Terms of Surrender
by Wheldrake
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010
Wheldrake
Strict Publishing International
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapter One – The King Triumphant
By evening the last stubborn defenders of the castle had laid down their weapons, and the moon-and-tower flag of the Kingdom of Valacor had been hoisted over the keep. Soldiers of Valacor, experienced men-at-arms who had been hand picked to take part in the swift, sudden assault, stood talking and laughing in small clusters or lounged on chairs, barrels, bales of hay or anything else that provided a seat. The mood of triumph in the dark, crisp autumn air was tinged with relief, and a sense of gratitude to the Goddess in her aspect as Queen of Battles. So much that could have gone wrong had worked out for the best, just as the King had promised, and the hand of fate had seemed to favour them time and again over their enemies. On the ride to Castle Kaylar there had been plenty of rumours circulating among the men of the mysterious dangers that might await them, wild stories of sorceresses and monsters fighting alongside the Ustaran legions in the wars of old. In the end, they had faced only the commonplace, acceptable hazards that were to be expected from the guardians of any unfriendly castle: blades and arrows, axes and javelins, hurled boulders and tilted cauldrons of flaming pitch. The bodies of the fallen, both Valacoran and Ustaran, were laid out in tidy rows alongside the chapel of the Goddess.
The grounds of the castle were still the scene of frenetic activity, as the fresh troops that King Eldred had been holding in reserve throughout the fighting now bustled about trying to restore some semblance of order. The primary task was to secure Castle Kaylar’s inhabitants, who were being systematically coaxed or dragged from their hiding places and herded together in the great hall. Near the hearth were those who had taken no part in the castle’s defense, an unruly mix of captives of both sexes and all ages and ranks. Elegantly dressed minor nobles sat cheek by jowl with stableboys and scullery maids, hemmed in by a few men of Valacor who were standing about with staves and truncheons to ensure that their charges stayed put. Rather more closely guarded were the dozens of Ustaran legionnaires who had given themselves up, and were seated in a vast, tightly-packed cluster at the far end of the hall. There were a fair number of women among them, to the surprise and titillation of their Valacoran captors. Most of the legionnaires of both sexes were still in their armour, their faces caked with the sweat and grit of battle and occasionally streaked with blood. Here and there a young man or woman could be seen weeping and trembling, but on the whole they seemed to be bearing their defeat with a dignified resignation that was difficult not to admire.
Outside the hall, a slender, dark-haired man who was also still fully armoured threaded his way purposefully among the lounging assault troops and scurrying reserves, to say nothing of the last few prisoners who were being led stumbling to join the others. He reached out and tapped the arm of a passing Valacoran soldier who seemed a little less preoccupied than the others.
“What has become of the king?” the dark-haired man asked bluntly.
“No idea, my lord, begging your pardon.” The soldier glanced round and shouted near the top of his lungs, “Lord Aldric’s asking after His Majesty!”
A dozen fingers pointed towards the keep. The man called Aldric nodded in cool acknowledgement and made for it at a brisk walk. It was like Eldred to rush impetuously to the centre of things, heedless of the possibility that some Ustaran might be waiting with a crossbow to mount some spiteful, last-ditch defense. For that matter, if there really was a sorceress in Castle Kaylar, then where else…
Aldric pushed the thought away as he slipped through the half-open wooden door that led into the interior of the keep. He had never more than half-believed the stories about Ustaran witchcraft anyway: beyond this one outpost, Ustara was a remote country ringed by high, forbidding mountains, the kind of place that was a natural focus for dark tales. From what he had seen in his quick inspection of Castle Kaylar and its grounds, the only horrors to be found here were of a rather more earthly description.
As it happened, the keep was already full of soldiers who were busily engaged in rousting frightened men and women from the bedrooms and closets where they had taken refuge. Aldric found Eldred in a kind of parlour on the second floor, alone with a grey-haired woman in a dark gown that was unfashionably plain and modest by Valacoran standards. She sat on the edge of a three-legged armchair, looking tense but composed, while Eldred practically loomed over her. He was a ruggedly handsome man, golden-haired and far more strongly built than Aldric, and two hours after the end of the real fighting the fierce energy of battle still seemed to radiate from him like an afterglow. People who saw him together with Aldric sometimes found it hard to believe that the two of them were really brothers.
“The real question is…” Eldred was saying aggressively just as Aldric entered. He turned towards the door and smiled broadly, still delighted with his victory.
“…what I’m going to do with her,” he finished emphatically. “I’ve found the High Commander of Castle Kaylar, apparently. A woman old enough to be our mother!”
Aldric looked at her with interest. She might have been sixty, he supposed, but her dark green eyes met his gaze steadily and the lines on her face seemed to lend her gravity while hardly detracting from her beauty. She could not have taken any part in the fighting, considering how she was dressed, but Aldric could easily imagine her giving calm, cogent orders to the legionnaires from this very room as they fought desperately to defend the castle.
“She did well,” Aldric allowed, “for one taken by surprise. I doubt they could have held out with twice as many men.”
“Thank you,” the woman said stiffly. “I’m prepared to return the favour and admit that your attack was neatly executed, although I can’t imagine why it took you so long to go after the archers in the north tower. You could have had us an hour earlier, with fewer killed on your side. In the long run, though, it hardly matters. You boys…”
Eldred cuffed her lightly on the ear, a swift warning blow. “Be careful how you address the King of Valacor,” he told her evenly.
“…have staged an unprovoked attack on one of the most important of Ustara’s castles,” she continued, refusing even to acknowledge that she had been struck. Aldric’s sense of grudging admiration deepened a little further. “If you have any sense of self-preservation,” she said calmly, “you will withdraw your forces immediately and send a letter of apology to Queen Arctis, along with a generous offer of compensation. If you force her to take up arms, she will not be gentle with you.”
“Arctis ought to be worrying about whether I will be gentle with her,” Eldred replied immediately. “We have her like a rabbit in a snare now, and I won’t hesitate to pull the snare tight. I’ve had enough of her arrogance and high-handed diplomacy.”
The seated woman raised her eyebrows. “A rabbit in a snare? With due respect, Your Majesty” – she gave the words a sarcastic twist – “you might wish to consult someone who can instruct you in military strategy. You have taken one isolated castle with a force too small to hold it against a determined counter-attack. You’ll be the one in the snare when that attack comes, if you’re foolish enough to stay here and wait for it.”
“But it won’t be coming any time soon, will it?” Eldred shot back. “I have thought this through, you arrogant old bitch. There’s a reason we launched our attack just before the coming of the snows. This castle…”
“Are you sure you want to explain this to her?” Aldric broke in. His role in Eldred’s court was usually to serve as the dull and sober voice of restraint, although he often found himself overruled. He was not really surprised when Eldred shrugged and broke into a smug grin.
“Why not?” Eldred said carelessly. “It’s not like we’re going to let her run away and warn Queen Arctis, and I don’t see what the queen could do to save herself anyway. This castle, as I was saying, guards the north end of Galvar’s Pass, the one reliable route through the mountains that separate Valacor from Ustara proper. Ustara has always fought hard to hold on to the castle as a bridgehead – if you control the castle, you control the pass, and you can come north to our side whenever you like. Kings of Valacor have seized Castle Kaylar before, and you stubborn Ustarans have always come storming through the pass to take it back.
“Somehow I don’t think you’ll be doing that this time, not with the morning frost already started even down here in the lowlands.” Eldred looked tremendously pleased with himself, just as he had when he first explained his plan to Aldric more than six months ago. “Galvar’s Pass will already be snowbound, which means that Queen Arctis will never get an army through from Ustara before spring. When it comes, I know it will be strong and well equipped. Ustara is a rich nation, which, I suppose, is why you didn’t become a dependency of Valacor centuries ago. But I have all winter to fortify the castle and gather men, and by spring we’ll be dug in well enough to withstand anything Arctis can throw at us. As long as we control this castle, she’s hemmed in behind the mountains, waiting for us to gather enough strength to come south and drag her from her throne. A rabbit in a snare, as I said. And if she had been just a little less cold and sneering in her diplomatic letters, a little more flexible and accommodating when we met to discuss trade and settle petty disputes along the border, I would have spared her this.”
“Then we’ll see in the spring just how well you can stand up to a Queen of Ustara,” the woman commander said dryly. Her voice was as measured as ever, but Aldric thought he detected in her expression just a hint of uncertainty, perhaps even of fear. She no longer seemed inclined to call him and Eldred boys, which was ridiculous in any case considering that they were both getting close to thirty, or to accuse them of needing lessons in strategy.
“You mean to settle in and occupy the castle, then?” she asked, after a moment of silence.
“With your kind permission,” said Eldred with a mocking grin.
“I’m in no position to withhold it. If we might return to your original question: what do you mean to do with me in the meantime?”
Eldred barked a short laugh. “I’d know well enough if you were twenty years younger and a little prettier.” He reached out and stroked the line of her jaw, but she ignored his touch as completely as she had ignored the earlier blow. A steady woman, Aldric thought.
“There are young and pretty women in this castle, from maidservants to female legionnaires,” she replied. “I beg you not to force them, on your royal honour.”
“My brother and I are not in the habit of raping commoners,” said Eldred easily. “Nor are the men we command. Once we have things sorted out here, the servants will have the choice of staying to work for us or leaving. The soldiers and nobles can stay put until Queen Arctis sees fit to ransom them, and that goes for you as well.” He regarded the woman speculatively. “You must be close to the Queen, if she put you in command here.”
“I am Relvere of Laxbrough,” she said simply. “Sister of the Queen’s late father. I gather, by the way, that I have the honour of addressing Eldred and Aldric of Valacor?”
“Indeed,” said Eldred. “Sister of the Queen’s father, eh? I’d say we’ve caught a tasty fish indeed.”
“Or at least one that should be worth a gold coin or two,” Aldric suggested.
“And might writhe nicely on the hook in the meantime. I have no intention of inflicting any indignities on the maidservants, or on your ridiculous soldier girls. They were only following orders. The Queen’s aunt, though, might be another matter. You’re powerful enough to bear some responsibility for the way Ustara has been behaving.”
Aldric watched, not quite sure what to think, as Eldred took the woman called Relvere by the chin and forced her to look up at him. His other hand toyed with her grey hair. He was smiling sardonically, enjoying his power, aware that he was well within his rights as Relvere’s conqueror. Commoners, by the conventions of honourable warfare that prevailed in Valacor and Ustara and beyond, were not treated cruelly when their aristocratic leaders suffered a defeat. After all, it was the aristocrats who were free to choose their battles, and who were responsible for deciding on strategies and tactics. In victory, they could divide the spoils as they chose, and claim a measure of fame of glory. In defeat, if taken alive, they were considered to be subject to the tender mercies of their captors. Eldred had been talking for quite some time about how he might treat Queen Arctis if she was so foolish as to resist his conquest of Ustara.
“If you’re going to rape me,” said Relvere in a small, tight voice, “please just get it over. I know I can’t fight you.”
Eldred looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and stroked a dangling lock of her hair. This time Relvere flinched away, and the king laughed. “I think not,” he said. “I’ll save that particular honour for your royal niece. You’ll stay here in Castle Kaylar as our guest, confined but unmolested.” He glanced at Aldric and added, “I assume we do have somewhere to put her. I can’t imagine she and the queen keep a proper dungeon here, but any storeroom will do if it can be locked from outside.”
“There is a dungeon,” Aldric informed him. “I found it earlier.”
“Really?” Eldred asked with raised eyebrows. “I’m surprised the ladies had it in them.” Relvere, out of Eldred’s line of vision, twisted her face into something close to a grimace.
“It’s a prison-house behind the keep,” Aldric elaborated. “With a lower level below the ground. I don’t know if it was the ladies, but someone set it up to be very secure, and perhaps even… Well, I think you should see it for yourself, Eldred. It certainly changed my idea of what we were dealing with when we went to war with Ustara.”
“The dungeon?” asked Eldred with a puzzled frown. “Perhaps later. There are a dozen other matters that need my attention at the moment, not the least of which is the location of the wine cellar. We’ll drink to our victory, little brother, once things are a bit more settled. Perhaps we can find a few of the pretty young women our honoured guest mentioned, too. We won’t force them, naturally, but I would hardly deny a willing girl the opportunity to ingratiate herself with her new lords and masters.”
Aldric laughed despite himself. “An excellent way to look at the matter. Do you want me to organise a proper guard on the walls and towers?” He was usually the one who took care of such arrangements, and the lack of any other Ustaran garrisons on this side of the mountains was no excuse for laxity.
“My gratitude would be boundless. Please see to it that her ladyship finds her way to a secure cell, too.”
Relvere rose instantly to her feet, as if eager to exchange their company for the discomfort and isolation of the dungeons. “I know the way,” she said, and started for the door. Aldric put his hand on her arm, barely touching her, and walked with her down the stairs and out of the keep.
“It doesn’t have to be the dungeons,” he told her in a low voice once they were out of Eldred’s earshot. “They’re hardly suitable for a lady of your age and dignity.”
Relvere turned to him with a wry, wintry smile. “I’ve sent countless prisoners there over the years, Lord Aldric. I know perfectly well what the prison-house is like.”
“Then I’m sure you’d prefer a storeroom with a cot or a mattress, as the king suggested. You will have to be under lock and key, but there is no need for you to be uncomfortable. Eldred will not care, so long as you can’t escape.”
“I know you mean well,” she said calmly, “but I am an Archduchess of Ustara. I don’t expect to be handled with kid gloves, and in fact it dishonours me. I can accept the consequences of defeat, just as I would force you to accept them if our positions were reversed.”
Aldric paused and looked at her in the moonlight. Her face was resolute, a little proud, and really quite beautiful indeed. Seeing no uncertainty in her eyes, he decided to take her at her word. She might be a woman, but she was not a child.
“All right, then,” said Aldric brusquely. “The prison-house it is.” He took proper hold of her arm, no more gently than he would have in the case of a male prisoner, and marched her towards the great hall where the other captives were gathered. There were no female soldiers in the army of Valacor, but they had brought along a few sturdy women to help handle the female prisoners. Aldric could order a couple of them to haul Relvere to the prison-house behind the keep, search her thoroughly, and put her to bed in one of the ordinary cells on the ground level. He would tell them not to take anyone downstairs except by his express command, or the king’s.
Chapter Two – The Maid Deflowered
The sounds of revelry still drifted up from below, growing more indistinct as Eldred ascended step by spiralling step to the luxurious bedroom where the Lady Relvere had slept the night before. He supposed the air would probably still be redolent of the dignified perfumes of a Lady of Ustara, rosewater and tinctures of lilac. The serving girl Eldred was leading by the hand smelled of spring apples, which suited her blonde, ruddy-cheeked freshness. Her name was Damara, and she was living proof that some of the castle’s inhabitants were very eager indeed to ingratiate themselves.
“I’ve never been alone with a king before,” she gasped nervously as he guided her into the bedchamber and pushed shut the heavy, intricately carven doors behind the two of them. Candles were already burning on the mantle and the nightstand, as he had commanded. The bed was enormous, its dark wooden frame cut in the looming, massive style the Ustarans seemed to favour.
Eldred considered Damara, stroking his beard, as he had considered Relvere earlier that evening. Damara was a big girl in full bloom, perhaps twenty years old and with a firm, buxom build that perfectly complemented the pale beauty of her face. Given more poise and confidence, she would have made a fine model for a statue of the Goddess herself, but tonight she seemed half out of her wits with anxiousness to please him. He had looked at quite a number of the castle’s maidservants before choosing her to share his bedchamber on this night of victory, and he looked forward with a certain jaded anticipation to finding out just how pliant she was prepared to be.
“And now you’re alone with your king,” he told her with emphasis. “Castle Kaylar is mine, and with it all the Ustaran lands on this side of the mountains. In springtime, after I’ve had a chance to gather my strength, I’ll ride south through Galvar’s Pass and put Ustara itself under my heel. Perhaps on the night of that victory it will be Queen Arctis who stands next to my bed, trembling and trying to guess what will please her conqueror.”
Damara blushed to the roots of her flaxen hair. “Would it please you if I undressed?” she asked softly.
“Yes,” Eldred replied with a slow smile, and waited.
She was terribly self-conscious about it, of course, turning a deeper shade of red as she fumbled with the leather clasps on her blouse. She smiled nervously at him as the garment fell from her shoulders, revealing sturdy arms and the sheer white fabric of the shift she wore beneath her outer garments. Eldred’s eye fell on the outlines of her nipples, clear and prominent under the thin cloth, and he felt himself begin to stiffen. He made no attempt to disguise the fact that he was looking at her, or his enjoyment of what he saw. To a king, beautiful girls below a certain rank were like paintings in a gallery.
Damara started to drop her blouse on the floor, then seemed to think better of it and laid the garment neatly on the nearest chair. Eldred said nothing, but followed her every movement with his eyes as she unfastened her skirt and set it atop the blouse.
“And your slippers,” Eldred told her. She peeled them off hurriedly, as if embarrassed at having to be told. Eldred contemplated the white arches of her feet for a moment before letting his gaze travel up her shins, with their lightest dusting of golden hair, and to the hemline of her shift.
“Don’t stop there,” he prompted.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” she quavered. Now she really was trembling. Eldred wondered fleetingly if she had ever had to present her body like this before, to peel off her clothes in front of a connoisseur of womanflesh who encouraged her only with the ardour of his gaze and the growing bulge inside his silken hose. She was probably used to coupling with stableboys and soldiers who would kiss her and call her pet names, and perhaps strip her with their own fumbling, overhasty hands.
Still, Eldred had apparently not underestimated her willingness to perform for him. She smiled with the wry bravery of a woman about to essay a plunge into deep, cold water, and in one smooth motion pulled the shift over her head and off. The body beneath was simply delightful, as Eldred had guessed it would be. He congratulated himself on his infallible eye even as he drank in the exquisite firmness of her large, shapely breasts, and the taut expanse of her belly above the tuft of flax that covered her vulva. She made an instinctive movement to cross her arms protectively over her breasts, but mastered herself and rather deliciously put her hands behind her. Eldred beckoned, and she came to him as obediently as a puppy, her eyes downcast and her breasts heaving with shallow, excited breaths. He caught the musky scent of her arousal when she was still a couple of long strides away. For all the demure sighs and blushes Eldred had witnessed in similar situations, he had encountered few girls who did not become hopelessly inflamed when they found themselves taken in hand, stripped naked, and firmly told what to do. When Arctis finally stood before him, he was sure the smell would be exactly the same.
Tonight, however, he would have to make do with Damara. When she came within reach, he seized the long curtain of her hair with one hand, clamped down on her shoulder with the other, and pushed her brusquely to her knees.
“My lord?” she all but whimpered.
“Unlace my breeches,” he commanded, leaving her to wonder whether she was pleasing him or not. “Pull them down to my knees. And now my hose.”
Girls were almost always impressed with his cock when they saw it for the first time. Damara literally gasped as it swung free inches from her face, wreathed in pubic hair almost as lightly coloured as her own. He pulled her head a little closer, revelling in the feel of her warm breath on his cock and balls.
“Please, my lord, I don’t know what to do,” she stammered. “We can send for Katrin. She knows more tricks than a courtesan of Reklan, from what I hear tell.”
“That girl with the mole on her face?” asked Eldred, who had had a fair proportion of the castle’s younger maidservants introduced to him by name. “No, I brought you up here because you’re the one I want for this. I’ll tell you what to do. You can start by kissing my cock.”
Damara hesitated, licking her lips nervously, and he gave her hair a slight, impatient tug. She instantly leaned forwards and planted a quick, gentle kiss on one side of his shaft.
“Not a bad start. Now do it again, slower and firmer.” He let out a long, slow exhalation as she obeyed, enjoying the sight of those sweetly pursed lips on his cock almost as much as their soft, moist texture.
“Now the very tip,” he told her. She pressed her lips to his foreskin, and raised her eyebrows in what he was certain was ingenuous, unfeigned surprise.
“Salty, my lord,” she explained. “But everything that comes from you is good.”
“If you like the taste of my cock that much, then lick it.” Again, it was the combination of the visual and the tactile that appealed to him: the pink flexible tongue, glistening wetly in the candlelight, and the gentle stroking pressure.
“Press a little harder with your tongue,” he instructed. “Do it all the way from the base to the tip – get yourself a little more salt. Yes. Don’t forget to lick my balls, either. Ah, good girl.” He was gasping his words, and the obvious signs of his arousal seem to embolden her. She became inventive, kissing him between strokes of her tongue and even nibbling gently at his scrotum in almost exactly the way that suited him best. He let her go on for a minute or two, and then pulled her head back a little.
“Now put my cock in your mouth. Wrap your lips around the head – that’s it. Keep your teeth out of the way.” He looked down at her and stroked her hair, as one might stroke a well-behaved pet.
“Lick and suck,” he told her simply.
It took a minute or two, but soon enough Damara got the hang of simultaneously sucking hard on his cock and rolling her tongue around the shaft. The warm, wet interior of her mouth was paradise. He held still at first, forcing himself to passively enjoy the sensation of being worked by her tongue and lips, but gradually he began to pump his hips back and forth. Fucking a girl’s mouth, in his experience, made a good prelude to fucking her in other ways. He started slowly, barely even moving, but the force and tempo of his thrusts slowly increased. She tried to pull away when the tip of his cock touched the back of her throat for the first time, but he was prepared for this and had no intention of allowing it. He tightened his grip on her hair and slammed into her harder than ever, then backed off and treated her to a few gentler thrusts as she made gagging sounds deep in her throat and fought to regain her composure. She was still doing her best to suck, but he was setting his own pace now, using her mouth as a passive receptacle. He felt his excitement rising and realised that he was going to come if he kept this up much longer, which did not suit his plans at all.
Eldred decided to treat the girl to a grand finale. He took her hair in both hands and fucked her face almost brutally, driving into the back of her throat with each thrust of his pelvis. She was truly gagging on him now and had tears in her eyes, which only inflamed him further. He pulled out abruptly, impatient to move to the next act of the little drama they were playing together in what had been the Lady Relvere’s bedchamber. Damara gasped in relief and drew air deep into her lungs, but Eldred was not about to let her catch her breath either literally or figuratively. He grabbed her rather roughly by the arm.
Damara was a strapping wench, only a little shorter than Eldred himself and with a big-boned, athletic build, but he had no trouble hauling her to her feet and practically throwing her face-down onto the bed. When she started to roll over, he instantly slapped her down, his hand descending on her buttock with a thunderous impact. Damara yelped, but the tears in her eyes remained unshed.
“On your hands and knees,” he said in his usual brusque, commanding tone, and she scrambled to obey.
“Please, my lord, I’m sorry!”
“Why, have you done something wrong?”
She hung her head, trembling, all too obviously confused and uncertain of where she stood with him. He reached between her thighs to push her legs apart, although she immediately spread them herself when she felt the pressure of his hands. More out of curiosity than anything else, Eldred put his fingers to her vulva and was not surprised to find that Damara was sopping wet. She pushed back, trying to grind herself against his fingers, and he laughed and snatched his hand away. There was a red mark on one of her buttocks already, so he slapped the other for the sake of symmetry.
“Hold still, girl.”
“Please touch me, my lord!”
“I’ll touch you when it suits me.” He studied her for a moment, admiring the large, taut globes of her buttocks, and then without warning slipped a finger straight into the crack between them. Damara jerked forward in shock when his finger touched her sphincter, but he grabbed her thighs and hauled her back.
“Still, I said.” He pushed harder with that one finger, slowly but firmly, and felt it slide into the tight, warm passage of her anus. She instantly bore down by reflex, trying to push him out, and he resisted the pressure for only a moment before withdrawing his finger.
“What a lovely tight bottom, Damara. Have you ever had a man’s cock up there?”
“Up there?” she repeated in a quavering voice, as if the idea was completely new to her. “Are you going to… to take me like that, my lord?”
“Answer the question, girl.”
“No, my lord, never,” she almost whispered. “It frightens me.”
He stroked her hair, then reached under her torso to fondle her heavy, pendulous breasts. “You can beg me not to, if you like.”
“I want to please you, my lord,” she said softly.
“Good girl,” he murmured, quite sincerely. “You do please me, as a flower pleases the bee that drinks its nectar. And sometimes it does us good to face the things that frighten us.”
She squared her shoulders, as if bracing herself to be taken. “Yes, my lord,” she replied, with some conviction.
“Lay your cheek down on the bed,” he told her almost tenderly. “Now reach back and spread your buttocks for me.”
She obeyed, not especially quickly, but also without actual hesitation. Her hands slowly reached back to cup her own buttocks, and slowly she drew them apart, exposing the dark little ring of her anus to his scrutiny. Her breath was coming in short, nervous gasps, but she was not pleading with him or trying to get away. If she had, he probably would have relented.
His cock was as stiff as iron, and still slick with her saliva. He aligned himself carefully, smiling to himself when she felt the head of his cock kiss her anus and gave a soft, worried moan. He pushed into her slowly but steadily, like a pilot forcing his way upriver against a strong current. She was clamping down on him again, and he reached beneath her and gave one of her nipples a firm, warning pinch.
“Relax, girl. I’m beginning to feel unwelcome.”
“I’m sorry, my lord. I can’t help myself.” She sounded panicky, on the verge of tears.
“Yes, you can. Relax, I said. Take a deep breath and concentrate.” She inhaled deeply, as instructed, and after a moment he did feel her sphincter loosen somewhat and accept his intrusion. She was still among the tightest girls he had ever enjoyed in this manner, but now her tightness had the feel of a pleasant, firm embrace rather than an obstruction.
“Better,” he told her, and stroked her hair again. He lifted her golden locks out of the way and kissed the tensely bunched muscles at the back of her neck, enjoying the heat of her pale skin. “You can let go with your hands now.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she replied with a formality that seemed absurd under the circumstances. Eldred chuckled, and applied himself seriously to the business of fucking her.
Although he was at first quite gentle, she gasped and squirmed with every stroke, and when he thrust a little harder she moaned and moved away so vigorously that he nearly slipped out of her. He caught her by the hips and held her firmly, forcing her to remain still and take what he wanted to give her. She struggled instinctively against his grip, but his strength was easily sufficient to master her, and he continued plunging and thrusting as he pleased. Her small, suppressed moans were music to his ears: she was sacrificing herself for him, enduring discomfort for the sake of his royal pleasure. He wished he could see her face, which was probably red and tear-stained by now. Was she biting down on her lip, the better to endure his attentions with some measure of dignity and restraint?
“Let me hear you moan, Damara,” Eldred panted. “You don’t have to stifle yourself.”
In response she let out a long, deep groan, which he echoed a moment later as his pleasure began to mount towards its climax. They were both sweating now, and her slippery body was constantly threatening to wriggle free of his grasp. He clung to her implacably, and finally let himself go, really pounding her ass for the first time. She moaned and began to sob, and let out a single full-throated scream of pain as he rammed into her with a final, powerful thrust that pushed him over the edge at last. He held still, clinging to her and tasting her skin as his come poured into her nether passage.
He withdrew and rolled her onto her back, careless of stains on the sheets. Her face had indeed gone bright red, and was smeared with tears and mucus. He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair, delighted with the pleasure she had given him.
“You did well, Damara. Good girl.”
“Thank you, my lord. I’m glad I pleased you.” To his surprise, she managed a wry smile. “And you’re right: it can be good to face one’s fears. Now at least I know what it feels like.”
“Next time it will be a little easier,” Eldred told her. “The time after that, easier still. You need to be stretched and broken in.”
“Are you going to do that, my lord?” she asked, looking up at him earnestly. “To make me into a vessel of your pleasure?”
“Not any time soon, Damara. I intend to leave this place in my brother’s charge, and ride back to my own castle at Helgrave to begin organising next spring’s campaign. But I will look for you when I return here.”
She snuggled against him, shyly kissing his neck. “Thank you, my lord.” He could not tell whether she was disappointed or not, and in truth he did not much care.
“Come, girl,” he said after a moment. “We’ll clean ourselves, and then you can share my bed for tonight.”
The room was warm enough that Eldred slept in only his hose and undertunic, with Damara naked beside him. He nestled close against her and draped one arm across her torso, a gesture at once protective and possessive. Despite being in a strange bed with a king’s body next to hers, she seemed to fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, but Eldred himself found slumber more elusive. Damara had been satisfying, even delightful, but there was no escaping the fact that she was ultimately just a serving girl. Her submissiveness and eagerness to please had intoxicated him, but at the expense of any sense of challenge or mutual respect. Ultimately, he wanted someone more stubborn and spirited in his bedchamber; someone who would be less easily subdued and would therefore prove all the more succulent when she finally yielded to his mastery. Someone, in other words, like Queen Arctis of Ustara.
He had crossed paths with the queen once or twice at diplomatic meetings, although not since ascending the throne of Valacor. She was a slim, dark-haired woman, perhaps more handsome than beautiful, smaller than Damara but with an air of quiet confidence that made her seem formidable despite her lack of height and bulk. Eldred could easily imagine her turning coldly away from him when she was brought to the bedchamber on the night of his victory, refusing to utter a word or even set eyes on her conqueror. He would seize her and strip her, of course, and help himself to her mouth and ass and cunt whether she liked it or not. Defeated, she would be his to enjoy as he saw fit. However, he would not consider the subjugation of Arctis complete until she had learned to behave like Damara, offering herself for his pleasure even when she knew it would involve her suffering. The Queen of Ustara would kneel naked before him and beg to be fucked up the ass before he was finished with her. She would beg to be whipped, beg to drink his piss…
Abruptly Eldred realised he was erect again, much to his surprise. There had been nights when he had enjoyed two or three climaxes, sometimes with two or three different girls, but he had spilled his seed into Damara barely a half-hour ago. Thoughts of Arctis, it seemed, had that effect on him. He did not hesitate to pull down his hose and roll Damara onto her back. She stirred, but was still barely half-awake by the time he had spread her legs and slid into her vagina.
Here, too, he found Damara to be deliciously tight. With two or three quick thrusts he was already on the edge of climaxing for the second time that night, but he made an effort to hold back so that Damara could share the pleasure with him. As she came fully awake, she looked momentarily confused to find him atop her and inside her, but did not struggle even for a moment. Like a perfect concubine, she rose to the occasion with a long, gasping sigh and twined her arms and legs around his body. A moment later, she began to move in obedience to the rhythm he had established, pushing back hard against every thrust of his hips. Her movements were eager, primal, and surprisingly powerful. Eldred put his head down and groaned into her ear as he struggled to prolong their lovemaking for one more hard, deep stroke, and then another. Only when she cried out and began to writhe frantically against him did he let himself go, plunging into her like a stallion on a mare. What little seed remained in him after their earlier bout spurted deep into her loins.