Editor's note: this story contains scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.
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A huge thank you to GigglingGoblin for giving me feedback on this story. Your advice was invaluable.
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Pale light moved across the loft bedroom slowly, the dawn chorus of birds drowning out the muffled moans coming from the straw bed. The goose feather quilt had been thrown back, and Clara lay sprawled. Her hand was buried under the skirt of her nightgown, her fingers rubbing tight circles across her clit.
She had been dreaming again. Lately, she was woken early every morning by vivid dreams in which she was being ravished, and every time she couldn't keep her hands from straying down to where she wanted them most. Most nights she dreamt of being on all fours, presenting herself to someone who deserved her, who awoke something in her, and feeling the hot stretch of being filled and fucked.
Today was different. Today she had dreamt of mouths moving across her, lapping and sucking at her breasts, then her thighs, then her pussy. Thinking of her dream, Clara pressed her thighs together, feeling her climax drawing closer.
The familiar bang of the heavy front door broke her concentration. She knew it would be her uncle going out to milk the cows, and that her aunt would soon be calling her name to get her ready for the market.
Clara screwed her eyes shut, desperately trying to push the thoughts from her mind and re-stoke the fire between her legs, slowly pressing one finger into her slick pussy to stroke the sensitive place she had found in her nightly explorations.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs as she heard her aunt call out, "Clara!"
Clara snatched her hand away and pulled the quilt back over her quivering body, wiping the sweat from her brow and feigning sleep. She heard the door swing open.
"Get up, girl, it's market day and we need to be there early," Clara's aunt didn't hesitate as she stomped into the small attic room, a dress bundled in her arms.
"Darian's parents are coming for tea this afternoon," she continued, "so we cannot afford to miss out on the good bread and cakes like last week."
"Alright, alright," Clara mumbled, feigning sleepiness. She narrowly avoided hitting her head on the sloped ceiling as she rose from the bed.
Her aunt gave her a sharp look, her dark eyes narrowing. "You'd better drop that attitude, girl. You're lucky to have had a match made at all, and you'll be grateful to the Lucasson family for pledging their son to you!" she snapped, draping the dress she carried over the chair at the small vanity. "You'd best dress quick smart if you know what's good for you."
She turned her squat figure to march back down the steps, leaving the door hanging open behind her.
Clara sighed and gently closed the door, though she dearly wished to slam it. Darian. How much she wished she would never have to see him again! He was eight years older but acted eight years younger. She had never known him to be anything other than immature, cruel and selfish - and when she turned twenty-one next month, she was going to be wed to him.
That thought alone drove the last of the pangs of desire from between her legs. Clara didn't want to imagine what their wedding night would be like. As an orphan, taken in by her aunt and uncle, she was considered damaged goods. Bad luck. Cursed. What decent family would give their son away to someone like her? Clara certainly felt cursed when she thought of what her future held.
She shook her head. It wouldn't do her any good to dwell on that. She moved to the crooked vanity opposite her bed, pulling her cool linen nightgown off over her head. The nights lately were warm - they always were, leading up to her birthday - and she put her nightly dreams of being dominated and fucked down to the sweaty, breathless feeling the summer brought out in her.
The fresh morning air stirred across her breasts, and Clara gazed in wonder at the vanity mirror as her blush pink nipples began to harden. Her gaze dropped, following the curve of her creamy skin to the dark thatch of curls between her thighs. Her chest tightened in anger.
'I refuse to let Darian Lucasson be the one to enjoy this first,' she thought, though she had no real way of avoiding it. Their town was old and traditional, nestled in the foot of tall mountains that were covered in deep, dense forest. If she slept with a man in the town, she would be even more of an outcast than she already was, and might end up with worse than just Darian. If she fled the town, would she even make it as far as one of the mountain villages?
Releasing the breath she didn't realise she had been holding, Clara tore her eyes away from her body, picking up the dress her aunt had brought to her. She pulled it on, doing up the buttons on the front of the dress, red like small berries.
Clara had to admit that the dress was beautiful - her aunt pulled it out every time she was planning to parade Clara out in front of potential suitors. It was a soft, cream-coloured cotton sprigged with minute dark green flowers, the bodice a matching deep, forest green. Clara pursed her lips as the last button, at the crest of her breasts, slipped in her fingers. The dress had been her mother's, and so she loved it, but Clara's curves were more ample than her mother's had been. Exhaling, she managed to finally slip the button through its eyelet. The neckline of the bodice dipped suggestively, hugging her breasts as they rose and fell with her breath.
Completing the outfit, Clara pulled a ruby-red ribbon from within a drawer of the vanity and used it to tie her dark hair in a high bun, letting her bangs cascade freely across her forehead, framing her hazel eyes.
Clara's hand hovered over the drawer she had pulled the ribbon from. A small bound-leather journal lay within, pushed right to the back to avoid detection. Clara had little left that had belonged to her mother, and the entries in the journal told her that it was astounding that she and Clara's aunt were related at all, let alone sisters. She closed the drawer with a quiet, wistful sigh.
Pulling on her boots, Clara gave herself one final look over in the mirror. She was ready to face the day.
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The markets were already busy by the time Clara and her aunt arrived, store vendors shouting their prices and body bustling back and forth between stalls. Clara nodded as her aunt waved her away toward the stalls before plunging into the crowd. Splitting up saved time, but also granted Clara a few precious hours of freedom.
It was when she was choosing peaches at the fruit stall at the far end of the town square that it happened. A woman nearby screamed, only to be hushed quickly. A robed figure gripped the woman's arm forcefully, quieting her, as a second robed figure beside him spoke to someone Clara didn't recognise.
It wasn't the robed figures that had shocked the woman - they were a typical site in the town square. They were the Brethren, spiritual guides of the town, communing with the gods of the forest to keep their town safe and in harmony with nature. Clara made the stranger out to be a traveller from one of the small mountain villages. It was they who usually brought news to the town.
Curious, Clara crept closer, pretending to browse a stall packed with onions. She started, noticing that in one hand the traveller casually held the head of a stag, its blood dripping into a pool at his feet. The traveller was a head taller than the Brethren, with wheat-brown hair, his stance wide and his features concerned. He spoke quickly with the Brethren, handing them a carved stone. Clara stepped back at the sight of the stone, realising that the conversation was more dangerous than she had suspected. She had gotten too close.
As she moved back her eyes flicked up, meeting those of the stranger. His eyes were a deep grey, unsettling her and pinning her to the spot. He smiled at her, and she nodded politely, turning quickly back to the fruit stand. She chided herself. Was she that desperate for the attention of a man that she would almost interfere with a message concerning the Offering? She shook her head, the red ribbon fluttering with the motion, and moved back into the crowd.
As she moved through the bodies, she began to hear whispers and raised voices rippling along behind her, from the direction of the exchange she had just witnessed. She paused at a jewellery stall, listening to the conversations around her.
"A maiden? But how-" one snippet came, and Clara craned her neck to hear more.
The shopkeep at the jewellery stall watched her.
"Someone just came by here, told me all about it," the woman piped up, her voice croaking. Clara turned back to her.
"What?"
"I said I already heard all about it," the woman repeated. "This season's Offering isn't a prime pig or a barrel of our best wine," she leaned in conspiratorially, and Clara did the same. "It's a maiden."
Clara blinked at the woman, confused, but the woman only grinned.
"Don't you know that the wolf god of the mountain asks for what he wants? It's been ten years since the last time they asked for a maiden. I remember her, poor girl. Sarina Hallewell, it was. I suppose he ate her right up!" the woman spoke wistfully, as if looking back on a fond memory, rather than a human sacrifice. "The gods were especially pleased after that one, what a harvest we had that year! You can start looking forward to a year of plenty, you can!"
Clara backed away from the stall, cold balling in the pit of her stomach at the callousness of the shopkeep. A human sacrifice? She shivered and turned to head back to her aunt.
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