Chapter 15 #4
When he leaves, I have some time to sleep before the tutors come.
My body aches in places I didn’t know existed but it’s the good kind of aching, like when I’ve been fighting in the fields all day.
I look to the side where Corrik sleeps and miss him in the purest way I’ve ever missed him.
I know he’s an Elf, and it’s harder for Elves to get cold than us humans, but I think of him cold and hurt somewhere and how much I want him warm beside me.
Is he scared?
I’m not sure the large war Elf can be scared of anything but I am. I’m scared I’ll never see him again and for the first time I consider the possibility that this marriage to Alrik may happen.
When Strobavik arrives the next day, he has a spreader bar, cuffs and a good length of chain. He raises his brows. “You have only yourself to thank for this. Originally I was going to wait until a few more sessions in.”
Being suspended by chains is not new for me. I raise my arms overhead. “Challenge accepted, Master Strobavik.” I’m already in my harness and shorts, kneeling for him on my pillow.
He rolls his eyes at me. “Only you could achieve cheeky while being perfectly obedient,” he says attaching the cuffs.
My brows turn down. “Have I lost coming privileges already?”
“No, but speak out of turn like that again and you will.”
Coming has become a need over a want, though I very much want. Today I’m grateful for cock rings and welcome chastity if I’m going to spend this much time with blue balls.
Strobavik uses magic to hang the chains from the ceiling beam and when my arms are fully extended, he attaches the spreader bar to my ankles. The bar holds my feet apart as wide as they’ll go and when my shorts are pulled down, I’m horribly exposed.
And just as turned on.
“Bear down,” he says.
As I do, he pushes an egg-shaped something, coated with lube, into my arse.
He comes ‘round to the front of me and watches. Eventually, the egg vibrates, and I only just remember to school my reaction before all my muscles contract at the sensation. I’ll never have zero response, but my wince is minute enough not to earn correction, and my heavy breathing is acceptable.
He brandishes a long whip. “I want your pain today Tristan, and you will give it to me. Do well and you can have the orgasm you long for tonight.”
When he dangles that carrot, I know I’m in for something. I feel the pulse from the toy against my prostate, which he controls via his magic and I have to fucking bite my lip to keep from responding. He enjoys my suffering.
“And Tristan? It will please me greatly should you succeed today.”
Fucker. He’s got my number.
It’s a long session indeed, and he’s relentless.
The toy pulses without rhythm so I can never get used to a pattern.
He lashes so that I have the buzz of pleasure and sting of pain rushing through me at the same time.
They are opposite things to deal with, I have to exhale with the whip and inhale with the egg—an exhausting balancing act—all the while not coming.
“Yes. That’s it, naughty kitten, c’mon. You’re okay.”
Tears sting my eyes when the whip lands against my flesh leaving behind hot pain.
Bliss radiates through as the sensations hit my prostate, but I keep my responses minimal.
I want to cry out, to beg, I ache to moan, I miss screaming, but I want him to be proud of me.
Keeping that in mind drives away all other thoughts—of Corrik, of studying to become Elf, of another marriage—and narrows my focus to Strobavik’s whip and toy.
It’s freeing.
The world blurs. The whip slices my skin raising a wake of welts and my body reels when the egg vibrates against my prostate.
But all I want to do is give to him, give him me.
The exchange of energy is tactile, seeping into my skin like hot rain.
I struggle, arching my back until my spine is inside out but that sensation of giving never wanes.
“That’s it, kitten. I want just a little more.”
His hand moves to my hair, his fingers run through the sweat-soaked strands and my muscles relax.
Until the egg vibrates again. I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out.
I have to twist in my bonds, muting moans to breathy murmurs.
I want to come, I want to come, I want to come and yet, I want to please him more.
Somehow, I don’t come. “Your endurance has improved,” he says unhooking me and carrying me over to the bed.
I’m spent; can barely move. “That’s not going to buy me anything good, Master Strobavik,” I grouse. He’ll only push me harder.
“Ah. You’re learning I see.”
He takes care when removing my shorts and harness. I have stripe marks everywhere and I relish in being marked again, it brings me comfort. I miss Baya. Without thinking, I reach for the magical, Elven healing salve in the drawer. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“The salve, Master Strobavik.”
He tilts his head. “You don’t want these healed away?”
I squint at him and then burst into tears. He slides in behind me. I think I must drive the hardened dungeon master to distraction with how often he’s had to be soft with me. Though I suppose he never has to do anything, but for whatever reason he does. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Do I not rate keeping these? Have I not earned them?”
“I see. You understand the marking culture of Elves.”
It’s not a question, but I nod anyway. I didn’t get the chance to earn many marks from Corrik … What if I never get the chance?
“You may keep them if you wish, but I’m not your mate and so you are not obligated.”
“But I rather hoped I meant something to you, sir.” Maybe that’s very Markaytian of me but it’s what is. I cling to him and cry.
He pulls me close and runs fingers through my hair. He doesn’t answer for a long time. “You have come to mean a great deal to me, naughty kitten—I fear you have. Stop crying now. You may keep the marks, but no complaining tomorrow when you don’t like how they feel underneath what I’ll add overtop.”
“I won’t.” Except I probably will. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.
“You’ll be pleased to know you’ve earned an orgasm. Well done. But it’s only one and there are parameters.”
“Oh?” He’s blurry through my watery vision. I sniffle.
“You’re to sit in that chair naked and after dinner. Not before, after. You have an hour to complete the task, if you don’t come in that time your chance to come passes.”
I should have known there would be some parameters. “Won’t be a problem, sir.”
Strobavik smoothens salve into my skin. There has always been good aftercare with Elves as much as there has been violence and pain.
When he’s done, he gets behind me again, but I flip to face him and wrap my body around him in a Markaytian death grip—not so death-grip-like to an Elf, I know, but still.
He hesitates, I know he’s thinking about telling me to turn back around but he sinks into me too, kissing my forehead.
“You know Tristan, you do have some submissive in you. You are not slave, but you have need for some stricter submissive protocol from time to time.”
I scowl into his chest—he smells of sweat and wildflowers. “I am brat. You’ve said so yourself.” But I’m only so angry because I’m worried it’s true.
“Okay, okay. I didn’t mean to offend you, just sharing what I see.”
I don’t know how many fierce ex-Warlords cry in front of their scary dungeon master Doms once, let alone twice in one day, but that’s what I do. I cry again. Just when I think I know who I am, it changes. “Sir? I don’t want to marry him. I want to go home.”
That’s not true. I’m not sure I’d be happy in Markaytia anymore. I’m not who I was. I wouldn’t make sense there and I don’t make sense here.
Nothing makes sense without Corrik.
I haven’t even been able to write to my family since Corrik’s disappearance because I don’t want to tell them—telling them makes it true.
The book is the only way to relay information quickly across such a distance.
It’s a long way to ask a messenger to travel or to merit sending a bird that may or may not get there.
It would only a courtesy at this point anyway—Mortouge owns me.
They can do with me as they wish without permission.
No one has said whether word has been sent or not and so I’ve assumed not. I don’t want to ask.
Strobavik should spank me and leave me. I doubt he’s supposed to be this familiar. Instead, he whispers something to me in Elvish that doesn’t translate to Markaytian well—a language I don’t speak anymore. Corrik was the only one who still said the odd thing to me in my home tongue.
The best I can tell anyone it means is, “The Gods give us strife so we might have a moment of happiness.” I enjoy the way his accent curls around the words.
“I know. I know, sir.”
He lets me cry till I’m done. I haven’t resolved a thing, but I’m renewed—the doubt and anguish washed gone out with the tide.
He sighs. “Okay. No more sadness. Enjoy yourself. I’m proud of you for today. And Tristan? I will know if you disobey me.”
I peek an eye at him. “How?”
I get a smack to my arse for leaving off the “sir.” “Because I will ask and you are a terrible liar.”
Something happened today and I’m not sure if I like it because I liked it.
Yeah. Make sense of that one—I certainly can’t.
I spin my fork on the wooden table, the pokey end stabbing into the tender pad of my pointer finger.
The welts from today’s session still burn, but they surround me like a cozy blanket. I sink into them.
What am I?
When I was with Bayaden, it was clear to me that I’m brat. And I am. But maybe there’s more to me?
What happened today was natural and electric.