by Renard, Loki
“Yes, you fucking little bitch,” he grunted. “So hot, so wet. I think you spill the soup so you can spill your cunt juices on me. I think you wanted this.”
Her cry was guttural as his hand went around her throat. He took her to the floor and held her firmly there down on all fours like a dog. He rutted her with long, hard strokes that could have been punishing if not for the fact she was wetter than the bath she had just been pulled from.
Her body was his to take, his to use. She was but a piece of flesh belonging to him. He punished her, and her pleasure was merely a happy accident. Her body knew how to take this man. It knew how to grasp his cock, how to milk his seed.
Before she knew what was happening, she was orgasming, and the feeling was like none other her body remembered. She was spiraling upward, rising from herself, feeling free of the shackles of pain and of flesh...
Chapter Six
Her eyes closed and then opened again. She was no longer Aya the slave girl. She was Aya the princess, lying in her chambers next to the great guardian Kazriel.
It was as if it had all been a dream, but that was no dream. That was no drug-induced hallucination. That had been real, she was certain of it. She had lived someone else’s life, felt someone else’s pain.
“Welcome back,” Kazriel said gruffly.
“What did you do!” Aya leaped from the bed as if it were on fire. She could not risk accidental slumber and finding herself a random lord’s sexual plaything.
“That was the true life experience of one young woman you never knew the name of. I played the role of lord. I will play tormentor in all these trials, and I will ensure that you learn the lessons you so desperately need to learn.”
“Why didn’t she fight back?”
“She was small and beaten down, a forgotten part of a cruel world which had no use for her but as a fuck toy for the nobles whose favor you continue to court.”
“So I will remember these trials after they are completed, but while they are happening, I will have no memory of my real existence...”
“That is correct. You will live the lives of those you betrayed.”
His words stung, but not as much as the noble’s cane had stung her skin when she was but a peasant slave, starving and tasked to carry food to those who did not need it nearly as badly as she did.
“Is there a nobleman Fife? Is there a slave girl? Are these real people existing in this moment?”
Kazriel answered her question with one of his own. “What would you do if they were?”
“I would bring him to justice, and I would free her.”
“Just her?”
“All the slaves!” Aya declared passionately. “No person should be forced to suffer in service to another.”
“You are beginning to learn. The next trial will teach you more.”
“No!” she begged. “Please, not another trial. It was so strange waking up in the body of another person, having their memories and yet not my own. I understand what you’re trying to teach me. Other people suffer.”
“Oh, yes, other people suffer,” he agreed. “But you do not understand it, not from one incident with one noble. You must feel the pain of your people in the very core of you.”
“I don’t want to!”
“And yet you must, or else you will be just as ill-fit to rule as your uncle before you.”
“Please...”
“The next trial will not begin until tomorrow. You may rest today and meditate on what you have learned. Once you sleep, the trial will begin.”
A reprieve then, but no mercy.
“Rest and meditate? Is that another way of saying that I am going to be locked in here alone?”
“Your empathy may be lacking, but there is nothing amiss with your intellect, Princess.”
Kazriel left her then, sitting in the chamber that had once been her refuge. Now that it was stripped of all the trappings of her station it looked more like a dungeon cell than the chambers of a princess.
Aya bit her lower lip and tried to make sense of the world she found herself suffering in. All the terrible things she had experienced kept coming with an edge of twisted pleasure. Perhaps she was twisted, warped by the king’s evil, or maybe it was merely the royal streak that made her desire that which should not be desired.
Whatever the reason, her sex tingled as her mind replayed the dream in as great a detail as was possible. She was left to remember how it felt to be fucked like a peasant girl. Aya had never experienced a man’s touch. She had barely been exposed to a man’s gaze until Kazriel drew her out.
In the quiet of her chambers, Aya wondered if it would feel that way when she met her mate. Her uncle had often threatened to marry her off, but there were none he considered worthy, or, more likely, none so useful or powerful they could not be taken advantage of in other ways. For years, Aya had been the jewel in Kazriel’s crown, the ultimate bargaining chip.
Now she wondered if she would ever take a mate at all—though she knew she would have to in order to continue the royal line that went back to the beginning of time if the legends could be believed. They were the same legends that said the guardian would arise to reclaim the throne if humans proved unworthy, so perhaps it was true.
Chapter Seven
She opened her eyes and found herself chained to a wall. Blinking, she tried to remember what she had done to end up in such a predicament, but there was no memory, only fear.
Cold shackles ran around her wrists and her ankles, and one went around her neck. The placement of the shackles ensured that her legs were wide open, her arms splayed. There was no way to hide herself from the gaze of whatever tormentor had put her in this terrible position. She was pinned to the wall like an insect in a specimen board, unable to move.
She was naked. She was afraid. And she was alone.
“Hello?”
She cried the question out, then immediately wondered why she had done such a foolish thing. Surely anyone who had her in this predicament was not anybody she wanted coming to her.
“You’re awake, sinner.”
Sinner?
The voice was rough and cruel. There was an edge to it that suggested glee at her helplessness. She strained to see, but there were two candle stands on either side of her. Their light shed a golden glow over her body, but made everything beyond the corona of light utterly black.
There was a shuffling sound out there in the darkness. She felt her body clench in anticipation of pain, fear making her innards clench. She did not know what she was afraid of, but her body knew something she didn’t. Fighting for memory, she tried to understand what was happening, but there was nothing besides the darkness and the light and the shackles.
It only took a matter of seconds for her tormentor to come to her, but those seconds drew out into eternity, every breath making her fear compound. Something was coming. Something that was going to hurt.
The man who emerged from the shadows walked with a limp and had heavy scarring down the left side of his face. His left eye was closed entirely and the remaining one seemed brighter for the fact. Emerald green, bright with the excitement of cruelty.
He was naked to the waist, his torso muscular and strong, but still very much scarred, the same as his face was, all down the left side. It was as though she was looking at two men in one, or perhaps a demon incarnate melded with a man.
She let out a shriek as he drew closer and she realized that he intended to touch her.
“Hush, sinner. Your screams will come soon enough, no need to treat me with them earlier,” he purred.
She was suspended a little higher than he stood, putting her breasts at the height of his face. All the most sensitive parts of her body were exposed to him.
“Why are you doing this to me?” She whimpered the question.
“You forget so easily, don’t you, sinner. You are here because you transgressed against the laws. You did not offer yourself to the king when he demanded your sex. Now you will be broken a
nd given to a noble for his use.”
She trembled in the shackles, pulling at the chains that held her, but it made no difference to the man who stood before her, examining her with that frightening gaze that strongly suggested he enjoyed his work and intended to be very thorough with her.
“Your body belongs to the king,” he said. “You will know that when I am done with you. Every part of it will be broken to the will of the throne.”
“Please... just... please... don’t hurt me.”
“Hurt you?” The scarred side of his face seemed to mock her, as if she had any right to talk about pain, when he had endured something that had turned his flesh molten and then set it again. “Of course I will hurt you. The only way to true learning is pain.”
He reached into the darkness, where any number of horrors hid, and pulled a tray toward him. She saw several silver apparatus laid out there, gleaming in the light of the candle flame.
A large hand splayed across her belly. She felt the warmth of her tormentor. Skin on skin, they were connected, and it was better than the cold of the shackles and the roughness of the wall. A little whimper escaped her lips, but not one of fear this time. This time it was a soft sound of connection.
She breathed in his touch, that one soothing thing in this frightening tableau.
“Yes, little sinner,” he purred, sliding his hand down until the heel of his palm pressed against the mound of her sex. He put a gentle but firm pressure there, his palm making light circles in place. She breathed out some of her fear.
“You would not submit to a king. Let us see if you will submit to me,” he murmured in that low voice that was beginning to trickle down her spine. He had barely done a thing and already her body thrilled to him. The fear that had made every breath feel oppressive was being transformed into something else. Or, no, that wasn’t it. The fear remained, but under his hand, it became something more. Something that flowered through her, something that started at the core of her and traveled outward to warm every cold extremity.
There was a light tinkle of some small chain being lifted from the tray, and then she felt his fingertips at her left nipple, pinching that bud into an erect state. Little sensations zipped down to her cunt, where his other hand was still stationed, pressing against her sex, cupping and holding her. It should have felt like an invasive touch, but she felt supported and in some strange way that made no sense at all, almost... cared for?
Was she so lost, so broken, so lonely, that this man who held her prisoner and punished her could make her feel good with a mere touch? It seemed so. She still had so little memory, but there were some feelings that transcended memory. Loneliness and sorrow were strong. She had been alone a long time.
There was a tightness now, two metal sides slipping around her nipple and clamping tight. A hissed breath and she felt her body come to life, her other nipple now captured in the same way, creating an erotic circuit between her breasts and her pussy. The fingers at her sex spread her lower lips and expertly pushed back the little hood that hid her clit.
It was then she realized she had been betrayed. His touch had not been to comfort. It had been to draw her clitoris out, to make it erect with desire and enable the third clip to clasp around it. It was not painfully tight, but it was firm and with the circuit complete her tormentor could now tug at the chains and stimulate each of those three erotic points, making sensation course through her chained body.
“You feel that, don’t you, sinner,” he growled softly. “Answer me.”
“Yes...”
“And you know that it has to hurt.”
She could not respond yes to that. She did not want it to hurt. She wanted to be spared the pain. She wanted to be saved from the shackles. She needed a knight to defend her. But none of those things were going to happen. There was no gallant knight to save her, only this twisted tormentor who took pleasure toying with her.
He picked up another of his tools. She closed her eyes. It was the last little bit of control she could reclaim, and she planned to take it.
And then she felt something cold and sharp running up the inside of her thigh and her eyes flew open to the accompaniment of his chuckle.
“Hard to ignore a knife, isn’t it?”
The tip of the blade drew so slowly along her skin, heading toward the core of her. She did not know what to anticipate. She did not know what level of cruelty existed inside this man. And then she remembered. She was to be given to a noble. He couldn’t kill her. He couldn’t maim her. But he was going to stoke her fear. He was going to take her to the very edge of what she could contain, push her until she cried out in terror and orgasm at the same time.
Knowing that should have made it less frightening, but cold steel was still cold steel and hanging from shackles with her sex clamped, she was not under any illusions of personal importance. It wasn’t as if she were a princess, after all. She was just a peasant girl, just flesh to be used, broken by men.
“Breathe.”
The advice came in softer tones. It was almost... kind? No, it couldn’t be. This was a tormentor who took pleasure in pain, who wanted to see her hurt, who wore his scars as a badge of pride in the agony he had survived, and a warning to what levels of horror he might unleash.
The knife found her sex. She felt it glide along her lips, and then there was the softest sensation of the hair that grew there slipping away, falling to the floor below. He was shaving her, a dry shave that would have been painful if not for the exquisite sharpness of the steel.
His finger trailed along in the wake of the blade; she felt the softness of her lips, so much more sensitive than they had been before.
He was having the same effect all the way across her body, making every part of her so much more sensitive. She felt everything. She felt the cool air of the room, the currents wrapping around her curves. She felt him, even when he wasn’t touching her. He was heat and he was hardness. He was the molten core of her existence. He was all that mattered. He was life, and perhaps he was death.
The blade returned, the very tip of it lightly grazing the inside of her thigh. Not a sliver of skin was harmed. He wielded the weapon with such perfect precision, as if he was aware of every atom between that devastatingly sharp surface and her delicate skin.
“What are you afraid of?”
“You.”
“No, not me. I am only the instrument of what makes you so pale. Tell me what it is you truly fear.”
“Pain.”
“But pain is inevitable. What is the point of fearing pain? You should learn to endure it, even welcome it. Then you will be stronger than the pain.”
“I don’t want to be stronger than the pain.”
The knife left her privates and was twirled into a sheath at his waist. “Then you can know nothing but hurt.”
He picked up a flogger, many braids of leather hanging malevolently at the end of the handle. She began to whimper, but he was not interested in the pathetic little sounds she made. He wanted something else from her, something she didn’t know how to give.
The flogger began to swing in his hand, easy arcs and figures of eight back and forth over and over again. At first the tips did not reach her body, but he brought them closer and closer with every rotational motion, and then dozens of leather tongues began to lick her skin.
Pain was not immediate. At first it was light and almost pleasant. But then the leather began to make contact with the light chains linking her nipples and clit, tugging on those sensitive buds with every single revolution. She wanted to stay silent, to deny him the pleasure of her pain, but that was not as easy to execute as she had hoped. Moans and gasps began to creep through her clenched lips, and then when the tips of the leather caught the underside of her breasts with a sterner stroke, her mouth opened wide in an involuntary cry.
“Mercy!”
“No, little sinner. You have not earned mercy. Before you can receive mercy, you must find absolution.”
The leather spun m
ore quickly, the muscles in his arm rippling with the motion that came so easily to him and with increasing pain to her tender flesh. Hot pink splotches and lines appeared on her skin, each one of them marking a bucking motion of her hips, a pulling against her shackles, a helpless wailing moan and an ignored call for mercy.
He beat her with that flogger, he turned her nipples and her pussy into further instruments of her own torment. She felt hot shame coursing through her as the full weight of her predicament was made entirely clear. She could not protect herself. She could not close her legs. She had no control over anything. It was all in his hands.
“Look at me.”
She did not wish to, but she knew he could make it worse if she did not. She raised her eyes to her tormentor and met that green stare that was so strangely knowing. All the power was on his end of the flogger. He was the one who decided the punishment. He was the one who remembered the sins.
“What did I do? What were my sins? Why must I suffer?”
He did not answer her. He held her gaze and he moved the flogger about her body in that steady motion that took her apart on the inside more than the outside. Each stinging mark on her flesh was nothing compared to the wrenching agony she felt in her soul.
“You are a sinner,” he repeated. “Sinners must be punished.”
It made no sense, and yet it made perfect sense. If only she could remember what she had done. Without memory, she could not learn, she would be doomed to be punished forever, her sins becoming eternal in the amnesia of her mind.
“Please, I am sorry!”
“No, you are not. You are in pain. Pain is not the same as remorse. Your pleas in this moment are nothing more than an attempt to avoid your proper due.
“Do not resist the pain. Let it sink inside you. Take it into your bones. Feel it. Know you deserve it.”
But she did not know she deserved it. She did not know anything. She cried out as much, but he did not listen. He intensified the strokes. He steeped her in sensation. He forced her to the point of breaking—and then he pushed her beyond it.
