Lagniappes Collection II

by Cradit, Sarah M.

  Thaddeus grimaced, his thighs tightening as he neared conclusion. He settled his thumb against her sensitive bundle of nerves and she raised her head to the sky, begging for mercy.

  A grin stretched through his smirk as his touch turned to pinches. The girl screamed and collapsed upon his chest, twitching as her very first orgasm rocketed through her small body, completing her transformation.

  Thaddeus groaned as he spilled his seed within her, pressing down on her ass to bury himself deep.

  Cyler released a long, ragged breath. Blood rushed to his face and he needed to leave, to be alone where he could relieve his own pressure, which had built as the scene unfolded.

  He stumbled back toward where he’d entered, past purple palm fronds, weaving across a lawn of marigold, searching for the exit.

  “Vakkar!” the duchess yelled from behind him. He stopped.

  “Duchess, my apologies. I need to leave, but I’ll return tomorrow if you still want me to,” he managed to get out in a rushed breath.

  She smiled knowingly. “When you touch your cock tonight, remember this euphoria. Remember it always.

  “And come back to me. This is nothing compared to what awaits.”

  VI

  Cyler stopped short of returning to the dormitories, instead meandering down a path bisecting a gap in the glacier, one he used to run in the evenings, after instruction, to clear his mind.

  He crested the small hill, overlooking the empty valley below, a section of Farjhem seldom trafficked. Adrenaline sated, his knees went to jelly, forcing him to clutch a nearby sapling for support.

  What he’d seen… what he’d borne witness to… what he’d been an accomplice in, by even being there… violated the most sacred law of their people. Images of the casual, orgiastic abandon, and the resulting conflicted response, would stay with him for eternity.

  Cyler was sickened by the abomination, the sheer boldness in their rule breaking. Did Grand Duke Agripin know of the sybaritic lawlessness occurring right under the palace floors? For that matter, did the emperor?

  Straightening himself, Cyler looked down at the sleepy fjords below. Beyond, the orangey sunrise crested with a graceful ease over the horizon. Not a sound to disturb him, not a soul around.

  Still mentally torn, on its own accord, his hand traveled down under the waistband of his tunic. He hissed in cold air through his teeth as the light touch brought his flesh to life. Near to bursting, no sleep would greet him until he cared for the unruly appendage.

  Leaning against the tree, with one hand Cyler roughly stroked his cock, simultaneously disgusted with himself and fantasizing of a fair young virgin human writhing before him, innocence stolen, begging for more.

  Cyler awoke the next morning to the sound of excited voices. His damn dormmates, yammering on with no regard to his sleeping form.

  With a glance outside, at the position of the sun through the window, he started. Past noon already. Had he really slept that long?

  “Maybe she has more to send still,” Daniel whined, as he hung his freshly washed acolyte’s robe. His plan to join the scryers in the temple was fast approaching fruition.

  “No,” Iain lamented, biting into an under-ripe apple. “She sends five per hundred years. No more, no less. We’ve been passed over.”

  “Pfft,” Daniel replied. He cast a longing glance out the window. “We don’t know that all five went out. Only four have revealed themselves. Unless you count Darius and his boasting as numbers four and five.”

  “He needs to watch his mouth or the duchess will not only revoke his privileges, she’ll paint the wall with him!”

  Cyler re-closed his eyes, pretending to remain asleep. Listening carefully.

  Daniel laughed. “Rumors! Terrible ones, at that.”

  “No,” Iain replied. “Not rumors at all. Oriana is overly gracious to those she holds dear. But you do not want to cross her.”

  “And what would you know about it? You with no invite.”

  “I know of those who have descended into her enclave and never returned.”

  “And who would ever choose to return after sampling the delights she has to offer!”

  Iain’s footsteps echoed across the chamber as he approached the door. “I’m off to find something more palatable to eat. If you have any care for Darius’ well-being, you may want to advise he keep his boasting to a minimum. She has ears everywhere.”

  Cyler ran into Scholar Eaton on his way to lunch. Eaton was known for his vast and unending knowledge on the history of their people, past and present; the Empyrean bard. Unlike the other scholars, who seemed to draw a sense of duty from their role, it always appeared to Cyler that Eaton had taken this job for the sheer love of sharing stories.

  “Ahh, Cyler! A fine day, isn’t it?” Scholar Eaton gestured toward the cloudless sky. He closed his eyes and took in a breath of crisp air.

  “It is, sir,” Cyler replied. “I’ll miss this climate when I depart in a fortnight.”

  “Have you decided, then, where you will go?”

  Wherever Agripin goes, Emyr willing. “Not as of yet, sir.”

  “The world is your playground,” his teacher replied with a wistful smile. “There is no greater reward to our kind than that of the freedom of choice. Though, I expected a few more to join our scryers this year. No matter, we have plenty already.”

  Cyler shrugged. “That calling isn’t for all.”

  “Aye.”

  “Scholar Eaton,” Cyler began, choosing his words carefully, “what can you tell me about our royal family? I’d love to know more, before I leave Farjhem.”

  Eaton brightened, straightening. “Ah, well, I’ve taught you all I know, Cyler, but is there something specific you’d like to ask?” He ended the question on a hopeful note.

  “You made no mention of the duchess.”

  “Nerys? I believe I spoke of her at length.”

  “No. Oriana.”

  “Ahh.” Eaton’s expression was unreadable. “I’m afraid I know very little of our duchess. A lovely creature, I’ve heard, of course. She’s chosen her own kingdom, under the earth, one shrouded in intentional secrecy. The prerogative of royals. Perhaps we’ll be rewarded with a glimpse of her at tonight’s festivities.”

  Cyler suppressed a smirk. Doubtful, scholar. She has her own soiree planned, and she’s expecting my attendance.

  “I apologize for not being more helpful,” Eaton said with a contrite nod. “Perhaps the emperor can persuade her to share more with us, for the next round of students.”

  “Thank you, Scholar.”

  “Will I see you later this evening?”

  “Aye,” Cyler lied.

  VII

  Hanna huddled under her wool blanket, the only cloth afforded to her and her roommates after the surrender of their clothing.

  She wasn’t cold. The throw was hardly necessary with the many lamps and sconces throughout the room. She’d never known a greater, comforting warmth. Until her arrival, she’d not realized she spent her whole life shivering.

  Olav and Nikola were a similar sight, wrapped in their own blankets, the same expressions of uncertainty marring their young features.

  But the others… the twins and Greta… they paraded around the room totally nude, transformed by a confidence that hadn’t existed prior to their entering The Menagerie.

  They refused to talk about what had transpired, except with one another. The three had been chosen for the first night, but what that meant, no one would say. Hanna only knew her fellow captives no longer whined about going home, and instead whispered lasciviously about their next time.

  “Greta, what’s happened to you?” Olav persisted in asking.

  “I’m forbidden to say,” she’d reply. “You must discover freedom for yourself.”

  “They’ve brainwashed you. What other explanation is there?”

  “Dearest Olav,” she purred, gliding toward him, her ample breasts jiggling unrestrained. “The only brainwashing is the
one we’ve been subject to our whole lives. My eyes are open. I sing now of my potential!”

  Moments later, the girls were gone, ushered off to their new lives with the other “pets.” Hanna and the boys were more confused than the day of their arrival.

  They were invited to the festivities this evening. An idea that both thrilled and terrified her, but she couldn’t land on which emotion was winning the battle. On one hand, the others had entered The Menagerie scared and uncertain only to re-emerge as different beings entirely. On the other, the equally delicious and terrifying fact that none of them knew why such a transformation had occurred.

  Which hand would propel her later tonight, when she would be asked to enter into a new life, no questions asked, no answers given.

  Soft hands gently nudged Hanna. She stretched, wishing again she had some way to see the sun, to know whether it was morning or night. Olav and Nikola stood naked and wide-eyed several feet away, eyes glued on the door. Evening then.

  Lia’s kind, smiling face appeared at her side as she knelt. “Are you ready?”

  Hanna nodded, a response more automatic than well-considered. How could she know the answer, until it was too late to decide.

  The easy confidence of Greta and the twins played across her mind. Their lack of modesty, and their apparent happiness that certainly seemed real.

  “Splendid,” Lia replied with a broad grin. “An attendant will be along shortly to take you for a lavender bath.”

  “What about Olav and Niko?”

  “They’ve already been prepared, and will be on their way shortly. Next time you see them, they will be much changed. For the better!”

  “What…” Hanna paused, frowning. What was her question, exactly? How could she even form words around all the confused facets her mind tumbled?

  “Dear child, there aren’t explanations adequate, and besides… you’ll later appreciate having had the opportunity to experience them for yourself.”

  The door opened. Hanna offered a sheepish wave to the boys as they were ushered out, and away, toward their future.

  Would they come back with the same vibrant glow as the girls?

  Would she?

  VIII

  Oriana greeted Cyler with the same enthusiasm of the night prior, declaring him “Vakkar,” and explaining he must leave his identity at the threshold. We can never be our true selves here. Leave Cyler at the door. Here, you are Vakkar. Only Vakkar.

  His late arrival—a product of oversleeping through the messenger’s knocks—left little time for flirtation with the enigmatic duchess. No sooner than the words left her lips, she was gliding back toward the dais, likely for more of the same activities from the night prior.

  Cyler was not disappointed. For the next hour, he observed two human men, no older than the girls of the night before, experience their initiation. Attendants suckled their cocks, drawing forth their pleasure before delivering them to Empyrean women who were more than eager to bring them over the precipice.

  He steeled himself, despite the familiar stirring in his britches. Cyler had arrived prepared to witness these spectacles from a studious vantage point, unwilling to find himself bent over the hill relieving his illicit lust on another sunrise.

  Halfway through the second initiation, hands slid around Cyler’s elbows and he was quietly guided to a back room without explanation.

  There, Oriana awaited him. “Ahh, Vakkar. It is your turn, now. The moment you’ve been waiting for.”

  “Have I?” he asked with an impudent shift, before he could stop himself. Did they mean to put him on that dais? Surely not.

  “Oh, surely yes,” Oriana replied, and only in that moment did he realize he was not shielding his thoughts appropriately. “We are here for one reason. For freedom in sexual release. All must pass their awakening before being released into the wider Menagerie, to sample delights at their pleasure.”

  Blocking his thoughts once more, Cyler’s pulse sprinted erratically. Sweat beaded upon his brow. He could not tell the duchess he’d never done this before, in any method. That it had never mattered to him, the way it did his peers, who took their pleasures whenever and however they saw fit. He was not averse to intercourse. But in never seeking the opportunity, the opportunity had never presented itself. The thought of his first dalliance being staged for others to witness, to judge, to draw their own pleasure from, was so utterly unappealing that he found himself inadvertently searching for the door.

  “Ahh, Vakkar. You’ve blocked your thoughts from me, but do you think I can’t see into your heart? You’ve never taken your pleasure before. I know this. Why do you think I chose you? I’m not in the business of indulging gluttons. I select those who do not understand what they are missing and give them access to a life so unlike anything they’ve desired that it causes them to question everything. Do you want to traipse through life with the careless ease of a creature who has never, truly, been walked to the edge of everything and been given the choice?”

  “You’re not making any sense,” he blurted.

  “Of course not. I cannot seek to explain the heavens on behalf of Emyr, anymore than I can explain what awaits you out there. Walking through that curtain is your choice. One only you can make. But if you instead depart, and take the easy way out, you’ll not be invited back. All who come to us, submit entirely. There is no halfway in The Menagerie.”

  Cyler glanced toward the exit, one foot clenched toward action. But his ears were drawn toward the other, toward the curtain, where he could hear the drowsy, languid crowds crying out for a new girl being pulled upon the dais, ready to meet her initiation. To meet him.

  “Who is she?”

  Oriana grinned. Her jeweled wrist flicked a red curl of hair behind her shoulder. “Does it matter?”

  “Shouldn’t it?”

  “You are Vakkar. She is whoever she chooses to be. That is all you ever need to know about the illusions of identity here.”

  Cyler grunted, finding little comfort in the gray. “Can you at least tell me if she is a prisoner? Was she brought here against her will?”

  “Ahh, Vakkar,” Oriana purred. “On that, at least, I can bring you satisfaction. All of our pets are here on their own free will. This Child of Man will choose to come to you; to deliver to you the flower of her girlhood. She will give herself freely, the rest of her days, if she deigns to stay in The Menagerie after tonight, which she will. Only the few, the ignorant, ever leave. No, Vakkar, you are not forcing this young woman to do anything she has not, herself, agreed to.”

  Cyler reached for the crimson curtain, his hand stopping short of the edge.

  “Once you walk through, there is only one way, Vakkar. Choose wisely.”

  Cyler drew in a steadying breath, and stepped through the drape.

  At once, he was overcome with the low, sensual chants from the nude figures spread out across the gardens. But his eyes drew immediately to the lovely, flaxen-haired beauty awaiting him on the dais.

  Cyler was gently stripped of his clothing, attendants running their hands over his back, chest, and up and down the hard cut of his thighs as they spread pleasant-smelling oil across him.

  Oriana took her place next to the girl. “Tonight we welcome a new pet to The Menagerie!”

  “Vakkar, a fledgling, is here this evening to aid our pet in her initiation; to usher her toward her newfound freedom. To pull her from the bonds of purgatory offered in her old home and present to her a new one!”

  Our Father of Light. Our Father of Fire.

  Like the girl of the evening prior, this one struggled with her modesty, utterly un-used to being on such bare display for so many.

  Oriana approached, stroking her hair with the same motherly tenderness she had employed with Greta. “Hanna comes to us from a father who cannot afford to feed her. Unbeknownst to her, the man she has been betrothed to will sell her into a life of servitude, off somewhere in the east, where she will never be seen or heard from again.”

 
Her blue eyes filled with tears as the words permeated; a future so different than the one she’d been promised.

  Oiled hands expertly circled Cyler’s cock, squeezing the base as more blood rushed toward the head. He gasped, nearly pitching forward.

  “Hanna, my dear. My darling. You are greater than this fate. You are so much more than what your husband would sell you into. I offer this to you, tonight. Do you accept this gift?”

  Previously overwhelming fears and sadness took on a metamorphosis. Unlike Greta, or the others, her hesitation was not a tentative one. Hearing what her father, and her betrothed, had planned seemed to pitch her out of her terror and into a hot bed of anger. Indignation. Cyler reached to read her mind, but he was too focused on harnessing his pleasure to glean more than this initial reaction.

  “Aye. I accept!”

  A brief silence fell over the crowd as they witnessed something of apparent rarity: a pet seizing her destiny without an eye to the road she came in on.

  The magical infusions, forming once again in the figures of snakes, appeared and immediately swirled around her, trailing up her thighs and resting only momentarily before filling her. Hanna arched her back and threw her head toward the sky, a moan escaping as the first magic disappeared inside her.

  Cyler swatted the attendants away. He would come at any moment if not careful, and he wanted—no needed, he needed—to save himself for this courageous creature, accepting the magic inside her with all the boldness of the duchess herself.

  Female lips sucked and bit at Hanna’s nipples, driving her further over the edge of ecstasy. Nimble fingers caressed her womanhood, spreading the folds for eager licks, revealing the tender pink flesh within. How rare it was, Cyler realized, to watch anyone embrace anything with the fervor Hanna embraced this experience. What her voice lacked in articulation, her grinding hips proclaimed.

  At last Cyler was guided on to the silken mattress adorning the altar. He ought to have been ashamed of his cock, towering in the air, throbbing with each beat of his heart, but instead he was spurred on by the cheering, the chanting, the utter exhilaration of those watching and eagerly awaiting the moment they would join together.