Work Text:
“What, it takes a whole troop of big warriors to guard one little Princess?” Caileth sneered, trying to remain as defiant as she could be while following helplessly on the end of a chain locked into shackles at her feet and wrists.
Her jab was met with a hard smack on her ass, making her yelp.
I’ll have your head for that, she vowed, staring daggers back at the beastly man behind her, a bearded barbarian in a wildly patterned woolen coat who just smirked very slightly and pushed her forward by the shoulder.
This had not been the deal.
They dragged her through a high archway into the Great Hall — her Great Hall — and there, lounging insolently on her throne, was the self-styled Emperor Hrylan.
Her throne, that is, if her father truly had fallen in battle. Those rumors had left a heavy weight in her heart, but she had sworn to keep this place safe for him. Even if it meant paying a heavy tribute.
Hrylan’s co-heirs, Ruumei and Nelufh, stood at his right and left. Beyond them, the hall was crowded with his men, as well as those among her own companions and palace staff who had not fled. Most of them, like her, had their wrists bound behind their backs, and their ankles chained together.
“My people were not to be harmed!” she hissed at Hrylan.
“And they have not been,” he drawled, mildly. He sat up a little straighter on the throne, shifted towards her slightly, while still contriving to a most louche and disrespectful pose. “But precautions must be taken.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “I suppose this farce is to be our wedding ceremony, then?”
Caileth had once dreamed of a much grander and happier occasion, with cheering crowds and a splendid dress, and a handsome and genial consort at the end of it.
Hrylan, if he were less despicable, might have been handsome, with his long, sharp face, dark hair frosting into soft white at his temples, strong limbs framing lividly painted scale armor.
But instead of a long, flowing gown encrusted with gems and feathers, she wore heavy, biting chains and the traveling gear she had put on this morning, preparing to flee the palace if necessary. Still, she was a princess, and even her traveling gear was elegant, beautiful, woven with secret protective magics. Caileth held herself high. She would show her people that she remained proud and unbowed.
She spotted her lady-in-waiting, standing tearfully near the front of the crowd. When Hrylan’s men were at the city gates, Vaolina had urged her to flee. But Caileth had instead asked the loyal maiden, her closest friend, to dispatch a messenger to their enemy.
In past parleys, Hrylan had desired greatly to join his house to hers. Her father had spurned him then, of course, out of respect for her wishes. But a wise ruler could change her mind.
The idea of living on horseback, desperately rallying support from a defeated country, made her shudder. She was accustomed to life on campaign, far from the ease of the palace. But it was having a palace to come home to that made that life bearable. To be a pursued rat…
No. As Empress, she would have a chance to protect her people. To make her voice heard in the affairs of the land. And perhaps to make her dagger felt, as well.
Ruumei and Nelufh approached her now. She saw that since their last meeting, the young heirs had already been supplied with golden circlets like the one she wore, advertising their new conquest.
She seethed. Her Kingdom was supposed to become a tributary of their barbarian Empire — not a possession!
“How about it, lads?” rumbled Hrylan, leaning back. “Think you’re ready to put the Princess in her place?”
Caileth’s blood froze. What did the Emperor mean by that?
Nelufh, the elder of the two, put an arm out, stopping Ruumei. She had noticed that Ruumei, who was otherwise completely insufferable, did defer to his brother in most things.
Nelufh looked her up and down, as if sizing her up. She glared at him. He was a man of prime soldiering age, but young for the command he’d been given. In his soft, pretty face and awkward bearing there were only hints that he might ever grow into something like his father’s authoritative presence. He seemed more to want to fade into the background, as much as any man could wearing those garish stripes and swirls.
But, she did notice that he had a small, fresh scar over one eye to attest to his growing combat experience.
“Princess she may be,” Nelufh said slowly, with an intent gaze fixed upon her. “But anyone trained in the secret arts can perceive in her the aura of a submissive, father.”
“What?” Caileth said, trying not to let her voice quaver. She settled herself. “What is this nonsense you’ve been teaching your little boys, Hrylan?”
Hrylan quirked an eyebrow at her.
“I am of pure royal blood,” Caileth went on, “The direct line of the Goddess of War, born to rule in my bedchamber as in this throne room. If you think to pervert the natural order—”
“Yes, Princess,” young Ruumei cut her off with a smirk, his hand settling impudently at her hip. “We know all about your divine-touched house and its funny theories about how royal blood alone makes you a dominant. Disproven by the slightest magical research, of course.”
Hrylan laughed, and a few of the soldiers around them joined in. Caileth gritted her teeth.
“Explain yourself,” she growled to the barbarian lord, attempting to shuffle away from the man’s younger son. Ruumei was little more than a boy, slender and unimposing, but he caught her around the waist, and hobbled by chains, Caileth set that fight aside. “Are we to be wed, or is this merely an occasion for some tiresome banter?”
Now, Hrylan stood, and clapped his hands, sending a loud echo through the hall.
“You are right of course, pet,” he said. “We should begin.”
“Before we accept this Daughter of War into our house,” Nelufh said, savoring his words. “I’d like to sample the goods.”
This time the laughter around her was a roar, the gathered soldiers whooping and stamping their approval. She could have sworn Nelufh was now blushing slightly.
Ruumei nedged his brother with his elbow, grinning, and Nelufh shot him a quelling glare.
“Very proper,” said Hrylan with an ironic nod, as if acknowledging the wisdom in this. “I believe this will aid your education, lads. We know she is a submissive, of course, but what else can you learn about her?”
Caileth had a little magical training of her own. Could she melt these shackles off without burning herself too badly? But as satisfying as it would be to leap forward and wrap her hands around the throat of her betrothed, it would end badly for her and her people.
Ruumei folded his arms, regarding her with an adolescent leer. Where his older brother was broad and rounded, Ruumei shared his father’s wiry build, his long, distinguished face and nose. But he hadn’t yet filled in around the jaw, and his hair was left in a boyish and uncivilized mop.
“Hard to disentangle all the readings. She must be wearing a fortune in magical gear.”
Ruumei stepped up and unclasped Caileth’s brooch, letting her cloak drift to the marble floor. His face was very close, and there was a slightly honeyed scent about him. His features were slightly askew, strange and not unpleasant to behold. His eyes shone barbarian-bright through the spill of shadowy locks.
“That’s gotta have a warmth charm,” Nelufh said, kneeling down and lifting a fold of her cloak. “Thin as a whisper, but I bet it’s snug as fur.”
As if on cue, she shivered in the draft that always whispered through the hall. Stop it, she told herself, trying to take command over her body.
It was rather like commanding a cavalry force, Caileth knew. The body has a mind of its own. Many minds, even. You can point it in a certain direction, but you can’t always control what happens next.
Ruumei had a knife out, held lightly in his slim fingers. He touched it to her chest, letting it sizzle against the weft of her silver-plated tunic.
“A whole bunch of medals. Definitely not magical, these.” He slipped the knife along her breast, snipping each honor to the ground. “One for each town your men burned, Princess?”
She didn’t respond. Her mouth was dry, and she wasn’t sure she could form dignified words.
“Ah! There!” he said, catching the blade in the fabric, slicing it open. He caught her eye. She looked away, refusing to blush. “A gap in the protective runes. You should check your artisans’ work more carefully.”
Deftly, he opened a long slash across the chest of her tunic, which sagged around her waist. Next went the leather ties down the front of her riding corset. Her bare breasts spilled out into the torchlight.
And then this wretch had his free hand on her, feeling her in his palm, taking her nipple between his fingers.
She was not going to react to his pawing.
He slapped her breast, not hard, but she was unable to stop an undignified sound from escaping her lips. He looked at her with interest, tugging her nipple sharply.
“Not bad,” he said. “Fat, milky tits. Sensitive.”
“How dare you—” she began. His brother slapped her other breast, harder, and the sting brought her up short.
That, and the knife, which was suddenly between her legs, snipping the strings that held her fine riding trousers at her waist.
“Y-you,” she stammered, focusing her fury on the barbarian lord. “You promised yourself to me in marriage! Do you intend to break your word, and substitute one of your sons?”
“I intend to keep my word,” Hrylan said. “I will marry you, and our houses will be unified. And you will also marry my heirs, and bear their children, and all will acknowledge them as conquerers of the Daughter of War, and as future Emperors.”
Her trousers pooled around her. She held her head high. Let them try to humiliate her. She would only rise above their foolishness.
“Will you, Princess, keep your word?” he went on. “Or must I make other plans?”
Was that a threat? It hardly mattered. Caileth sighed.
She recognized the cold logic in Hrylan’s thinking. He wanted to pass his realm down to his two sons to rule together. If he and they all shared one Empress, then her children would belong to them equally, and perhaps his house would be less apt to crumble into warring branches after his death.
Had the Emperor’s original terms always included this triple-marriage, and she just hadn’t realized it? Caileth tried to recall the exact wording of the tablet she had signed.
“Let us proceed,” she said, looking between him and his two sons, gathered around her like a wolfpack. “With the ceremony…?”
“In good time,” Ruumei said, stepping closer, so near that his breath was on her collarbone. He kissed her throat, softly, and then her lips. Stubbornly, she held her mouth closed against his, but then opened it with a gasp when Nelufh, who had sidled up behind her, gave her bare ass a stinging slap. Ruumei took advantage, moving his mouth against hers, tasting her teeth with his tongue. She considered biting it.
Probably a bad idea.
Ruumei’s fingers were at the crook of her thighs now, slicking into her. Deep in her throat, she heard a little half-choked sound of pleasure.
“Soft lips. Wet, needy cunt,” he enumerated pleasantly. Someone whistled. He gave her another little slap, almost gentle, but aimed right at her clit. She shook slightly. Then his fingers went back to work. “Have you ever had a cock in you, Princess?”
“Of course not,” she hissed. There were some knowing chuckles around her.
Being unmarried, Caileth’s only sexual experiences had been with the palace concubines, hand-picked submissives who had eagerly licked and touched her wherever she commanded them.
It had been a pleasurable enough diversion at first, but she had grown bored with it, and had called for them less and less. She had more important things to do, after all.
Ever since she came of age, Caileth had been the one her father sent to put down rebellions or defend the borders, if his attentions were required elsewhere. It should have been her, to fall in that battle with Hrylan and his invading hordes.
Now, there was nothing she could do but stand here, breath racing, listening to the mortifying, sticky sounds of this callow brat’s fingertips touching her.
This was nothing like her concubines. It reminded her more of the time she half-fell from her saddle and was dragged a hundred yards before her attendants could rescue her. After disentangling herself and finding, Goddess-be-praised, nothing more than a few scrapes, she had been shaking for the next hour, alive with excitement and terror. She’d wanted to get right back on that horse and ride, and ride. And when they hadn’t let her, she’d run laps around the palace grounds instead, chased by a wailing nurse.
She wanted to run now, too. Run away from this nightmare. But then, some awful, shameful part of her wanted to run into it, to stand right here and lean her hips just so into those fingers.
Her heart was hammering in her chest, her cheeks hot, cold air pricking her nipples, and — oh! — there was the hateful, barbaric touch of this detestable boy.
He must be newly of marriageable age himself, but he was vexing her most delicate place with a deftness she couldn’t deny.
She hadn’t agreed to take three husbands, but it might be a blessing. A chance to play them against one another.
Caileth could tell that for all his bluster, young Ruumei was playing at trying to show what a man he was. She was going to watch him, find the cracks in his bold, irritating facade. And later, when he didn’t have his father and brother and half a company of warriors behind him, she would break him down, and gain some control of this situation.
There something between him and Nelufh, she was sure of it. Something she could work with?
Nelufh, standing close behind her, took her hands in his own. He seemed to be examining her fingers. She had made a few helpless attempts to find purchase on her bindings with them, but it had mostly just increased her discomfort.
“Magical rings,” he noted, slipping one off. She growled. He rubbed her palm gently with the pad of his thumb. “A fire-stone! Powerful indeed.”
Caileth felt Nelufh’s free hand creeping down her ass. He pressed two long fingers into her cunt, thrusting along in terrible concert with his brother’s cursed attentions on her clit.
“And this,” he went on, taking her next finger between his own, “I believe this band has healing properties. I’ll leave it where it is. It may be an aid to her in serving us.”
Nelufh added a third finger to the ones pushing up into her, and, wrapping an arm around her, gave her nipple a terrible twist.
Ruumei sank down, taking her other nipple savagely in his mouth. Then he dropped lower, and now his fingers on her clit gave way to hot breath and a cruel, probing tongue.
She bit her lip to stop from crying aloud as a rapturous cascade pounded through her, jellying her legs, sending fresh waves of shame and anger through her. Shocking tremors radiated from her hips to her jaw. Nelufh supported her, and she sagged against him, suppressing a tinge of gratitude.
Ugh.
“She’s actually cute when she’s overwhelmed with pleasure,” said Ruumei, rising from between her thighs, and touching a sticky finger to her trembling lower lip. “I do believe she’ll make an agreeable wife.”
There was a cheer. Like pressing against a bruise, she was unable to resist looking out at the crowd. The soldiers were chattering amongst themselves, laughing, clapping, some even touching themselves in appreciation of her debasement.
Her servants and companions stood silent. Some looked on stonily, or averted their eyes, red-faced. Some wept. Others, she wasn’t sure. Were they ashamed of her? Enjoying the show? Both?
“If I’m to be your wife,” she croaked, “Surely you can unbind me and allow me to enter into this union as a free and proud Empress?”
Hrylan had come close now, looming over her, and she summoned whatever remaining dignity she could command.
“I think not, pet,” he said, brushing his fingers through her hair. “You may earn more freedom of movement later, if you prove an obedient wife. For now, you must learn who rules over this little Kingdom of yours.”
He tightened his fist in her locks, and dragged her painfully to the altar that had been set up before the throne. She heard herself whimper pathetically.
Hrylan grabbed her wrists and unlocked them from one another, but maintained an iron grip. He pulled her down, forcing her to her back on the hard stone altar-top, and, wrenching her shoulders behind her, fastened her wrist-shackles to certain points at the corners of the altar.
“But…” she protested weakly, looking out at the crowd, “You can’t mean that I’m to…have my wedding night out here in this hall?”
The two lordlings, each grasping one of her ankles and securing them in the same manner as her wrists, stood up as if in one motion. They looked down at her spread-eagled form. Nelufh, the impassive, broad-shouldered junior captain, and Ruumei, the whisper of a curdled youth, infuriatingly smug.
“By the laws and customs of our people,” Nelufh said calmly, “A new Empress must show her subjects that she enters into a marriage true, not some sham of a political alliance.”
She squinted up at him, trying to tell if these laws and customs had been invented on the spot.
A wrinkled barbarian priestess had joined them at the front of the hall, and in a voice like crackling paper she began to read.
“Hrylan, Emperor of the Seven Lands, and Nelufh and Ruumei, Associate Emperors, do you vow to protect and cherish and please your promised bride, Caileth, Daughter of War, for all time?”
“We so vow,” the three said in solemn unison.
“And you, Caileth, Daughter of War, do you vow to serve and honor and please your promised husbands, for all time?”
Caileth kept her mouth closed tight, mind racing with outrage.
Could she refuse? Publicly break her promise of marriage, claiming that Hrylan had dishonored his own agreement by springing two extra husbands on her?
She might carry the legal argument, if Hrylan kept his word to allow the city to retain its codes and magistrates. But would she have the people on her side, after so many of them had seen her broken and humiliated like this, reduced to a quivering pleasure-toy?
Caileth wanted to believe that if it came to it, the city would rise up and overthrow these men who made peace under false pretenses. But she had an awful suspicion that most people would shrug and join the side of the winner.
That was my plan, anyway, she thought. To join with them, keep close to the center of things, and keep her options open. She had to see it through. Better that than to be cast out, or worse.
And then, too, there was the traitorous glow of her body, still floating slightly on the currents of unwanted ecstasy to which she’d been subjected moments ago.
“I so vow,” she said, as evenly as she could. She shoved that glow down, away. She would not let it influence her. She would do her duty, but she could not afford to be seduced by it.
A great cheer rose up in the hall, and all the soldiers began to bang on their shields, hooting and hollering. Caileth shut her eyes, trying not to display any emotion.
She felt gentle fingertips at her throat, and looked up to see Hrylan slipping a collar around her neck. It was secured in place with three silver rings, and each of her new husbands fastened one of them. When they were done, for a moment the collar felt oddly warm to the touch.
“You may consummate your union,” crinkled the old priestess, and then she shuffled away as fast as her bandy little legs would take her.
It was Nelufh who stepped between her thighs, pulled wide-apart on the stone tablet, and touched his cock lightly to her cunny lips.
“First born, first in,” Ruumei sighed, and craning her neck, she could see that he was kneeling obediently, his hand on his brother’s cock, guiding it into her.
“Really, my Emperor?” she said, feeling for cracks between them. Could she hope to turn Hrylan against his sons? “You’re going to let your whelp have me before you do?”
There was that warmth in her collar again. The glow of pleasure was rising in her, and she realized it wasn’t just the teasing bump of the young captain’s prickhead against her clit. There was a second feeling, radiating from the collar, and as Nelufh began to work his way into her, softly groaning with his own ecstasy, she realized that she was experiencing the same thing he was.
The collar was like a ring of flame now, and as his cock stretched her open she lived it from both sides, as if she had a cock of her own, melting into an embrace of wetness and heat. The double-feeling was more overwhelming than anything she’d yet known, and she cried out as he drove the rest of the way into her.
Goddess, help me, Caileth thought.
“I don’t intend to spill my seed into your womb,” Hrylan was saying mildly. “That is for my sons to give you their heirs. I am already well supplied in that regard.”
Now, through a haze of pure physical delight she could do nothing to suppress, she felt the Emperor’s cock resting against her face.
“I will content myself with your plump little lips and your sharp tongue, pet,” he said. His hands gripped her jaw, her temples, tilting her head back, and then he was invading her mouth, his cock sawing mercilessly into her throat.
It felt impossibly large, until she realized that he had not yet fed all of himself to her, because on his next stroke he went further still.
She writhed ineffectually in her restraints, her body desperate to reject him, to escape from a sensation like choking. Tears welled up in her eyes as she tried to cough. But there was another part of her, feeling every inch of him as if his gratification were her own, crying out, Deeper! Deeper!
His pleasure inside her, and his son’s, and horribly, Caileth’s own, shooting in sparks from her back-stabbing cunt down to her curling toes — mingled all together with the harsh ache in her throat, distilled it into a potent, intoxicating whole that seemed to envelop her entire being.
They were fucking her hard and steady now, and she could no longer contain the shameful sounds that spilled from her throat around the muffling of the Emperor’s prick, but giving unmistakable evidence of her body’s surrender.
She became aware that Ruumei had joined in at her side, his hands on her hair, her breasts, her thighs, her clit. A climax rocked through her, and then another.
Just when she felt about ready to burst open, a new and still greater wave crashed over her as Nelufh spent himself, his rushing seed seeming to shatter her mind into glowing shards of joy. He groaned, and she couldn’t help but echo him.
Caileth felt a moment of something almost like sadness when he finally withdrew and stepped back, leaving the stuff of future sons and daughters dripping down the cleft of her ass.
More! part of her shouted, even as the thought that she might right now be conceiving an heir for these boys was a dull horror, somewhere at the back of her mind. Ruumei quickly stepped in to take his brother’s place, and as he slid into her well-slicked cunt in one easy motion, she made a deep sound of satisfaction in her chest.
“First isn’t always best, eh?” she heard Ruumei say, growling happily as he began to fuck her. Or was she fucking herself? She was beginning to lose track. “I’m not saying my brother’s seed isn’t perfectly good, but — mmh! — I believe you and I are going to make a great many beautiful imperial babies together.”
It was hard to concentrate on the boy’s words. It was all too much. Tears were running unchecked down her forehead, pooling together with the wetness being fucked out of her mouth.
The Emperor’s climax poured into her throat, sizzling through her bones and wracking her with euphoria. When he left her, she just sagged in blissful relaxation, her wet face and hair dangling off the side of the altar.
Hrylan leaned against the altar, composing himself, and ran a finger along her jaw. Looking up at his inverted form, her mouth hanging open now in a continuous soft murmur of pleasure now as she embraced Ruumei’s cock, she tried, ineffectually, to summon a contemptuous expression.
“I really could believe, pet, that those lips of yours come from the Goddess herself,” he said, tracing a path to her mouth, the tapping the tip of her nose. “I may have to keep you by my throne — in case I need a touch of the divine while adjudicating some merchants’ dispute.”
Another cock (Nelufh’s?) replaced Hrylan’s at her lips, and automatically, she opened wide to take it in, to feel herself soft and hot and wet and perfect for him. It felt so good that she relished even the sour flavor of her own cunt on it, the masculine scent as it pushed deep, pressing her nose between her husband’s legs. Relishing even the agony of it reaching deep into her throat, duller now, with her senses ever more flooded by desire and fulfillment.
At the edge of her foggy perception, she thought the collar might even be bringing her prickles of sensation from beyond the little cluster at the altar. Others in the hall, pleasuring themselves? A hand tugging on a prick, 10 yards to her left? And was that Vaolina, bound and weeping, squeezing her damp thighs together in mortified appreciation of her lady’s ruined and debauched state?
Caileth clung to Vaolina, or to the idea of her. To their plan.
We’ll get out of this, she thought. We’ll win our land back. If…if only…
And then Ruumei was sagging over her, and all over her body she could feel every twitch of his cock like a hot fire as it filled her womb, and she was washed away again.