by Zara Zenia
“People will hear about what you said,” Oban said.
He was shuffling along beside me as I hurried up the palace steps.
“Let them talk. I don’t care.”
“But you must! Are you not worried about public relations?”
“Not really.”
“Urie, you are a rebel but I am not sure what will happen to you if you don’t rein yourself in.”
“Rein myself in?” I scoffed. “I’d never do such a thing.”
I pushed open the palace door and it hit me, the sense that there was an intruder. The servants were nowhere to be seen. They were usually scuttling about the lower levels seeing that everything was in order but now they were conspicuous by their absence. There was no sound of scurrying feet or the sound of rattling pots and pans or household tasks.
“Hello?”
No answer.
Somewhere at the back of my mind, a small voice was screaming that there was danger nearby.
“Don’t go any further,” Oban stood in front of me and held me back with a push to the chest.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
I shoved him out the way and began climbing the stairs.
“Is anyone here?”
Again, no reply.
“What is going on, Oban?”
The old man was behind me, his footsteps soft and nervous against the glowstone stairs.
“Be careful!” he urged, his hand outstretched as though he was trying to stop me from going any further.
But it was too late. I was already running, taking two steps at a time. There was a pungent smell in the air. It was so foul I could taste it, could almost chew it around my mouth. Then I heard it. A scream, a human scream.
I ran fast, now taking three steps at a time before dashing down the hallway to the inner chambers where my bedroom lay. There was crashing, the sound of a violent fight. I pushed my way into the bedroom and saw metal, the flash of a knife followed by a yell, a grunt, a scream. A creature clad in black was pushing my human down onto the bed, his claws deep into her neck. I was on the cusp of destroying him, of hurling my body straight into his but before I took my chance, she stretched up and pulled a vase from the bedside table. She smashed it into his head and he stumbled off the bed, clutching at his face as blood ran onto the ground. He’d lost his balance, was obviously dizzy and she wasted no time. She kicked him in the gut, watched him fall to the ground then kicked him in the head.
He moaned in pain and swung wildly for her with his hands grasping at her clothes, her hair, any piece of her he could reach. The two were tangled on the floor, their limbs coiled around one another in a dance of death. He wrapped an arm around her neck and I watched as her face became red, then purple. When I was sure she was going to pass out and I ran to rescue her, she wriggled free and leaped up, pulling at a chair and swinging it at him. It shattered across his chest, a thousand pieces of wood fragmenting across his body.
“Bitch!” he yelled.
Then I lunged forward. Pulling my sword from my side I thrust it into him. He convulsed for a second and flailed his limbs as he struggled to breathe. At last, his eyes rolled back in his head and his legs became still, his arms flopping to the side. He was dead.
“What happened?” I yelled.
My little human sat on the edge of the bed with tears and sweat pouring from her pink face. She clutched at her chest and took in great big gulps of air. Then Oban was in the doorway, his eyes darting from her, to me and to the body on the floor. We watched as blood pooled onto the ground, great big puddles of viscous redness flowing deeper and deeper into the glowstone.
“What happened?” I asked again. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head and dabbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Not as hurt as him anyway,” she pointed to the body. “Who is that?”
The three of us stood around him trying to decipher the meaning of the masked intruder in the palace. His face was shrouded in black cloth with two slits for eye-holes. His clothes were black and bore no insignia.
“He’s an assassin. A private one by the looks of it,” I explained as I kicked at his side.
“What was he doing here? Why was he trying to kill me?”
“Well it looks like we’ll never know,” Oban said as he held a hand to his forehead. “Dead men tell no tales.”
But I wasn’t listening to Oban and his wise musings. For a long while, I stared at the woman across from me as the sweat shone across her brow. She was holding her neck, adhering pressure to the wounds on her skin where his claws had dug into her. I was in awe of her. What I saw her do was far more than I knew humans were capable of. I wanted to ask her so many questions, wanted to know how she learned how to fight like that. Was she a trained warrior too? But for some reason, I didn’t ask her a thing and instead scrutinized her with a new found reverence.
“These sting like crazy,” she said as she pulled her hand away from her throat.
As she walked over to the mirror, she inspected her wounds.
“Ah, they’re not that bad,” she said. “They’re just superficial.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I can send for a doctor.”
She shook her head.
“I’ll be fine. All I need is some clean water and a Band-Aid.”
“What’s a Band-Aid?”
She stared at me blankly.
“Nothing,” she walked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Chapter 10
Samantha
I didn’t know where I was. All I knew was that I had wandered down endless hallways and stairs until I had found a room that looked comfortable. Just like in any palace, I supposed, there were countless rooms with not much use. I remember seeing a documentary on Buckingham Palace as a child and recalled hearing there were nearly eight hundred rooms inside. I couldn’t imagine what they would all be used for.
Would that be a hundred bedrooms, a hundred bathrooms and a hundred kitchens with five hundred spare bedrooms? Or would it simply be seven hundred usable rooms and the rest would be empty? If I was the queen I'd maybe dedicate random rooms to random things in a bid to use them all up and have some fun. A room just for owls, one made of buttons, another dedicated to chocolate. It was almost impossible to imagine the size of a palace unless you were inside one.
I found myself a nice cozy room, one with a large backed chair and a fireplace of sorts. At least I assumed it was a fireplace with electrical, laser flames jostling for position inside the glass plated cabinet. I collapsed on the chair, grateful to be away from my captor and the mysterious assassin. I needed to get my head straight, needed to calm down.
What the hell happened up there? I thought I was going to die, was so certain of it that I had to clench my abs as tight as possible just to stop my body from wetting itself. I had never been more terrified and now, as I sat alone, down in the inner sanctum of the palace, I realized just how truly scary it was.
His claws... I'd never shake the sight of them from my mind, or the look in his eyes when I smashed the vase into the side of his head; little puzzled orbs of darkness that glinted through the slits in his mask. The bastard... I wish I'd been the one who had killed him and not my captor.
Holding my head in my hands I took long, deep breaths. As a child, I had been quite a neurotic little person and was prone to the occasional panic attack. I remember during dodge-ball one sunny afternoon I was suddenly afflicted by one and it grasped at my lungs like tendrils sucking the life out of me. I'd collapsed on the ground hyperventilating with stars in my eyes. I was certain I was going to die then too. The few minutes I'd spent waiting for the ambulance to arrive had seemed like an eternity as I lay on my back with the sun in my face, my vision blurring at the sides as my classmates loomed over me. Some were laughing, others were concerned, all of them enjoying getting the chance to get some time away from playing sports.
After that my mother had insisted I go see a therapist. Helena Sorenstein, who
was lovely and saved my life, I believe from being afflicted with terrible gremlins of the mind. She taught me a technique where you place one hand on your chest and one on your stomach and you have to breathe in a way so that only the hand on your stomach rises.
I did that now, counting out for five, in for five, and then holding.
Calm down, Samantha. You've done it before and you can do it again.
Finally, my heart began to slow and the thumping in my temples stopped. I lay back against the chair and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the door in front of me was creaking open.
"I wondered where you went."
The blue devil, my savior with the gruff voice, had found me.
"Are you ok?"
I nodded.
"Are you sure."
"Yeah, I think so."
"How is your neck?" he asked.
I brushed my fingertips across the claw marks. Pulling them away I saw they were streaked with dried blood.
"It'll heal. Any deeper though and I may have bled out."
"Here, let me see."
He crouched down in front of me with his eyes wide with concern.
"What were you doing all the way down here anyway?" he asked as he gazed up at my throat.
"I don't know," I shrugged. "I just needed to be on my own, needed to walk until I found a resting place."
"That's ok," he nodded. "This is your home now too, I guess, so you can roam as you please... to a point. You're not allowed outside the palace walls."
"And why is that?"
I crossed my arms in a huff.
"You'll get taken and will be fucked and killed," came his abrupt answer.
I sat completely still except for a trembling hand.
"There are nasty people on this planet who don't think humans are as important as we are."
"Oh."
"Just be careful."
He stood up and leaned over me, his enormous size eclipsing all the light overhead.
"Let me have a closer look. I promise I won't hurt you."
He ever so gently touched the sides of my face and turned my head to the side.
"That's it," he said gently with a faint smile twitching at his lips.
My neck was exposed to him and he leaned down like a vampire going in for the kill. But he didn't bite. Instead, he caressed the soft skin of my throat with a gentle hand and let out a deep sigh.
"That was a monster up there, an enemy. He was no doubt looking for me but found you instead. I am so terribly sorry."
"Don't be."
"But I am."
He looked down at me with mournful eyes.
"Are you sure you don't need a doctor?"
"I'm sure."
His face was so close to mine as he inspected my wounds that I could smell his breath. It was sweet and hot as his voice flowed out of him gently. In the moment it was hard to fathom that he was a murderous warrior, a fearsome leader who had killed people. Right now it felt so natural to have him touch me. I gazed up at him adoringly, at the man who had not only bought my life but had saved it too.
"I'm so grateful," I said. "For saving me. I don't know what to do to say thank you."
"You don't have to do..."
He trailed off when my hand reached his stomach. Of course, I knew how to thank him although I wasn’t sure if I should. I was so conflicted. Part of me hated him and his race for thinking slavery was acceptable, for that damned slave master for bringing me here in the first place. Yet, another part of me was falling for the brute in front of me, the one who had not hurt a single hair on my head and who had shown me nothing but respect.
"I have wanted to touch you more than you can know," he said as he leaned down even closer.
His lips were perilously close to mine and I instinctively closed my eyes to wait for his kiss.
"I saw you," I whispered. "I watched you touch yourself."
He paused for a moment and I thought he was going to be angry, but then he uttered:
"I knew you were there."
Our lips met and I was wet immediately. His lips moved like no other person I had kissed. His tongue was hot and wet and his hands, all four of them, were on me. I was being touched from all angles and groaned as I leaned back into the chair. Then he was on me, his hands gripping at my thighs and pulling me to the floor.
"You are perfect, little human."
He ran a finger down in between my breasts and my nipples stood up to attention in an instant.
"Your body is so soft," he breathed. "So supple and smooth. I want to touch it all."
He hooked a finger inside my top and without warning, he popped it open sending a smattering of buttons across the carpet. My breasts lay bare to him, covered in goosebumps and waiting to be touched. He placed a nipple in his mouth and ran his tongue over the bumpy areola.
"You taste good," he whispered in between sucks. "I want to taste every part of you."
Between his legs, his hardness was growing, pressing into my abdomen as he lay on me. This time, though, I was desperate for it, felt my pussy begging to be entered as it grew wetter and wetter.
"I can smell you," he said as he pulled away from my breasts. "Can smell your sex. It is waiting for me."
His hands were in the waistband of my leggings, and then were ripping them to shreds. All I could do was watch as they were pulled from my body before lying in tatters on the ground. But my panties were soon to join them and I felt as they too were ripped from my body.
He lay his head between my thighs. His breath was on my clitoris, hot and moist. I wriggled closer to him so he could touch me but he held back, enjoying the tease.
"Wait," he commanded. "I'll touch you when I'm ready."
He continued to run his hands all over my body. It felt like two people were eager to feel every inch of my naked body.
"How grateful are you?" he asked.
"What?" I gasped in my heightened state of arousal.
"How grateful are you that I saved your life?”
"More grateful than you could ever imagine!"
"Tell me... What would you do to say thank you?"
I thought for a second.
"I would give you every part of my body to use as you wish," I finally said.
That answer seemed to satisfy him and he looked up at me, his face shining up from the bottom of my belly and he smiled.
"Good answer."
Then he was on me, his lips latching onto my clitoris. He sucked hard and I screamed, dug my nails into the back of his head. His tongue was faster than any human man's could ever be, lapping furiously across me until I orgasmed hard and fast, convulsing and writhing on the ground as I cried out. Even long after I came he kept sucking, harder and harder until I felt as though I was leaving my body. My legs shook uncontrollably and I gripped at the base of the chair legs to steady myself as my body flailed.
"Fuck!" I screamed. "Oh, Jesus fucking Christ!"
But he wouldn't stop. On and on his tongue flicked up and down with unwavering devotion. I screamed and begged for him to stop but he didn't. He kept going until I reached my fifth orgasm and only then, did he pull his face away.
Then he sat back and admired his work, watching me red faced and panting on the floor with beads of sweat dripping from my face.
"It's my turn," he announced. "I hope you can handle it."
Crawling up onto my hands and knees, I turned away from him, my ass up in the air and my head pressed against the floor.
“I’ll try not to hurt you,” he said. “But I can’t promise anything.”
I knew it would hurt. There was no way a man that size could enter you without causing you pain but I also knew it would be worth it. When I felt his tip linger on my lips for a second I was already in heaven, then he pushed in a little further, and a little further still until I was stretched far beyond what I’d known. It stung and I bit down on my lower lip as he went in even deeper. But then the pain subsided and the farther he thrust into me, the more pleasure
took over.
With two of his hands on my breasts and the other two pulling at my hair, I let myself be taken by him completely. Every inch of me belonged to him and I gave myself over body and mind.
“You are perfect.”
He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, brushing the hair from my eyes as he kissed my cheek.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since the very second I saw you up there on that stage with your arms tied behind you, like this.”
He wrapped his fingers around my wrists like a cuff and pulled my arms behind me. I cried, screamed out as my muscles ached and he roared, his pelvis rocking back and forth as he fucked me.
“Fuck!”
He moved harder, pushed himself into me harder. I could feel his sweat dripping onto my back, could feel my knees burn against the floor as my body was ground down into the carpet.
“Uuurrrghhhhhh!”
He thrust one last time, pushing up into my cervix. Then I fell forward, a hot mess on the floor as his ejaculate flowed out me in a steady stream.
“You are strong, little human,” he stroked the back of my head. “Stronger than I imagined.”
Chapter 11
Urie
“Sleep well, little human.”
I whispered in her ear but she was already asleep. With the two of us in my bed, it felt finally as if my bedroom was part of a home. Her body was warm beside me and as I pressed my body up against her back, I breathed in the scent of her hair, breathing it in before I kissed her one final time.
“I will be back soon,” I said although I knew she couldn’t hear.
Lingering in the perfection of the moment, I watched her sleeping. Her chest rose and fell as she slumbered, her soft, sighing breath drifting out of her in wisps. With great reluctance, I climbed out of bed and yawned. I told no one of my plan for tonight, not even Oban, and if he were to find out I would have nothing but thwarted plans and a sore head.
