Artemi bent the diminutive girl over the cot and spanked her until each pale cheek was blushing scarlet. Then she grabbed the timid creature by her dark curls, coaxing from her a whimper, and yanked her backward until her back arched and she was staring up with mascara-stained eyes.
"Enough dragon tears, slut. I know exactly who you are." Artemi said before giving her a final possessive slap on the ass. The girl gave a combination of a sob and a moan and nodded her head submissively.
Roughly using her hair, Artemi pulled the girl down onto her knees. She kneeled with her hands open at her sides. Artemi leaned back on the cot and opened her legs. Controlling her by her dark lochs, she straddled the girl's face.
From between her legs, the girl looked up waiting for permission. The iron collar around her neck glowed; the azure runes brightly displayed against the cold metal throbbed rhythmically as the magic coursing through the collar coerced the tiny thing into obedience towards her cruel mistress.
Artemi nodded her head, and the shy girl bent forward, took a few tentative laps, then buried herself in her job.
Despite her innocent appearance, her actions showed years of experience at pleasuring women. Her tongue lapped away at Artemi's sex. Her nose rested against Artemi's flaxen bush. A smile on Artemi's face and a faint trembling of her thighs were the only signs of the effect the girl's efforts were having on her.
She seemed challenged by the stoic display her oral experimenting had caused and redoubled her efforts. Soon, her head was nodding rigorously. Artemi gripped her black curls more tightly, feeling the beginning crest of an orgasm coming on, closed her eyes, and grit her teeth.
Artemi stopped in her tracks and grit her teeth. Anyone watching her would assume she was lost but might lose an appendage if they ever suggested it. There was no greater slander than accusing an Operative of being lost.
She was standing in the midst of a long trail lined with large coniferous trees. The trail must have been a road at some point. There were two parallel rivets in the earth, now overgrown with moss, where someone had once taken wagons down this path. But now moss and roots had overturned everything and nature had taken it back.
These woods were supposed to be safe, at least last time Artemi recalled, back when the Patriarch still ruled at the center of Gyrium. Bandits knew not to prey on folk this close to Midgyr with Crown patrols about, but of course, Matriarch Malaveve had little interest in paying barrack fees, even with new taxes. Artemi guessed that this forest hadn't seen a patrol in many years. Rumors were that monsters were ignoring the armistice and congregating along the edges of the ring of mountains surround Midgyr. Men, unhappy with the queen and her new laws, were joining them and becoming a bandit army.
"Help me! Please!" A plaintive cry escaped the dark maw of the forest. Artemi pondered for a few minutes with a laconic expression on her face. It was possible that someone out there needed help; it was possible that they might have better directions. It was very likely that this was just a murderous trap waiting to be sprung on travelers who relied on decades-old knowledge of these road systems. Artemi made up her mind and stepped off the path.
Artemi found the young girl in a red mini-cape and an attached hood on the floor of a glade sobbing into her hands.
Artemi coughed. The youngling looked up with tears brewing in her doe-like eyes. Underneath the cape, her figure was enhanced by a black bustier and a black mini-skirt with red trim. Her tears only resulted in giving her face a shining radiance marked by two dark wakes of mascara. It looked sort of like two rosy red apples sliced apart by smokey arrows. Her pale skin, streaked with tears and mascara, glistened like moonlight off a brook. She wasn't a child per se, though her expression was docile, but a young woman, a beautiful young woman in a vermillion cloak as incongruous as anyone could be in this dark place.
The young girl looked at Artemi with concern. There were worse things in this forest that could have found her, Varulfur and even Stone skin trolls, but Artemi was still an intimidating presence.
Artemi's face was attractive, but angular and hardened, disfigured by a nasty scar that ran along her cheek. Her silver hair cut short to her scalp. Artemi wore tight leather breeches and a vest. A cotton shirt clung tightly to her skin, opened in a V down to her perspiring chest. Her small cups and nipples protruding through the fabric. She was definitely sexy, in a dominating predatory sort of way; she might have even looked pretty in another life, where she hadn't grown up an orphan, joined the Patriarch army as an Operative, became an exiled Avatar, and now took jobs as a bounty hunter at the farthest Gyr from Center you could get.
The girl's fear changed to pleading. She crawled quickly over to Artemi and grasped her by the leg. Her face rested against Artemi's tight leather breeches. Her tiny hands slid up between her legs.
"Please," She said, " Help me. I'm lost. There are wolves."
"Varulfur actually, or so I was told by the people of Dimtown, though their hunting grounds are usually deeper and further."
"Varulfur then," The girl whimpered. "I heard them howling. The townspeople say Varulfur like to hunt young girls. They say they do more than eat them."
"You're from Dimshade Village then?"
The girl nodded her head eagerly. Her hands held onto Artemi for dear life. She looked like a little, lost puppy. "I live outside of it actually. My father was a hunter. He kept me out in a cabin in the woods. Only let me come to town when he was selling pelts. He knew all about my condition. Wanted to keep me from the town boys. But you can't blame a girl for wanting a little warmth now and then."
Artemi looked down at the girl appraisingly. "Alright," She said. She lifted the tiny thing up into her arms with surprising strength. The girls head rested below her chin. "What's your name?"
She smiled through the sniffles and wiped her eyes with her cape. Her young breasts pushed up like dessert on a plate by her bustier jiggled as she wiped her eyes. "Red, mistress. Red Rider. And you must be my knight in shining armor."
With her leather bracers and pauldrons, her bow and arrow and hunting knife, Artemi looked nothing like a traditional knight. In fact, Artemi had a disdainful view of knights. Riding in on their lily-white battle steeds, disdainful of the tactical secrets procured by their Operatives, they often accepted all the glory and left the dirty bits to the common soldiers under them.
She grimaced, but Red took no notice.
"I was walking along the road and I heard a growl. I thought it had to be those wolves or Varulfur everyone talked about. I got scared and ran off the path, then I got lost. I had given up hope. I didn't even care if the wolves found me. I just didn't want to be in this forest after dark. I'm sooooo scared of the dark."
Telling her story seemed to trigger a fresh set of sobbing from Red Rider and she soon was weeping against Artemi's chest. Artemi could feel the girl's firm, young breast pressing against her. The girl's tear and mascara left a butterfly image on Artemi's linen shirt.
Artemi nodded her head. Word has gotten around that a pack of Varulfur had made a home in this forest. Word had said these Varulfur were targeting merchants traveling from Dimroad to Outroad, ripping them limb by limb, scattering their bodies across the roads in little pieces, taking all of their gold. A girl who lived here might know something. "If I protect you, do you have a place where I could stay?"
Red nodded. "My father passed away when I was eighteen and left me the small cabin in the woods. It was the only good thing he ever did for me."
"Good," said Artemi, "I am kind of lost myself. It's been several years since I last was here. It looks like they moved the main road."
Red clung to Artemi and said, "Yes, people stopped using that road several years ago. New Dimroad now parallels it."
"That explains that." Said Artemi. She realized that with a new road being parallel to the old one it shouldn't be too hard to find. She smiled at the girl. Her grin was wolfish.
She sized up the girl's figure beneath her shawl and bodice. Red blushed and her fingers played with the hem of her skirt.
"Well, maybe we can help each other. I lead you home. Protect you from dangerous beasts. You make me a nice meal and a warm bed. And you can tell me the best way through this forest."
"Thank you so much, kind mistress," Gushed Red. She gave Artemi a kiss on the cheek. Her skin smelled of perfume. "I can't thank my rescuer without knowing her name. "
"Artemi."
