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"A graduate from the School of Sorcery and the Officer's Academy?" Cornelia said. "My, my, what a little overachiever. Your professors from the School of Sorcery tell me that your marks were exemplary in the black and white arts, and that you were an excellent research assistant."
"You've spoken to my professors?" Annette said, hope surging in her breast. She'd made so many good friends at the School of Sorcery, and after she'd heard about what happened to Dimitri, she'd prayed that they were all right. She'd been in the countryside watching over her younger cousins for the fighting in Fhirdiad; she had had no chance to join in and help.
Cornelia's smile did not come anywhere near her eyes. "Oh, no, dear. I've killed your professors. The ones who tried to prevent me from taking the capital, at least. The ones who fell in line had quite a lot to say about potential recruits to the cause, and your name was at the top of all of their lists."
There was a challenge in Cornelia's gaze. Annette swallowed hard. She had been sent south to Arianrhod as a tithe, a symbol of House Dominic's cooperation. She had cousins who also bore the family Crest, which meant she was disposable. One of the family's knights, a woman Annette had known since she was a girl, had dropped her off on the steps of the fortress with her luggage and left her there, alone until a steward came to collect her. Several people in succession had separated her from her bags, her cloak, her magic staff, and brought directly to Cornelia's personal chambers, and now here she was.
"I'm, uh, flattered!" Annette said, over-hasty. Her palms were clammy, and she was sweaty underneath her the thick, clinging wool of her traveling dress. It was late fall, but Cornelia's parlor was sweltering.
"It's been so difficult to find any of your teachers from the Officer's Academy, but I've had all the references I needed. You were involved in the defense of Garreg Mach? On the front lines, even?"
"Y-Yes."
"And you survived it. How admirable. I heard the fighting was just wretched. Come, sit down."
Cornelia patted the settee next to her, and Annette went, her back stiff, willing herself not to sink into the comfortable cushions despite her long day of travel. Cornelia was beautiful in the same way the Archbishop had been beautiful: a little scary, a little distant, especially when their full attention wasn't on you. Was it just Annette's imagination, or had Cornelia not blinked even once during the conversation?
Annette sighed. "The battle was...." Long. Horrifying, exhausting, and futile. It had been three years, and Annette still had nightmares. "I'm lucky I survived."
"Lucky?" Cornelia said. "No, you were skilled. And that's why I want you to be my adjutant."
- - -
There was no refusing, of course. Immediately after the interview, a silent servant showed her to the most beautifully-appointed set of rooms she'd ever been able to call her own. It was immaculate, bright, decorated in greens and yellows. All of her dresses were hung in the wardrobe, the wrinkles from travel already pressed out of them.
The next day, Annette's work began.
Cornelia had been serious about one thing: yes, Annette was obviously there as a hostage--and to keep a powerful, healthy mage out of House Fraldarius and House Gautier's hands--but she really had wanted an adjutant, an aide, someone to fetch and carry for her. For weeks and weeks, most of the job was boring. Annette got up, ate an awkward breakfast across the table from Cornelia in Cornelia's private parlor, and spent the day following the woman around, attending meetings, taking notes and copying out letters.
The most excitement she got was the weekly gauntlet, a grueling sparring session where Cornelia tested and critiqued her skills. The first few defeats had been humiliating, but Annette always wanted to get better, and everything Cornelia said did about improving her technique made sense. The first time Cornelia praised her, Annette couldn't help herself: she glowed with pride.
And she had immediately been disgusted with herself. This was the woman who had killed Dimitri and Dedue. She'd sold the Kingdom out to the Empire. She was wintering at the Silver Maiden while Fhirdiad starved, and Annette was happy just to be complimented? For properly performing Sagittae?
But no one else in the fortress spoke to her. No matter how friendly she was, the servants were mute, right down to the girl who lit Annette's fire in the morning, and the nobles who came to visit Cornelia ignored Annette. She wrote to her aunt and uncle and cousins, but they never wrote back; she didn't even know if the letters were sent out with the post, or if they were burned. She thought about trying to get a message to Felix or Sylvain, but had no idea how she'd manage it. If she wasn't sleeping, bathing, or studying in Arianrhod's library, she was at Cornelia's side.
All she had was Cornelia. Cornelia's too-wide smiles. Cornelia's unsettling stare. Cornelia's softly chiding tone, whenever Annette failed to land a hit on her.
Cornelia, pinning her down on the courtyard grass for just a little too long before letting her go.
Annette was learning, though. She decided to keep her ears open, if not for a chance of escape, then for information the Kingdom could use. There was no such thing as perfect security. Annette would find a way out.
- - -
When her performance in the gauntlet was good enough, Cornelia began allowing Annette to help her with her research.
That was boring, too! Whatever Cornelia was doing, it wasn't testing new spells or helping anyone. It mostly involved Annette moving blood from one vial to another, and testing it for Crests with equipment much more complicated than Professor Hanneman's had been back at the Academy. At least Cornelia left her mostly alone: she gave Annette her assignment, and then she went off to work in her private laboratory.
It was light work. It was, she told herself, way better than being on the Dukedom-Galatea border, where most of the fighting was happening right now. The thought of facing Ingrid on the battlefield distracted her; her grip slipped on the way to the Crest analyzer, and she dropped an entire rack of vials on the floor.
Annette stared down at the spreading red-brown stain on the ground, feeling herself break out into a cold sweat.
At that exact moment, Cornelia came out of her laboratory.
"You idiot," Cornelia hissed, advancing on her. She slapped Annette across the face, open-palmed and vicious. The impact was so hard that Annette stumbled into the workbench, but before she could fall, Cornelia's hand was there in the front of her dress, pulling her up, then shoving her down to her knees.
"I'm sorry," Annette babbled, though she'd taken worse hits from training weapons. It shouldn't have frightened her--but it did, she had seen Cornelia annoyed with her, but never enraged like this. "I'm so sorry, I'll clean it up--"
"Clean it up?" Cornelia wrenched Annette's head back.
Annette tried to regain her composure. She straightened up as much as she could with Cornelia's hand on the back of her neck. "It'll just take a minute, I swear, I'm good at cleaning, I'll never drop anything again."
"That blood was more valuable than your life," said Cornelia.
Annette bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. This seemed to please Cornelia. She released Annette's head, and with the tip of her boot, gently, inexorably, pushed Annette down so that she was lying on her back on the workroom floor. The ends of Annette's hair landed in the spilled blood; it was inches from her face.
"Well. You'll just have to make it up to me," Cornelia said, sinking down to straddle Annette's chest, the thigh-slits in her gown exposing her legs. "You do want to be a good little toy, right?"
There was nowhere to go. There was nothing to do. Cornelia was frighteningly strong. Maybe Annette was a coward just like her father, because she nodded up at the other woman, trying to look as innocent as possible.
"That's what I thought." Cornelia pulled up her skirts: she wasn't wearing anything underneath them, and she was completely hairless between her legs. It didn't look right. "It will take weeks to replace what you lost. Really, it would be faster just to take it from you! Be a dear and make me come, and maybe I'll consider letting you keep all your blood."
With that, she pinned Annette's shoulders with her knees and put her cunt to Annette's face. Annette gave her a hesitant lick, and was rewarded for her hesitation with another full-bodied slap.
"Show me how much you want me," Cornelia said, pressing herself into Annette's face again. "Should I have you call me mistress? Goddess? Mommy? Hmm? All the gossips say your mother has been a shell of herself since your father left."
Annette gritted her teeth and didn't remark. Her mother had gotten along just fine after father had left--she'd been distant, and left Annette's raising mostly to her uncle, but she'd been there. It was none of Cornelia's business.
She didn't doubt for a second that Cornelia would cut her throat--she'd been a fool to get so complacent. Annette knew how to do this. It wasn't her first time. She opened her mouth wide and made herself lick Cornelia. Between her legs, Cornelia smelled like nothing, and she tasted like nothing, too. That only made it worse.
"You're not very skilled at this," Cornelia said, when she finally let Annette breathe. "What did they teach you at Garreg Mach? They certainly didn't prepare you to be a good fuck. Oh, well, any animal can be trained."
Annette stared up at the workroom ceiling. The blood had wicked into her hair.
"Come here," Cornelia said, pulling Annette into her arms and opening up the plunging neckline of her dress and revealing her full, heavy breasts. "Worship mommy's breasts."
"Okay," Annette said, reaching out to cup them, squeeze them.
"Yes, mommy," Cornelia corrected, swatting Annette on the back of the head.
She told herself she was not going to call Cornelia 'mommy.' She was determined that she wouldn't. Cornelia's breasts were soft and nice, and Annette could almost imagine that it was Mercedes moaning under her touch, Mercedes telling her she was a good, sweet girl. She'd call Mercedes mommy, happily. She'd do anything Mercedes told her to.
The next slap made it impossible to hold onto that fantasy, but it was nice while it lasted.
It took all afternoon for Cornelia to force her to say it, but she held out that long, and that was what mattered. And as Cornelia led Annette naked through the hallways, she said, "Really, I don't know why this took me so long. If I'd known how eager you were to please, I would have done this on the first day."
- - -
After the incident in the workroom, servicing Cornelia became part of her daily routine. Once in the morning, before Annette was allowed to eat breakfast, and if her performance wasn't satisfactory, she went without eating. Once in the afternoon, before she was allowed to leave the workroom and go to the library, and once before she went to sleep. She dreaded the nighttime summons to Cornelia's chambers the most. After a long day, Cornelia always wanted someone to take out her frustrations on. She'd tease Annette for hours, fingering her pussy, slapping and pinching her thighs, her belly, her breasts. She would not let Annette come until she cried and begged for it--and sometimes, usually, not even then. Annette would go back to her chambers and put her hand between her legs, bring herself off, disgusted with herself for being so wet.
Annette was getting good at going down on Cornelia, at least. She was pretty sure Cornelia only slapped her and hit her for fun now, not because Annette was clumsy or awkward.
But Cornelia also imposed other, stranger punishments on her. If Annette didn't keep her eyes perfectly downcast when Cornelia was meeting with a merchant, Cornelia made her stand in the corner for hours, holding a book at chest level. If she made too much noise in the workroom testing samples, Cornelia summoned a servant and made Annette beat them bloody. The servants never made a noise or seemed angry, but stared up at her mutely, doll-like, no matter what she did. She broke their bones, stepped on them, turned the full force of her magic on them.
The more broken she left them, the closer she brought them to death, the more pleased Cornelia seemed with her. The next day, Annette would have a new dress, or a box of sugar candies from her favorite shop in Fhirdiad, or a little hair trinket. I want my toy to be pretty and happy, Cornelia would say, stroking Annette's face.
Annette slept poorly for days, after the gifts.
In quiet moments, she let herself daydream about being rescued. Maybe Ingrid would fly through the window on her gleaming white pegasus and sweep Annette away. Or the professor would come back from the dead and tear an impregnable fortress apart brick by brick to get to her. Or she would get that message out to Felix and Sylvain, and they'd mount a mission to save a valuable asset from enemy hands.
Those fantasies gave her no comfort. No one was coming for her.
- - -
She tried to escape exactly once.
She found Cornelia waiting at the exit to the sewer she'd chosen as her route.
Cornelia didn't seem angry, following along behind the pair of burly guards that hauled Annette bodily into her private laboratory. She seemed almost disappointed, as she strapped her down to a table, and welded an iron collar onto her neck.
"Now I'll always know where my little toy is," Cornelia said, and proceeded to do everything it was possible to do to a helpless woman tied to an examination table. Annette had not known she could bleed like that, and from so many places. She found out.
- - -
"We have guests tonight," Cornelia said, the precise day that the last of Annette's bruises healed. "Wear something flattering, and be in my parlor at the eighth bell."
So Annette nodded, and picked a navy blue dress she knew would show off her eyes. She'd gotten it as a uniform when when she'd taken the warlock certification at the academy, but she'd altered it since then, taken off the long sleeves. As a uniform, it had been pretty, as a dress, it was quite nice, but as a way to hide the collar around her neck, it was indispensable. She was a prisoner, but that didn't mean she had to feel ugly. Maybe she would even have a good time.
This was a mistake.
Cornelia's guests turned out to be Count Rowe and Sir Gwendal. She'd met Sir Gwendal, at least, after the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. He'd gruffly congratulated Dimitri on the Blue Lions' victory, and he'd looked upon the rest of the class with approval. He hadn't paid any of the rest of them special attention, and if he remembered her now, he gave no indication. Count Rowe was the sort of older man she might have giggled over with Mercie, once: thick blond hair, a long, handsome face, green eyes.
"You're Baron Dominic's little niece," Rowe said. "Right? Gustave's girl?"
"Yes, my lord," Annette said. The food in Arianrhod was really good, and she tried her best to enjoy the dinner before her. It wasn't working. The desserts were always perfect, but they never brought her any joy.
"I hear Gustave's hiding up in Fraldarius territory," Gwendal muttered. "I knew he was alive. Cowards don't die."
Annette didn't disagree, but she didn't like to hear it said like that. Still, she looked down at her lap meekly, the way Cornelia had long since trained her to, and continued eating. The conversation washed past her. She should have been keeping track of it, trying to glean useful information, but she could not retain a single word they were saying.
"Shall we retire?" Cornelia asked.
Count Rowe nodded eagerly. Gwendal was stony-faced, unreadable. Annette bowed deep and tried to take her leave, but Cornelia caught Annette by the wrist and shook her head.
So she followed them into the sitting area of Cornelia's bedroom and fetched drinks for them: brandy for Rowe, whiskeys for Cornelia and Gwendal. At their encouragement--insistence--she drank, too, and kept drinking. Once she was properly drunk, she found herself sitting in Cornelia's lap. Cornelia fondled her disinterestedly, carrying on a conversation over Annette's shoulder. Her elegant fingers slid up the inside of Annette's thigh, but always stopped before they touched her between her legs. She slumped on Cornelia, willing herself to fall asleep.
"The girl seems comfortable," Rowe's voice said. He sounded entertained. "I think I'll take what I paid for, now."
Cornelia squeezed Annette's ass, and Annette jolted upright. "Count Rowe here wants an heir with a Crest," Cornelia explained to her. "The family hasn't produced one in four generations, though they swear up and down they once possessed the Crest of Aubin."
"We do," Count Rowe protested.
"Yes, yes," Cornelia said, completely disinterested. "I've given him one chance to make you pregnant. If he succeeds, and the child bears a Crest, he's welcome to it. Be a dear, will you?" She gestured toward her bed.
Annette should have done something. She should have tried to stand up and leave, but the alcohol in her body made her clumsy. She lost a precious moment on a healing spell to purge it from her system--a moment where Gwendal scooped her up off of Cornelia's lap and deposited her on the bed.
"My lord," Gwendal said, holding Annette down with a hand on the window of flesh exposed by her dress. "Shall I break her in for you?"
That was it. She wasn't going to lay here and just let them do this to her. She wasn't the strongest mage in the world, but her technique was excellent, Cornelia trained her relentlessly no matter how injured she was, and she wasn't a coward. If she was fast enough, she could kill them all. She summoned up the strongest magic she could, but before she could release it, Cornelia clicked her tongue disapprovingly. With a vague hand gesture, she stripped all of Annette's magic away. It was like having one of her limbs cut off. Abruptly, Annette felt tired and weak.
Rowe and Gwendal didn't seem to notice what had happened. "By all means," Rowe was saying. Annette couldn't see him, but he sounded entertained. "Look at her, she isn't even struggling."
Calmly, casually, Gwendal ripped the front of Annette's dress in two, peeled it open so that she was exposed. "Open," he ordered, smacking the inside of Annette's thigh, and Annette spread her legs. There was a pattern of vines on the canopy of Cornelia's bed that she tried to trace to distract herself from whatever Cornelia was doing to her, but Gwendal spread her legs even wider and shoved a finger into of her cunt without any warning. She winced at the pain.
"Dry and tight," Gwendal remarked, after what felt like an eternity of sawing that finger in and out of her. "Seems like she's been used in the past, though."
"She's pretty enough," Cornelia said, "of course I've made use of her."
With a noncommittal noise, Gwendal added another finger. Annette whined at how it stretched her, and to her horror, his fingers moved in and out of her more easily now. Oh, but it still hurt so much, Gwendal's fingers were bigger than Cornelia's, wide and callused. "Young people these days," he was saying, spreading her lips wide with his other hands to inspect her down there. "Nothing but sluts. I would have been more shocked if you were her first."
"There's nothing to be done for it," Cornelia sighed.
Gwendal began adding a third finger, and Annette, panicked, reached down to try and push his hand away, to no avail. "That's it, girl, take it. It's all you're good for. If I want to put my whole hand inside of you, I will. You're nothing but a hole for my lord to breed."
He twisted his wrist so he could fuck her in short, hard thrusts. She did not get any wetter. It did not stop hurting. Every time she tried to shut her eyes and simply go away, or pretend it was someone she liked, Mercedes, Dimitri, Sylvain, was doing this to her, the iron collar pulsated cold against her neck, cutting through her thoughts.
"That's enough, Gwendal," Rowe said. "I'm ready now."
She heard the sound of him standing up from his chair, and then he was in front of her. His cock was already out, and hard. It wasn't bigger than some of the things Cornelia had put inside of her, but, then, none of the things Cornelia had put inside of her would make her pregnant. That alone made this more frightening than anything Cornelia had ever done to her. But she'd been in battles, she could weather this.
He hadn't bothered taking off the rest of his clothes. Annette screwed her eyes shut and willed the rest of her body to relax. It was always worse when she was tense. Cornelia didn't like it when she kept her eyes closed, but maybe Rowe would be different. Still, she flinched a mile when Rowe's finger touched her clit, stroked it. Then he spat on her between her legs, rubbing it in. "Good enough," he sighed, and then she felt the head of his cock against her entrance.
He entered her with one fast, brutal stroke. It burned. She felt his balls resting against her ass, and he stayed still in her for a long time. Annette pressed her fist into her mouth. She had a lot of practice at not reacting.
Rowe grunted and began moving, pawing impatiently at her breasts as he did. Annette kept her eyes shut. She didn't want to see what his face looked like. "No tears? Lady Cornelia, you've trained her well," he said.
"My toy responds best to a bit of pain, I find," Cornelia replied. "Slap her--don't hold back. She'll go tight as a vise around your cock."
There was no Annette, right now. Gwendal had been right: she was just a hole. The collar around her neck was burning cold now, a band of solid ice that hurt almost as much as her cunt. She shouted in pain when Rowe's hand came down on her face, and to her shame, she did go tight around him, and it almost felt good. Cornelia had wrung orgasms out of her when she was in far more pain than this. Her eyes flew open to see him braced over her, his mouth hanging open--disgusting--his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat.
"Ah, there she is," Rowe said, sitting back on his heels to fuck her harder, in shorter thrusts that sent body sprawling over the bed. He pinched her nipples, tugged on her breasts so they stood out, and she whimpered. "You're right, she's getting wetter now. I could stay inside her all night."
"And one night is all you're paying for, Rowe," Cornelia reminded him.
Annette should have been ashamed that she'd been paid for like a drafthorse rented out to plow a field. She would have time for that later. If he liked hurting her, if she showed she was in pain the right way, maybe he'd come inside her and be done with it. Cornelia could hurt her forever and not grow tired of it, but not everyone was Cornelia. She clung to that thought, and let the sniffles she'd been holding back come to the surface, let her chin tremble. He did look excited at that, and she felt him become harder inside her.
He was battering her cunt now, and the wet sounds of their joining, the slap of his hips on hers, filled the room. Above her, he made some signal, and Gwendal approached the bedside.
"Open your mouth," Gwendal ordered, and did not wait for her to obey. He grabbed her face, digging his fingers into her cheeks and forcing her mouth open. He pulled his cock out and shoved it between her lips, and he fucked her throat in the same way Rowe was moving between her legs. She made her mouth wet and soft, did her best to keep her teeth out of the way. Gwendal didn't let her up to breathe much, but at least she didn't have to watch Rowe anymore.
She did come, at some point, through her pain, with one cock at each end of her. The orgasm took her by surprise, and only when Rowe had fucked her through it did the pain around her neck abate. In her relief, she hardly noticed it when the two men came, except to mindlessly swallow Gwendal's seed.
When they both pulled out, Annette felt empty and hollow. She stayed that way for a long time.
"--started out a bit slow, but she's an excellent ride," Rowe was saying affably, when Annette came back to herself. He patted her thigh as Gwendal lifted her up to shove a pillow under her hips, to hold Rowe's come in. "Don't worry, girl, I've got a few rounds left in me. How much to fuck her while she's pregnant, Lady Cornelia?"
The two of them haggled over her body. While they did so, Gwendal sat on her chest, putting his whole weight on her and crushing the air from her lungs. He set his soft cock between her breasts, squeezed them together hard, and fucked them. She wore his come on her face the rest of the night as they took turns with her. After the third time Rowe spent in her, she didn't care about that indignity anymore.
"You didn't shame me," Cornelia said, when it was over and both of them left. "I'm very proud of you, dear."
Annette rolled over onto her back and sat up. Every part of her was in pain, and between her legs she felt sore and tender. Gwendal and Rowe had taken Cornelia's suggestion, that Annette needed to be hurt during sex, to heart.
She had nothing to say to Cornelia. She gathered her ruined dress and held it to her chest--it was the only thing she had of Garreg Mach here, she realized, and now it was tainted. She had been so proud when she'd earned it! The professor had nearly smiled at her! Sylvain had bent over to kiss her hand, and Ashe and Ingrid had jokingly sworn fealty to the greatest mage in all of Faerghus. Mercie had picked her up and spun her around. Then she'd deposited Annette directly into Dedue's arms, who had awkwardly done the same, and Dedue had passed her off to Dimitri, who had tossed her in the air and caught her like she was a doll. Sometimes, it was nice being the shortest Blue Lion. Even Felix had clapped her on the shoulder and told her she'd made a fine showing.
If she wasn't careful, she would never see any of them again. She had to be careful. She had to be smart. She had to keep the promise she'd made three years ago.
"What are you waiting for? Finish me off, too," Cornelia said, and Annette crossed the room and sank wearily to her knees.
- - -
Two weeks later, she felt the telltale rush of blood between her legs.
Annette sank to her bedroom floor, hugged herself tight, and shook with relief. She didn't have it in her to cry anymore.
- - -
It had been nearly a year.
She'd taken to spending all of her unsupervised periods in Arianrhod's library. There were spells for keeping yourself from getting pregnant, spells to get rid of a baby, spells she hadn't ever learned because she'd been so determined to be a fighter. It took some searching to find them, but now she was prepared if Cornelia ever decided to sell her again.
The days had long since resumed their pattern of sex, violence, training, and study. She still took notes at meetings where rooms full of traitors to the Kingdom pretended not to notice Annette's black eyes and high collars, and she still copied out Cornelia's letters. Cornelia never brought up Count Rowe again, and Annette only saw him once, at a distance, at an extravagant party Cornelia threw and allowed her to attend (with the collar burning all the while, reminding her whom she belonged to). Rowe's gaze passed right through her like she was nothing.
That night, she stayed up late, working on equations, practicing spells without releasing them. She had so much to learn, and so much time to learn it in. In one of those books, she was going to find something, some secret that would allow her to kill Cornelia. Cornelia had taught her dark magics, black arts, ways to break opponents' minds and leave them in pain for hours before they died: and still, Annette had never won a bout against her. That was why Cornelia kept doing it, she supposed. You've learned a new little trick, she'd say, when Annette mastered a new and terrible spell: Dark Spikes. Miasma. Luna. None of them were enough to beat Cornelia.
But she would--she'd find a way. There was no other choice.
Cornelia was in an unusually good mood one evening. That alone should have worried Annette, but she'd watched Annette beat yet another servant to within an inch of their life yesterday, and Cornelia never got tired of that. She'd invited Annette to her parlor for dinner, and that was what worried her. Usually, she was sent for after dinner. When Cornelia delicately wiped her face and gestured at her bedroom door, Annette followed her, stomach turning with apprehension.
"You know, Rowe is a useful idiot, but he has given me a wonderful idea," Cornelia said, as they walked into her bedroom.
A man was tied spread-eagle to Cornelia's bed. His face was covered with a soft black hood, and he was naked. And erect. He was very erect. He had a wonderful body, too: maybe he was one of Arianrhod's knights, someone she'd seen before.
"The Crest of Dominic isn't the rarest of the ten Elites' crests, or the most valuable, and it certainly isn't the most interesting," Cornelia said, and she sounded bored. "Nonetheless, your bloodline's... fecundity makes it valuable, you must understand. So, dear. You are going to fuck this man, and you are going to fuck him every night until you get pregnant for me. You want to make babies for me, don't you, dear?"
"I do," Annette said, swallowing hard. Cornelia, but she had not made Annette fuck any men since Count Rowe. The man on the bed's cock was long and fat, already dripping, ready for her. It would hurt, but she'd prepared for this day. She went directly to the bed, knelt over the man's thighs, and pulled up her skirts. She'd do this, go back to her chambers, and do her magic. It would be fine.
Cornelia followed. She ran a gentle hand up Annette's back, stopping at the collar, digging her long-nailed fingers in under it. "And don't think I don't know about your white magic research." Those nails dug into the tender flesh beneath the collar. "If I tell you to get pregnant, you'll get pregnant. Every part of your body belongs to me."
Annette's knees turned to water. "I--I--no," she said, her voice shaking, "no, I won't do it, you can't make me--"
She cast the spell almost without conscious thought, and it did knock Cornelia back, just enough for Annette to make a run for the door. This was a terrible mistake. Cornelia caught her by the hair and twisted it in her fist, her face twisted into an inhuman snarl. Without a word, she dragged Annette through the corridors. People saw: servants, soldiers, knights, all of them blind and deaf to the latest awful thing Lady Cornelia was doing to her assistant. By this point, Annette expected no less.
But Cornelia veered suddenly, and stepped through a doorway Annette had never seen before. She took Annette down rough-hewn stone steps, and they kept going down, deeper than Annette had ever been. When Annette tripped, Cornelia did not give her time to stand up, but dragged her down the rest of the steps and across the rough ground.
Finally, Cornelia stopped. Annette's face and arm were scraped up from the floor, and there would be bruises running up and down her side later, she was sure of it. She was crying, too, huge, ugly tears that wracked her entire body. She wasn't as strong as she thought she was, if this was all it took for Cornelia to finally break her. Heedless of this, Cornelia tugged her to the feet and shoved her against a metal railing. It took a moment for Annette's sobs to stop, for her eyes to clear and adjust to the quality of the light.
They stood above a massive cavern built into the plateau Arianrhod sat on. There were people in down there, in cages and strapped to tables, sleeping and awake, screaming and silent. As Annette watched, a robed figure, with an air of boredom, approached one of the people on a table. They pinched their victim's nose shut until their mouth fell open and shoved something down the person's throat, then stepped back.
The victim's body bulged and blackened, re-formed, elongated, became monstrous. The screams became unrecognizable as human noises, and several more robed figures moved in to corral the thing.
This was it--this was where they made the Empire's artificial demonic beasts--Annette felt sick to her stomach. Cornelia's body pressed into her from behind, surrounding her, and all at once the other woman seemed two feet taller than she had been. Something in Annette screamed at her to not turn around and look at what the woman had become, and she listened to that instinct. It was the smartest thing she'd done all day.
"I own you, you stupid little rat. I own every hair on your head. I own your worthless cunt. If I tell you to fuck one of those, you will," said Cornelia. Her voice had a hollow ring to it that filled up the vast space beneath them. It was like hearing a whisper and a roar at the same time, and it was directly in Annette's ear. Annette's entire body trembled against the railing. "Do you understand? If I command you to, you will lay down on your back, spread those skinny legs, and let their cocks rip you apart."
Annette began weeping again, silently now, watching the demonic beast's throes of confused agony as it was prodded and guided to a wheeled cage.
Cornelia's hand came down on Annette's ass with bone-jarring force, and Annette cried out in pain. "I can't hear you, rat," Cornelia said. "Do you understand?"
"I do," Annette replied around her sobs.
"You're not irreplaceable, dear," said Cornelia, her tone treacly-sweet now, "you're just entertaining. I do hope you'll stay entertaining. Rats are meant to be killed, after all. Perhaps it's time for you to remind me just what a good toy you can be."
She spun Annette around, and Annette finally saw what Cornelia truly looked like: unnaturally tall, with sickly-looking grey skin, a gaunt, terrible, beautiful face, snow-white hair. Annette swallowed her next wave of tears. She had no time to be shocked or horrified. She pressed forward, throwing her arms around Cornelia, burying her face between Cornelia's soft breasts. She had to stand on her tiptoes to do it, but she kissed the base of Cornelia's throat. Cornelia didn't breathe, not like a human would.
"I want you, mommy," Annette said into Cornelia's chest--it was the first horrible thing Cornelia had ever said to her, it was the most humiliating, debasing thing she could think to say. Cornelia's black eyes lit with joy, or something like it. "Please, let me fuck you," Annette added, "I want you so badly."
"Why, that's all you had to say!" Cornelia replied.
She had gotten really, really good at this. She knew exactly what Cornelia wanted, exactly how she liked to be touched, how to bring her off as quickly as possible. She drew it out, now, on her knees before Cornelia, with the screams of people being transformed into demonic beasts ringing in her ears. She let Cornelia pull her hair, whined about it, begged her to stop, looked up at her with big blue eyes brimming with unshed tears, just the way Cornelia liked it. Cornelia turned around to look down over her workshop, and Annette licked her other hole, too, her tongue wet and eager. It was like that, Annette eating her out from behind, watching people die in terrible pain, that Cornelia finally came.
Annette knew better than to stop. It was not over until Cornelia said it was over.
"My, you've learned so much," Cornelia said finally.
Annette dared to pulled her mouth off of Cornelia, and only when Cornelia did not demand she begin again did she sit back on her heels, panting for air. Her jaw was tired. Cornelia could go for hours. She'd been merciful, really.
Cornelia continued, "You were so worthless when you came to me. You should be grateful that I've decided to make something of you."
"I'm grateful," Annette replied. Her voice sounded hoarse to her. "Thank you. Thank you. For everything."
Cornelia put her heeled boot on Annette's chest and pushed her down onto her back with it. "You're going to show me your gratitude," Cornelia said. "Do I own you?"
"Yes."
"Do I own this?" she asked, pressing the spike of her heel directly between Annette's folds, grinding against her clit. It hurt, but Annette's body had long since learned to get wet in preparation for whatever Cornelia was going to do to her once she came.
"Yes!" Annette said, and part of her meant it.
"Will you fuck anyone and anything I tell you to, dear?"
Annette nodded, trying to look thrilled.
"Very well, then." Cornelia withdrew her boot, and Annette rubbed her thighs together under her dress. "We can begin. To think that I was just going offer you one cock, when you're just insatiable. Honestly, dear, I don't care what makes you pregnant, so long as I get a litter out of you."
No such thing as perfect security, Annette thought. The professor was the one who'd said that in lecture, she remembered now. It was a comfort, as Cornelia called up some of the robed figures up to the overlook to take turns with her. The robed figures looked human enough--more human than Cornelia looked right now--but that wasn't comforting. There were half a dozen of them, and they used her like she was an object. They never spoke to her, even once, and moved as stiffly as puppets. Annette had the creeping horrible sense--as one of them turned her onto her stomach to use her ass--it was the first time, Cornelia had always ignored that hole, Annette tried desperately to relax--that Cornelia was controlling them all.
And when that was over, Cornelia marched her up the stairs again. Annette had to walk under her own power, and it felt like it took hours to get back up to the familiar hallways and back into Cornelia's chambers. The man was still lying on the bed, still unmoving, still hard and ready.
Cornelia held Annette in her arms very gently, kissing her cheek. She'd put on her human body again. "Now, now, compared to all that, this doesn't seem like such a problem, hmm? I should make you take cocks more often. Go ahead, fuck him. Try not to make a fuss again."
Annette's insides felt raw, scraped-out. She could not possibly--but then she thought about going back down into the pit. About the awful blank faces of the figures as they'd fucked her. About what a demonic beast's cock might look like, and how it would tear her apart. This really wasn't so bad. She limped to the bed, and she did as she was told, and she thought:
No one was invulnerable, not even Cornelia. There had to be a way out. Survive, study, fight, escape: Annette repeated it in her head over and over as she rode the man, as his cock thickened and he came inside of her without a movement, without a sound. To add insult, Cornelia held Annette on down on his softening cock and rubbed her clit, wringing the only orgasm Annette had had tonight out of her. And then it was finished. Cornelia crooned her praise at Annette's performance, but Annette's mind was empty. She didn't even have it in her to sit up, let alone be angry.
After the man stood up and left, Annette slept in Cornelia's bed with her, leaking come onto Cornelia's cool, smooth sheets. She woke up to the feeling of Cornelia groping her breasts, and she had the sinking feeling that this was going to become a new routine.
Annette had made it through this much. She would make it through even more. Survive, study, fight, escape. She had one more year before the reunion at Garreg Mach. She'd made a promise, and she intended to keep it.