in times of danger.
“What’s happening?” Blue asked.
“I don’t know. Something bad maybe.”
A high volume speaker shrieked across the town. “Gathering. Gathering. Gathering.”
“Should we go?”
He nodded. “Yes.” They might’ve picked a bad day to visit.
Driving partway, by the time they neared the gathering, a crowd milled. He walked through the dusty streets until he found a climbable piece of a tower. They picked their way up and sat on some blocks on a three-story-high section. It hadn’t fallen over yet. It should be safe.
Below, thousands stood in a cleared area. This was used for other events, judging by the seats. No one bothered unstacking those, instead they stood and grumbled.
The speaker squealed and started up again. On a center stage, a man spoke.
“We have been given instructions from our swathe.
“I quote: ‘Due to the recent Scav attack on the Royal Swathe we require a sacrifice to be made by some grounder towns. Ten individuals must be delivered to this swathe, to be slaves. A tithe of twenty thousand K shall be delivered. If this tithe or the slaves are not supplied before we arrive, we will mine one half of the town.’”
The speaker paused to survey the crowd. Most remained silent.
“I expect some will volunteer to save their families or their family’s homes from harm. The provosts will select from those at this gathering if we do not have ten people. Visitors are expected to contribute to the tithe. Five K each will give us what we need. If you want this town to be here when next you visit, please comply. If you’d like to volunteer, come to the stage area.”
Then he stepped off the stage.
The Mekkers must be trying to stir up resentment against Scavs and the swathes were talking to each other. Perhaps they’d sent Ramms back and forth? Those were scarce but could travel long distances.
Fated Possession: The Machinery of Desire Page 4