"I'm—"

She whimpers again, losing the thread of her words as his cock thrusts deep into her ass.

"—very tempted, my lord."

"Does it seem like a good trade?" he says, petting her hair. "To be gang-raped for a day, submit yourself to that man who hates you so much, just to feel my cock in your poor neglected cunt again?"

"Yes," she moans.

He captures one of her hands and brings it to her crotch. "You know what to do," he murmurs into her hair.

She shudders and clenches her fists. "I said I'd make it a week."

"I'm feeling less patient now than I was when I suggested that timeframe."

"As am I, my lord, and yet."

He laughs, and lets go of her hand, and fucks her ass a little harder. "My treasure. When you finally give in, I'm going to give you all the things you've begged so prettily for."

Whimper. "Oh yes, my lord, please..."

"One of these days you're going to ask me for something you won't like when I give it to you." He squeezes her hips. "Won't that be fun?"

"I like when you rape me. I like when you torture me. I like when you make me think you're going to torture me to death," she says. "I even—mm—I even like this game we're playing where you deprive me of satisfaction until I'm desperate enough to incur a punishment I genuinely hate. I know exactly how much I'll suffer, and I really don't look forward to it, and after I've held out for a week I'm going to lie down on the floor of this room and pleasure myself to the memory of every awful thing you've done to me here, because that is how badly I want you."

He slows, then stills, listening to her.

When she finishes speaking, he kisses the top of her head.

"You are the finest treasure I've ever owned," he says. "Now shut up before you tempt me any further."

"Yes, my lord."

He resumes fucking her, hard and fast now, driving his cock into her ass with painful force.

She whimpers helplessly.

It's another long minute of brutal rape before he spills his seed inside her with a low moan.

"So good," she sighs.

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."

He scoops her up and gets to his feet, his cock slipping out of her as he stands.

(She lets out a tiny involuntary whimper at the loss.)

He laughs. "I think you should sleep now," he says, petting her hair. "Maybe I'll take the opportunity to rape your sweet cunt while you're not awake to feel it."

She moans, slumping dizzily against him as his magic sends her to sleep.

He carries her to his bed and tucks her in. Although he thinks about it, he doesn't rape her. The meeting that he left in a temper is long over by now, but there's still work that needs doing; his empire, unfortunately, won't run itself.

When she wakes in the morning, she's hungry. She can't actually remember the last time that happened without imperially conjured food already in front of her. Maybe all the healing has been messing with her appetite. But she's hungry now, and he hasn't left breakfast for her.

She gets up and has a bath and searches his rooms for something she can eat. When that venture fails, she finds something she can wear to go get something to eat. What they serve in the slave kitchens is not nearly as enjoyable as what the Emperor feeds her, but it's capable of sustaining life.

Unfortunately, when she inventories the available garments, her choice is between borrowing something of the Emperor's and wearing that outrageously beautiful dress that he conjured for her. She does not want to get food on her outrageously beautiful dress, but she'd also rather not ruin any of the Emperor's things.

On the other hand, how often does he even wear clothes rather than just wrapping himself in tangible illusions so he can dismiss them in an instant and avoid the tedium of getting undressed? And how much does he really care about material wealth that he can replace in a moment with conjuration?

He could replace her dress too. But she only has the one dress, whereas he has piles and piles of neglected finery. And he does like it when she does slightly audacious things.

She assembles a wearable outfit from the imperial wardrobe - a blue linen tunic, belted with a matching sash, makes a pretty dress that falls well below her knees. Underwear is probably not necessary, and if she runs into the Emperor out there he'll be so charmed that she didn't wear any.

It's strange, being out there again. It feels like it's been a lifetime since the Emperor dragged her to his rooms, but that long blur of days can't really have been any more than five or ten. Can it? She's lost track of time. She couldn't even swear to how much of her week has gone by.

Well, it's not like it matters that much. The Emperor will probably tell her if she asks, and if he's forgotten too then they can have a good laugh over it.

Acquiring breakfast is as straightforward as she remembers, although there is a new nervousness in the way old acquaintances interact with her. She doesn't trouble them by staying any longer than she has to. A quick meal, and out into the back hallways of the palace again to return to the Emperor's rooms. On the way out, she stuffs a couple of napkin-wrapped pastries into the folds of the broad sash so she won't have to come back for lunch.

When a strong hand clasps her wrist in a crushing grip and yanks her into a dimly lit cross corridor, the first person she thinks of is obviously the Emperor. But the hand feels wrong, and the man smells wrong, and he's not tall enough, and then her eyes focus and she recognizes the man who hates her.

"Are you insane," she says, which is admittedly probably not the ideal opening remark.

"Shut your mouth unless you want my cock in it." He starts dragging her down the hall.

The idea of yelling for help crosses her mind, but who would come to her aid? No slave in this palace would run toward a woman's scream. Maybe logical argument will work. It's at least worth trying.

"I'm the Emperor's favourite. If I tell him you raped me he'll kill you. If you damage me too badly for him to fix, he'll torture you for weeks first."

"Lying slut. I saw you stealing food. You're trying to run, aren't you."

She is speechless for a moment, unable to comprehend how anyone could possibly think she was that stupid. You don't run from the palace. From a lesser household you might actually escape, but the palace keeps a lock of hair from every slave and they will track you down with magic and gut you.

"I'm not stealing food, I'm taking it back to the Emperor's rooms, where I live, so I can eat lunch without making another trip. Let go of me."

He shoves her into a storage room, a cavernous space stacked high with disused furniture. The door thumps closed behind them with an unpromisingly heavy sound. Not the kind of door she might pull open easily and slip through for a quick escape.

"You're lying," he says. "Trying to scare me. And it's not going to work."

"You can't possibly think I'm actually trying to escape, can you?"

"I know that if I kill you, I can say I caught you trying to run and they'll believe me just fine."

She backs away slightly, glancing around in search of escape routes. There aren't any, unless she climbs a stack of furniture and breaks one of those high windows, but she's not sure she trusts the furniture to hold her weight. Or the windows to be sufficiently breakable.

"Seriously, don't do this," she says. "The Emperor will kill you."

"I know exactly what the Emperor thinks of his girls," he says. "You're not the first we've had. You're not special."

...yeah she's not going to convince him, is she. She shudders. "What do you want?"

He laughs. "Just a little fun. You'll like it. And if you're very very good, I won't kill you when I'm done."

She glances around again. Up the pile of tables and out the window is not a sure enough thing to bet her life on. Trying to duck past him, haul that door open, and run would be even less effective. She is manifestly incapable of convincing him he's going to die for this.

"...okay," she says softly.

He grins, advancing on her. She stands still and lowers her eyes. He puts a hand up her skirt, smirking when he feels her bare crotch, smirking wider when he feels how wet she is.

"Slut," he says. "I'm going to get you pregnant and the Emperor's going to rip you apart."

She shudders. The Emperor isn't going to kill her, but it's not in her interest for this man to know that, and she can very clearly imagine what it would be like if it happened. Very, very clearly.

"Please - please don't," she says tremblingly, more because she expects him to be gratified by her fear than because she expects him to listen.

"I was going to tell you to take off your clothes but I guess I don't have to," he says, pulling apart the knot on her sash-belt and shoving her skirt up. Sash and pastries fall to the floor. "Get on that table and spread your legs."

She does as she's told, whimpering softly. When the Emperor kills this man for raping her without permission, it's going to make being gang-raped by the gladiators a much more pleasant prospect. Which is a bad thing, because if it becomes insufficiently punishing then the Emperor will just have to find something worse to do to her, and she has every confidence that he'll succeed.

The table is a big solid rough-hewn wooden thing with a white sheet thrown haphazardly over its uneven surface to keep the dust off. She lies back and lets herself shiver with fear. The man who hates her stands between her spread thighs and shoves his fingers in her cunt.

"Please don't," she whispers, flinching.

"That's not what a good slut says." He twists his fingers inside her, pushes them deeper. "You remember what kind of slut you are, don't you?"

"I'm—" She sobs. "I'm, I'm a filthy slut who loves to be raped."

"Good." He withdraws his hand and opens the front of his trousers. "Now beg for what you really want."

"I, I want you to rape me, I want your cock inside me, I want you to fuck me hard, please, please fuck me—"

The worst part is that she's not even lying. After the game she's been playing with the Emperor for the last few days, she's desperate enough that her cunt aches with need at the thought.