Trapped between want and fear, Enovese tentatively slid back, trying to ease the thrust of his cock into her. Chur held steady. She could hear and feel his sharp breaths against her back. She knew he exercised every bit of control to hold still. A normal man would have quickly succumbed to his base urges, but not the Harvester, a man well exercised in self-control. Animalistic grunts from the depth of his chest spurred her lust. Working slowly, she finally managed to take the tip of his knob inside. Her passionate gasp startled her and she gripped her hands against the table.
A stream of vulgarities and entreaties in the ancient tongue passed her lips. Knowing he would wait, she explored the delicious breadth of having just the tip of him buried into her tight channel. Fullness pressed all the way across her pelvis, causing her cunt to feel unbearably tight and woefully empty. Alternately cursing and praying, she wiggled her hips in a circle as she gripped the head of his cock and worked more of his shaft inside.
Chur growled and gripped her hips, digging his fingers almost painfully into her flesh. At first, she thought he did so to hold her steady for a thrust. She prepared herself by planting her legs wide against the table. She bit her bottom lip in anticipation; but no, he held on to her in a desperate bid to hang on to his control.
Beads of sweat formed on her upper lip. When she licked the salty moisture, the flavor reminded her of having Chur in her mouth. A deep shudder caused her to grip tightly around him.
“Ah, Enovese.” Chur lowered his body against hers, slipping his hand between her legs to tease her sex. “Don’t try to take me deeper. Let me feel you climax.”
Swirling his fingers around her clit and then around the entrance of her passage caused her ass to clench ever tighter and pull him farther inside. His groan matched hers. Curling closer to her, he breathed into her ear and she turned her head, kissing him sideways. Their tongues danced amid their growls. Enovese muttered lusty words in the ancient tongue.
Chur nipped her lips. “I don’t know exactly what you’re saying, but I think I feel the same way.” He moved back a bit and thrust gently to the same depth. Repeatedly, he rocked against her while working his finger into her sex.
Enovese angled her body lower, granting him better access and lessening the tight grip she held. Ever so slowly, together they worked almost his entire length inside. He shouted a classic battle cry, gripped her hips, and climaxed so forcefully she felt the gushing tide surge deep within her body. Her orgasm quickly followed, clenching her around him in a rhythmic series of spasms. The sensation was too much for Chur’s now overly sensitive cock. He retreated with a yank that left her suddenly empty.
He pressed against her back, kissing the nape of her neck with soft, open-mouth kisses, murmuring, “I’m sorry, it was too tight, and then when you climaxed you felt like a gripping fist. Ah, Enovese.” He stood and pulled her with him, turning her to face him. He gazed down at her for the longest moment and she couldn’t read his face. Pleasure, yes, but something like confusion lurked in his eyes.
Afraid of the questions he would ask, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him before he could speak. Clasping his hand, she took him to the bathing unit, removed her shift, and pulled him under the spray with her. After a thorough cleansing, Chur yawned hugely and she drew him to his bed. He smiled, kissed her, then rolled onto his back and promptly fell asleep. His exhaustion would give her one night of reprieve. Tomorrow, he would ask pointed questions and she would have to tell him the truth.
7
Chur woke from an intense dream. His swollen cock tented the fabric of his bed. His balls felt heavy and full. He groaned and rolled to his side. Closing his eyes, he remembered how in the dream he’d been in the training room. Dozens of men sweated and groaned, practicing with a range of weapons, but a group of men circled the tilt-table, a device used to practice balance while fighting one-on-one. The table wobbled while two combatants fought with various handheld weapons, but Chur didn’t see any men on the table. Pushing his way through the crowd, he discovered Enovese—facedown, strapped to an edge of the table, with her legs spread wide and her shaved sex exposed. When he glanced around at the men, he discovered all of them were nude, hard, and stroking themselves while looking at Enovese.
Chur felt an overwhelming compulsion to save her, but then realized she was enticing the men with raunchy words in the ancient tongue. Listening intently, he translated a few words and realized she was begging them to take her virginity, encouraging them to fuck her, use her, treat her like a wanton yondie who wouldn’t even demand payment.
Loban, a husky man with reddish blond hair, a man who never let Chur forget he wanted to be the next Harvester, was the first to approach. His cock was short but thick, jutting out from a nest of dark brown curls. Loban pushed the table so that Enovese’s sex was level with his.
Loban fingered her slit until her juice glistened on his hand. “What a sweet virginal cunt.” He chuckled as he swirled his fingers around her passage. “This is one virgin sacrifice that will never make it to the Harvest.” With pinching fingers, Loban ruthlessly spread her lips apart, then shoved his cock deep inside her body.
Enovese screamed in what he thought was pain but quickly realized was blissful pleasure. Despite her bonds, she circled her hips, encouraging Loban to thrust harder. Using the table for leverage, Loban rocked her on his cock.
“A lusty virgin,” Loban exclaimed, casting a knowing wink to Chur. “As the Harvester you must know the thrill of a yondie virgin; one of those quaint cunts who wants it so bad but waited just for you.” Loban continued to thrust into Enovese, alternately encouraging her and mocking her. Displaying a shocking level of self-control, hours seemed to pass until Loban threw back his head, uttered a battle cry, and climaxed.
Once Loban finished using Enovese, he stepped aside and offered her to the next man in line.
Man after man used her more brutally than the last. No matter how hard or long they pounded her, she demanded more in an insatiable stream of guttural language. A trickle of sperm leaked down her beautiful legs and dripped off her slender ankles. The shape of the stream reminded Chur of one of his scars; a rivulet of pleasure marked her where pain marked him.
Infuriated, Chur pulled a man off her and slapped her behind hard. “You belong to me.” He smacked her heart-shaped bottom until a rosy glow spread across her milky pale flesh. Enovese moaned deep from her chest and begged him to strike her harder.
Yanking off his battle gear, Chur was dismayed to discover that he was soft. Someone spun the table so that she could see his flaccid cock. Enovese pouted. The men around him laughed. Denigrating comments that he was no Harvester burned his ears. With a hand cupped to the back of her head, Chur forced himself into her mouth and demanded that she suck him hard.
Enovese willingly wrapped her lips around him. With the timelessness of a dream, he grew stiff so slowly that he could feel each drop of blood filling him, stretching him, making his cock pound with the beat of his heart. When he swelled to the point she began to gag, he pulled out, making a popping noise.
Enovese smiled, licked her lips, tossed back the glorious mane of her hair, and then gave him a lazy wink. The indigo starburst in her eyes glowed as brightly as crystal, hypnotizing him for a moment.
Chur spun the table and centered his cock to the tight ring of her ass. No man had taken her there. She begged him to go fast, to plunge into her, but he refused. He would not be an animal as these other men had been. He would take his pleasure slowly. He would relieve her of the burden of her virginity with grace.
As he pressed forward, he felt the tiny sphincter grudgingly ease around his knob. Tighter than a fist, her passage alternately tried to push him out yet draw him deeper. Bit by bit, he worked himself inside. Enovese swiveled her hips and chanted a slew of vulgar words.
The warriors around him took up the chant, the cadence of their baritone voices matching the thud of his heartbeat. Chur found himself thrusting at the pace their rhythm set. Faster and
faster and deeper and deeper he moved. He felt his balls swell and lift, ready to heave a molten stream deep into her beautiful bottom—
He awoke with a jolt. He didn’t understand the meaning of the dream, and he did not intend to ask his paratanist, not when she was the focus of such a depraved scenario. Chur worried that indulging in sex with Enovese had weakened him, for he’d never had such imaginings before. His handler, Helton Ook, had warned that indulging in the lewd arts could lead to depravity. Helton cautioned Chur to avoid the yondies who would likely bed him gratis, but there was always a price to pay. “Yondies are not interested in you,” Helton said. “They want the Harvester, for bedding such a man elevates their status, allowing them to charge more for their services. Should you impregnate one, your pure standing declines. A Harvester is above simple lust. A Harvester embodies sex by refraining from it.”
Helton had also cautioned Chur about the nobles. He warned that both men and women would seek to entice him to their beds. They found Harvesters alluring because of the challenge; by his station, Chur must decline any offers, but if they actually inveigled him, the pride in seducing him gave them a superior status. “And do not think you can indulge them without getting caught. They will only use you if they can have proof of the act.”
Chur had not asked Helton to expand on what that proof might entail. During his first official palace gathering, decked out in his most spectacular uniform, Chur found himself on the receiving end of endless proposals. Men, women, and even couples approached him with offers of rich indulgences, guaranteed military positions, even the promise of a daughter in bonding if he would only submit to their pleasure. Politely, Chur had diplomatically declined all offers in such a way as to compliment them for their interest while asserting his duty as the reason he must decline. Somehow, that only increased their desire, but after many such functions the offers lessened into pointed flirting.
Now that he had actually indulged in the lewd arts, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking of them. He wanted more. He wished to know Enovese in every way a man could know a woman. He yearned to turn her to every position and taste her every nook and cranny. Feeling her spend on his tongue, fingers, cock…
Chur shook his head as if to rid himself of his wayward thoughts. Rather than focus on his training, he’d spent the last two days indulging his lust. No more. He would not become a mindless fiend who only thought of the bulge between his legs.
Determined to regain his focus, Chur tossed aside the bedding and donned his gear. If nothing else, one thing he took away from his dream was that Loban would challenge him for the right of Harvester. Now was not the time to abandon his training. Regardless of what happened with Enovese, Chur would have to survive at least one more challenge. Loban, a novice from the Plete region, had shown such prowess that Helton Ook, Chur’s handler, had taken on Loban for instruction. Helton had done so openly; he informed Chur that he must pick a bondmate or ready himself for challenge. Chur would be a fool to let down his guard now. Chur would have to kill Loban in order to have one more chance to pick his bondmate. That final battle was one Chur did not intend to lose.
As he strode to the door, he darted a furtive glance around for Enovese. He did not see her and he did not call her out. The questions he had for her could wait. If she still refused to answer, he would not use sex as a punishment. Not only did sex not chastise because she wanted his possession, but such acts would only serve to weaken him further. Enovese would hold to her duty as his paratanist or else he would have no choice but to cast her out. His heart took a dangerous lunge in his chest at the mere thought of dismissing her, but he would be strong, even brutal if he had to be. He would not abandon his duty. He was the Harvester. A lifetime of vicious battles earned him the title and the duty; he would not falter now. He would rather cast Enovese out than let Loban know her as he had. For deep in his heart, Chur knew that if he failed and Loban became the Harvester, Enovese would surely try to work her magic on him.
8
From her alcove off the kitchen, Enovese watched Chur stride from his rooms. Half the night she’d lain awake in her narrow bed trying to determine the best way to tell him the truth of her station. No matter how she tried to cushion the blow, he would never forgive her. His fury at her potentially tricking him into impregnating her would be nothing compared to his rage over this. He would be livid. Chur would never claim her as bondmate once he knew. A part of her wanted to keep the secret buried, but she could not deceive him, not about something so important to him. The only way she’d been able to fall asleep was when she vowed to confess everything. Only then had slumber come to her. In her dreams, her imagination saw only Chur’s understanding and forgiveness—blissful and lovely—but she knew such fancies were only dreams.
When he’d left without even a glance in her direction, she blew out a breath she’d been holding since last evening. Then she quickly took in another for he was not finished with her yet. Resolve, harsh and unyielding, filled his long-legged strides. All she’d gained was another short reprieve.
To distract her churning mind, Enovese removed the food from the table and readied another meal should he break training and come to eat. In a desperate bid to appease him, she cooked his most favorite foods to perfection, even though she doubted that she would see him until nightfall. She knew well that look of determination on his face. Whatever Chur wanted, he would not stop until he gained it.
Chewing at her lower lip, Enovese worried that last night had been too much for him. From her odd need for punishment, his excitement at providing it, her final surrender of the last of her virginity, all of it must have horrified him once he woke to the harsh light of day. She felt both proud and ashamed: proud that she gained what she most desperately wanted, but ashamed that she hadn’t really been able to directly ask for her darkest desires. She manipulated him into giving her what she craved. Such trickery was not fair to Chur. And honestly, she did not fully understand her odd lust herself. She’d never fantasized about spankings, for such punishment in the tanist house terrified her, but somehow, when he smacked her bottom, the feeling had been one of pleasure. The heat generated across her buttocks spread to her sex. Her position had been one of utter defenselessness, yet somehow the posture filled her with power.
Her training gave her far more sophistication in the lusty arts as compared to Chur. His training focused on how to resist such longings. Her training focused on how to increase those desires and then deny them. When she’d amplified his lust, then offered him an outlet…Chur had no defense. Enovese used her skills, her knowledge, and her training to force him to her own ends. She feared she’d driven him away. She could not overcome his indoctrination in a night.
To distract herself, she changed the linens on his bed, washed the bathing unit, restocked the kitchen, and completed all of the myriad details of maintaining his rooms. Servants had once completed these tasks, but she’d convinced Chur to dismiss them. She would minister to his every need. Not only had she wanted to keep him to herself, but doing these mindless tasks also occupied her time while waiting for his return. It also afforded her privacy; she did not want prying eyes looking into her room off his bedroom. Moreover, she did not want anyone opening the sacred chest and discovering the day-to-day record she kept. All her thoughts, dreams, hopes, and fears lay bare within those pages. She would rather suffer the torture of a thousand spikes than suffer the exposure of her secret heart.
Finished with his rooms, she made her way to the library. The hallways she traveled were empty, for almost this entire wing was devoted exclusively to the Harvester and the rituals involved in the Harvest. The library lay at the apex of the wing, so that others could utilize the stacks without interrupting the Harvester.
As a paratanist, she had limited access to enjoyment activities, so she spent most of her time in the library. Her station relegated her to text of her rituals and rites. After reading them avidly and endlessly, she felt she could recite them verbatim. Conspicuously
absent from the texts were any details of the paratanist selection ritual. So far, she’d not found any information regarding that aspect of the Harvest prophecy.
Today, she had a different topic in mind to research; Chur’s questions about the sacred chalice had prompted a new avenue for her research. She had performed the ritual many times but had never thought about where the chalice went after or why. Why would the magistrate want a viable sample from the Harvester?
As she entered the library, Enovese saw only the keeper at the main desk and one tanist deep in study. She nodded to the keeper, an ancient woman with a severely thin face hidden under a mass of curly gray hair and her skeletal body shrouded under a flowing beige robe. Enovese then made her way to the stacks that held the sacred texts. She pulled down Kipfer’s unabridged Harvest text in the ancient language. The book was oversized, heavy, and bound in tooled animal hide. Hefting it to a table in the back, she scanned the table of contents until she found the section dealing with the chalice.
Wading through the verbose and flowery language, she found endless descriptions of the chalice but nothing about where it went after the ritual. Frustrated, she searched through several other texts but found only excruciatingly detailed descriptions of the chalice itself and how to perform the ritual. Enovese toyed with the idea of approaching the tanist but decided against such boldness. The tanist would likely be annoyed at any interruption and might become suspicious that Enovese asked such pointed questions. The last thing she wanted was to initiate an inquest into her service. Within the texts, Enovese had discovered ghastly descriptions of what constituted an inquisition. Any violation of her duties would end with her public execution. Within moments of questioning Chur, the inquisitor would realize Enovese had grossly violated her station in just about every way possible.
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