Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 DeVine Soul
   by Nysidra
   This is a graphic story containing several erotic concepts and explicit
sexual descriptions.
   Occult Fantasy (MMF, magic, prosexual)
   <->
   Sasha looked at the setting sun with a long sigh.  Longer days meant a
shorter window of freedom.
   Nadine's birthday party didn't start for another hour, and she wasn't
allowed out past sundown.  Her father insisted such drastic restrictions
were for her safety and his peace of mind.  And yet the rules had an
expiration date: this spring.  In 5 weeks and 2 days her life would be on
her own.
   This was the promise her father had been making since she was seven
years old, assuring her that his strict rules would disappear.  Sasha would
be on her own, set up with a place to live, free to do as she wanted.
   Five weeks and two days, but Nadine's party was tonight.  How was a few
weeks going to be that big a deal?
   What began as a bold strut to her father -(TM)s office ended with
increasingly stilted steps.  Sasha bit down on the knuckle of her index
finger as she rethought her approach.
   "You need to give the girl some kind of warning.  I can't believe you
haven't said anything."
   That was her father's ex-girlfriend Barbara.  They had stopped dating
over a year ago.  What was she doing here?
   Her father answered, but his low baritone voice made the words hard to
distinguish.
   "That's not good enough.  She deserves to know."
   Sasha put her ear toward the edge of the door.  As far as she knew, she
was the only woman in her father's life.  Was he seeing someone else?
   "...won't matter.  She's not going to take it well.  She's been looking
...  next month.  I won't take that from her."
   "No one deserves the shock she has coming.  Either you tell her or I
will.  It should be you because I barely understand what you've done."
   "Not a word.  In a few weeks," he made one of his heavy sighs.  His
patience was wearing then.  Sasha imagined her father rubbing his brow. 
"Who knows?  Maybe nothing will change."
   "You think the Zorient forget about debts to be paid?" Barbara's laugh
sounded high and strained.  "What did you promise them?  A servant?  A
slave?"
   "I don't know, and I won't.  They will collect her and my debt will be
paid.  What happens after that was never in my control.  I can't..."
   Sasha backed away from the office door one carefully placed step after
another.
   Collect?  Who?  Why?  What for?
   This was not the first time she heard herself referenced in whispered
conversations, hushed arguments.  She'd never heard enough to figure out
the commotion.  Sasha went through as many possibilities as she could
imagine: sick, disabled, abducted, in trouble.  None of her ideas had
panned out.
Memories of her mother's sadness resurfaced.  According to her father,
her mother suffered from depression.  Several nights Sasha woke being
rocked by her mother, warm tears hitting her face.  "It wasn't worth it,"
she would whisper.
   Her mother's last words didn't make sense then, and she barely
understood the possible meaning now, but if someone was coming to 'collect'
her, she wouldn't stick around and make an easy target.
   Sasha dug her fingers into her hair as she scanned her room.  Elaborate
furniture, fine fabrics, sparkling jewels, and quality electronics.  She
never planned to run away, never resented the luxury her father gave her,
even if she was trapped within the house.
   Her freedom and independence were so close at hand.  All of it, an
illusion.
   ...  a servant ...  a slave ...
   With a bag of clothes and a few personal items, Sasha slipped out the
front door.
   First she ran, then the walked, then jogged, but the direction did not
waver: away.  The sun had set behind her.  She mentally reviewed her list
of friends, but many of them were currently at Nadine's party.
With the money in her pocket, she caught a bus and rode it to the end of
the line.  The ride gave her an idea.
   Her address was easy to find, right there in the business section of the
directory: 'Alice's Wonderland.'
Sasha hobbled to the house late at night.  Her feet ached, thighs
throbbed, the strap of her bag cut into her shoulder.  She knocked on the
door hoping this idea would pan out.
   Strong liquor, sweet perfume, and an herbal smell wafted through the
open door.
   "Her there," Alice purred.  She was in a brunette hair-piece and wore
theatrical dusky make-up.  A tiny, shiny black robe covered her pale body.
   "Hi, um ...  you remember that thing you said?"
   Alice chuckled, stepped back, and held the door open wider.  Her ice
blue eyes sparkled as she sipped from the drink in her hand.  "Should the
princess decide to leave her tower, there's always a place for you in
wonderland."
   'Alice of Wonderland' had given the Sasha the nickname 'Princess in the
Tower' the first month of school.  To call their relationship a
'friendship' was a bit strong.  Alice made an offer in passing, as if it
meant nothing to her, and it meant nothing to Sasha until this moment.
   "I need that, please.  I can't pay you, but I could clean up or..."
   "Whoa, really?" Alice poured another glass wine and handed it to Sasha.
"The place I had in mind for you was more up front than that."
   "Like what?"
   "Got your cherry?"
   "Excuse me?"
   Alice topped off her glass.  "Have you had sex yet, princess?"
   "No, I haven't, and I don't want to yet."
   She clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes.  "This is my place of
business.  If you're staying here, then--"
   "You handle money, pay bills, and handle clients, right?"
   Alice nodded.
   "I'll do your finances, handle the money, and place calls to clients."
   "Are you sure you want to do all that?  It's good money for good fun."
   "Yes.  I don't need long, just a month or two, maybe three."
   "Let me know if you change your mind.  I can get you a couple grand for
your cherry." Alice checked her hair in the mirror.  "In a month or two
that cash will help, yeah?"
   A couple thousand?  Sasha shook her head.  In a few months, she'd have
access to the two million dollars in her trust.  Enough to help her make
her own way in life.  "I do appreciate the offer, but I just want to hide.
I can't do that working beside you."
   "Fair point.  Let me know if you change your mind.  Take the hallway all
the way to the end, last room on the right.  It needs cleaning.  Store what
you don't want to use on a top shelf or in the chest.  I've got a client in
half an hour."
   "Thank you." Sasha hurried down the hallway as fast as her aching body
would allow.
   ***
   The walls of the house were thin.  Over the next two months, Sasha was
privy to all of Alice's dirty talk and the enthusiastic ravings of her
customers.  The sound of it intrigued her.  She'd sneak out of her room to
see her interacting with her customer in the living room or through the
open bedroom door.
   Just last night, while the house was quiet, Sasha left to get a glass of
water.  Alice was on her knees, naked, sucking a man off.  Instead of
retracing her steps, Sasha watched them, mesmerized by the vigorous bob of
her head and the man's squirming and writhing.  Alice moaned and caressed
his hair covered thighs as if she were enjoying herself just as much.
   During the day, Alice had been eager and willing to show off her
pornography collection: film, photos, and books.  All of it in an effort to
educate Sasha on the pleasures of the flesh.
   "If you decide to work with me I'd call us, 'Caramel and Cream.' Does
that sound delicious?"
   It did.  The last week had been a special kind of torture.  Some nights
her pussy seemed to throb with need, unrelenting until she masturbated
herself to at least two or three orgasms.  She ached for more, to learn
about those pleasures in greater detail.  Horniness had become a smothering
blanket, keeping her hot and wet no matter the time of day.
   But pleasure was not the goal of Sasha's stay.  While Alice slept, Sasha
packed a bag and left the house.  Her father would have sent the collectors
away by now.  The Fall Equinox had come and gone.  She was now free to live
her life as she wanted, as promised.
   She'd left her books at home, the brochures to the schools she wanted to
visit.  She would have to start over on her own.  Sasha wasn't sure she
could see her father again so soon.  Once she was enrolled in classes and
had a place, she'd write and let him know she was okay.
   She was at the bank the moment the manager opened the doors.  She
accessed her trust fund, viewed the balance.  It was all there in her name,
just as her father promised.  Maybe he was going to warn her?  What if he'd
been lying to Barbara?
   New bank card in hand, Sasha shouldered her bag and left the bank. 
She'd need to check into a hotel, start looking for an apartment, a
vehicle. The list of things to do piled on, things she should have been
doing during her stay with Alice rather than watching porn, but that was
over now.
   First order of business: A place of her own to sleep and some lunch.
   Lunch first.  She stepped inside a restaurant and ordered a sandwich and
tea while she visited one of the kiosks to check her electronic mail and
read up on the news.  There did not appear to be a city-wide hunt for her,
no plea to the public.  Her father hadn't even emailed her.
   She did a few searches online.  No reference to herself or her father at
all.
   Some princess.  Did he even miss her?  Did he care?
   She logged out and went back to her lunch before she gave in to the urge
to write him.  Fine, if he was done with her then she was done with him
too.
   ***
   After lunch, Sasha was back out on the sidewalk, making her way toward
the rail station.
   Did something happen to him?  Is that why he didn't write her?
   A large vehicle pulled up beside her and she stepped to the side to give
them room.
   Fabric covered her face, a hand went around her throat.  Her body
slammed on a hard, cold surface.  Before she could catch her breath to
scream, the vehicle lurched forward.  Other hands went to work on her
ankles and wrists.  The loud engine rumbled and her body pitched back and
forth, bounced as they sped over bumps in the road.
   Sasha thrashed and flopped around until her legs were free.  She kicked
and spun as wildly as she could manage.  Her leg connected with damp skin,
and then something hard and sharp.
   Two blows: one to her back, the other to her face.
   With a wounded cry, she stilled.  Her leg stung, bled.  She could feel
her pulse in her calf.  The sounds of traffic faded, the road turned
bumpier.  With the bag over her head, Sasha concentrated on breathing. 
After the fight she'd put up, the air had become stale and useless.  Her
face dripped sweat.
   The engine turned off and the door opened.
   Heavy foot falls crunched on leaves and twigs.  The vehicle shifted as
others jumped out the open door.
   "What the fuck happened here?" A high pitched voice complained.  At that
octave, Sasha could not discern whether it was male or female.
   "Told you we should have sedated her," a gruff voice answered.
   "Shit." A sound like a fist slamming into the side of the vehicle
thundered in her ear.  "Shit!  If I get cut for this, it's coming out of
your share."
   "I told you--"
   "Fuck what you told me.  Grab her."
   Sasha cried and protested as her many bruises and scrapes were ignored.
Whoever carried her had a bony shoulder that dug into her hip.  Her stomach
ached.  Warm sunlight beamed on her exposed back.  She whined and cried,
but couldn't get enough air to let loose a proper scream.
   "Cry all you want, fugee.  No one is going to hear you."
   What did he call her?  Were these the people she was supposed to be
hiding from?  How had they found her?  Did her father hire them?  She
yelled these and many other questions, but she might as well have been
passed out for all the attention they paid her.
   They untied her wrists and set her on her feet, then removed the hood.
   She bolted.  She didn't pause to look around, get a look at their faces,
figure out where she was.  The moment the hood was off she ducked and ran.
   Her sandals were not made for the wooded area.  They caught up to her as
if chasing a toddler.  They bound her by her hands and feet and kept her
that way.
   "Fucking hate strugglers.  Listen, cunt, you should have known better
than to run out on your obligations.  Don't take this shit out on us."
   "I don't know what you're talking about!" Sasha gasped for air and
screamed.  "I don't owe anyone anything!  Get away from me!  Leave me
alone!" She shrieked and wriggled, but the binds did not give this time.
   The other man, the one in charge with the thin, high pitched voice shook
his head.  "Let's get this over with."
   "What?  No!" She looked among them with wide eyes.  "Help me!  Why are
you doing this?  Please!  If it's money, I can--"
   The guy with the massive red beard looked as if he'd been in a boxing
match with her feet.  Red put a fat piece of tape over her mouth and shoved
her onto her back, on top of her tied wrists.
   Dust filled her nostrils and set off a fit of sneezing and coughing. 
Everything hurt now, and she had to get her coughing under control before
she puked.  A stick poked her in the back, but she couldn't get the
leverage to roll away.
   The three of them drove gnarled spikes in the ground, set up weird
colored lights that smelled of acrid chemicals.
   The air around her grew thick as if the pressure was changing.  What
little she managed to breathe in smelled rank, like someone who hadn't
bathed in weeks walked into a poorly ventilated room.
   Her eyes watered, throat burned.  Something lifted her by her mass of
hair.
   ***
   Blue-green pinholes of light.  Her wrists and ankles were free, but she
was in a tight container.  The sides were soft, like treated nylon rope.  A
basket?  She swayed from left to right, her shoulders banged the sides of
the case.
   Sasha pressed her face to side, attempted see beyond the pin hole.  The
things she heard and smelled did not bring to mind anything with which she
was familiar.
   The blue-green light went out.  All went silent save for a low, constant
hum.
   Lights again.  A cacophony of yelling, barking, squealing, and the
murmur of multilingual conversations.  A sharp rumble of trucks or rock or
perhaps an earthquake rattled the air around her basket.
   Metal clinked to something dull, sounded like a heavy rock.  Foot steps
with a cracking echo.  A bird squawked, but with a deep, booming voice.
   Softer lights, almost gray.  The low bass-like hum again.  She swayed
one final time and stopped.
   At an unfamiliar command, someone lifted the lid of her container.  She
was in a blue-walled room, but it wasn't tile or sheet rock.  Stone? 
Lifted by her hair again, her cramped arms and legs protested.
   Thick, dark-skinned hands held her aloft.  Her toes brushed along the
smooth floor.  She didn't have enough leverage to do anything but hang
there.  Another man in a full-bodied, tan-colored suit unrolled a shiny
black hose from the wall.
   "What are you doing?" Sasha's words were jumbled.  Her throat was dry
and she felt dizzy as she took in the first few lungfuls of air outside the
basket.
   The man at the hose turned a valve and cold water shot out, hit her in
the chest.  The spray was like a water fall beating down on her.  The
temperature stole her ability to breathe or even think.  She quickly
learned that struggling led to a face full of water.
   She stopped fighting, but mostly because she had little choice if she
wanted to breathe.  Apart from the iron grip on her hair, she wasn't being
restrained.  He even lowered her so that she could stand on her feet.
   The man washing her down treated her like a farm animal.  He removed her
clothing and tossed it aside, scrubbed her skin - all without emotion.  He
may as well have been scrubbing a wall.
   Washed.  Rinsed.  Dripping wet.
   The black hose went back on its crank and he pulled out a thinner one.
He pressed a button and the clear tube filled with opaque white liquid.
   Instead of bringing it to her mouth, the man in the tan suit stepped
behind her and stuck it up her rear.
   Sasha stood there like a dumb beast trying to figure out what was
happening and why.  Her belly swelled and cramped and the purpose of the
tube and its liquid became clear.  She reached up to touch the fingers
wrapped around her hair.  Those fingers felt like the size of carnival
sausages.
   Tears again, but not with the accompanying screams or shouting.  Four
smooth walls, one door.  Two more people who didn't care to answer her
questions.
   Something was terribly wrong, not just with the fluid entering her from
the wrong end, but the walls, the thing holding her, the weird air, this
place...
   The man with an iron grip led her toward a hollow seat.  Sasha squat
down and closed her eyes as her bowels let loose.  Her humiliation was more
suffocating and profound than anything she had ever known.
   When she had nothing left, the man hosed her down again.  The giant one
left with the empty basket over his broad back.  He had a waddle to him
that must have accounted for her wave action.
   After the second hose-down her hair lay thick down her back like a damp
coat.
   The man in the suit left.
   Water dripped down the drains in the middle of the floor.
   Both her legs and arms were free.  This was her best chance.
   Of going where?
   Anywhere.
   Sasha pushed to her feet and went to the door.  It opened.  Dripping wet
and naked, she ran down the hall, turned down the first corner, but pulled
up short at the entrance to a dim room with swirling black walls.
   Was it a tunnel?  Where did it lead?
   Voices down the hall.
   Sasha backtracked, back toward the room with a desk.  She climbed on top
of it and pushed at the grate beside the wall.  She hooked her fingers in
the opening and tried to pull herself up.
   Something inside the shaft gave way and she slid down, pulling the
'tubing' with her onto the desk.  She fell, taking most of the contents to
the floor with her and alerting the others to her presence.
   The freezing cold hose again, and then a black cloth bag over her whole
body.
   Sasha did not see the light again for what felt like hours.  The bag
came off, but her current handler pointed to the ground with a large silver
dowel.
   She sat on the stone floor.  Thankfully, this room was not as cold. 
Definitely stone walls.  The rock had flecks of dark red translucent
inclusions.
   There was a dim gray room to her left.  It also had an inky black wall.
Other than the archway to her right, it seemed to be the way they entered
the room.
   She had a good sized gash on her calf, a palm sized bruise on her thigh.
Everything hurt, but she hadn't broken anything yet.  She poked around the
bruise on her ribs.  She probably had a bigger one on her face.
   "Confer on here." At least, that's what it sounded like.  The man with
the large silver stick sounded like he had a cold.
   Two pairs of feet entered through the archway.  One very dark skinned
with manicured toenails.  The other a reddish brown with thicker legs. 
Both men without socks, shoes, or pants.
   She looked down at her scratched, bruised, and bleeding body.  Was she a
package being delivered?  A prisoner being dropped off?  A patient being
checked in?
   Why?
   "This is not how we planned to meet you.  I apologize for your
treatment."
   Planned to meet her?  Were these her collectors?  She hugged her knees
to her body and buried her head.  Dread turned heavy in her stomach.  What
would happen to her now?
   "She ran; she didn't care about your plans." A thick male voice said.
   Despite the tension in her neck, Sasha lifted her head to correct him.
She didn't know about any damned plans!
   "I," the attempt at speech sounded garbled.  Her throat felt scratchy,
her body fatigued.  Words caught in her throat and came out more like a
weak rattle.
   The 'delivery man' turned and left through the dim room.  The black wall
swallowed him.
   She turned back to them, they did not seem surprised.  The one with
flushed skin scowled at her.  The other shook his bald head as he read over
the papers in his hand.
   Neither one of them were human.  Her brain was sure of it though her
eyes couldn't see why she would jump to such a conclusion.  She was as sure
of it as she was her own name.  Her eyes searched their faces, trying to
figure out what was different.
   They looked alright, seemed healthy, especially the red one.  The darker
one had a broad chest covered with dark hair.  Though he was bald, his jaw
line had a close shaven beard.  The red one had dark brown hair, none on
his face, but tightly packed coils on his head.  Both wore shorts, the red
one's were lighter in both color and materials.
   What did Barbara call them?  Zoe...?
   The dark one folded the papers and tucked them into the back pocket of
his shorts.  "You knew this day would come.  Running away like a coward is
what led to your--"
   She shook her head.  The abrupt action made her neck ache worse, her
head pounded.
   The red one snarled, so she paid attention to the other man with his
pale golden eyes.  Maybe they were just a super light shade of brown, or
perhaps yellow.
   "What were you told?" The dark one asked.
   She shook her head, pressed her hands to her temples to stem the pain.
   "Watch," the angry one said.  "Fucking cursed.  Always a problem.  I
give her a day or two before we pay more to wranglers."
   "Hush." The dark one squat down to get eye level with her.  "You are to
live with us.  This deal was agreed upon prior to your birth.  It was our
goal to make your transition to your new home a pleasant one.  For your
unpleasant arrival, I apologize."
   Who were they?  What did they want from her?
   She huffed.  If they wanted to play civil, she could give that a try. 
Was that what had red so upset?
   No.  He seemed disgusted with her alone, not her treatment.
   Running away from home had been a complete failure.  Running away from
an unknown place wasn't going much better for her.
   "Who are you?" Her throat rattled, but the words were better now.
   "My name is Marcus." He turned to look at his ill-tempered friend.
   "Larik."
   "Sasha." She tongued the inside of her swollen cheek.  Her the gums on
her lower jaw tasted coppery.
   "May I approach?"
   She nodded slightly, surprised that he asked, that he offered a choice.
It was better than asking her to move.  Her body felt frozen in place.  She
was a cornered animal that had no place to go.
   He didn't just approach; he picked her up, cradled her with an arm under
her legs and behind her back.  His broad, warm smile and friendly manner
disarmed her.  This close, she was able to confirm that his eyes were
indeed a golden brown.  He had a soft layer of fat covering hard muscle.
   He carried her through the archway out of the small red-stone room.  Odd
wood furniture.  Multi-faceted glass fixtures.  Shimmery fabric.  Carvings
of unknown creatures.
   Marcus turned one last corner and set her on her feet.  He walked over
to a rope pulley and drew back the curtains to reveal a large bed.  A
dresser sat off to the side, shaped like a tree trunk with drawers carved
into it.  Another chest, also with its natural shape, sat off to the side.
The room was completely without a window.
   Along the ceiling, fires burned low in stone rectangular boxes.  The
vent in the center of the room rose and turned too sharply to see where it
ultimately led.  A dark green curtain covered the doorway on the far side
of the room.
   It all looked very elegant, more comforting and natural than anything
her father had in his house.  Sasha edged closer to the bed and took hold
of one of the bed posts.  It looked like a whole branch, not just a carved
and polished pice of wood.
   "You are quite well shaped," Marcus' compliment was filled with the low
sound of lust.  He handed her a glass of what looked to be water.
   She lowered her head, crossed her ankles, and rounded her shoulders
trying to lessen the impact of her 'shape' on him.  The 'water' tasted soft
on her tongue, almost smooth, but it made her throat feel better.
   "Ah, don't be shy." He said with a smile.  "You should take pride.  You
look to have taken good care of yourself." He put his hand on her shoulder.
   She stared at that hand, waiting for his next move.  His touch felt
warm, heavy.  His finger nails were as smooth and even as his toes.  He had
a scar across the back of his hand.  "Thank you."
   He had more scars on his chest, some of them looked rather painful. 
Almost human.  It must have been his bone structure, but damn if he wasn't
'well shaped.'
   She emptied the glass of water and handed it back to him.
   "There now." He swept his hand across the room.  "This is the room we
prepared for you.  I doubt it will have all the comforts of the room you
left behind, be we will do what we can to make you comfortable."
   We.
   She back toward the door.
   "Larik will be along with something for you to eat.  It will help settle
you."
   Remembering his hateful scowl put goosebumps on her arms.  She shivered
with the memory.
   "He's been upset since the day of your arrival came and passed. 
Hedra-born Zorient have quite the temper.  Give him time."
   Zorient.  That's what Barbara had said!
   Sasha reached for the bed post and shifted on her feet.  "What is a
Zorient?"
   "In your language, the polite word for wraiths or demons."
   Her grip tightened on the bed post.  The contours of the wood dug into
her palm.  Her legs felt shaky, but she didn't want to get blood on the
bed. If she got any closer to fainting, she might chance it.  She drew a
deep breath, but it faltered when her ribs protested.
   Why?  Why was she here?  Why would her own father-
   Heavy footfalls drew her attention to the doorway.  Scowling, Larik
entered the room with a black bowl.
   Larik is a demon.
   Sasha collapsed onto her hands and knees on the floor.  The room seemed
to shift and her balance along with it.
   Marcus and Larik switched languages.  Something flowing and rapid.  They
scattered in either direction.
   Did she frighten them?  Ironic.
   Her attempts to regain her balance left her on her side on the floor.
   Marcus put his thigh under her head.  Larik worked on the cut at her
calf.  They continued in their native tongue, seemingly in the midst of an
argument.
   Why would her father promise her to demons?
   Zorient.  Call them Zorient.  That sounded so much better.  Polite.
   Whatever they were arguing about, Marcus was the one with the calm tone,
short responses.  Both of them traded vials and dark bandages, working on
each of her wounds - opened or closed.
   Larik lifted her breast and rubbed a mint-smelling cream on her bruised
rib.  She whimpered when he pressed too firmly and his dark eyes focused on
hers.  Dark red eyes, like garnets.  Whatever he said must have been
directed to Marcus.
   Marcus gave a one syllable reply.
   "Turn over," said Larik.
   Marcus took hold of her elbow and supported her weight as she did as
they asked.  With Larik behind her though, out of sight, she could only
tremble, fearing that he didn't intend to care for her medically.
   "They fight less when stunned," said Larik.
   He should have not picked that moment to switch to her language.
   Her eyes stung.  The fresh flow of tears soaked into the fabric of
Marcus' shorts.  "What was I supposed to do?"
   Both their hands stilled.
   Marcus sat her up.  Whatever they did had her feeling better, less
throbbing and stinging from her injuries.
   They must have been waiting for her to speak.  "No one told me.  I
didn't know what was happening.  I don't know what you want from me, but,"
she choked on her own fear and pressed her palms to the stone floor.  "I
won't fight you ...  if you don't hurt me." She kept her eyes on the floor,
but lifted them when neither man spoke.
   How did she manage to make Larik more suspicious of her?  He looked
livid.
   Marcus, however, only seemed confused.  He posed a question, but in that
language she didn't understand.
   "I don't know what you said."
   "What languages do you speak?"
   "English, a little French.  I'm pretty good at understanding Spanish,
but I haven't studied it."
   Larik made a low sound of dismissal in his throat.  "She's short."
   "A little," Marcus lay his palm on her hip.  "Good proportion otherwise.
Her health is what matters most." His nails whispered up her back.
   She trembled for a reason that had nothing to do with fear.  Healthy,
good looking.  The pieces of the mystery were beginning to fit in place. 
It was almost a comfort, realizing what they wanted from her, why she was
here.
   "Sure it's the right catch?"
   "Orek confirmed her identity upon arrival.  I will charge the wranglers
for her treatment, but the injuries will heal.  She is healthy, fit, and
beautiful.  This is a generous return.  I say we complete the deal." Marcus
continued to touch her, his warm finger tips circling and traveling over
her arms and legs.
   "I want a better look first." Larik's breath on her neck.  A slick
tongue flicked along the shell of her ear.
   Sasha held her breath as his large hands cupped her breasts from behind.
He squeezed them, pulled on her nipples.  She squeezed her eyes shut, but
kept to her word.  He didn't try to hurt her; she didn't fight.
   "You only add to her trauma.  She's inexperienced."
   "Is she?"
   "I didn't detect otherwise," Marcus said.
   Larik pulled her by the hair until she rose off Marcus' lap.  Strong
fingers framed her jaw.  "Look at me."
   She blinked her tear-filled eyes open.  His face this close to hers, she
could see his jaw was a little too long, cheek bones thick.  The red of his
iris had embers in them, little merlot pits that were shifting toward a
brighter red.  "Are you a virgin?"
   Physically, sure, but she was no innocent.  She probably knew more about
sex than most women.  She told them as much.
   "How do you know so much?" He snapped his jaw causing her to scream.  He
hadn't hurt her, but she expected pain.
   "What did I tell you?" Marcus growled and cut short Larik's laughter.
   "I was just playing with her."
   "She does not appreciate your games." Marcus pressed his hand to Larik's
shoulder until he backed away.
   "I lived with a very knowledgeable woman.  She taught me a lot about sex
- books, videos, by example ...  with other men and women.  I have not been
with another man or woman myself."
   Larik tilted his head to one side and looked her over, then hummed.  He
looked from Marcus back to her.  "You want me to ask her?"
   "She is our guest."
   Larik snarled something in a rush at Marcus.  It took everything Sasha
had not to jump up and run away.
   Marcus didn't answer.  For several long moments there was only silence.
   "Lay back and open your legs.  I want to inspect you."
   It wasn't a question, but not quite an order.  If he was upset, if
Marcus insisted he treat her like a guest, then Larik must not have been
okay with her ability to say no.
   "May I move to the bed?"
   Larik smirked, one cheek rose along with the curl of his lips.  He
pointed to the bed.
   She lay on her back, legs half off the bed and stared at the ceiling. 
They were talking over her again, less like an argument this time.
   "You tongue will be sufficient."
   What?  His tongue?  How?  What?!  No!
   The tongue in question traced a circle on her lower belly.  Larik's
tongue was long, obscenely so, thick, pomegranate red.  It left some kind
of thick saliva in its wake.  His tongue was easily four inches long if it
was one, and he didn't appear to strain to get it out that far.
   "He doesn't want to hurt you," Marcus said in a soft tone.
   Larik's slimy tongue continued on its journey toward her pussy by way of
her inner thigh, up and down, back and forth.  "Smells delicious," he
murmured as he opened her legs wider.
   The unexpected compliment caught her attention.  He spread her outer
labia with his thumbs and inhaled deeply.
   Sasha squeezed her eyes shut and fought to keep still.  She didn't know
what they expected of her, how she should react.  The fat, slimy tongue ran
up and down the length of her slit and it felt incredible.
   She stopped breathing and bit down on her tongue as he lapped at her,
each one ended with a slight flick on her clitoris.
   Marcus' stubble tickled her cheek as he kissed the lobe of her ear. 
"He's taking his time because he wants you to enjoy it.  He is upset
because he does not want to lose you.  Relax, Sasha.  No need to restrain
what you feel."
   Freed by Marcus' words, she let loose the moan building in her chest. 
Larik's tongue probed the entrance to her vagina: slow, precise movements
with a slight twisting motion.  She widened her thighs and tried to bear
down on him.
   "Mmm," Larik pulled back and flicked her clitoris with his tongue. 
"Tastes delicious.  I miss this." When he lowered his head that time, he
fastened down on her with his whole mouth.  His tongue penetrated, twisted,
turned, and caressed in ways she knew no human tongue could manage.  She
arched her back and whimpered.
   Marcus moved to her breast and took one of her nipples into his mouth.
That felt good too, sucking, nibbling.  Their efforts combined, Sasha
imagined that she had taken Alice on her offer, that these men were...
   Oh, nothing was normal about what they were doing to her.
   Sasha groaned.  She wanted more.  Her thighs stiffened, trembled.
   Larik released her thighs and pulled away.  He licked his lips and chin
with half-lidded eyes.  "Delicious and eager."
   Marcus kissed her forehead.
   Sasha lay between them, legs open arms at her side.  Her heart
thundered, body hummed, head swam.  The old need, the thundering drumbeat
of lust and wantonness was back with a vengeance.  She had already been
sold.  The price on her 'cherry' was bargained away long before her birth.
   She wanted to be collected.
   "Larik," Marcus plucked her firm nipple, "finish what you started."
   Sasha felt Larik's cool breath moments before his tongue lapped at her.
He circled her clitoris and lashed her with firm strokes.  Occasionally he
dipped inside her, but not deeply as she wanted.
   Her body twitched and rolled as he brought her closer to climax.  Larik
either growled or hummed, either way, it did something magical to her.  She
was nearly there, so very close.
   Marcus pulled on her nipple, then switched and pulled the other.  Larik
gathered her ass in his hands and sucked on her clitoris while his tongue
penetrated her.
   Yes!  This was what she wanted, what she needed.  Her toes curled, her
feet went cold as her whole body tried to contract.  For several long, dark
seconds she did not breathe, did not move.  It was an euphoria that trumped
Alice crying out, 'I'm coming.'
   "Responsive," Larik kissed the insides of her thigh, rubbed his chin
along her mound.  "Accept the deal."
   Marcus thumbed the sweat from her forehead.  "I'm glad you agree.  I
will mark the deal as fulfilled tomorrow.  Have you heard from Kamari?"
   "Not yet.  I should soon."
   Their conversation continued, but she preferred to stay drifting in the
after effect of the best orgasm of her life.  Furthermore, while Larik
talked, he would take occasional long swipes at her pussy.
   "Can I take her now?"
   "Absolutely not.  Go on; I'll see her to bed."
   ***
   Sasha woke in the dark.  Low flames burned around the ceiling.  Her eyes
opened wide as she took stock of her location.  Cool, soft sheets above and
below her, a warm, heavy arm draped over her hip.  The hand gripped her
breast.  Soft, solid warm body: Marcus.
   His respiration came slow and heavy, but she couldn't tell if he was
sleeping.
   How long since that terrible ride in the van?  Cold water.  Forced
enema. A poorly executed attempt at escape.
   The orgasm.  Oh, that was the best part of it all.
   Her vaginal walls twitched.  For weeks she had been waking up wet and
horny, and now she was with two men who could help her with that.  Her
nipples hardened as she recalled the sensation of Marcus' mouth on her
breast, the way he touched her, pet her.
   She could take his hand and put it between her thighs.
   She nearly laughed at the thought.
   Marcus mumbled something, but it sounded like 'are you all right'?
   "Not really," she whispered.  She had never woke up beside anyone in her
life, but this ...  this felt good.  It could almost feel perfect.  How
could she complain when she didn't know what to complain about?
   "We are both relieved to have you home, Sasha.  I regret that you were
not told of your fate and the hardship you encountered in coming here. 
Living tribute is often a fragile item to guarantee." His hand found hers
and clasped it.  "It has been a long time since either one of us have taken
that risk."
   Relieved to have her home.  That wasn't something people said to their
slaves, was it?  She squeezed his hand, wishing she could be bold enough to
move it lower, to have him...
   She moved his hand back to her breast, snuggled deeper into his embrace.
For now, everything was all right.  The throbbing between her legs would
have to wait.
   ***
   "Sasha."
   She groaned as someone lifted her by the shoulders into a sitting
position.  She squinted through her sleep heavy eyes at the panther staring
at her.
   No, not a panther.  Marcus.
   She frowned.  What did he want?
   "You need to eat.  You can go back to sleep afterward."
   She groaned and looked around for a clock.  Her mouth felt dry and
gross. "Bathroom?"
   He pointed to the heavy green curtain along the back wall.  He held her
hand while she slid out the bed.  Once her feet hit the floor, she realized
why.  Her body hurt, muscles ached.  Her bones felt like jelly.
   He kept her steady until she was able to pull away on her own.  Sasha
took care with each step, using the wall or the dresser to reach the
curtain.
   The bathroom had a small basin on a pedestal with a pitcher full of
water beside it.  There was another bluish black thing that looked like it
could serve as a tub if she sat in it.  A woven towel lay over the side of
a shelf.  Sasha had already become familiar with the dark hole in the floor
and its purpose.
   She splashed water on her face and brushed the damp towel over her
teeth. Then she took a long satisfying piss into the hole.  When she washed
as best as she could, she reentered the bedroom.
   Marcus held a strip of dark blue fabric out in front of her and wrapped
it around her waist.  The thin edges tied at her hip forming a skirt.
   "Thank you."
   "Let's get you something to eat." He scooped her into his arms and
carried her out the room and down the hall.
   A large dark wood table held three platters of food.  The smell alone
brought her to attention.
   Marcus used his foot to pull out a backless chair and set her down. 
"What would you like?"
   The smell of that pile of sliced meat made her mouth water, but she
didn't know what animals they farmed in Zorient-world.  She reached for the
round dark yellow fruit.  It had soft skin like a plum.  She smelled it. 
Sweet.
   Speaking of smells, he smelled a bit like moss and clean maleness.  He
wore a pair of soft brown shorts that practically left him naked to her
gaze.  She entertained licking him from head to toe.  What would he taste
like?  Would he melt in her mouth?
   Sasha blinked rapidly, snapping herself out of erotica-land.
   The corner of his mouth curled into a secretive smile.  "When you eat,
the food will center you.  Netherworld food will grant you strength,
longevity, health, and may even heighten some of your senses.  However, it
binds you.  You will not be able to return to the world you left."
   Refuse the food and starve?  Or go on hunger strike until they return
her?  To where?  To what?  Who wanted her?  Her own father had sold her.
   Truly on her own.
   Sasha snorted.
   Two people wanted her, tracked her down, cared.
   "What is this called?" She held the yellow fruit up.
   "Arka."
   "Is it a fruit?"
   "Yes."
   "Sweet?"
   "Quite, when ripe.  This is just slightly so.  Ripe Arka turns orange
and is used in making dessert."
   She bit into it and juice spilled down the sides of her mouth.  The meat
was soft, almost mushy, but the taste ...  like a caramel-pear-grape.  Very
delicious.  Any sweeter and her teeth would hurt.  She finished the Arka in
short order, leaving the core.
   Marcus smiled.  "Good?"
   "Mm hmm."
   "Try this." He reached over and picked up something segmented and red.
It looked like a tangerine slice, but dark red like a grapefruit.  He held
it up near her forehead.
   Sasha angled her head back and opened her mouth, sticking her tongue
out. She licked the tip of the fruit before sucking it into her mouth. 
Citrus, tart, but not quite enough to make her face pucker.
   "I don't feel any different."
   "You will." Marcus poured something ruddy colored into a cup and handed
it to her.
   She drank from the cup.  Cool, spicy, but not quite juice, not as potent
as wine.  "Thank you," she set the empty cup down.
   He refilled it.  "This will help with your injuries."
   She scanned the table, wondering what to go for next.  She pinched off a
piece of bread only to find it filled with jam.
   Opaque gray curtains covered what might be a window.  What would it look
like out there?
   "What was I," she winced, blinked.  Twin tears streamed down her cheeks.
"What did my father sell me for?" Despite her valiant effort, her voice
broke at the end of the question.
   Marcus eased his chair closer to hers.  "I specialize in life-altering
trades.  To change the course of someone's life, I demand a life in
payment. Sometimes, most of the time, I take servitude, dedication, or
resell the tribute.  It depends on what I'm looking for.  Your father began
his life in poverty.  He developed a terminal illness and lacked the money
to pay for his treatment.
   "Getting the illness diagnosed put him in severe debt.  He used your
mother's knowledge of the occult to negotiate a deal with me.  He appeared
to have thought the meeting out in advance, down to his relationship with
your mother.  It was a quality I appreciated: planning, forethought.
   "He offered me the life of a child, his first born, if I could alter his
path: education, health, social status.  It's one of those big asks that
you hear about all the time, but rarely happens.  I don't deal in children,
but Larik and I have a shared interest in human females.
"I provided the loan to get him the treatment, but I refused to make him
wealthy enough to pay that loan back until he could provide proof that he
had sired a female offspring."
   "The lottery." Sasha palmed her cheeks dry.  "Wow, all this time.  I
really was a princess in the tower."
   "What is that?"
   "A name this one girl gave me.  My father never allowed me to go on
field trips, sleep overs, evening parties.  I couldn't go on social
outings, have a phone.  He was very protective of me ...  of his
investment. He promised me it would end at this weird date in the future.
He wanted to protect me until then.  He promised me," she sniffled, "that
I'd be on my own."
   Sasha dug her nails into her thigh as anger, betrayal, and sadness
washed through her.  What could she do?  It wasn't Marcus that sold her. 
Had she ever been loved?  Her mother, until the guilt killed her.
   "Whatever," she palmed the last of the tears from her eyes and stared at
the plates of food.  "What happens to him?  He gets to live healthy and
rich off my life?"
   "For now.  After his death, I will collect him and put him to work as I
do with the others.  A small portion of his life will be in luxury.  He
will spend many times that in service to me."
   "Does he know that?"
   Marcus grinned.  "They never know that.  When he gets here," he put his
finger under her chin and guided her to look at him.  "It will not be to a
comfortable home and a spread of the Netherworld's finest foods."
   His words put a smile on her face, bitter sweet, but a smile
nonetheless.
   She reached for another segmented citrus and plopped it into his mouth.
He only held it between his teeth, so she leaned forward and bit off the
other end.  Juice splattered on bother their necks.
   She sat back with a giggle.  "What is it?"
   "Parin.  It grows wild here."
   She arched her brow in question.
   "Fitke Vale."
   He hadn't bothered to wipe the errant juice from his chin.  Sasha had
the notion to lick it up for him.  She leaned forward, waited.  He kept
still.  Her tongue reached out and touched his chin, licked toward his
cheek.  She swiped his lips on the way to the other side.
   She worked her way to his chin.  Her heart beat heavy.  She lay on his
shoulder, trying to catch her breath.  It wasn't the exertion, but the
exhilaration, the sheer madness.
   Marcus put one hand around her waist and reached for something on the
table with the other.  "Whenever you want to eat, there will be food here,
not always as much, but always something." He held a pinkish brown disk to
her lips.  "Chew this."
   "What is it?" She put it in her mouth.  It was like a tart gum.  She
squinted as the sour flavor filled her mouth.
   He chuckled.  "For the health of your mouth.  The herbs come from my
fields."
   They cleaned up and he led her to another room, a bit like a living
room. There were several benches and seating arrangements around a central
pyre.  The fire seemed to create an updraft from lower vents that exited in
a ceiling shaft.
   Marcus reached for a jar and got on his knees in front of her.  He put a
finger into the pale brown paste then rubbed it on the bruise on her calf.
He circled the sore muscles until the paste cleared and soaked into her
skin.
   She wanted to ask, 'what is that?', but she was in danger of becoming a
toddler: confused by everything, unsure, annoyingly curious.
It must have been medicine, of course.  Even if he told her the
ingredients, she wouldn't know what he was talking about.
   The thing in her mouth dissolved.  She ran her tongue over her teeth and
gums, smooth and clean.  That explained why there wasn't a tooth brush.
   "I didn't know the condition of your hair until you arrived.  Larik said
he knew what you would need.  He'll help you coil it if you ask."
   Larik and anything to do with her hair, which felt like a lamb riot, did
not compute, but if he was going to bring her some oil and a comb then she
would be all right.
   "What happened there?" She brushed the depression on the back of his
shoulder.
   "I got it while dealing with a theft problem in my store room."
   "What happened?"
   "We fought, he got a fortunate strike in, but I landed the killing
blow."
   For theft?
   He stood and moved behind her.  He massaged what must have been more
bruises on her back, easing several places where she had been aching.
   "I guess you don't have police or anything?  You have to handle your
disagreements."
   "We have a system of judgement, but it does not extend to the censure of
petty crime." He set the jar aside and sat down in one of the large chairs.
   While he sat, she explored, walking around the furniture, checking the
display cases.  The words on some of the items made no sense to her. 
Instructions?  Identification?  When she rounded the room, she stood near
his lap.
   Marcus extended his arm for her to sit.
   She sucked in a breath as her wet thighs slicked together.  His presence
had her leaking like a busted pipe.  He caressed the outside of her thighs
up to her hips and back down again.  She took a chance and lay down on his
shoulder, listened to the calm beat of his heart.  When she looked up his
smile reassured her.
   "Given your current state of arousal, I take it you are having a better
day."
   "Yes, thank you."
   "Let's switch." He stood, holding her and then set her down on the edge
of the chair.  He sat on the floor and kissed her knee.  "You smell
delicious," he pressed his teeth into her thigh.
   She giggled, and leaned back, opened her legs.  "Don't eat me."
   "Are you sure?" He moved to her other thigh and ran his teeth down that
one.
   "Um," she whimpered as his tongue wiggled back and forth along the skin
he was currently holding between his teeth.  More moisture leaked from her.
   "I think you want me to eat you, Sasha."
   "Yeah," she breathed.
   "First, I want to kiss you." He rose to his knees and pressed his lips
to hers.  He started soft, gentle.  She parted her lips and deepened the
kiss.  Their tongues slid against each other.  Marcus cradled the back of
her head and kissed down her neck.
   She rubbed her legs along his body, watched with avid fascination as he
worked her breasts over with his lips and tongue and teeth.  He played with
her nipples until they were as hard as pebbles.
   His kisses tickled her belly, and she didn't know whether to laugh or
moan, a confused clash of both echoed through the room.  She spread her
legs wider, inviting him to her wet slit.  She wanted his mouth there; her
body screamed for it.
   He kissed the small of her belly, and that meant he only had an inch or
more to go, but instead of crossing that short distance south, he rose to
his knees and kissed the lobe of her ear.  "Don't worry about doing the
right or wrong thing, Sasha.  Go with whatever you feel."
   "I'd like to do that." She giggled.
   "Like what?" Larik scowled from the entrance.  "What did you say?"
   "Relax, I was only telling her to enjoy herself."
   Larik shook his head and leveled a distrustful glare to them both.  "How
long has she been awake?  What have you two been doing this whole time?"
   "I woke her a while ago to eat.  I applied the salve.  You got back just
in time."
   "Just in time?  Or what?" Larik stalked towards Marcus.  "Trying to
drive a wedge between us early?"
   Marcus stood and Sasha bolted from the chair toward the wall.
   "I deserve better than that," Marcus said.  "You were the one who told
me to taste her, right?"
   Larik stood panting like an angry bull, his fists balled at his side. 
His whole body looked rigid, larger, coiled hard with rage.
   If it came to blows then she was going to make a dash for the door. 
Running?  Maybe that wouldn't be so smart.  Was there room to hide under
the furniture?  She ducked down behind the other chair and pulled her knees
to her chest.
   "Where the fuck did she go?"
   "She's hiding."
   "Don't let them do that!"
   "Stop." Marcus did not seem affected by Larik's aggressive stance.  "I
wanted her to be comfortable with her reactions and told her so."
   "Better be the same way when I fuck her," Larik scowled.  "Last thing I
want is a cold akarla that pushes off after a single round."
   "What did I say to you?  She ate, willingly.  She accepted her place
here, willingly, and your response is to demean her?"
   Sasha peaked around the corner just enough to see Larik hanging his
head. He looked hurt.
   "I didn't mean her.  In general," he sullenly explained, "You can't let
them run.  They lie and they--"
   "Enough." Marcus ground out in a roar that made Sasha's head swim.
   If Sasha had use of her legs, she would have tried for her room, maybe
even under the bed.
   "Are you done?" said Marcus.
   "Yes."
   They were quiet, but Sasha didn't want to look, didn't want to move.
   "Sasha," said Marcus.
   If there was ever a time to exercise her rights as a 'guest,' then it
was now.  "Never mind.  I'm fine.  May I go to my room?"
   "Sasha, come here."
   "No." Her voice wavered with the denial.
   Larik rounded the chair.  She only stared at his feet.  "Let him finish
what he started."
   "I don't--"
   "Don't want him to taste you?  Don't want him to sample what he owns?"
   "Easy," Marcus growled.
   "I don't want the two of you fighting.  Okay?  I'm sorry.  Whatever I
did, I'm sorry." Don't cry.  Don't cry.  Don't cry.  She buried her face in
her knees and squeezed her eyes shut.
   He sat down beside her, put his arm around her shoulders.  "I would be
very upset to lose you, and more upset to miss out and how Marcus will make
you feel." Larik dropped his voice.  "His tongue may not be as proficient
as mine, but he has a trick you will like."
   "You can't whisper for shit, Larik." Marcus chuckled.
   Sasha grinned into her knees, but it was Marcus' laugh that convinced
her to lift her head.
   "I overreacted," he helped her to her feet, "and I apologize for that."
   Sasha paused mid-nod.  Oh, hey, where did Marcus' shorts go?!
   He wasn't circumcised.  New bit of information there.  Sasha sat back in
the chair.
   "Should you apologize to Marcus?"
   Marcus shook his head.  "I know what his problem is.  You, however, did
not." He grinned at her.  "Now, where was I?" He tapped his chin and looked
her over.  "Here?" He put his face near her knee.
   She smiled.  "No."
   "Here?" He flicked his tongue out at her nipple.
   "No."
   "Oh." He pecked her on the lips, but pulled her hips to his erection. 
"Was I here?"
   "Soon enough," Larik muttered.  He removed his shorts and reclined on
the couch, also un-cut.
   Sasha cleared her throat.  "No."
   "I can't ...  remember."
   "You were here," she pointed to the small of her belly.
   "That's right." He eased down between her thighs and bared his teeth. 
"I was about to eat you."
   "No, I don't think so!" She squealed.
   Larik chuckled.
   Marcus spread her thighs and pressed his lips firmly to her pussy.  The
tip of his tongue slid down along the side of her clitoris, then back and
forth, flicking against her with a tickling and humming sensation.
   Sasha gasped and took firm hold of the sides of the chair as euphoric
vibrations traveled up and down her spine.  Some trick!  Marcus made quick
work of her.  She wanted to pull away, the sensation was almost too strong,
too intense, but in just a few seconds...
   She grabbed the back of his head and bucked his face as the orgasm
possessed her.  She tensed for several long seconds unable to breathe,
move, or make a sound.  Then she collapsed, sunk into the chair with a long
sigh.  Floaters danced in her vision.
   Marcus set her legs aside and stood.  "You were right, Larik.  She is
quite responsive."
   Sweat dripped down her body.  Sasha tensed as an after-wave of pleasure
flowed through her.  She squeezed her thighs together, keeping the feeling
going a little longer.
   Go with what you feel.  Taking Marcus' advice, she pushed out of the
chair and sat between Larik's thighs on the couch.  His rigid erection
arched back toward his stomach, thick and veiny and darker red than the
rest of him.
   Larik spread his legs wider.  "Your mind isn't innocent.  Isn't that
what you said?"
   "That's right."
   She touched his inner thighs first, rubbed up and curled her fingers
into the baby soft hairs around his groin.
   Alice would spend the afternoon creating a single look with clothing and
make up because, 'Men love to fuck with their eyes.' She said they were
visual creatures.  Well, at least the human males seemed to be.
   She angled the tip of his penis toward her and flicked out her tongue.
She circled the head and then licked up and down along his shaft like a
popsicle.
   Talk about delicious!  There was something savory about Larik.  She
wrapped her lips along his shaft and worked her way toward the tip.  Her
lips played around his shaft, sucking and kissing him.  She lost herself in
the act, the fun of it.  Soft moans rumbled in the back of her throat.
   Marcus sat on the floor near Larik's hip, watching her.
   She pulled her head back and opened her mouth, but let her tongue
stretch out to lick the underside of his head.
   Larik groaned.  "Do that again."
   She did, licked a little harder, made her tongue flat then pointed. 
Inching closer, she slipped her lips over the head of his cock.  She arched
forward and put as much of him in her mouth as she could manage before
sliding back out.  She bobbed along the tip, licking him and swallowing her
saliva.
   "Slow down," he held her hair back from her face.  "Take your time."
   She eased back down, slowly, then pulled up.  His cock twitched in her
mouth and Larik groaned deeper that time.  She wiggled her tongue back and
forth while she bobbed her head and Larik's hand tightened in her hair.
   "Fuck yes.  That's it.  Suck me down." He pulled her head back until she
was just about to release him.  "Good, down again, far as you can go ... 
slow.  Yes.  Like that." The second time she nearly gagged herself, but
made it further than before.  Larik's legs trembled and the hand at her
shoulder tightened.
   She did not try to interpret his growls, whether they were impatience or
satisfaction.  She kept her motion steady, slow, and constant.  Each time
he twitched or groaned she mentally pat herself on the back.
   Larik made a high pitched wine and Marcus snapped his fingers.
   "No.  Not yet."
   "Why not?" Larik snapped.
   "Because I said no."
   "Please?  I'm almost there."
   "No."
   With a petulant roar of frustration, Larik pulled away from her.  "Damn
you and your fucking rules." Larik breathed heavily as he fisted his cock.
"I bet she would have swallowed me.  Wouldn't you?"
   Sasha didn't know if she would have, but she played along.  "I would
have." She made her voice sultry, looked him in the eye.  "Every drop."
   "Yes."
   "I liked sucking you."
   Larik's face twisted in a way that made her heart trip over itself. 
Something about this man set off a primal fear response inside her.
   "You were delicious as well.  Yours was the first dick I ever had in my
mouth.  Did I do okay?"
   "Better than okay." His hand moved faster along his dick.
   "I want to do it again, soon, suck you all the way--"
   With a series of low grunts, his ejaculate hit the floor.  Sasha turned
away and stared up at the sloped ceiling.  She was not ready to learn how
Zorient semen differed from human.  She could already tell by the sound
that it was far more than normal.  Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. 
Where had she found the bravado to talk to him like that?
   Another soft, low moan from beside her.  Sasha closed her eyes with a
proud smile.  She had inspired that kind of lust.
   Not bad.
   The men left the room, but she stayed on the couch.  Sasha had a choice
to make, the most important of all.  Was she going to give into the fear of
being away from her world?  Was she going to give into the despair of
having a father who sold her and lied to her?  Or would she embrace the
potential decadent life they offered?  Concubine to a pair of ...  of
Zorients.
   Marcus returned with a cup of sweet liquid to drink.  It was like a
berry juice, but also very herbal and fragrant.  "We are glad to have you
here.  Hopefully you will find your place here."
   "At least until Larik suspects me of being sent to spy on him."
   He chuckled.  "He's just nervous and fretful.  Give him time."
   "You said I didn't know something about him.  Why is he so suspicious of
me?"
   "Larik has had bad experiences with his bargains.  The last one turned
out the worse.  She turned several of his allies against him, hurt him, and
ruined one of his closest relationships.  Gargan was like a birth sibling
to him until that day."
   "Oh."
   "He worries you will run away or worse."
   She shook her head.  "I wouldn't.  I just want him to like me."
   Marcus kissed her on the forehead.  "He likes you plenty.  He would not
be so furious if he didn't.  I have some work to do, but you are welcome to
use any room you wish.  In the top drawer of your dresser there are some
games you might enjoy.  I had the instructions translated to your tongue."
He kissed her once more on the lips before leaving her.
   ***
   Sasha woke to the crackle of fire.  The torches along the top of the
wall burned low, not reaching high enough to cause the ceiling to glow. 
She sat up and stretched.  Pleasant aches from the orgasms put a soft smile
to her face.
   After washing up, Sasha went to the doorway of her room.  The dining
room would be down the hall and to her left.  All the fires in the house
burned low, casting the hallway in flickering shadows.
   What time was it?
   Marcus had assured her the table would always have something for her to
eat.  She'd just get an arka and go back to bed.  She passed a door on her
right, but did not try it.  Her luck, it would be a door leading to a room
she was not supposed to see.
   Her stomach churned.  Maybe a fruit and some bread, enough to sate her
till day light.
   She turned the corner and stopped.
   Larik sat at the end of the table haunched over a plate.  Both hands
shoveled food into his mouth.
   The gray curtains were open.  Beyond the window was a great expanse of
starlight.  Green and blue light danced in the dark atmosphere like
auroras, sometimes flashing with bits of yellow and violet.
   Larik lifted his head, but reached for the large tumbler and took great
gulps of liquid before diving back into his meal.
   She took one silent step after another into the room, closer to the
table.  Her feet made no noise on the stone floor.  Her hunger won each
battle against her trepidation for Larik's mood.
   Three feet away she stopped and cleared her throat.  "Larik?"
   He stopped chewing and lifted his head.  He looked her over, daring her
to move, waiting for her to run so that he could give chase, rip her back
open and eat her organs as heartily-
   She took a deep breath.  "Can I, may I join you?"
   He didn't move.  This time she imagined he didn't want to rip her open
but throw her on the table and thrust himself inside her.
   He pointed to the chair beside him.
   That wouldn't have been the one she picked, but she eased onto the
wooden chair.  Larik's eyes followed her.  She looked over the table,
fidgeted and looked up to find him still staring at her, unmoving, like a
statue.
   She whispered, "May I eat?"
   He tilted his head ever so slightly, narrowed his eyes.  "Why are you
asking me?"
   "I'm afraid you'll hurt me."
   That appeared to get through to him.  Hurt?  Sadness?  Whatever she
thought she saw in his expression was soon replaced by a cold scowl.  He
grabbed an empty plate and filled it with cuts of meat, vegetables, and
other items.  He set the place down in front of her and returned to
scarfing his food.
   His eyes never left her.
   She tried to smile.  The strained muscles of her face meant she botched
the job.  "Thank you."
   No small utensils.
   Okay then.  She picked up the items at the very top of the pile and put
it in her mouth.  Tasted good.  Savory.  She picked a bit of everything she
could find.  It all reminded her of something else, but sweeter, tangier,
richer, saltier, greener than the item it approximated.
   One meat became lamb-chicken and apple-onion glaze love child.  Round
balls were smoky soft potato rolls.  String bean shape but carrot flavor.
   "You eat like that and you'll join the fog soon enough." Larik growled.
   Chastised, she set her food down and set her stained hands into her lap.
Could she do anything right in front of him?
   Well, he didn't seem to be so bitchy with his dick in her mouth.
   "Eat, girl."
   "I was just trying to enjoy it," she said.  "It all tastes so good."
   He nodded.  "Good."
   May she could try to learn something about him.  She swallowed the bit
of food in her mouth and licked her fingers clean.  "Marcus told me about
you."
   Larik snapped his head up.  His eyes flared poppy red.  "He told you
what?"
   Fuck.
   Sasha shrank back and shook her head.  Never mind.
   Larik thumped his fist on the table.  "He told you what?" He barked each
word.
   She was about to find out what a heart attack felt like.  She tightened
her hands to fists as she chased her breath.  As the struggle to breathe
failed she turned light-headed.  What was she thinking?  "He-he-he told me
...  your ...  the last ...  you've had a bad experience with, um, that's
why ...  that's why you hate me."
   Larik folded his arms and regarded her in silence.  He gave a great sigh
and his eyes darkened.  "I do not hate you."
   Yet.  He didn't have to say it.  She heard the word hanging between
them.
   "I don't want to discuss it."
   Death avoided for the moment.
   They ate in tense silence.
   Larik huffed.  "Why?  If he told you, why bring it up?"
   "I wanted to know about you." She wanted to figure out how to avoid
getting on his bad side, but she left that bit unsaid.
   He grunted and tore the top off a thinner, crunchier version of
cauliflower.  "I know how to bring wealth.  I excel at it.  Any human
system of monetary exchange, and I can figure out how to manipulate it."
   Sasha picked at her food and chewed quietly so that she could hear every
word.  She chose to look outside at the starlight show rather than him.
   "I helped this couple buy their way to a life of royalty: castles,
jeweled gowns, elaborate balls, loyal guilds.  Filthy fucking rich - all in
exchange for their daughter.  They practically shoved the girl into my
arms. I should have known that was a red flag, but I reasoned their
behavior away.
   "She was a vapid, spoiled, cold, empty shell of a woman.  She had the
body of an aristocrat and the temperament of a tornado."
   Sasha nodded.  "I know the kind, grew up in boarding school with them."
   "Oh yes, you know.  You were there, born into it.  That is the price
asking for the children of callous, spoiled people.  This bitch was the
spitting image.  She had a price for everything, and I paid it.  I
neglected all to see to her happiness.  Too stupid to see...  She had
Gargan by the nostrils, and used him to strike the final blow to me.  Took
me years to rebuild."
   "Why was that a problem?  I mean, you share me with Marcus."
   "Marcus and I made the deal for you.  I alone bargained for Lisa.  I
would have shared her if Gargan asked.  Violation of an ownership contract
is a huge problem.  A consort stays with his or her keeper unless otherwise
traded or sold.  A consort is different than general property, mind you. 
Both Lisa and Gargan broke the rules."
   "What happened to them?"
   Two red orbs glowed in the low light.  "They were punished."
   Sasha pushed the round black things on her plate back and forth as she
considered her position.  "Is there anything I can do to make you feel
better?"
   Larik snorted.  "Suck me off."
   Sasha looked at him.  Would it really work?
   He smirked.  "There is nothing like the feel of a beautiful woman's
mouth around my cock.  I'm getting hard just thinking about that energetic
little tongue of yours.  A good orgasm is the best stress relief there is,
calms me right down."
   "You?  Stressed?  Fancy that." Sasha rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Someone snatch you away from the only life you've ever known?  No, not a
life, the empty illusion of a life.  I wanted to work, you know.  I
educated myself.  I have talents beyond my mouth.  I arrived here battered
and bruised and I have tried..." She blinked tears into her lap and stemmed
the flow of complaint.  A learned response.  She had no leverage, no place
to disagree.  Whereas her previous prison had a release date, this one
would be forever.
   She should just be quiet.
   She didn't hear Larik leave the table, but he returned with a warm cloth
which he used on her face and hands.  He handed her an after-meal gum, but
she kept her head bowed.  She didn't want to see his scowl.
   He took her hand and led her back to the bedroom.  He helped her onto
the bed, but instead of walking away, he crawled onto the bed and kneeled
over her.
   Sasha took a breath, but he put his finger to her lips.
   "Truce."
   She nodded.
   He leaned down, but then eased back as if changing his mind.  "May I
kiss you?"
   She lifted her chin and puckered her lips.
   Larik pressed his lips to hers and the moment her lips parted that
tongue of his eased into her mouth.  His saliva was so much different:
thicker and smokier.  The tongue itself was thicker, more muscular.
   Sasha sucked on his tongue and lost herself to the moment.  It should
have been gross, but just the right amount of liquid and warmth made the
taste of him addictive.
   Larik reached down and squeezed her breast.  His tongue flicked out and
then back into her mouth.  It was the weirdest kiss, as if he were truly
fucking her mouth.
   He pulled away and sat beside her panting.  He dug both his hands in his
hair.  He was fully erect now, curved back and weeping at the tip.
   "Can we," Sasha's vaginal walls clenched at the thought.
   "Can we?" He echoed.
   "I want to try something with you."
   His tongue flicked out of his mouth and wriggled.
   Sasha chuckled.  "How about we relieve our stress at the same time?"
   Larik reared back and narrowed his eyes.  "You are teasing."
   "Please?  I'm serious.  If it's not--"
   "Shh," Larik stretched out on his back and crooked his finger at her.
   She crawled up to him.
   "Other way around." He winked.
   She straddled his shoulders and looked down at him from between her
legs. Behind her head, her huge fluff of hair fell into his lap.  "Are you
sure you don't mind?"
   "Sasha," he whipped his tongue out its full length, nearly reaching her
pussy.  "There is nothing like the taste of pussy, the energy of feeling
the climax.  This while you suck on my cock?" He chuckled and tugged on her
hips.
   She moaned and settled down on his face.  She took his erection in hand
and sucked him into her waiting mouth.
   Unfortunately, Sasha's ambition was bigger than her ability.  She could
barely concentrate with Larik's tongue driving her wild.  She moaned his
name like a prayer as her hips rolled against the curl of tongue, fucking
herself and making her clitoris sing.
   She looked down at the dick in her hand, thought about how it might feel
to have him sinking inside her.
   She wanted that.  She wanted to know.  She took a mouthful of him and
sucked deep.  For a moment, she won the battle to concentrate.  He moaned
and his hips bucked.
   His teeth scraped along her swollen clitoris, creating a guttural moan
in her throat.
   Sasha lifted her head.  "Again, please, do that again."
   Teeth that could probably rip the flesh from her body whispered over her
sensitive nub.
   Sasha panted, her hips trembled.  She was so close.
   Larik pulled back and his tongue lashed back and forth over her slit,
long, wet, slick - lapping thickly at her.
   Damn it.  She wanted more.  Sasha rolled her hips wantonly, begging for
release.  She whimpered in frustration.
   "Please, give me more.  Please."
   He rolled her over and Sasha nearly cried.
   "No.  Don't stop, Larik!  Please!"
   He pulled her up to his chest and crushed her to his body.  They both
kneeled on the bed and Larik stared down at her.  "What do you want?"
   "You.  I want you, please."
   "What do you want me to do?"
   "Whatever you want," she begged.  "Please, anything you want."
   "No, I want to hear it from you.  What do you want?"
   "I want you to fuck me, put it inside me, all the way.  You tongue or
your dick.  Please, fuck me."
   "Say it.  Tell me again."
   "Fuck me, please.  Larik, I want you to fuck me.  I want you."
   He kissed her, crushed his mouth to hers.  She whimpered, but kissed him
back.  His fingers reached down and rubbed her until she exploded.
   Her vision went black and brilliant as she shook in his arms.  She
screamed into his mouth.
   When the orgasm ended, she had no strength left.  Larik held her up,
placing kisses along her sweat neck and shoulder.
   "Thank you." Larik mumbled between kisses.
   "What did I do?"
   He chuckled.  "You made me feel better.  Get back to sleep.  It's a few
hours yet till day break."
   Sasha lay back on the bed between his legs.  "Not yet.  You still have a
bit of stress left."
   Larik smirked and began to stroke his cock.  "If you stay there, you
might get messy."
   "I know."
   Larik groaned and used both hands to work himself toward an orgasm.  His
hips rocked and thighs bulged as he got closer to that point.  Then it left
him in a flood, hot and spreading along her belly and breast.  Larik panted
and squeezed every drop onto her body.
   "Ah, fuck.  You were right.  Just a little more."
   Sasha chuckled.  "Stay with me."
   "Let me dry you up first."
   ***
   "What do you mean?" Marcus' voice.
   "I'm counting that as my second.  She's very creative."
   "Creative how?"
   "Keep your voice down.  She's sleeping."
   "Don't avoid the question."
   "I followed the rules, even when I didn't have to.  I don't owe you
details."
   Marcus must have said something or did something.
   "She asked!"
   Sasha rolled out the bed and into the bathroom.
   After the morning abolution, she messed with her hair on the way to the
table.
   Larik and Marcus sat across from each other.  She scratched her head as
she took a seat between them.  She would need a comb or something soon.
   Mm.  Fresh food.  She pulled the chair out and set to fixing herself
something to eat.  She picked up the strips of meat and dipped them into
the gravy sauce.  She tucked that into the paper thin bread and covered it
with some of the diced green stuff.  Morning burritos!
   She picked out a few more items to pile on before giving it a try.  She
moaned over her food in silence.
   Oh?  Now they wanted to be silent?
   "Good to see you awake," said Marcus.
   She rolled her eyes.  "You didn't leave me with much choice with your
arguing." She took another mouthful of food.  It was nothing like a morning
burrito.
   "I apologize.  I tried to keep my voice low."
   "You failed." She brandished her empty cup to Larik.
   He filled it and handed it over with a smile.
   The argument seemed to stop permanently.  Marcus didn't ask any
questions about last night, and Sasha was not about to volunteer that she
had begged Larik to fuck her.  Begged and meant it.
   Why didn't he?
   Sasha fussed with her hair, finger combed many of the worse knots, and
pulled on her curls until she could fashion them into a less unruly look.
She went off in search of her Marcus and Larik to show it off.
   "It's too soon," said Larik.
   She followed the sound of his voice.
   "I understand your reservation, but I think it would be a good
experience for her."
   "I thought that once too."
   They were fully dressed in long pants, hook-and-eye shirts that fit them
perfectly.  She did not think it was possible for them to look more
handsome.
   "Work with me on this one."
   "No.  She's ours and this is our decision.  No, absolutely not.  She
just got here.  I do not want her leaving so soon."
   Sasha could see them spooling up for another argument.  Over her. 
Again. "Excuse me."
   They turned to look at her.
   "It's okay, whatever it is.  I'll be fine.  I'm used to it." She offered
them a smile.  "Princess in the tower knows how to stay behind.  You all do
what you have to, I'll be fine." She spun on her heels and walked away,
careful not to stomp like a child.  She had become very practiced at this
indeed.
   "What does that even mean?" Larik said.
   She could hear Marcus answering, but not his words.  He must have been
explaining her previous prison sentence and the nickname it earned her. 
She imagined Larik nodding and saying, 'Good idea.  That's the way all
property should be kept.'
   She pulled open the top drawer of her dresser.  It was unfair to think
they should treat her otherwise.  She was their prisoner, albeit a very
well kept one.  This was not a relationship or friendship.  She belonged to
them.  No need to be a cry baby about it.  Not everyone gets to grow up in
not one, but two, gilded cages.
   Footsteps thundered down the hallway and a stern-faced Larik charged
into her room.  "Move!" He yanked on a lower drawer and picked through
strips of fabric.
   "I didn't mean to overhear you.  You were right.  I just got here.  I
can see how--"
   Larik glared at her and her mouth clacked shut.  He draped a few strips
of cloth over his arm and stalked over to her.  "Stand straight."
   She was too stunned to do anything but as he held his choices up to her
neck.
   "Arms over your head."
   She turned and twisted and posed as he wanted until he had her wrapped
in the elaborate fabric.
   "What is happening with your hair?"
   "It was the best I could do!"
   He chuckled.  "I'll coil it when you get back."
   "What do you mean?"
   "You'll like it.  It's like lacing, no, like a thin rope or vines."
   "Locs.  Yeah, I've seen that." She looked down at the shimmering
blue-green fabric.  It was covered in a black pattern, almost like writing.
"Does this say something?"
   "It means that you are escorted." He took a step back and looked her
over.  "Let's go."
   "Wait.  Why did you change your mind?"
   "You never saw your own world.  You may never see it again and," Larik
growled as if from frustration.  "What does it matter?  I said let's go."
   "Where am I going?"
   "Uvall Square.  We have errands." He led her into the room she'd entered
through: with the red specks in the stone.  There was the smaller room that
hat walls made from swirling black oil.  Larik stepped into it and it
wrapped around him like black smoke.
"Take my hand," said Marcus.  "Keep hold of me and I will get us
through."
   They took a step into the room.  Tendrils extended from the dark walls
and grabbed them.  It didn't feel like much of anything, like a warm breeze
as it wrapped around her and drew her in.
   They rushed through the darkness, speeding through as if riding a high
speed wave.  Seconds later they were in the midst of a crowd of people ...
people from a drug-induced fantasy dream state.  Things with tails,
outlandish piercings, horns, scales, elaborate fashions.
   People looked her over and went back to their business as if finding
nothing beyond the ordinary.
   Sasha took in the high-vaulted ceiling, made from stone with brilliant
gemstone inclusions casting a bright light through the place.  Inside the
dome were smaller shops on two floors and some of the passages appeared to
lead down into the dark.  The floor beneath her was made from black stone
with gray inscriptions.
   The lack of windows made her wonder what dangers lay outside the walls.
It couldn't be that bad.  She'd seen stars and some kind of aurora outside
her window.  Well, the one time she'd ever seen the curtain parted.
   "With me." Marcus put his hand around her waist and directed her along
the walkway.
   "Took you two long enough." Larik focused on the activity behind them.
"I talked to Kamari.  She didn't have any trouble getting an audience with
Hedra's High Lord."
   "Good.  She'll do well there."
   "I don't know what's so special about it.  You're never free of soot. 
Only way to get anywhere is to spill blood.  Couldn't wait to leave." Larik
pushed off from the wall and led the way.
   They passed a store front that had a tower of bones and the skulls of
creatures she never wanted to see in living form.  Another place hung skins
of elaborate color and markings.  A few more store fronts later, it
clicked.
   Uvall Square.  Was this a mall?  Perhaps closer to a town center.  A
golden green statue pointed a great sword in judgement of something unseen.
   A great rolling like a massive freight truck rocked the ground
underfoot. Large doors opened at the far end of the square.  A massive
black iron square was locked around a haunched man's head.  The iron square
chains rattled with each step.  Spikes curved back both above and below the
cage.
   "Stay close," Marcus warned as they moved along.
   They ducked into a beautiful shop.  Marcus and Larik conducted business
in the that language that sounded like a cross between an island and
mountain tongue.  Like a child in an expensive jewelry store, she kept her
hands securely behind her back as she looked at the items on the shelf.
   Many of the stones nearer to a flame glowed, but they had not been cut
or shaped.  Further away from the fires they looked like normal colored
pieces of stone.
   They stopped to get her a fizzy drink that had a bit of an alcoholic
affect to it, followed by something soft, almost like a donut, but shaped
more like a muffin.  While she ate either Marcus or Larik had a hand on
her, touching her, caressing her.
   She looked around, but no one seemed shocked or confused by her
presence, even though she did not see other humans being treated similarly.
   She followed along while they stopped at other points and held strange
conversations with other Zorients.
   They were walking back to the center of the square when a high pitched
squeal caused everyone to stop and take notice.
   The squealing rose in volume and the floor vibrated under her bare feet.
   Angry, shouting, curt voices raised over the commotion.  Amor bearing
Zorients pursued what appeared to be an escaped ...  winged crocodile.  Its
talons sank into someone's leg.  Everyone scrambled to get out of the
thing's way.
   Sasha was swept up by the stampede.  She screamed as the tide of bodies
pulled her away from Marcus and Larik.
   "Sasha!"
   She heard Larik's roar above all else.  She could not see him beyond the
crush of bodies surrounding her.  She ducked down and got out of the crowd,
maneuvering until she reached a rocky wall.
   The flying thing had been caught.  It was making a sorrowful sound as
locks and clamps were fastened around its muzzle and wings.
   The crowd thinned, but several paused to watch the beast hauled away.
   With no hope of seeing over others she ducked down.  There was a shiny
black spire as if made from black glass across the street.  That was where
they were headed before the flying thing got into the square.
   So...
   She peered around the column with pale green gems listening for either
Marcus or Larik's voice.
   "Sasha?"
   She waved her hand and rose to her toes.
   "Marcus, by the crag." Larik said.  "Stay there."
   She nodded and watched Larik approach.  His advance was slowed as the
winged thing had been lifted on a pulley and the Zorients shouted something
that must have translated as 'make way.' Everyone lined the walkway and
cleared the streets.
   Being a princess in the tower wasn't such a bad life.  No idea why she
every complained.  She would just keep to her room from now on.
   A finger nail eased down her arm.  "Greetings, pretty." A set of sharp
bluish black nails pressed into her side.
   "Hey!  Stop!"
   "Come with me."
   "No!" Sasha screamed.  "Let me go!  I don't know you!" She protested as
a pair of pale hands pulled her backwards into the dark.
   Before the oily walls swallowed her, she made out Larik's face twisted
into a mask of fiery rage.
   ***
   This must have been some kind of transit system, but without any visible
signs or audible cues, Sasha had no idea how it worked.  Given the sense of
flying it induced, it must have been very fast.
   He dragged her out a similar dark room into deeply unfamiliar
surroundings.  High pitted stone forming peaks over twenty feet high,
appearing gray-blue.  Water dripped elsewhere creating a soft echo in the
cavern.  Not so much a cavern, more like a rocky hole, as if she were at
the bottom of a massive rock shaft, fenced in by stone pillars.
   The evening light streaming from above caused the inclusions to have a
silver glittery in the deep blue stone.  It would have been beautiful if
she had not been dragged here against her will.
   Outside the enclave looked to be swamp.  Stumps of trees rose through
the pulsing, writhing mist.
   Sasha held her breath.  Something was alive out there in the marsh land,
within the mist.  Faces howled soundlessly before being swallowed into the
glow of the fog.
   Ghosts?
   She shivered as a blast of cold air howled past the opening.
   She hugged her arms to her body.  Her toes felt like ice cubes.  No
wonder fires were always burning, without them, it felt like winter.
   "Yes.  Quite pretty." A male voice rose from the dark, his leering
comments echoed off the stone.
   Sasha spun in a circle, searching every dark corner, but she could not
see the speaker.
   "So fortunate to find you."
   "No!  You stole me!  Take me back!" She turned in a steady circle,
yelling everywhere at once.
   Laughter bounced off the walls and melded with the howling wind.  "Save
you, not steal."
   What did he mean?
   "Rescue," he purred, "pretty human."
   This didn't feel like much of a rescue.  "You've made a terrible
mistake. I belong with someone else."
   "You alone.  Human in other plane.  I save you.  Rescue?  Help?  Yes,
help.  We come to agreement.  Come to terms?  Make deal?"
   Sasha paced the room, scratching her scalp.  Was he telling the truth?
Would she be stupid not to listen?
   Help her how?  Where was she going to go?
   The wind died down and the sound of dripping water rose to take its
place.  She didn't hear anything else.  Did he walk away?
   "Yes?" He stepped into the shaft of light with her.  He looked
surprisingly human ...  normal, even with those long, blue fingernails.  He
had bright blue eyes, dark blond hair, typical facial structure.  His pale
skin looked shiny in spots, like he had been burned, but other than that he
seemed human.
   What if he were mostly human?  What if he really could help her?  Was
she so willing to side with her captors?
   He wanted to 'come to terms.' Why shouldn't she at least try?
   "How do you want to help me?" She asked.
   He smiled, a perfect set of even, bright teeth.  Between his legs the
material covering his crotch rose.  That erection did not appear poised for
conversation.
   So what if he was human?  What did that matter here?  It was a group of
humans that captured her outside the cafe.  It was her human father that
sold her.  Where someone was born did not matter.
   Sasha turned to run and was caught before she managed more than a couple
steps.
   She turned and beat her fist on his chest, but he only laughed, held her
tighter.
   "You are afraid I will hurt pretty lady?"
   "Please take me back." Now that she was close she could see how horribly
his skin had been burned.  Deep scars marked his chest and shoulders.
   "You are new.  You do not know ruin." His eyes burned cobalt blue as he
squeezed her ass.
   She stilled, not knowing if he planned to teach her 'ruin' on the spot.
   "Deserve gentle treatment.  Deserve saved.  I help pretty.  Yes?  You
want freedom?  I give you freedom.  I give you help, give you power.  Such
beauty commands, not serves, yes?"
   His words confused her.  Sasha looked down at the stone ground. 
Whatever he was trying to sell her, she refused to buy.
   Attempting to steal ...  Marcus killed a man for it.  She belonged to
them.  They did not ruin or hurt her.
   "I win your devotion.  We not fight.  Say how, pretty."
   Devotion.  Loyalty.
   "Marcus!" Sasha screamed at the top of her lungs.  Maybe she hadn't
traveled too far.  Maybe the square was on the other side of the wall.
   "Do not scream, pretty.  I keep safe." He put a warning claw to her
spine and kneeled before her.  "Not the fear to make you scream.  I show
another way?"
   "Please, sir.  Please, take me back where you found me.  I do not want
anything to do with you.  I do not want your help.  I want to go back where
you found me."
   "How you sure?" He reached out and licked her stomach with a tongue that
looked black and shiny.  "You choose this realm?  You chain yourself? 
Maybe you captured?  Maybe you caged?"
   "Yes, I was captured."
   He kissed her on the hip over her dress.
   Sasha stiffened.
   "Pleasure turn you calm.  Want become pet?  I give you pretty things.  I
make you feel happiness.  You be my pet."
   No.  This man was a bastard who only cared about what he could take from
others.  He would hurt her.  He would punish her.  He was only pretending
to be nice.
   He did this all the time.  He was dangerous.
   "Ah?  What that?" He looked up at her and blinked his ice blue eyes.  "I
felt then.  You know.  More than pretty flesh.  Special mind." His tongue
licked down her belly and approached her pussy.  "I save you from ruin.  I
calm fear."
   "Leave me alone!  Stop!" She tried to back away, but his nails pierced
her skin, four daggers dug into her spine.
   His tongue lapped until the fabric of her skirt lifted.  He pressed her
pussy closer.  His tongue plunged between her labia.  He pushed her onto
her back, grabbed both her thighs, and lapped at her.
   This was not the time for her body to react in pleasure, but she could
not resist.  He sucked on her clitoris, nursed its growing enthusiasm.
   Sasha sucked a deep breath and tried to reach the world beyond with her
scream.  "Larik!"
   Her cry ended with a frightened scream as he towered over her and
grabbed her by the neck.
   "Why you call that name?!" He growled, shook her by the neck.  "Why you
call it?  Why you know?!"
   Gargan.
   Sasha's heart thundered.  If she was right, then she was in serious
trouble.  If she was wrong, then she was still in trouble.
   She preferred to be wrong.
   "Get off me!" She tried to roll out of his grip.  She scratched and
kicked, but he pinned her down, sat on her hips.
   "Larik.  You say his name.  Larik get special slut for me to fuck. 
Sainted by Vine and pretty.  Know you slut if Larik have.  Need save."
   She paused in her struggle, her breath came fast and ragged.
   "Need save from slut.  You have me now.  I use only you.  Go back and he
will beat you.  He will roll you over Hedra fires, like he do me." He
grinned.  "He peel skin from muscle, watch you join the fog, like he do
her." He caressed her neck and chest.  "Best I help you.  I make you scream
and turn wet.  I fill you with my milk.  I keep you happy."
   "Someone help me, please!"
   Gargan frowned as if upset.  "Yes, I help.  Larik not know you special.
Can't."
   "Stop!  Leave me alone!  Marcus!"
   "No.  Special slut will be safe.  I give her--"
   A low whoosh through the air.
   Gargan grunted and clawed at the blanket of white covering his face.  He
rolled off her and tugged at the sticky material.
   White strands locked onto her body and she was yanked up and back, away
from Gargan and out of the cave.
   She was in complete darkness, only able to make out the twinkle of
sparkling white in the stone of the tunnel.  Something beside her, the void
of its unusual shaped blocked the sparkling stone.
   Or maybe there was nothing, Sasha reached out and brushed blindly toward
her side.
   Soft bristles.
   She felt caught in heavy elastic strands.  White, covering Gargan's
face.
   Below her, Gargan snarled in frustration.  He was on his feet now,
scanning the room.
   A soft limb pressed to her lips.
   "Hush now," a feminine voice urged.  "Don't want him to hear you."
   Light-headed and ready to piss herself, she nodded.
   The limb dropped.  "You call the name of Marcus, Lord Warrior of the
Talion Marsh?"
   Sasha had been screaming for help.  Hopefully this was a better kind
than Gargan offered.
   Her mouth fell open, but no answer came to mind.  She whispered, "I
don't know.  He has holdings in Fitke Valley."
   "Yes.  He rules the Talion Marsh in Fitke Vale.  I am Phenex.  Follow
me."
   Did she trust someone who knew Marcus more than she trusted someone who
clearly knew Larik?
   Her choices were slim.  She crawled along the passage deeper into the
darkness.  Few of the rocks sparkled.  Her hand and feet were in no hurry
to thaw though it wasn't as cold as the open crevice.
   Ahead, Phenex made little sound, only the soft tumble of loose gravel
every once in a while, and the whisper of her body.
   Behind them, a string of enraged cursing from Gargan in what must have
been his natural language.
   "Approach the light ahead," said Phenex.  "Move with care."
   The floor began to slope downward and she crawled backwards until she
was able to jump down into the next cavern.
   Above her was the web a size of a freaking soccer field.  Massive round
white sacks wriggled and pulsed along the wall.  Slight spongy sounds
emerged from them.
   She would have screamed if her throat could work.
   A soft hiss of air behind her.
   Two long, silver spikes extended from two stubby limbs.  Two rows of
beady round, violet-black orbs.  Two curled furry limbs bracketing beige
fangs.  Extended from the center body were long, towering legs, banded a
soft white and deep black.  Thick stray hairs poked out from the bright
white bands.
   She nearly fainted, but at the last moment she recalled how to breathe.
She sucked in great lungfuls of air as if it were her first time from the
womb.  Her whole body shuddered and not just from the chill.
   "Your name?"
   The fangs bobbed slightly, but otherwise, the noise did not come from
the giant spider's mouth.
   "S-S-Sasha."
   "What are you doing here?"
   "Gargan, I think he was Gargan, stole me from ...  Oh ...  it sounds
like oval square."
   "That explains it."
   Not that Sasha had seen many spiders beyond the ones that haunted the
corners of her home, but as Phenex crossed into the light, she saw the
black bands were actually a deep eggplant purple color.  "You are very
beautiful." People seemed very fond of giving compliments here.
   "Thank you.  I do not get much praise from humans." Though Phenex did
not have the means to smile or laugh, Sasha felt the mirth in the woman's
words.  "Follow.  A Bathin Gate lies ahead."
   She followed Phenex, ducking around the web, very careful not to touch
any of it, though it did not stick to Phenex's great body at all.
   They climbed the opposite wall.  Sasha's thighs burned and feet stung,
but she made it without falling too far behind.
   "Do you know precisely where in the square you were taken?"
   "I was ...  there was a black spire and green rock.  Larik called it the
crag."
   "You know how to shadow walk?"
   "I don't think so, but I've been carried through these more than a few
times."
   Phenex stomped her legs several times, in a frenetic drum beat.  "Hold
the place you want to travel in mind.  When you see that place reflected,
step into the gate.  Hold the destination in mind.  Only that.  When you
see the opening, step through the gate."
   A hiss like rushing water filled the room and Sasha found herself
surrounded by a boat load of spiders.  Yatch load.
   No, barge load.
   "They are no threat.  Curious," said Phenex.
   No threat.  Curious.
   Spiders as small as fully grown tarantulas and as large as lions piled
around her.  Each trying to reach her with an extended leg.
   Phenex stamped her back leg twice and the wave of furry critters eased
back.
   Sasha extended her arm in one direction and her foot in the other.  In
the form of a chorus line, spider legs tickled her extended limbs.
   Babies, only babies.  No threat.
   "My children have never met a human they were not supposed to eat."
   It wasn't possible for her to be any more terrified.  The information
went in one ear and out the other.  Puppies, Sasha told herself.  She was
surrounded by puppies.
   The sea of Zorient arachnids parted.
   "This way.  Hold the place in your mind."
   Sasha stood in the dark room surrounded by shifting black walls.
   "If you ever want to explore the lower catacombs, you are welcome in my
dominion.  My children will provide you secure passage as you explore. 
Safely travel in the dark, Sasha of Talion Marsh."
   She held the spire in mind, just across the street from it, next to the
rock with green gems, Uvall Square.
   The room shifted, moving, flowing through space.  Sasha thought of her
destination, focused on seeing it, expecting...
   She stepped from the gate.  The crowd was thinner now.  Webbing covered
the front of her body, down to her thighs as thick as silly string.  She
probably looked like a mummy risen from a tomb.  Her hands and knees were
stained gray-blue.
   Her arms broke out in goose flesh.  Her fingers and toes tingled.  She
flexed her joints trying to regain feeling.
   "I swear before Balzar, this is..." Larik's voice.
   Marcus' voice in answer.
   "Escaped, not on her own.  Fucking told you.  You refused to believe she
planned this.  No wonder she was so eager to gain our trust.  Lies.  Told
you.  Fucking told you.  They are too vicious."
   Sasha headed in the direction of their voices, shaking her head in
denial.
   "Sheltered.  Right.  Too fucking convenient.  Planned it.  Lies.  Always
run away.  Must be chained.  With another right now, spitting on all we
have done."
   "Larik, ...  you know it."
   "Fuck sense!  She ran!"
   Something snapped.  Sasha saw two people making quick steps away from
the street and headed in that direction.
   She did not run away!  Tears burst forth and morphed into the frightened
tears of child waking from a nightmare.  She balled like a baby, loud as
the day she was born, her run turned into a sprint.
   She didn't know where or how to travel home.  She dodged any and every
one who was not Marcus or Larik.
   Marcus noticed her first, but she made a arrow's strike for Larik.  Her
legs screamed in protest, but she didn't let the pain stop her.
   Larik turned in time for her to barrel into him like a freight truck
with broken brakes.  She wrapped her arms around him and crawled up his
body, wrapping her legs around his waist.  She bawled into his chest,
hardly able to breathe around her relief and fear.
   Larik wrapped his arms around her, cradling her head to his chest.
   Ow.
   Gargan wouldn't come after her as long as she was holding onto Larik. 
Larik would protect her.  He wouldn't let anyone take her away.
   He wasn't going to want her when he found out that she got wet on
another man's tongue.  He'd beat her and burn her like he did the others.
   Marcus picked bits of web from her.  "Sasha, where were you?"
   She sniffled and sucked in deep breaths.  Larik showed no sign of
putting her on her feet.  The three of them huddled in an alcove out of the
flow of foot traffic.  She clung to Larik, hoping that what she said would
not make him set her down.
   From terror to sorrow to joy, and now, more terror.  She swallowed past
the lump in her throat.  "I think it was Gargan."
   Larik's muscles tensed.  Instead of dropping her, he held her tighter.
He scanned the streets for any sign of his enemy.
   It did not matter how angry Larik was going to be, no matter how cruelly
he looked at her.  She was safer in his arms than anywhere else in the
netherworld.
   Tears took over again, but she pushed past them to speak.  "He grabbed
me off the street."
   "That's it for him," Marcus huffed.  "He's not going to see the outside
of a pit after this."
   Larik pressed his forehead to hers.  Kissed her on the lips.  "Did he
touch you?"
   "We fought, but he licked me.  Nothing else."
   "He tasted you.  What else?"
   "He said he wanted to save me, to help me, but he got angry when I
screamed for you."
   Glowing red eyes stared into hers.  "You screamed for me?"
   "Yes," she looked at Marcus.  "Both of you."
   Marcus said, "Then what?  How did you get away from him?"
   "He said if I went back Larik would torture and kill me." Sasha wasn't
sure she had avoided that fate.  "But then Phenex covered his face with a
web.  She took me to her web and taught me to shadow walk in the Bathin
gate."
   Marcus grinned.  "You saw Phenex?"
   "A really huge white and purple spider?  I mean huge.  Like a car ... 
like my bed ...  bone fangs.  She called you a warrior lord from the talon
marsh."
   "You spoke to Phenex?"
   Sasha furrowed her brows in confusion, but nodded.  "I know she doesn't
have a mouth, but ...  we talked."
   "I am glad to hear she is doing well." He picked more webbing from her
hair.  "Talion Marsh.  You live in the skyward citadel of Talion Marsh
where I preside as Lord Warrior."
   "Lord Warrior?"
   "Like the executive officer in your businesses, but with a bit of
fighting.  I oversee the industry of the marsh and its lower caves.  I
answer to the High Lord of Fitke Vale.
   The conversation was slightly inane and out of place, but Sasha wasn't
thinking about her fears.  She had stopped crying.  "What about the bargain
stuff with humans?"
   "Ah, the life altering trade.  That is what you call a hobby."
   Larik shifted Sasha higher on his chest, buried his face into her neck.
"Did he hurt you?"
   "His nails in my back."
   Marcus lifted her shirt and pressed the sensitive skin around the mark.
"We will submit a report.  This is the third recorded incident and it will
not go unpunished." He shifted the fabric over her back.  "This is where
our system of judgement must be involved."
   Larik pushed away from the wall, his hand clasped behind her head
crushing her face to his chest.
   "We need to speak to Bulbras.  He handled your case last time so--"
   "Later.  I want her back home."
   Shadows swallowed her as if she were thrown into a pool, no warning, no
time to adjust.  Just as quickly familiar stone walls with red inclusions
greeted her.
   Larik marched all the way toward her room, held her as he filled the
small tub with water.  He shifted her in his arms and pulled the fabric
away from her body, throwing it in a pile at his feet, then he set her into
the water.
   It could be worse.  He wouldn't draw a bath to torture her.  She wished
he would say something.  The silence and the scowl hurt.
   Larik kneeled outside the tub and rubbed her body down.  When he tapped
her inner thigh, she spread her legs.  "Did his tongue penetrate you?"
   She nodded.
   His fingers pushed inside her, gently thrust in and out.  "Further than
that?"
   "Less," she breathed.
   He continued to stroke her walls, slow, steady, stoking a building
warmth.  She pressed her lips to his, flicked her tongue along his lips. 
"I think your tongue would do a better job."
   Larik removed his fingers and lifted her from the bath.  He carried her
to the bed and dove between her thighs.
   Marcus walked in moments before she climaxed, rocking her hips on the
steady pulse of Larik's tongue.  A warmth like a blanket settled over her
and she melted into the bed.
   Both men lay in the bed with her, creating a solid wall of male flesh.
   Larik pulled at the massive pile of tangled curls.  She drifted off to
sleep knowing that she was safe.
   ***
   "You like that?"
   Sasha moaned as a fat tongue swirled around her inner labia, flicking up
toward her clitoris and dipping inside her.  She rolled her hips up and
nails scraped down her belly.
   "Because you're his ruined slut," another voice whispered.
   "This is what you want, yes?" The tongue speared inside her, moving in
and out as stiff as a finger.
   "Yes," she whimpered, seeking more his slick tongue inside her.  Rough
hands tweaked her nipples, massaged her breasts.
   A mouth replaced the hands, sucking on her breasts.  A hard cock rubbed
her clitoris.  She moaned and humped him.
   "This is all you care about, your wants, your needs.  Nothing loyal
about you, nothing pretty, nothing special.  You are just a piece of warm
wet meat they bought to come inside.  You are the slut he deserves."
   Sasha panicked, struggled under the hulking mass that had her pinned
down.
   "Sasha."
   She vaulted upright in bed.  Cold sweat dripped down her body.  Her skin
felt clammy.  She pushed the covers back from her and caught her breath. 
Looking left and right, she confirmed that she was in her room, her bed. 
Larik on her right and Marcus on her left.
   Safe.
   She pressed her palms to her eyes and tears welled up.  Her dreams left
her in a sour state.  Didn't she make the right choice?  She cared about
them even if she was their possession.  She enjoyed them.  Was that wrong?
   An echo of Gargan's sadistic laughter echoed in her mind, a remnant from
the nightmare.
   She pushed her hair back and looked to Larik.  His breath came deep and
heavy.  He was well and truly asleep.  She caressed the hair in her hand.
It hung like a beaded curtain around her body.  In the dark she could only
see a faint shimmer in the thin swirled strands of rope her hair had been
turned into.  It felt soft, conditioned and reached down to her hips.
   She turned to her left.  Marcus' eyes were open.
   He pat the empty mattress and she lay back down between them.  He
thumbed her cheeks dry before his own eyes closed.
   ***
   A rough hand palmed her breast.  Sasha held her breath.  Had the
nightmare begun again?  She cracked open one eye and saw the ruddy flesh of
Larik's hand.
   She closed her eyes with a smile of relief.
   "Ready to eat?"
   "Yes."
   "Meet me in the dining room."
   She sat up and looked at her hair in the light.  Tiny strands of
something silvery woven through each coil of hair.  She pressed around her
skull.  Something this intricate would have cost hundreds of dollars and
several days to do.
   Larik greeted her with a plate full of food at the table.  They sat side
by side, stuffing their faces.
   "Thank you."
   "What did I do?" Larik said in an imitation of her voice.
   She smiled.  "My hair.  This is very beautiful.  What's the shiny
stuff?"
   "Radiant silver.  It will provide strength to your coils."
   "Wow.  Cool."
   He set a small cup down in front of her.  "Drink this.  It will help
with your scrapes."
   Thinking nothing of the offering, she knocked it back.  Ugh!  She choked
the last bit of it down despite the foul, acrid taste.  "This is gross! 
Marcus gave me something that actually tasted good."
   "Works slow.  I do not want you to hurt longer than you must." Larik
reached for something that looked like a blackberry and set it to her lips.
The juice killed the taste immediately.
   "Blegh."
   "Yes, but it works."
   She put two more of the berries in her mouth.
   "How did you sleep?"
   Wrong pipe!  She coughed, thumped her chest.  It was several minutes
before she could breathe again.  Her heart pounded in her ears.  Memories
from yesterday and the resulting nightmare plagued her mind.  "Poorly."
   "Why?"
   "Bad dream," she poked at the food on her plate.
   "Nightmares are important.  What happened?"
   "Please don't be angry with me."
   He pulled her into his lap and cradled her head.  "Tell me."
   She told him.  She spared no detail, even the most hurtful part of all,
that she thought she made the wrong decision by coming back to him.  Gargan
seemed to have Larik's voice, to hold the same kind of hate.  Her nightmare
confused them together.  Tears slipped between her cheek and his chest.
   Larik kissed her, his lips gentle, hands firm on her back and legs.  "I
am angry, but not at you.  Nightmares are too important to ignore." He
licked the tears from her cheeks.  "He is the one who made me believe these
things, convinced me.  Provided all those excuses as to why consorts could
not be trusted.  Always begging for help, lying, running away.  Not you."
   "How ...  why do you think I'm different?"
   "You did not have to come back.  You want me.  You proved he was wrong.
You are truly mine."
   They shared another kiss and the last of her fear and stress melted
away.
   "Where's Marcus?"
   "He went to file a report.  We will take turns.  He left at first light
while I stayed with you.  This is not Gargan's first time stealing
tributes. It is his third."
   Sasha nuzzled into Larik's neck as his erection stiffened under her. 
"Why haven't either of you slept with me?  Like ...  in the sexual way? 
Would that ruin me?"
   Larik reared back.  "This is up to you.  Nothing can ruin you."
   "Up to me?"
   "You choose when that happens."
   "But I begged you to, and you didn't."
   "Ah," Larik kissed her again.  "I remember very well," he confessed with
a low groan.  "I asked you to suck me off.  I initiated.  You must initiate
that moment."
   Marcus and Larik's argument that morning after suddenly made sense.
   "Why make me ask then?  If you couldn't do it."
   He was quiet a while.  "I have never been asked.  Marcus said it was
possible.  I wanted to know what it was like, to have that moment."
   "Never?  How if that's the rule?"
   Larik chuckled.  "This is Marcus' rule.  He boasted the knowledge of a
consort that did not require chains or foul manner.  He made me agree to
all his rules.  You must choose to belong to us.  You must choose when and
how to interact with us."
   "I want you to fuck me, Larik."
   "I didn't tell you this to make you feel obligated.  Marcus will--"
   "Larik," she framed his face with her hands as if she could hold back
his paranoia.  "I wanted you that night.  I want you now.  I came back to
you."
   Something like a purr rolled in Larik's throat and he smiled.  At least,
it should have been a smile, but seemed more like a flesh eating snarl.
   "Are you smiling?"
   "Very much so.  I'm thinking about sinking my cock into your body."
   That old itch was back with a vengeance.  She recalled the better part
of her nightmare, where Larik's cock moved up and down her wet pussy lips.
She would beg him again if she had to.
   She reached down between them and grabbed his cock out of his shorts. 
She rubbed the head back and forth along her slit.
   "I don't want to miss this," Larik stood and carried her to the bedroom
as he walked he kissed and licked along her cheek and down her neck.  "Tell
me."
   "I want you, Larik."
   He set her down and untied his shorts and stepped out of them.  Sasha
untied the skirt from around her waist.
   She lay back and spread her outer labia, rubbed her wet clitoris.  She
was already soaking.  Her pussy squished as Larik pressed the tip into her
swollen lips.  Her sensitive lips throbbed as he spread her open.
   "Here," Larik put her hands on his hips.
   She rolled her knees back toward her ears and pulled him a little bit
deeper inside her.  She moaned and her breath hitched.  She pushed past the
discomfort, wanting all of him.
   She needed him to ease the burning lust in her body.  He was going to
take her there.  She moaned fretfully, thrusting her hips forward.  She
went faster, then slower.  He felt so big inside her.
   "Larik," her face crumpled in frustration.  "Please, I don't know what
I'm doing.  Fuck me, please."
   He settled his weight onto her and pressed a kiss to her lips.  He
cradled the back of her head and her hips and took long, steady strokes of
her pussy.  His teeth scraped and then pulled on her nipple.
   Her whole body shuddered.
   "I want you," Larik groaned in her ear.  "Only you.  I want no one else
but you.  This sound you make." He snapped his hip forward causing her to
whimper.  "The sweetest song.  No one will take you from me, Sasha."
   Her body tensed, her vaginal muscles clamped hard on her shaft.  There
was no need for nightmares, no room for fear.  He would keep her safe,
protect her.
   "All right, I'm back.  Guards are on watch, and I put a call to Curak.
He owes me a couple favors, so he's going to..."
   Sasha climaxed just as Marcus entered the room.  Her body thrashed and
trembled as her pussy throbbed over Larik's cock.  She lowered her legs,
flexed her toes as they regained feeling.
   Larik was unfazed.  He kissed and sucked on her breasts, massaging her
thighs as he rested, hard as a fist, within her orgasm-weary pussy.
   Almost as if he knew that it wasn't enough.  She felt hornier instead of
better.
   Larik slurped loudly as he let go of her nipple.  "She asked, initiated.
I haven't broken the rules."
   Marcus sat down on the other side of her.  "Like I said, Curak is going
to make sure the bounty on him is sweet enough to get results.  He owes me
a favor and this a great time to collect.  I hired extra patrols to do
rounds near the property, just in case."
   "You see this?" Larik pulled his cock out, but not all the way.  He
lifted her legs and pressed into her.
   "And hear it.  Larik, you have business to handle."
   "I know that," he snarled, morphing his fury into that of a wild dog. 
Sasha caught her breath.  He snapped his jaws at Marcus as if he were going
to bite him.
   "Then handle it.  I'm sure she will just as wet for you when you
return."
   Larik growled and spoke in another language while thrusting in her one
last time before puling out.
   "We have waited several grand alignments for her, a day's light is
nothing."
   "Speak for yourself!" Larik shouted as he stormed out the room.
   Sasha's inner thighs cooled as she lay there.  Naked and sweat covered
beside Marcus.
   "You have learned to use the Bathin gate.  To get back here, you must
think of Skyward citadel, Talion Marsh, your home, the image of the room.
You remember how it looks?"
   "Dark rocks with red stuff in the stone."
   "When you get a chance, stand in it and really examine the patterns and
parts that stand out.  This is how you learn your address."
   Sasha mostly caught her breath and turned onto her side.  Marcus' hair
was a little thick on his head now.  His eyes drifted shut as she ran her
fingers along his scalp.
   "What does Larik do?"
   "His hobby is much like his work.  He monitors trades between regions,
makes monetary predictions.  He keeps track of the flow of goods and
forecast stock flow.  He can divert supply to an area to maximize resource
use, eliminate waste."
   "How did the two of you meet?"
   "He overheard my discussion regarding human females." He stared down at
her in silence a moment.  "Larik and I entered a heated argument about the
treatment of consorts.  Somewhere in the argument he went from swearing I
was a liar to hoping I could prove it was true.  When your father made the
offer, I brought him into the deal.  Over the course of our mutual
contract, we became friends."
   "I want another orgasm."
   Marcus grinned.  "Stay wet for Larik." He kissed her on the tip of her
nose.  "I will be in my office."
   "Okay.  I'm not going anywhere."
   He winked at her.
   ***
   Sasha walked the length of the house, checking the rooms and doors.  For
a while she was content with looking through her home: the skyward citadel.
Marcus worked out of an office filled with dark silks, and stacks upon
stacks of books and papers.
   The room down the hall from his was locked.  Definitely belonged to
Larik.
   She moved on to the window at the end of the hall.  There were dusky
gray clouds in the sky, rolling by in a low, thick mass.  Down below, merky
water, trees with high root systems and large branches.  Other walls, built
hand with gray-blue brick, covered by deep green vines.
   Talion Marsh.
   A mist rolled into the marsh.  That same kind of mist she'd seen at the
cave, filled with the shapes of faces and bodies.  The ghost-mist.
   It is alive?
   She went back to the table and snatched up a couple fruits and brought
them back to the open window.  They had said that eating kept people from
joining the fog.  Maybe this was that fog.
   She flung one dark fruit out the window and watch as it began its
downward arc toward the mist.
   A male arm reached up and snatched the fruit.
   The mist rolled closer.  She tossed the other fruits out the window
toward it.  The arm took the shape of a man's body.  He collapsed to his
knees, devouring the offering.
   She tossed the last piece out the window.  As the man ate he gained
better color and shape.  The people here must fade away without the food.
   A screech from above caused Sasha to shrink back from the window.  A
shadow moved through the thick clouds, swooped down into the mist.  Curved
talons snatched up the rejuvenated body and tossed it into the air. 
Smaller shapes caught the person in mid air.  A spray of blood and flesh
rained down onto the mist.  A host of mouths opened to catch the offering.
   Bile rose up the back of her throat as she backed away from he window.
She gagged several times on her way back to her bed.  She crawled under the
covers and tucked the sheets under her body.
   ***
   Marcus' diesel engine of a voice and Larik's more clipped, gruff tone
filled the hallways as they approached the room.  Sasha stirred, but did
not emerge from her literal safety blanket.
   "Sasha?" said Marcus.
   She pulled back the edge of the blanket and peered out.
   "What's the matter?"
   "That stuff outside?  The fog with the people in it?  I tossed some food
on it, but only one of them ate, and then these ...  hawks."
   Marcus nodded.  "Yes, that was the fog.  It is the first stage of
non-existence in the netherworld.  Stop eating and you lose your
physicality.  What is left is drawn to the fog, pulled in by it."
   "Something came down and ate him."
   "The second stage of death.  Any nourishment will make it just ripe
enough for death-reapers.  They take the body and rip it open.  This is
what you saw?"
   She nodded vigorously.
   "They will eat well from the fog.  All those ready to die, committed to
that death, take this window out.  Most souls leave the fog this way."
   "How else can they leave?"
   Marcus shook his head.  "I believe the only way is the same way you
join: willingly.  That never happens, the will to stop the taking of food
is that first line."
   Any world had dangers.  Accidental death didn't seem possible given all
that.  Her father had listed these dangers in vast detail in an effort to
cover the real reason for her imprisonment.  She folded the covers back.
   She had seen all manner of male erections during her time with Alice. 
She had seen enough to know that Marcus and Larik both ranged thicker than
normal.
   "You look happy," she said with a grin.
   "Indeed."
   Sasha looked from Marcus to Larik.  She belonged to them both, but would
Larik be upset if she didn't return to him?
   Larik pointed to Marcus and nodded.
   Sasha crooked her finger at Marcus and he leaned down so that she could
whisper, "I want your cock inside me."
   Marcus chuckled.  "I got the message, gorgeous." He crawled on top of
her and lay a soft, warm kiss on her.  He rubbed his erection along her
slit without breaking their kiss.
   His cock sought deeper, filling her as Larik had.
   "Thank you," she hugged his massive chest closer to her.
   Marcus said something in his native language.
   Larik laughed and nodded.  To Sasha, he said, "Your pussy muscles, keep
squeezing him."
   She wanted all of him.  Frenzied and arousal, she clamped down, rolled
her hips to get more of him.
   "Hot as fires of Hedra." Marcus fucked her faster.
   "As you told me," said Larik.
   "Yes, fucking wet," he groaned.  "How are you?"
   "Don't stop," she panted.
   He chuckled and kept thrusting into her.
   Sasha marveled at the small tremors breaking out in her body.  She
rushed to meet her orgasm, wrapped her arms tighter around Marcus. 
"Faster, please.  Harder."
   He increased his pace, deep, hitting just the right spot each time.  She
cried out and dug her nails down his back.  "That what you want?"
   "Yes," she hissed.  She rocked under him, opened so that he fill all of
her.  She screamed through the orgasm, growled like an animal as she lost
her mind.  Her body went tight as a drum.  She collapsed with a sigh, her
body wet with sweat.
   Marcus pulled away with a very large grin on his face.
   Why was he still hard?  She was going to ask, but she couldn't find her
voice.
   She was empty and she wanted to be full.  She wanted more.
   Larik crawled on the bed.
   "More."
   "As much as you want."
   "Anything thing I want?"
   Larik lay on his side, supporting his head with hand.
   "What is the best position to ...  to make it easier for you to take
me," what if he found that disgusting?  "from the back?"
   Larik's eyes widened to two round red orbs.  "You want that?"
   "I'll be all right," she said without any confidence in her assertion.
She knew the women in skin films did it, that watching a scene like that
turned her on beyond anything else.
   Larik brought her knees back all the way to her sides and spread her
open.  His tongue flicked out and licked up and down the crease of her
thigh.  She gasped as his tongue speared the ring of her anus.
   "You like that?" Marcus grinned down at her.  He squeezed the base of
his cock and massaged his balls.
   "Uh huh."
   "We're going to have so much fun with you."
   Sasha moaned as more of Larik's tongue penetrated her.
   Larik rose to his knees and looked down at his cock.  He extended his
tongue.  One long rope of thick saliva extended toward his cock.
   Neat party trick.
   He spread her ass cheeks and positioned his head at her sphincter. 
"Bear down on me."
   Sasha closed her as and pushed down on his cock.  She hummed to herself
as her body stretched around his head.  So big.  She held her breath as he
sank deeper into her.
   "How are you doing?"
   "Good," she gasped.  It stung, burned, but not enough to stop, not yet.
   Marcus stroked her clitoris as Larik worked deeper inside her ass.
   "Still good?"
   Words.  She needed to give him an answer.  "So good."
   Both Marcus and Larik laughed.
   Larik fucked her with short strokes.  Marcus wiped the liquid from her
pussy around the base of Larik's cock.  She felt each of them keenly.  Her
body clamped down preparing for another orgasm.
   "Fuck, look at that."
   Sasha opened her eyes to see what Larik was talking about.  They stared
down at the place where Larik was fucking her ass, where Marcus' fingers
played in her pussy.
   "I want you too, Marcus."
   "Keep her warm." Larik pulled out and disappeared from the room.
   Marcus dipped inside her pussy.  "At the same time, is that what you
meant?"
   "Yes."
   "We'll do everything you want," Marcus leaned down and kissed along her
neck.
   When Larik returned Marcus pulled out.
   "Fires of Hedra," Larik moaned as he eased into her pussy, hot and wet
and needy.  He shifted into high gear, fucking her with the intensity she
needed.
   "Yes, yes, yes," Sasha cried the words like a prayer.  Now this, she
remembered.  Alice, screaming out, other performers getting reamed.  Her
voice turned deeper, more guttural.  "Fuck me."
   Larik never missed a beat while her body twisted and jerked under him.
He banged away in that one spot, that awesome place inside her.  Her feet
tingled and it felt like her mind caught fire.  The fire spread deep
throughout her body.
   She screamed, loud and wanton.  Larik growled as he buried deeper inside
her.
   "Give her what she wants, Larik."
   As if Marcus' words had been the only thing holding him at bay, Larik's
body went rigid.  Sasha held her breath as he roared and emptied into her.
A substance that felt as thick as gel filled her pussy with warmth.
   He spasmed and his breath calmed from the great pants to a low, deep
breath of satisfaction.  "Perfect."
   He pulled out and Marcus took his place over her.  He put two of his
fingers inside her, churning the thick liquid inside her until it flowed
down the crack of her ass.  "You flooded her," Marcus said with a smile.
   "Emptied out on that one."
   Marcus slid his cock inside her and gripped her thighs.  He moved slower
than Larik had, but always hitting the very back with each stroke.  He was
bigger than Larik, thicker.
   She pulled him down to kiss her, wrapped her legs around his waist.  She
might be able to come again if this went on much longer.
   Not this time, Marcus tensed and fisted the sheets beside her as he
ejaculated inside her.
   "She could use one more," said Marcus as he backed off her.  He settled
between her thighs and that humming buzz focused on her clitoris.
   Sasha screamed.
   ***
   Firm hands eased over her hips, circled her breasts.  Fingertips teased
her wet pussy.  She woke to that chorus of sensation.  Writhing and
yearning for more.  The hands kept steady in the path to her arousal.  She
moaned and spread herself open.  She drifted on a fog of lust.
   "Are you sore?" Marcus whispered.
   "Not that much," she mumbled in answer.
   "She's good and wet," said Larik.  "Do you hear how wet you are?"
   She moaned in the affirmative.
   Marcus pulled her on top of him.  She sat up and put his cock inside
her. Her eyes only opened enough to see what she was doing, then she closed
them and rocked on his thick erection.  She shifted her hips side to side,
rolled her ass down.
   "That's it," said Larik.  "Dance on his cock."
   Marcus gripped her by the hips and pumped his cock into her.  She rocked
back, tried to keep up with her little dance, but she could barely think as
full as her body was of him.  She cried out in staccato gasps in time with
his thrusts.  She grabbed handfuls of her breasts and her spine curled
backward just before going limp as a rag doll while he bounced her on his
cock.
   Warmth filled her, sweat rolled down her spine as Marcus emptied inside
her.  He kissed her as he lowered her to the bed.  "I'll go prepare our
meal."
   Sasha rolled over and flipped the hair out of her eyes.  Larik lay
beside her.  She reached out and caressed the inside of his thigh, up
toward his groan.
   "Careful about that, girl."
   "I'm plenty careful, Red." She pulled on his leg and he shifted closer,
swung his leg over her, placing her square before his crotch.
   She sucked him deeper into her mouth at a slow, languid pace.
   Larik rubbed her shoulder.  "That feels good." He readjusted until he
was kneeling over her.  He fucked her face in slow shallow strokes, his
breath coming deep and heavy each time she swallowed him.
   The coiled snake in her belly that had been her lust was now free, given
reign to do whatever she wanted, and not because anyone paid her.  They
wanted her, desired her, had waited for her, bargained for her, protected
her.
   Larik groaned and thrust a little deeper in her mouth.  "Keep sucking."
He lowered his face to her pussy and tongue-fucked her.
   ***
   Gargan saw the slut.  He could not forget the sound and shape of her,
nor the sweet taste.  She walked between Marcus and Larik in the market,
smiling and laughing.  Her dress outlined what he knew was a soft body.
   What had Larik done to her in all that time?  How had he forced her to
degrade her body?  Perform for him?  He must have by now.
   Was she pretending to look happy?  Maybe she was still in trouble. 
Maybe she would appreciate the ease of demands of one master?
   She was the reason he was wanted for questioning.  The deranged woman
was why he had to hide from the guards and patrols.  She went back to him!
   Larik did not deserve her, not with her gift.  Gargan knew a patron of
Vine when he saw one.  If he could get his hands on her, she would be worth
four or five human slaves.
   He would have to come up with a different way.  Perhaps she would like
shiny stones and reflective metals better.
   ...or he could just make the sale.
   A smile crossed Gargan's face as a plan began to form.  It would be
tricky, but so rewarding.  He wanted to get the girl to himself.  He wanted
to feast on her spoils alone, but a little help would go a long way.
   Gargan retreated to his home, a small house on the edge of the Vale.  He
worried through his next steps, examined his plan.  It was a risky move,
but he could not allow Larik to destroy her.
   The girls Gargan had saved were stupid, petty, desperate - barely worth
the risk, but he got them to better homes.  This one was fiery,
intelligent, willful, and damn her soul, she had such talent.  All this,
and she went back to Larik!
   Gargan wanted her.  Just the right bargain and he would use her hard. 
There was not a breath he took now that was not filled with her scent, a
sensation not coated in her taste.  He needed to save her.  She needed his
help most of all.
   Decision final.  Gargan performed the conjuration.
   The mist poured in from the open windows.  It thickened to form a
shifting column of white.  "Yes?"
   "I need to pass citadel guards undetected."
   "Why does Gargan ask such a thing?  What is his prize?  Tell me what I
see," the word 'see' was a hiss, an multi-level howl of hollow wind, "your
need."
   "There is a human I wish to rescue."
   "Humans are plentiful and easily taken."
   "Yes, but this one belongs to an enemy of mine."
   "Ah." The white column expanded, turned gray.  Darker tendrils extended,
covered the windows and darkening the room.  "How does Ipora benefit?"
   "I will share her with you."
   "Female humans are plentiful and easily taken."
   "Yes, of course, but this one is different."
   "Yes?" The creature seemed to fill the room now, it's cloud turned soot
gray.
   "She is not as plentiful and easy as you think."
   "Tell me of knowledge.  I have no interest in thoughts." As if drawing
on itself, the shadows contracted.  Light returned to the room.
   "She is DeVine."
   "Who," the shadow remained a solid orb in the center of the room, but
now the room turned cold, heavy, "possesses this soul?"
   "Share her with me.  I want to know what the slut feels like."
   "No."
   Gargan stomped.  "We have no deal." He popped open the vessel of algae
powder.  The smell would banish the shadow creature, long enough to escape
its prying questions.
   A wall of darkness moved between Gargan and the vessel disappeared from
his hand.  The entire room had gone dark as if he were buried, the air was
just as thick.  This was not a messenger for Ipora!
   "You think to treat messengers of Ipora less than Ipora?"
   Gargan struggled to make his apologies, but without air, he could not
use his voice.
   The sound of a thousand whispers filled his mind and the hissing
vibrated.
   He screamed, but the scream did not vibrate as if bouncing off the walls
around him.  It was swallowed by the dark.  He gagged, chocked, as
something filled his throat in the darkness.  He felt it sinking in,
filling his nostrils, seeping into the corners of his eyes, the canal of
his ears.
   He flailed, but his arms moved as if under thick water.  His muscled
burned.
   "Important to you.  We will share." The voice was now inside him,
booming, rattling the walls of his consciousness.  "I see ...  the light
you speak of, smell, taste.  You like the flesh this much?  To challenge
Ipora?"
   His body pulsed with both pain and euphoria, joy and sorrow.
   "Settle.  We will find balance."
   His legs straightened.  His feet touched the ground.  He rolled his
shoulders and blinked the oily black film from his vision.
   Gargan approached his reflection, but did not see a man he knew, or a
man that would look like him.  He could pass the citadel guards.
   "Deal," Gargan grinned.
   ***
   Sasha shivered as she stepped from the gate.
   "What is the matter?" Marcus lifted her chin with his finger, concern in
his eyes.
   "Something was different that time." She walked away from the gate.  "It
felt like it didn't want to let me go, like something held me back when I
tried to step out."
   "Held you how?"
   "Heavy, like honey, but not wet, sticky."
   Their twin looks of concern made her feel nauseous.  "What?"
   Marcus looked at Larik.  "He would be that stupid."
   Larik pulled Sasha away from the gate.  "Yes, he would.  He's just
stupid enough to ask the Ipora."
   "Um, gentlemen, what's the Ipora?"
   "A species of creature like the one that runs Bathin gate.  Bathin is a
shadow of travel, the dark in absence of time and space.  He runs the gate.
Ipora is the dark in absence of existence."
   "Death?"
   Marcus shook his head.  "Not exactly.  To be seen, noticed, and heard.
That is what life means.  Ipora runs the fog, in his own way, what never
makes it to the final death.  Ipora takes those and uses the knowledge to
help others move unseen, to become invisible.  The price Ipora extracts can
be heavy.  Ipora would be as useful as Bathin, if it were not for his own
greed for life energy."
   "What did that have to do with the gate?"
   "Shadow creatures share a mind, an existence.  They are all the
darkness. They have more consciousness than an individual.  The Bathin gate
is your only warning that a shadow-cloaked enemy seeks you, if you are
sensitive enough to feel it."
   "How much of a warning?"
   "Why would the Ipora care to help Gargan?" Larik frowned.
   "The Ipora helps no one but itself.  Gargan must have given it something
it wanted."
   "How is something like that allowed to exist?"
   "You can not stop shadows from existing.  That would be like asking you
why you allow the shadows of sickness to prevail.  You can protect yourself
against several ailments, but when that shadow gains power, illness can
wipe out many of you."
   "Okay, but illness doesn't have a mind of its own.  Disease isn't
conscious."
   "Yes, it is," Larik and Marcus said.
   "Mizama thrives in your world, but rarely travels here.  The same way
the Ipora prefers this realm."
   "We are not weak against the Ipora.  If its using a body, we'll destroy
the flesh and banish it.  Easy enough."
   Gargan stepped through the Bathin gate into the citadel.  His eyes were
black, reflecting nothing off the surface.  He moved with stiff limbs,
shuffling moreso than moving independently.
   Two people smiled at her from behind one face.
   Larik and Marcus charged at him.  Two against one should have been easy
odds, but the lumbering body moved with miraculous speed and grace when it
needed.
   Gargan lunged for her and Sasha ran, seeking shelter deeper into the
house.  She got as far away from them, toward the end of the hall.
   A strong wind blew in through the window snuffing out all the fires. 
Plunging the room into a sudden chill.
   Fog rolled in the window over the floor and then darkened as if black
dye had been poured into the formless void.  It was a different sensation
from the gate, as if sinking into a soft pillow.
   Once Ipora used Gargan to access the house, he was able to separate
Sasha from her keepers, to cross the standing wards.
   It cradled her as it moved through the fog, into the trees.  Darkness
swirled around her, brushing her warm skin.
   ***
   "Sasha!" Marcus yelled.  "You can come out now."
   Larik and Marcus stood over Gargan's beaten body.  The Ipora left
without a scream, but it had left.
   "Get a guard in here.  I'll watch him."
   "He's not going anywhere." Larik wiped the blood from his mouth and
stepped into the house.  "Sasha?" He looked into the rooms with a confused
expression.  "The fires are out." Larik thundered back into the entry room.
   Gargan groaned on the floor.  His eyes blinked open.
   "Why did you call that thing?"
   Gargan winced in pain.  "You have no right to a seer.  You barely treat
a pleasure consort well."
   "Is your madness so deep?" said Marcus.  "That you would set an Ipora on
her?"
   "She's gone!" Larik yelled.
   "Not yet," Gargan spit his blood on Larik's foot.  "This will do.  Your
suffering will suffice."
   "Save it," Marcus held Larik back.  "We need to find where it took her."
   ***
   Sasha crawled along the thick mud and gnarled limbs on the damp ground.
Fog surrounded her, not touching her, giving her a constant visibility of
two or three feet.  When she moved it shifted around her, staying out of
her way.
   She found a flat stone, then another.  She followed the path to a cobble
stone house.  It had a proper door, windows.  It wasn't built off the
ground, but seemed designed to float in high water.
   Something moved on the porch, just beyond the fog.  She sat on the damp
stone and peered through the fog.
   Ipora, conscious, not a single creature.
   "It is a pleasure to be known, a relief to be unknown." The melodic
voice rose from all around her, soft, friendly.
   Being still appeared to work, nothing bothered her.  If anything, it
seemed to have led her to this place.  She stood and walked onto the porch.
The dark cloud drew nearer to her.  She felt its excitement, anticipation,
wonder.
   On the porch she did not feel the cold, the damp ground, or smell the
stench of mud, no longer heard the howl of distant winds, indistinct cries
from things beyond the bubble of fog.
   She stood there waiting for something, anything.  Hours must have
passed. Her legs went numb under her.  She walked over to the long bench
and sat.
   It sat beside her, took her feet into the dark cloud.
   The dark shape waved to her.
   She waved back.
   It angled its head to the left then the right.  When it touched her
again, the touch was more firm.
   "Why am I here?"
   The shadow echoed her sound, its head reared back and the fog expanded
until it rejoined the fog.
   I am at peace.
   Sasha shook her head.  That wasn't her thought, but like the echo of a
thought she might have.
   The dark shadow stepped from the mist, human shape.  It was weaving its
head from side to side as if trying to see something, curious, waiting.
   "What do you want?"
   To find out how her mind worked, to learn from her.  She took a step
back toward the doorway.  The shadow stepped on the porch.
   "After I teach you?"
   There is no after.
   Two more steps, and it embraced her.
   In wormed deeper into her mind, eating her thoughts, feasting, gorging,
covering each memory in volcanic oil.
   Through it all, Sasha never felt so sleepy in her life.
   "You are a key, a key to unlock minds, know living desires, find a way
inside."
   Something was drawing near them.
   "What is it?  Tell me what it is."
   Screeching in rage, she turned on the towering spider.  It covered her
in fine webbing, weighing her down.  She flung the webbing off, snarling
and growling.  More spiders surrounded her, spewing white strands.
   She had to break free.  The spiders dragged her away from the cabin,
away from its comfort and warmth.  Her screams were muffled by the cocoon
that held her.
   She could not lose this body, not as the meal of some spider.
   Tiny fangs pierced the skin on her legs, arms, and back.
   Protect the mind.  Preserve it for the brilliant one's return.
   ***
   Marcus and Larik were on edge, every fiber of both their bodies yearned
to beat Gargan until he was unrecognizable.
   He was weak, but looked like he had not taken food in a week.  Two
guards stood on either side of his body.
   "What did you mean by divine?" said Marcus.
   Gargan's raspy laugh softened to a whimper.  "Plenty divine about her.
Vine, wraith of all seeing, wraith of all knowing.  They call it sixth
sense, seers.  They can communicate without the complexity of words. 
Trained correct, great weapon.  More useful," he coughed.  "None else
matters.  Ipora will have her.  Talion Marsh will be sealed off when the
Ipora becomes all seeing and all knowing." His chest rattled with a weak
laugh.  "All you fought to cultivate, turned to shadow.  Should have bound
her.  Must be kept locked away."
   "I've heard all I need," Larik growled and left the room.
   Marcus nodded.  "Yes, that would have been our only option if she had
been taken."
   Gargan head snapped up.
   "With two guards present, you admitted to seeking the destruction of
Talion Marsh.  I know the High Lord will be thrilled to deal with you
herself.  Sasha is no longer with the dark.  Your plan has failed, and for
your crimes, I have requested you spend time shackled in the darkness of
the tar pits."
   Gargan spun into a rage, but Marcus could not savor it.  He could only
maintain his smug demeanor for as long as it took him to leave the holding
cell.  Sasha's body had been recovered, but little else of her remained.
   Phenex delivered with her to him with harrowing instructions.  "Our
paralytic drove the darkness from her body.  It will fade in time.  Do not
frighten her.  For her own safety, keep her bound."
   Marcus entered the room and stood a few feet from her bed.  Larik
immediately disregarded all of Phenex's advice.  The first few days he left
her room bleeding and injured in some way by her.  He'd patch up and go
back in the next day.
   Now he sat beside her on the bed.  She crouched as if ready to attack,
as if waiting for a reason.
   "Maybe you were right after all," Marcus whispered.
   Larik turned his head, but did not take his eyes off the body that once
belonged to Sasha.
   "This consort business is more trouble than it's worth.  Taking the
occasional community property is not as glamorous, but at least it is fun."
   "Yes, consort business is far more trouble than it's worth." Larik moved
his hand closer to her.  "She, however, is worth it and more."
   "You believe that crap about Vine?  Who is going to pay for her after
she's been held by the Ipora?  What if you're the one who has been right
and I was the one stuck on a fantasy!"
   "I have no plan to sell her."
   "She's a danger to the realm like this."
   Sasha had been looking back and forth between Marcus and Larik, but now
Sasha and Larik's gazes locked.
   He lay down on the bed beside her.  "She's not going to be this way for
long." Larik drew one fingernail down her arm.  "I know what to do."
   Marcus only sighed.  He said that every day and returned from her room
with new wounds.
   "Marcus, if I do this alone, then she is mine alone."
   She stared at Larik's hand.  She flinched, but did not try to strike
him, bite him, strangle him, or any other of the acts of violence they'd
had to endure.
   Whatever insanity Larik had planned, he was not going to go it alone. 
She was theirs, and he did not want to give her up.  Marcus took a step
toward them.
   "Slow," Larik warned in a soothing voice.
   "What are you doing?"
   "Trying," Larik took her hand in his and kissed the inside of her palm.
"It she's DeVine, then she had access to knowledge beyond reason, beyond
memory."
   Marcus did not want to be the voice of doubt.  He wanted to regain his
optimism, his hope, his joy - all the things the Ipora took when it
consumed Sasha.
   She glared at them with cold, brown eyes, devoid of everything they
found delightful.
   Larik kissed her arm.  She remained apathetic, neither moving away or
toward his advances.  He shifted around her body until his head rested
between her thighs, tonguing her in the way he had so many mornings past,
until she woke moaning.
   Now she expressed no more than the same look of vacant contempt.
   Marcus sat on the bed and touched her shoulder.  He had seen more of a
reaction out of her than when she slept.  "Sasha." He searched or some
spark, some small look of recognition.
   Marcus held his breath and tried not to react to the slick, wet
sensation on his cock.  He looked down at Larik's tongue.  "What are you
doing?"
   "You're going to need this when you take her from behind."
   "I can't." Marcus sighed as his erection told a different story.  "No
wonder she likes it so much."
   Larik chuckled as he pulled away.  "I don't have to warn you to be
careful."
   They positioned her so that Larik was under her.  Larik eased into her
pussy, wet with his own saliva.  No reaction, no moans, no delicious
tremors of her body.
   Marcus reached out and moved her ass up and down along Larik's cock.  He
eased forward, pressed just at the entrance of her ass.  "It's not the
same."
   "No, but it will work."
   Marcus spread her ass and slipped the head of his cock inside her.
   He got a reaction then.  She growled and whipped her head back to glare
at him.  Like a wild animal, she bared her teeth and snarled.
   "Uncomfortable, isn't it?" Marcus smoothed her shoulder.  "Something
else too?" He pushed deeper, but kept up the long, sweeping motions along
her side.  "I will be gentle.  You know that, Sasha."
   Marcus felt Larik through her body.  Larik slid out as Marcus eased
further in.  "I want you." He traced her lips, round and round in a circle.
He put the knuckle of his index finger in her mouth.
   She clamped down, but not hard, not the way she could have.
   "It's all right if you want to hurt me back." He gave her more of his
hand.
   She remained impassive as Larik and Marcus set a languid pace.  Marcus
kissed the back of her neck, squeezed her breast in his hand.  She wasn't
biting him anymore.  Drool dripped toward his wrist.
   "Sasha," Larik snarled.  "Damn girl.  Stop fucking around and fuck me!"
   Marcus glared down at his friend.  What in the world did he think he was
doing?
   Her tongue moved.  She didn't try to bite his finger off.
   Marcus pinched her nipple, twisted it as he pulled away.  "You heard
what he said.  You want to be fucked, don't you?"
   She bit hard enough to draw blood, but instead of snarling, her ass
squeezed his cock.  Larik must have felt it too.
   They stared at each other, silently wondering what to do next, how to
wake her from the darkness.
   "Sasha," Marcus squeezed her nipple.  "I can't come till I hear you
scream.  You want to come, don't you?"
   "Fuck, love the way she can soak my balls.  She doesn't hold anything
back."
   "She's even better by the second third round, covered in sweat, smelling
like the three of us."
   "Her voice turns all rumbly and deep."
   ***
   Pins and needles of pain pierced the black film that protected her.  She
tried to swat away the annoying nips of feeling, but it was no use.  Where
there was nothing but silence, noise tried to enter.  Where there was
nothing but space, time tried to organize.  This place was without fear,
restrictions, punishment, or happiness.  Constant, persistent dark.
   She tried to retreat further into the darkness, but something else
pulled on her, ripped her from its cozy womb.
   Praise.  Adoration.  Lust.  Heat.
   A shiver rippled the film covering her and the blanket of protection
turned into a suffocating film.
   Long morning kissing.  Afternoon meals.  Walks through the netherworld.
   She had nothing to fear in her home.
   Yes!  Plenty to fear!  Plenty that would kill her.  She needed to hide,
to stay safe.
   No, they didn't let that happen.  They did not want a princess in the
tower.
   Muffled sounds ripped at the wall of nothing.  Something worked from
inside her, beyond the barriers, beyond the protection, outside the film.
   Her lungs gasped, filled with air.  Her breath turned so rapid that she
was light headed.  Then she cried, a dam of water and emotion and sorrow,
pushed through her soul.
   "Stop!"
   Arms wrapped around her, held her.  Lips pressed to her body.  Smells.
   Where was she?  What was happening to her?
   Why was she making that awful noise in her throat?  Like a baby,
assaulted by noises and sensations, unable to comprehend it.
   "Sasha?"
   She stilled with a sniffle.  That word.
   Tangle of legs.  Ruddy brown with sparse light brown hair.  The darker
skinned legs were softer with darker hair.  Hers, brown, much smaller.  A
strange yet familiar assembly of color.
   She sniffed the air and smelled the ruddy one.  She licked the sweat
from his neck.  Heat lay at her back and she imagined a scruffy beard and
yellow eyes.
   Yes, and he was sweaty as well.
   The dark one moved away and she screamed, a strangled cry in her throat.
   He stopped moving.  She didn't know them but she could not bear the
sensation of not being around them.  She knew...
   Tears stung her eyes.
   "Sasha."
   She looked at dark red eyes.  They could get brighter.
   "You need to eat.  That's all.  It's been too long, but one of us need
to leave your side."
   She didn't really understand what he was saying, not in the way she
needed to.  The moment he said leave, she screamed, she bit him on the
chest and dug her nails into his skin.
   "We can all go." The person who said that was petting the back of her
head.  Touching her, caressing her, like always.
   Always.  Except she could not remember him ever doing that before.
   She let go of red and turned to face the other one.
   Exactly as she imagined.  Like seeing the image of a forgotten dream. 
She blinked in wonder at his face.  Her heart raced.
   "Come with us and eat.  Trust us."
   Trust.  She had fought so hard to have them trust her.
   When?
   She wiped her face and nodded.
   Each of them held her hand as they walked into the kitchen.  With one
hand, the red one reached into a box and pulled out a bowl.  He held it up
to her.  "Drink."
   Disgusting and familiar.  Medicine.  Something needed to come after it.
   Sasha looked around the small room, searching for the dark, round thing.
   "What are you doing?" The larger one asked.
   The red one grinned.  "She remembers." He pulled out two black berries.
   Sweet.  Delicious.
   No one would take her from him.
   She cried again.  The oath.  One of the first, followed by many others:
She was his addiction.  She was the place he went to forget all his
troubles.
   Marcus said that one.
   Larik ...  Marcus.
   She snatched her hands away from them and stomped over to the food box,
flung it wide and dropped to her knees.
   She ate until she nearly heaved.  Her stomach lurched a few times, but
she kept the food down.  It wasn't the food as much as the influx of
memories that made her nauseous.  Spiders and ghosts and shadows and
demons.
   She giggled.  Sex.  So much sex.  Wow.  Her life had become a constant
lust reel separated by food and entertainment.
   She rolled into a seated position on the floor and looked up at her two
fretful keepers.  She pointed at Marcus.
   "You said none come back from the fog."
   Their celebratory yells and hoots filled the small space and even made
the air vibrate.  She was lifted into their arms and crushed in a threefold
hug.
   "Careful," warned Marcus as he pulled away.
   "No," Sasha pulled him back.  "Anything but careful, please." She
noticed the blood on her arm from Larik's chest.  "What happened?"
   "Anything but careful," said Larik.
   Marcus took hold of her thighs and put them on her hips.  Marcus groaned
as he sank into her pussy.  "Fuck, this is my hot pussy.  Feel that."
Marcus pulled out and Larik thrust into her from behind several times. 
Each thrust was mark by her high, throaty moan.
   Marcus entered her again and Larik held her by the shoulders as he
penetrated her rear.  "This is what you live for, isn't it?"
   "Yes, more."
   "More what?"
   "More of both of you.  Please."
   They had established the rhythm earlier, but now they picked up the
tempo, giving her no moment of rest.  They spread her wide, thrusting deep
inside her.
   She rolled her head back onto Larik's chest, her hands braced on Marcus'
shoulders.  It was rough, the pleasure more than her brain could process,
but it was perfection, where she belonged, where she felt loved.  She did
not have to think or understand.  All she needed was to feel.
   "Yes, I love you both so much.  Please, yes."
   Their pace slowed.  Sasha blinked her eyes open, confused and
disoriented.  "Please yes does not mean slow down."
   "Say it again," Larik nipped her shoulder.
   "Yes, I ...  love you both ...  so much." There was not a memory to go
with those words.  She had felt it, but never spoke the words.  It only
existed as a phrase in her mind, a ridiculous notion she kept to herself.
   "We love you in return." Marcus fucked her pussy, giving her the more
she wanted.  Her body went lax for all of two seconds before she exploded.
She couldn't scream.  She didn't have a voice.  All turned white and
brilliant.  Her skin flushed hot then cold.  As soon as it was over, it
happened all over again.  She was held aloft by two powerful fucking
machines, efficiently wringing every orgasm she had left to give.
   Larik came inside her with a wounded cry.  "Hold onto him," he gasped as
he pulled out of her.
   Marcus slammed into her, sloshing into her wet pussy, the rhythmic
slapping and their ragged breaths made sweet music.  He fucked her with an
intensity that was near painful, and miraculous.
   Sasha reveled in seeing this bestial side of him.  He whispered words in
a language she did not understand, in a growl that made the language almost
frightening if he had not been inside her.
   She felt his orgasm moment before he reacted.  His thrusts turned short,
intense.  His cock thickened and ejaculate filled her.  Marcus roared and
trembled as he ground his hips into hers.  He stumbled, but Larik steadied
their bodies as he eased to the floor.
   For a while there was just the sound of their breathing in the small
room.  They sat in a tangled pile, neither of them in a hurry to move.
   "I love you, Sasha," Larik sighed.  "You have changed us.  Marcus was
bitter and argumentative."
   Marcus grunted slightly.  "Larik was the optimistic voice of reason."
   "That sounds horrible."
   They laughed and huddled closer.
   <->
Written: Jan 2013
   Contact: nysidra at hot mail dot com
  
DeVineSoul