by J. E.
The dark killer nodded to her in some mild approval. “You could hope to last with Zarach for a while, if you are as skilled and committed as you seem to be. But he would ultimately grow bored, and with his cruel nature your fate would be sealed.” The words came so fluidly, so truthful in the way he said them. “He was a great asset for me, I thought. But as his power grows, he becomes increasingly obstinate. Ego gets in the way of reason. And when it would come to a matter of import at which I could not suffer a refusal, I fear he would force my hand to do him in and waste resources rather than submit to my will over his.”
Her eyes narrowed into the dim light as she took in his words. “Then why did you so gladly take out a threat to that power? Without that will, at least, he would have had one less leg to stand on.”
Even in the dim light she could see the slight betrayal of the dark man’s humour. “Your friend is not dead,” he said, and she knew the words to be true immediately. “He is unconscious, but unharmed.”
Relief washed through her and she couldn’t help but smile. “The dancer doesn’t have the same luck?”
The ominous man’s eyes moved towards where the dancer was, even though no light reached anywhere near her form. “It is likely too late for her,” he said before looking back to Anjasa. “But as you can tell, Zarach is a twisted man. And giving him more power will only lead to... complications. Yet there needs to be someone to run the affairs of the criminal underworld, no?”
“Of course.” She took a step away from the frightening man, towards the woman. She’d had to sit by while others like her had been tortured and killed, but there was still an inkling of hope as she inspected the cage. “What did you have in mind?” she asked the killer.
“You will go back to Zarach,” he said. Silently he had re approached her without her noticing, standing right there alongside the bars next to her. “You’ll pretend to know nothing of his charnel house here. You’ll report how you tricked him into drinking himself into passing out, then handed him to me for disposal, which I performed before your very eyes,” he paused, watching her keenly. “You’ll ingratiate yourself with him, use your ways to make him comfortable. Pleased. At ease. Then... wait.”
She took out a hair pin from somewhere between the waves of her hair, fixing it into a lock pick. “And if he grows cold and cruel before my wait is up?” Her elven ears perked as she listened to the sounds of metal on metal, working the lock with practiced ease.
“I will be there,” he said simply, as if his presence guaranteed it all. “You need not worry for her,” he said simply, pulling open the door as she unlocked it. “I will take your friend and her away from here once you leave. Your friend will take a long nap, until you are ready to return to him with a tale of how you saved him from the catacombs and rescued the will all at once. And as for her,” he said with a nod towards the sickly dancer, “I will bring her to what help there is before I return to you and Zarach.”
“Thank you.” Anjasa righted herself and folded her arms, looking at him keenly for a moment. “And I’m to trust you in this, I take it? Is my stink of desperation that obvious over the bile down here?”
So tall and mighty, he reached one hand up and smoothly took hold of her face. He wore nothing on his arms but a wrap of leather about his wrists and palms, and her chin rested against the leather as he touched her with his cool grip. “You’re a survivor,” he said simply. “You will do what I want, when I want it, because it will be your best shot at surviving this mess you have gotten yourself into.”
He stared down at her, into her, his head tilting just slightly as he observed her.
“Fuck, all I wanted was a damned drink,” she sighed. How easy was it to fall into the underbelly of society for her. How many bosses had she pissed off this late in her life?
Nothing about that man before her felt natural, not his dark gaze, not his cold grip. “What you wanted is irrelevant. Only what you need now. And you need to survive. Keep that in mind, and we shall have a long and mutually beneficial relationship, elf.” He leaned down closer to her level, the dark mask over his lips moving as he spoke, “Zarach lost his usefulness to me because he has ceased to put his life before his pride and ambitions. Do not make the same mistake.”
She laughed, her eyes sparkling in the lantern’s dim light as she shook her head. “If you knew me better, you’d be in on the joke,” she assured him. Pride. That was beaten out of her long ago, and her ambitions only stretched so far as experiencing freedom to the fullest.
“Set her up somewhere decent, and I’ll take care of it in the future, alright?” she asked, her tone more serious.
“If she survives,” he added, the agreement implicit. “Now go. Do as I say and you will have yourself life, riches and a Lord to toy with in the end.” He released her face and stood aside, giving her room to leave.
She opened her mouth but thought better of it, quickly moving up the catacomb steps and gulping in the musty air. At least it didn’t stink of blood. Was she really going to trust this faceless brute? She’d dealt with men worse than him, demons and dragonkin notwithstanding. Anjasa was a woman that would seem, to the outside world, to have a death wish.
That couldn’t be further from the truth, though. She loved life. She loved living. She just wanted to experience both the pain and the pleasure, the fear and the excitement. She wanted it all.
Her walk back to Zarach’s place, though, was mostly filled with fear. Walking through the winding streets alone at night was a risk in any neighbourhood, but through the lower class dredge was worse still.
Chapter 7
She made it back unmolested somehow, only to arrive at the gate in time to witness Zarach’s henchman Berro coming forward and unlocking it for her. “He’s waitin’ inside,” he gruffly stated, allowing her on in.
The dark manor was like she had left it, the chandelier casting its light upon the great main hall as she entered during the late night hours. Berro re—entered behind her and pointed up the stairs, “He’s upstairs,” he gestured to a different end of the manor this time, away from the room she’d first been used by the Lord to be.
“Thanks,” she smiled brightly. She’d just succeeded, after all. Killed off the competition, returned a glowing prize that deserved to be rewarded and displayed. Everything had gone just as planned.
She had rehearsed the lie the entire way there until she believed it, heart and soul. There was no treachery, no hidden agenda, and she kicked off her shoes before striding proudly towards Zarach’s new hiding place.
The door was open as she approached, and she saw a massive canopy bed, thick drapes all about, and candles lighting the place. But as she entered there was nobody. The cruel Zarach was not to be seen, though there could be no other room in the direction to which Berro pointed. It was the place, and judging by the wealth on display it had to be Zarach’s personal bed chambers.
A shiver went down her spine as she walked in, her shoulders straight and her head dipped demurely as she looked around. Her hands clasped behind her back, thrusting out her chest as she cleared her throat.
He came from behind her, his hand moving to her shoulder as he stepped into the room, shutting the door with a click of the lock.
He said nothing at first, but she felt him bend down over her shoulder to speak into her ear in a husky whisper. “Undress. And tell me of how it went,” his breath lapping at her lobe as his other hand touched upon the back of her thigh, that strong, cruel grasp a reminder of all she had witnessed him do.
It had excited her then, and even though her fear of him had grown by leaps and bounds, it continued to light a fire in her loins. Her fingers went to the clasps at her side and her dexterous hands stripped away that red, worn dress. “It was perfect,” she admitted as she pushed the straps off her shoulders, letting the material gather at her waist.
“It was... easy. Your... friend is efficient.” She licked her lips and moved towards his body, even as she continued to reveal her curv
aceous form. She was fit and toned, but her breasts and ass were soft and feminine, and almost too large for her small, elven frame.
“It must have,” he said, walking about her slowly so that his boots padded softly on the carpeted floor. “Otherwise my compatriot wouldn’t have sent you back to me quite so pristinely,” he remarked with a wry crook on his lips that made the scar on his face look malicious. “How did it feel to offer up a sacrifice for my favour, bitch?” and he lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, his vest from earlier gone, only an open white shirt on, that displayed his pale chest, ridged with firm abs.
She tapped into that part of her, that primal area she tried so hard to deny its existence. Her lips quirked as she pushed down the dress to the floor and stepped out of it, completely nude to his gaze. Her sun kissed skin made her look like an exotic treat just as much as those elven ears and curious, emerald eyes.
“Exquisite,” she said as she knelt before him, her eyes still brazenly trained on his.
His crimson gaze was glued upon her as she knelt before him, just as he’d demanded.
Zarach reached out, stroked a hand back over her glossy black hair to the back of her head, where he grabbed a fistful of the locks and twisted her head at a painful angle. “Did you have to fuck him to get it done?” the question asked so harshly as he glared down at her.
Her face screwed up, and for a moment she felt anger flash through her. “No. He trusted me.”
Brow unfurrowing slowly, he gradually loosened his hold on her head, the pain of his grasp diminishing as he watched her. “Did you do him in, or did you need Jaral to do it for you?” His cold, commanding stare locked on hers as he waited for that answer.
Her eyes averted from his and her face began to flush. Just the way he made it sound, like it was a weakness, embarrassed her at the same time it thrilled her. “He did it.” Jaral. “I’ve... I’m not a killer.”
Something happened inside his mind. He was so unreadable normally, but some war between relief and disappointment went on within him before he released her hair. “Very well,” he said. “Can’t trust a bitch in your bed who could slit your throat anyhow,” he remarked, loosening his grip on her hair further.
Yet she didn’t slip away or accept the give of his hand. She made him tug lightly, and the prickling of her scalp made her squirm as she knelt before him. “Did I do good?” she asked, hating herself for sounding so needy, but her lust was mingling with her fear, and it was making it so much harder to think.
She looked at him, and wondered if she’d have to kill him one day.
With his hand on the back of her head guiding her roughly, she found her thoughts drifting to the mysterious Jaral. She couldn’t understand why. She’d never felt anything but revulsion and fear for him in all the brief time she’d known him, yet as she found her face forcibly pressed into Zarach’s groin, the scent of masculinity permeating her senses, thoughts of the strange man wafted into her mind.
“You did good enough for now,” stated the pale crime boss, his manhood swelling against her face through the fabric of his pants.
“I did what I was told,” she said as she nuzzled his package, feeling his heat radiate through her. Her pulse quickened. “Exactly what I was told.” She would get through this. She always had before, and he was no worse than the others she had serviced.
With his hand upon the back of her head, he ground his girth against her before he stopped, the throb of his shaft having grown rapid. “Unbutton the trousers, and take it out,” he husked, yet in her mind the eerie presence of that foreign killer lingered in her mind. He had lost none of his ominous aura, yet a sort of ethereal link seemed to have been formed between her and him. Like a magical tether.
Mystical or physical, she knew she was bound, yet it was still unnerving. She looked up at Zarach with seductive eyes. Her fingers went to work, eagerly, and her skilled hand pulled him from the material with relish. Her gaze dropped and her mouth hung open, and she wondered for a moment if Jaral was somehow spying on her. Even then, in that private moment.
It was strange, to be confronted by one powerful man’s impressive cock right before her eyes, yet to feel that unnatural tug on her consciousness back towards the dark villain she’d entered a pact with. She’d always been driven by lust, by hunger for power and a man’s cock, yet as she confronted Zarach’s impressive member she had to struggle to focus.
“A good, obedient elven bitch like you would be a rare thing,” remarked Zarach, still clenching a clump of her hair as he kept her face at his swollen groin, forcing her face up along that lengthy shaft.
She swallowed and tried to focus. She’d never had trouble with that before when feeling the heated pulse of a man’s sex against her cheek. In fact, it was usually everything else that fell away, leaving her empty headed and aroused. That was what got her into this position in the first place. She shifted on her knees and felt the tug of her hair in between his fingers.
She knew what Zarach had been doing yesterday: Grooming her. Trying to win her affection and loyalty, and she knew he couldn’t buy it. But he could force it.
With a tight hold on her long black hair, he pulled her up from his groin and onto the bed, forcing her face to the mattress, so that her heavy breasts mashed against the rich comforter. “I assume you deserve a little reward then,” he remarked, rising up behind her onto his knees. That proud, thick cock stuck out towards her, as if reaching for the sweet prize of her quim. “For all your diligent work for me this evening. In spite of your earlier lies.”
Her body burned with need, even if her mind felt distant and distracted. Her knees parted and she bared that glistening, swollen sex to him. The position was hardly dignified, but she got the impression he didn’t want her dignified.
He was so much hotter when his threats were implicit more than realistic, but it didn’t matter. She still wanted him to fuck her. To feel that comfort, that familiar sensation of a man inside her.
With a grasp on her head by her hair, he bent over her, no need to guide his cock in by hand, it was so stiff and full. He merely took hold of her hip and pressed that full tip against her, forcing it in rough and hard.
There was no delicate touch with him, not since he’d taken her at the bar. He merely rutted into her like a low class hooker at one of his establishments, plowing away with cruel stabs of his manhood, again and again.
It felt so debasing, and not in the way she liked and craved. The way that told her that a man needed her, needed to control her entirely. The feeling of being just a replaceable woman, someone interchangeable was at once depressing and terrifying.
One thing she’d learned fast was that the moment a man sees you as just another toy is the moment your life truly is held in the balance. As he pounded into her, she clenched her muscles, squeezing his cock and begging him in harder, and faster.
She wasn’t just some whore.
She was Anjasa, and she was one of a kind.
Her motion succeeded in eliciting a throaty moan from him, that squeeze of her muscles about his length irresistible even to the cruel man that was using her. “Yess,” he hissed after a groan, his hand striking her ass cheek hard with a loud crack that filled the room, drowning out the impact of their bodies, the slap of his sac against her clit and mons.
Yet all the while, as she resented the debasement and feared for her life, thoughts and images of that dark stranger entered her mind. Did she hope he would be different? Did she dare dream on some unconscious level that he’d be what she’d wished Zarach would be? Or was it something else altogether, just a psychic tug brought on by that foreign man’s ways?
No matter what it was, it was a distraction, a way to cope with the man that had turned cruel on her as if she were just some discardable toy. Her ego was bruised and her rage simmered. She was special.
She’d been made into something special. She had desires normal women would cringe from. She had needs that suited male lusts. Her body was curvy in all the righ
t ways and she kept her skin immaculate.
She wasn’t another pretty face. She was a trained and willing slave, skilled assassin and thief, and a woman that could far out earn any competition.
Anjasa kept reminding herself of that, even between the strange fantasies of a man she didn’t know and the moans for a man she had so quickly come to loathe. Her mantra reminded her of her value and made her work harder to please the cruel Lord to be.
She managed to manipulate gasps and moans from him as he pounded into her, breaking his cool, cruel facade with unasked for pleasure. Another strike of his hand against her ass cheek, leaving it red and swollen answered her diligent efforts, and he tugged on her hair harder.
Yet as he huffed and swelled within her slick canal, thoughts of that dark man, Jaral, filled her mind. She could see him so perfectly in her mind’s eye, unmoving, his gaze ominous, yet cool and in control. He reminded her of what she thought Zarach to be before he showed his true colours.
In her mind she watched as he moved his hand towards that face mask, hooked a finger into it and...
Zarach came. A noisome affair, he yanked out of her first, gripped his shaft and beat his thick cock off so that he spurt his creamy seed all over her tanned ass cheeks and back. “Fuck!” he cursed through his own release, as if even that pleasure couldn’t still his venom.
She cried out, cursing his interruption and the fact that he couldn’t even give her the satisfaction of him cumming in her. Her scalp prickled from his harsh fingers, and her body felt sticky from the exertion, but she was terrified of what would come next.
Now that her use to him was over.
His exposed chest heaved in the aftermath of his climax, and he stared down at her with his ruby gaze.
The moment dragged on long as he climbed down from his high of sensation, though the first move he made came as a surprise. For he released her hair then brought his fingers to her neck. He touched her there gingerly. “I wonder what an Elvish bitch tastes like,” he murmured as if to himself rather than her.
