Niamira stifles a whine of frustrated need.

"Yes my lord," she manages. "Thank you, my lord."

He starts fucking her again, slowly.

"Because that makes it worse, doesn't it," he says. "You like to be raped but you don't like to show it. If you go back there and spread your legs for them like the slut you are, they'll all know how much you enjoy it, and so will anyone who wanders past and sees you. Hmm?"

"Yes, my lord," she says breathlessly. "Please, my lord, that feels so good..."

"I know," he says, smiling.

He fucks her ass very gently, and spends himself inside her with a soft sigh of pleasure, and then he picks her up and carries her out of the water and gently dries her off and wraps her in a soft white blanket.

"Go back to the courtyard by the barracks," he says. "Don't mention that you saw me. Let them think what they like about your new cooperativeness. I'll be watching."

She bows her head. "Yes, my lord," she says, and she turns and goes. It doesn't take long to find her way back.

She does not want to do this. He didn't even say that he'd punish her if she didn't, just that he'd do something nice for her if she did - and 'something nice' is probably rape and torture, which, nice as they are, are not things she welcomes into her life with unalloyed enthusiasm - but it's clear that he wants her to do this, and she should probably get in the habit of doing things the Emperor wants her to do, even when they are - difficult.

The courtyard is empty; the gladiators are still eating lunch. She didn't get lunch - or breakfast for that matter - but she feels fine. Is the Emperor that good at healing? She doesn't know exactly how lifecraft works; maybe he is.

She pulls the blanket tighter around herself and sits on a bench next to the table where they first raped her. Someone has already wiped it clean. She looks at it and remembers the painful violation of her ass and shivers. Her cunt is still hot with desire from the Emperor's magic touch. She wants to be fucked. She wants to be used. She wants to be bent over this table and raped for hours, or better yet dragged to the ground and filled from every direction again.

A noise from the barracks makes her look up. The first few gladiators are returning from lunch. One she recognizes as the man who threatened her, who got her to run, who she spat on. He is particularly tall and brawny even among all the other tall brawny fighters.

"Look who's all cleaned up for us," he says, leering at her. "Got something for you, girl."

There's something in his hand - a short wooden club, round at both ends, with a wide body and a narrower grip. Does he mean to beat her with it or fuck her with it or both? As a tool of violation it looks big enough to make her bleed, but as a tool of violence it looks heavy enough to break her bones. She huddles fearfully in her blanket, blinking tears from her eyes; one escapes to run down her cheek. The man with the club gestures to his friends, and they pick her up and unwrap her from her blanket and lay her on her back on the table. She closes her eyes.

"I know just how to beat a girl so the healers can still save her," he says. "Open up or I'll show you."

Trembling, she spreads her legs. The end of the club presses against her cunt. It hurts when he forces it inside, hurts even more than she was expecting, hurts like it's ripping her apart. He keeps shoving until it's as deep as it will go, then pulls it out and thrusts it in again; it goes much smoother the second time, slick with the evidence of her desire. She bites her lip and doesn't quite manage to stifle a whimper.

"I was right," he says, "you do want it!"

He fucks her with the club, hard and fast, painful and glorious. She moans. It fills her so well, so thick and so deep - she could almost find her satisfaction just from this, but not quite - she spreads her legs wider, her face hot with shame - he laughs and keeps going, and she squirms and moans pleadingly, imagining the Emperor again, wishing he would rape her like this and then touch her with lifecraft and make her scream in ecstasy.

A final hard thrust, and the club slides out of her. She whimpers. Her cunt feels bruised.

Then he has his friends turn her over and hold her down, and he shoves the club into her ass, and she shrieks. It's so much worse than the first time they raped her ass - bigger, more sudden, more violent - she can definitely feel herself bleeding this time. He pulls it out and does it again, harder. She sobs with pain. He fucks her ass with his club every bit as viciously as he did with his cock this morning. "Please, no," she begs, knowing she's almost certainly just encouraging him. "Please, no, not this, it hurts, it hurts it hurts it hurts..."

He keeps going as she trails off into incoherent sobbing. The club violates her ass again and again, huge and hard, splitting her open. Blood pours down her thighs.

"If you want something else, then say so," he taunts.

She moans in hollow despair. But if it'll make him stop doing this to her -

"Please fuck me," she sobs, "please, I want your cock in my cunt, please, you're right, I want you to rape me -"

He shoves the club deep into her ass and leaves it there while he spreads her bloodstained thighs and gives her what she's begging for. She weeps helplessly. Every hard thrust of his cock jostles the handle of the club, moving it in agonizing little jolts inside the bleeding ruin of her ass. Violated, humiliated, helpless, she clings to the edge of the table and cries.

And she enjoys it. His cock feels so good in her aching cunt. She wants it, wants him, wants the pain of the club in her ass, wants him to hurt her and use her and rape her and then leave her for the rest of them to do the same.

When he finishes, he stays inside her for a moment, leaning down to whisper in her ear. "I hope I get you with child and the Emperor rips you open," he says softly. "When I fuck you I'm thinking about you lying dead on a trash heap with your womb carved out."

His cock slips out of her and he grabs the handle of the club and gives it a brief vicious twist as he steps away. Niamira whimpers in pain and terror. The contraceptive tea is supposed to be effective for at least two days, she shouldn't need to worry yet, but with this many men fucking her... the Emperor is well-known for murdering his bed-slaves when they get pregnant. He values her, but does he value her that much?

There are more men around her now. Someone else takes hold of the club. "I liked hearing you beg to be fucked," he says. "Do that again."

She hesitates. He pulls the club out a little, pushes it back in. It hurts. She squeezes her eyes shut and moans. "Please fuck me. Please rape me. I want your cock inside me. Please -"

He starts fucking her. She whines softly. Now that she's been made to think about it, having a man's cock in her cunt is terrifying, but the fear only magnifies her desire. She wants them all to rape her cunt and fill her with their seed. She doesn't want to die but she wants to be terrified of dying.

It feels good to be this helpless. The Emperor told her to cooperate, but even if he hadn't she'd have no way to prevent these men from doing whatever they want with her. She is going to be gang-raped for hours, and if she humiliates herself to their liking, they won't hurt her as much as they otherwise would. And she likes it that way, she wants to be fucked like this, bent over a table with her cunt full of cock and her ass full of hard polished wood, bruised and bleeding and begging for more.

"Please," she sobs, as he puts his hand on the back of her neck and shoves her face down against the table. "Please, yes," as his cock moves inside her, hot and thick and hard. Every jolt of pain from her ass makes her whimper. She wants, wants, wants -

He groans and spends himself in her. The next man steps up. "Go on, beg."

"Please fuck me please fuck me please," he shoves his cock in her cunt, "yes, please, fuck me, rape me, yes, I want it -"

This one fucks her harder than the last. The edge of the table presses bruises into her thighs. Anyone looking in on the courtyard would see her bent over a table, spreading her legs and begging for rape. She weeps with shame, but she doesn't stop. "Please, yes, fuck me, yes -"

His cock drives deep into her cunt, and she loses the thread of her words and just moans instead, breathless and desperate. It's so good but it's not enough, not enough to satisfy her, not enough to bring her to release. She wants more.

He spills his seed in her cunt and steps away, and the next man takes hold of the club and yanks it out of her ass.

She screams.

She is still screaming when he starts fucking her, and it's an agony, worse than anything they did to her this morning, and all she wants is for someone else to be raping her cunt at the same time. She runs out of breath to scream with, and she gasps and starts sobbing instead. It hurts so much, and she hates it and loves it and her empty cunt aches to be filled.

When she feels him withdraw, she gasps out, "Please fuck my cunt -"

"Keep begging," says the next man, and he shoves the club back into her ass, and she stifles a shriek.

"Please fuck me please rape my cunt please I want it please please please," she moans, shaking with pain and need.

He slaps her upper thigh, jolting the club, and she flinches sharply, which only makes it worse, and then she's squirming atop the table and someone picks her up and someone else shoves his fingers in her cunt and she spreads her legs and whines desperately, and someone laughs, and they lower her to the ground where the man who hates her is waiting, lying on that rug from this morning, and she sobs and bows her head and lets him pull her down to him. She remembers what he said earlier, about wanting to get her pregnant, about wanting to see her dead, and she is terrified and desperate for release and she spreads her thighs and slides down onto his cock with a helpless moan.

Another man pulls her head up by her hair and starts fucking her mouth. She whimpers. The man who hates her fucks her like he wants her to die, and it's finally enough, his cock in her cunt and his club in her ass and it hurts and she'd scream if her mouth wasn't full, she whines and shakes and she can hear him laughing, he puts his hand on her belly and she moans and the waves of pleasure are so intense she forgets every sense but touch. He wants to put his child in her and get her killed for it. His cock feels so good in her cunt. She's going to exhaust herself with pleasure and then they're going to rape her for hours and she wants it all, the terror and the pain, it's so good, so good, so good...

His hands bruise her hips and he spills his seed deep in her cunt, and the man fucking her mouth finishes too, and she swallows seed and whimpers shakily.

"Beg for it," someone says, dragging her backward by her hair.

"Please," she gasps, "please fuck me, please rape me, please, please, please -"

Someone pulls the club out of her ass, and someone else grabs her around the waist from behind, and then she's lying back against a stranger's chest with his cock in her ass, and another stranger kneels between her legs and starts fucking her cunt. She feels overwhelmed and shaky and frightened and humiliated, and as good as it felt to be brought to that incredible extended climax, she still wants.

They leave her mouth free this time. She moans, whimpers, sobs. It hurts, and it's almost the right kind of pain, almost the right kind of pleasure, but not quite enough to satisfy her again.

"Come on, say you want it," says the man fucking her ass. He gropes her breast, squeezes painfully. She catches a glimpse of the club, lying on the ground just past the edge of the rug, soaked in her blood, and a shudder of helpless desire runs through her.

"I want it," she moans. "I want this, I want you to rape me, I want all your cocks inside me, please keep fucking me like this, I want it, please..."

"Oh, I like that," says the man fucking her cunt. "That's good. Keep talking."

"Your cock feels so good inside me," she says, burning with shame but shaking with desire. "Please, yes, I want it, I want you, rape me, fuck me, please, yes, please..."

"Good slut," he says, "I'll give you what you want," and he fucks her harder. She moans, clutches at his shoulders, wraps her legs around him. It's so close to feeling good enough.

But he finishes before she's quite there yet, and the next man replaces him, and she's back to whining helplessly and begging on command.

They pass her around like that for a while, one in front and one behind, keeping her full of cock with occasional pauses to make her beg for more. It's deliciously awful. Dizzy with lust and exhaustion, she keeps losing track of the one who hates her, only to find him coming back to fuck her again. He seems inexhaustible. She wonders if he's taken drugs for it.

As time goes on, pleasure fades and pain increases. She can barely hold her head up. She mumbles when they tell her to beg. Someone shoves his cock in her mouth, and she moans around it, unresisting. It tastes of blood. She wonders how many times he's had her, in how many ways. He spills his seed down her throat and someone else takes a turn.

"She's getting boring," the man who hates her complains. "Let's see if I can liven her up."

He waits for all the men currently fucking her to finish, then grabs her hair and drags her over to the club.

"Pick it up," he says. She doesn't move.

He pulls her head up, stuffs his cock down her throat, and holds it there. She can't breathe - will he really kill her over this - he pulls her mouth off his cock and she gasps dizzily. He points at the club. She picks it up.

"Tell me you like to be raped," he says.

She does not like where this is going. But: "I like to be raped," she repeats softly.

"Tell me you like to be hurt."

She hesitates. He twists his hand in her hair. She moans in pain and fear. "I - I like to be hurt," she whimpers.

"Put it in your ass and fuck yourself with it. Hard. The way you like to be fucked."

"Please, no," she says, trembling. "I can't -"

"I want to see you try. And you'll do what I tell you, because you're a slut who loves rape."

The Emperor told her to cooperate. And there's a part of her that wants this, just like there's been for all the other awful things they did to her.

She almost can't make herself move. But he'll just threaten to kill her again if she doesn't play along, and he might even do it. And the Emperor told her to cooperate.

She crawls onto the rug with the club, lies on her back curled up with her knees against her chest, and presses the bloodstained end of it against her ass. It hurts. She presses harder. She can't even tell if it's going in, it just keeps hurting more and more. A fresh trickle of blood flows down between her buttocks. She sobs with pain, but keeps going. Now she can tell it's going in, and oh, oh, it hurts so much, she can barely do this to herself, she weeps with pain and shame and pushes the club into her ass until she can't force it in any farther, and then she pulls it out a little and does it again, again, again...

"Pathetic," says the man who hates her. "You want to be fucked harder than that, don't you."

"No, please, it hurts..."

He gets down on the ground with her and pulls her hands away from the club and takes hold of it and starts fucking her with it, hard.

"Beg for my cock," he says.

"Please," she gasps, "fuck me - please, I - I want your cock - please - I want it in my cunt - please rape me - I want you - please -"

He lets go of the club and shoves his cock in her cunt. "Slut," he grunts. "Tell me you like it."

"I like it," she sobs, "it's good, I like to be raped, I like it when you fuck me hard, please, I want more..."

When he finishes, someone else takes his place. They keep her like that for a good long while, on her back with the club in her ass, begging and crying while they take turns raping her cunt.

She wonders what new awful thing he's going to do when they get tired of this.

Her question is at least partially answered when he grabs her by the hair and hauls her up to her feet. Walking with the club in her ass is an exercise in new forms of agony. There's blood in various states of freshness smeared all up and down her legs, mingled with streaks of seed. He ties her hands together with rope, then drags her to the side of the barracks, where part of the courtyard is shaded by a few extra feet of roof. He tosses the end of the rope over one of the timbers supporting the roof and hauls on it until she's barely able to touch the ground with her toes, then ties it so she stays that way. It's a whole new level of helplessness, unable even to stand on her own.

"There," he says. "That's a good place for you. Now beg."

"Please fuck me. Please fuck me. Please -"

He wraps his hands around her sticky thighs and laughs as he hoists her legs apart and enters her. She whimpers. It hurts in all kinds of new ways, the rope digging into her wrists, her arms stretched above her head, the weight of the club settled differently from before. And she can see them all, now, men waiting their turn to fuck her again, stroking their bloodstained cocks. She closes her eyes. She doesn't want to see them watching her.

When he finishes, the man who replaces him is gentler, fucking her with slow deep thrusts instead of vicious pounding. It feels amazing. She trembles, nearing release - and then he spends himself in her and lets someone else have a turn. She whines helplessly.

It keeps going like that for long enough that she loses count of the men who've fucked her like this. Her arms are really starting to complain, and she wonders how badly injured it's possible to get just from hanging by your wrists for a few hours. The Emperor will heal her, surely, but...

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?"