There is an unusually long pause between rapes - several seconds at least. She hears a faint, unfamiliar sound, and opens her eyes and looks before she has time to think about whether she really wants to. The man who hates her is approaching, holding a long thin iron rod in his hand, the end glowing cherry-red. She stiffens. He grins.

"Now I can really start having fun," he says. She squeezes her eyes shut and turns her face away, terrified and aroused. There's a hiss, and a flare of heat in a small spot above her hip; she flinches involuntarily. The pain doesn't come for a long moment, and it's less than she expected at first, but it keeps hurting more - and then he touches her with it again on the other side, and again, and again, trails it down her outer thigh while she tries fruitlessly to twist away, holds it to the back of her calf and grabs her ankle when she kicks...

She keeps her eyes closed. She doesn't want to know where he's going to burn her before he does it. Partly because the anticipation would be uncomfortable; partly because the uncertainty is thrilling. When he holds the hot iron against her calf, she can feel tears of pain spilling down her cheeks. He drops her leg and steps closer, pressing his body against hers.

"You're going to want to hold still for this one," he whispers, and two other men each grab one of her legs and pull them apart. The man who hates her slides his fingers into her cunt, and she moans with helpless terrified lust, and he laughs and steps back and presses the red-hot iron against her inner thigh. She flinches slightly despite her best efforts, but then manages to hold herself still afterward, even as she begins to smell smoke and burning meat. The pain is incredible. She doesn't have the breath to scream, so she whimpers instead. She can barely think at all, only feel - pain and fear and lust and shame and misery and pain...

Finally, he pulls the iron away. Some flesh seems to pull away with it. She's even more afraid to open her eyes than she was a minute ago, but she wants to know the damage, so she looks. A red-black charred streak along her inner thigh, barely a finger's width, but terrifyingly close to her groin - if she'd tried to pull away and swung back just a little wrong, he would have burned her somewhere a lot worse - she thinks about her fantasies of the Emperor fucking her with a branding iron, and shudders.

The man who hates her stands back to inspect his work. He nods approvingly, gestures to his friends to let her go, then brings the iron up again and presses it to the side of her breast.

She screams for that.

All the squirming she is capable of only spreads the damage out farther. When he pulls it away and does the other one, she squeezes her eyes shut again and holds as still as she can.

It could be worse. He could have shoved his red-hot iron in her cunt or her ass, or her eye, or burned her to the bone. He's being careful, making sure he doesn't take her past what an ordinary healer could fix, making sure the Emperor won't be angry.

He picks up her leg again, the one with the burn on the calf, and he drags his hot iron slowly down the sole of her foot. She screams, kicking helplessly, but she can't get away and after the first agonizing second she makes herself be still. When he picks up her other foot and does the same to it, she flinches and whimpers but doesn't fight.

"Slut," he says, dropping her foot and grabbing her breasts with both hands - he must have given the iron to someone else to hold for him. She moans. He squeezes hard, sending fresh waves of pain through her damaged body. Then he drags his hands down her burn-spotted stomach to part her thighs, and she whimpers raggedly when he touches the burn there, and he shoves his cock in her cunt and starts fucking her violently. It's a whole new level of agony. She feels like her mind is coming to pieces, dissolving in a storm of pain. The most solid thing in the world is the way the burn on her inner thigh pulses with searing pain as he rapes her. Everything else wavers and fades in and out - sight, sound, even the feeling of his cock pounding into her cunt.

He finishes and steps away. "Beg to be fucked," he says.

She doesn't want to be fucked, not like this. Tears stream down her face. Her breath comes in tiny hitched sobs. She wants to be safe in the Emperor's arms and she doesn't fucking care how stupid and backward and crazy that is. Short of turning into a dragon and flying into the desert, the Emperor is the best she's got.

Through half-open eyes blurred with weeping, she can see him take his red-hot iron back, a little less red now but no less terrifying for it. He raises it to her armpit and presses it there. She screams, twists, completely fails to escape the pain - he moves it away again, hands it back to his friend.

"Beg to be fucked," he repeats.

"Please," she sobs, "please fuck me... please, I, I love to be raped, I want it, please, fuck me, please..."

They fuck her. One after another after another, pinching and groping at her blistered flesh, jarring her burns with the force of their thrusts. It's both better and worse after the first time. Better because she's slowly getting used to the pain; worse because with the pain a little less all-consuming she finds what's left of her consumed with lust instead.

Someone pulls the club out of her ass. It hurts just as much as it used to, but her standards for pain have been raised, and she barely flinches even when the next thing he does is replace it with his cock. Now there are two men fucking her, one in front and one behind; she lets her head fall back and moans at the feeling. There is finally starting to be enough pleasure to compete with the pain again.

"Untie her," says someone. "Get her down from there."

"I want to see her whipped," someone else objects.

"Then whip her first, but I want to fuck her on the ground, it's easier that way."

She shudders. After some discussion, most of which she misses because she's busy being agonizingly raped, someone produces a short three-tailed whip. He starts on her front, because it's the side facing the courtyard. She closes her eyes again so she won't have to see them all watching eagerly as he beats her.

It hurts. It hurts much more when he catches a burn on her hip or her breast or her stomach, and there are plenty of those. She doesn't count the strokes, but she's bleeding freely by the time they turn her around so he can get at her back without spoiling the view. There are fewer burns there, but he whips her more thoroughly. Blood pours down her body. The spectators cheer. Niamira quietly weeps.

The man with the whip unties her hands. She crumples to her knees immediately, unable to stand on her burned feet. He grabs her hair and shoves his cock in her mouth, and the spectators cheer for that too. He finishes quickly. Maybe he just liked whipping her that much.

Another man grabs her by the hair and tries to haul her to her feet, but dangling awkwardly from her hair is the less painful option here. She refuses to get her feet under her.

"Stand up," says the now-familiar voice of the man who hates her. She opens her eyes and looks at him. He's holding the iron rod again, freshly pulled from the fire and glowing orange-red at the tip. She whimpers, but forces herself to stand.

Walking back to the rug is incredibly painful. Every step, every tiny shift of her weight - no matter how she places her feet, the slightest pressure is agony. But she gets there, and falls to her hands and knees with immense relief, and there's a man already lying on the rug beckoning to her so she crawls over to him and sinks onto his cock with a moan of pain and pleasure and despair. Her cunt feels so good and full, and the burn on her inner thigh presses agonizingly against his hip, and someone else kneels behind her to fuck her ass, and someone stands beside her to take her mouth, and she hurts all over in so many ways and she's covered in blood and she loves it and hates it and hates loving it and loves hating it and nothing she feels matters because they are going to keep raping her anyway.

The sun is low in the western sky, barely visible over the palace walls. Not much more than an hour left, she thinks. She can make it through another hour of this. They're not allowed to kill her, and, tautologically, anything else is survivable.

They spend a while fucking her on the ground. Sometimes instead of leaning forward with her knees to either side of someone's ribs, she lies with her whipped-raw back against someone's chest; it's worse that way, because there will still be someone fucking her cunt and it's impossible for them not to rub and press and jar her burned thigh when they do.

Then the man who hates her comes back.

He doesn't have his iron anymore, but she remembers the threat of it perfectly well. When he grabs her hair and hauls her to her feet, she stands. When he drags her to the table, she walks, wincing with every step. She is bruised and burned and bleeding all down her front, and the stone of the table is hard and cold and painful when he bends her over it. At least resting her weight there is marginally better than staying on her feet.

"I've got your favourite toy here," he says, showing her the bloodstained club. "Where do you want it?"

She shudders. "I - I don't -"

It felt so good in her cunt that first time, but it's going to be awful with the burn on her thigh - and it hurts so much in her ass, but there's a part of her that wants it even so -

"Pick one and beg, or you won't like what I give you instead."

She shudders harder. "Please, I - I want it in my cunt," she says, "I liked it there, it felt good, I want it like that again, please..."

He shoves the club into her cunt and starts fucking her with it, hard and fast. She was right about what the burn on her thigh does to the feeling. But it's still just as good as she remembers - better, after being raped all day, brought close to release and then denied it over and over, it's so satisfying, not enough but better than she's had in hours - "yes," she moans, "yes, like that, please, yes -"

"Say you're a filthy slut who loves to be raped."

"I - I -" She falters; he slows, then pauses, holding the club deep inside her. She moans again, pleadingly.

"Say it."

"I'm a filthy slut who loves to be raped," she sobs, and he resumes fucking her with the club as she weeps with pain and shame. It's almost, almost, almost enough. She wishes desperately that it was the Emperor doing this to her, in private, just the two of them, and with his magic to give her the pleasure she craves. It would be so good.

He pulls the club out and replaces it with his cock. She whimpers. It hurts and it's good and it hurts and it's good and -

"Say it again."

"I'm a filthy slut who loves to be raped," she says, crying with shame, and he spends himself in her and steps back to let someone else have a turn.

Only a few, this time, four or five, she has trouble counting. Then the man who hates her is back again.

"Get up," he tells her.

She stands up, clinging to the edge of the table for balance. The stone surface is covered in more blood than the most thorough cleaning could remove. They're going to remember her every time they see it. Niamira, filthy slut who loves to be raped.

"See that mace over there?" he asks. She looks where he's pointing. There's a steel-headed mace propped up against the barracks wall, near where he hung her up earlier. She doesn't remember seeing it before.

She nods, warily.

"I'm going to fuck you with it," he says. "Go get it and bring it to me."

...

It's got to be at least twice the size of the club. The round steel head is oval in profile, more a long egg than a ball, and at its widest point it's bigger around than her doubled fists. In case it wasn't already menacing enough, it's studded with little hemispherical knobs, each as wide as her thumb. She is skeptical of his ability to get it into her and terrified of the damage he'll do in the attempt. Not to mention the pain she'll inflict on herself walking there and back.

She can't see a clock from here, but the sun is behind the palace. It can't be that much longer until their time is up. It's possible she could stall the remaining time - get someone else's attention, someone who does not personally hate her and want her to suffer...

The Emperor told her to cooperate.

She lets go of the table. She walks, carefully, toward the mace. There are some men scattered along her path, and they slap her and grope her and one digs his fingernails into a welt on her back, which hurts enough that she collapses to the ground, and since no one tells her to get up again, she crawls the rest of the way there; her feet are glad of the reprieve.

The mace is exactly as big as it looked, but if anything it's more intimidating up close. She stands, carefully. She picks up the mace. She turns and walks back toward the table, keeping her eyes on the ground so she won't see everyone watching her and touching themselves.

When she arrives, the man who hates her takes the mace and points at the table. She bends over it. Her breasts press painfully against the bloodstained stone.

"Tell me what kind of slut you are," he says.

She whimpers softly, closing her eyes. "I'm - I'm a filthy slut who loves to be raped."

"Tell me what else you like."

"I like to be hurt," she says, trembling in voice and body. "I like to be fucked hard. I like the way your cock feels inside me."

"Yes you do," he says. "So now I'm going to give you what you want."

He presses the tip of the mace against her ass. It's cold and hard and smooth. She shivers in ambivalent anticipation. She wants it and she's terrified of it and it's going to hurt so much...

It goes in slowly, a little at a time, like the first man who raped her ass a lifetime ago this morning. The first set of studs makes her jerk with surprise and clutch at the table, moaning in pain. There's another after that, and another, and it doesn't feel like it should be physically possible for this thing to fit inside her but it just keeps - going - in -

He stops pushing. It feels much bigger than it looked. Has he even reached the widest part yet? She sure fucking hopes so.

"Tell me again what kind of slut you are," he says.

This is not going good places but she's sure he can find a way to make it worse if she doesn't play along. She forces the words out. "I'm a filthy slut who loves to be raped," she says, "and hurt, and fucked hard -"

He shoves the mace in deep, past the widest part and down to the last set of studs, and then yanks it almost all the way back out. She sobs brokenly. He does it again, and again, and again. Raping her, hurting her, fucking her hard, just like she said she wanted. And there's a part of her that does want it; there's a part of her that wants to beg him to do it harder, wants to tell him how good it feels, how much she loves the pain and violation and the feeling of being split open, torn apart, raped, ravaged, ruined.

But he's doing this because he hates her and she's not going to give him any more than she has to. Her cooperation is for the Emperor, not for him.

Finally, he pulls the mace out of her ass. She goes limp on the table, exhausted and humiliated.

"Turn over and spread your legs," says the man who hates her.

She doesn't want to. She doesn't want that thing in her cunt. She doesn't ever want him to touch her again.

But she does it anyway. Turns over and lies back on the table with her legs spread wide, whimpering at the hard pressure against the welts on her back.

"You know what I want you to say."

"I'm a filthy slut," she moans, "who loves to be raped and hurt and fucked hard."

"Then beg for it."

She whimpers. "Please - fuck me, rape me - I want it in my cunt - I want you to hurt me - please -"

He sets the end of the mace against her cunt and pushes. At first it just shoves her across the table, and she has to squirm back to the edge, sobbing at what the movement does to her back, so he can try again. He laughs at her. She grabs the edge of the table with both hands and holds tight to brace herself. He shoves the mace into her cunt and fucks her with it, viciously, brutally, while she screams and cries and keeps her legs open to welcome him.

The pain is incredible. The pleasure is worse. So good, so full, stretched open until she breaks, mercilessly violated - almost almost almost brought to release - until, eventually, finally, it's enough, and she screams herself hoarse, screams with agony and ecstasy and desperate awful shame -

- and her voice gives out, and her strength gives out, and the crashing tide of pleasure recedes, and he grabs her by her burned thigh and keeps fucking her with the mace as she lies limply on the table with her eyes closed and her breath coming in ragged voiceless sobs. There's nothing in it but pain, now. Pain and humiliation.

It feels like a very long time before he pulls it out and tosses it on the ground. The men who are still watching crowd around her to spill their seed over her face and breasts and stomach. It stings in the open cuts left by the whip.

The man who hates her steps up between her legs and rapes her bruised and bloody cunt one final time. He spends himself in her, spits on her face, punches her in the stomach, and walks away as she struggles not to throw up.

For a few minutes, she is left completely alone. Everything hurts. She doesn't try to open her eyes or move.

Then someone picks her up and bundles her into her blanket and carries her away. She doesn't look to see where they're going. Back to the Emperor, presumably, by whatever means.

They carry her for a while and then put her down on the floor, fairly gently. Their footsteps recede.

A gentle hand touches her cheek.

"You were very good, my dear," the Emperor murmurs.

She smiles.

He picks her up and carries her to his bath and lowers her into the water, blanket and all. The blanket floats away as he gathers her into his arms. Warmth soaks into her body, and all her hurts begin to mend.

"You deserve a reward," he says, petting her hair. It cleans and disentangles itself under his hand, until it's a wet wild mess of curls but not matted or sticky with blood or other fluids. "What would you like?"

She sighs contentedly, leaning on him.

"I don't know, my lord," she says. "What would you like to give me?"

He pauses. It is a pause full of things he isn't saying.

(The world. The sun and moon and stars. Anything but your freedom. It's insane to look at a slave this way, a human, a brief fragile creature who will wither and fade before her first century.

But she is his to do with as he pleases, and that smile on her face pleases him very much.)

"Your own room," he suggests, "where you can stay when I'm not using you. Supplied with any material luxury you like."

"I would appreciate that very much, my lord. And - calligraphy supplies. Good ones. That is the height of luxury to me."

He smiles and kisses the top of her head. "Then you shall have them."

- oh.

He is in love with her.

Suddenly everything makes sense.

The intense possessiveness, the fact that he spent all day watching her be gang-raped on his orders, the strange generosity. The - kindness.

That's... terrifying, but perhaps less terrifying than being in this situation with the Emperor not in love with her.

And now she should stop thinking about this before he notices. She nestles against him and enjoys the heat of his body and the warmth of the water and the feeling of being clean and uninjured and safe. The Emperor is fundamentally unsafe, of course, but - speculation about his motives aside, he does clearly value her and he is clearly going to keep her for a while yet. She's not going to go the way of his harem girls anytime soon.

Unless -

Pet pet. "What are you so frightened of all of a sudden?"

"I - I remembered what he said about - wanting to get me pregnant so you'd kill me," she murmurs.

"Oh. Don't worry about that," says the Emperor. "If it happens, I can and will tear your womb from your body without killing you."

"Oh."

She considers this mental image.

...it's kind of hot.

"Thank you, my lord."

"I want you to live a long and happy life spent mostly in my bed," he says, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. "You're a treasure, and I keep my treasures."

She laughs softly.

"Thank you, my lord," she says again.

Pet pet.

"You were so much less eloquent with them than with me," he says. "Should I be flattered that I merit your creativity, or insulted that I can't drive you past it?"

"Oh, definitely flattered, my lord. I tell you in detail all the awful things I want you to do to me because it's all true and I like saying it. With them, every word I said was forced from me by threat of death or torture. Of course I wasn't going to give them all I had."

"Mmm."

He holds her for a moment longer, then scoops her up and carries her out of the bath to dry her off.

"So if I said, 'lovely Niamira, beg for my cock or I'll make what they did to you this afternoon look like a pleasant stroll in the garden'..."