by Renard, Loki
“It only takes one time.”
“Really? I thought it took a long time...”
“Some people take longer, but one time can be enough.”
Confused out of my misery, I look down at my stomach. “I don’t feel like there’s anything in there.” I give it a poke. It seems normal. “I don’t think I am pregnant. I think you can tell if you are.”
“Not this early,” Silver says, sitting down and pulling me into his lap, turning me about so he can look at me. “You have not been told anything about this process, have you?”
I know almost nothing. I know women have babies. I know babies emerge from them. I know they come from sex.
“Do I need to know?” I shrug the question. “If it happens, it happens.”
“That is one way of looking at it.”
I am thinking. Processing. I didn’t know this was possible. I thought it would take longer. I thought we were waiting until things were better. I cannot have a child out here, in the dirt and the dust. My mother did that, and it killed her. I grew up wild and vicious and caused a war that took the lives of many brave men.
“Here’s another,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “I am not raising children in the dirt. If I am to have a family, it will be in a place where they can thrive and grow.”
The men look at one another. They don’t know what I’m saying. Not yet. I guess I have to spell it out for them.
“We’re going to reclaim Dallas.”
“No.”
“Absolutely not.
“Nope.”
Three negatives don’t dull my determination in the slightest. If what Pharaoh says is true, if the spirit of Tore is alive in my belly, then I intend to give it what it is due.
“We could do it,” I say. “We just need to be smart about it.”
“There are two large city states at war, Trissa. When elephants fight, ants are crushed,” Alexios says. “It would be madness to attempt to take Dallas from either one of them.”
“It’s been months, and Dallas hasn’t fallen. We know that. There are no refugees. And the war has not spread. We haven’t seen any sign of anything since we left. And if they have been at war, then perhaps it is time someone showed there is an alternative...”
“And how do we do that?”
“Make an example of me. Show them what true conquest really is. Not men in metal suits riddling people with bullets... it’s men who have women, who are capable of breeding them. Promise to release the harem to choose their own mates. All the bullets and swords in the world won’t change the people’s minds once they get the chance to love.”
I have been thinking about this since we fled, but I have never dared say the words before, mostly because I could imagine the reaction I would get—the very same one I am getting now.
“No,” Pharaoh says firmly. “I don’t want to hear another word of that idea. You could be pregnant. You are going to stay right here, and...”
“Raise another person in the same dust bowl I was raised in? No,” I declare. “You said that there is life and there is death. Maybe there is death in the city, but maybe there is life.”
“If you leave this camp, I’m going to whip you.”
Pharaoh’s dark hair shines in the sun. It’s long now, long enough that he ties it back with a small leather cord. It looks good on him, and does nothing to take away from the overwhelming sternness that is his to command.
“Did you hear me, Trissa?”
“Yeah, I heard you. I’m sitting three feet away from you. What do you think I am, deaf?”
He doesn’t like that reply either. He growls something about being a smartass.
Our dynamic is still shifting, even after all this time. In the beginning, I clung to them, afraid to lose them. I dogged their every step, became their shadow. Now, with the passing of even these few weeks, I am beginning to regain my old nature. Being out where I was raised, where I lived alone for so very long, reminds me of who I am, who I was before I was sold. I do not need to ask his permission, but I do need his help.
“We have been here eight weeks,” he repeats himself. “You have not bled. That tells me you are likely with child. Tore’s. And if you are, we are going to do everything we can to protect you and it.”
“Or maybe I’m just not bleeding because stress has stopped my cycle?”
“Maybe. It is early. But it is possible. And something else is possible too.”
“What is that?”
“That we begin reclaiming this land. Your father’s land. We will build anew here. We will bring in settlers, find more wild people. We will free the women from the Dallas harem and offer them the chance to live here, not as slaves, but as equals.”
“And then we will be invaded by monsters in mech suits and die in our dinner plates.”
“We will never be that careless again,” Pharaoh insists.
“It’s not a matter of careless. It’s a matter of being outnumbered, of having no guards, no people to defend us. You say there is war. But war always leads to people fleeing, and there have been no refugees from Dallas. Not a single person has crossed these plains. There is no indication anyone will. The kings will take the people, as they always do.”
“Alexios, tell her this is a crazy idea,” Pharaoh insists grimly. “Tell her we can’t go back to Dallas, under any circumstances.”
“It’s very dangerous,” Alexios agrees, rubbing the stubble that accumulates between his shaves. “And it likely wouldn’t work.”
“You know what doesn’t work? Sitting out in the middle of nowhere. That doesn’t work.”
“Alright, alright, calm down,” Silver says. Ever the peacemaker, he tightens his arms around me. I pull away. I don’t want him mentalizing me right now. Sometimes I let him calm me down. But sometimes I don’t.
“We do nothing here. We eat. We shit. We sleep. We waste our lives,” I insist. “I won’t condemn my offspring to that.”
“They’re not just yours. They’re Tore’s. Which makes them ours.”
“Uh, no. They’re inside me. If they’re inside me. Which means I can do what I want with them.”
“Spoiled little girl,” Pharaoh growls. “You have forgotten how many died to give you that choice.”
“Oh, you fucking tax collecting parking warden fucking...” I lose it. I lose my temper. I lose my mind. How dare he? How dare he throw the carnage in Dallas in my face like this? Try to use it control me, make me small and compliant.
“Stop this instant!” Pharaoh thunders through my cursing. “I will whip your ass if you raise your voice to me one more time.”
I draw myself up and fall silent, but only in order to take the deep breath I need to in order to truly swear.
“Go. Fuck. Yourself!”
And that is how I end up scruffed by the back of my neck and thrown over his thighs. That is how the scrappy end of my shirt cum tunic cum dress is pulled up, my ass bared. Pharaoh’s palm begins to brand my bottom with disciplinary pain.
“You will obey me,” he insists. “You will do as you are told, and you will stay safe, and whether you like it or not, you’ll speak to me with respect.”
I curse him out. I kick, I squirm, I cry. I lose my temper and my mind and my ass gets hotter and hotter. It has been two months since they laid hands on me this way. Two months since they laid hands on me any way. I have become a virgin anew, because they pity me.
The thrashing is doing nothing to make me submit, but it is doing everything to make me wet. My body craves male contact, not pity, not orders to hide. I need them to be the mercenaries they have always been, to take me as their own.
I arch my hips up to every slap. This is not punishment. This is foreplay. Rough foreplay that can only end in my wet slit being filled. I can feel Pharaoh’s cock hard against my hip. I know he wants to take me as much as I want to be taken, and in the end he abandons the spanking, pushes me to the ground, and follows after me, his thighs between mine, his hard dick free.
He is only the second man I have ever slept with, but he is not gentle because of that. His handsome face is twisted in a sexual scowl, his hands pinning my wrists to the earth as the hard, punishing rod of his cock finds those soft lips between my thighs, feeling my heat and my wetness.
In one powerful thrust, he pushes his cock inside me, spreading my inner walls wide. “You will obey,” he grunts, thrusting hard inside me. “You will do as you are told. You will not yell or shout or...”
“Shut up and fuck me,” I growl right back at him.
“You little brat,” he snarls, fucking me harder still. “You disobedient, mouthy little wench.”
His punishment is my pleasure. I scream, not for mercy, but for more.
Pharaoh fucks me hard and rough and soon spends his cum inside me, thick jets of it filling my pussy to the brim. He takes his pleasure, not caring for mine. I would be without climax if not for Alexios pulling me up—and then straight down onto his dick.
All the desire that has been latent between us this time is suddenly unleashed. I am fucked long and hard, one at a time, by each of the men. When Alexios is done bouncing me on his cock and has given me another dose of hot cum, Silver takes me, spreads my wet and messy thighs, and looks down at my swollen pussy.
“You’re a mess,” he smirks, those magnetic eyes holding me in thrall. “Is this what you needed? A good hard fucking from your mercenaries?”
“Yesss,” I admit in a sibilant hiss.
He lets his cock run down the seam of my puffy, cum-soaked lips.
“I think you’re well used in that hole,” he says, drawing the mixture of semen and desire down from my pussy to my bottom. “But I think this one will get your attention.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to fuck your naughty spanked bottom,” Silver tells me with a wicked smile. “I’m going to stretch this dirty little hole around my cock, and you’re going to lie there and help me, aren’t you?”
I let out a whimper as I feel myself going under his influence. I could break it if I really wanted, but I don’t really want. Pharaoh punished me with his cum, Alexios took me greedily, but Silver is about to transform me, I can feel it.
“You need to relax,” he tells me. “Breathe in and out and let your bottom take my cock.”
“It hurts!” I cry out as he pushes against the tight little hole.
“I know,” he soothes. “You need it to. You’re a bad little girl and you were very rude to Pharaoh and now you’re having your bottom fucked.”
It aches as he pushes in, showing me no mercy.
Silver is the worst of them all. The most unassuming, the seemingly most relaxed, but when he decides I am going to pay, he makes me pay fully.
The tight ring of muscle in my bottom is beginning to give way to him, surrendering before my mind can adjust to what is being done. Soon he is stroking in and out of me, short, slow thrusts that go a little deeper every time.
He is taking the final hole I have, and I am lying there with the cum from two different men seeping from my pussy, gasping and moaning with every thrust he makes inside me.
This is what I needed. I needed to be made sore and small, I needed to be punished so the guilt would go away.
“You’re going to do as you’re told, aren’t you?” Silver purrs the question in my ear as his cock pushes deeper into my bottom, spreading my secret places for his pleasure. “You’re going to do what we tell you, or you’re going to be a very sore little girl.”
I wail and I writhe as he begins to pick up the pace, using the mixture of cum to lubricate the passage of his cock. He pulls all the way out, gives my bottom a moment to feel the emptiness, and then pushes back inside me.
The feeling of having my ass taken is a strange one. My pussy is clenching as if it wants the cock for itself, but he is denying the proper hole its due and instead he is making me flush with hot embarrassment as he takes me in that tender place.
Silver doesn’t lecture and he doesn’t yell. He just shows me his domination, he makes me feel to my very toes what it is to be owned by him, to have every part of myself be at his disposal.
The possibility of my pregnancy has unleashed us all. For weeks we were careful, quiet, respectful, in mourning of all those we have lost. But all hell has broken loose now, my temper has gotten me back into trouble, and now my anus is being stretched for Silver’s pleasure.
He turns me face down on the ground, puts his hands on my hips, and pulls them up so my ass is easily accessible to his plunging, stretching rod. He fucks me firmly, reaching one hand around to strum the bud of my clit toward an orgasm I know I probably don’t deserve, but he is generous enough to give me.
The pussy teasing takes some of my attention away from how hard he is fucking my anus, his cock plunging roughly in and out as he prepares to come inside me, his hand grasping and cupping my cunt, pulling me back against his cock, using my pussy as a hand hold that he rubs and slaps and grinds as twisted orgasm bursts through the pair of us and I am left dripping cum from both my holes, my pussy swollen with rough sex, my pride very much bruised from their vigorous treatment.
Silver takes a cloth and wipes me down, then picks me up and puts me to bed. I don’t argue. I don’t have the energy to. They have overwhelmed me and left me satiated, soft, and for the very immediate moment—submissive.
Chapter Twelve
When I wake from my nap, I can hear them talking about me. Night has fallen and they are sitting around the fire, grilling meat. The smell wakes me from my sleep, but before I get up and go to them, I listen. Someone is not happy with me.
“She’s getting worse, not better,” Pharaoh grumps.
“What do you mean?”
“Less obedient with time, more headstrong.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Silver says. I silently nod my head in agreement. “If she’s to be a mother, she will need to have her mind about her. She can’t remain a malleable little girl forever.”
“When was she malleable?” Alexios laughs.
“That idea of hers is dangerous,” Pharaoh says. “It’s foolish. Death awaits in Dallas.”
“Maybe,” Alexios agrees. “Likely not her death. They would take her. Our deaths, almost certainly.”
His words make me think. He’s right. I can’t ask them to go back to the city where their friends died. But that doesn’t mean I can’t go. Doesn’t mean I can’t do something to make a difference.
I make a big show of yawning and stretching and waking up so they have a chance to fall silent and pretend they weren’t just talking about me.
“Hey, sweetheart, how are you feeling?” Silver breaks the silence, beckoning me over to him.
I slip over and let him draw me down into his lap. Sometimes I feel a little lonely with my mercenaries. They have one another to talk to, but who can I talk about them to? Nobody but myself. All my thoughts stay private in my mind and heart, as they always have.
“Sore,” I say. “You were rough with me.”
“No rougher than you needed,” Pharaoh says. I restrain the urge to pick up Silver’s drink and throw it at him. I know Pharaoh means well, but he is the most maddening man in the world.
We eat the meal they have prepared, and I think about what must be done. If it is true, if Tore’s seed has taken root inside me, then I am not content to live out here in this wilderness. I know how that story goes. It is my story, and I do not want to see it repeated. It would be well if I were to have a son. He would have three men to show him the way. But what if I have a daughter? What if I, like my mother, am to pass in the bearing of my child? What then? Another girl to end up inevitably alone as the passing of time takes her fathers and makes them weak? No. I will leave my offspring a greater legacy than a remote shack surrounded by stringy predators.
I know the mercenaries will not come with me. They are thinking of our survival. I am thinking of more than that. I am thinking of what it means to give life, and wha
t life is given in the birthing.
We are owed compensation for what we have lost. I was sold, and yet we have nothing to show for it but this dusty old shack.
* * *
Over the next few days, I think about it more and more. I think about what we could do if we just had the power to live like citizens, and not as outcasts.
They notice my mood. Pharaoh mostly ignores it. Silver tries to cheer me into a better one, but it is Alexios who succeeds when he pulls me aside one afternoon as the others go out to hunt.
“I have something for you,” he tells me.
“Oh?”
I can’t imagine what he could possibly have for me. None of us have anything out here.
“I know you know how to use these,” Alexios winks as he hands me first a knife, and then a gun. “And you know better than to tell anyone you have it.”
“I won’t,” I promise, slipping the items into my clothes. I will have to hide them somewhere Pharaoh won’t find them. No easy task, but I think I’m up to it.
“I’m not encouraging you to do what you know you shouldn’t,” he adds. “I just don’t want you to be vulnerable out here. I’m giving you these so if need be, I know you can protect yourself.”
“I can. Thank you.” I smile at him, appreciating what he has done, and what it says about how he sees me. I am not less than. I am not weaker in his eyes. He protects me, but he knows I am a force in my own right. I feel respected.
“I...”
He pushes a finger to my lips. “I am not aiding you in disobedience,” he says. “I will punish you just as the others will if you leave this camp. I mean that, Trissa.”
“I know.”
He smiles at me. “I love you. I hope you know that. We all do.”
It is the first time any one of them has said that word. I dive into his arms and press my head against his chest, blinking back tears. “I love you too,” I say. “Remember that, always.”
“Back at you,” he smiles. “Especially remember that the next time you get punished.”