Bridled Lust

by Faith Eden

  ‘And get fucked by the same grimy troopers who’ll likely as not end up fucking her, always supposing they don’t just kill you all outright.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Opal conceded, ‘if that is what the gods of the fates decide. But at least I do have one free choice I can make before that happens.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, I think I do.’ She fell silent again and Savatch stole a sly sideways glance at her. She was chewing quietly on her thumb and her eyes seemed unfocussed. ‘I owe you for having brought me thus far, Master Pecon,’ she said eventually, ‘and I think you are basically a good man, at least by the curious standards of the men of this world. I am very young, as you know and have very little experience of... certain things, whereas you have been with many women, I think.’

  ‘Quite a few, yes,’ Pecon admitted, trying not to smile.

  ‘I expect you’ve long forgotten your first time with a woman, yes?’

  ‘Actually no,’ Pecon said. ‘It’s not something I think any man forgets, whatever might come afterwards.’

  ‘Nor any woman, either.’

  ‘No, I suspect not.’

  ‘I have no first time to remember,’ Opal said quietly. ‘Not as yet, anyway.’

  ‘No, of course you don’t.’

  ‘And if I live, even if I live to be a hundred, I would not like to remember that first time as being helpless in the hands of a bunch of filthy Vorsan troopers.’

  ‘Of course not, I can understand that,’ Pecon said. ‘But, as you said, the choice is still yours. You need not go.’

  ‘And I have told you that I have no choice in that matter. I must go.’

  ‘Then what choice are you talking about?’ Opal sighed and Pecon turned to face her. The pale moonlight sparkled back from her even paler eyes and her face suddenly looked much older.

  ‘The same choice I now offer you, you silly man,’ she said. ‘What I’m asking, Master Pecon, is for you to walk a little way in the night with me, find somewhere sheltered and then make love to me. Of course, I know it will not really be love, but I’m sure you know enough to make it at least seem real.

  ‘Either way, I would prefer my maidenhead to be surrendered to you than to those Vorsan swine.’

  For perhaps only the second time in his life, words failed Pecon.

  ‘I... I... I don’t know what to say,’ he managed at last. Opal giggled and grasped his hand, placing it on the tunic Jekka had given her, so that his fingers rested on her firm breast.

  ‘Say what you would say to Demila,’ she suggested. ‘Or say whatever it was you said when you were pumping Lady Corinna. Or don’t say anything at all, if you find that easier. Unless of course you do not find me as attractive as your other women,’ she added mischievously, ‘but I saw the way you looked at my nakedness before, so I doubt that will be a problem, don’t you agree, Master Pecon?’

  The hoof boots took the longest time to fit, though their laces and buckles were quite simple; their sheer length however required great patience on Savatch’s part and Jekka stood mutely while he carefully fitted them to her legs.

  ‘Can you walk in them?’ he asked, when he had finished. ‘By way of reply, Jekka took two stumbling forward steps, holding her mitted hands out for balance.

  ‘I think I can learn, master,’ she said, gripping a rope along the side of the wagon for balance.

  ‘Good,’ Savatch said. ‘That is as well, for I think I shall take you for a little exercise when you are fully ready.’ He picked up the bridle and turned the straps around in his hands several times, before finally lifting it over her head, but Jekka raised a hand to stop him. Savatch hesitated, uncertain, but he saw that there was simply a look of mild amusement on her face, a vague smile that echoed a mischievous glint in her eyes.

  ‘Forgive me, master,’ she whispered, ‘but I think you are forgetting something.’ She raised one hand and tapped the side of her head. ‘My mane,’ she said. ‘You need to prepare my mane before fitting that, else it will surely hamper the shears and razor.’

  It seemed to Savatch that the ritual of preparation must have taken half the night, but at last Jekka stood before him, naked save for her pony harnessing, her newly shaven head crowned by her flowing red mane, her freshly denuded mound seemingly shining as bright as the lantern itself until he had finally buckled the protective leather triangle to cover it. Only the bit now remained and it hung from the ring at one side of her mouth, waiting the moment when he would finally offer it to her.

  To Savatch, more than used to handling female slaves in all stages of undress, the sight of one more near naked female should have meant little, but he found himself breathing heavily and there was an insistent pulse at one side of his temple.

  ‘You are truly beautiful, Marisjekka Marisalannasdottir,’ he said. ‘A true Valkyr, even in your pony tack. None could ever mistake you for a slave, save those who have not the eyes and wit to understand what they see.’

  ‘Thank you, master,’ Jekka replied.

  Savatch breathed in deeply and let the air out again in a long, slow hiss. ‘Are you truly sure you wish this, Jekka?’ he said earnestly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I am very sure. More sure now than I was at the beginning.’

  ‘May I ask why, or should I simply gag you now and make up my own answers?’

  ‘I am your slave, don’t forget,’ Jekka snickered, ‘so you must do as you please with me, but I shall answer your question, for it and you are deserving of the truth, as far as I understand it myself, that is.’ She tried to breathe in and winced as the tight girth cut in under her ribs.

  ‘As you know, my lord,’ she continued, ‘I have always preferred the attentions of my own sex to those of yours - at least, I have only ever accepted the attentions of my own sex, for in truth I think I was never sure and never wanted to find out, for my mother—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Savatch interrupted her. ‘But that was not your mother’s fault, nor was it your father’s. Your father was a brave warrior, as brave as your mother, so Alanna tells me.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ Jekka snapped, ‘but both left me to the mercies of this world and that is hard to forget.’ She paused and for a moment her thoughts seemed a long way away.

  ‘Hard to forget,’ she repeated softly, but then after another pause she seemed to recover herself. ‘As I was saying, my Lord Savatch, for whatever reasons, be they misbegotten or otherwise, I have shunned men when it comes to loving, but I always knew that one day I must at least give myself to one, if only to say that I did not go to my grave not knowing.

  ‘On the morrow, we undertake a venture as dangerous as any I have ever embarked upon and I have embarked upon a few, young though I may be. If the gods smile upon us and the spirits of my ancestors watch in a kindly fashion, then we shall all see another night and maybe a good many more like them, but gods and spirits are fickle, as we all know only too well and there is nothing certain, save that the sun will rise again the following day, whether or not any of us remains alive to see it.

  ‘Therefore, my lord, I give myself willingly to you this night and not only because there is no other man to hand.’ She smiled, but could not now look Savatch directly in the face. ‘I give myself to you because, if I am to remember just one man in the halls of the warriors, I would rather it be you than any other I have ever met.’

  ‘Even though you know I love another?’ Savatch reminded her. ‘Another whose life we are about to risk our own for?’

  ‘Even so,’ Jekka replied. ‘And who knows, maybe there is enough room in your heart to give just a small corner of it to a Valkyr? I know there is love there for Alanna, so perhaps you could find a little more to spare for me too?’

  ‘More than a little, I think,’ Savatch said. He drew her to him, pressing his lips against hers, the dangling bit swinging forward against his lower jaw as he kissed her.
To his surprise she made no attempt to resist, her lips parting easily and her soft warm tongue darting to find his own.

  ‘A swift learner,’ he breathed, when at last they parted. Jekka gave a little snort.

  ‘You think women kiss each other any differently?’ she said. ‘Maybe a little less roughly, though not always, but the basics are the same, my lord.’

  ‘So it would seem,’ Savatch chuckled. He reached out and fingered the bit. ‘It seems almost a shame to spoil things with this, but if I must—’

  ‘I think you must,’ Jekka said. ‘I think you must do everything to me that I might expect if I were one of those poor unfortunates in Fulgrim’s camp, for soon I may be just that and I would rather I learned first at your hands than at any others.’

  Demila looked up at the rustle of bushes and shrank back against the side of the wagon as the young woman pushed her way into the moonlit clearing, her crossbow levelled before her. She was dressed as a warrior, Demila saw, though she was much shorter than either Opal or Jekka and more rounded and feminine in her appearance. Behind her, a waiflike girl trailed her steps, looking both morose and a little frightened.

  ‘Well, well,’ the newcomer said, brandishing her weapon in an arc that covered all the slaves. ‘What do we have here?’ She stared hard at Demila, the only one of the five who was not chained. ‘These cannot be your slaves, girl, can they?’

  ‘N-no, mistress,’ Demila stammered. ‘I am just watching over them until my master returns.’

  ‘See?’ the second female protested, her eyes growing round with consternation. ‘I told you there would be someone else around here, didn’t I? Let’s just go and leave these people to their own business.’

  ‘And I’m growing tired of telling you to shut up, Pester,’ the warrior girl snapped. ‘So, shut up! Now, you girl, what’s your name?’ Demila told her. ‘And your master?’

  ‘Master Pecon, mistress. He has ridden off with two Valkyrs, but he will return by tomorrow, I think.’

  ‘Good. Two Valkyrs, you say?’

  ‘Yes, mistress. One actually captured us all, but my master has offered to help her in her quest. There is some noble lady who has fallen prey to a Vorsan warlord.’

  ‘Lady Corinna?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the name I heard them say. My master found her and then sold her in Erisroth, but he did not know her true identity when he did so.’

  ‘I’ll bet he didn’t,’ the intruder said. ‘Two Valkyrs, you say?’

  ‘Indeed yes, mistress,’ Demila gushed. ‘The one who came in the night had red hair though, so she didn’t look like a Valkyr, my master said.’

  ‘Jekka!’

  Demila looked surprised, but nodded. ‘You know her?’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ the warrior girl said. ‘And the other one was Alanna?’

  ‘No, Opal,’ she replied.

  Briefly, Demila related the entire story of how Pecon had come to rescue the young Valkyr from the village traders. ‘She was a fine swordswoman,’ she ended, her eyes shining as she remembered the scene in the lamp lit hall.

  ‘Well, she’s a Valkyr, so she would be.’

  ‘Are you a Valkyr also?’ Demila asked timidly.

  The warrior girl laughed and shook her head. ‘Do I look like one?’ she said. ‘No, my name is Moxie and I’m - well, let’s just say I’m learning the trade, shall we? And this little whiner is called Pester.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, mistress Moxie,’ Demila said. ‘May I offer you refreshments? My master left us well provided for.’

  ‘He also left you a wagon and horses,’ Moxie said. ‘So why don’t you just hitch up and ride out of here before he comes back.’

  ‘Because I couldn’t, mistress,’ Demila said, looking shocked at the suggestion. ‘He left me here, unchained, in case anything happened to him and he could not return. In that case, I am to take all these others to the nearest town and set them free. He has given me properly signed papers to show that we shall not then be slaves.’

  ‘Which the first trader will doubtless tear up and you’ll be right back where you started,’ Moxie told her. ‘You’d be better off making a run for it separately and try to get into Illeum. They have slaves there too, but at least they also have some laws, so your papers might have some value there.’

  ‘I cannot betray my master,’ Demila stated firmly. ‘He trusts me and has been kind to me.’

  ‘And you are obviously in love with him and probably only because he whips you less than any of your previous masters,’ Moxie snorted. ‘Have some sense, you stupid girl. He’s only a man and they’re all the same. He gets you squirming on the end of his cock and whispers a few things in your ear and you’re ready to die for him, I expect.

  ‘Look, if it’s just a cock you want, even Pester here has one of those and it’s probably as big as your damned master’s, for all he looks like a scarecrow!’

  ‘He’s a boy!’ Demila exclaimed. ‘But he looks like a girl. I thought he was one!’

  ‘No, he just squeals and cries like one,’ Moxie said, laughing, ‘but underneath that he’s a boy all right and he’s got a cock to prove it. Mind you, he has no balls to go with it, so perhaps you were half right after all.’

  ‘You are very beautiful, Marisjekka,’ Savatch whispered. He lay above her, supporting himself on his elbows, her small firm breasts just brushing his naked chest. She had tried to wrap her legs about his thighs, but the stiffness of the pony boots made if impossible for her to bend her knees properly and now the weighted feet lay across the backs of his calves.

  ‘And I expect you say that to all the women you fuck, my lord,’ Jekka snickered. He had removed her bit again, the better to kiss her with and she responded with surprising hunger. Penetrating her had also been surprisingly easy and she used her mitted hands, clutching at his buttocks to urge him into her.

  ‘In your case it is absolutely true,’ he told her. ‘You are indeed beautiful.’

  ‘The Lady Corinna is beautiful and so is Lady Alanna,’ she replied softly. ‘I am just—’

  ‘Also beautiful,’ Savatch assured her, ‘though I see much pain in your eyes at times.’ He eased halfway out of her warm sheath and then pushed forward again and Jekka sighed, her useless hands scrabbling at his back. ‘There is much in you, I think, Marisjekka,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ she answered, closing her eyes, ‘your cock for a start.’

  ‘And do you find the feeling pleasing?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be your slave, master,’ she rebuked him coyly. ‘Am I supposed to find it pleasing?’

  ‘Well, one would hope so, yes.’

  ‘Then indeed I do find it pleasing, as I’m sure Lady Alanna did last night. Tell me, my lord, did you find a nice sheltered gully to fuck her and did she make as fine a pony girl as you say I do?’ She laughed at the shocked expression that came across his face.

  ‘A Valkyr uses her nose as much as she uses her eyes and her ears,’ she told him. ‘I could smell on her these things when I took them from the sack and there were also two thongs with them that were not there when I last looked. Repairs against my little alterations, perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps, yes,’ Savatch admitted. He withdrew and probed forward again, hoping to take her mind off the thread it was on, but Jekka was not to be deflected.

  ‘So you finally managed to place my lady in the bondage of a slave,’ she chuckled. ‘Did she enjoy it?’

  ‘Are you enjoying it now?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. You are surprisingly gentle with your slaves, my lord.’

  ‘Then enough has been said on the subject, or shall I put the bit back in that chattering little mouth of yours?’

  ‘If that pleases you, then yes, master,’ Jekka said. ‘But I think there are better ways to quiet my tongue, if you would prefer to explore them and - oh! Oh my!’ Her b
ack arched suddenly and her feet kicked at the air.

  ‘Damn you,’ she cried. ‘Oh damn you, you beautiful man! By all the gods, I never believed—’ Her words were cut short in a gurgling cry and Savatch immediately began to thrust in and out of her, feeling the spasming muscles clutching his shaft as it moved inside her. Again she gave a little choking sob and her arms encircled him, drawing them close together so that his weight crushed her breasts between them.

  ‘Damn you, Savatch!’ she hissed into his ear. ‘And if I get your lady love back to you, then I’ll also be damned if I don’t exact a few more nights like this as my reward!’

  Alanna reached the crest of the rise where the young Illean trooper, Ceth, was mounting his duty watch. Halfway up she had called out to him, not wishing to alarm him by her approach, and now she sat carefully alongside him and handed him the wine sack she had retrieved from Savatch’s wagon.

  ‘It is a very quiet night,’ she observed.

  ‘Quiet enough, my lady,’ Ceth agreed. ‘At least, it is all quiet out there.’ He nodded into the night and at the same time a faint squeal carried to their ears from the far side of the encampment.

  ‘Not so quiet everywhere, then,’ Alanna said, smiling.

  ‘No, indeed.’ Ceth lifted the spout of the wine to his lips.

  ‘You wish it were you back there, I think,’ Alanna said.

  Ceth lowered the sack and stared at her. ‘Yes, I do, lady,’ he replied. ‘But how did you know, or am I that obvious?’

  ‘Well, when a man makes eyes at a woman the way your eyes follow Jekka, it does not take a Valkyr to work out what is going on inside his head.’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Ceth admitted, ‘though I thought I had managed to conceal my feelings for her.’

  ‘Maybe from Jekka,’ Alanna agreed, ‘but there are those of us that have eyes that you perhaps have not guarded against so carefully.’