Ath’asho’s fingers closed over hers, holding her hand prisoner. Other hand picking up his abandoned fork, he speared a wedge of tart as soon as the serving girl cut it free of the whole and offered it to him. Holding the utensil before Aida’s mouth, smile indulgent and warm, the pale brown with flecks of green in his gaze held another story. One she’d become all too familiar with of late.
“I do wonder how Nys'risa would feel about you feeding a young girl, old friend,” Er’it said, the serene calm of his words as dangerous as a deep running current. More formidable still the lazy roll of two fingers at the proffered sweet. “By your own hand, no less.”
As if startling from a dream, Ath’asho dropped the fork to Aida’s plate and slid back with a rattle of armor. Clearing his throat with a rough nod, he shoved his seat back to stride away with head held high and an uneasy smile on his face for those that looked to him in question.
Aida had little time to be startled herself. Hand closing over her arm like a vice, Er’it yanked her from the chair. Hauling her into his lap so she perched upon his thighs within the circle of his arms. With little more than a gasp escaping her parted lips, she found a bite of custard settled on her tongue.
“Close those damnable lips of yours,” Er’it husked against her cheek.
Aida closed her mouth over the fork, the warm custard melting over her tongue as he slid the utensil free. Wary of this new mood, the way he caressed her arm with such care, she held the bite in her mouth. Waiting for his command.
“Good. You learn quickly. Now eat it.” Voice a rough rasp at her ear, those gentle fingers now traced the line of Aida’s jaw. Urging her into motion until she swallowed the thick sweetness down. With a turn of his wrist, he cradled the column of her throat. Not enough pressure to choke, but more than enough to warn. “You open them for any other man, and I shall make you regret it, princess.”
Aida inhaled hard through her nose at the implied threat. It seemed she did have tears left, and now they burned the backs as her eyes as he pulled her stiff body into his. Forcing her to lounge against him as the musicians played a merry tune and a score of women clad in little more than breath and shadow took a place before the head table. Their graceful limbs moving to the beat, swaying and leaping in some strange dance.
When he kept her draped over his lap, Aida forced her body to relax. Concentrating on every muscle until it grew placid, earning his fingertips smoothing back and forth over her arm in time with the music. In spite of her despair, of everything that had happened, she felt a momentary calm. Wrapped in his scent and warmth, she became soothed.
Terrified of him, her body still ached from his abuse, but he lacked the menacing darkness of his predecessor. There were no holes in the ground with him, his violence absolute and at his own hands. He also cared far less for her comfort. Otaso at least had seen to that, even if he had locked her away. It was still too difficult to reconcile the man who had raised her with the one who had taunted her so.
Head heavy with her thoughts, she let her cheek settle against his chest. Watching the swirling dance through her lashes as she contemplated it all. Listening to the steady thudding of his heart, the swell of his breaths. He had not spoken to her, but she knew they traveled tomorrow morning. He made all of the preparations with her standing just behind him. She didn’t know the land they were going to, only that he called it home. The very name of the place felt foreign on her tongue, but she found her lips shaping it all the same. Denath. Far outside the borders of Aeslomor, mention of the edge of a desert. She knew of no such kingdoms. Otaso once told her that only Aeslomor was worthy of knowledge, its artists and history all that she needed to know for all others paled in comparison. Now, watching the twitching hips and graceful arms of the dancers, she wondered at that which she had never questioned.
Lids growing heavy, the bass of his heart lulling her closer towards the exhaustion knotted through her bones, Aida wondered just how many new horrors and wonders awaited her.
She came awake in the darkness of her room. Unhurried hands plucking at the laces at her back as she lay belly down on the bed. Remaining still as the callused palms of her tormentor and master worked over the length of her back as he laid it bare, Aida’s brow furrowed. She didn’t understand how, even now, she felt warmth flooding through her belly and hips. The place between her legs slippery and hot. At his rumbling exhale, the slide of his tongue up her spine leaving a trail of cool wetness in its wake, she shivered in anything but fear.
Thighs already parting as he tugged the silk of her gown from her legs, Aida bit back her moan. Willing the seeping heat from turning molten as he guided her knees wider still. When his weight covered her back, her hips tipped up of their own volition. A whine echoing through the dark when he slid the heat of his thickness through her slick folds. She had no words for it other than the ones he growled and muttered against her skin, telling her to take his cock, to squeeze his knot tight. Without fail her body followed his command, leaving her devastated and overwrought.
Continuing to tease at her opening, refusing to delve deep inside of her despite the way she wriggled and moaned against the sheets that reeked of them both, a quiet sound of frustration rumbled through her chest. A plaintive growl, as diminutive as she was, yet it seemed to spark a fire within him. With a vicious snarl he thrust hard, burying himself to the hilt and filling her to the point of pain. Despite the discomfort it brought, she wanted more. Pleading with the rough slap of his hips as her thighs trembled, straining to open wider.
A shiver cavorted down her spine at the scrape of his teeth. Something urging her to bare her neck to him and not in meek submission. The heat welling through her chest promised something so much more if he would just stop his taunting nips. Pleasure unlike anything she’d ever know twined through her limbs, forcing the thought from her mind. Nothing but unadulterated sunshine would hold her in this moment. The rasp of his rough hands, the erratic tempo of his hips against her upturned backside, it was a cacophony of bliss. Tightening her body until it vibrated like a taut string, her moans spiraling up to the sky.
Hands closing over her hips, he pinned her to the bed. Held her still for his brutal treatment. The wet sounds of their coming together punctuated by the slap of skin. Under it all the glorious scent of him tainted with her sweetness driving her mad with a need she could scarce comprehend. She knew he could see her to it though, and as he angled his body further, her cry lit up the darkness with a shower of stars swimming in her eyes. The ornate headboard slammed into the dark bricks as he used his weight to crash into her over and again. Forcing her to open wide around the growing thickness at the base of the throbbing member pummeling her insides into raw delight.
It would hurt when it grew. Making her scream as it forced a place far too small to contain it, but in those glorious moments she wanted that, too. Already she felt her body fluttering around it, grasping at him. As if she could hold him inside of her and force the heady wash of warmth to fill her.
“Greedy little thing aren’t you,” he husked against her temple. “You’re going to have to work for it, princess.”
His grip shifted, hauling Aida to her knees. Shoulders kept flush to the mattress, it was in the first panicked moment that he withdrew that she fell back into him. Driving herself onto that formidable length hard as he crashed into her. Aida shoved at the bed, rearing up with a keen of something beyond mere pleasure and pain as he hammered against something so deep inside of her the delicious ache of it spiraled through her body in a fiery shower of sparks. The slap of his palm between her shoulders drove her back down, but it added to the maelstrom. Sending those glowing embers into steady flames that burst into a wildfire in her veins. After the initial shock left her, she did it again. Squealing with the intensity of the sensations as she braced her hands against the sturdy headboard that rapped out a staccato rhythm that fast increased. Matching the wild beating of her heart as they both became erratic.
“Please,” Aida sobbed as he covered her back.
“That’s right, princess. Beg for it. Ask me nicely to fill this tight cunt!”
She would have pleaded. Begged until her voice grew hoarse and the stars fell from the sky, but she didn’t have to. Between one breath and the next her world exploded. Glittering shards of light through the darkness, crackling with lightning of crimson. It shattered into fractals of colors and shapes as she screamed, the thickening promise forced through the tight contractions of her pleasure. Shoved home with a victorious roar as he jerked in uncontrolled spasms behind her. Pulling her tight as he filled Aida with the molten fire that sent her spinning off into the stars once more.
Moments or hours passed before Aida could hear the straining gasps of her breath, feel the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears once more. A low wail built in her chest, churning and clawing its way up to die in agonized defeat against her lips. The considerable weight of him crushed her, the glistening sheen of sweat cooled to tacky patches that itched. She made no move, not even a twitch as that thing pulsed inside of her. Sending heat through her belly though he remained limp atop her.
It hurt. An agonizing stretch to tender flesh and abused muscle, yet her body grasped it tight. As he pulsed inside of her, so she contracted around him in turn. Urging forth every thick surge to fill her to the point of bursting, though the swell refused to let loose a single drop.
“So sweet,” Er’it mumbled against her shoulder. His tongue tasted the salty sheen of her skin as he wet his lips, a low groan following the click of his throat. “Never have I bred one so long and hard.”
Aida might not know much, but she understood some. Otaso’s horses bred in the fields, the blustering hounds, even the birds on the wing. It seemed odd for her new master to want to do that to her. His low slave now, the idea of her being fat with his child should repulse him. At least she thought so. She’d heard Immari speak to the servants with such low regard, as if they were mud on her boot. A slave must be below contempt.
Too tired by half to give these new thoughts any real attention, Aida drifted in the hazy space between wakefulness and sleep. Startled into awareness each time Er’it groaned and shifted, pushing deeper inside of her until she arched and whined. His growls making her shiver, coarse words sending a flush of liquid fire through her veins until Aida thought she might burn the whole castle down.
When the thing he called a knot diminished, shrinking enough that a rush of fluids flowed from her in a thick river, she felt shame. That she liked it so, that she felt empty and lost without it. More so for the plaintive whine she made when he eased his weight aside and collapsed next to her.
“Sleep, princess. I rise early tomorrow, and you have duties to attend.”
