by Loki Renard
Bzzzt!
He heard it bang against the wooden door.
Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt!
Like a little angry bumblebee, it hurled itself at the wood. The princess was no longer squirming. She had finally sensed danger and was staring at him with great big blue eyes.
Bzzzzzt! Bzzzzzt! Pffffftt…
He opened the door cautiously. The tiny drone’s motors had burned out. Its loss would not be overly noted. They lost hundreds of nano-drones every time they released a swarm. There were no doubt small groups of them lying crushed on the pavement or limping brokenly along after hitting a car. All that mattered was staying out of their camera’s range.
Maxim stretched out a leg and stomped down hard on the buzzing little drone, ceasing transmission for the final time.
“What was that!” Her voice was panicked. “What is happening? What were those things? What’s…”
She ran out of questions and stared at him with a stricken look.
“This world is nothing like Ere. It is dangerous in ways you cannot begin to understand. Ways I don’t have time to explain to you. We’re going to leave this building. You’re going to keep your head down, eyes toward the pavement. It’s important your face isn’t seen, alright? You’re not in any of the systems, and that will trigger an alert. I’m registered to that building, so they’re going to be looking for me too. We don’t have much time.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Keep your head down, hold my hand, and follow me. Do nothing else.”
They had to leave Nile territory as quickly as possible, get to upper Manhattan where Centillion held sway. There was no extradition from Centillion to Nile and that made getting there imperative. It was only a matter of time before they reviewed the footage from nearby drones and matched Sabine as an anomaly, and then no basement hideout could save them.
The battle of Centillion and Nile had taken place in Central Park almost a hundred years earlier. The land had largely regenerated since then, and travel was now possible between corporate states, but mistrust and hostility was still in place between the two groups who, along with several smaller corporates, were still vying for control of New New York decades later.
Maxim was relying on that refusal to communicate to keep Sabine safe. They would have to leave the city proper in order to even attempt to open a new gate, but in the meantime they needed some breathing space. She had to be given a stern lesson or two on how to behave. He was not at all pleased with her behavior. Apparently nobody in the royal household had ever taken her to task and the result was a spoiled little brat who damn near got herself killed.
“Were they looking for me?” Her panicked question was uttered toward the ground as he rushed her along at a fast walk. He couldn’t risk getting into any one of the passing electro-cabs. They performed eye scans as a matter of protocol and she would not pass the test. They had to go on foot, before the search perimeter widened.
“I don’t know,” he said. “If I had to guess, the energy signature from the gate you opened and left open was detected and is now being investigated.”
“Do they know about me?”
“I doubt it. It’s just an anomaly at this point. But you’ve made getting back to Ere utterly impossible. That apartment is going to be quarantined for a long time. Now quiet down. We’ll talk later.”
Chapter Four
Sabine was starting to wonder if she’d made a mistake in coming to this world. It was amazing here, but it did seem to be incredibly dangerous. She was caught between fascination and fear, sticking closer to Maxim, keeping her hand held tightly in his.
They walked for quite a long way, half an hour at least, passing by all kinds of wonders and strange things. Every time she tried to glance up at them, he growled at her and told her to look down. She didn’t care for the way he was speaking to her, but she didn’t want another one of those swarms coming after her either.
Soon a big glass rippling wall came into view—a building that seemed to extend all the way across the city as far as she could see in either direction.
“Head well down,” he said. “Until we get inside.”
She looked at her toes and discovered that the wall was actually a building of some kind. The moment they entered, the heat of the day abated.
“You can look up now.”
She looked up to see that there was a line of people snaking all around the interior, branching off toward different narrow doorways. The walls were fascinating, they were rippling as if they were made of water, and there were marine creatures flowing back and forth too.
“How do the fish live inside the wall?”
“They’re not real,” he said. “They’re just pictures.”
“They look real,” she replied, taking a step closer to the wall. Maxim allowed her to pull him over and touch the cool smooth surface. It was solid and there was not even so much as a ripple as the brightly colored fish swam by in great shoals.
“See, they have the Centillion brand on them,” he pointed out. “They’re not real.”
“Why? Why did they do this?”
“Advertising,” he said. “Centillion Corporation controls this part of the city and wants to attract new citizens.”
“New citizens to the city?”
“New citizens to the company. It used to be that governments issued passports and were in charge of countries. Now, with corporate citizenship, a single person can be a citizen of many areas. Centillion has enclaves throughout the world. Come on, and try not to say anything suspicious.”
He walked past the many lines and took her to a small golden-rimmed window marked ‘Exclusive Priority.’
A very pretty woman with a face so perfectly made up she looked like a porcelain doll smiled broadly at Maxim. A blue beam of light swept over his face and her smile grew even wider, as if her entire head was about to unhinge with glee.
“Welcome home,” she said. “How can I help you today, sir?”
“My young companion here needs a Centillion ID,” he explained. “She flew in from the European Federation recently and I’m afraid she left all her documentation on the shuttle.”
The woman’s smile remained locked in place as if it had been permanently sewn on even as she looked at him with no small measure of skepticism.
“I understand it’s a costly affair,” he continued, a certain significance in his voice that Sabine didn’t quite catch, but the lady at the window seemed to.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Unfortunately new undocumented registrations can be quite costly.”
“I’m happy to meet whatever costs are incurred in the process,” he replied.
“In that case, I would be happy to assist, sir.” She slipped from her chair and came around and opened the door. “Come through and we will start the registration process.”
The lady guided them through to a small room with a chair and some kind of contraption in front of it. Sabine didn’t recognize it at all. She was very confused by the proceedings, but Maxim seemed calm and she trusted that he was not going to do anything that would hurt her.
“Sit down and put your chin here,” the lady said, indicating the chair.
Glancing over at Maxim, Sabine did as she was told. A bright light flashed over her face and a second later an image of her was generated, like an instant painting. A not very flattering one either. She looked like she was about to sneeze.
“What’s her name?”
“Sabine,” Sabine said quickly.
“The machine puts her age at twenty. Is that correct?” The woman looked at Maxim.
“Yes.”
“How does it know that?” Sabine asked the question.
The lady and Maxim exchanged looks. The lady seemed outright befuddled by Sabine’s ignorance.
“It’s all so new to her,” Maxim said with a laugh. “They’re still running on national government where she’s from and their technology is very much out of date. Half of her documentation was on liter
al paper, hence why it was lost.”
“You poor thing,” the lady commiserated. “National governments are so barbaric. They should be illegal everywhere. Don’t you worry. The Centillion Corporation will take excellent care of you.”
Sabine’s bewildered look drew a sound of sympathy from her as she turned to Maxim. “That will be ten thousand standard credits, or four thousand beta bucks.”
“Do you take capital credits?”
“Nile currency is no good here.”
“I thought there was an amnesty,” he mused.
“Last week. This week standard rates apply.”
“No problem,” he said, sliding a sleek black sliver of plastic over to the woman. She smiled as she took it and pushed it into a hunk of plastic that made zipping and humming sounds before spitting it out.
“As a priority member, Mr. Monterey, you’re entitled to an extra ration of Beta Booze. See any bar in the quarter for details. As for you, Miss Monterey, welcome to the Centillion family.”
Miss Monterey? Sabine had no idea what was happening.
The woman handed her a plastic card, similar to the one Maxim had used. One side of it was black, with the letters of the Centillion marked in friendly gray letters over and over and over and over… the back of the card showed her picture, a line of numbers, a series of thin and thick lines all up next to one another, and then her name.
Sabine Monterey.
She had been given his last name. She glanced up at him askance, but he shook his head and she didn’t ask right away.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’ll need this too, sir,” the lady added, reaching beneath the counter. She pulled out a silver band of material, a couple of inches thick with a small circle ring at one end. She handed it to Maxim with what seemed to Sabine to be a conspiratorial smile.
“She will need to wear that in public at all times,” the lady said. “Otherwise she could be picked up as a stray.”
“Of course,” Maxim agreed. “I’ll ensure she does.”
“Proceed through the next gate and make declarations as necessary. Remember to breach the seal before entering the territory proper.”
“Now when you pass through various systems, you’ll show as having an identity,” Maxim said, sounding pleased. “That’s important.”
“But why did she call me Miss Monterey? Why do I have this card that has your last name on it?”
“Young women who pass this way without documentation become the registered property of the men who bring them.”
“So the law says I’m your registered property? What does that even mean? What else does this law allow for?”
“Don’t worry about what the law allows. All you need to worry about is what I allow.”
He led her into a room marked ‘Private’ and closed the door behind them. It looked like a bedroom, freshly made up. She did not understand the purpose of it. Were they going to sleep here?
“I thought we were going to new territory?”
“We are,” he said, shrugging off his coat to reveal a torso clad in tight silver fabric. He was dressed very strangely, but not unattractively. She could already see how strong and muscular he was, built for battle as the best Ere warriors were.
“What are you doing?”
He walked over to her and started undressing her, removing all the clothing she had basically just put on in Times Square. She squirmed in his grasp, shocked by how free he was with her body.
“You can’t touch me like this! I’m a princess!”
“You’re nothing at all besides my property,” he replied. “If you’re scanned and found to be a virgin, we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do. Centillion is adult-only territory. All citizens are over eighteen and none of them are virgins. Owners are expected to fuck their property. So I’m going to have to fuck you before we go in. Nothing personal, Princess.”
Nothing personal! How could sex not be personal?
“Are you… you can’t mean that…” she stammered, blushing as his green eyes met hers with serious intention. “We can’t… do that…”
“We can and we have to,” he said. “There’s no other territory to go to, thanks to your decision to rush through that portal. It didn’t stand up to being used three times in quick succession, which means we’re stuck here. You wanted to come to this world, you’re going to have to play by its rules.”
His strong hands were now removing the last scraps of clothing, leaving her utterly naked.
“But… I’ve never… I’m scared…”
She lowered her head, but he put his fingers underneath her chin and raised her eyes to his. “Don’t be scared, Princess,” he said as his other hand caressed up and down the side of her body, finding the curve of her rear and paying special attention to it. “This was always going to happen one day, and it was never going to be with a man of your choosing.”
He was right on that account. Had she not rushed through the portal, it would have been with General Isodor. The very thought of him made her shiver again. At least this man was handsome, and though he had snapped at her and ordered her about, he did not have the stench of cruelty that followed Isodor.
She looked up into his green gaze with a growing curiosity as his hands roamed her body, caressing every bit of her skin. He clearly knew how to touch a woman. There was no hesitation in the way his palms and fingers moved across her flesh, cupping her breasts, stroking her nipples with the pads of his thumbs until she let out a moan and leaned in closer.
* * *
Maxim was about to deflower the princess of Ere.
His cock was rampant beneath his clothing, had been from the moment he started to peel the layers of clothing from the royal princess. Her body was quite something to behold, all soft curves that responded immediately to his touch. She was entirely virginal, had been kept that way by design, and her body was unblemished and untouched. It was said that the princess was bathed daily and massaged with special oils to keep her body perfect for her future king. Whatever had been done, whether it was nature’s fresh bloom alone, or the product of careful preparation, she was as stunning a young woman as he had ever laid eyes on.
She was also a disobedient little brat, and he would have been lying to himself if he didn’t admit that the prospect of fucking her nice and hard was appealing. Soon he would sink his cock deep between her once chaste lower lips and find the core of not just her being, but the entire realm.
He began to kiss her, capturing her mouth and letting his tongue lash hers in a new way as he devoured this tender royal morsel, his hand snaking around to cup her rear and slide between her cheeks, where the downy lips of her cunt protected the final seal.
She tasted like innocence. He could feel her uncertainty in the kiss, her tongue a little awkward, not knowing what was expected of her. He began to teach her by slow degrees, his tongue and lips teasing her into kissing him back as her body began to sink against his all the more. She was not resisting him, not even a little bit. He started to stroke her pussy, his long fingers teasing her outer lips, petting her gently as he held her in that kiss.
His mouth left hers and he looked down at her to see her face flushed with desire. Her eyes were glossy with lust and need, her hips grinding in the way nature ordained. There was no need to wait any longer, or sense in doing so. This was treason, but it had to be done. Maxim pulled his clothing off, paying little attention to where it went as long as it was no longer between them.
“Oh, by the gods!” Her gasp as his cock came into view was charming.
She stared at his rod, the thick pillar of flesh hard against his belly, the head already slick with pre-cum at the prospect of taking the princess.
“That cannot possibly…” She shook her head, blushing profusely. “Sir Maxim, nothing of that size could ever…”
“You’d be surprised, Princess,” he drawled, taking her in his arms and drawing her down onto the bed. She was light and easy to maneuver. She would
be a fun little fuck toy, of that he was certain. He swept her around atop his body and positioned her virginal royal slit along the length of his shaft, her legs straddling him as he held her by the hips and drew her back and forth along the length of his cock, using the growing evidence of her wet desire to lubricate his rod.
The position gave her nowhere to hide and though she blushed and tried to avert her gaze, he insisted she look at him.
“Eyes on me, Princess,” he reminded her as her clit bumped against the head of his cock. She let out a gasp and he held her there, moving her back and forth, effectively fucking her clit against his glans with quick little strokes that made her whole body blush with desire.
He saw the signs of impending orgasm, though she did not seem to recognize them herself. Her nipples were rock hard, her eyes grew brighter, her moans reached a peak and she came, an adorable orgasm that seemed to surprise her as her mouth opened in a cry of pleasure, her pussy releasing a fresh flow of need that coated his shaft as he kept her moving, taking total control of her body, making her flesh pleasure him even as he ground her through her first climax with a man.
It was time.
Maxim pulled her down against his body, the change in position shifting her pussy from being atop his cock to being directly in front of his shaft. He kissed her thoroughly as he pushed her back and the head of his rod found her pussy lips and spread them. He felt the warm embrace of her pussy, those guardian lips wrapping around his cock as he looked into big blue eyes that held the last remnants of innocence she was about to lose forever.
* * *
She was about to be fucked.
Through the veil of desire, Sabine managed to raise a vestige of an objection.
“We shouldn’t be doing this…” she moaned as his hot cock teased the entrance of her body, bumping up between her lips over and over, letting her know that it was soon to sink deep inside her.
“You’re being fucked because you were naughty, Princess,” he reminded her in that deep, stern drawl.
His words were chastising, but she did not feel sorry. Not in the least bit. She was awash with desire, arousal so intense she had no concept that it was even possible to feel this way. Maxim was holding her body in position, her pussy vulnerable to his cock and though he was yet to plunge that hard shaft inside her, she knew it was inevitable. This was the price she was going to pay for her disobedience.