Rapture by L.V. Lane

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Winter

HIS HANDS ARE on my ass again, big, calloused hands that slip under the hem of my slave dress to gently knead the flesh. I try my best to even out my breathing. If I show signs of wakefulness, he will assuredly stop.

I do not want him to stop.

I want him to ease his coarse pants out of the way and fill me with his cock.

It gets worse every day. I have come to hunger for his scent when I am away from him during the day. The moment he returns to the cage and lifts me onto his lap, I bury my face against his chest and suck in his rich pheromones.

At first, I would be subtle about it. Now, I don’t even pretend.

If I ask him to tend to me, I know he would. The binding would expect his compliance. His body is not averse to mine. His hard cock, that jerks against my thigh or pussy, depending on how we sprawl, is a testament to that. Yet I do not want his compliance to be driven by the unnatural binding. I want his heart, soul, and free will to drive the hunger in his touch.

I cannot have that. I could never have that, nor be certain of it, not while the binding is in place.

His hands have become a little bolder over the last two days. I bite my lips to contain my whimper of need as his fingertips skim lower, close to the drenched folds of my pussy. As he pulls then squeezes the cheeks of my ass, it pulls the lips of my pussy apart before mashing them back together. My clit throbs. My nipples are hard points against his chest. Fingers move lower still, settling into the crux of my ass and thigh.

Goddess, I am near insensible with the need for him to plunge those thick fingers into my dripping core, to brush finger or thumb over my tingling clit.

The fingers of one hand now trace the seam of my ass. Up and down, almost but not quite reaching my pussy. The other hand cups my ass cheek—a big, possessive hand, with fingers spread wide like he is claiming it as his.

I want him to claim it as his.

Remaining still is a battle. One I fight every morning.

One that churns all my needs up into a frenzy. My pussy weeps copiously. Some days, there is a wet patch on Jacob’s pants, where his cock has leaked pre-cum and my pussy spilled over him. He doesn’t mind it, pays it no heed that I can tell.

I squeeze my inner muscles carefully, feeling a sweet rush as slick trickles out. His big hand tightens on my ass, pinning me against him and making all the glorious sensations twist up.

“Come for me,” he growls, lips against my temple. “Come all over me.”

It’s like an electric current passing through me. My heart rate surges, and my breath stutters in my chest. My pussy clenches before tumbling into heavenly contractions.

“Fuck!” He surges to his feet, sending me tumbling.

In the aftermath of a climax that has been half snatched from my grasp, I blink, trying to gather sense enough not to throw myself at his feet and beg him to rut me.

My heated arousal cools some as I wonder if he was dreaming about Betsy again.

I pray we will not be traveling today so that I do not make a further fool of myself while trapped with him all day in this cage wagon.

We are not traveling, I discover when the thick necked overseer comes to collect us. Jacob stalks off, without a backward glance, to where they have him training some of the slaves to fight. It sickens me that gentle farmers must now fight in a war that is not of their making. It sickens me that Jacob has done much the same his whole life.

Despite the lingering feel of his hands, a gulf is growing between me and the young warrior I am trapped with through circumstances. It was hardly amiable to start with.

No one minds me anymore as I go to wash up in the river. I am shoeless, feet covered in blisters, and wear a collar around my throat. I am a slave, one that is already bent to her master’s will. And where would I go alone? I would not last a day and likely get Jacob killed should I attempt to flee.

Done with my morning ablutions, I seek out the guarded tent where I find Melody.

“Mama!”

Despite the many days we have come to know one another, her joyful exclamation never fails to find another chink in my once frosty façade. Her ancient overseer exits the tent as soon as I enter, muttering about meetings with the master.

The young slave girl who tends to Melody’s every need is called Jasmine. She sits cross-legged in the corner, repairing clothing as Melody and I talk. Occasionally, she makes new garments out of the homespun material. But mostly, she brings a bundle of clothing for repair with her.

“And it is all underground?” Melody asks me. She neatly sits cross-legged upon her pallet, while I sit beside it on a low stool.

“It is. Although there are orchards and farming lands within the safety of the outer walls. But no one sleeps outside of Sanctum.”

“Why?”

“Because they would be in danger if we were attacked.”

“Who would attack?”

“Bad people,” I say in my best attempt at neutrality. She shows no fear of the orcs nor their heavily armed human overseers.

“What do the bad people look like?”

Goddess help me navigate the child’s questioning without stumbling into something inappropriate.

“They look much like regular people, except their hearts are wicked,” I finally say.

“Do they have pointed ears?” she asks, twirling a strand of red-gold hair around her finger.

“People with pointed ears killed my mama and papa.” Lips pursed, she sends a furtive glance my way. “My first mama. But Bard says they would not dare kill me now, for the orcs would never let that happen.”

My heart contracts for her loss, but also softens toward Bard, the elderly overseer who is tasked with caring for Melody. Over the few weeks we have traveled, I have determined that Bard is not a bad man, being kindly and tolerant toward Melody, who is surely the most talkative and gregarious fairy child in all the worlds. I do not know many fairy children and have had contact with none for many years, but still, she seems lively and talkative to my untrained mind.

I frown as her words play back. She does not associate the death of her parents with orcs. Who does she attribute then?

“Winter?” Melody demands. “Do they have pointed ears, the bad people who attack your home?”

“They do,” I say, my mind reeling as I try to piece it together.

“Mama called the people who attacked us dark fae. They looked much like us, except their hair was white as snow and their teeth sharp and pointed. They painted the walls of Estoria in blood before they took me away.”

I suck in a sharp breath. The tiny, sweet fairy child sounds impossibly older as those dreadful words spill from her mouth without a hint of inflection. On the other side of the tent, Jasmin makes the sign of the Goddess across her chest.

Melody was old enough to remember her mother’s words, so she was not a baby at the time.

I want to ask her about the keystone.

I want to ask how she can wield it when she could not possibly have been taught to do so.

I want to caution her against the Blighten monsters whom she clings to as saviors when they are anything but.

Yet I do not know the full details of this child’s journey, and what I do know terrifies me.

“Why don’t I read you a story?” I suggest.

“Okay,” she agrees in her sweet, chirping voice.

After, we go for a walk under the escort of her two towering orc guards. By the time we return, she is tired, so she reluctantly concedes to a nap.

“She is a good lass,” Jasmine says in the quietness that follows as she goes back to her sewing, “and has taken to you swiftly, mistress.”

“She is,” I agree. My thoughts can never escape the pain caused by the harsh metal collar for long. Even muted by the blanket, it leaves a residual weakness in my body and blisters the skin.

The collar reminds me of my status.

It reminds me that I am a slave.

“I am no one’s mistress anymore,” I say.

“What of your bonded warrior? Is it not the way of the Blood that you are his mistress?”

“It is the way of Blood, but Jacob and I are not bound to one another in the deeper way of a life bond.”

“You are not?” Jasmine pauses her sewing duties. “But your Omega scent is muted. I thought for certain he was your mate.”

I don’t know what to make of this conversation. I am unaware of my own scent, presuming it was still potent, given the reaction of the leering, toothless overseer who finds excuses to put his hands upon me.

Am I imprinting?

“I need a moment,” I say.

Jasmine frowns. No one pays me much heed anymore, knowing perhaps that I cannot hope to escape. But I do not often wander farther than the small distance between my cage wagon home and the tent where Melody is kept, and these are never positioned far apart.

I flee the tent, not waiting to hear what Jasmine will say next. It’s not like I can go far, given how weak and sick I am after many days with the collar. Suddenly, the warm air is cloying against my throat, and my fingers grasp the collar like I might rip it off. It burns my fingers, just as it would burn my throat were the blanket scrap not there. I sob even as I run, blinded by my tears. I don’t know where I’m going. I just need to go, to get out, to escape.

My plans are brought to an abrupt halt as the toothless, leering overseer moves to block my path.

“Where are you off to, my pretty little fairy?” he says.

I do not think his interest has anything to do with my scent. I believe he’s merely a slave given a measure of power and it is now gone to his head.

He moves quicker than I expect, snagging my wrist and clamping a hand over my mouth.

My panic explodes as I am dragged into a nearby tent. I struggle with all my strength, but I am weakened by the many days wearing the collar and do not have a hope.

“Quiet, little fairy, and I will not hurt you.”

I fight harder, kicking out, raking him with my nails. I feel my scalp burn as he fists my hair, while his other hand clamps over my mouth.

I bite down, escaping his hold long enough for a scream. It is cut off as he slaps me. I taste blood, blacking out briefly and finding myself pinned to the floor. I can’t breathe with his big hand covering my mouth and nose. My jaw throbs from the blow. I’m going to blackout again, when his hand pushing under my dress brings a shot of adrenaline.

“Uf!”

His eyes roll back, and he topples to the side.

Jasmine is standing over him, a great plank of wood in her hand, which she tosses to the floor as she hastens to help me up.

The beast has fallen half over me, and we both grunt and sob as we push him off. At his groan, we double down our efforts until I finally drag my legs free.

“Come, mistress,” she says. “We cannot linger here.”

“Melody?” I ask, worrying that the child is on her own.

“Bard returned,” Jasmine says. “You cannot go to her like this. Come.”

Shaking so badly, I can barely put one foot before the other, I am taken to another tent. Here, I am sat upon the ground and given a cup of water.

I spill more than I drink.

Putting more water in a bowl, she wrings out a cloth and presses it to my throbbing lip.

“There will be retaliation,” she says bleakly as she wrings and reapplies the cloth. “Your warrior will not stand for this.”

“He is not my warrior,” I say, feeling the familiar bitterness spill out. Jacob does not care for me beyond what the binding drives as an obligation.

“You are a woman and a slave,” Jasmine says, face tightening as she looks down at me. “If he is not your man, then you should make him so. If you don’t, other slaves will offer him what you do not, and then he will protect them and not you.”

I want to point out that Jacob is obliged to me through the magic of the binding, but I am no longer sure of how well that holds between the two of us. I never completed the Meld, and I question how much obligation he has to me, forced or otherwise.

“If you do not give him the favor of your body, you cannot expect him to fight for you.” She is all hardness now as she wrings and reapplies the cloth. “This is about survival. My mama told me the day they took me to find the biggest, baddest male and throw myself at his mercy. I am still alive because that is what I did. The masters don’t much care for the bickering between slaves. What is the rape of a slave? It is nothing to them. They do not trouble themselves with our infighting so long as no slave dies. Without a clear message from your warrior, Dolan will assuredly try again, only next time, he will be meaner and crueler.”

Her words fall like winter’s rain down over me, and I experience their bleakness to my very core.

“We do none of the things we do because we want to,” she continues. “We do them so that we might live to draw breath another day. I have come to love the slave whose protection I bartered for with my body. When I was younger, I dreamed of marrying a prince. Instead, I am mated to a giant and a monster, yet he is now the prince of my heart. A man might feel honor bound to protect a woman who is not his for many reasons, but a man protects his woman with his heart and his soul, and that is a very different thing.”