Ronan motioned for her to follow him out of the ship. Oh, wonderful, she thought at the prospect of traveling with one captor to meet with another. Soon she'd have both of them to deal with, and she had every reason to believe Benno, though a Prince, was nothing like the gentleman that Ronan seemed to be. And there was also the matter of the injection awaiting her back at the prison. Though she would no longer be in a cell and there would be no more restraining collar and cuffs, she knew full well that there were other forms of restraint to which she would be subjected. Dwelling in the estates of Princes, Cassie would be no less a prisoner than if she were still to be kept in a cell.
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Processing Cassie out of prison and into the custody of Ronan involved injecting her with a subcutaneous monitor. The tiny device would lie under the skin of her right arm and be used to track her whereabouts at all times. If she were to roam outside the perimeters of Ronan's estate, or Benno's when she was transferred to him, the consequences would be dire: not only a return to prison but a lengthening of her sentence. And so Cassie could look forward to spending the next ten to fifteen years shuttling back and forth between two different places of confinement. No doubt they would both be very beautiful, palatial, and luxurious places. But neither of them would be her home and she would receive only whatever privileges in them that the owners--her owners--saw fit to give her. Of course if she were a model prisoner--or servant--she might enjoy privileges in proportion to how well she pleased her keepers. But that raised the question of exactly what she would have to do, or let them do, to please them. And at least in the case of Prince Benno, Cassie had a generally good idea what she would be called upon to do. Her heart sank at the prospect of more than a decade of her life that she would now spend as the concubine of a werebear and a weredragon. When her sentence finally ended, what would be left of her soul?
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The place where Cassie was to surrender herself to the new owners of her life was beautiful enough. Ronan's sprawling estate was nestled in the greenest hills of grass and trees she had ever seen. The place itself reminded her of old photographs from computer memory she'd once perused, back when she was younger and still entertained the idea that she might settle down someplace on Earth. It looked like Spanish-style mansions with white walls adorned with green ivy, and red shingled roofs. There was just so much of it. The wings of the place seemed to go on forever. Spending as much time as she did in space, she had always known such wealth existed, but she had hardly ever been exposed to it. Now she would be exposed to it on a daily basis--and be called upon, she feared, to expose some things about herself.
The estate had a courtyard with shrubbery, fountains, fish ponds, and marble benches. It was a serene and lovely place, hardly the kind of setting in which Cassie ever expected to see the kind of tableau he was now witnessing. Seated on one of the benches, her arm still slightly tingling from the injection of her monitor, Cassie watched in a kind of perverse fascination as on the lawn before her a dragon and a bear sought to beat each other's brains out.
A few meters away their respective human clothing lay heaped in the grass. As soon as Cassie and Ronan arrived here, so did her other new keeper, Prince Benno. The initial pleasantries had been short. Benno took her hand in an unexpectedly gallant gesture, considering what Ronan had told her of him, and introduced himself. Then he commanded her to turn around for him, obviously his first assertion of his authority over her, to give him a first look at her--with her clothes still on. Then he announced, "Ronan and I will have a contest to see which of us will have at you first."
Cassie glanced nervously at Ronan, the one of her two keepers who was most nearly her friend. Ronan simply said, "We both have claim and he has his rights." He tried to say it in as reassuring a manner as he could, but there was only so much reassurance Cassie could feel under the circumstances, considering what the two of them were vying for. The only thing that was less than daunting was that Benno, as anxious as she had been about him, was every bit as striking a specimen in his human form as Ronan was.
They led her out to the courtyard and Benno commanded her to sit and watch. Then the two of them stripped themselves naked, preparing for their competition and incidentally displaying themselves to her. Benno was nothing short of spectacular. He was a head taller than Ronan and awesome to behold. He had short brown hair, eyes so brown they were almost black, and a handsome face as commanding as his deep and masculine voice. The muscles up and down his frame looked as if someone had opened up every part of his body and packed the muscles in. Cascading down his pecs, abs, legs, and forearms was fine, dark hair that was thickest on his torso. Suspended from the bush at his crotch was what Cassie could describe only as a thick bludgeon of foreskin-bearing meat, a virtual weapon of flesh. Cassie shuddered at the sight of it, and tingled in spite of herself at the knowledge of what Benno meant to do to her with it.
But then there was also her first sight of the naked Ronan. He was leaner than Benno, but the muscles were just as tightly packed. The dark hair across his chest was thicker, and the hair on his legs much finer and more delicate. A trail of hair descended from the navel beneath his chiseled abs to a thatch of dark pubes, and under them hung a foreskin-jacketed pipe of man-flesh that was a precision tool in comparison with Benno's intimidating bludgeon. The difference between Ronan's physical presence and that of Benno was as much of a contrast as their personalities. Ronan looked over at her with his smoldering-handsome face as if to say, Have no fear. Then he faced Benno again, and it began.
In her travels Cassie had seen shape-changing people morph their bodies more than once, and it never failed to impress her to watch a human form melt and shift and alter itself into that of an animal. She guessed that if she were around it all the time she would grow accustomed to it, as one grows accustomed to seeing different things when visiting different planets. But there was still, for her, something remarkable about seeing a human become something else. Ronan shut his eyes and put back his head, and his body completely changed. His hair disappeared. His skin turned green and broke out into scales in striped patterns. His bipedal body frame turned to a four-legged shape as his arms became forelegs, and his fingers and toes became taloned digits. Ronan's neck elongated. Spines erupted down his neck and back and his lower back produced a long and powerful tail. His head shifted to that of a massive lizard with long, sharp horns, and from his shoulder blades erupted leathery green wings. Ronan dropped to all-fours and watched Benno undergo a transformation of his own. Where the hair had completely disappeared from Ronan, the reverse process took place on Benno; his entire body broke out into thick, brown-black fur. The body itself thickened enormously and the shapes of the limbs, hands, and feet changed. Claws that could disembowel a human with one quick swipe extruded from the digits on his forelimbs. The head turned from human to ursine, the jaws becoming a snout and the ears changing shape and position on the head. Cassie almost thought she heard thunder when Benno, as well, lowered himself onto all-fours in the grass. He held his mouth open wide, bearing cruel-looking fangs, and emitted a blood-curdling roar of challenge. Ronan reared back his serpentine neck and exposed a mouthful of gleaming spikes, returning Benno's challenge with a roar of his own. At once the dragon and the bear charged at each other, and the fight was on.
Reflexively, Cassie's legs curled and she hugged herself when the two beasts who a moment ago were men slammed into one another. Watching them spar with each other, snarling and snapping and swatting back and forth, Cassie remembered what Ronan had told her of their years of friendship, that they had been as much rivals and competitors going back to childhood as much as they had been friends. This must have been the way they always were, the primeval and frightening thing she was seeing now. What else might they be trying to express, perhaps without even knowing it, with these battles they had? Was it always only rivalry? Was it always just competition? Or was it their way of bonding with each other, finding kinship with each other, in
spite of the difference in their species and the antagonism between heir respective peoples? In fighting, were they--however unconsciously--showing something other than the need for one to be dominant and the other to submit? Was there something deeper in all this than just the tableau of animal violence now playing out on the grass? Or was she reading something more into it than was really there?
Whatever it was Cassie was seeing, it was surreal. She had seen shifters change often enough, but she had never seen them fight. It was like seeing some fantasy scenario, or perhaps a nightmare, come to life. They slammed their chests into each other, scaly plates colliding with an underside of fur and muscle, and grappled at each other with sinews covered in scales and hair. They snapped back and forth at each other's throat, and Cassie noted with an unnerved and frightened sort of fascination that they each seemed to be deliberately giving the other the opportunity to evade or draw back and away from the fangs of the other. They moved as if they were out for blood, but always came up short of actual bloodletting. The dragon and the bear heaved and shoved at each other, pushing one another back and forth on the turf, until suddenly Ronan broke their beastly embrace, stepped back from Benno's renewed charge, spread his wings, spun around, and lashed out his tail with an audible whoosh! The dragon's tail connected with Benno's snout, making a loud, slashing, cracking sound, and knocked Benno to one side, staggering him. The noise of the blow made Cassie gasp. What would Benno do to retaliate?
Benno charged again and again. Ronan slung his tail at the bear repeatedly, swatting him hard about the snout and head. Furiously, giving a roar that could have been heard clear on the other side of the estate, Benno reared up on his hind legs and came thundering at him, clearly meaning to smash the dragon bodily into the grass. Hissing defiantly, Ronan reared up as well and flapped his outstretched wings, leaping from the turf and making himself airborne. He flew up in an arc over Benno's head and meant to land behind him. Roaring again, Benno lunged out with one massive forelimb and swatted viciously at Ronan, knocking him right out of the air and sending him into a sprawl back on the grass to one side. Cassie covered her mouth to stifle a shout--or a scream.
The bear was quickly upon the dragon, pinning the reptile onto the grass and bringing his snout to the long, scaly neck of his opponent with a menacing growl. But Ronan was undaunted and unbeaten. He brought his tail into play yet again, this time quickly wrapping it around Benno's neck like a striking python and beginning to tighten his coils. Benno roared a protest, but Ronan held him tightly, and the two of them thrashed about together on the lawn until Benno, with all his strength, wrenched himself backward and Ronan uncoiled his tail and released him.
Ronan hurled himself at Benno and tackled him, and their struggle became a terrifying tableau of two inhuman shapes rolling and tumbling over each other, scales against fur in a flurry of roars and hisses. At length, they came to a stop, with Ronan having Benno pinned on his back, pressing the bear's claws into the grass with his dragon claws and once again enwrapping the bear's neck in his dragon tail. Growls of protest issued from the seized throat of the bear, Benno grudgingly admitting his defeat.
Looking on at Ronan's triumph, Cassie did not know what to think. The contest was meant to determine, as Benno said, "which of them would have at her first." She had a heart-sinking certainty of what it would mean for the two Princes to "have at her." But should she read anything positive at all into the fact that Ronan had won the right to be first? He had allowed her to see her ship, taken her there personally. He had shown her an empathy and understanding for which she was not prepared. Was all of that genuine, or was it only a means to make her lower her guard, put down her defenses--to "soften her up," so to speak, to receive something very hard in a very hard and punishing way from his friend? She kept her composure as best she could as the dragon uncoiled his tail from the bear's neck and backed off, letting the bear rise from the grass. She did her best to remain calm as the two of them morphed back to their human forms, which would have filled her with wild arousal under any other circumstances, and start to gather up their clothing from the grass. But the fact was that Cassie's heart was pounding the way someone locked in a room with no way out would pound on the walls, and that was exactly the way she felt.
With his clothes bundled in his arms, Ronan did not even bother to dress. Still stark naked, he walked over to Cassie on the bench and said, "I really wanted to win this for you. I really wanted to have the right to set the terms for our...engagement."
Cassie looked up at him and said nothing, hoping that her face did not betray what was happening inside her. Inside her... Did she have to think of it that way?
Likewise carrying his clothes, Benno strode over beside Ronan and chimed in, "Don't be so cocky, Ronan. And yes, I meant 'cocky' ironically. Half the time it's I who come out the victor in deciding who goes first when we share a female. I could just as easily have set the terms as you." Cassie's eyes darted nervously between the two of them, and Benno went on, glaring straight at her, "You heard me correctly: 'When we share a female.' If you're not to be mine alone, my claim still gives me the right to be present for your first time with him and take my turn with you directly."
Cassie gulped anxiously, knowing what she would be called upon to gulp. Her throat felt as dry as her skin felt clammy. She sat like a statue, wishing she were a part of the marble beneath her.
Ronan chided his friend, "You're scaring her, Benno. To begin my declaration of terms, we're not to scare her, not to frighten her. She's been through enough already and has more to face, and none of us will enjoy it as we should if we make her afraid of us." He shot a sidelong, scolding glance at the bear Prince. "You do want to enjoy it, don't you?"
Benno snorted, "I'd enjoy well enough if this were going my way."
"Well, it isn't," replied Ronan. Then, to Cassie: "It's true I don't have the right to refuse him a part in our first time. But by our agreement, to which we're honor bound as Princes, I do have the right to say how this will go. You must let us have our way and submit to whatever we want to do. But we will not scare you, intimidate you, beat you, or otherwise physically abuse you. Further...," and he sent another sidelong glance at Benno and put an edge of authority on his voice, "...we will take you only in human form. We will not expect you to touch or be intimate in any way with my dragon form or Benno's bear form. All that you're required to do is obey and submit to us as we are right now."
Benno snorted twice as loudly as before, and his face became a deep and contemptuous scowl. "Ronan, for the world's sake, you are such a fool! We're under no obligation to treat her as some fragile thing who can't take the attention we can give her! She is an indentured prisoner and you're treating her as if she has the rights of a free woman? Just command her to submit and obey and let's lay her down and take her!"
"No!" Ronan said sharply, in a shocking tone that almost made Cassie flinch. "That isn't the way I want it. We'll have her in the way that I say or I'll call for arbitration."
Benno looked off, his scowl remaining, shaking his head. Under his breath he uttered curses in a voice that made him sound as if he were still a bear.
Ronan returned his attention to Cassie. "Benno and I will take you in foreplay at the same time. But the first right to enter you and penetrate you is mine. Do you understand?"
Cassie still had no voice. Her fear of being utterly powerless against the demands of the Princes was now hand in hand with her resignation. There was nothing to do but accept their will. Her only consolation was that if she were to submit to being defiled by two shape-changing captors, at least her captors were the most beautiful men she had ever seen.
The dragon prince, his bundle of clothing tucked under one arm, held out a hand to Cassie. "Come with us now, Cassie, into the house, and we'll take you to bed."
Feeling almost mechanical and realizing how much she had numbed her feelings, Cassie took Ronan's hand and let him pull her gently to her feet. She kept Benno in sight in the corners of
her eyes, but did not meet his eyes. He still worried her, and rightly so. With Ronan here, Cassie thought, she just might be all right submitting to Benno. But what if at some later time he demanded to have her alone, just the two of them? What kind of reprisal might he take with her in retaliation for Ronan making him treat her as something like a lover? There would be nothing she could do about it. And what would Ronan do if he did? She felt more helpless by the moment, and she saw no way out. There was nothing for her now but to open her mouth and her legs--and let them in.
If she had met either of these two men in any other way, Cassie could totally see herself going to bed with either of them and enjoying them more than any other man she had ever known. But to have them this way, to let them take her his way... Walking along with them on the grounds of the estate, she still felt mechanical, like a robot or some oversized marionette. Her feelings were still deadened. Could she wake herself up physically to please them? What if she couldn't? Would she then wear out the relative kindness that Ronan was under no obligation to show her? If she failed to act aroused and failed to respond to them, would they turn on her? The grim fact was that she did not feel able to afford the risk. Somehow, in what was to come, she must shut out everything, everything, except how stunningly, magnificently beautiful the two Princes were, and what hung and swung between the legs of each of them, and how well they used it. Neither Ronan nor Benno still bothered to dress as they walked her into the mansion. For what they meant to do to Cassie, clothes would not be required of any of them.
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