Princess Slave Read online

  Her flesh there did match exactly the color of her nipples and areoles, perhaps a shade darker, he decided, but not by much. She was tiny, too tiny, it would seem, to accommodate a mountain of a man like him, but he knew better.

  They knew better, although he doubted it was something she would readily acknowledge, at least for now.

  When he moved towards her, introducing two thick fingers between those fine folds, not into her, yet, but just using them, splayed, to open her even further for his inspection, he ran the tip of his other index finger over her clit, feeling her jump and hearing her squawk in surprised – and terrified – indignation behind her rough gag.

  Apparently, she felt that the presence of a gag allowed her to vocalize, and, although he wouldn't tell her, he was glad of it. To him, a large part of reading how a woman felt about being touched and caressed was listening to her loudest – and even more importantly, her softest – moans and groans, when she caught her breath and when she sighed, when she whimpered and when she shrieked.

  And he promised himself that he'd have her doing all of those things before he was through with her tonight, and he didn't give a damn if it took every bit of the rest of the night. As a matter of fact, the longer it took, the better, as far as he was concerned. He loved to draw out a woman's pleasure as long as he could, giving him a measure of control he reveled in.

  But she was so new to the process, there was no telling what would happen, and that element of the unknown heightened his own inordinate pleasure at what he was doing exponentially.

  He didn't leave that finger anywhere for any length of time. Instead, he let it boldly slide down her crease, stepping lightly just over the area just below her clit to trace the bracketing lips that surrounded her entrance. Then, continuing on to her little bottom hole, which had her shrieking again, almost more loudly than she had before, as if it was much more of an affront to her dignity that he would pay attention to her there rather than her clit.

  She needn't have worried – he intended to get to all of those most private places on her person in his own good time – perhaps not tonight, or even next week, but eventually he would know every one of her most intimate secrets.

  For now, though, he brought his a finger back up, but it wasn't his index but rather his littlest, in concession to her virginity. He didn't want to hurt her, so he was going to start with the smallest invader he had, pressing it past the barely there resistance of her entrance to embed itself happily amongst her warm, moist folds.

  Moist folds?

  Pinky fingers weren't the best indicators of much due to their size and limited mobility, so, without thinking, he removed it and inserted his index finger instead with no preamble, which had Avette groaning softly but fearfully, her eyes wide, anticipating pain that never appeared, and not dealing well with the unfulfilled ache that had replaced it.

  She was wet! Not gushingly, but unmistakably so! He'd subjected her to quite a bit lately, so he wasn't entirely sure what it was that had made her so, but he was elated just to have made the discovery, and he intended to explore all of the possibilities that popped into his head as soon as possible.

  But for now, he was on to his primary goal.

  He was going to make her scream. He was going to force her past the limits of her own very formidable will and make her shout her ecstasy to the world.

  Avette didn't know what it was he thought he was going to accomplish by putting various digits inside her. She couldn't even really feel the first one at all, for which she was duly grateful. The second one, though, was much longer and thicker, and thus harder to ignore, although she doggedly did her best. It became even more so when he began to move it around. In and out of her, curling and twisting it inside her, and making her feel flushed, as if she was going to be sick, but with no accompanying nausea, but instead an unmistakable ache where he was invading her and all around that area, which had her desperate to close her legs.

  But his broad shoulders were between them, and she couldn't begin to budge them even when she tried.

  The unusual, unsettling feelings got worse when something even wider, that she suspected were two of his fingers, were pressed relentlessly up inside her, forcing her body to stretch to accommodate him. Although there was no pain in doing so this time, unlike last night when he had done this very same thing, although, she thought, with a different part of his body.

  In fact, it felt all together much too good! She wanted – needed – him to stop what he was doing right then and there, because if he didn't, she didn't know what was going to happen, but she didn't think it was going to be good for her, even if it felt amazing, and it did.

  Redoubling and even tripling her efforts at evading his touch got her nothing but very sore nipples and breasts and irritated lips. But she was very afraid of what he was doing to her. She'd never felt like this before, and it didn't seem right to her at all, especially for someone like him to be conjuring such feelings within her.

  Especially when, with those two fingers still within her, he dipped the index and second digits of his other hand into some sort of tiny pot he had next to him, then laid them right over that strange point at the top of her privates that seemed to be nothing but a bundle of nerves that adored his bold touch.

  But once her body got a taste, there was no going back. It led the way, eagerly accepting and even encouraging every shameful, humiliating thing he did to her. Her breathing became even more ragged, her breasts swelled further, nipples peaking harder, which only made her bonds that much tighter, creating a vicious, discomfiting circle, if she let herself think about it, and she found she couldn't think about much of anything at the moment except his fingers between her legs, to her great shame.

  The two inside her began to thrust, slowly at first, then steadily more powerfully, and it still didn't hurt in the least. In fact, it felt much too blasted good, as did the ones that were teasing and tormenting that other part of her, sliding up and over it, slickened by whatever potion he'd had in the tiny pot he kept dipping them into whenever they seemed to dry out.

  Then, he spoke to her, saying things that really didn't mean much to her right then. "Avette, something is going to happen to you shortly that I want you to do your best to relax and enjoy. It is going to happen, because I, as your Master, wish it to. There's nothing you can do to stop it. Try not to be afraid, it's not bad, and it won't hurt at all, I promise. Just the opposite." Stohsz did his best to keep his voice soft and reassuring, but the truth was he was so invested in watching her and experiencing this first orgasm with her that he thought he was going to come right along with her, and thus his voice was much lower and more gravelly than it should have been.

  His words floated by her ears and she only caught snatches of it because of the roaring in her head and the unbearable, throbbing tension in her body. Her heart was racing and, for the first time she could remember in her life, she felt entirely out of control. He was going to do something to her – to inflict something on her – that she would have to endure, and it should have been something painful and unpleasant, shouldn't it?

  Then why was she filled with such a feeling of euphoria that she nearly felt faint, anticipating some great release as a bubble of something continued to build within her?

  His fingers, that had been stroking her slowly but strongly, left her for a second and returned with another gob of warm lubricant. Then he set about pumping her much more quickly, more determinedly, moving very slightly over the very tip of her ecstasy, hurtling her towards whatever it was, the end, the beginning, life, death, she didn't know until it was upon her.

  She was overwhelmed, lost in a sea of thick, probing fingers and acute embarrassment at her position, as well as raspiness and restriction and being filled and pumped and driven and flooded with an ecstasy that stopped her brain and made her primal and base and pleasure driven. To the point where a wholly uncivilized scream boiled up and out of her throat, defying her own will at wanting to remain as silent as sh
e could. It could not be stopped by any mortal power. She wanted to raise her hips, to beg him not to stop yet, to give her so much more.

  "Please, please, please, please, please," she tried to beg from behind the gag. Her body as arched in silent invitation as it could be, contracting and spasming and one big on-fire nerve that he coaxed and coaxed, not letting her come down until long after that first explosion, till she had experienced so many more of them that he had lost count.

  He was going to get up and let her go and cradle her in his arms, and then he looked down and saw his rampant erection, straining towards her warm, leaking quim.

  He was barely able to make the necessary adjustments before he fell on her and into her, enjoying her captivity beneath him as well as her spasms around him as she experienced the last fading echoes of the pleasure he had brought to her. And it was that thought that brought him to his end, again, much earlier than it should have.

  Damn his weak body! He wanted to fuck her, long and hard, and he couldn't seem to last more than two seconds once he was inside her, but damn, just thinking about those milking spasms was almost enough to get him off again immediately!

  She was red hot, and he was damned glad that he was the man who owned all of that unexplored, as yet unguided passion.

  Chapter Four

  He kept them there only that one night, for which Avette was eternally grateful, although circumstances had conspired to exhaust her entirely. After her utter humiliation – literally at his hands, and then that other part of him for which she had no name – he had tended her gently and she fell asleep as he groomed and gathered her hair in a loose bun at the back of her head that had survived her sleep of the nearly dead. This morning, though, he lifted her up onto the saddle before him – sitting on it in front of him this time instead of flopped ignominiously over it as she had been, although she was still as naked as she had been since he had stripped her heavy, ornate dress off her in the Great Hall with one tremendous tug.

  Had that really been only a day ago? It seemed like years since she'd uttered those fateful words that had condemned her to lifetime of servitude as his comfort slave, rather than the royal title she'd had every right to expect if she hadn't refused him.

  She wanted to rail against him, she wanted to beat him with her fists and wrestle the sword that was always at his side away from him and run him through with it. But as much as her mind wanted to continue to create vengeful fantasies, all of the upheaval of the past twenty-four hours, to say nothing of the pain to which he had subjected her, and the severe mortification and embarrassment to which he had subjected her had exhausted her physically and emotionally. All her body wanted was for her to sleep.

  And she did, in his arms in their shared, tiny bed, and then again when she should have been wide awake and trying to commit to memory details of their journey in order to duplicate the reverse of it when she escaped, while she sat within the circle of his arms on his great steed.

  Avette didn't awaken until she began to hear loud, collective voices, at first murmuring something, then yelling and chanting it loudly. Already anticipating that she might start awake and be frightened or churlish at the very least at what she found, Stohsz had looped one of his arms through her still manacled ones, so that she couldn't slip down from the horse if she wanted to without still being attached to him.

  It took her a moment, and he could feel her stiffening as she realized what they were saying. It was equal parts his name and title, and the insulting, colloquial slang term for "slave" that he had taken a liking to calling her.

  There was another word that was being bandied about, admiringly by the men in the crowd and with more than a small sense of curiosity by the women: gintahl. She had only begun learning Kohnzi a few months ago, when her older sister, Omiron, who should have been the one marrying him for more reasons than she could count, had died unexpectedly of a fever, and that was a word with which she was unfamiliar.

  But then, languages were not her strong suit.

  Avette sighed defeatedly, wishing – as always – that her sister were alive. Omiron was everything she was not – meek, mild, submissive, a great seamstress and cook, who loved children. She had spent her life looking forward to being in the position Avette was in now.

  Well, not quite in Avette's position. Omiron would never have refused to submit to her intended, as she had, and would never have ended up here, being paraded naked in front of the Kohnzi, having endured the unimaginable shame of knowing that she had actually enjoyed the shameful things he'd done to her body last night.

  One night, and she'd lost her soul to him.

  It was worse than any punishment he could think of inflicting on her, she thought rashly, her cheeks brightening with unwanted memories. But she had to recall that thought, having been subjected to some pretty horrible punishments, too.

  Still in a quandary about what had happened between them, she didn't pay much attention to what was happening around them. He had brought them to his home – his father's former home – which was nowhere near as elegantly or tastefully appointed as where she had lived. But then, Kohnzi didn't put much stock in anything beyond weapons and the means to make war.

  Aesthetically, it was much rougher than she was used to, but it was immaculately clean.

  From somewhere in front of her – as she was required to walk several paces behind him – she heard him tell someone she couldn't see to take her to his chambers.

  Two women appeared before her and guided her to what was a very large room. Everything in it was tailored to his size – the bed was huge, the dresser had a few drawers at the top she probably couldn't even reach, and enormous, threatening weapons of all shapes and sizes decorated the walls.

  There was even a crossbow, she was interested to note.

  A large barrel was brought into the room by other servants and filled with hot water. The two women brought her over to it and, without another word, lifted her into it. They weren't quite as large as Stohsz, but they were bigger – and apparently much stronger – than she was. It wasn't that she was opposed to a bath, but she would have liked to have been asked.

  Although, considering her new, lowly position, that was probably not something she should be expecting much anymore, she realized.

  The two chattered softly in their native tongue, but Avette decided not to let them know that she understood every word they said, although she wasn't sure she could stop herself from blushing as they complimented her broad hips and full breasts. The larger of the two supposed that she would breed easily, and that the prince should have many strong sons of her. Her companion agreed, and once they had scraped every ounce of road dirt off her skin – not giving the slightest consideration to the condition of her backside – one of them produced a large pitcher, with which she doused the hair her friend pulled down.

  They bid her sit, and she was surprised to discover that the barrel contained a narrow seat about halfway down, for just this purpose, she surmised. It wasn't until they began to rinse her hair and it pooled atop the water around her that Avette realized with horror what had happened.

  She began to wail, holding her hair up in great fistfuls and stomping her foot in her anguish, or doing her best to, anyway. The two women were puzzled and worried, wondering if they had done something wrong.

  Avette dunked under the water to finish the rinsing of her hair herself – an action to which the girls reacted with absolute stark horror – then stood and brushed the water and hair out of her eyes to command, "I need a mirror," in her own tongue.

  She was glad to see that they knew Tonyehse, and a crude, but full length mirror was brought to where she had climbed out of the barrel and was standing soaking the rough wooden floor as she stared at the drastic change revealed by her reflection.

  Her hair was the same length, but it was no longer the gorgeous pale blue that she had adored. She didn't know what it was going to be like dry, but wet, it was a deep, mauve pink that had her staring at herself
as if she didn't know her own body – and after last night, she really didn't.

  The two women gawked and gaped at her as she turned this way and that, trying to come to grips with what she was seeing, but, for the second time since she had surrendered to this man, she couldn't stop the tears.

  The others tried to help her understand, going so far as to show her where the color came from – not that she didn't already know. One of them parted the hair that had fallen over her chest, placing a large swathe across her breast, right next to her areole and nipple.

  They were almost exactly the same color. Her hair was a bit darker right now, but its dampness would account for that. The other girl tried to reach for her crotch to show her that it was probably a closer match to the skin between her legs, but Avette declined the comparison as gently as she could.

  They kept using the word she had heard many in the crowd chanting as they had ridden by – gintahl. She asked them what it meant, and immediately wished she hadn't.

  They both giggled and blushed, and the smaller of the two said, "It means 'divine lover'. He must be to have given you your woman's pleasure against your will."

  "Against my will?"

  Two mouths snapped shut, as if they thought they had said something wrong.

  But Avette had been born a princess royal, and her autocratic manner with servants came with her. "Tell me what you were going to say." Even though she was probably more lowly ranked now than they were, they heard and obeyed the note of imperious command in her voice.

  They told her how the entire town knew that she had refused to submit to their prince, and that he had punished her in front of all of the nobles, and that she had, in the end, submitted, although they did reveal that a lot of the Kohnzi had thought that she hadn't meant her vow or her obeisance. But apparently the women, in particular, had withdrawn their doubts upon seeing her hair.