Chains of Revenge Read online

  A mischievous smile lit her face. He was struck by how radiantly beautiful she was when she was playful. The spoiled princess was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘You can feast on whatever you want,’ she said, pushing a juicy grape into his mouth.

  He munched on the tart fruit then took her nipple into his mouth, sucking and pulling lightly on it with his teeth. She squirmed in his lap and gasped with pleasure. He released her nipple and grinned at her moue of disappointment.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ she pleaded.

  ‘But I need more sustenance.’

  She smiled wickedly and pushed another grape into his mouth. Again he swallowed the fruit then took her other breast into his mouth. Her breathing became more laboured as she squirmed even more in his lap.

  ‘I need even more,’ he said. Lifting her, he placed her on the table, amid the plates of food and bowls of fruit. ‘Lay back,’ he ordered. ‘Open yourself.’

  She giggled and did as he asked. Holding a bunch of grapes in his hand, he picked one and popped it into his mouth as he watched her pussy open to his gaze.

  Picking another, he pushed it into her. She laughed with delight as he pulled up the chair, sat and proceeded to feast on her. His tongue played with the grape in her cunt, teasing her. Then he bit on the fruit letting the pulp coat her lips. He licked her clean, his laugh tickling her as he licked. Lissa writhed and giggled on the table as he brought her closer and closer to release, only to stop and insert another grape.

  ‘You’re killing me,’ she wailed. ‘Put me out of my misery.’

  ‘With pleasure,’ he muttered, grape pulp running down his chin. He ran his tongue around her delicious clit then sucked her hard, vibrating his tongue against her. She tasted intoxicating; fruity and salty and earthy. Her hips bucked as she writhed on the table building inexorably to her release. As her clit pulsed in his mouth, she screamed.

  ‘Fuck me!’

  He stood and grabbed her legs, opening them wider, and thrust hard into her while her cunt still shuddered.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she groaned. ‘That’s right.’ She threw her arms out, causing plates and bowls to clatter to the floor. ‘You feel so good.’

  He grinned down at her while he forced himself to still inside her.

  ‘So, I do what you command, My Lady. What else?’

  ‘Move,’ she demanded. ‘Let me feel you move.’

  ‘Like this?’

  He flexed his hips, starting a slow stroke of her pussy.

  ‘You are a devil,’ she laughed. ‘You know what I want.’

  He gripped her legs under the knees and surged into her, making the slap of flesh against flesh the only sound in the room. Staring down into her crystalline blue eyes, he forgot everything except the feel of her tight passage and the strange sensation that being here with her was his destiny, something he was meant to do. As he thrust into her, feeling the searing joy of his orgasm build within him, he let himself go, obliterating the pain and despair of The Pit.

  Slumping onto her, he nuzzled her breast. ‘I think grapes will always be my favourite fruit from now on.’

  Chapter Three

  But in the end, he was still her slave. He still had to return to The Pit and fight for his life.

  One morning, death claimed one of the young battle serfs, a countryman of Devadas. He held the boy as he died; a sword in his gut. Fury and despair filled Devadas at the pointlessness of his death. When he entered the Princess Lissa’s bedroom, he vowed to forget everything in the heat of her sex. Not allowing her any preliminary caresses and not caring for the consequences, he pushed her onto her knees and thrust hard into her. The sound of his balls slapping against her flesh and her own moans filled the room. He grabbed her hair and pulled her up, holding her against him with a rock solid arm.

  ‘You like that don’t you, My Lady?’ he gasped, while pumping in and out of her. ‘You like my cock deep inside you. Say it. Say it.’

  ‘Yes,’ she moaned. ‘Yes, I like your cock inside me. Don’t stop, please, don’t stop.’ He could tell she was in pain from the pull on her hair mingled with his relentless pounding, but she seemed on the verge of ecstasy.

  He laughed bitterly and pushed her back down. Hunching over her he cupped her breasts in his hands then pulled hard on her nipples with strong fingers. She screamed as she came.

  ‘That’s right, My Lady, that’s right.’ He let out a fierce groan. ‘Gods above. Your cunt is like a fist,’ he yelled and let loose his own release.

  She collapsed on the cushions with him over her. His heart beat frantically, ready for her to call the guards and have him punished. Instead she sighed deeply and murmured, ‘That was incredible. Your cock is magnificent.’

  He smiled. So she liked a little roughness with her sex? She would get more.

  Fury and lust pulsed in wild competition though his body as he ordered her to stretch out face down on the bed. She watched with curiosity when he oiled his cock with some of her body oil, but complied with his command. She seemed to like complying with his commands. As he lay over her, pinning her to the bed, his cock nudged the entrance to her ass.

  Her body tensed, as she realised what he wanted. She didn’t call the guards to stop him, as he slowly, inexorably, inched past her tight ring. Her cry, a unique mixture of pleasure and pain that never failed to drive him insane, was the only sound in her room.

  What am I doing? What have I become?

  He started to pull out of her, horrified with himself, only to hear her guttural command.

  ‘Don’t stop. Keep going.’

  She leaned on her arms and brought herself up on her knees, tipping her ass to allow him deeper access. The low groan in her throat signalled to Devadas she was lost in a world of bliss mixed with pain. His anger boiled inside him, anger mixed with a burning fever of passion and confusion. He thrust harder and harder into her, listening to her breathless gasps, until he escaped into soul-searing ecstasy. He arched his back and yelled, feeling a mind-altering, staggering release.

  Coming back to himself, he pulled out and flung himself down beside her, covering his eyes with his arm. Disgust filled him. Not because of how he’d coupled with her but that he’d treated her with contempt. He’d travelled a long way from being an honourable warrior of Catiscal.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  He turned to her, curious about a tone in her voice he’d never heard before.

  ‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked.

  ‘A little,’ she said with a small smile. ‘But I like it, I think. It was strange. It hurt but I wanted to keep going and then it didn’t hurt so much. Maybe we could do it again,’ she said with an eager light in her eyes. ‘Some of the other women say they like it too.’

  ‘I don’t understand your people,’ Devadas said. ‘I don’t understand how they can be so free and easy with their bodies but use slaves. It doesn’t make sense.’

  She lay on her side and frowned. ‘I … I don’t know … It’s always been like that. My father said we used to move around when his grandfather was in charge. He wasn’t a king then, just a leader of our people. We were savages then, he said, with no permanent dwellings, just foraging from the land. My great-grandfather made us stay in one place. Then we had to defend ourselves to keep our land from others. Others like the Catiscal.’

  She shrugged. ‘Instead of killing captives, we put them to work. Why is that so bad?’

  He lifted his arm where a long gash from a sword was still healing. She frowned again as if to work out a puzzle. ‘That must hurt,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘It does. But what hurt more was holding my countryman in my arms as he died. Do you understand that?’

  She nodded gravely then leant forward, kissing him on the lips. They’d never kissed before. Devadas wondered if they both somehow knew kissing was too much, an intimacy they shouldn’t indulge in. But the soft ripeness of her lips, her taste of wine and fruit pulled him toward her. He gathered her lush, curvaceous body in
his arms. They lay entwined, kissing, murmuring and, for the first time, making love.

  But like every other time, he returned to The Pit where his rage boiled ever hotter in his gut. He battled the warriors of Horvald during the day and serviced Princess Lissa at night.

  Something had changed though. Some shift of power between them. She unquestioningly let him do whatever he wanted with her.

  A part of him wished she’d stop him, but she never did. He spanked her, shot his seed over her body, fucked her more in the ass and sometimes wouldn’t let her touch herself, denying her the release she craved. His days consisted of fighting her father’s soldiers, trying to avoid their cuts and blows, while his nights were spent using her body to expunge his nightmares.

  When his cock was inside her, when he bent her almost double, pushing her legs up over her head while he thrust hard into her, he could forget in that moment how he’d become an animal, rutting and fighting for survival. The clutch of her sheath around him drove him on and her mewls of passion, begging him to fuck her, fuck her hard, pushed him into a place of blinding oblivion where there was only one moment of pure escape.

  And all the time he told her about the slaves, about how many died or were forced to fight in her father’s army for their freedom. He purged himself in her and she let him. And in doing so, she ensured that he never forgot her, could never forget her.

  Lissa came to crave not only Devadas’s body but all of him, body and soul. She thought about him constantly, terrified that each night would be their last.

  One night, after he’d spilled not just his seed, but his soul into her, she hadn’t been able to resist pressing her mouth against his again, trying to tell him she was sorry, she understood, she’d do anything to make it better. He evaded her kiss and pulled away from her.

  ‘No,’ he said, with a voice full of torment. ‘Don’t do that. Please.’ But she held him and finally he’d been unable to resist the lure of her kisses.

  They spent the rest of the night making love, slowly, with Devadas meticulous in his attention to her pleasure.

  He seemed to worship her body, using his mouth and hands to taste and caress her like never before. He laid her back across her bed amid all her silk cushions and pushed her legs open, gazing at her wet pussy with adoration. When he put his mouth on her and sucked her clit, using his tongue to torment and tease her, she cried and laughed with delight. Then screamed when his searching fingers slid inside her throbbing cunt to find the sensitive spot that pushed her up and over into glorious oblivion.

  ‘Devadas,’ she murmured, breathless and replete. ‘Hold me. Hold me tight.’

  He did. He held her in his strong arms while he slid into her still-clutching pussy. She moaned with deep satisfaction as he gazed into her eyes while starting a slow, almost soothing stroke with his cock. She wrapped her legs around him and together they rocked and murmured their love for each other. Tears filled her eyes when he told her how beautiful she was, how she was like a summer day full of joy and peace.

  ‘You heal me, Lissa. You help me forget what I’ve become. Help me now,’ he whispered, burying his face in the tangle of her curls. Then his stroke became faster, harder, and her blood leapt in response.

  He pushed himself up and placed his hands on each side of her while surging deep inside her. Still with her legs around him, she stared up at his dark tormented eyes and, framing his face in her hands, kissed him with everything she had. His tongue twisted and tangled with hers and she heard him moan deep in his throat, sounding like an animal in pain. He pounded into her, his cock pulling out and pushing in, driving her into a frenzy.

  Then he broke their kiss, threw back his head and roared out his release. Lissa knew all his pain and suffering eased in that moment. He collapsed onto her and she cuddled and soothed him, her heart full of love as they drifted in and out of sleep.

  The next morning, when he was taken back to the slave quarters, she wept, not knowing how to cope with this new experience of love. She wanted him with her all the time. When her father told her Devadas was needed in his army, she cried and raged and begged him to let Devadas stay. Her father pushed her away with a rough laugh.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You are my daughter, not a camp follower. You can’t love a slave.’

  Later that day, her father rode out of Horvald with his army behind him to fight some trumped-up warlord who threatened Horvald. She caught sight of Devadas, chained with the other battle serfs, bowed down with despair, trudging along in the mud. She watched until he disappeared from view.

  Pain sliced through her. She realised that all her life she had never wanted for anything, so nothing could have prepared her for this terrible grief; grief that seared like a flame through her heart.

  Two weeks after her father left with his army, the Great Storm came.

  A hurricane swept through Horvald, Catiscal and other surrounding principalities. With her father away, there was no one else to take charge, to gather together the people of Horvald and build again.

  She didn’t have time to wonder if Devadas was still alive or if he’d died in some hellhole in the Southlands. Her days were taken up with survival, leading her people, building a new town and planting crops.

  But at night, when her muscles ached so much they kept her awake, she couldn’t escape him. She recalled his face, his eyes, first full of torment, then lust. Her pussy would moisten and throb as she remembered the way he would reach for her, seeking oblivion in her arms. Maybe she helped him escape, if only for a little while.

  When her father returned, victorious, after six months of war to a transformed Horvald, she couldn’t stop herself from asking about Devadas. He shrugged.

  ‘I killed him on the outskirts of Tisvo. He and some of the other battle serfs tried to escape in the heat of battle.’

  Her heart shattered at his words and a wall of ice formed around the broken pieces. She vowed then she would never let herself care for another man, would never allow herself to experience the pleasure of love and lust. This would be her punishment for treating Devadas as a slave instead of a man.

  Her people needed her. That would be enough.

  Chapter Four

  10 years later …

  Lissa, Princess of Horvald, waited for Death. She stood, still and silent in the dank chill of the Great Hall, determined to meet her fate without cowering in fear. But fear hovered, beating against her mind like moth wings, relentless and inescapable.

  Her father, King of Horvald, was gone, swallowed up in the vicious cycle of victory and defeat. Now there was no protection for her, no way of avoiding the steady creep of defeat as it seeped through the walls and curled under the doors, like a foul, poisoned miasma.

  He wanted her, this warlord called Death. He’d killed her father and now demanded she appear before him to beg for mercy.

  But she would not beg. Nor would she come at his call, like a whipped dog. If that meant her life was forfeit, then so be it.

  A crash in the outer hall momentarily pierced her defiance, sending a cold finger of terror up her spine. She had no illusions about how this warlord would use her then kill her, but couldn’t stop dark, skittering panic flood her body when she realised his touch, full of hatred and violence, would be the last touch from a man she would ever feel.

  No sweet strokes or murmured endearments. So different to the last time she’d lain with a man, long ago now. Lissa closed her eyes and called up the image of strong, brown, muscled arms and callused hands that had held and soothed her, all the time whispering enchanting words of beauty and love. A yearning twisted deep inside her, making her gasp with pain. If only she could see him again, just one more time before she died. She’d been such an empty-headed fool all those years ago, thinking she was so powerful she could demand a slave to service her. That slave turned her life upside down and transformed her world. When disaster struck and her people needed her, because of him, she was ready to answer their call.

  Ah, Devada
s, my love. I’ll join you soon.

  A piercing wail, suddenly cut off, ripped through the air. Death drew near. She glanced out the window and watched the distant wheat fields, the source of Horvald’s wealth, soon to be torched. All her work, gone. Why hadn’t the burning commenced? Would Devadas be pleased? Her slave in chains, the man she, in the end, had loved with such hopeless desperation.

  Another end loomed. Lissa heard more crashes and shouting, then the heavy thump of footsteps in the corridor. She continued to stand motionless in a shaft of late winter sun, and waited.

  Not for long. The door slammed open and with it, the full realisation of her father’s treachery.

  No! Goddess above, no! All those wasted years!

  Her past stood before her in mockery.

  Tall, broad and forbidding, his body covered in leather and battered armour, Death stood in the doorway like the conqueror he was.

  And he was chained no longer.

  ‘De …’ she began. He cut her off even as she reached for him.

  ‘My name is Death. I know no other,’ he spat.

  Death stared at her, rage surging through his blood. For years the image of her crawling on the floor, dressed in her whorish finery and begging him for mercy had kept him going through the horror of endless campaigns, as he was surrounded by killing and decay. He’d taken his name as a way of reminding himself that death was ever present and inevitable. He wanted it to be inevitable for this woman and her father, dead now at Death’s sword. The old King begged, not for his own life, which amused Death, but for the life of his daughter, the woman who continued to invade Death’s dreams. Ten long years she’d tormented his nights, coming to him naked and open, with that lazy, seductive smile driving him mad.

  He’d reach for her, ready to plough her wet, tight heat, but she always evaded him, skipping away with a flick of her long wheat-coloured hair and a swivel of her generous hips. She’d shimmer in gauzy silks and glittering jewels from the Southlands her father conquered.