And then -

What is the point of having an entire harem of bed-slaves if you keep running out?

The caravan's late, again. Trouble on the road, again. One wonders what the point of guarding the caravans is if they're just going to get robbed anyway. Well, whatever, there are plenty of humans in the palace. He stalks through the back halls looking for a pretty one. Not too valuable, not anyone who'll leave the whole palace worse off if they disappear into his bedchamber and don't come out again, but he doesn't care if they need to replace a cook or a musician or a fighter or, say, a scribe. Like that one with the gorgeous curly black hair, sitting by the cellar stair with a lamp and a lap-desk.

"You, girl," he says. "Stand up and look at me."

...fuck.

She recognizes the voice. You can't not recognize the voice. He sounds the way cats look, all deadly grace.

It takes her a trembling moment to cap her pen and set aside her desk and stand. He said to look at him; she dares to glance at his face. All elves are beautiful, at least by elven standards, but the Emperor is by far the prettiest. Pity he's so fucking terrifying, really.

He steps closer, takes hold of her chin, turns her face a little more into the light. Oh, yes, she'll do.

"What's your name?"

...yeah she's doomed.

"Niamira," she whispers, barely able to breathe under the weight of her fear. He is going to haul her off to his bedchamber and she's going to come out in pieces, she's seen what they cart away when he's done with one of his girls, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Ooh. Maybe he should do this more often. By the time he sees the contents of his harem, the fear is never this fresh.

"If I tell you to follow me," he says, "are you going to annoy me by trying to run instead?"

His eyes are amazing. Big beautiful elven eyes, blue-grey at the edges fading to blue-green and then green-gold and then finally gold in a central ring around the pupil. It's hard to look away from those eyes.

She should not be dwelling on how attractive he is when he's about to drag her off and rape her to death and the only choice she gets is whether to meekly follow him to her doom or try to flee and invite him to make it worse somehow in retaliation.

...but he is very attractive, and there is undeniably a part of her that wants him to drag her off and rape her, maybe not to death, but at least to serious injury. She wants to feel his hands around her neck. She wants him to hold her down and fuck her, violently, mercilessly, while she struggles and cries. She wants -

- and what, really, is the point of being sensible about it, when the best she can possibly hope for is that maybe he'll keep her around for a while before he inevitably gets tired of her and kills her in some horrible agonizing way? If she's suddenly desperate for the Emperor to rape her then fine, she's suddenly desperate for the Emperor to rape her, good for her, at least she'll get something out of it when he does. Or maybe he'll be offended by her eagerness and he'll decide to leave her alone, oh no, how terrible? Or maybe he'll be offended by her eagerness and he'll carry her off to one of his torture chambers and chain her down and violate her with a branding iron, and wow there's a thought she never expected to enjoy, she has got it bad -

She looks up at him with wide wet eyes and says breathlessly, "Please, my lord, I want to suck your cock."

He laughs, surprised. He wasn't expecting that, but hey, it's not like it won't solve his problem.

"All right," he says, and he grabs a fistful of her hair and shoves her down on her knees and gives her what she wants.

She has only a moment to fruitlessly worry that maybe she won't like the reality of imperial rape as much as she liked the idea.

In a sense that's true; she likes it more.

She clutches at the embroidered trim of his open silk overrobe, choking, gasping, moaning. She feels so helpless and it's so good, who cares if she's going to die, the Emperor wants her and there's no surviving that so she might as well enjoy the ride. There are tears running down her face and she mostly can't breathe and she loves every awful glorious second of it.

This is not remotely the first time he's made a girl choke on his cock but it's definitely the first time the girl has enjoyed it this much.

He kind of likes it.

He fucks her mouth until he's satisfied, and then he lifts her up by her hair until her feet dangle several inches above the ground, and he whispers in her ear, "I'm going to remember you."

She whimpers.

He drops her and walks away.

She crumples on the floor in a heap, coughing weakly, and spends several minutes fighting the urge to run after him. She survived this round; now is not the time to get stupid.

He said he would remember her. If she's incredibly lucky, maybe he won't. But she does not think she is that lucky.

Next time he could kill her. He knows her name; he can look her up anytime he likes, find out where she sleeps, collect her at his leisure. If she runs, he will definitely torture her to death. She does not want to die, and she does not want to bet on her ability to enjoy being tortured.

Time to find an even more obscure corner of the palace to do her work in. Making it slightly more inconvenient to find her could mean the difference between life and death. And she does not enjoy the thought of him raping her in public, which he would certainly do if he happened to find her working at one of the desks in the scribes' room. If he bent her over her desk and told her to beg for his cock, she'd do it, and she'd enjoy it, and she'd be horribly humiliated to have other people watching at the time.

The caravan finally arrives, and he takes his pick of the girls, and he can clearly see his harem overseer biting back a comment about how maybe this time he should try not to use them all up inside a week.

It's not like he kills them every time. He didn't kill that scribe.

He thinks of her often over the next few days. Niamira. Pretty name, pretty mouth. She was so deliciously terrified, but she wanted him anyway. It was nice. Different. If he kills that one he's not likely to find a replacement anytime soon.

Well, killing them isn't strictly necessary...

He practices healing. Once he slips and loses the girl anyway, but only once. He's the most powerful mage in the world, and healing is not that hard.

A week after he first saw her, he goes looking for the scribe again.

The scribe has taken her lamp and lap-desk to one of the eastern towers, the ones that haven't been used in a few thousand years because people are superstitious about the beautiful view of the desert. The light coming in the window is bright enough that she barely needs the lamp. She's almost convinced that the Emperor has forgotten about her.

He ascends the turning stair in perfect elven silence, so the first she hears of him is when he says, "I was starting to think you'd run off."

Fuck.

"N-no, my lord," she says, looking up. "I - I like the quiet."

"And the view?"

He crosses the room to stand by the window. The desert is beautiful.

"Dragons are real, you know," he says conversationally. "I saw one when I was just a boy. Everyone said it had to be an illusion, but I've never been fooled by glamour in my life." He rests his hand on top of her head, gently stroking her hair with his fingers. "I think I'd like to be a dragon."

What the fuck do you even say to that.

"I think you'd make a lovely one, my lord," is the first thing that comes to mind.

"I think so too."

He closes his fist in her hair.

"Would you still want me?"

She squeezes her eyes shut and whimpers. "Yes -"

"You want me right now, don't you."

He drags her to her feet. Her lap-desk tumbles to the floor; the ink-bottle shatters, spattering everything nearby with drops of ink and engulfing her papers in a slowly expanding black puddle.

"Take off that dress."

"Yes, my lord."

She unties the laces and shrugs out of the sleeves and lets the dress fall to the floor. Now is not the time to complain about ink stains.

He looks at her approvingly for a moment, and then he forms illusory claws that harden into reality just long enough for him to shred her undergarments with them. A few seconds later she's bleeding heavily from shallow scratches and wearing nothing but a few bloodstained shreds, and the blades on the ends of his fingers fade to light and smoke and nothingness.

"Aren't you beautiful," he says. "You look good in red."

Whimper.

He's still holding her up by her hair; he wrenches her head to one side and bites her neck. Blood wells from the marks of his teeth. He licks it away.

It hurts. Much worse than having her underclothes torn off.

She needn't have worried that she might not like to be hurt.

"Please, my lord, fuck me."

"Not often I hear a girl say that."

He lets go of her hair, wraps his hands around her thighs, picks her up and pins her against the wall beside the window.

"I think I like it. Say it again."

"Please fuck me, oh, please, I want you, I've wanted you since the first time you touched me, I want you to take me, I want you to hurt me, I want -"

She can have what she wants. Hard, fast, violent. He can hear her bones crack when he slams her into the wall.

It's perfect.

"Thank you, my lord," she gasps, and then her head hits the wall a little too hard and she's too dizzy to put words together anymore.

When he's done, he sets her gently back down in the chair where she was working when he found her, and he runs his bloodstained hands through her hair and heals her cracked bones and bruised head and bloody wounds.

"I like it up here," he says. "I wonder where you'll lead me next."

And he puts an illusion over his crumpled, bloodstained clothes, and turns and leaves the room.

She sits there in a daze, feeling his seed trickle out of her, remembering that he always murders his girls with spectacular violence on the rare occasion that he gets one pregnant. She'd better start drinking contraceptive tea every morning.

That... was much better than she could possibly have hoped for. He healed her. He values her. He likes that she wants him.

Well. Time to arrange her entire life around that, then.

Her shift and wraps are irrecoverable; she uses them to wipe most of the rest of the blood off herself. Her dress, although spotted with blood and soaked in ink, is at least structurally intact; she puts it back on. Her day's work is also a total loss. She dutifully reports her inexcusable clumsiness to the junior clerk, who looks at her bedraggled state and sighs and tells her that given her flawless record she's allowed to fall down the stairs once in a while without getting whipped for it. She skips dinner and stays up half the night rewriting everything she was supposed to have done that day, and by the next morning she's caught up.

She seeks out interesting places to hide. Different parts of the eastern towers; secluded gardens; a portrait gallery only accessible by an awkwardly cramped spiral stair from a small and mostly useless corridor behind the main dining hall... she wonders what that one's about, when she finds it. There's a room past the far end of the gallery with a lovely comfortable window seat that gets excellent light all day and offers a beautiful view of the woods to the south. After spending one afternoon there, she hauls a folding desk up the awkward stair and starts doing all her work in that window seat, with her ink bottle securely seated in the round well at the corner of the desk. Her lap-desk is still more comfortable for most purposes, but she's not going to lose another entire day's work and set of clothes unless the Emperor deliberately decides to ruin them.

And, three days after their last encounter:

"There you are! Well done. I haven't seen this place in centuries."

He sits next to her on the window seat and runs his fingers through her hair.

She carefully caps her pen and puts it down and nudges the desk away.

"Good morning, my lord," she murmurs.

"You like your privacy, don't you? Take off your dress."

"Yes, my lord."

She wriggles out of the dress, leaving her in a plain white shift with nothing at all underneath it.

He laughs. "Have you been leaving your loins bare all this time just to stop me from ruining another set of underwear for you?"

"Yes, my lord," she admits.

"But you still wear this," he tugs on the shift, "because...?"

"It would be noticeable if I went without, and who am I to deprive you of the pleasure of tearing my clothes off?"

He gathers her into his lap. "Very thoughtful of you," he says. "As for me, I wore illusions today."

In the half-second it takes him to tear the shift off her body and drop it on the floor, all the many formerly solid layers of his clothing turn to insubstantial vapour. Wreathed in dissipating glamour-mist, he pulls her down onto his cock.

"Oh, my lord..."

"What a lovely creature you are."

This time, he fucks her slowly. The only pain is the bruises his fingers press into her hips.

She liked being violently raped but she likes this, too, the not-quite-gentleness, the inescapable strength of his hands, the way he feels inside her.

"Thank you, my lord," she breathes.

"You haven't mentioned our little trysts to anyone, have you. Are you ashamed of yourself, Niamira?"

Her breath catches; she shivers with fear.

"Y-yes, my lord," she manages, because what else is she going to do? Lie? She does still value her life. She just hopes he's not offended.

"Why? It's not like you had a choice. I hold the power of life and death over you and every other human in the world. If you displease me I could put out your eyes and cut off your hands and feet and have you strung up outside to be eaten alive by crows."

She shivers again.

"I'm - I'm ashamed of wanting you," she whispers. "I don't want anyone to know -"

He laughs.

"If I wanted to," he says, squeezing her hips, "I could have you in my lap like this in my throne room. Everyone at court could see the way your face looks when I fuck you. Everyone could see you sitting on my cock, naked and willing, begging me to hurt you. Everyone could hear the beautiful sounds you make when I crack your ribs. Would you still want me after that, my lovely Niamira?"

"Yes, my lord," she says, shuddering. "I - please don't do that, please..."

"I can do whatever I want with you," he says. "And I think you like that. Am I right? Tell me."

"I - yes," she whimpers, leaning back against his chest. "I like that I'm helpless in your power, I like that you terrify me, I like that you're taller and stronger and the Emperor of Nenassa and at your whim I could be eaten by crows or gang-raped or tortured to death. You're so beautiful and you feel so good inside me and I want you so badly, I think about it all the time, I sit by this window and pull up my skirts and touch myself thinking about how much I want you to rape me."

He wraps his arms around her waist, kisses the top of her head, rests his cheek against her hair.

"Go on," he murmurs.

"I like it when you grab my hair and haul me around. I liked choking on your cock and I liked being fucked to pieces against a wall and I like being held in your lap. I like when you hurt me. I think about you torturing me. I've thought about you raping me with a branding iron and I wanted it. I want you to rape me in ways I've never even dreamed of. I want you to tie me to your bed and make me beg for your cock. I want you to hold me down and fuck me while I scream and cry and try to get away. I want you to rip me apart and heal me and do it all over again."

She's squirming in his lap, now - not at all trying to escape, rather the opposite in fact.

"I like that you want these things," he says. "I like it very much. My lovely Niamira. Maybe next time I'll drag you naked through the halls by your hair all the way to my bedroom and then give you everything you ask me for."

"Ohhhhh please my lord," she moans, reaching a hand between her legs.

He catches her wrist and squeezes, cracking it. "Tell me how much you want me again. Tell me all the awful things you want me to do to you."

"I - I like that you own me - I like that you can do whatever you want with me - I want you to beat me, I want you to break every bone in my body, I want you to violate me with a spiked club and then fuck my shredded bleeding cunt -"

At that, he makes a soft encouraging sound and reaches his hand between her legs, with just a little lifecraft to sweeten the touch.

She shrieks with pleasure, arching, writhing, clenching around him like a fist.

He holds her like that and fucks her until he finishes, then stands and lets her tumble from his lap onto the floor. As he walks away, he wraps himself in illusory clothing, light and air turning to silk and linen.

He does not heal her broken wrist.

There is only so far the junior clerk can cover for her, and a scribe with a broken wrist can't make up lost work by staying up late. He's apologetic about it, but he passes her along to the overseer, who arranges for a healing and a whipping in that order, to discourage further carelessness.

She does not want to be dragged through the halls by her hair.

She finds a small courtyard just a few turns away from the Emperor's bedchamber. There is a tiny fir tree in a little round pot set in a bed of round white pebbles, and a bench in the shade of two palace walls where she can sit and write. Her back aches under its bandages. She wonders if the Emperor will like her whip-marks. She wonders if he'll be annoyed that she's working so close to his rooms. He seemed to think it was cute when she stopped wearing underwear so he couldn't destroy it. (She is still in fact not wearing underwear. It's a little distracting, but the courtyard is not quite private enough for her to consider indulging her distraction.)

And the second day after -

"Clever girl," he says, stepping into the courtyard. "Nothing's stopping me from dragging you naked through every hall in this palace, you know."

"I know, my lord. But at least now you'll only do it if you want to and not because it happened to be convenient."

"Maybe I'll just tear off all your clothes and make you walk through the palace naked if you ever want to leave my bedchamber again," he says, crossing the courtyard to grab her by the hair and lift her off her bench. "Are you still leaving off your loin-wraps so I can't I destroy them? Let's find out."

He pulls up her skirts one-handed as she dangles above the ground, and when he finds the answer to his question, he shoves her against the wall and starts fucking her with his fingers. His left hand lets go of her hair and wraps around her throat instead.

She whimpers when her back hits the wall, and then his hand is around her neck and she can no longer whimper, which is a good thing because if she could scream with pleasure she would be. She wants to beg him to fuck her, or just to keep doing this - is it magic, some trick of elven lifecraft, that makes the touch of his hand feel so good, or is it just that she's so sexually obsessed with her depraved rapist Emperor that anything he does to her is the best thing she's ever felt -

She's gorgeous when she's lost in pleasure like this.

He keeps his hand on her neck for longer than he meant to.

Her twitching and wriggling and tiny muffled sounds get weaker and weaker until finally she goes limp in his arms.

Well.

He carries her to his rooms. He tears off her clothes and fucks her, and when he's done and she still hasn't woken up, he heals her in case he did more damage than he thought. Then he leaves her in his bed and goes off to do boring imperial things for an hour.

She wakes up. Naked, in the Emperor's bed, with the Emperor's seed drying stickily between her thighs.

She looks around for a bath. There is a bath. She takes a bath. It's the most stunningly decadent experience she has had in her life.

She goes back to the Emperor's bed. The remains of her dress are on the floor beside it. If she had needle and thread and a day to work on them she could probably salvage something wearable out of the mess. She folds it all up tidily but leaves it where it is.

He broke her wrist last time she tried to touch herself in his presence - but he likes that she wants him and he likes it when she does slightly audacious things. And he choked her until she passed out and then fucked her and left her lying in his bed and she wants him very very badly right now and he's not here -

She climbs into bed and thinks about him fucking her while she was unconscious, what it would have been like if she'd felt it, his cock moving inside her while she lay limp and helpless. She closes her eyes and imagines him touching her.

Just as she's beginning to relax afterward, in the moment before she opens her eyes, the Emperor puts his hand on her throat.

Her eyes fly open. Suddenly she is simultaneously much less sure this was a good idea and much more glad she did it.

"I will have to think of a way to punish you for your presumption," he says. "Later."

He squeezes her throat once, then lets go.

"Right now, I want to hold you down and fuck you while you struggle to get away. Don't be shy about trying; I want you to know exactly how helpless you are."

Well, if that's what he wants...

She immediately leaps out of bed and bolts for the door.

An illusory panel of stone flashes into existence in the doorway, sealing it shut.

Fuck it's so hot that he can do that.

She goes for a window instead -

Now the windows are sealed too, and the room is so dark she can barely see.

She flings herself to the floor and rolls under the bed and curls up as small as she can.

He reaches under the bed and grabs her by the hair and drags her out.

"I appreciate all the effort you're putting in," he says, heaving her onto the bed -

- where as soon as his grip on her hair is loose enough she promptly springs away again -

- and, elf-silent, he leaps after her and tackles her to the floor, then picks her up and carries her back to bed.

She struggles furiously the whole way. It gains her nothing except that now she really desperately wants him to fuck her.

"How's that for helplessness?" he says, pinning her down and forcing her legs apart without apparent effort. "Tell me how much you're enjoying this. And don't you dare stop fighting me."

She whimpers, squirms, tries to shove him away. Nothing works. He is immovable, a force of nature.

"It's perfect," she sobs, "fuck, I want you so badly, fuck me, please my lord, hold me down and rape me, use me, violate me, I need your cock inside me, my cunt aches for you, I want you more than anything, I don't want to escape, I belong to you by right, my lord, my Emperor, powerful, beautiful, perfect, please..."

He gives her what she asks for. Holds her down and takes her violently, ignores her fruitless struggles, leaves bruises everywhere his hands touch.

It's quite possibly the best he's ever had.

She fights until her strength fails her, screams until her voice gives out. By the end she is barely able to move. She aches all over and she has never felt more thoroughly satisfied in her life.

He sprawls beside her on his enormous bed and runs his fingers through her hair.

"What a treasure you are," he says. "I'm going to keep you for a very long time."

She's a little too wrung out to say anything in response, but she manages a contented sigh.

"But I can't have you thinking you can do whatever you want," he says, still petting her hair. "So tomorrow I am going to let the fighters borrow you for the morning. If you try to get away from them, they can have you all day. And you can think about that next time you want to pleasure yourself in my bed. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, my lord," she whispers hoarsely. "Please don't - please -"

"Afterward I think I'll torture you. I want to find out how badly I can wreck you and have you still enjoy it."

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

"You can use my bath. You can sleep in my bed. But your pleasure belongs to me. Do not try to take it for yourself."

"Yes, my lord."

(The way he reacted, though... she's pretty sure he wants her to do it again.)

"Good girl."

He sits up and pulls her into his lap, and uses lifecraft to lift a little of her exhaustion, and then he conjures food in bite-sized pieces and feeds it to her. You're not supposed to eat illusory food, because no one is good enough to make it sufficiently real. He is good enough. Always has been.

It's not the life she would have chosen for herself if she'd had a choice, but she has to admit there's something very nice about being hand-fed by the most powerful man in the world.

"You'll sleep in my bed tonight," he says, running his fingers through her hair.

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

"As much fun as it was chasing you all around the castle, I want you in my reach from now on." He wraps his arms around her, possessively.

She's still exhausted but oh that feels nice.

He holds her for a while longer, and then snuggles under the blanket and curls up around her. It's hard to tell how quickly he falls asleep.

Niamira feels like she should be too frightened to sleep, but in fact she's out like a light almost immediately.

The illusory stone barriers fade away. Moonlight streams in the window.

He wakes in the middle of the night wanting her, and she's right there in his arms, precious and fragile and perfect. Her skin is so soft under his hands. Her ink-stained fingers are delicate and beautiful, and he could break them at a whim, but he doesn't want to. He wants to roll her onto her back and kiss the lovely line of her throat and fuck her. And she is his to use exactly as he pleases, so that is what he does.

She wakes up with his cock inside her, and for a disoriented moment she has no idea where she is or who is fucking her, and she struggles instinctively, kicking and twisting and shoving at his chest with her hands.

He laughs softly.

It's a very recognizable laugh. She stops fighting and instead spreads her legs for him with a moan of surrender.

He kisses her neck again. "My treasure," he whispers.

"Oh, yes, my lord..."

He spends himself in her with a happy sigh, wraps himself around her again, and goes back to sleep.

She stays awake a little longer this time. With a gang-rape to look forward to in the morning, she's not especially eager for the night to end.

...it would be stupid to touch herself right now. It would be so, so stupid. Even though she went unsatisfied this time and she really, really wants to. She will not do this stupid thing. She will not. He'll wake up and add to her punishment and she will regret it so very much. No.

...at this point she's probably better off going to sleep. She closes her eyes and tucks her face against the Emperor's neck and breathes the warm scent of his skin, and eventually, she sleeps.

In the morning, he leaves her sleeping and does real work for a couple of hours, and then he comes back and drags her out of bed by her hair.

She whimpers in confusion - flails - finds her balance - kneels at his feet.

"Good morning, pet."

She looks so pretty down there. Nervous, frightened, still yielding to him without question.

He twists his hand in her hair and pulls her forward and fucks her mouth.

Niamira chokes helplessly on his cock.

And she still wants it, still thrills to it, but she's sleepy and distracted and it's not nearly as good as the first time.

She had better not be getting tired of this already - if her desperate lust to be raped by the Emperor vanishes as suddenly as it arrived, she is definitely going to be tortured to death and she won't even like it - and now she feels the right mix of terror and longing, good.

When he's finished, he pulls her mouth away and waits for her to catch her breath.

She recovers quickly this time. At least, she stops coughing and manages to swallow. The taste of him in her mouth feels right - but now she's practically dizzy with desire and he's hardly about to give her what she wants.

He drags her to her feet and spins an illusory dress that settles into solidity around her body. It's lovely, and exquisitely comfortable, and she looks stunning in it. Particularly with her lips so pink and wet and her hair so wild and tangled.

"You look beautiful," he says. "I'm sure the boys will be thrilled to have such a treat. Their overseer will be expecting you; do you know the way to the courtyard by the barracks?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Don't dawdle; that dress will only last you a quarter of an hour."

"Yes my lord. Thank you my lord."

That's barely enough time to get to the gladiators' barracks from here, if she hurries. She hurries. She does not want to end up running naked through the palace.

The overseer is expecting her; he confirms her identity ('Niamira, former scribe' - that hurts more than she was expecting) and directs her into a courtyard by the barracks as her dress dissolves into fading mist.

"The Emperor sent over one of his girls!" he announces. "Anything goes as long as you don't kill or cripple her! She's here all morning, and if she tries to run she stays until dinner!"

There is a general yell of approval. Men pour into the courtyard. Niamira stands frozen. There are so many - she loses count after eight - and they're leering at her and she's naked and - she wants to run, but running will make it worse - and she's still desperately aroused and this is the closest she's going to get to satisfaction until the Emperor tortures her afterward -

She bursts into tears.

Some of them are put off by that, but some are encouraged, and it's one of the latter who grabs her by the arm and drags her into the courtyard. There's a circle of benches around a gaming table, all in pale grey stone; he twists her arm to make her bend over the table. She clutches the edge of the table with her free hand, whimpering with fear and humiliation. Why did it have to be a public courtyard - anyone could pass by along the upper walkways and see her -

The man behind her shoves his cock in her cunt. She sobs. He laughs.

It hurts - her twisted arm, the edge of the table digging into her thighs, her breasts pressing down on the cold polished stone, his cock driving into her with careless brutality. But the worst part is that she wants it. It's not as good as the Emperor but it's good enough to make her want to beg for more. That's who she is now, apparently. Niamira, former scribe, desperate to be raped.

The first man spills his seed in her and drops her on the table; she untwists her arm with a whimper of relief. Someone comes up in front of her and grabs her hair and pulls her forward, and someone else comes up behind her and grabs her hips and pulls her back, and the table is not narrow enough to support both their ambitions, and in the ensuing tug-of-war she is slammed against the table multiple times with bruising force. She closes her eyes and sobs helplessly. The sensation of being hauled around by her hair makes her miss the Emperor. When the Emperor rapes her, he does it in private. It's amazing how much difference that makes.

Finally, the man behind her wins the game, although the one in front comes away with several strands of hair as a consolation prize. She grips the edge of the table with both hands and rests her tearstained cheek on the smooth stone and waits to be violated again.

She feels something press between her buttocks and she gasps and tenses, suppressing the urge to struggle - if she fights too much they might get to keep her all day - "please, no," she whimpers, but all that gets her is laughter from the gathered crowd.

He forces his way in slowly, a little at a time, sharp shallow thrusts that make her cry out in pain. His cock feels enormous, and she doesn't know whether that's because it is or because she's never been fucked there before, but it hurts like it's tearing her apart. And she still wants it. She craves that ripping pain. He pulls back and thrusts deep, and she screams in glorious agony.

It's not worse than ten cracked ribs, but it's more intimate, a greater violation. She wishes it was the Emperor's cock splitting her open like this. She closes her eyes and imagines she's in his bedroom, bent over a much prettier table - but then something hot and sticky splatters across her back, and she sobs and gives up on self-deception. Broad hands close tight on her hips as her current rapist drives deeper, faster, nearing his release. Someone else spends himself over her and it lands in her hair. The man behind her groans and thrusts sharply, once, twice, again, and then he pulls away. In the moment before another steps up to take his place, she can feel a wet trickle down her thighs and she doesn't know whether it's sweat or seed or blood.

The third man's cock slides into her cunt. She weeps with gratitude. It hurts but so much less, she wants it and hates wanting it but there is so much less hate with the wanting, and so much less shame - please, let them all want to rape her cunt or her mouth, twice each if they like, but not her ass again, not that...

She has no power to change how they want her. Whatever they do to her, her only choice is whether to fight and make it worse, or endure and avoid further punishment.

It feels so good to be fucked like this, bent over a table, bruised and beslimed, her throat raw from screaming and sobbing, her cunt filled with a stranger's hot hard cock. She hears herself letting out little whimpers of pleasure when he thrusts into her, and she bites her tongue and presses her face against the table to cool a shame-flushed cheek. Another splash of seed lands in her hair. She's going to be disgusting when this is over. She's already disgusting.

The third man finishes and a fourth steps up to take his turn at her cunt. She's going to lose count eventually.

"I want her mouth," says a voice; a hand grabs her hair and yanks painfully.

"Wait your turn," someone else objects.

"There won't be time for all of us unless we double up. Come on, move her somewhere else."

"Not until I'm done," says the one raping her.

"We should find a way to make her run. Get her all day." The hand in her hair twists and pulls again; she blinks back tears of pain. "Nobody said we can't beat her half to death. What do you say, girl? You run for that gate when he's done fucking you or I swear I'll make you wish you had."

It's about four hours to noon, and dinner is at six after. If she runs, they get her for more than twice the time. Even if this one means what he says, she has no guarantees about the rest of them. They could beat her half to death anyway. They could take turns fucking her ass all afternoon and into the evening. And there's a part of her that thrills to that - but she does not want to let those urges rule her. She does not want more of this.

The fourth man finishes. The talkative one hauls her up by her hair and then lets her go. She staggers on cramped and aching legs, loses her balance, and crumples to the ground. For the first time, she can see the streaks of blood down her thighs.

Someone kicks her. She bows her head and waits.

"Fetch that rug over here," says the one who threatened her. He grabs her by the hair again. The rug unrolls next to her, a thick dense soft square nearly twice her height across that looks like it belongs next to a bath as luxurious as the Emperor's. He hauls her onto it - she crawls clumsily but quickly, afraid he'll pull her hair out by the roots - he stuffs his cock in her mouth, and another man kneels behind her to fuck her ass. She chokes, tries to breathe, fails, starts to panic - he pulls her mouth off his cock and smacks her across the face, hard enough that she tastes blood where her teeth cut her cheek.

"Ready to run yet?" he asks. She hangs her head and doesn't answer. He holds her by the hair and hits her again. She spits blood on the rug. The other man - fifth or sixth, she supposes - is still fucking her torn and bleeding ass. It hurts more the second time. Would it really be so bad, six more hours of this? Painful, humiliating, nasty, messy, violating, dangerous - and she's still tempted -

This is her punishment. It's a very effective one. If she starts liking it, the Emperor will just have to find something worse to threaten her with. He wants her alive, he wants her wanting him - would she still want him if he broke all her fingers and let them heal crooked so she could never hold a pen again? Probably. She doesn't want it to come to that.

The threatener shoves his cock down her throat again. She can't breathe - she wants so badly to be in the Emperor's bed, with the Emperor raping her, safely, privately - she can't breathe - they aren't allowed to kill her but how good are they at that, if he chokes her unconscious and then chokes her some more he will be in a world of trouble but she will be dead - he pulls away and she gasps in a grateful breath, tears streaming down her face.

"You're not - allowed - to kill me," she manages, the sentence broken into pieces by the way her whole body jerks when the other man thrusts his cock in her ass.

"We've had accidents before with the Emperor's girls. He doesn't mind that much."

- fuck.

She knows this is different. She doesn't know how to tell him that, not in a way he'll believe. Is he bluffing? He laughs at the look on her face. She doesn't think he's bluffing.

She would rather be gang-raped for six hours than die.

If the Emperor was watching, he wouldn't let that happen. But the Emperor doesn't seem to be watching.

It's hard to think while being violently raped.

What if they kill her anyway - no, they won't, the only use of trying to kill her is as a threat, it's just stupid otherwise - he will choke her to death with his cock if she doesn't do this, and she'll take any amount of rape over death, she knows that already.

The man fucking her ass finally finishes. The man who threatened to kill her with his cock moves to choke her with it again.

She twists away, losing some hair in the process, and bolts for the gate she came in by. Someone catches her after only a few steps. She struggles furiously. He laughs and gropes her breasts, which are already beginning to show bruises from the game of tug-of-war over the table; she moans in pain. He picks her up, more clumsily than the Emperor would have, and carries her back to the rug, where the one who threatened her is waiting. Laughing. Triumphant.

Niamira spits blood in his face.

He wipes it away and glares. "Give me that bitch," he says, reaching for her, and when he has hold of her he turns her around and shoves his cock into her ravaged ass. She whimpers. He fucks her viciously, angrily, driving his cock into her like a spear. There's no reason not to struggle now, so she does, and it only makes it hurt more; she is deliciously helpless. Her cunt throbs with need. Someone else starts fucking her mouth. She tries to pull away, but he has her by the hair. He finishes quickly; she barely has time to swallow his seed before another man replaces him. Meanwhile, the one she spat on is still fucking her ass, and it hurts more and more, and she sobs with pain around the cock in her mouth. She's lost track of how many men have raped her by now. A hot jet of seed paints her ribs.

Her ass feels raw; being fucked like this hurts as though she's being violated with a hard roll of coarse sandpaper. Was it worth it, to spit on him? Yes. He's going to make her suffer but he was going to do that anyway, and he won't kill her - the rest of them wouldn't stand for it.

She can barely see through tears of pain and shame. She hurts so much, and they're going to have her all day; it's only going to get worse from here. But she'll live. The important thing is that she'll live.

It feels like an endless procession of men grab her hair and fuck her mouth and pour their seed down her throat while the one she spat on is still violently raping her ass. She gasps and sobs and struggles fruitlessly, and he digs his fingers into her hips and grunts with effort and violates her again and again, brutally, mercilessly, until the pain is more than she thought possible, until she's too weak to keep fighting. She closes her eyes and lets them move her how they want, accepts the agony and humiliation, stops trying to pull away. They have her on all fours on the rug, her head pulled back to put her mouth where they can reach it, her bruised hips and bleeding ass still claimed by the man who got her to run. She is a thing for them to fuck, a vessel for their seed, helpless to resist, and she likes it that way.

When he finishes at last, lets go of her and moves away, she whimpers with relief around a mouthful of cock. Someone else lies down on the rug and pulls her over to him - the man fucking her mouth spills his seed over her face, and it gets in her eyes and stings awfully - she catches a blurry glimpse of the new man's enormous cock before he shoves it in her slick throbbing cunt. She moans with pain and desire. He fucks her hard and fast, his hands tight on her thighs, and for the first time today she feels her pleasure build toward release. Please, let him keep going, just a little longer, she wants it so badly - someone else starts fucking her mouth - she's shaking with pleasure, whining with need - she hopes they mistake it for pain, but they can't all be that stupid, they're going to know she likes it, they're going to know she lusts for rape -

Someone kneels behind her and presses his cock against her ass and her whole body goes rigid with terror. He thrusts, and the shock of pain is the worst yet, and she tries to scream but chokes on a spurt of seed, and she's helpless and violated and desperate and filled and overfilled and this, this is better than the Emperor, this pain and degradation, this gloriously awful feeling. Forced open painfully, raped in every way possible, she is so overcome with pleasure that she barely notices when one man is replaced by another. It's like being endlessly fucked by a single insatiable beast with a thousand cocks.

Eventually the tide of her pleasure begins to ebb, and they are still fucking her. She trembles with exhaustion, aching all over, and they are still fucking her. Anonymous hands pinch her breasts and buttocks, layering bruises on top of bruises, and her ass is rubbed so raw that the slightest touch is agony, and her cunt is not much better, and they are still fucking her. Her voice is gone; her head is spinning; her eyes are crusted shut; she has never felt more disgusting in her life, and for once instead of being desperate for violation she is desperate for rest, and still they continue to rape her in every available hole.

She will not have to worry that this is insufficient punishment.

They bring her to her hands and knees again, and she collapses immediately in a voicelessly whimpering heap, so they drag her off somewhere and bend her over a rough wooden crate. Someone forces his cock into her mouth and someone else claims her cunt, but they can't get a third one into her like this, so her ass enjoys a few minutes of blessed relief before the next man decides he wants it. It's worse for having had the break. Her breath comes in hoarse little sobs, and to her shame she finds there is a part of her that likes this too, even though she's too exhausted to enjoy it properly, there's still a kind of satisfaction in being raped until she climaxes and then raped past the point of exhaustion and then raped some more.

Unable to open her eyes, lost to the passage of time, she's startled when a gong rings out to signal noon. The two men fucking her finish quickly, and then they leave her where she is and go join their fellows for lunch. She lies there, draped over the crate, bruised and torn and utterly wrung out, and doesn't even bother trying to move.

It comes as a complete surprise when, barely a minute later, someone throws a coarse blanket over her and picks her up. "Lunch and a bath for you," he says. "And maybe a little healing if that doesn't pick you up by itself. They'll want you fresh for the afternoon."

She's not entirely sure she's capable of bathing herself without drowning, just now, but she also can't speak to object. He probably won't just dump her in a tub of water and leave. Probably.

He carries her for a little while, and then hands her off to a bath attendant with murmured instructions she is too dizzy and exhausted to hear. A door closes. The air is warm and humid. Someone unwraps the blanket and lowers her gently into warm water, keeping hold of her shoulders so she doesn't slip under and drown. Her eyes are still glued shut, but she thinks the room seems unexpectedly dark. The person holding her shifts their grip to free one hand, and runs that hand down her chest and stomach, slowly, intimately. Is the bath attendant a rapist too? At least they're a gentle one so far.

The person, whoever they are, climbs in the bath with her and strokes her body softly with gentle hands. She feels vaguely that it should take more than that, but somehow just a touch is enough to leave her skin clean and fresh. She winces when the hands move down between her legs, but it doesn't hurt at all when they slide their fingers into her cunt. A healer? No, wait - that touch is familiar -

"My lord," she whispers.

"Shhhh," says the Emperor's voice. "Don't try to talk yet. You look a lovely mess." He explores her with his fingers, first her cunt, then her ass. Her ass hurts, and she winces, hissing in pain. The Emperor chuckles. "I think I'll leave healing that for last," he says. His hands slide up her body again, and all her bruises melt away under his touch. He gives her throat a gentle squeeze, and that stops hurting too. Then he cups her face in his hands and pulls her head underwater.

It's the Emperor. If he wants her dead she will die. If he doesn't, she won't. She offers no resistance.

He strokes her face gently with his fingertips, cleaning that too by whatever strange magic he's been using. His hands tangle in her hair. It's getting hard to breathe. He lifts her up again, and she inhales and opens her eyes.

The first thing she sees is his face, a dim shape in the dark.

"Did you enjoy your morning?" he asks, with a hint of a smile.

"...I feel very punished, my lord," she says humbly.

"Don't be coy." He reaches between her legs and touches her with lifecraft.

She bites back a whimper at the sudden spark of pleasure. "Ah - I wanted it but I wanted you more," she says. "I wished it were you. I imagined it was you. When they were raping my ass, my empty cunt yearned for your cock."

"Well, that's certainly not coy," he says, drifting closer and scooping her into his lap.

She can feel his hard cock nudging her thigh. She wriggles, trying to get it where she wants it. Her exhaustion seems entirely gone. "Please, my lord, fuck me," she begs. "I need you inside me, please, please -"

With one hand around her throat, strangling her so she can't scream, he pulls her close and plunges his cock into her ass.

She arches her back, struggling helplessly. It's so awful and so good, better than anything the gladiators did to her - almost anything -

He lets go of her neck and breathes in her ear, "Tell me you want this."

"Oh, my lord, it hurts, it hurts so much," she whimpers. "I want it, I want you, please my lord, I like how you hurt me, I like how you rape me, I want you to fuck me just like this, hurt me, use me, leave me wanting -"

He gives her what she wants. Water splashes as he fucks her. It's brutal and painful and violent.

And then he finishes, and holds her, and heals her, and reaches between her legs to stroke her with lifecraft.

She's still relaxing blissfully into the long-awaited absence of pain when unexpected pleasure blooms under his touch. She throws her head back and moans, spreading her legs, shaking in his arms. The Emperor's magic fingers are amazing.

"Thank you, my lord," she gasps, "that's so good, oh fuck that feels so good, oh, oh, my pleasure is yours, oh, yes -"

He lets her writhe a little longer before he takes his hand away.

"I own you and I own your pleasure," he says. "Remember that."

"Yes, my lord," she sighs happily.

"Is that the best thing you've ever felt?" he asks, petting her damp and tangled hair. It unknots itself under his hands.

She opens her mouth to say yes, and thinks of the blissful agony of being gang-raped, and... hesitates.

His hands go still.

"If not that, then what?" he asks softly.

"I - when the gladiators had me, my lord," she says, shivering nervously in the warm water. "They - they fucked my ass until it bled, and then they had me on the ground with three men fucking me, in my ass and my cunt and my mouth, and it felt so bad and so good, it hurt so much and I was so - invaded, violated, full to bursting - it was the best and worst thing I'd ever felt. Better than anything you've done to me... yet. I have every faith you will surpass it, my lord."

"Good answer."

He holds her for a minute more in silence, and then moves her so his cock presses against her ass.

"Tell me you want it," he says.

She whimpers with fear.

"Yes my lord, please my lord, please rape my ass again, I'm terrified of it and I want it so much, please..."

He pulls her down, slowly, gently. It barely hurts at all.

She gasps at the feeling - so good, so different, it's wonderful when it doesn't hurt - "thank you, my lord, oh, fuck -"

"Mine."

Something about the way he says that - not just 'mine, one of my possessions' but 'mine, something important to me' - now is not the time to think about what it means, but she'll remember it for later.

In the meantime, she leans back against him and surrenders to pleasure. If he wants her to feel good right now, she can do that.

That is exactly what he wants. He fucks her slowly, tenderly, and when he feels her relax completely he reaches down and strokes her with lifecraft.

"Thank you, my lord," she breathes, shuddering with slow waves of pleasure. "So good, my lord. The way you touch me, the way your cock feels inside me... I want you, I need you, you make me feel so good, oh..."

"I own your pleasure. I own your pain," he murmurs in her ear. "You told me you liked that I could have you gang-raped. Do you still?"

"Yes, my lord," she moans. "It was awful, it was wonderful, I loved it, I hated it, I'm terrified you'll do it again..."

"And you still have the rest of the day with them," he says, withdrawing his hand from between her legs and wrapping his arms around her. "If you're very lucky, maybe they'll spend the whole time raping you just the way you like it."

She whimpers softly at the thought.

"You're all clean and healed," he says, settling back against the edge of the huge round bathing pool with Niamira in his lap, his cock in her ass and his arms around her waist. "I can send you back to them whenever I like. Are you frightened?"

"Yes, my lord." She shivers. "Please, my lord, I - I don't want to go back there."

"Mm. And I don't have to send you back." He kisses the top of her head. "But I will."

"Yes, my lord."

"Do you like it when I fuck your ass?"

"Yes, my lord. I liked it when it hurt and I like it now. I like that you can have me any way you want me. I like the way it feels. I want you to wake me up with it in the middle of the night."

"Mmm," he says.

"If I ever find out you're making these things up to flatter me, I will kill you slowly."

Shiver. "I would never, my lord. I know better than to lie to you."

"Good."

It feels so nice, floating in his lap with his cock filling her ass. Warm. Peaceful. She hesitates to say anything more, in case she prompts him to send her back to the gladiators. But if she doesn't do anything she might bore him...

His hand drifts down between her legs again.

"Why did you try to run?" he asks, touching her lightly with lifecraft.

She moans softly.

"One - one of them threatened to kill me, my lord," she says. "I would rather be raped all day than die."

"I know," he murmurs in her ear. "I was there. You were never in any danger. If you'd done as you were told, we would be in my very own bath right now, and I would fuck your ass until you begged for release and then find out all the ways you like to be tortured."

She whimpers in quiet despair.

Lifecraft sparks pleasure under his fingers - but not quite enough of it -

"If you're very good this afternoon," he says, "if you don't struggle, if you don't run, if you let them fuck you and let yourself enjoy it, I'll do something nice for you tonight."

He takes his hand away.

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?"

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'..."

She meets his eyes.

"I'd say: everything they did to me, I wanted you to do worse. I would walk across a bed of hot coals to kneel at your feet while you fuck my mouth. If you stood over me with a red-hot poker I would spread my legs and say please. I want you to whip the skin from my back and then hold me in your lap and fuck my ass. I wish there were two of you so you could share me. If you decide to fuck me with a mace I hope it has spikes. You're beautiful and terrifying and I'm glad you can have me gang-raped. My biggest complaint about most of what I went through this afternoon was that you weren't the one doing it. Rape me. Torture me. Fuck me in every hole I have and then make some new ones. I want you to make me scream. I want you to make me cry. I want you to put your child in my belly and then rip it out again."

She drops her eyes demurely.

He grabs her face in his hands and pulls her to him for a deep, violent, passionate kiss.

"You'd best hope you meant that," he breathes, and then he picks her up and carries her to his bed and throws her into it and pounces. Lifecraft kindles warmth and pleasure everywhere his skin touches hers.

...she wasn't expecting quite that strong a reaction but she's hardly about to complain. She wraps her legs around him with a ragged moan. "Oh fuck, oh please, yes, my lord that feels so good, your cock feels so good in my cunt, I love the way you fuck me, love the way you rape me, please, yes, it's so good, you own my pleasure and I wouldn't have it any other way, please, please -"

And then further words are lost in a long loud wail of uttermost ecstasy.

He takes her and takes her and takes her, fucking her like she's the best thing in the world, the only thing in the world. Until she loses her voice from screaming, until he's out of breath and shaky with exhaustion. Then he stops, and heals her of her strained voice and numerous bruises, and curls up and wraps his arms around her and kisses her forehead.

"My lord," she yawns, snuggling close, "you are unparalleled. A lifetime of pleasure in one night."

He smiles and pets her hair. "My lovely Niamira."

"Mmm. Just please don't make it two," she jokes. "We mortals need to sleep occasionally."

"I can do whatever I please with you," he says, nuzzling her cheek.

She sighs happily. "I know."

He laughs and snuggles her and falls asleep that way, wrapped around her like a blanket.

It's... cute. It is unsettling that it's cute, but the fact remains.

And who the fuck cares how unsettling it is that the Emperor treats her like something between a lover and a cherished pet? Better by far than any other way he might conceivably treat her.

He sleeps very soundly.

In the morning, he wakes up and she's right there in his arms and he just holds her for a minute, delighted by her warmth and solidity. All of this belongs to him. Her gorgeous long curly hair, her warm soft skin, the flutter of her pulse, the steady rhythm of her breath. His, his, his. And he is never letting go.

He gets up, eventually. He considers where he would like to put his Niamira's new room. There are a few rooms in his suite that he doesn't use often. He picks one with a nice view that he hasn't touched in ten years because it's mostly old furniture.

Portalmaking is one of the most advanced skills of glamourcraft. If you get anything even slightly wrong in your vision of the place at the other end of your portal, everything you send through it will be destroyed without a trace when the portal closes.

Of course, if all you want is to get rid of a roomful of expensive furniture from several centuries ago, then you can just turn the entire floor into a portal to an empty space swirling with coloured lights, send a gust of wind around to knock the curtains from the windows and the tapestries from the walls, wait for everything to fall through, and then close the portal and be rid of it.

He does that. He regards the newly empty room.

Illusory decor takes shape, and shifts and changes until he's satisfied with the result. A complex spiral of lights strung across the ceiling like dewdrops on an abstract spiderweb; pretty fabrics hanging on the walls; a double set of curtains on the windows, light and dark; a magnificent bed; an even more magnificent desk. She said she wanted calligraphy supplies. He doesn't know enough about calligraphy to create them for her, so he sends for some.

Then he goes off to get some work done, leaving a conjured breakfast next to his bed for whenever she wakes up.

She wakes late. Yesterday was a very tiring day.

...that's breakfast. He left her breakfast.

And -

It doesn't take a genius to figure out which room is supposed to be hers.

She goes in and stands at the window and looks out on the rest of the palace. It's... she hardly knows what to do with it. It's sweet. The Emperor is being sweet to her.

She eats her breakfast and curls up in her lovely new bed and naps for no reason except that she has nothing better to do.

The Emperor wakes her at noon by scooping her out of bed and kissing her.

"You have calligraphy supplies," he says, setting her down so she can see her newly-stocked desk.

"It's beautiful," she says, staring.

Oh, that smile. Oh, that smile is - he wants to pin her to a wall and fuck her senseless, he wants to pick her up and kiss her, he wants to make her smile like that a hundred more times, he wants -

"I'm glad you like it," he says softly.

She turns and beams at him.

He can't help smiling back.

Impulsively, she hugs him.

"Thank you, my lord."

He scoops her up and holds her in his arms and pets her hair.

"You know," he says, "I believe I planned to torture you last night."

"I think I distracted you."

He laughs.

"That you did," he agrees. "Mmmmmm." He kisses the top of her head. "And will you distract me again this time, I wonder?"

"I hope not."

"You are a treasure."

He carries her to another of the rooms in his suite. This one sees much more frequent use. It's empty, of course; otherwise it would get annoying to clean.

Elaborate patterns of tiny lights spread across the high ceiling and down the bare walls. The floor grows a layer of white marble tile. He hums thoughtfully, sets his Niamira down on her feet, pets her hair while he thinks.

"Oh," she says, staring at the suddenly-decorated room in stunned realization. "You can do - anything you can imagine."

"Yes I can."

Pet pet.

"If you've ever asked me for something you didn't really want because you thought I couldn't do it, now is the time to start having regrets."

"Regret is not the feeling I'm having."

He laughs. "Slut," he says affectionately.

"Are you going to make me say I'm a filthy slut who loves to be raped?"

He kisses her.

"You are a radiantly beautiful slut who loves to be raped."

"Flatterer."

Giggling, he kisses her again and wraps a hand around her throat.

He's so in love with her and he has no idea, none at all...

She relaxes, leaning on him. Being strangled is pleasantly thrilling. She doesn't for a moment believe he's going to kill her, but the instincts of the body don't care what she believes. It's lovely.

She's lovely.

"I liked watching them rape you," he murmurs. "I should make it public entertainment sometime. You'd hate that. I could build a stage out in the gardens. Lots of lovely toys. Everyone could come watch you beg to be fucked. I could tie you down and let anyone who wanted have a turn."

He lets go so she can breathe.

"Or better yet, I could not tie you down. You were so good yesterday. I want you to be good like that today. No fighting."

A shaky breath; a nod. "Yes, my lord."

"I want to see what I can do to you and have you still want it. Maybe I'll keep going until you beg me to stop."

"We may be here a while, then, my lord."

He laughs.

A section of the marble floor rises upward. It looks and feels like solid stone, but it moves like water, or like a living thing, rippling under Niamira's feet and catching her when she falls.

She giggles, running her hands along the smoothly curved surface as it builds under her like a wave.

"My lord, I think I like your imagination."

"We'll see about that."

An iron rod materializes in his hand, and continues materializing out to a length comparable to the one she encountered yesterday, except that this one is thicker and more of it is glowing orange-red.

"Oh, fuck," she breathes, staring at it with obvious fear and equally obvious lust.

"Do you remember what you said yesterday, about what you'd do if I stood over you with one of these?"

"I told you I would spread my legs and say please."

She lies back on the bed of rippling stone and spreads her legs, shivering.

"Please, my lord."

He brings it close enough that she can feel the heat radiating onto her thigh, almost exactly where she had that awful burn yesterday -

- and says, "I'm sure you have it in you to be more eloquent than that."

She shivers. She doesn't look.

"I want it in my cunt," she says. "But not for too long, my lord, because I want to be able to feel it when you fuck me afterward. I want you to cover me with burns inside and out and then hold me down and fuck me while I scream and weep with pain. And then I want you to fill my cunt with red-hot iron and hold it there, or better yet fuck me with it. Is that eloquent enough for you, my lord, or should I continue?"

He doesn't answer in words.

The hot iron enters her with violent force and a crackling hiss; the stone curves up to cradle her, holding her in place against that vicious thrust. And then he pulls it out again and lays it along her inner thigh.

She gasps - whimpers - moans loudly, clutching at the stone as it moves. Her legs shake but she keeps them open, welcoming him, welcoming the pain.

When she tries to speak, no words emerge, only a whine of pain and desire.

He burns her other thigh too, for symmetry, and releases the illusion of the hot iron, and runs his hands lightly up the long seared tracks it left in her flesh, waiting for them to be cool enough to comfortably touch.

She tries to find her words again; fails; whimpers helplessly.

"My treasure," he says, settling his hands on her knees and squeezing them affectionately. "My lovely Niamira. I don't think I'll fuck you until you can beg me for it."

She utters a wordless pleading whine.

She is beautiful and fragile and in so much pain and so obviously loving it, and he wants to kiss her and hold her and fuck her and give her everything she wants -

"Try again," he says instead, softly.

"Please," she breathes.

"Go on."

"Please, my lord, fuck me - it hurts so much, it's everything I've dreamed of, I want you so badly, I want you to hurt me, please -"

"That's more like it."

He strokes the long burns on her legs, slowly, with deliberate pressure. They're still hot to the touch, but no longer hot enough to light a fire with.

"Please," she whimpers, between sobs of pain. "I want you, please, fuck me, please - hurt me, rape me, use me, wreck me - it hurts and I love that it hurts, I want to feel you fuck me like this, please, my lord..."

"I like the way you beg," he says, wrapping his hands around her thighs and squeezing. The heat that lingers in the burns is a pleasant warmth, no more.

She moans raggedly, blinking back tears. "Please, my lord..."

He steps closer, runs his hands along the burns, keeps going up to stroke her hips, her breasts, and then back down again, to give her thighs one more squeeze -

- and then he shoves his cock into her blistered cunt and starts fucking her hard.

She screams.

It hurts even more than she thought it would, and it's better that way, it's incredible, deep searing intimate pain like nothing she's ever felt, inescapable, overpowering, incandescent. Every other sensation is drowned in a blaze of ecstatic agony.

"Beautiful," he breathes. "You're beautiful. My Niamira."

He slows down, watching her face, her wonderfully expressive face, listening to the sounds she makes, feeling the heat and the way her burned flesh catches and pulls and cracks apart.

It hurts less when he fucks her slowly. She can feel other things, now, like the tears running down her face, or her fingernails digging into her palms.

"My lord," she sobs. "So fucking good, my lord. Want you - need you - so good - fuck -"

"Mmm. Yes."

She feels amazing. He's so glad he found her. It's never been this good, never, he's raped thousands of girls and a fair number of boys and not one of them has ever had that look on their face - not one has ever begged like she begs, daring him to do his worst, desperate for it -

He spills his seed deep in her ruined cunt, then pulls out slowly, stroking her hips where his fingers left bruises. He's not sure she even noticed the bruises. She had other things on her mind.

She moans. After a moment, she manages to unclench her fists.

"Thank you, my lord. That was wonderful."

He watches her slowly relax, and marvels at how utterly fascinatingly lovely she is. Perfect little thing. It's going to be such a shame when she dies.

His hands slide along her thighs, and this time he heals the burns, and the strain in her legs from holding them apart for him, and the nail-marks in her palms, and the bruised hips she still hasn't noticed. The mound of stone underneath her reshapes itself again, cradling her comfortably, letting her relax as much as she likes.

She stretches out and goes blissfully limp, floating on stone.

He leans down and whispers, "Have you forgotten the next part already?"

Shiver. "No, my lord."

"Are you afraid?"

She smiles slightly. "Yes, my lord."

"You don't look afraid. You look like you couldn't be happier."

"I like the way you make me afraid."

"Mm."

He summons his illusory iron rod again, holds it over her so she can feel the heat on her skin, watches her shiver under its radiated warmth.

"And is this still what you want?"

"Yes, my lord, please," she says, spreading her legs with a soft, helpless moan.

So he sets the end of the rod against her cunt and pushes. Slowly.

She spreads her legs wider, panting and shaking, trying to beg but only managing a broken whimper.

It's beautiful.

He can see her flesh blister and char, hear it sizzle, feel the resistance as burned meat clings to the hot iron. The smell is overpowering.

"I could keep going," he murmurs. "All the way into your womb. If there's a child in there now, there won't be when I'm done with it. Spread your legs for that, my treasure."

...she scrunches her eyes shut and keeps her legs apart.

It hurts, and keeps hurting, more and more the deeper he goes. She has been introduced to so many new levels of pain lately, and this is the worst one yet. It floods her senses, drowning out everything, until she can't even tell if she's screaming, until she can't even wonder if she's screaming.

(She is screaming.)

He does what he promised. He keeps it there while she screams and writhes. He shapes the stone to hold her in place.

And, eventually, he pulls it out. A shower of ash rains down from the illusion when he dissolves it - remnants of her flesh stuck to the iron, now free to break apart and fall.

He waits.

The pain ebbs. She catches her breath. Her cunt is a ravaged mess, all the way in to where he burned out her womb. The slightest movement is agony. She feels dizzy and lightheaded. A hollow shell filled with pain.

And the first thing she says is, "Thank you, my lord."

He laughs.

"You really are a treasure."

"I know," she says, gazing dreamily up at him. "I assure you, my lord, I've never felt more treasured in my life."

...he starts giggling.

She grins.

He scoops her up and hugs her tightly.

She whimpers in pain and clings to him, curling up instinctively even though the movement and the pressure both make it hurt worse.

He kisses her forehead and holds her in his arms and gives her an affectionate squeeze and smiles when she whimpers again.

"My lord," she moans. "Please -"

He strokes her hair. "Yes?"

"I want - I want -" She shudders. "I don't know what I want. I want you to fuck me again, or burn me again, or shove a spiked mace in me - I want - I want to be hurt..."

"Oh? Not interested in mercy?"

Whimper. "It hurts so much and I'm so afraid and oh, my lord, I want it to be worse."

He laughs. He kisses her.

He reshapes the stone again, turning her in his arms so she can see. A cock as long as her forearm, its head as broad as her fist, juts upward from the center of a rippling mound. The way the surface moves makes it look like a pool of water lapping at the stone shaft.

"Like the look of that?" he murmurs. "I want you to ride it like the torture-loving slut you are. Show me how much you want to be hurt."

She stares. She imagines trying to get that thing inside her, right now, the way she is, burned deep enough that if she were anywhere but the Emperor's arms she'd expect to die of it.

It is going to hurt so much.

"Yes, my lord," she breathes.

He puts her down.

She clings to him for a few seconds until she's something like steady on her feet. It hurts to move, hurts to stand, hurts especially bad when she lurches forward to half-collapse onto the flowing stone. The 'water level' rises, lifting her up so that when she crawls up to the stone cock and kneels over it, she doesn't have to straighten up all the way to get on top of it.

She lowers herself cautiously, half expecting the stone 'water' to drop out from under her. It doesn't. He's going to make her do all the work herself.

The pressure of hard stone against her seared crotch is agonizing, and it only gets worse as she moves. Slowly, painfully, she settles down onto the stone cock and lets her weight force it into her cunt. Tears of pain run down her face. Down, down, deeper, deeper, charred flesh cracking and bleeding as the unyielding stone forces it open farther than it can stretch.

And then she's as far down as she can go. She tries, wriggling, whimpering in agony with every movement, but she can't get it any deeper.

"Please, my lord," she moans. "I want it, please, want it to fill me -"

"Then show me. Ride it like it's the best you've ever had. Ride it like it's mine and you're desperate for my seed."

She makes herself move, sliding a little ways up the shaft and then back down again. And again. And again. The rippling stone 'water' sinks slowly, so she gets a little deeper every time.

When it reaches her womb, she shudders and cries out, flinching from the pain, so much worse than what she's been doing to herself so far. And then she takes a deep breath, and lifts herself up and shoves herself down. Pain consumes her. She can barely breathe.

She does it again.

She can't even tell if it's reaching all the way, but she loves fucking herself like this, filling her burned-out cunt with hard stone, tearing herself open on it, giving herself to the pain. She is a torture-loving slut and this is exactly what she wants.

And then the head of the stone cock lodges itself in her womb.

She spasms, thrashing with pain, but it's stuck firmly enough that trying to pull herself off only makes the pain worse. It's almost as intense as when he shoved his hot iron in there in the first place, but she was barely conscious for that, and this time she's lucid enough to really pay attention.

He wraps his arms around her, holds her so she can't struggle, kisses her hair. "My treasure," he says. "My beautiful torture-loving slut, begging to be hurt. Is this what you wanted?"

"Yes," she gasps. "Yes, yes, everything, yes."

He puts his hand between her legs and uses lifecraft to spark pleasure under his fingers.

She screams.

Pain and pleasure wash the world away. There is no such thing as time, as space, as self. The only thing left is sensation, pure and primal.

When she regains the capacity for conscious thought, she is slumped against him, breathless and shaking, the stone cock still buried deep inside her. The pain is intense, but it pales next to what she just felt. She moans.

"You're incredible," he murmurs, petting her hair. "All this and you still want it. Don't you."

She nods unsteadily, not trusting her voice to function.

"Slut," he says affectionately. "Want to see how much worse I can make it?"

She shifts her weight slightly, so she can feel the hard stone inside her refusing to follow. Pain rises like the tide. She whimpers, and clings to him, and nods again.

He wraps his arms around her, and the surface of the stone creeps upward until she's solidly buried in it, completely unable to move anything below her hips. He kisses her hair and her cheek and her neck and her shoulder.

And the stone cock starts fucking her. Roughly, brutally, plunging into her ravaged womb with every thrust.

She screams, struggling fruitlessly. Illusory stone holds her in place. She has never been more helpless, never been more violated. Her whole body convulses with pain and horror every time she feels hard stone filling her womb, and feeling it pull out again is almost as bad, and then it's back before she can so much as draw a full breath.

"Do you want mercy now?"

She shakes her head.

"All right," he says, winding his fingers in her hair to hold her head still so he can kiss her cheek. "Let's see how much you can take."

At first she just thinks he's going to keep fucking her like this until she begs him to stop, but then he slows it down, and she realizes she can feel the stone swelling inside her. She whimpers. It pushes slowly into her womb, and pulls slowly out again, and there is absolutely nothing she can do to stop it. Her cunt splits and tears, ripped apart by the slow press of stone. The next time it enters her womb, she thinks she can feel that ripping too. She nearly faints from the pain.

"Mercy?" he asks softly, stroking her hair.

She shakes her head again.

He smiles. He keeps going.

Her imagination is starting to fail her; she has no idea what her insides look like right now, except bad. She can't see the huge stone cock, only feel it fucking her, growing steadily larger, stretching her until she breaks and then growing some more.

Then she hears - and feels - the crack of breaking bone. A sob of pain escapes her. Another bone gives way. It keeps fucking her, slowly crushing her hips to splinters against the stone that holds her in place.

The Emperor holds her in his arms, pets her hair, kisses her tearstained cheeks.

"Much more of this and not even I can keep you alive," he says. "Would you enjoy being fucked to death?"

"Yes, my lord," she sobs.

"My treasure." He kisses her. The stone flows away, sinking back into the floor, leaving her empty and unsupported. He gathers her into his arms and heals her completely.

She presses her face against his chest, whimpering at the absence of pain.

A few seconds to catch her breath, and -

"Does that mean I win the game, my lord?"

...he laughs.

She smiles, leaning on him in exhausted contentment.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you it's dangerous to win a game against your Emperor?"

"What are you going to do, torture me?"

He laughs. He kisses her. "I think you've had enough for now."

"Maybe so."

She smiles slightly.

"I was right. That was much better than my favourite kind of gang-rape."

He kisses her. He puts her down. "Out of my sight before you tempt me into keeping you here all day."

"Yes, my lord," she says, and she hurries back to her room.

Her very own room. With her very own wonderfully comfortable bed, her very own desk, her very own calligraphy supplies. She settles in and starts writing, copying out a fragment of a poem she likes from memory, then embellishing it to a ridiculous degree and starting again on a new page. It's wonderfully soothing. Easy to lose herself in.

An excellent distraction from how much she wants to sneak back into the Emperor's blank room and touch herself while she thinks about being fucked to death by illusory stone. He'd probably have her gang-raped again. She doesn't fear pain much anymore, but she still fears humiliation, and the chance that the man who hates her will lose his temper and crack her head open and she'll be gone before the Emperor can fix it.

The words and phrases she's writing start to tend in... a direction. She sighs. She abandons a half-finished 'violence' and starts planning a serious piece, a verse of poetry about dragons, arranged and coloured so that the end result will look like the Emperor's eyes. It takes her several hours and successfully gets her to stop thinking about how much she wants him to torture her again.

He comes into her room just as she's examining the finished piece.

"That's beautiful," he says, petting her hair. "I didn't know you were such an artist."

"I don't often get the chance," she says, closing her eyes and leaning into his hand with a contented sigh.

"You're lovely." He kisses the top of her head. "My Niamira."

After a moment, he stops petting her hair. His hands settle on her shoulders and a weight settles between them, an illusion given form. He scoops her up and carries her to a mirror so she can see it.

It's a necklace.

Dozens of hair-thin silver chains twist into a rope lying across the back of her neck, then spread apart into individual hanging loops strung with gleaming blue-black gems that lie on her chest like dark stars. Whatever they are, she's sure they're real. She could buy herself ten times over with this thing. It's a priceless work of art, an Imperial original, probably not reproducible by any means other than exquisitely detailed permanent conjuration, and he made it for her because he felt like it.