She came in a frenzy of writhing under him. He continued to work her in a relentless rhythm, and a moment later she came again. Her vagina squeezed his cock inside her. “By the Dark God, Laya,” he gasped.
“Come where I can see!” snapped a petulant voice from the throne.
Akraz withdrew and spurted his seed over Laya’s belly and breasts. Zathstragomal clapped in delight.
“Excellent. Akraz, with me. We have plans to discuss, and I am sure that the two betrothed have some loving words for one another.”
Akraz laced up his pants. He followed his master out of the room without a single backward glance at Laya. Even though he had only done what she’d asked, or rather what he had no choice in doing, she felt suddenly used and bereft. She wiped herself off as best she could with her hand, since she had no handkerchief at her disposal.
Lathaniel dangled in his chains, listless, drained of both anger and caring. His cock remained hard. He would not look at her, and she found she could not meet his eyes either. She had expected tortures of extreme physical abuse in Zathstragomal’s dungeons. How little she had fathomed the depths to which he could twist and hurt people’s spirits through the manipulation of pleasure.
“That’s what the elf wench told you?”
“Yes, Master.” They had returned to the wizard’s study.
Zathstragomal nodded thoughtfully. “As I said before, you’ve done well, Akraz. I have a gift of new armor and weapons for you to wear to the fete, which you may keep, as you may keep the wench herself. I have a dress for her as well, but that I want back. It is from my swans’ collection. The slave will be dressed by my daughter and sent to join you tonight.”
“Yes, Master. I thank you.”
“Chief Yaguz will see you back to your quarters.”
“Yaguz will be disappointed that I am still alive,” Akraz said dryly.
“He gets above himself,” said Zathstragomal. “He plays his own little power games behind my back and thinks I do not know about them. Never make that mistake, General Akraz. I always know more than you think I do.”
Akraz bowed. “I think you know all, Master.”
“Only the Dark God knows all, but next to him, I know more than any mortal in Chavana,” said the wizard without a trace of modesty or humor. “One day, I will give my daughter to him as his virgin bride. Although the wench has a whore’s heart, I know she is a virgin because any man who touches her, dies. The Dark God will make her his Queen of the Thirteen Hells, and elevate me, as his most faithful servant and father-in-law, to godhood myself as a reward. Then I shall indeed be all knowing.”
The mere thought chilled Akraz to the bone. “That will be a glorious day.”
The dark wizard snapped out of his reverie. His eyes narrowed. “You will, of course, speak to no one of this. Especially not to my daughter.”
“Never, my lord. I will only treasure the knowledge of your future glory in my heart as I work your will.”
As Akraz bowed obsequiously, he happened to glance up and across the room to the casement window at the far end of the study. A girl in black stood there, her mouth agape in shock and outrage. She met Akraz’s eyes for a brief flash. Then she transformed into a black swan and flew out the open casement window the same way she had obviously entered.
Chapter Nine
This time, Strathgora bid the swan maids and peacock boys to doll up Laya in a ball gown of white and gold. They fashioned her hair in a style popular in the human court. Instead of a necklace, however, they fastened a black leather collar with a silver ring at the back around Laya’s throat. Matching black leather cuffs encircled her wrists.
“It’s an enchanted gown,” Strathgora said, with her usual cynicism. “We call it the bodice-ripper. Try not to tear it.”
As usual, Laya didn’t understand Strathgora’s little inside joke. Laya couldn’t be sure—it was hard to tell with such a cold girl—but it seemed to her that Strathgora’s mood had turned fouler. The girl in black paced and brooded and the pleasure slaves had to ask her for instructions several times before she remembered their presence and snapped out orders.
“Oh don’t mind me,” Strathgora said in response to Laya’s sidelong glances. “I’m always a bit peckish right before I have to poison someone.”
Chief Yaguz and a detail of guards escorted Laya to the door of the Hall of the Dark God. He stopped there, awaiting something. Laya peeked into the Hall.
Over a hundred pillars of black marble supported the vaulted ceiling of this tremendous hall. At the far end, a moat of fire burned around a statue, many stories tall, of the Dark God, Overlord of the Thirteen Hells. The phallus of the statue bridged the moat of fire and also served as the altar bed where each year a virgin was sacrificed to the deity. Smaller statues of the Thirteen Demon Underlords of the hells surrounded their god. These were life-size, slightly larger than a man, and naked slaves of both sexes had been chained, impaled, upon their stone phalluses.
Other naked slaves in nothing but black halters and chastity belts served platters of food and drink to the milling guests. The guests themselves all wore the finest silks and brocades, hats and jewels and beribboned boots that coin could buy. Laya recognized many of the lords and ladies who had gone over to Zathstragomal in order to save themselves. There were also a number of new faces boasting the heraldry of ancient houses of Chavana. These latter must have been the quislings and usurpers installed in the place of lords whom the wizard had conquered, but who had chosen torture and death rather than service to the Dark God.
At the far end of the room, standing high over the crowd in a throne held aloft in the stone palm of the Dark God’s statue, the wizard Zathstragomal the Malicious pontificated to the assembly. From this distance, Laya only caught fragments of it, but what she heard was enough to make her blanch. He boasted that he had acquired the secret of the hidden elf citadel, Sylvindell, doomed soon to fall to his army. And Zathstragomal also gloated that the feared elven warrior, Nemesis, had been captured by Akraz the Terrible.
The crowd parted for a mighty-thewed masked man in a splendid black uniform. Laya’s heart skipped a beat. She would recognize him in any mask, in any face.
“I’ll take her from here,” Akraz said to Yaguz. The Chief of Secret Police shrugged and backed off.
Akraz held a black leash in one hand, a black leather crop in the other. Without ado, he linked the ring at the end of the leash to the rings in the muffs around Laya’s wrists. He jerked her forward so hard she fell against his chest.
“You know what’s going to happen here,” he hissed in her ear. “Endure.”
Akraz strode back into the Hall of the Dark God, dragging Laya behind him on the leash by her wrists. His stride was too wide for her to keep up, so no matter how she tried, she ended up half tripping and staggering after him.
“Behold the mighty elf warrior!” rang out Zathstragomal’s mocking voice. “Behold the flower of elven maidenhood chained and used as a cheap whore!”
The crowd applauded and laughed. They thronged around the center of the room where Akraz stopped so abruptly that Laya lost her balance and fell to her knees at his feet. The crowd applauded again.
Akraz lifted Laya back to her feet by her hair. He unfastened the leash and instead chained her wrists to the ring at the back of neck collar. This forced her elbows behind her head and caused her breasts to thrust forward. With a swift motion, Akraz grabbed the flimsy white material of Laya’s bodice and ripped. The bodice tore open. Laya’s pale pink-nipple globes tumbled out for all to see. Her cheeks colored. Just in case anyone did not have a good view of her naked breasts, Akraz grabbed her neck collar and twisted her like a rag doll, this way and that, so that she thrust out her bosom to each section of the audience in turn.
He next grabbed bunches of her skirts and ripped these open. He tore the frilly petticoats beneath, as well, until the entire front panel of her once beautiful gown hung in shreds. Akraz used the crop to flip aside the last tatters and display Laya’s bare legs and shaved quim to the audience. They hooted their appreciation in a manner no less lewd than the goblins in the army had done.