“I asked you a question, thrall.” His voice had gone icy. “Answer me. Do you like this?”
My teeth sank harder in my lower lip, and I braced in the shackles. His boots clicked on the stone floor as he stepped back, getting room to swing.
The lash cut a furrow of bright pain across my shoulder blades. I clenched my teeth and managed not to scream.
“Answer me!” he snapped, and struck again, this time cutting across my ass.
“Fuck you!”
“Yes, you will, but not yet.” Another blazing blow. Despite the burn, I knew he’d pulled his stroke. “You want this, don’t you?” Another blow, then another, and another, as the clamps shot pleasure through the pain in sweet little darts. “Do you want this?”
“Yes!” I yowled. The words burst from me before I could clamp my teeth shut. “I saw you with Rilla the night before our wedding. I saw you beat her, watched her dance under your whip. You were supposed to marry me the next day! I should have hated you. Instead I’ve dreamed of that night for years. I want this!”
The stinging blows halted. “Who the hell is Rilla?” He sounded honestly confused.
I hung there limp, panting. I knew better, but I told him the truth anyway. I had lied enough, especially to him. Especially to myself. “One of Isa’s retinue. A blonde. Big tits.”
“Are you talking about the little slut who drugged me?”
“She drugged you?” I frowned. I hadn’t known that.
“She served me wine laced with some kind of Swanhilde aphrodisiac. I realized what was happening, lost my temper and beat her ass for it. But I didn’t take her. I wanted you.” Arles stalked around me to study my face. “You saw that?”
“There was a spy chamber next door to your bedroom,” I told him. “Isa and I watched you flog her and fuck her with the butt of the whip.”
His eyes widened with astonished realization. “No wonder you took to your heels. Rilla was an experienced submissive, Gisel, and I knew it. I would never have treated a seventeen-year-old girl that way. Particularly not you.”
“But Isa said…” Even as the words came out of my mouth, I winced at my own stupidity.
“Isa’s a manipulative bitch,” Arles said, impatient. “You have to sift everything she says like rose flour to pick out the lies.” His green eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But you were barely more than a child. Of course you believed her.” He turned away, angrily snapping the whip against the floor. The crack echoed from bulkhead to bulkhead like a lightning strike. “All of this, everything that happened, all the scandal. All because of that spoiled little bitch. And I fell for it.”
Hope bloomed in me for the first time in years, unfurling giddy petals in my mind. It made me stupid. “I love you, Arles. I’ve loved you from the time I was five years old.”
Arles froze, his shoulders tensing until they were as rigid as marble. He pivoted to face me. His eyes blazed with incandescent green rage in his white face. “I don’t care.”
“But you said…”
“Why you ran is irrelevant. You’re political poison now, Gisel. For the past decade, you’ve been the subject of countless rumors and foul jokes -- with me as the punch line. Do you think I’m stupid enough to marry you now? Every enemy I have would dredge up every old rumor to paint me a fool. They’d seize my father’s throne, put a puppet in my place, and siphon the Empire’s wealth into their own pockets. I will not be replaced by thieves and liars.”
I stared at him, stricken and sick. “I’d never have run had I known you’d pay such a cost.”
“I believe you, but it doesn’t matter.” Arles stalked closer until he could glare into my face. I controlled the impulse to shrink away. “I am to rule an empire, and you made me look like a witless, love-struck dupe. Every bloody battle I fought to reconstruct my reputation would be wasted if I married you now. The warriors who fell in my service would have died for nothing. The only way I can spike my foes’ guns is to parade you before all of Tor on a leash.” He bared his teeth in a savage, tortured grimace. “You can never be anything to me but a sex-thrall.”
Chapter Four
I stared at Arles. To my horror, my eyes began to sting. I ground my teeth and fought for control, but a tear slid down one cheek, painting a cold, wet trail on my hot skin. “I am sorry!”
Arles leaned close enough to kiss. “Not as sorry as you’ll be when we reach Tor.”
Hot-eyed with rage, the prince freed me from the field restraints and hauled me across the chamber to one of the bondage devices. He ordered me to kneel on the padded bench and started buckling me in, thighs spread wide, ass thrust out, arms extended out front and locked in restraint bands.
Sweating, I listened to his boot heels click on the deck as he stalked away. Twisting my head around, I caught sight of him selecting a small jar from one of the wall niches. I quickly jerked my gaze away as he headed toward me again, dipping his fingers in the jar as he came. My sex clenched and heated in nervous arousal. I knew what was coming next, and it was going to hurt.
I was right.
“Now,” Arles purred. “Let’s see how tight this tempting little ass really is.”
I felt his oiled fingers between my helplessly spread thighs, seeking the tight pucker of my asshole. He pushed, sinking the finger deep. I stiffened at the alien sensation of his entry, then caught my breath at the dark pleasure as he withdrew.
He laughed in a low, masculine growl of excitement. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’re a virgin.”
“I am,” I confessed on a gasp. He was using two fingers now, probing ruthlessly deep. My channel fought the entry, and I tried to release the clamping muscles. Resisting would only make it worse. Besides, I had no real desire to fight him. Furtive excitement purred in my brain as his ruthless fingers greased my ass.
“You mean Galon never got around to using this little hole?” His voice held an edge like a quark-splitter’s blade. “I’d have thought you two would have been more adventurous than that.”
I froze, silently cursing myself for letting him catch me off guard. Of course Arles knew about Galon. The spies of Tor were legendary for their ability to penetrate any security, learn any secret. Once they’d learned my new identity, they’d have ferreted out every last detail of my life. Including my relationship with Galon.
His thumb joined the fingers in my ass, stretching me ruthlessly. “I asked you a question. Did Galon ever use you like this?”
“No,” I gasped, shivering at the ribbon of exotic pleasure threaded through the pain. “He feared hurting me.”
Arles laughed in a short, humorless bark, and pulled his hand away. “Luckily, I have no such fear.”
I looked back over my shoulder to see him open his uniform fly and free his rigid cock. He started stroking the thick lube over his shaft, staring at my ass with predatory heat. I licked my dry lips. He looked up, caught my gaze and grinned like a wolf as he sauntered closer. The smooth, thick head of his cock brushed my anus. He leaned in and began to push.
The entry was slow and searing as his big shaft drilled relentlessly deep, forcing the tight, tender flesh to spread for his pleasure. “Oh, yes,” Arles growled through set teeth, “I think you just may have the tightest ass I’ve ever fucked.”
“Bastard,” I gasped.
“Darling, you have no idea.” He worked in another stinging, ferocious centimeter. “But you will. Before I’m done with you, you’ll know exactly what I’m capable of.”
Clenching my fists, I fought him, clamping down hard. I knew better, but my body had other ideas. It didn’t care for his invasion.
“Ooooh, yes,” Arles purred. “That’s it. Tighten up. You can’t keep me out, but it feels so sweet when you try.”
Finally he stopped, buried so deep I could feel his balls pressed against my ass. I tossed my head at the vicious ache, trying to relax my protesting inner muscles. He paused a moment before he began to slowly pull that endless dick out of my tortured channel.
Again the prince thrust inside, triggering a wave of thorny pain that made me grit my teeth. But when he started pulling out again, that wicked, erotic sweetness rose again, growing even greater when he reached beneath me and found my clit. I shuddered in delight and suffering as he fucked me, long and slow and deep.
“Yes. Oh, yes,” Arles whispered roughly. “I knew you’d love it -- eventually.”
The prince sodomized me with seductive sadism, shoving into me as he teased my clit, before withdrawing slowly, letting me feel every hot centimeter of that thick shaft. I squirmed in my bonds, battered by waves of pleasure and pain so intense I was no longer sure which was which.
“Did you love him?” Arles snarled, and circled his hips until his cock seemed to screw its way into me.
I knew he meant Galon. “No,” I gasped. “I tried, but I couldn’t. You wouldn’t let me, you bastard.”
The prince stopped in mid-stroke. I looked over my shoulder to find him staring at me with a puzzled frown. “You’re telling the truth.” His royal sensor implants no doubt told him as much. “You spent years with him. You were his lover…”
“But I loved you, damn it.” I threw back my head and groaned at the searing sensation of his cock impaling me like a stake. “He deserved more from me, but I could never give it to him. I tried, but my heart just wasn’t mine to give. You had it.”
Arles’s lips drew back from his teeth. “Good.” He began another slow, silken withdrawal. I shuddered as the exotic pulses rolled through me. “I could never forget you either. And I tried. Odin’s eye, I tried.”
He started to grind, fucking me hard, fast, sending blasts of raw sensation along my shuddering nerves. His hips hit my ass in fast, meaty slaps. The orgasm took me by surprise, bursting in my skull like a thunderclap, followed by rolling throbs as savagely delicious as his cock. I screamed, drowning in fire. My muscles jerked and quivered.
Arles shoved to the hilt, his head snapping back as if from the impact of an invisible fist. His cock jerked deep in my ass. He roared, a raw, masculine bellow of pleasure and conquest.
We writhed, coming, flying, locked together in blind, convulsing pleasure until the climax died, leaving me limp and sweating. Panting, I listened to him breathe in harsh rasps, the sound loud in the stillness of the chamber. I ached to hold him, ached to be held, but I was still bent helplessly, locked tight in leather and steel.
Loneliness chilled me. I’d never felt so far from him, even when I’d been half a galaxy away. Arles might use me, pleasure me -- he might even love me in some hidden corner of his soul -- but I would never be anything more to him than his thrall.
One day the man I loved would be emperor, and he would never let either of us forget it.
* * *
It took two weeks to make our way back to Tor, and Arles spent every off-duty moment taking me in ways I’d never even heard of. We worked our way through every device and toy in the ship’s erotic dungeon as he demanded my utter submission. He fucked me until I was sore and limp as a rag, even as I discovered a euphoric high under his ruthless hands.
Afterward, we’d retire to his quarters, where the prince would hold me with a lover’s tenderness. Sometimes he’d make love to me on that narrow bunk, his kisses gentle, each touch of those big hands as sweet and stirring as a virgin’s dream. When Arles finally slept, I’d lay staring at the bulkhead in the dark, trying to ignore the tears rolling hot down my cheeks.
It was at such times that Galon’s ghost whispered his disappointment. Playing at erotic submission was one thing, but I’d let Arles enslave my spirit. Otherwise I would never have allowed him to treat me with such contempt. If I really wanted him, I had to fight for his respect.
It was time I start acting like the captain of the Valkyrie Quest.
But I’d wrecked Arles’s political life once. Did I have the right to do it again? And what price would our respective kingdoms pay? I was no longer an ignorant girl, to act blindly without thought for the consequences.
So as I lay in the prince’s arms each night, I sought a way to cut the Gordian Knot that bound us. But every plan I considered was riddled with too many potential pitfalls. I could see no solution, except to play the thrall and wait for an opportunity.
There had to be a way.
Chapter Five
In far too little time, Mjölnir reached Tor. I still felt bitterly torn when I boarded the prince’s sleek little captain’s launch for the flight down to Asgard, the capital city. With Arles piloting the craft, I sat alone in the rear passenger section, watching out one of the long viewports as the planet swelled around us in shades of green, blue and ocher.
We landed on the palace’s small flight pad in the center of the vast green maze that was the royal gardens. I looked up, heart beating hard with anxiety, as Arles came into the back of the craft to collect my leash. “Come, Gisel.” His grin looked twisted. “Our public awaits.”
“Lovely.” I rose to follow him toward the airlock. He glanced back at me just before he opened it, and I thought I saw a flash of guilt in his green eyes. Then he straightened his shoulders, turned around, and strode down the gangplank, my leash wrapped around his fist.
I followed, three paces behind on the end of the thin chain, out into the glare of the Torrean sun and the gaze of the media.
The Palace of Valhalla spread before us, familiar to me from countless childhood visits -- a massive structure built of silicaslate blocks that glittered in the afternoon sunlight. The walls appeared white at first glance, but with every step you took, a rainbow of iridescent color rolled across them. Between the silicaslate and the palace’s astrogothic architecture -- all tall, arched windows and soaring spires -- Valhalla looked as mythic as its namesake.
Emperor Ragnar strode down the garden’s winding silicaslate path, a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in silver-trimmed black velvet, his shoulder-length blue hair braided with gemstones that clicked as he walked.
“Father!” Arles walked into his arms, and the two men thumped each other’s backs as they hugged in joyous welcome. Unlike my mother, Ragnar had never seen the need for emotionless royal reserve.
I winced as I saw a cloud of tiny devices fly past the royals, headed right for me. Though no bigger than a pea, each cambot was equipped with powerful visual and auditory sensors, as well as the artificial intelligence to use them. The cameras transmitted the vid they shot to their respective news agencies, which would edit the footage, package it with appropriate arch commentary, and beam it out to the ten worlds of the Torrean empire.
The cambots darted around me like a swarm of bees, each projecting the three-dimensional logo of its home newsie, each shooting vid of me in my jeweled chains. I resisted the urge to swat.
A princess of Swanhilde turned sex-thrall. My mother would have my head on a pike.
At least Arles had allowed me to wear something a bit more modest: a white gown that bared my arms before skimming the length of my body to flow around my sandaled feet. I’d piled my long, red hair atop my head and bound it there with fine gold chains and emerald gemstones to match my manacles. Maybe the newsies would mistake my bonds for a fashion statement.
Probably not.
I tried to ignore the flitting cameras as I waited a discreet distance from Ragnar and Arles, now deep in low-voiced discussion.
Just beyond them stood the usual gorgeous herd of courtiers dressed in rainbow shades of shimmersilk and velvet. They stared at me with their heads together, gossiping for all they were worth. I ignored them too, until a familiar figure emerged from the midst of the crowd.
I hid a wince.
My sister wore a haut couture gown in metallic gold that drew the eye to her small, lushly curved body. Isa looked so much like our mother, with her flaming red hair and delicate, Elfin features that I had to look twice to make sure
it wasn’t Queen Zerelda slinking toward me like a cat.
But no, Mother didn’t slink.
“Well met, Gisel.” Isa stopped before me, hands on hips, voice just loud enough to ensure that the cambots began to orbit her as well. “It has been too many years since you ran away.”
I lifted a brow, keeping my expression cool, almost bored. “You mean since you manipulated me into running. What exactly was the point of that, Isa?”
She raised her chin and looked down her nose at me -- quite a trick, considering I’m a head taller. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I smiled faintly. “Of course you don’t.”
Isa glowered, a soft petulance in the line of her mouth I’d never noticed when I was her adoring little sister. Then a sudden glint of sadistic anticipation flashed in her eyes. I braced, recognizing the signs of a foe about to go for the jugular.
“I hope you have something more suitable for tonight’s ball than the rag you’re wearing,” she drawled. “Our mother is on her way from Swanhilde to attend. She means to celebrate your homecoming.”
I felt my face go as still as a mask, a royal’s programmed response to any devastating news. “Indeed?” I sounded barely interested. I wanted to throw up.
“She’s so pleased the prince has brought you home.” Isa’s gaze flicked deliberately to my thrall collar. “Just think how… delighted she’ll be to see you’ve found your proper place.”
“And how does she feel about yours?” I asked, as I would never have dared a decade before. Isa would one day be queen, and I’d always treated her accordingly. “Judging by the newsies, you’ve made our mother’s heir a camera whore.”
Incredulous rage flooded her eyes. “How dare you, cow!” Isa’s small fist flew toward my face.
Her hand slapped into Arles’s palm, though I hadn’t even seen him turn. He glared down at her, his father at his shoulder, glowering. “Isa…”
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