“No,” Merritt cried, wishing she could stop her ears. “This isn’t true. How would you know, anyway?”
Ileana bent to take Merritt’s nipple in her mouth. For an agonizing, soul shattering moment, she chewed. “Don’t be naïve, Merritt. Do you think Belok doesn’t have eyes everywhere? The grave couldn’t hold him, why should an ocean?”
“I won’t…I won’t accept this…”
“It was during Christmas break,” Ileana cooed, ignoring her protests as she ran the flogger up and down her shivering, pain wracked belly. “He got you both drunk that one night, remember? Only he’d put something extra in yours so you’d be out cold. Tina was in the bathroom, trying to take off her makeup. Your father came up behind her, told her how beautiful she was. Made her put her hands down so her could cup her breasts in his hands. He had her look at their reflections together in the mirror.
“’Do what I want you to’, he told her, ‘and I’ll make your body sing.’“
“Lies,” moaned Merritt. “All lies.”
“Really? But didn’t Tina distance herself from you after that? She never did come home with you again, did she? She wanted to tell you, but she was ashamed. Mostly because she liked it. Your father whipped her, Merritt. He made her submit to him. She came over and over again while tied down on the bed. He had her so out of her mind she was orgasming from the riding crop alone.
“He used her until dawn, then made her crawl back to your room to her little sleeping bag. Once more, in the morning, she sucked him off while you were downstairs making breakfast.”
“I hate you!” Merritt blubbered, her composure broken, her body unable to endure anymore.
“Is that the truth?” Ileana massaged her clit.
“No, ma’am,” her teeth chattered, the sweat pouring from her fever wracked body. “I don’t…hate you.”
“Beg for it,” the woman whispered maliciously.
“I need an orgasm. I beg to come, on your hand,” she gasped.
“Permission denied.” She turned back to Becca. “You’re awfully quiet, slut. Nothing to say for yourself?”
Becca shook her head, that strange light in her eyes as she smiled to her own private joke.
“The cunt next to you called me a liar. Do you think that’s what I am? Do you think I was lying when I said your boyfriend dumped you here because you’re too stupid and ugly to be a decent slave?”
Ileana’s fingernail was on Becca’s clit. Just a little pressure and she’d be in hell. “No,” she replied. “I don’t think you’re a liar.”
“No? So if I said that I knew in college you used to fantasize about licking your physical education teacher’s arse and groveling at his feet, that would be the truth?”
“Yes,” agreed, her voice hollow. “It would.”
“Come for me,” Ileana commanded. “Slave.”
Becca threw herself into orgasm, her body straining against the cruel bonds like a mad, moon soaked cat threatening to rip itself limb from limb. Once again, Merritt was left with the distinct impression this girl was more than she seemed.
When at last she subsided, Ileana removed her finger and made Becca lick it clean.
“Jealous, are we?” Ileana taunted Merritt. “Would you like me to pay attention to you, too? What secrets do you have for us? How about that big strapping secret agent? What is his name again?”
“Simon?”
“Yes,” Ileana tweaked Merritt’s nipples, leaving the other girl to her afterglow. “Simon. You would like him to be your master, wouldn’t you? You would like him to collar you and treat you like the little slut you are.”
“Never!” she cried, as if she’d been struck by a cane to her soul. “I hate that man! He could never mean a thing to me!”
“Don’t lie to me, or you’ll be sorry.”
“I don’t want him hurt,” she wept, her emotions overcoming her. “I don’t want anyone hurt.”
“And?”
Her heart thundered in her chest. Here it was, the moment of truth as she looked back over it all. Simon Rutledge and that infuriating little smile, the cocky attitude, that patch of hair that never quite set right, his lean muscles, the way he was half boy and half man. The way he knew how to abuse her and touch her and…
Merritt’s eyes widened as she considered the possibility. “No,” she shook her head. “It’s not possible.”
Ileana stroked her hair like some demented version of a mother. “Don’t fight it, darling. You’re falling love with him. You’ll see.”
Terror gripped her heart as she tried to guess what Belok might do to the man if he found out.
“Fear not,” Ileana read her mind. “I will protect your dashing lover for you. Belok and I have an understanding. Your virginity is his. Everything else belongs to me.”
“Yes,” she groaned, her cunt stretched under Ileana’s probing fingers. “Ma’am.”
Merritt shivered. For the first time in her incredible journey, it was occurring to her that she might not make it home. Was love making her feel so vulnerable all of a sudden? Could that brute Simon be making her this vulnerable, this desperate?
Closing her eyes, she sought her solace, her answers in escape, her mind slipping once more into the life of Vistya, her long ago counterpart and sister.
Chapter Fourteen
Expect no sympathy,” said the Dark Prince to his bride, he who had once been denied the title of king by the surrounding rulers because of the smallness of his realm but who now refused it of his own accord, delighting to humiliate them by making them grovel to a supposed inferior. “Expect no mercy.”
Princess Vistya, now of Zuravia, hung her head, the evidence of her degradation writ on her flesh. The dirt stains and grass, the trail of dried blood on her inner thigh and the thick milky substance, the oozing semen of two dozen spurting cocks, their contents imperfectly held by her plundered canal. “I am filthy,” she said to her husband. “May I clean myself?”
“You will address me as lord or master,” he looked down at her from his throne.
“I am filthy,” she repeated. “Master.”
“It pleases me to look upon you this way.”
She shook out her matted hair, daring to look him in the eye. “But I fear you will not wish to touch me this way, my lord.”
His lips curled slightly at her charm, the self-effacing presence. If there were at this point anything human left in the man, it would be this woman who would bring it out. “Are you begging, my little princess, to be had?”
“As my lord wills,” she bowed her head.
“I will torture you,” he warned, “every day of your life. I will be impossible with you.”
Unbidden, Vistya dropped to her knees. “I am yours,” she declared.
The prince rose from his marble throne, the dust of the road still on his boots, the sword still at his side. He must have been sitting here, Vistya thought, the whole time she was being used. He had not, it seemed, made it to his chambers. She wondered if he ever did except to possess his slaves. It was rumored the man did not sleep, that he was tormented by demons that bit at his soul night and day.
“My slaves will prepare you,” he told her, descending the stairs to tower over her. “You will be brought to my bed. I shall erase from your mind all the memories of the others.”
Vistya muttered her thanks, not sure whether the words were meant to comfort or terrify her. Belok left her kneeling and alone in the throne room. The women did not come for her until an hour later. Alone she waited in that interval, trembling, confused. The isolation overwhelming her far worse than the punishment by the moat, the endless line of men with cocks to possess and torment her. Tears came now, not for herself, but for sake of her kingdom, and most especially her father, the proud and noble man who’d given everything to protect her and who had, in good faith, traded her to Belok for the sake of his people.
Now he’d been betrayed, forced to watch his own daughter’s violation, humiliating marriage and hellish
descent into slavery. If only she could talk to him, even for a few minutes, so he could see that she was prepared, even eager to face her destiny.
For this man was not merely her kidnapper, the thief of her body. He was also the holder of her heart. Had the prince seen this himself, catching in her visage the instant, inexplicable surrender the day they’d first laid eyes upon each other three months earlier at a meeting between him and her father?
It was submission and love at first sight. Was such a thing possible? Could she trust such emotions? Her father would survive, they all would. They had their politics, their traditions. But she was only a woman in need of a strong man, in need of the one thing her father could not give her: slavery.
The prince’s servants conveyed her to a large, sunken tub. There were three of them, beautiful, naked girls collared with anklets and metal wristbands. No words were spoken as they scrubbed clean her body, using thick sponges and delicate, perfumed soaps. Vistya felt the healing gels, the warm pervasiveness of the emollients, light like honeysuckle, so out of place in this masculine, somber environment. Somehow it made her feel all the more naked, vulnerable and feminine.
Vistya remained standing, the waters up to her waist while the girls worked her over, lavishing their tender cares as though she were some goddess to be adored.
Closing her eyes, she thought of her master who was waiting for. She wanted to be clean for him and ready to serve. Between her legs, they wiped away the fluids, running the sponge over her thighs, the water reverberating up into her well-used juncture. Her hair they saved for last, having first massaged her legs and belly and hips and sweet breasts, running rivulets of water down from her shoulders. Applying a fragrant shampoo, they removed the sweat, the dirt and the stains of her abuse.
There were several of the men, particularly on their second go round, who’d availed themselves of the opportunity to ejaculate directly onto Vistya’s body, covering her in semen. Several had done so in her hair, others on her face and breasts. When the last man had squeezed himself dry, she’d been forced to show herself to her horrified father, witnessing to him the supreme power of Belok over both of them.
Harosh had forbidden father and daughter to speak or touch but had dragged the woman away, ordering the soldiers to take the hostages to the dungeon. Vistya despaired at their sentence for none before had ever escaped the dungeons of Belok. She would do her best to prevail on her new master, seeking to sway him with her soft and pliant flesh, but there was no telling what influence if any she could muster. What would a submissive woman, no matter how eager, mean to a man like him?
Especially with such lovely, graceful slaves about, each of them his total and complete property to be used and had at his discretion.
Leading her from the bath, they toweled her skin lovingly and applied sweet perfumes and lotions. Vistya was amazed at the glow of her skin, the lustrousness of her hair. Were there indeed magical properties to the water in this castle? In time she would learn the price to be paid for that magic and with whom Belok was dealing to obtain his mysterious, far flung powers. For now, she had still to experience her first kiss, the first touch of him, he who had chosen her, who had loved her enough to claim her for his own, denying her the freedom with which she might choose how and when and with whom to dispose of her body.
For clothing, the princess was provided a collar of steel hammered into place by the armorer so that it might never be removed. To the collar was affixed a leash by which she was led hands cuffed behind her back to the prince’s chamber. He greeted her in a long, velvet robe of red, his sinewed body naked beneath it.
“Leave us,” he commanded to the attendants.
“Are you pleased, my lord?” she whispered when they had left.
“On your belly,” he replied, his long hair a mane about him impossibly bright. “To my cock, wench.”
“Yes, master,” she blushed, hiding her smile.
Belok’s powerful hands parted the halves of the robe, the velvet slipping over her shoulders. She gasped at the sight of him. He was more thoroughly muscled than she’d realized. His abdomen was like the armor of the ancients, sculpted and rock hard, tapering to a perfect waist. The thighs were muscular, his stance bearing the arrogant carriage of a horseman, his enigmatic eyes, those of a conqueror. A Caesar.
But it was the penis that most bewitched her. In its naked presence, she had no choice but to fall, to put herself in submission. As she crawled, the soreness of her muscles all but vanished. She was tingling with energy. It was his feet she encountered first, her breasts throbbing, nipples squashed against the cold floor, a trail of her own juice like that of a snail behind her from out of her open cunt. The first kiss nearly undid her. It was like lightning coursing through her veins. Desperately, she dabbed with her tongue, paying obeisance.
Following ancient rhythms, she ascended his legs, working her way up his powerful calves all the way to his thighs. So slow, so agonizingly slow. Her own anticipation was overwhelming, her mouth like a sex hole, thirsting, starving for subjugation. Each of his balls she took in her mouth in turn, suckling, paying homage. The testes were mighty like a bull and she could only imagine the life that surged within.
And then it struck her, unwanted this startling knowledge. It terrified her the revelation, and she could only hope he did not know that she knew. Sparing her, Belok grasped the back of her head, thrusting his mouth onto his thick erection, silencing her before she could give herself away.
Vistya shut her eyes, throwing herself forward, taking him in one thrust to the back of her throat. Her earlier exercises had helped her with the gagging. She was ready for her master, ready to be made his vessel. Her belly reached boiling. Soon she would swallow him this way, if it be his will or else in some other orifice. The choice, the power, was his.
The power of a conqueror, irresistible.
And yet the truth remained, the terrible tragedy she had somehow intuited simply from the touch of those rough, hairy sacs hanging before her. It was a secret, naturally, that none was supposed to know. Belok, the Dark Prince, the scourge of Europe was sterile. There were to be no sons, no heirs. No lineage to pass along. At first she thought it a natural thing, a cruel stroke of fate, but as she worked her tongue over him, as she felt him breathing, sensed his movement within her, filling her, towering over her, she grasped a deeper meaning.
It was no accident, no deficiency. Belok had traded his vitality, his right to earthly sons for something else, something dark and unholy. A bargain is what he’d struck with another prince of darkness. But what had he been promised? No man lives forever, unless…
Vistya stiffened with the realization, but it had come too late.
Belok had his hands at her throat, preventing her escape. “Drink and be fulfilled.”
The semen was not like that of the others. It was copious, and it burned hot not with a physical temperature, but a heat of another kind. Like a brand being seared upon her belly from the inside.
“We are one. Finally, we are one.” He held her until she collapsed, her mouth working even after her slip from consciousness.
Almost immediately, he revived her, his cock still hard as a rock. “On your back, legs wide. And pray the test was right.”
“What is it you demand of me, my lord?” she thrashed her head.
“The Cup,” he whispered. “It must be fed.”
She screamed as he orgasmed more of the hot, lava-like semen, this time combined with teeth, sinking into her shoulder and drinking…drinking her blood.
“Blood,” he whispered, expelling himself. “Blood and semen.”
***
“Revive her,” Ileana commanded, signaling the guard to pour the bucket of water upon the catatonic prisoner. “It is time to prepare them for the ceremony.”
Merritt awoke to pain, the pain of her rack-stretched limbs, the pain of separation from Vistya.
Becca was released as well and both girls were allowed to lie a few moments at Ileana�
��s feet.
“The ceremony will be tonight,” she told them. “At midnight. The foreordained time for Belok’s return, for the sacred remarriage.”
Merritt trembled upon the stone floor, her body broken, her soul reconciled to total submission. Only her heart remained divided. One part of her, the part of her that was Vistya, loved Belok, but there was Simon, the cruel, mercurial agent, her most improbable lover. Which way would her mind turn? If she chose the agent, could she fight off Belok’s claim?
“The world will be remade. A new order will be born. Zuravia is only the beginning. You may kiss my feet, both of you.”
Becca and Merritt complied, touching the glossy leather with their parched lips. She let them linger, long enough to teach them their place. “Take them away,” she said at last. “I will not see them again until it is time.”
Merritt tried to adjust as they lifted her. She was woozy and so very weak. The dungeon walls, the ancient walls of Belok’s castle were spinning about her. It was too dangerous. They mustn’t make her stand. Mustn’t make her go.
“I can’t,” she cried.
And then she was gone, back into the life of Vistya.
***
The time of consummation had long past. They were now fourteen months into their marriage, and less than a few hours from its end.
“Sire, she hasn’t enough strength left. Another bleeding and she’ll surely die,” pleaded the man as he stood over the bed of the waning princess.
“Liar!” thundered the Dark Lord, drawing his dagger to slaughter the balding little physician. “Traitor!”
“My lord, I cannot alter what is. Kill me if you wish.”
Belok held him by the collar, his fist clenching the man’s scarlet robe of office by the neck. “Would I could take your blood instead,” he growled, tossing the man to the floor. “Out!” he commanded. “Do not darken my door again!”
The physician rose and bowed, making a hasty retreat from Belok’s chambers.
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